← The David Pakman Show
The David Pakman Show
7/18/25: White House staffer explains Trump’s panic as polling gets even worse
01:02:48
-- On the Show: -- Jessica Tarlov torches Trump’s immigration failures on Fox News as co-hosts sit in stunned silence -- Trump spirals into a Truth Social meltdown accusing his own supporters of falling for the “Epstein hoax” -- Former...
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- [00:08]
David Pakman
Welcome to the show, everybody. Thank you all for the awesome feedback this week on two different things that we've been doing. Number one, we've been doing a daily sort of like just the news podcast, which is three minutes and it summarizes the news elements of everything we talk about on the show. So it takes out the opinion and, and it's really just like a rundown and preview of the day's news. We've been doing this daily on our substack. If you want, you can get that emailed, but you don't have to and you can find it for free@substack.david pakman.com people loving that. And then number two, dozens and dozens of such nice messages from new viewers to the show who found me in the last 48 hours thanks to my live stream with with Heather Cox Richardson, who her fans are both very intelligent and also very devoted. She's got over 2.6 million followers on Substack, which is insane. And so many after my conversation with Heather coming in and saying, hey, now I'm a follower of the David Pakman Show. So welcome to all of those folks. It's really great to have you here. And you can check out my conversation with Heather. Also on our substack. We had a really beautiful moment on Fox News this week involving Jessica Tarlov that her fellow co hosts were not really ready for. So let me kind of explain it. You all know, I expect, because you listen to the show, have been following what's going on, that a bunch of Trump's base is furious with him over the Epstein situation and also that Trump is underwater in terms of approval in every single poll. He's even underwater specifically on immigration. And, and that's what came up during this segment. Jessica Tarlov, the lone liberal on the panel, as usual, drops the hammer about how deeply unpopular, not just in general, Trump is, but specifically when it comes to immigration, which many on Fox have been cheerleading as a great success of this administration. She explains what the numbers are and nobody can really rebut it or explain it away. And it was one of these moments where it's like, damn, maybe she actually can get through to some of these people watching Fox, not the people that.
- [02:26]
Jessica Tarlov
You want to be hearing from on this. I think having border crossings down to zero is an incredible achievement. The problem is, is that the rest of the immigration policy is in absolute shambles. His approval rating on immigration ranges from minus 27, that's in Gallup, to minus 19 in CNN and minus 15 in the new Quinnipia act poll that's out today. He's in the red or underwater, however you want to say it, on deportations as well, which was one of his key promises in the CN. His approved strongly number down to minus 21. It's the lowest it's been at any point in either of his administrations.
- [03:02]
David Pakman
Why do you think that?
- [03:04]
Jessica Tarlov
Because he's not doing a good job of being president.
- [03:09]
David Pakman
Oh, I love that. You know, there's really. There's really no spinning these numbers. His approval is low because he's being a terrible president. Trump's approval on immigration is in the toilet. It's historically bad. And what's funny is immigration was supposed to be the great victory of Trump. Listen, the tariffs are sort of a question mark. And now we've got the Epstein thing. And what about saying no new wars, but he's bombing countries? What do we do about that? But he's doing what he promised on immigration, and so you got to give him marks on that. No, his approval on immigration is a disaster. And you don't get there unless you are executing a policy that is really repelling to the public. And that's what's going on. It's been completely chaotic. He first said, we're only going to go after. Let me go back one second. No matter which version of Trump's promises you liked, he's failing. So let me break that down. He said he would go after the worst of the worst, violent criminals who are undocumented and have been convicted of crimes. Instead, we see ICE deporting farm workers and parents and kids with cancer. We see ICE hanging out in Home Depot parking lots where people are waiting for work and going to Walmart and this sort of thing. A girl undergoing treatment for cancer was removed while fighting leukemia. And so that story about we're going to get the worst of the worst, they haven't stuck to that. Number two, Trump said he was going to be the deporter in chief. He was going to deport more people than anybody. And he's deporting not even roughly half of the people that Obama was deporting. Now, I don't say this because I go whoever deports the most. I love. This is not how I would measure the success and efficacy of an immigration policy, but it's what Trump promised. And there were people saying, this guy, we, you know, you've got these people who believe there's 20, 30, 40, 50 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, which there of course aren't. But if you believe that you would expect Trump to be able to deport a whole hell of a lot of people. He's roughly deporting half of the people that Obama was deporting. Trump's got the camps. He's got Tom Homan, he's got Kristi Noem, he's got a renewed focus on this issue. And he can still only get half of the deportations done that Obama. So if you were expecting him to do the mass deportations, he's failing there as well. And then you've also got some of the civil liberties, civil liberties conservatives who are seeing ICE agents wearing masks in broad daylight like it's, you know, a cartel operation raiding communities, racially profiling, no transparency, no oversight, no sense of proportion. It's mostly people on the left, but it's also some people in the Republican Party who look at this and they go, this just doesn't seem right. And it's been a performance for MAGA audiences that love seeing people getting dragged out of neighborhoods. They've liked it. But a lot of people, even centrists and some people in the moderate right have had it with this stuff. And so it's not a left wing critique. These are people who are looking at the tactics and they don't like them. They're looking at the record and they're going, he's not even doing the thing that he promised to do. And meanwhile, there's no other area that's going really well. Tariffs aren't going well. Government transparency isn't going well. Foreign policy is not going well. What Trump is benefiting from right now, and you know, I'm always just totally upfront about the economic numbers. Trump's benefiting from the fact that gas prices are basically flat now. He promised they'd go down, they didn't, but they're flat. Inflation prices have continued to increase, but relatively slowly, between 2.4 and 2.7% annualized. And so the stock market's been, you know, doing, doing fine. So Trump's benefiting from that right now. There are warning signs economically, my expectation is that if dissatisfaction continues with the immigration protocol and dissatisfaction continues with Trump's transparency on Epstein, and we start to get into economic problems, that these numbers are going to be the numbers Trump will dream of, they will be way better. These, the numbers today will end up being way better than where Trump could end up. And Trump seems desperate and wrecked by this. And I think it's worthy of a little bit of discussion. Donald Trump is completely unraveling. He posted a meltdown on Truth Social, where he rants that the Jeffrey Epstein case is the newest hoax. Alongside the Steele Dossier, alongside the 51 Intel intel agents letter, and alongside Hunter Biden's alleged bathroom laptop, here is what Trump posted to his own platform.
- [07:53]
Donald Trump
Truth Truth Central.
- [07:55]
David Pakman
Quote, the radical left Democrats have hit pay dirt again. Have hit pay dirt again. Just like with the fake and fully discredited Steele Dossier, the lying 51 intelligence agents, the laptop from hell which the Dems swore had come from Russia. No, it came from Hunter Biden's bathroom. And even the Russia, Russia, Russia scam itself. A totally fake and made up story used in order to hide crooked Hillary Clinton's big loss in the 2016 presidential election. These scams and hoaxes are all the Democrats are good at. It's all they have. They are no good at governing, no good at policy, no good at picking winning candidates. Also, unlike Republicans, they stick together like glue. Their new scam is what we will forever call the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax. And my past supporters have bought into this bullshit, hook, line and sinker. This is Trump attacking his own voters. They haven't learned their lesson and probably never will. Even after being conned by the lunatic left for eight long years, I have had more success in six months than perhaps any president in our country's history. And all these people want to talk about, with strong prodding by the fake news and the success starved Dems is the Jeffrey Epstein hoax. Let these weaklings continue forward and do the Democrats work. Don't even think about talking of our incredible and unprecedented success because I don't want their support anymore. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Make America great again. So look at the highlights here. Trump's going after his own supporters for falling for a hoax because they've started to believe, or at least ask questions, might Trump be in the Epstein files? And Trump is so rattled by what might be coming out that he's attacking the base. He's saying, my base is weak. They've been duped. I don't want your support anymore. This is a panic for Trump. And where it gets weirder is that Trump says the Epstein situation, including thousands of pages of documents, victim testimony, federal charges, flight logs, convictions, videos, pictures. It's another Democratic fabrication. So. So think about what would have to be true for us to believe that Obama, Hillary, Comey and a rotating cast of deep state operatives fabricated the Epstein files, manufactured court cases, hoodwinked victims in the entire criminal justice system for eight years, including while Trump was president. Because remember, Epstein was arrested when Trump was president and Epstein died in his jail cell when Trump was president. All of that was done to make Trump look bad. And the part that people really need to sit with is if that is true, if the Epstein case is fake, if it was invented to frame Trump, it would be a massive crime. People should be investigated, prosecuted, convicted and imprisoned if that's what they did. But no one has been charged. No one's being investigated for this supposed fabrication because there is no such evidence. And by the way, Trump controls the doj. Don't you think that there was even a plot, you know, a plausible shred of an iota of truth to these claims that Pam Bondi would be investigating the people that fabricated the files instead? Pam Bondi in February said, I've got the files now. Now all of a sudden, it's, there's no files and it's all a hoax. So the Epstein case is not a hoax. Trump knows that. I think his former supporters know it. The question is, do his current supporters know it? His attorneys certainly know it. And Trump is here saying, this is the new Russia, Russia, Russia. And he's screaming at the people who once supported him. He's pretending that an unhinged social media post proves his innocence or is going to convince anybody. But this is a guy who is wrecked politically and emotionally. If this were a nothing burger, he would be ignoring it. But he's melting down every day. He suspects he's in the documents. And I think increasingly, Trump realizes it's going to eventually be made public, whether it's on purpose or not, according to his decrees. I think he suspects we're going to figure it out. Let me know what you think. You can email info@david pakman.com. you can leave a comment on my YouTube channel. You can leave a comment on Spotify. I want to hear from you. Do you think the files will ultimately come out? And to what degree do you believe Donald Trump is in them? We'll take a quick break and the show will continue in a moment. Making a good first impression matters, whether you're walking into a meeting or you're just going about your day. And when you're trying to look sharp, Harry's makes it simple. Our sponsor, Harry's makes high quality shaving and grooming products that just show up right at your door. No overpriced markup from the big brands. I love the feel of the weighted handle on Harry's razors. It's easy to grip, it's nicely designed. 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I've had a great experience. I think you will to head over to sheath underwear.com/pacman and get 20% off with code Pacman that's sh e a t h underwear.com pacman use code pakman for 20% off. The link is in the Podcast Notes the David Pakman show continues to be an audience supported program. The daily podcast, the videos, Tick Tock, the substack newsletter, all of the distribution, staff salaries, connectivity, occasional legal costs, although we try to keep those as low as possible. As you all know, uh, it's all really made possible by the audience and the primary means of that support comes through membership. You can read about it and sign up for it@join pacman.com you can also donate memberships on join pacman.com to any of the 3,000 people on our waiting list. For memberships, simply check the this is a gift box when you go through the membership signup process A White House staffer is revealing why Donald Trump is now panicking now, that part isn't speculation. We've spent the week and part of last week looking at not only Trump's erratic, panicky behavior, but also hearing from people like Stephen Bannon who have been very clear and upfront in saying there is reason to panic here. If the Epstein files aren't released, if Trump can't get out from under the cloud of his own making on this issue, Republicans might lose 40 seats in the House of Representatives in 2026. So we know that that's going on. And we now have confirmation of that from someone who worked in a prior Trump White House. Remember Sarah Matthews? She's the former Trump press aide and she is now saying he is panicking now. He has to be panicking now. Why? Because the Epstein story won't die and it is generating a rebellion inside MAGA world. Now, it started with the Trump Truth social rant where he told his supporters, forget about Jeffrey Epstein. We covered that Monday. He got completely ratioed. If you don't know what that means, it's a term the kids these days are using. But we talk about it on Monday and he said, let's stop wasting time and energy on Jeffrey Epstein. Nobody cares about Jeffrey Epstein now. That alone is Absurd. Trump campaigned on exposing the network. He claimed that the list of clients would be released. His attorney general, Pam Bondi, said earlier this year, it's on her desk on Wednesday. We looked at the letter that she sent Cash Patel, in which she says, I have hundreds of pages of documents and I believe you have thousands and you should give them to me. Now she has been saying, there is no such list. That doesn't exist. We're not going to release anything else. We're not going to charge anybody else. And MAGA isn't buying it. You have these hardcore supporters really melting down, demanding answers. Elon Musk, Trump's on again, off again, billionaire buddy, although they're now off, said Trump's not going to release the documents because Trump is in the documents, which is very plausible. Very, very plausible. So that's not Rachel Maddow saying it. That's maga's sometimes favorite unstable tech guy wearing a Doge slash MAGA hat. The Epstein list was going to be their gotcha. It was going to be proof of the deep state, proof that Biden was covering stuff up, even though Biden wasn't president when Epstein was arrested, nor was he president when Epstein died by suicide. It was going to prove that the elites were all in this together, but not Trump, not Trump. But now the theory is coming inward because Trump made the promise. Trump had the doj, Trump appointed the people, and now they're being told, never mind. And Trump trained his followers. If government actors tell you there's nothing to see here, don't believe them. And now Trump's government is telling his followers there's nothing to see here, and a whole bunch of them don't believe him. These are the people who used to chant, you know, drain the swamp and lock up Hillary or whatever. They are now starting to think the guy holding the bucket is actually standing in it. So now we zoom out. Is it about Trump and Epstein? Yeah, to a degree. But this is about the rich and powerful closing ranks, even across party lines when they feel threatened. And it includes Trump. That's the key thing. Trump, Clinton, billionaires, royals, celebrities. When Epstein died in federal custody, it really was a power scandal. And now we're watching it happen again. The promise of exposure is buried. The promises of transparency are replaced with nothing to see here. The client list that was imminent now doesn't exist anymore. And instead of answers, we get these very vague truth social posts, a suspiciously quiet Justice Department, and an increasingly panicked Trump, who every time he's asked about this topic either gets angry at the person asking it says, that's not even a topic you should be asking about or tells us conflicting stories. There is no list. There's a list, but James Comey made it up. There's a list, but Obama made it up, or whatever. If this were Joe Biden bearing the Epstein files after promising to release them, Fox News would be running live helicopter shots of Biden's house. That's what it would be. But it's Trump and it's the guy who turned all of this into a campaign issue. Trump was going to expose pedophilia, sex trafficking, all this stuff. And now they're going, hey, guys, stop asking questions. It's time to stop. So Sarah Matthews says Trump is likely to try to distract the public, say or do outrageous things to change the topic. That's always kind of been the move. I don't even think it's as crafted or micromanaged as some. You know, sometimes I'll get emails. David, don't you think that Trump bombed Iran to take attention away from Epstein, or don't you think that Trump said Epstein, there's nothing to talk about with Epstein to distract from the failed 90 deals in 90 days. It's not that calculated. It's just when Trump panics and feels cornered, he'll just blurt out something, and it's often kind of spur of the moment. The difference this time, and Sarah Matthews is making this point, and I think it's a natural point to make, is that the people increasingly upset are Trump's own supporters. There are people left and right who care about the Epstein list. But I think as a more general principle, we on the left don't primarily want to vote for the person that's going to give us a list, as relevant as that is and as important that it is to. As it is to protect kids. From a law enforcement standpoint, we're sort of thinking, is there an economic policy here that is going to lift people out of poverty, make it so that if you work, you should certainly be able to afford a home, health care and food? Like we're more on those basics. The right became obsessed with this topic because many of the people that now work for Trump told them, you should be obsessed with this topic. And that, I believe, is what is panicking Donald Trump the most. Fox host John Roberts insists the Epstein files don't exist. And that's what Daddy is telling us, Daddy being Daddy. Donald Trump. Here's Fox host John Roberts saying, a lot of sources are telling us there are no such files and he's got a statement.
- [24:13]
Donald Trump
Ok. You must be kidding. What a wasted question. Also, I had some news about Epstein saying that Pam Bondi gave them a quick briefing about it. He said that those files were made up by Comey and Obama, that Pam Bondi has been handling this very well and whatever decision is made regarding the Epstein files is up to her. There was a real dust up between Pam Bondi and Cash Patel and Dan Bongino, the president daddy, as Mark Ruta has dubbed him, stepped in and ended that feud the other day with a lengthy post on Truth Social. So we'll see where it all goes.
- [24:48]
David Pakman
The idea that the feud was ended, that the controversy was ended, that it's all been put to bed because Trump said stop talking about Epstein and Pam Bondi said there's no list, after saying she has hundreds of pages and wants thousands more in February. And after Dan Bongino and Cash Patel spent years weaponizing this thing and saying, when Trump gets into power, we're going to know the truth. And then they go, turns out there's nothing to know. It's all fine. This is no big deal. Nobody is falling for that, even on the MAGA side. Now there are people on the MAGA side that are taking an approach that is more about self preservation and sort of tamping down the potentially problematic nature of this for Trump. And so you had like Charlie Kirk go, I'm done talking about Epstein. His audience revolted. And so Charlie Kirk got on the air the next day this week and he went, yeah, I just, I'm not, I'm going to talk about it today. I just meant I was done with the topic for yesterday and yesterday only. So few important takeaways here. This is them losing control of the monster they created. I'm sorry for using that analogy or metaphor so many times this week, but it's very, is very apt. Fox is in, in an interesting position because Fox is trying to stake out multiple positions simultaneously. On the one hand, Fox wants to retain access to this administration. And so that's why John Roberts repeats this totally unbelievable statement about there's no list and everything's cool. The reason John Roberts is uncritically repeating that statement is because Fox wants to stay in the good graces of the Trump administration. On the other hand, Fox does have a non zero part of their audience that isn't believing this crap. They are not falling for it. They aren't satisfied with being told that entire thing we spent years telling you is oopsie, it's a mistake. Don't worry about it, et cetera. So Fox is is in this very strange position. Others have staked out one side or the other. Charlie Kirk mostly defending Trump, people like Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens and Megyn Kelly, Peter Patrick, Bet David and others mostly criticizing Trump. But the takeaway here is the levy at some point is going to break, and it is either going to break in the direct, excuse me, the direction of what Bannon said earlier this week, which is they're going to lose 40 seats in the House or there will be a sort of concerted effort to say if we don't move on, we're going to get screwed. Let's stop talking about this. And I would expect that to happen sometime in the next probably five to seven days. You know, for weeks now, discussions have focused on Trump's big, beautiful bill and its potential Medicaid cuts. However, a far more dangerous overlooked provision in the bill exists. At Ground News slash Pacman, you'll discover what MAGA lawmakers quietly included a provision that could block federal judges from enforcing court orders unless a bond is posted. And if this passes, it could render Trump above the law. This is a critical detail. It's largely unknown. And it really exemplifies this flood the zone strategy of the Trump administration. Now, this is why Ground News is essential. It really is the best way to uncover buried information by showing you not just the story, but its origins across the political spectrum. You can see bias. Ratings, credibility scores, coverage timelines, and their browser extension also will flag potential bias when you're on a news site, sort of guiding you to more reliable sources for fact checking. Ground News gives you a smarter and more reliable way to stay informed. And I'm partnering with them to give you 40% off their unlimited vantage plan, which makes it just $5 a month. Visit Ground News slash Pacman, scan the QR code or use the code Pacman in the app to start the link is in the description. One of the easiest ways to make a good night even better is a great bottle of wine. Not something random off the shelf like I would pick because I'm clueless, but something that feels a little more thoughtful worth opening. And that's why I've consistently gotten wines from Naked Wines, our sponsor. Naked Wines works directly with over 90 independent winemakers around the world. So you get access to boutique bottles that would be way more money in stores. The prices are great, the quality is impressive. I like that I can customize the boxes. Do I want reds or whites or a mix? The last one I opened was a white from a winemaker I hadn't tried before. One of the best bottles I've had this year. Crisp. I love crisp. Made with care. Check out Naked Wines. You can get six bottles for just 3,999, including shipping. Go to naked wines.com/pacman. Click enter voucher. Use code pacman for both the code and the password. Again, you'll get six bottles for just three 3999, shipping included. When you go to naked wines.com/pacman and enter Pacman as the code and password. The info is in the podcast notes. In the middle of all the other drama, the Trump administration is failing on deportations and MAGA is starting to notice and they are starting to panic. So let's take a step back and kind of reset Trump when he ran and then once he won and once he was inaugurated, promised mass deportations. Millions and millions, he said on Inauguration Day. And we are now more than halfway through 2025. And he has not delivered that, thankfully, by the way. But he has still done damage. He's created this sort of bloated, chaotic, overcrowded, completely inhumane detention system and a deportation rate that it's not just lower than what he promised, it's lower than what Obama managed to do a decade ago.
- [31:15]
Donald Trump
Obama.
- [31:16]
David Pakman
Obama. Yeah. So let's look at the numbers. Last month, ICE arrested about 30,000 immigrants, the most in at least five years. So it sounds like Trump's doing what he said he was going to do. But there were 18,000 deportations. And even by Trump's own wildly aggressive fear based standards, this is a failing operation. And you go back and it's the, the Trend May had 24,000 arrests and 15,000 deportations. Sort of like a pattern, fewer arrests and deportations than under Obama. You look back at the Obama numbers in 2013, an average of 36,000 monthly deportations. Trump's not even doing half of that. So here's the key phrase. By Trump's own metrics, by MAGA's own standards, the tough guy, law and order mass deportation guy, he is coming up very short. And the people in his base who cheer for this kind of cruelty should be asking, where are the results? And the explanation for what's going on is surprisingly simple. Number one, the math never really added up because Trump made it sound like there are millions of dangerous, criminal undocumented immigrants hiding in plain sight, waiting to be scooped up. That was always a lie. We've been saying that is a lie for what, decades? At this point, most undocumented immigrants aren't criminals. Many have been here for years. They're working, they're raising families, they are paying taxes, by the way, many of them paying into systems that they are paying into but are never going to get any benefits out of. So the myth of this criminal horde was always designed to justify a crackdown that would be really expensive and massive. But now that they're in the position of trying to deliver on it, the numbers just aren't there. And this is why ICE has expanded and moved the goalposts into let's sweep up people with pending asylum cases. Let's sweep up people who have broken no laws, people who have legal protections granted by immigration courts, temporary but still active legal protections. But those courts are standing in the way, as they should be, because the Trump administration is trying to deport extrajudicial. They're extrajudicially trying to deport people with no due process. Trump response, A desperate response has been let's try to ignore the courts. And so they want to fast track deportations. These expedited removal processes where you don't get a hearing, you don't get a judge, you don't even get a defense. In some cases, they're trying to deport people, not even to their home countries, but the third countries, Guatemala, Honduras, we've seen it in El Salvador, and that's based on a new Supreme Court ruling that lets them temporarily do that. So is it cruel? Of course. Is it legally flimsy? Yes. Is it creating an insane backlog of appeals and legal battles that's going to make it. Make everything even more expensive? Yes, it is. But by Trump's own standards, the deportation program is failing. The approach of the administration is just deny everything. DHS put out a statement saying it's all a lie. We're doing great. We're doing everything that we said we were going to do. Everybody's being treated well in detention, which we know isn't the case. And meanwhile, the administration is coming back to Congress and saying, we want more money, we want additional legislation, we want additional appropriation. So here's the question that I think is most important to ask at this point in time. Is this the direction we want immigration policy to go? We where we have a broken status quo, broken system. And we say the way to fix it is give us money to do more arrests, to have more beds and to be able to do more deportations, even though they're not really able to find the criminal immigrants that they claim they were going to find. The problem is it's not really about the money or the law. Because the right is obsessed with punishment and fear. And we have real ideas for immigration reform out there, many of them, but none of them really play up the fear and the punishment aspects. Right? Because we could all say, hey, instead of treating immigration like a national security crisis, we see it as a policy issue and a humanitarian issue. So we've got to deal with why are people even trying to come here. We've got to deal with the violence and the poverty and even climate related reasons. And in other countries that people would say, hey, I'm going to try to go to the United States. We need a faster legal pathway, we need more immigration judges, we need more work permits, we need to strengthen asylum procedures instead of getting rid of them altogether. And we've got to invest in a lot of the infrastructure that includes like legal aid and lawyers for people. None of that is fear based and none of that is punishment based. And so the system is overwhelmed not because there are too many people. In a way, it's overwhelmed because there are too few resources for proper adjudication. I don't know anyone on the left who's saying, let's open the border. What we want is a functional, modern border and an immigration system becoming of a country as wealthy as the United States that's not relying on mass detention. It doesn't have backlogged courts and it doesn't have the sick fantasy of mass roundups, putting people in cages in Florida and then putting them on planes in some cases to countries they don't even have any connection to. So the Trump system is failing, number one, because there simply aren't the number of so called criminal illegals that Trump told us there was going to be. But also because they're not doing anything about the gridlock and the overcrowding and the infrastructure when they do sweep people up and that do not meet that definition of criminal illegal. So Trump sold them a fantasy. They're now stuck trying to defend a complete and total disaster. And by their standards, Obama did a better job, which is a really wild scenario to be in. Donald Trump was interviewed by his own daughter in law and it still went bad. Here's Lara Trump, Trump, praising Trump and talking about how great all the things he does are and how amazing everything is and Trump can't even do it. And this sounds just creepy. Trump says he sees things in a lot of women that they don't even see in themselves.
- [37:56]
Jessica Tarlov
I think this has been sort of a trait of yours your entire life. If you go back to the Trump Organization, you gave people opportunities that maybe they would never have taken themselves. And I feel like you've often seen things in people that they don't even see in themselves, especially women. You did it for me. Well, I would say that for me as well, but you're.
- [38:18]
David Pakman
Trump sees things in women that nobody else has ever seen. Wow. Creepy. Terrifying. The topic of the Texas flood response came up. And let's see. Can you even understand what argument Trump is making here?
- [38:37]
Jessica Tarlov
There's been this devastation down in Texas, and you've said that from the perspective of the federal government, every resource will be available to Texas.
- [38:45]
Donald Trump
Yeah.
- [38:46]
Jessica Tarlov
There's been so much heartbreak, though. What is your message to the people who are suffering down there, to the parents of the young girls at the camp who were killed? What do you want to say as their president?
- [38:57]
Donald Trump
Well, there can be nothing worse. Losing a child to start off with. And the way this happened, there was very early warning. They warned a day before. They warned even two days before. They warned four hours before. Maybe they should have had bells, something go off. But it's pretty dangerous territory when you think of all the times that they've had this problem. They, they were given a lot of warning, but it was late at night and people were sleeping. Some people heard the warning and they got out. They were able to get to higher land. But when you, when you hear this wave that was up to 30ft high just came roaring through that valley, it's just a very sad thing.
- [39:40]
David Pakman
So I think what Trump saying is we did absolutely everything we could have done. Anything bad that happened is someone else's fault. It's either the people or the municipalities or the state. Or maybe it's Biden's fault. Maybe it's even Obama's fault. Larra Trump, continuing the journalism, saying, how do you feel about all of the people who call you the bodyguard of Western civilization? What a question.
- [40:12]
Donald Trump
Especially this last couple of weeks has been pretty amazing.
- [40:17]
Jessica Tarlov
Some people have called you the bodyguard of Western civilization.
- [40:21]
Donald Trump
Yeah.
- [40:22]
Jessica Tarlov
How do you feel about that title?
- [40:23]
Donald Trump
Well, I understand what they mean. It was going bad. We were going bad. This country was going bad. A lot of people were talking to China and others about getting involved because we were a dead country. We were gone. In the minds of many. I tell you, in my mind, one of the reasons I ran, I saw what was happening very early on. When I saw people pouring across our border, I said, no, put up that little. It's a little. It would have taken three, three weeks to put up little sections of wall that we laid out because of legal reasons with condemnation reasons, you know, different things. And because we wanted to bring our equipment back in through the wall because we built.
- [41:03]
David Pakman
Just rambling, just rambling. And this is supposed to be a softball interview. This, this is an interview with your own daughter in law. The premise of which is make myself as orange as I can, which Trump did, and make this as easy an interview as we can make it. And he's still not making any sense. The hard hitting journalism continued. Lara Trump asking Donald, how did you create such an amazing cabinet?
- [41:31]
Jessica Tarlov
You did it for me. Well, I would say that for me as well, but women, your cabinet is comprised of so many incredible people and people that even a year ago so many would.
- [41:40]
David Pakman
Is this a news or an opinion show on Fox? I never, I have a hard time.
- [41:44]
Jessica Tarlov
Distinguishing ever have imagined like RFK Jr. Who a year ago was running for president as a Democrat. Why do you think you have this ability? And I feel like it has really been to your benefit. Look at this incredible cabinet you've put together. They're all people, people who are working to make America great again.
- [42:03]
Donald Trump
They've been incredible, actually, the cabinet's been incredible. And I had a lot of good people my first term. But again I came here, I had never done it before and I'm picking people that I never heard of and I'm taking recommendations of, you know, people that were sort of stupid. People like a John Bolton, he's a stupid guy. Or Jesper who was terrible, I mean he was terrible. But I took some recreation. But overall I got it right. I mean we rebuilt our military. We did so many, so many great things. But I know, I now know the people I know so well. I know better than anybody, you know, I spent four years with. Sometimes you hit and miss and sometimes you don't. But we had, we had great people the first time, but we have really good people this time and they get along with each other, they love each other, they love the country. And it's smoother, I think it's smoother. You know, we did. A lot of people thought my first term was phenomenal.
- [43:03]
David Pakman
I thought, you know, oh God, how does anyone do this and feel good about it? And maybe they don't, maybe they don't. How would you like to be remembered? She asks her father in law.
- [43:18]
Jessica Tarlov
Just to wrap up here, you're talking about people not remembering. I don't think anyone will ever forget President Donald J. Trump.
- [43:25]
David Pakman
Oh.
- [43:26]
Jessica Tarlov
But when history looks back on this time in our country, when history looks back on you, how would you like to be remembered?
- [43:35]
Donald Trump
A good person, but a person that saved our country. I really believed our country was going down for the fall. I don't know if it ever could have come back. It was very close to the edge. And I really would like to be known as the man that saved our country.
- [43:50]
David Pakman
Very modest perception, right. I want to be seen as a good person who saved the United States from certain destruction which would have happened if Sleepy Joe was reelected or Kamala Harris had won. And then finally, maybe the pinnacle of journalism, Donald Trump. Telling Lara Trump that her husband is great, who of course happens to be Donald Trump's own son, Eric Trump, a true Walter Cronkite, would have been sobbing tears of joy to see how important.
- [44:22]
Jessica Tarlov
Has family been to you? And I mean, I'm going to say the last 10 years and all of this.
- [44:28]
Donald Trump
Well, like your husband is great. I mean, he's great whether he was my son or whether he was an executive. You can't, you can't hurt hire anybody like him. He's so good and he runs the business and Don helps run the business. And Ivanka is doing a lot of things. She's amazing person and she's a little bit involved, a little bit, you know, when they want words of wisdom or whatever, she's, she's, you know, she did a very good job here.
- [44:56]
David Pakman
She just say referring to your own son as your husband, definitely an interesting choice. But this is what Fox News is presenting to us as an interview with the President of the United States. Everybody in any way involved with this interview should be hanging their heads in shame. But I think they see it as awesome and they don't even realize that the softball interviews Trump still can't handle. So I learned a while ago that I was clenching and grinding my teeth at night. Not on purpose, not because I was necessarily stressed out by something obvious, but grinding and clenching without even knowing it. And when I talked to my dentist about it, about getting a night guard, it was a whole thing. Appointment, mold, waiting, a bill that seemed very high. And ultimately I found Remy. And Remy is our sponsor. Today, Remy sends a kit right to your door to take an impression of your teeth with super clear, step by step instructions. You send it back to them and they will custom make your night guard right here in the United States, in Las Vegas specifically. No waiting rooms, no overpriced bills. Just a better way to protect your teeth while you sleep. Try Remy risk free at shop Remy.com/Pacman and use the code PACMAN to get 50% off your night guard at checkout. That's shop R E M I.com/Pacman. Use code PACMAN for 50% off. The link is in the podcast notes. You say you'll learn a new language every year, but few of us actually follow through. That's why I always recommend Babel. It's the app that finally made language learning stick for me. This year I've got a trip to France planned. I've already started brushing up using Babble's 10 minute lessons. The app is built around real life conversations, not games or gimmicks. So I'm learning exactly what I actually need to know when I land. I've even been using Babel's speech recognition technology to improve my pronunciation. Super helpful. Babble is designed by over 200 language experts and proven studies from places like Yale and Michigan State. There's a study that found that using babble just 15 hours is like a full college semester of a language. They offer 14 languages and more than 16 million people have used it. They've got a 20 day money back guarantee, so it is risk free to try. Here's a special limited time deal for my audience right now. Get up to 6 60% off your Babel subscription, but only for my audience@babel.com slash pacman. Get up to 60% off at babel.com slash pacman spelled b a b b el.com slash pacman. Rules and restrictions may apply. The link is in the podcast notes. All right, let's get into Friday feedback For the week. We collect and assemble feedback from our various platforms. You can email info@david pakman.com but we will include comments left on substack, tik tok, Spotify, YouTube, Facebook. We include comments delivered to us by telegram, smoke signals, and Morse code. All right, let's start with Ye Assua who says we don't need this kind of decisiveness? What are you accomplishing by spreading hate towards our president? I can only imagine that you meant divisiveness rather than decisiveness. This is one of the greatest ruses that can be pulled in the space of political discourse. It's not a new one. And the way it works is this way. When they criticize the left, it's because the left has to be criticized in order to retain the cohesiveness of the country. But when we point out, hey, this guy's an authoritarian nightmare, this guy's breaking the law, this guy's ignoring everything that he said he was going to do when he ran. When, when we point that out, they go, oh, that's being divisive. You've got to stop being so divisive by criticizing what Trump does. Listen, you got to wake up, my friend. I am here to, to do one thing and one thing only. Maybe only as an exaggeration, but primarily the point is give my opinion about what I see happening. That's the point of this show. Now, sometimes people write in, they go, david, you should remove the opinion and just give us the facts. Well, that's what a news reporter would do, but that's just not what I do. There's other shows. And then the other one that happens is you should be nicer to Trump. I am simply going to point out what I see and how I see it and the idea that it's divisive when we do it, but that it's just the right thing to do when they do it. We. Things are too insane for us to have time for that. All right. Therese Longo Chubbuck wrote in about the Medicaid cuts and said the following. If you are eligible for Medicaid, you will get it. If you are not eligible, you will no longer get it. It's as simple as that. And of course, Therese couldn't be more wrong. The whole idea here is nothing is changing with regard to eligibility in the tax bill. First of all, that's not true because they're putting in all sorts of additional requirements other than just paperwork requirements. But even without that, simply, if, if I came to you and I said about your driver's license, ok, it used to be the case, or it is the case. You've got to be. I don't even know what the rules are now. Depends on the state. But you got to be 16 years old and you've got to have gone to driver's ed and have a certain number of hours driving and whatever, and then you've got to schedule a test through our online port portal. If I were to come in and say to you, listen, we're not changing anything about the requirements to have a driver's license, but you now need to complete a 20 page questionnaire every three months. It must be submitted in person during days one, two or three of the month. And by the way, we're defunding the offices where you can submit it. And so you've got to remember to call two weeks prior to get an appointment. And you can only get an appointment between 9am and 12pm on Monday and Wednesday. Right. Without changing the requirements for having a license by putting in place these paperwork requirements, these bureaucratic requirements, I am making it more difficult to ultimately get the driver's license. That's what's happening with Medicaid. And so Therese is living in a fantasy world where she says, if you're eligible, you get it. That's it. And of course, that is very much not the case. And the whole point, point is that the paperwork is the cuts. That's the whole idea. Darwin, Engie wrote in and he has a great question, or there's an interesting kernel of an idea here. What would happen if the press didn't show up at all? Just like Donald's birthday, nobody asked questions, don't show up at all, just leave him sitting there by himself, Then what would happen? He has nobody to cry to. So this is a very interesting piece of feedback because what Darwin is correctly weighing in on is that on a personal level, Trump has an egomaniacal, self centered desire to be the center of attention. Trump wants 40 microphones to show up when he is going to speak. The leader will be speaking, put up all the microphones, get the lights, get the cameras. And there is a degree to which if the press corps just stopped traveling with Trump, if nobody reported a word about what Donald Trump did on a personal level, that would be damaging to Trump. There are two problems with that. Number one, as arguably the most powerful office of the country, if not the world, the idea that we're not going to cover what the American President does, that the press corps is not going to cover it, strikes me as problematic. But maybe even more importantly, there is another historical reality that we have to account for, which is that when authoritarians, dictators and dictator wannabes don't get criticized and exposed and reported on, they then can operate from the shadows and often do even worse things to it. In a sense, as bad as the deportation fiasco has been, it's been somewhat constrained by wall to wall protests, coverage and stories about the horrors of it. And so although Darwin is right that if we want to off Trump personally, you ignore him, you deprive of him the attention that he wants desperately, there are other problems with ignoring what authoritarians do. Okay. Christopher back wrote on YouTube, David, I used to believe you were a centrist, just a centrist Democrat, albeit a very intelligent one, sort of along the lines of pods Save America bros. I now see how invaluable you are to the righteous fight for justice and democracy. You're going to be very important going forward. And I'm here to tell you that yourself and people like you, who subject themselves to scrutiny by the regime, we have your back. We will donate or whatever it takes to support your cause. So Christopher, I really appreciate that. On my political views, I want to preface this by saying it's not objectively good or bad for people's political views to remain exactly the same or to change. Right. If I think back to my political awareness, which goes back I guess like to when I was 15ish or something like that, I have changed my opinion about things over these intervening years. I've talked about some of these areas before. You know, my view on nuclear power has changed. My view on GMO foods has changed. My view on taxation has modified over time. Changing views. It would be weird to follow something for decades and to not have any view change. That doesn't sound like you're thinking at the same time when there's a total 180 in your politics, you know, like a Dave Rubin, like a Tim Pool, although he claims his views haven't changed, but the party alignment Anyway, if you're 45 and you do a 180 in all your politics, I think it's reasonable for people to go, is money a reason for that? Is their audience capture what's going on? So big picture, I think it's logical that we update our views as the facts come in, as we learn things, as we mature, etc. With regard to he thought I was a centrist, but I'm a Democrat. First of all, I've never been a democrat. Secondly, I've always identified as being on the left. Recently there was a little dust up on my Instagram where there was a discussion. David doesn't even consider himself part of the left. Why do all these studies include him on the left? I have always considered myself to be on the left. I am not on the socialist left. I'm not on the communist left. I'm not on the revolutionary Marxist accelerationist left. I'm not there. But of course I'm on the left. The assessment of my views often is never based on policy positions. And so whenever I'm asked about this stuff on shows, I go listen rather than just focusing on labels. Tell me what issue you want to know my position on and I will gladly tell you. All right. Zach's Kava Banham said, david, I just want you to know I am definitely signing up to your substack just as soon as they shut this YouTube space down. I want to be able to see that your stories when I want to see your stories when I want and not just when they land in that inbox. This is an extremely timely and intelligent discussion you facilitated. This is a reaction to one of our substack lives. Here's the thing a lot of people have been asking why are we pushing substack? And there really is one reason. We own our data on Substack. Every day we can download our full substack list and no matter what happens, we have that list to reach out to our audience on YouTube. If we get shut down, Facebook, all these different platforms, we have no access to the audience that we've built. And so the two things we have access to are our website membership list and our substack list. Obviously it costs money to become a website member, so the free way to make sure that we can get a hold of you if we get pushed off of one platform or onto another is just to get on the substack for free. It's that simple. Substack.david pakman.com Alice Dare said, It must be absolutely exhausting for Republicans having to make excuses for Trump literally every day. You got to wonder at what point do they say, I'm not doing this anymore. Well, the interesting thing is that point may be the Epstein situation. This is why I said on Monday we must exploit the division over Epstein. Not because we're obsessed with the story. I'm really not. I'm bored with the story itself. What I'm fascinated by is that there are MAGA people now saying, wait a second, Trump didn't run on this. Trump ran on transparency. Trump ran on showing us what was going on, not hiding it. So I believe it's important to exploit it. Healthy Donut wrote on the subreddit, freedom loving Americans must reclaim the flag and patriotism from maga. Republicans have essentially monopolized patriotism and the American flag. They fly it alongside the Confederate and Trump flags, the banners of traitors. It's time to reclaim the flag, writes Healthy Donut. I agree completely. I did a segment about the no Kings protests and how one of the notable, and I believe important characteristics of those protests was that there were so many American flags. They were not American flags presented alongside these traitorous banners like Trump flags and Confederate flags. It was the left saying, hey, we want a better America. The American flag is an appropriate element, an appropriate symbol for protests that say, we want a United States that's like the one the founders envisioned, one that doesn't have kings or authoritarians or dictators, one that has due process that's American. We should be waving a flag for due process. So agree completely. And I love that more people are coming around to the importance. It's just a symbol, but it is an important symbol of the flag. Nat wrote on Spotify. I can't wait to see what happens on August 1st. I've got a feeling Donnie won't have many more trade deals than he has now. Will he taco again? Judging by the past six months, I think he will. Okay, here's my prediction for August 1st. Trump will have some new trade deals to announce, but it's not going to be still, it's not. That'll put us to 90 deals in 110 days. It's not going to be 90 deals. And then I think there will be some postponement of tariffs, some frameworks that he'll announce. It's just going to be the continued stretching out of all of this. The only caveat I would mention is that there is some reporting today and this week that we may indeed now be moving towards rate cuts from the Fed. I wouldn't put it past Trump if he gets the rate cuts he's been wanting. I wouldn't put it past Trump to use those as justification to postpone tariffs even further by saying, hey, you know what? The Fed now by having cut the rate is going to help us achieve some of the growth the tariffs were going to give us. It'll be bullshit, but he'll say it. And so now I can do another 60 day pause or I wouldn't put it past Trump. Send me your thoughts info@david pakman.com Three really important things. Number one, if you want a free membership to my website, get on the waiting list at David pakman.com/free membership. Number two, I would love for you to become a member@join pacman.com and number three, I would love for you to get on my substack mailing list@substack.david pakman.com we need the ecosystem to grow, to be robust, to be secure against the impingements of this administration, and to continue building the progressive independent media ecosystem. I so appreciate you. We'll see you on the bonus show. Marketing is hard, but I'll tell you a little secret. It doesn't have to be. Let me point something out. You're listening to a podcast right now and it's great. You love the host. You seek it out and download it. You listen to it while driving, working out, cooking, even going to the bathroom. Podcasts are a pretty close companion. And this is a podcast ad. Did I get your attention? You can reach great listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Libsyn Ads. 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