← The David Pakman Show
The David Pakman Show
9/8/25: Chicago under militarization threat as authoritarianism grows
01:07:51
-- On the Show: -- Donald Trump sent federal troops into Washington, D.C., but daily protests only grow stronger -- Gavin Newsom teases 2028 while Wes Moore bows out of 2028, raising questions about Democratic strategy -- Trump threatens to send...
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- [00:00]
Dan Harris
Back to school is better With Family Freedom from T Mobile, we'll pay off four phones up to $3200 and give you four free phones, all on America's largest 5G network. Visit your local T Mobile location or learn more@t mobile.com FamilyFreedom up to $800 per line via virtual prepaid card typically takes 15 days. Free phones via 24 monthly bill credits with finance agreement eg Apple iPhone 16128 gigabyte 8 $2009.99 Eligible trade in eg iPhone 11 Pro for well qualified credits end and balance due if you pay off earlier, cancel contact T Mobile hey, this is Dan Harris, host of the 10% Happier Po podcast. I'm here to tell you about a new series we're running this September on 10% happier. The goal is to help you do your life better. The series is called Reset. It's all about hitting the reset button in many of the most crucial areas of your life. Each week we'll tackle a topic like how to reset your nervous system, how to reset your relationships, how to reset your career. We're going to bring on top notch scientists and world class meditation teachers to give you deep insights and actionable advice. It's all delivered with our trademark blend of skepticism, humor, credibility and practicality. 10% have here is self help for smart people. Come join the party. I was so proud to hear from so many of my audience members that you are going to be out there protesting on October 18th and many of you were out there protesting this weekend. The crackdown on Washington D.C. from the Trump administration is backfiring and I'm taking great pleasure in it. I love it. I love to see this. They had the idea of a show of force. We're going to send more than 2,000 National Guard troops to Washington D.C. iCE agents, masked federal officers patrolling the streets. And this has become not only an example of of a total PR failure, but it has really become an example of a laboratory for protest techniques that actually work. Something I wrote about extensively in my book the Echo Machine. This past weekend, the We Are All DC March drew thousands of people into the streets. They were chanting Free dc. They were chanting resist tyranny anti authoritarian messages as well as Trump must go now. But to me, the real story is what's been happening every single day since Donald Trump's takeover, which is these decentralized, sustained creative resistance movements. Now in my book I talked about really why small, repeated actions will often outlast big one time marches and the reason why the ongoing, smaller actions often have more shelf life, is that they're harder to police. They can sometimes keep energy alive between major events. They can create like a constant flow of visuals and stories that social media can amplify. You do one big protest, which is great, which I'm in favor of, by the way, but you do one big protest, it'll get a little coverage beforehand, some coverage during, a little bit of coverage after. But it's basically like a really steep distribution curve, goes up quickly and comes down quickly. But here what we are seeing is that because it's one thing after another, and the people with the pots and pans we called in, it's funny because this is the origins of that. The origins of it are sort of in Latin America, including Argentina, the country that I'm from. Casa de la Source is what they're called down there. The banging of the pots and pans happening every night at 8pm the neighborhoods are erupting with noise. And this is designed to be impossible to ignore without requiring permits and without risking mass arrests, which of course, if everybody gets arrested, the party sort of comes to an end. Right away. We are seeing protesters dropping banners from bridges. I was driving around, in fact, and I saw some of these banners. Mobile billboards are being driven around Washington D.C. messages are being projected onto buildings. These are really high visibility, low risk activities. They bypass the traditional nodes of control from law enforcement. And it makes them really great for this sort of activism. In terms of organization, there's a lot to be learned here because we've seen residents use WhatsApp and signal to alert neighbors. There's a nice checkpoint here, there's a nice, a nice checkpoint there. There are masked arrests taking place here. And this really turns every one of these instances into a potential flashpoint to publicly shame those who are carrying out these arrests. D.C. flag flags, excuse me, you see in windows, you see a protest graveyards that say like due process on a, on a, a headstone. The implication being due process is dying. Here we have seen ICE heckled and jeered by crowds. We saw JD Vance and Pete Hegseth heckled at Union station in Washington D.C. and what we are seeing is that this is working. And interestingly, after declaring war on Chicago, when Donald Trump was most recently asked, when are you going into Chicago? He said, well, you know, we're figuring out exactly where we're going and when. He seems desperate. And instead of de escalating, Trump seems to be doubling down and making even more threats, Posting AI generated war images of himself renaming The Department of Defense, the Department of War. He is desperate to project dominance, but. But he is rattled. Your activism is working. Now, I like to look at history. If history and protest dynamics are sort of a guide here, the daily actions hopefully feed into something bigger. Now, I already told you that on October 18, we have the second iteration of the no Kings protests. Between now and then, the way I see it is every small act builds capacity. People learn that, hey, there are things going on. The networks and the safety protocols are learned and understood. So people know when no Kings day comes, how can I protest effectively? But how can I protest safely and legally as well? And the more Trump starts to beat it off, for lack of a better term, the more it's actually giving it oxygen. Now, the most likely scenario, eventually, no kings October 18, is an escalation by Donald Trump. We're going to see, I would guess, even more aggressive policing. We're going to see possible curfews put in place. We might even start hearing about preemptive arrests of the organizers, sort of like a pre crime minority report type of idea. But this could get risky for Donald Trump because if you keep protesting and you keep activating, it may turn moderate critics of what Trump is doing, who aren't necessarily dead set on getting out there. They might say, wait a second, look at all this activism going on. And look at Donald Trump using authoritarian tactics to try to stamp it out. I'm going to get out there as well. And we could see this expand to city after city after city. Chicago may well become the next front of this fight because Trump is targeting it and because the mayor of Chicago and the governor of Illinois seem very much prepared to fight against it. So we are going to cover all of it. Unless something changes. October 18th could be the moment that this explodes into the biggest challenge against Donald Trump's presidency. I hope that's the case. But let's also talk a little bit about what's going on in the Democratic Party. Two very interesting things happened this weekend. California Governor Gavin Newsom made a post about January 20, 2029, and Maryland Governor Wes Moore announced he will not run in 2020, 2028. And so this is raising a very interesting question. Are we already seeing an effort to move pieces out of the way and to clear the path for Gavin Newsom to be the Democratic nominee in 2028? It's hard to believe that this is a topic under consideration in September of 2025. I get that we're not even at the 2026 elections yet. We still have special and off year elections for 2025 that haven't yet been resolved and will be in November. But let me go through what happened and then we're going to talk about what the implications are. Gavin Newsom's press office Twitter account tweeted an image from the Trump Rapid response account which was promoting Trump's new Rose Garden Club, I guess some kind of dining event in the new, very, very gaudy Rose Garden at the White House. And what the Gavin Newsom press office did is they added a little sticker over the image saying closing soon with the text 1, 2020 29. Of course, January 20, 2029 is the day that the next president is going to be sworn in. The implication here is that this thing will be shut down when Trump leaves office and that the person replacing Trump will be a Democrat and maybe it will be Gavin Newsom. So this is the first sort of major and direct reference from an official Gavin Newsom account to that date, the date that if Gavin Newsom is the nominee and wins, the date that he would become President of the United States. Now, at the same time, Democrats for once are blessed with a very deep bench of candidates. One possible candidate that I find super interesting is Maryland Governor Wes Moore. I recently saw Wes Moore speak in person in a relatively small group. He was phenomenal. If I had any criticism of Wes Moore, it's a similar criticism to that of Gavin Newsom, which is that Moore is such a good, natural and smooth public speaker that he can come off as almost too rehearsed. And sometimes when you seem too rehearsed, it can make you seem less authentic. Wes Moore is that smooth of a speaker that you start saying, is, is this authentic? But Wes Moore has now said he will not run in 2028. Before I let you go, you have not announced you're running for reelection. If you do, do you commit to serve a full term? Yes, I'll be serving a full term. I'm excited about reelection.
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Wes Moore
I'm excited about what I'm going to.
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Dan Harris
Be able to do for the people of Maryland.
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Wes Moore
Do you rule out a run for president, Governor?
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Dan Harris
Yeah, I'm not running for president. You rule it out. Yes. You completely rule it out. I'm so excited about what we're doing that we've gone from 43rd in the country and unemployment to now one of the lowest unemployment employment rates. We've had amongst the fastest drops in violent crime anywhere in the United States of America. Our population is growing. Maryland is moving. And so I'm really excited about Going back in front of the people of.
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Wes Moore
My state and asking for another term.
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Dan Harris
So Moore is out for 2028. Now I want to kind of give you the ups and downs of this. On the one hand, Wes Moore would be compete, competing for a sort of similar electorate as Gavin Newsom in the Democratic primary. So in that sense there's some strategy here. Moore might realize if it's more versus Newsom, Newsom might have the edge in seniority, in gravitas, in name recognition, whatever. So there's like a micro strategy to this. But I believe there's a broader strategy here as well. And you all know the Democratic Party has been terrible with strategy. But here's a bit of the possibility. Gavin Newsom cannot run for governor again in California. Gretchen Whitmer cannot run for governor again in Michigan. They have to do something new, maybe an elected office, maybe in private industry. On the other hand, Wes Moore can run for reelection. He's very popular in Maryland. Wes Moore is also really young. Wes Moore will be 50 in 2028. He, he would be 54 in 2032 when the winner of 2028, if they become president, could run for reelection. So imagine that some other Democrat wins in 2028 and at least runs in 2032. Whether they get reelected or not kind of doesn't matter because if you've got an incumbent Democratic president, they're essentially unopposed in the primary. That puts WES Moore at 58 years old in 2036. Now that's ten and a half years from now. That is a long time to think about anything. The strategy, the tactics, anything could happen in the next three years that completely blows up the idea. But a 58 year old Wes Moore in 2036, not up against Gavin Newsom, not up against outgoing MAGA, which probably means Donald Trump sort of, or gaining J.D. vance his replacement. That's probably better strategy for Wes Moore as well. So needless to say, more is getting out of the way. Many strong possibilities for 2028. We've got to get through the California redistricting proposal. By the way, I'm going to be joining Gavin Newsom for a livestream hoping to raise money for the redistricting effort in California. This is going to be Wednesday at 7:30pm Eastern Time. I hope you'll join me. It'll be everywhere. Everybody's going to be streaming it. We've got to get through the California redistricting vote and other off year elections in November next year. The focus will become the midterms and Democrats taking the House to totally shut down Donald Trump's agenda and then 2028 will start in earnest. But this is already shaping up to be a very early starting presidential election. So my question to you is, do you have a preference for 2028? Already Bernie has said he's not running, Wes Moore has said he's not running, Newsom and Whitmer have not said anything, but they are term limited as far as governorships go and their names are regularly thrown around. Kamala Harris has opted to run for California governor, the idea being she may be leaving the door open to run in 2028. I've already said I don't think that's a good idea. I don't think she can win. I am not endorsing anyone. It's too early. But what I am saying is I don't believe Kamala Harris should run. I want to hear from you. Leave a comment on YouTube make sure to like and subscribe as well. But leave a comment on YouTube telling me who you would like to see in 2028. If you were spending $6 a day on Cafe Cold Brew or drinking those weird store bought cold brew concentrates, I want you to know there is an easier, better tasting and more affordable way. Our sponsor Trade Coffee makes it super easy to brew incredible cold brew at home with beans roasted specifically for cold brewing. All delivered right to your door. I've tried a bunch of their cold brew selections. It is smooth, it is fresh, it's as good as any cold brew I've had and I'm very picky. 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He happens to be a Democrat. And Donald Trump, the peace president, the guy who would not do wars, the only person under whom peace will rise like a phoenix over the horizon, is launching a sort of war of his own against another American city. Donald Trump posted to Truth Social over the weekend. Where is my troth Central Truth? Central Trump posted an AI image of himself styled kind of like the war film Apocalypse now with the text I love the smell of deportations in the morning. Chicago about to find out why it's called the Department of War War. This is the President of the United States saying he is going to war against an American city. This is a hostile takeover. The mayor of Chicago, Brendan Johnson, doesn't want troops there. The governor of Illinois, J.B. pritzker, doesn't want troops there. No one is asking for this. And later we're going to talk about how Chicago may actually end up outmaneuvering Trump. But Trump says he is doing it. This is a huge story. Corporate media, but especially right wing media are almost overwhelmingly shrugging. This is a constitutional crisis. It was off in the distance back in 2022. We might end up in a situation where Trump tries to and then what would? Well, we're in it right now, but there is an exception to right wing media shrugging. Megyn Kelly says, sir, you can't do that. Megyn Kelly saying the guy who looks like a traffic cone can't just go into cities willy nilly because he feels like it. Take a listen to what she has to say. You can't just send Them in to random cities in support of just fighting crime like that. You really can't do without the invitation of a governor. So we're heading for an uncomfortable showdown with Governor Pritzker. We can't have Trump going in without the invitation of this governor. I'm sorry, but we can't have it. He does not have the constitutional permission to do it. It very clearly is not constitutionally permissible. He cannot do it. I really hope he doesn't do it because I don't want a world in which I'm siding with Governor Pritzker over President Trump. But I will if he does it because he can't do it legally. There are legal questions, there are racial undertones here. There's AI at play, there's authoritarianism. And so let's try to deal with each of these things kind of one at a time. Number one, sending federal troops into a US City without state or local consent raises legal issues. It raises constitutional issues. I've said this so many times, the Posse Comitatus act and the Insurrection act, they don't allow a president to do this. You're using the military for domestic law enforcement. You can't do it. Trump said, I'm the peace president. I will end foreign wars. It will just be a peaceful planet under me. We have a world and it will be peaceful. Yet Trump is now threatening to deploy military force domestically to yet another city. He did it in L. A. He did it in D.C. now he's talking about Chicago. There's a racial element here. Trump is targeting a city led by a black mayor and a Democratic governor. And this is playing again into the history of right wing politicians demonizing majority minority urban areas. They love that. And then this is also a part of a larger plan to normalize using federal power against political opponents. The absurdity and danger of Trump promoting that with AI generated war propaganda against his own citizens is like a cherry on top. It would be the story in and of itself if it weren't part of an even bigger story. And there are questions as to what this says about Donald Trump's mindset right now, because he's framing this in entertainment terms. He's framing it as like a movie style drama where he, he's the protagonist. And this is a theme of authoritarians. They see themselves as the heroes of their countries. They see themselves as the heroes of the world. And we have said before, if Trump can get away with this in L. A, he's going to do it elsewhere. And then he did, and Trump did it in D.C. and we said, well, if Trump can do it in D.C. he can really do it anywhere. And then a judge came in and said it was illegal when Trump did it in Los Angeles, but Trump now says he's going to do it in Chicago anyway. The pretext is, we've got an emergency. I have to do this because there's an emergency in L. A. There wasn't in D.C. there wasn't. In Chicago, there isn't. But it's really important for us not to be fooled, because there is no legitimate trigger for this. There is no emergency in Chicago right now that would justify this under federal law, even if you believed Chicago policing needs help, even if you genuinely and sincerely thought, we've got to do something in Chicago, you still don't have a justification to send in federal troops. There are dozens of ways you could help Chicago that don't require constitutional violations. So for everybody out there, if you live in a city that Trump doesn't like, San Francisco, Austin, New York City and Boston, many others, you should be paying very close attention, because we don't know what is the final stop of this complete and total fiasco. I doubt it will be D.C. and it's seeming like it's going to be Chicago. If you live in Chicago, please leave a comment. Let me know what you're planning to do here. Chicago may be preparing to outmaneuver Donald Trump, and it is glorious to see. We've talked about how Chicago is Donald Trump's next target for the militarization with American troops, but JB Pritzker doesn't seem like he's going to just lay down and take it. Here he is explaining what he is thinking.
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Wes Moore
Any National Guard from any state that is federalized now becomes like a military troop. They are not allowed to do law enforcement. They can come into the city, but they. They are restricted essentially to federal buildings, protecting federal buildings, if that's what they intend to do. That is legal. But they're not allowed to simply come into the neighborhoods and start, you know, imposing their will. There are laws against this. There is, in fact, unless there's some sort of insurrection, which there is clearly not, or, you know, an attack on the United States coming from a city, then these troops are not allowed to do anything other than any.
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Dan Harris
So Pritzker seems to know the law and he seems to be getting prepared for what might be coming. But this is particularly disturbing, the whole Chicago idea, because Chicago has been one of the sites of the largest peaceful protests in the country over recent months. Completely peaceful. So what does Trump do? He says, we've got an emergency here. We have a crisis so bad that I've got to send in the military. And this is straight out of the authoritarian playbook. And the way it works is the following. Step one, you flood Chicago with an ICE surge. You raid communities, you make arrests, you create fear. Your very presence will create anger and pushback. And then you say, look, it's too out of control. The protesters are coming after ICE now. We have to send in what? We have to send in tanks. We've got to restore order after. We are the ones that created much of the problem in the first place. We've seen the scam before. They did this in Los Angeles. You know, tiny incidents on a few two to three block radius, two, two by three block radius. And suddenly the narrative was, l. A is burning down. Screw Karen Bass, ignore Gavin Newsom, send in the troops. It was a lie when they did it in Los Angeles. It's a lie right now. And the cruelty of it, I believe, is clearly on purpose. ICE agents in Chicago are arresting women outside domestic violence hearings. Think about that. You're a victim of abuse. You now have to choose, stay silent and keep getting hurt or speak up and risk getting picked up by ice. This is, it's calculatedly inhumane. You've got victim advocates reporting that survivors are just skipping their court dates because they're too afraid to show up, which means the abusers get to walk free thanks to this policy. So this is not at all about public safety. It's actually causing the opposite. Now, Illinois leaders, they see the trap Trump is trying to set. The lieutenant governor, Giuliana Stratton, said there's no emergency and this is a manufactured crisis. And she is warning people, do not take the bait. Of course, go and protest. Of course go and protest, but do it peacefully because they're going to be waiting for any justification to scale this up. One out of context clip or one piece of footage that Fox News loops forever will be used to justify military action. They want a confrontation. They're hoping for a confrontation. The thing about it is that nobody is asking for troops. Nobody is saying. What would help Chicago is guys with masks and guns on the corner. Nobody's saying that other than Trump, what people want is health care, mental health care, good paying jobs, food security. They want education and opportunities that close the wealth gap. And instead, Donald Trump slashed $800 million in violence prevention funding for Illinois. And now he goes, we've got an emergency. I've got to send in the troops. So we've seen the playbook before. You cause chaos, you strip resources that would help tamp down the chaos. And, and then lo and behold, you have a really heavy handed solution. So Stratton is saying Illinois is not going to bow down to this. JP Pritzker is saying they're not going to bow down. And we have to see this for what it is, which is a distraction. I don't say that in the way of it's a calculated distraction. But there are significant cracks in the economy happening. This and we do have to defend against this distracts from the cracking economy, the tariffs which have been ruled illegal, the fractured alliances overseas, the fact that Trump has no plan for governance beyond I want to punish my enemies and enrich myself and my friends. And this is personal for Trump because Chicago and Illinois up to now have not played along. They don't flatter Trump. They don't pretend Trump's policies are working. That drives the guy nuts. And so now he's trying to pick a fight he thinks he can win. I don't know that Chicago is going to go for it. Chicago's organizing. Chicago's disciplined. And I hope, based on what we saw this weekend, Chicago is remaining peaceful. They are determined, I hope, not to hand Trump what he needs to justify going in. So Trump is looking for a confrontation. So far, Chicago knows the game. Chicago sees through the stunt and maybe without ever throwing a punch, they're going to be able to, to stop this. So we are going to see. I have video for you today that is the most presidential, most normal moment of Donald Trump's political career. Trump did squeeze in a little bit of nonsense into this minute, but this is video of Donald Trump speaking about vaccines. He basically sounds normal. He basically sounds like he's deferring to science. I have never seen Trump look this presidential. It's 60 Minutes in the last decade, so let's not go crazy. But take a listen to what Donald Trump had to say. Then we're going to analyze it, question.
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Wes Moore
The vaccine mandates that were rolled back for school children. What do you think? Well, I think we have to be very careful. Look, you have some vaccines that are so amazing. The polio vaccine I happen to think is amazing. A lot of people think that Covid is amazing. You know, there are many people that believe strongly in that. But you have some vaccines that are so incredible. And I think you have to be very careful when you say that some people don't have to be vaccinated. It's a very, you know, it's a very tough position. So I'd give you an answer. I'll give you a feeling. But just initially I heard about it yesterday and it's a tough stance. Look, you have vaccines that work. They just pure and simple work. They're not controversial at all. And I think those vaccines should be used otherwise some people are going to catch it and they endanger other people. And when you don't have controversy at all, I think people should take it.
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Dan Harris
Listen to that. Donald Trump basically gets it right now. We're going to talk about the why in a moment. But Trump said a bunch of things correctly there. When Trump gets it right, I'm going to tell you, okay, we have to be very careful at telling people not to get a vaccine. He's right. It's extremely dangerous when we say don't get a vaccine unless there is damn good reason, scientific reason, to tell people that. Trump says the polio vaccine is great. Trump says many people think the COVID vaccine is great. It's a little self serving because Trump gives himself credit for that. But ok, you have vaccines that plain and simple work and aren't controversial. Trump is right. Trump says if people don't use them, other people are endangered by those who choose not to vaccinate. That is absolutely correct. Now what's politically relevant is that Donald Trump's Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Has previously said there are no vaccines proven to be safe and effective. Remember this moment with CNN's Brianna Keilar where he denies saying it and then she rolls the tape. You have gained notoriety for your skepticism about vaccines and over the summer in an interview you said, quote, there's no vaccine that is, you know, safe and effective. Do you still believe that?
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Wes Moore
I never said so.
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Dan Harris
Stop me. We have the clip. Please play the clip.
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Wes Moore
I just talked about that. The media slanders you by calling you.
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Dan Harris
An anti vaxxer and you've said that you're not anti vaccine, you're pro safe vaccine. Difficult question.
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Wes Moore
Can you name any vaccines that you think are good?
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Dan Harris
I think some of the live virus.
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Wes Moore
Vaccines are probably averting more problems than they're causing.
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Dan Harris
There's no vaccine that is, you know, safe and effective.
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Wes Moore
What I'm saying is that none of the 72 vaccines has ever been tested in a safety study.
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Dan Harris
Okay, okay. There is no vaccine that is safe and effective. None of the 72 vaccines have been tested in a safety study. So let's get back to the science. The problem for Trump in being as presidential as I've ever seen him and saying telling people not to get vaccines is dangerous. A lot of these vaccines just straight up work. The problem for Trump is that he has someone running his Department of Health and Human Services who doesn't believe that any vaccine is safe and effective. So while Trump had his most presidential moment of all time, it conflicts with the guy he has heading up policy on the issue. Now let's talk about the science. RFK and other anti vaxxers love this talking point. No vaccine has ever been tested in a safety study. It's misleading and it's also false. Now the absolute claim they make is that vaccines are released without safety testing at all. The technical claim they make is that a particular type of long term randomized placebo controlled safety trial hasn't been done. And then they interpret that as no safety studies exist. So it's really important and I know that this, you know, this is nuanced stuff, but if we don't understand this, then we're not really going to understand what they're saying. Vaccines are subjected to extensive safety testing. There are preclinical studies, phase 1 trials, phase 2 trials, phase 3 trials, post marketing surveillance, etc. There's a misunderstanding about placebo sometimes what people like RFK and others argue is that because vaccines aren't tested against an inner saline placebo where you take a group and you inject them with saline, they don't know whether they've gotten the vaccine or not, especially in later stages. They say, because that's not done, then there isn't really a safety study here. And then in addition to that, critics say, oh, there are no decades long placebo controlled trials. That's really what you need. Now that's true in vaccines that have been proven for years because it would be unethical if you have a vaccine that has been proven safe and effective in preclinical, in phase 1 trials, in phase 2 trials, in phase 3 trials, you say we got to, we've got to approve this thing and get it to people because it's going to help them, it's going to, to save lives in many cases. And therefore it would be unethical to take a group and say for the next 10 years you're going to get a placebo rather than getting the actual vaccine and the protection that comes with it. For the same reason that there are certain types of placebo controlled trials with pregnant women that are unethical. That would be unethical with functional safe vaccines. Every vaccine has been tested for safety in multiple stages of trials before approval. There are certain types of studies, like the decades long inert placebo trials that aren't done for ethical reasons. But that doesn't mean vaccines aren't tested for safety. The anti vax people love that talking point. Now as far as you know, Trump goes his most presidential moment that I can remember but unfortunately he put in charge a guy with the opposite views and that's absolutely disgusting. One of the best upgrades I've ever made to the meals I make at home is Wild grain. Wild grain lets me have high quality baked goods ready at home whenever I want them. Wild Grain is the first bake from frozen subscription box for artisanal breads, pastries and pastas. You can customize your box online if you're gluten free, they've got it. It all goes in your freezer. You put it right in the oven, 25 minutes or less. No need to think, thaw, no need to prep, no need to clean up. They've got some great limited time Fall Items Pumpkin Cinnamon Biscuits My favorite Apple cider donuts. 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Start Mail is based in the Netherlands. Netherlands is known for very strong data protection laws. Your emails won't be scanned. Your emails won't be tracked. Start Mail will block those invasive tracking pixels so you won't be monitored by companies and by hackers. And when you delete an email in Start Mail, it is gone for good. Your data stays private. They are all in on this with a ton of features including aliases to keep you anonymous, strong encryption with your Emails, it is super easy to move to Start Mail. It's a few clicks. Migrate your emails, migrate your contacts. You really can't go wrong. Try Start Mail for yourself completely free for seven days@start mail.com pacman, which will also give you 50% off your first year. The link is in the description. Tomorrow, we're going to talk about the very clear. At this point, public signs that that Donald Trump's condition, whatever it may be, is getting worse. But today we have new video of a disoriented Donald Trump, again not understanding questions, again ranting and raving confusedly. And the makeup is still not tricking us that he is the picture of health. Donald Trump was asked about people coming into the country going on a trip to South Korea, and he just goes, why?
- [40:03]
Wes Moore
Huh?
- [40:04]
Dan Harris
And this is now a theme. Now, if you believe it's only an issue of Trump losing his hearing, well, there is no medical statement that has been made that Donald Trump is having a hearing issue. Take a look at this. Plans to go to Japan and South Korea this fall.
- [40:19]
Wes Moore
What does that mean?
- [40:21]
Dan Harris
What does that mean? What is that? What? What? Plans to go to Japan and South Korea this fall.
- [40:27]
Wes Moore
What does that mean?
- [40:28]
Dan Harris
Or do you have plans to go to South Korea?
- [40:31]
Wes Moore
I mean, we'll see, but it's going to be very interesting what comes out. I think we may have learned something, because when they come here and there's nobody that can do what they're supposed to be doing and they bring people, those people can also teach our people, you know, it's complicated stuff and something very interesting, he could come out of that.
- [40:52]
Dan Harris
Trump confused as usual. Did anyone understand what he was talking about? Now, the topic of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, came up, and Donald Trump was asked about Melania not being too enamored with Putin. But now Trump says, oh, no, no, no. Melania is getting along with Putin, just, just great. The first lady expressed she wasn't too enamored with Putin. You said you came home, you said.
- [41:24]
Wes Moore
You spoke to Putin.
- [41:25]
Dan Harris
She said, well, I heard he just blew up a village today. Has she expressed anything since you've come back?
- [41:30]
Wes Moore
No. The first lady actually got along great with Putin, as I did. But, you know, we're disappointed, Both of us are disappointed that this ridiculous work it takes.
- [41:42]
Dan Harris
Are you proud to see her sending the letter that she.
- [41:44]
Wes Moore
Yeah, she is. She's felt very strongly about the children. Yeah. Feels very badly about it.
- [41:50]
Dan Harris
Yep. It's up to Trump's wife to talk about the children. Meanwhile, Trump is, oh, I don't know, Putin was very strong. He made a lot of sense. I mean, why would Putin lie? Next day, even more rockets and bombing. But the first lady is really doing God's work. We're supposed to believe. Donald Trump was asked whether he's going to back off of Chicago. Now, this is a critical moment in this very strange press conference with, as usual, very loud noises going on in the background. Is he backing off of Chicago? Because even Megyn Kelly is now saying it's kind of against the law. Governor J.B. pritzker said, no, we're not going to allow it. We're going to be ready. Trump sort of, I don't even really know what he's saying. Take a listen. Thank you.
- [42:34]
Wes Moore
Plans for Chicago this week? No, not really. Not really. We will get a good someplace, which we're thinking, Look, D.C. now is 100%, and I don't want to say 100, but it's pretty close to 100%. Healthy, happy, thriving. It's a crime free zone. You know that. You know, you could go out to dinner tonight. Jeff, you can go out to dinner.
- [42:56]
Dan Harris
Even Jeff Mason could go.
- [42:59]
Wes Moore
And you most likely will not be harmed, you know that you won't be beaten to hell. Some crime, huh? There's still some problems. Very little. And within a week, within a week there will be nothing. Do you agree with me?
- [43:13]
Dan Harris
No.
- [43:13]
Wes Moore
It's a safe place now.
- [43:15]
Dan Harris
But you've been talking a lot about Chicago and there was no.
- [43:18]
Wes Moore
So Chicago's been talking a lot.
- [43:20]
Dan Harris
So Chicago, Chicago's been talking a lot about Chicago.
- [43:23]
Wes Moore
This week lost nine people were killed and 28 people were shot. The week before was seven people were killed and 37 people were shot. The week before that, it was the same kind of number. Chicago is a very dangerous place and we have a governor that doesn't care about crime. I guess we could solve Chicago very quickly, but we're going to make a decision as to where we go over the next day or two. When you look at what happened to D.C. in a short period of time, honestly, it's amazing. Over a period of 12 days. In other words, on the 12th day, we had the crime.
- [44:03]
Dan Harris
On the 12th day. OK, so Trump is like equivocating a little bit here. He's saying, well, you know, it's really Chicago that's been talking about Chicago. If anything is making Trump think about backing off, it is that even people like Megyn Kelly are saying, this is against the law, this is illegal, you can't do this. And then maybe most disastrously, a reporter Says, what happened to the price of, you know, beef and other things coming down because the prices are going up? And Trump's new explanation is none of his policies have kicked in yet. Kicking in needs to happen, Mr. President.
- [44:39]
Wes Moore
The price of beef continues to rise.
- [44:41]
Dan Harris
And other items keep going up.
- [44:42]
Wes Moore
Is there any way to address the cost of feed? You know, once it kicks in, once our policies kick in, the price of beef will be going down. Just like the price of eggs went down and the price of a lot of other grocery items went down. Beef will go down. It'll all go down. Energy has gone way down.
- [45:01]
Dan Harris
Remember, energy is not way down. Gas prices are flat and electricity prices are up 10%. Trump promised that grocery prices, food prices would come down right away. He didn't say that eight months into his presidency, we would still be waiting for the policies to, quote, kick in. And one of the groups that is now suffering the most is farmers. They are suffering so much, they are turning to prayer. Let me talk about that next. You know, farmers are really suffering right now in the United States. Farmers are suffering because of Trump's tariffs. And this was predictable because in Donald Trump's first term, farmers suffered as well, and Trump ended up having to bail them out. Farmers are not just, I don't want to say an inconsequential industry. I don't want to pretend any industry is inconsequential. There are some that are less economically stimulative. But the point is, farmers are uniquely important in the United States. Farmers impact whether we have healthy food to eat. Farmers impact a lot of other industries because farming and growing food is then transported, it's then exported. So it relates to transportation, it relates to foreign policy and trade. And also farming relates to national security. As I thought, we learned from COVID that our supply chains are more fragile than we would like to admit. And getting supposed to certain things like food and medications domestically, the MAGA right, has said, is important for national security. So farming is not, you know, you could argue, you know, people who work in some of these derivative financial instruments, they're making money off of money off of money. It's not really relevant in the way that food production is to national security and health and so many other things. Farming is extraordinarily relevant. The farmers are desperate. Here is video from. We're going to look at a couple of different events over the weekend. The farmers are getting crushed.
- [47:09]
Wes Moore
You said, I love Mr. Trump, I need to see fruit. And I've never been as worried as I am now about whether or not my kids and grandkids will be able to carry on. I just would like to see somebody help us get our market markets. But we need our exports and we just need to be paid for what we do, and that's not happening.
- [47:36]
Dan Harris
That's right. Farmers, what a surprise, are getting crushed again. And it's just such a frustrating I told you so moment. And I say it's frustrating because I don't get pleasure from that. I recognize the importance of farming for the American food supply, but I also don't want the farmers to suffer. And the saddest thing about it is we knew that this was going to happen because it happened during the first term. When Trump ran for his second term on just doing more of what didn't work the first term, all sorts of new industries were going to get screwed, but the people that got screwed the first time were going to get screwed, too, and that was the farmers. And it's gotten so bad. He. Here is video of farmers praying as Donald Trump's tariffs have put some of them on the brink of bankruptcy. They are praying. I hate to tell you, the problem is the tariffs. It's not the prayer. Until the federal government steps in to.
- [48:40]
Wes Moore
Save them, farmers have no one to.
- [48:41]
Dan Harris
Turn to but God.
- [48:43]
Wes Moore
Farmers. My opinion, they're closer to the than anyone else on this earth because we deal with your earth every day. Dear Lord, we're hurting you, Lord. We can't help what's happened to us.
- [48:59]
Dan Harris
This is terrible to see, you know, on the line. We can't help what is happening to us. This is a tragedy. And not every farmer voted for Trump, but a lot of them did. And so if you're against the nanny state, right, and it's such a, it's such a messed up situation. If you're against the nanny state and you would say, hey, they, they chose who to vote for. They voted for the same guy that screwed them in his first term and ended up having to bail him out. Wasn't it obvious that the same thing was going to happen again? Wasn't it obvious that if they took this action, this other problem would follow? And so I have huge sympathy and respect for farmers. It's hard work. It's work we need people doing. It's not always well compensated. It relates to national security, it relates to health, it relates to transportation, it relates to feeding people. But didn't they know that this was going to happen? It happened in the first term. So, so let me know in a YouTube comment, should we be doing something for the farmers or is that nanny state stuff the way the right would say and they now need to sleep in the bed that they made? I don't know the answer. They tried to suppress Donald Trump getting brutally booed, but it didn't work. Donald Trump made his first U.S. open appearance in a decade. The entire thing was stage managed to avoid one thing. Thousands and thousands of people booing Donald Trump. We have a report from Ben Rothenberg's bounces. The US Tennis association sent an internal email to everybody, Brad, broadcasting the US Open, ordering them do not show negative reactions to to Donald Trump. This was the men's final last night. The instructions were to get away from that. Don't make it obvious that people are reacting negatively to Donald Trump. Well, the first thing they did was Trump showed up early when Arthur Ashe stadium was still essentially empty so there would be fewer people there to boo. Unfortunately, people still boo and as you can see, they are playing louder and louder music as the boo. As people figure out who it is and they start booing, they start playing louder and louder music to cover it. All right, brutally booed. But then, and this is where it really got bad. Even though the national broadcasts didn't show this, people had cell phone cameras. People had cell phones. And when the national anthem is playing, being sung and the Jumbotron picks up Trump, it gets bad. And then the booing stopped when Trump came off of the Jumbotron and this happened again night that our flag was still there. Oh, say, does that star spangle. So every attempt made to cover up the booing and it didn't work. Now there's a broader story about authoritarianism here. Trump's appearance was not random. He's there as a guest of Rolex, the Swiss luxury watchmaker. They may be hoping for tariff relief on imports from Switzerland. The plan was to show Trump on the Jumbotron during the national anthem. It's really loud. It's harder to tell that people are booing. But it didn't work. And we still heard the booing despite all of it. The fan videos tell a very different story. Every time Trump comes up, he's getting booed. You can hear it unmistakably. And this is the same kind of reception Trump got when he showed up 10 years ago to the US Open. Now this is way bigger than a tennis match. This is a sport institution coordinating to shape political optics. They're almost producing a campaign style video. The talking points said that Trump was not to. They were not to show negative crowd reaction to Trump and it backfired. Because not only do we have the raw uncensored clips, we now have the raw uncensored clips, despite the fact that we now know USTA said don't show that stuff. So USTA here is complicit. Trump's authoritarian desperation to only be shown in a positive light is really visible. And for now, it's still a little different here than in North Korea. North Korea has figured this out. The real dictators have figured it out. When Kim Jong Un shows up. I forget what the name of those. Let me, let me see what those are. North Korean staged sporting event. Yes, this is the the grand mass gymnastics and and artistic performance event in North Korea. When Kim Jong Un walks in, everybody stands. They stand for 15 minutes. That's what Trump wants. He didn't get it at the US Open. Shame on the US Tennis Association. I don't have a cat myself, but many friends and family do. And lately they have all been talking about Smalls. So when Smalls came on as a sponsor, I wanted to learn more. Smalls is a fresh take on cat food because their recipes are protein packed, made with ingredients you would actually recognize from your own fridge. No preservatives, nothing artificial. Real food made for cats. That's why cats.com and Forbes both named it best overall cat food. Friend of mine recently mentioned their cat seems excited when the Smalls boxes show up. They tried putting it side by side with the old food. The cat went straight for Smalls, which is a pretty good sign for a limited time. My audience gets 60% off your first Smalls order, plus free shipping. Just go to smalls.com and use the code Pacman. The link is in the description. Donald Trump has already packed his second term cabinet with loyalists. He's threatened deportation as political punishment. He's expanded executive authority in ways we have not seen seen in modern history. These are real changes that are happening right now. And what's even more alarming is that a lot of the media is either glossing over the worst of it or they're reframing it so it all sounds a little more palatable. And that is why I use ground news. This is a news comparison tool, doesn't just feed you headlines, it shows you here's how different outlets, left, right, center, are covering the same story. And this is one of the few tools I know of that can really help you detect the political spin, the bias catch stories that your usual sources might downplay or not cover at all on everything from immigration policy to economic shifts. If you want to get a Bigger picture, a broader picture of what's being reported. Ground News is an invaluable source to keep you informed. And Ground News is offering my audience 40% off their top tier vantage plan. You'll only pay five bucks a month. Go to Ground Dot News, slash Pacman or enter the code Pacman in the app to get started. The link is in the description. Why is corporate media almost completely silent about the issue of Donald Trump's health? With very few exceptions we have seen now several days, Trump is missing, essentially vanished the most media obsessed president. And until the pressure got so big in the online and independent ecosystem, corporate media wasn't even talking about it. Trump has been going through these longer periods with no sit down interviews and, you know, no public events, just a couple of rambling posts on Truth Social and a blurry golf course photo. And given the growing evidence of actual health problems, swollen ankles and bruised hands and moments of confusion, you would think that this would be a major story for corporate media. But you look at the New York Times, you look at the Washington Post, obviously on Fox News, or you look at cnn and it is deafening silence on the issue. When Biden turned a poor debate performance into the biggest adjudication of whether he could do the job, it was headlines, it was a feeding frenzy in corporate media. Endless loops of him stumbling over words and opinion columns speculating about which of 30 different medical conditions Mighty hat mighty have had books written about how the press failed and Democrats failed and the coverage of his medical situation became a story in and of itself. But with Donald Trump, it's almost like the opposite is happening. It's kind of weird, clear evidence. And despite the fact that Trump is now older than Biden was at the height of that coverage, mainstream newsrooms are just kind of not talking about the story. The main contribution we sometimes see is Trump's alive. He, he's, he's doing stuff. The rumors of his death are premature. Part of this, I believe, is an institutional fear because for years the right has been hammering mainstream outlets with accusations that they are biased. The New York Times is biased, the Washington Post is biased, CNN is biased, Times biased, Newsweek's bias, everybody's biased. And so to some degree that has worked. And you got to hand it to them, they've done it effectively because they have made a lot of these corporate and legacy media outlets second guess. Do we want to talk about this? Because what's the backlash going to be? And it's terrible for a free press, but it's good if what you're trying to do is suppress stories like that. Reporters know they, if they run a tough story on Trump's health, they're going to be accused of fake news. Their editors will probably say, maybe don't cover this. And so to avoid that, they swing completely the other direction. They underreport the story, they bury the lead, they try to look cautious. And the result is really its own kind of bias, which is bias by omission. When the most powerful man in the world disappears for five days, something he had never done before, that's news. And when he at the same time has health problems that are visible but aren't being explained, pretending otherwise doesn't show neutrality. It shows that you're submitting. And it's not as if no one is covering it, right? I mean, independent outlets, progressive podcasts, YouTube channels, medical shows, newsletters, smaller investigative sites, everybody's raising questions about Donald Trump's health. They've been doing it for months, if not years. Side by side comparisons of how Trump's gait has changed, his verbal slips, interviews with medical professionals, analyses of how Donald Trump's language and vocabulary have become dramatically simplified over the years. The difference is reach. Because a lot of these independent voices just don't have the platforms of some of the legacy and corporate media, and because the big outlets leave a vacuum, you've got speculation and conspiracy theories that fill the void, whether it's rumors of stroke, JD Vance's claims that the press is lying by even talking about Donald Trump being missing for five or six days. So this is really not a story about Trump, although in a sense it is. This is a story about the role of the press. American history is sadly filled with examples of White Houses hiding presidential health crises, Woodrow Wilson, stroke, jfk, Addison's disease, Reagan's, Alzheimer's. And the press would either get stonewalled or they would look the other way. The public was misled every time. So we could ask the question, is Trump healthy? I think we know the answer to that. The real question is why isn't the press doing its job? If the mainstream media can turn Biden's hoarse voice into a national obsession, but they take Trump's days long disappearance and look the other way, like there's nothing to see here. That is an extraordinary skewing of corporate and legacy journalism. If we have a healthy democracy, we need transparency from our leaders. Trump promised that transparency, and on a whole litany of issues, but pointedly on his health, we haven't gotten it. Independent media is trying to do the work. Corporate media, by and Large is not. There is an exception. Ali Velshi on MSNBC did do a good segment about this. We'll talk about that tomorrow. Well, this is going to trigger the conspiracy brained MAGA people. House Speaker Mike Johnson made one of the wildest claims yet about Donald Trump's connection to Jeffrey Epstein, which is that Trump was an FBI informant. Trump's relationship with Epstein was merely to inform on him to the FBI. You've got to hear this. And the number of ways in which this is totally wacky. Check it out. He's not saying that what Epstein did is a hoax. It's a terrible, unspeakable evil. He believes that himself. When he first heard the rumor, he kicked him out of Mar A Lago. He was an FBI informant to try to take this stuff down. The President knows and has great sympathy for the women who have suffered these unspeakable harms. He was an FBI informant and he was trying to take this stuff down. Now, there's a critical detail about this from the Daily Beast that kind of explains everything. And that quote is. When asked to confirm his claim that Trump was an FBI informant, a spokesperson for Johnson sent the Daily Beast the following statement. The speaker is reiterating what the victim's attorney said, which is that Donald Trump, who kicked Epstein out of Mar A Lago, was the only one more than a decade ago willing to help prosecutors expose Epstein for being a disgusting child predator. So this is unfortunately about the words being used. When Mike Johnson says Trump was an FBI informant, he is using the term in the way law enforcement usually does. So we're talking about someone who is recognized by the FBI, regularly provides information in exchange for. Sometimes it's immunity, sometimes it's reduced charges, sometimes it's just cash. It's a documented relationship. You often have a handler. There are reports, there are sometimes legal agreements. Johnson used the term FBI informant, but that's not what he meant. What Johnson is trying to do is rebrand the decades old claim that Trump once passed info about Epstein to authorities and say he was an FBI informant. But there's no indication that Trump was an FBI informant. And even Johnson's office is now saying, we're kind of just repeating what somebody else said. Now, interestingly, FBI informants are often criminals themselves. And the reason they're informing is it's a way to avoid prison. They meet with agents, they wear wires, they help build a case. They don't just call once and go, hey, Epstein, that's not how being an FBI informant works. If Trump were really An FBI informant. There would be records, there would be handler notes. There would be some kind of cooperation, if such a thing existed. And by the way, it's not something Trump would sit quietly on for decades. This is a guy who brags about winning golf tournaments when he was the only player. If that was real, Trump would have already talked about it. Now, the problem with Johnson's loose use of the term is actually bigger than just the fact that it doesn't seem Trump was an FBI informant. Epstein wasn't kicked out of Mar A Lago right after Donald Trump supposedly found out what Epstein was up to. It took over a year after Epstein's indictment. So that's also a lie. And if Trump was helping the FBI, remember that there are rumors that Epstein was Mossad. A lot of the same deep staters believe that Epstein was working as an intelligence officer for the Israeli Mossad. If that were true, you're saying that it's an FBI informant informing about a Mossad informant or asset. None of this makes any sense whatsoever. And the funniest part of MAGA Mike Johnson saying this is that MAGA world has spent years painting FBI informants as the ultimate villains, painting FBI assets as the ultimate villains. Think back to the January six riots. They were FBI assets. There's nothing worse that you could be. Informants are deep state plants. They're government snitches. They're the real reason that January 6th was fake. And so the conservative media that has spent endless years now demonizing people who work for the FBI, insisting that it's part of a conspiracy to frame Trump. Now all of a sudden, Johnson goes, oh, he was an FBI informant in order to defend Donald Trump. It's an instant reversal of the conditioning that they've given maga. And this is the problem with the Epstein story. They conditioned MAGA one way for years, and now they're going, actually, there's not really anything to see. Oh, Trump was going to show you all the stuff that there was to see. There really isn't anything to see. Oh, no, the FBI is terrible and working with the means. You're part of the deep state. Trump was working with the FBI. They will say anything about any issue if it'll work to defend Donald Trump. Now on the bonus show today, when we are going to talk about young Democrats eager to unseat older Democrats, but young Republicans seem more okay, waiting. Why is that? We'll also talk about the artificial food dye stuff related to RFK Jr. A lot of interesting new details coming out about that. We will also talk about how Republican leaders are not going to help Thomas Massie get himself reelected because Donald Trump actually wants him out. Civil war is growing. Get instant access to the bonus show. I encourage you to sign up the number one funding source for the show membership at join pacman.com get a half price membership by using the coupon code. It will end soon. I'll see you on the bonus show. I'll be back here tomorrow. 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. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements or run a pre produced ad like this one across thousands of shows. To reach your target audience in their favorite podcasts with Libsyn Ads, go to Libsyn ads.com that's L I B S Y N ads.com today.