Donald Trump (3:30)

Obama should have done it. They all should have done it. Clinton should have done it. Obama went the other way. I mean, Obama decided to go with Iran. I mean, he was. I don't know how Jewish people can vote for Biden and Obama. They were absolutely on the side of Iran. They were against what we're going to find out.

David Pakman (3:49)

Favorite mayor.

Donald Trump (3:51)

Well, I have a very nice relationship, but I thought it would take a. At least maybe a month or two months before he went after me.

J.D. Vance (3:58)

He.

Donald Trump (3:59)

He hit me on the attack on Venezuela, which is pretty unusual because not too many people have hit us. That was a perfect attack.

David Pakman (4:06)

There's never been a better attack.

Donald Trump (4:09)

Think of what we've done. I mean, we've taken over a whole country. We're going to make the country strong and good, and we're going to ultimately be able to vote and put somebody in that they like. The oil that we've taken. We've taken $4 billion worth of oil in one day, and that'll increase. We're going to have it rebuilt. All the big oil companies are coming in. They're going to make a lot of money, and Venezuela is going to get some of that money, and we're going to get some of that money. And we brought stability to the region. We brought stability and much lower oil prices. You know, we have gasoline now down to, in many cases, $1.99 a gallon.

David Pakman (4:49)

So, listen, there are a whole bunch of problems here with what Donald Trump is saying. You know, he says the oil companies are going to rush in. They're not exactly rushing in because they are worried that this is actually going to be a quagmire in Venezuela. But Donald Trump is making a number of important admissions here, which is we are running the entire country. We are taking all of the oil. And if you were wondering, is it regime change or is it really about getting oil? Why not both? It increasingly seems like it is stupid regime change for oil. Even though the regime hasn't changed, they've taken one person out of it. But the vice president becomes the acting president. There's no election in sight. The generals are still in charge. The regime overall is still in charge. Plainly ridiculous stuff. And then we get to, well, who is going to be in charge there? You may recall that for now it's the former vp, a former vp Delsey Rodriguez, who has been made interim president, which is just another figurehead from the exact same regime. Well, what about Maria Karina Machado, the opposition leader of Venezuela who won the Nobel Peace Prize so coveted by Donald Trump, they didn't give it to him like a dog. But Trump wants that Nobel Peace Prize. I mentioned previously, Trump is not going to want Machado in charge of because he believes he is the rightful recipient of that Nobel Peace Prize. Well, in unspeakably pathetic stuff, Donald Trump says to Sean Hannity he would be honored to accept the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Maria Karina Machado if she wants to give it to him. And you know what? If that happened, maybe Trump would be supportive of her taking up the leadership of Venezuela. Listen to this. Let me ask you about Maria Carina Machado.

Donald Trump (6:39)

I've had her on TV this week. Yeah, she's a very nice person. Okay. She won the Nobel Peace Prize. When she accepted that Peace Prize, she dedicated it to you. She said to me this week, both on TV and radio, that she wants.

David Pakman (6:55)

To give the Nobel Prize, her Nobel Peace Prize, to you for liberating her country.

Donald Trump (7:02)

In 2023, she won over 92% of the vote to be the leader of the opposition.

David Pakman (7:07)

Maduro kept her off the ballot.

Donald Trump (7:11)

Do you have any plans to meet with her?

David Pakman (7:12)

And would you accept the Nobel Prize she wants to hand to you?

Donald Trump (7:17)

Well, I understand she's coming in next week sometime, and I look forward to saying hello to her. And I've heard that she wants to do that. That would be a great honor. I did put out eight wars, eight and a quarter.

David Pakman (7:29)

He put him out like peeing on.

Donald Trump (7:31)

A fire because, you know, Thailand and Cambodia started going at it again. I'll put the list. I give a. So it's. You put the list out as a hell of a list. But we, I'VE stopped eight wars. And I think, you know, it's been a major embarrassment to Norway.

David Pakman (7:46)

Listen, this is not satire. Trump would be honored to have Maria Karina Machado give him the peace prize that she was awarded. Now, there's a couple things just to inject a little bit of reality here. First of all, Alfred Nobel stated that once the prize has been awarded, it can't be changed. That is it. And so the idea that she would give it or share it with Trump is hilarious. I hate to tell Trump this, but if someone says, I give my prize to someone else, that doesn't change anything as far as the Nobel committee is concerned. It's sort of like imagine, you know, Anthony Hopkins, the great actor, won best actor for his role in the Father. Imagine that he were to say, I share this Oscar with Donald Trump. I give this Oscar to Donald Trump. For whatever reason you think the Oscar committee or whatever the Academy, whatever they call themselves, he's going to say, well, we've got to amend our records to show that it was Hopkins and Trump who co won best actor in whatever year that was. Of course not. Of course not. This is, quite frankly, this is increasingly, increasingly like what was happening with Donald Trump's father as he was increasingly addled with dementia at the end of his life, where they set up an office with a phone that he. That Trump's dad believed could make real phone calls, but it just went to a receptionist in the next room and they would put paperwork in front of him for him to sign. He thought that there was a real job going on and he wasn't really doing anything. It's sort of like placating Trump in the same way.

Donald Trump (9:19)

Yes.

David Pakman (9:19)

Here, take my Nobel Peace Prize. And of course, it shows up nowhere in the records. Maybe most delusionally, like, this is the sort of stuff you'd hear, sadly, in a memory unit of an assisted living facility. Donald Trump's been wondering whether he could slide down a rope like Seal Team 6 did. Very interesting.

Donald Trump (9:37)

But the safe house wasn't safe because they had blowtorches that go through steel like it's butterfly. They didn't have to use them, but we, we have. These are great people. These are really brave people. Even coming down those ropes, you know, they're coming down ropes off the helicopter and they run them. I was thinking to myself, I wonder if I could do that. I can have to give it a try sometime. But they do it like it's, like it's a stairway. Like it's.

David Pakman (10:01)

I say Trump should try it. I would love to see Trump slide down a rope and let's just see what happened. Now, these were the parts of the interview where Trump was saying things that were crazy, but at least we understood the subject matter. Trump did eventually get into the part of the interview where he is incoherently rambling and we don't know what it is that he is trying to say.

Donald Trump (10:23)

Ali Khamenei is now has a plan B to go to Russia or someplace. Yeah, he's looking to go. Do you believe that?

David Pakman (10:31)

You think the country is on the verge of collapsing?

Donald Trump (10:33)

Well, it could be. I mean, what they've done is they start in the past.

David Pakman (10:38)

It could be in the sense that I might invade and try to collapse it.

Donald Trump (10:41)

They've started shooting the hell out of people, and all of a sudden, people without any weapons whatsoever standing there and you have machine guns gunning them down, or they grab. Take them to prisons and then hang them and kill them. So they played rough. And I said, if they do that, we're going to hit them very hard. We're going to hit them hard. We're ready to do it. If they do that, we're going to hit them hard. And so far, for the most part, part, there's been some of it, but for the most part, they have. And there have been people killed. Some of them, the crowds are so big that some of them have had really, like. We're stumped on, literally, it was. It was terrible.

David Pakman (11:19)

Now, by the way, just as a brief interjection, I know when Donald Trump's appearance is as it is in this interview, many of you write in and you say, david, why are Trump's eyes, especially his right eye, almost completely swollen shut? Why is he seemingly unable to open his right eye? I don't have an answer for you. I just want to. I want to acknowledge it. I want to give space for that, because I know it will be in the comments. I'm aware of it. I just have no clue why.

Donald Trump (11:46)

Crowds are just. They're massive. The enthusiasm to overturn that regime is incredible. But there's been people killed, but it's more from death by. It's literally stopping. It's. It's people running in a certain direction. So we'll see what happens. We'll see what happens. They know, though, that it's a stampede is, I guess, the best word they have, like a stampede.

David Pakman (12:12)

So, anyway, Trump sort of saying, things could go south in Iran. And then in an incredible moment, Trump says now that D.C. is really safe. When people come from Great places like Iowa and Indiana. Not shithole states and cities, but good places like Iowa and Indiana. They can be very Safe in Washington, D.C. thanks to me.

Donald Trump (12:35)

Deal. Now, all of a sudden, when I came here, I was hearing stories about the kind of crime that they had here. People come in from Iowa and from Indiana and great places, and they end up calling the parents that your son has been killed. Doesn't happen anymore. We have a very safe. Washington, D.C. is a very safe city. We put our National Guard there. They're all central casting. You take a look at these guys. It's great. We won the case on merit, based on merit from the Supreme Court. A great victory, a courageous victory, actually. But we're.

David Pakman (13:05)

So it's finally Safe in Washington, D.C. again. And of course, Donald Trump mixing and matching a lot of different things. He attributes DC safety to the deployment of the National Guard. But the reality is that DC has gotten safer for a long time, correlated with national crime trends where crime has been declining. So there's no evidence it has anything to do with Donald Trump. It's all a complete mess. Finally, Trump does predict possible disaster for Republicans in November, but he makes the argument that it would have nothing to do with him. This is just the way these cycles work. And when a president wins, their party tends to not do well in the immediate midterm, which is generally true. Generally true.

Donald Trump (13:51)

And we've done great everywhere. It's amazing. It's an amazing phenomena that on two or three occasions, I don't know, it depends on how far you want to go back. But if you go back a long way, the sitting president, whether it's Democrat or Republican, always loses the midterms. Oh, even if they've done well? Almost always. And you know, you think it would be like a 5050 deal even if the President's done a great job. I think we've done a great job. We've done maybe the best job ever in the first year. But they always seem to lose the midterm. There's something down deep psychologically with the voters that they want maybe a check or something. I don't know what it is exactly.

David Pakman (14:34)

But why would voters possibly want a check or a balance on what the President does? So Trump sort of previewing, we may not do well in November, but I've done everything great, the best presidency that we've ever had. Now, some of you may be saying, wait a second, David. Missing from your analysis of this interview gone wrong is the fact that Donald Trump casually mentioned he's going to start Bombing another country. And you're right, that was a moment so outrageous from this interview that it deserves its own discussion. Let's talk about that right now. During his interview gone wrong with Sean Hannity, Donald Trump casually announced that the United States is going to start bombing Mexico. He does not use hypothetical language. He does not suggest that this is a mere thought experiment. It is not. Some people are saying, he says, we are now going to start hitting land in Mexico with regard to the cartels. We will talk about the legality, the political consequences and all of it. But here is Donald Trump very casually, you know, are we going into Colombia? Maybe. Are we going into Cuba? Sure. Are we going to try to take Greenland by force? Yeah, maybe. But we're going to start going into Mexico and hitting land, and we are.

Donald Trump (15:55)

Going to start now hitting land. With regard to the cartels, the cartels are running Mexico. It's very, very sad to watch and see what's happened to that country. But the cartels are running, running, and they're killing 250, 300,000 people in our country every single year. The drugs, it's horrible. It's devastated families. You know, you lose a child or a parent. I mean, parents are dying, too, with drugs.

David Pakman (16:20)

You know, we've talked about the difficulty of when you say, where is the headquarters of Antifa? Because it is really not an organization. It's this freeform, you know, kind of loose thing. We've talked about the difficulties of fighting Hamas in Gaza, because you're talking about a population that is intermixed with civilians just in random buildings. In the difficulty of it. How are you going to bomb cartels? How do you know who are the members of cartels for the purposes of bombing? But that's only like a mere technical detail. There's. There's sort of like a few overarching elements to this. First of all, the legality in the normal world order, you don't just get to bomb a sovereign country because you feel like it. Mexico is not an enemy state. There's no declaration of war. There's no authorization for the use of military force. There's no congressional approval. And just saying cartels, cartels, that doesn't magically make the entire thing legal. If the standard is criminal organizations operate there, that describes half the planet. That doesn't mean that the United States would be justified in starting to bomb. Now. Secondly, there's the kind of, like, alliance issue with Mexico. Mexico is not a random country. Trump can bully for applause, although that also I would be against. But it's a different scenario. Mexico is one of our closest, closest trading partners. Trump did his whole USMCA thing, which involves Canada and Mexico. Mexico is deeply integrated into the American economy. We are highly dependent on Mexico for supply chains, manufacturing, agriculture, even energy. And Mexico has a president, and that is President Claudia Sheinbaum. You don't bomb your ally and then act shocked when the cooperation is pulled overnight, which would be devastating to the American economy. Now, this is maybe the most dangerous part because Trump doesn't seem to understand it. Cartels are not governments. They are not an army with a uniform. They, they are not static targets. If the US Starts bombing inside of Mexico, the cartels are not going to complain by filing a grievance with the United Nations. The cartels are going to respond by kidnapping Americans, by killing Americans, by targeting American tourists and business people and aid workers and journalists. And they are going to do it immediately. That is how criminal organizations operate. Trump talks about this like a video game. We're going to start dropping bombs and win. Problem solved. It would almost certainly escalate violence on both sides of the border. It'll destabilize Mexico. It'll poison our diplomatic relations for years, and it'll put American civilians in the crosshairs. Americans will die if Donald Trump does that. And why? Because he wants to sound tough on tv. He wants to have stuff to brag to Sean Hannity about. And this is the logical and predictable end result. When someone doesn't understand international law and doesn't care about it, doesn't understand alliances and doesn't care about them, and basic cause and effect does not compute in his brain. Reckless, of course. Dangerous, of course. But this is the way that this guy operates and we have limited time to put a stop to it. Staying focused while you work can be difficult, especially for folks with ADHD. Maybe you've tried listening to music on YouTube or ambient videos, background noise. But the sounds and the music weren't designed for focus and they end up distracting you. Our sponsor, Brain fm, is a music app specifically designed to support focus with music. Designed by musicians working together with neuroscientists and because of Brain FM's unique audio technology designed to change the patterns in your brain. Brain FM is the only music app funded by the National Science Foundation. The app includes task specific modes like deep work, creative and motivation. It has a dedicated ADHD mode designed for brains that benefit from additional stimulation. And what really sets Brain FM apart is the research behind it. They published peer reviewed study showing their patented music technology increases activity in attentional networks and improves performance on attention based tasks, especially among people with ADHD symptoms. If you're looking for a science backed alternative to generic focus music, Brain FM is worth trying. You can get 30 days free at Brain FM./Pacman as an audience supported independent media program, the David Pakman show is primarily funded by you people who watch clips on YouTube, who listen to the podcast, or watch videos on Tik Tok, Instagram, Facebook. I want to say thank you to our two newest members, Justin Fryer and Felicia Barrera who signed up@join pacman.com thanks to both of you. You can sign up today and get instant access to the bonus show. We're also doing a huge one day membership special on January 20th. January 20th will mark the one year anniversary of Donald Trump's second term and it will mean three years left until he finally leaves office. If you want to take advantage of a heavily discounted membership heavy, heavy discount on January 20th, simply get on my newsletter@substack.david pakman.com the 20th in the morning you'll get a beautiful email. Perfect email, they say, which will tell you exactly how to avail yourself of this discounted membership. All right, someone posted this to my subreddit and I want to talk about it because it's serious. It's clearly written in good faith. It reflects something a lot of people are thinking, but maybe aren't sure how to say. The post is not calling for violence. The author is clear about that. The author is warning against using guns to coerce political change. But the author of this subreddit post is saying, shouldn't I? Shouldn't David Pakman have guns? The user is I'm Pink Snail and wrote on the subreddit why David Pakman should buy a gun and why you should too. Now, I'm not going to read the entire thing, but we will link to it. But the argument that's being made here is that circumstances are getting to the point that, as I mentioned yesterday, could be setting the stage for something like a civil war. And the article the post acknowledges that I've touched on how that would develop, that it wouldn't be well organized sides to the civil war with organized leadership and a precise target list, that it is going to be a complete and total mess. And essentially what this person is suggesting is that we, you and I, all of us, take proactive steps to manage the risk and being mindful about when we are in public at protests and all of these things. But shouldn't I, and maybe others have firearms now let's dig into this because this is something I've alluded to before and I've talked about with friends a lot and I think is important to, to address. By the way, the post is not advocating against gun safety regulations. It's not saying it should be easier to get guns. It's just saying, hey, we don't necessarily want just these right wing nuts being the ones with the gun. So let me be like super clear. I have made it a point. I've said I don't discuss whether I do or don't own firearms. I've decided there is no advantage or upside for me to say, oh, I don't have guns or I would never have them or I do have guns and here's the guns I have. I've just decided that that doesn't seem to have any upside. Broadcasting that may give people, first of all, it's information people don't, don't really need and it may impact people's perception of my views on gun safety regulations or whatever the case may be. Now what I will say is any gun safety regulation I support should apply to me. I should not be exempted from any gun safety regulations. And so when I say I support license, licensing, training, safe storage requirements, red flag laws, I would love to see mandatory insurance, all of this stuff, I should be subject to it as well. No exceptions. Otherwise these positions don't hold water. Now secondly, there are places where you don't just go and get guns. There are parts of this country where you have to demonstrate a credible concern for your safety. And as uncomfortable a reality is, that is I'm a public commentator that gets a lot of threats, I would almost certainly meet that standard. And that doesn't make me special. It just reflects the environment that we are in with regard to safety and firearms. Now let me get to maybe what is the most important part here. And this is the part that a lot of times people tend to avoid talking about. I would rather live in a country with far fewer guns. I would rather it be way more difficult to get firearms. That is my preference. We don't live in that country right now. And one of the things that I and my liberal friends have talked about a lot is that it's bad enough to be in a country with so many guns and with it being so easy to get guns, but being in a situation where the people who are armed are primarily the right wing extremists and militias and the political fantasists and the separatists and the Civil War people and the Whatever that is not a good thing either. Only the nuts will have the guns isn't a safety plan, it's a vulnerability. That doesn't mean everybody should be armed. Far from it. It doesn't mean escalation is good, by the way. It doesn't mean that were there, had there been more guns at any of these incidents involving ice, at no Kings protests, at whatever, it almost certainly would be worse. If I have argued many times, rarely is there a scenario we're just introducing a bunch more guns is a thing. So I am an advocate for fewer guns in this country. We aren't going in that direction. And so I understand the argument that many of my liberal friends make about asymmetric armament not being a great thing. Ignoring reality won't make it disappear. So am I suggesting anybody in my audience go and get a gun? Far from it. Far from it. And it is a completely logical, sane and fact based belief to say, hey, you know what? I worry that owning a gun or introducing a gun into any scenario raises the risk that that gun is involved in an accidental shooting or gets me in trouble or all of that stuff makes sense. The point I'm making here is the situation we have with guns in this country is an absolute and total disaster. And it is up to other individuals to evaluate what do they need their relationship to firearms to be. And to be perfectly honest, I feel far safer when I travel to. You know, as many of you know, I've spent a lot of time in London, spent a lot of time in Paris and other places. I find it much more reassuring to know almost no civilians in this country have guns, then it's really easy to get them and I can arm myself in some kind of potentially fantasy land self defense against all of the other nuts with the guns. That's not very reassuring. I am far more reassured when I'm in a country where I know almost nobody here has a weapon. I want to hear from you, what are your thoughts about this? J.D. vance spoke to the press briefing room about what took place in Minneapolis and the killing. Some are using the term the murder, some are using the term assassination. Those are not legally accurate terms right now, but socially and colloquially those are terms that are being applied of 37 year old Renee Goode as she was shot through her window and windshield of her car as she was attempting to drive away. J.D. vance of course, just a completely disgusting person lacking all gravitas and charisma and says, listen, this was a legitimate law enforcement operation and it's very important to understand that saying that does not actually confirm anything one way or the other about the shooting. So listen to what he says, and then I'm going to explain what I mean. On duty, or has he been placed on leave? On administrative leave.

Donald Trump (29:00)

And what really was the target of the absence?

David Pakman (29:03)

Operation on Wednesday. Ice operation on Wednesday.

J.D. Vance (29:05)

Well, first of all, it was a legitimate law enforcement operation. We were going door to door to try to find criminal illegal aliens and deport them from the United States of America. Because if you come to our country illegally in violation of our immigration laws, then we have the mandate and in fact, we have the legal duty to enforce those immigration laws. Whether he's been placed on administrative leave, I don't know the answer to that question. I'd refer to the Department of Homeland Security, and they can follow up. I will say, look, I would appreciate everybody saying a prayer for that. That agent. Look, in the past six months, he has been hit twice by a motor vehicle. One time, the first time it led to over 30 stitches and very serious injuries to his legs. This is a guy who's actually done a very, very important job for the United States of America. He's been assaulted. He's been attacked.

David Pakman (29:48)

Yeah. Okay, so the officer who killed Renee Goode is the victim. Of course, in all of this. Couple different things. Number one, J.D. vance says this was a legitimate law enforcement operation. Unfortunately, that says nothing about the underlying legality of the shooting. I'll give you an example. A traffic stop executed by a police officer can be completely legitimate. They observed an individual allegedly committing a traffic violation. They lit him up, pulled him over and asked for id. It's a legitimate traffic stop. That doesn't mean every single thing the officer does or might do during the traffic stop would be legal. For example, you can't unreasonably detain people during a traffic stop for hours for no real reason. Even if you want to get a drug dog out to sniff around the car, there is some limited time that you have to do that. And so the traffic stop could be legitimate, but it doesn't mean anything you do during the traffic stop is legitimate. Similarly, the law enforcement operation being carried out in Minneapolis could very well be legitimate. Although I'm going to come back to that. That doesn't mean that any action undertaken by any involved officer is de facto legitimate. Like, for example, shooting Renee Goode through the window and then windshield of her vehicle. Second, is the operation legitimate? And what I mean by that is JD Says they were going door to door looking for illegal aliens. Is that actually a legitimate law enforcement operation. Masked men are going door to door and looking to seize people with no warrant or proof of criminality. That is it a legitimate law enforcement operation. We're not going to adjudicate that here. But I raise it only as a question. I do not have higher hopes for J.D. vance. He is one of the most deplorable and disgusting people that I have ever seen involved with government. But even the basics of what he is saying here really leave a lot to be desired. Now JD Vance also never misses an opportunity to attack the media. And that is exactly what he did during this appearance in the White House press briefing room.

Donald Trump (31:46)

Being part of that network justify being shot?

J.D. Vance (31:50)

Well, being part of the network doesn't justify being shot. But ramming an ICE officer with your car, that's what justifies being shot. It's not a good thing by the way.

David Pakman (31:59)

But when you now remember that the ICE officer was not rammed with the car, we have the video. They are rewriting history.

J.D. Vance (32:06)

Somebody to engage in self defense. It's almost a preposterous question.

David Pakman (32:11)

How could it be self defense if the guy wasn't hit by the car and refused medical treatment saying that he was fine?

J.D. Vance (32:18)

I'm not saying that funding some of this stuff justifies capital punishment. Nobody would suggest that the reason this woman is dead is because she tried to ram somebody with her car and that guy acted in self defense.

David Pakman (32:31)

Understand that the video does not suggest that she was trying to ram anybody.

J.D. Vance (32:37)

That is why she lost her life and that is the tragedy. Now there may be other violations of the law and other penalties that that are associated with those violations of the law. For example, if you are funding violence against our law enforcement officers. I'm not a prosecutor.

David Pakman (32:54)

My guess is that anyway that has nothing to do with this incident. Now he's talking about other hypotheticals. Finally from JD he makes a statement that is so, dare I say Kafka esque, that it really strains credulity in the red tie. Yeah.

Donald Trump (33:11)

Vice President Vance, I want to ask.

Rand Paul (33:13)

What'S your message to far leftist agitators who feel emboldened to obstruct ICE activity in Minnesota and around the country?

J.D. Vance (33:19)

Well, I think they shouldn't feel emboldened because now they have an assistant Attorney General who is going to prosecute and investigate their fraud and their violence more aggressively than it has ever been been investigated in the United States of America. We are doing so much to try to find the financing networks and the domestic terrorism networks that legitimate this violence, that fund this violence and then of course engage in the violence. These people should not feel emboldened because they have for the first time maybe in American history an administration that is not going to tolerate political violence of any kind from anywhere for the first.

David Pakman (33:52)

Time in American history. JD Says we are in, we have an administration that won't tolerate political violence of any kind from anybody. They pardoned 1500 January 6th rioters. You are quite literally saying we tolerate political violence and we tolerate a lot of it. You know, the more I think about J.D. vance as a potential 2028 candidate, forget for a second, I don't know how many of you saw clavicular pointed out that the with facial width to height ratio of JD Vance's face is a disaster and that that'll really hurt him if he tries to run. He really is a an intellectual smurf and is going to be I believe completely unable to properly articulate why anybody should vote for him. So I increasingly think he is unlikely to successfully be a presidential candidate. The lone Fox News liberal Jessica Tarlov once again left her co host speechless employing two little things called logic and reason to silence the mayo brained people that sit alongside her. The topic was indeed this killing that took place in Minneapolis by an ICE officer of 37 year old Renee Good. She brought receipts. She was ready.

Jessica Tarlov (35:17)

So Jesse, you just said this woman is in severe crisis. She was boxed in. If you watch the whole.

David Pakman (35:25)

She was boxed in.

Jessica Tarlov (35:26)

That's what she was boxed in.

Rand Paul (35:27)

No, I said the team was boxed in.

Jessica Tarlov (35:29)

Okay, the team was boxed in by once she moved over, she pulled to the side and then she actually waves another ICE officer past her. Right. So she's in such severe crisis that she can be polite in traffic and say you go ahead and then you hear her actually audibly saying I'm pulling out. Right. She, she signals exactly what she's doing. She starts to move forward and everyone should go and watch. The New York Times has about three and a half minutes of footage coming from every angle and this is what they brought up to President Trump when they.

David Pakman (35:58)

And by the way, I'm sorry to interrupt. One of the things about this incident that actually helps is that the claims being made by this administration are flatly rejectable based on publicly available video. When JD Vance talks about self defense and when JD Vance talks about the guy getting hit by the car and all of this stuff, the video is out there. If you're willing to just look at the video, you know that what they are saying did not happen.

Jessica Tarlov (36:28)

We're meeting with him last night when he said, you know, the officer, the brave officer. And after he tweeted, I, it's hard to believe that the officer is alive when he walked away completely unscathed. We can see that on video as well. But the footage contradicts the administration on almost every level of what they've said. Renee Goode waving the vehicle by the officer was to the side of the car when he drew the gun. He leaned over the hood for the first shot. You can see that on the angle too, that he fired two more shots at arm's length on a 90 degree angle. And it almost doesn't matter actually what she was doing because she didn't have another weapon. According to DOJ policy, which they should be in compliance with, it says deadly force may not be used solely to prevent the escape of a fleeing suspect. Firearms must be discharged at a moving vehicle unless a person is threatening deadly force by other means than the vehicle. And no other means of defense exist, including moving out of the path. He could clearly move out of the path.

David Pakman (37:26)

Because he did.

Jessica Tarlov (37:26)

Because he did. And that's why he was unscathed in this. I don't know why. It wasn't good enough for Secretary Noem or the president or the vice president to say, this is a tragedy. We need to investigate this. And not only do we need to investigate it, we need the FBI to work with local officials on the ground in Minnesota, which apparently they do not want to do. And Governor Walz was talking about that as well. That would have been the responsible thing to do here. And talking as if there is no potential that this officer is at fault with what happened. Feels like you're getting a little bit ahead of your skis, especially when there is so much footage that contradicts the.

David Pakman (38:02)

Story that, you know, unfortunately, I, like Tim Walz, am unsure whether we are going to get a proper adjudication of what took place here. It is difficult to imagine that if the evidence was presented to a grand jury, the grand jury would not say, you got to charge this guy. Now, I know people love to say everything that gets brought to a grand jury is because prosecutors already know the grand jury is going to go for it. You can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich, blah, blah, blah. It, it is true that things get brought to a grand jury when they have already passed some minimum level of requirements. You are not going to get cases got brought to grand juries that are terrible. But I don't even think we're going to see that. We already see the FBI blocking a proper investigation into this shooting. And although everything, everything that Jessica Tarlov said there is correct, I'm worried we are not going to get a proper investigation and that we are not going to see even the potential, the potential for accountability Here on the bonus show. We are going to talk about the blocked investigation more. Good for Jessica Tarlov. Sitting up there with these people every single day who refuse to even accept what is on video. It's got to be tough. One challenge in covering politics today is that even when outlets are reporting the same facts, they often are framing the stories really differently. And our sponsor, Ground News, is a website and app that makes those differences easy to see. What Ground News does is gather coverage of the same story from across the political spectrum and shows you where the reporting is coming from. You can see which outlets lean left, right or center, and you can also see how reliable they are and who owns them. What I find most useful is the side by side headline comparison. You're looking at the same underlying facts, but it's clear how different outlets will emphasize one angle or a narrative or another. Ground News gives you a transparent way to understand bias without being told what to think. They also offer a blind spot feed which will highlight stories underreported by one side of the political spectrum and that helps surface items that I might otherwise otherwise miss or not even hear about. You can also personalize your feed by interest and that makes it easier to follow issues you personally care about. Go to Ground News slash pacman to get 40% off the ground News Vantage plan and you can also gift a subscription to a friend. The link is in the description Tulsi Gabbard is hilariously and tragically the Director of National Intelligence in the United States and she is in absolute shambles. And this one is particularly embarrassing because it is completely self inflicted. Now a couple of months ago, Tulsi Gabbard was out there confidently assuring everybody Donald Trump, who she works for, would never pursue regime change or interfere in foreign governments. It's not just that it's unlikely he would never do it. Ever, ever, ever. She said it flatly. She said it with certainty. She said it like someone who had special insight into Trump's worldview. He would never do this. Take a listen to what she said. The old Washington way of thinking is something we hope is in the rearview mirror and something that has held us back from for too long. For decades, our foreign policy has been trapped in a counterproductive and endless cycle of regime change or nation building. It was a one size fits all approach of toppling regimes, trying to impose our system of governance on others, intervene in conflicts that were barely understood, and walk away with more enemies than allies. The results? Trillions spent, countless lives lost, and in many cases, a creation of greater security threats, the rise of Islamist terrorist groups like isis. President Trump was elected by the American people to put an end to this. From day one, he has showed a very different way to conduct foreign policy. Oh, boy. You know, Tulsi, when she ran, said she is the only real anti war, anti regime change candidate. And of course, a lot of people fell for that. And then when she came around from the Democratic Party to supporting Trump and sucking up to Trump and ultimately getting a job offer from Trump, she insisted Trump is the anti regime change guy. And it turns out, and we know that Tulsi just waves in the wind. Whichever way the wind blows, Tulsi goes with. Tulsi didn't just get something wrong. She staked her credibility on a claim that has completely collapsed. The core problem with Tulsi Gabbard's political evolution is that she presented herself as this anti war truth teller who can identify those who are really anti war and against regime change because she has a special eye for it. She saw it through the Democratic Party, she saw it through the Republican Party. But what she's doing in practice is she is laundering right wing narratives with the tone of a moral authority that she simply doesn't have. And then she's shocked when people behave exactly the way they always have and exactly the way we've been saying they're going to behave. Trump has always flirted with regime change. This is the thing that's important to understand. He escalated tensions with Iran and he assassinated Soleimani and tore up diplomatic agreements and replaced them with bravado. You've got to understand that while Trump says, I will keep us out of wars, Hillary will start three wars, Biden will start three wars, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But then Trump's the one who's actually flirting with it. And none of this is new. What's new is that Tulsi Gabbard started to pretend Trump's really different. He's totally different. He's especially. Not only is Trump different from Democrats and Republicans, who are all for these regime change things, but Tulsi even argued that in his second term, compared to the first, Trump was going to be calmer and wiser and more restrained. But every single bit of evidence we had suggested that Trump would be completely unrestrained in his autocratic authoritarian aspirations. In the second term. In fact, Tulsi's presence working for Trump is part of Trump putting in these loyal, above all else, non thinkers who are in way over their head. And maybe the most humiliating part for Tulsi Gabbard is that Trump, at multiple points, has started to sort of isolate her. You'll remember when the Iran strikes happened and Tulsi had come out and said, we don't have evidence that they're really doing any of this stuff that Trump says they're doing with regard to their nuclear program. Trump just sidelined her. All of a sudden she was gone. And she's basically been gone ever since, that even though she's trying to work her way kind of back into Donald Trump's good graces. So Tulsi Gabbard keeps trying to position herself as the serious foreign policy realist here, the adult in the room. Every single time she ties herself to Trump with some claim, she ends up exposed not as a principled independent thinker. She ends up exposed as someone who misreads power, ignores history, mistakes proximity to authoritarian politics for having some kind of insight. And if this is at the end of the day, if anti intervention is what Trump has done in Venezuela, Iran, Yemen is threatening to do in Colombia and Cuba, it's not just like Tulsi kind of miscalculated. This is a full blown humiliation and total reversal on everything she said Trump was and everything Trump said that he was. The thing I keep coming back to is how do these people who are presumably closer to power than I am, how do they keep falling for things that we all know are untrue? I have no special access. Many of you who wrote to me and said, how is Tulsi falling for this crap? You don't have special access. How do all of us with no special access realize Trump's bullshitting about this anti regime change thing? But Tulsi falls for it. And the answer may be that being closer to power doesn't give you better insight. It allows you to be blinded by that itch, to be close to power itself. And so to some degree, maybe we actually have the more accurate view, not thinking to ourselves, what can I say to Trump to maybe get him to give me a job? Trump's not going to give me a job. It was obvious he was lying about the anti war, anti regime change stuff. Tulsi wanted to be there. She wanted to be next to the cool kid or whatever. She wanted to be invited to the party. And so I guess it depended on her not acknowledging these very obvious lies. That Donald Trump was telling. I've got a very interesting exchange where Senator Rand Paul, a Republican, a libertarian Republican, appeared on Fox News with Maria Bartiromo and explained to Maria, none of these justifications for what Donald Trump did in Venezuela are making any sense. It's a sort of devastating exchange precisely because of how small and calm it is. Maria Bartiromo is trying to run interference for Trump and she does it with a familiar script. This is about fentanyl, or as they like to call it, fentanyl and human trafficking. But Rand Paul knows that that's not true and he goes, venezuela is not producing fentanyl. And it goes downhill from there. This is very interesting.

Rand Paul (48:08)

Bombing another nation's capital and removing their president is an act of war. Anybody who argues otherwise, I think has a very difficult argument. So, yes, the Constitution indicates this should go to Congress first.

Jessica Tarlov (48:18)

Well, I mean, you know, in that sound bite we played, you were arguing.

David Pakman (48:22)

That, look, you know, I mean, are.

Jessica Tarlov (48:23)

We going to go and remove somebody in Saudi Arabia?

David Pakman (48:26)

I mean, with all due respect, I think the goal here is to stop the drug and human trafficking into America. And I don't think Saudi Arabia is sending fentanyl into America.

Rand Paul (48:36)

Well, neither is Venezuela. Venezuela doesn't export any fentanyl at all.

David Pakman (48:41)

What about cocaine?

Rand Paul (48:42)

There, there is some argument, yes, on the cocaine front, that there are people within that country. There are also people within several countries in South America that are producing cocaine. What I would say is, look, there is no love lost for Maduro. I've written a book, the Case Against Socialism. I'm glad he's gone. I've described how teenagers are scrounging for food in Venezuela. Socialism is bad. But there's a bigger picture here also between us making this decision. For 30 years, from 1970 to 2000, the Venezuelan people kept voting in socialists. In the initial elections, they actually voted in Chavez. And most people think the initial elections were likely legitimate. But this is the end result of socialist. This is state sponsored violence that occurred there. But what has to happen now is the people of Venezuela need to choose better. They need to realize that it wasn't just getting a bad person, that this is a bad economic system. So the oil companies have been owned by the Venezuelan government since 1976, the gas companies since 1971. This is not a new thing. So there's a bigger, broader debate we should be having here. And I don't think television telling the people of Venezuela, we're coming, the green guys are coming, we're going to run your country. Oil Companies will come in and run you like we did in the 19th century. I think that even our friends will resist that.

David Pakman (49:58)

And so Rand Paul on this issue is essentially correct. And the premise here completely and totally collapses. Maria Bartiromo actually admits the real standard, which is we do not apply the logic consistently. So Saudi Arabia gets a pass because they're allies. Venezuela gets targeted because they're weak and politically inconvenient. Politically convenient in the sense of doing this. Inconvenient to leave alone. Now, I don't want to totally redirect the segment, but I want to take a brief pit stop just to remind, and I talked about this on Tuesday. Nowhere in this when we talk about we're getting this drug, it's cocaine from Colombia and then there's meth and then there's fentanyl and then there's fentanyl and they're bringing nowhere in. This is, wait a second, isn't the drug going to find its way here no matter what if there is demand for it? If there is a mark, you know, free markets and capitalism don't work for some things and do work for other things. And one of the areas where free markets and capitalism do work is that they tell us that when there is massive demand for something, the market will figure out a way to supply it. It might be more expensive, but it's going to figure out a way to supply it. And why aren't we talking about the reason that there's this much desire to ship these drugs into the United States? Because there is massive demand. This is not a pro or anti drug comment. It's just the reality. They don't want to talk about that. Okay, back to Rand Paul when he points out that the justification here, if we're saying, oh, but these drugs aren't coming from X, well, there's no fentanyl coming from Venezuela. And yet that was cited as one of the reasons that Trump did what he did. FOX has nowhere to go. Maria has nowhere to go. There's no follow up, no correction, no counter argument. It's she just has to pivot to something else. And what makes it especially brutal for Trump is that it's not coming from the left. It's coming from a Republican that Trump says is a rino, a Republican in name only, but it is a Republican senator explaining that this justification for what was done is fake and he's doing it on right wing media. Funny. Bonus Rand Paul clip. He was speaking to a reporter about Lindsey Graham saying let's go get Cuba and Rand Paul says Lindsey Graham should not be going to the White House for meetings with Trump. Right. I'm wondering how worried you are about Lindsey Graham talking about talking.

Rand Paul (52:22)

There should be a law, Cuba, there should be a law that Lindsey Graham can only go to the White House every other week, that he's only to meet with under, you know, mid level people, not the president. And no more golf outings. If I can pass a law saying no more golf outings.

David Pakman (52:37)

He was on the airplane with him and he's pushing Cuba. He's saying Cuba's days are.

Rand Paul (52:43)

It's always been an anomaly because Lindsey Graham has been diametrically opposed to everything Donald Trump has ever said on regime change for years and years and years. And yet it's probably the quintessential political maneuvering beyond all political movement that a person so diametrically opposed to everything that MAGA stands for has infiltrated MAGA and is pulling MAGA over towards regime change.

David Pakman (53:10)

Yeah, I think that that's a really interesting analysis from Rand Paul where in theory, right, we were told that MAGA is different than the neocons because they are against new, new wars and regime change and meddling overseas and all of this. But somehow Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio and they're agitating for, let's not stop with, with Venezuela. Let's go to Colombia and we're going to Cuba and we're going to Greenland. Right? It's this building list of places. And it really confirms what is becoming increasingly obvious, which is there is no coherent MAGA ideology. When it was useful to vote for Trump, they said, this is the anti war guy. When it's useful to defend Trump's reign, it's of course we're going to go in and take out this narco trafficker and then get Greenland, which, why does Denmark have it anyway? And bup, buh, buh, buh, buh. The, you might say, what is the glue holding it together? Is it anti interventionism? Is it neoconservatism? Is it energy being as cheap as possible? What's the. There is no glue. The only thing holding it together is Trump. Do I find a way to support Trump or don't I? And you've got Republican senators now mocking each other, Fox hosts getting corrected on air by Republican senators. And the entire foreign policy rationale has collapsed because there is no coherent ideology. A lot of people think they have a handle on their finances. Then they look at the numbers and realize something's not adding up. And that is where our sponsor Rocket Money comes in. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that shows you the full financial picture in one place. Spending subscriptions, upcoming bills, paydays so things don't slip through the cracks. One thing I like is how clear the dashboard is. You can see where your money's going. You can spot subscriptions you forgot about, and if there's one you don't want anymore, Rocket Money will help you cancel it with just a few taps. You can also set up custom budgets based on past spending, and it just makes it easier to stay on track. Rocket Money will even try to negotiate lower bills for you by scanning for savings opportunities and talking to customer service on your behalf. Rocket Money has saved users over $2.5 billion, including over 880 million in canceled subscriptions alone. Each of their 10 million members saves up to $740 a year when they use all of the app's premium features. Cancel unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster. Go to rocket money.com/pacman. The link is in the description let's get into Friday feedback for the week. Of course, you can always email me info@david pakman.com but we will pick up comments, replies, etc. From Instagram and Spotify and YouTube and Tic Tac and all of these different platforms. We start with a really beautiful, inspiring message of peace and love and a reminder that even in 2026, the homophobia has not abated. No, he won in. No one in says David Pakman is a girly man. Just a reminder. We think about issues and we say, you know, I think we might be able to get some more of these political opponents on our side on health care if we just explain to them the nuances of the health care delivery system and how health insurance works. And then you realize this is the argument that some of them are making. David Pakman is a girly man and it's an unfortunate reminder. Listen, if one of these people is in your family and you want to sit down with them at the Thanksgiving table and argue, have at it. Be my guest. But I don't believe that we are going to start winning, regaining power and being able to actually do things to improve the lives of people by one on one arguing with people who say crap like this. I'm sorry, as an exercise in curiosity, go and argue with them and see if you can change their minds. But I believe that we need to win by making people like this guy irrelevant, not by arguing. Well, what do you mean David Pakman's a girly man? And what's your position on this, on that, I think it's a lost cause. In practical terms, have fun at Thanksgiving. But I don't think it's going to be how we win elections. All right, Todd Hitch wrote in on Facebook and said, david, if the Senate changes hands in 2026, why would Trump not get convicted on impeachment? What is the Senate percentage to allow a conviction to pass? This is a good question. We have talked. Listen. Seven days after Trump was sworn in a second time, I came to you with my hat in my hands and I said, Trump has already earned himself impeachment just on the basis of the first seven days of this second term. But. And when I would revisit the topic, I would say, the House of Representatives, I believe, has a duty to impeach if the President has done something impeachable, even if you are not going to get a conviction in the Senate. Now, the reason why, even if Democrats take the Senate, there is not going to be an ability to get a conviction on impeachment of Donald Trump. It's because it requires a 2/3 vote in the Senate. And in the best case scenario, where Democrats do take the Senate, which is not looking super likely, it's possible, but not likely. If Democrats do take the Senate, they are not going to get 66 senators. They'll be lucky to be in the low 50s. It's going to be a very small margin. And I don't see any way in which 12 or 13 or 14 or 15 Republican senators in 2027 are going to be willing to join Democrats to vote to convict Donald Trump on impeachment. I just don't see it. And if you see the math differently, then you let me know. Eve wrote in about Trump and Epstein and said Trump never says he was on the plane. That was common knowledge. He said he never went to the island. Now, this is written in such a grammatically abortive way that I'm going to have to clarify what Eve means before I can debunk it. I came to you last week and I explained we now can't trust Trump on anything he says about Epstein. Why? Because he's been caught lying. I played a video of Trump saying I was never on the plane. And then now we have records that Trump was on Epstein's plane at least eight times, meaning Trump lied about it. And my argument was we now need to independently verify anything Trump says about Epstein. What Eve meant to say. And again, I know it's, like, inappropriate to say. What is the first language of these Magas who Write in. And they're mostly American. And when I point this out, people write in. They go, david, that's. You're being so rude. A little elitist about people who can't write. They never learn to write, folks. I just, I'm trying to understand why do they always write in with these grammatical atrocities? Eve means to say Trump never denied being on the plane. Trump always acknowledged being on Epstein's plane, but he said he never went to the island. Eve is wrong. I played the video of Trump saying I was never on Epstein's plane. That has been debunked as a lie. Okay. All right. Next message is from the subreddit where Unique Lecture wrote in and said we should require all eligible voters to vote. This is an interesting one because there are arguments against compulsory voting, which I will get to in a moment. But what Unique Lecture says is, people died for your right to self determination and we waste it putting Trump in office just because Biden wasn't perfect. Other countries require their citizens to participate in the democratic process. Maybe it's time we did as well. So listen, there are countries that have compulsory voting. My birth country of Argentina has that. You can make arguments in favor of it. Let me tell you the arguments against compulsory voting. One, if you believe that voting is a form of political expression, forcing voting violates the way in which you can express your opinion. One of the ways you can express your opinion is by not voting. Now, the counter is you can show up and vote a blank ballot. You can, you've participated, you sign your ballot or whatever, but you don't check any boxes. But one of the arguments is the freedom not to vote is part of what is important. Number two, compulsory voting can push people who don't care and are uninformed to vote anyway. Now, the interesting thing is Unique Lecture and others argue we could prevent people like Trump from winning if everybody was required to vote. You're assuming if everyone was required to vote, they wouldn't vote for Trump, but they might. Number three, a movement that says we will abstain from voting together as a political statement can no longer do it if they are forced to vote. And to a lot of people, abstention is an important political statement. Number four, to enforce compulsory voting costs money and requires overhead and bureaucracy. Do we want more overhead and bureaucracy? I don't know. And then, of course, the people who, depending on how it's organized, are more likely not to vote in a compulsory system are those who can't get to polling places they can't afford to take time off from work, etc. So you've got to be careful about is the enforcement going to disproportionately punish poorer people? And also there is sort of like better alternatives that we haven't done that we should try before we make voting mandatory. In my opinion. We don't have automatic voter registration. We don't have an election holiday. Like Election Day is not a holiday. We don't. We need to do even more easier mail in and early voting and do better civic education. There are so many things I think we could do before just saying you are legally required to vote. That's my view. That's my view. Okay. Tim wrote in and said, if the Epstein files are becoming an issue, then what better way to avoid scrutiny that to start a war? How many times has the toddler in chief resorted to this playbook? This is sort of the. This is a distraction from that thing that often happens with Trump. And I heard from many of you about this and the gist of it was something like, Trump did the Maduro kidnapping to distract from the Epstein files. But then others wrote in and said, no, Trump did the Maduro kidnapping to distract from health care premiums doubling and tripling. And then others said, no, Trump did the Maduro thing to distract from the tariffs that are crushing the jobs market. I don't know how much of any of that we can really read into. I think there's no doubt that Trump understands the idea of just flooding the zone that, that I think he gets. But the specific, calculated nature of, okay, health care premiums are going to go nuts on January 1st. Let's take that first weekend of the year and go and kidnap Maduro. I don't think Trump's thinking like that, but there may be people around him who are. Michael wrote in and said Trump will try to undermine the 2026 elections and maybe even stop them from taking place altogether. He might do this by creating a national emergency, issuing some kind of executive order, or even bringing in the military. What plans are in place or at least being developed to stop him from doing this? I'm going to be really honest with you guys, ok? I know this angers some people in my audience. I believe we're going to have a 2026 election. I think we're going to have it. It's 10 months away and I think. I think we're going to have it. I think. I don't disagree that Trump is going to pull some of the typical tricks that Republicans pull to suppress turnout, but I believe that we are going to have the 2026 election and if you disagree with me, we just, we just have a disagreement. It's not a huge deal. Ronald wrote in and says brain injuries. My comment is that Pac man has brain injuries. What you want is that comatose Joe Biden to be in office. And of course this is completely and totally whacked out. This person has no idea what they're talking about. They clearly know nothing about me and maybe this is the first time they've ever come across my show. So good luck to you, sir. James wrote in. I love this. James says, if we buy merchandise with your name on it, aren't we just advertising your show? If that's the case, shouldn't you be paying us then? You know when you go and you buy Nike sneakers and they have a Nike logo on it, shouldn't Nike pay you because you're advertising Nike with the sneakers? When you go and you buy a Toyota and it says on it Toyota and it has the Toyota logo on it, aren't you advertising for Toyota? Shouldn't they be paying you to drive their car? This is not a very serious criticism, but you're welcome to it. What I will tell you is that the merch really is flying off the shelves. I've got the. What is this thing called? This is the dad hat. I don't remember. Anyway, I've got the David Pakman show hat here in the studio. The hats, the shirts, people are loving all of it. Unfortunately, we are selling the stuff. We're not giving it away. But if James doesn't want it, well, you don't have to. All right, we will see everybody on the bonus show and then back here on Monday. 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 libsynads. Com, that's L, I B S Y N Ads. Com Today.