ICE losing the country as Trump goes bad in Detroit

Summary

The David Pakman Show

Episode: ICE losing the country as Trump goes bad in Detroit

Date: January 14, 2026
Host: David Pakman

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Overview

In this episode, David Pakman delivers a sharp, fact-based analysis centered on the unraveling state of immigration enforcement (ICE) under the Trump administration, public outrage following a fatal ICE shooting, and a disastrous appearance by Donald Trump in Detroit. The episode weaves together commentary, on-the-ground reactions, significant interviews (including Tony Dokoupil’s interview with Trump), and feedback from influential voices like Joe Rogan and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The broader theme: how the politicization of law enforcement and the increasingly erratic behavior from Trump are shaking public confidence, fanning protest, and even alienating prior allies.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. ICE’s Public Legitimacy Crisis

[00:28–07:36]

• ICE agents report feeling “terrified” of the public and afraid to be seen driving marked cars or performing routine operations.
• Pakman attributes this to ICE being politicized and weaponized, leading to widespread public disdain, not support, contrary to Trump’s claims.
• Catalyst: Widespread protests erupted after ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot and killed unarmed civilian Renee Goode, a Minneapolis mother of three; official justifications are under scrutiny due to video footage.
• Approval ratings for ICE have plummeted, with polling showing a major net negative; agents face public hostility (gun signs, heckling, noisy protests outside hotels).
• Pakman slams the current crop of ICE recruits as “motivated not by civic purpose, but a chance to feel big...to escape their insecurities with their badges and guns and masks.”
• Protesters, in contrast, are motivated by values and democracy: “The protesters aren’t there for a paycheck or a power trip. They are there because they think it matters.” (David Pakman, 06:43)

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2. Trump’s Detroit Speech: Lies, Incoherence, and Public Backlash

[07:36–16:27]

• Trump’s latest speech in Detroit was met with “total confusion, no applause, no energy”—audience unresponsive, even when he lied about winning the popular vote.

  Key Moments:

  • On Tariffs: Trump claims tariffs are helping Michigan, but “the audience knows that this has been a disaster.” (Pakman, 10:59)
  • Popular Vote Lies: “I won the popular vote all three times, stupid.” (Donald Trump, 11:30)—Pakman immediately debunks this, noting Trump only won once.
  • Rambles on Economics: Trump bungles the logic of interest rates and market reactions, leaving even his supporters baffled:
    • “When there’s good news, the market should go up, not go down. Does that make sense to everybody?” (Donald Trump, 13:40)
  • Mockery of Biden’s Health: Trump cruelly mocks Joe Biden’s cancer-related cough, drawing silence—“even for Donald Trump.”
  • Fabricated Achievements: Claims “Inflation is defeated” and $18 trillion in new investment—both flatly false.
    • “He wants you to believe he flew back from the Middle East with cash in the belly of the plane.” (Pakman, 16:27)
  • Audience Reaction: Only applauds for imaginary investment numbers. Pakman notes, “It was dilapidated, it was disgusting, it was borderline demented.”

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3. Trump’s Ford Factory Outburst: Losing Control

[19:25–25:49]

• During a Ford factory tour, a UAW worker (TJ Cebulla) heckles Trump (“pedophile protector”). Trump responds by mouthing “F*** you” twice and flipping him off with his middle finger.
  • White House Communications Director Stephen Chung: “A lunatic was wildly screaming expletives…The President gave an appropriate and unambiguous response.”
• TJ Cebulla is now suspended; a GoFundMe for him has raised $150,000; he stands by his actions: “No regrets whatsoever.”
• Pakman’s analysis: The episode exposes Trump’s inability to absorb public criticism or maintain composure, even in controlled environments—“These are both signs of disinhibition…sometimes a symptom of cognitive decline.”
• “When the guy yelled ‘pedophile protector,’ Trump instantly knew it was directed at him.” (Pakman, 22:10)
• Authoritarian reactions, lack of self-control, and fear of humiliation are underscored.

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4. Trump’s Interview Meltdown with Tony Dokoupil

[32:45–42:41]

• CBS’s Tony Dokoupil presses Trump on the ICE shooting of Renee Goode and the administration’s rapid branding of her as a domestic terrorist.
  • Trump is confused, rambles, shows zero empathy, pivots to unrelated attacks on “murderers” let in by Biden, and references “tough actions,” conflating facts.
  • Memorable quote:
    • “I would bet you that she, under normal circumstances, was a very solid, wonderful person. But you know, her actions were pretty tough.” (Trump, 34:25)
    • Dokoupil: “Her actions were rough? I’m not mad at you. And then she pulled away, away from the situation.” (35:10)
• Dokoupil asks about limits on presidential power: Trump flatly says only “my morality” is a limit—not the Constitution, courts, or laws.
  • “I have a very high grade of morality, so that no one’s ever seen higher morality than Trump.” (Donald Trump, 36:44)
  • Pakman: “Spoken like a true authoritarian.”
• Trump repeats economic falsehoods—record jobs, no inflation, $2 trillion investments from Gulf monarchies—none credible.
  • “He didn’t bring back any money from the Middle East. Trump says he ended eight wars. We looked at that one already in detail.” (Pakman, 39:19)
• When Dokoupil raises worker shortages, Trump pivots to robots as the solution, not understanding ramifications for jobs.
  • “Robots mean people actually are out of jobs rather than having jobs. I don’t think Trump understands even the basics about economics.” (Pakman, 42:41)

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5. Trump’s Authoritarian Overreach and Legal Fictions

[42:41–47:10]

• Trump again promises to deny federal funding to “sanctuary states/cities,” despite uniform Supreme Court rejections and explicit constitutional constraints.
  • Gavin Newsom’s office: “Please pray for the President as he struggles with cognitive decline. He already forgot he tried this before…And we sued him and won.” (Pakman, 44:41)
• Bizarre talk of “buying Greenland” via “Naito” (Trump’s persistent NATO misspeak) — again, legally impossible, and dismissed by all parties involved.

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6. Joe Rogan Turns on Trump & ICE

[50:20–54:52]

• In a notable shift, Joe Rogan—formerly supportive of Trump—publicly condemns ICE’s conduct after the Goode shooting:
  • “It’s also very ugly to watch someone shoot a US citizen, especially a woman, in the face…It just looked horrific to me.” (Joe Rogan, 50:55)
• Rogan’s concerns:
  • ICE agents masked and anonymous; public can’t verify their credentials, raising risk of criminal impersonation.
  • “ICE are villains. And now people are looking at them like murderous military people that are on the streets of our city.” (52:16)
  • Warns against “militarized people…roaming around snatching people up…Are we really going to be the Gestapo? Where’s your papers?” (Rogan, 54:38)
  • Pakman notes the significance of Rogan’s criticism, given his broad audience and prior MAGA leanings: “When you lose Rogan, listen.”

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7. Impeachment: Looming, Justified, but Politically Fraught

[56:15–58:59]

• Trump repeatedly warns Republicans he’d be impeached if his party loses Congress.
  • “There are a lot of good reasons, by the way. Trump suggests they’ll have to look really long and hard to find a reason. But there are many reasons.” (Pakman, 56:29)
• AOC (“Absolutely, absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt” (AOC, 57:55)) and others lay out a “litany” of impeachable acts: unlawful Venezuela actions, DOJ weaponization, defiance of oversight, seizure of funds.
• Pakman’s view: The impeachment case is overwhelming, but political calculus (Senate math) tempers expectations.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On ICE’s plight:
  “A profession that once had public support should not have its defenders cowering at the sight of their own vehicles.” (Pakman, 06:28)

• On Trump’s morality:
  “It’s limited by my morality, and I have a very high grade of morality, so that no one’s ever seen higher morality than Trump.” (Trump, 36:44)

• On lost legitimacy:
  “Joe Rogan plainly saying the entire immigration enforcement apparatus has gone completely off the rails. And when you lose Rogan, listen.” (Pakman, 00:57)

• On the Ford factory incident:
  “Even horrible, terrible dictators understand that when they react this way—'F you,' middle finger—they look weak and they have the self-control not to do it.” (Pakman, 23:12)

• On the dangers of ICE’s new tactics:
  “If you get arrested by an ICE agent, you have no such right…And that's a problem on our city streets.” (Rogan, 52:16)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

| Segment | Timestamps | |--------------------------------------------------------|--------------| | ICE Crisis & Shooting of Renee Goode | 00:28–07:36 | | Trump’s Disastrous Detroit Speech | 07:36–16:27 | | Ford Factory Outburst/Trump Loses Control | 19:25–25:49 | | Interview: Tony Dokoupil & Trump | 32:45–42:41 | | Trump’s Sanctuary Cities/Government Overreach | 42:41–47:10 | | Joe Rogan Scores ICE as “Villains” | 50:20–54:52 | | Impeachment Talk (AOC and Congressional Response) | 56:15–58:59 |

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Additional Insights & Context

• Overall Tone: Pakman’s tone is analytical, wry, and biting, balancing fact-checks with dry humor and an underlying note of alarm.
• Repeated Themes: The authoritarian drift of the Trump administration, loss of control by Trump in public, and the dangerous consequences of politicizing law enforcement.
• Contrast with Protesters: Protesters are presented as values-driven and idealistic, in opposition to what Pakman frames as a drummed-up, demoralized, and poorly trained ICE force.

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Final Thoughts

Pakman paints a grim but clear picture of governance in crisis: ICE in fear of the populace, Trump reeling from a hostile crowd and public humiliation, disjointed and dangerous statements on economic and international affairs, and growing calls for constitutional accountability. Perhaps most telling is the collapse of support even among previous Trump allies—a shift symbolized by Joe Rogan’s on-air disillusionment. The episode closes with an air of urgency: the nation, and its institutions, are dangerously off course.

Transcript

[David Pakman]

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[Tony Decouple]

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[David Pakman]

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[Tony Decouple]

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[David Pakman]

Qualifying credit required. ICE agents are having a real problem. And the problem is that they have been sent into situations so deplorable and despicable that they are now afraid of the public, afraid to drive marked cars, afraid to do routine operations. And this is what happens when you turn law enforcement into a political weapon. And now there are consequences. We will then go to Detroit, where Donald Trump's audience was in stunned silence as he rambled, lied about the popular vote, mangled basic economics, and even mocked a cancer patient. No applause, no energy, total confusion. And it gets worse because Trump then flipped off a heckler during a visit to a Ford factory, mouthed F you. And the White House says it was an appropriate response to what the heckler was doing. We will break it down and it's really about Trump's lack of control. And and then Tony Decouple interviewed Donald Trump and it did not go well. And it was followed up by a complete and total truth social meltdown. We also have really interesting video of Joe Rogan plainly saying the entire immigration enforcement apparatus has gone completely off the rails. And when you lose Rogan, listen, we will talk about it. Impeachment, is it coming or not? Well, it seems to be getting closer, that's for sure. All of that and more today. We start today with a story that is sort of so obvious, I'm surprised it took this long. ICE agents now realizing that they are despised. No matter what Donald Trump says about how much the public loves what they're doing, they realize they are so despised that they are terrified to be out in public. This is what happens when a government turns law enforcement into a political weapon and then doesn't grapple with the consequences, which is what's going on. ICE agents are now admitting that they are afraid of the public. They're afraid to drive marked vehicles. They're afraid to do routine operations. They're afraid that large swaths of the country now see them as these menacing presences rather than protectors of public safety. That is not a fear that just popped up spontaneously for no reason. Whatsoever. It has been building and building as Americans don't like, on average, the immigration enforcement, if you can call it that, of this administration. And this latest escalation was triggered when an ICE agent, Jonathan Ross, shot and killed an unarmed civilian, 37 year old mother, Renee Good, during the operation in Minneapolis. And that has sparked national outrage and also protests. Now, as we all know, Goode was not a criminal. She was not armed. She was the mother of three, described by her family as compassionate and devoted. And she was shot three times in her vehicle. And the federal government's initial justification, which she was trying to run over ICE officers, has been widely called into question, including by the video that has been released. I will mention there is a new angle to the video which some are saying proves Good hit Ross with her car. What I see when I watch the video is Ross first of all stepping in front of the vehicle, which you are not supposed to do, and then leaning forward to make contact with the vehicle, then used as justification for shooting Renee Goode. But that's not what this segment is about. I just want to mention I have seen that, that video. So what is the result of what has taken place? It's a historic collapse in public support for ICE. Polling shows that ICE's approval rating went from a net positive to deeply, deeply negative during the year that Donald Trump has been president. Majorities of the country now disapprove of ICE and disapprove of ICE's use of force. Agents are being met with all sorts of hostile gestures and this includes drivers making gun signs as they pass ICE patrols following heckling, banging pots and honking horns outside of hotels where ICE is known to be staying. And the worry now is growing to the surge that we are seeing in operations at the same time that individual officers are afraid, afraid to actually be out there and seen carrying out their orders. Now, one thing that I think is important to mention here is that a lot of you wrote to me and said if I was terrified of my job, I would quit and that a lot of people would. A profession that once had public support should not have its defenders cowering at the sight of their own vehicles. And, and here's where the sort of psychology of the current ICE force really matters because we are not talking about battle tested professionals with deep civic purpose and extensive training. We are talking about a lot of recent recruits. Forget about their physical stamina and their actual qualifications and intelligence. We are seeing recent recruits motivated by something that is not really noble in my view. These are adults who are desperate to Collect a sign on bonus and a badge rather than saying, I'm going to do honest work. And in too many cases, the bonus that they received when they signed on came with the ability to punch down, to punch down at women and people who are just speaking, expressing their views. And this is why a lot of ICE agents are panicking when they are confronted with actual resistance or even just ordinary disdain from the public that they are supposed to be serving. They joined ICE because they. It wasn't that they believed they were going to make the world safer. It gave them a chance to feel big, to have authority over others, to escape their insecurities with their badges and guns and masks. And that is not real purpose. And so your identity collapses. The public starts treating you like you are the threat, which to a degree, they are. Now, if you know, there's a question as to the contrast with the protesters, you have protesters now filling the streets not because of a desire to exert power over others or to use physical force or whatever. You have protesters who are being activated by, by a noble cause, which is that they believe there is overreach here. People are willing to risk their safety and freedom because they believe in something larger, and that is democracy that is stopping state violence, and it is maybe even saving lives that would be lost at the hands of ice. The protesters aren't there for a paycheck or a power trip. They are there because they think that it matters.

[Donald Trump]

They.

[David Pakman]

That is very different than these recent recruits to ice, many of whom are terrified not because they are under threat from criminal cartels or murderous gangs, but because ordinary Americans increasingly look at what they're doing and they say, wait a second, unaccountable users of brutal force that is killing civilians and expecting silence in return? I don't think so. And so the officers are now in a situation where, where they are terrified to a degree of the circumstances that they, in serving Donald Trump, have helped to create. It's not about, oh, they deserve to be hurt or whatever. I'm against violence, period. I'm against violence perpetrated by ice. I'm against violence perpetrated against ICE officers. I'm against violence, period. What we are sort of acknowledging here is that as a result of Trump's ideology and policy, you now have officers who were recruited under maybe less than completely honest circumstances with improper and significantly shortened training that are now being sent out there to do Trump's bidding. And they're realizing, damn, this isn't really a good environment for us. We've created that bad environment. Would be the sort of come to Jesus moment, the mea culpa moment that many of them are lacking. So polling shows, deeply disliked and also they are increasingly afraid. Well, maybe this entire operation should be reconsidered. That's where I would land. Donald Trump spoke in Detroit, Michigan yesterday and a lot took place that we need to talk about now. At Trump's speech itself, one of the notable things was that the crowd was mostly silent. Trump talked about how great his tariffs have been and the crowd that knows that's not true sat there silently. Here is Donald Trump, soaking wet, swollen orange, trying to make the case that his tariffs have been great. People know that that's not the case.

[Donald Trump]

Every prediction the critics made about our tariff policy has failed to materialize. The evidence shows overwhelmingly that the tariffs are not paid by American consumers, that they're paid by foreign nations and middlemen. And Scott went over that with us before and they're paid by middlemen. They raise the thing. Countries get involved, they pay them because otherwise they won't have companies, they won't be viable and we're the big beneficiary. Once again, the so called experts were 100% wrong and Trump was right. People of Michigan were 100% right.

[David Pakman]

Does it sound like the people of Michigan are loving the tariffs?

[Donald Trump]

Folks, to the right guy. If you had the other person, everybody, we wouldn't even be having a meeting today. Probably there'd be no meeting. The economic club would be saying like, man, we're doing bad. It's going to be awfully tough to get people to show up. This is going to be tough for the chairman.

[David Pakman]

This is going to not silence be.

[Donald Trump]

A good day for us. We don't want to have. Let's cancel the meeting immediately. The Trump tariffs have delivered us trillions of dollars of new investment, unprecedented new partnerships on minerals, rare earths, defense and artificial intelligence and historic level.

[David Pakman]

They're not buying it. The the audience knows that this has been a disaster, including specifically for places like Michigan generally and Detroit specifically. Trump took his normal routine to Detroit, including telling demonstrable, provable lies about prior elections. Listen to the new one Trump is now claiming.

[Donald Trump]

College 312 to 226. We won the popular vote by millions and millions of oh, it's so nice.

To win the popular vote.

I won the popular vote all three times, stupid.

We're not going to get into that.

But the first time they said, now.

[David Pakman]

That is a lie. Donald Trump won the popular vote once in 2024. Donald Trump lost the popular vote in 2016. Donald Trump lost the popular vote In 2020, but he's just telling obvious lies. And these are how you can identify the cult followers. If Trump goes, I won the popular vote three time. And anybody goes, yes, you did, sir. Yes, you did. And it was beautiful. You know that they are part of the cult. Trump only won the popular vote one time. Trump then rambling incoherently about wood.

[Donald Trump]

Think of what we can do for.

The rest of it.

But do we have wood around here? I want to knock on a little wood. They have one little. Everything's plastic nowadays.

[David Pakman]

Just a little wood. I want to knock on a little wood. Trump then really, really, really sweaty. I'm sorry. And confused. Confused. I mean, about interest rates and about the economy. Check out this impenetrable rant. Completely misunderstanding every aspect of how economics works today.

[Donald Trump]

If you announce great numbers, they raise interest rates to try and kill it.

So you can never really have the kind of rally you should have.

What happens and what we want, we're.

Going to have a lot of great.

Months, a lot of great quarters. I want the market to go up. You announce unbelievable numbers and the market goes down because they know they're going to. You're going to do everything possible in the Fed. We have a real stiff in the Fed, but that's for another day. But they raise rates, by the way.

[David Pakman]

It'S impossible not to notice how Trump's hand and face are just. They look like they are the hands and face of two different people. They're so. It's are so.

[Donald Trump]

Everyone says, oh, they announced great numbers. It's great, great, great. And the market goes down because they immediately raise rates. No, when the market goes up, they should lower rates. You want to see 20% and 25%. You want to see what we can do? We've got to go back to an old standard. When there's good news, the market should go up, not go down. Does that make sense to everybody?

And that's the way it used to.

Be for most of.

[David Pakman]

You know, what Trump doesn't seem to understand understand is that you want to keep dry powder available in terms of being able to lower rates when you need to. If the economy is doing well, you don't want super low rates because you want to save the ability to lower rates for when you need it. Trump does not seem to understand this. And, you know, maybe to some degree, Trump is. Is motivated not to understand that. That Trump, then this is. This is really bad. Trump mocking Joe Biden's cough, who has metastatic prostate cancer. And the room is just silent because this is cruel even for Donald Trump. Ladies and gentlemen, there you go, a new low. Isn't, isn't Joe Biden's cough really, really funny? Trump then just, I mean, it got to a point where it was impossible to even know what he was talking about.

[Donald Trump]

Sucker. But it was in 1929, because a lot of people, you know, the anti tariff people. Now, an anti tariff person is a pro Chinese person, like Coke. This guy's fought me in every election.

I've ever been in and I've kicked his ass. I, I don't, I don't.

He inherited a lot of money and I don't know the gentleman, but he fights me and then he goes out and says, I made more money with Trump than I ever made my life. And then he supports these other people that were total losers.

[David Pakman]

Gives him totally normal, huh? Completely and totally normal speech. I understand why the audience was silent. If I were there, I would be trying to stay as still as possible to maybe blend into the background so nobody notices that I'm even there. This might be news to you, but Donald Trump reports mission accomplished. He has defeated inflation.

[Donald Trump]

Productivity is soaring. Investment is booming. Incomes are rising. Inflation is defeated.

[David Pakman]

Inflation is defeated. And yes, the slurring got worse as the speech went on. By the way, grocery prices rose at the fastest pace in three years last month. Not part of Donald Trump's speech. And finally, finally, Trump gets a little applause from the audience when he presents them with his completely fake, phony, and fabricated foreign investment numbers.

[Donald Trump]

In four years of Biden, they secured less than $1 trillion of new investment in the United States. So four years, less than 1 trillion. In less than one year, I have secured commitments for over $18 trillion from all over the world, the most ever for any country.

[David Pakman]

And he finally gets a clap. But of course, that's not true. Donald Trump wants you to believe he flew back from the Middle east with cash in the belly of the plane. But what he's referring to are theoretical, generic potential 10 year commitments from countries in the Middle East. When someone from Bahrain says to Trump, we might be in for 600 billion over 10 years, maybe if you give us the right projects, Trump goes, they just gave me 600 billion. He wants you to believe he's got the cash on the plane. And unfortunately, some people fell for it. Now, this was the speech. It was dilapidated, it was disgusting, it was borderline demented. But what happened when a heckler yelled at Trump, pedophile protector? Well, he didn't like it, and we'll talk about that after the break. Most scammers rely on information that's already public. Your name, address, phone number, family connections. A lot of that is online and available to be scraped and abused. Our sponsor, Incogni, reduces the risk by removing you from the Internet wherever that personal data appears. It works across many types of websites, not just one category, so scammers have fewer ways to piece things together. About you Incogni automatically submits removal requests to hundreds of sites on your behalf, but the standout feature is custom removals, where you find your information on any website, even one not in their database. You paste the link and Incogni's team will get to work to remove it. I can tell you I've personally been getting way fewer scam and spam calls and messages and ever since I started using Incogni, you can accomplish a lot quickly with Incogni. Protect yourself before your data is used against you. Get 60% off when you go to incogni.com/pacman and use the code PACMAN. The link is in the description lest anyone be confused. I know I don't mention this often, so you might not know, but this is a program made possible principally by our audience, viewers of the YouTube channel, listeners to the podcast. We have something called Membership. I'm inviting you with peace, love and humility to sign up today@join pacman.com I want to say thank you to our two newest members, Devin Eartha and Jason Wright who signed up in the last last few minutes. Actually at Join Pacman Dotcom we do an extra show every day for our members. Plus we do commercial free audio and video feeds of the show and so many other great perks. Read about it@join pacman.com and I will remind you that next Tuesday, January 20th we are doing a one day membership drive to celebrate slash mourn that we are down to the final three years or we'll be down to the final three years of Donald Trump's presidency. One Day Membership Special will email everybody about it. Just get on my newsletter if you want to hear about it. Go to substack.david pakman.com or just email me info@david pakman.com and we'll get you signed up for the newsletter so you can learn all about it. Donald Trump toured a Ford vehicle factory in Detroit, Michigan and a heckler yelled to Trump pedophile protector. Trump's reaction? Mouthing fuck you to the guy twice and flipping him off with his middle finger. Let's take A look. And just so everybody knows, there is no question that this is, this is what Donald Trump did. The White House has acknowledged that's what Trump did and defended it, saying it was an appropriate reaction to a lunatic. Take a look, take a listen. So you see Trump mouthing the F bomb twice, once. And then Trump as he walked away. Where is the middle finger moment? I think it's a little later. There it is, Trump holding up his middle finger at the guy. The White House was asked about this and said it was an appropriate response given what the heckler was saying. Stephen Chung, White House Communications Director, said it is an authentic video and said, quote, a lunatic was wildly screaming expletives and in a complete fit of rage, the President gave an appropriate and unambiguous response. Now we've learned about the heckler. The heckler is TJ Sabula, a 40 year old United Auto Workers Local 600 line worker at this factory. He acknowledged to the Washington Post, yes, he was the guy screaming pedophile protector at Donald Trump. He has now been suspended by his employer pending an investigation. Oh, we need to look into this very strongly. We, we need to get, let's get a big law firm to investigate what happened now. According to the Washington Post, Sebullah said as far as calling him out, no regrets whatsoever. He added, he is concerned about the future of his job. He believes he's being targeted for political retribution for embarrassing Trump in front of his friends. And it is, it is actually remarkable how right TJ is. There is a GoFundMe which has reportedly already raised over $150,000 for TJ Cebulla in terms of his politics. Abula says he's an independent. He's voted for Republicans in the past, but never for Donald Trump. He says pedophile protector was a reference to how Donald Trump has handled or mishandled the Jeffrey Epstein situation. And the files this. So I actually, there is something deeper here. Okay. This might seem like a nothing kind of thing. It's entertaining for 10 seconds and then we move on. A guy yelled at Trump. Okay, I think there's something more important here. First of all, when the guy yelled pedophile protector at Trump from what is believed to be about 60ft away, Trump instantly knew that it was directed at him. If I'm in a room and I hear someone yelling pedophile protector, my reaction would be to look around and go, who's that directed at? Right. I would know intuitively it's not being directed at me instantly. Trump, new pedophile protector was directed at him. One of the things that the elites and authoritarians often benefit from is that they're kept, kept physically isolated from their detractors. They know theoretically there are people out there who don't like them, but they aren't facing it in this way. 60ft away on a factory floor, telling Trump to his face. Pedophile protector. It actually gets to a couple of important aspects of what's going on. First of all, this isn't random people on the Internet or someone that Trump is told in polls. There are people who say they don't like you. This is a guy who said to Trump's face as close as he could get to it, pedophile protector. Authoritarians also really don't like public humiliation, never mind being confronted in public about their unpopularity. Trump just got hit with that, and it's sort of an Achilles heel for authoritarians. This incident also exposes another important characteristic of Donald Trump. Even horrible, terrible dictators understand that when they react this way. Fu fu, middle finger, they look weak and they have the self control not to do it. What's interesting here is that it is yet another instance where Donald Trump is seemingly unable to control his reaction or he sees no reason to control his reaction. These are both signs of disinhibition, and we've talked about that sometimes as a symptom of cognitive decline. There are a lot of neurological and cognitive conditions where you are disinhibited and where normally you would go, okay, I shouldn't yell fuck you twice and flip this guy off. I'm the President of the United States. That doesn't happen now. Dementia or not, the lack of ability to control his emotions is another aspect of the lack of fitness for the job of president. He wears his emotions on his sleeve. He can't be strategic. Foreign countries realize this. They regularly play Trump like a fiddle. Regularly. Even his own staff understands. How do I manipulate and control Trump based on what we know about his personality, his disinhibition, his reactivity, and all of it. So we will see what happens to TJ Cebulla. I don't think he deserves to lose his job, but we will see what happens. He's a bit. People have raised a bunch of money for him already, I guess, maybe anticipating that he will lose his job. But Trump's reaction is so telling and only corroborates much of what we have been saying for a very long time. During his visit to Detroit, Michigan, Donald Trump answered questions to the extent that you can call it that. In fact, there was a visit to Detroit for a speech, but also a visit to a Ford plant in Dearborn, Michigan. And Trump once again, I mean, listen, he sounds terrible, he looks completely lost. But one of the most interesting things is that he is flat out continuing to say things that are completely contradicted by reality, including that everybody agrees the tariffs were a good idea. Nobody admits that. Most economic experts are saying the tariffs were a terrible idea.

[Donald Trump]

The election, November 5th. And it's other things, things. But it's also, I think, maybe the biggest part the election, because I'm the tariff first and everybody now admits that I was right on tariffs. And I hope that we win the Supreme Court case.

[David Pakman]

Yeah, we have maybe more consensus today than ever that the blanket tariffs were a bad idea. Remember, it is not about tariffs being good or bad. I'm so sorry to make this analogy again, but the, you know, if, if you ask me, is this lens, this, look at this beautiful zoom lens, it extract, extends and retracts this lens. Is this thing good or is it bad? Well, are you trying to zoom to a particular level with a camera or are you trying to bake a cake? If you're trying to bake a cake, this is not a particularly useful tool. That's my view on tariffs. If you want to implement on ramp tariffs over four years on Taiwanese chips in order to combine that with subsidies for American made to off ramp our reliance on Taiwanese chips for national security reasons, then I would say that's a good use of a tariff. That's a strategic use, that's a planned use. Dumping blanket tariffs on everybody, one day they're 100%, one day they're 50%. And wrongly believing that the foreign countries pay the tariffs rather than the American companies paying the tariffs on imports, that's a disaster nobody could look at. Even if you are a defender of the tariffs, you should acknowledge that a lot. And in fact, a majority of the country and an overwhelming majority of economic experts say these are a bad idea. Bad, bad, bad idea. Senator Thom Tillis, as I have reported to you, says if Trump is investigating Fed Chair Jerome Powell, we are not going to move forward with any of Trump's nominations to the Federal Reserve. Trump goes well, that's why he's not going to be a senator anymore.

[Donald Trump]

Have a lot of rare earth and raw materials.

[Tony Decouple]

Senator Tom Tiller says that the subpoena.

[Donald Trump]

Grand jury subpoena to the Federal Reserve chairman was a little excessive. What do you think? Well, that's why Tom's not going to be a senator any longer. Longer, I guess.

[Joe Rogan]

Right.

[Donald Trump]

But I like Tom Jones. He's a nice guy. But look, he's not going to be a senator any longer because of views like that. We have a bad Fed chairman. He's bad in a lot of different ways, but he's bad because his interest rates were too high. And today we had a great inflation report, and today we had a really great growth report. So we have great growth and low inflation and we're doing very well.

[David Pakman]

Yeah. Anyway, Thom Tillis irrelevant because he is leaving now. The reality is Thom Tillis has chosen not to run for reelection. I don't know what Trump thinks is actually behind that, but as always, anybody who happens not to agree with Donald Trump, they have a problem. They're incompetent, they're low iq. They're quitting, they're leaving. Trump was asked about his statement that help is on the way to Iran. Iran, Iran, Iran. And Trump says, you're going to have to figure out what kind of help that is. Is he saying the reporters are going to have to figure it out? Like a really weird business went through the room.

[Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez]

You said to Iran this morning that help is on the way for protesters. What did you mean by that? What kind of help?

[Donald Trump]

You're going to have to figure that one out. I'm sorry.

[David Pakman]

So many people have been killed in Iran.

[Donald Trump]

Nobody's been able to give me an accurate number. I have heard numbers from. Everything's a lot. One is a lot. But I've heard numbers much lower and I've heard numbers much higher. We'll be knowing. We're probably going to find out over.

[David Pakman]

The next 24. Who is the you that needs to figure out what kind of help Donald Trump is going to be sending the protesters? Does Trump not know? Is he saying the public is going to have to figure it out, or is it sort of like a wait and see? You'll find out soon. Nobody knows. Nobody knows. And finally, on Fed chair Jerome Powell, who is now being investigated criminally. Trump says either he doesn't know what he's doing or he does and he's doing bad on purpose.

[Donald Trump]

He's building a small. He's renovating a small building. It's the most expensive construction job in history and it's only a renovation. I could have done that job for $25 million dollars. They're spending billions and billions of dollars. He either doesn't know what he's doing or it's worse than that. And you know what I mean by worse.

[David Pakman]

And of course, there is zero evidence. And even Republicans saying, I don't know, Jerome Powell is a pretty reliable, good, honest, forthright guy. It's completely political. And this is the weaponization of law enforcement that unfortunately and of the DOJ that we have come to be used to. We are getting desensitized to the fact that Trump is still sicing the DOJ against his political adversaries. And in some cases, these are political adversaries only by Trump's own doing. Jerome Powell is doing the right thing. He is saving Trump from himself by saying, no, we're not just going to drop interest rates 3 points because you 33 percentage points because you want this to. We have a mandate that involves evaluating these decisions based on what? Trump just wants the rates lower. Trump doesn't even realize that Powell's doing the right thing and in a sense, saving Trump from himself. Because if the rates go really low and then the economy goes further south and you need to lower rates, but you can't because they're already zero, you now have fired all of your bullets, to use an analogy, and Trump just doesn't get it. If you think this is bad, just wait till you see Tony decouple's interview with Trump. The core issue in political journalism isn't access to facts. It's really framing. Different outlets can start from the same underlying facts and still produce very different narratives. Ground News is built to make those differences explicit. Our sponsor, Ground News, aggregates coverage of a single story from across the political spectrum and presents it visually. You can see ideological lean, ownership, reliability of each outlet at a glance. The feature I use the most is the side by side headline view. Seeing multiple outlets describe the same event differently makes the framing choices very obvious. What's emphasized, what's downplayed, what's the context, what's left out. Ground News also offers a blind spot feed that lets you highlight stories that are receiving little attention from one side of the spectrum. That helps expose possible gaps that disagreement alone won't reveal. You can also personalize your feed by topic. You can make it easier to track the issues you personally care about without unnecessary noise. Go to Ground News slash pacman to get 40% off the ground News Vantage plan. You can also gift a subscription to a friend. The link is in the description. This may be Donald Trump's most embarrassing interview in a very long time. He's visibly confused by relatively simple questions from the interviewer, Tony decouple. The context of this interview is that it took place during Donald Trump's trip to Michigan. It is also happening with the new host of the CBS Evening News, Tony decouple, who has, of course, come to that role amidst controversy involving Bari Weiss taking over CBS News. There's a lot going on here, but my biggest takeaway is that Trump doesn't seem to have any idea what is going on. Decouple explains that he's been speaking to the father of the deceased from the Minneapolis shooting, Renee Goode, and points out that the father is a supporter of Trump's. But, but, but, and Trump doesn't really seem to understand the question, and he certainly does not exhibit any empathy or understanding as to what took place. The President of the United States. Listen to this.

[Tony Decouple]

I've got an important question about the situation in Minnesota, the death of Renee Nicole Good. I've been speaking to her father, who is a big supporter of yours, like many Americans are, but he's heartbroken right now.

[Donald Trump]

I can understand.

[Tony Decouple]

He's heartbroken because his daughter is dead.

[Donald Trump]

That's obvious.

[Tony Decouple]

He's also heartbroken because your administration so quickly has come out and said, you, she's a domestic terrorist. What do you want to say to her father right now?

[Donald Trump]

Well, I want to say to the father that I love all of our people. They can be on the other side. As you say, he might be on my side.

[Tony Decouple]

He is on your side.

[Donald Trump]

And I think that's great. And I do. I think it's great. And I would bet you that she, under normal circumstances, was a very solid, wonderful person. But, you know, her actions were pretty tough. I've seen it many ways and many times, different shapes and forms. But the bottom line is, look, we have hundreds of thousands of murderers in our countries, killers. ICE is trying to get them out. They were let in through an open border policy of sleepy Joe Biden, ISIS working very hard to get them out. Their job is being made very, very difficult. And, you know, when you look at that tape, it can be viewed two ways, I guess. But when you look at the way that was, that clear car was pulled away, there are a couple of versions of that tape that are very, very bad.

[David Pakman]

You know, when Trump, I don't even know that Trump realizes this, but when he says the car pulled away, pulled away means the car is leaving. Pulled away doesn't mean try to run over an officer. It's very interesting that Trump's instinctual reaction is to say the car was pulling away. But again, her actions were pretty tough. She said, I'm not mad at you. I'm not. It's fine, dude. I'm not mad at you what of her actions were rough. I'm not mad at you. And then she pulled away, away from the situation. Trump was asked an incredibly important question. Are there any limits on presidential power? Any. Any at all? And Trump says that his morality is the only limit, not the Constitution, not the court.

[Tony Decouple]

Last question. I think you'll be. I was very interested in a comment you made recently about nothing being able to limit your action, action overseas, except for your own morality and your own mind. I'd like to take that same question and apply it here in the US Is there anything that limits your power, your movement, your action here, other than your own morale?

[Donald Trump]

I talk about morality. I'm a moral person. I don't like seeing death. I don't.

[David Pakman]

Yeah, Trump's high morality is how we are in this mess to begin with.

[Donald Trump]

Seeing our people hurt. I don't like seeing the other side hurt either. You know, when we went into Venezuela, we lost nobody, but a lot of people on the other side were killed. I don't like that. Somebody else would say, oh, that's wonderful. I don't like that. So, yeah, it's limited by my morality, and I have a very high grade of morality, so that no one's ever.

[David Pakman]

Seen higher morality than Trump.

[Donald Trump]

For it's limited.

[Tony Decouple]

Not the Constitution, not the courts. That's what I thought you were going.

[Donald Trump]

To say, the Constitution in courts. That goes without saying. But you're asking me what really can stop raising. Never get to the courts. We'll never get to the Constitution, because I don't. I want to see what's good for our country.

[David Pakman]

You know what's funny about this? Trump kind of acknowledged. He's like, well, of course, of course it goes without saying that the Constitution and the courts are a limit on my power. But we'll never get to that. We've already gotten to it dozens of times on a number of different matters. What's Trump talking about? And he has tried, in fact, to ignore what the Constitution and the courts say, sometimes successfully, sometimes unsuccessfully. Of course, the Constitution and the courts, but my morality is the only true limit on my power. Spoken like a true authoritarian. Like a real authoritarian. Trump then spits out a bunch of false claims about the economy. And I would have liked to see Tony Decouple push back on some of these. I'll tell you which one.

[Tony Decouple]

So much going on overseas, understandably, a lot of your focus has been on other countries, but when I talk to Americans, when I talk to your own voters, they want your focus to be on them. And they feel like it may be drifting. What do you have to say to them?

[Donald Trump]

Well, Tony, we have the strongest economy maybe in the history of our country. If you went around this plant like I have, they just announced they go into 24 hours is a Ford plant. But GM's the same. Stellantis is the same. They're going 24 hours all around the clock. They're enlarging every plant in this country. We're building more plants in the country that we've ever built. None of no inflation. You saw the inflation numbers of inflation is very low.

[David Pakman]

I'm trying to keep track of every single one of the lies here.

[Donald Trump]

Our growth numbers are through the roof. Our job numbers are tremendous. We have the highest stock market we've ever had today. We hit every day for the last, I think 48 times out of 11 months, 48 days out of 11 months, we've had the number one stock market in the history of our country. So my big focus is here. But you can't be forgetting about bad threats. You can't be forgetting about an Iran with a nuclear weapon. You can't forget that there's tremendous wealth in the Middle east and a lot of that wealth is coming over here to build plans. Saudi Arabia is giving us $2 trillion. Qatar is giving us $2 trillion. UAE is giving us $2 trillion. All of that is for the good of this country. So my focus is very much on this country and. But you can't lose sight of the fact that we need peace all over the world. I've ended eight wars. If we had those eight wars raging, it would be very bad for this country.

[Tony Decouple]

Mr. President, you mentioned the market there. I've got a question that might have.

[David Pakman]

All right. I think there is so much there to push back at. I mean, Trump says jobs numbers are better than ever. We lost jobs during some months in 2024, we lost jobs. Trump says inflation's gone. Inflation's not gone. Trump said he would lower prices. They've continued to go up. Trump said that he brought in trillions from the Middle East. He didn't. What he got was theoretical promises about future investment over a 10 year period. He didn't bring back any money from the Middle East. Trump says he ended eight wars. We looked at that one already in detail. Not inspiring confidence that Trump has any interest here in communicating the truth. And Tony Decouple should have been ready to push back about that. Trump then goes right at, in fact Decouple himself and tells him if it weren't for Trump being President decouple wouldn't even have the job at the CBS Evening News.

[Donald Trump]

Tony, we have now the hottest country in the world. And a year and a half ago, our country was dead. We had a dead country.

[David Pakman]

Country.

[Donald Trump]

You wouldn't have a job right now if she got in. You probably wouldn't have a job right now. Your boss, who's an amazing guy, might be bust.

[Tony Decouple]

Okay, might be what?

[Donald Trump]

Might be bust. I doubt it in his case. But you never know. Let me just tell you, you wouldn't have this job. You wouldn't have this job. Certainly whatever the hell they're paying you. Our country is rocketing right now. We have the hottest country in the world. If you they got in, we would be Venezuela on steroids.

[David Pakman]

All right? So, I mean, listen, I think Tony decouple would certainly still have his old job if that were the case. I don't know. That's a very strange. And by the way, you should be giving me an easier interview because I'm responsible ultimately for you having this job. Decouple mentions to Trump that the CEO of Ford says he's got 5,000 open mechanic jobs and can't find people. And Trump says robots are going to do those jobs. Does Trump realize that if you have robots doing the jobs instead of 5,000 workers, that's 5,000 unemployed people? The robots. The robots are not the same. This is unbelievable.

[Tony Decouple]

President, I'm just trying to be fair here, just trying to do my job. And I want to talk about this assembly line here.

[Donald Trump]

To me, vibrant. Listen to the sound.

[Tony Decouple]

It's incredible, right?

[Donald Trump]

I love the sound of an assembly line.

[Tony Decouple]

It's incredible. But they've got one not far from here. They just idled the electric vehicle plant.

[Donald Trump]

Well, yeah, but it's going to. It's going to gasoline vehicles.

[Tony Decouple]

Yeah, it's going to go to gasoline.

[Donald Trump]

But why don't you say that, Tony? You can't say you didn't give me a chance.

[Tony Decouple]

I'm coming there.

[David Pakman]

I'm coming around.

[Donald Trump]

I agree. I said I want electric and I want gasoline and I want hybrids. I want everything. But you are going to be forced under the mandate to buy an electric car in a very short period of time. I, I didn't want that and I ended that. Now, people can have electric, they can have gasoline, they can have hybrid, but.

[Tony Decouple]

Are they going to have people to build these cars? The CEO of Ford said not long ago he's got 5,000 open mechanic jobs. He can't find people willing and able thing.

[Donald Trump]

Tony, that means it's vibrant. You could also have things where you have so many people and they can't get jobs. It's true. We are doing so well. It's hard.

[Tony Decouple]

Now.

[Donald Trump]

What's on going going to happen is people are being trained rapidly and you're going to have a thing called robots. And robots are going to be a big factor, I predict.

[Tony Decouple]

Let's talk about that.

[David Pakman]

Of course, the problem is that the robots don't pay taxes, the robots don't vote. The robots mean people actually are out of jobs rather than having jobs. I don't think Trump understands even the basics about how economics functions. And whenever there is an extended interview, not even an interview that's particularly tough, he exposes his lack of knowledge. And that is something that should terrify every single one of us. Let's talk about sanctuary cities. Donald Trump, in another seeming moment of psychosis, announced that he's going to go back and try again. The stuff that courts have already said, sir, that's illegal, that is against the law. Donald Trump says that on February 1, the federal government will stop making payments to states with so called sanctuary cities. This isn't a new idea, it's not a legal idea and it is not something a president can do. Trump engaging caps lock and posting to Truth Social Quote, effective February 1st, no more payments will be made by the federal government to states for their corrupt criminal protection centers known as sanctuary cities. All they do is breed crime and violence. If states want them, they will have to pay for them. Make America great again. The Governor of California, Gavin Newsom's press office responded to this with the following quote, Please pray for the President as he struggles with cognitive decline. He already forgot he tried this before multiple times. And we sued him and won. That's true. Trump has already tried this multiple times during his first term. Every single time that it mattered, he lost in court. Congress controls federal spending, not the president. It's not a gray area. It's the Constitution. Trump cannot unilaterally decide. States no longer get money that Congress has appropriated. That's it. There's no ifs, ands or buts. Number two, the Supreme Court has laid this out very clearly. Number one, the federal government cannot coerce states into enforcing federal immigration law. Can't do it to any funding conditions have to be authorized by Congress. They have not authorized any such funding conditions. Number three, those funding conditions must be narrowly related to a specific program. A blanket threat like no more payments to states with sanctuary cities fails every single legal test. And finally, Trump lost these cases. Trump tried this Already. And Court said he's exceeding executive authority, he's violating the 10th amendment, he's trying to rewrite a spending law by himself. And this is where I believe the bigger problem comes in. Democrats cannot work with Republicans in Congress in good faith on appropriations budgets or bipartisan deals if Trump controls the party. Because Trump is going to bring in this, in some cases, flatly illegal perspective on how funding should be handled. How can you negotiate with people controlled by a guy who doesn't care what the law or the rules or the Constitution are? You can't. And I don't even think that they should try. Trump is also claiming that the United States needs Greenland for national security and that Naito should be doing something to make Greenland part of the United States, because if we don't, somebody else will. Trump posted, quote, quote, the United States needs Greenland for the purpose of national security. It is vital for the golden dome that we are building. Naito should be leading the way for us to get it. If we don't, Russia or China will. And that is not going to happen militarily. Without the vast power of the US Much of which I built during my first term and am now bringing to a new and even higher level, Naito would not be an effective force or deterrent. Not even close. They know that, and so do I. Naito becomes far more formidable and effective with Greenland in the hands of the U.S. first of all, Greenland's not for sale. Trump's acting like it's for sale. Who's going to be the winning bidder? It's an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark. The US can't just decide we need Greenland and take it. International law doesn't work that way, and it's not how alliances work. Now, Denmark and Greenland have explicitly rejected this already many times when Trump floated it. But Trump is now saying, oh, Naito should help us do it. NATO should help us get Greenland. Naito is, number one, a defensive alliance. It would be more likely that Naito would help defend Greenland against the United States rather than take it, even though I don't think Naito would actually get involved in either way because the US Is a member nation. Number two, Naito is not a land acquisition mechanism, and Naito is not a geopolitical real estate broker. There is no Naito process by which territory would transfer from one Naito member to another that Naito would direct. Trump is describing something. He's calling for something that doesn't exist. And Trump then goes to the authoritarian classic, if we don't take Greenland China might take it or Russia will take it. Two aspects to that. Authoritarians love saying, if I don't do this crazy authoritarian thing, someone else is going to do it, therefore me doing it is justified. That's a classic from authoritarians. But it also doesn't really make sense because China has no legal pathway to acquire Greenland, nor have they expressed an interest. Russia already has vast Arctic territory. They would gain nothing by taking Greenland and would turn other countries against it or further against it if they tried. And so this is a completely fabricated scenario. It is a made up crisis that doesn't exist with Trump demanding third parties get involved in ways they can't legally get involved. Naito should help us take Greenland. I, if, if I were to bet. Okay. And in fact I should take a look. US takes Greenland. Let's see. I'm actually not even finding a betting market. Will the U.S. acquire any new territory under Trump? Only 24% believe. Yeah. So in any case, the betting markets also don't believe that this is a likely thing. Trump should simply stop talking about it and say he's moved on to bigger and better things. The David Pakman show is an audience supported program and the best, most direct way to support the show is by becoming a member. @join pacman.com you'll get the daily bonus show, the daily commercial free show, and plenty of other great membership perks. Get the full experience by signing up@join pacman.com it's increasingly clear that podcaster Joe Rogan realizes that when he looks at what the Trump administration is doing after he endorsed Trump and after all of it, as Joe Rogan looks at it today, I think he realizes that it's a sinking ship and it's a ship that he doesn't want to be on. And he is brutally exposing to the extent that he is able and in a way that I think really matters because of what his audience makeup is, he is exposing the absurdity, most recently, of the entire ice operation and the fiascos that are associated with it. Rogan is not saying anything particularly remarkable. He, he just has a massive audience and this is a complete and total reversal from his support of Donald Trump that we previously saw. Let's go to the first clip talking about the shooting of Renee Goode in Minneapolis.

[Joe Rogan]

It's also very ugly to watch someone shoot a US citizen, especially a woman, in the face, right where it's like, I'm not, I'm not that guy. I don't know.

[David Pakman]

I'm so sorry to interrupt already. We're Going to go back to. So we'll hear the whole thing. I understand what Joe means by a US Citizen and a woman. There would be no justification for that shooting, no matter the identity of the individual. I understand the point he's making, but even if it were a brown man, there would still not be a justification. Okay, point. I won't interrupt again.

[Joe Rogan]

A US Citizen, especially a woman, in the face, right where it's like, I'm not, I'm not that guy. I don't know what he thought. And again, this is a guy who had almost been run over, but it just looked horrific to me. I mean, when people say it's justifiable because the car hit him, it seemed like she was kind of turning the car away.

[David Pakman]

Yeah. And of course, now that we have video from another angle, we see that the officer actually leaned in himself to make contact with the car, pushed himself off of it, and then shot. We also notice in the handheld video that the officer moves the gun from one hand to another to his shooting hand, almost like he's already decided, I'm going to do something here. Now, whatever you think about Joe Rogan, whatever you think about the role Rogan played in getting Trump elected, put that aside for a second. Rogan, in a sense, comes to the conclusions that a lot of Americans do. And the fact that Rogan is coming to these conclusions is interesting, relevant, and salient for us in thinking about where is the country on a lot of this stuff. And he points out ICE now are seen as villains and murderous military people. This is Rogan. This is just his plain assessment of what's going on.

[Joe Rogan]

I guess yesterday or the day before, I mean, I think after that woman was shot, I think unfortunately, well, everything's unfortunate about it, right? But one of the, one of the real problems is now ICE are villains. And now people are looking at them like murderous military people that are on the streets of our city. And they're masked up, which is also a problem, right? Because if you get arrested by a cop, you, you're allowed to ask the cop what is your name and badge number, and you could film that cop. If you get arrested by an ICE agent, you, you have no such right. They're wearing a mask. They don't have to tell you that's a problem. That's a problem on our city streets, Right? Because you, you can also pretend to be an ICE agent, right? So I, I, I saw this terrible story about this family that was killed where these guys pretended to be a UPS driver, and they showed up and they made their way into the house and killed people because they were dressed up as a UPS driver. If you could pretend to be a UPS driver, for sure you could pretend to be an ICE agent, especially since they're completely anonymous. So think about how many people can get arrested or robbed.

[David Pakman]

Or this is a very good point which we've been making for months by criminals.

[Joe Rogan]

Right? Because you could just have people pretending they're like, it's not. Like it's impossible to fake their logo. Right. It's pretty easy. Just as ice. You know, how hard is that? You could easily imagine armed gangs pretending to be ICE agents robbing people. I guess this is.

[David Pakman]

This is a very good point. And one of the things that I think needs to be reviewed again is that is ICE doing law enforcement? Not really. They seem to be breaking as many laws as they're enforcing. Is ICE doing immigration enforcement? Nominally, yes. But going door to door. And the stuff that they're doing is. Is clashing with citizens. And are they really even doing immigration enforcement at this point in time? Their real role now is to be a force of intimidation visible on the city streets, I guess, in order to scare people into compliance and maybe even to scare them into not speaking out against this administration. Rogan then kind of putting a fine point on it and saying, you don't want the roaming of militarized people snatching others.

[Joe Rogan]

You don't want militarized people in the streets just roaming around snatching people up, many of which turn out to actually be U.S. citizens. They just don't have their papers on them. Are we really going to be the. The Gestapo? Where's your papers? Is that what we've come to?

[David Pakman]

It seems that that is exactly what we have come to. And Rogan here, again, it's just, this is important because millions listen to this and there's this attitude of I'm just looking at it and applying common sense and coming to some conclusion. And sometimes he gets to the common sense conclusion and sometimes he doesn't. And he says, there's just no way to look at this and to say, this makes sense. This is good. This is what we should be pushing for. So I think that this turnaround has been very interesting, but I don't even think we need to attribute it necessarily to a true change of heart. Even if you look at this and you say these people, whether it's Rogan or Andrew Schultz or I don't even know which other manosphere guys are kind of turning, turning away from Trump, even if you just look at it. And you say they are doing this because they see that the ship is sailing or that the ship is sinking or whatever metaphor or analogy you want to use, even if that's the only reason they're doing it, which is for the public perception that they are not just willing to accept anything Trump does. It's still useful to see the criticism from the Manosphere podcast. So hard to argue with any of the points Rogan is making. If anything, he's just not going far enough in his criticism. Donald Trump, as you know, is already telling Republicans if they lose Congress in November, he is going to be impeached. He doesn't say it jokingly. It's not a throwaway line. Here's a reminder of just one instance of Trump saying this.

[Donald Trump]

But you got to win the midterms, because if we don't win the midterms, it's just going to be. I mean, they'll find a reason to impeach me, right? I'll get impeached.

[David Pakman]

And there are a lot of good reasons, by the way. Trump suggests they'll have to look really long and hard to find a reason. But there are many reasons. The reason Trump keeps bringing this up is very simple. There are so many reasons he could be impeached. Now, Venezuela is the latest trigger we could start. Their surprise military operation resulted in the kidnapping of Nicolas Maduro as well as his wife. No vote from Congress, no authorization, no emergency declaration, just a unilateral use of force. A reporter asked aoc, do you believe the president has committed impeachable offenses? And she says, absolutely, he has. Many others said the same thing, but we're looking at what AOC said.

[Interviewer with AOC]

You mentioned Letitia James, or was James Comey as well? There was a lot of conversation about the president not informing Congress with that military operation that Venezuela. How do you think the caucus should approach something like impeachment? Because there have been some of your colleagues who have said that there have been impeachable acts and they would actually consider going down that road.

[Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez]

Yeah, I mean, I think, personally, I think the criminality of what we've been seeing from this administration is quite clear to me individually. The question is not the whole hard part about impeachment is what in the litany of illegal actions have been taken do you actually draft articles on.

[Interviewer with AOC]

Do you think the president has committed impeachable offenses?

[Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez]

Absolutely, absolutely, Without a shadow of a doubt. It's starting from the very beginning with the seizure of funds that are mandated to go out. There's. I Mean, I think that line has been crossed and the question is about the rest of the country.

[Interviewer with AOC]

Do you wish that the caucus would be more interested in talking about the I word and going down that path and maybe making some plans for if Democrats can take control of the House next year?

[Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez]

You know, I don't think that this is personal. Two things can be true at the same time. I think that accountability needs to be a core part of our governance. And I also personally don't run as purely on an anti Trump. I've personally never run to represent my district on grounds of impeachment or not. I run for health care. I run my, my community wants to hear about raising the minimum wage, expanding unions, health, strengthening health care.

[David Pakman]

I think aoc, she is being very thoughtful here and this mirrors a lot of my perspective, which is that on the question of whether Trump has committed actions that are worthy of impeachment, the answer is, of course he has. Of course he has. And also, would she like more people, more of her colleagues talking about it? She's like, you know, I really ran on delivering for my constituents and policy. And my view on this for a long time has been I don't want my representatives existing. I don't, I don't want their reason to exist to be the impeachment of Trump. But if you are in the House of Representatives, you do have a constitutional duty to evaluate whether the President has committed any acts worthy of impeachment and if so, you should impeach. Now, there's political calculation. What about the balance in the Senate? What about, can we ever really get a conviction? You need 2/3 to convict in the Senate. Democrats don't even have a majority even if they had a 52 to 48 majority. You're not going to convince 14 Republicans to vote to impeach Trump. But I don't think that that should really be part of the political calculation. And because we can walk and chew gum at the same time, I think what AOC is kind of visibly struggling with there is the fact that the impeachment process is a time consuming one and it consumes resources. And she's there primarily for what she can do for her constituents when it comes to health care, education, cost of living, etc. I think we've just got to be able to walk and chew gum at the exact same time. And with Trump, the impeachment wouldn't even be about a single act. I mean, we, we are so beyond that. It is now a pattern of acts and a pattern of behaviors and even just With Venezuela. Just with Venezuela. And there's so many other areas to look at. There's the seizure of Maduro itself, which is being described by some members of Congress as a kidnapping. There is the defiance of congressional oversight in general in Donald Trump's second term. Ignoring subpoenas, blocking testimony, obstructing Congress, using law enforcement as a political weapon, using federal agencies as political weapons. There's the normalization of threats. Trump has openly talked about force against protesters. So there's this long list, and each one individually is serious. But if you look at them together, I don't see how any honest member of the House could look and say, this is not a pattern worthy of impeachment. Of course it is. Now, we also need to talk reality. Even if Democrats win the House in November, impeachment is a heavy lift. Even if the impeachment happens, meaning you get a simple majority in the House to say, yes, we're going to impeach. You then have to do a trial, and Trump's not getting convicted in the Senate. I think what, whatever you could think of if Trump dropped a nuke on France, I believe that you would not get 14 Republicans or 15 or whatever number you would need if there was a small Democratic majority in the Senate. Never mind if you don't have the majority in the Senate, which is more likely. I think even if Trump dropped a nuke, you don't find 10 to 15 Republicans willing to convict him of. Of impeachment. So I don't think the. The question needs to be, do Democrats believe Trump will be removed from office? It's accountability. It's accountability and drawing a line. And does the presidency still have limits? If Republicans aren't willing to fairly evaluate Trump's actions in an impeachment trial, well, that's really their problem. And Trump kind of knows that he will still be remembered as the guy impeached twice or maybe the guy impeached three times. And that's why he keeps warning Republicans. He keeps framing the impeachment as a threat. And he's talking about it almost as much as anybody else. He knows it would be coming and that it will further degrade his legacy. We have a phenomenal bonus show for you today. We will talk about what's going on with Denmark Greenland and JD Vance. We will talk about what Republicans are saying regarding the Clintons and contempt over the Epstein files. And we will talk about the recent death of Dilbert creator Scott Adams, a guy who I ended up on. On bad terms with, and I kind of regret that. We were never able to do get beyond the beef before he passed away. We'll talk about all of that and more on the bonus show. You can sign up and get instant access at. Join pacman.com you can also sign up on January 20th at a huge discount we will be offering. If you want to be notified about that, just get on my [e-mail] pakman.com and remember the David Pakman Show. Gear store is up and running. We have these beautiful hats. Look. I'll put this hat on right now. Look at this. Look at this. Great. Oh, it's. It's bent back. Here we go. And it's crooked. It's straight. I'm like in reverse here. As you can see a beautiful. They call it a dad hat anyway. Oh God, now my hair is a real problem. Store.davidpakman.com Check it out. New items being added weekly New Year New vibe.

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[Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez]

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[David Pakman]

About going to the bathroom in public.

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[David Pakman]

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