A (14:21)
All right, this is a major escalation, but it's a necessary one. There are those who are immediately saying, why is Tim Walls raising the temperature? Folks, Trump's goons came in shot a woman three times through her window and windshield, killing her. And Trump went online. It said it seems like self defense. That's the escalation Governor Walls is doing. One of the few things he can do to try to defend his state. Now understand that National Guard units are normally activated for disaster response or for civil unrest or a support role as requested by local officials. This is different because the Guard is being prepared to respond to and defend against federal law enforcement activity itself. This is a line not often crossed in the United States. That is why a lot of you are writing to me about civil war and I will get to that. Conflicts between states and the federal government have always, almost always played out in the courts. A state sues, the Justice Department responds, a judge issues a ruling. It's a slow process, it's often a frustrating process. But the reason that that process exists is to prevent a physical confrontation between a state National Guard and federal law enforcement or between local police and federal police. The whole point of the slow, frustrating system we have is to prevent these sorts of violent escalations. When a governor like Tim Walls, who is careful, this is not an erratic guy. When a governor like Tim Walls says we've got to prepare the state military forces to potentially battle federal agents because they are operating in ways that are dangerous or illegitimate, we are not in normal territory. This is a unique situation. Now the context of course matters. If Tim Walls were just saying we don't want ICE and we're putting the National Guard out there to fight them, there are many of us who would say that is justified. But it might be moving a little too quickly when using the courts may be appropriate. That is not the context right now. The context now is that an ICE agent shot and killed a US Citizen during what they are calling an enforcement operation where the video evidence contradicts the administration self defense narrative. Federal officials are doubling down and Trump is blaming the so called radical left. There is no accountability and not even the idea. Let's pause and think for a second. So from the state's perspective, if you are the governor, the administrator of the state of Minnesota, which is what he is, federal agents show up unannounced, they create chaos, they kill a resident, lie about what happened on camera and say we're going to keep going, he is in a position where he has to say do I do nothing or do I act to protect public safety? As I see it, that is how you end up with Tim Walz preparing his national state's National Guard to do battle against the federal goons of Donald Trump. Now, does this mean civil war? That is the critical question that I will talk about after the break. All right, so we all know Alexa listens to us, recommends products based on our conversations. Metta retargets us based on our browsing and engagement history. Have you wondered what Chat and Claude are up to with your conversations? We feed so much of our information to these AI chat bots. Thoughts, dreams, sensitive questions, business ideas. They take the information, tie it to your identity and they can sell that to third parties and governments. ChatGPT has the former director of the NSA on their board right now. That doesn't feel awesome. It took us a long time to truly understand what social media companies were doing with our data. We don't have to make the same mistake with AI. And that's why I've started using Venice AI our sponsor. Venice is a generative AI platform that is completely private and permissionless. They don't spy on you, Venice. I won't censor the AI. They have a safe mode which you can turn off for both text and image generation. Messages are encrypted. Your conversation history is only stored on your browser. I love the Pro plan because I get upgraded features like uploading files, unlimited text prompts. Check it out. If you want to use AI without censorship or fear of handing over your most intimate thoughts to a corporation or the government, go to Venice AI/pacman and use code PACMAN to get 20% off their pro Plan. The link is in the description the David Pakman show continues to be an audience supported program and I am so flattered and thrilled by some of our newest supporters who have gotten memberships@join pacman.com Huge thank you to Jason Binger and Robert Burkle, our newest members at Join Pacman Dotcom. I invite you to join them get the daily bonus show as well as the commercial free audio and video feed of the show. And quite frankly you really are doing a lot to support the existence of this program which I believe in 2026 Independent Media will be as important as ever, especially with what is happening in legacy and corporate media. We thought it was bad in 2020. We thought it was bad in 2025. Well, what's going on with corporate media is getting even worse and very quickly in 2026. So I invite you to sign up at join pacman.com I will also mention on January 20th, the one year anniversary of Donald Trump being sworn in for his second and final term, we are doing a single day membership drive where we will discount memberships like crazy. My lawyer is beating down the door saying, sir, don't do it. My accountant is sending me telegrams and faxes day in and day out saying, don't do the discount. And I'm saying to all of them, we're going to do it until they pull the discount from my cold debt or something like that. Anyway, get on my newsletter@substack.david pakman.com or just email me and I'll put you on the newsletter info@david pakman.com and then on the 20th, you'll get an email with a coupon code telling you how to avail yourself of this absolutely massive membership discount. For years now, there has been a cottage industry of commentators predicting civil war. Every election, every protest, every heated news cycle gets framed as this is it. This is the Civil War. And for a long time, that was not just exaggerated rhetoric, it was extraordinarily cynical rhetoric. There was no organized, plausible pathway to civil war in the United States. And a lot of the people who, who were pretending that we were on the precipice of a civil war were really serving to drive cliques and fear and engagement. And I didn't participate in that because I think it's wrong. I have to now come to the table and talk to you about what is happening now. What is happening right now as a result of what took place in Minneapolis is different. And I want to explain it without going full doomsday. The Civil War is here this week. Yesterday, Tim Walls, the governor of Minnesota, said he is preparing the Minnesota National Guard to physically stop through confrontation Donald Trump's ICE goons from carrying out operations in Minnesota. This is happening in the aftermath of the killing of 37 year old American citizen Renee Goode by an agent of Donald Trump's ice. So we are potentially going to see the Minnesota National Guard physically face off against Trump's ice. This is not a rhetorical flourish. This is a state executive signaling we are ready to use military force to block federal law enforcement. A civil war doesn't start with neighbors shooting each other in the streets. It starts when institutions stop recognizing each other's authority. And it starts when the chain of command breaks. And it can start when state and federal power collide in a way that can't be resolved by a court or by an election. And if we look at history around the world, that is a danger zone. So I'm not here saying the Civil War is here, but what I am here to tell you is that we are starting to see the scaffolding for what can lead to civil war type conflict. Now, up until now, even during extreme political conflict in the United States, disputes between states and the federal government have been mediated through lawsuits and junctions in federal courts. It's a slow process, as we talked about earlier. A state sues, the Justice Department responds, a judge rules. And the slowness of that process can be very frustrating. But part of the process is to prevent political conflict from turning into armed conflict. If you get beyond that, if you have a state controlled armed force like the National Guard physically confronting federal agents, we're not in normal political territory. We are not in a moment where the court is going to decide. This doesn't mean we are in a civil war. It doesn't mean that a civil war is inevitable. It doesn't mean violence by default follows. Most civil wars do, do not look like two clean sides that form overnight and fight each other. They are escalating standoffs, miscalculations, moments where someone decides, I'm going to push a little bit more than we've ever pushed before, and then someone else says, we are now going to push a little bit more. That is the risk. And it is especially dangerous in the context of Donald Trump's presidency, where federal law enforcement is increasingly seen as a political weapon against which states need to defend themselves. When federal agencies are perceived, rightly or wrongly, as acting on behalf of a single leader rather than a neutral law enforcement apparatus, states begin to treat them as illegitimate, they begin to treat them as hostile, and that is how they end up deploying the state National Guard against them. That is how trust collapses. Now, it's also worth saying that the people who spent years screaming civil war over mask mandates and school board meetings, they did real damage. They have desensitized the public to the idea. Because when you've got all these people who have been saying Civil War for 10 or 12 years over everything now, when the more serious actors who I try to be thoughtful, I try not to be hyperbolic, when I now come in and say, listen, I'm not saying a civil war is inevitable, but I've got to recognize that a mask mandate did not reflect a push towards civil war. What we are seeing now in terms of the National Guard of Minnesota versus Trump's ICE goons, could push in that direction, we now don't get the attention that this really does deserve because there are some people who have been, it's like the boy who cried wolf type of situation. And it makes it harder to recognize when we are seeing the type of institutional breakdown that really can lead to that type of conflict. This is different, ok? This is not Twitter drama. It is a kind of escalation that political scientists actually do worry about. Now, the hopeful part, if there is one, is that this can still be de escalated. Congress exists. Courts exist. How quaint, right? But governors and federal officials can try to step back from the brink. But pretending that this is just another overhyped news cycle, I believe, would be a mistake. Civil wars don't start when someone declares them. They start when the rules simply stop working. And right now, there are really important rules that are under strain. One key point is that the next move matters more than the statements themselves that are being made. If Minnesota files for injunctions and Trump defies court orders, the risk of an escalation goes up dramatically. If courts act quickly and both sides at least pretend to comply, it'll probably cool down the situation. Civil conflict risk goes up not just when people disagree, but when courts, when court rulings are not treated as binding. If people say, I don't care what the court said. The risk, of course, is that there are a number of instances so far in the last year where the Trump administration has said, effectively, we don't care what the courts say. A real armed confrontation between ICE and a state national guard would create chaos that I don't believe Trump is able to manage, and it'll create a paradox. Trump may push right up to the edge because he thinks it gives him leverage, but then it may actually be pulling back. That serves him better than crossing that edge. It makes it a very volatile moment. I'm cautiously optimistic that it won't get to that point. Donald Trump floated one of the most extreme policy ideas of his presidency yesterday, and that is saying something, and it is not getting a lot of attention. In a Truth Social post yesterday, Donald Trump said that the United States military budget for next year for 2027 should be not a trillion dollars, but $1.5 trillion. Not a typo. That would be a roughly 60% increase, you would say. Well, hold on, David. A trillion to 1.5 is 50%. Yes, but the actual budget is like 900 something. So closer to 60% increase than a 50% increase. And he announced it on Truth Social, where he said, quote, after long and difficult negotiations with senators, congressmen, secretaries, and other political representatives, I have determined that for the good of our country, especially in these very troubled and dangerous times, our military budget for the year 2027 should not be a trillion dollars, but rather 1.5 trillion. This allows us to build the dream military that we have long been entitled to, and more importantly, that will keep us safe and secure, regardless of foe. If it weren't for the tremendous numbers, if it weren't for the tremendous numbers being produced by tariffs from other countries, many of which in the past have ripped off the United States at levels never seen before, I would stay at the $1 trillion number. But because of tariffs and the tremendous income that they bring, amounts being generated that would have been unthinkable in the past, especially a year ago during the sleepy Joe Biden administration, the worst president in the history of our country. We are able to easily hit the $1.5 trillion number, while at the same time producing an unparalleled military force and having the ability to at the same time pay down debt and likewise pay a substantial dividend to moderate income patriots within our country. Now, I'm going to analyze the military budget in a second. I don't believe we are going to pay down the debt Donald Trump promised before his first term. We are going to have such a surplus, we will eliminate the national debt. In reality, the deficit went up and the debt grew even faster. And we are seeing the exact same thing right now. But that's not the point here. I want to talk about the military budget. What makes this striking is that Trump promised the opposite. He scammed his followers once again. Trump complained for years. We've got a bloated military budget, wasteful, dominated by corrupt contractors, the Pentagon, the defense firms, the endless wars. He presented himself as the president who would stop writing blank checks to the military industrial complex. And people fell for it. And Tulsi Gabbard fell for it. And during the campaign and when he came back to office, he said, we can be strong, but we can spend less because we're going to be smarter. And now he is proposing the biggest military expansion this country has ever seen. Folks, you got bamboozled. He tricked you again. Now Trump says it's justified because we'll be able to build the dream military and we're going to pay down debt and we're going to give people cash. And it's all going to happen when the military budget jumps by $500 billion in a single year. The money doesn't come from nowhere. It comes from taxpayers. You are paying for this huge expansion to the military budget. When you are struggling to pay for your groceries or a flat tire or health care, do you say to yourselves, we should be giving way more money to the military? Is that what you think? I don't think that's the case for most Americans. Every taxpayer being asked to fund more bombs and bullets and weapons systems, While an unexpected $400 expense for nearly half the country means I've got to put it on a credit card or ask someone to lend me the money. The question voters should be asking is were you promised this and did you ask for it and do you want it? And the scale of this proposal is really hard to overstate. At the peak of the war on terror in 2010, military spending was about 690 billion, roughly 1.1 trillion in today's inflation adjusted dollars. Trump's proposal would blow way past that. Even the Reagan military build up, which was often considered, if you want to think about when were we most aggressively building up the military to intimidate others, that under Reagan was a doubling over five years. Trump is proposing a 60% increase in a single year. Historically, the only time the United States has approached that level of military mobilization was World War II, where defense spending was almost 40% of GDP. Trump's plan would likely push defense spending towards like 6% of GDP. That's a cold War era level of militarization. And this is supposedly with the anti war president who doesn't plan on doing any wars. Now, Trump says it'll be paid through tariff revenue. Even if that were true, the tariffs are paid by American companies and passed on to you. So even if we believe what Trump is saying, we've got so much tariff money we're going to be able to pay for it. Even if that's true, you are paying for it. Now, of course, Trump is dramatically overstating tariff collections. If you look at history, when there have been these large military buildups, it's usually funded through deficit spending or war bonds. There is not a precedent for financing something like this with tariffs. But importantly, the tariff numbers don't line up and even if they did, it would just mean that Americans are paying for it. The power of the purse does belong to the House of Representatives. I do want to remind you the President's budget is a political document. At the end of the day, the President's budget is a wish list of what the President wants. It is still up to the House of Representatives to approve or say no and they control the spending. Even with a Republican House of Representatives, I don't know that Republicans are willing to do a 60% increase on the military budget. And I would hope that there is going to be less. And but the takeaway here is you were told and promised one thing. Trump wants a completely different One, he spent years saying he would rein in military waste and be against the militarization endlessly around the world. And now he is proposing the biggest blank check to the Pentagon that the country has ever seen. And he is saying to us, he's got billions. He's saying to us, you guys are going to foot the bill. What is the average MAGA have to say about this? Not a rhetorical question. I mean, tell me if you're a maga. Do you like this? Is this what you voted for? Let me know info@david pakman.com Send me an email. Scams and identity theft rarely start with a hacked password. They usually start when your personal information is easy to find online. Your address, phone number, relatives, employment history. That information lives on countless data broker sites on the Internet, accessible to almost anyone unless you actively remove it. Our sponsor, Incogni, is a service that handles that for you. Incogni doesn't just focus on one category of sites. 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And Caleb, it's really great to have you on today. I appreciate it.
