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- [00:00]
David Pakman
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- [01:31]
David Pakman
Donald Trump has ordered the seizure of a Russian oil tanker in the North Atlantic, a US Boarding party on a Russian flagged ship with Russian naval assets reportedly nearby. And the question is, is this the brink of a global disaster or is this a carefully staged show to help both Trump and Putin? I will discuss After Trump's illegal raid in Venezuela and the capture of Nicolas Maduro, impeachment talk is now going completely mainstream. Trump knows it and he is saying they will impeach me if lose the House. And meanwhile, Trump met with House Republicans, spent 90 minutes ranting, dancing, literally dancing and bragging about cognitive tests and also go somewhere really dark which is floating the idea of canceling the 2026 election. Testing the idea out loud. Plus Megyn Kelly turns on Fox News over Venezuela and says, this is the propaganda I was expected to deliver when I worked there. We've got Marjorie Taylor Greene and Nancy Mace also saying things aren't looking good For Republicans, all of that and more. Today. We have a truly bizarre and potentially world altering situation today. There are confirmed reports that the U.S. coast Guard, under direct orders from the Trump administration, has successfully boarded and seized the Marinara. That's M A R I N E R A A Now a recently Russian flagged oil tanker. Now, on the surface, this looks like this kind of high seas brinkmanship that can lead to World War Three. You've got a U.S. boarding party on a Russian vessel while a Russian naval ship and a nuclear submarine are lurking miles away in the foggy waters near Iceland. But if you step back and you look at the 2026 geopolitical board, there is a much deeper and far more cynical narrative that we can interpret from this. And that's really what I want to focus on. The standard analysis is that the relationship between Trump and Putin is hitting a breaking point. It's souring. Trump is in his first year of his second term. He's captured Nicolas Maduro in this middle of the night raid which would not please Putin. And now he's seizing Russian property to, as he puts it, take back the oil that he says belongs to the United States. It seems like Trump has broken with Putin. But I think we need to think a little more deeply what is actually happening here. Are we watching Trump break with Putin or are we watching a carefully choreographed piece of performance diplomacy designed to benefit both Trump and Putin at the expense of the rest of the world? Now, think about the timing. We're heading into the 2026 midterms. The Putin's puppet narrative has been this kind of thorn in Trump's side, really for a decade now. By seizing a Russian ship in this dramatic fashion, Trump gets to tout his tough guy optics. He can tell the American voter, I'm not just standing up to Putin, I'm taking his ships and I'm going to lower your gas prices with the oil. And it provides the perfect political cover. What does Putin get? Well, look at the Russian response. It's so far it's only been hours, but muted and legalistic. No missiles flying and no immediate threats. And so the question is this? Some kind of great swap keeps coming up. In this 2026 version of the world, we are seeing the birth of what some call the Don Row doctrine. Trump essentially tells Putin, the Western Hemisphere is my personal backyard. I take Maduro, I take oil in the Western Hemisphere, I kick out your advisers from the Western Hemisphere. And what does Putin get in exchange? Probably some kind of green light to finalize his own security sphere in Eastern Europe without the United States interfering, which of course would include keeping a bunch of Ukrainian land and maybe more. This is like a 19th century style resource grab masquerading as a 21st century security crisis. Trump isn't citing international law to justify this. He's citing essentially a real estate dispute. Venezuela stole the oil through nationalization decades ago. This Russian tanker was Venezuela connected. We're taking it. And he's treating the US Military as this kind of global collection agency that's just going to go around. We collect Maduro, we take oil from this tanker, we take oil from that tanker. If the US can snatch a head of state and seize a tanker because it wants, because the President wants rather to take the oil that he decided belongs to him, we have the death of the kind of post World War II order. It becomes a mercantile geopolitics where the world is divided into spheres of influence. Strongman Trump gets the Western hemisphere and strongman Putin gets the Eastern hemisphere. So I think we just have to ask ourselves, and maybe more information will come out in the forthcoming hours, is this a genuine confrontation between Trump and Putin or is this part of a coordinated global realignment that will be finalized sometime in the spring when some of these leaders meet? I am very suspicious of this. That is where. That's as far as I can go right now. My guess is that the next 24 hours are going to give us a lot more information. Donald Trump is saying the quiet part out loud. If we do not win the House in November, they will impeach me. Trump spoke to House Republicans yesterday. He danced, he did his trans weightlifting routine. Hold on, do I have his grunts? No, I don't. But he also said he's going to get impeached. Here he is saying X.
- [07:40]
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, I'll get impeached. We don't impeach them. You know why? Because they're meaner than we are. We should have impeached Joe Biden for 100 different things.
- [08:01]
David Pakman
Now this is not Trump being paranoid. It's after Trump's Venezuela operation. Impeachment talk is not hypothetical. It is really going mainstream. And very quickly now, after Trump ordered this weekend pre dawn military raid in Venezuela that resulted in the kidnapping of the President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Trump immediately said, this is a spectacular assault. It's a massive win. What A victory for the strong military. A lot of the world didn't see it that way. And the UN warned that the operation makes all states less safe. World leaders said this is reckless. And Trump doubles down and he says, we might do Cuba, we might do Colombia. What about Greenland, which should really be part of the United States? And now the impeachment momentum is again kicking in. Now Representative April Delaney is calling on House Democrats to immediately consider impeachment. Pointing out the obvious, Trump launched a military operation without congressional authorization. Open, shut, that's it. You got to go and do it. California State Senator Scott Weiner called it an illegal invasion and a coup and said, if the US Ignores international law, other authoritarians can do the exact same thing. Which is sort of the framing I used yesterday when I said, hey, listen, now they're saying, maybe we'll take Trump into custody. Why not? We heard from Dan Goldman who says Trump's acting like a dictator. We heard from Delia Ramirez saying, impeachable, impeachable, impeachable. The part that Trump seems to actually understand well is that this could lead to him getting impeached if Democrats do win the House in November. The part Trump maybe doesn't get is that Democrats are not likely to, even if they win the Senate, to have the votes needed to convict Donald Trump in an impeachment trial. I'll remind you of the numbers in the House of Representatives. You need a simple majority to impeach. This is the first point of confusion for many. The President getting impeached doesn't mean that the President is getting removed. Impeachment means the House voted by a simple majority to do an impeachment trial. The House presents the trial. We went through this twice during Donald Trump's first term. In the immediate aftermath of that first term, the House presents a case and then senators vote. 100 senators, 100 votes. Is it a simple majority? You need to remove the president? No, it is a 2/3 majority. And the reality is, and I wish it were different, but I always am focused on what is rather than what I wish would be. The reality is that if Democrats win the Senate, which is not the most likely outcome at this point in time, in fact, I should look 20, 26 Senate control odds betting market. Let's see where it is right now. Right now, the betting markets seem to be by about a 2 to 1 margin, suggesting that Republicans. Yeah, all of these Kalshee election betting odds, it's pointing to like a 2 to 1 likelihood that Republicans keep control of the Senate. But if they didn't. If they didn't, Republicans would control Democrats, rather would end up controlling the Senate. If they did 51 to 49, 52 to 48, it. It's not going to be anywhere near the two thirds that you would need, which means you would need somewhere between 12 and 14 Republican senators to say, yes, I will vote to convict Donald Trump. I'm so sorry, but I don't think there's anything Trump could do. I believe even if Trump murdered someone in cold blood, you don't get 12 Republican senators to say, I vote to convict. They would probably go, well, he did that as an individual, not as an official act. Therefore, it's not even impeachable. So the impeachment talk, as far as I understand it, is not about Democrats thinking Donald Trump is going to be removed from office. It's about if the actions justify impeachment, you should impeach. That's always been my view. I don't really love the political calculations of, well, if we impeached, he would be acquitted, and then do we lose political capital? For me, it's very simple. If I were a member of the House, God forbid, if I were a member of the House and there was a question about impeachment, my only frame would be, did the president do something worthy of impeachment? I wouldn't think of how many senators are in control for one party or the other. It would simply be, do I believe that the actions of the president warrant impeachment? And if yes, I would vote to impeach. Now, why is Trump worried about this? Because I think Trump knows he's not going to get a. He's not going to be convicted on impeachment. Trump is increasingly obsessed with legacy. That is his growing obsession, destroying part of the White House with the idea of putting in this ballroom. It is about leaving a lasting mark on the White House. Trump thinking about who is going to be the heir to the MAGA throne. Will it be J.D. vance or will it be Donald Trump Jr. As increasingly there are discussions, it's about leaving a lasting mark. And Trump is concerned with regard to if he loses the midterms and can get absolutely nothing done for the last two years of his presidency and he gets impeached. What sort of a legacy does that leave? The type of legacy that the presidential library writes about in crayon. That's the way I would put it. So after the break, we will look at a broader analysis of this speech that was given by Trump to House Republicans. We are going to look at Megyn Kelly and Nancy Mace and Marjorie Taylor Greene. A lot of right wing women for different reasons saying what's happening now isn't so good. Some turning on Trump straight up, some not. All of that and more is today. I want to remind you January 20th, the one year anniversary of Donald Trump's swearing in for his second term, we are doing a one day membership drive. I want this to be the biggest membership drive that we have ever done. Will be doing a huge discount off of membership which comes with great perks. All you need to do to be notified about this membership discount is get on my newsletter which you can do@substack.david pakman.com a good hoodie matters more than people think, especially this time of year when you're reaching for the same layer every single day. I've gone through a lot of hoodies that look fine at first, but they just don't feel like something I'm going to want to or even be able to keep wearing season after season. And this is why I love our sponsor, American Giant. I've been wearing their Classic Full Zip hoodie. It just feels different. The fleece is custom heavyweight, the fit is comfortable without being sloppy. The details stand out, the side panels give you mobility, the hood is double lined and the reinforced elbows make it feel like something that is really built to last and not something that'll last you one winter. American Giant is deeply committed to making timeless staples entirely in the usa. From the cotton to the zipper, the attention to quality really shows. Slate Magazine called American Giant's Classic Full Zip the greatest hoodie ever made. I've been wearing one and I understand why this season saved 20% on your first order. When you go to american-giant.com and use code PACMAN again, that's 20% off your first order. At american-giant.com use with code PAKMAN. The link is in the description. The David Pakman show is of course an audience supported program. Our primary source of funding is just people who listen to the podcast or watch YouTube clips or watch some TikTok clips or Snapchat or Facebook or Instagram. I'm getting carried away. Anyway, we do an extra show every day for our members. We also provide commercial free audio and video feeds of the show to our members and the show is available hours before it is publicly published. If you sign up@join pacman.com we'll also be doing a one day membership special on January 20th to mark just 33 years left of Donald Trump's final term. And it will be the final term. An absolutely demented Donald Trump danced for House Republicans in Washington, D.C. reportedly terrifying some of the people in the room who were left wondering, what on earth is wrong with this guy? He seemed deeply unwell. He doesn't seem like he can do it anymore. Here is Trump, as is often the case, meant to speak to House Republicans about the future of the Republican Party, what they need to do to maintain control of the house in 2026, what the stakes are. And Trump, unable to help himself, says he is passing cognitive tests constantly. And by the way, Gavin Newsom couldn't possibly pass one. The President of the United States.
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Donald Trump
We should give everybody, like, these competency tests, right? The cognitive. They call it cognitive. You know, I'm the only president that went for cognitive. I think every president and vice president should be forced to take cognitive exams, mental tests, like, are they intelligent? Wouldn't it be nice? Do you think Waltz could pass a cognitive test as an example? Do you think Kamala could? I don't think Gavin could.
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David Pakman
Crazy Kamala.
- [17:52]
Donald Trump
He's got a good line of crap. But other than that, he couldn't pass. I mean, here's a guy didn't want to have water coming down the. From the Pacific Northwest. Why? You know, they have a little tiny fish, just big, little tiny fish not doing well. You know why? No water. Descending water. It's too much. It's killing the fish. So they cut it off. And then they have 25,000 houses burned down. They don't know why. Now I think I believe in it. I'm the only one that took a cognitive test. I, I do.
- [18:22]
David Pakman
You know, a really good question that Trump doesn't seem to ask is why is he getting these brain injury tests so often? And this is, of course, another one of the symptoms, and I use that term loosely, it's another one of the symptoms that makes us wonder what is going on with Trump? Because most people wouldn't be administered brain injury tests this often. You know, there is a condition called ansonia. No. And as an osia, I hope I pronounce that correctly, anacinosia. It's where you don't recognize the, the medical conditions that you yourself have. And I can't help but wonder, as Donald Trump says, Tim Walls couldn't pass a cognitive test where you identify a giraffe. Kamala Harris couldn't pass a cognitive test where you write 10 after 11 on an analog Glock. Gavin Newsom couldn't pass a cognitive test where you count backwards by sevens from 100 or whatever. What if it's actually Trump who can't do those things and he is struggling to even understand the conditions that he has? So it's weird that it's supposed to be a meeting with Republicans about strategy in 2026 and all of it, and Trump is saying, I'm getting injury, brain injury tests all the time. Trump deeply unwell, doing his trans weightlifting routine where he pretends, I guess, to be a trans person lifting weights. The epitome of cruelty, the absolute, a microcosm of the bully that Trump is desperate to be.
- [20:02]
Donald Trump
And you see, I want to be more, but I have somebody watching. I want to be more effusive. I want to. Really?
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Megyn Kelly
Yeah.
- [20:12]
David Pakman
Now, some people said it, it looks like the edibles just kicked in, but I don't think that that's what it is.
- [20:16]
Donald Trump
When she gets in it, Drop the thing, walks off the stage crying, her mother's crying. Her father's guy gets up, he said, have you lifted before? A little bit. And he walks up being. He could have gone, ding, ding, ding. I think it was 112 pounds. It's crazy.
- [20:45]
David Pakman
A man who truly needs help. I'm not saying that in a joking or cutesy manner. This is a guy who needs serious help and he's invading countries, he's kidnapping world leaders. He's got the nuclear codes, or as he might call them, the nuclear codes, and this is what he's doing in front of Republicans. This is not. That's another. You know, one of the other signs of decline is your behavior is inappropriate for the context. Now, I don't think Trump doing the trans weightlifting routine at a rally in front of MAGA sycophants is an appropriate place to do it. I don't think it's ever appropriate. But to the extent that we want to enter Trump world, the trans weightlifting routine at least might be something that fires up a crowd of voters, I guess, if they're also transphobic. But this is. This is members of the House of Representatives. What is the role of this trans weightlifting routine in that context? So, ok, so there's that. Trump then talks about how Melania hates it when he does the dancing, which he then did, by the way. But here is Trump with an important topic to speak to Republicans about. Melania really doesn't like it when I dance.
- [22:02]
Donald Trump
She said, you know, she's a very classy person. Right. She said, it's so unpresidential. I said, but I did become president. Somebody she hates when I dance. I said, everybody wants me to dance, darling. It's not presidential. She actually said, could you imagine FDR dancing? She said that to me. And I said, there's a long history that perhaps she doesn't know because he was an elegant fellow.
- [22:39]
David Pakman
You know what's weird to me about this, I genuinely don't understand. FDR was in a wheelchair. Like, I don't, I understand. You can dance while sitting, I guess, but is this, is this extra weird and cruel because FDR was in a wheelchair? Like, I don't, I don't even know what goes through this guy's head.
- [23:02]
Donald Trump
Even as a Democrat, right? He was the attack by Japan, you know, he was quite elegant. But he wouldn't be doing this, but, but nor would too many others. But she says, darling, please, the weightlifting is terrible. And I have to say this, the dancing they really like. She said, they don't like it. They're just being nice to you. I said, that's not right. The place goes crazy. They're screaming, dance, please. But the weightlifting. But no, the girl gets up and you see, I want to be more, but I have.
- [23:37]
David Pakman
Anyway, okay, so now we get into the trans weightlifting part that we already played. And then finally, at the conclusion of this absolutely monstrous top level strategy summit with House Republicans strategizing for 2026, Trump does indeed dance after ranting and raving for nearly 90 minutes. Oh, it's hard not to laugh. But what the hell is happening to this country? And by the way, I know that this is sort of like very secondary. The dancing looks very similar to the dancing that Nicolas Maduro did that supposedly triggered Donald Trump. Anyway, a deeply unwell president. And where it gets really serious is when he starts talking about, oh, what if we canceled the 2026 election? Donald Trump went somewhere really dark and he did it on purpose. Trump spoke to House Republicans on January6, the five year anniversary of the Trump riots. And he launched into a rant where he said the following about the 2026 election. I won't say cancel it, but you know, they should. But everybody would get mad. Here is Trump toying with the idea, testing the idea out loud. Here's the video and here's the audio.
- [25:10]
Donald Trump
The worst president did the worst job. They had the worst policy. How we have to even run against these people. Now, I won't say cancel the election. They should cancel the election because the fake news will say he wants the elections cancel. He's a dictator. They always call me a dictator who nobody's worse than Obama. And the people that surrounded by not Biden. I don't think it was Biden. He didn't know what the hell was going on. Okay? The election was rigged. He had no, he had no idea what happened. He still doesn't.
- [25:39]
David Pakman
This is a classic of authoritarianism. Let's discuss it. You hint at it and then you go, no, I wouldn't do that, though. But, you know, I mean, Obama was bad and maybe it should be canceled. He frames the comment as media persecution. You know, if I said cancel the election, next thing you know, reporters would be saying, oh, you're an authoritarian, you're a dictator. He follows this by attacking Obama, saying, no one's worse than Barack Obama, and still claims that he actually won the 2020 election. This is the same election denial rhetoric that led to January 6th. And how telling that Trump is doing this on the five year anniversary, credible that it's been five years since January6. Now, Trump has joked about canceling the 2028 election. He's talked about running in the 2028 election and serving beyond constitutional limits of two terms. And he sells Trump 2028 merchandise, despite the fact that he is constitutionally banned from serving a third term. He has told NBC News, I'm not joking about a third term. There are methods. But then has also said, no, I'm not actually going to do it. In a conversation with President Zelensky, Trump reacted approvingly to the idea that, hey, if you're at war, you don't have an election. And when it was explained that in Ukraine, based on their law, if you're at war, you don't have elections, that is not the law in the United States, Trump said, oh, I kind of like that idea. We should look at doing that here. And of course, as we talked about earlier in the same speech where Trump hints and jokes about canceling the midterms, he also said, if we lose the house in 2026, in 10 months from now, I'm getting impeached for sure. So understand that there is one prism through which we have to analyze everything Trump says and does. Trump's goal is, will this help my perception as a powerful person? Will this enrich me or my family? Will this be good for me? That is the primary and really sole prism through which Trump analyzes everything. Trump is now linking the election to his personal, legal and political survival, to his legacy, to whether he's getting impeached again. And so what he's doing is saying there are democratic outcomes that the country might vote for which are bad, but they're bad because they would be a threat to Donald Trump, and he finds the loss of any kind of power unacceptable. So this is more than just like, oh, Trump sometimes jokes about 28, but then says he's not running. Or I would cancel the election, but then the media would get mad. This is about repetition. And authoritarians know how to do this. You normalize ideas, elections, they kind of depend on circumstances. You know, if it's going to be rigged, according to me, or if there is a war, which I started, or whatever, maybe we shouldn't have it. And this is about testing the rhetoric. You go further, you go further, you go further. Trump's talking about impeachment, he's talking about canceling elections. He's doing it in the open. All of this is a classic behavior of authoritarians. How far can I go with these ideas that start as crazy in order to get people thinking they're not so crazy, or at least thinking, I'm joking, and then you do it. Now, I am not saying Trump is going to cancel the 2026 election. I don't think he will. I don't think he can, especially since they're really run by the States. I don't think Trump is going to try to run in 2028. He has sort of joked one way and the other, but I don't think he's going to do it. But the fact that he is testing these things suggests that whatever he does try to do, or whatever Republicans do try to do, people may not take seriously because Trump will have sort of been quote, joking, unquote, about it for so long. Let me know what you think. We're also going to have more on this extremely volatile and important topic on our Substack newsletter, which I would love for you to sign up for@substack.david pakman.com There is no perfect moment to start taking your health seriously. Waiting for the right time usually means you just never do anything. And our sponsor, AG1, is just a really practical place to begin. A lot of times, sustainable health isn't so much about perfection, it's about consistency. And what AG1 does is it just really simplifies things. It's one scoop a day. You get multivitamins, pre and probiotics, some superfoods, some antioxidants. You don't have to juggle a complicated routine. AG1 is the opposite of complexity. It takes 20 seconds. One scoop, eight ounces of water. Done. I drink it in the morning before my world famous cappuccino and it's just an easy habit. That's what I love about it. AG1's new next gen formula has more vitamins and minerals than ever and it comes in a number of flavors. Original Citrus Berry Tropical My favorite is Berry. AG1 has over 50,000 verified 5 star reviews and a 90 day money back guarantee. And for a limited time you'll get a free AG1 duffel bag and free AG1 welcome kit with your first subscription order. Go to drink ag1.com/pacman the link is in the description let's start with this question. Is Trump a mastermind or is he merely a puppet? And the reason I want to talk about this today is that a viewer wrote something interesting on the David Pakman show sub Reddit and I want to take it seriously because it's not dumb and it's not crazy. So the argument goes like this. Dave loved the show, but I's gots one small complaint. I think you need to recognize Trump for the puppet he is. Your analysis attributes a lot of the policy and actions of the Trump government to the personal whims of Trump himself. But do the math. He works a few hours a day when he's not on the golf course. A lot of that time is probably consumed just prepping for public appearances. He's a tired 79 year old with failing health who struggles to read a piece of paper in front of him. Yet you believe he's up at 3am posting hundreds of truth social posts at blazing speed. He barely knows the people he pardons or the executive orders he's signing. The man is a bauble, a distraction, a public face meant to take attention away from a well organized group of smarter, more sinister people threatening the nation who aren't going to pack up once Trump is gone. So the conclusion that this viewer has reached is that Trump is basically just a frontman. He's a distraction. He's a puppet. The real danger is the smarter, more organized people behind Trump behind the scenes. And they are still going to be there once Donald Trump is gone. Now my view, I think this is a very interesting proposition. My view is that Trump is neither a mastermind nor a puppet. The argument that Trump is a puppet feels right in a lot of ways, and some of them are pointed out here. Trump is declining. Trump is lazy. Trump does spend an absurd amount of time golfing. He does have trouble focusing and reading and staying on message and sticking to anything coherent. That's true. It's also true that Trump delegates huge chunks of the job because he doesn't care about it or because it doesn't understand Those aspects of the job, all of that stuff is true. But where I think that Trump is just a puppet falls short, is that he doesn't have to be a mastermind 247 to still be central to the entire thing. I'll explain what I mean. He doesn't have to do the work himself for the system to still revolve around his whims. He doesn't have to understand everything his administration is doing to still be the dangerous catalyst that is setting off a lot of these things. So Trump may not be the architect of all of it. Point taken. But he is the authorization mechanism. At the end of the day, his administration doesn't run on plans. It runs on incentives. And these are the incentives of what is going to please Donald Trump. And so what Trump does is create an environment where power flows towards whatever flatters Trump, whatever entertains Trump, whatever feeds Trump's grievances or is personally profitable or beneficial to his ego. That's the system. If you're cruel, you get rewarded. If you're loyal, you survive. If you embarrass Trump, you're gone. If you, if you bore Trump, you don't exist. So this is not Trump as the accidental or passive leader. This is dysfunctional leadership. But it is leadership of a kind. Stephen Miller doesn't control Donald Trump. Miller adapts to Trump, learns how to talk to Trump in language that he likes, learns the type of cruelty that will appeal to Trump to get Trump to go, yes, go ahead and do this. You understand how to pitch things to Trump that will do well on Fox News. And then they package their ideas in ways that will suit Trump's impulses. And Trump goes, let's do it. It's not, you know, maybe it's a signature or maybe Trump doesn't get in the way, or maybe he says, let's do it. That's how the policy happens. And so Trump sitting down at 3am with a white paper. No. Trump sitting down at 3am and blasting out truths. Yes. And then the truths signal, what is it that is going to please the dear leader. So this idea of if Trump were really in charge, things would be more organized, to me, kind of proves the opposite. If there were a secret puppet master running the show, I think you'd see more discipline, you'd see consistency, you'd see fewer self inflicted disasters. The reason we have tariff chaos and public feuds and policy reversals and people getting fired by tweet and loyalists stabbing each other for access is because Trump still is the narcissist. In charge and everybody else is courting him. And sometimes it goes one way and sometimes it goes the other. So I think Trump probably writes some of his own social media posts. Others are clearly helped or, you know, typed up by staff. But that's not really the point. Policy doesn't require Trump's labor, it requires his permission. And Trump can be golfing all day and still presiding over enormous damage if everybody knows. We just need to make sure Trump is OK with what we're doing. And so I think that I agree and disagree with the critique that Trump is not really in power. Trump's not the only problem, this is for sure. If Trump disappears today, the movement doesn't disappear. There are other ideologues, there are donors, there are corporate interests and authoritarian fantasies that predate Trump. All of that stuff is real. But Trump is the sort of accelerant here. If we use arson as an analogy, he's the chaos engine that makes the worst people more powerful and destroys the guardrails. And Trump turns every single institution into a loyalty test. He makes incompetence survivable as long as you're cruel enough and the cruelty is performative enough. And that's an environment that exists because of Donald Trump. So I agree to, in a sense with the person who says Trump's not really. I'm giving Trump too much agency. Well, I agree that there are other people involved here, but Trump is not merely a helpless old man wheeled around while smarter people secret secretly run the country. But he's also not the strategic genius. He's something arguably worse. He's a declining, impulsive figure whose own self aggrandizement is maybe the most important prism. And he is at the center of a system. It is a system, but he's at the center of it that rewards the most extreme behavior imaginable. And as long as he's there, he is going to be relevant. Not because he's capable of managing everything in a day to day micromanagement way, but because everything has to pass through his ego. And so pretending that he is only a puppet really understates it. Very interesting post, very interesting idea. But I think we have to go further in our analysis. Megyn Kelly is pounding her old employer Fox News over how they are covering Donald Trump's kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. But what she exposes here by what she doesn't really say is, is arguably as interesting. Megyn Kelly in this clip says that as a Fox News anchor she knew what her job was and had she still been At Fox when Trump kidnapped Maduro, she would have been there to uncritically cheer it on. And now she's skeptical. Take a look.
- [38:24]
Megyn Kelly
I really think this is something we need to consider both sides on. I really do. I don't think. Let me just tell you something. When I was at Fox News, which was a long time, 14 years, I would have known exactly what to do in the wake of Trump's attack in Venezuela, his retrieval, shall we say, to put it in mild terms, of Nicolas Maduro. I would have known that I was supposed to cheerlead it.
- [38:47]
David Pakman
Right.
- [38:48]
Megyn Kelly
And I turned on Fox News yesterday, and I'm sorry, but it was like watching Russian propaganda. There was nothing skeptical. It was all ridiculous rah rah cheerleading. Yes. Let's go. And that's fine. I love our military as much as anyone, and I believe in President Trump, but there are serious reasons to just exercise a note of caution.
- [39:08]
David Pakman
Yeah.
- [39:09]
Megyn Kelly
Before we just get on the rah rah train. All right. I have done that enough times in my career as a Fox News anchor.
- [39:18]
David Pakman
Oh, wait a second. You did it.
- [39:20]
Megyn Kelly
To have been embarrassed enough to know I'm gonna stay on the yellow light for this.
- [39:27]
David Pakman
Wow.
- [39:27]
Megyn Kelly
I'm not in the green light territory. I'm not in the red light territory either, but I am staying in the yellow light territory for now. I see all of the strategic advantages of what he's done. Trust me, I do. I see that other countries like Russia and China and Cuba were all over Venezuela and it's oil, posing a potential threat to the United States. I get that. That's actually the most persuasive argument and obviously the real one, and none of this bullshit enforcement. But I have seen what happens when you cheerlead unabashedly US Intervention in foreign countries, thinking it's for our good and for the national, the international good, only to why.
- [40:09]
David Pakman
All right, so she goes into the reasons to be skeptical of what Trump has done with Maduro. But there's a lot of interesting things there. She presents it almost like a virtue. She's kind of like flexing. I used to do this at Fox News, but I don't do it anymore. Oh, so you were not the objective journalist when you were at Fox News, were you? Which she claimed to be, but there's actually more to this. And there's a deeper analysis, which I'm going to get to in a moment. But first, here's Megyn Kelly saying I would be very skeptical of Boots on the Ground as well. I have kids. Think about my kids.
- [40:40]
Megyn Kelly
I have seen what happens when you cheerlead unabashedly US Intervention in foreign countries, thinking it's for our good and for the national, the international good, only to wind up with what we've called quagmire in places like Iraq, not to mention Libya. We're not great at going into these foreign countries, decapitating them at the leadership level and then saying either we're gonna steer the country to a better place or it's gonna steer itself. Either one, they just nine times out of ten they don't work out well. And what does it mean in terms of boots on the ground? Trump is saying, I'm actually fine with that in Venezue. Well, whose boots? Because I have a 16 year old boy and I have a 12 year old boy and I have a 14 year old girl and a lot of my listeners have children too, who are actually the ones who might have to fill the boots. So I think I speak for a lot of moms and dads for that matter when I say I'm staying in yellow territory until we know more. And I will not be joining the Fox News cheerleading brigade this time.
- [41:47]
David Pakman
How brave. What a profile in courage, huh? Listen, I want to put aside for a second the idea that Megyn Kelly is different than the ones who are still at Fox News. She just ended up out and so now the incentives are different and the incentives changed. Ok? But this is still notable for a couple different reasons. First of all, Megyn Kelly is not like a left wing critic. She is a right winger. And the fact that she is even being critical of something that Donald Trump is doing, or at least not yet praising it, is indicative of the skepticism that exists in the country about what Donald Trump did with Maduro. And the polling supports that. Very few people think what Donald Trump did with Maduro is a good thing. Some, many don't like Maduro. I don't like Maduro, but recognize that this is not a not a good door to be opening. Secondly, she is framing her critique around journalistic responsibility in war and in foreign interventions. And it's more than just a political disagreement. That's a different tone than a lot of these partizan media disagreements. So what she isn't doing is she's not attacking Trump's decision in a personal way. She's not saying the intervention is unjustified. She says she loves the US Military, she believes in Trump's broader goals. And she's also not rejecting the idea of US Action abroad. She just says the coverage should be cautious and Critical, relatively mild critique. Now, what she does still support is she says that there are or she still has, she supports or worries about. She says that the geopolitical stakes that involve Russia, China and Cuba because of their interest in Venezuela warrant some scrutiny. And she says blind patriotism. You know, cheerleading without context is a real problem. We've got to probe the risks here. We've got to probe the legal basis and the long term consequences. And she also is concerned about the cost of war, the boots on the ground, her own kids. Wait a second before we would send my own kids. So this is not a pro, As I said, it's not a profiling courage, but it still exposes a fracture within the right wing media ecosystem. Most right wing outlets are rallying behind Trump's foreign policy and they're saying what Trump did in Venezuela is a huge triumph and kidnapping Maduro is phenomenal and it's completely cool and very legal. She's not participating in that. That does not align her with the critics on the left. It just makes her part of the right who's a little skeptical about what Donald Trump is doing. I still think that it is a signal that there is a real problem for the Republican Party as they have to try to figure out how do we convince voters as we go into 2026. But the idea of Megyn Kelly as some truth teller who's not willing to just cheerlead, whatever. And by the way, look at all the areas in which she has been cheerleading Trump, including for the most part, not 100%, but for the most part, Trump's broader economic policy. Although I think on the tariffs specifically, she's been a little mixed. And the immigration slash, deportation stuff. So she still is mostly serving as a mouthpiece for Donald Trump, but she's found an area to be a little bit cautious about. And who knows, part of the reason for that caution might be, as she acknowledges, she'd be worried about her own kids ending up in some of these theaters abroad if boots on the ground do become a reality. So interesting from the point of view of what it means about the Republican Party's fractures. Not going to make me think, wow, she's really a truth teller who's able to go beyond the Partizan lens, take it for what it is. It's a little something, but it's not much more. One challenge in covering politics today is that even when outlets are reporting the same facts, they often are framing the stories really differently. And our sponsor, Ground News, is a website and app that makes those differences easy to see what Ground News does is gather coverage of the same story from across the political spectrum and shows you where the reporting is coming from. You can see which outlets lean left, right or center and you can also see how reliable they are and who owns them. What I find most useful is the side by side headline comparison. You're looking at the same underlying facts, but it's clear how different outlets will emphasize one angle or a narrative or another. Ground News gives you a transparent way to understand bias without being told what to think. They also offer a blind spot feed which will highlight stories underreported by one side of the political spectrum and that helps surface items that I might otherwise otherwise miss or not even hear about. You can also personalize your feed by interest and that makes it easier to follow issues you personally care about. Go to Ground Dot News slash pacman to get 40% off the ground News Vantage plan and you can also gift a subscription to a friend. The link is in the description Outgoing Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene is sick of all of this Trump nonsense and she did not take kindly to Donald Trump's kidnapping of Nicolas Maduro from Venezuela, Trump's own former friend. To the extent Trump has friends, right, And I don't know that he really does he it's getting really ugly with her. So here is Marjorie Taylor Greene. We're going to check out her interview on Meet the Press, making a number of interesting claims and assertions. And here is the first one.
- [47:24]
Marjorie Taylor Greene
And that's what Americans are absolutely sick and tired of. That was part of what they voted for in 2024. They voted to tear down the system that protects the rich, powerful elites. They voted to tear down the system that consists of consistently goes for foreign wars and regime change. They voted to tear down the system that does nothing for regular hardworking Americans and only consistently props up the big banks, the military industrial complex and the oil executives and major major industries. And you know, you want to know something? After this regime change in Venezuela, I fear that we're going to see jobs just move south. But because we're already hearing about big corporations lining up their trips to Venezuela for the next big business opportunity that exists while Americans sit here with no options that are going to provide them with good paying jobs and affordable health care.
- [48:20]
David Pakman
Marjorie Taylor Greene is admitting correctly for once that regime change, if that is even what they are trying to do, is not about democracy and it's not about freedom. It is about opening up a country for corporate exploitation, cheap labor, cheap resources, new markets for these multinational companies and what's hilarious is that she's framing this as a fear when this is the standard outcome of American backed regime change going back decades. It's like par for the course. The real problem for Donald Trump is that Marjorie Taylor Greene is making a typically left wing critique of neoliberal foreign policy while blaming Donald Trump for enabling it. She's not attacking the deep state. She's saying Trump is the one who's doing this. That is not supposed to happen. She also pounded Trump over this ridiculous 50 year mortgage idea, which she correctly identifies as not a good thing for the American people. For the average person, President Trump says.
- [49:19]
Megyn Kelly
He gets to decide what America first means. Does America first first mean whatever President.
- [49:25]
David Pakman
Trump says it does?
- [49:28]
Marjorie Taylor Greene
You know, America first should mean what was promised on the campaign trail in 2024. So my understanding of America first is strictly for the American people. Not for the big donors that donate to big politicians. Not for the special interests that constantly roam the halls in Washington and not foreign countries that don't demand their priorities put first over Americans. America first actually means for the American people. And the American people have been put last consistently decades and decades by both, both political parties for far too long. My kids generation, my kids are 22, 26 and 28, are looking at a future where this whole entire generation doesn't think they'll ever see a Social Security check. They don't believe they'll ever be able to afford to own their own home. And 50 year mortgages are, are really a, a slap in the face. It's insulting. Americans don't want $2,000 stimulus checks as a payoff. They want to have good policies brought forth for them. Because you want to know something, Kristen? They voted for this administration.
- [50:38]
David Pakman
You know what's brutal about this is that it is a total collapse of Donald Trump's economic message. She's rejecting the idea that Americans should or will be pacified by Gimmicks. And a 50 year mortgage at the end of the day is a long term debt trap. It's a gimmick. Even, even a one time two thousand dollar check, not that two thousand bucks wouldn't help a lot of people, but it is a symbolic gesture. It is not structural policy. And she's right about one thing. People don't want a 50 year mortgage. It's like feudalism with better branding or something like that. But the key moment is she is saying this while Trump is president. So when she says Americans don't want this, she's not talking about Americans don't want what Democrats are offering. She's saying Americans don't want what is being offered or proposed. With a Republican controlled House, a Republican controlled Senate and a Republican in the White House, it's a former ally saying everything about this is not working. One more Marjorie Taylor Greene clip about how the systems are increasingly serving not the American people, but the usual suspect.
- [51:47]
Marjorie Taylor Greene
I am not defending Maduro and of course I'm happy for the people of Venezuela to be liberated. But Americans celebrated the liberation.
- [51:55]
David Pakman
By the way, have they been liberated if the entire regime other than Maduro.
- [51:58]
Marjorie Taylor Greene
Is in place of the Iraqi people after Saddam Hussein. They support celebrated the liberation of the Libyan people after Gaddafi. And this is the same Washington playbook that we are so sick and tired of that doesn't serve the American people, but actually serves the big corporations, the banks and the oil executives. And so my pushback here is on the Trump administration that campaigned on make America Great again, that we thought was putting America first. I want to see domestic policy be the priority that helps Americans afford life after four disastrous years of the Biden administration. I want to see domestic policies that prioritizes jobs and affordable housing for Americans after four disastrous years of the Biden administration. And I want to see domestic priorities that that put Americans first. And repeat regards of health care, health insurance costs, too much, car insurance, home insurance. And these are issues that matter to Americans. We don't consider Venezuela our neighborhood. Our neighborhood is right here in the 50 United States.
- [53:08]
David Pakman
She is attacking the exact interests that Trump said he was going to take out of power. Trump wasn't going to govern for the big banks or the oil executives are for more corporate power. Supposedly he was a populist and she's using the same populist language. And so I want to remind you populist language before they get into power, when it's as a critique of the status quo, left and right wing populists sound very similar. And this is why when you listen to Marjorie Taylor Greene speak in this way, she could be mirroring the populist rhetoric of Trump before he was elected. Or she could be mirroring the populist rhetoric of a Bernie Sanders. I've explained before, you listen to Tucker and Bernie, their diagnosis can be similar. All of a sudden, though, when you get to the solution, Tucker's like, you got to be worried black people from Black Lives Matter are going to take your house. We got to stop that in order to help the middle class. And so when they get to the solutions, it often looks very different. But Marjorie Taylor Greene is pointing out the interests that Trump said he was going to supplant with focusing on the average person, he is not actually doing. And she says, I want domestic policy to be the priority. And that is a rebuke of Trump directly. Trump is involved in foreign adventurism. She's saying, why are we doing all this stuff abroad? Americans can't afford housing, health care, or even have stability at home. And so when she says we don't consider Venezuela our neighborhood, she rejects the entire premise that Donald Trump is now embracing, which is, we're going to go into Venezuela, we might go into Colombia, we might go into Cuba, we might take Greenland. He is getting wrecked by his own former ally, if not friend, using the very same rhetoric that he typically uses. But it has been turned against him now. Marjorie Taylor Greene has left Congress. She is out. But Nancy Mace is still in Congress and she's very concerned about the direction that this is going. There's a fascinating and quite frankly, very revealing moment that took place over on Newsmax. Newsmax is not a network known exactly for its hard hitting, objective journalism when it comes to the Republican Party, but Republican Congresswoman Nancy Mace, who has undergone a complete MAGA transformation over the last few years. She was asked a very simple standard rah rah question. How is it looking for Republicans in the midterms? Are you confident? And normally what you hear from Republicans when they're asked, are you confident in Republicans? They give this scripted we've never been stronger. The American people love our agenda. But instead, she says, I'm not confident. I don't believe that we have done enough.
- [55:55]
Marjorie Taylor Greene
The GOP holding on to that slim majority now made even slimmer by the passing of Congress Lamar and the loss of Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who quit earlier this week. Are you confident Republicans can hold on to the majority come November?
- [56:11]
Nancy Mace
Well, no, I'm actually, I'm not. I feel like we could do a lot more. We don't have a lot of time to, I believe, implement all of Donald Trump's agenda. Republican primaries start in March. Texas is one of the earliest states. And I don't believe we've done enough. I mean, I'm looking at the immigration policies of the president. We could have codified some of the deportation, for example, of illegal aliens who are rapists, murderers and pedophiles. We haven't done that yet. That bill's been sitting in the Senate for the last year almost to the day. I think we could have done a lot more, but we'll see. We've got to Take over. As Donald Trump said yesterday, President Trump, the health care issue, he has great ideas, great plans on fixing it with the health savings, savings accounts and giving people the money back to make those decisions, meaning more competition in the health care market. He's spot on. Everything he has said has been the best idea for the country. He's going to go down as the best president in the United States.
- [57:05]
Megyn Kelly
But I don't.
- [57:06]
Nancy Mace
But I see the House or the Senate, particularly the Senate, which is the bottleneck right now, holding up his agenda and ensuring that we don't win the House. I'm very concerned about the midterms and I know all of us are going to be working very hard, hard to turn people out everywhere.
- [57:19]
David Pakman
So she's being careful. Trump's awesome. Trump wants to do all the right things. He's trying to do all the right things. But we got to make sure that he's able to do him because otherwise it's going to be trouble. We are now well into Donald Trump's first year of the second term. The honeymoon period has completely evaporated. And what we are now seeing is a Republican Party realizing maybe too late, that governing is harder than tweeting and campaigning. And since Trump was sworn in last January, the Trump administration has been characterized by a level of administrative chaos that actually makes his first term look kind of like a well oiled machine, even though we remember that it wasn't. We've seen attempts to implement the Project 2025 style sort of overhaul of the civil service. It involved Doge as well. And that has led to huge brain drain, federal agencies that are paralyzed and gutted. We've seen the economic sugar high of promised deregulation met with the reality of trade wars and tariffs that are predictably driving up costs for the average person. And Nancy Mace, I disagree with her about a lot of her political conclusions, but she knows the math. 2026, the out party, in this case Democrats, usually has an advantage, but this time it could be much more acute than in historical trends. And you've got a frustrated MAGA base because they were told we're going to get retribution. And to the extent that there's been retribution, it's doing nothing to fix their lives. These moderate suburban voters, center right voters, are potentially going to stay home. And many of them voted Trump, but they kind of held their noses as they did it. And they are saying, I don't want anything to do with this. And so when Nancy Mace says we haven't done enough, what she's kind of saying is the House Republicans have spent the last year doing performative hearings and sucking up to Trump and saying, who can out MAGA the other one? Instead of passing a coherent legislative agenda, they have spent their political capital on internal feuds and defying any attempts to really help the American people that Democrats have put forward, all in service of defending the last, every last ridiculous idea from Donald Trump. So it's a form of panic that's taking place. And it makes sense. If you were losing Nancy Mace, someone who spent two years trying to stay, stay in Trump's good graces, you are losing the narrative. And I know Republicans, I mean, listen, they'll always tell you, we're hoping for a red wave. We're expecting a red wave. If that's the case, they're going to be sorely disappointed. They may retain control, barely. But if Democrats take the House, they might flip not just 20 seats or 40 seats. It's conceivable that Democrats flip 60 seats in the House. If. Now, this is where it gets to the if, if Democrats can actually figure out how to win some of these elections. And the other thing to consider IS Republicans have 10 months. They could pivot. They could, you know, House leadership, Republican House leadership could say, we're going to try to govern, we're going to try to change our approach. But based on what we've seen over the last almost 12 months, I think the answer is no. They are doubling down on a strategy that appeals to a shrinking, shrinking portion of the electorate. And a lot of people even in their party are saying retribution, sure, Maduro, maybe. But what about all the stuff that was going to get cheaper and all the economic problems you were going to fix and the housing costs that were going to come down and none of it is happening. So Nancy Mace does recognize it, but I don't know that they care what anybody is warning them about. On the bonus show today, what on earth is happening? At CBS News, we will talk about Gavin Newsom increasingly emerging as the natural front runner for the Democratic nomination in 2028 and the destruction of religious freedom in the military under Pete Hegseth. What? Yes, all of those stories and more on the bonus show get instant access when you sign up@join pacman.com.