Trumpworld spins out of control as conspiracies spiral

[0:00] There are millions of people claiming that the White House Correspondents dinner shooting [0:07] was staged. And at the exact same time, you have parts of Donald Trump's base [0:13] saying the Butler assassination attempt against Trump was also fake. That is not coming from the [0:22] left. It's coming from Maga. And we're going to break down why none of it really holds up [0:28] and what it tells you about how conspiratorial thinking spreads. By the way, I was in D.C. [0:34] and went into lockdown at a nearby event when that shooting happened. I'll talk about that as well. [0:40] And in reaction, Donald Trump giving a series of interviews that are quite difficult to watch. And [0:44] it's not just rambling answers and bizarre comments about war. Trump is also denying things that are [0:50] clearly on video. We are going to look at that. And a Fox host turns interview into praise session. [0:58] And when we talk about what do these Maga people even want interviews to look like, this is what [1:03] they want interviews to look like. Adulation, praise, almost just praying at the altar of Trump. [1:11] We also have a moment from CNN that shows how low the bar has gotten when it comes to political rhetoric. [1:18] And then moving forward, we will talk about are we entering a system where citizenship [1:26] can be taken away and revisited at scale? That's what the administration is now threatening to do. [1:32] All of that and more today was the shooting at the White House Correspondents Dinner staged. [1:46] That is what millions are saying on social media, including many on the political left. I got emails [1:53] like, David, you're not falling for this, are you? No one believes the shooting was real. Well, [2:00] I was in Washington, D.C. over the weekend. I was at the Substack New Media Party just blocks away [2:07] from the correspondence dinner when the shooting took place. They locked us down. No one in and [2:12] no one out, which really just meant the party continued. I'll talk about that later or on the [2:17] bonus show. But what I want to talk about today are the widespread claims and insinuations that it was [2:24] staged. And I will tell you why people are saying this, what the incentives would be. And I will also [2:32] give you my opinion. Now, some of the claims that are being made are things like the security should [2:40] be airtight. So any kind of breach or attempted attack couldn't possibly be real, meaning it must [2:49] have been staged. There is a focus on how could someone get close enough for this to happen? People [2:56] assuming that access points and screening would prevent anything like this, even though a lot of [3:03] these people don't really know how layered security works in practice. Another claim is that it's too [3:10] convenient that the person caused chaos by shooting but wasn't really able to get close to Trump and [3:19] therefore it must have been set up. Or Trump immediately said, this is why we need the ballroom, [3:26] meaning Trump staged it to be able to say, see, if we had my ballroom instead of being at the Washington [3:32] Hilton, this never would have happened. We're going to take it piece by piece by piece. And it is true [3:40] that in this rapidly assembled press conference right after the shooting, Donald Trump did say, hey, [3:46] listen, we need the ballroom because of this. I'll just remind you of that. [3:50] Speaker 3 And we looked at all of the conditions that took place tonight. And [3:56] I will say, you know, it's not a particularly secure building. And I didn't want to say this, [4:04] but this is why we have to have all of the attributes of what we're planning at the White House. [4:12] It's actually a larger room and it's much more secure. It's got it's drone proof. It's bulletproof. [4:18] Speaker 3 All right. You get it. Trump goes, this is why we need the ballroom that I want to do. [4:22] Now, let's talk about a few different things. First of all, how tight was security? Well, [4:26] I was in that building just a couple of hours before the shooting. Now, it is true that there [4:32] was the veneer of security. I'll give you some examples. The entire block on which the Washington [4:38] Hilton sits was blocked off. When I got picked up in an Uber, I had to walk several blocks away [4:46] because the Uber couldn't get close. There were dogs, beautiful dogs sniffing around, [4:53] presumably bomb and explosive sniffing dogs. You had Secret Service as well as Capitol Police. [5:01] And then there's this other like they have the white cars and it says protective services. There [5:05] were three, four. You had National Guard stocking around the area. So there was indeed the veneer of [5:11] security. But at the same time, anybody could just walk into the lobby or other areas once the event [5:20] started to get into the ballroom, which was on a different floor. Yes, security was very tight, [5:26] but that's not where the shooter got. The shooter, in fact, ended up discharging the gun [5:32] in the in the lobby area. So, yes, security was sort of tight, but it also wasn't really that tight where [5:38] the shooting took place. And remember that this was not in the room where the event was taking place. [5:42] So that's number one. Number two, there were conflicting reports about whether the shooter [5:49] was killed, which are fomenting the belief in some that this was staged. Oh, the shooter was killed. Oh, [5:55] no, they got the shooter. So but this stuff is always incomplete and messy at the beginning. [6:00] Speaker 1 The lack of clear, widely shared footage at one point was fueling conspiracy theories. [6:08] Everybody expected everything to be captured super, super cleanly on video. But we have surveillance [6:13] footage of the shooter running by. And so since there wasn't, I guess, the extensive footage that [6:19] some expected that is fueling conspiracy theories. There were claims about the suspect that the suspect [6:26] was clearly a plant fake in some way. But the truth is that we have a wide, a pretty extensive [6:33] social media history for the suspect. And it does seem to have been an anti Trump person on the left. [6:39] I mean, that that's just what it seems to have been. And so a lot of this is getting filtered through [6:45] the false flag frameworks where people already are predisposed to believe events like this are staged [6:52] and they immediately interpret the events in that way. Social media amplifies it. There's a general [6:58] distrust of government, a general distrust of media. And so some people start saying it must have been [7:04] staged. Now, I'm going to give you my view on this. And I know because I'm on social media, there are [7:10] fellow leftists who are saying they believe that this was staged. I don't believe that it was staged. [7:18] If the claim there's a we'll go through some of the claims. Trump did this because his approval [7:24] rating is in the toilet and he believed this would help his approval rating. Trump's polling moved half [7:32] a point after the Butler assassination attempt in which the belief is Trump's ear was grazed by a bullet [7:42] and he actually bled and someone died who was standing behind Trump. After all of that, Trump's [7:50] polling budged half a point. So even the idea that this would help Trump's approval seems shaky at best [7:59] to me. Number two, the ballroom. This was staged so that Trump could immediately say this is why we need [8:06] the ballroom. And Trump did say this is why we need the ballroom. And all sorts of mega social media [8:13] accounts immediately started posting this is why we need the ballroom. Well, on the latter, we know [8:19] that there is a coordination of mega influencers. They clearly got the message start saying this is [8:24] why we need the ballroom. That's not proof that it was actually staged. And importantly, I don't believe [8:30] that this shooting will help get the ballroom built even a single day more quickly. It just doesn't make [8:36] sense. There's no evidence that that's going to happen next. Why leave a Kamala supporting left wing [8:46] shooter alive if it was staged and a plant and he's a patsy when you could have easily had him killed [8:57] and it would have been considered justified as a killing by the standards that are applied in this [9:03] country. Why allow him to live? And now he is a liability who could potentially spill the beans [9:12] doesn't make any sense. Now, when you tell the people who say it was staged what I just said, [9:17] they will often come back and go, no, no, no, no. Even the guy, the guy wasn't in on it. They used [9:24] psychological tools and techniques to make him decide the guy believes he did it on his own. [9:31] Now we're going two layers deep into conspiracy. So case in point, I don't think that this was staged. [9:38] The superficial incentives that are being presented as the evidence that it was likely staged don't hold [9:47] up. It runs counter to the incentives of many of the people that are involved. And quite frankly, [9:56] I still don't think that this administration is capable enough to actually pull it off. [10:04] So absent actual evidence that this was staged or a plant, I don't believe it was. And this opens up a [10:13] broader conversation about conspiracy theories that goes back to Butler, which I now want to talk about. [10:21] The story about the first assassination attempt of Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, is now seeing [10:30] even Maga people suggesting that it was staged and fake. It's a strange turn in a way. It's not coming [10:38] from the left. It's coming from some of the people in Trump's base and formerly in his base. Increasingly, [10:46] we are seeing supporters of Donald Trump's saying the whole thing was staged and the shooting in [10:53] Butler, Pennsylvania during the 2024 presidential campaign wasn't real. Now let's rewind for a second. [11:01] This was the 2024 rally where Donald Trump's ear was reportedly grazed by a bullet and a supporter of [11:09] Trump's in the crowd was killed. Now, at the time, the reaction from Maga world was immediate. [11:16] It was predictable. This is proof that leftists are violent. This is proof that Trump was chosen by [11:24] God and protected by God and divinely spared, even though for some reason God directed the bullet to [11:30] kill a completely innocent guy standing behind Donald Trump. We, of course, ultimately learned that the [11:35] shooter was a Republican. Republicans didn't really care about that. But now we are seeing cracks in [11:41] the movement and we're seeing something different happen, which is that there are even Maga people [11:46] suggesting there are questions here. Tucker Carlson is raising questions about that shooting, not in a [11:53] responsible evidence based way, but in a something feels kind of off way. You've got former supporters, [12:01] influencers, conspiracy figures, openly suggesting the entire thing was staged or covered up or [12:09] manipulated behind the scenes. You've got Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeting. She doesn't come out and [12:14] say straight up it was a hoax. But she says, quote, I'm not calling the Butler assassination a hoax, [12:23] but there are a lot of questions that deserve public answers. I'm asking why won't Trump release the [12:30] information about Matthew Crooks? Did he actually act alone? If not, who's behind him and who helped [12:38] him? Why the cover up? Now, I want to connect this to something else. When I talked last week or the [12:45] week before about the fact that this was a growing sentiment on the right, I got a lot of messages from [12:54] people in my own audience also expressing skepticism about the Butler assassination attempt. And some [13:02] pointed to how quickly Trump's ear appeared to heal. Others said there didn't seem to be the amount of [13:09] blood that we would expect. Some mentioned, you know, photographers seem to already be in position and [13:16] they were escorted to get the dramatic images of Trump. And Trump didn't appear particularly shaken up [13:23] afterwards. And really, he never appeared particularly shaken up. I want to be really clear. None of that [13:30] is proof of anything. They are observations. There are understandable questions, but they aren't evidence [13:38] that this was staged or faked. Now, conspiracy theorists will sometimes then go back to a position [13:45] that I've talked about before, which is that the lack of evidence is proof that it was staged and fake [13:51] because they've covered up the evidence. I am very hesitant to jump in on that sort of belief. And [13:59] what you're watching right now is a movement that is in a way turning on itself using the same conspiracy [14:05] logic that it used to defend Trump. It is now being used against Trump. It's like the boomerang effect of [14:12] conspiratorial thinking. And as far as the MAGA movement is concerned, when you build a political [14:18] movement on distrust of institutions and we distrust the media, we distrust that we are even being told [14:23] what facts are, that distrust will spread. And at first it's the FBI is lying. Then it's the election [14:31] was rigged. Then it's maybe even the assassination attempt wasn't real. And once you open that door, [14:36] I don't think there's a mechanism to close it, because when you throw standards of evidence out the [14:42] window or flush them, everything is suspicion. What does it feel like? What do I trust in the moment [14:49] and not what can actually be proven? Now, there's one other thing that is happening that I think is [14:55] worth mentioning, which is that some of the people that are now talking about the Butler assassination [15:00] in these terms are trying to tie this into broader narratives of shadowy control, foreign influence. [15:08] Sometimes it's anti-Semitic tropes. It's all the stuff that always happens with conspiracy theorists. [15:15] That's how these ecosystems evolve. They escalate to try to keep attention. They got to keep people [15:20] engaged, keep the outrage machine going. And it creates a situation where even something as serious [15:27] as an assassination attempt becomes another thing to reinterpret for clicks and loyalty tests. [15:33] Now, what this is always been about is narrative control, not what facts do we have and how can [15:39] we connect facts? It's when Trump looked strong, he survived because he's the chosen one. Now he's [15:48] facing criticism and the story shifts to maybe it was fake. Same event. OK, different interpretation [15:55] depending on what serves the moment. And eventually it just consumes everything. We're seeing this with the [16:01] White House Correspondents Dinner shooting. We're still seeing it now with the Butler shooting. And [16:07] what has been blown wide open at a political level is the instability of the MAGA movement, [16:14] which doesn't know what to believe anymore. It trained itself. Don't believe anything consistently. [16:21] Every belief is subject to throwing the evidence out and coming up with a brand new interpretation [16:28] absent any evidence. And it is destroying them from the inside. We have a piece we're putting [16:35] up on my sub stack about how the conspiratorial thinking festers, generates and then consumes [16:43] everything. It's a really good piece about how all of this works and why it happens. You can find it [16:48] on my sub stack. David Pakman dot com slash sub stack. I'm excited to tell you about the world's number [16:56] one expanding garden hose and their brand new product, the pocket hose ballistic. I used to go [17:04] through cheap hoses all the time because of the kinks and the leaks and the tangles. This is on another [17:11] level. 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One of the great things from being in DC this weekend at the White [18:11] House Correspondents Dinner events, not the dinner, but ancillary events is the recognition of how much [18:20] independent media has grown, seeing so many independent media people there who never would [18:25] have gotten invited to anything when all of this started. It was inspiring. And it is all thanks to [18:32] audience supported media. Remember that this show is audience supported. I would love for you to upgrade [18:40] your free sub stack subscription to paid at David Pakman dot com slash sub stack. And remember that [18:46] we do an extra show every day for my website members. You can sign up on my website at join Pakman dot com. [18:56] Both are great ways to support the work that we do. We're going to keep building. We have huge things [19:03] planned for this year as well as we ramp up to the 2028 election. So thanks to everybody. Only thanks to [19:11] you. Can we even do what we do? Donald Trump exploded in a rage. I'm not a rapist. I'm not a pedophile. [19:22] He is now openly denying these things and he seems to have a very guilty conscience. He was interviewed [19:31] by Nora O'Donnell just hours ago about the shooting Saturday night in Washington, D.C., [19:40] and Donald Trump reacting to the manifesto of the shooter. And he did not like having to contend [19:49] with the subject matter. Look at how angry Trump gets. He appears to reference a motive in it. He writes [19:57] this quote administration officials. They are targets. And he also wrote this. I'm no longer [20:03] willing to permit a pedophile rapist and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes. What's your reaction? [20:09] Well, I was waiting for you to read that because I knew you would because you're you're you're horrible [20:14] people. Can you imagine an interview about a shooting and quoting the shooter's manifesto [20:21] makes you a horrible person? This is just called basics horrible people. Yeah, he did write that. [20:28] I'm not a rapist. I didn't rape anybody. Oh, you think he was referring to you? Excuse me. [20:34] I'm not a pedophile. You read that crap from some sick person. I got it. By the way, [20:41] the genius of Nora O'Donnell going, oh, you thought he was talking about you because she doesn't actually [20:49] say that. That is a fascinating move associated with all the stuff that has nothing to do with me. [20:56] I was totally exonerated. Your friends on the other side of the plate are the ones that were [21:03] involved with, let's say, Epstein or other things. But I said to myself, you know, I'll do this [21:10] interview and they'll probably I read the manifesto. You know, he's a sick person. But you should be [21:16] ashamed of yourself reading that because I'm not any of those things. Mr. President, I was never [21:21] excuse me. You shouldn't be reading that on 60 minutes. You're a disgrace. But go ahead. Let's [21:27] finish the interview. The other thing that he wrote. Donald Trump now openly choosing to say, I am not [21:36] a rapist. I am not a pedophile. Now, the Trump was found liable for sexual assault that a judge [21:47] indicated met the definition of rape in New York. Trump saying, I'm not a pedophile, [21:54] really measured tone from Trump, isn't it, in attacking the media? What a message of unity that [21:59] they said, oh, after this shooting, Trump really had a message of unity with the media because he [22:03] treated Caitlin Collins a little bit more respectfully. That is not exactly a message of unity. [22:10] That is not a measured tone. And remember, this is CBS now, one of the most increasingly [22:16] Trump friendly major media outlets that there is. O'Donnell talking about the element of the [22:23] manifesto that addressed Secret Service security. And Trump goes, well, the shooter was more incompetent [22:34] than Secret Service because the shooter didn't get me. Disgraceful. [22:37] The other thing in the manifesto that I think is worth looking at in terms of determining his motive [22:43] is he had been staying at the hotel since Friday. He checked in. He said he had cased the place. And [22:49] he wrote, what the hell is the Secret Service doing? And he wrote this quote, I expected security [22:54] cameras at every bend, bugged hotel rooms, armed agents every 10 feet, metal detectors out the [23:00] wazoo. What I got is nothing. He wrote, like, this level of incompetence is insane. Sir, you have already [23:07] had two attempted... Well, he was pretty incompetent, too, because he got caught. And he got caught pretty [23:12] easily. So I'd say he was pretty incompetent, too. You know, I could take any event having to do with [23:18] security or anything else. I can always find fault. Those guys did a good job last night. They did a really [23:24] good job. You know, one of the things that we've learned about security at the event is that the [23:33] White House, the administration did not put in place the highest protocol of security. It was high, [23:41] but not the highest. And one of the things that I noticed while there was that there was this veneer [23:48] of security where the street was blocked. I had to walk several blocks away to my Uber, like I said earlier, [23:55] they had bomb sniffing dogs. They had Secret Service. They were checking, you know, when when [24:01] the I was I was actually waiting for my Uber when the like audiovisual equipment was rolling in on [24:08] these these Pelican cases and they had dogs sniffing them and Secret Service was looking each and every [24:16] one in each and every one. So that that's all great. But as we later learned, the hotel guests were just [24:22] walking around and could get all all throughout the lobby. Now, they weren't able to get to Trump. [24:27] That's true. But this, you know, the security story is really a complicated one because the White House [24:33] did not put in place the top, top, top security protocol. Now, in a weird moment, Trump said the [24:40] NFL should sign up the shooter because he was able to run so fast. It did. You can see the gunman running [24:46] through the metal detectors and he fired off one or two rounds. The speed was rather incredible. [24:52] Actually, it was he was like a blur. How did he get that close with the place swarming with security? [24:58] I will say I say it because I'm a big fan of the people of law enforcement. And, you know, some of these [25:07] people, they may be crazy, but they're not stupid. And they figure things out. He ran 45 yards, they say, [25:14] and he just went to it and then, boom, he popped through it. I mean, he ran like I think the NFL [25:20] should sign him up. He was fast. When you look at it and it's almost like a blur. Right. But it was [25:27] amazing because as soon as they saw that, you could see them draw their guns. They were so professional, [25:33] aim their guns and then they took them down immediately. Yeah. So anyway, super fast. I don't [25:37] know what his 40 time would be in the NFL, but very, very good. One of the interesting things [25:42] is that Donald Trump does seem to have an increasingly lackadaisical and kind of cavalier [25:48] attitude in a way about these things. And he just kind of says to Norah O'Donnell, listen, [25:54] people get assassinated, people get hurt, people get killed. I don't know. There's just it's just kind [25:59] of a thing that happens. There's a lot of it also with the. But by the way, Democrats are really the [26:04] danger he throws. Last night was your secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. [26:09] His sister, Kerry Kennedy, was there. They've both witnessed their father and their uncle be [26:15] assassinated. That's right. Erica Kirk was there. The House Majority Leader Steve Scalise [26:21] was there. Yeah. Political violence has touched so many people in that room. Is there something that you, [26:30] as president can do? What can be done to change the trajectory? You know, you go back 20 years, [26:39] 40 years, 100 years, 200 years, 500 years. It's always been there. People are assassinated. People [26:48] are injured. People are hurt. And I'm not sure that there's any more now than there was. I do think that [26:54] the hate speech of the Democrats much more so is is very dangerous. I really think it's very dangerous. [27:00] It's the Democratic hate speech that is really the issue here. But people get injured. People get [27:06] hurt. Now, one of the major areas of controversy is that Trump fell down while being evacuated and [27:13] Trump could just go. Yeah, it was chaotic. I tripped and then we got out of there. It was crazy. But he [27:18] can't do that because it's Trump. And here is Trump denying that he fell down, saying he was asked to get [27:25] closer to the ground. You see the security moving quickly within seconds, grabbing the vice president [27:32] by his coat, lifting him up, bringing him out. Then the counter assault comes in, took 10 seconds for [27:40] them to flank you, Mr. President, and then 20 seconds to get you out. It looked chaotic. At one point, [27:46] you were down. What was happening? Well, what happened is it was a little bit me. I wanted to see what was [27:52] happening. And I wasn't making it that easy for him. I wanted to see what was going on. And by that [28:00] time, we started to realize maybe it was a bad problem, different kind of a problem, bad one, [28:06] and different than what would be normal noise from a ballroom, which you hear all the time. [28:11] And I was surrounded by great people. And I probably made them act a little bit more slow. I said, [28:18] wait a minute. Wait a minute. Let me see. Wait a minute. So, you know, I'm telling guys. [28:22] Just at that moment where it looks like you go sort of down with the service, you were telling [28:26] them to wait. Well, I know what happened is then I started walking with them. I turned, [28:29] I started walking and they said, please go down, please go down on the floor. So I went down [28:36] and first lady went down also, but we were asked to go down by the agents as I was walking. In other [28:43] words, they wanted you almost to crawl. I was standing up pretty much. I was standing up [28:48] and then turned around the opposite direction and started pretty much walking out pretty tall, [28:55] a little bent over because, you know, I'm not looking to be standing too tall. [29:01] And but I was walking out. Listen, this just isn't what happened, OK? It's just that that that's not [29:08] that's not what happened. And if you look at the video, you can see that as they start getting Donald [29:15] Trump out. He just falls down and then they've got to pick up. See, he just trips and he's down. [29:20] They didn't say, sir, if you don't mind, would you please? He falls down onto his knees. It's OK. [29:28] It's not the most important thing in the world, but he's lying all the time about everything. Now, [29:33] we're going to come back to that. Finally, Trump asked, were you worried that there were injuries? [29:41] And Trump goes, nah, I wasn't worried. People get injured. It's not that he says, no, I don't think [29:45] anybody got injured. He's just like people get injured. Not worried about it. I was in the room. [29:49] Not far from you, Mr. President could hear what sounded like gunshots or commotion. People nearby [29:57] could smell the gunpowder. Everybody hit the floor. How worried were you that there were going to be [30:04] injuries? I wasn't worried. I understand life. We live in a crazy world. I wasn't worried. I [30:17] understand life. We live in a crazy world. Incredible words from Donald Trump. We're going to come back to [30:25] the falling down part because that is an important aspect to this. What would the White House like [30:34] interviews to be like with Donald Trump? Well, I have an example for you. Jackie Heinrich [30:40] interviewed Donald Trump after the White House Correspondents dinner shooting. And I'm going [30:44] to play the end of the interview for you first and then we'll dig into some other aspects of it. [30:49] This is what they want interviews to be like. This adulation from Jackie Heinrich. Thank you, [30:56] sir. Thank you for your leadership. Thank you for the strength. This is how they want interviews to go. [31:04] And Jackie, with that, I have to go. Okay, I want to thank you, [31:07] Mr. President for joining us today. And I also want to say how grateful we were last night [31:12] as a member of the board of the White House Correspondents Association and the incoming president [31:16] of that association. We were very grateful to have you there taking part in a tradition that recognizes [31:21] the role of a free press in our democracy. And we're all sad that it went the way that it did. We're all [31:28] grateful that we get to come home to our loved ones and be together afterward. And thank you for your [31:33] leadership in the moments afterward and for coming on and giving the country the strength to not let [31:40] those who would wish to harm us stop us from our pursuit. Well, Jackie, thank you very much. It's [31:46] very nice. Very nice. And let's do it again. Let's let's not people let's not let people like this change [31:52] the course of our country. We're not going to let that happen. So hopefully you guys can get it on and [31:56] get it together and I'll be there. I promise. There you go. Trump loves that interview. Notice [32:02] that Trump wants that level of praise. That's not journalism. That is just a puff piece. Thank you, [32:09] Mr. President. Thank you for everything. That is insanity. But that is what they consider a good [32:16] interview. And what Nora O'Donnell did. Let me read what the shooter's manifesto said. You're nasty. [32:24] You're terrible. You should be ashamed of yourself. Journalism is disgusting, according to Donald [32:30] Trump. Mr. President, thank you. Thank you for your strength and thank you for everything. Jackie, [32:37] thank you so much. That's very nice. That's a great interview. Great interview. Let's do it again. [32:42] So then when you see the level on which Trump was answering questions during this thing, [32:49] you sort of have to then put two and two together and go, oh, he can't speak clearly and coherently about [32:55] anything. No wonder he needs to be treated in this way. Listen to this. But what you're referring to [33:01] is that when when you have, you know, lines of vast amounts of oil pouring through your system, [33:08] if for any reason that line is closed because you can't continue to put it into containers or ships, [33:15] which has happened to them, they have no ships because of the blockade. What happens is that line [33:21] explodes from within both mechanically and in the earth. If something happens where it just explodes, [33:29] they say they only have about three days left before that happens. And when it explodes, [33:34] you can never, regardless, you can never rebuild it the way it was. In other words, it will always be, [33:40] if you rebuild it, it's hard to rebuild it all, but it would only be about 50% of what it is right now. [33:46] So it's a very powerful thing that takes place, sort of having to do with nature. But when when [33:52] that gets clogged at the end, in other words, when you have to turn it up because you have no place to [33:56] store this oil, either put it on ships or storage tanks, which it has to do with nature, folks, [34:03] that incoherence is why he wants easy interviews, because any serious questioning leads to Trump going, [34:11] I'm not a rapist. I'm not a pedophile like he did in that other interview. Trump asked about Iran and [34:19] he goes, we did everything great. And by the way, NATO sucks wiped out, largely wiped out the opposition. [34:27] If we ever had to keep going, would wipe them out very quickly. The rest of it, the remainder. And I [34:33] hope we don't have to do that. But it may be possible that we do. You know, they have they have no [34:38] cohesion and marriage. Sometimes you don't have any idea what you're dealing with. But it's just, [34:48] you know, one of these things that we're going to we're going to get it, we're going to win. [34:53] But NATO was not there for us. And I would ask, would you like to join us? And they said, sir, [34:59] we don't want to get involved. And yeah, they said, we don't want to get involved. And frankly, [35:06] when they said we don't want to get involved, as you know, UK said that, oh, no, we'll send [35:10] ships as soon as the war is over. And that's not good. That's not good. We just can't have that. [35:17] So we we are not happy. Let me put it this way. Just finish it up. We are not happy with NATO. [35:22] Speaker 1 We know and Trump doesn't give a damn about institutions. That's a theme. But as soon as he [35:28] wants help for his little war that he decided to start optionally, NATO sucks. Why won't they join my war? [35:35] Finally, if anyone is still holding out hope of Donald Trump as an effective arbiter to an end [35:43] in the Russia Ukraine war, which was going to end a day after he got elected and a day after this and [35:48] a day after that, we are in month 16 of Trump's second term and it's still raging. Trump has [35:55] essentially given up. Speaker 1 You reference Ukraine. Have you spoken with President Putin [36:01] at all recently? Where does that negotiation stand? We're trying to get something done, [36:05] but the fighting continues and it's a very bloody war. It's a very bad. I settled eight wars. This is [36:12] one that I thought I would have had the easiest time that the hatred between President Putin and [36:17] President Zelensky is ridiculous. That's crazy. And hate is a bad thing. Hate is a bad thing when you're [36:24] trying to settle something. So there you go. So Trump basically saying we're out. And with that, [36:30] we are out. We knew he wasn't going to resolve it. And he hasn't. And it's month 16. And he goes, [36:37] well, if Putin and Zelensky just didn't dislike each other so much, we'd be in great shape. [36:42] Speaker 1 The Peacemaker President of the United States. Truly pathetic stuff. [36:47] Speaker 1 The David Pakman Show is an audience supported program. And the best, [36:53] most direct way to support the show is by becoming a member at join Pakman dot com. You'll get the daily [37:00] bonus show, the daily commercial free show and plenty of other great membership perks. Get the full [37:07] experience by signing up at join Pakman dot com. One of the stories we have to talk about related [37:16] to the shooting at the White House Correspondents Dinner is how it has exposed the dramatic cognitive [37:24] and physical decline of Donald Trump. Now, this is not getting the attention that it deserves. [37:30] Understandably, in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, the questions are, [37:33] was anybody hurt who did this? What happened? How do we keep people safe? And that makes sense. [37:39] Now, as we are starting to debrief and kind of process everything that took place, [37:44] it's impossible to ignore that the entire thing, again, is a reminder of the degree to which Donald [37:51] Trump is declining. And we have a lot of this stuff on video. Donald Trump's denials of what is on video [37:59] are only further raising questions as to what is wrong with this guy. And this is not about the [38:07] politics of it so much as it is about, hey, we have the ability to look at what's going on. And then we [38:14] have someone telling us what your eyes show you was not really what took place. Now, one of the things [38:22] that you can tell is that when Donald Trump is there's an attempt to escort Trump out by Secret [38:30] Service, there is some sensitivity to what is going on. Trump is not moving cleanly. Trump is not moving [38:39] quickly. There's instability in his ability to move around. And he fell down. OK, from every angle, [38:48] Trump goes down very quickly and he has to be helped up. Everyone sort of reacts and goes, [38:54] whoa, what is going on here? And as you look at the video, you see that Trump is up and then he just [39:00] trips. And Trump, after the fact, we'll look at the video as we looked at earlier. Trump tried to say, [39:05] no, Secret Service asked me to get closer to the ground. You can tell there that Trump trips. That's [39:13] all. That's all that happened. And we'll play it again. And you can see trip. He just goes down. [39:17] He is not. There's no conversation. They pick him up. He's moving. And then he falls down. His [39:24] gate is unstable as he starts to walk away. And then he falls down and everybody reacts and tries [39:30] to pick him up. And the reason, you know, that this wasn't Trump told to be closer to the ground [39:36] by Secret Service is that when he falls, they immediately pick him up. Why would they immediately [39:42] stand him up if they were telling him to get down? It's because he fell. Trump is not walking steadily. [39:49] We know that. And then we get to what is arguably the more serious part. Trump denies that he fell. [39:57] He says it didn't happen. But the video is the video. He lost his balance. You see Secret Service [40:02] reacting to a guy who fell. You see the assistance to get Trump back up. And the question here is, [40:08] is Trump lying when he says I didn't fall? Or does Trump not have any memory of the thing? Does Trump [40:16] not really know what went on where we add cognitive issues onto physical issues? I'm going to replay the [40:23] discussion about this from the 60 Minutes interview. Speaker 2 You see the security moving quickly [40:28] within seconds, grabbing the vice president by his coat, lifting him up, bringing him out. Then the [40:35] counter assault comes in, took 10 seconds for them to flank you, Mr. President, and then 20 seconds to [40:42] get you out. It looked chaotic. At one point you were down. What was happening? Well, what happened is [40:49] it was a little bit me. I wanted to see what was happening. And I wasn't making it that easy for him. I [40:54] wanted to see what was going on. And by that time we started to realize maybe it was a bad problem, [41:03] different kind of a problem, bad one, and different than what would be normal noise from a ballroom, [41:08] which you hear all the time. And I was surrounded by great people. And I probably made them act a [41:16] little bit more slow. I said, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Let me see. Wait a minute. So, you know, [41:20] I'm telling just at that moment where it looks like you go sort of down with the service, you were telling [41:24] them to wait. Well, I know what happened is then I started walking with him. I turned, I started walking [41:29] and then said, please go down, please go down on the floor. So I went down and first lady went down [41:36] also. But we were asked to go down by the agents as I was walking. In other words, [41:42] they wanted you almost to crawl standing up pretty much. So there's no real ambiguity here. It's not, [41:48] oh, he might have fallen. He didn't. Maybe there was a conversation about where they said it was, sir, [41:53] please. Why don't you get closer to the ground? That didn't happen. Trump fell down and then he says he [41:57] didn't fall down. Now zoom out for a second. High stress situation. The expectation would be simple. [42:04] The president moves quickly, follows direction and gets out. We didn't see that. What we saw is [42:11] agents guiding Trump in a way that is more physical support than it is security protocol. And I think [42:21] that that connects to the bigger issue that we are seeing here, which is that we've still never had real [42:25] health transparency from Donald Trump. And you might be saying, well, but there's so much else [42:29] going on. There's the shooting that. Yes, but we still see the same theme. We have no comprehensive, [42:36] credible medical records. We have no consistent reporting and disclosure on Trump's health. We [42:41] have no clear picture of his medical condition. The healthiest president ever and healthier than [42:45] Obama was when Obama was in his 40s and was president doesn't make any sense. Presidents release [42:53] detailed health information that's accessible to the public. It provides basic levels of trust [42:59] and accountability. And with Trump, transparency has never existed. So when something like this happens [43:06] on camera, all of a sudden it's like, whoa, wait a second. That guy doesn't look nearly as healthy [43:12] as the one they describe whenever they talk about Donald Trump's health. And people are going to ask [43:18] questions and they should. Is this a one off stumble? Is this a pattern? Is this what it's like behind the [43:23] scenes with Trump all the time? Is there an underlying issue we don't know about? Or is there an underlying [43:28] issue we may know a little bit about, but not the full story? And the reality is we all know if this [43:33] were a Democratic president, it would be the story on right wing media. Can we really be safe as a [43:40] country if the president has to be handled as if he can barely move around under his own power? We are at [43:46] risk as a nation if the president can't simply move quickly out of the way with Secret Service, [43:52] fitness for office and all of this stuff. So the standard has to be consistent. What we saw here [43:58] was not normal movement under pressure and the denial afterwards saying it didn't happen when it very [44:04] clearly did. That makes it much worse because now it's not just about the incident. It's credibility. [44:11] We're going to show you the video and then deny what is in the video. What? So, of course, [44:19] we're asking the obvious questions and whether people like it or not. This goes to the basic [44:25] ability of the president to function in exactly these kinds of moments. And based on what we saw [44:34] falling down and then saying, no, they said, sir, would you mind if it's not too much of a problem [44:41] getting a little bit closer to the ground? Come on, guys, the decline is clear and it is a second [44:49] order story with this entire shooting fiasco. We've got to look at an exchange that took place on CNN [44:59] because it encapsulates a massive problem in political media right now. CNN reporter Dana Bash [45:09] tries to tee up the idea that Democratic rhetoric is somehow responsible for violence against Donald [45:17] Trump. And the way it falls apart is almost immediate. She's interviewing our friend Congressman [45:23] Jamie Raskin and Jamie Raskin is ready for this. And Jamie Raskin says, what rhetoric are you talking [45:31] about, Dana? Let's look at the video. And then there is a lot to discuss here. Yeah. And you have, [45:38] as many of your fellow Democrats, have used some heated rhetoric against the president. And do you [45:44] think twice about that when something like this happened? What rhetoric do you have in mind? [45:48] Just talking about some of the fact that he, you know, is terrible for this country and so on and so [45:54] forth. I understand that that's your democratic right. But overall, do you have a responsibility? [46:00] I have no personal problem with Donald Trump at all. I mean, I talk about the policies of this [46:05] administration, the authoritarianism like we saw on display in Minneapolis, where two of our citizens [46:11] were gunned down in the streets simply for exercising their First Amendment rights, Rene Good, Alex [46:16] Preddy and others have died in custody. I'm talking about policies. I don't personalize it. And I [46:24] certainly have never called the press the enemy of the people. I think the press are the people's [46:28] best friend. And that's why it's written right there into the First Amendment. All right. So Jamie [46:33] Raskin gets like 99 percent of this right. I'm going to tell you the part that I don't agree with [46:38] as much in a moment. But he does something very simple. He goes, what rhetoric are you talking about? [46:44] And Dana Bash goes, well, that he's terrible for this country. That's kind of a big part of the job [46:51] of being a voter and an elected official. Are the people in power good for the country or bad for the [46:56] country? That can't count as inflammatory rhetoric. Now, it's important to contrast it and compare it [47:02] with things Donald Trump has said that the left is scum, lunatics, vermin, radical, demonic, [47:10] the enemy within. He said it about the press. What about all of that rhetoric? Well, I think [47:16] Trump is terrible for the country. You just caused the shooting. Give me a break, guys. Saying a [47:22] politician is bad for the country is being floated as contributing to violence. That is where we are [47:30] right now, apparently. And it cannot be that substantive political criticism is treated as [47:39] incitement. That is not how a functioning political system works. If you remove the ability to say this [47:46] person's bad for the country, you quite literally can't have debates anymore. You would have to have [47:52] silence. You would have to weigh in about people's clothing and hair if we're not allowed to talk [47:58] about that. Now, the analogy here is really simple. Imagine that you say to a friend, I think you're [48:04] handling the situation poorly and they punch you in the face. That's not your fault. The responsibility [48:12] is on the person who chose violence. Same thing here. If someone commits an act of violence, if you're [48:20] directly inciting, right? If Democrats were going around saying, you know what? I believe that someone [48:27] should shoot Trump. That's different. That's different. If you say, as Trump has, let's rough [48:35] up the protesters. Let's not be too gentle with the protesters. You're saying go and do this thing. [48:42] But that's not even what Dana Bash is suggesting. She goes, well, you said he's terrible for the country. [48:48] Come on. Come on. We have to look at those who are committing the acts of violence. And what's [48:54] frustrating about this exchange is how low the bar has gotten because it's not they're not even [48:58] threats. They're not calls to violence. It's saying political figure harmful to the country. Basic [49:05] political speech. That's why we have elections to figure out who's good for the country, who's bad, [49:10] who's terrible. Now, to Jamie Raskin's credit, he didn't take the bait. He forces it into the open by [49:16] saying what rhetoric. However, however, and this is where I disagree with Jamie Raskin. [49:22] When Raskin goes, I don't have a personal problem with Trump. I kind of disagree with that. [49:28] Why wouldn't you? I don't know if Jamie Raskin felt sort of pushed around and forced to say, [49:35] I don't know. It's not even a personal thing with Trump. I just think his policies are bad. [49:39] If you believe someone is damaging democratic institutions, undermining elections, pushing [49:48] policies that hurt the country, why wouldn't you have a personal problem with that guy? I certainly [49:54] would. And I do. It's the logical conclusion. The idea we have to sanitize criticism. I don't [49:59] have a problem with him personally, but that is arguably part of the problem because it creates this [50:05] false equivalence. On the one side, you have people making arguments about policy governance and [50:09] the direction of this country. On the other side, you have actual incitement to violence. [50:15] Rough up the protesters. Don't be too nice. All of this stuff. They're vermin. They're scum. [50:20] And the conversation becomes, is the criticism too harsh? It's backwards. The criticism is part of [50:28] democracy. The violence is a breakdown of democracy. We shouldn't confuse the two things. So Jamie Raskin [50:37] does a very good job of not taking the bait, but I wouldn't even have gone to. I don't have a [50:41] personal problem. He's terrible for the country. He's hurt so many people, including many of my [50:47] constituents. I have a real problem with this guy. He doesn't respect the Constitution. He doesn't [50:52] respect the Bill of Rights. We are fundamentally talking here about whether Americans, including those [50:59] in the media, are allowed to criticize power. It's in the Constitution, folks. And so Dana Bash, [51:06] with a disastrously framed question, maybe she was trying to generate a controversy, [51:15] but Jamie Raskin doing a good job there of saying, what do you what rhetoric criticizing the president? [51:20] That is not an incitement to violence. If you like this show, I would love for you to get my [51:27] Substack writing each day. I'll send you a rundown of what's on the show, what's happening, [51:32] what matters, why it's free. No spam. Substack is also the only place where we own our data. So if we [51:40] get censored on social media or on any platform, Substack is going to be the only way I can tell you [51:46] what is going on. Sign up now at David Pakman dot Substack dot com. There are people on the left [51:53] about to get played and I want to prevent it from happening. That's why I want to talk about this [51:58] today. There is something happening on parts of the political left right now that is more than just [52:06] wrong. It is so naive and it is going to have real consequences if we don't put a stop to it right now. [52:13] The idea is that Tucker Carlson has now apologized for helping to support Donald Trump. He has said [52:23] some things that sound anti war and there are people on the left naively falling for it and saying, look, [52:30] maybe there's an opportunity here to work with some of these people. Maybe we can make a coalition [52:37] with Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene. I saw a couple of posts from Cenk Uygur, [52:44] who I've known for for a very long time. I just saw him in Washington, D.C., where he posted something [52:49] along these lines. Listen, Tucker, apologize and that sort of thing. This is this is a very bad idea. [52:56] And this is a fundamental misunderstanding of how politics actually works and what these people [53:02] believe what these people want. And it's confusing rhetoric with an actual alignment on policy and on [53:08] values and on long term goals. I've said before that populist rhetoric can be very deceptive and it [53:16] is designed to do exactly this policy. I'm sorry, populist rhetoric flattens very complicated issues [53:26] into emotional, easy to agree with statements that feel like common ground when they really aren't. [53:32] I've talked about this before. You hear the system is corrupt. We should stop funding this war. We must [53:43] make sure that the average person isn't crushed by the desires of the elites. Now, who the elites are, [53:50] is it is it big corporations? Is it the Jews? Is it we must stop the elite? OK, that rhetoric [53:58] is designed to trigger agreement without any deep examination and examination of what comes next. [54:04] What comes next is the most important thing. I've said before that you might hear a couple of [54:10] sentences from Bernie Sanders and a couple of sentences from Tucker Carlson, and they will be very [54:17] similar because they they are employing populist rhetoric. But when you ask Tucker, [54:23] what is the solution here? It is an atrocity and that that is the whole trick. That's where the [54:30] differences matter. We'll talk about Tucker. Tucker's criticisms are not rooted in consistent, [54:39] principled frameworks that align with progressive or center left policies. He is not an ally of the [54:47] progressives or of the center left. He comes to this populist sounding rhetoric from a nationalist [54:54] worldview that prioritizes very different outcomes, completely at odds with democratic norms, completely [55:01] at odds with global stability and completely at odds with basic pluralism, which I, as a person of the [55:07] left, certainly value and and want. So the rhetoric will overlap on an issue on to only in a very narrow [55:17] context. The underlying project that these people are pushing is completely different. You've got to see [55:23] that. If you don't see that, you are not engaging with politics at a serious level. You're being naive. [55:29] You are reacting to tone. But we've got to react to substance and to and to ideology here. This is why [55:37] most people on the center left and in the progressive sphere are not going to fall for this. And I'm glad [55:43] about that. They recognize the pattern. We saw this before when you had some of these same people nominally [55:50] on the left before the 2024 election going Trump's outflanking Kamala on the left. Trump's the real anti-war guy. [56:00] Trump is actually the person who's going to deal with Gaza in a more humane way. So naive. And I said it [56:09] at the time and we've been proven correct. This falling for this crap leads to disastrous political [56:18] decisions and empowering the worst possible people. And if you start believing that when the rhetoric [56:26] sounds kind of similar, the policy alignment is also there, you're going to completely misread [56:33] who is going to advance your goals and who is going to undermine your goals over time. That confusion [56:41] is going to weaken movements and it will fracture coalitions and it will create openings for really bad people [56:49] with terrible ideas to come to power. Now, there's an attention component here that people also are [56:55] ignoring. When you praise figures like Tucker because he apologized, even in a limited way, you're [57:02] amplifying them and you're exposing audiences to their broader messaging. Now, when I covered Tucker's [57:07] me a culpa, I pointed out it's completely cynical. It lacks real self reflection and it should not make [57:17] anybody think that Tucker is now an ally. I was very clear about that. That is different from what [57:22] we are seeing some of these people do. Now, none of this means you can't acknowledge when someone lands [57:29] on a position you agree with. Of course you can. Sometimes it's worth pointing out, hey, here's an issue [57:35] I've pointed out. Rand Paul, if you care about the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, Rand Paul is a [57:42] relatively reliable person there. We have overlap. He is at odds with the entire MAGA movement, [57:47] but that doesn't mean that Rand Paul is actually an ally. It doesn't mean that we're going to build [57:51] a movement here by adding Rand Paul to it because he just doesn't not because I wouldn't if he actually [57:58] had the right policy views, but because he doesn't. And so it's important to realize that these are [58:05] simply not not allies. Oh, but David, aren't you being in some way exclusionary? No, I'm saying they're [58:12] simply not allies on policy. If they were, I would include them. They're not allies on policy. And so you've [58:17] got to make sure you're not substituting the narrow rhetorical overlap with thinking that these are [58:24] actually political allies. Politics is not about who says the thing that sounds good in a clip. [58:30] Unfortunately, it has become a proxy for what politics is about. But the real question is, [58:36] who do you consistently support in power? And when you look at that, the idea that these figures [58:42] are allies collapses instantly and what's left is a warning sign. So don't fall for it. My friends on [58:49] the left, don't fall for it. On the bonus show, I was there for the Jim Acosta, Julie Kay Brown, [58:57] Michael Tracy fight in Washington, D.C. There is extensive reporting about it. And I'm going to tell [59:04] you what I saw and then we will judge for ourselves. I'll have more stories from Washington, D.C., much [59:11] more about the growth of independent media and so many great things. All of that today on the bonus [59:17] show. Sign up at join Pacman dot com and get all of my deep dives, including one into conspiracy theories [59:26] and how they work, why they appeal to people on my sub stack at David Pacman dot com slash sub stack.