2026 is already insane
The David Pakman Show
David Pakman
4.6 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 2 January 2026
⏱️ 51 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
-- On the Show
-- Donald Trump faces a hard power cutoff in the 2026 midterms where losing the House would effectively halt his legislative agenda and severely weaken his leverage
-- The United States dollar suffers its largest annual decline in nearly a decade due to Donald Trump's tariffs, attacks on Federal Reserve independence, and destabilizing foreign policy
-- Corporate bankruptcies hit a 15-year high as Donald Trump's tariffs raise costs, squeeze margins, and push construction, manufacturing, and consumer businesses into collapse
-- Gen Z men rapidly turn against Donald Trump as new polling shows collapsing approval driven by economic frustration and disillusionment with culture war politics
-- Donald Trump remains in office despite actions that would remove leaders in functioning democracies, exposing institutional failures
-- AI-generated impersonation scams are eroding trust and preparing the ground for large-scale election disinformation
-- The Friday Feedback segment
-- On the Bonus Show: The 10 most outrageous things Trump did in 2025, and much more...
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(14:15) Corporate bankruptcies surge
(18:19) Gen Z abandons Trump
(24:18) Democracy fails to check Trump
(32:02) AI impersonation attacks
(39:17) Friday Feedback
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Welcome to 2026. This is not a normal moment and 2026 is not going to be a normal election year. |
| 0:07.9 | Today we are going to look at why the 2026 midterms are the real deadline for Donald Trump and |
| 0:14.1 | Trumpism, not just politically, but mechanically because if Republicans lose the House, |
| 0:18.6 | Trump's presidency is effectively done. |
| 0:21.4 | If they don't, he gets two more years of real power and the ability to shape 2028. |
| 0:26.4 | We are also going to talk about the dollar. |
| 0:29.3 | This is something Republicans used to scream about. |
| 0:32.0 | But under the current administration, the dollar is collapsing and it is hitting prices. |
| 0:37.4 | And it is related to the policies of this |
| 0:39.3 | administration. We are also going to go beyond record GDP headlines to look at the surge in |
| 0:45.5 | corporate bankruptcies and other potential signs of trouble. And also young men, one of Donald |
| 0:51.5 | Trump's crucial 2024 groups are bailing quickly. New polling shows that |
| 0:58.6 | buyer's remorse is really setting in. And finally, scammers using AI to impersonate a lot of |
| 1:06.1 | your favorite content creators, including me, fake videos, fake voices, I believe it's a preview of where |
| 1:11.9 | disinformation is headed. It is the start of maybe the most consequential midterms I've ever |
| 1:18.3 | covered. I'm glad to have you with us. Welcome to 2026. Well, my friends, you made it. |
| 1:30.9 | If you are hearing this message, you made it into 2026. |
| 1:34.7 | I believe this will be one of the most consequential years politically as far as midterm elections |
| 1:40.5 | go, probably that I have ever covered. |
| 1:42.9 | I've said before, you know, the 2012 election, |
| 1:45.6 | I thought Obama was the better candidate than Mitt Romney, but I didn't believe that it was |
| 1:50.2 | existentially important as an inflection point in the way that I think the 2026 midterms are |
... |
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