Donald Trump's first year back in power has been dangerous, destructive, and defining.

And 2026, well, it may be even worse.

Today's guest, David Pacman, he's been tracking all of it in real time.

As the host of the David Pacman show, he reaches millions across radio, television, podcasts, and YouTube.

In this conversation, he helps us take stock of the most

consequential moments of 2025 and what to expect in the year ahead. But before we get into it,

subscribe to this channel to stay informed about how you can defend democracy. David Packman,

welcome to defending democracy. Thank you. So you are one of the most popular commentators on politics on YouTube.

You're also an astute follower of everything political.

And so, you know, we're at the end of the first year.

It's not the first calendar year, but the end of the, I'm sorry, it is the first calendar

year.

It's not the full year of Donald

Trump's presidency. What has surprised you? What hasn't surprised you? You know, what are your

overall thoughts? It's funny. What has surprised me and when I think about it, I'm not that

surprised is how desensitized everybody has become to just about everything this administration has done. And so on the one hand,

this is surprising because a decade ago when when he came down the golden escalator, as he

likes to say, if someone had said, hey, in 2025, Rob Reiner will be killed and Trump will post that it was because of Trump derangement

syndrome and mock and laugh at it. Nobody would have believed that. And so in a sense,

it's shocking where, where we have come. At the same time, you go online and you see allies of

the president defending that statement and you say,

well, I guess I'm not that surprised because they've been defending everything he has said

...