← The David Pakman Show
The David Pakman Show
3/11/25: Trump recession dominates, Elon destroying everything
01:04:54
-- On the Show: -- Ruth Ben Ghiat, internationally acclaimed historian, speaker, and political commentator, joins David to discuss America's worrying descent into fascism under Donald Trump -- The stock market continues to tumble over Donald...
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- [00:07]
David Pakman
Welcome to the show. It gives me zero pleasure to have to report to you today that the Trump economy is collapsing before our eyes. And the numbers don't lie. Wall street is in a freefall. Layoffs are starting to surge. Consumer confidence has cratered. Inflation has ticked back up yet again. As I record this, the Dow is down another 400 points. Even Donald Trump's favorite metric is. I'm talking about. The stock market is looking like a slow motion train wreck. And the kicker is that it's because of Trump and it's because of Elon Musk. Yesterday, Monday saw one of the worst stock market drops in a long time. The Dow at one point was down a thousand points. This is after being down 700 points the day before. You know, weekend. Last week, The Nasdaq tanked 4.2%, its biggest single day decline since 2022. The S&P 500 broke below what's considered a critical support level for the first time in two years. And even the mega corporations that Trump once paraded as signs of a strong economy, they're not doing well. Apple, led by Tim, Apple, Mike, that's a joke. Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Nvidia, Metta plunging. Tesla down 15% in a single day. We'll talk more about Tesla in a moment. These are some of the biggest drops in years, wiping out hundreds of billions of dollars of market value. And why Trump's economic chaos. The tariff obsession is here and it is back and it is staying. And the damage is showing. The threats to Canada, to Mexico, to China. They have investors panicking. Businesses can't plan. Prices are rising. Uncertainty is dragging down this economy. And even JPMorgan Chase is now warning that there is a 40% chance of a recession this year because of Donald Trump's policies. If we zoom out a little bit and we think about what leads to stability. Predictability leads to stability. Companies rely on stability when saying, how many people do we want working for us? Can we give raises this year? Do we buy more inventory? And what we're seeing is Trump treating the global economy kind of like a reality show cliffhanger, which I believe he thinks he's going to be able to save and take credit for at the last second. But it is costing Americans their savings and their budgets. You know, Trump loves talking about bringing jobs back, but it's not working. Federal job losses are piling up as Doge continues to say, we don't need these people and we don't need these people and we don't need those people. Private sector layoffs hit Their highest numbers in February, going all the way back to the Great Recession of 2008. The latest jobs report, very much weaker than expected. About half of the expected jobs were created. Unemployment ticking up. And now we are seeing the real impact of Donald Trump's anti immigration agenda as well. Because you see industries like construction, like agriculture, even in health care, they are running out of workers. And without workers, businesses cannot function, at least for now. We'll see what AI and robotics do in the future. Tesla, once the darling of Wall street, now the poster child for Trump's economic disaster. Consider the 180 that has happened here. The stock losing more than half its value since December. Sales tanking, investors fleeing. I fled a while ago. As many of you know, Trump's trade war making it worse. And even worse is that Tesla's brand is collapsing, and not just because of Donald Trump's tariffs. Musk has tied himself to the sinking ship of Donald Trump. And consumers are running for the exits. Tesla stores are getting vandalized. Longtime customers like myself abandoning the company. As many of you know, I had a Model 3 and then a Model Y, and I was a Tesla investor because I thought, this is the company moving forward. Electric vehicle battery technology the fastest. I want to be part of it. Then Elon Musk went nuts and the car build quality was really not great. And I got out, as many of you know, with a 1200 and 1600% gain. And the Tesla fanboy said, david, this is the biggest mistake you'll ever make. You'll regret this. Well, I'm not regretting it. And EV sales globally are still going up, but Tesla's market share is going down. We'll talk more about Tesla. When confronted with this reality, with this economic mess that is surfacing, Trump says, well, we're going to have a period of adjustment. We're going to be in a transition period, which is translation for things are going to get much worse before they get better. And Trump is admitting that his economic policies are hurting Americans. Wall street sees right through it and they're running for cover. Trump inherited a perfectly reasonable economy. We are now on the verge of total collapse. Layoffs up, inflation ticking up, consumer confidence and consumer spending down. Stock market in freefall. Recession odds the highest they've been in a long time. Trump's response is more chaos and more bluster and more disoriented confusion. Which, you know, disoriented confusion could be a banned name or it could be the motto of Donald Trump's political career. This is his mess. And I'm thinking how bad does it have to get before it gets better? Let's now talk not about Trump, but about co president Elon Musk. How else do you say it other than Elon Musk is destroying everything that he touches. Everything this guy gets his hands on is turning into an absolute disaster. Let's refresh with Tesla, the company that Elon Musk insists he's still running while simultaneously tanking every business he's involved with and the federal government. Tesla stock is now down 53% since December. More than half of the company's value wiped out in three months. Now, I don't want to be that guy, but let me be that guy for a second. When I sold my Tesla shares, some at a 1200% game G gain, some at a 1600% gain, the Elon fanboys, including some in my my audience, flooded my inbox telling me I made the biggest mistake of my life. No one can touch Tesla. They will dominate EVs forever. Turns out my biggest mistake would have been holding on. Because we see Tesla market share collapsing in Europe, we see Tesla market share declining in the United States. I have to tell you, the build quality of my Rivian puts Tesla to shame. It's. It's like a matchbox toy versus a real car in terms of the difference. And then we go from Tesla to Twitter. Twitter was down most of yesterday. Totally foreseeable consequence of Elon Musk running that business by firing half the engineering staff and then frantically realizing I got rid of people I need, trying to rehire the ones he needed back. Who could have predicted that 22 year old coders with three months of experience might not be able to keep one of the world's largest social media platforms up and running? Completely predictable. Tesla in the toilet. Twitter in the toilet. Twitter. Like Bernie would say, what about Space X? Another rocket crashed just a few days ago. And I know the Musk cultists love to say that's how space innovation works. You got to break some eggs to make an omelet. Sure, failures do happen. That's absolutely true. But we're talking about an increasing number of failures from the company that once looked untouchable. You know, For a while, SpaceX felt like the one Elon company that was not collapsing under its leadership. And now it is literally and figuratively coming back down to earth. Pardon the pun. The financial empire of Musk is looking worse by the day. The market is a fiasco. And the same Musk loyalists who praised him for making the smartest moves in business were not Hearing a word from them other than when they like to say the woke stirs are hurting. Ellen. The boycott of Tesla is illegal. This was the guy who could do no wrong. For a while, Tesla was skyrocketing. SpaceX breaking records. Twitter was still Twitter to some degree, although increasingly crappy. In 2025, the empire is crumbling and for a guy who spent the last few years acting like the smartest man on earth, he's making a lot of bad decisions. And at this rate, I would not be surprised if Elon buys another company and destroys that too. But the theme, Trump and Elon. As Trump has told us many times, he didn't need this. He didn't need to get involved in politics. He was having a grand old time with his gaudy gold plated Penthouse and Mar a Lago and the whole thing. He didn't need this. Neither did Elon. They both, due to ego, believe that this they were the people to fix stuff and they are ruining everything. After the break, Bernie is exposing the real goal here and I know many of you know what it is and it's ugly. It starts with a P. It's not peepee tape. No, it's. But it may or may not exist. We just don't know. It's privatization. So let's take a break. Tensions running very high. We'll be speaking to Ruth Ben Ghiat a little bit later. We have so much scheduled today. I will remind you it is the final days to get a signed copy of my forthcoming book, the Echo Machine. The book will be published in two weeks. If you want a signed copy, why not, right? I mean please, you go to David pakman.com/booksmith. I also have a huge thank you to say. In the last week or so we've really been making a focus of growing the audio podcast for this show. I think it's a real opportunity. All these right wing podcasts do very well. We've got to fight against them. The Matt Walsh's, the Ben Shapiro's, all these people. Okay, 500 of you have left reviews for our audio podcasts on either Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It helps us so much. So if you haven't yet done it, subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It costs nothing even if you don't listen there, even if you watch on YouTube. Hit that subscribe button. Leave us a review. It is making a difference. I'll give you the updated information soon. Quick break, then we'll hear from Bernie Sanders. Having the right estate planning done a will, maybe a trust is super important. I recently took care of it myself. It's not the most fun thing to do, but it is very important and our sponsor Trust and Will makes it really easy and you can get 10% off at trust and will.com/pacman It's a straightforward process. They walk you through it. All of the documents are state specific. They are legally valid. 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I've been using the Blueland dish detergent and the toilet bowl cleaner for a while. Couldn't be happier and you'll get 15% off your first order at blueland.com/pacman that's blue e land.com/pacman for 15% off. The link is in the podcast Notes as an independent media program. We depend primarily on your support to do what we do. If you like the show, get the full experience and the pleasure of knowing that you're supporting us by getting a membership. At join pacman.com we do an extra show every day for our members. And you can use the coupon code. It will end soon. All one word. It will end soon. To get about a 50% discount. @join pacman.com Senator Bernie Sanders is exposing the real plan behind Donald Trump and Elon Musk's moves. When it comes to entitlements, what do you do when you want to destroy a government program that people overwhelmingly support? You don't just come out and say, we're taking away your benefits. No, you sabotage the system. You make it inefficient and dysfunctional and slow and frustrating until people start saying, man, this thing really sucks. And then you have the justification that you maybe need to take it private. That is exactly what Donald Trump and Elon Musk would love to do with Social Security. Bernie Sanders laid it out perfectly yesterday, speaking to Anderson Cooper. Let's take a listen. So, I mean, what do you make of his desire to cut entitlements?
- [16:30]
Bernie Sanders
He says he wants to go after waste and fraud.
- [16:32]
David Pakman
And the reason you just heard him.
- [16:33]
Anderson Cooper
Use, well, he has called Social Security a Ponzi scheme. They have already laid off 2500 employees of the Social Security Administration. Anderson, I think I speak for probably every member of the Senate in that. The calls that we get in large numbers of people who are saying, I'm trying to get a hold of Social Security, I got a disability issue. I can't get a hold of anybody. And the reason is the Social Security Administration today is understaffed. There are estimates out there that tens of thousands of people with disabilities die while they're waiting for those benefits to come to fruition. They apply. They're waiting. They're waiting.
- [17:16]
David Pakman
And.
- [17:16]
Anderson Cooper
And now if you do as Musk and others are proposing, not only 2500 Social Security employees, they want to cut half of the Social Security employees, that will be a disaster. That will mean that millions of people, you know, calling up, not going to get an answer. So if you ask me, I think this is a prelude not only to cutting benefits, but to privatizing Social Security itself. I think that's in the back of them. If you make the system dysfunctional, right, why would anybody want to support it? And that's consistent with what Trump said in a State of the Union. Just, oh, there are millions of people, thousands of people. 200 years old and 150 years old. What is all of that about? It happens to be a lie. It's not true. 99% of the benefits go to people. More than that go to people who are paid into them. So why do you lie so much about Social Security? Why do you make it look like a. It's a broken, dysfunctional system.
- [18:20]
David Pakman
Bernie's nailing it. If you want to make people call for something to be disbanded, you make it function terribly. And if indeed they succeed at people delayed in getting their checks, you'll have recipients going, this isn't working. We've got to do something, do anything. Privatize it. Sure. And this is a known playbook. Now, as far as the layoffs go. We'll get to cutting Social Security in a moment. As far as the layoffs go, I did a TikTok live yesterday and was talking to Trump supporters, and a guy called in and said, I support eliminating 83,000 VA jobs because there's so much waste and people who do nothing. Any large organization, be it a governmental organization or a private company, is going to have inefficiency. It's going to have some employees who slip through the cracks doing minimal work. Like that's a reality of large organizations. And I think it's an absolutely reasonable thing to say, let's get rid of the inefficiency. Let's get rid of the superfluous employees. But if you have a system that's already strained, for example, the VA, there's no way that eliminating 83,000 jobs from the VA is going to reduce wait times for medical services for veterans. It's just not going to happen. And similarly, if we have problems with Social Security that we want to fix, great. Cutting half of Social Security's workforce isn't going to fix it. It'll increase wait times. It has the potential to delay checks. It has the potential to generate complete and total chaos for retirees and disabled Americans and anybody who's relying on those benefits. But that's not a bug of the plan. We see that and we go, oh, no, if you cut half of Social Security staff, these things will happen. And that's bad? No, no, they see it as good. That's the whole point. This is the right wing playbook. They don't like public services, so the first thing they do is they underfund them. They cut funding to them until they function even more poorly. When the public frustration hits a boiling point, they claim the government is incompetent. They go, listen, we told you Government shouldn't be doing this stuff. The best entities to run this stuff is private industry. And then they say, let's let corporations swoop in and make billions while providing even worse services. They've done it with public schools. They tried it with the post office. And it looks like Social Security is next. Now, you might be asking the question. It's a reasonable question. Why is Elon Musk suddenly interested in this? Elon despises Social Security. He thinks it's a waste of money. He said he doesn't believe the government should be in the business of providing retirement benefits. And just last week, he said it's the biggest Ponzi scheme in the country. In the world. In history. He said it to Joe Rogan. We talked about it. Why? Because billionaires like Elon Musk and his right wing friends want that money in the stock market. They don't want it in a program that guarantees seniors can retire with dignity. They want to put all the money in the stock market. And who will manage the privatized retirement accounts if they succeed? It'll be the Wall street firms owned by their billionaire buddies, raking in fees while taking absolutely zero risk themselves, but putting your retirement money at risk. Trump floated ideas like this back in 2020, and he's dodged questions ever since. Republicans have been obsessed with privatization for decades. And now Elon Musk, who has spent the last year cozying up to Donald Trump, wants the exact same thing. So don't make a mistake. You know, this is not really about efficiency. It's not about fixing Social Security. It's about gutting one of the most popular and successful government programs in the US So that billionaires can get even richer. I propose this as a general impetus for what they're doing last Monday. And every indication is that that's the plan. Bernie now realizes it, and more and more people are starting to get it. We were told when former President Joe Biden used the short stairs to get on Air Force One that it meant he was on his deathbed, he was disabled. He can't possibly walk up the big stairs. And now that Donald Trump is using the very same short stairs to get on Air Force One, corporate media won't talk about it. Right wing media doesn't give a damn. After the reports of bruising on Trump's hands, after the videos of Trump dragging his right leg and unanswered medical questions, we see Trump taking the short stairs. Now, I want to remind you that for years, right wing media insisted that when Biden went up the short Stairs. It was proof he's too weak to serve. It was proof they edited clips of stumbles to make him look frail, diagnosed him with every medical condition known to man. But Trump now doing the same thing, and the media is silent. So let's go over what we know. We know that Trump's been dragging his right leg in numerous recent videos in a way that looks really odd. We saw the bruise on his hands, which could mean anything from IV treatment to circulation issues to who knows what. He promised a full physical exam and he never released it. And now he has switched to the short stairs. The exact thing that MAGA world swore was when it was Biden doing, it meant he was too frail to serve. So do I really care about the short stairs on Air Force One? No. Am I saying Trump is about to collapse on live tv? No. The point here is the hypocrisy and the double standard which the right no longer cares about. If this were Biden, Fox News would have said, you know, using these stairs, it's late stage dementia. It's osteoporosis. He's been infected by alien DNA. But everybody's silent about this. The right wing shows are silent, CNN silent, New York Times, msn, NBC. Nobody's talking about it. Because corporate media has spent years trying to create a complete and total distinction or false equivalency between Biden and Trump's respective health statuses. And Trump's health is certainly looking questionable at this point in time. Now, I understand that there are just some basic facts about Trump, Trump's age, Trump's health status, all of it. This is not about that. This is really specific. When Biden did this exact thing, they said this is a way that they are trying to not make it clear he doesn't have the stamina for the tall stairs. And now Trump's doing the same thing and they are not saying a word. Donald Trump now says that he will be buying a Tesla because he's furious about what's being done to Elon Musk. What a move. That reeks of desperation. Let's talk about it. Donald Trump posted to Truth Social Truth central quote to Republicans, conservatives and all great Americans, Elon Musk is putting it on the line in order to help our nation and he is doing a fantastic job. But the radical left lunatics, as they often do, are trying to illegally and collusively boycott Tesla. Nothing illegal, by the way, saying, hey, we no longer like Elon. Don't buy Tesla. Nothing illegal about it. They're trying to illegally boycott Tesla, one of the world's great automakers and Elon's baby. In order to attack and do harm to Elon and everything he stands for, they tried to do it to me at the 2024 presidential ballot box. But how did that work out? In any event, I'm going to buy a brand new Tesla tomorrow morning as a show of confidence and support for Elon Musk, a truly great American. Why should he be punished for putting his tremendous skills to work in order to help make America great again? I do want to remind you that the consequences of speech are also free speech. Now, as I've said before, getting rid of my Tesla was one of the greatest things I ever did. And what we now have is the richest man in the world, maybe alongside Putin, I guess, who receives billions from the American government, has had business partners that include the Chinese Communist Party, the Saudi royal family. Trump now says they are illegally boycotting him. Now, the funniest part about all of this is, remember when Donald Trump attacked electric vehicles and said, why the hell would anyone want one of these stupid things?
- [27:27]
Sean Hannity
Nobody wants to buy these cars either. That's the other problem. They don't.
- [27:31]
David Pakman
Whoops, sorry. The audio was low there. I do apologize for that.
- [27:35]
Sean Hannity
So sad. Nobody wants to buy these cars either. That's the other problem. They don't go far. I want to be more sophisticated. I said, give me a good reason why we shouldn't buy electric.
- [27:45]
Ruth Ben Ghiat
Why?
- [27:46]
Sean Hannity
Why should we buy it?
- [27:47]
David Pakman
There you go. So Trump used to rail against electric vehicles, but now, of course, that it's all about Elon. He says he's going to buy one. And this is now the new thing that they're doing here is Sean Hannity, Fox News propagandist, also suggesting. Hey, I didn't know how cool. He calls it an. I think he called it an. A plaid X or something like that. He says these cars are just so cool.
- [28:10]
Bernie Sanders
One example of many. And I don't believe in cancelation. I don't believe in cancel culture, you know, and I know many. Maybe it's not going to make up a difference. But you know what? After I drove my friend's Tesla, I went and I really picked out the one I want. It's called the. The. What is it called? The S. Plaid.
- [28:33]
David Pakman
You can tell he really knows everything about it.
- [28:36]
Bernie Sanders
And you realize this thing, an electric vehicle has 10, 6 horsepower and goes from 0 to 62 in 2.0 seconds.
- [28:48]
David Pakman
You can tell he's really passionate about these electric vehicles.
- [28:53]
Bernie Sanders
And this thing rips and you can go about 400 miles without a charge, and I don't drive enough to go further than 400 miles, so I'm good. And maybe it's just a gesture on my part. And I like that. I like new technology, but it's just a way of saying, you know, look what they're doing.
- [29:10]
David Pakman
Yeah. You know, Hannity is actually making one of the great arguments for electric vehicles. You know, I talk to people and they come to me with tears in their eyes. They go, sir, I want to do the right thing, but these electric vehicles, they don't have the range for me. I don't want to have to charge. And I say to them, listen, what's the most miles you ever drive in a day? They go, oh, I don't know, like, usually 30, 40 miles. I go, okay, when you do a longer trip, what's the longest you would drive? I don't know, you know, like maybe four hours in which you could go maybe 220, 240 miles, depending on speed limits and traffic. So I say, okay, so the range of the vehicle exceeds what you ever drive in a day, Is that right? They go, yeah. And I'm like, so then what's the problem? You just plug it in and charge it overnight? They go, oh, yeah, that's a good point. That's an excellent argument for the. For the range fiends who go, I can't switch to this. It doesn't have the long enough range. Hannity's making that argument. The problem is it's all so disingenuous, and it's all meant in service to the poor, poor, tortured richest man in the world who is now suffering from what they are calling an illegal boycott, despite there being nothing illegal about it. The biggest victims. The biggest victims, they claim to be. And now the poor little victim happens to be the richest man in the world. These people are pathetic. If you're still using a free email service, your emails are often being scanned and tracked, even after you delete them. Companies use the data to know everything about you and show you ads, even your most personal communications. That's why I recommend you check out Start Mail. Unlike free email services, our sponsor, Start Mail, never scans or tracks your emails. It also blocks tracking pixels which companies and hackers use to capture your IP address. And when you delete an email in Start Mail, it is gone forever. Keeping your information private, Start Mail allows you to create unlimited email aliases, protecting your identity and reducing spam. This lets you use different email addresses for different purposes, like newsletters or shopping. Plus, Start Mail lets you encrypt every email, even if the recipient doesn't use encryption. Switching is easy. You can migrate all your existing emails and contacts with just a few clicks. Start Mail also offers a business plan with unlimited domains, advanced phishing protection, and shared aliases. For seamless team collaboration, go to start mail.com/pacman to get 50% off your first year. That's about $2 a month for a personal plan or about $3 a month for a business plan. Plus get 25% off additional accounts for team members. That's T a r t mail.com/pacman for 50% off. The link is in the podcast Notes. It's great to welcome back to the program Ruth Ben Ghiat, internationally acclaimed historian, speaker, political commentator. She's a professor of history and Italian studies at New York University and author of Strongmen Mussolini to the Present. Ruth, it's so great to have you on at this point. We are about a month and a half closing in on two months into the second term term of Donald Trump. I've been saying, you know, my expectations were very low, but it's been worse than I expected. The speed with which many things have happened is sort of even taking me by surprise. Where, where do you see it is? Is some of this chaos a planned strategy which authoritarians and authoritarian wannabes will sometimes use as a tool?
- [32:52]
Ruth Ben Ghiat
Yes, and in the short answer. But we're in a very unusual situation. I've been trying to figure out ever since January 20th what is like traditional to the authoritarian playbook and what is new. And so many things being done, like purging the civil service, building up the leader cult, trying to control the press more. This is like classic authoritarian playbook stuff. But the main we there's like a structural difference here and we're all just figuring it out because there's only one man on my cover of Strongmen of my book. Here we have two. It's like a co presidency with Elon Musk, who is in the Oval Office, you know, speaking to, speaking to reporters and speaking for Trump. As Trump sits down, he's at cabinet meetings, he meets with foreign heads of state and, and this giving somebody who's a private citizen essentially just carte blanche to go into US Government offices and lock out elected representatives. There's something of a coup to that, like a soft coup. So we have two things going on at the same time. They're linked. One is more traditional and the other is unfolding in new ways. It's Like America is innovating the authoritarian playbook right now.
- [34:18]
David Pakman
One of the things I noticed that I want to get your thoughts on, and I don't know that this is deliberate, is that Donald Trump, of course, wants to look strong, and he and his followers have a sort of idea of what it means to be the alpha male. And it often has to do with how you talk to people and how you relate to others. Physical strength is sometimes part of it. You know, Trump actually doesn't really meet a lot of these kind of standard characteristics anyway. But one of the things that I noticed is that the Elon Musk Oval Office event, which you talked about, or when Elon Musk stood up and spoke at the Cabinet meeting, when you saw Trump on camera off to the side, he kind of looked slumped over and dejected and low energy and not like he was really in control or even enjoying himself. That struck me as different from the images of strength that a lot of historical authoritarians want to project. Is that just because Trump is sort of not firing on all cylinders, or is there something. It just seemed like the optics were different when you see him slumped over like that.
- [35:24]
Ruth Ben Ghiat
No, it's very true, and that's why it's. It's very unusual. And I can think of many authoritarians who wouldn't put up with that. It's like a shared power arrangement.
- [35:34]
David Pakman
Yes.
- [35:35]
Ruth Ben Ghiat
That's just not how the strongman rolls. And it's contrary to the great investment that Trump has put in building up personality cult. I alone can fix it. It's not. I, along with Elon Musk, can fix it.
- [35:50]
David Pakman
Right.
- [35:50]
Ruth Ben Ghiat
So I've been trying to figure out what is in it for, you know, for Trump. And part of it goes back to your. Your comment about the chaos. I really think that the speed at which things are happening is very unusual. Like he. So Trump came to office with a free and fair election. It was not a coup. He was there, you know, in the traditional man. The speed at which stuff is happening and the chaos and the reversals that you see only after some kind of authoritarian crackdown or after a coup. So I think people need to understand this is very unusual. And so some of the chaos is because of the speed. And I think that Trump had. He was fine to outsource government Planning to Project 2025. So there you have traditional bureaucrats. They're very villainous, and they're doing all privatizations, but they had their meth way in their plan. What he wanted, I believe, which only Musk could give him, was A kind of wrecking ball that was taken to the US Government very fast. You know, with digital shock troops and prior 2025, that's not their thing. So although he, he looks slumped over and he, you know, he looks low energy and passive when Musk is talking, he's also defending Musk. So, you know, Musk and Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, recently got into a kind of argument and Trump made them solve it and made Rubio apologize to Musk and thank Musk. So he feels like it's very. Seems to be very important for Trump to keep Musk there. And I think it's because he wants to have change very quickly in America, and only Musk and his digital shock troops can deliver that. So he's willing to put up with this. It's like a fall of prestige. Right, which is what you're describing.
- [37:49]
David Pakman
What do you mentioned the thank. You know, thanking Ellen. All of a sudden there's like this, you know, it reminds me of the French politics requirements where, you know, in the Oval Office thing with Zelensky, it's what, have you said thank you enough times? And you should be thanking this person and people should thank Elon Musk. Is there anything that's worth mentioning about all of a sudden this obsession with thanking people?
- [38:18]
Ruth Ben Ghiat
I see this as part of what Trump's been doing for a really long time, which is ritual humiliation. I've written a couple of essays for my substack lucid on this, and he did it to his own party members during the campaign. So you have to. You want people to submit to you, and it has to be on camera. And so they're supposed to thank you for everything, even if you've been an aggressor. Because I'm very suspicious of this sudden desire for decorum among people who, you know, had no problem with January 6th, which was a total wrecking. January 6th was hardly about decorum. You know, people were defecating in the Capitol and wrecking it. So these are not people who care about decorum. Otherwise Trump wouldn't have pardoned all those perpetrators from January 6th. So this is like making people thank you and thank others who you're supporting is a form of trying to humiliate them.
- [39:17]
David Pakman
To go back to the digital shock troops thing you mentioned just a moment ago, I was going to ask you kind of about the parallels between what we're seeing and the kind of concept of shock doctrine. I saw this quote from Russell Vaught recently about how he said the. I'm paraphrasing but something about how the federal employees and these kind of bureaucratic employees of the federal government, it should be traumatic to go to work. Like the hostility towards them and the environment, it should be traumatizing in some way. We've heard the term digital shock troops and all of it. How does this align with the concept of a shock doctrine?
- [39:55]
Ruth Ben Ghiat
Yeah, it's very sad whenever I see that quote by Russ Vaught because imagine being so mean hearted that you want, you're devising ways to put federal employees, quote, put them in trauma. That was his quote. And but there's a very practical aim. It's to get this purge as fast as possible because you can create a hostile work environment. It's. That's so bad that people will resign. Right. Or, and then, and then you also can do purges and kick them out. And that's what's going on now. And that's classic authoritarian playbook. But again, it's the speed at which this is happening, which is part of the shock doctrine. And that's why all the executive orders, all the stuff that's happened very quickly, even just from the Trump side, and it reminds us that again, the Musk and the Trump, they are working together, they have their differences. Who knows what will happen between them. But it's all of a piece to very rapidly change the US From a democracy into something else. And the same with the economy. There's like a conscious effort to engineer some kind of weakness in the economy to even, some people say, direct the economy, which was booming, the Economist called it at the end of Biden's administration, one of the most robust economies in the whole world. And this is supposed to happen very fast and it makes no sense to many people, but it's part of a design to weaken America. That's how I see it.
- [41:33]
David Pakman
In is the eventual goal for Trump to then save it, or is it just to take advantage of the weakness to allow the billionaire robber barons to come in and privatize? Or kind of like an all of the above.
- [41:46]
Ruth Ben Ghiat
All of the above, but especially the second thing. I really think that privatization and deregulation are part of Project 2025 as well as DOGE. So again, and if things collapse, then who can come in and swoop up assets at a very preferential rate? It's the very rich. And everything that Trump is doing with getting rid of regulations on corporations, getting rid of corrupt practices guidelines, everything that he's doing is designed to make it easier for people to make money, for bad actors to make money, but also for Corporations to not have to bother with regulations anymore.
- [42:35]
David Pakman
I want to think about how to bring up this next question, I guess, for context. I'm. I hear from people who say, what can I do to protect myself and my family? And I'm curious what the 20th century maybe teaches us about, at the individual level, what people can and could do. You know, we talk about how at scale, we don't want everybody to leave because then they just take over. Right? So. So at scale, we do need opposition. And also, I'm never going to criticize anybody for taking the steps they feel they need to take to protect their families. Now, part of this is blue states and red states will be different to a degree with some of the things that are going on. Others know. Right. I mean, if they figure out a way to gut Social Security such that payments are delayed, whether you're in Connecticut or Arkansas, that that is going to be a problem. So with all of that kind of being said, what sorts of actions at the individual level does history tell us people can take to protect themselves in these environments?
- [43:40]
Ruth Ben Ghiat
I think, you know, one of the things that strongmen do, they. They try and wreck what I call horizontal bonds. Individuals bonds with each other, with their communities. And what they want is the mass and the leader everybody's loyal only to, and they're adulating the leader. Right. And so one thing that has allowed people to get through difficult times is communities, is networks, is relationships. And so this is a good time to embed yourself more into your community, to perhaps repair relationships with your family members or others. And that includes people who you haven't been able to speak to because of political things. Maybe they're, they've been turned against everyone and against logic by disinformation. As the fallout from these policies becomes more clear, that's an opportunity for everyone to go in there and try and speak to these family members or community members or friends, because it's going to become more obvious that MAGA is not about making the nation great again. It's about ruining the nation. And that suits Putin. It suits, you know, the billionaires. It suits a lot of bad actors. And so embedding yourself with your. Your communities and strengthening your relationships and also speaking out in ways you feel comfortable, whether it's, it's, you know, it's contacting your representatives. And it's not just to complain to the representatives you don't like. It's also to tell the ones who are standing up for rule of law and democracy that you think they're doing a good job because we can, it's, we can forget to reward those who are standing up for us. And it's easy just to complain. But history shows we, we kind of need to do both.
- [45:34]
David Pakman
What does history tell us that these authoritarians tend to do when cracks in their economy start to develop? And the reason I ask that is over the last couple of weeks, when Trump's confronted with the record high egg prices he's now started to talk about, well, bird flu and Biden. When Trump's confront, confronted with the cracks in the economy, he says there's going to be a transition period. You know, do you expect a recession? He says, I don't know what I would call it, but we're in a phase where we're going to eventually get to something good. And then he's kind of over the last couple of days just really been silent on the economy. What do these folks tend to do when, partially due to their own actions, cracks develop in economy?
- [46:18]
Ruth Ben Ghiat
Well, yeah, that's a good question. Because right now he still has his valiant loyalists out there on TV trying to do damage control. Yeah, like Senator Tuberville says, oh, the stock market was overinflated. It needed to be weaker, you know, but that's only gonna last. That can't last. They can't keep saying that. They even they would know. They are ridiculous. So many, you know, many strong men have been weakened because their economic policies were revealed to be bad. And here we have an opportunity because we're not a one party state. We still have, you know, press freedom and we can speak out about that. Right. Even in Chile, the dictator Pinochet, who's a model for many people and he did privatizations, he had, it was a laboratory for neoliberal economics. And the US backed the coup and everybody was happy. And then the banks started to fail and they ended up having to nationalize the banks. And this is when Pinochet became seen as very weak. And civil society protests started with people who had been hurt by losing their jobs, losing their benefits. And so I'm thinking about that example a lot. And we have much more ability to register our disaffection because we're not a military, military dictatorship. So we have to use, one of the lessons is you, if things are taking a turn you, you're not comfortable with, you have to use the spaces, you have a freedom of free speech, free assembly to make your voice known and make your voice heard.
- [47:57]
David Pakman
Last thing I want to ask you about on that, one of the things that I'm often asked Is why don't more people employ some of the activism tactics that, for example, I write about in my book or that others have written about strategic absence from work and coordinated debt defaults or mass rallies? One of the things that's a reality is that if you have a family, if you have kids, if your health insurance depends on your job missing a day of work or potentially missing a couple of days and losing the job and then losing health insurance, the system in and of itself prevents people from getting involved in a lot of these ways. Is. Is that also typical of regimes we've seen in history?
- [48:45]
Ruth Ben Ghiat
Yeah, it's. I mean, in a real. This is why we're in an advantageous situation comparatively, because in a real regime, if you. Well, if you didn't show up at the official protest to cheer the leader, your ab. You know, your absence would be noted and the secret police would come and visit you.
- [49:02]
David Pakman
Yes.
- [49:02]
Ruth Ben Ghiat
If you do show up to protest, you have all kinds of problems, including getting fired from your. Your job. And it's very interesting. When I've been studying, we're actually living through a global renaissance of. Of nonviolent protest. And I've been studying some of these successful protests, and one of them was in Israel before October 7th. This was the phase when it was against Netanyahu's attempt to judicial reform.
- [49:28]
David Pakman
Yes.
- [49:29]
Ruth Ben Ghiat
Right. And he's trying to stay out of jail. And the re. One of the reasons the protests were so successful and they lasted so long is that employers, whether it was the tech industry and at one point even Mossad, hardly a liberal organization, were giving their employees time off to attend a protest, like once a week. And so that allowed people to do this without having to risk their jobs. I'm thinking of these examples from places around the world or in Poland when people came out for a huge, you know, one day rally, because it was one day and it was special. Right before the election, employers were lenient with absences.
- [50:14]
David Pakman
We've been speaking with Ruth Ben Ghiat. The book is Strongmen Mussolini to the present. Always really appreciate your time and insights.
- [50:24]
Ruth Ben Ghiat
It's always a pleasure. David.
- [50:27]
David Pakman
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- [52:36]
Elon Musk
So the, I mean, the way support in entitlement spending, which is all of the which is most of the federal spending, is entitlements. So that's like the big one to eliminate because that's the sort of half trillion, maybe six steps, 700 billion a year. That is also a mechanism by which the Democrats attract and retain illegal immigrants by essentially paying them to come here and then turning them into voters.
- [53:08]
Larry Kudlow
Yes.
- [53:09]
Elon Musk
So this is why the Democrats are so upset about the situation, because they're losing. You know, if we turn off this gigantic money magnet for illegal immigrants, then they will leave deep.
- [53:25]
David Pakman
So two things. First of all, I don't know how many of you noticed when when the shot cuts to elan, when it cuts to a two shot. I don't know if this is one of those forced perspective images. Larry Kudlow looks teeny tiny next to Ellen, who looks completely overgrown. I mean, it's just bizarre, the physical appearance of the way they shot this. I don't know if Kudlow is sitting much further away and you can't tell. Anyway, think about the ridiculous. Sorry for that diversion. Think about the absurdity of what Elon is claiming. Elon is claiming that entitlements, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are used by Democrats in order to get money to undocumented immigrants, despite the fact that undocumented immigrants don't qualify for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid in order to get them to come here and turn them into voters, which you also have no way to vote if you're an undocumented immigrant because only citizens can vote. They. It is jarring to see the richest man on earth target senior citizens, poor people and immigrants who are barely making enough money to survive and saying these are the folks that we need to cut the gravy train for. And what Elon is admitting is that as far as he's concerned, the great replacement theory, the white replacement theory, is real. Democrats use illegal immigration to turn the country less white and find new voters. And as we've talked about many, many times, undocumented immigrants pay into these systems, but they don't qualify for benefits. Undocumented immigrants can't vote and have no way of registering to vote and simply do not vote. And it does. It's a reminder that you clearly don't have to be that smart to become very wealthy. Now, at another point during this interview, Elon blames Ukraine for Twitter being down yesterday. This has also been deposition.
- [55:34]
Larry Kudlow
What are you doing in the government? There was a cyber attack on X today which shut it down and may have been foreign source forced. Yeah, it's a big story. You want to give us a moment on that?
- [55:46]
Elon Musk
Well, we don't. We're not sure exactly what happened, but there was a massive cyber attack.
- [55:51]
David Pakman
The key is we're not sure exactly what happened. Now he's going to tell you a bunch of other stuff, try to bring.
- [55:55]
Elon Musk
Down the system with IP addresses originating in the Ukraine area.
- [56:01]
Larry Kudlow
Oh, well, so that's your suspicion is is the website is.
- [56:06]
David Pakman
I like how Kudlow just is like sure, yeah, that sounds right. Now, of course, the only problem with the Ukraine hacked X theory is that the attack was already claimed by a pro Palestinian cyber hacking group called the Dark Storm Team that is tied to not Ukraine, tied to Russia. So we've already debunked that notion. And then finally Elon brings up the possibility, the possibility that Doge will be stopped. Now, what exactly he means by it is hard to know.
- [56:33]
Elon Musk
I'm just here trying to make government more efficient, eliminated waste and fraud. And so far we're making good progress actually. So our savings at this point exceed $4 billion a day.
- [56:50]
David Pakman
So that is a lie.
- [56:51]
Elon Musk
It's very significant.
- [56:52]
Larry Kudlow
You think you wind up getting to a trillion dollars.
- [56:55]
Elon Musk
Yeah.
- [56:56]
Larry Kudlow
Of savings?
- [56:57]
Elon Musk
I mean, unless someone's, Unless we're, unless we're stopped, we'll, we will get to a trillion dollars of savings.
- [57:01]
Larry Kudlow
And that stuff can be translated. I mean, we've been talking. We had Russell Boat, the OMB director, on earlier through very rescission authority, Empowerment Authority, but I believe you said it earlier, it's an audit that will not gather dust on shelves.
- [57:16]
David Pakman
This act, by the way, Kudlow seems totally disoriented.
- [57:20]
Larry Kudlow
Going to wind up with real savings. Bend the base spending baseline down.
- [57:25]
David Pakman
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, great idea, Larry. Great idea. And unless we're stopped, we're, we're really going to, really going to save a lot of money. And it's going to be, it's going to be a good thing. You know, it's going to be really, really good. So there is, there is Elon Musk. He's trying, folks, but it's just, it's just not working. Telling dozens, if not over 100 lies during this total softball of an interview with Larry Kudlow. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Is the Secretary of Health and Human Services, and he is going to make America healthy again. Now, he, it's, it's already crazy. He built his reputation as an environmental lawyer and a health advocate, and he is now campaigning at a Steak and Shake fast food store, pushing the idea that fast food may play a major role in making America healthy again. Check this out. RFK showed up at a Steak and Shake, I guess the pinnacle of healthy eating. Sat there with Sean Hannity, of all people. They talk about how they love that you can get a real plastic straw at Steak and Shake. And RFK kind of laughs uncomfortably. We'll get to that. And then a milkshake is brought to the table. And RFK goes, oh, I didn't order that. So let's take a look at some of this video and rfk. You know, I actually, I'm going to be very frank with you. I can't tell whether RFK believes this shit. And what I mean by that is I don't know that RFK really thinks that Steak and Shake fast food is the key to health. Like, I happen to think it's not. And I think RFK may also think that it's not. But he's gotten, it's almost a caricature of his former self. Check this out.
- [59:17]
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Beef towel.
- [59:18]
Bernie Sanders
Oh, by the way, here you go.
- [59:19]
David Pakman
If you just take the red Basket.
- [59:21]
Bernie Sanders
I'll take them.
- [59:22]
David Pakman
I guess the reason he likes steak and shake is they cook their fries in beef tallow.
- [59:27]
Bernie Sanders
Oh, okay. Is that. Oh, this is me.
- [59:30]
Ruth Ben Ghiat
Okay.
- [59:30]
Bernie Sanders
Thank you.
- [59:34]
Ruth Ben Ghiat
All right, gentlemen, enjoy.
- [59:35]
David Pakman
Thank you.
- [59:36]
Bernie Sanders
You didn't forget my coke. Did you get your Coke, Ms. Small? With a little ice.
- [59:41]
David Pakman
Don't you dare put a lot of ice in there or Hannity will flip out.
- [59:44]
Bernie Sanders
I'm not going to drink it all because you're going to yell at me. I'm only kidding.
- [59:48]
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
And steak and shake just switched out. And people are raving about these french fries. You taste them.
- [59:54]
Bernie Sanders
Amazing. They really are. I'm not.
- [59:56]
Larry Kudlow
This is not.
- [59:57]
David Pakman
When I was a kid, guys, this is the. The secretary of Health and Human Services.
- [60:02]
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Travel in Europe. The. The. The. You know, Europe is great. Always had great food. The french fries were always disappointment because we had the best french fries here. They had palm frites over there.
- [60:14]
David Pakman
And that's completely untrue. French fries in Paris and Belgium have been better than American fries for a very long time.
- [60:20]
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Just didn't taste right. The best french fries in the world are in Europe. I order them every time I go to Belgium or France or any place.
- [60:28]
David Pakman
Okay. I didn't even know he was going to mention Belgium and France. I. Oh, man, that's. That's beautiful.
- [60:35]
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
And the french fries here just don't taste right.
- [60:38]
David Pakman
Right.
- [60:39]
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
And you take these. It's a completely different experience. And the customers are raving about it. Other companies. Steak and shake us.
- [60:48]
David Pakman
He sounds more like a guy working for the fast food lobby than the secretary of Health and Human services.
- [60:53]
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
And great. We're very grateful for them for rfking the french fries. They turned me into a verb. But also popeyes, by the way, a plastic straw.
- [61:03]
Bernie Sanders
Thank you.
- [61:04]
David Pakman
Thank God.
- [61:05]
Bernie Sanders
I can't stand those paper straws.
- [61:07]
David Pakman
Okay. And I actually, I thought I had a bigger clip.
- [61:10]
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Just about the straw, but also popeyes.
- [61:14]
Bernie Sanders
By the way, a plastic straw. Thank you.
- [61:17]
David Pakman
Thank God.
- [61:18]
Bernie Sanders
I can't stand those paper straws. I hate them.
- [61:20]
David Pakman
RFK looks a little uncomfortable here.
- [61:22]
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
You hate to see charcoals, right?
- [61:25]
David Pakman
But it's beyond parody, my friends. It's beyond parody. Then a milkshake shows up and they go, we, I didn't order that.
- [61:35]
Bernie Sanders
66% of adults, 38% of teens. And we'll put this up on the screen. They have prediabetes.
- [61:45]
David Pakman
They're talking about the amount of prediabetes while eating burgers, sodas, and milkshakes or ice cream sundaes at a fast food place. How broken is this cabinet. How broken is this cabinet?
- [62:03]
Bernie Sanders
You did not order that. It looks great. I'm sure one of our guys. Would anyone like a free shake? Anyone? We got to be somebody in here.
- [62:13]
David Pakman
How the hell can you be talking about the problem of childhood obesity and prediabetes while saying that maybe steak and shake ice cream sundaes, fast food are part of the solution? You know, RFK talks endlessly about toxins and big pharma and how the government is ruining our health. And then he's like, look at this awesome fast food that we've got here. This is not a health movement. This is a guy trying to pander to right wing voters who think health means the opposite of whatever liberals say. That's. That's what this really is. You don't get your vaccines, well, that's healthy. You do drink raw milk. Well, that's healthy. You do eat greasy fast food. Well, that's healthy. And what a disaster interview this turned into. I think that you could see RFK physically realizing how ridiculous he looks. A supposedly serious person pushing for health, giggling over past, past plastic straws in a surprise milkshake and saying, this is how we're going to make America healthy again with fast food. It is so backwards and bizarre that it almost exceeds description with the English language. On today's bonus show, we will talk about the addition of the US to the global human rights watch list over our declining civil liberties. What a dark era in the United States. There is a bill in the state of Texas which would make identifying as trans a felony for which you could go to jail. And finally, British Columbia has banned all American alcohol at government stores, includes wine and beer. Because of Trump's tariffs. This is bad for American businesses. Please remember to subscribe to the YouTube channel where we are just days from hitting 3 million YouTube subscribers and we are in the final preorder days for my forthcoming book, the Echo Machine. Appreciate everybody who's preordered about 8,000 preordered copies so far. David pakman.com/echo or david pakman.com/booksmith for signed copies. If you want the audiobook, it's available. If you want the ebook, it's available. I'll see you on the bonus show.