← The David Pakman Show
The David Pakman Show
4/14/25: Bernie & AOC bring the house down while Trump starts crony carveouts
01:03:23
-- On the Show: -- An arsonist attempts to burn down Pennsylvania Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro's house just after Passover -- Donald Trump caves again, carving out some tech billionaires from his tariffs -- Senator Bernie Sanders brings the...
Loading summary
Transcript64 lines
- [00:08]
David Pakman
Welcome to the show, everybody. Hope you had a good weekend. If you observed Passover, I hope it was a good one. I made a beautiful matzo ball soup from scratch. And these were, these were some of the best balls anyone's ever made, I have to tell you. And it came out beautifully. And I hope you had a good, as good a time as I did making the soup. And speaking of which, there is a news connection to this. It just so happened that over Passover weekend, someone set fire to the governor's mansion in Pennsylvania where Governor Josh Shapiro, his wife, their kids, were asleep after observing Passover. And this fire was set, we believe, with the intent of killing them. That's right. They were jolted awake at 2am by state police pounding on the doors. The house was burning. The arsonist had jumped the fence, entered the property and used a homemade device to set the fire. This individual was inside the property for just about a minute. That was long enough to cause pretty serious damage and force an emergency evacuation of the sitting governor's family in the middle of the night. This is an act of criminality. This is potentially an act of terror. This is apparently anti Semitic, but we still don't know the exact particulars of everything. What we know is that Governor Shapiro had hosted a Passover Seder in the mansion the night before, for we know that he's Pennsylvania's first Jewish governor. We know that the country is in this climate of rising anti Semitism and political violence and extremist rhetoric. And so the question here doesn't seem to be was this politically motivated? Of course it was politically motivated. The question is, how close are we to a society where setting a governor's house on fire feels more like a protest than terrorism? Now, it hasn't yet been designated terrorism, per say, and at the end of the day, it's sort of, in a way, a semantic, although also consequential distinction. But philosophically, this is where we sometimes start to see liberal democracy decay. You know, in all of our discussions that we've been having on the show about how societies fail, how democracies fail, and how you always think that there will never be a collapse, but then the collapse starts. It's rarely a constitutional change that signals the decay of liberal democracy, but it's more often when people stop believing in peaceful dissent and they quite literally reach for the lighters and the accelerants like gasoline and Molotov cocktails, etc. So we're still gathering details, and I think Governor Josh Shapiro maybe said it best, which is no One will deter me or my family or any Pennsylvanian from celebrating their faith openly and proudly. And I know that there are many in my audience who are not religious. I am not religious. I consider myself ethnically Jewish, culturally Jewish, culinarily Jewish, as the matzo balls are a testament to. But it doesn't matter because we do have as a principle here in the United States, on the one hand, separation of church and state. Josh Shapiro should not use, cannot use his personal religious beliefs to justify legislation. And this is why when we have the, you know, debates about abortion and we hear from these right wing Christian members of Congress that the Bible tells me, therefore it should be illegal. No, no, no, no. But at the same time, we respect people's choices when it comes to what they believe or celebrate or observe, and that we don't use that as a basis for which to launch violence. And that is what appears to have happened here. So they tried to burn the governor's house down. And we'd better not pretend that this is just another local crime story. Oh, someone broke into a parked car and stole a laptop that was sitting there and someone set a fire to a house. No, of course we know that this is much, much more. And we. I am still waiting for condemnation of this from some of the typical corners of the online commentosphere will follow up on it. In a move that will shock absolutely no one who's been paying attention, Donald Trump has once again caved to the very elites that he pretends to fight against. In his supposed defense of the average American, Donald Trump is handing out massive tariff exemptions to some of the richest tech companies in the world. It includes Apple, Nvidia and Dell. Smartphones, laptops, semiconductors, flat panel displays are getting spared. And yet the average American will still be stuck paying Donald Trump's blanket tariffs on basically everything else made in China. So this is not America first. This is friends of Trump first. This is the number one currency, and this is the number one sort of barometer used to determine who do we help and who don't we care about. It is not a mystery why Donald Trump is bailing them out. Many of these CEOs, Apple's Tim, Apple really known as Tim Cook included, showed up at Donald Trump's second inauguration. They donated to his inaugural fund. Some of them hosted these inaugural balls. These are not passive bystanders, is the point. It is not. Oh, Trump just did a very objective evaluation. Where is it that I should exempt from tariffs? No, it happens to be directly linked to some of the folks that are showing up and supporting Donald Trump. They are active participants in the Trump economy. And it is an economy where loyalty is what is rewarded with access and with exemptions. It's not free market capitalism. This is a protection racket with better branding. And in Donald Trump's America, working people always carry the cost and the billionaires get the waivers. Now here is Trump, former, current, who the hell knows? This is Trump propagandist Peter Navarro. At one point he was an economic adviser. Had to do a little jail time. Happens to a lot of these Trump advisers. Now he's doing the TV rounds. I don't even know if he officially works for Trump. It doesn't matter. But total confusion as to what it is that is going on here. Listen to this.
- [07:35]
Peter Navarro
There's three kinds. There's the high end chips, which is the future. Okay. We've got to get control of that. And then there's everything else that fuels our autos and on down.
- [07:45]
David Pakman
Fair enough. I hear what you're saying on investigation.
- [07:48]
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
But there is currently an exclusion for some of that.
- [07:52]
Peter Navarro
You want to call it exclusion? Potatoes. Potatoes.
- [07:55]
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
What it is called it.
- [07:56]
Donald Trump
And.
- [07:56]
Peter Navarro
Well, but let's say, let's just. Here's, I think another thing that's really important.
- [08:02]
David Pakman
Yeah. Let me quickly change the subject since it's very clear that I'm not going to goad you into a semantic gap game about an exclusion versus an exception.
- [08:11]
Peter Navarro
People talk about the chaos or lack of straight whatever. You just go back to day one. I was there when the President signed it. It was the second to last order he signed. It was in the open that night.
- [08:22]
David Pakman
And then also clarifying here he is a trade adviser to the White House. Okay.
- [08:27]
Peter Navarro
And it was the American first trade policy which laid out every single thing we're doing. And it would be remiss for anybody in the media not to review that carefully and see that there's, there's rhyme to our reason and rhythm to what we're doing.
- [08:42]
David Pakman
Yeah. But now the administration rhyme to a reason and rhythm to what we're doing. Word salad aside. Okay, you might be confused. What is going on? Are they exceptions? Are they exemptions? What? There is a deeper pattern here. Throughout history, authoritarians love to talk like populists, but govern, govern like oligarchs. They build loyalty through spectacle. I only, I know how China is hurting us and I'm going to fix it. And we're going to do tariffs and we're going to have flags and we'll do rallies that last two hours and then you do Backroom deals for the inner circle. That is a tale as old as relatively modern government itself. You claim moral clarity on trade. I know who's suffering. I'm going to fix it. It's going to be for the average person. You then look at punishing your enemies with tariffs to look strong. That starts to hurt the average person that you said would benefit from your policies. And then you reward your allies with the carve outs and you spin the entire thing as I'm so strong. These are bullet points as old as authoritarianism. And Trump loves to pretend that he's tough on everybody, but the truth is that he's very selective about who gets hurt. Working class voters are told that the economic pain is going to be patriotic. There's going to be some short term pain for some long term gain that of course doesn't even theoretically materialize. But then while they are told you were patriotically going to suffer, look at what happens with the allies and cronies of Donald Trump when the pain hits. Apple's bottom line. Suddenly we need exemptions for the good of the country, for the good of the average person. It's so that you don't have a 30$300 iPhone. This is political theater. It is not trade policy. The only real principle is don't anger my biggest donors. The people will bleed for the country, but the country always means the wealthiest and the most connected are the ones that will be protected from any of that bleeding. And so what's coming into focus here is that the trade war was never about principles. It was about power. And we know that in Donald Trump's world, power belongs to those who show up, write the check, smile for the photo op, have a well done steak at Mar a Lago with ketchup, and then never question anything else that Donald Trump does. That's what we're seeing. And meanwhile, all of these sort of manipulations are meant to stop the market collapse, which you've got to give Trump credit for. We're still way down from when this all started, but there have been a few trading days over the last three or four. As I'm recording, the Dow is up another 300 points. The goal here, we knew eventually, listen, when Dave Portnoy from Barstool Sports started saying, I can't lose. I'm a Trump supporter, but I can't lose 3% out of my stock account every single day. When that started, we knew that Trump was going to have to back off of some of this. And. And he is. We will see how far it goes. But we knew eventually who was going to get saved. And it's exactly the tech people that Trump is saving right now. Let's take a very quick break. We'll be back right after this.
- [12:31]
Sponsor Voice
By now you've probably heard about Deep Seek. It's now the number one app on most app stores. But every conversation you have with Deep Seek is stored on Chinese servers and subject to Chinese censorship. If you want to try deepseek without sharing all your conversations with Beijing, then let me recommend our sponsor, Venice AI. Venice AI is a generative AI platform. It's private and it's permissionless and they utilize leading open source AI models to deliver text, code and image generation right.
- [13:08]
David Pakman
To your web browser.
- [13:09]
Sponsor Voice
No downloads, no installations of anything, and they offer a version of Deep Seek that's private and without censorship. China's not the only problem. ChatGPT has the former director of the NSA sitting on their board right now. Do we think our conversations are private with American AI companies? We also know that these companies program their AIs to give only certain kinds of answers. I love that Venice AI doesn't spy on you, doesn't censor anything. Messages are encrypted. Your conversation history is stored only on your browser. Enjoy private, uncensored AI. Go to Venice AI Pacman and use the code pacman to get 20% off a pro plan that's Venice AI pacman for 20% off or use code Pacman. The link is in the podcast Notes.
- [14:09]
David Pakman
Did you know that an estimated 5 billion plastic, hand soap and cleaning bottles are thrown away every year? Our sponsor Blue Land is on a mission to eliminate single use plastic by reinventing cleaning essentials to be better for you and better for the planet. With the same cleaning power that you're used to. The idea is super simple. Blue Land offers refillable cleaning products with a beautiful cohesive design that'll look great on your countertop. You fill your reusable bottles with water, drop in the tablets, wait for them to dissolve, and you'll never again have to grab the bulky cleaning supplies on your grocery run. Refills start at just $2.25. You can set up a subscription or buy in bulk for additional savings. And BlueLand products are independently tested to perform alongside major brands. They are free from dyes, bleach and harsh chemicals, from cleaning sprays to hand soap, toilet bowl cleaner, laundry tablets. All blueland products are made with clean ingredients you can feel good about. Blueland is trusted in over 1 million homes, including mine. 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 blue land.com/pacman. That's blue e land.com/pacman for 15% off. The link is in the podcast notes. The David Pakman show is of course, an audience supported program. Thanks to the more than 300 of you who have signed up for new memberships recently. @join pacman.com you can read all about it, get the daily bonus show commercial, free audio and video streams of the show and so much more. Also, thank you to folks who made my book number six on all of Amazon over the weekend. That's out of millions of books. Number six, that's up there with all those young adult and fantasy books. I don't understand. But anyway, number six out of millions. Unbelievable. Thank you. We'll have more information about what's going on with the book later this week. All right. Bernie Sanders bringing the house down at Coachella. But not everybody's happy. I'm going to explain this to you. Here is video of Bernie speaking at the music festival. Arousing speech. The audience there really liked it. But take a guess. Can you guess what the criticism, criticism is that's being levied against Bernie. Let's listen.
- [16:56]
Bernie Sanders
I'm not going to be long, but this is what I want to say. This country faces some very difficult challenges and the future of what happens to America is dependent upon your generation. Now, you can turn away and you can ignore what goes on, but if you do that, you do it at your own peril. We need you to stand up to fight for justice, to fight for economic justice, social justice and racial justice. Now we got a president of the United States. I agree he thinks that climate change is a hoax. He is dangerously wrong. And you and I, you and I are gonna have to stand up to the fossil fuel industry and tell them to stop destroying this planet. All over this country, not in California, not in Vermont, where I'm from, but in Florida, where Maxwell is from many other states, politicians are trying to take away a woman's right to control her own body. We need you to stand up and fight for women's rights. We have an economy today that is working very well for the billionaire class, but not for working families.
- [19:03]
David Pakman
All right. So I think you get the gist of it. So let me, let me tell you what the controversy is here. First of all, on the substance, of course, this is Bernie being Bernie. Bernie's talking about the issues that are important to him. He's talking about issues that are important to and resonating with a young, politically active audience. And people at Coachella, for the most part, skew younger, skew politically active, skew engaged. And so you say, well, Bernie's presence there is great. He's doing his Bernie stuff. He's talking about climate change, he's talking about the Oligox taking everything over. That's all great. He's saying, you've got to take action. People are cheering. People love it. He's broadening political outreach, in a sense. Right. It's. It's part of the Fighting Oligarchy tour with aoc. We'll look at some of the other events they did which were more traditional, kind of like let's hold a rally type venues. This goes beyond a political rally. Maybe some of the people in the crowd would never go to a rally, but they are aware of the political problem, so that's all fantastic. So why. Why are some people upset? What's the criticism? Well, the criticism is that there's a perceived contradiction here, where, on the one hand, Bernie is a vocal critic of economic inequality, and yet he's choosing to go to an event where general admission tickets are, what, 600 to 30, $1300? The VIP experience has cost thousands. I read nachos are 100 bucks at Coachella. And so some people were saying, hold on a second. If these are your views about the average person, why would you bring that message to a venue and an event that is so exclusionary and prohibitive to the average person? Because it's so expensive. Bernie's alienating people when he talks about working class struggles at a festival that caters to the elites, that dilutes Bernie's message, and that risks alienating his core base. Those are the two sides. Now, my. My sort of view on this is you've got to go to the cultural flashpoints of the moment. And so I see the Coachella speech as more than just for the people there. So in terms of the subject matter, the point is get the subject matter to the largest number of people possible. It's not just for the Coachella crowd. It's so that it gets filmed and it's written about and. And tons of other people hear about it. The message gets to more people. That's good. I think that's completely legitimate. And also. And also, I do think that the optics of what we know about Coachella bring down its usefulness a tiny bit. I think it's a net benefit. I think, overall, it's great that Bernie did this. And you know, Democrats right now are struggling with the idea that it doesn't feel very cool to be a Democrat. And I know Bernie's an independent, but he caucuses with Democrats and he's not trying to be the candidate anyway, so what does it matter if he's cool? What matters is are there other people like AOC or Okay, put all that aside for me. We need Democrats and people on the left more engaged with the cultural flashpoints in a way that feels genuine. Bernie's speech was genuine. We know this is the stuff that he believes in. And also the irony of speaking about this at a place where people are spending 100 bucks on nachos and multi thousand dollar VIP experiences, plus travel and accommodations. There is an inconsistency there, but I think overall we benefit from this. Let me know what you think. The Fight Oligarchy tour with Bernie Sanders and AOC continued over the weekend and we're going to look at a few clips here. The big picture is massive crowds of highly engaged people where we wonder, are they going to vote in November of 2026? Let's start with Congresswoman Alexandria Cassio Cortez accurately pointing out that the White House backing off on tariffs, pausing exemptions, all this stuff. It never was about what they claimed it to be about. Take a listen.
- [23:29]
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
And we saw this play out this week with Trump's corrupt and disastrous tariff scheme. I hope that we all see now that this that the White House House's tariff shuffle here didn't have anything to do with manufacturing like they claimed. It was about manipulating the markets. It was about hurting retirees and everyday people in the sell off so Trump could quietly enrich his friends who he nudged to buy the dip before reversing it all in the morning. Donald Trump is a criminal. A criminal found guilty of 34 felony counts of fraud. Of course he is lying and manipulating the stock market too. He is at his best making himself the billionaires who back him and the members of Congress who trade with him rich. Not you, not me, not the people. And to be clear, I don't care what party you are, Democrat or Republican. I don't care what position one holds. Members of Congress and elected officials holding and trading individual stock is wrong. It must end and we must ban it.
- [24:53]
David Pakman
AOC is distilling down the entire tariff fiasco in a way that seems pretty intellectually honest for once to me, which is that it's not really economic policy. It's cronyism and market manipulation at its Core. And the broader message from AOC before Bernie spoke was that democracy and oligarchy are opposites. You can't have both.
- [25:23]
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Oligarchy or democracy, but we cannot have both. Los Angeles, I've made my choice. We must fight the oligarchy that has created this nightmare. And that is why I have never taken money from lobbyists or corporations. And it's why I never will.
- [25:45]
David Pakman
And then Bernie speaking, and Bernie really riling the crowd up, talking about housing, really talking about kitchen table issues, stuff that is not esoteric and distant from the day to day lives of people.
- [26:05]
Bernie Sanders
Here in L. A, in Burlington, Vermont and all across this country. We have a major housing crisis, am I right? And it's not just homelessness. It's people paying 40, 50, 60% of their limited incomes in housing. Instead of spending a trillion dollars a year on the military, let's build 5 million units of low income and affordable housing.
- [26:35]
David Pakman
Now, of course, the housing issue, a much deeper issue we've talked about. Yes, we do need more supply. The supply is limited artificially by zoning and so many other things. The devil is in the details. But. But Bernie, absolutely spot on. Bernie also arguing, I don't know how true this is, but the idea is a good one. Bernie also arguing that when Elon and Trump and the MAGA people see the size of these crowds, they don't like it because they know what it means.
- [27:09]
Bernie Sanders
When Donald Trump looks out at this crowd and they pay attention to this stuff, and Elon Musk does, you are scaring the hell out of them because they know what you know. And what I know is that they are the 1%, we are the 99%.
- [27:39]
David Pakman
That's true. That is true. Bernie Sanders also hitting Elon Musk very hard during this one.
- [27:48]
Bernie Sanders
You know, it's funny, just yesterday, our good friend Elon Musk, Mr. Musk sent out a tweet and in essence he said, you know, Bernie Sanders has been talking about the growth of oligarchy year after year after year. Well, Elon, you're damn right that's what I've been talking about. The difference is I'm no longer talking about how we're moving to oligarchy. I'm talking about how we are living today in an oligarchic form of society. Three months ago, when Trump was inaugurated, standing right behind him during his inauguration were the three wealthiest people in this country, Mr. Musk, Mr. Bezos and Mr. Zuckerberg. And right behind them were 13 other billionaires who Trump had nominated to head up major federal agencies.
- [29:11]
David Pakman
And then finally, Bernie talking. And I love this about the religion of the oligarchs in America.
- [29:22]
Bernie Sanders
One person, one vote, not billionaires buying elections. Let me tell you something about the oligarchs. They are very, very religious people. But their religion is not based on doing unto others as you would have them do unto you. Their religion is not based on love or justice. Their religion is based on greed, greed and more greed. All over this country, in Vermont, California, all over this country, we have a serious problem with drug addiction, with alcoholism, with other forms of addiction. But in my honest opinion, the most serious addiction crisis we face is the addiction of the oligarchy toward greed. They got billions and billions of dollars. It's not enough. They need more. And if they have to step on the poor and the disabled and working class people, that is what they will do. Unless we stop them. And we will stop them.
- [30:51]
David Pakman
Absent anything else happening on the Democratic side, I think that we've got to lean into this energy right now. The Cory Booker speech, the fight, oligarchy rallies. These are solutions that get people health care and housing. No, we all acknowledge that. But you've got to start somewhere. And this is the most energy we've seen in a long time. Donald Trump's new medical report is out. And it is not a health document. It is a campaign ad. It is a propaganda document. At 78 years old, we are to believe that Donald Trump is in better shape than most 40 year olds, according to the White House doctor, and I am not being sarcastic, Trump's cholesterol, better than yours. Trump's cognitive function, absolutely perfect. Trump's cardiac health, flawless. And of course, Trump's golf game, apparently unstoppable. You don't usually read about one's golf game in a medical report, but you do hear, and they even threw in that Donald Trump had a perfect score on a dementia screening test meant for relatively advanced dementia and brain injuries. And yes, Trump is frequently winning golf events. Here is Donald Trump weighing in on it. Then we're going to look in more detail at the document itself. But Trump says he just did so well on this test.
- [32:22]
Donald Trump
From Walter Reed with you, I think, well, every test you can imagine for a long time, the yearly physical, I think I did well. I think that really centered board on Sunday. Doctors, highly respected doctors. Great place, Great, amazing place.
- [32:43]
David Pakman
Did they give you any suggestions or advice, anything you need to change up?
- [32:49]
Donald Trump
But overall, I think I would very. I felt I was in very good shape. Good heart, a good soul. Very good soul.
- [32:58]
David Pakman
The he, he scored very High on soul.
- [33:01]
Donald Trump
And I took. I wanted to be a little different than Biden. I took a cognitive test. And I don't know when to tell you other than I got every answer right. I took just a lot of different tests having to do with the heart, having to do with other things. And I think you'll find that they're.
- [33:24]
Going to release the report on Sunday.
- [33:28]
David Pakman
Oh, man. You know, this isn't about medicine. This is about myth making. The image being sold is clear. Trump is sharper, stronger, and more vigorous than just about everybody. And the subtext of all of this is that he's the only one strong and tough enough to save America. He's outliving everybody, and he's outperforming everybody. And this is classic authoritarian propaganda. Portray the leader as a physically superior specimen to the average citizen. In ancient Rome, you know, the emperor had divine strength. In North Korea, Kim Jong Un got all holes in one his first time golfing. And he doesn't defecate. In maga world, Trump's arteries are spotless, and he only sweats from winning too much. Now, let's talk about the most unintentionally hilarious part. Donald Trump's weight on this atrocious document is listed at £224. Now, you might remember that Donald Trump used to claim to weigh 239, and we didn't believe that then. Now Trump claims to weigh 224. Now, I hate to tell you this, but unless the laws of physics have changed, Donald Trump weighing 224 would require that he's 6 secretly 7ft tall, made of helium, or has hollow bones like a bird. Okay, here's a picture of Trump with Harrison Butler, who's supposedly 64 and weighs 199. We've seen the pictures of Trump alongside Tom Brady, who is six four. Actually 225. Okay, so listen, this is not nitpicking. This is gaslighting. The point is to assert something obviously false and to dare you to object. And if you do object, you're called petty or vain or you're obsessed with Trump's body, your body, shaming him. This is the strategy, okay? They want you so demoralized by the absurdity that you stop questioning anything. One other note from this. There's this thing about scaring about Trump's head. Where was this section? Oh, I bookmarked it, and now I can't find it. It's with the. Trump has no significant abnormalities of his head, ears, nose, or throat, with the exception of scaring on the right ear from a gunshot wound. Of course they mean scarring. So even this thing is a complete and total mess. And then finally they gave him the moca, the Montreal Cognitive Assessment. Again, that's really to test for pretty severe brain injury or dementia. Like it would be so obvious in having even just a basic conversation with someone. Why they keep giving him that test, why they keep including that, why Trump keeps bragging about it, I don't know. But you know what? Trump's got beautiful cholesterol numbers. He's on a statin. It seems to be working, so he's got that going for him. But this physical, annual physical report, only raising way more questions than what it answers. Guys in my audience, I know you're tired of the chafing with traditional underwear. Our sponsor Sheath makes the most comfortable boxer briefs I've ever worn. If you're sick of the boxers that are too loose or the briefs that are too tight, Sheath is for you. Sheath underwear is designed with two special pouches in the front. Keeps everything separate in its own compartment with extra confidence that you will feel throughout the day. Keeping things separate and comfortable. No more sticking and chafing. I was skeptical about the dual pouch, I admit it. But it is game changing. Everything stays where it is supposed to be. It extra useful when working out at the gym. And even if you don't want to use the pouches, you don't have to. It is still the most comfortable pair of underwear I have ever owned. It will blow your mind how soft and stretchy these are. Made with moisture wicking technology to keep you dry. If you were ready to take underwear comfort to a new place, a place you didn't even know it could go, head over to sheathunderwear.com/pacman and get 20% off with the code PACMAN. That's sh a thunderwear.com/pacman use code PACMAN for 20% off. The link is in the podcast notes. The weather's warming up. It's just about time to start enjoying the outdoors again. If you live in a place that has seasons and it's time for the upgrade you've been thinking of. Our sponsor, Fast Growing Trees has you covered. It's America's biggest, biggest online nursery with thousands of different plants and 2 million happy customers. Fast Growing Trees has all the plants your yard needs, from fruit trees to privacy trees, flowering trees and shrubs. They make it easy to find whatever fits your climate and your space. Everything's delivered directly to your door. In just a few days. You'll get Support from trained plant experts on call to help you plan your landscape, choose the right plants and care for them. I have some beautiful white hydrangeas on the way from Fast Growing Trees right now. They are going to look great. Really looking forward to having them. And right now they have some amazing deals at fast growing trees.com including up to half off. And my audience gets an additional 15% off when you use the code pacman. That's fast growing trees.com use code PACMAN for. For 15% off. The info is in the podcast. Notes. White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt was asked a relatively straightforward question and it caused her to completely dissemble and implode. And there is a reason why. It is because she cannot acknowledge reality. Because acknowledging reality would be deleterious to Donald Trump. There's a fact right now consumer confidence is very low and it continues to decline. Consumer outlook about the economy, consumer outlook about inflation, consumer outlook about wages, it's in the toilet. And when Caroline Levitt was presented with this reality by a reporter, all she could do was say, everybody's optimistic, doesn't cite any facts, presents no data. All she can do is lie. And a little bit later in the show, we're going to tell you who she goes to for her support in this line. We'll get to that. But here is Caroline Levitt being asked what should be a pretty simple question, and her answer, of course, is nonsense. Why is American consumer confidence so low?
- [40:32]
Caroline Levitt
Look, I think there's a great optimism in this economy, great optimism for the American people. A lot of reason for people to feel optimistic. The President is, as I just said, trying to renegotiate the global trade agenda that has ripped off the American people for far too long. As he said, this is going to be a period of transition. He wants consumers to trust in him and they should trust in him. Look at what he did in his first term.
- [40:57]
David Pakman
ChatGPT could do this job better. There's no, there's no doubt about it. She's not stupid. It's critically important to understand this is not a dumb person. She's completely shameless. She is completely loyal to Trump no matter what. She lacks any ethics whatsoever, but stupid she isn't. She was asked another great question. Why would any of our allies work with us to isolate China in a trade war if we are treating friend and foe alike? In other words, why would any of our friends remain our friends the way things are going? Here was her answer. Why would any of our allies work with us to isolate China in a Trade war. If we're treating friend and foe alike.
- [41:43]
Caroline Levitt
You'Ll have to talk to our allies who are reaching out to us. The phones are ringing off of the hooks. They've made it very clear they need the United States of America, they need our markets, they need our consumer base. You saw Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office with the President saying that he was going to bring down all of their monetary tariffs and their are non monetary tariff trade barriers as well. We've heard from South Korea, we've heard from Japan. The president has spoken to Vietnam. We have Italy coming to the White House next week. There's a reason for that, Sean, and it's because they need the United States of America and our business model and our markets to survive. And the president is using that leverage to our advantage.
- [42:20]
David Pakman
Her answer to a very good question. But the core of this question is something we've been talking about, which is even if Trump puts in tariffs and then cancels them, and you can sort of say we're nominally back to where we were, like, imagine that after whatever pause there is, or like imagine there's no tariffs in the end, at the end of the day, even though we already have some. But imagine we go back there is this irreversible damage that's been done because now the United States is not seen as a consistent and steady partner. We are now seen as, no matter what we say, we will do, at least under Trump at any moment, that might be canceled. Trump did it with the Iran deal during his first term. It's a great question. And Caroline Levitt's answer is to list countries that called supposedly. And by the way, the fact that you called doesn't really mean anything. The fact that you called doesn't suggest who's getting the upper hand or who's actually negotiating something that will be better for their, for their citizens. And then as a sort of, in a sense, a kind of final act of absurdity during this one, Caroline Levitt is asked about the bringing the order to bring home the wrongly deported Maryland dad from El Salvador. Listen to the semantic game that she plays here.
- [43:35]
Caroline Levitt
President El Salvador is coming to the.
- [43:36]
Donald Trump
White House on Monday.
- [43:37]
Bernie Sanders
Does President Trump want him to bring.
- [43:39]
David Pakman
Kilmar Abrego Garcia with him?
- [43:42]
Caroline Levitt
The Supreme Court made their ruling last night very clear that it's the administration's responsibility to facilitate the return, not to effectuate the return. I believe the Department of Justice just filed another brief in the lower court. I would defer you to that for any updates. But as you Mentioned. President Bukele will be here at the White House on Monday to talk about the cooperation that is at an all time high. And we very much appreciate President Bukele and El Salvador's cooperation.
- [44:09]
David Pakman
And yeah, so listen, she is arguing that the Trump administration doesn't need to do anything to get the wrongly deported Maryland dad back home because the Supreme Court only said they need to facilitate the return. Facilitate meaning to make easier but not effectuated. Of course, that's not actually what the court said. But this is just the most pathetic way to avoid dealing with the reality that they are deport. They are wrongly deporting people without due process. And remember, however sympathetic, you know, a lot is being made of the fact that the Maryland dad is sympathetic. The Maryland dad got no due process. That's number one. Some of these folks might be sympathetic and some might not, but it's sort of like, do we defend speech even that we don't like? Because we defend the principle of speech. If you defend the principle of due process, it actually doesn't matter whether the individuals being deported are sympathetic characters or aren't. And not working, not working for Caroline Levitt. Let's now get a little insight into why she does this. We now have video of White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt, the same one who regularly lies on tv, bowing her head and praying out loud to Jesus moments before stepping up to the lectern to tell lies. Take a look at this. I have a lot to say about this. Take a listen.
- [45:37]
Caroline Levitt
Lord Jesus, please give us the strength, the knowledge, the ability to articulate our words, have fun and be confident in Jesus name. Amen.
- [45:53]
David Pakman
Okay, if this were. But I apologize if people are trying to eat while watching this. That, that is absolutely vomitus. If this were just a personal moment of faith, fine. This is the official mouthpiece of the White House on government time in a public building holding a prayer to Jesus before a press briefing. And her staff proudly blasted it out to the world like it's a campaign ad for a Christian nationalism starter kit. Okay? You don't need to be anti religion to see what's going on here. This is state sanctioned performative piety designed to fuse Trumpism with religious identity. It's not just a prayer. This is branding. It's a way to signal to the base, we're not just Republicans. We are God's chosen team. And when faith becomes a political marketing tool, what you get is a government that looks more like a megachurch than a functioning democracy. And that's what we have. There's a reason that authoritarian movements often will lean on religion. Not because they're holy, not because they're believers necessarily, but because faith offers an answer when the facts are inconvenient. You don't need evidence for a policy or competence in office or coherence on the podium. You just need faith. Believe in us, believe in me, believe in the mission. Doubt becomes a form of disloyalty even to what Jesus would want. And we've seen this playbook used by other regimes before Franco, others, where religiosity becomes a stand in for legitimacy. And when you cross the line, every political opponent becomes not just wrong, but ungodly. If you disagree with the tariff policy, well, they say you're wrong or you're a communist or whatever. If you disagree with Caroline Levitt's interpretations of it, now you're anti Christian, now you're ungodly. How can you not support what Jesus clearly wants? So the White House publicly embracing this religious identity, they're using it to score culture war points. Yes. They're not hiding it. They want this to go viral. They want liberals to react and they want conservative voters to say, finally, someone put Jesus back in government. Because remember when we would go to the rallies and Luke Beasley and Adam Mockler and everybody would interview these Trump people, they would repeat these vague, really meaningless statements like we need God back in the White House, stuff like that, and we would go, that means nothing. It just, it doesn't mean anything. This is the sort of stuff that feeds that. And so of course it's deplorable, of course it's vomitus. But this is how they build the cult. And we've got to recognize on the left that it is working.
- [48:48]
Sponsor Voice
Another day, another Tesla story. What is going on with this company? Well, if you go to Ground News slash Pacman, you will see how some outlets are covering Tesla and Elon Musk compared to others. The story really is one story, but the way it's told really can change your perspective. And this is the exact problem that our partners at Ground News help to solve. Ground News is the only site that shows you how political bias and financial incentives and even blind spots shape the narratives in the news that you read. Otherwise, you're letting billionaires and political agendas shape everything from public opinion to policy. See every side of the news story, read the news from multiple perspectives and, and see through the media bias with reliable news from local and international sources. Go to Ground News slash Pacman to get the same top tier vantage plan that I use at Nearly half the cost, just five bucks a month. The link is in the description.
- [49:59]
David Pakman
Well, Donald Trump watched 60 Minutes last night and surprise, surprise, he absolutely lost it. Like full multi post borderline unhinged meltdown. And it wasn't about inflation. It wasn't about the border or tariffs. It was because 60 Minutes aired two stories about him. And the stories, quite frankly, did not make Donald Trump look like a genius war hero slash real estate business mogul. And that is not loyalty. And Trump doesn't like it. So he's calling it fake news. He's accusing CBS of election interference. He's demanding FCC fine lines and he claims that he's going to sue them for billions of dollars. Because of course, as we know, when you are strong and manly and alpha and tough and strong, the first thing you do is get triggered by what people say about you. To post explosion. Let's look at the first one from Truth Social, truth Central. Quote, I just finished watching 60 Minutes, the fake news show that was scandalously responsible for removing a terrible and incompetent incompetently delivered answer by failed presidential candidate Kamala Harris to an interview on 60 Minutes just prior to election day and putting in its place a completely different answer to a completely different question in order to make Kamala look coherent. Wow. Now tonight, with two separate but highly inaccurate stories about, quote, Trump, they're at it again. The people at CBS Fake News just don't get it. And then Trump continuing on troth, troth central. Quote, Almost every week, 60 minutes, which is being sued for billions of dollars for the fraud they committed in the 2024 presidential election with their interview of failed presidential candidate Kamala Harris, mentions the name Trump in a derogatory and defamatory way. But this weekend's quote broadcast tops them all. They did not one, but two major stories on, quote, Trump, one having to do with Ukraine, which I say is a war that would never have happened if the 2020 election had not been rigged. In other words, if I were president and the other story was having to do with Greenland casting our country as led by me, falsely, inaccurately and fraudulently. It's really hard to pick up with these endless sentences. I am so honored to be suing 60 Minutes, CBS fake news and Paramount over their fraudulent beyond recognition reporting. They did everything possible to illegally elect Kamala, including completely and corruptly changing major answers to capital I interview questions, but it just didn't work for them. They are not a quote news show, but a dishonest capital P political capital O operative simply disguised as, quote, news, and must be responsible for what they have done and are doing. They should lose their license. Hopefully, the Federal Communications Commission, as headed by its capital H, highly capital, our respected chairman, Brendan Carr, will impose the maximum fines and punishment, which is substantial, for their unlawful and illegal behavior. CBS is out of control at levels never seen before, and they should pay a big price for this. Make America great again. Yeah. That's Trump, by the way. Okay, this. This is real. This is Trump's whole worldview in action. If he looks bad, it must be fake. If someone criticize him, criticizes him, it's a crime. Or at least they should have to pay money. And if the press reports anything unflattering about him, they should be investigated, suede, and ideally shut down. Philosophically, this is classic authoritarianism. Strong men don't refute the press, they delegitimize it. Rather than countering the substance, Trump goes, these are bad people. These are corrupt people. These are criminals. This is fake news. They should be taken off the air. We see Putin do it. We saw Erdogan do it. We saw Bolsonaro do it. The strategy is the same. You accuse journalists of treason if they are, as you see it, disloyal. You claim state power is on your side, you claim the law is on your side, and you frame basic accountability as a deep state plot to take you down. Trump's troth Central posts read like a playbook entry. In that playbook, attack the outlet, claim they rigged an election, claim they tried to help your opponent defeat you, demand punishment, sue them into submission. Nothing other than a Trump meltdown because 60 Minutes aired journalism is happening here. That's all this is. Trump is so hostile to a free and independent press that might come to conclusions that Trump doesn't like. It's so terrifying and infuriating to Trump that his reaction is sue, imprison, kick off the air. And his presidency hinges really on one big idea, kind of to never admit reality and demand absolute and total loyalty. Sounds like a cult. Okay. Two characteristics of many cults. It's not about elections. It's not about war. It's not about Greenland. It's not about TV shows like 60 Minutes. It's about never admit reality. Never admit to reality if it's inconvenient, certainly. And make sure everyone is loyal to you, or you go after them with the full power that you can convince the federal government to apply to them. And if you thought this was wacky and authoritarian, and it is, what about toilets? What about plumbing? David? What are you talking about? Let me tell you what I'm talking about. In the middle of global economic turmoil and escalating trade wars, Donald Trump has courageously decided it's time to go to battle with shower heads and indoor plumbing. That's right. In his latest executive order, Donald Trump is rolling back a Biden era regulation limiting the flow from shower heads, reigniting Trump's longstanding feud with bathroom fixtures and with big water. Now, you might be wondering, how big of an issue is this really, if you're Donald Trump? It's huge. Here's a reminder.
- [57:13]
Donald Trump
You take a shower or wash your hands, whatever you do, including dishwashers, where no water comes out, but you wash your hands. And in my case, I like to take a nice shower to take care of my beautiful hair. So, shower heads. You take a shower, the water doesn't come out. You turn on the sink, and it's very little. You turn on the shower, you're not allowed to have any water anymore. When I take a shower, I want water to pour down on me. Then I turn on the water and the damn water drips out. It's dripping out. Very quietly dripping. Now turn on the shower. Ding, ding. Turn on the water. Drip, drip. It's no good for me. So you're in there five times longer, 10 times as long. I'm going to be here for 45 minutes. It takes you 20 minutes after water come out to get the day.
- [57:59]
David Pakman
All right, you get it. This guy's been obsessed with this for a very long time. And of course, according to Donald Trump, the current showerhead regulations meant it would take him 15 minutes to wash, to wet, rather, his beautiful hair. And he doesn't want that drip, drip, drip. Now, this has been a long obsession for Donald Trump. Remember back in 2020, we're not very.
- [58:20]
Donald Trump
Happy with the job the president's doing. I said he's no good, people. But you know what? Someday I'll tell you the story. We had some great ones, and we had some people that didn't know what the hell they're doing. But I'll let you know at the right time where they were. Under the Biden lockdown, the lights of Reno and Las Vegas were extinguished. Carson City will become a ghost town. If he comes in, Carson City will become a ghost town. And the Christmas season will be canceled. Look, remember I said we're going to bring back Christmas, right? The name, remember? We brought it back.
- [58:54]
David Pakman
By the way, notice how much more articulate Trump was during this campaign. I mean, he's speaking nonsense, but at least it sounded more articulate.
- [59:00]
Donald Trump
I used to go around saying, we will bring because I saw these big department stores, you know, they thought it was politically corre correct. So they say, have a great season. I said, no, I don't want to have a great season. I want to say Merry Christmas. Say Merry Christmas. Now they're all saying Merry Christmas. Nervous? We're not all right.
- [59:20]
David Pakman
Anyway, so you get it. So Trump claims that this executive order that he's signing will finally liberate Americans from the oppressive tyranny of low flow showers, boldly declaring that that no longer will shower heads be weak and worthless like little sissy boys. Now that's my quote. He didn't really say that. This is not Trump's first rodeo into the bathroom fixture wars. Back in his first term, have you ever seen a guy this obsessed with plumbing? Back in his first term, Trump changed federal definitions to allow multi nozzle shower setups to bypass the standard 2.5 gallon per per minute limit. And Trump even put out diagrams, if you can believe this, showing showers with up to eight nozzles blasting out 20 gallons a minute. Like for an elephant. Because nothing says freedom like turning your shower into one of those pressure washing machines. And I have to tell you, in my shower, I have three nozzles. And if I use my, my one, like my rain shower head, if I turn on one of the other nozzles, I perceive that the rain shower gets weaker. It's not like I'm getting more water. I'm just dividing it among different heads. So maybe Trump is on to something here because he is very particular about body sprays. We can never forget Donald Trump's real first love, the toilet. You will remember that Donald Trump lamented having to flush the toilet 10 to 15 times. Oh, God. How is this the world?
- [61:08]
Donald Trump
We have a situation where we're looking very strongly at sinks and showers and other elements of bathrooms where you turn the faucet on in areas where there's tremendous amounts of water, where the water rushes out to sea because you could.
- [61:25]
David Pakman
Never handle it right.
- [61:26]
Donald Trump
And you don't get any water. You turn on the faucet, you don't get any water. They take a shower and water comes dripping out. It's dripping out very quietly dripping out.
- [61:37]
David Pakman
Have you ever taken a little quiet shower where it's just quietly dripping out?
- [61:41]
Donald Trump
People are flushing toilets 10 times, 15 times.
- [61:45]
David Pakman
And of course, we went looking for anybody flushing toilets 10 to 15 times. Couldn't find anybody. Although Trump was flushing documents down his toilet. So that might have explained it. Now, let me tell you the truth about this. Usually, low water pressure has more to do with old plumbing or buildup in the pipes. This isn't primarily a plumbing show, although maybe it should be. But a lot of times you can get reinvigorated water pressure by soaking your shower head in a. I believe it's a vinegar solution. But anyway, everybody wants to blame regulators and especially liberal left wing regulators. This is not really typically the case, but Trump is the, you know, the master of distraction politics and he wants us focused on shower heads and toilets rather than his failing tariffs or the economic policy chaos. This is Trump's America. The biggest enemy isn't corruption. It's not the economic meltdown he's precipitating. It's not the global instability that he's precipitating. It is stubborn toilets that he's in there with an auger trying to get to clear and shower heads that just don't give him what he needs. What a world we live in. All right, on the bonus show today, why hasn't Elon been able to find a trillion in cuts? The answer is quite simple. We'll talk about it on the bonus show along with Meta's biggest trial starting today and so much more. Get the bonus show by signing up@join pacman.com let's do it and I will see you then.