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The David Pakman Show
4/22/25: Hegseth on his way out, Trump confirms Constitution is toilet paper
01:07:17
-- On the Show: -- David Hogg, Vice Chair of the Democratic National Committee, gun safety activist, and co-founder of March for our Lives, joins David to discuss his strategy of pushing out establishment Democrats and much more... -- Donald Trump...
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- [00:08]
David Pakman
Let's start today with the Constitution. Does the so called constitutional right actually care about the Constitution in principle, or do they only care about it to the extent that it's useful to their political goals? Well, if you've been following American politics for, I don't know, many years, you know that my belief is that it's the latter. And Donald Trump has finally said the quiet part out loud. When it comes to this, due process is optional and sometimes inconvenient. The Constitution is often inconvenient. And courts that disagree with him are extraordinarily inconvenient, wrong, and also cowards. This all has to do with a new unhinged post to Donald Trump's social media platform, Truth Social. Donald Trump attacked the U.S. supreme Court. Notice that this is the very same Supreme Court that's stacked with numerous of his own nominees. Even they are not willing to dismiss the law forcefully enough to Trump's satisfaction. And the reason he's upset with them is because they are attempting to block some of the mass deportations that Donald Trump is doing. Now, Trump didn't just disagree with the one ruling narrowly. He essentially said that the courts are too scared of the left to follow through with his completely authoritarian immigration plans. Think of that for a moment. The most right wing Supreme Court in how long is afraid. Despite Trump having selected a third of that court and it being ideologically as extremely right wing as we've seen seen in decades, they're too scared to do what Trump wants them to do. Normal people who have a shred of humility and an iota of self awareness would say, maybe I'm the problem. It's not you, it's me. I'm asking you to do things and sign off on things that just aren't legal. But Donald Trump has a little something we call eggo. Sorry, ego. He maybe it likes Eggo too, but ego. And so Trump sees it as the courts are the problem. Here's Trump on troth quote, I'm doing what I was elected to do, remove criminals from our country. But the courts don't seem to want me to do that. Now many of you are wondering why are words randomly capitalized? We just don't know. We don't have the answer. This is how Trump writes. My team is fantastic, doing an incredible job. However, they are being stymied at every turn by even the US Supreme Court, which I have such great respect for, but which seemingly doesn't want me to send violent criminals and terrorists back to Venezuela or any other country for that matter. People that came here illegally. The courts are intimidated by the radical left who are, quote, playing the reference. Great Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito correctly wants to dissolve the pause on deportations. He is right on this. If we don't get these criminals out of our country, we are not going to have a country any longer. We cannot give everyone a trial. That is the key line. We cannot give everyone a trial because to do so would take, without exaggeration, 200 years. We would need hundreds of thousands of trials for the hundreds of thousands of illegals we are sending out of the country. Such a thing is not possible to do. What a ridiculous situation we are in. Make America great again. So, you know, some of this stuff is the standard stuff. Trump calls undocumented immigrants violent criminals and terrorists. He doesn't want trials. He doesn't want evidence presented. He just wants to label people by decree, by personal decree. And he says deporting them without hearings is necessary or we won't have a country. He praises Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito for wanting to override every legal limitation on deportations and calling the rest of the court, including his own appointees, weak because they are at least making an effort to, to respect some of what is in the Constitution. But Trump is publicly demanding, as a guy who swore an oath, by the way, swore an oath on a Bible he didn't touch and doesn't believe in, swore an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution. And he's saying due process is getting really annoying. The Constitution and the law are starting to interfere with my authoritarian wet dream fantasies. We've seen wrongful deportations already, in fact, kill Mara Brago Garcia, where DHS admits that a mistake was made. Trump won't admit it, Caroline Levitt won't admit it, but it's been admitted. This was a mistake. Trump doesn't care. And in fact, he says we don't have time to figure it all out in detail, figuring out who's who. Do we have evidence for the things we're saying on TV that they are doing? We just don't have time. It's inconvenient. Textbook fascist logic. Blame courts, blame the law, and elevate loyalty. Just say, I'm right. Just let me do it. Because remember, as Donald Trump famously said in that disgusting Access Hollywood tape, when you're famous, they just let you do it. And now, a decade later, Trump is trying to carry that through. And if the Constitution gets in the way, flush it 10 to 15 times. Like the classified documents Trump sent down his toilet. It's an inconvenience and Trump won't let it stand in the way. Not exactly a constitutional conservative. We are now three months into Donald Trump's second term and as we like to do right around or just after the 20th of the month, we are going to look at the economic performance of Trump's presidency so far so that we can evaluate. Let's start with the unemployment rate. When Joe Biden left the White House, the unemployment rate was 4.1. We are now three months into Trump's presidency and unemployment is basically unchanged. A little tick up to 4.2%. Not a significant change. The inflation rate when Biden left was year over year, 2.9%. When we include the final full month in office for former President Joe Biden after three months under Trump and some brief increases, we now have the latest number is the year over year period ending in March of 2.4%. Inflation down slightly under Donald Trump. And of course, as is always the case, if inflation is more than zero, it doesn't mean that prices are declining, it just means that prices are increasing more slowly. GDP, we still of course having only just finished Q1 of 2024, we of 2025. Rather we don't yet have any GDP numbers under Trump. The first quarter of 2025 GDP number is expected, I believe around mid May. Expectations are anywhere from nearly zero growth to up to a 3% decline. That's where we are right now. No Trump data yet. Q4 2024 annualized at 2.4% growth. Interest rates. Typically when we say where are interest rates? We pick one metric to look at and usually it is the 30 year fixed rate mortgage interest rate. At the end of Joe Biden's term, interest rates were 7.04, now down to 6.883, down about a fifth of a point after three months of Donald Trump. Remember that Donald Trump promised interest rates were going to come way down and we are not seeing that at this point. But you've got to give him credit. Down slightly. When it comes to consumer confidence, we have seen that number decline quite a bit. You will see here that consumer confidence was at a 74. This is university of Michigan consumer sentiment, one of the widely accepted metrics for this 74 at the end of Biden's presidency, now down to 64. This is a relative number based on 100, so down about 1/7, which signals concern about future expectations. Stock market performance. You may recall that in 2023 the stock market on average returned 22%. In 2024 the stock market returned on average 22%. Total growth of the stock market under Joe Biden, 60% in the three months since Donald Trump took over the S&P 500. This is painful. I hope you're sitting the S&P 500 down 14%. 14%. And we will discuss how April is looking like it might be the worst April for stocks since 1932. Think about where we were as a country. Great Depression in 1932. So the stock market numbers a disaster. And then finally, gas prices basically flat. What we saw was a little bit of an increase when Trump took over, a little bit of a decrease. A spike to 326per gallon. Now down to around 310, 312per gallon. Gas prices basically flat. They love talking about the decline by looking at where they were on April 4, which was a peak. But the truth is that if you go Back to around January 20, gas prices are basically flat. So what is the story so far? We have two things that we are doing simultaneously. One, we are looking at Trump economic policy and making an analysis of how we believe those policies will affect the economy. The the tariffs, which are on again, off again, have not fully kicked in. Then they're paused. If the tariffs are fully engaged and really trickle down through the economy, we expect that inflation will go up and GDP will go down. That's the expectation. We don't yet have GDP numbers and inflation has not yet gone up because a lot of the tariffs started in April. Our latest inflation numbers are for the period February through March. So we just don't have that data yet. A lot of indicators are flat. Unemployment's basically flat. Gas prices basically flat. The big one is the stock market, which is a futures market. It's when the stock market declines, it's often about expectations about the future. And the S&P 500. It's painful to say it. I don't log into my mutual fund accounts anymore because I don't want to see the brutality down. 14% is the S&P 500 since Donald Trump took over. So that's where we are. I promise you we would coldly and objectively look at the numbers. Those are the numbers. And as always, if there's an additional metric you want me to include, for example, I didn't used to do gas prices, but people wrote in saying since Trump made a lot of promises about gas prices, you should include them. There's another metric you want me to include? Let me know. And of course, remember that you can get the daily briefings through our newsletter by signing up@David Pakman.com by emailing info@David Pakman.com and saying get me on that newsletter David. We will do it gladly. That's my promise to you. Smalls Cat food is protein packed recipes made from preservative free human grade ingredients that you would just find in your own fridge and it's delivered right to your door. That is why cats die. Named Smalls their best overall cat food. I am not a cat expert, but what I can tell you is that I've been places where a friend breaks out the cat food and the smell is not so good. What I can tell you is that my friends who use Smalls do not have that problem. 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That's s t a r t mail.com/pacman for a seven day free trial and 50% off your first year. The link is in the podcast notes the David Pakman show is an independent media program, meaning that we primarily depend on your support to do what we do. I want to say thank you to everybody who's grabbed a membership@join pacman.com over the last weeks and months. Really means so much to us. And those memberships go directly to the daily functioning of the show. Read about the benefits@join pacman.com and you can sign up. I believe that the full price rates are quite reasonable, but I understand reasonable people can disagree about that. And you can use the coupon code to save about 50% off of the cost of a membership. The coupon code is it will end soon. All one word, a sort of optimistic mantra. It will end soon to save about 50%. We are not even what 100 days roughly into Donald Trump's second term, and already one of his cabinet officials is being pushed toward the exit. It is of course Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, the Fox News guy who somehow ended up running the Pentagon. He is now at the center of so much chaos, so many leaks, national security scandals, that NPR is now reporting that the White House is actively exploring a replacement for Hegseth. He will probably be gone soon. And this is not coming from liberal media spin. It's coming from inside the building. What happened to the loyalty that Donald Trump demands? Apparently even that has limits when your hand picked defense secretary who has no business being in such a role, leaks war plans in a group chat with a journalist, leaks war plans in a group chat with his wife. A historic implosion and a predictable one. We all knew it. You know, sometimes I ask myself, how is it that the White House and the then Trump transition team couldn't see what was so obvious to you and to me and the entire human race. Ok, to cite some song lyrics that Pete Hegseth didn't have what it takes to be Secretary of Defense. We all knew it. And now Hegseth has been caught using signal to share sensitive should be classified information about American airstrikes in Yemen. His inner circle at the Pentagon is falling apart. We reported yesterday that key staffers are leaving and publicly blasting the incompetence. The New York Times confirmed the leaks. Multiple sources have come forward. So this is not a rumor mill. This is a national security crisis. And Republicans are starting to break ranks. This is another sign that Hegseth is going to have to go. Congressman Don Bacon, Republican from Nebraska, chair of the House Armed Services Subcommittee, says Hegseth needs to go. And the quote really says it on. He said, quote, if a Democrat did this, we'd be demanding a scalp. Genocidal imagery aside, the translation is, this is not just embarrassing, this is an unsustainable national security threat. What is Trump saying? Well, you'll hear from him directly in a moment. But when he was asked whether he still supports Pete Hegseth, he snapped and said, why would you even ask me a question like that? This is Donald Trump's mess.
- [18:45]
David Hogg
This is.
- [18:46]
David Pakman
You pick a cable news commentator to run the Pentagon, people say, look at these red flags. Security lapses, no qualifications, incompetence, possible drinking problem, and you go forward anyway. And now that it starts blowing up, Trump acts confused and defended that. Anybody has the audacity to say, do you stand behind this guy? So every indication at this point is that Pete Hegseth is going down and that Donald Trump is too dysfunctional to admit it until they found the replacement, which probably will be quite soon. We are 100 days in and the White House is melting down, unable to handle the first major cabinet implosion. And let's look at how Trump handled simple questions about this. Donald Trump's brain did the Windows 95 shutdown noise again. There was like a sort of press gaggle at the White House Easter event yesterday, and Trump was asked about Pete Hegseth. Now, of course, Pete Hegseth is the Secretary of Defense, completely incompetent, no qualifications, who was just caught sharing a second series of war plans on a signal chat, including with his wife. And Trump was asked the most basic question imaginable. Do you remain confident in Pete Hegseth? And Trump snaps and says, why would you even ask me that, President?
- [20:13]
David Hogg
President Trump, do you remain. Do you remain confident, Hexaf. Do you remain confident in Pete Hegseth?
- [20:17]
David Pakman
Oh, no, President Trump, I'm sorry, why.
- [20:20]
Donald Trump
Are you even asking questions like that? We have recruitment that's at an all time high. The spirit and the armed forces recovered.
- [20:29]
David Pakman
President Trump, why would you even ask a question like that, Trump? Trump says, well, maybe because Pete Hegseth is under investigation, leaking national security secrets, running the Pentagon like a frat house discord server. And by the way, this is sort of out of school. But as far as the drinking goes, showed up to the White House Easter event yesterday with one sideburn immediately raising questions as to whether is he drinking? Because that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Then came Donald Trump's sort of second attempt to defend Hegseth. This was during the same kind of walk around event at the White House for Easter, and it went about as well as we would expect.
- [21:17]
Donald Trump
Ask the Houthis how much dysfunction is.
- [21:20]
David Pakman
Ask the Houthis. Houthis, hoodies.
- [21:23]
Donald Trump
Pete's doing a great job. Everybody's happy with it. We have the highest recruitment, recruitment numbers I think they've had in 28 years. No, he's doing a great job. It's just fake news. They just bring up stories. I guess it sounds like disgruntled employees. You know, he was put there to get rid of a lot of bad people, and that's what he's doing. So you don't always have friends when you do that.
- [21:47]
David Pakman
What you just heard is a deeply confused man trying to reboot in real time. Fake news means I have no rebuttal. They just bring up stories. Means I forgot what the actual story is. Disgruntled employees means everybody hates our guy, but it's their fault. He was put there to get rid of bad people. Means we wanted a purge. You don't always have friends when you do that. No one likes him and we have no idea why. This was sort of verbal bumper cars. And the real headline here isn't just that Trump can't form a coherent defense of Hegseth because there is no coherent defense of Hegseth. He was unqualified from day one. It's gone exactly the way we all expected it to. And now some people are acting like they're surprised. Trump actually seems sort of out of the loop. And this is one of the building meta stories of the White House. We all understand that at some basic level, presidents can't be micromanaging everything. And in fact, when they try, sort of like when a CEO tries to micromanage every aspect of a huge organization, it actually causes problems. You have to be able to delegate, but you have to be able to delegate confidently. And this is why choosing the right people is so important. Pete Hegseth is not a guy you can confidently delegate to when you've put him in charge of the Department of Defense and the Pentagon. And so Donald Trump seems to be out of the loop to some degree, we suspect, because he's being kept out of the loop on some of these things. The signal chat, for example, the briefing that Elon Musk was going to get and all of these things. But at the same time, it seems as though there is so much insanity and chaos going on simultaneously that Trump quite literally cannot keep up with it. Now, this doesn't mean that Pete Hegseth doesn't have his defenders who are trying to build, build a more coherent, albeit conspiratorial defense of Pete Hegseth. And that's what I want to talk about next. What's happening on Fox News with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth facing scandal, investigation, bipartisan calls now for his resignation, a crumbling Pentagon, staffers quitting, and a new NPR report that says the search for Pete Hegseth replacement has begun. You might think if you were a rational person, which I know most of my audience is, you might think Pete Hegseth might actually be doing something wrong here. But according to Fox News, it's the deep state. When all you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail. Fox News host and longtime Hegseth buddy Brian Kilmeade sat down for a sort of emergency crisis management interview and said with a straight face, you think this is sort of like a deep state that wants you out rather than you're doing a whole bunch of things that are crazy. Now, is it the deep state that wants you out? Mr. Secretary, do you think you take this job, you come in with war experience and your great background? Do you think there's a lot of people don't want you there and there's some type of steep, deep state forces that want to make sure you don't stay there?
- [25:14]
Pete Hegseth
They've come after me from day one just like they've come after President Trump. I've gotten a fraction of what President Trump got in that first term. What he's endured is superhuman. It's not hard for me to do this job. I know exactly why I'm here, to bring war fighting and the war fighting ethos back to the Pentagon, to rip out the insidious, insidious ideologies and not compromise and not back down, to bring in new press voices into the Pentagon, which we've done to re establish standards and accountability, to not tolerate leakers, to treat 100% operational control of our border, to get rid of translunacy in the military. We haven't backed down. See, here's the thing. A lot of people come to Washington.
- [25:56]
David Pakman
He sounds unhinged if you can't tell.
- [25:58]
Pete Hegseth
And they just play the game and it's you punch their ticket and get along to go along and, you know, start doing Meet the Press and, and going to the Council on Foreign Relations and spending time with all the new cocktail sipping crowd. That's not why I'm here. I'm here now.
- [26:13]
David Pakman
The last thing he should be doing is sipping cocktails he promised he wouldn't be drinking.
- [26:16]
Pete Hegseth
Because President Trump asked me to bring war fighting back to the Pentagon every single day. That is our focus. And if people don't like it, they can come after me. No worries. I'm standing right here. The war fighters are behind us. Our enemies know they're on notice. Our allies know we're behind them. And that in this dangerous world for the American people is what it's all about.
- [26:38]
David Pakman
There you go. It's not his fault. It's the deep state. This is the pattern. Every single time they break the law or screw up or whatever, right? Trump does it. Critics say, hey, maybe there should be accountability here. Maybe there should be a consequence here. And then Fox steps in and goes, no, no, no, the critics are the problem. These are just the victims, the poor weak victims. Pete Hegseth and Donald Trump. Because it's this upside down reality where Hegseth is not the dangerously incompetent, terrifying Secretary of Defense who compromised war plans multiple times, including sharing them with his wife. Pete Hegseth is the victim. Poor baby. Everyone's just being so mean to Pete. Now back in reality, Congress is investigating, the Pentagon is in chaos, allies are fleeing, and the White House, if we believe the NPR report, which is well sourced and we have no reason to suspect it's untrue, the NPR report says the White House is already preparing Hegseth exit with Trump yelling fake news into a mirror. And of course I have complete confidence in Pete Hegseth. But on Fox, where none of that real world exists, apparently it's a secret deep state plot. Later in the show, we'll hear Caroline Levitt essentially agreeing. Fox News is simply not reporting on the Hegseth scandal as a scandal. They're laundering it. Rather than laundering money, they're laundering the scandal and they're creating a permission structure for the base to ignore the facts. That's what the idea here, manufacturer consent for the base who's heard so many things about Hegseth to go. Fox told us it's the deep state. And in that fantasy where it's the deep state, it doesn't really matter how much damage is done. Trump and his cronies are always the victims, despite being the most privileged, excused from consequences group of people there is. They are always the victims. We should feel bad for them rather than feel angry that they are screwing up day after day after day. Hegseth days seem very much numbered, that's for sure. Many in the audience know my first language is Spanish. I learned English later when I moved to the United States and these days I do a fair amount of traveling and I always make an effort to learn some of the new language before I get to the country. I've tried a bunch of methods for this. I keep coming back to the app Babbel because with Babel you really can start speaking a new language in just three weeks instead of paying hundreds of dollars for classes or fooling yourself with language apps that are basically just simple games. 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Get up to 60% off at babel.com/pacMan spelled b a b b el.com/pacman rules and restrictions may apply. The link is in the podcast notes 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 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 sheath underwear.com/pacman and get 20% off with the code PACMAN that's sh e a th underwear.com/pacman use code PACMAN for 20% off. The link is in the podcast Notes it's great to have on the show for the first time today. David Hogg, co founder of March for Our Lives and Leaders We Deserve recently elected as a vice chair of the DNC at at a very interesting time to be in that position. David, great to have you on. I appreciate it.
- [32:14]
David Hogg
Thanks for having me. David, you have a great name.
- [32:16]
David Pakman
So. So you've stirred up some controversy with your $20 million plan to primary incumbent Democrats, I believe with the goal of making room for younger and or more progressive officials. I mean, I think I want to start There are these two goals that are being connected. Is the goal one in the same age and further to the left? Like what. What's your goal here?
- [32:45]
David Hogg
My goal is to get Democrats back into the majority and we have a two pronged approach at how we do that. We have three things that we do at Leaders we deserve. We work in primaries to help elect young Democrats to state legislatures and Congress. And we also work and what's not breaking through in a lot of these stories is the work that we are also doing to support Democrats that are running in critical purple districts to help Democrats get the majority, whether it's in a state legislature or in Congress. Last cycle we did this spent spending millions of dollars to support young Democrats. That helped to break the majority in Virginia, where we supported the frontline candidate there, and break the super majority in North Carolina. And we did that work in frontline districts around the country as well last cycle. So there's a bit more nuance than saying it's just to challenge incumbent democr. Unfortunately, the media likes to run with whatever the most sensational story is, obviously. And the work here, I wouldn't say it's in some districts it's to make sure we want to make sure that our candidates are as supportive of their constituents as possible and we want them to win. To be clear right. In some districts there's going to be a candidate that's going to need to be a little bit more moderate than a candidate that's in a super safe seat. Right. That's a Very blue seat. And what I want to make sure across the board, though, for all of our candidates, a of course they're going to be younger people. But by the way, we are not just challenging older people. There are older people who are great, there are younger people who suck and vice versa. Unfortunately, it's not like you get above a certain age and like you just all of a sudden become terrible at your job. It's not that simple. What we're doing here is trying to. It's not out with the old and in with the new. It is out with the ineffective and in with the effective. And the work that we're doing with that $20 million, some of it is going to be challenging incumbent Democrats in safe seats that in no way, shape or form risk us losing the House and helping our candidates that are younger, that are running in frontline seats. You know where they're going to be, the Democratic, you know, the Democratic nominee, or there's a Republican that's there for us to challenge to support them. What I'll tell you that we're not going to do, though, is we're not going to look at a candidate that's in a D+3 3 seat and say, all right, you know what we're going to do, we're going to primary this person and potentially risk us leasing the House. That is not what we are doing here. And that's part of what's not being communicated. And the reason why we believe this is necessary is because right now in the Democratic generic ballot, we typically need to have about a two to three point lead in that in order to take back the House. Right now we have around 1% or less of a lead. That is not enough in order for us to win the House. And right now we have a 27% approval rating. People feel like Democrats are not fighting nearly hard enough for them. And a lot of our members of Congress, frankly, are asleep to the wheel and failing to meet this moment. And what we're trying to do with this initiative is either get them to act more, to be more effective, to stand up against Donald Trump's agenda, go out there and fight in the way that Senator Van Hollen is, in the way that even Cory Booker has giving that speech, or AOC is, or people like Maxwell Frost and others showing up and fighting and not just saying, oh, we're in the minority, we can't do anything about this, but showing our base that we are somebody, we're a group to vote for. We're not just here to vote against Donald Trump. We need people to vote for us because we have a vision. And right now we are really lacking that. And I know that this obviously can upset people, but I know the consequences of what happens. My generation knows the consequences of what happens when we have politicians that get too comfortable in their power and not focusing on the issues that matter and fighting back against groups like the nra, Donald Trump or others. And that's what we're trying to do here, is build the strongest Democratic Party possible, not only in our safer seats, but also to help us win frontline seats as well.
- [36:22]
David Pakman
So I want to talk about the consequences a little bit. One thing I do like about your framework is, you know, I've talked for a long time with my audience who says, oh, back when it was Joe Manchin, right? It was, oh, we've got to do everything we can to primary Joe Manchin, right. So that then he loses to a Republican in West Virginia. That doesn't seem, seem strategically smart. And what I like from what I've heard from here and what I read preparing for our interview, is that you seem focused on getting power back. You need power to make policy. You need, you need policy to make people's lives better. Awesome. That's all excellent. Now, there are some who say your campaign could cost Democrats the house in 2026. Now you're saying the opposite. You're saying, no, no, no, we're not going to do the things that would actually lose seats. We will only engage when we can win seats. So I want to ask you maybe a more philosophical question which is in your mind, the way you see the Democratic Party right now and the state of play in general, is it an acceptable price to pay to lose power? If you are making the right political point as an individual, do you think that that's an acceptable trade to make, or does the number one priority need to be seize as much power as possible by winning as many seats by any means necessary?
- [37:39]
David Hogg
We need to win as many seats as necessary as possible. And look, you know, I don't necessarily agree with a lot of our candidates that are more moderate or in moderate districts like a Joe Manchin, but I understand we need to have power in order to do anything, obviously. And what I, what I am very concerned about right now is that our, the American people do not feel like we're fighting nearly hard enough for them back against Donald Trump, even though we've seen him disappear people, even though we have seen him wreck the stock market with his reckless acts around tariffs, for example, even though We've seen him disappear. Students as well. We still see that Republicans are having higher approval ratings than Democrats on the economy and so much more. And that is. That is an indictment of the Democratic Party. And the people say all the time, you know, it's just the messaging. It's just the messaging. Sometimes it's not just the messaging. Sometimes it's the actors. You can have the best script possible. You can have Shakespeare write a script, for all I care. If you have bad actors, it doesn't matter. It does not matter. You need people that are able to meet this moment that. That people feel like are fighting for them. And I would also say, imagine what would happen right now if we didn't have aoc, if we didn't have Cory Booker, if we didn't have Ro Khanna or Eric Swalwell. All of those people got to the positions that they're in, including Hakeem Jeffries as well, by the way, by challenging Democratic incumbents. Granted, they were predominantly in safer seats, obviously, and that is what we're trying to do. We are not trying to challenge candidates that are in frontline seats that could risk us losing the House. As much as I may disagree with some of those candidates, I understand sometimes people need to have different policy positions than I agree with to be in those seats, because not everybody, you know, are progressive people in this country. But we are in a moment of crisis right now. And what I believe that we're facing is if we do not raise our approval rating by showing people how we are fighting for them and getting better people elected in a lot of our safer seats, we faced a very real possibility of not being able to win the House back because our approvals are so low and we're doing so bad.
- [39:40]
David Pakman
On the generic ballot right now. Ken Martin, the DNC chair, opposes at least some of what you were doing. How much resistance are you seeing internally to what you're doing? And do you even care about that?
- [39:54]
David Hogg
Like, there's certainly some. There's no. There's no argument about that. However, look, I was elected to this position to help win back young people and help us win back majorities. That is what I'm trying to do with this. That's why I'm not going and challenging people that are in danger in purple districts that could cost us the House. What I am very concerned about right now, though, is across the board, we all know and acknowledge that there is a problem with our 27 approval rating, especially when Donald Trump is being so reckless, and it remains that low.
- [40:25]
David Pakman
Yep.
- [40:26]
David Hogg
We also acknowledge there's a problem with the, the drops in voter turnout that we've had for us of young people and people of basically every demographic except predominantly the older people in our country and the highly educated people in our country. What scares me is there is no plan to successfully address that out there at all, including by all the purported experts that are criticizing me for doing this, which, by the way, had. Who, by the way, had $2 billion last election cycle in order to win and still lost. Right. And with this, what we're trying to do is address our brand problem in the Democratic Party. I don't think it's healthy for our democracy or healthy for our party to allow this culture of complacency to continue where people think, well, I can just continue to be in a seat for 30 years or I can just continue to be in a seat as an incumbent and not face any challenge whatsoever because I'm just not going to be held accountable because I'm not in a seat that could decide the House. I don't think that's good for the Democratic Party. And look, if you are effective and your constituents believe in you and see that you're fighting for them, you don't have anything to be worried about here if you are meeting that moment. But the fact of the matter is, there are an incredible amount of amazing young people who are ready to meet this moment and are ready to fight right now that are going to help us build a vision for the future of the Democratic Party. And what concerns me as well, for the long term, yes, we have to win back the House, obviously, but what really concerns me for the long term is the drops in institutional knowledge that we're having when we have members that are in office that are not mentoring the next generation a lot of the time, which are, you know, literally passing away in office. Not to mention the fact and I this is uncomfortable to talk about, but there was an incredibly important vote that we had on Medicaid that we lost because two of our members, unfortunately passed away while in office. That is, that is a threat. We can't rely on a future where the governor of Texas, for example, may be able to decide when an election is and as a result, when we get a majority back because it's a safer seat. That's crazy. And we need to have a bigger bench for the future of our party. And we need younger people that are on the front lines of so many of these issues that have lived through the student debt crisis, that have lived through the housing crisis, that have lived through the era of school shootings.
- [42:32]
David Pakman
Yeah.
- [42:32]
David Hogg
And so much more so that they can provide a proactive vision for our party that people can buy into. That's not just saying, oh, we're not Donald Trump, because that is not enough.
- [42:41]
David Pakman
No, that's clearly not enough. Have you, I'm curious, your thoughts on, for example, something as specific as taking corporate money as part of one's campaign. Some say, oh, it's just a sign of corruption. You're taking money. These are quid pro quos. It's overt corruption. A different perspective is it's kind of weakness. It's not necessarily corruption, but it's weakness in the. I don't know that I can win without taking that money. And therefore maybe we need candidates who just feel as though they're able to win without that money. Do you see the corporate money as a corruption issue, as a weakness issue, or some combination of both? Something else altogether.
- [43:20]
David Hogg
I think it creates major trust issues with our base, especially younger people, people in particular. I also think if you look at the data, candidates who do not take corporate money and actively talk about it end up raising significantly more than candidates who do because voters want to know that you represent them. Right now, we have a major issue, especially in states like Florida, where the. The fastest growing political party in our country is no party affiliation at all. Because people walk in and when they're registering to vote, a lot of the time, regardless of whether or not this is the right thing to do or not, they think to themselves, well, both parties are corrupt in different ways. And I don't really feel like I can identify with each of them, even if they ideologically. And we know this from ballot measures in Florida, for example, that pass consistently with over 50% support, that are progressive, they still don't identify as Democrats. And for me, with our candidates, that we're supporting our younger people, we believe it is essential to create mass campaign finance reform. And for our candidates, they don't take corporate money so that we can show young people that there is a segment of our party that represents them that is not, you know, potentially corrupted by special interests that are also those same special interests that I would argue in many ways are responsible for the collapse of the American dream for our young people that is resulting in them losing faith in their democracy. I think part of our challenge that we're facing right now as a country is that we say as a, or as a party in particular, we say over and over again, democracy is so important. Democracy is so important. And I agree it is democracy has to be used to exert the will of the people, though. And what we're failing to acknowledge right now is that we're saying democracy is so important we must preserve it without acknowledging the fact that this is the same democracy that has put kids through school shootings. It is the same democracy that has resulted in them graduating into the student debt crisis, that is resulting in them in the climate crisis and so many other in the housing crisis and so many other crises of our time. Where the answer for Democrats, in my view, is not to say we must protect and preserve democracy, although of course we do. The way to do that is to show how we are actively using democracy to combat the special interests that are responsible for the the increasing collapse of the American dream that is resulting in the collapse of trust in our party and the future of our country, in particular by our young people. And that's why our candidates, they don't take corporate money. That's why leaders we deserve is supported predominantly by smaller dollar donors around the country so that people can know when they vote for our candidates that they're there to represent them, that they're there to represent the future and creating policies that they will actually live to see the results of in the first place.
- [45:56]
David Pakman
David, last thing I want to ask you about, there are some sort of rules of thumb that are sometimes applied either intelligently or not to national campaigns. Now, as you're pointing out, the candidates that make the most sense might be different in a purple district versus in a bluer district, fine. But there's certain maxims that we hear often, like, for example, as important as gun safety regulations are, we've seen that when Democrats run nationally on that, it tends to hurt because it doesn't mobilize new voters in favor, but it might mobilize voters against to come out and say, I don't like that. That's one example. I'll give you another example. Now, it's become conventional wisdom that even though national crime rates have continued to decline, the way the Harris campaign appeared not to deal seriously with concerns about crime in November was damaging to the Harris campaign. I'm curious on those two, for example, or others that you want to bring up, do you think that there are some of these common themes about what should and shouldn't be center stage for national Democratic campaigns if the goal is to win?
- [47:04]
David Hogg
I think when it comes to something like guns, I obviously understand in a state like Wyoming, for example, it's going to be harder for us to get, you know, common sense gun Laws passed. But I want to break our party out of this. This sense of complacency where we say, well, you know, we're in a state that's very red, for example, or there's conservative voters out there, we just can't do anything about this. That's not true. There are a lot of things, especially around funding, that we can focus on that can help reduce gun violence and we've done in a bipartisan manner. Last, in 2023, we passed the first federal gun law in 30 years. And guess what? We passed it in a bipartisan way. It was called the bipartisan Safer Communities Act. It was passed after Uvalde and it expanded background checks for people under the age of 21 to buy guns. It's resulted in over a thousand high risk individuals from not from being able to purchase guns like the AR15 that previously would not have been. And it is. It also put billions of dollars into school safety and mental health programs. It also put billions of dollars into community safety programs to stop people from wanting to pick up a gun to kill each other in the first place. Those are common sense things that we can do. And we've seen double digit reductions in gun violence, in gun homicides since the passage of that law. So what I would say is let's take a more nuanced approach to it. Let's not say, well, I understand in some districts it's going to be harder to talk about firearms or firearm regulation than it is in others. But we can still talk about what are we doing to address gun suicide, to fund more mental health programs, to address that. Because that's 2/3 of gun deaths and those are deaths of despair. Right. What can we do to ensure that we're funding jobs programs and more so that young people don't feel the need to pick up a gun in the first place and use it against somebody else, even if we aren't able to do something around the law specifically. But when we have that power, I want to make sure that we actually use it and deliver on it. The same way we did with the Affordable Care Act? Yes. Did we get killed in midterms after the Affordable Care Act? Definitely. But it has become enormously popular and it has helped millions of people, including my own family. Right. My father didn't get kicked off of his health insurance after he got diagnosed with early onset Parkinson's disease because of the Affordable Care Act. Right. There are so many essential things that we did with that and didn't we pay a cost for it? Yes. But guess What? As Democrats, we gain our political capital to use it to help the American people, even if it means in the short term that we pay a political price for that. Because I don't think there's anybody out there that, or at least very few people I know that would argue that passing ACA was a bad thing because it resulted in the 2010 midterms, for example.
- [49:37]
David Pakman
All right, We've been speaking with David Hogg, elected as a vice chair of the dnc, also co founder of Leaders We Deserve. David, thanks for telling us what you're up to. We're going to be following it.
- [49:47]
David Hogg
Yeah, thanks so much, David.
- [49:51]
David Pakman
You know, every time we call out Donald Trump's authoritarianism, the right calls it media hysteria. But I want to remind you that Trump admits he's looking for ways to defy the Constitution and maybe even pursue another term. Now, if you don't know the bias behind your news, you might believe. Oh, Trump's just teasing us. There's nothing here. Go to Ground News slash pacman, and see how media bias influences more than your perception from Trump's policy and ability to understand and undermine constitutional norms. I've been with Ground News for years now because this is what they do. They expose the hidden agendas behind reporting sources and make it easy to compare coverage and understand critical issues. Even better, if I'm reading a story on another site, the Ground News browser extension will flag the sources political bias and give me other reports on the same story so I can verify the information. My viewers get 40% off the same unlimited vantage plan that I use. So you get their top tier plan for just $5 a month. Go to ground news/pacman. The link is in the description or scan the QR code. In a truly unhinged moment, Donald Trump's White House press secretary, Caroline Levitt, claimed that the entire Pentagon is working against Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. Not a joke. That's on camera. If that is true. The problem is not that Pete Hegseth is completely unqualified, that Pete Hegseth has scandal after scandal, that Pete Hegseth has no business whatsoever being in this role of Secretary of Defense. It is that the Department of Defense, made up of more than 20,000 people, many of them lifelong military officers and veterans, has such little confidence in Pete Hegseth that they are conspiring to make him look bad. That's the latest paranoid meltdown from a regime that treats every legitimate criticism as some grand deep state plot. Earlier, I played a video of Brian Kilmeade Suggesting to Hegseth himself, this must be the deep state coming after you. Right? And here is Caroline Levitt effectively saying that that's the way she sees it.
- [52:15]
Caroline Levitt
The President stands strongly behind Secretary Hegseth, who is doing a phenomenal job leading the Pentagon. And this is what happens when the entire Pentagon is working against you and working, working against the monumental change what you are trying to implement. Secretary Hegswift Hegseth was nominated for this position because he is standing up for the war fighter, the men and women in uniform who are putting their lives on the line to protect our country and our homeland. And unfortunately, there have been people at the, at that building who don't like the change the Secretary is trying to bring. So they are leaking and they are lying to the mainstream media. We've seen this game played before. The Secretary is doing a tremendous job and the President stands strongly behind him.
- [52:57]
David Pakman
This is what gaslighting looks like in real time. Now, first of all, I wouldn't put much stock in the President stands behind him because we are always told the President stands behind everybody until they've found a replacement and are ready to announce it. So that means absolutely nothing. But take a step back. Pete Hegseth had this confirmation that barely squeaked through the Senate. After the disturbing allegations about him and zero relevant experience, he is now presiding over a Pentagon that is leaking like a sieve, embroiled in scandal after scandal, and he's given access to his wife in a signal chat, to information that is certainly sensitive and is supposed to be classified. When people start to say, maybe this is dangerous, maybe this is a bad idea, Caroline Levitt's response is, it's not our fault. The entire Pentagon is out to get us. That's not a defense, that's a confession that no one trusts your leadership. You would have, if what she's saying is true, you would have to say to yourself, well, hold on. The Pentagon is made up of people of all political stripes, maybe even more right leaning than left leaning. If it's true that the entire Pentagon is simply trying to get Heck Seth out, they probably have a good reason to be doing it and we should ask them about it. Now. In another wild moment, during this very same interview, Caroline Levitt was asked about the wrongful deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man accused of being an MS.13 gang member, despite that not actually being demonstrated, wrongfully removed from the United States, something that DHS admitted was a mistake. Here's how Caroline Levitt handles that one. Senator Kennedy did come out and say, yeah, this guy looks like a really bad guy, but the administration made a mistake sending him to El Salvador. Do you feel that way?
- [54:48]
Caroline Levitt
We did not make a mistake. We have always maintained that this was an individual who needed to be deported from our country. The president swore to the American public he was going to deport illegal criminals and especially those who, who have been involved in violent gangs like MS.13 that have terrorized American communities. And so to the Democrat Party who thinks that they are going to bring this foreign terrorist back to the United States of America to live a peaceful and happy life, that is never going to happen.
- [55:18]
David Pakman
Wow. Well, think, think of that. This is straight up cult behavior. Because it's not just a denial. It's a denial in the face of, of a plethora of publicly available facts from her own government agencies. And then she doubles down. Foreign terrorist, criminal, Ms. 13 gang member. We still don't have evidence of that. And she scolds Democrats for defending him. Now, of course, Democrats are defending the fact that he has rights, not saying this is father of the year, as they like to say. And Caroline Levitt just lying and lying and lying. Take a listen to this.
- [56:00]
Caroline Levitt
They should know the truth about this man. He is an illegal alien, a foreign terrorist, and a criminal, Ms. 13 gang member who violated our country's laws by coming here in the first place. And shame on Senator Chris Van Hollen and the entire Democrat Party who wasted Easter Sunday going on every television show in the country to advocate for the return of an illegal criminal gang member there.
- [56:30]
David Pakman
They should remember that Chris Van Hollen recognizes that people have certain rights. And you don't strip those rights based on whether you like them or not, based on your interpretation of their tattoos, based on whether they're a good dad or not, or they can do a nice brisket or not. Right? If you either respect the fact that people are entitled to rights or you don't. And what we're watching here is a White House that has lost control of its own narrative. They're lashing out at their own institutions and weaponizing fear to distract from the incompetence. The Pentagon now is being scapegoated for not falling in line. Veterans, career officials are now the enemy if they don't pledge loyalty to the deportations without due process to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, despite his incompetence. And the press briefings and the interviews with Caroline Levitt have nothing to do with facts and communicating reality. There, I guess I would call it Trump is theater paranoia. Projection, lies. Shouted into microphones for the base to feel okay, continuing to support them. Every indication is Hegseth is going to be gone soon. Will Kain, my old buddy on Fox News is making a run at dumbest host on Fox News. And that is difficult to do. He interviewed Congressman Maxwell Frost. Maxwell Frost, part of the group of Democrats that went down to El Salvador to try to see what the hell is going on down there and, and reminded Will Cain, I guess I would say, that Trump is talking about deporting U.S. citizens. Will Kain said, what are you talking about? Trump never did that. Now, here's my question for you. Do you think Will Cain genuinely has no idea that that's something Donald Trump has been floating, or do you think Will Kain is simply lying? Well, let's check it out before we move forward.
- [58:35]
Will Cain
I have to stop down with what you just said. Donald Trump's made a statement about wanting to deport American Citize. Do you have that in front of you? I've not seen that statement. Can you please quote where that comes from? That he would like to deport American citizens? He said it in Oval Office. He said he wants to go for homegrown snacks. People born and raised in the United States. Do you have anything and then anything besides your word on that? I have, I have not seen.
- [58:58]
David Pakman
Well, how about the videos that have been floating around for weeks, Will?
- [59:02]
Will Cain
I have not seen that. So beyond your word, do you have a source of that? I would love to see that clip or that transcript of him saying he wants to port America citizens. There is a clip online. I encourage people to just Google Donald Trump homegrown deporting homegrown criminals. It is something he said in the Oval Office. Well, you understand how television works. We have these fancy earpieces. I like to hear very few instructions from my staff while you and I have a conversation. But we are in search of that clip as we speak. So as you and I have this conversation in the next several minutes, we'll be.
- [59:31]
Pete Hegseth
We'll be.
- [59:31]
David Pakman
Look, they're going to look long and hard for that clip, as Donald Trump likes to say. What do you think? You think Will Kaine is genuinely clueless about the fact that this is something that the president has said? Is this the sort of bubble that Fox News hosts keep themselves in and by the way, the same bubble they keep their audiences in? Or is Will Kaine just lying here now in the midst of this as they were looking for the clip? Maxwell Frost just doing a really good job on Fox News.
- [59:58]
Will Cain
We want to happen. But that's not what's going on. And you want to talk courts. Wait, hold on. You want to talk about courts? But the highest court in the land told Donald Trump what to do. Facilitate him coming back to the country. And guess what?
- [60:12]
David Pakman
They did.
- [60:13]
Will Cain
They flipped the bird of the Supreme Court. That's not the rule of law.
- [60:17]
David Pakman
Will Cain doesn't like it when you confront him. I was on with Will Cain, by the way. You can find my interview with him on my website. David pakman.com press he doesn't like being challenged. Now, even when his staff found the video of Trump saying he wants to deport homegrowns, Kaine doesn't really admit he got it wrong. And he focuses on Trump saying, if it's legal. If it's legal, take a listen.
- [60:42]
Will Cain
I challenged him, by the way, on the idea that President Trump wanted to deport homegrown citizens. Here is the clip referenced by Maxwell Frost from the Oval Office of President Trump. President Trump talking about homegrown criminals.
- [60:57]
Donald Trump
I'd like to go a step further. I mean, I say I said it to Pam. I don't know what the laws are. We always have to obey the laws. But we also have homegrown criminals that push people into subways, that hit elderly ladies on the back of the head with a baseball bat when they're not looking, that are absolute monsters. I'd like to include them in the group of people to get them out of the country.
- [61:22]
Will Cain
He goes on right after that to say, but we have to obey the law. It will always be to obey the law. After years of very fine people, among other hoaxes, I'm suspicious of any Democrat quoting President Trump in full context. And I make no apologies, none on not being able to know or recall that specific clip because it doesn't reinforce my fever dream Handmaid's Tale vision of America where Lily, who reads the Bulwark.
- [61:45]
David Pakman
He'S out of his mind.
- [61:46]
Will Cain
The Upper west side is about to be deported. Right after Kilmar Brego Garcia President Donald Trump was clearly talking about obeying the law. I'm doubtful the law would allow him to deport homegrown criminals, but it's a far cry again from the Handmaid tail vision of the next after Grego Garcia is you.
- [62:04]
David Hogg
I.
- [62:08]
David Pakman
This interview might qualify Will Kaine to be the next secretary of Defense once they kick out Pete Hegseth. What a pathetic character. Truly and really nice job. You know, there are some Democrats doing a good job on Fox News lately. We know Pete Boot Edge. Edge is Excellent on Fox News. But more recently, Greg Cassar has done a great job. Maxwell Frost doing well. They're really going, going at it. And these hosts seem completely unprepared. Let's talk about easter. In a 16 second video that feels like it was directed by a sleep deprived AI, Donald Trump delivered a bizarre Easter message. Flanked by Melania, who looks nauseated, and a full grown Easter bunny who solemnly nods along as Donald Trump says that they are honoring Jesus very powerfully. The bunny nods as Trump talks about saving religion. And just to complete the fever dream, the whole thing was broadcast on Lindell tv, the Pillow Guys network. Take a listen to this.
- [63:17]
Donald Trump
Honoring Jesus Christ. And we're going to honor Jesus Christ very powerfully throughout our lives. All throughout our lives. Not just now, all throughout our lives. We're bringing religion back in America. We're bringing a lot of things back, but religion is coming back.
- [63:34]
David Pakman
We honored Jesus very, very powerfully. What does that even mean? Did he bench press across? And Melania looks like she's regretting every life decision that led her to this moment. And of course, it's not lost on me, the irony of Trump saying that he saved religion. The guy who once called 2 Corinthians is now America's religious savior, the Easter bunny, nodding like he's, and he could be a girl bunny. I don't know, like they're endorsing it all. And of course, this is how Donald Trump injects himself like bleach into the body. This is how Trump injects himself into religious narratives, claiming he saved religion, he brought back Merry Christmas. You know, he speaks as if he's some kind of divine figure and wraps it all in just enough kind of Americana to pass as mainstream. But it's not about belief, it's about branding. It's never about Jesus. It's about Trump. And you know what? If it takes a bunny in a government looking backdrop to see that, then so be it. Trump loves it. And then the capper, Trump standing with the Easter bunny out on the White House lawn and references when the bunny took Biden out. Anybody know what he's talking about here?
- [64:54]
Donald Trump
Do you remember the bunny with Joe Biden? Remember? Do you remember when the, when the bunny took Joe Biden out? He's not going to take, he's not taking Trump out anyway. That was a good, that was a beautiful moment when the bunny saved Joe Biden.
- [65:11]
David Pakman
Yeah. As you can see, Trump's insecurity, Trump's obsession with Biden as he used to be obsessed with Barack Obama. It's palpable. Palpable Obama. And of course, and of course, some people pointing out, oh, the bunny is brown. I hope it doesn't get deported. It's like it's not even really funny because it's almost too on the nose. Another fiasco attempt by Donald Trump to align himself with religiosity when we all know it's completely contrived. It was contrived all along just to get Trump in position to be the Republican nominee. Now on today's bonus show, we talked about how Maxwell Frost was in El Salvador. We're going to talk about the House Democratic delegation in El Salvador, what they're doing, what they figured out, what they're accomplishing. We will also talk about how CDC's injury prevention team, him has been completely gutted. And finally, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem's handbag was stolen from a restaurant and there were $3,000 in cash in it. Two questions, Is there security so crappy that her purse gets stolen in a restaurant? And number two, why does she have three grand in cash in her wallet? Doesn't make a lot of sense. All of those stories and more on today's bonus show. Remember that my book, the Echo Machine, now a multi week New York Times bestseller, is available everywhere. Remember that if you have the book, the best thing you can do is to review the book. We now have 947 reviews on Amazon. Looking to get to a thousand. And of course, you can remember that the best way to keep in touch is is to get on my newsletter. Just go to David pakman.substack.com get the newsletter and then, then we'll be able to keep in touch. What better thing than that? I'll see you on the bonus show. I'll be back here tomorrow.