Chuck Schumer (8:12)

John, would the senator yield for a question?

David Pakman (8:19)

Chuck Schumer is the only time in my life I can tell you no.

Chuck Schumer (8:25)

I just want to tell you a question. Do you know you have just broken the record? Do you know how proud this caucus is of you? Do you know how proud America is of you?

David Pakman (8:51)

And then here is the moment that Cory Booker, after 25 hours and 66 minutes, finally yields the floor back.

Chuck Schumer (8:59)

Let's get back to the ideals that others are threatening. Let's get back to our founding documents that those imperfect geniuses had some very special words at the end of the.

David Pakman (9:07)

Declaration of Independence was one of the.

Chuck Schumer (9:09)

Greatest in all of humanity.

David Pakman (9:11)

Declarations of interdependence. When our founders said we must mutually pledge, pledge to each other our lives.

Chuck Schumer (9:19)

Our fortunes, and our sacred honor.

David Pakman (9:23)

We need that now from all Americans. This is a moral moment.

Chuck Schumer (9:28)

It's not left or right. It's Right or wrong, it's getting good trouble, my friend. Madam President, I yield the floor.

David Pakman (9:46)

Alright, now, the context here. Cory Booker was not trying to stop a specific bill, he was protesting. He was specifically protesting Donald Trump's second term, Elon Musk's bizarre doge, the attacks on education, people being snatched on the streets with no due process, the lawlessness of the current administration. He stood and spoke, reading letters from constituents, inciting bipartisan sources, even apologizing for Democratic failures that helped enable this entire thing. Now, there are those who are calling this merely performative. I got many emails. My audience is divided. Was this useful activism or was this merely performative? My view on this is that if we're honest, of course it's a performance, but that doesn't mean that it's meaningless. I'll explain kind of my takeaway here. This is about visibility. This is about saying someone is still fighting. Now, of course, nobody got health care who didn't have it because Cory Booker spoke for 25 hours and 6 minutes. Not a single person was lifted out of poverty because Cory Booker stood there for more than a day and spoke. That's all true, but the point here is that it is visibility about the need to do something and to bring people into the fold. The number of streams, you know, the, the audience started small on Monday night and it built and it built and it built. And I don't, I couldn't even tell you the total number of people that were watching the stream of this towards the end, because you've got to look at all platforms. Independent media was rebroadcasting it, corporate media. Is it, is it in the millions? I couldn't even tell you what the number was. But these are insane numbers. And it is a spectacle. But the point of a spectacle in this case is to wake people up. And the spectacle garnered a massive audience. And Booker's speech said, let's not wait, let's start doing stuff right now. Is it going to stop Trump? By itself? Of course it's not. The speech wasn't meant to stop Trump, but it was meant to inspire. And a lot of the stuff I've been critical, so much of the stuff that Democrats have done, it hasn't really inspired anybody. In fact, it's been a turnoff to, to many voters and Democratic approval is in the toilet. We, you know, have been speaking about that with a number of elected officials recently. But to the extent that it was indeed a performance meant to inspire and bring people in and make them aware of what's going on, it succeeded, and you've got to give Senator Booker credit for that. So we're going to try to have him back on the show and then say, my question will be, now what? Now that you've done this, now that a bunch of people that weren't paying attention, paid attention, now what do you do? Because we do need to get people health care, we do need to get people out of poverty. We do have to deal with what's going on with education and all of these things that he talked about. So it was performative and it was quite a performance. But I think writing it off as merely performative would be very wrong. I want to thank everybody who made my book the Echo Machine on made it make the top 10 nonfiction audiobooks in the United States for the last week. I was notified this morning that the Echo Machine is in the top 10 audiobooks in the country for nonfiction books, thanks to you. We don't yet have other numbers waiting on them, but I appreciate you so much. Nearly 500 of you have already reviewed the book on Amazon. I really appreciate that. I want to say one other thing. One of the things that other creators and I have been talking about is the unfortunate reality that if any platforms shut us down, we have no way of reaching our audience. What do I mean by that? Are 3.06 million followers on YouTube. If YouTube bows to pressure from Maga and shuts us down, we have no way to reach those 3 million people. If TikTok shuts us down, we have no way to reach the million followers we have on TikTok. And so one of the things we want to do is given the fears and speculation about what this administration might try, we need a way to directly contact you. And the only way that that exists right now is my newsletter. Okay? So I'm asking you, the only way I will be able to get in touch with you if anything gets shut down is our newsletter. Please make sure you are on my newsletter. You can find that@david pakman.substack.com or you can sign up for it on my website or you can just email info@david pakman.com and say, put me on the newsletter. You might say, well, what if Substack shuts you down? We own the data. That's the critical difference with Substack we have that list and it's the fail safe that we are all trying to build here. Okay? So please make sure you are getting that newsletter. Let's take a break. We're going to talk gdp. We're going to talk deportations. Major, major show today. Glad you're here. If you've ever dealt with nausea occasionally, more frequently, you might want to check out one of our sponsors. Relief Band a wearable wristband designed to relieve and maybe even prevent nausea. Many people use it for nausea related to anxiety or migraines or traveling by car, plane or boat. Sort of motion sickness. Easy to use, works quickly, lasts as long as you need. Completely drug free, no side effects. This was originally developed for use in hospital settings and it works through a process called transdermal neuromodulation. ACCU stimulation, which is a lot of words to basically say. It sends a pulse to the part of your nervous system involved in regulating nausea. And there's research indicating this can be helpful for nausea from motion sickness, pregnancy, even from certain drug side effects. And there are studies that suggest that combined with medication, it can be very useful for post surgery nausea Relief Band's new Premier plus model provides advanced nausea relief and includes a digital clock. Uses smart skin sensing technology to preserve battery life. Relief Ban has earned an A plus rating from the Better Business Bureau. It has over 10000 satisfied customers online. If nausea is something you deal with, it might be worth seeing. If Relief Ban can help, visit relief ban.com and use the code PACMAN for 20% off plus free shipping. The info is in the description the US economy just got slammed with a gut punch. And it is a gut punch that is landing squarely on the desk of Donald Trump as President Trump is continuing to roll out sweeping tariffs and then going back as he's promising Liberation Day, a completely harebrained concept, the damage of which we still don't fully understand. Slashing funding for federal agencies and laying mass numbers of people off. As all of that is happening, the economic fallout is now becoming undeniable. I'm going to give you two numbers. The first number is negative 3.7. The GDP now model from the Atlanta Fed is now projecting minus 3.7% GDP for Q1 of 2025. This is the first quarter which ended on Monday, March 31st. This is a number so bad that it is rattling economists and it is even rattling parts of Donald Trump's own administration saying minus 3.7 would be very, very bad. Now to be totally clear, this is only one projection, a different projection or a survey that CNBC did. CNBC did an economist survey. What do economists expect for Q1 GDP? They are. They are expecting growth, but of 0.3%. That's basically flat. Now who previously told US that flat GDP growth or even 1% GDP growth or even 2% GDP growth is a disaster. Donald Trump did. It's Donald Trump who previously said, when we had 1.9% growth under Barack Obama, it was Trump who said that number is a disaster. If 1.9% under Obama is a disaster, what is 0.3% under Trump or what is negative 3.7% under Trump? So we will see where this lands. My expectation is that it'll be somewhere between -3.7 and +0.3. That is not good. That is not good. Now, the White House has been pushing Liberation Day tariffs and this is the kind of new phase. They're adding a nationalist spin to Trump's economic agenda. Not only am I going to put in import taxes, but I am going to liberate you by putting on import taxes. It kind of doesn't make any sense. And behind the scenes reports are, of course, that economists know these policies are going to choke the economy. And we are now seeing that in the GDP predictions. The surge of imports rushing into the United States ahead of tariff deadlines subtract from gdp. This is another critical thing to understand. Businesses are panicking because of the expected on again, off again tariffs, because they are expecting to have to pay more for stuff they import more. Now imports are subtracted from gdp. And then you combine that with collapsing consumer and business confidence. This is not good for the economy. February's consumer spending was up 0.1%. That's not good. It was down 0.6% in January. The spending forecasts have cratered. Action Economics dropped its projection from up 4% to up 0.2%. And then finally, Barclays is saying that there are convincing signs of a serious slowdown in the data. The most optimistic forecasts say that after this very problematic first quarter Q2, we're expecting 1.4% growth, Q3 1.6 and Q4.2%. Understand that these are annualized numbers. So it's not, oh, that's like 6% growth. No, no, these are annualized numbers. All of this is below trend. All of this is below. What Donald Trump has said is necessary to be able to say that you're doing a good job on the economy. So we have the economic story, but it also very quickly becomes a political story because Donald Trump campaigned on being the business genius who was going to increase growth. The truth is, and it is going to become starkly evident if these predicted numbers hold true, the truth is that even though the Biden economy had problems, and even though during the Biden economy. Many people said it doesn't feel like I'm doing well and you've got to respect that. That's real. People vote on that. Despite all of that, once you start seeing 0.3% GDP growth followed by 1.4, those Biden numbers are going to look very good. Now they're going to lie to you about it. They're going to say that the numbers were juiced or this is temporary pain for long term gain. They're going to tell you all these different lies and we'll debunk them one by one as they come forward. But what I continue to say is the same thing I said when Biden was president, the same thing I said when Trump became president, and all of it is the following. Look at the numbers in black and white and judge for yourself. We don't yet have the GDP number. When we do, we will be able to say is the chaos at the White House, is the shrinking gdp? Is, is, is any of it? Is it worth it to fight these contrived culture wars and own the Dems or would we rather have genuine fiscal stability? It'll be a question. You will be able to answer it and voters will answer it when they go and vote in 2026. We are witnessing the unraveling of Tesla in real time and it is completely self inflicted. Tesla just reported a 13% year over year decline in vehicle sales for Q1 2025. I love Tesla. I am glad to say had I re upped and gotten a new Tesla lease in January I would have contributed to slightly better numbers. And boy am I glad that I didn't. And I got rid of that thing as soon as I could and went in a different direction. This is the worst quarter for Tesla in three years. They delivered just over 300,000 vehicles below analyst expectations and it is continuing a trend that is getting worse every month. Do not let people tell you this is because everybody hates electric vehicles and electric vehicles suck. No, electric vehicle sales continue to grow. This is an Elon Musk problem and it is because he has made himself completely radioactive. There was a time when Elon Musk was seen as a quirky visionary when it came to electric vehicles and he was. He did a lot to advance EV and battery technology and mainstream electric vehicles. This was years ago. He's now just divisive. He's not just running Tesla anymore. He's sort of the main character in a nationwide backlash movement called Tesla Takedown. People are organizing boycotts because of his extreme political alignment, particularly this Disastrous Doge collaboration, maybe we'll call it doggy. The doggy collaboration with Donald Trump. And that includes the layoffs, that includes gutting social programs, harassing public workers. All of it put this in a context where Musk previously amplified white nationalist talking points on X and he is now trying to play both tech genius and political attack dog. And his company isn't doing well. Tesla stock is down big. They've wiped out hundreds of billions of dollars in market cap. Elon Musk personally, depending on the day, depending on how the stock's doing, has lost about $100 billion. Tesla sales in Europe are down 43% even though EV sales overall are up. China, as I told you last week, is looking very grim because of a suspended self driving test for Tesla that's going on there. And meanwhile, General Motors doubled their electric vehicle sales year over year. So this is not an EV problem, this is an Elon Musk problem. This is a Tesla problem. Now, the violence that we have seen at Tesla showrooms and the property destruction, vandalism, arson, etc. I'm against all of that. I'm in favor of peaceful protesting, holding signs, boycotting, all of that stuff. To the extent anybody's burning vehicles, I'm against that. By the way, it. We still don't really know who's doing the burning in the sense of their allegations that it's Soros funded, whatever. There's no proof of that. Others are saying these are provocateurs from the right trying to make the left look bad. I also haven't seen proof of that. I don't care who's doing it, that I'm against. But people saying this is capitalism, this is a sort of free market, and I am going to do what I think is most aligned with my political views that we must support. That is speech and that is capitalism. Now we see Trump saying we're going to charge them as domestic terrorists and all of that. It's a disaster. And Tesla's collapse is happening. It is market forces, it is macroeconomics, and it is Elon Musk taking a popular future focused company and driving it proverbially into a political ditch for clout, for ego, for culture war, nonsense, and, and all of it. So this seems to be, at this point really difficult to reverse. People are now talking about Elon. One board member said Elon Musk should actually step down as CEO. I don't know if he will, but it's all looking very bad. And this is called activism, this is called speech, this is called the market. Did you know that 80% of New Year's resolutions fail by February? Lumen is something you can do for your health that's easy to stick to Our sponsor, Lumen is the world's first handheld metabolic coach with a single breath first thing in the morning. Lumen measures your metabolism. It tells you are you burning fat or are you burning carbs? And it'll give you tailored guidance for nutrition, workouts, sleep and stress management. No more cookie cutter, one size fits all nutrition plans. Lumen lets you know what is happening in your body in real time and will build a personalized health plan based on that data. Lumen gives you daily macro recommendations based on what's happening with your metabolism so you can really fuel your body with what's best right before a workout. Breathe into Lumen and it'll tell you if you're burning carbs or fat. Lumen will tell you if you need to carb up before a workout for an energy boost or if you're good to go. Get 15% off your lumen by going to lumen.me/pacman. That's L U M E N E slash Pacman for 15% off. The link is in the podcast notes Donald Trump's White House press secretary Caroline Levitt is either unwilling or unable to stop lying day after day after day. She of course claims that Christianity is the highest of all values for her. And of course, lying uncontrollably is not a Christian value I've been able to find in any of their sacred texts. Here is Caroline Levitt defending the deportation of a man from Maryland with protected legal status, which ICE has already acknowledged was a mistake. Here is how Caroline Levitt chooses to deal with that.

Chuck Schumer (28:59)

Just changing subjects for one second. The administration has expressed a complete confidence in how all the deportation flights to El Salvador were conducted. But now that the administration has conceded that there was an error of one Salvadoran national, will there be any reviews conducted? And does the President express any thoughts on the one error that was disclosed in court last night? Well, first of all, the error that you are referring to was a clerical error. It was an administrative error. The administration maintains the position that this individual, who was deported to El Salvador, Salvador and will not be returning to our country, was a member of the brutal and vicious MS.13 gang. That is fact number one. Fact number two, we also have credible intelligence proving that this individual was involved in human trafficking. In fact, number three, this individual was a member, actually a leader of the brutal MS.13 gang, which this president has designated as A foreign terrorist organization. Fact number four is that foreign, foreign terrorists do not have legal protections in the United States of America anymore. And it is within the President's executive authority and power to deport these heinous individuals from American communities. It is a promise he campaigned on. It is a promise he is keeping. And every single person in this room should be grateful for that, considering especially MS.13 is very prevalent and prominent here in the District of Columbia, in Maryland and in Virginia. And the President, the Attorney General, everyone who has been involved in these operations is focused on eradicating these criminals and terrorists from our communities.

David Pakman (30:32)

That is completely like out of control, diarrhea of the mouth propaganda. This is not a clerical error, it's systemic. Trump claims he's deporting criminals, but clearly they are profiling people. So she can say we, even though the. Fine. You have to read between the lines, fine. She can't rebut that this is not a criminal because criminal, at least for now, still has a definition. But she goes, but we maintain that he was a member of a gang, even though he hadn't necessarily committed crimes. He. What we are talking about here is the deportation of someone legally here on asylum. And one of the things that keeps coming up is sort of like a trial by media as to whether any individual is sympathetic. This person was sick or they have a kid who was sick or it's a dad or it actually does not matter. That doesn't matter legally. Now, she was asked for evidence and here's what she had to say.

Chuck Schumer (31:35)

Our communities.

David Pakman (31:35)

The vice President said he was a.

Chuck Schumer (31:37)

Convicted member of Ms. 13. What evidence is there to back that up? There's a lot of evidence in Department of Homeland Security and ICE have that evidence and I saw it this morning.

David Pakman (31:47)

She saw it with her own eyes. Of course. Evidence that someone was convicted should be pretty easy to provide. And they provided none of it whatsoever. She then is asked again, wait a second, you're saying you saw evidence of that? What are you talking about?

Chuck Schumer (32:04)

A few questions about this deportation case. First, I wanted to clarify something that you said to Jeff a few minutes ago. You said you'd seen evidence that this man was a convicted gang member. In what court was he convicted and for what? This individual was an MS.13 ringleader. This individual was also engaged in human trafficking. And I'm glad you brought up this point again, because I would like to point out that if you just saw the headline from the insane, failing Atlantic magazine this morning, you would think this individual was Father of the Year, living in Maryland Living a peaceful life when that couldn't be further from the truth.

David Pakman (32:42)

She can't say that there's any evidence in a court because this man wasn't convicted of anything. Either we respect the law or we don't. And the bottom line is that if someone is physically in the United States in the asylum process, they have due process rights. It's not a loophole. It's not a trick. It's not some Marxist communist subversion of law and order. It's law and order. The government doesn't get to just grab people and deport them because it wants to. Caroline Levitt seeing something at an I.C.E. office isn't proof. It's not a conviction. You must go through a legal process. A judge has to hear the case. Person has a right to defend themselves. That's what due process means. Now, I know they don't like it and they want to talk about how sympathetic, you know, to pretend this was just some suburban dad. It actually doesn't matter. Yes, we can talk about the personal stories, and they are tragic, but legally speaking, it doesn't make a difference. All right, they got to some other stuff during this live fest about. Here's one about tariffs. And Levitt seems confused as to what's being quoted, was said publicly by Trump or not. It's. She is the worst press secretary I can remember.

Chuck Schumer (33:59)

Yes. The president has said foreign countries and companies will eat the cost of tariffs. In his speech on Inauguration Day, he said, quote, instead of taxing our citizens to enrich other countries, we will tariff and tax foreign countries to enrich our citizens. Right. So then why did you have to tell the domestic automakers not to raise prices? Well, that was a private conversation that was had. I'm not sure if that comment was made or was not made. But as for what the president said in his Inauguration Day speech, he's absolutely correct. A tariff will be a tax on these foreign nations, these foreign companies. And if they want to be absolved of that tariff, then they can come here to the United States of America to do business, bring their jobs here.

David Pakman (34:39)

Now, of course, the tariffs are attacks on the American importers, which is yet another lie. But the. I actually don't know whether what you're saying Trump said was in private or in public. I just don't know. So let me just talk about this completely different thing. You can't get away from basic economics. And basic economics is that a tariff is an import tax. Now, you could say there's a good reason for it. It's strategic. There is a long term path as to how this tariff is going to help us. Trump's not able to do that because these blanket tariffs wouldn't be helpful. Long term, it's short term pain for then medium term pain for then long term pain. That's all it is. And of course, her knowledge of economics is very lacking, and that's why we end up in these situations. Now, finally, you might recall that yesterday I played a clip of Caroline explaining that the investigation into the Signal fiasco has been concluded. We've investigated ourselves and found no wrongdoing. Good for them. Here she was asked, can you share any of the findings? And she, she basically just says, no, I can.

Chuck Schumer (35:43)

You said case closed yesterday. Do you, as that case was closed, do you have anything that you can share about what was learned, how this can be avoided in the future, Any, any sort of findings from that investigation? The case is closed and the president continues to have confidence in his national security adviser.

David Pakman (36:01)

There you go. Can't you understand reporters that when they say the case is closed, it means they've cleared themselves, they've absolved themselves of any wrongdoing? If the real question is, has anything actually been fixed, the answer is, of course, no, it hasn't. Is this the most dishonest and propagandistic press secretary you can remember? I covered Kayleigh McEnany and I think Caroline Levitt is way worse. You might have missed it, but something deeply alarming happened on national TV and it barely made a ripple. Donald Trump's press secretary, Caroline Levitt, was asked again about Donald Trump openly musing again about serving a third term. And of course, we know that this is explicitly unconstitutional under the 22nd Amendment. What was Caroline Levitt's response? Well, it's to leave the door open to exactly that possibility.

Chuck Schumer (36:56)

So, as you know, Caroline, the president a couple of times over the last few days has floated this idea of a third term, which the 22nd Amendment doesn't allow. Lao. But he's certainly talking about it. He talked to NBC News about it and then he was asked about it on Air Force One on the way back from Mar a Lago last night. Listen here, I don't want to talk about a third term now because no matter how you look at it, we got a long time to go.

David Pakman (37:22)

We have a long time.

Chuck Schumer (37:23)

You know, we have almost four years to go, and that's a long time. But despite that, so many people are saying, you've got to run again.

David Pakman (37:32)

They love the job we do.

Chuck Schumer (37:33)

Most importantly, they love the job now, of course, the 22nd Amendment was passed in the wake of four terms of Franklin Roosevelt's presidency. It was Republicans who pushed it in the first place, saying that'll never happen again. It took just over three years to pass and ratify that amendment. So if the president hopes to change, it would seem to me time is running out already. Well, it's funny to me that journalists ask the president this question, he gives an honest and candid answer, and then they spiral about his answer. He was asked this and you heard him and he's right. People love the job this president is doing. And as he said, we are focused on this term. We have four more years to go. And look at what the President has done in more than 60 days.

David Pakman (38:17)

We so notice that that's not a denial. There's not a correction. It's of course people want him to serve more. Now, you might notice that she also said they asked him the question and then they spiral based on his answer. Well, yes, sometimes you react to the content of the answer. Answering the question doesn't end the topic. Answering the question is step one. And then having a conversation about it. Now, when she was later asked in this exact same interview whether Trump might actually try to stick stay in office longer than the Constitution allows, here's what.

Chuck Schumer (38:53)

She of course, the 22nd Amendment was passed in the wake of four terms of Franklin Roosevelt.

David Pakman (38:58)

Sorry, this is an overlap of the exact same clip. And that's my mistake. Sometimes the truth is worth being worried about is the takeaway. Now, as we spoke about earlier this week, there are ways to remain in office more than two terms. Not all of them are legal. One option is the constitutional path, which is the 22nd Amendment says you can't do it. Repeal the 22nd Amendment that requires super majorities in Congress and three, four of the states. I don't believe that that's going to happen. You know, Trump's sort of popular in the Republican Party is not that popular. The country is way too polarized to get that level of consensus. The second option, it's legally muddy. It's running as VP and then the President resigns and Trump would ascend to the presidency. The problem there is that the 12th amendment says you can't be VP if you're ineligible to be president. Again, you can't run for VP if you're ineligible to be president. So then you would have to say, well, what Trump could do is be appointed VP after a VP resigns, or he could run for speaker of the House. And then be it starts to get extraordinarily muddled legally and none of this stuff has been tested. To be very clear, the third option is he just runs again. And we've talked about this before. Who would actually stop him? Would the court say no? I think even a Trump friendly Supreme Court probably would say no to Trump running again. And then the fourth option, kind of the nuclear option, is the the guy just refuses to leave. The problem there is it would require the military and Congress and the courts and Secret Service all to let it happen. I might be naive. I just don't believe that the military and Congress and the courts and the Secret Service would go along with it. So when MAGA Mike Johnson was asked, is there a constitutional way for Trump to do this? MAGA Mike Johnson was actually right and he said there is one way and it's to repeal the 22nd Amendment. I wish it were that simple. I wish it were that simple because that's certainly not going to happen. People in my audience know I am a bit of a pastry connoisseur. Our sponsor Wild Grain is the first bake from Frozen subscription box for artisanal breads, pastries and pastas. Wild Grains boxes are customizable depending on what you like and prefer. They've got their classic variety box, they've launched the new gluten free box. They have a plant based box that's 100% vegan and it just takes the hassle out of baking because all items bake from frozen in 25 minutes or less. Nothing to clean up. My experience has been awesome. I love the croissants. I was having people over last week, half an hour before preheat and throw them in the oven and people love it. Definitely. The croissants are my favorite. The quality and the freshness of the items is extraordinary and it is just so convenient. Go to wildgrain.com/pacman to start your subscription and get $30 off your first box plus free croissants in every box every month. That's wildgrain.com/pacman. The link is in the podcast notes. Well, this is pretty interesting. Fox News has a show called the Five. The Five has one sane person on it, one of the five people. Her name is Jessica Tarlov and it's essentially a show where four right wing nuts take turns yelling over the one liberal Jessica and somehow they had Elon Musk on and she seemed to be the only one willing to ask a real question. And it's a great question. The question is, you know you Ellen, have been making all of these cuts and laying people off, but your companies are getting government contracts. How is that defensible? And Elon Musk can't defend it because there is no explanation. He doesn't even deflect. He just does his trademark blank stare and then shifts to talking about something different. Take a look at this.

Chuck Schumer (43:28)

I wanted to talk to you about what Doge has been doing. So you've been making cuts to a lot of the agencies that have open investigations and regulatory battles with your companies. At the same time, you continue to get billions in government contracts. Tax Tesla gets billions in subsidies. How do you explain that to the American people?

David Pakman (43:48)

Right.

Chuck Schumer (43:50)

Well, everything that Doge does is an open book. So we're, I think, the most transparent action, the most transparent organization in government ever. Every single Doge action is listed on the doge.gov website. It's also listed on the X handle.

David Pakman (44:06)

Now, let me just pause here. If you follow American politics, you've probably heard that line 100 times already where no matter what he's asked about Doge, he goes, we're the most transparent in history. We list what we've done on our website, and we put out excretions on X telling you what we've done. So so far, it's not an answer. As to the conflict that between his interests in cutting and laying off and all of this stuff and getting massive government contracts, has he answered the question? So far, the answer is no, but he's got another minute. Let's see.

Chuck Schumer (44:45)

So if anyone has a concern about any one of those actions, they can bring that up, they can raise that. And, and I do want to say, like, sometimes we make a mistake, nobody bats a thousand. We will at times make mistake. And.

David Pakman (44:57)

Okay, let me pause it again. If you've been following American politics, you've also heard that he strings that together. He has said that during Cabinet meetings with Trump and others, we won't be perfect, but when we make a mistake, we will correct it quickly. None of this has anything to do with the subject matter in question.

Chuck Schumer (45:17)

Make a mistake, will act very quickly to correct it. I am under such an extreme spotlight, so much scrutiny that is literally impossible for me to get away with anything nefarious. And obviously, nor do I wish to. So this is a case where we have radical transparency. We're actually willing to admit that we do make mistakes. Often people are not willing to admit they make mistakes, but we are. But we want to emphasize we fix them quickly and we're trying to do the right thing for the American taxpayer. For the American people. And I think history will be the judge that what we've done here and what we're doing is a very good thing for the strength and future of America.

David Pakman (45:59)

What can he say? I mean, there is no answer that makes sense. How on earth can you face the American people and say, listen, I'm doing mass layoffs, I'm doing mass cuts, I'm completely wreaking havoc and just using my preferences as the barometer to decide what we do. I've handed over control of a lot of this stuff to 23 year olds who don't even know what's going, going on and have no bearing having access even to any of these systems. But I'm getting massive government contracts and here is why that's ok. He can't do it, right? There is not an answer that is defensible. His companies, Tesla, SpaceX, Starlink, they are constantly under investigation for labor violations, environmental issues, workplace safety, treatment of employees. And at the same time those very companies are, are receiving massive federal contracts and subsidies. Documented, not hypothetical. And meanwhile he's telling us how he's cutting a trillion bucks and everybody getting laid off. It's going to be so good for the country and it's going to be so good for everybody. There is no realistic answer that you can give. And so he does not answer Jessica Tarlov's question, which was a good one. At another point, Greg Gutfeld asks Elon, why? When are you going to be on my show? And Elon does something that should make any comedian cower in fear. Elon tells Gutfeld that he finds him very funny. Now you probably know where I'm going with this. Elon Musk has no sense of humor. The fact that he finds Gutfeld funny is a brutal insult to Gutfeld's comedic chops. When the hell are you doing my show? I left you, I left voicemail messages. I've sent carrier pigeons. I get no response.

Chuck Schumer (47:52)

Well, I'll be happy to do your show. I actually, I actually I've seen pieces of your show and it's very funny. Actually it's my style of humor.

David Pakman (48:05)

So I, by my style of humor he means stuff that is completely not funny to anyone, which is how I would describe Greg Gutfeld show. And then sort of more substantively, but also much more strangely, when Elon Musk is talking about people funding for funding and organizing the protests against Tesla, he brings up that we need to go after the generals. And it's kind of like what the hell is this guy talking about with.

Chuck Schumer (48:38)

The purpose of intimidation, and it's harming innocent people. It's really terrible. And I think what we actually have to get to are the people who are organizing and paying for these attacks and protests. That's who we really need to go after, because the people who are actually throwing the Molotov cocktails, they are the foot soldiers. But we need to go after the generals, and we're going to do so. The President has made it very clear that we're going to go after those that are paying and organizing.

David Pakman (49:07)

Oh, I guess what he's saying is the people at the protests are the proverbial foot soldiers, and they need to go after the proverbial generals, which I guess these are the folks, like he said in Wisconsin that George Soros is organizing protests against Tesla.

Chuck Schumer (49:22)

But these. These violent attacks. Attorney General Bondi has said the same thing. I believe that that is exactly what will happen. Do you know who they are? We're coming for them. Do you know who those generals are? We know we do.

David Pakman (49:35)

Yes. And hopefully the prosecution will be for.

Chuck Schumer (49:40)

RICO and an organized criminal enterprise, which makes the penalty.

David Pakman (49:44)

The funniest thing about this whole. The Tesla protests are Astroturf and all of these different things is that implicit in all of this is that people would need to be paid to hate Tesla and more specifically, to hate Elon Musk. If you've been following what Elon Musk is doing, you know, no one needs to be paid in order to demonstrate against Elon Musk. So he appears on the Five. One person asks a real question. Her name's Jessica Tarlov. He doesn't answer it. How do you defend government contracts while you are doing what you were doing? He just does. He just goes, oh, we're transparent, and blah, blah, blah. He then praises Greg Gutfeld's comedy Bizarre. I mean, some of the least funny comedy I've seen. And then he says that the unnamed generals known to him, but he's not naming them, they are going to go after. And we are supposed to believe that this man is brilliant enough to fix every problem we have in this country? That I've got a bridge to sell you if that's something that you believe. All right. Many of you sent me this clip of Joe Rogan, yes, podcaster Joe Rogan calling out the Trump administration's deportation policies. This happened on a recent episode of the podcast, and Rogan said that what's happening with the deportations is horrific. He mentioned a gay barber being swept up in Trump's gang deportation push and sent to El Salvador's mega prison, a place, by the way, notorious for having actual gang members in it. And Rogan says this is a human rights nightmare. And he's correct. But there is a lot more to this story. Let's watch the clip first and then we'll talk about it.

Chuck Schumer (51:31)

But the thing is, like, you got to get scared that people who are not criminals are getting like, lassoed up and deported and sent to like El Salvador prisons. I read some story. It was a Glenn Greenwald.

David Pakman (51:47)

Yeah, yeah, the gay baba guy. Yeah, yeah. It's scary, man.

Chuck Schumer (51:50)

Is that true? Is that story accurate?

David Pakman (51:53)

With a bunch of these trend our agua guys, allegedly they got one guy who, at least one guy who wasn't a criminal, who was just a gay barber, who I think according to the story, came here legally. When you do things quickly and you do things aggressively, that's how you get done. But that's also when mistakes get made. Just so you know, that's not our bleep. We don't BLEEP anymore. And I think a human being being plucked out of nowhere and ending up in a country he's never been in, in a maximum security prison with gang members seems like a bad thing to happen to me.

Chuck Schumer (52:26)

It's horrific. It's horrific.

David Pakman (52:28)

I don't think that should be controversial.

Chuck Schumer (52:30)

No, that's not controversial at all. Again, that's bad for the cause. Like, the cause is let's get the gang members out. Everybody agrees. But what's not innocent gay hairdressers get lumped up with the gangs. And then like, how long before that.

David Pakman (52:41)

Guy can get out is it doesn't seem he can get out, by the.

Chuck Schumer (52:44)

Way, or any plan in place to alert the authorities that they've made a horrible mistake and correct it.

David Pakman (52:49)

Well, if you think about it from a government perspective, and this is where I think it gets quite sinister, is once you've done that, the incentive structure is never going to be to admit that and deal with it. The incentive structure is to say nothing.

Chuck Schumer (53:00)

To cover it up.

David Pakman (53:01)

Konstantin is completely correct on this. And that's exactly what Caroline Levitt is doing to pretend it didn't happen right as hard so someone ends up in a black hole. Okay, so listen, there's a bunch of stuff here. First of all, Rogan's completely right about this. Rogan also voted for Trump, the very guy who's doing all of it. Ok, so there has to be an accounting for the fact that the same Trump who promised the mass deportations hired Stephen Miller to design these policies. Bragged about expanding ICE raids, said he would fast track deportations without due process. Rogan knew that Trump was promising that stuff. And Rogan publicly said, this is who I'm voting for. So to a degree, Rogan himself is to blame. Now, he's not solely to blame. Rogan didn't get Trump elected. But what I mean is all of these right wing ecosystem folks, and ok, Rogan, I guess is like center right kind of with some left wing beliefs, but the ecosystem is fomenting this promotion of maga. They helped make it happen. So Rogan says this is, this is wrong, but he helped to make it happen. That's number one. Secondly, Rogan says the cause is going to be hurt by these incorrect deportations of like the gay barber. Let's get the gang members out. Everybody agrees on that. It's just not what's happening. Even if you put aside the case of the gay barber, people with tattoos, people with no criminal record, people who have never been to El Salvador, are being sent there without trial, without a lawyer, without anything. And he adds that, you know, this, this is bad for the cause of Trump, but this is bad for human beings, and it's also against the law. And that gets me to kind of the next criticism here, which is regardless of whether they got the right person, imagine that it wasn't a gay barber with nothing to do with the gang, but it was a gang member. You still are required to provide due process to people that are physically in the United States. If you come to the border and you request asylum and you're sent back, you're not entitled to due process. In that case, okay, there's other problems with how asylum claims are adjudicated. But you don't have the same right to due process when you come to the border and then go back to Mexico. But this is a different situation. And so even if they got the right guy, for lack of a better term, it's still a problem. And of course, it's terrible that innocent people are being ripped from their homes and all of these other things are a problem on their merits, not merely on the basis of whether you get the right person or not. Now, if Rogan or the millions that he influences had voted for Kamala Harris, this wouldn't be happening. Now you might say, whoa, David, hold on a second. Whatever criticisms you have of Kamala Harris, and there would be many, and her administration would not be perfect, because no administration is perfect. This wouldn't be going on. Her administration wouldn't be secretly deporting innocent people. Into violent prisons based on tattoos, profiling, haircuts and what people are wearing. So it's critically important not to pretend that this is a both sides situation. Credit to Rogan for speaking out. I mean, listen, the fact that he, what Constantine says, which is, fix this stuff, they're just going to try to cover it up, that's completely correct. When we looked earlier today at Caroline Levitt being asked about people that were incorrectly deported, which is a weird phrase, weird term to use, but I think it's relevant for us. She just said, no, no, no. We maintain that those people were all gang members. It ignores the fact that they have no due process. So Rogan here is upset about a fire that's burning that he helped to start. And it would be great for him to acknowledge that, as Bernie Sanders has said, you can't be an arsonist and then ask for credit for putting out the fire that you started. And when you light a match and then all of a sudden there's a huge fire, how much applause do you really deserve for saying this fire is a real problem? Because that's essentially what Rogan is doing. We've got a fantastic bonus show for you today. It's Liberation Day. You may not be feeling liberated, fine, but it is Liberation Day according to maga. And we will talk about what that means. The DOJ is going to seek the death penalty for Luigi Mangione in the CEO Brian Thompson murder. What's the legal basis for that? And number three, we're going to do a little sports here, but there's some interesting stuff going on. So if you're like, oh, no, no sports, please. In Major League Baseball, they have these torpedo bats now that are causing this huge stir. And I think there's something interesting about it when it comes to competition and records. And I want to talk to producer Pat about it. So all of those stories on today's bonus show, remember that we are preparing for the possibility that we could be shut down on any of our platforms. The only way I will be able to reach you is if you are on my newsletter, our substack newsletter, because we own that data. We own none of our data on the other platforms. Go to david pakman.substack.com or sign up david pakman.com or simply email info@david pakman.com we'll get you on the newsletter no matter what. This is going to be the lifeline if the clampdown does happen. And finally, finally, you can sign up instantly at join pacman.com to get access to that bonus show that I was just mentioning. So I'll see you then. We'll see you back here tomorrow. Congressman Greg Cassar, who recently went on FOX News and just crushed them, is going to be joining me tomorrow. Looking forward to that. See everybody soon.