4/28/25: Global shame as Trump sleeps through funeral, deports citizen kids

Summary

Podcast Summary: The David Pakman Show Episode: April 28, 2025
Title: Global Shame as Trump Sleeps Through Funeral, Deports Citizen Kids
Host: David Pakman

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1. Trump's Administration Deporting American Citizen Children

David Pakman opens the episode highlighting a shocking and controversial action by President Donald Trump's administration: the deportation of American citizen children to Honduras.

• Case Details:

  • A two-year-old American girl, identified as VML, was deported along with her mother and sister without meaningful due process. This decision was made by U.S. District Judge Terry Dowdy, a Trump-appointed federal judge.
  • Quote:
    Judge Terry Dowdy [00:07]: "We have a strong suspicion that the government, Trump's government, just deported a US Citizen without any meaningful process."

• Legal and Ethical Concerns:

  • Pakman questions the legality of deporting a U.S. citizen, suggesting it might be more akin to kidnapping or human trafficking rather than standard deportation.
  • The affected father claims he was not given a choice and was denied the opportunity to reclaim his daughter.

• Pattern of Behavior:

  • This incident is not isolated. According to the ACLU of Louisiana, three American citizen children were deported in the last week, including a four-year-old child with metastatic cancer and a pregnant mother.
  • Quote:
    David Pakman [00:40]: "These were American citizen children, children who had every legal right to be in the United States and were ripped away from their communities and their doctors and their medical care."

2. Trump's Performance at the Pope's Funeral

Pakman discusses a globally humiliating moment during Pope Francis's funeral where President Trump appeared asleep and unprofessional, further damaging his international reputation.

• Incident Description:

  • Trump was seen struggling to stay awake during the funeral, with Melania Trump visibly concerned.
  • Quote:
    David Pakman [21:10]: "Trump crashed at the funeral of the Pope while surrounded by world leaders and cameras rolling."

• Public and Media Reaction:

  • The world watched as Trump displayed disrespect and weakness, contradicting his cultivated image of strength.
  • This incident has been widely criticized and is seen as a reflection of Trump's declining stature.

3. Declining Approval Ratings and Economic Concerns

A new ABC News-Washington Post-Ipsos poll reveals Trump's administration has the lowest 100-day approval rating in 80 years, signaling significant public dissatisfaction.

• Poll Findings:

  • 39% approve of Trump's performance.
  • 55% disapprove, marking a new low compared to his 2017 ratings.

• Economic Anxiety:

  • 73% of respondents believe the economy is in bad shape.
  • 72% think Trump's policies may cause a recession.
  • 67% disapprove of Trump's handling of the stock market.

• Law and Order Concerns:

  • A majority believe Trump is undermining the rule of law, with 62% saying he no longer respects it.

4. Broken Promises on Healthcare and Tariffs

Trump's administration is criticized for failing to deliver on significant promises, particularly regarding healthcare and economic policies.

• Healthcare Plan Delays:

  • Trump repeatedly promised a comprehensive healthcare plan within two weeks, a commitment that remains unfulfilled years later.
  • Quote:
    David Pakman [22:06]: "Two weeks or less... We haven't had DACA dealt with within two weeks."

• Tariff Policies and Tax Cuts:

  • Trump proposed eliminating federal income tax through unprecedented tariff increases, which is economically unfeasible.
  • Quote:
    Trump [24:26]: "We're going to be cutting taxes, and it's possible we'll do a complete tax cut because I think the tariffs will be enough to cut all of the income tax."

• Economic Implications:

  • Replacing income tax with tariffs would require excessively high tariffs (100-200%) on nearly all imports, making goods prohibitively expensive.
  • Pakman emphasizes the political impossibility of such a tax overhaul without legislative support.

5. Interview with Governor Gavin Newsom of California

Governor Newsom discusses California's strategy to mitigate the impact of federal tariffs imposed under the Trump administration.

• California's Economic Position:

  • California boasts the fourth-largest economy globally, with significant contributions in manufacturing, agriculture, research, and development.
  • Quote:
    Governor Gavin Newsom [31:10]: "California, as you said, was just announced yesterday by the IMF as the fourth largest economy in the world."

• State-Level Responses:

  • Engaging in trade relationships with international partners to lessen tariff impacts.
  • Running ad campaigns to attract businesses to California despite federal trade policies.
  • Quote:
    Newsom [33:58]: "We're making the point that we are not Washington, D.C... we're a stable partner and we're a willing partner."

• Building Party Infrastructure:

  • Newsom emphasizes the importance of grassroots party building over relying solely on charismatic leaders.
  • Quote:
    Newsom [35:33]: "Find great personalities... build an apparatus that will support someone who invariably will emerge."

6. Call for Mass Protests and Civil Activism

Pakman highlights Governor J.B. Pritzker of Illinois's unprecedented call for mass protests against Republican extremism.

• Pritzker's Statement:

  • Advocates for peaceful mass protests as a means to effect change and counteract authoritarian tendencies.
  • Quote:
    Governor J.B. Pritzker [46:13]: "Never before in my life have I called for mass protests, for mobilization, for disruption."

• Historical Context:

  • Pakman relates Pritzker's call to historical movements like the civil rights and labor movements, emphasizing the power of organized, peaceful protest.
  • He argues that mass protests can disrupt media narratives and highlight injustices effectively.

7. Trump's Attempts to Distract and Redirect Focus

Trump continues to use misinformation and false promises to divert attention from his administration's failures.

• Fabricated Claims:

  • Trump falsely claims record-low border crossings and proclaims the revival of Columbus Day, which lacks substantial support or clarification.
  • Quote:
    Trump [57:38]: "We must castigate them on the soapbox and then punish them at the ballot box."

• Economic Misrepresentations:

  • Misrepresents the potential of tariffs to fund tax cuts, ignoring the economic impracticalities.
  • Quote:
    Trump [24:26]: "We're going to make a lot of money and we're going to cut taxes for the people of this country."

• Attacks on Democratic Platforms:

  • Attempts to discredit Democratic fundraising platforms like Act Blue while neglecting similar scrutiny of Republican counterparts.

8. Conclusion and Final Insights

Pakman concludes by emphasizing the ongoing decline of Trump's administration, both in public approval and economic stability. He underscores the importance of continued activism and grassroots movements to counteract authoritarian tendencies and restore democratic norms.

• Final Thoughts:
  • Trump is portrayed as increasingly unpopular and ineffective, with his actions leading to national and global embarrassment.
  • The necessity for active participation in democracy through protests and organized efforts is highlighted as essential for meaningful change.

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Notable Themes:

• Authoritarian Tendencies: Trump's disregard for due process and rule of law.
• Public Discontent: Significant decline in approval ratings and economic concerns.
• Political Strategy: Emphasis on grassroots movements and building robust party infrastructure.
• Activism and Protest: The power of civil resistance in driving political change.

Overall, the episode paints a dire picture of the Trump administration's impact on both national and international stages, while also highlighting the proactive measures being taken by Democratic leaders like Governor Newsom and Governor Pritzker to counteract these challenges through strategic state-level actions and advocacy for civil activism.

Transcript

[David Pakman]

Welcome, everybody. I hope you had a good weekend. We sadly start today with a story so outrageous it almost sounds fake. A global humiliation as President Donald Trump's administration has deported a two year old American citizen. Two year old American citizen to the country of Honduras. And they did it with no meaningful due process, according not just to any judge, but to a Trump appointed federal judge. The little girl is being identified only as vml, was sent out of the country with her mother and sister while the court was still trying to figure out her legal status. U.S. district Judge Terry Dowdy, who is a Trump nominee, said it plainly, quote, we have a strong suspicion that the government, Trump's government, just deported a US Citizen without any meaningful process. Think about where this now is. An American citizen deported. I'll get back to that term. Deported by her own government. Can we even call it a deportation? Or is it really a kidnapping? Is it human trafficking? I'm not asking rhetorically. I just don't know that the word deportation even really applies here. And by the time the judge tried to intervene, the family was already above what we call the Gulf of Mexico. They were gone. And the excuse from the Department of Homeland Security, the parents chose to take her with them. Except her father, who is still in the United States, says he wasn't given any choice. I scrapped his partner and daughters during a routine check in. When he tried to get his daughter back, he was ignored. They barely let him talk to the mother for a minute before deporting them all. I believe that this is now the playbook. ICE agents breaking into houses, grabbing people, including citizens. We are now at the point where this includes citizens shoving them onto planes. And by the time a court says that was against the law, it won't matter anymore. The victims will already be dumped into another country. Doing things legally has never been Donald Trump's strong suit, that we know he is more concerned about flexing power than doing things the way the law dictates in terrorizing immigrants and families and anybody that he can frame as those other people. Even if you wanted to deport someone, you can't deport an American citizen. That's not how citizenship works. If you're a citizen, you can't be legally deported to another country. But when I say you can't, you can come back to me and say, but David, they did. And this is where we get to when I tell you that the Constitution guarantees something, what does it mean for it to be guaranteed if there's not actually a mechanism of enforcement? What does it mean that it's illegal. And you can't deport an American citizen. If an American citizen gets deported under Trump, none of it matters. What matters under Trump is raw power, chaos and might makes right. And let's terrify people into compliance, even though we aren't even often clear about what it is we are trying to get them to comply with. And the world is watching. So we have global humiliation here. We have a national disgrace. We have a president who doesn't seem to care one way or the other. And the stories continue building, building, building until we realize this is now not a one off. This is now becoming a trend. And that's the trend that we now have to address. Donald Trump has now deported multiple US Citizen kids with cancer. If that sentence sounds unbelievable, it's because it should be unbelievable. It should not be something that is taking place here. But look at what we have going on. Reports confirmed by the ACLU of Louisiana show that three American citizen children were deported in the last week as part of Donald Trump's immigration crackdown. What does it even mean to call it a crackdown? Among them, a four year old child with a rare metastatic cancer deported with no medication, no consultation with doctors, no plan to continue treatment. It doesn't stop there. One of the mothers deported is pregnant, expelled from the United States without any prenatal care arrangements. Another mother given less than a minute to call legal counsel before the call was abruptly cut off. A complete mockery of due process. There is no due process. On the one hand, they say law and order. On the other hand, there's no due process being given to people. The ACLU says that ICE was warned ahead of time about the child with cancer's medical condition. They knew and they deported the child anyway. These were American citizen children, children who had every legal right to be in the United States and were ripped away from their communities and their doctors and their medical care. I guess because Trump wants to make a political point. What that point is, I don't even know at this point in time. This is not the first time. Because last month Donald Trump's ICE deported a 10 year old American citizen with cancer out of Texas. Two separate cases within weeks of each other of US citizen children with cancer being thrown out of the country without medical care. If you want to talk about cruelty, this is cruelty. And this is what Trump meant, I guess, when he said we were finally going to have law and order again in this country. Punishing children with cancer to scare immigrants and doing it proudly and boasting. Tom Homan and Kristi Noem and all of them. The judge overseeing one of these cases called it what it is. We mentioned it earlier. It's the deportation of an American citizen with no meaningful process, meaning no due process. Think about that. A sitting president violating the rights of his own citizens. When you swear an oath on that Bible, although Donald Trump did not actually touch the Bible, we don't know if that was deliberate. But okay, theoretically you swear the oath onto the Bible to defend and uphold the Constitution. And Trump is denying rights to citizens of the United States, ignoring court orders and putting sick kids in life threatening danger. Because in his worldview, enforcing immigration as he sees it, justifies anything you want to do. As I write, by the way, in my book the Echo Machine, this is how authoritarianism spreads. It's not a single sort of like cataclysmic moment. It's a series of little horrors. They're not little to the people they're happening to. Right? But in terms of the attention they might get nationally, each one is a little more normalized, a little more minimized, a little more buried under the headlines. And maybe the first time you deport a kid with cancer, it's on the front page, and then the second time it's at the bottom of the front page and then it's in section B. And all of it is deliberate. Trump understands that once you accept the idea that a president can punish citizen children while without consequence, you have accepted you or I or any of us, we have accepted that the rule of law means nothing. We've accepted that human lives are secondary to political loyalty. So this is not even remotely about immigration anymore. I mean, think about how far removed from immigration policy it is to deport us citizen kids with cancer. So this is now about the kind of country that we are willing to become, because if we don't fight this, if we don't refuse to let this cruelty become the new normal, it is not going to end with children being deported. It never ends with wherever we are if you allow authoritarians to keep going. Now, Governor J.B. pritzker of Illinois, he is now calling for mass protests at urban centers. One of the protest techniques I talk about in my book, we now have a sitting governor calling for that. We're going to talk about that later, but it's a reminder, it's a signal, it's a sign of how serious this is getting. I did a bunch of interviews last week where I was talk, I was talking about, I was asked about the effort I make to not be overly hyperbolic, to not be hyperbolic. I think overly is sort of implicit to not be hyperbolic, but also not to understate the risks and threats that we face. And I try to just tell you the way it is. If there's no real slippery slope, I won't mention one. If there is a slippery slope, I will. We are seeing the slippery slope. Oh, only criminal illegals. Only. Only undocumented people. Only people with visas or temporary status. We now are at US Citizens. Okay, so good for JB Pritzker. We'll talk about that a little bit later. But I guarantee you it is not going to end here. And by the way, they continue creeping closer and closer to the media outlets. Now they are trying to criminalize even media use of leaked documents. We'll talk about that later or tomorrow as well. So make sure you're on my newsletter David pakman.substack.com It's how I can communicate with you about what the latest pushback is on independent media. We'll take a very quick break and be back right after this. People in my audience know I am a bit of a pastry connoisseur. Our sponsor Wild Grain is the first big 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 baked from frozen in 25 minutes or less. Nothing to clean up. My experience has been awesome. 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It will end soon to save about 50% off of the cost of a membership Donald Trump Just Made History for all the Wrong Reasons A new ABC News Washington Post Ipsos poll shows that Donald Trump has the lowest 100 day approval rating Listen to this, of any president in the last 80 years. 39% approve. 55% disapprove. This is worse than Trump's own record from 2017. That was the previous low. We now have a lower low. Understand that this is a man, as far as we know, who is setting a new standard for presidential unpopularity. This is not 2017. This is Trump's second term. Voters knew what they were getting and still the bottom falls out. And then it falls out again and again. Now, historically, the way it works is presidents sort of get a honeymoon period. Even unpopular presidents usually get a bump early on. But even after defeating Kamala Harris returning to power, Trump has managed to create more economic anxiety and more legal chaos and more distress than before. And these are brutal numbers. 73% say the economy is in bad shape. 72% believe Trump's economic policies are likely to cause a recession. That is these are not normal numbers. 62% say prices continue to rise under Trump's watch. I mean that that is literally true in the sense that if inflation is more than zero, price prices are continuing to go up. 67% disapprove of Trump's handling of the stock market. And it goes Beyond Economics because 65% say Trump is actively trying to avoid following Federal court orders, 64% say he's pushing presidential power too far. 62% believe he no longer respects the rule of law. So the point here is this matters because it signals that this is not just an unpopular term, it's completely unstable. The economic pain that people fear is materializing. The authoritarian tendencies that we've been warning about are happening and they're accelerating. The public doesn't seem to be swayed by the same culture war distractions. You know, there, this Riley Gaines woman who's a swimmer is everywhere to try to make everything about, quote, men and women's sports. But it's not working. It's not working because even among Donald Trump's strongest support groups, non college educated white men, Republican leaning independents, Trump's numbers are collapsing. Now on the show tomorrow, we will look more deeply at the independents and what's going on with them. But overall, Trump tied his lowest approval rating among core voters. And despite all of this, Trump still polls ahead of Democrats in Congress when it comes to who do you trust more to solve the country's problems. Now, that is not an endorsement of Trump. It's an indictment of how out of touch the opposition still seems to be, even though there are some Democrats who are actually trying to go, go in a different direction. And we are talking to many of them. So the importance of this is that what's happening right now as we are about to transition into May could define the next nearly four years, three and a half to four years. Trump is not in this term with momentum. We're 100 days in and he's completely underwater. He's hemorrhaging support from key groups. He's facing a recession and staring down a country that increasingly sees him not just as incompetent, but as dangerous to the rule of law. The last time a president was this unpopular, this quickly, we got a one term presidency. Now, Trump has already defied history in the sense that he lost in 2020, but he's back in power. But these numbers show that even if he did win the election, he seems to be quickly losing the country. And it has only been 100 days. And part of what we have to acknowledge is that almost every single day, certainly every couple of days, there is a new global humiliation. Deporting US Citizen, two year old, deporting multiple kids with cancer. And now the Pope's funeral. Dear God. Dear God. Remember when the mango menace. Donald Trump spent four years calling President Joe Biden sleepy Joe. Well, guess who fell asleep at the Pope's funeral in front of the entire world. In addition, by the way, to wearing the wrong color suit, everyone in the room with a black suit. Trump decides to wear a blue suit. And also texting during the funeral. I'm going to play this video for you. And you will see Trump with his head slumped, mouth open, asleep at one of the most solemn global events of the year. And next to him, Melania staring like she can't believe it either. The footage is devastating. You will see Melania look over and realize what's happening. And she doesn't know what to do. Take a look. It's almost tough to watch. And one of the things that you see if you speed through the video, you actually see the objective play placement of Trump's head. Hang and hang lower. See, as I go forward, you see lower, lower, lower, lower, lower, lower. The guy cannot stay awake. And as the ceremony goes on, you can see Trump engaged in a losing fight against gravity. His head drooping lower, his eyelids gone, his body tilting forward until he's just completely checked out. Trump crashed at the funeral of the Pope while surrounded by world leaders and cameras rolling. And in a sense, history being made because the whole planet saw it, global media outlets torching him for it. The disrespect, the weakness, the lack of basic self control. And Trump has wanted to sell himself as strong and powerful and energetic. And instead he gave the world a picture of a washed up old man who couldn't stay awake long enough to honor the Pope. And Melania, you can see here, the moment that she sees it, she doesn't know what to do. If Joe Biden had done this, Fox News would be running death countdown clocks and demanding the 25th Amendment be invoked. Instead, the MAGA crowd is pretending it never happened. You wouldn't know it from watching Fox News. You wouldn't know it from listening to Charlie Kirk. But it did happen. And it's really a snapshot of what Donald Trump has become. He's not just a man who can't even sit through a funeral without collapsing into public spectacle. He's a guy who is regularly guilty of that which he accuses others of doing or being or representing. It is called projection. He is weak and he is disrespectful. And he's the opposite of the tough guy image that he tries to sell. So next time Trump wants to call someone else sleepy, show them the video of Trump nearly drooling on himself and slinking lower and lower and lower as the world watches. Pathetic, Absolutely pathetic stuff. But I'll tell you, we want to focus on substance. Not quite as pathetic as his answers about when are we going to see some of these plans? All right, let me talk to you about Donald Trump getting hit with a question he could not spin his way out of. You may recall that Donald Trump regularly promises that we are just two weeks away from what his health care plan, solving the Russia, Ukraine, war, fixing the economy, whatever. Here Trump was asked by a reporter a great question. You keep saying two weeks. What does that mean? Trump not really able to answer substantively.

[Donald Trump]

Two weeks about President Putin. What is two weeks? Give us, what is the actual date? What is the timeline? Two weeks or less. And if it's a little more at the time, I say, but, you know, they're losing a lot of people.

[David Pakman]

So the translation here is, of course, he has no idea whatsoever. This has been Donald Trump's scam for a very long time. You throw out a fake deadline, you promise a plan you hope everybody forgets. If you ever called out about it, you go, well, the Democrats got in the way, right? They didn't let us do it. And you may recall famously when Donald Trump said, oh, my health care plan is two weeks away. This was August of 2020. It's almost May of 2025, and we still don't have that plan. But remember this moment. Let me get the right spot here for us. Remember this classic moment is 3 1/2 years.

[Gavin Newsom]

You don't have a.

[Donald Trump]

Well, we haven't had. Excuse me, you heard me yesterday. We're signing a health care plan within two weeks, a full and complete health care plan that the Supreme Court decision on DACA gave me the right to do. So we're going to solve. We're going to sign an immigration plan, a health care plan, and various other plans, and nobody will have done what I'm doing in the next four weeks. The Supreme Court gave the President of the United States powers that nobody thought the president had by approving by doing so.

[David Pakman]

Long story short, we didn't have DACA dealt with within two weeks. We didn't even see Trump. By the way, a lot of people remember Trump saying he would release his health care plan in two weeks. He said we would have a health care plan signed into law to replace Obamacare within two weeks of this date in August 2020. He still doesn't even have the plan. He was asked about it during a presidential debate during the 2024 cycle. And he said, well, I have concepts of a plan, concepts of a plan. So we've heard this for a long time. It's a repeatedly used strategy from Trump, and it's what he does when he has no plan and wants people to forget about it. Now, the other idea he's been recycling is that the tariffs are going to go so swimmingly that we can do a complete tax cut. In other words, get rid of federal income tax, because we will have the tariff put aside for a moment. How regressive that would be. Like, just ignore that for a moment because that's Trump's goal. Listen to what Trump said about it. And we're going to start with, here we go.

[Donald Trump]

And we're going to make a lot of money and we're going to cut taxes for the people of this country. It'll take a little while before we do that, but we're going to be cutting taxes, and it's possible we'll do a complete tax cut because I think the tariffs will be enough to cut all of the income tax. Now, we have a lot of debt that's been left to us, you know, unfortunately, over many years. We'll take care of that. But the tariffs, if people only understood the tariffs, we're going to be giving people of this country a tremendous tax cut, and we're going to start with people making less than $200,000 a year.

[David Pakman]

None of this is going to happen, of course. I mean, listen, there are a whole bunch of different reasons why this isn't going to happen, but the theme is you make a wild promise, you stick a fake timeline on it, you change the subject, two weeks go by, a month goes by, nothing happens, nothing changes. You either pretend you never said it, you blame somebody else because it wasn't able to happen. And it gets more and more embarrassing the more examples there are. As far as the tariffs specifically go. If you think about income taxes generating trillions and tariffs previously, previously, before Trump did this, mass tariff tariffs previously generating not even 100 billion. You have to start doing the math and you realize, wow, to replace income taxes with tariffs, everything probably needs to be tariffed at 100% or more, every single thing that comes into the country. It's inconceivable that such a thing would happen. And that's why it gets increasingly embarrassing the further and further we go. Finally, Donald Trump asked it was Melania's birthday during this Pope funeral. And Trump, it's not clear whether Trump knew about it. And Trump said, dinner with Melania was great. And also the funeral was great. Really weird.

[Donald Trump]

You and the first lady have a nice birthday dinner. We had a great dinner. She's a great first lady. People, people loved him and the funeral was beautiful. It was a beautiful funeral. As funerals go. It was a beautiful funeral.

[David Pakman]

So he had a great time with Melania and likewise he had a great time at the funeral. He was texting and sleeping during the funeral. Unclear whether he was texting and sleeping during the dinner with Melania. So this guy's struggling. This guy's struggling and in trouble when it comes to the day to day. He's sleeping on the world stage in a literal and metaphorical sense. And also he may have no choice but to completely back off of the tariffs. The latest serious economic suggestions are if these tariffs are fully enacted and remain in place by the summer we may be in a recession as a result of the already existing decreased ships on the way to the US with stuff and this could be very, very bad very quickly. So my expectation at this point, not a prediction, but my expectation personally is Trump will have no choice but to back off of all of it and claim victory somehow. Let me know what you expect. Info@david pakman.com Things are still expensive that we know, but one thing that doesn't have to be is your hearing aids. Hearing aids are famously overpriced at brick and mortar hearing clinics, but our sponsor MDHearing makes high quality, easy to use rechargeable hearing aids with exceptional sound quality personalized to your hearing profile and shipped right to your door. Maryland Hearing just made their Neo rechargeable digital hearing aids only 297 a pair, less than 10% the price of clinic hearing aids. MDHearing was founded by an ENT surgeon who saw how many of his patients needed hearing aids but could not afford them and made it his mission to develop a quality hearing accessible to anyone. I have a close family friend who uses hearing aids and once I told her about MD hearing, she gave him a try and has never used anything since. Loves the affordability, the quality, their expert staff who are available to help calibrate the device anytime she needs get the high quality affordable hearing aids you deserve with MD hearing. Go to shopmdhearing.com use promo code PACMAN to get a pair of hearing aids for just 297 plus a free extra charging case. The link is in the description. Many people in the audience know I speak multiple languages. I first learned Spanish when I was born in Argentina. Then I learned English, I learned some Hebrew in Hebrew school, I learned French in junior and high school. I am no stranger to the language learning process process and one of the most useful tools I've ever used is the app called Babel. The way our sponsor Babble teaches you languages truly works and it works fast. Instead of a bunch of silly quizzes and games like a lot of the other apps, Babble is designed by real people for real conversations. All of Babel's tips and tools for learning a new language are approachable. They're rooted in real life situations and conversations. Babble's bite sized 10 minute lessons are just perfect for me. I can do it on the go, do it during a lunch break. It really sticks fast. Babble was able to help me feel ready for my recent trip to France. I'm using Babble to brush up on Italian and German just for fun. Studies from Yale, Michigan State University and others prove Babel is better. One study found that using Babel for 15 hours is like a full semester of language at college. Here's a special limited time deal for my audience right now. Get up to 60% off your babel subscription, but only for my audience at babel.com/pacman rules and restrictions may apply. The link is in the description. It's great to welcome to the program today, California Governor Gavin Newsom, who is really in a very interesting situation right now, Governor, because on the one hand, California is now the fourth largest economy in the world. On the one hand, California, under your leadership, is not exactly a fan of this on again, off again tariff fiasco that we're seeing from the federal government. But at the same time, California is one of 50 states and to some degree you have to deal with the policy as it is. Talk a little bit about what can you do at the state level to try to mitigate the effect of this tariff fiasco. Can you do anything?

[Gavin Newsom]

Yeah, look, I appreciate that we definitely have agency. We're not a bystander. And I say all the time to my staff, I remind myself it's not what happens to you, it's how you respond to it. And so we're trying to respond through strength. We're the size of 21 state populations combined. I mean, California, as you said, was just announced yesterday by the IMF as the fourth largest economy in the world. Only China, the United States, China and Germany ahead of the state of California. $4.1 trillion a year economy. Put that in perspective. It's 50% more than the next largest state in our country. 14% of the GDP in the United States emanates out of California, but so does so much of the trade. 40% of the goods movement through Long beach in LA and we're already seeing that drying up. It's actually happening as it relates to the tariffs imposed, particularly against China. We're the largest manufacturing state, number one, dominating in manufacturing, dominating in ag and forestry, dominating every major category, including, by the way, number three in the world in R and D, as a state, not a nation in the world in terms of research and development investment. So so much is at stake for our state, but our nation as well, because we're the tent pole of the US Economy, not just in terms of innovation and entrepreneurialism, but again, in terms of economic growth and job creation. So we're trying to reconcile, to your point, the Trump policies with our own sub national status, recognizing we can't engage in direct trade deals, but we can engage in trade relationships. And we've been doing that meeting consistently with the ambassador from Germany, meeting with the ambassador from the UK with the premier of British Columbia. We're running an ad campaign up in Canada, trying to encourage people to come to California, even if they're not going to come to the United States, broadly speaking, to make the point, we're not Washington, D.C. we're not the Trump administration. So I think therein lies how we can sort of play in that margin and punch above our weight. And of course, we're suing. We were the first state to sue the Trump administration because of the outsized impacts of these tariffs on our economy.

[David Pakman]

It seems that some of our traditional trading partners understand that while this is coming from the federal government, this is not something that much of the country wants. And so some EU countries have said, well, we will do retaliatory tariffs, but we're going to target industries that we know are in certain states with a certain political bent and not sort of others. Is there something there where you can work with some of these other partners to maybe lessen the impact on your state based on the industries that are targeted?

[Gavin Newsom]

Quite literally, the conversations we're having with representatives from around the globe, with foreign leaders, directly with ambassadors and trade representatives, and we're being not just reactive, taking calls, but we've been very proactive in terms of making specifically the case you just made. And look, there's justthere's simply, and it's just an objective truth, there's no state in the country that has more to lose in this trade war. And no state in the country has been more impacted already. And I can assure you I'm working on our budget next year. It has been significantly impacted by these tariffs we're already seeing just in the last two months, a significant decline in tourism. We're the number one tourism state in America, and we saw out of nowhere in the last two months a decline in total number of visitors coming into this state. What's happened to small businesses, what's happening to our farms, what's happening to exports? And again, our three biggest trading partners. I mentioned China, but also our two partners, north and south, Canada and Mexico. And so this is a big deal. And we're making the point that we are not Washington, D.C. meaning we are a few thousand miles away and we're a world away in terms of our mindset and our approach. We're a stable partner and we're a willing partner. And please, in the context of any retaliatory tariffs, consider what's happening in other states that are embracing and celebrating Trump and Trumpism, but not the state of California, and I would argue other blue states that are more enlightened.

[David Pakman]

You've, you've criticized the Democratic Party for relying too heavily on individuals with charisma to kind of come in and save the day sometimes, as opposed to building this more robust grassroots movement that's grounded in policy priorities. I would love to hear a little from you about how that works in this modern media ecosystem, where it actually seems like the charisma sometimes supersedes the importance of policy, but at the same time recognizing that the policy or the lack of perceived policy probably hurt Democrats significantly just six months ago in November of 2024. How can you do only one or the other?

[Gavin Newsom]

Yeah, I love it. I think it's both. And look, I really appreciate the frame of your question. I think it's a very insightful question, particularly as it relates to the new media environment and how important it is to persuade and how important it is to communicate and how important it is to be able to the policy in the context of a way that it will be well received or at least people are willing to accept and be open to it. So, look, I think there's been a tendency, at least for most of my adult lifetime, I get it all the time. People right after a presidential election, they're immediately focusing on the next presidential election as opposed to the next midterm or their city council race or their school board race. And I noted a number of years back, and I was, you know, reflected on it. And I think we all have sort of post 2010 in particular, where we started to see state legislatures turning red in red states, but had traditionally been Democratically dominated legislatures, and we kind of turned our back to that hard work of party building bottom up. And we got so consumed, as I say often with the guy or gal and the white horse to come save the day. And that's great situational politics, but it's not necessarily sustainable. And I, I think the other party has been wise to have invested substantially in those school board races and wise to invest in those local races and focusing on, you know, we talked about Secretary of State's recently and all of a sudden we sort of caught up to a consciousness, boy, that's important for our democracy. And I think we would do better by focusing there. Find great personalities, you're right, that can be persuaded. You know, you could find the guy, guy on the white horse, but at all levels, not just presidential is my point. And then we build an apparatus, we build a party, we build an infrastructure that will support someone who invariably will emerge and, and that's that. That I think is a more sustainable approach.

[David Pakman]

You mentioned what tends to happen after elections. Do you feel satisfied that there's been a full and thorough sort of postmortem done of November of 24?

[Gavin Newsom]

Absolutely not. I don't at all. Quite the contrary. And I think, you know, we humbly. And it's not a criticism. Every time I say something that's sort of contra, you know, sort of just, you know, plain safe, it's kind of perceived as a criticism. It's not. It's just an observation. I'm passionate about my party. I love my party. I love its history. I mean, people all the time, you know, people talk about being independent, you know, like I would never abandon this party for any reason. Everything it stands for and what we represent historically and it's. But I do think we gotta, gotta be a little bit humble here. You know, Covid, you know, we may have learned the wrong lessons. Even the first time Biden won. There's some trend lines here that we're missing. And you know, those become headlines. We look at young men, 56% of young men went for Trump. It was a plus 15 compared to his first election. There's some trend lines here. And by the way, those trend lines continued over the last four years. And I don't think Democrats really, you know, we're not focused enough on that. And I think we have to be a little bit more sober about where we are as it relates to where the public is on a lot of these policies so that they'll start listening to our economic message, which again, I thought Joe Biden, I say it all the time. I've said it And I'll continue to say it and defend it. It was a masterclass of policymaking. He was a populist president that was worker centered. It saved the damn Teamsters and their pensions as the guy walked a picket line. He had an industrial policy that was worker centered and focused on families and childcare and living wages and unions and advanced some of the most significant legislative victories in our lifetime. $550 billion of new infrastructure money in that $1.2 trillion bill. The 52, $53 billion in the chips and Science act. That was a real manufacturing policy. All the tax credits in the IRA, not just the 362 or $9 billion as it relates to the direct grants and investments that are helping red counties, not just blue counties, meaning he still represented the United States of America. I'm proud of that. But there were a lot of other things that they were able to weaponize that got in the way of our ability to communicate that message. And I think that's part of the forensics we have to go through.

[David Pakman]

I want to talk a little bit in the few minutes we have left about your podcast that you launched. This is Gavin Newsom. You know, I'll be totally frank. I've gone back and forth after some of the episodes between this is a disaster and I don't understand it to wait a second. I actually, maybe I do understand what the governor is doing here. And I'm sure you've heard the criticisms, have been playing a little soft with some pretty nasty characters here, right? Charlie Kirk, Steve Bannon. Are we criticizing and confronting, or are we platforming and lifting up? On the other hand, there must be some calculation that's being made, because I know that you think about these things. There must be some calculation about is there a winnable center that maybe would be brought along or might revise their thought about Governor Gavin Newsom in this conversational sort of environment. I'll be honest, I don't know exactly what all of the thought process is. And, you know, I've gone back and forth with some on your team about it, where I'm like, I'm fascinated by this, but I don't totally exactly get it. I know that it's more than just having conversations, but give us a little insight into the strategy here.

[Gavin Newsom]

The strat. It's. It's just being who I am. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not a confrontational guy. That said, I'll stand up to anyone I disagree with and I'll take a backseat to no One, I've been very aggressive. You've seen debates that I've done on Fox News. You've seen me engage with folks on that platform, on Newsmax and other platforms. I'm happy to take it on and go after folks, but after an election, with a little humility and grace, What I was looking for, what I am looking for is understanding these guys. They platformed me. With all due respect, when I started that podcast, I didn't have one download. These guys have millions and millions of people that watch them every week, and the opportunity to understand what motivates them, who they are, what are their strategies. Success leaves clues. They were successful in this last election. They were. And we have to own up to that. And I wanted to understand. I want to understand what motivates them, and I wanted to do it in a civil way. And, you know, that's the approach. And yet I still debate different platforms. I still engage. I have 16 lawsuits against Trump administration, first governor in the country, due to a special session to quote, unquote, Trump proof. As, as the pundit said, California, we'll stand firm and tall. But at the same time, I seek to understand before I'm understood and to understand where this party is, where this nation is, what's happening with young men, who's influencing them. Charlie Kirk, disproportionate impact in that space, what these terror policies represent, which is a value proposition that Bannon was able to express in very detailed terms in a way that I thought was important for Democrats to understand. There's a reason we're here, and there's not just the 2025 construct, but there are other people that are part of this MAGA movement that are also motivating what's happening. And I think it's important for Democrats to peek in on that. It's difficult. I get it. We want to take these guys out, take them down. At the same time, I don't think you do that unless you can show some civility that all of us, I think, expect, and I think all of us deserve as well. I'm not going to talk past people, down to people. And, you know, everybody wants to be loved, needs to be loved, protected, respected, connected. And I do think there's some things that unite us. But obviously, we see the world very differently. And I'm not trying to quote, unquote, platform that thinking. I'm just trying to illuminate the reality of a world that exists and persists regardless of me platforming them or not.

[David Pakman]

Governor Gavin Newsom of California really Appreciate your time and your insights today. Thanks so much.

[Gavin Newsom]

Thanks for having me on.

[David Pakman]

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[Gavin Newsom]

Never before in my life have I called for mass protests, for mobilization, for disruption.

[Donald Trump]

But I am now. These Republicans cannot go a moment of peace.

[Gavin Newsom]

They have to understand that we will fight their cruelty with every megaphone and microphone that we have.

[Donald Trump]

We must castigate them on the soapbox and then punish them at the ballot box.

[David Pakman]

This is not what you tend to hear from sitting governors particularly. Particularly, you know, to be honest, billionaires like J.B. pritzker. This is really a peaceful call to arms, metaphorical arms. He's being very clear. At a time when many Democratic leaders are sort of frozen in place and hoping that norms are going to hold up against the political movement that's trying to bulldoze them, Pritzker is tapping into a strategy that has defined most major movements for justice in American history. There's an entire section in my book the Echo Machine about activism techniques that have worked in the past These mass protests are not just a symbolic gesture. They really are how change happens in the United States. You look at the labor movement, the civil rights movement, antiwar protests, marriage equality protests. None of those victories came from quietly trusting that it's going to happen on its own. We don't have to do anything. Those victories were the result of millions of people organizing and mobilizing and marching and disrupting business as usual in the United States and forcing those in power to listen peacefully without committing any crimes. When power feels invincible, mass protests can be an equalizer. They drag the injustice out into the open. It can break media bubbles, it can expose hypocrisy, and it can force into every corner of American life where comfortable ignorance once lived, a sort of recognition of what the hell it is that is going on out there. The one of the other aspects of what I write about in the book is how protest, undeniable, visible mass protest can also disrupt the carefully engineered feedback loops that political media ecosystems depend on. In an age where outrage is monetized and truth is fragmented, the mass action that JB Pritzker is talking about can create a sort of too big to ignore reality that cuts through the noise. It becomes the noise, essentially, and it will even force hostile media to cover it. Now, hostile media will tend to cover mass protests as. Look at these jobless lowlifes, looting or whatever. This is part. Part of why it makes sense not to do any looting, of course. But it is one of the few ways to get both sides of the media talking about what is going on. And it can pull the focus away from the sanitized talking points and really give us the stakes of the fight. Republicans understand this, by the way, and this is why Republicans work so damn hard to criminalize protesting and to portray it as dangerous, violent or illegitimate, or, you know, just, again, just the demands of unemployed people. Because they know the record, which is that when Americans have taken to the streets in numbers, the defenders of injustice lose control of the narrative. So when JB Pritzker says we can't let him know a moment of peace, he obviously isn't talking about violence. He's talking about civil resistance. Megaphones at the rallies, protests at their fundraisers, mass oppositional turnout at their public events, which is, by the way, why many of them have stopped doing town halls altogether and constantly lawful disruption that will remind them and everybody watching the majority of Americans did not consent to the extremism that's being forced upon us right now. I think this is the energy we need. Silence is not Neutrality, silence seems to be surrender. And history has shown us very clearly those who organize, those who speak up, those who refuse to back down, they actually do make change. And that is a phenomenal thing that we need right now. Donald Trump suffered a terrifying mental breakdown on Truth Social over the weekend central. Yeah, that one. Let's take a look at some of what he said, which tells us so much about what he's thinking and what his administration is considering next. And understand that everything I'm going to show you here, this is really born out of desperation to change the narrative and to point people's attention in a different direction than from the economic fiasco that's growing. Let's start. Quote, just released 99.9% at the border. Best number ever recorded. Three people got in versus hundreds of thousands in last administration. There has never been such a difference before. Congratulations, America looked for the data that supported this claim. Unclear what the claim even is. Was not able to find that data. It also seems that it wasn't even released by Customs and Border Protection. Trump seems to be just fabricating the entire thing. Trump continuing. Quote, I'm bringing Columbus Day back from the ashes. The Democrats did everything possible to destroy Christopher Columbus. His reputation and all of the Italians that love him so much. What the F is this guy talking about? They tore down his statues and put up nothing but woke or even worse, nothing at all. Well, you'll be happy to know Christopher is going to make a major comeback. I am hereby reinstating Columbus Day under the same rules, dates and locations as it has had for all of the many decades before. Now, as some of you may know, there has been a change towards calling Columbus Day the federal holiday that is celebrated or recognized in October, to Indigenous Peoples Day. Some people now call it Indigenous Peoples Day. Many call it Columbus Day. My calendar, I'm looking now at the Google Calendar. Google Calendar still calls it Columbus Day. Different entities or organizations have different days for it. What is Trump talking about? What Hill is Trump trying to die on now? Certainly one that's going to do nothing to help. The fact that Trump is putting a blanket import tax called a tariff on just about everything coming into the United States. It is a distraction. It's not a particularly well calibrated or calculated one, but it is a distraction. And Trump continuing to distract about the tariffs by saying, quote, when tariffs cut in, many people's income taxes will be substantially reduced, maybe even completely eliminated. Focus will be on people making less than $200,000 a year. Also, massive numbers of jobs are Already being created with new plants and factories currently being built or planned. Or planned doing a lot of heavy lifting here. It will be a bonanza for America. The External Revenue Service is happening. It's so important to understand. I already mentioned earlier in the show, we take in trillions in federal income tax tariffs in 2023 brought in 80 billion. Okay, so to even get as much money from tariffs as we get from federal income tax, we would need to put like 100, 200% tariff on everything. Things would be insanely expensive. It would never happen. But it's very important to understand that we can't just eliminate taxes. We this is why these huge tax bills, huge tax bills require buy in from the House and Senate. You can't just go, hey, we got tariffs. I'm going to get rid of taxes. No, you can't do that. And eliminating them altogether, a political impossibility. Just not going to happen. Trump's lying, lying, lying. And then finally Trump turning his attention, turning his attention on Act Blue. And I'll explain this in a moment. Trump posting quote, hopefully Act Blue, the Democrats illegal scam used to raise money, including from not allowed foreign contributions, is being looked at by authorities. The Dems only know how to win by cheating something which they do better than any group or party in history. But now with their terrible policies and candidates, and with people like crooked Adam Schiff who demanded a full pardon from Sleepy Joe leading the way, it is almost impossible to reach their money goals. The USA is wise to these scoundrels and crooks. Also, why did the auto pen give Schiff a pardon? Because Biden knew nothing about it. Who operated the auto pen? That is the biggest question being asked in D.C. they almost destroyed our country. They should all be in jail. Let me give you the shortcut of what Trump is trying to do. These fundraising platforms, act blue, win red, etc. They all operate essentially exactly the same way. Donald Trump is trying to make Act Blue illegal or get it shut down while doing nothing about the Republican fundraising platforms. Another way to rig things in favor of Republicans despite claiming now for a decade that it's all rigged in favor of Democrats. This guy's lost it. This is not normal behavior for the middle of the night for a President of the United States. And what we do see trickling down is the same sort of behavior to his followers. Dean Withers has been doing sort of like, I guess we would call it a tourist, where he is talking with Trump supporters and debating people. And it's very interesting. And he spoke to A woman. Listen, she's probably very nice, maybe, but this is not exactly what we would call a brainiac. And I want to play this short 65 second clip for you because it really embodies. We're going to hit the body with ignorance. It embodies the ignorance and cultish nature of maga ism. Take a listen to this. This is terrifying. Last four years we've been held hostage under the Democratic rule. That is horrible, horrible, horrible. We've had more taxes, we paid more for everything. Wait, you think that taxes, you think that taxes have been like really high in the last four years, right? It's not just that we paid for everything.

[Donald Trump]

We.

[David Pakman]

The middle income America is paying was paying for the Democratic. All this. I just want to clarify. Clarify. You. You didn't like Biden and Harris's tax code? I did not. You ever vote for it again? No. Under any circumstances?

[Gavin Newsom]

No.

[David Pakman]

It was Trump's tax code. That is of course completely correct. The 2017 tax cut program of Trump passed in 2017 remained during the Biden Harris administration. Biden and Harris didn't pass pass a tax bill. Many on the left were upset. They wanted it passed, but it did not happen. The tax code she's complaining about is the 2017 Trump tax plan. Obama.

[Gavin Newsom]

It was Obama's.

[David Pakman]

In 2017, Donald Trump passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs act and which was his tax code and set to expire this year, meaning under the entire Biden Harris administration. We were under Donald Trump's tax code. You just told us that you hated that tax code and you never vote for it again under any circumstances for a democratic regime ever. So it had nothing to do with what they were doing and all to do with the fact that they're Democrats. Party over country, every single day. You're a member of a call. These are, these are really good. These, these are very, very good. And one of the things that I think, you know, listen to the whole like debate bro thing. I think that we can simultaneously recognize that on the one hand this sort of thing is not going to convince people in mass numbers to change their minds. Most of the people that need to hear it are never going to hear it. Okay. At the same time, I do think that when a lot of these talking points fall so obviously flat, I hate the tax code of Biden. Biden didn't do any tax code plan. It was Trump's. When some of these basics fall so flat, it can do two things that I think are useful. One, it can give more people on the side of the of the facts ammunition with which to rebut some of these talking points from other people. And I do do think that that's useful. But you might reach some people and while you won't deprogram the cultists and en masse, you might still be reaching enough people, including some sort of influence makers, influence peddlers, influencers who recognize that a lot of these talking points are completely fabricated and make no sense. Now for the most part, they just stick with it. Remember, hold on, do I have it here? They're eating the cats. No, I don't remember. With the whole they're eating the cats, they're eating the dogs. Even after they were called out, they just kept repeating it. And J.D. vance even said, oh no, we're going to, we're going to keep repeating it just because we want the media to pay attention. Sometimes you tell them they're lying and they don't care. But this sort of thing where such basic talking points like Biden's taxes were terrible, there were no Biden taxes. It can hit some of the folks who do care a little bit more about reality and they can actually say, you know, that actually is is not true. And it can shift the dialogue, dialogue a little bit. It's mostly just entertainment. But, but I do think that there is some positive impact from it. Let me know what you think about the whole debate bro thing. On the bonus show today, Jorge Santos sentenced to seven years in prison. Seven years in prison. I'll tell you about the email I sent him after the sentencing. Second, Luigi Mangione has pleaded not guilty to federal murder and stalking charges. What is likely to take place in that case? And finally, even Republicans are saying Trump's focused on the wrong stuff. Completely focused on the wrong stuff. We'll look at that polling and much more when producer Pat joins me on the bonus show. Get instant access by signing up@join pacman.com Remember to subscribe to the YouTube channel. It costs nothing. And furthermore, make sure you're on my [e-mail] I'll see you on the bonus show in mere moments if you are a member. Otherwise, I'll be back tomorrow with a new show.