← The David Pakman Show
The David Pakman Show
5/1/25: Trump will blame recession on Biden, Fox hosts forced to admit fiasco
01:03:12
-- On the Show: -- Chris Cillizza, political commentator on Substack and YouTube, formerly of CNN, joins David to discuss his transition to independent media, Trump's polling and second term outlook, and much more -- Donald Trump publicly abandons...
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- [00:08]
David Pakman
Welcome to the show everybody. Well, it only took a matter of hours after we learned that the economy contracted shrinkage in Q1 of 2025 for Donald Trump to flee all responsibility, blame the entire thing on Biden, and also even pre blame a potentially forthcoming recession on the former president. Is anybody surprised? No. Is he going to get away with it? Well, that's the question. Let's talk about it. Donald Trump is running away from responsibility for creating the economic mess in which we now find ourselves and he's not even done creating it yet. Take a look at this post that he made on Troth Central where he said, quote, this is Biden's stock market, not Trump's. I didn't take over until January 20. Tariffs will soon start kicking in and companies are starting to move into the USA in record numbers. None of this is true. Our country will boom, but we will. But we have to get rid of the Biden overhang. This will take a while, has nothing to do with tariffs, only that he left us with bad numbers. But when the boom begins, it will be like no other. Be patient. Let me translate that for you in Trump speak. If the economy tanks, it's Biden's fault. If the stock market is down, it's Biden's fault. If Q1 GDP is down, it's Biden's fault. Even though Biden was only president for 20 days out of the three months of Q1. But if somehow things recover, if anything good happens, then Trump is the reason and Trump gets the credit. And we should pray at the altar of Trump. Just wait. Be patient. This is classic Trump claim victory early, before anything has happened, blame failure instantly and pre claim credit for a record boom that hasn't even happened yet. While washing his hands of any current decline in the stock market in gdp. Even though of course we know of specific Trump policies that are driving the current decline right now, not when Biden was president, not at some indeterminate point in the future. Right now markets are slipping because investors are bracing for the full effect of Donald Trump's tariff plan. I guess 25% across the board, 60% on some countries, 100%, 200% on China, who the hell knows. The tariffs are on, the tariffs are off. And so the result of this is that businesses are worried, economists are terrified, Wall street doesn't know what to do. And instead of standing behind the consequences of his own agenda, Trump is dodging accountability. This is not a new tactic for Trump. He did it repeatedly during his first term, even at the day to day Level stocks are up. One day Trump holds a press conference and goes, stocks are up. Great economy, stocks down three days in a row. Silence. Doesn't post about it, doesn't excrete on X about it, doesn't troth untruth central. Just silence. When the stock market was up under Obama, he would say we've got a bubble here. When it was down under Obama he would go, this is Obama's fault. When it was up under Trump, he said it was a miracle thanks to his policies. And when it was down, when Covid tanked the markets, he would blame China or someone else. And when recovery came from Democratic led stimulus, his whole thing was, well give me the credit, give me the credit for what's going on. And this is just him pulling the exact same move again. Don't blame my tariffs, blame the guy I beat for what's happening not in the first quarter of my presidency, but the second quarter of my presidency. Now let's zoom out a little bit before we get into something deeper because I do want to be fair and all you all know I don't like to play political games with this economic stuff. The concept of a lag time in the economy is not an invalid concept in some theoretical sense. We can imagine policies that are enacted on day one, but the full effect is felt in the economy on day 60 or on day 180 or on day 365. The point is that there is of course a lag time to some policies. But if you're going to make that argument now, you have to be able to say here is the Biden policy that is now having the effect of hurting the stock market, that is now hurting gdp and all they can throw out is inflation, even though inflation consistently declined under Joe Biden. They don't have anything else. And we on the other hand have specific reasons to say, well this is because of what Donald Trump is doing that we are seeing this instability. The instability started when Donald Trump started announcing these tariff proposals and when they were on and when they were off and when businesses took specific steps, steps as a result of their belief about the forthcoming economic policy of Trump to start preordering inventory or to back off of certain initiatives. For example, we have now heard from three or four advertisers who had ads scheduled. You know, we have different sorts of contracts with different advertisers. Some of them, they commit to an entire year and maybe they prepay for the whole year. Others might commit to the entire year. We a 60 day out or something. Like that. We've heard from a bunch of advertisers who said, listen, we need to cancel our second quarter ads. We don't know what our products are going to cost. We have based our ROI on the ads, based on what we thought we were going to charge for our product because of the tariffs. We think we're going to be paying more, but we don't know because one day the tariffs are on, one day the tariffs are off. It's too uncertain. Cancel the advertising. And so that's a tariff which has now hurt that company because they're saying, we don't think we're going to have the inventory. We don't know what we're going to pay for the inventory. And now that trickles down to us. They come to us and to other podcasts and they go, listen, because we don't know the cost of our product under Trump, we don't know what we have to sell the product for. And therefore throwing money at advertising on podcasts doesn't make much sense because part of knowing how much we should pay for ads is, is knowing what we've got to sell our product for. This is trickling down and it's affecting all of us. That has nothing to do with Biden. Nothing whatsoever to do with Biden. It's the Trump tariffs. So then we get to the deeper point. Trump knows that all of this is potentially not going to go well. You don't start begging your followers to be patient if you actually believe things are about to explode with success. On the one hand, Trump is saying things are going to be so good right away, it's going to be fantastic. But then on the other hand, he's saying you've got to be patient. You don't need to tell people to be patient if things are imminently going to go gangbusters. So that's not confidence, it's, it's advanced damage control. He wants to govern like a strongman, but be judged like a bystander. And when the economy starts sputtering under the weight of this trade war, he is going to be the first one out the back door pointing fingers the whole way. And he's even saying this now with regard to the potentially forthcoming recession. Donald Trump gave away the whole game yesterday. He is preparing to blame the potentially forthcoming recession. Slow down. Whatever else happens right now in Q2 on Joe Biden, here is Trump during a whacked out cabinet meeting, which we will look at in more detail a little bit later. Trump saying, this would be Biden's this.
- [07:55]
Donald Trump
Is a quarter that we looked at today and I took, we took all of us together. We came in on January 20th. So this is Biden. And you could even say the next quarter is sort of Biden because it doesn't just happen on a daily or an hourly basis. But we're turning it around. It's a big ship to turn around. And we're going to have the greatest country financially in the history of the world, I believe. I think we're going to do things. And we had to do it. We reset the table. We were being ripped off by every single country with just about without exception. I can, I'd have to really think hard for who hasn't taken advantage. And I don't even blame those countries. I blame the person that was sitting right here where I am for allowing it to happen. Where our country was ripped off on trade, hundreds of billions of dollars. And now we're doing better than we've done in a long time.
- [08:47]
David Pakman
You know, we, and of course we're not doing better. GDP has contract contracted, stock markets are down. But Trump is telling us if the recession is coming, if the recession is now, this is Biden's fault. Now, just a reminder, Trump also put out on Truth Social. We looked at this earlier in the show, but I want to include it here. Trump put out on troth. This is Biden's stock market, not Trump's. I didn't take over until January 20th. Tariffs are going to kick in. It's all going to boom. But it has nothing to do with tariffs, what's going on right now. And you've got to be patient. That's me summarizing Trump's troth. So let's just be super honest about what's happening here. Trump is admitting out loud that this quarter might look really bad. And rather than standing behind the economy he's now in charge of, he's laying the groundwork to say, not my fault. I just got here. You can't blame Trump for Q1 of 2025 because Biden was president for 20 days. You can't blame Trump for Q2 of 2025, even though he was president, assuming he survives Q2, obviously, for all three months of Q2. And so what he wants is credit for an imaginary future boom that may never come, zero responsibility and blame for the current reality we're dealing with. And this is a reality that includes markets reacting nervously to the tariff threats, businesses pausing investment and growing talk of a slowdown. And he wants to call it the Biden Overhang. So overhang. It's the Trump playbook. If it's good, it's me. If it's bad, it's Biden, and if it's really bad, it's Biden. And be patient with me. Put it in perspective. Q2 started in April. It's May 1st. We're a month, we're a third of the way through Q2. Trump took office in January and he's been in power for the entire quarter. The economy, the markets, investor sentiment, these are reactions to Trump's agenda. The agenda is blanket tariffs that spook global trade and domestic markets, a regulatory rollback that that's creating even more uncertainty, and public comments from Trump and his acolytes that he knows the pain is coming, but he's more worried about blaming it on someone else than he is on fixing it. So the takeaway is Trump's pre announcing a recession. He's pronouncing an excuse for it, which is blame Biden. And if the economy falters in the next couple of months, he wants you to believe it is still somehow Joe Biden's fault, even though he can't link it to any specific Biden era policies. And even though he will have been in power for the full six months of Q1 and Q2 minus the first 20 days. I don't think I have to tell you whether that makes sense to believe. I respect my audience, most of my audience, enough to know you can decide for yourselves. When Trump is president for six months, minus 20 days, who deserves almost all of the credit or blame, right? Either way, of the credit or blame for what took place during those five months and 10 days? Is it the guy who last summer decided he wasn't running for reelection and who wasn't even on the ballot in November and who left office months ago? Or is it the person who's been president for five months and 10 days as of the end of this quarter? You decide. I know you're smart enough to figure out where that where that lands. I will be going live next week with Aaron Rupar on Substack. We will be talking about the growth of and future of independent media. I hope you'll join me. It's going to be Wednesday. Wait a second. When is it going to be? Let me make sure I promote it correctly. This is going to be. What week is it? OK, Wednesday at 2pm Eastern. Aaron Rupar and I are going to be doing a Substack Live. Make sure you're subscribed to my Substack newsletter. Make sure you've got the Substack app on your phone. That's the best way to access Substack. I'll say more about it. I think it's going to be a great conversation. You know, every time we call out Donald Trump's authoritarianism, the right calls it media hysteria. But I want to remind you that Trump admits he's looking for ways to defy the Constitution and maybe even pursue another term. Now, if you don't know the bias behind your news, you might believe. Oh, Trump's just teasing us. There's nothing here. Go to Ground News slash Pacman, and see how media bias influences more than your perception from Trump's policy and ability to understand and undermine constitutional norms. I've been with Ground News for years now because this is what they do. They expose the hidden agendas behind reporting sources and make it easy to compare coverage and understand critical issues. Even better, if I'm reading a story on another site, the Ground News browser extension will flag the source's political bias and and give me other reports on the same story so I can verify the information. My viewers get 40% off the same unlimited vantage plan that I use. So you get their top tier plan for just $5 a month. Go to Ground News slash Pacman. The link is in the description or scan the QR code. Donald Trump held a Cabinet meeting yesterday, and it was just a contest to see who could suck up to Trump the most disgustingly. And I have to tell you that the winner was Attorney General Pam Bondi. We're going to look at what has become. You know, there's this really funny thing. Historically, presidents have allowed the press corps into Cabinet meetings, like, before it starts or at the very end. But what you see on TV is not the Cabinet meeting. There's a Cabinet meeting that takes place outside of the view of cameras with Trump. This is the Cabinet meeting. The Cabinet meeting is they get everybody together, they let the press in, and that is the meeting. And it's basically a contest to suck up to Donald Trump. We start with Pam Bondi, who tells Trump, we've never had 100 days like this, ever. These have been the best first hundred days ever under a president.
- [15:05]
Donald Trump
Pam. President, your first 100 days has far.
- [15:10]
David Pakman
Exceeded that of any other presidency in.
- [15:13]
Donald Trump
This country ever, ever. Never seen anything like it. Thank you.
- [15:21]
David Pakman
Oh, man. Of course, the speculation is they must be dating that, that, why else? But no, this is the way everyone is expected to behave in front of Donald Trump. Here is Pam Bondi turning to the press and Giving the press a statistic that they should want to report.
- [15:41]
Donald Trump
3400 kilos of fentanyl since you've been your last hundred days, which say, are you ready for this? Media? 258 million lives. Kids are dying every day because they're.
- [15:54]
David Pakman
Taking this junk laced with something else.
- [15:57]
Donald Trump
They don't know what they're taking. They think they're buying a Tylenol or.
- [15:59]
David Pakman
An Adderall and a Xanax and it's laced with an outerall. Bondi seems to think that 75% of the total US population of 340 million. Right. 258 million lives have been saved. But thank because. Because Trump got elected president and stopped fentanyl. Now, on Twitter, she said it was 119 million lives that were saved over fentanyl by Trump. Now she says it's 258 million lives. Soon it'll be a billion American lives were saved. And you'll go, but we don't have a billion Americans. And she'll say, that's what the fake news media will tell you. Needless to say, thank goodness, thanks to Donald Trump, we avoided hundreds of millions of fentanyl deaths. Now, on a serious note, you know, it does save lives. Not 258 million, but it does save lives. Making Narcan available so that more people can survive overdoses. And you know who's looking to take that away? Take a guess. Doug Burgum, the Interior Secretary. He cranks up the suck up ism. He can't quite get to where Pam Bondi got, but God bless him, he's trying.
- [17:12]
Donald Trump
In your first term, when I had.
- [17:13]
David Pakman
A chance to work you as governor, you were courageous.
- [17:16]
Donald Trump
The thing that's empowering this amazing group of people around this table, and you've probably assembled the greatest cabinet ever, is that this time you're not just courageous, you're actually fearless. And it's your fearlessness to take on the issues that other presidents would not touch. Whether it's the work that we're doing with successfully streamlining and right sizing government, or whether it's taking on the issues at the border or whether it's embracing the power we need to win the AIDS race, you're fearlessly doing that and that creates it. Just all of us can sprint because you're running ahead. So thank you.
- [17:48]
David Pakman
The cabinet meeting has become an opportunity to just praise Donald Trump. We had a little bit of a bonus, which is Marco Rubio going full authoritarian during the cabinet meeting. This is Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State. And he just went nuts.
- [18:06]
Donald Trump
Question, you brought up El Salvador in your remarks. Have you been in touch with El Salvador about returning Abrego Garcia? Has a formal request from this administration been made? Well, I would never tell you that.
- [18:17]
David Pakman
And you know who else I'll never tell? A judge. Because the conduct of our foreign policy belongs to the president of the United.
- [18:22]
Donald Trump
States and the executive branch, not some judge. So we will conduct foreign policy appropriately if we need to, but I'll never discuss it and no one will ever make us discuss it. That's how foreign policy works.
- [18:32]
David Pakman
There you go. Judges be damned. Law and order should be flushed. We don't care what courts say. What we do is only between me and the president, says Marco Rubio. Really respecting the judiciary and the rule of law of the United states. Another bonus, J.D. vance, the almost completely missing in action vice president, scolding the media in the room. He doesn't like what they are talking about.
- [18:59]
Donald Trump
I've seen the data. I've monitored it. I've looked at it. But the most underreported fact of the first 100 days is that we came in with a massive recruitment shortfall. And in 100 days of Secretary Hegseth and President Trump's leadership, we now have people breaking down the doors to join our military. To the media assembled here, it's a really interesting question. Why has that happened?
- [19:24]
David Pakman
Completely aside from the fact that I.
- [19:25]
Donald Trump
Think it's a good thing or I think that President Trump deserves political credit.
- [19:28]
David Pakman
For it, why did we go from.
- [19:30]
Donald Trump
A military where people didn't want to serve to now all of a sudden they do want to serve? That's a story. Story you guys should cover. But compared to that, how much time have you instead focused on the fact that we deported an MS.13 gang member with a valid deportation order? And why is it that the press is so focused on the fake BS rather than what's really going on in the country?
- [19:54]
David Pakman
And of course he's lying again. The valid deportation order regarding Abrego Garcia that he's referring to was actually a withholding of removal status that resulted from 2019 hearings. What matters is that in 2025, it was illegal to deport him to El Salvador. It is this affirmative act by JD And Donald Trump's government that requires due process. The actual deportation requires due process. Kilmara Brago Garcia didn't get it. And then finally, finally, finally on the topic of fluoride. And we'll get back to RFK on the topic of fluoride. RFK says the more you get, the stupider you are. Florida yesterday passed a bill to ban supplemental fluoride.
- [20:40]
Donald Trump
I'm confident Governor DeSantis is going to sign that.
- [20:45]
David Pakman
We are working, Lisa and I are.
- [20:47]
Donald Trump
Working together to change the federal floor.
- [20:52]
David Pakman
Regulations, to change the recommendations, and we're.
- [20:55]
Donald Trump
Looking at the science now. I want to point out that in.
- [20:58]
David Pakman
August, the National Toxicity Program, which was.
- [21:01]
Donald Trump
An arm of the nih, in a.
- [21:03]
David Pakman
Better review of all the science on.
- [21:05]
Donald Trump
Fluoride and found that there's a direct.
- [21:07]
David Pakman
Inverse correlation between fluoride exposure and low IQ in children. The more you get, the stupider you are. The more fluoride you get, the stupider you are. And of course, as is often the case with medical claims and all of these things, there is a kernel of truth there. It is true that there are studies that show that exposure to very high levels of fluoride, much higher than what you would ever give anyone or put in the water, the fluoride exists naturally in certain water sources, mostly in other parts of the world, and studies have been done. What is the correlation with regard to IQ in these parts of the world where the water naturally has very high fluoride levels? It's not good. That correlation does seem to exist. Very high fluoride levels, lower IQ on average. Is it because of the fluoride? It might be. We don't know. But that has nothing to do with the very low levels of fluoride that we use in municipal water systems in the United States. So as often the devil's in the details. There's some kernel in there. RFK usually doesn't include it. And we'll get back to that with some of these other medical claims in a little bit. There is a growing civil war between Fox News and Donald Trump. Fox News increasingly seemingly has no choice but to report the American economy is contracting. The stock market is in chaos, the tariffs are throwing businesses for a loop. And a fascinating thing happened yesterday where Stephen Miller, Donald Trump's sort of Voldemort in residence, went on Fox and told them on their own network, you got to fire your pollster. The funny thing is, a lot of the stuff on Fox is terrible. Their polls are actually pretty good. Let's take a look at how it went down.
- [22:51]
Donald Trump
He's sort of underwater, and particularly on the economy, tariffs and inflation, he's well underwater. You've still got some work to do in that front. A lot of people think that he's spending too much time on tariffs and not enough time on the economy and lowering prices. What do you Say, well, I don't want to make things awkward for you, John, but it is our opinion that Fox News needs to fire his pollster. And I won't make, I won't surprise you with that. I don't think you're surprised that I'm saying that. But the Fox News pollster has always been wrong about President Trump. They were the ones that said all summer long that Kamala Harris is going to be the 47th president.
- [23:23]
David Pakman
So you know he's lying about everything. First of all, polling did not say all summer long Kamala Harris is going to be the next president. And in fact, when I would look at the polling, I would go to my audience and say, the polling seems to say Trump is going to be the next president. But this is where we are right now. Fox News is too anti Trump for Trump's own advisers because of polling. It's not because of commentary. It's not because of an editorial. It's because polling commissioned by Fox News from professional pollsters doesn't say what the Trump White House wants it to say. Now, this is significant for a couple of reasons. It actually happens to be the case that Fox's polls are relatively reputable. They don't do them in house. Right. It's not Ainsley Earhart polling people. They hire legit pollsters like Bacon Research or Shaw and Company. These are firms that have worked with both political parties. They have a track record of really pretty accurate results. Even during the 2020 election, Fox News polling was broadly in line with the aggregate. So this is part of a long running pattern. Trump world treats facts themselves as hostile when they are inconvenient. I write about this in my book. Remember when polling in 2020 showed Biden ahead? I reported those numbers at the time and I got emails from people furious about the fact that I was sort of like assuming Biden was going to win. I was reporting what the polling said. And the polling has always been pretty okay. By the way, the pollsters didn't say Kamala would be president. They did not, did not say that at all. Here is Stephen Miller on the tariff plan during the same interview.
- [24:59]
Donald Trump
Fraction of that, a lot of it, of course, has gone to Mexico. Much of it, of course, has gone to Europe and Asia. The president has been committed. This is a national security necessity that we have to have automobile manufacturing in the United States. His tariff plan is the reason why, the only reason why the automobile industry has a bright future in this country. If not for his 25% tariffs on automobiles, we were going to be years away from the complete destruction of the American automobile industry. So get ready tonight for a very big announcement. Yeah.
- [25:27]
David Pakman
Yeah. You know, this is classic Trump economic fantasy land. Were it not for Trump, the auto industry would have been destroyed. The truth is that the auto industry, like every other sector, does not operate in an isolationist vacuum. And Trump's tariffs previously have raised costs across the board. They've heard of international competitiveness. They've invited retaliatory tariffs from other countries. And Trump's own economic advisers have admitted at times that these tariffs cost American consumers and don't deliver long term gains. And that applies to the auto industry as well. So what we're seeing here is the collapse of the feedback loop. When your movement starts turning on the very institutions you rely on to measure reality, like polling firms, you're not trying to win, you're trying to figure fabricate a world where you already have a reality, but you don't want people to pay attention to it. It is Fox News versus MAGA now. And it's telling that even one of the most Trump aligned media outlets isn't Trumpy enough anymore. Hey, this is really wacky stuff. Last night they did a town hall on News Nation. The hosts were Chris Cuomo, whose show I was recently on, Bill O'Reilly, the disgraced Fox News host, and Stephen A. Smith, who typically comments on sports but has been dabbling more and more in politics. Trump called into this fiasco and he was asked about Harvard. Harvard. And Trump starts talking about Harlem and says he got a high black vote. He doesn't mean, he's not saying that black people had to have been high to vote for him. What he's saying is he got a lot of the black vote. He seems not to even have any idea what's going on.
- [27:16]
Donald Trump
Mr. President, thank you for your time. It's interesting that you brought up Harvard, because when people think about Harvard, what they're basically talking about is they're asking, what do you say to those who.
- [27:25]
David Pakman
View your actions as an attack on.
- [27:28]
Donald Trump
Academic freedom rather than a defense of fairness? What do you say to that? Well, I say this.
- [27:34]
David Pakman
We had riots in Harlem, in Harlem.
- [27:38]
Donald Trump
And frankly, if you look at what's gone on and people from Harlem went up and they protested, Stephen, and they protested very strongly against Harvard. They happen to be on my side. You know, I got a very high black vote.
- [27:53]
David Pakman
You know that very, very high black. The blacks had to be high as a kite to vote for me because it didn't make any sense otherwise.
- [28:01]
Donald Trump
Vote. It was a Very great compliment. I did criminal justice reform. I did opportunity zones for one of the greatest economic deals ever for the black and Hispanic community. I got tremendous. They agree with what I'm doing with respect to Harvard. Harvard gets four or five time.
- [28:21]
David Pakman
Mr. President, this is. This is nutty stuff. There were riots in Harlem. Sir, can you weigh in on taking away academic freedom from Harvard? Well, listen, there were riots in Harlem. People were protesting in Harlem, and I got a very high black vote. This is roughly how the entire thing went. And I want to play one other moment for you. This was RFK being asked about. You know, I don't know what he was being asked about, but what he said is that there is aborted fetus debris in the MMR vaccine. Listen to this. Now, there are populations in our country, like the Mennonites in Texas were most afflicted, and they have religious objections to the vaccination because the MMR vaccine contains a lot of aborted fetus debris and, and DNA particles.
- [29:15]
Donald Trump
So they don't want to take it. So we ought to be able to.
- [29:18]
David Pakman
Take care of those populations when they get sick. Okay, so that is. It's hard to imagine a more deceptive way of explaining the MMR vaccine. Now, the truth is that there are some MMR vaccines that were originally developed using human cell lines derived from two specific elective abortions in the 1960s. Okay, these cell lines, that. That's 60 years ago. These cell lines have been replicated in labs synthetically, completely synthetically, for decades. They are not derived from abortions of this century. The vaccine itself has no fetal tissue. It has no fetal cells, and it has no so called debris. The phrase aborted fetus debris couldn't be less accurate. It's designed to be provocative. There's. There's debris from a fetus in my vaccine, and it suggests that people that there's fetal material in the vaccine, which is of course not true. Now, the reality is that any cells used during production of a vaccine are filtered out. Only purified components remain, and they grasp onto some kernel of something. You know, earlier in the show, we talked about RFK saying the more fluoride you get, the dumber you get. Right? That's based on tests of places with artificially high fluoride naturally occurring in the water. I don't mean artificially is confusing. What I mean is very high levels of fluoride that naturally occur in drinking water, in fluoridated water systems. In the United States, we don't use nearly that amount of fluoride and of course, it's all about dose response, so there's a kernel in there, but completely deceptive. And similarly, this is the kind of misinformation that spreads fear and it undermines public health confidence. The MMR vaccine is safe. It doesn't have fetal tissue. It plays a vital role in preventing serious disease. And measles in little kids can be very, very serious. Unhinged town hall in every way. Hard to put it any other way. Do you ever have one of those nights where you just are really struggling to fall asleep? You're lying, their mind is racing. Next time, give Beam Dream powder a try. It's quite simply, delicious hot cocoa with melatonin. Melatonin is scientifically proven to help you fall asleep faster, stay asleep longer without the side effects you can get with antihistamines or prescription drugs, including next day grogginess. Countless people's nights have been changed for the better after discovering that melatonin comes in this calming, tasty hot chocolate with 0 grams of sugar, only 15 calories. My favorite Beam Dream flavor is cinnamon cocoa, but it comes in sea salt, caramel or caramel. That's a whole other conversation. Brownie batter, vanilla chai and others. Beam Dream is easy to add to your nighttime routine. Mix it into your hot water or milk froth and enjoy. Before bed, go to shop beam.com/pacman. Use the code PACMAN for 40% off. That's shop b e a m.com/pacman. Then use code PACMAN for 40% off. The link is in the podcast notes. It's great to have on the program today. Chris Cilliza, who makes political content daily on substack and YouTube, which may be an introduction line that some in the audience say, oh, that's. That's different. You may remember Chris from a variety of legacy and corporate media engagements, including cnn. So I'm interested, Chris, because a lot of people, they come to me not with tears in their eyes, as Trump would say, but they come to me big guys with tears in their eyes, really tough guys. And they just say, hey, like, how would you start over if you started now? And I kind of don't really know because the independent media space has matured and it has changed. And when I started, there were fewer people doing it in the way that now way more people are doing it. So, like, what. What has worked well or what's been deceptively tough about making this transition? You know, Don Lemon also is kind of in the midst of building something independent as well. After being on cnn, what's your, what's your lay of the land? So to speak.
- [33:42]
Donald Trump
So I mean I always, I try to be as honest with people as possible about this whole thing. And, and you know, I think there's like a big fake it till you make it vibe maybe in life, but definitely in media. And like I always say, like I was thrust into, into this CNN in the week after Thanksgiving 2022 was like, hey, please come in for this meeting. And I was like, okay. And I came in and they were like, hey, so you're great, but you don't work here anymore. So it was not like, it was not like I was like, oh, independent media wave of the future. I will say two years plus years on from that. I'm, I'm thankful in a weird way that that happened because it gave me at least over a lot of people who are now joining, like a two year head start. Obviously people like you've been pilling these fields for a long time but as you said, there's kind of been a rush lately. Kind of a realization, probably a little too late, but a realization that this is like an actual path that somebody can have. Let me start with the hardest stuff first. The hardest thing was when I was at cnn I posted videos three times a week. Kind of just like analytical videos three times a week, not highly produced or anything. And they would get a bad video would get 250,000, I mean bad performing and a good performing video would get 1.5 million or something. And I just assumed stupidly like, well, I'll just start a YouTube, I'll just start a YouTube channel and knock out 500,000 views. Now you get 500,000 views easy on videos. But I will tell people you don't just to that, right? It is a process. And so that was hard in that it was kind of like in the beginning it was like my mom, my wife, I don't think my kids watched it. They were like focused on. They're much more in like the Mr. Beast demo, but like a small number of people. And the truth is when you work for these legacy outlets, I think a lot of people fool themselves into thinking people love me and my content. And there are people who do love whoever you are in your content, but that number is a hell of a lot smaller than you than you think. Most people have CNN.com bookmarked or CNN, you know, they subscribe to CNN on YouTube and they go to it and whatever's on there they watch right Y and it's a huge top of funnel, right? It's just a gigantic number of people. And so when you go out on your own, you're out on your own, you know, it's like, yeah, you have some people who come and follow you and knew I got laid off and came right over. But the truth of the matter, I mean, I ran into a guy yesterday, and he was like, hey, are you still with cnn? And I was like, no, that was like two years ago. So, I mean, it happens to you immediately, but for other people, it doesn't. So building, starting where you. You start almost with nothing. And building from there is challenging. Same thing is true, at least for me, with Substack, which is, you know, we had all this software on CNN and the Washington Post that monitored how many people were on your article at any one time. It'd be like 200,000 or 100,000 or 75,000. And you just think, like, how hard can it be to get 10,000 paying subscribers on Substack? Harder than you might think, my friend. So I think that the, the, the first thing, I've been fielding a ton of calls lately. I don't know if you get this too, but I definitely have been fielding more calls than I ever have before. DMs and stuff from legacy media. People saying, like, hey, man, can we talk about going independent? Because it is now, like, the cool place to be, right? And the first thing that I say to them is, look, you've got to set your expectations. Like, yes, there are the Jim Acostas or even the dons who are like, big figures who are going to attract a big audience. I said, but for. For the, for most of us becoming a. On substack or YouTube or wherever you do your independent creation, it's not like planting a money tree out in the backyard. You know what I mean? It is not like, just go pluck off $700,000. Like, no, like, you got to work. And the lesson I've learned is, and I don't know, I would be really interested in your perspective on this. The lesson that I've learned, and I paid people to give me this advice, but I've also just kind of realized this over time is you just got to kind of keep creating content.
- [37:48]
David Pakman
Drumbeat. You know what's interesting about you saying that? What's really interesting about you saying that is every year I'll have five to seven conversations with newish content creators, and sometimes they're talking to me about PR agencies and web design firms and all this stuff, and I go, listen, I didn't think about any of that stuff until, like, year 12. The number one thing that I recommend people do is say, okay, I'm going to set an expectation of how much content am I creating. And if that's going to be a video a day or three articles a week or whatever, you need to put that on autopilot for like, five years. Okay. And then web design apps, you know, changing your banner by getting someone to do new graphics for you. This stuff is so secondary and tertiary. And unfortunately, really commonly a year later, I'll check in and I'll go, oh, yeah, that person asked me for some advice. Let me see. And I'll go to their YouTube channel. And the newest video is four months old. And obviously they're not succeeding. And so I do think that you realizing that it's the content first thing is so important because almost everybody I give advice to, they don't do that. They're like, I need to bring in advertisers or hire people or get an assistant. Like, you really don't need to do any of that stuff. You got to start producing the content.
- [39:09]
Donald Trump
Well, and the first. What I was solving for at the start is that the God's honest truth is I went from making a pretty good amount of money at CNN to $0.
- [39:20]
David Pakman
Yep.
- [39:20]
Donald Trump
So it was like, I just. The only way I know how to build financially and otherwise is to make content. That's the thing I've always been good at. I can make a lot of content, video and writing. So I was like, I'm going to do this, but I will tell you. And you, you're well beyond this. But. But it is remarkable to me the extent to which, once you reach even a little bit of altitude on substack or YouTube, the number of people who come out of the woodwork. I get like three or four pitches a week. Like, hey, do you want to improve your YouTube views 10x in two weeks? And I'm like, it's like there are so many snake oil salesmen. Because this is still a relatively new.
- [39:58]
David Pakman
Yeah.
- [39:59]
Donald Trump
Arena. And it is a little bit like the Wild West. Right. Like, best practices, I think, are still being formed. But the thing I tell people all the time, that reassures me that someone who's had the success you've had has arrived at that too. It's like, don't bring on like a thumbnail specialist, an SEO specialist, someone to design. Because all that costs money.
- [40:19]
David Pakman
Yep.
- [40:20]
Donald Trump
And you really want to figure out, like, okay, what can I do? That is. And the. You made this Point sustainable, right? You can't just make five videos a week for a month and then be like, oh, this is exhausting. I can't do this anymore. What, what can I legitimately sustain for multiple years? And that's what I found. It's like, I think everybody, I wonder what you think of this. One thing that people tell me is like, man, you just got to get that one video to go viral. And I'm like, I don't really do that kind of content. I'm not like, you'll never believe what happened. You know what I mean?
- [40:52]
David Pakman
You know what's interesting about the one video going viral? There are many YouTube channels that had one viral video with 18 million views. A lot of them have like 30,000 subscribers. And they never go beyond that. I mean, because the thing is, ok, you put out a viral video and a bunch of people subscribe, but then what if they don't have anything to watch? Then they're never going to come back to the channel. So the one hit wonder success launches are actually pretty rare in news and politics at least.
- [41:22]
Donald Trump
I'm just like, I just think what I want to do is have a. Just every. Like I say to people, it's the drumbeat. You want to be there every day. When it's substack, you want to be in people's inbox every day. Just like, here's the thing, build habit. And over time I always say you're not going to agree with me on everything, but over time I hope you're like, I at least think this is an authentic guy who is doing his best to understand this world and I'm going to support that. And I think the only way you build that and keep long term loyalty like you've done is you have a long record that you can point to and be like, look, I've been making these videos or writing this substack for X number of years. You can go back and look at what I've done and you can be the judge, right? It's not just like, I made one video about Donald Trump that you responded to and now every video has to be about that or you don't support it. It's like, well, go look at what I've done. That's the best judgment of what I'll do in the future.
- [42:16]
David Pakman
Let's talk about a little bit of the stuff that's in the news now, just so people get a sense of kind of where you're at, because it may be that you were constrained in some way in previous Engagements, but in any case, maybe not, but we'll kind of get a sense of where you're at on the current presidency. So 100 days in, historically bad approval rating. Do approval ratings matter on their face or because of what they point to? One of the things I've seen is presidential approval ratings tend to go down. And what I mean by that is you start with some level of support as you do things some people don't like. You go from being on their nice list to their naughty list, and you essentially never come back with exceptions. Right. 911 spiked Bush's approval. Yes, temporarily, etc. Is there something materially different right now where there could be a reversal? Or is what we are seeing now in terms of Trump's approval just going to be a slow decline for the next three and a half years?
- [43:12]
Donald Trump
Okay, so I have two answers. One is, it seems to me if you study relatively recent history, I mean, I always go back, it's like I didn't study Ulysses Grants, like, you know, approval ratings for his term. But if we study sort of Post World War II, you hit on this, the things that spike approval, the honeymoon period, you know, that first month or two are gigantic external events that a president is judged, at least in the near term, to have handled well or presidentially, whatever that means. So 911 is obviously an example. Bush's approval. Bush was never popular at the start of his presidency. His approval is going downward. 9 11, all of a sudden he's 90% of people approve of him and he basically fades away into the 30s through the remainder, the remaining seven years of his term. The other one I always cite, Bill Clinton is elected in 1992. 92 to 94 are disastrous for him. Health care, you know, politically speaking, it doesn't work. 94 election, we all know what happens for Republicans. He's on this downward trajectory. And then we obviously just had the 30 year anniversary of this, the Oklahoma City Bombing happens in 1995. And he is judged to have handled that well, sympathetically, empathetically, and everything changes. And he's reelected easily in 1996. But barring short of that, it, it's hard to see how it doesn't keep eroding downward. And I will put an asterisk on it, which is, let's just say God forbid, but there is a major external event, tragedy, etc. I don't have a tremendous amount of faith that Donald Trump would be judged by the majority of the country. Right. His base would be like he was so presidential, more presidential than Any president who's ever been president, but the majority of the country, I don't think he would handle it in a way that the majority of the country would say that's what we want in a leader during a moment of crisis or catastrophe. Right. I mean, and by the way, we have evidence of that. Like, here's a major external event, a global once in a century pandemic, right? Was president and he loses for lots of reasons in 2020. But, but I think the largest one is people had judged that he did not meet the moment. So it's like, even if there is a major external event, which to me is the only way that you could see that changing, I don't know that he would be able to capitalize on. The only other thing I'd say is I don't think so. By the end of Bush's term, he's in the, like, mid to low 30s in terms of job approval. And the reason for that is because Democrats were never for him. Independents had long ago abandoned him, but Republicans in meaningful ways had started to jump off that ship. I don't know if Trump ever goes that low. Like, I think he has a very low ceiling and high floor in terms of approval. I don't see him ever going above 50% again. I'd be stunned if he did.
- [46:04]
David Pakman
No, but I've said I doubt he goes below 36 either totally.
- [46:08]
Donald Trump
Because in order for that to happen, you would need just in terms of math, you would need his approval among Republicans would have to definitely be below 65% and probably below 60%. And it's like, I don't, if it hasn't happened yet, I don't see what would occur. One of the truest things Donald Trump ever said was when he said I could shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and I wouldn't lose any support. He support among Republicans is what he should have said, but he was right.
- [46:38]
David Pakman
So then it gets to, does it matter in the sense that he's a lame duck, okay, he has low approval, but he's going to do whatever. The way in which I think it matters is that at some point, and maybe it's after November of 26, Republicans are going to start having to figure out how do they position themselves going forward. And part of it is going to be, will Trump have the approval that he can play kingmaker for 2028? Depending on the answer to that, it seems to me Republican elected officials are going to start calculating. I, I do nothing. I align with Trump for 28 and, and try to be in his good graces. Or I break with Trump early to get credit maybe from other Republicans who are breaking. It seems that's one way that the approval would be politically relevant. Are there other ways?
- [47:30]
Donald Trump
I. So that's the big way and that's what I would say. And by the way, I think that is a, that is the most fascinating dynamic to watch within the Republican Party. If his numbers keep going down, we have never seen the party break in a meaningful way from him. Right. They just have it, just despite ample opportunity. But JD Vance ever breaks from him. But are there other people? Because Vance has sort of latched his star to Trump. So it's, you know, you got to own Trump one way or the other. But are there other prominent people who do so who want to run for president? I think that's interesting. The only other thing I'll suggest in between now and 2026, November 2026, is I continue to be baffled and I'm baffled a lot by him. So this, I mean, that's not, this is not a new state. But I continue to be baffled by the decision to start with Taros, even if he thinks they will work, which most economists say they won't. But whatever. I think it's one of the few things he actually does believe in. I mean, himself and tariffs are like the two top of the list. Like even if he believes that the near term politics of that were never going to be good. Right. I mean, because people don't know what tariffs are. Right. So they don't have any sense of it. He is now saying, well, I campaigned on this. Well, I mean sort of. But people don't know what they are and they don't know what they do. So the immediate effect of tariffs are prices are going to increase on things that you buy. No one likes that. Right. So it's like he gave the broccoli first and then he's trying to give the candy second. You know, a tax cut. One of the many things that are in this big beautiful bill is the extension of his, his tax cut. And I do think that he does lose some leverage with Republican elected officials who are in swing districts who say now like it is, it has become, it is much easier to oppose Donald Trump at 40% approval than at 50% approval or even honestly at I think he's at like 75 or 80% approval among Republicans than at 92% approval among Republicans.
- [49:38]
David Pakman
Yep.
- [49:39]
Donald Trump
So it becomes easier. Now, the caveat I'll say to that, David, is like he retains this Sort of aura. If you cross me, I will beat you in a Republican primary. Now, now there are examples where that hasn't happened. Brian Kemp in Georgia, Donald Trump tried to beat him after Kemp wouldn't say the election was stolen. In Georgia, they got a former senator to run and Kemp won 8020 in the primary. But those are rare, right? The Jeff Flake, Mitt Romney, Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger. I mean there's a slew of people. So it's like, I don't know politically, if I was in a, in a district that Mike Lawler, just to throw out one lane New York congressman in a district that Kamala Harris won will be targeted and endangered in 2026 if he runs re election and not for governor of New York. If I'm Mike Lawler, I look at a President in the 40s, low 40s, and I think like might be time to. That's normal political thinking. Now the last 10 years have featured a lot of non normal political thinking. So like that's what I always say. It's like the rules before Trump would dictate, we would see some of these members be like, I'm not going to vote for everything Trump says because I need distance from Trump. But is, are we in, like, are we through the looking glass to the point where none of those political rules applied? That's what I always say. I don't know.
- [51:00]
David Pakman
Last thing I want to ask you about, I've seen you argue that Trump deserves credit for border crossings going down. I kind of, I mean, I guess two questions. Number one, there's a huge seasonality to it and I'm not sure that there's really on a year over year basis that real decline to point to. Number two, he's ahead of the actual data with a lot of these claims. And so I don't even know that that is what the data say. And number three, what we did have from the end of Biden's presidency was that border crossings were already going down for which he was criticized to some degree. So I'm kind of, I mean the immigration, deportation stuff is a disaster regardless of what's happening at the border. I kind of see them as related, but two different things. Does, does Trump deserve credit? I don't know.
- [51:50]
Donald Trump
So I always try to, I always try to put it in a context. What I would say is if you are looking at things that have succeeded in his first hundred days. Yeah. The only thing that I can point to is the border numbers are low. Now, are there three people who have crossed the border. I mean, it appears to me, and you've mentioned this, it appears to me as though he made that up and now it's referred and is now referencing himself as a source.
- [52:20]
David Pakman
It seems impossible that only three people.
- [52:22]
Donald Trump
Three people. I mean, just, just like raw numbers, right? Yeah. So what I always say is, out of the things he said he was going to do, lower prices in everyday goods, reduce inflation, I mean, I guess Doge is marginally successful in that there are less people who work for the federal government today than did before. But the way that it went about, I don't think people approve of, like out of his big ticket items, he can point to that and say, see, the numbers are down now. I always. So that's one piece of context. The other piece of context is exactly what you said, and I think it's really important. The numbers were already headed down. Yes, they were high at a point in the Biden administration, no question, but they were headed downward. And this is one of the things Trump does all the time. I was going through the transcript of his interview with ABC with Terry Moran, and he did this in the interview with the Atlantic too. He takes credit for anything good that has happened in these three months, like border crossings going down, but he refuses to take any blame for anything that has happened in these three months. I mean, he keeps saying the Ukraine, Russia thing is Biden's war. It's like, well, no, I mean, Vladimir Putin invaded Russia three years ago. Yes, Joe Biden was president, but it's not. Joe Biden didn't invade Ukraine. And like you, he was the president then, you're the president now. I mean, I think he is very much, he is very much like my, like my 16 year old. He wants all the credit when things go well and none of the blame when things go bad. So do I think he is over exaggerating and outrunning the data? Absolutely. Do I think that they have made concrete steps to try to tighten the border? And tonally, if you are in another country and thinking of coming here, do you know that they have done that or at least Trump has threatened to do that? Yes, so. So I think there is an effect. Do I think it is. I mean, it's like a lot of things with him. He can never, even if you hate him, if he does something that is good, ish, he can never let it just be good. It always has to be the best. I wrote a book about, about presidents and politics in 2023 and politics and sports and the sports they played. And you know, Donald Trump was like a decent to good high school baseball player. He was a good hitter. He could hit, he could hit for power. He was not a bad player. This is, by the way, is so typical of him. He didn't care about fielding, he didn't care about bunting. All he cared about was trying to hit home runs. It's like so telling. But he has had to say, and he said this publicly many times, that he was the best high school baseball player in New York, patently falls and that he would have been drafted in the major league baseball draft if he had not gone to college, which again is like total. Like he can't. Good is never good enough. And I think that's an instance that we're seeing here. Sorry, long answer to your question, but.
- [55:11]
David Pakman
Definitely I think we can say of all the things he can try to take credit for in the first hundred days, it's probably the strongest. And it is helped by at least data that is correlated with what he's trying to do, if not necessarily caused by what he is. What he is. Actually.
- [55:25]
Donald Trump
That's right.
- [55:27]
David Pakman
We have been speaking with Chris Cilliza. Check him out on substack and YouTube. Chris, great to have you on today. I appreciate it.
- [55:34]
Donald Trump
An absolute pleasure. Thank you for pioneering the way for people like me. So thank you. I very much appreciate it.
- [55:40]
David Pakman
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- [56:50]
Donald Trump
All right.
- [56:50]
David Pakman
We have now entered day three of Donald Trump's White House press secretary, Caroline Levitt holding briefings not for the legacy press, but for a very carefully Selected circle of MAGA influencers. And that actually includes a guy named Chak pizzabiak, the guy who helped spread the Pizzagate conspiracy theory. Now I'm going to play a couple of clips. Of course my general view is include independent media in the press corps. Give new media people a seat. The problem of course with the implementation is that they have turned this new media press briefing into a sort of overt shelf of sycophants and suck ups. And you'll get a sense of it just from listening to this and today.
- [57:36]
Donald Trump
And I appreciate the administration making yourself available and making it available to us and all of our followers. And I understand that you're going to be continuing these. I think it's fantastic. I really have everybody come in and be able to do this. One of the things that's, that's been troubling me and has actually even affected me over the last 24 hours is the, the rise of violence that we've seen from elements of the far left.
- [58:01]
David Pakman
Yes, he's troubled by this, starting with.
- [58:03]
Donald Trump
Things like Luigi Maggione, these support for these unhuman organizations like Ms. 13 trend, Iraqwa.
- [58:11]
David Pakman
Now understand that none of that is, none of that is real. None of that is happening.
- [58:15]
Donald Trump
And even of course the assassination attempts on President Trump, Thomas Matthew Crooks and Ryan Routh as well as numerous incidents.
- [58:22]
David Pakman
Against anyone who owns a Tesla.
- [58:24]
Donald Trump
Apparently you don't really see the Democrats opposing these things.
- [58:29]
David Pakman
You see them, in many cases you actually do.
- [58:31]
Donald Trump
This is either either co signing it or giving a Lincoln nod to it. At the same time that they will be demanding that we follow due process for anyone who actually is a hardened criminal. Some of the worst of the worst. What is the administration doing, DOJ wise or FBI wise to combat this rise in violence that we're seeing?
- [58:51]
David Pakman
What a question. It's a great question, Jack.
- [58:53]
Donald Trump
And I absolutely agree with the premise of your question, which I usually don't.
- [58:57]
David Pakman
When I take questions at a podium.
- [58:59]
Donald Trump
But certainly you're right. We have seen a rise in political.
- [59:03]
David Pakman
Violence that stems from the left dating back to the Black Lives Matter movement.
- [59:07]
Donald Trump
Which the left and the Democrats as.
- [59:09]
David Pakman
So she goes on to give her just completely unhinged answer and of course it's completely untrue that there is a problem with left wing political violence in the United States. The political violence in the United States for decades has been overwhelmingly on the right. But the big story here is that the Trump White House is creating this fake secondary press corps with the idea that they are giving more independent voices a say but it's just a bunch of loyalists there to lob softballs and spin conspiracies and then post clips for clout. There is no journalism pushback, real questions or anything other than propaganda here. Now, there was another moment where another content creator, Dom Lucar, asked whether maybe we need to be investigating Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton. Like use the presidency power to go after political opponents and instead of shutting it down as a completely un American idea. Caroline Levitt says she finds it to be a refreshing question.
- [60:09]
Donald Trump
Thank you for giving me an honor to be able to ask a question and provide some transparency for the American people speaking.
- [60:14]
David Pakman
Yes, we need. We're about to get transparency, folks. Okay, are you ready?
- [60:18]
Donald Trump
I wanted to reference the election integrity. A lot of people in America are questioning if there's any possibility, possibility that we could see further investigations for anyone that could have violated our election integrity rights. And more importantly so is there any possibility for names such as Barack Hussein Obama, Hillary Road, him, Clinton to ever just pop Rodam. We get investigated for any of these, you know, questions from the American people, any of the wrongdoings they might have done.
- [60:43]
David Pakman
Well, it's refreshing to actually hear a question on election integrity because the. She seems to have a page specifically about this.
- [60:49]
Donald Trump
Legacy media would never ask such a question.
- [60:51]
David Pakman
They're so out of touch with where.
- [60:53]
Donald Trump
The American people are on this issue. And Americans, you're absolutely right, want to.
- [60:57]
David Pakman
Have trust in our electoral system without.
- [61:00]
Donald Trump
Free and fair elections.
- [61:01]
David Pakman
All right, you get it. She finds it refreshing to ask about investigating Hillary and Obama. A sitting press secretary openly praising the idea of political retribution. Because that's what this is. None of this is about the law. This is not about justice or due process. It's spectacle and revenge. And the people in the room are there not to report. They're there to amplify. And this is what you get when the presidency becomes a content farm. A White House briefing room replaced by a MAGA influencer meet and greet. And if you're thinking this seems really familiar, we've seen this from authoritarian regimes all over the world. You build your own media bubble. You isolate your leader from scrutiny in every way that you can. You flood the zone with loyalists who will say anything to stay in the inner circle. And the key point is that Trump's team isn't even trying to look legitimate anymore. They're telling you the only press we're interested in is we will reluctantly allow the corporate press into the press briefing room. And then we will allow gleefully this kind of worship, repeat everything we say type MAGA influencer into these secondary briefings. That's all they're willing to engage with at this point in time. And it's terrifying. Now on the bonus show today, the Senate has rejected a bipartisan deal to undo Trump's tariffs. US And Ukraine have signed a critical minerals deal. And we'll talk about how this relates to the Russia, Ukraine war. And unfortunately for Trump, young men are already souring on him by how much and why. All of those stories and more on today's bonus show get instant access by signing up@join pacman.com I'll see you then. Remember to get on my newsletter by emailing info@david pakman.com I'll be doing a substack live with Aaron Rupar next week, Wednesday at 2pm p. M. Eastern. You can get it on substack, which is where we do our newsletter. So I'll see you on the bonus show and I hope you'll join me again tomorrow.