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The David Pakman Show
5/8/25: Major inflation warning as Trump praises Houthis
01:03:13
-- On the Show: -- Merici Vinton, former US digital service and DOGE staffer, joins David to discuss working at DOGE, the absolute an total fiasco that it was under Elon Musk, and much more... -- Fed chairman Jerome Powell issues a major warning...
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- [00:08]
David Pakman
Welcome to the show. The Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has issued a major inflation warning over Donald Trump's tariffs. I want to talk about it today. And one of the important takeaways, really, there's two critical takeaways here. If you understand nothing else, if you hate even the concept of listening to what the Fed chairman says, and as I know many people do, who, people who are like, that's not what I need in my life. I don't need to be listening to statements from the Fed chairman. I just need to live my life. If you want to know the effect that this is going to have on you, really, two important takeaways. Number one, the Trump tariffs, if they hold, are going to be bad for the price level. They're going to cause inflation. They're going to make things more difficult to afford for the average American. And number two, the Federal Reserve seems to have zero, zero interest whatsoever in bailing Donald Trump out by lowering interest rates, which tends to have the effect of boosting the stock market. So let's go to the video. Here is Jerome Spout, Jerome Spal. Jerome Powell speaking yesterday with what some are saying is a bombshell shot across the bow at Donald Trump. If you've been paying attention, you know who to blame. But let's listen to Powell and then talk about today.
- [01:23]
Jerome Powell
The Federal Open Market Committee decided to leave our policy interest rate unchanged. The risks of higher unemployment and higher inflation appear to have risen. And we believe that the current stance of monetary policy leaves us well positioned to respond in a timely way to potential economic developments. I will have more to say about monetary policy after briefly reviewing economic developments. Pardon me. Following growth of 2.5% last year, GDP was reported to have edged down in the first quarter, reflecting swings in debt exports that were likely driven by businesses bringing in imports ahead of potential tariffs.
- [02:03]
David Pakman
Right.
- [02:03]
Jerome Powell
This unusual swing complicated GDP measurement last quarter. Our monetary policy actions are guided by our dual mandate to promote maximum employment and stable prices for the American people. At today's meeting, the committee decided to maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 4.25 to 4.5% and to continue reducing the size of the balance sheet. The new administration is in the process of implementing substantial policy changes in four distinct trade, immigration, fiscal policy, and regulation. The tariff increases announced so far have been significantly larger than anticipated.
- [02:41]
David Pakman
Right.
- [02:41]
Jerome Powell
All of these policies are still evolving, however, and their effects on the economy remain highly uncertain. As economic economic conditions evolve, we'll continue to determine the appropriate stance of monetary policy. Based on the incoming data, the outlook and the balance of risks.
- [02:58]
David Pakman
So listen, who could possibly be surprised by this? Every serious economist said the effect of this tariff scheme will be more unemployment and it will be more inflation. So this is a full blown economic warning shot aimed directly at Donald Trump's second term trade agenda. And MAGA owns this. Trump is doubling, tripling down on tariffs, tariffs that are essentially taxes on American consumers. Now, tomorrow we're going to talk about Donald Trump's big announcement of a deal with the uk. As we are recording today, that meeting is about to happen and Trump's been saying huge announcement is coming today. I think it's important for us to understand that trade with the UK is a tiny slice of total American trade and that tariffs with the UK are negligible. So there's essentially nothing Trump could announce that that would be significantly good, it could be significantly bad. I don't think that's what he's going to announce. So just to preempt the idea that all of this concern, after Jay Powell yesterday saying this goes away with whatever Trump's going to announce with the UK today, not at all. So where we find ourselves now is that you've got the flag waving and you've got the tough guy rhetoric. Tariffs don't make China pay. You pay. And every single time you buy anything imported or made with imported parts, could be appliances, electronics, clothes, food, the cost goes up. Businesses either raise prices or cut jobs, and sometimes it's both. And Jerome Powell confirmed what every non hack economist has said all along. So let's not pretend that this is some shocking turn of events. Trump campaigned on tariffs and he's governing by tariffs. His worldview, I guess implicitly, is that trade is bad, allies are suspicious, or we should be suspicious of our allies, and the only way to win is to isolate the United States and punish everybody economically, including ourselves. This is not an accident. This is the design. And so we need to see this moment as particularly galling because Trump supporters are the people who are going to get hit the hardest. Inflation and job loss are not these abstract concepts where if you're not in the political milieu and paying attention, it doesn't affect you. This means less money in people's pockets, fewer hours at work, higher costs at the store, and it's rural and working class Americans, the ones that MAGA constantly claims that they fight for and that they defend, who are going to feel the pain first. Now I'm going to introduce an economic concept I've talked about before. It's called marginal propensity to consume. It is a very basic economic idea which essentially says the less money you have, the more of it you spend just to get by. If you don't have a lot of money and I give you $100, you weren't expecting most of that hundred will likely go to necessary expenses. On the other hand, if you have a lot of money and I give you an extra $100, it is not likely that that hundred dollars goes to necessary expenses because you have a surplus. So when prices rise because of tariffs, lower income households instantly feel the pain because they have a margin, a high marginal propensity to consume. Every dollar that they have is necessary and relevant just for making ends meet. They have to keep spending, but now everything costs more. Meanwhile, wealthier people who save more of their income can absorb the price hikes more easily. They can absorb it more easily because they have more disposable income. They can absorb it more easily because they're not living on the edge. And they can just choose not to spend if on some of those discretionary spending items. So Trump's tariffs don't just raise costs across the board. They're like a regressive tax. They disproportionately punish people with the least room to maneuver. And somehow they're still being sold the lie that this is all going to be good for them and the tariffs make us strong, that they're a patriotic move. But the reality is they're inflation bombs. And the Fed chairman, Jerome Powell, is now saying it, and he is saying that it is Trump that has lit the fuse on that bomb. Now, one more thing. Just imagine if Joe Biden had done something that every economist said, this is going to spike inflation. This is going to increase unemployment. It would be DEFCON 1 on Fox News. Congress would be hauling everybody in for hearings. But when Trump does it, it's silence or even celebration. This is not economic nationalism. This is bad for Americans. And we are starting to see it. Now, if Trump backs off of the trade stuff, a lot of the. Of the tariff stuff, a lot of the damage can be undone. But we're getting closer and closer to at least elements of that being irreversible. All right, let's talk about what has to be one of the most humiliating moments for any nominee of a president in recent memory. Donald Trump just rug pulled. Pulled the rug right out from his own nominee to be Surgeon General, Jeanette Nishawat, after already announcing her. Announcing that he will be replacing her with the ultra online conspiracy theory alternative Casey Means. And the official announcement tries to make it sound like this is a smooth transition. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Looks forward to working with Dr. Nishawat in some other capacity. Let's not kid ourselves. This is a loyalty purge. The number one currency for Trump is loyalty. And this was triggered by influence from right wing influencers, for lack of a better term. And it has been rubber stamped by Trump himself. So here is the critical thing to understand. Dr. Jeanette Nishawat was a terrible choice for Surgeon General to begin with. When she was nominated, we covered it. It's just another Fox News pick. But what we are now learning is that Laura Loomer, the far right conspiracy theorist and sort of one woman rage engine, demanded that Trump dump Nishawat for two reasons. Number one, at least originally, Jeanette Nishawat supported Covid vaccines in public, on tv. How dare she? And number two, because she's related by marriage to Mike Waltz. Florida Republican Congressman Mike Waltz, who had the audacity to criticize Trump after January 6th. That's really it. And what we have here is the loyalty purge to kind of end all loyalty purges. And now Mike Waltz, of course, has been pushed out. He's supposedly going to be ambassador. It's all a complete and total shakeup. But this is not about qualifications. This is not about fitness for the job. This is blood feuds and vaccine loyalty tests. Now, here's how Trump announced the change he wrote on Truth Central. Quote, I am pleased to announce that Dr. Casey Means will be nominated as our next Surgeon General of the United States of America. Casey has impeccable MAHA credentials. That's make America healthy again and and will work closely with our Wonderful Secretary of HHS, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. To ensure a successful implementation of our capital A agenda in order to reverse the chronic disease epidemic and ensure great health in the future for all Americans. Her academic achievements together with her life's work are absolutely outstanding. Dr. Casey Means has the potential to be one of the finest surgeon generals in U.S. history. Congratulations to Casey. Secretary Kennedy looks forward to working with Dr. Jeanette Nishawat in another capacity. Thank you for your attention to this matter. So let's not forget why Laura Loomer went ballistic. Nishawat once praised Facebook for removing anti vax content and said that at the time she hopes other platforms follow suit. That's it. In Trump World 2.0, if you support basic public health measures, you're disqualified. You can't even be Surgeon General if you think Covid vaccines were a good thing. Here's video from way Back when of Jeanette Nishawat on the former show Fox Business Mornings with Maria. Listen to this.
- [12:02]
Jeanette Nishawat
First of all, vaccines save lives. And I am so excited and I thank and I commend Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg for taking action because, because this affects everyone. This affects our children. It affects adults. Just look at the recent measles outbreak, the biggest outbreak that we've had in decades with measles. And that's no joke. Measles can cause brain inflammation and pneumonia and ear infections and hearing loss and death. So it's about time that they are taking action. And I hope and pray that other social media platforms will follow suit and do the same thing.
- [12:34]
David Pakman
That is the old Jeanette Nishawat. More recently, she's fallen in line much more with the sort of anti science agenda of the Trump administration. But it doesn't matter. She's out. And Kasey Means, who has this biohacking startup pushing wearable glucose monitors to people who have no medical reason to be wearing them. Sort of like a Silicon Valley wellness meets anti establishment medicine kind of startup. She, Dr. Casey means is now going to be handed one of the top public health positions in the country. This is not about health. This is not about policy. This is happening to appease an unhinged base that sees any support for vaccines or public health infrastructure as treason. And Trump, as always, is happy to throw competent people under the bus to feed that narrative. So Laura Loomer gets what she wants. Dr. Jeanette Nishawat is pushed out, a sort of wellness guru, conspiracy theorist type will likely become the surgeon general. And loyalty continues to be the most pathetic and salient currency for this administration. This is all going very much in the wrong direction. We're going to have Dr. Zachary Rubin on, who is a big content creator online who's been following all of the specific reasons why these changes are bad for you. You know, we hear vaguely FDA reducing some type of testing. Okay, I mean, does that affect me or doesn't it affect me? Dr. Rubin, on TikTok and on Instagram and on other platforms is connecting that to what this means when you buy milk at the grocery store, for example. He's going to join us soon. And it's much worse. It's much worse than I believed. And it stands to reason that it's much worse than a lot of people believe. So that'll be coming up. Let's take a quick break. Make sure that you're subscribed to the YouTube channel, YouTube.com/the David Pakman Show. It's free. We're heading towards 3.5 million subscribers and we'll be back right after this. 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We also do an extra show every single day called the Bonus show, which you can get instantly when you sign up@join pacman.com it's just a few bucks a month, but we do have a discount code which is it will end soon. All one word, all lowercase. It will end soon. It'll save you about 50%. And I want to welcome the 144 new members in the last couple of weeks. Really appreciate all of you. All right, major, major news out of North Carolina. We've been following this one. It took six months and thousands of lawsuits, a Trump appointed judge, and more than 68,000 voters being nearly disenfranchised. But we can say that it is finally over. Republican Jefferson Griffin has finally conceded in the North Carolina Supreme Court race to Democrat Alison Riggs, who was on this show recently. She is officially the winner. Now, let's be extraordinarily clear about what happened. This was not like a close call disagreement about a handful of ballots. This was an attempted election theft. And they dressed it up with the language of election integrity, which is now just the standard operating procedure for the Republican Party. Jefferson Griffin lost. He lost fair and square by 734 votes. And they did two recounts. They did a partial hand recount. It was clear he lost the race. But instead of conceding like a big boy, he and the North Carolina Republican Party launched this bogus, scorched earth legal assault on more than 65,000 ballots in that race. They targeted overseas voters, they targeted military voters, they targeted people missing paperwork that never disqualified them under the law. They just said, well, they're missing certain paperwork. Well, that's not required under the law. Doesn't matter. Griffin lost at every stage. And ultimately Griffin lost in front of Trump appointed federal Judge Richard Meyers. Who had the guts? Does it really take guts? Who had the guts, I guess, to tell them that you establish the rules before the game, you can't change them after the game is done? And that's exactly what they were trying to do. We spoke to Judge Riggs about this, and what became clear was that after the election, they wanted to apply retroactively rules and regulations with regard to voting that were not in the law at the time of the election, you can't do that. This is one of the greater principles of justice. And. And Griffin dragged this on for months and months and months. So it's great that Judge Riggs won. Obviously, that's the practical victory here. But this all is part of the Republican playbook, and it's been increasingly overtly their playbook now for many years. You lose an election, that's the trigger. If you win, obviously it was totally fair. There's no reason to look into anything. Step one is you lose an election. Number two, no matter the results, no matter how absurd, you challenge those results in court and you hope to get a MAGA friendly judge to overturn it, or at the very least, to undermine public faith in the result. Tie things up long enough that a Republican will temporarily hold the seat or gum up the work so badly that voters start believing elections are fake anyway. And there's no downside, there's no shame, there's no voter backslash backlash, there's no financial penalties. Best case scenario, you overturn an election. Worst case scenario, there's no downside. And maybe you convince some people to question the election results the next time. That's how it works. And Judge Riggs said it really well in a statement where she said, quote, after millions of dollars spent more than 68,000 voters at risk of losing their votes, I'm glad the will of the voters was finally heard. Six months and two days after Election Day. So now that Griffin has finally conceded, the State Board of Elections is going to certify the results. But Republicans have one more stunt. They have one more little, you know, a piece of coal in their pockets that they're going to throw at the whole thing, which is that they took over the board and within hours of the concession, fired the executive director and replaced her with a Republican loyalist. They lost the election. They lost in court. But their last salvo, their last shot across the bow, is they took control of the board that oversees elections. And people still say, we have problems on both sides. This is one of those situations where the problem is Republicans. Let's. Let's not lose sight of the most important detail here either. They tried to throw out 68,000 ballots. That's really the headline. These were not fraudulent voters. These were not votes with meaningful problems. The Republican case boiled down to, we don't like these voters. People without a driver's license on file, not a requirement under the law, overseas voters without a photocopied id, not a requirement under the law. People missing bureaucratic details that don't invalidate a vote in North Carolina. So it was pure, unabashed, brazen disenfranchisement. No actual fraud, no evidence of fraud. Just a desperate, cynical attempt to shrink the electorate after losing a race in, in their favor so that they could disqualify at least 734 more Democratic votes than Republicans, which would have flipped the race back to Griffin. Disgusting. So now we got, you know, six months of absurd billionaire lawsuit, Billionaire funded lawsuits, and Jefferson Griffin finally says, I concede. We shouldn't see it as a concession. He got, he got caught and he gave up. That's how we should see it. You pulled the plug because the heist went wrong. You're not admitting that you never should have been trying to rob the bank in the first place. You just weren't able to rob it. And then you go, oh, yeah, we're not robbing the bank anymore. So this was about power. And we know that they're going to try to do it again the next time they have the opportunity. This is how they operate now. They've done it for so long, they've started probably, I mean, I don't want to understate it, but. But at least 13 years ago, in 2012, they started developing this strategy. They've now attempted it numerous times. Another disgraceful assault on democracy. And it's a Test run for 2026. It's a Test run for 2028. And we really need to treat these legal assaults as what they are, which is soft coup attempts. If we don't take this seriously, it's plausible that at some point they will succeed. Trump didn't succeed in 2020. Great. Trump won in 2024. So he didn't try it. Jefferson Griffin didn't succeed here. But if we don't treat these as the legal assaults that they are and see them as soft coups and wrapping paper, it's only going to get worse. President Donald Trump just praised the bravery, bravery of the Houthis, a militant group that has killed American soldiers and is launching drone and missile attacks on American ships in the Red Sea. This guy is not well and he seems disoriented and he seems confused. Listen to this. And just imagine, imagine if Joe Biden or, I don't know, even Barack Obama, Obama had ever praised a terrorist group. Listen to this.
- [26:15]
Donald Trump
We had a very good outcome with the Houthis and we honor their word. I mean, they made a commitment and we dealt with other Countries that were close to them and their surrogates, and we honor all of their words and we'll see what happens. But I think, you know, I believe that hopefully that's over with and they'll leave the ships alone. You know, just leave the, those ships alone. But so we do we take their word for it. It was, you know, we hit them very hard. They had a great capacity to withstand punishment. They took tremendous punishment. And, you know, you could say there's a lot of bravery there, that it, I, it was amazing what, what they took. But we honor their commitment and their word. They gave us their word that they wouldn't be shooting ships anymore.
- [27:05]
David Pakman
And that is the President of the United States. As much as I hate to admit it, he is the president in 2025 calling a US designated terrorist group one that openly chants death to America brave. The Houthis aren't some ragtag rebel group, okay? They're attacking commercial shipping. They're targeting US Military assets. They're escalating a regional conflict. Just three months ago, they were responsible for a drone strike that killed service members. And Trump's takeaway is that they are impressively brave for standing their ground. This is not strength. This is derangement. The same man who says he will bring peace through strength is romanticizing violent extremists because they appear defiant, because they seem in some way unafraid. And this is the longstanding pattern from Donald Trump. He admires force no matter who wields it or no matter what it's in service of. So yesterday it was the Houthis. More recently it was Putin. Kim Jong Un with the love letters during the first term. If you fly reflects power, Trump melts. And it's part of a disturbing years long pattern where Trump has always shown deference to authoritarian strongmen. He's called Putin a genius. He says so many great things about Kim Jong Un and how strongly he rules. He's praised Xi Jinping for ruling with absolute power. He even. I had to double check this one because I was wondering if I was remembering it incorrectly. He talked about how efficiently Saddam Hussein ruled over the Iraqi people. So Trump doesn't care if you're a tyrant or a thug or a terrorist, if you look like you're in charge, if you're willing to use force, if you demand complete and total loyalty, which is Trump's favorite currency. Trump just swoons he's in love. Now, as sitting president, he's applying the same warped admiration to the Houthis, which is a group actively trying to kill American personnel. It's not just embarrassing, it's a national security risk. And just imagine the alternate timeline if any other president. If Biden or Obama praised the Houthis as brave after they killed American troops, the right would be storming the gates. They've stormed the gates before. Congress would be in an emergency session. Fox News would have terrorist in chief written along the bottom of the screen 24 7. But it's Trump, so they say nothing. It's just silence. We have a president openly applauding American adversaries while they are attacking us. And so this goes beyond unhinged rhetoric. It undermines the troops. It demoralizes allies, it emboldens enemies. It's a pure and simple betrayal. This guy's not fit to lead. Fill in the blanks, let alone be the commander in chief. And silence from the right wing media. Pathetic. I love exploring new countries. If you follow me on Instagram, you see me in Italy or France or Denmark, Spain. 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Get up to 60% off your babel subscription, but only for my audience@babel.com Pacman rules and restrictions may apply. Get up to 60% off at babel.com/pacman spelled b a b b e l.com/pacman rules and restrictions may apply. The link is in the podcast notes. We've covered on the show extensively how more and more people are stepping away from organized religion. For some it's just the realization I don't have to participate in that. And all of a sudden we have seen a serious shift. But not everybody is okay with that shift. Christian nationalism is on the rise they are working overtime to put their beliefs into the law, into our schools, even into our personal lives. It's sort of like, hey, I respect your right to believe whatever you want, but just don't make me live by it. And that is where the Freedom from From Religion foundation comes in. Our sponsor, the Freedom From Religion foundation, fights to keep church and state separate. This is what the founders intended. So whether you've always been secular or you've left religion behind, or you have beliefs that you don't think should be part of our government, FFRF has your back. Join the David Pakman show in helping FFRF go to ffrf.us/freedom or text David to 5115-11 and become a member today. That's ffrf.us/freedom, or text David to 511511 to join the Freedom From Religion Foundation. The info is in the podcast notes text fees may apply. Today we're going to be speaking to Maurice Vinton, a former U.S. digital Service employee and Doge staffer. Maurice, so great to have you on. Just to start somewhere and give the audience a little context. Pre Doge when you worked at the U.S. digital Service Department, what sort of work were you were you doing there and what sort of efficiencies were kind of within your purview to try to find?
- [33:55]
Maurice Vinton
The US digital service was founded after the healthcare.gov collapse and it's effectively what they wanted to do was to bring all of this great technical talent into government to help build more efficient and more effective services. The projects ranged on a whole spectrum of things. Some of the earliest projects were making it easier for veterans to get their services. That's actually something that the U.S. digital Service Team was still working on when I left to doing a lot of support during coronavirus and providing supporting the CDC a wide range of things, helping people get their benefits more effectively, doing a lot of a lot with CMS and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and you know, making it easier for people to get access to Medicaid and you know, make it easier for even providers to, to have a more efficient and effective process. So there was a whole range of work including helping State Department with online passport renewals. That was our model. We get dropped into different agencies or effectively on loan to help them with their most high profile, high priority projects. I was really lucky enough in my four years at the US Digital Service to support child tax credit expansion and then the IRS free tax filing product called Direct File.
- [35:22]
David Pakman
So in comes Doge Trump's inaugurated Doge is created. How does DOGE first make its presence known in your day to day work?
- [35:33]
Maurice Vinton
So we didn't know that USDS was going to turn into the US DOGE service. And that evening. So as the evening of inauguration, we got invitations to meet our new DOGE colleagues. We were told that, you know, everyone is really excited to meet us. And so the next day, the first day of the administration, all USDS employees were brought in for 15 minute interviews with Doge. And that was our first acknowledgement that, oh, okay, so this is our first set of interactions. Beyond that, there wasn't a lot of involvement in the work. And actually that kind of remained true for the majority of the. So that was January, I left in March. The majority of the time there was not a lot of engagement, although it did pick it up around mid February when Amy Gleason stepped in as the acting administrator of doge. That's kind of when, you know, priorities became clear and the, the things that they wanted us to work on and.
- [36:30]
David Pakman
What were those things and kind of how, how, what sort of impact did that have on your day to day?
- [36:37]
Maurice Vinton
So the way that I think about this actually is it's, it's almost like there's different doges, almost like different cells. So the US Digital Service, doge, a lot of the work is roughly the same, just with more engineers and fewer designers because they fired a lot of our designers. So that, you know, people were still working on stuff with the State Department on passport renewals and things like that. There was still a direct file team working on IRS projects. Just again, the makeup of that team had changed because DOGE wanted it to be more engineers and they fired a bunch of people on Valentine's Day. But then there's the, probably the more public facing doge, which is, you know, the individuals that go ransack federal agencies. And there were no, there was no kind of overlap of former USDS into DOGE colleagues that went and joined those efforts. It was, it was almost two separate efforts.
- [37:36]
David Pakman
When this started, was there a time where you thought, oh, this genuinely does seem like a good faith effort to make government more efficient, more. More efficient to find and root out inefficiencies. Was there some honeymoon period where you thought, you know, I think back to the Office Space movie where the consultants come in and there's this brief moment where it's like, maybe these consultants are going to be great for the employees here before you learn that they're there to find people to lay off. Was there some honeymoon moment?
- [38:12]
Maurice Vinton
So after the election, I was cautiously optimistic and I wanted to believe that there was this whole group of people that really wanted to make government work better. And I was really excited about that. I was excited and open minded about it. For example, I had heard during the transition that there were DOGE employees at the Bureau of Fiscal Services and they were looking at the payment systems and I was like, oh, that's cool. Because people like me when, you know, old USDs, we would be coming in to make those payment systems, get your tax refund more, you know, more seamlessly and quicker or fundamentally taking a billion dollar Medicaid payment from Medicaid to New York State and how can we make that more effective? How can we make that more seamless on both ends? That's what I thought. So I was, I was interested and intrigued and then very. There was no honeymoon after, you know, after the inauguration because it became very clear that actually what DOGE wanted to do was to use, using the payment system as an example was to use it to enforce like an ideological belief effectively to say, okay, I don't feel like I'm going to pay this. I don't really like what it is versus actually it's congressionally mandated and you have to pay it. And that's, that was a very different tactic than what I thought. Like if, you know, what people like me would have done is to make it more effective. And instead they come in to say, no, we're just not going to, we're going to pick and choose which bills we pay. That's an example to me of just there was no honeymoon. Because that was immediately clear after the inauguration when they started turning off payments.
- [40:00]
David Pakman
Was this stuff happening with any kind of conversation in the sense of someone would say, hey, we're not going to pay this. And then somebody like you who was a preexisting staffer says, oh, we have to like, did those conversations happen or was it basically they got control of systems and completely independent of consultation with, with folks like you, they just made these decisions.
- [40:26]
Maurice Vinton
So those conversations did happen, but they were with, you know, cabinets. So the acting Secretary of Treasury actually was the individual having those conversations. And so that's, so it wasn't, you know, necessarily people like me from the US Digital Service, but it was people who were responsible for that entire department, the Bureau of Fiscal Services and the Treasury Department. And those were the individuals that were saying, actually that's not how this works. You know, our payments, we are effectively, we effectively just process them, we passed them on and to explain that. And then so now it wasn't people like me, but it was more, it was more, you know, the officials that were there who understood the policy in great detail.
- [41:11]
David Pakman
We've heard these stories about DOGE staffers being 20 year old, like online bros. And Fox News even did a thing where they sat down at a table with Elon Musk and a few of them and yeah, they seem like, you know, 22, 23 year old online bros. But that doesn't necessarily mean that was the case in every situation. Did that match your experience in terms of the people that came in?
- [41:34]
Maurice Vinton
Yeah, and it's not so much about age actually, it's about experience and intent. So that there they were pretty young. But really it was more that, you know, when you run an 11 person startup, that's a very different scale than running the IRS IT team, which has 8,000 employees within an organization of 100,000 employees. It's now a lot smaller, unfortunately, but that's a different scale. So it's less about age and more about when you roll out something to maybe a couple hundred users, you don't need a backup plan because no one really uses it. Whereas with the IRS or Social Security you actually need backup plans. It's actually at a scale that is hard for most people to get their heads around because it is so significant. And it's not just the size, right? It's not just the hundreds of millions of people that interact with these government agencies. It's also the necessity. People rely on their tax refunds. For a lot of families, that's their biggest check they get every year is their tax refund for Social Security. You know, people rely on that monthly and you need to have a backup plan. And so it was, it was less about the age and more just. We're talking about two completely different scales, complexity and experience. And the people that I worked with definitely did not have that.
- [43:03]
David Pakman
What was the situation in terms of layoff within your specific group? I mean, did your team and immediately department get downsized quickly?
- [43:15]
Maurice Vinton
So on Valentine's Day, Doge laid off immediately fired 43 USDS employees. And that was without warning or any. We were one of the first teams to go through that kind of cut outside of USAID and some of the other larger stories. And primarily, you know, we had, we know since it was coming, it was 8 o' clock on a Friday night, a lot of people didn't have their work phones on them, immediately cut off from systems. It was really chaotic, it was really sad. You know, it was a holiday weekend. People are spending time with their families. And yet here you are scrambling to find out if you still have a job. And so that's. That's kind of how it worked at usds. I was on detail to the irs, and it was significant. The initial layoffs were the probationary employees, 7,000 employees. And these are people who live all over the country, right. So not just here in D.C. there was like 250 people in Kentucky, 300 in Utah. So all over the country were laid off. And those probationary employees are, you know, you're. A lot of them are technical because we were bringing them on. A lot of them, you know, you're. Were getting promoted into new positions. And so that was that. That's what I. What was happening when I left. And it was just devastating. You know, the individuals that had to go through that on both ends, that had to, you know, talk, let go of their teammates, and then the people that it happened to was absolutely devastating. And morale was just incredible. Remains incredibly low.
- [44:54]
David Pakman
You're, of course, no longer working there. Can you talk about your kind of departure? Did you leave voluntarily? Was your job ultimately, ultimately cut?
- [45:01]
Maurice Vinton
I did leave voluntarily. So I decided to stay after, you know, kind of all this tumult, because I really wanted to make a case for the Direct File project and product. We were in the middle of filing season and tax filing season, and thousands of people were in, you know, were using Direct File and loving it. So it was available in 25 states this year. So it was kind of in its second year, still in its infancy. And the feedback that we were getting from people was amazing. It was going really well. And so I wanted to make that case also. So there's the users, right, the people that loved it. But then internally, directval was built by effectively a startup team within government. So the kind of skills that we thought Doge would want and want to bring to the table and want more of, that's what we thought we were. So we thought we had a chance. And so really kind of explain that there's all these benefits to this team, not only the taxpayers, but also to the irs, as part of any modernization effort or any technical effort that they wanted to do moving forward. And it became very clear, actually, you know, early March, that they wanted to kill Direct File. That was a recommendation that was made to Secretary Besant. And we didn't tell anybody about that because we. We wanted to not disturb our filers as they were literally in the middle of filing their. Their taxes.
- [46:26]
David Pakman
Right.
- [46:27]
Maurice Vinton
But once I realized that, that there was no Kind of convincing or trying to highlight all the different benefits. That's. That was the primary reason I left.
- [46:37]
David Pakman
For people who don't know about Direct File, I've talked before about how this exists and a lot of people don't, don't seem to know about it. I believe it's income limited. Right. If your income is under remind us what it is you actually don't have to pay, pay anyone to file your federal taxes. It can be done by law. You can do that for free.
- [46:57]
Maurice Vinton
Exactly. So there's two different programs within the irs. Direct File is a free file directly with the irs. It is designed with users so really easy to use. All the words are super straightforward and cleared by IRS council. So it's highly accurate. It's a great product. And it's not so much an income limit. I think it is it. There was one this year. Maybe I forget what it was, so I don't want to say the wrong amount, but it was actually more about your tax complexity. So if you have a rental house and, you know, a second house, it's probably not the right product for you. So it was based on your tax complexity and not just an income number. There were. It's because it was just in a second year. So we wanted to have a slow rollout to make sure. Is this a thing that people want and is it going to work? We didn't want another healthcare.gov approach, you know, on our hands. And so last year was a pilot year. It was 12 states and this year is 25 states. It was a bummer. You know, there was just last year there was a lot of comms, a lot of partnership with the Treasury Department and the White House. And this year neither organization talked about it at all. So a lot of people didn't even know it existed. And that confusion kind of tracked through filing season. But the people that used it loved it. I was getting texts from, you know, people are like, my kid did this in 10 minutes. It takes the average person nine hours to file their taxes.
- [48:20]
David Pakman
Right.
- [48:21]
Maurice Vinton
So it was, it was a huge success.
- [48:23]
David Pakman
It seems that I'm looking at some of the requirements if you have income from example for LLC or partnerships where you get like a K1, you wouldn't be able to use it. It is less about income. There are some extra restrictions if your income is over 125,000. But it's very clearly laid out on the direct file.irs.gov website so people can check that out. We've been speaking with Marici Vinton, former U.S. digital Service and Doge Staffer. Thanks so much for your insights and kind of giving us a sense of what was happening there behind the scenes.
- [48:59]
Maurice Vinton
You're welcome. It's great to great to connect. Thanks so much guys.
- [49:04]
David Pakman
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- [51:03]
Kristi Noem
Well, thank you, Mr. President. Thank you so much for dreaming big dreams and doing unprecedented things. Your entire life you have stood for doing things that other people thought they couldn't do and accomplishing unprecedented events and achievements. And so this is one of those events that I think is going to be remarkable and will stand the test of time. And as the world's greatest sporting event ever held and conducted, you are honoring us by agreeing to be the chairman of this event.
- [51:31]
David Pakman
What an honor for Trump to Be the chairman. All right, so that's like an eight and a half, I think, you know, she, she could have used the literal words of treating Trump like a deity and said that he is the son of God or something like that. She couldn't really do much more than what she did. Okay, so Kristi Noem is at like an eight and a half. Next, we go to J.D. vance. Here is J.D. vance trying to suck up to Trump by joking about deporting tourists who come to watch the World cup and then don't leave, which is not exactly going to make the United States seem welcoming, but. Okay, here is J.D. vance. I know we'll have visitors probably from close to 100 countries. We want them to come, we want them to celebrate, we want them to watch the game. But when the time is up, they'll have to go home. Otherwise they'll have to talk to Secretary Noem, who I'll turn it over to now. So Trump likes it. It's really only about a 5 or a 6 out of 10 in terms of sucking up. JD does his best to please Trump, but he doesn't directly praise him necessarily. But he does tell this little joke about the deportation of visitors for the World cup who don't leave. You know, I can imagine being a potential tourist hearing that and thinking, that is not where I want to spend my money. But ok, so JD Vance, like a five or six. Kristi Noem sucking up at like an eight and a half or a nine. We next go to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy kissing Trump's ass. Remember that airports and air traffic control as are as chaotic as they've been in, I would argue, as long as I've been covering American politics, and he is there sucking up to Trump. Let's see how badly duffy sucks up.
- [53:25]
Sean Duffy
11 US cities, 78 games in the US and I think you said it's just like 78 Super Bowls next summer in the US so this is massive. Mr. President, thank you for putting together the task force. You know that great events don't happen unless you have great planning and start.
- [53:43]
David Pakman
Yeah, the World cup, which has happened every four years for a really long time, it would be nothing were it not for Trump in 2026 in well.
- [53:53]
Sean Duffy
Over a year in advance, putting your team together to make sure this event goes off without a hitch. I thank you for that.
- [54:00]
David Pakman
So I would say this is like a seven and a half on the suck up scale. It doesn't quite have the absurdity of the Kristi Noem clip, but Duffy is putting in the Work and anything to take attention away from the chaos at Newark Airport, by the way, which we'll be talking about on the bonus show today. So Duffy sucking up at like a seven and a half out of ten. And then finally, here is Andrew Giuliani, which this, this is the son of Rudy Giuliani, you might be saying. What qualifications does he have to serve on a committee, on a board, on a task force for the FIFA World Cup? He doesn't, he's just loyalty. Loyalty is the currency. Here is Andrew Giuliani. Andrew Giuliani and our executive director, Andrew.
- [54:44]
Donald Trump
Giuliani just got the post and he's going to be great. I know him for a long time. He's a, he's a highly competitive golfer, which, I mean really good. And he's also a highly competitive person and he loves what we're doing. So I wanted to king congratulate you and your family and your father, your great father, who's the greatest mayor in the history of New York. So I want to congratulate the family. It's a big, it's a big post. You better do well, Andrew, tell him. Is my golf game okay too?
- [55:14]
David Pakman
Fantastic.
- [55:15]
Donald Trump
You know what to say.
- [55:17]
David Pakman
All right, so Andrew Giuliani able only to squeeze in effusive praise for Donald Trump's golf game. It's a fantastic golf game. It's completely pathetic and apropos of nothing, but it probably is like a six and a half on the suck up scale. So to me, the winner here clearly is Kristi Noem. And Kristi Noem is, you know, there might be some relationship between how unqualified are you for the job and how aggressively do you suck up to Trump? No, these, all these people are unqualified, don't get me wrong. But Noem is particularly unqualified and maybe that's why the sucking up is even more aggressive. Who do you think won? I give it to Kristi Noem. Let me know what you think. The new economic message from the MAGA Republican Party is here and it is a little girl crying because she gets fewer dolls. And it's just tough luck. According to Donald Trump's a Treasury secretary, Scott Besant, it's a good thing the promise of cheaper goods and economic abundance is gone. And the new MO is get used to less and like it because you're sacrificing for your country. You know, before we play the clip, I think it's important to remember that for decades the Republican ideology was more stuff for less money, even crap. We don't need tchotchkes from China, right? More stuff for less money. But now it's, we're going to have fewer things and they're going to cost a little more. But little girls didn't need all those dolls anyway. As Donald Trump said, this contradicts the entire Republican ideology. So let's start with this surreal moment from Trump's Treasury Secretary, Scott Besant. Besant says if little girls are sad about having fewer dolls, it should be explained to them. We are sacrificing for the future. Everybody will get a better life thanks to you having fewer dolls. Listen to this.
- [57:27]
Scott Besant
The other thing too is this reporter behind me was quite snarky the other day when President Trump talked about the girl having two dolls. And he said, well, what president didn't take the question, but he said, what would you tell that girl? I said, I would tell that young girl that you will have a better life than your parents, that you and your family, thanks to President Trump, can now be confident again that you will have a better life than your parents. Which working class Americans had abandoned that idea. Your family will own a home. You will be able to advance. You will have a good education. You will have economic freedom. Freedom. That's what we are advancing.
- [58:08]
David Pakman
This is not a parody, okay? This is not satire. This is a defense of policies that are going to reduce the availability of consumer goods. They're going to drive up prices and they're going to shrink choices. This is the opposite of what Trump and Republicans have run on for how long? I mean, Trump for 10 years and Republicans for decades. And what they're telling Americans is smile through the pain. Just keep smiling. And it's a total and complete reversal of what they told us that they stood for. Remember, we're going to win so much. Everything will be cheaper. You're going to get tired of winning. We're going to have so much of everything. No empty shelves now. It's, you're going to get less. The shelves may empty and you should be thankful. You should say, thank you, sir. May I have another? And the new framing of sacrifice is basically the rich people, the billionaires and the almost billionaires have decided it's really worth it for you to sacrifice. Not them. It's worth it for you to sacrifice. Now, the statement that Besant was referring to Trump's made it a few times. But here is Trump in that recent interview with NBC News is Kristen Welker, where he talked about the doll, said.
- [59:19]
Kristen Welker
This week got a lot of attention. You were at your cabinet meeting. You Said, quote, I'm going to quote what you said. You maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls.
- [59:28]
Donald Trump
Yeah.
- [59:28]
Kristen Welker
And maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally. Are you saying that your tariffs will cause some prices to go up?
- [59:37]
Donald Trump
No, I think the tariffs are going to be great for us because it's going to make us rich.
- [59:40]
Kristen Welker
But you said some dolls are going to cost more. Isn't that an acknowledgement that some prices will go up?
- [59:45]
Donald Trump
I don't think a beautiful baby girl needs, that's 11 years old. Needs to have.
- [59:51]
David Pakman
Is an 11 year old a baby? But anyway, that's not the main issue.
- [59:55]
Donald Trump
$30, I think they can have $3 or $4 because what we were doing with China was just unbelievable. We had a trade deficit of hundreds of billions of dollars with China.
- [60:07]
David Pakman
Trump is proposing a deliberate reduction in living standards. By their own metrics. He's openly advocating for higher prices and less access to goods. And, and he frames it as patriotism. An 11 year old baby girl. An 11 year old baby girl Trump says doesn't need so many dolls. Now I am the first to say we should challenge unbridled consumerism and all the cheap crap and you know, I'm with you on that. But this is the opposite of what Republicans have claimed to believe and it's the opposite of what Donald Trump promised his followers. The entire ideology is market capitalism, supply side economics. More is better, more goods, more choice, lower prices, rising consumption. Why does the government get to tell you how many dolls you need? Why is it the President who says we're now a nanny state? I will decide how many dolls an 11 year old baby girl gets to have. It's a weird authoritarian austerity. Less stuff, more sacrifice imposed from the top down, sold to the public with a weird mix of economic nationalism and culture war rhetoric. And what's the justification? Supposedly it's to punish China with higher tariffs. But who pays the tariffs? You do. It's a tax on American consumers. It's been proven again and again. We learned it with the farmers during Donald Trump's first term who had to be bailed out. So let's call it what it really is, Economic gaslighting. First they promise you prosperity and abundance, now they promise you pain and scarcity and tell you that it's noble. So if you're 11, who else here has an 11 year old baby girl? When your 11 year old baby girl cries because there's only two dolls available and they cost more, remember that this is part of Trump's vision for a greater and better America. Does anyone believe this crap? I think at least millions, if not tens of millions of mega potamians do seem to be falling for it. Now on the bonus show today, we're going to be talking about rising tensions with India and Pakistan. We are going to talk about the chaos at Newark Airport, what is going on there. And major concerns are growing about Senator John Fetterman. I read an extraordinarily disturbing article about him over the weekend and how allegedly disconnected from reality he is. In a medical sense, if even 10% of the allegations are true, it's very bad. Very, very bad. So we're going to talk about all of that and more on the bonus show. Please remember to get on my newsletter Substack newsletter. Yesterday I went live with Aaron Rupar. We had a great nearly hour long discussion about the state of independent media. We're going to be publishing it to the Substack. You can find it@david pakman.substack.com or you can email me info@david pakman.com and say, David, get me on that newsletter. You'll get all of the stuff. You'll be notified when I go live and all of it. We will see you on today's bonus show. And of course, I'll be back tomorrow with the Friday show. Why not.