← The David Pakman Show
The David Pakman Show
6/30/25: Fox sued, Trump betrayed, tax bill lies
01:05:05
-- On the Show: -- Andy Beshear, Democratic Governor of Kentucky, joins David to discuss the Republican spending proposal and Mitch McConnell's cruel remark that people will "get over" losing health care -- The "big beautiful bill" bill debate is...
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- [00:08]
David Pakman
Welcome to the show. What a weekend, a very busy weekend. If you have been watching the so called debate over the new Republican tax bill, I hope that you brought, you know, it's not even really a question of popcorn because it's quite frankly not actually entertaining because it could be such a disaster. What I want to focus in on today is that the debate that went on over the weekend, the debate that's going on today as we're kind of building towards some final vote as to whether this tax bill is going to pass, it is theater. And I want to tell you about all of the theater around the debate to really understand. You could call it a sham or a scam or both, I don't know. Now, I want to be clear in what I am saying and in what I'm not saying here. I don't mean that in this debate, Senators aren't, I don't know, advocating for what they believe in, for example, but in about five different ways, this entire thing is a scam and a sham. And it's important to understand this so that when you talk to people who, by the way, a lot of people aren't even paying attention to what's going on, even though this is going to affect, do their loved ones retain benefits that they are entitled to, benefits that for many people are the difference between I can have health care or I can't, I can have food for my family or I can't. So we need to be armed to tell people what's going on. The first scam is that at the top line the numbers are fake. They're just, the White House is pushing this and Republic, most Republicans are pushing this as a responsible, pro growth, fiscally conservative tax plan. There is no nonpartisan sign or analysis that says that that's what's going on. The Congressional Budget Office said this will add 3 trillion to the deficit over 10 years. And the administration, when confronted with the economic numbers, says our math is better. It includes imaginary growth projections that aren't dynamically scored. It includes wildly optimistic assumptions that are just not grounded in reality. So this is not a policy disagreement. This is not like, is it a good or a bad thing to restrict a program in this way? No, no, this is just, they're presenting numbers that are imaginary. And this is a completely fiscally irresponsible bill by their standards of fiscal responsibility. That's the scam, number one. The second scam with this bill is that the legislative process itself has been a sham. This was of course written behind closed doors. It was rammed through committee and you've simultaneously got these negotiations happening where we don't even really know the goal, we don't even really see the reasoning. It's just, here's the newest version of the bill and it's this thousand page bill dropped into Congress like a bomb where the debate is really just Republicans taking turns reading pre written talking points and Democrats being told hurry up and sit down. So that is not even really debate. It's like a play where the ending, I believe was written months ago and we'll see in a day or two whether that's the case. Now, as if that all weren't bad enough, then it gets really dishonest. If, if what I just told you doesn't strike you as really dishonest, then it gets to really dishonest. Republicans say there's no cuts to Medicaid benefits here. There's just, we're just adding paperwork requirements. But in the real world, the paperwork requirements are the cuts. Because what they do is they bury people in forms, deadlines and verifications. And then they turn around and they close offices at 3pm with a two month backlog for appointments to go in and submit all of that paperwork. So if you think that that's not a cut, if a single mom can't get her paperwork in on time because they've dumped in new requirements, restricted access hours at the offices and nobody picks up the phone, and so the single mom's benefits lapse. Technically the benefits haven't been taken at a qualification level. But you've buried this single mom in so much paperwork and bureaucracy that it is a cut. These are cuts hidden behind bureaucracy. And so when they say we didn't really reduce funding, they can repeat that all they want. But if the money doesn't reach the people who need it because of new requirements that they've put in, it's a cut. At the end of the day, it's a cut. That's scam number three. The fourth scam about this debate is that the bill supposedly helps primarily regular Americans. The vast majority of the benefits of this bill go to the top 1%. The middle class gets some crumbs, and sometimes they're temporary crumbs that expire while the rich get permanent cuts, special carve outs, new loopholes. So the idea that it's tax relief, you know, Republicans have come up with this great linguistic tool which is taxes are a burden and getting rid of them is relief. This is really a handout to donors wrapped in supposedly patriotic branding. So this really isn't A debate, A debate, if it's real, has two sides, with facts, accountability and consequences, but also with leverage. And what we have here is power. Republicans right now just steamrolling reality. So the math is bad. It's being done in bad faith. It's being done as part of bad governance. And if you're not one of the people that the bill was written for, and statistically you're probably not, it will almost certainly leave you worse off no matter how many times they say middle class tax cut on Fox News. So this is of critical importance for people to understand, to explain to others because so many people are not paying attention. And there is activism that is working. Okay. Over the weekend, I was in touch with so many different creators and Senate staffers and different people, and everybody is saying, what can we do? We need constituents to call the senators that are maybes. What about looking at, at the funders of some of these senators that are thinking, maybe I will, maybe I won't, and saying, hey, you'd better push the senator also to kill this bill. So the point is there's a lot being done, but too many people aren't even paying attention to the fact that this bill is being debated. Let's be informed so we know what to tell them. All right, so we have a Supreme Court, essentially, Donald Trump Supreme Court. Right, right. That dropped a ruling that could blow up half of the legal system. And unless Democrats wake up, they are going to completely miss an opportunity to turn this important Supreme Court ruling against Trump and against Trump's MAGA judges. So let me explain what happened. I'm going to try to do it as sort of clearly and sequentially as possible. The Supreme Court ruled that judges, lower court judges can't issue universal injunctions. What does that mean? What the Supreme Court has ruled if that if someone rule sues over a law, the judge can block it. The judge can only issue an injunction for the people in the lawsuit, not for the whole country. Okay. This does away with broad protections. And, and the point is they don't want one federal judge stopping a federal law nationally for everybody. Why don't they want that? The argument they're giving the Supreme Court is that power didn't exist at the founding of this country. Six Republican appointed justices decided that the 18th century should run the 21st century. But here's the part that nobody's talking about. This doesn't just block liberal judges from stopping right wing laws. It blows up the entire strategy of MAGA judges like Matthew Kaczmarek, the guy In Texas, who keeps issuing these nationwide orders, banning abortion pills, banning LGBTQ plus protections, banning climate rules. Okay, this is where David S. Cohen, who's a legal scholar and a reproductive rights expert, says there is a way for Democrats to use this ruling and to weaponize it against the worst of maga. Stop begging the court for permission. Use the ruling to take them down. And here is how. Based on this Supreme Court ruling, David Cohen argues the left can go back into kacmarix Court and go, listen, the Supreme Court just found you're not able to issue these nationwide injunctions. Every one of your rulings is now illegal and they need to be dissolved instantly. They only apply to the plaintiffs in the lawsuit. So you can pass aggressive gun laws, climate laws, health care protections. And a right wing judge goes, no, ok, the they go. The ruling applies only to plaintiffs. Right? That's what they're telling us now. But for everybody else, they want full enforcement. For their own rulings, they want full enforcement. But when conservatives go in and carve out a religious exemption so that they can discriminate and a judge goes, yes, this is okay. You can apply this new Supreme Court logic across the board. Liberal parents with religious beliefs opt your kids out of the abstinence only garbage, the propaganda videos, Ayn Rand worship, whatever. If Texas can block porn for kids, then California can block gun sites or what? The point is, either the injunctions apply federally or they don't. So I'll give you some specific examples. If a Trump appointed judge rules that mifepristone, this is known as the abortion pill, that it's illegal before, that ruling could block access nationwide to mifepristone under the Supreme Court ruling, that would only apply to the people who filed the lawsuit. If there's a lawsuit that goes, we got to ban mifepristone. And a judge goes, we're banning it now it's banned nationally. We say, no, it's only banned for those plaintiffs in that lawsuit. That's it. Doctors and clinics, everybody else can keep using it. This would mean a state like California or New York or Illinois could ignore those rulings entirely unless they were part of the case. Imagine that any of these things actually apply in the way that the Supreme Court said, it's complete and total chaos. But this is what David Cohen is suggesting. David Cohen is saying, if this is how the game is played, the court has given us an insane ruling, but it can cut both ways. If the law no longer applies equally, stop acting like it does. Stop the unilateral disarmament through these lower court decisions. And the emotional core of all of this is that the ruling is not about legal nuance. It's only about power. This is 6 of Supreme Court justices saying we run the country now and that's it. But that's less law and more monarchy. It's rule by decree. And if that's what they want. The idea here is that we on the left left can create an amount of chaos that will be absolutely crippling. Now, we didn't ask for this on the left. Right. We didn't. We didn't want this ruling. But if we don't fight on this new battlefield, civil rights could be in question, bodily autonomy is in question, climate protections, even democracy itself. So we have to explain why the ruling is a disaster. That's part of it. But what about dropping this chaos bomb and breaking their machine from the inside out with their own ruling? I think there's going to be more discussion of this upcoming Substack Lives Today, Tomorrow and the Next Day with Brian Tyler Cohen, Brett Meiselles from Midas Touch, Aaron Parness. Make sure you're subscribed to my substack to see those live discussions. We'll take a quick break. And much more is coming right up. You know, for weeks now, discussions have focused on Trump's big, beautiful bill and its potential Medicaid cuts. However, a far more dangerous overlooked provision in the bill exists. At Ground News slash Pacman, you'll discover what MAGA lawmakers quietly included a provision that could block federal judges from enforcing court orders unless a bond is posted. And if this passes, it could render Trump above the law. This is a critical detail. It's largely unknown and, and it really exemplifies this flood the zone strategy of the Trump administration. Now, this is why Ground News is essential. It really is the best way to uncover buried information by showing you not just the story, but its origins across the political spectrum. You can see bias ratings, credibility scores, coverage timelines. And their browser extension also will flag potential bias. When you're on a news site, sort of guiding you to more reliable sources for fact checking, Ground News gives you a smarter and more reliable way to stay informed. I'm partnering with them to give you 40% off their unlimited vantage plan, which makes it just $5 a month. Visit Ground Dot News slash Pacman, scan the QR code or use the code Pacman in the app to start the link is in the description. All right. If you're a busy professional or entrepreneur constantly jumping between meetings or a manager, this is for you. Our sponsor Plod is redefining how we capture and process conversations and honestly, it's one of the most impressive AI tools I've tried. Plod Note is a credit card sized AI gadget that sticks to the back of your phone. It'll record your calls and in person meetings, transcribe them automatically, summarize, and then even create visual mind maps so you can review the takeaways later without scrambling for notes. You can even talk to it and brainstorm ideas. Now if you prefer something even more discreet, the plaid Note pin is a thumb sized wearable version you can clip on when you're running from room to room. Same amazing AI, just more portable. Over 700000 people are already using Plod, including more than 20000 managers who rely on it to boost their productivity and collaboration. Plot has a special deal for my audience. You'll get 10% off any purchase when you go to David pakman.complod and use the code PACMAN. That's David pakman.com laud use code PACMAN for 10% off. The link is in the podcast notes. The David Pakman show is an audience supported program. You've really built this thing and it will only last for as long as you want it to. So consider grabbing a membership@join pacman.com I also want to tell you we have nearly 4,000 people on our membership waiting list. These are folks who want a membership but can't afford one. You can always donate a gifted membership and we will give it to the next person on the list. You can do that also@join pacman.com as you go through the signup process check the this is a gift box. We will then donate that gifted subscription. And if you would like a free subscription, do not email me. Every time I say this 10 people email me. The emails just get deleted. Listen carefully. Here it is. If you would like a free subscription go to David pakman.com/free membership and you input your email address. Okay so you can get yourself a membership. You can request a free membership. You can gift a membership to one of the nearly 4,000 people on our waiting list. Viktor Orban banned the Pride Parade. That was the headline in Hungary. What happened in reality is that a couple hundred thousand people showed up. Anyway. I like to imagine Orban, you know, sitting behind some polished desk muttering something about we've got to protect children. Cancel the Pride Parade. And don't it shouldn't even be legal to mention homosexuality around minors. And of course it's an old playbook, a borrowed playbook. It's copied from Putin. It's copied. But we've seen this playbook many times before. They want to scare people off. We're going to facial recognition. If you show up at the Pride Parade, jail time for organizers, threats from the Justice Minister and cameras on lamp posts watching people who dare to step out of line. But the streets of Hungary did not get the memo and instead they exploded. And by mid afternoon, Budapest looked like a Pride flag was just covering the entire city. There were signs and there were chants and people shoulder to shoulder. You had parents marching with kids, retirees next to Gen Z, locals and foreigners and students, tourists, politicians. Nobody asked permission. And I think what's so fascinating about these moments in understanding authoritarianism is that this is more than really just a parade trade. It's kind of a warning shot. Orban didn't just poke the bear, Orban backed the bear into a corner and sort of challenged it. Because for years he's been building something really ugly in Hungary. Trump loves it. He just thinks, oh, Orban is so great. Illiberal democracy, I don't know. But what it means is this package where you start to doubt whether you can trust elections. Newspapers, you wonder, are they printing what's true or are they printing what they've been told to print? Courts that answer to a party, if you're gay, an immigrant, a professor, a journalist who does what they want. You are the problem in these authoritarian regimes. And there's always someone to blame in defense of the homeland. This is the package, this is the prescription as we've seen it. And for a while, it was kind of working. But the mistake that tyrants sometimes make is that they think fear is forever. The fear you can start to instill in people is going to last forever. But that doesn't always work. And what Budapest mayor did is when the government banned the Pride March, is that he rewrote the rules, he reclassified it as a municipal event. It's a loophole. And now the Pride March can continue as a municipal event. And you could feel in the crowd that this was not performative activism. This was an act of defiance, really, kind of a middle finger to Orban's regime. And people showed up with all of the signs and mocking Orban and the whole thing. Some were worried about cameras, so they wore sunglasses and masks. Others didn't seem to care. And they brought their kids. And many hadn't even been to a Pride event before. So I think what's important here is that there was a sort of line in the sand that was drawn. Orban wants silence, he wants submission, but he didn't get it. And this is way bigger than LGBTQ rights. It's who gets to exist without permission. And it's, unfortunately, maybe a preview of what may be coming to the United States. Who gets to help write the next chapter? Is it one guy with his authoritarian pen, or is it the people? And this. If you go back to the 20th century and look at strongmen, authoritarians and the 21st century, at this point, too, authoritarians rely on the idea that you're going to stay home, they. That you're going to flinch, that you're going to be afraid enough that you won't leave your house. But if you look at Saturday in Budapest, it was a very different situation. And you don't need to enjoy following the ups and downs of politics to understand how important this is. When people are told, you don't belong here, and they answer by saying, yes, I do. I'm going to show up anyway. Hundreds of thousands of us. When Orban tried to make it illegal to be seen, and. And then being seen became the entire point. It's extraordinarily powerful. And so I think the lessons of authoritarianism, combined with the fear of what Trump might become if he gets to continue, and the turnout in Hungary, hopefully will be maybe, if not inspiring at least a sort of, hey, FYI, you don't have to cower in fear. Fear is often the initial reaction to authoritarianism, but when they go too far, there can be blowback. And then next thing you know, there's hundreds of thousands or even millions of people in the streets. So a lot, I believe, to learn from what we saw over the weekend in Budapest. Donald Trump sat down for another one of these prerecorded, very edited, extraordinarily orange and sweaty interviews. This was supposed to be an easy interview. This was supposed to be a softball with Maria Bartiromo. But even with the editing, even with the makeup, even with the cuts, Fox couldn't edit out Trump's decline, Trump's confusion, Trump's authoritarianism, and Trump's complete and total ignorance to reality. Here is Trump, in a humiliating moment, proudly saying, we're doing coal. We don't want windmills, we don't want solar. We are doing coal.
- [23:24]
Donald Trump
Opened up coal. We were closing all our coal mines all over the country, and yet we still have a lot of coal. We use the generating plants of coal because it's the strongest, and we're doing coal. So we have everything, every form. I don't want windmills destroying our place. I don't want, you know, these solar things where they go for miles and they cover up a half a mountain that are ugly as hell. And, and by the way, the panels are all made. And the windmills, they're all made in China, okay?
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David Pakman
There is zero economic justification for pushing coal in 2025. It's, there's just none. Coal is inefficient. You can't convert more than 40% into electricity. Even with natural gas. You can convert 60%. New coal is more expensive. It has massive negative externalities like pollution, never mind the transportation of the coal. China is laughing at us as they hear Donald Trump proudly say, we're doing coal. Like, it's a middle finger to, I don't know, it's just a middle finger to common sense, logic, the environment, of course. But this is, this is embarrassing. Donald Trump telling us that as soon as he wants to get trade done, all he has to do is send a letter. He's extraordinarily confused. He doesn't know what's going on. And Maria Bartiromo just nods.
- [24:50]
Donald Trump
And then I help China. I help China. So I'm reducing it. We still don't know. We don't have the clarity on what you're going to do with these expiration of these pauses. July 9th. No, I think I just swapped with China. I thought I just said it. You ready? You're going to send the wire. I want to send letters. That's the end of the trade deal.
- [25:07]
David Pakman
I'm going to send a love letter.
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Donald Trump
I could send one to Japan. Dear Mr. Japan, here's the story. You're going to pay a 25% tariff on your cars. You know, so we give Japan no cars. They won't take our cars.
- [25:22]
David Pakman
They don't really like our cars. Most American cars aren't really practical in places like Japan or in Europe. You know, they love this thing. They won't, they won't take our cars. Well, we really like massive gas guzzlers in the United States that based on more accurate gasoline costs prices in Europe and Japan, the gasoline cost doesn't make sense. And based on the size of the average parking spot in Europe and Japan, these cars don't make sense. But Trump, I'll just write a letter to Mr. Japan and it's all going to be over. Donald Trump says that Democrats who leaked intelligence should be prosecuted. When Maria Bartiromo says, well, who are you talking about? He goes, oh, we can find Out.
- [26:11]
Donald Trump
You tweeted the Democrats leaked an intelligence. They should be prosecuted. Who specifically do I know? People get it, able to find out and find out. If they wanted, they could find out easily. You go up and tell the reporter, national security who gave it. You have to do that. And I suspect we'll be doing things like that. Well, those pilots.
- [26:30]
David Pakman
So Trump, number one, even though he clearly doesn't know who did the leaking, assumes that it's Democrats. We don't know that to be the case. And of course, reporters are not legally obligated to turn over the identity of these people due to First Amendment protections. It's really just that simple. But the Constitution be damned with Trump. Trump going back several months to Canada should really become a state. He's really doing it. He's going back to it, and hopefully.
- [27:04]
Donald Trump
We'Ll be fine with Canada. I love Canada, frankly. Canada should be the 51st state. Okay? It really should, because Canada relies entirely on the United States. We don't rely on Canada. Mr. President, tell me about the significance of the Supreme Court ruling.
- [27:20]
David Pakman
All right, so now they change topics. Trump wants Canada to be a state. The topic of TikTok came up. Trump says, I've got a buyer. I've got an American buyer. When is he going to tell us, you know, the time frame?
- [27:33]
Donald Trump
Percent or 40 or 50%? I would rather do that. So when I kind of extend the pause, I don't think I'll need to, because I could. There's no big deal. It's like, tick tock. I'm extending that, you know, but no big deal. We have a buyer for TikTok, by the way. I think I'll need probably China approval. I think President Xi will probably do it. I'll tell you in about two weeks. Technology company. They are very.
- [28:00]
David Pakman
If you drank every time Trump promised an accomplishment coming in two weeks, you would be in real trouble from the standpoint of alcohol, that's for sure. We then get to a completely addled Trump. I don't think there's any way to even introduce this. Listen to this disoriented word salad.
- [28:24]
Donald Trump
So they had three main sites, and we knew they're going to have to either give them up. And I thought we could do it during negotiation. And we just about had it done. And then they said, we want enrichment. Enrichment doesn't mean like air conditioning, and it doesn't mean to jack up your car. Enrichment.
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David Pakman
Enrichment doesn't mean air conditioning and it doesn't mean to jack up your car. Truer words have maybe never been Said.
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Donald Trump
Is a bad word. And they said, you had so much oil, what do you need that for? And they said, well, we needed, we needed. And I wouldn't let that happen.
- [28:56]
David Pakman
There you go. I dare you to make heads or tails out of that. And then finally, this is my absolute favorite. This is another one of these linguistic confusions. Remember when Trump thought that stealth bombers were invisible, not just to radar, but to the naked eye? Remember when Trump confused seeking political asylum with being a, quote, mental patient in a mental asylum? Ok, here's the latest one. Trump seems to think that uranium is physically heavy. Like it's hard to move it around. Probably because someone told Trump uranium is a heavy element from the standpoint of the periodic table of elements. And Trump goes, it's very heavy. It's super heavy.
- [29:43]
Donald Trump
Do you think that the Iran regime hid some of the enriched uranium before the strikes? No, you mean did they take it out of the deep one? You were pretty clear you can't have a weapon. You're going to have to come to the talk. Something's going to happen. No, I think, first of all, it's very hard to do. It's very dangerous to do. It's very heavy. Very, very heavy. It's a very, very hard thing to do. Plus, we didn't give much notice because they didn't know we were coming until just you know, then.
- [30:11]
David Pakman
Trump seems to think it would have been difficult to move the uranium before the strikes because it's very heavy. But reports are it's just a few hundred pounds of uranium. Trump seems to be confusing the, the weight in the world of something, the raw weight, and that it is a dense element from the standpoint of atomic weight in the periodic table of elements. Folks, I, I don't know what. I just don't know what to say. Completely, completely in over his head. No idea. And Maria Bartiromo panicking, doing anything she can to make this something short of a complete humiliation. She failed and Donald Trump failed. To make sure you're subscribed to the YouTube channel, YouTube.com/the David Pakman Show. You say you'll learn a new language every year, but few of us actually follow through. That's why I always recommend Babel. It's the app that finally made language learning stick for me. This year. I've got a trip to France planned. I've already started brushing up using Babel's 10 minute lessons. The app is built around real life conversations, not games or gimmicks. So I'm learning exactly what I actually need. To know when I land. I've even been using Babel speech recognition technology to improve my pronunciation. Super helpful. Babble is designed by over 200 language experts and proven studies from places like Yale and Michigan State. There's a study that found that using Babel just 15 hours is like a full college semester of a language. They offer 14 languages and more than 16 million people have used it. They've got a 20 day money back guarantee so it is risk free to try. Here's a special limited time deal for my audience right now. Get up to 60% off your babel subscription, but only for my audience at babbel.com/pacman 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. Your personal data is everywhere and you might not even know people. Search sites and data brokers are quietly publishing your name, address, phone number, even things like property records, political views. It is not just creepy, it's dangerous. Dangerous because scammers and fraudsters and shady marketers can use this information every day. Our sponsor Incogni solves the problem for you. Incogni contacts the data broker sites on your behalf and forces them to delete your data. The data brokers are legally obligated to comply and Incogni handles the entire process for you. Incogni is now taking this even further with their custom removals feature included in the unlimited plan. They've got their 250 plus sites where removal is automated. But if you find your information anywhere else, you can custom submit that and they will have it removed manually. This is serious protection. Using Incogni can cut way down on the spam calls and the messages that you get. Fewer risks, more control over your identity. Try it risk free for 30 days and get 60% off an annual plan when you go to incogni.com/pacman. That's incogni.com/pacMan for 60% off. The link is in the podcast notes. It's great to welcome to the program today for the first time, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear. Governor, it's so great to have you. I appreciate the time.
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Andy Beshear
Thanks for having me on. Very excited about it.
- [34:10]
David Pakman
So I think to to start with, you know, when I speak to senators and members of the House of Representatives and they talk about this tax bill that is now potentially working its way through the Senate, their view is sort of from the top down. What can we do in order to maybe prevent the bill's passage or potentially to get what we want in the bill. As a governor, you're in a different position where you're sort of downstream dealing with the effect of such a bill on constituents in terms of the programs that aren't funded in the bill, what happens to taxes and how that affects individuals and businesses in your state. Talk a little bit about as a governor, how you deal with such a bill or how it affects your state and how that kind of differs from those in D.C. if you can.
- [35:01]
Andy Beshear
Unlike those in D.C. i as a governor actually have to live with the consequences of what they do and what they pass. And this bill is devastating to Kentucky, but it's devastating to all of the United States of America. Just the Medicaid portion of this bill will kick 200,000 of my citizens off their health care coverage. It'll fire 20,000 of my health care workers, and it'll likely close 35 rural hospitals, each of which is the second largest employer in the county that they're in. So that devastates people's lives, that devastates their productivity as they're taking parents whose long term care costs were covered by Medicaid back into their homes. It devastates the economies of our communities that depend on those hospitals. And it makes people, whether you have private insurance or on Medicaid, drive a couple of hours just to see the same doctor you used to be able to see in your community. Meanwhile, it cuts food assistance for people who are going hungry. And most of our food assistance goes to seniors and kids. So it's making more people's parents and children go hungry. And it blows a hole, not just in the federal debt over 3 trillion. It pushes a lot of costs to states that have to balance their budgets and blows a hole in those as well. I have never seen a bill like this that is going to cause so much harm and devastation and see so many people who are, who are elected to represent the people in their communities just act like what they're doing is not going to harm the people they represent.
- [36:40]
David Pakman
One of the sort of maybe complicated things about being a Democratic governor in a red state is that we've seen, if we look back at 2010 and what happened with the Affordable Care act and the Medicaid expansions that states maybe did or may maybe didn't do is that very often blame ends up misplaced in, in, in following or subsequent elections. And this isn't all about winning elections by any means, but I do think it's important for political actions to have consequences. So I would love a little bit of insight into, you know, you have a lot of Trump supporting constituents in your state that are also your constituents, not only Donald Trump's. And in my experience, there's a predisposition to blame Democrats when things don't go well, if you are a Trump voter. And so I'm curious about how you're thinking as to how people are going to interpret what happens as a result of this bill and whether on some personal level there is concern that, that you're going to be the recipient of maybe misplaced blame to some degree.
- [37:47]
Andy Beshear
There's no question that the way that they set this up is to claim that they're not laying off health care workers or they're not cutting Medicaid and then push that to the states, Democrat or Republican governors and try to shift blame. But nobody's going to be fooled. Donald Trump is talking about his big, beautiful bill. He is owning every piece of this. And it's the nonpartisan Congressional budget offices that are putting out these numbers, these facts, not even just projections, they're believed to be facts about the damage that it's going to cause. I'll give Trump one thing. His policies are terrible for the American people, but he owns them. Tariffs are impacting our economy, are making small businesses lay people off. But Donald Trump stands there with the giant board and owns tariffs in a way that I've never seen someone own such a negative policy. The same has to be true on this bill. If my two senators, though I think one, is going to vote against it, vote for this bill, they are responsible for firing 20,000 health care workers. If our House members vote for this bill, when it goes back, they are responsible for closing 35 rural hospitals. And all of them represent rural areas. You know, your actions do have to have consequences. But I will say this. People understand Medicaid in a way that they didn't 20 years ago. Medicaid covers the people we love the most, our parents and our kids. 50% of Kentucky's kids are covered by Medicaid. Over 40% of our births covered by Medicaid. 70% of our long term care costs for our parents and grandparents are covered by Medicaid. So when they talk about 16 million people getting kicked off their coverage, 200,000 Kentuckians, guess who they're going to be? They're going to be our seniors and our children. And the way that they're going to do it, where you have to check extra boxes, is kicking people off for six months. Because you didn't check this box or that box. It's wrong on a moral level, but it's also really bad policy that's going to hit our economy really hard.
- [39:54]
David Pakman
Is there evidence from your state that so called able bodied Americans are abusing Medicaid as a widespread problem? And I think to couch that it's important to contextualize any social welfare system is going to have some what we might call free riders. And most economists understand that if the system is well tailored to the population and to the circumstances, you can't get that to zero. But it doesn't really matter. Like if you can find one anecdote that doesn't really change the overall effectiveness of the program. But even understanding that, is there evidence of these, of these so called able bodied Americans that are just abusing Medicaid and getting benefits they shouldn't really qualify for?
- [40:38]
Andy Beshear
No. When you look at this program, what it has done is expand health care across the United States has made sure that our people are healthier and more productive. I believe more people are able to enter the workforce because of this coverage. You look at Kentucky right now we have the most people working, the most jobs filled and the largest workforce we've ever had. And we have over 1 million people covered by Medicaid. Now our goal is to eventually move them off of Medicaid. But if that gets us healthier and more productive then it's such an important tool. And there are already ways to find and to fight the fraud and the abuse. I was an attorney General, we all have Medicaid fraud units that work every single day. But the fraud and the extra cost aren't on people that shouldn't be on it. It's on certain providers that are breaking the rules and are ripping off the American people. And that's where we need to go to find the savings. We need to look at prescription drug prices to get out there and to find the savings. But what we shouldn't be doing is kicking people off of health care that's getting them well enough to work or is taking care of that special needs child or is making sure that a family doesn't have to someone stop working just to take care of a relative. It does such important things and just remember that it also boosts employment in the economy. Health care is one of the fastest growing sectors in our American economy. And if you cut out a ton of revenue from a fast growing sector, you are going to not only slow down that growth, you're going to reduce its employment.
- [42:13]
David Pakman
I find the there's an analogy here to that around undocumented immigrant labor. And I'll explain what I mean. We often hear so much from the Republican Party about individuals who are here undocumented and are working right, they're putting in a day's work. And we hear not nearly enough about the companies that are employing large numbers of those workers against the law. So the focus is on one, one person who came here to try to make some money to, to help his family. And similarly, when we hear about Medicaid and Medicare fraud, and we heard about this through Doge about immigration individuals, what this ignores is that there have been not, not just in your state, but all over the country. When we really talk about the fraud, it's the providers that are figuring out ways to do mass fraudulent billing or to even bill for things for services that haven't been provided. It seems as though it's another way, you know, when you look at climate, is it the individual with the plastic straw or is it the huge corporations that are doing the polluting at a mass scale? This is something we see very often which is shifting the focus to the.
- [43:26]
Andy Beshear
There's no question that the Republican Party right now is using individual stories to demonize large and important programs, hoping the American people will get so caught up in the outrage of how could one person do this or that that they don't see the widespread damage that's being caused. But the other thing that it does is, is it shifts the focus of actually fixing the system that needs to be fixed. When we look at Medicaid, if there are challenges, they are of the larger health care system that things cost more in the United States in health care than they do elsewhere. We need to actually drill down and fix that. You look at immigration and we don't have enough of certain visas and certain work programs to fill jobs that are out there to ensure that the math works from the workers that we need and the, the programs that we have. In many ways it's Republicans not governing well because governing well is finding the fix and finding the solution. Not just trying to break something in government, but to actually make it work better. Now, as a Democrat, I've got to admit that there are times where we could have and should have done better. There are areas that have been over regulated to a degree to where we can't get the job done that we want to provide to the American people. The bead program is a great example. You know, Internet for all the billions of dollars are appropriated, but none of it is in the ground because There were just too many steps and too many regulations. So we as Democrats have to deliver. We have to understand that our job is to meet the basic needs of the American people, and health care is one of the most important of them. But we can't just talk about it. We can't just defend it. We've got to get out there and actually make it more accessible to people. That's why I expanded Medicaid for vision, hearing and dental. And for me, it was pretty simple. If we want somebody to go to work, let's give them a pair of glasses so they can see well enough to drive to work.
- [45:27]
David Pakman
I want to expand a little bit on your critique of the Democratic Party because you, I think as governors, you and other governors we've spoken to are sort of in a unique position to say, hey, I'm the administrator here and I'm dealing with the waterfall effect of what's happening in D.C. we recently had New Jersey Governor Murphy on, and he outlined what he saw as the failings of the Democratic Party in November, objectively losing the White House, the House and the Senate. I would love to hear from, from you a little bit. What do you believe led to that wholesale loss at the federal level? And what do you think Democrats need to do differently, going 26 and certainly 28?
- [46:07]
Andy Beshear
Democrats have to be the party of common sense, common ground and getting things done. We've got to recognize that when people wake up in the morning, they're not thinking about their party or the next election. They're thinking about their job and whether they make enough to support their family. They're thinking about the next doctor's appointment they have. They're thinking about the roads and bridges they're going to drive that day, the school they drop their kids off at, and whether they feel safe in, in their communities. We've got to understand that as much as people may care about another issue, if they're struggling to pay for their child's prescription, you can't get to anything else. And that last election showed even if people may fundamentally disagree with a candidate on a number of issues, if they believe that candidate will make paying the bills just a little bit easier, when they're struggling, they're willing to vote for him or her. So we've got to be that party that has a relentless focus. And the lane is there because while Trump promised he'd bring prices down, he's doing anything but that. His tariff policy is the single most devastating policy I have seen in terms of prices or people's, you know, Everyday ability to pay the bills is pulling back grants on infrastructure, is making that next project that could shave 20 minutes each way on your commute that much harder. This big ugly bill and what it's going to do to health care is going to make people's lives a whole lot more difficult. So the lane is there, but we've got to be focused. And let me say there's two other things I think Democrats need to do. Yeah, we need to talk to people and not at them. We need to stop using some of the overly sanitized words because they just don't mean the same thing. Kentucky, we got hit hard by addiction. We've all lost so many people. And you know what we call it? We don't call it substance use disorder. We call it addiction because addiction is mean and it's difficult. And so when last year we had a 30% decrease in drug overdose deaths, thank God that was making ground up and maybe even seeing the light at the end of the tunnel in fighting addiction. Think about the big ugly bill. We're not going to win if we say it's going to increase folks food insecurity. What it's going to do is cause people to go hungry. And I think the last thing we've got to do is explain our why we're very good at the what at what our policy position 3 sub point 2, bullet point 3 are. But why do we believe it? For me, it's my faith. I vetoed a lot of nasty anti LGBTQ legislation in my state and I explain why every time it's that I believe that every child is is a child of God. And if a legislature is going to show people hate, I'm going to show them love. If they're going to show them judgment, I'm going to show them acceptance. And I especially don't want people picking on groups of kids. And when you share your why people can even disagree with you but respect it. They know where you're coming from. And maybe it creates just that space to where they start thinking a little bit differently. Those are things that, that we as Democrats haven't necessarily done well but have to if we want to win. And I believe it's the formula that can, that can not only get us back, but maybe even bring the Republicans back in to a more common ground area because all those core areas are good for everybody regardless of your party.
- [49:28]
David Pakman
Governor, I know you've got to run but last question on that idea that you lay out and maybe bringing Republicans back in, it seems plausible that McCain type Republicans might be brought back in by that type of thinking and that type of talk, but is this MAGA movement simply too extreme to really fold into anything that would be a functional movement? And it's going to take getting MAGA out in order to do that.
- [49:53]
Andy Beshear
I think that even those that proclaim themselves as part of that movement still care more about their job and the ability to get their their parents or their kids to the next doctor's appointment than they do about any of the rhetoric. I think this is all about showing people that you want to make their life better and then proving it. Getting out and building the two largest battery plants on planet Earth, which we've done. Getting out and opening that first hospital in our largest African American community in Kentucky in 150 years. Show people you care about them and get results. And in a state that Donald Trump won by 30 points, I can win by five.
- [50:33]
David Pakman
We've been speaking with Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear. Really appreciate your time today, Governor. Thank you.
- [50:39]
Andy Beshear
Appreciate you. Thanks for having me on.
- [50:41]
David Pakman
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The link is in the description Donald Trump is now regularly suffering middle of the night meltdowns every single night. We need to understand that our view is just a little different than that of maga. When you present MAGA with Trump posting to Truth Social at midnight and at 2am and at 4am and at 6am and he just seems to be up all night, they go, he's so Strong, not like sleepy Joe Biden. He's so energetic. He's working 24 7. They see it as a good thing. But the things that he is posting are the rantings of a madman. Not to mention, I prefer a president who's well rested. You know, I prefer a doctor who's well rested before a procedure. I prefer a pilot who's well rested before flying a plane. And call me crazy, I prefer presidents who sleep rather than rage troth all night long. I'm not going to subject you to the totality of this, but it's important to understand that Trump's just, he's going all day and all night with this stuff. And by the way, I also prefer presidents who do presidential stuff rather than just posting to social media. Trump attacking Forbes magazine earlier this morning. Trump at 3am complaining about phony Democrat Senator Chris Coons. Trump at 2am bragging that the Trump administration has gotten costs down. Trump at 212 in the morning saying that everything is working great with the big beautiful bill. Trump posting videos shortly after midnight. Trump posting stuff around 5pm yesterday bragging, saying it's great that Thom Tillis won't be seeking reelection. As we continue to scroll, you know, posting conspiracy links and little interview clips, we then get to the previous day and he brags about how great Michael Flynn is and he's posting videos from Fox News. But as you keep scrolling, you start doing the math and you go, wait a second. After posting a bunch of these videos and images and all of this stuff, all of a sudden we're in the middle of the night again. It's Trump complaining about Tom Tillis. It's Trump promoting appearances. It's Trump with all caps, rants about Gaza and make America great again and the Republican Party and what's going on in the Senate and attacking Rand Paul and talking about how Democrats are evil. The subject matter is less relevant than the fact that this is just day after day after day after day. I prefer presidents who aren't sucked into social media. I prefer presidents who aren't stuck in a doom scrolling loop of cable news and Twitter and troth central and all of it. And every time I talk about this, a couple people will write to me and they'll go, David Trump is scripting these out and then he's having people post them at specific times. A lot of this stuff is reactions within minutes to things that are happening on live tv. So that explanation simply doesn't make sense. This is unhinged, but it's dangerous From a national Security standpoint, there is no argument to be made that we are safer as Americans because Trump is up all night posting to social media. By the way, posting mostly irrelevant screeds to social media overnight, multiple nights a week were worse off as a result. Somewhere between the Los Angeles protests of two weeks ago and the Oval Office, a phone call either happened or it didn't happen. And Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, now wants $787 million to find out. Now, that is not a random number. You might recall that number. That is what Fox News paid Dominion to make a different lie go away. And now, symbolically, Gavin Newsom wants that same amount of money. So here's the setup, and I know a lot of you remember some of the details here. Donald Trump sends troops into California, Military boots on American pavement because he wants to look tough on immigration. California Governor Gavin Newsom, furious, says, the President didn't even talk to me about this. Before launching the operation. Trump steps up to a microphone and goes, I called him a day ago and I told him that we were doing this. But we now seem to know that that phone call didn't happen. Now, was it a straight up Trump lie, or is this another instance of Donald Trump's memory issues? We spoke to Governor Newsom about this, and as we know now, Donald Trump and Newsom did speak on the phone, but it wasn't a day earlier, as Donald Trump said it was four days earlier. And according to Gavin Newsom, the topic of Donald Trump sending the National Guard to California simply did not come up. During that call, Newsom went public and said that call never happened. And then in comes Fox News and does what Fox News does best. They take an old call from days earlier, a screenshot from Trump's cell phone, and they pretend that it means Gavin Newsom lied. So Gavin Newsom has now filed a lawsuit, Delaware court, $787 million. It's not just money. He wants an on air apology. And the case really outlines it all, the edits, the misleading footage, the timeline, lies. And, and it paints a Fox News that is sloppy, which we know, but it's also surgical in a way, because the lawsuit paints Fox News is really crafting this with intent to distort and to deceive, aimed directly at Gavin Newsom's credibility. And Fox, of course, says it's a joke, it's a political stunt. The lawsuit is nothing. But that's what they always say. Maybe this time the machine isn't going to get away with it. So I'm very interested in seeing what happens here. And the twist that makes the entire thing kind of poetic is, on the one hand, Trump maybe just got the day wrong, right? Not because he's lying, but because he doesn't remember. He said the call was a day ago, but it was actually three and a half days. Almost four days earlier, if you've been paying attention to Donald Trump lately, right? The slurred words, the wandering rants, the bruised hands, the vacant stares. You know what this is? This is the cost of, you know, when we pretend the emperor has still got. It is still sharp, and the emperor is not sharp. You need Fox News to spend years looking the other way while Trump's mind is melting in real time. So this might actually be not Trump lying. It might be Trump's memory issues. We just don't know, right? But now the cult is in too deep to say, maybe Trump got it wrong. They have to double down. They have to defend him. They have to say it's Gavin Newsom that's lying and maybe it's going to cost them $787 million. Maybe Trump forgot, maybe he lied. We don't really know. But the real kind of mind bender here is how do you prove a phone call didn't happen, right? There's no voicemail, no text, no trace. Proving absence is harder. It's like, how do I prove I don't have a Tesla anymore? I go, no, look, in my garage. There's no Tesla. Somebody could go, well, maybe you have a separate garage across town where you keep the Tesla. Proving negatives can be difficult. Trump's waving around a screenshot, but it's from days earlier. And Fox edits it all together into a neat little chiron and attacks Gavin Newsom as a liar. So this will be an interesting one. I always with these, you know, these really send Trump for a loop. We'll see where it lands, but I'm very meaningfully, a very meaningful demand. $787 million. And we'll see what ultimately happens. Elon Musk is absolutely raging about Donald Trump and the Republicans tax bill. He's calling it utterly insane. He's saying it will cost millions of jobs. Elon Musk put out a tweet on the platform formerly known as Twitter. We don't call them tweets anymore. We call them excretions because it's on X. And in the midst of the weekend chaos with the big beautiful bill, Ellen posted quote, the latest Senate draft bill will destroy millions of jobs in America and cause immense strategic harm to our country utterly insane and destructive. It gives handouts to industries of the past while severely damaging industries of the future. Before we dig into the analysis, remember this is the same Elon Musk who ran a department in Trump's administration up to just a few weeks ago. Doge. This is the same Elon Musk who poured almost $300 million into Trump's campaign and a Trump pig picked Supreme Court judge campaign in Wisconsin. And now Elon is going full scorched earth after the fallout. Well, Elon doesn't like the bill. Fine. The bill is full of corporate tax cuts. That's true. It's got subsidies for fossil fuels. Trump's bragging about how true that is. Elon Musk, it has handouts to industries that shouldn't get them and Elon Musk went thermonuclear over it. Now this is an interesting case where Elon Musk is not wrong about the content. The bill does do all of those things. It raises taxes on solar and battery technology. It's got subsidies for coal. It's a backwards bill. But this seems to mostly be what's good for Elon. We know that when you put narcissistic egomaniacs together, it tends not to go well, whether they're left wing or right wing. To be frank, it's not about politics. But if you think about it, this, this is not principle for Elon Musk. There's no evidence that this is out of principle. Elon's worried because the bill hurts Elon. The bill kneecaps industries like EVs, solar power, space tech, battery technology that are where Elon is making his money. He's mad about the policy and he's mad about the betrayal because nearly $300 million sent Trump's way in the last year. And this is what Donald Trump does to him. Now, that all being said, we put ego aside for a moment. We put politics aside for a moment. Elon is future looking with regard to what Tesla and battery technology and space technology and Starlink are doing. You could say Elon's a mess and he is. But at least the technologies that Elon is working on are forward looking technologies. The bill is backwards looking. Subsidies for coal and Trump's bragging about it. Give me a break. But this was always predictable and it's happening. So now the question is, what's Elon going to do next? He's already pulled back from the political donations, at least for now. Wouldn't be surprised if that changes. Musk has hinted at four firing lawmakers who betrayed the American people, which maybe means throwing his money behind primary challengers or third party spoilers. I don't know, maybe it's launching a full blown campaign to reshape the Republican Party. But understand that temperamentally, this is the guy who bought Twitter because he didn't like how people were using it. You think he wouldn't bankroll a political revenge tour, which I would love to see. Now, there's also some speculation that Elon Musk might leverage his platforms X, Tesla, maybe Space X to whip up opposition to the bill. As of this morning, that's not happening. And, you know, we'll see what happens in the next few days. Elon doesn't need to run for office. He gets a lot of attention, way more than many elected officials. If he turns this outrage into a media blitz, it could really panic Republicans. So it's ending exactly the way that we predicted. And the question now is, can we get Ellen to go further to hurt the MAGA agenda? Let him do it if that's what he's motivated to do. Now on the bonus show today, we are going to talk about the global reaction to the Jeff Bezos wedding. Now, we don't really do celebrity weddings on this show, but this has become a story that pulls in climate activists, those who want fairer tax bills. It's very politically relevant. We're also going to talk about the new plan to withhold federal payments to fight Trump's funding freezes. An interesting idea. And the DOJ has announced plans to prioritize cases to revoke citizenship. This is based on Trump's agenda, the revocation potentially of citizenship. It's whacked. Completely whacked. I hope that you're getting today's bonus show. You can get the bonus show by signing up@join pacman.com you can gift memberships to those on our waiting list. Nearly 4,000 people on the waiting list. Also at join pacman.com and remember that the best place where we will be able to tell you what's going on if the clampdown should happen is our Substack newsletter. It's the only place we own our data. Make sure you're on that newsletter@david pakman.substack.com I'll be live with Brian Tyler Cohen, Brett Meiselas and Aaron Parnas over the next few days. I'll see you on the bonus show. I'll see you on Substack Live. Marketing is hard, but I'll tell you a little secret. 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