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Everyone deserves to be connected. That's why T Mobile and US Cellular are joining forces. Switch to T Mobile and save up to 20% versus Verizon by getting built in benefits they leave out. Check the math@t mobile.com switch and now T mobile is in US cellular stores. Savings versus Comparable Verizon plans plus the cost of optional benefits. Plan features and taxes and fees vary. Savings with three plus lines include third line free via monthly bill credits. Credit stop if you cancel any lines. Qualifying credit required. We start today with a video out of Minneapolis showing an ICE agent shooting a woman through her car window during a massive federal immigration raid. The woman, a US citizen was trying to leave after receiving conflicting commands, shot and died. Some are saying this is murder. Others were saying it is self defense. I am not unsure which of the two it was and we will talk about it. Donald Trump blamed the radical left. This genuinely has the potential to generate a civil war like environment in the United States. I don't say that lightly and we will talk about it. The fallout has been enormous. Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota says he is readying the net, readying the National Guard to be up against Trump's ice, which is both incredible and potentially, potentially escalatory. But necessary, I believe. We will also talk about the sudden proposal from the White house for a 60% increase to the military budget. I thought Trump wasn't going to be that guy. And now his budget proposes increasing the size of the military by 60%. And later, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Says the president has announced there is an order to end obesity. I mean listen, ban obesity, ban Covid. Why not just ban things, right? Except we know that doesn't make any sense. Sense. All of these stories and more. Plus a soybean farmer. Caleb Ragland will join me. We've got a great show today. Donald Trump's ICE agents appear to have murdered a woman, a 37 year old American citizen. This is a story unlike any I have ever covered on the show and it is one of the most disturbing stories certainly of Trump's second term. Never mind of the entire time that I have been doing this and we deserve to describe it accurately. Renee Nicole Goode, a 37 year old US citizen, a mother, a writer, was shot and killed by an ICE agent during a massive federal immigration operation in Minneapolis. The shooting was caught on video, multiple angles, clear footage. She was just driving away after being given conflicting information about what she should be doing. ICE agents surrounded her car. They gave conflicting orders. One agent said drive away. Another said get out of the car as she tried to maneuver away from the agents and ICE officer fires three shots through the window. She drives a short distance, crashes and dies in the hospital. I'm going to play it for you, ok? There's nothing particularly graphic in the video. It was not a foot chase, it was not a shootout, it was not someone charging at an officer with a vehicle nor a weapon. I'm not going to do as a pruder style film analysis of the video, but if you look closely, you will certainly notice that the officer was not at risk of getting run over. This was. Even if you say, oh well, she was disobeying a legal command, does that justify getting assassinated? So listen, here's the video. This is the United States of America right now. Why every single media outlet is not calling this what it is, I don't know. But that's a whole other problem. Let's take a look. She stopped. Officers get out. So you hear someone say get out of the fucking car.
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B
No, no. Shame.
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A
Okay. And there is the moment. Now the key thing is the officer who shoots who in this angle is briefly obscured by the vehicle. As you see the car accelerate, you see that the officer is to the left of the car, the wheels are turned. She's not about to run this guy over. And then shooting through the window. Not going to look more deeply at the video, the video. If what you want to do primarily is analysis of the video, the video is out there and you can certainly do it. But what is important here is that she was trying to leave and that really matters because even in the most charitable interpretation to the ICE agents, she was disobeying an order that justifies making an ICE agent who is not in any danger, judge, jury, an executioner. This is not law and order. This is not the United the way the United States is supposed to work. Now Donald Trump very quickly weighed in and he says the agent was acting in self defense. From what he said, it's hard to believe the officer is alive, really. The officer wasn't hit and then later ran towards the vehicle. Trump posting quote I have just viewed the clip of the event which took place in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is a horrible thing to watch. The woman screaming was obviously a professional agitator and the woman driving the car was very disorderly, obstructing and resisting, who then violently, willfully and viciously ran over the ICE officer who seems to have shot her in self defense. None of that happened. None of that is true. Trump continues based on the attached clip. It's hard to believe he's alive but is now recovering in the hospital. What the situation is being studied in its entirety. But the reason these incidents are happening is because the radical left is threatening, assaulting and targeting our law enforcement officers and ICE agents on a daily basis. Can you imagine a more irresponsible and deluded comment? They are just trying to do the job of making America safe, says Trump. We need to stand by and protect our law enforcement officers from this radical left movement of violence and hate. The problem, of course, is none of this comports with reality. Will the legacy in corporate media have the audacity? Is that what it is? The courage, the responsibility to the facts to simply say none of this is true? The officer was never run over. He was on his feet the entire time. The video, if you keep watching it, shows him running down the street after the shooting. And independent reporting from outlets like the Guardian and the New York Times found no evidence that the officer was injured at all, despite the claims of the Department of Homeland Security. How is it hard to believe that he is still alive, not hit and running around? The obvious question no one in the administration wants to answer is why was the gun pulled at all? Why was the gun even out? If an ICE agent feels justified shooting into a car because a driver is trying to drive away amidst conflicting commands, that is not law enforcement. It is time for citizens and residents of the United States and every single media outlet to say that is enough. Now, Tim Walls and also the mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey, they are saying this is enough. Here is Governor Tim Walls saying this was both predictable and avoidable. And of course he's completely and totally correct.
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C
The outrage that we have. Look, this was, this was totally predictable, as I said it yesterday, and it was totally avoidable. And I just wanted to remind you, too, that local law enforcement, we get no coordination. They don't tell us they're coming. They don't say why they're sending the largest deployment in American history to Minneapolis. They're not. They're not making us any safer. We don't have any of that coordination. They should be talking to us when we do these things. Let us know we are going to be down here. This is going to happen. We don't have that. So when you see local law enforcement or State Patrol or if it would take the National Guard, we're there responding to the chaos they've created, too. But our role is, is to make sure that we're protecting Minnesotans so that something like this doesn't happen.
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A
If federal agents are operating without coordinating with local officials and essentially in secrecy, of course this is going to happen. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, he had a different way of approaching this issue.
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D
There's little I can say again that will make this situation better, better. But I do have a message for our community, for our city, and I have a message for ICE to ice. Get the out of Minneapolis. We do not want you here. Your stated reason for being in this city is to create some kind of safety and you are doing exactly the opposite.
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A
So a very clear message. Now, one of the things I found most disgusting is how many in the right wing media, including Jesse Watters on Fox News, rushed to attack the character of the woman that was murdered. Now, I want you to listen very carefully. Okay? Listen carefully as Jesse Watters lists characteristics of Renee Goode, the 37 year old who was killed. Do any of the characteristics he mentions justify an assassination? Take a listen. The woman who lost her life was a self proclaimed poet from Colorado with pronouns in her bio, a 37 year old white woman named Renee Good. The Daily Mail says she leaves behind a lesbian partner and a child from a previous marriage. She was a disruptor, though she considered herself a legal observer. But there's no evidence she had a law degree. Wow. Wow. Well, I'm not hearing anything there, Jesse, that justifies what took place on video. We have the video. And yet Jesse Watters is virtue signaling to his audience. Lesbian pronouns, child from a previous relationship, legal observer with no law degree. Yeah, we have the video, Jesse. We have the video. Now, legally, the case is far from settled. Of course, state prosecutors may be able to pursue charges depending on whether the officer's behavior is deemed necessary and proper or not under Supreme Court precedent. We don't know legally where this is all going to fall. But the fallout is massive protests erupting across the country, schools closed, tear gas deployed, and Tim Walls putting the Minnesota National Guard on standby. And that is where the bigger picture comes in, which we will talk about a moment. This is no longer an isolated incident. This happened during what the Department of Homeland Security under Kristi Noem is calling the largest immigration enforcement operation ever carried out. 2,000 federal agents in the Minneapolis St. Paul area. Heavily armed forces descending onto cities without coordination, accountability or restraint will make violence more likely. And it did. And when the violence is immediately justified by the President, President of the United States, it sends the message to the officers that you can get away with a lot. And that if you are a protester or even just an individual in the wrong place, wrong time, if you don't comply perfectly. It may not be a ticket. It may not be a civil infraction. It may not be you escorted away. It may be you getting killed and not surviving to go home to your family. There is nothing here about public safety is the priority. A woman is dead. The video does not match right wing media or the administration or Donald Trump's story. And instead of accountability, we're getting lies and scapegoating and all of the normal stuff. Every media outlet should be calling this for what it is. Let's talk about what Tim Walls is doing next. The governor of Minnesota is preparing the National Guard to face off against Donald Trump's federal ICE goons. This is potentially moving towards a disaster of such scope and significance that it has been decades since the US has seen this sort of thing. Now, I know a lot of you wrote to me about, is this the start of the Civil War? David, let's table that for a moment.
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B
For a moment.
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A
The next segment here is what we have learned about what Minnesota and Minneapolis are planning. Again, here is Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey with a message for ICE in the aftermath of the killing of 37 year old Renee.
- [12:56]
D
There's little I can say again that'll make this situation better. But I do have a message for our community, for our city, and I have a message for ICE to ice. Get the fuck out of Minneapolis now.
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A
We heard that earlier. Let's now go to the state level response from the governor, Tim Walsh, who says this. Can you believe this is the United States of America right now? Days into 2026, Governor Tim Walls is preparing his state's National Guard to face off against Trump's ICE goons. Listen to this.
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C
We do not need any further help from the federal government. To Donald Trump and Kristi Noem. You've done enough. There's nothing more important than Minnesotan safety. I've issued a warning order to prepare the Minnesota National Guard. We have soldiers in training and prepared to be deployed if necessary. I remind you, a warning order is a heads up for folks. And these National Guard troops are our National Guard troops. They're teachers in your community. They're business owners. They're construction professionals. They are Minnesotans. Minnesota will not allow our community to be used as a prop in a national political fight. We will not take the bait. We do not need any further help from the federal government.
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A
All right, this is a major escalation, but it's a necessary one. There are those who are immediately saying, why is Tim Walls raising the temperature? Folks, Trump's goons came in shot a woman three times through her window and windshield, killing her. And Trump went online. It said it seems like self defense. That's the escalation Governor Walls is doing. One of the few things he can do to try to defend his state. Now understand that National Guard units are normally activated for disaster response or for civil unrest or a support role as requested by local officials. This is different because the Guard is being prepared to respond to and defend against federal law enforcement activity itself. This is a line not often crossed in the United States. That is why a lot of you are writing to me about civil war and I will get to that. Conflicts between states and the federal government have always, almost always played out in the courts. A state sues, the Justice Department responds, a judge issues a ruling. It's a slow process, it's often a frustrating process. But the reason that that process exists is to prevent a physical confrontation between a state National Guard and federal law enforcement or between local police and federal police. The whole point of the slow, frustrating system we have is to prevent these sorts of violent escalations. When a governor like Tim Walls, who is careful, this is not an erratic guy. When a governor like Tim Walls says we've got to prepare the state military forces to potentially battle federal agents because they are operating in ways that are dangerous or illegitimate, we are not in normal territory. This is a unique situation. Now the context of course matters. If Tim Walls were just saying we don't want ICE and we're putting the National Guard out there to fight them, there are many of us who would say that is justified. But it might be moving a little too quickly when using the courts may be appropriate. That is not the context right now. The context now is that an ICE agent shot and killed a US Citizen during what they are calling an enforcement operation where the video evidence contradicts the administration self defense narrative. Federal officials are doubling down and Trump is blaming the so called radical left. There is no accountability and not even the idea. Let's pause and think for a second. So from the state's perspective, if you are the governor, the administrator of the state of Minnesota, which is what he is, federal agents show up unannounced, they create chaos, they kill a resident, lie about what happened on camera and say we're going to keep going, he is in a position where he has to say do I do nothing or do I act to protect public safety? As I see it, that is how you end up with Tim Walz preparing his national state's National Guard to do battle against the federal goons of Donald Trump. Now, does this mean civil war? That is the critical question that I will talk about after the break. All right, so we all know Alexa listens to us, recommends products based on our conversations. Metta retargets us based on our browsing and engagement history. Have you wondered what Chat and Claude are up to with your conversations? We feed so much of our information to these AI chat bots. Thoughts, dreams, sensitive questions, business ideas. They take the information, tie it to your identity and they can sell that to third parties and governments. ChatGPT has the former director of the NSA on their board right now. That doesn't feel awesome. It took us a long time to truly understand what social media companies were doing with our data. We don't have to make the same mistake with AI. And that's why I've started using Venice AI our sponsor. Venice is a generative AI platform that is completely private and permissionless. They don't spy on you, Venice. I won't censor the AI. They have a safe mode which you can turn off for both text and image generation. Messages are encrypted. Your conversation history is only stored on your browser. I love the Pro plan because I get upgraded features like uploading files, unlimited text prompts. Check it out. If you want to use AI without censorship or fear of handing over your most intimate thoughts to a corporation or the government, go to Venice AI/pacman and use code PACMAN to get 20% off their pro Plan. The link is in the description the David Pakman show continues to be an audience supported program and I am so flattered and thrilled by some of our newest supporters who have gotten memberships@join pacman.com Huge thank you to Jason Binger and Robert Burkle, our newest members at Join Pacman Dotcom. I invite you to join them get the daily bonus show as well as the commercial free audio and video feed of the show. And quite frankly you really are doing a lot to support the existence of this program which I believe in 2026 Independent Media will be as important as ever, especially with what is happening in legacy and corporate media. We thought it was bad in 2020. We thought it was bad in 2025. Well, what's going on with corporate media is getting even worse and very quickly in 2026. So I invite you to sign up at join pacman.com I will also mention on January 20th, the one year anniversary of Donald Trump being sworn in for his second and final term, we are doing a single day membership drive where we will discount memberships like crazy. My lawyer is beating down the door saying, sir, don't do it. My accountant is sending me telegrams and faxes day in and day out saying, don't do the discount. And I'm saying to all of them, we're going to do it until they pull the discount from my cold debt or something like that. Anyway, get on my newsletter@substack.david pakman.com or just email me and I'll put you on the newsletter info@david pakman.com and then on the 20th, you'll get an email with a coupon code telling you how to avail yourself of this absolutely massive membership discount. For years now, there has been a cottage industry of commentators predicting civil war. Every election, every protest, every heated news cycle gets framed as this is it. This is the Civil War. And for a long time, that was not just exaggerated rhetoric, it was extraordinarily cynical rhetoric. There was no organized, plausible pathway to civil war in the United States. And a lot of the people who, who were pretending that we were on the precipice of a civil war were really serving to drive cliques and fear and engagement. And I didn't participate in that because I think it's wrong. I have to now come to the table and talk to you about what is happening now. What is happening right now as a result of what took place in Minneapolis is different. And I want to explain it without going full doomsday. The Civil War is here this week. Yesterday, Tim Walls, the governor of Minnesota, said he is preparing the Minnesota National Guard to physically stop through confrontation Donald Trump's ICE goons from carrying out operations in Minnesota. This is happening in the aftermath of the killing of 37 year old American citizen Renee Goode by an agent of Donald Trump's ice. So we are potentially going to see the Minnesota National Guard physically face off against Trump's ice. This is not a rhetorical flourish. This is a state executive signaling we are ready to use military force to block federal law enforcement. A civil war doesn't start with neighbors shooting each other in the streets. It starts when institutions stop recognizing each other's authority. And it starts when the chain of command breaks. And it can start when state and federal power collide in a way that can't be resolved by a court or by an election. And if we look at history around the world, that is a danger zone. So I'm not here saying the Civil War is here, but what I am here to tell you is that we are starting to see the scaffolding for what can lead to civil war type conflict. Now, up until now, even during extreme political conflict in the United States, disputes between states and the federal government have been mediated through lawsuits and junctions in federal courts. It's a slow process, as we talked about earlier. A state sues, the Justice Department responds, a judge rules. And the slowness of that process can be very frustrating. But part of the process is to prevent political conflict from turning into armed conflict. If you get beyond that, if you have a state controlled armed force like the National Guard physically confronting federal agents, we're not in normal political territory. We are not in a moment where the court is going to decide. This doesn't mean we are in a civil war. It doesn't mean that a civil war is inevitable. It doesn't mean violence by default follows. Most civil wars do, do not look like two clean sides that form overnight and fight each other. They are escalating standoffs, miscalculations, moments where someone decides, I'm going to push a little bit more than we've ever pushed before, and then someone else says, we are now going to push a little bit more. That is the risk. And it is especially dangerous in the context of Donald Trump's presidency, where federal law enforcement is increasingly seen as a political weapon against which states need to defend themselves. When federal agencies are perceived, rightly or wrongly, as acting on behalf of a single leader rather than a neutral law enforcement apparatus, states begin to treat them as illegitimate, they begin to treat them as hostile, and that is how they end up deploying the state National Guard against them. That is how trust collapses. Now, it's also worth saying that the people who spent years screaming civil war over mask mandates and school board meetings, they did real damage. They have desensitized the public to the idea. Because when you've got all these people who have been saying Civil War for 10 or 12 years over everything now, when the more serious actors who I try to be thoughtful, I try not to be hyperbolic, when I now come in and say, listen, I'm not saying a civil war is inevitable, but I've got to recognize that a mask mandate did not reflect a push towards civil war. What we are seeing now in terms of the National Guard of Minnesota versus Trump's ICE goons, could push in that direction, we now don't get the attention that this really does deserve because there are some people who have been, it's like the boy who cried wolf type of situation. And it makes it harder to recognize when we are seeing the type of institutional breakdown that really can lead to that type of conflict. This is different, ok? This is not Twitter drama. It is a kind of escalation that political scientists actually do worry about. Now, the hopeful part, if there is one, is that this can still be de escalated. Congress exists. Courts exist. How quaint, right? But governors and federal officials can try to step back from the brink. But pretending that this is just another overhyped news cycle, I believe, would be a mistake. Civil wars don't start when someone declares them. They start when the rules simply stop working. And right now, there are really important rules that are under strain. One key point is that the next move matters more than the statements themselves that are being made. If Minnesota files for injunctions and Trump defies court orders, the risk of an escalation goes up dramatically. If courts act quickly and both sides at least pretend to comply, it'll probably cool down the situation. Civil conflict risk goes up not just when people disagree, but when courts, when court rulings are not treated as binding. If people say, I don't care what the court said. The risk, of course, is that there are a number of instances so far in the last year where the Trump administration has said, effectively, we don't care what the courts say. A real armed confrontation between ICE and a state national guard would create chaos that I don't believe Trump is able to manage, and it'll create a paradox. Trump may push right up to the edge because he thinks it gives him leverage, but then it may actually be pulling back. That serves him better than crossing that edge. It makes it a very volatile moment. I'm cautiously optimistic that it won't get to that point. Donald Trump floated one of the most extreme policy ideas of his presidency yesterday, and that is saying something, and it is not getting a lot of attention. In a Truth Social post yesterday, Donald Trump said that the United States military budget for next year for 2027 should be not a trillion dollars, but $1.5 trillion. Not a typo. That would be a roughly 60% increase, you would say. Well, hold on, David. A trillion to 1.5 is 50%. Yes, but the actual budget is like 900 something. So closer to 60% increase than a 50% increase. And he announced it on Truth Social, where he said, quote, after long and difficult negotiations with senators, congressmen, secretaries, and other political representatives, I have determined that for the good of our country, especially in these very troubled and dangerous times, our military budget for the year 2027 should not be a trillion dollars, but rather 1.5 trillion. This allows us to build the dream military that we have long been entitled to, and more importantly, that will keep us safe and secure, regardless of foe. If it weren't for the tremendous numbers, if it weren't for the tremendous numbers being produced by tariffs from other countries, many of which in the past have ripped off the United States at levels never seen before, I would stay at the $1 trillion number. But because of tariffs and the tremendous income that they bring, amounts being generated that would have been unthinkable in the past, especially a year ago during the sleepy Joe Biden administration, the worst president in the history of our country. We are able to easily hit the $1.5 trillion number, while at the same time producing an unparalleled military force and having the ability to at the same time pay down debt and likewise pay a substantial dividend to moderate income patriots within our country. Now, I'm going to analyze the military budget in a second. I don't believe we are going to pay down the debt Donald Trump promised before his first term. We are going to have such a surplus, we will eliminate the national debt. In reality, the deficit went up and the debt grew even faster. And we are seeing the exact same thing right now. But that's not the point here. I want to talk about the military budget. What makes this striking is that Trump promised the opposite. He scammed his followers once again. Trump complained for years. We've got a bloated military budget, wasteful, dominated by corrupt contractors, the Pentagon, the defense firms, the endless wars. He presented himself as the president who would stop writing blank checks to the military industrial complex. And people fell for it. And Tulsi Gabbard fell for it. And during the campaign and when he came back to office, he said, we can be strong, but we can spend less because we're going to be smarter. And now he is proposing the biggest military expansion this country has ever seen. Folks, you got bamboozled. He tricked you again. Now Trump says it's justified because we'll be able to build the dream military and we're going to pay down debt and we're going to give people cash. And it's all going to happen when the military budget jumps by $500 billion in a single year. The money doesn't come from nowhere. It comes from taxpayers. You are paying for this huge expansion to the military budget. When you are struggling to pay for your groceries or a flat tire or health care, do you say to yourselves, we should be giving way more money to the military? Is that what you think? I don't think that's the case for most Americans. Every taxpayer being asked to fund more bombs and bullets and weapons systems, While an unexpected $400 expense for nearly half the country means I've got to put it on a credit card or ask someone to lend me the money. The question voters should be asking is were you promised this and did you ask for it and do you want it? And the scale of this proposal is really hard to overstate. At the peak of the war on terror in 2010, military spending was about 690 billion, roughly 1.1 trillion in today's inflation adjusted dollars. Trump's proposal would blow way past that. Even the Reagan military build up, which was often considered, if you want to think about when were we most aggressively building up the military to intimidate others, that under Reagan was a doubling over five years. Trump is proposing a 60% increase in a single year. Historically, the only time the United States has approached that level of military mobilization was World War II, where defense spending was almost 40% of GDP. Trump's plan would likely push defense spending towards like 6% of GDP. That's a cold War era level of militarization. And this is supposedly with the anti war president who doesn't plan on doing any wars. Now, Trump says it'll be paid through tariff revenue. Even if that were true, the tariffs are paid by American companies and passed on to you. So even if we believe what Trump is saying, we've got so much tariff money we're going to be able to pay for it. Even if that's true, you are paying for it. Now, of course, Trump is dramatically overstating tariff collections. If you look at history, when there have been these large military buildups, it's usually funded through deficit spending or war bonds. There is not a precedent for financing something like this with tariffs. But importantly, the tariff numbers don't line up and even if they did, it would just mean that Americans are paying for it. The power of the purse does belong to the House of Representatives. I do want to remind you the President's budget is a political document. At the end of the day, the President's budget is a wish list of what the President wants. It is still up to the House of Representatives to approve or say no and they control the spending. Even with a Republican House of Representatives, I don't know that Republicans are willing to do a 60% increase on the military budget. And I would hope that there is going to be less. And but the takeaway here is you were told and promised one thing. Trump wants a completely different One, he spent years saying he would rein in military waste and be against the militarization endlessly around the world. And now he is proposing the biggest blank check to the Pentagon that the country has ever seen. And he is saying to us, he's got billions. He's saying to us, you guys are going to foot the bill. What is the average MAGA have to say about this? Not a rhetorical question. I mean, tell me if you're a maga. Do you like this? Is this what you voted for? Let me know info@david pakman.com Send me an email. Scams and identity theft rarely start with a hacked password. They usually start when your personal information is easy to find online. Your address, phone number, relatives, employment history. That information lives on countless data broker sites on the Internet, accessible to almost anyone unless you actively remove it. Our sponsor, Incogni, is a service that handles that for you. Incogni doesn't just focus on one category of sites. It works to take down your personal data wherever it appears online, reducing the raw material scammers use to impersonate you or target your family. Incogni will automatically handle removals across hundreds of known sites. But the most powerful feature is custom removals, which is included with the unlimited plan. If you find your info anywhere, even an obscure directory, a business database, something new, you paste the link into Incogni, their team will work to get it removed. That level of coverage really matters. Even a single exposed profile can lead to fraud, harassment, identity theft. Incogni's removal process is independently verified by Deloitte and you can get 60% off when you go to incogni.com/pacman and use the code Pacman. Really have been looking forward today to speaking with Caleb Ragland, who is the American Soybean Association Chairman and also a Kentucky farmer. We've covered some of his congressional testimony before. And Caleb, it's really great to have you on today. I appreciate it.
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B
Good to be here, David.
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A
So maybe just to start, give give us a sense of soybean farming, which has become an issue of increasing interest in the context of the tariffs and trade wars that the United States is now engaged in? What your family has been in farming for many generations. Has there been some qualitative change to being a soybean farmer in the United States even before these tariffs were put in place?
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B
Sure. Like any industry, there's always changes and we have to learn to adapt and dodge and find ways to still be competitive in business. My family has farmed for nine generations, little over 200 years and certainly haven't raised soybeans that whole time. Really, soybean production would just go back to my grandfather. So there's been soybeans raised on our farm for around 50 years now or a little more. But there's a lot of work that has been done within our industry to turn soybeans into a much more important crop for our country as a whole than it was a couple generations back. And that's mostly due to the export market that's been developed and also all of the research and innovation that's found all the uses that this miracle bean can be used for.
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A
Has there been a commodification of soybean farming in the United States in the sense that are you selling directly to entities or is your harvest sort of part of a conglomerate that many farmers like you participate in, which is consolidated for sale?
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B
Really, in my personal situation, the answer would be yes to both. We raise commodity soybeans. We also have a specialty market that we sell, sell into as in we grow a lot of seed that is used for other farmers seed for the crop they'll plant next year. So we're, there's just some extra details that go into it, making sure that we keep pure. The, the varieties and so forth are kept straight and so forth. It's just a little bit of extra work and effort. But, but really there would be about three areas of soybeans are divided into across this country. It'd be specialty markets, identity, preserved food grade type opportunities where you would work directly to market, maybe by containers and so forth. Then there would be just commodity soybeans are going to be grown, delivered to the elevator and then the merchandisers are going to take them, they're going to be co mingled with many other farmer soybeans and delivered to markets both domestically and abroad. And then there's a small percentage as well that of farmers that will grow the seed production that will be next year's soybean crop around the country.
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A
So we've seen the charts of soybean sales from the United States to China over the last year and it falls off a cliff. I don't remember if it's late April or early May, something like that. Explain to us is that because of the tariffs put in place by this administration and what have those tariffs done to your business?
- [38:58]
B
Well, I think it, it's really that cliff that you alluded to is really when the Brazilian crop was available to come to market and it was a combination of tariffs and I think is also a result of A choice that was made by the Chinese government to prove a point that when tariffs were put in place, retaliatory tariffs on soybeans, that was a result of all of our other trade war, many other items and tariffs. And it was basically two strong willed leaders escalated the fight. And I would tell you that soybeans were the recipient of the backlash of the retaliation from the Chinese due to the fact that soybeans are the largest agriculture export that the United States has and China is the largest market in recent history of U.S. soybeans. Over half of all soybeans the U.S. exports historically have went to China in recent years. So they're a bigger market than all other foreign markets put together for us. Another interesting number, China consumes about 61% of all soy consumed in the world. Wow. So they are a major, major market and it's hard to just say, well, just find another market. Ignore the Chinese market because it's such a large percentage. To give a few numbers on US Soybean production and consumption of all US Soybean consumption, right at half of our soybeans stay here at home and are used domestically. In that half, about half are used with biofuels, another half are used with food, food consumption and livestock and other. The other half of our soybean production is exported. Of that half, about half has went to China and half has went to other foreign markets. So.
- [41:06]
A
So it's basically a quarter of all of it was going to China.
- [41:09]
B
That's right, yeah, very easy. You see a field of soybeans, every fourth row has went to China. Another interesting visual before the 2018 trade war, about every third row into China. So we lost some market share from the first trade board that we've never regained. And now we're hanging in the balances of potentially losing more. And that's very concerning for our industry and for the economy of rural America and the economy of this country as a whole due to the fact of how important soybeans are to our export market and just agriculture revenue in general.
- [41:52]
A
So help me understand some of the politics of this in this sense. Geographically, a lot of the farming is happening more rurally by its nature because you need large spaces where you can plant stuff. Rural America votes more for Republicans than for Democrats as a matter of general principle. My understanding also is that farmers and ranchers specifically, again it may be geographic or it may be for other reasons. Republicans, farmers and ranchers also tend to vote more for Republicans than Democrats. And my understanding is that as a community, you all over on Average, not everybody, but supported Donald Trump over the Democratic candidates both in 2016 and also 2020 and 2024. Is that an accurate representation? Like, are you, are you, were you a Trump supporter? Are you a Trump supporter? What about your colleagues? Is that a fair characterization when you.
- [42:42]
B
When you put all the numbers together as a whole? It's, it's a very true, it's just a fact that rural America, the heartland of America, supported President Trump in all three elections. The numbers say that for themselves. I mean, you look at the map, the red states and so forth, is pretty obvious. Me personally, I have voted for President Trump in all three elections. And I would tell you it's not necessarily being all Trump, rah, rah and so forth, but more so just looking at policies in general and so forth. And there's a lot of other.
- [43:28]
A
Things.
- [43:28]
B
Besides trade and so forth that come to the table, whether it be regulatory things, tax policy, the, our things with our border. There's numerous issues that come, come into play. And what I would say is in election, we have, we had two choices for president, and the choice of the voter is to choose between the lesser of two evils.
- [43:56]
A
Right.
- [43:57]
B
Oftentimes it's not necessarily that if you're picking the perfect president, they're not necessarily on the ballot, but you got to make a choice. And, and I would say that very important that we are engaged in that political process. And I would also say that as a soybean farmer and as a representative here of the American Soybean association, we are not a political organization. We are a policy organization. We have policy in place and we are doing our best to get that policy implemented, to make the future of our industry better, to make the opportunities for our farmer members better.
- [44:38]
A
And is Donald Trump making that job harder for you? In other words, the guy on a personal level that you supported, is he making your employer, employer's job harder?
- [44:48]
B
Well, I would say that on some levels, we're doing really well. I think that we have made some good improvements with tax policy. There's some good things that are taking place. On the regulatory front, there's been a huge backlog of approvals that of the crop protection and tools and chemicals and seeds that we needed desperately. That a lot of that has been called up a lot. And we have positive developments with waters of the US and some of that policy and so forth. Whereas on the trade front, this is not good. I will also say that on the trade front under President Biden, things were not great either. We were, we were not near as aggressive as we should have been, we were not enforcing a lot of agreements that were in place. President Trump came along here in this his second time around and we, we do not favor tariffs and duties and things that make the playing field unlevel and put us at a disadvantage. We support free trade as an organization. So on the trade front's been hurtful. So it's a combination of both. Another thing I want to talk about is opportunities within biofuels. We do have some very exciting domestic opportunities coming about. The renewable volume obligations for soy based biofuels are increasing significantly. They were, they're being finalized now, those rules and it's going to be over a 60% increase from where we were at here in the last few years when these rules are finalized. And the EPA is in the process of getting that done here and we expect that here within days and that's going to be really positive for our industry. Also, the 45Z tax credit has a lot of potential. That's something treasury is working on and should get done here in the next couple of months, if not sooner. And those will be significant increases here at home that help us. And biofuels are a very great thing for not only soybean farmers, they're great for rural America because they create jobs, they keep dollars turning over here in our rural communities. They say that a dollar that is earned on the farm is usually spent seven or eight times in the local economy. So anytime that we have dollars that are being, coming back home, being spent, being turned over, that's great. Biofuels create lots of jobs. They're also keeping that money here at home and keeping the American economy strong. And that's a, that's a great opportunity.
- [47:49]
A
And that's all really interesting. I mean, I, I can't help but go back to this idea of I'm trying to put myself in your shoes in some sense. Right. And so I imagine, hey, you know, I'm in, I'm in Kentucky. I, I like what Trump's talking about on the border, although I don't know how much it directly affects me in Kentucky. You can maybe speak to that. I don't know your feeling on some of the other kind of pet issues of Trump, like his foreign policy outside of tariffs. You know, there's this Maduro thing or Trump talked about getting men out of women's sports as he talked about it. And then I think about the effect on the business of what you're talking about and, and exports of soybeans to China going essentially to zero Almost overnight. To me, it seems so out of balance where I would go, hey, putting food on my family's table. And, like, it's so much more important than whatever Trump's talking about with you, transports or whatever. But it sounds like you're saying that in these parts of the country, it's. Those things really do matter. Like, for people, it's, yeah, it might not be so good for my business, but the border stuff really is appealing to me or the transport stuff. Like, it's culturally really ingrained. And it's, it's, it's not so easy to say, I'll do what's best for my business.
- [49:03]
B
Well, certain, certainly politics get complex in a hurry. Everybody has lots of opinions on social issues and so forth. I would say the bottom line is people want safety and security for their families. They also want stability in their businesses, and they want opportunities. And, you know, it's a, it's a very complicated spot right now. I would say that a lot of Americans are in, but I do think that we have some opportunities to make the future brighter. And every human being makes mistakes and can certainly put a policy in place that maybe doesn't accomplish all the things that they wanted it to. And I'm not going to speculate where Trump stands on all of that right now. But as an American and as a Kentucky farmer, I hope he's successful, because like him or hating, he's in charge. He's our leader. I want to see our country continue to move forward, to be stronger, to be successful. And I want there to be opportunities for not only my kids coming along, but for everybody else's. I want to see there be prosperity for our country. I want there to be safety and security for our country, opportunities for everyone. We're the greatest nation on Earth, and we have the greatest farmers in the world. And, you know, it's a great place to be. There's certainly problems or certainly things that we disagree on day to day, but America and America, agriculture is a great place to work and to be involved. I'm thankful I have that opportunity. And, you know, I engage on the policy level because I believe it's important not only for me and my family personally, my bottom livelihood, but I think we can help make a difference for the future. And as I alluded to earlier, policy and politics are different. One thing that I like about being involved with what I've been able to do leading the American Soybean association is, you know, we, we go around, we start the grassroots level at the local level, then the state level, then the national level, getting farmers opinions and coming together and coming up with a policy that we agree on. And that's going to be our roadmap that we work towards as we help to try to shape policy that impacts our soybean farmers. And we have done our best, whether it agrees or disagrees with the president or with Congress or whoever, but we try to consistently speak the truth on where we stand as an industry and what will make the future better for soybean farmers and the soy industry.
- [52:06]
A
Caleb, I want to ask you before I let you go. You know, I've known some of the greatest brisket cutters in the world and they say I don't get sick of the brisket. I still love a good brisket sandwich. Are you, as a soybean farmer, are there soy based products that you just love or are you just sick of this stuff at this point and you'll leave the eating to other people?
- [52:26]
B
Well, so soy is a part of so many things we take for granted. Yeah, I really like a good pork chop. You know that that soy protein that helps raise the pig is great. You know, that soy protein that helps grow the chicken that lays the egg. You know, I enjoy some eggs for my breakfast. Soy protein helps produce the milk that the, the cows produce. And of course, soy protein helps with it's smaller amount, but it's still part of getting that good piece of brisket or that good steak, you know.
- [53:05]
A
So I don't hear you saying like stinky tofu is very high on your list of things you're looking for.
- [53:10]
B
Not. Not necessarily. But that soybean is such a amazing.
- [53:17]
A
Crop.
- [53:18]
B
It can do so many things. It can produce fuel, can produce protein. The oils are used in thousands of products both that we eat and other things that we use every day. I mean, you can use soybean oil to make rubber, you can use soybean oil to help make the oil that's used in the sealer on our roads. I mean, we all like to drive places instead of have to walk you. We take for granted and we're even unaware of the diverse uses that this product has. And so helping to grow that and help to just make things better for my fellow person here in the country is just wonderful. It's. I think we're doing something that is very beneficial for mankind and for all Americans, no matter where on political issues and stuff. We're doing something that's good and helping fulfill needs that everybody has.
- [54:15]
A
All right, well, if you and I get together someday, we'll call it the Agadashi Tofu Summit and I'll bring some and we'll, we'll try it together.
- [54:21]
B
Well, sounds good. Just don't make me spell it.
- [54:25]
A
We've been speaking with Caleb Ragland, who is the chairman of the American Soybean association and also a farmer in Kentucky. Caleb, really appreciate your time today. Thank you.
- [54:34]
B
Well, thanks for the opportunity, David. Take care. Hope we can talk again.
- [54:38]
A
The core issue in political journalism isn't access to facts. It's really framing. Different outlets can start from the same underlying facts and still produce very different narratives. Ground News is built to make those differences explicit. Our sponsor, Ground News, aggregates coverage of a single story from across the political spectrum and presents it very visually. You can see ideological lean, ownership, reliability of each outlet at a glance. The feature I use the most is the side by side headline view. Seeing multiple outlets describe the same event differently makes the framing choices very obvious. What's emphasized, what's downplayed, what's the context, what's left out. Ground News also offers a blind spot feed that lets you highlight stories that are receiving little attention from one side of the spectrum. That helps expose possible gaps that disagreement alone won't reveal. You can also personalize your feed by topic. You can make it easier to track the issues you personally care about without unnecessary noise. Go to ground.news/pacman to get 40% off the ground News Vantage plan. You can also gift a subscription to a friend the link is in the description Donald Trump's White House press secretary, Caroline Levitt, has resurfaced after another one of these breaks from press briefings, and this one didn't go well. And I don't know if it is because she is in an increasingly untenable situation where she is constantly asked to defend the indefensible, that these are going more and more poorly, or whether she's simply losing momentum with the job. After all, it's got it's got to be kind of stressful to just have to go out there and lie for the president all the time. The topic of Venezuela, of course, came up question for a reporter. Trump has been adamant that Delsey Rodriguez is rather Trump has been adamant that he will be running the country of Venezuela, but Delsey Rodriguez says the government of Venezuela is running Venezuela. What is going on here? And as usual, Caroline Levitt put in one of these positions of having to figure out how to not anger Donald Trump while giving questions that will at least pacify momentarily the press corps so that she can end the press briefing and move on.
- [57:01]
E
Rachel, why don't you start? Thank you, Caroline. The president has been adamant that he is now in charge of Venezuela. But Delta Rodriguez said the government of Venezuela runs her country. No one else saying, quote, there's no external agent governing Venezuela. So which one is it? Let me just be very clear. This is the first time that I've addressed Venezuela.
- [57:20]
A
By the way, when she says she's going to be clear, she's almost certainly.
- [57:23]
E
Going to obfuscate from the podium since being back and since the historic and incredibly successful military operation, law enforcement operation, conducted by our United States military that you all saw and the world witnessed last week, the skill, the might of the United States military and our, you.
- [57:41]
A
Know that she's going to lie when instead of addressing the substance of who's in charge, she says it was just such a mighty and powerful military country.
- [57:49]
E
Under the leadership of this president is on full display to the rest of the world. And let's just set the record straight. There isn't another military in the world who could have pulled off this operation.
- [58:00]
A
There also might not be another one that would have thought it was a good idea to do something so absurd.
- [58:04]
E
There is not another president in the world or in our nation's history who had the courage to authorize such a mission. And I think the world has taken notice that America is truly back with respect to Venezuela. The Trump administration, led by Secretary Rubio, the vice president and, and the president's entire national security team, is in close correspondence with the interim authorities in Venezuela. We obviously have maximum leverage over the interim authorities in Venezuela right now. And the president has made it very clear that this is a country within the United States, the Western hemisphere, close by the United States, that is no longer going to be sending illegal drugs to the United States of America. It's no longer going to be sending an trafficking illegal people and criminal cartels to kill American citizens as they have in the past.
- [58:53]
A
Notice that she still hasn't answered who is in charge.
- [58:55]
E
And the president is fully deploying his peace through strength foreign policy agenda. So we're continuing to be in close coordination with the interim authorities and their decisions are going to continue to be dictated by the United States of America.
- [59:09]
C
All right.
- [59:10]
A
So I guess her position is, yes, there are those authorities, but we're telling them what to do now. And of course, not as a supporter of regime change do I say this, but just as a, as a supporter of the truth and logic and thinking critically. If you have removed the regime, but everyone from the regime Other than one guy is still there. Have you really removed the regime? I don't know. I don't know. Caroline Levitt asked about Greenland. Oh, there was a funny moment where she said, I believe that this was not part of it. She says that this. Venezuela is a country within the United States.
- [59:47]
E
Authorities in Venezuela right now. And the President has made it very clear that this is a country within the United States. The Western Hemisphere.
- [59:56]
A
Yeah. Anyway, just a little funny thing there. She is asked about Greenland, and this is. This is kind of news. She says the US Might make an offer to buy Greenland, but they're considering military action also. Maybe we'll steal it. Maybe we'll buy it.
- [60:10]
E
Also been reports that the US could potentially buy Greenland as one potential option on the table. What would such an offer look like? Is there anything monetarily you could provide a detail there? Well, that's something that's currently being actively discussed by the President and his national security team. And I would point out that the acquisition of Greenland by the United States is not. Not a new idea. This is something that presidents dating back to the 1800s have said is advantageous for America's national security. The President has been very open and clear with all of you and with the world that he views it in the best interest of the United States to deter Russian and Chinese aggression in the Arctic region. And so that's why his team is currently talking about what a potential purchase would look like.
- [60:55]
A
A potential purchase. So Trump considering buying Greenland now, but of course, it needs to be for sale now. There are those who say everything's for sale at the right price. You looking to sell your house right now? No. Well, there must be some amount of money you would accept to sell it, right? Everything's for sale if you've got the right price. But this entire Greenland gambit is less about Greenland itself, and it's more about the desperation from Trump, number one, to confirm his alpha male bona fides of strength, that he does what he wants at the end of the day and also legacy. And I think Trump, as he realizes he may well lose the house in November and be the lamest of lame ducks for the rest of his presidency, is thinking, well, listen, if I can physically change the White House by building this ballroom, and then I can kidnap Maduro and maybe buy Greenland, I will have left a United States that is different than the one when I entered. Now, the truth is, even if he didn't do any of this dumb stuff, the United States is going to be very different after Trump than It was before as he has been just a wrecking ball influence not only on the Republican Party, but on American politics more broadly. But as far as Caroline Levitt is concerned, you know, it's, she's going to need a bigger cross hanging from her neck after some of the doozies that she's been telling lately. Let me put it that way. The Trump administration has decided to, to solve obesity. Yeah, they're not doing it through health care access. They're not doing it through food affordability. They're not doing it by addressing poverty, stress or work schedules. According to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The Secretary of Health and Human Services, Trump has ordered obesity to end. There is also a new food pyramid which we are going to talk about. Here is Bobby explaining it with Dr. Oz behind him and Marty McCary and a whole cast of characters then to.
- [62:49]
F
Addict us to ultra processed foods. It's shocking that our own government helped to drive these cataclysmic changes in our diet. The damage is real, it is preventable, and President Trump has ordered it to end. If the United States reduced obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease and Alzheimer's Japanese levels, we would save approximately $600 billion a year, about 50% of Medicare's projected long term deficit, or $5,000 per family annually. Current policy worsens the problem. 42 million Americans rely on SNAP, or common purchases include sugary drinks, candy and chips. 78% of SNAP recipients are enrolled in Medicaid and 90% of Medicaid spending goes to chronic disease.
- [63:45]
A
All right, so listen, here's the thing with RFK Jr. And this entire approach to nutrition. They sometimes have kernels of things that make sense, but they're expanded in ways that make no sense. So, for example, you should avoid food dyes. We're going to ban certain food dyes. You know, you look at the details, they're not really banning them. They're asking manufacturers not to use them. Fine. I mean, listen, get rid of food dyes. The truth is that food dyes primarily exist in ultra processed food. And the quantity of actual food dye anyone is consuming, even if you eat a bunch of these foods, is relatively small. Because food dyes are like the last final, final ingredient that's listed. The health effects of these food dyes a question mark. I don't think it's good. But the truth is that the amount of food dye anyone would be consuming if a diet is made up of under 10% ultra processed food is negligible. It's so negligible as to be insignificant on the other hand, there are people who are consuming so much saturated fat and sodium that that is a big area that you should really be handling. And unfortunately, when Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Goes, here's a fat fast food place that uses beef tallow. So it's great if you gear yourselves towards eating more of that, the amount of sodium and saturated fat that you will be consuming is a disaster. Now this is what gets us to the next aspect of this revolution when it comes to nutrition. They've unveiled a new food pyramid. And the pyramid kind of flips a bunch of stuff. And it says at the top of the pyramid, what you really want to be consuming is red meat, cheese, whole milk, protein and fats. You want a whole bunch of that. And then whole grains are moved to the bottom. And Kennedy says, we need to end the war against saturated fat now with all of these things. The devil is kind of in the details. But overconsumption of saturated fat isn't good for you. You look at longitudinal studies and meta analyzes. If you consume the more saturated fat you consume, the more likely you are to have heart attack and stroke and to have those sorts of problems, especially as you age. Now, is it true that there have been periods during which, for example, like the egg was maligned as the worst possible food and it turns out it's actually kind of okay. Five eggs a week is like probably fine. And you know, yes, there have been instances of that. But one of the greatest things that they are doing wrong here is that when 70% of Americans are overweight or obese and realizing that we need to treat this as a public health challenge and we need dietary guidelines that actually comport with the data. Figure out what kids are being fed in school, figure out what is being most being made available based on what is cheaper, based on the subsidies that exist and all of this different stuff. The idea of saying to people what you really want to focus on is eating cheese and red meat and by the way, throw beef tallow in there and use whole fat milk. That is a crazy amount of saturated fat. And if you think about, you know, even for breakfast, if you have an egg and a piece of processed white toast and bacon, versus you have an egg and a piece of like whole grain toast and half an avocado instead of the bacon, just that over a year has a significant health and caloric effect. And they're basically recommending the opposite. So I'm kind of sick of this entire Bobby Kennedy Jr. Thing. And there are people convinced that this guy is an absolute just genius when it comes to this stuff. And the funniest part, all of it is Trump is. He's ending obesity. He's just, he's going to end the entire thing. Oversimplification. Oversimplification of a problem. Blaming individuals and declaring victory is the sort of MO that Donald Trump has put in place. And he's pushing it through Bobby Kennedy Jr. Through HHS. And it is not how health works. And seeing Dr. Oz and Marty Makary standing behind Bobby nodding along to this nonsense, this is, this is leading people in the wrong direction. Now, we've got a great bonus show for you today which relates to this. GLP1s may be a forever drug. You know, Trump talks about ending forever wars. GLP ones. Increasingly it seems to really function at keeping weight off. You might need to be on it forever. And increasingly it seems like that's not a very good idea health wise. Finally, how long does the US Want to run Venezuela? We will discuss that on the bonus show as well. Get instant access by signing up@join pacman.com.
- [68:29]
G
Marketing is hard, but I'll tell you a little secret. It doesn't have to be. Let me point something out. You're listening to a podcast right now and it's great. You love the host. You seek it out and download it. You listen to it while driving, working out, cooking, even going to the bathroom. Podcasts are a pretty close companion. And this is a podcast ad. Did I get your attention? You can reach great listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Libsyn Ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements or run a pre produced ad like this one across thousands of shows. To reach your target audience in their favorite podcasts with Libsyn Ads, go to libsynads. Com. That's L, I B S Y N Ads. Com. Today.