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- [00:01]
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- [00:57]
David Pakman
Donald Trump's first major firing of the second term is Kristi Noem. She will no longer be a secretary of Homeland Security, replacing her with Senator Mark Wayne Mullen, who once challenged people testifying before a Senate committee to a fight, a physical fight. Trump pretending that she's not really fired. He's moving her to a new position, but the new position is so stupid that everybody can tell she has been fired. Fired. We will talk about what I believe is the one issue that really unites Americans. It's not the culture war crap you see on cable news. I will tell you what that issue is and what the real divide is in the United States right now. We also will talk about a senior Trump border official under criminal investigation after disturbing videos have surfaced of him and his henchmen during these operations. I guess we're going to call them in Minneapolis, where we will discuss a corruption scandal involving Trump's labor secretary. Let me give you a hint. Your tax money paid for her birthday party. And we're also going to look at the bizarre argument now being pushed by Trump allies, that starting a war is actually ending a war. Also, former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene raising questions about Trump's mortality and decision making. What a show. Today, Donald Trump has finally done it. He fired Kristi Noem, his secretary of Homeland security, metaphorically launching her into outer space, never to be heard from again. He actually is giving her a completely fabricated new job. I'll talk about that in a moment. This is the first major firing of the second term. It could not possibly be more humiliating in so many ways. The first humiliation is that Noem made Trump look terrible, totally incompetent, melting down at every hearing, bungling the entire deportation, immigration fiasco, playing Border Patrol Barbie, as some have called it. I don't know if that's misogynistic. That's the nickname Border Patrol Barbie. Showing up and sort of pantomiming, participating in these deportation events and suspected of having an explosive affair with Trump insider Corey Lewandowski, involving a blankie, going missing on a plane, firing and rehiring of pilots. Just completely crazy, embarrassing stuff. Second humiliation is that Trump didn't know whether to fire her or not. He was going around asking other people in the White House, should I do it? Should I not? Do I keep her? The guy who is supposedly better than anybody at hiring is asking other people, what do we do? What do I do? Tell me what to do. I guess he's not really that good at picking the right people. And then the third humiliation is that Trump is so embarrassed about firing her that he made up a completely imaginary and pathetic job for her to pretend that this is just a transfer. Here is Donald Trump's announcement about this. As you may know, announcements like this are now habitually made on Truth Social, the failing social media platform of the president, where Trump said, quote, I am pleased to announce that the highly respected, highly respected United States senator from the great state of Oklahoma, Mark Wayne Mullen, will become the United States Secretary of Homeland Security effective March 31st. The current Secretary, Kristi Noem, who has served us well and has had numerous and spectacular results, especially on the border, will be moving to be. I hope you're sitting down for this one. I hope you're not eating right now. Kristi Noem will become special envoy for the Shield of the Americas, our new security initiative in the Western Hemisphere. We are announcing on Saturday in Doral, Florida. I thank Christie for her service at, quote, homeland, end quote, end. Broader, quote, totally pathetic in every way. Now, the moment that reportedly pushed Trump over the edge was when Kristi Noem said, oh, yeah, Trump was involved and was fine with me spending $220 million on new planes for myself at the Department of Homeland Security. This is Republican Senator John Kennedy, no relation to the Democratic. To the mostly Democratic Kennedy family. And apparently Trump did not like this at all.
- [05:52]
Senator John Kennedy
And you're saying that you're testifying that President Trump approve this ahead of time. So I'm understanding. We had conversations about making sure that we were telling people, no, ma', am, I'm asking You. Sorry to interrupt, but the president approved ahead of time you spending $220 million running TV ads across the country in which you are featured prominently. Yes, sir. We went through the.
- [06:20]
David Pakman
Oh, sorry. And it wasn't about. It wasn't about the. I'm getting mixed up now. It was spending money where she is a main character in these ads, which is hugely embarrassing. This. It was not actually over the plane stuff.
- [06:30]
Senator John Kennedy
Legal processes did it, correct? Yes, he did. Yes. Okay. And one thing, Senator, I think would be helpful to know is how effective that communications has been that.
- [06:43]
David Pakman
All right. So anyway, she goes on to say those ads where I'm a main character have been really, really effective. But apparently what really sealed the deal for her is that she said, oh yeah, Trump knew of and approved me spending $220 million on ads in which I am featured. Now, hilariously, even after her firing, I was getting reports from various airports, a number of not all airports, airports in blue states mostly didn't. Didn't do it. But a lot of airports were featuring some of these commercials with Kristi Noem in them on the internal TV systems of the airports. And I got reports that even our hours after Christie had been fired, those were still actually running in airports, which is interesting. She is technically still Secretary of homeland security until March 31. But the fact that those ads are a huge part of why she got fired and the ads are still running is pretty funny. So my question to you, who will be next? Who will be the next major Trump staffer, Cabinet level or equivalent, to be fired? Let me know in the comments. Send me an email info@david pakman.com There is one real true major unified issue in the United States right now. I want to make the case here that what we are seeing in the news, in Reddit comments on Twitter, it really doesn't reflect what is actually a very unified view across Americans about one major issue. If you turn on cable news or you scroll through political social media, you would think that the country is being torn apart by dozens of huge issues. And there are rifts for sure. There are culture wars everywhere. There are endless outrage cycles and all of that. But the reality is that a lot of the things that are dominating the political conversation aren't really central issues in the average person's life. They are distractions and they are political theater. I'm going to give you one example. Men in women's sports as Donald Trump and parts of the right wing media present it. They have spent years trying to make this one of the biggest issues in our country about fairness and about all of these different things. Endless segments. And Trump's campaign speeches were riddled with stuff about trans athletes and panel discussions and conferences. And yet, when you step back and you ask a simple question, how many people does this actually affect effect, the answer is extremely low. It doesn't mean we don't care about it necessarily, or that we don't care about trans people. But what we are really talking about is a tiny number of athletes in a handful of sports leagues at a certain level, and only in certain sports. Most Americans will never encounter the issue in their daily lives. It doesn't determine whether they can afford groceries. It doesn't determine whether they can afford a home or if there are even enough homes where they live. It doesn't determine whether their health care bankrupts them. And that's why when these issues flare up, they often disappear as elected officials realize I'm no longer getting the traction with it. I haven't solved anything. I haven't fixed anything. Nothing's really changed. Although Trump signed a few transphobic executive orders. But the issue is losing its emotional salience. These issues do not touch most people's lives. They have the moment that people think about it and then go back and go, wait a second, what about my rent? What about my utilities? Children, medical bills, childcare, gas prices? That culture war debate becomes less important. This brings us, what am I building to? This brings us to what might really be the real issue in the United States right now. And I believe we are seeing this in a number of areas. Rather than left versus right or Democrat versus Republican. The real divide increasingly looks like this. There's the powerful class and then there's everyone else. Issue after issue after issue, you start to see the same pattern. Power and wealth are concentrating at the very top of society. Everyone else is getting squeezed. And there are increasingly multiple. Set two sets of rules and Americans realize it. Whether you're on the political left or on the political right. Let's use the Iran situation as an example. You've got this debate in Washington about geopolitics and national security. What does it mean for ordinary Americans? Gas prices go up and everything that is shipped with gasoline powering the shipping is going to get more expensive. As shipping costs rise and inflation creeps up, groceries get more expensive and people make decisions about their day to day lives. Totally disconnected from what Trump wants to do to Iran. Even though Trump's decision in Iran affects everybody, they're not deciding whether filling the tank costs $60 or $120. When they decide, do we start bombing Iran? So when Americans ask, why is the country getting involved in yet another foreign conflict while Trump promised lower prices, but everything's getting more expensive, that's not really a left or right question. It is a class question. Who's making the decisions that affect me? Who is going to pay for those decisions? Now let's look at a different example, which is the Epstein files. The reason the story keeps coming back isn't the crimes of Epstein. It's the suspicion that there is a completely different system of accountability for the powerful people. There's one set of rules for the elite and another set of rules for everybody else. The political insiders, the billionaires, the celebrities, the people who show up in those circles never seem to face consequences. Only anecdotally do they face consequences. And increasingly there are people calling it the Epstein class. And if they're. If you pay attention to it a particular way, you notice that a lot of the anger isn't partizan. Now, it is true that there are people on the right who are angry about the Epstein stuff for different reasons than maybe people in the middle and the left. But big picture, what you see is people across the political spectrum feeling and thinking. If you're rich and powerful enough, the system will protect you. If you're not, the system is going to punish you. Now zoom out even further and look at housing, which is such a great example of this. Millions of young people can't afford homes. Millions of older people can't afford homes either. Look at health care. Medical bills are one of the most common causes of bankruptcy in the United States. Look at student debt, a generation that starts adult life financially behind. Look at corporate consolidation, where four companies control most of pick your most of the meat industry. Five control most of the media industry. Three, dominate the airlines. Two, dominant, dominant, dominate telecom. You see that consolidation, higher prices, less competition, record profits. And meanwhile, people's wages are barely struggling to keep up. People are working harder. They fall further behind. Trump built his political brand on the language of populism. We're going to drain the swamp, fight the elites, fix trade for the average person, stand up for the forgotten American. You look at the policies, the results go in the opposite direction. Tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefit wealthy households, deregulation that helps corporations grow even larger. Attacks on unions, policies that threaten the concentration of wealth and power are immediately shot down. Or people look the other way. They don't even get a chance to get going in the respective House, Senate, wherever it is. So you see the populist rhetoric, but the outcomes are very elite friendly. And this is something I call faux populism. We've got to talk about Democrats here as well. Democrats haven't always captured this moment. Too often the conversation gets pulled back into culture wars that divide people who are actually experiencing the same economic reality. You've got working class Democrats, working class Republicans, different political identities. They may live in different parts of the country, but their frustrations at the end of the day are pretty similar. Things are expensive. I don't really trust the people that are supposedly going to help me out. The system's not really built for me. It's built for the people at the top, the donors, the insiders, etc. And so this gets us to something unusual in American politics. Anger at concentrated power, that is bipartisan anger at the billionaire class. The idea of two legal systems, the idea of two financial systems. I think we're seeing hints of this coming to a head in Texas. Democrat James Tallarico won his primary in a deep red state running almost entirely on the message that it's not left versus right. It's, I think he would say it is top versus bottom or something like that. A truck driver in Ohio and a gig worker in California might disagree about a lot of cultural issues. Their views on gay marriage and abortion might be different. The TV shows they like might be different, but they might agree on the fact that the system is tilted against them. Different rules for the people at the top. And I believe that this is why the culture wars are so useful for people who benefit from the current system. They keep Americans fighting each other while the concentration of wealth and power keeps accelerating at the top. So when people ask what the real issue is in the United States, obviously I say this as a person on the left, an authoritarian lunatic as president who thinks he won one elections that he lost and is losing his mind, but has the nuclear codes. That's a problem, but that's, that's. I'm making it partizan. It's not dominating cable news, but the idea of a tiny group of people accumulating enormous wealth to the fury of, of Americans across the political spectrum is an issue that could be a uniting issue. And I believe that whoever genuinely uses that to build a coalition, it might be a Democrat, but there might be a Republican that can successfully use that is going to win and is going to win big. Let me know what you think. I have a wild, wild story for you. A Trump secretary was caught using tax money for her birthday. Now, I don't mean an administrative assistant I mean, one of Trump's cabinet secretaries. Now, as I just told you in the first segment today, anti corruption is one of the few issues that actually unites Republicans and Democrats. Most people don't like politicians stealing taxpayer money. And I believe that that's why this is such a problem for the Trump administration. We have learned that Donald Trump's labor secretary, Laurie Chavez de Remmer, is now under investigation for allegedly using taxpayer money for personal expenses like a birthday party. She threw herself a birthday party at the Department of Labor, but it was her personal birthday party. And according to reporting, staff was worried about the optics of using government money for a birthday party. Yes, that is a correct thing to be worried about. So the solution wasn't let's cancel the party, it was let's call it something else. And they rebranded it as a swearing in celebration in name only. It was still her birthday party. They sang Happy Birthday to her. She blew out candles on a birthday cake. And this is all very unusual for a swearing in ceremony, if I do say so myself. When she was asked about it by Congress, she said, I did not have a birthday party, but there are pictures that show her blowing out birthday candles. So the defense here seems to be it wasn't a birthday party, it was a swearing in where they sang Happy birthday to me and they got me a cake and I blew out birthday candles. It gets even worse. Investigators are also looking at alleged misuse of taxpayer funds for personal travel. And so now it's like, okay, the birthday party was incidental, it's cartoonish. But this is the bigger picture issue. Kristi Noem is doing this. Cash Patel, the FBI director, is flying his girlfriend around on government jets. And we now have a formal investigation. There is a lot of warning going on here about serious legal consequences. Now, I don't know whether this is really going to go anywhere at the end of the day, but this is exactly the type of, of corruption, number one, that the Trump administration has become known for. And number two, voters generally agree on a basic principle. Taxpayer money shouldn't fund politician birthday parties. And for as long as they keep doing stuff like this, it's on us to keep highlighting it, because there are still Republicans who don't give a damn what happens. But there are some who look at this level of corruption and ego and self centered spending of taxpayer money with absolutely no concern whatsoever. They see it and they go, that is not what I voted for. I believe it is a unifying force and we need to keep making it known. If you felt the Internet getting colder and creepier. More propaganda, more surveillance. You are not imagining it. The big social platforms are optimizing for control. That's why I'm excited to tell you about our sponsor Haven Social Protecting users and creators from manipulation and surveillance Haven is building an image and video based social media operating in the Instagram and YouTube lane that supports both short form clips and long form landscape video. But when you post on Haven they will automatically make it harder for facial recognition systems to identify you. They will poison your images so that the AI scrapers can't learn from your content. Haven is also fighting exploitative algorithms with a clearer transparent recommendation system and a reverse chronological feed so you see posts in order. Unlike the big tech social media platforms, Haven is about building a space outside of that control, protecting your privacy, giving people a place to share and stay informed and and Haven also will make it easy to transfer your posts and reconnect with followers so switching platforms doesn't mean starting from scratch. You can support Haven's Kickstarter at David pakman.com/haven social the link is in the description Sometimes there's something uniquely nostalgic about breakfast cereal. I remember Saturday mornings getting up before everybody else, having a little cereal while watching cartoons. And our sponsor Magic Spoon is like the grown up version of that experience. It's high protein, low sugar, tastes like those cereals you remember from childhood. Each serving has 12 to 14 grams of protein, 0 to 2 grams of sugar and 4 to 5 grams of net carbs. It works for breakfast or a late night snack or after a workout. They've got flavors like Fruity Frosted, Peanut Butter, Cocoa and Cinnamon Crunch. They launched marshmallow flavors, Classic Marshmallow and S'. Mores. Magic Spoon also makes treats which are crispy protein snack bars with 12 grams of protein, 7 grams of fiber, 0 grams of added sugar, easy to throw in your bag. You can find Magic Spoon on Amazon or at your nearest grocery store, but you will also get $5 off if you go to magic spoon.com pacman the link is in the description well, I have something to report to you today that actually makes me very happy. Now this is not like we just cured cancer happy. But sometimes when it seems that there are going to be no consequences for people apparently doing horrible things that are against the law and then suddenly you get a glimmer of a possibility of maybe we will consider consequences. We say, hey, that's a very good thing. And Donald Trump's border chief Gregory Bevino, who got rocked out of his position after humiliating himself and others through his actions in Minneapolis. He is now under criminal investigation. They are investigating him for possible crimes committed. Committing crimes is bad. Okay, you shouldn't do it now. The details are disturbing. And then we will get to this issue of law and order in a moment, which, of course, is very important. Former Customs and Border Protection Commander Gregory Bevino is one of the people now being criminally investigated by prosecutors in Minneapolis, Minnesota. This all relates the nexus here is the crackdown called Operation Metro Surge, which included the deployment of federal agents to Minneapolis. It included the killing of multiple people, and it included a complete perversion of what the Trump administration told us was going to be the deportation operation of violent criminals. And we have video that shows Bevino doing something that now has prosecutors involved. I'm going to show you the video. In this video, you will see Bevino throwing a gas canister directly at protesters and observers. You can see that green gas comes out of the canister. It was on video. You see Bevino with very low energy going, gas is coming. First warning. Gas is coming. Second warning. Gas is coming. Third warning. Then he visibly struggles to deploy the gas, which is sort of like a moment of comedy in the midst of tragedy. And then he throws this thing. Let's take a look.
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Gregory Bevino
I'm in the gas. Get back. Gas is coming. Gas is coming. Second morning. We're building gas on Bill Savino. Gas on Bill. All right,
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Larry Kudlow / Senator Blackburn
Piece of.
- [25:09]
Gregory Bevino
You just get back, get back. Sam, I have it. I have it. Sam, back up. The green stuff. The green stuff.
- [25:38]
David Pakman
All right, you get the picture. Now, experts say that that green gas potentially contains lead and chromium. These are chemicals that can be toxic. They are potentially, at least in the case of lead, it is carcinogenic. Chromium I know less about. And there are a number of incidents here at play that are now part of this prosecutor, the interest of prosecutors in investigating this. There are 17 separate criminal investigations tied to this operation. We heard from the local county attorney, who said that there is a special transparency and accountability project to look at these cases. And there is a very pedestrian, you know, quaint reason that they are doing this, which is that federal authorities have refused to provide the information that is necessary to have accountability. Now, we knew, or at least we suspected, that this was going to come to a head at some point because local prosecutors have said we need to enforce local law. And these federal goons and the Trump administration officials who are directing them have insisted effectively that they are above the law. Now, they don't say we are above the law, but they make arguments about federalism and the conflict between federal and state law, and working at the direction of Trump and all of this stuff to essentially justify that what they are doing is above and beyond being restrained by something as silly as the laws of the state. So what local prosecutors now want is if you are just a member of the public and you were at any of these events and you have pictures or you have video, or even if you just saw something, you have an eyewitness account to provide of what federal agents did, get in touch. It's a sort of crowdsourcing of evidence because the federal government isn't cooperating. Now, would it be nicer if the federal government simply cooperated? Of course it would. Would it be better for everybody, including the country, if federal goons didn't come to believe, partially because Trump supports this view, that they can do whatever they want, and whether it's Tim Walls or Jacob Fry or whoever, they're not going to do a damn thing about what they're doing? Yeah, it would be better if we could actually trust the federal authorities to participate in the operation, but we can't. They're not going to. The allegations are extremely serious. They include tear gassing, nonviolent gatherings, and a whole bunch of other abuses. In some cases, federal agents are accused of killing unarmed protesters, which we covered extensively when it happened. And, you know, those instances, Renee Goode and Alex Preddy. Now, prosecutors are saying that if the federal government keeps withholding evidence, they could potentially look at lawsuits to force the release of that information. And we have a situation here where they, they, meaning the federal authorities, have gotten accustomed to there being very little accountability. And when incidents like this happen, they expect that they're just going to get away with it. And so what local authorities are now doing, and, you know, they may fail, but let's give them a shot at doing it. They believe that they have found a way to hold the federal authorities accountable. I want to say one other thing. Every time I talk about this, some of these MAGA Potamians go, I thought you were for law and order. Isn't everybody innocent until they're proven guilty? Of course. And notice how I haven't suggested anyone be charged, never mind imprisoned or anything. I'm asking for due process. I'm asking for the investigation to take place. Provide the information. Let's go through that process and then see where we land. If, indeed, if indeed it turns out that crimes were committed, they should be prosecuted in accordance with the law rather than excused because they are Trump's goons. That's what I want. There is no lock anybody up. There's, if there's evidence, then indict and then if they are adjudicated guilty, then look at what the sentencing guidelines say. See how that's law and order. Very different than lock them up. But Gregory Bevino is now in the crosshairs and it seems appropriate based on the video evidence that we have. There is reportedly screaming panic at the White House because gas prices are spiking because Donald Trump started a war with Iran. Let me tell you what is going on this, this is absolutely fascinating. Trump attacks Iran six days ago and the economic consequences are now starting to show up. And according to reporting from the Daily Mail and Politico, Trump's chief of staff, Susie Wiles has been furious and demanding answers as to why, why oil prices are surging. And of course we know why Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz. Oil prices are spiking. About one fifth of the oil supply goes through that very narrow shipping lane between Iran and the Gulf states. And because Iran shut it down immediately, global oil prices spike. Brent crude, which is not an adult film actor's name, it's the type of oil. Brent crude jumped from 72 bucks a barrel to over 82 in a week. In fact, right now might be even higher oil price now, now it's up to. Yeah, no, it's around 82 right now. So it's about, about there. And that translates directly into what Americans are paying at the pump. Now we have been tracking gas prices. Here are the recent. You can barely even see the spike because it's so precipitous there. That's easier to see. We have seen an increase of 12% in just the last five days and almost 20% since mid January in gas prices. Average gas prices at the pump. Inside the Trump administration, they are reportedly panicking. Energy Secretary Chris Wright and other officials have been screaming to find good news. Think about that. The same administration that has spent so long saying they will dominate energy. Everything will be cheap. Electric will be cheap. Gas prices will be cheap. They are now looking under, they're looking under my red fake MAGA hat to see can we find any good news here about energy prices? Can we stop gas prices from spiking? Now, I've said before, for the average person, a change of 30 cents a gallon in gas, it really doesn't affect your day to day budget that much. But it can have second and third order effects as shipping of everything you want because becomes more expensive. But Trump hung His hat on the gas price, the price of a gallon of gas being determinative in how an economy is doing now. At the same time that the administration is spiking gas and oil prices with their policy and saying we might do more military involvement. Caroline Levitt yesterday said, we're not taking off the table, boots on the ground, which this is all going to get even worse at the same time as that they're pretending that everything is fine. The Energy Secretary, Chris Wright on Fox News said, this is a transient bump. It is a, quote, small price to pay. Trump kind of shrugged it off and was like, well, oil prices might be a little higher because of this, but like, that's okay and they'll end up lower than before at some point later. Privately, there are people screaming at the White House going, what the hell is going on? They're worried about ninety dollar a barrel oil, even though experts say we could see $120 a barrel of oil, which would previously that was sort of equivalent to, it implied a price of five dollars a gallon of gas. Imagine five dollar a gallon gas under Trump. But you've got war hawks that love this war effort. They're not mostly random voters. I'm talking about people in the administration. And the timing is terrible for Trump and for Republicans because you've got midterms coming up, you've got polling that says Trump's approval is slipping even further. And historically, even though, again, for most people, $0.30 plus or minus is on the order of a few dollars a month difference for people who drive an average amount, you know, 800 miles a month or something like that, gas prices correlate with, if they're high, the party in power gets punished at the, at the polling places. I'm not even saying that that's fair. I'm just saying that that's what happens. Now, again, the deep irony is that Republicans have been claiming for a long time Democrats are responsible for high gas prices because of their Green New Deal, which isn't policy, because of their environmental policies. But now we see this massive geopolitical shock, a war in the Middle East, a major global shipping point is choked, blocked. And, and now we see gas prices going up for one of the few things that a president can actually do. As I've told you before, we don't want to oversell how much power presidents have over gas prices. There's a few things they can do. One is declare a gas tax holiday, which temporarily just removes gas taxes. Gas gets cheaper. Number two, they can release oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. That usually is like a 15 cent per gallon decrease and it's short to medium term. And then you can attack a country that either is a major oil producer or controls controls oil shipping. And that is exactly what Donald Trump did. He did one of the three things that presidents can do to influence oil and gas prices. A military escalation. And now the Strait of Hormuz is shut down. Oil prices up, gas prices up. The funny imagery of people running around the White House. Trump's going to throw ketchup if we can't get price gas prices down. You can control gas prices with a press conference. You've really got to actually change circumstances. And it seems Trump is committed to, I guess, another five weeks of this, even though the prediction as to how long this is going to last keeps changing. So sorry to hear that this is happening to them. Most guys I know wear underwear that is acceptable. It's not particularly comfortable, it's not really breathable. It's just like, okay, I guess it does the job. But many guys don't realize that there is a meaningful upgrade available. Our sponsor Sheath underwear is that upgrade. Sheath uses a dual pouch design upfront which can separate and support. It reduces friction. It improves airflow all day. And instead of everything being pressed together like with traditional designs, you get the structure and the space that you deserve. At the end of the day, the material is lightweight, it's soft, it's breathable, still supportive, high quality holds. Its shape doesn't bunch up. Once you try it, you'll notice the difference, especially on hot days. I've been wearing sheath for years. Sheath is one of those things you'll be glad you did every time you get dressed. Not just for men. Sheath also has a full women's line with the same focus on comfort and quality, plenty of styles and colors. Go to sheathunderwear.com/pacman and use the code PACMAN for 20% off. The link is in the description. War is peace, night is day, black is white, tall is short, you know, whatever. Fill in the blanks. I'm going to show you something that really captures the moment that we're in right now. Larry Kudlow, FOX Business host, former Trump ECONOMIC ADVISER all around Trump, suck up and sycophant. He went on his show and he said that by start that by starting a war, Trump has ended a war. That's really the whole argument. You might say, oh well, let's hear his, you know, extremely incisive and nuanced explanation as to why this. No, no, no, it's just, it's really that simple. Let's take a look at this and then we will discuss.
- [37:44]
Larry Kudlow / Senator Blackburn
Senator Blackburn, welcome, ma'.
- [37:45]
David Pakman
Am.
- [37:46]
Larry Kudlow / Senator Blackburn
So, I mean, I guess is there going to be a war? Here's Trump ending a 50 year war. Robert O' Brien mentioned that earlier in the show. Trump is ending a 50 year war with the Iran terrorists and their proxies. And we have to be on the defensive and have War Power act votes and try to cut off. What's your take on that? Is it going to happen?
- [38:06]
David Pakman
My take on this is it is
- [38:08]
Marjorie Taylor Greene
more of Democrat Trump derangement syndrome.
- [38:11]
David Pakman
Yes, yes, of course, of course. That's the issue. So let's actually analyze this argument on its merits and on its fundamentals. According to Larry Kudlow, the bombing campaign of Iran, the strikes on Iran, the escalation, that's how you end a war that has been going on for decades. The logic now is that Trump is the peace president because he's bombing people and that that's how you end wars. The reason for all of this back and forth as to is this a war, isn't it A war is up, down is down, up. We were told that the presidency would be no new wars. That that was the slogan, that was the branding. So they have to stick to that and they have to find some logic pretzel that they can create in order to continue making that claim. For Trump to be the peacemaker and the dealmaker who will stop the endless conflicts, even if he starts a conflict, you have to still claim that he really is ending a conflict. And so the defense now is that by, by, by starting a war, by doing these bombings, he is ending the conflict in some way, shape or form. It's this rhetorical jujitsu where the bombing is a de escalation, the bombing is peace. That's really what you should consider it. Now, there's a bigger story here that is not getting the attention it deserves, which is that while a lot of people are arguing over is this a war or is it a special military operation, is this an escalation or is it really precipitating a de escalation? We're only in this situation because of Trump's actions during his first term. Let me explain. Barack Obama as president, Barack Hussein Obama, that guy that Trump talks about and is obsessed with undoing everything Obama did. Barack Obama had the Iran nuclear deal from his presidency. Was it a perfect deal? No. Can you necessarily trust extremist theocratic regimes like Iran's? Of course not. But we had every reason to believe that up until Trump shredded the deal during his first term, Iran was complying with the deal. Trump shreds the deal immediately. You can go back to my segments contemporaneously. I say, well, why wouldn't Iran restart their nuclear program? Trump ripped up the deal. Even though they stuck to the deal, they were required not to develop nuclear. So any logical participant in this harebrained game would immediately say, well, let's start developing nuclear. We either develop it or. Or it becomes a negotiating tool for a future deal. That is really the impetus that got us to Trump bombing Iran over the summer and obliterating their nuclear capabilities, and then now this. So there's actually a much bigger picture in which Trump is to blame. Now. You don't have to take to go back to present day. You don't really have to take a position on Iran to see the problem here. Like, I'm, I'm against any kind of theocratic regime. I'm against extremist authoritarians. I know you're bored with the list by now, but I'm not a Putin guy. I wasn't a Chavez guy. I'm not. I wasn't a Castro guy. I was. I'm not a Maduro guy or Bond. All of them, right? I'm. And the ayatollah. But the question here is, given the Ayatollah is a bad actor, given that the region is unstable, even if you believe force is inevitable, we still can't redefine the English language to make war. Not war. It's a very old political playbook. If it sounds bad, you rename it. It's not torture. It's enhanced interrogation for the shared purpose of national security. It's not a war. It's a special military operation or kinetic military action. It's not a strike. It's a preventative stabilization maneuver. Of course. So we now get to. We are ending a war by starting a war. Now, what I think is most important is that a lot of this messaging that Republicans are coming up with around this stuff, it's not really aimed at Democrats. Democrats already oppose the escalation, even if we mostly deplore the ayatollah. And I say that we as in someone on the left. I've never been a Democrat myself, but the point is that this messaging from MAGA is not aimed at Democrats or people of the left. It's aimed at Trump's base that increasingly recognizes that Trump betrayed them with the whole I'm the only antiwar candidate type of thing. When the bombs start falling, you've got two options. You say it is a war. I said we wouldn't do wars. I'm doing a war. And here's why. You try to defend it and see if you can convince people, or you pretend that it's something else. They've chosen option two, which is pretend that this is something different. You can see when you watch the Kudlow clip, he seems strained. This is not a very we're ending a war by starting a war. It's not a clear doctrine. It really is mostly just a word salad. The question now will be, can pundits spill it, can pundits spin it, and will the voters fall for it? And I don't know the answer to that. But if your identity was, I'm going to be the only person who's going to keep us out of wars. And then you start one, you very quickly have to go into damage control. Marjorie Taylor Greene, former congresswoman, the reactionary, repulsive former Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. She went on Megyn Kelly's show, and I'm paraphrasing here, she says Trump keeps talking about how he's not going to heaven. That is really a concern. Check out Marjorie, this, I love this.
- [44:21]
Marjorie Taylor Greene
And then we have the president, who, by the way, Megan, this really needs to be said. Donald Trump has said repeatedly on camera and in interviews he doesn't think he's going to heaven. Well, I want to ask a question, a serious question. What is in his mind? What is his mental state if he doesn't think he's going to heaven? And he is a man towards the end, he's in the fourth quarter, he's towards the end of his life. How does that pan out for the rest of us when we have a president of the United States who doesn't think and is convinced he's not going to heaven? What does that mean? His decision making is he already said to the New York Post today that he doesn't care about the polling, he doesn't care about what the American people think, and he may put troops on the ground. He took a oh, this is going to be a few day war to now, it's going to be maybe four weeks or more. I want to say what is happening to the man that I supported. You supported the man that denounced what happened in Iraq, the man that said no more foreign wars, no more regime change. Promise it on the campaign. J.D. vance promised it, Tulsi Gabbard promised it. All of them promised it. And we're a year in A year in and we're in another fucking war and we've got American troops being killed. I think it's time for America to rip the band aid off and we need to have a serious conversation about what the fuck is happening to this country and who in the hell is are these decisions being made for and who is making these decisions.
- [45:53]
David Pakman
She's completely correct. You know, I, I don't share a lot of her values and political values and moral values. I thought that she was a terrible man, member of Congress. But this analysis is absolutely spot on. And to see Megyn Kelly sit there and sort of start to calculate, man, she's making pretty good arguments. But I've got to remain loyal to Trump. What do I do? Marjorie Taylor Greene is simply right about this. She has been one of the loudest MAGA voices or former MAGA voices criticizing this Iranian escalation. She says Trump lied about being anti war. Tulsi lied. I love that she's pulling in all the names of people that were deceptive about the anti war thing. And she brings up now an interesting bit of context, which is Trump saying he doesn't think he's going to heaven and emphasizes Trump is getting towards the end of his life. What does that mean for us when the President is no longer, I guess, in her Christian worldview, if you believe the ship has sailed on heaven. I'm trying to infer here, she's saying he is no longer going to act in a way that, that he would even be worried about the moral and ethical underpinnings of what he's doing. So what I love about this is she's, the ship has sailed with Marjorie on Trump. She's denounced and they've separated. At this point, she's raising very important doubts about Trump's mindset and his incentives. And really, I heard from a couple evangelicals who said, you know, David, you've got to understand the evangelical language. She is, she is speaking to evangelical voters without saying, you got to abandon this guy. She understands the audience, which is that when you no longer are acting in a way where you are motivated by getting into heaven based on your behavior, your decision making is going to become increasingly divorced from what they would view as, as Christian morality. Now, you don't have to agree with their version of Christian morality to understand how important that would be to an evangelical. And that's the theme that she's choosing. She's not doing like the battlefield tactics stuff or legislative, oh, he should have gone to Congress. She's focus on the mortality of Trump heaven end of life framing. Can this guy be trusted to act in a Jesus like way as she defines it? And that is a direct hit with the very evangelical voters who in a great degree merged their religious identity to Trump's political project. Remember that at the start of the 2016 Republican primary, Trump didn't have the evangelical support. Ted Cruz disproportionately had it. And through this campaign of attrition, as the ones, twos and threes dropped out, a lot of evangelicals said, I don't know about Trump, but I sure as hell I'm not voting for a Democrat, I'm not voting for Hillary. And that allowed Trump to kind of accrete this support. And I think the Marjorie Taylor Greene reframing is very interesting. She's asking highly coded questions. They're like dog whistles in the sense that the people that they're designed for understand them. And this is going to continue to erode the unquestioned loyalty of Donald Trump. I wouldn't say that Marjorie Taylor Greene is so much leading a revolt as she is opening the door for evangelicals to say, we don't have to support this crap. And just opening that door can be enough for a lot of people to say, I'm out at this point in time. Fascinating what has happened to Marjorie Taylor
- [49:38]
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David Pakman
Learn more Quick interruption Worth hearing. If you love sports, TikTok is for you. Game highlights, expert breakdowns and fan reactions. Just the moments that matter. Download TikTok now. The David Pakman show is an audience supported program and the best, most direct way to support the show is by becoming a member@join pacman.com you'll get the daily bonus show, the daily commercial free free show and plenty of other great membership perks. Get the full experience by signing up@join pacman.com you will not believe what they are saying about me on the Internet. No, you probably will. If you have something you want to say to me, you can email me info at David Pakman Dotcom. Leave a comment on any of our platforms YouTube, Spotify, Tik Tok, Instagram, Facebook. Send a telegram, send a smoke signal. We have a fax number if you want a fax. Anyway, let's get right into it. More Bond TG wrote Turns out the Constitution is inconvenient for them because it was written to protect the American people from its government. You know, I, I've not been a big we need the guns because the government will become tyrannical kind of guy. And part of it is really a practical matter which is I, I just don't know that when they have shoulder mounted RPGs and drones and Chinook helicopters and all of this stuff, I just don't know that me having one or a few guns is going to be ultimately what, what beats back a tyrannical government. Now you could say, well if everybody had the guns then at least they would think twice. But in any case, it hasn't really been a big motivator for me. And case in point, and interestingly enough, we have a government right now that in many ways is tyrannical in the sense of it is roll. It is steamrolling the first Amendment. It is steamrolling the fourth Amendment. It is doing so many things that we often associate with tyrannical regimes of different kinds. And it turns out that a lot of the people with the guns agree with it. That's the, that's the really wacky thing. It's sort of like, hey, if you had all these guns because of a tyrannical government, we've got one. And you love the tyrannical government. But as far as the Constitution, yeah, the Constitution for a lot of these people is, it's really like I write in my book the Echo Machine, which is if you just say to some of these magas, tell me your principles and they would go, well, my principles are freedom and Liberty and a respect for the Constitution and the rule of law and self determination and low business regulation. And then you go, ok, well, but here's the scenario we're actually in. You still support that stuff? Well, no. Here we need the government involved in business and we actually do have to take the guns away from certain people and we do need to encroach on liberty. And there's some exceptions to the Constitution that we claim to worship. So these various claims about principles that they make really only are as far as it's convenient for them. Right now, it's inconvenient. The Constitution has become inconvenient. Some of them even said it. We can't go and get a warrant every time we go into ice, goes into someone's house like, well, you're sort of saying that the document you hold so dear, the Constitution, is inconvenient. I guess you don't really care about the Constitution that much. Over on Instagram, oh5hja says if Trump cures cancer, Davy will find a way to give him an L or a L. You know, this is a very dumb comment and a lot of people wouldn't even dignify this with a response, but I do think it's important to mention that when Trump does something I think is good, or at least not bad, I mention it. It's just that there's not that many things. Listen, I, I don't give Trump credit for the COVID vaccines. What Trump did is he didn't stand in the way. He agreed to pre purchase a bunch of vaccines from manufacturers, which is the completely normal standard thing to do. It was the right thing. Trump did the right thing. I think any president would have done it. But at least he didn't stand in the way and he did the right thing. Now ultimately MAGA turned on him for the vaccines. That's a whole different story. I've. I've been clear. Nicolas Maduro was horrible as a despotic leader of Venezuela. The Ayatollah Khamenei was a terrible theocratic extremist that ruled Iran and oppressed its people. I agree with Trump that those leaders were bad. The question is, is what we did legal? Is Trump a competition? Is. If you don't care about that, is Trump a competent person to carry it out? You know, there's other questions, but I agree with Trump. Maduro bad, the Ayatollah bad. So if Trump cured cancer, and by the way, what does it mean to cure? People say, oh, did you cure cancer? Cancer is so many different Things, almost certainly the cures are going to be different things for different conditions. I would give Trump credit if he actually did it now. If someone, you know, if a, if, if a French scientist who went to school in Canada and now works doing research at UNC Chapel Hill cures cancer and Trump happens to be president. No, I'm not giving Trump credit for that. Huh? 11 billion says Democrats should stop acting like the fall of Trump will suddenly lead to some blue wave because problem solved. And, and realize we inevitably will be seeing the rise of much further right contingency as the Democrats have never taken fascism seriously. All right, this is a little bit of a mess, but I think what this person is suggesting is that the end of fascist American right wingers isn't going to come with the end of Trump because there are even further right fascists that want to get into power. And, and what the person is alleging is that Democrats have never taken fascism seriously. I believe that there's a kernel of truth here, which is that saving democracy did not appear to be the great unifying motivator, certainly not in 2024, that Joe Biden and ultimately Kamala Harris would have hoped that it would have been. And there are some who say that's an atrocity. What greater priority can there be than beating back fascism in the United States? And I sympathize with that. On the other hand, there are those who say, you know, by the way, going back to our segment earlier this week, almost a quarter of American adults are semi literate. They can't handle and process complex ideas. This is not an insult, it's just the statistics. Of course. How much are my eggs is going to be much more emotionally salient. Do I feel that I'm safe in my neighborhood is going to be much more emotionally salient. Even if the issue of fascism connects with all of those questions, we shouldn't be surprised that beating back fascism was not the great motivator that some would have hoped that it would be. I don't think that everything as framed by this person is completely accurate, but I think they're making some important points. Mark Monfort wrote, so A billionaire served McDonald's hamburgers that were cooked a couple of hours ago to the winning team. Yeah. So I don't know how many of you saw this. Donald Trump invited the Olympic winning ice hockey team to the White House. They did indeed serve McDonald's. I can only imagine. Even if it comes from really close by the White House, I don't know where the closest McDonald's is to the White House, it's probably must be a few blocks at the most. I don't know. By the time that all the food is cooked and then brought to the White House and it gets through security and it's served up, it's probably stale McDonald's. I don't really care about that so much. What I care about more is how can Trump claim himself to be this great purveyor of the Maha movement of making people healthy while regularly serving not random people, but people whose being in absolute top physical conditioning to be athletes is at stake and he's serving the McDonald's. Come on, man. It's just, it's, it's just a reminder. This is no offense of any kind. It's a reminder that money really can't buy you class. And that is epitomized by Donald Trump. All right, a bunch of people submitted their State of the Union bingo cards from last week and actually that's the right emphasis, I think. Posted my bingo results. Almost a blackout and just about every square that I came up with checked off. Trump really did almost all of it during the State of the Union. I hope people played along with me. It was a depressing but entertaining game of bingo. Fritz Rasp wrote on subreddit Democrats should go all in on universal health care in 2028. This should be their primary platform for 2028. Midterms will be about how much Trump is fucking everything up. That's fine. But 2028 should be about systemic reform. That is popular. Gallup says 64% support for universal health care. Democrats won't. They'll waste their political capital on, on middling appeals to the center and get nothing done. So let me tell you what I agree with and disagree with here. I agree that the pitch for 2028 needs to have some very clear and emotionally salient economic elements to it. Everybody getting health care, I think is an important one. I also believe that it's important to really understand the nuance on some of this stuff and consider, consider that maybe there is a broader anti corruption approach that might be more inviting to some of the centrists. Independence, I guess, is what I'm talking about. I'm an advocate of universal health care personally and I think there's a number of different ways that we can get there. It is also the case that while a lot of people really dislike their insurance company, they are in a situation where they get health insurance through work and it's like pretty good. And their desire to blow that up, if that's the sole focus of a candidacy may not be that appealing. Now, I want to be clear. Pacman comes out against universal. No, no, no, no, no. I'm for universal health care, and I've outlined a whole bunch of different ways that we could get there. What I'm saying is the support for universal health care does decline as you give people more information about how it would work. There's a Kaiser Family foundation poll that points this out. And for a lot of people, their concerns are housing, groceries, general cost of living. And they're sort of like, I don't necessarily want. I don't love my health care, but I don't know that I want to blow it up right now with something that I'm unsure if it will be better or not. So I'm not dissuading or anything. I think the economic message is an important one. I think whoever ultimately does run in 2028 is going to want to really calculate what is going to be the most unifying message that would appeal to the greatest number of people. I know a lot of lefties, okay, who work at big companies and their health care is sort of like, okay, you know, they've got $40 copays when they go to a specialist, $20 co pays at the regular doctor. They can get a pair of glasses every couple of years and their dermatology appointment once a year, whatever. They pay a couple hundred bucks a month out of their paycheck. And they're sort of like, it's not awesome. I mean, it sounds like it's better in Denmark, but I'd have to be really sure to blow it up. And that, that's the only question. But affordability, more broadly, 100%. And health care, of course, is a part of that. Owl on Katana wrote on Spotify, thank you for all the information and joy I've gotten from listening and watching on YouTube over the last month. Listening has been extremely helpful in collecting my thoughts and conveying them in both speech and text. I feel smarter and more confident because of your work. That's awesome. I love that. Really appreciate that message. Hahaj Jihad writes on Spotify, I work for a US Manufacturer based out of Texas. Our business has been growing for many years post the Great Recession. We even expanded our facility in 2023 and hired a ton of new employees. We were hitting new records and getting quarterly bonuses. Then Liberation day came. And slowly, over the next six months, it slowed down, hiring stopped and bonuses evaporated. Last week, we had a round of layoffs for the first time. Since I've been here, going back to 20 2007, a lot of folks are writing in saying they are seeing signs of trouble at their business, especially in manufacturing. We know that the manufacturing level is lower than it has been. Manufacturing employment level has been lower. Is that the lowest point in the US in a long time? There are almost half a million available factory jobs, which includes what we would loosely call manufacturing. People don't want them, at least not at the wages being offered. So the manufacturing renaissance that Trump promised is not exactly happening. Send me your emails info@david pakman.com we have a phenomenal bonus show for you today. Sign up@join pacman.com you'll get instant access not only to the bonus show, but to all member benefits.