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Josh
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Josh
Welcome to the David Pakman Show. It is Friday, February 6th. I am Josh from Ring of Fire Weekends filling in for David. And we have got a great show lined up for you. Donald Trump goes unhinged on the prayer breakfast. He also posted a pretty racist meme of the Obamas RFK talking brain worms, keto and schizophrenia. And then I get into some crypto. And then we join Pat for the bonus show where we talk more. Mike Pillow. It's all coming up on the David Pakman Show. Stick around. Religion is back now, hotter than ever before, trump said with his signature slur and plenty of the slurping and fresh off his victory on the war on Christmas. I'm Josh. I cover things for the Ring of fire weekends. That's YouTube.com thering of fire and I am filling in for David. And yesterday, President Trump spoke at the National Prayer Breakfast and he spent some time reflecting on the importance of spirituality in governance, us and them.
Donald Trump
We have 68% of the world's oil now. I know that doesn't mean too much to people of great religion. I know you want to hear about, but you know, we got to keep our country strong and we're doing really good. But that's been an amazing operation, I would say. When people saw that, I was just talking to a great leader from El Salvador and he said, man, that was some attack. I've never seen anything like that one. Right, right. That was good even by Your high standard, right. That was a hell of an attack. But we have, we have a great, a great country, we have tremendous leaders. Fantastic.
Josh
Ah, yes. Nothing like musing on a hell of an attack at the National Prayer Breakfast. And look, Trump played all of the hits at the top of his speech and you can tell that he went straight off the prompter and launched into rants about rigged elections, complained about Thomas Massie, mentioned Biden a few times, his tariffs. He launched into drill, baby, drill. Really, all of the things that a prayer breakfast should feature. All of the things. So let's skip ahead and to see where Trump kind of gets into the prayer part of the National Prayer Breakfast, let's go to like 20, 21 minutes in. He's got to be talking about prayer by now, right?
Donald Trump
Was there at the bottom of the plane. What's your name? Raisin. What's your last name? Kane. I said, so your name is. Let's get this straight. Your name is Raisin Cain, right? Yes, sir. That's what they call me. You're the guy I'm looking for. And then he said, sir, if you'd like, you can go and sleep. You know, it's a 20 hour trip. If you'd like, you can go and sleep. We have quarters prepared for you. I said, no, no, I don't have to sleep. I've been on a plane sleeping for 20. I mean, I'm sleeping the plane.
Josh
Raisin Cain, look, obviously he's losing energy 20 plus minutes into this, this speech at the National Prayer Breakfast, and he's working hard to emphasize Raisin. But a guy that carried something like 80% of the evangelical vote, he's got to get to religion and prayer somehow, right? He does. Finally, at the 34 minute mark of his speech, his remarks, he finally starts talking about prayer.
Donald Trump
And then I said, I'm coming back and I got the Olympics and I got the World cup, right? And at some point I'm going to get right back onto the teleprompter and you're going to say, that was a wonderful speech. On that momentous day in 1776, isn't that this is so much easier. You know, it takes real talent to do the other. The other is much more talent. But that's why we're president, I think. But we have very important words to say and this is such an important group and we have plenty of time to say it because when it comes to religion, I have all the time. I'm one of the few that say we have all the time in the world. But in that momentous day in 1776, history changed forever. When our founders proclaimed the immortal truths that echoed around the world down all the way through time. They declared that all of us are made free and equal by the hand of our Creator. A lot of presidents refused to say that. They refused to say that.
Josh
They refused to say that Trump having to get back on the teleprompter, probably getting signaled by somebody that he had gone 30 plus minutes about attacks and oil without actually talking about prayer. Look up on stage, President Trump spends time taunting the President of El Salvador to his face. And the president of El Salvador also spoke at the event. But Trump was saying that El Salvador only sends bad people to the United States. Absolute horror show. If you are someone who's watching this and going, my God, what is this guy talking about? But to me, and this could be a joke. And Trump spent a lot of time trying to explain his comments away as jokes. But to me, there's a couple of things that stand out about Trump's comments on religion, not his wild rants about everything else. So first, I want to talk about what he says about Mike Johnson.
Donald Trump
How about that? Did you know that, Mr. Speaker, you know, Mike Johnson's a very religious person, and he does not hide it. He'll say to me sometimes at lunch, sir, may we pray? Say, excuse me, we're having lunch. You know, it's okay with me. But he's a very religious person and he is popular and he's doing an unbelievable job. So I think God is watching over you.
Josh
And I want to talk about how desperate you have to be for power. Think about what he just said about Mike Johnson. It's obvious that Mike Johnson's a deeply religious man, yet Trump openly mocks him and openly mocks his religious beliefs right in front of him. And Mike Johnson is the guy who has to sit there and defend Trump day in and day out. Look, I have no sympathy for Mike Johnson, none. But to sit there and mock his religion to his face, it says a lot about the character of Mike Johnson to have to sit there and go, I'm not going to challenge this man. He's spineless. So then Trump launches again into something that we've heard before, we thought before, but now he finally starts to admit it more openly.
Donald Trump
Robert Jeffress was on Television in 2016 when I just sort of announced I was running, and he said, I know every candidate very well. There was 17, 18 candidates, me and 17 others. He said, I know every candidate very well, and I know Trump a little bit, but he may not be as good with the Bible as some of them. He may not have read the Bible as much as some of them. In fact, he may not have ever read the Bible, but he will be a much stronger messenger for us and he will get things done that no other man has the ability to get done. And I endorse him fully. And I said, you know, I didn't want to admit anything, but that was very interesting. And I think we've gotten more done, Paula, than anybody could have ever gotten done. What we've done, nobody else would have been able to do.
Josh
He's never read the Bible and he says that he's not gonna admit to anything. This is the man who sells, who sells the Trump Bible. Still available. A hundred bucks a copy and they've got a first lady edition, presidential edition, the Lee Greenwood edition. And he's admitting that he doesn't read the Bible yet just seconds later he admits, or he launches a campaign saying that Linda McMahon. Yeah, the former WWE Co lead is going to endorse more prayer in schools. Just shattering the First Amendment. Absolutely terrible from a guy who has never read the Bible. And that's what gets me. Look, I'm someone who's a non practicing Catholic, I was raised religious and I've always hated performative religion. It's why I left the Catholic Church, because of their cover ups of abuse and all sorts of things. And you go to a church service and they're more worried about the funds coming in the door than actually improving the lives of the people that are sitting in the pews. But somehow this man who seems to be all seven deadly sins personified and he is claimed by the right as God's chosen president, he's weaponizing religion. And it's why people keep walking away from religion consistently and the numbers have gone down from since World War II. But the MAGA base, the Trump base, they keep propping him up. And look, we know that the Trump base, they don't have real beliefs on their own. Trump doesn't have his own real beliefs. They just believe in the cult of Trump. Maybe Trump's only belief is about aspirin or something, I don't know. But to see so many people, so deeply Christian people blinded by Donald Trump's orange shine, no matter what he talks about is concerning. And there's a whole reason, there's a, there's a reason that a group of people, 30 to 40% approval rating right now, no matter what Trump says or does, they love him. Because he enables him. Look, people can excuse their crappy behaviors through religion and they can do so through politics. With Trump, whatever it is, they can excuse their crappy behavior through an institution. And when you have such an unprincipled man in charge, he, Trump is the ultimate excuse to feel better about yourself being a bad person. And to me, that's what drives the MAGA movement. Now shifting gears, moving from MAGA to MAHA. This week, RFK Jr. Has been amplifying the idea and talking about keto diets. And look, I'm going to tell you right off the bat that I agree with RFK on a number of issues. There are some ideas out there that he has that are great. America is horribly addicted to ultra processed foods. And there are several peer reviewed studies that are out there that keep coming out that show us that ultra processed foods are making us sick. Whether it's type 2 diabetes or fatty liver disease, any of it, those are real issues. We also know that pharmaceutical advertising is very harmful and RFK has taken a stand against that. Now, we've seen no policy changes, but he's taken a stand against pharmaceutical advertising. But now RFK and his brain worm are saying that a keto diet can treat serious mental illness like schizophrenia. Now look, if this were true, if this were something that was scientifically proven, it would be revolutionary. You could eat differently to cure mental illness. And these are, these are conditions that they impact millions of people. I want to say it's something like 1 in 300 people are diagnosed with schizophrenia. But it's very important for me to note schizophrenia is an extremely damaging mental illness that needs treatment. It needs consistent treatment, it needs immediate treatment. Not eating more protein, not watching your carbs, Right? We know that self harm amongst people with schizophrenia is far greater than the general population. So it's dangerous for someone like RFK to stand up there and promote this keto diet as something that can cure illness. It's absolutely irresponsible. And let's talk about this keto diet. Let's talk a little bit about the science or lack thereof with keto diets. First of all, if you look on Facebook or talk to your friends, there are things that can help from keto diets. You're going to notice an immediate drop in weight. This is a quick way to lose weight. And one of the reasons to me is that these are people, the people that are starting a keto diet are people who haven't paid attention to what they're eating before at all. So any fad diet Anything that makes them think differently about what they're eating can be beneficial in the short term. But we've seen that these keto diets are telling you to load up on red meat, load up on processed meat, saturated fats, and then restricting vegetables, fruits, whole grains. That is bad health. We know that it can lead to low blood pressure. We know that it can lead to bad heart health. It is extremely dangerous to pregnant women or those that are trying to become pregnant. We know that there are birth defects that can come from low carb diets. It is absolutely irresponsible to talk about a keto diet as something that is going to revolutionize health care in this country. It is not a substitute for mental health treatment, for health care cuts, for any of this. And that's why it's absolutely irresponsible to have rfk, who spouts all sorts of crazy crap, standing up there and essentially pontificating about what he feels, with no scientific backing will change the world. And look, this is something that is widespread throughout this government. We talked on my show, we talked about Dr. Oz saying that eating more protein and following the MAHA diet is going to lead to more productivity and save us trillions of dollars. In reality, it's gonna lead to increased heart disease, increased heart attack, cancer, diabetes. These are all things that are linked to increasing the carcinogenic red protein intake. It is absolutely irresponsible. And that's what happens when you have public policy and public trust eroded by someone who is more of a. An influencer, someone who's more driven by memes and by pseudoscience than actual research. And again, I must say this again, schizophrenia is nothing to laugh at. It is not a wellness problem. Mental health is not just a wellness problem. It's not something that an influencer can fix immediately. There are medications, there are psychiatric treatments, psychological treatments, and delaying just a little bit treating mental health issues can be deadly. This isn't something that's speculative. It is real. And that is the point here. It is dangerous to have someone like RFK spouting all of this without saying any of the potential drawbacks, without telling you that it could be potentially deadly. But hey, you know what? All it's gonna do is it's gonna be more memes, more tweets, more true social posts from the MAGA and MAHA crowd. Again, I'm Josh from Ring of Fire Weekends. You can catch us YouTube.com thering of fire. You can catch me on my newly launched social media pages at the voice of the left filling in for David. We've got more content to come today on Friday, February 6th.
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Josh
Donald Trump launched into yet another truth social frenzy with over 60 late night posts and most of them were ranting about the stolen election and voting machines and and ballots not being counted. But there's one particular post that showed us exactly who Trump really is.
Investigator/Analyst
Initiated by a court order, the Michigan investigation team obtained forensic access to a DS200 tabulator, the machine that counts as votes. A Telet 4G wireless chip manufactured in Taiwan was discovered embedded into the motherboard. The voting machine tapes clearly indicate modem engagement and transmission of election data. Some of the anomalies that we noticed in the 2020 general elections that five key states all stopped counting at a certain time. In these key battleground states, these were all where the software, Dominion machines, ESNs machines were used, the Smartmatic, the gems software. So when the vote stopped counting, and this has been noted in other countries as well, President Trump was significantly ahead. When Republicans reporting and counting resumed, there was a massive spike occurred that that favored Joe Biden.
Josh
That's right, a clip about voting machines miscounting ballots with an image spliced into it of Michelle and Barack Obama's faces superimposed on the bodies of apes. It is absolutely and disgustingly racist. Openly racist, of course. Carolyn Levitt raced to defend Trump in a statement she put out. She says this is a form of an Internet meme video depicting President Trump as the king of the jungle and Democrats as characters from the Lion King, please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public. The fake outrage. I want to ask audience, is your outrage fake? Is mine? Posting an openly racist meme about someone you are absolutely jealous of? Because we know Trump is so jealous of the success and the public image that Barack and Michelle Obama maintain with the American public. Jealous. And I am absolutely outraged. Absolutely. And yes, this image came from another AI generated video that depicted Trump as a lion, but that does not excuse the plainly and openly racist image of the Obamas as apes. And by the way, it's. The video appears to have been made by the same Internet troll that made the AI Trump video that we saw during the no Kings protests where he's dumping poop on protesters from a fighter jet video. Real mature. And notice Carolyn Levitt didn't apologize. She didn't acknowledge that the image could be offensive and that it was unintentionally shared and Trump didn't notice it spliced into the video. The Trump administration, the Trump regime doesn't care if they're labeled racist. Especially, I mean, the fact that Stephen Miller has a job in the White House and the fact that he's lurking around everywhere tells you where this administration stands on racism. And look, linking Trump to race, racism is. It's not new. From the housing discrimination in the 70s, the Central Park Five, the Charlottesville, when he called the white supremacists there very fine people, and refusing to denounce the proud boys or any of their ilk. There's little doubt that Trump looks upon people of color as inferior. But the scariest and most worrying part of all of this is that Trump's base is going to find a way to celebrate this meme. You're going to see it posted all over your social media feeds. You're going to see it everywhere, just like you did when Obama was first elected. The MAGA base. And I know this is going to make some people angry. The MAGA base is a racist base. And I'm going to adapt a quote to fit this, and this is an older quote dealing with the aftermath of World War II. If you see a table of nine people and they're openly discussing racist things and saying racist comments, and you sit down at that table and you don't shut down that conversation, you have a table of 10 racists, and that's what people are gonna say about Trump. Oh, he just shared a meme. Oh, the people around him are racist. He's not racist. Look, he's. And they're going to point to African Americans that he has supporting him, the few African Americans he has supporting him. Look, I was raised in the Deep south, and I've been around racist people all of my life, and they have excuses for all of it. But racism ultimately comes from jealousy and a fear of anything different. And these are two virtues that Donald Trump holds in mass quantities, especially when it comes to Barack Obama. Whether it's the Nobel Peace Prize, the. The war room photos that he's trying to recreate, or Obama's relevance in pop culture and sports. These are things that Trump will never live up to. So what does he do? He stoops to the lowest form of hate and jealousy, and then he enables his base to do the same. It is absolutely disgusting behavior. It is disgusting of Carolyn Levitt to defend it. And again, I am so angry that it's not going to affect Trump's numbers at all, that 30 to 40% of people that approve of Donald Trump, still, there is nothing, nothing that Donald Trump could do to alienate that base. And that's. Folks, that's what we're up against, that there's 30 or 40% of the people out there that are openly racist and they're openly jealous of success of other people. And speaking of that sort of jealousy, we're gonna get a little bit more absurd here. Look, we know that Trump is obsessed with promoting his own brand and image. And it's. It's been more obvious than ever right here in his second term. The US Institute of Peace, the Kennedy center, this. This archway project that he's. He's making Trump Rx, the meme coins, all of it. He is obsessed with adding his name to everything he touches. And I'm looking here at a story. This was reported by Punchbowl, and Punchbowl is very much an insider type of reporting. They are connected to lobbyists. They're really connected in the D.C. area. And they're reporting that Donald Trump was negotiating with Chuck Schumer over a public transit and tunnel project, a $16 billion project, negotiating over funding it again after Trump shot it down over DEA or D E I policies with Trump's negotiation tool, asking Chuck Schumer to rename Dulles Airport and this tunnel project, excuse me, renamed Penn Station, Trump Station, and the Trump airport, a $16 billion project, and it was shut down because Donald Trump says it had DEI in it. All because Donald Trump wanted yet another vanity project. No matter when this project gets restarted, just having this project with the funds frozen already has a real cost. It is Costing millions of dollars. And I've seen estimates that are anywhere from 1,000 to 3,000 jobs lost because of this funding freeze. And Trump has the nerve, the nerve to try to equate putting his name on the project, renaming an airport, renaming a very well known train station after himself. And this all comes from the fact that Trump knows that his legacy is never one of success. He's a failed businessman and his, his poll numbers are bottom dwelling. He's only ever found success through manipulation, through lies. And he is such a petty and insecure person. Just listen to the way he talks in any of his speeches, the way he self promotes. He's always the best, the biggest, the, the funniest, impossible feats. It reminds me of, of any of the leaders of North Korea, any of them. It's boastful. And it's because he has no self worth. None. Deep down to his core, Trump is an insecure person. And his only way of building up his legacy is littering our country with, with his name and his likeness. And it's disgusting. And he doesn't care about the cost. He doesn't care about the human cost. He doesn't care about taxpayers. He doesn't care about any of it. We saw that. This man is willing to go to war over a Nobel Peace Prize. He's willing to threaten NATO and Denmark and Norway, all of these countries, because he didn't get a Peace prize. We've seen him go to FIFA and have them create a soccer Peace Prize. That he received, of course, all because he is an insecure man who has never ever achieved success without manipulating someone, without putting someone else down. And this is no different. This tunnel project and holding the funding is no different. Now, we could talk about how Chuck Schumer didn't bring any of this to light. That would have been the prudent move. That would have been a leadership move from the Democrats. The minute Trump calls up Charles Schumer and says, hey, rename the project me and I will release $16 billion that needed to be front page news, that needed to be talked about in every hearing, that needed to be all over the place. That's the campaign video, folks. That's it. That's the campaign emails. Look, we have to stop Trump. He is holding $16 billion of a public transit project because he wants to rename them after himself. That right there is how you start your campaign for 2026, and that's how you start your campaign for 2028. Instead, Schumer is still trying to deal with these backroom deals and he's trying to treat Trump like an adult. We all know that Trump's not an adult, he's a child. We know that fighter jet projects are still. He wants to name them F47. He's trying to rename a stadium in Washington, D.C. after himself. It's not serious. He's not a serious person. And yet he's doing real damage to our country. I'm Josh, filling in for David Pakman. You can catch me doing weekend content for the Ring of Fire. That's YouTube.com thering of fire. And you can find me on my newly launched social media pages. So please, I need some followers at the Voice of the Left on Facebook and Instagram. We will be back with more great content on the David Pakman show in just a little bit.
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Josh
Have you checked your crypto lately? I mean, it is absolutely bottom bottoming out right now. As of Friday morning, it's hovering just over 60,000. The end of January it was at 80k. At the end of October, it was at an all time high of $127,000. I mean, it has lost half of its value in just a couple of months and that is shocking. And I'm going to tell you exactly why Trump is behind most of it. I'm Josh, filling in for the David Pakman Show. You can catch me on Ring of Fire doing content on the weekends. YouTube.com/the Ring of Fire and we have to ask, why is crypto crashing out right now? And there's a lot that goes into the market of crypto. Gold, silver, all of that plays a role. But a lot of the issue stems directly from the Trump administration. And there's, there's four things at play here. First of all, geopolitical instability has a lot to do with the markets overall. It is extremely hard to convince investors that we are in a stable world market right now. When you have someone like Trump alienating every ally out there, talking tough on Europe, on China, on Russia, we have no friends. That's not good for the economy. And especially since we're always a truth social rant away from ramping up military tensions somewhere along the globe. That instability also comes from the will he or won't he tariffs, the taco plan, the Trump always chickens out philosophy, threatening a tariff, pulling it back, threatening it again. It leaves markets absolutely nervous. There's no way you can do business if you have no idea what doing business is going to cost. And of course, I've got to reiterate, the tariffs are largely paid by consumers. We know that over 90% of the tariffs are paid for by us, the consumers, the American consumers. That's not good for consumer confidence. And look, Trump is nowhere near a free market politician at all. This is an unstable man, an unstable leader that insists on meddling in the market. It's just a recipe for disaster. And we're just now finding out yesterday. Job growth, job growth is having a ton to do with this. The worst January since 2020, or, excuse me, 2009. And this is something I'm going to cover in just a few minutes in the next topic. But layoffs are surging, so markets are panicking. And now Trump is pushing for Kevin Warsh to succeed Jerome Powell. And we've seen the Jerome Powell videos and Trump making comments about him. He's tapping Kevin Wash now to replace Jerome Powell as the Fed chair. And look, Wash is known as overall pretty crypto friendly, but in practice, he's extremely pragmatic when it comes to monetary policy. He wants a tighter grip, just like Donald Trump does. And that is diametrically opposed to the philosophy of most crypto investors. They want the wild, wild west. They want a pure free market. So because crypto has a smaller market cap and it's a tinier piece of the overall market, it's more volatile and it's more susceptible to the changes that you're seeing with Donald Trump's instability, the changes at the Fed, the job Reports, all of that are making crypto crash. But we're actually already starting to see the overall market follow along. Crypto can be an indicator on how the overall market is going, and we're gonna keep an eye on that over the weekend and see how things open up on Monday. But this is really surprising, especially since Trump, especially in this second term, has billed himself as the crypto president. He, he took office and signed a ton of crypto executive orders deregulating crypto, rolling back SEC enforcements, he established a strategic reserve for bitcoin, and of course, he launched his own crypto through World Liberty Financial that came with a half billion dollar investment from Abu Dhabi. As of last year, it's estimated that Trump and his businesses had as much as $11.6 billion in crypto holdings and as much as 800 million in profits coming last year from crypto. And there's allegations from congressional leaders like Jamie Raskin that Trump is using crypto to hide shady deals, deals that we haven't even heard of, any legal deals with foreign countries and foreign investors. Look, Trump once told us that crypto can facilitate unlawful behavior. That's kind of his standpoint earlier in his political career, his first term. I guess he's right. I mean, Trump is now the one that's profiting off crypto and he has allegations that he's using it improperly. He's using it to cover up for improper investments and improper deals with other countries. I'm telling you, he knows what he's doing when it comes to taking advantage of the crypto market. And look, the point is here, conservatives, and we saw it with the Cato Institute, and we see conservative conservatives all across the board, they're starting to see Trump for what he really is. Highly unprincipled, he's extremely volatile, and he's ultimately only interested in himself. And none of that lines up with conservative free market thinking. Absolutely none of it. And when you have a president that, that volatile, that disinterest, disinterested in doing things that improve the market and improve the economy, when you have someone like that leading your country, it does not help the markets at all. Trump was tabbed to be the economic president, the president that was supposed to grow the economy. So far, what we've seen is, is the economy doesn't respond to a madman running the country. And as I mentioned, among all this crypto news, layoffs are at an all time high, layoffs are surging, and markets all over, not just crypto, are falling. We're seeing Those early indicators as of filming right now on Friday morning. And it comes on the heels of Challenger, Gray and Christmas reporting yesterday, Thursday that January layoffs had the highest number of layoffs since 2009. Saying that US based employers announced 108,433 job cuts in January. That's an increase of 118% from the 49,000 cuts announced in the same month last year. It is up from 200. It's up 205% from the 35,000 job cuts announced in December. That is according to Challenger, Gray and Christmas. And we've had an idea that this was coming. We've heard from some of the major employers like Amazon that are investing more in AI, that they're shifting money away from labor, they're shifting money toward AI investment, which we know kills jobs. That fact, though, seems to be something that our President doesn't know. In the NBC interview this week, Donald Trump says roll the clip. Well, it's killing a lot of jobs. And what do you say to Americans
Donald Trump
who are going to lose their jobs to make. It's going to create a lot of jobs.
Josh
But right now it's taking jobs in a lot of ways. It's taking jobs. Companies like Amazon. What would you say to those Americans?
Donald Trump
But it hasn't really started. You know, these major plants haven't even been built. What you're going to know.
Josh
But Mr. President, start. AI has already started to take jobs
Donald Trump
because so we have. It was just announced, more jobs right now occupied in the United States of America that at any time during its existence, 250 years, there are more people working today than at any time in the history of our country. Pretty good stat that you are. Kills that question.
Josh
Yeah, we have to look it up.
Donald Trump
You are, you are good. It kills that.
Josh
Mr. President, there's widespread concern that AI is going to wipe out a lot of jobs, manufacturing jobs.
Donald Trump
I mean the Internet was going to do. Everything was going to do. Robots are going to kill jobs. Jobs, everything's going to kill jobs. And you end up, if you're smart, doing great.
Josh
Ah, thankfully it's not happening at all, these job cuts, not happening at all. And look, in the wake of all these cuts, in the wake of this terrible economic news, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has delayed the release of their job report until Wednesday of next week. We've already seen Donald Trump and his administration get involved in the BLS numbers. They have stopped reporting on a lot of the different metrics. They have called the reports woke biased and have criticized the bls, he's fired people across that agency. And those numbers are definitely, definitely not going to be tampered or slanted in any way due to this delay. And the job cuts, though, aren't just happening in one industry. It's not just tech AI, and the cuts attributed to it are happening across every industry. Ups, because Amazon is using AI to enhance how they deliver your packages. UPS is making cuts, health care is making cuts, chemical manufacturers like Dow. And you know Trump, he's saying that the tariffs are going to bring back manufacturing jobs. We're not seeing it because these, these companies are shifting to AI
Donald Trump
and these
Josh
job cuts keep coming. Tariffs, they're not paying off. We're not seeing new plants built everywhere. Sure, we're seeing some AI plants. And these AI plants, we know that they're skirting EPA rules. They're, they're dodging questions. And a lot of the way that they're powering themselves and that they're using water to cool these AI plants is frankly, against the law and against regulations. So the minute somebody gets wind of that, and hopefully at some point we get some enforcement there, those factories are going to have to undergo massive changes. And I'm telling you, these factories, they're not staffed by people. These are data centers. That's what is running our economy. So one of the things that were promised is that, yeah, sure, these AI job cuts, we're going to have replacement jobs coming in. Well, that didn't happen. Didn't happen at all. According to ADP, only 22,000 jobs were created. Unemployment is skyrocketing. We had 20, excuse me, 231,000 unemployment claims in the last week of January. So you have markets diving. Consumers are paying the price for these tariffs. AI is taking jobs at a rate we haven't seen since the Great Recession of 2008 and 2009. Unemployment is through the roof and AI is just out of control. And what is your president saying and doing about it? Same thing he always does, lying about the numbers, delaying official numbers, promising that jobs are coming and they just aren't. And to me, this is the easiest thing to attack Trump on. Ahead of November. You attack Trump on the economy. Because as much as middle America wants to talk about bathrooms and woke issues, what's really going to matter when they vote in November is their checking account, their pocketbook, the cost of groceries, the fact that they can't find a job. All of that is an opportunity for the right people, on the right, excuse me, on the left, to win in November once again. I'm Josh, filling in for David Pakman. I cover the Ring of Fire weekend content. You can catch us@YouTube.com theRing of Fire. And again, I would love if you jumped on my newly created social media pages at the Voice of the Left on Facebook and Instagram. We'll be back with more content in just a little bit on the David Pakman show.
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Josh
Well, they are facing contempt charges, but the Clintons have agreed to comply with the House Oversight Committee's congressional subpoena over the Epstein files. And since we've known about the files, we know that Bill Clinton's name has been in the files and it's been a popular target for GOP years. But this might not turn out the way the right wing wants. I'm Josh. I'm filling in for David Pakman. I cover weekend content on the Ring of Fire. You can check us out@YouTube.com the Ring of Fire. And this news comes on the heels of of Trump seemingly trying to curry favor with Bill Clinton, saying in his NBC interview that he hates that people are going after Bill Clinton, saying that he likes Bill Clinton, meanwhile facing these contempt charges to testify about their role in the Epstein scandal. Hillary is posting publicly to James Comey, quote, you love to talk about transparency. There's nothing more transparent than a public hearing cameras on. What is it that the right wing says? FAO F A F? Oh, I think that's the direction that Hillary is leaning here. And I want to start with a couple of things. Number one, when we talk about the Epstein files, we know that there is unreliable information in there. We know that just having your name in the Epstein files does not equate to guilt. We've seen fakeries, we've seen forgeries. And of course, we know about all of the widespread inappropriate redactions, the victim shaming. We know about all of that. So I just want that context out there if you're watching this video. But when we start talking about the Clintons and the Epstein files, we know that his name, Bill Clinton, is in the files. There's photos, there's shots with him in a hot tub or a pool. There's flight logs. There's a lot of information about Bill Clinton in the Epstein files. We do also know that the FBI has investigated Bill Clinton's ties to Epstein. We know that that's happened, and we know that there's really been no charges that have come out of the Epstein files for any of the huge names that are out there. And again, with Bill Clinton being named as an associate of Jeffrey Epstein, and he appears in the photos, I have not seen anywhere that the victims have publicly accused Bill Clinton of wrongdoing. I've seen people accusing Trump. And in a 2019 statement, Bill Clinton acknowledges that he didn't know anything about what Epstein was doing. I find that maybe a little hard to believe, but the Clintons are daring Congress to put it out there for the public to see, because if anything, the Clintons appear ready to name names and to go in front of House Republicans and tell exactly what they know about their relationship with Epstein. I will reiterate that even being associated with Jeffrey Epstein is disgusting. I personally don't think that there's any way that the Clintons didn't know what was going on. However, I do love the fact that they are challenging Republicans to put their money where their mouth is. If they want the Clintons to testify under oath, then they want to do it in public. They want to make sure that everyone hears everything they have to say. Meanwhile, Donald Trump is out there complaining on his NBC interview, saying that he's bothered by people going after Bill Clinton. He's trying to reframe these hearings, trying to make Bill Clinton seem like a better guy than he is, and he's calling these. These hearings unfair. Why? Because he's the one that has everything to lose notice. What's missing when he talks about this, he doesn't talk about himself testifying. He's not Offering to go under oath. He's not demanding to go in front of cameras and discuss his name. And again, what we've seen from the Epstein files is that Trump's name appears thousands of times. I've seen the meme out there again that says his name is in the Epstein files. More than Jesus's name is in the Bible, more than Harry Potter appears in all seven Harry Potter books. And yes, the Clintons names also appear in the Epstein files, and so do dozens or hundreds of powerful figures. And a lot of them have already started paying a price for this. We've seen top lawyers at Paul Weiss, we've seen people in the UK We've seen the former Prince Andrew, all of them facing scrutiny over the files, but they've never answered a single question publicly under oath. So let's play this out. The Clintons answer the subpoena, they get in to this, this hearing in private. The only thing that comes out of it is what the Republicans in Congress want to come out of it. They control the narrative, they, they control the release, and they control what you, the public, hear about their dear leader, Donald Trump, and everyone in his inner circle that are associated with Jeffrey Epstein. If this is public, it's a different story. The conversation can't stop at the Clintons. And maybe the Clintons are going to get out there in public and admit to something, but when they do, they might be admitting that a lot of other people were involved or they admit that they didn't know what was going on and they throw everyone else under the bus. And it allows the Clintons to say who knew what and when, who didn't know what and when, who was on the island, who was, was on the flights, what type of communications haven't we seen? We do know that the DOJ has covered or not released roughly half of the files. We've seen over 3 million files, and it seems that there's about 6 million in total. The other half of the files, we're told, has conduct so bad in it that they can't release it to the public. Well, that's through the lens of what the DOJ wants you to see, because we've seen the way they redact, they redact the powerful names, ignoring the victims names. They leave those out there for the public to see. We've seen lewd photos of the victims posted where famous people have had their faces redacted. So when the DOJ tells you half the files have conduct that's so bad they don't want it out in public. Some of that conduct may involve the people they don't want you knowing about. And that's exactly why congressional Republicans don't want the Clintons in front of cameras under oath answering questions about what they know. We know that Bill Clinton was cozy with Trump. We know that Trump doesn't want Bill Clinton to testify under oath. We know that Trump doesn't even want to talk about the Epstein files. That tells you everything you need to know. And frankly, I hope that we get the opportunity for Bill Clinton to have his day in Congress to answer questions. Now, this also opens up Donald Trump to something. And this is another interesting angle here because with James Comey pushing for Bill Clinton, a former president, to testify under oath in front of Congress about Epstein, the Democrats, they're frothing right now. They're foaming at the mouth because they know that this opens the door for Trump to do the same. And what a glorious day that will be again. I'm Josh, covering for David Pakman here. You can catch me Ring of fire Weekends. That's YouTube.com the Ring of Fire. You can also check me out on my freshly launched social media pages, Facebook and Instagram at the voice of the left. Drop me a line, tell me how I did covering for David and for you members out there, stick around. We have bonus coverage with Pat, the world famous producer.
Podcast Summary: The David Pakman Show
Episode: Trump lets it slip at prayer breakfast as Clinton testimony backfires
Date: February 6, 2026
Host: Josh (filling in for David Pakman)
This episode, hosted by Josh from Ring of Fire Weekends, delivers a sharp and wide-ranging critique of contemporary US political events—zeroing in on Donald Trump's erratic behavior at the National Prayer Breakfast, the fallout from a racist meme posted by Trump, RFK Jr.'s dangerous pseudoscience, developments in crypto and the job market, and the surprising maneuvering of the Clintons regarding the Epstein files. Josh brings wit, outrage, and progressive analysis throughout.
[01:13 – 09:46]
Theme: Trump's off-script rants, religious posturing, and underlying mockery.
Notable moments:
[09:46 – 18:50]
Theme: Critique of RFK Jr.’s claims that keto diets can treat schizophrenia, and larger cultural obsessions with pseudoscience.
Notable moments:
[20:03 – 27:30] Theme: Trump’s truth social deluge and the posting of a racist meme targeting the Obamas.
Notable quotes:
[27:30 – 33:25]
Theme: Trump attempts to secure naming rights for infrastructure projects as a political bargaining chip, revealing pettiness and self-obsession.
Notable quotes:
[34:37 – 43:58]
Theme: Exploring the ongoing crypto crash, connecting it to Trump’s policies, global volatility, and economic mismanagement.
Notable quotes:
[43:16 – 49:17]
Theme: Worsening job market, Trump’s dismissal of concerns, and government manipulation of “official” stats.
Notable quotes:
[50:34 – End]
Theme: The Clintons agree to testify under subpoena about Epstein—but with a public spectacle the GOP may regret.
Notable quotes:
Josh’s guest-hosting brings a blend of biting sarcasm, frustration, and progressive analysis to the week’s wildest political news. Key takeaways include Trump’s ever-deepening performative hypocrisy, the normalization of racism, the real-time public health dangers from pseudoscience, and the potential for political backfires as the Clintons threaten to expose more than the GOP bargained for in the Epstein investigation. The episode is a must-listen for those following the crosscurrents of scandal, political culture, and policy under Trump’s presidency.