Donald Trump (9:06)

I am announcing today that the United States will withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal. In a few moments, I will sign a presidential memorandum to begin reinstating U.S. nuclear sanctions on the Iranian regime. We will be instituting the highest level of economic sanction. Any nation that helps Iran in its quest for nuclear weapons could also be strongly sanctioned by the United States. America will not be held hostage to nuclear blackmail.

David Pakman (9:45)

So that's an important moment. That's the moment that Trump walked away from a deal that was constraining Iran's nuclear program. The deal that Trump is now struggling to recreate. This is the mental thing about it, and I went over this last week to some degree or the week before, a bunch of the points that Trump is now negotiating, which he says it would be nice to have this stuff. They were in the Iran nuclear deal from 2015 that Trump said that the US is out. So in hindsight, and it was logically predictable at the time, everything we're dealing with right now is because of Donald Trump's decision back in 2018 to get out of this deal. You just saw the starting point of the situation he now claims to be fixing. And all of this is about fixing things that were not broken until Trump broke them. Why is Iran enriching uranium and we have to go and bomb them in June of 2025? If you believe that, why? Well, because Trump got out of the nuclear deal in 2018. Why is Trump now fighting to get the Strait of Hormuz open? But now he's closing was open before Trump started this war, six point something weeks ago, which by the way, we were told it would be three weeks, four weeks, six weeks. We're in the start of week seven at this point in time. And so what Trump now finds himself having to do, needing to do, is with less trust and with less credibility and a much more dangerous situation, a much more economically volatile situation, trying to get back into something that is like the Iran nuclear deal from 2015. But what's the hinge point? Trump posted, and we're looking at it on today's show, that Iran is not coming to an agreement on the nuclear aspect of it. We had the agreement that is now causing Trump to say, I will close the Strait of Hormuz. Think about that. And we now have, forget about creating your own problems. We have Trump in this administration confidently telling us we had to do this and we're better off because of it, while failing to even get us back to where we were in 2015, 2016, 2017, up to the point in 2018 at which Trump exited the Iran nuclear deal. What he is now dealing with are the consequences of his actions in 2018, the consequences of his actions in June of 2025. And, you know, he's. He said it in 2018 with much more complete sentences. His vocabulary has been diminished. His ability to think has been diminished. All of that is true. But we are now getting a president saying out loud, I'm trying to get us back to where we were. He can barely speak now in comparison, fragmented sentences and all of it. And the reason I'm sort of referring to the cognitive stuff is if Trump wasn't even coherent enough to realize in 2018, this deal's not bad. I shouldn't get out of this deal now with another eight years of decline.

Sponsor Representative (12:48)

Eight years, yeah.

David Pakman (12:49)

Seven and a half. Eight years of decline behind us. It is even less likely that he is going to be able to put something together. So remember, as the MAGA people continue to insist, we are getting really close to X. X was stuff that we had already before Trump ruined it. Now, bigger picture, I know that this isn't the sexiest thing to talk about, but if you still believe in institutions and alliances, you have to be saying to yourself, wait a second. All of these allies are realizing, not only will Trump back out of a deal if he doesn't like it for no real reason, Trump will also then fail to even involve the global community in his harebrained ideas. Now, if our allies say that's just a Trump thing, it will pass when Trump is gone, well, that's better for us. But the real fear, and I would argue that it has happened to some degree on climate and in other areas, is that our allies or our historical allies will say, why even bother with the United States? They don't stick to their word when the next person comes in. They might just go, we're out for no good reason. So as Trump tries to dissolve the problems that he created and solve issues that are of his own doing, allies around the world are saying, that is not something we want to be a part of and that's a real dangerous thing.

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David Pakman (16:31)

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David Pakman (16:58)

Donald Trump is throwing J.D. vance in the trash. Now, this is not really a surprise. Trump is doing what he does. When things go poorly, when things go sideways, he looks for someone else to blame. And right now, the Vice President is a good mark for him. Vance is in the middle of these high stakes peace talks with Iran. This is the moment you would expect Trump to show discipline and to say, I am united with JD and we have our strategy. And instead Trump goes on truth social and he starts ranting and he brags about wiping out Iran's military and saying their leadership is gone and throws in Praise be to Allah for good measure and ignores the fact that his own administration, led by JD Vance was at that moment negotiating to try to end the war. And the key part is, is that he doesn't mention J.D. vance even once here. Not only does Trump undermine J.D. vance's negotiations with this post, he doesn't mention that Vance is out there trying to get something done here and theoretically was going to be the guy who is going to bring this together and try to turn Trump's very premature promises from Tuesday night into something approximating a reality. I'll remind you of the post that Donald Trump made about this where he says, quote, the fake news media has lost total credibility. Not that they had any to begin with because of their massive Trump derangement syndrome. They love saying that Iran is winning when in fact everyone knows they are losing and losing big. Their Navy is gone, their air force is gone, their anti aircraft apparatus is nonexistent. Radar is dead, missile and drone factories have been largely obliterated, and importantly, their longtime leaders are no longer with us. Praise be to Allah. The only thing they have going is the threat that a ship may bunk into one of their sea mines. All right, so you get it. We've looked at this post. Look at what is taking place. Trump makes a. But Trump writes a bunch of checks on Tuesday to prevent this annihilation of Iran that he can't cash. Writes the checks, can't cash them, Strait of Hormuz isn't open. A lot of his claims aren't true. He then appoints JD Vance to go and negotiate this thing. And what does he do as J.D. vance is negotiating? He undercuts Vance in real time. Doesn't mention, by the way, the Vice President is working on this and is going to get us over the line and instead just goes, it's a mess. It's a complete mess out there. We crush this, we crush that. I believe that to some degree this is deliberate. Now, it's not deliberate in the sense of Trump going, you know, I think I'm going to really cause a problem for J.D. vance today. I don't think it's that. I think it's that Trump doesn't respect J.D. vance. And for Trump, the fact that J.D. vance is out there negotiating means nothing to him. He has no confidence JD Vance is going to achieve anything because if he did, as the negotiations were going south, he wouldn't go online and start posting on truth social stuff. That will only make those negotiations more difficult. Trump has has already joked, by the way, that if these talks fail, he will blame J.D. vance. That's a setup. That's how he's setting him up. This is how Trump operates. And if it works, he takes full credit. If it doesn't, he just blames somebody else. Someone gets thrown under the bus, Cabinet members, it happens with advisers, the previous Vice president, Mike Pence, and we are watching it happen again. Think about the position Vance is in as this is going on. He's out there negotiating with a foreign government. They don't trust the United States, obviously, we just invaded them. And his own president is publicly contradicting the premise of those negotiations. And the message to the world is very obvious. There was never really a plan. There's no unified strategy. Trump doesn't know what he's doing. There's Trump posting and hoping that something develops. And as this all fell apart, which of course it did, with Trump going, you know what? I'm going to close the Strait of Hormuz. When it all falls apart, J.D. vance is going to get blamed. Now, I am not a defender of Vance. Vance is deeply unlikable, horribly uncharismatic, beholden to the kind of techno libertarian fantasies of supporters of his like Peter Thiel. Not a particularly bright guy. I mean, Vance is terrible. But if you're going to give someone a job, you've got to put him in a position to at least potentially be able to execute it and then to actually think about what are the effects of my actions going to be. Trump doesn't respect Vance. He doesn't like Vance. Reports are, and we've seen it publicly, that Trump is skeptical about Vance even being a viable heir apparent to MAGA as things go forward, leaning increasingly towards Marco Rubio, which, by the way, Trump's personnel decisions are mostly terrible. Marco Rubio is a better option than Vance. I'm not operating in a world where you say, hey David, who? Who would you want to be the president? And I go, oh, I'd like Marco Rubio. But if you say Rubio or Vance, Rubio is more intelligent, Rubio has more. Rubio is not particularly likable, but he's less unlikeable than J.D. vance. He's somewhat more charismatic. He understands diplomacy a bit, a bit better, thinks for himself more marginally more than JD the point is when Marco Rubio seems like a better option, you know, you've chosen kind of a doofus. And all of the reporting, remember, is that Trump wanted Doug BURGUM, But Don Jr. And Eric Trump convinced him to go with J.D. vance. And it doesn't seem Trump is particularly happy with that. Ladies and gentlemen, it brings me zero pleasure to tell you that the United States is close to losing this war. Now I know that J.D. vance and Trump and the other dilettantes and suck ups are telling you we've essentially won. But look at the stroke out that Donald Trump suffered on Truth Social over everything going wrong. And you don't even really need to read between the lines to understand it. Let's take a look. Quote, the fake news media has lost total credibility. Not that they had any to begin with because of their massive Trump derangement syndrome. They love saying that Iran is winning, when in fact everyone knows that they are losing and losing big. Their navy is gone, their air force is gone, their anti aircraft apparatus is nonexistent. Radar is dead. Their missile and drone factories have been largely obliterated along with the missiles and drones themselves. And and most importantly, their longtime leaders are no longer with us. Praise be to Allah. That's Trump speaking. The only thing they have going is the threat that a ship may bunk into one of their sea mines, which by the way, all 28 of their mine dropper boats are also lying on the bottom of the sea. We're now starting the process of clearing out the Strait of Hormuz as a favor to countries all over the world, including China, Japan, South Korea, France, Germany and others. They don't have the courage or will to do it themselves. Interestingly, however, empty oil carrying ships from many nations are all heading to the United States to load up with oil. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Missing from that are a few inconvenient facts, including that they have failed to secure a deal with Iran that Donald Trump treated as fait accompli on Tuesday and by the way, used that announcement to spike the markets and settle oil prices, which didn't last very Long as everybody figured out that it was BS and we now have only the initial explanations for this war to evaluate. Did we indeed achieve regime change? Well, the son of the Ayatollah at the head of the regime doesn't sound like regime change. Have we done away with their nuclear capabilities? Well, whether you believe we did or didn't, Donald Trump says now that that is the sticking point in actually getting a deal done. So Iran is not, certainly not agreeing on that point. Ballistics missiles, well, ballistic missiles, those couldn't reach the United States. That undercuts the idea of urgency. And so you go down the list and you realize, in what way have we won? Yes, there is no question that thousands of strikes have destroyed a ton of Iranian infrastructure. But the question is, what does that really do for the United States from the standpoint of the originally stated goals? And when you go through them, you see that the. The issue is none of them have actually been achieved. Now, Trump continuing on Truth Social quote. I am watching fertilizer prices closely. During our fight for freedom in Iran, the United States will not accept price gouging from the fertilizer monopoly. American farmers, we have your back. Now, there's sort of two important aspects to this. Number one, the farmers are just getting crushed six, six ways to Sunday. That's not an offensive phrase, is it? I hope not. I hope it's not racist. The farmers are maybe the group that has suffered. I don't want to.

Sponsor Representative (26:15)

Not the most.

David Pakman (26:15)

The farmers are a group that has gotten crushed by Trump's first term and Trump's second term. And the farmers continually need to be bailed out because they are brutalized by Donald Trump. The reason Trump's talking about fertilizer, you might be saying, well, I know about oil, I know about gasoline. Prices are up 55%. I know about all that. Why is Trump talking about fertilizer? Because fertilizer prices go downstream to food prices. And Trump has argued, any day now, groceries will come down. And they have, but they will. It's both past, present, future, it's all whacked out. And he knows that that's not true. And he knows that as fertilizer prices are up, food prices are going to go up even more. And so when Trump tells you something is going great and you go, that's weird. I wasn't even thinking of that. What he means is, this thing isn't going well, and I'm lying to you because I need it to go well. All right, then, Trump, the fake news media is crazy or just plain corrupt. The United States has completely destroyed Iran's military, including their entire navy and air force and everything else. Their leadership is dead. The Strait of Hormuz will soon be open. Will soon be open. Wait, it was supposedly open last Tuesday, and the empty ships are rushing to the US to load up. But if you listen to the fake news we're losing. Well, you don't have to listen to the fake news, just read what is being reported by primary sources as to what's going on. When the Strait of Hormuz was supposedly open now six days ago, three ships instead of 135 got through. And as Donald Trump kept telling us it was open, he insists it will be open. But now, and this is where we're going to go next, Trump has shut down the Strait of Hormuz himself. What? That's right. Shut down the Strait of Hormuz to open the Strait of Hormuz. It's really evil genius, isn't it? Many of us have running lists of the nonfiction books we want to read. My list has gotten a lot longer while I've been traveling. Maybe it's a book a friend recommended, or one you keep hearing about on podcasts. And the problem isn't that you aren't interested in the book, it's finding the time. And that's why using Blinkist makes so much sense. Our sponsor, Blinkist, is the app that will distill down insights from nonfiction books into bite sized summaries. You can read them or listen to them in 15 minutes. You get the main arguments and takeaways from important books without setting aside an entire week for each one. Blinkist has more than 9,000 titles covering politics, economics, history, science, business, and a lot more. And it'll fit into the time you have, maybe while you're commuting, walking, working out, doing chores at home. It's also a great way to decide if you like the book enough to buy it and read the entire thing. You can try Blinkist totally free for a week and get 30% off a subscription at blinkist.com/pacman. The link is in the description. Most scammers rely on information that's already public. Your name, address, phone number, family connections. A lot of that is online and available to be scraped and abused. Our sponsor, Incogni, reduces the risk by removing you from the Internet wherever that personal data appears. It works across many types of websites, not just one category, so scammers have fewer ways to piece things together about you. Incogni automatically submits removal requests to hundreds of sites on your behalf. But the standout feature is custom removals where you find your information on any website, even one not in their database. You paste the link and Incogni's team

Sponsor Representative (30:09)

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David Pakman (30:10)

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It won't be specific people or people who have worked on specific issues. He is just going to blanket pardon everybody. At one point, the reporting, as Trump said, if you work within 200ft of the Oval Office, you are going to get a pardon. You get a pardon and you get a part. You get it, okay? In another version of the same line, Trump said it's going to be within 10ft of the Oval Office. But the whole point here is if you have proximity to Trump, that the imagery of it is Trump is the center of the universe and your access to a pardon is going to depend on your physical proximity to the center of the universe. He is the sun. And if you're close enough, you'll get some of that sweet, sweet sunlight if you're a planet orbiting Trump. I guess. Now this is something that at one point Trump kind of joked about and we had reason to think, well, maybe it's sort of like not really a real thing, but the reporting from the Wall Street Journal is that Trump has been bringing this up privately and bringing it up seriously. Now think about what this means in practice, because the pardon power of the President right now is unlimited in the sense that the President can do whatever, whatever they want with pardons. And we've talked about the problem with that. But if we Think about the intent of pardon power. It was supposed to be used carefully. It was supposed to be, hey, here's a case. Will the president consider a pardon? After reviewing the facts, a level of judgment is applied and you consider fairness and justice. And which is like, of course, Trump doesn't operate that way. What we are talking about here is a broad preemptive, disconnected from any particular wrongdoing pardon. And it's not about correcting injustice. That's another aspect the pardon power, at least at its core, was about, hey, there may have been an injustice done. The president may study and analyze the facts of a case and say, I believe there was an injustice committed here and I'm going to do something about it. This is not about that. This is, hey, you all do what I tell you. I'm going to give you a pardon. Don't worry about it. It might be criminal. Don't say a word. You're going to get a pardon. Don't worry about it. And when people believe that they are protected in advance, it changes how they behave in real time. Today, if, you know, no matter what I do, the orange guy promised me a pardon, you are going to behave differently than if you have to consider the consequences of your actions. There are even former Justice Department officials warning that this sort of messaging introduces far more aggressive and legally questionable actions, which is sort of like, of course it does. That's the, that, that's, that's obvious, and that's what we're talking about here. Now, the context is that Trump has already issued, I believe it's 1600 Kremen clemency grants during this term. And a lot of them involve allies of Trump, donors to Trump and people connected to Donald Trump. So this is all cronyism and nepotism and corruption. Trump also reportedly has been raising these pardon questions when aides express, I'm worried about an investigation about X, or I'm worried about potential legal exposure because of why. And then Trump goes, I'm going to be pardoning everybody. That's, that's not a joke, that's really specific, don't worry about it kind of thing. Now, the other thing they're worried about is something I've been talking about, which is that if Democrats take the House in November, which I believe they will, the question is by how much they are going to embroil Republicans in appropriate and warranted oversight, which includes investigations and a bunch of different things. They know that. And that is another aspect of these blanket pardons that Trump is talking about. And I guess Trump is supposedly thinking about holding a press conference at some point before he leaves office. Maybe it would be, would happen quickly if Democrats win in November, where he will announce these large groups of pardons, which would take something that's already controversial and turn it into like this complete sideshow. It'll be naked cronyism and corruption. Now let me go back to something that I talked about two weeks ago when I said, I believe one of the most uniting forces to get some of these MAGA people to say, hey, you know what, there's been enough corruption. I'm going to think about voting for Democrats in 26 or in 28 is a robust anti corruption platform. And the feedback from all of you about that was, David, this is phenomenal. There were critiques that I might not be going far enough, but that it's a good idea. Now, one of the things I included in that is the need to reform the pardon power. I didn't say remove it. And I know that this is legally complicated because presidents have pardon power. I believe that this is a structural vulnerability if it's not dealt with. When we think about anti corruption now, we should put some guardrails around the pardon power. My idea was an independent review board and transparency before such a decision is finalized. And this isn't about saying, well, the President has an opinion and someone else gets to just overrule that. It's about assessing whether the pardons are corrupt. So let me distinguish so I can really be specific here. Imagine a case about a violent crime in Oklahoma. You know, you hear about these last minute requests and it relates to federal crimes. The president gets to look at it and say, well, I believe that justice was done or I believe that there was a miscarriage of justice. And if the President believes there was a miscarriage of justice, they can issue a pardon fine. That's not controversial in terms of how the pardon power was looked at. And if an independent review board looked at that, they're not looking at the facts of the case and going, well, what about the quality of the evidence? Or what about that's not what the independent review board would say. The independent review board would go and they would look at, is there some kind of clearly corrupt connection here? Does it appear that there was a quid pro quo for this pardon, that sort of thing? The standard has to go beyond how many feet of the Oval Office you worked. It has to go beyond that. And this is the most naked admission from Trump that this is what he plans to do. And I know that we may not be able to stop him from doing it. I understand that, but it's really important to remember that presidential pardons don't apply to state crimes, and much of what the House of Representatives might investigate if Democrats take the House could lead to criminal referrals, not to federal crimes but to state crimes. So it is still an exercise worth doing. And I believe that that, you know, I don't have a ton of faith in Democrats in a lot of areas. I think they will deliver on this.

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David Pakman (38:55)

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David Pakman (39:27)

Show is an audience supported program and the best, most direct way to support support the show is by becoming a member. @join pacman.com you'll get the daily bonus show, the daily commercial free show and plenty of other great membership perks. Get the full experience by signing up@join pacman.com Are we going to be dealing with Donald Trump's Iran fiasco for months? Or maybe even for years? Now I know that if we think back to the beginning, recall when this all started, as bad of an idea as it was. And it was a terrible idea. The administration said it would be three to four weeks. Three to four weeks became four to six weeks. We are now in week seven. April 11th was the end of week six. We are now two, three days into week seven. Now here is Caroline Levitt, the White House Press Secretary, reminding us of this timeline at the start of this entire thing.

Caroline Levitt (40:25)

From the very beginning of Operation Epic Fury, President Trump stated this would be a four to six week military operation to dismantle the military threat posed by the radical Islamic Iranian regime. Thanks to the unbelievable capabilities of America's war fighters, the United States has achieved and exceeded those core military objectives in just 38 days.

David Pakman (40:50)

Now, Trump just closed the Strait of Hormuz after saying Iran opened it, which they didn't make sense of that one. He said it's open, they didn't really open it. So now I'm going to close it. Totally bonkers. But what I want to talk about here is how long this is going to last. Well, maybe it doesn't matter if we miss deadlines. Maybe these are complicated matters dealing with Iran and it's unpredictable and but wait a second, here is Donald Trump himself in 2015 saying Obama failed for missing his own deadline when it comes to Iran, quote, this is from Trump. Obama once again just missed a self imposed deadline with Iran. Our leadership is weak and ineffective. Double the sanctions. So I guess it does matter, right? Well, when it's Barack Obama anyway. So think about where we are right now and where I want to go is how long do you believe this is going to last? We had the initial timeline of three to four weeks. That became four to six weeks. We're now in week seven. We currently, as we stand today, just had. And this changes so quickly, who knows what it'll be in three hours. But as of right now, we had failed negotiations with Iran led by J.D. vance. Donald Trump saying the Strait, which so desperately needed to be open, we are now going to close it. And no clear plan as to what even would mean victory at this point. Remember at one point it was about nuclear weapons barely being talked about at this point in time. Except when Trump goes, they won't agree on nuclear. And then we remind ourselves, well, if that was the big thing, you could have stayed in the Iran nuclear deal which you exited in 2018. Well, that didn't really make a lot of sense. And every single time they change what the guidelines are or they point to a different set of objectives, it raises more and more doubts that they even understood the scope of what they were getting into. Now, I don't believe Trump did understand the scope of what he was getting into. We had a couple of clips last week and the week before we had Megyn Kelly saying Trump, who convinced Trump because Trump would never have done this had he known what it could have turned into. Wait a second, I thought Trump knew more than everybody. It would have been so easy to fool Trump merely by giving him a bad briefing. I thought he was the all knowing, all powerful saints. Laura Ingraham with the same idea. Was Trump actually briefed on the risks of this operation? Laura I thought Trump knew everything. Now it's he wasn't briefed and so he made an insane mistake. Laura Ingraham took that one back late last week as we covered. So as the confusion grows and the questions start spinning around about what did Trump know and did he consider and did he know, we quickly have what was supposed to be a very, very, very quick war in and out, big win. We get oil, we regime change and destroy the nukes and all of it and then we move on. That three to four week temporary thing which became four to six weeks is in week seven. So how long do you believe this is going to go? Will it go to the summer when the gas prices tend to go up anyway because of demand? Will it go into the fall when oil heating becomes more relevant in a lot of the United States? And by the way, there is an election. Trump already acknowledged to Maria Bartiromo gas prices could be even higher in November for the election than they are today. Is it going to go into the final two years of Donald Trump's presidency? I want to hear from you info@david pakman.com but my best guess right now is that in a public facing way, Trump will say it's over sometime before the summer. Now already that would be another two months, maybe even more. Blows the original timeline completely out of the water. But I do think that Trump is going to at some point realize this going on continually is bad for the economy and it's bad for the chances of Republicans. The problem with Trump announcing now it's really over, even though he's kind of announced that a couple of times when Trump announces that in, you know, it could be May, it could be June, I don't know. It's not only up to Donald Trump and you could have Iran, especially if there's been no successful negotiations saying, well, we're going to keep the Strait of Hormuz closed or we're going to do this other thing. Are we going to do this third thing, we're going to keep enriching uranium because we don't have that as part of a deal. And so I think that while the administration knows enough about how toxic and disastrous this is for their election chances and will say we've off ramped completely no later than midsummer, I think the reality is that this may very well be affecting the country's economy into the election. And we only have to look at Trump to get proof of that or at least evidence that that's what's going to happen. Because Trump did acknowledge when speaking to Maria Bartiromo, as we looked at gas prices could be even higher than they are going into November. So as a political question, how will this affect voters? I think that it is going to be an absolute disaster. You know, we the if you think about other issues, men and women's sports, for example, or even the Epstein files, I've said I don't think the Epstein files are going to be dispositive in determining the course of these forthcoming midterms. I think it's going to be primarily the economy. The Epstein files don't really touch the economy. They touch. They go to corruption, they go to cronyism, they go to a cover up that even half of Republicans believe Trump is involved in. But I don't see it as a voting issue in the same way as, wait a second, I was told Biden did everything wrong on the economy and you would fix it and get me lower prices and more stability and more manufacturing jobs and all of this stuff. And that didn't happen. I think that is far more likely to impact the elections in November than any of these other issues. Not that the Epstein files are not a big issue. I think Trump is going to be unable to fully exit even when he decides he wants to. Now I turn it over to you. Leave me a comment. Send me an email info@david pakman.com how long will the administration allow this to be active before they say it's over? And how long is it really going to last? I am going to expose to you right now one of the biggest scams of Donald Trump's second term. That scam is called no tax on tips, no tax on Social Security. Let me take you back to Doordash Grandma. Doordash Grandma did something very interesting. When Donald Trump asked her, do you think that men should play in women's sports? She said, I don't really have an opinion on that. I'm here for no tax on tips. Let me remind you of that discussion. Take a look at this.

Donald Trump (47:55)

They want to have men playing in women's sport. Do you think that men should play in women's sports?

Doordash Grandma (48:01)

I really don't have an opinion on that. You don't?

David Pakman (48:03)

I'll bet you do.

Doordash Grandma (48:04)

No. I'm here about tax on tips.

David Pakman (48:08)

Yeah. So you've probably heard two big claims about Trump's 2025 tax bill. No tax on tips no tax on Social Security. Sounds great. I mean, it's simple. You make tips, you don't pay tax. You get Social Security income, you don't pay tax. That's cool, that's easy to understand. The problem is that it's not true. The way that it is being sold is completely fake and false. Now, they also interviewed Doordash Grandma later and spoke to her about no tax on tips. Take a look at this.

Doordash Grandma (48:43)

$11,000. You know, my, my tips were over half of my income from last year.

Interviewer (48:51)

That's a life changer.

Doordash Grandma (48:52)

Yes, it is. It is. And when, you know, like I said, when you're dealing with someone that has gone through cancer and you know you love them, you don't want to lose them, so you do everything that you can and, you know, you go through your life savings. But this no tax on tips. And the help from Doordash is life changing.

Interviewer (49:17)

Do you think this is the world's most famous doordash delivery?

Doordash Grandma (49:22)

Maybe. I don't know that I would ever be able to say that I've delivered to anybody else that's been more high profile.

David Pakman (49:31)

How was President Trump?

Doordash Grandma (49:33)

Very, very kind.

David Pakman (49:35)

Do you like the Oval?

Doordash Grandma (49:36)

Oh, it was beautiful, beautiful.

Interviewer (49:37)

It's your first time meeting with President?

Doordash Grandma (49:39)

Yes, first time in D.C. did you vote for him? I have, yeah.

Interviewer (49:47)

In the last election.

Doordash Grandma (49:48)

Well, I was, I was actually moved, so I hadn't had a chance to change my, my voter registration. But, you know, again, this is about no tax on tips, and that's, that's really what I'm here for.

David Pakman (50:04)

Where do you live now?

Doordash Grandma (50:05)

I leave tomorrow night.

David Pakman (50:06)

No, where do you leave?

Doordash Grandma (50:07)

Oh, I live in Arkansas.

Interviewer (50:09)

Okay, final question for you. You've been very kind. Thank you. What do you think this policy, no tax on tips. We've heard so many stories of people getting thousands of dollars back that they weren't planning on. How is this changing the American economy?

Doordash Grandma (50:24)

Well, I believe that, you know, with the no tax office on tips, I do believe with the no tax on tips, you know, that it is putting more money into.

David Pakman (50:38)

All right, so let's dig into it. Let's start with the claim. The claim is, thanks to Trump's tax bill, no tax on tips. That's not what the law says. The law creates a deduction. Now, bear with me on this. It's all going to make sense. The law creates a deduction of up to $25,000 in tip income, which can be deducted from federal income tax. That is not eliminating taxes on tips. You report your tips, you Pay payroll taxes on tips. You may pay state taxes on tips. And then later, depending on the standard deduction, you might get some additional benefit from being able to deduct tips. Now, the unfortunate reality, and it is unfortunate for people who were, who believe this and who are counting on it, is that most tipped workers already pay little to no federal income tax. Why is that? Because of something called the standard deduction in the American tax code. Regardless of what itemized deductions you have, even if you have zero actual itemized deductions, you can take a roughly $14,000 standard deduction if you're single. So if you're making, say, $25,000 a year as a server, a big chunk of your income is already not taxed at the federal level because that standard deduction cuts your taxable income from 25,000 to $11,000. Now, yes, you can add the tip deduction on top of that. And in some cases, depending on how much you make, you might see no change at all in your tax liability or a small tax cut. Now, I don't want to belittle that, but we should call it what it is. It might be a couple hundred bucks a year for the typical tipped worker in tax savings. Is that nothing? No, it's not nothing. But is it this huge life changing thing that Donald Trump wants you to believe it is? No, it isn't. For low income workers, the benefit is often zero because they weren't paying federal tax to begin with. Now let's talk about no tax on Social Security. And it's the exact same story. The claim is Trump got rid of tax on Social Security. It is not in the bill. Trump repeats it over and over again, but it's not in the bill. There is no repeal of taxes on Social Security benefits. What the bill does is increase the standard deduction for seniors. There's some targeted tax relief in there. And so some retirees already don't pay taxes on Social Security. Higher income retirees will still pay taxes on Social Security. The tax still exists. But there is this little sliver of people who earn a certain amount and are receiving Social Security benefits who will see a tiny little reduction. Great for them. It is not no tax on Social Security. Now imagine that instead of selling it the way they did, no tax on tips, no tax on Social Security. They sold it as what it was. We are offering a limited temporary tax deduction on tips that may save some workers a couple hundred bucks and a mild modest reduction for some seniors, depending on their income. It would be the same thing, it would actually describe accurately what it is. It wouldn't go viral. And so they knew they were lying, those who wrote the bill. I don't know if Trump knows it's a lie. He keeps repeating it. They did an entire stunt with DoorDash grandma based around this concept, and it is all fake and fabricated. If these explainers about the tax code are interesting to you, make sure to like this video and hit the subscribe button. That tells us this video is something you're interested in seeing more of, and we will do more of it.