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Today on the show, I will explain why I am not a socialist, why I'm not a communist. We will also look at Fox News's own polling delivering just brutal news for Republicans. And it's also getting a lot harder to pretend voters are buying what Trump is selling. We're going to look at some disturbing new questions about the Pentagon's handling of Iran war death numbers. And we'll also have an honest conversation, always honest, about what to do with people who voted for Donald Trump three times and are now admitting they were wrong. Also, Donald Trump accidentally makes the most anti capitalist argument maybe of his political career while calling everybody else communists. And then Caroline Levitt is pressed on some uncomfortable questions as Republicans are turning on J.D. vance before Trump's presidency is even over. And we will wrap up with why America's growing public health problems have a lot more to do with politics than a lot of people realize. All of that today, if I have anything to say about it. Well, I'm getting a ton of comments lately questions saying, David, why aren't you a socialist, why aren't you a communist? You often mention it, but what about explaining the why? And I've even gotten some suggestions that because I'm not a socialist or a communist, I must be some kind of right winger. I must have had some political 180 where now I am on the political right. But the question is why do I not subscribe to those ideologies? I think that's a legitimate question that I want to explore. Now the real reason that I don't support those systems and is very simple, I don't believe either system is the best way to maximize human well being and to organize society. And as such they are not systems that I can support. And I believe this looking at empirical historical data and in applying a socioeconomic analysis to these theories. I am a social democrat. As a reminder, social Democrat and democratic socialist are two completely different things. Democratic socialists are socialists, whereas social Democrats are not. As a social Democrat, I support getting everybody health care, strong unions, in support of labor, affordable education that is of high quality, progressive taxation where the wealthiest are taxed, the most serious corporate regulation and a very strong social safety net. I support those things. I also support markets, private businesses, private ownership of property and the ability to make profit in private industry for a lot of goods and services. There is no good reason to eliminate markets. We don't need government planners deciding, for example, which restaurants should open, which laptops should be manufactured, what kind of furniture should be manufactured and sold. It's completely Fine, to let companies compete there, Let people start businesses and own them, test ideas, succeed and fail within the context of a market. I do believe that markets encourage innovation, but not because of the reason right wingers say they do. Right wingers love to say, if you don't have markets, nobody will ever work hard if they don't have the possibility of becoming a millionaire or a billionaire. I don't buy that stuff from the right. People are also motivated by a lot of other things. Curiosity and purpose, recognition, solving problems. And we see publicly funded research produce extraordinary breakthroughs. But it is also true, we should recognize that competition and financial rewards are also real motivators. And if you remove them across the entire economy, you reduce experimentation, you reduce innovation, and also, I would argue, efficiency. And so what? Social democracy recognizes social democracy being a form of regulated capitalism. Social democracy recognizes markets are really useful tools, but markets are not the moral authorities that the right wing believes them to be. I do also believe that some things should be removed from the profit motive because market failure would cause completely unacceptable harm that wealthy countries have no reason to accept. If you don't like the available TVs, you can wait to buy one. If you don't like the prices, you can wait for a sale or not buy one at all and hope that the market adjusts. That's TVs. If you need insulin, you can't wait for the market to become more compassionate or adjust so that you can afford your insulin. And so in the areas of health care, education, infrastructure, law enforcement, military and other essential services, we can't treat them like sneakers, we can't treat them like video games. Their purpose must be universal access, not let's extract the maximum possible profit from people who end up with nowhere else to go. That's the basic social democratic approach. You use markets where they improve people's lives. And you, you use public provision where markets predictably fail. So then why am I not a socialist or a communist? Why won't I go further? Let's deal with each of them sort of one by one. Now, I don't want to make this a definitional game where it's sort of like when you criticize Jordan Peterson and the Peterson people go, you're not criticizing exactly what he meant. Even we have to have some kind of working definitions for socialism and communism. Socialism and communism in turn usually want to replace private ownership of major industries, which with worker, public or state ownership, depending on whether we're talking about a socialist or a communist model. Now, of course, there are many different kinds of socialism. Democratic socialists are not communists, But I just don't see broad collective ownership as the best way to organize an economy. This is a question to a degree of opinion. Some in the audience might disagree. You might go, no, that is the best way to organize the economy. All right, well, we're having the conversation. I do support voluntary worker cooperatives. Let people create them and finance them and demonstrate their advantages if that's what they want to do. Nobody should be prevented from running a business as a co, op, but nobody should be required to run a business as a co op either. Requiring businesses to adopt collective ownership limits choices. It's authoritarian, it eliminates potentially useful forms of competition, and I am an anti authoritarian at my core. This is why I'm opposed to both right wing and left wing authoritarianism. Whether it's Kim Jong Un or Putin or Maduro or whatever, I'm an anti authoritarian. Now, if a privately owned restaurant and a worker owned factory and a publicly owned utility each work well in their respective areas, I see no reason to force them into the same ownership model. Now, communism goes further. Communism usually wants state or government ownership of the businesses, the elimination of economic classes, and theoretically, depending on which flavor you're sort of talking about an eventual stateless society. I just don't believe that eliminating private ownership and market forces throughout the economy would maximize well being. And we've got a lot of examples from history of where it has destroyed well being. It would create massive information problems, it weakens useful incentives, and it'll end up concentrating economic decisions in institutions that are often completely incapable of understanding local needs and individual preferences. And that's where we come back to the sort of fundamental authoritarianism of it. What happens under socialism when owners refuse to surrender their businesses to that socialized ownership model? And when people move their money, when voters elect leaders promising to restore private enterprise In a socialist system, if socialism can freely be voted out, I don't think it would last it. And if you preserve socialism against public resistance, you can end up with property seizures, capital controls, restrictions on investment, limits on political opposition. It is a very serious authoritarian danger. And that exists both in forcing a society into one of these models and in getting it to remain there. Communism just intensify. Intensifies that. And reaching the supposed stateless society requires an extraordinarily powerful state, which sometimes seizes property, eliminates the capitalist class, reorganizes production, and usually suppresses resistance to that change as well. And the state doesn't disappear. What we've seen historically is that you end up with this new ruling class made up of often corrupt, typically cronyistic and nepotistic party officials, bureaucrats, military leaders, security agencies. Now I know that some people will go, but David, those weren't real communism. I think that avoids sort of the central question which is why have attempts to implement communism so consistently produced this one party rule filled with censorship and repression. So for me, one of the key tenets of leftism is opposing domination. That includes domination by corporations and billionaires on the one hand. And it also includes opposing domination by governments or political parties or these self appointed revolutionaries who say I speak for everybody. Social democracy, which I subscribe to, recognizes corporate power can become abusive and state power can become abusive and both need democratic limits. So I want markets where markets work. I want public provision where markets fail or distort society. And I want democracy to protect people from both corporate and government power. Being not, not being a socialist, not being a communist doesn't make one right wing. My goal is not to reach the furthest left position imaginable. My goal is let's support the system most likely to improve people's lives while preserving freedom. And that is why I have the beliefs I have of social democracy. Many examples around the world of social democracy successes. And that is how I have come to hold the beliefs that I hold. People can disagree, people can email me, people can leave a comment, infoavidpakman.com but hopefully I've at least explained the origins or justification for my position. The funniest part about this next story isn't so much the numbers. It's that they came from Fox News, the network that spent years telling its audience, Republicans own the economy, they own immigration, they are the best on national security. Democrats are in freefall and. And then Fox commissions its own poll, which by the way, Fox News polling is quite good and accidentally tells a completely different story. Take a look at this and then we will discuss it. Fox polling shows voters want major changes on top issues. Good morning, Lauren. What changes?
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B
Good morning. Well, 4 in 10 want revolutionary change that shows voters are unhappy and could register their discontent at the polls in November. Voters telling Fox that Democrats would do a better job on seven of nine major issues. Pull it up and we'll go from the bottom up. Voters favored Democrats by 22 points on income inequality. Dems are up 21 points on health care. They're up 10 on inflation. They are also leading on the economy, foreign policy, government spending, even immigration. Republicans lead on crime and on national security, security. Both parties say they are motivated to vote but 68% of Democrats say they are extremely motivated, versus 57 for Republicans.
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Looks pretty bad, doesn't it? Looks pretty bad, doesn't it? That's a brutal set of numbers if you're Trump or the Republican party. Democrats ahead 21 points on health care, up 10 points on inflation, which maybe is the most shocking result considering Republicans spent years saying Biden's a disaster on inflation. Trump's going to be great. We're going to dominate politically because we're going to be so good on inflation. And then according to Fox's own polling, Democrats are ahead on the economy, which again, supposedly Republicans are great on that. They're ahead on foreign policy, they're ahead on government spending, they're ahead on immigration. Immigration supposedly was Trump's signature issue. He's kind of touted it as one of his signature issues for a decade, and he always comes back to it. And MAGA believes that is. That is his strength. And then Fox's own polling says Republicans aren't even winning there. So that is like a big red warning sign. Now, does one poll decide an election? Of course it doesn't. Polls bounce around and different firms get different results. Nobody should overreact to any single survey. But the who conducted this is fascinating. When Fox, the network whose audience overwhelmingly supports Republicans, publishes numbers this bad, it's just tougher for Republicans to dismiss it as liberal propaganda. Now, Trump has tried. He'll go, well, we like Fox, but Fox's polling is not so good. He tries to get people not to pay attention to this polling, but Fox's polling is pretty good. And it tells us something bigger, which is politics is much more than what politicians say. It's do voters feel their lives are improving? And one of the things that is a very fair criticism of the Biden administration. And I talked about this with, with Governor Gavin Newsom on his podcast earlier this week, and it was, I think, one of the big mistakes of Biden. Harris, you can't just tell people things are awesome and you can't just point to numbers. People have to feel that things are good. And Donald Trump's promises run directly counter to what people feel and what happened to be the facts. Trump promised, we're going to bring prices down. Prices have gone up, inflation has bounced around down, up, but it's been positive, meaning prices continue to go up. And Trump promised that the economic, the certainty, the feeling of certainty with the economic situation would increase. And instead, it's like, tariffs are on, tariffs are off, prices are higher. We've got a new war. 20% of oil that goes through the Strait of Hormuz is now held up. And the whole piece through strength thing that he promised hasn't worked. And Americans watch and it's one international crisis after another. And so people's lives aren't matching the promises that Donald Trump successfully sold them during the campaign to a degree. And that branding of the economy fixer is not sticking. That's what these numbers at some core level are picking up. Republicans spent years assuming talking about inflation and immigration is going to make voters trust us, and voters aren't trusting them. You're governing now and your slogans are being judged and they're bs. And if Fox News is polling is even remotely close to correct, there are a lot of Americans who just don't accept the results. This is a bigger problem for Republicans than a bad news cycle. We've got a midterm, a critical midterm just months from now. And this is a warning that the sort of underlying political fundamentals are shifting. And when Fox is delivering the message through their polling and with Stuart Varney going, well, that doesn't sound so good, does it? Republicans have a real problem. This, I believe, is where a lot of Donald Trump's desperation is coming from. And this is why he's obsessed with passing the Save America Act. This is why he is talking about, I might have to declare an emergency. This is why he commandeered national television at 9pm last week. I guess it was to talk about how they're finding all this evidence of rigging. This is rigged. That's rigged. And we got to prepare the public to accept invasive measures. He's panicking because he knows if they lose the House, if Republicans lose the House, that's it for his presidency. And not only is that it for getting any major legislation passed, it's also going to be two years of investigations and oversight and subpoenas and possibly depositions. He's terrified of that. And in the middle of all this, Republicans are realizing, damn, we don't want JD Vance to be the nominee. We'll get to that later. Quick break. Back after this. If you run a business, you already know how much depends on answering the phone. Someone might be calling to place an order or ask a question or get a quote. And if no one answers the call, there's a good chance they move on and just go to the next business to prevent that from happening. Check out our sponsor quo spelled quo, the business phone system built so you never miss a call. Quo keeps your calls, texts and voicemails in one place so it's easy to see the conversation history and respond quickly. It's super easy to get started. You can keep your existing number, set it up on just about any device. Add teammates as your business grows. Someone calls in after hours. Quo's built in agent can answer questions, even book appointments. It's very powerful to prevent those customers from slipping away. There's money on the line. You can always say hello with Quo. Try quo for free plus get 20% off your first 6 months when you go to quo.com pacman the link is in the description if you've been thinking about starting a business. Our sponsor Shopify makes it so much easier. Everything you need to start selling is there from day one. We use it for our merch store and that means I can spend less time worrying about the tech side and more time building something people actually want. We power our merch store on our website with Shopify and it is such a solid experience. It's a smooth, smooth checkout process. Customers are ready to buy and Shopify helps make that a really simple process. And returning customers can check out even faster because their information is already saved. The other Shopify advantage is once your store is up and running, you can stop thinking about the setup and just figure out what products do you want to offer. Shopify gives you the tools to do all of it. Maybe you're just starting. Maybe you're ready for something bigger and it gets rid of the friction between idea and turning that into a business. Start your free trial at shopify.com/pacman the link is in the description the David Pakman show continues to be funded directly by our audience. Thank you to everyone who continues to preorder my forthcoming book Pay attention at David pakman.com/attention. We don't have big media conglomerates pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into promoting this book. It's me talking to you about it on the show and I really appreciate everybody who's ordered it. Also, a massive thank you to everybody who signed up and gotten a new membership@join pacman.com and the newest members who I'd like to recognize right now, if I may, are John Condon and Neil Bell. John and Neil, thank you so much for your support. I very much appreciate it. Join them, get the daily bonus show and lots of other great perks by signing up@join pacman.com all right, if this story doesn't make your stomach turn, I don't know that anything will make your stomach turn. Imagine being the President sending Americans into combat, watching them die because of your optional war, and then playing games with the numbers because the deaths are really politically inconvenient. That is exactly what the Trump administration is doing. There's reporting from CNBC in the New York Times that the Pentagon's official death toll from the Iran war suddenly dropped from 18 to 14 in a single day. We reported to you that it was at 16. It then went up to 18 service members killed, thanks to Donald Trump's war. And. And suddenly it goes from 18 to 14. Now, was anybody brought back to life in some kind of incredible resurrection? No. The reason that the death toll was dropped from 18 to 14 was because four service members who were killed in the last month reportedly were killed the day after Trump said, we have a cease fire. Okay, Think about how grotesque that is. What they've done is essentially say, because those deaths happened after Trump said, we have a cease fire, we're just not going to count them as part of the war, even though they obviously are. Now, by the way, Donald Trump knows that the number really is 18 because Trump just said, you know, he does his routine. He goes, we were in Vietnam for 20 years. We lost hundreds of thousands. Afghanistan, blah, blah, blah. We only lost 18 this time so far. So he knows that the number is 18. Take a look at this, and then we'll talk more about what the administration is doing.
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And here, you know, we were in Vietnam for 20 years. Lost thousands and hundreds of thousands of lives, but thousands and thousands of lives. We were in Afghanistan for years. We're in all these wars that you, you heard about for years and years. We were, you know, never, I called them never ending wars. But we're in for four months. And we. I had a very sad day yesterday. I went to Dover. Four great American patriots killed. That's 18 in two wars. And one is too many, but it's 18. Whereas in Vietnam, we lost 200,000. We lost.
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So Trump knows. Trump knows the real number is 18. But the Pentagon is playing games are going, technically, four happened during a cease fire, so they're not because of the Iran war. It doesn't really change anything. The families of those four Americans didn't lose someone less. The troops are no less dead. Because Trump said, actually, that was during the cease fire. Now, the Pentagon later said, oh, we had a temporary data disruption with the casualty website. I don't know about that. And the bigger problem is that this is an administration that has earned serious skepticism because they always choose politics over being transparent. Members of Congress are complaining. They're not getting complete casualty information. And the Pentagon is giving very few detailed briefings about what's going on with this conflict, particularly with the deaths. And, and now suddenly they go from 18 to 14. And it just so happens to make the war look a little bit less deadly. So you don't. It doesn't require being a conspiracy theorist to understand why people are finding this so suspicious. And the part that that really gets me is Trump's. Trump has spent so long accusing everybody else, especially Democrats, but also even like George W. Bush, of disrespecting the military. And he says Democrats hate the troops. Bush shouldn't have gone to Iraq, even though at the time Trump told Howard Stern, yes, I would have gone in. He says the media doesn't care about the troops, and he tries to wrap himself in the flag every chance he gets. But his instinct when American service members die because of his decision is to massage the statistics and make them look a little bit less bad politically. That's using the troops. And as we covered yesterday, Donald Trump also has been using the troops by saying, you know, these some group, a group of four service members that died, they all loved the war. They said, we've got to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. So the truth. Troops are being used by Donald Trump, and the military isn't supposed to be a PR department, and the casualty count isn't supposed to be a talking point. These are human beings. They have names, they have families, they have friends, and their futures were taken from them because of Donald Trump's choice to send the sons of daughters of the country into war. I believe that the patriotic thing to do, the pro troop thing to do, in the pro military thing to do, this is the bare minimum. We must really be sure that we have no choice but to send troops into harm's way when we do it. When the Iraq war was started by George W. Bush in 2003 based on faulty or downright fraudulent intelligence, it was not patriotic to go, what a great mission, support the troops. This is a good no. We would say we never should have put the troops in harm's way. And thousands died. And the minimum you can do once they die is tell us how many have really been killed, tell us how many have really been wounded, tell us what the mission is, tell us what the objectives are, and, and don't move numbers around because they make for better headlines or whatever. Now, one other thing. When Trump says 18 died, and then the administration goes, actually, it's not 18, it's 14. There are only A couple possibilities. One is the so there's the downright deception possibility that I already talked about. The other is the administration doesn't know what the real number is or different parts of the government are telling different stories. None of this is reassuring. And it's a reminder that under Donald Trump there is a combination of bureaucratic incompetence, political manipulation and downright malicious self serving behavior. We deserve the real numbers as Americans. And when governments start treating the deaths of their own troops as a PR problem to be managed instead of, hey, we've got to honor the lives and the sacrifice of these people who, by the way, we had no business sending into harm's way, something has gone very, very wrong. And historically this stuff is very, very ugly and it's associated with terrible regimes when it happens. So they are playing games with the death numbers. And on some fundamental level they know that the American people aren't believing that this is worth it for the economic costs, but they're also not believing this is worth it for the human costs. And that is a real problem as they try to convince voters to reelect them in November. Now, what about communism? Well, Trump seems to like it. I want to talk about that next. Donald Trump had communism dribbling out of his open mouth as he attempted to answer questions and speak to people. I'm going to warn you, this is pretty painful stuff to watch. Now before this ratepayer protection pledge event even got started, there was a total cult performance. And it's fascinating when this happens. Trump often walks into a room. The people know they're expected to clap like trained seals. They never want to be the first ones to stop clapping. And so this is the cult result. Now, if you're only listening, there's a visual component which is they're all standing there grand, grinning like doofuses and clapping like trained seals as Trump sways from side to side with everybody clapping. And you'd better not be the. It's like in North Korea if you, we noticed that you stopped clapping before everybody else. Right out. I mean, how much of this you. We'll just stop it, okay? They're clapping like circus seals. Trump, then it just comes out of his mouth. It's dribbling out the communism, okay? Trump goes, hey, you know What? We bought 10% of intel and we're making money off of it. And it's the Democrats that are the communists. Tell me more about that, sir.
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Percent by the time this term is over, we're going to have probably 50% of the chip market. A year ago, when we began, we had no chip market. We had virtually none other than Intel. We had intel and we made a purchase of 10% of Intel. We got it for the right price, and we made approximately $72 billion on that.
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Wow.
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So it was good. Do I get credit for that one? No, you know, credit.
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No one's giving me credit for my communism.
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None.
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State ownership of private industry. But it's the Democrats that are the communists. They don't even understand anything. They don't. They just don't know what they're talking about. We make these deep analyzes of social democracy and socialism and communism and properly regulated capital, all this stuff. And then Trump's like, communists are terrible. And the government just bought 10% of intel and now is profit sharing with Intel. Give me a break, guys, come on, come on. Trump just making stuff up as usual. We don't know whether he's lying or demented. He says California is suffering brownouts and blackouts every single weekend. News to people in California, by the way.
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Old grid, that's not the best in the world. You look at some places, you take a look at California, you have brownouts and blackouts every weekend. The last thing they're going to be able to do is supply. Supply electric.
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And Trump seems to be browning out. You know where the real problem is with the grid? It's Texas. Texas has decided in its infinite display of strength and girth that they would not affiliate their grid with the national grid. And we've seen disaster after disaster. Texas has had power disasters in the summer when it's really hot and AC use is high, and they've had disasters in the winter during freezing temperatures. In California, it's fine. I was just in California. Everybody I spoke to said, we have no utility problems here. We're not having an issue with blackouts or brownouts. It's just not happening. Trump then decides to do something that sometimes it's like he can't help himself. Data centers are deeply unpopular with a large majority of the American people. And Trump goes, listen, you just got to convince communities the data centers are great. It's going to happen. It's going to happen. Now, to some degree, is it likely that data centers are going to be built and they're going to go somewhere? Yes, probably. But once again, Trump just taking the wrong side of extraordinarily unpopular issues, because
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you have to convince your community how great these things. You can't fight it, you have to go with it, and you're going to have all that Protection, and we're giving you automatic protection. But you're going to make a tremendous amount of money. You're going to reduce taxes, and you're going to have something that if you don't have it, everybody else wants it. Yeah.
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Data centers are a thing. There are going to be data. Data centers built in the United States. How, where, and who has a say are sort of the key elements of it. But this is something that is uniting Democrats and Republicans. Democrats and Republicans in rural and suburban and urban areas have one growing issue on which they agree. We don't think we want data centers anywhere near where we live. And Trump just keeps going with this issue.
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C
Both of you, there's no other thing you can do. 100 different deals. 100. It is nothing close to what you've been able to do and why they put a big, gorgeous new plant in a certain location. Big deal. It's so. It's so incredibly positive. Unfortunately, there are some who would like to lead us down the opposite path. And I call them the radical left. Communists. They call them socialists, but these people are communists. Actually, more, I think.
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A
Remember, Trump bought 10% of intel as the government. Okay. And he's talking about other people being communists.
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C
It's a much more accurate term. Want to shut down all new development, kill our most successful industries, destroy hundreds of thousands of jobs, and surrender the air race to China. And China, look, you know, I'm not blaming them. I have a lot of respect for them. We know a lot of respect for President Xi. But they represent China. We represent the United States of America. And they lobby against these things, and they spend money on it. And they want communities to reject them as much as possible because they'd like to be leading the race. But we're leading the race. And unless we're very foolish and, frankly, very stupid, will continue to lead the race, where we have a nice lead. A lot of people.
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You get the point. He just has these terrible instincts and a complete lack of awareness. Why let's put the data centers everywhere. We got to beat China. Well, a lot of people care about their immediate communities, and a lot of people don't live at Mar a Lago, which is, you know, insulated by both geographic realities of water and also zoning and politically from any of this stuff being built in Trump's backyard. But he's like, why don't people just want to put these everywhere? Finally, Donald Trump attacking wind power. I don't know. I mean, it's like, at this point, who the hell knows? Saying wind, they say it's great. But you can't watch tv, what with
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C
the Green New scam.
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A
And remember, the Green New Deal is not the law. So he keeps talking about it like it's a thing. Also, he's been in power almost two years. Years.
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C
We were scammed. The whole country was. I wasn't scammed. I got it right from the beginning. I got it from the first minute when I heard this crap. You know, they were saying wind was so wonderful. So wonderful. Except you couldn't watch your television. They wanted to watch the debate. Donald Trump against sleepy Joe Biden. Nobody could watch it because the wind wasn't blowing.
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Remember that now, of course. Come on. Do you guys think Trump really doesn't get it? Like, do, do people at this point in time, wind is supplementing the grid. And so if the wind's not blowing, you still have electricity. Maybe Texas doesn't because they've isolated their grid. But no, I'm sort of kidding. But also not. And over time, we have technology called batteries where wind power can be stored and then used when it's not windy. Do you think Trump doesn't know that? Like, is he. Is he. Is this about. He assumes his followers don't know it, or does Donald Trump not know it? Is he subject to one of the filter bubbles and echo chambers that I write about in my forthcoming book? Pay attention. I don't know. Let me know what you think. The brutally hot weather we have has a way of exposing malfunctioning underwear. You take one long walk or commute in the humidity, or you're in a studio like this one that's overheated one day and suddenly it's the sweat and the friction and the readjusting. And this is where sheath underwear is a game changer. We have a sponsor sheath. They just make great underwear built around a pouch design that will separate and support. It'll reduce skin on skin contact. It'll eliminate the chafing when things get a little sticky. Their lineup includes five or eight inch boxer briefs. They've got trunks, base layers, socks, and more. You can get bamboo. You can get modal cotton airflow fabrics. The airflow fabrics are designed to be cooling and breathable, whether you're moving around or just lounging around. And sheaths, Bamboo and modal options are built for soft, comfortable daily wear. You might be doing morning errands. Maybe it's a late night show you're going to. So during these blisteringly hot months, don't just crank up the fan and hope for the best upgrade your first layer, go to sheath underwear.com/pacman use code PACMAN for 20% off your entire order. The link is in the Description A lot of people carrying debt don't think to themselves I'm in trouble. They're not necessarily behind on payments. They're working. They're kind of managing. But if you're carrying credit card balances, personal loans, collections, medical bills, the question is whether your current plan is getting you out fast enough or just kind of keeping you busy. That is what our sponsor PDS Debt can help you figure out. PDS Debt gives you a free 30 second assessment. You can compare your current path with their customized debt relief options and they will look at your unsecured debt. They'll use financial data to personalize a solution that will work for you and show you what you might qualify for before you have to decide anything. The programs really are designed to just reduce what you owe, simplify multiple payments into one lower monthly payment and work towards being debt free. There is no minimum credit score. Savings start the day you complete the assessment and PDS Debt is top rated in the industry with 30 thousands of 5 star reviews and an A plus rating by the Better Business Bureau. Lots of people in my audience use PDS debt and we looked at the numbers for people coming just from my show. It turns out the average David Pakman show viewer who uses PDS debt saves an average of $24,994. Get your free 30 second personalized assessment today at PDS debt.com/pacman yt. The link is in the description White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt is not doing a lot of press briefings lately, but she did do one a few hours ago and she was confronted about a bunch of different things which she very much doesn't like. I have to tell you, I can sort of understand why Caroline Levitt is not doing a lot of these. They're going worse and worse for her. But she was asked, is Donald Trump planning to intervene to save the Tate brothers, Andrew Tate and Tristan Tate, who have recently been arrested again for a litany of very serious charges. And Caroline Levitt seems to be saying, no, Donald Trump is not going to get involved in this, which is similar to what Marco Rubio recently said. I think that they're just realizing these guys are toxic. These guys are probably serious criminals. Although of course everyone is innocent, proven guilty, there's no, no question about that. But they are realizing that the goose is cooked.
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B
Danny thanks Caroline.
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C
Is President Trump or the administration?
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A
Do they have any plans to intervene in the extradition process for the Tate brothers?
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E
No, already answered that question, Elizabeth.
- [41:10]
A
Trump does not want to get deep in the taint. That is absolutely for sure. And, and Marco Rubio also indicating we want nothing to do with that. Now, with that out of the way, a really important topic came up. This is like, this is, this is just of critical importance. Why does Saudi Arabia get a civilian nuclear deal with Trump but Iran doesn't? And Caroline Levitt, of course, gives an explanation that makes it all sound based on the empirical realities of the situation and what's best for the United States. But I think there's a better answer as to why Saudi Arabia gets a civilian nuke deal but Iran isn't allowed to have one. And I'll give you that answer in a moment. Ask you one other question, just playing devil's advocate. Why does Saudi Arabia get a civilian nuclear deal but Iran doesn't get a civilian nuclear deal?
- [42:05]
E
Well, again, this agreement is still being worked out. It will eventually, hopefully be finalized with the condition that the President spoke about this morning. But this agreement in particular, as it's been discussed thus far, does give priority access for American companies and the Saudi nuclear energy program, which will ultimately benefit American industry, workers and supply chain. So the deal that has been discussed thus far and will continue to be discussed absolutely puts America first. And that's obviously very important to this president at the.
- [42:33]
A
Let me translate that for you. Okay? The Saudi deal is good for Trump and his cronies. And an Iran deal with Iran having nukes wouldn't be. Saudi Arabia is dumping and has dumped money into Jared Kushner's new fund, relatively new fund, and there are personal reasons. Remember, drain the swamp. Well, the swamp has been filled. That's what this is really about. And Caroline Levitt about that. This is, this is just wild. She confirms that Donald Trump is unilaterally changing the terms of the Saudi nuclear deal with Truth Social posts without even contacting Saudi officials. Dear God.
- [43:18]
B
Just to continue on the Saudi nuclear deal, do the Saudis agree with this
- [43:23]
E
interpretation since it wasn't part of the initial agreement?
- [43:26]
B
And has the President talked to NBS
- [43:29]
A
since this new condition?
- [43:31]
E
As you know, the president just put out this statement a few hours ago. I don't believe he's had a call with NBS in the hour.
- [43:37]
A
Understand he put it out on Truth Social. He is announcing policy and unilaterally changing policy with posts to Truth Social. What?
- [43:45]
E
Since, however, this is something that he has raised in previous conversations and has also said Many times in the past.
- [43:51]
A
John in the back, a typical Trump negotiation. I decided by myself and posted it to Truth Social. This is not getting a lot of attention. There's no, like, super hot headline here, but this is completely beyond the pale. And it is counter to many of the promises that Donald Trump lined up when he became a politician after coming down the golden escalator and accusing many Mexicans of being rapists with. Without evidence in 2015. It was about drain the swamp. It's not going to be business as usual. It won't be cronyism, it won't be nepotism. His family, meanwhile, is doing business with the Saudis. The Saudis are getting goodies. He's announcing policy changes on Truth Social. And Caroline Levitt, God bless her, I'm kidding, is in the position of relatively infrequently as it stands right now, because she doesn't seem to want to do too many of these press briefings, having to defend this stuff. The topic of manufacturing came up while Caroline Levitt was doing this press briefing and she comes up with the whopper that the manufacturing industry is thriving like never before. Now, if you watch this show and you have the facts, you know that manufacturing employment is down 73,000 jobs since Donald Trump took office. He was going to. Trump said he would be the fertilization president. Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. That's disgusting. Trump did say that, though, and he said he would be the manufacturing president. And we have fewer manufacturing jobs today than when Trump came into office. But Caroline doesn't care. She says it's all so good.
- [45:26]
E
The Trump administration is setting up American manufacturers and workers to thrive like never before.
- [45:33]
A
It's a very long, slow lead in. He's setting them up to thrive when someone else is president, I guess. And importantly, another. Another relevant detail with the whole manufacturing job thing is that for all of the talk of MAGA of bringing the factories back home and bringing manufacturing back home, a lot of people don't want these jobs, at least not at the salaries that are being offered. There's a report that there are hundreds of thousands right now open jobs, hundreds of thousands of open manufacturing and factory jobs in the United States. One report said 500000. Another, I think said 250,000. And they're just open. People are not at the wage being offered, interested in doing those jobs. And manufacturing employment is down. Another promise. Now, I know the tariffs get a lot of headlines. I'm going to be the peace president, but I started a war Gets a lot of headlines. I'm going to end the Ukraine, Russia conflict on day one. Gets a lot of headlines. Important promises that Trump has failed on, on. But the manufacturing jobs is a really significant one because so much of the economic sort of framework that a lot of Republicans are signing up for is, if it weren't for these stupid Democrats, we would have brought manufacturing and factories back, back home. Already there's hundreds of thousands of jobs right now, and they can't fill them. So something else is going on here. Finally, Caroline Levitt warns us, Donald Trump is getting impatient. You know what happens when he gets impatient? The ketchup starts flying. Trump wants the Save America act passed right away before the House and Senate recess in August. Oh, well, what's going to happen on.
- [47:14]
E
Remind me. His patience is running out. The president spoke about this directly yesterday. His patience is running out. He wants to see as much of the Save America passed as possible. But by the August recess, he knows that's what the American people want to see past. He was just traveling on the road yesterday, spoke about this and there were very loud applause from the people in the audience, the everyday Americans, because the
- [47:40]
A
train seals clapped like trained seals.
- [47:43]
E
Voter ID is common sense. They want proof of citizenship in our elections. And the president feels very strongly about that. On. Remind me.
- [47:52]
A
Well, you know what? Even Republicans are realizing this is not a bill they want to support. Trump is losing patience with John Thune, the Senate majority leader. Oh, no. Well, to some degree, Republicans are realizing that bill is going to go over like a lead balloon with a lot of people and is realistically only going to drag down Republicans in November. They don't want anything to do with it, at least some of them. But Trump is losing patience. Well, I think Trump is simply going to have to wait. All right, Is she a hero or is she a moron? I'm talking about this voter on your screens, interviewed on Ms. Now. And we have this every single election cycle and we have the same debate. And I don't know that we've come to a conclusion on it. A Trump voter comes forward and goes, listen, I voted for Trump once. I voted for Trump twice. I, I voted for Trump three times. And I now regret my vote. And there's different reactions to it. I know that some of you in my audience, when we see people like this, you celebrate it and you go, the tide is turning. We're getting a lot of these people back. They're abandoning Trump. Others hear voters like this, who we'll hear from in a second and say, it's too little, too late now. I think the truth is a little bit more complicated. Let's take a look at the video first. President Trump campaigned on no more foreign wars. You've obviously supported him three times.
- [49:17]
D
Three times. Very disappointed. My entire family is very disappointed. I don't feel like it is our war to fight, but here we are. And I did not think when the war started that it was going to be a 12 day, a two week, a two month. I'm like, here we go and here we are. And I don't see it ending, ending anytime soon. And I was a Trump supporter. I'm very disappointed.
- [49:47]
A
All right, now I'm glad she's saying it seriously, like I'm not. I'm glad she's saying it. If someone changes their mind and admits they were wrong and is willing to say it publicly on national tv, that's a good thing. And democracy depends on people being willing to update beliefs when reality doesn't match what they expected. We should encourage that. We should. We also shouldn't pretend this came out of nowhere and that she's such a victim. Nobody could have predicted this. She was just. There was no way to know. Trump didn't suddenly become somebody different. He didn't campaign as a peace candidate and then accidentally stumble into war because of some unforeseeable event that he could do nothing about. Trump spent years warning that he not promising, better said that he would be the peace president. And many of us spent years warning there is no coherent anti war philosophy to Donald Trump. When Tulsi said, I believe Trump is really the anti war guy, we explained Trump is guided by whatever he thinks will make him look strong in the moment. And if that means criticizing a war, he'll do it. He I. Bush never. He said during his first campaign, Bush was wrong to go to Iraq. It was a disaster. Oh, he looks really strong because he's willing to call out a decision made by another Republican, even though he's a Republican. It turned out it was a lie. But sometimes being strong is threatening to bomb other countries, in the view of Trump, of course. And sometimes it means we're going to assassinate foreign military leaders, and sometimes it's saying you're going to take over Greenland or threaten, why can't we bomb Denmark or whatever. The point is, we all saw the warning signs and we talked about them. And so that's what makes it difficult where we go. Yeah, this isn't someone who voted for Trump in 2016, when maybe we really had no idea. I guess there's at least some plausible deniability, and it ended up being a disaster. And then said, well, I'm not voting for him again. This is someone who voted for him three separate times. By the third vote, he was a convicted felon. And there was a massive amount of evidence about who Trump was and how he governed and how often the promises collided with reality. So we don't have to be mean to this woman, but we shouldn't pretend that this was just impossible to see coming. And everybody, Everybody was tricked because tens of millions of us were not tricked. So here's where I kind of disagree with the people. I. I disagree with the people who want to mock the regretful Trump voters, and I disagree with the people who say that there should be no accounting for the fact that they fell for something very obvious. What are the alternatives? Okay, if someone says, I was wrong, and we reply, get lost. Why would anyone admit that they were wrong? We don't want to do that. You're kind of rewarding tribalism because you're teaching people, once you pick a side, never leave it because you will be rejected by everybody else. That creates political cults. We don't want that. So I think the balance is people should be held accountable for the choices they made. Voting has consequences. Millions of people were warning, I was one of them, about exactly these kinds of outcomes.
- [52:50]
E
And.
- [52:50]
A
And we were told, oh, it's bluster. You guys are hysterical. Trump's never going to do any of this crap. It's okay to acknowledge that. And if someone genuinely changes their mind, they're not our enemy. The goal isn't we punish people forever. The goal is let's build a coalition of people who favor democracy and who say, we need competent government and we need people in government who are attached to reality. If she got there late, I'd still rather she get there than never arrive at all. But we don't erase history, and we don't pretend that the warning signs weren't obvious. And we don't stop asking hard questions about why the hell did it take her three elections. That's a very reasonable question. But it does mean if our objective is to improve the country rather than win arguments, we have to leave the door open for people who are willing to come through the door. And if you change your mind after overwhelming evidence, we don't go, what a hero. Now all the evidence is pointing this way. But we also don't want to refuse people the ability to change their minds and say, all right, you're acknowledging your mistake. That should be acknowledged and it should be supported. So that's my view on this. And I know that it's often it doesn't make for good clicks to be sort of on the one hand. On the other hand, either this is a hero, hero voter abandons Trump. Well, abandons Trump after 11 years. And it shouldn't be, look at this horrible person who deserves to be relegated to, you know, a penal colony or whatever. No, it's like, listen, this was predictable. You were bamboozled. You should have been smarter about it. But I still am glad that you figured it out eventually. It's not a very good clickbait headline, but it is really what I believe the reality to be. Here's something people don't think about enough. There is not much of a line between online privacy and and real world safety. If someone gets angry at you in traffic, at work, in a relationship, or in a comment section, it can be very easy for them to figure out your details, address, phone number, relatives. A lot of that information is just sitting on public search databases right now. There is something you can do. Our sponsor, Incogni, helps protect you and your family by automatically sending removal requests to hundreds of these databases. And they are legally required to comply and get rid of your information. Incogni will follow up until it's done. Incogni's custom removals is my favorite feature. If I find information on a random directory or an obscure business database or some new people search site, I just paste the link into Incogni. Their privacy experts work to get it removed. Removing your information from these online databases is critical to protect yourself and your loved ones. Get 60% off when you go to incogni.com/pacman. Use the code PACMAN. The link is in the description. Have you noticed that the United States is suddenly having one public health disaster after another? We had the nationwide outbreak of explosive diarrhea linked initially believed to be contaminated lettuce, although now it seems it may even go further than that. We now have 1.6 million eggs recalled because they might be contaminated with salmonella. And this is happening in the middle, as I already told you earlier this week, of the worst outbreak of measles in the United States in 35 years. And so maybe you're wondering, is this like bad luck or something? Or did something change here? And the FDA announcing this recall of nearly 1.6 million eggs in multiple states because they may contain salmonella, which is a bacteria that can also cause severe diarrhea, vomiting, fever, nausea, hospitalization, especially for young Kids and for older adults and people with weakened immune systems. Now, do food recalls happen under every presidential administration? Of course. Can presidents promise no outbreaks? No. This is not just one recall. We are also dealing with this massive cyclospora outbreak linked to lettuce and maybe more vegetables that's causing explosive diarrhea in thousands of people in more than 40 states. And the worst measles outbreak in decades, which we've talked about, connected to, quite frankly, anti vaccine sentiment. 90% of the cases are people who have not been vaccinated. Now, what is the common thread if we weave all of this together? And it's. It's not that every single one of these problems has the exact same cause. They all do depend on strong public health institutions that can detect problems early, that can investigate them, make announcements about what's going on, and then stop them before they spread. That's what this administration has spent the last year. And whatever they've been in power weakening. RFK Jr. As the Secretary of Health and Human Services, has built this whole movement around the idea that Americans shouldn't trust public health institutions. Vaccines, you probably shouldn't trust. But the fda, the cdc, regulatory agencies responsible for keeping food and medicine safe. You got it. You shouldn't trust them. And the philosophy has become government regulators are the problem. If that's your philosophy, you shouldn't be surprised when you end up with fewer regulators and problems as a result of that. If you tell people scientists are corrupt, then don't be surprised when some scientists leave and that leads to more problems. And if you slash agencies in order to get more efficient, like Doge said we were going to be, don't be surprised when the agencies are less effective. And a lot of people are missing this. And I've been trying to make this connection every time I talk to people who go, I don't really care about politics. Politics isn't just arguing on cable news. That is a part of what corporate media wants to make politics. But politics determines, is your food inspected? Are there outbreaks that we can catch before they spread? Politics determines, does the FDA have the staffing level to investigate contamination? Does the CDC have the resources to track dangerous diseases? And people love to say, I'm just not that into politics. Politics affects what your groceries cost, whether your kid is more or less likely to be exposed to measles, whether the eggs in your refrigerator are safe to eat. And nobody votes thinking, let's see which vote is likely to lead to more explosive diarrhea. That's not how people are necessarily thinking nobody votes hoping, I hope there are more salmonella recalls. But the truth is that when you elect leaders who believe, believe that regulation is the enemy and they undermine scientific expertise and they got institutions that are there to protect the public, those are the risks that you're taking. And because public health doesn't work by magic, it works by having people doing the work. If you have fewer people doing the work, you're going to have a problem. Fewer scientists and inspectors and epidemiologists and all of it when they aren't doing their jobs. The tragedy is we all of a sudden realize they were actually pretty damn important. Maybe we shouldn't have done that. So this is now a reality. And I know that online there's a lot of aggressive debate about, wait, are you blaming Trump for the diarrhea? Trump's diarrhea is not necessarily Trump's fault. It's more of a stochastic point. Big, just top level, less of a budget for inspection, tracing, etc. Increases the probability that stuff like this gets more out of control rather than being controlled early. This shouldn't surprise anybody. Again, going back to the voter who said, well, I voted for him once, fool me once, fool me twice, fool me three times. I finally figured it out. We knew that this sort of thing was up Trump's alley because he disbanded the pandemic response team and completely threw into the trash, figuratively and literally, the pandemic response plan that was left behind by the Obama administration during his first term when Covid hit. And thus the American Covid response was a disaster relative to many other countries. So it was predictable. And now with RFK supercharging this stuff and Lee Zeldin and whoever else, oversight is really not. It's sort of been relegated to an unimportant backwater. So this is what's going on. Is Trump personally responsible? Well, not really. But was this attitude towards regulation something we knew about and completely predictable? Yes, of course it was. Absolutely. Donald Trump has not even reached the midterms of this second term, and Republicans are ready to destroy the guy a lot of people assume is going to be Donald Trump's political heir. I'm talking about J.D. vance. I know that there's talk about Marco Rubio as well, and we'll get to that. But think about how bizarre the situation is right now. Normally, a vice president gets criticized by the opposing party. What's happening with JD Vance right now is that there is a coordinated campaign inside the Republican coalition. And if you've been paying attention this is not coming out of nowhere. We've been talking about it for a while. There's a very interesting new report in the Washington Post where the allies of JD Vance say that there are Republican influencers, donors and activists engaged in an organized effort to poison JD's chances of becoming the 2028 nominee. And they are saying that there is an organized campaign of never Vance messaging attacks that are portraying him as unfit to serve and accusations that he is drifting away from Trump. Now, I want to be clear about a couple of things in my analysis. I disagree with JD Vance on just about everything. His views on immigration, democracy, executive power. He has dangerous views about a lot of issues. You don't have to like the guy to recognize what's happening. This is not primarily about JD's domestic agenda. I think that this is about foreign policy. Vance has consistently been a lot more skeptical of military intervention than many traditional Republican hawks. And he's been noticeably less enthusiastic than others about what's going on in Iran. And Trump has even acknowledged Vance is different on this issue. He supports me. But JD has a bit of a different view publicly. JD Vance, of course, has kind of gotten in line and this is what's making the situation very interesting. After Vance went on Joe Rogan, I guess it was last week, he complained about what he described as coordinated attacks from pro Israel influencers. And almost immediately afterwards, criticism of Vance exploded in right wing media, according to the analysis of the Washington Post. Now this doesn't prove a conspiracy. Political factions coordinate all the time. They coordinate messaging. People on the left do it, people on the right do it. Campaigns do it, interest groups do it. The important point is we are seeing the Republican Party start now with its post Trump succession fight, years before Trump is gone, before the midterms even happen. And we have this old establishment wing that is more interventionist. You know, the donor class, the neoconservatives, they never really embraced Vance in the first place. And they were reportedly against picking him as vp. And they wanted someone like a Marco Rubio instead, or maybe like a Doug Burgum. And for years MAGA told us we are totally united with the Republican Party behind America first, and they really aren't. Because the second there's any uncertainty about who comes after Trump, the knives are out and these foreign policy fractures reopen. The donors really don't seem to like jd. Influencers are discovering, you know, the guy who was just our hero can very quickly become a traitor. And the irony is I don't really know that this is going to work because for now, JD Vance's favorability among Republican voters is basically the same as Trump's. Now, you could go, well, Trump's favorability is terrible, and you'd be right. But the point is, if Vance had a bigger problem within the Republican Party than Trump does, you would see him having lower favorability than Trump. So what does this tell us? Well, number one, elite right wing influencers don't seem to be able to control what the voters think, which is interesting. And whether Vance ultimately wins or loses, loses is less the point. Then there's a Republican civil war that's already going on and they're fighting over who will inherit this movement. And Trump's presidency is still ongoing. If you look at history, when movements become centered around one personality like Trump, instead of durable principles, that is exactly what happens. You have a succession battle that starts very early. You start seeing factions turn on each other in very ugly fashion. And suddenly the loudest attacks aren't even coming from Democrats right now, who are sort of standing aside and going, let these Republicans figure out who they're going to put forward. It's Republicans who want to make sure J.D. vance doesn't become the next Donald Trump and that the neocons can take back the Republican Party. What's our interest in it as people of the left? Well, we want, there's, there's a belief that a robust primary will spit out the best candidate to face off in the general election. And that is often true. But this has the potential to get so ugly that it'll leave the supporters of those candidates who don't ultimately become the nominee so furious and so vengeful that they may stay home or maybe they'll consider voting for the Democratic nominee or who knows what. And it is that is in our interest because it will help the Republican ultimately lose. Now on the bonus show today, speaking of Republicans being upset, Donald Trump is again unveiling new tariffs expected to cost Americans 100 billion a year. And he is again saying that there's going to be big strikes against Iran. So we're right back in all of it. Meanwhile, the House admits that it used to keywords to kill billions of dollars of California research grants control f that's what they're doing. And the BBC is going to be able to access Donald Trump's financial records as a very dubious lawsuit starts to backfire. All of those stories are on today's bonus show, which you can get by signing up@join pacman.com and remember, my forthcoming book Pay Attention is now available for preorder@davidpakman.com attention. Get those preorders in. I'll have updated numbers probably Monday.