Breaking News from Pod Save America - Trump PANICS As Inflation EXPLODES Under His Watch

Episode Date: August 14, 2025

Trump falsely claims inflation is down and demands Sen. Elizabeth Warren take a drug test in a wild, rambling press conference. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Dan, good news. Inflation is over. Really? I heard somewhere today that the Biden inflation nightmare is done. Is that true? Here's where you heard it from Donald Trump. Let's listen. We're also fighting the menace of inflation to make life more affordable for American seniors. And we've ended Biden's inflation nightmare. So we have the worst inflation in the history of our country. And now our inflation is down to a perfect number, a beautiful number, hardly any at all. And yet our country is taking in tens of billions of dollars and trillions of dollars, actually, trillions of dollars in tariffs.
Starting point is 00:00:37 And you know all about it. It's been amazing. They say, why are we taking in so much money? Last week, they found $29 billion and they couldn't figure out where it came from. I said, check the tariff shelf. And they said, how did you know that's where it came from? We're taking in billions and even trillions of dollars in tariffs, paid by other countries who, frankly, were taking advantage of us for many, many years. And they were doing that to us, but our people didn't know it.
Starting point is 00:01:10 We didn't have smart business people. Who boy. Here's the big headline from this morning. The producer price index, which is a measure of inflation, jumped more than any time in the last three years. Today? That happened today? That happened today. Does Trump know? Well, if someone tells them, they probably will get fired.
Starting point is 00:01:33 Well, that's what happened to the last person that gave him bad jobs numbers. They already fired the Biden deep state plants inside the BLS who does the report. So I don't know who to blame for this one. Also, once again, you know, tariffs not paid by the other countries. Certainly not trillions coming in. Yeah, I mean, trillions would be quite impressive. But we always have to say this, that people, People who pay the tariffs are the importers in the United States.
Starting point is 00:01:58 They're paid at the dock by the business who takes the goods. And because that's true, that's why we also got a producer price index inflation indicator that jumped by more than any time in the last three years this morning. So on the day we find out that inflation is heading back up because of tariffs. Donald Trump said we have beat the inflation nightmare. Like he just, perfect timing. John, it was literally two days ago that the consumer price index came out, which showed core inflation up 3.1% over the year and at the fastest rate of annual increase in five months. That was on Tuesday. And just so people know, the producer price index is what companies deal with, right? It's like the cost of wholesale goods. So all the analysis of this measure is saying, well, this is a sign that the days of, of companies eating the tariffs and not passing the price increases onto consumers are ending.
Starting point is 00:02:59 Like the consumer price increases are about to hit. So perfect day for Donald Trump to declare victory. If this was any other politician in any other time period and you said that the economy was great and that you've beaten inflation when inflation started skyrocketing, like that would be the end? I don't know. What do you think? Is this going to, these words are going to come back to bite him in the ass? Probably not because no one seems to care what he says when he says it.
Starting point is 00:03:23 But it is the equivalent of, and to use a very dated reference that means a lot to us personally. I know. This is hanging the mission accomplished banner on the aircraft carrier. Oh, I thought you were going to say the fundamentals of the economy are strong. John McCain in 2007. I think it's even worse than that, right? Which is like, I took on this task that I promised you that I would do. And I'm now declaring victory when it is most certainly not accomplished in any way, shape, or form.
Starting point is 00:03:45 Right. Like this was, it is just worth remembering the entire premise of Trump's victory for a large swath of voters was that he would lower prices. And then he got into office. And not only did he not focus on lowering prices anyway, shape, or form, he then undertook a quite radical, quite aggressive approach to raise prices on people. Just incredible. Now, Trump delivered those remarks in the Oval. He was there to sign a proclamation celebrating the 90th anniversary of Social Security.
Starting point is 00:04:17 And so he made sure he got a few lies in about that as well. And they paid into the system. and they deserve it last month. I signed one big, beautiful bill and allowed no tax on Social Security for our great seniors, okay? So how's that? Not bad, right?
Starting point is 00:04:33 No tax on Social Security for our seniors. And to protect our benefits, we've already kicked nearly 275,000 illegal aliens off of the Social Security system. These are people, many of them have already left the country. It is wild that he, and the rest of the White House and the Social Security Administration just keep lying about this. So no taxes on Social Security, that's just not true.
Starting point is 00:05:03 Yeah. And it feels like it's something that people who file their taxes would notice. Yeah. Or they get their statements from the government, which would show taxes withheld. So people know the bill did not change the law to eliminate taxes on Social Security benefits. Couldn't do that through reconciliation. That's a change of a law. So you would have needed 60 votes. So what they did is they have some temporary senior deduction that basically expires in a couple years,
Starting point is 00:05:30 and only people 65 over can take it, and it only affects some people who are like middle income, and it's basically this very narrow thing. It has nothing to actually do with Social Security. It's just because if you're 65 or older, you're probably getting Social Security, so you might be able to qualify for this temporary tax deduction. But he just keeps lying about it. And like all things, it's one of those things that you have to file for, which excludes most people who are not paying someone to prepare their taxes. Yes, that is the other thing.
Starting point is 00:06:02 And on the subject of Social Security benefits and his, you know, his event here trying to celebrate the 90th anniversary of Social Security, part of the problem with firing the head of the Bureau and Labor Statistics and not having confidence in the monthly jobs reports now or the monthly inflation reports going. forward is social security benefits are calculated by using the inflation indicators. And so if we don't know what the inflation actually is, then people's cost of living increases for Social Security might not happen, especially if you have a president who wants to pretend that inflation is solved. And so you underestimate what the actual inflation is, which means that you don't raise people's social security benefits to match a cost of living increase by as much as you would if you knew the real inflation numbers.
Starting point is 00:06:53 So this is actually a fucking, like, not only is he saving, not only is he not saving seniors money who are on Social Security, he could be costing the money as well, thanks to firing all the economic data statistics people. All right, so the last clip
Starting point is 00:07:11 is, of course, he does the, you know, he does the Social Security thing, and then he takes, like, an hour of questions. A lot of, you know, tough questions he could get about the, military occupation of D.C. about the lies he just told about Social Security and inflation, about tough questions, about his meeting with Putin. It's coming up. This is the kind of question he got from reporters, the kind of reporters, I use that term very loosely, who were gathered
Starting point is 00:07:40 in the Oval Office. Let's listen. Hi, Mr. Castro from Lentel TV, how are you today, sir? Democrats like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren continue to peddle the lie and the claim that you're trying to cut Social Security, despite your repeated promises to protect it. Why do you think they keep pushing this misinformation and literally terrorizing the elderly in America that sadly keep watching the very misleading industry media. I love your question.
Starting point is 00:08:03 I should have called you almost first, but I love his questions. But it's such a good question. It's so vicious what they do. Elizabeth Warren said she was an Indian. We call her Pocahontas. She's a liar. She lied her whole career.
Starting point is 00:08:21 Based on the fact that she was an Indian, she was able to get into certain colleges, get certain jobs, get into certain universities to work there. She's a liar and a mean person. She's a nut job. I watched her the other night. She's all hopped up endorsing a communist in New York City. And she was all excited and jumping up and down.
Starting point is 00:08:42 She's got to take a drug test. She really does. She's got to take a drug test. There's no way somebody can act that way and be normal. Well, that was something. Can I ask a question? Sure. I watched this live because I'm a lunatic.
Starting point is 00:08:56 But I didn't catch the first time. Did she say she's from Lindell TV? She sure did, Dan. Is that Mike Lindell? Yes. The My Pillow guy, I guess he has a television. I didn't even know this. He has a television network.
Starting point is 00:09:07 And then he has... I don't think it's television. Sorry. He has something. He has something he's calling Lindell TV. He don't know what it is. He has a phone internet access is what he has. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:09:18 And he hired some MAGA influencer off the street. who now is a White House reporter, I guess, covering the Trump administration, asking some hardheaded, hardheaded tough questions of the president. Why are Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren literally terrorizing seniors? Had a lot of nice things to say about Bernie, though. He did. Yeah, after that, he was like, oh, he's old, but he hasn't lost his fastball. I won't say fastball, but he's sharp. It was really weird.
Starting point is 00:09:46 There is something very strange going on, that it's not a bigger deal that Trump has. that Trump has basically destroyed the concept of the White House press corps and that the pool, he is now on a daily basis surrounded by sycophants who will only ask him the questions he wants. And I don't know why. Like, where was everyone there? I remember like in the Zelensky thing or some of these other big moments in the Oval? Like Peter Alexander was there. Caitlin Collins was there.
Starting point is 00:10:12 Like, where was everyone today? Well, they have taken the wires out of the pool, I think, the last I saw, which was a way to get around the AP court decision. So now there's no wires. And so now I think it's more, like every once in a while, Caitlin Collins will be there or there will be, like there is still some sort of network rotation. But on a day-to-day basis, it's just Trump Cinca fans asking questions. And you would think that the White House Correspondents Association or other reporters would be literally lighting themselves on fire to protest this. And it's just maybe it's a culture of South because they're afraid they're going to kick you out of the pool and they're just deciding that it's better to be in the pool once every six times as opposed to never being in the pool. but America should know that the president has made specific decisions to avoid any sort of scrutiny.
Starting point is 00:10:56 For example, we're doing this whole thing about how this morning, hours before this press conference where he declared inflation was over, a report from his own government came out saying that inflation was up. And he, no one asked that question, at least in the 35 minutes or so that I watched this thing. I mean, outside the walls of the White House, there is a. basically a military occupation of D.C. Last night, there were protests. There were a vehicle checkpoint on fucking 14th Street with ICE agents pulling people over for taillights and insurance mishaps and their car insurance.
Starting point is 00:11:34 I mean, nothing, and the only questions he got about that was like, what do you say to the Democrats who said that there's, the crime is gone in the city and there is never any crime in D.C. And what you're doing is whatever. And he's like, thank you for the question. There's like two questions. that could be construed as, I wouldn't say tough questions, but at least like normal reporter questions out of, I don't know,
Starting point is 00:11:55 45 minutes of questions there? It's insane. There were a couple questions on Russia that were like a fair, normal questions. Like, is this going to be on the table? It's not going to be on the table. Someone asked, do you see, like, does this encourage, are you rewarding, essentially Putin for invading Ukraine? And then someone asked a very good question about would you pressure Israel? to let journalists into Gaza, which Trump actually said, he didn't say he would pressure them.
Starting point is 00:12:24 He said he'd be fine if it happened, which is two very different things. One's an actor, one's an observer. Yeah. But other than that, the rest of it is Trump is, he's insulated from scrutiny. And he is picking his questioners on a day-to-day basis. And this, we talked a little about this when the decision was originally made about changing the White House pool, when the White House took over picking the people's supposed of the White House Correspondent Association.
Starting point is 00:12:46 Like, it is bad on a day-to-day basis. If something serious ever happens, like on 9-11, when Bush was in the air for hours circling the United States, because he couldn't land in Washington because they didn't know what the situation was, the people who could chronicle what was happening were the reporters on the plane, right? It's the people who move with him. And they are the people who document history. And there will be no one to do that this time because it'll all be a bunch of fabulous who work for the My Pillow guy. Like that's it. Like that is, like that does have real consequences for democracy. and it just allows Trump to get away with so much on a day-to-day basis because he doesn't feel pushback from anyone ever.
Starting point is 00:13:26 Nor does anyone in his administration. I've been saying their lies have gotten worse and lazier. Like they're not even trying now to come up with good lies. They face no pushback. They don't talk to regular reporters. They don't care if they get called liars. It's just there is no. And it's him, J.D. Vance, Rubio.
Starting point is 00:13:43 None of these people are, Bondi, none of these people are facing questions from reporters. live on television that are difficult. Like their, you know, their press offices are sending back whatever statements they want to reporters who, like, inquire about stuff, but they just, they don't care. Not great. Not great. But that was, yeah, anyway, so happy, happy inflation being over day. And happy, happy, and happy anniversary to Social Security.
Starting point is 00:14:05 Yes, happy every Social Security. Maybe one of the last. Hey, here your takeaway. Social Security, still alive for now. Inflation, not dead. Democracy on the brink. Please subscribe to Pod Save America YouTube channel. We are rapidly approaching 1 million subscribers.
Starting point is 00:14:25 But is it rapidly enough? That's what I'm saying, because the days in August are ticking away here. And Elijah's getting a little nervous, wants to keep his job. And also, every subscriber over a million, Tommy has to pay Elijah another dollar. And then if it gets to, I think we said, $250. 50,000 over, then Tommy has to do a YouTube sit down with J.D. Vance to talk about Emily and Paris. The end result here is that Elijah is really good his job. He will make an additional $250,000, and then Tommy will have to talk to J.D. Vance about Emily and Paris, which is, people should know,
Starting point is 00:15:04 Tommy's favorite show. So he's his favorite politician and Tommy's favorite show. The one thing they can This is going to be perfect. Just a couple of elder millennials talking about Emily and Paris. It was, Jady Vance has agreed to this. I should just stay for the right. He's on board. That's why. Subscribe, everyone. Hit that subscribe button.
Starting point is 00:15:23 Pod Save America. We'll talk to you later. Bye, everyone.

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