The David Pakman Show - 1/13/25: They want a deportation hotline, Trump abandons key promise

Episode Date: January 13, 2025

-- On the Show: -- Republicans are talking about conditioning California fire disaster aid money with "strings attached" -- Multi-millionaire Scott Galloway stuns a panel on MSNBC when he explains that the rich, himself included, should be taxed much more than they are -- Elon Musk, in another painfully stupid Twitter reply, appears not to understand that California and Texas have different climates and vegetation, and therefore different fire risk -- Tom Homan, Donald Trump's incoming deportation czar, announces their plans for a deportation hotline to report undocumented immigrants -- Donald Trump abandons a key campaign promise, ending the Russian-Ukraine war in one day, now hoping to end it within 100 days -- Donald Trump has gone silent on a key campaign promise, lowering prices -- Steven Bannon goes to war against Elon Musk in the now-full-fledged MAGA civil war, pledging to get Musk away from Trump by inauguration day --Donald Trump threatens Denmark with tariffs if he doesn't get what he wants with regard to Greenland -- On the Bonus Show: Right wing is fanning misinformation about California fires, asking rental prices ended 2024 at lowest level in almost three years, people rushing to install solar panels before Trump becomes President, much more... ☕ Beam melatonin hot cocoa: Code DAVID for up to 40% OFF at https://shopbeam.com/david 👂 MDHearing: Use code PAKMAN to get a pair for just $297 at https://shopmdhearing.com/ 💻 Sponsored by Aura: Try it free for 2 weeks! See if your data is safe at https://aura.com/pakman 🛡️ Incogni lets you control your personal data! Get 60% off their annual plan: http://incogni.com/pakman ⚠️ Ground News: Get 50% OFF their unlimited access Vantage plan at https://ground.news/pakman -- Become a Member: https://davidpakman.com/membership -- Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/davidpakmanshow -- TDPS Subreddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/thedavidpakmanshow -- Pakman Discord: https://davidpakman.com/discord -- David on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow -- Leave a Voicemail: (219)-2DAVIDP

. Welcome to the show, everybody. Hope you had a good weekend. I want to start today talking about disaster relief and the politicization of federal funds to help people who have been afflicted by natural disasters. These could be the fires that we're seeing in California. These could be, as we have seen before, tornadoes in the center of the country or hurricane relief in Florida, New York, New Jersey after super storm Sandy, Puerto Rico, wherever the

case may be. During a recent interview, Republican Senator John Barrasso was asked, are Republicans going to help California recover from disasters even if they don't agree with the state's politics? And the reason that this even came up, of course, is that we're starting to hear so much about how it's DEI or lesbians or women in charge of the L.A. F.DD or not raking the forest floors, even though these are mostly fires in residential areas. We're hearing all it's Gavin new scum as Donald Trump trothed a few times last week. So it's a reasonable question, particularly given Republicans longstanding history of

double standards of when federal funds should or shouldn't be used for disaster relief, depending on whether it's Kansas tornadoes or super storm Sandy and liberal New York and New Jersey. It's a reasonable question to say to Barrasso, is there going to be a problem here with Republicans agreeing to get disaster aid to liberal California. And the response from Barrasso is that he does expect there will be strings attached. I'm going to play the clip in a moment, but understand that disaster relief is supposed to be about helping people in need, not about politics. But here we have a senior Republican Senator openly admitting that aid for disaster victims will come with conditions, conditions that are always designed to serve a political

agenda. That's very different from when Americans are caught in a disaster. We do everything we can to help them recover. This is, yeah, we'll give them money, but there will be strings attached. Here's the clip. Can't happen again in the policies of the liberal administration out there, I believe, have made these fires worse. Do you expect, though, that Congress and Republicans will still help these Americans in need, even if they don't like their local politics in the party? I expect that there will be strings attached to money that is ultimately approved. And it has to do with being ready the next time because this was a gross failure this

time. Wow. Imagine for a moment if President Biden or any Democrat suggested we're going to attach some political conditions to disaster aid. Fox News would lose its mind. You would have endless segments about how Democrats are heartless elites weaponizing tragedy to push their liberal values and woke culture. You'd hear outrage about how the coastal elites are punishing hardworking real Americans in

the red states. And yet Republicans casually float this thing and it barely makes a blip. And if you're wondering why, it's because we've normalized this kind of cruelty and hypocrisy from the Republican Party. But we should be clear that conditioning disaster aid is wrong and it should be unacceptable full stop. And it's especially hypocritical coming from the same party that loves to scream about how much they love real Americans and claim

that they are the champions of the working class. If Democrats tried to withhold hurricane aid from North Carolina until North Carolina implemented stricter gun laws, for example, or banned book bands, the Republican Party would call it federal government tyranny. They would call Biden or Obama or whoever suggested it a dictator. But instead, when Republicans suggest attaching some strings to aid for Californians, Fox News has no problem with it. None of the right has a problem with it. Now, the reality is that we should just be helping people and we saw this not happen under Trump. We saw it with Trump in terms of disaster relief

while in office. We saw it with Puerto Rico. We've seen it with Republicans who were very hesitant to vote for federal aid for New York and New Jersey after superstorm Sandy, but immediately said, give everything that they want to Kansas for tornado relief. And what was the difference? Liberal New York, liberal New Jersey, conservative Kansas. They love using disaster aid as a political weapon. It shouldn't come with a fine print. When someone's home is underwater or burned to the ground, they care about blue state, red state. They need help.

But Republicans always want leverage. Who is in power? What can we extract? Let's maybe help people with like a second or third or fourth set of requirements that comes with it. And that's honestly what's so disturbing about this. When red States get hit with hurricanes, we on the left just go give them the money. Of course, what do you tell me? We're not going to condition it on gun safety laws or anything. Democrats step up and they say, of course we're going to provide aid. If a Republican is in power and there's a disaster that afflicts a red state, Democrats always say, give them the money, of course. But when it's a blue state like California, now they want to negotiate their strings attached and whatever else.

It's not just bad governance, it's cruel. And it's a reinforcement of the deep hypocrisy of a party that talks about uniting America while using disaster relief as a weapon to divide America. So next time you hear Republicans talk about patriotism and how they love America and all Americans, remember that their love has some strings attached. And if you live in a blue state, the strings might choke off the help that you need. Disgusting and despicable stuff. This is one of my favorite clips of the last couple of days. Scott Galloway, former guest on this program whose podcast I listen to. He's a super wealthy entrepreneur investor type,

NYU business school professor, and he went on MSNBC. He's in the lower right of this shot that I have up on the screen. Scott Galloway went on MSNBC and said to a stunned doofus panel, Hey, us tax policy is oligarchic. We need to raise taxes dramatically for the super rich. Will he ever be allowed back on MSNBC? I don't know. But laying this out so clearly, check it out. Once you get above a certain level of wealth, you get no incremental happiness. So why on earth would you not go back to a tax policy of the 60s, 70s, and 80s, where say above, pick a big number, 10 million, you actually pay more than 10%, maybe more than 20%, maybe more than 50%. Because the difference between 30,000 a year for a household and 50,000 is enormous to the

well-being of that household. Kids in low-income households have higher resting blood pressure. But the difference between making $10 million a year and $15 million a year offers you no happiness. But these individuals have weaponized government, and we risk revolution. Whether it's CEOs being murdered in the street, whether it's a Me Too movement that had righteous components of it or Black Lives Matter, what are these movements? They are targeting the wealthy. We are in the midst of a series of small revolutions to correct income inequality. And the reason we put an insurrectionist and a rapist in office is because for the first time in our nation's history, a 30-year-old man or woman

isn't doing as well as his or her parents were at 30. Why? Because the majority of households are having the oxygen sucked out of the room such that a small number of individuals and a small number of companies can be worth more than nation states. Income inequality is out of control. Our tax policy has gone full oligarch. This is exactly right. It relates to why the trickle down economic idea of cutting taxes for the rich in order to boost the economy as a whole does not work. And it gets to the core of what is arguably wrong with American tax policy. Scott Galloway, I think he's worth somewhere between 100 million and $200 million.

If you listen to his podcast, I listen to it. It's very good with Kara Swisher. You would not be surprised that he is saying what he is saying, but he is simply telling us what is uncontroversially reality based on economics. The marginal utility of a dollar diminishes the more dollars you have. And this is at the core of why just cutting taxes for the rich isn't good for the economy. Forget about the morality of it. There is a morality case to be made that the level of inequality we have in this country

is immoral, that you can absolutely make an ethical and moral case for that. Maybe you don't care about that. Or maybe your morality is you should just get to keep all of what you make, even if you were making it on the backs of taxpayer funded programs and roads and legal infrastructure and protection and all for you just don't care. But if I make a dollar, I should get to keep a dollar zero should go to the government. Okay. There's an economic case here that is abundantly clear and it is demand side economic stimulus. If you think about a million dollars, think about a million dollars in government revenue and you have two choices of what to do with that million dollars, you're going to do a tax cut.

Who do you give that money to? The way that typical, particularly Republican tax policy works is you give $800,000 from that million to the very rich. And what do they mostly do with it? They put it in the bank. They don't do anything with it. And the economic stimulus effect of that is very low because the money, yes, if you put it in the bank, the bank can take a portion of it and loan it out. But the economic multiplier of that is low.

On the other hand, imagine if you took the bulk of that million dollars and you gave it to families that make 40 grand a year in four thousand dollar increments. Right. So the idea is 10 percent. Right. They make 40 grand. You get you take most of that million and you start doling out four thousand dollar tax cuts to a bunch of families that make 40 grand. They are going to spend all of that money or almost all of that money. Why? They're marginal to prop marginal propensity to consume a significantly higher. If you make 40 grand, it's very likely that you'd probably like to be eating out a little

bit more. If you had the money, you'd probably like to be enrolling one of your kids in an additional activity, maybe a summer camp or karate or who knows what you would like to maybe make a small improvement to your home. You will almost certainly spend that money because your surplus is relatively low. When you hire your local contractor or go out to local restaurants, the economic multiplier of that is very, very high. So taken in total, if you give the million bucks as tax cuts to earners under 50 grand,

it's way better for the economy than if you just give it to a relatively smaller number of rich folks. And by the way, if you're one of the rich folks, you benefit from the money going to those lower earners. Why? Because now they have more money with which they can go to you as maybe a business owner and buy whatever you're selling. And so Scott Galloway is absolutely on point here. Uh, he would pay more under what he is describing and we'll see if he's welcome back onto MSNBC.

All right. A couple quick things. Monday is inauguration day. We are going to be doing an inauguration day membership special to gear up for the next four years. Yes, it will be depressing that Trump is going to be inaugurated. Yes, I'm sure his speech will be a farcical gong show and we're all going to say, oh my goodness, how do I avoid crying?

Maybe by laughing. I don't know, but we're going to try to do something and continue getting organized. If you'd like to be notified about this membership special for inauguration day, get on the mailing list at David Pakman dot com. You'll see where you can type in your email address and sign up for it. You can also email info at David Pakman dot com and say, give me that inauguration special, David. And then finally, we have set a deadline for getting the free stuff that comes with preordering my book. I wrongly thought that

you could get the free stuff for preorders all the way up through the release date of the book. My publisher has told me that because there have been so many preorders, we are going to set a limit. So here's the deal. If you want all of the free stuff that comes with preordering my book, you must preorder the book and submit your order receipt no later than 1159 PM on January 25th. Okay. Pre-order the book anywhere, any version Barnes and Noble, Amazon, your local bookstore, ebook, Kindle doesn't matter. David Pakman.com slash free book stuff. Do not email about it. OK, some people have been emailing. You've got to submit it. David Pakman dot com slash free book stuff. You can get your free stuff up to the end of January 25th. I'm going to say it another way. You will not get your free stuff if you don't submit by that date.

Emailing me won't help. My publisher is handling all of this stuff. I've been notified that of the more than 5,000 pre-orders, only 2000 people have submitted their receipts to get the free stuff. I don't want there to be a lot of unhappy people in February and March. David Pakman dot com slash free book stuff, preorder and submit proof of preorder by 1159 PM, January 25th at the stroke of midnight on the 26th. We will be cutting it off. All right, so we will take a quick break.

What a show. We're actually going to record this one cause it seems worth archiving. All right. Giga billionaire Elon Musk just dropped another Twitter gem and this time he's explaining wildfires like a guy who skimmed a Wikipedia article five minutes ago. Uh, Elon Musk's argument, and it's a heavily political argument as is just about every argument that Elon Musk's now Musk now makes. Musk's argument is that Texas should have way more fires than California because it has twice the forest area of California. And the whole point of this is to argue climate change couldn't possibly be the real culprit.

It must be California liberals who refuse to rake the forest floors or are hiring lesbians to run the Los Angeles fire department that are to blame. Of course, shockingly, California and Texas are not the same place. So let's check out what happened. Um, Isaac Brian is an LA assembly member and he tweeted just to be clear, there have been 101 wildfires in California already this year. This is because of a rapidly changing climate period. And Elon Musk in his infinite wisdom went onto his platform X and responded with the following excretion quote, if the climate change explanation were true, Texas, which has twice the forest area of California would have roughly twice the wildfires

that destroy homes. Climate change is happening, but slowly the issue with LA was failure to create fire breaks and clear brush combined with failure to ensure sufficient water supply and terrible mismanagement at the state county and city level. Well, one of the things that Elon is ignoring is that the climate is different in California and Texas. The winds are different in California and Texas. The temperatures are different. The type of vegetation and brush is different.

California has a Mediterranean climate. It's hot and dry in the summer, mild and wetter in the winter. And it's the perfect recipe for wildfires when you combine it with the Santa Ana winds. Now Texas on the other hand has a mix of climates. Texas is a big state depending on exactly where you are and it goes from humid subtropical to arid desert. Texas weather does not generate the same wildfire conditions. Wildfires thrive on fuel, this dense vegetation and brush and dry forests. And California has a lot of that. And then, like I said, the wind will spread the fires faster than firefighters can keep up as we are seeing. It's just different in Texas.

Elon, of course, is sprinkling in politically coded buzzwords like mismanagement. And according to him, it's that Trump was right. California is not clearing brush. They're not creating fire breaks. They're not ensuring enough water supply. But the truth is that people who know about this stuff, you know, raking the forest, as Trump famously suggested, would not stop wildfires in the middle of a historic drought, particularly when a lot of these fires are not in the forest.

They're actually in residential areas. Now California does manage forests. It does clear brush, but you have decades of outdated fire suppression policy and the forests are overgrown and climate change has made fires more intense than ever. So preventative measures can be done, should be done. It can help. It's not a magic solution for wildfires that are fueled by rising global temperatures, longer periods with no rain whatsoever. And again, a lot of that applies to the deep in the forest fires, not these that are affecting a residential areas to a great degree.

So there's a couple of different stories here. First of all, it's, I don't deny for a second that Elon Musk has been hugely responsible for major advancements to technologies I think are awesome. What Elon Musk did with Tesla and electric vehicles has accelerated what other legacy auto manufacturers have done with regard to electric vehicles so much more than would have otherwise happened. He essentially lit a fire under the collective asses of the legacy automakers to say, wait a second, we actually are now going to have to compete with electric vehicles that can go 300 miles on a single charge. That is significantly more appealing. All of a sudden,

as an alternative to gas powered vehicles, we'd better get on the ball. And now everything from Lexus to GM Ford, they're all going in the direction of moving towards electric more and more. And Elon Musk pushing that is to a great degree responsible for that. Now, Elon Musk didn't, didn't create Tesla. He bought it and okay, fine, but he's still been responsible for that and that's good. But then he gets into this other stuff and he's gotten sucked in politically to a lot of really wacky things and he has influence and he's oversimplifying yet another issue. If climate change were a factor, you'd think Texas would have twice the wildfires. No climate vegetation. It's all different. And he always wants to apply a Trumpian political lens to it. Mismanagement shifts attention away from the real culprits here.

And the trend in general in MAGA is we always downplay climate change to avoid accountability or having to really deal with it in any way. Instead of pushing for real solutions, he parrots talking points that conveniently ignore the science. He can't be trusted on any of this stuff and he's making it clear again with just a painfully dumb tweet. The new idea from Trump's deportations are is a deportation hotline. Hello.

I saw someone making authentic tacos. I think maybe they might be here illegally. Quick, please show up. That's the type of phone call that this deportation hotline is going to be just riddled with. NBC News has an article. Trump administration will close down the Darien gap, according to Tom Homan. And buried here is a paragraph about creating a hotline that people can call. We have a clip of the interview. Let's take a listen to it. Take steps to secure the border. President-elect Trump's incoming borders are Tom Homan tells us mass deportation will include workplace roundups. Are we talking around inauguration? steps to secure the border. President-elect Trump's incoming borders are, Tom Homan tells us, mass deportation will include workplace roundups. Are we talking around Inauguration Day,

even on Inauguration Day? I'm not going to forecast what we're doing and where we're doing it, but you can count on worksite enforcement coming back. ICE agents have told us they prioritize arresting undocumented immigrants with criminal records. Critics have asked, what about undocumented family members? Will there be collateral arrests? Yes. It's not OK to be in this country. Homan's also working on creating a hotline where Americans can report undocumented immigrants who've committed a crime. Now, of course, they love to say the focus will be the priority is going to be undocumented immigrants who have committed crimes. But this is a rhetorical game they play.

And as Tom Homan just said in this interview, simply being here is the crime. It is a crime. Now what, what are the obvious problems with such a hotline? It'll obviously encourage racial profiling. People are going to report individuals based on stereotypes and appearances. It'll foster discrimination and fear in communities. You're going to be riddled with false reports and overload inundated with false claims, pranks, wasting resources and slowing down response to legitimate cases.

It'll have a chilling effect on communities because even documented immigrants are going to feel unsafe. They may be less likely to go and seek help from law enforcement for fear of being targeted themselves. We saw this in Arizona with the show us your papers, a SB 10 80 disaster. This hotline will provide sort of a venue for personal grievances where individuals might use the hotline to try to settle a personal score to harass people who maybe are undocumented or maybe aren't undocumented under the guise of reporting the cost and inefficiency of

such an idea. Running a nationwide hotline is going to come out of your pocket and out of my pocket. And it's questionable whether there will really be any measurable results. It'll strain local law enforcement, which might be pressured or deputized to go and look into some of these reports and that it's generically going to erode trust. I mean these in many ways we're talking about marginalized communities that are further going to lose trust in government institutions. It'll divide the nation more and I am very skeptical that this is really going to achieve anything materially useful. Now just the mad, these magas, uh. Hey, there was a guy at a construction site

working so quickly. I'm sure it's because he's undocumented. You've got to go and check that out. Or there's a group of people speaking Spanish at the park. I'm calling in to report. I was at Whole Foods and someone asked about quinoa. That sounds South American. Should I be worried? It's going to be a mess. It's going to be a complete and total mess. And, and as is often the case with many of these things, our best hope is that they just don't get around to it. That at the end of the day, they don't really do it because it's a complete and total recipe for disaster. In general. Much of the best case scenario for this Trump presidency is he does fail to do the things he promised to do. Now,

after the break, two more major campaign promises have been partially abandoned and partially kind of put on the back burner. Maybe that's the best we can hope for in some way for this forthcoming administration. Remember when Donald Trump promised to end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours of becoming president elect, and then that shifted to, I will end it within 24 hours of becoming president. It turns out that it's not going to happen and expectations are now being downplayed a little bit. I want to break down with you how this fantasy fell apart in record time. Let's start with some of the claims that Donald Trump previously made about this. A lot of these, I think, will ring a bell.

I would fix that within 24 hours. And if I win before I get into the office, I will have that war settled. 100 percent sure. Before I even arrive at the Oval Office shortly after I win the presidency, I will have the horrible war between Russia and Ukraine settled and we'll do it quickly. I even arrive at the Oval Office shortly after I win the presidency. I will have the horrible war between Russia and Ukraine settled and it will settle with Ukraine and Russia. I will get them to settle that war very quickly, even before I become president as a president elect Ukraine and Russia.

The stupidity with what I will get that negotiated and ended before I ever take office. I'll do it after the election as president elect would get a settlement in 24 hours. And even now I could solve that in 24 hours. So 24 hours within 24 hours of becoming president elect, or at least the peace talks would start within 24 hours of becoming president elect and then the war would be over within 24 hours of becoming president. Well, none of it is going to happen. Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg, who is Donald Trump's designee to take care of this, says the new goal is to

end the war within 100 days of the start of Donald Trump's presidency. February, March, April plus 10 days, I guess May 1st is the new deadline. And at that point, Trump can say, turns out it's a little more complicated than I thought. Who knew that this would be so difficult? Here's Keith Kellogg saying 24 hours now. No, no, no. We'll set the conditions for the president and then he'll eventually get to a position where he'll be talking to president Putin and also a prime minister, president Zelensky as well. And I think they're going to come to a solvable solution in the near term. A solvable solution, great.

And when I say by the near term, you know, I would like to set a goal on a personal level, a professional level. I would say let's set it at 100 days and move our way back and figure a way we can do this in the near term to make sure that this solution is solid, it's sustainable, and that this war ends and so that we stop the carnage. I think that's going to be very important. Get used to Trump reneging on his promises. Lower egg prices.

Turns out it's going to be a little bit difficult ending the war in Ukraine within 24 hours of whatever. That's not going to happen either. And as is always the case, 24 hours, 24 days, a hundred days, a hundred days is not unreasonable. It's just not what Trump promised he would do. Where is the plan? There are no details. It does not even a framework. And this is not me saying we need to know every detail.

This is just like with healthcare. This is just like with the wall Mexico is going to pay for. This is just like the Israeli Palestinian conflict that Jared Kushner was going to end during Donald Trump's first term. There is not even a concept of a plan. Now there is reporting that the real strategy here might involve Trump delaying Ukraine's NATO membership by 20 years in exchange for peacekeepers and weapons. And that's the classic everybody loses other than Vladimir Putin type of deal.

Because if that's the sort of arrangement Trump makes. The fact that Ukraine is going to get weapons means that Putin can justify continuing the aggression and Putin also gets to keep Ukraine out of NATO for a period of time, which is something he also wants. And the Kremlin ends up as happy as they could possibly be. Uh, Putin's team has already signaled that they're ready to talk. Why wouldn't they be? Because Trump's plan sounds like a gift to Putin. Roll back NATO, give Russia leverage and a justification for continuing to do what it

wants to do. And of course, European allies are getting increasingly nervous. According to the Financial Times, Trump's team doesn't seem to know what they're doing. One European official said they're scrambling to avoid comparisons to the Biden Afghanistan withdrawal, which is a translation for we're worried this is going to become a complete and total mess. And even Trump's supposed friends are already hedging. Italian Prime Minister Giorgio Maloney recently met with Trump, I think at Mar-a-Lago, said she doesn't believe the United States is going to abandon Ukraine, but she is saying nothing

about any of Trump's timelines. The 24 hours before the 24 hours after the 100 days, none of it. And European leaders are practically begging the United States to stay engaged because they know that if the US.S. pulls support, Putin wins and it will embolden every single authoritarian out there. We spoke with Ann Applebaum last week about that, and that's exactly what would take place. So what's happening here is classic Trump. The 24 hour solution was never real. It was a campaign promise. It was meant to sound tough. It was meant to be repeated by Trump's low information acolytes at rallies when Luke

Beasley would go and interview them. But now that he's facing the reality of governance, the goalposts start to shift. First it was a day, then it's a day after being sworn in. Now it's a hundred days as the personal and professional goal of Kellogg, who's going to be in charge. 100 weeks maybe is going to be the next thing. And this is the same thing we've seen from Trump all along. Big claims, no substance, no plan, no accountability when the promises fall apart and usually moving on to something else. So if you thought the first term was chaotic and

bad and it was, the sequel is really shaping up to be a bigger disaster. And there are two layers of lies. The first one is Trump was going to do it within a day of becoming president elect. Now it's within a day of becoming president, except that's already been canceled. It wouldn't be a surprise to me if this continues for years, just like it already has. If Trump manages to end it, then I will give him credit. Of course, if he manages to end it by giving Putin everything, it's not really going to be a super exciting thing to write home about. That's for sure. All right, Let's talk

about Donald Trump and the so-called populism. And I want to bring in my further thoughts about my discussion with Cenk Uygur last week. As some of you remember last week, I spoke to Cenk on the show and I told Cenk, I don't think your heart's in the bad, in the wrong place when it comes to, hey, if we can work with some of these these mega people to achieve our goals, why not? Totally fine. It makes perfect sense. I told Jenk, I think you're naive to think that they're actually going to work with us. And the label of populist is something that Trump throws around when he's campaigning.

The second that it's time to govern, it disappears faster than a MAGA hat at a science fair. For two years, Trump has been selling himself as the one man fix for all of America's problems. Groceries cheap again, gas going to be cheap again, healthcare, it's going to be fixed. Wars are going to be cheap again. Health care. It's going to be fixed. Wars are going to be over. And the whole thing was, hey, working class, I'm going to fix everything that ails you. And all of a sudden it's crickets on the issues that matter most to Trump's base. Trump has either gone silent or when pressed to answer, he will say that's kind of difficult. It's a difficult thing to do. Remember how Trump blamed Biden for the high grocery prices. And during that recent time

magazine interview, Trump casually said, you know, actually getting prices back to those earlier price levels, that's going to be really difficult. Trump's big solution is a recession because nothing says helping the working class like tanking an economy with your harebrained economic ideas, the gas prices. When's the last time he talked about gas prices? He generically says we'll get energy down 50 percent, which he won't. But part of the difficulty and the reason Trump's been mum about gas prices since winning the election is that gas prices were already at four year lows around the time of the election. How much lower are they really going to go?

And so the populist savior of the Maga working class evaporates like when you pour water on cotton candy and instead Donald Trump is focusing on slashing the federal government, maybe boosting skilled foreign worker visas, maybe except a bunch of Maga doesn't want that. And then of course, extending tax cuts for billionaires and for corporations. And these are policies that won't just fail to help his base. They will hurt his base, food stamps, rural hospital funding, subsidies for small bit like actually small businesses. These are all on the chopping block to make more room for tax cuts for the ultra rich.

And then there's the new Trump obsessions. Like instead of focusing on real policies, he's talking about reclaiming the Panama canal, buying Greenland, getting rid of, uh, uh, you know, who, whoever, whatever leader he's not Justin Trudeau, for example, interestingly enough. And, uh, for context, these are all just like pipe dreams. The U S hasn't controlled the Panama canal since the Carter administration Greenland's not for sale. Uh, Trudeau's resigning. It has nothing to do with Donald Trump whatsoever. And meanwhile, Trump's media allies are in full spin mode. Anytime Trump floats these whacked out ideas, they go, that's Trump being Trump.

And of course we know that that's a style that is not benign. It undermines international agreements all the time. It makes the U S look like a joke on the world stage. And it's part of the empty showmanship that Trump has been selling for years. People are noticing Brad Gutierrez wrote a guest opinion piece in The Citizen Times. Donald Trump has gone silent on working class cost of living issues. And of course course he has. Now my plan is to track it on the day that Trump is inaugurated the day after Trump's

inaugurated on the 20th. It's a federal holiday. So on our show the day after Trump's inauguration, we're going to draw a line in the sand. What are gas prices today? What's the unemployment rate? What's trailing GDP? Where has wage growth been? Job creation, inflation, consumer confidence, all this different stuff.

And then we'll just simply look at the numbers and see how they change under Trump. There are millions of Americans waiting for dollar ninety nine eggs and $1.50 gas. I don't believe it's coming unless we enter a recession, the likes of which would be brutally destructive to this country. This is why I disagree with people like Cenk Uygur. Again, it's not about, you know, Cenk's heart is in the wrong place. Cenk seems to believe that something's going to change and that Trump will deliver on populist policies. Trump's populism is a con.

It's a charade. It's a grift. It's campaign talk. It's all sizzle and no steak. Uh, he's not a populist. He's a salesman. And if what he needs to successfully make the sale is to say populist stuff, he'll do it. We know if what Trump, uh, believes he needs to say to make the sale is that

he's against abortion, even though he was pro-choice for 68 years of his life, he'll say it. We know that because he did it in 2015. If Trump needs to say he has no problem with gay marriage or he does, or he has no problem with trans people using the bathroom of their choice or he does, he will say whatever he thinks will help him make the sale. And right now it's been this populist stuff, the gas prices, energy prices, egg prices. It's a thing called groceries. Nobody ever heard of groceries before Trump.

Remember, um, it's just to make the sale. That's all it is. The only real thing he's selling is himself and he's not going to do any of it. That's my prediction. And the reason I predict it is he has already stopped talking about it except when pressed. And when he's pressed, he is lowering expectations dramatically. So my question to you, and I asked this on blue sky, by the way, if you're not following me on blue sky, please do David Pakman dot com slash blue sky. Where do you expect gas prices to be on January 20, 2026. Where do you expect unemployment to be January 20th, 2026? Where do you expect inflation

and the stock market? And what do you think wage growth will be for the next year? We will start tracking it January 20th, 2025, and we will see where we land in that first year of Trump's presidency. Let me know where you expect to see those metrics info at David Pakman dot com. We'll take a quick break and be back right after this. If you thought that the term MAGA Civil War was like a metaphor of some kind, you are very, very wrong. Stephen Bannon is now vowing to kick Elon Musk out of Donald Trump's inner circle before the inauguration, which is just days away. On the one hand, it's very

difficult to imagine that it will happen. On the other hand, it sounds like whether it does or doesn't, Stephen Bannon is going to create some real chaos here for Donald Trump. There's a new piece, um, in vanity fair based on an interview that Steven Bannon recently gave to an Italian newspaper. And in this interview, uh, Matt Bannon says that Musk is a truly evil guy, a very bad guy. I made it my personal thing to take this guy down. Now you would think that everybody would just be very busy getting ready to govern, getting ready to do things and make policy. I know it sounds crazy, uh, to, to improve things for the average American or whatever. This civil war is increasingly what they are focused on and it couldn't be happening at a more potentially destructive and chaotic time. Now, what really seems to anytime someone tells you what's really going on, I hesitate to even

go that direction because we're making our best assessment, but there's some seem to be conflicting things going on. And I think this is what I want to try to explain. On the one hand, there's the kind of public facing explanation for this divide in Maga that's taking place. And a lot of the divide is indirectly about immigration and xenophobia, but it's sort of formulaically about H one B visas and hiring American versus not hiring American. And the way that this split started is that for a long time, for years, Donald Trump's rhetoric about immigration was we're going to limit H1B visas. H1B visas are visas used by usually it's more educated folks in other countries

to come to the United States and fill more specialized higher level roles. The idea from within MAGA when Trump was president was when we bring people in with an H1B visa, they are hurting Americans. They are taking jobs that could be filled by Americans, whether it's engineers or scientists or whatever the case may be. So Trump was against it and we've played videos. I'm not going to play them again today cause we've used, you played them so many times, but we've played the videos of Trump while president saying we're going to limit it. We're going to stop any, no, no more Americans will lose their jobs because of foreigners.

Okay. Incomes Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. Now we know from the Vex campaign when I interviewed him, he loves H1B visas. Implicit in loving H1B visas is that we simply don't have the talent here in the United States. So you've got to get it from another country. Now this is a brief detour and I don't want to go tangent, tangent, tangent. I respect you too much to do that. But if it is true that we don't have the talent here in the United States to a degree,

we must blame the education system. And it is of course, Republicans who hate public education and try to damage it. And okay. So, but let's ignore that tangent for now. The vague likes H1B and built businesses on the backs of H1B foreign people coming in. Elon loves it too. Elon Musk himself actually is an immigrant from another, from another country who at one point was here working, working without work authorization. So this starts to be a sort of rift three, four weeks ago, Elon and Vivek as the co heads of Donald Trump's Doge department of government efficiency. They say part of becoming more efficient as a country. And in every ways, we got to bring in more people with H1B seems to conflict with Trump's old view. Trump capitulates. Trump at least appears to capitulate and say, no, we like H1B.

We're going to bring the best people. It's all going to be fantastic. The xenophobes in Maga hate it. They go, wait a second. We voted for make America great again. We voted for make America healthy again. We voted for make America safe again. We voted for make America strong again. We voted for make America strong

again. You know, the whole thing that Trump did and now they're going to up H one B and by the way, Vivek doesn't really seem American to many of the xenophobes. Elon Musk isn't American. We're going to let foreigners and, and seeming foreigners bring in more foreigners. So the overtly homophobic, the overly xenophobic wing of Maga goes, no, no, no, we don't like this income. Steve Bannon. Now to a degree, this is about Bannon's sort of ultra nationalist view. So it does make sense. Bannon wouldn't love the H1B stuff. These are the visas that Musk used to build Tesla and space sex and everything else. But I think there's more to it.

They meaning Bannon also hate that Trump seems to be favoring the opinions of Musk and Vivek who have way more money than Bannon and relegating Bannon to sort of second tier status. So there's two different things going on here. There's the xenophobia, but there's, if I'm Bannon, why isn't Trump paying attention to me? And instead to Elon must keep saying, bring in the best talent, keep the U S strong. And to a degree he does have a point, but this is really not about visas at the end of the day.

This is about ego. Bannon sees Musk as an outsider who bought his way in with 250 million bucks in donations and he did. Bannon even said that Musk needs to sit in the back and study the faith, meaning the orthodoxy of this MAGA movement. And, um, Bannon seems to be operating under the idea that only the original members get to make the rules. And then there's Trump. And the funny thing about Trump is Trump doesn't really care about any of it. I'm against H one B or I'm for H1B.

What do my friends want? What'll get me elected? That's all it's really about. Trump cares about who's the richest, who's the flashiest, who pretends to like me, who lays down like a doormat. And for now, Elon Musk is checking both boxes because Trump's always been obsessed with wealth and Musk is way both boxes because Trump's always been obsessed with wealth and Musk is way wealthier than Trump. And Trump has always been obsessed with celebrity. And right now, because

of X Tesla, SpaceX, et cetera, it's all kind of a reality show that plays in Trump's favor. And it relegates Bannon to being the grumpy old guard. And he says, Musk doesn't understand MAGA. I don't know that he really needs to. Musk seems to understand Trump, which is if I give a massive dumps of money and then act like Mar-a-Lago is the best thing since sliced bread. It's the new Taj Mahal. Then Elon Musk is going to have access. So there are the two factions, the sort of tech right and the xenophobic right like Bannon. They're tearing each other apart rather than working together. It's not new for Maga.

It's all about personal loyalty rather than ideas. But when you put them all together, you get something that is not unity. You get ego trying to prove who's really the leader who really has Trump's ear and Trump is already getting irritated with Musk. As we reported last week, he's kind of hanging out a lot. It's starting to bug Donald Trump. So we've seen it before.

He uses people until they are no longer useful and then he throws them under the bus. So what happens next? Will Bannon succeed in getting Musk booted from Trump's orbit? Well, Musk will probably get booted whether it's Bannon's doing. I don't know because Trump seems increasingly annoying, annoyed with him already. Does it even matter? Well, it matters in the sense of when a movement is built on division, you can't be surprised when it starts eating itself alive.

Our interest is Trump failing to execute on his bad ideas. This civil war might prevent Trump from being able to do that. And to that extent, I welcome it. My question to you who ultimately wins this, is it the Bannon's and the bake in a hopefully, uh, not serious subsequent threat to another European ally. Donald Trump is now threatening to tariff Denmark, Denmark. Why Denmark? Well, it all has to do with Greenland, Greenland, of course, under the jurisdiction of Denmark. Trump increasingly obsessed with getting Denmark, be it by economic force or by military force.

Who knows? And here is Donald Trump with some naturally it's gibberish talking about, I don't know, depending on what happens with Greenland, we may have to put some tariffs on Denmark. What's the price tag? Well, maybe no price tag. You know, look, we're going to have to see what happens because Denmark, we need this for national security. We need Greenland very badly. You look at the Russian ships, the China ships, they're all over the place. They're, you know, surrounding. Now they have for a long time. That's a lane. But we need that for national security. So I don't know that Denmark has any right title and

interest and we're going to find that. But I can tell you, you saw the clips that were released. The people of Greenland would love to become a state of the United States. It turns out that that entire thing was staged and it does not at all seem like the people of Greenland want to be a state of the United States. America, I we were greeted with tremendous love and affection and respect. The people would like to be a part of the United States. Now Denmark maybe doesn't like it, but then we can't be too happy with Denmark and maybe things have to happen with respect to Denmark

having to do with tariffs. There you go. Tariffs on Denmark. If they won't, what exactly? Give us Greenland, sell us Greenland, give it up in some way, shape or form. Naturally, this is complete and total gibberish. Does Trump really think he's going to put tariffs on Denmark? Probably not, but he never has the sense of appearing to be coherent and understanding issues because his instinct is always to just kind of say whatever. There is a non-zero chance that some of this bluster backfires dramatically. Now, it turns out that to switch gears now from Denmark to Canada, which has been another target of we'll buy Canada or we'll use economic force or we'll make them a state or whatever. Jag, Jugmeet Singh, who's the leader of the new democratic party in Canada, he follows

this show, the David Pakman show. He's going to be on with us next week to discuss how the Canadian MPs are really seeing the bluster from Trump and what Canadians actually seem to be thinking. It's not what Trump is telling you. You may or may not be shocked to hear. So that'll be next week. But I don't think I expect tariffs on Denmark on today's bonus show. We are going to discuss how the right has been fanning the flames of misinformation.

And I apologize for the pun with regard to the California wildfires. And it has been heavy, heavy misinformation. We're also going to talk about yet another economic indicator that looks pretty damn good under Biden, which is that asking rents, meaning the initial requested rent that landlords advertise on apartments asking rents, meaning the initial requested rent that landlords advertise on apartments asking rents in 2024 were at their lowest level in nearly three years. We haven't fixed affordability, we haven't fixed housing, but that is a good sign. And then finally, people are rushing to install solar panels before Trump becomes president,

fearing that the 30% rebate, uh, federally is going to be done away with by Trump. Uh, I, it's actually more than that. You should see what's happening with electric vehicles as well because of that credit. We're going to talk about all of that and more on today's bonus show. Now of course you can sign up today and get instant access at join pacman.com. We're also doing an inauguration day membership special on Monday. If you're interested in taking part in that, uh, you've been thinking, maybe I'll get a membership.

Maybe I won't. I don't know. Uh, we're offering a major discount on Monday. You need only get on our newsletter, which you can sign up for a David pacman.com. You can also just email info at David pacman.com and say, David, can sign up for a David Pakman.com. You can also just email info at David Pakman.com and say, David, sign me up please. Uh, and then finally the, uh, free stuff with my forthcoming book will end on January 25th in order to allow time for my publisher to get everybody's stuff to them. You must submit proof of pre-order. If you want the free stuff with my book by 1159

PM on January 25, you do that at davidpacman.com slash free book stuff. You can continue to get the book preordered at any time. The book will be delivered to everybody on the same day, March 25th, but to get the free goodies, you must preorder the book and submit proof of purchase by January 25th. I am told that of the 5,000 plus preorders, only 2000 people have submitted so far. I don't want a whole bunch of upset people on March 25th. Okay. So January 25, davidpacman.com slash free book stuff. I will see you on the bonus show. We'll be back tomorrow. What a week leading up to another humiliating presidential inauguration. Oh boy. Dear God.