The David Pakman Show - 1/15/25: Hegseth hearings implode, TikTok ban IMMINENT

Episode Date: January 15, 2025

-- On the Show: -- Numerous protesters are dragged out of Pete Hegseth's confirmation hearings for Secretary of Defense -- A smirking Pete Hegseth is exposed as completely clueless during confirmation hearings to be Secretary of Defense -- Democratic Senator Tim Kaine absolutely brutalizes Donald Trump's nominee for Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth -- Republican Senator Markwayne Mullin refuses to elaborate on which Senators are allegedly regularly drunk in the Senate -- Economist Paul Krugman explains how many Donald Trump supporters are already and will continue to get brutally scammed by Trump's economic agenda -- Concerns grow about a potential public health crisis under Trump -- Ben Shapiro happens to correctly identify Andrew Tate as a horrible grifter -- TikTok is reportedly preparing for a total shutdown in the United States as soon as Sunday -- On the Bonus Show: GOP Senator says Californians don't deserve money for wildfire unless they change their ways, Trump says he will create agency to collect foreign revenue, flags to fly at full-staff for Trump inauguration after Trump's complaints, much more... 🧴Geologie: Use code PAKMAN70 for 70% OFF your skin care trial set at https://geolog.ie/PAKMAN70 🩳 SHEATH Underwear: Code PAKMAN for 20% OFF at https://sheathunderwear.com/pakman ✉️ StartMail: Get 50% OFF a year subscription at https://startmail.com/pakman ⚠️ Ground News: Get 50% OFF their unlimited access Vantage plan at https://ground.news/pakman 💪 AG1 is offering you a FREE $76 GIFT when you sign up at https://athleticgreens.com/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

. We start today with the confirmation hearings for Donald Trump's nominee for secretary of defense Pete Hegseth. We're going to look at the sort of good, although there wasn't much the bad and the ugly. We will look at the protests. We're going to look at all of it. But one of the really kind of overarching takeaways is what a sad situation for the country where someone so unqualified with no business whatsoever being in charge of the Defense Department and the military has been put in a position to almost certainly be confirmed.

Yes, I believe that it is almost irreversible that Pete Hegseth is going to be confirmed. And part of it is this. We don't care where we'll show you if it pisses off the left. It must be good attitude from MAGA. And we're going to get to that in a moment. First and foremost, the confirmation hearings plagued by protesters, protesters yelling things about misogyny and sexual assault and other elements from Pete Hegseth's past. Hegseth's past Hegseth and, uh, the, his supporting staff visible on camera behind him.

Um, clearly prepared to simply do not react. If the protesters get too loud, you just stop and wait for them to be dragged out. And indeed they were here is, I believe the first, uh first protester. Thank you for figuratively and literally having my back. You are a misogynist. Not only that, you are a Christian scientist. And you support the war in Kavala by the scientists. Yeah, I want to thank the authorities for their swift reaction to that outburst. It was an outburst. Yeah, I believe that that gentleman was yelling, you're a misogynist.

And I think he said a Christian scientist or a Christian Zion, second protester, uh, also, um, uh, interrupting just about one minute later and readiness. This is a woman, I believe in's possible that in the room what she's saying is clear and sometimes it gets reported. But I struggle to hear exactly what she was saying. You may continue, sir. Returning the Pentagon. OK, and then there was a third outburst, essentially one minute after that. And here this individual was sort of carried out in a way that I must admit was kind of

visually compelling to the Pentagon and throughout our fighting force. In doing so, we will reestablish trust in our military addressing the recruiting crisis, the retention crisis and readiness crisis in our ranks. Members of the security force will remove members. And this guy they've got, it looks like one limb per officer running out. And I have to, you know, the the the merit and value of the protests we can talk about. And this is like a time honored tradition where people get into these confirmation hearings and they protest.

But I have to say that whatever the merits of the protests are and they are meritorious in my mind because this guy, Pete Hegseth, is a total clown who has no business being in this role. The visual of the guy yelling while officers run like it's we've got to get this guy out of here. If it takes five seconds, it's too long. We've got to get him out of here in three. There is something visually compelling about that. So beyond Pete Hegseth, of course, scripted opening a statement and multiple protesters. Then we finally got to the questioning.

The most notable aspect overall of the questioning of Pete Hegseth during his confirmation hearings for secretary of defense was the degree to which he seemed almost pleased smirking during much of it that he didn't know a damn thing and was unwilling to answer just about any direct question. I'm going to give you some examples. And I think there, there were sort of two categories during the Pete Hexeth confirmation hearings. There were specific questions about orders and, um, global alliances and things which he just didn't have factual knowledge regarding. And then there were the the sort of stuff about his affairs, his infidelity, his children out of wedlock and his drinking. And we're going to look at a bunch of it and then I'll give you kind of my overall assessment. Here's one example. Here is Democratic Senator Elisa Slotkin from Michigan who pressed Hegseth on Trump wants

to deploy military domestically. Would you do something like that? And Hegseth universally refused to engage with any of this. So particularly Donald Trump asked for the active duty 82nd Airborne to be deployed during that same time. Secretary Esper has written that he convinced him against that decision. If Donald Trump asked you to use the 82nd Airborne in law enforcement roles in Washington, D.C., would you also convince him otherwise? I'm not going to get ahead of conversations I would have with the president. However, there are laws and processes inside our Constitution that would be followed. President Trump said in November that he is willing to consider using the active duty military against the, quote, enemy within.

Have you been personally involved in discussions of using the U.S. military active duty inside the United States? Senator, I'm fine. I'm glad we finally got to the topic of border security equaling national security because it's been abdicated and ignored for the last four years. That wasn't my question. I'm just asking, have you been involved? You're about to be the Secretary of Defense, potentially. Have you been involved in discussions about using the active duty military inside the United States? Senator, I am not yet the Secretary of Defense. If confirmed, I would be party to any number of conversations. But you haven't been in any of these conversations. Which I would not reveal what I have discussed with the President of the United States.

No, no, just have you been in conversations? Again, you're gonna be in charge of three million people. The active duty that I know you care about, I believe you care about. So have you been in conversations about using the active duty in any way, whether it's setting up in detention camps, policing dangerous cities? Have you been involved in any of those conversations? Certainly, I have been involved in conversations relating to doing things this administration has not. Okay. So that didn't go particularly well. So then Senator slot can zoomed out and said, even theoretically, could an order given by a president violate the constitution?

Just just super generically and not surprisingly, Hegseth goes, I don't think Trump would give such an order, which, of course, is not the question. As the secretary of defense, you will be the one man standing in the breach should President Trump give an illegal order. Right. I'm not saying he will, but if he does, you are going to be the guy that he calls to implement this order. Do you agree that there are some orders that can be given by the commander in chief that would violate the U.S. Constitution? Senator, thank you for your service. The answer is yes, by the way. But I reject the premise that President Trump is going to be giving illegal orders. No, I'm not saying he will. But if do you believe there is

such a thing as an illegal order that Joe Biden or any other president, Donald Trump could give? Is there anything that a commander in chief could ask you to do with the uniformed military that would be in violation of the U.S. Constitution? Senator, anybody of any party could give an order that is against the Constitution or against the law. Right. Okay. So, and are you, so are you saying that you would stand in the breach and push back if you were given an illegal order? I start by saying I reject the premise that President Trump is giving any illegal orders at all. Mike, this isn't a hypothetical. OK, your predecessor in a Trump administration, Secretary Esper, was asked and did use uniform

military. OK, so then we kind of get back into the thing about using military for against domestic protesters. Notice that Hegseth does not say I will absolutely refuse to execute an unlawful order. It then got worse. It was then Senator Tammy Duckworth's turn and she started asking Pete Hegseth about some of his factual knowledge. And that knowledge, to put it lightly, was very much lacking. Hegseth, what is the highest level of international negotiations that you have engaged in, that you've led in? Because the Secretary of Defense does lead international security negotiations. There are three main ones that the Secretary of Defense leads and signs. Can you name at least one of them? Could you repeat the question, Senator? Sure. What is the highest level of international security agreement that you have led? And can you name some that the

Secretary of Defense would lead? There's three main ones. I have not been involved in international security arrangements because I have not been in government other than serving in the military. So my job has been to lead men and women in combat. So no, the answer is, can you name one of the three main ones that the Secretary of Defense signs? You're talking about defense arrangements. I mean, NATO might be one that you're referring to. Status of Forces Agreement would be one of them. Status of Forces Agreement. I've been a part of teaching about Status of Forces Agreement. But you don't remember to mention it? You're not qualified, Mr. Hegseth. You're not qualified. You talk about repairing our defense industrial complex. You're not qualified to that. He's very much not qualified. Senator Tammy

Duckworth continuing and asking about specific nations party to other PACs and Hegseth just like names the wrong countries. And it just doesn't really matter to MAGA. I qualify to that. You could do acquisition and cross servicing agreements, which essentially are security agreements. You can't even mention that. You've done none of those. You talked about the Indo-Pacific a little bit, and I'm glad that you mentioned it up. Mention it. Can you name the importance of at least one of the nations in the ASEAN in ASEAN and what type of agreement we have with at least one of those nations in the ASEAN, in ASEAN, and what type of agreement we have with at least one of those nations and how many nations are in ASEAN? Name one. I couldn't tell you the

exact amount of nations, but I know we have allies in South Korea and Japan and in AUKUS with Australia trying to work on submarines with them. None of those countries are allies across. None of those countries are in ASEAN. So I think to me, this is the most damning stuff. Now I know that a lot of the headlines were concerned with the drinking and the infidelity stuff. We're going to get to that. And that really goes to Hegseth's character more than his subject matter knowledge.

He might be the, uh, drunk philanderer that he is a sexual assault or that he has been accused of being, but be extraordinarily knowledgeable about international agreements and ASEAN and all of these different things. He happens not to be. And I find the lack of subject matter knowledge by far the more more damning stuff. But they did get to the other material as well. Here is Senator Mark Kelly referencing some of the escapades of Hegseth involving alcohol. And Hegseth essentially refused to even say whether they were true or false, false, just writing the entire subject off

as anonymous. And, yeah, you needed to be carried out of the event for being intoxicated. Senator anonymous smears. Just true or false? Very simple. Summer of 2014 in Cleveland, drunk in public with the CVA team. Anonymous smears. I'm just asking for true or false questions, true or false answers. An event in North Carolina, drunk in front of three young female staff members after you had instituted a no alcohol policy and then reversed it. True or false? Anonymous smears. December of 2014 at the CBA Christmas party at the Grand Hyatt at Washington, D.C., you were noticeably intoxicated and had to be carried up to your room. Is that true or false? Anonymous smears.

Another time, a C.V.A. staffer stated that you passed out in the back of a party bus. Is that true or false? Anonymous smears. Now of course, anonymous smear. Part of the reason that they are anonymous is that if anyone came forward and said, I'm the person who saw it, all of a sudden the death threats and the magas at their door will make their lives a living hell. You know, as wacky as this is, and after the break, we'll look at Tim Kaine's questioning

of Hegseth on these same subjects. The irony and the tragedy is that none of this really matters to Republicans or to MAGA because the primary and most important qualification that Donald Trump is looking for really in every cabinet position, certainly in secretary of defense, is will you effusively praise me unendingly. Never question me and be a representative of the like a doormat walk all over me loyalty that I demand. That's the primary qualification. Hegseth is certainly doing everything he can to live up to that. And after the break, we will see how it went with Tim Kaine. Now, I want to remind you that on Monday, Inauguration Day, Martin Luther King Day,

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Make sure that if you have preordered, you have submitted your receipt at David Pakman dot com slash free book stuff. The deadline for submitting is eleven fifty nine p.m. Eastern Time on January twenty fifth. You will not get the free stuff if you do not submit by that date. I will not be able to help my publishers handling all of this stuff. I won't have any surplus free stuff to send you. So make sure to submit at David Pakman dot com slash free book stuff by January 25th. Quick break back after this. hair and body products that are powered by facts, not fads. Geology is a 37 time award-winning personalized skincare company with over 10,000 five-star reviews because people just love the

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other allegations that took place. It was uncomfortable. Um, there are those who responded to this by saying this was the worst moment for Hegseth. MAGA felt this was the best moment for Hegseth, that these were attempts to smear his character without really damaging his credibility as potentially the secretary of defense. Now my view is he has no such credibility, but I will allow you to be the judge. I will remember, restate that far more damning to me is his lack of subject matter, knowledge and experience, But his character failures certainly don't make him a better candidate. Let's dig into this and then discuss.

Thank you, Mr. Hegseth. I'm looking forward to this opportunity to talk. I want to return to the incident that you referenced a minute ago that occurred in Monterey, California, October 2017. At that time, you were still married to your second wife, correct? I believe so. And you had just fathered a child by a woman who would later become your third wife, correct? Senator, I was falsely charged, fully investigated, and completely cleared. So you think you were completely cleared because you committed no crime. That's your definition of cleared? You had just fathered a child two months before by a woman that was not your wife. I am shocked that you would stand here and say you're completely cleared. Can you so casually and remember that not charged is different than cleared. Very different. In fact,

on a second wife and sheet on the mother of a child that had been born two months before and you tell us you are completely cleared how is that a complete clear senator her child's name is gwendolyn hope hegseth and she's a child of god and she's seven years old and she was and you cheated on the mother of that child less than two months after that daughter was born didn't you those were false charges. It was fully investigated, and I was completely cleared. And I am so grateful for the marriage I have to this amazing woman behind me. You've admitted that you had sex at that hotel on October 2017. You said it was consensual. Isn't that correct?

Anything? You've admitted that it was consensual and you were still married and you just had a child by another woman. Again, how do you explain your judgment? False charges against me. You fully investigated. And notice that the trick Hegseth's trying is saying the allegations of sexual assault were false. But that, of course, doesn't get anywhere near what Tim Kaine is talking about. It's completely clear. You have admitted that you had sex while you were married to wife two, after you just had fathered a child by wife three, you've admitted that. Now,

if it had been a sexual assault, that would be disqualifying to be secretary of defense, wouldn't it? It was a false claim then and a false claim. Now, if it had been a sexual assault, that would be disqualifying to be Secretary of Defense, wouldn't it? That was a false claim. He's talking about a hypothetical. So you can't tell me whether someone who has committed a sexual assault is disqualified from being Secretary of Defense? Senator, I know in my instance, and I'm talking about my instance only, it was a false claim. But you acknowledge that you cheated on your wife and that you cheated on the woman by

whom you had just fathered a child. You have admitted that. I will allow your words to speak for themselves. You're not retracting that today. That's good. I assume that in each of your weddings, you've pledged to be faithful to your wife. You've taken an oath to do that, haven't you? Senator, as I've acknowledged to everyone in this committee, not a perfect person, not claiming to be. But now I just ask the simple question. You've taken an oath like you would take an oath to be secretary of defense in all of your weddings to be faithful to your wife. Is that correct? I have failed in things in my life, and thankfully I'm redeemed by my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

In finalizing divorces from your first and second wives, were there non-disclosure agreements in connection with those divorces? Senator, not that I'm aware of. If there were, would you agree to release those first and second wives from any confidentiality agreement? Senator, it's not something I'm aware of. But if there were, you would agree to release them from a confidentiality? Notice how this guy doesn't answer a single damn question. Senator, that's not something I'm aware of. But if there were, you would agree to release them from a confidentiality. Notice how this guy doesn't answer a single damn question. Senator, that's not my responsibility. Did you ever engage in any acts of physical violence against any of your wives?

Senator, absolutely not. But you would agree with me that if someone had committed physical violence against a spouse, that would be disqualifying to serve as Secretary of Defense, correct? Senator, absolutely not have I ever done that. You would agree that that would be a disqualifying offense, would you not? Senator, you're talking about a hypothetical. I don't think it's a hypothetical. Violence against spouses occurs every day.

And if you as a leader are not capable of saying that physical violence against a spouse should be a disqualifying fact, for being secretary of the most powerful nation in the world, you're demonstrating an astonishing lack of judgment. The incident in Monterey led to a criminal charge, a criminal investigation, a private settlement, and a cash payment to the woman who filed the complaint. And there was also a nondisclosure agreement, correct? It was a confidential settlement agreement off of a nuisance lawsuit. Right.

During an interview, you claimed that you settled the matter because you were worried that if it became public, it might hurt your career. Do you maintain that you were blackmailed? Senator, I maintain that false claims were made against me. And ultimately, your attorney used the phrase, you have the opportunity to attest my innocence in those false claims. But you didn't reveal any of this to President Trump or the transition team as they were considering you to be nominated for Secretary of Defense. You didn't you didn't reveal the the action. You didn't reveal the criminal complaint. You didn't reveal the action, you didn't reveal the criminal complaint,

you didn't reveal the criminal investigation, you didn't reveal the settlement, you didn't reveal the cash payment. Why didn't you inform the commander in chief of the transition team of this very relevant event? Senator, I've appreciated every part of the process with the transition team. They have been open and honest with me. We've had great. All right. Anyway, so there's two more minutes, but this is basically what it is. A guy who's unwilling to answer any question directly. MAGA thinks that he was extraordinarily well prepared, by which they mean he had three or four lines he would repeat to avoid answering substantively any of these questions. So I'm really mixed about this part of the confirmation hearing. On the one hand, Tim Kaine exposed this guy for the spineless jellyfish that he is.

On the other hand, we know that the Republican senators don't care and we know that the MAGA people have mostly taken orders and they also don't care. And we know that the MAGA people have mostly taken orders and they also don't care. And so you're really preaching mostly to the choir of people who already have decided that based on his lack of knowledge and qualifications, he shouldn't be secretary of defense. All of this other stuff is sort of like the cherry on top. So while I think Cain decimated this guy, we're dealing with Republican senators who basically don't care and I don't think Hegseth is going to have any further speed bumps on the way to confirmation. Now I want to talk a little bit about the alcohol component.

One of the elements of yesterday's confirmation hearing of Pete Hegseth that came up are the numerous allegations of being so drunk that fill in the blanks, right? So drunk that he yelled, kill all Muslims. So drunk that he had to be physically carried out of places, all these different things. During the hearing, Republican Senator Mark Wayne Mullen sort of defended Hegseth by saying there are senators who show up drunk to votes. He later last night appeared on CNN with Caitlin Collins. Caitlin Collins plays the relevant part of the hearing and then asks him who is showing

up drunk. We didn't get answers, but here's how it went. I'm just looking for qualifications. You didn't give me any qualifications. Starts bringing up the fact that what if you showed up drunk to your job? How many senators have showed up drunk to vote at night? Have any of you guys asked them to step down and resign for their job? And don't tell me you haven't seen it because I know you have. I mean, first off, that's a pretty serious accusation there.

Do you want to name any of the senators that you're saying are drinking on the job? No, and that's my whole point was, is that the senators on the other side of the aisle was trying to act like they had more morals than Pete Hegseth, and they don't. If you're going to hold someone accountable for their behavior, then hold everybody accountable. I'm not saying I'm the most moral man or the perfect individual. I'm absolutely not. I wasn't the one calling him out. But if you're going to hold someone at that standard, then hold everybody at that standard. And it's a complete hypocrisy what they were showing when they were talking about his affairs.

There's multiple members of Congress has had affairs on their wives and that they haven't called to be stepped down. They haven't called them to step down either. This guy's syntax is wacky. And then when it talks about qualifications, what is a qualification to be the secretary of defense? The only qualification is you've got to be a United States citizen. That's it. Other than that, it is the president's choice and the Senate has the right to advise and consent. And he meets the qualifications to be the next secretary of defense. But I was in that room today. And when

you said that, I guess the thought that went through my head was, if what you're saying is true and your colleagues do show up drinking to come to work and vote, which I think would maybe be concerning to those taxpayers who pay them, how is the bad behavior of a sitting senator a defense of someone who wants to run the Pentagon? It's not. What they were saying is he was incapable of doing his job. And, Caitlin, what I was trying to get to is if you're capable of doing your job and you're able to still drink on the job. He's kind of saying like if senators can be drunk and vote, then certainly Pete Hegseth can be drunk and lead the military, which is a very low bar job or late in the evening. Then don't tell me that Pete can't. And Pete had already said he's not going to drink, but they would just they just

kept hammering it. Pete is qualified to do the job. He's promised he's really not going to be drunk. He won't be doing the drinking as secretary of defense. Um, I do think that if this is an allegation that Mark Wayne Mullen is going to make, he should bring receipts. And if he's not willing to bring receipts, because again, this is something he raised. It's not like this was something that was dropped on him and now he's unwilling to provide additional information. He brought up out of nowhere, senators show up drunk. So why can't Pete Hegseth drink and be secretary of defense? But then now he's unwilling to actually provide receipts. We can't really accept it even as a, as a nominally as an argument, unless he's going to provide

some evidence. And of course, he's unwilling to. I don't know about unable. It may well be true that senators are showing up drunk, but just throwing it out there and saying, confirm Pete, because senators I won't name show up drunk at times that I won't sort of elaborate on. That seems like a cop out. Caitlin Collins trying to hold

him accountable didn't really work. And I think that if we step back, as I said at the beginning, and this will move on from from Pete Hegseth, as I said at the beginning, drunk or not, sexual assaulter or not, you know, cheater in his marriages or not. These are all different levels of character problem. He doesn't have the knowledge nor the experience to be secretary of defense, both when it comes to defense and when it comes to managing people, both of which he'd be doing in that role. The character liabilities are just like, oh, this guy's particularly a piece of crap. And just from from an optics perspective, he shouldn't be in a position of power. But the real problem, unless you disagree with me,

if so, let me know. The real problem is he's completely unqualified and lacks the knowledge. Let me know what you think. If you're still using a free email service, your emails are often being scanned and tracked even after you delete them. Companies use the data to know everything about you and show you ads, even your most personal communications. That's why I recommend you check out start mail. Unlike free email services, our sponsor start mail never scans or tracks your emails. It also blocks tracking pixels, which companies and hackers use to capture your IP address. Thank you, David. This lets you use different email addresses for different purposes like newsletters or shopping.

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Once again, we're seeing big tech blur the lines between private industry and public government Zuckerberg, Bezos, even Sam Altman at Open are donating millions to Trump's inaugural fund because they say he'll lead our country into the age of AI, despite these same tech CEOs warning about how dangerous AI can be. Algorithms control what we see every day to serve corporate and political interests, which is why I've trusted Ground news for years to help me find the truth. Ground news doesn't tell you what to think. They show you each news outlets, biases, credibility, financial incentives. So, you know, who's benefiting from the way each news outlet

spins each story. You can even filter out certain sources you don't want and stay informed without getting buried in the noise. Stay engaged with ground news who is fixing what is breaking right All right. Well, just as I've been saying now for weeks, economist Paul Krugman is sounding the alarm about what Donald Trump's return to the White House is going to mean for the very people who voted for him in 2024. Krugman's recent commentary very much mirrors exactly what I've been saying about Donald Trump's economic agenda. And according to Krugman, a lot of Trump voters are about to get brutally scammed and it's already starting to happen. I want to start with the bigger picture.

Donald Trump's been been telling his base the United States is a disaster and the United States is a laughing stock. But the truth is that by many metrics, including the ones we've talked about, the economy is in very good shape. Our recovery from COVID has been one of the most successful among liberal Western democracies, unemployment numbers, job creation numbers, inflation numbers, stock market. It's all pretty good. Now this doesn't change that for too many Americans they didn't buy it, they didn't

experience it and as a result they did not vote for Kamala Harris. Both things can be true, but Trump is now in the position of pushing for radical across the board tariffs, mass deportations that will decimate entire industries and so many other economic policies that will be bad for a lot of his voters, all because he has been claiming the economy's no good. So I've got to take radical action. As I've said to you, we will see the numbers when Joe Biden leaves office on the 20th and we will track Trump's economic performance. But the difficulty, as Paul Krugman explains on his sub stack and in a conversation with

Greg Sargent on the Daily Blast podcast, Trump is likely going to have to resort to massive levels of propaganda to justify his economic actions because the economy is doing pretty well. How do you sell extreme blanket policies that will hurt working class voters and small business owners when the economy is already pretty well, uh, doing pretty well by most metrics. The only way to do it is to lie and to keep lying. Here's a transcript of this interview. Sergeant said to Krugman, it's funny. We often talk about Trump's working class base and his

working class white voter base and so forth. But there's also a fairly large MAGA contingent represented by small business people, people who operate small manufacturing concerns and so forth. He just seems to have no concern for them at all. Aren't those people that type of Trump supporter, the reactionary small business person, aren't those people going to get brutally scammed by tariffs here? And Krugman says a lot of people are going to get brutally scammed. Those are his most fervent supporters. It is in fact probably the local business elites are the most fervent MAGA types out there more so even than the working class. But that doesn't mean Trump cares about

their interests. Small business people are the people that he's all through his life, hired as contractors and then not pay right. Scamming people like that is what his whole life has been around. And here's where things get really specific. Trump's plan to raise tariffs while cutting or extending tax cuts for the rich. Krugman says it's going to be a double hit for the working class voter. The tariffs will raise the price of imported goods that will disproportionately affect low and middle income households. We know the blanket terrorists will raise prices. Who is best suited to weather rising prices? The rich who is going to be most acutely hurt by rising prices, low income and middle income Americans.

And then on the other hand, the tax cuts for the wealthy, the tax cuts for big corporations just suck resources from programs that benefit ordinary Americans. And don't forget that Trump has also vowed to deport millions of undocumented immigrants. Paul Krugman addresses this as well. This would devastate key sectors of the economy that rely on immigrant labor, both documented and undocumented agriculture, construction, food service. We've talked about that. Trump doesn't care.

He doesn't care about the consequences. He cares about the optics. Sargent also brought up another really important point in this interview, which I encourage you to listen to. A big chunk of Trump's base is small business owners and people who are relying on affordable goods and a stable workforce. So even though Trump claims to be the guy for business, if you're a small business owner and all of a sudden Trump generates this instability with the tariffs and the deportations, you also are going to end up brutally scammed by Trump's tariffs.

And it's not surprising, of course, because this has been Donald Trump's M.O. for a very long time. Now, there's one other twist that I want to talk about here. Krugman notes Trump is inheriting a pretty good economy. Again, I know it's not good for everybody. Not everyone's doing well. But if we zoom out and you look historically, Biden's job creation record is good. Stock market returns have been good.

Unemployment has been low. Wage growth has exceeded inflation. Inflation has been relatively low. Doesn't mean things are cheaper than they were in 2020, but inflation has been low. When that's the case, the logical thing would be let's build on that success by not shaking the boat or doing extreme economic policy. Trump seems determined to wreak havoc with his regressive economic ideas. And the irony of that is that the very voters who believe Trump's promises that he's going

to fight for the little guy, those are the people who are primarily going to pay the price. Trump has surrounded himself with enablers rather than experts who are going to say, sure, go ahead and do it. And the wall street heavyweights that could actually steer Trump away from this stuff are nowhere to be found. It is not me saying what we need is more wall street involved with a presidency. What we need is someone with some economic knowledge that might steer Trump in the right direction. The economists, Trump has already said they're not qualified. There are economic experts on Wall Street and Trump usually loves Wall Street. So the reason I bring it up is not because I'm saying we need Wall Street involved.

We actually don't. What would what would be better would be to have non profit motive, X individuals not motivated by profit advising Trump or individuals not motivated by access to power. We have neither in this case. And so Trump is not going to have anybody around him to say, sir, this is not a great idea. He's going to be left free to sort of implement policies that effectively redistribute income away from the working class that he said he's going to help and to the wealthiest Americans. So the bottom line is Trump's base is going to get scammed. They're already getting scammed. It's going to get very bad. The economy Trump is inheriting is quite strong. In his first term, he continued to ride the momentum of that economy and he had a pretty good pre COVID economy. This time he's determined to go

radical and he will have no choice if he does implement these disastrous ideas to simply lie to his base about what's going on. In the end, voters might be left wondering, why did I trust this guy? He's betraying me just the way he did last time. But if the propaganda game is strong enough, then they might not really care or they might end up blaming, I don't know, some Democrat, Biden, Obama, Michelle Obama, whoever they point the finger at. I have to admit to you, Ben Shapiro has correctly identified that Andrew Tate is a total grifter scammer that should not be celebrated as the voice of reason about anything. Now I'm going to play a clip for you of Ben Shapiro commenting about Andrew Tate and the

way that he's sort of being given a hero's welcome by the American right wing and global right wingers. I'm going to tell you upfront when Ben Shapiro gets into the sort of like biblical and religious stuff as to, you know, social conservatism as to why he doesn't like Andrew Tate. I'm not with any of that. But what Ben Shapiro has rightly identified is that this is not a guy that we should be holding up in any kind of positive way. Shapiro acknowledges the reasons why there is sort of a demand for figures like Tate. I don't agree with everything, but Shapiro is sounding the alarm and saying, my fellow right wingers, this is not our hero. Not at all. Let me say right at the outset,

I am not upset at all with anyone actually just interviewing Andrew Tate. Go for it. Have at it. Of course. And by the way, I agree with this as well. I don't think the problem is interviewing people with unsavory views as long as you're qualified and prepared to do it. Tons of excellent questions to ask Andrew Tate, but none of these people are asking Andrew Tate any of those questions. Instead, a lot of people are sort of glomming onto his very online popularity in order to get clicks. And some people are dishonestly conflating interviewing Andrew Tate with cheering for Andrew Tate or applauding him or talking about how brave and wonderful he is. And Andrew Tate is not brave and wonderful. He rips off thousands of people

with his scam hustlers university. Correct. Preaches the virtue of treating women in a way you would never, ever allow anyone to treat your wife or your daughter. No one is saying you can't have Andrew Tate on your show. It's a free country. You should do what you want. What I'm saying is that if you say you're conservative and then you have someone who truly is disgusting on and you proceed to tout them, praise them, not along to everything they say, cheer them, you're doing more than platforming, which again is fine. Platforming, the idea that you can never have a conversation, you can have a conversation with whomever you want. But there's a difference between having a conversation with a person and becoming a propagandist for that person.

If you're a person, for example, who purports to stand for biblical values or American values or traditional values. This is where I'm kind of like, yeah, whatever. You probably have a moral obligation. I probably certainly have a moral obligation to ask Andrew Tate, who is a self-stated bad man, hard questions about his actions and his beliefs and his past, not to, as so many on the right have, help him falsely rewrite his legal record or ignore all of the things he's actually said while nodding enthusiastically. See, here's the thing. Andrew Tate, now he's trying to play himself off as a politician. He's not. He's an influencer. He's an online troll. That's really what he is. Now he's trying to start some sort of

party in the UK. But he's not a conservative politician, for example, trying to push conservative policies, where part of the job of the interviewer is separating out his agenda from his personal behavior. Like, what does the public get out of this person versus what they do in their private life? That is a question typically reserved for politicians. That's not what he is. He's an online troll. And he revels in precisely the evil conservatives hate that is his entire, like not some of it, his entire self-stated persona. If you don't ask about that, you're not doing your job

as a conservative, as a traditional person, a person with actual values. Now, listen, I understand the appeal of Andrew Tate. I get it. I've seen his stuff. He's really charismatic. And for decades, the hatred of traditional masculinity in our society has been so strong, so thoroughgoing throughout the media, throughout politics, from our institutions, from our colleges, everywhere that people, including people on

the right, have run away from traditional masculinity altogether. And they've sort of feminized what masculinity is supposed to be. Now, this is where I think it kind of gets off the rails. But you all know that I have also explained that the left has not done a good job of providing a sort of affirmative vision of masculinity. There's been a lot of critiques of a toxic masculinity and, and, and this sort of thing. And I've already done that commentary. This is where Ben Shapiro and I certainly diverge. He is pointing out, uh, to a degree that it's the rights vision of masculinity

that should be sort of supported and whatever the case may be and is and is uniquely critical of the left. I've been critical of the left on this issue of presenting a sort of healthy but but affirmative version of masculinity while acknowledging why the left has also pushed away to a degree some of the male figures that that could be pretty useful. So we diverge to a degree here. I don't think it's the right that's giving us this beautiful vision. I think it's only the left hasn't given us a good enough alternative. But Ben Shapiro has figured it out. And when you look at the way that Andrew Tate,

I'm really I said I'm not going to mispronounce names. So I'm not saying Andrew Taint, but it's very hard. It's very, very difficult. Um, on the one hand, the environment as Ben Shapiro points out is one that is responsible for the rise of Andrew Tate. But you, just like there are some voices on the right that recognize Trump's a doofus and he's in power. I mean, what choice do I have? But he, but he's basically a doofus and he's in power. I mean, what choice do I have? But but he's basically a doofus. There are there are people on the right recognizing the same thing about Andrew Tate. Now, I don't think he's serious about this whole UK thing. But what I mean, he may he may be serious, but I don't think it has obviously any shot of getting off the ground, running for prime

minister or whatever he's doing. But, uh, there is a real possibility that if the left doesn't get it together and provide an alternative to this, just whacked out manosphere of which Tate is a part, he will probably only gain popularity as terrifying and wacky as that is. Tell me what you think of Ben Shapiro's critique of Tate. Where do you agree? Where do you disagree? Staying motivated and eating healthy during the holidays can be a challenge. That's why I love our sponsor, AG1. I don't always carefully plan every single meal, so I know I'm getting the exact right amount of every vitamin and nutrient every day. That's why I start the morning with a scoop of

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in your first box. Go to drink AG one.com slash Pacman. That's drink a G the number one.com slash Pacman for $76 worth of free gifts in your first box. The link is in the podcast notes. A week ago we talked about why many on both the left and the right believe that a major health event could be the big surprise of 2025 for Donald Trump. And that video generated significant interest. Many of you wrote to me about it and based on the feedback, I want to expand on this

a little and remind everybody that this is not just sort of like trivial idle speculation nor conspiracy theory. It's simply the obvious discussion based on what we know. And Donald Trump's health may become a critical factor in his political future. Objective linguistic analysis shows measurable changes in Trump's speech over time. This is sort of the first pillar and many studies that we've discussed before. There's the 2017 stat news analysis. There's more recent studies we talked about. They all find the same thing, which is that Donald Trump has had a significant decline

in vocabulary, sentence complexity and sentence structure compared to the eighties, the nineties, the two thousands, the 2010s comparing 2024 to 2020 to 2016. It's just been downhill. Now, sometimes these changes indicate a cognitive decline. Sometimes they indicate a neurodegenerative condition. Sometimes they just have a sort of natural decline trajectory with age. Joe Biden's same metrics also declined, not as much as Trump's. They also started higher. We've explored during the campaign how Kamala Harris's speech has experienced no such decline. So a lot for Trump, some for Biden, none for Harris. That's our first pillar. The second pillar is Trump's family history. Fred Trump,

Trump's father, had Alzheimer's disease. Studies find that having a first degree family member with Alzheimer's increases your risk significantly up to 30 percent, depending on genetic and environmental factors. And then that has to be considered in the context of Donald Trump's noticeable linguistic decline. Trump will be 78 on inauguration day next week. He falls squarely within that age range where these risks are more pronounced. The third pillar is Trump's known health issues. Trump's clinically obese. Obesity increases the risk of cardiovascular disease, type two diabetes and cognitive decline per the CDC. Trump's diet is famously heavy on fast food. It's famously low on vegetables, and that compounds those risks.

Trump doesn't exercise. That's yet another risk factor. Now I want to be thorough. I want to be objective. This is not Hillary Parkinson's sort of nonsense because there's a very important counterpoint here to all of this. You could hear me saying linguistic obese family history, no X, all that stuff. But what's the counterpoint?

The counterpoint is what is called the phenomenon of super agers. Trump might be what's called a super ager. These are people in their seventies and eighties and beyond who maintain really good physical function and sometimes cognitive function despite having risk factors, despite an unhealthy lifestyle, despite whatever it is that they do. Uh, Trump's ability to dominate media narratives and energize his base despite everything else does support the idea that Trump could be a super ager.

Now even super agers are not immune to sudden health events and especially with Trump's known risk factors. That's something that could happen. But then we get to the third and arguably the most critical part of all of this, which is about cult dynamics. If Trump did have a health crisis, it's unclear if the public would ever know, especially based on what they learned in Trump's first term when he was taken to Walter Reed with COVID in a sort of emergent setting in a helicopter. This time around, if Trump experiences a health crisis, the political

cult leaders would probably see it all downplayed and concealed by the loyal followers in Trump's White House. Key figures like doctors or aides or propagandists, they would almost certainly scramble to cover it up. And even with undeniable evidence, if they were not able to cover it up, MAGA supporters are almost certainly going to refuse to acknowledge it. These are cult dynamics. The leader is often seen as infallible regardless of any contradictory evidence.

Do any of us believe that Charlie Kirk would ever come out and say Trump's lost it cognitively? He can't do it anymore. Do any of us think that Jason Miller or Steven Miller would say it's over for him? This is really serious. The answer is obviously no. So this is not about rooting for Trump's health to fail. It's preparing for what statistically could become a significant, significant factor in Donald Trump's second term and the likelihood that the people around Trump are going to do every damn thing they can to cover it up.

Now, as we've noted before, the big surprise of 2025 might be a court case, although that's seeming increasingly unlikely. It could be a political scandal for sure. It might be Trump putting in place policy that's a disaster for his followers as we've already talked about, but it might be the reality of aging and health. And we need to be prepared for how cults deal with the failing health of the cult leader. The news that Tik TOK is preparing to shut down for American users as early as Sunday, if a federal ban goes into effect is now spreading like wildfire. And frankly, I think it's not good. I think it's not good for fair competition, for free speech, and even for political discourse in this country.

And I want to explain why this matters and why I think banning tech talk, uh, as, as the sort of primary action is the wrong move. So first let me explain the situation to you. Tick-tock says that if the ban proceeds and we may know about this on Sunday, the 19th, the day before Trump's inauguration, if the band proceeds, tick-tock says it'll just block access to the app for United States users. This is not just about preventing new app downloads as we suspected. Maybe it would be.

This would be a full shutdown. Users who try to open the app are going to get redirected to a website with information about the ban. Tick tock plans to let users download their personal data before the shutdown, which suggests that there is a very real possibility that it's going to get shut down. Now, the driving force behind this ban, as we've talked about for a long time now, is the claim that tick tock, which is owned by China's bite dance, poses a national security threat. President Biden signed a law requiring bite danceDance to sell the US assets by 2025 or the nationwide ban would go into effect. Tick tock is challenging the law. Tick tock is arguing it violates the First

Amendment. Right now, it's certainly plausible that the Supreme Court is going to uphold this ban. I believe that this is the wrong approach. I do have concerns about data privacy and security. They apply to tick tock and they apply to Facebook and they apply to X and all of the other platforms. What I would like to see is every platform held to the same standards. Here's the standard. Anyone who doesn't meet the standard will not be allowed to operate in the United States. We do not need a selective ban targeting one app because it's Chinese owned. We should implement universal requirements for social media platforms to meet because that will take care not only of all the existing platforms, but future platforms as well.

That's how you address legitimate concerns that I share without trampling on free speech or shutting down a platform that's so important even to the small businesses of so many Americans. And also we have to talk about the political implications because this is not just about technology. It's not just about security. How we communicate and consume information is part of this. Right now, Tick Tock is one of the few social media platforms that is not heavily skewed to the right. Facebook increasingly becoming a right wing echo chamber.

Mark Zuckerberg wanting to be part of the cool kids like Elon Musk who gets to hang around Trump. They're ending fact checking and moving content moderation from California to Texas and doing all of this stuff. Facebook's becoming a right wing echo chamber. Twitter or what is left of it under Elon Musk has gone fully right wing. Tick tock is the one that is pretty balanced, close to 50 50 as far as the political spectrum. It's filled with right wing crap, but there are also many progressive voices and independent

creators. We have almost a million followers on Tik Tok that are reaching audiences at scale without the overt algorithmic bias that Facebook and uh, the former Twitter seemed to have. So if Tik Tok is banned, that is also going to further right wing dominance in the United States. We are seeding ground, more ground to right wing controlled platforms. The people pushing hardest for this ban are not just concerned about national security. They see Tick Tock as a threat to a degree because it is a place where narratives can

be challenged. So instead of just saying, let's ban TikTok, which may happen in a few days, I would like to see a step back and ask more important questions. How do we ensure that every platform, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat meet security standards and privacy standards? How do we foster a competitive media landscape instead of just more consolidation of power to just a handful of platforms with right wing leanings? And also, how do we protect free speech in a real way while still addressing legitimate concerns about foreign influence? I'm not selective. I'm concerned about foreign influence from China, from Russia,

from whoever. But at the end of the day, I've come to the conclusion that a tick tock ban would be a signal that we are failing to deal with the broader issues. If you deal with the broader issues and it means tick tocks got to get banned, then so be it. But the way that it's being approached, the big losers won't just be the users who lose access to their app. It's going to be everybody as we lose another platform that is somewhat balanced politically and seed more ground to the right. I don't want to see it happen. And of course, I'm being honest. I have a personal stake in it, right? We've got almost a million followers on TikTok, even though it's not a platform that really generates money. It does

generate a lot of views. And I think it's important for our message to get out. It's not just us. Just about every single one of our kind of cohort members in the progressive independent media space are also on TikTok. It all gets decimated. The right wing platform, the right wingers on the app would also get destroyed. But then what we've got is right leaning X, right leaning Facebook, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So let's hope it doesn't happen. It very much looks like it may on the bonus show today. More stipulations to get aid money in California from Republicans. These people, they're truly disgusting. Trump says he's going to connect, uh, create an external revenue service of sorts to collect

revenue from foreign sources. Is this a good idea? How might it work? And finally, after Trump's complaints, flags will fly at full staff for Trump's inauguration. He's such a whiner and sometimes whining gets you what you want. All of this, these stories and more on today's bonus show sign up at join pacman.com get instant access to the bonus show. And remember that there are just a few days left to preorder my forthcoming book, The Echo Machine, and qualify for all of the free stuff. Get the book anywhere you want where books are sold and then submit your preorder to David Pakman dot com slash free book stuff. I'll see you on the bonus show. I'll be back here tomorrow.