The David Pakman Show - 1/17/25: American oligarchy takes hold, final show before Trump's return

Episode Date: January 17, 2025

-- On the Show: -- Donald Trump's second administration is going to be filled with billionaires, showing how American oligarchy has arrived -- Bernie Sanders pressures EPA administrator nominee Lee Zeldin on whether he believes climate change is a hoax -- Sam Harris describes his falling out with Elon Musk -- Donald Trump is sitting on a disturbing mountain of cash from corporations and wealthy donors -- JD Vance appears on Fox News Sunday and proves he doesn't understand economic policy -- A Fox News graphic mistakenly calls Melania Trump the "Second Lady" -- The Friday Feedback segment -- On the Bonus Show: Mortgage rates not coming down, Americans don't think Trump will lower prices, and much more... 🧽 Blueland: Get 15% OFF sustainable cleaning products at https://blueland.com/pakman 🪟 3 Day Blinds: Buy one get one 50% OFF at https://3dayblinds.com/pakman 💻 Get Private Internet Access for 83% OFF + 4 months free at https://www.piavpn.com/David ⚠️ Ground News: Get 50% OFF their unlimited access Vantage plan at https://ground.news/pakman 🛌 Helix Sleep: Get 25% OFF and 2 free pillows at https://helixsleep.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

Welcome, everybody. This is the last show before Donald Trump will once again be president of the United States. And I think it is the perfect day to talk about oligarchy and kleptocracy and kakistocracy terms we've used before, but have never really been more relevant than they are today. If you thought that Donald Trump's first term was a sort of swampy cesspool of corruption and self enrichment, you've got to brace yourself. There's really no, it's, it's coming. It's happening. The second Trump term is looking like it will be a full on public coronation of America's billionaires and multi,

multi millionaires. And it's not only an oligarchy, although it is, it is also a kleptocracy and a kakistocracy rolled into one. It's government by the wealthy for the wealthy led by the worst among us, by the most corrupt, by the most brazenly self-serving. Remember when Donald Trump promised to drain the swamp, if it feels like it was a decade ago, it's because it was. And in a way, Trump sorta did drain the swamp. He drained it and turned it into a country club where the super rich have sort of become their own lobbyists based on how much money they're willing to commit either to super PAC supporting Trump or his inaugural fund or whatever other legal means there is to funnel money to the orange guy.

Why hire middlemen when you can just appoint the billionaires directly if you are Donald Trump? And so we see this flow both ways. The money's coming in from the billionaires who are hanging out at Mar-a-Lago and you know, the tech billionaire bros are going to be all together at Trump's inauguration. We see it going that way, but then we see it going the other way because Donald Trump's new cabinet is not just influenced by billionaires and giga millionaires. It is made up of them. A dozen appointees so far as are billionaires, 26 are worth over $100 million and combined they control half a trillion dollars or even more.

Now, I think it's critically important to really understand the difference between that and those who say, well, Bernie's a millionaire to a socialist millionaire, huh? As we've talked about before, Bernie is way closer to the average person than he is to the Bezos is and musks and Zuckerberg's. And as I've said before, Bernie's in his eighties and I know that there are a lot of people who are not in Bernie's financial position, but if you make six figures for decades and you're in your eighties, you should be a millionaire. Oh, how can you say that? If, if you just are an okay saver and earn the public salaries that Bernie has earned and you own a house and real estate appreciates over 50 years, you know, and his one of one of

his properties is his wife's family's inheritance. You would expect that anyone who's OK with money by the time they're 80 something will be a millionaire. And of course, most of that money is based on a book that Bernie wrote, which many in my audience purchased, that is very different from what we're talking about with the people with a hundred, two, three, $400 million, billions, hundreds of billions of dollars. These are not just wealthy people who dabble in politics. These are figures that are really plutocrats working to actively enrich themselves by dismantling public systems and regulations and a tax system that gets in their way. And so what Donald Trump will be ushering in just 72 hours from now is not just a government of the rich. It's a government that overtly

celebrates wealth as intelligence, virtue and power. Now, many of you, I'm sure, are hearing me say this and you say, David, it's been like this for a long time. In a way, it has. And in fact, for centuries, the super rich were tolerated because their wealth, at least in theory, was believed to stabilize society and mitigate crises and whatever. We know now at this point that that's not really the case because these billionaires that have surrounded Trump use their money to avoid paying taxes or silence critics, rewrite rules, reduce regulations, all stuff that is bad for the average person on balance and good for them. Trump admitted it in 2015, how easy it is to buy influence, or maybe it was 2016. Remember I I'm smart because I donate to both parties and use the campaign finance system to my advantage when that was brought up.

But his administration now is skip the buying part entirely. Many billionaires don't need to buy what they want from Trump because they are becoming the government. They are in his cabinet. So that's where I go from. Yes, it's a plutocracy where the rich hold power. Yes, it's an oligarchy where the few rich hold power, but it's a kleptocracy where the powerful are looting the system for personal gain. The way that Trump likes to say looting is bad, right? When it's after a natural disaster, he's bringing people in who are overtly looting and Trump has shown loyalty to his billionaire allies as the prime value. And why

wouldn't he? Because he's one of them. In 2016, you know, Trump's net worth was sort of a touchy subject. He wasn't as clear as he claimed. But since 2021, Trump has been raking in money, pushing his supporters to invest in his failing media company, which has lost hundreds of millions of dollars, but somehow returns retains this multi-billion dollar valuation. The, the, the crap that he's selling, the tchotchkes, the inaugural funds, the super PACs, this is national scale grifting. It's not just surrounding yourself with the rich, it's elevating them. And then we get to it's also a kakistocracy because they aren't just wealthy. They aren't just self-serving. They're also unqualified. They are also people who have no business running the show. Linda McMahon, former wrestling promoter, wrestling education secretary, Elon Musk with foreign powers, seemingly with no oversight and veto power over the budget. And I could go on.

And the result is chaos. The result is an administration that is sort of a monarch's court with every courtier vying for favor by enriching themselves. It's an experiment of sorts, but one that we already know globally is a very bad idea. Other nations, the EU, China, they're already targeting Trump's billionaire allies, uh, through discussions of future economic policy. And this America first billionaire first sort of rhetoric is almost certain to isolate the U S and create a donut effect as other nations exclude the United States from economic alliances and discussions. So Trump's playing a game.

It's a short term game that is for short term gain for the billionaires and the longterm grift may well backfire on the country. Now, if it feels familiar, we have seen this before post Soviet Russia in the 1990s, oligarchs backed Boris Yeltsin to protect their wealth and then pillage state assets. In Trump's America, billionaires aren't just backing the regime. They are running the regime. And then like Putin's Russia, Trump's administration operates on an ad hoc. Everything is ad hoc.

No rules are clear. You scramble to enrich yourself under the boss's unpredictable whims. Whatever you can get away with principle a, the opposite of principle a, when it becomes an inconvenience for Trump. So this is a continuation of Trump's first term, but it's different. This is going to be more brazen. It's going to be more naked in its corruption. And it's not just the swamp. It's sort of a gold plated gaudy swamp, the likes of which Trump's Trump Tower penthouse resembles. It's the new plutocracy. Wealth is power. Kleptocracy loots the system and then kakistocracy ensures that the least qualified are calling the shots. What do we do?

It starts in 72 hours. We call it what it is, first of all, and we're trying to do that. We expose it as it takes hold. We organize against it and we oppose it. And what can we do? We've got to do everything we can to ensure that this sort of gilded oligarchical kleptocracy does not become the future of the United States. One guy who is trying to ensure that the gilded kleptocracy doesn't become the future of the United States is Senator Bernie Sanders. Bernie questioned Trump's EPA nominee Lee Zeldin during his confirmation hearing and did get Zeldin to acknowledge climate change is real. But listen to the wording that Lee uses, and then we'll talk about it. Do you agree with President-elect Trump that climate change is a

hoax? Well, first off, Senator, it was great to meet with you as well. I believe that climate change is real, as I as I told you, as far as President Trump goes, the context that I've heard him speak about it was with a criticism of policies that have been acted because of climate change. And I think he's concerned about the economic costs of some policies where there's a debate and a difference of opinion between parties. I would respectfully disagree with you. I think he has called it a hoax time and time and time again. So Lee Zeldin, you might notice, is different than a lot of the people nominated by Trump. This is not me effusively praising Lee Zeldin, but I have to acknowledge that there's a difference between a Pam Bondi and a Pete Hegseth and a Tulsi Gabbard.

There's a difference between them and Lee Zeldin. Lee Zeldin is not a moron in the way that many of Trump's other nominees are. And Lee Zeldin, while acknowledging that climate change is real, is skipping the critical middle part, which is the primary place that MAGA exists in denying doing anything about climate change. Lee gets the start right, which is climate change is real. And Lee gets the end right or accurate in that there are people on the right who disagree, who are worried about the economic impact of some of the policies that are proposed to deal with climate change. That's the, both of those things are true. Climate change is real. There's debate over how to deal with it. The middle is missing and the middle is the critical

part are human activities on earth exacerbating that climate change. And is that climate change bad for homo sapiens on this planet? That, that, because at this point almost no one is straight up saying there is no climate change. They are saying there is climate change, but it's cyclical and we don't have to worry about it. It's a self correcting mechanism. There is climate change, but it's not bad for the planet. There is climate change, but nothing we can do impacts it.

Human activities don't make a difference. That middle is the critical, important part at this point in time. And that's where Lee Zeldin, because he's much more, uh, sort of nuanced and well-prepared knows to not step into in this hearing in this setting. Now, one other kind of funny moment during this thing, Bernie's phone rang during the thing and check out how he reacts. I will. I know this is an important priority of you and solar power. Sorry, that's OK. Almost saved by the bell. That was the fossil fuel industry. Yeah. I look forward to work with you on the center. That was the fossil fuel industry.

I look forward to work with you on the center. Very, very relevant to EPA administrators. So listen, I don't think that Lisa Lee Zeldin is not the EPA administrator I would select, but I also have to acknowledge and being as objective as possible that Lisa Zeldin is a far more reasonable selection than Pam Bondi to AG, Tulsi Gabbard to DNI or Pete Hegseth to defense secretary. So we will track, we will pay attention and see what Lee Zeldin does inevitably once confirmed as EPA administrator. All right. I want to delve into something that's a little different. Sam Harris recently took some heat for the things he said about Elon Musk when interviewed by Bill Maher on Bill Maher's Club Random podcast. And in the aftermath of that criticism, Sam Harris, just a couple of days ago, 36 hours ago, put out a piece on his

sub stack called the trouble with Elon. I want to focus in on a specific part of this piece, although I encourage you to read all of it. And even if you are not a fan of Sam Harris's, what I want you to think about is based on everything we know about Sam and everything we know about Elon Musk. Is there any doubt in your mind that Sam Harris is telling the truth about the texts that he exchanged with Elon Musk? And I'll give you where I'm kind of going with this. These text message exchanges that we're about to look at expose the degree to which Musk is unstable, dangerous, and should have no position of power or any role adjacent to someone as powerful as the president of the United States.

If anything, these texts that Sam describes confirm that Musk needs to be pushed as far from power as possible, as quickly as possible. So let's check this out. Um, okay. Here is Sam's explanation of how his friendship with Elon kind of imploded. He says when COVID first invaded our lives in March of 2020, Elon started tweeting in ways I feared would harm his reputation. I also worried his tweets might exacerbate the coming public health emergency. Italy had already fallen off a cliff and Elon shared the following opinion with his tens of millions of fans. The Corona virus panic is dumb. As a concerned friend, I sent him a private text. This is Sam's text to Elon. Hey brother,

I really think you need to walk back your coronavirus tweet. I know there's a way to parse it that makes sense. Panic is always dumb, but I fear that's not the way most people are reading it. You have an enormous platform. Much of the world looks to you as an authority on all things technical. Coronavirus is a very big deal. And if we don't get our act together, we're going to look just like Italy very soon. If you want to turn some engineers loose on the problem, now would be a good time for a breakthrough in the production of ventilators. Uh, Sam goes on to say, Elon's response was, I believe the first discordant note ever struck in our friendship. Sam, you of all people should not be concerned about this. He included a link to a page on the CDC website

showing COVID was not among the top hundred causes of death in the United States. This was a patently silly point to make in the first days of a pandemic. We continued exchanging texts for at least two hours. If I hadn't known that I was communicating with Elon Musk, I would have thought I was debating someone who lacked any understanding of basic scientific and mathematical concepts like exponential curves. Okay. Sam goes on to say, uh, and I'm paraphrasing here that Elon and he did not converge on their views of epidemiology, but they made a compromise, a bet. Elon bet me $1 million to be given to charity against a bottle of fancy tequila, a thousand dollars that we

wouldn't see as many as 35,000 cases of COVID in the U S cases, not deaths. The terms of the bet reflected what was in his estimation, the near certainty, a thousand to one that he was right. Having already heard credible estimates that there could be a million deaths from COVID estimates that proved fairly accurate. I thought the terms of the bet ridiculous and quite unfair to Elon. I offered to spot him two orders of magnitude. I was confident we'd soon have three and a half million cases of COVID in the U S Elon accused me of having lost my mind and insisted we stick with 35,000. Sam goes on

to explain that there was sporadic communication over the next few weeks. Cases grew. Sam would provide data and Elon would dismiss it. A few weeks later, when the CDC website finally reported 35,000 deaths, not cases, deaths and 600,000 cases, I sent Elon the following text is 35,000 deaths plus 600,000 cases more than 35,000 cases. This text appears to have ended our friendship. Elon never responded. And it was not long before he started maligning me on Twitter for a variety of imaginary offensive. This continues with Sam talking about getting off of Twitter and other things. But there is one other key line here where Sam says, I bet that anyone who knows us both knows that I am telling the truth.

It is, of course, obvious that Sam Harris is indeed telling the truth. The idea that he would fabricate these communications out of thin air now, years after this, these exchanges to criticize Elon Musk. I mean, it's just not it. It makes no sense whatsoever. It doesn't pass the sniff test. And you have to consider if Elon Musk was so obviously wrong and think back to that time, Elon thought there wouldn't be 35,000 cases. It was abundantly clear that even if all the estimates were really off, there were still going to be more than 35,000 cases. How can a guy who got something in front of his face so obviously so wrong ever be trusted to help the president of the United States make important decisions?

But then I would go even further. Forget about the fact that he was wrong. What about the fact that his reaction after making a bet, he's got hundreds of billions and a million dollars to a charity. And when Sam says, you know, I kind of am here to collect on it, right? I mean, I was right by a lot. The friendship is over. He doesn't respond. And he starts publicly attacking Sam Harris. You don't have to be a defender of Sam Harris to recognize that this is not a guy, Elon Musk, who should be anywhere near any of the access that he's currently getting, traveling

with Trump to France and so on. Um, this is just Elon. Just think about all the other incompetent folks that are being pulled into Trump's orbit. Terrifying, terrifying stuff. Did you know that an estimated five billion plastic hand soap and cleaning bottles are thrown away every year? Our sponsor, Blueland, is on a mission to eliminate single use plastic by reinventing cleaning essentials to be better for you and better for the planet with the same cleaning power that you're used to. The idea

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saying we are here and we are going to continue forward. If you want to be notified about that forthcoming membership special, uh, just get on my newsletter at davidpacman.com or email info at davidpacman.com and say, I want the inauguration special. Donald Trump is sitting on a disturbing mountain of cash. The new Republic has a very good piece about this influx of money and the way that this money is being raked in should really alarm every American. Let me explain to you what's going on. And it's, I don't think it'll come as a shock, but the, the, the brazen and naked nature of it this time around, rather than the first term is a big part of what is really scary. Corporations and wealthy donors, many of whom previously swore Trump off after his 2020 antics, they are crawling

back to him. Many of them with their wallets wide open Axios reports that the money is just gushing into Trump's super PACs, into nonprofits, into Trump's presidential library fund, the inaugural fund. But we really need to just call this what it is. It is plain and simple bribery. And to the degree that they follow the letter of the law, we can say that it is legal bribery. CEOs are taking money that could, and I would argue should go to employee wage increases, right? The fruits of record profits, and they are handing it straight to Donald Trump. And the way that they're doing

it, you'd think they were instructing their employees to bend over and let Trump stroke his ego while they write the checks. It's truly disgusting, but it's not being done out of the goodness of the CEO's own hearts. They are paying him not out of admiration, certainly not out of respect, but they are paying Trump out of fear, fear that if they don't do it, that Trump is going to come for their businesses. Fear that Trump will direct his likely attorney general, Pam Bondi to unleash investigations or to weaponize his influence against them. It's protection money, pure and simple.

And it's yet another way in which Trump is sort of like a mob boss. Now, it should be terrifying and disturbing to every American, not just the ones who feel that they are potentially going to be on the wrong side of this. Like me, it should be disturbing to everybody, but it's not. We are in a situation where somehow the brazen influence peddling is kind of met with a shrug. Elon dumping in 250 million and Zuckerberg restructuring Facebook's moderation and all of it and other corporations as well. It's all kind of met with a shrug in part. It's because this is how Donald Trump has always operated, bullying, intimidating, demanding absolute loyalty in exchange for leaving people

alone. And meanwhile, the Republican party, which now controls what is this multi-trillion dollar budget process where they are threatening to cut. And are you the CEO that is going to suffer because of one of these supposed cuts? They are all scrambling to stay in Donald Trump's good graces. They are desperate to suck at the teat of Trump, hoping that he will funnel cashflow to them and leave them alone when it comes to antagonism or investigation. So forget about public service as the goal of this forthcoming term. This is about consolidating power, ensuring that Donald Trump's agenda reigns supreme. And the bottom line is that this isn't as simple as Trump's going to sit

on a pile of cash. Trump is using this money. He's going to use this money to reshape the political and economic playing field in his image. He's talking about and thinking about legacy and the companies are going to do everything they can to get the favors. It's really not democracy. This is the exact sort of transactional nightmare that the framers of the constitution wanted to avoid a situation where loyalty to Trump, it's not loyalty to the rule of law. It's not a loyalty to democracy or checks and balances or accountability or the American people just loyalty to Trump determines who gets to thrive and who ends up getting crushed. And so the question isn't, is Trump going to use this leverage? He used it before. He's using it in this pre-inauguration

phase. The real question is, is anybody going to have, it's a combination of things. Is anybody going to have the courage, but also the power and the leverage to put a stop to it? I don't know that the answer is yes, partially because I don't know who it would be. Uh, if we let it slide, we are sending the message that money and fear rather than principles run this country. And of course that is true. If you are Trump and the question we're left with again is, is there anybody who's going to be empowered and willing to stop it? I don't know who that would be at this point in time. It's not going to be Democrats. Certainly not for the next couple of years. or give it to law enforcement. And these VPNs are just out to make a buck without really protecting your privacy.

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Go to ground dot news slash Pacman. The link is in the podcast notes. The conversation about the unfortunate reality that one way or another, JD Vance is likely to sort of be the president under Trump is really coming to a head as we realize that he has absolutely no idea what's going on and it's completely terrifying. As terrifying as Trump being president for four years is the idea of JD Vance kind of being the president is also terrifying.

We're going to look at just about a minute of an interview he gave to Fox News over the weekend and um, he just doesn't really know what's happening now. Of course, there's a whole bunch of different reasons being cited for why JD Vance is really going to be the president. One sort of line of thinking is that Trump as as he continues to deteriorate, is just not going to be able to do it. Another is Trump doesn't seem that interested really in being president. He seems much more interested in being at Mar-a-Lago rather than in Washington, D.C.

And the more that Trump is there, the more it's going to put J.D. Vance in a position to sort of really be the president. And then thirdly, there is, of course, this other idea that this is all a plan to make J.D. Vance the nominee in 2028, maybe with Don Jr. as his running mate, maybe with somebody else. And of course, part of positioning him to be a natural fit to be nominee in 2028 is giving him increasing responsibility and visibility as vice president to sort of be the pseudo president. Anyway, the bad news I have for you is this guy is clueless. And here he is

in what was billed as an important one on one with Fox News, not making a lot of sense. Take a look. I wish Joe Biden all the best. But the fact is he is less leftist dumpster fire, not just at the border, but also with the economy. First of all, we know that prices are way too high for many Americans. We have to work every single day to stabilize prices for American families. Now, of course, J.D. again is alluding to we're going to bring prices down in absolute terms. It's not just we will slow inflation, which has slowed dramatically. We are going to bring prices down. I don't want to repeat myself and do this on every other show, but I've already explained to you how, number one, actual absolute price declines are extraordinarily unlikely. And secondly, if they were to take place, it would further suggest that the economy is actually going in the wrong direction

because you really only see significant absolute price declines when something is wrong with the economy. Let's continue. But Shannon, everything that he's bragging about ignores the fact that he has added trillions and trillions of dollars to the federal debt during a time of peace. He has left us with bond yields, meaning how are we going to finance that debt? We have to sell Treasury bonds. And the Treasury bonds have gotten more expensive because of Joe Biden's policies. So you go issue after issue. Oil prices are now shooting through the roof in the final two months of Joe Biden's administration, in part because of decisions that Joe Biden has made over the last few weeks. He actually hasn't left the American people in good

economic condition. That's why they made Donald J. Trump the president-elect of the United States. So we've got a lot of work to do. I remain fundamentally, and you know this, Shannon, I'll always be an optimist about our country. But I think that that optimism has to start with a bit of realism. And the real truth is that Joe Biden has left us a dumpster fire. Donald Trump is going to have to put it out. Yeah. So listen, I've got good news and I've got bad news for you. Okay. The good news is we're going to have a very clear transition day. It will be January 20th on the show that we do the day after that. I will come to you with total humility and tact. And I will say, here's the unemployment rate. Here's the year over year inflation rate. Here's where wages have been. Here's the level of the

stock market. Here is GDP. Here are gas prices. We're going to look at it. And then as we go forward, maybe we'll do it quarterly. I don't know. We will compare where things are. Now, that's the good news. The good news is we're going to be able to objectively look at this stuff. The bad news, as you probably suspect, is that the people that listen to J.D. don't give a crap what the numbers are. They are just going to say they fix the economy. Everything's better.

Even if unemployment is up and job growth slows down and the stock market doesn't do well and on and on and on, they are going to insist. We already know they are going to insist that Trump improve the economy. Now I do everything I can to put my partisan views aside and to objectively look at the economy. The economy was pretty damn good at the beginning of Trump's presidency, not quite as robust job growth as at the end of Obama's term, not blaming or crediting, just these are the facts, but it was a pretty solid economy. And it likely would have been no matter who was the president at that point in time. Then Trump bungled COVID recovery.

And of course things went downhill very quickly. So we're going to track these numbers. It's not going to be some mysterious thing. We will, we will have average job creation under Biden per month. We will get it under Trump. We'll see what the stock market does. We'll see all of it. I predict that they are going to lie to you about it.

Hey, this is really weird. I didn't notice this on Tuesday when we looked at this Fox News interview with Melania Trump. They referred to her as the second lady. This this is so strange. There's a bunch of points during the interview where when you read what's at the bottom of the screen, Melania opens up about becoming second lady again. Check out this clip where it's on screen. Like you're in a different space now than you were eight years ago. I feel I was always me the first time as well.

I just feel that people didn't accept. OK, so there it is. Melania opens up about becoming second lady again. You know, the, the, the, it's obviously some kind of mistake. Maybe they meant first lady a second time. I don't know. But the funniest thing about this is with all of the jokes about president Elon Musk and vice president Trump, second lady to vice president Trump is sort of like exactly what we've been joking about

and talking about. And it's just irony. Clearly this is another Fox news mistake. Um, but there is something sort of funny about it when we know that Trump is wildly triggered by the president. Must stuff. Now a couple of people wrote to me and said, David, do you think that this is actually not an accident? That this is someone working in the Fox news control room who is alluding to president Musk rather than president Trump. And this is the way that they did it by labeling Melania Trump second lady. Maybe I, I have no idea one way or the other, but it is very, very funny to see that. I got so many emails about our discussion of Melania Trump's email from a interview

rather from the Tuesday show. And the number one sort of message that came in is me, me, me. It's all about me. And case in point, we're going to look at this clip again. We didn't look at this clip earlier this week. This is it's just me, me, me. Everything with this family is about me. I feel like you're in a different space now than you were eight years ago? I feel I was always me the first time as well. I just feel that people didn't accept me. Maybe they didn't understand me the way maybe they do now. And I didn't have much support. Maybe some people, they see me as just the wife of the president, but I'm standing on my own two feet, independent.

I have my own thoughts. I have my own yes and no. How many times is she saying me and my in these 44 seconds? I don't always agree what my husband is saying or doing. And that's OK. Are you able to tell him when you disagree? I gave him my advice. And sometimes he listens.

Sometimes he doesn't. And that's OK. Feel like. Boy is this country screwed up, huh? I don't think I have anything else to say. It's just going to be a very, very depressing four years. And I do have ideas about what we can do to make it a little less depressing. We spoke about some of them earlier this week and we will certainly speak about them after

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The link is in the description. The final Friday feedback of the Biden administration is today. And we do start with a poll we did of our audience. Remember you can email info at davidpacman.com. If you have feedback of any kind that you would potentially like included on Friday feedback. We did a poll and we asked our youtube viewers, which of the following will most define Joe Biden's presidency in history? Uh, 42% of you said that it will be domestic policy, build back better chips and science act, et cetera.

42% of you, 27% of you said that preceding a second Trump term will be the defining moment of Biden's presidency. Sort of that he's the guy who came in for four years before Trump got another term. 16% of you said that pandemic response will be Biden's legacy. And 15 percent of you said that foreign policy, Ukraine, Gaza, et cetera, will be Biden's legacy. I think basically I agree with with the bulk of the audience, which is that 69 percent of respondents believe that Biden's placement between two Trump terms and or domestic policy are what Biden will be remembered for. And I would actually wrap pandemic response into domestic policy because much of the domestic policy, including inflation reduction act and infrastructure, it's sort of wrapped up with pandemic post pandemic

stuff. Anyway, a lot of the economic record of Biden is implicitly a post pandemic economy where inflation came down more quickly in the United States than other Western wealthier countries. So I actually almost even think pandemic response is like kind of part of domestic policy. And that altogether gives you 85%. Um, I, I simply don't see any evidence that Biden's defining legacy will be foreign policy like Ukraine or Gaza. The most notable Biden foreign policy in my mind is he got us out of Afghanistan. It was messy. It was destined to be messy no matter who did it.

It was Trump's plan to do it. Trump failed to do it. Biden executed it. Yes, it was messy, but we got out of there and we needed to get out of there. I think that's far more defining in the sense that Ukraine stuff, Gaza stuff is really much more coalition oriented, involving many other countries to greater degrees. Whereas just putting your foot down and saying we are getting out of Afghanistan, I think is much more pointedly Biden.

Uh, but I do agree. Domestic policy is probably what Biden will be most remembered for a badger flower asked on the subreddit. what would a JD Vance presidency look like with Trump getting older and the possibility of health issues while in office? I can't help but wonder what would advance presidency look like? I feel like this hasn't been discussed much, even though it's not farfetched. Vance has aligned himself closely with Trump and MAGA, but he's shown moments of independence earlier in his career. Would Vance continue Trumpism sticking close to the movement or would he chart a different

course balancing MAGA populism with intellectual or policy driven approach? I'm curious. Yeah. So no, listen, JD Vance is, um, pretend has JD Vance is most known to me for pretending to be things he very much is not. JD Vance is most known to me for pretending to be things he very much is not. JD Vance is not an intellectual. JD Vance's story about like the total poverty, abject poverty upbringing, uh, does not match

with what we now know to be his background. And for Vance's guiding sort of principle is what do I have to say or who do I have to suck up to, to get close to power, which is actually very much in line with Trump's ideology as well. It's interesting that although they seem very different in a lot of ways and for a period of time they claimed to be very different politically with van saying horrible things about Trump, America's Hitler and all this other stuff. The reality is Vance, like Trump wants to be close to power, have powerful friends and be adjacent to money and, and access and power. And so the guiding principle of a hypothetical Vance presidency is going to be, he'll do

whatever he needs to do to keep power. If it's be more Trumpy, he'll do it. If it's be less MAGA E he will do that. It's that simple. A skate cloud asks on the subreddit, how are you all preparing for the very possible Trump recession? My dad, who's more fiscally conservative, not a fan of Trump though, thinks that the way the market is reacting to Trump before office as well as his tariff policies have a high likelihood to lead to a recession soon. Curious if anyone has plans. So here's what I'm doing.

I do think, I do think that it is completely plausible that there will be a Trump recession. I think it's completely plausible that there won't. I don't pretend to know. So I know I haven't done this for a little while now, but I'll give you my sort of financial framework. This is not advice for anyone. It's merely informational that this is what I do since I don't know what's going to happen in the stock market. I've decided what is my risk tolerance and what is the appropriate asset allocation for me for that risk tolerance. And I just keep investing every month. I know how much cash do I want? How much stock do I want? How much in bonds do I want? How much in cryptocurrency do I want? The crypto is 2.5% by the way,

it's not a lot. Um, and I just keep doing that. If the stock market were to rise, if the economy were to do well and the show were to grow because all of a sudden all these people now have more money with which to get memberships and great, I've decided the right asset allocation and I will be positioned for that. If we are going to see a stock market crash, if we are going to see a recession such that people start canceling memberships and droves, I've determined an asset allocation that makes sense for me. And if the stock market is at a discount, my investments will now get me more shares. And over the the longterm it'll all even out. That's my approach. Nick Majuli has written about this extensively in his book.

Just keep buying. And it's basically my plan, which is make sure I've got the right risk tolerance and the asset allocation that goes with it. Period. Um, okay. Uh, our do we know genome says, do Democrats have a plan to win in 2028? I stumbled across this Babylon B post this morning. It's funny. The takeaway is democracy was never going to end with the 2024 election. If Trump won change the pronunciation of some words to categorize voters,

consider changing the pronunciation of some words through categorized voters. Then do more of the same, but times to discuss potential solutions that are extremely funny. Okay. Forget about this Babylon B thing. It seems like a verbal inkblot. Do Democrats have a plan to win in 2028? The answer is no. Is this a red alert moment? Well, you definitely need a plan. Do you need it before Trump's even inaugurated? Maybe not, but Democrats would be very well, uh, uh, positioned if they could come up with a plan. 2024 did not work. The last minute replacement of Biden with a candidate that some felt didn't democratically come to be in that nominated role who could not articulate a policy vision that really connected with people. All of it. OK, it didn't work well. It didn't work well. So

Democrats need a plan. It needs to be different than 2024. I don't know that they need to have that plan today, but they definitely need to have it soon and we're going to be once Trump is inaugurated and we start evaluating the record of Trump, it's definitely something we're going to be talking about significantly over on Facebook. Cultal aiders says, dear liberals, what David Pakman failed to inform you all is the billionaires and multimillionaires is he putting in his cabinet are not getting any sort of salary. They are all working for free and all these people are not getting any kind of government pensions after they retire. Please do not be fooled or gaslit by Pakman to believe

this. Pakman is a political liar. Listen, this is maybe the dumbest comment I've gotten in a while. Elon Musk isn't getting paid to run Doge. Therefore, what he's doing is not self-serving. If Elon Musk were to get paid, I think like a pretty standard advisor salary in the white house is one 80 a year. Elon Musk foregoing one 80 a year for tax and regulatory goodies that might earn him billions. I'm so sorry if I don't call it an act of selflessness. Okay. Billionaires working for free in the cabinet and potentially having billions on the backside or hundreds of millions due to the way in which they will steer government regulation or decisions about contracts or whatever else. It's not this incredible just, Oh, they're martyrs. They're accepting no salary. They could get paid 180,000

bucks a year, but they're saying, I don't need it. It's so great. Billions are at stake for a lot of these people. So don't give me this crap about their selflessly working with no salary. Louisiana Pelican says America can't annex Greenland, Canada, and Panama. Trump knows this, but that isn't the point. He's trying to shift media focus from his cabinet picks. Yeah. This person goes on to explain that all of the, I'll buy this and take that stuff is just to distract from having nominated Hegseth and Tulsi and whatever. I think there's a degree to which that may be true, but the primary reason there hasn't been as much focus on the cabinet picks recently is there hasn't been any news. The Trump transition team has told the cabinet picks stop posting on social media, stop saying

things, just wait till the confirmation hearings. They were selected a little while ago and the confirmation hearings haven't started and they've stopped making public statements. That's really why it's not in the news. Is it possible that Trump is trying to take attention away from it this way? Maybe. But the real reason that it's not being discussed much right now, um, is simply because they've shut up.

And my guess is, and my hope is that once the confirmation hearings start, all of the concerns about Hegseth and Tulsi and Kash Patel, that it'll all come back. Z Zahn says, funny, bird flu is under this administration and doing nothing about it. So you can say it's Trump's fault. See though this bullshit. I think what Z is inarticulately trying to say is that, um, Biden is deliberately doing nothing about bird flu now so that it'll be really bad under Trump so that then Biden at 80 something years old can go, look, bird flu is Trump's fault. Uh, that's not anything that sounds like Biden to me. And um, this is how do people come up with this crap? This is what

you spend time thinking about. Really, really weird. Skate cloud asks in retrospect, do you think Kamala ran a bad campaign in the beginning? Her campaign seemed quite strong, major rallies, wrecking Trump in the debate, but cracks were showing when all her public events were very scripted and she went around campaigning with Liz Cheney and the data showed it basically won over no Republicans, which seems clownish in retrospect. Yeah, the Harris campaign started strong and then all of a sudden it seems as though the consultants and the focus group people and everybody got involved and all of all of a sudden it seems as though the consultants and the focus group people and everybody got involved. And all of all of a sudden, next thing you know, Tim Walz isn't talking about them being

weird anymore. Harris shifts to a very rehearsed, identical sounding speech at every single event, pushing policies that while fine, don't resonate with the vast majority of Americans. Fifty thousand dollar deductible small business startup expenses. I mean, I agree with the policy, but how many people are you really going to move with that? So ultimately it was not an effective campaign. It did start strong. I'd say the first month was really good.

The polling reflected it and then it petered and petered and petered off. And, uh, we know what the outcome ultimately was a lot for Democrats to learn. Will they learn and put it to good use in 2026 and just as importantly, 2028 remains to be seen info at davidpacman.com. If you have something you'd like included in Friday feedback, I will remind you there is a deadline for getting your free stuff with my book. If you have pre-ordered my book, you are entitled to free stuff, but you must submit your proof of order at davidpacman.com slash free book stuff by 1159 PM on January 25th. After that point, there is nothing I will be able to do to get you the free

stuff. It's completely handled and fulfilled by my publisher. I have been told the deadline is January 25th, davidpacman.com slash free book stuff. Only about 40% of those who pre-ordered the book have requested their free stuff. Some people maybe don't want the free stuff. Fine. Thank you.