The David Pakman Show - 1/21/25: Trump inaugurated, final rally horror, Biden pardons at the last minute

Episode Date: January 21, 2025

-- On the Show: -- Cory Booker, US Senator from New Jersey, discusses the Trump inauguration and the path forward for Democrats these next four years -- The inauguration of Donald Trump as 47th President takes place, unleashing global humiliation once again -- Donald Trump holds a final pre-inauguration rally, which becomes a total catastrophe, including Trump appearing to admit that Elon Musk did something with the voting machines in Pennsylvania -- President Joe Biden pardons Anthony Fauci, General Mark Milley, former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney, members of the January 6 committee and others in an effort to prevent them from being targeted by Trump's justice department -- Panicking over an inevitable tiny inauguration crowd, Donald Trump moves his inauguration indoors and claims it's due to the weather -- After saying he would ban TikTok in 2020, Donald Trump now claims to have saved TikTok, despite not being president at the time that TikTok ended its self-imposed ban on itself, in a confusing story -- MAGA Mike Johnson is asked how he and Trump will finally bring down prices now that they are in charge, and Johnson has absolutely no answer, a preview of the next four years -- Donald Trump launches an obvious grift scam meme coin on the even of his inauguration -- A review of President Joe Biden's outgoing economic metrics, setting the stage to accurately evaluate the economic performance of Donald Trump's second term -- On the Bonus Show: Inauguration takeaways, the next four years, a review of Donald Trump's Inauguration Day executive orders, much more... 🔊 Babbel language learning: Get up to 60% OFF at https://babbel.com/pakman ⚠️ 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 💻 Sponsored by Aura: Try it free for 2 weeks! See if your data is safe at https://aura.com/pakman 🥐 Wildgrain: Use code PAKMAN for $30 off & free baked goods at https://wildgrain.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

. Donald Trump is president once again, and it is now former president Joe Biden. We wish it were different, but it is the reality of the situation. Can't think of a more emblematic little detail about Trump than that at his inauguration. Melania stood up there with the Bible, a very important Bible because Christianity is so important to Trump who's deeply religious and all of that stuff. And Trump forgot to put to put his hand on the Bible. He just didn't care. He just forgot about it. Here is the moment where Donald Trump repeated the oath of office and you will notice Melania holding the Bible, very religious Trump to whom Christianity is a very important thing.

Just forgot about it. Please raise your right hand and repeat after me. I, Donald John Trump, do solemnly swear. I, Donald John Trump, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution

of the United States, the Constitution of the United States. So help me God. So help me God. Congratulations. There it is. And of course, some suggesting it's not that Trump forgot to put his hand on the Bible. It's the final sign that it was all a grift. And of course, whether he forgot or not, I don't know, but running an entire campaign saying I am really the religious one and religion is so important and being against abortion is so important than the Christians and all of it. And then you don't even put your hand on the Bible, which on a personal level I could not care less about, but they say they care. What a representation of the sort of culmination of grift after

grift after grift. Now maybe more substantively, you may recall that Donald Trump insisted he is the anti war candidate. He will not start new wars. He will get us out of wars and he casually seems to mention the forcible takeover of another country's property, saying we are going to take back the Panama Canal in the view of some Trump announcing a new war minutes after being sworn in the Panama Canal, which has foolishly been given to the country of Panama after the United States, the United

States. I mean, think of this spent more. And yes, he was slurring by the end of it. More money than ever spent on a project before and lost 38000 lives in the building of the Panama Canal. We have been treated very badly from this foolish gift that should have never been made. And Panama's promise to us has been broken. The purpose of our deal and the spirit of our treaty has been totally violated.

American ships are being severely overcharged and not treated fairly in any way, shape or form. And that includes the United States Navy. And above all, China is operating the Panama Canal. And we didn't give it to China. We gave it to Panama and we're taking it back. We are taking it back, interpreted back interpreted logically as that is a threat of aggression against another country. The antiwar president, remember, just like Tulsi Gabbard was the antiwar candidate. What utter nonsense. Now Donald Trump did appear to suffer from pretty serious main character syndrome, paranoid, paranoid delusions and egomaniacal narcissism. When he said that he believes it was God's doing that he survived the assassination

attempt to become president once again. Over the past eight years, I have been tested and challenged more than any president in our 250 year history. And I've learned a lot along the way. The journey to reclaim our republic has not been an easy one that I can tell you. Those who wish to stop our cause have tried to take my freedom and indeed to take my life. Just a few months ago in a beautiful Pennsylvania field, an assassin's bullet ripped through my ear. But I felt then and believe even more so now that my life was saved for a reason. I was saved by God to make America great again. And part of that plan by God involved the bullet killing an innocent guy who happened to be sitting behind Donald Trump. As far as announcements go, Donald Trump also did confirm he will be renaming the Gulf of

Mexico, the Gulf of America. If you're watching, pay special attention to Hillary Clinton laughing at this boneheaded idea. A short time from now, we are going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America and we will restore the name. And it is hard not to laugh. It is hard not to laugh. And also, as far as announcements go, Trump announcing it will be the policy of his government that there will be only two genders. No joke. This is the line that got the most applause of the entire speech.

This week, I will also end the government policy of trying to socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life. We will forge a society that is colorblind and merit-based. As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female. And this guy here, very, very excited about that. How anyone can take this drivel seriously? I don't know. It speaks very poorly of our country. And then continuing the theme of big pronouncements, but light on details.

Trump says he is going to bring back free speech to America. He doesn't explain who took it. He doesn't say how he will bring it back, but he's bringing it back. After years and years of illegal and unconstitutional federal efforts to restrict free expression, I will also sign an executive order to immediately stop all government censorship and bring back free speech to America. Yeah. And another standing ovation, although I will tell you very little by way of how he will do it. So the highlights are low lights of this thing.

I don't find the need to spend a ton of time on it. Trump's final rally the night before was far more terrifying. And I want to talk a little bit about that. But Trump starting this by forgetting to swear on the very Bible he said is so important. Proposing a series of whacked out policies, including military aggression against other countries and the applause lines telling us just as much about where the country is as anything that Donald Trump said. He is now the president three years, 364 days to go.

The day before his inauguration, Donald Trump held a terrifying final rally in Washington, D.C., which devolved into complete and total catastrophe. Maybe the most horrifying aspect of this rally, Donald Trump seems to suggest, although who the hell knows, because what he says is unintelligible. Trump seems to admit to crimes connecting Elon Musk's technology to the Pennsylvania voting machines and Trump winning in November. Is he admitting to crimes here? Does he even realize it? And it's pretty amazing. But he did that. And then he journeyed to Pennsylvania where he spent like a month and a half campaigning for me in Pennsylvania. And he's a popular guy and he was very effective.

And he knows those computers better than anybody. All those computers, those vote count the computers and computers. And we ended up winning Pennsylvania like in a landslide. So it was pretty good. It's pretty good. So thank you to Elon. Trump seems to be saying that Elon Musk's knowledge of computers in Pennsylvania directly helped him win in Pennsylvania.

It at least potentially appears to be an admission of criminality. Trump did interject one of his famous, sir, stories into this catastrophic final rally because we have to do some of best of right. But they're going to come and say to me, sir, sir, we're winning too much, sir. We can't take it anymore. We have to stop winning, sir. We can't do it. We're not used to winning in our country. And each one of them is going to say every single one, sir, please, please. You're destroying our country. We're winning too much.

Our country isn't prepared for this. It's almost like he believes everyone's memories of his first term have been erased and no one remembers the humiliating mess that it was. Trump says to bring back integrity to the intelligence community. Tulsi Gabbard will be DNI director of national intelligence. It's sort of the opposite. It's we will lose any shred of integrity we have left if that's what Tulsi is in charge.

They like him to bring back integrity to our intelligence community. Tulsi Gabbard will be our next director of national intelligence. Yeah. No, Trump continuing to lower expectations. He's not going to lower prices. He's not going to do any of the things he said he would do that will help the economy. But he is now starting to say, you know, we're inheriting a pretty bad situation. I don't know how much we're going to be able to do.

I do. Administration will inherit disasters at home and abroad, an economy plagued by inflation and high interest rates, a catastrophic border crisis. Nobody can believe they let people in. They have an open border policy. Do you think that makes sense? Open borders. Anybody wants to. Jails, prisons, mental institutions, gangs being emptied right through that ugly open border. A government that cannot care for its citizens in a time of emergency. Look at what's happening in Los Angeles. Look at what's happening in North Carolina. Translation. Don't expect me to do too much. Translation. Don't expect me to bring down

gas prices. Translation. Don't expect me to bring down grocery prices. And then Trump taking credit for tick tock, being back and just making up numbers from the election. And as of today, tick tock is back. So, you know, I did a little tick tock thing. We have a guy tick tock. Jack is a young kid, like 21 years old. And we hired this guy and I went on tick tock. Can you believe what I'll do to win an election?

And we went on tick tock and Republicans have never won the young vote. The youth vote. They win a lot of votes, but they never won the youth vote. We won the youth vote by 36 points. That is completely made up. Uh, Kamala Harris won the youth vote. Trump might be confused. He might be lying. It might be both. But remember the takeaway. Tick tock used to be bad because Trump thought it was bad for him. Now he thinks tickick Tock helped them win. So now Tick Tock is good. That's always the prism through which Trump sees everything. Elon Musk spoke. I can't say that it was electrifying. I would be lying if I said that we're looking forward to making a lot of changes.

And, you know, this victory is the start, really. What matters going forward is to actually make significant changes, cement those changes and and set set the foundation for America to be strong for a century, for centuries, forever. Right. So. Yeah. So just an absolutely electrifying speaker.

He is not. And then finally, Trump ramping up the double jerk send off at the end of the rally by bringing the village people onto the stage. The president of the United States, ladies and gentlemen, This is surreal. It's completely Kafka s. Right and then done Donald Trump on stage with the village people doing the double jerk dance. That is the president of the United States. As of noon Eastern time yesterday, boy, are we in for it.

I want to briefly mention one of Joe Biden's final acts as president of the United States. He did indeed end up pardoning Anthony Fauci, General Mark Milley, a former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney, as well as members of the January 6th committee. Now, many of you wrote to me and said, David, are you for this or are you against it? I am against in general the idea of the presidential pardon. I don't love it. I don't love the idea that this is a power that presidents have. I also believe that if you believe that the future administration

will unfairly target people for revenge, that there is no better time or place to use that very presidential power. Joe Biden believed up until his last minutes in office that the incoming Trump administration, now the Trump administration would go after Anthony Fauci, maybe try to jail the guy, Liz Cheney, Mark Milley, members of the January 6th committee, others. If you believe that as Joe Biden did. Even if I disagree with the pardon of the presidency being a power that they have, I have to acknowledge that this is completely the right use of it. So it was not a huge shock to me. There were widespread reports that this was something that President Biden had been considering. And indeed, he did it in an effort to guard against revenge by Trump.

And if you, like me, don't like the presidential pardon power, we also have to acknowledge that at least I don't like a new administration overtly saying we are going to use the power of the Justice Department to go after the people that I didn't like from the last administration. And in such a intractable circumstance, I understand why Biden did it. And we can read the full details of the other individuals who received these pardons. Biden put out a statement saying the issuance of these pardons should not be mistaken as an acknowledgement that any individual engaged in any wrongdoing, nor should acceptance be misconstrued as an admission of guilt for any offense. Our nation owes these public servants an admission of guilt for any offense. Our nation owes these public servants a debt of gratitude for their tireless commitment to our country. I don't like it, but I understand why he did it. And it was probably the right move because Trump has said and Bannon has said and Kash Patel has said and everybody surrounding Donald Trump has said it's a revenge

tour. We're going to go after the people that made our lives miserable or treated us so unfairly or whatever the case may be. And so Biden did it and I get it. And Biden is now gone into the history books. It is Trump who is president. And now we will see what happens next. Let's take a very quick break and the show will continue.

Many people in the audience know I speak multiple languages. I first learned Spanish when I was born in Argentina. Then I learned English. I learned some Hebrew and Hebrew school. I learned French in junior and high school. I am no stranger to the language learning process. Thank you so much, David. like a lot of the other apps. Babbel is designed by real people for real conversations. All of Babbel's tips and tools for learning a new language are approachable. They're rooted in real life situations and conversations. Babbel's bite sized 10 minute lessons are just perfect for

me. I can do it on the go, do it during a lunch break. It really sticks fast. Babbel was able to help me feel ready for my recent trip to France. I'm using Babbel to brush up on Italian and German just for fun. Studies from Yale, Michigan State University and others prove Babbel is better. One study found that using Babbel for 15 hours is like a full semester of language at college. Here's a special limited time deal for my audience right now. Get up to 60 percent off your Babel subscription, but only for my audience at Babel dot com slash Pacman. Rules and restrictions may apply.

Get up to 60 percent off at Babel dot com slash Pacman spelled B.A.B.B.E.L. dot com slash Pacman. Rules and restrictions may apply. Once again, Donald Trump's cabinet picks are all about loyalty over expertise. Election denier Carrie Lake to lead Voice of America. The government funded broadcaster meant to report unbiased news. Ground News found hundreds of articles covering this story, which is an app I've trusted for years to help me critically analyze the news I consume. Our sponsor, 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 spin they put on each

story. You can even filter out certain sources you don't want. So you can stay informed without getting buried in the noise. Trump is shaping our future in ways that will last decades. And if we're not paying attention, we will allow history to repeat itself. So stay engaged with ground news who is fixing what is breaking right in front of us. The trust and transparency in the media ground news is giving my audience 50% off the same vantage plan that I use. Go to ground dot news slash Pacman. The link is in the podcast notes. Well, as we are now once again in the Trump era, very quickly we find ourselves in the world of an egomaniac, Trigley, snowflake narcissist. And there was some backstory to

the inauguration of Donald Trump yesterday that did not get the attention that it deserved. You may have noticed that of course the inauguration was indoors rather than where it always is outdoors. Uh, this all started with claims from Donald Trump's team that they had to move the inauguration indoors because of these dangerously cold temperatures with forecasts predicting somewhere around 20, 24, 25 degrees Fahrenheit. Now, I think it's important to contextualize this conversation with the fact that Barack Obama's first inauguration in 2009, which drew over 1.8 million attendees, took place at 29 degrees Fahrenheit, a very cold temperature. Ronald Reagan's second inauguration in 1985, the last to be moved indoors, happened during wind chills of 40 below.

So Donald Trump's weather excuse at its face does not hold up with historical precedent. And the real reason for the move, I know you all know what it is. It's because of Donald Trump's sensitivity when it comes to the size of his crowds in 2017, famously within minutes of being inaugurated president, he lashed out and his then press secretary, Sean Spicer lashed out at media reports that showed that his size was indeed subpar when compared to that of Barack Obama's. And he even called the acting director of the National Park Service to complain about photos that had been released.

So this time, by moving the event indoors, Trump is avoiding even the possibility of a comparison to Barack Obama's extraordinarily large size, even Joe Biden's pandemic limited size in 2021. Originally, 220,000 ticketed guests were expected to the swearing in maybe another 250,000 unticketed expected on the national mall. Those numbers were already optimistic and a small fraction of that of what we saw during Barack Obama. So although this is not the most important thing in the world. Donald Trump moving indoors ensures that the most important goal is served, which is the endless stroking of Donald Trump's ego. Trump portrays the move as protecting people from the weather, but we know Trump has never

cared about protecting other people and all of a sudden we're supposed to believe that's the reason for this. This is about protecting Trump from another size embarrassment. He has never cared about protecting people. And suddenly frostbite as the primary concern seems very disingenuous. So this is a classic Trump decision. If reality doesn't align with narrative, he changes the circumstances. If the hurricane is not going to Alabama after he said, careful, Alabama, he gets a Sharpie like the one I have here and he just draws on the hurricane map and that's all you do. So this is not about the weather. This is about a man who is so obsessed with appearing popular that he will use any excuse to avoid scrutiny. His ego is fragile.

His inability to handle criticism is the real reason why this was moved indoors. And it is emblematic and representative of what we are to expect for the next dear God, four years, four years. Trump's ego is what is experiencing the shrinkage, which is that people were not that interested in going to Washington DC for this nonsense. But if you were worried, Trump's running out of things with which to self congratulate tick tock was the answer over inauguration weekend. I want to talk about that next. If an arsonist sets a fire and then puts it out and says, everyone, please come to thank me for being the hero because I put out a fire

that I set. Many of us would say, sir, the arson is still a crime. And indeed we now have Donald Trump taking credit for and tick tock giving Trump credit for saving tick tock despite the fact that he wasn't president when he did it after he said in 2020, we will ban tick tock to protect ourselves from China. So let's go through it step by step at the stroke of midnight on Saturday night, tick tock went dark and they put up a message when you tried to open the app that said, quote, sorry, Tic Tac isn't available right now. A law banning tick tock has been enacted in the United States.

Unfortunately, that means you can't use tick tock for now. We are all fortunate that President Trump, not the president, by the way, at the time President Biden was president. We are fortunate that president Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate Tik TOK. Once he takes office, please stay tuned. Now this is despite the fact that the actual president at the time, Joe Biden said, we're not going to enforce the penalties that are part of this law that was set to ban Tik TOK. There's no risk to Tik TOK staying open. The Biden administration said that, but Tik TOK decided no, no, no, no.

We're going to be like X. We're going to be like meta. We're going to be like, you know, whatever else troth central. We are going to, um, uh, uh, just get down on our knees and pray at the altar of Trump. And just hours later, after TikTok banned itself, all of a sudden, praise Jesus. Baruch Hashem. TikTok was back with the message. Welcome back. This was still Sunday, by the way. Thanks for your patience and support as a result of President Trump's efforts, what president? He wasn't president at the time. As a result of President

Trump's efforts, TikTok is back in the United States. You can continue to create, share and discover all the things you love on TikTok. This is a sign, if I have ever seen one, that they are really deciding TikTok. We are going soft on Trump. And by the way, Trump is going soft on China because Trump has already caved, even though the original law said that TikTok must sell its American operation completely, uh, and get it out of Chinese control. Trump now says, well, I'm open to a joint venture where 50% would be owned by an American entity.

Trump's already gone flaccid on China, even though he told us he's going to protect us from China. And he said in 2020, we've got a ban this scourge. Um, now he says, well, I don't know about selling the whole thing, maybe 50% and I'm going to save Tik Tok and this entire thing. This is being used as a form of borderline psychological warfare to once again portray Donald Trump as the hero who is going to rescue free speech. There was a further statement put out by tick tock after it came back, um, saying, uh, hold

on, where is it here? In agreement with our service providers, tick tock is in the process of restoring service. And what exactly did they thank Trump for, for, quote, providing the necessary clarity and assurance to our service providers that they will face no penalties for providing tick tock to over one hundred and seventy million Americans and allowing over seven million small businesses to thrive. Of course, President Biden provided the exact same assurance, saying we're not going to enforce any penalties, but tick tock choosing to take service down in the United States and to then say, oh, praise you, glorious orange leader. We are now back because you've given us the same assurance that President Biden give us. But that we are not going to mention. I really hope that people understand, you know, when we talk about the size of Trump's

small crowd and why he decided to move the inauguration indoors, when we talk about tick tock supplicating and saying, oh, Trump saved us and Trump saying, I did save it, even though I said I was going to be the one to get rid of it, Trump saved us. And Trump saying, I did save it, even though I said I was going to be the one to get rid of it. I saved it now. We really have to understand that we are in for some of the most intense four years of psychological and propaganda warfare, not only by Trump, but we've got to understand it's now Trump plus X plus Facebook and Instagram as part of Mark Zuckerberg sucking up through meta. It appears that now take talk as part of it.

He's got truth social. He's got a new scam, cryptocurrency meme coin that he's grifting and laundering money with. And it seems as though the Supreme Court is getting the hell out of the way, like a, um, like like a cautious, uh, like a cautious participant in Pamplona's running of the bulls where you see the bull coming and you step out of the way. It seems as though the Supreme court is doing the exact same thing. So we are now going to see, can Trump accomplish the things he said he would accomplish? Is he going to bring down prices?

Is any of it going to happen? And in the meantime, how much money is Trump going to grift from the American people? What a sad state of affairs. And I cannot think of a more important moment for independent media. I hope folks are here for the long haul. I hope you've grabbed a membership at join pacman.com as usual. I mean, listen, is there any greater reminder that we can't count on anything? We used to earn ad revenue from Facebook. Gone. They said we're not going to promote political content anymore. All right. Well, that's gone. Tick tock. Now

going full MAGA. We make a little bit of money on tick tock. Wouldn't expect that to go away either. By the way, it's been zero over the last three days. That's why it's so important that we directly support whatever independent media you value. One option is to sign up at join pacman.com and of course, remember you can preorder my forthcoming book, the echo machine, which goes a long way towards telling us how we got into this mess at David Pakman dot com slash book. I've been sleeping on a Helix sleep mattress for years now. Couldn't love it on a Helix sleep mattress for years now. Couldn't love it more. Before Helix, I just buy whatever generic mattress from a store thinking they're all basically the same.

Turns out I was very wrong. Since switching to Helix, my sleep has improved. Helix mattresses are customized to your needs. I took the one minute sleep quiz where I gave input like my height, my real height, not like you know who. My weight, my real weight, not like, you know, who my weight, my real weight, not like, you know, who, uh, my sleeping position, firmness preference, whether I have back pain, whether I run hot or cold and Helix matched me with the right mattress for my preferences. And it's been a total game changer. My favorite part is it stays cool while I sleep. Most people don't even know what they need in a mattress and all Helix mattresses come with a 10 year warranty. You also get 100 nights to test it out.

If you don't love it, they'll pick it up for free and refund your money. And they'll even remove your old mattress if you want. My audience gets 20 percent off plus two free pillows with all mattress orders. When you go to Helix sleep dot com slash Pacman. We'll be right back. We've seen many high profile data breaches this year, raising serious concerns about personal information security and most alarming national public data announced the major breach potentially impacting nearly every American. It exposed 2.9 billion records, including names, addresses, dates of birth,

phone numbers, social security numbers, and hackers released all of this online for free. But I feel secure thanks to aura. One of our sponsors aura monitors your personal data. This includes your social across billions of data points, including dark web and public records. It will let you know if there's an identity theft risk and they provide up to $5 million in identity theft insurance. Aura offers additional safety features like real time breach alerts, a password manager and much more. I don't want to leave myself or my family vulnerable to these data breaches.

If you don't want to either go to aura.com slash pacman to try two weeks free. That's enough time to see if your personal data is already exposed. It's great to welcome to the program today, Senator Cory Booker, Democratic Senator representing New Jersey since 2013. A senator, so good to have you on. You know, I, I don't know exactly where to start, but I think maybe one place would be in thinking about the next three years and 364 days and much has been written about the resistance the first time around was not quite enough. We need a more robust opposition when they they lost in 2020, they built this media

ecosystem, an activist ecosystem, and money was pouring in rather than people saying, let's sit on the sidelines. What's your assessment overall right now about sort of the mood of the opposition and the tactics that you would suggest we employ over the next two and four years? Well, you asked me that question and two things immediately popped into my head. The first, I just want to say that like Democrats did a lot of things wrong over the last four years and somehow ended up in a circumstance where people just did not trust them to be able to deliver real results for their lives and their families' lives. It's as simple as that. When people came down to make a decision about what is best for my family or my community or

my prosperity, Democrats, I don't trust them. Now, that said, it wasn't a wildly landslide of an election. I heard Donald Trump yesterday lying through his teeth, claiming he had the biggest victory. He didn't get the majority of votes. He got more popular votes than Kamala Harris, but the majority of Americans voted against him. But that said, this was a time that I believe if Americans really felt the Democrats had their best interest on the issues that mattered most to them, we would have resoundingly won that election. I do want to point out it had mixed results. There are a lot of my colleagues in the Senate who won in states that also Donald Trump won. That rarely happens where in a state that a president won, the Senate candidate of that president's

party lost. So in many ways, the brand of people like Tammy Baldwin, the brand of people like Ruben Gallego, the feeling people had about those leaders was, I trust you to have my back or my family's back. And so in this time where Trump is walking in, a lot of people want to know what's the anti-Trump strategy. And my focus is not the anti-Trump strategy. My focus is fighting for Americans, doing things that make them safer, stronger, and more prosperous. The Democratic Party should define themselves by what they stand for, not by who they stand against. And if Donald Trump comes after your health care, if he comes after your Social Security, if he comes after your Medicare, if he comes after your public education, those are the things we should fight for because we're fighting for the American people. We're

fighting for issues. But I'm tired of this tribal community, that country that we live in, where parties are defining themselves in contrast to each other. Now, that said, as a guy who beat a big political machine in the state of New Jersey to win the seat, we had to have really good strategy electorally as well. And I think, as I'm telling the United States senators, and I've taken on a position in leadership in my Senate Democratic Caucus, is, guys, you are not communicating or talking to voters because you think that we live in a communication world that is where it was in the 1980s. The reality is most voters get their information from these things. I spend most of my time, I've cut cable. So I'm not seeing your ads that you're

putting up. We have to become a much more digitally aware set of leadership. And it's hard. You know, Chuck Schumer, who's allowed me to ascend to this position, he and I had long conversations. I said, Chuck, you still have a flip phone, sir. We've got to start talking more about how to be on these platforms where voters are getting most of their news and information, and then having the mechanisms with which to communicate in addition to the right message. And I, for one, believe the message is not the resistance.

The message is you will see me every single day getting up and doing everything I can so you can keep more of your hard-earned dollars, so that you can have better health care, that you can have a nation where we don't spray chemicals on your foods, that are banned in other countries, that we can fight for housing and to make housing more affordable so that the very idea of the American dream can be achievable for your generation. That's what people want to hear. They don't want to hear how much I might hate Donald Trump or what have you. That to me is the wrong message. You mentioned the communication strategy and the smartphones,

and I think this is very interesting. Just a couple of weeks ago, I was invited to the White House and met with now former president Biden and some of the communication officials to do a sort of like what went wrong sort of thing from my perspective as someone on, on kind of this side of the independent media communication side. And what was most alarming maybe was not that they didn't know what went wrong. It was that they did just a few weeks after the election. And you know, one of the things that we talked about was that this mega world very successfully

built kind of this space where it's cool to be part of it, right? Trump as a candidate hung out for hours with the NELC boys and Lex Friedman and Joe Rogan and the political podcasts and the nonpolitical podcasts. And one of the things that I worry about is if in September of 2028 I start getting the emails from different staffers and communications people, it's kind of too late. And so in a way, if there's something they did right, starting in 2021 was they started really building out this ecosystem then and the growth of turning point USA and the daily wire and all of these organizations. Is there some way to organize this on the left, not as an sort of acute resistance in time, but more as like we need

four years of this to be in the right place four years from now. I don't know who organizes that. Well, again, this idea that the Democratic Party is some hegemonic command and control top down organization is just wrong. We all know that there are the Democratic Governors Association, the Democratic House members have an organization and so on and so forth. But this is going to be a four years of leadership vacuum in which I'm hoping new people rise up in the party and begin to help it to become a 21st century party in terms of its mechanisms it uses to deliver the message. Now, I remember when Kamala Harris's ideas were pulled, the policies of Kamala Harris were pulled blindly and next to the policies of Donald Trump. And people overwhelmingly selected the policies of Kamala Harris

because most Americans want universal background checks for guns. They may not want to preserve their right to own a gun, but they believe that to stop criminals from getting hands-on guns, we need to do things like universal background checks or even licensing. You need a license to buy a car. Why not?

That's overwhelmingly, 70% of people agree with that. Reproductive rights, 70, 80%. We've seen that in these red states that are voting to preserve Roe v. Wade. I could go through the things that show that Democrats are right on the policies yes but somehow we are failing to let people understand and communicate in a way that gives them that trust uh one of these uh and i've been doing a lot of post-mortem and having people come in to talk to me and one person got me kind of upset

they're like trust over truth and i'm like what are you talking about like integrity means a lot to me. Well, they said, Senator Booker, you don't understand. Like, people want to know they can trust you before they'll believe you. that can come together and connect in a way that could shine a light on the good things, the good efforts, the noble deeds, the real work that are being done. And you and I both know, because we come out of a different era, that what we're doing right now is the present and the future. I learned this when I was a mayor of the city of Newark, and my city had a horrible brand problem. The traditional media would only tell stories about crime and corruption. And we had a lot of it. I was the first mayor not to be indicted since the 1960s. And we were

battling down. We eventually won to get our murder rate down. And then Conan O'Brien on a traditional media channel goes on TV and says that I hear Newark, New Jersey has a new healthcare program. And I had done this new big rollout to get my people a big discount on prescription drugs. And I thought he was going to celebrate that. And he goes, well, I think the best healthcare program for the city of Newark is a bus ticket out of town. Now, I knew immediately that it was a gift because I was about to show that new media is going to beat old media. And this is back in the days that Twitter was young, but I did a video basically making the joke that Cohen O'Brien, you've insulted the city of Newark. You're hereby banned from Newark airport. You're on the no-fly list. Try JFK, buddy. And the video went viral. And suddenly, for the first time,

there are video cameras, traditional medias outside City Hall, not looking for blood on the sidewalk or somebody doing a perp walk. They were there to talk to the mayor about, did he really ban somebody from Newark Airport. And I used it as an opportunity. It was a joke, but we played into the joke. And next thing you know, it became America's number one trending story. Conan O'Brien had to respond. But it was my showing that new media was going to And now you have influencers that get more views in a week than Fox, CNN, and MSNBC combined. We are in a different era. And somebody, or I should say a community of people that are right on the policies need to figure out how this party, for whatever loose terms you might use to describe us, can begin to communicate to where the people are.

Going to the Senate floor and giving a speech in the 1950s, like when Mr. Smith went to Washington, could capture the nation's attention. Now nobody hears that except for the 15 people that watch C-SPAN. But if you elevate that same speech in an ecosystem that is hungry for ideas and actions that help Americans get better housing, better health care, that help people have better access to affordable college education, that create a more just and fair society, that in the ecosystem, especially if we're connected, could go a lot farther. And that's what I'm trying to create. I'm trying to bring my party into the 21st century and stop defining us by what we're against. I disagree with, in fact, I've chosen my side. has had a battle. The battle is between those people who believe in us versus them, and those people who believe in just us. I believe in just us. I'm tired of positioning my identity based upon what the Republicans are doing. It's about the people of America.

I don't care how you voted. Are we as a party fighting for your family? Do you trust that or not? And that's what I think this next election in twenty eight is going to be about. And it starts right now in twenty twenty five. You mentioned Twitter or X. It was notable that the sort of, you know, new gilded tech oligarchs were together and hanging out at the inauguration. Of course, Twitter has become X under Elon Musk and just a repository for amplifying conspiracy and right wing message messaging. Mark Zuckerberg from Meta has announced that the fact checking program is over. They are moving moderation teams from California to Texas for a better political climate, as he described it. Bezos was there,

owns the Washington Post, which decided they all of a sudden are not going to make an endorsement this time around. Right. It's it's so there is the concern that now that hopefully everybody is realizing the importance of these platforms other than blue sky, which is very small right now, they're kind of all moving to we really want to be friendly with Trump and get invited to the White House. That's that seems like a major concern to me for the next few years. Yeah, well, first of all, I want to say I disagree with these policies

and I haven't had a chance to engage with some of these platforms. But I remember I think it was Myanmar, where Facebook had this spread of lies that led to horrific actions. When media is spreading lies or hate, we saw it in places in Africa. In fact, with the hoodoo and the tootsie, they used a communications platform. Then it was radio to spread hate and violence. And so I can't say that I disagree with these policies, that not having some kind of fact checker, that if people are using those platforms to spread hate, lies, or incite violence, that we shouldn't be doing something about it. I think there is still a place in this world where virtue and truth, now how we understand that, and I'm not advocating

for censorship, I'm advocating for responsibility. But that aside, I think what you're describing to me is somewhat problematic in the sense of, you know, first of all, I'm a United States Senator, it won't surprise you that I know Jeff Bezos. Mark Zuckerberg, I would consider him a friend. I know him as well. But I had a problem with when I look up at a stage where a president is being sworn in and it is a picture of priorities and who is in who is vaunted and you ran a election under this idea that we're fighting for the people and the billionaires that were on that stage uh i to me the message is really problematic who will have a voice who will have influence and this is coming in the backdrop of you just had an administration as the 45th president where your signature policy was a tax bill whose benefits overwhelmingly went to the 1% and was unpopular with Americans. where it fueled even more stratification of wealth in our country. And even some people, because of how tax brackets were moved around, ended up paying more working class people.

And so for me, as I sat there knowing this Trump tax plan 2 is coming down the pike, and the way you created a stage. And again, I have no problem with people who risk their capital and get a reward. I am all for this idea. And I think when our party demonizes success, it really veers off to me. But we now have a system that is rigged through its tax code, where the wealthiest of the wealthy have all kinds of ways of compounding their wealth. And it's actually stealing from our wealth as a country because Trump's first tax plan blew a $3 trillion hole in our budget. So as I'm sitting there knowing that the first time or maybe the first time they use something called reconciliation,

which is to get around the filibuster here in the Senate is to push a tax plan where some estimates now is it could cause a $4 trillion hole in our budget in order to, again, shift wealth through tax expenditures to the wealthiest of the wealthy in our country. To me, there was an incongruency and problematic when you ran a campaign about lowering grocery prices. And so I was left with a feeling that it was very problematic and that the Democratic Party better get ready for this fight. We were able to win our first fight against Trump when his first big policy move was to take down the Affordable Care Act. Well, now we are going to be seeing a tax plan that will inevitably, it seems, blow a bigger hole in our national debt. Trillions and trillions of dollars for our children and grandchildren are going to have to pay for and be poor because of it. Money that we could be using to invest in infrastructure, education, science, technology, and research. By the way, tax dollars invested in those things produces a return for taxpayers. But instead of this is going to be another shift of wealth so that people, friends

of mine who make extraordinary amounts of money are paying less in taxes percentage of their income than I pay, than teachers pay, than secretaries plumbers pay. And that's that's the realness that's that's at stake. And the symbol of the of I had some problems with the symbol of that stage and the way he set it up and who was important for him to show up there. It was it was it was very interesting to me to see who got that special invitation to sit behind him during his inauguration. Senator, I know you've got to run one other quick thing as contrived and fabricated as the issue has been. Would it be a good idea, for example, for us to have a clear answer when they pull the what is a woman on us as an example of this sort of thing that is inevitably going to again be dropped in our lap time and again.

Yeah, I feel that we are having these conversations that are on their terms and have nothing to do with the everyday reality of Americans. And I'm going to get on an issue that I got asked more times than I can imagine is what do you think about CRT? I didn't know what critical race theory even was. And I've got more degrees, as my dad used to say, than the month of July, and I'm not hot. And I had to go back and read what exactly is critical race theory, or DEI, or environment, government, whatever it is about the acronym that for focusing on the environment. And so it's one of these things that they take language that is not in any way charged and they charge it in a way that makes it toxic to have a rational conversation. So let's be clear. A fraction of 1% of the American population, and even a smaller fraction than that, are trans kids.

And so for them to have literally hundreds of millions of dollars being spent in the last election with ads targeting that population, to me is nothing short of outrageous and distracting from the issues that are most important to the people I serve in New Jersey and around this nation. So the short answer to your question is absolutely. In terms of political tactics, when you get asked a question like that, yeah, you need to look somebody in the eye and say this is utter bullshit that we are having this conversation. When the real issue with children in America is that we have too many kids living below the poverty line. The real problem in America for our kids is that we see sicknesses and illnesses that they used to call things like adult-set diabetes.

And now we have a quarter of our children who are diabetic or pre-diabetic. There are so many... The number one cause of death for our children is gun violence. And so yet somehow they were able to make the conversation about such a fractional, small percentage of the population in a way that ultimately these kids have our highest, some of our highest suicide rates, some of the highest rates of kids being bullied and tormented.

We still live in a nation where a third of gay kids report missing school at some point because of fear. And so how do we get it so twisted that the Democratic Party is not on offense on something like this for what they're doing in manufacturing an issue and whipping it up across their ecosystem in a way that distracts us from talking about kids dying of gun violence, kids being terribly sick with chronic diseases, or kids not getting high quality public education or getting access to high quality affordable child care. These are the issues that are pressing kids and families that most households are concerned with. Senator Cory Booker, really appreciate your time, and we will be in touch. Thank you so much. Thank you. I'm grateful for Grain, is the first bake from frozen subscription

box for artisanal breads, pastries, and pastas. Wild Grain simply takes the hassle out of baking. Everything bakes from frozen in 25 minutes or less. No mess or cleanup. Your family will be amazed thinking you've become a master bread baker all of a sudden. My favorite is the croissants you throw them in the oven 25 minutes. Wow. If you're ready to bring all your favorite breads, pastas and pastries right to your doorstep, check out wild grain. You can build your box of artisanal pastries, breads and everything right now. And for a limited time, wild grain Well, he did it. Go to wild grain dot com slash Pacman. The link is in the podcast notes. Well, he did it. He is president again.

So now how does he stick to his maybe most notable and regularly stated promise of the campaign? I will bring your prices down. I will end the tyranny of sleepy Joe inflation by lowering the prices of everything from eggs and apples to gasoline and home heating oil. How is he going to do it? Well, now we're going to see, but I hate to break it to you. If you take a little Pete, but peek behind the curtain, which the curtains transparent, you don't even need to pull it out of the way. You can see right through the curtain. The answer to how are you clowns going to bring prices down

is we don't have a damn plan. We don't have a healthcare plan. We don't have a foreign policy plan. We don't have a plan to end the Ukraine war in 24 hours. How did that go by the way? Hmm. We don't have a plan for anything, including bringing prices down. MAGA Mike Johnson, one of the most suck up brown nosing sycophants surrounding Trump appeared on NBC News and was asked, what's the legislation? How will you do it? And Mike Johnson goes, well, it's pretty complicated. Can't tell you right now, but it's very, very complicated. But is there bottom line one piece of legislation targeted at bringing down grocery prices? There are zero pieces of legislation, Chris, for the American consumer. It's a complex collection of legislation because we got to unwind and fix everything. I was on the campaign trail

all last year, traveling around the country. I logged enough miles to circle the globe five and a half times. We kept the House majority. We won the Senate majority for Republican Party. Kristen, I'm going to answer your question about bringing prices down by telling you how many miles I flew last year. Oh, dear God, these people have no idea. We won the White House and we told the American people that we would do well by them. And what I said on the campaign trail was to summarize, we could be the most consequential Congress of the modern era because we have to fix everything. I mean, everything's a mess. So it's not just, we have a lot of things to fix, but no plan for any of this one switch that you flip back on. It's a number of them and we have to make it all work together and

we will. Yeah. And he names none of them. Here would be an honest answer. You know what, Kristen? Um, Donald Trump mentioned bringing prices down a lot during the campaign, but the truth is it's extraordinarily unlikely that we will actually see prices go down. And by the way, year over year inflation is only 2.9%. So there's not even really much room to reduce inflation. The best we can really hope to do is to just kind of keep things the way they've been with inflation back under control and work on demand side stimulus like getting wages up and increasing the GDP of the United States. That's the real answer.

And by the way, Kristin, if Trump's promises came true, if we did all of a sudden see gas go down to a buck 50 a gallon, if we did see energy prices go down 50% as Donald Trump has claimed, it would be in the context of a variable veritable economic disaster because that sort of deflation is very bad for developed economies. That's honest MAGA Mike that I just did an interpretive reading of. You're not going to get that from you're going to get well, we're going to do it and we're going to do it with. It's a very complex thing. Many pieces of legislation. We've got to fix everything now.

It's our turn. But don't worry, Kristen, we're going to do it and it's all going to be fantastic. Remember that they have no plan to do it. And if they did it, it would be a problem. Trump said prices would come down on day one. Trump said that the Ukraine Russia war would be solved within a day of becoming president elect. Then it was within a day of becoming president. Now it's within 100 day of becoming president elect. Then it was within a day of becoming

president. Now it's within a hundred days of becoming president. This is the way it's going to be. I hope that people are ready. All right. The grift is back. This time, Donald J. Trump has launched a meme coin because when you've already sold NFTs, stakes, water, fake degrees, why not try your hand at cryptocurrency? But this is worse than just a cash grab. This is a masterclass in modern grifting with a side of financial shadiness to boot. Here's what's going on. January 17th scrumps launches his Trump meme coin and within hours, it surges from 18 cents to more than $21, a jaw dropping who the hell knows what percentage increase by the end of the day, the market cap hits over 14 billion. And the real question of course is how much of that value is real?

How much of it does Trump control and how much of it is smoke and mirrors? The funding reportedly came from Binance and gate to crypto platforms that cater primarily to overseas customers now. So is this really about building a national priority or is it about finding new ways to launder foreign money into Donald Trump's orbit? It's important to remember that Trump hated this stuff back in 2019. Remember when Trump tweeted, I am not a fan of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, which are not money and whose value is highly volatile and based on thin, unregulated crypto assets can facilitate unlawful behavior on thin air. Unregulated crypto assets can facilitate unlawful behavior, including drug trade and other illegal activities.

But that's changed very much, hasn't it? Because Trump now stands to gain from it. Let me ask you this. This was the guy who promised to show us his taxes back in 2016, but he didn't do it. And those taxes might have revealed where the money really came from. Uh, instead of transparency, we got NFTs and now a meme coin. It's like you promise that you'll bring dessert to the potluck and instead you show up with nothing and pour the mashed potatoes all over the host's head. And speaking of 2016, Trump was going to give up ownership of his companies

to focus on being president with no conflicts. How did that go? Instead, we got four years of blurry lines between Trump, the presidency and his bank account. How did that go? Instead, we got four years of blurry lines between Trump, the presidency and his bank account. And now with the meme coin, he's saying, why stop now when I can keep cashing in? And of course he can. The same team behind Donald Trump's NFT hustle is running this operation. And remember that the NFTs tanked in value. Trump's fans got fleeced as they always do. And now they are back and being grifted with a new scheme. The translation here is that Trump is laying the groundwork to turn untraceable crypto transactions into the lifeblood of his empire, because this is bigger than a grift. It's just a blueprint for corruption

that will exploit the very system he's supposed to be leading. Think of it within hours, really, of being inaugurated. Trump launches a meme coin and immediately billions start flowing anonymously into Trump. Is it a legitimate financial tool? Doesn't seem like it. Is it a shady back channel for foreign money and campaign cash? It does sort of seem that way. And Trump will say that this is for the people. Anyone can participate. But of course, not everyone is participating, especially not by, by, uh, categorized by dollars. And it's not about being innovative. It's distract with a shiny object to keep people from asking the critical question,

where is the money going? This is classic Trump, the man who never showed us his taxes, never gave up the companies that made millions. And, uh, while he was president and now he's telling us the meme coin is for the greater good. At some point, are we ready to say, if you fall for it, you just deserve it and nobody's going to get you out of it because he's not going to run the country like a business. He's going to run it like a Ponzi scheme. And if the numbers reflect Donald Trump's assets pouring in, Trump just made a whole bunch of money. But remember, we're supposed to believe that he ran for president because he really cares about you.

Let's now take a look at exactly where those numbers are so we can evaluate whether he really is doing anything good for the economy. All right. I told you that when Trump got inaugurated, I would tell you here are the numbers Joe Biden left off with. And now we are going to be able to look at in black and white. Is Trump improving the economy? So here is where Biden left things.

Unemployment rate, 4.1%. Where will it be in six months, in 12 months, in four years? We will see 4.1% unemployment inflation rate, 2024, 2.9%. That's where we left off. What will the inflation rate be over the forthcoming year? Well, Trump gets his way with his planned tariffs. It's going to be higher. That's for sure. GDP growth. We're still waiting on final numbers from 2024, but recent quarters were Q3 saw 3.1 percent GDP growth annualized. Q2 saw 3 percent GDP growth annualized. Will the country grow more quickly or more slowly under Donald Trump? Interest rates, 30 year fixed rate mortgage is often what we look at to say where are interest rates at the end of president Biden's term, right around 7%, 7.04 at the end of Friday. Uh, that's where 30 year fixed rate is right now. Where will it be in a year?

Consumer confidence index index 1 0 4.7 call it 1 0 5 at the end of president Biden's presidency trade balance. We continue to run a trade deficit as we have for decades. Remember that the United States is more or less organized its economy around running a trade deficit, trade deficit of 78 billion as of November 2024. That's the most recent month for Uh, deficit from 2023 to 2024 was up 201 billion to $510 billion. Will the deficit come down or go up under president Donald Trump's second term? We will see. And finally, stock market performance, 22% growth in the S and P 500 in 2023, a similar 22% growth

in the S and P 500 in 2024 total growth of the stock market under president Biden, 59.9%. We've drawn a line in the sand. Biden's out. Trump is in. We've drawn a line in the sand. Biden's out. Trump is in. We will watch these numbers very closely and we're going to start getting a picture before you know it of what the Trump economy is going to be like predictions. Send them in to info at David Pakman dot com.