The David Pakman Show - 12/19/24: Indie media interviews Biden, country hates Trump's agenda

Episode Date: December 19, 2024

-- On the Show: -- President Joe Biden grants a major outgoing interview to independent progressive media outlet Meidas Touch, and is interviewed by Ben Meiselas -- New polling from the Washington Post reveals that most of the country dislikes Donald Trump's promised agenda, yet he still won -- The upcoming "I told you so" situation that is about to develop will be devastating to Trump and Harris voters alike -- Former Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz panics over news that the ethics investigation into him will be released -- Detailing the upcoming Republican and billionaire assault on Social Security -- Democratic Senator Dick Durbin snaps at CNN's Manu Raju when asked about a forthcoming proposal to increase Congressional salaries -- The Donald Trump vs Elon Musk drama appears to be starting -- Question as to whether Elon Musk is really in charge surface again after Trump caves to Musk on a funding bill resolution -- On the Bonus Show: SCOTUS will hear TikTok ban challenge, Congressman Tom Massie becomes first to say he won't vote for Speaker Mike Johnson, the real reason Nancy Mace is always on TV, much more... 🍷 Naked Wines: Use code PAKMAN to get 6 bottles for $39.99 at https://nakedwines.com/pakman 🖼️ Aura Frames: Use code PAKMAN for $35 OFF & free shipping at https://auraframes.com/pakman 🥐 Wildgrain: Use code PAKMAN for $30 off & free baked goods at https://wildgrain.com/pakman 💻 Get Private Internet Access for 83% OFF + 4 months free at https://www.piavpn.com/David 😁 Zippix Toothpicks: Code PAKMAN10 saves you 10% at https://zippixtoothpicks.com ⚠️ Ground News: Get 50% OFF their unlimited access Vantage plan at https://ground.news/pakman -- Become a Member: https://davidpakman.com/membership -- Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/davidpakmanshow -- TDPS Subreddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/thedavidpakmanshow -- Pakman Discord: https://davidpakman.com/discord -- David on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow -- Leave a Voicemail: (219)-2DAVIDP

. Well, we start today with something genuinely exciting. President Joe Biden is granting a very limited number of final outgoing interviews at the end of his presidency. And one of the interviews has been granted to our friends over at Midas touch. Ben, my zealous, who I saw in Washington DC earlier this week was given a 30 minute interview with president Biden and I just, I'm, I'm verklempt. I'm really compelling here because this is just awesome.

What normally would be interviews reserved for corporate and legacy media has been granted to someone from our cohort. And if there is any bigger sign that there is really a sea change happening here, that elected officials, even on the on the left side, are starting to see independent media as an important space where you want to be heard. It is that of the few final outgoing interviews, one was granted to Midas touch. So we're going to look at a couple of clips here. Ben, my zealous doing a really great job of hitting a bunch of important things,

asking President Biden about regrets. Are there any regrets that you have? Take a listen to this. Let me ask you this. As you prepare to leave the White House, any other regrets that you have? Anything you wish you would have done differently? Well, I guess if I thought a lot about it, it would be something I've done specifically then, but not generically. I set out to do two things. Restore America's leadership in the world. I think we've done that.

And two, to generate opportunity for ordinary people to have a shot in the economy. And I think we've done that as well. And so we've changed the sort of measure for how to build an economy from the middle out and the bottom up rather than the top down. And we've worked in a situation where we've once again reestablished our leadership in the world. I always ask people rhetorical questions. If America is not leading the world, who's going to lead it? Who? What country?

Is it capacity? And so we have an obligation and an opportunity to make a world better for everybody. But without being, and by the way, look what we've done.

We've changed the dynamic in Europe. We're in the process, God willing, and if my effort goes through with what's going on in Gaza and the Middle East, we may have an agreement there. Look what's happening in the Pacific

and particularly in the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea. Well, guess what? We have a group now, Asia, excuse me, and India, Japan, Australia, United States, a quad that is bringing stability to that region. One of the things that I think has been fascinating has been anticipating that once President Biden is out of office, Donald Trump, as Republicans always do, are going to take credit

for things they opposed while Biden was doing it. And Ben asked President Biden about this specifically. And I thought it was one of the more interesting moments from this interview. What are you going to do when the other guy that was out there bragging about accomplishments under you, the Medicare $2,000 cap, is going to kick in in 2025? And he's going to be out there saying, I did this. How is that going to make you feel when that happens? Look, if it continues to benefit the American, I've invested more in red states than in blue states. All these programs we just talked about. Of course, because red states need the money way more because the infrastructure is way worse because of red state policies and red state governors.

The reason for that was the red states didn't operate very well and they really hurt their constituents. So those factories closed and the like. The fact is that I represent all of America, not just Democrats. And I think what it's going to do is it's going to bring the country more together than separate it. And, for example, you already have folks like Marjorie Taylor Greene and others saying, don't eliminate the factory. After talking about the proposal that we're going to build that. It was the worst idea anybody's ever had.

She didn't vote for it. So I think there's going to be a bit of a comeuppance here. But the bottom line is I'm convinced that over time the American public will respond to what is the intention of the party to try to help ordinary people. And the fundamental change I made, and I made a speech at Brookings Institution about it recently, was on the economy. The fact is that we had a long time this idea of trickle-down economics. Let the wealthy do very, very well. They'll have so much money, they'll trickle down on people's kitchen tables and coffee tables

and like, and everyone will benefit. I've never bought that theory. And so what I've decided to do was to change it to build the comedy from the middle out and the bottom up. Well, they still do very well. But the middle class and working class people do much, much better. That's exactly what's happening. It's important to remember that at the end of the day, even though you hear endless posturing about who's letting you keep more of your money and all of this rhetoric, what it often comes down to in terms of the last 15 years and Democrats versus Republicans, it's do the richest pay 39% or 36% that, I mean, I know that you wouldn't know that from the rhetoric. You'd think this is about taking everyone's money, but really, I mean, yes, we're looking at, you've got the QBID deduction and then you've got the capital gains tax rate.

But a large lion's share of the discussion about taxation in this country is simply should the very wealthiest pay 36 or 39 percent federally? And of course, there are dozens of other questions. But what Joe Biden here is pointing out is the hypocrisy with which you hear one rhetoric and one public story about the things that he decided to spend money on. But then before you know it, they say, look at this great thing I brought to our state, even though whether it's Congresswoman Boebert or whether it's Marjorie Taylor Greene or whoever, you voted against it. You criticized the people that were doing it. And now you want credit and you want to say, hey, reelect me because of this thing that happened green or whoever you voted against it. You criticize the people that were doing it.

And now you want credit and you want to say, hey, reelect me because of this thing that happened despite despite my best intentions. Now, another topic that came up during this interview is whether President Biden is going to go to the inauguration of Donald Trump. And what is absolutely fascinating about this is that even within my audience, there is a split. There is a split between those of you who say Biden shouldn't dignify Trump by going to the inauguration, just like Trump refused to go to Biden's inauguration in January of 2021. I tend not to agree with that. And I know that I've said in many ways, we need to play dirty. We need to fight the way that they fight. And that applies in many areas. But on this, I think that it does make sense to take the high road,

make it so that Trump is the only guy, you know, if, if in 20 years we look back and we say, you know, there was this one horrible guy, Trump, who just refused to go to his successor's inauguration. That's stronger than saying, you know, there were actually two guys who refused to go to the inaugurations. And yes, Biden did it because Trump had done it four years prior. It muddies the story. And Joe Biden, in agreement with that, says, yes, I'm going to be at the inauguration. You're going to be at the inauguration? Of course I am. Only president ever to avoid inauguration was the guy that's about to be inaugurated. That's what I want to talk about, because he obviously did not make the transition easy for you, would be putting it as delicately as I can.

You've made the transition smooth. You've invited him to the White House. How do you square that with his rhetoric, what he's done, what he's threatened to invite him here, sit him in the Oval, smile? How do you do that and why? Well, because it's who we are as a nation. It's how we're supposed to be. The fact that he doesn't abide by the rules of the democracy we've established is not my concern.

My job is to make a transition workable and available and make sure he's beginning to adjust to it. He's beginning now to say to go background checks for his people and so on and so forth the bottom line is that we can't keep this up we can't keep up this childish game of walking away when you don't agree and not cooperating depending who you talk to i talk to a lot of republicans somewhere well, mostly we'll say 30 percent of the Republican Party is the MAGA Republicans now. And they are the Republican Party now. It's going to be interesting to watch what happens to the Republican Party if he tries to implement some of the things he said he was going to do. But it's important. The democratic institutions are consequential.

We're the most unique nation in the world. Every other nation has come about as a consequence of ethnicity, religion, geography.

We're the only one building an idea. The idea is we hold these truths to be self-evident. All men and women are critical, etc. We've never fully lived up to it.

We've never walked away from it. And we have to keep keeping faith with that notion. On this issue, I agree with President Biden completely. There is no reason to add a second asterisk to history with a lot of this norm stuff. And I know many of you might be saying, David, Joe Biden would be completely morally justified in doing to Trump what Trump did to him. And I would say, you're right. Joe Biden would be completely morally justified and ethically justified.

But I think he's simply rising above it. And I do agree. He doesn't want to be an additional footnote of here's another guy who also didn't go to the inauguration, but this time it was justified. No, let's keep the record clear. Trump was the one guy who disregarded the way things are supposed to go. Finally, uh, Ben asking president Biden, what do you say to the Americans who are understandably nervous? Now, these are my words about the incoming authoritarian, autocratic, fascist wannabe Trump. What is the message to those people?

Here's what President Biden had to say. What do you say to Americans who are understandably very nervous right now, who didn't vote for the other guy who are fearful of the threats the rhetoric the idea of retribution what do you say to them who are looking at you who admired your work and what do you what do you say to them right now who are watching? We've got to stay involved. We've got to keep fighting. You've got to make clear we're not going away. We're not going away. I'm not going away. I'm going to be deeply involved in the environment. I'm going to be deeply involved in foreign policy. Deeply involved in all the things

I've been involved in before. There's a whole lot of people, too, that are doing that. And I don't, you know, this is not appropriate for me to be asking you questions, but think about what you guys what decisions you have to make to be the kind of, you get the kind of listenership and followership you have. And how do other entities do that?

And tell the truth like you do. It's about finding ways to communicate with people that are so different than existed even 10 years ago. And it's a moment of transition. I know I drive my friends crazy. I keep talking about major inflection points in American history and world history. But every six or seven, every six or seven decades,

something changes in consequence that generates a significant shift in the way people look at things. A genuine congratulation to the guys over at Midas Touch securing one of President Biden's final interviews and talking about so many of the things that we have been thinking about. Check out the whole interview. It's just 30 minutes, but it is 30 minutes. Being given 30 minutes is quite the accomplishment. So congratulations. And, uh, we will see what this ecosystem looks like with Democrats in the house, with Democrats in

the Senate, as I spoke about yesterday, uh, and, and, uh, so much more going forward. All right. We have very interesting new polling, which is as depressing as it is fascinating. The country mostly doesn't like the Trump agenda that they voted for. Now, of course, Republicans do generally like it. But if we wanted any more doubt about the supposed mandate that President-elect Trump has, it is coming strongly from this new polling from the Washington post. The Washington post just over the last few days, uh, looked at a number of different issues and opinions from voters, both on a partisan basis.

How do Democrats, independents and Republicans compare, but also the country as a whole. Let's take a look at some of these big issues that relate directly to Donald Trump's agenda. Only 42% of the country supports using the military to do the mass deportations that Trump has promised. Only 40% of the country supports firing the FBI director, Christopher Ray, which Donald Trump effectively did by saying, I'm going to nominate somebody else. Only 38% of the country supports the justice department investigating Trump's political rivals, the actual weaponization of the justice department. Only 32% of the country supports issuing pardons for the January 6th rioters who have been convicted. Only 24% support using a police using force to

stop anti-Trump protests. And then even the number is so small, I can't even see. I think it's like 8%. Only about 8% of the country supports putting reporters in jail for writing stories that Donald Trump dislikes. What are we to glean from this? Well, what we are to glean from it, uh, is that the policy really doesn't matter. That's something we've said before. You go and you talk to voters. We've done it at rallies. Luke Beasley has done it.

Adam Mockler has done it. Do you support this specific thing? Trump says he wants to do first reaction from half of them is to say Trump never said he wants to do that. Okay. Then we show them the post. We show them the video. Then they go, well, I don't know that he is really going to do it or that's not why I'm

voting for him. I'm voting for him because I just don't buy or accept or want or desire what Joe Biden and subsequently Kamala Harris were selling. But it is just a reminder that the election is not won and lost on policy. Now, I don't think that's a good thing. I, you know, there's two things. There's what would be best and healthiest for the country. And there's how the hell do we win? And if we are going to prioritize what's best for the country in the abstract, of course, it would be better for voters to decide based on here's what I want on taxes. Here's what I want on tariffs.

Here's my policy on education. Here's my policy on health care Here's my policy on healthcare, which candidate matches up with that. If, if that were the way people voted, Trump never would have won in the first place in 2016. And he certainly wouldn't have won a month and a half ago. On the other hand, if we want to win, we have to realize that just going out there and giving the same speech three times a day about your $50,000 tax deduction on business startup expenses, all stuff I agree with, that's not going to win you an election. And it didn't.

And it didn't. And so if anything, this poll is a reminder that there are going to be millions of Trump voters who are going to be on the other end of, I told you so. And we'll talk about that after the break. A bunch of these Trump voters are going to be hurt directly by the economic policy that's forthcoming. But if we want to do a sociocultural analysis, if we want to do an economic analysis, okay, that's valid. If we simply want to focus in on, wow, we got crushed. Even if Trump didn't get a mandate because most, most voters voted for someone else,

he's still one and they won the house and they won the Senate. If we want to prevent that from happening again, then the approach needs to be the polling reminds us. It doesn't matter if people agree with policy, if they are, I hate to use this term, if they're vibing with you in other ways, that's the path to victory. And hopefully it's something that the Democratic Party is going to come to understand. Everybody's got their version of the analysis of this sort. You know, the Pod Save America guys have one version. Okay. But on some level, there has to be a recognition that the, uh, uh, atmosphere that's created around the candidate, the community that's created around the candidate, the idea of the candidate matters way more than obviously Trump's not going to build a wall that Mexico is going to pay for.

Obviously Trump's not going to lower prices by putting tariffs on other countries, whether they understand it or not, whether they genuinely like it or not. At the end of the day, it did not matter. And if Democrats don't understand that, they are simply not going to win. Ever walk into a store and have absolutely no idea what wine to get. It happens to me every single time because I don't know anything about wine, which is why I love our sponsor. Naked wines, naked wines is a subscription service that just connects you directly to the world's finest independent

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The David Pakman show for better or worse depends on you to do what we do. As we talked about yesterday, the difference between independence as an entity, bias, neutrality, et cetera. And as we will continue to talk about on the Friday show, critical in understanding what makes us different from other media outlets. And one of the things that is different, and we will talk about this as well, is that we in an instant get the feedback when we are going the wrong direction. We get that feedback via email. We get that feedback via comments and we get that feedback via revenue as well. I'll talk about it a little later. If you want to support the work that we do, and I can't think of a more important time to do

it given everything that's going on and the failure of the progressive media ecosystem to really coalesce, uh, uh, to, to defeat Trump just six weeks ago, consider getting a membership at join pacman.com. We do an extra show every day for our members. We provide commercial free audio and video feeds for our members and so many other great things. Check it out at join pacman.com. You know that feeling when someone makes an obviously terrible decision, you get the clams casino at the wrong restaurant and you just know it's not a good idea. You warn them, but they just wouldn't listen today that someone is MAGA voters and the terrible decision is everything about Donald Trump's policies. This is going to be the most brutal. I told you so moment in political history. This is not about

gloating. This will be terrible. There is nothing to gloat about. Elections have consequences. They often tell us, and they absolutely do. And we talked about the Washington post poll earlier showing that most Americans disagree with all of Donald Trump's major policy points, but it doesn't really matter because he's still one. If you don't understand the policies you were voting for, you can't be surprised when they come back to bite you. But when they do, remember that we told you so.

Let's go through some of it. Tax cuts for the rich. Trump's 2017 tax law was sold as this massive tax relief for hardworking Americans. Trump bragged it's even bigger and better and more awesome than Reagan's tax cuts. But the people that really benefited were the billionaires and the corporations and people with certain business structures such that they got the qualified business income deduction. MAGA voters got the equivalent of a soggy coupon from Chick-fil-A while the ultra wealthy flew off to their private islands with their private jets on which they got beautiful tax deductions. Those tax cuts that Trump plans to double down on in his

next term drive up the deficit. How do we know? Because it's mathematically obvious and because it happened in 2017 and Republicans will use it as an excuse to say, look at this deficit. We need to cut social security. We need to cut Medicare, which we're going to talk about later or tomorrow. Your retirement savings are what's going to take a hit because of the very tax plan that they voted for, which will drive up the deficit and be used to justify cutting the social programs. How long are people going to have to work as a result of that? I don't know. That gets us to social security. And Aaron Ruppar wrote a great article about this and it's something that we've been discussing and we're going to continue discussing. Remember of course the China tariffs, they were going to bring back

American manufacturing. Instead we saw that that didn't happen during, happened during Donald Trump's first term. It's not going to happen during the second term. And instead, what those tariffs and tariffs on Canada and tariffs on Mexico are going to do is give us higher prices on washing machines, on groceries, on eggs, the famous eggs. Once again, the vote for America first they thought they were making is going to be an inflation first vote. Trump also campaigned on repeal and replace Obamacare, but spoiler, he managed only the

partial repeal by gutting the individual mandate. Medicaid expansions were gutted, rural hospitals were damaged or closed at record rates. And what will happen if Trump gets his way now, he only has concepts of a plan. He's had nine years to make a plan. We were supposedly two weeks away from the plan in August 2020. The concepts were very good as of the June debate. Okay. I don't know if he's going

to get it done, but if he does and you live statistically in a red state and you need an ER, you might need to drive 100 miles. And of course, as is always the case, because infrastructure is better in blue states, because health care is better in blue states, because education is better in blue states and on and on and on. It is the very red state voters that said, I love this crap that are going to be the ones that suffer. The same people who love to chant, make America great again and safe again and healthy again, that whole thing. They will slowly realize that their version of greatness, if they believe it's going to be presented by Trump, is going to include groceries that are more expensive, reduced social security benefits.

Maybe they're still figuring out whether they want to do that diminished health care, but they will not admit that they got duped. A handful of them will write. We interviewed four or five different people from Republicans against Trump who did come to their senses and acknowledge what's going on. The vast majority of them are going to double down. And in a way, this is the magic of Maga. This is the magical thinking of Maga. You're of course never wrong if you can find a left winger to blame it on. But in addition to that, Trump has sold them the idea that he is an everyman for the average

person, even though the reality of course, as we all know, is that he is very far from it. He doesn't really care about his voters. His policy priorities are what's good for my billionaire buddies. And he thinks that the coolest people are people even richer than he is like Elon Musk, at least for now, until that implodes and authoritarian strong men type leaders from around the world. It's going to be a very painful. I told you so this time around the holiday season is here and it's time to start baking delicious homemade favorites with family I told you so this time around. to the David Pakman show at David Pakman dot com. Croissants. Every time I talk about it, people write to me, David Croissants. I say, yes, I'm from Argentina. Of course, the croissants wild grains boxes are fully customizable to your

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Well, this is really, really great stuff to see. Matt Gaetz is now panicking. He thought that by resigning from Congress, he was going to prevent that ethics report from getting out. This is the ethics report that presumably would outline the results of the investigation into his supposed sex trafficking of underage girls, statutory rape and all sorts of other things he's been accused of. The idea was he resigns when Trump nominates him to be AG, even though the AG thing is not going to happen and he's now doing cameos and doing who the hell knows what, that the

report will be smothered and, uhothered and rejected publicly because he resigned. However, it has now been determined that the report is indeed going to be released. CNN reports in reversal, key house panel votes to release Matt Gaetz ethics report. This is really great news. And if you want to have any sense of what we are to expect, you need look only at Matt Gates tweet about this to see that he is very, very worried. And he's arguing it's all just a political attack. He put out on X quote, the Biden Garland DOJ spent years reviewing allegations that I committed various crimes. I was charged with nothing fully exonerated. Of course, remember that not being charged is not an exoneration.

There's a bunch of different reasons people might not be charged with a crime and none of them are an exoneration. Gates continues. Trump sounds like Trump. Gates continues. Trump sounds like Trump. Gates continues. Not even a campaign finance violation. And the people investigating me hated me. Then the very witnesses DOJ deemed not credible were assembled by house ethics to repeat their

claims absent any cross-examination or challenge from me or my attorneys. I've had no chance to ever confront any accusers. I've never been charged. I've never been sued. Instead, house ethics will reportedly post a report online that I have no opportunity to debate or rebut as a former member of the body. In my single days, I often sent funds. This is where it gets good. I often sent funds to women. I dated even some, I never dated, but who asked. Totally normal, right? You just send money to random women. I dated several of these women for years. I never had sexual contact with someone under 18. Any claim that I have would be destroyed in court, which

is why no such claim was ever made in court. My 30ies were an era of working very hard and playing hard too. It's embarrassing though, not criminal that I probably partied womanized drank and smoked more than I should have earlier in life. I live a different life now, but at least I didn't vote for continuing resolutions that fuck over the country. This guy's unhinged. And what he's doing here is he's desensitizing. OK, he's desensitizing and trying to frame in advance a report that based on what he's saying, why would he even say this unless the contents of the report were going to be orders of magnitude worse? So what he does, this is a classic PR strategy.

First, you criticize the process. You say, I'm a former member of Congress. No cross examination. They didn't talk to me. I didn't have an opportunity to respond. So you attack process. Secondly, you attack motive. These are people that hate me.

Of course, they're going to say horrible things about me. These people dislike me. And then number three, you sort of move the goalposts and you concede to some of the stuff, but you try to reframe it. Sure. I womanized. I partied. I drank. I smoked. I shouldn't have done it. That was an era that's different from the current era. And so that way, when the report finally comes out, you have already kind of predisposed people to the sort of stuff that's going to be in it. And then you can sort of try to nitpick the details. He seems absolutely terrified. I can't wait to see the report. What do you think is going to be in it? Let me know. Info at David Pakman dot com. All right. Aaron Ruppar wrote a really great piece in his publication Public Notice called The Upcoming

GOP Assault on Social Security. During 2016, you may recall that Donald Trump loudly mocked the Bush family and acted like he was going to steer the Republican Party in a completely new direction. But once Trump came to office, he served up the same old Republican recipe. It's the massive tax cuts for the rich, just like George W. Bush did. It blew a hole in the nation's finances. It sparked a voter backlash. It kicked off a string of Republican

losses starting in 2018. And Donald Trump right now is hinting that he's going to do it again with the second term, this time going after social security, maybe even Medicare, just like George W. Bush tried to do. Now, in March of this year, Donald Trump let slip on MSNB on CNBC rather that he just might be convinced to go after the social safety net. at least the perception is that there's not a whole lot of difference between what you think we should do with entitlements or non-discretionary spending and what President Biden is proposing. It's almost the third rail of politics. And we've got a what, a thirty three, thirty four trillion dollar total debt built up and very little we can do in terms of cutting spending. Discretionary is not going to help. Have you changed your outlook on how to handle entitlements, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid?

Mr. President, it seems like something has to be done or else we're going to be stuck at 120 percent of debt to GDP forever. So, first of all, there is a lot you can do in terms of entitlements, in terms of cutting and in terms of also the theft and the bad management of entitlements, tremendous bad management of entitlements, tremendous amounts of things and numbers of things you can do. So I don't necessarily agree with the statement. All right. So yes, entitlements may be something that Trump deals with. We then heard from Senator John Cornyn and John Cornyn said that he is going to make

tough decisions to figure out how to cut trillions from the budget. Let's remember what John Cornyn said, and then I'll tell you why the number trillions is so critical to figuring out what's really going on here. Joni Ernst has said we're going to do we're going to try to do a trillion, I think was her language on this. Can you commit here today that that Congress, the Senate side can cut a trillion dollars or even two trillion dollars? Well, we spend, the federal government spends

well in excess of $6 trillion. And we know that, again, the government's gotten bigger and bigger and bigger. And the reason why that's happening is primarily because we've been incurring more and more debt because Congress has tried to kick the can down the road on some of the hard decisions, which are where we should cut,

where we should seek efficiencies. But frankly, Marcia, Martha, we have run out of road to kick that can down. So I'm really excited about the opportunity we have now as a result of the confluence of all these events. So can you commit to cutting a trillion dollars, Senator? I'm going to give it my best shot. Yeah, of course he can't commit to everything, but as we've talked about before, when they talk about cutting a trillion or $2 trillion, remember that the entire discretionary budget is 2.5 trillion. So in order to do the 2 trillion or even, you know, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are

talking about cutting 2.5 trillion, you'd have to cut all or almost all of the discretionary budget. That seems very unlikely. And so that's how mathematically we get reoriented to. They must be planning to do something here with Social Security or Medicare. And then finally, another just sort of like hint about this. We heard from Ralph Norman that nothing is sacrosanct, including social security. After his meeting with the Doge co-chiefs, Musk and Ramaswamy, listen to this. Nothing is psychosomatic, nothing. They're going to put everything on the table. Okay. So they're making it very clear,

very, very clear that there is a real possibility. They do something on social security. Now we know how that ends. If they try to do it. We know from experience seniors revolt. Republicans tank at the polls. It happened to Reagan. It happened to Bush. The pattern is very clear. But the twist this time is that Trump's inner circle is going to be packed with more billionaires than ever before.

So there's sort of this sick. It's not really an irony. It's more of a tragedy. There's this sick tragedy where billionaires and desk decimillionaires are going to be saying, Hey, you know, the way to save is cutting 150 bucks from someone's social security who is expecting to get 1800 bucks a month. Well, they can get 1650 instead. That's how we're going to fix it. So it's not random wealthy folks. It's a cabinet stuffed to the gills with people who have more money than entire neighborhoods combined. And they want to fix the problems by stripping away programs that give Americans a little

bit of security. We're basically talking about billionaires going after what to them is pocket change. But to regular folks, it's an important part of their monthly budget. This is the Trump populist rhetoric kind of recycled with the same old tricks, except this time it's an even wealthier group of people that's calling the shots. I hope Democrats are ready to point this out and I hope Democrats are ready to stand firm and expose this for what it is. We've seen how messing with social security and Medicare plays out. It has never been a

winning move for Republicans. The counter is we have a Republican electorate today that is less willing than ever to actually punish Republicans for the things they do. So if Trump wants to run right into that buzzsaw, fine, let him do it. He's going to have a pack of billionaires in the passenger seat cheering him on. The question is, will there be repercussions? And I just don't know whether the answer is yes. Hey, this is really amazing. CNN's Manu Raju, who I have no problem with, by the way, he asked democratic Senator Durbin, uh, what about this proposal to raise your own salaries and Dick Durbin? I don't know if he was having a bad day or what. He turns it around on Manu Raju and goes, CNN's ratings are down 50% and yet you still get paid the same amount. How can that be? This is more than just a snarky comment. Let's take a look and then we'll talk about it.

Members are giving themselves a pay raise. Do you guys deserve a pay raise? Well, that's news to me. It's good news. You know, what has it been? 10 years or 14 years and no COA, no change at all? I think it's about time something's done. You support giving yourself some papers? How would I not know about the amount of papers? But I mean, people look at the performance of Congress and say, why should we give them more money?

What about the media? Think about that for a second. And we're not paid by public money. I know you're not, but I mean, half of your listeners are not there anymore. You're still getting the same paycheck? What's going on? Okay. So I want to break this down because this isn't just a single snarky comment. Dick Durbin's jab is pointing at something bigger, which is the kind of slow, undeniable

decline of corporate media, the rise of independent platforms, and also the destroyed ratings of CNN and MSNBC post election, which we've talked about. CNN's ratings have been in a free fall. They're not alone in this. The cable news industry as a whole has been losing viewers for years. Fox news is doing fine post election, but the big trend is down, especially with younger audiences. Now, why is that? Well, a bunch of different reasons. Number one, people don't consume media the way they used to. We don't wait for the 6 or 7 p.m. news to tell us what happened during the day. We've already gotten updates on social media,

YouTube podcasts, X, Blue Sky, etc. Another aspect of this is that there has really been a decline in trust. And we see that borne out in the polling where people don't feel as though they're going to get the best information from platforms like CNN and MSNBC. So while corporate media is hemorrhaging viewers, the business model has not really caught up because the executives, most of the on air talent, they have these multi-year contracts with cushy guarantees. So even if the ratings are down, the paychecks keep coming exactly the same. Now, meanwhile, independent media like us, we operate under a completely different system

for shows like ours. Revenue is directly tied to engagement. If today I do a bunch of crap stories, the videos today get no views and the videos today earn no money. If people, if I do three days in a row of that, where people are like, what is this guy talking about? Members start to go to my website and they start canceling memberships. There is an almost instant feedback and consequences. If the audience isn't happy with what we're doing, we know it right away because it will show up in the numbers today, not in three years when my agent goes to renegotiate with whoever is currently the president of CNN, who, by the way, I don't even know. I don't even know who it is at this point in time. This is not just about CNN. What we are seeing is a massive shift in how people are

consuming and integrating information because we've got this increasingly decentralized media landscape. Instead of a handful of cable giants that control the narrative, we now have thousands of independent creators. They're on YouTube, podcasts, streaming platforms, Twitch, kick, tick, tack, you know, et cetera. Um, and we build our relationships directly with the audiences when an independent news creator screws up. And I'm not even arguing that this is awesome. In fact, it can be stressful, but it's just the reality. When one of us screws up, we feel it immediately because we are called out by the audience and the revenue dips and we either fix it or we fade away. So Dick Durbin's comment

is it's sort of roast E, but it's more than just a roast. It's a sign that even politicians are recognizing the decline of traditional media's influence. Corporate media obviously still has reach without a doubt, but the total dominance is over. I mean, look, we, we opened the show today with the great news that our friends over at Midas touch secured one of the few major outgoing interviews with president Biden. That would not have forget about 10 years ago. I don't think that that would have happened even four years ago and corporate media people know it. I think members of the Senate increasingly know it. And this is why they are shifting to platforms that we've been cultivating for some time. Now, I try not to talk at people. I'm trying to have

a conversation with you. You're not just viewers. You're part of this community. And I think that that is very different than what people get when they turn on CNN. And there's Kate Baldwin, who I'm sure she's a really nice person, but she doesn't represent a connection with a community and an audience in the way that I think independent media producers do. So when you support shows like this one or others, that's not what this is about. But when you do, you're actually shaping the media landscape of the future. When you cancel cable, Fox News loses, I think it's three or four dollars a month per person for each one of you. When you sign up for a membership on my website, you shift those three

or four dollars to us us that has direct and real consequences. It's not some theoretical thing. Dick Durbin gets it. And uh, it was interesting that the, it was sort of a snap reaction, but it really gets here. One of our sponsors today is Zippix nicotine toothpicks. Zippix brings you a convenient alternative to smoking and vaping and the vape clouds, the ashtrays, the thing in your lip that people can see. I've seen that around. This is an easier and less messy way to curb the cravings. And you can use Zypix just about anywhere.

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older to order. That's ZIPPIX Toothpicks dot com. Use promo code Pacman 10 at checkout for 10% off. That's Pacman one zero. The info is in the podcast notes. As Trump's inauguration approaches, we're already seeing what the next four years are going to look like. A Trump campaign official said Pennsylvania election workers will face jail time for counting mail-in ballots with technical errors like missing dates, part of the right's attempt to sow election distrust and weaponize the courts. This story is almost exclusively being covered by right-leaning news outlets spinning the narrative to villainize the election workers so the public probably has a skewed perspective on what's really happening. That is, unless you use ground news, which lets you see every side to every story like this one. Ground news is an independent platform that exposes the biases of media outlets by showing

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that in a moment. This all starting related to a continuing resolution for a spending bill. The hill reports speaker Johnson speaks to musk after he suggests torpedoing spending bill. Mike Johnson said he spoke to Elon Musk about the 1500 page government funding deal after musk voiced his opposition to the bill and that the incoming department of government efficiency chief understands the impossible position the speaker is in. Musk posted to X, this bill should not pass and ever seen a bigger piece of pork. Now, in fact, if you look at Elon Musk's Twitter feed, it's endless, endless posts about this

lobbying hard for this spending bill to be torpedoed. Unless Doge ends the careers of deceitful pork barrel politicians, the waste and corruption will never stop. Endless retweets and posts about the spending bill is bad. The spending bill is bad. And you can, it doesn't even matter what they say. He calls it one of the worst bills ever written. He retweets Anna Paulina Luna and Joni Ernst and so many others kill the bill, cut the bill. It's irresponsible. It's all absolutely terrible.

It seems as though Musk one here is Maga Mike Johnson yesterday on Newsmax, clearly very proud of himself for being on a text chain with Elon and the vague. He keeps bringing it up. It seems like they told them what to do. And I was on a text chain last night with Elon and the vague. What a big boy. Doge because I'm super excited about that. And I said, guys, these are the necessary things.

They don't like spending either. They said, we know this is not you personally, Mr. Speaker. And we got to get through this. So everybody understands the necessity. It is not you personally, Mr. Speaker, and we got to get through this. So everybody understands the necessity. It is not palatable. This is the sausage making part of legislation that nobody likes, but we're governing and we'll we'll pick it up in January and start a brand new day for America. Is it really governing if a couple of unelected bureaucrats?

Oh, wait, I thought they were going to get rid of the unelected bureaucrats, Oh wait, I thought they were going to get rid of the unelected bureaucrats. If a couple of unelected bureaucrats like Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are texting you and telling you what to do, is that really governance? And it's critical to remember that people voted for Trump. Trump won without a doubt, but they didn't vote for the vague and they didn't vote for Elon Musk, neither of whom is subject to a confirmation hearing because of their advisory role rather than a cabinet role or other roles that require confirmation.

And so it's increasingly looking like they are in charge and Donald Trump ultimately also turning against this bill. And this is sort of a preview of what we are going to be facing over the next four years. They are going to govern as the opposite of everything they promised and said they were going to do. Donald Trump, the big boy alpha male at the helm. Actually, it's Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy who are increasingly directing what it is that they plan to do. And it is MAGA Mike Johnson taking orders from people. And by the way, speaking of MAGA Mike Johnson, we're going to talk about this on the on the bonus show, the bonus show where you want to make money. Yeah. Everybody else that makes money

to fund themselves is bad. We have now heard from Republican Congressman Tom Massey, who is the first to publicly say he's not going to vote for a Maga Mike Johnson as Speaker of the House in the new Congress. He's not going to do it. And so growing questions as to who is really in charge and this split. But they're killing the bill thanks to Elon. And I want to dig into that and talk a little bit more about it. Is Elon Musk in charge right now? Trump has caved to Elon Musk. MAGA Mike Johnson has caved to Elon Musk. Elon Musk is a private sector billionaire who's never won a single vote. once was working illegally in the United States

as an immigrant from South Africa without work authorization. Think about that for a second. And Elon is suddenly the de facto decision maker in Washington, DC, or at least that's what it looks like if you follow the latest chaos on Capitol Hill lawmakers. There's a Newsweek report which explains that there are lawmakers who refer to President Elon Musk and Donald Trump as the vice president. And there is every bit of reporting that suggests that everybody is towing the line for Elon Musk.

They're just so impressed with him and all of his money. I guess if you needed a clearer signal that we've stepped into that oligarchical kleptocratic kikis, the cratic era, it is that Elon Musk seems to be increasingly in charge of the Trump transition. Now the immediate issue, as we already talked about, has been this Republican backed spending bill which would have prevented a holiday season government shutdown. Musk ultimately convincing Trump to step in and blow the whole thing up as the as Trump did with the border bill.

And Elon Musk is insisting that it is better to shut down government rather than pass what he says is a horrible bill. Now we used to say, of course, the mostly millionaire members of the Senate aren't that concerned about keeping government open because they don't need the money. They don't need the services. They don't need the checks. They don't need the payments the way the average American does used to be. Millionaires don't need it, so they don't care. Now it is the richest guy in the world, maybe alongside Putin, doesn't care about keeping the government open.

What does he care about the plight of the average person? If the checks stop coming during a government shutdown, he does that decided it's not good. It contains 100 billion in disaster relief. It contains farmer support. It contains infrastructure investment stuff that would actually help Americans. And Elon Musk's demand is that there should be no legislation moving forward until Donald Trump is officially in the white house. Think about that. Unelected, unaccountable to voters, billionaire, effectively placing a lock on the legislative process. And Donald Trump, meanwhile, is just following Elon Musk's lead. Vice President-elect J.D. Vance publicly echoing Musk's stance and making it clear who's really

pulling the strings. Donald Trump posting a couple of troths where he says, quote, sounds like the ridiculous and extraordinarily expensive continuing resolution plus is dying fast. But can anyone imagine passing it without either terminating or extending the debt ceiling guillotine coming up in June? Unless the Democrats terminate or substantially extend debt ceiling now, I will fight till the end. This is a nasty trap set in place by the radical left Democrats. They are looking to embarrass us in June when it comes up for a vote. The people that extended it from September 28 to June 1 should be ashamed of themselves. It was political malpractice.

Also, the Communist Global Engagement Center, a project of crooked Hillary Clinton, should not in any way, shape, or form be extended, and the shielding of the very corrupt J6 unselect committee of political losers and thugs would be suicidal for any Republican approving it. Likewise, this is not a good time for Congress to be asking for pay increases. Hopefully you'll be entitled to such an increase in the near future when we make America great again. And then Trump finally starting with the threats quote, if Republicans try to pass a clean continuing resolution without all of the Democrat bells and whistles that will be so destructive to our country, all it will do after January 20th is bring the mess of the debt

limit into the Trump administration rather than allowing it to take place in the Biden administration. Any Republican that would be so stupid as to do this should and will be primaried. Everything should be done and fully negotiated prior to my taking office on January 20, 2025. This budding alliance is destined for disaster. Elon won this one. Elon got to Trump and Trump said, don't do it. Kill the bill. Elon doesn't want the bill. But both Trump and Musk have massive egos. We spoke about yesterday, this yesterday with Sasha Abramski. They have a distinctive sort of brand of strongman theatrics. And right now, Elon Musk's star power is overshadowing Donald Trump. And there are Democrats and even a few Republicans, as I said, saying Musk is in charge here. If there is one thing that Donald Trump

cannot stand, it's playing second fiddle. And eventually these two massive egos are going to collide. I don't think the question is if I think the question is when, and this is much bigger than two powerful guys fighting for the spotlight. This is a symptom of a much deeper problem. We're at a point where billionaires are shaping public policy with almost no input from the rest of us. It's just not even there's not even the possibility that what the people want is going to be considered. Musk's companies have benefited massively from federal support. And now from this lofty perch, Elon is telling Trump what to do. When you talk about public service, it's laughable to think that what these people are doing is public service. They are calling the shots on government spending

in the way that's best for them and using all of it and all of us as nothing more than political pawns. And we now have Musk in public view calling the shots. And it seems like Trump is mostly following along. This is not how a healthy democracy functions. Arguably, we don't have a healthy democracy. We have an oligarchy. Bernie Sanders has said it. Princeton study has found it. And it does just seems to be the way that things are right now. The question is whether this alliance will become uneasy and tear itself apart sooner than later. And of course, how much damage is going to be done in the process of that.

But this is this can't possibly end well when you consider the personality traits of Trump and the personality traits of Elon Musk. Now, on the bonus show today, speaking of internal conflicts within the Republican Party, the Supreme Court has decided, yes, we're going to hear the tick tock challenge to the potential ban. Trump is sort of softly coming down on the side of don't ban tick tock. But again, who's going to get his ear? Elon Musk, I assume would love for tick tock to be banned because it would help his platform X. If tick tock is banned, some of those people are going to go to X. Secondly, as I mentioned,

Congressman Thomas Massey has become the first Republican to say he's not supporting MAGA Mike Johnson for speaker. Where is Musk going to fall on this? Where is Trump going to fall on this? Again, the conflict is growing. And then finally, this is a funny story. Some of you wrote to me and said, how is Nancy Mace constantly on TV? She's on with Piers Morgan. She's on Newsmax. She's on Fox. She's on CNN.

How, how, why is she getting so much attention? Part of it is that she's paying six figures to a news booker just meant to get her booked on shows. That's the explanation. It's not that Mace is so fascinating and interesting. It's that she's dumping money for someone to go to every producer and say, please have Nancy on, have her on. It kind of seems to be working. We will talk about whose money it is, of course, that is being spent in that way. All of those stories and more on today's bonus show.

Sign up at join Pacman dot com. I'll see you then. And I'll be back tomorrow with the bonus show. Sign up at joinpacman.com. I'll see you then, and I'll be back tomorrow with the Friday show.