The David Pakman Show - 1/22/25: Immigration raids scheduled, national chaos explodes

Episode Date: January 22, 2025

-- On the Show: -- Jagmeet Singh, Leader of the New Democratic Party in the Canadian House of Commons, joins David to discuss Donald Trump's tariffs threats, how Canada should retaliate, and much more -- Exploring the tragic reality of "engineered incompetence" in this new Trump administration -- Donald Trump's immigration raids reportedly start today -- Donald Trump has blanket pardoned about 1500 January 6 rioters -- Within minutes of being sworn in, Donald Trump delivers absolute horror in the Oval Office -- Donald Trump works quickly to try to erase as much of what President Joe Biden did as possible during his first day as President in this second term -- Donald Trump confirms that Joe Biden was right to issue pre-emptive pardons when he claims that Nancy Pelosi committed crimes -- Elon Musk appears to give a Nazi salute during a post-inauguration event -- CNN attempts to sanewash Donald Trump, clearly desperate to maintain access to him -- A MAGA caller to a Las Vegas radio station wildly attacks David Pakman -- Drudge Report prominently promotes David's editorial article about the new tech oligarchy under Trump -- Vivek Ramaswamy already appears to be getting pushed out of Donald Trump and Elon Musk's DOGE -- Nobody can handle being wrong anymore, and it's a real problem -- David explains that he wants Donald Trump's presidency to succeed, for the good of the country -- On the Bonus Show: White House puts diversity staff on paid leave, and much more... 👩‍❤️‍👨 Try the Paired App FREE for 7 days and get 25% OFF at https://paired.com/pakman ⚠️ Ground News: Get 50% OFF their unlimited access Vantage plan at https://ground.news/pakman ✉️ StartMail: Get 50% OFF a year subscription at https://startmail.com/pakman 💻 Sponsored by Aura: Try it free for 2 weeks! See if your data is safe at https://aura.com/pakman 🛡️ Incogni lets you control your personal data! Get 60% off their annual plan: http://incogni.com/pakman 🧠 Try Brain.fm totally free for a month at https://brain.fm/pakman -- Become a Member: https://davidpakman.com/membership -- Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/davidpakmanshow -- TDPS Subreddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/thedavidpakmanshow -- Pakman Discord: https://davidpakman.com/discord -- David on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow -- Leave a Voicemail: (219)-2DAVIDP

. welcome everybody. Yesterday we got through the first full day. The sun came up and then it's set of Donald Trump's second term. And while much of the chaos and the dysfunction of this administration might look like incompetence as we go through the next four years. I think it's important to understand that this is often part of a deliberate strategy and that is how I want to start the show today. A multi time guest on this program, Ruth Ben Ghiat calls this engineered incompetence, which she defines as appointing unqualified

people to powerful positions because indeed they are unqualified in order to weaken those institutions, in order to consolidate power, in order to prioritize loyalty over expertise. And that is exactly the strategy that Trump is employing in this second term. And that is also a hallmark, we have to admit, of authoritarian regimes. And it was also evident during Donald Trump's first term. Let's talk about the first term first and then we'll talk about this second term. Think back Betsy DeVos as secretary of education, no business being in that role. And what did she do? She actively undermined public schools and protections for student borrowers.

Her lack of experience wasn't a bug. It was a feature designed to weaken trust in public education by putting someone totally incompetent in charge of it, which will make it worse. We have other examples from Trump's first term, Scott Pruitt at the EPA completely dismantled environmental regulations rather than protecting the environment, which is one of the responsibilities of the person in that role. And that was completely in line with Donald Trump's agenda, which is let's prioritize industry profits over public health.

The incompetence was engineered to be to Trump's advantage. William Barr at the department of justice as attorney general completely reshaped the justice department into Donald Trump's personal legal team. And what it focused on was let's protect Trump's allies. Let's target Trump's enemies rather than simply upholding the rule of law. These are not isolated incidents. They were not isolated during Donald Trump's first term. And if we zoom out a little bit and look more historically as Ruth Ben does in her article,

authoritarians historically have used engineered incompetence to achieve similar goals. I'll give you some examples. Benito Mussolini in Italy sidelined and demoted officials who were capable. Air Force Minister Italo Balbo, for example, when they became too well known or too competent, Mussolini replaced Balbo with loyalists who did not pose any threat to Mussolini's authority. Putin in Russia is a great example, surrounds himself with cronies. Their primary qualification is loyalty, and they are meant to ensure that institutions like the judiciary and the media serve Putin rather than the public.

We look at a Turkey for example, and Erdogan who purged thousands of experienced civil servants after a failed coup attempt and replaced them with political loyalists. They crippled institutions, they concentrated power. It's project 2025 to a T. Uh, and Donald Trump's second term is doubling down on this strategy. The appointments, Pete Hegseth, secretary of defense. Hegseth is a guy who completely lacks any experience running organizations, especially organizations as vast and complex as the department of defense. Yes, he has these misogynistic views of opposing women in combat and that's going to discourage women from enlisting.

It'll worsen the recruiting crisis in the military. Sure. Uh, but the big picture here is that you look at Hegseth credentials promoting conspiracy theories, disinformation, false claims about the 2020 election, false claims about January 6th. All of it threatens the military, uh, as an institution that relies on intelligence and non-partisanship and instead we'll push it towards partisanship. And that is a mirror of other authoritarian tactics to weaken national security and centralized power. This is always dicey. But you look at Hitler. Hitler would frequently promote ideological zealots like Himmler to important positions and the competent professionals are sidelined. And this allows them to retain

control. Orban in Hungary has eroded the judiciary and the media by replacing experts with loyalists. You get it. I think this is the same approach of Trump, especially in this second term. Now then we have to look at Trump's second term ambitions and those just further illustrate the risk of this engineered incompetence. Trump wants to pull the military in to involve the military in mass deportations of migrants. We're going to talk about that in a moment. Military tribunals for political opponents like Liz Cheney, who, by the way, fortunately for

her, has been pardoned by Joe Biden Joe Biden, uh, looking at claiming territories like Greenland or the Panama canal or Canada. These are not only legally dubious ideas, but they're reckless and they're dangerous and they only become more dangerous when you have unqualified leaders like Pete Hegseth and then you zoom out and you see Trump's cabinet more generally. The people who are being put in place in this cabinet are not equipped to run their respective departments. They are there to serve the Trump agenda. So the bigger picture is clear. Trump isn't simply choosing people because he's bad at hiring, although he probably is. This engineered incompetence is a tool that's used

to erode institutions that protect democracy and replace them with mechanisms that ensure loyalty. And so now in Trump's second term, we have to understand that the chaos and the dysfunction is part of the plan. We can't simply point to it and go, it's so chaotic. It's so dysfunctional. Yes, it is. But we're the only ones who care about that. It's part of the strategy for MAGA education, environmental protection, national defense. The point is weaken the institutions and centralize power around Trump. We're looking at it through the American lens because we're here in the United States, but this is a playbook used by autocrats around the world and over time to protect democracy. We have to expose the strategy for what it is. It's not just

Hegseth's bad because he's incompetent. It's the whole idea is to put people who are too incompetent. They know they're in over their heads. And so what do they do? They go, I'll do whatever Trump wants me to do. So we have to stay vigilant. We have to hold the strategy accountable for what it is. And then we have to do whatever we can to ensure that the damage caused isn't permanent because we've seen where this road leads in other countries. Now let's talk about the immigration aspect. Ladies and gentlemen, the raids are starting now. Donald Trump's administration,

uh, led by borders are Tom Homan is launching one of the most aggressive deportation programs in American history right now. The initial targets are reported to be Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York. They are calling them targeted enforcement operations. We are talking about ice raids, immigration raids. Now, Tom Homan says the focus will be public safety threats, meaning people who are here illegally, but are criminals. They are gang members. They have committed violent crimes. That's the way they're sort of sugarcoating it. But it has been made very clear that no undocumented person is off the table. Spouses are not off the table. Co-workers, roommates, children, everybody here is set to be targeted.

And despite the rhetoric from Trump and Homan and others being, this is about public safety. The data consistently show that both documented and undocumented immigrants commit crimes at significantly lower rates than natural born Americans. We would do better if the goal is to reduce crime by picking random American born citizens and saying, you've got to get out statistically. I'm obviously not suggesting we do that, but the point here is the narrative of immigrants as a threat is just not backed by the facts. Now Donald Trump and his allies are publicizing the raids. Homan is stating that the, uh, there will be no apology in enforcing immigration law

with deportation flights expected to begin immediately. Raids expected to begin today. Donald Trump has dismissed potential lawsuits saying, bring it on. And these raids are going to have devastating consequences, not just for the immigrant families themselves, but for the U S economy, which Donald Trump and his acolytes claim to care about industries like construction, restaurants and agriculture, as well as many other service sectors heavily rely on documented immigrant labor and on undocumented immigrant labor. It's against the law. It is what we have

and it will affect the economy. Now, many Trump voters supported these policies. They may not realize how much their own everyday lives depend on the people that are going to be targeted. Now, the food supply chain, home building, other industries, these are powered by immigrant workers, documented and undocumented. So you look at a city like Chicago where hundreds at least of arrests are planned. Immigrant communities are now acutely living in fear. Families are being coached on their rights, how to respond if ICE agents come to your door, organizing phone trees to start calling and warning others about ice activity, sanctuary spaces like churches once considered safe havens.

And even the right liked it. The right said, no, you never go into a church. No, they may no longer be off limits for arrests under Donald Trump's new policies. And so you've got community leaders urging immigrants know your rights. Be prepared for these raids. Democratic leaders in Illinois and in Chicago are standing firm. They're saying we are not backing down from our sanctuary commitments, no matter what Trump does. So this is not an operation that is about immigration enforcement. This is about fear. This is about control. This is about a political agenda that

scapegoats immigrants for broader societal issues. And it was sold as a way to restore law and order. But the human fallout and the economic fallout are going to be severe. Now, I do think it's important for me to mention, I don't want to pretend that nobody likes this. Trump's deportation plans highlight the impact of elections. Trump said he was going to do this and now it looks like he's going to deliver on it. Many of the things Trump ran on, he's not going to deliver on. And so I, I don't want to be a hypocrite in the sense that a lot of people want these immigration rates. They may regret them once they see how it impacts their local and broader economies, but that's a different story.

And we have to remember as people who are against this, that yes, it's horrible, but Trump ran on it. And so doing the thing he ran on is going to please at least initially the people that said I'm voting for Trump because I do like this. And there were people who felt that Kamala Harris was not taking undocumented immigration seriously in the way that they wanted her to take it. And they said, this is one of the reasons I voted for Trump. It was in the top three issues in terms of election issues for voters in 2024.

And so now Trump is at least it appears going to do this thing that he promised. Now, will he do it to the extent that he promised? Are they going to do the camps? We just don't know yet. But the news is that the raids start today. And don't forget that millions of people said, I want these raids. I'm voting for Trump. Now we will see what the fallout is. Within minutes of taking office, Donald Trump committed his first atrocity. No, not having six Diet Cokes in a row, although he may have Donald Trump pardoned roughly 1500 January 6th rioters, anarchy, chaos, certainly not law and order. Here is video of Donald Trump doing it, handed a bunch of executive orders and he did it. And it's important to remember that elections have consequences relating to events that occurred on January 6th, 2021.

Okay. And how many people is this? I think this order will apply to approximately 1500 people, sir. So this is January 6th. These are the hostages, approximately 1500 for a pardon. Full pardon. By hostages, he means alleged criminals, just so everybody knows, many of whom have been convicted by the law and order system that Trump claims to back. Full pardon. We have about six commutations in there where we're doing further research. Okay. Nice to see you again. Boy this is awkward.

This is a big one. Anything you want to explain about this? We hope they get him. We hope they come out tonight, frankly. There you go. If you believed for a second that Donald Trump backs the blue and supports our police. Now, if you believed for a second that one of this man's guiding principles was law and order or even law and auto, as he has previously said, very much not the case with a blanket pardon of traitorous insurrectionists, many of them violent.

And this is the start. Listen, guys, three years, 364 days to go. There was a reason yesterday's coupon code was it will end soon because, listen, we're one day closer. I don't know what else to tell you. And somebody who really likes this news is the QAnon shaman. Remember this convicted gentleman, Jake and jelly Chansley, the QAnon shaman known of course, for his interview on this show that went completely bonkers and also being a January 6th rider, he put out an excretion on X where he said, I just got the news from my lawyer. I got a pardon, baby.

Thank you, President Trump. Now I'm going to buy some motherfucking guns. OK, that is who has now been pardoned and is ready, I guess, based on his understanding of the law. And you may be shocked to hear that the QAnon shaman is not a legal expert, but apparently has been advised by his lawyer that he can now own and buy guns. What a world we live in. And it is only the beginning as part of this initial flurry of executive orders that now president Donald J. Trump signed.

I know it's vomitous. I know you probably are tasting something a little foul that just came up in your throat as you heard me say it. Trump delivering absolute horror, horror, as Bernie would say, within minutes of arriving into the Oval Office, not only reconfirming his incompetence, but also his desire to have as his soul and primary prism of how do I decide what to do? wrongly suggesting that Spain is one of the BRICS countries and almost condescendingly telling the reporter, do you not know about bricks? Well, it sounds like Trump doesn't know about it because Spain is not one of the BRICS nations. Thank you, sir.

What can we expect of the countries in NATO that spend the least amount of money like Spain, France below the five percent? Spain is very low. And yet are they a BRICS nation? They are not. They're a BRICS nation. Spain, you know, the BRICS nation is. This would be when a reporter should say, Sir, Spain is not a BRICS nation.

That's Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, BRICS. You'll figure it out. But and if the BRICS nations want to do that, that's OK. But we're going to put at least a 100 percent tariff on the business they do with the United States. You know, Spain is going to get a 100 percent tariff because it's a BRICS nation that Trump doesn't believe is paying its fair share. The only little wrench in that is that Spain of course is not a bricks nation.

Now Trump was then asked, would you consider sending troops into Mexico? And Trump goes, it could happen. It could happen. It could happen. The truly anti-war Trump, whose DNI will be the truly anti-war Tulsi Gabbard goes, yeah, troops in Mexico could happen. President Trump, cartels are now going to be seen as foreign terror organizations. Would you think about ordering U.S. special forces into Mexico to take them out? Could happen. Stranger things have happened. about ordering US special forces into Mexico to take them out. Could happen.

Stranger things have happened. Antiwar Trump says that troops may go into Mexico and then really sort of the bottom of the barrel moment. That should be a wake up call to everybody who hasn't yet been awoken by Trump's self centered lens through which he sees everything. Trump asked a good question. Why'd you change your mind about Tik TOK? Right?

I mean, he was calling for its ban years ago and now he says, I saved it. And Trump says, well, I got a chance to use the thing and it was great. US essentially would be paid for doing that. Half of the value of Tiktok. Would there be a private sector owner? Could be, could be a private sector owner? Could be. Could be a lot. Tell you what, every rich person has called me about TikTok.

You wanted to block TikTok. Why did it change your mind? Because I got to use it. And remember, TikTok is largely about kids, young kids. If China is going to get information about young kids, I don't know. I think, to be honest, I think we have bigger problems than that. Understand what Trump is saying. He goes, listen, fine. China's going to get all of this data about young children in the United States. We got bigger problems and I used it and I liked it and I think, I think it helped me help me win. Oh, okay. Wow. Incredible analysis, sir. But you know, when you take a look at telephones that are made in China and all

the other things that are made in China, military equipment made in China, um, tick tock, I think tick tock is not their biggest problem, but there's big value in tick tock. If it gets approved, if it doesn't get approved, there's no value. So right. So now Trump is like, I kind of hold the keys to how much Tick Tock is worth. If I allow Tick Tock in the United States, it's worth a lot. If I don't allow it, the United States operation of Tick Tock is worth very little. Trump loves holding the power of how much money other people get to have. Trump then presented with another one of these executive orders. He's like, what's this one? It is a withdrawal from the World Health Organization. Anybody surprised to see that given that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is going to be heading up HHS

and I can live with most of them. They took a very safe route and they don't have any bad ones up there. Withdrawing from what is withdrawing from the World Health Organization's. Oh, that's a good one. That's a good one. Trump likes that one in minutes, folks. This guy humiliating the United States. And then finally, arguably a major economic policy announcement. Trump says February 1st will be the day where the big tariffs start on Mexico

and Canada. Well, we're thinking in terms of 25 percent on Mexico and Canada because they're allowing vast numbers of people. Canada's very bad abuser, also vast numbers of people. Canada's a very bad abuser also. Vast numbers of people to come in and fentanyl to come in. When do you think you would enact it? I think February 1st. Are you planning to do the dose of that? I think we'll do it February 1st. 25% on both, sir? Sir, on each. 25% on each. We get avocados, tomatoes, bell peppers, beautiful squash, cukes, strawberries, blueberries, mangoes, limes, corn, shrimp, tilapia, and so much more from Mexico. It's going to be more expensive. You're not going to see those 25 cent whatever's thanks to Trump's tariffs from Canada. We get wheat, barley, canola, beef, pork,

cheese, butter, lobster, salmon, snow crab. If you're expecting your snow crab to go down in price, folks, it's not going to happen. It's not going to happen. No, this is going to be very bad. It's going to be very, very expensive for a lot of people. And with just a few cartoonishly big signatures with a Sharpie hours after being sworn in, Trump is wreaking havoc. Let's see whether his supporters like it a few months from now when they're paying who knows what for avocado and if they eat vegetables, I don't know, canned fish, smoked salmon, it's going to be ugly. And then Trump is going to have to figure out who to blame it on. Probably

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podcast notes. It's important to remember that with administrations like the current one, not doing things, canceling programs, eliminating government activity is seen as a feature rather than a bug. No matter what you're doing, getting the government to just stop doing stuff is seen as a victory. And Donald Trump is quickly erasing everything, rescinding, canceling, deleting and taking down. I'm going to give you just a little bit of a tour through this stuff in the, in the nascent hours of Trump's second term. First and foremost, a government website offering reproductive health information has gone offline. This is a website, reproductive rights dot org. It was offline as of a moment ago when I checked it and numerous articles are reporting, kiboshed

by the Trump administration. The Spanish version of the White House website is gone. The White House's Spanish Twitter account is gone. The white house's Spanish Twitter account is gone. Donald Trump has rescinded president Biden's executive order to lower prescription drug costs for Americans on Medicare and Medicaid that has been rescinded. Trump claims he's going to have a different way of achieving the same thing. Again, it's the same thing he did with Obama. Even if he agrees with the goal of a program, he wants to do it himself, except he often doesn't. As we spoke about already, Donald Trump withdrew from the World Health Organization. And in addition to this, Donald Trump shut down

the immigration app CBP one, which quite literally dashed the hopes of migrants who had already set up asylum interviews in the app. Trump deletes it and now those folks status is immediately in jeopardy. These are very much signs about what is to come. And it's critically important to understand that a lot. There are sort of two buckets and both are very important. There's the stuff Trump promises during the campaign, which he's not going to do. And we will track that list. Of course, it's only day one and a half of this administration. But then there's

also the stuff Trump promised to do, which he's going to do, which a lot of people didn't believe he was going to do. And that is also an important category. As we see a lot of these things getting out of the WHO, what the hell, why would anyone do that? Yeah. Trump said he was going to do that. Trump said he didn't like the WHO. He's got all sorts of beliefs about COVID and other things. And now he's going to do it. And of course it's a global humiliation, but that's what people voted for. You can't be surprised when he actually does some of the stuff he said he's going to do. Um, uh, the tariffs that he now says February 1st are going to go into effect. We'll see if they do. They may not, but people now saying, wait a second, if he tariffs Mexico is if he tariffs Canada, our groceries are going to go up. He ran on bringing grocery

prices down. What's going to happen? Well, he's already hedged on that. He's already over the last month been saying, you know, bringing prices down is actually a pretty tough thing to do. And not only are prices unlikely to come down based on the policy Trump's saying he's going to implement, those grocery prices are going to be going up. Trump told us he was going to do the things that he did. Oh, he pardoned the rioters. What a shock. No, it's not a shock.

He's been playing coy and alluding to the fact that he was going to do that for a year or longer at this point in time. If you were surprised at this point, you either got bad information or you simply were too naive to believe that he would do this stuff. And now we're going to have to live with the consequences and they are going to be very, very ugly. As many of you know, I am not big on presidential pardon powers. And at the same time, if you needed any more proof that Joe Biden was right to issue these preemptive pardons to his family, to Liz Cheney, to Anthony Fauci, to everybody, if you needed any more proof of it, it's what Donald Trump said within an hour, within 90 minutes of being sworn in as president

going after Nancy Pelosi and saying Nancy Pelosi is guilty of criminal offenses, a claim that he makes completely without evidence in his sort of confused and swollen orange way. But when you see Trump say now that he's going to be controlling the FBI with his FBI director, Justice Department, et cetera, now that he's made clear for years, we will be targeting my political enemies for revenge. He brings up that Nancy Pelosi committed crimes. This reinforces that even if you don't like presidential pardon power, which I don't,

is there any more correct time to use one by Joe Biden than when Trump is saying stuff like this and soldiers? She knows that she admitted it on tape that her daughter made. She's a videographer or whatever you call her, which I'm glad she is. So she can't be in good stead with Nancy. But Nancy said it was my responsibility as she's leaving the Capitol she said it was and it was she's in charge of security at the Capitol but I offered them up to 10,000 soldiers

even more one time I said more as many as you need but you needed four or five hundred four or five, ten thousand that would be more than the number of people there by lot but we offered her 10,000 think of it, 10,000 soldiers. In other words,

J6 wouldn't be J6. There would have been no J6. All right. You get it. Trump coming up, concocting the story that thanks to Nancy Pelosi, who, of course, was not in charge of capital security, the January 6th riots were not prevented, but they could have been. But he's also pardoned the rioters. So he's sort of saying, like, it's Nancy Pelosi's fault, criminally so, that the riots took place. But also, I kind of don't really think the rioters did anything wrong. So I'm pardoning all of them. If you're wondering why did Joe Biden issue the preemptive pardons, this is exactly why. And Trump actually weighing in on the pardon specifically,, why on earth would Biden pardon these people? But I was really going to talk about the

the level of, you know, what's going on. Why are we doing this? Why are we trying to help a guy like Milley? Why are we doing Milley? He was pardoned. What he said, terrible what he said. We're doing Millie. Why are we helping some of the people? Why are we helping Liz Cheney? I mean, Liz Cheney is a disaster. She's a crying lunatic and crying, crying Adam Kinzinger. He's a. And of course, the reason is that Joe Biden seems to have accurately assessed that Trump is likely to go after those people. Why did Biden come to that conclusion? Because it's what Trump has been saying for years and it's what his

incoming FBI director, Kash Patel has been saying for years. We are believing that they are going to at least try to do these things and therefore Joe Biden is acting appropriately. Donald Trump, despite having won, he won. Right. He says that if it weren't for election fraud, he would have won California. He just can't stop telling these lies. You know, places like California, we did great. But when they send out like 38 million ballots, nobody knows where the hell they're sending them.

And then they come pouring back the whole thing. You know, they passed a law in California that if you work in an election bureau and if you so much as ask for a voter ID, if you say, Sir, ma'am, could I please look at your voter ID? They have the right to put you in jail. You're a criminal. Can you believe that? There's only one reason that happens. They want to cheat. So they had it where voter ID wasn't accepted. But now if you even ask for this is seriously a bill that was just signed, passed in their legislature and it was signed. And I think when

we get things cleaned up and we get back to a little bit of normalcy, I'm going to ask the speaker to really get involved because I think we would have won the state of California because he would not have. There is no chance in hell that Trump would have won California. And then Trump continuing this incoherent rant to the point at which MSNBC just pulls away. The audience is completely silent. It's the same old Trump folks ranting so incoherently that the crowd is motionless and TV networks start pulling away.

So I wanted to talk about that, but all of that stuff got deleted. And the reason it got deleted is they were all caught in lies. You know, Secret Service testified and they said it didn't happen. Actually, the two guys were very embarrassed. They're suffering because their friends are saying, did Trump really do that to you? But they gained a whole new. If you're lost now, everybody's lost. Respect for me. But it was just make believe stuff. I knew a lot of make-believe stories made up. So rather than suffer the wrath, like the story with Nancy Pelosi, I offered a 10,000 soldiers. Donald Trump is giving unscripted remarks in Emancipation Hall after his inaugural address, sort of giving.

I love the idea that you have to clarify that these are unscripted remarks because they're going completely off the rails. I'm so sorry, my friends. It's going to be a very, very long four years. And we are working with everyone we can in the House and in the Senate that still has some semblance of sanity remaining to try to build a robust opposition. I'm going to have more information about that for you soon, but it is going to be a long one. That's for sure. Did Elon Musk give a Nazi salute at a Trump victory party in Capital One Arena? The video is going ultra viral.

I'm going to play it for you. And there were broader concerns that Elon Musk was on something as he was extremely glitchy during the entire inauguration and then behaving bizarrely after the fact. Here is Elon Musk with up. It's a pretty clear Nazi salute. Now, whether he meant it as such is what I guess is up for debate. Let's take a look. And I just want to say thank you for making it happen. Thank you. There you go. Really quite a moment, quite a moment there. And unquestionably, a Nazi salute, whether that was his intent is something we can certainly debate. Again, many, many questions as to whether he was on something. And of course, this is not apropos of nothing. This is because

of even Musk's own admissions that he does use ketamine in various scenarios. We have no evidence that he was on it yesterday, but here is some of his continued bizarre behavior. There he is. Okay. Um, there was an interview with PBS news correspondent, Stephanie Cy. She was asked, what did the salute seem like inside the arena? And she took a very, um, neutral, I guess I would say approach about it. And Stephanie, there was a now controversial moment earlier today where Elon Musk gave these back to back gestures that people are saying mimicked a Nazi salute. You see it there. Elon Musk has not directly addressed this,

but he has appeared to edit out that gesture from the video that he posted on X, the platform he, of course, I wonder why, owns. Help us understand what transpired. Yeah, and it's interesting that Elon Musk does not appear to be on the podium with the president now, even though he was with him throughout the day. I don't know if that was scheduled or not. We did see Mr. Musk during that speech and we saw the gesture. I don't know whether the audience here interpreted it the way it was subsequently. We're not sure whether the complete and total MAGA crowd is willing to acknowledge what he did.

They didn't seem to acknowledge it. Interpreted on social media. It certainly appears to be a Heil Hitler. Yeah, I love that. It certainly seemed to me as a reporter like musk gave two heil hitlers but you know it's just the people here in the arena didn't really react though you know what he was saying uh we went back to the transcript and i remember him saying it is he was saying my heart goes out to you so he was gesturing to his chest and then of course

there was the hand straight out, which harkens back, of course, for a lot of folks to the Nazi salute. But we don't see that reaction here. There wasn't like a gasp or a pause or or any. It's funny, the people who couldn't care less whether Musk made a Nazi salute, they weren't shocked and appalled by it. So you know, interpret that however you will. Even, um, reinforcement of the, of the gesture. So it's a little hard to tell from where we sat. Yeah.

Um, finally the ADL also put out a statement about this, the anti def defamation league where they said, quote, this is a delicate moment. It's a new day and yet so many are on edge. Our politics are inflamed and social media only adds to the anxiety. It seems that Elon Musk made an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm, not a Nazi salute. But again, we appreciate people are on edge in this moment. All sides should give one another a bit of grace. Oh dear God. Perhaps even the benefit of the doubt and take

a breath. This is a new beginning. Let's hope for healing and work toward unity in the months and years ahead. Yeah, I mean, OK, that's the ADL's perspective. And I'll be honest, I don't know why on earth the ADL is couching it this way. I think we all know what we saw, whether his intent was to say, uh, Heil Hitler, or it was just a reaction that is sort of ingrained in him that this is how he salutes the crowd or whatever. It's absolutely bonkers stuff. And certainly a preview of what we are going to be dealing with for three years, 364 days. The same washing and normalization has taken no time to start with this new Trump administration. I've got one clip for you and then I want to talk about what we are to expect. Here is Jake Tapper on CNN referring to the Trump Vance campaign of 2024 as very disciplined and within the

realm of normalcy. I'm struggling to remember that part. Take a listen before I bring in Daniel Dale to do some fact checking on some of the things he said that were not true about January 6th, 2021. I think it's important to point out that the Trump-Vance campaign in 2024 was a very disciplined campaign and did a decent job of depicting President Trump as somebody who obviously had strong feelings on the border, somebody who had strong feelings on inflation and a disruptor, but somebody who was within the realm of normalcy, which is not obviously what we just heard from the new president there in Emancipation Hall.

There are about 100 things wrong with this, and it all goes to really this desire to, like, keep access. So so first of all, Jake Tapper is correct that the speech that Trump delivered in this room after being sworn in was completely off the wall nonsense. He's right about that. But where he and so many of the other media outlets are going wrong is that they are framing it as a departure from the campaign. The campaign was disciplined. It was within the realm of normalcy.

He expressed strong feelings about inflation and the border and crime and blah, blah, blah, blah. And then now he's, you know, he's up there and he's telling lies. It's such a surprise that this happened. We all know that the campaign number one was not disciplined, right? I mean, they said they're reading the cats, they're eating the dogs. And then when questioned about it, JD Vance goes, Oh, we're going to make up stories if we need to. We'll, we'll, we'll just fabric fabricate these new stories. If we have to, to get people to pay attention to the stuff we want them to pay attention to. That's not disciplined in any way. Trump, you know, viciously attacked

primary opponents, bird brain, Nikki Haley, this, that he, um, uh, sort of played to the most extreme elements of the MAGA base. It was not a disciplined campaign. It was not within the realm of normalcy. So then there's really two issues. One is if you had covered the campaign accurately, Jake or CNN as not disciplined, not normal, you would then realize, oh, the speech that he gave yesterday and the stuff he said in the oval office and in statuary hall and in the inauguration speech, it's exactly what we would have expected from the campaign that he run, that he ran only because they already tried saying washing the campaign. Are they now in this position to have to say, well, we're going to have to fact check some of that stuff because it is filled with lies very different than the campaign.

Now, this is only now because you've got to create some kind of explanation as to why you normalize the campaign. And now, in retrospect, you've got to figure out, oh, this is really wacky stuff. Here's the bigger picture. This is going to happen extensively during the next two and four years. I'm already seeing, not going to name anybody right now, but I'm already seeing more folks than you would normally see do this, realizing if I am simply in the opposition to Trump, I will have no access starting to play coy and saying stuff like what Jake Tapper is saying and it's all out of a desire to appear balanced when Trump is totally whacked out. Why would you

be neutral in reporting that you should report it objectively and accurately, which is this guy's whacked. You're going to you're going to see it a lot. Now, of course, we're not doing that. As I told you, I hope Trump succeeds as president for the betterment of this country. And I say that about every single president. I said it about Trump the first time around. We are not going to be softening on Trump and excusing the wacky things that he does, dangerous things that he does, negative things that he does, um, in order to try to get access. We're not going to get access. That's it. It's just like, we're on the out. I don't expect to be invited back to the white House for a long time. If for any reason I was invited, I would go and then my reporting wouldn't change. But there are, I think, other media outlets who don't want to be on the outs for four

years. And CNN seems to be one of them. And they are starting to ramp up the normalization and the same washing. It's very ugly stuff. All right. This is very interesting. A mega caller called a Vegas radio show and brutally attacked me. But then it was brilliantly turned right around on him and his dear orange leader, Donald Trump.

This is super interesting. Let's take a look at it. So this is not a show I was familiar with until today. My understanding is that this is Brian Shapiro on Las Vegas radio station, KSHP, and he received a caller who was a MAGA guy and basically blamed me and Luke Beasley, I guess, for like Kamala Harris losing or something like that. Let's listen to it together. But Brian does a very good job of, of really exposing the vapid nature of this guy's attack. Check it out.

Hey, Brian, I just wanted to tell you before one of your callers just a couple of callers ago, you know, he mentioned Luke, excuse me, Luke Beasley and David Pakman and everything. And look, I mean, I'm a conservative. So my point is, is like, I'm glad that the Democrats lost the election. But I also was able to see so many reasons, so many things that they did wrong as to why they lost. And I'm not saying that in terms of like my own personal bias. What I mean is like these people like David Pakman, Luke Beasley and a lot of these Democrat, you know, TikTok commentators and have their YouTube channels. They've earned this reputation of constantly talking down to people and acting

like they're I mean, David Pakman is known to just be this very elitist person. OK, I love that. I'm known for that. That's the thing I'm known for. Hold on, David. David, I want to get I promise I'll give you a chance to finish. You don't like people that talk down to people. You don't like David Pakman.

By the way, I don't think David Pakman talks down to people. I think he's actually very respectful. Who do you think talks down to more people david pacman or donald j trump i i agree that trump talks down no no that wasn't my question no but hold on that wasn't my question who do you think who do you think talks down to people more luke beasley and david pacman or donald j trump who by the way is the president of the united states talks down more okay so don't you think that's more don't you think that's more concerning? Someone who is the leader of the free world instead of a media personality? Wouldn't that bother you more?

Why did you vote for Donald Trump, then? Well, here's why. Because these Democrats, again, they constantly gave off this attitude of they're better than everybody. And here's the thing. Trump gives off that attitude, too. He's a billionaire. Which Democrat?

Okay, so give me a quote or an example of a Democrat in office that made a statement that would I didn't say Democrat in office. I'm saying Democrat commentators like that kid, Harry Siss, and all these kids on TikTok. So you care more about a 20. You care more about what a 20 year old says on TikTok than the leader of the free world who you voted for. What is Brian getting at here? Different standards for different people. I don't understand what you're saying. No, let me explain. Let me explain.

And I don't see this. I'm not saying this to sound rude or anything, but if you and other people who are Democrats can't figure out why this is a problem for Democrats, get ready to lose the next election because people are tired of being talked to like they're a five-year-old. David Pakman, he constantly does this. So you think David Pakman, by the way, I disagree with you. I don't think David Pakman is disrespectful to people. Well, that's why the Democrats lost because they can't even see this right in front of their face.

So the reason why Democrats lost is because they're, quote, disrespectful to people. One of many. But yet the leader of the free world, the guy who you voted for, has attacked POWs and gold star families and women on looks. He said, if you're not if you're Jewish and you and you didn't vote for me, you need to get your head examined. You're you're totally willing to put that off to the side. But yet Donald Trump won the insulter in chief. But you're blaming David Pakman. Yeah, me on my YouTube channel. I don't even know what the guy's referring to. I had more of an impact based on my condescension, I guess, than than the things Trump has said

with global on the global stage and in some media personalities. And you don't think the right doesn't do this. Forget about Donald Trump. All joking aside, let's forget about Trump, the Sean Hannity's of the world, the Laura Ingram's of the world, the Mark Levin's of the world. Rush Limbaugh did it for years on the radio. Yeah. So listen, this is like an 11 minute thing and I encourage you to check it all out. But what I think Brian Shapiro is getting to here is this is a politics of exclusion and othering people that MAGA has been and has become. And on the other hand, what I advocate for and what we've been talking about here is a politics

of inclusion. Oh, you changed your mind about Trump. Great. Come on in. You're welcome here. The Republicans against Trump who figured it out or whoever else. Really nice job by Brian Shapiro. They're not a guy I was familiar with until today. And, you know, the the the caller sort of suffering from like a main character syndrome, but not about himself, I guess, about Luke Beasley and about me. Something about us is really triggering to the caller and Brian Shapiro disarming it. But expect a lot of this over the next few years.

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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. That's a U R a.com slash Pacman. The link is in the podcast notes. It is great to welcome to the program today. Jagmeet Singh, leader of the new Democratic Party in the Canadian House of Commons. It's so great to have you on.

You know that just just yesterday I was watching now President Donald Trump say that February 1st is the day where this 25 percent tariff is going to be placed on imports to the United States from both Canada and Mexico. Of course, acknowledging that the Liberal Party, the Conservative Party may have different views on this. You, as someone in the new Democratic Party, what is your view on the protectionist idea of a 25 percent tariff starting in just a couple of weeks, really? And how would you like to see Canada react

to such a tariff if indeed it happens? Right. First, I'd start off with we've long really held this important belief that Canada and America, we are incredible neighbors. We have had a very long history of cooperation, one of the longest, in a lot of ways, undefended border. We have such an interconnected economy. We are so culturally and in so many ways just so connected. And so what Donald Trump is proposing to do is an attack, I think, on that relationship. And it's divisive. It's very divisive. It also inherently is harmful to, his decision is harmful to Canadians and Americans. There's so

many workers in America that depend on, have jobs that depend on goods moving back and forth over the border. Things get refined in one side, values added, then it comes over to the other side and goes back and forth a couple of times before the product is completed. So inherently, it is already going to be harmful for both Americans and Canadians. It is a bad decision.

And so the response that I want is a response to show strength to Donald Trump. Donald Trump has often shown the characteristics of a bully, and bullies only understand strengths. We have to stand up to him and let him know that we're not going to back down. But we also have to appeal to our allies and to our friends in the States and say, this is a bad decision for both sides of the border and for workers on both sides of the border.

Does that mean yes on a retaliatory tariff? Yeah. I've said that we've got to do retaliatory tariffs. It's not something we want. Like we don't want a trade war. It is the last thing that we need right now. In America, I know it's very similar to what's going on in Canada. The cost of living is a big pressure point. People are feeling really squeezed.

It's hard to be able to make ends meet, buying groceries, paying the bills, housing, everything is so expensive. A trade war is just going to make things more expensive. So that's that's bad news. It's a bad thing. But the harm is so serious that the only thing we can do is retaliate so that we can shorten how long this goes for. If we sit back and just do nothing, it's going to be a massive loss of jobs. It's going to hurt, like I said, workers on both sides of the border. So we have to respond to make sure it's felt that we are ready to fight back. We're not going to just accept this. And with the ultimate goal of stopping these tariffs before they happen. Yeah, I mean, it's based on just

it's uncontroversial economic analysis when you look at the list of goods that the US imports from Canada, that if you put a 25 percent tariff on them, things are going to be more expensive not only at the grocery store, but elsewhere. It's not really a complicated economic analysis. If we zoom out a little bit and you think of the recent exchanges, including at a meeting that took place between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and then President elect Trump in Florida and sort of jockeying about economic pressure on Canada, if not military, which Donald Trump, I think in his kind of strange way of speaking, he did say economic but not military pressure and this 51st state sort of stuff.

You as someone who is in the new Democratic Party, not of Justin Trudeau's party, what was your interpretation of that jockeying that took place? Well, I thought it was very serious. I thought that type of threat is not something that you do. It's not how countries talk to each other. It sounded like the behavior of an internet troll rather than a president-elect. And I thought it was unbecoming of a president. I thought it was inappropriate. Like I said, we've got a long history of cooperation, of being good neighbors,

of looking out for one another. And this is an insult to that. And ultimately, I said, that's not what we want. We are proud of who we are. We are proud to be Canadians. And we do not want to give that up. We want to defend what we have. We've got a health care system that means that anyone can go into the best hospital in the country. You can go to SickKids Canada in Toronto. SickKids is one of the best hospitals in the country. You can go to Sick Kids Canada in Toronto. Sick Kids is one of the best hospitals in the world. And no matter who your parents are, they could be working class, they could be parents that have lots of wealth. They're both going to get the best quality, world-class care. Those kids are going to be looked after. You're not going to go into bankruptcy because you've been diagnosed with an illness. You're going to get the care you need. We're proud of

that. That's something that we hold to high esteem. And so we are proud of who we are and we do not want to give that up in any way. I'd love to dig in a little bit to the topic of health care, because this is one of the areas where my views have sort of evolved over time. I used to be sort of uniquely like a Medicare for all type person where the ideal would be we take the Medicare system we have in the U.S. for 65 plus and we slowly expand it. You go 60 plus, 55 plus, et cetera. You sort of phase in participants as you phase in funding, studying health care systems around the world more. I think maybe I've developed a little bit more of a view that I'm agnostic as to the way in which we approach it. And there are many systems that work well. In some countries, you see combinations of public private systems. Singapore has a system that in its own way has worked well,

not for everybody always, but for certainly more people than in the United States, I would say. The Canadian system has been interesting to me for a long time. And I want to get your reaction to a couple of the things I believe I've learned about the system. And if I'm just wrong in my understanding, I'm sure you'll tell me. Um, one of the things is that while the Canadian system seems very well equipped when it comes to emergency care for things that are important but not emergencies. I know of folks who live in Canada who opt to come to the United States because of lower wait times. I'd love to hear you tell me about whether that's true and whether you think it's, it's

a deficit in any way. The other thing is, as we were talking about before, my sister currently lives in Canada and one of the things she struggled with was just getting a sort of normal, what we call a primary care visit in the United States. I don't know the equivalent name in Canada. She found it very difficult because she was not on the roster of any primary care doctor and no doctor she could find had an open roster. And so she was relegated to the urgent care or emergency room system. I'd love to hear you talk a little bit about that. And my understanding is no system is perfect, but many are better than what we

have in the United States. Yeah. So fundamentally the, the principle in Canada is you can go into a doctor's office, you can go into the hospital and you, you walk out with no bill. And, and that's, that's the, that's the kind of hallmark of the, I had a really bad knee injury and an ACL complete tear. And I got my full ACL repair and I'm back at doing martial arts. I'm snowboarding. My knee is in great shape. Like world-class care was given. Now it did take some time though. So the wait times are longer. That is a concern and that is something that we've got to fix. A big part of what's going on in Canada is that we have a lot of conservative premiers, which is like a governor, and they have been actively eroding the health care system purposely. And what is happening is they are underfunding the program and then they say, oh, look, it's not working. Well, it's obviously not working if you underfund it.

The other thing that a lot of conservative premiers are doing is that they're introducing private care. So there's not enough health care workers to provide the timely care that people need. So if you need something, like you mentioned, if you need one of the common examples is like a knee replacement for seniors or a hip replacement, which is a lot of pain that seniors are in. But it's not life threatening. It is quality of life impacting, but not life threatening. And so those wait times are quite long. They'll be multi months. And so people are waiting for months and months. And so what they've introduced is you could pay some money and get quicker care. Now what happens is then to provide that,

quote unquote, quicker care, you've got to pull the nurses, pull the doctors out of the public system into this problem system to provide that, quote unquote, quicker care. But then you've just starved the public system. And then that wait time gets even longer. And then you're slowing it down for someone who can't pay effectively. Exactly. And so it is obviously then going to get worse if you make it worse. And so this is the kind of the logical fallacy. Conservatives are like, oh, look, we've got a problem. We've got to fix it. Well, you broke it. So it's not like you're an innocent bystander to watching something happen. You break something. And I guess, coincidentally, it's

broken. It's kind of going to follow. And so that's what's happening more and more. So there are some complicated things about healthcare, but there is one simple thing. It's underfunded and understaffed. And if we properly staffed up the healthcare system, it would be better. The point that your sister made is very fair. There is a big shortage of family doctors.

We call the primary care a family doctor, but that primary care visit or that family doctor is something that is a challenge as well. Similarly, we don't have enough family doctors for the population. So these are things that we can address, but the threat is people saying that, oh, we just need to create an option for people to pay as a solution and all that's going to do is set up a two-tier system you pay you can get care and you can't pay you don't get care which is going to push us down to a path where we end up with a very bad system that's very costly and works only for the richest and is abysmal for everyone else. And that is, to us, we're the party that actually founded the universal healthcare system. It was a premier or a governor, the first

leader of our party, that started it in one province or state and then brought it to the federal level, to the national level. So we are intrinsically tied to this healthcare system. I believe in it. My family personally, I think of the example of my dad, who is a physician, is a specialist, but lost his license, lost his ability to practice because of an addiction that he was suffering and had no money. And the only place that he was able to get care was a publicly funded rehab center that was available that had a bed at that moment where my dad decided that he needed to get care. And we were lucky that that was available. So I believe in public care so much because if it wasn't for that publicly funded space, my dad wouldn't have got the care, wouldn't have gotten better. And now he's again, practicing with a very big practice in psychiatry, helping. He's got thousands of patients on his roster,

and he provides excellent care to them. He would not have been able to do that, but for a publicly funded rehab center that was available that he could go to at a time when he had no money and was unable to afford a private center. So I really believe in the public option being there and being strong. And I'm opposed to a two- tier system. I know that it just means the public system gets starved and it's worse for people. I want to zoom out a little bit in the time we have left and talk a little bit about the new Democratic Party, kind of in the context of Canadian parliament. If I have the numbers correct right now, your party has twenty five of the three hundred and thirty eight seats in parliament.

Am I right on that basic number? Okay. So a few people wrote to me when they learned we were going to be speaking and knowing that I am not an accelerationist in my political philosophy, my idea being rarely does breaking down the entire system help us to more quickly improve it. It often creates a vacuum where even worse actors end up swooping in and moments of vulnerability, et cetera. Some folks wrote to me and said, you know, you guys should really talk about whether Jagmeet's views are accelerationist because a few people said they think you would rather see the liberal party lose even if it means the conservatives have more power,

even though on a political spectrum, I think you're closer to the liberal party than the conservative party. Can you talk a little bit about the dynamics of this? Cause this is a dynamic we also have in the United States sometimes with the green party or people who say the democratic party isn't left enough. Do you consider yourself an accelerationist? Is everything to your right equally bad in a sense? Well, we just know that the history of our country is one where when there are more new Democrats elected, great things happen for people. If you think of all of our social safety nets in Canada came when when folks voted for more New Democrats. So I just kind of look at it just evidence-based. We were able to bring in healthcare when there were enough New

Democrats elected in parliament to push the government to make that happen. Our employment insurance, which is if workers lose their job, there is a program that people can access that gives them income while they're finding their next job. That was brought in by New Democrats, the pension program we have for seniors. So all seniors in Canada get a pension that was brought in by the NDP, by the New Democrats being in power. Right now, I was able to bring in a dental care program that has covered seniors and kids. And so we're about 40 million people. Over 1.2 million people have received dental care from this dental program that covers a dentist's visit. And because

we fought to make that happen, we brought in better labor protection laws because we were elected. Just 25 of us in a minority government were able to do that. So my real focus is, I know concretely, based on historic evidence and my own lived experience, when more New Democrats are elected, it is better for working people, it's better for Canadians, they get more, they have someone that's focused on them. The Liberals have been a party that doesn't really have a clear identity. In a lot of ways, they kind of move. And depending on their leader, they can be very right wing. Sometimes it can be more centrist. So they're not clearly one party.

It's hard to describe their value system in a way that really is clear because they will say, for example, they believe in public health care, but they won't actually do anything to defend it. So I don't know how that really benefits people that want to see public health care defended. If someone says it's good, which is nice to hear, but they don't actually use the powers that we have to defend it and to prevent conservative premiers that want to erode it. So that's kind of my analysis of that. That I understand.

But I guess my question to maybe restateate it is there are some green party folks in the U S who said in 2016 Trump, Hillary, they're both part of the neoliberal order. I kind of don't really care. Maybe Trump's worse, but like if he messes stuff up, it'll allow us to swoop in more, more quickly or in a stronger way. Whereas other Green Party folks said, listen, I'm to the left of Hillary and Trump, but I recognize Trump is way worse. And so in swing states, I'm going to vote for Hillary. Are you more partial in Canada's

equivalent to that first idea or to the latter I mentioned? Hmm. Well, I just want people to I mean, I guess it's harder. It's a harder analogy because in the Green Party, they've never, two provinces are governed by the New Democratic Party. All of the major provinces, the biggest population centers, minus Quebec, have had New Democrats in power as governors or premiers. We are official opposition in many provinces across the country. So we're a sizable party that that has won political power in a real way and has then shown the benefit to working class people. Right. And this is one of the problems.

It's not analogous because we don't have a parliamentary system. And that that's that's absolutely a fair distinction, I think. Yeah. And then in addition, when more seats, when more of us are elected, like in this minority government, we were the ones that were the bulwarks against decisions that would have hurt people. Because more of us were elected, we were able to bring in a very strong workers protection law that prevents when workers go on strike, replacement workers to come in and undermine that strike.

We were able to bring in this law that has been decades in the making. The labor movement's been fighting for it for decades. We made that happen because we were in this position. So because the parliamentary system and because New Democrats have actually been elected in large numbers in provinces across the country. It's not a similar argument.

I would, though, just to kind of, I think very clearly Trump is and would be worse than someone like Hillary Clinton. I think that is undeniable. So I would not ignore that reality. I think it's clear his lack of principles and decision making that's going to benefit billionaires and hurt the working class. All those things are very obvious, obvious and evident. We've been speaking with the leader of the New Democratic Party in the Canadian House

of Commons, Jagmeet Singh. Really appreciate your time and your insights today. Yeah, it was great chatting with you. Thanks for all the great work you do. Did you know that countless commercial databases and people search sites are storing your personal information? Anyone from an employer to a former partner can use these platforms to get details about your online presence, your home address, phone number, email, license plate, family members, financial information,

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for an entire month totally free. I think you'll find that as useful as I do go to brain.fm slash Pacman. The link is in the podcast notes. Hey, this is very interesting. I started getting emails this morning saying, David, the drudge report is prominently promoting your editorial about the oligarchy that Trump is is ushering in. And I I know that the Drudge report has changed over time. I don't even know if Matt Drudge is still involved in it.

I know there's been sort of there's been changes there. I have no idea where Drudge currently sits on the political spectrum. But I went to drudge and I look and indeed third article down in the top left placement is a quote from me, from my editorial over the weekend. And it says, quote, government of the wealthy by the wealthy and for the wealthy. And when you click through that link, it indeed goes to my weekend editorial. American oligarchy is officially here, which talks about the tech bros in cahoots with Trump X and meta becoming overtly platforms of the right wing. So listen, I don't know what's going on over at Drudge Report. Historically, it is not an outlet that has been friendly to anything that I have to say.

But I very much appreciate the insane amount of traffic that they've directed to us and to our Substack and the Substack premium newsletter. It's actually nuts how much attention they've given us. I don't know if it's on purpose. I don't know if it's an accident or what. But the broader interesting thing about this is that we are very quickly seeing that Trump's populist rhetoric, no matter what people who have fallen for it say, Trump's populist rhetoric is empty and vapid. And one of the really interesting things is I consider myself a social Democrat. That's my guiding light in terms of my ideology and social democracy is a set of policy ideas. As I've said before, populism is a rhetoric.

It's a rhetoric about the middle class is getting screwed, but that's not a policy idea. You can be a right wing populist and say the middle class is getting screwed. So let's do tax cuts for the rich, which will then trickle down, which of course they won't. On the other hand, if you're a left wing populist, you might say the middle class is getting screwed. So let's do demand side stimulus. Let's not do tax cuts for the rich. Let's increase regulations to protect workers and strengthen unions. So the point that I've been making for so long is that when I say I'm a social Democrat, that's not a rhetoric. That's a set of policy ideas. When people talk about economic populism, that is not a set of policy ideas. It is simply a rhetoric. And one of the things that can't

be denied is that as people get sucked in by Trump's populist rhetoric, but then they see Elon Musk on stage with him and they see Mark Zuckerberg and Sundar Pichai and Tim Cook, Tim Apple, Tim Apple, Tim Cook and Bezos on stage with Trump. They go, I liked the rhetoric of the populism. But then I look over here and look at who's actually controlling Trump. Well, what else is there? And then you come across my editorial, which says, folks, if you are a populist, how can

you be in favor of this government by the wealthy, for the wealthy and of the wealth you can't be. And so to the extent that there's an overflow of people who liked Trump's populist rhetoric, but then they go, the policies don't make sense. What David Pakman's talking about makes a lot more sense. You are welcome here. Let's grow the tent. So I really appreciate whoever at Drudge linked to my editorial and we are actually here offering policy ideas that would genuinely be good for the average person. Not, Hey, whatever the wealthiest tech bros want, that's what we do. And that's what Donald Trump has made it clear he's going to offer in this second term. Well, there is trouble in paradise and good things sometimes come to an end.

It appears as though Doge is not big enough for two leaders and Vivek Ramaswamy is already getting fired, pushed out of Trump and Elon Musk's Doge. Now, of course, this will leave only Elon Musk at the helm. Of course, this was bound to happen. The Department of Government Efficiency has been laughable from the start. It has this mission of slashing two trillion dollars in government spending by 2026, a complete and total impossibility. And when we learned that it was both Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy tasked with co-leading it, put aside for a moment the absurdity of having an organization about efficiency run by two people rather than one. Put that aside for a second.

Two big egos running the same operation is not a recipe for efficiency. It's not a recipe for success. It's a recipe for conflict. So break it down this way. Elon Musk, at least for now, is Trump's golden boy. He was obviously running the show at Doge from the beginning. Insiders admit it and it's Musk who is really in charge there. And the idea was, well, Vivek will sort of handle some of the deregulation.

And it was always kind of a polite way of saying, Hey, you know what Vivek, we're not giving you anything else to do. We'll make you the coleader of this thing with Elon. You deal with the paperwork while Elon gets the glory. And so it's not really a surprise that Vivek Ramaswamy is going to end up getting out of this. And the perfect exit is that he's going to gear up for a gubernatorial run, uh, an attempt to become the governor of Ohio. If you're going to be playing second fiddle in a disjointed experiment like Doge, why not aim for something more objectively substantial? And being the governor of one of the 50 states is objectively more substantial.

Now, I do think that it's important to add one other aspect to this because it's already a preview of the degree of loyalty that Trump is going to demand of the people serving him for the next four years. As much as Vivek Ramaswamy is a Trump sycophant, and believe me, he is, he is less of a sycophant and a suck up than Elon Musk. Musk has bent over backwards to position himself as Trump's ultimate yes man. So in some logical sense, Vivek was always going to be the one to first get sidelined and Trump's team never pretended otherwise.

And the whole thing now ends up looking like it was actually designed to clear the field for Elon Musk to do whatever the hell he wants at Doge. Now, meanwhile, the actual mission of Doge, which is save $2 trillion in government spending, it's vague and completely unrealistic. We explained how you really can't cut that much unless you do start cutting social security or Medicare, which they've claimed that they are not going to do. And so they've gone from, well, maybe we can cut 2.5 trillion. So what about 2 trillion? Now Elon is saying, well, the 2 trillion is like a best case outcome. Maybe 1 trillion would be pretty good. So what's the point here? They're

already preparing for failure. They are trying to play Trump's base with these empty buzzwords about government waste. And Doge was never a serious policy effort. It was a vanity project wrapped in secrecy and mismanagement. And in a, in a sense, I'm not surprised because Vivek Ramaswamy is not a dumb guy. I'm not surprised that the vague realized this thing is going nowhere fast. And also they are kind of sidelining me. It's not just an inevitable exit for Vivek Ramaswamy. There's probably a strategic aspect of it for him.

And this gubernatorial thing means also that he is not going to be replacing JD Vance, uh, in that Senate seat that opened up. So it's probably the best case scenario for Vivek Ramaswamy. Now, as far as solving the problem of Doge, which is that it seeks to do something it can't possibly do. It's not going to fix that. Doge was flawed from day one. The leadership structure was set up for chaos. You can't have two cooks in the kitchen, especially when one of them's Elon. Um, and the goal was completely dysfunctional from day one. So this is going to, I believe define the Trump second term instead of crafting thoughtful policy, they're throwing high profile names together. It's a

flashy idea. There's no real plan. They expect people to buy it. And when the inevitable failures begin, we're going to end up stuck paying the price. But Vivek is smart enough to get the hell out of Dodge before it all implodes. So expect a lot more of this, but you've got to hand it to him. Vivek identified it and he is getting out. I want to talk to you today about a sickness in our political discourse. It is the inability to admit when we are wrong. This is not just about personal pride. It's really about how we engage with each other, how we respond to facts, how we grow

and advance as a society. And across the spectrum, we have created a culture where admitting a mistake is seen as a weakness and it's paralyzing our ability to move forward. I'm going to start with myself here. I used to be firmly against nuclear power. Like many on the left, I thought it was dangerous, environmentally harmful, not worth the risk if we were to start building new nuclear. And then I dove into the actual data on safety, on emissions, on efficiency, and I realized that my belief was not as solid as I thought.

I accepted uncritically 20 years ago things that people were telling me without researching for myself, whether nuclear power was the boogeyman that I was being told. And the truth is that new nuclear, the technology that would be used today to build new nuclear power is one of the safest technologies in terms of human toll per energy provided. Now I have not become a nuclear energy advocate. I barely talk about it on the show. I think we need to move to truly green, renewable energy, but I would be open to using new nuclear technology as a bridge to get to green, renewable energy.

It may even be the case that the time it would take to get new nuclear online wouldn't even make sense. It would just delay us going to true renewables. Fine, then don't do it. But my view on the safety of nuclear changed. You mentioned this to some people on the left and they see you as the devil. Another example, for years, I believe that Medicare for all was the only one true viable solution to fix our broken health care system. But as I learned more about the push and pull between quality access and cost, and I looked at the systems of other countries, I realized other countries have achieved far better health care outcomes and access and lower cost than we have in the United States without turning to Medicare for all. For example, countries like Germany or the Netherlands use hybrid systems that are balancing public and private insurance. They outperform the U.S.

in almost every metric at a lower cost. I'm still in favor of Medicare for all as a great solution, but it's not the only one. My view changed. It expanded. It grew. Another example is cancel culture. And early on, I was really defensive. Any time there would be a criticism of it, dismissing the concept is just another right wing talking point.

There's no such thing. But over time, I have seen that I don't love the term cancel culture, but there is a degree to which authoritarian leftists can alienate people, suppress meaningful dialogue and exclude others with purity tests. I don't pretend that it's the overwhelming dominating left, but it exists. And to the extent that it exists, I don't want to shut people down. I want to engage with them and I don't want to push people away with that authoritarian perspective. I don't go out there saying, oh, the left has done all this. It's terrible. No, but to the extent that it exists, rather than being defensive, I now just say, yeah,

it exists. I believe it's the fringe of the left. I'm against it. That's not the leftism that I recognize. These realizations were maybe not super easy to come by initially because in general, there is a belief that admitting you're wrong, um, is a failing of some kind. But I think that it's essential because clinging to bad ideas out of pride or fear really doesn't help anybody. And unfortunately that's exactly what dominates our political discourse

today. And now as we start the new Trump era, I think it's particularly important, especially because not only should we recognize it on our side, the mega movement is filled with it. Trump's presidency was filled with broken promises, tax cuts that only helped the rich trade wars that hurt American farmers, a wall that never got built and Israeli Palestinian conflict that was going to be solved by Jared in the first year and it never got solved. And yet millions of voters doubled down and supported Trump again in 2020 and again in 2024. Why? One reason we talked about the failings of the Harris campaign. Okay. One reason is because admitting that it was a bad idea to put Trump in power the first time

and voting for someone else this time would admit that they were wrong. And for many people, Trump became a part of their identity. Rejecting Trump felt like rejecting themselves. And this refusal to grapple with mistakes creates a feedback loop where if you criticize Trump, you are dismissed as fake news, no matter how overwhelming the evidence. So the left is not immune. MAGA is certainly not immune. I'll talk more broadly about some slogans that others on the left bought into, um, defund the police. Okay. The intention behind it reform law enforcement to better serve communities. Awesome. I've got a 12 point plan for doing exactly that. The messaging wasn't good. It wasn't even that the left acknowledged or necessarily bought into defund the police.

It was just a slice. But that messaging alienated moderates. It's scared independence. It handed Republicans a talking point that they could weaponize after it became clear that defund the police was a damaging slogan. The people who liked that slogan often refused to acknowledge that it was a mistake. Instead they doubled down.

They said, no, people just don't understand it or whatever. That's not useful. Defensiveness reform the police, which is what I've been advocating for from the beginning. Sometimes it might mean reducing funding. Sometimes it might mean we actually need more funding for better training and alternative responses to just a typical armed response that made a lot more sense. And so the point I'm getting to here in general is that the inability to admit fault hurts everybody on the right. It means, you know, they end up denying basic facts about COVID and tax policy and climate change.

On the left, it means we should acknowledge when a well-intentioned idea isn't working and the result is a political discourse that ends up frozen in place. Neither side is willing to grow or adjust. It's not both sides stuff. It's very different on left and right, but it does exist on left and right. How do we fix it? We need to normalize changing your mind. It should not be seen as a sign of weakness, but it should rather be seen as evidence of

intellectual growth. When you change your mind, we need to celebrate people who admit they were wrong when it's a politician or a pundit or a voter. We should say, that's awesome. You got more information and you revised your view. And we just need a culture that better values humility over pride. Now, I do think it's important to mention, I am not talking about praising people who do these political one eighties. I've had an awakening, Dave Rubin or whoever else for clicks and grift. Okay. That is not what I am saying. We should praise

here. If we want better politics, we should reward people for doing the hard thing, which is saying, Hey, I made a mistake. I'm going to try to do better. Imagine if more MAGA voters could say, Hey, you know what? Trump wasn't the right choice, but now I see that, uh, Republicans against Trump. We interviewed a few of them, small group, right? They saw it. And that is more of what we need. If we can't admit we are wrong, we end up stuck and trapped in this loop of mistakes that only deepens the divide. If we can get beyond that, it would be a very good thing for American politics. All right, let me end today. I know that it's been a difficult day, difficult 24 hours for many on the left. I want to say something that might surprise people. Um, I hope it'll be heard for what I'm

saying and not for what I'm not saying. I want Donald Trump's presidency to be successful. Now, before you start typing out an angry email or an excretion on X, let me explain what I mean. When I say I want Trump's presidency to succeed, I am not talking about rooting for Trump's personal success or for the success of policies that I fundamentally disagree with. I'm talking about hoping that the country does well. We're going to be tracking metrics, as I told you, unemployment, job creation, GDP, wages, inflation, all of it. If Trump's presidency somehow shows results that are better for people, I'm going to be the first to admit it. and we're going to see it in the numbers. Why will I admit it?

Because I do not root for harm or chaos to score political points. Everything I know about economics, foreign policy, trade, et cetera, tells me that if Trump does the things he said he will do, it's going to be bad for the country. But that means that people's lives, livelihoods, their futures will be diminished and worse off. If Trump ends up figuring out a way to actually improve the lives of Americans and we can see it in the data, that's too important for me to sacrifice for the sake of partisan loyalty. I know from the emails I get that some people in my audience want Trump to fail and hope

that he does so spectacularly, maybe to vindicate their political views. But who pays the price when a president fails? It's not just Trump or his administration. It's the American people. It's the families that are struggling to make ends meet. Young people trying to afford college seniors counting on social security and Medicare. The idea that making things worse might lead to a better outcome down the road. That's a form of acceleration ism.

Historically, it hasn't worked. I have a whole chapter in my forthcoming book about it. The echo machine is the name of the book. We've seen it before. The argument goes, if things get bad enough, people will wake up and they will demand broader systemic change. What actually happens? Things get bad.

People suffer. Their ability to even be activists is diminished because they're certain their circumstances are so precarious. Sometimes it even leads to worse outcomes. The Great Depression didn't bring about widespread equality. It led to authoritarian regimes in Europe. The Iraq war didn't end neoconservatism. It created fertile ground for endless wars and completely destabilized the middle East. So I don't want Trump to fail just to prove that the left was right. That doesn't help anybody. Now at the same time, let me be clear.

Uh, hoping for success doesn't mean Trump gets a free pass. It doesn't mean that we ignore the realities of his policies or pretend that his administration isn't riddled with corruption and incompetence because it already is just hours into it. So my commitment, and I believe that this should be the commitment of anybody who values honest discourse is evaluate his presidency fairly. If Trump pursues policies that genuinely help people, if he improves infrastructure, lowers prescription drug prices, expands access to healthcare, I'm going to tell you. Uh, and if those policies fail or if his administration continues to undermine democracy and harm vulnerable communities, I'm going to tell you it's not about being nice. It's about, you know, just credibility.

If we only criticize and never acknowledge a success, we lose credibility with people who might not already agree with us. And credibility is everything. If we want a better future, the stakes are very high. There are real serious risks here from Trump's second term risks to democracy from Trump's authoritarian tendencies, his disregard for the rule of law. But I don't want to forget why we fight these battles in the first place. And it's not about beating Trump.

We didn't beat him. The election was about beating Trump. The goal is to create a country that works for everyone. If Trump's policies accidentally move us in that direction, I'll tell you, Hey, you know what? Wages are outpacing inflation. Stock market's up. Job creation is up even if I can't stand the guy. But the challenge is that based on Trump's track record, we have damn good reason to be skeptical. The first term was tax cuts for the rich attacks on the environment efforts to dismantle healthcare access.

The economy was fine until COVID mostly riding on the momentum of the post-recession recovery under Obama. But then Trump's administration came in, undermine trust in government, foster division at every turn and hoping for success doesn't mean that we ignore the reality. It means we stay vigilant and we hope things improve for the average person. If better outcomes do not materialize, I am going to be sure to tell you that. So as Donald Trump's second term begins, I'm committing as I always do to evaluating what Trump does and being honest with you in a way that recognizes Trump might. Okay. We, he has, it's been hours, right? We can't say it.

Trump might on purpose or accidentally do something good. I'm very skeptical, but I'm still rooting for success, not for Trump personally, but for the country, for the people who will bear the brunt of his decisions. But I'm also committed to fairness, to calling out the failures while recognizing the successes, however few they may be. We have a fantastic bonus show for you today. Please make sure you've signed up at join Pacman dot com. If you missed the MLK Day Inauguration Day membership discount special and you want it,

just email info at David Pacman dot com and say, David, I missed it. I missed the special, but I want the discount code info at David Pakman dot com. And we are just now days away from the end of the free perks with my book. My book is available for preorder everywhere. Barnes and Noble, Amazon, local bookstores, Kindle, Apple, everywhere. Up until January 25th, you get a bunch of free stuff. If you go to David Pakman dot com slash free book stuff, you must do it by eleven fifty nine p.m. Eastern time on January 25th. After that time, it's over. There's nothing I will be able to do to get you the free stuff. So get those pre-orders in, get the submissions in for the free stuff. I will see you on the bonus show.