The David Pakman Show - 12/9/24: Cable news total collapse, Trump reminds us of the horror

Episode Date: December 9, 2024

-- On the Show: -- CNN and MSNBC suffer a total ratings collapse, signaling a realignment for the next phase of American politics -- Donald Trump resurfaces for an interview with NBC's Kristen Welker during which he reveals new authoritarian policy ideas and is generally clueless and confused -- The incoming Donald Trump administration is clearly planning to generate chaos and disorder to create a pretext for seizing emergency powers -- As JD Vance continues to be missing, Elon Musk travels to Paris with Donald Trump, raising questions about who is really in charge -- During a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron, Donald Trump humiliates the United States once again -- A woman who lives on the border explains in a mere 60 seconds why the Trump/Republican deportation plan will simply not work -- Morning Joe hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski melt down and attack their own audience over critical reaction to their visit with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago -- Alina Habba, failed former Trump lawyer, reminds us during a Fox News interview that she still cannot be trusted to tell the truth -- Melania Trump takes the family grift to a new level, promoting vile $90 Christmas ornaments on Fox News -- On the Bonus Show: A review of the fall of Assad in Syria, internet sleuths trying to solve New York CEO killing, white nationalist Nick Fuentes arrested and charged, much more... 🌱 Ounce of Hope: Get 20% off with code PAKMAN at https://ounceofhope.com 🖼️ Aura Frames: Use code PAKMAN for $35 OFF & free shipping at https://auraframes.com/pakman 😺 Smalls cat food: Use code PAKMAN for 50% off & free shipping at https://smalls.com/pakman 😁 Zippix Toothpicks: Code PAKMAN10 saves you 10% at https://zippixtoothpicks.com 💵 Sponsored by Ridge Wallet: Get up to 47% off the best holiday gift at https://ridge.com/pakman 🩳 SHEATH Underwear: Code PAKMAN for 20% OFF at https://sheathunderwear.com/pakman 🥦 Lumen lets you master your metabolism. GET 15% OFF at https://lumen.me/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. Hope you had a good weekend. We have a real paradigm shift happening in political media right now. Stunning new ratings numbers show that MSNBC and CNN are collapsing. There's really no other word. It is a total and absolute free fall since the election. MSNBC's primetime audience has been cut in half down 53% CNN, almost as bad, 47% drop. These networks aren't just losing to

Fox news and they are losing to Fox news. They're losing to the food network on some nights. More people in the key demographics are watching Chopped than are watching Anderson Cooper on CNN or Jen Psaki on MSNBC. Chopped is a good show, I will admit. Meanwhile, Fox News has barely dipped, holding on to nearly all of its viewers. So we have to talk about what's going on here, because as many of you already know, media coverage of issues we care about guides and dictates to a great degree the direction that the national conversation goes. So for MSNBC and CNN, the answer is very clear. Their left leaning audiences to a great degree have checked out.

Trump's win was a gut punch. And for many people, the reaction has been, I'm just going to stop following politics responses to a great degree have checked out. Trump's win was a gut punch. And for many people, the reaction has been, I'm just going to stop following politics altogether. At least for now, it's not that they're suddenly happy with the direction of the country and they go, I don't need to pay attention. Things are going so well. It's that people are burnt out.

People are disillusioned. People are despondent. And honestly, corporate media didn't do that much to stop that being the outcome. Look at MSNBC. They spent months criticizing Trump. Yes, they sort of supported Biden and Harris. But when push came to shove, their coverage really lacked urgency. It was just kind of like generic center left kind of horse race stuff. And then right after the election, we talked about it morning, Joe hosts, Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski have this cozy little meeting with Trump down in Mar-a-Lago and it's just downhill. And this is after years of calling him a fascist and so on and so forth. They kind of do the both sides stunt. We want to make sure that we're

talking with everybody and we want clarity and we want to have open lines of communication. They should be reporting on what Trump plans to do, doing it objectively, the authoritarian tirades that Trump plans to bring. And I just don't know how going and hanging out with Trump is really going to make that happen. Then we have CNN, same story, kind of different flavor. For years, they have tried to thread the needle, presenting themselves as neutral, but airing these ridiculous segments like undecided voter panels that we later find out are filled with obvious committed Trump supporters. And now they're kind of paying for it. To be honest, a lot of the CNN audience

doesn't trust them and it shows and their ratings are in the toilet. Now, I think it's important to mention that we at the David Pakman show and many others in left-wing independent media in the three to four days after the election, we also saw a sort of Exodus that took place that is now slowed down and it's not like these are the record month that record months for us post election November and December, but it's really very much stabilized and we're going to come back to that in a moment. Now let me briefly talk about what's happening at Fox news. The numbers at Fox news haven't dropped because number one, their viewers never take a break for them.

Politics is a 24 seven culture war. I'm not saying that like it's a good thing in many ways. It's a bad thing. But the point is that for them, Trump's win isn't the end of the fight. It's the start of the next one of what can they now get accomplished over the next four years. Fox knows this. They're keeping the outrage machine running full speed and that's why their audience is

so loyal, but also they did win. So to some degree, the Fox ratings are part of the victory party. So here's the big picture. The collapse of MSNBC and CNN is not only about Trump's victory or a post election ratings dip. I believe that it's about trust. These networks failed their audiences. They didn't prepare people for what was coming. They did not offer a compelling vision for what happens next. Now, to be fair, I was trying to warn people about the polls pointing to Trump wins every swing state.

Some in my audience appreciated it. Some in my audience said, David, shut up and stop talking about the poll numbers. The difference is I can just do whatever I want because I don't have 10 layers of editors and executives. MSNBC and CNN are different, but that's where we ended up. Here is where we ended up. The critical question right now, as we look at the next six months beyond Trump's inauguration and at the first atrocities that Trump will no doubt do policy wise. Where are these viewers who have left CNN and have left MSNBC? Where are they going? Many are stepping

back from politics entirely, at least for now. I believe the vast majority of them at some point are going to get ready to re-engage and they will. I'm not convinced that it's I turn MSN, MSNBC back on. I'm not convinced it's I turn CNN back on. Increasingly, they are turning to independent media where they feel they can get honest, genuine coverage from people that they can trust. Now, that doesn't mean it's me. And that doesn't mean you can trust everybody, right? That they might not trust me. They might like Jimmy Dore or someone like that. I don't know. But the point is they feel a more direct connection and an affinity to someone that they can trust and at least feel like they're, I'm getting what you really believe rather than what

10 layers of editors and executives have told you to say, uh, shows like the David Packman show are part of that shift. We're not crashing and burning like the cable networks because we're not playing the corporate games. We don't have advertisers or board members dictating what we say. I have no editor. I have no producer for better or worse, right? I mean, maybe in some way, uh, the, the show would be better off with them, but I just tell it like I see it. I get right what I get, right. I correct what I get wrong as quickly as possible. Now, I also want to go to the Fox news aspect of the future. It's not just about MSNBC and CNN. Fox news looks strong right now. There's no doubt. I don't think their moment is going to last forever either. The longterm trend is that more and more people are moving away from corporate media. There's cord

cutting, they're streaming, there's independent outlets, reshaping how people get their news. Audiences want something real and something new right now. Yes. The left is in a moment of despondency. I don't think that's going to last when Trump's administration starts rolling out the dystopian agenda. He's admitting he's going to do it Trump's administration starts rolling out the dystopian agenda. He's admitting he's going to do it. He did an interview. It's crazy.

We'll talk about it next. When Trump starts gutting rights and stacking courts and creating chaos, people are going to wake up. They're going to get angry. They're going to get organized and they're going to turn somewhere. If they're sick of MSNBC and CNN, they'll turn to independent media, not the corporate media outlets that have already failed them. So MSN, MSNBC and CNN ratings down total collapse. We've never seen anything like it. Worst ratings in decades, decades,

Fox news holding on for now, but viewers have made it really clear this old way just isn't working anymore. Corporate media isn't working. It's floundering. Independent media is growing. And this is, I believe, only the beginning. The important thing is not to get discouraged now. And let's be well prepared for the inauguration for the first hundred days of Trump's term. And part of that is understanding

what he plans to do. Let's talk about that next. After going radio silent, as far as real interviews go, Donald Trump this weekend sat down with NBC news is Kristen Welker. And it was a sick nostalgia that I experienced. I say a sick, a depraved nostalgia. I had forgotten how insanely disturbed this guy is. He did the full orange face, eyes swollen, shut interview with Kristen Welker. And he rolled out what would be dystopian authoritarian policy, word salads, admissions to the very worst things we suspected. This is almost as bad as that Axios interview. And here's where I think we see Trump's deterioration in his first term.

An interview like this would have been an unusually bad interview. This seems to be every interview now. So let's get right into it. Trump talking about groceries, the word, a linguistic analysis of sorts. I dare you to unwind this word salad. Listen to this. I want on two things, the border and more than immigration. You know, they like to say immigration. I break it down more to the border, but I went on the border and I went on groceries. It's very simple word groceries like almost, you know, who uses the word? I started using the word the groceries as a nearly 80 year old man.

He started using the word groceries. I dare you to do four years of this. When you buy apples, when you buy bacon, when you buy eggs, they would double and triple the price over a short period of time. And I won an election based on that. He won an election. Now, here's the crazy thing. On the one hand, this is whacked out nuttery.

But on the other hand, he's not wrong. People's perception of the economy, including prices, is a big reason that Trump did win. Now we get to the healthcare plan, the healthcare plan that in August of 2020 was a mere two weeks away, a healthcare plan that Trump had concepts for in June. Well, what happens now? Trump is asked, do you have the plan? What do you think? You think he has the plan? Let's take a listen. And then he voted against. Nobody understands. Sir, you said during the

campaign you had concepts of a plan. Do you have an actual plan at this point for health care? Yes, we have concepts of a plan that would be better. Still just concepts. Do you have a fully developed plan? Let me explain. We are we have the biggest health care companies looking at. Still just concepts. Do you have a fully developed plan? Let me explain. We have the biggest healthcare companies looking at it. We have doctors, we're always looking because Obamacare stinks. It's lousy. There are better answers. If we come up with a better answer, I would present that answer to Democrats and to everybody else. And I do something about it. But until we have that or until they can approve it, but we're not going to go through them. He's been looking for years, something

better, something better. And it, he just hasn't quite found it yet. Now, of course, he's never had a plan other than the ones Republican came up. Republicans came up with in 2017, which if passed would have led to 24 to 32 million Americans losing healthcare coverage. They had that one didn't make it through as you might remember in 2017. And we've never seen another proposal since Kristen Welker asks Trump a very good question. If Democrats rigged it in 2020, why didn't they rig it in 2024? Trump has an answer. Listen, sir, Democrats have control of the white house. Now They didn't in 2020. If they are going around stealing elections, why do you say Democrats have control now

of the White House? Yeah. So why didn't they steal this election since they have more power now? Because I think it was too big to rig. So you won't. Too big to rig. Sir, fewer people voted in 2024 than in 2020. So you won't too big to rig. Fewer people voted in 2024 than in 2020.

It was smaller. Fewer people voted, but somehow it was harder, more difficult for Democrats to rig it this time because this one was too big to rig except fewer people voted. Wow. Wow. Trump asked, you're going to be the oldest president ever. Will you release your medical records? What we learn is Trump doesn't seem to know what medical records are. When you think about your time in office, you are making history for a

range of reasons, including the fact you will be the oldest person to be sworn into office. Do you commit to releasing your medical records? Sure. I do it all the time. I think I've released four of them. Not just a letter, though. Your full medical report. I would. And I think anybody should. But I mean, according to all the reports, I don't want to. Where's wood? Is this a wood where I can knock on wood? But my reports are very good, very strong. Yeah. Super, super strong medical reports, which he does not release. Releasing a letter from your doctor saying hyperbolically that you're super healthy is not a medical record.

I believe that Trump is medicated for, uh, I should've looked it up. I don't want to speak. It's either cholesterol or blood pressure. How, what are, what are his numbers? What's his lipid panel? How much medication is he on? Uh, what are his numbers? What's his lipid panel? Uh, how much medication is he on? Uh, what about his obesity? What releasing a letter that says I'm awesome from a partisan doctor is not a medical record. Trump disturbingly. Now this is where it gets very real. Okay.

Later or maybe tomorrow. Depends how today goes. Depends how I'm feeling. We'll see what's in the air. Um, I'm going to talk about the authoritarian justifications, um, for invoking all sorts of emergency powers that Trump may use. And one of the things Trump admits to Kristen Welker is he believes that people who simply disagree with him politically should be jailed. This is why when you see Kashyap Patel nominated to run the FBI, you get scared. This is why when you see Pam Bondi nominated to be attorney general, you get scared because this is what

Trump wants. Listen to this. And Cheney was behind it. And so was Benny Thompson and everybody on that committee. We're going to for what they did. Yeah. Honestly, they should go to jail. So you think Liz Cheney should go to jail for what? Everyone on the committee. I think everybody, anybody that voted in favor, you get a director, FBI director and your attorney general to send them to jail. Not at all. I think that they'll have to look at that, but I'm not. It's like RT, right? I know I use this analogy. The RT hosts love to say, no one ever tells me what to say. No, you got hired because they knew what you would say. Are you going to tell cash

app Patel to go after Liz Cheney? No, no, no. He's going to look at it. He's being hired because he already has said dozens of times in public, what we need to do is go after these people. Trump also breaks the news that he will attempt to end birthright citizenship as enshrined by the bill of rights. Wow. Citizenship on day one. Is that still your plan?

Yeah, absolutely. The 14th amendment though, says that quote, all persons born in the United States are citizens. Can you get around the 14th Amendment with an executive action change? We'll maybe have to go back to the people, but we have to end it with the only country that has it through an executive action with the only country that has it. You know, I wish Kristen Welker knew that we are not the only country that has it. 35 countries have birthright citizenship. She just looks kind of perplexed when he says it. Maybe she suspects it's a lie.

It is a lie. 35 countries have birthright citizenship. Trump is trying to go fascist authoritarian buck wild. Now, then it got to the Pete Hegseth stuff. Trump asked, do you have confidence in Pete Hegseth? And he goes, oh, yeah, I know him really well through the TV. It looks like Pete is doing well now. I mean, people were a little bit concerned. He's a young guy with a tremendous track record, actually went to Princeton and went to Harvard. He was. Yes. The very schools that we no longer are supposed to care about because they are just

liberal indoctrination, according to Trump, except when it's convenient. Good student at both. But he loves the military. And I think people are starting to see it. So we'll be working on his nomination along with a lot of others. Since you bring him up, do you still have confidence in Pete Hegseth? Yes, I do. I really do. He's a very smart guy. I've known him through Fox, but I've known him for a long time.

I've known him through the TV for a long time. Very, very long time. Got it. He knows nothing, nothing about Pete Hegseth. He was asked, Trump was, have Republican senators assured you that they're going to vote for this guy? And Trump goes, they really have. Have you gotten assurances from senators that he's going to be confirmed? Do you think he can make it? No, I think you will. Yeah. I've had a lot of senators call me up saying he's fantastic.

Yes. Okay. So some senators have said yes, but Trump is not getting the assurances that Hegseth will be voted in. And then finally the drinking, the drinking Trump's, uh, vague reference to other people. He's short heat that Hegseth doesn't really have a drinking problem. You don't drink yourself. You've talked about, uh, how devastating drinking can be. How concerned are you that the person who you picked for this top job at the Defense Department, at least according to those who've worked with him, has struggled with drinking?

But I've spoken to people that know him very well and they say he does not have a drinking problem. There you go. There you go. I love the, um, Trump, by the way, Trump does genuinely seem to be trying to salvage the nomination. He's lobbying senators here, right? Do you want to be on the wrong side of Trump coming out publicly and saying, I stand behind him. We'll see what happens with Hexeth. The Hexeth thing is so funny.

He doesn't have a drinking problem and has also committed to no longer drinking if he gets confirmed. Right. It's sort of like I lost because they cheated, but actually I won. Wait, so hold on. Which is it was, it was rigged or with what, which one is it? Um, this is likely not going to end well. And by that, I mean giving Trump the nuclear codes once again, mind-blowingly disastrous interview. Trump doesn't realize it. I think Kristen Welker realizes it, but this is going to be a smile on their face. Top quality THC products from our longtime sponsor, Ounce of Hope. Whether you're shopping for friends, family or yourself, premium psychoactive THC goodies

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So you can sign up at join pacman.com and you can use the coupon code. Not again, not again, all one word, no space, lowercase, uppercase, whatever at join pacman.com. All right. Let me give you a warning that should terrify anyone who's paying attention. Donald Trump seems to be setting up to manufacture a crisis to then justify taking emergency powers. This is not paranoia. It's a playbook. It's a playbook. We know it's as old as authoritarianism itself. And Trump nominees have already admitted this is what's being planned. They've admitted it in small parts. Now, history is full of examples in the United States globally where strong men leaders have exploited or outright fabricated emergencies to consolidate power with Trump's return and his latest plan for the mass deportations. We have to acknowledge the writing

is on the wall. I want to start with Trump and his incoming borders are Tom Homan. Homan has already hinted at one such crisis. We've talked about this before. They've openly stated they have this intent to deploy red state national guard units into blue cities and blue states. If those states and cities refuse to cooperate with mass deportations, those cities and states have already said, we're not going to cooperate with mass deportations. Think about what that means. Armed troops from right-wing states are going to March into liberal strongholds, bypassing state and local governments entirely. This is the kind of authoritarian power grab that we've seen in some of the darkest chapters

of history. And of course the chaos and the resistance that will result from the stunt will then be used to justify more crackdowns. Look at how crazy things got when the, I don't know, you know, West Virginia national guard went into New Jersey. We've seen this sort of thing in our own recent history after nine 11, some of you may be too young to remember fear was weaponized to push through the Patriot Act, which massively expanded government surveillance powers with very little debate because those who questioned it were framed as not patriotic or having the interests of our enemies.

I remember when that very short debate took place, Americans were simply told this is necessary, necessary for national security, and it opened up the door to warrantless spying on ordinary citizens. That's the sort of crisis based policymaking, which shows just how quickly you can exploit fear to dismantle rights under the guise of safety. Now imagine a Trump led government creating, amplifying a crisis, not just to pass laws, but to seize power outright. History repeats itself when we don't recognize the pattern. And this is a playbook that's not new.

They're just kind of rewriting it for 2025, 1970s Chile in South America. You basically saw the same tactic. Augusto Pinochet overthrew a democratically elected government, used claims of economic collapse, societal chaos to justify martial law. Once in power, silences dissent, crushes unions, rewrites the rules to stay in charge. And you don't have to go back to the seventies in Turkey. President Erdogan used a failed coup attempt in 2016 to justify sweeping emergency powers and it was all under the guise of we've got to root out the conspirators, but they jailed journalists.

They purged judges. They restructured the entire government to cement authority. If it sounds familiar, Trump was talking about it in the interview we looked at earlier when he told Kristen Welker in that NBC news, a gong show, uh, everybody who voted to impeach me, uh, or send to make criminal referrals from the January 6th committee, they should all be in prison. And this concept that Trump and Tom Holman are rolling out the, the noncompliant blue States will be punished. It's the classic authoritarian power grab as a result of chaos that they created.

Now here's the danger as if it isn't obvious, it doesn't have to be a real crisis. When I say, Oh, Trump will send red state national guards into blue states, it'll generate chaos and then Trump can use that chaos to say, we need to do ABCD. Trump has always thrived on completely manufactured drama. His presidency was this rotating cast of villains. It was the migrants. It was the media, the election officials, and he used it to keep his base in a state of perpetual fear. And now he's got Tom Homan by his side and you can hear the rhetoric. Now, you know, the blue States are

obstructing justice. They're harboring criminals. We have to act. They're writing the narrative down. Uh, uh, and let's not forget that he's tested the waters. He flirted with martial law after losing the 2020 election. It was dismissed as fringe when it didn't happen, but a lot of his followers liked it. A lot of his followers said, no, it was stolen from him. He should have declared martial law. Michael Flynn, Sidney Powell, they were floating it and Trump didn't shut it down. So when he returns to power, he will likely see the moment, uh, as one where he doesn't want to miss the opportunity again.

And my guess is he's not going to hesitate next time. Trump's own words and plans like the home and national guard deployment are telling us what to expect. So what do we do? This is the tough part. First of all, we have to be relentless in exposing the tactics that Trump and his allies are preparing. Every mention of national guard deployments, every insinuation of a crisis. We have to call it out. We have to counter it with the truth before it all takes root. Will corporate media do this or are they going to play the, the both sides game where they'll host a debate where each side of the authoritarian takeover will, will give their opinion as to whether

it's all a good thing, which ways corporate media going to go. I don't know. Secondly, we have to keep pressure on local and state governments. The blue States and the blue cities have to be prepared to push back legally and politically against federal overreach. They if Massachusetts and New York and New Jersey, if they know that the red state armies will be coming for the deportations, they have to be ready. You've got to build coalitions with other States, reinforce local laws that protect against abuse,

ensure that the courts are ready to quickly respond. And then finally, we need to prepare for the long game. That means supporting investigative journalism to uncover abuses, funding civil rights organizations that will challenge unconstitutional actions, organizing at every level, local, state, national, where we have the numbers to make sure that we don't get caught flat footed because if it ends up being a surprise, you'll know everybody failed because they're telling us now what they plan to do. We have to stay ahead of Trump. If there's anything that's to our advantage, it's that Homan's going out there and telling us what they plan to do. Trump has already told us through his words and through his nominations of Kashat Patel and Pam Bondi what they plan to do. Trump has already told us through his words and through

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My audience gets up to 47% off. So go grab a gift for someone special or yourself. Head to ridge. com slash Pacman. That's RIDG dot com slash Pacman for up to 47 percent off. The link is in the podcast notes. There is a growing concern and more and more questions about where the hell is J.D. Vance and why is Elon Musk traveling everywhere with Donald Trump? One of the things we know is very appealing to Trump about Elon Musk is that Trump loves super

rich people. Trump sees money as a proxy, not just to power, but to self worth. And that's why when he sees Musk, who is orders of magnitude richer than Trump, he loves it. And that's why when he sees Musk, who is orders of magnitude, richer than Trump, he loves it. And Musk has sort of become Trump's de facto sidekick. Now you might say, well, it would be typical that the vice president elect isn't traveling everywhere with Donald Trump. Well, what's typical is that the president elect isn't doing as much of the stuff that Trump is doing. You would normally see them simply building their team and developing policy and preparing to lead.

Instead, Trump is flying all over the place and people are starting to notice that JD is missing and Elon Musk is there. Here is Trump, uh, who flew to Paris for the reopening of the Notre Dame cathedral. You'll remember that there was a fire, they fixed it up. It's reopened and Prince Harry or will know William was there. The bald one. I don't, I don't know which is which I could not care less about the Royals. Um, the bald one was there, the one not married to Meghan Markle.

Trump met with him and you know, he's hanging out and for some reason, uh, here is C-SPAN video of the event. You suddenly see the camera switch and it's Elon Musk standing there. Why is Elon Musk in Paris with Donald Trump and corporate media and others are certainly starting to notice that there seems to be something really odd going on here. I think I know exactly what's going on. We're actually going to learn about it a little bit later. Uh, but here is some coverage from CNN, CNN covering the Notre Dame reopening. They have

John Bolton on, not a guy I'm a fan of, but Bolton points out, yeah, something seems to be going on here. Elon Musk, who's we've seen, of course, by his side on the campaign trail and now in the transition, but also increasingly in the middle of a lot of these conversations with foreign leaders and in the conversations about foreign conflicts. What do you make of that? Well, you know, it's almost like Musk has become vice president. I don't know where J.D. Vance is on this trip, but Elon Musk, to this point, remains a private citizen.

And he has no governmental authority. He may have extraordinary influence over donald trump but that the rubber meets the road at noon on the twenty th of january musk is going to have to decide which way to jump and uh... and at that point uh... i think people will will have to it will have to make a judgment whether whether there's undo influence running elsewhere right now look these people are private citizens let's you know uh... what's going on here There's a undue influence or anything else. But right now, look, these people are private citizens. Let's yeah.

You know, uh, what's going on here is that the very sorts of unelected bureaucrats that Trump spent his campaign criticizing, remember the vague Ramaswamy who would talk about the problem of the unelected bureaucrat. We're going to get rid of them. Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have become unelected bureaucrats. Nobody voted for them. In fact, Vivek lost the primary people rejected Vivek. And now he and more, more obviously much more importantly, Elon Musk start to have massive influence over policy. Musk, we'll get to this later. Musk, a multi-billionaire met with senators, mostly millionaires to consider cutting social

security where the average monthly benefit is 1700 bucks. Get that through the, the, the, uh, distortions that we hear about the man of the people propaganda, the multi-billionaire and the millionaires are saying, maybe we should save some money by cutting social security benefits to people who worked for a living or who work for a living now. So that's fundamentally what this is about. They said they were against unelected bureaucrats. They're bringing in the unelected bureaucrats. They're bringing in the unelected bureaucrats. They say they are for the people, but Trump really is only impressed with wealth.

And honestly, maybe he's impressed with sexual assault allegations as well because there seems to be a lot of that around him too. So that's happening. JD Vance, who cares? He doesn't have the cache that an Elon Musk has. And at this point, if you voted for Trump, it seems as though what you're getting to a great degree is Musk. You're also getting the global humiliation that we kind of got used to and desensitized

by during Donald Trump's first term. Let me talk about that a little bit. When Donald Trump went to Paris over the weekend for the reopening of the Notre Dame cathedral after the fire some years ago, um, he had a sort of very brief moment where they did like a public statement. He and Emmanuel Macron either before or after the meeting. And as usual, Trump just says really weird shit. I don't know how else to say it's just what, why is everything he says weird? And is it that he finds himself intellectually outmatched by more serious global leaders? I don't know what it is, but check out how weird this is.

The floor, the, uh, present, I just, uh, it's a great honor for, for French people this is. Welcome back again. Thank you very much. We are very happy to have you here. Thank you very much. Very great honor. And we had a great relationship, as everyone knows. We accomplished a lot together. And the people of France are spectacular. I guess it's one of our largest groups in the United States, French people. And we respect them and we love them. Very talented people. Extremely energetic people, as you know very well.

I love that. The French people are very talented and they are very energetic as well. Yeah. And it's an honor to be here. We had a good time together and we had a lot of success, really great success working together on defense and offense, too. Yeah. And it certainly seems like the world is going a little crazy right now. Yeah.

And we'll be talking about that. Thank you very much for being here. Yes, they will be speaking about that. I think I have a little bit of PTSD from the first Trump term where every single public appearance was a complete and total humiliation. You know, just to kind of remind folks who maybe were not paying attention, then if some of the textures Trump would regularly, you know, appear with authoritarian strongmen like Putin and go, I believe Putin. He was very confident when he told me ABCD,

which by the way, goes against everything our own intelligence agency said, very, very confident. So the, the sort of like total submission to authoritarian strong men, um, not putting his live translation earpiece in where he's supposedly at a meeting doing work and the, the counterpart, be it the Japanese prime minister or whoever is speaking a language Trump doesn't understand. There's an earpiece for live translation available so that Trump can participate. Trump's just sitting there with no live translation.

Just no, no explanation. He just doesn't care. Could, could not care less about what's going on. We are going back to that. It's becoming very clear that we are going back to that. It's becoming very clear that we are going back to that and that's terrifying and that's scary, but we're going to have to figure out a way together, uh, to get through it. And maybe one aspect of it is hearing more from people who are doing stuff rather than, rather than from Trump who likes to talk about things

without knowing a thing about them. And that's what I want to talk about next. I saw an interview on Tic Tac where a random lady, and I say this in the positive sense, I'll tell you what I mean. A random lady destroyed the entire concept of what Donald Trump wants to do with deportation, immigration and the border. Now this is a random lady in the best sense. destroyed the entire concept of what Donald Trump wants to do with deportation, immigration and the border. Now this is a random lady in the best sense.

This is a woman who lives near the border and she points out, you know, high level conversations, Trump speaking to governors and this and that. This is a woman who has lived there her whole life and she explains why what Trump wants to do just isn't going to work. Take a listen to this. This is, this is great. Living here on the border. Do you support mass deportations? No, absolutely not. What should happen with all these migrants? They need to figure out something, but it's, this is a long time. I've lived up here since kids used to walk across. There was never a problem

until Trump came into office. I'll just leave it at that. So do you think Trump's going to be the man to fix this situation? This is going to make everything worse. We're not going to have anybody get the food. I remember 10 years ago, they were looking for workers to pick strawberries. No white people pick strawberries for any price, no price, no price. We're going to come back to that. Okay. We're going to be screwed. We're going to be totally screwed. I don't know what's going to happen. This, we definitely need a redo on it and all the people that came in this past year that were not from south america but that had flown in from china and africa and turkey and all the other places i don't know how that all happened but having a border fence does jack shit they climb over it and they get hurt right we need

more border patrol we need money do we need border? Where's he going to come up with all that money for the border patrol? That's going to do all this. They're not here right now because we're short. There's just not going to be, we're going to be really screwed over. I'm not sure what's going to happen. I've got 30 acres off the grid and I feel safer that way. This is, this is just, this is just the reality. And there's this thing where, where some people react as if there are kind of like racist overtones to the, the, the, the migrants are doing jobs Americans won't do. And that's sometimes interpreted as racist in two ways. Some people go, what?

Oh, we have to give crap jobs to the migrants that that's racist. The other aspect of it is, Oh, you're racist against the white people because you're stereotyping them. Sure. They would go and do these jobs. Whichever perspective you have, there is a reality that a bunch of the, um, uh, national agriculture industry depends on undocumented migrant, migrant labor. Now, of course you could say if those companies were properly punished for hiring undocumented workers, which is against the law, but so rarely are they punished. Then if you set up a system in which native born Americans were told that these jobs exist. And then, you know, when Ted Conover wrote a book in which he went and worked when with undocumented migrants, uh, picking oranges in Florida, and then he was doing something

else in Arizona, California, the book is worth reading. It's 20, 30 years old when he did it. It wasn't an issue of racism that sort of explained why there weren't white people doing those jobs. It was mostly a reflection of the way that industry is not actually kept accountable to the law, which is you're not allowed to hire undocumented immigrants and that a lot of these infrastructures are simply already in place. So it is in a technical sense true. If you stop all undocumented immigrant labor in agriculture over time, if the wages are

appropriate and people learn about the jobs and the transportation is figured out, which is not a small thing. Yes, there are native born Americans. They might be white or they might not, but that's what the lady is talking about when she says white people in some literal sense, you can get those jobs filled, but that's likely to take years. And Trump has no concept of the wholesale economic collapse that would be caused if he, as he said earlier to Kristen Welker, deports every undocumented migrant overnight or immediately as he claims to do.

It would wreak havoc on the American economy. it would wreak havoc on the American economy. It would wreak havoc on Trump's economy. Now will he actually be able to do it? I don't think so, but it might be better for him not to do it. Not because he's unable, but because he hears from some of these voices down on the border like this woman and realizes, man, this doesn't really make any sense. He has no idea what makes sense. He's repeating talking points that he's agreed on with others, and it would shut down this

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They are not handling this well. So let me kind of rewind, rewind a little bit and remind you what happened. After spending a whole bunch of Joe Biden's presidency, rightly criticizing Donald Trump, the host of morning Joe on MSNBC went down to Mar-a-Lago after Trump became president elect and they didn't do an interview. They basically just went down to glad hand and to get buddy buddy with Donald Trump. They want to reopen lines of communication. Their audience, to a great degree, saw it for what it was good for them.

They saw it as the epitome of access journalism, trying to figure out a way to just get access to power. And they absolutely excoriated Mika and Joe. Ratings are down dramatically. Mika and Joe had to turn comments off on a bunch of their stories online because they were getting absolutely destroyed. So now they've been on a sort of not an apology tour, more of a justification tour for several weeks where they are insisting that it was all great that they went down there. And here is Joe Scarborough getting agitated as Mika Brzezinski looks on. He sort of attempts to defend their entire thing.

Two things. You can do two things at the same time. You can say he had fascist rhetoric and still go in and talk to him. You know why I do that? To get the read of the man. You know why I went in and talked to Macron? To get the read of the man at a crucial time in EU funding and NATO funding. You realize he's yelling at his own audience here.

He went to leaders in the Middle East who were angry at the United States. And I sat there and I listened to them attacking me personally for 45 minutes because of U.S. policy. You know why I do that? To get the read of the leader, to get the read of where the country's going. So I can come back here and talk to you and let you. He's sounding unhinged. What the hell is going on with context and give you context, insight and background. You know, everybody we have on the show that's a reporter. It's what they do every day. They speak on background. I really don't know how people watch this. And there are there are people I respect. And supposedly, like even Biden likes having morning Joe on in the morning.

I just don't get it. I just, I just don't get it. And he's yelling at his audience. Now my issue with the Mar-a-Lago pilgrimage wasn't that they went, it wasn't that they told us about it on the show. It was the way it was presented. It was the way that they normalized a guy who wants to be an authoritarian autocrat, strong man, borderline dictator, dictator for a day, call it what you want, plans to

weaponize the DOJ against his perceived enemies. And I would have been much, ah, would I have been happier? I would have found it far more honest if Joe and Mika had instead said, this guy, as we've been telling you, is planning to become an unhinged autocrat. We don't want to be in his crosshairs. So we went down there to tell him, sir, we're going to cover you on as a, I don't even know if that gets them out of trouble, but it would have been much more honest than this whole thing where we're all of a sudden he's not a threat to democracy. All of a sudden he's not.

And you know, joke, Joe keeps insisting, no, we can, we can still say this, that the other thing I don't deny for a second that you can honestly cover someone that you personally know, uh, uh, and, and particularly meet through the course of doing your job. But the entire context of this meeting down there of we do, we want to reopen communication with the guy who's going to be the leader. You understand that you're talking like he's a normal person with normal plans to be a normal president. When this is a red alert moment, he's planning

fabricated crises to justify emergency powers, deportation camps. You want to reopen lines of communication. Now here's the one thing I will say sort of in potential defense of Joe and Mika, if the whole thing is merely a ruse to get access to Trump with the plan of breaking, leaking, whistleblowing, reporting the absolute worst of the worst that he plans to do, then it seems to me it would be more justified than what it appears to be. But based on everything I know about Joe and Mika, everything they've said, everything about how he's reacted, it's seeming to me like this is the absolute epitome of access journalism. A failed Trump lawyer, Alina Haba is back doing TV interviews and she did an interview with Fox News's Jesse

Waters that went really, really, really poorly. She tries to defend why it's good to have billionaires in charge of stuff. And essentially her argument is they are good at stuff because they are billionaires. Therefore, we should reward them by making them the people who are in charge of our country. There's a little bit of a problem with this argument. I'll tell you what it is in a moment. It's absolutely what it is. If you look at the fact that we have billionaires who have created companies now helping to clean up a bad economy, clean up a government where we don't have efficient spending and run the country like they run their businesses, much like Donald Trump.

That's why he's a billionaire. And then you have the other side, the cash, but tells the Pete Hegseth, the people that they're hitting hard because they know they're going to come in, fire you, clean up and make you be accountable. And that's where the pardons come in. But I two little problems with this. Number one, Trump is not a billionaire because he's a great business person. Trump is a billionaire because depending on which reporting you look at over the course of his life, he got $400 million in assets, revenues, or loans

from his father. Super rough numbers. If 40 years ago you throw 400 million into the S and P 500, you'd have 6 billion right now. That's more than Trump has. What Trump has managed to do with the money he was given is remain a billionaire with less money than he would have if he just threw it all into the stock market. So the first problem is the whole story of why Trump is a billionaire, but also Trump's

business success story is directly undercut by the reality that his businesses have pled bankruptcy many times. And so this entire story, the hero story that people like Alina Haba are obsessed with, it's completely and totally pathetic and untrue. At another moment during the same interview, uh, Alina Haba tells us about how quickly and how well Trump's incoming administration is just going to fix everything. When have we heard this before? But I can tell you, Donald Trump and his entire cabinet and team are going to clean up America

so fast our heads will be spinning and it will be the best thing that's ever happened to our country. Yeah, a little bit hyperbolic. Now they love to say, why was Kamala promising to do stuff? She could have just done it cause she's been VP all this time. Well, the VP, as we know, doesn't set much policy. Mike Pence set no policy when he was VP Kamala Harris set no policy as VP Biden other than the little things that, that, uh, Obama put him in charge of when Biden was VP, he didn't set any policy, but you know who was president for four years

and actually could have accomplished some of the things he said he was going to do Donald Trump himself and he failed his own promises. So this entire Habba story reeks, reeks of desperation. She does sort of seem upset, uh, that she didn't end up being made press secretary sort of decided to, to bow out gracefully when it was clear the decision had already been made not to give her a role. So really one of the most regrettable characters that has come from the last four years of Trump, we'll see if she has any involvement in the forthcoming administration. It seems as though grifting runs in the family. Melania, after being essentially missing for who the hell knows how long she has reappeared to do

a series of interviews, including this one on Fox and friends where she is promoting patriotic. This is it's gagging. I'm gagging patriotic Christmas ornaments that she designed slash pointed to for ninety dollars each. And I'm going to play the clip for you. Pay particularly close attention to Steve Doocy. That's the guy second from the left with the green tie as they examine the ornaments. He genuinely seems disgusted by having to do this on TV. And this is disgusting. Is there anything they won't sell to their cult? Listen to this. I hope you're not eating. This is the third season that I design and they're very special. For example, Lady Liberty, it was inspiration from my necklace that I bought when I was modeling in Paris. And now we have an ornament and we have I have a replica of an expensive necklace I bought in Europe. This is so relatable, isn't it? If you were

living your life, wishing that you could somehow have a version of Melania Trump's French necklace, you can now do it by paying 90 bucks for a Christmas ornament version of it. I guess the gold sneakers are all sold out. Also a necklace that it's available on Melania Trump dot com. Beautiful. So I also this one, it's the necklace and inspiration, the flower. These are awesome. These are very patriotic this year. As you could see, it's all red, white and blue. And I was inspired by that. And they're different each year, right, Melania? You discontinue them after each Christmas. They discontinue, they retire and this is available. We like to eliminate all evidence I ever did this every single season.

Right now. And it's a it's a great gift and a great collectible. They're made really well, too. They're beautiful. They're beautiful. And you can also go on our website. Extremely. Oh my God. The good news I think is we'll never hear from Melania during this presidency, except when she's grifting.

I, I, my, my sense is she wants very little to do with this presidency. What a hard hitting interview, huh? Here's Steve Ducey asking, how do you describe your husband's dance moves? Really getting to the critical issues for Americans. Last night at the Patriot Awards, I think we got a clip. He was doing the Trump dance. And I'm sure, I'm sure you've seen that evolve over the last, as you look right there, how do you describe your husband's dance moves? Oh, this is very special and unique dance.

Yeah, it is. Right. And I think a lot of people are copying it and everybody has fun with it. Yeah. Which part is this? How you dance? No. Which part of the Trump? Did you give him any tips like in the beginning? It was low and it was up high. And now there's a, oh no, no, we don't speak actually. So there's no way I could have given him any tips. No, he's coming all on his own. Have you ever done the Trump dance? You are Mrs Trump. I did not. Isn't this great guys really an abortive

attempt at journalism. And then finally here's a Brian kill me. Sorry, Brian kill me. Uh, that's probably what Steve Ducey was thinking. Brian kill me. It says to Melania, despite her beauty, she's not appearing on any of the big magazines. Why is that Melania? One thing that stood out for us is here you are this beautiful international model and you're the first lady of the United States, the world's most popular country. You're in the white house and you're not on the cover of any of these magazines. Do you think that by the way, what does it mean that it's the most popular country? We're not the most populous country. And what does it even mean to be the most popular country? What the

hell is Kilmeade talking about? We'll change. And would you say yes to them? I think the Vogue's, the People's, whatever. Look, I've been there on the covers, on the cover of Vogue, on the covers of many magazines before. And, you know, for me, we have so many other important things to do to be on the cover of any magazine. I think the life would not change. I'm the first lady now for anybody. If I'm on the cover of the. Can I retract my question? Well, you know how people's lives will be changed for the worse if they start spending

all their money on grifty $90 patriotic Christmas ornaments. That's really how people's lives are going to get worse. That's for damn sure. Uh, humiliating, utterly humiliating. And if this is a sign as to what we can expect from Fox news for the next four years, dear God is all I have to say. If you want to learn a little bit about how it got this bad, I do recommend to you my forthcoming book, the echo machine. We are, we are approaching or may have passed 4,000 pre-orders.

We are going to make a run at that New York times bestseller list. We are really going to try to do it. You can get the book in physical audio or ebook formats at David Pakman dot com slash book. Submit your preorder at David Pakman dot com slash free book stuff to get all of the free goodies for preordering. And we will see you on the bonus show today. What a bonus show. Truly. Oh, the bonus show where you want to make money. Everybody else that makes money to fund themselves is bad. Let's do it. I'll see you then. And I'll be back here tomorrow.