The David Pakman Show - 1/29/25: Trump Press Secy disaster, Medicaid portals shut down

Episode Date: January 29, 2025

-- On the Show: -- Karoline Leavitt, Donald Trump's new Press Secretary, holds her first press briefing and it is an unmitigated disaster -- When asked about soaring egg prices under Donald Trump, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt is unable to answer coherently, instead blaming former President Joe Biden -- Donald Trump pulls funding for and thus shuts down Medicaid portals in all fifty US states, creating total chaos until a judge steps in -- It appears that Donald Trump's funding freezes violate the Constitution and federal law -- A man voted for Donald Trump in November, and is now panicking as his own wife has been deported -- Former Vice President Mike Pence publishes an attack video against Donald Trump, pointing out Trump's hypocrisy in past statements about his now-nominee to Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr -- Donald Trump's initial approval rating is lower than any President since World War II -- Republican Senators are demanding the Jeffrey Epstein files, even if Donald Trump does not want them released -- On the Bonus Show: Americans sour on Trump's early moves, Greenlanders reject idea of joining the US, Google Maps will change "Gulf of Mexico" to "Gulf of America" 💻 Sponsored by Aura: Try it free for 2 weeks! See if your data is safe at https://aura.com/pakman 🖥️ UPLIFT Desk: Get up to $300 OFF and 4 free accessories at https://upliftdesk.com/pakman ⚠️ Ground News: Get 50% OFF their unlimited access Vantage plan at https://ground.news/pakman ☕ Beam melatonin hot cocoa: Code PAKMAN for up to 40% OFF at https://shopbeam.com/pakman 💻 Get Private Internet Access for 83% OFF + 4 months free at https://www.piavpn.com/David 🛌 Helix Sleep: Get 25% OFF and 2 free pillows at https://helixsleep.com/pakman -- Become a Member: https://davidpakman.com/membership -- Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/davidpakmanshow -- TDPS Subreddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/thedavidpakmanshow -- Pakman Discord: https://davidpakman.com/discord -- David on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow -- Leave a Voicemail: (219)-2DAVIDP

Well, we've now seen it. The first press briefing from Donald Trump's new press secretary, Caroline Leavitt, wearing what can only be described as a cartoonishly large cross necklace. She announced the same thing that Trump's former press secretary announced at her first press briefing. Of course, Kayleigh McEnany saying, I will tell you the truth from this podium. Unclear if they know the difference between podium and lectern, not subject matter for today. And Caroline Leavitt saying the exact same thing. Let's take a look. You're up here in this briefing room speaking to the American public. You view yourself

and your role as speaking on advocating on behalf of the president or providing the unvarnished truth that is not to lie, not to obfuscate to the American people. I commit to telling the truth from this podium every single day. I commit to speaking on behalf of the president of the United States. That is my job. And I will say it's very easy to speak truth from this podium when you have a president who is implementing policies that are wildly popular with the American people. And that's exactly what this administration is doing. So this is a promise that has been often made and rarely really stuck to.

And Caroline Leavitt broke this promise just moments later and really never looked back, with some exceptions which I will tell you. The first lie came really, really quickly, and it was Caroline Caroline Levitt saying that the administration believes birthright citizenship is unconstitutional. And therefore implicitly what that means is that it's illegal. It's against the law. Take a look at what she had to say. The folks that you mentioned have a right to have that legal opinion, but it is in disagreement with the legal opinion of this administration. This administration believes that birthright citizenship is unconstitutional.

So not only is birthright citizenship not unconstitutional, it's in the constitution. Imagine if I said to some of these gun people, I don't think the right to bear arms is constitutional. What do you think they'd say? They would say, look, here's the Bill of Rights to the Constitution. It's in the Constitution. Gun ownership is by definition constitutional because it's in the Constitution. And similarly, when you look at the 14th Amendment, it establishes birthright citizenship. Now, you might not like it, but to say it's unconstitutional is something very different altogether. The 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868, and it says all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.

Now, there is a bunch of sort of, I don't even know what to call it. There's legal conjecture from some of these anti-immigration people, which argues that the critical part that says, no, birthright citizenship is not a real thing, is the subject to the jurisdiction thereof. And often they will argue that if someone comes here from another country pregnant and gives birth here, that they are only here either traveling or illegally or temporarily, in all of these scenarios, what they like to argue is they aren't really subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. They don't have legal status, therefore they are actually subject to the jurisdiction of whatever country they are from. It falls apart extraordinarily quickly because as many of you know, when you're here in the United States,

you are subject to the laws of whatever jurisdiction you reside in. If you come here from wherever and you go to a state that has legal cannabis, your ability to buy cannabis legally is subject to the jurisdiction of where you are. If you're in a state that does not have legal cannabis, the reason that you are or aren't allowed to buy cannabis when you come to the United States from another country, even visiting, even illegally, whatever, has to do not with the law of the source country, but with the law of the jurisdiction in which you find yourself. So the constitutional argument is not very good, but it's not only a constitutional argument that

explains why birthright citizenship is legal. The U.S. Supreme Court has also looked at this and has consistently affirmed that this is indeed not a mistake. Birthright citizenship is constitutional. There's a landmark case, United States v. Wong Kim Ark from 1898, and the court ruled that a child born in the United States to Chinese immigrant parents was an American citizen under the 14th Amendment. So it's in the Bill of Rights, and we have Supreme Court precedent. So then we go to, well, what about changing birthright citizenship? That would require a constitutional amendment. Birthright citizenship is also consistent with international norms. The United States, another line they love

is no other country does this. There's no birthright citizenship anywhere else. That's also not true. About 30 countries grant birthright citizenship. So it's not unusual. It's not particularly rare. It's supported by the constitution. It's supported by legal precedent. They just don't like it. That's if they were just honest and they said, listen, it is the law of the land. It's been the law of the land for a long time. The Supreme court has affirmed it. We just don't like it. and we want to change that. I would respect them a little bit more. I don't think they're going to get very far with this. It's not constitutional argument. That being said, when new attorney general Pam Bondi was asked, will you support and uphold birthright citizenship

as attorney general? She did not say yes. She said she's going to study it. So it would not be a surprise if they try to come up with some novel legal interpretation to say birthright citizenship, not actually legal. Now back to Caroline Leavitt, Donald Trump's new press secretary. I, you know, the bar is so low I have to hand it to her. She did say that the drones seen over New Jersey were not the enemy. Implicitly, they were not aliens or whatever. So let's take a look at what she had to say. And before I turn to questions, I do have news directly from the president of the United States that was just shared with me in the Oval Office from President Trump directly, an update on the New Jersey drones. After research and study, the drones that were flying over New Jersey in large numbers were

authorized to be flown by the FAA for research and various other reasons. Many of these drones were also hobbyists, recreational, and private individuals you can argue we should have been told ahead of time that this was something that the FAA had approved for research and for other reasons. You could argue that it was predictable that there would be some panic because people were not informed in advance of what was happening. But she, as far as I know, at least told the truth about that. So the first press briefing for Caroline Leavitt, not going well overall, many, many lies. But now I want to focus in on one specific topic that came up during the press briefing, and that is the price of the price of, you know, it's either going to be gasoline or eggs, right? The price of eggs. Let's talk about that. We're quickly learning how the press in Donald Trump's second term is going to be dealt with. And there's not really going to be much of a change from the first term,

except it seems that there will be more disdain than there was before, more gaslighting than there was before, more obvious misdirection and unwillingness to seriously and substantively answer questions. We are going to look now at a reporter mentioning to Trump's new press secretary, Caroline Leavitt, hey, since Trump took office, egg prices are way up. And of course, that's true. We talked about it yesterday. Gas prices up about, egg prices up about 10% since Donald Trump took over. What does Caroline Leavitt talk about? She talks about President Joe Biden. Take a look.

Country and America is back. Christian. Thanks, Caroline. Just real quick. You mentioned the inflation executive order the president signed, but egg prices have skyrocketed since President Trump took office. So what specifically is he doing to lower those costs for Americans? Really glad you brought this up because there is a lot of reporting out there that is putting the onus on this White House for the increased cost of eggs. I would like to point out to each and every one of you that in 2024, when Joe Biden was in the Oval Office or upstairs in the residence sleeping, I'm not so sure, egg prices increased 65% in this country. We also

have seen the cost of everything, not just eggs. Bacon, groceries, gasoline have increased because of the inflationary policies of the last administration. As far as the egg shortage, what's also contributing to that is that the Biden administration and the Department of Agriculture directed the mass killing of more than 100 million chickens, which has led to a lack of chicken supply in this country, therefore a lack of egg supply, which is leading to the shortage. So I will leave you with this point. This is an example of why it's so incredibly important that the Senate moves swiftly to confirm all of President Trump's nominees, including his nominee for the United States Department of Agriculture, Brooke Rollins, who is already speaking with Kevin Hassett,

who's leading the economic team here at the White House, on how we can address the egg shortage in this country. As for costs, I laid out costs. I laid out the plethora of ways that President Trump has addressed saving costs for the American people over the past week. He looks forward to continuing to doing that in the days ahead. So, you know, whatever she wants to say about Joe Biden, Biden left office with egg prices at six forty seven a gallon. They are now at seven oh nine. These are the cold numbers. I know Biden was president until noon on January 20th, noon Eastern time. I know that from noon on January 20th, maybe it was twelve oh five. Donald Trump has been president of the United States in the intervening nine days since Trump has become president, egg prices are up 10%. And as we talked about yesterday, Donald Trump's promise was he's going to get them down right away. Now, what we are quickly learning, and I think many of us already knew it, but what the administration is quickly learning, is that a lot of these promises are extraordinarily difficult to achieve.

It's easy to get everyone on board with almost anything when you are united against your shared enemy. Wokeness, Biden, DEI, inflation, or whatever. Once you're in charge, it is much more difficult to massage or lie about the numbers. And of course, a big part of the reason that egg prices are up, we talked about this in detail yesterday, so I won't spend a lot of time on it. One of the reasons that egg prices are up is because of bird flu. A huge driver of the egg prices that we're seeing is the devastation of farms brought by bird flu. 136 million birds infected or killed. This is not Trump's fault,

but Donald Trump is already showing he doesn't give a damn about bird flu. Dealing with pandemics, he decided during his first presidential term, not really something that he believes presidents, I guess, should do or that he wants to do. And he's doing the same thing this time. He's made it clear he doesn't care. And bird flu is a huge, huge factor here. Instead, Trump is focusing on tariffs, which will bring prices up, immigration crackdowns, which, if successful at scale, will bring prices up, worsening food supply issues, and doing the exact opposite of what should be done. So I am not unreasonable in acknowledging both when Biden was president and when Trump was president. Presidents have little control over the price of eggs. The difference is that Republicans spent years blaming Biden for high food prices. They said back in 2021,

when Biden took office, from this day forward, it is his responsibility. It's in his portfolio. And now that Trump is president, they still want to talk about Biden. So the theme is when Biden was president, it's Biden's fault. When Trump is president, it's still Biden's fault. Last time Trump was president, if it's good, it's thanks to Trump. If it's bad, it's because of Barack Obama. You see the theme here. They have no plan other than to blame Biden for as long as they can. This is really post-partisan for me. Go back a decade, go back 15 years on this show, and you'll see that when I talk about gas prices, I give very little credit nor blame to presidents for high or low gas prices and therefore gas prices to a degree, but it's short to medium term and it's modest. Presidents can do things to make groceries more expensive.

Trump plans to do a whole bunch of them, but we want to be fair about this. It is not a partisan issue in practice. It becomes partisan when one political party is constantly lying about how any of this works. All right, let me mention one more time. We have figured out a way to offer a limited number of signed copies of my forthcoming book, The Echo Machine. A few clarifications. I can't sign an audio book because it's a virtual product. I can't sign a Kindle book, right? This only applies to the hardcover physical book. It looks like somewhere between

75, 100, maybe 200 physical copies, I am going to be able to sign with dedications. It's going to be more expensive because my publisher will have to ship them to me. I will have to sign them and ship them individually. It'll probably be 50 bucks. If you want one, email info at davidpackman.com with the subject line signed book. I will tell you I received 49 requests yesterday. I don't know how many we're going to be able to offer. And this is completely separate from any book you may have pre-ordered. You will pay directly. Give us your address. I will sign it, dedicate it, and it will go out to you. So

info at davidpachman.com signed book is the subject line and be ready to pay. Again, it's going to be about 50 bucks for this. Let's take a quick break more, not about books, but about what's going on politically and globally after this short break. data on a massive scale. I feel safe because I use aura. One of our sponsors aura will monitor the dark web to check if your personal info has been compromised, your emails, passwords, social security number. It'll keep an eye on credit accounts and it'll let you know if there's anything suspicious going on. And aura can also scan your devices for malware, ransomware viruses, and more aura even will provide parental controls to let your kids explore the internet safely Thank you so much for joining us. all in one place. Instead of using a dozen multiple services to do the same things, you get everything you need to stay safe online in one place. Go to aura.com slash Pacman to try it for two weeks, totally free with the free subscription. It'll take seconds to see if

your personal data is already compromised. Protect yourself and your family. Now that's a U R a.com slash Pacman. The link is in the podcast notes. If you work at a desk like I do, I often find myself sort of discouraged because I'm sitting for a long time, or at least I used to until I found uplift desk uplift desk is at the forefront of ergonomic solutions, promoting better posture and health through adjustable standing desks. And I've been using Uplift standing desks for years, long before they became a sponsor. One of my favorite things about Uplift Desk is the endless configuration of accessories. I've got cable management, power outlets, monitor arms to my right.

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That's U P L I F T desk.com slash Pacman. The link is in the podcast notes. What can really only be described as a callous and reckless move. The Trump administration effectively pulled the rug straight out from under Medicaid websites around the country by freezing federal funding for critical programs. And this was a decision that was part of this broader halt on federal grants and loans that fortunately a judge has stepped in and said, no, Trump can't do this. At least give us until February 3rd to deal with it in courts. And this is truly poised to wreak absolute havoc

on millions of low-income Americans, people who rely on Medicaid for their healthcare needs. And it's all being framed as an effort by Trump to align federal spending with Trump's so-called priorities. But we really have to call this what it is, and we knew it would happen. We've been talking about who's going to get screwed the most. This is a politically motivated attack on essential services, and it will disproportionately affect the most vulnerable people in our society. And the administration is saying, oh, you know, the direct assistance programs, Social Security, Medicare, we're not going to touch it.

But the amount of ambiguity that surrounds Medicaid funding has left states and healthcare providers and patients in a very understandable state of panic. Now here is the commentary from elected officials from around the country as they realized what was going on and as this started. Here is Congressman Maxwell Frost from Florida who tweeted, quote, Just confirmed that the Trump administration shut down the Medicaid portal for Florida. There are over 3.8 million Floridians on Medicaid. Here is Senator Chris Murphy from Connecticut. Can confirm Connecticut's Medicaid payment system has been turned off. Doctors and hospitals cannot get paid.

Discussions ongoing about whether services can continue. Medicaid covers health care for millions of seniors and covers 40% of births in America. Senator Brian Schatz from Hawaii. Multiple states locked out of Medicaid portal. This is a Trump shutdown, except this time it's unlawful. We're going to talk in a moment about the legality or lack thereof. And Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker's office reported, quote, the Trump funding freeze has shut the state out of the federal health care program. Medicaid covers nearly four million people in Illinois. So the broader context here

is that this is the latest in a series of actions by the Trump administration to undermine the social safety net. This is what they alluded to wanting to do, mixed in with, oh, we would never touch this, we would never touch that. But for the slashing of foreign aid and slashing funding for life-saving medications, gutting diversity programs, imposing hiring freezes, the message could not be clearer. The priorities for Trump are not with the average American person. It's his ideological agenda as informed by the tech bro elites and the nativists and the nationalists. And it's really just a stark reminder that it didn't matter what he said during the campaign about who he's going to defend and support and the average Joe and the average

Jane. He doesn't care. And this is an administration that does not care. This, if it's allowed to go forward, because again, understand Trump did it. And a judge said, sir, you can't do that. If it's allowed to go forward, it'll cost lives, it'll deepen inequality, it'll leave states scrambling to pick up the pieces. And why? government programs that don't align with his vision and dismantling anything that he associates with a predecessor, especially if the predecessor was a Democrat rather than a Republican. Imagine being, and I know that many, I know there's people in my audience on Medicaid, many of you. Imagine being one of the people in my audience or one of your neighbors or yourself who over the last 24 hours all of a sudden were told, as a doctor, I am no longer able to connect to the Medicaid program. If that's how you plan to pay for this visit, then I can't see you unless you're willing to sign that you're going to pay out of pocket. A lot of people have to sign that anyway, generically. Like,

if we can't collect from your insurance, you owe us money. That's becoming a reality for people. Will states be able to keep their Medicaid websites running? And maybe most importantly, how many lives are going to be lost because of this disastrous decision? How many people's treatment is going to be delayed because of what Donald Trump is trying to do? So thankfully, the judge has said not so fast after some number of hours of this going on, but we're only a few days from when it could become a legal reality. And I want to now focus on the fact that every indication is that what Trump did is against the law. Trump appears to have committed the first crime of his second term.

Honestly, it's probably not the first crime, but it's the first crime that is clearly a crime. Caroline Leavitt, Donald Trump's new press secretary, was asked yesterday about Trump freezing funding for programs including the Medicaid system at state levels. As we already talked about, people, providers, doctors, hospitals, frozen out of the Medicaid system all across the country. Caroline Leavitt was asked about it. She said it's temporary and we need to put outflows of money in line with Trump's agenda. I'm going to play it, but understand that this is against the law. This is a crime.

To the other question that you asked about those specific programs. Again, I would say this is not a ban. This is a temporary pause in a freeze to ensure that all of the money going out from Washington, DC is in aligned with the president's agenda. And as the Office of Management and Budget has updates on what will be kickstarted once again, I will provide those to you. So this is illegal. It's against the law. It's it's that simple. The U.S. Constitution, this is like the stuff you learn. And what's what's the grade in school where, you know, I'm just a bill up on Capitol Hill, you know that whole thing? The U.S. Constitution gives Congress the explicit power of the purse.

It's Article I, Section 9. And it says that once Congress appropriates funds for a specific purpose, once Congress says, here's the program and here's the money for the program, it's two parts. That's how Congress operates. Medicaid is an example. State healthcare infrastructure for Medicaid. Once Congress appropriates the money, the executive branch, the president, is legally obligated to spend those funds as directed. Trump's doing something that's against the law. The president does not have the authority to unilaterally withhold or redirect congressionally approved funds. You know, sometimes when we have these conversations about, oh, well, people on the street go, I would love the money that's going to X to instead go to house homeless veterans.

Now, often they don't really want that. Like when they're actually told, here's how much it'll cost to house homeless veterans. They go, oh, they should find a house. They should pull themselves up by their bootstraps. But the point is once money has been appropriated for something, you can't just say, oh, use it for this other thing, at least not in theory. But it's more than that. It's more than just what's in the Constitution. The Impound Control Act was passed in response to when President Nixon kept trying to spend money that was appropriated by Congress on other things. And the Impound Control Act explicitly prohibits the president from withholding or delaying funds without congressional approval. So, Constitution and law. the president from withholding or delaying funds without congressional approval. So constitution and law. Now there are two things that presidents can do with regard to funds. One is called

rescission. Rescission means that a president can make a proposal to cancel specific funds, right? Congress approves and appropriates. Trump goes, I don't want to fund state Medicaid websites. Okay, Trump can make a proposal. Congress can either approve it or reject it within 45 days. If Congress says, no, we don't like this rescission that Trump is proposing, then the money has to be dispersed as originally agreed. The second thing a president can do is called a deferral, which is that a president can temporarily delay spending. But the key there is that it's

only for routine administrative reasons. If there's a logistical delay, oh, I don't know, you know, the mechanism meant to disperse the money, ACH and wire service is down. We can't move the money. You are not allowed to defer for policy disagreements. And Caroline Leavitt admitted in that clip, this is to put spending in line with Trump's agenda. That's his political agenda. That's very clear. There's no logistical delay here, and Medicaid funding is mandatory spending. This is what maybe Trump doesn't care about or doesn't understand. Congress has legally obligated the federal government to provide the money for this. These are not discretionary programs. Those need annual appropriations.

This is a mandatory program, Medicaid, and it operates under permanent laws that guarantee the funding. When Trump pauses the funding, the president is undermining a congressionally mandated program. It's a violation of separation of powers. We also have Supreme Court precedent. Just to show you how comprehensive this infrastructure is, the Supreme Court has repeatedly said, Trump, no president, can override congressional spending decisions. You have the case of Train v. City of New York from 1975. You've got Kendall v. United States from 1838. So what Trump is doing is against the law. Now, the question very quickly becomes, who's going to stop him temporarily in the immediate. It's a judge. A judge has paused

the Trump spending freeze until February 3rd so that it can be dealt with in a more comprehensive and hopefully robust legal manner. But the law breaking is beginning from the guy who insists that he's all about law and order. Once again, Donald Trump's cabinet picks are all about loyalty over expertise. Election denier Carrie Lake to lead Voice of America. The government funded broadcaster meant to report unbiased news. Ground News found hundreds of articles covering this story, which is an app I've trusted for years to help me critically analyze the news I consume.

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The trust and transparency in the media ground news is giving my audience 50% off the same vantage plan that I use. Go to ground.news.com. The link is in the podcast notes. at one point or another. A sleep aid many turn to is melatonin because it's a non-pharmaceutical remedy, clinically proven to work without the side effects you might get with antihistamines or prescription meds. My favorite way to take melatonin is with the Dream Hot Cocoa Powder from our sponsor, Beam. It works. When you mix Dream Powder into hot water or milk for a delicious mug of cocoa, half an hour later, blissfully sleeping. No sugar added, it's naturally sweetened and it comes in delicious flavors. My favorite is cinnamon cocoa, but vanilla chai is great too.

You can get better sleep with melatonin, proven to help you fall asleep and stay asleep longer. Feeling rested makes the next day so much better. Keep dream powder nearby to soothe you to sleep when you need it. Get 40% off for a limited time when you go to shop beam dot com slash Pacman and use the code Pacman. That's shop B.A.M. dot com slash Pacman. Use code Pacman for 40% off. The link is in the podcast notes. Let's talk about what is a heartbreaking and also infuriating story out of Florida, because it really perfectly encapsulates the hypocrisy and the cruelty and the sheer lack of foresight that has really defined Trump's immigration policies, especially in the early days of these ICE raids. A Florida man, a Trump-supporting Florida man, is now pleading with Trump to, quote,

work something out after ICE agents swooped in, detained his wife, and deported her back to Venezuela. This is a woman who was in the process of getting her papers in order, trying to do everything the right way, as they say, but it didn't matter. She's gone. Her husband is begging, please let my wife stay here. She deserves to be here. So let's check out this video and then talk about it. They turned off the cameras, excuse my language, and then they took my wife. This man who wished not to be identified says his wife is from Venezuela and has lived in the United States for a few years. She was one of three people taken from this home.

I'm told the two others were men who worked in construction. You see them here. This video, only a minute and 52 seconds long, we do not see his wife being removed from the home. But this is a picture of her that he keeps in his wallet. Her name is Vianis Ramirez and he says she was in the process of becoming a United States citizen. She already had a court date. She was good. Everything good. She just came in and they snatched her. These are pictures from the process of becoming a United States citizen. She already had a court date. She was good. Everything was good. They just came in and they snatched her.

These are pictures from the Department of Homeland Security detaining other undocumented men and women in Broward County. It's despicable what they're doing right now. It's very embarrassing. President Donald Trump arrived at his Trump National Golf Resort in Doral Saturday, set to host GOP leaders for a conference.

This man hopes this message makes it to him. If I get a chance to talk to you, man, yo, please, man, let's work something out. So, man, let me keep my wife here in the United States, man. She deserves to be here, man. ICE reports nearly 1,000 raids in the country on Sunday alone, which is up from just under 300 on Saturday. Here at the detention center in Miramar, things have been quiet for several hours, but we will continue to monitor this situation and bring you the developing news on raids in South Florida as

they happen. So what is this about? This story is really a stark reminder of a phenomenon that we've talked about before and we see all the time in politics. People tend to assume that harsh, punitive policies will always affect somebody else. It's not going to be my family. It's not going to be my partner. It's not going to be me. It's not going to be the people at the local restaurant that I like going to. It's not going to be people such that the supply chain for fruits or vegetables I get at my grocery store, they're not going to be affected. And the Florida man voted for Trump, presumably because he got into the rhetoric of cracking down

on illegal immigration. And maybe he thought they're only going after bad people, the criminals, the ones who really don't belong here. And we've talked before how the thing is, when you empower a system that operates on fear and cruelty as a feature and indiscriminate enforcement, which is an important part of it, it doesn't discriminate. That's the way it works. It doesn't care if your spouse is the one who is hardworking and law abiding. It doesn't care if they were in the process of legalizing their status but hadn't quite done it yet. It doesn't care about your family staying together. It doesn't care about how your life is going to be affected. This is the way that these systems work.

And this guy is learning the lesson the hard way. Trump's immigration raids and the deportation policies, they were never about law and order. And of course, the entire concept of anything Trump doing being about law and order is laughable, given that he's one of the biggest scofflaw flouters of the law there is. But put that aside for a second. The entire ICE raid milieu was about making people afraid, dividing communities, turning people against each other, phone numbers to report suspected this and that, and appealing to the basest instincts of MAGA world. And we've seen this before. Time and time again, we see stories like this one where Trump's own supporters get caught in the crossfire. The farmers that support Trump are the ones that get screwed by the tariffs. The companies that support Trump are the ones that get screwed by his ever-changing opinion about his H-1B visa good or his H-1B visa bad? His wife, this individual's wife, not Trump's wife, was trying to navigate what is a broken and extremely bureaucratic immigration system.

It genuinely sounds like she was navigating it as best she could. And she's thousands of miles away now, torn from her family. She wasn't one of these rapist undocumented immigrants. She wasn't a of these rapist undocumented immigrants. She wasn't a murderer undocumented immigrant. Trump said some families may get separated. Moms may get deported. Women, children, the whole thing. Tom Holman said the exact same thing. The guy still voted for Trump and now it happened. In some way, you've got to give it to Trump that he was being honest. Doesn't matter if you vote for him. Doesn't matter if it's a woman or a child or part of a family. They're doing it. They're doing

what Trump said that they were going to do, all to satisfy Trump's sort of obsession with appearing tough on immigration. Now, what is especially gut-wrenching about this story is just the husband pleading, please, please let me keep my wife. Let's work something out. And these desperate appeals, which they really pull at the heartstrings. It's hard not to empathize with it. They assume that Trump is appealable to when it comes to his humanity and when it comes to his empathy. But Trump doesn't do mercy. Trump doesn't do compassion. And his entire immigration policy has been built on a foundation of cruelty. He's not making exceptions. And these folks are, what's the phrase that the kids use these days? They effed around and now they are finding out.

Let's talk about the latest development in the ongoing soap opera that is the post-vice presidential life of former Vice President Mike Pence. Let's remember that Mike Pence was Trump's number two for four years. And Mike Pence has done something absolutely fascinating. And just as like a preface, I think Mike Pence is despicable. This is not a story about praising Pence. It's a story about just reminding everybody how morally vapid this entire MAGA movement is. Mike Pence published a montage of Donald Trump attacking Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in the past, criticizing, slamming RFK Jr. in the past. And he published this on Twitter where he said, quote, President Trump was right the first time. Senators vote no on RFK Jr. So let's take a look at the video and

RFK's confirmation hearings are starting. The timing of this is extraordinarily relevant. Take a look. RFK Jr. is a Democrat plant, a radical left liberal. A lot of people think that Jr. is a conservative. He's not. He's more liberal than anybody running on the Democrat side. Jr. is totally anti-gun, an extreme environmentalist who makes the green news scammers look very conservative by comparison. And he's anti-military and he's anti-vet. He's an extreme liberal. He's radical left.

And so don't think you're going to vote for him and feel good. He's a radical left Democrat. I'd even take Biden over Jr. because our country would last about a year or two longer than it would with Jr. It would collapse almost immediately. So on the one hand, it's not difficult to see this as a predictable feature of the Trump brand loyalty. Thatty, that's the only currency, and I guess Trump coins, but primarily loyalty is the currency that matters to Trump. You can spend it and you can re-spend it, and Trump can go from attacking you one day to hugging you the next day if you align with him, if you lay down like a doormat in front of him, if you flatter him. If you cross him and you're no longer useful, or you have a moment where you deviate from the worship loyalty,

Mike Pence did this, right? When he said, I'm not going to send it back to the states on January 6th, 2021, because there's really no such thing. Then you're out in the cold with Trump and it's over. Mike Pence was once Trump's devoted vice president. And he is now persona non grata in Trump's orbit because that's what he did on January 6th. He didn't do the one thing Trump demanded of him. He didn't have the courage to do it, according to Trump, which was help Trump try to overturn the election results, an election that Donald Trump lost. And from Trump's perspective, when loyalty is your currency, Pence committed an unforgivable sin by showing just a teeny, Pence is despicable, but he showed like a tiny little shred of the ability to think and act independently. Meanwhile, meanwhile, RFK Jr. had been on Trump's hit list in the past, called out for what he said, called out for his positions.

But these days, it's the opposite with RFK Jr. Pence fell out of favor, even though Pence didn't really change who he is, and RFK Jr. fell into favor. Did RFK Jr. change? I don't know. I mean, he certainly seems to have changed his political views over the last few years. But the point is, what really changed is that RFK became useful to Trump by being willing to push narratives that resonated with the kind of anti-establishment, conspiracy-minded corners of MAGA. And when you consider that Trump himself will often downplay or outright ignore established science, it's kind of a match made in heaven with RFK. So we've seen this pattern over and over.

Trump shifts from praising to scorning, from endorsing to blaming. Jeff Sessions, John Bolton. I mean, the list is so long, I could just spend an hour doing the list. The first principle is, do you or do you not serve Trump? Will you defend and bolster Trump's ego? Do you show personal fealty to Trump? If you do, you get to stick around. If you don't, then you don't. It underscores that the primary value, you know, we talked yesterday about the

broken political system, the broken political spectrum, rather. Some of the stuff Trump says sounds like what we think about as left-wing. Some of it sounds right-wing. We need a different system, and we need a system that really looks at values. And Trump's values are greed, corruption, and egocentrism. Those are not values I find interesting or appealing or useful for leaders of the United States. And it's all transactional with Trump. If you're no longer useful to the narrative, you're thrown out kind of like trash. And then if you can be useful in a new role,

no matter how bizarre that role might be, he's going to call you. And right now it's RFK Jr., useful to Trump as Secretary of health and human services, pushing the same conspiracy laid and anti-establishment nonsense that a lot of Trump's followers love. Will he get confirmed? Yeah. I mean, it seems like probably he will. But Mike Pence, I guess he's decided this is the hill he wants to die on. He doesn't like it and he's saying so. so they can sell it or give it to law enforcement. And these VPNs are just out to make a buck without really protecting your privacy. The only VPN I trust enough to have as a sponsor

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a bang. According to the latest polling from five 38, Donald Trump's approval rating at the start of his second term is right around 50% with 43% disapproving. That is a net approval of plus seven. You take the 50, you subtract from it the 43, you get seven. Plus seven, maybe it sounds decent to you, I don't know. But then you realize that this is the second worst start for any president since World War II. And the only person that Trump is underperforming at, or rather outperforming at this point in time was Trump back in 2017. The bar is so damn low

that the only competition is Donald Trump himself. Now, if history is any guide, things are likely to get worse. I wanna remind you of that in a moment. It's a dynamic we've talked about before, but let's break this down first. Trump's approval rating is underwater compared to every modern president except his own first term. George W. Bush started with a net approval of plus 28. Biden started at plus 22. Even Trump, the first time around, started with a net approval of plus three. But now it's been four years of a disastrous presidency,

the first time Trump was president, four years of chaos since Trump has left the office, broken promises, and MAGA is showing its cracks. We've explained how the tech bro right and the nationalist right, previously united against the shared enemy of woke and DEI, are now starting to crack. They're on disagreement about immigration policy, H-1B visa. It's not clear what they want when it comes to taxes and so on. And this doesn't bode well for Donald Trump and what's left of, most of what's left, I guess, you know, four years minus nine days.

And it's because voters are slowly realizing that they're about to get screwed again, as we have been talking about this week. Look at the policy proposals. We'll talk on the bonus show about how many of the things Trump has done already in these nine days, even though there's a lot of rah-rah,

he's doing it, he's so strong, he's alpha, he's burly, he's healthy, all stuff that's not true. A lot of Trump's key proposals, on the surface, they might sound popular, like Trump's hardline stance on immigration. There is no doubt immigration is important to the American people,

and many voters felt Trump strong where Harris was weak. Fine. But then you get into the details. Deporting undocumented immigrants accused of crimes. Deporting undocumented immigrants not accused of crimes. Separating families. Deporting random women, like we talked about in the last segment, finishing the border wall, a national emergency at the border. Some of this stuff has

support generically, but if you dig deeper, you start to see the cracks. The plan to pardon the January 6th rioters, only 21% of Americans support that. And he did it loudly and prominently and signed it in front of cameras. Withdrawing from international climate agreements like the Paris Climate Accord, that's not popular. Ending birthright citizenship, a majority of Americans are opposed to that. These are just not the policies of a president in touch with the American people. These are the policies of a man that panders to the far right fringe. And much of the country looks on and says, this is not good. This is either not what I voted for, or this is why I didn't vote for it. And then we get to like the biggest issue of all, and it's the economy. Trump's big selling point in 2024 was, you don't think the economy is

good under Biden? Vote for me. I'm going to fix everything. We'll bring down prices. We're going to do energy independence, which we already are. We're going to do all these different things. And healthcare prices don't seem to be on a trajectory to decline. Grocery prices are already up. And Americans just aren't buying it. According to the same poll, most people do not believe that Donald Trump is even going to deliver on that promise. Now, there's an important counterpoint to this, which is it's sort of like when Trump said in 2020 that he won the election and people were polled. Do you think that that's true, that Trump really won? And a lot of his supporters did say that they believe Trump won.

But to a degree, they were saying what they identified as being needed to say to show that you're on the team, to show that you're part of the cult, part of the club, or whatever the case may be. But on the nuts and bolts, will prices be lower three months from now, six, 12, 18 months from now? Most Americans have already decided they don't think they will. And why would they? Because Trump's key economic proposal, which is tariffs, is also not popular. It's only supported by 29% of Americans. Economists know that the tariffs will raise prices. Even Americans who do not have necessarily a more sophisticated understanding of economics, intuitively,

most Americans are understanding, wait, if you put tariffs on the stuff I buy at the grocery store, how will that make it cheaper? It's not going to. It's going to make it more expensive. Now I want to talk about the kind of natural trajectory of these approval ratings. One of the things I've explained before is that in general, presidential approval ratings decline over time. Why? The reason is that for many voters, once a president does something you don't like, you switch from I approve to I don't approve, and it doesn't matter what else they do. I'll give you an example. If you are someone who disapproves of pardoning the rioters, for example, you approve of the job Trump is doing for a few hours, right? And then within a few hours of being sworn in, he pardons the rioters. You don't like that. Now you don't approve. If Trump does something you like next week, even if you acknowledge that I like, you're unlikely to switch back to I approve from I don't approve.

This is the case basically with every president in the modern era. Approval ratings tend to decline over time as more and more of the population finds something that the president did that they don't like. And once you lose people, you usually don't get them back. Trump is no exception to this. In fact, he's kind of the rule. His first term approval rating cratered, cratered, and then it got even worse after the January 6th insurrection. There's really no reason to think that Trump's second term is going to be any different. The question is, how long is it going to take for voters to realize they've been duped? And will they be willing to admit it to themselves? So bottom line, Trump starting his second term in a weaker position than any modern president other than himself. Not a good place to start. Lucky for

Trump, he has no more campaigns to run and also doesn't care about his followers. Those will be benefits to Donald Trump. All right, let's talk about the Jeffrey Epstein files. You might recall that just recently, Donald Trump signed an executive order to declassify files related to JFK, RFK, and MLK, their respective assassinations, John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr. And many headlines, big story, lots of discussion. What's interesting is that these documents do not include anything about Jeffrey Epstein. Jeffrey Epstein is, of course, the accused sex trafficker who, as we all know, had very powerful friends. And there is controversy as to whether he really took his own life or whether someone killed him. And after Trump decided to continue not releasing the Epstein files, Republican senators, including people like Ted Cruz, John Kennedy, Steve Daines, they are coming out and saying, hey, Trump, why aren't you releasing the Epstein files? Even Ted Cruz is out there saying,

release it all. Give me the P. Diddy files as well. That's a whole other story, but Ted Cruz wants to see everything. Senator John Kennedy, no relation by the way to RFK, said, I want to see the files. If Trump's name is in them, so be it. And that's where it gets really interesting. The suspicion is that Trump is not releasing the Epstein documents because he's implicated in them. His name is in there. Remember that Trump and Epstein were seen partying together in, was it the 90s, the early 2000s? Trump himself in 2002 said Epstein is a terrific guy. Now, after Epstein was arrested, Trump was like, oh, I barely know. I don't know anything. Who? Jeffrey who? Remember when Trump was recently asked about these files by Fox News?

And we're going to play for you his full response and then the edited one that Fox News published. But the reality is Trump is very much not big on this idea. Would you declassify the 9-11 files? Yeah. Would you declassify JFK files? Yeah. I did. I did a lot of it. Would you declassify the 9-11 files? Yeah. Would you declassify JFK files? Yeah. I did. I did a lot of it. Would you declassify the Epstein files? Yeah. Yeah, I would. All right. I guess I would. I think that less so because, you know, you don't

know. You don't want to affect people's lives if it's phony stuff in there because it's a lot of phony stuff with that whole world. But I think I would. Do you think that would restore trust? Help restore trust? Yeah, I don't know about Epstein so much as I do the others. Certainly about the way he died, it'd be interesting to find out what happened there, because that was a weird situation and the cameras didn't happen to be working, et cetera, et cetera. But yeah, I'd go a long way toward that one. The other stuff I would, I would definitely do the January 6th. He said

he might declassify some very interesting documents. Let's listen to this. Would you declassify the Epstein files? Yeah, yeah, I would. Guy, declassify Jeffrey Epstein files? What do you think? And the rest of those, that list. That last one is extra interesting. I would like to see that. I think a lot of Americans would like to see that. So listen, this is not proof that Trump's name is all over the Epstein files, or at least not in a nefarious way. We don't know. We haven't seen the documents, but Trump's

seeming fear or inclination not to release these, the circumstantial evidence, the videos of Epstein and Trump hanging out, definitely points in a certain direction. And the big point is that even Republican senators are saying to the public, let's see what is in those files. They want to know who was implicated. They want to know who potentially broke the law. I don't think that it's out of a desire for transparency that Republican senators want the files out. I think Republican senators are calculating there may be a bunch of Democrats implicated there. We know that Bill Clinton flew on Epstein's plane at one point and others. So it's not like, wow, Republicans,

you're clearly in this for transparency. I think they see an opportunity to maybe get some Democrats some negative press. But Ted Cruz is implicating, considering it a matter of knowing who was implicated in abusing children, which is supposedly an obsession of Republicans. Save the children, which they care very little about when it comes to funding, but that's a different story. Now, we should not forget that if you do believe that there was foul play or you don't believe the official story that Epstein died by suicide in his prison cell, then even just for that reason,

you should want the documents released. And Trump has said that he's not sure what happened. So why is Trump declassifying JFK, RFK, and MLK files and saying very little about the Epstein files? It's obviously speculation, but the obvious direction we're pointing is it's because Trump is implicated in those files. If you're going to say no more secrets, if you're going to say the administration of transparency, if that's going to be your approach, then you got to release these files and we will see if ultimately the pressure gets to him and he does do it. Now on the bonus show today, we will talk about Google Maps changing the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. Yikes. We will talk about Greenlanders rejecting Trump with an 85% majority

against joining the United States. No matter how many times Don Jr. says they want to join the United States, it doesn't seem like they do. And we will also talk about the opinions of Americans on some of the things that Donald Trump did do in the first nine days. Where are Americans on the executive orders Trump has signed and so much more. Don't miss today's bonus show. You can get instant access by signing up at joinpacman.com. Memberships are the number one funding source for our show. Pre-order my forthcoming book, The Echo Machine at at davidpakman.com slash book. And finally, if you want a signed copy of the book, email info at davidpakman.com with the subject signed book,

and we will respond in order that these emails come in. Right now, we've got 49 people who have asked for a signed book. I think I have right now like 100 of these that I can do. We'll see if we can get more. It's going to be more expensive. The book has to be shipped to me and then to you. It'll probably be 50 bucks in the United States, 60 outside the United States. You're under no obligation.

You can get the book for 26 bucks everywhere that it's sold. But for people who want this, email info at davidpakman.com with the subject signed book. In order of emails coming in, we will do it. So I'll see you on the bonus show. We've got a new show tomorrow. We've got a new show the next day. So much going on. Great to see everybody.