The David Pakman Show - 1/30/25: Prescription drug prices UP, global respect DOWN

Episode Date: January 30, 2025

-- On the Show: -- A look at the Trump voters who will be damaged the most by Donald Trump's policies -- Trump's health is going viral again, and we take a look at the reasons why -- By rescinding a Biden-era order on prescription drug prices, Donald Trump will cause drug prices to go up -- Florida Governor Ron DeSantis gets shut down by the Florida legislature, and he does not take it well -- Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem is so late to her own swearing-in due to a late-arriving bible that Vice President JD Vance leaves without swearing her in -- This week's Friday Feedback, one day early -- On the Bonus Show: Plane crash in DC, Menendez sentenced to 11 years, and much more... ☕ Cambio Roasters: Get 20% off with code PAKMAN at https://cambioroasters.com 🛡️ Incogni lets you control your personal data! Get 60% off their annual plan: http://incogni.com/pakman 🥦 Lumen lets you master your metabolism. GET 20% OFF at https://lumen.me/pakman 💻 Sponsored by Aura: Try it free for 2 weeks! See if your data is safe at https://aura.com/pakman 🧽 Blueland: Get 15% OFF sustainable cleaning products at https://blueland.com/pakman ⚠️ Ground News: Get 50% OFF their unlimited access Vantage plan at https://ground.news/pakman -- Become a Member: https://davidpakman.com/membership -- Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/davidpakmanshow -- TDPS Subreddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/thedavidpakmanshow -- Pakman Discord: https://davidpakman.com/discord -- David on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow -- Leave a Voicemail: (219)-2DAVIDP

Welcome, everybody. I've been teasing this all week and now let's actually do it. I want to talk about the slice of America, the Trump voters who are going to get absolutely steamrolled by the policies of their dear leader in his second term, some of whom are already seeing this firsthand with the brief Medicaid state system freeze out earlier this week and in other ways. As always, the people who cheer the loudest for Trump are often the ones who end up holding the bag when the dust settles. So first I want to look at the rural working class voters. This is the backbone of Donald Trump's base.

And these are some of the folks that if Trump gets his way, are going to be absolutely brutalized. These are the folks who apparently bought into Trump's promises of bringing back manufacturing jobs, revitalizing coal, imagine that, making the United States the economic powerhouse that it supposedly once was. But the thing is that Trump's trade wars, which he's doubling down on in 2025, are already wreaking havoc on farmers and small businesses, and there's only going to be more of it if Trump gets his way. Tariffs on foreign goods, sure, they sound very tough, but they mean equipment will be more expensive, supplies will be more expensive, consumer goods are going to be more expensive.

And when other countries retaliate with their tariffs, it's the farmers in Iowa and the factory workers in Ohio who are going to get hit the hardest. But at least Trump got to tweet about winning again, right? There's some Pyrrhic victory there, maybe. Then we go to the health care debacle. Trump has promised yet again to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. The problem is he still has no plan to replace it with anything of substance. The attempt that Trump previously made to do that in 2017 was analyzed. And if it

had become the law, it didn't. Even Republicans were like, this is crazy. But if it had become the law, Trump's 2017 plan would have led to 24 to 32 million people losing health care coverage. So they didn't do it. August of 2020, Trump said his health care plan was two weeks away. During debates in 2024, Trump said he had concepts of a plan. Later, he was asked about it again. He said the concepts are developing. But when millions of Americans, many of them in red states, lose their health insurance, if Trump does get something done, who's going to suffer the most? It's not the wealthy elites that are going to be fine.

It's going to be the wealthy, I'm sorry, it's going to be the not wealthy, working class Trump supporters in places like West Virginia and Kentucky. If you are poor in Kentucky, do you think you'll get to keep your health care when Trump decimates it because you voted for him? Not the way it works. And now what we're seeing with the Medicaid fiasco from earlier this week, the places and the people that rely on that Medicaid expansion dating all the way back to 2010 and Obamacare and the Affordable Care Act subsidies, they are going to get screwed. But remember, Trump told us who knew healthcare could be so complicated. That's the guy they are now entrusting to figure it out. Then we go

to Social Security and to Medicare. Now, Trump has flirted with the idea of maybe we cut these programs for a long time. When the pressure builds, and it did during the campaign, Trump always goes, no, those are staying. We're not going to cut those. The people around Trump say, no, no, no, those are staying. We're not going to cut those. But when you really get these folks to be more honest, they say nothing should be sacrosanct. Everything should be considered. Why would we just say, no, this is something we're not going to touch. And now Trump in his second term has a Republican house and a Republican Senate. They want to slash the budget. Some of them are talking about two, 2.5 trillion. Remember that the entire discretionary budget is $2.5 trillion. How do you cut $2.5 trillion without cutting the discretionary budget to zero

unless you do something with the mandatory spending? It's just very simple arithmetic. And the Wall Street billionaires and millionaires are not going to feel the pain. Vivek and Mark Zuckerberg and Shou Chu, they're not going to feel the pain. It's the retirees in Florida, the retirees in Arizona who voted for Trump because they either thought he would save those programs or they didn't think that he was going to cut them. And the spoiler is that Trump's not going to be there for you. Finally, number four, the environment. What can you say? Trump's rollback of environmental regulations is just a gift to big oil and corporate polluters. He's looking at getting rid of the $7,500 federal tax credit for electric

vehicles, which has been accelerating adoption of electric vehicles. He's been rolling back regulations. He wants to roll back regulations even more. He won't acknowledge climate change is playing a role in the California fires or in any of the other things that are going on. Disaster for everybody. But of course, who gets screwed the most? It's the folks who have trouble even meeting the deductible of their home insurance when something terrible happens. It's the folks in the rural communities who rely and want and deserve clean air and water, but are the first to see it polluted because of some fracking site or some factory upstream. The CEO of Exxon is going to be fine.

The CEO of Chevron and DuPont, they're going to be fine. And then finally, you've got the culture war. Nonsense. Trump's obsession with punishing woke companies, attacking LGBT rights. It plays well at the rallies. It plays really, really well. It does nothing for the average Trump voter. Oh, we've got to get men out of women's sports. Yeah, thank you. It does nothing to help a poor farmer in Iowa. Nothing at all. It does nothing to help a family below the poverty line in Louisiana. And if anything, it distracts from real issues because the stagnant wages and the rising costs and the crumbling infrastructure, stuff that affects people's lives, it doesn't get dealt with while Trump is signing executive orders about how you define a woman or what gender you're allowed

to use which restroom and whether the bidet should be allowed only for trans men or cis men or whatever the case may be. Drag queens, this and all of that. There's an irony here. It's a sad irony. It's almost poetic. One might even say it's borderline Kafka-esque, I dare say. The people who worship Trump the most, the ones who wear the hats and fly the flags and spend eight hours driving to his rallies to be in the sun and using the porta-potties and then with no ride out, those sad folks are the ones who are going to bear the brunt of his policies. They've been sold the bill of goods, and they're about to find out that the con man always seems to win.

So I would say enjoy the ride. I don't think it's going to be very enjoyable, and it is a very sad state of affairs. I'm sorry to the people that are already starting to get screwed. In a previous viral video, we looked at the possibility that a sudden health crisis, rather than a legal problem or a political scandal, could be Donald Trump's biggest challenge this year.

We touched on evidence looking at Trump's changes in speech patterns, his age, his weight, his family history of Alzheimer's. And there was great interest in this topic as clearly it's salient and it's relevant to people in the United States and around the world. But today I want to push the conversation forward by exploring a couple of new angles and some potential scenarios surrounding Donald Trump's health that many of you have been writing to me about and how this might impact the second term. Now, if you're wondering why is all of this stuff about Trump's health going viral, there's a reason why. There's a reason why it matters more than ever. And it's not only about Biden's health being one of the most mentioned

topics by Donald Trump when he was running against Biden in 2024. When you are president and you're almost 80, even a minor health incident can have global ramifications. The stakes couldn't possibly be higher given public perception and Trump's historical prominence. Remember that when Donald Trump had COVID during his first term and he was airlifted to the hospital and doctors were saying, doctors and his staffers were all conferring and they were saying, well, listen, if we bring him to the hospital now, even though he's not that sick, it's going to rattle markets and global leaders because they will think he is sicker than he really is. And the counterpoint from doctors was, listen,

he can walk to the helicopter right now and he can walk off of the helicopter at Walter Reed. He is going in a bad direction. He's having trouble breathing. If we wait and he needs to be brought on a gurney, you're not going to be able to prevent the media from seeing it. And it will be even more chaotic to the point that who knows what will happen. So Trump decided on his own strength to go to Walter Reed before he was seriously ill. But the ramifications immediately were significant. Trump's much older now. Over the past few months, Trump's gone back to the rallies and the public events. We see that the energy levels are often extraordinarily low. His speech continues to degrade. It's nothing super alarming as far as a change over the last four to six months, but it's enough to be a topic of discussion.

When he sits down with the right wing networks and he gets the softball questions, he repeats the same talking points over and over again, misremembers details, seems confused. Part of it is his rhetorical style. Part of it is he doesn't care whether he gets details wrong, but it's yet another factor that is making people concerned. And if all of this continues, this is now not a medical story. This is a media and politics story. Will mainstream corporate media or conservative media or even Trump's own staff be honest about what's going on?

Or is it going to be buried? But the most important new layer of this is that now that we're seeing the people that are part of Donald Trump's new administration, do you think we would even know if there was such a health crisis? What I mean is the following. We've seen cases where Trump's medical information is carefully curated, right? The rush to release that glowing health report in 2018 that said very little of substance. They want to control the narrative about Trump's physical condition. And this time, Trump has more loyalists than ever around him, people less inclined than ever to admit anything

unflattering about Trump. I think that a health crisis might remain hidden or downplayed for as long as possible, leaving the American people in the dark. Even a mild health scare could be weaponized or could be concealed. And the question is whether transparency and loyalty, which is going to win out in such a situation. Now, I do want to be fair here and objective and bring up the possibility that Trump is a super-ager, and none of this is going to end up being a big deal. Super-agers are people in their 70s and 80s who maintain robust cognitive and physical health, and Trump has a very intense schedule. He does a lot of media appearances, even if they're wacky. He has a penchant for rallies. He's remaining engaged. Trump might be a super-ager who, despite a terrible diet and almost no exercise, he remains healthy enough for the job for quite some time. of super agers don't counteract that Trump is obese and he's got a family history of dementia

and there's a lot of concerns here. So it is going to be extraordinarily interesting and potentially horrifying to see how such a situation is handled by his staff because I wouldn't put it past them to cover it up for absolutely as long as they can. I want to hear from you about it. How significant do you think Trump's health will be as a political factor in 2025? Do you believe that his administration will be forthright and forthcoming about what's going on if that should happen? Email me info at davidpachman.com. That is also the same email address. If you want a signed copy of my forthcoming book, these are special order only.

The only way to get these is email info at davidpacman.com with the title, the email subject, signed book. You'll have to pay for it separately. It will be shipped to me. I will sign it, dedicate it to you, and ship it back out. They'll be about 50 bucks, okay? About 65 of these have been spoken for. There might be 100, 150 available.

Info at davidpakman.com if you would like one. Signed book in the subject line. We'll take a quick break and be back right after this. Did you know that Americans use over 20 billion K cups every year? The little plastic cups that go in Keurig machines that is more than 50 million single serve plastic K cups going to landfills daily. It's a big issue and that's why I'm very excited to share the solution. Cambio Roasters, our sponsor, Cambio Roasters offers the world's only patented K-cup made from recyclable aluminum instead of plastic.

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They share 20% of profits with 10,000 coffee farming families, ensuring 60,000 fewer people go hungry each year. Stop wasting plastic and enjoy better coffee. Go to combioroasters.com and use the code Pacman to get 25% off any 10 pod box or larger that C-A-M-B-I-O roasters.com code Pacman gets you 25% off. The link is in the podcast notes. Thanks, David. It takes just seconds to sign up and Incogni will send removal requests to all of the major data brokers, legally compelling them to get rid of your data. Incogni keeps you informed throughout the process. You'll get real time updates who has complied, which ones are still pending. They'll handle follow ups.

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from a whole bunch of folks like you. It's 70 bucks for the year from folks like you. And I invite you to get a membership at joinpacman.com. We have been discussing the topic of who is going to get screwed the most under Donald Trump. And one contender, as is often the case, is seniors and poor people. In his first week back in the Oval Office, Donald Trump was busy signing executive orders like he was handing out signed MAGA hats at a rally. But one of the things that he did is rescind something Biden did to make drugs less expensive for people who can't otherwise afford them. He was bragging about, I'm cracking down on immigrants, I'm banning DEI. But he was quietly axing something that was hugely consequential, which is Executive Order 14087 from Joe Biden. This was the Biden plan to lower drug costs, including $2 copays for generic drugs and increased access for life-saving cancer treatments for Medicare and Medicaid patients. Trump repealed it.

Trump spent months on the campaign trail saying, I'm really going to lower prescription drug costs. Trump spent months on the campaign trail saying it was thanks to him that insulin costs were capped for people. Trump said, we're going to make it so affordable, you're not going to believe it. But on day one, he hands Big Pharma a giant gift basket filled with rolled back regulations and a note that probably read, thanks for your donations.

Nancy Pelosi put it perfectly. He campaigned on lowering costs, but he immediately blocked a program that cuts drug prices for seniors and cuts drug prices for working families. There's no simpler way to say it. It's almost like he was lying about what he was going to do the whole time. He would never. We also shouldn't forget who Trump is really serving here. Senator Ed Markey, Democrat from Massachusetts, pointed out that pharmaceutical CEOs were dining with Trump at Mar-a-Lago right before Trump took office. Very cozy. And what did they get for their fine dining experience? I don't know if they served frog's legs.

A president who killed a program that would have guaranteed $2 copay generic drugs for seniors. Now, meanwhile, the pharmaceutical companies are doing very well. They made over $500 billion in profits last year, but let's give them a break and make it more expensive for grandma. We're going after Nana here? That doesn't make any sense. Trump did not stop at drug prices. He also repealed policies that expanded Medicaid for postpartum women. Remember, oh no, no abortion, no. But take away everything from the child when it's born and take away everything from the woman after she's given birth.

He took away extended Obamacare enrollment periods. He took away increased funding for healthcare outreach. That sounds like diversity crap. Get rid of it. Because why help new moms or uninsured Americans when you can focus on whatever it is he's doing, setting up Dr. Phil to televise immigration raids? Trump's real healthcare plan, as has been the healthcare care plan for Republicans for a long time, is if you are sick, stop being poor. If you're poor, don't get sick. It's been this way for a long time. Democrats do not have the votes to stop this at this point in time, nor is it even

a question of votes. But they are at least trying to make sure people know who's to blame. It doesn't always work. Peter Welch, Jackie Rosen, they're calling out the absurdity of this. They're calling out the absurdity of raising costs for seniors while the pharmaceutical companies have the record profits. And as Senator Welch put it, why give pharma a break when they're already making half a trillion a year? The answer is because Trump's version of draining the swamp is you fill it with lobbyists, you fill it with CEOs, you fill it with big corporations, tech, pharma, whatever. So we've just got to acknowledge what this presidency is really about. The populist rhetoric falls very

flat. For how long now? Six, eight, ten years, I've been warning my audience, be careful about populist rhetoric because it can sound very good, but what matters is the policy. Trump talking about, we're going to make America great for everybody, people will have things, they'll afford things, it'll all be great. And then you rescind an order that actually helps things be more affordable, that people need, pharmaceuticals, and then you just give a gift to pharmaceutical companies. This is why the populist rhetoric is used to bamboozle people, because it allows Trump to just sound like he cares about a certain group of people without being specific about what he actually plans to do. And what he actually planned to do

was dismantle the policies that lower drug prices and improve healthcare access. And Trump and his cronies get rich doing it. This is the, by the way, healthcare, Trump and healthcare, we should know he can't be trusted on a word he says about healthcare. He was going to replace Obamacare with something great. The proposal in 2017, which thankfully didn't go forward, would have led to 24 to 32 million Americans losing healthcare coverage. This is the guy who once suggested injecting bleach to solve a health crisis. This is the guy who is truly going to screw those who can't afford to be screwed. Seniors, poor people, anybody who needs help affording

health care or health insurance. The day one of Trump, which they've been bragging about, is a dystopian horror. And we need to make sure people know who's to blame, whether they will remember how to vote on that basis come November of 2026. I don't know, guys, I don't know. But if we can't stop it, we've got to make sure we know who's to blame. I want to introduce you to an amazing tool that has helped a huge number of people reach their health goals. It is called Lumen, and it's the world's first handheld metabolic coach. It's a device that measures your metabolism through Thank you so much for having me. like the engine of your body, how you turn food into fuel. And because your metabolism is at the center of everything your body does, optimal metabolic health can translate to many benefits, including easier weight management and improved energy levels and fitness results. It's a long

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This is a rare and sort of delightfully defiant move. Republican lawmakers in Florida decided they've had enough of playing the role of Ron DeSantis' personal rubber stamp. And after years of bending over backwards to DeSanctimonious' will, the Florida Republican-led legislature is pushing back. And I love this. I love this. Here's what's going on. For six years, Ron DeSantis has been the undisputed king of Florida politics. The draconian anti-immigration policies, his culture war crusades, the authoritarian handling of the pandemic, he has ruled with a sort of iron fist, we might say. And for those six years, rather, Florida's Republican lawmakers, they just fell in line. They passed his agenda with barely a whisper of dissent

but all of a sudden it's a whole new ball game because this week in a special session that we can really only describe as a political mutiny Republican leaders in the Florida House and the Florida Senate did something that is almost unheard of. They told Ron DeSantis to take a seat. They rejected DeSantis' call for a special session on illegal immigration, which has been a pet issue for DeSantis that he uses for grandstanding year after year. And instead, that Florida legislature called its own session. And as if that wasn't enough of a slap in the face to DeSantis, they also overrode one of his budget vetoes, reinstating $57 million in funding. And the last time that

this happened was 2010. This is a power move. DeSantis is melting down. There's a bigger story about DeSantis' role and sort of place in the Republican Party, which we will get to. But first, let's look at this video of DeSantis all worked up about it. It's not enough to just say we're not a sanctuary state, which we're not. It's not enough to just say we don't have sanctuary cities, which we don't. We need everybody on board. We got to work as a team. Otherwise, this stuff just isn't going to work. They also bizarrely strip immigration enforcement power from the governor and give it to the commissioner of agriculture. But agriculture has not exactly been known for immigration enforcement.

So it's almost like the fox guarding the hen house. It was bizarre. I think it was more a sop to folks who want cheap labor. That is totally bad policy. That can't happen. They also bizarrely didn't include things we know needs to happen. So there's a couple interesting things here.

First, let me kind of explain what DeSantis wanted. What DeSantis wanted to do here is impose criminal penalties on local police who didn't help federal immigration enforcement. This is something where when the deportation federal forces come in and they want help from local law enforcement, DeSantis wanted it to be criminal for local law enforcement to say, we're not going to help you. That was rejected. The Florida legislature said, quite frankly. That was also rejected. And DeSantis wanted it to make it more difficult for citizens to get constitutional amendments on the ballot. And the Florida legislature said, it is not happening. Instead, they introduced their own immigration bill. It's called the Trump Act. They're naming it after the guy who defeated DeSantis. And it includes some funding for immigration enforcement. It strips away a lot of Ron DeSantis's power. It gives the state's agricultural commissioner, Wil about policy. This is about power. And Ron DeSantis

had a very good run in Florida consolidating it. And now that seems to be changing. And that's what I want to talk about. Political wins. Let me find the right way to need the right language for this. There's an inherently fickle nature to American politics. You're up and suddenly you're down. You're riding high and all of a sudden you're nowhere. We've seen it happen to Anthony Weiner. We've seen it happen to Rudy Giuliani. We've seen it happen to George Santos, high and low, all sorts of different examples. There was a point early in the 2024 Republican presidential primary where Ron DeSantis as the ascending king of the Republican party, to some, seemed almost inevitable. Who's going to be able to stop this guy? He's going to be Trump. He's going to be Biden. He's going to be Biden. He's going to be president.

And a little bit of it at a time, it gets chipped away, chipped away, chipped away. Trump did pretty significant damage to DeSantis, who really did not do well in the primary. He was on the outs with Trump. Then Trump said, no, he's okay. But even though he and Trump have more or less made up, you just sense that DeSantis' stock is trading very, very low right now. If you were to say, could DeSantis come back and maybe be the Republican nominee in 2028? Yeah, maybe. But if that primary were held today, DeSantis has no shot. And a lot of these things, as we know with politics, is timing. A lot of it is alliances. A lot of it is media coverage. And even though nothing particularly bad or humiliating has happened with DeSantis as far as Republicans would consider it, he's just not riding high right now. And sometimes when this happens,

you start adding insult to injury or injury to insult. And now the fact that everybody in the Florida legislature, Republicans in the Florida legislature recognize DeSantis isn't riding high right now. We're going to impose our will on him rather than rubber stamping every last thing that he asks us for. And it's just a reinforced, and it's a vicious circle because DeSantis' stock is low. The Florida legislature is willing to say we're not doing it because DeSantis is being ignored by the Florida legislature. It only hurts his stock even more. So unless something changes, DeSantis' time may have come and gone. Four years is a long time. We will see. But you can't help but feel a little bad for the guy, right? No, I'm kidding. I don't feel bad for the guy at all. He's an absolutely terrible person. It's another day in the Trump administration. And by that,

I mean it's another day of unforced errors and a level of unprofessionalism that would make even the most chaotic workplaces look like models of efficiency. And this one, today's episode involves Kristi Noem. Kristi Noem is the newly confirmed secretary of Homeland Security. She somehow managed to turn her swearing in ceremony into a farce by being 40 minutes late because of a late Bible. You might say, what do you mean a late Bible? Yeah, there was a Bible that was late arriving. And in fact, she was so late that Vice President J.D. Vance,

who was supposed to swear her in, just left. He just left. He's like, I can't do it. Why did she not show up on time? According to her spokesperson, it's because her father's Bible was delayed, delayed getting there. It wasn't her flight. It wasn't her car. It wasn't an unforeseen emergency. This particular, this is so crazy. This particular Bible is so sentimental to Christy that she's used it for

every swearing in that she's ever had. And I guess that's nice if you're into that sort of thing. But if you're being sworn in to lead one of the most important departments in the federal government, maybe you could plan ahead. So Vance had a schedule to keep. He waited 25 minutes, then he left. Can you blame the guy? 15 minutes later, the Bible showed up. Now, Noam didn't let a little thing like Vice President J.D. Vance leaving ruin her moment. So what she did is she called... Every detail of this story is nuts. Kristi Noam calls Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and had Clarence Thomas swear her in at his home because nothing says I'm ready to lead homeland security like a last minute informal ceremony at a private residence of a guy who's extraordinarily

corrupt. It's almost a sort of poetry. The head of an agency tasked with protecting the nation from threats is sworn in by a justice embroiled in ethics scandal after ethics scandal, including failing to disclose lavish gifts from billionaires. Truly a kleptocracy. Now, Nome's spokesperson, Tricia McLaughlin, tried to spin it as heartwarming. Oh, she was honored to be sworn in by Clarence Thomas with her dad's Bible. She also took a bizarre swipe at Politico saying, we wish that Politico would have paid as much attention to the secretary of Homeland Security for the last four years. You know, maybe the last four years got less attention in that role because it wasn't the nonstop parade of scandals, incompetence, corruption. And there was less for the media to pay attention to. Now, meanwhile,

J.D. Vance's spokesperson also trying to put a positive spin on the whole thing, saying that Kristi Noem is going to bring great change to DHS and she's going to secure the border. Nothing says change like showing up late to your own swearing in and then having to call in a favor from Clarence Thomas. And this is just what we are to expect. So as we continue to see the various swearings in and the whole thing here, I do expect that to a great degree, corporate media is just going to normalize and cover. The reaction to the Kristi Noem story, everything that, all of the sane washing that's been going on, I expect it to continue. We do not have a corporate media right now that seems committed really to doing journalism.

It's access and it's getting high profile interviews. And those are really the priorities. Now, I do want to address one other thing related to this. Some of you wrote to me and pointed out that the Trump White House has opened up an application for independent media outlets to be in the press briefing room. And many of you said, David, you should sign up. I did. I would be shocked if they approved me. But my commitment to you right now is that if through some bizarre situation, my request for a press credential in Trump's briefing room is accepted.

I will fly to DC. I will ask you, what do you want me to ask Caroline Leavitt about? And I will do it if they call on me. So I have dozens are saying, David, you've got to apply for this. I've applied, have not heard anything back yet. I will let you know if I do. And believe me, believe me, I have no shortage of questions that I would love to anything back yet. I will let you know if I do. And believe me, believe me, I have no shortage of questions that I would love to ask these people. Our sponsor, Blueland, is on a mission to eliminate single-use plastic by reinventing cleaning essentials to be better for you and better for the planet with the same cleaning power that you're used to. The idea is super simple.

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been using the blue land dish detergent, uh, and the toilet bowl cleaner for a while. Couldn't be happier. And you'll get 15% off your first order at blue land.com slash Pacman. That's B L U E land.com slash Pacman for 15% off. The link is in the podcast notes. Once again, we're seeing big tech blur the lines between private industry and public government. The link is in the podcast notes. into the age of AI, despite these same tech CEOs warning about how dangerous AI can be. Algorithms control what we see every day to serve corporate and political interests, which is why I've trusted Ground News for years to help me find the truth. Ground News doesn't tell you what to think. They show you each news outlet's biases, credibility, financial incentives, so you know who's benefiting from the way each news outlets, biases, credibility, financial incentives. So,

you know, who's benefiting from the way each news outlet spins each story. You can even filter out certain sources you don't want and stay informed without getting buried in the noise. Stay engaged with ground news who is fixing what is breaking right in front of us, trust and transparency in the media. Ground news is giving my audience 50% off the same vantage plan that I use. Go to ground Thank you. early this week, you can email info at davidpakman.com. Why am I even wearing headphones? I don't even know how those got on me. I certainly don't need them right now. You can email info at davidpakman.com. You can reply on Facebook, YouTube, all of these platforms valid for Friday feedback.

We'll start on Facebook with Cultal Aiders, who says, in the last 10 days, the David Pakman show has made 83 anti-Trump video segments. Now, of course, that's untrue. It would be fascinating if we even produced that many videos. But let's put aside the fact that that's nonsense. This hard obsession and derangement. Missing at least one word there. Liberals. Pac-Man has not made a single video on the Democrats' leadership plan to fix and help California fire victims. Thousands

of property has been lost and lives has lost. Pac-Man focuses on what can fuel the hate of his followers. This is a great disservice to Americans. Pacman will spin and lie to Americans just so he can enough views and subscribers. Just so I can enough. Pacman, I'm sorry, Americans, we can do better. We should tune out from David Pacman and let the administration do his, their job. Okay, so aside from the abortive grammar, a lot of things are false here, including the claim that there has not been criticism of Democrats here. I mean, look, if you watch my video about why Kamala lost, it's 99% criticism of Democrats.

If you look at videos earlier this week, it's here's what MAGA is doing. If Democrats can't take advantage of this, Democrats should give up as a political party. I've outlined in detail not only the shortcomings of the 2024 campaign from the standpoint of Democrats. I've also outlined the problems more generally with the current left wing approach to certain issues and where it's either not going far enough or going too far, you could only come away with this view if you're deliberately paying attention to nothing I'm doing or deliberately misstating it. I think that if we are going to win again, we need to make some serious repairs. And I hope that the Democratic Party will do it. And remember, I'm not a Democrat. I don't even have an interest. I'm agnostic as to whether the changes I want to see go through the Democratic Party or not. It seems plausible that if they are going to happen in the next few years, they will, because there's no real outlet for progressivism and social democracy

other than in little corners of the Democratic Party. But this email, that message could not be more wrong. Shane Dietz says, prices are not going down. They will blame Biden for the economy for the next four years. Yeah, it's not they will. They're already starting to do it.

Weeks before Donald Trump took office, he started with this whole, you know, I'm still going to try to do the things I promised, bring prices down and this, that, the other thing. But Joe Biden has left us in such a bad position that I may not be able to do it. It may be really difficult. Biden might have screwed us so hard that I don't know that I'm going to be able to do all of this stuff. So it's not they're going to blame Biden. It's they're already blaming Biden by saying what Biden did was so bad. Even we, God's gift to politics, even we might not be able to solve it. And of course, it's hard to make that argument seriously when inflation

was 2.9% in 2024, but we'll see what they come up with next. SkateCloud over on the subreddit says, anyone have any optimism about anything politically? This feels too much like a fascist takeover of the country by absolute psychopaths. I wonder how anyone sees hope in these times or if we're all fucked, at least politically. So here's the glimmer of hope or the silver lining. And this is sort of like a, whether you are an incrementalist or an accelerationist, either way, there's a glimmer of hope here. If you're an incrementalist, the glimmer of hope is that it is now so cut and dry.

Trump made a series of promises. We have the economic data as of the last day of Joe Biden's term. We're going to measure. Trump promised free ponies for everyone, metaphorically, and either he will deliver on them or he won't. And if he doesn't, Republicans are set up for a drubbing in 2026 and 2028. That's one side. So if you're an incrementalist, well, they're going to be held accountable finally. On the other hand, if you don't believe they will be held accountable and or you are an incrementalist, if they, meaning Trump, destroys things as badly as it seems he might, and it's total and absolute destruction by absolute psychopaths,

as Skate Cloud states, then very quickly things will fall apart far, far worse than they did during Trump's first term. And then the accelerationists, to a degree, will get their wish, which is a far more broken down system from which they might be able to repair things. Les Johns says on the subreddit, if the right could form a Trump cult, why couldn't the left do the same with Bernie? Just short and simple, why didn't the progressive slash liberals respond to MAGA with getting together a cult supporting Bernie Sanders? Could that have

drowned out Trumpism a bit? This is a reasonable question, but it's critical to understand a fundamental difference between what we call the left and the right today. Now, of course, left and right today mean different things than they did at times past. But one of the things that is critical to understand is that the left just doesn't care about elected officials as cult leader pseudo deities. stickers or flags on people's boats or people turning their vehicles into gaudy, crass representations of the candidate they love. You didn't see that for Biden. And Trump's right. But that's because right now there is not a sort of cultish framework on the left. I was a strong supporter of Bernie. I was abundantly clear in my mind about how much better Biden was than Trump in 2020. But I just go and vote and then I move on with my day.

I don't get bumper stickers. I don't put crap on my car or change all of my social media avatars to be idolatrous imagery of the person I voted for. I vote and then I move on. And so part of the reason that we couldn't build a cult around Bernie is that it would be extraordinarily disingenuous. Now, I don't want to pretend that there isn't a sliver of cultishness. In fact, there was a little sliver of cultishness. In fact, there was a little bit of a cult around Bernie, but it was small. It was just on the edges. There was a little bit of a cult around Tulsi Gabbard when she tricked some people on the

left into thinking she was the last bastion of liberalism. But at a core level, we just don't do that crap. We vote by evaluating who's better, and then we just kind of move on with our day. Black Number One was pleased about the very long show last week and wrote, hour and a half long, that's a record. Haven't listened yet but this one will get an award. I know the bonus show has a ton of awards already but this is the first regular show, is this the first regular show award? One of the things that I said would just be no big deal when we got off of radio and television and just focused exclusively on online platforms, this was last August,

was that the show can be whatever length there is. We don't have to stuff an hour and 20 minutes of content into 55 minutes to meet some arbitrary guidelines for broadcast. We just do the hour and 20 minute show. And indeed, we've had a bunch of shows over an hour, a few over 70 minutes. And yeah, I think last week we had like a super, super long show. We're here, right? I mean, this was part of the reason why I wanted to get off of those broadcast platforms. Glad you were enjoying it. Atheist Alex C says, Jenk Uger looks even more ridiculous now. In David's recent

discussion with Jenk, he went on and on about how much better MAGA is now, how much more open they are to fighting big corporate interests and how they aren't towing the line of big business and corruption anymore. He also played down the accusations of fascism, saying they're more open-minded with better intentions now. Anna Kasparian has completely rejected the fascism label for MAGA 2. After everything that has just happened in the last few days, this is even more laughable. I'm sorry, but I really don't buy that they are this clueless, especially since they pretended to care about the rise of fascism during the first Trump term. I'm convinced that they have to be grifting at this point. Self-preservation in an era that is obviously go MAGA or die now. What are your thoughts? Listen, I don't know what is the genuine belief of Cenk or Anna.

All I know is what Cenk said to me on the show. And as I said to Cenk, it sounds like you're simply naive about what we are to expect from MAGA. The first 7, 8, 9, 10 days of this second Trump term have proven that MAGA has no interest in cutting government spending, reducing cronyism, reducing corruption. They simply have no interest in that. Now, can we sort of goad or trick them

into doing some things that we like? Maybe. I mean, we'll see. Right. But it is abundantly clear that this is not a new MAGA that is ready to do whatever it is we think that they are going to do or Cenk said. I still have no evidence that Cenk is a Trump term that is coming very hardcore. And there is fear. I've spoken to other progressive commentators. There is fear that they are going to come after us. And so you'd better get on board and say, I love what Trump is doing. Trump's not that bad. We're not doing that here.

There may be consequences. I hope not. I will tell you if they aren't, if there are, but I'm going to keep calling it like I see it, which is what I've always done. Lanier Lanier DeRosa says, imagine a real Christian getting offended by a Bishop asking for mercy. She has more courage than the entire Republican party. This is a reference to the Bishop who, when Trump went to, honestly, I don't even know what church.

This was the day after being inaugurated. And this bishop kind of sort of handed it to Trump and said, people are scared. Immigrants are scared. Have empathy. Have mercy. And Trump just kind of smirked and J.D. Vance kind of smirked. It is absolutely true that if you are a real Christian follower of the gospel, as I understand it, and I acknowledge I don't understand it as well as others, right? There is no doubt that Jesus would be calling for empathy and kindness where Trump's instinct is always harshness and these disgusting raids and all of it. And yeah, real Christians would listen to what the

bishop said and say, that's actually Christianity. L. Petum says, I forgot Vance existed. Yeah, you know, one of the things we knew was that a good fit for Trump's VP is not someone who's going to get attention or take attention from Trump. Trump wants the attention. And part of the reason we're not hearing much from JD Vance is that that's the way it's designed. Trump wouldn't even want that's the way it's designed. Trump wouldn't even want a vice president unless it were required. He wants to be just him.

Look at the falling out he had with his last vice president. Look at how he's already starting to be on the rocks with Elon Musk because Elon has been getting attention. So yeah, JD expect to play, It's not even second fiddle. He's already like third or fourth behind Elon and I don't know who else at this point, Zuckerberg, Bezos. But Vance was chosen in part because Trump calculated

he's not gonna get too much attention and take it away from you. We are now just weeks away from the release of my first ever nonfiction book, The Echo Machine. I invite you to pre-order a copy at davidpachman.com slash book. Nearly 6,000 pre-orders, and I have only you to thank. I'll say more about what's coming up with the book tour and other things very soon, and I'll see you on the bonus show.