The David Pakman Show - 2/12/25: Inflation UP, egg prices RECORD HIGH, Elon takes over

Episode Date: February 12, 2025

-- On the Show: -- The first inflation report under Donald Trump is in, and inflation is up and more than expected as Trump's campaign promises fail to materialize -- Egg prices reach yet another all time record high despite Donald Trump's promises to immediately reduce egg and grocery prices -- Donald Trump looks defeated sitting in the Oval Office a Elon Musk takes over while his son picks and eats boogers out of his nose, wiping one on the Resolute Desk -- Donald Trump tells Fox host Bret Baier that he does not see Vice President JD Vance as his successor -- No longer hyperbole, it appears that Elon Musk is genuinely in charge of the federal government -- Tesla sales are collapsing globally as political fallout and technological fallout are plaguing Elon Musk's company -- Donald Trump is once again obsessed with toilets -- A total meltdown takes place on Donald Trump's Truth Social -- Trump 2.0 has become the golden age of fraud -- On the Bonus Show: Travel stories from David's trip to Europe, and much more... 🖥️ UPLIFT Desk: Get up to 5 free accessories & special discount at https://upliftdesk.com/pakman 🤖 Sponsored by Venice: Use code PAKMAN for 20% off a Pro Account at https://venice.ai/pakman ⚠️ Ground News: Get 50% OFF their unlimited access Vantage plan at https://ground.news/pakman 🩳 SHEATH Underwear: Code PAKMAN for 20% OFF at https://sheathunderwear.com/pakman 🛡️ Incogni lets you control your personal data! Get 60% off their annual plan: http://incogni.com/pakman 😺 Smalls cat food: Use code PAKMAN for 50% off & free shipping at https://smalls.com -- Become a Member: https://davidpakman.com/membership -- Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/davidpakmanshow -- Get David's Books: https://davidpakman.com/echo -- TDPS Subreddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/thedavidpakmanshow -- David on Bluesky: https://davidpakman.com/bluesky -- David on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow

Welcome to the show. It's so good to be back on the bonus show today. I'll give you some of the highlights and lowlights from my trip. And also we'll talk a little bit about what's upcoming, new stuff going on with the book and more. But we must talk about inflation. I need to call your attention back to when Donald Trump said that inflation would disappear the moment that he would get back into office for a second term, that prices would, of course, plummet because he and only he knows how to fix the economy, even though people who knew how to read numbers looked at inflation data and said, it sort of looks okay. What is there really to fix?

And then when Trump said, I will do tariffs and I will do mass deportations, people who understood basic economics said, but if you deport workers and you add an import tax, which is what a tariff is, isn't that going to push prices up rather than down? Well, it turns out that it was yet another Trump lie because inflation just jumped higher than anyone in the economic world expected. And the kicker of course, is that the specific things that Donald Trump promised that he would fix food prices, eggs, et cetera, are some of the biggest drivers of inflation going up. So let's break it down. We have the latest numbers from the, uh,

from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and consumer prices are up half of a percent in January. In other words, it's February 12th. We got the January numbers and prices are up. And this pushes inflation year over year up to three percent. Now, I know what many of you are saying wasn't Joe Biden president for part of that time who can really expect prices to come down so quickly. Why are you talking about, uh, these specific categories when some of the reasons these categories are up doesn't have anything to

do with Donald Trump? Well, we're only two minutes into the show. Give me a little time to lay it out. But the Dow Jones estimate was that inflation would be up 0.3%. It was up 0.5%. If you exclude food and energy, two things, most Americans actually care about core inflation is actually even worse. It's up 3.3% year over year. So what's the translation here? The translation is that everything is getting more expensive and the trend is very clearly moving in the wrong direction. Now we're going to dig into eggs a little bit more deeply in a moment. I don't mean I'm going to tell you all the different ways you can cook an egg, although that would be an interesting episode. We're going to dig into egg prices a little more

deeply in a moment. But rents continue to go up. And where it really hits home is that food prices overall are up and they are up over the last month in the biggest jump since 2015, about 10 years ago. So if you've noticed that over the last month, your grocery bill hasn't gotten any more affordable, you're not imagining things. That's what's going on. So let's now dig into the effect that this is going to have, because wall street very clearly knows that Trump's promises maybe are not going to come to fruition. And as of this moment, as I am recording, we see that the Dow Jones industrial average is down nearly 400 points based on these new inflation numbers. All of this is happening while Trump and his billionaire buddies are continuing to say, oh yeah, we

are and are going to bring prices down. Everything's going to be great. The stock market's not buying it because as soon as the numbers came out, the futures crashed 400 points. Bond yields shot up and investors looked at the reality of the situation, Trump 2.0 and said, we don't buy that overall macro economic underpinnings are going to get better for the average American. The federal reserve is saying we probably are not going to start lowering interest rates anytime soon, uh, because we don't believe that it is the appropriate time to do so.

And then from Trump we hear basically silence and then a little bit of hedging, which I Uh, because we don't believe that it is the appropriate time to do so. And then from Trump we hear basically silence and then a little bit of hedging, which I will talk to you about in a little bit. No real solutions. Same tired slogans. So the reason that this is important is because this is all the primary promise economically that Donald Trump made during his campaign. His economic pitch in 2024 was he's going to fix prices. He'll get into office. Prices are going to come down because

it'll be tough on China and we're going to have growth and energy dominance and business expertise. Instead, prices are going up. The market isn't liking it. People are working and getting squeezed. And let's not forget that in Trump, Trump's first term, he blew up the deficit with his billionaire tax cuts, deregulation that did nothing to help the economy and sort of a preview of the chaotic trade wars that he seems determined to do in term number two, more corporate tax cuts, more handouts for the ultra rich. Elon Musk seems to be in charge of the federal government, which of course I'm going to touch on a little bit later.

And it's a guy who doesn't seem to understand how the economy works beyond his own bank account and everybody pays the price. So if the Trump economy 2.0 is going to be Trump following through on the things he did in the first term, but macroeconomic indicators were good enough that it didn't do that much damage in the first term because of the insurance of a generally better environment pre COVID. We can expect things to not go so well. My question is, will there be accountability?

Will Trump supporters admit this guy doesn't really have any idea what he's doing? I don't know. And also let me know in the comments or via email info at David Pakman dot com. Are you feeling the impact of Trump's economy yet? Let's now talk a little bit about eggs. Grocery store yesterday. I got back from my trip, went to the grocery store. Very slim pickings when it comes to eggs.

My beautiful orange yoked pasture raised eggs. They were out of them. In fact, they were out of I counted over 20 different egg varieties. There was only one that was in stock. And you might say to yourself, well, if egg prices are going up, shouldn't that make it so people are not buying eggs? What you have to remember is that part of what we have is a supply issue because of bird flu. But let's start with the numbers. Egg prices started Donald Trump's presidency at six 13 per dozen egg prices. 10 days into Trump's presidency had gone up about 15% to seven Oh nine a dozen egg prices

are now at yet another all time historic record high of seven 48 per dozen. This means these are cold, hard numbers. Okay. This means that under Donald Trump, egg prices have climbed 22%. So let's, let's go now through all of the rebuttals, but David, you didn't care about egg prices under Biden. I'm not the one who made egg prices the issue. Trump and Republicans did. And we are now holding them to account for the promises that they made. But David, you couldn't possibly expect Trump to lower egg prices so quickly, could you? Well, it was Trump who said that he could and that he would. It was Trump who ran on it.

It was JP Mandel. It was the whole cadre of price lowering geniuses that told us on day one, you're going to see it. But David, you can't possibly blame Trump for prices now because they clearly have nothing to do with Trump. Well, Trump said he would lower them and if he did lower them, you know he would be taking credit. So why can't we say it's Trump's watch?

However much credit or blame you want to ascribe to presidents, it's Trump's watch right now. And then of course the most reasonable rebuttal, David, isn't it bird flu? Isn't this mostly bird flu? Not Donald Trump. Yes. A lot of what we are seeing low stock, my orange yolks, I can't find them. The low stock and the high prices under Trump due to bird flu, despite Trump assuring us that he would get prices down. And of course, what is that a reminder of? It's a reminder that doesn't Trump doesn't know nor care nor understand the effects of pandemics on reality. Trump during covid we saw wanted to ignore, essentially ignore covid, say the solution to cases is simply don't test. It's like,

if you don't take a pregnancy test, you're not pregnant, right? Stop the testing so that we don't have cases reopened by Easter of 2020. And let me just do my thing. Give me credit for my awesome economy. And it's the same approach with bird flu. If he really wants to deal with the egg price situation, he should do something that is completely opposite to what he is doing, which is not even acknowledging the issue of bird flu and certainly not having any contingency plan to do a damn thing about it. So what do you want me to tell you? He made it the foremost issue of his campaign. He made promises and now you, I'm supposed to be the one who plays coy and puts on the kid gloves because

we all knew all along he wasn't going to be able to do it. Of course not. This is the bed he made. We've got to make them lie in it at this point. Uh, even if as Melania claims, he doesn't wear pajamas in it, which is a horrifying thing to think about. Okay, so that's where we are. Record high egg prices.

There has never been a time in American history with higher egg prices than we have today. All right. Quick update on the book. We are now only five, six weeks away from the release of my first ever long form nonfiction book, the echo machine. Last week and the week before I came to you with tears in my eyes and love in my heart and said, we're going to do some signed books. And I said, please email me if you want a signed book. Uh, I got 50 emails. I got a hundred

emails. I got 150 emails and I was talking with the team and my publisher. Can I manage this? Because the way we would have to do this is the books are shipped to me. I signed them individually and then I or we have to figure out how to mail them out. I could do 100. I could do 150. We've now gotten 500 requests for the signed books. Not going to be able to do them the way we planned. So this is the new plan. If you would like a signed book, my publisher, which is based in Boston, has partnered up with one specific

independent bookstore called Brookline Booksmith. If you go to David Pakman dot com slash booksmith. OK, they are the they have a monopoly. They are the exclusive purveyor of signed copies of the book. This will be me signing it. When I go up and meet with my publisher prior to the book's release, they're going to have hundreds or depending on how many are ordered, a thousand of these books for me to sign. This is the easiest way to do it.

OK, go to David Pakman.com slash booksmith. Every book ordered at that link will be signed. Um, and feel free to email info at davidpacman.com. Let me know that you picked one up. That is the, I think it will be better in the sense that we're opening it up to more people. All right. So I'll give you updated pre-order numbers very soon. We're going to take a quick break. It's great to be back in the studio and so much, David. I've got cable management, power outlets, monitor arms to my right. If you want a bottle opener or a hammock, they make that available to uplift desk gives way more options for building your perfect workspace. And they make it easy with the desk configurator tool on their website with over 200,000 possible combinations.

If you're looking for comfort, uplift desk also offers seating options, footrests, balancing Thank you so much, David. 15 year warranty that covers the whole desk and an extra discount off of your entire order. That's U P L I F T desk.com slash Pacman. The link is in the podcast notes. app stores, but every conversation you have with DeepSeek is stored on Chinese servers and subject to Chinese censorship. If you want to try DeepSeek without sharing all your conversations with Beijing, then let me recommend our sponsor, Venice AI. Venice.ai is a generative AI platform. It's private and it's permissionless. And they utilize leading open source AI models to deliver text code and image generation right to your web browser. No downloads, no installations of anything.

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Go to Venice.ai slash Pacman and use the code Pacman to get 20% off a pro plan. That's Venice dot AI slash Pacman for 20% off or use code Pacman. The link is in the podcast notes. Nothing has changed with regard to how this program is funded. And it is funded primarily by folks like you, people who go to join pacman.com and get themselves a membership. Plain and simple. We do an extra show every single day for our members on the bonus show today. I'll catch everybody up on what I've been up to and talk about my trip and other things that are upcoming for the show. You can sign up and get the daily bonus show, the commercial free audio and video feed of

the show and so many other things by simply going to join Pacman dot com and following very straightforward and simple instructions, even with average technical skills. I do believe that you would be able to sign up in 60 to 90 seconds at the most at join Pacman dot com. seconds at the most at join pacman.com a completely defeated looking orange Donald Trump stood rather sat at the resolute desk in the oval office as the real president, president Elon Musk ranted and raved incoherently. Now I don't want to understate or overstate the absurdity and

significance of what we are going to look at here. Even a few years ago, the idea that the richest man in the world would buy his way into the Oval Office and get what is effectively carte blanche to do whatever the hell when you're rich, they let you do whatever you want. Remember when Trump said that about sexually assaulting women? Well, apparently Elon Musk is doing it with regard to an assault on the federal government. He bought his way in 250, 270 million, 300, 300 million. What's 50 million right when you've got his money and now he gets to stand in the Oval Office as Donald Trump sits aside while Elon's son eats boogers and rubs them on the Resolute

desk. I'm not exaggerating, folks. This is where we are. What a good deal, right? I mean, good for Elon Musk in the sense that he figured out how to do it. Here is Elon saying people voted for the stuff that I'm doing, leaving out, of course, that no one voted for Elon Musk. The people voted for major government reform.

There should be no doubt about that. That was on the campaign. The president spoke about that at every rally. The people and look at Trump looking dejected. This is the look of a guy who is saying, oh, my God, what am I doing? I'm doing nothing. Can I even stop this? Why is all the attention on Elon voted for for major government reform?

And that's what people are going to get. They're going to get what they voted for. And a lot of times that, you know, people that don't get what they voted for major government reform and that's what people are going to get. They're going to get what they voted for. And a lot of times that, you know, people that don't get what they voted for, but in this presidency they are going to get what they voted for. Consider the audacity, the testicular fortitude of a guy who is completely unelected. Listen, they voted for lower grocery prices. They're not getting them. Eggs are sky high.

Okay. They voted for improvements to the economy that would benefit the average person. They're not getting them. They've got Elon just mass laying people off. Understand that this mere image of the unelected richest man in the world taking questions from reporters in the Oval Office as Trump just sits there, orange and swollen. The image alone is vomitous. And as much power as we know, the rich have had over government for a long time in the

United States. Doing it this nakedly and brazenly would have been unthinkable in years past. Now, reporters, I mean, listen, am I giving them credit? Are they terrible? It's a mixed bag with these reporters that are now asking questions. But a reporter at least tries to say there are conflicts of interest here, right? I mean, you're you're the one who now has the keys to everything, but you're the one with the government contract and all these different things. And Elon goes, oh, no, we're we posted to X. We post excretions to X telling you what Doge is up to.

Sorry, this is the wrong clip here. The White House says that you identify and excuse yourself from any conflicts of interest that you may have. Does that mean that you are, in effect, policing yourself? What are the checks and balances that are in place to ensure that there is accountability and transparency? Well, we actually are trying to be as transparent as possible. In fact, our actions, we post our actions to the Doge handle on X and to the Doge website. So all of our actions are maximally transparent. In fact, I don't. Yeah, I mean, guys, you want transparency.

What is more transparent than the richest guy in the world doing whatever the hell he wants with Doge? Because Trump has given them the keys and said, have fun, go for a joyride. He does whatever he wants. And then they post about it to the social media platform that he also owns. What could possibly be more transparent than that, says Elon Musk. Now, in the middle of this, OK, in the middle of this, to really give it more gravitas and seriousness, Elon Musk's son is picking boogers relentlessly out of his nose. We're playing the video for you now next to Trump. And then at a certain point, as Trump is looking dejected and Elon is ranting incoherently, Elon Musk's son starts rubbing boogers on the Resolute desk where I recently stood alongside former President Joe

Biden. Now Trump's there. And here is Elon Musk's son rubbing boogers on the Resolute desk. What imagery, what imagery we have here. Oh, and he's eating some boogers too. Just, I mean, why not? Right. I mean, if you're already in up to your wrist, you might as well keep going. What the hell is happening to our government here? Well, it's that Elon Musk has taken over. Elon Musk was asked, you spread misinformation about condoms for Hamas. And Elon said, well, I am going to say some things that are incorrect. You said on X that an example of the fraud that you have cited was 50 million dollar of condoms were sent to Gaza. But after fact-check this, apparently Gaza in Mozambique, and the program was to protect them against HIV.

So can you correct the statements it wasn't sent to Hamas, actually? It was sent to Mozambique, which makes sense why condoms were sent there. And how can we make sure that all the statements that you said were correct, so we can trust what you say. Well, first of all, some of the things that I say will be incorrect and should be corrected. So nobody's going to bat a thousand. I mean, any, you know, we're going to, we will make mistakes, but we'll act quickly to correct any mistakes. So, you know, if, if the, I'm not sure we should be sending $50 million worth of condoms to anywhere. There you go. So anyway, he's going to say some things that are wrong, which we didn't really need him to explain to us.

Now, Trump, of course, was also asked about all this stuff. And he goes, listen, I campaigned on doing exactly what we're doing. This is what I campaigned on. And now we're carrying it out. Judge is an activist. Judge wants to try and stop us from doing this. Why? Why would they want to do that? I can't paint on this. I can't paint on the fact that I said government is corrupt and it is very corrupt. It's very, very, uh, it's also foolish.

So the solution to the corrupt government that Trump campaigned on is letting Elon Musk do whatever the hell he wants. Now Elon Musk was asked even more specifically, you've gotten billions in government contracts from the Pentagon and now you are the one looking into DOD. You're the one who now is going to get to say, even as a recipient of government money, where should government money be spent? Isn't that a conflict? And Elon goes, oh no no, SpaceX does that.

I don't do that. That's SpaceX. Well, of course, SpaceX is his company. If you have received billions of dollars in contracts from the Pentagon and the president's directing you to look into the Department of Defense, is that we definitely need to do and are going to do at the president's request? Does that present a conflict of interest for you? No, because you'd have to look at the individual contract and say, first of all, I'm not the one, you know, filing the contract. It's people at

SpaceX or someone who will be putting for the contract. And I'd like to say, if you see any contract where the, where it was awarded to SpaceX and it wasn't by far the best value for money for the taxpayer, let me know. There you go. We can trust that if Elon finds that some of the contracts he's been given aren't the absolute best deal for taxpayers, he's not going to allow those to stand. My prediction, Elon finds that the contracts given to SpaceX were absolutely the best. So what a sight. Trump slouched over behind his desk looking like an asterisk, right? It looks like Elon is the guy running things. Musk wearing a hat, his kids running around, rubbing boogers on the resolute desk, eating boogers.

What the hell is going on? And Trump's body language really strikes me. Um, the same as after his meeting with Putin. Remember the famous meeting with Putin where Trump came out and goes, no, listen, I mean, he very strongly denied that they did the hack. And I believe him. I don't know. Why would he lie? You know, it's it's the same dejected Trump who realizes he's been outplayed, a deflated party balloon, a pinata that's been popped. What imagery, what imagery? And you can

tell also that Trump may be starting to realize that he's been had by how he's answering questions about J.D. Vance as a possible heir to the Republican throne. Let's talk about that next. Donald Trump was interviewed by Fox News's Brett Baier. And in this interview, as is always the case with these interviews, these are meant to be softball interviews and sometimes they go wrong. And Trump, even though he's given a softball interview, he just kind of can't handle it. That's exactly what happened in this particular interview. Now, before we get into the part about J.D. Vance, which is super interesting, Brett Baier asks Trump, what are you doing to bring down prices for the American people?

It's a total softball because it sets Trump up. If Trump is prepared with the right talking points, Trump can just give his nonsense. But if he does it the right way, people will fall for it. Instead, Trump delivers an incomprehensible rant when asked, what are you doing on prices? The plan. When do you think families would be able to feel prices going down, groceries, energy, or are you kind of saying to them, hang on, inflation may get worse until it gets better? No, I think we're going to become a rich now. Look, we're not that rich right now. We owe $36 trillion. That's because we let all these nations take advantage of us. Same thing, like 200 billion with Canada. We owe 300. We have a deficit with Mexico of $350 billion. And of course, he's talking about a trade deficit and he's saying

we're a rich country, but we're also not that rich. It's just give us the list of nonsense you're doing to bring down prices. We know it's not going to be real because prices are going up and he can't do it. It's a softball question. Just just rattle off the stuff. Brett Bayer asking him, are you worried some of the tariffs might end up just being passed along to consumers? And Trump goes, well, it might, it might, but let me fill

in the blanks with other, other, other nonsense. I want to have tariffs separately from that on steel, on autos, on a semiconductors and, and chips and uh, probably pharmaceuticals. And you're not worried that any of that's going to go back to the consumer? It might, but it's ultimately going to be much less expensive. I'll give you an example. The so-called fat drug or fat shot, whatever it's called, Ozempic or Manjuro.

In London, you get a... I think, did he just call it Manjuro? Manjuro. Yeah, I think it's Manjaro. In London, you get it Monjuro. Monjuro. Yeah, I think it's Moonshara in London. You get it for $88 in New York. You get it for $1,200. You can't even buy it.

It's very unfair. The identical package made in the same factory shipped to different places, but made literally in the same factory. All right. And of course the question was, are you worried the tariffs will increase prices for consumers? Trump's just off. OK, now Trump seems to be starting to recognize that he ceded a lot of power to other people. Elon Musk, Peter Thiel via J.D. Vance. And so even though the idea has been J.D. Vance is the heir apparent to MAGA Trump ism, even though he previously said Trump could be America's Hitler, forget about that.

Now Trump seems to be saying, I don't see J.D. Vance as my successor. Trump seems to be realizing what's happening. Do you view Vice President J.D. Vance as your successor, the Republican nominee in 2028? No, but he's very capable. I mean, I don't think that it, you know, I think you have a lot of very capable people. So far, I think he's doing a fantastic job. It's too early. We're just starting. But by the time you get to the midterms, he's going to be looking for an endorsement. Yeah, a lot of people have said that this has been the greatest opening almost three weeks in the history of the president.

That's what I've been the fastest and the most stuff I've done so much so fast and we really had to cause they have really, what they've done to our country is so sad. It's so sad. All right. So the answer is no, at least not for now. He does not see JD as the natural successor to Maga. And you know, part of this is Trump doesn't like the attention that other people are getting. And part of this is Trump wants to be able to retain the ability to decide who is going to be the air. And there have been, you know, rumors floated

about Donald Trump jr. In any case, we're going to have to wait and see Trump on the topic of Gaza, making it clear. He sees his plan takeover of Gaza and expulsion of the Palestinian people as a real estate deal, plain and simple. We'll build beautiful communities, safe communities. Could be five, six, could be two. But we'll build safe communities a little bit away from where they are, where all of this danger is. In the meantime, I would own this. Think of it as a real estate development for the future.

It would be a beautiful piece of land. Would the Palestinians have the right to return? No, they wouldn't because they're going to have much better housing, much better. In other words, I'm talking about building a permanent place for them because if they have to return now, it will be years before you could ever go. So the Palestinians would not be allowed to go back to Gaza. Certainly sounds a little different, certainly than the plan that Kamala Harris had. Trump insisting during this completely

ridiculous interview that everything was rigged about the election. Putin, do you squeeze them to get them to the table? I mean, it would have. Look, I say it all the time. This would have never happened if I were president. If the election weren't rigged, this would have never happened. And let's see whether or not Fox lets you put that in. Okay. The election weren't rigged. Do you hear me rigged? Uh, let's see. I mean, it would have, this would have never happened. It wouldn't happen with Putin and October 7th would have never happened either. There you go. So quite, quite an idea that Donald Trump has as far as what to expect. And then finally, Brett Bayer sort of asking Donald Trump about the Trump dance of surreal Kafka esque moment.

Listen, you are the most recognized person in the world, likely the most imitated person in the world. Every comedian has Donald Trump imitation, everyone. But now you have UFC fighters winning fights, NFL players doing the Trump dance. Did you ever think that was going to be a thing? No, I didn't. I mean, we do these rallies. They've always been great, but they got really great. And it's just I don't know what it is. I try and walk off sometimes without dancing and I can't. I have to dance because it's just got something special about it. Mr. President, thanks for the time. Thank you.

What a hard hitting interview and incredible that the Trump dance has just become so popular softball interview. He can't do it in the oval office with Elon Musk. Elon's in control, not Trump. Sad state of affairs, my friend, but my friends, but who can say we didn't expect it? Once again, we're seeing big tech blur the lines between private industry and public government. Zuckerberg, Bezos, even Sam Altman at Open AI are donating millions to Trump's inaugural fund because they say he'll lead our country 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 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.

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that we have to call it what it is. And it appears as though Elon Musk is functionally in charge of the American government at this time. This is not another, you know, Trump's a puppet hypothesis. We are not in a subtle, you know, behind the scenes through corporate influence that we can't really define or some kind of puppet masters who we can never really name. Elon Musk appears to be openly running the show. How do we know? We know because it's all happening in public.

Donald Trump has been signing executive orders that might as well have been drafted in Elon Musk's Twitter replies. We've got Doge, this made up acronym for a real, truly terrifying thing where Elon Musk puts his own personal operatives. Maybe we call them political commissars, puts them inside federal agencies, their job being to fire and hire and downsize. It's all happening under Elon Musk's command and there is so much more to it. So let's break it down. Under Donald Trump's doge, the unelected loyalist, Elon Musk has unelected loyalists to him making

decisions about funding and programs and they've got the keys to the castle, they've got the keys to everything. They can block hires, they can decide who gets fired, they can dictate the size and shape of agencies. And because Elon Musk is at, is at the top of Doge, even Vivek Ramaswamy. It was obvious you can't have two egos like that at the top. Trump clearly preferred Elon. Vivek quietly went away saying everything's absolutely perfect. I'm just not going to be a part of this anymore.

It really does appear as though Elon Musk and not Donald Trump are actually calling the shots here. This is not a minor advisory role. These doge operatives aren't just consultants. They are overriding department heads on staffing. And the only way an agency can hire someone musks people don't approve of is if the agency head personally intervenes, which let's be real, most aren't going to because they don't want to be next on the chopping block as likely to get fired.

Trump's new downsizing rule is for every four federal employees who leave, only one gets hired back. So this is all calculated. It's to gut the federal government from the inside. And if you thought Trump's first term was a disaster for properly staffing government departments, uh, Elon Musk's second term agenda is like starvation level austerity, except not for the billionaires, only for the regular people who rely on things like their wages, functioning infrastructure, environmental protections,

regulatory oversight. And if you step back for a second and say, you know, David, you're right. Four years ago, eight years ago, 12 years ago, Elon Musk in the Oval Office explaining what's going on while the actual president sits aside. We wouldn't have expected that. But the signs have really been everywhere because Elon Musk and other billionaires have been methodically inserting themselves into government decision making for years, initially in more subtle ways. Then Elon takes over Twitter, turns it into this unmoderated pipeline for far right propaganda, worms his way into direct access to Trump by dumping in about 270 million bucks

to the campaign. And now he gets to do whatever he wants. He can disregard a regulatory standards if it's convenient for companies he owns or secure government subsidies for businesses and he is staffing the federal government. He's already rewired American political discourse by controlling one of the, what was one of the most influential online platforms. I don't know if it still is where he would be boosting conspiracies and undermining democracy, playing footsie with authoritarian regimes. And he brands himself as some kind of free speech absolutist, but he's

not. He now has moved beyond controlling speech. He's controlling government. He's controlling the budget. He's controlling policy. And that's the part that Trump's base doesn't really want to admit. Trump is increasingly just a figurehead. He's signing what's put in front of him. We'll talk tomorrow about the executive order stuff. He gives speeches.

He rambles about sharks or dishwashers or toilets or whatever nonsense is on his mind. But the serious decision making is happening elsewhere. And it's Elon Musk, along with a handful of right wing billionaires who seem to be the real power players. It's not hard to see the shift. Remember when Trump went off and about how he doesn't really like electric cars? Then he realized Musk is willing to bankroll his collapsing social media empire and prop up the second term grift. And now Trump's just bending over backwards for Elon. So this is what a what's the right word? This is what a transactional presidency looks like.

A washed up reality TV star signing orders supported by tech billionaires and pretending that he's still in charge. So Elon Musk isn't doing this out of some deep ideological commitment to conservatism. Just wants control. He likes control. He's gotten control. He's taking control of online discourse through X and now he's seizing the levers of government. So what we're watching is the United States government turned into a subsidiary of Elon Musk's corporations. And it's no longer that the billionaire class is influencing policy. They're just running the country open power grab. And for all the talk, by the way, of Trump being an alpha male, he doesn't even seem

to be in charge of his own presidency. If a Democrat did something like this, imagine if Biden sat at the resolute desk and said, here's George Soros, who's going to be telling us what government's going to get up to. Just imagine if Soros was given the authority to hire and fire and limit the size and policies. You know, Tucker Carlson's face would be even redder. Fox News would be running 24 seven segments about unelected billionaires running government. But it's Elon Musk. It's Donald Trump.

It's Republicans. They don't care because of the woke mind virus or something like that. When does it end? Where does it end? Because this is a perfect blueprint for corporate autocracy, a system where billionaires aren't just lobbying politicians. They are the politicians. And to a degree, we are in uncharted territory here. A Tesla was once the dominant force in the electric vehicle market in the United States, certainly, and also globally. Uh, Tesla sales are collapsing and the explanations are both political and technological, but they are certainly tied to Elon Musk's ridiculous behavior. So here's what's going on.

Tesla sales are plummeting in Europe and they are declining in the U.S. Germany, 60 percent drop in Tesla sales. France, 63 percent drop. Norway, 38 percent drop. Sweden, 44 percent drop this January compared to last January. In the U.S., Tesla's share of the EV market is also shrinking, not as much as in Europe, but it is still shrinking. Now there's a couple different things going on that are worthy of mentioning. I don't want to pretend this is only about Elon Musk's radical actions. Part of the decline is a little bit of a natural cooling in the EV market as Europe has seen some subsidies scaled back. But Tesla has lost its early mover advantage as well because now you've got competitors,

BMW, Rivian, Mercedes, Hyundai, Kia. You know, there are lots of electric vehicles now with some combination of longer range, faster charging architecture, more luxurious interiors, features that people like. It's all eroding the first mover advantage that Tesla had. So that's one thing that's going on. But the other aspect of this is Elon Musk's personal brand, which is a major factor here. Elon's polarizing political behavior, the alliance with Trump alienating, uh, so many around the world. This is a problem for Tesla and Elon Musk's actions, whether it's the rallying with far right groups,

retweeting neo-Nazi accounts, all of it is damaged his reputation and it's hurting Tesla. In addition to this, investors are losing confidence. Tesla stock has been down over the last month. Uh, it's very, very shaky. And the cyber truck, which was supposed to be revolutionary is not only underperforming, it's sort of become the, um, it's sort of become the emblem of the really annoying MAGA guy effectively. So there are a lot of problems here with Tesla. And this is a reminder that sometimes when the CEO puts their personal brand in a position that is both damaging and overshadowing of the, of the company brand.

In this case, Elon's brand over Tesla. Um, it's a real problem. As many of you know, I used to own a stock in Tesla years ago at this point, 10 years ago, uh, I think is when I bought it. I used to drive a Tesla. I've gotten rid of all my stock. I've gotten rid of my Tesla. I'm out. And the reasons

are not only that I thought the vehicle build quality was questionable and so many other things about the cars, but also I just want nothing to do with Elon Musk. So, so it's both. And even though there were those in Naga who said, no, now we're going to buy the Teslas and Tesla's going to be fine. The stock price doesn't seem fine. The sales numbers don't seem fine. And I have to tell you, if it all imploded and went to zero, I certainly wouldn't mind. Toilets continue to be an area of major concern for president Donald Trump. Donald Trump took to Truth Social and he said, quote, I am hereby instructing Secretary Lee Zeldin to immediately go back to my environmental orders, which were terminated by crooked Joe Biden on water standards and flow pertaining to sinks, showers, toilets, washing machines, dishwashers,

et cetera, and to likewise go back to the common sense standards on light bulbs that were put in place by the Trump administration, but terminated by crooked Joe. I look forward to signing these orders. Thank you. I don't know how many of you remember. Some of you in the audience may be too young to remember that Donald Trump was obsessed with toilets while he was president of the United States. Trump was troubled by the fact that Pete quote people, Trump, right? People had to flush toilets. He claimed 10 to 15 times in order to get the results they hoped for. Here's a reminder of Trump's longstanding obsession with toilets and he is back to it.

We have a situation where we're looking very strongly at sinks and showers and other elements of bathrooms where you turn the faucet on in areas where there's tremendous amounts of water, where the water rushes out to sea because you could never handle it. And you don't get any water. You turn on the faucet, you don't get any water. They take a shower and water comes dripping out. It's dripping out, very quietly dripping out. Super quiet drips. People are flushing toilets 10 times, 15 times, as opposed to once. Super quiet drips. You can't you can't wash your hands. Practically, there's so little water comes out of the faucet. And the end result is you leave the faucet on and it takes you much longer to wash your

hands. You end up using the same amount of water. Right. So we're looking at very seriously at opening up the standard. And there may be some areas where we'll go the other route, desert areas. But for the most part, you have many states where they have so much water that. So a couple of things. First of all, you notice how much Trump's physical appearance has deteriorated from when this was filmed back in December of 2019. Secondly, you notice how much Trump's speech

has deteriorated since this was filmed in December of 2019. But the third thing is, of course, this guy is obsessed not only with toilets, but he's obsessed with undoing anything that Democrats have done back in the first term. Trump's obsession with these standards was related to undoing what he could of the Obama administration. Now it's related once again to undoing what he can from the Biden administration. Why is Trump so obsessed with flushing toilets and the amount of suction that he's getting? Well, you could maybe guess, but it could be because he had trouble flushing those

classified documents down the toilet. That may be the explanation. So he's back. Everything old is new again. Everything new was once new or everything old is new. New is old. I don't know. Anyway, Trump's obsessed with all the same stuff. Toilets are still one of those things. Dear God. Did you know that countless commercial databases and people search sites are storing your personal information? Anyone from an employer to a former partner can use these platforms to get details about your online presence, your home address, phone number, email, license plate, family members, financial information, even political Thank you, David. on people without a search warrant. Our sponsor, Incogni, provides a solution. 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.

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The link is in the description. As Elon Musk is increasingly in control of the government, Donald Trump has been relegated to truth social where he is posting so frequently that we are left to wonder, is this guy doing anything else at all over the last 24 hours? It has been post after post after post, just nonsense, wacky stuff. Trump posting Biden inflation is up. Of course, before it was the buck stops with me. Now that inflation's up, it's it's Biden's fault. Make America great again.

Doge has found massive amounts of amounts of fraud, waste, incompetence and abuse. Interest rates should be lowered. Something that would go hand in hand with tariffs, posting videos of himself, posting videos of himself, welcoming Mark Fogle back after securing his release, posting videos of the, uh, oval office fiasco with Elon Musk and his son video after video after video after video after video, then posting grievances, screeds and attacks about what he is doing and who he's appointing to the DEA and where he's sending people attacking FEMA, praising Doge in all capital letters as going after waste, fraud and abuse, even

though it appears to be doing nothing of the sort, posting again and again and again about Doge. Seems like maybe he's feeling a little bit self-conscious that Doge may not be accomplishing all that he hoped or told us that it would. Attacking California officials for how they count or don't count votes. Attacking New York as the most corrupt state of the union, attacking Democrats, attacking Taylor Swift, attacking New York more posting clips and images of how Google apparently has now renamed the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of

America on their maps. Thanks to Donald Trump's doing and video after video, Rick Grinnell is going to be doing this. So let me kind of zoom out here and give you the picture of how it appears that this is all going to go. And then I want to really talk about how this is becoming the golden age for fraud. Once again, the big picture of how this is all apparently going to go is that until he gets sick of him, Trump is going to allow Elon Musk to effectively run the federal government,

as we spoke earlier about how seems to be happening. Meanwhile, Donald Trump is going to claim victory after victory as Elon Musk does whatever he wants. But importantly, and this is a key detail, other people around Trump in the Oval Office who are a little more skeptical of Musk, and apparently there are many of them are going to be setting up. What is the next once Trump and Musk relationship sours, what is going to be the next way to seize power? Is it going to involve JD Vance or isn't it? Because as we talked about earlier, Trump seems to be increasingly skeptical of saying

that Vance is sort of the heir apparent to MAGA Trumpism. There are all sorts of factions right now. The opportunist billionaires who genuinely like Trump, the opportunist billionaires who genuinely like Trump, the opportunist billionaires who think Trump's a Patsy, but they want to be in a convenient position if and when it all falls apart. The anti Trump people sort of more legacy Republican types who are trying to figure out how do we get power back? All of these different groups.

Now meanwhile, there's the question of what do, what do Democrats do? And Hakeem Jeffries was recently criticized as just kind of giving up because when he was asked, what do you guys plan to do? I'm paraphrasing here. Hakeem Jeffries said something like, listen, they've got the white house, they've got the house and they've got the Senate. What leverage do we have? He was criticized for that. And I think that to the extent that he's saying, let's give up, it's worthy of criticism. But on the other hand, it does seem as though there is a degree of getting out of their way, make them own it. And I know that many of you will say, David, if we let them own it and they screw up, they'll still blame Democrats. And a lot of people will fall for it, but a lot of people won't.

And it does seem as though when you've lost everything, you're now kind of setting up for the midterms in 2026. It's not the craziest idea in the world to let them own it. It's not let them do whatever they want. You will, you still oppose everything you can if you were able, but let them own it and then do everything you can to point out that here's what they promised and here's what they've done. We're going to lower egg prices on day one, multiple weeks in a row, egg prices going sky high. That's them. They own it. In the meantime,

however, what we have to be cognizant of is that a lot of people are getting scammed here because of what I'm calling the golden age of fraud. Let me talk about that next. Many Republican voters after the November victory of Trump called it the greatest comeback in American political history. What we're actually living through is something a lot more dangerous. Trump 2.0, I guess is what we call it. It is the golden age of fraud, fraud in a lot of different ways. Let me explain. The promises are bigger. The lies are bolder. The consequences are going to be even worse than last time. So let's start with the most glaring issue, the billionaire cabinet. If you thought his first administration was stacked with wealthy elites, this time he's really outdone himself.

Trump has surrounded himself with an unprecedented number of billionaires, most of whom have no government experience, but plenty of personal agendas. And at the center of all of it is Elon Musk, who we've talked about cozying up to Trump. He's a key player in this entire thing. But the fraud that is being perpetrated ranges from energy policy to infrastructure. Billionaire fingerprints are all over it. And don't forget that not only Musk, but some of these other billionaires that are in positions of power, they all have a stake in the game. They all stand to benefit or be damaged by federal government policy with respect to their industry.

So this is the first fraud giving these people this level of power. It's not just undemocratic, it's dangerous, but then it goes bigger. The next fraud is Trump is the alpha male leader, which we've talked about before. Of course, Trump's second term is proving to be as chaotic as ever, as self-serving as ever, as grievance driven as ever. Trump still can't focus on policy details. It's constant turmoil, but his supporters are falling for the tough guy act. Trump's actually weak, but he pretends to be strong.

Trump's actually erratic, but he pretends to be stable and he is completely detached from reality. And that gets us to the economic fraud that is taking place. The promises were lower prices, business boom, so much growth that we pay off the debt and all this stuff. Everything's up right now. Now you tell me at what point can we say that Trump is the one who should be held accountable? It does not mean presidents control everything, but that's why you should be a little conservative in the promises that you make. When can we say groceries are up and gases up and businesses are struggling?

The reckless trade policies, the deregulation, it's all bad. He said he'd be the greatest jobs president. We're not seeing any policy so far that will create jobs. In fact, he's gotten rid of potentially going to get rid of jobs through the policies he's putting in place. So that's the third fraud that is being carried out. Number four is the outright corruption. We know from the first term scandals.

Yes, the grift and corruption are even more blatant this time. Trump's businesses continue to rake in money from foreign assets. Trump's family members are cashing in at every turn and Trump has really outwardly turned the presidency into a personal profit machine and he's defrauding his followers by saying, Oh, I won't take a salary. The salary is like I think 400,000 a year. Trump's not taking it. Wow.

But by being in power, not only is Trump staying out of prison, first of all, uh, Trump is able to turn the country into a personal profit machine. And now he's got a billionaire cabinet saying, absolutely, sir. So what does it mean for the average American? Fewer opportunities and higher prices. A government that is run for the ultra wealthy by the ultra wealthy, not for regular people and a leader who is putting ego and his bank account above the needs of the country. So Trump 2.0 isn't a comeback. It's a fraudulent disaster.

If you value, you know, let's get away from the partisan sort of lens and use a value based lens. If you value democracy and accountability and decency, This is what we feared. So my question to you is, is this indeed shaping up to be the golden age of fraud or am I missing something? Let me know in the comments. Let me know in an email info at David Pakman dot com on the bonus show today. I will fully catch you up about my trip and what's going on with the show, things upcoming and a bunch of other stuff. Uh, you can get instant access to the bonus show by signing up at join at pacman.com. We are now just five and a half weeks. Actually, is it six weeks today? Maybe it's, it's six weeks. No, six weeks minus one day away from the release of my forthcoming book, The Echo Machine. There is one place to get

signed copies of the book, and that is David Pakman dot com slash booksmith. My Boston based publisher has made an arrangement with Brookline Booksmith. It's a local bookstore in the area. I'm going to sign however many signed books I need to sign. And that's the way to do it. Of course, you can get the audio book, Kindle, all of that stuff also available. So I will see you on the bonus show. I will be back tomorrow. Great to be back in the studio.