The David Pakman Show - 2/19/25: Trump running out of energy as Bernie goes nuclear on oligarchs

Episode Date: February 19, 2025

-- On the Show: -- Donald Trump is running out of energy, and it's showing every single day -- Egg price go nuclear, now up 30% in under a month under Donald Trump's stewardship -- A new measles outbreak in Texas can be tied to vaccine hesitancy, despite the measles vaccine being very safe and very effective -- Elon Musk babysits Donald Trump during a Fox News interview with Sean Hannity that despite being a softball interview still went horribly wrong -- An agitated Donald Trump loses it multiple times during a harebrained press conference -- Senator Bernie Sanders clearly explains the oligarchy and authoritarianism rising in and thanks to the Trump administration -- Stephen Miller, an adviser to Donald Trump, suffers a meltdown when asked basic simple questions by CNN anchor Brianna Keilar -- On the Bonus Show: Elon Musk's DOGE website is off to a bad start, as legal sports betting has increased, so has gambling addiction, Trump administration pressuring Romania over Andrew Tate, much more... 🖥️ UPLIFT Desk: Get up to 5 free accessories & special discount at https://upliftdesk.com/pakman 🧴Geologie: Use code PAKMAN70 for 70% OFF your skin care trial set at https://geolog.ie/PAKMAN70 🛡️ Incogni lets you control your personal data! Get 60% off their annual plan: http://incogni.com/pakman 💪 AG1 is offering you a FREE $76 GIFT when you sign up at https://drinkag1.com/pakman 🔊 Babbel language learning: Get up to 60% OFF at https://babbel.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 -- 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

Speaker 1 Speaker 1 Welcome everybody. What a sad state of affairs we find the federal government in led by the man who once bragged about having the best words and unmatched stamina and the power to just keep going on only four hours of sleep. But the guy looks like he is running on fumes. And I mean that physically. And I mean that politically. And I mean that cognitively. This past week, we witnessed what might include the worst days and the worst week of Trump's presidency's. It was a week of diplomatic betrayals, incoherent interviews, outrageous policy decisions and a level of confusion and disorientation that is impossible to ignore. And I want to break it down. First and foremost, we are now regularly betraying our allies thanks to the mango menace embracing dictators.

We saw this meeting in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The American delegation practically rolled out the red carpet for Russian officials, signaling loud and clear that the United States is cozying up to Vladimir Putin rather than supporting our longstanding allies in Europe and in Ukraine. Vladimir Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, not even involved in these discussions. The idea being it will be Russia, the aggressor and Saudi Arabia, the biased interlocutor who will decide what is to be the fate of Ukraine.

And if you're wondering whether Donald Trump has learned anything from the entire, he trusts Putin more than the American intelligence agencies fiasco. The answer is no. Trump has learned nothing from that. And of course we could tell from him nominating Tulsi Gabbard to be director of national intelligence, someone who should not only not be directing national intelligence, she has no business even having a security clearance. So this is a betrayal, so blatant, it's dangerous. America under Trump saying to the world, as it did in his first term, we are no longer a reliable ally. And that is a present. It is a gift for authoritarian regimes everywhere. Iran and the nuclear deal, they're in compliance as far as we know, during Donald Trump's first

term. Trump doesn't like the deal. He doesn't like that it was under Obama, that it was put together. And so he says, we're out, we're out of the nuclear deal, the Paris climate agreement. He just doesn't like it. So we're out of the Paris climate agreement and then we're back in under Biden and then we're out again under Donald Trump. Okay. So we are not a reliable ally and we are increasingly a praying at the altar of global authoritarianism. Number two, we are going to look at the babysitting Fox News interview a little bit later today.

We tease this interview on Monday and Tuesday. Donald Trump and Elon Musk sitting down with Fox News propagandist Sean Hannity and Trump's confusion, cognitive decline and policy incoherence were on complete and total display. Of course, this interview with Hannity was prerecorded days ago, edited, workshopped to make Trump look as good as possible. And if you needed any proof that Trump's mental sharpness has faded, even with the edited interview, you still cannot deny it. And it featured Trump rambling about inflation, which he says inflation's back, which seems to confirm it was gone under Biden, something he previously denied when Elon Musk

talked about Neuralink. Trump just goes, you like Bobby, right? Referring to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. You like Bobby bizarre, disjointed, out of touch. And let's not forget why inflation started going up in the first place. But we'll get to that when we talk about the interview. Number three, the Elon Musk con job. Elon Musk and the White House can't seem to keep their story straight as to what is Elon Musk's role. It seemed as though he was running Doge. The next day, he's only an advisor who's really running Doge. Well, Trump is in charge. Oh, so Trump is making the decisions. No, it's Elon Musk, but he's only a special advisor. I think the reason that this is going on is they want Musk to have executive privilege and immunity from congressional oversight. And they're trying to figure out what is the right way to do that because they need him

to be able to lie about tens of millions of dead people getting social security, a lie that we debunked yesterday or get access to your personal data without any pesky accountability. And Trump's view is this guy's so rich, you've got to trust him. He has so much money. He would never do anything not in the interests of the American people. A level of absurdity that I don't remember ever seeing. Number four, we are alienating many of our allies. So we started with cozying up to authoritarianism. We're also alienating many of our allies. Trump is antagonizing Canada, one of our closest allies. He's continuing to post juvenile attacks on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Canadians are saying, all right, well, not only will we give you an optic, a loss as

far as optics go with regard to booing the national anthem, will boycott American goods, will boycott American tourism. And so the question is, if Trump can get away with cozying up to Russia and attacking Canada, the answer is he can do it, but it seems like it's going to come with some pain. And the larger pattern here is that Trump is giving the cold shoulder to Western liberal democracies and playing coy and being enamored with the authoritarian regimes. At one point, Republicans claimed to champion limited government and strong alliances. That's gone out the window. And Donald Trump has also signed an executive order dramatically increasing presidential power. We will dig

into that in more detail, maybe today, maybe later in the week. And then you've got the cruelty of Donald Trump's immigration policies. It's gone from we're only deporting criminal illegals, think about more dehumanizing terms to we are now rounding up low risk migrants whose only crime is being in the United States undocumented, but are otherwise positive contributors to communities and to society. What about just throwing people into Guantanamo Bay and people with no criminal records are being sent to countries where they could face torture or death because Trump just doesn't really care about asylum claims. And meanwhile, we're spending who the hell knows how much money so that secretary of Homeland Security, uh, uh, uh, Christie gnome can, uh, play cowboy sheriff hybrid, uh, telling migrants to go home in English. It's not just cruel, it's cartoonishly cruel.

And then I do want to say a little something about the plane crash situation. We have another of these mind boggling Trump twists where Trump's secretary of transportation, Sean Duffy, the former reality TV star, tried to say to the public, listen, air crashes happen. They just they happen as though these recent disasters are unavoidable. But the reality is that under President Biden's four year term, there were zero commercial jet crashes in the U.S. and Trump's administration wants to gut regulatory agencies, fire key safety personnel, and now they're going, you know, sometimes you have plane crashes.

So what's the bigger picture here? If it feels to you like the wheels are coming off, the paintings are flying off the wall and everything's being shaken to its core. It's because that's what's going on. Trump's energy is diminished mentally and physically. The policy perspective is increasingly erratic. Who's running what? Are there tariffs or aren't there tariffs? The interviews are growing incoherent, growingly incoherent, and our alliances are crumbling faster than he can put out messages on truth central central.

And meanwhile, the Republican Party, which once championed small government, is letting Trump do whatever the hell he wants. So this is bigger than Trump's failing presidency. This really is about the future of our democracy. And I recently recorded an interview on Chris Cuomo's podcast about my book. And we talked about, OK, Republicans are a mess, but are Democrats positioned to actually figure out what to do and take power back? I don't know the answer to that. We are seeing an administration filled with endless

lies and dangerous incompetence. We are seeing precedent flush down the toilet. The stakes couldn't be higher. But I don't know if Democrats are positioned to fix or take control of a damn thing. So Trump's low on energy. He's low on time. His decline is becoming more pronounced. He's damaging institutions more quickly and more severely than he did during his first term. It is to a degree on us to keep pushing back, demanding the truth, making sure that this spectacle doesn't completely decimate our democracy because we've learned that when this stuff gets normalized, it's really difficult to go backwards. And in fact, many of the things that are happening right now in this first disastrous month of Trump's second term, they are normalized by Trump's first term.

In other words, if we hadn't already been desensitized to the way this guy runs government from the first disastrous four years, a lot of what's happening right now would be unthinkable. But through a combination of desensitization and Republicans playing coy and going, oh, you know, Trump talks a lot, but he doesn't do a lot of this stuff. You don't really have to worry. The totality of that and the relentless assault that we've been enduring now for a decade since he, quote, came down the escalator and said many Mexicans are rapists. It's difficult to back it up and reset our tolerance. It's sort of like, you know, if you regularly consume caffeine or THC or whatever, you build

a tolerance. And then all of a sudden, this huge amount of caffeine that would have previously jolted you and said, whoa, we've got to do something. This is too much. You're acclimated to it. And that is essentially what has happened here. So after the break, what's coming up today after the break, I will briefly give you the latest nuclear egg report. We will review the Hannity Musk Trump menage a trois interview of sorts.

We will look at the press conference Trump gave. We're going to hear from Bernie about growing authoritarianism and oligarchy. And also you have to see the meltdown that Stephen Miller had on CNN. It is really something to behold. So we'll take a very quick break. Signed copies of my forthcoming book, The Echo Machine, available at David Pakman dot com slash booksmith. Forthcoming interviews where I will appear with Chris Cuomo.

I will appear with Chris Cuomo. I will appear with Brian Tyler Cohen. I will appear on the Mark Thompson show, the young Turks. We've got a bunch of interviews. They're just dumping, dumping, dumping in all of that coming up. David Pakman dot com slash booksmith for signed copies. David Pakman dot com slash book for everything else. Kindle, audio book, unsigned copies. If you could imagine, we'll take a quick break and be right back. If you work at a desk like I do, I often find myself sort of discouraged because I'm sitting for a long time, or at least I used to until I found Uplift Desk. Uplift Desk is at the forefront of ergonomic solutions, promoting better posture and health through adjustable standing desks. And I've been using

Uplift standing desks for years, long before they became a sponsor. One of my favorite things about Uplift Desk is the endless configuration of accessories. I've got cable management, power outlets, monitor arms to my right. 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 boards, standing pads, which I have. Go to UpliftDesk.com slash Pacman to get up to five free accessories, free same day shipping,

free returns, an industry leading 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. One of our sponsors today is geology offering an array of skin, hair, and body products that are powered by facts, not fads. Geology is a 37 time award winning personalized skincare company with over 10,000 five star reviews because people just love the products. Geology creates simple, effective skincare and hair care routines customized just for you with proven ingredients. That's the critical thing with skincare. Their products are built around just a handful of proven, powerful ingredients that have been trusted by dermatologists for decades. Geology can help with acne, reducing oiliness, combating darker, puffy under eyes, or just smoother, more hydrated skin. Go to my link and take their 60 second diagnostic quiz

and their team of dermatologists will design a personalized routine just for you. Ship to your door. I took the quiz. I got the salicylic acid face wash, the tone control morning cream and retinol night cream. Easy. I love the results. Go to G E O L O G dot I E slash Pacman 70 and use my code Pacman 70 to get 70% off your personalized skincare trial set as well as 50% off any add on products. The link is in the description. The David Pakman show is primarily and directly supported through memberships, which you can sign up for at join Pakman dot com. This is not a lot of money and it directly supports the work that we do. There is no large corporate sponsor or media conglomerate that supports what we do.

This show exists to the extent that people in the audience want it to, and many of them do not want it to exist. But fortunately so far enough people do that. Uh, the show continues to grow and thrive. I invite you to check out the member benefits at join pacman.com. If you like the show, we do an extra show every day just for our members, which you can get instantly when you sign up at join pacman.com egg prices have gone nuclear. You would think I was a French chef. The amount that eggs are being discussed on this program at this point in time, but that is not the case. Donald Trump made egg prices one of the primary talking points of his campaign. They will come down on day one. They will come down quickly. And so will energy. And

so will groceries. And so will everything. And egg prices have soared now up 30% in 29 days. The Trump administration now has a plan for bird flu. They're just not ready to give us any of the details yet. We're going to have the details two weeks from August of 2020, just like that healthcare plan, right? Okay, so here's what's going on. When Donald Trump became president a second time, the egg futures for a dozen eggs were at six dollars and 13 cents.

They are now seven ninety four, nearly seven ninety five. That is an increase of 30 percent with egg prices in just twenty nine days. You don't have to be a math genius to understand that if egg prices go up one percentage point per day, we are soon going to have an untenable fiasco. Now, you might be saying Trump acknowledged bird flu the other day. Trump must be getting ready to develop some kind of great plan for bird flu. Well, they're not telling us what the plan is, but they supposedly have one. Kevin Hassett is the director of the National Economic Council, and he teased on Face the Nation this weekend that there is a strategy. He says we're going to create a better,

smarter perimeter around poultry farms. We're going to use biosecurity and medication. All sounds good, right? Except he didn't explain how they're going to build that perimeter. He's not saying what medications will be used, how these measures will be implemented across thousands of farms. Like with everything, is it even the concept of a plan? Not really. One big criticism seems to be I'll back up a little bit. You know, poultry is not the primary subject matter of this show. As many of you know, it's pediatrics, not poultry. But there is there's a couple of things that are important to understand. Trump has blamed Biden for egg prices by saying Biden was having all of these poultry herds called meaning killed in order to when in other words, when there's a bird flu infection,

they were just killing the entire herd. That's driving the egg prices up. Trump's alternative idea vaguely is you create a perimeter around the poultry farm and then you medicate rather than killing the problem with this. According to people who know much more about it than I do. I know a little bit about orange yolks, but I don't know much more than that. Um, the problem with that is that we've learned that this is quite a term that I don't think we've ever used this term on the show before. Micro fecal droplets can be blown by the wind and just creating a perimeter doesn't prevent

the spread of bird flu between birds because of that micro fecal aerosolized almost matter. OK, so the question, of course, is vaccinations. Sure. How do you vaccinate millions of birds when it's currently so expensive and labor intensive? What about the fact that many countries don't accept vaccinated poultry, which could devastate exports? But importantly, what are really the details of this perimeter that they want to put in place? So it is really similar to the health care plan that Donald Trump told Chris Wallace in August of 2020 was two weeks away. We haven't seen it.

Trump had weeks and months and years and even months ago during the presidential debates, he said, well, I have concepts of a plan. So it's the same sort of thing. New bird flu strategy, a lot of talk, no clear action. It's like announcing we will be building a bridge. Oh, where will the bridge go? That's what we have a plan, but that's not a detail we're ready to provide yet. But we will be building a bridge.

What will it be made of? We don't know that yet. We have the concept. The bridge will be built. So they've got to fill in the gaps. This is PR. That's all that is. Now that Trump can no longer insist egg prices will or did go down on day one because they're up 30 percent in 29 days. Now it's it's really Biden's fault. It's bird flu's fault and some generic semblance of a plan we have on health stuff. Things are not going well. And the next example is measles. We have a completely unnecessary outbreak of measles in Texas. Now, as a reminder, the measles vaccine works. It's very effective and it is safe. This is an optional outbreak of measles. It is the year 2025. We sort of have self-driving cars. They're not awesome. OK, I've tested them, but we have them. We have a I that

can write your term paper. I guess I've heard from people in college and we have the biggest measles outbreak in Texas in nearly three decades. We now have 58 confirmed cases and counting. Mostly they are in Gaines County, a place so powerfully dedicated to freedom from vaccines that almost 14 percent of school kids there are exempt from at least one required shot. That's right. More than one out of 10 kids in Gaines County, Texas, are opted out of at least one vaccine. And those are the kids we know about because homeschoolers are not

reporting it. We don't know to what degree private schools are reporting it. Now, before you start clutching pearls and wondering how a disease nearly eradicated in the U.S. has roared back, I have the answer. It's a very powerful cocktail of low vaccination rate, conspiracy theories galore and influencers who think that getting stuck in a YouTube tractor beam of conspiratorial content is a substitute for speaking to actual medical professionals and looking at science. Measles is no joke. Measles can linger in the air for hours. Measles can be someone infected, goes into an elevator and then gets out an hour later. You get into the elevator

and measles is there and it can infect you. Uh, this is a real problem. Now, the thing with measles is really herd immunity. If you have a lower than it depends on exactly where you look, but between 90, 95, 96 percent vaccination rate, if you have a lower vaccination rate than that, measles is so contagious. It's are not. Its reproduction rate is so high that you are going to have a problem. And that's exactly what's happening in Gaines County, Texas. Public health officials are panicking vaccination clinics and screenings and urgent pleas. Please, these vaccines work and they are safe. And meanwhile, the outbreak has skipped over to New Mexico, popping up in grocery stores and schools just for extra chaos.

This was all preventable. People just get their MMR shots like we've been doing for decades and decades. But personal freedom. And what about Dr. Andrew Wakefield's debunked and retracted paper over which he lost his medical license, which said there was a link between the MMR vaccine and autism? What about all of that? And then you sit back and you say, in the midst of this, in the midst of this new level of vaccine hesitancy, we're making Robert F. Kennedy Jr. the famed anti-vaccine crusader who just can't quit the debunked claims that MMR autism, there's something there. He is now the secretary

of health and human services. It's a truly dystopian timeline. And he was confirmed by the Republican controlled Senate. We handed the keys to the largest public health agency in the country to a guy whose greatest hits include pushing vaccine conspiracy theories on social media and many other things that we've talked about. It's like saying, let's put a flat earther in charge of climate or something like that. So this appointment of Bobby Kennedy Jr., kind of the icing on the cake of this anti-science situation that we have among Trumpists. And now it's coming back to bite us in the form of widespread vaccine skepticism and a measles outbreak that is the

worst one in three decades. So what do we do? You know, vaccine hesitancy rising faster than Elon Musk's Twitter meltdowns. It's leading to ER visits. It's leading to quarantines. It's leading to outbreaks. Can we shore up vaccination rates to maintain herd immunity? You would hope so. But there is a lot of resistance out there. And then for people who are responding to this by saying measles must not be that dangerous because you don't hear much about it. That's because of the vaccine. It's the it's the same way that the polio people now go polio. I mean, listen, I haven't heard about polio for a really long time. How bad could it be? Well, thanks to the vaccine. That's exactly the point.

So it leaves us fighting an uphill battle against misinformation, against distrust in science, against political grandstanding. And actual health officials are trying to put out a fire that is only being, you know, they're dumping fuel on it. RFK Jr. at the helm of HHS, Trump in the Oval Office. It's like giving an arsonist a bunch of matches. So we've got to address the root causes here. That's disinformation. It's the erosion of scientific literacy. We're going to keep seeing these completely avoidable outbreaks. And this

is yet another thing. And I, we have to be honest here. We've seen anti-vax enclaves on the left and the right. The right wing anti-vax is often motivated by skepticism of government, whereas historically the left wing anti-vax was motivated by skepticism of big pharma. Now we should be skeptical in a healthy way of both large corporations whose primary interest is profit and of government. We should be have a healthy, rational skepticism of both. But on this issue, the science is so clear and we are now seeing a sort of melding of left and right wing vaccine skepticism. It's acutely big right now among MAGA communities, but the left is not immune for lack of a better term from the anti-vax stuff either. So we're going to keep

seeing avoidable outbreaks. And sadly, people are going to suffer. 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 views. Europe has laws that offer some protection. But in the US, the data is widely accessible. Even the FBI will buy this information from companies to spy 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. You'll get real time updates who has complied, which ones are still pending. They'll handle follow ups. They'll handle appeals on your behalf. And this will save you hundreds of hours. Very few people have the time or resources to do this on their own. This service can also reduce the number of spam calls and emails you get since many solicitors and scammers get your information from these very same sources. Thank you, David. This new year, how about a habit you can stick to? One simple scoop of AG1 every day will get you

75 high quality vitamins and minerals from whole food sources. I have a scoop of AG1 in water before my cappuccino every morning. This way, I don't have to mathematically figure out, am I getting every vitamin and mineral I need from my diet? I do the best I can, but the AG1 just covers me. I drink it straight with water because I like the taste. You could put it in a smoothie, juice, shake. AG1 is just a sustainable routine for me because it's a scoop, one minute, once a day. That is it. I also love the travel packs, which let me take AG1 anywhere I go. I've got the big the David Pakman Show David Pakman dot com. the Speaker 1 Speaker 2 Speaker 3 Speaker 4 Speaker 5

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Speaker 25 Speaker 26 Speaker 27 Speaker 28 Speaker 30 Speaker 31 Speaker 32 Speaker 1 I have for you the babysitting of Donald Trump that Elon Musk did on Sean Hannity's Fox News program. And it is really something else. We've been kind of previewing this interview throughout the week. And one of the very obvious questions that anybody who's wondering whether Trump is really in charge would have is if Trump is really in charge, why is he sitting there with Elon Musk for an interview in the White House with Sean Hannity? Why isn't it only Trump,

the president who is being interviewed here? And if you watch this interview, you start to understand why, as we talked about at the top of the show, Trump is diminished. Trump is exhausted. Trump is declining. Trump is bored as well. He doesn't seem to know what's going on. And quite frankly, he doesn't even seem interested in being president. And that explains so much about this dynamic that's developed with Donald Trump and Elon Musk. One of the other aspects of this that's very funny is that I've told you all before, I never really thought Trump liked J.D. Vance very much.

And I never really thought Trump found J.D. Vance to be particularly competent. We've endorsed J.P., right? J.D. Mandel or J.D. Mandel, as he was known at one point to Trump in this first clip, as J.D. Vance continues to be missing, Trump says Elon Musk was the smartest person he could find to help him with his administration. Not J.D. Vance. That's interesting. I wanted to find somebody smarter than him. I searched all over.

I just couldn't do it. I couldn't. I could really tried harder. I couldn't find anyone smarter. Right. So we had it for the country. But this is the thing. We settled on.

We settled on this. Well, thanks for having me. Imagine if Joe Biden sat with Mark Cuban or George Soros as his co-president instead of Biden's actual vice president for an interview on MSNBC a month into his presidency. Just imagine what right wing media would be saying if it was Biden and Cuban while Kamala Harris was missing somewhere and Biden going, this is the smartest person I could find to help me with what I'm doing. J.D. is a doormat. J.D. is nothing to Trump. Elon Musk made the almost farcical claim that what he is here to do is to remove the unelected bureaucracy that is plaguing the country and

restore power to the people. Sounds very fascistic. But also, Elon Musk is one of those unelected bureaucrats that he bemoans. Wow. But what we're really trying to do here is restore the will of the people through the president. And what we're finding is that there's an unelected bureaucracy. Speaking of unelected, there's a vast federal bureaucracy that is implacably opposed to the president and the cabinet. And you look at, say, D.C. voting, it's 92 percent Kamala.

OK, so we're in 92% Kamala. That's a lot. Um, they don't like me here either. I think about that number a lot. I'm like 92% that's basically almost everyone. Yeah. Um, and so, but if, if 92% is roughly like, you know, I think about that number a lot. 92% is sort of like out of every hundred people. That's 92. Wait, is it?

Oh yeah. Yes. It's 92 people. 92% is roughly 92. I think about that number a lot. But how can you, if, if, if the will of the president is not implemented and the president is representative of the people, that means the will of the people is not being implemented. And that means we don't live in a democracy. We live in a bureaucracy. And so I think what was. Yeah.

Restore the will of the people. Let me see if I understand it. Restore the will of the people by having an unelected bureaucrat like Elon Musk say that he's going to get rid of the unelected bureaucracy. That sounds like fascist talk to me. And it is just being accepted by Republicans who I mean, listen, not all of them, but at one point they would have been vehemently opposed not only to this kind of expansion of presidential power, but they would have been vehemently opposed not only to this kind of expansion of presidential power, but they would have been vehemently opposed to the idea of an unelected bureaucrat

like Elon Musk getting the keys to everything. At one point, we would have disagreed on taxes. We would have disagreed on foreign policy, but we would have found some common ground that this is not democracy. They just look the other way. Now they don't care. One of the most remarkable moments of the interview was when Elon Musk started talking about Neuralink implants.

Trump was so bored he was almost asleep. And Trump just interjects and goes, you like Bobby, right? You like Bobby Kennedy, right? So he Trump cannot stand when anyone else talks about almost any issue visibly bored and then just you like Bobby, right? That would be to add a second neural link implant past the point where these the neurons damaged so that somebody can walk again. And so so they can have full body functionality restored. And so you like Bobby, right? I like Bobby, actually. Yeah, I think I supported Bobby Kennedy. I think he you know, he's unfairly maligned as someone who is anti science. But I think he said would be. Yeah,

you like Bobby, right? Just Trump desperate for Musk's approval like a lost kid. I don't know what the adults are talking about, but you like Bobby, right? I picked Bobby. I like Bobby. Trump tries to explain that Elon Musk, even though he has been empowered to do a lot, he is also policing his own conflicts of interest. So if anybody is worried that Elon Musk may benefit or profit from this keys to everything role that he has, Trump has also told Elon, you'd better police your own conflicts.

OK, you're tasked now. And I pray to God this is successful. I really do. I wish you Godspeed. You know, Godspeed, John Glenn. It God this is successful. I really do. I wish you Godspeed. Godspeed, John Glenn. It's going to be, by the way. I really believe it. But there are legitimate areas. Well, beside this, this is cutting.

We're only talking about cutting. We're also going to make a lot of money. We're taking in so much money. What about his business? What if there is a contract he would otherwise get? We're not going to let him do it. He's got a conflict. I mean, look, he's in certain areas.

I mean, I see this morning, I didn't know, but I said, do the right thing. Were they cutting way back on the electric vehicle subsidies? Yes. They're cutting back. Not only cutting back. Weren't you? Correct. Yeah.

Now, I won't tell you. Well, he's probably not that happy with it, but that would have been one thing he would have come to me and said, listen, you got to do me a favor. This is crazy. But this was in the tax bill. They're cutting back on the subsidies. I didn't, I wasn't involved in it. I said, do what's right. And you get, and they're coming up with a tax, but it which is preliminary. But I mean, if you were involved, wouldn't you think you'd probably do that? Now, maybe he does better if you cut back on the subsidies. Who knows?

Because he figures he does think differently. He thinks he has a better product. All right. So anyway, the point here is we've investigated ourselves and we have found absolutely no wrongdoing. What can you ask for us? Listen, Trump told Elon, police yourself, check, keep a check on your conflicts of interest. And I don't want to hear about any problems.

What a pathetic, pathetic display of impotence, because it's starting to be Putin like and sort of like, listen, I trust him. Putin was very strong when he said we didn't we didn't hack. He said it so strongly. Elon told me he's going to police his own interests. Later in the interview, Elon Musk equated his time in D.C. to daily proctology examination. I mean, I haven't asked the president for anything ever. And if it comes up, how will you handle it?

Well, you won't be involved. Yeah, I'll I'll I'll recuse myself if it is if there's a conflict, you won't be involved. I mean, I wouldn't want that. And he won't want it. Right. And also, I'm getting a sort of a daily proctology exam here. You know, something like I'll be getting away from something in the dead of night. Welcome to D.C. if you want a friend, get a dog.

There you go. If you want a friend, get a dog. Isn't Hannity so, so funny? And then the topic of education came up and Trump fails to mention that he wants people learning science. And Hannity goes, what about science? And Trump's like, yeah, a little science, I guess. Speaker 4 Associated. The only thing I want to do from from Washington, D.C., is make sure they're teaching English, reading, writing, math, and everything. Science. Okay. A little science might help, you know, computers. You're not going to have

much of a problem with that, but that's up to you. By the way, isn't, uh, isn't English reading and writing all the same class? Like it isn't, isn't English class reading and writing. I don't even understand what he's talking about, but as usual, Trump confused about the big things and Trump confused about the little things. And then finally, Donald Trump making an incredible acknowledgement. Trump said during this deranged interview, inflation is back, which, of course, implies it was gone under Biden. It was. And inflation is back. I'm only here for two and a half weeks. That was inflation. They're back. Don't think of it. Inflation's back. And they said, oh two and a half weeks. That was inflation. They're back. We don't think of it. Inflation's back.

And they said, oh, Trump and I had nothing to do with it. These people have run the country. They spent money like nobody's ever spent. So without a doubt, inflation is back, meaning it wasn't there. But it's all somebody else's fault. It's always got to be someone else's fault. This was designed to be a friendly softball interview to make Trump look really good, powerful and in charge. Instead, he was being babysat by Elon Musk and Hannity, who positioned him with easier

and easier softball questions, which he can't even hit. The ball's just sitting there on a tee big as a watermelon. And Trump is swinging wildly in the air and can't even hit. The ball's just sitting there on a tee big as a watermelon. And Trump is swinging wildly in the air and can't do it. And Trump sort of pathetically seems to be seeking Elon Musk's approval. This is the smartest guy. You like Bobby, right? You like Bobby. I pick Bobby. You like Bobby. Pathetic, almost as pathetic as the press conference at Mar-a-Lago. Let's talk about that next. What I am about to play for you is insane.

It would be unthinkable in years past. A Trump official announced yesterday that Donald Trump has signed an executive order claiming that only the president can speak for what the law is. This is not how the Constitution works, but this is the view of the Trump administration. And who's going to stop them? That's my question. Lastly, we have another executive order that President Trump signed relating to independent agencies. This executive order would establish important oversight functions in the Office of Management and Budget and its subsidiary office, OIRA, supervising independent agencies and many of their actions, and also reestablishes the longstanding norm that only the president or the attorney general

can speak for the United States when stating an opinion as to what the law is. Yeah, thank you very much. Well, that that is not how the law works. That is not how the Constitution works. That is not how separations of powers work. That's not how anything works. But unless someone can stop them, then what can we do? And we are going to be doing a deeper dive about that executive order. This included a press conference from Trump wherein he wildly said this was not a war Ukraine should have started. You might be saying to yourself, Ukraine didn't start the war. Ukraine was invaded. You would be right. But listen to the way Trump is framing it. I think I have the power to end this war and I think it's going very well. But today I heard, oh, we weren't invited. Well, you've been there for three years. You should have ended it three

years. You should have never started it. You could have made a deal. I could have made a deal for Ukraine that would have given them almost all of the land, everything, almost all of the land. And no people would have been killed and no city would have been demolished and not one dome would have been knocked down. But they chose not to do it that way. And President Biden, in all fairness, he doesn't have a clue what he he was so bad for this. It was so bad, so pathetic. Why did Ukraine do this?

Why did Ukraine get invited, invaded rather by Russia? Why is it that they did this? They shouldn't have done it a little bit different than the facts on the ground. And this is just bowing down to Putin. This is that authoritarian loving realignment that we were fearing. It's happening. It's happening daily. Now, a reporter did ask Trump about Doge and SpaceX, where SpaceX employees are now working. There is there is an overlap between Doge and SpaceX. SpaceX employees are working at a company that has billions in contracts with the government and Musk oversees all of it. Isn't that a conflict of interest?

And Trump goes, I'd never heard about that. Sorry, Mr. President, given your concerns about corruption, you said that if there were any conflicts of interest with Elon Musk, you wouldn't let him anywhere near it. That's right. Doge and SpaceX employees are now working directly at the Federal Aviation Administration and the Defense Department agencies that have billions of dollars in contracts with Musk's companies or that directly regulate his companies. How is that not a conflict of interest? Well, I mean, I'm just hearing about it. And if there is and he told me before I told him, but obviously I will not let there be

any conflict of interest. He's Trump's just hearing about this. Why doesn't Trump know what's going on with Doge and SpaceX employees and the FAA and the Department of Transportation? What? Trump said he was monitoring it all closely. He said he was looking at it all himself. But of course, he has no clue what's going on.

He managed to win, which is keeping him out of prison. And he's pulling in money from this scam and that grift and Elon Musk running the show. Trump played golf in Florida Monday and Tuesday. And that's all he really cares about. He doesn't know what else is going on. Trump was asked, have you decided what the auto tariffs rate should be? And Trump goes, I guess I think like 25 percent. Mr. President, have you decided specifically what the auto tariff rate should be?

Yeah, I probably will tell you that on April 2nd, but it'll be in the neighborhood of 25%. What about study conductors and pharmaceuticals? It'll be 25% and higher, and it'll go very substantially higher over a course of a year. But we want to give them time to come in because, as you know, when they come into the United States and they have their plant or factory here, there is no tariff. So we want to give them a little bit of a chance. Yes. Speaker 1 So I guess like maybe sort of 25 percent tariff.

I don't totally know, but maybe it'll be even higher than that. Wow. What a plan. What a well thought out plan. That's more than a concept of a plan for sure, isn't it? And of course, every single one of these statements throwing everyone into wait, what is it that's going on now? What what is he doing?

Trump continuing that to insist that Social Security is very corrupt and this is the next big lie. And they are going to use the lie that Social Security is corrupt to say, listen, we didn't want to go after Social Security. We said it during the campaign. We're not going to go after Social Security or Medicare. It's just so corrupt that we're going to have to do a little something. Speaker 2 We have a very corrupt country, very corrupt country, and it's a sad thing to say, but we're figuring it out. Now, the good thing about Social Security and what I read is if you take all of those

numbers off because they're obviously fraudulent or incompetent, but if you take all of those millions of people off Social Security, all of a sudden we have a very powerful Social Security with people that are 80 and 70 and 90, but not 200 years old. You know, so it's a very positive thing. Yes. And of course, as we talked about yesterday, this idea that there are millions or tens of millions of dead people getting Social Security benefits is not true, but they are they are setting it up.

This is going to be the pretext that they need to say we're going to have to do some stuff with Social Security. We're going to have to do it because of the fraud that there is. And finally, and this is a little cringy, Trump again talks about fertilization. And any time Trump talks about this, it's just gross fertilization. I've been saying that we're going to do what we have to do. And I think the women and families, husbands are very appreciative of it. I will mention that even though Donald Trump promised free IVF during his campaign, he now is starting to work on executive orders that he says will reduce the cost, maybe reducing

the cost versus it will be free to very, very different things. Disaster press conference, disaster interview from Hannity. But this is where we are. Bernie Sanders, after this break, is going to sort of sum it up for us. to learn some of the new language before I get to the country. I've tried a bunch of methods for this. I keep coming back to the app Babbel because with Babbel, you really can start speaking a new language in just three weeks instead of paying hundreds of dollars for classes or fooling yourself with language apps that are basically just simple games. Babbel is designed by real people for real conversations. All of Babbel's tools

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Rules and restrictions may apply. The link is in the podcast notes. Once again, Donald Trump's cabinet picks are all about loyalty over expertise. Election denier Carrie Lake to lead Voice of America. The government funded broadcaster meant to report unbiased news. Ground News found hundreds of articles covering this story, which is an app I've trusted for years to help me critically analyze the news I consume. Our sponsor, Ground News, doesn't tell you what to think.

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notes. Senator Bernie Sanders appeared on CNN yesterday and it was stunning the amount of both moral clarity and accuracy that he was able to present with regard to the rising power of oligarchy in this country, the degree to which it appears as though Elon Musk is really in charge and controlling everything that is happening right now in Washington, D.C. Bernie's really good at this stuff. And I say this not only because what he says mirrors many of my editorial commentaries recently about authoritarianism, oligarchy, kleptocracy, et cetera, but because he's just absolutely precise in describing how and the degree to which it's going on.

So let's check out this first clip where he draws a distinction. And he says, listen, politicians have lied. Rich people have had access to power. But there's something different this time into this. And what we do know is that there's a lot of people that still remain in the database. But as far as people who are actually getting payments, it was 44,000 who got payments, according to an audit that was done in 2020. Out of how many millions? There's tens of millions. So when they say tens of millions, that would be this is what we are

dealing with. We're not only dealing with oligarchy, the incredible power of the very, very rich. We're not only dealing with a move toward authoritarianism, we're dealing with what is new to America. You know, politicians have always lied, nothing new about that. But the level that we're seeing right now, the big lie, over and over again, and it goes out, there's a big lie. And then it goes out on Musk's Twitter to what several hundred million people repeat it over and over again. And then it goes out on Musk's Twitter to several hundred million people, repeated over and over again. Now the word is out there. Oh, people on on Social Security, 150 years of age. Can you believe it? The whole thing is corrupt. It's broken.

Well, where does that lead you, Caitlin? What's the next step? If government can't do anything, if Social Security doesn't work, if Medicare doesn't work, if Medicaid does work, we're going to get rid of all those programs. Speaker 1 I am not thrilled to see Bernie saying this stuff because it's exactly what I've been saying, right? I mean, they're the whole Social Security, old people getting check stuff is a pretext to say we got to revamp the system, the level of authoritarianism, the level of oligarchy. This, this is verbatim stuff that I've been saying the last two months. I don't claim Bernie got it from me.

Okay. He has seen the facts on the ground and come to the same conclusions. And the fact that people in very different places, right, Bernie as a sitting senator in D.C., me as a guy who just observes and gives my thoughts, sitting in a room with a microphone and sound panels, right? The fact that we are seeing exactly what's happening and diagnosing it the same way when often there would be differences in terms of how it's diagnosed is such a sign that this is the way it's going down. Now Bernie went further into the topic of oligarchy and he said the way to fight this is not necessarily so.

So at the end of the day, the struggle against Trump, the struggle against oligarchy, which is led by Elon Musk, the struggle against authoritarianism, the fight to make sure that the working class of this country gets a fair shake, that is not going to be won here in Capitol Hill. It's going to be won by millions of people

all over this country standing up and saying, you know what? We fought and died for democracy. We're not going to move toward authoritarianism. We fought to create a country that works for all, not just the billionaire class. That's the struggle. And I'm going to be active in trying to rally the American people to do just that. Once again, as I pointed out on Monday, the mass rallies as a tool of nonviolent

protest, which I write about in my book and which Bernie is talking about, just spot on, both in terms of substance and tone. And then finally, finally, Bernie Sanders saying, does Trump understand how checks and balances are supposed to work? Elon Musk is clearly running the show. The wealthiest person in the world who has enormous conflicts of interest, who is helping to fund right wing extremist organizations all over the world, who is looking forward to get massive tax breaks from Congress. He's running the show. So if he's technically if he's running the show, but not on paper, as they essentially argue, but you say in practice, he basically is. You're a co-eval

branch of government as a senator. Are we? I kind of thought so. But I think you have to explain that to the president. Do you feel that you have oversight when it comes to what Elon Musk is doing? Look, what we're seeing right now, Caitlin, is a very dangerous moment. I'm laughing here, but it is not funny. This country is moving very rapidly under Trump into an authoritarian form of society. You know, Elon Musk is I would, as you know, go even further and to say we are moving towards an authoritarian, kleptocratic, kakistocratic oligarchy, oligarchy. And it's happening very quickly. You know, Trump always loves to say and it'll happen very quickly.

It's happening very quickly, but not the stuff that he promised. And that is terrifying. So Bernie with the right tone, spot on when it comes to substance, identifying the problem. Step one in solving a problem is identifying it correctly. Number two, recognizing that the solutions are likely to come from the bottom up at the local level. And what I think will be interesting, we're going to have a bottom up at the local level. And what I think will be interesting, we're going to have a few senators on the show soon. I want to talk to them about, you know, Hakeem Jeffries in the House of Representatives has recently been sort of saying, we don't control anything. What do you really want us to do?

And there are those who have been upset with Hakeem Jeffries by saying he seems to kind of be giving up. You know, you're the minority leader of the Democrats in the House of Representatives. You have if you have no power, then who does? On the other hand, if it's a rallying cry for the average person to get involved in a real tangible and tractable way, then I think we do have something to talk about. So I'm going to be talking to Democratic senators soon and I will ask them what what power do elected Democrats have right now? All right. Let's move on to something else. Trump adviser Stephen Miller

suffered an irreversible meltdown on CNN yesterday when he was asked simple questions. This interview did not go well. And he is we've covered Stephen Miller before. He had that incident where he was escorted out after an interview went completely haywire. He is lashing out at CNN's Brianna Keillor because he doesn't like the line of questioning. He doesn't like the implications. He doesn't like the tone. Oh, poor Stephen. He doesn't like the tone about this. They were fired. The agency had to resind those terminations because these were employees who were critical to maintaining the nation's nuclear stockpile. So then who is it making those decisions of which federal employees are terminated? Well, in that case, the secretary of energy would be the one.

So what you're describing with the the cuts in the Department of Energy, those are directed by the Senate-confirmed Secretary of Energy. Okay, so that was the Secretary of Energy's mistake. Well, I wouldn't use the term mistake. I would say that it's pretty standard when you're downsizing government. You make cuts. You assess those cuts. You see who needs to be rehired, who needs to be kept, who needs to be. That's not what happened here. You know that they were all resented. I under these these are normal things. I understand.

I understand that the I understand that that even a temporary interruption in federal employment is a great crisis, a catastrophe for you and for CNN. He starts to get agitated. He starts to get agitated with the questions. He starts to get agitated with Brianna Keillor. Brianna Keillor then goes right in on these questions where they're kind of dilly dallying and dancing around who is in charge of Doge. And the whole point of it is Musk's in charge, but also not really because then that might subject him to authority oversight authority.

So they're playing very coy with this. And Stephen Miller also did not like this line of questions. So who is in charge of Doge? The president of the United States. He's the administrator of Doge. No, the Doge is the what was formerly U.s digital services it's an agency of the federal government that reports into the office of the executive office of the president which reports to the president of the united states okay the way that article 2 works is a president wins an

election and then he appoints staff including myself including, including Mike Waltz, including Susie Wiles, including Elon Musk, and those staff report to him. Okay, well aware. Why won't you just let me say whatever I want, Brianna? Elon Musk, a week ago, answered a question about transparency at Doge. This is how he spoke about Doge. 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.

You hear him there. We post our actions. All of our actions are maximally transparent. Does Elon Musk know he's not in charge of Doge? Again, the president runs the government, then the president appoints advisors, including Elon, including myself, including all the other staff here at the White House. And then those staff, in turn, execute the president's commands and directions to all the agencies of the federal government. And it was just an endless loop like this. As the interview continued, Stephen Miller derailed more and more and more, increasingly making more and more of a scene. And it became very embarrassing.

It seems like the crisis here had to do with the nation's nuclear stockpile. And for these particular federal workers, which I'm not, so this isn't my personal crisis, military members of the Guard and the Reserve. Well, I don't think it's a crisis, and you don't think it's a crisis, then why are we talking about it? Military, well, it is a crisis for some people. For instance, military members. But you just said you didn't think it was a crisis. It's not my crisis, Stephen. I'm not a federal employee. Okay, so I don't think it's a crisis. And you don't think it's a crisis. So no one thinks it's

a crisis. It's not my personal crisis of employment. If you have concerns about the nation's nuclear stockpile, then it is obviously a crisis. It's an issue of concern for everyone. When it comes to- Stephen, please, we're getting off track. When it comes to nuclear weapons- What a pleasure this guy is, huh? And then sort of the final moment, he flips out completely. And bear in mind that MAGA thinks this is awesome. MAGA thinks this is how you show strength. This is how you show intelligence.

Stephen, I don't think anyone. Why are you not celebrating these cuts? If you agree there is waste, if you agree there is abuse, if you agree there is corruption, why are you not celebrating the cuts, the reforms that are being instituted every day that no action is taken? The entire salaries of American workers that are taxed disappear forever. Stephen, let's calm down. This is not. We're not having a debate.

There's no reason. About whether there are places. You are clearly trying to debate me. And I will be as excited as I want to be about the fact you're not going to control my tone, Brianna, that we are saving Americans billions of dollars, that we are ending the theft and waste and grift and corruption, that we are stopping American taxpayer dollars from subsidizing a rogue federal bureaucracy. And of course, they're doing nothing of the sort.

They are fixing everything by pointing out nonexistent fraud in which tens of millions of people who are dead are supposedly getting Social Security payments. It's not happening. They are fixing problems that don't exist. They are eliminating DEI programs that cost $30,000 in a $7 trillion budget. They're, they're not even rounding errors. That's the crazy thing, which they just don't like. There's no fraud. They just don't like those programs. This guy's been waiting for Trump to be back in power for years so that he could show up and do exactly this and show how tough and intelligent and smart

they all are. And it's all falling completely flat. We've got a great bonus show for you today. We are going to talk about problems not at Doge as an institution, but even the Doge website is already having a problem. We will also talk about how as legal gambling on sports has increased. More and more people are suffering from gambling addiction. What a shock.

And we will also talk about the latest with Andrew Taint. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I had to do it. Andrew Tate and the Trump administration pressuring Romania. It's interesting what's going on. Get the bonus show by becoming a member at join pacman.com. We are also in the final stretch. We were just talking about 2 million. We are in the final stretch to 3 million YouTube subscribers. Help us get there and get there quickly. It costs

nothing to subscribe to the YouTube channel. We know there are nearly 4 million of you who watch every month but are not yet subscribed. Let's get to 3 million, a number that only three others in the progressive media ecosystem have ever reached. Let's do it. I will see you on the bonus show. What a day.