The David Pakman Show - 2/4/25: Trump tricked by Mexico and Canada, migrants released back into US

Episode Date: February 4, 2025

-- On the Show: -- Donald Trump agrees to pause tariffs on Mexico after President Claudia Sheinbaum tricks Trump with meaningless promises -- Donald Trump agrees to pause tariffs on Canada after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tricks Trump with promises to do things that are already happening -- China retaliates against the United States with new tariffs that will hurt businesses and consumers -- The United States is under attack from the harebrained schemes of Elon Musk and Donald Trump -- Despite claiming to be against socialism, Donald Trump announces a Saudi-style sovereign wealth fund which might buy TikTok -- A disoriented Donald Trump says endless untrue things, often called lies, in the Oval Office, much to the horror of reporters and global citizens -- Migrants arrested during recent immigration raids are reportedly being re-released back into the United States -- On the Bonus Show: Updates on David's book, his travel, conversations with British people about the state of politics in the United States, the bird flu crisis enters a new phase, much more... 🪟 3 Day Blinds: Buy one get one 50% OFF at https://3dayblinds.com/pakman ☕ Cambio Roasters: Get 20% off with code PAKMAN at https://cambioroasters.com 🥐 Wildgrain: Use code PAKMAN for $30 off & free baked goods at https://wildgrain.com/pakman ⚠️ Ground News: Get 50% OFF their unlimited access Vantage plan at https://ground.news/pakman 😬 Remi mouth guards: Get up to 50% OFF with code PAKMAN at https://shopremi.com/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: http://www.davidpakman.com/bluesky -- David on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow

All right, welcome everybody. Let's unpack the last 24 hours of trade war news. We have news out of China, we have news out of Canada, we have news out of Mexico. And right-wing media falling all over itself to frame the news of the last 24 hours as unfettered, unmitigated victories for Donald Trump. That is something you could only believe if you are extremely dishonest with yourself or with others or are simply clueless. So let's break it all down. And this is that we are in a moment right now where the economic implications of news that is breaking and moving very quickly is of such critical importance to everyday Americans. And I think that that's an important... Before I get into the details, and we'll start with Mexico, one of the things that is often the case is that with really fast moving news stories, the implications to just random American workers are relatively limited.

When you have a breaking news story about a school shooting or a plane crash or a Trump rally for example, we often get incorrect information mixed with correct information mixed with interpretations and analyses of varying stripes. But someone working in Idaho is not going to have their lives upended by potentially inaccurate initial reporting about some of these things. Right now, what is happening and the reality of this trade war and these tariffs will be of consequence to workers in Idaho and teachers in Connecticut, regardless of whether you are or aren't paying attention. And that's why the misunderstandings about what's going on are so critical. So let's unpack starting with Mexico, what happened here, because this is a perfect example of Trump's playbook. You create a crisis, you get schooled on why it's a terrible idea. You back off of it and you scramble to explain why you actually won in order to avoid looking weak or clueless. So here's the gist with Mexico.

Trump said 25% tariff on Mexico, thinking it's going to be an easy way to strong arm Mexico and their president, Claudia Scheinbaum, into compliance on immigration and into compliance on drug trafficking. And instead of caving, the Mexican president explained to Trump, these tariffs are a disaster, not just for Mexico, but for the United States economy as well. Trump has agreed to pause them. And he's trying to save face by saying, look at all of the concessions that I got from President Scheinbaum. It's the arsonist who then says, give me credit for putting out the fire, except they didn't really put it out. It's a half-baked solution and then you take a victory lap. So here is Trump on Troth Central, where he announced

yesterday, I just spoke with President Claudia Scheinbaum of Mexico. It was a very friendly conversation wherein she agreed to immediately supply 10,000 Mexican soldiers on the border separating Mexico and the United States. These soldiers will be specifically designated to stop the flow of fentanyl and illegal migrants into our country. We further agreed to immediately pause the anticipated tariffs for a one-month period during which we will have negotiations headed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Treasury Scott Besant, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, and high-level representatives of Mexico. I look

forward to participating in those negotiations with President Scheinbaum as we attempt to achieve a deal between our two countries. MAGA is titillated. They're pleasuring themselves over the big, brawny, powerful Trump. But this is not a win for Trump. This is damage control. The tariffs would have been a disaster for American consumers, for American businesses. I've been talking about this for so long, I know I don't have to explain it all again. It would drive prices up on everything from cars to avocados and so much more.

Mexico is one of the US's largest trading partners. And if you slap tariffs on them, you just trigger immediate economic pain for everybody. Scheinbaum likely laid this out in no uncertain terms during the conversation, and it forced Trump to have to backpedal. Now, Trump can never admit that he's wrong. He can never admit that someone else outmaneuvered him. So he is now saying, look at what I accomplished. I've agreed to temporarily pause the thing I was going to do apropos of nothing,

which would have hurt the American people. The victory Trump is claiming is that Mexico agreed to send 10,000 troops to its border. This might sound impressive, but what if I told you that Mexico already has 15,000 troops on its border? It's not even clear that they're deporting additional troops. We just don't know right now. It's possible that what Scheinbaum said to Trump is we'll put 10,000 troops on the border. And by the way, we already did it. We've got 15. We're not going to do any more. On the other hand, it's possible that Scheinbaum has agreed to raise the number of troops on the border from 15,000 to 25,000. Is that really the solution to the problem? Trump is willing to stop tariffs that he's been promoting for years, which he claims are going to be so good for this group and that group.

All it takes is going from 15,000 to 25,000 troops on the border. If it were true that the tariffs were going to be so awesome for the United States, why would you pause that simply because the president of Mexico says we'll go from 15 to 25,000 troops on the border? Here is CNN's Caitlin Collins pointing this out. They've agreed to put in 10,000 soldiers permanently, like forever, 10,000 soldiers at their side of the border and stop fentanyl and illegal aliens from coming into our country.

According to Mexico's defense ministry, there are already 15,000 troops nearly there on the border. It's a deployment that started in 2019. So listen, deploying troops to the border by Mexico, it's not, forget about it's completely disconnected from the tariffs, right? Like we've already realized this has nothing to do with the substance of the tariffs. Even deploying some Mexican troops to the border, it doesn't solve the root causes of drug trafficking. It doesn't solve the root causes of why people try to come to the United States over that border. It doesn't address the

fact that it's American policy on immigration, on the war on drugs, et cetera, that is actually the primary driver. The demand for drugs is doing much more in terms of generating the circumstances we have here with drugs than the number of troops on the Mexican border. But Trump does not care about nuance and he doesn't care about reality. He needs something to point to where he can say, I did it. Now, meanwhile, there's a contrast with Canada. We'll talk about what's going on with Canada in a moment, but this should really tell you everything you need to know about how poorly thought out Trump's tariff strategy is. The response from Mexico was pragmatic. And the reality is that Trump created a problem. He saw what happened with the stock market yesterday

until the pause was announced. He was told this is a terrible idea and now he's pulling a Kim Jong-un. It's very much reminiscent of what happened with North Korea. Trump went and met with Kim Jong-un. This was during his first term, of course. The North Korean leader made the same promises that North Korean leaders have been making to the United States for a very long time. Trump is too naive to understand. They always say

this stuff. They never do it. And Trump came back and claimed victory. That's what he always does. And Trump is spinning this delayed failure into a fake victory. And it is political theater at its most transparent. It's a reminder that this is an administration, as if we didn't know, that prioritizes optics over actual solutions. So that's Mexico. I wish I could tell you that with Canada, Trump did a big boy, but he didn't. Let's talk about that next. Donald Trump got played not only by Mexican President Claudia Scheinbaum yesterday, but also by Canada, our friendly neighbors to the north and their outgoing prime minister, Justin Trudeau. After weeks of very tough talk about slapping massive tariffs on Canada, Trump is now pausing those as well for 30 days because Justin Trudeau said a few words that made Trump feel good.

And of course, the critical detail about what Canada is now promising to do is that Canada has agreed to nothing new. Canada has agreed to nothing as a result of what Donald Trump has done. This is the third time in two weeks that Donald Trump has delayed Canadian tariffs and Canada has not changed a single thing. If you go to the conservative subreddit, if you listen to Charlie Kirk's podcast, if you go and look at the excretions, excuse me, if you go and look at the excretions on X from the Magapatamians, they are just enamored with what Trump has been able to do. But what actually happened is that Justin Trudeau announced Canada's $1.3 billion border plan,

which he already announced a while ago and they've already been implementing. Trump's pretending it's a new promise. He pointed out that 10,000 personnel are protecting the border. That's not new. That's been going on for a while, the U.S. Canada border. Trudeau mentioned helicopters and technology and personnel, all of which was previously announced. And Trump is touting it as I made a deal with Trudeau. gotten nothing from Canada. Very similar situation to the Mexican situation. Very similar situation, as I've already said, with Kim Jong-un in North Korea during Trump's first term. Good for Caitlin Collins. Not that I'm a fan of CNN, but good for Caitlin Collins clarifying this yesterday on CNN. Now we've just gotten this announcement from Trudeau himself, who I should note got out ahead of the White House in this. He said he had a good call with Trump. He said that Canada is going to be implementing a $1.3 billion border plan where they talk about reinforcing the border. I should note,

that's actually something that Trudeau announced and Canada announced back in December, about mid December. But also in this announcement, Jake, he says that they are going to have frontline personnel working and protecting the border after concerns about fentanyl coming across. And he said that they are going to be appointing a fentanyl czar and that they will list cartels as terrorists and ensure 24-7 eyes on the border. I believe it is the fentanyl czar that is new here. But it's that last sentence, Jake, there at the end is the most important here. He says proposed tariffs will be paused for at least 30 days while we work together. And then here is Caitlin Collins interviewing a Trump apologist who ends up actually admitting,

okay, maybe this stuff isn't new, but at least Justin Trudeau reiterated that he's going to do it. Oh man. It's ravaged hometowns. Everyone understands the fentanyl crisis. But one, the amount of fentanyl that comes from Canada is nowhere near the scale of the southern border. A lot of it comes through legal ports of entry. But on this specifically, he called this off saying that he had won concessions from both of them. But is there a tangible concession in your view? Yeah, absolutely. He won the concessions. And part of it is part of it is part of it. it is, well, it's a commitment from Trudeau that wasn't there to help with fentanyl, to help with the black market. He announced the plan to secure the border. He announced that plan though six weeks ago, back in December. Well, at least he's reiterated it and formalized it.

That's really the game. This guy ultimately concedes, fine, none of this stuff is new, but Trump was able to get Trudeau to reiterate that he is going to do it. If you are willing to suspend tariffs on Canada, which you campaigned on and believe would be awesome for the country, simply because the Canadian prime minister reiterated that he's going to do stuff he's already announced. That is weak sauce. That is weak sauce. And if you don't want to listen to Caitlin Collins explain it, here is Justin Trudeau last week saying, we've already started this. This predates the tariffs. And he's saying, this is something we're already doing. We launched a $1.3 billion border plan that is already showing results. Because we too are devastated by the scourge that is fentanyl.

A drug that has torn apart communities and caused so much pain and torment for countless families across Canada, just like in the United States. A drug that we too want to see wiped from the face of this earth. A drug whose traffickers must be punished. As neighbours, we must work collaboratively to fix this. Unfortunately, the actions taken today by the White House split us apart instead of bringing us together. So this is classic Trump. Retin tariffs claim you're getting tough with Canada, with Mexico.

They pretend to give in without doing anything different. And you claim victory. You quietly back off and you pretend that it was the plan all along. It's the same routine every single time. Remember when Trump threatened tariffs on Mexico in 2019 unless they stopped illegal immigration and Mexico said, all right, we'll put some troops on the border, which they were already doing then. Trump took credit and he said, look, I won. They're doing what I want. And nothing changed.

If something had changed, Trump wouldn't be accepting the exact same faux concessions today. And now Justin Trudeau is running the same playbook. Claudia Scheinbaum is running the same playbook. Trump thinks he's playing 4D chess. He's the one getting played. He fell for en passant and didn't know it was one of the rules. Trudeau is just buying time. And Trump gets his little PR victory. The tariffs are paused. Canada doesn't give up anything new. And meanwhile, businesses remain in limbo. What are our costs going to be three months from now? Are we going to have to go to all of our customers and say, it's going to cost 25% more. It's going to cost 30% more. We don't know. Prices are continuing

to creep up. And again, I'm getting emails from, I got a couple emails from, um, so-called progressives and I say so-called not because they aren't, but what I mean is these are folks who are ostensibly sort of simpatico with my general view. And they go, David, why are you pretending it's Trump's fault that prices are going up? I'm not pretending it's Trump's fault. Trump is the one who ran on, I will lower prices on day one. They've continued to go up. I'm not saying it's thanks to Trump that prices are going up. What I'm saying is the same thing I said before Trump took office, which is I don't believe that Trump is going to get prices down, certainly not within his first week or days in office. And that is absolutely what is happening or isn't

happening. So, you know, spare me the emails, but we see prices going up. We don't see any reason economically, macroeconomically, for them to turn around anytime soon. And if these tariffs were truly so necessary and so critical to the United States, why is Trump willing to delay them, not once, not twice, but in some cases three times, for minor insignificant non-concessions from Canada and from Mexico. That's where we are right now. After the break, we will talk about China. And China is not doing what Canada and Mexico are doing, which is playing Trump by saying here's some stuff that we'll do even though we already did it.

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go hungry each year. Stop wasting plastic and enjoy better coffee. Go to combioroasters.com and use the code Pacman to get 25% off. The link is in the podcast notes. The David Pakman show continues to be an audience supported program. I so appreciate everybody who has been signing up recently. You know, I got a lot of emails from people after I explained, if you have cable, you're paying a few bucks a month for Fox News, even if you don't watch it. Many people do not know that the deal that Fox News has negotiated with most cable companies is that they get a far larger fee than most channels do simply for being available on their packages. So if you have Fox News, even if you don't want it, even if you don't watch it, you're paying a few bucks for Fox News.

An alternative, which a couple dozen of you have taken advantage of, is you cut the cable cord. You get something like either YouTube TV or these a la carte services where you don't need to pay Fox News. Your mileage may vary. Check what's available in your area. And then you sign up for a few shows that you actually want to support. So thank you to folks who have done that. You can sign up at joinpacman.com and you can use the coupon code. It will end soon. All one word, all lowercase. It will end soon. Also, I want to let you know we have 360 orders for personalized signed books. I am calling a hand specialist to ask, will I be having carpal tunnel from having to sign and

personalize all these books? But for now, I've gotten the green light to keep going. So if you're interested in a numbered and personalized signed book, they're going to be 50 bucks to account for shipping it multiple times and the packaging and all of it. Email info at davidpacman.com with the subject line signed book. We are around 6,300 total orders and 360 personalized signed books, which is like 5%, which is crazy. I I'm flattered by the amount of interest in this. So if you'd like a personalized signed copy of my forthcoming book, email info at davidpackman.com. And of course you can preorder the book anywhere you want. All right, let's talk about China. It has happened. Donald Trump has launched another harebrained trade war. He slapped

tariffs on China, Canada, and Mexico. Canada and Mexico have given Trump just sort of assurances about things they're already doing, which has allowed Trump to save some face and pause those tariffs for 30 days. But China is taking a different approach and has slapped back. Who is going to pay for it? It's going to be the United States. China has rolled out retaliatory tariffs and a number of other economic moves, and they are targeting key American industries. So let's go down the list of these are really Trump self-inflicted wounds. Number one, China has announced a 15% tariff on LNG, that's liquefied natural gas and coal. It turns out that China is one of the biggest buyers of American natural gas and coal, and now they're slapping a 15% tariff on both.

What are American energy companies going to do? Well, they are losing a customer or part of a customer. Prices may drop domestically for China, but that is going to lead, of course, to massive job losses for American energy producers and potentially thousands of job cuts. Why am I saying prices will drop in China? Because China does have alternatives for LNG. Trump's whole pitch was energy dominance. He wanted to make the United States the top supplier of coal and oil and natural gas. And now China's going to go and buy from Russia or the Middle East or anybody not named the United States. Great for them. Not so good for American energy companies, which Trump said we're going to do great. Mission accomplished, Donald. Number two,

China has announced the 10% tariff on American oil. And I know that the MAGA diehards are probably thinking, good, we don't need to sell oil to China, except we kind of do. China is one of the largest buyers of American crude oil. American oil companies depend on exports and the demand of those exports to keep prices high. Lower demand means lower prices, which means fewer jobs, which means a weaker energy industry. This is basic economics. Trump doesn't really seem to get it. He thinks these tariffs are sort of a one-way street. You put taxes on imports, countries roll over and take it, but it's not how it works. It's not how any of this works.

Number three, China has launched an antitrust probe into Google. Now, this is where it starts to get very interesting. Why did China do this? Because they can. I mean, there's not really any other explanation. It's just, hey, we can do it. Trump's trade war isn't just about taxing goods. It's a form of economic warfare. And China is joining the war and they're going after American companies directly. Google is already under fire in the U.S. from regulators and now China is piling on. It doesn't necessarily stop with Google. Is it going to be Apple? Is it going to be, you know, Tesla? Elon Musk has been cozying up with China, but China doesn't really do favors for free. Will it be Boeing already struggling? China could cripple Boeing. So Trump has handed China the perfect excuse to start targeting American companies under the guise of national security or consumer protection. And what is Trump going

to do about it now? I don't know that he's going to do anything. Number four, unreliable entities. China has a list of unreliable entities. And the short version is these are companies who are restricted in their ability to do business in China. And China just added more American companies to it. If you get blacklisted, you can be banned from selling in China, cut off from buying resources and materials from China, blocked from investing in the Chinese economy. That's a $17 trillion economy. So if you're an American company that relies on selling stuff to China or using Chinese supply chains to get stuff that you build or assemble in the United States, Trump's making life a lot harder for you. He says this is pro-business. He says this is pro-America.

But the last time Trump started a trade war with China, American farmers got crushed, American manufacturers were getting hammered, and this all looks very, very bad. Finally, there is sort of a strategic aspect to what China is doing. China is going at energy, tech, and manufacturing. These are areas that Trump said he would be the champion of and would do really, really well under Trump. They are being targeted. So Trump will never admit failure. Jobs disappear. Businesses take losses. The economy will suffer if this continues. And Trump will say it's the

fault of the Democrats. It's the fault of the deep state. It's the fault of globalist elites. It's just on Trump. It's not strength. It's stupidity. Trump thinks this is a game. It's very serious economic warfare with real consequences. Real leaders don't just go, eh, let's slap some tariffs and hope for the best. They understand consequences. They think ahead. They actually figure out, oh, if I do A, I not only have to consider the effect of A, but I have to consider the effect of this other country's response to A. China is punching back. If this one doesn't get paused, maybe by the time today's show is published, this is going to be very bad. And as usual, our stuff is going to cost more. All right. I do want to talk about

something very serious, which is that the United States is under attack. It's under attack by Trump, Elon Musk, and the MAGA economic ideology. The year is 2025 and we're under siege, but it's not an alien invasion or a zombie apocalypse or an army that is crossing our border. In a way, it's more insidious because it's less obvious to many Americans. It's an attack from within. And it's been orchestrated by Donald Trump, by his billionaire sort of friend, enemy, Elon Musk, and the MAGA ideology.

And their weapon of choice is a cocktail, a smorgasbord of economic self-sabotage, performative populism, and a little bit of authoritarianism. Now, later we're going to talk in detail about Trump's new sovereign wealth fund that may look at buying TikTok. But I do want to mention that there is this idea, Trump as the dealmaker wants to put together a sovereign wealth fund, the likes of which Saudi Arabia has, and maybe buy TikTok. Except instead of using the sovereign wealth fund, the likes of which Saudi Arabia has, and maybe buy TikTok. Except instead of using the sovereign wealth fund a little more like Saudi Arabia does,

which is fund infrastructure, reduce the national debt, which Trump said he wanted to do, Trump wants the government to buy a social media app. Why? Well, he says, if we own it, we will make it great. It'll be the best platform. Governments don't have a great track record of running social media outlets, especially not MAGA governments. And then meanwhile, Elon Musk is lurking in the background, tweeting cryptic emojis and saying he's going to optimize this and he's going to deal with that and Doge and the federal payment system. And of course, we know from Elon Musk running X that they really aren't very good at this. So we've got sovereign wealth fund by TikTok. Maybe we'll talk about that later. Then we've got tariffs. I don't want to spend a lot of time on tariffs. They are part of the attack

that Trump has launched on the United States, but we've dealt with them in detail. China, Canada, Mexico. He's decided we're going to make America great again by making everything more expensive in the United States. Our biggest energy supplier, Canada, let's put a tariff on them. China, the main source of cheap consumer goods like your iPhone, get ready to pay more. Mexico, one of our largest food suppliers, Trump will tariff them. Some of those are now temporarily paused. We'll see if he ultimately does it. But this is, again, another attack on the United States. Prices up, supply chains collapsing, American consumers left wondering, why are eggs even more

expensive? Why is milk even more expensive? But I guess he's owning the libs or something. Sovereign wealth fund tariffs. Number three, immigration. Trump's deportation fantasy is sort of how to destroy the economy in one move. Not only do we now have reporting that some of the arrested migrants are just being released back into the country.

We'll deal with that a little bit later. But industries like agriculture, construction, and hospitality, many already struggling to find workers, will get crushed overnight. Farms will go fallow. Restaurants will close. Construction projects will grind to a halt. And Trump says, well, Americans will do those jobs. And of course, this is not sort of moral or ethical analysis. It's simply they don't seem to be wanting to do them. It just doesn't seem to be happening unless the wages go way up, in which case everything will cost way more, which is fine, except Americans don't actually want that. Elon Musk sees it as a business opportunity. He's talking about, you know, self-driving solar powered farm robots and all sorts of wild stuff. I mean, maybe. Okay. But it ignores the fact that most farmers can't even afford a new tractor. And Elon thinks we're going to sell them Tesla bots, farming robots or whatever. Uh, so Trump and Elon's America is a self-inflicted and disastrous attack on America. And we have an economy right now. I'm hoping that the tariffs are paused indefinitely. That's my hope. I would rather Trump just not do it and not see Americans suffer. But we can't, if you look at the stock market every day, you can't deny that this is really an American economy

that's teetering, it's teetering. And Trump and Elon are already taking victory laps, saying we've gotten rid of woke policies and we're taking control back from the globalist leech and all of that stuff. And meanwhile, we're kind of left wondering what's gonna happen tomorrow. Is our 401k gonna take a 5% hit tomorrow?

How did two billionaires end up becoming the architects of America's decline? Arguably the best slash worst part is that Elon Musk, the free speech warrior, is suddenly cheering Donald Trump's plan to expand government control over business and the economy and social media and the workforce. They used to be small government Republicans. Keep the government out of the free market. But that has changed. And it's not even, as I said last week, the left-right spectrum is kind of broken. It's not even about saying they are no longer on the right. The right has changed.

The right used to be much more about smaller government. They've become much more about bigger government in a whole bunch of areas. So America is under a form of attack. It's not from immigrants. It's not from foreign countries, except insofar as Trump has catalyzed retaliation from other countries. It's not woke corporations or social media platforms taking away your free speech. It's the authoritarian economic plans of Donald Trump. It's the tariffs that will crush the middle class.

It's the immigration crackdowns that will cripple industry. Musk's along for the ride. He's cheering it. He's dancing on stage. He says he's a visionary. He's going to cut some stuff and maybe even do this to self-aggrandize and enrich his own businesses. But it is a form of sabotage. And the real winners are Trump's ego, Musk's wallet, and probably whatever billionaire grift comes next.

What will we have? Maybe TikTok owned by the federal government. Does not exactly sound like small government to me, that's for sure. Winter is the perfect time to cozy up at home with some freshly baked treats like flaky pastries, hearty breads, comforting pastas, and you can do it without any effort. Our sponsor, Wild Grain, is the first bake-from-frozen subscription box for artisanal breads, pastries, and pastas. Wild grain simply takes the hassle out of baking. Everything bakes from frozen in 25 minutes or less. No mess or cleanup. Your family will be amazed thinking you've become a master bread baker all of a sudden. My favorite is the croissants. You throw them in the oven. Twenty five minutes. Wow. If you're ready to bring all your favorite breads, pastas and pastries right to your doorstep,

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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. They show you each news outlet's biases, credibility, financial incentives, so you know who's benefiting from the spin they put on each story. You can even filter out certain sources you don't want, so you can stay informed without getting buried in the noise. Trump is shaping our future in ways that will last decades. Thank you. If I were giving you the following headline at just about any other time in American history,

you would rightly say, David, what the hell are you talking about? Donald Trump is launching a Saudi-style sovereign wealth fund with the idea that it might buy TikTok and make TikTok an entity of the federal government. You know how Republicans scream about socialism every time the government does anything beyond giving tax cuts to billionaires, telling a health insurance company, if you want to be in the business of health insurance, here's some ground rules. They tell us that that's socialism. Well, Donald Trump just announced that he wants to create a sovereign wealth fund, basically a government controlled investment fund to buy up private assets. And it's already being floated as

a way for the United States to buy TikTok. Here is Donald Trump signing this. Take a look. Thank you, sir. Next, this is an executive order. This charges your secretary of the treasury, Scott Besson, and your secretary of commerce, Howard Lutnick, to begin a process that will hopefully result in the creation of an American sovereign wealth fund. It's a very exciting event. We're going to have a sovereign wealth fund, which we've never had. We have a lot of things that create wealth. And you've seen that over the last two weeks.

I think we've created more wealth. Other people have created de-wealth, the people, my predecessors. We're creating a lot of wealth. Scott, maybe you'd like to say something about it, and I'd ask also Howard to say something about it. Yes, sir. This is very exciting. We're going to stand this thing up. Within the next 12 months. We are going to monetize the asset side of the U.S. balance sheet for the American people. We're going. Yeah. The guy who rails against big government wants the government to own a social media platform. Let's break this down. It's not only hypocritical, it could really do some serious damage as far as

government overreach goes. So typically these sovereign wealth funds, I'm not like, oh, I love sovereign wealth funds. So I'm just going to tell you what they typically do. They're usually used by countries with large budget surpluses like Norway's oil money, Saudi Arabia's vast reserves, and they'll invest in stocks or real estate or infrastructure. The United States, by contrast, runs a massive, massive deficit, which Trump, of course, said he would reduce and eventually get a surplus and eventually pay off the national debt. I guess those plans are on pause. Trump doesn't like to get basic economics get in the way of what he wants to do. So Trump wants to create a sovereign wealth fund funded by tariffs,

which basically means funded by taxes, which he claims to be against and other intelligent things. His words, not mine. So Trump's plan is let's create a thing to use your tax money to buy private industry and let me control it. Not small government, sort of a form of socialism or communism, to be quite frank. And of course, the hypocrisy is that when Democrats do it, it is socialism and it's bad. When Trump does it, it's a great national endeavor that we should all be very happy about. Now, for years, recall that Trump

and Republicans have completely demonized government intervention in the economy. Medicare for all, bad, socialism, communism. The government getting involved in negotiating drug prices under Biden, socialism, government overreach, shouldn't do it. Bailing out student loan borrowers the way Biden did. That's big government overreach. It's interfering with the magic of free markets. And yet when Donald Trump wants the government to own a private company like Tic Tac, suddenly it's a great national endeavor and we should all get in line and say, yes, sir, even if he wants to do it with our tax money. So it's the same hypocrisy that we've seen before.

When Trump slaps tariffs on a country, his supporters will say he's leveling the playing field rather than being protectionist, which they claim to be against. But in this particular case, it's kind of even more dangerous, and I'll explain why. If Trump gets his way, the U.S. government could own a social media platform, and that alone is a disaster waiting to happen. Now, a government-run social media company in Donald Trump's hands, he already tried to weaponize the DOJ against his enemies. He's in cahoots with Elon Musk, who is totally weaponizing X. Imagine what the Trump administration would do if they owned and controlled a massive social media platform. What would be next? The government acquiring media outlets, cable channels, tech companies. And if you are saying, you know, David, there are concerns about TikTok

as owned by ByteDance, I'm with you. And what I want the government to do is to provide robust regulation and a level playing field rather than targeting TikTok say, hey, you know what? Here are the rules for every social media company that wants to operate in the United States. Here is how, where, and the details of how the data needs to be stored and handled. Here are the details about maybe once you get to a certain size, you need a board of directors. And here are the different parties who get to appoint one or two directors. I'm spitballing here. But the point is, get me robust, sane, carefully calibrated regulation for social media companies. Don't have the government buy TikTok. That's not what I think is the solution to the real concerns about ByteDance and China's ownership stake in TikTok.

You can be both concerned about that, but not think that Trump's government buying TikTok is the solution. Who decides which companies the government can buy? Who controls the companies once they're purchased? Does control shift between Oval Offices? Do you appoint some board? And if so, who appoints the people on the board? You don't have to be a libertarian, which I'm not, to see the dangerous implications here. It's not really about national security. This is about Trump security concerns with TikTok. The U.S. has been debating what to do and whether ByteDance should have to sell it. But Trump's solution of having the government own it, it's just about control. It's about Trump's ego at the end of the day. If this were really about national security, you can go about this a bunch of different ways, including the ones that I've mentioned. So Trump prefers a model that looks like China's economic policies, where the government controls major industries because we have to protect national interests. A free market guy, supposedly Trump, who wants government run business. So Trump's sovereign wealth fund idea is hypocritical. It's also dangerous. It is state-controlled capitalism with MAGA branding. Some might call it communism. And if a Democrat floated something like this, Fox News would be on fire with warnings for months about government takeovers and communist tyranny. But because it's Trump, Charlie Kirk and Hannity and most Republicans, they're just gonna eat it up.

Oh, he's so smart. It's brilliant what he's doing. So don't be fooled by it. This is the kind of big government overreach that Republicans claim that they are against right up until the moment where Trump decides he wants it. And then they'll say, well, you know, it does solve a lot of our problems.

It checks a lot of the boxes of the things we're trying to do. These are pathetic people who will tell you they're guided by a set of principles. The only principle they're really guided by right now is does Trump want it? And if so, then that's fine. Millions of Americans grind or clench teeth at night. and most don't even know it. If you have jaw pain, headaches, there's a great chance you are one of them. Teeth grinding is often caused by stress and it'll erode your teeth and enamel and it can lead to some expensive dentist bills. The solution can be a mouth guard.

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Use the code Pacman to save up to 50%. That's shop R E M I.com slash Pacman. Use code Pacman for up to 50% off. The link is in the podcast notes. All right. So Donald Trump has been staging a pretty regular sort of like press events where he sometimes will confusedly sign executive orders that are placed in front of him and explained to him like a little kid, little Donnie, please write your name here. And do you know all the letters in your name, uh, combined with taking sort of

questions from reporters. And I want to look through a couple of these that took place in the last 24 hours, because there is so much that is new newsworthy that's going on and Trump's being asked about it. You can tell he doesn't really know anything. He seems confused. He seems disoriented in the midst of everything with the tariffs. Trump was asked yesterday, what could Trudeau offer to change your mind on the tariffs? This was right before Trudeau offered Trump nothing. What I mean is this, what I'm about to play for you took place right before Trudeau said to Trump, he's willing to do things that he started doing weeks ago. And Trump goes, sure, sounds good. I'll pause the tariffs for 30 days. So here is Trump saying, maybe if Canada becomes another state that he could agree

to, to change your mind on the tariff. We can always look what I'd like to see Canada become our 51st state. We give them protection, military protection. We don't need them to build our cars. I'd rather see Detroit or South Carolina or any one of our Tennessee, any one of our states build the cars. They could do it very easily. We don't need them for the cars. We don't need them for lumber. We don't need them for anything. We don't need them for energy. We have more energy than they do. We don't need them for energy. So I say, why are we doing this? Why do we why are we willing to lose between 100 billion and 200 billion dollars a year? We don't need them as a state. It's different as a state. It's much different. And there are no tariffs. So I'd

love to see that. But some people say that would be a long shot. If people wanted to play the game right, it would be 100 percent certain that they'd become a state. But a lot of people don't like to play the game because they don't have a threshold of pain and there would be some pain, but not a lot. The pain would be really there. So we're going to meet again. So it's funny because it turns out all that Trudeau actually needed to do was just to say to Trump, I'm going to do things

I've already announced and have been doing. And Trump went, sounds good for me. Let's pause the tariffs for 30 days. Trump then again, referring to Elon Musk as Leon. And this relates to a bigger aspect of the Elon Musk thing that I want to talk about. But they're finding tremendous amounts of really bad things, bad spending. You've been reading about, you've been writing about some of it, frankly, and some of the things that they've been doing is just terrible. Leon, Elon can't do and won't do anything without our approval. And we'll give him the approval where appropriate, where not appropriate, we won't. So Trump continues to sort of be like, everything's fine. Elon's fine. He's under my control. But then the questions become more specific, including why does Elon Musk need access to the payment system at the Treasury?

We talked about this yesterday. This is yet another way in which Elon Musk is getting way too much power to a degree that some are saying this is a form of industrial espionage. And Trump says, oh, don't worry. He's only doing good things and things we all agreed upon. Why is it important for Elon Musk to have access to the payment systems at Treasury? Well, he's got access only to letting people go that he thinks are no good if we agree with him.

And it's only if we agree with him. He's a very talented guy from the standpoint of management and costs. And we put him in charge of seeing what he can do with certain groups and certain numbers. The numbers, some of the numbers are horrible, what he's found. A hundred, think of it, a hundred million dollars on condoms to Hamas, condoms to Hamas, and many other things that are frankly even more ridiculous. And they're finding tremendous waste, really waste more than anything else, I think you could say.

Probably fraud and abuse could be added to it. The more, waste, fraud and abuse. Does anyone believe for a second that every single move that Elon Musk makes, Trump knows about and is in agreement with? I very much struggle to believe that, but Trump wants us to believe it. And how long this match made in heaven is going to last, I really don't know. Now, I was, with great interest, I saw that Trump was asked about Israel and Gaza. And very disturbingly, Donald Trump left the door open to Israel annexing the entire West Bank. Take a look. President Trump, you're urgently with Benjamin Netanyahu. Take a look. Coming in tomorrow. Yes, you mentioned in the past you're concerned about Israel being too small geographically. Would you support annexation of parts of the West Bank by Israel? Well, I'm not going to talk about that. It certainly is a small,

it's a small country in terms of land. I take, see this pen, this wonderful pen? My desk is the Middle East. And this pen, the top of the pen, that's Israel. That's not good, right? You know, that's a pretty big difference. I use that as an analogy. It's pretty accurate, actually. It's a pretty small piece of land. And it's amazing that they've been able to do what they've been able to do. When you think about it, there's a lot of good, smart brainpower, but it is a very small piece of land, no question about it. So I continue to be reinforced in my view that it doesn't sound like Trump is the same as

what Harris would have been on this issue. We now have the resumption by Trump of these 2,000 pound bombs being sold and transferred to Israel, something that Biden had stopped. We have Trump saying, we're going to allow them to get all of the Palestinians out of Gaza. If that's what they want to do, we'll force or ask or hope that other countries will accept them. That is not something that Biden approved of, and it is not something that Kamala Harris would have done. And now Trump's saying, what about Israel annexing the West Bank? Yeah, he's not completely ruling it out either. So I would love, and I'm not saying this in a combative way, I would love to hear from some

of the folks. I don't know that there's that many, but I'm hearing that there are some, although the exit polls suggest there aren't very many. I would love to hear from some of the folks who over the issue of Israel-Gaza either did not vote or did not vote for Kamala Harris, voted for someone else, wrote third party, whatever. What about the four or five things that Donald Trump has said and done since taking office on that issue? Doesn't it make you think maybe that was a mistake? And then finally, Donald Trump claims that we lose close to 300,000 Americans annually due to fentanyl. This is not true. Take a look. I'm coming in. I think we've lost 200,000 people on average a year for many years,

much higher than the 100,000. It could be even closer to 300,000. So the real number is about 70,000. It's still a tragedy. Losing 70,000 people rather than 300,000 is still a complete and total tragedy. But it's not 300,000 as Donald Trump says. And it's not because of Canada as Donald Trump has been claiming lately, sort of as part of his support for the Canadian tariffs, which he has now temporarily paused. If you're saying to yourself, damn it, this is a mess, David, you are absolutely correct. Let's talk about deportation and immigration raids. If you believed that the mass deportation scheme of the current administration was going to be anything other than a logistical nightmare, think again.

The Trump administration has been parading the arrests of thousands of immigrants since Inauguration Day like a triumph of law and order over evil. But we are now learning that some of those very same immigrants are already being released right back into the United States because, shockingly, ICE doesn't have anywhere to put them. After screaming about catch and release under Biden, Trump is now presiding over his own version of it. And the reason is that ICE is only funded for about 41,000 detention beds nationally. And once those are full, the plan falls apart. And it turns out that rounding people up

en masse without figuring out what do we do with them? Where do we put them first? It's not awesome policymaking, but it gets even better or worse, depending on your view. According to five sources familiar with these operations, some of the people being arrested in this crackdown are just being put right back into the United States. Some of them under monitoring programs like ankle bracelets and check-ins. These are the protocols that MAGA people were saying aren't good enough when Biden was doing it. They were saying ankle bracelets, that's not good enough. Checking in? Give me a break. They will just disappear into the interior of the country. But that's what's happening right now under Donald Trump.

Here is Tom Homan, Trump's border immigration czar being asked about it. As usual, Tom Homan goes, yeah, I just don't know anything about that. We have exclusive reporting that there are migrants that were arrested in recent weeks that have been released back into the interior of the country because there's not enough space in ICE facilities. Were you aware of that and your reaction? I'm not aware of that, but I'll address that. But we're looking at bed space. As a matter of fact, we're looking at 30,000 detention beds in Guantanamo Bay. We're talking to our contractors to expand bed space. I met with hundreds of sheriffs who are going to make their deals available for illegal aliens being detained. I'm not aware of that,

but now you said that, I'll find out what happened. So let's not forget that Donald Trump has openly fantasized about building a network of migrant detention camps, presumably to fix this problem. And he says he wants the camps to be able to hold millions of people. So on the one hand, Trump wants camps to hold millions. On the other hand, even the thousands that they've arrested, they're not able to actually manage because the camps aren't fully operational. Should we be sad that the plan is a failure and it's hurting people even more? Should we be sad that he hasn't been able to build the camps? No, I'm happy he hasn't been able to build the camps, but it's just

generating even more layers of chaos. So beyond the sheer incompetence, there's the economic cost of all of this. This is not cheap stuff. These operations are costing billions, and there is very little to show for it. If you detain someone at an ICE facility, it's $150 per person per day. So this has already burned through millions and millions of dollars, and some of the folks are only being held temporarily. If you like these immigration raids, aren't you upset as a MAGA that your taxpayer money is going to the cost of the raid, but then after paying for some incarceration or not, some of these folks are just being released again. And that doesn't account for enforcement costs, coordinating with federal agents, executing the arrests, transportation, gasoline. I don't think they're using electric

vehicles, processing cases. And meanwhile, you've got American businesses in agriculture, construction, service work. They're taking a massive hit. They're reporting ice agents came in. My workforce is now decimated. Now, I will be the first to say, it is against the law to employ undocumented migrants to begin with. We should be focusing on that aspect of it, and we haven't for a very long time, but that doesn't change the fact that it is hurting American businesses. And a lot of these workers are essential to the workforce. So we zoom out and we're in the same place we always are. Trump is arresting immigrants in very high profile raids. Christine Ohm is getting all dressed up in costume or

uniform, depending on your perspective and joining the raids. Eric Adams, I think went on some Tom Homan is going, I'm forgetting others who have also participated, makes a big show. They take a victory lap in the media, and then very quietly, a lot of them are let go because the reality exists that this is not only expensive and ineffective, we don't actually have the facilities to even manage a significant influx of these arrests. So when his supporters inevitably complain about it, I don't know what the solution will be. It might be to build more camps, which is horrifying in its own right. Finally, floating the idea of detainment on military basis, here is Secretary of Defense gag.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth weighing in on that. I don't know whether you will, USA Today, thanks. Do you have an update on whether you will detain migrants or deportees on military bases? And can you give us an update on that and how you'll pay for it? Any assets necessary at the Defense Department to support the expulsion and detention of those in our country illegally are on the table to include, as we've been widely reported, Guantanamo Bay, a naval station I spent a year at as a guard back in 2004, 2005. I know that terrain very well. It's the perfect place to provide for migrants who are traveling out of our country through gray tails or other assets, but also hardened criminals. We're going to put Tren de Aragua

before you send them all the way back? How about a maximum security prison at Guantanamo Bay where we have the space? So where we have the assets that can support those doing the interdiction, intervention, and arrest, we will provide that because, as Tom said, border security is national security, and that includes assets that only the Defense Department has.

Let's remember, we've had a migrant processing center there for decades. So we've held aliens there before and we're going to hold them again. This time we're going to hold the worst of the worst. So this is predictably not going well. I don't think that comes as a shock to anybody. We'll see if they quietly go away from the entire thing, continue to tout successes, even though folks are then being released. I don't know what to expect. We're not dealing with competent people and we're certainly not dealing with honest people here.

On the bonus show today, I'm gonna give you some updates on my travel and what's going on with the book. I'll tell you about some of the conversations I've had with Brits here in London about what's going on in the United States. Also, bird flu is entering a new phase, and we will talk about that on the bonus show as well.

Sign up at joinpacman.com. I will see you then.