The David Pakman Show - 3/17/25: Tesla collapsing, Trump declares Biden pardons void

Episode Date: March 17, 2025

-- On the Show: -- 94% of Germans say they would not buy a Tesla as Elon Musk's company is in serious trouble globally -- Tesla has reportedly stopped Cybertruck deliveries because the vehicles are falling apart as they drive around -- Donald Trump unleashes authoritarian insanity during a speech at the Department of Justice -- Donald Trump declares media outlets adversarial to him "illegal" -- A new report finds that the right wing is dominating the left in the online news space -- A man votes for Donald Trump and his Peruvian wife is subsequently detained and thrown into a detention center -- In a middle of the night meltdown, Donald Trump declares Joe Biden's pardons "void" and "vacant" -- Supposedly "anti-war" Trump launches new attacks in Yemen -- A confused Donald Trump delivers a series of disoriented statements while flying on Air Force One -- On the Bonus Show: US deports hundreds despite court order, Republicans push to make "Trump Derangement Syndrome" a mental illness, students wonder why college tuition costs more as online enrollment grows, much more... 🌳 Fast Growing Trees: Get 15% OFF with code PAKMAN at https:// 🛡️ Incogni lets you control your personal data! Get 60% off their annual plan: http://incogni.com/pakman 💻 Sponsored by Aura: Try it free for 2 weeks! See if your data is safe at https://aura.com/pakman 🥄 Use code PAKMAN for $5 off Magic Spoon at https://magicspoon.com/pakman 💪 AG1 is offering you a FREE $76 GIFT when you sign up at https://drinkag1.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: https://davidpakman.com/bluesky -- David on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow

. welcome everybody. Great show today. We're actually going to record this one rather than immediately deleting it because it's so bad. We are going to talk about so many things today including does the constitution matter anymore? We're going to do some tax stuff, some thick and meaty policy things, but we're also going to talk about the free market and free market capitalism. And I come to you bearing news, my friends, that the free market appears to be deciding that Tesla is done. If you want to see real capitalism, we are seeing it in front of our very eyes. Tesla is collapsing in Germany.

It has nothing to do with government interference. It has nothing to do with regulation. It has nothing to do with an overzealous regulator or government. It is the free market at work. People deciding they do not want a product. And this has consequences for the company selling that product. What am I talking about? A massive survey of over a hundred thousand Germans confirmed what Tesla sales numbers in Europe already told us. 94% of Germans say they will not buy a Tesla. This is not happening in a vacuum because Evie sales are going up. If nobody wants electric vehicles, then of course anybody selling only electric vehicles is going to suffer, but that is very much not the case.

German electric vehicle sales grew 27% last year, while Tesla sales went down 41% and a staggering 70% in the first two months of 2025 compared to last year. This is destructive. Why is this happening? The answer is very simple. Elon Musk torched his own brand. Germany has plenty of electric vehicle options. They are choosing anything but Tesla because when your CEO is out there praising the far right AFD party meddling in elections, throwing up Nazi salutes

at Trump's inauguration. Yeah, that is going to be a problem in a country that takes its history a little bit more seriously than Elon Musk does. Now we zoom out from Germany. This is not only happening in Germany. We talked about Europe and Tesla sales collapsing in Europe, but it's even bigger than that because Tesla's hemorrhaging customers worldwide. Here in the United States, Tesla went from the ambassador brand for electric vehicles, for liberals, for progressives, to people who care about the environment, to a rolling billboard for Elon Musk's far right political fantasies and delusions. So the Republican solution is government intervention, which they claim to be against. Donald Trump spent years mocking electric cars and, you know, calling them scams. You can't drive anywhere. You can't charge them. He attacked climate policy.

He just last week did this full blown Tesla infomercial from the white house where he climbed into a model S and said to his followers, it's an American made car. I love Tesla. Republicans who spent decades attacking government subsidies for electric vehicles are suddenly rallying behind Tesla because now Elon Musk is on their team. Sean Hannity, the Fox News propagandist who spent years mocking electric vehicles as liberal toys. They're not real cars for a real man. He now says he's buying a Tesla of S plaid to support Elon Musk. What's the problem with this new strategy aside from being a 180 departure from the principles that they claim to adhere to, which is EVs bad government intervention, bad,

suddenly government intervention, good EVs are good. The problem is that there don't seem to be enough right wing Tesla buyers to replace the flood of Democrats and independents that are abandoning the brand. Tesla went from being the progressive status symbol to something that even even liberals with with paid off Teslas don't want to be seen in. People are dumping their Teslas because they want nothing to do with the brand. Senator Mark Kelly just got rid of his Tesla this weekend instead getting a, I think it's an American made a union labor Chevy Tahoe or one of those completely inefficient Chevy SUVs because he said every time he would get into the Tesla, it reminded him of how much damage Elon Musk and Trump were doing to the country. Elon did this to himself.

Nobody forced him to turn Tesla into a symbol of authoritarianism. Nobody made him call Senator Mark Kelly a traitor for supporting Ukraine. No one told him to push extraordinarily right wing borderline Nazi rhetoric and far right conspiracy theories. And so we have capitalism in this country. Hello. We have a free market. Tesla is no longer the cool forward thinking electric vehicle company. It's another, I guess, in a sense, casualty of the culture war that has been launched by the American right wing. Tesla's future is looking grim. I can't tell you how

glad I am that I dumped my Tesla stock a while ago. I can't tell you how glad I am that I dumped my Tesla vehicle or what massive dumps. I flushed it 15 times. But now you've got, you know, the Tesla sales pitches on the White House lawn and Hannity and everybody saying we are now going to get a Tesla. It's not convincing to me and I don't know what they can do now to stop the problem. And even worse news for the cyber truck. Listen to this. Another disaster for Elon Musk as Tesla has reportedly stopped all cyber cock, cyber truck deliveries because the cars are falling apart. Pieces of the cars elements, you might, you might call them vehicular

elements. Pieces of the car are flying off at highway speeds. This is not a problem you want to be having when half the country is abandoning your brand. According to new reports, Tesla has stopped deliveries of its cyber truck because of what can only be described as a catastrophic design failure. A massive chunk of stainless steel trim called the can trail is peeling off like cheap duct tape, turning into a deadly projectile for anyone unfortunate enough to be driving behind one of these overpriced gimmicks. Tesla owners on forums are sharing horror stories where one driver said he was going 70 miles per hour, heard a ripping sound and watched as a nine foot long metal panel detached from his hundred

thousand dollar truck and went flying into traffic. Now, other Cybertruck owners are voluntarily ripping the piece off themselves so it doesn't come loose while driving. And if you think that's bad, the entire front plate of the truck is also just glued on. Videos are circulating of people peeling off huge sections of the cyber trucks interior like they're opening a bag of chips. Now I have I I'm not going to lie. I have a stake in the game here. OK, I got rid of my Tesla. I want nothing to do with the brand.

I got myself a Rivian. Someone jokingly texted me over the weekend. The Rivian is what you get if you want the space of the cyber truck, but you have taste. Now, the truth is the cyber truck is not that roomy because you've got the huge bed. Uh, of course, I guess the R1T maybe is a replacement, but these are not, I can now attest based on seeing the build quality of the Rivian, this nine foot pieces flying off the car, not what you expect in such a vehicle. And it's the latest in a long series of humiliations for Elon Musk. Since its release, the Cybertruck has been mocked.

It's been vandalized. It's been recalled half a dozen times. And it has thoroughly embarrassed the owners of the trucks when you realize that these do not work very well. So where are we now? Deliveries have reportedly been stopped entirely. Tesla scrambling how to fix the problem. The things are borderline disintegrating as they drive down the highway. We were told this was the masterpiece of Elon Musk. It was a revolution in automotive design. And it's kind of working out to be a rolling safety hazard that's shedding parts like a cheap Halloween costume. And despite all of it, Elon's cult, to the extent that it

still exists, will bend over backwards to defend him. They'll say, oh, this is a feature. You can easily replace parts to your liking. If you don't like the look of that nine foot can trail, you take it off, you put on a different one or something. They'll post memes about this is 40 chess or something like that while they are putting their car back together together with gorilla glue. I cannot think of any brand that I am happier to have separated from than Tesla. And they're going to tell you this is illegal. It's collusive. Boycotts are against the law. So this is capitalism, plain and simple. The cars are falling apart and people are saying, I think not. Let's take a break. Tantrums, the word of the week in American politics. We have just

eight days left until the release of my book, The Echo Machine. A limited number of signed copies remain at David Pakman dot com slash booksmith. Very exciting interviews that I will be doing this week in service of promoting the book. I'll tell you all about it. Quick break back right after this. The weather's warming up. It's just about time to start enjoying the outdoors again. If you live in a place that has seasons and it's time for the upgrade you've been thinking

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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. Thank you, David. 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. Go to Incogni dot com slash Pacman and use the code Pacman for 60 percent off. That's I N C O G N I dot com slash Pacman for a huge 60 percent off. That's I.N.C.O.G.N.I.com slash Pacman for a huge 60 percent discount. The link is in the podcast notes. The David Pakman show is an independent media program. What this means and what the new Media Matters report highlights is that without the support

of our audiences, these shows don't get very far. I invite you to get a membership at join Pacman dot com. We do an extra show every day for our members. A long list of perks is available. And most importantly, you will be supporting an alternative to the massive right wing online ecosystem, which I will tell you more about in a little bit, a disturbing, disturbing new report out about that. Join Pacman dot com is the place to sign up. And of course, you can use the coupon code not again for a sizable discount. Donald Trump tantrumed and unleashed authoritarian insanity during a speech to the Department of Justice, during which he has started to now say straight up that any media outlet adversarial to him

is illegal. This is a red alert, dangerous situation. Trump taking one step closer to going after us by starting to name some of the guests on our show and some of the allies to our show, which we are going to talk about and explore. Here is Trump speaking. The visual contrast, the irony could not be more jarring. Trump's speaking at the Department of Justice, an entity that in some abstract sense is meant to carry forward the process of justice. Trump, with his words saying that justice should be circumvented and that media outlets adversarial

to him are committing crimes. Listen to this. Listen and weep, my friends. And I believe that CNN and MSDNC, who literally write ninety seven point six percent bad about me are political arms of the Democrat Party. And in my opinion, they're really corrupt and they're illegal. What they do is illegal, illegal, illegal media outlets that report critically about a president are illegal, according to the president. What other countries does that remind me of? It's ugly stuff, folks. And you know, there's this idea of what if Trump designates these media outlets, terrorist organizations as a pretext to start arresting journalists.

I wish I was kidding. I, he hasn't signaled yet that he plans to do that, but it would not come as the biggest shock if he started threatening to do exactly that. Trump also at the DOJ starting to name names. Listen to this. There's a guy named Norm. I don't even know what he looks like. His name is Norm Eisen of Crew. He's been after me for nine years. Now, Crew is

a charitable organization. And the reason I'm saying this, Todd, is I'm only going to get one chance to say this, but these are bad people. I don't know who he is. I don't know what he looks like. But everything I read is Norm Eisen of Crew. And Crew is a charitable organization. And that's a political thing. His sole life is to get Donald Trump. And he's been vicious and violent. And he's trying. And he probably had pretty good success over the years. But with me, how did he do? I think I'm president. Am I here because I'm president? But we had to take all of that abuse.

Even during the trials, we had to take tremendous abuse. Like, you know, these wonderful guys, they're not legitimate people. They're they're horrible people. And Trump even name checking Mark Elias, who has been a guest on this program, is a big booster of this show. One step closer every week until we end up in the crosshairs. Listen to this. It's with the help of radicals like Mark Elias, Mark Pomerantz. And these are people that nobody's ever seen anything like it.

So many others. But these are people that are bad people, really bad people. They tried to turn America into a corrupt communist and third world country. But big accusation, by the way, Mark Elias turned the country communist or tried in the end. The thugs failed and the truth won. Freedom won. Justice won. Democracy won. And above all, the American people won. There could be no more heinous betrayal of American values than to use the law to terrorize the innocent and reward the wicked. And what is Trump doing right now? What is Trump doing right now?

Another instance of projection. But we shouldn't for a moment think that Trump won't carry out every single thing he's threatening to do and alluding to in this deranged and terrifying speech, as has become sort of a staple of these events. Trump targeting traditionally left leaning cities and using lurid anecdotes to talk about just how disastrous it all is. Killer people, and they allowed them in by the millions in major cities like New York, Chicago and Washington, mothers can't walk their children to the park without fear of being shot or killed or raped or anything.

Women can't ride the subway without worrying that a hoodlum will shove them onto the train tracks. In New York, it's happened twice in the last couple of weeks. They're standing there, perfect Wall Street gentleman in one case and another person who was a worker, good worker, electrician gets pushed into a train going 45 miles an hour just prior to the train, not stopping going to go through that. So I know the stations very well. I used to take this subway. I used to feel safe when I was young. I'd go to my parents would drop me off at the subway. I'd take the subway to my school. So listen, we we've heard a lot of this before. Uh, there is no question that if there is any crime, we should be dealing with it. And one of the failures of Democrats in the 2024 election was to seem not to care about crime that exists.

But the truth is that crime rates have been declining in the United States for a long time. There was no big burst of crime under Joe Biden and that as a general principle, we see very high rates of crime in red cities. You look at Oklahoma City compared to New York City. The crime rates are higher in Oklahoma City. Of course, New York has way more people. So the number of crimes is greater in New York City.

If you look at Oklahoma as a state rather than New York as a state, you see the same thing. And so on the one hand, of course, to the extent that crime exists and of course, in order to really deal with crime, you've got to deal with poverty. You've got to deal with inequality. You have to deal with infrastructure, things that these Republicans don't seem to want to deal with. We should acknowledge where there is crime.

We have work to do. But this lurid framing of the dangerous blue cities where everything's a disaster, uh, very much incorrect, but very salient to many voters in this country. Trump also weighed in in, of course, authoritarian fashion when it comes to drug overdoses, saying death penalty. That's the way to do it. Some of those businesses, those cartels are run better than any business in America. They say they're running incredible, not just here.

They've all over the world. They run like a major business, but in many cases better. And I said we got an 18 percent down. Well, 18 percent is incredible. It's like a record. But when you think of it, it's not very much. And the way you get it down, if you want to get it down to close to 100 percent is with the death penalty. But I think maybe America is not ready for that. China has a death penalty. Singapore has a death penalty. Various places have the death penalty. But I think maybe America is not ready for that. China has a death penalty. Singapore has a death penalty. Various places have the death penalty. Wherever you have the death penalty, you don't have drugs. But so think of the sum total of this speech.

Media outlets critically reporting about me. Those are illegal. The way we should deal with drugs like authoritarian countries, China and Singapore death penalty. This is an authoritarian nightmare. Trump continued with what Democrats do is illegal. And these newspapers are really no different than a highly paid political operative. And it has to stop. It has to be illegal. It's influencing judges and it's it's really changing law and it just cannot be legal. I don't believe it's legal. And they do it in total coordination with each other and everything we do. We're restoring law, restoring order and restoring public safety in America. That's criminalizing real journalism. Remember, if it's not critical, it's just PR. I think Orwell said some version of that. When you criticize journalism or criminalize rather journalism that doesn't flatter the leader,

that is authoritarianism. And then, of course course a contrast visually, a contrast in optics, even though, even though this was a dystopian authoritarian phase at Trump's events, something that we've seen terrifying, terrifying. And we now do have to talk about the reality that the Trump vengeance tour gets one step closer to progressive independent media like us another day. And Donald Trump's justice department takes another step towards independent media shows just like this one, just like the David Pakman show. You know, we've been warning and we've been warned about this exactly.

And it's starting to happen. Donald Trump is now explicitly saying what we all knew he wanted to say all along media that says things he doesn't like media that is critical of him and his administration is or should be illegal. Once again, speaking to the DOJ, here is Trump making that claim. And I believe that CNN and MSDNC, who literally write ninety seven point six percent bad about me are political arms of the Democrat Party. And in my opinion, they're really corrupt and they're illegal. Not just unfair, not just fake news, but illegal. They are committing crimes. We are committing crimes, according to Trump.

That is not just rhetoric. That is the sort of justification and pretext that authoritarians use for a full blown crackdown on an open and free press. And then he takes another step closer. I played this earlier, but I want to get it in as part of this discussion. Trump takes another step closer, saying not just in general adversarial media is illegal. He mentions our friend and frequent guest on this show, attorney Mark Elias. It's with the help of radicals like Mark Elias, Mark Pomerantz. So this should not come as a surprise. Donald Trump has been obsessed with silencing critics from day one.

He called the free press an enemy of the people. He threatened to revoke NBC's license. I believe it was. He openly fantasized about using the DOJ to go after journalists. But this is really Trump taking it one step closer to us. This is the game plan. You attack the media. You criminalize lawyers who fight against you in courts of law within the bounds of

the legal system. You weaponize the government against your critics until there's nobody left to criticize you. So this is not just about CNN or MSNBC. This is not just about Mark Elias. This is really now about all of us. We have seen it happen in every authoritarian takeover throughout history. And now Trump is saying the quiet part out loud.

And sadly, even before the clampdown starts, we are already getting crushed. And I need to talk about that next. As if we needed more confirmation, a new study finds that the right is crushing the left in online news. And it really proves wrong the idea that the Internet is all of this progressive indoctrination. This is exactly what we have been warning about. There's a new media matters study which confirms that right wing content is absolutely dominating the online media ecosystem.

It's not just in news and politics, it's in sports, it's in comedy, it's an entertainment. These are places that aren't even supposed to be political. But as I told you months ago when I talked about it, these non political spaces are being coded COD ED with right wing politics. We are part of the study, which it's flattering that we are big enough to be part of the study. Media matters put out a study and this chart, you might see us there at the bottom. What it uses are red and blue circles, red circles to show right wing political entities, a blue for left wing size designates subscriber numbers. Now, I don't even think that these numbers are correct or up to date,

but it doesn't matter because the big picture takeaways are stunning. 82% of the total online media audience belongs to right wing shows. That's nearly stunning. 82% of the total online media audience belongs to right wing shows. That's nearly five times the following of the left leaning shows. Nine of the top 10 biggest shows are right wing. The only left leaning show to make the list is Trevor Noah's what now, which I have to admit I've never heard of and I looked into it. It's not really a left wing independent show in the mold of a lot of these others. It's not equivalent in many ways. The right wing content doesn't just dominate politics. It seeps into everything. Joe Rogan,

Theo Vaughn, uh, the NELC boys, they all at least pretend to not be overtly political shows, but they're constantly platforming far right guests and are overwhelmingly dominated by right wing ideas. Right wing YouTube channels double the total views of left leaning one 65 billion to 31 billion. So what's happened is that the right has built an empire of alternative media and it is working and it worked in 2024. And we talked about it in our postmortem about the 2024 election. You know, we talk about the power of Fox news. The real action seems to be happening online in 2024.

Trump reached 23 million people a week through podcasts and online shows. That is four times the reach of Kamala Harris. So these are not fringe outlets anymore. They are really shaping elections. They drive the narratives. They control political discourse in ways that most of the mainstream media doesn't even understand the other key difference. And we've talked about this now.

Media matters has finally put together a structured report about it, but I've been telling you this stuff for years. Republicans support their media. They promote it. They invest in it. They take it seriously. And that is why right wing shows thrive when many left wing shows struggle. This is a crisis for progressive media.

There's no other way to say it. The question is, are we going to do anything about it? You know, people love to complain about right wing disinformation. What are we really doing to counter it? Where is the investment in left wing media? Where is the mass promotion of progressive voices? For years I've been saying, if you want real progressive media, you have to support it. That's why subscribing, sharing, promoting shows you like, maybe it's this one,

maybe it's not right. This doesn't have to be self-serving. Whatever you think are the best shows doing the best work. You've got to do it because the right is flooding the online space with daily content, massive audiences, nonstop political messaging, production money, and all of it. And too many people on the left are waiting for someone else to fix the problem. So at a minimum, the shows you like, they have a YouTube channel, subscribe to it. We've passed 3 million subscribers. We were too busy dealing with an authoritarian crackdown to even talk about it, but we have passed 3 million YouTube subscribers. Subscribe to the YouTube channels that you like rate and subscribe to the audio

podcasts. That is another area where the right is dominating. We're on iTunes. We're on Spotify, subscribe and rate. That's free. It's all, if that's all you can do, do it for the shows that you support. And of course, if you can afford it, grab a membership or pre-order my book or someone else's or subscribe to someone else. If they have a membership program or you can afford it, grab a membership or preorder my book or someone else's or subscribe to someone else if they have a membership program or do all of it. Join Pacman dot com is our membership program. Most shows have one as well. We are in trouble, folks.

And the media matters study is a terrifying reminder. Speaker 1 Speaker 1 Big companies with poor security get hacked every day and your personal information is being sold on the dark web so criminals can target you. Not something I have to worry about as much since I have aura. Our sponsor aura vigilantly scans the dark web to see if any of your personal information has been leaked like login credentials or addresses, social security number or also the David Pakman show at David Pakman dot com. like advanced anti-malware and password management for every device you have. And your subscription comes with $5 million in identity theft insurance. Just in case, or even provides parental controls to let kids explore the internet safely with tools to filter harmful sites, manage apps and limit screen time.

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spoon in your nearest grocery store. That's magic spoon dot com slash Pacman for five dollars off. The link is in the podcast notes. a detention center. This time it's in Wisconsin. A man named Bradley Bartell voted for Trump. He liked Trump's whole tough on immigration promise. And now Bradley is begging for his wife to be released from an ICE detention center after she was detained at the airport and ripped away from their family. We're talking about Camilla Munoz, his wife, who was in the process of getting her papers in order.

She wasn't sneaking across the border. She wasn't hiding from authorities. She wasn't bringing in fentanyl or nor fentanyl. She wasn't bringing in either. She legally applied for permanent residency. She had been vetted by the U S government. She was married to an American citizen. She followed the process the way people are supposed to.

And none of it made a difference because she and her husband were flying home to Wisconsin after honeymooning in Puerto Rico, as Trump used to say it, uh, at the airport, an immigration agent stops her asks, are you an American citizen? She answers, honestly, not yet. Ice agents detain her on the spot. She's gone. This is the same story over and over and over again. People often assume that cruel draconian immigration policies will only affect someone else. You know why? Because a lot of people assume it will only affect the bad people. And everyone I know in these situations is a good person. It'll not touch my family.

It won't touch my partner. It won't touch me. And that is a really common mindset among cult followers. We've talked about the overlaps between Trump and MAGA and cults. Trump's base believes that when he talks about punishing people, it'll only ever be other people. They will be spared because they're part of the good ones that the system they empowered is going to distinguish between their loyalty and they'll be granted immunity from the cruel draconian policies. But that's not how it works.

When we saw the factory worker in Ohio vote for Trump and then lose his job when the plant shut down, he was not exempt, even though he was part of the cult. The MAGA diehard who stormed the Capitol January 6th, 2021, because Trump had his back, ended up in prison and Trump walked free. He wasn't exempt. Of course, Trump has since pardoned that individual, but they already did some time in prison. The guy a few weeks ago, we talked about who voted Trump and his wife was deported to Venezuela. And now we've got Bradley Bartell cheered on Trump's immigration crackdowns until his wife was caught in the net, not exempt. When you unleash a system that is designed to be merciless, it doesn't care about your life and it doesn't care about your wife. It doesn't

care that Camilla Munoz had a job and paid taxes and was raising Bartelels 12 year old son as if he were her own. It doesn't distinguish that she was legally married to a US citizen within process paperwork and a seemingly inevitable path to citizenship because that's what the constitution says. The system didn't care that her only crime was a visa overstay caused by covid shutting down flights out of the United States. So what we learn is that the cult members aren't ultimately spared, but also that this whole thing was never really about targeting the violent criminals, which they told us it's about mass roundups. It's about fear tactics and it's about stoking really the worst instincts of Trump's base, which sometimes end up pointed right back at the very cult members.

And part of the reason that this is happening is that ICE is under major pressure from Trump's White House to ramp up the detentions. Why? Because they're struggling to find people instead of tracking down actual dangerous criminals, which to a degree they're doing, but they're, they're struggling to find them. They're sweeping people up like Camilla Munoz at airport checkpoints because it's easier. It's lower hanging fruit in a way. The guy who voted for this now sees the truth. And now he says, we need a system that shows people mercy. It reminds me, if I'm honest of when we hear about anti-gay congressman changes his mind

when his daughter comes out as a lesbian and all of a sudden he wants humanity. And it's, it's very disturbing that so many people in this country in the world, sure. But we're looking at it here. So many people are unable to say, oh, I can imagine what this would be like, even if I don't expect to be in the situation. Bradley Bartell is now in that situation. And now he's realizing that the Trump immigration machine does not care about fairness. It doesn't care about families. It doesn't care about common sense.

So what, uh, Bartell now is going to watch his family savings drain into legal fees. His wife will sit in a detention center. It'll be terrible for their 12 year old and the dream of buying a house and raising kids starts to be replaced by one question. Did he really think that the rules wouldn't apply to him? And the answer seems to be no. He didn't think the rules would apply to him in his latest authoritarian explosion. Donald Trump is declaring that the pardons issued by president Joe Biden at the end of

his term are void and they are vacant. What a nightmare. Is there any legal basis for this? Well, I'll tell you in a moment, here is Donald Trump on air force one saying those pardons are not valid. Those executive orders, those parties from the president. Now, I think so. It's not my decision.

That'll be up to a court. But I would say that then now that, cause I'm sure so. It's not my decision. That'll be up to a court. But I would say that they're null and void because I'm sure Biden didn't have any idea that it was taking place. And somebody was using an auto pen to sign off and to give pardons to, as an example,

just one example, but the J6 unselected committee. They gave, think of it, they gave pardons with an auto pen.lect committee, they they gave think of it. They gave parties with a notepad. I don't think Biden knew anything about it. And what they did is they deleted and destroyed all of the information that took them over a year to get. Trump saying the pardons from Biden are void. He also put out a post on Truth Social where he said, quote, the pardons that sleepy Joe Biden gave to the unselect committee of political thugs. By the way, this came out in the middle of the night and many others are hereby declared void, vacant and of no further force or effect because of the fact that they were done by auto pen. In other words, Joe Biden did not sign them, but more importantly, he did not know anything about them. The necessary pardoning documents

were not explained to or approved by Biden. He knew nothing about them. And the people that did may have committed a crime. Therefore, those select on the, those on the unselect committee who destroyed and deleted all evidence obtained during their two year witch hunt of me and many other innocent people should fully understand that they are subject to investigation at the highest level. The fact is they were probably responsible for the documents that were signed on their behalf without the knowledge or consent of the worst president in the history of our country, crooked Joe Biden. So before we get into the real analysis, just to see if this applies to everybody, do you

think Trump hand signed 1500 pardons for every January 6th writer? Do you believe that that's what he did? Of course not. Now, none of this is a thing legally. A president cannot unilaterally unilaterally declare a prior presidential pardon void. Can't do it. A validly issued pardon is final for better or worse. You don't have to like the pardon process to just say that these are these are fine. Second, Trump is fixated on the auto pen. The auto pen is a device that's used to sign routine documents on behalf of presidents all the time. It's not new. Auto pens are used to sign every sort of document that

you can imagine. Presidents, including Trump, have used auto pen signatures for military commissions, for bills that became law, for official documents of all kinds. Are all of those void? Of course not. Only these. And even Supreme Court justices have acknowledged that auto pen signed pardons are legally valid. It's a completely manufactured excuse. And what Trump wants here is Trump wants to go after the people that Joe Biden preemptively pardoned. If anything, this is confirmation that whatever your belief about presidential pardon power, Biden's use of a preemptive pardon was spot on because Trump is confirming, I want to go after those people.

So we've got to get those pardons vacated. Now thirdly, the underlying premise here is Biden didn't know anything about the pardons. We of course have no evidence of that whatsoever. And by the way, pardons are a process. Pardons aren't just, you stick a piece of paper in front of the president. The idea that Biden's own justice department was granting clemency or pardons without knowledge of the president is a conspiracy theory for which they've presented no evidence. The important part of this is not, Oh, the auto pen. The important part is to

understand what Trump is looking to do here. This is about retribution and revenge. This is not a debate about executive authority. This is real time authoritarianism. We are seeing it. It's happening. And Trump is now openly wielding presidential power to try to erase legal acts of the former president and of a previous administration to punish his enemies. This is what happens in regimes that don't have functioning checks and balances earlier. Trump saying media outlets that do critical reporting on me are illegal. Mark Elias is a criminal for what he's done. And now Trump is saying we are going to find a way to undo what prior presidents have done

so we can have open prosecutorial season on my political enemies. The critical detail here is that we don't know what legal avenue Trump intends to pursue to undo Biden's pardons. What I mean by that is we, at least for now, troth posts are not legally binding. Trump posting something to truth social doesn't make it legally. So, so is this one of those things where Trump posts something and forgets about it and no actual action is taken or is there some imminent action, an investigation, some kind of legal decree process or trying to get a court to sign off on reversing pardons?

We know of no legal process that would achieve that. But the question we are left with is, okay, he talked about it on the plane. He put out a troth at close to 1am this morning about it. Is the administration going to actually pursue some way of saying, we don't believe the pardons for some of these people are valid. We are now going after them. We don't have the answer. We will follow it. It's terrifying, but we don't currently have the answer. What do you think he will do? What will the administration do? You can email me info at David Pakman dot com. An important part of my daily routine every morning is a scoop of AG1 to keep my nutritional basis covered for the day.

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That's drink a g the number one dot com slash Pacman for seventy six dollars worth of free gifts in your first box. The link is in the podcast notes. Antiwar president Donald Trump has launched a new military offensive. Not really the anti-war candidate is he? Uh, Donald Trump just ordered major military strikes in Yemen where he says the following quote, uh, today I have ordered the United States military to launch decisive and powerful military action against the Houthi terrorists in Yemen. They have waged an unrelenting campaign of piracy, violence, and terrorism against American and other ships, aircraft, and drones. Joe Biden's response was pathetically weak. So the unrestrained Houthis just kept going. It has been over a year since

a U S flagged commercial slip, a ship safely sailed through the Suez canal, the red sea, or the Gulf of Aden. The last American warship to go through the red sea four months ago was attacked by the Houthis over a dozen times funded by Iran. The Houthi thugs have fired missiles at us aircraft and targeted our troops and allies. These relentless assaults have cost the U S and world economy, many billions of dollars while at the same time, putting innocent lives at risk. Trump continued the Houthi attacks, uh, attack on American vessels will not be tolerated. We will use overwhelming lethal force until we have achieved our objective. The Houthis have choked

off shipping in one of the most important waterways of the world, grinding vast swaths of global global commerce to a halt and attacking the core principle of freedom of navigation upon which international trade and commerce depends. Our brave war fighters are right now carrying out aerial attacks on the terrorist bases, leaders and missile defenses to protect American shipping air and naval assets and to restore navigational freedom. No terrorist force will stop American commercial and naval vessels from freely sailing the waterways of the world to all Houthi terrorists. Your time is up and your attacks must stop starting today. If they don't, hell will rain down upon you like nothing you have ever seen

before. He also levies a threat against Iran where he says to Iran support for the Houthi terrorists must end immediately. Do not threaten the American people. Their president who has received one of the largest mandates in presidential history or worldwide shipping lanes. If you do beware because America will hold you fully accountable and we won't be nice about it. So less than two months into his second term, Trump has launched a full scale bombing campaign

against Houthi militants. That's an Iran backed group that controls a lot of northern Yemen. The targets are air defenses, radars and missile sites. And the justification is the restoration of stability in the Red Sea after attacks that took place, who the attacks on shipping vessels took place. But we have to call this what it is. We have to acknowledge it for what it is. This is direct U.S. military engagement in yet another Middle Eastern conflict, which Donald Trump said was not going to happen under his watch.

This is an expansion of us war in the region. If Trump were truly against foreign entanglements, he'd be looking for diplomatic solutions and instead he's doing what every hawkish Republican administration does is we're going to drop bombs and we're going to say that we're doing because we're big and strong. And it's about sending a message and you'd better not go any further. Now, Trump and his fans love to talk about how he's the real anti-war president. He didn't start any wars in his first term, even though he escalated a number of different conflicts. But now we are, you know, 50 days in or something like that. And Trump's ordering airstrikes, naval attacks, military operations, threatening to rain hell down upon them and threatening Iran as well. This is something

with the potential to spiral into an all out regional conflict thanks to what Donald Trump is doing. And then the threat to Iran also bears some discussion because when Trump warns Tehran, any further involvement with the who these will have consequences. The problem is if Iran response, uh, verbally, you know, with the statement, Trump just pulled the U S even deeper into the exact kind of middle East war that he claims to oppose. Now you might notice that the usual Republican voices aren't screaming about forever wars right now. The same people who called Joe Biden weak for military action in the region are cheering this on. And the same people who supposedly want to bring our troops home, they're quiet. They're not saying a word right now.

And it's a reminder that at the end of the day, the Republicans position on war was never about principle. It's about who's in charge. When Democrats use military force, it's reckless and also not enough force. When Trump does it, it's simply necessary. You got to do it. And it's a really just an eyeopening reminder. If you had forgotten that Donald Trump's entire foreign policy persona is a complete and total scam. He talks this big game. We're going to stay out of wars. And, uh, Hillary would have started six wars and all of this stuff. But his first major foreign policy move of the second term is starting a conflict. And the U.S. will now be fully engaging in this military campaign in Yemen. And if Trump keeps

escalating, it could be a much bigger conflict. So we've got to just accept that some of my friends on the left were wrong. It's OK to be wrong. I've been wrong. And I try to correct it. I had friends on the left saying, you know, Trump seems genuinely committed to cutting military spending through Doge. I said, I don't think so. Trump confirmed last week he will not be cutting military spending

and his budget increases the size of the military and the amount of spending. So that that's one down. Secondly, there were those who said, I disagree with Trump about a lot of stuff, but I do think he wants to keep us out of conflicts, new conflicts, growing conflicts, escalating conflicts. Well, on day, I don't know what day it is, 50, it's almost 60 of Trump's presidency. He now has announced a new military, uh, entanglement in the middle East with further threats, both within Yemen and to Iran. Are we ready to say, all right, he's not cutting the military and he's not the anti-war president, or are we going to continue playing this game that this might be a new Trump who's going

to behave totally differently? I didn't see it, but I was hopeful. Maybe they're right. Turns out they were wrong. It's the same old Trump. Donald Trump gave a sort of confused little, I don't even know if I would call it a press conference. He kind of just spoke to some reporters on air force one and Trump is already claiming victories on a number of the different issues that he said he would be working with.

One of those is prices of various elements. Take a listen to what Donald Trump had to say. I will tell you what it's for. When I took it over, eggs went through the roof and now eggs are down 35 percent over a short period of time. And other things, fuel, gasoline, energy is down, way down. Coil is down to $65 a barrel. It was $82 a barrel.

And when energy comes out, pricing is going to come down. Prices for groceries, et cetera, are going to come down. So, yeah, I think we're setting a good table. I will tell you what it's for. When I took it over, eggs were through the roof and now eggs are down 35 percent over a short period of time. And other things, fuel, gasoline, energy is down, way down. Coil is down to $65 a barrel. It was $82 a barrel. And when energy comes out, pricing is going to come down, prices for groceries, et cetera, going to come down.

So yeah, I think we're setting a good table. I will tell you what. So Trump says that a good table is being set because he is starting to see oil down, gas down and eggs down. I think it's really important that when Donald Trump makes broad claims about prices, we look at the broad price level. I congratulated Trump to the extent that it's thanks to anything he did, which it isn't that egg price futures have turned around and have started to come down.

It is true that gas prices are down just a trickle. Uh, people's home heating bills are off the charts. And I'm hearing from folks in many states where the local utility is saying we have just made a deal to take 10 percent of your bill during winter. We're almost out of winter. Take 10 percent of your winter bill and defer it forward to the summer. And people telling me about five, six, $700 gas bills, electric bills off the charts. So it's really important to look at the bigger picture right now. Inflation's basically flat from when Biden left office. And if we want to look at specific pricing within that fine, but Trump's claim that the price concerns are over.

We haven't, we are only starting to see the effects of the tariffs. Like just a few days ago we covered a caller to C-SPAN who said, I was just told parts for my project went up 10% so now the project's going to cost more. The the idea that because egg futures are down, which they are, and that's a great thing, have not yet seen the effect that the grocery store, but the futures are down. That doesn't tell us that concerns about inflation are gone. In fact, they don't seem to really have started yet. Trump was then asked about whether he's going to comply with orders about rehiring terminated

government workers. Here's what Trump said. There's no point in a judge that ruled that the federal government has to rehire the fired federal workers. Do you plan to comply with that? Well, I think it's, I think it's absolutely, I have nothing to do with that other than I heard about the decision. I think it's absolutely ridiculous.

Absolutely. It's a judge that's putting himself in the position of the president of the United States who was elected by close to 80 million votes. And you have that. You're having more and more of that. It's a very dangerous thing for our country. And I would suspect that we're going to have to get a decision from the Supreme Court. That's a very dangerous decision for our country.

These are people, in many cases, they don't show up for work. Nobody even knows if they exist. These are people in many cases, they don't show up for work. Nobody even knows if they exist. And a judge wants us to pay them even if they don't know they exist and they exist. I don't think that's going to be happening. So listen, the entire these are fake workers thing, as is of course the case. There are many different categories of things when it comes to worker problems. Are there people who are real people? They are alive. They are employed by a

company or organization. They work from home. And you wonder how much work are they really doing? Fine. That's, that's one category of problem. You then have, do, do any of these people really exist? And this is the idea that the federal government has people on its payroll who either never existed and it's just someone, someone has done what, right? That's the thing. Someone's figured out a way to get someone who doesn't exist name on government payroll. And they've also created a bank account to get money direct deposited. If that exists, it of course should be eliminated. The idea that 83,000 VA workers fall into that category and that's the number of workers the VA needs to get rid of.

Just ridiculous. Same thing applies to social security. The claims about dead people getting checks. Social Security Administration has now put out a statement saying we, you know, we look at about three million deaths a year. We know the number of people generally that die in the United States. We get an appropriate number of reports. These are handled.

These are processed. Mistakes occur in less than one third of one percent of these handled. These are processed mistakes occur in less than one third of 1% of these. And they are quickly corrected the whole, there's just 300 year old people getting, getting money, 300 year old person, but they even have a bank account. Like it just, it doesn't pass the sniff test and Trump likes to lump it all together. It's all, we're just finding all the fraud and getting rid of all of it. Finally, Trump asked about the alien enemies act and that it's really only used during times of war. And Trump goes, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, we're at war.

The alien enemies act has only been in both three other times. They were all during times of war. Do you feel that you're using it appropriately right now? This is a time of war because Biden allowed millions of people, many of them criminals, many of them at the highest level. They emptied jails out. Other nations emptied their jails into the United States. That's an invasion. And these are criminals, many, many criminals, murderers, drug dealers at the highest level, drug lords, people from mental institutions. That's an invasion. They invaded our country. So this isn't in that sense. This is the self-fulfilling sort of endless loop. Hey, um, this legal framework, the alien enemies act has only been invoked during times of war. Trump's answer is to say, I consider this, that we are at war. We have a national emergency at the Southern border.

As far as I'm concerned, we are at war and therefore it is appropriate. Of course, it is not actually the case that just because you say we're at war, we are at war and all of the legal ramifications that that has to come with it. But what you really got to understand, if you look at these clips on Twitter, on Twitter, um, we see these as Trump not understanding anything. He's confused. He's disoriented. He, you can even tell when he's listening to the questions, he seems confused. Like, what am I going to say? I'll just come up with something. If you look at the comments on Twitter, which is a right-wing echo chamber at this point below these clips, people are enamored with this stuff. They go, he's so strong. That's

right. He, we are at war and we're at war against them emptying the mental asylums into the country and these things that aren't happening. His followers love this stuff, love this stuff. And this gets to something we're going to talk about tomorrow, which is not only have we lost a shared basis for what the facts are, we've lost a shared basis for what constitutes a problem. And I know that that might be sort of cryptic. I don't want to do this segment now because it's planned for tomorrow. But we're going to talk about agreeing on facts and agreeing on problems as a prerequisite for really achieving anything politically in this country. We are going to discuss the deportations to Venezuela and El Salvador, despite the court

order that Trump was asked about there on tomorrow's on today's bonus show. We are also going to talk about Republicans pushing to make Trump derangement syndrome a mental illness. And then finally, as enrollment in online colleges grow, students are wondering why does it cost more? It really shouldn't, right? What's going on with the cost of online college, all of those stories and more on today's bonus show, sign up at join pacman.com use the coupon code, not again to get a discount. And we are just eight days from the release of my book, the echo Machine. You know, we're so close to its release and I've been told books will start going out

actually before or by this weekend. You're essentially ordering a book that's like out now. You won't get it tomorrow. OK, but these are starting to ship out within days. Order it anywhere books are sold. Kindle, audio book, whatever you want. And remember that there's just a couple hundred signed copies left at David Pakman dot com slash booksmith. I'll see you on the bonus show.