The David Pakman Show - 3/25/25: Free speech under massive attack, Tesla enters collapse spiral

Episode Date: March 25, 2025

-- On the Show: -- Donald Trump's national security team accidentally texts war plans to The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg in the biggest national security breach in a very long time -- Donald Trump admits he has no idea what is going on in his administration -- Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth starts the coverup over the national security disaster that results in The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg receiving administration war plans via text message -- Donald Trump melts down in a failed cabinet meeting, forgetting Usha Vance's name and generally making little to no sense -- The official Trump administration rapid response account, as well as Charlie Kirk, post clips attacking Kathy Hochul's appearance on The David Pakman Show -- Tesla sales continue to decline in Europe as Tesla's self-driving software trial is halted in China -- Donald Trump announces a terrifying, chilling assault on free speech based on the monitoring of social media posts -- A shocking and disturbing interview reminds us why Donald Trump won -- Donald Trump loses it over an ugly portrait of himself -- On the Bonus Show: The latest on Trump's legal cases, US Postal Service head resigns, Trump appoints Alina Habba to DOJ job, and much more... ✏️ Outschool: Use code PAKMAN for up to $20 OFF at https://outschool.com/pakman 🩳 SHEATH Underwear: Code PAKMAN for 20% OFF at https://sheathunderwear.com/pakman 🛌 Helix Sleep mattresses: Get 20% OFF sitewide at https://helixsleep.com/pakman  ⚠️ Ground News: Get 40% OFF their unlimited access Vantage plan at https://ground.news/pakman 💻 Sponsored by Aura: Try it free for 2 weeks! See if your data is safe at https://aura.com/pakman 🛡️ Incogni lets you control your personal data! Get 60% off their annual plan: http://incogni.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 to the show everybody. My book is out today. Thank you to everyone who has ordered it and it couldn't come out at a more dystopian and disgusting moment. One of the biggest national security failures in terms of American information security in a very long time. They texted a journalist war plans and now the coverup has started. Heads should roll. And it is an unbelievable story, except it's not unbelievable because when you use a perverted form of DEI where qualifications don't matter, but loyalty to Trump does to pick your cabinet, when you use a disgusting, uh, reverse affirmative action to say, I will look at Fox news and pick people who are nice to me to be my secretary of defense, director of national intelligence, et cetera. This is what happens. American war planning usually takes place in highly secure facilities.

The Trump administration planned its strikes on the Houthis in Yemen using a group chat and included the Atlantic's editor, Jeffrey Goldberg in the chat. They accidentally texted the war plan to a journalist because operational security and information security, it's for suckers and losers. And it's only bad when it's Hillary Clinton that uses them. So of course, this is a disgusting display of stunning incompetence from this administration. That's a very high bar by the way from this administration. And we now found out that on March 15th before anything public was known about it, the Atlantic's

Jeffrey Goldberg received a signal message. Who was the message from? It was with Pete Hegseth, the guy that Trump made secretary of state because he was able to shout nonsense about how great Trump is on Fox News. What did the message contain? The actual military strike plan for Yemen, weapons, timing, targets, everything. Because, of course, nothing says reestablishing deterrence like dropping your war strategy into a journalist's inbox like it's a lunch order. A couple bombs here and a ham and cheese for me. This was not a fluke group chat. This was a group chat that

included the vice president, J.D. Vance, Tulsi Gabbard, the DNI secretary of state, Marco Rubio, Stephen Miller, John Ratcliffe. Apparently nobody noticed they included the editor in chief of the Atlantic. Goldberg first assumed it was fake. He thought I'm being pranked. It's disinformation. But then the bombs started falling exactly when the text messages said that they would. And after the administration confirmed it was all real, the messages are real and they are now launching the cover up where they both deny the truth of the reporting while at the same time saying if it's true, it's no big deal. This is a classic authoritarian tactic. It's not true. And also, if true, not a big deal. And the people reporting on it are really the problem. Shrugging it off in this way may be viable, except for the part where detailed real time

military strike plans were shared to a civilian. Now you might, if you want to see something that aged very poorly, it aged like salmon sashimi left out in the sun. OK, actually, I wonder if that would kind of make like a salmon jerky or something. I don't know. Here is Pete Hegseth just three days ago. Remember what he said under the previous administration? We looked like fools. Not anymore. President Trump has reestablished American leadership. The F-47 is part of it. And Mr. President, thank you for having the courage to do it and leading the way for all our warfighters. Well, unfortunately, we really look like damn fools. At minimum, Pete Hegseth should resign. Walt should resign. But here is where it starts to really become total parody. It's as usual,

every allegation is a confession because Trump spent years screaming and shouting about lock her up over Hillary Clinton's private email server. They made it the centerpiece of this sort of moral crusade. And now they're out here coordinating real time military operations on signal on their phones in violation of multiple federal records laws and potentially even, this is so crazy that we're still figuring out the legal implications, but potentially also in violation of the espionage act. And these are the folks that say deep state, anyone, anytime someone sneezes in the direction of protocol, but when it's using a burner app to leak war plans to a reporter by mistake, it's thoughtful policy coordination.

We'll talk about the coverup in a moment. Now the, the content was also very much kind of cartoonishly on brand. JD Vance was whining in the chat about helping Europe. Stephen Miller was talking in the chat about extracting economic benefit from our allies like some kind of loyalty tax. Hegseth was signing off with we are clean on OPSEC operational security while they were texting a journalist without even realizing it. These are the people in charge. This is the gang that wants more and more time in power. And they showed us how casually they

play with national security. This is not just reckless. It might be lawless. It's dangerously unfit. And when we said at the very beginning, Hegseth doesn't really have experience with any of this stuff. It's a very weird affirmative action based on sucking up to Trump. Tulsi Gabbard has no business being in any role that relates to national security. If anything, she's a national security risk. We later found out she would be unlikely to even be able to pass an FBI background check if had had she been subjected to one. Of course we were right. And I don't say that as a good, good boy, David, you got it right.

I say it as it was so obvious that these people have no, uh, no qualification whatsoever to be involved in, uh, operations and, um, sensitive areas of this magnitude. You all saw it. All of you were emailing me saying, David, am I crazy or are these the last people you should buy? No, you're not crazy. You're not crazy. The crazy thing is putting these people in charge and then just you wait until you see

Donald Trump's reaction to this. We have another situation where either Trump is lying or Trump is incompetent and I will leave it to you to decide. Donald Trump was asked about one of the greatest breaches in informational and national security that I can remember in an administration, the inclusion in a text thread about war plans of the Atlantic's editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg. Trump got asked about it at an event he did yesterday. This was hours after the story broke and Trump goes, I have no idea what this is about. I just, I haven't heard a thing about it. There are two possibilities here. Number one,

Trump is lying and he was making the calculated prediction that this wouldn't blow up and become a bigger story. And maybe he could get out of even having to answer for it. Or Donald Trump genuinely doesn't know what's going on in his administration. Now, what makes it a really difficult choice is that Trump lies all the time. And also Donald Trump seems to be increasingly a mere figurehead in his own administration. So it's genuinely difficult to decipher which of the two it is. Let's take a look at the reaction to the story. The Atlantic that said that some of your top officials and aides have been discussing very sensitive material through signal and included in Atlantic report for that.

What is your response to that? And I don't know anything about it. I'm not a big fan of the Atlantic. It's to me, it's a magazine that's going out of business. I think it's not much of a magazine, but I know nothing about it. You're saying that they had what? They were using Signal to coordinate on. Trump doesn't know what Signal is. Sensitive materials. Having to do with what? Having to do with what? What were they talking about? The hoodies.

You mean the attack on the hoodies? Well, it couldn't have been very effective because the attack was very effective. I can tell you that. I don't know anything about it. You're telling me about it for the first time. You're telling me about it for the first time, Trump says there. Sorry, I paused at the wrong moment. Their go to Trump's reflex is attack the media outlet, attack the media outlet. And of course, by this point, officials in Trump's administration had already confirmed

that the story is accurate. Now, is it possible that Donald Trump genuinely knows nothing about it or didn't know anything about it at the time? It is possible. I don't really know that Trump is doing anything or running anything at this point in time. The amount of golf he's playing and the number of sporting events that he's attending make it very clear that he is not spending a lot of time being president and he seems not really interested in being president. So it's completely conceivable that Trump has lost control and has no idea what's

happening in his administration. It's also possible because Trump does it all the time when he doesn't want to address something. He just goes, I'm hearing about it for the first time. I don't know. I don't know a thing about it. I don't know a thing about it, but the instinct to attack the media, he hears the Atlantic. He goes, the Atlantic's no good discredited. It's bad. That becomes the problem. Trump was also asked during this event about the new targeting of law firms by his administration's department of justice. And Trump says they've done bad things and we are going to, uh, have to do what we're doing. And it is part of the growing, chilling authoritarian attack on lawyers and on the media and a free press and protesters. It's checking all the boxes of the authoritarian

nightmare that Trump wants this country to become. Let's play the clip. Your message to the big corporate clients of the big law firms that you've targeted with your executive orders. Do you want those big corporate clients to find new lawyers? I just think that the law firms have to behave themselves. And we've proven that we have others that want to make a settlement. Also, they having to do with the election and other things, they behave very badly, very wrongly. And I appreciate the one, you know, these are the biggest firms. And they all came back realizing that they did wrong. And that's why they're doing this. So I just think they have to behave. We have to straighten out our country. We have to straighten out our elections. Our elections are very dishonest, very corrupt, and we have to straighten it out. And so easy to do it. And we

should go to paper ballots. Now Trump goes into election disinformation. Here's what I want to sort of propose to you. When an elected official is hostile to seems afraid of wants to attack courts, law firms, media outlets. These are signs that he wants to be a dictator. I'm not hyperbolically saying we are now a dictatorship. What I'm saying is that when your choices for who you attack, and by the way, I would add to lawyers, courts and media outlets adversarial to you, I would add traditional Western liberal democracies that are our historical allies. They become a target.

And then on the other hand, who do you seem most adoring of? Who do you seem to be the biggest fan of? I don't even need to tell you. It's like a broken record. It's the Putin's, et cetera, of the world. These are very bad signs, very bad signs. Those who respect respect democracy. And I'm I don't want to romanticize George W. Bush every time I say something about George W. Bush that's not uniquely negative. People write in, they go, David, you're you're wearing rose colored glasses and looking back. I'm not normalizing or defending anything Bush did, but there was no point where Bush expressed a hostility towards a free press or the courts. Right.

He would try to use the courts to his advantage, but he always respected the decisions of courts. He didn't try to go around that. There was a lot of shady stuff that he did. But ultimately, the rule of law remained in that sense. When it came to a free press, Bush said, I don't like a lot of this stuff. It'd be easier without a free press. It'd be easier if I was a dictator, Bush said. But there was not this amount of hostility. So Bush was bad. But this is an authoritarian nightmare. Finally, Trump getting a little worked up refers to Steve Scalise as

skeeve. I kind of like that. Doing all right, Steve. I tell you, he went through a lot and he's stronger than ever. Louie, Stevie, Steve. Yes. So Donald Trump, is he actually in charge of anything? I don't know at this point. The cover up has started and the meltdowns have begun after one of the greatest national security and informational security failures that I can remember. Really the by far the biggest one I've ever covered. The inclusion in a signal text thread of a journalist with regard to war plans in Yemen.

This had already been confirmed, but Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, wouldn't confirm it, attacks the source and spits out a word salad, the likes of which we've sadly come to expect from these people. But a word salad not apropos of any serious person, certainly not of a cabinet member. Listen to Pete. One question. Can you share how your information about war plans against the Houthis in Yemen was shared with a journalist in the Atlantic? And were those details? First thing is he laughs. Then you'll notice he makes no eye contact. So you're talking about a deceitful and highly discredited so-called journalist who's attacks the press made a profession of peddling hoaxes time and time again to include the, I don't know,

the hoaxes of Russia, Russia, Russia, or the fine people on both sides, hoax or suckers and losers hoax. So this talk about other things. This is textbook, textbook disinformation. The guy that pedals in garbage. This is what he does. I would love to comment on the Houthi campaign because of the skill and courage of our troops. I've monitored it very closely from the beginning. And you see, we've been managing four years of deferred maintenance under the Trump administration. Our troops are.

Talk about completely unrelated things. We're getting shot at as targets. Our ships couldn't sail through. And when they did shoot back, it was one question. Can you. All right. It's it's actually depressing. You know, the story had already been confirmed at this point and he just won't stop. He just won't stop. It's the same thing as when the stories broke about his drinking, his affairs, sexual assault, his behavior at strip clubs, the financial mismanagement of his charities on and on and on. It's always this exact thing. Don't look people in the eye. Talk about other things. use technicalities to try to avoid dealing with the substance of the question. And there is a greater aspect to this as now you will see the cover up begins.

Part of the reason why no one in the signal group said maybe we shouldn't be using signal for this is because they are using it so habitually. Let me put it a different way. If they had used proper means of communication leading up to this text thread about bombing Yemen and all of a sudden they start talking about it on signal, you would see someone in the chat say it might be a bad idea to talk about this on signal. The fact that no one brings that up and everybody is completely comfortable talking about this on signal is a confirmation that they are using signal all the time. This isn't the only time that they are doing this now, as is always the case. Look at their back background. Here is Pete Hegseth two years ago talking about how Biden handles classified information.

He seems happy to take the word of Biden's lawyers, which is why it does feel like it's so much different than what happened to Donald Trump. Well, look, unless the FBI is paying those personal attorneys, they shouldn't be taking anybody's word but their own investigators in the DOJ. I mean, that's their job. Unless they're on, unless they're, you know, getting paid. And if they are, that would be our money. So maybe we go deeper.

I don't think they are but what else would be the reason for why at this point you don't tap every place he's ever been since he left office as a senator 15 years ago since you know some of the latest documents date back to then why aren't you now going every place he's been and by the way who else has been with all those papers? Maybe you have a thousand places you need to go now, depending on how many hands touched them. Yeah, I mean, he is the president of the United States, which does create complications, but it also increases the urgency. If the top man in the job was to handle classified documents this flippantly for that long, why was that the case?

Was it really that he didn't know? Cause when you take something out of a skiff, if you're a Senator, you know exactly what you're doing. All right. Anyway, here is, here is Hegseth, uh, getting all sanctimonious and pretending like he's the arbiter of everything that is good with national security and informational security. And of course this has all fallen completely flat. Back to Pete Hegseth being asked questions about this stuff. He again says nobody texted

war plans. This was a lot. We're doing as we speak from the beginning, overwhelmingly details shared on signal. And how did you learn that a journalist was privy to the targets, the types of weapons used? I've heard I've heard I was characterized. Nobody was texting war plans. And that that is a lie. That it had been confirmed a lie at this point in time. He is lying to the American people. He should resign.

He should be fired. But what's going to happen? The cover up starts. The cover up starts with the usual suspects. Here is Dan Crenshaw, Republican Congressman Dan Crenshaw, saying, ah, we got to move on. I believe Pete Hegseth. I believe him. No one was texting war plans. Dan, it seems this was obviously a mistake. The guy was put on the chat. Your reaction and the threat here. Yeah, look, it's a mistake and we got to move on.

You know, if Secretary Huxeth says there was no classified information, I'll take him at his word until I see otherwise. You know, the texts that were published in the paper, obviously, it's not great. You don't want to be adding journalists to what is a sensitive conversation. But I didn't, you know, I didn't see anything that even came close to meeting the level of classified. But I also don't know. So if Mr. Hegseth is saying that, I'll take him at his word. Takes Hegseth at his word. And of course, I wonder if Dan Crenshaw would be so comfortable saying it's time to move on if it had been, I don't know, the Biden administration who included maybe Rachel Maddow in a text thread. Would they be so casually saying mistake?

Okay. But like everything's fine, more or less, everything's fine. It's just time to move on. This is the coverup that now begins. Here is Maga Mike Johnson, the speaker of the house saying what the real takeaway is. We were executing with precision. This is a classic. Instead of focusing in on the fact that they are using signal to talk about war plans and

they included a journalist in that erroneously, Mike Johnson goes in reading through those texts. It seems like our war machine is operating on all cylinders. What you did see though, I think was top level officials doing their their job, doing it well and executing on a on a plan with precision that mission was a success. No one was jeopardized because of it. We're grateful for that, but they will certainly, I'm sure, make sure that that doesn't happen. Yeah.

And of course, it is thanks to Jeffrey Goldberg. The reason nobody was jeopardized is because Jeffrey Goldberg said, hey, you know what? I shouldn't be in this thread. I'm going to remove myself from this thread and I'm not going to start writing and talking about this right now. They it's it's not through any good deeds of the Trump administration that it did not end up having the sorts of consequences.

Maga Mike Johnson is referring to. It's thanks to Jeffrey Goldberg, whose character they assail. Final thing on this, because there's a tweet for everything. Ten days ago, 10. This is not years ago. Ten days ago, director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, put out an excretion on X, pretty nasty excretion where she said, quote, any unauthorized release of classified information is a violation of the law and will be treated as such. Anyone with a shred of dignity and self-respect would resign here. They don't have any dignity and they certainly

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keep you dry. If you were ready to take underwear comfort to a new place, a place you didn't even Speaker 1 and The link is in the podcast notes as an independent progressive program. The David Pakman show depends directly on your support. The primary and most direct way of supporting what we do is simply to get a membership at join pacman.com. We do an extra show every day for our members. We provide commercial free audio and video streams of the show hours before they are made public to everybody else. You've also got access to a member soundboard that mirrors the one I have here, the bonus show where you want to make money. Everybody else that makes

money to fund themselves is bad. And you will also be invited to members only town hall events, all of those perks available with membership at join pacman.com as questions continue to grow about whether Donald Trump is in charge of anything or has any idea what's going on in his administration. He suffered a complete and total meltdown during another one of these farcical cabinet meetings yesterday in this one visibly forgetting Usha Vance's name using every word and phrase to try to refer to her other than her name. It really felt less like a cabinet meeting and more like a Mad Libs speed run for a guy who's very clearly not okay.

Take a listen to this. This is tough to listen to. Mr. President, um, Greenland is confused about the second lady and the national security This is toughliness, not provocation. We're dealing with a lot of people from Greenland that would like to see something happen with respect to their being properly protected and properly taken care of. They're calling us. We're not calling them. And we were invited over there. And I thought it would be a great I have great respect for the wife of our first of our great vice president. That lady, I think she's doing a she's a brilliant woman. She's a very nice woman. And she loves the concept of Greenland. And the concept Greenland's a concept. And so she's going there. And I think Marco is going there and some others are going there, but she, the very lovely woman who is married to the guy that I chose to be in that role that is sort

of like below mine that I'm in. So Trump can't remember Usha Vance's name. Fine. He kind of mumbles his way through his lovely, wonderful wife and then calls Greenland a concept, which is, it's funny because when he was asked, do you have a healthcare plan? He goes, Oh, I have concepts of a plan. And then now he says, well, Greenland is a concept. He is really stretching the meaning of that term.

And clearly he respects Usha Vance so much that he doesn't know her name. Trump then making the really strange announcement that soon they will be announcing cars. You saw what happened today with Venezuela. We did something with Venezuela, which is long in the making and it's very substantial and we'll be announcing cars very shortly. And we already announced steel, as you know, and he will be announcing cars and steel aluminum will be announcing pharmaceuticals at some point in the not to do this because we have to have pharmaceuticals. We don't make pharmaceuticals anymore in our country. And if we have problems like wars or anything else, we need steel. We need pharmaceuticals.

We need aluminum. We need a lot of these things that we sort of don't make anymore. And yet we're equipped to do it all. Yeah, this is all two weeks away. The announcement is forthcoming. It's just just out of reach. It's two weeks away. And then we're going to know all about it. Trump also said during this harebrained event that the country was riddled with fat.

I present it without further comments. We're doing it to help our country and our country was was riddled with fat. Yeah. Like no country, probably anywhere in the world. And we're getting rid of the fat. We're doing that is soon going to be gone, tells us Donald Trump. And if you thought that was kind of like rock bottom, uh, buckle up because Trump ended his so-called cabinet meeting by going full Elon Musk fanboy, threatening anyone who might wish to do harm to Tesla.

He wasn't doing this. He wouldn't have any of these difficulties. And I think it's getting less and less. Pam has done a great job with regard to all of the, you know what I mean? I know the kind of investigations that are going on. If she finds them, which she will, she already found four of them. But I think they're going to suffer very grave consequences because they're really terrorists. When you think about it, they're they're very terrorists at a high level. And I think the people that are financing them, they could very well be people I know, uh, people that you write about, but those people are in big trouble, so they better cut it out. But, uh, Elon's a, a Patriot. We want to thank you very much for the job you're doing. Thank you. Thank you. And if

only the people who attacked the Capitol were attacking Tesla showrooms, they would be real American heroes. Of course, no doubt about it. Trump then in a, in a bizarre moment beyond belief talks about all the fraud that Elon supposedly found. So it's a fraud. Yeah, it's a fraud. But we've had many fraudulent contracts that were caught by the work that Elon and his people are doing and working with our people.

It's been brought to light that the fraud, not just waste and abuse, the fraud has been incredible. You mentioned one, Madam Speaker. And of course, I hope that if all of this fraud is being uncovered, that very, very soon arrests will be made and people will be charged because fraud is a crime and I'm sure that they will be prosecuting that. Finally, Trump concludes the sort of kids version of a cabinet meeting by, uh, kissing Elon Musk's ass.

And uh, Oh, is this actually the, I don't, I hope that this is not the exact same. Let me go to the end cause you actually hear Elon in the background is the part of much for the job. Thank you. Thank you everybody. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Yeah. Eat. So that's, this is the clip where Elon's in the background talking about death threats that he's getting. All right. So listen, this is what I guess qualifies as a cabinet meeting in 2025 certainly doesn't resemble any cabinet meetings I've seen before, even from Trump's first term, which was already pretty bad, quite a departure. It is a, uh, you, one other detail about the cabinet meetings.

That's funny. There, some people come away thinking, oh, they let the press in for a moment, but like this isn't the meeting. This is just, they're talking to the press. No, no, this is the meeting. It's being reported that this is the, this is the full thing. The cabinet meeting is that it's Trump ranting and a couple of people getting a chance to say something really bad.

And if you are curious how things got to this point, I do recommend my book, The Echo Machine. It is out everywhere. Thousands of these are being dumped into people's homes, if you can imagine. And if you've gotten the book, please, please, please review it on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Goodreads. This will be critical for weeks two, three and four to keep the momentum going. Well, it finally happened. Donald Trump's official rapid response operation, the real one, the one run by his organization, has now decided that the things that happen on this show are worth paying attention to and are worth targeting. Hockel from a few days ago, they posted it to their account and acted like it was some

kind of self owned by the governor. They said, quote, Kathy Hockel confirms New York State Police will not cooperate with ICE to deport violent, criminal, illegal immigrants and says countries that do cooperate are renegade. Now, of course, that is not what Kathy Hochul says in the clip. She is talking about a broader cooperation to just sweep up people who are in the state of New York undocumented. And they consider this some kind of gotcha. Now, if that wasn't enough, after the Trump official rapid response Twitter account started focusing on this, Charlie Kirk, who's basically like the youth pastor of this entire

authoritarian movement, he picked it up as well and put out a very sick excretion on X where he said, quote, New York Governor Kathy Hochul confirms that New York State Police will not be cooperating with ICE, calling all counties that do renegade. It's almost like Democrats want to keep losing. So look at what they are doing here. I interviewed a sitting governor. Fine. We post it. They post a clip and present it as an indictment. There's no argument. There's no correction. There's no accuracy. There's no substance. It's just look at this. It is a scare tactic. It is saying we are seeing the line inching closer and closer one step at a time because first it was government critics within government and then it was government critics in academia

and then it was progressive members of Congress and corporate media and nonprofits. And now the line is going to independent media. I'm not going to pretend that this is the same as just going after me for something I said. I get that it's Kathy Hochul as an official, but the point is they are paying attention to shows like this one. Now they are paying attention to what elected officials say to me on this show.

And this is the creeping edge I've been talking about where authoritarian politics stop tolerating dissent and where when they start criminalizing disagreement and we're simply asking a question and then getting an answer becomes a threat to a regime that is here. And I'm telling you, it's not going to stop here. And I want to be objective. And on the one hand, why would I be neutral in the sense that this is creeping closer and closer to this studio?

Unquestionably so. On the other hand, I don't want to pretend as though tomorrow it's going to be all about David Pakman and Midas touch and Brian Tyler Cohen that they set their sights on, but they keep getting closer, not further away tomorrow. It's anybody who doesn't flatter Trump's ego. And that could be us or it could be Jeffrey Goldberg at the Atlantic or whoever it is. So I, uh, last night I appeared with a Midas touch. And one of the things that I think is going well, there, there's a lot not going well, right? Like when, when you lose the house, the Senate and the white house all in one fell swoop, and then ushered in is this disgusting authoritarian movement that knows no bounds

and cares about no norm. That is bad. That's depressing. It generates despondency, which we've seen on the other hand. And I said this to Ben, my cellist last night on my distatch and check out that interview. By the way, all my recent appearances, there's about a dozen of them. We're slowly putting them up on the press page on my website, David Pakman dot com slash press.

So I was on T.Y.T. last night. I was on with Midas Touch. You can check them out. One of the things that I said is if you look at the Bernie AOC, John Ossoff crowds of the last week and you see the degree to which we are building this progressive media ecosystem, I'm not being exclusionary, but like the, the, the bigger players right now certainly are Midas touch Brian Tyler Cohen, David Pakman show, and a whole bunch of others. It's hard not to feel as though something is

building here, something significant. And so that's where I'm choosing to kind of put my optimism. There are plenty of reasons to be pessimistic, but there are some to be optimistic as well. One of the things I learned during my recent trip to Europe is that if I am on the wrong mattress for me, it's much harder to sleep. Well, Helix sleep, our sponsor has a two minute quiz that will ask about your height and weight position. You like to sleep in, whether you have back pain, whether you tend to feel hot or cold at night, and then you get matched with the mattress best suited for you. I was matched by Helix with their midnight mattress model.

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of your old mattress for you. If you want Helix is giving my audience 20% off site-wide at Helix sleep.com slash Pacman. That's H E L I X sleep.com slash Pacman. The link is in the podcast notes. Another day, another Tesla story. What is going on with this company? Well, if you go to ground dot news slash Pacman, you will see how some outlets are covering Tesla and Elon Musk compared to others. The story really is one story, but the way it's told really can change your perspective. And this is the exact problem that our partners at ground news help to solve. Ground news is the only site that shows you how political bias and financial incentives and even blind spots shape the narratives in the news that you read.

Otherwise you're letting billionaires and political agendas shape everything from public opinion to policy. See every side of the news story, read the news from multiple perspectives and see through the media bias with reliable news from local and international sources. Go to ground dot news slash Pacman to get the same It's a great thing. It has been another disastrous week for Elon Musk's Tesla. As European Tesla sales have collapsed, Tesla's self-driving software trial in China has been halted and the protests continue. Yes, the stock has bounced back a little bit, but the company is in a full blown nosedive. Now, here's what's going on. Sales are collapsing. Public opinion has turned and the company's most hyped product, its so-called full

self-driving software, has just been halted in one of the biggest markets in the world. Now, the real story here is not about a business failure per se. This is a self-inflicted political disaster at its core, directly tied to Elon Musk's choice to align himself with Donald Trump, the Trump administration and Doge. Now, here's what's going on in Europe. Tesla's market share of electric vehicle sales has plummeted by 58 percent in the first two months of 2025. Not a typo.

OK, the company went from owning nearly one fifth of the market, close to 20% of EV sales in Europe down to just 7.7%. Now in the meantime, it's not because EV sales are shrinking. In fact, electric vehicle sales in Europe are up 26%. So this is not a shrinking pie. This is a growing pie of which Tesla is getting pushed out and has an increasingly smaller and smaller share. The reason why is a backlash against Elon Musk himself, in addition to a growing number of great options for electric vehicles in Europe and around the world. Now, of course, Elon Musk recently appeared at this far right rally in Germany in support of the extreme right alternative for Germany party, the AFD. And at the same time, Chinese automakers are just dominating. BYD is the world's largest EV maker, huge sales increases in Europe, up 94% in February alone.

And what this means is that Chinese brands and European brands are kind of feasting on this growing Evie market and Tesla is sinking. Now back here in the United States, protests against Tesla have erupted. As many of you know, we've covered it. It's been triggered by Elon Musk's prominent partnership with Donald Trump and his administration. Protesters are targeting Tesla stores and they're raising alarm about the company's role slashing federal programs, laying off government workers. The connection of course, being Elon Musk.

Now it goes without saying, but I'm going to say it again because I don't want to hear, uh, I don't want to hear about it again. David, how can you support the violence? I oppose all violence and criminality in so doing, uh, in, in so protesting Tesla, people should hurt Tesla at the cash register, not with crimes. Don't buy the cars, don't support the brand. But the point here is that the growing outrage really cannot be ignored. In Palm Beach County, a man drove into a crowd of anti-Tesla demonstrators, furious that people would have the gall to protest Tesla. Thankfully, no one was hurt. But this is a sign of how toxic Tesla's political associations have become.

Now, we add to all of this another problem, which is that Tesla's much hyped full self-driving software, which Elon Musk for a decade has been saying we are months away from it being totally ready for prime time. The self-driving software hit a snag in China. After launching a limited time free trial of the system, Tesla has suddenly paused the entire rollout, saying there is a regulatory approval problem because China's data laws don't allow Tesla to train its A.I. using local vehicle data. And that's really the foundation of the entire product. You need China data in order to properly train the software to function better in China. So this is not a minor hiccup. This is really like a technological brick wall.

Tesla has 2 million cars on the road in China. None of that driving data can be used to train the system. And the country's ministry of industry is now saying they need regulatory approval for all autonomous software updates. Tesla doesn't have it. So Tesla is being hit from all sides. Sales are down, global protests, halted technology. And this is self-inflicted. This is a self-inflicted story. It all ties back to one thing. Elon Musk's decision to politicize the company, to tie himself to one of the most divisive and arguably incompetent figures in modern history.

He could have focused on innovation and instead he chose Trump. He's hanging out at Mar-a-Lago, uh, the linking together utensils. I don't know if you saw that video from the weekend. And Tesla is now paying the price. So I don't support the destruction of property. I don't support the crimes or any of it. What I support is people using speech and remember that money is speech and not spending money. A certain place is speech. I support people peacefully protesting and encouraging others to act in the same way. It is speech to go and say, hey, you know what? You should really reconsider Tesla given what Elon Musk is up to. Here's 15 other EVs that are great alternatives. Now, it's sad to see. I'm getting some emails from Tesla fanboys going, Oh David, you're

soured on it. Yeah, I'm sorry. Don, I, I, I'm not someone who was ideologically opposed to Tesla. Tesla over the last decade has advanced electric vehicle battery technology dramatically. It is thanks to Tesla saying, Hey, we've got a 300 mile range vehicle that just about every legacy automaker has now come to the table. Ford, Audi, everybody, and is putting together electric vehicles. There's no doubt about that.

I did sour. I used to drive a Tesla. I used to be a Tesla investor. And because we have a capitalist free market system here, at least when it comes to vehicles, sort of. I mean, of course, we have the subsidies. And OK, but the point here is I have decided to vote with my dollars. I no longer have a Tesla. I have a Rivian. The CEO, as far as I know, isn't a fascist. The vehicle, in my opinion, is better built. The range is 410. I think it's better. And now I'm evangelizing for that. That's

right. It's called capitalism. It's called the free market. Tesla's paying the price. I think it's better. And now I'm evangelizing for that. That's right. It's called capitalism. It's called the free market. Tesla's paying the price. I encourage others to legally use their speech to advocate for what they believe is right. That's what I'm doing. Donald Trump's new plan is so Orwellian and this time Orwellian is the right term. It is hard to believe that it is not a parody. Trump has announced a terrifying assault on free speech. The government wants to read your social media, not if you're applying to come to the country, but if you're already here legally, this is not just surveillance. This is a political weapon and it is happening right now. So here's the latest stunning move.

What the Trump administration is now pushing is a new policy that would force immigrants who are already here legally in the United States. We're talking about people applying for green cards, seeking asylum, people here legally to hand over their social media accounts to be scrutinized by Trump's administration. So this is not about border control. This is about punishing dissent. It's the reason I wouldn't go to North Korea or Russia. Now, I know it's plausible that if I went to Russia, I'd be fine. North Korea, I'm not so sure. But my more than a decade of posting and talking about certain regimes makes me cautious about stepping into North Korea or Russia for fear that it might be weaponized

against me. That's something many of us say. Yes, it happens in North Korea. Yes, it happens in Russia. But what Trump is saying is that it's going to start happening here in the United States. Now, if you ask Trump's team about it, they say, oh, this is all for national security purposes. They cite an executive order called protecting the United States from foreign terrorists. But practically speaking, it is a digital dragnet. It's pulling in tweets and excretions from X posts, profiles of people who have already passed a background check, who followed the law. And it's important to remind ourselves that this is not new in terms of the hostility to free speech when it's inconvenient. When I have said before, believe people when they tell you what they're going to do, maybe

they'll fail to do it, but believe them when they say, this is what I'm going to try to do. Uh, our friend Luke Beasley posted a video today in response to Trump's crackdown on free speech. Does, does this, does this track record from Trump? Remember these clips? Does this sound like a guy who respects free speech? Not to me,

but you tell me. If we don't have free speech, then we just don't have a free country. MSNBC, which is a threat to democracy, actually. CNN and MSDNC, they're really corrupt and they're illegal. Criminals back there, the press, look at them, look at how many of them. And these newspapers are really no different than a highly paid political operative. It has to be illegal. To get me, somebody would have to shoot through the fake news. And I don't mind that so much. MSNBC is, I think, probably worse. And they're both doing horribly in the ratings. I think they're going to be turned off. Who are you with? Who are you with? NBC. Oh, no wonder. That's enough's NBC. I don't want I don't want to talk to NBC anymore. I think you're so discredited. Are you patriotic? Because what is being patriotic if not the First Amendment?

Right. Right. And so can we really be shocked that they are doing this now? Now, of course, civil rights groups are sounding the alarm, warning that this would be extraordinarily chilling when it comes to free expression. Public comments submitted to US Citizenship and Immigration Services are saying that this is a violation of the First Amendment and they're not wrong. This is about intimidation. This is not about security. And this is also not happening in isolation because at the same time we are hearing that

the IRS is reportedly preparing to share private tax data with ice to try to track certain people down. This is all an unprecedented breach of taxpayer privacy. So the Trump administration isn't just going after undocumented immigrants anymore. It's going after legal residents. It's going after visa holders, green card applicants, people who live here and work here and pay taxes here. And they are being told, if you want to stay in this country, we get access to your social media and that means all of it. This is not about protecting the country.

This is about silencing critics. It's about weaponizing immigration policy to suppress political speech. So the war on immigrants is no longer just about walls and deportations. It now includes surveillance and censorship and fear. And the worst part is that if this policy succeeds, it's not going to stop with immigrants and the natural next step. And I really don't I'm doing everything I can not to be hyperbolic. And I don't want to skip right to the end. But if we're told this is going to be all of everything we're doing will be about so-called criminal illegals, people who are here illegally, but they've done more. They are accused of a serious crime. I've

been convicted. That's where it started. Then it went to, well, we're going to go beyond that. And it's just going to be anybody who's here undocumented. And then it's going to go beyond that. It's going to be, well, what if you're here, but on a green card or legally on a visa and awaiting a status change that you've applied for? Now it's expanding to that. The natural progression is that the social media surveillance and crackdowns go beyond that. And the natural next step is going to be non-immigrants, just natural born Americans, not trying to be hyperbolic,

but trying to be realistic. It continues expanding. Why wouldn't we fear that it will expand further? Let me know what you expect. Info at David Pakman dot com. Let's take a quick break. So much to talk about today. The David Pakman shows finances have gotten hacked before. I've talked about it on the show. The hacker stole a bunch of money. It was not a good feeling. I worry a lot less now that I use aura. Our sponsor aura gives me peace of mind by providing some critical layers of security.

They continuously monitor the dark web and let me know if information's been exposed, logins, social security numbers, et cetera. They tell me quickly if anybody tries to use that information to access credit or bank accounts. And Dora also gives me up to $5 million in identity theft insurance. Should the worst case scenario happen. And Dora also helps me stay safe from getting hacked in the first place with their award-winning anti-malware software, which I can use on all of my devices. And aura has parental controls for kids devices to restrict apps or manage screen time, set focus time. A lot of these things all packaged together in a super easy to use format. Try aura free for two weeks at aura.com slash Pacman. It only takes a few

seconds using the free trial to see if your usernames and passwords are already on the dark web. That's a U R a. Did you know that countless commercial databases and people search sites are storing your personal information? Anyone from an employer to a former partner can use these platforms to get details about your online presence, your home address, phone number, email, license plate, family members, financial information, even political views. Europe has laws that offer some protection. But in the U.S., the data is widely accessible. Even the FBI will buy this information from companies to spy on people without a search warrant. Our sponsor, Incogni, provides a solution. It takes just seconds to sign up and Incogni will send removal requests to all of the 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. and I dot com slash Pacman for a huge 60 percent discount. The link is in the podcast notes. I have a shocking video for you that is a disturbing reminder of why Donald Trump won interview here from Liberty Hangout dot TV. College students being asked some questions. OK, let's just take a listen to this. Who did the colonists fight in the Revolutionary War? Oh, in the Revolutionary War. Oh, I don't know if this is right. I mean, it sounds so stupid. Was it the Spanish? The United States bravely becoming independent from Spain

in. Oh, and what was the year? Was it the twelve hundreds or something? No, this is disturbing stuff. Listen, wait, what are your majors? Business, biology, elementary education. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, boy. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, boy. What shape is the U.S. Pentagon building? The Pentagon. What shape is the Pentagon? Great question. Isn't it just a square? How many U.S. senators are there? How many amendments are in the Bill of Rights there's a lot um i know i know 17 who won the civil war oh shoot it's east or west right oh dear god the next generation of leaders that we are told is leaning right

well it's the civil war so it's the civilians versus whoever was in power. How many justices are on the Supreme Court? Justices. So like when you say that, you mean like the FBI? Right. The on the Supreme Court, you've got a couple of sheriffs, the FBI, NSA and then Pam Bondi. Who is on the $100 bill? Abraham Lincoln. That's the First Amendment. What's the second? Right to vote. Name three states that border Canada. We'll just do one per person. Asia. I didn't know Canada had a border. Oh, dear God. Oh, dear God.

So listen, I am. It's not lost on me that asking spring breaking college students. Basic questions. Maybe is not. It's sort of shooting fish in a barrel in a sense. Like, I get it. Okay. But one of the things that we have to sort of acknowledge, and we don't even know if these are Trump voters, right? This is not a part. It's not like, Oh, these are Trump voters. The, what we have to

acknowledge is that there's a broader issue here, which is a chapter in my book. there is a framework of critical thinking, basic knowledge, media literacy, and sort of like being able to answer, why do I believe the things I believe there's this basic undergirding, a foundation of sorts that is missing in the United States. And in a way it's being celebrated that it's missing the anti and pseudo intellectual intellectualism, really more anti in this case is a growing movement where we side a little bit under George W. Bush. But it has just been put on steroids under Donald Trump and this idea that we are proudly ignorant and it's funny not to know stuff. And so it actually doesn't matter for the point I make in the book that these people

may have voted Trump or not. Like it doesn't matter who they voted for. The point is, are you more likely to fall for the idea that cutting taxes on the rich is good for everybody. If you are generally informed about how the world works and how to think for yourself, or if you are generally uninformed. And I think that it's the answer is very clear. If you go to someone who is as clueless as these people and you go, hey, cutting taxes for the rich is great for everybody because when the rich do better, the money trickles down.

It has a sort of poetic appeal, simplistic appeal. And if you're clueless in general, you might go, that's right, it does. We should cut taxes for the rich because it'll trickle down to everybody. Only if you were more informed, only if you are more educated, only if there is sort of pride in being able to think for yourself and knowing some stuff, would you be able to say, hey, it sounds kind of cool. A rising tide lifts all boats. Taxes for the rich trickle down. But I know that it doesn't work that way because the rich don't really need more money. Their marginal propensity to consume is very low. And for the most part, if you give the rich don't really need more money. Their marginal propensity to consume

is very low. And for the most part, if you give the rich a tax cut, they just put the money in their bank account. That's that. That's all they do. It doesn't trickle down. They don't spend it. So the idea here is not, oh, this dude or that girl or whoever voted this way or that way. And the you can find ignorant people who voted all sorts of different ways. But at a societal level, the less informed the population is, the less able they are to discern and and sort of think through media messages. And am I even am I looking at an opinion piece or a reporting piece that primes the population to fall for the stuff that is disproportionately offered by the right wing.

If this topic is interesting to you, consider getting my book, the echo machine out today. These are shipping out signed copies still available at David Pakman dot com slash book Smith. I deal with this topic in the book significantly, and I encourage you to review the book once you've received it. Donald Trump posted something to truth social, so insane that I had to double and triple check to make sure that it was real. And it is, I wasn't even going to cover it, but it fits so perfectly into this discussion of how, while on policy, we're failing on healthcare, we're failing on economics, we're failing on education, we're failing in climate, we're failing in

foreign policy and alliances, we're failing everywhere. And what is the president of the United States focused on and what are the people around the president focused on vanity? Donald Trump posted the truth, social furious about a portrait of him that he doesn't like Trump posting quote, nobody likes a bad picture painting of themselves, but the one in Colorado in the state Capitol put up by the governor along with all other presidents was purposely purposefully distorted to a level that even I perhaps have never seen before. The artist, although did also did President Obama and he looks wonderful, but the one on me

is truly the worst. She must have lost her talent as she got older. In any event, I would much prefer not having a picture than having this one. But many people from Colorado have called and written to complain. In fact, they are actually angry about it. I am speaking on their behalf to the radical left governor, Jared Polis, who is extremely weak on crime in America with, in particular, with respect to the end, the Aragua, which practically took over Aurora. Don't worry. We saved it to take it down. Jared should be ashamed of himself. This is what Neil Postman alluded to when he wrote amusing ourselves to death. This is the presidency becoming a vanity project, which it already was for Trump. And Trump followed this up. This is the president of the United States, like it or not. He's the president and Trump followed this up. This is the president of the United States.

Like it or not, he's the president. Trump followed it up by posting what I guess he considers to be better portraits of himself one after the other to show there are good portraits of him in maybe the most vain activity a president could participate in while he is launching new military conflicts and failing to deliver on just about every promise he made during the campaign. This is what I'm talking about when I say empires fail slowly. It's this sort of stuff which does nothing for any of the millions, tens of millions of people who could benefit from a competent president.

This is what we are dealing with.