The David Pakman Show - 3/6/25: Inflation and job losses starting, Fox & MAGA panic

Episode Date: March 6, 2025

-- On the Show: -- Bill Adair, Professor of Journalism and Public Policy at Duke University, founder of the fact-checking site PolitiFact, and author of the new book Beyond the Big Lie: The Epidemic of Political Lying, Why Republicans Do it More and How It Coudl Burn Down Our Democracy, joins David to discuss the book. Get the book: https://amzn.to/43p8tEd -- Ryleigh Cooper, a Trump voter, gets fired by Trump and Elon Musk after voting them into office -- Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick renames inflation to "higher prices" in the latest attempt to pretend there will not be inflation -- Fox News host Larry Kudlow, a former economic advisor to Donald Trump, says he is hearing February will end up with job losses in the latest sign of an economic downturn under Donald Trump -- Fox News host Maria Bartiromo panics as she has no choice but to admit that jobs numbers are worsening -- Donald Trump ejects another tonsil stone from his mouth while speaking to a global audience -- An absolutely nuclear mind-loss on Truth Social as Donald Trump cannot stop posting and antagonizing American allies -- On the Bonus Show: Producer Pat encounters "rude Americans" in Mexico, much more... 🥦 Lumen lets you master your metabolism. GET 20% OFF at https://lumen.me/pakman 💻 Sponsored by Aura: Try it free for 2 weeks! See if your data is safe at https://aura.com/pakman  ☕ Beam’s Dream hot cocoa: Use code PAKMAN for 40% OFF at https://shopbeam.com/pakman 💵 Sponsored by Ridge Wallet: Get up to 40% OFF at https://ridge.com/pakman 🩳 SHEATH Underwear: Code PAKMAN for 20% OFF at https://sheathunderwear.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. We start today with a Trump voter who has been fired by Donald Trump and Elon Musk's doge and it's really a cautionary tale about when the theoretical becomes reality. We talked a couple of weeks ago about a man who voted for Trump and then his wife was deported and then when his wife was deported, he said, I didn't think they were going to come for us, for the people who supported him. And of course the theoretical becomes very real when all of a sudden the ice officers are in your house, proverbially or literally in

that particular case. We now have learned about Riley Cooper, who CNN interviewed. We tried to find contact information for Riley. I would love to talk to her. We were not able to do it. Riley explained, I voted for Trump, meaning I voted for Trump to select Elon, which meant Elon got to do Doge and then Doge fired me. Let's take a listen and truly a cautionary tale.

Riley Cooper joins me now. Riley, welcome. Thank you for sharing your story. And I wonder, what was it like for you when you got the news that you were being let go? It was really hard. I was on the phone with my best friend, Kaylee, at the time, and we were just discussing her life and how things were going, and I looked at my phone, and I had gotten a text from our union rep, and he told me that I was going to be fired the next day. And I told her, I have to go. I'm getting fired tomorrow.

And my heart just sank. I'm so sorry this is happening and the frustration you must be feeling and perhaps anxiety about what's next. And, of course, we're hearing a lot about following the campaign and the elections about the mandate, the mandate that people wanted to see a streamlined government, that they want to be able to right size it in some way and rid of waste and fraud. That was not the motivating reason you were voting for President Trump. Does that impact the way you see any of this?

Yeah, it's hard from my perspective to approach the current administration with hope. An administration she voted for, remember. You know, I've been dealing with infertility now for about a year. I've had multiple surgeries in my life. So, you know, going into the voting booth, the main thing on my mind was the same thing I'd been thinking about for the past 11 months. And it was, you know, I want to be a mom. And women who have gone through that experience, that heartbreaking feeling of wanting something that you might never have, they understand how much of your time is taken up with those thoughts. Now, many of you might be saying, wait a second,

your main thing thing and this is not to criticize Riley, right? I mean, I'm very empathetic to Riley's situation, but we also have to be realistic about how do we actually start winning some elections here? How could it be? Because I know I'm aware and I know most of my audience is aware, if your main thing is I want to be a mom, infertility, IVF, women's bodily autonomy, certainly someone like Riley, I imagine could appreciate that in figuring out how to get to her goal of being a mom.

That's a conversation for her, her doctors and her family. How do you end up voting for a guy who wants to impose so much of his and his party's will and opinions on what should be happening behind the closed doors of medical offices? How do you end up even voting for Trump in the first place? Well, let's see if she can explain it and how overwhelming and lonely it can feel. So as someone who is more of a swing voter, you know, sometimes that's what it comes down to is those, those single issues, because when you step into the voting booth, you know, you're thinking of what's important to you and like the issues that are resonating with you in

that moment. And for me in that moment, like it took me a while and I made a decision that looking back, I'm not proud of, but it's, it's the reality of my situation now. Riley, do you now regret the way you voted for Trump? do feel regret and I've had a lot of tumultuous thoughts about that day in the election booth. You know, when you're voting on something that affects you so personally, you know, it's really easy to get tunnel vision, especially in a voting booth when you're staring at you have two options, right? I mean, it's not like you're given an endless amount of options to achieve your goals. And so afterwards, when I thought maybe this is my chance, you know, I also had to come to terms with the fact that I was likely going to be a part of, you know, taking chances away from other groups of people. And that's never sat well with me. I understand, sadly, you have been getting a lot of hate mail,

a lot of negative reaction for even speaking your mind about how you feel since being fired. Can you describe some of that? People online get very brave. You know, they can very easily say terrible things to you that they would never in a million years say to anyone's face. Isn't that the truth? I've had people tell me that, you know, they hope that I never have a child and I got exactly what I deserve. And as much as all the terrible comments have been coming through, I've also received an immense amount of support, especially from women who have gone through IVF, who struggle with infertility. It's unfortunately a large group of us out there who deal with this. And I hope that more light

comes to the issue of infertility. It's a terrible, lonely process. And I'm really glad that some people have reached out with, you know, understanding. Speaker 1 You know, this is the end of the interview. There's five seconds left. So much of this makes sense to me. And what I mean by that is Riley was a swing voter and it doesn't sound like her vote for Trump was a super strong vote in the sense that she was kind of back and forth. That I don't understand, given that the candidates were so different. But I'm not getting the impression that this is a sort of MAGA nut job.

She made a decision based, I guess, on the issue that was most important to her, which she says are these issues of of fertility and reproductive rights. What I don't understand is if that's your issue, how on earth was it a question whether you would vote for Harris or Trump? Now, I know that Trump nominally said I'm going to be the best on fertilization, which had this factor that can barely be put into words. Trump said that. But any relatively informed individual would know that on that issue, Trump's not the guy for you. The Republican Party of 2024 now 2025.

These are not the people for you. And I've talked before about how prior to my my daughter's birth, we had had some unexplained infertility that fortunately, in our situation, never led to any of the IVF or IUI or any of these things. But had it, there would be no question in my mind who is going to protect our ability to just decide what's best medically without the involvement of someone like Trump or someone equally creepy. There would be no doubt in my mind that if I was concerned about maintaining access to those sorts of things, Trump's the wrong guy.

So for me, the most stunning part of this is the informational gap where she knows what's most important to her. She's not a mega nut. She has now reacted to what she acknowledges was the wrong decision as far as voting. But how how as someone who Riley seems to have been paying attention, how do you go into the voting booth saying, given that this is my most important issue, I'm not totally clear on who I should be voting for. That's something that I don't have the answer to here. But if Democrats don't figure it out, they may never win again. And so we need to figure out what that answer is. Totally empathetic with

Riley's situation. And she's welcome any time on this show. And I would love to ask her these questions. They are going postmodern on us, renaming inflation, temporary price movements, higher prices but not inflation, adjustments to the market. We are now going to see those who attack the left's postmodernism where everything can be called whatever you want to call it and nothing has any fixed meaning, they are now going to participate in the very postmodernism that they claim to attack. I'll give you the first example.

We're going to have some others later. Howard Lutnick went on Fox News yesterday and said, no, no, no, we aren't starting to see inflation. We will see a period of higher prices, which you and I understand is inflation. Take a listen to this. And there is a lot to discuss here. Well, as the president said last night, there's going to be a short period of time where there'll be some higher prices on certain products. It's not inflation. That's nonsense. It's certain products for a short period of time. Products, some of them will cost more for a period of time. Well, that's what we

call inflation. Now, let me add an additional wrinkle to this. During the end of the Trump presidency, early in the Biden era, as inflation started coming down, still positive, right? Positive inflation, but lower rate. The MAGA people said we will never consider this issue dealt with until the raw and absolute price level goes back down. And as I've explained to you, that very rarely happens in growing Western liberal democratic economies. In order to see true price reduction, we are talking about deflation and deflation is relatively rare when the economy is humming along.

You tend to see price deflation if and only if the economy is in a decline, in a recession, in a depression. And their standard was that until you see absolute prices go back down below for a while, it was pre-COVID level pricing, which we're not going to see in this country unless we have a recession, the likes of which I mean, it would have to be worse than 2008 for sure. But now all of a sudden, Howard is saying, well, prices will go up on some stuff for a while, but that's certainly not inflation. I assure you, unless these people set off a recession or depression, the likes of which we've not seen in decades, we are not going to see absolute price levels go

down. But now they have a new definition. It's no longer called inflation. Now, I want to tell you one other way in which they are sort of dancing around the fact that the price level is starting to go up. We're starting to prepare potentially tomorrow for a negative jobs report. I'll talk about that later. The other thing they've come up with is inflation is when prices go up due to the value of money itself. And just because eggs are expensive, that doesn't mean it's

inflation. Now you might your head might be spinning right now and you're saying, David, what the hell are you talking about? Let me explain it in a different way. Some of these people, in order to claim we are not about to see inflation go up, they are saying if the if the actual price of stuff goes up because of, for example, the cost of inputs, right, if eggs go up in price because chickens are dying because of bird flu. That's not inflation. That's a price change. Inflation would be if things go up in price because of the devalued dollar from printing money or what.

And we're not doing that. As you, of course, understand, that's ridiculous and laughable. Inflation is inflation. When you look at the consumer price index, there are any number of reasons that the consumer price index might go up. It doesn't distinguish between, oh, the cost of inputs, what got more expensive versus we change in the value of the dollar. That's completely new.

And so I want you to think back to when these people spent years telling us, guys, you can't redefine whatever you want. You can't redef, guys, you can't redefine whatever you want. You can't redefine woman. You can't redefine inflation. You can't redefine peace. You post modern people that say anything can have any definition. You're wrong about that. And now all of a sudden the very same people are coming in and they're going, no, no, no, no, no. When stuff gets more expensive, it's not inflation. It's only inflation when it's based on currency devaluation. No, no, no, no, no. When stuff gets more expensive, it's not inflation. It's only inflation when it's based on currency devaluation. No, no, no, no, no. We call these price movements. No, this has nothing to these aren't job losses. These are strategic realignments. Thanks to Doge.

We are going to see the anti postmodernists who say everything has a fixed and unchanging singular definition come in and say everything has a new meaning at this point in time. We can't let them do it. We have to be prepared and understand that this is what they plan to do. Remember that you can get signed copies of my first and for now only nonfiction book, The Echo Machine, signed copies available exclusively from Brookline Booksmith at David Pakman dot com slash booksmith. Quick break back after this.

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It will end soon. That's all one word, all lowercase, no spaces. It will end soon, which you can use to discount any membership at join pacman.com. The United States has had 49 consecutive months of job creation. And yesterday, the rumors were that when the February numbers came in, we might see job losses for the first time in four years. And Larry Kudlow, Fox News host, former Trump economic adviser, on hearing about this, started to brace and say, we may be going through a period of bad news here. Let's take a look at the video.

Then we'll talk about the jobs numbers and what we are to expect going forward. Some very, very smart people are telling me that the jobs number that's coming out, the February jobs number that's coming out Friday could be flat, even negative. Brookie, the GDP now tracker from the Atlanta Fed is showing, I mean, for the first quarter, a minus two and a half or minus 2.8 percent. And we've had lousy numbers on things like housing and business investment. My generic point here with respect to affordability and the economy is we're going to have to suffer through some bad news. This has nothing to do with Trump. Trump's program's not in yet.

And I got people on the left who are blaming Trump. How can you blame Trump when he wasn't president, when these seeds were planted? Well let me tell you how you can blame Trump. A lot of what's going on are Doge related layoffs and other companies bracing to what they see going on and saying we are also going to do some layoffs. Layoff announcements soar to the highest since 2020 as Doge slashes federal staff. This is why the numbers do relate to Trump. And we need to be fair and only blame presidents for what they deserve blame for and not for that which they don't.

But the other side of the side of that coin is we should give presidents credit only for that which they deserve credit for and not for that which they don't. Let's listen to the last few seconds of this. Well, you couldn't be more right about that because we've only been here 30 plus days. You can't turn an entire economy around in 30 days. You apparently you can't bring the cost of goods down in 30 days. So listen, there's a lot to talk about here. And in fact, in the interview coming up with Bill Adair, we will talk about being objective when we when we do these things so that we don't fall into the same traps they fall into. Consider that Kudlow saying this is bad news we will have

to suffer through. That's a very significant shift from a year ago when Kudlow and his Fox News buddies were screaming that the economy under Biden was fake, that America was on the brink of collapse while we saw job growth record after record stock market all time high after all time high wage growth exceeding inflation month after month. That's what they were saying then. But now, less than two months after Trump takes over, the bad economy is just something we're going to have to endure. And it has nothing to do with Donald Trump. Now, if even Kudlow is predicting this, it's probably worse than he's letting on. Now, tomorrow we will get the actual jobs numbers. It's important to mention that the ADP numbers, which are an estimate, came in at 77000 new jobs rather than the hundred and forty thousand that were originally projected. So best case scenario, ADP's estimate is that job creation came in at 50 percent of what was originally predicted. That is a disaster. We will get the official numbers tomorrow and see how bad

it is. But the thing about Kudlow is that he's not just sounding an alarm. His entire job is pretending that things are on fire when they are fine. If it's a Democrat in the Oval Office and pretending that things are fine if they're increasingly being set on fire when it is a Republican in the Oval Office. And if Kudlow is admitting we could be looking at a negative job number, Trump's economy may already be falling off of a cliff. Another disastrous stock market day in the making right now as I am recording this. And yet, and this is the critical part, this is exactly what Trump said was not going to

happen. Trump told us that on day one he would turn things around. Hilariously, he does seem to have turned things around, but he said he would turn things around for the better. We were told we would see instant success. We would see booming jobs and a roaring GDP and they were going to save Christmas and you'll be able to say Merry Christmas again. And Kudlow bought into it. Kudlow said, this is this is such great pro growth stuff that you will see it immediately. And instead,

the numbers are tanking and Fox News is scrambling to soften the blow. They will just keep blaming Biden for it. Never mind that Trump came in and fired everyone remotely associated with Biden's federal government. And it turns out that in general, all of these government layoffs, they aren't good for economic growth. It turns out firing endless numbers of workers, picking unnecessary trade fights, creating economic uncertainty. This is not a good way to keep the economy strong. So get ready. If the numbers are bad, Fox is going to spin it. If the numbers are good, Trump's going to get credit. And if the numbers are really, really bad, well, then then they might try to blame it on Hunter Biden rather than Joe Biden. That's how low they're

going to go. So that's Larry Kudlow. Let's now see how other Fox new hosts are handling this. If you listen to Donald Trump, if you listened to Trump during the 2024 campaign, you would think that the moment he steps back into the oval office on January 20th, the white house will immediately cause the economy to boom. Gas prices would instantly go down. Inflation would be magically gone. Egg prices would go down. Jobs would be the best numbers in history.

That is the fantasy that Trump tried to sell us and succeeded in selling to his supporters during the campaign. They ate it up like it was being ladle fed to them. But now reality is setting in and the early jobs estimate from ADP is 77000 new jobs versus 140000 expected. As we already looked at, Larry Kudlow is being told the official jobs numbers tomorrow. Friday could actually see job losses for the first time in forty nine months. And Fox News is scrambling with what to do with it.

In comes Maria Bartiromo, one of the biggest brown nosing cheerleaders of Donald Trump that there is. And she was forced to acknowledge the ADP report is seventy seven thousand jobs versus the hundred and forty thousand estimate that we were expecting. And of course, she insists there is one man to blame for this, and it is Joe Biden. The group has been reporting and we just got the jobs numbers out. Congressman, the ADP number is crossing right now. Seventy seven thousand private sector jobs were added to the economy last month.

This is the lowest number of jobs added to the economy last month since July. This is the February ADP report. Now, obviously, this is not a result of President Trump's policies because this is a result of Joe Biden's economy that that, of course, Trump inherited. But how worried should we be that you've got the Atlanta Federal Reserve now expecting a contraction in the first quarter? And as you cut government spending, you're going to actually impact the jobs numbers. You've got the jobs numbers out at the end of the week here for the month of February. What's your take? Yeah, listen, what we're about is this America first agenda where we're going to be increasing the supply side, increasing production, limiting the imports, because as has been pointed out, we have a 360, 370 billion dollar deficit in exports versus imports. losing the trade game. We need to build more. We need more manufacturing. We need more work

being done within the US. And that does a number of things. Clearly, it increases jobs, Maria, but clearly it raises creates more taxpayers. It will it will raise revenue. It will increase supply side meeting. All right. So can someone tell me when Trump's policies start? When does it become Trump's fault if something bad happens? Now, let's take this seriously. I try to be fair when taking a look at economic data. Presidents just don't control everything. There is a lag with the effect of certain policy decisions and their impact. For example, Biden didn't magically tank nor save the economy in the first few months. Trump has not single handedly created, uh, the strongest job growth in us history coming out

of the pandemic. That was circumstance. That was their global recovery that was happening. But Trump and his allies don't play by those rules because if something good happens, Trump takes all the credit. And if something bad happens, it's Biden's fault or the feds fault or immigrants or the media. It is anyone's responsibility but Trump's. So the obvious question, which I would love for them to answer is on what date do Trump's policies take effect? After what date should we mark our calendars and say anything that happens after this period

of time will be Trump's fault. Because when Biden was in charge, Fox News and the GOP blamed him for every economic hiccup immediately. And yet now Donald Trump is back. The jobs numbers are slipping. Inflation starting to tick up. The tariffs are a fiasco. Stock markets just dropping like a rock. And now we need to be patient. So here's the problem for Trump. He made big promises. He told voters all of the things he was going to do and how quickly. And because he did that, we should at least hold him to that standard. We are now seeing the reality, fixing inflation, stabilizing markets, creating strong, sustainable job growth. You can't just put on a red hat and then it happens. Fox can try to spin it however they want and they are going to. But at some point, even Trump's most loyal supporters, I hope, will start to wonder.

He told us everything would instantly get better. It doesn't seem to have happened. Who is to blame for that and who has failed to actually stick to the promises that he made? We'll see if they actually hold them accountable. Sleep is one of the most important foundations for every aspect of health. If you are having trouble falling asleep or waking up too early beam dream powder may help beam dream is a calming, delicious hot cocoa with melatonin to help you unwind drift into restful sleep. Melatonin is well studied. It's a non-drug option proven to help you fall asleep faster

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sale. Get up to 40% off at ridge.com slash Pacman. After you purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about Ridge. Please show your support. Tell them I sent you. That's Ridge dot com slash Pacman for up to 40 percent off. The link is in the description. It's great to welcome to the program today, Bill Adair, the Knight professor of journalism and public policy at Duke University, also the founder of the fact checking site, PolitiFact and author of the book Beyond the Big Lie, the epidemic of political lying, why Republicans do it more and how it could burn down our democracy. Bill, there's so much in the book that I want to talk about, I think maybe as a place to start, you know what? I've had this

instinct that political lying has changed since you founded PolitiFact. And as I've explained before to my audience, not completely articulately, there is some kind of difference between, you know, making a very calculated statement about the change in the deficit over a particular period of time to make it seem like it's either gone up or down as politically advantageous with, you know, changing a hurricane map with a Sharpie, for example, something that seems much more empirically incorrect. Can you characterize in some way how political lying has changed over time? Yeah, great, great question, David. I think what's happened is the lies have gotten bigger and bolder and there's less friction for

them. So when I started PolitiFact in 2007, I would say that there was more reluctance on the part of politicians, particularly in the Republican Party, to lie. And I think when you called out politicians, even in the Republican Party, there was a sense of, oh, my gosh, you caught me. Yeah, we'll we'll fix it. I remember talking to elected officials back then and they would be like, oh, yeah, I'm sorry, we'll fix that. And they would issue a correction. They would acknowledge their mistake, whatever. happened, particularly with Donald Trump, is that it has emboldened a lot of politicians to just lie without any concern, that they realize they can get away with it. Their media, particularly on the right, the conservative media, looks the other way or even feeds the lies. Because as we saw in the Dominion voting case, that it pays off for an organization like Fox to repeat the lies because otherwise Fox lost its audience.

And so it's really troubling what's happened. And as I interviewed people for the book, it was, you know, things got worse and and it's quite discouraging to think back to the whole Haitian immigrants eating dogs thing. You know, they're eating the cats. They're eating the dogs, as Donald Trump would say. That was interesting in this context because initially the they sort of defended it as no, we do believe that that's true. You know, there was a picture of a black guy carrying two dead geese. And it was like that was actually not a Haitian migrant. It

was just a city employee in Ohio. And then they weren't talking about geese. They were talking about cats and dogs. But they tried to kind of defend it on the facts. And then when they couldn't do that, J.D. Vance kind of retreated to listen, we'll fabricate stories to get the media to pay attention to what we believe they should be paying attention to. And both explanations seem to be accepted by the people that at the time were supporting that campaign, which was if you give us some cover to continue claiming it's true, we'll go with that. If you can't defend it on the facts and you say, because everybody's against us, the media, this that we will then defend exaggerating or fabricating stories.

And it seems that that is an environment in which there is no downside to just making stuff up. It is there no downside in that sense? At this moment, I'm afraid there isn't. And I and I, I do in Beyond the Big Lie have some thoughts about how we can change this and we can talk about those. But at this moment, I'm afraid that there are an awful lot of enablers or at least people and media organizations that look the other way. And it's just amazing to me, David, like, how did this happen? How did journalism organizations that really are no longer journalism organizations, they're propagandists,

allow this to happen, to just pass along these falsehoods without any concern. And it's really troubling. Um, you know, you recounted exactly what happened in, in Ohio and, um, it's, uh, they were just shameless about it. And I I found the whole thing just day after day that it just got worse and worse and worse. And there there doesn't seem to be a political consequence now. We need to change that. The next layer has also been attacking the concept of fact checking as biased in and of itself. And there were struggles with the debate negotiations, for example, will or won't moderators fact check and the two fact checks during the ABC debate that the Trump campaign said that it was a it was fact checking that was biased because those were the two things that were selected. Alternative facts, the idea that even the concept of fact checking is in and of itself blurry. Talk about especially through PolitiFact, because that's an organization

that has also been targeted, I would say, more by Republicans than Democrats with regard to the concept of fact checking what you choose to fact check and what you exclude, even that as an idea is now being attacked, which interestingly to me sounds very much like the postmodernism that they claim to oppose where everything, you know, you, you people on the left say anything can mean anything, but now they're saying, well, even fact, what does it mean to fact check? It's it's just very convenient, isn't it? That when you're called out for for lies to then say that the people who are calling you out for lies are biased. And, you know, we face that since the beginning. And the fact checkers have not been able to stand up for themselves because to do so would acknowledge the reality that there was more lying from the Republican Party. And so the fact checkers have been reluctant to do that I'm no longer affiliated with PolitiFact.

But it's just very convenient. My analogy for it is now as a professor at Duke University, I understand this because I'm a basketball fan. And I know that the referees in college basketball are all biased against Duke. And they're always calling fouls against Duke, you know, and it's just always the case. And so that's unfortunately the reality that we have in American politics. You're always calling out my team, therefore you're biased. And so, but the reality is that there's just so much more lying on the right. There's so much more lying on the right from the conservative media.

And it's created a terrible situation in our country that makes it really difficult to have a serious conversation about issues such as immigration, climate change, crime. We just can't have serious conversations because there's no agreement on facts. And we need to turn that around. In my forthcoming book, I talk about a Pew study that was done wherein people were given 10 statements and were told to identify which of these are statements of opinion and which are statements of fact. And although Republicans did a little worse on it, neither group did particularly well, which seems to be as it connects to media literacy and critical thinking. Part of the issue that has allowed the lying to to maybe be more successful, which is there seems to be some core inability or limitation

when people see a statement, you know, chocolate ice cream is the best type of ice cream. And they might say, well, if I can demonstrate it's the most popular, maybe that statement is true. And it's like, no, that still wouldn't make it a statement of fact. It's still a statement of opinion. That structural problem must be playing into this, at least to some degree. Oh, I agree. And I think, um, uh, but you know, a challenge there is our, uh, so much of what is happening in our educational system is it's the, um, many conservatives don't want to fund things that would teach people how to be smarter about, um, consuming media, you know, really what we need is media literacy. Right. And, and that's something that people have tried in some states with some success.

California and Illinois, there's been some serious proposals that have gotten particularly in Illinois, I know, have have passed. But in other states, that's a dream because there's just so much opposition from Republicans. But that's what we need to get that critical thinking about how people consume media and get students to understand how to read things with skepticism, how to know what to trust, how to know what not to trust. There's an incredible little news story about critical thinking being taught to pretty young kids in Finland in Spanish as part of Spanish class. And every time I see that, it's just we are really behind here in a lot of different ways. Absolutely. Can you talk a little bit about some of the solutions for reducing the incentive for,

and I guess just in general, dishonesty in politics? You bet. And this, you know, and these are pretty bold ideas. And I think, but I think we have to think bold here. And so what I tried to do in the book was think about, well, what is the incentive for politicians to lie? And then how might we attack that? How might we create disincentives or incentives to tell the truth? And so I came up with a few that are sort of outside the box. One is to take an idea from the Republicans themselves, which is the idea of a pledge. Republican politicians often sign a pledge not to raise taxes. This is handled by Americans for Tax Reform, a group run by a guy named Grover Norquist.

If you did something similar about lying, did sort of a pledge not to lie, it wouldn't be enforced by any government. It would just be a pledge that then other politicians would talk about, hey, my opponent won't sign the pledge, not to lie. Journalists would also get people to enforce it. I think that could have an impact. There's no reason that the Republican Party couldn't become the party of truth. Right now, we would, you know, we'd be appalled at that, but that's possible. And the Republican Party could change its whole approach by adopting something like that. Another one, and this is a little more far-fetched, particularly in light of what Meta has done recently with fact-checkers, but would be to charge differential rates for advertising to politicians that had worse records for fact checking. But it doesn't

have to be meta, could be other social media platforms, it could be the companies that run the ad networks. And they could charge differential rates to politicians that had better or worse rates, had better or worse records for fact checking. Politicians need advertising to reach their voters. And so that's one way that could really create some disincentives for lying. You know, one of the issues in general with this whole concept is that if you I think if you asked people who tend to be on the left, why is it that Republicans lie more? A simple explanation would be the truth about what they support would be unappealing to voters. Therefore, they must lie about it.

However, if you asked the right about it, if you even got them to acknowledge that some of these are exaggerations, distortions, whatever, I think part of their argument would be because everything is stacked against us. Popular culture is stacked against us. Corporate media is stacked against us online, social media. It's all stacked against us. We have no choice as JD Vance said during the, to contrive and fabricate stories. And it seems to me that if we can't even get an agreement on the basics of why some of these things are happening, it'll be difficult to get buy in from the people who do the most lying to any idea. The one the ones that you're talking about or others, because they will say until we fix the structural bias against us,

why would we agree to anything that you propose? Yeah. And I, um, I wish that, but of course to do that, they, I guess would have to acknowledge that they, that they're lying, which they won't do. Um, but I, um, I wonder, you know, if, if you could conduct an experiment where you said, absent lying, would people, would a substantial number of people still support their policies on immigration? Maybe, you know, like, I don't know. They're they're sort of fundamental. They're fundamental factual claims about immigration. To some extent are all false or not all, but many of them are false. Like do immigrants commit more crimes? Right. No, they don't. So that sort of fundamental. Hey, they're coming to steal from you. They need to go back. They're going to take your jobs. Well, you know, I don't think the facts totally support that. I mean, I think there's shades of gray on that one. Um, so it would be interesting on a level playing field, how much their immigration policies would stand up.

A lot of people might still support it. You know, Hey, this is, we, we'd like tighter immigration policies, but, um, it's, uh, it's too bad that we can't have that honest conversation. One other thing I want to mention, which is I think that implicit in some of the resistance to acknowledge maybe what fact checkers would agree on as the empirical truth comes that on some level, some of these Republicans know that if they just acknowledge the facts, it must then point to a certain policy which they don't like. And what I mean by that is some of the resistance for a long time to acknowledge the science of climate change

was not because they genuinely didn't believe it, but because if you acknowledge it, they assumed it means we must enact certain policies that they don't like. And you know, maybe it does or maybe it doesn't. I tend to think that if we could just get on the same page as to whether it's happening, then we debate what the policy should be. It doesn't necessarily have to mean your, your stakes and SUVs get taken away. Maybe it does. Maybe it doesn't.

I don't know. But I think implicit in some of the immigration stuff, if they acknowledge actually immigrants don't commit more crime, it undermines a lot of the policy they want. And and I don't know how we fix that, which is let let's agree on the facts first without assuming what the policy would be. We can then debate the policy. But I think they know that some of these things, it's so obvious, maybe to a degree that some

of the policy proposals don't make sense if they agree to what the facts are, that it creates a roadblock to even really establishing the facts, if that makes sense. Republicans who were open minded on immigration and believed that there were paths to citizenship that they could support, excuse me, like a, you know, a bill that would create ways that immigrants who were already here could be granted citizenship with some restrictions. They might have to go go back and then return. And those Republicans have long ago abandoned those policies because anything like that became unacceptable in this fact starved environment. The book is Beyond the Big Lie, the epidemic of political lying, why Republicans do it more and how it could burn down our democracy. We've been speaking with the book's author, Bill Adair. Bill,

thank you so much for your time today. You bet. Thank you so much for having me. Guys in my audience, I know you're tired of the chafing with traditional underwear. Our sponsor sheath makes the most comfortable boxer briefs I've ever worn. If you're sick of the boxers that are too loose or the briefs that are too tight, sheath is for you. Sheath underwear is designed with two special pouches in the front. Keeps everything separate in its own compartment with extra confidence that you will feel throughout the day, keeping things separate and comfortable, no more sticking and chafing. I was skeptical about the dual pouch. I admit it, but it is game changing. Everything stays where it is supposed to be

extra useful when working out at the gym. And even if you don't want to use the pouches, you don't have to. It is still the most comfortable pair of underwear I have ever owned. It will blow your mind how soft and stretchy these are made with moisture wicking technology to keep you dry. If you were ready to take underwear comfort to a new place, a place you didn't even know it could go head over to sheath underwear.com slash Pacman and get 20% off with the code Pacman that's S H E A T H underwear.com slash Pacman use code Pacman for 20% off. The link is in the podcast notes. Ladies and gentlemen, tonsil stones. It really happened again. Donald Trump, the grossest president in American history has once again ejected what appears to be a tonsil

stone on national television in the middle of a public event. You know, his very big, important speech to the nation on Tuesday night in which he said people are being too mean to Vladimir Putin. Now, before we get into his latest projectile incident, remember that back in August, Trump launched one of these things right out of his mouth into the void. It was like watching a nature documentary. But instead of majestic wildlife, it was a then 77 year old man, I guess, coughing up mystery gunk in front of his adoring fans. And when I saw the speech on Tuesday night, I sort of half jokingly posted to blue sky during the speech.

Oh, it looks like Trump shot out a tonsil stone again. See it on his left sleeve. And it appears that that actually happened. I was sort of half joking, but the moment it happened has now been isolated. I'm playing it for you here and you sort of see it shoot out and then it's on his left sleeve. You see a white dot there on his left sleeve. It's not there. It shoots out of his mouth and there it is on his left sleeve. You see a white dot there on his left sleeve. It's not there.

It shoots out of his mouth and there it is on his left sleeve. It appears indeed to be what happened. Now, typically tonsil stones happen when food bacteria, dead cells, they get stuck in the crevices of your tonsils and they harden. And so either Trump has like particularly cavernous tonsils or, or something. Now, I don't want to pretend that this is the biggest story in the world. Look at what's happening in the economy. But there is some interesting symbolism here. Now, by the way, I had a tonsil stone one time. Fortunately, it didn't shoot out during a show.

It just disappeared like COVID was going to an Easter of 2020. One day it was just gone. But Trump is the physical embodiment of corruption and decay and a buildup of nasty, rancid garbage that we should have cleaned out a long time ago. You see the imagery and the analogy here. And yet somehow he, like the tonsil stones continue to reappear in our lives when we may be least expected. Tonsil stones are the Trump presidency.

They fester. And even when you think they're finally gone for good, they come back to haunt you. I hope the imagery and the language is relevant. All right. Now on to something more serious. It's getting very bad with our allies. I don't know to what degree this is all going to come to a head and maybe lead to the speaking of ejection, the ejection of Elon Musk, either out to Mars or at

least out of Washington, D.C. But we are now seeing a feedback loop visible on Trump's troth central, wherein he and Elon Musk are increasingly antagonistic of our allies, which, of course, our allies aren't just going to sit back and take it. It leads our allies to then say, Hey, we're going to do something. Uh, and I'm trying to find the right way to frame this here. And then when our allies do something, it just sends Trump for a loop again and triggers him wildly.

So this is just the last few hours on truth. Social Trump, Justin Trudeau of Canada called me to ask what could be done about tariffs. I told him many people have died from fentanyl that came through the borders of Canada and Mexico and nothing has convinced me that it has stopped. Now, remember, we've talked about almost no fentanyl is coming through the Canadian border. He said it's gotten better, but I said, it's not good enough. The call ended in a somewhat friendly manner. He was unable to tell me when the Canadian election is taking place, which made me curious, like what's going on here. I then realized he's trying to use this issue to stay in power. Good luck, Justin Trump continuing for anyone who's

interested. I also told governor Justin Trudeau of Canada that he largely caused the problem we have with them because of his weak border policies, which allowed tremendous amounts of fentanyl, as Trump calls it, fentanyl. Maybe I should say it that way. And illegal aliens to pour into the United Shaysh. These policies are responsible for the death of many people. Remember, the facts are almost no fentanyl is coming over the Canadian border. Trump then levying a threat against Hamas. Shalom Hamas means hello and goodbye. You can choose release all of the hostages now, not later, and immediately return all

of the dead bodies of the people you murdered or it is over for you. Only sick and twisted people keep bodies and you are sick and twisted. I am sending Israel everything it needs to finish the job. Not a single Hamas member will be safe if you don't do as I say. I have just met with your former hostages whose lives you have destroyed. This is your last warning for the leadership. Now is the time to leave Gaza while you still have a chance. They'll gladly leave and go to Qatar and hang out in wealth that you can't even imagine.

Also, to the people of Gaza, a beautiful future awaits, but not if you hold hostages. If you do, you are dead. Make a smart decision. Release the hostages now or there will be hell to pay later. Many magas love this type of talk. They love it. They're just like, oh, my God, he's so tough. Trump then going after Democrats.

The Democrats should lose the midterms based on their behavior at last night's joint address to Congress. All Republicans must use their behavior on men and women's sports. They're very dangerous. Open border policy, high energy and taxes and much else. Also, Republicans should utilize the footage provided on the total disrespect they showed to all of those that were honored that night, including young ladies killed by illegal immigrants, people with terminal cancer, et cetera. They didn't even have the

common courtesy to stand, smile or applause. This could be on analyzing the full tape of this historic event, your full campaign to victory just over and over and over again. Trump, we have notified the mayor of DC. She must clean up all of the unsightly homeless encampments, et cetera, et cetera. Government funding runs out next week. Democrats are threatening to shut down the government, but I'm working with the great house Republicans on continuing resolution to fund the government until September on and on and on the fake play the ref news in

order to create a divide between me and our great us Supreme court heard me say last night loudly and openly as I was walking past the justices on the way to the podium. Thank you to chief justice, John Roberts. Like most people, I don't watch fake news, CNN or MSDNC, but I understand they're going crazy asking what it is that I was thanking Justice Roberts for. They have never called my office to ask, of course, but if they had, I would have told these sleazebag journalists that I thanked him for swearing me in on Inauguration Day and doing a really good job.

And so doing the fake news never quits. Does anybody believe that's what Trump was thanking him for? Uh, and I mean, it's just endless. We're not going to go through all of these massive trade deficit with the world. Just announce compliments of sleepy Joe Biden. I will change that posting videos and propaganda. This is the feedback loop from hell. Trump antagonizes everyone. They respond and Trump uses their response to just justify more antagonism. So here's where we are and here's where this is going. We are up against a potentially disastrous economic situation and a disastrous global alliance situation. My commitment to you is what I have been doing for a long time, which is I am not neutral

in that I have a political perspective, but I am going to do everything I can to objectively tell you this has to do with Trump and this does not. This is something that has to do with Trump's policies and this is something that has to do with broader business cycles. But I am also going to be clear with you, even if there are issues that are bigger than Trump's policy, if Trump made promises that he's now failing to keep, like for example, egg prices will come down right away. It's true that there's bird flu. It's true that we have a

global or bigger than Trump at least situation with eggs, but Trump's promises must be evaluated. And you can't just say, Oh, he's, he's stupid. So he makes promises he can't keep. Well, then he should be held accountable for that. That is my commitment and my goal here. Now on today's bonus show, we are going to hear as producer Pat's investigation in Mexico continues. He now has had an encounter with rude Americans in Mexico and he is going to tell us all about it. Get today's bonus show by signing up at join pacman.com. And remember that we are continuing to try to surpass

the right wing agit trash of the podcast world. Make sure you are subscribed to the audio podcast on Apple podcasts, subscribe on Spotify, leave a review. It, even if you watch the videos on YouTube, it helps us so much when you subscribe on these podcast platforms. I'll give you updated ratings numbers tomorrow. See you on the bonus show. And I'll be back, of course, with the Friday show.