The David Pakman Show - 3/7/25: Trump approval goes negative, egg prices go nuclear

Episode Date: March 7, 2025

-- On the Show: -- Donald Trump's approval rating goes negative for the first time in his presidency -- Andrew Tate decides it's time to attack Jews in a completely wacky interview -- Egg prices continue to climb, now up 33% since Donald Trump became President -- Furious Republican voters are showing up at town halls nationally to express disdain over DOGE's actions -- MAGA is attempting to rename inflation as "price movements" -- Almost one in five Americans are so fed up that they want to leave the United States permanently -- The US National Anthem continues to get brutally booed in Canada -- This week's Friday Feedback -- On the Bonus Show: A new impeachment effort underway, one day economic protest planned, and much more... 🥐 Wildgrain: Use code DAVID for $30 off & free baked goods at https://wildgrain.com/david 🛌 Helix Sleep mattresses: Get 20% OFF sitewide at https://helixsleep.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

Speaker 1 Welcome to the show, everybody. Trump has folded on tariffs or has he maybe temporarily or not? So listen, I'm going to report to you what we know as of this moment with the caveat that this is so erratic. This is so unhinged, this is so based on Trump's politics of personal grievance rather than economic stability, that by the time you listen to this, this may have completely changed. But that really is the broader story. Whatever I report to you now and I will tell you in a moment, the fact that this is all based not on what is best for your checkbook or my wallet

or her pocketbook or, you know, whatever, um, their 401k accounts, uh, this, that makes this by its nature, erratic, unhinged, and a very bad thing for the United States. So here's the latest. All right. White House pauses tariffs on some Canadian and Mexican imports until April 2nd. This is a report from CNBC. And here's what we know as of this moment. Trump granted temporary tariff exemptions for Canadian and Mexican goods covered by the North American trade agreement known as USMCA until April 2nd. So temporary only for goods covered by that agreement and only until April 2nd. Trump is poised to enact reciprocal tariffs April 2nd on foreign nations that have import

taxes on U.S. goods. Mexican President Claudia Scheinbaum said Mexico should be spared when us reciprocal tariffs come into effect. Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau said his goal remains to get all tariffs removed and his government is having discussions about possibly delaying a second wave of retaliatory tariffs against the US. Trump spoke to Trudeau Wednesday, told him what he's doing is not good enough. We covered that yesterday. Thursday's tariff exceptions excluded those imposed on China. The country is standing tough,

saying it's prepared to fight any type of war with the United States. If you asked me the question, what do I expect on April 3rd, the tariff situation to be? My answer is I have absolutely no damn clue. And the fact that I have no idea and maybe Trump does have an idea or he doesn't, we don't know. But the fact that I have no idea and the markets have no idea and employers have no idea and suppliers have no idea and travelers have no idea and business owners have no idea. That is core to financial instability. Now, yesterday, the stock market, you know, it was very up and down,

but it was a recovery day initially and then it collapsed and then it went back up and then it was down 500 points. You might be saying to yourself, if Trump's plan was become the arsonist who puts the fire out to then get credit and say, why isn't everybody praising me for putting out the fire? Well, you started the fire. If the idea was Trump's going to create all of this craziness in order to then end it and have the stock market recover and make himself the savior. It's early. It doesn't seem like that is working because it is such a level of instability and unpredictability that putting the tariffs on was bad for the stock market. And then pausing the tariffs didn't seem to help the stock market because no one has any idea what it is that is going on and what there is to expect. If we zoom out and go back to my idea from Wednesday, is all of this meant to hurt the

economy temporarily to allow the billionaire robber barons to come in and buy up assets cheaply to then profit on them? Even if that is the plan and we don't know if it is and it very well may be, even if that is the plan. It also doesn't seem as though the stock market and other markets are reacting in the way Trump would want them to react. So whatever his plan is, we don't know if he has a plan. The theme here is erratic, egomaniacal, self-centered instability. And that is not good. And you know how we can tell that the country doesn't think it's good. Trump's approval rating, which I want to talk about next. Donald Trump's approval rating has gone negative for the first time during the second presidential

term. And this is a major problem for Trump and maybe even more so. It's a major problem for Republicans other than Trump. Didn't take long, did it? Just over a month into his second term, Donald Trump's approval rating has officially flipped negative according to 538. What this means is that more Americans disapprove of the job that Trump is doing rather than approve. This is the first time this has been the case during this second term. And if history is any indication, that is not a number that is likely

to bounce back. Let me explain. Approval ratings for presidents in the modern partisan era only decline. And I've spoken about why before. There are many voters who default to the position of I approve until the president does one thing I don't like and then I'm gone. And then when that happens, there's no way to get those folks back. And we saw this with Biden. We saw it in Trump's first term. We saw it under a former President Barack Obama. Once the president has done something you don't like, even if they come

back and do a bunch of things you do like, people tend to say, overall, I disapprove. Now, what are the exceptions? Well, the exceptions are dangerous. George W. Bush and 9-11. George W. Bush's approval rating was cratering. And then 9-11 happened. And then he had record high approval, which he of course ultimately squandered again with the Patriot act and warrantless surveillance, the Iraq war on and on. But the point is the sorts of events that in the modern political era significantly boost your approval rating more than a point or two, right? Are the sorts of events that can be very dangerous if presidents start to get ideas.

This brings us back to last week. Would Trump allow a terrorist attack to happen if he thought it would benefit him politically? Let's put that aside for a moment. Now go back to the numbers. Trump's approval was just barely in the green by like zero point one percent more people approving than disapproving. And then the tide turned. Trump is now completely underwater.

It's a short it's a brief, a small shift, but it puts Trump underwater. This came on the news of the tariffs taking effect. It immediately hit consumers. The stock market took a dive. Later that night, Trump gave the joint address to Congress, which was relatively well received by those who watched it. But the audience was overwhelmingly Republicans and at a national level. It was not so well received. So what do we think is next and what do we think this is all about? If you look at Trump's first term, his approval turned negative by day 15. So negative approval, underwater approval doesn't

necessarily mean that you can't hold on. But this is where it starts to become potentially a problem for other Republicans because they do have other campaigns to run and they need to manage the optics of am I too closely associated with Trump or not? And they are the ones who now are going to have to figure out, do I just say nothing? Do I jump out and defend this guy who's increasingly unpopular? Do I come out and denounce him or do I wait until I actually have a reelection more relevant for senators rather than members of Congress?

As members of Congress always have a reelection that they're up against. This is a major issue. CNN's Harry Enten said that Trump's approval numbers overall and on the economy specifically are historically awful heading into his joint address to Congress. And it's critical to understand that in both Biden's presidency and Trump's first term, once approval went negative, they never fully recovered. What it led to for Trump was losing reelection in 2020. What it led to for Biden was ultimately coming to believe he had no chance at actually being reelected, stepping aside and Kamala Harris ultimately being defeated. So will Trump break that trend or is

this the start of a long, slow collapse? And then one other little wrinkle, just as like a side note, this might be the last time we even get five 38s polling average on Trump because ABC news is reportedly shutting down five 38. And if that's true, once again, if you value data over vibes, uh, that is not a good thing to see five 38 shut down. But the numbers tell a story, which is Trump is facing an American public increasingly turning against him. And if the policies start hitting people's wallets as they already are, it probably is only going to get worse.

Andrew Tate has started to focus his anger on a very popular target for people like Andrew Tate. And it is the Jews. Andrew Tate was given permission to leave Romania and come to the United States. We've since learned that now the state of Florida has opened up an investigation into Tate. He's been doing some of the media rounds and one of the places he appeared was the milk boys, sorry, the NELC boys. And in this interview, he came very innovative, right? He says it is the Jews that you cannot speak badly about. You can't speak out against the Jews. And by the way, why would you be speaking out against the Jews as a group? It's sort of like if I said,

why aren't we allowed to really speak out against the blacks? You would say, do you do you feel the need to speak out against the blacks? It's very weird. Remember that this is one of the most popular sort of manosphere influencers right now. If you're not familiar with them, brace yourselves. This is ugly stuff. I think it's going to all shift with Trump, like allies and geopolitics. America is a pushing Russia and the US like closer together now. There you go. Now you have strong nationalistic patriarchies. You have strong nationalistic patriarchies, which is the USA and Russia. We have a lot more in common than we do with these femme-centric, matriarchal, garbage, woke shitholes in Europe.

This is the truth. We have more in common with Russia than we do with England currently. The average Russian man will understand the average American man just fine. You won't understand the average Brit who thinks it's wrong to tweet about the native people getting raped and murdered because there's unchecked migration. By the way, this is a total fantasy. I just spent weeks in the UK. This is completely fabricated nonsense. The average Brit will sit there and go, that's racist. I guess you can't do too much free speech against Putin as well in Russia, probably, right? Of course you can. Yeah. No, you can't. You can? No, you can't. Can't. Yeah. No, you can't. But this is actually interesting. So let's analyze this. I love the concept of doing free speech.

One of the things that is often a sign that there is a movement that doesn't know what the hell is it's talking about is when they use language in a way that doesn't make any sense. Like when Trump talks about reclaiming our free speech and sensible people go reclaiming it. When was it lost? Who took it away? And who are we reclaiming it from? That's a sign that this doesn't make any sense. And when this guy from the Nelk Boys says you can't do too much free speech. Sometimes grammar and syntax can be

pedantic, but sometimes they can expose that people don't even know what they're talking about. Free speech. This is an interesting conversation because America believes as free speech, it doesn't. But every single country in the world has things you cannot talk about. Every single country in the world has off topics, off limit topics. In Russia, it's Putin. In the Middle East, it's Islam. In Turkey, it's Erdogan. If you talk against them,

you're going to get in a lot of trouble. Do you know what the American one is? What, speaking out against the Dems? Speaking out against the Jews. If you speak out against the Jews in America, you're going to get in a lot of trouble. So- I love the Nelk guy nodding.

Every single country has their off limit topics. So there's no such thing as free speech anywhere. You know, one of the funny things about this is you can come up with your list of untouchable topics, but when you compare and contrast authoritarian nations with at least nominally democratic societies, it's not really meaningful or valuable. The reason you can't speak out against Erdogan and Turkey is different than there is backlash when you say anti-Semitic things. And in a sense, what they mean, you know, what happens to you in Russia, if you speak out against Putin is one type of consequence, which is an authoritarian dictatorial consequence. Similarly, you could say, you know, when I say antisemitic stuff in the United States,

it damages my brand. When I say racist stuff in the United States, it damages my brand. When I say racist stuff in the United States, it damages my brand. The marketplace of ideas is actually a characteristic of a free and open society wherein you can say whatever you want, but you're not excused from the consequences of that speech. That's different than when you talk about the authoritarian dictator, you end up accidentally falling out of a window and stabbing yourself six times. And so, of course, what underlies this is that Andrew Tate would love to be saying more anti Semitic stuff, but he can't get away with it. And this is actually a feature when people talk about cancel culture and my speech

was taken away and all of this stuff. Very often this is translated as there's really horrible stuff I would like to say, but it would have social consequences. So I'm not going to say it. And a lot of the people who scream the loudest about free speech, uh, are actually the ones who want to use it for horrible purposes. And of course, that's exactly what Andrew Tate wants to do, which by the way, he should be allowed to do it, but he shouldn't be exempt from the consequences of that speech. Let's talk about eggs. I love eggs, uh, as a topic. Donald Trump promised that he would bring down

grocery prices on day one. And yet here we are, something like 30 something, 40 something days into Trump's term. And eggs are now more expensive than ever, breaking records almost every single day. And this is not some kind of, you know, designer egg infused with gold leaf and Elon Musk's tears. These are just regular eggs now up 33%, almost one percentage point a day since Donald Trump became president. According to a new report, big egg corporations may actually be using avian flu as an excuse to jack up prices and rake in record profits. Yes, avian flu is a problem. And also there may be price gouging going on. It turns out that when you let a handful of companies control giant industries with no real enforcement of antitrust law, they can just charge whatever

they want and say, Hey, market forces, the biggest egg producer, Cal Maine didn't even have an avian flu outbreak in 2023. But guess what? It did have a seven fold increase in profits. They also sold more eggs than they did in 2021. Still raise prices two point eight times higher. They paid out two hundred and fifty million dollars to shareholders 40 times more than the year before. Did your grocery bill increase 40 times? No. So how did they do it? Well, it exceeded the actual inflation of eggs. And this is not just an accident. Prices were going up even before bird flu hit certain regions. The Southeast didn't have an outbreak till January of this year, but their egg prices had already skyrocketed because corporate greed was playing a role.

Now you might be saying to yourself, well, so then it's not Trump's fault. The real question is Trump made certain promises, explicit promises to cut grocery prices and cut ag prices. What is he doing about it? Well, he fired people in the federal government who might actually be able to do something about price gouging. He imposed really random tariffs that raise costs on just about everything. And he blamed Biden. That's the plan. And his

agriculture secretary says they will be working with Elon to cut wasteful spending, because if there's anyone who understands affordability, it's the guy selling flamethrowers and subscription fees to send tweets. Now, meanwhile, 166 million poultry have been culled since the avian flu outbreak started. And where have we seen the worst outbreaks? Factory farms, the same corporate farms that cram millions of chickens into tiny spaces, making sure that when there's one infected bird, it puts the flock at risk. Remember when the right wing lost their minds over a gas stove regulation that didn't even exist, or when they said Biden's coming for your steak, Biden's coming for your hamburgers. But now Trump is in office. Egg prices are nuclear and somehow not a peep from Fox News about

corporate price gouging. The important thing here is Trump said he would fix this on day one and he's making everything more expensive while billionaire donors get richer. And you're still paying, depending on the dozen eggs, you've got five, eight, 12, 13 dollars, depending on which eggs you're buying. And they are the ones earning the record profits. So we will see where egg prices go. But this is getting very ugly. I have something incredible to tell you.

We are now on the verge potentially. Of my forthcoming book being an unbridled success. You know, when we started this whole thing and I started thinking, can we sell a thousand books? Can we sell 3000 books? Does anybody want my book? The order started to trickle in. I am now proud to report to you that we have more than 6,500 pre-orders of the book. We have nearly a thousand preorders for signed copies. I'll tell you how to get one in a moment, which puts us at seventy five hundred. I have just learned that Barnes and Noble will be stocking the book nationwide. And none of this includes audio books, Kindle books and books ordered at local bookstores.

And I have only you to thank. I really do appreciate it. The book is out March 25th. The book tour will start soon. I will be appearing on a number of podcasts. If you want. My understanding is that of the thousand ordered copies to be signed at Brookline Booksmith, 800 are spoken for, meaning there's 200 signed copies left that you can claim. You must only go to David Pakman

dot com slash booksmith. That's the one place to get the signed copies. And those will be going out right around the books publication. Of course, audio books, eBooks, Kindle, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, any local bookstore, you can get it anywhere. But the only way to get a signed copy is David Pakman dot com slash booksmith. We're doing this thing. We're doing this thing. And I really appreciate you. Winter is the perfect time to cozy up at home with some freshly baked treats like flaky pastries, hearty breads, comforting pastas, and you can do it without any effort. Our sponsor, Wild Grain, is the first bake from frozen subscription box for artisanal breads, pastries, and pastas.

Wild Grain simply takes the hassle out of baking. Everything bakes from frozen in 25 minutes or less. No mess or cleanup. Your family will be amazed thinking you've become a master bread baker all of a sudden. My favorite is the croissants. You throw them in the oven, 25 minutes. Wow. The David Pakman show as an audience supported program is not funded by some big media conglomerate. We are not funded by George Soros. As I get emails claiming we are not funded by the DNC. As I get some emails claiming, it's just people who say, hey, I like the show. I'll pay a few bucks a month. It's that simple.

You can go to join Pacman dot com to sign up. And I very much appreciate everybody who has. Also, we are now just two and a half weeks away from the release of my first ever nonfiction book, The Echo Machine. If you would like a signed copy, why not? You can go to David Pakman dot com slash booksmith to order it from Brookline Booksmith. I'm going up there in a couple of weeks to sign what at last check was 600 copies. But maybe it's going to be more. And of course, you can get the audio book version, the Kindle book, the unsigned hard cover book at David Pakman dot com slash echo. Republicans are no longer going to be doing town hall events because they keep getting protested. We are going to look at a couple of examples of this, but there are furious Trump voters showing up at Republican town halls

and to a great degree expressing fury, rage and anger at the people that are getting fired. Thanks to Doge, the people that are losing benefits, thanks to Doge and all of the chaos that Trump and Elon Musk are bringing forward. Here is one guy confronting Republican Senator Marshall from Kansas. Marshall goes, that's it for me, folks, and leaves after the confrontation. Now, as far as cutting out those jobs, a huge percentage of those people, and I know you care about the veterans. The veterans.

Yes. And that is a damn shame. Yes. That is a damn shame. I'm not a Democrat, but I'm worried about the veterans. Thank you. Well, I yielded to one of my my elders and I appreciate his comments. I think it's a great I'm not going to we don't have time for him to stand up.

I do got two more commitments today. Appreciate everybody making the drive out. And God bless America. And off he goes and people are not happy. That is, as far as we know, a group of constituent Republicans. Now I know that many Republicans are trying to defend against what is obviously terrible optics by saying these are rigged audiences. These are anti MAGA people who are showing up to make it seem as though MAGA is angry, but they're really not. We have no evidence of that at this point in time. Another example of this, this is from Republican Congressman Keith Self's town hall in Wiley, Texas, where again,, a large, angry crowd in a deep red district

does not like what this administration is up to. This is very close to what Bill Clinton did in the 20s. All right. So listen, these have been going so poorly that Republicans have been directed. Do not do these anymore. And of course, they love to say that they are for more speech rather than less. There's no violence here. This is just people's speech. They're expressing their displeasure with what their government is doing. They're requesting redress for their grievances.

It's all constitutional. It's all patriotic. It's all, Oh no, we don't want it. We don't want it. We don't want to be put in this position. And of course this is a growing problem. There's this growing tension. And just this week, we've seen it develop a growing tension between Trump, Musk, MAGA, Republicans, working Republicans, Southern Republicans, Northern Republicans. These are groups increasingly on edge and at each other's throats as a result of what Doge is doing. The most likely outcome continues to be at a certain point, Elon's going to have to go.

My guess is that they will find a face saving way to do it, which will be Elon accomplished so much so quickly that now he's going to get back to whatever mission accomplished sort of thing. I do think that it'll be kind of a face saving exit, maybe better orchestrated than when Vivek said, oh, we just have a difference of philosophies, but it's all really good. And I'm going to go run for governor now. I think they will orchestrate it a little bit better. But the only way seemingly to deal with this tension is for Elon to go and for us to really never hear more about Doge again. Will it happen? When will it happen? We just don't know yet. MAGA is renaming inflation to price movements as it becomes inevitable that you and me and everybody is going to be paying more for stuff. We already

are for a number of things and it's going to get worse. Here is Howard Lutnik on CNBC. And he's got a new euphemism for inflation. Short term price movements. Take a listen to this. We're going to bring back production of enormous amounts of things and make America and manufacturing center again. So yes, there's going to be, as the president said on the campaign trail, there may well be short term price movements, but in the long term, it's going to be completely different. This is going to be the greatest America will have a balanced budget, a balanced budget.

There will not. You know, if there's one thing you can bet on is there will not be a balanced budget under Trump. Interest rates will come smashing down. And I mean, 100 basis points, 150 basis points lower. You're going to have income taxes, no tax on tips, no tax on Social Security, no tax on overtime. This president is going to deliver all of those things and drive manufacturing. OK, so he's lying about everything. But the main point here is they have come up with a beautiful new euphemism for inflation, which is price movements. I have to hand it to these people. They're very good at this. They've done this so many times with great success. Remember torture? Oh, torture's bad. We have enhanced interrogation techniques

and that's a completely different thing. Of course, now everybody acknowledges, yeah, we just meant torture. They rebranded rich people as job creators, as if it completely ignoring the reality, but that most small business owners are job creators and are not rich. And the reason they did that is to be able to justify it's not tax cuts for the rich. It's incentives for job creators, school choice. Who doesn't love choice? What we mean are vouchers to take money away from public schools. That's really what school choice means. We're going to rename the estate tax to the death tax. I get taxed for dying. I must be opposed to that proactive policing by which they mean stopping and frisking people based on the color of their skin. We're policing proactively. We need

religious freedom in this country by which we mean discriminating against LGBT people by citing Jesus religious freedom. They are really good at this. Tax relief is another one. Oh, if I'm getting relieved of taxes, it's because the taxes are an unfair burden, right? Well then I'm just against taxes. They are good at this. I don't know if when the average Maga goes to the grocery store and sees the bloodbath that is taking place in their pricing wise, if they're going to go, oh, they told us about price movements.

This is no big deal. Another exchange with Lutnik, you know, I don't really get along with CNBC's Joe Kernan. He's attacked me on Twitter. But here he is saying to Lutnik, you're not even willing to acknowledge that tariffs cause inflation and the price level to go up and looks like, no, no printing money causes. I mean, how much pain are we going to be willing to take an inflation if, you know, if all of a sudden they hit us right back? Remember, so you made one comment. So inflation comes from a government printing more money. Some prices can rise from this bottle of water. It can't happen more money. Some prices can rise.

You don't think it can come from tariffs? This bottle of water. It can't happen at all from tariffs? No, tariffs do not, tariffs do not, do not, do not create inflation. Printing money creates inflation. You have a balanced budget. There can't be inflation. It does mean one product could be more expensive.

This is a lie. One product could be less expensive. But China, I'll give you an example. China has the highest tariffs in the world, in the world. Everything gets taxed in China and they don't have inflation. By the way, now he believe, you know, I would be curious if you went to these guys love saying we believe China's lying about their GDP. We just don't believe China's GDP growth numbers because it's inconvenient. And now all of a sudden he goes, look at China's lying about their GDP. We just don't believe China's GDP growth numbers because it's inconvenient.

And now all of a sudden he goes, look at China's data, the same data that you claim we can't trust. They have deflation. India, the second highest tariffs in the world. They don't have inflation. So this concept is just people whining and complaining and not being truthful. The fact is, we need to protect America. Why does China tariff everything? And we give them a free ride back here and they subsidize the opioid

production. Now, let me tell you the truth about printing money. If the government prints money, which it's a euphemism, we really mean increase the money supply, right? If the government prints money, which we it's a euphemism, we really mean increase the money supply, right? If the government prints money for economically stimulative activities, it doesn't cause inflation. We have many examples of when an increase to the money supply has not caused inflation. If you look after the 2008 financial crisis, the US Federal Reserve created trillions of dollars through quantitative easing to buy bonds to support the financial system. It did not cause high inflation because the economy had excess capacity.

There was high unemployment, underutilized factories. So there was work to be done and people able to do it. Banks held on to their reserves instead of aggressively lending. Demand remained relatively low, prevented economic overheating, and there was no inflation. Letnick wants us to trust China's data when convenient and distrust it when convenient. He wants us to believe that we don't have access to historical information about inflation. And all of it, all of it is meant simply to support and defend the completely misguided economic policies of Donald Trump. Is it working? Let's see when we get data about February later this month.

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is it stays cool while I sleep. Most people don't even know what they need in a mattress Thank you so much, David. mattress if you want. When you go to Helix Sleep dot com slash Pacman, you'll get 27 percent off site wide, plus two free dream pillows with every mattress order, plus a free bedding bundle with any Lux or elite mattress order. This is their best offer available just for my audience. That's H.E.L.I.X. Sleep dotcom slash Pacman for 27% off site wide plus two free dream pillows with your mattress order or a free bedding bundle with a Lux or elite mattress. The link is in the podcast notes. Almost two in five Americans say that living here is no longer enjoyable and almost one of five straight up say, I am planning to leave Donald Trump's America. Now remember that two weeks ago we did this story about record number of Americans are

looking to leave the companies that help you get golden visas or whatever the case may be, are seeing a huge upsurge in the number of requests. It's even worse than we thought. A shocking new survey has found that 17% of American adults, that's almost one in five want to move out of the United States within the next five years. And even more concerning, 5% are actually planning to take concrete steps to leave. 2% are already in the process of taking concrete steps to leave the country. Now let me be clear about what's happening here.

This is not just people casually saying, oh, I might like to live somewhere else someday. These are Americans who are actively looking to leave their own country because they are deeply concerned about the direction the country is heading. The survey was done by talker research and it found that millennials are leading this exodus a full quarter of them or of us, I guess, since I'm in that group want to relocate abroad. This is the generation that really came of age during the 2008 financial crisis, crushed by student loan debt, often can't afford housing and now witnessing

this rapid erosion of rights and democratic norms in Trump's America. And many of us are sick of it. Now one relevant question is, well, where do these people want to go? The top choice is Canada. 19% of those who want to leave say Canada is my preferred destination. It's really difficult to move to Canada. Now, it's not hard to see why people would want to go there. 41 percent say universal health care is a major draw for Canada, but it is very difficult to move to Canada. Americans, to a degree, are leaving because they want actual health care that doesn't bankrupt

them. That is a profound indictment of the American system. Now, after Canada was Italy, England, Australia, Ireland, and there were other countries there as well. But here's what I find maybe most disturbing about these findings. Sixty nine percent of respondents. So this is more than two out of three. Sixty nine percent of respondents say they're worried about the general direction the United States is heading. And 65 percent describe American society as having become toxic. This is not normal.

OK, this is a crisis of confidence in American institutions and in American society. And the economic factors are equally troubling because more than half of respondents say living in the US is just no longer affordable. Fifty five percent say that the growing gap between rich and poor is limiting their opportunities. Almost 40 percent say they believe they'd have a better chance at financial security in a different country. And then there's also work life balance, where 57 percent said the approach in the U.S. to work life balance is inadequate. Working ourselves to death while other countries provide mandatory paid vacation, paid family leave, reasonable work hours and a whole bunch of other legal infrastructure to sort of limit the degree to which work can completely take over your life.

Maybe most damning 65% believe our healthcare system is broken and 66% believe that the education system is broken. And we have, when you look at the federal government right now and administration that says they will fix the healthcare system with something that after five years Trump still can't name and that they will fix the educational system by getting rid of the Department of Education and letting for profit and Linda McMahon sort of have at it. These are in a functional society, fundamental pillars, and many Americans have completely lost faith in them in my book, by the way, The Echo Machine, the first hardcover copy, which I have here.

I have a chapter. Which chapter is this? Whose book is this? I don't recognize any of this stuff. No, I have a chapter called. Oh, my goodness. I think I forgot to put the chapter in the book. No, I'm completely kidding. I have a chapter in the book where we actually go through the countries that have figured out some of these things. Do they suffer when it comes to the stuff we are told is uniquely American? Are the business environments so much worse in countries that take care of their citizens like Finland and Denmark, for example? Can you not start a successful business there?

It turns out you can. Can you not individuate yourself and do what you want to do? No, it turns out that you can, but you can do it while also knowing that no matter what job you have or none at all, you'll have healthcare or that no matter what job you have or none at all, your kids will have reasonably good educations. So we talk about that significantly in the book. And it's important to mention that this is not all due to Trump. Trump didn't break the systems that are broken and Trump isn't singularly responsible for people now wanting to leave and go to another country. These numbers didn't just, it's not that 0% wanted to leave two months ago and now 17%

want to leave. The important link to Trump. Is that on all of the reasons people are thinking I might get out, he has presented no credible path to lessening the reasons that people are wanting to leave. And that is something that does matter, especially when people say, well, it's not even theoretically going to get better next year or the year after that or the year after that. And then I'll be waiting for the next president to fix it. And a percentage of people, 17 percent want to do it.

Two percent are in process of doing it. For a lot of people, they're saying, why would I wait five years to see if things start improving? Let me improve them for myself right now. Final thought on that. We've we've spoken before. I know some of you are going to get angry about this, that I'm bringing it up again. If everybody just leaves because these systems are broken, the systems will remain broken and they will be even worse for the people that stay. So at scale, we need people to stay and fight to fix these systems. In addition to that, I will never tell any individual person

you need to stay rather than saying, Hey, you know what? I can't fix everything. I'm going to figure out a way to go to wherever we'll have me again. Remember, it's hard to get into a lot of these countries. I am going to go wherever to improve my life now and improve my family's life now, or potentially the life of my future family. I will never tell anyone you're doing the wrong thing for yourself. While I recognize that at scale, if everybody abandons, the systems will work even more poorly. The national anthem was brutally booed again in Canada. I want you to think about the following question as we listen to yet again, this is at WWE Toronto.

The American national anthem is booed. How is this good for the United States of America? By the dawn's early light But so proudly we hailed At the twilight's last gleaming Whose broad stripes and bright stars Through the perilous fight O'er the ramparts we watched I think you get it. Okay.

We were told we will be respected again under Donald Trump. The world will respect us. They will fall into line because they also will fear us and they will do what we ask because they will know that they can't say no. None of it is happening. And even though these anecdotes of the national anthem being booed at hockey games and basketball games and staged wrestling matches and elsewhere, even though these are at the end of the day, anecdotes, this is a one 80 from the way it used to be.

It this didn't used to happen. And so when there is a change, whatever your opinion is about the meaning of it and whether you care, you're right. I mean, I see the MAGA comments, sissy Canadians are booing us. So go back to socialism. Who cares if the Brits boo us? I don't care. They're sissy.

Okay. Now you can take that approach, but the smarter approach is let's understand why this is actually happening. And if you understand why, even if you don't personally care about the opinions of Canadians about Trump or whatever, um, there is no way in which this hostility is good for us given the economic ties, uh, given the strategic location of Canada for American defense. If you're a national security mom or, you know, a war hawk or whatever, you should be very concerned about this. And so the takeaway is you'll have your visceral reaction. The magas will say, we don't care about pussy Canadian.

Yeah, I know. I know you don't. Okay. Whatever. But at the end of the day, this is bad for us. This is not good for the United States. Nevermind that the tariffs are no good and that the retaliatory tariffs are no good. This is becoming a real problem. And at the beginning of the week, we saw the rubber meeting the road. The Atlanta Fed now expects we will lose GDP in Q1. Doesn't matter your opinion on poutine. OK, in Canada or whatever you think of Canadian hockey teams, GDP, negative GDP growth is bad for everybody. So this is where we are. Sad state of affairs. Data brokers are continually collecting extensive details about your online behavior, address, phone number, email, financial information, even political views. This sensitive information about you can easily be found on public data search sites by anybody Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

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Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank way, and it just saves you countless hours of work that would be nearly impossible to do on your own. I use in Cogni and what they've managed to do is remarkable. 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% discount. The link is in the podcast notes.

Let's do Friday feedback for the week. Remember you can email info at David Pacman.com. If you have anything you would like to communicate to me and we, we actually, we're doing something a little different today. We are going to dip into the emails just a bit, including some very, very negative emails. Just as a reminder, I think it's important to stay grounded and connected to the pulse of America. And there are really angry Trump supporters that are now coming after me with a new found motivation. They're emboldened and blah, blah, blah.

Okay. So we start with David who said, Pacman, you are brain damage. Maybe you need to your doctor or go back to South America. Yes, certainly. I am the one who seems brain damaged based on this email. Mark wrote in saying, stop now. I'm going to censor a couple of words here only because I don't want to get the content blocked. It's not because we're on radio anymore. We're not.

Mark said, you're such a little soy boy fat pejorative word for gay people. I can't believe any woman in her right mind would have a kid with your soft ass. You need to stop promoting socialism in our effing country. If that's what you want, go the F back to Argentina. Also, is your boyfriend jealous of the woman you had a kid with? Yes, he's very jealous. Very, very jealous. Um, you know, uh, I am not a socialist. I'm not promoting socialism. I'm not advocating for socialism. And there's also not a socialist government in Argentina. So this is, this is like the epitome of the bottom dwelling pond scum right winger who

doesn't know what's going on, doesn't understand anything and is willing to send humiliating messages. I mean, imagine anyone in person, right? Not with the protection of the TV screen or the computer screen or your phone screen speaking in this way to other people, you would not get very far in this world. And you know what? I assume that this guy has not gotten very far in this world and he sounds very angry and sad. And, you know, I, I used to really, I've talked before about, I used to really I've talked before about I used to kind of react to messages like this sometimes by feeling anger or how dare they or whatever.

And I sit back and I think to myself, you know, I have friends, I have family, I have a life. It would never occur to me to treat anyone by speaking to them in this way. It would never occur to me to write to people. I don't know. And say things like this, this guy must have a really sad life. And then I just kind of move on because I feel bad. All right. One more from Zach. Zach says, I recently came across one of your Snapchat stories on discover. I suggest you perhaps actually look at the content you're making before posting it. I counted quite a few BS claims in the one I was watching titled Trump admitted he won't bring prices down, which was just a story full of BS.

Your videos have been reported from me as misinformation and harassment because lying to the public is also a form of harassment. If your videos keep coming up on my page, I will continue to report them. Thanks. All right, Zach, you know what? If you feel better by reporting my videos, go ahead and do it. Uh, I have to say it's a little bit triggered beta snowflakey to say I'm harassing you because you saw one of my videos. Give me a break. Could you possibly be more pathetic? All right. User

deleted on the subreddit says with an important reminder, being rich does not equate to being smart. Donald and Elon are prime examples of this. Well, it's absolutely the case that there is a large swath of the population in this country that believes if you figured out a way to be rich, you must be smart. And it doesn't consider that when you are given a ton of money, it's really easy to just stay rich. In fact, if you're given a lot of money and you end up not rich, you're probably particularly incompetent.

Um, and not only that, we know that Trump is impressed both with money and with authoritarianism, hence why Elon Musk is hanging around with them and why he seems so impressed with Vladimir Putin, uh, and, and defers to Putin over Zelensky despite Putin being a brutal authoritarian and so Zelensky fighting a defensive war. So yes, it's an important reminder. Being rich does not necessarily equate to being smart. Lynn Daniels, uh, commented on YouTube. Trump said, I couldn't find anyone smarter than him.

Translation, I couldn't find anyone richer than him. Of course, another take on a very similar perspective. We are told that Trump is just so impressed with Elon's intelligence and that's why Elon has all this power. Trump is impressed with the fact that Elon has so much money, which Trump equates with being really smart or interesting or worth worthy of Trump's friendship to the extent that Trump has friends. That's what it's really about. And Lynn is, of course, completely correct that Trump sees people's value in their net network. That's the way Trump sees it.

Man Snicks asked on the subreddit, do I understand this correctly? Uh, and clarifies that English is not this person's first language. In a recent David Pakman video, what happens when red States run out of money? He says the following blue States like California and New York are subsidizing the red States. I found this video very interesting and wanted to look up what States are parasitic the most, so to speak, which is why I Googled list of state who received subsidizing from federal funds. The very first link lists California and New York as the top two States that received the most money from the federal government.

This is the opposite of what David was saying. The many state, there are many States in the U S and David mentioned California and New York, but these States are the ones getting the most subsidizing. Did I misunderstand? You did. So here's the important thing to understand. California is a much bigger state in terms of population and economic size than, for example, Wyoming. OK. And so in sheer number of dollars, of course, California gets a lot of money. What we're concerned with is the relative amounts that the states pay in versus get

back. And on a per capita basis, California is a subsidize Zer of other states and other states are subsidized. California and New York have the largest populations in the country. And so in sheer raw dollars, yes, they get a lot of money, but proportionally not so. And so I think this is a completely reasonable clarification to seek, especially if English is not one's first language. Of course, no one would expect that Rhode Island gets more money in raw dollars than New York. It's a tiny state.

But what we're concerned with is proportionality. Who is supporting other states versus who is being supported by other states? Daniel CC is asking about 2028 and Democratic candidates and says, are you worried about the electability of potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidates? I've seen lots of people express worry and skepticism that a woman like Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer or a gay man like Pete Buttigieg could win a presidential election because of concerns over sexism and homophobia. Another possible contender is Gavin Newsom, who could suffer electorally due to anti-California bias. Governors Josh Shapiro and JB Pritzker are Jewish and their

candidacies could potentially be hurt by antisemitism. How concerned are you about the electability of these candidates based on Americans holding bigoted views? How much could their identities hurt them? Personally, I acknowledge bigotry is a very real problem. I don't think we should be scared away from supporting female or gay or Jewish candidates. I think as long as the candidate is charismatic enough, we can overcome the votes lost due to bigotry. Funnily enough, I would be concerned if new summer, our nominee due to national perceptions of California because California has been successfully demonized by the right. I brought up the antisemitism issue when Kamala Harris was considering Josh Shapiro and ultimately went with Tim walls.

I uh, it's clear that antisemitism, homophobia, misogyny, it would help Jewish gay or female. It would hurt Jewish gay or female candidates. But I generally agree with Daniel that if we pick the correct genuine candidate who has a genuine self that is charismatic and appears to connect with voters and can communicate at least a few key ideas that the damage done by the bigotry of the country would be overshadowed by their charisma and appearing to be just genuine people. So I agree with Daniel. I don't think we should shy away from a candidate based on identity if otherwise they are the

sort of person that the Democratic Party should be supporting. And I hope that in 2028 such a person does end up being the nominee. Chris Swan commented about the booing of the American national anthem in Canada. We'll stop booing your anthem when Trump stops threatening us. Fair deal. It seems pretty fair. And of course all the people broken up about how dare they in Canada boo our national anthem seem to say nothing about threats from Trump to take over Canada by economic force and make it our 51st state. Maybe think about that a little bit before you start the crocodile tears and the pearl clutching

over the booing of the national anthem. I don't like seeing the booing either. I mean, it's, it's clear that the booing in Canada is a sign that all is not well with the relationship between the two countries. That concerns me. It's not about the specifics of the booing. It's what it signals. We have such a great bonus show for you today. My book will be out in two and a half weeks. Make sure to preorder the echo machine on Amazon, Barnes and Noble at your local bookstore. Or if you want a signed copy, go to David Pakman dot com slash booksmith. We are doing what we can to make this a successful book launch. We will see. It may fail and you may never hear me talk about writing a book again. Wouldn't that be sad?