The David Pakman Show - 4/24/25: Fox admits economic disaster as Trump out of energy, out of ideas

Episode Date: April 24, 2025

-- On the Show: -- Even Fox News admits Trump's latest polling and economic policy are a pair of disasters going hand in hand -- A terrified Donald Trump tries to flee his trade war as the potential for "empty shelves" becomes a reality -- Karoline Leavitt, Donald Trump's White House Press Secretary, immediately reverses the latest declarations from Donald Trump about tariffs on China -- Donald Trump visibly struggled to answer basic questions about his own policies and plans -- A deflated and desperate Donald Trump, out of ideas, rambles incoherently during an interview with Glenn Beck -- Donald Trump abandons democracy in an unhinged Truth Social post -- Stephen Miller, adviser to Donald Trump, suffers a total meltdown on live TV -- Approval for Donald Trump plummets with every single demographic group -- Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth says he will end the promotion of "fat people" to leadership roles -- On the Bonus Show: Sarah Sanders begs Trump to reconsider relief fund rejection, Trump expected to sign order pushing training for skilled trades, Education Department will resume collecting student loan debt, much more... ⚠️ Ground News: Get 40% OFF their unlimited access Vantage plan at https://ground.news/pakman 🤖 Sponsored by Venice: Use code PAKMAN for 20% off a Pro Account at https://venice.ai/pakman  👩‍❤️‍👨 Try the Paired App FREE for 7 days and get 25% OFF at https://paired.com/pakman  🥦 Lumen lets you master your metabolism. GET 15% OFF at https://lumen.me/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. Well, Fox news cannot even hide the train wreck anymore. Polling is starting to come into focus, but in a very particular way that's different than just about the polling itself. The polling story is start starting to take on a life of its own because even some of Donald Trump's biggest supporters in the media, in the right wing ecosystem can no longer deny that these numbers are a political problem for Donald Trump. Normally they would simply ignore the numbers, but the problem is that voters are starting to see this particularly economic policy.

That's the biggest area where Trump is truly turning people against him. This economic policy is failing the president politically. And so they are talking about it and it is fascinating. Here is Brett Bayer live on air saying the quiet part out loud, quiet to them, right? Which is that Donald Trump's approval rating at roughly the hundred day mark of his second term is 44%. And that's lower than it was during Donald Trump's first term at this point in time, which was already nothing to brag about, but it's also lower than every recent president at the hundred day mark. Here is Brett Baier very solemnly, very seriously,

extremely demure and cutesy talking about it. President talking tariffs in the economy. If you look at our new Fox News poll at 100 days job approval compared to other presidents, there you see the president at 44 percent and you see his first term at 45 percent at this mark, the 100 day mark. We have other new polls that are revealing some concerns about the economy. Let's talk. This is like when this is you have to adjust the language based on where you're getting it. These polls being a source for some concern, the way that Brett Bayer put it means this is a five alarm fire translated. Trump is somehow less popular now after redeeming himself with the presidency a second time

than when he was merely a chaotic loudmouth pretending to be president the first time. But it gets even worse because you look into the details of this poll. Fox also asked voters about the tariffs specifically, which has become Donald Trump's favorite economic weapon. And guess what? 72% of respondents in Fox news, his own poll say that they believe tariffs will make products more expensive, which is of course correct. Only 7% said they believe Trump's claim, which is that the tariffs will actually lower prices.

They just don't believe it. And this is not a good look because it is economic literacy to some degree punching Donald Trump in the face. Now later on in the show, you know, it's serious when Brett Bayer puts on his glasses, Brett Bayer putting on his glasses and bringing in his roundtable of commentators to react to what is admittedly devastating data for Trump on the economy. And it's like a funeral over the Fox polls on the economy. For example, the president's numbers are upside down to where they were and they've taken

a drop. As you see, they're 38 percent in approve on the economy, an issue that in the election, obviously, he's succeeded at. Yeah, I think the American people, to what you were saying earlier, you know, don't like volatility. They want to be able to walk into their Target, to their Walmart and know that they can purchase a TV at a low cost, a low price. And, you know, these tariffs are a tax on the American people. And I think while it is fair that, you know, the Trump administration has said, you know, the United States has not been treated fairly in some of these trade deals. There's a way to do it. There's a precision to it. And you're just seeing this, you know, kind of cut and slash chainsaw approach, you know, with Elon Musk. And at the end of the day,

the American people are reacting to that and the markets are reacting to that. Roger? Well, I think you're not going to hear from American people. They want strategic decoupling. That's not language that you're outside the beltway. But I think actually that's what they want. I mean, you could wrap your head around sort of tariffs of things that put American national security at risk. But the things you get from Walmart, those TVs and other items, well, perhaps we don't need to have the tariffs at level. I think if President Trump was inking trade deals with other countries, it would have sort of an effect or put pressure on China. But the moment he's not getting that. And as a result, it's kind of this dance. Who's going to call who first? He hasn't

spoken to Xi since he entered our office and he wants that call. And I'm not sure it's going to happen. Yeah. And let's just say it's not easy putting these trade deals together. They're very complex. It's like three dimensional chess. I mean, yeah. And then, you know, Brett, Brett then goes into his Apple Ojo where he says, this is really tough stuff. Who could have known that blanket tariffs were actually so complicated to win with. The issue here is that voters intuitively are recognizing if they didn't already know it intellectually, they're intuitively recognizing that Trump's economy is not pointed in the

right direction. The tariff King sold them snake oil and the bill is going to come do higher prices, weaker markets, no actual wins. We're starting to see it. I mean, we don't import anything on the show. But we are hearing from advertisers, hey, we've got to defer the ad campaign. Can we cancel or postpone? The advertisers say we don't know what our costs are going to be, because even if we

assemble our product in the US, we get parts from different parts of the world, as is the case with just about every business at this point in time. We don't know what we are going to have to pay, meaning we don't know what we're going to have to charge, meaning we don't know whether it makes sense to buy advertising on your show because if all of a sudden, you know, if we calculate the value of the advertising campaign based on thinking our product costs 30 bucks, but then in may or June we've got to charge 40 bucks. Now all of a sudden

it throws the viability of the entire ad campaign out of whack. So this is hitting us as well. Right now we are suffering from Donald Trump's tariffs. Trump's approval as a result is underwater. Uh, the novelty is gone. The chaos is exhausting and many of Trump's own fans are now feeling the pain and they are saying, I don't approve. So Fox News is finally blinking. You can hear it in Brett Baier's voice, a mix of sort of disbelief. And we've got to keep airing this stuff. And the latest news is that Trump is going to do a rally next week, as if that is exactly what we need right now, a rally to remind people they are getting screwed.

But for very patriotic reasons. That's where we are right now. Let's go next to what's actually happening with this tariff policy because it's pretty interesting. Uh, Donald Trump just blinked on tariffs and he didn't do it because of Democrats. He didn't do it because of sleepy Joe. It's not because of the fake news media. The thing that has finally made Donald Trump flinch on tariffs is that a number of CEOs

from Wal-Mart, Target, Home Depot started saying to Trump's face with tears in their eyes, sir, we are two weeks from triggering empty shelves in the United States of America. Remember how Trump would say that when Obama took over, the cupboards were bare. Yeah, that wasn't true. But we are now in 2025 in a situation where the president is being warned by billionaire retailers that if he keeps going with the tariff roulette, America would walk into stores and find fewer and fewer goods on the shelves.

Not a hypothetical, not a projection. This is sort of like a two week countdown to chaos that we've now learned Donald Trump has been given now before the emergency CEO summit, I guess we would call it. Trump was busy torching the markets with his usual bravado, threatening to fire Fed Chair Jerome Powell, announcing one hundred and forty five percent, two hundred and forty five percent tariffs on China, a floating a plan to nuke every trade agreement on earth. And the result was that stocks collapsed, bonds and the dollar tanked, global investors fled for safety. And by the middle of this week, Donald Trump started pumping the brakes. Suddenly Trump started saying, no, no,

the tariffs on China are going to come down. The 145 percent tariffs were too high. Suddenly, no, no, no. Jerome Powell's job is very safe. I was never even thinking of firing Jerome Powell despite posting to Truth Central that he should be fired. This is not strategy. This is panic management, crisis management. And what's truly disturbing is that this warning had to come at all because you would think that a president who is the best on business and the best on economics and just so good on this stuff, this was Trump's main strength. We were told you would think that a basic understanding of how modern supply chains work would be enough for Trump to know this is a bad idea. But it wasn't. And ultimately, it took three of America's biggest retailers

to march into the White House and to say, with respect, sir, your policies could collapse the consumer economy in two weeks. So let's do a quick kind of recap of what this fiasco got us. We have the increased global tension and volatility as a result of this tariff scheme, which is putting us at odds with our traditional allies. We are pointing in the direction of higher consumer prices based on manufacturers saying we're we are going to have to increase the cost of our goods by X amount. If this happens, we see declining and unstable financial markets, billions, maybe trillions erased from 401ks with no measurable, measurable benefit to

the American consumer or to American industry. Now I am willing to concede that Trump and others told us it will take a while, right? It it's not, there's going to be short term pain for long term gain, but no one is buying that. The economists were never buying it. But now the American people aren't buying it either. And we end up in this position where if there were to be a global crisis of any kind, bird flu or whatever, we are in a weakened position by straining these relationships. And so all of this so that Trump could pretend to be Mr. Tough Trade Guy for a few weeks. So the takeaway is that Trump's first term was sort of yelling and flailing, but he didn't do that much.

And much of why the economy was pretty good under Trump up until the pandemic is that other than the 2017 tax cut plan, Trump didn't really do that much. It was a lot of yelling and screaming. Trump 2.0 is different. Trump has now found levers of power, tariffs, financial policy, and he's pulling them and jerking them around with the grace of a toddler hitting every button on the elevator. Right. Like my daughter loves to do.

It's no longer just Twitter rants and X excretions and catchphrases at rallies. These are levers that have an impact. And what this is exposing is how little Trump understands the systems that he's controlling. So the damage is done. Even if he backs off of every tariff, we are now seen as an unstable and unreliable counterpart to any kind of treaty agreement or deal. And if this is how Trump handles a sort of self-inflicted economic mess, imagine what would happen in another real emergency.

We kind of know because we saw what we what he did during covid when it got real. Trump ran. And that's not leadership. That's fear. Now, after the break, we're going to look at how the inner circle around the orange man is handling this. And some of them are simply choosing to deny what Trump is doing and deny what Trump is saying, taking the approach of you can't even listen to Trump. You've got to listen to me. That's what Caroline Levitt did. Let's take a quick break and then we'll pick it up with that. You know, every time we call out Donald Trump's authoritarianism, the right calls it media hysteria. But I want to remind you that Trump admits he's looking for ways to defy the constitution and maybe even pursue another term.

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history. Have you wondered what chat GPT and Claude are up to with your conversations? We feed so much of our information to these AI chat bots, thoughts, dreams, sensitive questions, business ideas. They take the information, tie it to your identity, and they can sell that to third parties and governments. Chat GPT has the former director of the NSA on their board right now. That doesn't feel awesome. It took us a long time to truly understand what social media companies were doing with our data. We don't have to make the same mistake with AI. And that's why I've started using Venice AI, a generative AI platform that is private and permissionless. They don't spy on you. Venice AI won't censor the AI. They have a safe mode, which you can turn off for both text and image generation. Messages are encrypted. Your conversation history is only stored on your Thank you so much, David. Well, this is truly getting embarrassing. Remember how for days now Donald Trump has been saying, oh, the high tariffs on China

aren't going to last. They're going to come down and has been really blinking after this CEO conclave of CEOs saying to Trump, you are crushing the retail business after all of that. Caroline Leavitt, Donald Trump's White House press secretary, went on Fox News yesterday and she was asked, Caroline, lay out for us. When will this reduction in Chinese tariffs happen? And Caroline Levitt goes full on cleanup tour and says there is no such plan. Wait a second. So why did Trump say that there is such a plan? Levitt saying there is no unilateral reduction in tariffs against China coming completely reversing course after Trump

admitted the tariffs are too high and the report surfaced that they would be lower. Take a listen to this. Caroline, let's see if we can break a little news here. What's the timetable for the reduction in the tariffs against China? The president was ambiguous about it. Scott Besson seemed to suggest it wouldn't happen until negotiations are at least underway. Let me be clear. There will be no unilateral reduction in tariffs against China. The president has made it clear China needs to make a deal with the United States of America. And we are optimistic that will happen.

And when that continues, it will be up to the president what the tariff rate on China will be. But we certainly need to see a reduction in tariffs and non-monetary tariff barriers from China as well. And we also need to continue seeing these companies abroad return their manufacturing to the United States of America so we can shore up these critical supply chains. OK, so now we're being clear because hours earlier, Trump reportedly admitted tariffs are hurting Americans. The tariffs are going to be eased. So which is it?

Or are we just kind of picking talking points out of a hat at this point in time? Sandra Smith, during the same interview with Caroline Leavitt, says, is it fair to say that at least Trump's stance on the tariffs with China is softening because his language is of very obvious softening? And Caroline Leavitt goes, no, no, no, not at all. Caroline, we're watching markets. They seem to be so sensitive to everything that comes out of the White House right now, whether or not, you know, the Federal Reserve chair will keep his job, whether or not the president's softening his stance on tariffs. Most recently saying that talking about the Chinese imports, they're very high.

The tariffs on imports very high. And it won't be that high. Won't be anywhere near that high, said the president. It'll come down substantially, but it won't be zero. Is it fair to say, Caroline, that the president's stance on tariffs with China is softening? No. I don't think that's fair to say. In fact, I spoke to the president about it this morning.

He is not going to give up on ensuring that there are fair trade practices around the world. He is not giving up on the fact that China has been ripping off the United States of America for far too long. There you go. And just when you thought that it couldn't get any more spineless and shameless, she goes into full spin mode where she just says everything Trump's done economically has been fantastic. Everyone is capitulating. Everyone is negotiating with us. We've got proposals up the wazoo. And of course, this is what gaslighting looks like in real time. And President Trump has brought hundreds of countries now from around the world to the negotiating table. We have 18 proposals on paper from nations around the world who recognize that they have, in fact,

been ripping off the United States. And there's a president in the Oval Office right now who is no longer going to tolerate it. So this is the art of the deal. President Trump is using the leverage of the United States to bring nations to the negotiating table. That includes China, who he remains very optimistic. There will be a fair trade deal with China that finally puts American workers and American industry first. Yeah, finally, we're going to get that. This is what gaslighting looks like. And the script hasn't been updated quickly enough. Trump says the tariffs are too high, too high leaks that it leaks that they are considering cuts. Then Caroline Leavitt is out there hours later pretending none of it happened.

Trump's as strong as ever. He's not capitulating. And by the way, this is the art of the deal. This is not the art of the deal. This is the art of covering for a guy who says the quiet part out loud before you've had time to rewrite the lies. They can't even coordinate their stories for 24 hours. And that's how chaotic and unserious this entire operation is.

If you think that this is merely the optics of it, but that everything is perfectly coordinated behind the scenes. The fact that the tariffs themselves have been announced and paused and pulled back and reinstated and pulled back again so many times is proof that the behind the scenes is just as chaotic as what we are seeing. And in the midst of this, in the midst of this, Donald Trump hosted a bunch of people, including veterans in the Oval Office, and it couldn't possibly have gone any worse. I want to talk about that next a little bit.

You know, we often end up in these discussions. A is meant to distract from B and then someone else comes in and says, no, no, no, no, no. B is actually meant to distract from C and from D to lay the groundwork for E. As as I've said before, I've seen no evidence that this administration really has the ability wherewithal or attention span to actually think in that more abstract, multilayered way. And so when I saw this video of Donald Trump saying to wounded soldiers, so you guys got hit, huh? Amazing. And I saw comments saying this entire fiasco in the Oval Office is meant to distract from the tariff disaster, which we were just talking about. My reaction was, of course, it's not. They don't have the ability to coordinate in that way. It was very ugly, though.

Here is Donald Trump, not exactly a beacon of empathy and understanding. Speaking to wounded service members. We all served together. Wow. And Jared. And Jared. So you guys. So you guys got hit pretty good.

You got hit. Amazing. We're in a pretty tough area in Canada, in the Argonaut River Valley. Right. Their unit had a more than 50 percent purple heart rate, sir. In 2010. You deserve it. You deserve that. And more. We appreciate it so much. Great. Really brave. Brilliant people. Thank you very much. Imagine if Joe Biden said to wounded soldiers, including amputees. So you guys got hit, huh? Pretty good. You got hit. Amazing. They'd be calling for the immediate removal of Joe Biden if Biden spoke to wounded service members in this way, but it's Trump. So the standards are

different and it just doesn't really matter. Trump talking extensively about the tariffs. And by this point in the day, he had already said the tariffs on China are coming down. Caroline Leavitt has said the tariffs on China are not coming down. And so Trump really struggling to use words in a way that is coherent on the topic of tariffs. It's always two weeks away. That's what we've learned from Trump. I was in debt and everything else. And in the end, I think what's going to happen is we're going to have a great deal.

So by the way, if we don't have a deal with a company or a country, we're going to set the tariff. We just set the tariff. It's something that we think that will happen. I'd say over the next couple of weeks, what do you say? I think so. Over the next two or three weeks, we'll be setting the number. We're going to setting the number.

We're going to pick could be for China, too. Could be for China. Well, we're dealing with almost all of them. We're going to pick numbers in the next couple of weeks. What does that remind you of? It reminds me of infrastructure week, perennial infrastructure week. It reminds me of the health care plan is two weeks away in August of 2020. We still have only concepts of a plan. It reminds me of Melania's papers that are going to be released. There is no strategy here. They have absolutely

no idea what is going on. And he has absolutely no idea what he's doing. And he transitioned to not, not, not, he transitioned in terms of the topic he was speaking about is what I mean. He transitioned off of the tariffs to talking about commemorative coins that people are really going to like. And I'm going to give you these coins. I think you're going to really like them. I think they're the best. These are the best ones. This is gun metal. I don't know. Soldiers like the black, but I think you like this one. Soldiers like the black. A lot of soldiers like the black. Here you go. What do you like? I'm going to go with the black.

Huh? See? I told you. Trump handing out coins. These are choices. I'll take a black one, sir. Look at this. That rarely happens. It's different, huh?

I'll take a black one, sir. This is the president of the United States, folks. Oh, yeah. It's called the military. No, but is that I always say the soldiers, they do like it's gunmetal. That's what I heard. I'm giving him to. Yeah. We laugh to avoid crying.

We laugh to avoid crying. Um, this is, you know, the, the Maga had, and you see the Maga had sitting on the, on the desk there, the Maga had has really become a physical embodiment of the humiliation and incompetence that this administration represents. Trump's still confused about how executive orders work, referring to them as legislation. We were having a meeting and at the same time we're signing some very important legislation, what will become legislation. And right now it's an executive order.

Right. Executive orders, of course, don't become legislation. Now if you want to be super charitable to Trump, you could say, well, the executive order motivates the House and Senate to put together legislation, which if passed would be signed by Trump at some point down. Trump has still no idea how executive orders actually function. And then one of the executive orders that Trump signed is deplorable, which makes it easier for teachers to discipline students as if that's really what's lacking in our schools. Sir,

we have an executive order on school discipline policies. Under, I believe it was the Biden administration, first Obama and then Biden, the Department of Justice issued guidance that made it almost impossible for schools to enforce adequate disciplinary policies. This created issues in the classroom for teachers and students alike. Basically, they focused on CRT and sort of diversity ideology instead of actually just enforcing the rules in classrooms to ensure a safe learning environment. You think Trump's already checked out? You think he has any idea what this guy's talking about? This executive order revokes.

By the way, they always have this dog and pony show where this guy on the left here, this this kind of balding gentleman, he always presents the executive orders to Trump to sign almost like a sacrificial offering and explains them in the most deranged, hyperbolic way possible. Anyway, we'll get away from that. Just a couple more. Donald Trump was asked about the steep drop in global tourism to the United States. And Trump goes, not a big deal. Just he just doesn't care. It's been a steep drop off in international travel to the United States.

It was down 12 percent last month, down even more from Western Europe. Why do you think that there are fewer people suddenly who want to travel to the United States? It could be a little bit. There's a little nationalism there, I guess. Perhaps it's not a big deal. But, you know, with the dollar being a big deal, but, you know, with the dollar being where it is, because, you know, it's it's just not a big deal.

Ask Ron DeSanctimonious whether it's a big deal. And finally, no Trump press conversation is complete until he uses the word Tesla. I also know that he was treated very unfairly by the I guess he caught the public by some of the public, not by all of it. I say he makes an incredible car, makes everything he does is good. But they took it out on Tesla. And I just thought it was so unfair because he's trying to help the country. But he has helped the country. I also want him to make sure that he's going to be in great shape. And I know he is. I mean, right. We've got to get Elon back back to working with Tesla. I love Tesla.

Exactly. I love Tesla. So basically hitting all of the high notes, seeming completely disconnected from the horrors of what these injured service members suffered from, showing incompetence when it comes to economic policy, showing complete and total disregard for the consequences of that policy on tourism. And then saying that a really high priority for him is for Elon to do well and to get back to running Tesla. This is why we are seeing the instability that the markets show us every single day, because there is no plan. It is just confusion with disorientation, with distraction, with me,

me, me, Trump as the center and main character of every single policy. We're seeing the impact and it's a terrifying thing. every day. Paired gives you personalized questions or quizzes or games to stay connected, deepen your conversations and have fun. The best part is you can't see your partner's answer until you answer. So it's a safe space to have an open and honest discussion about the relationship. No faking it or pretending just genuine connection to keep the spark alive. My girlfriend and I have used paired even if you've known your partner for years like I have, I still feel like paired helps me learn new things and stay connected. Whether you're just a few dates in or you've been together a long time like me, find the time to connect with your partner. Nourish the relationship. Head to paired dot com slash Pacman to get a seven day free trial and 25 percent

off. If you sign up for a subscription, that's P.A.I.R.E.D. dot com slash Pacman for a seven day free trial and 25 percent off a subscription. The link is in the podcast notes. Well, this is honestly kind of sad. It's like end of the rally slurring his words. What city am I in? Kind of sad. Donald Trump sat down with Glenn Beck. That alone should already get us to say, oh boy, how poorly did this go? And what we got in this interview is very interesting.

This was not tough guy Trump. It wasn't chaos agent Trump. It was low energy, deflated, kind of mumbling about nothing. Donald Trump listened to his demeanor. Check out his tone. He just looks out of energy, exhausted, almost sad to see. And then, of course, you remember, damn, this guy's ruining a lot of stuff and he doesn't even seem to have the energy for it. Take a listen. I don't have to negotiate. I don't have to negotiate. I'm talking to people out of respect, but I don't have to. So we're this giant store that people want to come in and buy from. We're the United States. We have the richest consumer, et cetera, et cetera, right?

But we're not going to be that way for long if we don't do something. But we're this giant store, and they all want to come in and they want to take our product. Now, remember that none of this is even true. But to take our product, they're going to have to pay. And we'll either make a deal with them, or we'll just set a price, because some countries are worse than others. Some countries have ripped us off really badly and some countries have just ripped us off a little bit. But almost all of them have ripped us off because we've had really poor leadership. And what's going to happen is we're going to negotiate. We are negotiating. We're negotiating with 70 different countries.

Now, remember that Caroline Levitt said it was 50, but then someone else said it was 18 countries. And then we're going to negotiate. Actually, we are negotiating. This guy is totally wiped. You can hear it. The bravado with which he started the Tara fiasco is gone because of what's happening in the real world, because of what he's hearing from the retail CEOs. He is now this kind of slouched, exhausted guy with a meandering word salad. And he's cornered to a degree because the tariff plan is collapsing. Fox News is even reading the brutal polling live on the air and his staff can't even keep up with the lies and the shifts in narrative.

And this is what we get. We're negotiating. We're showing great respect. But in the end, we may make deals. But either that or I just set a price. I said, here's what you're going to pay for the privilege of servicing the United States of America. And they have an option. They can maybe talk to me a little bit,

or they can not shop, you know? They don't have to shop at this big store. Or they can shop. But in any event, they're going to have to pay. Look, we owe $36 trillion for a reason. The reason is the trade, and also the endless wars, the stupid wars that we fought. And remember that Donald Trump still seems sort of confused between national debt and trade balance. He doesn't totally seem to get the difference

between those two concepts. Are they related? Yes. In some general sense, they're related. But are they related in the way that Donald Trump seems to be thinking? No, he seems confused. We go into the Middle East. We blow it up. We leave. We don't get anything. And you you're a big fan of exactly what I'm saying. I mean, let's not do this. Don't do that. It doesn't work. It's stupid. Endless wars. Endless wars that they don't even want us. You know, we got into wars they didn't even want us.

So all of that stuff. You know, when I left four years ago, we had no wars. We had no Israel and Hamas. And by the way, it would have never happened because Iran was broke.

They were broke. I had sanctions that were so strong on Iran. because Iran was broke. They were broke. I had sanctions that were so strong on Iran. They were totally broke. They had no money for Hamas. To some degree, one of the saddest parts of this is Glenn Beck, who, listen, you can say a lot of things about Glenn Beck. Glenn Beck realizes that this stuff is meaningless drivel.

This is this is just nothing. It's vapid. Even Glenn Beck nods along and goes, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, as well. We didn't have Russia, Ukraine. That would have never happened, by the way. We didn't have the Afghanistan embarrassment. One of the great embarrassments in the history of our country. We didn't have any inflation.

No, don't forget. I charge China hundreds of billions worth of tariffs. They talk about inflation. We had no inflation. Remember that the American importers pay the tariffs. How many times does it have to be explained to this guy? Because it doesn't cause inflation. Stupidity causes inflation. High energy caused inflation. When they took over my energy, we were making it like nobody's ever seen. And then the prices doubled. By the way, because of that, Putin went in. If they kept you, you see what's going on with energy now,

it's going down. Right. It makes it much harder for Putin to prosecute the war. Now, understand that with regard to energy, gas prices are essentially flat since Donald Trump took office. They went down a little spiked and they're back down to roughly where they were when he took office. And heating bills this winter were so high that many utilities have offered deferments of taking a percentage of your bill and then spreading it out over the spring months where energy bills are presumably lower. Not something you do if energy prices are falling. So this is an improvising Donald Trump. You know, they they can choose not to shop. Is that a policy or is that a threat or is that

anything? What does that even mean? And this is a real stark contrast with term number one. Term number one, he at least had the illusion of energy. He had the chance. He had the whatever you would even call it. This is, you know, a tired guy riffing on the remains, the crumbs of a broken campaign promise. And there has been a decidedly anti-democratic move in all of this. And we have to go back to that because that's

arguably the biggest story of this presidency so far. Donald Trump has abandoned democracy in a sick post to truth. So Trump posted a truly deranged message that should end all debate as to where he and this administration stand on democracy, on Ukraine and on aggression from other authoritarians like Vladimir Putin in Russia. In a long rambling post, Donald Trump is siding with Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea and blaming Zelensky for standing firm against it rather than saying, take whatever you want. Vladimir, uh, Vladimir Putin, that is Trump whines that Ukraine should have accepted the

annexation because back in 2014 they didn't fight back. What? Let's take a look. Quote, Ukrainian president Vladimir Zelensky is boasting on the front page of The Wall Street Journal that Ukraine will not legally recognize the occupation of Crimea. There's nothing to talk about here. This statement is very harmful to the peace negotiations with Russia in that Crimea was lost years ago under the auspices of president Barack Hussein Obama and is not even a point of discussion.

Nobody's asking Zelensky to recognize Crimea as Russian territory if he wants. But if he wants Crimea, why didn't they fight for it 11 years ago when it was handed over to Russia without a shot being fired? The area also houses for many years before the Obama handover major Russian submarine bases. It's inflammatory statements like Zelensky's that makes it so difficult to settle this war. He has nothing to boast about. The situation for Ukraine is dire. He can have peace or he can fight for another three years before losing the whole country. I have nothing to do with Russia, but have much to do with wanting to save on average

5000 Russian and Ukrainian soldiers a week who are dying for no reason whatsoever. Well, they're dying because Putin invaded. Might be worth mentioning that the statement made by Zelensky today will do nothing but prolong the killing field. And nobody wants that. We are very close to a deal. But the man with no cards to play should now finally get it done. I look forward to being able to help Ukraine and Russia get out of this complete and total mess that would never have started if I were president. as usual, ranting and raving. No historical context. Crimea was stolen in a blatant internationally condemned invasion. Ukraine is legally and morally correct to refuse to recognize the theft. And Donald Trump is doing public relations for

Vladimir Putin. Now, here's what this really means. This is what Trump is telegraphing with this post. Trump is making it known to Putin that under this second Trump term, Ukraine is going to be encouraged to surrender and to give stuff up. And Trump is undermining what has been US foreign policy in real time as an active president. He's saying to autocrats around the world that America is done backing democracy. If you invade and if you wait long enough, Trump's going to reward you by saying you should probably be allowed to keep that for the good of achieving peace. You know, this is authoritarian alignment and an open contempt for democratic resistance. And it is the opposite of where the U S has stood on a lot of these critical foreign policy

issues for a long time. Is it a surprise? No. Trump is continuing to do this while saying, by the way, I, I'm, I, I don't love Putin or anything like that. But if we look at what he declares, he is sending every signal that Putin's going to be allowed to get away with a whole bunch of it. Now, Marco Rubio, meanwhile, is saying, I don't know that we're going to solve this thing at all. We'll talk about that tomorrow. That in and of itself is also a major reversal. Stephen Miller is one of the most unhinged, uh, unhinged advisors to

the current white house. And he went full authoritarian on live TV last night. And it is disturbing to watch. Check out what he says about Democrats. Help me out. What is their, what is their end game here? The Democrat party has become the party of terrorists and illegal aliens. That is the Democrat party of today. The Democratic party are terrorists. That's the rhetoric. Not these are our political opponents. Not the Democrats are misguided. Not they are wrong on policy. They are terrorists. Of course, who tried to overturn an election by force? Who ignores court orders every week? Who is undermining due process? Trump's DOJ doing the mass raids, the deportations with no oversight or due process.

And Stephen Miller says the Democratic Party are terrorists. And meanwhile, they love to say, oh, the left is hyperbolic and inflammatory. And it got much, much worse. Help me out. What? Whoops. Wrong clip. You mentioned the threat of international terrorism that is on our shores. The millions of gotaways who entered under the previous administration on top of the millions more unvetted that were caught and released into the country and the millions more that were allowed to either fly into the country or overstay their visas. It is a clear and present danger to the national security of this country. And we have federal judges telling President Trump that he can't deport these threats from our communities. This is the how dare how dare the judiciary suggest that the law be applied

to what this administration is doing. They are indignant that there might be a sort of limiting influence from the judiciary on people doing things that are against the law. How dare they choice facing every American? Either we all side and get behind President Trump to remove these terrorists from our communities, or we let a rogue radical left judiciary shut down the machinery of our national security apparatus. Now, what Stephen Miller ignores is that demanding due process doesn't mean you want terrorists in the country. In fact, I would argue the opposite. If they are really terrorists, giving them due process to make it clear legally that that is what they are should be an easy thing to do. You should want to say our cases are so good against these terrorists that we can

confidently give them due process as they deserve. Determine that they are indeed terrorists and then expedite their removal from the United States. In other words, if you were really confident that that would be the outcome, you would welcome a legal rather than an extra judicial process. But no, they don't. President Trump is going to see this through to his conclusion, and we will find and remove every terrorist from this country. And President Trump will make this nation safer than ever before.

And he'll do it over the fighting and opposition of the Democrat Party, over the fighting and opposition of the communist left wing judges, over the fighting and opposition of the Democrat Party, over the fighting and opposition of the communist left wing judges, over the fighting and opposition of the far left federal bureaucracy. He will not be deterred. Sean, he will see this through. I promise you. Do people get that this is fascism in plain sight? An indignant Trump official is saying we need to unify behind one man. We need to unify behind that one man ignoring what judges say, removing opponents, decimating

communities because he is the ultimate authority. And of course, this is an open, blatant justification for authoritarian crackdowns. This is Miller laying the groundwork for political violence, for purges, for ignoring the courts, all kind of wrapped. Forget about project 2025. It's Trump 2025, the Trump 2025 package. And this is the face. Scary. I know this is the face of a guy who says the number one priority is not following the law. It's not giving people the constitutional rights that were supposed to be guaranteed

to them. The number one priority is whatever Trump says should go. That should terrify. It obviously terrifies the left, but it should terrify the right if they really are the constitutional law and order conservatives that they used to claim to be. I don't know that they really are. I want to introduce you to an amazing tool that has helped a huge number of people reach their health goals.

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recommendations to improve metabolic health based on the context of your breath measurement, whether that's first thing in the morning, before and after meals or workouts. And you can get 20% off your Lumen by going to Lumen.me slash Pacman. That's L-U-M-E-N dot M-E slash Pacman for 20% off. The link is in the podcast notes. All right, well, let's circle back to the data underlying where we started today's show. Donald Trump is now officially underwater with almost every major demographic group in the United States of America. It's hard to find groups remaining that still support the guy. The latest Pew Research poll shows a collapse in support so broad and so consistent that it's not just a political warning sign. This is really the five alarm fire that we've been talking about, especially as we are now

only what, seven months from the official start of the 2026 midterm season. This is not the usual partisan split. OK, this is everybody jumping ship. The numbers and they are ugly. Overall, 40 percent approval, 59 percent disapproval among men, only 44 percent approved among women, only 37% approve of Trump among young voters, 18 to 29, only 36% among those ages 30 to 49, only 37% approval among black voters, 14% underwater with white voters, Hispanic voters, Asian-American voters. The only groups where Donald Trump is in the green are Republicans overall and self-identified 2024 Trump voters. That is it. So here's the historical context and why this matters. Every modern president who saw a sustained collapse in their approval across groups this early in a term ended up with one of two outcomes,

either an absolute midterm bloodbath that effectively disabled the second half of their term or a forced strategic pivot to doing something completely different. Now, the strategic pivot would actually be a good outcome for Trump in the sense that the strategic pivot might prevent the economic destruction that many economists are worried about the declines in approval. It might actually turn things around. It's just that temperamentally constitutionally, Trump is not particularly well suited to 180

away from his own ideas unless he can do it with some kind of face saving mechanism. Now the midterm bloodbath scenario has significant historical precedent. You think of George W. Bush post Iraq escalation, the 20, uh, the 2006 midterms, a disaster for Republicans. Absolute disaster. Example number one in sort of recent political history. Example number two, Barack Obama after the Tea Party wave of 2010 Republican landslide, not good for Barack Obama. Donald Trump's own first term Republicans lost the house in 2018 after his approval

went down below 45%. And now we're in Trump's second term and we really are seeing that exact same pattern, except it's happening faster. It's deeper. It cuts across more demographic groups and it's happening even earlier in his term. The trigger towards the economy, the tariff plan has backfired spectacularly. Markets tanked. China retaliated.

Consumer confidence is in the toilet. Legal resistance to policy rollouts is mounting. We're going to be talking to more governors about that soon. And instead of correcting course, Trump sort of doubled down kinda with this half-baked 90 day pause, some capitulation, but then denying the capitulation. He says one thing, Caroline Leavitt says another thing. It all seems confused. It all seems weak. It all seems beta to use their term, not mine. So people can like the show, but hate the outcome. And, you know, the rallies of before and the merch and owning the libs and all of this stuff, it really only gets you so far when you're

staring at a higher grocery bill or your kid's school loses funding or you look at your 401k or your kid's 529 account. You'll only tolerate so much MAGA hat religion before you say something's not working here. And the proof is in the polling. Trump is now less trusted on every major issue from trade to foreign policy to abortion than Democrats. And then he previously was Pew says confidence in Trump is below 50 percent on all 10 issues that they tested. So there are really three kind of predictions here. Now, I'm not a betting man. I'm very careful about predictions, but the future can only fall into a few categories here. Prediction possibility. Number one, Trump lashes out, blames fake polls and the deep state at Pew Research Center and says these numbers simply

can't be believed. Everybody loves Trump. Everybody's happy with Trump. That's one possibility as a reaction to this polling. Option number two, Trump tries to distract with some stunt, baseless accusation or some kind of meltdown. But at the same time, we've not seen I've not seen proof that Trump and the people around him are really able to function in a coordinated fashion such that they could really pull that off coherently. And possibility number three is that Republicans really start getting nervous, really nervous. And if these numbers hold, moderates start distancing. Donors get a little hesitant and 2026 becomes a referendum on chaos and it goes terribly,

terribly for Republicans. In the past, Trump always believed approval ratings were a show of dominance and strength, something to brag about at rallies. But now that they're cratering, we are about to find out what happens when the only numbers Trump cares about turn against him. I think it'll be some combination of those three options I mentioned. Let me know what you think. In a stunning moment, the secretary of defense said that he is going to reexamine promoting, quote, fat people to leadership positions in the military. This is off the wall stuff. And of course, many reacting by saying, what about people with drinking

problems? But maybe that is a little too on the nose. Let's listen to a speech technically that Pete Hegseth gave. Listen to this. Troops fighting in the unit that many of you will lead are capable, truly physically capable of doing what is necessary under fire. They need to be fit, not fat, sharp, not shabby, especially our leaders. And that's why we're reviewing how the department has maintained standards in the past, especially the last four years, and whether those standards have dropped. Yeah. Um, oh, what direction to even go? You know, of course, there's a bunch of different things here. It is true that obesity is not a protected class. Now, disability is a protected class and there is certainly

some gray area here in terms of obesity to a certain degree can meet the definition of disability. But does it need to be adjudicated as such that this gets into very complicated territory that in a sense is kind of like uncomfortable? I don't know. This is starting to get into some kind of weird territory. A sort of less legalistic reaction has been about the fat phobia that is kind of implicit in this. And I continue to go back. You know, my view on a lot of this stuff.

Has been that we simply need requirements that are objective. For a job, and if people meet the requirements, then you can't really deny them the job based on anything about their identity or whatever the case may be. You know, as we've said before, oh, should there be women in combat or there was a, you know, a long time ago it was about should women be firefighters on the front lines? And for the most part, it works pretty well to say, here are the requirements of the job. You've got to be able to drag 175 pound person that can't move themselves 200 yards in under three minutes. Why? Well, because that's what sometimes is demanded or required of someone in the role of firefighter or infantry person, whatever. If you can do it, there's no real reason to exclude an individual from that job on that

basis. You would then maybe there's a different reason to exclude them, which you could come up with, but on that basis. So this whole thing about fat people in the military, whatever, I mean, listen, if you're in a role where there is a certain physical requirement, establish what that is. And if someone can't meet it because of their weight or for whatever reason, well, then they don't qualify this other stuff about, I don't know, someone who sits at a desk and what's their BMI or however it just it gets into really wacky territory that is much more about optics and much less about

real leadership and getting things done, which is supposedly what Pete Hegseth wants to do. Now, speaking of getting things done, he also says no more gender or pronoun stuff. We got to really get into war fighting, war fighting. At the Defense Department, that means no more distractions, no more social engineering, no more climate change worship, no more electric tanks, no more gender confusion, no more pronouns, no more excuses, no more quotas, no more woke bullshit that undermines commanders and command climates. We are laser focused on our mission of war fighting. And of course, a lot of people saying, I thought we weren't at war. I thought the whole thing with Trump was he keeps us out of wars.

How is it all of a sudden that we have? Let me translate. We have no time for learning. We have no time for educating ourselves. We have no time for becoming more robust by getting off of fossil fuels. We don't have time for any of that because we we just need to be war fighting and no fat people either. And then you go, wait a second. I thought we weren't at war. I thought the whole thing with Trump was we're not going to be at war. What? And it is, of course, just another layer of the complete and total incoherence that we are seeing broadly and more narrowly, the complete and total incompetence of Pete Hegseth,

who if the rumors are to be believed, if the reporting from NPR is to be believed, which I see no reason not to, it seems as though very soon Pete Hegseth will no longer be the secretary of defense. And that would be the most fair and just outcome that I can imagine. We've got a great bonus show for you today. Sarah Huckabee Sanders is begging Trump, begging Trump to reconsider his rejection of disaster relief funds for her state of Arkansas. What's going on there? Secondly, it looks as though the White House will be signing an executive order pushing training for skilled trades. Sounds like a pretty good idea. What's the downside? What's this really about? We will talk about it. And finally, the education department is going to

start a loan, a student loan debt collections. What is this expected to do to the economy? All of those stories and more on the bonus show. I want to invite you to sign up at join pacman.com. Thanks very much to the 50 folks who have signed up so far this week. I really appreciate you and make sure at minimum that you're subscribed to the YouTube channel and on my free newsletter, which you can get by signing up at David Pakman dot sub stack dot com. Last last thing. Thank you to everyone. This is now getting wild. Thank you to everyone who put my book, The Echo Machine on the New York Times bestseller list for the third week. The book's been out four weeks, three of those. It's been on the New York Times bestseller list.

I didn't even know if we would make it once. So thank you to everyone. I am flattered. We will see you on the bonus show and I will see you back here tomorrow.