The David Pakman Show - 4/29/25: Trump official can't deny empty shelves as Canada goes liberal

Episode Date: April 29, 2025

-- On the Show: -- Isaiah Martin, 26-year-old Democratic candidate for House District 18 in Texas, which has a special election this November, joins David to discuss his campaign, the district, and the wave of upstart young Democrats running for office -- Thanks to Donald Trump, Canadians have elected Liberal Mark Carney as their new Prime Minister, while right wing candidate Pierre Poilievre lost his seat altogether -- Donald Trump's unhinged new written interview with Time Magazine is absolutely absurd and completely terrifying -- Donald Trump is hemorrhaging independent voters, and we dive into the why -- Scott Bessent, Donald Trump's Treasury Secretary, can't deny that empty shelves may well be coming to the United States -- Karoline Leavitt, Donald Trump's White House Press Secretary, holds her most unhinged press briefing yet -- Donald Trump claims to have made 200 trade deals, but there aren't even 200 countries with which to make trade deals -- Lawyers for Mike Lindell, CEO and founder of MyPillow, get caught using ChatGPT to generate court filings with references to court cases that don't exist -- On the Bonus Show: Massive power outage in Spain and Portugal, suspect in Kristi Noem purse snatching tells authorities he didn't recognize her, Trump dinner for meme coin buyers prompts demands for ethics probe, much more... 📈 Kalshi: Use code PAKMAN for $10 off when you trade $100 at https://kalshi.com/pakman 💼 Odoo: Try it completely FREE for 14 days (no credit card needed) at https://odoo.com/pakman 🐟 Wild Alaskan Company: Get $35 OFF with code PAKMAN at https://wildalaskan.com/pakman  🖼️ Aura Frames: Use code PAKMAN for $35 OFF & free shipping at https://auraframes.com/pakman 🛌 Helix Sleep mattresses: Get 20% OFF sitewide at https://helixsleep.com/pakman 💻 Get Private Internet Access for 83% OFF + 4 months free at https://www.piavpn.com/David -- Become a Member: https://davidpakman.com/membership -- Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/davidpakmanshow -- Get David's Books: https://davidpakman.com/echo -- TDPS Subreddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/thedavidpakmanshow -- David on Bluesky: https://davidpakman.com/bluesky -- David on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow

. Welcome everybody. We start today with a huge congratulations to Maga and an attaboy to Donald Trump. What am I talking about? Well, uh, Donald Trump didn't just light himself on fire politically in these first hundred days. He has managed to burn down the Canadian right wing as well. This actually does require

some skill. You don't often see this. What happened is that after months of Trump threatening to annex Canada, launching a new trade war, treating Canadians like they were just the 51st state waiting to be taken over, Canadians have revolted and what happened is that Canada's own little Trump knockoff, Pierre Pollyev went from almost becoming the next prime minister to losing his own seat altogether. This is not just losing the election to be prime minister. This is losing his personal seat, completely humiliating. And meanwhile, Mark Carney, who has only really been in the discussion for prime minister recently, rode this wave of anti-Trump backlash in Canada straight into the prime minister's

office. We're going to look momentarily, uh, at some of his victory speech. So let's be very clear about how this all went down. Uh, the Canadian right and Pierre Pollyev thought that they could campaign on affordability on being tough on crime and sort of ride Justin Trudeau's unpopularity right into victory. But then in comes Trump like a wrecking ball, first with threats to slap massive tariffs on Canada, then with open talk of an annexation, then reimposing tariffs, pulling them back, reimposing them again. And suddenly the question for Canadian voters was no longer how much do you hate Justin

Trudeau? It was wait a second. Are you going to vote for the equivalent of Trump in Canada? Even if Polly have recently sort of saw the writing on the wall and started to distance from Trump? Here is one example of a Canadian voter yesterday. I think who I voted for would be the best to take care of Trump because Trump is, I'm sorry to say, an ass and he shouldn't he shouldn't even be president of the United States.

But because he is, we need a strong person so that we could stand strong because Trump is president. The calculus for Canadian voters was different. Who can defend Canada from a lunatic? American president became the question. The answer, if the question is who can defend us from Trump, the answer can't be Canadian mini Trump. It just doesn't make sense in the choice. Pierre Polly have looked like Trump's mini me and Mark Carney,

a former central banker, ended up looking like the adult in the room who was going to resist these terrible impulses from MAGA and from Trump. So what the Liberal Party of Canada managed to do is turn the election into a referendum on Trumpism. And it worked. The end result, Carney and the liberals securing another term. Pierre Polyev, again, the guy who was supposed to be Canada's next prime minister, didn't just lose the election. He lost his own district of Carlton, a conservative stronghold to a liberal newcomer. Conservatives collapsed, collapsed in a number of suburban writings as they call them there. And as the CBC put it, a miraculous liberal minority, maybe even a majority once the final counts are in all because of Donald J. Trump. Trump managed to nationalize Canadian politics in Canada and it backfired spectacularly. Mark Carney didn't hold back in his victory

speech. He basically told Trump, we are not your property. We are not your 51st state. And if you think you're going to bully Canada, it is not going to happen. When I sit down with President Trump, it will be with our full knowledge that we have many many other options than the United States to build prosperity for all Canadians. We will strengthen our relationship with reliable partners in Europe, in Asia and elsewhere in the world. And if the U.S. doesn't want to play a pivotal role in the world economy, we will lead, not the Americans. So you get the Americans.

So you get the idea. I mean, Mark Carney's making it crystal clear. Canada is going to rebuild its economy with less reliance on the United States. That's not good for the United States. They will strengthen and build new relationships around the world because it sounds like the era of trusting the United States is at least temporarily suspended. And he referred to it as the American betrayal. The Canadian people backed him up. So Trump promised that he was going to make America great again. And instead, it sounds like he made Canada liberal again. Humiliation for Canadian right wingers.

Trump to blame. And Mark Carney now the grown up in the room becomes the prime minister of Canada. What an election and really just a stark reminder of the long range impact of Donald Trump. Disappointing certainly to the Canadian right wing, but probably, uh, avoiding disaster, averting disaster from the perspective of sanity and reason around the world. All right. We have to look at this interview that Trump did with time magazine. This is a written interview.

Now what I mean by that is not that Trump wrote his answers. That would be a different kind of abortive attempt to use language to communicate. What I mean is that this was an interview that was published as a transcript and it is wacky, wacky stuff. Now, it's not a particularly long interview. I encourage you to read it, but we're going to pull out and look at a few specific areas from this interview. First of all, on the topic of trade deals, Trump insisted during the interview that he's made all the deals. And then the following exchange took place.

Time said not a single deal has been announced yet. When are you going to announce them? And Trump says, I've made 200 deals. Time says you've made 200 deals. Trump says 100 percent. And then when asked, can you share with whom Trump unleashes a word salad, the likes of which we have not seen for a while. Trump says, quote, because the deal is a deal that I chose.

View it differently. We are a department store and we set the price. I meet with the companies and then I set a fair price, what I consider to be a fair price and they can pay it or they don't have to pay it. They don't have to do business with the United States, but I set a tariff on countries. Some have been horrible to us. Some have been okay. Nobody's been great.

Nobody's been great. Everybody took advantage of us. What I'm doing is I will at a certain point in the not too distant future, I will set a fair price of tariffs for different countries. These are countries, some of them have made hundreds of billions of dollars and some of them have made just a lot of money. Very few of them have made nothing because the United States was being ripped off by every almost every country in the world, in the entire world.

So I will set a price. And when I set the price and I will set it fairly, according to the statistics. All right, listen, I don't even have the ability to do the whole thing. I can't stomach it. It's totally vomitous. That is not anything. He's not saying anything there. It is just wacky, deranged stuff.

And there's one little detail I do want to see addressed, which is that there don't seem to be 200 countries with whom we would make deals. You know, depending if you look at how many countries are there, if you consider disputes and disagreements over independence and, you know, some technicalities, there are roughly 195 countries. And the idea that Trump made 200 deals, of course, then this means he's making more than one deal with certain countries. None of it makes any sense. Now, terrifyingly, during this interview, Trump was asked about the idea of sending American citizens to prison in El Salvador. Time magazine asked us, President Bukele, to build out the secret prison to house American

citizens. You said you would love to send homegrown criminals there. Trump says, no, I didn't say that. I said if it were permissible according to the law, I would like to do that. Yes. And Trump was then asked, well, do you intend to send American citizens to foreign person persons? I think they mean prisons. I would love to do that if it were permissible by law.

We're looking into that. When I have a person. These would be extreme cases when I have a person that is a 28 time in and out of in and out person that goes out and tries to kill people every time he or she is out. I would have no problem with doing that whatsoever. We're talking about career criminals that are horrible people that we house and we have to take care of for 50 years while they suffer because they killed people. If you ask me whether or not I would do that, I would, but totally. And I think you have to leave this part of the sentence totally subject to it being allowed

under law. And people are looking to see if it could be allowed on if it would be allowed under law. We have crime rates under Biden that went through the roof and we have to bring those rates down. And unfortunately, those rates have been added to by the illegal immigrants that he allowed into the country. None of this makes any sense. When you take Trump's speech, the weave, as he called it, calls it when you take Trump's speech and you transcribe it into text, it's exponentially

more unhinged. It's exponentially more unintelligible. And when Trump was then asked, which Americans would you do that to? Which Americans would you send to prison in El Salvador? Trump said, I would do that to people that hit old ladies over the head with a baseball bat for people that grab their bicycle. You saw that one where they dragged an old woman along the street on a motorcycle, a bicycle, a motorcycle. I think people that push people into subway trains just before the train is ready to stop. You saw that the man barely lived. Think of it. And a guy comes up to him and from behind, he pushes him. That's a serious, serious thing. People that shoot people in the back,

people that are executioners. Yeah, I would have no trouble with that, but subject to it being allowed by law. Now, of course, we've looked at this. It is not allowed by law. You can't exile American citizens to prisons in other countries. But when we say it's not allowed by law, what does that mean? Because if there's no mechanism strong enough to stop Trump from doing it, I guess he can do it. I don't know. That's the terrifying part. Trump was then asked, you recently said you were not joking about seeking a third term and that there were methods to do it. What methods? Trump is cagey. He says, I'd rather not discuss that now. But as you know, there are some loopholes that have been discussed that are well known. But I don't believe in loopholes. I don't believe in using loopholes.

Trump was then asked more specifically, you wouldn't run as vice president to J.D. Vance. This is one of those so-called loopholes that's been floated. Trump goes, I don't know anything about what look. All I can say is this. I am being inundated with requests. I'm doing a good job. Great physical exam.

And unlike every other president, I took the cognitive test and I aced it 100%. And I bet you guys couldn't get a hundred percent on that exam. It's a tough exam. You know, when you get into the mid questions, it gets to be pretty tricky and pretty tough. And the last questions are very tough and I aced it. And I guarantee I'd give you, I'd make a big, beautiful bet that you guys couldn't ace it. But anyway, but look, it's good to have you. It's a very nasty interview. They don't ask any of the good things. Wow. All right. And then wrapping one final question, Mr. President, you were showing us the new paintings you have behind us. You put all these new portraits. One of them includes John Adams. John Adams said we're a government ruled by laws,

not by men. Do you agree with that? Trump confused. He goes, John Adams said that. Where was the painting? Trump's told it's right here. And then Trump says we're a government ruled by laws, not by men. Well, I think we're a government ruled by law. But, you know, somebody has to administer the law. So therefore, men certainly men and women certainly play a role in it. I wouldn't agree with it 100 percent. We are a government where men are involved in the process of law. And ideally, you're going to have honest men like me. At that point, the interview comes to a close with a thank you, Mr. President. We appreciate your time. Just. Stunning. Stunning. When you take his incoherence and you see it in black and white transcribed, the degree to which this guy is in over his head becomes so unavoidable to acknowledge and recognize and telling the interviewers they couldn't pass the brain injury test out of this world,

out of this world. And just imagine if former President Biden had ever given an interview like this, it would be immediate demands for resignation with Trump. It's Tuesday. If you're running a business and feeling stuck juggling the logistics, the multiple apps, programs, endless spreadsheets, manual data entry, all of this stuff, switch to Odoo, the powerful all in one management platform that will give you everything you need

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A huge thank you to the 80 new subscribers over the last few days. Really appreciate you. You can only fool some people for so long and for Donald Trump with independence, it seems like that is close to up. A brutal new Washington Post, ABC News poll shows Donald Trump 22 points underwater with independence, his worst approval rating with them ever. Even people who once tolerated him are finally seeing it. Trump is not about law and order.

He's about lawlessness and he's about raw power and it's impossible to ignore. Immigration was supposedly Trump's strongest issue. That's now dragging him down. 56% of independents disapprove of how Trump is handling immigration. And this was his calling card issue. 62% of independents are against deporting international students who criticize us policy. 52% oppose shipping undocumented immigrants off to foreign prisons without a hearing. And when Trump tried to frame a Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a man wrongfully deported as some kind of dangerous criminal, only 21% of independents bought it. About four or five independents simply didn't buy it.

Even voters who might support stricter immigration enforcement are not on board with these authoritarian abuses of power. Now here's the interesting thing. If you look at betting markets like Cal she, you see that on the question of where will Trump's approval be in the future? Like, for example, where will Trump's approval be on Friday? The forecast current currently says twenty nine percent. In other words, the expectation is that Trump's approval is going to continue declining. I regularly use Kalshi to check odds for future events in politics. And here the question is, OK, Trump's approval is in the high 30s, low 40s. Now,

where do people expect it to go? And on this particular betting market on Kalshi, it's expected to go lower, lower, lower. That's the trend line going back weeks. I don't know that I think it'll go this slow. I think some of the people putting money on this or maybe a little overzealous, but I do think that down is the direction it's going to go. Another example of where people think things are going, the issue of a recession this year, which of course relates to Trump's approval. The betting market on Cal she has pushed up to 57 percent, believing there will be a recession this year.

Now, in a sense, we might already be in a recession. Let me explain what I mean. We don't have we're currently in the second quarter of the year. We don't yet have Q1 GDP numbers. If Q1 GDP was negative, which it's believed it may well be, if Q1 GDP was negative and right now in Q2, we are in negative GDP territory. We won't know this until I believe July or August because there's a delay on the data. We could be in a recession right now in the sense that we might be in the second consecutive

quarter of GDP decline right now. Trump's whole brand, his whole story was supposed to be he would hurt the right people while everybody else watches safely from the sidelines. But suddenly Trump's not just hurting them anymore. He's stomping over rights. He's eliminated due process and it's hitting very close to home for a lot of these independent voters. I heard from a viewer who said something like a too bad these people, these independents were dumb enough to vote for a guy who led an insurrection

four years ago. If you're only having second thoughts now, you must be a moron or you finally realize he's coming for you and your family. I don't know about using that language necessarily, If you're only having second thoughts now, you must be a moron or you finally realize he's coming for you and your family. I don't know about using that language necessarily, but independents do seem to be waking up to the fact that Trump is not some smart businessman keeping the system in check. He's a fascist wannabe who believes the law only applies to other people. And despite all the noise about immigration being Trump's strength and economy being Trump's strength, the disapproval shows something much deeper and something much worse.

Americans still instinctively understand that unchecked power is a dangerous thing. When you see international students being disappeared for criticizing the government, when you see people frog marched onto planes without trials, when you hear about immigrants thrown into jails in El Salvador without hearings, it doesn't look like strength. It looks like cowardice, fear and tyranny. And that is why Donald Trump is hemorrhaging independent support. The next problem for them is going to be something people really reacted to last week when I talked about it. Em empty shelves, a ton of interest in this potentially forthcoming empty shelf disaster in the United States. Last week, I did a story about it and it

generated millions of views across our platforms about the possibility that empty shelves may be coming here in a shocking moment. Treasury Secretary Scott Besson revealed he has no idea what's going to happen with the empty shelves. He just said, I assume retail stores preordered a lot of stuff. This does not look good right now. When you are, you worried about empty shelves? Because they say that a lot of these supply lines and the cargo ships are being held up. A lot of people are saying, turn it around with the tariffs this high.

I don't want the product. Are you worried about empty shelves? Not at present. We have some great retailers. I assume they preordered. I think we'll see some elasticities. I think we'll see some elasticity. I think we'll see replacements and then we will see the how quickly the Chinese want to deescalate.

There you go. It's not Trump's fault. It's the Chinese. I assume retail stores preordered a bunch of stuff. Same day he appeared on CNBC and he was asked, is there a contingency plan here? Do we know what the contingency plan here is with retailers and with stuff? Doesn't seem to know. Mr. Secretary, Gary Cohn was on Face the Nation yesterday and he said that he thinks we're weeks away from starting to see the effects of this actually show up, whether it be in prices or

I guess to some extent you could suggest in shortages of certain items. Where do you think we stand just in terms of how long it will be before Americans really start to feel this? Becky, I can't tell you what various retailers have done in terms of stockpiling, in terms of substitution, in terms of elasticities. I didn't see Gary's interview. He just has no idea. He doesn't know what Gary Cohn said. He doesn't know what retailers are doing. So here's the takeaway.

They have no contingency plan. For the possibility of empty shelves, we already have reports under. Let me back out a little bit. Much of the stuff that we end up buying on store shelves leaves Asia on a boat months before it appears on our shelves. There is reporting that for weeks now, thanks to the on again, off again tariffs, boats have been leaving Asia significantly less than full. Why aren't we seeing that on the shelves yet? Because it takes a couple of months. And so the belief, the fear, the issue now is that several weeks from now, the impact of those semi empty boats is going to be fell on retail store

shelves. Now, this is not me defending consumerism. Oh, we need 50 varieties of cheap chachkis from China or we're going to do that. That's that's not the issue. The issue is that Donald Trump ran on. We will never have the bear cupboards. We will never have the bear cupboards. We will never have the supply chain issues. And then he came in and in a self-inflicted optional way has now imposed policy that may

create exactly that the empty shelves he blamed on Obama and Biden previously that he promised us we would never have. When will we know? Several weeks from now. Caroline Leavitt is the White House press secretary, and she held one of the most humiliating briefings I've ever seen. This was a so-called new media briefing. And the first topic that came up from these great new media journalists was about Uber drivers and truck drivers speaking English, which is a new area of concern for the White House. Accessible presidency in American history.

So with that, let's kick it off. And I'm happy to take your question first, Aaron. Thanks so much, Caroline, both for having us and for granting me the first question here. Sure. And I can attest to the deportations in Florida. My Uber drivers finally speak English again. So thank you for that.

Understand what she's saying. Thanks to Trump deporting people, her Uber drivers now speak English. And this is Sean Spicer on the left who's chuckling about it. My question for you is, what are the administration's plans for those who continue to defy the executive orders? Most notably, on my mind, are the ones related to what some would call trans men. I would call men masquerade as trans women, which are men masquerading as girls in girls sports. Sure. All right. So the anti-trans question to kick things off and let's now get to this issue of the of the driving. Caroline Leavitt bravely and courageously announcing a new initiative

in which truckers will be able to speak English. And then the third executive order, which actually speaks to the heart of your question earlier about the Uber drivers, will be a order directing the Department of Transportation to include English literacy tests for our truckers. This is a big problem in the trucking community that unless you're in that community, you might not know. but there's a lot of communication problems between truckers on the road with federal officials and local officials as well, which obviously is a public safety risk. So we're going to ensure that our truckers who are the backbone of our economy are all

able to speak English. You know, this actually, there's a, there's a different discussion to be had here. First of all, in tennis in Tennessee, they looked at doing the exact same thing to be a commercial driver. You've got to be able to speak English. That idea was killed because they recognized in Tennessee it would absolutely cripple the transportation industry. And of course the idea that the party of small government is going to draft an unenforceable

executive order designed to police people speaking certain languages is yet another one of these contrasts. And we say we are for small government, but really we're not. But there's another thing I've driven in countries where I don't speak the language. Certainly, globally, it is not considered an issue of safety for drivers not to speak the language. And in fact, most road signs are designed so that you don't need to speak the language, at least not on the issues of critical safety. You know, I guess bridge freezes before road. OK, that's the one that is a little bit idiomatic. And, you know, it's not just a number with a speed limit on it, but for the most part, the global community has already decided you don't need a language

test to drive. When I drove in the Flemish part of Belgium, I don't speak a word of that language, but I was still licensed and allowed to rent a car. So the point here is this is obviously not an issue of safety. It's another one of these virtue signaling type issues. Um, Caroline Leavitt at one point sort of struggling with language. Listen to this. We want Congress to continue getting to work, but we got to get this reconciliation fast pill. Um, that we have to get this bast pill. I think, I guess she means this bill passed. And then finally, finally, Sean Spicer, who at one

point was the press secretary at the very beginning of Donald Trump's first term. He had a Newsmax show, which was then canceled. I don't even know what he's doing now, but he was in the new media briefing. Yeah, well, you know, I had to swing by. Thank you for doing this. I think it's marvelous what you guys have done to bring in new voices. And it's it shows it reflects the president's commitment to transparency and to bring this in. So I've got two quick ones for you. The first is you mentioned reconciliation beyond that and what he hopes to get out of that.

Considering how slim the House majority is, what other legislative priorities does he want to see codified law before this Congress adjourns? Yeah. Anyway, the whole point here is I don't know in what way Sean Spicer is now new media. He's like what part of the most staid and outdated elements of the media apparatus than I can remember. But they've got a new media briefing and Sean Spicer

is there now. Several of you emailed me saying, David, would you go to this? Of course I would go. I would go and I would ask a real question and they'd probably never invite me back. But of course, if I was invited to ask questions of this administration, why? Why would I turn that down? Absolutely. I did apply, by the way, to this new media thing that they did. You may not be shocked to hear that I did not hear back. Your mom wants you to call her and this Mother's Day. Give her a call. But you can also consider giving her an aura digital picture frame or a frames was named the best digital photo frame by Wirecutter.

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That's H E L I X sleep.com slash Pacman. The link is in the podcast notes. Today we're going to be speaking with Isaiah Martin, who's a candidate for house district 18 in Texas, which has a special election this November and bigger picture. We've been covering Isaiah so that you know, this kind of surge of young progressive Democrats who want to get involved. This is something Bernie Sanders has been talking about. He's been saying, Hey, not just vote, but also run, run for office. And that's what you're doing. So tell me a little bit about why you're even

doing this. I mean, you've got a large social media following. You're 26. You could be doing a lot of different things. I mean, why? Why this? What's the goal? Well, first of all, thanks for having me, David. Of course, man. It's thank you for your show. To be honest with you, I'm running for Congress because we cannot afford to miss this moment. I mean, right now we are seeing an erosion of our rights, an erosion of our economy, and we're seeing just quite frankly that we need people that have a spine and a backbone to get to Congress and really shake things up. So when I talk to people all around my district, they are sick of the status quo, and they want somebody that's going to be unapologetic in their corner.

And so that's why I announced my candidacy. And I've been proud of the effort that we've been able to build ever since. I want to talk a little bit about the kind of moment that we're in and get your thoughts. I think this will be interesting for the audience, your thoughts on some of the things that are going on right now and sort of what your approach would be. Were you in office? Yeah. You have criticized Democrats for caving to Trump aligned Republicans. That's right. If you had been in Congress during the shutdown situation, what would you have voted to do? Would you have voted to shut down the government rather than pass the stopgap bill?

Well, I don't really view it as a vote to shut down the government because what House Democrats and so many had offered was a short 30 day extension in order for them to get a clean continuing resolution. Because when you examine that bill, it was not a clean CR that the Republicans had offered. So as a result of that, it was very clear that they were playing partisan games. And I don't believe that Democrats under any circumstances should have bent the knee in that measure. So I would have stood with a good chunk of the House Democratic Caucus and ensured that we voted for a clean CR and a 30 day extension so we can get that really

onto the table. And if you're if you're hypothetical constituents in Texas's 18th district, when you did that came to you and said, hey, you know, Isaiah, I get the idea of what you're doing, but we suffer when the government shuts down even temporarily. What do you say to them? Well, I would say that that's 100 percent on the Republicans, because it's the Republicans that control the House, the Senate and the White House. And ultimately, at the end of the day, it is the Republicans that are not being honest with the people of this country.

They are proposing massive cuts to veterans benefits. I know that when we examined the bill, we saw cuts to storm recovery that was inside of the bill that they had. That's not an acceptable outcome for the people of my district. We have hurricanes all of the time. And so I would have told them that I'm holding the line to be able to preserve the funding that we do have. And that's why I would have been working relentlessly to get that CR to keep the government open, because any idea of a shutdown would have been on the Republicans that control every single level of government inside of Washington, D.C. All right. Let's talk about some of your other policy ideas. And I encourage people to check out your website. You talk about health care. You talk about infrastructure, energy reform,

immigration, gun safety regulations, which which I want to come back to. One of the things that is just sort of a reality is that at the national political level, there are often trade offs or compromises that have to be made to get what it is you think is best for the people in your district. Can you talk a little bit about what sorts of compromises are you willing to make if you're willing to make any? I assume you are because you strike me as extremely pragmatic and sort of a realist. What sort of compromises are you willing to make with Republicans in order to get some of the things you outline on your website and what sort of things would be over the line for you? Well, I think that it would depend on the particular issue.

I mean, I think that everything is different. So it depends on the particular situation or hypothetical. But what I would say is that in order for us to be able to bring change, sure that there are going to have to be some concessions, but we have to always hold the line on our principles. I'll give you a perfect example. Yeah, there is a big contingent of people that want particularly to cave on the idea of reproductive rights inside of our state in terms of federally. I don't really view that as a reason to compromise because I know that for so many people, particularly inside of my district, we are seeing women that ultimately want to have children and then ultimately end up having a pregnancy complication. And it is a man

that is a bald dude in a state capitol telling them that they can't go get care for a pregnancy complication. I think that's outrageous. And so I'm not really for those type of things. And I think that we have to always hold our principles to prevent further incursion on our rights. Let's let's talk about the gun safety regulations a little bit. I think this is super interesting. You tell me if I'm going down the wrong track, but you support a ban on AR 15 purchases nationally, right?

I believe I read that. OK. One of the things that is sort of a reality for national elected officials like you who would be voting to a degree on national policy is that you are voting on national policy, but you're accountable to those in your district who will decide, does Isaiah get to stay in the house or doesn't he? Right. In Texas, voters have overwhelmingly rejected similar ideas to,

for example, banning AR-15 purchases even after mass shootings, which, of course, to me is absolutely crazy. But it is what it is. How do you talk to gun owners in the 18th district of Texas and explain to them that you want to ban AR-15 purchases nationally, which they voted that they don't want to do. Right. So, I mean, I would say that the voters of my district are actually vehemently in favor of it. You know, statewide Republicans might, you know, have issues with it. But in my district, we understand very clearly what happened in Santa Fe, which is a couple of miles down the road from our district, in which numerous children lost their lives as a result of a school shooting. I remember when Congresswoman Jackson Lee, my mentor, went and

had a field hearing in Uvalde to go and meet with the parents that were affected by it. I remember being there and meeting people like Brett Cross and the parents of so many others that were affected by this. So throughout the entirety of my district, we have always been abundantly clear that we don't want our children to go into an environment where a mass shooting could happen inside of their schools. We don't want parents to get text messages saying that their school is in lockdown. That is an unacceptable outcome. The people of my district have always stood for that. And that's what I want to make sure that I'm bringing to Congress as their voice. Some Democrats believe that national campaigns should avoid the issue of gun safety because it doesn't bring in any new support, but it can

sort of anger and dissuade folks who are against gun safety regulations and get them out voting against Democrats. Do you buy that? No, I don't, because Bill Clinton campaigned on it and he did it. And so I think that nationally it has been something that is, you know, ever since the AR-15 purchasing ban expired and it sunsetted, we have seen further implosion and continuing of the raising of those numbers. So I'm not really buying that per se. I think it's all about how we present it. We can understand that we preserve the idea of the Second Amendment without saying that we should have weapons of war like the AR-15 being able to be bought on our streets. Do you see yourself more of a sort of nuts and bolts legislator type role is more of an information war game that we have to go put out. It's not no longer the whole job to just go and vote against bad bills and vote for good bills and to vote for good legislation.

You have to make sure that you're communicating to your constituents. And that means reaching out to them in any way possible, whether it's shows like yours or whether it's other podcasts or whether it's on the radio or nightly TikTok lives like I do every single night that get 15,000 people. It is through going out there and communicating to people to let them know what's going on. And I think that we can inspire a wave of change in which people are unafraid of going on any platform, answering any question and being accountable directly to the people. Are there elected Democrats right now that you think are doing the social media thing correctly? There are some. I mean, I think that, you know, I think that Jasmine Crockett's doing a great job on social media. I mean, I think that there are, you know, people that engage very well, that are very authentic. I think Chris Murphy is somebody who has done a very good job on social media engaging people.

But ultimately, I think what we do is a little bit different. Every single night, we go and take unscripted questions from people on TikTok, and I view that that is something that has been really effective to reach not only the people in my district, but for many that are feeling as if politics is not working for them, as if politics has left them behind, that people in politics don't listen to them. I feel as if it is something them behind, that people in politics don't listen to them. I feel as if it is something that makes sure that people know that I'm always accountable, I'm always available, and you can ask me anything because I'm always there. One of the things I think is interesting about this sort of youth movement within the Democratic

Party and a kind of desire for a new generation of leadership is that on the one hand, age can bring fresh ideas, young age, I guess I would say can bring fresh ideas, but there's also the sort of real reality that it also means less experience sort of by definition. It's just the younger you are, the fewer years one has had with which to get the experience of building coalitions, passing legislation, et cetera. Can you talk about how someone like you would win over maybe skeptical older Democrats in your own party if you were to go to DC? Absolutely.

I mean, I think one of the biggest things is that this is a environment unlike anything that we've ever seen before. Nobody has experience with dealing with this particular junction when you have a man that is trying everything he can to be a dictator. And so ultimately, what I've seen in my district is that we have built such a strong coalition of both older voters and younger voters. We've had people that have signed up to volunteer that are in their 80s and people that have signed up to volunteer that are just 18 years old. So we have been able to build those coalitions because ultimately it is through understanding that we have to communicate. And so I don't believe that we are doing that

correctly. And I believe that that's going to be something that we're going to be pushing in Congress. Yeah, I think it's a mistake that sometimes is made to assume that the followers of the individual all sort of must be the same age. And what I mean by that is Bernie Sanders is in his eighties, but he's been extraordinarily energizing to new voters. I was just doing a talk yesterday for a journalism class and someone in the class assumed that most of my followers are under 30. And I said, you know, you look at our TikTok demographics, 65 plus is big. You look at our YouTube demographics, 55 plus is a big area. I think that we should not assume that young voters only want young candidates or vice versa. But the idea here is you can be an older season voter and simply recognize that it's time for a

new generation. And I think to some degree, that's kind of what you're saying. Absolutely. I mean, because I look at my demographics, it's the exact same thing. I mean, it is pretty much split very evenly amongst every demographic one can find, whether it's old or younger. And ultimately, what we are seeing is that people are just sick of the same old, same old. They're sick of it. And they're tired of the same old BS. They're tired of the same old stale politics, and they know that it's not working. And so to say that one has experience in a system that is just ultimately not what we need right now is not what people are craving. They want, they're tired of the backroom politics. They're tired of the same old games of before. And I represent a new change and a depart from that. And I look forward to bringing that to D.C. I want to talk a little bit about the purse strings sort of financial management

aspect of the four hundred and thirty five members of the House. You have a platform that's talking about a lot of federal investment in your district, which, of course, makes a lot of sense. One of the realities is that federal dollars often come with a lot of strings attached. And in Texas, the regulatory environment at the state level is relatively permissive in terms of what those strings attached might mean. Are there any federal conditions that you would reject even if it meant losing funding for your district areas where you say in 2025, 2026, right now, the way the world is, this is over the line for me in terms of what I would accept to get money

in for my district. When you say conditions, what do you mean by that? You know, okay, Isaiah, we'll give you X for Texas 18, but you've got to accept money for this chemical plant that's going to exist in a regulatory environment where if you live downwind, you're going to get the toxic smoke. This sort of thing that's often quid pro quo when it comes to funding. Right. You know, like I said, I think that a lot of these things kind of depend on the hypothetical situation. But I know for us, we have a really big problem, particularly when it comes to statewide Republicans which you have four, five, six families that are getting cancer because of what has been going into the water as a result of those things. So from the pollution standpoint, it's not something at all that I'm willing to compromise on in order for our district. You know, I know the other thing that is happening is grants for education per se. You know, the Republicans want to continuously

take funding away for our libraries, take funding away from our afterschool programs. Those are also not things that I'm willing to waiver on. So, I mean, I think that it would really depend on the particular situation. But what I have seen is that statewide Republicans are always doing everything they can to incur into our district

and to make us sicker. And I don't think that we should be allowing that. We've been speaking with Isaiah Martin. Isaiah is a candidate for House District 18 in Texas. This is a special election, November 4th, 2025. Isaiah, thank you so much for talking to us today. Best of luck with the campaign. We're going to be following it really closely. Absolutely. And thanks so much. And if anyone wants to learn more about my campaign, they can go to Isaiah Martin dot org. I say I H M A R T I N dot org. If you want to change your IP address when watching or downloading large video files, you need a VPN.

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91 countries and with just a single account, you can use PIA on unlimited devices, computer, tablet, phone, TV, game console. If you sign up for PIA today and you don't love it, you can get a full refund anytime in the first 30 days. So try private Internet access risk free and get 83 percent off, which comes out to just 203 a month, plus four extra months for free. Go to PIA VPN dot com slash David. The link is in the podcast notes. You would think that the question of how many countries are there would be relatively simple. Now, I don't want to pretend that there's only one answer. You know, there there's one hundred and ninety five globally recognized countries, one hundred

and ninety three U.N. member states to observer states. And then you've got some disputed territories, some unrecognized states, et cetera. But the whole idea here is there's about 195 countries. Donald Trump's treasury secretary, Scott Besson appeared with ABC news is Martha Raddatz and he says, Trump has made 200 trade deals already. And Martha Raddatz says, oh, is that really possible? And he's like, well, if you count sub deals, then maybe take a listen to this. The Time interview with President Trump, he said that he has made 200 deals on tariffs, 200 deals.

Who's he made deals with? Is there actually any deal at this point? I believe that he is referring to sub deals within the negotiations we're doing. We agreed to diet Coke as a precondition of meeting. That's a deal. If there are 180- But those aren't actual deals. Martha, if there are 180 countries, there are 18 important trading partners. Let's put China to the side because that's a special negotiation. There's 17 important trading partners.

And we have a process in place over the next 90 days to negotiate with them. Some of those are moving along very well, especially with the Asian countries. So think about that. Put aside for a second all of the other stuff. If what he's arguing is that some of the deals are moving ahead, that's not 200 or 195 or 180 deals that you've done anyway. None of this makes any sense. And of course, many of you astutely pointed out, how is it possible? How is it even remotely possible that you would make this number of trade deals, but then still be talking about the tariffs? If you've made the deals, you would no longer need the tariffs.

They either made up countries that don't exist, counted non countries like territories or small islands separately. We know that they put tariffs on an island that is completely uninhabited by humans, but does have penguins and maybe some other animals. Uh, they've, uh, w w what we know that they're lying. The question is, which is the lie? Is it that they really haven't made any deals, but they're having conversations? Is it that they don't know the number of countries that are around?

It's always a question as to which is the lie that they are telling. Now Martha Raddatz astutely points out that investors are losing confidence. The on again, off again tariffs and the chaos and the back and forths. And Besson says this is a long term thing that we are doing. It's very rare. I think it happened a couple of times in the seventies for the dollars, stocks and bonds to get hit as hard as they simultaneously did over the last few weeks. If the goal is to get countries to stand with us against China, does it worry you at all

that investors seem to be losing confidence in the U.S.? Well, again, you're saying losing confidence. And I don't think that this is necessarily losing confidence. And anything, I've been in the markets for 35 40 years anything that happens over a two-week one-month window can be either statistical noise or market noise and they we're in this for the long term and the important thing is that we are setting the fundamentals for a strong dollar a strong economy strong, strong stock market, and for investors to know that they, that the us government bond market is the safest and soundest in the world.

Listen to the guy worth $500 million. You've just got to wait. Okay. Put your business on pause. Put your purchasing on pause. Just put your purchasing on pause, just put your retirement on pause. The guy with 500 million is telling us this is a long term plan. That's a simple as it is.

And of course, people around the country, 40 percent of whom can't afford an unexpected $400 expense without deficit spending called going into debt. They are saying, what are you talking about the long term? The other kind of little detail is they keep acting like it's only been a week since any of this stuff started. And now they go, well, it's been a few weeks, sort of. They're going back to Liberation Day, which was 27 days ago. But you really have to go back to the beginning of Trump's term because that's when all of this tariffs have started. That's where the market instability started. And

we really are talking now about more than three months. I get it. It's still not years. There are economic actions that take many months, if not years, to sort of fully trickle down and manifest through the economy. But the idea that they've been in office two weeks and these are just the early rumblings, we are now more than three months in and it is absolute and total chaos. But don't worry, the guy with 500 million is telling us just grin and bear it. It's all going to be OK. Mike Lindell is the CEO and founder of MyPillow. He's also known as Mike Pillow, and he's also known eponymously like Madonna or Cher as simply pillow.

That guy, Pillow Pillows, legal problems have hit a new low and it's it's much dumber than you might imagine. Pillows lawyers are now facing discipline because they submitted a legal filing in his defamation case that was loaded with fake citations generated by AI. It appears as though 30 citations in a legal brief referred to cases that don't exist. It would be sort of like if I showed up to represent myself in court and I said, well, your honor, based based on Trump, the Levitt of two at 2006 and v. Leavitt of 2006 just doesn't exist. They have 30 such citations in a legal brief.

And this filing was part of Lindell's defense against a lawsuit from a former Dominion voting systems employee. So it seems as though instead of doing the work, Lindell's legal legal team decided to outsource it to chat GPT and then somehow uploaded the wrong version full of mistakes instead of a corrected draft normal behavior. When you're defending a $1.3 billion lawsuit, the judge was not impressed. US District Court Judge Nina Wang ordered the two attorneys to explain why they should not have their law licenses revoked over this. And in court, one of the lawyers admitted

that he used AI to draft the brief, but said it was just to check the structure and the logic. And I guess part of the logic was citing court decisions that don't even exist. This is not these lawyers first brush with humiliation. You might recall that last year during a zoom hearing, one of the lawyers catcher off was caught pantsless. So Mike Lindell, much like Trump hiring the best people. And some of you wrote in saying, David, have you heard from pillow? We know you were in touch with him for a while. His personal situation is not much better. He says he's making only a thousand dollars a week. Now he's $70 million in debt and is auctioning off my pillow equipment to help pay the bills. He's been evicted from warehouses and nobody's willing to lend him any money anymore.

I wonder why it I guess trying to overturn democracy doesn't make you the hottest investment. So this is not where the MAGA fantasy always ends, but it is where it seems to be ending this time. No glorious restoration to freedom, but with AI written legal briefs, made up court cases and a broke, supposedly broke conspiracy theorist trying to claw his way out of a billion dollar hole. The big plan for Mike pillow to save America has crashed to the ground. And of course, he's welcome on the show absolutely anytime. And some might not know the backstory. Pillow to save America has crashed to the ground. And of course, he's welcome on the show absolutely any time. And some might not know the backstory. Pillow will sometimes email me personally and he'll say, I want to be on to talk about this. I want to be on to talk about that.

And he's been on the show somewhere between it's got to be three or four times over the years. It used to be more towards the funny side. The recent appearances, if I'm frank with you, they have been a little more sad. But he is welcome any time and I'm glad to chat with him now on the bonus show today. We are going to talk about these exceptional power outages in Spain and Portugal that affected millions of people. We also have learned that the suspect remember last week we talked about Christie gnomes purse being stolen.

She's the secretary of Homeland security. Her purse was stolen and it had three, three grand in cash in it, which is weird already. But how did her security not prevent this? Apparently the alleged purse snatcher didn't even know who she was, which kind of makes the story even more interesting. And then finally, Trump is having a glitzy dinner for people who bought his meme coin. And this is immediately triggering demands for an ethics probe, which makes sense because it all just reeks of complete money laundering, grifty fiasco.

So all of those stories and more will be on today's bonus show. I do want to remind you that you can get my New York Times bestselling book, The Echo Machine anywhere books are sold. We are beyond a thousand reviews on Amazon. If you've ordered the book, I would love it if when you're ready, you leave a review on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Goodreads. on the show at to get a membership at join Pacman dot com. I'll see you on the bonus show. I will be back here tomorrow.