The David Pakman Show - 4/7/25: Protests fill streets, Trump even angering elites

Episode Date: April 7, 2025

-- On the Show: -- Protests against Donald Trump and Elon Musk explode nationally as the streets fill -- A sweaty and panicked Trump has no idea what's happening to the economy as he takes questions on Air Force One -- Donald Trump admits he likes the idea of imprisoning American citizens in El Salvador, which would be unconstitutional and against the law -- Elon Musk splits with Trump, saying he wants free trade, not tariffs -- A growing number of right wing figures are turning on Donald Trump's tariffs, including Fox Host Maria Bartiromo, Elon Musk, Jonah Goldberg, Rand Paul and others -- A delusional Trump supporter explains tariffs as she understands them, which happens to be absolute nonsense, as the latest reminder of a major problem in American politics -- Barack Obama exposes the right-wing media on how they covered his administration versus Trump's -- Right-wing Trump supporter Ben Shapiro pounds Trump over the blanket tariffs he has put in place -- A new report find that left wing YouTube grew significantly faster than right wing YouTube in the first quarter of 2025 -- On the Bonus Show: 2 states considering eliminating income tax, National Park Service removes references to Harriet Tubman, RFK Jr visits epicenter of Texas measles outbreak, much more... 🔬 Freedom From Religion Foundation: Text DAVID to 511511 or visit https://ffrf.us/freedom 🌳 Fast Growing Trees: Get 15% OFF with code PAKMAN at https://fastgrowingtrees.com 💻 Sponsored by Private Internet Access: 83% OFF + 4 months free at https://www.piavpn.com/David 👂 MDHearing: Use code PAKMAN to get a pair for just $297 at https://shopmdhearing.com/ -- Become a Member: https://davidpakman.com/membership -- Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/davidpakmanshow -- Get David's Books: https://davidpakman.com/echo -- TDPS Subreddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/thedavidpakmanshow -- David on Bluesky: https://davidpakman.com/bluesky -- David on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow

. Welcome to the show. Hope you had a great weekend. What a weekend it was this weekend. The country saw it might be the largest one day protest, uh, of Trump's presidency dating all the way back to the first little period of the first term, possibly millions of people across 50 States and even internationally. And the message was quite simple at most of the protests, some of them kind of being hijacked,

but the protest message overall was hands off, hands off our rights, hands off our institutions, hands off of our democracy and hands off as in get Elon Musk's hands off of the government. And this was not only about Trump and Elon Musk, who, by the way, now leads this Orwellian Doge, which in practice is going to be winding down, I guess. But at least Elon Musk is leaving. But we don't really know. But they've been slashing federal agencies, gutting public services and of course, concentrating even more power in the hands of billionaires and even an unelected billionaire.

We've seen the deep agency cuts and we've seen the chaotic immigration raids, also a target of these protests. And we've seen attempts to roll back LGBTQ plus rights with a lot of focus on that T trans rights, harmful changes to social security, to Medicare, obvious attempts to gut Medicaid. And then of course, in the midst of all of this, the new global tariffs causing this economic upheaval Thursday and Friday, two of the biggest consecutive stock market decline days. As I am taping today, we have a Dow Jones industrial average that is down. Okay. Another 300 points.

We'll see where it ends up landing so that another focus of these protests and then the broader authoritarian direction of this administration, the deportations without due process and all of it. So the great news is that these were not fringe protests. This was over 150 different organizations, civil rights groups, uh, labor unions, various LGBT rights organizations, environmentalists coordinating protests in more than 1300 locations. Of course, huge rallies in major cities, DC, uh, Minneapolis as Trump calls it, uh, Boston, Portland, San Diego, countless others.

Now I write in my book, the echo machine now a New York times bestseller. And by the way, I'm not patting myself on the back when I say that I'm patting you on the back. I'm humbled that you all made it a New York times bestseller instantly in the echo machine. There's a reason I write that authoritarians fear mass rallies in urban centers. It's because these urban centers are what we might call visibility machines. They concentrate attention. They inspire copycats in a positive sense and they force corporate media and by extension they force the public to notice that this is going on. Movements have gained legitimacy in history because they were seen and there is really

no better stage than a packed city square. And as we look back, as I do in the book, the civil rights movement didn't succeed just because of backroom policy debates. The civil rights movement to a degree succeeded because people filled the streets. And yes, of course, it also succeeded on the back of incremental change and presidents who appointed certain Supreme court justices, of course, we understand that as well. Uh, the anti Vietnam war movement, um, the George Floyd protests, you know, a lot of these movements started with rallies just like the ones we saw this weekend. You could even argue that the Arab spring started with massive symbolic gatherings in the urban cores of society.

That is how momentum is built. So we saw 30,000 people in Boston. We saw a hundred thousand people in DC, 25,000 in Minneapolis. Elected officials showed up. I saw our friend Jamie Raskin deliver a great speech in DC protesters marched in cities. Yes, but also in suburbs and in rural areas internationally in Berlin, Paris, London, Ottawa, Lisbon. So what's most important is that these were not top down protests.

They were organized organically. Neighbors, friends, coworkers. That's really what grassroots looks like. And you know, I got a few emails over the weekend from people saying, you know, David, I saw this one rally taken over, um, by, by, by the wokesters. You know, someone wrote to me and said that, or another one said the rally was taken over only by anti-Israeli sentiment and it started to feel anti-Semitic. Listen, anecdotally, that stuff happened over and I warned about that overall. These were really broad, mostly inclusive rallies, mostly inclusive rallies. And it was a statement.

It was a warning. And it really follows a pattern that I talk about often, which is that when people feel like the normal political system has been hijacked, they go outside into the streets, into the parks, on social media as well, into the public square, and it gets attention. This is just the beginning, right? This is like when some of you wrote in and said, you know, Cory Booker's 25 hour filibuster speech, what not really a filibuster cause it wasn't against the specific bill, but 25 hour speech. It was merely performative. Well, it was performing.

It wasn't merely performative. The quote, the merely will depend on what happens next. And we saw after the Cory Booker speech, now we've seen these protests. Oh, these protests are performative. Well, there is a performance aspect to it and better performers are more effective at inspiring others to take action. Now let's see what happens as we are close to entering the midterm period. Let's see what happens. But a very good start. Meanwhile, the economy is in freefall. Uh, markets are collapsing. We've got troops dying

overseas and Trump going. I didn't even hear about it hours after it took place. Intel is leaking over signal. Americans are being sent to foreign prisons and Trump. Trump is golfing. That's what Trump spent the weekend doing. And then he answered questions on Air Force One, a sweaty and disheveled Trump, seemingly panicking as he realizes, damn, I may not have an exit strategy

here. Trump claiming he spoke to leaders, all of the best leaders all over the world and saying really confusing thing about surpluses, deficits, trade balance, suggesting that he may not really have a clue what the hell is going on. You talked to a lot of leaders this weekend. Can you tell us, sir, were there any deals made? I spoke to a lot of leaders, European, Asian from all over the world. They're dying to make a deal. But I said, we'll tell you what. China would be the worst in the group because the deficit is so big and it's not sustainable.

And, you know, I was elected on this. This was one of the biggest reasons I got elected was exactly because of this. It's actually not. Trump is, of course, as is always the case, confusing different economic elements. And here Trump is saying a trade deficit is a loss that if we import more from a country than we export, that that is a net loss to the United States. This is just wrong. He doesn't have a clue what's going on.

A trade deficit just means you import more than you export. It's not inherently bad. And in fact, countries with strong consumer economies like the United States almost always run a trade deficit. The United States economy for 50 years has been based around running trade deficits because we've calculated and by our choices we have decided we would rather import a lot of stuff at cheaper prices from other countries.

We buy a lot of stuff at cheaper prices from other countries. We buy a lot of stuff. Importing more, having a trade deficit can reflect a strong dollar. It can reflect buying power. It can reflect a thriving service sector where we move in the direction of service economy and we import a lot of cheap stuff, quite frankly, from other places. So when Trump talks about breaking even, he's talking about a trade deficit going to neutrality where we import and export the same amount of stuff from every country. It's a fantasy. It's a complete and total economic fantasy for a country that is for now, as despite Trump's best efforts, a country that is for now as wealthy as the United

States, uh, is Trump thinks that a trade deficit means someone else won like, Oh, because we have a trade deficit with China. China gets, you know, a trophy after each shipment or whatever. Just total confusion about what these terms even mean. A reporter asks Trump, is there a Trump put of course, talking about puts and calls and Trump says the Trump says the question is stupid and sometimes the stock market needs medicine, which is what I think Trump claims to be giving it. I clean the world, which is what it should be.

Is there a pain in the market at some point you're unwilling to tolerate this idea of a Trump put. Is there a threshold? I think your question is so stupid. Your question is so stupid. I mean, I think it's a, I don't want anything to go down, but sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something. And we have such a horrible, we have been treated so badly by other countries because we had stupid leadership that almost satire at this point. Let me translate what Trump's means there. He doesn't know. He

doesn't understand the question. He probably doesn't even know what a put is. He thinks that the question is some kind of a trick. He has no idea. Now, Trump also claimed during this sort of turbulent, figuratively and literally turbulent, uh, um, uh, press conversation. Um, Trump says that the tariffs are going to make us a lot of money. Big and it's not sustainable. And you know, I was elected on this. This was one of the biggest reasons I got elected. It was exactly because of this. And we're going to put tariffs. We've already put them on.

It's not a question of we will. We're going to put them on. And those tariffs next year will make us $1 trillion. In addition to the $1 trillion, thousands of companies are going to relocate back into the United States. In North Carolina, already furniture people are starting to move back in. In Detroit and Michigan, which I won because of what I said, what I'm telling you, car companies are starting to open up. In Indiana, a big one is under construction as an example, Honda, but

they're moving in like nobody's ever seen this before. So it's unsustainable for us to allow China to have surpluses of a trade. All right. Anyway, you know, tariffs don't make us money in any sustainable way. Tariffs are a tax on American consumers and businesses. When you put a 25 percent tariff on Chinese electronics, it's not President Xi who pays that. It's not the Chinese companies. It's you at Best Buy. Trump's China tariffs are paid by you at your local.

What what? I don't even know where people go to buy stuff. I buy stuff online. The Best Buy. That's the only one I can think of. Target, Wal-Mart. And what we are seeing right now is that the stock market has lost 10 trillion dollars in market value as of April 4th.

That's not a rounding error. That is people's retirement savings. That is people's retirement savings. That is 401 case. That's very bad for people. All right. And finally, Trump says he's been talking to all of the greatest tech leaders about the tariffs, but he's not going to tell us who they are. Have you talked to any tech leaders over the weekend about the tariffs? Yeah, I talked to the biggest in the world. I talked to the biggest of them all, many of them. But I've talked to, I would say, four or five that are considered the biggest.

They don't. And you know what they said? We don't blame you. Who did you talk to? I don't want to say I'll put it out. I may give it to you. Did Vidya see you? I have to find out if they mind. You know, I don't blame you. Who did you talk to? I don't want to say. I'll put it out.

I may give it to you. Did he ask you? I have to find out if they mind. You know, I don't know if that was a confidential call or not, but we had five or six. There's something deeper going on here, I believe, than Donald Trump's economic illiteracy, because even being economically illiterate wouldn't necessarily point you to the policy that Donald Trump is pushing. This really is a form of economic nihilism, I would argue, by design.

When Trump breaks things, it's not because he thinks it's necessarily going to work. It's because he thrives in chaos. And sometimes the play is to actually then come in and fix whatever you broke. And we've talked about this before. You blow up the economy through tariffs. You blame the Fed. You blame Democrats. You blame immigrants.

You blame China, whoever. Right. You just blame somebody else. And when people are desperate enough, you offer protection in exchange for power. This is classic authoritarian opportunism, if people are scared and broke and confused and desperate, they will trade rights for security. Could be economic security, could be, uh, you know, militaristic security. In this case, the idea is they will hand the keys to the guy who pretends to be strong,

even if the one who broke it is that very same guy. And by the time anybody realizes, you know how deep the damage goes, he'll be on a plane back to Mar-a-Lago to spend another weekend playing golf. That seems to be the play here. Now, meanwhile, we're starting to see more and more Republicans turn on Trump. We'll talk about that later. Meanwhile, we are starting to hear rumblings that Trump is going to reverse all of this and say, hey, I found reason to pause it because, as he says, the countries are negotiating with me. The tech CEOs love it and they're everybody's just so thrilled. I'm going to be able to pause this.

Whatever explanation he can give, that also is something that is being predicted. I don't know which way it's going to land. I don't know. We're just going to have to wait and see. If you believed that Trump's immigration policy couldn't get any more deranged or dystopian, he now says he loves the idea of sending American citizens to rot in El Salvador's most notorious super prison, not suspected terrorists, not foreign nationals, not individuals in the United States illegally American citizens.

When Donald Trump was asked about this, he says, I love that idea. It's not satire. This is not a parody. This is Donald Trump in 2025, openly floating the idea of deporting people born in the United States, American citizens to be imprisoned in El Salvador. Listen to this. The president there said he would be willing to take American citizens in the federal prison population. Is that one of the ideas are going to be? Well, I love that. If we could take some of our 20 time wise guys and push people into subways and that hit people over the back of the head and then purposely run people over in cars.

Uh, if you would take them, I'd be honored to get them. I don't know what the law says on that, but I can't imagine the law would say anything different. He can't imagine the law would interfere with this idea. They can house these horrible criminals for a lot less money than it costs us. I'm all for it, but I'd only do according to the law. But I have suggested that, you know, why should it stop just the people that cross the border illegally? We have some horrible criminals, American grown and born. And if we have somebody that bops an old woman over the head, if we have somebody

that is in jail 20 times and goes back and shoots people all over the place and then has a bad judge or a bad prosecutor that do nothing about him, all they worry about is politics and don't worry about that. I think if we could get El Salvador or somebody to take them, I'd be very happy with it, but I have to see what the law says. What Trump is proposing is completely illegal and unconstitutional. And of course, Trump only cares about the law and the constitution to the extent that he can use it or ignore it to get out of investigations and, uh, consequences for crimes and wrongdoing.

That's all okay. Under the fifth and the 14th amendments, American citizens are entitled to due process and to equal protection under the law at its core. You don't get to disappear someone because you don't like them, but you also don't get to outsource your prison system to a foreign authoritarian regime because it's cheaper or you think it's a harsher punishment. And the Supreme Court has explicitly ruled that the government cannot exile American citizens under any circumstances. Now, the key precedent comes from Afro, Yim, the Rusk from 1967. And in that decision, the court ruled that American citizens can't involuntarily be stripped of citizenship or removed from the country.

The 14th amendment guarantees citizenship and its protections in our country. The people are sovereign and the government cannot sever its relationship to the people by taking away their citizenship. Now you might say, well, you could ship them somewhere else. They're still citizens. They get to come back after serving their prison sentence. No, the Supreme court says you can't do that. You can't ship citizens to a foreign country for imprisonment. That's called exile and it is banned. The other aspect of this that I think is important just to mention, even though it's not, it's not a hundred

percent related to what Trump says, but it's about 70% related the alien enemies act, which is the pretext that at the 40,000 foot level is being used to justify these roundups and, and deportations. It does not apply to us citizens to say the alien enemies act will be used, uh used in that way. Trump's administration is saying the 1798 Alien Enemies Act allows the president to detain and remove non-citizens from hostile nations during wartime. We don't even believe that he is appropriately using it with regard to non-citizens, but there's a few problems with it with regard to Trump's idea of El Salvador for citizens. Number one, you can't use it on US citizens. That is why federal judges are getting involved here and are very concerned. The eighth amendment, which bars cruel and unusual punishment, realistically would also

bar sending citizens to seek out in El Salvador. This is a prison that's been condemned for inhumane conditions, forced labor, no legal representation, no contact with the outside world, physical abuse, psychological abuse. We know that if the US government knowingly sends citizens into that environment, it's not just deportation, it's a form of cruel and unusual punishment, which the eighth amendment specifically forbids. And then finally, there is no statutory authority to pay a foreign country to imprison American citizens that you just you're not allowed to do it.

Congress has not passed any law giving the executive branch that power. And of course, we know that despite claiming to be a conservative, whatever that even means at this point, small government, all this stuff, Trump has sort of pushed for or grabbed, better said, more executive power than any president in recent history. Now, I hate to say this. I hate that I'm in a position to have to admit this. What does it mean that something is illegal? If no one stops you from doing it and if there's no consequence or punishment for that thing? And that is a terrifying, terrifying reality right now.

The guy who once said that Donald Trump was the man is now begging for zero tariffs, open borders and freedom of movement. I'm talking about Elon Musk. Elon Musk now says that he hopes the United States and Europe move to a zero tariff situation, turning on Trump's total tariff takedown. And he says he also wants more freedom of people to move between Europe and North America. Here is Elon Musk. Take a listen to this. They are turning on Trump. And I'm hopeful, for example, with the tariffs that that at the end of the day, I hope it is agreed that both Europe and the United States should move, ideally, in my view, to a zero tariff situation, effectively creating a free trade zone between Europe and North America. And that would be my, that's what I hope occurs. And also more freedom of people to move between Europe and North America, if they wish.

If they wish to work in Europe or wish to work in America, they should be allowed to do so, in my view. So that has certainly been my advice to the president. So this is 180 degrees different than what Trump has been pushing and what Trump has proposed. Now I see that there are some people out there saying, Oh David, this is not Musk breaking with Trump. They all have the same goals. Musk wants zero tariffs and Trump eventually wants zero tariffs.

This entire global tariff gambit where even islands inhabited only by penguins are having tariffs placed on them. This is all to eventually get to zero tariffs. Well, this isn't necessary if the goal is to get to zero tariffs, go right to other countries and say, let's go to zero tariffs. You could do that. There's no rule that says you have to do this to get them to negotiate. And this Elon Musk video was published just days after Donald Trump doubled down on this catastrophic round of tariffs, which is tanking markets. It's putting

global trade on red alert. So what you are seeing now is Musk, the guy Maga thought was their billionaire champion, completely rejecting the economic nationalism of Donald Trump. When you say zero tariffs, meaning free movement of goods and you say movement of labor, that's the opposite of what Trump and his cronies want. Trump and the far right have worshiped Elon as the cool billionaire who gets it. The guy who fights the libs and he owns Twitter and he's playing 40 chess. But the truth is that Elon Musk's entire business depends on globalization. Tesla batteries made in China, Starlink deals that are multinational, AI talent that is global manufacturing that is cross border, a workforce that depends on international visas to bring highly skilled people to the United States to work for Elon's companies. The Republican

coalition is built on opposing much of that stuff. They want to be the party of billionaires and also of blue collar workers. How is that going to work? They want to worship capital, but they hate globalization. They want to stop immigration but grow the economy. It's just not possible right now. You can't run an economy like Elon Musk's while you are Trump pursuing protectionist trade policy. Elon wants cheap labor and open markets and talent mobility. Trump wants economic war with everyone who doesn't kiss his ass.

Their goals are fundamentally incompatible. And after the break, we are going to talk about bigger cracks opening. It's not just Elon who now is saying this isn't making a lot of sense. Now Elon is on his way on his way out. We already learned last week that Donald Trump seems pretty displeased with Elon pouring 25 million into that Wisconsin Supreme Court race and losing it. He's getting annoyed with Elon's presence. Elon has said he's going to go back to running his businesses.

And then when Trump was asked, does Doge survive Elon leaving? Trump said, I'm not so sure. At some point, Doge is going to end. Well, now it's getting even bigger. The cracks are turning into crevasses. And we are going to talk about that after this short break. Ladies and gentlemen, they're starting to turn on Trump. When even brown noser Maria Bartiromo thinks you've gone too far, you know that things

are starting to unravel. The Wall Street Republicans, the libertarians, the Silicon Valley guys, the old school neocons, they are slowly starting to bail on Trump at the exact same time. And what I want to focus in on is why that matters more than people think. We start with free trade, free trade conservative Jonah Goldberg, who posted an excretion to X where he said, quote, Trumpers slavishly defend one man unilaterally screwing up the economy and the America led global order because he's some kind of genius. And it turns out, as was apparent for decades,

he doesn't know what he's talking about. This is someone who spent decades defending Republicans. He helped build in a way the conservative intellectual infrastructure to the extent that it exists. And now Jonah Goldberg is saying it was always obvious. Trump's a fraud. He's not a genius. He's a guy really making it up as he goes. Now that he's back in power, he's tanking the entire post-World War II global order. This is not a left-wing critique. This is coming from inside the house. Elon Musk, we talked about earlier. I just want to include in the segment, his brief comments about he would like zero tariffs. And I'm hopeful, for example, with the tariffs that that at the end of the day, I hope it

is agreed that both Europe and the United States should move ideally, in my view, to a zero tariff situation, effectively creating a free trade zone between Europe and North America. All right. So we talked about that earlier. Elon Musk breaking with Trump on this issue. Then we get to her old friend, Maria Bartiromo, who never saw Trump policy. She didn't like basically a PR firm for Trump and for hedge funds. And she said on air that the tariffs are a debacle, a debacle and suggests Congress stopping the tariffs.

This is Maria Bartiromo folks. Question to you on this tariff debacle is should Congress be involved? California Congressman David Vellato is supporting this bipartisan Senate bill, which forces the president to get Congress's approval to use tariffs. Do you want that? Well, I think being able to have input on these tariffs is extremely important. I think you're referencing the Grassley bill as well, where there's a number of senators who have signed on to that. I'm looking at it. All right. So the idea is, why don't you all do something about this? This is someone who spent years defending Trump's every economic move. She sat silently. Maria Bartiromo did when Trump blew up trade deals in his first term, cheered when he rolled back regulations, praised the 2017 tax cuts

like they were handed down from Mount Sinai. She's basically begging Paul Ryan to come back from retirement and stop what she sees as insanity. We then get to Rand Paul, Republican Senator. We heard from him last week. I want to include this here as well. He doesn't want any of this. He thinks it's all a disaster. But on the tariffs in particular, on the idea of trade, trade is proportional to wealth. The last 70 years of international trade has been an exponential curve upwards, and the last 70 years of prosperity has been upwards also. We are richer because of trade with Canada, and so is Canada. Whenever you trade with somebody, when an individual buys somebody else's product, it's mutually beneficial or you wouldn't buy it.

If the trade is voluntary, it's always beneficial. There is no Canada versus the U S the consumer wins when the price is the lowest price. All right. So he's not wrong by the way that tariffs are taxes. Tariffs are a form of economic planning. Tariffs are government interference in markets. Now you can argue some interference is good. We want regulation.

Absolutely. We'll have that conversation, but he's not wrong that at its core, this violates a principle that Republicans claim to support. Now whether they do or they don't, right, that's where sort of the, the, the, the rubber meets the road. We then get to one of the most repulsive figures in American politics, uh, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, maybe the most calculating principle free opportunist in the Senate, I dare say, who will hold, you know, a Bible in one hand and a bag of Chinese donor cash in the other hand at

the same time, Ted Cruz says these tariffs would be bad if they remain in place. So he's hedging a little bit and sort of saying if these were to stay in place, that would be bad. Look, I think it is a mistake to assume that we will have high tariffs in perpetuity. I don't think that would be good economic policy. I am not a fan of tariffs. And the announcement yesterday, look, time is going to tell in the next month or two or three what happens. If the result of yesterday's announcement is a lot of our trading partners across the globe dramatically reduce the tariffs they charge on U.S. goods and services, and the consequence of that is the U.S. government dramatically cuts the tariffs that were announced yesterday,

that would be a great outcome. That would be good for America. If the result is our trading partners jack up their tariffs and we have high tariffs everywhere. I think that is a bad outcome for America. Tariffs are a tax on consumers. So listen, Ted Cruz knows these tariffs are a disaster, but he knows also that this is completely radioactive politically. And wants, he wants to stay on Donald Trump's good side because for Trump, loyalty is the only thing that matters.

So you've got all sorts of folks that want out. You have people who just have a modest 401k and I heard from three of them this morning and they say, I can now retire for 12 days. That that's all I got. I've got left sort of tongue in cheek. But the point is they're 401. They're modest 401ks are crashing. Trump's billionaire buddies, I don't think are very happy as they have significant holdings in the stock market as well. Libertarians are saying that this is a form of socialism and central planning.

Media allies like Maria Bartiromo are starting to question, does this make sense? Calling the tariffs a debacle. The donors are panicking and the base is still out here mostly posting memes about gas prices. Okay. So the, the reason that this matters as I kind of teased at the beginning is that what will really determine the future path of this is whether the base starts bailing on Trump. I'm extraordinarily skeptical that it will because they've not bailed on him over anything. And case in point, let's go to an analyst to tell us about tariffs next. All right.

We are now going to hear from a completely delusional Trump supporter on the topic of tariffs. She says that tariffs are freedom. She doesn't know anything about this issue. But remember when Trump said he loved the poorly educated? I'm not making fun of this woman. But one of the reasons we explained that Trump loves the poorly educated is that the well educated aren't going to fall for his nonsense.

The well educated aren't going to say, oh, the tariffs do make sense. No, they're not. So let's listen to this, uh, economic analyst and I use that term extraordinarily loosely. And then we will talk about the claims that she makes. Truly wish more people understood the tariffs that President Trump is implementing. I wish more people knew what kind of freedom that's going to give the American people. OK, tariffs aren't freedom. Tariffs are attacks. That's all that they are.

And if normal income taxes aren't freedom, then tariffs also aren't freedom. Tariffs are attacks. That's all that they are. And if normal income taxes aren't freedom, then tariffs also aren't freedom. Tariffs are taxes on imported goods. They're paid by the importer here in the United States. They're passed down to consumers through higher prices. When Trump implements tariffs, you just pay more at the store for the same stuff. That's not freedom. It's less buying power. Tariffs can be useful in narrow contexts if you want to protect a particular fledgling industry temporarily. But broad sweeping tariffs like Trump's, they hurt the whole economy. They promote retaliatory tariffs, which we're already seeing. It damages exports that hurts farmers. It hurts manufacturers. All right, let's continue.

President Trump is trying to use these tariffs to get rid of taxes. No he's not. This is not how the federal government works. Tariffs don't replace income taxes or other forms of taxation. And in fact, tariffs bring in a really small portion of federal revenue even before the, you know, you go back to before the income tax was instituted in 1913, government was tiny. It didn't do much, no social security, no Medicare, no highways, no defense infrastructure tariffs right now make up less than 2% of federal revenue.

You can't fund the federal government even in a bare bones way on tariffs alone. And Trump, although once he said we might be able to someday get rid of taxes with tariffs, he's not actually proposing to do that. The idea is a complete and total fantasy. And I'm telling you guys, he is very smart. That's how the country was ran before taxes. She says that the country was ran before taxes on tariffs. At best, that's a half truth.

Before the 16th amendment in 1913, we didn't have a federal income tax. That's because the government didn't provide most of the services that we rely on today. No income tax met, no Medicare, no Medicaid, no EPA, no federal, uh, funding of public schools, no FEMA, no VA hospitals, no food safety regulations, no modern government. And I know that there are some who still say we'd, I'd love to go back to when the government just did less, but the idea that we can go back to a 19th century taxation model while keeping anything acceptable, reasonably acceptable in terms of 21st century service, it's like a nostalgia fueled misinformation bomb. I truly have a hard time understanding how anybody could be against that. I understand maybe not liking him,

but who could be against getting rid of taxes? Who is against having more money in your pocket? The only people that could be against that are the people who has truly never paid taxes. The people who has never paid. So a couple of things, you know, who could be against writing, getting rid of taxes? She says you can't have functioning infrastructure, military, public safety, social programs without taxes. Most people don't love paying taxes, but most people understand why taxes exist. And it's a matter of figuring out what should the tax rate be and what should it be spent

on. Even most sort of tax skeptical right wingers who argue for lower taxes aren't arguing to eliminate taxes altogether because that would crash the entire system. She also loves this. Only people who have never paid taxes would be against getting rid of them. This is such a condescending straw man. Many of Trump's critics right now do pay taxes and they oppose his policies because the policies don't reduce their taxes. They're just tariffs. It's a tax on imports. That's why they're against them.

Tariffs have increased costs on consumer goods in the past and they hurt industries like agriculture. We saw it during Trump's first term. Farmers lost access to foreign markets because of the retaliatory tariffs. This is a textbook case of economic populism built on false premises. Let's listen to just the last few seconds of this insanity. Or you complain and talk about how terrible it is. Give him the opportunity to show you. I hope all you guys are having a wonderful day. It's a beautiful day here in the state of Kentucky. Yeah. Tariffs are not a path to freedom.

The modern American government can't run on tariffs. The trade policy that Trump is pushing will hurt many Americans, including the rural voters who supported him. And of course, eliminating taxes while expanding services is a sort of math free fantasy. This is why a lot of people aren't yet turning on Trump because they've convinced themselves with the sort of logic or lack thereof that this woman is pushing, that this is all going to be a great thing for them when of course it's very clearly not the, the hope is that Trump bails says, praise me for putting out the fire. I started and things sort of settled down as of this moment,

rumors that Trump would put a 90 day pause on the tariffs have not come to fruition. Maybe by the time you hear today's show, that will have happened maybe by tomorrow. But for now, it's all looking extraordinarily grim. But thanks to defenders like this woman who don't have a clue what is going on, at least for now, Trump gets to keep his bases support. Former president Barack Obama spoke over the weekend and he made a comparison that I think is extraordinarily apt, which is that if he had done even a fraction of the things that Donald Trump has been doing, the amount of apoplexy and panic that you would be hearing

and seeing from right wing media would be absolutely off the charts. And too much of what is going on right now, we are hearing not a peep from right wing media occasionally. I mean, listen, we, Maria Bartiromo said the tariffs are a debacle, but big picture, the due process free deportations and all of it. If any fraction of this were done, for example, by Barack Obama, these people would be losing their minds.

Let's hear a former president Obama lay it out and I want to talk about it. Imagine if I had done any of this, let me just, I just, I just want to be clear about this. Imagine if I had pulled Fox News' credentials from the White House press corps. You're laughing, but this is what's happening. Imagine if I had said to law firms that were representing parties that were upset with policies my administration had initiated that you will not be allowed into government buildings. we will punish you economically for dissenting from the Affordable Care Act or the Iran deal. We will ferret out students who protest against my policies. It's unimaginable that the same parties that are silent now would have tolerated behavior like that from me. Or a whole bunch of my predecessors. So, and I say this, I say this not on a partisan basis, this has to do with something more precious, which is who are

we as a country and what values do we stand for? That last question, what are the values we stand for? That's really a central question to this entire thing. And of course I laid out some of my values last week in a segment, especially as we have a lot of new viewers now because of the book and different things, just seeing a lot of growth. I laid out my values, but more explicitly how they relate to policy. One of the problems, and of course, president Obama is correct about what are our values. Do we value

free speech or don't we? One of the problems as I write about in the book is that their stated values don't really mean anything to them at the end of the day. And so this has a twofold impact or it's, it's sort of meaningful to think about for two different reasons. Number one, is it really worth engaging in these abstractions about values and philosophy when it's worth nothing? It's worth it's worth as much as as we pay to hear it from them, that they value liberty and they value lack of regulation and they abandon every single one of those values as soon as it's inconvenient. We've seen them abandoned every one of the values just in the last two months as it's

become antithetical to the way that Donald Trump is actually governing. So number one, all of the discussions about my first principles and values and philosophy, these people don't really care about that stuff. It's a way to get us away from actually dealing in practical and tangible policy ways with what's going on and the problems we want to fix. But number two, it is of course the double standard. And as president Obama correctly points out, if he had done even a fraction of this stuff, they would be calling for his head. They would be saying, use the 25th amendment to remove him from power and all of it.

So what utility does this have to us? Well, first of all, let's stop wasting time engaging with what they say and let's really engage with what they do. Oh, Trump would mean our next example of Ben Shapiro, by the way, Shapiro's a guy who for a year was saying, I don't think Trump's really gonna, Trump does says a lot of things, but it doesn't mean he doesn't. And now Ben Shapiro has turned against the tariffs because Trump is doing it. Uh, so let's engage with what they do. And importantly, let's not allow abstract conversations to supplant dealing in practical policy terms

with what's going on. All right. Ben Shapiro is now pounding Trump for the insane tariffs. Why do we care what Ben Shapiro says? There are really two reasons. Number one, this is a very strong supporter of Trump's who has often said before, sure, Trump says a lot of things, but the things he does are basically fine. Ben Shapiro in fact said during, I believe it was a debate with Sam Harris some months

ago before Trump was elected. Um, Trump's not actually going to do a lot of this stuff. I don't remember if he included the tariffs in that, but he said, Trump's not going to do a lot of the stuff he's saying he's going to do a lot of this stuff. I don't remember if he included the tariffs in that, but he said Trump's not going to do a lot of the stuff he's saying he's going to do. And now Ben Shapiro seems almost shocked that he is indeed doing this stuff. Secondly, this guy has a huge audience on the right, so it does matter if he starts to say this doesn't make sense. Let's take a list.

Yesterday, President Trump declared that it was, in fact, Liberation Day, his giant tariff policy that he just dropped on the market unilaterally, probably unconstitutionally. Trump's reciprocal tariffs impose hundreds of billions of dollars in new taxes on Americans, be the largest tax increase since the Revenue Act of 1968. One of the biggest tax increases on American consumers in the history of America. And it's going to cost American consumers. It will cost American producers who use inputs from other countries. The Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted immediately more than 1,000 points. The S&P 500 plummeted more than 3%. The NASDAQ plummeted almost 4.5%.

There are real-world implications for this sort of stuff. Trade wars are, in fact, not good and not easy to win, particularly if you don't actually have a plan. It is predicated on a bad idea of how international trade works. A fundamental misunderstanding of trade deficits. Trade deficits are an accounting procedure. Trade deficits have pretty much nothing to do with the health of an economy. I can name you a period in American history where there was a fairly large surplus in America's balance of trade, the entire great depression. Yeah. So, um, he makes a lot of points here that you can't dispute. I mean, tariffs are attacks. You can't dispute that. It's a tax on imports specifically. It's not

a tax on income. It's not a tax on sales. It's a tax on imports specifically. It's not a tax on income. It's not a tax on sales. It's a tax on imports. That's undeniable. Secondly, the trade balance and in fact the trade deficit is not objectively a bad thing. It's sort of like his unemployment is, is 5% unemployment good or bad? Well, you have to consider what's the trend, what's the state of the economy, what's the age distribution of people in the economy, what's the age distribution of people in the economy.

There's all how many open jobs are there, all of these different things. And similarly, the trade deficit is a result of 50 years of cumulatively making economic decisions that make us increasingly an economy of services rather than products and an importer of stuff we would rather pay less for than pay more and manufacture it domestically. The trade deficit, in a sense, is actually a sign of an economy that has matured to a degree beyond simply manufacturing of widgets. Now you can say it's good or bad. You can say it should change, but the trade deficit in and of itself is not a problem. And similarly, Ben Shapiro correctly assesses that there is no real plan here. Now, if you ask different people associated with MAGA, what is the plan? They'll give you a couple of answers. One is this will make countries treat us fairly

so that then we will have growth. It's not really a plan and it's not really the way economic work economics works. Another one. Well, over the longterm, this will, there'll be short term pain, but over the longterm, we're going to start manufacturing all of this stuff domestically and we will be better off. Now there's no question that over a decade we could start to manufacture a lot of the stuff we are tariffing domestically, but it's going to cost a lot more. Take a thousand dollar phone, which just on an inflation adjusted basis in a decade would cost, who the hell knows, 1500 bucks. We could start manufacturing it, uh, uh, domestically, but in a decade it would be the equivalent instead of

the fifteen hundred dollars that the foreign one will be inflation adjusted. It would be two thousand dollars or twenty two hundred dollars. Do people really want to do that and that be the solution at the end of the rainbow and pay higher prices for the next decade? Maybe we do, but most people don't. And so this is this is the problem with the off ramp. So I expect that these, these terrorists will not, uh, last indefinitely. I expect that when Trump pulls them back, he will say that it's because he won and everybody capitulated. I don't expect that to actually be true, but it will be Trump saying, praise me for putting

out the fire that I set for years. YouTube politics was Maga country, right wing channels, the daily wire, Prager, you Ben Shapiro. These empires were dominating YouTube, feeding a steady diet of outrage and fear and own the libs content to millions of people. And the narrative was very clear. The right has figured out the internet and the left is playing catch up. And that has been true. And to a degree it is still the case, but we see a change in what might be probably the biggest shift since YouTube's political rise.

Left leaning YouTube is surging out, growing right wing YouTube in the first quarter of 2025. This is not an opinion. This is data in Q1 of this year, progressive creators added subscribers faster than their conservative counterparts. A great piece looked into this Crowder Shapiro. They're still churning out content, but the growth is slowing down for them. And meanwhile, the progressive voices are really building momentum and finding real audiences on YouTube. Note that we, the David Pakman show grew faster than Tucker. We grew faster than Jordan Peterson.

We grew almost as fast as Rogan in Q1 who has a hundred million dollars or more behind his operation. And here's something else to pay attention to. Fox news ratings are up since the election. CNN and MSNBC ratings are down, but that doesn't mean that left-wing viewers are disengaging. It means that they are done with the bland centrist milk toast, cable news stuff. The MSNBC watchers of the Trump years, they haven't disappeared. They've moved and they're coming here to YouTube, to podcasts, to creators who are speaking

plainly, who don't have to act like we're still living in 2012. So this is a very quiet realignment that no one in legacy media seems to have seen coming. The post-election cable drop off is an apathy. It's migration. The audience is there. It's just not tuning in anymore to the usual suspects. So thank you to everyone who has been helping us help us keep accelerating it. It costs nothing. It costs nothing. Subscribe on YouTube. Subscribe to the audio podcast.

Get on our sub stack newsletter. All of this stuff is free. And the more we feed the ecosystem, the more that the algorithm is going to reward all of the left wing on that platform. I couldn't be happier to see that this is going on. So thank you. On the bonus show today, no state has gotten rid of us of its income tax in 45 years. There are now two Southern states looking at doing exactly that. We will discuss. Secondly, the national park service under the orange guy has removed references to Harriet Tubman from its underground railroad webpage. Here we go again. And Robert F. Kennedy jr. The tragic secretary of health and human services has visited the epicenter of the Texas measles

outbreak after the death of another kid who was infected. This is terrible stuff and RFK doesn't seem like the right guy to deal with this. All of those stories and more on today's bonus show the bonus show where you want to make money and everybody else that makes money to fund themselves is bad. Why not sign up at join pacman.com get the full experience. I'll see you then.