The David Pakman Show - 5/12/25: Trump surrenders to China, habeas corpus now under threat

Episode Date: May 12, 2025

-- On the Show: — Donald Trump surrenders to China, slashing his own disastrous tariffs by over 100 points and demanding applause for undoing the mess he made — Fox News tries to sell Trump’s fake China “deal” with glowing chyrons… until their own guest says there’s no deal at all — Trump is gifted a 400 million dollar golden jet by Qatar while in office — and yes, he gets to keep it — Trump’s press secretary melts down when asked whether it’s a bribe, and claims Trump is still pushing a 10 percent tax on Americans — Trump is now actively exploring suspending habeas corpus, while Newark’s mayor is arrested protesting ICE the same day — full-blown fascism is here — Senator John Barrasso dodges questions about habeas corpus and opens the door to civil war logic: “probably won’t come to Congress” — Trump clearly has no idea what he’s signing in a trade photo op and asks what the document is after picking up the pen — Trump’s press secretary collapses under basic questions about the Library of Congress, D.E.I., and Trump’s own luxury tariff plan — JD Vance begins walking back Trump’s promise to end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours — we’re on day 107 -- On the Bonus Show: New poll shows Americans putting life plans on hold amid Trump-era economic anxiety, GOP escalates state attacks on trans rights, and white South Africans arrive in the U.S. under Trump’s refugee program, much more... 🥦 Lumen lets you master your metabolism. GET 15% OFF at https://lumen.me/pakman 💼 Odoo: Try it completely FREE for 14 days (no credit card needed) at https://odoo.com/pakman 🩳 SHEATH Underwear: Code PAKMAN for 20% OFF at https://sheathunderwear.com/pakman 🛌 Helix Sleep mattresses: Get 27% OFF sitewide at https://helixsleep.com/pakman -- Become a Member: https://davidpakman.com/membership -- Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/davidpakmanshow -- Get David's Books: https://davidpakman.com/echo -- TDPS Subreddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/thedavidpakmanshow -- David on Bluesky: https://davidpakman.com/bluesky -- David on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow

I hope everybody had a good weekend. You might've noticed last night headlines about a trade deal with China. The only problem is there is currently no deal. And even Fox news is acknowledging this. This is a really interesting story. I want to take some time to dig into it at the start of the show. So Donald Trump is now temporarily undoing some of his own economic disaster, and he wants applause for it. It's the arsonist who says, I put out a little bit of the fire that I started and you should be cheering for me. So let's discuss what took place over the weekend. The U S and China announced the 90 day pause on the trade war. This is not a deal. This is a delay on the Trump created trade war and have agreed during this period of time to slash tariffs by a massive 115 combined points. The U S dropping

duties on Chinese goods from up to one hundred and forty five percent down to 30 percent. China's retaliatory tariffs are falling from one hundred and twenty five percent to 10 percent. Markets exploded on the news. As of this moment, as I'm recording this segment, the Dow Jones industrial average up about a thousand points. And we knew this would happen because as soon as this announcement hit the futures overnight popped, investors don't care who gets the credit. They

want the madness to stop. And the idea that maybe we're getting closer to an off ramp here is exciting to those who are not shorting the market. And I'll be honest, no matter what the reason is, as someone personally who is long the market, meaning I own shares of mutual funds long rather than short, meaning my bet is that over time they will go up. I like logging into my mutual fund account and seeing more money rather than less money compared to the previous day. But what we need not to forget is that this entire thing was a disaster of Donald Trump's own making. There was never a coherent strategy with these tariffs. And this is importantly not a deal. You will hear Fox news in a moment, kind of hemming and hawing, calling it a deal. But then on a hot mic, a

reporter is like, should we be, should we be calling this a deal? Cause it's not really a deal. Now, if we go back to the original justification, it was, we must protect American workers. We need to pressure China to make structural economic changes and, and the theft of intellectual property opened their markets and this sort of thing. Uh, that never happened. What happened was tariffs that would immediately cause higher prices for American consumers,

retaliatory tariffs that would be bad for American businesses, including manufacturers and farmers, and just a generalized global supply chain chaos. Trump essentially taxing American businesses and shoppers in the name of being tough and then being shocked and offended when China says, well, if you're doing that, we will do the exact same thing. Economists across the political spectrum called it a bad idea because tariffs are import taxes and the Trump administration claimed to be against taxes. This was a sort of giant self-imposed tax hike layered on this empty tough guy rhetoric that mostly

hurt the very people Trump claimed to be protecting. Now what Trump wants is for us to cheer because he's temporarily and partially pausing. This is the political version of lighting your kitchen on fire and then demanding a medal for grabbing a fire extinguisher. Trump spent years talking about and hiking tariffs. We saw during the first term how much of a disaster it was for farmers. He bragged about how easy it is to win trade wars. And now he's quietly admitting it's not so easy. The pressure has gotten to Trump of the disastrous and unstable stock market performance. And Treasury Secretary Scott Besant, of course, says this is a major breakthrough.

He says the pause could be extended if things go well. And that's all great. Assuming it doesn't get torpedoed on truth central tomorrow. We were also told there might be a Trump she phone call coming in the coming weeks, assuming the name calling doesn't start and Trump blows the whole thing up. So the stock market is up and it's worth reminding people what that means. The stock market is a futures market. It trades on expectations. When Trump imposed tariffs on April 2nd, the great liberation day, what we saw was stocks decline because of expectations about what that meant.

And now that the tariff fiasco is paused with China, stocks are up again because of the expectation of what that might mean. It's not a completed deal. It's investors reacting to the possibility of fewer insane tariff swings and impulsive trade policy decisions. It's sort of relief. It's not celebration. Now, I want to be fair that this is good news. If the cuts happen and they become permanent,

that's good. And I will say that's the right thing to do. But of course, it will be Trump going back to the right thing from an unforced, self-imposed disaster. Businesses that rely on imports, electronics, cars, machinery, they might see relief from what Trump did. And that's the really important thing to think about as we couch this and understand this. What we might get back to is Trump undoing a problem of his own making. Trump wants us to see this pause as look, there was a problem that had nothing to do with Trump and Trump came in and fixed the problem. But what this is, is Trump putting a temporary bandaid, which will eventually fall off if a more permanent cure isn't found. Trump putting a temporary

bandaid on a problem he created. They didn't force better trade terms. They didn't bring manufacturing roaring back. They are temporarily pausing the problem that they created. Some of the worst tariffs, steel, electric vehicles, those are still in place. And Besant says that this is all strategic. Those aren't going to change. It's not a full reset. It's a partial rollback or a temporary pause. It's a timeout for lack of a better term. So wall street breathing a sigh of relief. Maybe this means Trump is moving in the direction of fewer impulsive trade decisions, at least for a few weeks. So here we go again, but even Fox news is sort of sniffing around and they're realizing we really can't call this a trade deal. Let's talk about that next. I don't know if you've ever watched anyone try to sell you a half-baked

idea with full confidence, but we see it a lot in the modern Republican era. But what happened on Fox News was fascinating. They tried to sell this partial and temporary, partial and temporary 90 day pause on Chinese tariffs and tariffs from China on the United States. They tried to sell it as a trade deal, but they got fact checked by their own guest and then later by their own reporter. So let's start with overnight. Overnight, we see very, very early this morning, I guess we would say Fox and Friends opened by talking about how great all of this is. We've secured a deal with China. And then within seconds, Fox News guest Jackie DeAngelis goes,

there's no concrete deal. It's a massive trade deal, but no concrete deal, meaning no deal. Very funny to hear Brian Kilmeade kick it off with what a great deal this is. And then to hear, yes, it's a great deal, but there actually is no deal. Wow. So if I, this is a huge news overnight, uh, the Trump administration securing a major tariff deal with China. Quote, the big money host, Jackie DeAngelis is here, one of three, joins us now to break it all down. So, Jackie, those are the two, real quick, those are the two things. We went from 145% on our side, that's who we're charging them. They were charging us 125%. Now it's 10 and 10, but you had the 20%

on because of- Fentanyl. To control the precursors to fentanyl. Your thoughts about the result of these two days of talks. So when the news broke, I waited till six o'clock last night to see how the futures opened. And the Dow was up 420 points. As some of these details started to emerge, you can see the stock market is more excited about this. This morning, the Dow futures are up almost 900 points as we speak. And the Nasdaq is seeing like a 4% gain.

So that's massive. And why that's important is because while there is no firm concrete deal and we've got to get some of the details that came out, this is progress, Brian. You know, President Trump came to. So there it is. In 57 seconds, Brian Kilmeade opens massive trade deal has been reached with China. Now, if you go and you look at credible reporting sources, you look for the deal, you go, oh, they've reached a deal. Let's see the terms

of the deal. And then you look underneath and then I check under my phone and under my mouse. And is it inside? And then you go, oh, there's no actual deal here. And Jackie DeAngelis goes, yes, you know, the stock market is up. There's the possibility that things are going to be progressing. There happens to be no concrete deal. It's just just a small detail. There is not actually a deal here. And later in the same broadcast on Fox and Friends this morning, they're repeating the same thing. Major trade deal. You'll you'll even see the, um, uh, at the bottom, the lower third on screen say trade deal. And you will hear a reporter. I think it's Lawrence Jones, but I'm not totally sure on a hot mic. He doesn't think he he's audible. You'll hear him go, should we say

deal? Because there is of course no deal. And that's the right question. Nothing has really been done other than we've paused the erratic policy of Trump. Listen to this. You've got to listen carefully, but you will hear it in the background. Should we say deal? There is so much going on. I hope we have a show. It is 6am in the East coast. Hope you had a fantastic mother's day. It is may 12th. This is Fox and Friends breaking overnight. Another major trade deal is done. Another major trade deal is done. Think about that. OK, a trade deal is done versus there is a temporary pause to the Trump and Trump inflicted

insanity with no deal. Very different as the US and China announced a 90 day tariff pause. Details coming your way. That's incredible. We start with a Fox News alert. The United States and China have reached an agreement to slash tariffs on each other's goods, complete with a 90 day pause for future negotiations. Lucas Thomason is live in Saudi Arabia ahead of President Trump's visit there with the details. Good morning, Lucas. What can you tell us? Well, good afternoon from Riyadh, guys. Did you guys hear that? Should we say deal and then someone realized there was a hot mic

and they turned the volume down? I'll play it once more for you. Because what can you tell us? Well, good afternoon from Riyadh, guys. So we sit and then someone scrambles to turn down the audio. That's an obvious question. And it's another little peek behind the curtain. Most of the people at Fox know what's going on. They know they're lying.

They spend the entire beginning of the show. Huge announcements. Massive. I mean, look, if you look earlier here, you will see this trade deal announcement. And then we go, what deal? What are you talking about? One moment it's a done deal. And the next moment their own guest and then their own host is muttering.

There's not really a deal here. And so this is instructive in so far as yes, they do know they're lying on Fox news and behind the scenes when they think the mic is off, they go, why are we talking? Why are we calling this a deal? There's no deal. And it's a great example of how the Trump media echo chamber works. You announce something big and you plaster it all over the screen and you hope nobody reads the fine print. And if someone contradicts it, you just kind of move on like it didn't happen. Of course, there is no deal.

There's not even a permanent rollback. There's no binding agreement on intellectual property, on currency manipulation, on the dumping of steel. There's no resolution here. All we have is let's pause the disaster I created for 90 days. Now I hope it leads to a deal. I hope that that is the direction it goes. But in a strict sense, they've announced an imaginary thing. There is no deal. And we are going to talk about this more in our newsletter today. I hope you're receiving it.

Find it at David Pakman dotsubstack.com where we dive deeper into a lot of these issues. We'll take a very quick break and be back right after this. I want to introduce you to an amazing tool that has helped a huge number of people reach their health goals. It is called Lumen and it's the world's first handheld metabolic coach. It's a device that measures your metabolism through your breath. And on the app, it'll tell you, are you burning fat or carbs and give you tailored guidance to improve nutrition, workouts, even stress management. Your metabolism is like the engine of your body, how you turn food into fuel. And because your metabolism is at the center of everything your body does, optimal metabolic health can translate to many benefits,

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and welcome to our hundred and eighty new members over the last 10 days. Really appreciate all of you. All right. How about a free jet for everybody? Well, maybe not everybody, but maybe just Donald Trump. This is not a hallucination. Donald Trump, while serving as president, is being handed a $400 million luxury Boeing 747 by the Royal family

of Qatar. And not only is he going to use it as his personal air force one, he gets to keep it. The plane is referred to as a flying palace. It's the first given to the United States air force, which will spend millions retrofitting it for presidential use. And then before Donald Trump leaves office, ownership will quietly be transferred to Donald Trump's presidential library foundation, not to the government, not to the public, but to the orange man himself.

So we, it's better. I believe it's better to speak clearly. Bribery is now legal as long as it gets laundered through a few government departments and labeled for my foundation. It magically doesn't violate the emoluments clause of the constitution. It's dead. That emoluments clause oversight. No, it's just, you know, a sticky note from attorney general Pam Bondi who says, this is totally fine. Don't worry about it. And if you want to talk about government waste, you know, the cost to retrofit this thing,

scrub it for bugs. I don't mean the types of bugs Trump might find in his bed. I mean, uh, listening devices loaded with security tech and then strip it all back down before gifting it to Trump. Personally, we're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars and we're paying for it. I'm paying for it. You are paying for it. Assuming that you pay taxes to the United States government, it will make Trump's military parades look like a bake sale for a few bucks. Every square inch of that jet must be bugged with surveillance devices. You think the Qatari Royal family is going to give Trump a luxury plane out of goodwill. We have to assume this is a flying surveillance platform wrapped

in gaudy gold trim and handed to maybe the most reckless guy on earth because this is not diplomacy. This is pay to play monarchy. And the United States president has very quickly become the main character here. And just as a contrast with how far we've fallen, think back to when Jimmy Carter gave up his peanut farm to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest, how quaint and provincial that seems. And Trump is now getting an aircraft from a foreign government and people are clapping like it's, you know, when you hat drop or something like that, this is not going to be the last. The bar has been obliterated and I don't know what's next.

A palace in Riyadh for Trump and, uh, his, his presidential foundation, uh, a private island, maybe in the United Arab Emirates. I don't know. The precedent is set. Now the natural question is whether this is legal. I don't know. Ethics experts are raising concerns about the legality, as is natural to think. There are arguments that this violates the Constitution's emoluments clause, which which prohibits American officials from accepting any gift of value from foreign states without congressional consent. As you can imagine, there has been no congressional consent here. And we also have critics that are that are pointing to Attorney

General Pam Bondi's own prior ties to Qatar, including the fact that she was a registered lobbyist for the Qatari government during Donald Trump's first term. Yeah. I mean, there's just conflict of interest coming out of their ears. So I don't know. I guess gifts from autocrats are now OK as long as the Pentagon gets to see the paperwork first. And I don't even think corruption is the right term here. This is really a form of cultural rot because there's been there's been a slow motion death

of norms. And we've gone from adults arguing over facts, at least at some point, to kind of more of a schoolyard gang group screaming over gossip while the sitting president is hoarding foreign gifts like loot boxes. So a lot of people wrote to me over the weekend. Actually, I should have had some of the emails ready. I think it'll take me too long to pull them up now. But people wrote to me over the weekend saying, on the one hand, how could this possibly be legal? The answer is we don't know that it is. But maybe more importantly, what does it mean that something is against the law? Even the concept of being against the law seems like some technicality at this point, because if there's no mechanism to enforce that law, if there's no overarching structure that

might actually impose consequences when you break the law, what does it mean that something's against the law? And I know I've said this before, but as we've talked about over the last few weeks with regard to the deportations without due process, when we start a sentence with, well, the constitution guarantees that, and then we say, wait, what, what does it mean to guarantee something unless you have a mechanism of guarantee and a mechanism of enforcement? I don't know the answer. And so we're going to continue hearing from legal experts on this, but to some degree, what does it matter what the legal experts say if there is no mechanism of enforcement? Now, when Caroline Leavitt was asked about this whole jet thing, her answer didn't exactly inspire confidence in its legality. Let's talk about

that next. Caroline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, appeared on Fox News this morning and she was asked, should Americans be worried that since Trump is getting a free 747 from Qatar, that he might be incentivized to want something in return or something like that? And Caroline Leavitt says, no, there's no need to worry about that. It's just a little favor. It's just a $400 million plane. Trump's not now quid pro quo. Of course not.

Listen to Caroline and you tell me whether this inspires confidence. You tell me whether she sounds believable. Can you clarify that Qatar is giving us a new Air Force One as a personal gift to President Trump? Are they gifting it to the country? What could you tell us about this luxury liner that looks like a hotel on the air? Well, the Qatari government has graciously offered to donate a plane to the Department of Defense. What a beautiful donation.

The legal details of that are still being worked out. That's a little TBD. We're working out the legality, Brian, but don't worry about that. Of course, any donation to this government is always done in full compliance with the law. And we commit ourselves to the utmost transparency and we will continue to do that. Do you worry that if they give us something like this, they want something in return? Absolutely not, because they know President Trump and they know he only works with the interests of the American public in mind.

Of course the Qataris would never think never that Trump is the type of person who if you give him a $400 million gift, he would do something for you. Never ever, ever. That it's just, it's constitutionally not who Donald Trump is. And of course, if you believe that I have blanket tariffs being good for the United States to sell you, um, it, it's beyond parody at the, what can we say? What can we say? Um, and I just, and it's of course also Trump aside, it's really common that people give out $ million dollar gifts expecting nothing in

return, a completely sane and rational thing to do for the gifter as well. OK, the topic of pharmaceutical prices also did come up during this interview with Caroline Levitt. Now, let me set this up for you. Donald Trump posted an endlessly long tirade to truth central about prescription drugs. And I'm not going to read the whole thing, but part of what he includes here is the announcement that at the white house, he will be signing one of the most consequential executive orders in history to reduce

prescription drug and pharmaceutical prices almost immediately by 30 to 80 percent. And how he's going to do this isn't clear whether this is even something you can do via executive order. It sounds like the answer is no. None of it makes even a modicum of sense. And Brian Kilmeade asked Caroline Levavitt about it and asked, how exactly does this work? And her answer leaves a little bit of detail to be desired. So this pharmaceutical deal, I'm just going off the truth social posts. It says it's a long one, but he says, I'm pleased to announce that today the White House at nine o'clock will be signing one of the most consequential executive orders ever. They'll be reducing pharmaceuticals by about 80%. Essentially, we are going to pay less than the country that's paying the least for pharmaceuticals from here on in. How does that work? Yeah, I love that. How exactly does that

work? Okay, because it doesn't exactly sound logical. So then we go back to Caroline Leavitt and here's her answer. Overstated how big of a deal this executive order that president Trump will be signing in a couple of hours is for American families and especially our seniors who have been ripped off by very large and rich pharmaceutical companies. The United States of America is less than 5% of the world's population, yet we purchase 75% of big pharma's profits. We pay an astronomical amount in comparison to other countries around the world. So the president is signing an executive order today

that is going to implement most favored nations' drug pricing and is going to reduce the cost of drugs in this country by more than half. At least America is going to pay a better rate and a fairer rate to the rest of the world. Notice by the way that Brian Kilmeade says it's going to cut prices 80%. Caroline Leavitt says it's going to cut them at least half, at least 50%. Trump's own troth post says it will be 30 to 80%, which is quite a range. But forget about the fact that the numbers don't make any sense. They're not giving us the mechanism through which this is going to happen. Oh, Trump's going to sign an executive order, which Trump seems to think is legislation,

but it's not. Trump's going to sign an executive order and the prices are just going to drop. And of course the question is they're going to drop. How are pharmacy benefit managers going to be the ones that change the prices? Are the pharmaceutical companies going to be the ones that have to sell to the distributors and the PBMs and the pharmacies at a lower rate? Or is it that there's going to be a government subsidy on the pricing for the end user? Will this apply to both hospitals as well as individuals getting? There's no answer. There's no mechanism. There's no explanation. And of course, it's completely dubious at its face that this is going to happen. Now, do we need to deal with

prescription drug prices? Of course, one of the things Biden did, and you could say he wasn't a good president or he was or he shouldn't have run for reelection. Let's just talk about what he did. The mechanism for working on drug prices was let's first identify the 10 most prescribed drugs for Medicare recipients. Let's get the manufacturers of those drugs to the table to negotiate the price that Medicare will pay. And let's come to an agreement that's going to lower prices on those drugs. That is an actionable and sort of tractable way to do it. Now, is it all going to happen by the deadline? Well, we will see. But this executive order to drop prices 30, 50, 80 percent, this is the sort of stuff of fairy tales. And they all play their role. Trump's troths play the role. Right. Brian Kilmeade

plays part of a role in it. Caroline Leavitt plays her role in it. And then at the end of the day, we say, so what's the mechanism for dropping the prices? We just don't know. Guys in my audience, I know you're tired of the chafing with traditional underwear. Our sponsor sheath makes the most comfortable boxer briefs I've ever worn. If you're sick of the boxers that are too loose or the briefs that are too tight, sheath is for you. Sheath underwear is designed with two special pouches in the front, keeps everything separate in its own compartment with extra confidence that you will feel throughout the day, keeping things separate and comfortable, no more sticking and chafing. I was skeptical about the dual pouch. I admit it, but it is game changing. Everything stays where it is supposed to be

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is actively look looking at suspending habeas corpus. This is another way for saying they are looking at formally suspending due process. When are we ready to call it what it is? Fascism. This is a chilling moment. It should have stopped the country cold with 24 seven reporting about this. Top Trump adviser Stephen Miller says out loud they are indeed considering the suspension of habeas corpus. Take a listen to this. Well, the Constitution is clear, and that, of course, is the supreme law of the land that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus can be suspended in a time of invasion. So to say

that's an option we're actively looking at. Look, a lot of it depends on whether the courts do the right thing or not. If we do not like what the courts decide through a constitutionally and legally protected process of the judiciary, if we just don't like the outcome, not the process, but the outcome, then we will look at saying that there is an invasion that justifies the suspension of habeas corpus. So let me connect the dots here, because again, this happened on the same day that New York Mayor Ross Baraka was arrested for protesting at an ice facility. Sitting mayor speaks out against federal policy, gets arrested.

White House publicly explores the end of due process. This is not campaign rhetoric about, oh, they have fascist ideas. This would be a form of fascism. Understand what habeas corpus is. It's not obscure legal trivia. It's the right to say, why am I being detained? It's the the mechanism that. It's the right to say, why am I being detained? It's the, the mechanism that forces the government to have to justify arrests in court. It's a line between a democracy and a police state. And Stephen Miller goes, yeah, I don't know if we don't like the outcome of some of these court decisions, we might do it.

We might suspend it. And what that means is that you can be arrested with no hearing and no lawyer and no trial. You just kind of are vanished into a system with no exit under the constitution. Habeas corpus can only be suspended in cases of rebellion or invasion. And what Steven Miller is doing is he is saying immigration is an invasion and then that makes them be able to pretend that suspending habeas corpus would be legal. It's a workaround. It's a pretext and they're testing it in public. So the way that the playbook will work is you say we have an invasion because of the invasion.

The courts are too slow. They've already started this when they go truck. You're saying hearings for millions of undocumented before we deport them. That's not practical. That's not convenient. We can't do, we just don't have the resources to do that. Public safety is more important than giving hearings to the people we're going to deport. And then like that, entire groups of people can be detained indefinitely.

You don't have to charge them. You don't have to explain it. You just say it's an invasion and we have legally suspended habeas corpus. This is how totalitarian governments justify mass detentions. And if you think it's hyperbolic, just remember, Trump has proposed mass deportation forces. He's already deployed the military in a domestic, the National Guard to the border. He said some of these immigrants aren't really people. These are animals.

They poison the blood of the country. His closest adviser is saying we might strip habeas corpus. He's talking about deporting citizens. They have deported some. They are not even hiding it anymore. And the timing couldn't be clearer. As we see Mayor Ross Baraka arrested for protesting outside a nice facility the same day the announcement was made. So it's the symbolism. If you don't look at this and see the direction that

this is going, I don't know what to tell you. You protest the machinery of state violence and you end up getting swept up in it. So it's happening. It's happening in real time. We don't have to say they might do this. They are laying the legal groundwork for a system where they can jail anybody that they declare a threat without a trial, without right to an appeal and without due process. And it starts with immigrants. But why would it end there once you make it normal that this is a country where because we have this emergency, people get detained without a trial, without due process, you can start applying it to others.

You can apply it to elected officials like Ross Baraka, who you don't like. You can apply it to journalists. You can apply it to protesters and union leaders and whoever else you want, because the logic of authoritarianism is always they don't deserve rights, so we don't owe them any. Oh, a right is a right. It's not a privilege, except if someone doesn't deserve rights. So we don't owe them any. Oh, a right is a right. It's not a privilege, except if someone doesn't deserve it. And if they don't deserve it by their actions or by what they think or by what they've said, or because they're part of a group that we've determined as a problematic group, we don't owe rights to people that haven't earned them, which of course is not

the way that rights work. And once that logic is in place, every single political enemy is fair game. Independent media creators that they don't like, of course, uh, protesters that they don't like, of course, people that just post to social media, things that they don't like who have large followings. Of course they are. And what is even more stunning is that there's a Republican senator who is opening up the door to this in what many are saying is one half step towards civil war. I want to talk about that. Tragically, Republican Senator John Barrasso has left the door open, open to the suspension of habeas corpus.

And one of the things that is unbelievable about this segment is that it leaves the door open to civil war type logic. I'm going to explain this. It's not metaphorical. It's not symbolic. It's a real constitutional breakdown. So here is Barrasso on Meet the Press. And he was asked three separate times, would you support ending habeas corpus?

Something that Trump advisor Steven Miller, as we saw earlier in the show, said they are looking at this is the legal right that protects people from being detained without a trial. It wasn't a wild hypothetical and there's a specific reason why he was asked about it. What did Barrasso say? He didn't say no. He didn't say that would be unconstitutional. He didn't even say it's a terrible idea. He said, I don't believe that it's going to come to Congress. And this is exactly the problem. And I will tell you why in a second after we check out the clip. Finally, Senator, I want to talk about something that one of President Trump's top aides, Stephen Miller, said this week. He said the administration is actively looking at suspending habeas corpus.

Just for our audience, that's the right to challenge a person's detention by the government. This would be a part of the broader efforts to speed up their deportation policies. The Constitution says that habeas corpus may not be suspended, quote, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion. Would you vote to suspend habeas corpus since the power does ultimately lie with Congress? The president has said he will follow the law. The president says if he disagrees with the law, that he will appeal those things. The president was elected and he won every one of the battleground states on promising to secure the border and bring safety back to our communities. That's exactly what he

is doing. People do not wanna live with MS-13 gang members in their communities. The Democrats lost the election. Notice that none of this is relevant to the question. Because they opened the borders to 10 million illegal immigrants, including members of criminal cartels, drug dealers, gang members. That's what the election was about. And the president has now seen judges, district judges, radical district judges using their courts to set national standards, making it harder for the president to deport individuals, criminals. And I stand with the president. And yet, Senator, just to put a fine point on this, I want to know what you would do. Would you vote to suspend habeas corpus if this were brought before Congress? Ultimately,

this power lies with Congress. The president said he is going to follow the law. He was on with you last week. He said he has great respect for the Supreme Court. He said he expects the attorney general to do the right thing. And I expect that the president will. Can you just give me a yes or no what you would do, though? Would you support suspending habeas corpus? I don't believe this is going to come to Congress. What I believe is the president is going to follow the law. What a cop out.

There's this is this is actually far more complex and nuanced than you might think. Nuanced in a completely despicable way. Kristen Welker is correct that it's supposed to come to Congress. But as I said earlier in the show, when we say the law prescribes X, if there's no way to enforce that, what does it mean that it's in the law? If a tree falls in the woods and nobody hears it, does it make a sound? If there's a law written somewhere that no one follows and there's no method of enforcement to following it, does it matter that it's a law that's that no one follows and there's no method of enforcement to following it.

Does it matter that it's a law that's written down somewhere? And what Barrasso is saying is actually terrifying. Barrasso is probably right. If Trump decides to suspend habeas corpus, they're not going to have a vote. They're not going to have a debate. He's just going to do it because that's how authoritarianism works. And these Republicans are under the illusion or, or the delusional belief that Trump cares what they, what, what Trump cares, what they believe he doesn't because they're not partners.

I don't even know that he sees them as allies. He sees them as decoration until they become inconvenient. So Barasso sadly might be correct. I don't know that this is going to come to a vote because Trump has no, no intention of letting people vote as to whether he suspends habeas corpus. Now why is this a civil war risk? When you suspend core rights like due process, you're not enforcing the law. You're declaring war on part of your own population.

You're saying, here's a group of people that don't deserve rights. They're not really part of the country. And by the way, the people that are in this group of people, I can tell you where we draw the line. We'll draw it once here. It's us versus them. If that becomes a problem, we'll draw the line somewhere else. And now it's this new us versus this new them. And this is how civil wars start. It's not when the first shot is fired. It's when the rules of peaceful disagreement are abandoned and when states or, or strong men say, we don't really need courts, we don't really need lawyers, we don't really need checks and balances.

I'm just going to decide. That's when you start pointing towards civil war and that's exactly what the suspension of habeas corpus does. It removes that final guardrail where they say we can put whoever in jail that we want. Trump already sees undocumented immigrants as enemies that he can put in jail whenever he wants. He called them invaders. He sent troops to the border.

He's a floated military tribunals and now his team is looking at saying this is an invasion and we can detain people without even charging them indefinitely. That's the next step. And here's where we are. And Barrasso as a constitutional conservative, instead of saying, absolutely not, he shrugs and he goes, I don't think it's going to get to me. I don't think I'm going to get a vote on that. It's not reassurance. It's actually part of the problem. It's complicity. And if Trump does this, the country will split even further because once one side says your rights don't matter, it opens the door for the other side to also stop playing by the rules.

And that's when systems break. Civil wars don't start because people disagree. They start when people start believing that they're going to be treated when people stop believing that they will be treated fairly under the law. And that's what Barrasso is signaling here for millions of people that that moment may be coming. You're leaving the door open for civil war, and it is utterly and completely terrifying. When it was time for a new mattress, I didn't want to gamble on something generic. I had heard about Helix. I like that they customize the

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sheet set and a mattress protector with any Lux or elite mattress order. Go to Helix sleep.com slash Pacman to check it out. The link is in the description. We have yet another moment that perfectly encapsulates the Trump doctrine, sign anything, pretend it's genius and then ask, what am I signing here? This is a clip from late last week. Donald Trump is seen sitting down, pen in hand, about to sign documents related to China trade related to this, related to that. And before he puts ink to paper, he turns and says, what is this about? What what are we doing here? And it has to do with freezers. This time it's

not about toilets. This time it's not about sinks and showers, but it's about freezers. And he's got there's this guy on screen left right now in the red. Well, they're all they're mostly all wearing red ties. The guy all the way on the left, the sort of male pattern baldness guy. This is the guy who presents Trump with executive orders to sign and explains to him what they are in the most vitriolic and politically partisan language possible. And just watch this. They're not even trying to hide it anymore. Trump has no idea what the documents say. It all needs to be explained to him like he's being handed a check at the restaurant. He doesn't remember ordering the clams casino. Take a listen to this next. Mr. President, we have House Joint Resolution 24. This is

the same basic idea. Oh, I'm sorry. This particular one is not an executive order. It's a house resolution. But this relates to walk in coolers and freezers and other refrigeration devices. Again, last minute Biden error regulation that hits ordinary Americans. What did they do? They put in what what what did the Congress do about this? I don't even know what I'm going to sign. What did they do about it? He has no idea. Regulation that hits ordinary Americans are what they do? They put in for increased energy efficiency requirements

for walking schoolers and freezers and therefore putting an undue burden on businesses across the country. Walk-in schoolers energy requirements from restaurants to pharmacies, hospitals to a point where it didn't work. In other words, it made the restrictions so strong that it didn't work and it was going to cost them so much money to actually meet the energy efficiency standards, which didn't really save much money. So this is going to actually help our small businesses across the country. Yes, everybody is going to be helped so much by pharmacies and restaurants having laxer requirements around refrigeration.

Wow. What a what a what a victory for the conservative movement. This is the pattern, though. Trump shows up, signs whatever is in front of him, declares it tremendous and walks off while someone struggles to explain what actually happened. And it really tracks with what we know about how he views trade as well. Moments later, Trump says we already made a great deal by stopping trade with China. Now, of course, this is before this morning's temporary pause. But Trump

once again repeating this idea that we fix the problem. We no longer send them any money. But of course, China no longer sends us stuff either. But Trump doesn't get it. What parameters have you given Scott Besson on negotiating with China this weekend? We have to make a great deal for America. Are you going to be disappointed if he comes back without a deal? No, not at all. We already made a great deal.

We're not doing business with China right now. The deal is we no longer do business. We lost one trillion dollars last year with China. One trillion. So if you're not going to do business with them, you're not going to lose one trillion dollars. But we lost. I just want I want China to do great.

Right. Very friendly with President Xi. I have great respect for him and for China to do great. Right. Very friendly with President Xi. I have great respect for him and for China. All right. So I know I've said this at this point so many times, but it has to be repeated. Trump believes that importing goods is an economic loss in Trump's mind. If you buy a TV made in China, it's a drain on America because he doesn't understand how mutually beneficial trade works in his mind. Trade is zero sum. Imagine if you walk into the bakery

and you get a beautiful overpriced nine dollar loaf of hipster bread and you I'm kind of kidding about the price. OK, if you get a beautiful a nine dollar loaf of hipster bread and you gave the bakery your nine dollars and you step outside and you go, they just stole nine dollars from me. I just gave them nine bucks. Any sensible person would say, well, you exchanged the nine dollars for the bread that you didn't get nothing. You gave them nine dollars. They gave you a loaf of bread that

on the market is a nine dollar loaf of bread. And Trump doesn't understand that we give China a trillion bucks. What does that mean? Well, they give us a trillion bucks worth of stuff. Trump goes, we fix the problem by no longer giving them any money. Right. But then they stop giving us stuff. This is why the trade war with China achieves nothing other than higher prices and economic instability. And it's why every time Trump talks about trade or sign something trade related, it sounds like a middle school book report that was plagiarized and turned in late after you didn't read the book.

He doesn't understand terms. He doesn't understand consequences. He just doesn't even know what he's signing and what he's doing. But he knows the optics. Sit at a desk, wave paper around, answer questions, say you've got it all figured out. It's the vibe of it, of it rather than the results. And of course, after all of this talk about how he's winning, they've now paused the entire thing for 90 days, which a normal person would say. If he told us on Friday it was going so well, why would he now need

to pause it on Sunday night into Monday? It doesn't make any sense. We then get to Caroline Leavitt, Donald Trump's White House press secretary, who melted down over basic questions that she was asked. She defiantly and angrily told the room of reporters, Trump never does anything for himself. He's always doing what's best for everybody else, which anybody who is familiar with the guy and the people around him would say, what? Isn't this the exact opposite of what is true?

Listen to this. And let me just get to the premise of your question that both of you have raised. I think it's frankly ridiculous that anyone in this room would even suggest that President Trump is doing anything for his own benefit. He left a life of luxury and a life of running a very successful real estate empire for public service not just once but twice. And again, the American public reelected him back to this White House because they trust he acts in the best interest of our country and putting the American public first. This is a president who has actually lost money for being president of the United States.

I don't remember these same type of questions being asked of my predecessor about a career politician who was clearly profiting off of this office. That is not what President Trump does. Now, of course, Joe Biden's net worth of I think it's 11 million bucks buoyed primarily by his successful books. And the difference between a billionaire and an 80 year old with 11 million bucks, mostly from his books, we know exactly how he made his money couldn't possibly be compared. But the really kind of important thing here is what the hell is Caroline Leavitt talking about? Trump, while during Trump's first term, he made a big deal out of how he was separating from all

of his businesses. He didn't do it. And then he earned reportedly one point six billion dollars during his four year term. And Caroline Leavitt wants us to believe everything he does is for everybody else. The entire presidential political sort of experiment with Trump was about what's good for me. I want to make myself an even more grandiose figure. Now in another moment that now, I mean, it really should have gotten a lot more attention, especially in the context of the now 90 day pause with the China tariffs. Caroline Leavitt says we are going to continue with a baseline tariff no matter what happens in the various trade deals.

She admits here, even if we make deals with China and whoever else and get rid of most of the tariffs, we're keeping a 10% tariff on everybody, meaning higher prices for Americans. This should be a far bigger story than the 10% baseline is going to still be there at the end when all of the other details are ironed out. The president is committed to the 10% baseline tariff, not just for the United Kingdom, but for his trade negotiations with all other countries. Committed to a 10 percent baseline tariff.

That's major news. And of course, it got lost in 100 other things. Well, even after the deals are done like that is going to remain. The president is determined to continue with that 10 percent baseline tariff. I just spoke to him about it earlier. Steven. Wow. That's that.

Is that still true? Does that does Trump know this? Does anyone around Trump know this? Is she wrong or. And now what about the context of the 90 day pause? Are we actually down? Because they said they suspended the additional tariffs. So we still have roughly like a 15 percent tariff left. Is that permanent? Nobody knows. We just have no idea. At another

point, a reporter asks about Trump firing the librarian of Congress. And from Caroline Levitt's answer, it sounds like she believes the Library of Congress is lending books out to kids. I can't believe this. The president. Question. The president fired the Library of Congress. Why did he choose to do that? We felt she did not fit the needs of the American people.

There were quite concerning things that she had done at the Library of Congress in the pursuit of DEI and putting inappropriate books in the library for children. And we don't believe that she was serving the interests of the American taxpayer. Well, so she has been removed from her position in the president as well within his rights to do that. And of course, no one is questioning Trump being within his rights. What we are questioning is the Trump fire, the librarian of Congress under the belief that what the Library of Congress does is lend books to kids. They are it's the blind leading the blind. They have not a clue what is going on

and they're about to admit defeat on the Russia Ukraine war negotiations. Let's discuss that. I'm sure many of you remember that we were told the Russia-Ukraine war would end in 24 hours. Now, you probably would say 24 hours from what? Well, first, we were told it'll end within 24 hours of Trump being elected in November. Then we were told it'll end within 24 hours of Trump being inaugurated in January. Then we were told it's going to be 100 days. Well, we are now on day 107 of that promise. Actually, it one it's like 110, something like that, 111. And the latest sign that reality is catching up to the fantasy is that J.D. Vance, Trump's own surrogate, is now publicly saying, I think we might walk away from it. Now, last week or the week before, we heard from Secretary of State Marco Rubio say, listen, we're going to

take like one more shot and we may just walk away without resolving this war. And now J.D. Vance is shrugging and kind of going, yeah, I don't know that we're going to get that peace deal and we're getting close to walking away. Listen to this. What would bother me is if we conclude that the Russians are not engaging in the negotiation in good faith. And if that happens, yeah, we're gonna walk away. The president's gonna say, we're out of this thing. And what that's gonna mean fundamentally, I think,

is that both Russia and Ukraine are gonna be left to settle this thing without the advice and without the mediation of the United States. I don't think that's good for anybody. I don't think it's good for us. I don't think it's good for Russia or Ukraine. But we can only lead these guys to the well. We can't force them to drink. And that's what the president has done. And I do think we've had some diplomatic breakthroughs. Again, the fact the Russians are offering a peace plan at all, that's a breakthrough. The fact the

Ukrainians are offering a concrete proposal, that's a breakthrough. But we've got to try to get these sides a little bit closer together to achieve a lasting peace. We're not there yet. We'll keep working on it until we decide that we ultimately can't make any more progress. Well, there you go. And of course, if you think, isn't David, isn't this a huge shift? Of course, the entire foreign policy pitch for over a year was that the war between between Russia and Ukraine exists because Trump wasn't in office. As soon as he gets back in, he's going to call this person. He'll call that person. It's all going to be wrapped up within 24 hours. It'll be wrapped up before Trump's turtle soup dinner or whatever he eats these days. He said it so many times with such confidence that some of his base started to believe it. They said it's going to be solved

right away. And now the message is changing. said it's going to be solved right away. And now the message is changing. Now it's we tried. Things are complicated. There's geopolitical realities. It's not entirely up to us. And of course, J.D. Vance is right in this clip. Just about everything J.D. Vance says is correct. But they should have been admitting this all along. Instead, they were gaslighting the American people. It's a hell of a pivot from we're going to negotiate world peace over the weekend and still have time to play golf. Trump was never going to end this within 24 hours. That was never real. It was always bluster. And his plan, if you can call it, that was cut Ukraine's funding, let Russia do whatever it wants. It sort of became intractable to take that approach.

And it still remains the case that the only piece Trump can deliver quickly is for Ukraine to surrender and Putin to get whatever he wants. That wouldn't be diplomacy. That would be appeasement. And now even Trump's own people are hinting, I think we're going to walk away. What are we going to be left with? It's yet another campaign promise that was never serious. A slow backpedal begins. The war continues real consequences for European security, for NATO credibility, authoritarian aggression worldwide. And this is what always happens with Trump's over promise under deliver and blame somebody

else. You know, Joe Biden set us up to not do so well. And Zelensky is asking for things that don't make sense. It happens with infrastructure. It happens with tariffs. It happens with international diplomacy. You make the boldest claim possible, never deliver and hope you can blame somebody else and that people will forget about the promise to begin with. He said 24 hours, which 24 hours he meant changed, but he said 24 hours and then he said 100 days. And here we are, 110, 111 days later with no plan, no deal. And they are

preparing to just walk away and say we did all the right things. It was just who could have guessed that it would have been so difficult. My question to you, when do you think they officially walk away or do you think more likely they just stop talking about it and say they're figuring it out? Let me know what you think. We've got a great bonus show for you today. We are going to see the first white South Africans go to the United States under Trump's refugee plan. What is going to be the reaction to that?

Republicans are seeking more state laws on trans people and it's wacky, but it's also putting Democrats on the spot. We'll see how Democrats are handling it. And then we also see significant increases in economic anxiety and Americans starting to delay purchases exactly as one would expect in times of an unstable economic situation. And this is why even if you cancel all the tariffs today, a lot of the damage is not going to be undone. Certainly not quickly.

All of those stories and more on today's bonus show. Make sure that you're on my newsletter. You can get on it by emailing info at David Pakman dot com and saying, David, get me on that newsletter. And of course, make sure that you are a member. You can sign up at join Pakman dot com, get the full daily commercial free experience and you will get extra instant extra access to the bonus show on which we will discuss all of those stories. And I'll see you then. And of course, I'll be back here tomorrow with a new show.