The David Pakman Show - 5/15/25: Walmart price hikes, Pam Bondi caught cashing out

Episode Date: May 15, 2025

-- On the Show: -- Matt Gertz, Senior Fellow at Media Matters, joins David to discuss the Fox News-Trump pipeline in his second administration and much more — Walmart drops a red alert: Trump���s tariffs are about to jack up prices across the country—and red states will feel it hardest — Kristi Noem gets annihilated on live television as Rep. Swalwell and Rep. Ramirez deliver brutal takedowns on ethics and fake photos — Trump publicly gushes over Qatar’s authoritarian leaders after receiving a $400M private jet—he’s not even pretending anymore — Trump stuns everyone with deranged, senile rants during his Middle East trip: drone trees, submarines, and Sean Duffy climbing competitions — Trump whines that Biden is “mean” and “stupid” in part two of his Hannity interview—proving once again who the real snowflake is — Pam Bondi sold $1M+ in Trump Media stock the same day Trump announced tariffs that cratered the market—insider trading, anyone? — RFK Jr. says Americans shouldn’t take medical advice from him… while serving as Health Secretary — RFK Jr. also says $40,000 a month is a reasonable rehab cost, defending Medicaid cuts from the comfort of generational wealth -- On the Bonus Show: Trump impeachment resolution pulled moments before vote, Gavin Newsom reverses course on healthcare for undocumented immigrants, and more reporting on Pam Bondi’s shady stock sale 💻 Get Private Internet Access for 83% OFF + 4 months free at https://www.piavpn.com/David -- Become a Member: https://davidpakman.com/membership -- Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/davidpakmanshow -- Get David's Books: https://davidpakman.com/echo -- TDPS Subreddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/thedavidpakmanshow -- David on Bluesky: https://davidpakman.com/bluesky -- David on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow

. Welcome everybody. A Walmart has just fired a warning shot that every American shopper should be paying attention to. It's going to hit Trump supporters harder as is often the case with these policies that have a sort of trip, a real trickle down effect in the economy. This is about Walmart's latest earnings report. Walmart posted mixed results. OK, some good, some bad. But the real story is not their revenue numbers. It's about what Walmart says is coming

next. And that's higher prices. And they're saying it's the Donald Trump tariffs that are going to lead to that. The Walmart CEO, Doug McMillan, pointed at Trump's tariffs and says we aren't able to absorb all the pressure. There was this idea some of these businesses will just absorb the tariffs and say we'll just make less money. And Walmart is now saying in investor documents they're not going to be able to do it. It doesn't seem to be politics so much as it seems to be an economic reality that's going to hit people's grocery bills and expenses for a whole variety of products that people buy. We saw a 4.5 increase in same store sales in the United States at Wal-Mart. But overall revenue missed expectations.

Fine. They beat earnings estimates. Some numbers are up, some numbers are down. But the path forward is one where you and I will be paying for it. And the kicker is that this is going to hit Donald Trump's base the hardest because, sure, Walmarts are everywhere, but especially in red states, Walmart dominates. And in fact, there are more Walmart stores per capita in deep red areas of the United States than really almost anywhere else. In some rural counties, Walmart is the only place where you can go and get the

products that Walmart offers. So when Walmart raises prices because of Trump's tariffs, it is Trump voters that are going to feel it first and that are going to feel it the worst. So break down the process. Trump slaps tariffs on imports. Some of them stick. Some of them don't. Some are suspended for 90 days. Some are not. Wal-Mart can't absorb the cost. They have apparently thin margins. Prices go up at the checkout line. And the voters that are most loyal to Donald Trump who rely on Wal-Mart for affordable groceries and diapers and in many cases medicine. They are the ones that get absolutely slammed and they won't even see it coming. And meanwhile, on the political side, Trump's out there saying tariffs are a win. China's paying for everything. But Walmart is confirming what economists have

said for months and what the economic world has known for decades, which is that tariffs are a tax on American consumers. You can call it a hidden tax or not, although some retailers are making it clearer that it is not hidden. And Macmillan said about the Chinese tariffs, even at the reduced levels announced this week, even during this 90 day pause where the tariff on China is only 15 percent, it still is too much pricing pressure for Walmart to absorb it. So the translation is that Trump is increasing your cost of living. It's happening sort of quietly. It's happening steadily and it's happening on purpose because Trump did say it might be a little painful for a bit, but it's going to be worth it. Joe Feldman at Telsey Advisory Group says that the biggest wild card for the retail space for 2025 is tariffs.

What's going to happen with tariffs? Wal-Mart might weather the storm better than others because they're so huge. But American families aren't able to do it. So if you live in a red state, if you shop at Wal-Mart, this is what Trump's economic policy looks like in practice. It's less America first and more sort of like you last. And it's gone well beyond being a culture war. It is now a wallet war. And Wal-Mart is telling us which side is losing. Sadly, it's the average consumer. Kristi Noem got absolutely annihilated yesterday on live television by Congresswoman Delia Ramirez.

This was really, you know, some some on Twitter posted that this was awe inspiring. I don't know if it was awe inspiring, but this is exactly how the Democratic Party needs to be dealing with these unserious people that are in this administration. Let's just get into it. I don't think we need too much more of an introduction to this to understand what's going on. Let's listen. Well, let me ask you the follow up question here, because I have a lot of them. Do you agree that Article 1 of the Constitution gives Congress the power of the purse? Yes or no? Yes. Is it a duty of Congress to pay people to appropriate funds? Let me ask you another follow-up. It's just yes or no. Do you believe you have the power to disregard congressional appropriations and unilaterally repurposed funds that have been

duly appropriated by Congress? Yes or no? Ma'am, we are not doing that. So the answer to you is no. All right, well, let me, it was a yes or no, Secretary. Let me continue. Interestingly, you said no. But since you've been Secretary, you have repeatedly disregarded the law. You have illegally impounded funds that Congress appropriated and that your branch of government must implement pursuant to

the law. Yet you, you've closed offices established in law, including the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, the Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman, the Office of the Citizenship and Immigration Services, and you've canceled contracts for programs authorized in law, including shelter and service programs and citizenship and integration grants. You, you've obstructed and roughed up members of this committee as they attempted to conduct congressional oversight, and then you vilified them. But my question is, if they were so bad, why were they allowed to go in after to conduct oversight? Let me just continue. You redirected funds to terrorize our

communities. You created taxpayer-funded political propaganda campaigns to terrorize families and children who don't sleep at night because of the terror of those commercials that you are putting out there. You hold sick, disrespectful press conferences in my state where, let me be clear, you are not welcome. You corruptly used emergency authority to avoid procurement to make Trump's private prison donors richer by directing $45 billion for them to expand ICE detention centers. You defunded work to address real threats to the homeland, all while you pursued college newspaper editors, labor leaders, and even a Harvard scientist who failed to declare frog embryos at the airport. Clearly, we don't have time for all my questions, so I have 13 pages worth of questions that I will be submitting to the record that I expect you and the administration to answer. But here is my final question to you. When you took your oath, did you swear to support and defend

the Constitution of the United States of America? Yes or no? Yes, I did. So I find that laughable. You don't behave like someone who takes that oath seriously. And let me tell you why. We don't live in a dictatorship or a monarchy. Trump's will is not the guiding doctrine of this nation. And our country is not a playground for his or your twisted authoritarian fantasies. We are a democracy. We defend the Constitution and we affirm the rule of law. All right, you get the idea. It went on a little bit longer.

I think this is very good. And listen, I'm not naive. I know that not that many people watch these congressional hearings. There's a bit of a shouting into the void with no consequences as Kristi Noem just sits there and just kind of listens. And she knows this will really be of no serious consequence and she can just move on with her day. But we must be treating these people the way they deserve to be treated. And another example from yesterday's hearing is our friend Eric Swalwell, who completely humiliates Kristi Noem. She tries to dodge the question of whether the thick the the image that Trump held up of a brago Garcia's hands were photoshopped and Christie gnome. She can't cross the dear leader, so she won't even acknowledge it. You agree though that this is doctor, is that right?

The same protocols that are, I want you to have credibility and I want you to be taken seriously. Is this doctored or is it not? I am taking quite seriously. Is it doctored or not? The importance that the president has given me to, I understand. Is it doctored or not? The importance that the president has given me. I understand. Is it doctored or not? That's important to remember is that every single time a case is built. Madam Secretary, I have a seven year old, a six year old and a three year old. I have a bullshit detector.

I'm just asking you, is this doctored or not doctored? Sir, the protocols in the case built against you answer the question. She doesn't answer it. And I know that this video is reversed. It's flipped vertically for some reason. I just have no idea why we have to continue doing this at every opportunity. These we need to treat these people as seriously as they have shown they deserve to be treated. And it's not that seriously. Eric Swalwell knows it. Delia Ramirez knows it.

And hopefully we will see more of this type of discussion with these individuals. And I know it doesn't do much to convince people in the mega circles. I know it doesn't do much when it comes to actually changing the behavior of these people. But there is some degree to which we need to speak to them on the level where they are. And with Kristi Noem, it's I have to ask you four times, can you just acknowledge this is photoshopped and she won't and we need to not move on from that? And hopefully we start seeing it at press briefings with Caroline Leavitt and in more environments. So nice job by by the members Delia Ramirez there and Eric Swalwell. We're going to take a very quick break.

I do want to make sure that you're getting my daily newsletter, which we are soon to be significantly expanding. You can sign up by emailing info at David Pakman dot com and saying, hey, David, get me on that newsletter. You can also simply sign up at David Pakman dot substack dot com. So we'll take a very short break and so much more, including from the current Middle East trip that the administration is on. So many different VPNs reach out to me wanting to advertise on the show, and I always turn them down because most of them do not pass the sniff test.

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Private internet access is giving my audience 83% off, which is just $2.03 a month plus four extra months for free. The David Pakman Show is an independent progressive media program, and we do depend on your support. The membership program, which you can read about on my website, is the primary funding The David Pakman Show David Pakman dot com. We do have a coupon code that you can use if you'd like a discount. That code is it will end soon. All one word, all lowercase. And a huge thank you to the two hundred and thirteen new members who have recently signed up. Donald Trump is back to doing what he does absolutely best, and that is groveling for gifts from this time, authoritarian autocrats around the world, including in Qatar. I don't totally know whether the video I'm going to play

for you is authorized or unauthorized. It's sort of like a shaky handheld camera, which was the theme at a lot of Trump's Middle East events. Just for some reason, someone's holding the camera and it's shaky. But he was caught on video just gushing, gushing over the authoritarian rulers of Qatar calls, talks about great and special men. And why? Well, there's two reasons. Number one, they are handing Trump a 400 million dollar luxury jet for free. And Trump likes it. Number two, Trump just loves authoritarians. He's impressed by autocrats who govern with an iron fist and are completely indifferent to the needs and wants and feedback of the people that they govern.

Trump loves it. Trump wishes that could be him. Listen to this. Trump just gushing over the authoritarian If you don't have a good leader, it doesn't mean anything. And you see it all the time. There are a lot of places. Trump just gushing over the authoritarian Qatari royal family. We are being led by a guy who takes planes from Gulf autocrats and says it's patriotism. And just think for a second. Imagine if Biden took a gift like that from anybody.

It would be DEFCON one on Fox News when Trump does it. It's silence. And imagine if Biden made a habit of praising authoritarians and autocrats around the world. It would be once again, what is Biden doing? But Trump does it every single day and he loves these guys. And it is just silence and the sort of pathetic refrain of why don't we want to get along with everybody? And as I've said before, sure, in a vacuum, we want to get along with people, but we don't want to endorse, condone or implicitly appear to support human rights abuses and authoritarianism, except now we've got the authoritarian in the White House. So of course we want to support that.

It's what Trump supports. Trump continuing during this disgusting speech saying that he it no, no criticism for the Saudi royal family, no criticism for the Qatari royal family, but plenty of criticism for the democratically elected Joe Biden. That's for sure. Speaker 5 He also understands the situation. That was my prior administration. And when there's a period of time that he went to anywhere, one of the most, maybe the

most awful that we've ever had. I'm sorry, but I'm not sure you remember. And this is a period of time. This is a period of time. So more than three months in the same. And I think that's what I'm saying. I think that's what I'm saying. I think that's what I'm saying.

I think that's what I'm saying. I think that's what I'm saying. I think that's what I'm saying. I think that's what I'm saying. I think that's what I'm saying. I think that's what I'm saying. I think that's what I'm saying. I think that's what I'm saying.

I think that's what I'm saying. I think that's what I'm saying. I think that's what I'm early. And this is in a period of time. This is during, well, we've got a few days, so more than three months in this state. The first month is in town, because for the first month I'd like to pick up the old walls that you put with me, I guess. So just in a couple of short months, we'll be making it in numbers, and nobody I've ever crossed the line with

has ever been in anything like it in any country. And it's just really a mess. It's been a mess. So what is the global sort of change here in terms of the standing of the United States? Well, very little praise for Democratic countries, democratically elected leaders, very little of it, a lot of gushing and praise and excitement over the worst of the worst authoritarians around the world. It is a new global order. You know, these these guys like Bannon and others, they talk about a new global order and typically they mean horrible, horrible things by it.

And now we are seeing exactly that. And if you thought this was bad, just wait until Trump was actually on Mike and you could hear him because it was horrible. The completely humiliating Middle East trip of Donald Trump continues. Donald Trump speaking in such confused nonsense language that everybody around him has been stunned into silence. Here is Trump on a bizarre, aimless, meandering screed about trees and drones and fire and saws and timber. And you can see Trump's friends next to him. They don't know what's going on. Nobody knows what's going on because none of this makes

any sense. When you look at what's happening with Russia and Ukraine, the drone is killing tremendous numbers of people. You hide behind a tree and the drone comes down and it circles you with with fire. You don't have a chance. The tree comes down also, by the way. It's so intense. I mean, you see these trees being knocked down like like they're being sawed down by a top of the line timberman like like, you know, who, Sean Duffy? Do you know that Sean Duffy, the head of the Transportation Department, who's working right now on the airports and getting a system because Biden didn't do a thing? What on earth is this guy talking about? And you can tell from the people next to him, they have not a clue what this guy is talking

about. Not a clue. Trump then continues and reiterates. Sean Duffy was really good at climbing trees. Duffy, the head of transportation. He's a great Sean, though, I have to tell you. But Sean Duffy was the world champion for five years, climbing trees and down, up and down, world champion. So that's what you call a serious lumberjack. And he's doing a fantastic job, too, a really respected guy and a terrific guy. And I mention the champion because when somebody's a champion,

he's the world champion for a long time. Right. He came down when you come down those trees coming down at a rapid, he said that started getting you back. You will often break your back. You miss this. You miss a shot and you're coming down a lot faster than the human body was meant to come down.

But he's doing it. I think what Trump means is that Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is working on air traffic control at our airports because of Biden since drones are knocking down trees with fire in Ukraine and Russia. Quality information from the president of the United States on the world stage in his first major international diplomacy trip of this second term. And it continued. It was just he seems disoriented.

He doesn't seem to understand what he's saying. Here is Trump talking about submarines. Full weapon out, as you say. We're also doing very heavy on submarines. We have a lead on submarines that I don't think unless you have a really, really stupid group of people, including the president, I don't think anybody can catch us on submarines. We have some more submarine in particular, the late the late model this we're 15 years advanced on the submarine.

Nobody can even come close. It can stay underwater for 30 years. Think of it. You know, 30 years underwater. The reason it has to come up is for food. It doesn't need water because they have you know, they have their system of water, which is they can stay forever. The only reason it has to come up is for food. Can you imagine it could stay underground for underwater for years, really just electrifying

the crowd with his technical knowledge and strategic, intuitively strategic mind, as you can tell. OK, as as we got to the end of this fiasco, Trump, after it being reported, Trump, Putin's coming to Turkey. We're going to have negotiations. We're going to figure everything out. Then we learned actually Russian President Vladimir Putin will not be going to Turkey. And Trump tries to equivocate on that. Jennifer, go ahead. No, I didn't anticipate. I actually said, why would he go if I'm not going? Because I didn't anticipate. I actually said, why would he go if I'm not going?

Because I wasn't going to go. I wasn't planning to. I would go, but I wasn't planning to go. And I said, I don't think he's going to go if I don't go. And that turned out to be right. But we have people there. Marco, as you know, is doing a fantastic job. Marco's there, Secretary of State.

And we have people there. But I don't I don't I didn't think it was possible for Putin to go. If I'm not there, Jennifer. There you go. It's not a big deal because the reason Putin's not going is because Trump's not going and Trump's in charge. And that's the most important thing for everybody to remember. Trump is in control of everything.

He's in charge of everything. Finally, and quite substantively, I might add, or not substantively, meaningfully, Trump eliminating Syrian sanctions here. Trump explains why. And I challenge you to unwind this verbal mess of an explanation in a big fight. And the other, of course, the Syria, we took out the sanctions and that's been I didn't even realize it's been many, many years that they've had sanctions. And as you know, there was a very big change at the top. And I thought that we have to give them a chance. They really have no chance with the sanctions. They were very biting.

They were top of the line. Nobody could even deal with them. You couldn't even you couldn't make a phone call to Syria. So we did that. Speaker 1 There you go. And just clear as a clean window of glass, Trump explains why the Syrian sanctions were no good. This is embarrassing. We were told Biden needs help getting on and off stage. If that's true, is that any worse than this? Because this is a pathetic humiliation. And if you thought this was bad, well, there was the second part of Sean Hannity's softball Air Force One interview with Trump. I want to briefly discuss that.

Yesterday, we looked at part one of Donald Trump's interview with Sean Hannity on Air Force One. Remember, the context here is Hannity was invited because he's friendly to Trump. That's really it. Hannity has spent a long time sucking up to Trump and to the extent that Trump has friends, Hannity is a friend. And so he got invited to do a softball interview. Part two, the stuff they saved for the second part, extra pathetic, particularly childish, and Trump going really low, saying Biden is mean and Biden is dumb. Take a listen to this. This poor soul, this lost soul from the last presidency. And I say that because he was a very mean person. They went after people, including me.

But he was a very mean person. He was not a smart person. In fact, if you go back 30 years ago, he wasn't a smart person. You go back to prime time with him. He wasn't a smart person. Isn't this so presidential? But he was a very mean person. You go back to prime time with him. He wasn't a smart person. Isn't this so presidential? But he was a very mean person. Joe Biden's a very mean person. People don't understand that. They ruined lives. They've ruined families. They've ruined so many people. They could have ruined me. They tried to ruin me. But we're now in Air Force One flying

nicely to the Middle East. But they tried to ruin me. But some people weren't able to fight back. Their families have been destroyed. And the level he knew what was going on to. There you go. So Biden is mean and Biden is dumb and then just obsessed with Biden continuing and saying, OK, now Biden is vicious. Not only is he low IQ, but he's vicious. Also, many of us saying we've seen no evidence of these traits in former President Joe Biden. But Trump has used whatever means possible. These are vicious people. And Biden is a vicious person.

Biden's a stupid person. He's a low IQ person, but he's vicious. And that's a bad combination. Really important criticism of the Biden administration. He's low IQ. He's mean. And he's also vicious. OK, the interview, the interview was basically Trump just insulting people going now after George Stephanopoulos from ABC News and referring to the lawsuit, of course. Stefan, I call George Slopidopoulos. This was George Slopidopoulos show on ABC. ABC is really bad.

I call him Little Georgie. So we both have our own little nobody's bad guy, but he's a bad guy. We had to pay me 16 million dollars. So that's good. My favorite was the interview with the guy. You didn't pick David Muro Stefanopoulos. I don't even know who you are. I had no idea. I don't know if the media knows how to deal with all the access they finally have, which they haven't had in a long time. I had no idea who he was, but he got a little nasty. So I played that. I just, he asked me questions that required factual answers and a nasty

guy don't know who you are. Who are you? They you know, they actually gave me a choice of anybody at ABC. And I picked this guy, Moran, because I never heard of him. So I make sense. Pick someone I've never heard of to interview me. So as the interview winds down, Trump has attacked George Stephanopoulos. Trump has attacked Joe Biden. He's using insults. He's using ad hominems. How does it wrap up

by explaining why Hannity is there? And Trump says, you know, Sean, you've been so wonderful to me. And that is why we call it access journalism. And this this is why Sean Hannity is on the plane with Donald Trump. You suffer from Trump derangement syndrome at a high level. And I guess I'm honored by that. But I'll say this. Look, we had an election. You were so wonderful to me. You were really an amazing professional. It's not it's you did it for the right reason. You didn't do it. You weren't just sucking up. You accurately praised me for all the great things I'm doing wrong reason. But you were so professional and do suffer from Trump.

There it is. So that tells you just about everything you need to know. Biden doesn't say good things about me. Well, he's vicious and he's mean and he's low IQ. George Stephanopoulos doesn't say nice things about me. Well, he's Slopidopoulos. He's horrible. Sean, you've been so good to me. And of course, that's why Sean Hannity sitting on Air Force One. This is how it works. This is what's behind the new media sort of MAGA briefing room that they've put together. Pathetic non questions from so-called

reporters. And this is the currency of loyalty, which is the most important currency to this administration. Can you govern like this? I mean, listen, I guess in a sense you can. But what you do is create an echo chamber that as soon as someone attempts to pierce you go, that's a nasty guy. Ban them, block them, take away their credentials. Not really fitting for a supposedly Western democratic nation. But it's where we are. Don't forget that the best way to support the David Pakman show is by becoming a member, which gives you access to the daily bonus show, the regular show with no commercials. You also get access to our entire archive of every episode dating back a really long time and plenty of other awesome membership perks. Go to join Pacman dot com. Join Pacman dot com.

It's great to welcome back to the program today, Matt Gertz, who is a senior fellow at Media Matters and has been very closely watching this sort of Fox News to Trump administration pipeline that exists. You know, we sometimes talk about feeder schools. What are what are the private high schools that send the most kids to Harvard, for example, or something like that? And there's something analogous, I think, to Trump's second term staffers and Fox News and right wing media in general. Give us a sense of sort of your view on it. Is it as simple as Trump watched TV and picked people he liked or what was

sort of going on behind the scenes as this second cabinet came together? I think that really is a big part of it. I mean, Donald Trump is someone who watches Fox News fairly religiously, you know, reportedly spending hours of his time each day, at the very least keeping it on in the background. And what he has learned from all that time spent watching Fox is who are the people on the network who he can trust to do whatever he tells them to do. You know, Trump spent a lot of time during the campaign explaining that he thought that his big flaw in his first term was that he hadn't been able to pick the right people, that the sort of mainstream Republican apparatus had provided most of his staff, and that he thought that they weren't personally loyal to him and kept him from doing some of the things that he wanted to do. You know, like running investigations into his various political enemies or invoking posse comitatus and deploying the military within the borders of the United States for various reasons. He did face substantial pushback from high-ranking officials during that first term, and he knows

that people on Fox News have spent years explaining to their viewers that he is always right, that his views are correct, and thus that he should have people around him who are primarily loyal to him personally. And that's what he's done in selecting people from that network. He's picked 23 high-ranking members of his administration from the ranks of Fox News so far in this second term. And I think that number will continue to grow over the rest of this administration. It certainly does seem as though those people understand that the currency is loyalty. Right. I mean, to the degree that Trump wanted loyalty rather than qualifications or experience as the number one metric.

It does seem to be working according to its own sort of terrifying internal logic. I think that's right. And I think, you know, you can sort of see how this second administration is to some degree stocked by people who at Fox News more or less won power struggles against the people who were in office during that first term. So someone like Pete Hegseth, who's the defense secretary, in his previous job, he got promoted from co-host on Fox News' weekend morning show. And in that role, he won a series of fights with the military brass and with Trump's appointees

at the Department of Justice, at the Defense Department, over whether various U.S. military figures who had been accused or convicted of war crimes should get pardons or other forms of clemency. He won those fights, and now in the second term, he is in position to ensure that there are no fights, that Trump just gets what he wants without question. Jeanine Pirro, who is the new U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, which is where I live, so that's great. She is a longtime Fox News host and someone who had a series of standoffs with Jeff Sessions, Trump's first attorney general during his first

administration, over whether or not the Justice Department should be investigating various Trump political enemies. And now she's just in the role where she has power to do that on her own, out of her own volition. You know, it's always difficult to tell with these things whether the better response is to sort of laugh at how ridiculous it is that people who have spent their entire recent careers just blathering on the television are suddenly in positions of power. So should we laugh at that, or is it actually kind of frightening that people who are on the record talking about these kinds of ideas are now in positions of power? I mean, I think it's, it's sort of a six of one half a dozen of the other. I want to talk a little bit about how right wing media has covered some of the main, um,

sort of themes so far of the Trump presidency, you know, for a very long time, the Republican orthodoxy around, uh, consumption was more stuff for everybody. Having more and buying more is good. And it's sort of celebrated for its own sake that just this is what we do, consumerism, et cetera. And then now in the aftermath of Donald Trump starting to seed interviews with this idea that, listen, maybe for a little while you'll have two dolls that you can get instead of 30 and they're going to cost a little bit more, but that's going to be fine. Maybe we didn't need the 30 dolls, which which is funny because that's exactly what people like me have been saying for a long time. But it ran completely counter to the Republican orthodoxy. And also I was saying

it for sociocultural reasons rather than as an economic reality. But so now the right wing channels have to decide, are we going with that? Are we going with actually less stuff is good. Fewer cheap tchotchkes is better for us. What's been the reaction to Trump's lead on that issue? Honestly, they're kind of all over the place, which I think reflects how the administration has been jumping back and forth between whether they're trying to use tariffs to vastly change the U.S. economy or whether it's all sort of a gambit to get a negotiation that will get the Chinese to buy some more U.S. soybeans. You know, my sense is that the major MAGA figures are just trying to get through the day. There is no plan. They don't have a sort of broad,

most of them don't have like a broad scale ideological view of what is happening. They're not really trying to maintain some sort of consistent position. They're just trying to praise whatever Donald Trump is doing at any given time and just sort of get through their show. And then when Trump says something completely different the next day, run it back and do the same thing over and over again. But they've been all over the place. They have to, because,

you know, they're propagandists, they're shills, they're just agreeing with whatever the leader says at any given time. Uh, and when the policy keeps bouncing back and forth, um, you know, there's not much else they can do. There, there are some people who've been pretty critical though, um, of, uh, Donald Trump's position that those are the ones that I think, as you say, are more associated with kind of the long-time, more conservative economic position. So people like Ben Shapiro or the Wall Street Journal editorial board who have their own ideological views

outside of whatever Donald Trump says at any given time have been pushing back on these tariff ideas. And, you know, I think the end stage is probably Trump ceding more and more ground on those tariffs and sort of moving on from there. When it comes to the Qatari jet. It is certainly the case that there was a lot of bashing of the Bidens for corruption when Joe Biden was president and the evidence was just out of reach. It was either James Comer who was about to have it or some guy named Tony Bobulinski was about to put the final nail in the coffin. Anyway, it never came.

But now we certainly seem to be getting the impression that a lot of Republicans are not comfortable with the 400 million dollar plane being gifted, but they're kind of playing coy with, well, it's being it's being given to the Department of Defense. It's not given to Trump, but later it'll go to Trump's Presidential Library Foundation or whatever. What's been the reaction? bigger picture on the jet? Yeah. I mean, I would say, um, the segment of the right wing media that that's more Trump focused, the kind of MAGA loyalists, uh, have been, uh, trying to avoid talking about this as much as possible because there aren't really good explanations that they can run with on this. I mean, it just seems on its face like a ridiculous

act of corruption, which I think is pretty obviously what it is. On Fox and Friends, the day after the story broke, they basically didn't talk about it except for a couple of brief segments. In one of them, one of the co-hosts, Brian Kilmeade, actually asked the correspondent who was reporting on this, is this legal? Are they allowed to do this? And the correspondent responded basically saying like, well, this isn't the first time that one government has given an airplane to another before going on and talking about how FDR had gifted three airplanes to the Saudis in the 1940s to help them get the Saudi Airlines up and running, which. I mean, first of all, that's like 80 years ago. And second of all, it's a really terrible analogy, because it's not, you know, airplanes for the personal use of the individual rulers, but for the use of the airline. And also, like, you know, we're a

democratic government that has a very specific, you know, line in the Constitution that says U.S. officials cannot receive gifts from foreign governments. Like you're not allowed to do that. But, you know, for Fox, that was kind of enough. one other brief mention where Brian Kilmeade basically asked the White House press secretary to confirm what was going on and then said like, should people be like worried at all that the Qataris want something? He said, no, no. She's like, no, no, no, no, no. Because like, obviously Donald Trump would never do such a thing. So, and they know that. And then he asked her about how her Mother's Day was. So they kind of moved on. So, you know, I think it's been a lot of radio silence on the

right when they bring it up at all. It's to kind of push it away as much as they can. And then you have a segment of the right wing press that's, again, like less Trump-centric, people like Shapiro, people like the writers at National Review, who are saying like, this is obviously corrupt. Like, why would he do this? This is insane. You know, I think it's a signal that this plane story isn't going anywhere, that it's obviously corrupt, that people can tell on its face. You don't need a big – you don't need to explain what's going on here. People can understand like the president is getting a plane from a foreign government. Very straightforward.

I mean you mentioned Hunter Biden and that's – we saw Fox spending so much time trying to explain how the president's son's business interests were at all relevant. And in this case, it's the president himself getting, you know, a gift from a foreign government that is, you know, something like 50 times more than the amount of money that Hunter Biden is alleged to have received from foreign governments. It's just it's much more direct. It's much easier for people to understand. And the right knows that this is trouble for Donald Trump, but doesn't want to talk about it. Yeah, we I'm very interested to see what the staying power is of the plane story for sure. We've been speaking with Matt Gertz, who is a senior fellow at Media Matters. Matt, always appreciate your time and insights. Thank you.

Thanks for having me. If you value what we do at The David Pakman Show, remember to support us on Patreon. Go to Patreon dot com slash David Pakman show where you can get access to behind the scenes videos, the Daily Bonus show, the commercial free daily show. You can support the show for as little as two dollars a month. Check it out at Patreon dot com slash David Pakman show. Suspicions of insider trading are now all over Trump's attorney general, Pam Bondi. You might remember that on April 2nd, Liberation Day, Donald Trump dropped this sort of financial bombshell, announced sweeping new tariffs on everybody everywhere. It set the markets reeling

and it's been up and down ever since. And we've now learned that that exact same day, Trump's attorney general, Pam Bondi, quietly sold over a million dollars in Trump media stock. Could it merely be a coincidence? It could be. But I struggle to believe that. And it seems as though Pam Bondi knew exactly what she was doing. We've now seen the financial disclosures. They were first uncovered by ProPublica and they were confirmed by Newsweek. Bondi dumped somewhere between one and five million dollars worth of shares in Trump's own media company, the Trump Media and Technology Group, hours before hours before markets reacted to Trump's Liberation Day tariffs. The next day, Trump media stock dropped more than 10 percent.

Now, the disclosures don't specify exactly what time she sold the shares. We have to look at it based on the information we have now and based on the information we have now. This reeks of insider trading. Pam Bondi is someone who was gifted nearly three million dollars in Trump media shares through a very shady SPAC deal, takes a cabinet level job under Trump, signed an ethics agreement saying she would divest within 90 days of confirmation. She cut it very close. But the day she chooses to cash out is as Trump torpedoes the economy with his tariff stunt. And meanwhile, Donald Trump was on truth central hours later telling his followers it's a great

time to buy stocks after tanking the markets himself with his stock decisions. So if you're not furious, you must not be paying attention. This is the stuff that sends normal people to prison for Trump. World elites. It's called Tuesday. It's another Tuesday. And where are all of the Republican watchdogs who held the oversight hearings because Joe Biden's dog bit someone or passed gas in the West

Wing? The Republicans are saying there's nothing to see here. I just don't see anything here. Pam Bondi profited from privileged timing and market chaos. It was all sparked by her own boss. And there's not even a whisper of an investigation into this. And this is part of the Trump playbook, which we've been talking about over and over again. You manufacture chaos, you create volatility and you cash out. They are treating the American economy like a casino they own. Hopefully Trump won't bankrupt this one like he did his actual casinos where they rig the game. They bet with insider chips.

They've often been gifted for free and then they just walk away when regular Americans lose savings or pensions or stability. And Bondi is not like a rogue outlier in this entire thing. She's the kind of person Trump surrounds himself with loyal, corrupt and shameless. That's the trifecta. And if it were a Democrat, Fox News would run a lower third insider trading infiltrates DOJ. It would be 24 seven. It's Trump's team. So it's crickets. Now, I know that some of you will hear this and you will say, David, where were you on Nancy Pelosi? I was in the exact same place should be investigated. It's demonstrated that

she's trading on inside information. She should be prosecuted. I'm in the exact same place, whether there's a D or an R or an I or no letter next to their name. And the worst part is that they know, you know, they know what this looks like. They just don't care. There's no reason for them to try to hide it because they don't believe they're going to be held accountable. And they are probably correct that they are not going to be held accountable. And of course, MAGA loves yelling about the deep state. But the real deep state is unaccountable insiders. It's laundering political loyalty into personal wealth while governing like a monarch. And if you think Pam Bondi is working for you, she's working for her portfolio.

Her portfolio said dump the stock before the tariffs hit and she's working for Trump's loyalty oath. And that is the number one concern for her. And it should terrify every single one of us. Investigation. Forget about investigation there. And they're terrify every single one of us. Investigation. Forget about investigation. They're in that they're tomorrow on the show, by the way, the investigations that Pam Bondi is doing, even though she should be getting investigated, Pam Bondi is investigating others for politically motivated reasons, which, by the way, is what they said Joe Biden was doing. So we'll deal with that tomorrow. Let's talk a little bit about RFK. Some fascinating moments yesterday at a House hearing with Secretary of Health and Human

Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Mark Pocan, Democrat, Democratic congressman, asked RFK a simple question. Today, would you vaccinate your kids for measles? And RFK pulls out a fascinating one. He goes, I don't think people should be taking medical advice from me. What? I mean, he's right, but he's been giving medical advice for how long now? Listen to this. Something that might be helpful is you've previously said you vaccinated your children. Just because I think this is a helpful answer and this isn't a gotcha, I promise. If you had a child today, would you vaccinate that child for measles?

For measles? Probably for measles. I, you know, what I would say is my opinions about vaccines are irrelevant. I have to accept he was chosen because of those opinions to be secretary of health and human services. That's the funny thing. My opinions don't matter. Well, you're here because of your dumb opinions. Right. Jay Bhattacharya. Sure. No, I guess I don't want to so that everybody can make that decision. But I, you know, I don't want to be seem like I'm being evasive. Yeah. But I don't think people should be taking advice, medical advice from me. Right, no, I got that. And I'm not asking you to give them medical advice, but would you vaccinate your child for measles? I think if I answer that question directly

that it will seem like I'm giving advice to other people and I don't want to be doing that. I want people to make up their mind. But that's kind of your jurisdiction because CDC does give advice, right? I'm not trying to be doing that. I want people to make up their mind. But that's kind of your jurisdiction because CDC does give advice, right? I'm not trying to do it as a gotcha. I think what we're going to try to do is to lay out the pros and cons, the risks and benefits accurately as we understand them with replicable studies. Can you talk about chickenpox? Would you vaccinate your child against chickenpox? Again, I don't want to give advice.

I can tell you in Europe they don't use the chickenpox vaccine specifically because the preclinical trial shows that when you inoculate the population from chickenpox, you get shingles in older people, which is more dangerous. Just one last one. Just a yes or no, please. If we could polio. Polio. Again, I don't want to be giving advice. You get the picture. OK, the secretary of health and human services says we shouldn't take medical advice from him.

Now, I happen to agree in this particular case that that's true. But this is a guy who built his entire public persona in the last 15, 20 years on giving nonstop medical advice, often bad medical advice on vaccines, on autism, on covid. And now suddenly it's who am I? Well, you're the secretary of health and human services. And now all of a sudden he's backing off of every opinion he's given. Now, as if that wasn't enough, this was kind of an interesting moment. RFK gets completely startled by protesters calling him out. He flinches like he saw a ghost. Just a stunning moment. The budget I'm presenting today supports these goals. The witness will suspend the committee will come to order. Capitol Police asked to remove the individuals from the hearing. Members of the audience are reminded disruptions will not be tolerated.

All right. Anyway, you get the picture. So a completely and totally chaotic hearing. But you've got to see what happened when they got into rehab and Medicaid cuts. This is this is really something else. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is going along with the idea that Trump has of cutting Medicaid. And during the congressional hearing yesterday when this issue came up, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. casually mentions, you know, there are rehabs that aren't that expensive. Like for example, some really good rehabs cost 20,000 to $40 thousand dollars per month. What? So during the hearing

yesterday, Secretary of Health and Human Services, RFK Jr., was defending the brutal Medicaid cuts and he talked about his own experience recovering from heroin addiction. And when he was pressed by members about how much the treatment RFK got in the past would cost today, Kennedy's response was, you don't have to spend as much. You could get a rehab for 40 grand a month. What? What standing is that the private rehab facility like the one that you went to would cost in today's dollar for that same treatment over $286,000 out of pocket just for addiction treatment that I think we can all agree, Republican and Democrat, is absolutely necessary to make sure that we're keeping our communities

safe. I bring this up because- There are, Congressman, there are many really gold star rehabs that do it for a tiny fraction, like $20 like 20 to $40,000 a month. There you go. Um, I bring this up because in my community, the average salary is $40,000. Can you imagine average income? $40,000. But RFK says, oh, don't worry about the Medicaid cuts. You can get a perfectly good rehab for 20 to 40 grand a month to most Americans,

really most 20 or $40,000 a month is life altering debt from which they may never recover. Now, I don't know exactly Bobby Kennedy Jr.'s financial situation. Obviously, the Kennedy family is wealthy. I don't know how much personal wealth he has. You know, estimates are 20 to 30 million dollars. Certainly he was born into a very powerful political dynasty. But it seems as though to some degree, not surprisingly, being born into such a situation affects your brain in its own way and it affects your ability to understand reality where you go, no, listen, there's affordable rehab centers like 40 grand a month. Well, if you make 40 grand a year gross and taxes have to come out of that and income

taxes and sales taxes and vehicle registration fees and all of that. And then you need housing and then you need food. And that just gets you housing and food and nothing else. What what are we talking about? Twenty thousand to forty thousand dollar a month rehabs. And so listen, I don't I don't know the full scope of the way in which being this privileged affects your brain. It certainly seems to affect ego, seems to isolate you from people you're supposed to be serving. Maybe you lose the ability to be sympathetic or empathetic and you start looking at Medicaid cuts and saying we're getting rid of fraud by cutting Medicaid, even though it will lead to the stripping of health care for millions of low income families. And then meanwhile, you go, there's plenty of affordable rehabs. Just spend 20 grand a month, 30 grand a month, 40 grand a month. And when he gets challenged, he goes, these are affordable. I don't know what to tell you. I don't know that

RFK Jr. can even fathom why that's a problem. Like, I guess for him, 40 grand a month is a rounding error that doesn't really affect your budget. Yeah, OK, you might be in rehab for a little while at 40 grand a month and then you come out. Not really a big factor in your budget. To most Americans, that would be forget about a catastrophic emergency. Most Americans wouldn't even be able to get a loan for that amount of money. It would be do not pass. Go do not collect two hundred dollars. Go straight to medical bankruptcy, years of debt, and it would be the difference between surviving or not. So I guess I'm gathering if you were born into money and prestige to this degree, it's all theoretical. You talk about the poverty and mental health and

the cost of this and Medicaid cuts and fraud, and it's all theoretical. It doesn't link up with anything because in the back of your mind, you're going, it doesn't matter what we cut. They can all go to a 20 grand a month rehab and everybody's going to be fine. Well, most people don't even make that much at the, at the top line, 20 grand a month is two 40 a year. Uh, but I don't know what percentile that would put you in. It's gotta be 96 or something like that. Meaning you, you, you know, 96% of the country makes less than that, but we're just going to go to rehab for 20 to 30, 40 grand a month. How do we expect a different outcome when these are the people that we put in the positions of power? Now, on the bonus show today, we are going to talk about a proposal from California Governor

Gavin Newsom that some on the left are not pleased with. We will also talk about local lawmakers bracing for the possible pardon of Derek Chauvin, and we will discuss the Trump impeachment effort that has been pulled moments before a House vote. All of those stories and more on today's bonus show. Sign up at join Pacman dot com. Don't miss it. And I'll be back with a new show tomorrow as well.