The David Pakman Show - 5/22/25: House passes Trump tax cuts, Trump threatens journalist

Episode Date: May 22, 2025

-- On the Show: -- Eoin Higgins, writer and historian based in New England, joins David to discuss his new book “Owned: How Tech Billionaires on the Right Bought the Loudest Voices on the Left." Get the book: https://amzn.to/4moaJmp — House Republicans pass Trump’s massive tax-and-spending bill at 4AM, chanting “USA” as they vote to cut Medicaid, slash food stamps, and explode the deficit — AOC warns that “there will be consequences” for this cruel and chaotic bill — and she’s right — Trump’s own party starts revolting over the bill, with hardliners and moderates both rejecting the Frankenstein package Speaker Mike Johnson tried to jam through — Trump melts down in a wild Oval Office meeting with the South African president, ranting about white farmers, fake news, and luxury planes — while Elon Musk watches — In a surreal moment, Trump says he wishes Ramaphosa could give him a plane — confirming, yet again, he’s totally fine being bribed — Trump threatens an NBC reporter who asked about the Qatar jet, shouting that “fake news” should be investigated -- On the Bonus Show: Jake Tapper accuses Biden’s team of a cover-up, Target warns of major tariff-related losses, and Canada considers joining Trump’s “Golden Dome” defense plan, much more... 💊 Chapter: Get Medicare help for free at https://ashkchapter.org/pakman 🧽 Blueland: Get 15% OFF sustainable cleaning products at https://blueland.com/pakman 💻 Get Private Internet Access for 83% OFF + 4 months free at https://www.piavpn.com/David -- Become a Member: https://davidpakman.com/membership -- Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/davidpakmanshow -- Get David's Books: https://davidpakman.com/echo -- TDPS Subreddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/thedavidpakmanshow -- David on Bluesky: https://davidpakman.com/bluesky -- David on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow

Welcome to the show in a very chaotic and sleep deprived overnight session. The House of Representatives passed just barely Donald Trump's really flagship tax and spending bill called the big, beautiful bill, the one big, beautiful bill. It was a razor thin margin, 215 to 214. It happened just shy of 4 a.m. Pacific time, I guess, almost 7 a.m. Eastern time. And the vote came after a whole bunch of floor fights and arguments and speeches and last minute arm twisting. And they broke into a chant of USA, USA. Republicans did as Trump gets a temporary win. This is certainly one of the most controversial legislative packages in years. We talked earlier this week about what's in it. I'll refresh that with you in a moment.

Here are Republicans triumphantly and courageously celebrating. I don't really mean that, but it may be a premature celebration. We'll talk about why a little bit later. Take a listen. On this vote, the yeas are 215, the nays are 214 with one answering present. The bill is passed. OK, anyway, so that went on, you understand, USA, et cetera, cheering for a bill that will cut taxes for the rich, cut health care, all of the things that we talked about, because it's really way more than a tax bill. It's almost depraved to be cheering for this. It's a full blown ideological manifesto of sorts. So as a reminder, here's what they pushed through in the House of Representatives while most of us were sleeping. I was awake, but most of us were sleeping. Four point five trillion dollars in tax cuts, mostly extending the 2017 cuts of

Trump's first term, new tax exemptions on tips, overtime pay and car loan interest, standard deduction increase up to thirty two thousand dollars for joint filers, expanded child tax credit for older adults and a deduction for older adults. And to pay for some of this, Republicans put in new work requirements for people on Medicaid. Adults without dependents must work or do community service for 80 hours a month to maintain those benefits for snap and food stamps, similar work rules now applying to people up to 64 years of age, including even to some parents with school age kids. What will that mean? It means some people will lose Medicaid.

Some people will lose snap and food stamps. That's just it's the point of it. Let's make it more difficult to keep those benefits and kick some people off. Other provisions include, of course, rolling back green energy tax credits from Joe Biden's Inflation Reduction Act, which were fantastic. Hundred and fifty billion dollars for the Pentagon. This includes the money, at least theoretically, for Donald Trump's Golden Dome missile shield, which we spoke about yesterday. Twelve billion dollars for deportations and border enforcement with reimbursement for

red states and the creation of these MAGA accounts. It's not make America great again. I forget what it is, but the acronym works out to be MAGA. It's a children's savings program branded with Trump's slogan, which actually isn't so hot, as I explained earlier this week. And then one of the bigger elements of this financially is the salt cap increase from 10,000 to $40,000 for earners up to $500,000, which is really, uh, you know, you could argue as to whether it should be completely uncapped or not. And we've had this debate, but certainly it is something that will be extraordinarily expensive. The Congressional Budget Office has looked at the bill as passed by Republicans in the House.

Now, remember that this has to make it through the Senate. It's not going to make it through the Senate in this form. Doesn't even have a chance. I'll talk to you about that a little bit later. But if this version became the law, you know, I'm just a bill up on Capitol Hill. And if it becomes the law, 8.6 million people would lose health insurance if passed like this. Three million fewer people would get food stamps monthly and about four trillion dollars would be added to the deficit over a decade, even after accounting for all of the spending cuts. So the big question,

this is the big matzo ball hanging out there. Can this pass in the Senate in this form? It's unlikely. And we'll delve into that more deeply. But MAGA Mike Johnson and Trump really muscled this through in a very fragile coalition. They had to sort of cave to every faction, the Freedom Caucus hardliners, the New York moderates. And so it's like a Frankenstein bill cobbled together with a whole bunch of different contradictions. And so the fiscal hawks like Rand Paul in the Senate, I can't imagine he's going to

go for it. The moderates like Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski will be very concerned about some aspects of it, but they probably wouldn't vote for it in its current form. You're pro business Republicans, people kind of in the Mitt Romney mold. I don't think they want to roll back the renewable energy incentives in states like Iowa and Texas because those are good for those red states. So with a 60 vote filibuster threshold in the Senate, it virtually ensures that this version of the bill is dead on arrival. But that doesn't mean it can't pass in some form and it probably will pass in some some form is my prediction. So the House Republicans know that what they passed this morning and cheered USA, USA,

it's not going to survive the Senate in this form. That was never the point. The goal was let's give Trump a win. Let's create something we can run on. We passed it in the House. Reelect me. I can't control the Senate, but we did our task. And then they will frame it as not only did we do tax cuts, we also did

border security, immigration enforcement, all of it. And I think in Mago world, based on the hours that have elapsed since seven a.m. Eastern this morning, I think Mago world is falling for it. The sun rose over Washington like a phoenix over the horizon. And Republicans celebrated despite the fact that this will probably go to the Senate graveyard. They'll probably pass something, but it's not going to be this. Now what is the democratic view on what Republicans in the house just did? That's where I want to go next.

Um, we saw overnight speeches from Republicans and Democrats culminating, as I told you, in the House passing by one vote, the Trump sort of Frankensteined together tax bill just shy of 7 a.m. Eastern, 4 a.m. Pacific. One member of Congress who took to the floor in the late hours last night, I think this was right around, let's see, 1.50 a.m. Eastern is Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. And she dropped what I think is maybe the most prophetic warning to Republicans for what they did, warning Republicans that when the country wakes up, there will be consequences. Now, I think she meant both literally when the country wakes up because this was the middle of the night and metaphorically when the country realizes what Republicans are doing, there will be consequences. You know, I think I would put it a slightly different way.

And it's if the country wakes up, let's watch the video and then I will explain her analysis is correct. But her prediction may be overestimating the country a little bit. Take a listen. Thirteen point seven million Americans. Thirteen point seven million Americans are the number of people in this country whose health care are going to be stripped in this bill. Now, Republicans are going to try to tell you every single distraction in the book from that essential number. I want people at home to understand that Medicaid and the federal matching funds for Medicaid can make up 30 to 40 percent of some of the state budgets that we have going on in back in your home. Republicans have put this bill together, rushed it together in a matter of hours on the back of a napkin, shaking it,

walking out of the White House and brought it right here to this floor. They are defunding Planned Parenthood. They are ending tons of Medicaid coverage for 13.7 million Americans, including Affordable Care Act coverage as well. And if you want to get an abortion and have a silver plan on a health care plan that you paid for, you will also be affected by this legislation as well. Also, allowing suppressors on guns to be deregulated to some of the largest amounts that we have seen since the 1930s. This is just a Christmas bill.

Are you a general lady that should have 30 seconds? And so I want people to understand, for my Republican colleagues who are sure what is in and not in this bill, in this process that has been this rushed, when you wake up in the morning, you will realize that you voted to defund Planned Parenthood and to take away health care from 13.7 million Americans. And when this country wakes up in the morning, there will be consequences to pay for this. And I yield back. AOC's point is simple and it's correct. This is a cruel bill. The process was a joke. The consequences will be real. It's not something we sign and it's merely theoretical. This is a very real,

uh, impactful bill if it were to pass the Senate in this form, which it won't. But the point is Republicans in the house have every intention of making it pass. But there's a deeper tragedy when she says when the country wakes up, I don't think the country's awake right now. I think the country is in a proverbial coma and I'm not when the country wakes up. I don't think the country is awake right now. I think the country is in a proverbial coma. And I'm not convinced the country is going to wake up anytime soon, because let's be honest, Americans aren't totally unaware. Many of them have heard something about this bill, a debate, a headline, an excretion on X. But the problem is that a lot of Americans have stopped caring because the apathy is not

born of ignorance. It's born of exhaustion and despondency and strategic disengagement, which on an individual level I understand. But at scale is a real problem because the average American will ignore anything so long as they think it won't affect their bottom line. And the catch to the entire thing is that it's very much about to because everything that's happening right now in sort of cumulative effect, when the financial fallout comes, when the bond yields explode and the markets crash and unemployment spikes and interest rates skyrocket, all things I hope don't happen, but all things I worry will happen. They're not going to have a choice,

but to care not because of ideology, but because they're suddenly going to be forced to develop a passion for civic engagement for, for their own self-preservation. They'll care because they won't be able to afford not to because the economic chaos that is being sown here might make 2008 look like a hiccup. Now, I hope it doesn't happen. But you look at tariffs, spending bombs, deficit detonations, market instability, tax cuts for the rich, kicking people off food stamps, kicking people off Medicaid. This is really playing not only with the domestic economy, but the global economy. And Americans are understandably addicted to cheap debt, fragile supply chains and cheap

tchotchkes from China. It's going to be sleepwalking off of a cliff. So AOC is right. There are going to be consequences not just for MAGA, but for everybody. The people cheering this bill in the House are going to be the first to scream when their constituents Medicaid gets cut and suddenly their reelections are a question mark. If it happens that people have that awakening when the rent doubles or they can't afford insulin and they start calling their members of the House. Now, we're going to end up having to try to clean up this mess while Trump's donors offshore their profits and the base blames

wokeness for 30 percent mortgage rates. I'm exaggerating the only silver lining here. And this is accelerationist and it's not something I subscribe to, really. But if there is any silver lining, it's that if it gets as bad as it might, maybe then Americans will care and they'll realize that the people screaming USA, USA while voting to gut the social safety net that affects you, it's not patriotic, it's pathetic and they deserve to be voted out. So maybe if there's any good to find here, and this is hypothetical, this is speculative. It's that maybe everybody will understand that this authoritarianism isn't about tanks in the street, although Trump wants that for his birthday.

It's about institutional decay and economic pain and media silence and a population that's become numbed such that they don't react until it's too late. I hope a lot of this doesn't come to pass, but it will really depend on the Senate. And we're going to talk about that after the break. If you or someone you love is on Medicare, this is important. The Department of Justice filed a major fraud complaint against three of the biggest Medicare brokers in the country. These brokers pretended to offer unbiased advice while secretly steering seniors into plans that paid them the greatest kickbacks. This is why I recommend chapter after seeing their own families get scammed. They created a better

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All right. Donald Trump's one big, beautiful bill is about to hit a brick wall and it's not going to be from Democrats. It's going to be from Republicans in the Senate. We are realistically expecting that some version of this bill is going to pass. Republicans control everything after all. But in its current form, the form in which Republicans in the House of Representatives yesterday were this morning, rather, were chanting USA, USA, USA for cutting Medicaid and kicking people off of food stamps and tax cuts for the rich.

All the stuff that Republicans were cheering for in the House. It is going to hit a brick wall in the Senate and it's going to have to be changed significantly. They've been cheerleading this Frankenstein of tax cuts and Medicaid slashes and culture war crumbs on Trump's legislative centerpiece now for several weeks. Speaker MAGA Mike Johnson, ever the Trump loyalist, tried jamming it all through in a massive package. Senate Republicans said we're not going to pass it in this form. But that's exactly what they did. And what they end up sending to the Senate is a bill that nobody really loves because it contains so many things that at least some

Republicans are opposed to. You've got your hard line conservatives who are sort of furious that the bill isn't cruel enough. If you can believe that we had members of the I mean, you can even see, by the way, within the House, you had members of the House Freedom Caucus saying we're not cutting enough Medicaid. We're not cutting enough nutritional assistance. The bill is way lighter than it actually is supposed to be, sort of like if we could starve the poor a little more, I would like it much more. You've got moderates who don't like this bill because of the huge increase to the salt cap, salt deduction cap, which disproportionately is something that in the 2017 version of Trump's taxes, it disproportionately hurt blue state liberals who live in blue states with higher or

income taxes or higher income taxes. It helps blue state homeowners to raise the salt cap. And there are some Republicans that don't like that. And so you've got aspects of this bill that all sorts of different elements of the Republican Party don't really like. And so MAGA Mike Johnson gets his temporary pseudo victory. But remember that passing something in the House doesn't make it the law. It now has to go through the Senate. And it is extraordinarily unlikely, dare I say, impossible that the Senate is going to go for this thing in anything approximating this form. An interesting aspect to this is that on the one hand, you could say, well, Trump is in control of his party because

he was able to jam this thing through. I don't know that that's really accurate because they were able to get it through by one vote, by putting completely contradictory things into the bill, things that are good for blue states and bad for blue states, things that are arguably more expansive when it comes to benefits and then also more restrictive when it comes to benefits. It's a completely incoherent bill that got amendment after amendment after amendment appended to the end just to secure votes. But it's just not going to work in the Senate. And that could be a disaster for Donald Trump. I want to kind of think back to in 2017 when Republicans, after so many promises from Trump

in 2015, 2016 to replace Obamacare with something beautiful, came up with a plan that would have kicked off 24 million to 32 million people from health care over the following decade. And ultimately, Republicans realized in doing Trump's bidding, we would just shoot ourselves in the foot. Our constituents will be furious if we actually do this. And they ended up passing nothing. And remember that we've heard nothing about a health care bill since other than predictions and promises from Trump that it's two weeks away. It never has been this time around. They will probably pass something because Republicans will eventually fall in line. But it's not going to look much at all like what Republicans passed early this morning.

And the question then becomes, does Trump still have a grip on Congress? Because this was going to be Trump's grand return to legislative dominance. Look at what we're going to be Trump's grand return to legislative dominance. Look at what we're going to do. And instead they put something through that has zero chance of passing in the Senate. So Trump's up against a brick wall. Would he rather pass something even if it's barely resembling what he originally wanted? Or is it better in some way to end up passing nothing at all and blaming a few so-called rhinos? I don't know, but he is up against a real problem. Let me know what you think is going to be the ultimate result here. Donald Trump suffered a total meltdown and started shouting at the president of South Africa in a completely Kafkaesque, dare I say, surreal

Oval Office meeting yesterday. This is I think in some way this is more deranged than Trump's meeting with Zelensky in the Oval Office. Here is Trump believed to be at the insistence of Elon Musk and others close to him. Remember, Elon Musk is South African. Trump pulling the whole there's a white genocide in South Africa thing. It gets really wacky. Let me present this to you. Do not go along with government policy. Our government policy is completely, completely against what he was saying, even in the parliament. And they're a small minority party, which is allowed to exist in terms of our constitution. But you do allow them to take land. No, no, no, no. You do allow them to take land. Nobody can take land. And then when they no, no, no. No, no, no, no. The Press You do allow them to take land. The President Nobody can take land. The Press And then when they take the land, they

kill the white farmer. And when they kill the white farmer, nothing happens to them. The President No. The President What? The Press Nothing happens to them. The President There is criminality in our country. People who do get killed, unfortunately, through criminal activity are not only white people. Majority of them are black people.

And we have now utilized the farmers are not black. We don't say that's good or bad, but the farmers are not black. And the people that are being killed in large numbers and you saw all those grave sites and those are people that loved ones going. I guess this is completely deranged. I hope people can tell. So the Sunday morning they told me to pay respect. This is a narcissistic embarrassment.

Their loved ones that were killed, their heads chopped off. They died, died violently. And you know, I mean, we're here to talk about it and we get involved here. But I will say this, that if the news wasn't fake like NBC, which is fake news, totally one of the worst ABC, NBC, CBS, horrible. But if they weren't fake news like this jerk that we have here, if we had real report, we'll get back to the attacks on who he's talking about, by the way, they'd be covering it. But the

fake news in this country doesn't talk about that. They don't want to talk about it, but now they have to talk about it, but they won't. This won't even be a subject. They'll have him talking about why did a country give a free thing to think of this? Why did a country give an airplane to the United States Air Force? OK, the United States, not to me, to the United. Imagine being the South African president, Ramaphosa, and sitting there going, what the F is this guy talking about? The United States Air Force so they can help us out because we need an Air Force one until our sets Air Force one. It's being built, two of them being built. But Boeing's a little bit late, unfortunately. So why did they give us a plane to the United States Air Force? That's what that idiot talks about after viewing a thing where thousands of people are dead.

I'm sorry, I don't have a plane to give you. I wish I wish you did. We're going to get back to this. I wish you did have a plane to give us. But this is I've never seen anything like this in my entire time covering American politics. I've never seen a president so deranged and narcissistic and egomaniacal as to bring people into the Oval Office and lecture them about things about which you're wrong, which I'm going to get back to in a moment. Now, white South African Elon Musk's presence in the Oval Office for this meeting is not lost on me. And seemingly, Donald Trump also found it relevant to mention that Elon today had many friends from South Africa, but many of those friends are or not. They can't go back. I have Elon is from South Africa. I don't want to get Elon involved.

That's all I have to do. Get him into another thing. But Elon happens to be from South Africa. This is what Elon wanted. He actually came here on a different subject, sending rockets to Mars. OK, he likes that better. He likes that subject better. But Elon is from South Africa.

And I don't want to talk to him about that. No, he doesn't want to get Elon Musk involved. Now, I think it's relevant here for me to tell you, I don't have any problem at all with a president speaking frankly and clearly to other world leaders. This this is not tone policing. This is not political correctness or we need decorum or any of it. The problem is Trump is spitting nonsense. Just a terrible hill to die on as a president in a public setting.

He comes off as condescending when he doesn't have the facts right. He comes off as as just confused when he is just simply misstating just about everything that's going on here. Now a reporter asked Trump, what will it take for you to be convinced there is no white genocide in South Africa? And Trump just goes, no, I've got a video. Check out this video. This is perplexing. What will it take for you to be convinced that there's no white genocide in South Africa? Yeah, well, I can answer that for the President.

It's for him. I'd rather have him answer. I'd rather answer. Our President will respond to you. Thank you, Mr. President. It will take President Trump listening to the voices of South Africans, some of whom are

his good friends, like those who are here. When we have talks between us at a quiet table, it will take President Trump to listen to them. I'm not going to be repeating what I've been saying. I would say if there was Afrikaner farmer genocide, I can bet you these three gentlemen would not be here, including my minister of agriculture. He would not be with me. So it'll take him, President Trump, listening to their story. Good luck with that fat chance to their perspective. That is the answer to your question.

But Mr President, we have no way. We have thousands of stories. Here comes the ambush. We have documentaries. We have news stories. And that is Natalie here. Somebody here to turn that. I could show you a couple of things. And I would I just I have to. It has to be responded to. So let me see the articles, please, if you things. And I would I just I have to it has to be responded to. So let me see the articles, please, if you would. And excuse me, turn the lights down. We've got a presentation. It's down and just put this on. It's right behind you. There's nothing this parliament can do with or without you. People are going to work. At this point, the South African president is completely just perplexed by what is taking place.

I learned we require no permission from you, from the president, from no one. We don't care. We can do whatever you want to do. All right. So they turn the lights down low and they play a video with all sorts of wild allegations being made. And then finally, Donald Trump sort of putting the cherry on top of these white genocide allegations saying this will be the end of the country of South Africa if it's not resolved. It's got to be resolved. It should be resolved.

I mean, it's it's a little bit bad when you see a stadium with 100000 people in it, because that means it's more than just a little movement. It's pretty big movement in South Africa. So it has to be resolved. It'll be the end of the country. But it's the potential for the relationship moving forward. I hope so. That's why I'm here.

I mean, I'm not here for my health. I mean, it'll be the end of the country if it's not resolved. If there were, you know, we try to boil Trumpism down into its key component parts. The most important currency in Trumpism, I've told you, is loyalty. The most important perspective on the world around you in Trump ism is confidence. Even when you're completely clueless, total and complete confidence bordering on condescension, in some cases clearly condescension, even when you don't know what the hell you are talking about. And Trump is really embodying that very well. Now, later in the show,

we'll get to the discussion about a free plane between Ramaphosa and Trump. And we'll also get to Trump attacking a journalist in the Oval Office with words. He didn't like try to smother him or anything like that physically with words attacking Peter Alexander. you and better for the planet with the same cleaning power that you're used to. The idea is super simple. Blueland offers refillable cleaning products with a beautiful cohesive design that'll look great on your countertop. You fill your reusable bottles with water, drop in the tablets, wait for them to dissolve, and you'll never again have to grab the bulky cleaning supplies on your grocery run. Refills start at just $2.25. You can set up a subscription Thank you. from cleaning sprays to hand soap, toilet bowl cleaner, laundry tablets. All Blue Land products are made with clean ingredients you can feel good about. Blue Land is trusted in over 1 million homes, including mine.

I've been using the Blue Land dish detergent and the toilet bowl cleaner for a while. Couldn't be happier. And you'll get 15% off your first order at blueland.com slash Pacman. That's B-L-U- blue land.com slash Pacman. That's B L U E land.com slash Pacman for 15% off. The link is in the podcast notes. It's great to welcome to the program today. Owen Higgins, who's a writer historian based in new England. His new book is owned how tech billionaires on the right bought the loudest voices on the left. It's so great to have you on. You know, there are so many people in my audience who over the last several years have speculated with me when I take calls, etc. How did we see

someone like a Tulsi Gabbard have the apparent political awakening at this stage in her life? It's sort of a similar question that we've seen sometimes asked about someone like a Dave Rubin. How do you end up being 40 something and all of a sudden your entire worldview reverses? And there's sort of something strange or unexplainable about it. Take us into kind of like the primary thesis in the book owned as to big picture structurally how and why we're seeing some of this. Sure. So I think I guess I'll start with the book, which talks about the influence and the power of tech billionaires who have kind of created this new alternative media ecosystem, or have, if not created it, at least certainly funded it quite a bit. They've

put a lot of money and power into it. And that alternative media ecosystem kind of exists to provide an alternative to the mainstream media, which they have become critical of mostly in the last 10 to 15 years. And primarily because the mainstream media, especially tech reporting, has become critical of Silicon Valley, has become critical of these tech billionaires. So they, in their kind of usual way of doing things, decided that they wanted to switch things up. They wanted to change how this industry operated. And they found an opportunity to do that just by kind of throwing their money around. You have people like Mark Andreessen investing in Substack. This was,

one of the large early investments in this stuff. He also co-founded or at least was an early investor in Clubhouse, which was kind of like an early kind of interactive podcasting network. Then you had David Sachs, who's now Trump's crypto czar. He founded or seed invested Call-In, which was kind of a Clubhouse clone. You have Peter Thiel investing his money into Rumble alongside J.D. Vance. They led the funding round into that in May 2021. And all of this stuff kind of, you know, it funneled a lot of money to alternative media creators. And I don't want to say it was all people on the right. I certainly, you know, I took money from Colin. That story is in the book. But in order to kind of maintain your access to this money, to maintain your access to this power, you kind of had to toe a certain line. And people like Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi, who are the focuses of my book, are certainly two people who did do that quite a bit.

I'd say Taibbi maybe more blatantly and sycophantically than Greenwald, but Greenwald as well, kind of, you know, choosing who to criticize, choosing what topics to cover, choosing how to kind of engage in the culture war as these guys have, and also to, you know, who they criticize. I have obviously no problem criticizing Democrats. I probably do it more than I criticize Republicans. But I would say that with Matt and Glenn, they kind of do the same, but it's a more of a partisan thing. They don't criticize Republicans,

not because they don't see the point, which is kind of like for me, I don't really see the point in criticizing people who are my political adversaries. They criticize, they don't criticize Republicans because they're kind of aligned with them on a lot of issues. You've seen that with Glenn now that the Trump administration is in power. While he's maintained some of his ideological criticisms of, you know, Trump on Gaza in the same way that he was critical of Biden in Gaza, and a couple of other issues. Overall, I mean, he's kind of, you know, taken a lot of what Trump has said in and in a way that is kind of almost like strange credulity for how gullible he's being, you know, Trump saying offhand, he's going to cut the Pentagon budget, and then Glenn

trumpeting on Twitter, see, don't you see that's really going to cut the Pentagon budget and then Glenn trumpeting on Twitter. See, don't you see that's really going to happen? Of course, it's not going to happen. He wants the biggest Pentagon budget ever. And then, you know, somebody like Taibbi, I think, is just kind of doing this kind of gutter right wing politics at this point. But I think that, you know, what's interesting, I think this is kind of what you're getting at, right, is that these guys have shifted like they used to be aligned with the left and they used to be they used to at least have like criticism for everybody or you know it used to be coming from what seemed like a place of principle and now it's just kind of you know partisanship i would say that somebody i just i just do want to add i would say that somebody like tulsi gabbard um if you look into her background her politics started on the pretty far right. She was a pretty hardcore social conservative. And then, you know, over time, she kind of became

more quote unquote liberal as she as she kind of climbed the ranks of the Democratic Party. And then I think rather opportunistically kind of took the Bernie campaign in 2016 as a way to kind of strike out again independently. So I think that with her, I think there is some, you know, a little distinction to make there. But she also, look, August 2021, this is, you know, a few months after J.D. Vance and Peter Thiel invest in Rumble and Rumble starts handing out deals. August 2021, you know, Glenn gets his big deal that's that's announced. But he's the secondary character, I think, in The Washington Post article about it, because Tulsi Gabbard is the number one. So she's aligned with all these guys as well and has been for some time. Is there I want to get back to like the tech space and the

funding that you talked about, and then maybe we'll get back to the trajectory of some of these individuals. At some point, there was sort of the idea that the Silicon Valley tech space leaned left. And I wonder whether that was ever correct or whether social issues were over represented in that analysis when maybe there was like a more right libertarian economic perspective that just wasn't getting the attention maybe it deserved. So starting with the funding and the tech space, has that space shifted or was it just not accurately described originally? Yes. I mean, it's kind of both. Right. have an industry where the people who are in charge, like most industries, are rather conservative, or at least are kind of more friendly towards the more pro-business policies, I think, of the Republican Party, or at least, you know, like that's how they would frame it.

But the Democrats are also pretty pro-business as well. I mean, like there's not a lot of daylight between the two parties or there wasn't for a long time, at least as far as Silicon Valley went. You know, the tech industry made billions of dollars off of George Bush and his, you know, so-called war on terror. They made billions of dollars under Obama doing the same thing. I would say that the big difference for the Obama years that Obama really opened the White House to tech in a way that hadn't been done before. And so the tech guys kind of align themselves with this version of liberalism and this this kind of vision of the Democratic Party that was friendly to Silicon Valley. And the Democratic Party, or at least as it existed

under Obama, was very happy to do that as well. But I wouldn't say that, you know, during this time, these guys were all liberal on social issues. I don't really think that they really care about it that much. I think they're very willing to kind of go with the flow on this stuff. You know, you have people like Peter Thiel and people like david sacks who have been pretty art you know arch conservatives for a long time that did not stop them from making lots of money under obama and from working with obama's federal government to to get contracts so uh but having said all that around like 2016 2017 trump wins uh pretty much all these guys completely reversed themselves they're're like, oh, no, we love Trump. Trump's great.

Like they just spent, you know, like a whole year basically saying publicly and privately that they didn't, you know, didn't care for Trump. And, you know, they're I think that a lot of this, too, has to do with the fact that Silicon Valley workforce is rather liberal, right? Like the leaders are not liberal, but the workforce is. Yeah. And so, you know, a lot of these leaders are not liberal, but the workforces. Yeah. And so, you know, a lot of these guys were just kind of trying to hit the balance. And once Trump got elected, then they all go to kind of bend the knee at this, this famous meeting with Trump in December

2024 is facilitated by Peter Thiel, who was one of Trump's big backers, or, you know, basically his biggest backer in Silicon Valley, his biggest public backer. And after so so that happens, I think that's like kind of part of the shift. And then there's the media has been getting critical of them for some time, and they haven't really liked that. They haven't really enjoyed like the way this social media has made it so that people talk back to them online. Like they don't like that, right? Like they don't think that the peasants really have a right to,

I mean, this is my interpretation. I don't think that they think the peasants really have a right to like talk back to them. And so these things kind of combine. And then finally, there's this final piece, which is that the Democratic Party kind of turns against the tech industry. And they do this primarily, I think, because they're casting around. They're trying to figure out, like, how did we lose to Trump?

And, you know, especially in those early months, I think, of 2017, the party infrastructure is trying in a lot of ways to find a way to say we lost to trump that doesn't like specifically implicate anything about the party itself um and so one of the things that they do is they just go really hard into blaming social media for radicalizing the american people i want to be like clear here that this is not like they're not wrong about that but they they went pretty hard on it and again you know i don't think it's bad to go after any industry, especially not one as big as Silicon Valley. I'm just trying to present the context here. And so over the next few years,

once the Democrats regain control of the House, they start holding hearings. This is a very kind of antagonistic from the point of view of the tech industry situation. And it just kind of pushes these guys to the right even further, where someone like Andreessen in 2019 is now investing in Substack, you know, and he invests in Substack. And what happens after that Substack starts to kind of really promote like these more conservative voices, it starts to give a lot of money to a lot of people. But the conservative voices seem to be the ones who get the lion's share of promotion and kind of

algorithmic favor, at least from the outside. That's certainly what it looks like. So all of that happens. And then, of course, you have COVID in 2020 and the Black Lives Matter protests. And this is kind of like a radicalizing moment for a lot of people who are kind of soft conservatives. And I think Silicon Valley is a part of that. So you kind of like a radicalizing moment for a lot of people who are kind of soft conservatives. And I think Silicon Valley is a part of that. So you kind of like trace trace that evolution and then kind of trace their investment at this point. Yeah, it kind of follows along that line. Was there something because you focus in the book and you talk about Glenn Greenwald and

Matt Taibbi, was there something about them that made them ripe targets either about their reach or something about their sensitivities or loyalties or like what what makes someone more or less susceptible to entering this kind of trajectory that you describe? Yeah, that's a great question. I think that and I think that the answer once again, right, is kind of like, it's complicated. So you have someone like Glenn who for, after, well, I say Glenn and Matt, after 2016, I don't think either of them like particularly wanted Trump to win. I think they both wanted Hillary to lose,

but I think those are different and distinct things. And they should be understood as different and distinct things. And I think that they watched as part of the Democratic establishment's reaction to this was not only to kind of go after the tech industry, but to kind of go all in on Russia. And these guys really pushed back on it. And I was somebody who was writing a lot of pushback on this as well. But I would say that where people like myself and Adam Johnson, you know, to name another person who was doing like would like strongly differ with like Matt and Glenn is that Matt and Glenn kind of stopped really criticizing the Republicans at all at this point like like they stopped really and you know glenn has said a couple times on twitter at least around this time that one of the reasons he stopped doing that was that people if they wanted to hear criticism of trump they could just turn on the mainstream media which is true but it doesn't mean that there's not a space for independent media to also criticize trump

because there are things that he was doing and is doing now that aren't you know getting maybe sufficient coverage in the mainstream media for which whichever reason i mean like there are there's there's also like only so many hours in the day right and and so i think there's a really strong place for independent media to step up and and to do that and i think that it's kind of an abdication of responsibility to take that to take that position but anyway, so they kind of start shifting, their audience starts shifting to the right, whether or not they do. And I think, you know, kind of around,

I think this is really a COVID thing, really kind of pushing. I'd say that Matt did have a kind of Me Too cancellation moment in 2017, late 2017. And that kind of, I think, kind of soured him on liberals and the left in general. And with Glenn, I think that, I mean, I think there are, again, I think that for both these guys are a lot of complicated

and complex reasons, but I think that if you had to boil it down to just one thing for Glenn, I think is that, you know, MSNBC and CNN stopped having him on TV, and Fox did have him on TV, and you kind of watch his audience shift to the right, and his politics, at least the public politics, the stuff that he tweets about, the stuff that he writes about, start to shift to the right, or at least, like, stop prioritizing certain, like, things that the left would like to cover. Right. So by the time that 2020 rolls around, I think these guys are both prime targets for this funding, but I don't think that they were really like, what?

I think that they both, I mean, if you look at the trajectory, they both kind of went independent relative, like within, within a year or two of each other. And then they were rewarded.enn got this you know huge contract with uh with rumble after you know making who knows how much money on substack once he went independent on substack i want to be clear substack didn't give him money to come onto the surface but once he did he made a lot of money off it yep uh matt didn't get money to come on to substack either to move all this stuff on a sub stack primarily but he did get plucked uh out of uh you know any number

of of journalists to break this twitter file story because mark andreason recommended that elon musk uh oh no sorry david sacks uh recommended that that that elon musk um have have him do it. Mark Andreessen recommended Barry Weiss, who was another another one of these characters who for the Twitter files, which then, you know, like explodes Matt Substack and makes them even more money. So I wanted to ask you about Twitter files. It's interesting you mentioned that because that was going to be my next thing.

My recollection, I haven't looked at the numbers recently, but my recollection was that after all the buildup to the initial Twitter files, that first tranche got a fair bit of attention and really helped him grow his independent following. But the subsequent ones did not seem to do so well. And my retrospective memory of the whole thing is that was the entire Twitter files thing was significantly overblown relative to the blockbuster nature that was kind of attributed to it. Question one is my recollection accurate as you see it. And question two, do you have an opinion as to whether Tybee really saw the Twitter files

stuff as as much of a bombshell as was promoted or that he saw it as a vehicle for growing his following primarily? Yeah, OK, so I think the first one, your recollection is largely correct. I would say that the first tranche of files were about the Hunter Biden laptop story, which Facebook and Twitter may be, in my opinion, kind of questionable decision to suppress the New York Post story about it. However, this was kind of a complicated, I mean, it's now that we know that the information was legitimate, it's kind of hard to like go back and remember the situation at the time.

But I think it's valuable to do that because even though we know that now, we didn't know that then. And it was totally reasonable for any number of platforms or media companies to be like, hold on, let's slow down. Like, this seems like a total rat fucking, if I can say that. You know, like this is a situation where it really seems like a political party is going after another political party. Or like going after their camp. We don't know where this laptop came from. We don't know the information in it is legitimate. And so we need to take a step back.

This was one of the things that Glenn didn't like that The Intercept did. And this is one of the reasons that he left The Intercept was that they did not want to publish this stuff as fact because the provenance of it was just not clear at this point. And it couldn't be clear within time to publish, which as a journalist, I think like that's, that's an ethical thing. I think that's,

that's what you have to do. But the, the tranche of files that he had, like they were like, they were promoters explosive, but they weren't, there wasn't really anything in there that like says anything that I didn't just say, right. Like it seemed, it seemed, you know, they may have made a decision that wasn't the the brightest one and you know within 24 hours they reversed it uh but that's not really an explosive revelation and the rest of them just didn't really show that either it was interesting from my perspective to see uh like kind of how

twitter operates like or how it operated being interesting to look at that, but that's not a bombshell report. That's just like an interesting piece of news or, you know, something you can put into a book. Um, I'd say the two pieces of news that came out that were interesting is that Lee Fong, uh, then of the intercept, um, had a report out about, uh, state department or something like that, like these influence campaigns that were getting kind of greenlighted by Twitter. And then Barry Weiss inadvertently revealed that Chaya Raychik, the lips of TikTok lady, had kind of like extra added protections even under the prior twitter regime so so so that's

a long way of saying yes you were actually recollection is correct there wasn't really much to it as far as like what taibbi believes i i don't know i mean i think that part of him believes that it was real because he has to because that's basically what his career is about now um he certainly i think that he really thought that he was going to be so explosive that it was going to be like the nsa stuff with with edward stone he thought this was going to be his like blend moment um and it wasn't and i think that part of his bitterness is is based in that that like people just kind of made fun of it because he promoted this huge thing and it just really wasn't that. Yeah. I but I don't really know, like beyond that, like how he feels about it. I will say that

just from my perspective, Matt has completely lost the plot at this point. That that is as a not as closely following individual of the story as you are. That's the conclusion I've come to. But I do encourage my audience to check out the book to get a much broader and more detailed perspective on what we've spoken about here. The book is owned. How tech billionaires on the right bought the loudest voices on the left. And we've been speaking with the book's author, Owen Higgins.

Really appreciate your time and your insights today. Thank you. Thanks so much for having me. Thank you. 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. Most VPNs are all owned by the same big mysterious company. They log your internet activity so they can sell it or give

it to law enforcement. And these VPNs are just out to make a buck without really protecting your privacy. The only VPN I trust enough to have as a sponsor is private internet access. Our sponsor, private internet access, is the only VPN who has proven multiple times in legal proceedings they don't keep logs of your activity. The judge ordered that PIA show user activity history each time they demonstrated they don't have the records. That no log policy is also independently audited by Deloitte. And PIA is also open source. So you can also see in the code that none of your activity is being Thank you. for free, go to PIA VPN dot com slash David. The link is in the podcast notes. All right. Well, this is completely humiliating on an international scale. I want to go back to this very I mean, is tense even the right word, comically pathetic, uh, oval office meeting yesterday involving

South African president Cyril Ramaphosa and Donald Trump. And most of the meeting was a bizarre confrontation over debunked claims of a supposed white genocide happening in South Africa of South Africa's white farmers. This is a far right conspiracy theory that Trump's been parroting really since his first term, actually. But the real moment that broke through the noise wasn't so much about race or refugees. It was about a plane. This plane thing simply will not go away. And the big story here is that the plane thing is globally humiliating. Let's play the moment that we saw just the very beginning of earlier in the show when the topic of the plane came up and Ramaphosa

says, I'm sorry, I don't have a plane to give you. Check this out. We need an Air Force one until our sets. Air Force one is being built, two of them being built. But Boeing's a little bit late, unfortunately. So why did they give us a plane to the United States Air Force? That's what that idiot talks about after viewing a thing where thousands of people are dead. I'm sorry, I don't have a plane to give you. I wish you did. If your country offered the United States Air Force a plane, I would take it. Okay.

But coming back to this issue, which I really would like us to talk about and talk about it very calmly. We were taught by Nelson Mandela. All right. So they get off the plane. So the unbelievable thing here is that Trump doesn't even pretend to be insulted by I wish I had a plane to give you. Ramaphosa is clearly pointing out Trump's upset with Ramaphosa.

He's giving him the Zelensky treatment in the Oval Office. They're not getting along. It's tense. It's ridiculous. And Ramaphosa goes, I wish I had a plane to give you sort of pointing out that Trump's currency is loyalty and he wants gifts and he wants people supplicating. And if he had a plane that that would be apparently something that would make Trump treat him better.

And Trump goes, yeah, I wish you did. I wish you did have a plane. Trump replies, I would take the plane from you. So let that sink in because this is significant and it's really not getting the attention it deserves. The sitting president of the United States is not joking and he's not deflecting. And he admits I would accept a luxury plane from another foreign leader. He's already accepted one.

Why wouldn't he accept another? And it's not just that he would accept it. He wishes that he could get a plane from South Africa. This isn't just cringe. This is globally humiliating. Imagine watching this from the UK or France or wherever and realizing, if you didn't already know it, that the American president treats the presidency and alliances like a bidding war. If your nation can scrape together a Gulf Stream and slap a bow on it, or if you can put, you know, get a seven, a seven forty seven painted the same orange color as Trump's makeup and fly it over to the United States as a gift.

You can buy good favor from Trump. This is not about exchanging the plane for specific policy. Even it's just we would be getting along better if you had given me a plane rather than come here and tell me that my conspiracy theories are wrong. So he's saying the quiet part out loud in a sense. And the subtext, if you want something from Trump, bring him a bribe is red alert flashing here. OK, I wish you could afford to buy better treatment from me. And the irony is that Trump told the truth for once. He would take the plane and it would help their relationship. And it's kind of the most honest thing

that Trump has said in weeks. This, by the way, also exposes the deeper rot underneath Trump's second term, because it's not just policies and it's not just the authoritarian power grabs. There's a complete and total lack of shame here. That is remarkable. There's not even an effort being made to pretend that he's not corrupt anymore. And Ramaphosa's jab about the plane wasn't just a personal burn. It was really a diplomatic warning to the world. This is what the American presidency has become. Bring gifts or you might not even want to bother showing up because truth and dignity and democratic values are not what is going to get you in the door. And then meanwhile, maybe the

most dystopian moment of the entire thing, Trump attacking a journalist. And I want to talk about that next in a completely chaotic moment during Donald Trump's failed meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, Trump explodes at reporter Peter Alexander and threatens to have him investigated after he asks Trump about the reports that he's keeping the damn four hundred million dollars, 747 from Qatar. Arguably one of the most insane moments of Trump's second term so far. Take a look at this. Okay.

Mr. President, the Pentagon announced it would be accepting a Qatari jet to be used as Air Force one. What are you talking about? We know. What are you talking about? You know, you ought to get out of here. What does this have to do with the Qatar jet? They're giving the United States Air Force a jet, okay? And it's a great thing. We're talking about a lot of other things.

It's NBC trying to get off the subject of what you just saw. You are a real, you know, you're a terrible reporter. Number one, you don't have what it takes to be a reporter. You are a real, you know, you're a terrible reporter. Number one, you don't have what it takes to be a reporter. You're not smart enough. But for you to go on to a subject about a jet that was given to the United States Air Force, which is a very nice thing. They also gave $5.1 trillion worth of investment. Remember that that's a lie. In addition to the jet, go back, you ought to go back to your studio at NBC because Brian Roberts and the people that run that place, they ought to be investigated.

They are so terrible the way you run that network and you're a disgrace. No more questions from you. Speaker 1 Go ahead. Trump cannot control himself. You just can't. He is an authoritarian through and through. He wants to be dictator. He wants to determine what questions he's asked and when he's asked them.

And and he's the one who determines what counts as valid journalism. And by the way, what counts as valid journalism is questions like, can you tell me all the ways in which you're so much better than every Democratic president? That that's like a that's the sort of question that Trump wants to be asked in the same meeting. A reporter asks Trump, can you explain why you're allowing white Afrikaners here when other refugees have had all of their protected status revoked? And Trump goes, this is fake news. Any questions?

Mr. President, you brought the white Afrikaner refugees here. Do you explain to us? This is the same reporter. I should be clear. It's Peter Alexander. Americans, why it's appropriate to welcome white Afrikaners here when other refugees like Afghans, Venezuelans, Haitians have all had their protective status removed. Well, this is a group NBC that is truly fake news. They ask a lot of questions that are very pointed away. They're not questions, they're statements. And of course, pointed questions are questions.

They might be questions you don't like. You could take issue with the framing. You could take issue with what's what the premises of the question are. But journalism involves answering pointed questions. And Trump just doesn't like it. You know, what's interesting to see here is that Trump truly you see the real Trump in these moments. He doesn't like what the South African president is saying to him, having the audacity to say what you're telling me about white genocide is not true. He doesn't like the questions that he's been asked. And he becomes this dark, dystopian authoritarian that you just know is on the verge of cracking

and exploding. And he did saying, we got to investigate this NBC News thing. This is the real Trump, an angry, of course, self-centered and narcissistic guy. But he's an angry, dark person. And you really see it come through in these situations. What a humiliating event for the United States and for anyone watching, really just so embarrassing. On the bonus show today, we will talk about Jake Tapper's controversial book about the alleged cover up of the decline of Joe Biden. Jake Tapper doing some interesting interviews over the last few days that I want to discuss and go over with you.

We are now seeing yet another major retailer. Last week, it was Walmart. This week, it's Target saying we are issuing a warning about what's happening economically and what to expect from 2025. Retail is a very interesting sector in terms of what it tells us about the broader economy. And finally, Mark Carney, the Canadian prime minister, says that they are Canada is in talks to join the Golden Dome defense system proposed by Donald Trump. All of those stories and more on today's bonus show. I would love for you to get the bonus

show. You can do it instantly by signing up at join Pacman dot com. This goes directly to support independent media. You know, if you don't like this show, support a different one. But we should be supporting the shows we value and like because we are up against it, both when it comes to this administration and corporate media dollars. So I would love for you to become a member of the David Pakman show. If there's other progressive independent shows you like more, well, subscribe to those if they have such a mechanism. But we do need to build the ecosystem and direct support, I think, is the best way to do it. We'll see you on the bonus show. I'll be back here tomorrow with a brand new program. You're a podcast listener, and this is a podcast ad heard only in Canada. Reach great Canadian listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Libsyn Ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements or run a

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