The David Pakman Show - 5/9/25: Trade deal collapses, MAGA triggered by new Pope

Episode Date: May 9, 2025

-- On the Show: -- Donald Trump is forced to admit the blockbuster UK trade deal is nothing of the sort, and confusedly calls the toy company Mattel "a country" -- A Scottish reporter calls out Donald Trump in the Oval Office for obviously exaggerating the importance of this supposed UK trade deal -- MAGA is melting down over the supposed "woke Marxist Pope," Pope Leo XIV, formerly known as Cardinal Robert Prevost -- Donald Trump's own staff is starting to turn on him -- Donald Trump's healthcare promises have completely collapsed, imperiling millions -- A confused Trump is clearly increasingly struggling, and it's difficult to watch -- This week's Friday Feedback -- On the Bonus Show: Voters still say Trump would be better president than Harris, Marjorie Taylor Greene considering Senate run, and much more... 🖼️ Aura Frames: Use code PAKMAN for $35 OFF & free shipping at https://auraframes.com/pakman ☕ Beam’s Dream hot cocoa: Use code PAKMAN for 40% OFF at https://shopbeam.com/pakman 🛡️ Incogni lets you control your personal data! Get 60% off their annual plan: http://incogni.com/pakman 🪟 3 Day Blinds: Buy one get one 50% OFF at https://3dayblinds.com/pakman 🧽 Blueland: Get 15% OFF sustainable cleaning products at https://blueland.com/pakman 🔬 Freedom From Religion Foundation: Text DAVID to 511511 or visit https://ffrf.us/freedom -- Become a Member: https://davidpakman.com/membership -- Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/davidpakmanshow -- Get David's Books: https://davidpakman.com/echo -- TDPS Subreddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/thedavidpakmanshow -- David on Bluesky: https://davidpakman.com/bluesky -- David on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow

. I was thinking about that, a children's story, the little, the little engine that could or that couldn't or whatever, as I was preparing for today's show, because we seem to have this sort of the trade deal that couldn't the trade deal between the United States and the United Kingdom that supposedly was going to be announced yesterday in this big Oval Office event. And then Donald Trump shows up and he's, you know, as he often finds himself these days, kind of slunched, hunched over and doesn't really have anything to announce a massive, massive letdown and a feeble and confused Trump referred to the toy company Mattel as a country

in really just a complete and total deflation of what we expected to be some massive announcement. Now, we had reasons to suspect this was not going to be the big accomplishment that Trump had led us to believe. But we'll get to that in a moment. But after days of promoting massive trade deal, the start of incredible winning and success, Trump says the trade deal with the UK, it's not really finalized and it's not really a deal. And of course, in the context of days of hype, the art of the deal falling just a little bit short, as Donald Trump likes to say, there won't be any red tape. Things are going to move very quickly both ways. The final details are being written up in the coming weeks.

We'll have it all very conclusive. But the actual deal is a very conclusive one. We think just about everything's been approved. So good for both countries. Think of that. It hasn't quite been written up yet. The deals are going to be written really soon. We've got 40 monkeys sitting at 40 different typewriters and we just need to give them time to tap away. And before you know it, we're going to have a deal. We think most of it is probably legal, not exactly a vow of confidence. We were pretty sure nothing is overtly against the law in what we're thinking. And much like the health care bill of 2020, it's just days or weeks away.

By the way, later in the show, we're going to get back to this whole health care plan because there actually are millions of Americans waiting for a deal, which is only five years in the making, I guess, or eight years in the making. If you go back to the 2017 concept of a plan, we'll get back to that. But not the miraculous victory that we were led to believe. Now, maybe the strangest moment of this entire thing. And listen, I have two eyes just like most people in the audience. I can see that this is a defeated, shrunken man in Trump, a very orange, defeated, shrunken man. I see that with my own eyes. But he just doesn't seem with it. Trump acting as if the one country they're really moving along with is the toy company Mattel. Now, as you know, and as I know, Mattel is not a country, it's a company. But here's what

Trump had to say about that. Mattel, I don't know. I'm not so sure. They also said they're the only country I've heard. They said, well, we're going to go counter. We're going to try going someplace else. That's OK. The only country they've heard of is Mattel. I've heard from. Let him go and we'll put 100 percent tariff on his toys and he won't sell one toy in the United States. And that's their biggest market. I heard that. I mean, I watched this guy talking about how I'm going to go counter. I said, well, I wouldn't want to have him as an executive too long. There you go. Trump warning the country of Mattel. And you know what? The country of Microsoft had better be on notice that Trump is not going to just allow you to step all over him. He thinks

you're a country, but he's not going to let you step all over him. He's not with it. He's not there. There's just something missing here. Now, also during the same kind of conversation, for lack of a better term, and I'm using that phrase very loosely, Trump was questioned about this replay emergency replacement surgeon general appointment where Dr. Jeanette Nishawat was removed from the nomination even before starting her job. And instead, a sort of conspiracy

theorist, wellness guru type Casey Means has been nominated instead. Donald Trump asked about it and he kind of goes, I don't really know anything about it. But Bobby Kennedy Jr. said she's good. So yeah, but I've never met her. Don't know a thing about her. Speaker 4 You just announced a new nominee for the U.S. surgeon general who never finished her residency and is not a practicing physician. So can you explain why you picked her to be America's top doctor? Because Bobby thought she was fantastic.

She's highly she's a brilliant woman who went through Stanford. And as I understand it, she basically wanted to do, she wanted to be an academic as opposed to a surgeon. I think she graduated first in her class at Stanford. And Bobby really thought she was great. I don't know her. I listened to the recommendation of Bobby. I met her yesterday and once before. She's a very outstanding person, a great academic, actually. So I think she'll be great. This is a great example of how Trump has to stack superlatives that I think that's the best way to describe the way he does it. Superlative stacking. He first goes, well, she wanted to go into academia. That's part of why she didn't finish the residency. And then having learned absolutely nothing in the 14 seconds intervening, Trump then

has to always go escalated. He always has to go hyperbolic and say she's actually a great academic. Trump knows nothing about what she's done, if anything, academically. Now, I think it's relevant and substantive to say that if you go all the way back to the very beginning of this entire long global nightmare of Trumpism, 2015, Trump's great claim to competence was that he's really good at hiring people. He knows how to hire people. He knows how to pick people. And here, of course, after years of saying, well, a lot of the people I picked were good

when I picked them, but then they went bad. They went bad. As Trump says, he's saying, actually, he doesn't really know anything about her. Just Bobby Kennedy goes, this is the person. And Trump goes, yes, hire her. Doesn't really project hiring competence to me. Trump also during this event talking about, uh, he seemingly not only obsessed with Jasmine Crockett, but he had to start talking about Pete Buddha judges husband.

You just, you can't get Trump off of the things he's obsessed with. They took over Buddha, Dedge Buddha, Dedge, who has no clue. You know, he drives to work and as a bicycle with his with his in all fairness with his husband on the back, which is a nice, loving relationship. But he didn't have a clue. This guy didn't have a clue. And he's actually a contender for president between him and Crockett. You can have that party.

But so there's a couple of things going on here. Number one, faced with more airport and air traffic control chaos than this country has seen in years. Donald Trump wants to blame someone that has nothing to do with him. He certainly doesn't want to blame transportation secretary Sean Duffy. So instead, he blames Buttigage or however it was that he pronounced it. But there's a deep jealousy here in Trump. Trump is genuinely envious of Pete Buttigieg because Pete Buttigieg's spouse actually seems to not only tolerate and not only like, but love him. And this is something that Donald Trump just doesn't have. OK. And then finally, Trump recommends buying stocks. Remember, the last time he did this, he knew he had something

up his sleeve that was going to pop the stock market. What is Trump planning this time? You better go out and buy stock now. Let me tell you, this this country will will be like a rocket ship that goes straight up. This is going to be numbers that nobody's ever seen before. That's a very important element of all of this. You know, if we get that, if you don't and the Democrats are fighting it only because they want to fight. They have Trump derangement syndrome. You know, if it was somebody else, they wouldn't fight. If you had a normal person and some stiff sitting behind you, they'd be fine.

That's him. If you're wondering who's laughing very solicitously, that's Howard Lutton. They have Trump derangement syndrome. Senator Schumer has become a Palestinian. Anyway, if you're wondering what relevance Schumer becoming a Palestinian has to buying stocks, I can't help you figure that out. But certainly it seems that this is the latest signal from Trump that there is some stock market manipulation upcoming. Now, when reporters had a chance to question Trump about all of this, there was one particular moment that I think is the most interesting moment of this entire thing. I want to talk about that next. Yesterday, Donald Trump sat in the Oval Office and he rambled and he ranted about the supposed historic trade deal with the United Kingdom. We learned that,

you know, if we're honest, it's not really historic and it's not really a trade deal and it's not really done. And Trump admitted he doesn't even know if all aspects of it are legal. And so there was a Scottish reporter in the Oval Office in the heart of the White House, who called it out to Trump's face. And I think this is absolutely fantastic to see. The reporter does it beautifully. Trump, of course, opens with vague nonsense, as he always does. But the reporter had the testicular fortitude to say, aren't you overselling this? Aren't you overstating the reach and the significance of this deal? Because things are difficult right now and you need to contrive a victory. This is now my word.

You need to contrive a victory because you desperately need it. Good job here. Take a listen to this. Yes. Can I ask why Britain and why now? And you've described this deal as a full and comprehensive deal. And yet we just heard from Mr. Mandelson, it's the end of the beginning. Clearly, there's much more work still to do. With respect, are you overstating the reach and significance of this deal because you're a president who needs a result at a difficult time?

Brilliant question. And the answer is yes. But now let's hear Trump's answer. I think that it's a great deal for both parties. It's for us. We're opened up. I didn't know how close it was. Quite close. The market, as you know, the UK and it opens up a tremendous market for us. And it works out very well, very well. And a lot of a lot of us, as you see the chart and those are tremendous assets. But we hand me a Sharpie. I'll make the chart look even better than trying. And when you say why us, meaning your country, we've been trying for years and they've been trying for years to make a deal. Now, I'm sorry to interrupt once more. This question was so on point that it sends Trump into a three minute word salad of no meaning at all. That's how

that's how to the heart of the matter the question got, including when I was in the first term. It would always be people talking, but they weren't getting it done. But for 25 years before that, they were trying always to make a deal, a very significant deal. I actually, until I looked at the numbers, I didn't realize this is a very conclusive deal. But we think we can grow it even from that. But this is a maxed out deal, not like you said it. You said it really incorrectly. You said it nasty. This is a maxed out deal, not like you said it. You said it really incorrectly. You said it nasty. This is a maxed out deal that we're going to make bigger and we make it bigger through

growth. But we have tremendous assets involved. I was surprised to see how big your country is and actually one of the biggest in technology. And yeah, anyway, I'm not going to subject you to the remaining 90 seconds of this drivel. A couple of things that I love about this. First of all, again, the question is so spot on that it sends Trump into a three minute word salad. Number two, the reality is that Trump's bragging about a deal.

That's not a deal that he said they don't even yet know if all of the parts of it are legal, that they don't even yet have all of the details. They're still working out the details. And at the end of the day, this entire tariff fiasco is not really about the United Kingdom. The UK is the US's 11th larger trading partner. It represents three percent of US trade. Three percent. If I, you know, take off my shoes and start counting this little piggy, that little piggy, I'd still have 97 percent of American trade not covered by this deal. After I count on my fingers and toes the significance of what the trade with the UK is now, that

doesn't mean it doesn't matter, but it's not statistically significant. And it's also not really a deal. It's the concept of a framework. We're back once again to concepts of a plan. And most of what is part of this framework are things that existed under Joe Biden already. We would just be restating and taking a step back to where we were on trade with the UK under Biden. The numbers haven't changed. The tariffs haven't moved. Nothing's been signed. It's sort of vaporware to use a software, a technology term.

Trump needed a win and he wants to pass it off as a deal and some talking points and say, we have an achievement here. Now, this is much bigger than the United Kingdom. And I think that this is maybe the most relevant aspect of this. This entire event that we've been looking at that Trump did yesterday, the whole thing was meant to showcase a president pretending he's doing something as we have growing economic concerns all around him. It's sort of like the nothing to see here. Please disperse a scene from Naked Gun where buildings are exploding. A fireworks factory is exploding in the background.

And you know, as we saw earlier, Trump was asked, why did you nominate someone for surgeon general who didn't even finish her residency? And Trump goes, well, Bobby said she's great. And this is the level this White House is operating on. An idea of a framework of a deal requires an event to claim victory. The level of vetting that's happening is Bobby told me that she's really good. They also were not going to look at it, but they came to a question about American ports being at reduced capacity, not empty, but at reduced capacity thanks to the trade war

with imports being down. And Trump goes, oh, if we didn't trade with these countries, we would be better off. He's sort of like going fully into this isolationist turtle shell, bragging that no trade is better than importing affordable goods. Now, I'm the first to say we don't need a lot of this cheap Chinese crap that we get. Right. It's sort of like the epitome of consumerism. But that's not really the foundation through which these deals are being analyzed and through which Trump is saying specialization and trade don't don't matter. So if you're wondering whether Trump understands how global corporations and trade work, he doesn't. And the numbers right now

are Trump's lowest Trump's approval at this point in the presidency, the lowest in 70 years for a president at about 110 or so days in economic approval. In some polls, Republicans now less trusted than Democrats on the economy. Not something you typically see. 70 percent of the country says Trump is not sufficiently focused on lowering prices. Seventy two percent of the country believes that this Trump tariff scheme and broader economic approach is going to cause a recession. And meanwhile, we had Q1 GDP down the first economic contraction in the United States in something like three plus years.

So when a Scottish reporter steps up and calmly asks Trump, are you lying to the American people? The reporter calls it overstating. It's not just a viral clip. It's a journalist doing his job. This is what every single reporter should be doing every time Trump's open his mouth. And when Trump says this is a maxed out deal, we all know there is nothing here. It's the economic equivalent of vaporware. And that is the best way that I can describe it. So let's take a break. We do have a new pope, not something I normally care about. But Maga's reaction has been fascinatingly humiliating. We'll talk about that next. Your mom wants you to call her and this Mother's Day, give her a call. But you can also consider giving her an aura digital picture frame or a frames was named

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The link is in the podcast notes. the financial means right now to support the work that you do with a membership. And that's fine because there are so many free ways to support our work. Certainly make sure you're subscribed to the YouTube channel and get on our newsletter at David Pakman dot sub stack dot com. Share the content. No doubt that that is one of the best ways to amplify and help the work that we do. And of course, you can also use the coupon code. It will end soon to save about 50 percent off of the cost of a membership at join Pacman dot com. All right. There is a new pope. And I was not planning to talk about this until this morning.

And I do want to get one thing out of the way. I don't really cover papal elections or talk much about the Catholic Church. I'm certainly not a Catholic. I don't care who wears the big hat, for lack of a better term. I don't follow the Vatican like it's the Oscars. But there is a MAGA meltdown happening over the new pope that is a different story. It's sort of a tangential story. And it is utterly fascinating because it says so much about MAGA and it undercuts the idea that religion is even important to them. It's as with all of these principles, it's important to the extent that it's convenient. And because some in the MAGA space have now identified the new pope as maybe holding left wing values, despite being a registered Republican, by what we've been able to find, they are not pleased.

So let's go through what happened. The Catholic Church has selected its first ever American pope. Cardinal Robert Prevost has been designated Pope Leo the 14th. Good for him. Prevost is a Chicago born priest who believes in things like compassion and human dignity and not treating immigrants like disease vectors, much like the recently deceased Argentinian Pope, Pope Francis. And MAGA doesn't like this. MAGA had an absolute total meltdown. And the moment that the white smoke rose from the little chimney, the right wing fever swamp kicked immediately into overdrive. They started digging through Pope Leo's old tweets like he

was applying for a job at PragerU and they didn't like what they found. They found posts with sympathy for George Floyd. They found posts critical of the now vice president, J.D. Vance. They found posts that, brace yourself, sound suspiciously like actual Christian ethics and they didn't like it. Now, before being selected, Stephen Bannon was on with Piers Morgan and he said, I would be very worried if Robert Prevost ends up becoming Pope. Bannon warned about this. There's never been an American born Pope. Is this the moment? I do think one of the dark horses, I think, unfortunately, is one of the most progressive is Cardinal Prevost.

I don't think he's getting enough play. He is certainly on the short list as being. And I think it's pretty shocking, given the the how the contempt they hold the American church. The American church gives so much money. They're afraid it has too much power. So they've never really wanted to have an American pope. But my understanding is Prevost is one of the ones closest to Francis ideologically. He's also had tremendous experience in Latin America.

And so he's one of the ones on the on the shortlist. All right. So Bannon then goes on to list other possibilities. But Bannon was right. Prevost was indeed on the shortlist and Prevost became pope. And this is when the floodgates opened. Far right conspiracy crank Laura Loomer, who seems to have a lot of influence over Donald Trump right now, went into full meltdown mode, calling him a woke Marxist pope, and later

went on with more ranting and said that it's gross that Prevost now is Pope Leo. The 14th will be leading the Catholic Church. She called him anti-Trump, anti-MAGA, pro-open borders and quote, a Marxist like Pope Francis. Now, remember that Jesus preached wealth redistribution, but never mind that. Then in comes Newsmax's Rob Schmidt warning minutes before the election that this pope better not be woke. Now, by MAGA standards, I guess the new pope is woke, by which I mean that he believes immigrants are people. I know that that's not necessarily a popular view in the MAGA right at this point in time. Then came alt right grifter Mike Cernovich, who was frothing at the mouth, raging that the new pope is an open borders globalist and predicted without evidence that he will soon be pushing abortion,

not pro-choice policies, by the way, just pushing abortion like a door to door sales gig. Could I interest you in an abortion? Something I've still never seen anyone do, despite the ranting and raving from the anti-choice. Right. Joey Manorino is another far right influencer. He went full panic mode. This guy is worse than Francis. And he even referred to him as a liberal piece of shit and said that we're effed. You can sense how deeply spiritual Manorino is. And then Charlie Kirk from Turning Point USA kind of piped in to say the Pope was spreading George Floyd propaganda. But ultimately, Kirk did say, listen, it seems that this guy is a registered Republican. And that's, I guess, good as far as Charlie Kirk is concerned.

So Trump says he looks forward to meeting the new pope should be a delightfully awkward meeting. But here's the big takeaway. The MAGA movement now treats everyone and everything as a potential sort of deep state enemy, even the pope. And it's not over some major theological disagreement, but because the pope has shown some moral clarity on issues like immigration and police violence and even the cruelty of Donald Trump's administration. This is the maga mind virus inaction. The pope says, love thy neighbor. They say that's Marxism. The pope says, don't vilify immigrants. Well, that's globalism and it's open borders. The pope says George Floyd's death was a tragedy. They say that's woke propaganda. If he doesn't praise J.D. Vance,

then he's betraying people. And what this is a reminder of is that just like with debt and deficit, just like with business regulation, just like with debt and deficit, just like with business regulation, just like with protectionism and isolationism, just like with support, the police support the troops with every single one of these issues, the actual principles stop mattering once they become politically inconvenient because it's all about loyalty to one guy. He happens to be orange. You know who I'm talking about.

And if you don't worship him, it doesn't matter who you are. You could be the literal pope himself and they would say you are a traitor. And in this case, the pope is a traitor to what they describe as Christian values. And what's wild is that these are the people who were screaming about religious freedom for years. But now they want the Vatican to act like it's part of Turning Point USA or the Trump administration. Sorry, the pope's job is not to make Trump feel better about himself. And if that bothers you, it probably says more about your religious and moral framework than it does about the pope.

So I anxiously await this meeting between Trump and the pope. It sounds like it'll be really weird. All right. Let's zoom out a little bit. There are cracks showing inside of Donald Trump's inner circle. There's really interesting new reporting from Brian Karam at Salon. Brian's been a guest on this program and he writes really interesting stuff. And Brian's reporting is that at least one current member of Donald Trump's inner White House team is sounding the alarm really from inside the belly of the beast. And the kicker is that they joined Team Trump, not despite the chaos, but because they believed, oh, yeah, DEI is going too far. And now all of a sudden this Trump White House insider is worried about, quote, blatant criminal behavior.

Well, welcome to the party. We've been concerned about that for a long time. Now, I think to be fair, this source did not have like a complete change of heart. They're not out here saying I now support Bernie, but they're disillusioned. And that's the start. And it raises a larger question. How many others inside the regime are thinking the exact same thing, but they're just too afraid or too complicit to say it out loud? Rarely do we hear from everybody who's having second thoughts. The fact that we're hearing from some people having second thoughts suggests that there are many more kind of behind the curtain.

And the source for Brian's article, which we will link to, describes a White House that's less like the command center of the free world and more like a nursing home for strongmen. Trump's having unpredictable mood swings. He's having fluid mental faculties. Decisions are often coming from whoever gets the last word and whispers a sweet nothing into Donald Trump's ear before Donald Trump has to make a public statement or sign something. And often that person is Stephen Miller, the architect of the family separation policy, the ghost of xenophobia. He's hanging around and he seems to be doing a lot of the whispering into Trump's ear, sort of like a some kind of fascist wannabe villain from a Marvel movie of sorts.

So this is more than palace intrigue and kind of a rumor mill and gossip from the White House. This is about a president who thought he won a Supreme Court case that he lost nine to zero and nobody in the room had the guts to correct him. Not a single advisor, not even lawyers, just Stephen Miller saying you won. You won, sir. With tears in my eyes, you won. And everybody else kind of nodding along like it's North Korea with access to the Internet. And when Trump is not being misled into believing that he's undefeated at the Supreme Court, he's casually suggesting maybe not everybody in the United States deserves due process or he's not sure if he has to uphold the Constitution, as he said to Kristen Welker on Sunday in that very disturbing NBC News interview. I'm not a lawyer, but I'm not sure that I need to always uphold the Constitution. And all of this should be chilling because

there's a new layer. Not only are his instincts a disaster, not only is the rare policy idea more damaging than it is helpful to Americans, it doesn't really seem like Trump is leading anymore. He's being led. Stephen Miller is leading him. Elon Musk is leading him. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Trump admits, I don't know anything about my new surgeon general nominee. Bobby Kennedy told me that she's good. So I nominated her.

A Hegseth arbitrarily slashing military leadership and saying no more fat people in leadership, because why not? Trump is being led rather than leading. And in addition to the recognition that Trump's unfit, which we've known his staff increasingly knows that, too. But they are trapped to a degree, afraid of being ignored by the media, hated by Democrats, punished by Trump himself. So most of them stay silent and were left with this sort of rudderless ship captained by a man who thinks I might have posted the picture of the pope that he posted to his truth social account. So there have probably been 100 red alert kind of alarm bell moments already. This is another one, because when Trump's own people start whispering that they're disillusioned,

we should be asking, what is it going to take for all of them to wake up? Because if the rats are at least eyeing the lifeboats, maybe we're closer to the end of this absurd second term than people realize. Because if anything, we've learned about authoritarian regimes from history. It's that they rarely collapse from outside pressure alone. And this is why it's so important to pay attention to reporting about what's happening inside. These regimes often implode from the inside. And so as we start to see this reporting, one disillusioned staffer, I get that it's not that much. But when people on the inside start questioning whether the guy they work for is mentally fit, legally stable, aware of what the Constitution is, it starts to

raise this uncomfortable possibility that Trump's second administration might collapse. Now, let's just game it out for just for kicks. OK, first is the morale where the Trump loyalists have to notice the incoherence, the lies, the bizarre public statements. And this impacts morale. Then when you're working for a man who, you know, thinks he won a Supreme Court case that he lost, you start wondering, is being associated with Trump going to be radioactive come the end of this presidency in twenty twenty nine? That's what might lead a few key staffers to jump ship or maybe publicly, maybe anonymously. And then that doubt becomes contagious. Once you have that,

you get competing power centers. We know that Trump is heavily being led by the people I mentioned, Miller, Musk, Rubio, whoever's waiting outside the golf simulator at the White House, whoever. And that kind of court politics with factions leads to infighting. You can see it in the turf wars over stuff like crypto regulation. You can see it over dissent around protectionism and the tariff policy. And so if you lose that, that opens the door for the media ecosystem to start saying this is not good. We've known that Fox News is not fully on board because of what we see with regard to recession discussions, tariffs, et cetera. They're mostly still in line, but the cracks are there. And if even one of the major right wing media outlets breaks and starts

airing the internal dysfunction, then the floodgates could really open here. So I'm not here to tell you the MAGA movement is finished. I'm not doing the thing of the final straw that will take MAGA down. The myth has to break. People have to start looking for the exits and pointing fingers or plotting their post-Trump futures. But everything right now is pointing to declining approval, economic shakiness, internal disillusionment after November of 2026, especially if Republicans don't do well, it would be almost certain that there's going to be people looking for the exits. And we've got to be there ready to capitalize. That's the key.

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I love the new window treatments that three day blinds got me for my office. It looks great. Schedule your free, no charge, no obligation consultation. You'll also get there by one, get one 50% off deal on custom blinds, shades, shutters, and drapery. When you go to three day blinds.com slash Pacman that's by one, get one 50% off. When you go to the number three D a Y blinds.com slash Pacman. The link is in the podcast notes. Donald Trump has now been back in office nearly four months. We've got the shaky economy. We've got the immigration mess. We've got global allies ducking Trump's calls, but there's a promise that

might go down as the biggest scam of all that I want to talk about. And it might be one that's particularly damaging to millions of Americans. And it is health care. It is May of 2025, almost five years after Donald Trump told the world that his health care plan was two weeks away from being signed into law. And then it was two weeks away from being announced. And then it was, you know, concept of a plan. And there is still no plan. There's no draft. There's no framework. There's no leaked bullet points on a napkin. There is nothing. So let's rewind sort of to the beginning. The beginning beginning was 2015 when Trump said he would replace Obamacare with a big, beautiful health care plan. We then cut to 2017 when they finally put together

a framework. It was analyzed and it turned out that between 24 and 32 million Americans would lose coverage if that plan became a reality. So that was scrapped. Cut to this moment in August of 2020 when Donald Trump famously told Chris Wallace, we are two weeks away. Remember this in history? I want to talk to you about Obamacare. Since the pandemic hit, millions of people have lost their jobs and thereby lost their health insurance. And almost a half a million have signed up for Obamacare. Your administration just announced that you're signing on to a lawsuit to overturn Obamacare. And replace it. Why does it make sense to overturn Obamacare, with which people now are relying on? Democrats are going to say the man who's wanted to kill Obamacare is going to take away the protection for pre-existing conditions. First of

all, we got rid of the individual mandate. Pre-existing conditions will always be taken care of by me and Republicans, 100%. But you've been in office three and a half years. You don't have a plan. Well, we haven't had, excuse me, you heard me yesterday. We're signing a health care plan. Signing a health care plan. Within two weeks, a full and complete health care plan that the Supreme Court decision on DACA gave me the right to do. So we're going to solve we're going to sign an immigration plan, a health care plan and various other plans. And nobody will have done what I'm doing in the next four weeks. The Supreme Court gave the president of the United States powers that nobody thought the president had. So, as you know, two weeks turned

into two months, which turned into the end of his first term, which turned into years, years, years. Then came the 2024 campaign. And during the summer debate, when asked about health care, Trump said, we're working on concepts. I have concepts of a plan and we're going to roll it out very soon. The summer ended. The fall came and went. Winter came and went. Trump's president. It's now the spring and we still have nothing. We have corporate giveaways. We have chaos. We have more attacks on the Affordable Care Act, but we have no health care plan. And meanwhile, you have tens of millions of Americans out there paying out of pocket for insulin and other medications they can't afford, skipping doctor's visits to avoid

surprise bills. We still have a thing called medical bankruptcy in the United States, unknown in other Western wealthy developed nations. And what is Trump doing? You know, he's ranting about windmills. He's praising the big, beautiful bill, which, by the way, includes eight hundred billion dollars in cuts to Medicaid. So not only is there no replacement plan, Trump's gutting the programs that people rely on right now. We're looking at Medicaid, ACA subsidies, safety net. It's all being set on fire while Trump brags about how great all of the things are going as he golfs at Mar-a-Lago or Bedminster or wherever. He ran twice now on repealing and replacing Obamacare with something that's going to be

better and it's going to be cheaper. And instead, we got, you know, these half-baked lawsuits to overturn Obamacare years ago, no serious alternative ready, a pandemic that exposed really that our patchwork system is very fragile. And then now we're in 2025 and there's no plan and there's millions of people in limbo. We all, of course, know at this point there was never a plan. The only plan all along has been say whatever it takes to win, figure it out later, except they don't actually figure anything out and hope that someone is going to come in and clean it up, maybe Fox News or hope that there will be somebody else to blame it on. So, of course, it's bad policy. But there's a

fundamentally cruel indifference here because it's the richest country on Earth and we don't guarantee health care to people. And there's a guy who promised to fix it and he's ghosting the American people yet again. We've got to come to terms with the reality that he just doesn't really care about you that much. And this is one of maybe the greatest difficulties for your average Trump voter to accept. If you zoom out a little bit and you look at Trump's upbringing and his life and his career as a supposed business guy and doing deals and real estate stuff, Trump as this rich kid from Queens and Manhattan born with a silver spoon in his mouth, he has spent most of his life trying to be kept isolated from the people he ultimately had

to court to become president. And they think that Trump likes them and Trump respects them and all of it. He doesn't. And you don't have to look much further than the fact that we are now 10 years. This is a decade, folks, a decade. Think about everything that's happened over the last decade and the entire time Trump's been saying, I'm going to fix health care. We're going to have a plan. It's going to be next year. It's two weeks away. It's two months away. And he's done nothing. That's how much he cares about his followers.

And it's really not much at all. Before we go to break, I do want to look at the continued compartmentalization and isolation that's happening in the current administration. You know, we talk often about projection, that which they accuse the other side of they are guilty of themselves. One of the regular claims about the Biden White House was that Biden was being kept isolated from information, from decisions that there were people in charge and Biden didn't know what was going on. And for all of the fair criticisms of Biden and how he had significantly slowed down in general and he's elderly. OK, for all of the criticisms, Biden always seemed to know what he was being asked about. He always seemed to know what had happened in the news.

He remembered being briefed about important things around the world. Trump's really struggling and it's sad and it seems that he is being kept out of the loop. Here's an example. A confused Trump reacts as though he doesn't know what J.D. Vance is saying about Russia. He just doesn't know what's going on within his own administration. Take a listen. Russia was asking for too much to end the war. Given that, do you still have confidence that when did he say that earlier this morning?

Well, it's possible that he's right. He may know some things that because I've been dealing with this and some other things. But we are getting to a point where some decisions are going to have to be made. I'm not happy about it. Imagine if Joe Biden ever reacted and said Kamala said said what? My vice president said, I haven't I haven't heard about it. It would be three days on right wing media. But Trump was asked about the death of those soldiers in Lithuania. He said, I don't know anything about it. He was asked about, I believe it was a car bomb that killed a Russian general. He said, I'm just learning about this right now.

And now it's J.P. Mandel said, what? Haven't heard about it. Trump is asked a really specific question. Is the administration sending migrants to Libya? Trump has no idea. The questions. Are you sending migrants to Libya? I don't know. You'll have to ask Homeland Security, please. He just doesn't know. And again, it's not that we expect every president to know every detail about everything all the time. But the standard that is being applied to Trump is so different than what was being applied to Biden. Now, remember the whole thing about 90 deals in 90 days. Howard Lutnik said with regard to the whole tariff scheme, I believe we can do 90 individual

deals with 90 different countries in the first 90 days. We're at zero deals and 110 days right now. But in case you were wondering, we're not on track really for any deals. And here is Trump saying we could sign 25 deals, but we don't even actually have that. Listen to this. Trump's trying to project strength here. But if you read between the lines, you realize there's no deals. Just to finish, we also have a situation because everyone says, when, when, when are you going to sign deals?

We don't have to sign deals. We can sign 25 deals right now. Howard, if we want it, we don't have to sign deal. Now, remember, Howard said we would already have 90 and Trump saying we could have 25, but we're choosing not to sign deals with us. They want a piece of our market. We don't want a piece of their market. We don't care. Totally fried, totally fried and implicitly admitting, implicitly admitting we haven't signed any deals right now. Could have signed 90, could have signed 25. Haven't done it. Simply haven't done it. Maybe the most rambly moment Trump starts talking about victory days for World War One and World War Two. I guess suddenly feeling we don't celebrate winning the world wars of 100 years ago enough.

All Americans should take pride in what these incredible patriots have achieved. So I just want to say happy victory day to all. So we are celebrating every year now. I can guarantee for four years, but I think after that, we're going to have two Victory Days, World War I and World War II. This is World War II Victory Day. Wow. In the future, we're going to have a major celebration of each day. Wow. We're not going to have days off because we don't have enough days in the year.

We have too many celebrations already. There you go. So incredible patriotism coming from the Oval Office. And then finally, I know he said this a lot lately. It's important to debunk it every time. Trump says we're losing a trillion dollars a year in trade to China. What do you expect? What do you hope to come out?

We'll see. I mean, look, it's we were losing a trillion dollars a year. Now we're not losing anything. You know, that's the way I look at it. We were losing with China on trade a trillion dollars a year more, actually one point one. But let's say a trillion. You know what we're losing now? Nothing.

That's not bad. Now, once again, when we send China a trillion dollars as part of trade, we're not losing the money because China sends us a trillion dollars worth of stuff. Imagine if I said, you know, yesterday I spent a hundred bucks at the grocery store. I lost a hundred bucks. The grocery store took huge advantage of me. They took a hundred dollars from me. I should just stop doing that. Well, the grocery store did give me a hundred dollars worth of groceries. If you pay your plumber two hundred dollars, did you lose two hundred dollars or did you exchange the two hundred dollars for plumbing services that you needed? It's a very dumb talking point that Trump has stumbled into. And one of the things that is common with this guy

is he'll stumble into a talking point that makes no sense, but that he can articulate comfortably. We were losing a trillion and now we're losing nothing. And he sticks with it and he repeats it. And that is also, by the way, a sign of decline that you use these verbal and linguistic crutches because anything more complicated is just too difficult to explain. Trade is called trade for a reason. It's not called sending money in exchange for nothing. It is a trade. We are trading money for stuff. And when countries import American products, we are trading stuff for money. This is really basic stuff. He either doesn't get it or people around him aren't explaining to him that this is not how it works.

Feeble, sad, disoriented. It's not getting better. Did you know that an estimated five billion plastic hand soap and cleaning bottles are thrown away every year? Our sponsor, Blueland, is on a mission to eliminate single-use plastic by reinventing cleaning essentials to be better for you and better for the planet with the same cleaning power that you're used to. The idea is super simple.

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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, uh, and the toilet bowl cleaner for a while. Couldn't be is off. The link is in the podcast notes. You know, on this program, we have talked about two really important changes happening in the United States. One is that more people than ever have stepped away from organized religion. And two, we've talked about how Christian nationalism seeks to assert its dominance in so many of our institutions, connecting church and state under the law in schools, in government, et cetera. I fully respect people's rights and freedom to believe anything they want privately. But we need to draw a line and say that can't be pushed onto others through government

and through civil legislation and lawmaking and all of these processes. That is exactly what our sponsor, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, is fighting to do. Keep church and state separate, just like our founders intended. So no matter whether you're secular and you've always been or you left religion or you're religious, but you understand that the founders said keeps church and state separate, the FFRF has your back. And dot U.S. slash freedom or text David to 511 511 and become a member today. That's FFRF dot U.S. slash freedom or text David to 511 511 to join the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

The info is in the podcast notes. Text fees may apply. All right, let's get into Friday feedback. You can email info at David Pakman dot com. Messages and comments from all of our platforms will sometimes be included if you have a criticism of the show. If I got something wrong, if you want to send the rare praise to the show, if I accidentally got something right for once. Anyway, you can write to info at David Pakman dot com. Let's start with Maya from Spotify.

Maya says, I have listened to David since I was 13 years old. I am now 18. I've never heard him this concerned. Thank you for being a voice of reason in the political sphere. Well, you know, one of the things I've always promised to do, and I think I've done an OK job at it, quite frankly, is I don't want to under or overstate the degree to which we should be concerned about something. And sometimes I will not be as worried as someone in the audience.

And I'll be getting emails saying, David, you're not nearly concerned enough about this. Sometimes I will get emails saying, David, please stop the hyperbole. Stop the red alert. Stop the slippery slope stuff. It is all completely and totally fine right now. I think we are at one of the most disturbing and worrying moments, certainly since I've been covering American politics. And I'm trying to do that justice every day and not go overboard and also not understated.

So I appreciate my seemingly thinking that I'm sort of getting the balance right. Mark Kilpatrick says the last time store shelves were empty, Trump was the president. Also, this is very interesting. Very interesting. We heard so much from Trump during term number one that the cupboards were bare in the military when Obama was president and Trump filled them up. And we heard so much from Trump about how the shelves would be empty if Biden becomes president and the shelves would be empty if Harris becomes president. Well, Trump lied about the Obama thing.

Shelves were empty under Trump during covid. They were not empty during Biden and they. Harris didn't win. So we don't know what would have happened under a Harris presidency, but they are potentially going to empty once again under Donald Trump. And so it is absolutely the case, sort of like when they say we will reduce the deficit and they increase the deficit every single time. There's a lot of do as I say, not as I do kind of thing. But the the most important point and takeaway is that they are guilty of that which they most fervently accused their opponents of doing.

Piscator Lager wrote in on YouTube and said Zelensky's English skills beat Donnie's by a margin. And it's his third language. Yeah. You know, I don't, we've talked about this before and sometimes people go, David, it sounds so elitist when you talk about how in other countries, everybody speaks multiple languages. Well, listen, maybe it's elitist. Maybe finding it elitist is actually a sign of one's own insecurities, but the United States is relatively unique in being a country in which so many people

proudly say, I only speak English. And some people like to argue, you know, the reason these other countries have to speak other languages is because no one speaks their language. And to a degree, that's true in Sweden, in Israel, in what's another good example in Finland. Why does so much of the population speak great English? Because their language is only spoken by a few million people. It's not the most useful language globally, but it's also an issue of culture and education. Because if you look at China, for example, a lot of people speak Mandarin and other Chinese dialects, but they still learn other languages in China because it's more than just a matter of necessity

based on how many people speak your language. So yeah, Zelensky's language skills say whatever you want. He's probably not going to exaggerate. Zelensky's English is close to as good as Trump's. And it's the only language that Donald Trump speaks. All right. On the tariffs and the effect on businesses, Mark Liebig wrote in and said, unfortunately, I'm in the automotive repair industry, transmission builder, and my parts have gone sky high. Unfortunately, I cannot absorb the costs and have had to raise my prices. I still do way better for the customer than a shop, but I can't eat all this COVID damn near killed my business because of the supply

chain issues. Here we go again. I'm getting dozens of messages like this. If I look just in our audience emails folder and look at tariffs, I've got this is just of the most recent 50 kind of looking of the most recent 50 emails related to tariffs. More than half are either people's businesses being affected by tariffs or someone telling a story of something that they buy being affected by tariffs or the expectation of tariffs. And I think that's a critical thing. All right. A relatively anonymous user has courageously said on TikTok, I had to unsubscribe from this guy, meaning me, when he told his audience it wouldn't matter if Biden had Parkinson's. Then wouldn't you know, he got invited to the White House Christmas party, corporate damn sellout. Listen. Critic criticize me for things I've said,

not for things I haven't said. What I said right around the time that Biden dropped out or even after was that if it's Election Day and the options are Trump as he is or Biden with known Parkinson's, I would still vote for Biden. And I think most most of the world would agree with that. It's not that Parkinson's doesn't matter. It's not that medical diagnoses for presidents are irrelevant. It's that if we get to November five, 2024 and you say you can vote for Trump or you can vote for a Biden who believes all the things Biden believes, but he has Parkinson's, which obviously at this point is not affecting him very much. Obviously, I vote Biden in that situation. OK, so criticize me for things I've said rather than what you either misunderstood

or completely fabricated whole cloth. Justin Irby commented on Spotify. I've been saving money the last few years and can't wait for the economy to crash. We need a correction from the last few Democratic spending sprees. GOP 2028. So I guess this is an example of someone who's saying I have figured out a way not to be hurt by an economic crash. And I want an economic crash, even if everyone around me is going to get hurt to prove a political point. Doesn't make Justin sound like a very good guy. I have to say not at all. And of course, there are many people who share this sort of perspective. I have a

different perspective. My perspective is, even though it would be a just dessert for a bunch of these Trump people to have their savings wiped out because the clueless clown that they elected wrecks the economy, even though they deserve it in some way. I still don't want it to happen. I say, no, what? I don't want people to suffer. Just it's just not in my nature. And then some people write it and go, David, you're being too kind. You should want some of these people to suffer. They deserve it. So listen, that's a view from Justin. I have a different perspective. OK, how this is just like a technical question, and I'll answer it here because it might be useful for members. How do I listen to the bonus show?

I'm a paid member. I just listen to the regular show on Spotify, watch it on YouTube. OK, so here's what you do. If you are a member, go to our website, David Pakman dot com and log in. When you log in, you will get the option to either watch the commercial free show and the bonus show or create a custom RSS feed that you can put in any podcast app that allows custom RSS feed. Spotify doesn't, but Apple does. So if you're wondering where to find all the great member benefits, log in at David Pakman dot com and go to member content.

OK, Rico Dina, Rico Dina says really tired of all the deference being paid to Biden for all the policies. Congrats. He didn't do job number one, defeating Trump. He appointed squishy Merrick Garland, who completely failed in delivering justice on behalf of the people. This one error negates any progress he made during his term. Biden is chiefly responsible for Trump's return to office. His hubris and institutionalism did this to us. You know, there are kernels of truth here, but there's a lot of nonsense here as well. When you say you're tired of deference being paid to Biden for policies, what else is there if

not policy? This person seems to be acknowledging you're talking about all the policies that Biden did right. But what about this other thing? Well, for me, the policies are really the number one thing. Now, I believe I have said Biden never should have run for reelection. He should have just remained the one term president that it seemed like he was promising to be when he was first elected. I think it was a mistake for him to run for reelection. At the same time, I think we have to place more blame with the Democratic Party more broadly, which failed in so many ways. Kamala Harris failed to credibly connect with potential voters on the issues of crime and immigration as fabricated as those concerns were by Republicans.

They fabricated them successfully. So I think that this misses a lot and saying, forget about the Biden policy. Who cares about that? Now, the number one thing is policy. And in fact, if we are to evaluate Biden's presidency honestly and accurately and completely, we should start with policy. Should he have not run a reelection campaign, allowed a primary? Maybe Democrats would have ended up in a stronger position. Sure. But in terms of what he accomplished, we don't

dismiss that. We start with that. And I just don't agree with this perspective. Now, if Democrats check out my op ed right that I did on Wednesday, if Democrats don't get it together and figure it out, you can't just run on Trump bad. Democrats will get crushed again and again and again. So I'm with some of the criticism, but we've got to start with policy. That's how we really evaluate the success of a president. Make sure you're getting my mailing list. If the clampdown comes on YouTube, Tic Tac, Instagram, Facebook, the only place where I will be able to get a hold of you and tell you what's going on

and you get a hold of me is if you are on our newsletter. Go to David Pakman dot com. You'll see where to sign up in the upper right or you can email info at David Pakman dot com and say, sign me up for that newsletter. We will see you on the bonus show.