The David Pakman Show - 6/3/25: Trump team humiliated on live TV, FEMA chief clueless about hurricanes

Episode Date: June 3, 2025

-- On the Show: — Republicans gut Medicaid while claiming they're "protecting" it, with Trump’s bill set to kick 15 million Americans off health coverage — Ukraine humiliates Trump by carrying out its biggest drone strike without even informing the U.S. President — Donald Trump goes missing for days following the Ukraine embarrassment, raising serious questions about who's really in charge — Trump has an unhinged meltdown on Truth Social, posting incoherent rants about uranium, tariffs, and the autopen — Trump Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt stumbles through basic foreign policy questions, revealing chaos at the top — Leavitt delivers a string of blatant lies about Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” inventing benefits that don’t exist — Trump’s FEMA chief is reportedly unaware that hurricane season exists, as layoffs and inexperience plague disaster response — MyPillow’s Mike Lindell melts down outside his trial, blaming Satan and shredded evidence in a surreal courtroom rant -- On the Bonus Show: MAGA’s response to a proposed national citizen database, 50 Cent vows to block a Trump pardon for Diddy, and a Republican senator says the best healthcare plan is "a job," much more... 🔬 Freedom From Religion Foundation: Text DAVID to 511511 or visit https://ffrf.us/freedom 🥣 Graza olive oil: Get 10% off “The Trio” set with code PAKMAN at https://graza.co ⚠️ Ground News: Get 40% OFF their unlimited access Vantage plan at https://ground.news/pakman 💼 Odoo: Try it completely FREE for 14 days (no credit card needed) at https://odoo.com/pakman 🐟 Wild Alaskan Company: Get $35 OFF with code PAKMAN at https://wildalaskan.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

Well, they are now starting to be punished by the monster that they created. We've seen examples over the last several years of how the MAGA wing of the Republican Party will go too far with an idea that it becomes a problem for them. But then by their own making, by the ways in which they've conditioned their followers, their voters and their fellow Republicans, they can't get off the ride because it's now moving too fast. And the latest problem for MAGA is that they find themselves having to run away from their very own Medicaid cuts, which

they told us were only about efficiency. They were about fraud and waste and abuse. By the way, months ago, we were told arrests for the fraud they found are imminent. Not a single person has been arrested. All right. Cases take time to build, but we haven't forgotten. And what is now happening is in in this new big, beautiful bill, this tax bill that has tax cuts for the rich and guts, a bunch of programs.

Republicans are also gutting Medicaid. We talked about it in detail when we went over the substance of the bill. But when you ask them about it, of course, their initial reaction is we're protecting Medicaid. We're not gutting Medicaid. We're protecting it by getting rid of the things that aren't working, by getting rid of the fraud, by getting rid of the abuse. They say they're strengthening it and they say nobody is going to lose coverage as a

result of what we're doing. If you do lose coverage, it's your fault. It's either because you did something wrong or we caught you or whatever the case may be. So this is not even really a debate about policy. We see contempt for their own voters. They don't give a damn. And Trump's big, beautiful bill, whatever they're calling it at this point, would lead

to 15 million Americans getting kicked off of their health care coverage. They're slashing 600 billion dollars for Medicaid. They're ending additional Obamacare subsidies. They're burying people, burying, always struggle with that word, burying people, burying, burying people in so much red tape that millions are likely to give up and just go without care. And when people call them out, they just lie. They say it's only waste, fraud and abuse. No one's going to lose coverage unless they choose to end their coverage. And what that really means is that they're telling their followers, if you suffer under this bill, it's because we believe you deserve to.

That's the only reason that you would end up without coverage. Russ Vought was on TV, on CNN, and he just straight up lies. He says no one will lose coverage as a result of this bill. It's straight up untrue. Listen to this. The other reason why we're seeing some pushback is because of the Medicaid cuts that were passed by the by the House and that are going to go into the Senate. There was a town hall, which I'm sure you saw.

Iowa Senator Joni Ernst was asked. It was pretty raucous about the Medicaid cuts. And she responded by saying people were saying that people are going to die and she said we're all going to die. But the question that she was getting were from constituents were concerns about Medicaid food stamps and other government support programs leading to people dying in premature deaths. What do you say to those concerns? I think they're totally ridiculous. This is astroturf. This bill will preserve and protect the programs, the social safety net, but it will make it much more common sense. Look, one out of every five or six dollars in Medicaid

is improper. We have illegal immigrants on the program. We have able-bodied working adults that don't have a work requirement that they would have in TANF or even SNAP and those are something that's very important to institute that's what this bill does. No one will lose coverage as a result of this bill. That's not what Josh Hawley, who is not exactly a liberal Democrat, said. He said it's wrong to cut health

care for the working poor and that's what we're talking about here with Medicaid. Well we continue to work with people in the Senate as to working through with the specifics of the bill, what it does and what it doesn't do. We'll continue to do that. And I think at the end of the day, the Senate will have a resounding vote in favor of a substantially similar similar bill.

They're just lying. OK, it is abundantly clear around 15 million, 12 million on the low end, 18 million on the high end, around 15 million people are going to lose coverage if this bill becomes the law in its current form. So what do we do? Because they're just lying, shamelessly lying. We probably stop arguing with them in terms of the logistics. And we just start being really clear about the truth, which is this is what they

think of you. If you're poor, sick, struggling to stay afloat financially, they believe that you are the problem, not them. And what they're doing to Medicaid in the bill, it's like that office space scene where they figure out that the stapler guy in the basement was actually fired a while ago, but through a glitch, he was getting paid. So they go, oh, OK, so now we're telling him he low no longer works here. And they go, no, no, no, we've fixed the glitch. He's no longer going to get paid. It's just going to kind of sort itself out.

That's a version of what Republicans are doing here. If you lose Medicaid, it's justice. It's our value system. And while we're fighting this out in policy debates, their media machine has simply moved on. Fox News tells their base everything's fine. The coverage losing coverage. What are you talking about?

Democrats are the ones destroying the country. Trump's finally here to clean it up and they'll show you, you know, empty folders, stacks of paper that are nothing and say, here's the evidence. And then they'll cut Medicaid and blame Joe Biden when people get sick and have no care. They don't really need left wing commentary to spin this stuff because they're generating their own alternate reality and it's completely self sufficient. So they don't wait for Democrats to say something controversial. They take nothing. They turn it into outrage. I don't think arguing is going to fix controversial. They take nothing. They turn it into outrage. I don't think arguing is going to fix this.

And so we need to use their own words and their own cruelty against them. They are saying three main things. If you do get kicked off of Medicaid, it's your fault. Don't blame us to if you can't work because you're sick or caring for a child. You're gaming the system. That's not a really legitimate reason not to work. And if you end up dying earlier than you should have based on medical technology that we have in twenty twenty five, we all die someday.

Right. That's the genius insight from Republican Senator Joni Ernst. And as Dana Bash pointed out in that segment we watched, there are even people on their side that are bailing. Josh Hawley says this is political suicide. Notice he doesn't say anything about the ethics or the morality of pulling the coverage. He just says politically, this is suicide. Rand Paul says it's bad strategy and House Republicans for now are still parroting the talking points because they've passed the bill. Right. It's the Republicans in the Senate who now actually sort of have the responsibility because

they can stop this thing or at least parts of it dead in its tracks. They are saying, you know, we need to save the safety net as if that's what they really care about. So what this is really about is what every Republican tax bill is about. Transfer wealth from the sick and poor to the rich, to the ultra rich, even better. And they're not even ashamed of it. At the same time, they do recognize the political liability that it represents. So we've got to tell people not just what the bill does, but what the bill exposes.

Republicans really believe about them when they show you who they are and what they believe. We should believe them. And right now, what they are saying is 15 million will lose coverage if and when they do. It's because they deserved it. I don't know that it is a political winner. It shouldn't be.

It's definitely a moral loser that we know. This might be the most humiliating moment of Donald Trump's second term. Ukraine just carried out the most devastating strike, arguably of the entire war against Russia without even telling the president of the United States, not before, not during, not after Trump found out like we all did on the news on TV. What happened is that Ukraine launched this major drone attack, a coordinated drone attack, destroyed nearly a third of Russia's strategic bomber fleet. Five air bases were hit, 40 bombers destroyed, billions of dollars in damage.

This took months and months to plan. Trump wasn't even in the loop. And why wasn't Trump in the loop? Because Ukrainian President Zelensky doesn't trust Trump. And he's right not to trust Donald Trump, because if you're honest, you can only conclude that Trump can't be trusted with sensitive information. He left classified documents in his bathroom in boxes. He's bragged about military secrets to journalists, to the Russian spy recruiter in the Oval Office

during his first term, Sergey Kislyak. And his inner circle is full of these sycophants and opportunists who treat national security like it's a joke, as evidenced by Signal Gate fiasco number one, Signal Gate fiasco number two. That's the one where Pete Hegseth's wife was on the chat chain. And Zelensky is not a fool. He realizes that if we want to be serious and competent and if we understand the stakes and we're running this operation, moving drones into enemy territory, putting them next to critical buildings.

You're not going to risk it by telling the guy who's known for blurting out secrets at Mar-a-Lago and pulling out papers and shuffling papers that he says, I'm not even really supposed to be showing you this stuff. And I would even go further, actually, even if Zelensky believed Trump was completely behind Ukraine in this defensive war against Russian aggression, which he's not right. But even if you're Zelensky and you go, I know Trump's behind us and not behind Russia, even if the American government under Trump wasn't dysfunctional and erratic and, you know, leaking like a sieve, it still wouldn't make sense to share the plan.

There was simply nothing to gain. The U.S. couldn't help. The only thing that could have happened would have been someone blowing the whole thing up accidentally or intentionally. And it's a sort of moment of clarity. Trump isn't feared. Trump isn't respected. He's not trusted.

He's not trusted, feared or respected by our enemies. And he's not trusted, feared or respected by our enemies. And he's not feared, trusted or respected by our allies. Putin's certainly not deterred that we've learned. He launched his own record breaking drone strike as well. A biggest Russian attack of the war, I believe. And Ukraine went ahead with its biggest operation and didn't tell the supposed leader of the free world because they don't see him as a leader.

They see him as a liability. They see Trump as a problem. And listen, understandably, Zelensky is willing to pay some lip service to Trump and show up and, you know, go through the motions because, yes, Ukraine does benefit militarily from donations from the United States. There is no doubt about that. But when it came to protecting his own people, Zelensky protected his people by not telling Trump that this operation was going forward. And that's how bad things have gotten.

And that's how low the country has sunk under Trump. The whole only I can fix it thing has become no one tells Trump anything anymore because no one trusts him with information or with power. And it really illuminates the myth of MAGA strength. We were talking last week about, you know, MAGA. What really what MAGA really wants at the end of the day is a daddy, a strict father. And this is the guy Trump who promised to make America respected again. And instead, our allies are running covert operations behind Trump's back because they

don't think he's stable and he's not. They don't think he's reliable. He's not. He's quite fickle. And they don't think he's competent enough to handle the heads up without the potential for it to leak. So Trump loves to talk about all the great relationships that he has with world leaders. That's because he confuses flattery with respect.

Putin will flatter Trump strategically to manipulate him. Zelensky is avoiding even talking to Trump in order to protect his own country. I know that the reaction from many magas is going to be who cares? These are sissy, terrible countries. We don't give a damn. Well, that may be. But the whole bill of goods that we were sold was that everybody with either would either respect Trump so much or fear Trump so much that they would fall in line.

Yes, sir, Mr. Trump, whatever you want. And of course, it's Putin strategically placating and flattering Trump when it's good for him. No sign of respect. And Zelensky seeing Trump is so unstable, erratic and unhinged that he doesn't even clue him in to what they're up to. Not a sign of being respected, not a sign of being feared. And by the by the way, there are debates as to whether it's useful to the United States to have your president be feared because the sort of frosting, the window dressing that the right puts on being afraid of Trump is he's so strong that people are afraid of him.

The reality, I believe, is Trump so erratic, unpredictable, disloyal and fickle that it's a strategic mistake. That's what people are afraid of. It's not we fear him because he's so big, strong and intelligent. It's we fear him because his values seem to be meaningless once they become inconvenient. So this is not a good place to be. If you look historically at when the leaders of global superpowers were seen as erratic and unreliable, it's never good.

It's sort of like when they say we've got to cut the budget, we've got to cut spending. We empiricists say, give me an example of a country that cut its way to prosperity. We can't find one. And similarly, give me an example of where being seen as an erratic, unreliable negotiating partner ended up being a good thing for a country. There are similarly no such examples, unless you want to say, well, when Kim Jong Un in North Korea acts crazy, he gets food aid. But North Korea is a country at a very different level of development than the United States

and not a comparison that I imagine most Maga Petain's would like to make. Let me know what you think. Make sure you're on my sub stack newsletter, which you can find at David Pakman dot com. I'm sorry. Yes, David Pakman dot com and David Pakman dot substack dot com. Either place will take a quick break and be right back. You know, every time we call out Donald Trump's authoritarianism, the right calls it media hysteria.

But I want to remind you that Trump admits he's looking for ways to defy the constitution and maybe even pursue another term. Now if you don't know the bias behind your news, you might believe, Oh, Trump's just teasing us. There's nothing here. Go to ground.news slash Pacman and see how media bias influences more than your perception from Trump's policy and ability to understand and undermine constitutional norms. I've been with ground news for years now because this is what they do.

They expose the hidden agendas behind reporting sources and make it easy to compare coverage and understand critical issues. to for 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. trust to giving my audience 83 percent off, which is just two or three a month plus four extra months for free. Go to PIA VPN dot com slash David. Similarly, by folks like you, people who say, hey, I like watching this. I like listening to this, including the daily one hour podcast. I'm going to support it by signing up at Join Pacman Dotcom.

We do an extra show every day for our members called The Bonus Show. Alex Jones hates that we have a bonus. Oh, the bonus show where you want to make money. Everybody else that makes money to fund themselves is bad. That's the real Alex Jones, by the way. I know that there are people when I play that who say, oh, it must be like an impersonator. That's the real Alex Jones, who once apropos of nothing blasted me on his show for like five minutes.

One of the things he was furious about was the bonus show. In addition to the bonus show, we do the commercial free audio and video feeds of the show for our members. Those are also made available to you hours before the show is published. Read about it. Sign up at Join Pakman Dotcom. Donald Trump has had zero official public engagements as president since Ukraine launched this drone strike into Russia, an attack that caught Trump off guard. He didn't know about it till it happened. We talked about that earlier.

And other than posting to Truth Central, which we'll look at in a moment and playing golf, Trump has had no official public events since raising the questions of what is Trump doing, where is he and why isn't he being seen publicly? Now I think it's important to mention I am not alleging that Trump is dead or in the hospital or anything like that, although I do kind of want to circle back to that for reasons you can probably guess. But over the weekend, we've seen Trump with nothing on his schedule. One day it was just golfing Monday yesterday.

His only item that was listed on his official schedule was a private lunch with Vice President J.D. Vance today, Tuesday, June 3rd. Nothing on Trump's schedule. You can look at his schedule each day. Nothing. No public events scheduled at all. So this is not just a quiet day or a quiet half day. This is now becoming a pattern.

Three straight days, the president of the United States has effectively gone off the grid other than posting to Troth Central and playing a round of golf. Now, I'm going to be responsible here. OK, this is not Hillary Parkinson's stuff. This is not they replace Biden with a clone stuff. I'm not suggesting Trump is dead. I'm not suggesting he's gravely ill. I think it's important to mention in all frankness and honesty that we shouldn't kid ourselves

if something were seriously wrong with Trump. I don't believe that the administration would tell us right away. The very White House that runs PR and damage control would probably go as long as possible if Trump had a medical emergency. They'd spin, they'd hide, they'd delay the news until it was impossible to cover up. I mean, remember when he had covid during his first term, they tried to make it sound like it's merely out of an abundance of caution because he's the president. We're going to bring him over to Walter Reed. We later found out that doctors were saying at the rate at which

you are deteriorating with covid, you may not be able to walk out of here if you wait. Let's get you out now when you can move under your own power. This will be way worse if you have to be brought out on a stretcher. I don't even know that we can keep that off camera. So we know brought out on a stretcher. I don't even know that we can keep that off camera. So we know that everything they do is to try to cover up the true state of Donald Trump's health. But put that aside, OK? He disappears for the better part of a week after a major international embarrassment. And people are noticing. And it was an embarrassing moment for Donald Trump. As we talked about earlier in the show, Ukraine's drone strike that went deep into Russian territory was a political escalation as much as it was a military expansion or escalation.

It exposed Trump's out of the loop in his own administration. Reports suggest the strike was coordinated without even involving the United States at all. And it tells you a lot about how little respect there is for Trump around the world. Trump's response, he disappears other than posting to Truth Central. Now, let's say for the sake of argument that Trump is completely fine. He's rested. He's healthy.

No major crisis behind the scenes. Then it's sort of like what the hell is he doing? This is the guy who spent years calling Joe Biden lazy, mocking Biden for going home on weekends, raging when Biden took a day off from public events. Sleepy Joe. Remember all of that? And now we find ourselves in a situation where it is endless rants about how Biden was never working.

He was never leading. And now it's Trump's turn. He spent more time golfing than Biden has. He's skipping key briefings. His daily schedule reads like a retired CEO in Florida, not the president of the United States. So we are now at a point where it is common that Trump's schedule has nothing on it when he shows up. It's often on the golf course.

It's a private dinner, some event surrounded by loyalists, the crypto meme dinner or whatever the case may be. So simply ask yourself the question, if this were Biden's schedule, what would the right wing media be saying if Biden had golfed Saturday, had a lunch with Harris on Monday and then disappeared otherwise? What would right wing media be saying? Well, we know that they'd be screaming from the rooftops. There'd be talk of invoking the 25th Amendment.

There'd be conspiracies about body doubles and secret illnesses and deep state takeovers, which there were throughout all of Biden's presidency. But with Trump, it's just silence. Maga doesn't care. Governance was never really the point. And I think that that's probably the scariest part of this, because if Donald Trump was just lying low or, you know, throwing a tantrum over Ukraine or sulking because the world didn't listen to him.

He's still the president. He's still the one with the nuclear codes. He's still got a team of extremists around him who are making moves every single day, whether or not Trump's there. You've got Stephen Miller and J.D. Vance and whoever else. So again, where is Donald Trump? And maybe just as importantly, if he's not at the wheel, who is at the wheel? We have some guesses, but we really don't know.

And it's another example of how all of the criticisms and claims about the Biden administration seem to be doubly true about Donald Trump. Let's now look at what Donald Trump has said, what Donald Trump has said about anything all through truth social, even though Trump's been missing in terms of his public schedule, his public schedule. He has been posting quite a bit to Truth Central Truth Social, his own social media platform, and it's completely whacked and terrifying. This is the stuff that is scaring everyone into wondering what is he doing? Why hasn't he been in

public and why is he posting this crap? Let's just look at a few examples. Trump posting the auto pen should have stopped Iran a long time ago from enriching under our potential agreement, we will not allow any enrichment of uranium. This is Trump sort of like what he did with NAFTA and USMCA, which has like changed the name. Trump is now kind of trying to rehab the Iran deal that he got out of with another one that is almost identical. OK, Trump continuing just had a great talk with our military leaders.

It is the strongest military we have ever had, including the fact that we are stockpiling weapons at a rate never seen before by our country. Hopefully we will never have to use them. Same story from Term One. Cupboards were bare when Obama turned over the military to me. I filled the cupboards with ammunition and weapons. Oh, Biden emptied it. Now I'm filling it again. Of course weapons. Oh, Biden emptied it.

Now I'm filling it again. Of course, we all know Biden did nothing of the sort. Trump continuing imploring everybody to pass his bill in this wall of text. Passing the one big, beautiful bill is a historic opportunity to turn our country around after a disastrous years. After four disastrous years under Joe Biden, we will take a massive step to balancing our budget, which, remember, the bill doesn't balance the budget. And by enacting the largest mandatory spending cut ever, Americans will get to keep more of their money with the

largest tax cut ever, no longer taxing tips over time and Social Security for seniors. These are mostly lies, as we've seen. Taxes will actually go up for lower earning Americans. It's all lies all the way down. I won't bore you with the entire thing. Trump continuing. So many false statements are being made about the one big, beautiful bill. But nobody understands what nobody understands is that it's the single biggest spending cut in history by far.

But there will be no cuts to Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid. Of course, this is untrue. In fact, they will be saved from the incompetence of the Democrats who have totally lost their confidence in their way, are saying whatever comes to mind, anything to win. OK. In any case, also riddled and filled with lies. Trump continuing attacking reporter Michael Wolf. Michael Wolf, a third rate reporter who's laughed at even by the scoundrels of the fake news,

recently stated the only reason I'm beating up on Harvard is because I applied there and didn't get in. That story is false. I never applied to Harvard. I graduated from the Wharton School. OK, again, Trump's instinct is let's attack the media. Trump's instinct is let me go after a reporter. Trump's instinct is let me make this about myself. Trump then threatening more people. If other countries if other countries are allowed to use tariffs against us and we're not allowed to counter them quickly and nimbly with tariffs against them. Our country doesn't have even a small chance of economic survival. That's right. Only tariffs all the way down are going to save this country.

Trump then congratulating Kid Rock and posting a bunch of drivel. Trump ally wins in Poland, shocking all in Europe. Congratulations, Poland, you picked a winner. Yeah, Poland picked like a mini Trump. And we're going to be talking about that as well. And then Trump going anti trans, a biological male competed in California girls state finals, winning big despite the fact that they were warned by me not to do so. As Governor Gavin Newscum fully understands large scale

fines will be imposed. Trump then saying that our economy is booming because of tariffs attacking Rand Paul, who, he says, has very little understanding of the big, beautiful bill. You know, I have to tell you, Rand Paul has very little understanding of a lot of things. Rand Paul seems to perfectly understand Trump's tax bill. And then Trump saying Rand votes no on everything, but never has any practical or constructive ideas. His ideas are actually crazy losers. The people of Kentucky can't stand him. This is a big growth bill. Trump stand him. This is a big growth bill. Trump has been missing from public events for days,

but he is posting insane conspiracy after lie, after deception, after distortion to social media. I want you to really be honest with yourselves, especially if you're a maga, a Magga, Petain, a Magga Donian who's in my audience. If Joe Biden were missing for three days. And posting unhinged lies and rants to social media. How would you be reacting right now? Think about it. Make sure you're subscribed to the YouTube channel. We are pushing towards three point five million YouTube subscribers. mandate the 10 commandments in every public school classroom in our Republican Congress, religious conservatives passed a bill to strip Medicaid coverage for gender affirming care

using religion as the justification. And across the country right now, we see these Christian nationalists really emboldened by the MAGA movement and they're reshaping America. And it's terrifying. This is why I support the Freedom From Religion Foundation. They've been fighting back since 1978, defending the separation of church and state in courts, in schools and wherever religion tries to take control. If you believe, as I do, that government should represent everyone, not just the religious

right. Take action now. Go to FF RF dot us slash freedom or just text the word David to five one one five one one. Go to FF RF dot us slash freedom or text David to 5 1 1 5 1 1. The info is in the podcast description. to be and This is most of you won't be shocked to see another example of Caroline Levitt, the White House press secretary for Donald Trump, being bad at her job. We're pretty familiar with that. We're comfortable with that. We're seeing it multiple times a week.

But this really exposes the degree to which even basic questions become a real problem for Caroline Levitt, not always because she's bad at her job or not only because she's bad at her job, but because very often the way she handles questions exposes the way in which she and Trump seemingly are out of the loop as to so many important things that are happening right now. I'm going to play a clip for you here. She was asked about Donald Trump's reaction to the Ukrainian drone strike on Russia. Now, we've already covered and we all know that this was deeply humiliating to the administration,

despite Donald Trump claiming and attempting to project strength and command respect and others being afraid of him and all of this stuff. Ukraine didn't even tell the United States that they were doing this. And I understand why, because Donald there was no upside. If anything, Donald Trump would blow. He would leak the plan and it would fail as a result. So we know that this was a deeply humiliating problem for the Trump administration. Here is Caroline Levitt being asked about the reaction.

She has no reaction. Trump has no reaction. All she can say is the reaction is the war must end. But as for how the president feels about those talks and what took place there, I'll let him speak. What's the president's reaction to that Ukrainian drone attack, stunning drone attack on Russian air base? The jury saw that. What's his reaction? Well, look, the reaction is this war needs to come to an end. And this war has been brutal from both sides. Too many people have died. And the president wants this war needs to come to an end. And this war has been brutal from both sides.

Too many people have died. And the president wants this war to end at the negotiating table. And he's made that very clear to both leaders, both publicly and privately. Now there's two problems with this. Number one, there's a translation here, which is Trump has no idea about this thing. Trump was deeply humiliated by this thing. He found out on TV that Ukraine had done this. He doesn't know anything about it. He's just furious that he wasn't kept

in the loop because his primary prism through which he analyzes everything is ego and self centeredness. But there's another issue here because it's another example of this. Both sides. The war must end. People are dying on both sides. We need the violence to stop. But there is an invader in this story and there is an invader. The invader here is Russia. The aggressor is Russia. The invader is Ukraine. And not only does the Trump administration often play the both sides game with it, which

is they go both sides have lost a lot of people. Sometimes Trump has actually said the war is a result of what Ukraine did. Ukraine started this war. Zelensky is responsible for Putin invading. And so this answer not only exposes how clueless the administration is about what's taking place, but it also exposes that they still are just getting the basic facts wrong and are still deferring to Russia relatively Compared to what the facts on the ground actually are now it didn't stop here

A follow-up question was asked about this potential phone call between Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi This is you know remember it was going to be 90 deals in 90 days. And then ultimately it became zero deals in 115 days. And we're being told, gosh darn it, really soon we might have one deal if we're lucky. Here is Caroline Levitt asked about this phone call that has become the subject of much discussion. President Trump has talked about wanting to meet with President Xi for a long time. Kevin Hassett over the weekend previewed a possible conversation between the two of them, including possibly this week. Has that call been scheduled? And what is

the president hoping to get out of that call with President Xi? Sure. She asked about the potential call with President Xi. I can confirm that the two leaders will likely talk this week. Will likely. I'm going to talk about that phrase will like. And as always, when there are foreign leader calls, we will provide a readout of those costs. OK, so the the use of will likely is a very important linguistic phenomenon here that is really carrying a lot of weight, will likely says nothing

about whether a call has been scheduled, will likely says nothing about whether a call will happen, will likely says nothing about whether President Xi is even eager to talk to Trump, to sort out a trade deal as Trump and Besant. And everybody is saying China is desperate to do. It's a very firm maybe. And it unravels into borderline satire. Right. I mean, it's possible that at some point it might be discussed whether to consider the possibility of scheduling a potential phone call between Trump and Xi,

possibly maybe. So this is really not foreign policy. This is like diplomatic mad libs or something like that. And it shows that the entire tariff operation is completely hollow and flaccid. We were told every country is going to be so eager to come to the table and negotiate because we're big and we're strong and we're alpha. And Trump's very long with his golf game, as he said yesterday. And who wouldn't want to come to the table? And yet, and yet none of it is actually happening. None of it is happening. And we have zero deals right

now. They're not prepared. They don't have answers. They've got someone on camera trying to explain the whole thing who is not even halfway competent. And if this is what America first looks like, nobody wanting to come to the table to negotiate. China kind of going, we're not really in a rush. I mean, all right, do the tariffs if you want. Meanwhile, we'll make deals with other Asian countries and European countries and African countries as Trump twiddles his thumb is missing for three days and posts to Truth Central, I guess, like this with his phone.

If this is America first, it's pretty pathetic and it didn't get any better when Caroline Levitt went on Fox News. Caroline Levitt had what can only be described as a lie stroke or she she entered a lie coma on live television, a fire hose of nonsense pouring out of her mouth about Donald Trump's big, beautiful bill. Here's what she said. And we're going to do something a little innovative here. OK, we're going to evaluate what she says and compare it to the truth.

And let's see how she does. This bill is the most historic piece of legislation to ever move through Congress in modern history. Not only does it save nearly two trillion dollars, but it also delivers on the president's key priorities. No tax on tips, no tax on overtime for our law enforcement Officers and all those who are putting in extra hours to make ends meet for their families It also ends taxes effectively on Social Security for our seniors who are dependent on that Social Security income It also has

Historic investments in border security historic funding for the Golden Dome and our national security and so many other incredible things are packed into this bill. So now it is before the Senate. Those discussions are ongoing, but the president is not going to back down from those key priorities that he promised the American public. And they are expecting Capitol Hill to help him deliver. We made the bill through the House. We need to get it through the Senate back to the president's desk here at the White House as soon as possible. Almost none of that is true. I mean, listen, she used words that I recognize as words from from the English language that we can give

her that. But as far as the substance, none of this stuff is true. And they're desperate because they know they have a problem. The Congressional Budget Office, not exactly, you know, a liberal think tank, just the Congressional Budget Office, which they believe when it's convenient and they don't when it's not. CBO says the bill would add nearly four trillion to the national debt over 10 years above and beyond the debt increases that we are already on track for. As far as ending taxes on Social Security, it's not in the bill. She might as well have claimed, you know, the bill cures arthritis and will bring back dial up Internet with all those noises that modems used to make. I mean, it's just completely detached from reality.

And the question I keep going back to is if the big bill, it is big, but if the big bill is really as beautiful as they believe it to be, as they claim it to be, why do they have to lie about what's in it? If it were really that beautiful, they could just tell the truth about what's there. And this gets even worse as she started talking specifically about the debt and deficit aspect of the. Oh, how do you win over Rand Paul? And what are what are what changes is the president willing

to see to this bill? Well anyone who votes against the one big beautiful bill, including Senator Rand Paul, will be voting for a tax hike of more than $4 trillion on the American people and their voters will know about it. That is unacceptable to Republican voters and all voters across the country who elected this president in a Republican majority to get things done on Capitol Hill. Did you see what she did there? Not passing the bill is now a tax hike.

Not passing the bill. If you vote against the bill, you're voting to increase taxes is what Caroline Levitt is saying. And again, remember, if the bill were so great, why do you have to lie about it? What actually is in the bill is that the 2017 tax cuts from Trump would expire. OK, if Congress does nothing, tax rates go back to what they were before, a little bit higher on the wealthiest Americans. That's it. That's what she's calling a four trillion dollar tax hike. The bill doesn't end taxes on Social Security.

It doesn't cut taxes to working people. In fact, we've seen the bracketed. Here's how your taxes would be impacted based on your income for all of the lowest income brackets. Taxes would go up modestly for some, but still up, not down. And it doesn't reduce the deficit. It actually increases it. It is a Trumpian branding exercise with fake numbers slapped on top.

And they are desperately trying to sell it to the public with lies so obvious. Even Rand Paul is calling them out. This is what happens when you mix economic illiteracy with authoritarian PR instincts and Trump wanting everything to just be. I'm big and strong. I'm big and strong and I put tariffs on everybody. I'm being big and strong and I pass the bill that I want. You get a press secretary delivering monologues that sound like parodies, except that they're real but filled with lies.

She's really saying this stuff. It just happens to all be completely untrue. Now, as far as the bills passage and sort of the trajectory where I'm at right now is I do believe a bill is going to pass. I do see the Senate as passing something. It seems that it would be too big of an optics failure to end up passing nothing. But if we are able to believe Rand Paul and what he said yesterday that we covered, it does seem that there are enough Republicans who are not going to pass the version that

the House passed in the Senate that it's going to have to be changed. And, you know, Rand Paul said if you just took out the debt ceiling increase, he would vote for it. That doesn't change the fact that it's still going to increase the deficit. It doesn't change anything. Just take out the debt ceiling increase and then you've got Rand Paul. And so my suspicion is Rand Paul doesn't like the bill, but Rand Paul is ultimately going to vote for it.

I think there's political liability for him if a bill is put together by the Senate that's acceptable to Republicans and he doesn't vote for it. So I do expect the bill to pass, but it is going to be different than what the House passed, which at the end of the day is pretty typical. Let me know what you expect. Email me info at David Pakman dot com. Will this bill pass and will it pass as conceived by the House or modified mildly or substantially by Senate Republicans. is for comes with all three of the varieties that they offer in a squeezy bottle. So you are all set for every style of cooking. Go to Graza dot C O and use the code Pacman. That's G R A Z A dot C O.

Use code Pacman for 10 percent off the trio. The link is in the podcast notes. All right. Awesome new sponsor to talk about. Wild Alaskan Company. the podcast notes. it's 100% wild caught. It's never farmed. It's from sustainably managed fisheries in Alaska, frozen at the peak of freshness and then delivered to you. They've got three curated boxes, the wild salmon box, the wild white fish box and the wild combo box. I got a box that had everything beautifully vacuum sealed.

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it's the sort of perfect storm of incompetence, arrogance, misinformation, disinformation, pseudoscience. The new head of FEMA didn't know that there's such a thing as hurricane season, the time of year when in the northern hemisphere in the United States, there are more hurricanes when the hurricanes are concentrated. This is not satire. This is not the onion. This is not Newsmax trying to be funny. This is the guy in charge of disaster response for the United States under Donald Trump,

Trump's FEMA administrator, allegedly saying he didn't know that we had such a thing called Hurricane season, the one that happens every year. It's on disaster planning calendars and meteorological documents. It starts in June and it's expected to be worse than usual this year. Now Reuters broke the story. David Richardson, Trump's FEMA chief, told staff during a briefing this week he didn't know that the United States had a thing called hurricane season and FEMA employees in the room were understandably stunned.

Multiple sources said they thought it might have been a joke. Like it has to be a joke. Right. But nobody was laughing because this is the guy who's supposed to be leading the country through natural disasters. And we've got to be clear about who this guy is, because that's a big part of the story. Richardson has no experience in disaster response, but he's leading the Federal Emergency Management Agency. He's a former Marine artillery guy who, until last month, was working on countering weapons

of mass destruction at the Department of Homeland Security. And apparently he still has that job, but he's also running FEMA and doesn't know there's a thing as hurricane season. Now, Trump's last FEMA chief, Cameron Hamilton, was abruptly fired after opposing Trump's plan to dismantle the agency. Now we have Richardson, a true loyalist to Trump, no background in emergency management. He needs cracking jokes or not about not knowing that hurricane season exists. Now, meanwhile, we do have actual professionals, emergency planners, meteorologists, responders. They're panicking. Noah has forecasted an above average hurricane season, up to 19 named storms, 10 hurricanes, five potentially major, five

major hurricanes expected. And this comes after Donald Trump laid off nearly 2000 FEMA employees and then another 600 from the National Weather Service. And to make matters even worse, FEMA's slashing hurricane training, travel, disaster workshops, some national weather service offices, including the tornado prone state offices, are closed overnight. Forecasting accuracy expected to drop. This is a classic. Oh, they're terrible at weather forecasting.

Well, they're terrible because Trump slashed positions. Well, let's close the whole thing down. So now you look at places like Houston and Nashville. They are 35 percent understaffed. There are memos warning our forecasts are going to get worse. And Trump's solution is gut the agency and put a guy in charge who doesn't even know hurricane season exists. Now we've talked over the very long decade that Trump's been in politics about qualifications

and expertise and what that means. And this really isn't about being unqualified. This is way more than that. This is actively undermining government preparedness for political reasons, because Trump has already come to the conclusion before doing the stuff. Trump has said, oh, FEMA should be dismantled. Republicans are floating bills to eliminate it. Just give everything over to the states.

And there's one House Republican who's introduced legislation to abolish FEMA. Nobody is co-sponsoring it, thankfully. So don't think for a second that this isn't dangerous because these are the people who say we care about law and order. We care about saving lives. We care about protecting Americans. But they cut agencies that enforce law and order, save lives and protect Americans.

And here it's one that does it when there are hurricanes or wildfires or tornadoes or floods or whatever else. And so Democratic leaders are furious. Chuck Schumer is furious. You know, OK, that makes sense that they should be furious. But they need to understand that this is not about incompetence. This is sabotage. They're not failing at the job.

They're refusing to do the job. They're putting people in who can't do the job and don't want to do the job. And the goal is always prove that it doesn't work, prove that government doesn't work, break it from the inside, break education to then say we don't need the Department of Education because this thing sucks. Break the Postal Service to then say we shouldn't be in the business of the Postal Service, even though it's not a business as the government, because it sucks. This is a very long held strategy.

They do it with social safety nets. They do it with all of these things. And the idea is prove it doesn't work and then dismantle it. If a hurricane slams into the Gulf Coast this summer and FEMA's response is delayed or inadequate or nonexistent, you think Trump is going to say, hey, you know what? It's my fault. I cut FEMA. I cut National Weather Service.

Of course not. He's never done it. He would go. It's Biden's fault or it's the deep state or it's shadowy forces conspiring against me or it's the states themselves, especially if they're blue states, whoever they can scapegoat is going to be the problem. But they're setting this up to fail on purpose. And so this is more than an absurd, absurd comment.

It's governing has become a joke. And if people's lives end up being lost, it's collateral damage. The main thing is to show that none of these systems work. So a big oh no, because this hurricane season is expected to be really bad. And we are quickly learning that these clueless staffing choices are not just theoretical, they are putting people at risk. It is not just FEMA. You know, we looked at so many other examples. Trump has packed the government with ideologues from Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at Health and Human Services, you know, an anti-vaxxer leading public health.

They pulled in Dr. Marty McCarrie. We talked about this yesterday. He's been spreading covid vaccine disinformation on TV. So sometimes we say, you know, president gets to pick who he wants. And it's just kind of what it is. These are not harmless figureheads. They are people responsible for disaster response, disease prevention and emergency preparedness. And so it's all theoretical.

What's that thing? Mike Tyson is credited with saying everybody has a plan until you get punched in the mouth. It's sort of that thing. And when FEMA's chief doesn't know when hurricane season starts or that it exists and the guy running HHS is coming up with whatever position on raw milk, who the hell knows? This isn't just embarrassing. This can be deadly. These are decisions with real consequences. And in a sense, you know, if we were a sane population that said, oh, I'm getting data, let me synthesize that data to make a conclusion, we would go, you know, apparently all of this

stuff about the federal government being bloated, overblown and doing unnecessary stuff. I guess that's not true, because as Trump guts agency after agency after agency, we see the real world consequences. And of course, then we go. They gutted it on purpose. That's bad. And we're paying the price.

Let's vote these people out. That would be in a sane world. I don't know that we have a sane world right now. Mike Lindell, the founder and CEO of MyPillow, no known also as Mike Pillow or simply eponymously as Pillow, is back. He's still sweaty. He's still screaming. He's still somehow convinced that he's the hero of a story

no one else believes. Here is video of pillow outside the courthouse where he's being sued and he absolutely lost it. He shouted that they deleted all the evidence he needed to win. It's always like the dog ate my homework sort of stuff. If your evidence has been proven fake multiple times in court, which his evidence has been, then how is the problem that it's been deleted? None of it really makes sense. It's just the sense making is just out of grasp. But here's what Pillow had to say. He does not look well, but it was also my evidence. So when I come in, I needed that evidence. When you delete evidence, it's like throwing a gun in a river that's called spoiling Asian in any court case.

They threw away my evidence. You think I wasn't upset about that too, but I know I wasn't worried about some court case down the road. I was worried about. I mean, I can't believe the cover up that they're covering up our elections starting here in Colorado. I'm going to be totally honest with you guys. I really shouldn't. I feel bad for Pillow. I really do. He he always you know, he's been on the show a couple times and sometimes he's texted me and it's like I just I kind of feel bad for the guy. He's moved from mere conspiracy theorist almost to like an end times prophet type figure at this point. And he's saying that he's the victim of spiritual warfare, legal activism, defamation, election lies.

But I feel bad for the guy. And by the way, he's also kind of dangerous with this stuff because it's not just the guy melting down over losing his pillow profits. He was one of the big players after the 2020 election, fueling a narrative that was responsible for violence and intimidation and an attempted coup and an attempted insurrection. And even as the legal walls are closing in around him and they seem to be he's not going to win any of these cases, there's just no way he's out here ranting into microphones like he's Moses descending from a mountain made of shredded up voting

machines or something like that. And I think that it is simultaneously dangerous. But something about, I don't know, I guess I'm too empathetic. I really do feel bad for the guy. And I'm not even, you know, I know that there are people who are convinced that this is because he's he's back on drugs. He told me that he's not. If that were the case, that would be sad and tragic.

I don't know what this is, quote, really about. And maybe it's not necessary to even figure it out. This is what accountability looks like for MAGA leaders. They they are starting to be held accountable and they go, oh, I'm a victim here. They project they have public meltdowns. And Mike Pillow is putting on a masterclass in all three. And as dangerous as I find him to be, I also feel bad for the guy because it does seem like this is all kind of a reflection of something.

I don't know what, but it's some kind of crisis, mental health crisis. I don't know. Let me know what you think. And is is there something wrong with me that I feel bad for him? And by the way, I feel bad for Rudy Giuliani also, despite all the horrible things he's done to see it all crumble around him. And it's it's his own fault. It's his own damn fault. At the end of the day, I feel bad for Rudy as well. I don't know. Let me know what you think on the bonus show today. We are going to talk about MAGA's reaction to a national citizen database. A lot of them don't like it in the prosecution of Diddy. Fifty Cent is now reportedly going to get involved in working against Trump pardoning

Diddy. This is very interesting. And then finally, in the midst of all of the concerns about Americans losing Medicaid, losing health care coverage thanks to this big, beautiful bill, we have a Republican senator who says, hey, here's an idea. Have a job. The best health care is have a job. What? That's part of the problem. All of those stories and more on today's bonus show. Remember that my instant New York Times bestselling book, The Echo Machine, I've got a version

here with the New York Times bestseller Little Circle is available everywhere. And please remember, if you have not yet done it, review the book on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Goodreads. We are at nearly twelve hundred reviews on Amazon. Incredible stuff. I appreciate it very much. So I'll see you on the bonus show. I'll be back here tomorrow.

We're going to keep at it.