The David Pakman Show - 7/22/25: Epstein panic grows as new deadline closes in

Episode Date: July 22, 2025

-- On the Show: -- Nick Maggiulli, author and COO for Ritholtz Wealth Management, joins David to discuss his new book "The Wealth Ladder: Proven Strategies for Every Step of Your Financial Life." Get the book here: http://www.davidpakman.com/wealthladder -- House Republicans abruptly recessed Congress to block a bipartisan vote on releasing Epstein files—after Trump personally intervened -- Trump is once again preparing to walk back his tariff threats after Wall Street jitters, proving his bluster melts under pressure -- Hunter Biden unleashed a profanity-laced interview attacking Trump, Stephen Miller, immigration hypocrisy, and Democratic opportunism—sending MAGA into a tailspin -- Trump and his team are deflecting blame over the suppressed Epstein files, pinning it on the FBI, DOJ, and even MAGA allies like Pam Bondi -- Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal over Epstein coverage has landed before an Obama-appointed judge with a history of forcing Trump into depositions -- Trump is scrambling to stop Ghislaine Maxwell from testifying before Congress, fearing what she could reveal about his ties to Epstein -- Facing Epstein backlash, Trump is desperately recycling old hits—like Hillary’s emails—to distract from growing outrage, even among his base -- On the Bonus Show: WSJ reporter removed from Trump's Scotland trip, MLK Jr. files released in latest Epstein distraction, Coca-Cola releasing cane sugar option, and much more... 🍓 Strawberry.me: Get a $50 credit when you sign up for coaching at https://strawberry.me/pakman 🌀 Hypnozio: Get 15% off with code PAKMAN15 at https://davidpakman.com/hypnozio ⚠️ Ground News: Get 40% OFF their unlimited access Vantage plan at https://ground.news/pakman-- Become a Member: https://davidpakman.com/membership -- Subscribe to our (FREE) Substack newsletter: https://davidpakman.substack.com/ -- Get David's Books: https://davidpakman.com/echo -- TDPS Subreddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/thedavidpakmanshow -- David on Bluesky: https://davidpakman.com/bluesky -- David on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow

Welcome, everybody. We start today in the House of Representatives. Last night, Republicans in the House of Representatives shut down the House to protect Donald Trump from potential Jeffrey Epstein fallout. I want to call your attention to when the right just couldn't stop screaming, release the list. They're all on video. They're all on audio recordings doing it.

Every MAGA influencer said the Epstein client list must be released. We need justice. We must vow to expose the deep state. And it's all about protecting children, which is postpartisan. And it turns out all of that stuff was only maybe true until Donald Trump's name might be on that list, until the people around Donald Trump back in power think it might not be so good for that list to be released. And now they have gone either completely silent or even worse. They are part of trying to shut everything down, to hide the documents.

And now they have shut down Congress to stop the vote. Here's what happened on Monday night. House Democrats were set to force a vote to release the Epstein files, the same vote MAGA demanded for years. It had bipartisan support. Republican Thomas Massey co sponsored it. But suddenly, MAGA Mike Johnson shuts the whole thing down. He doesn't figuratively shut it down.

He recesses the House, cancels legislative business and says we are done here. And all of it is to avoid the political risk that the vote passes. And Trump's name is on the list. And Republicans screw Trump. Trump personally asked House Republicans to kill it. He said of his own supporters, you are weaklings for pushing the Epstein stuff. You've been duped.

There are stupid people and all of it has now led to many of his own loyalists pretending that there is no such list, while other loyalists have said, I'm not falling for this. So you've got a mix. You've got people like Charlie Kirk who are remaining completely loyal. You've got people like Tim Poole, for example, or Tucker Carlson, who have said we are not going to just shut up because all of a sudden Trump says we don't need to worry about this thing. The problem is that there are loyalists, influencers and right wing MAGA creators who really built

the following off of we are pushing for the release of the Epstein list so they can't really now do a 180 without potentially suffering themselves. But the goalposts have been moved, you know, onto another planet. And we have to acknowledge that we knew this, of course, but they tried to have the plausible deniability to say we just care so much about children. They cared so much about children when they believed they had something to exploit that would be used to attack Democrats and to prop up Trump and MAGA as the defenders of children who would go to the ends of the earth to expose anybody doing wrong to children. But now it's their guy and it's either old news or Congress needs to go and take a vacation

or we've got to shut down the House to stop a vote on releasing information about child sex trafficking, which they claimed was a postpartisan first principle value near and dear to their hearts. So this is the pattern that this is what we continue to see. Trump gets we're for law and order. Trump gets indicted. Republicans say we've got to defund the Department of Justice. Trump's name shows up in the Epstein files or at least potentially or is believed to

be there. They shut down the House. Trump's policies backfire on his own base. Well, then they gaslight the country and they say it's fake news and you can't believe what you're hearing or what you're seeing. We you know, I'm often critical of political parties. And I've said as someone who has never been a Democrat, I think Democrats are less bad than Republicans on some issues.

There are important differences on other issues. You know, you look at what happened with with Biden's bad idea reelection of 2024 and you really investigated and you know, I was even at the White House and I saw some of it firsthand that matches up with what's been written. And you say, man, is this a party that has the best interests of the country in mind? Really? I just don't know. But there are differences between Democrats and Republicans. I can't even really say that the Republican Party is a political party anymore.

It's sort of like an alibi factory. It's just become a human shield really for one guy, Donald Trump. And they have become Republicans have what they once claimed to fight against. So the next time you hear release the list, ask them, why did you run from the vote? Why did you shut down the House? Who are you really protecting? Because if the highest value really was protecting kids, everything, everything would have gone completely differently here.

It seems that the Trump administration is preparing to chicken out once again on tariffs. You might remember that 90 deals in 90 days expired on July 9th, now a couple of weeks ago. And then we got a new deadline. The new deadline is August 1st. August 1st is now looking increasingly like a suggestion, not really a deadline, because we know that when things get real, Donald Trump gets very scared. Scott Besant was asked on CNBC, is August 1st a firm deadline or might it be extended? And sycophant in chief Scott Besson said, well, it sort of depends on what Donald Trump

wants to do. It's always the same thing. When the new deadline is placed, it's hardened fast. And then as we approach it, it's really all up to the president. Of course, here's Scott Besson explaining it way more brown nosingly than I ever could. Mr. Secretary, a couple of quick questions. First of all, I realize this is entirely up to the president to decide this. But do you think it's possible that the deadline for tariffs could be extended for countries where

you feel like there are productive talks? Again, Becky, we'll see what the president wants to do, but again, if we somehow boomerang back to the August 1st tariffs, I would think that a higher tariff level will put more pressure on those countries to come with better agreements. We just reached an agreement with Indonesia and I saw five turns of their offers and this started several months ago. I thought the first offer was very good. They came back, the offer kept getting better and better

and we ended up with a fantastic trade agreement. I think there was something, and don't quote me here but I think there were 11,000 lines of tariffs that got taken out including non tariff barriers. We have a 19% tariff on them. They have zero tariffs on us and they are going to do a massive purchase of agriculture and Boeing airplanes. So that's what a good trade deal looks like. But let me translate. OK, because the question really was, you know, these people are really good at answering questions that weren't asked. The question is, how firm and hard is the August 1st deadline. And the translation from Besson is, well, we're kind of laying the groundwork to walk

it back again because Donald Trump always talks big. But as soon as there's a flinch from Wall Street or from Republicans, Trump folds like a bad poker hand. It's like he's got seven to offsuit and he's just getting out. By the way, I don't know that I even mentioned this. I sat at the next table over from Scott Besson at dinner last time I was in D.C. I went over and had dinner with a friend. This was just a couple of weeks ago.

I had dinner at, um, Haleo, great restaurant. Many waitstaff who are huge fans of the David Pakman Show. Shout out to them, by the way. And I looked around and at the next table over, there's a group of like maybe eight or 10 guys. And I do a double take. And Scott Besson is there. No one's noticing that he's there. He's wearing a suit, but everybody else at the table is sort of wearing like, you know, they're kind of like lumberjack wearing Carhartt type clothing, even though it was very hot in D.C. that day, not the type of thing you would normally see there. And Besant just sat there and, you know, ate his calamari and didn't really say much.

It was a very unusual thing where I was left wondering what group is this guy even with? But regardless, no hubbub, no security around. They were probably outside. Who knows? Totally irrelevant anecdote. It just remind me. I don't know that I mentioned that. So let's get back to Besson's CNBC appearance.

The topic comes up of the economic sophistication of different presidents. And this is just sort of funny. Besson takes the opportunity to say, you know, Obama, he was not really as economically sophisticated as Donald Trump. Donald Trump, who still doesn't know who pays the tariffs. I've known the president a long time and he always asks people for their opinion on things I met. I don't think it.

I don't think that it would be criticism if he were to acknowledge that there would be criticism, if he were to acknowledge that he asked you what about firing Jay Powell and you gave him your comments. How much of this story is real? Is it in between? And I'm talking about the notion that you urged him not to fire Jay Powell and he actually is is obviously he's the president he can do what he wants but did you have a conversation? Well you know Joe I think the problem with stories like this is I

I'm not sure who the leaker was but the problem with leakers is they only have partial information and I think the other problem too is that newspapers like the Wall Street Journal are not used to a high functioning executive president. They are used to perhaps President Biden, perhaps President Obama, who was not as economically sophisticated as President Trump. That's right. Obama wasn't as economically sophisticated as Trump.

But Trump once called his then national security adviser Michael Flynn at three a.m. to say, is a strong dollar or a weak dollar better for me and better for the country? And it's the guy who has spent a decade saying that when you put a tariff on China, China pays for the tariff rather than the importing countries. That's what we are supposed to believe. And on the other hand, President Obama's sort of like calm competence is economic ignorance. And we are to believe that Trump's erratic sort of TV brained policymaking is just genius. So bottom line, Trump's pretending preparing rather to blink again because tariffs get headlines, but they're not so

good when it actually comes to governing. They're not so good for the reelection of Republicans in Congress as we approach the midterm elections. If inflation goes up and markets tank and voters start noticing everything's costing more. So it's the same routine. You threaten a policy that if you're Trump, you don't understand. You realize all of a sudden, damn, this could hurt me politically. And then you blame someone else. You back out. You say, well, we're being patient. Now,

the only caveat here is hours later, Besant appeared on Fox and he said they are ready to announce a rash of trade deals very soon. And it wouldn't shock me to see people get a rash from how irritating this whole back and forth game is. And I can tell you, we're about to announce a rash of trade deals in the coming days. And a lot of these trade deals are going to include substantial investments in the U.S., whether it's autos, semiconductors and pharmaceuticals. Yeah.

Well, you know, you've said that the administration is not rushing these trade deals and that it's. All right. So anyway, a rash of trade deals is coming very soon. I'll be totally honest with you. I do think at some point there are going to be a bunch of trade deals. I don't think it's going to be 90. I don't believe they will be as favorable to the United States as Trump and Besson have

been making it out to be. But they've missed a bunch of deadlines already. At some point, you're going to get some deals. Just remember to keep them honest by evaluating them based on what they promised. So if they get 18 trade deals in 150 days, that's not 90 deals in 90 days. And so they are going to try to snow you. And it's important that we remember the promises that they made. I hope that you are subscribed to our YouTube channel, YouTube dot com slash The David Pakman

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Forget Trump's gold card, a gold member of the David Pakman show, meaning you have both a website membership and a sub stack paid subscription. Finally, if you want to request a free membership, go to David Pakman dot com slash free membership. Hunter Biden interviewed with Andrew Callahan and the interview has triggered a complete and total maga meltdown. How dare Hunter Biden hurl expletives at members of the Trump administration? How dare Hunter Biden say F this and F that about the Trump administration? We're going to look at some clips. I really went back and forth about whether to even mention this next thing. And

I do think that I need to say something about it. Many of you know that Hunter Biden has a history of substance use issues, illicit drugs, as they are known. There is rampant speculation and immediate speculation because of Hunter's demeanor in this interview that he is, quote, on something likely an upper, not a downer. I mentioned that not because I am making that assertion. I think it's one of these things where if I don't mention it and a whole bunch of people watch this clip and watch me discuss and analyze it and they go that he seems he seems sort of hopped up. How did you not mention that, David?

I'm mentioning the fact that there are people speculating about it, but I have absolutely no evidence that that is going on. So let's just I'll couch it that way as we watch these videos, as we listen to them. Interestingly, regardless of the speculation about Hunter and substances, he went off on Democrats who benefited from Joe Biden and Barack Obama and used that selfishly and cynically. Let's listen to what he had to say. A very interesting interview. But the fuck him.

Fuck him. Fuck him and everybody around him. I don't have to be fucking nice. Number one, I agree with Quentin Tarantino. Fucking- George Clooney is not a fucking actor. He is a fucking- like, I don't know what he is. He's a brand. And by the way, and God bless him.

You know what? He supposedly treats his friends really well. You know what I mean? Buys them things. And he's got a really great place in Lake Como And he's great friends with Barack Obama. Fuck you. What do you have to do with fucking anything? Why do I have to fucking listen to you? What right do you have to step on a man who's given 52 years of his fucking life to the service of this country and decide

That you George Clooney are gonna take out basically a full-page ad in the fucking New York Times to on me and James Carville who hasn't run a race in 40 fucking years and David Axelrod who had one success in his political life and that was Barack Obama and that was because Of Barack Obama not because of fucking David Axelrod and David Plouffe in all of these guys in the Pod Save America guys who were junior fucking speech writers in you know on Barack Obama's junior fucking speech writers in you know on Barack Obama's Senate staff who have been dining out on the relationship with him for years making millions of dollars the Anita Duns of the world who's made 40 50 million dollars off the Democratic Party they're all going to insert their judgment over a man who has figured out unlike anybody else how to get elected to the United

States Senate over seven times how to pass more legislation than any president in history how to have a better midterm election than anybody in history and how to garner more votes than any president that has ever won and they're gonna replace their judgment for for his not to mention who's Jake Tapper's audience I don't know I don't even think it's your mom anymore. No, no, no. By the by the numbers. What influence does Jake Tapper have over anything?

He has the smallest audience on cable news. And beyond that, I think that the book is right now on Amazon that he put out. I mean, his ratings just went to shit after he put the book out. And you know, they saw a lot of understandable anger from Hunter Biden at people who he feels did his dad wrong, but not just anger aimed at Democrats or the left or the media. Here is Hunter Biden calling out Trump's targeting of immigrants. All these Democrats say you have to talk about and realize that people are really upset about illegal immigration.

Fuck you. How do you think your hotel room gets cleaned? How do you think you get food on your fucking table? Who do you think washes your dishes? Who do you think does your fucking garden? Who do you think is here by the fucking sheer fucking just grit and will that they figured out a way to get here because they thought that they could give themselves and their family a better chance And he's somehow convinced all of us that these people are the fucking criminals white men in America are 45 more times likely to commit a fucking violent crime than an immigrant and the media says well

You got David Axelrod and you know know, Rahm fucking Emanuel, was so fucking smart, Rahm Emanuel. He said, we gotta understand that these people are really mad. And we gotta appeal to these white voters. Rahm, the only people that fucking appealed to those fucking white voters was Joe Biden, 81 years old, and he got 81 million votes. And he did because, not because he appeased

their fucking Trumpian sense, but because he challenged it. And he said, you can be an 81 year old Catholic from fucking Scranton that doesn't understand it, but still has empathy for transgender people and immigrants. Then nobody said, Oh, Joe Biden's going to turn us into a socialist state no matter how much they said it. But these guys think that we need to run away from all values in order for us to lead. I say, fuck you. How are we getting those people back from fucking El Salvador?

You know, I have to tell you, the delivery is one that might not be everybody's cup of tea. But this level of anger is actually justified given everything that has gone on and is going on that I sympathize with very much. Hunter Biden weighed in on Stephen Miller. This was sort of funny moment. I don't know anyone personally that if you took Stephen Miller isolated and you played a clip of the things that he says every day, we arrest another alien.

They let into this country who raped a child who beat a woman. Quote, all the kinky haired, swarthy skinned, long despised phantoms, all the teeming ants toiling for the white man's comfort. In his little physical demeanor, and not be able to say, there's something fucked up about that motherfucker. However, how do you identify and change the mind of someone who is so ignorant that they cannot discern between a fact in an outright lie? That is a topic in the echo machine.

Right. The way I wrote about it in my book, which is back here and the way Hunter presents it without a doubt are two different styles. But we're kind of getting at the same point, which was so interesting about this interview, that the delivery and the tone and the erratic nature of it was was notable. And also a lot of the things Hunter was saying really do need to be said here. He is weighing in on dictators. These guys think that we need to run away from all values in order for

us to lead. I say fuck you, how are we getting those people back from fucking El Salvador? Because I'll tell you what, if I became president in two years from now or four years from now or three years from now, I would pick up the phone and call the fucking president of El Salvador and say you either fucking send them back or I'm gonna fucking invade. It's a fucking Crime what they're doing. He's a fucking dictator's dog. We'll Kelly or Trump both both Both bukele and Trump and then finally hunter does go scorched earth Specifically on Donald Trump to meanwhile these motherfuckers with Trump mobile We're gonna be introducing an entire package of products

They're selling gold telephones and sneakers and $2 billion investments in golf courses and selling tickets to the White House for investment into their meme coin. Overnight President Trump returning to the White House after a black tie gala for the biggest buyers of the Trump crypto coin. The Qataris give him a jet and the Emiratis put two billion dollars into their cryptocurrency and the Saudis are going to build a tower. And I mean, by the way, that's just what we see. And I even hate mentioning my name in that because either I am the biggest fucking moron

on the face of the earth or like what the fuck are we talking about? Like what is Fox News talking about? Anybody that mentions my name in crime family in the same, I'm like, what are you talking about? Like if you believe the worst possible thing that they've ever said about me, what they are openly doing, they're openly doing. And nobody's batting an eye. Don Jr. is opening a club called the Executive Club in Georgetown in which it is promised that you will be able to rub shoulders

at the cost of a fraudulent crime. And that's what they're doing. Don Jr. is opening a club called the executive club in Georgetown in which it is promised that you will be able to rub shoulders at the cost of a $500,000 initiation fee. The $500,000 membership fee would make it the most expensive private membership club in the country after Mar-a-Lago to join the club with people and decision makers in the cabinet of his father. All right. So the launch party. This was a fascinating interview, number one, because there are people who never want to

hear from Biden's at all ever again. And to see Hunter come out and actually to take some pretty good shots at the Democratic Party and certainly at Trump, I thought was interesting to see the way that this has triggered MAGA, who are just coming out and essentially just assailing the character of Hunter, ignoring the substance of what he is saying. You know, they're one of the large themes of the response to this interview that Hunter Biden did has been who would listen

to a cracked out whatever. But that doesn't really address the substance of what Hunter is saying. And Hunter's critiques of the Democratic sort of operating status quo hit a lot of areas of overlap with my views. And certainly his critique of what's going on with Trump and the hangers on and the grifting deal with the substance of what he's saying. And MAGA is so decrepit and corrupt at its core that there really is no arguing with the substance of what Hunter said. So I found the interview extraordinarily interesting. I encourage you to

check it out and definitely let me know. Let me know your thoughts about it. Predictably, Donald Trump is now setting up to throw his FBI director, Cash Patel, under the bus to avoid responsibility for the release of the Epstein files. Also, Pam Bondi, the attorney general, may not be immune to collateral fire for lack of a better term. So let me explain what's going on. Last week, Donald Trump said, I have directed the FBI and the DOJ to release pertinent Epstein documents from grand jury testimony. That's extraordinarily limited.

We now are getting questions about why hasn't that happened and why not call for a release really of everything. And what we can see from Caroline Levitt's answer here as the White House press secretary for Donald Trump, she speaks for the president. She is signaling we are going to throw everybody else under the bus. And Levitt essentially argues Trump asked for it. It's at the end of the day up to the DOJ and the FBI. If you don't get it, then it is their fault.

Not Donald Trump's. This is the setup they're doing. The president just ordered the FBI to release the full accident files. Just get it all out there. The president has said if the Department of Justice and the FBI want to move forward with releasing any further credible evidence, they should do so as to why they have or have not or will. You should ask the FBI about that.

Boom. They have now made it the FBI's problem. They have now made it the FBI's problem. They have now made it the DOJ's problem. And I should add also that the language Caroline is using is not it's it's specifically chosen if the FBI wants to move forward with releasing any credible evidence. Right. Trump said pertinent grand jury testimony, credible evidence. At any point, the DOJ or FBI could go, we have a bunch of files. We've determined that they're not credible,

so we're not going to release them. So this is the theme here. Ask the FBI, ask the DOJ. Here's another sort of question on the same issue. I don't believe that's something the White House was aware of. You'd have to ask the FBI. And of course, that is a complete and total lie. We now have widespread reporting that there was an agreement. There was a request. There was a system in place where the Trump White House wants to be told, are you seeing

documents that are linking Epstein and Trump so you can see the posturing sort of changing? Initially, it was Trump angry. Pam Bondi gets asked a question about the Epstein files and Trump interrupts and goes, you're still talking about the EPSI files. You're still talking about this guy who doesn't matter and doesn't make a difference. He's dead. Why are you talking about that? So anger Trump then shifted into no, listen, we're transparent.

Release any pertinent documents from grand jury testimony. And now they're moving into shifting blame. Trump's for transparency. Why won't his DOJ release the files? Why won't the FBI release the files? You've got to go and talk to them 10 days, 10, 12, 14 days, multiple different iterations of how they're trying to deal with this. And the last element of how they're trying to deal with this is distraction, which we're going to come back to a little bit later in the show. If you are Donald Trump,

one phrase you really don't want to hear is your case has been assigned to Judge Darren Gales. is your case has been assigned to Judge Darren Gales. And guess what just happened? Donald Trump's huge libel lawsuit against Rupert Murdoch and The Wall Street Journal over their story linking him to Jeffrey Epstein last week. That case has now landed on the desk of Judge Gales. This is the same judge who oversaw Donald Trump's disastrous lawsuit against Michael Cohen, friend of the show, which Donald Trump quietly dropped the moment a deposition was scheduled. And this is bad for Trump. It's not just bad legally. This is bad optically.

Judge Gales was appointed by former President Obama. Judge Gales is the first openly gay black man on the federal bench. He's the opposite of Trump's dream judge, which is an old white guy who loves MAGA. And now that is the judge, Darren Gales, that's overseeing a case where Trump is desperately, desperately trying to deny that he sent Jeffrey Epstein a birthday letter allegedly featuring a naked woman, breasts drawn in marker and Trump's signature as pubic hair. That's what this is about. So what happens now?

First of all, Gales could do the same thing he did in the Cohen case, which is, all right, let's move forward. The next step is for Trump to be deposed. And that's where it would get very real very quickly, because that would mean that Trump under oath would be in the position of answering questions about Jeffrey Epstein, about Jelaine Maxwell, the birthday letter, the infamous quote where Trump said some I'm paraphrasing Epstein likes beautiful women just like I do.

And some of those women are on the younger side. And even Donald Trump's former fixer, Michael Cohen, is sort of laughing at this. And there's the expectation potentially that Murdoch will settle. But others believe that Trump's going to bail as soon as the possibility of Trump sitting for a deposition comes up. Now, the kicker is Trump keeps accusing the media about of lying about Jeffrey Epstein. But Trump is keeping the story alive with the lawsuit that the lawsuit guarantees headlines, court records, maybe video. And of course, if Trump really wants to move forward, it has the potential to generate

a deposition of Trump, which I can't imagine that he wants. Now, if you're wondering how Rupert Murdoch side is taking it, they're basically saying bring it. I am not a defender of News Corp. I'm not a defender of Fox. I'm not a defender of The Wall Street Journal. But essentially reporting is that News Corp has full confidence in the reporting. They believe The Wall Street Journal properly and fully vetted what they published. And it sounds like they're willing to go down to the mat and

say, this is real. Trump wrote this thing. Trump sent this thing. So, again, Trump may be walking directly into this legal buzz saw. And if he could just control himself, he might actually be able to get the story to at least to a degree die down. So this time, the guy holding the saw is an Obama appointed judge who has already pissed pissed off Trump before. Let's buckle up and wait to see where this goes. And we're going to have a lot more on this on our substack. So I hope that you're subscribed free there at sub stack dot David Pakman dot com.

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Nick, awesome to see you again. Thanks for having me on, David. Appreciate it. So I love this book. I'm going to be honest with my audience. My audience knows I read a ton of personal finance books. I've got a list of them that I recommend on my website. I've got an MBA in financial planning.

This is sort of like my background. And I think that this is a really great book specifically for my audience for this reason in the sort of like progressive political ecosystem, there is understandable skepticism of Wall Street, big corporations, all these different things. And sometimes that political skepticism, which is warranted, can bleed over into a sort of lack of care or concern with personal finance stuff, which I don't think is great. And what I mean by that is I can work to change systems that I find to be unfair or problematic

for a really long time. And it won't change the fact that I'm still going to need to hopefully have my personal financial house in order. And so I don't see a conflict between these two things. And what you talk about in the book, I find you do acknowledge some of the structural limitations and factors that can prevent people from getting ahead financially, for example. But you're basically giving an assessment, as I see it, of here are the most common ways people do get their legs under them financially and at different levels of wealth where people can struggle. And I think that this is just such critical stuff, regardless of people's political views.

And you don't get political in the book, to be clear. Is that one of the key things here, which is at a structural level, here's how people move up the wealth ladder and how they can move down, unfortunately. Yeah, that's the idea is to just say like, hey, what is the data actually show us about this stuff? Like for someone who's in, let's say, level one, which is less than ten thousand dollars a net worth, like what are the typical things that they do to get out of there?, what what type of systems do they rely on? What do they have? Second jobs, all those types of things. And so thinking through where you are today and where you want to go.

And then I try and figure out what are the most likely paths that are going to get you there. And of course, that doesn't guarantee anything, but it's something that can move you in the right direction. One of the things that you talk about in the book, which is interesting, is out in the right direction. One of the things that you talk about in the book, which is interesting, is out in the world, there's a lot of talk about expenses, how much you know, you could be a millionaire if you didn't get a latte a day. And these sort of things are so common in this space. And one of the things that you address in the book that I think is interesting that I want you to elaborate on a little bit is in different situations at different wealth levels, the

day to day spending may or may not actually be the main driver of getting ahead financially or or falling behind. Can you talk a little bit about the math of that? Yeah. So I think the issue is if you actually look like the strongest relationship in personal finance is income and savings rate. The issue is, if you actually look, the strongest relationship in personal finance is income and savings rate. The higher someone's income is, on average,

the higher their savings rate. Of course, you and I both know people that have really high incomes, and they spend it all. They're bad spenders, et cetera. But those people are generally the exception. They're not the rule. So in general, as people's incomes go up, they are able to save more money. And

obviously most listeners are listening to this like, yeah, obviously, but a lot of what there's still a lot of rhetoric around there about you're spending too much on lattes and avocado toast and all this stuff. If this was obvious and well known, there wouldn't be people out there arguing these other points. And so in terms of some of the math and how I think about spending, I like to do it based on the wealth levels and I'll just briefly go through those. So level one is less than $10,000 in net worth. And as a reminder, net worth is just your assets minus your liabilities. So you take everything you own, your cash, your stocks, your, um, your house,

your vehicle, et cetera, and then subtract out any of your debt. So mortgage debt, credit card, student loan, and that's your net worth. So level one's less than 10,000 level Level two is 10,000 to 100,000. Level three is 100,000 to a million. Level four is 1 million to 10 million. Level five is 10 million to 100 million. And finally, level six is over 100 million. And the cool thing about in the data is actually pretty split up across the United States. About 20% are in level one, that's the less than 10,000. 20% are in level two, 10 to 100,000. 40% are in level three.

That's your typical like middle class in the United States. That's 100,000 to a million. And about 18% are in level four, that's one to 10 million. And then the top 2% is level five and six. And so the thing to note there, when I think about spending, I try to give each one of these levels what I call some sort of spending freedom. So I say, by the time you get to note there, when I think about spending, I try to give each one of these levels what I call some sort of spending freedom. So I say, by the time you get to level two,

I say you start to have grocery freedom, which means when you go to the grocery store, you can kind of buy the things you want. And the reasoning for this is, level two, let's say you had wealth from 10,000 to 100,000, I have a rule called the 0.01% rule. And that basically says- Which is so good, I love this. just take point zero one percent of your wealth and that's how much you can spend like every day on like a splurge purchase.

So if you're if you're net worth and so point zero one percent is the same as dividing by ten thousand. So if your net worth is ten thousand dollars that we assume you can spend one dollar a day and that's like a trivial amount for you. So if you're at the grocery store, a dollar a day mindlessly. It's not really going to impact your financial future. Yeah. So the idea is I imagine you're at the grocery store and you're like, oh, do I get eggs or cage free eggs and the cage free eggs are a dollar more. If you're in level two, I say, yes, you can buy the cage free eggs. It's not going to cause any long-term damage to your finances. Right. And as you get out of level two, go into level three, that becomes a restaurant freedom. And then the amount goes up by, you know, 10 X by the way.

So just to memorize the levels, level three is the one I tell everyone to memorize a hundred thousand to a million. Cause that's like where the middle class is in the United States. And in addition to that, it's easy from there. If you just divide by 10, you go down a level. If you multiply by 10, you go up a level. So level three, that's where you start to have what I call restaurant freedom. Cause now the marginal choice is anywhere from $10 at the beginning of level three, that's where you start to have what I call restaurant freedom, because now the marginal choice is anywhere from ten dollars at the beginning of level three to a hundred

dollars by the time you have, you know, let's say a million dollars in net worth. And the thinking there is like when you're at a grocery when you're at a restaurant, you're like, oh, do I buy this or do I buy that? And that marginal difference in price is somewhere between, let's say, ten in the low end to, let's say, a hundred bucks at the high end. And so you can keep thinking through that level for us, travel freedom and so forth. There's a significant chunk of the book or of a chapter, I guess we'll say, devoted to the most common ways that people end up moving down a level.

I think we have this idea that if things sort of go well in life, you would at minimum stay in the level you're at or hopefully to some degree you would go up in the levels. And you talk about how at different levels of wealth, the things that end up bringing you down are different. And so focusing in on this level three, at least for now, because as you're talking about, it's where a lot of the middle class is. What are the most common reasons someone would go from level three down to level two during

their life? Yeah. So I think that going down a level is usually some form of bad luck. Like you lost a job, you can't save money and then you have to draw down on what assets you have. And so someone in level three is it bad luck is true across the wealth ladder. But the lower you are on the wealth ladder, the more luck can impact you in a negative way. Right?

Like if you think about someone in level one, they don't have much money. And let's say they're driving to work every day. If they get a flat tire and they don't have money to repair it, they could lose their job, they're now in debt. Right? You could just imagine the cycle that goes from there. Yep. And the same is true as you kind of move up the wealth ladder, but as you have

some more money, you kind of have more safety and security and you can kind of deal with those things without having to worry about dropping down the level. Now, the thing that prevents people from moving up from level three to level four, one of those things is income. If we look at the people that actually made it after a decade, who made it from level three to level four and compared those to people that just stayed in level three over a decade, the one big difference is they're starting income. People just earn more and they're able to save more. Okay, that makes sense But the other thing though is those people that stayed in level through over ten years They spent almost as much as the people that made it to level four

And so it's like there is a keeping up with the Joneses that I am seeing in the data to some extent And so that's something else to keep in mind But when you're talking about falling down a level it's gonna be some sort of attack on your income and that's usually a job loss That you can't get back from or some sort of disability or something. And by the way, these are rare. So I'm not trying to scare anybody, but falling down, you know, one wealth level over a decade or two decades, only about 10 to 12 percent of households will ever do that.

So it's very rare. Most people stay in the same wealth level over the period of a decade. And you know, some do move up, but you know, the vast majority do not fall down, which is a good thing. There's no doubt that there are people going who will have heard the first 10 minutes of this conversation that we've just had. And they said, Hey, everything you're talking about is great. And it makes sense until, you know, like Mike Tyson says, you've got a plan.

You get punched in the mouth. The plan goes out the window. And so I know that a lot of my audience is very sensitive to some of the structural and systemic realities of the economy in which we live. Hey, David, that all sounds great. But if I get hurt and now can't work our insufficient safety net, depending on what state you live in and what you qualify for, right. It's all situationally dependent.

But the lack of safety net and my personal situation is the problem. Or there's people in D.C. making decisions which aren't raising wages in the way that would help me go from level two to three. Or I guess my question is, without becoming overtly partisan, which I don't really think this this is in this sense. What about or how should the sort of structural and systemic political realities of how the economy works play into the understanding of your book and a plan that makes sense for a specific family? I think you have to think about this in terms of, OK, the way things are and of course we may want to change these things But whether we will it's kind of like what you said at the beginning

We don't know if we can it may take longer than we think etc But within these current rules of the game, even if the rules are not fair, they're rigged, etc There's a lot of different ways you can describe this. What's the best move I can make and so if it's like Okay, if you're on disability or something, you can't work, that is a really tough situation to be in. I don't have a great solution there, right? We'd have to look through, okay, what skills do you have

that you can maybe use to try and earn income, right? That's one question. We have to just come up with something, right? Cause at the end of the day, you know, if a system is set up and it's not really working for you, we need to figure out what can we do if anything, there's gotta be some sort of opportunity there. I always am trying to be an optimist here.

And like, there's gotta be something you can do. That doesn't mean that, oh, I think everyone can become a millionaire. I don't think that's true. But I think there's gotta be some sort of, you know, skill you can acquire or some sort of path you can get on that can get you into a better place financially.

And so it's like, let's figure out what that is. Instead of just blaming a lot of other systems which are part of the problem. Let's say like, what can I do given this not great situation? That's how I would think about it. How do you think about the changing tax laws over time in the sense of, you know, I'll talk to people who are just casual investors or business owners.

I'll talk to friends who are lawyers in estate planning. Or I had lunch with a financial adviser friend the other day. And there's sort of like two sides to this. One of them is like one of my friends is very much about like, David, did you see the new rules on Social Security that are in the Trump tax bill? And then, you know, we need to see what the percentages are on a state tax or all the deduction and others who kind of go, listen, none of that stuff really matters if you have a guiding North star, which is it's often much easier to get ahead by making more than

by cutting spending. You want to maximize how much you contribute to tax advantaged accounts no matter what's going on. Sort of like the it actually doesn't read the day to day matters a lot less for most people. How important are kind of like the year to year changes in tax rules or whatever the case may be? I think they're incredibly important on an aggregate level because it changes like, oh, now we're not taxing people that, you know, now bonus depreciation is accelerated. So business owners can now depreciate their entire properties right up front.

Like that is clearly helping one class of people. How much that impacts you as an individual is very small. So you're right that like year to year, it doesn't impact you that much, but it impacts society as a whole. So I think we can say a lot about tax policy and what it does, you know, in terms of helping one group versus another. And I think that is actually a very important conversation. I think taxes should be higher on higher income individuals, including myself. I'm saying that at the same time, you know, you're right.

Like one tax change is not going to move the needle that much for you. Maybe you have to pay a few percent more here or you pay less or whatever it is. It's more about like, what's my career trajectory? What can I do there that's going to actually really impact my long term finances? What is it about spending based on net worth rather than income? That makes sense. But at the same time, accounting for someone with X net worth while working seems very different than someone with that same net worth who is not working for whatever reason.

Right. So how can we think about that? So you always have to spend based on your income. Everyone knows that. Like you don't have no income coming in. And like you have to just live off whatever assets you have. And if your assets aren't throwing off enough income, then that's obviously a problem. So everyone spends off income.

I think the spending decision when everyone talks about spending, it's always what I call on the margin. It's that last thing. It's like, can I afford this thing? Right? No, for example, no one in level one with less than $10,000 in wealth is going to the Ferrari dealership and like, oh, can I afford one of these? Like they know they can't, there's no marginal decision there. Right? It's like the person in level one is like, can I afford this one thing? Can I afford these concert tickets or this thing or that thing, et cetera? And so that's where spending based on wealth

can be really powerful because income can be fickle. It comes and goes. And so I'm like, hey, if you're thinking about this marginal decision, I would say do that based on wealth. And what the wealth ladder allows for, especially with the 0.01% rule is over time, as you build wealth and you've demonstrated some sort of financial discipline,

you unlock these higher levels of spending freedom as I call it. So you can spend more at restaurants or whatever. And you don't have to pick those exact, you know, restaurant for you may not like restaurants. Okay, find something else in that price range and use that and just kind of build this like financial map for yourself to say, hey, once I get to this level,

then I can, you know, loosen the purse strings a bit around these certain spending categories. Specifically now for people in level probably just this applies mostly to level one, but maybe level one and two in that situation. Is there one most likely path to raise someone up in terms of increasing my income, reducing my month to month cost of living, spending less on the margins. As you talk about, uh, better figuring out how to leverage government programs that may be available. What does the data tell us about the most effective way for someone at that lowest level

to move up? So I don't have a ton of data on like just people in level one. Like I looked at everything kind of in aggregate. I think the thing that I kind of emphasize in level one is think about all the wealth you have. That's not necessarily financial. So people that can support you, friends, family, et cetera, if you don't have that, it makes it a lot tougher, obviously, coming from that position.

But what I've seen, at least anecdotally, people that got out of those situations, they had to rely on a support network. Like, hey, can I crash here while I get some money saved up? And then they have to, if I'm being honest, they have to kind of go above and beyond to get out of that situation. It's an extreme situation and it sometimes requires extreme sacrifice, unfortunately. There's no way around it. But you kind of need to do that to get to some safety. And I'm not saying you need to have $10,000 in cash, but you might need to have, you know,

$2,000 in cash. And then once you have just that buffer, like from there, it's a lot easier because just saying, Oh, I can afford my next month, next few months rent, I can afford to get food. I don't have to worry about any of that stuff. I could lose my job and still be okay for a few months. Just that buffer is incredibly important. In terms of the jobs that people can get, there's all sorts of stuff out there. And usually what happens is someone makes a change and gets an education or something.

And then it makes, it's like a big jump. It's not like, oh, I went from a minimum wage, minimum wage job to like a job that pays $5 more an hour. It's usually like someone that gets paid a salary that's far more than that. So it really depends on how you do it. But I would say if I was in level one and really struggling, I'd like who can I rely on in my support network to really try and get out of this situation. I encourage you to check out Nick's book, The Wealth Ladder out today.

We've been speaking with Nick Medjooli, C.O.O. for Ritholtz Wealth Ladder out today. We've been speaking with Nick Majuli, COO for Ritholtz Wealth Management. And the book is The Wealth Ladder, proven strategies for every step of your financial life. You can get the book at David Pakman dot com slash wealth ladder, believe it or not. Nick, always good to talk to you. Really appreciate it. And congratulations on the book. Yeah. Thanks for having me on. Appreciate it. And by the way, if anyone has any questions, I try to answer every DM. So on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, wherever you can find me, I will try to answer every

single DM you have and anyway can help. So thank you. A pending Supreme Court case could strip our Fourth Amendment rights and allow immigration agents to come into our homes for any reason. No probable cause needed. All while Republicans try to twist things so that you think this is all great for America. This should be the biggest story in the U.S. right now, but it's almost impossible to keep up with the millions of moves that Trump is making every single day.

That's why ground news exists. Ground News is an app and website that exposes the blind spots and spin before it takes control of our opinions. Ground News is the smarter, more reliable way to stay informed when MAGA is banking on us getting distracted. I'm partnering up with ground news to give you 40 percent off the same vantage plan that I use. So you'll pay only five bucks a month for all of their premium features.

Just go to ground dot news slash Pacman or use the code Pacman in the app. When you sign up, the link is in the description or scan the QR code. Donald Trump is in full panic mode. His administration is really drowning in Epstein related backlash, even with some of his own base turning on him. A new threat has emerged and this one could actually be quite dangerous, which is that Jelaine Maxwell might talk. Calls are growing louder for Maxwell, who's currently serving a sentence in prison for helping Jeffrey Epstein to traffic underage girls.

Calls are growing for Jelaine Maxwell to testify before Congress. This would not be behind closed doors. The idea is this would be, of course, under oath. It would be live on the record. Attorney Alan Dershowitz, who has represented both Epstein and Trump, is pushing for her to be released and to give her immunity, saying she knows everything. And that's interesting because Dershowitz was at one point sort of wrapped up in the Epstein stuff.

And he was very clear. He said, I have done absolutely nothing. And Dershowitz at least seems to want everything to come out, suggesting he's confident he really has nothing to do with it. This is what has Donald Trump absolutely terrified. Maxwell is not a side player in this thing. She was the logistical brain, the sort of chief operating officer of Jeffrey Epstein's operation.

She arranged travel. She booked meetings. She managed the homes. She knows who was there. She knows when. And if that includes Trump, she knows about it. Photos, flight logs, quotes, videos. You can't erase the past.

And no matter how many times Trump screams it, that it's a witch hunt, he can't stop people who were there from remembering the truth. Trump and Epstein weren't strangers. They were close enough to host each other. They were close enough for Mar-a-Lago, close enough that Trump once joked that Epstein likes them young. And it's possible that Gillian Maxwell is going to start talking now. A bunch of different sources are indicating that Trump's panic is because he's backed into a corner. No one's buying it. If Trump takes this head on, like suing the Wall Street Journal over their report about

Trump's Christmas card to Jeffrey Epstein, Trump risks getting deposed. And of course, it might be true. And if it's true, the lawsuit's not going to help. If Trump tries to run away from it. Well, we saw what happened with that a couple of weeks ago. And even MAGA influencers like Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Tim Pool and others go, wait a second. He thinks we're just going to forget about it.

And there are even Republicans saying this is not partisan. If we really do care about child sex trafficking, we need all the documents, no matter what the collateral damage is. So the timing is terrible. The Ghislaine Maxwell pressure is coming at the same time that there is pressure to unseal the documents. Trump's response was, well, I'm ordering Pam Bondi to release pertinent grand jury testimony. But that means stuff nobody thinks will hurt him.

And even that's looking like a stall tactic. Or as I said earlier, it's potentially looking like a plan to say, I ordered it. The DOJ is not doing it. The FBI is not doing it. And we have real problems here. Trump's lashing out. He's melting down in interviews. He's slipping on in live formats. He is now dealing

with Jelaine Maxwell being back in the headlines. And it does seem as though he's losing control of the story. When we really get down to what matters most here. If the highest value is protecting victims, by the way, many of which are well into adulthood at this point in time, why wouldn't you want to hear from the woman who knows who visited, who flew which route, who made the call, who was I working with? If Jelaine Maxwell is granted immunity, there would be nothing stopping her from laying it all out for the world to hear, except if she believes that immunity legally won't keep her alive. If Jelaine Maxwell comes to believe they might try to kill me to silence me, I'm not suggesting that that is what would happen.

I'm saying if she's granted immunity, we might say, well, there's no reason now to stay quiet. The one reason would be if she thought her life or health were at risk. So I would expect, you know, going back to the Hillary Clinton emails, which Donald Trump did, and we'll talk about that in a moment. More Obama conspiracies. That sort of thing is what I would expect. But the panic is setting in. The old playbook of Trump isn't working. And even historian Heather Cox Richardson in our conversation last week said she is

following the Epstein story because of how this is starting to affect Donald Trump and the administration. Another way it's starting to affect him is called Hillary's emails. You've got to hear this. Trump's unraveling and we've seen these meltdowns before he's under pressure. And when he's under pressure, he goes back to the same old playbook. Hillary's emails. Obama spied on my campaign. The deep state, the witch hunt.

Trump is sort of stuck in 2016. He's got a keyboard with three keys on it or it's like a broken piano where it's only three keys that work. And he hopes that if he really loudly hits those keys, it'll drown out everything else, whatever fire he's trying to run away from. And right now, the fire is Epstein. The outrage from Trump's own supporters over his administration's handling of the Epstein files has really reached a boiling point because they promised transparency.

Pam Bondi said she's got a list on her desk, thousands of pages at the FBI. She's got hundreds of pages. The memo then comes out a couple of weeks ago. There's no list. Documents are sealed and MAGA world understandably feels duped not by liberals this time, not by the media, but by Donald Trump himself. So what does Trump do? He changes the subject.

And the latest is that he's hitting the red panic button and outcome Hillary's emails. They just you think they're gone. They're in hibernation. They move the the the the stone aside that's covering the cave and out they walk like a sleepy bear in the spring. Yesterday, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced the DOJ race for it is releasing new documents related to the Hillary Clinton emails investigation, a case that has been dead for nearly a decade.

There is no new information. They're reheating old junk like leftovers you throw in the microwave a day too late. You should have thrown them out and they're serving them up as red meat for a base that doesn't really have an appetite for that right now. What they want are the Epstein files. Now, as a reminder, the Hillary Clinton email scandal was investigated. It should have been investigated. And it was.

She used a private email server when she was Obama's secretary of state. The FBI said she was careless. They found no criminal intent, no charges were filed. And Trump has built a decade long political career screaming, lock her up, screaming. It's her emails. She acid washed them and bleached them, even though Trump's administration has since mishandled more classified material than, you know, going down to a home depot or office depot or Staples shredder and just shredding documents.

So this really isn't about Hillary. This is a pattern. Trump feels cornered. He tries to rewrite the past. And suddenly we're back in 2016 again. Obama spied in my campaign. Crooked Hillary, the greatest witch hunt. The Russia stuff was all fake.

It's someone else's fault. And the proof is in what they're doing. They are. He's got the DOJ talking about Hillary's emails. Yesterday, we talked about how he now has Tulsi Gabbard saying, I uncovered that Obama did treason and we've got it. We've got a prosecute. And Trump posted a generated video of Barack Obama being arrested. Fake mugshots of Democratic officials.

So the bottom line here is the Epstein backlash is real. It's not led by Democrats. It's not left by adverse led by adversarial media. The MAGA people were promised files that Trump was going to be the only one to release and they never came. And now Pam Bondi is backpedaling Trump suing the Wall Street Journal. And none of this is the behavior of someone who's in control and has an innocent conscience. This is the behavior of someone desperate to bury the truth.

They're releasing MLK files that even MLK's family is saying we didn't want this stuff released. And by the way, Bernice King posted now do the Epstein files. Everybody sees what's happening. It's a distraction. It's not working the way it used to. He's trying the same slogans. He's trying Hillary's emails, but fewer people than ever are listening.

And the empire that was built on grievance and paranoia is simply not working the way it once did. The spell maybe is breaking. And the more Trump screams about Hillary's emails, I believe the more obvious it is that he's not in control, that he's cornered, that he's lashing out. He's panicked. And this time, I don't believe MAGA is going to save him. Where do you think it's all going to fall?

Let me know. Info at David Pakman dot com. Now, on the bonus show today, we are going to talk about what the White House is doing to the Wall Street Journal because of the story that the Wall Street Journal put out. We will talk in more detail about the release of the MLK files, which, again, is all part of the same distraction. And finally, Coca-Cola saying because of what Trump wants and what Bobby Kennedy want, we're going to replace the corn syrup in American Coke with cane sugar.

Is this real? Is this legit? Does this matter or is it yet another distraction? All of those stories and more on today's bonus show. You can sign up instantly at join Pacman dot com and you can request a free membership I'll see you then.