The David Pakman Show - 7/23/25: Obama breaks silence on Trump, Epstein fiasco gets deeper, Tulsi self-humiliates

Episode Date: July 23, 2025

-- On the Show: -- Jared Polis, Governor of Colorado, joins David to discuss the consequences of the Republican tax bill, including the Medicaid cuts and rural hospital closures that are set to gravely impact his state -- Barack Obama delivers a pointed response dismantling Trump’s baseless claims of treason -- Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent claims Americans don’t pay tariffs, exposing total misunderstanding of basic economics -- Trump lashes out at Jimmy Kimmel and late night TV while claiming victory in lawsuit against CBS -- Trump accuses Obama of sedition and treason in an unhinged series of live TV rants -- Trump gives a rambling speech filled with wild claims about gas prices, drug costs, and conspiracies linking Obama and Epstein -- Trump’s legal ally Alina Habba gets her U.S. attorney nomination smacked down by real judges -- Trump dodges questions about Ghislaine Maxwell by falsely pivoting to Obama conspiracy claims -- Sen. John Kennedy freezes mid-sentence during a Fox interview, raising concerns about aging lawmakers -- On the Bonus Show: Fascist fired after Jubilee debate appearance, Alligator Alcatraz conditions worsen, Democrats' 2024 autopsy won't blame Biden or Harris, and much more... 🥕 Quantum Nutrition Labs: Get additional 10% off with code PAKMAN at https://qnlabs.com ⚠️ Ground News: Get 40% OFF their unlimited access Vantage plan at https://ground.news/pakman 🌳 MyHeritage: Discover your family roots for FREE for 14 days at https://davidpakman.com/myheritage 🥐 Wildgrain: Use code PAKMAN for $30 off & free baked goods at https://wildgrain.com/pakman 🛌 Helix Sleep mattresses: Get 27% OFF sitewide at https://helixsleep.com/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 to the show, everybody. Former President Obama is not taking kindly to the new very obvious, distractive conspiracy theory coming out of the White House just to catch you up on this in the midst of the Epstein fiasco and the tariff failure and everything else that's going on with Donald Trump in the midst of all of this, in the midst of MAGA ripping itself apart over the Epstein non-disclosure that's taken place to date. Donald Trump's administration through director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, has weaponized a new conspiracy theory and they are setting their sights on former President Barack Obama.

The claim made amidst confusion over what even the facts are is that Barack Obama organized organized a seditious and traitorous plan to hurt Donald Trump by falsely connecting him to Russia during the 2016 election. Donald Trump also now claiming that Barack Obama rigged the 2020 election, despite the fact that Obama was not president at the time. Trump was president and somehow the former President Obama was able to rig the 2020 election against the sitting president, Donald Trump Obama. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Obama. So in response to this and normally, I mean, listen, Barack Obama has been relatively quiet

as a former president. And in general, you don't tend to see former presidents weigh in actively on the day to day of what's going on in an administration other than Donald Trump when Biden was president. Well, Barack Obama has now put out a statement. Obama's office putting out the following statement, quote, out of respect for the office of the presidency, our office does not normally dignify the constant nonsense and misinformation flowing out of this White House with a response. But these claims are outrageous enough to merit one. These bizarre

allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction. Nothing in the document issued last week undercuts the widely accepted conclusion that Russia worked to influence the 2016 presidential election, but did not successfully manipulate any votes. These findings were affirmed in a 2020 report by the Bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee led by then chair Marco Rubio. We have to understand really three different things. Most superficially, this is an attempt to distract from the growing scandal within the Trump administration and one of the best ways to at least try to get MAGA united because MAGA is very divided right

now, as divided as we've seen it in my conversation last week with Heather Cox Richardson. Even she spoke about it with her perspective as a historian or even as an historian about how she's surprised at the degree to which the Epstein fiasco has divided MAGA. Now, yesterday I did a substack live with Missouri activist Jess Piper and Jess brought up a good point, which is the Epstein scandal doesn't get anyone in rural Missouri health care. The Epstein scandal doesn't help someone who can't put food on their table to do it. But if we believe that MAGA has bad policies and MAGA being hurt grows, the opportunity to put in place someone who's actually going to help the American people.

Indeed, the Epstein scandal is something worthy of exploitation. The way that the Trump administration has decided to push back against this is with this just wacky conspiracy, putting Obama at the center of some completely harebrained plan to publish false claims about Russia's involvement in the 2016 election. So layer number one, this is a very poorly crafted attempt at distraction. Number two, the entire distractive attempt is based upon a not really subtle but potentially confusing distinction. What Tulsi Gabbard is looking to make you believe and looking to make Magda believe is that what President Obama did was put in place everything from the Steele dossier to unproven claims that Trump and Putin were colluding in some active way to get Trump

elected. That is not what Barack Obama did as president. What Barack Obama did as president was to direct intelligence agencies to look at, to look at what sort of influence, if any, Russia is trying to have over American elections and to what degree their technical capabilities would allow Russia, for example, to manipulate votes, literally on a technical level to if Hillary Clinton won Connecticut, would they have the technical capabilities to tap out on their keyboards and to make it seem as though Donald Trump won in Connecticut, a capability that Russia was assessed not to

have. These are two completely different things. This is sort of like when Trump said Obama spied on my campaign. And what happened was that law enforcement under Obama was surveilling persons of interest. Those persons of interest were in touch with the Trump campaign. And so the Trump campaign counterparts were incidentally surveilled, not because Obama was spying on Trump's campaign, but because Trump campaign staffers happened to be having phone communications with individuals separately considered persons of interest or suspects in crimes by federal law enforcement

at the time. So the problem with a lot of what's going on is that there are little kernels that overlap, sometimes coincidentally with the truth. But as presented by Tulsi Gabbard, this entire Obama thing is a complete and total distraction. We're going to get back to it later as Donald Trump is now openly calling for the prosecution of former President Barack Obama. Does Donald Trump know who pays the tariffs? The answer is no.

But it seems as though even Scott Besant is at least paying lip service to the idea that it is not the importers of foreign products and goods that pay the tariffs. I don't know if you've ever seen someone be so confidently wrong about basic economics. But Donald Trump's Scott Besson hedge fund guy was on Morning Joe this morning and he really tried to deny one of the most straightforward concepts in trade policy. He was asked, does Donald Trump realize that the consumer ultimately pays the tariffs and Besant disagrees? Now, my question to you is, does Besant really not know who pays the tariffs or does Besant

have to say what he says in this video? Because it's what Donald Trump needs him to say. Let's take a look. I do know that the tariffs, the cost of tariffs on automobiles, which will begin, I don't know, August 1st or whatever, will be paid by people like me, the consumer. The question is, does the president realize the consumer pays the tariffs? And just so everybody knows, the reason the question is being asked is because Trump regularly says we are taking in billions in tariffs from other countries.

And of course, that is not who pays the tariffs. Well, I'm going to have to disagree with that is who pays the tariffs is a choice. And what we've seen thus far is that the manufacturers are eating a substantial portion of the tariffs and taking it into their profit margins. So you might see, for instance, Toyota hasn't raised prices and they may choose to go for market share rather than raising prices. Are you you know, it's been. All right.

So this isn't how things work in two different ways. There's the question of in a literal sense, who hands over the cash for the tariffs? I'm going to come back to that in a moment. Then there's the question of what sorts of adjustments, dynamic adjustments to pricing are there such that the cost of tariffs may be passed on or borne by someone different than the party actually paying them. So let's really explain this in the simplest terms, but in the most direct terms possible. A tariff is a tax on imports paid by the importer. You put a tariff on America on the if the United States puts a tariff on Chinese steel, the

Chinese steel company is not paying that import tax when the products arrive at American shores in order to release the products to the company. The importing company forks over the money for the tariffs. That's the that's in a literal sense who is paying it. The money goes from American business to American government. The tariff is paid by the importer. Now it is true that the importer has some choices. The importer could say, well, we've paid a tariff, so we are now going to raise the prices

of our finished good and pass that along to the consumer. If the importer pays more for Chinese steel, whatever they're building with that steel might be sold for more money to the end user, to the consumer. The other possibility is that the importer could cut costs somewhere else if they do cut costs somewhere else to try to keep the price the same. We're paying more on the imported steel. Let's cut costs elsewhere. Those cost cutting measures could still hurt an American company.

They might say, well, you know what? We are going to have to go with a cheaper version of the American components that hurts an American company. It is still born by that American company that now is selling less stuff to the importer. So it's being born that way by Americans. Obviously, if the cost is passed on just to the consumer, that's who ultimately is paying the tariff. Now, there is another possibility. There's actually a couple of other possibilities.

Besant is suggesting, well, the importer can just absorb it. The importer could say, yes, I'm paying more for the Chinese steel, but I'll just accept the lower profit. I won't pass that along. I won't pass the increased cost along to the consumer. I won't cut spending somewhere else and hurt some American supplier. I'm just going to absorb that. But basic capitalism, which people like Scott Besson claim to subscribe to, should understand that if resource costs go up, which is what happened when you tariff goods, it makes them

more expensive. Manufacturers do not eat those costs indefinitely. The costs could be eaten in the short term by them cutting into profit margins. But in modern capitalism, which Scott Besson says is the holy grail of how to organize an economy, shareholders do not accept lower profit margins. They want growth. They want returns. And if the margins start to shrink, stock prices are going to fall. Executives will get replaced. People will panic. Individuals will be laid off. They will have less money to then spend in the economy.

And so you ultimately still get that economic damage somewhere. Now let me give you another possibility. And this is another one that's been proposed. It's conceivable that if the United States puts a tariff on Chinese steel, yes, the American company pays the tariff, but they could go to the Chinese company and say, listen, we just got hit with this tariff here in the United States since we now have to pay a 25 percent tariff on the Chinese steel. We need you, the Chinese company, to sell us the steel for 25 percent less.

This is the glorious process that Trump and many others are hoping for, which is, yeah, if they even understand that the tariffs are paid by the American company, we'll pay 25 percent. But we're going to get a 25 percent discount from China because the Chinese company isn't going to want to lose our business. Unfortunately, that is number one, not what's happening. And number two, that only really works if we have the Chinese supplier over a barrel. But we really need that Chinese supplier more than they need the United States as a customer

in many situations. And so that longer term way in which over time the exporting country might foot some of the bill for the tariffs. It's certainly not happening now. And in the position that China's in, it's probably not going to happen at all. So Besson's not even willing to admit it. I think Besson probably does really know the truth about who pays the tariffs, but he's in a position where he can't just acknowledge that because it's not what Trump has directed

him to do. Sad that to placate the orange leader, these guys have to lie and, of course, horrible that they're willing to do so. Donald Trump is now on a complete and total rampage and is sort of alluding to the fact that Jimmy Kimmel had better be worried about his job after Stephen Colbert's show was completely canceled, canceled by CBS. So here is Donald Trump putting out messages on truth. So central, quote, the word is and it's a strong word that Jimmy Kimmel is next to go in the untalented late

night sweepstakes. And shortly thereafter, Fallon will be gone. These are people with absolutely no talent who were paid millions of dollars for in all cases destroying what used to be great television. It's really good to see them go. And I hope I played a major part in it. Donald Trump has taken credit for the firing of Stephen Colbert. He is predicting the firing of Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon and is saying openly that

he believes and hopes that it will be at least partially his fault that they will be losing their media jobs. Trump also posted the following to Truth Social, quote, Breaking news. We have just achieved a big and important win in our historic lawsuit against 60 Minutes CBS and Paramount, just like ABC and George Slapidopoulos, CBS and its corporate owners knew that they defrauded the American people and were desperate to settle Paramount. CBS 60 Minutes have now paid off today, paid 16 million dollars in settlement. We anticipate receiving 20 million dollars more from the new owners in advertising, PSAs

and similar programming for a total of over 36 million dollars. This is another in a long line of victories over the fake news media who we are holding to account for their widespread fraud and deceit. The Wall Street Journal, the failing New York Times, The Washington Post, et cetera, blah, blah, blah. Their days are over. Make America great again. This sort of a statement from a president should not be met with the collective shrug that it's mostly been met with by the very legacy and corporate media that are now endangered

by these sorts of lawsuits. When we look at what do authoritarians do, how do authoritarians and dictators assert control over their populations, over their countries? There's a lot of different ways. But one of the ways is control and influence over the media. Make media outlets afraid to report critically about what you're doing. Make people fear for their jobs and their livelihoods. Although Stephen Colbert is going to be fine.

He's wealthy now, but make all of the other people right. Because there's 200 people that worked on that show who now are losing their jobs. Maybe some will get other jobs at CBS. Who knows? Make people afraid to do real journalism. And so we have a disgusting and terrifying situation where a lot of this is met with a collective shrug, even though it really is a complete and total red alert moment.

Now, I can't do anything about what's going on with corporate media. All I can do, as I've been talking about with other activists and creators and influencers, is just remind our audiences one of the benefits of doing what we do is there are not 10 layers of executives and producers that need to be convinced that our show should continue in order for it to do so. Right. There's no one you can call that can say, David, the show is canceled, Midas, the show is canceled.

Brian Tyler Coe and the show is canceled. That's the upside of doing what we do at the same time. In order to really be uncancellable, we also need as much direct support from our audiences as possible. And so that's why I've been saying this really is the time to directly support the independent media outlets that you value. Doesn't have to be financially right. Just subscribing to a YouTube channel or a Spotify feed or a substack, it really the we the larger our followings are, the more

insulated we are from this sort of thing and also the more noise we will be able to make if if and potentially when it reaches one of us. Now, if you check out my substack live with Carlos Espina, if you check out my substack Live with Aaron Parnas, actually is the one really I'm thinking of. There is a growing fear that one of us is going to be targeted. It's going to be a lawsuit. It's going to be something. It's going to require a legal fundraiser, a legal defense fund. It's just going to because of the if indeed we are on the opposite side of such a lawsuit. But in the interim, the best thing we can do is just support the shows we like and support the shows that we want to see stick around. But

Trump is openly now saying he's going to try to get media people fired who are reporting and saying things or even making jokes on these late night shows that Trump doesn't like. Terrifying. which is a brand that does supplements the right way. QNL was founded by two doctors who saw that the supplement industry has become dangerous. And the whole point is let's skip the shortcuts. Let's not do the junk. And for over 20 years, QNL has really earned the trust of consumers and health professionals because their big thing is purity. Every product is made in certified facilities, third party tested to verify identity, potency and potential contaminants and never any artificial additives. So whatever it is you want in the vitamin and supplement space, they've got it rooted

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That's why ground news exists. Ground News is an app and website that exposes the blind spots and spin before it takes control News 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. Panicked Donald Trump exploded in a recent appearance in front of the media with the president of the Philippines. We have never seen anything like this in American history. That is not hyperbole.

That is not a joke. It's not an exaggeration. We have never seen such a thing in American history. Donald Trump claiming that there is irrefutable proof that President Obama was seditious, tried to lead a coup. The current president of the United States is demanding the prosecution of a former president and claiming that it's already been proven. You don't even really need a trial if Donald Trump is to be believed.

But what we found is even more so. We found absolute. This isn't like evidence or this is like proof. This is like proof. Trump's knowledge of the standards of evidence in criminal law leaves a little something to be desired. If you double proof that Obama was sedacious. He was sedacious. Obama led was trying to lead a coup and it was with Hillary Clinton, with all these other

people. Why does he still say Clinton? I just why? Why? But Obama headed it up. And you know, I get a kick when I hear everyone talks about people I never even heard of. It was this one. No, no, it was Obama.

He headed it up and it says so right in the papers. And everything got everything. This is the biggest scandal in the history of our country. Now of course, the biggest scandal used to be Obama gate, which when Trump was asked, what is it? He just looked at the reporter and said, you know what it is. Don't ask me questions like that. But this is a bigger scandal.

The current president of the United States is saying the previous president was sedacious. Of course, he means seditious. And the response from the media world is largely a shrug. It's another you know, it was Tuesday. It's just another Tuesday in terms of the president of the United States making wild and wacky claims. Trump declares guilty of treason. Barack Hussein Obama, judge, jury and I guess execution. It wasn't lots of people all over the place. It was them too. But the leader of the gang was President Obama,

Barack Hussein Obama. Have you heard of him? And except for the fact that he gets shielded by the press for his entire life. That's the one they look, he's guilty. It's not a question. You know, I like to say guilty. Let's give it time. It's there. He's guilty. They this was treason. This was every word you can think of. They tried to steal the election. They tried to obfuscate the election. They did things that nobody's ever even imagined. Even it's that simple, guys. Donald Trump has determined guilty. Barack Obama is guilty of treason. We have become desensitized. This should be global news, national news, of course, as well. What Trump is saying, what Trump is doing, Obama guilty of treason.

And it's just kind of like, oh, it's Trump. It's Trump. He continued. He said Obama was the ringleader. Hillary Biden, Comey, Clapper. They got caught rigging the 2020 election. What? No Barack Hussein Obama is the ringleader.

Hillary Clinton was right there with him and so was a sleepy Joe Biden. And so with the rest of them,y, Clapper, the whole group. And they tried to rig an election and they got caught. And then they did rig the election in 2020. And then because I knew I won that election by a lot, I did it a third time and I won in a landslide. Every swing state won the popular vote. But I won that all the same way in 2020. Obama did not rig the 2016 election while he was president, but somehow Obama did rig the 2020 election when Trump was president. Really odd. Strange that that's how it all worked out. Donald Trump insisting they got him.

We got Hillary. We got Obama. Stop talking about Epstein. That's really the point. He gives up the game here. What he really means by Obama did treason and was sedacious is that I really want you to stop talking about Jeffrey Epstein. No, no, we caught Hillary Clinton.

We got Barack Hussein Obama. They're the ones. And then you have many, many people under them. Susan Rice. They're the ones. And then you have many, many people under them. Susan Rice. They're all there. The names are all there. And I guess they figured they're going to put this in classified information and nobody will ever see it again. But it doesn't work that way. And it's the most unbelievable thing I think I've ever read. So you ought to take a look at that and stop talking about nonsense because this is big stuff.

Nonsense. Epstein is nonsense. What you need to talk about is how Hillary Clinton and Obama were sedacious, totally stable comments from a president of the United States. Trump then shifting his ire. Everybody else is guilty to Adam Schiff. And he says, Adam Schiff did crimes, too. You got to go after him.

And Trump tries to slip in a funny but totally unbelievable line here. See if you can pick it up. The director faulty reports of Adam Schiff claims he lived in a one bedroom apartment. How's the family afford your developer? There is a Southern Belver. How's the family afford living on one bedroom apartment, a house, a family of four. You're a developer, various Southern developer, a family of four living on one bedroom apartment. Now it looks like Adam Schiff really did a bad thing. They have them now. Let's see what happens.

It's not up to me. It's not up to I stay out of it purposely, but it's mortgage loan fraud. It's a big deal. In what way? The line is, I stayed out of it purposely. Do any of us believe that? I mean, listen, it's not about Trump is personally doing everything. But this entire Adam Schiff thing, this entire Barack Obama seditious Hillary Clinton thing,

all of it, all of it is a crafted and contrived plan to take attention away from the Epstein scandal. One of the best tweets I've seen about all of this is from our friend Aaron Rupar, who wrote the media assumes Trump is full of shit. The markets assume Trump is full of shit. Voters assume Trump is full of shit. Voters assume Trump is full of shit. But what if they're wrong and we're actually speeding towards failed state territory? Even in the best case scenario, we're still at the mercy mercy of an aspiring autocrat who's totally unhinged and fixated on hurting anyone who opposes him.

I truly hope people understand this. This is absolutely insane, totally and completely nuts. And the legacy and corporate media are so damn desensitized by it that they're kind of shrugging and moving on to the next thing. Donald Trump claimed that he would reduce drug prices by a thousand percent during a disastrous speech at the White House last night as the Epstein panic continues to explode. Donald Trump's grasp of numbers leaves a little something to be desired. Here is Trump saying we might reduce drug prices a thousand percent. Wharton,

remember Wharton. I have a friend who has a serious weight problem, serious. He's brilliant, but extremely heavy. I'm being nice. And he takes Ozempic or as they call it, the fat drug. or as they call it the fat drug and he's a brilliant guy, he's rich, tough, highly neurotic. He's a mess. He's a total mess, but he is brilliant and rich. And he was in London and he calls me like president. He always used to call me Donny. Now he calls me president. That's good, I like that better.

Because he is President. What's going on? I just bought the Ozempic for $88. And in New York, I pay $1,300. Same factory, same company that makes it, same everything. $88 to $1,300. He said almost $1,300. He said almost $1,300. And I explained to him that that's the way it's been for many, many years where people actually go to Europe in order to buy

drugs. When they come back, they're loaded up. In fact, sometimes they get arrested for having so much. They think they're drug addicts. They just buy months of supply because it's sometimes one-tenth, one-eighth, one-fifth, one-half. It's a tremendous difference and this is for the people in this room because this is something that nobody else can do. We're gonna get the drug prices down not 30 or 40 percent which would be great not 50 or or 60. No, we're going to get them down 1000 percent, 600 percent, 500 percent. If you're if you are wondering why Trump's tariff calculations make no sense and the formula is an impenetrable mess, it's because they're from the same guy who thinks you can reduce the price of something a thousand percent or 600 percent arithmetic, folks, arithmetic. Trump is now

coaching Republicans whenever anybody in the media asks you about Jeffrey Epstein. Just talk about Barack Obama giving them very specific advice here. Obama giving them very specific advice here. And remember, don't let them forget. It's so important. Obama cheated on the election. Look, the camera just went off. Obama, the red light just went off. Can you believe these people?

How bad they are. Obama cheated when they give you all the nonsense. Obama cheated and his people cheated. But he was there. They ever hear this? They talk about if they ever even mention it, they never and his people cheated. But he was there. They ever hear this? They talk about if they ever even mention it, they never mention his name. Just the opposite with me. But they only mentioned my name.

They don't mention any of you guys. They don't mention Tom. They don't mention Steve. They don't mention our great speaker. They mentioned Trump all the time. I'd like. There you go. Any time you were asked about Epstein, just go Obama committed treason.

We got him. It is a real indictment of this country, a real indictment that some people voted for this guy three times. Donald Trump continues lying about gas prices. He's doing this daily now. I do regulation efforts are saving the typical family, thousands and thousands of dollars. So remember, when you're campaigning, got to remember this prices are down, groceries are down, oil is down, energy is down, gasoline is.

We hit one ninety nine a gallon today in five different states. You know, in California. People are clapping, but it's just not true. It's simply not true. The national average for gas remains right around 315. It's roughly what it was when Trump took over. You know, Trump could say gas prices haven't gone up under my watch, but he has to lie. He has to do more and say, no, gas prices are way down.

And of course, they're not. Trump bizarrely says, I don't even know what he's talking about. If drug companies don't lower their prices, he will ban Mercedes from selling cars in the United States. I mean, this stuff is wacky, disjointed thinking the other countries to lift up their prices a little bit and to get the drug companies to put it to them. And if they don't, the drug companies will have a lot of problems and they are mostly agreed to it.

And if the countries don't, then as an example of it's Europe, I'll say, that's OK. You're no longer allowed to sell cars in America. You're no longer allowed to have Mercedes BMW, Volkswagen or any of the other many cars. And they will say, oh, I love the idea of lower drug prices for America. So so you have to use that. You have to the other country. It's just who can I threaten to try to get compliance? What's the connection between these things?

Who the hell knows? There really is none. Interestingly, after it looked like Trump's DNI, Tulsi Gabbard was on the outs after there was a disagreement about intelligence assessments of Iran. Tulsi now has cooked up this Obama conspiracy theory. Trump's happy with her now. She is back in Trump's good graces. Remember she it's loyalty.

Director of national intelligence always Tulsi. She's like hotter than everybody. She's hot. She's the hottest one in the room right now because she found out with certainty. I think we knew it before, in all fairness, Tulsi. But now you have certainty. She has all the documents. She has everything that you need.

And she found out that Barack Hussein Obama led a group of people and they cheated in the elections and they cheated without question. It's not even a quote. Would you say there's even a little question there, Tulsi? No, no, we've all determined he's guilty. There's no. And you found things that nobody thought we'd ever find. And very happy and very honored to have you with us.

She's right now. By far, Speaker, she's hotter than you right now. Speaker, she's the hottest person in the room right now. Speaker, what this means is Tulsi went and did my bidding. She cooked up an Obama conspiracy theory out of thin air, which is attempting to take away attention from the Epstein files. If a Democrat ever, ever said these things and did something like this, it would be a month of programming on right wing media.

If a global leader ever held a press conference and did something like this, it would be a month of programming on right wing media. If a global leader ever held a press conference and did something like this, they would be globally humiliated and shamed. But it's Trump. It's Trump being Trump Trump. You don't need to worry about it too much. That's what we're being told. Terrifying. We'll have more on this on today's Substack newsletter.

Make sure you're getting it. Substack. David Pakman dot com. Make sure you're getting it. Substack.davidpakman.com building I'm it easy and fun. Maybe you're just getting started with your family tree. Maybe you're picking up where a family member left off. It's a great time to dive in and you can try it totally free for 14 days by going to David people I I was having people over last week, half an hour before pre heat and throw them in the oven. And people love it. Definitely. The croissants are my favorite.

The quality and the freshness of the items is extraordinary and it is just so convenient. Go to wild grain dot com slash Pacman to start your subscription and get thirty dollars off David, it's a pleasure to join you. for the first time today, governor of Colorado, Jared Polis, governor. Great to have you on the program. I appreciate it. David, it's a pleasure to join you. It's about time I want to start with Colorado is a very interesting state to me. I visited many times. It's got beautiful scenery, great breweries, restaurants, blue areas and also quite a few conservative folks.

And it's an it's an interesting state in a lot of different ways. I would love for you to give us a little bit of the lay of the land of with something like the recent tax bill. As an example, what did the dynamics of Colorado lead to in terms of how such a bill is going to affect your state in terms of be it rural hospitals, be it people who are entitled to but may struggle to retain benefits that they should get. Give us a sense of how you're kind of seeing this bill. Yeah.

Well, as you said, the lay of the land physically is beautiful with our mountains are our beautiful vistas. And you're welcome here anytime lay of the land politically. We are a diverse state politically and we also have rural areas, urban areas, suburban areas, areas of tourism economy, ag areas. So it's really a very diverse and significant sized state. So one of the big impacts of the big bad bill or whatever you wanna call it is really threefold. Obviously everywhere in the country, people will be thrown off of Medicaid.

Colorado won't have the same percentages as some of the higher poverty states, which tend to be red states. They'll have the highest percentage of people that'll be thrown off of Medicaid, but like every state, will it be several hundred thousand colorado's and lose their coverage the loss of the tax credits on the before will care acts means that in the exchange for review by zero health care doesn't get it from an employer

our rates will go about twenty eight percent next year in january i don't know where that's actually david but probably we could be in the middle lot of states will be more uh... it it just sort of pens but obviously losses tax credits is devastating the the final impact in this is across world america is really

how many of our world hospitals will even be viable given the loss in medicaid rolls given the increase in cost of the exchange and some people to twenty percent increase they're going to choose to go on insurance as a result because they can't afford that. And so we will be struggling with a lot of the same issues across rural Colorado that other states are that have rural areas. These are hospitals were barely able to get by as it is. And if we lose them, it means people want to travel hundreds of miles just to get basic

care. I'm curious what you expect from Republican legislators that represent Colorado who voted for this bill. But as we sometimes see in American politics, then they show up in their districts and they take credit or attempt to take credit for initiatives that they did not vote for in Washington, D.C. Maybe they're put vote for in Washington, DC. Maybe they're put in place at the state level. Maybe they're put in place by a governor.

You know, I might, maybe I'm thinking of people in particular, maybe I'm not. But how much, how much political concern do you have aside from just doing the best possible things for the people of the state with those who are going to DC and voting one way and then wanting to come back home to Colorado and say, hey, thank me for this thing at a ribbon cutting or whatever the case may be. Do you expect that? I don't know who will show up where for what, David, our entire Republican delegation, including Gabe Evans, including Lauren Bobert voted for the big bad bill.

Yep. We are, of course, like most states, gonna do what we can to save our rural hospitals. I mean, we can't make up for the federal loss, but we're gonna try to. I certainly hope that the Republicans who voted for the bill don't take credit for state efforts to save the hospitals.

I hope that those state efforts will be bipartisan. We're gonna be working on that in the meantime. We're also gonna do what we can to shore up the exchange, the health exchange. But again, if there's a 28 percent increase because of the loss of the federal tax credits, even if we can shave a few points off of that, it's still going to be a major increase for people to be twenty three, twenty four percent. I mean, this is fundamentally a federal tax credit. There's only so much states can do.

I want the bill is sort of interrelated with a bunch of other issues that include immigration. There's sort of like voting rights stuff sort of distantly related to talk first a little bit about immigration. What is your degree? To what degree do you want to cooperate with ISIS efforts in Colorado? And what is sort of over the line? What do you think the on the ICE cooperation? Yeah, I wish I got to hear those answers from my colleagues, Phil and Kathy, very thoughtful. I would have suspected, David, that they would have given and I would give the same answer, but you can tell me if it's different. But from my perspective, full

cooperation on criminal matters, no question, absolutely. Making Colorado safer is a major priority and no cooperation from state resources on civil enforcement matters that are the responsibility of the federal government. So that's that's where I draw the line. And I think it's similar to other governors. But you know, you know that more than me. No, it is similar on the issue of local law enforcement being, you know, fill in the blank, encouraged, asked, pushed, whatever to inquire as to immigration

status. How much power do you have over directing local law enforcement to do or not to do that? And what is your position on that? So it is not the job of local law enforcement to enforce the broken federal immigration laws. That's the job of the federal government. We keep our local law enforcement focused on fighting crime, keeping Colorado safe. They cannot be taken over by the federal government to enforce

civil law. So you know that's where that goes if the federal government is engaged in a criminal investigation to protect people. We have full cooperation with them and that includes aligning with our local and state resources. But no, they can't just take over local law enforcement and take them off the beat and away from the streets and have them do something else instead because we need them to protect Coloradans. I've read that there are some county clerks in Colorado refusing to comply with this Department

of Justice request for voter data for one of these so-called election integrity reviews. Do you agree with the county clerks that are saying we're not going to provide that data? You know, I'm not as close to that with David. In all honesty, I don't I haven't seen exactly what that request is and what's going on with that. We have a separately elected secretary of state and she'd be a good person to talk about that, as would some of the clerks themselves.

Do it generically when you hear that the Trump administration is doing something called an election integrity review. Does that make you think sounds really good or does that make you suspicious? Well, I don't know what they're seeking. Obviously, you know, people can look up in. Obviously, people can look up, in our state, you can look up registered voter information. So that is, we do that in the campaign context, David, right? When you're contacting voters who voted in each election,

who do you contact and who's the more likely person that might be a swing voter. So that data all exists on the political side. It's derived from information that is on the official side, Republicans have it, just like Democrats have it. So I just don't know what if there's information that's being sought, that's not publicly available or not. But if you've worked, you know, and you do you have experience on the, you know, the

campaign side, a lot of that data is data is out there. Republicans, Democrats have it used it to contact voters on the issue of housing. Housing is interesting to me because whenever you look at the housing issues in a specific state and you talk to people working on the issue, there's sort of like a cluster of different ideas that are mentioned. You know, there's sort of like the zoning side of it. There is subsidized housing.

There are government programs. There's. Well, do we want private equity more or less involved in owning or building? There's all these different kind of cluster of issues. One of the things that the data seems to consistently show is that however you can increase supply, it does help. And that even applies sometimes where it's like, oh, they're just building expensive condos that only a small percentage of people can afford.

Well, if you increase the supply and the people who can afford those condos move there, it does alleviate some pressure somewhere else in the supply chain. It's not the perfect solution, but it just seems like supply is the number one path here. Do you agree with that? Because I know you've rolled out some housing initiatives of different kinds, first time home buyers, et cetera. What's your philosophy on fixing housing? Yeah, I agree completely.

I thought you articulated that very well. Supply of all kinds helps pricing as a function of supply and demand. The demand is high in Colorado. People want to live here. That's a good thing. But when we have artificial constraints on supply, it inflates the cost of housing. What are those artificial constraints? They're effectively local zoning and ordinances that don't let things be built. Don't let homes be built, force multifamily homes to become smaller, not allow second homes

or accessory dwelling units to be built on the same lots. So these are the kinds of things that artificially constrict supply for where people wanna live. And as a result, prices go up. Average home price in the Denver metro area now about $600,000. So we have been focused on systematically taking apart these artificial constraints in supply.

We now allow, for instance, accessory dwelling units to be built by right. We've taken away the ability to impose parking requirements on new construction. Let a number of parking spots correspond to the demand of the market, right? If people want one parking spot with a 2000 foot condo, that's great.

If they want three, that's great, but don't have a requirement that they build so many that are go unused if they're not needed. So we're really focused on multifamily zoning by within half a mile of transit is another example. So these are the things that we've been focused on to just sort of allow homes and condos to be built to help meet the huge demand. The data I was able to find about private equity ownership in Colorado is that 19 percent of apartment units are owned by

private equity firms there. That's from the private equity stakeholder project. And then there's another report about investors owning single family homes. That's estimated to be about a quarter. Now, investor might be someone who has one rental unit. It doesn't necessarily. Investor is a much broader term than private equity firms. But if we focus in on the 19 percent of apartments owned by private equity firms, do you think

Coloradans are well served by almost one out of five apartments being owned by private equity? So, by the way, one of the things we do is apartments for rent and in Colorado condos for purchase were out of whack because of some elaborate construction liability laws that we had, we fixed those. So we're hoping that more people build condos here. That's for ownership, great starter home, two, 300,000. There's also, of course, a role for rentals,

for apartments. And David, there's good and bad landlords of all types, right? I know people who have horror stories from their landlords that were not private equity. I know people who are tenants of one that's owned by a larger equity firm that are happy, not happy. I mean, there's good and bad landlords of all kinds. So I don't think you can really just connect the dots and say that they're all all good

or all bad of a certain type. Well, I mean, I think that that's true. But I do feel the need to push back a little bit, because when you look at the resource, when you have a bad individual landlord, the the resources and the pockets, the depth of the pockets of the individual landlord who has a couple of apartments is going to be very different than what a private equity firm and its pockets can sort of bear or tolerate in terms of litigation or disproportionate power. So I don't I don't know that it's necessarily the same.

I mean, I think it's true that there are good and bad landlords, but there are some really there's really good scholarship about the state of apartments owned by private equity on average is objectively worse. The responsiveness and the debt collection tactics are extraordinarily more aggressive. You don't try any distinction between private, just an individual. I think, you know, you're asking the right question. So you ask and you ask the tenant, these are good questions. You say, look, when you have a problem, your water doesn't work or there's mold on your

wall is the response fast. Right. That's what you need to ask. Of course, debt collection is another category. So, you know, again, people should we should have more information on people kind of rating their landlords. But there are derelict landlords of all types and there's great landlords of all types. So I'd certainly be concerned if there was a concentration of ownership, for instance, if it was one private equity firm that owned 19 percent. I don't think that's the case. It's it's many. But there's obviously competition

among landlords and some of them have a bad reputation and tenants are less likely to sign up for this. All right. Let's I want to I'm curious to hear from my audience what what they think about your perspective on that. Let's talk a little bit more broadly about the Democratic Party. There's a very interesting anecdote in Jake Tapper's recent book about Governor Whitmer and the idea that in the chaos and concern about Joe Biden's reelection, which many felt was a bad idea as they spent time with him in 2023

and 2024, there was the idea of we've got to draft someone. Governor Whitmer's name came up in this anecdote in the book is that she said, listen, if I I'm not doing that, if I do that and he wins, I am out, essentially of the Democratic Party. I'm going to, you know, she didn't use the term sort of like a sent to the leper colony. But this is sort of essentially what she was intimating. And I think the broader concern right now is that there is not really a cohesive plan to say, hey, we lost a lot in November of 24. This affects governors in a slightly different way because your administrators in a way that,

you know, Lauren Bobert is not in Congress. I want to get your sense of what's the Democratic Party doing right right now? What's the Democratic Party doing wrong? If you had to articulate what is the broader message to try to justify voters voting for Democrats in the upcoming midterms? Where are you overall on this issue? Well, that's a that's a big, big question, right? But I would say, look, we should be the party of solutions and make people's lives better. And so when people are complaining about high health care costs,

great way to show the differences. Republicans have increased health care costs by the big bad bill. We should also have a plan to decrease them, right? We're the party of education. In Colorado, we implemented free preschool and kindergarten. I think we should have universal preschool accessible nationally, right? Right. As a country. Um, I'm doing a lot of work about getting better outcomes in education. How can we make sure that kids are prepared for success in the workforce and higher ed when they graduate, we should lead with policy ideas on that housing. We've talked about, right?

Let's be the party of removing barriers and making more housing that people can afford close to job centers and where people can live. So the party of ideas and ideas that speak to the real pain points that people have. What do you think the the policies you describe seem to have been in place in 2024? What didn't land in that last election as you assess it? In place? What do you mean? They were I mean, many Democrats supported them, of course.

I I think that, you know, they were in place as policy positions. Sorry, I wasn't clear about that. Yeah, I don't think that we witnessed the Democrats running on the power of those ideas. I was glad that Kamala Harris gave a nod towards housing reforms. That was she, you know, I don't know if she emphasized that in her campaign, but she had the policy there, which was great. In fact, it was one of her first policies that she came out with, was housing, and I was broadly supportive of what she was doing there. I don't think we've had a candidate that's really run on universal preschool. Maybe it's in their platform somewhere, but the fact that I don't know and you don't know whether it was there or not probably means they didn't focus on it. And then healthcare, again, there's an even bigger distinction to draw now

from the Republican plan, which increases your premiums on the private market and Democrats who want to reduce premiums and increase coverage. Governor, before I let you go, what don't you like about being governor? Well, being governor is great job. You're really able to get things done, David. I served in Congress for 10 years and I really was honored to do that, but it's very slow and frustrating at times. Being governor, you're able to get a lot done. So rather than just talk about things like free preschool,

got it done. Rather than talk about building out 100% clean energy by 2040, we're getting it done. We're gonna be at 80% clean energy by 2030 in just five years. So it's really where the talking part of politics ends and the doing part of politics begins. And I love it. Right.

But my question was, what don't you like about it? I think it would be interesting to hear about what are the frustrations of the office and it's it doesn't have to be about individuals. But what are the things that because you are an administrator and the buck stops with you in ways that maybe it doesn't like with a member of Congress? What are those areas that the average viewer might simply not know you deal with day to day? I'd say the toughest part is, you know, when you go to funerals, you know, if a state trooper

dies in the line of duty, meeting with victims who had a school shooting a few years ago in Douglas County and going to the hospital and, you know, visiting the kids. So those kinds of things, funerals, visiting people in hospitals, you know, those are not those are not fun, but they're an important responsibility. Yeah, no, that that does not that does not sound fun. We've been speaking with Jared Polis, the governor of Colorado. Governor really appreciate your time and some of the insights into what's happening in your

state today. Thank you. Thank you. If you were shopping for a new mattress, I would recommend you start by looking at Helix Sleep, the mattress I've been sleeping on for years, the only one that I recommend because they custom tailor it to your needs. I took their sleep quiz. It took a minute or two.

I said, oh, you know, I like to sleep on my stomach. I tend to feel hotter in the middle of the night rather than colder. I like medium firm and Helix just nailed it matched me with the perfect mattress. Most people don't even know where to start when you're looking for a mattress and Helix just makes it easy. at to Absolutely disastrous news for Donald Trump's former attorney, Alina Habba. CNN is reporting that the Department of Justice quickly fired the newly named U.S. attorney in New Jersey yesterday after federal judges in Jersey declined to extend Alina Habba's interim appointment.

So remember how all this went down. Alina Habba was appointed by Trump to be interim U.S. attorney in New Jersey. And we all knew this was a handout. It's nepotism. It's quid pro quo. It's a reward for being Trump's attack dog. But now we had a situation where the court voted to elevate Desiree Lee Grace, New Jersey's first assistant U.S. attorney to replace Alina Habba.

And Pam Bondi said, we are firing this position. They are claiming that it was politics that led to Alina Habba not getting elevated from interim to permanent. Pam Bondi putting out a statement saying, quote, nonetheless, politically minded judges refuse to allow her to continue in her position. Wow. Replacing a lean. Wow.

Added by me, replacing Alina with the first assistant. Accordingly, the first assistant U.S. attorney in New Jersey has just been removed. The Department of Justice does not tolerate rogue judges, especially when they threaten the president's core article to powers. Fox News reporting on this as well. Well, it could be back to the White House soon. Federal judges in the district of New Jersey have declined to extend Alina Hobbes appointment as interim U.S. attorney.

President Trump appointed Hobbit at the position on March the 24th. Interim U.S. attorneys are only allowed to serve for 120 days if they are not either confirmed by the U.S. Senate or extended indefinitely by the district court in their jurisdiction. We'll find out soon what's in her future plans. Yeah. And so this is now going to be a fight. The White House is saying no, Trump has a supreme power here. Trump can simply say who he wants to have there. She does need Senate confirmation eventually. But that's if she

is to be made the permanent U.S. attorney for New Jersey, the work around. And this administration loves just going around the law. The work around they found is make Alina Habba indefinitely interim U.S. attorney. Since she's interim, she doesn't need Senate approval, but just keep her in that role indefinitely. Why not? Right. This is the way the Trump administration works. This is also, of course, a direct result of just hiring and appointing unqualified people. Alina Haber has no business being U.S. attorney for New Jersey. It was always a giveaway. It was always a joke.

And it's sort of an interesting. The Alina Haber story is an interesting one because she really has remained loyal to Trump. She failed him in some of her legal representations, you may recall, but she has remained completely loyal. But Trump never really saw her as someone capable of a big position. You know, her name was floated as attorney general for a while and not that Pam Bondi and Matt Gaetz are great picks. But there was just something about Alina Habba that never really had Trump taking her seriously for those roles. And

it's clear that she's still being put in positions she's not qualified for. But fortunately, at least here, there's at least an attempt being made to block her. Bad news for Alina Habba. Such a sad thing. Donald Trump was asked, do you support the Department of Justice seeking an interview with Jelaine Maxwell? Trump goes, why? I don't. What are you, why? I don't.

What are you talking about? I don't know what you're saying. Do any of us believe this? And Trump's full answer is actually quite telling. Let's listen to it. Do you support the Justice Department seeking an interview with the late Maxwell? Do you urge the attorney general to seek? I don't know anything about it.

They're going to what? Me? They're going to. There's your deputy attorney general has reached out to the Lane Maxwell's attorney asking for a new attorney. Yeah, I don't know about it, but I think it's something that would be...sounds appropriate to do you. Do you think it's hard that your deputy attorney general with your former attorney would be conducting the interview, given... No, I have no concern. He's a very talented person. He's very smart. I didn't know that they were going to do it.

I don't really follow that too much. It's sort of a witch hunt, just a continuation of the witch hunt, the witch hunt that you should be talking about is they caught President Obama absolutely cold. Tulsi Gabbard, what they did to this country in 2016, starting, I think every word in this statement might be a lie in 2016. But going up all the way, going up to 2020 of the election, they tried to rig the election and they got caught. And there should be very severe consequences for that.

Yeah. Your IQ would have to be in the single digits for you to fall for this. I believe everything Trump says here is a lie. Trump says he's not following anything related to Epstein. That's obviously a lie. Trump says he's not even aware of what's going on with Jelaine Maxwell. That is obviously a lie. And it's contradicted by widespread reporting about the fact that this administration is trying to suppress Ghislaine Maxwell's testimony or trying

to limit it or trying to shutter up everything Trump says here seems to be a lie. And of course, the fact that the real story is, as he said earlier, Obama has been caught. He's guilty of treason. It's not even evidence. It's proof. I don't know how anyone is falling for this. And you know what? To their credit, some of the magas are not falling for it.

There are magas who are saying this sounds like a cover up. Fifty percent of Republicans in a recent poll said, I believe Trump is trying to cover up the Epstein situation. So the downside here is that the full weight of the federal government now seems to be on the continued cover up of the full story of Jeffrey Epstein. The upside, if there is to be a silver lining here, is that even magas are putting pressure in the direction of release the documents. And so maybe we will ultimately get something.

It happened again. Another Republican senator glitched out and froze on live television. He was trying to talk about immigrants and Jesus. This time it's John Kennedy of Louisiana. It's as awkward as it sounds like. Let me but let me preview one aspect of this for you. This happened during a Larry Kudlow interview on Fox Business. We were told that this was just a technical snafu that Kennedy's mic stopped working.

But I'm going to tell you one little thing to listen for that proves that that's a lie. When Kennedy glitches out and freezes, his microphone is working perfectly. It still picks up that echoey room tone of the cavernous Capitol building. If the mic weren't working, it wouldn't only affect Kennedy's voice, it would affect the background noise. And by the way, Kennedy's voice isn't moving. Take a look at this. And this is this is scary stuff that this is happening to so many of these people.

I'm sure Jesus loves them, but everybody else thinks everybody else. So I guess we have some more technical problems. That was the same night as we lost with Senator Rand Paul. I'm awful sorry to hear that because everybody respects what Senator John Kennedy has to say. Yeah, you know that he is lying because you actually hear the moment where they turn the mic down. You go from hearing the room tone to not hearing it.

Let me play just that moment again. So you hear when they cut the mic. What is this really about? It was obvious that they were going to try to smother it just like they did with Mitch McConnell. Kennedy's office as of this moment that we're going to air has not responded to questions about the incident. There's been no statement.

There's been no clarification or reassurance of anything. But meanwhile, John Kennedy's Twitter account kept posting political attacks. Probably his staff is running that this is becoming a disturbing pattern in the gerontocracy. This isn't only Republicans, but recently it's been mostly Republicans. And this freeze up looks very similar to Mitch McConnell's two freezing incidents last year. Maybe it was the year before. They always brush it off. Doctors always go, no, it was really nothing.

There is it's just it's nothing. And of course, if this had happened to a Democratic senator, it would be wall to wall coverage on Fox News 24 seven. But it happened on Fox to their own senator. So they go. It's a mic issue, even though the mic was working fine and we could very clearly hear the room tone. So the question is, how many more of these episodes do we need before we start seriously

considering? Forget about age limits or whatever. Do we just need some kind of fitness requirement? Do we is there not the Montreal cognitive assessment, but is there something real and substantive salient to the job of senators and members of Congress that should be put in place? Let me know what you think. Info at David Pakman dot com.

We've got a phenomenal bonus show today. We're going to talk about the Democratic autopsy of 2024 that seems to be missing the most critical part of it. We're going to talk about what's going on with the detainees at alligator Alcatraz. It's it's inhumane, inhumane. All of those stories and more are on the bonus show, which you can sign up for at join pacman.com. I look forward to seeing you there and you can request a free membership at David Pakman dot com slash free membership.