The David Pakman Show - 8/14/25: Newsom’s plan to end Trump presidency, Dems are finally fighting

Episode Date: August 14, 2025

-- On the Show: -- Gavin Newsom unveils an aggressive redistricting strategy in California aimed at flipping House seats from Republicans to Democrats -- Gavin Newsom’s California redistricting push is an example of Democrats matching Republican aggression with a clear plan to stop Donald Trump’s second term agenda -- New data shows the Producer Price Index surging far beyond expectations signaling that higher business costs will soon hit consumers and complicate Federal Reserve rate cut plans -- Donald Trump delivers a series of rambling and contradictory comments on topics ranging from golf course grass to border wall construction to sanctions on Russia -- A string of disjointed remarks by Donald Trump raises questions about his coherence and focus after months of media attention on Joe Biden’s mental fitness -- New figures show the federal budget deficit surging despite record tariff revenue as Donald Trump’s economic promises collide with rising spending and slower growth -- Nebraska Republican Don Bacon publicly concedes that Donald Trump’s tariffs have devastated his state’s economy and slashed GDP by six percent -- Karoline Leavitt delivers a series of blunders on Fox News including falsely claiming Trump inherited a war from Joe Biden -- Eric Trump is fact checked on air for lying about Biden’s market record and awkwardly defends profiting from the presidency alongside Donald Trump Jr -- On the Bonus Show: Democratic lawmakers who fled Texas plan their next move, MAGA is coming for legal marijuana, American drinking rates are declining, and much more... 😬 Remi mouth guards: Get up to 50% OFF with code PAKMAN at https://shopremi.com/pakman ✉️ StartMail: Get 50% OFF for a year subscription at https://startmail.com/pakman ⚠️ 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 to the show, everybody. I have something to talk to you about today that is a great thing that Democrats are doing. It's rare. It's rare that we have something specific to fight for. It's not a press release. It's not, oh, we're going to file a lawsuit, not ignoring the importance of lawsuits. But this is something real. This is something we can get involved in.

This is something we can donate to if we want. And it has the potential to stop the Trump administration in its tracks effectively by taking back Congress by doing some aggressive redistricting. Now, I'm going to tell you everything that's going on. I will tell you why I think it's a good thing. And maybe you disagree and you'll tell me why, but maybe you will agree. California governor Gavin Newsom has launched the most aggressive counter strike that we have seen against Donald Trump's grip on Congress.

What Gavin Newsom has announced is that California will draw brand new congressional maps. These maps will be subject to the approval of California residents. There will be a referendum. California residents don't want this, then it's not going to happen. And that makes this very different than what Texas is doing. Now, you might be saying, David, I thought you were against gerrymandering. And of course, I am. But I'm also against unilateral disarmament, and I will explain in a moment.

Gavin Newsom put out a post written in Donald Trump's all cap style, where he declared that these congressional maps will end the Trump presidency. He wrote, quote, Donald Taco Trump, as many call him, missed the deadline. California will now draw new, more beautiful maps. They will be historic as they will end the Trump presidency. Dems take back the house. Big press conference this week with powerful Dems and Gavin Newsome, your favorite governor that will be devastating for MAGA.

Thank you for your attention to this matter. Signed G.N. Gavin Newsome. So here's the play. Redraw the maps in an overtly politically partisan way, right? There's no, there's no hiding that. Knock out up to five Republican seats in California, flip the house back to Democrats in 2026. By the way, we might even see some prominent Republicans kicked out of Congress if this passes.

And then what happens? Trump's second term agenda, which is shaky, by the way, is dead. It's dead in the water. We're going to take your representatives and get rid of them. Now, let's be serious for a moment. be sober. I've been against gerrymandering my entire political career. When I was five and I moved to the United States, I proudly declared as we land triumphantly and courageously at JFK Airport. I said, I am here and I am against gerrymandering. I was only five. It's undemocratic. It is a way to rig

elections. And neither party should be doing it. But the problem is that Republicans have already decided, gerrymandering is their golden ticket to permanent power. Texas trying to add five Republican seats. Other Republican states have already done it. The map overall is already gerrymandered by Republicans. Democrats in the House to get 50% of the seats, depending on the analysis, need 54% of the vote. That's gerrymandered for Republicans. I'm against gerrymandering, but I'm not going to unilaterally disarm.

We're going to fight fire with fire. And remember, this is up for a referendum in California. If California residents don't want it, they won't get it. So we shouldn't sit back and say, we're going to be better people. They can gerrymander to high heaven and keep the house and win the house. But we're not going to do anything. We're just going to sit aside. And Gavin Newsom is saying not this time.

Now, you don't have to like Gavin Newsome. You might say Gavin Newsome is too far to the right or he's too far. to the left there's people that say both or he's too slick for his own good or i don't like that hairstyle or whatever but he's fighting and unfortunately i hate to admit it that is more than can be said for a lot of democrats right now so california's legislature is going to prepare the maps newsome has even uh um uh floated the idea um that well actually i'm not even going to get that but I'm going to talk about what could happen in other states in a moment. But the point here is this is not a vague process.

Republicans are already screaming about fairness, which is rich coming from the people who perfected the concept of unfair maps, racially biased maps, politically biased maps. But the bottom line is this. If Democrats retake the House in 2026, Donald Trump's supposed unstoppable presidency, his mandate, his unrestraignable agenda is dead. And now many of you will say, isn't this a race to the bottom? If California does it because Texas is doing it and then that's right. But they've already done it. Since they've already done it, the upside is all on the Democratic side. Kathy Hochel should do the same damn thing in New York. J.B. Pritzker should do the same thing

in Illinois, and this can effectively end the Trump presidency. We need people who will fight. If we acknowledge that this presidency is as dangerous as many of us know it to be, why wouldn't we take any legal means necessary or legal means possible to just make it run into a brick wall? So if given the chance, I would end all gerrymandering today. I would end all of it right now. We're not there. And we have to find a way to stop Trump. We've got something to fight for. This is something if you want to donate to the redraw campaign for the ballot referendum, then you can do it. And now I want to talk about the bigger strategy for Democrats. I have been saying for months, months and months and months, good policy isn't enough when you've got incoherent strategy, messaging that's not

connecting with people and the perception that you're just not really in it for the average working class voter. And so last week, I did a segment very critical of where I see the Democratic Party right now. It was based on my personal experience interviewing Democrats over the last several months, nice people, but no real coherent plan here. Voters don't reward spreadsheets, soft focus platitudes. They reward clarity and direction plans that meet the moment. And the gusto to fight, the testicular fortitude, the ovarian fortitude, most Democrats don't have that. Staffers want pre-cleared questions. Candidates get upset or elected officials get upset when you follow up with them. And so this entire were not Trump pitch, the technocratic

talking points, it's not working. And that is exactly why I support Gavin Newsom's redistricting plan even though, as I already told you, I'm against gerrymandering in principle because the reality of where we find ourselves today and where the left is and where the Democratic Party is is that Republicans are doing everything they want. They're redrawing the country. Texas is pushing maps to grab as many as five new Republican seats. Other states have already done the same. They are playing for raw power, not for process. If Democrats don't respond in kind, it's not moral purity. We're just saying we're going to disarm unilaterally. We'll let them keep the weapons and keep firing them, but we're just going to get rid of the weapons

ourselves. So Gavin Newsom is doing here what Democrats rarely do matching Republican aggression with Democratic aggression. We need people who are in the fight. And Gavin Newsom's being clear about it. He's saying, we are overtly doing this to end Trump's presidency. We're going to draw maps that will get rid of Republican seats. They will create Democratic seats. We will win the House and that's it. That is a moral clarity that we rarely see from Democrats. You could say, I don't like gerrymandering. I'm with you. We should end it altogether. But Gavin Newsom is being clear about clear about what this is. If you don't want that, well, if you vote in California, you can vote against this, right? But this is not jargon. It's not hedging. It's just here's what we're

going to do. It's not ideal, but I believe it's necessary right now. You can oppose gerrymandering and recognize the asymmetry that we are up against. One party rigs maps to entrench minority rule. The other pretends restraint will be rewarded. Both are bad. Rigging maps to maintain minority rule, which Republicans are doing, that's bad. Pretending that by being restrained and taking the high road, voters will reward Democrats, it's not happening. It's not happening. And so, We are now going to allow voters in California to decide, is this what's going to happen? So this is the standard that I'm applying. And I wish Democrats would apply it.

Number one, we're not going to unilaterally disarm. We're not going to make up stories like they're eating the cats. They're eating the dogs. We're not going to do that. Okay. That's too low. That's just dishonest. But we are going to use the tools that are available and we're going to claw back seats, hopefully in California. I hope that Kathy Hokel does it in New York. If I interview her again soon,

I will encourage her to do it. J.B. Pritzker we're talking to about being on the show. That's not cheating. That is parody. Number two, we want guardrails, right? So put time limits on the maps, hold public hearings, put it on the ballot, make it a targeted, transparent process. Of course. And number three, we do want moral clarity. Say the quiet part out loud. There is an authoritarian, nightmare in the White House. If Democrats can retake the House in 2026 by any legal means, then Trump's second term power experiences significant shrinkage. It'll shrink down to the shriveled size of Trump's hands. And this, I don't believe, should stop in California. We need other governors and legislatures to do the same responsibly and quickly. And you can get

involved in that as well you can donate to the california redistricting effort but you can also lobby your governor or even if they're not your blue state governor you can you can lobby governors anyway you can call whoever you want uh this means we've got to identify winnable ground where are republicans overrepresented because of the congressional maps and it makes it it it means making new maps explicitly contingent on republican gerrymanders and with sunset clauses and at any point that we We want to look again at banning gerrymandering altogether, then I'm with that. And we can restore truly fair representation across the country. In a perfect world, we would have independent commissions everywhere to do nonpartisan redistricting.

We don't have it. We just don't have it. We are in a world where one party redraws the battlefield and the other party is writing about norms. It's not going to work, okay? Democrats have a strategy problem, a messaging problem, a courage problem. this is a fight. So let's fight now with guardrails and transparency or we're going to keep losing to a movement that doesn't care about taking the high road. They don't care about any of it.

That's where I am. Agree with me. Disagree with me. I want to hear from you info at David Pacman.com. We are now seeing price shocks almost every single day. I talked to you earlier this week about higher inflation. We talked last week about the declining jobs numbers. And it's getting worse. And the stock market is reacting as of this moment because of what I'm about to tell you, all markets are down. According to new government data, the producer price index jumped by 0.9% in a single month. That is more than four times what analysts were expecting.

They were expecting 0.2%. Reality is 0.9%. These might sound like small numbers, but this is huge. Okay. On a year over year basis, producer prices are now up 3.3%. That's the steepest increase since February. When you look at the core numbers, they strip out some categories and they really look at what are we talking about here with manufacturing and production.

We're talking about a 0.6% jump in July. That's the sharpest in more than three years. So let me explain in plain English what this means. Businesses are paying more to make and move goods. And they are not eating those costs out of the kindness of their hearts. They are passing those on to consumers. And we would expect that because there's a little bit of a delay. We saw overall inflation go up a little bit, but we're seeing production pricing go up more.

That means next month, we would expect that to trickle down in a sense to individual consumers, you and me and everybody. And so that's why producer prices are a leading indicator of inflation. They tell you what's coming down the pipeline. And what's coming down the pipeline is even higher prices. Now, this is, of course, as I mentioned, days after the consumer price index showed inflation running hotter, going in the opposite direction that Donald Trump promised. So consumers are already paying more.

The pressure is building on the business side and consumers will likely pay even more. Why is this happening? One reason is tariffs that Donald Trump put in place. and higher import costs. For months, businesses were trying to absorb these extra costs, but the margins only stretched so far. And as an economist put it, companies are passing the buck literally and metaphorically. And some of the numbers were boosted by little quirks, like I'll give you an example.

There were higher portfolio management fees linked to the reversal of the stock decline from Q1 that we saw in Q2. So there's these little quirks. But the point here is inflation is running hotter than the Fed wants it to. And that brings us to the politics of this. Jerome Powell is soon going to be going back and meeting to make a decision about a federal rate cut. We are sort of expecting a federal rate cut next month.

But with inflation flaring again, the story gets a little complicated. Now, I might have misspoken earlier this week. I think in my sort of like sleep deprived newborn baby phase. that I'm in. I think I said that because inflation is up, the Fed might cut rates. But of course, cutting rates can drive inflation. So when inflation is low, the Fed would be likely to cut rates. The idea is inflation is up, but maybe still low enough for the Fed to cut rates. But the point here is, as we see these other numbers go up, as we see production price index go up, the Fed may not actually end up cutting rates. So we are going to have to wait and see on that. But the squeezes

on business it exactly what economists predicted is happening. Businesses are going to have to pay more to make the stuff that they sell. Got it. It's happening. And they are passing that cost along to consumers and they are going to do more of it over the next month. This is the opposite of what Donald Trump promised us. So I learned a while ago that I was clenching and grinding my teeth at night, not on purpose, not because I was necessarily stressed out by something obvious, but grinding and clenching without even knowing it. And when I talked to my dentist about it, about getting a night guard, it was a whole thing. Appointment, mold, waiting, a bill that seemed very high. And ultimately, I found Remy. And Remy is our sponsor today. Remy sends a kit right to your door to take an

impression of your teeth with super clear step by step instructions. You send it back to them and they will custom make your night guard right here in the United States, in Las Vegas specifically, no waiting rooms, no overpriced bills, just a better way to protect your teeth while you sleep. Try Remy risk free at shopremi.com slash Pacman and use the code Pacman to get 50% off your nightguard at checkout. The link is in the description. Donald Trump held an event, answered questions, and went completely off script in a way that is once again raising questions about cognition. We're going to get back to the cognition question in a moment, Trump at the Kennedy Center.

It's sort of like if you imagine what would happen if people from the back just would yell random questions, what do you think about John Sina's role in this season's WWE? What's your view on mayonnaise on French fries? Trump is talking as if he's being asked about this stuff. But of course, he's just ranting and raving incoherently. Here is Trump talking about grass. Grass. And I guess it's not a euphemism for cannabis.

He's talking about actual grass. Listen to this. And the lifetime of this grass has long been gone. When you look at the parks where the grass is all tired, exhausted. We're going to redo the grass with the finest grasses. I know a lot about grass because I own a lot of golf courses. And if you don't have good grass, you're not in business. Very long, Lindsey Graham.

By the way, you have very good poll numbers. Lindsay, I just saw congratulations. There you go. So if there were any questions, no one knows grasses better than Donald Trump. And you can add that to the long list of areas in which his expertise. is unmatched. Trump continually confused during this event. At one point, he was asked, was it your call not to bring Zelensky to your meeting with Putin that's scheduled for tomorrow? And of course, was it your call means was it your decision? Right. If I go, hey, was it your call to do pasta instead

of pizza? You wouldn't go, oh, I had a great phone call with pasta. You would say, yes, it was my call. I decided. Trump doesn't get it. And he goes, no. I had a great call with Putin, with Zelensky, rather. In the back, yeah, please. Mr. President, how were your calls this morning with European leaders? And was it your call not to invite President Zelensky to your meeting with Putin? No, just the opposite. No, no.

We had a very good call. He was on the call. President Zelensky was on the call. I would rate it at 10, you know, very, very friendly. I know the leaders because I was at NATO, as you know, I took it from 2% to 5%. 2% that wasn't paid, 5% that is paid, which is trillions of dollars in defense capability. No, it was always going to be, I was going to meet with President Putin.

And then after that, I'm going to call the leaders and President Zelensky. I'm going to call President Zelensky. So I guess he's saying it was his call or he's not understanding. Every single press conference is just like this. The other really strange thing about these press conferences is that Donald Trump, due to a combination of malignant narcissism and insatiable insatiable egomania, he simply seems unable to stop himself from lying about the 2020 election. Remember that he still hasn't accepted that he lost the popular vote in 2016, now nine years ago.

And if he hasn't accepted the truth about 2016, he of course isn't going to accept the truth about 2020. And here he is still pushing this stuff. We had a great election in 2020. We won the election by a lot, but it was a rigged election. And we had to wait four years and we waited four years. And it's interesting because I got the Olympics and I got the World Cup. I can't claim that I got the 250. That one's a big one. But I happen to be here. But, but I got the Olympics. I got the World Cup. And I said, the shame of it is that I'm not going to be president when it happens. And low and behold, look what happens. We have some bad things took place and now I'm going to be president for the Olympics.

I'll be president for the World Cup and the 250th is going to be maybe more exciting than both. It's a great celebration of our country. We're going to be using this building for a lot of the celebration having to do with 250 years. And of course, subject repetition is a known and very well documented sign of cognitive. decline. A practical matter came up. Are you done building the wall? Remember that Donald Trump promised in his first term to build a wall across the entire U.S.-Mexico border, which Mexico would pay for. It didn't quite happen. Here is Trump's answer to is the wall done. The Biden administration was auctioning off border wall materials, but we're hearing now that

the auctioneers selling those materials back. Are you finishing building the wall? I built hundreds of miles of wall and I was getting very close. I actually finished the wall, but then I added another 200 miles because when you do the original wall that I said. You understand that, right? He finished it, but then he added more. I was going to build, which I got built. And I got it to the specifications of the Border Patrol and ICE, the exact. They wanted steel.

They wanted concrete inside. They wanted to have to have wires. We have the walls are wired for, you know, all of the Internet stuff and security. We've got internet wires up the wazoo in this wall. So is it finished? Was it first of all was the promise we will build a wall across all 2,000 miles of U.S. Mexico border done? Was that done?

The answer is no. Did Mexico pay for it? The answer is no. And it is now 2025, nine years after this promise was made. Trump says, I built a couple hundred miles. And I finished it, but I kept working on it anyway and built even more miles. This doesn't make any sense. This just makes no sense.

Geopolitical question. Will Russia face consequences if Putin doesn't agree to end the war tomorrow? This is not a way in some distant future. If Putin doesn't agree to end the war tomorrow, will there be consequences? And Trump says, oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Will Russia face any consequences if Vladimir Putin does not agree to stop the war after your meeting on Friday? Yes, they will. What will there will be? There will be consequences. There will be, I don't

have to say, there will be very severe consequences. There will be very severe. Listen to what he's saying. I mean, this, if this were a normal president, this would be a huge deal. If we had a president that did what he says he's going to do, that would be a major bit of news. If Putin does, end the war tomorrow major consequences so severe Trump doesn't even want to mention them. Call me skeptical. Call me really, really skeptical about this. And then finally, Donald Trump advocating for federal funds rates, three or four points lower. And now he's got us in a bad place. So we're paying $360 billion year for each point. Now, I believe we're we should be three or four points lower. So that's over a trillion dollars we pay every year

in interest. And it's really just a paper calculation. You sign a document and you save almost a trillion dollars because that number equates very much to the bonds that we have to buy. But despite that, we're powering through it and we have the greatest economy maybe we've ever had. Understand the conflict here. And this is, I hope I, I expect, I, explain this clearly. Normally, when you ask the Fed to lower rates, even a little bit, it's because you need to juice the economy. The economy's not doing that well. So you say let's lower rates to juice the economy. Trump is simultaneously saying he wants record reductions to the federal funds rate. When Trump talks about three points, that's 300 basis points,

3.0. The Fed normally moves rates a quarter point or half a point at a time, what we would call 25 basis points or point or 50 basis points. Trump's like reduce it 3%. Normally the Fed would go, we're going down a quarter of a percent or we're going up a quarter of a percent. So the demand is whacked. But more importantly, if we have the best economy ever of any time, of any planet, of any galaxy, why are you asking the Fed to do something so drastic that they would normally only even consider if the economy really needed rescuing. It doesn't make any sense. And just this event, this event yesterday generated a whole new round of concern over Donald

Trump's cognitive state. And it would be a disservice to my audience not to at least touch on that for a moment. Yesterday I got a very interesting email from a viewer who said, I have done an analysis of Donald Trump's linguistic capacity over the last years. And even over the last six months, Trump's vocabulary is becoming more narrow. Trump's use of repetitive phrases is increasing, basically saying here are all of these linguistic signs of cognitive trouble. Just yesterday, just during the hour or however long, 45 minutes it was that Donald

Trump took questions at the Kennedy Center, he had a number of these moments. where it's sort of like, is this guy okay? What's wrong with this guy? And I really want to ask you of a specific question with regard to this. Why is the corporate media not covering Donald Trump's obvious incoherence and clear disorientation after the breathless coverage of Joe Biden? These clips are all just yesterday. Here is Trump incoherently talking about.

factories and he goes, we're opening factories all over the world. Wait, no. Are we? I don't know. So many things. But the biggest thing is from a business standpoint, deductions. You know, that was tremendous. It's going to, our country is roaring.

Our businesses are, you're going to see some numbers in 12 months when these factories are open. You know, we're opening up factories all over the world, all over the country. But that's all spreading to, I think we're spreading the wealth all over the world, if you want to know the truth. I thought that we were doing economic policy that was America first. I thought the whole point here was to help American companies and American workers and American consumers. But now we're opening factories all over the world, I mean country, but we're spreading wealth all over the world.

Once again, it doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Donald Trump, as we looked at earlier, talking about grass. And this went gigaviral because it just isn't coherent. And the lifetime of this grass has long been gone. When you look at the parks where the grass is all tired, exhausted, we're going to redo the grass with the finest grasses. I know a lot about grass because I order a lot of golf courses. And if you don't have good grass, you're not in business. Very long, Lindsey Graham.

By the way, you have very good poll numbers. Lindsay, I just saw congratulations. We are, uh, it, it's time to pull the plug on this, folks. It's just time to pull the plug. And whatever your feelings are about gerrymandering and redistricting, seeing Donald Trump's growing in coherence every damn day only reinforces my support of doing whatever we can legally do to put a stop to this administration. And so it again makes me say, wow, we got to do the redistricting, take the house back and say, no more.

You are getting nothing else done. I'm going to have a substack op-ed about this. Make sure you're subscribed to myself. You know, I'll often talk to my friends about what do we really think is private on our computers and on our phones? And many people believe that their emails are genuinely private. And it turns out that a lot of the email services are looking at your emails and can look at your emails even after you have deleted them, which is why I recommend our sponsor, StartMail, a trusted name in secure email for more than a decade.

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has made president and given the keys to the economy and he can do his. tariffs and he can do his growth and he can do all of it. We are going to see the deficit go down. We're finally going to get back to a balanced budget thanks to fiscal conservatism and blah. And the deficit is up. After all of this, the deficit is up. Trump promised that his tariffs would make the country rich. They would supercharge growth. They would bring revenue from other countries. The tariffs are paid by American companies, but Trump said it would bring revenue from other countries. It would close the deficit. We have the damn numbers. The federal budget deficit in July jumped 20% compared to last year when Joe Biden was president. That is, despite the U.S.

collecting record tariffs from American companies, which sounds very impressive when you hear it. Oh, we collected 21 billion from American companies, by the way. But the spending is outpacing revenue by a lot. In fact, by a growing amount. Tariffs are a tax on imports. We've explained this before to simple concept. The tax is paid by the American business. They pass it down to the American consumer by charging more. It's not China paying us. It's me paying. It's you paying. It's the companies importing the goods that are paying. So the money does go into the treasury, but it doesn't change the fact that the government's expenses are going to. growing faster than its income. And there are a number of reasons why. Number one, interest

payments on the national debt are ballooning. Number two, we have a bunch of other spending that even though Trump said he was going to bring spending down, he's spending more, spending more on defense, spending more on health programs. And so you've got this record tariff revenue, but the costs are just swamping extra income. And even the tariff revenue is being collect from American companies. It's like putting water into a bucket while drilling holes into the bottom of the bucket. That's sort of metaphorically what is being done here. And Trump's entire sales pitch was the tariffs aren't just going to raise money. They're going to generate growth because they're going to bring back industry and they're going to do all these things. So we're going to get

more tax revenue and the deficit will go down. The problem is blanket tariffs as executed by this administration slow the economy down. They don't speed it up. Basic stuff. I learned this in I learned this in my freshman. I learned this in AP econ senior year of high school, right? 65 years ago now. Companies face higher costs. So consumers pay more. So imports drop.

So any extra revenue from the collection of tariffs is undercut by higher prices and slower growth. The congressional budget office has already looked at this. They said this is a tariff plan that over 10 years is going to cut deficits. but at the cost of shrinking the economy, of raising inflation, of lowering purchasing power. So if you do what's called dynamic scoring, dynamic scoring means you analyze the effect of the change in behavior thanks to your policy. So, for example, this is, I think, the simplest example.

It's very easy. And by the way, this is not me advocating for or against anything. But you sometimes hear, you know, if you raise the top tax rate on the rich, from 37 to 45 percent. Here's how much extra you generate in revenue. In order to do that accurately, you also have to say here is how we expect the behavior of that group to change in response to the tax increase. And if that includes some individuals will restructure businesses to avoid income tax, some individuals might work less, some individuals, some individuals might move to a different country, whatever, you have to account for that.

And so you can't just say, we're going to collect tariffs and the deficit will go down by the amount of the tariffs because it doesn't account for economic activity will slow down because of higher prices. They didn't account for that. And that's what they are now dealing with. Now, there's one other issue I want to mention that economists are pointing out, which is that Trump is changing tariff rates constantly. And so that at its core, aside from dynamically analyzing the effect of any economic policy,

if you're regular, we've got an emergency tariff, but now it's temporarily suspended. And then here's the permanent tariff, but here's the extra tariff. When you do that, you can't even accurately predict what is going to happen. So this is not like a political story. It has a political dynamic to it. But if tariffs are failing to do what Trump promised, which they are because the deficit is up 20% year over year, you're sticking. working class Americans with the fallout, jobs will be more scarce, there will be more inflationary

pressure, interest rates on mortgages may remain high, on car loans, on credit cards. In other words, it's the opposite of enriching the United States. Trump's saying we're getting really wealthy because of the tariff revenue. The numbers say the deficits going up. You forget about the fact that Trump said in his first term he would completely pay off the national debt with a surplus. That didn't happen. And deficits, of course, went up. We are now seeing the opposite of what he promised happen on prices, on jobs, on manufacturing, and now also on the deficit. All right, listen, what's happening in our economy is not good, but it is predictable.

It's basic economics. We heard from a Republican here, Don Bacon, congressman from Nebraska, about what's going on. He didn't say anything controversial here. only controversy is that he's a Republican and he's willing to acknowledge, I think, because it's hurting his constituents so badly, what Donald Trump's economic program is doing. As a reminder, Trump predicted and bragged about how his tariffs are 4D chess and they're going to be so good for the country, but it's crushing farmers and Nebraska's got a lot of farmers.

And here is Congressman Don Bacon simply acknowledging what it is that is going on. We need trade deals as fast as we can for Nebraska. We're an export state and our corn and soybeans right now are being shut out of the market. And that's why Nebraska is on its heels right now. We've lost about 6% of our GDP according to the economic numbers that are official. And that's not a good sign. And so if we can get some tariff deals and get these markets open back up, ultimately, that's what we want.

Think about what is happening here. In a sense, five or six percent, six percent, he says, of Nebraska's GDP has evaporated operated into thin air because Trump wanted a talking point about being tough on China with tariffs that are paid by American businesses. And meanwhile, the people that are paying the price are the soybean farmers and the corn growers and families that are already struggling to get by. And this is really the core of the problem with Trump's economic brain trust, number one, of the expectation that they will be completely loyal to Trump, they don't seriously tell

them what the effect of his policies are going to be until it becomes completely untenable and they just have to go, listen, this is not good. And then he'll go, oh, I'm temporarily suspending tariffs for 90 days or whatever. But the core that tariffs are a punishment for not foreign governments, but for American businesses, isn't getting through to Donald Trump. And you've got Republicans here. I mean, this is not Elizabeth Warren from liberal Massachusetts. This is Republican Congressman Don Bacon from right wing Nebraska saying we have seen 6%

of our GDP disappear as a result of these tariffs. So it is a bad look, but think about the follow on effects of this if the tariff policy isn't changed aside from the fact that there's a whole bunch of other policy that's no good. And this was predictable not only because if you go to an economist and you say, hey, what happens if you do these tariffs and they go, this is, this is what happens. We have the experience and the data from Trump's first term in terms of the effect on a farmers. And Trump had to bail out the farmers in his first term because the economic policy and the tariff policy was clearly so bad. So I'm not here to say, oh, what a what a how courageous Don Bacon is. Bacon's got his back against the wall.

Trump's got three more years in theory. But Don Bacon's up for re-election in 15 months. And how does he justify getting reelected when the guy he supports from his party, Donald Trump, has overseen a tariff policy that played a role in evaporating into thin air 6% of Nebraska's GDP. This is a real problem for Bacon. And that's why he's coming out and acknowledging this. Now, whether this is going to lead to any kind of change or whether anyone's got Trump's

ear as to the damage that he's causing. Who knows? But Bacon's back is against the wall. And that's it. His concern is reelection here. 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% 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.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's White House press secretary Caroline Levitt made a devastating mistake on Fox News that if people understood she glitched out mid-lie. If people understood the historical significance of this, I think it would be getting a lot more

attention. So here was Caroline Levitt this morning on Fox talking about Ukraine, Russia, conflict, war, Putin, Zelensky, all in the context of Donald Trump's scheduled meeting with the Russian President Vladimir Putin tomorrow. And listen very carefully to what she said here, because that this is really about exactly the words she uses. This is a highly complex and brutal war that, again, inherited by Joe Biden. Russia did not invade Oh, let me play that back. Inherited by Joe Biden, Russia did not invade Ukraine under President Trump. They invaded under Joe Biden because of his incompetence and his weakness.

And this president is trying to solve it and bring it to an end. And he deserves great credit for that. So of course, she glitched. And the implication here is she wanted to say Trump inherited the Ukraine-Russia war from Biden. Instead, she had a sort of Freudian slip there where she says Biden is the one who inherited this war. And if that's the case, it would have been from Trump previously. Now, you might be saying, wait a second, if Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022, Biden was president.

It is actually Trump inheriting, inheriting it for Biden. I think that that's all fine. All these conversations are fine. There's really two important dates here. And I think this is where the conversation is more suited to, to, it's more suited to, it's more suited to getting to the core of Trump's claims of being the anti-war president and the best possible arbiter of global conflict. 2014 and 2022.

2014 was really the start of this invasion. Russia annexed Crimea, um, started moving into the Dignetsk and the Lujansk and then triggered this ongoing war in the Donbos region. And that started in 2014 and some of the things I'm mentioning, it took time to develop. And in a broader sense, that's like the real start of the conflict. It happened under Obama and it was inherited by Donald Trump. So if we want sort of our first shot, our first analysis at saying, does Trump seem to have what it takes to end these conflicts?

Not only did Trump not end it during his first term, he allowed it to grow. grow and fester. Now, this is where it starts to get more overtly political. Yes, Putin invaded Ukraine in other areas, in other regions in 2022. And so we might call that the next phase of this war or invasion that happened under Biden. And then Trump came in. Now, there's a number of different criticisms that can be made here or analyses. One, which I think is an interesting one, is that when Trump says Putin never would have done that had I been president, even if he were right and Trump is just spitballing all the time. He'll try to see what he can get away with.

But if it were true that had Putin, that had Biden not won in 2020 had Trump won, Putin maybe wouldn't have invaded. That could be true, but for different reasons than Trump thinks. When Trump says Putin never would have invaded if I had won instead of Biden in 2020, what Trump means is because Putin's afraid of me. Putin never would have had the audacity to do it if I were president. He isn't scared of Biden, but he's scared of me and that's why. But there's another interpretation, which is all sort of up for discussion, but it's equally at least hypothetically valid, which is Putin might not have invaded Russia. I'm sorry, Putin might not have not have invaded

Ukraine in 2022 if Trump were president because he sees Trump as a manipulatable guy from whom he can get other things without needing to invade Ukraine. So that is a possibility. But the broader issue here, of course, is Trump allowed Putin's aggression with Crimea de Nets-Luhansk to go essentially unabated and uncontested during the entirety of Donald Trump's first term. So Trump wants us to believe he's this tough guy who ends these conflicts and people as soon as Trump as president go, of course, no, no, no, sir, sir, whatever you want.

But we have historical precedent that that is not the case. We then get, of course, to this term. And it's important also to hold Trump accountable for the promises that he made. Donald Trump long promised during the campaign for 2024 that the Russia-Ukraine war would end within 24 hours of Trump becoming president-elect. That deadline came and went and it didn't happen. Then we were told within a month of becoming president-elect, Trump is going to end the Russia-Ukraine war, which would have put that roughly at December 5th.

That didn't happen. They moved the goalposts again. It then became what Trump meant about 24 hours was he would end the Russia-Ukraine war within 24 hours of being sworn in in late January. That didn't happen. Then it was going to be a month. Then it was going to be a hundred days from getting sworn in. All of those milestones, those timelines came and went.

And then they shifted to, and J.D. Vance alluded to this. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said it, this may not be solvable. We may be getting ready to walk away. How much effort are we really going to put into this to begin with? So once again, Caroline Levitt, whose Freudian slip opens the door to this entire broader discussion, is trying to clean up for a guy who has made 10, 12, 15 different promises and claims with regard to what he can convince Putin to do, all of which have failed to take place. Biden inherited this war, a Freudian slip for sure, but really a much, much broader issue. Now, a couple other moments from this morning's appearance on Fox News, Caroline Levitt, again,

talking about the D.C. militarization. And interestingly, this is so funny. They both want us to believe crime is so bad in D.C. that Trump needs to federalize D.C. police and bring armed vehicles and the whole thing, but also crimes down in D.C. and that's thanks to Donald Trump. Both are supposed to be true under Caroline Levitt. Carolina, I know that the president can do this for 30 days if he notifies the right committees in Congress, which he did.

There were some stories that Democrats were spreading the narrative. We don't need the National Guard in there because crime has gone down around 30 percent. 26% I think this past year and 35% the year before that. And then we heard those numbers might be inaccurate. They might be false. And some people were let go or they were suspended, right, Brian, from their jobs because of it? Can you clear that up for us? Are those numbers correct?

These numbers are absolutely correct. And we will continue to provide the American public and the press with the numbers because we're proud of these efforts. If the Democrats had their way, there would be hundreds more criminals roaming free in the streets of the District of Columbia right now. There would be hundreds of more illegal aliens who this multitask task force has already detained and arrested and now they are focused on deporting from our country. Those individuals would remain in the District of Columbia where they would have been free to do more harm.

And that's not- I think you get the point. Caroline, is it true that crime is down significantly in Washington, D.C.? Absolutely. And that is a great success of President Donald Trump. Caroline, is it true that crime is up in Washington, D.C., and therefore Donald Trump needs to federalize the police and start busting down encampments and campments and arresting or sending away homeless people? Absolutely, D.C. is completely out of control. Now, I am not naive

to the way that the average MAGA might try to bridge this gap. And I want to deal with that head on. They could say, you know, David, you're being kind of silly here. It can be true. that crime in DC is down, but it started so high that it still justifies Donald Trump taking the actions that he is taking. And of course, the data completely contradicts that because you simply cannot, if you acknowledge the degree to which crime is down in DC, it becomes impossible to justify taking this action at all. The reason Trump's taking it is because D.C. isn't a state and it has no governor.

It's much easier as a test case for doing this. In other states, you would either need the consent of the governor or you would need to trample the governor. And that at least for now is a little bit more complicated, although they did it on a small scale in L.A. That wasn't actually federalizing law enforcement, though. It's important to be clear. That was just sending in federal troops and it's a different thing. So Caroline Leavitt speaking out of both sides of her mouth and the Fox and Friends hosts let her do it. Finally, finally, here is Caroline Levitt bragging about Donald Trump's incredible achievements

in these short six, almost seven months of his second term with regard to ending global conflict. Listen to this. Some of the people in liberal media in liberal circles, people that the president fired said that the president is going to be embarrassed by Putin. Speak to that. What does the president walk out of a meeting? We know who he is.

I'm sure he's not going to tolerate disrespect from Putin, even though he wants peace, right? Well, Lawrence, you're being very kind, and I won't be so kind, and I'll just name some of those people, such as John Bolton, who I think has made a disgrace of himself on television and into newspapers claiming that he knows better than President Trump. No, he doesn't, and neither do any of these so-called foreign policy experts who have never solved a foreign policy conflict in their lives. Look at what this president has done in six months. He has stopped seven global conflicts all around the world using the leverage of the United States of America to negotiate these conflicts to an end. You had the leaders of Azerbaijan in Armenia at the White House last week, both of whom said this would not have been possible without the leadership of President Trump and his administration. So the American people trust this president. That's why they overwhelmingly reelected him.

And I think it's pathetic some of the chatter that we see from these so-called. experts who have zero accomplishments on their own resumes to point to. President Trump knows what he's doing. Yeah. He has ended so many global conflicts. It's just completely and totally unbelievable. You know, the only issue with this is he said he'd be the anti-war president. And of course, we all know now about the Iran strike. But even beyond that, the Trump administration has done significantly more air strikes already than Biden did now speaking globally. Trump is on pace to completely blow out of the water figuratively what Joe Biden was doing as far as air strikes go. There's really no empirical basis on which you can make the claim that Trump is sticking to

this, that he's in any way adhering to the idea that he's the anti-war president and the one that reduces conflict. And so this is an ongoing propaganda battle at this point in time. The facts belie all of the claims. Deficits going to be down. Well, the deficit's up 20 percent. I'm going to be the anti-war president. You bombed Iran and have escalated airstrikes around the world. Tariffs are going to create growth. They're not doing it. Prices are going to come down. Prices are going up. And so we have moved beyond this being a policy battle or an economic battle or a legislative battle. This is simply now a propaganda battle. And it's a propaganda battle, by the way, that there are some people involved in waging who are really not competent. And I want to talk about a couple of those people

next. Eric Trump is one of the children of President Donald Trump. He is significantly less orange, but just as incompetent at explaining how reality works. This is very interesting to see. Eric Trump appeared this morning on Fox Business, and he was actually called out. He was fact checked for lying about Joe Biden's economic record. Liz Clayman reminded Eric when Eric tried to say, everything was just destroyed under Biden, but now it's back under Trump. And Liz Clayman says, you know, actually there were dozens, dozens of stock market records under Joe Biden. Listen to this.

I'm glad I look at the 401ks and I see how much. much they've gone up. And I'm glad I look at inflation, see how much has gone down. I'm glad interest rates are going to come down. I mean, we're getting our country back. We were in a dark spot. You know this better than anybody. You cover the markets every single day. Well, let me just be clear. Under Biden in the last year, the S&P had 56 record highs. But that I know it was so bad, Eric, under Joe Biden. Everything was just blown up and just destroyed to bits, but it is also kind of true that 57 times Joe Biden's stock market hit never before seen levels, just like a little bit of that.

Eric Trump stumbles into this all the time, all the time. And again, they always have to go further. I would respect these people way more, although they'd probably be less politically successful because part of how they've become successful is just by lying and people don't fact check them. I would be far more likely to at least respect this guy. I have no respect for him. If he said, listen, you know, I'm not going to play politics with some of this stuff. The American stock market is extraordinarily resilient. And one of the things that we've seen is that over the long term, regardless of whether you've got a Democratic president or a Republican president, the innovation

and spirit of the United States drives the stock market up, regardless of whether you've got a Democrat or a Republican. The reason to elect my father, Donald Trump, is because we still have too many people who are living in poverty. And but, you could actually do this in a way that is honest. It probably wouldn't be as good politically because they need to sell the hyperbole and they need to put Trump at the center of this cult as the only person who can solve these problems. And part of that is saying it was like the day after tomorrow dystopian night, you know, disaster film when Biden was president. That's the only way they can do it. One more clip. This is from this morning. Here's Eric Trump and his little brother or big brother, Don Jr.

They sort of seem to be saying they had no choice but to profit from their daddy being president. I want to bring you to this and all of you, critics are saying, hey, well, maybe you shouldn't be doing this. The New York, for example, says the number. How much is Trump pocketing off the presidency? Axios. President Trump and his family stand to net $3.4 billion by the end of the second term. David Kirkpatrick reports for the New Yorker in a piece today. The number of why it matters. No U.S. president has monetized the highest off in the land quite like this. Eric, your answer to those headlines.

Brian, if you're reading, we had nowhere to go. Capital One stripped 300 bank accounts for me. 300 in the middle of the night. They sent us a letter after doing business for 20-something years. All your bank accounts for golf courses and condominium buildings and hotels. They're all gone in the middle of the night. I mean, how do you pay your taxes? How do you pay your employees?

This happened across the board. It happened with J.P. Morgan Chase. It happened with... They took his bank accounts. He had no choice but to Griff. Bank of America happened with First Republic. And this wasn't just happening to the Trump's, people with a lot of zeros on the end of... This was happening to conservatives all over the country.

We didn't have a damn choice. I don't notice them talking about the hundreds of millions of dollars we had to spend fighting lawfare. That doesn't matter, right? That was all nonsense, right? Russia, Russia, Russia, you name it. Impeachment one, hoax two, three, four, five, infinity. No one talks about that. Infinity.

They weaponized the entire full force of United States government against our family. And unlike all the other people who'd served as a presidency before, basically since our founding fathers, Trump was the only guy that was actually a businessman before that. Are we supposed to stop running our businesses? Are we supposed to stop doing anything? You kind of are. And of course, Don Jr. and Eric, if they're not involved in the administration, they get to run businesses. but we have never seen. You can add up every president in American history, and it pales in comparison to the way

that the Trump family in total has grifted off of the presidency of Donald Trump. Remember, Eric's not the smart one. That's always an important thing to keep in mind. We've got a fantastic bonus show for you today. We talked at the top of the show about the California redistricting. I've got an update about the Texas redistricting. We're also going to talk about the, their mag is trying to come for gay marriage. We spoke about that.

Mag is trying to come for legal marijuana. So we are going to delve into it. And then finally, a record low percentage of Americans drinks alcohol today. Why? The answer might surprise you or it might not. All of that and more coming up on the bonus show. Sign up at join packman.com. And remember to get my newsletter on substack.

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