The David Pakman Show - 8/19/25: Zelenskyy-Trump meeting chaos as veggie prices surge 40 percent

Episode Date: August 19, 2025

-- On the Show: -- Donald Trump reverses his ceasefire stance after meeting Vladimir Putin and pressures Volodymyr Zelenskyy to accept land concessions without a ceasefire -- Trump fails to see Finnish President Alexander Stubb sitting directly in front of him and asks where he is during a public event -- Trump blames Barack Obama for losing Crimea and defends Vladimir Putin while dismissing Ukraine’s NATO aspirations -- Trump praises Vladimir Putin during a red carpet meeting and blames Ukraine for getting invaded while downplaying Russia’s aggression -- Wholesale vegetable prices surge nearly 40 percent in July raising fears of sharp increases in grocery costs for consumers -- Washington DC restaurant reservations plunge more than 25 percent after Donald Trump federalizes the police and militarizes the city -- Gavin Newsom rises in Democratic primary polls for 2028 after his redistricting efforts -- Fox News personalities criticize Gavin Newsom for mocking Trump online exposing hypocrisy about Trump’s own years of ridicule -- On the Bonus Show: Texas Democrats monitored by law enforcement after returning to state, Trump vows to end mail-in voting, Ohio's Sherrod Brown launches bid for US Senate, and much more... ⚠️ Ground News: Get 40% OFF their unlimited access Vantage plan at https://ground.news/pakman 🧠 Try Brain.fm totally free for a month at https://brain.fm/pakman 🛡️ Incogni lets you control your personal data! Get 60% off their annual plan: http://incogni.com/pakman 🥦 Lumen lets you master your metabolism. GET 15% OFF at https://lumen.me/pakman 🍷 Naked Wines: Use code PAKMAN to get 6 bottles for $39.99 at https://nakedwines.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

The president of the United States is now running away from ceasefire as the goal in Russia, Ukraine, the United States suffering yet another humiliation as Donald Trump welcomed the Ukrainian president, Vladimir Zelensky, to the White House yesterday. The idea was that this would be a sort of counterpart meeting after Fridays with Vladimir Putin. As we saw Friday, Donald Trump literally rolling out a red carpet for Putin, a red carpet that he had American soldiers on their hands and knees flattening out for Putin, taking Putin's word on everything and saying great progress was made even though not a single concession that was agreed upon, nor even a single concession that was asked of Vladimir Putin has yet

been communicated. That was Friday. Cut to yesterday. Zolensky. comes to the White House, and it is a pathetic humiliation, starting with Donald Trump in this moment, walking back even the need for a ceasefire, saying, look, all of these other deals I made, wars I ended that Trump claims, which, by the way, it's not the case. Trump says, you didn't really need a ceasefire there, except the problem is every single one of those was called a ceasefire by Donald Trump. Let me play the clip. It'll make more sense than we'll talk about it. Last week, you warned of what you called severe consequences if a 30-day ceasefire or any type

of ceasefire were not agreed to by Russia. Will there be severe consequences? Does that change because I don't think you need a ceasefire. You know, if you look at the six deals that I settled this year, they were all at war. I didn't do any ceasefires. And I know that it might be good to have, but I can also understand strategically why, well, you know, one country or the other wouldn't want it. You have a ceasefire, and they rebuild and rebuild and, you know, maybe they don't want that. But if you look at the six deals that we made peace, you know, long-term, long-running wars, I didn't do any ceasefires. Would I like? I like the concept, you know, I like the concept of a ceasefire for one reason, because you'd stop killing people immediately,

as opposed to in two weeks or one week or whatever it takes. But we can work a deal where we're working on a peace deal while they're fighting. They have to fight. I wish they could stop. I'd like them to stop. But strategically, that could be a disadvantage for one side or the other. But all of these deals I made without even the mention of the words ceasefire. Now, of course, Donald Trump is either lying or he is so addled and feeble that he doesn't

remember that he touted a ceasefire. in every single one of those situations. Now, when Trump yesterday was saying, I've ended six wars, today he was saying I've ended seven wars. You know, that that's a whole, that's a story for a different day. But when it came to India, Pakistan, Trump said we've gotten a ceasefire. When it came to Thailand, Cambodia, Trump says we've gotten a ceasefire. Now, in a lot of these cases, he was lying. It's important to understand. It's all lies. Which lie are we focusing on? Are we focusing on the lie that Trump achieved an end to hostilities? Are we focusing on the lie that Trump doesn't really need ceasefires because he didn't have him in those situations yet he did. You pick which

layer of lie we're talking about. But on India, Pakistan, on Thailand, Cambodia, on Israel, Iran, on Israel, Gaza, on Congo, Rwanda. Some of you, I'm sure, saying what, what, I didn't even hear anything about this stuff. Yes, that's another issue. But on all of those, Donald Trump said, we've gotten ceasefires. Clearly, ceasefire is important. But now that this seems unlikely is an understatement with Russia, Ukraine, all of a sudden Trump goes, ceasefire doesn't really matter. Sure, would be nice, but doesn't really matter. Trump and Zelensky, during this embarrassing event, talking about why aren't there elections in Ukraine, you're not allowed to have elections during a war? That sounds very interesting to me. Upon peace, God willing to get peace,

Are you open to holding an election in your country? Yes, of course. We are open for election, yes. We have to do safety in circumstances. And a little bit we need to work in the parliament because during the war you can't have elections, but we can't do security. We need maybe, how to say, we need a truth.

Yes, everywhere in the battlefield, in the sky and the sea. Yeah, to make possible for people to do democracy. Right. Open. Now listen to what Trump to what Trump says. Trump loves this idea. Legal, legal elections. So you say during the war, you can't have elections.

So let me just say three and a half years from now. So you mean if we happen to be in a war with somebody, no more elections. Oh, that's good. I wonder what the fake. You like this idea. This is Trump joking to the extent that he's able to joke. Now, of course, there are really two stories here, me personally, David Packman personally, do I like that Ukraine doesn't have elections during war?

No, I don't like that. I would, in fact, I think it would be extraordinarily important to continue having elections, even during times of war. Do I recognize that the rules and laws in Ukraine are different than the United States? Yeah, I do. So, of course, Trump going, oh, well, imagine if we had a war. war going on here, then we couldn't have elections. But of course, that's not the law in the United States. But the bigger picture is, I know Trump's joking here. He's always joking about another term or

this and that. What's really terrifying is that this sort of stuff is now met with a collective shrug. You could even hear the laughing in the room, as this was said. And it's really not funny anymore. I don't know that it ever was funny, but it's really not funny anymore. Given that Donald Trump has shown his authoritarian instincts, his anti-democratic instincts, his instincts that he should just get to decide who's president, who wins an election, who gets to be sworn in. I don't really find anything funny about it. Now, finally, for this part of the discussion, Peter Ducey asks Zelensky, just like a wildly loaded question, which is, are you ready to keep sending Ukrainian troops to their deaths

for years? Nobody asked that of Vladimir Putin. And Putin's the one who started this damn war. Mr. President. President Zelensky, are you prepared to keep sending Ukrainian troops to their deaths for another couple of years or are you going to agree to redraw the maps? Thank you for your question. So, first of all, you know, we live under each day attacks, you know, that today have been a lot of attacks and a lot of wounded people and the child was that small bomb.

one year and a half. So we need to stop this war to stop Russia, and we need support American and European partners. We will do our best for this. And I think we show that we are strong people and we supported the idea of the United States of personal health, President Trump, to stop this war to make a diplomatic way

of finishing this war. And we are ready for translation. for trilateral as president said, this is a good signal about Zelensky's answer is almost irrelevant in the sense that the question, why, why isn't Putin being asked that very same question? You started this war. How long are you willing to keep sending Russians to their deaths because you can't get off the train at this point in time? So the big picture of the Putin meeting Friday and now the Zelensky meeting is Trump reversing his stance after meeting with Putin. he wanted a ceasefire suddenly there's no ceasefire demand he even said yesterday well ceasefire's

nice but i don't know that we really we really need it he's sort of adopting putin's preference for for a direct peace deal rather than a ceasefire it's a deal that would require ukraine to give up land in the donbos something that he is against and that european allies are against doing trump is shifting the responsibility away from the entity that started the war, Vladimir Putin, and putting the responsibility on Zelensky to get it done, which is another way that he's putting the pressure on the nation that is defending itself against an invasion by Vladimir Putin. In his meeting with Putin, he came out saying, amazing meeting. It's a 10. We have this great personal connection. He thinks I'm great. I think he's great.

Not at all what Donald Trump came out of the Zelensky meeting saying, taking a much tougher a stance against the defensive actor that is in a democracy, which is an interesting takeaway. And then finally, all of this happened in this context where these meetings took place with European leaders at the White House. And European leaders are increasingly alarmed at Donald Trump's shift in stance, which doesn't come as a surprise to us because we know Trump is just so swayed by anything Vladimir Putin says. So Putin gets what he wants. It increasingly seems as though Ukraine will have to give up territory if there's going to be any progress towards a peace deal here. Ukraine is left exposed to continued attacks from Putin. And the burden of resolving this

is being placed on Ukraine making concessions rather than the invading force of Russia saying we are going to get out. That's where it is. And it is a terribly sad thing to see. Donald Trump had another one of those moments, another cognitive bomb. And it was not a good one. Donald Trump at yesterday's joint event trying to introduce the president of Finland. And he doesn't know where he is or he doesn't know what he looks like or he is so egomaniically self-centered that he didn't even think to look around and say who's around me. So I'm going to play the clip. This is another one of these moments where Trump is looking around for someone. In this case, it's President Stubb of Finland.

The guy is right in front of Trump. I'll show you how close they were sitting in a moment. Trump doesn't know where he is. We've seen this before. President Stubb of Finland, and he's somebody that where are we here, how that's where, where? I'm right here. Oh, you look better than I've ever seen you look. So Trump looks around.

Where are you? He's looking to his right in the distance. He's looking to his left in the distance. But President Stube was not across the room. He wasn't hidden in the crowd. He's right there. Three feet from Donald Trump right across from him. We've got the still shot of it. Trump looking around in confusion. Stubb sitting a few feet away. Like, do you need me to wave my arms? Here I am. Here I am. This is not the first time that this has happened. This happens to Trump all the time. Now, you may say, well, maybe he's less familiar with President Stubb or remember this moment where Rudy Giuliani was sitting two feet away from Trump across the table and Trump's

looking around. Where's Rudy? And Rudy's very much of an expert on cybersecurity. It's been a very important thing to him and to what he does. And maybe I'll ask Rudy to say a few words. Well, thank you very, very much, Mr. President. And first of all, congratulations on what is in fact a historic.

And as you can see, Trump looking around, but here's Giuliani, right? I mean, I don't know how you, how you miss the guy. He's sitting three feet across the table from Donald Trump. So listen, there's a couple possibilities here. At some point, you have to ask how many of these moments does it take before we can stop pretending this is just Trump being Trump. Because if Joe Biden had had this exchange, Fox News would have it on a loop 24-7 under the headline cognitive collapse. But it's Donald Trump and it's he's a showman or something doesn't make any sense. But I do want to broach another

possibility. Is it conceivable that Trump is so self-centered, so self-absorbed, so egomaniically narcissistic, as I said earlier, that he says, that he's sits down and he doesn't even look at who's around him. In other words, normal people get to a table and you go, who's to my right? Who's to my left? Who's across from me? But is Trump so much in his own world that he just comes in and sits down and doesn't even look and just his hand at a paper? And that's it. Is that a possibility here? Is this a cognitive crash or is this malignant egotomaniacal narcissism? I want to hear from you. you info at david packman.com. We'll have more about the Putin and Zelensky summits on my

substack, which you can find at substack. david packman.com. Donald Trump has already packed his second term cabinet with loyalists. He's threatened deportation as political punishment. He's expanded executive authority in ways we have not seen in modern history. These are real changes that are happening right now. And what's even more alarming is that a lot of the media is either glossing over the worst of it or they're reframing it so it all sounds a little more palatable. And that is why I use ground news. This is a news comparison tool. Doesn't just feed you headlines.

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When you go to brain.fm slash Pacman. The link is in the description. the humiliatingly disastrous Putin and Zelensky meetings over the last few days, humiliating and disastrous each one for different reasons. Donald Trump went to his safe space. Donald Trump is the world's biggest victim. He's a very special snowflake, but also an alpha male, he wants you to believe. And after things didn't go so well for him yesterday and on Friday with Putin, he went on Fox and Friends this morning.

And it was as bad as you can imagine. Donald Trump blaming everyone, but the person who really should be blamed for the invasion of Ukraine, which is the guy who decided to invade Ukraine, Vladimir Putin. Here is Trump blaming Barack Obama. Take a listen to this. Well, the war really started over NATO and Crimea. And they wanted Crimea back. That was given, not a shot fired by President Obama in perhaps the worst real estate deal

I've ever seen. There's been a couple of them, I would say. Everything's a real estate deal in Trump world. Gaza Strip was a pretty bad one too, given by Israel so they'd have peace. So they gave away a big percentage of their ocean front property in order to have peace. How did that work out? Not so good. And Crimea is the apple of Ukraine.

I mean, it's so beautiful. Obama gave it away. Nobody ever mentions that. If I ever did that, the fake news would be they would be writing about me day and night for years. He gave it away. He demanded that they let it go. And Russia came in and took it, just took it like a candy from a baby. And it was really Obama's, that really, I mean, that was pure and simple. Obama's fault. What a terrible thing he did to that country. And so they lost their heart. They lost the heart and soul of to Ukraine 14 years ago, whatever it might be. And it was so unnecessary to do that.

And that's when it really began, when Obama gave it away. All right. So the first party to be blamed for what's going on right now is Barack Obama 14 years ago, according to Donald Trump. So not blaming Putin so far really doing a great job of furthering the Putin agenda. then goes into, well, what about getting Crimea back? Let's listen to who Trump blames and who Trump demands responsibility from this time. They just took over the most valuable piece and the biggest piece in the sense of, but

and surrounded on four sides by ocean, just a little passage to get you back onto the mainland. The most beautiful piece of property of ever seen as a real estate developers. I look at it. I said, why the heck did he do that to them? So there's great hostility and maybe rightfully so. But one thing was NATO. They went in, they said, we want you, you know, we want to get Crimea back. This was at the beginning.

Now, Putin had offered us to him. He made a good deal. He got it from Obama. But they said we want it back. And that was not exactly well received because it was like 12 years before. That's where Russia has its submarine base. And, you know, that's been there long before Putin. So notice the picture that we're building.

up deference to Putin. Listen, Putin made a good deal. Putin's doing everything right here. He got himself. It's like a real estate deal. He was able to get the best of the deal. And now Ukraine is saying they want Crimea back. It's been a long time, almost like there's some kind of unspoken statute of limitations of some kind on getting land back that was taken from you. So then we're building up the picture, right? Putin's doing great. Ukraine's making unreasonable demands. Barack Obama is certainly someone that's to blame. And then Trump continues. And again, the context here is who are the aggressive actors? Who are the actors? Which actors, which players in all of this are the ones that deserve scrutiny and blame for belligerent and aggressive behavior? And then

who's just defending themselves? But Trump wants to throw that on its head and praise Putin or at least show deference to him and say, look at Ukraine. I don't know. Listen to this. And the other thing they said is we want to be a member of NATO. Well, both of those things are impossible because, again, long before Putin, it was a no-no by Russia or the Soviet Union or anything you want to call it. It's sort of a similar thing as it gets larger, but very similar. But it was always a no-no. You could not. Russia said we don't want the so-called opponent or the enemy, let's use that term.

We don't want them on our border. And they were right. They were okay. And yet they went in and they asked with the United States. They said, put us into NATO. And everybody knew you could, you just can't do that. They would never have agreed to it. This is before Putin.

This is long before Putin. This was a. So there you go. Listen, Russia feels very strongly. The former Soviet Union felt very strongly. They didn't want Ukraine to be part of NATO. And therefore, what? Russia may not want something that makes sense and is good for others.

and is a reasonable thing to see happen. It's not objectively right or wrong. It shouldn't be allowed or disallowed merely because Russia didn't like the idea of Ukraine and NATO even as it predates Vladimir Putin. It's like an explanation without an explanation. And then finally, finally, Trump says, NATO membership for Ukraine, it was an insulting thing that they asked for. How dare Ukraine advocate for itself?

for what it thinks is best. It was something that was never going to happen. So they asked for it, and they shouldn't have asked for it because it was, you know, very insulting thing. Now, they could have asked for many other things. It was so insulting when they said, we want to be in NATO. But the other thing they wanted to do is getting Crimea back. And, you know, that was given.

They had built, they were expanding everything and spending a lot of money, or because Barack Hussein Obama gave it away. and one of the dumbest real estate deals I've ever seen. So what's the 30,000 foot view? Putin's going to get whatever he wants. Trump is absolutely smitten, just smitten with Putin. Everything that's happening was either Barack Obama's fault or it was Joe Biden's fault or it was a result of a Ukraine that was making unrealistic or unreasonable or even

insulting demands. Trump's understanding of this conflict goes only. So far as his anti-Ukraine pro-Russia talking points. And if you think any of this stuff is bad and it is, what about Trump stepping away from the Zelensky meeting with European leaders to get on the phone with Vladimir Putin? That also happened and we have to talk about it. Donald Trump sucked up pathetically to Vladimir Putin. Number one, during this morning's Fox and Friends interview, and number two, during the Ukrainian

European summit, as it is being known at the White House yesterday. We learned that Donald Trump interrupted his meeting with Zelensky and European leaders to go to another room and talk on the phone to Vladimir Putin. If you think that this isn't a carefully concocted bit of theater to show. where Trump's loyalty really is, to show the level of control that Donald Trump has ceded to Vladimir Putin and the subservience of the American president to his counterpart in Russia. Hard to think of a more emblematic and representative moment of that than this. This morning, Fox hosts asked Trump, how did everybody react when all of a sudden you're on

the phone with Putin during this meeting? And Trump goes, oh, I didn't want to disrespect Putin. So I stepped out for the phone call. Listen to this. During the meeting yesterday, when you decided to call Vladimir Putin, what was the reaction among the other people in the room? And what was President Putin's reaction to like being brought into a phone call in the middle of your meeting?

Well, I think they expected it. I didn't do it in front of them. I thought that would be disrespectful to President Putin. And I wouldn't do that because they have not had the warmest relations. And actually, President Putin wouldn't talk to the people from Europe. I mean, that was part of the problem. So you stepped out of the office to make the call? They had no communication with the White House for years as people died, years with Biden and his people.

No communication. Putin told me years, it was years that he didn't speak to anybody from the White House. and it was a long time that he didn't speak to anybody from Europe. No, it's a fractured relationship. And when I came in, I always had, despite the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax, which truly was a very dangerous thing for our country. But despite that, I maintained a very good relationship. I mean, you saw that when he got off his plane, I got off my plane.

There's a warmth there that you can't. You know, there's a decent feeling. And it's a good thing, not a bad thing. People would say, oh, that's such a terrible thing. It's not a terrible thing. You know what? We've got the most nuclear weapons in the world. and the most powerful. He's got second.

So can you describe for us how that happened? Did you just announce that you were going to go into the other room to make the phone call? And then you got up and left and then came back? I think they sort of knew. I was, at the end of the meeting, I was going to call President Putin, and President Putin expected it. And he was there. Now, by the time I called him, it was 1 o'clock in the morning in Russia. Russia's a big place. You know, they have 11 time zones, I believe. Yeah. Putin's working so hard. You're 11, but I think it's 11.

But Mr. President. 11 times zone. That's a lot of times zone. So it was late. It was like 1 o'clock in the morning. But he was, he picked it up very happily. Sure, he works very hard. Like we all.

I was joking. But Trump did he's working so hard. He got on the phone with me at 1 a.m. Russia time. They've got time zones up the wazoo. It's all really wacky. You know, it's funny. Trump says, it's funny and terrifying. Trump says there's a warmth there with Vladimir Putin.

We know. We know. And it takes only, you know, looking at it takes only, you know, looking at you know, you know, at the video, of course, of Donald Trump embracing Vladimir Putin and deferring to Vladimir Putin on Friday compared to a much more skeptical, a much more passive aggressive and distant and cold Donald Trump when it comes to his meeting with Vladimir Zelensky. So we know that there is a warmth there. There's no question about that. And then of course, Donald Trump continuing to say, this is Ukraine's fault. Why did Ukraine go and get itself?

invaded. They shouldn't have done that. What? Mr. President, did y'all discuss any land swaps yesterday because we've talked a lot about the Donbass region and what was the feeling in the room? What did the other leaders say about this? Well, they understand. Look, everybody can play cute and this and that. But, you know, Ukraine is going to get their life back. They're going to stop having people killed all over the place and they're going to get a lot of land. But this was a a war and Russia is a powerful military nation, you know,

whether people like it or not, it's a powerful nation, it's a much bigger nation. It's not a war that should have been started. You don't do that. You don't take on a nation that's ten times your size and, you know, military experts look. Look, if it wasn't for the greatest military equipment, we make

the greatest military equipment in the world and we gave them, you know, whatever, they took probably a lot of money too but they uh they had tremendous you know they had the patriot missile which is the best in the world all the equipment we make the best equipment in the world by far everyone else is like nothing so we gave them a lot of equipment now with that said the ukrainian soldiers were brave as hell because it's fighting a force that's much much bigger and superior much more powerful and you know

it's not like they've stopped if you i assume you've all seen the map you know a big chunk of territory is taken. And that territory has been taken. Now, they're talking about Dumbass, but Dombas right now, as you know, is 79% owned in control by Russia. So they understand what that's being. Mr. President, what is? Mr. Desperate, desperate to try to get a word in with Donald Trump. But Trump just goes on and on and on. It's not a war that should have been started. You don't take on a nation that's 10 times your size. Understand what Trump's saying. Trump is saying Russia, well, we know Russia attacked Ukraine, but but Trump's view is when

you're attacked by a nation 10 times your size, what are you doing getting involved in that war? And of course, it's called defense. It's called attempting to defend your land. It's called something Trump says he values. If we don't have borders, we don't have a country. How many thousands of times have we heard Donald Trump say that? And of course, this goes back to a principle, a principle I write about in my book, the echo machine extensively, which is that it's really a waste of time to engage with a lot of these people

on principles because as soon as the principles are inconvenient, they go out the window. Let me explain what I mean. For more than a decade, Donald Trump has said, if we don't have borders, we don't have a country. We must enforce our borders. Countries must be able to say, hey, this is where our country starts. And we're in control on this side of the line. So Russia invades Ukraine and starts to take land and attempt to take land and conquer. And so Ukraine defends itself.

Why? Because Ukraine believes, I guess, in that same Trumpian principle. If we don't have borders, we don't have a country. This is our land. We are entitled to this. Legally, this is part of our country, not Russia. And Trump goes, oh, what are you doing taking out a country 10 times your size? So is it important for countries to defend their borders or isn't it?

And the answer, of course, is it depends when it's convenient. If it's about stoking fear about brown migrants from Central and South America, then defending the American border is the most important principle. But if it's I like Vlad much more than I like Zelensky and I'm enamored with Putin's authoritarian dictatorship in a way that I simply am not with Ukraine. democracy, and I want to placate Putin and ingratiate myself with him and get an add-a-boy the way that he got on Friday, then all of a sudden defending the sovereignty of borders, in this case, it's Ukraine's borders, is not particularly important.

So this is what I've been saying for a very long time and what I've written about. Why would we, when they come to us and they go, I want to debate with you the principle of defending our borders through immigration, through military. Okay, but why would I waste time debating that with you when you take the opposite position when it comes to Russia and Ukraine? All of these supposed principles and political positions are really born out of convenience. It's really born out of political expediency. Who do I want to support today?

And what can I say to justify that? If I want to support Red State, Texas, doing horrible things to people that are coming into their state, then I take one position on this principle. If what I want to do is defer to the invading force of Vladimir Putin, then I'll take a different position on the importance of defending borders. This is why we can't have serious conversations with these people. Make sure you're subscribed to my YouTube channel.com slash the David Pakman show. After the break, what is happening with vegetable prices? Oh boy, not good. Your personal data is everywhere. and you might not even know. People search sites and data brokers are quietly publishing your

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get 15% off your Lumen by going to Lumen.m.m.m.m.m. The link is in the description. Well, this wasn't supposed to happen. Vegetable prices are up nearly 40%. And we were told that very quickly, right away, January, grocery prices were going to be declining under Donald Trump. What is going on here? So the headline shocker. is that wholesale so we're not talking retail yet wholesale vegetable prices have exploded 38% in july that is the biggest surge of any product category in years economists were surprised that wasn't something that was expected this is the sort of spike to wholesale prices that if it lasts it's going to start hitting retail grocery prices you're going to start seeing it when you go and say i need a

dozen root abegas. I don't know how many of you do that. I do that very often, but many people maybe don't. When you go and say, give me a bag of sweet potatoes, um, prices are going to start being significantly higher at grocery stores because of the increase to wholesale prices. Now, why it matters for the average person is really pretty evident at this point in time, which is that we have seen continued inflation, not at an extremely high rate, but remember, the promise from Trump was prices would come down. Instead, prices have continued to increase at roughly the same rate as they did during the end of the Biden administration.

But we are potentially seeing a number of categories and sectors that are going to see bigger increases. 3% year over year inflation, 3.1%, wherever we are right now, doesn't account for individual sectors. And when wholesale grocery prices go up 38%. That is going to be a major, major problem. And it potentially is going to see grocery bills go up more than 10%. Now, you might say if veggie prices are up 38%, why would my groceries only be up 15%?

Well, veggies are only a portion of your overall bill. So that's sort of the idea here. But it's going to apply to lettuce. It's going to apply to my beautiful avocados, peppers and tomatoes. I think you get the point. Now, there is a question as to why this is going on. some people immediately reacting saying this is Trump's tariffs. Others saying there's a seasonality to this. Others saying there are other reasons for it. So the truth is that there's there's a lot

going on here. There's not a single villain. But what we know is what we were promised. And we were promised vegetable and grocery prices overall could come down. So weather can impact wholesale vegetable prices. Tariffs are a factor for some products. Supply. chain kinks or interruptions can be partially responsible. Immigration policy can be a factor. The most reasonable explanation is that there's sort of like a cocktail of all of these things working at once. And the tariffs shouldn't be ignored, right?

The tariffs aren't solely responsible, but the United States imports more than a third of our vegetables. Tariffs directly raise the cost of imports. If you're importing a third of your vegetables, you're going to see prices go up there. produce is something you can't really stockpile ahead of price hikes. If you do construction and you learn that some of your construction materials will be going up in price, you can, if you have the cash flow for it, if you can get a line of credit or use cash that you have on hand, you can buy more and stockpile it early so that you have it at the lower price before the tariffs

kick in. With perishable things, especially things that you can't just freeze and wait, you really can't stockpile it. And this applies to, you know, think about if you were at home and you really like, I don't know, say you really like cherries. How much are you really going to stockpile ahead of time if you expect cherries to be more expensive later? Most people don't do it. It's not practical. Some of the stuff you freeze and it doesn't really keep well. So you can't protect yourself from future higher prices in this way. Now, we should acknowledge there's the kind of weather wild card. vegetable prices can often swing because of harvest conditions, you might have a drought or a flood or extreme heat and things don't grow well. So that's certainly a factor. The immigration element,

I think, is also interesting because roughly two-thirds of American farm workers are non-citizen immigrants. Now, that doesn't mean they're all undocumented. Non-citizen immigrant means you might be here on a work permit. You might be a permanent resident. You might be here and undocumented. But when you see the raids on workplaces under the Trump administration. This terrifies both employers and employees. Fewer workers means higher wages. Farms pass that cost on to the wholesale buyers. The wholesale buyers will eventually pass it on to consumers. So you've got a lot of businesses already feeling this. Sweet green, the salad chain. I've only been there once and I don't remember much about it. Is it any good? Sweet green, the salad chain says it's profit margin.

is down significantly. It says tariffs have made a lot of our products more expensive. Cukes, only, not Zooks, only Qukes, lettuce, some other things. There are other chains saying that they're feeling upward pressure on costs. And on social media, Trump is saying tariffs simply are not to blame. It has nothing to do with tariffs. The tariffs are working great and they're bringing in cash, even though we know it's the American businesses that pay the tariffs. So now, Now we get to what is next. What could happen next? If the wholesale prices stay where they are or go up even more during August, it's only a matter

of time until consumers are going to feel it. If the grocery stores are paying 38% more for vegetables, they're going to pass it on to you. If the restaurants are paying 38% more for vegetables, they're going to pass it on to you. So the bottom line here is the vegetable spike. maybe temporary or it may not. It may be a sign of Trump's tariffs doing exactly what we expected them to do, raise prices. It may be a sign of Donald Trump's immigration raids doing exactly what we expected them to do, which is to raise prices where non-citizen immigrants documented and undocumented play a role in terms of labor. And so we are going to watch this

closely. Who will the average MAGA blame if indeed their groceries surge at these levels. Hopefully, they'll at least partially blame the person that's responsible, and that's Donald Trump. The federal takeover of Washington, D.C. is blowing a hole in the economy of the city. We have new data that restaurant reservations plunged more than 25% in the days after Donald Trump announced that he was federalizing the police of Washington, D.C. hilariously this morning on Fox and Friends during his softball interview gone wrong, Donald Trump said, oh, restaurants are bursting in D.C. It turns out that this is not true. Listen to what Trump said. But now I'm doing something that I'm having such fun with because I'm helping

people. I've made Washington, D.C., a, just an incredible, just an incredible place in literally four days. I have friends that say they're going out to dinner. Did you see what's happening with the restaurants? They're bursting. They were all closing and going bankrupt. I mean, it would be, I mean, it would be great. There's a guy named Sean Hannity. He might take a very lovely young lady that he knows very, very well to dinner in Washington, and they don't have to they don't have to, she's sitting right next to you by the way. I don't want to get him in trouble,

so I better explain it exactly. We don't want any secrets here. That's the greatest relationship. I hope I'm not breaking into the news. This could be the biggest, hey, this could be the most important thing I said. But let me tell you, those are two great, Ainsley and Sean,

great people. And when they go out to dinner, I don't want to see them get mugged. Now they can go out. So listen, Trump says, DC restaurants are bursting. They're not. And we're going to do a segment later this week on really the self-inflicted nature of a lot of the economic issues that Trump is now dealing with. These are optional issues. He didn't have to do a lot of this stuff. But it was supposed to be a really good

month for restaurants in Washington, D.C. They were heading into restaurant week. This is one of the busiest time of years. They do, you know, hundreds of restaurants have special menus and they try to bring people in. And D.C. had 11 months of year over year growth in restaurants. The dining scene in D.C. was bouncing back. And in comes Trump. And on the day that Trump makes this announcement about federalizing the police, reservations declined 16% compared to the same day previous year. By Tuesday, they were down 27%. By Wednesday, reservations were down 31%. And this is not something that has happened nationally. This is an important, this is because of what Trump is doing. D.C. is one of only two major cities.

seeing a decline in dining. The other one's Las Vegas, which, by the way, we've talked about on the bonus show, it is also getting wrecked by Donald Trump's immigration policy, by the trade chaos. But we're talking about D.C. today. Trump justified the D.C. takeover by saying, listen, crime was out of control. Even though crime stats show crime in D.C. is at like a 30-year low or something like that. We need to do this and it's going to help D.C. It's going to bring, it's going to liberate D.C. It's another liberation. day and yet restaurant dining is down 30%. 30%. You've got and I understand it, right? I was just in D.C. recently and ICE is all over. Militarized forces are all over some of the streets where I went

out to dinner with friends. Is it an inviting environment when I show up to my dinner to see ICE and the DEA and National Guard troops all stationed outside the restaurants I'm trying to go to, spooking locals, spooking tourists, arrests, this kind of very military police state-feeling environment. So, of course, the economy of D.C. is now going to suffer. And that's really the story here, which is we were told we need to protect D.C. residents and we need to protect D.C. businesses. The businesses are being punished.

The businesses and the restaurants are now looking around going, business is down because of what's going on. Fewer people are coming to D.C. And the people in D.C. are saying, I'm not going to go out to dinner in this environment. So this collapse that's happening. It's not, oh, my goodness, there's so much crime. I'm not going to go out to eat. It's, oh, they've militarized the streets.

I don't want to be around that. So we zoom out. We'll delve more into this next week, later in the week. But look at the broader economic impacts of what we're seeing. Estimates are that at full impact, Trump's tariffs could cut GDP by up to 6% and lower wages by up to 5%. Who is that terrible for? Working class families, lower middle working class families. The tariff whiplash.

The tariffs are on, the tariffs are off. That creates uncertainty. That hurts markets. It scares off investment. So that's not good. On a practical level, the ice raids have really diminished farm labor. And so you're starting to see billions lost in crops that can't be picked. And then also we've got the grocery prices, a wholesale vegetable prices up 38%.

And then you've got mass deportations, which even though they are falling well short of the goal that Stephen Miller had of 3,000 deportations a day, because there aren't actually that many people to deportation. it is still affecting the labor force, and that could push inflation beyond 4% next year. And then you've got the big, beautiful bill, the one big bill, whatever they're calling it at this point, which adds trillion to the deficit, cut social programs and puts millions of people at risk of losing health coverage. So you look at the totality of this. This is self-inflicted, self-inflicted economic disaster. The only person to blame is Trump.

and I guess the people around him who have been whispering into his ear that this is a good idea. So we're going to have much more on this on our substack, substack. David Pakman.com. Let me know if you are seeing higher prices in your city. And if you're in the DC area, I would love to hear from you. Are you dining out more, less since the militarization? Let me know info at David Pakman.com. One of the easiest ways to make a good night even better is a great bottle of wine. Not something random off the shelf like I would pick because I'm clueless, but something that feels a little more thoughtful, worth opening.

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Over the last few days, California governor Gavin Newsom has really gotten into Donald Trump's head. Trump is all of a sudden not doing the all caps truth social posts that Newsom's been ridiculing him for. And polling of the 2028 Democratic primary as well as betting markets are all shifting very strongly in Gavin Newsom's favor. Now I just want to remind people, I'm reporting about data that is out. in the world. You don't have to like or dislike Gavin Newsomer. This is not about opinion. This is just here's what's been going on. Here's how polling is reacting. Here's how betting markets are

reacting. And if you're a Newsome fan, then it probably is going to be exciting to you. So let me tell you what's going on. For years, Donald Trump's entire brand on truth social has been these all caps rants where he just the entire thing is in capital letters. It's kind of. of like a digital fingerprint of Trump. You know, you see a Pollock and you see the style. And then you see a Trump troth and you recognize the style right away. Although on no planet would I say that what Trump is doing is as interesting or creative as what Pollock did. I'm just kind of giving you a sense of sometimes you see something that is instantly reminiscent of an individual. And so Gavin Newsome from California started to

mock Trump for those posts and put out satirical posts of the sorts, uh, parodies. And they were so on point that they really could have been mistaken for the real thing. Now, this was happening in parallel to the California redistricting plan to beat back against the Texas redistricting plan. If Texas is going to redistrict to generate more Republican seats, Gavin Newsom said, well, then California will redistrict if the voters want to vote for that in November and we will do the exact same thing to generate more democratic seats. Newsom's been going after Trump as Donald Taco Trump. Taco, of course, an acronym for Trump always chickens out, which is Trump makes these

pronouncements and when the consequences are all of a sudden going to hit Trump chickens out. Newsom rants about beautiful maps and Democrats take back the house all in all capital letters. And it has worked. And it's worked in a couple of different ways. Number one, if you look at Donald Trump's truth social now, he's not doing the all caps posts anymore. All of a sudden you look and there are no capitalized words to be found. NATO is capitalized. Of course, that's a proper acronym in that way. Other than the word peace, all of a sudden, the capital letters are gone. Previous post. The capital letters are gone. Post before you. that the capital letters are gone. This is not an accident. Gavin Newsom, despite Fox News being

wildly triggered by what he's doing, has actually figured out a way to get to Trump. And he has completely changed the way that he is posting to social media. Now, you don't win elections. You don't get people health care. You don't solve global conflict by getting Trump to change his posting style. But the point here is it's getting to him. He's not beyond the reach of ridicule and satire. Newsom has turned Trump's biggest online weapon, which is these whacked out troth central posts into a punchline. And it's actually strategic beyond just being satirical. Now, at the same time, and this is where it starts to get very interesting, there's a new echelon insights poll, and it shows that Gavin Newsom's national support in the 28 Democratic

primary has tripled in four months. In April, he was at 4%. He was behind Pete Butt edge edge and Congresswoman AOC, known to some as AOC. Now all of a sudden, Newsom's in second place with 13%. The only person ahead of him is Kamala Harris, who, by the way, I don't think should run. I think it would be a disaster if Kamala Harris run. It's Harris 26, Newsom 13, boot edge, edge 11, AOC 6. So in the blink of an eye, Gavin Newsome goes from sixth place to second place.

And what I like about what he's doing is that he's fighting. He's doing it by fighting. He's giving them a taste of their own medicine. Doesn't mean he's necessarily the right candidate. Doesn't mean Newsome could necessarily defeat whoever is the Republican nominee in 2020. It just means that Newsom has found a way to rattle Trump and it is resonating with. people. Beyond that, we also now have betting markets that are turning very favorably in Gavin Newsom's direction. If you look at the Kalshi betting markets here, Newsom 21, AOC 14, Buttigieg

9. And that is a major increase from basically just being in May in a three-way tie with AOC and Buttigieg. So this, this is absolutely fascinating. What's driving this? Voters and I believe donors want someone who's going to fight. And there are lots of people willing to fight, but Newsom's doing it publicly. And I don't know if I acknowledge this in a positive way or in a regretful way. This is gone beyond ideology. Are you a centrist or a progressive or center left or what a lot of voters seem to want is someone who is ready to fight and hit back. And the more aggressive Newsom is getting, he's building more support. Now, for Democrats, there's a turning point coming. There's sort of like an inflection point that's

coming here because for a very long time, Trump has defined the fight. What's interesting about what Gavin Newsom is doing here is that by mocking and punching back and troll. He is taking the reins of the fight. Trump had this tool, the unhinged all caps post, and that tool has been made fun of to such a degree that Newsome has gotten Trump to change the way that he's communicating. It has rattled Trump and it has rattled the MAGA machine. It's not necessarily going to win you an election, but the point here is that this is now going beyond just Newsom and California. This is clearly an audition for 2028 and Newsom is trying to land

meaningful punches. Now, as far as Democrats are concerned, Democrats are starving for someone that looks like they want the fight. Newsom hasn't announced anything at this point in time. If the momentum keeps going in this direction, he's not going to need to, okay? My stance I gave you yesterday or the day before yesterday. It's very early in this thing. We need to get beyond the 2026 midterms before I'm going to seriously think about 2028 candidates. I don't know who's running in 2028. We don't know if Trump will make it to January of 29 for what would be a traditional transfer of power or whether he might end up incapacitated or worse between now and that. We did. There's just so many things we don't know. We don't know who's going to run for

Republicans. So where I am is I want a robust primary where candidates have to earn the nomination. It's not, well, if Kamala runs, we give it to her because she was the nominee last year. No, we need a robust primary where people will fight. If it's Newsom and Josh Shapiro and AOC and Gretchen Whitmer and Kamala and who they're going to have to fight for it. And they're going to have to earn the nomination. And then whoever comes out of that is going to be a stronger candidate as a result of it. So I'm not endorsing anyone. I'm not saying if Newsom ran, he would be my guy. We are so far from any of that. But I want someone who's going to fight. And that doesn't mean that we lie. It doesn't mean that we do corrupt acts or commit crimes. That's not what I'm

saying. But we do fight fire with fire. And there have been people in the Democratic Party not willing to do it. So what I like about what Newsom is doing is that he is doing what he can to fight fire with fire. And that is a really great thing to do. Fox News host Dana Perino is wildly triggered by Gavin Newsome's tweets ridiculing Donald Trump. And this is proof that it is working. We already spoke earlier. Gavin Newsom's tweets ridiculing Trump with the hyperbolic scare quotes and capital letters have made Trump turn on a dime. And he's no longer putting out those posts. Trump's posts are now written in normal syntax, not capitalizing the entire thing or not even really capitalizing random words. It got to Trump. It has rattled Trump. But Dana Perino is

insisting. It's so lame. It's so cringe what Gavin Newsom is doing. How does it? He doesn't his wife tell him to stop it, Gavin? And this is more proof that this is working. They don't know how to handle it. The thing is at the debate. The other thing for me is that for the last week, Gavin Newsom, and why am I giving him advice? You have to stop it with the Twitter thing. I don't know where his wife is.

If I were his wife, I would say what you are making a fool of yourself. Stop it. not do not let your staff tweet. And if you're doing it yourself, put the phone away and start over. And if you wrote, he's got a big job as governor of California. But if he wants an even bigger job, he has to be a little bit more serious. You know, it's incredible how they just don't seem to get it. Newsom is too unserious to be a contender for the presidency because of the tweets he's putting out. But the guy whose tweets they are modeled after, Donald Trump, who's been doing it for a decade. He's not too unserious by doing it in a real manner.

Trump is serious when he puts out those types of tweets. Newsom's just making fun of Trump, but somehow the one making fun of the tweets has disqualified himself, but the guy who spent a decade putting the tweets out hasn't debased himself and is still a legitimate president. That doesn't really make a lot of sense. And the cognitive dissonance here is evidence that. they realize that it is working because for years Trump has thrived on these it's Twitter-style trash talk even though he's really doing it on Truth Central right now and you know, he does the nicknames, the insults and the cheap shots. That's been his brand. Fox never had a problem with it, ever. They cheered it. They said it's refreshing. He talks like a normal person. They said Trump's

telling it like it is. And the second that Gavin Newsome fires off a few sarcastic tweets, suddenly Fox News is pearl clutching. Oh, how could he do this? It's so unpresidential. And I think back to when Trump would tweet at 3 a.m. about Rosie O'Donnell and Diet Coke and who knows what else. This is the point. Newsom is exposing the absurdity of how Trump has communicated. And the fact that they're angry with Newsome and not with Trump, it's evidence that they know it's wacky. But it's also a win for Gavin Newsom because every time MAGA influencers or people like Fox News host Dana Perino. Every time they try to go after Newsom for this, it's another win. They are forcing the battlefield in a direction that favors Newsom, where the

context is, man, Trump is kind of ridiculous with these posts. Now, this is new territory for Democrats. Democrats for a long time, you know, would try to take the high road on social media. And then MAGA would just keep weaponizing the memes and they'd weaponize the whole thing. And Newson, is showing that when Democrats step onto the battlefield and use some of the same tools, Republicans really don't know how to handle it. And they get triggered. And the more triggered that Fox gets, the more obvious it becomes that Newsom has taken the wind out of the sales of the MAGA propaganda machine.

So I don't know what the playbook is going to be for Democrats. I don't know if Gavin Newsom's planning to run for president. It sort of seems like he is, but we don't know that. Democrats need to be sharper and more ruthless online, but at the same time governing effectively. And so that's as far as I'm going. Newsom's got a good idea with the redistricting and he's gotten Trump rattled with the online posting. That makes it a different fight going into 26 and 28 if Democrats are actually ready to make

that a reality. Now, on the bonus show today, we're going to talk about what's going on with the Texas redistricting. What is the latest? Donald Trump has also vowed to end the use of mail-in ballots ahead of the 2026 midterm election. We'll talk about the legal fight there. And then finally, former senator Sherrod Brown has launched an Ohio Senate campaign. What is going on there? Does he have a shot? Is this something we should be happy to see? All of those stories and more on today's bonus show. Sign up instantly at join packman.com and make sure you're getting my substack newsletter at

substack. david packman.com.