The David Pakman Show - BONUS SHOW: Trump's next giveaway to the rich, Macrons suing Candace Owens

Episode Date: July 26, 2025

-- On the Bonus Show: Trump floats no tax on home sales, EPA says greenhouse gases are fine, Macrons sue Candace Owens for defamation, and much more... Become a Member: https://www.davidpakman.com/membership  Subscribe to our (FREE) Substack newsletter: https://davidpakman.substack.com/  Buy David's book: https://davidpakman.com/book 

Hey, everybody, David here. What you're about to hear is an episode of The Bonus Show. We do a bonus show every day for our members and for a limited time. We will release one of the week's bonus shows on Saturdays, exclusively for our audio podcast listeners. If you'd like to get access to all of the bonus shows, simply sign up at join Pacman dot com. Here is that bonus show episode.

Welcome to The Bonus Show, the new tax proposal from the Orange Oracle, the mango menace, the tangerine terror. Yeah. Anyway, I've run out of ran out of other ones. Trump is floating no tax on capital gains for home sales. Now here's what's really important to know. There is already a law where you're allowed to profit two hundred and fifty thousand dollars as an individual or five hundred thousand

dollars as a married couple filing jointly when you sell a house. So what this means, quite simply, is if you buy a house for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars and you sell it for five hundred thousand dollars, you made two hundred and fifty thousand bucks in capital gains, but you don't pay taxes. There's an exemption on those two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in gains. If you're a married couple, you could buy a house for two fifty, sell it for seven fifty and you would pay no capital gains tax. But above and beyond that, you would pay capital gains.

I will mention as we get into what Trump's proposing that since 1997, those numbers have been the same. So it hasn't been indexed for inflation. It probably should be. It's been 28 years. And so if you index the 250 and the 500 for inflation, you would have higher numbers at this point in time. What Trump is now considering is to end capital gains taxes on properties altogether.

And it's all sort of directed at the Fed. Trump mentioned if the Fed lowered rates, we wouldn't have to do this because then mortgages would be cheaper. But the idea here is let's completely exempt that. So there's a couple different groups of people that this would benefit. Number one, if you have been in your home for a really long time, we've talked before, Pat. Imagine you bought your home 40 years ago, paid one hundred thousand bucks.

Now it's worth one point five million because you're in one of these explosive markets. You are going to have to make capital gains on everything above and beyond the hundred K. However, you are allowed to include expenses in your cost basis. So in theory, you're not, I believe you're not allowed to include property taxes you paid over 40 years. But if you did upgrades, if you did expansions, you can include that. But you're going to pay capital gains in that scenario. And so there are seniors, for example, people who are not selling their homes, even though

maybe they've they want to downsize or whatever scenario they may be faced because they're going to have this huge tax bill. So it's true that it actually could help some people who bought a totally normal, not extravagant house a long time ago. In addition to that, cutting that tax could help people who are very wealthy, where even if you didn't make a huge percentage, you know, maybe you bought a four million dollar house five years ago and now it's worth five million dollars on a percentage basis. It's not that crazy in a lot of markets, but you would pay capital gains.

So it would help those people as well. So like with most most things, Pat, it's a combination of it will help some people who probably deserve help. It'll help a bunch of people where I don't know that the tax code really needs to be designed to help them. And all of it is Trump posturing over something that he really wants, which is the Fed to cut rates. That's the Republican game plan when it comes to tax cuts, right?

They give a little bit of something to middle class folks. But really, if you take a look at who gains the most from their proposals, it's always the rich. So in this case, people who have these very expensive homes. Yes, you can find some cases where this will help the average people out there, but for the most part, the people who are going to make the most are the wealthy. So it's no surprise. And it's also another one of Trump's ideas to eliminate taxes bit by bit. He's of course achieve some

of that when it comes to the big, beautiful bill with the no taxes on tips. He's also floated no tax on social security. The no tax on overtime thing has been in the conversation. When it comes to this idea specifically, if you just decided to change the numbers, change the limits, then I think you can make an argument for that, right? Because these numbers, the $250,000 for single filers and half a million for married couples filing jointly hasn't been changed since 1997. So if you adjusted those numbers for inflation, they would essentially double. So if you wanted to make the argument that the first $500,000 in gains for an individual or first million dollars in gains for a married couple should

be exempt. I'm open to hearing that out because you're just adjusting for inflation. But when you go beyond that, you're just going to disproportionately help the mega rich. And we have enough of that already in this country. So we'll see whether this is even something that they're seriously going to propose. Again, it's all, you know, we're thinking about it, but it depends on whether the Fed lowers rates. So we will see about that as far as that goes. But that's the idea. And I agree with you, Pat. And indexing for inflation does make sense. And one of the reasons why Trump is saying he wants to do this is to help the housing market because there haven't been a whole lot of sales with

this high interest rate environment over the past few years. Do you think this will do anything to accomplish that? Because one big reason people aren't buying right now is because the rates are so high that's not going to help people too much if they put a policy like this in place with that issue. And then when it comes to people not wanting to sell, a lot of people don't want to sell because they've locked in such low rates and they probably haven't accumulated the amount of capital gains that would benefit them from a policy proposal because they probably only bought those houses over the past like five years or so. So it seems to me like this wouldn't really do that much to boost the housing market either. It might not. But here's the way in which it could, which is if you say to a bunch of people,

instead of selling and paying capital gains, you can sell without paying capital gains. That probably will induce some people to list their houses if you dramatically increase the number of houses listed It will put some downward pressure on prices or at least make it so there's not as many bidding wars now You raised the question of where will those people go and will those people who might have a low interest rate go some? But you know, some of them would be cash and whatever So I think your point is a good one But the way it would help would be a lot more people putting their houses on the market when you flood with supply. It can help to hold prices down.

Yeah, I could imagine it doing some benefit when it comes to helping the housing market, but only around the edges, only in some particular cases. But overall, it seems like we're still going to have difficulties with the housing market for the time being as long as rates are this high. Let's talk about the EPA. Trump's EPA wants to overturn a 2009 finding that underpins a lot of the government taking action to remediate climate change. And it's the finding that when you burn fossil fuels, pollutants go into the atmosphere and this is bad for the country, bad for the country, bad for the planet.

And that is pretty good science at this point in time. What the EPA is now arguing is that they want to overturn that or basically be liberated from what they consider to be the oppression of that. And, of course, as we understand, if you repeal the an important scientific basis for for why we should seek to limit greenhouse gas emissions in the first place, it opens up the door to just saying pollute more, burn more, do whatever the hell you want to do. And it is hard to think of a more anti science position.

The whole idea here also is to get the EPA out of a legal responsibility to address the harms done by climate change. This is such a terrible idea. This doesn't get the headlines that Trump's authoritarianism gets, but it's extraordinarily damaging to the planet if this happens. Maybe it will make some headlines around the world, though, because you have to imagine that the rest of the world is laughing at us when it comes to this. I mean, the fact that the EPA only came around to this finding in 2009, I think, is damaging

in and of itself because we knew long before 2009 that greenhouse gas emissions were harming the planet. I understand that governments in general often lag behind when it comes to these types of things because if they institute policies, of course, it's going to affect the economy and they're often reluctant to do so. But 2009 was very late. Now that we're in a position that what 16 years later we're saying we're going to try to reverse that policy and that viewpoint that the EPA

had. We're just the laughing stock of the world right now, aren't we? And we really are. And the reason that this is relevant is that you can argue Trump's plan is to argue that if you don't have the framework of greenhouse gases are bad for the environment, you then can argue that the EPA has actually overstepped its authority in attempting to regulate something which they now claim isn't bad for you. And therefore it's an argument to just say we're not going to do any of that anymore,

which is exactly what Trump would love to do. Yeah. And of course it's legally dubious, but they might as well give it a shot, right? Because there's a chance that the right wing courts will hold up this decision. They are not worried about making themselves look bad or dumb. They're willing to throw anything out there and hope that the courts agree with them. That's exactly right. So we'll see if it happens, but it is absolutely terrifying.

This is exactly what we feared. The McCrone's, Emmanuel and Brigitte McCrone, the president and first lady of France, have now filed a defamation lawsuit against right wing influencer Candace Owens. I want to remind you about this. I'm very unsure about this, Pat, because I don't know if this is like a Barbara Streisand effect sort of thing. Let me back it up and remind people Candace Owens, the American right wing provocateur and influencer and conspiracy peddler, has long argued she believes Brigitte McCrone was born a man and that

due to her privilege and money has access to the best gender affirming care in the world gender, affirming care in the world and was able to sort of convincingly, even though Candace figured it out, transition to a woman. This reached reportedly the level of Donald Trump, where we talked about recently. Trump actually saying to Candace Owens, according to Candace Owens, Trump called me and he said, please don't do the Brigitte Macron as a man thing. It's hurting my relationship with France. And I sat next to her. She's definitely a woman.

Now the next level is that the McCrone's have filed a defamation suit saying that the comments from Candace Owens are outlandish, defamatory and far-fetched, far-fetched fictions. This has been filed in the U.S. state of Delaware. So I have a couple of thoughts here, Pat. There are different types of defamation. And as Mark Bankston explained to us, in some of them, you have to prove that you were materially damaged by the false claims. In others, you don't. I don't know which category this would be in. More so, though, do you think

that in a way the McCrons are stooping to Candace's level by even doing this and maybe putting more attention on it where now the president of a country is suing you for defamation. It's almost giving her more power in a way. I just don't know. Maybe but the story has already gotten so big, right? Like we already found out about how McCrone apparently asked Trump to ask Candace to not talk about the story anymore.

It's gotten a lot of rounds in the press. I think you do get to a point where the story in and of itself is big. So big that you'll draw a little bit more attention to it by doing a lawsuit, but it's already gotten so out of hands that it's okay to give more attention to it. And also it's apparently more positive attention for the macrons because it makes it look like they're fighting back, that they're doing something to debunk the ideas. So I understand the Barbra Streisand effects argument here, but I think that things can get to a point where they're already big enough in the news that you might as well. Pursue it. I guess I I'm unconvinced. And part of it for me, I guess, will also be seeing what the standard is, because I

don't even if people are aware of it, is it damaging the McCrone's in any way that there's this person in the United States saying, I believe Brigitte McCrone is a man. That's the type of argument that many on the right are trying to make, which is that, oh, people on the left say that there's nothing wrong with being trans, so why are the Macron suing Candace Owens for saying that Brigitte Macron is a man? Well, of course, if she isn't a man, if she doesn't identify as a man, then that's something that's not her identity. So, you could say that that is damaging, but to put a number on it to explain exactly the damages, I guess that's a little bit more difficult.

But I don't think that the McCrone's are in some sort of pickle here, like the right acts like they are. One of the things I think is clear is that there is no credible evidence. And Candace Owens has insisted on this, but there simply is no evidence. And so as a matter of credibility for someone who, I guess, wants to be taken seriously, does Candice Owens want to be taken seriously? You would think she would drop it just because after all these years of pursuing this, there's still not a shred of evidence for the claim.

I remember Candice Owens said that she was willing to stake her career on this, that if it was proven that Reggie McCrone was not a man and that she would be willing to stake her career on this. If it was proven that Brigid Macron was not a man, she would be willing to retire. I certainly doubt that Candace Owens would be able to step aside from her career right now. I don't think she would be a person of her word if it was proven false, the types of things she was saying. But also, are we really going to get to a point where in the court proceedings, they're doing some sort of testing on Brigid Macron to prove her gender? Is that really where this is going to get to a point where, like in the court proceedings, they're like doing some sort of testing on the crown to prove her gender? Like is that really where this is going to end up?

It'll probably get settled and not go that far. But is this really what's going to happen? Right. Like are there are we going to take depositions and have DNA tests or what? Right. I mean, just all of this is just kind of nonsense. One other just little note. Candice Owens is married to a guy named George Farmer, who's a British guy.

George Farmer's dad is Baron Michael Farmer, who's a House of Lords peer and former conservative party treasurer who, I guess, doesn't think too much about a lot of Candace Owens views and has distanced himself from them. I'm not saying that he hates his daughter in law or anything like that, but it seems at least with regard to a lot of the things that she has said, her father in law is not not big on him. I'm not all that surprised, right? These House of Lords figures are supposed to be prim and proper.

They have a prestigious position in the UK government, the UK monarchy. So I mean, I wouldn't be surprised that he wouldn't want to at least speak publicly about the types of things his daughter in law are saying because it's hugely embarrassing, isn't it? It really is. And I look forward to getting back to the UK soon to investigate exactly what the view of Candace Owens is in the UK. Now, that's not what I would do, but I do like visiting the UK. They're always very nice to me. There are a lot of fans of the show in the UK, interestingly, because did you know they speak English there, Pat?

Did they really? I thought they spoke British. No, they well. Yes, that's fair. That's fair. No, they do. Big fan to the show out in London and hope to make it back soon. All right. Let me know what you expect in the lawsuit. We'll see you back here tomorrow. New show, new bonus show.