The David Pakman Show - Bonus White House In Chaos Over 50 Year Mortgage Plan White Males Overrepresented In Podcasting And More

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

-- On the Bonus Show: White House unhappy about Trump's 50-year mortgage plan, white men disproportionately represented in podcasting, the Supreme Court set to hear a case on mail-in voting grace periods, 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 packman.com. Here is that bonus show episode. Welcome to the bonus show. White House officials are reporting. not happy with this idea of a 50-year mortgage. It seems as though there are some people involved in housing there who realize that this is a terrible, terrible idea. And of course it is. You know, we've talked already a couple times, Pat, which is that if the goal is to make housing more affordable, allowing people to spread payments over 50 years, while it does lower the

monthly payment, it actually creates a snowball debt effect because people can afford all of a sudden believe they can afford more expensive houses. It makes it so that there are more bidders for houses at every price point by allowing lower payments. You fund almost no equity for even more of the initial years of the mortgage. It's a terrible idea. And it seems once again that this was not really vetted by the people who know about it. And now there are people at the White House trying to figure out how the hell are we going to clean up this mess? Absolutely. There are way better ways to make housing more affordable. Arguably, this doesn't even make housing more affordable because, yes, while you pay less month to month,

you're paying a lower monthly payment, you're going to spend a lot more money over the entire term of that loan. So I'd brand the numbers, a 30-year mortgage for a $500,000 house at a 6% interest rate, which is about where things are right now, your average monthly payment, your monthly payment's going to be $2,400. And over the course of the entire loan, over that 30 years, you're going to pay $863,000. So a few extra $100,000 in interest. But if it's a 50 year loan, your monthly payment only goes down $250. It would be $2,150 a month.

And over the entire course of that loan, you'd end up paying almost $1.3 million for that $500,000 house. So you'd actually be paying a whole bunch more in the long term. How is that making anything more affordable? It doesn't make any sense whatsoever. And the real moment where the wind was let out of this or not what the wind was let let out of this, but when we realize what this is about is in that moment where Laura Ingram asks him in the interview this week, do you really think that this 50 year mortgage thing is a good idea?

And Trump's like, it's not that big of a difference. You go from 40 year to 50 year and she has to correct him and go, we don't have 40 year mortgages right now. We have a 30 year mortgage. He just has no idea what is going on. Of course, he's not going to be able to come up with reasonable ideas. Right. And we know that not everyone is so keen when it comes to these financial decisions.

So if you hear someone saying, there's no big deal. when it comes to this, right? Because it's just going to make it more affordable for people. You're going to have a lower monthly payment. You're going to be able to afford more house. That's going to incentivize a lot of people to go along and follow that advice, right, to maybe apply for one of these 50-year mortgages. But they don't realize that they're actually going to be paying a hell of a lot more in the long term. And also, this is really just a give away to the banks because the banks are able to collect more interest over a longer period of time. As you point out, at the beginning part of that mortgage, you're paying almost all interests.

So that's more that the bank can add up. And then it's also more likely that you're not going to be able to follow through with paying off the loan because it's over a 50-year period of time. And who knows what the hell could come up over that time. So there's also the possibility that the bank could end up repossessing it. So this is a big giveaway to the banks and terrible for people trying to get a home and terrible for the housing market more broadly. Let's hope it doesn't happen. There are people who seem to recognize that this is a bad idea inside of the White House. There is a new report looking at the most popular podcasts of last year on Spotify from USC's

Annenberg Inclusion Initiative. And what it found is that in the top 100, two thirds of the top podcasts are hosted by men. Three quarters of the guests are male and that women are underrepresented in business podcasts, tech podcasts, sports podcasts, fitness podcasts and comedy podcasts as well. I think that this reinforces something we already knew, Pat, which is that in our space, there is a significant male heavy demographic kind of reality. I know that on most of our platforms, our male audience is much bigger than the female audience. The exception to that, I believe on TikTok and Instagram, we are much closer to 50-50

in terms of male, female. But it's also reflected in the hosts and guests of a lot of shows. Now, I remember a conversation we had several years ago, Pat, where we said, you know, a lot of the people we get pitched on the show are men. And so we need to go out of our way to make sure that we are bringing in intelligent female voices as well. Because if you just sit back and accept the guests that are pitched to you, which we don't do. Most of the guests pitched to us are duds and we turn down the vast majority of them and go find out. our own guests. But if you just take the path of least resistance, not only would this be a male hosted show, most of our guests would be male as well. So it's a fascinating study that only

confirms what we've already intuitively known for a long time. Yeah, absolutely. And the study didn't mention political podcasts, but certainly we could throw the political genre into that category of spaces that are more male dominated when it comes to a podcast host. That's certainly been our experience from what we've seen. Do you think that this is a problem in an individual? of itself because it could just be that people have different interests, right? Maybe men are more into politics. Women tend to the podcast genres that were most frequently hosted by women include true crime, arts, society, culture, also very important, interesting topics. So is it okay that we have this difference that men are dominating in certain categories and women and others?

Like, is there something that we have to solve when it comes to this? I don't think that this is a problem simply based on the numbers, you know, as we, as I've talked about before, um, there are a lot of spaces where we don't have perfect representation between men and women. And discrimination could be one or part of an explanation. And there are also other reasons. It could be, there could be social reasons. There could be predisposition. We just don't necessarily know, But I know that for the instance that's often, the example it's often given is men are dramatically overrepresented in the industry of longshoremen. And there aren't huge clamorings to get to 50 50 there.

And so for me, it's sort of like when I look at the Senate as an example and we saw that for so long, there were zero female senators despite women being 50% of the population. That to me does seem like a problem. That's a place where no. Of course, we need representatives from half of the population. That's a problem area. In podcasts, I think we need to learn more about the reasons. For example, it is a structural thing that men are more likely to seek out political news

from podcasts, whereas women are more likely to seek it out elsewhere. Is that because of discrimination? I don't know. Which should be looked at. But could it also be because of preferences that are set in. other ways that we don't have to say we got to get to parody on 50 50. No, I don't think the starting point should be we should expect perfect. And by the way, Pat, we should also mention what about areas in which there isn't perfect racial equivalence to the demographics of the United States or age

or we can't just assume everything has to be perfectly delineated along demographic lines? But I think this is a sort of like, I would like to know what is the chicken egg here. I would argue that politics is one of the few things that we should try to reach. some sort of 50-50 ratio on when it comes to gender because it inherently has to do with representation, right? So because we have a country that's half men, half women, it would be great if we saw that borne out by the representatives that we have, by the people that we have in the Senate, it would be great if half the presidents that we have are female. So I understand when it comes to that category, why we would want to achieve that. Now, does that extend to podcasting,

people talking about politics, people covering the news? Maybe not as much, right? And part of it does have to do with like where people's interests lie. But I think a lot of it does have to do with the fact that it becomes sort of circular, right? You see the types of people who are in these industries and it inspires a group of people who may look like that initial group who are dominating the industry, right? And it's just one of those things where we have to find ways to incentivize people from all different backgrounds to try to pursue these careers because, you know, it's worthwhile to have different voices and well-representing. group of people doing this. Let me know your thoughts on the data. Let me know your thoughts on to what degree this is a problem that should be solved or something

we first have to better understand or if you just straight up think the difference is the the reason that we see those gender differences straight up. It's it's just discrimination. It's sexism. It's misogyny. If that's review also let me know. I would want to hear that. The Supreme Court is going to hear a challenge to grace periods for mail in ballots,

mail in ballot returns. And the way that it has always been is that as long as mail-in ballots are postmarked by election day in 20 states and territories, they are counted no matter when they arrive. Now, one of those states is Mississippi. And in June, a top election official asked the Supreme Court to hear about a lawsuit to hear a lawsuit filed by the Republican National Committee, which says it's against the law. Federal law is violated on a technicality. You're not allowed to do that. Now, what the Republican Party is arguing is that only Congress can decide when elections end. And because Congress decides there needs to be a uniform election day.

And it can't be the case that in some states, ballots received up to election day are counted. And in some states, ballots received up to five days after election day are counted. Those would be different standards. But there should be just one and it's election day. I think that this is going to come down on technical lines, Pat, because. On the one hand, of course, Congress gets to decide when elections are and when elections end. At the same time, what does it mean to have voted on time? You do not control how long it takes for your mail and ballot to be delivered.

So how could we say in order to vote on time, depending on where you live and depending on how much Republicans have screwed up the postal service, you might need to send in your mail and ballot two days before election day, or it might be five or it might be seven. that is essentially the same problem in reverse. Now, I know that they would go, no, no, it's just got to be received by Election Day. But whether it is depends on factors outside the control of the voter. So I think that the principle of this is, listen, if Election Day is election day is election day and you fill in and submit your ballot by that day, submitting might be sticking it into the machine in person or it might be sticking it into the mail slot. I think you've done your

part and you voted by election day. That's my view on the principle of it. What the Supreme court would decide, it'll probably come down to some technicality. I don't know. Right. I think you're right that if it comes down to circumstances beyond the voters control, then the voter shouldn't be faulted for that. If there are delays in the mail system, then you shouldn't blame the voter. If there's a natural disaster that ties things up, you shouldn't blame the voter. I also understand that we need to have deadlines, right? Because you can't be voting a month. after the election. So we can find common ground on this. I think it's something that's easily solved, right? You just have a grace period of a few days. Now, Republicans may fire back and say,

if we're going to have a deadline, why not just have that deadline be election day? So people should be encouraged to send in their mail-in votes, you know, a week before, two weeks before the election just to ensure that it gets in on time before that deadline. The problem with that is that we know how people operate. We know that people tend to procrastinate and they'll wait to the last possible second, right? It's just like how if there's a speed limit that's 30 miles an hour, you're going to drive 30 miles an hour because you're going to get away with exactly what you can get away with. In the same vein, maybe there are people who are going to wait until just a few days before the election to cast their votes. So that's why Republicans want to make this rule

change so that they can disenfranchise those people who are waiting until the last minute. Imagine an analogous situation. And I think this is analogous, although if it's not, you tell me, Pat. Imagine that it took a little longer for votes in person to be counted where they said, okay, if it's after midnight by the time your vote is counted, even though you were there by 8 p.m., let's say polls close. If your ballot isn't counted until after midnight, it's not going to count. We would all, I think, agree.

Hold on a second. The election day, polls were open eight to eight or seven to eight or whatever it is. You were there by that time. You submitted your vote before the polls closed. The fact that it took someone else longer to count it doesn't mean we disenfranchise everybody who voted after six, for example. And I see this as a version of that. Yeah, no, that makes sense to me.

Like if there was a problem at the voting place, if the machines went down and they had everyone's voting data saved somewhere. but they were having difficulty access it. So it delayed when they could report the results. We wouldn't disenfranchise all those people. We wouldn't say, oh, sucks for you. You went to the wrong polling location. And it's just unfortunate, but this is how things are because we have a deadline.

No, of course, we wouldn't do that. So I do think it is an analogous situation, but we know what this is all about. This is Republicans trying to attack early voting, attack vote by mail. And they probably figure this is where they have the strongest case. And if they're able to weaken voting laws when it comes to this, they'll be able to change some other things, maybe get rid of some of these processes entirely. That's what they're trying to do here. Yeah, I don't like it one bit, but we're going to see ultimately what this court decides.

And this is not a particularly friendly court to voting rights and a lot of other rights, quite frankly, but we are going to see where it lands. I hope people liked my conversation with Adam Kinzinger. I find them really interesting. And I also, by the way, found interesting, Pat, that when I asked him if he has aspirations to return to elected office, he goes, yeah, I kind of do. A lot of people are very cagey when you ask them that sort of question. I like the guy. And it was interesting that he also said, no, no, no, it's not just that like I'm disaffected with Trump.

I don't think I'll ever vote Republican again. It's a very interesting thing that's been going on with him. Do you think he has a home in the Democratic Party because, correct me if I'm wrong, but I still would imagine he has conservative politics just because he disagrees with Trump. So who's going to watch? He addressed that. He said there are things he would disagree with the average Democrat about, but that he does see himself really is more aligned at this point with the Democratic Party, which is an interesting thing to hear.

All right. Maybe we should run him in a purple state where we were not sure totally if the Democrat could win and he could be our centrist appeal to try to flip one of those purple states. Yeah, maybe so. It would be an interesting candidate for sure. And tomorrow I'll be doing a substack live with Dr. Dr. Zach Rubin, who's also been the target of a bunch of political nonsense, even though he just really tries to communicate medical information.

I think that'll be a good one. And we've got a lot of other exciting and titillating things coming up. I'll see everybody tomorrow.