Uncovering Tariff Myths: The Hidden Cost on American Firms | David Pakman DSH #797
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Let's be honest, no one cares quite like a mother. But don't just take my word for it. Trace for yourself with 25% off at virtual.com slash podcast. I interviewed a guy named Royce White not that long ago, and we had a very spirited debate over...

the fact that his campaign was accused of spending donor funds at strip clubs. And he felt very strongly that the food at strip clubs is often good and it's a completely reasonable place to spend donor money. Whereas I did not necessarily agree with that.

All right, guys, switching it up today. We have we have a Democrat on, which is a Democrat on the left, on the left. Yeah. So there's a difference. Well, Democrats, a political party. I'm not a member of any political party. I vote for lots of Democrats in many elections, but I'm just a person who considers myself a

I'm on the left. You know, some issues, maybe I'm less aligned with the left on some more. But I see the Democratic Party very similarly to the Republican Party in the sense that its main thing is it wants to justify its existence, get its candidates elected and preserve itself. And so it never appealed to me to go and register and say I am a member of the Democratic Party. But if the Democrats, the better candidate, I'll vote for the Democrats. Got it. So, yeah, we got David Pakman here and he's not.

He's not on the left. He's a Democrat. No, no, no. I am not a Democrat. I got it mixed up. All right. But you did go to the DNC. I did not go to the DNC. You didn't go? No. Okay. You just covered it. This might be the prep for a different guest. Yeah. I'm screwing up here, man. I did not go to the DNC. I did cover it though. Okay. Yeah. And what was your coverage like of it? Because I heard mixed things. Covered the mixed things about my coverage or of the DNC? Of the DNC. My take was well-produced.

did a good job of framing the kind of transition from Biden as the presumptive nominee to Harris as both logical and positive. I think that there were some really good speeches. You know, the truth about any of these conventions is

There's really good speeches at night in the prime time slots. A lot of the stuff that happens earlier is not super interesting. It's really designed more for the insiders and delegates and people that are there. But I thought there were some great speeches. I thought Kamala Harris's speech had a positive outlook on the future of the country, which was a nice contrast with, I don't know if you've seen Trump rallies lately, but it's all about 1929 crash is going to happen. Toilets won't flush. We won't have energy. It's apocalyptic. And even saying we might not have a country is,

I thought it was a nice contrast with, hey, here's a positive vision for what things could be like. So I thought overall what needed to happen at the DNC happened. Got it. Now, the one mixed thing I guess I saw that I was referencing earlier was the crowd size.

Oh, are you serious? Yeah. Was that a myth? The DNC is not open to the public. So I don't even... I've never heard anything about crowd size related to the DNC. It's a limited capacity because it's delegates and media people. It's not like, you know, a rally where voters can just choose to go. So is the RNC like that too? Yeah. Okay. Because the RNC videos look packed though. They were both at indoor...

um arenas that had about 75 percent of the seating set up there's a lot of crowd side size stuff going on with rallies but this is the first i've ever heard it brought up with the conventions it wouldn't reflect anything because they're closed events so it doesn't really tell us anything well you busted that myth on thanks for

Thanks for clarifying. I didn't know they were closed events, to be honest. So that's good to know. Yeah, no, it's not like, you know, if there's a Trump rally or a Harris rally, you could just like sign up and ask for tickets and just voters or random people can go. Right. But the events are closed. They're really nominating conventions meant to officially nominate the Republican and Democratic nominees. OK. They're not open to the public.

Got it. Now, for the rallies, though, that's different. Yeah. Rallies, people can just say, I'd like to go to a rally. Right. And there has been some stuff about Kamala's rally sizes versus Trump's. Have you seen Kamala? She says Kamala is the way she says his name. Yeah. There were. Well, you tell me what you've heard. I've just seen photos and videos on X of the rally difference. And I've heard that Kamala is also busting people in Kamala. She's Kamala. Sorry. She is not busting people in. That's a myth that goes back.

decades at this point about busing busing people in. Even if she did bus people in, I mean, providing transportation to rallies isn't really like the gotcha a lot of people think it is. Honestly, I think the rally crowd size is kind of irrelevant. And I'll tell you why. In 2020, Joe Biden just didn't do rallies because it was the middle of covid. And the medical guidelines were these like massive indoor events are probably not a good idea.

Biden just didn't do them and Trump did. And Biden won. So they don't really tell us anything useful about whose policies are resonating with people or anything. What I will tell you anecdotally, if you care about crowd size in Philadelphia in the same week.

in the same arena. Kamala Harris had a full arena and Trump's was about half full. So that was like a real clear example, not like, well, Trump did this thing in Tucson and Kamala did a thing in Miami and different venues. And one day it was 70 degrees. The other wasn't.

Philadelphia, same week, Kamala Harris sold it out. Trump's was 50, 60 percent full. Well, that's if you care about this issue. I really don't care about rally size. I care about policies. I care about polling. I care about who's putting together kind of like a policy perspective that makes sense to me. Got it. So you see it as a non-issue, the rally size stuff? Non-issue. OK. It's an issue because Trump is so emasculated politically.

and obsessed with it. I don't know if you remember the day Trump was inaugurated back in 2017. Sean Spicer, his then press secretary, came out and said, this is the inauguration attended by the most people in American history. And it wasn't true. Trump had been president like an hour and they started lying about crowd size. So Trump has something about him where his masculinity is tied up in how many people go to his rallies. Did you see the presidential debate?

Yes, I did. Actually, I don't know if you noticed when Kamala Harris said his rallies are boring and people leave. Yeah, it wildly triggered. He lost his mind because so much of his identity is is tied up in this stereotypical notion of masculinity. So it's a really big issue for Trump. If Trump didn't start lying about crowds immediately.

eight years ago, nobody would even care about it. You wouldn't be asking me about it if it weren't for Trump's fragility about it. - Good point. I was surprised with that debate to say the least. - Really? - I thought Trump was gonna win easily. - Oh, why? - Just 'cause I feel like he won with Biden. Do you agree with that? - Yeah, well, Biden's performance was historically bad. So what's interesting is if we grade them on like a zero to 10,

Trump's performance was better than Biden's. I would say Trump's performance was a three and Biden's was a two. So Trump won. But against just about anybody else, Trump would have gotten crushed. So my expectation was

because the bar was set so low where Trump won with a three when Kamala came in and performed at like an eight and a half or a nine. And Trump does. I wouldn't even I think Trump did worse because he was so triggered by the idea that a confident woman was making him look like a moron. It triggered him so badly that he ended up doing even worse. So it's interesting you were surprised, but it sounds like we agree that he did terribly. I don't.

I thought he honestly lost. Yeah. And I'm saying that as a Trump supporter. Like, I thought he did not do well that day. But the VP debate. Who do you think won that one? I think it was a tie. Really? Yeah. My view was in the first three minutes, I was like, oh, I think Tim Walz is going to get crushed. Yeah. He seemed rattled. He seemed shaky.

After 45 minutes, which was like when they went to the first commercial break, I basically thought it was a tie and that this isn't going to move the needle very much one way or the other. The best moment for Walls and the one that has caused

so much of a problem for J.D., who was already having a problem, right? He was already on the outs with Trump, Trump privately wondering, why did I pick this guy? Really? Oh, I didn't know that. The reporting is that Trump didn't want him. He wanted Burgum. Okay. And Don Jr. and Eric convinced him

Donald Trump, go with J.D., go with J.D. And he's the most disliked vice presidential candidate in modern American history. Really? Yeah. Based off polls? Based off favorability polling, yeah. Okay. And the worst moment for J.D. was near the end of the VP debate when Tim Walz just said, did Trump lose 2020?

And he didn't answer the question and focus groups that they'll they'll do focus groups where basically people just hold a switch and they go, I'm leaning this way. I'm leaning that way. That moment was a disaster for J.D. Vance, where just just say he lost. Right. Take this off the table as an issue. Go. He did lose, but we're going to win this time or he did lose. But he deserved anything other than not answering the question. So on balance, all the polling that was done after the debate.

basically said it was a tie. Both of their favorabilities went up five to seven points. Who won was basically 40, 40, 20, 40 percent felt J.D. Vance won 40 percent walls. 20 percent said it really was a tie. Zero impact on the polling. So I think my takeaway is what I felt at the time, which is in general, people don't care about VP debates. This one was pretty evenly matched.

I don't think it'll make an impact and it's made no impact. Right. And polling, like how much emphasis do you place on that? Because it turns out in past there's been certain polls and they're not accurate. Like which ones and when? Like when Hillary Clinton was favored to win. Well, let's take a step back on that. What the polling said in 2016 was that Hillary Clinton was leading the popular vote by two to three and Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by 2.5. So the polling was right.

The thing you have to understand in the United States is we have this electoral college. And so it actually doesn't matter if you win the popular vote. The polling predicted the popular vote correctly. She did win. But Trump got enough votes in a few key states that he won electorally. That's like an important distinction. For me, the polling is a guide. And the problem with polling right now is it's really good at telling us momentum. Like I'll give you an example. When Joe Biden decided to step aside and Kamala Harris became the presumptive nominee,

The momentum for Biden had been down and Trump up when that switch happened. It reversed. And all of a sudden, Kamala Harris is surging and Trump's declining. Is it exactly two point six or three point one? Probably not. Right. These polls have a margin of error. But the momentum shift was super, super clear after the conventions. Again, another momentum shift where Harris started gaining and Trump declining. And then it like sort of evened out.

I think the polls are a really good indicator of momentum. If I look at them right now, the most likely outcome is a very close election. We can talk in more detail about like the states it'll come down to or whatever you kind of want to look at. But for me, no one poll tells us anything definitive about what's going to happen, if that makes sense. Yeah, no, it does. Have you always voted Democrat your whole life? I'm not a Democrat. Or left, sorry. Yeah. So I've been on the left. Yeah.

Basically, as long as I've been following politics, I think on different issues, I'm less on the left. Like, for example, I would love to have lower taxes. I'm an advocate for lower taxes while still making sure that we're properly funding all of the programs I think are valuable to have. So like I'd like to see less military spending, but I'm fine with social safety nets, et cetera. I would love to pay less. I pay a lot in taxes when when every April I'm

I go to my accountant and I say, sir, where did we land? What he says brings tears to my eyes, right? I can relate to that. And so listen, I'd love to have lower tax rates. And also I don't want to gut important social programs, et cetera. There are people on the left-

who go first to let's raise taxes and then figure out what we spend it on later. That's not my approach. Some people would say that that's a more moderate take on taxes, for example. - Got it. - But I've certainly been on the political left for as long as I can remember. - So I actually agree with you on the military spending.

You know, I think we're sending way too much money to these countries for these for these wars. Well, I don't know if you're talking about foreign aid or military spending. Well, but I'm talking about is like, do we need 50 bases in Germany? I would argue we don't. Right. That's a different question from does it make sense to support Ukraine's defensive action against the Russian invasion? I would argue there that the answer is it probably does make sense. OK, so you're you're about the foreign aid. You support that.

So foreign aid means a lot of different things in different countries. With regard to Ukraine specifically, I think it's been a really good deal. It's not all. There's some cash there, but it's mostly older equipment that we would be scheduled to replace anyway because of the way these contracts work with military contractors.

To say, you know, if you go back to the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, there were breathless headlines about Putin will take Kiev in three weeks and there will be no more Ukraine. And without boots on the ground and with minimal cash outlays, really just mostly with old equipment, Ukraine's been able to resist this illegal invasion from Russia and

actually pushing back the battle line and is causing a major problem for Vladimir Putin. That seems like a good deal, especially when we think about Ukraine's importance in Europe and with regard to NATO. So that specifically, I think, has been a pretty good deal. Okay, so it's more of a case-by-case basis for you. Absolutely, as are most things for me. Right, so there's been wars that you haven't supported the foreign aid for?

I think maybe there's a little bit of confusion. Foreign aid and wars we're involved in are usually two different things. So, like, for example, I didn't support the Iraq war in 2003. Got it. That wasn't a foreign aid issue. It was a I don't support this military incursion issue. Got it. There's a difference there. Thank you. I'm new to this space, so... You're learning. That's good. I appreciate you correcting me on all these. Some people would get triggered, I bet, but...

I'm learning, you know? Maybe we'll save the triggering for later. I'll save getting triggered for later. Yeah. No, this, I mean, listen, you are reflecting a lot of the conversations I have with people where they call in and they're, they have an opinion that if they knew the facts would be different, they just haven't gotten all the facts yet. And so I think it's awesome to be doing this kind of exploration in this interview. I see that you have a lot of right-wingers on. I think it's great to talk to people on the left.

I want to have on both. I want to have on more left people, to be honest. I agree. There's not, from what I see on social media at least, there's more people on the right that are active. Do you agree with that? I couldn't really say. I mean, define active on which platforms. Like posting on YouTube, on Rumble, on... Well, Rumble's a right-wing platform, so there are more right-wingers on Rumble because it's a right-wing platform. Got it. That, for sure. That's true. But just like when I see these debates, I just see more right-wing debates. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, you said you're a Trump supporter. So my guess is that your algorithm is tuned to show you more right wing stuff. Yeah. If you had a different perspective, the algorithm would probably catch up and show you different things. And that makes sense because you were talking about the VP debate. And I thought, you know, Vance won easily based off my algorithm.

Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. And I think with a lot of these things, it's less about like your opinion and my opinion. It's more about what do properly done surveys tell us in general about what people believe? Because you and I, we follow this stuff in a way that maybe the average person doesn't. And so I think it's good to kind of like step back and say, all right, what empirical data can I find about what people think? Right. Makes sense. Have you ever engaged in a debate with someone? No.

Yeah. Oh, all the time. Yeah. I mean, I've done dozens, if not hundreds of debates on my show and elsewhere. Yeah. Nice. And what were some recent ones you've done?

Recent ones had a I've had a lot of like Trumpian type candidates on like lower level candidates. You know, they're not a lot of them aren't strictly speaking formal debates, but they're just conversations where we clearly disagree and we're going to argue about our principles. I interviewed a guy named Royce White not that long ago. He's running up in Minnesota against Amy Klobuchar. And we had very spirited debates.

debate over the fact that his campaign was accused of spending donor funds at strip clubs. And he felt very strongly that the food at strip clubs is often good and it's a completely reasonable place to spend donor money, whereas I did not necessarily agree with that. And so that was a very spirited discussion. That's interesting. Yeah. You saw what happened with the New York City mayor, right?

Yes, I did. Misuse of funds. I wonder how common that is. I think it's more common than leads to criminal charges. That's for sure. Yeah, I don't think they get everybody who does that for sure. Definitely not. Yeah. Because there's probably ways of, you know, writing off stuff in a certain way. I wouldn't know, but I assume so.

That's interesting, man. Has anyone debated you and actually altered your opinion on something? You know, I've talked a lot about debates. For me, debates are not the way I change my mind. Debates really are contests about who's more articulate and about who's more prepared. But to give you an example, you could have a debate about, I don't know, do humans need oxygen to live?

And we know the answer to that is yes, right? Like oxygen is an element in air and we need that. We definitely need it. That's the truth. You could have an unprepared, inarticulate debater

who takes the side that we need oxygen to live and a very prepared and articulate debater who takes the position that it's part of some conspiracy that we need oxygen and we really don't. And as a viewer of that debate or even as a participant, you could come away like, oh, I lost the guy saying that we need oxygen loss because it's not really a contest or an adjudication of the fact it's an adjudication of who's more prepared and articulate. So I can't tell you about anything specific that

when I watched a debate or participated in a debate, my mind was changed because that's not really the way I think about things. Through reading books and studies and empirical research, certainly my views have evolved on a lot of different issues. Got it. That makes sense. Yeah, if you're in a debate, that's not really the time to change your mind, I guess. Nuclear is an interesting one, or nuclear, as many of our elected officials wrongly like to say.

Nuclear power, there was a point when I was younger that I just assumed extraordinarily dangerous and a bad idea. As I learned more about it, not by watching debates, by reading about it, I learned on a per energy generated basis, nuclear power is actually much safer than a lot of these burning fossil fuel sources of energy. Wow. Because of all of the pollution and the amount of cancer that's caused over long term. So that started to kind of shift my view.

In terms of new nuclear, if we built new nuclear, it would be even safer than the stuff from 50 years ago where there were problems because technology has improved. We're just not building it. So it didn't turn me into a nuclear advocate. I'd still like to get to renewable green energy sources, but it did completely change my view about the safety and efficacy of nuclear as it exists.

That is interesting because a lot of movies will paint it in a negative manner, nuclear energy. Yeah, there's real issues as to what do you do with spent fuel and how do you dispose of it. And there's absolutely real issues. But my reflexive, it's obviously bad in every way and super unsafe. That belief that I had 20 years ago wasn't based in fact, and so it changed over time. It seems like vehicles are going more electric these days, though.

Yeah. I mean, the share of all new vehicles sold that are electric is going up. Right. Yeah. Elon Musk with Tesla. He's crushing it. Well, actually, Tesla is the one that's increasingly struggling. What? What's really interesting. Yeah. I don't know if you saw their last numbers. Something like down 20 percent in deliveries last quarter. Very bad numbers. Full disclosure. I used to be a Tesla shareholder. Got out of the stock a couple of years ago because I saw the writing on the wall as a share of all electric vehicles sold.

Tesla is declining dramatically. I see them everywhere, though. Well, that's what's called observer bias and availability bias. I would encourage you to actually look at the number of deliveries rather than just like, what do I see on the road? Fair. Also, Teslas are really noticeable as electric vehicles. There's increasingly vehicles that look like a gas-powered vehicle, but it's the electric version, so you can't really tell. You've got to look closely and see that there's no exhaust pipes. Tesla...

Don't hold me to these numbers, but this is rough. There was one point where 80 something percent of all new electric vehicle sales were Tesla. That's down to under 50 percent now. So what's going on is that electric vehicles are growing, but it's mostly non-Tesla EVs that are growing. I'm an example of this. I'm on the last couple of months of my Tesla lease. When it's up, I'm not getting another Tesla.

And that's because of? Two main reasons. Number one, I'm not super happy with the build quality. Unaligned panels,

rattles and shakes and things that stop working. So I'm not thrilled with the build quality. And now that Elon Musk has completely identified himself as sort of a MAGA guy, it's just no longer a company that for political reasons I'm comfortable supporting. You start to wonder if that's actually why his sales are down too. I wouldn't know. I'm not sure. Yeah, you'd have to ask people. I mean, what I will tell you is that I've test driven a lot of EVs over the last couple of months.

Rivian, I test drove the Mercedes EQS SUV, the Audi e-tron, BMW iX, et cetera. They all feel so much more solid than my Tesla Model Y.

So I think that there is something to build quality where some of these other EVs just feel way more solid. I mean, Teslas are $25,000 now. They're cheap. I'm not up to date on the current price. Yeah, the Model 3 is $25,000. Is that after the $7,500 rebate? No.

They keep dropping prices. So you're saying it's $17,000 after the rebate? Yeah, we'll price check after. I would be shocked if that was the case. What I'm guessing is that it's in the low to mid 30s. Okay. And that with the rebate, it would get down to $20,000. Okay, maybe. But either way, when I bought mine, it was $70,000. The Model 3 was? Well, I financed, but yeah. Okay. Wow.

So they've dropped a lot because I think they've done two price cuts since I bought. Well, what I'll tell you is this. If I hadn't leased my Model Y and now I owned it and had to try to get rid of it, I would be so upside down relative to what I paid because there have been multiple. I don't want to say 50%, but I think 30%, 35%. There's been a cut. Yeah. And part of it, I think, is now there's real competition.

Now there's real competition from Lexus and there's real competition from Hyundai. There's all this. And so you've got to cut prices if you're Tesla. Yeah. Brands are catching up for sure. Did you see the call her daddy drama? No, you didn't see this. No, no, no. I've been traveling. Okay. I know Kamala Harris was on. So Kamala was on, she's getting a lot of heat for going on. What are your thoughts on that? Well, I haven't seen it, but why is she getting heat for going on? Um,

Um, they're saying the podcast itself, I guess, is kind of edgy. Have you seen the Call Her Daddy podcast? I've seen some episodes. Yeah, I saw. Who did I see that was on there? There was an athlete, I think a baseball player episode I saw a couple months ago. Anyway, I mean, listen, Trump did the Milk Boys or the Nelk Boys. That's pretty edgy. I think it's probably equivalent. And, you know, who cares? For me, it's more like...

what do these folks say when they are on the shows? And I don't know if Kamala said anything that was dramatic. I don't think it's out yet, but yeah, she's under a lot of fire right now. I think she had to make a video, the host of Call Her Daddy. Saying what? I didn't watch it, but I guess because the hurricane stuff's going on too and people were saying she's going on podcasts instead of helping. Oh, listen, I would not throw stones if I was in that glass house. Have you seen the video of after the Puerto Rican hurricane? No. Trump went to Puerto Rico

and then shot paper towels like basketball free throws as if it's some kind of game. If I were on the MAGA side, I wouldn't be talking too much about Kamala Harris's reaction to natural disasters because Trump, you know, used a Sharpie to change an inconvenient hurricane map. You know about this, right? No. You're not aware of this? No. What happened? Wow. But you support Trump.

I've never voted, to be honest. Oh. When I say I support him, I say, like, I would prefer him to win. Oh. Do you plan to vote? I'm not sure yet, to be honest. Yeah. It's days away. I know. I don't even know if I'm registered, so. How...

Please clip this. Please clip this and put it on social media. And I'm in a swing state too, so my vote actually matters. I am begging you, send me the last minute of this exchange. I want to post it. No, listen, with regard to... I lost my train of thought. That just blew my mind. I just lost my train of thought. You said he drew. Oh, yeah. There was a hurricane coming.

And Trump said, oh, it's going in this direction and people here and there, they need to be very careful. And it caused panic because that's not the direction the hurricane was going. So Trump then sitting in the Oval Office put up a hurricane map that was the actual map. And with a Sharpie, he had just changed the trajectory of the hurricane. Really? Because that was a more convenient trajectory for him, for the hurricane. Whoa. Wacky stuff. Wacky stuff. I mean, just a sign of such egomaniacal fragility that it's hard to believe. Yeah.

I actually didn't agree with that, that hate she got, because what is she going to do, honestly, like if a hurricane is happening, like she could fly out there and support them and show face. But her going on podcast is going to help her campaign more. So and yeah, but everybody's doing podcasts right now. That's what I mean. So I disagreed with that. Yeah. The other thing is sometimes when some I mean, I don't know if you saw Trump go down to I believe he was in Georgia after the one of the recent hurricanes.

First of all, he built like a little mini stage with bricks from a building that had been destroyed. I mean, it just such such low class, just disgusting thing to do, almost like making light of the fact that this building's been destroyed. But when someone of that caliber with that security infrastructure goes to a place where there are power outages and roads are destroyed and you're trying to get first responders in, I don't care if it's Trump or Biden or Harris.

My thought is stay away for a while because you will interfere with the recovery effort and take some resources away. Obviously,

Be engaged, be involved. The Biden administration spoke to I don't know if they spoke to DeSantis because I think he wasn't taking Kamala's call, but spoke to other governors. Georgia, North Carolina said we are at your disposal. Anything you need, let us know. That's what I want to see showing up when roads are closed with this massive entourage and taking away resources. It doesn't really do much. And if anything, it delays aid getting to the people that need it.

I agree. Yeah. So when it comes to Trump, do you dislike his policies or him as a person or both? I don't I don't dislike Trump as a person in the sense that I've never met the guy. So I think he has a lot of personality traits that make him completely unsuited to being president. And also, I think his policy prescriptions, to the extent that they exist and he understands them, which is a different part of it. A lot of the stuff Trump talks about, he still doesn't know how tariffs work. We're eight years into this thing, nine years in.

he still thinks China pays the tariffs when they're paid by. Yeah, I've seen him talk about very confused, very confused guy. So China's not paying tariffs right now. The tariffs are paid by the American companies that import the Chinese goods.

That's the way it's such a fund. And I see you looking a little confused. This is the way tariffs work. What Trump did is place tariffs on Chinese imports. By the time the imports get here, China has been paid for this stuff. Maybe they get net 120 terms. Right. But in a sense, China has already transacted. The American company who brings the goods in pays the tariffs. Really? This is.

You're kidding right now. No, I thought he said he was raising the tariffs by 50 to 100 percent for Chinese imports. Fort, you got to clip this. I'm begging you. You got to clip this and send it to me. I mean, no, I'm genuinely confused. None of this stuff is getting cut out, right? No, no. Oh, my God. We post everything. Please. The tariffs are paid by the company that does the importing. So if you want to build a building in the U.S. and you import Chinese steel.

You pay China for the steel. You pay the U.S. government the tariff. This is why it's inflationary. Economists have looked at Trump's tariff proposal and said it would make stuff more expensive for Americans by adding the cost of the tariffs to the total cost of production. So that's the way tariffs work. A lot of people don't seem to know how tariffs work, which is sad because this is how people end up getting sucked into Trump's vortex. He says something that sounds good. I'm going to punish China with tariffs. Yeah.

In this case, that sounds good. Chinese tariffs. They're paid by the American companies. Wow. That's why it's so damaging. That's crazy. Send me this part of the conversation. No, I will. I genuinely have no idea. I thought China was paying those. No, no. China's not paying them. Yeah. I thought they were, though. They're not. Yeah. So why would he do that? I'm confused. You'd have to ask him. All right. So that's one policy you don't agree with. What else?

- Trump's policy on taxation, I didn't agree with putting a cap on SALT, state and local taxes, for example. I think it's a way to deliberately target blue states, which tend to have better infrastructure and slightly higher taxes. I didn't agree with that. I didn't see any reason to do that. What's funny is Trump is now saying we're gonna fix SALT. It's like, dude, you broke it. You're now running against your own tax plan.

But then when J.D. Vance was asked about it, he said, well, I don't actually know that we're going to do that. So I disagree with the incompetence surrounding it. I disagree with his instinct to just cut taxes for the very rich in corporations. And also, I think he doesn't even know what he's doing. I don't even think he understands his own plan, his health care framework.

When he was candidate Trump in 2015-2016, he said he'd replace Obamacare with something big and beautiful that would get everybody coverage. I remember that. In 2017, they finally put together a proposal. Nonpartisan evaluations found that around 30 million people would lose health care if that proposal had gone through, so he abandoned it. August of 2020, he famously said on Fox News, in two weeks, I'm going to have my new health insurance plan.

We still don't have it. Kamala Harris asked him during the debate or was it Kamala Harris or maybe it was the moderator. It was a question or maybe it was a town hall. He was recently asked, do you have that plan now? And he said, I have concepts of a plan. Not good. Does not inspire confidence to me. Right. Not something I would want to take a chance on. Well, it seems like this election, at least he's saying that he wants to go up against Big Pharma, him and RFK. Do you believe any of that?

You know, I don't know what I believe about that. I believe the most likely. So here's the thing about Trump. The prism through which he sees everything is what can I say or do that's good for me, period, no matter who else it's good for. And so I think that Trump talking about making RFK illegal.

some kind of health advisor, which, by the way, I don't believe he will do. I think he's actually going to realize RFK is toxic to his brand and it's not useful, but he's saying that he would. Okay, we can talk about that later. I think he's saying it because he's trying to find a way to

to get whatever RFK support might be to support him. So I think that's why he's saying it right now. Privately, I don't think Trump agrees with almost anything that RFK is saying. Wow. On vaccines or Trump would love to be bragging about the vaccines. He admitted in a recent Fox interview, I can't do it because my voters essentially hate it. Those those are my words. He didn't say that, but he said people don't want to hear about it and they're angry or this or that. Trump would love to be bragging about how quickly he helped get the vaccines developed.

He can't do it. And it's not about his deeply held belief about vaccines. It's just what can I say to get more voters? That's all he really cares about. Well, that's I would argue that's most politicians. So it's most politicians. But there's a degree to which Trump is willing to completely sacrifice what he genuinely believes. I'll give you another example. Trump's been pro-choice his entire life on the issue of abortion. Melania Trump recently in an interview said, I'm pro-choice.

Trump contrived and fabricated this anti-abortion view because he said to himself correctly, I'm going to run as a Republican. One of the big fundraising issues for Republicans is that you've got to be against abortion. He started speaking at the Right to Life March or the March for Life or whatever it's called.

Nobody who's around Trump believes for a second that he genuinely changed his view on abortion at age 68. And when you ask him why he changed his view, the story is, well, I was pro choice my whole life. His wife's pro choice, his family's pro choice. But then I met a kid who I liked and the kid's mom said, I thought about getting an abortion, but I didn't. And Trump wants us to believe that that made him completely against abortion. All of this stuff

is far more nakedly political. Whereas let's look at some of the areas where Kamala Harris has changed her mind. Legalization of cannabis.

She used to be against it. She now came out with the most left-leaning position any major party candidate has taken, which is she wants it legalized. Oh, but she flip-flopped. She changed her mind. Well, she came around to the right view as public opinion and research on cannabis evolved. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. There's no conflict with...

With Trump, a lot of this stuff feels nakedly and brazenly opportunistic. Makes sense to me. Now, this is the big one. I'd love to hear your opinion on this one. The border policy. OK. Who do you think got the better border policy between those two? Well, the important thing to understand is that Trump's border policy isn't completely clear. I mean, I'll tell you the parts that are clear. He

He wants to build a wall across the entire U.S.-Mexico border, which you can't actually do. You can only do it in certain parts because there's other types of barriers, including water and different things. I don't think Trump knows. I don't think Trump cares. But he says we're going to build a wall across the entire thing. And maybe Mexico will pay for it. That was part of it in 2016. Yeah.

He failed to do it. You can't do it in a presidential term. You're not going to get Mexico to pay for it. And it's not really going to deal with the broader issue, which is people that are flying in and overstaying visas, people being smuggled in or coming in legally and staying through legal ports of entry, etc. So he wants to build this wall. He's not going to build the wall and it wouldn't actually solve the problem. Trump wants to do militarized mass deportations when he's asked who would be included in that.

Sometimes he'll say, well, the criminal illegal aliens who have committed violent crimes. OK, we already do that. Yeah. Sometimes they have to serve time here first, then they get deported. We already have that in place. So then you asked Trump, well, what about those who came here as minors because they were brought by their parents before they legally had any say? Someone came here when they were two, three, four, five, six. Now they're 20.

They have no connection to their birth country. They speak English. They've gone to college here, et cetera. You're going to deport them. Not a clear answer. That's a real problem for me. The answer should be clear. We're not going to deport them. Of course not. Trump says, what about, you know, mothers? Will mothers be separated from their babies and put into these militarized deportation camps? Trump says, you know, that's a tough one because I'll get bad press if I do that.

Rather than saying, of course, we're not going to do that. Of course, we're not going to do that. So my view on this is I am not for an open border. I don't believe we have one. I think countries have a right to enforce their borders. If people are here illegally and they don't have any legal status, they're subject to deportation. It's the name of the game. Do you agree with that?

with people who are here illegally being deported. Yeah. As a general principle, that's absolutely the way every country functions. I also think we have a bunch of industries that thanks to big, big agriculture and for other reasons, industries that are dependent on migrant labor. I've not heard Trump articulate if you deport all those folks who they're just here working. Yes, they're here illegally, but they've committed no other crime and they're just here working.

What do you do about those industries that would collapse? I haven't heard an answer to that. When it comes to what we call DACA, I think we need to give some path to at minimum permanent residency, if not citizenship, to those who came here as minors through through no fault of their own. They're contributing here. They're essentially American in every sense of the word. So we've got to figure that out. So I don't think there's any.

You agree with this or you agree with that? I think this is a complicated issue. And I say this as an immigrant to the United States who came here legally. Yeah. Yes, my parents did, too. When you see these crazy numbers, though, like they're saying 20 million illegals came in in the past, what, four years, eight years? Did you see that? I've not seen any proof of that number. I think the thing about this is I don't want to play games about what the real number is.

That number is not a number that I've seen anywhere reliable in terms of from Border Patrol or I.N.S. or whatever. I don't know that the number is really going to get us to the right policy. I mean, people have come into the U.S. illegally while Biden has been president, while Trump has been president, while Obama was president, while Bush was president. It's a country of three hundred and forty million people. People enter the country illegally. There are different circumstances.

What I don't want to see is this to become a thing where immigrants start being targeted and scapegoated the way we've seen, for example, with the Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, who you might not like the policy, but they are here with temporary protected status. Some are some people are saying that shouldn't exist. OK, we'll go lobby and change it. But right now they have temporary protected status. I don't want to see people start to be scapegoated and that sort of thing.

But of course, countries have a right to enforce their borders. Absolutely. Any other policies come to mind? I mean, you can bring up any that you want. I don't have like a laundry list to go over, but I'm glad to talk about it. Well, the corporate tax, Trump lowered it, didn't he? Trump did lower the corporate tax. So were you a fan of that? So I think it's less of a big deal than a lot of people think. It was 35. Trump lowered it to 21.

Kamala Harris's proposal is to go to 28. Here's the thing that does not apply to most businesses. There's a lot of people who wrongly think the mom and pop dry cleaners tax rate was lowered by Trump and Kamala is going to bring it up. Most of those businesses are either sole proprietorships, LLCs or S corporations. The corporate tax rate doesn't affect them because they pay their personal tax rate. It's pass through income.

C corporations, we're talking about the big, big, big corporations that often pay zero. That's who's affected by it. So it's kind of like a two part answer. Number one, I didn't see any real impetus to reduce the corporate tax rate from 35 to 21.

because most of the corporations subject to it aren't paying it anyway. So it's kind of like a virtue signal. I'm going to Trump said, I'm going to lower it even more to 15 with the amount of loopholes, carry forwards, offshoring of income, tax loss, harvesting all these different things. A lot of these companies are paying zero or five or seven no matter where you set the rate. So I think it's not really the big issue that a lot of people want to make it out to be. Fair enough. Any policies of Trump's that you actually agree with?

Oh, man. Listen, there are little things he's done that I think are good. I mean, the first step act on criminal justice reform, there was some stuff in there that I liked. I like that Trump granted clemency or pardons to some people who had been convicted of nonviolent drug offenses. The problem is Trump did that because he thought it would curry favor with some people. And meanwhile, he says drug dealers should be given the death penalty. So wait a second.

Are you trying to let them out of prison and give them a pardon or are you trying to kill them? Which one is it? And the answer is it's whichever one you want to believe, Sean. It's whichever one sounds good to you today. Trump will say, I'll either do this or I'll either do that. But to the extent that he did it,

I agree with pardoning and giving clemency to nonviolent drug offenders, especially because it can be it puts them back into a cycle where then they can't get a job because of the record, which pushes them back into illicit activity. So I think that was good. There was briefly a point and this may have been reversed. So it's kind of sad that I'm going to tell you something that I agreed with that that might have been reversed.

Trump lowered the threshold of when medical expenses become tax deductible. Normally, in order for your medical expenses to be tax deductible, they need to be some high percentage of your total income. It's like it's too high. Yeah. Trump had lowered it, which I agreed with. I think it might have been reversed, though, sadly. Got it. I wonder when that happened. But I think 2017, 2018. OK, so I like how your objective because a lot of people would answer that question and say, I don't agree with anything.

Yeah, I mean, listen, I'll call it like I see it. Like I'm telling you, I would love to see my tax rate decreased. I think it's more likely Trump would do that than Harris. The context and the environment in which he would do it, I don't think makes any sense. And I don't even think he necessarily understands. And he would do it in a way that would cut funding to important programs.

In a sort of vacuum, I love the idea of lowering taxes for people. Sure, why not? Yeah, I think everyone would, right? Yeah, most people. Do you see a recession being possible in the coming years? For 12 years, you have had a lot of people loudly saying, we are on the brink of a recession. And we did have a pullback in March of 2020 when COVID started. The recovery was actually swift. And then there were a lot of people saying, this is the recession I've been predicting.

I think that in a system like the one we have, there are booms and busts. So it's not particularly interesting to go around predicting recessions. I mean, do I think there will ever be one again? Yeah, probably. Unless something has changed fundamentally about our economy. Right. We have recessions. There are people who every single year say it's happening in the next 12 to 18 months. And so far it hasn't happened. So I don't have any.

I don't think I'm giving anybody anything interesting by saying I do think in 24 months we might be in a recession. What I can tell you is that in general, the economy does better when a Democrat is president. Really? But you don't know this one either. I don't. So don't listen to me. Fact check me. OK, you can find the data. This stuff is out there. Stock market returns are higher when a Democrat is president. Job creation is higher when a Democrat is president.

GDP growth is higher when a Democrat is president. Inflation is lower when a Democrat is president. Unemployment is lower when a Democrat is president. Consumer confidence is higher when a Democrat is president, on average, over long periods of time. So when Trump, I don't know if you remember, in 2020, Trump said if Biden wins, we'll have a 1929 style depression. Do you remember him saying that? Didn't happen.

100 stock record, stock market records, low unemployment, etc. Trump's saying the same thing now. If Kamala Harris wins, we're going to have a 1929 style depression. Some people, all they have is a hammer. And so everything looks like a nail to them. They're always making the same predictions. I don't pay much attention to them. Well, he's still saying the economy crashed under Biden. He's still saying that. Yeah, I would I would encourage him to give me metrics that point to that. He hasn't been able to. Mm hmm.

You acknowledge the stock market is higher than ever, right? Right now, I haven't been paying attention, actually. I don't have stocks. Let me put it in a different way. You're aware that over the last four years, there has been massive stock market growth. Yeah, I've seen NVIDIA. Yeah, a few companies. Well, that's one stock. I'm talking total markets. So the S&P. S&P record high, 40, 50 record highs under Biden. NASDAQ.

Dow Jones Industrial Average. Really? Wow. The highest it's ever been. Damn, I didn't know that. As a Trump supporter, as you claim to be, it would be important to know what Trump predicted and what actually happened. Yeah. Maybe I should reward supporter. That's the way, if I were evaluating who to support...

I would first ask what predictions did they make and see if they were right about anything. I might do that as part of the exercise. See, a lot of people won't dive into these details. You know what I mean? Yeah. Do you agree with that? Oh, yeah. I feel like the average voter isn't going to look up articles and, like, dive into stuff. Well...

You're right to some degree, and it's a very sad state of affairs. But your audience is very educated, obviously. I think they'll appreciate hearing that from you. No, I've seen your videos. I read your comments, and it's a high-level crowd. I appreciate that. Is it mainly people on the left? Yeah. We have a ton of right-wing attack trolls in the comments on every one of my platforms, but I do a left-wing show regularly.

I think it's safe to say that the majority of my audience is on the left, yeah. How do you deal with those trolls and the haters? Just ignore them. You ignore them? Yeah. I mean, they can call in and argue with me sometimes, and they'll do it, and I'll...

listen to what they have to say. It's interesting. It's an interesting experiment. It's not productive when you're just hating on people. It's not super productive, but sometimes we'll make a breakthrough. There'll be conversations like we had where someone will call in and will say, the stock market's been terrible under Biden. And I go, oh, really? All right, well, look up. Where was the Dow when Biden took over? And where is the Dow now? And then they go, oh, I guess it's not that bad. I will say you've opened my eyes because I'm very analytical. So when I see these stats like

That'll win me over. I want to hear from you in a couple weeks after you've had time to research. I don't think I'll vote left. Okay. But you're not even registered, you said. I don't think I'm registered unless I've been in the hospital. So I don't know how it works. I've never heard of hospital. DMV. DMV. You can opt in to register there. So I might. Honestly, I don't even know in this state what the rules are about registration. Yeah, I'm not sure. Every state's different, right? So New York. New York.

It's pretty left, right? Yeah, certainly the city. Staten Island is the more right-leaning borough. But New York City's been left for a long time, and New York State also, which is also why it's kind of funny when you hear Trump talk about, we're going to win New York and New Jersey this year. No, you're not, dude. I can't remember the last—I grew up in Jersey. I can't remember the last time a Republican won Jersey. I can't remember either. Jersey elects a lot of Republican governors, but not for president. I feel that.

Well, David, it's been insightful, man. Anything else you want to close off with? Any important messages you want to get across before we wrap up? I've got a book coming out soon called The Echo Machine, where I explain a lot of like how stuff broke, how to fix it and what countries have done a good job with political systems.

People can pre-order it on my website, davidpachman.com slash echo. I would love for them to check it out. I know not everybody, some people prefer to watch videos or listen. That's cool too. But if you prefer to read about this stuff, I do have a book coming out. And otherwise, really appreciate being here. Absolutely. Will it be on Audible?

The book is on Audible. So if you want Kindle, we got it. If you want Audible, we've got it. The whole thing. And I am reading the audio book. I have not recorded it yet because it sounds excruciating. They told me it'll take 25 hours of recording. Somehow it's only going to be six hours long.

It'll take 25 hours to record it. How does that make sense? I don't know. Apparently you have to rerecord things a bunch of times, but it will be my voice on the audio book. Cool. We'll link below. Thanks for coming on, man. Thank you. Yup. Thanks for watching guys. Check out the links below. See you next time.