Surrender, betrayal, and the collapse of promises

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
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**SPEAKER_1** (0:19)
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**David Pakman** (0:32)
Today, the mythology surrounding Donald Trump has collided with reality from every direction. We have a Republican senator admitting that Congress could reign Trump in, but then he surrenders anyway. And a candidate facing multiple allegations points to Trump and goes, listen, if he's allowed to do it, why am I not allowed to do it? And some former Trump supporters are finally saying out loud that the antiwar movement they thought they joined was actually a cult built around a lie. We're also going to look at Donald Trump's increasingly incoherent claims about gas prices, grocery prices, tariffs and Iran. And we have economic numbers that just are not cooperating with the fantasy. I'll also speak to economist Gabriel Zucman, who I think you will really be interested in hearing from. And we are going to dive deep on the promised manufacturing Renaissance, which has run into some unfortunate data. Finally, Republican cowardice and MAGA disillusionment. It's all happening on today's show. If my equipment will work today, never a guarantee.
I have a remarkable video to start with today. This is what when I saw this video of John Cornyn, the outgoing Texas senator, summarizing basically the Republican Party's entire relationship with Donald Trump in one sentence, I realized that they know. Let me explain. OK, they know what he is doing. They know they are supposed to stop Trump and they have decided we are going to surrender. Why won't John Cornyn bother voting no against Todd Blanche for attorney general?
Well, there's nothing we could do to rein in the president. Here is John Cornyn, the picture of cowardice himself.

**SPEAKER_1** (2:34)
I was saying as recently as yesterday, he likes the idea of this fund that he wants to find some way to pay these people. Does that concern you as someone who's tried to fight against getting this anti-weaponization fund in place?

**John Cornyn** (2:46)
Well, there's nothing we could do to to to rein in the president when he said he likes the fund and he wishes still exists. But the fact of the matter, it's dead. And that's all we could do under these circumstances.

**David Pakman** (3:01)
We should be running that on repeat until election day. There's nothing we could do to rein in the president. That's Republican Senator John Cornyn. It's not a random guy being interviewed outside of Trump rally. Listen, there's really nothing I could do about this guy. This is not, you know, some powerless backbencher in a state legislature who's like, hey, listen, I I just vote here in the state Senate in Arkansas. I can't do anything about Trump. This is a United States senator. This is a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. This is one of the people who has the constitutional power to approve or reject Trump's nominee for attorney general. And Cornyn makes the statement while explaining, listen, I'm just going to vote to advance Todd Blanch's nomination to lead the Justice Department. Now, the context is very important. And I think, you know, often they go, oh, we need the context. It makes it better.
Somehow the context makes it even worse because John Cornyn and Republican Senator Tom Tillis, both outgoing. They objected to this one point eight billion dollar so-called anti weaponization fund, also called the Give Trump's Criminal Friends Money Fund, the anti weaponization fund. The concern was this is going to become this pot of money for Trump's allies who said the government wronged us. And this could potentially include January six rioters who were pardoned by Donald Trump. And so Cornyn and Tillis didn't like that. By the way, this is just a brief. Let's take a brief detour.
Cornyn and Tillis are the ones who publicly have spoken out against the weaponization fund, but they are not the only ones who are against it. They're leaving the Senate, so they're free to talk about the crap Trump's doing, whereas all of these other coward Republicans, they don't. Republicans only talk about what Trump's doing wrong when they're leaving or occasionally when they've decided I'm willing to be voted out. OK, different that back to the main story.