The biggest contradictions are being exposed

**David Pakman** (0:00)
Today, we are going to look at why Donald Trump keeps calling Democrats communists while Trump is actually the guy who seems to love the state control of communism. I'll explain. Then Trump appears to lose track of time altogether, launching into a bizarre attack on Gavin Newsom over an interview from months ago. And I'm going to show you a reporter who was doing journalism. He asked one question to NATO's Mark Ruda and Mark Ruda didn't want to hear the question. We will also look at the embarrassing mistake that had CNN quoting a fictional congressman on live TV. And we will look at the familiar pattern of this administration of declare victory before the job is done. And then all of a sudden, you've got a real problem when it unravels and when it unravels again and again. Finally, one of the loudest Republican voices warning about voter fraud appears to have committed voter fraud. Why does it keep happening to these people? Well, it does. And I will also read some of your e-mails and comments, respond and react to them.
We're going to do a show today if I have anything to say about it.
For all the talk about hating communism, I want to argue today that Donald Trump actually loves full blown communism, as long as he's the one in control lately, especially Donald Trump can't stop calling Democrats communist. It's one of his favorite insults. But I think that there's a deeper irony here. And one of the most interesting pieces I read this week is In the Atlantic. It's written by Jonathan Chait and it's called What Trump has in common with the far left And the argument isn't that Trump is secretly like a Marxist or something like that. But it does make the point that a lot of the governing instincts of Trump resemble the worst elements of communist and authoritarian systems. And I think Jonathan Chait is really on to something. I've talked about this before in the context of authoritarianism from the right or left starts to look similar. And I'm going to explain that now just to kind of set the stage earlier this week. Trump even joked about this about communism and about he would be the greatest communist if you were in the country.

**SPEAKER_2** (2:17)
Communism's easy to sell.

**Mark Rutte** (2:20)
I would be the greatest communist in history. I'd be right up there with Lenin.

**David Pakman** (2:24)
I'd be I'd be as good as anybody. You've got free rent for the rest of your life.

**Mark Rutte** (2:29)
What they don't say is that you'll be living in squalor in 12 months.

**David Pakman** (2:34)
This and then reading Jonathan Chait's article really got me thinking about the idea that Trump loves communism. Now he presents it as a joke, but like a lot of Trump's jokes, it's very revealing. When you look at how Donald Trump wants government to operate, his instincts are a lot less capitalistic than many of the Democrats that he accuses of being communist. So take just one example. Trump is pushed for the federal government to take ownership stakes in private companies, including this deal where the government would get a 10 percent equity stake in the company Intel in exchange for about nine billion dollars in grants. Now think about that for a second. The federal government becoming a shareholder in one of the largest technology companies in America. When did that become a conservative principle? When did that become a right wing principle? And there's tons of these examples. Trump has repeatedly demanded that private companies charge the prices he believes they should charge. He's threatened businesses that don't comply. He behaves like large corporations exist to carry out Trump's wishes instead of just doing what's best for business. None of that is free market capitalism. That is government directing economic activity, which is a characteristic of communism. Now, I said it before, I want to just say again, I'm not saying Trump believes in the theories of Karl Marx. He doesn't. This is really not ideological for Trump. Trump is an authoritarian and authoritarianism starts to look similar, no matter where it comes from on the political spectrum. They use different rhetoric.
The way that they flag their beliefs tend to be sort of dressed up differently. But the governing instincts are very similar. The leader becomes more important than institutions. Businesses succeed by pleasing those in power.
Political opponents become enemies. Courts become obstacles. The press is the enemy.
The government increasingly decides how private enterprise should behave. And this is why in the Atlantic piece, the argument is made that Trump has really blurred the line between public and private. And he acts as though government should control private investment decisions and reward some companies and punish others based on loyalty to him rather than based on neutral rules. Even the approach implicit and to some degree explicit from this administration about how you decide whether a certain merger or acquisition should be approved. Have you been nice to Trump? Have you been doing good reporting on Trump or bad reporting on Trump as he defines it?