Speaker 1: And hello, how are you happy?
Speaker 2: Happy Friday to you. Welcome to the Big Podcast on
this July eighteenth year of our Lord, twenty twenty five.
My name is Tom Sullivan. So, uh so we've got
a lot to go over. I told you yesterday, I said,
I think I think the Colbert story, No, not the
Colbert I think the Jeffrey epstiin story. Epstein story is
dying out. And and not two hours later the whole
thing blew up with a story from the Wall Street Journal.
So we'll get we'll go over that. We've got a
wild week for the Federal Reserve Board. We've got the
New York City mayor's race is still in the news.
Harry Entsen has a look at how the third party
might stack up. And we've got phone calls from you,
the listeners, the phone numbers eight, five to five, two, nine, five,
sixty six hundred where you had a bunch of them
from this past week. Laurie the comment line lady, we
have a handful from her. But again, if you have
a comment an observation, we don't accept complaints. No no, no, no, no, yes,
you can complain whatever you want to do. The phone
numbers eight five to five two nine five sixty six hundred.
Let's start off with well, you would think it was
the end of the world, but in a sad way,
it is the end of on a American tradition, late
night television used to be where Johnny Carson. The story
was Johnny Carson would put America to bed at night.
People would get in bed and they would have the
Tonight Show on and Johnny Carson would be doing his
show and people would be watching the show starting at
eleven thirty at night, and somewhere between eleven thirty and
twelve thirty day would fall asleep. So that was another
that was an era in television which just is gone.
So the shows that have replaced that Stephen Colbert and
Jimmy Fallon. I'm just not a fan. I'm just not
a fan. And Jimmy what's his name, he's also I
mean Kimmel. It's not the same. It just isn't. So
the news last night came out CBS said that they
are ending the Stephen Colbert Late Night Show. This is
from the Ed Sullivan Theater on Broadway in New York City.
That's where David Letterman, after he left NBC went over
to CBS. They started the show in that theater, and
so it's going to come to an end. Here's Stephen
Colbert telling his audience.
Speaker 3: Next year will be our last season. The network will
be ending the Late Show in May, and yeah, I
share your feelings. It's not just the end of our show,
but it's the end of the Late show on CBS.
Speaker 1: I'm not being replaced. This is all just going away.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is all going away. And Joe Conca, who
does a lot of the media reporting on Fox, talked
about the money and the audience and the change in
late night television.
Speaker 4: Well, you look at tonight, for example, and Stephen Colbert's
primary guest, not the third guest, not the guy that's
on after midnight, the first guest, the future guest, is
Adam Schiff, Senator California. So you think back to the
days of Johnny Carson, and you think of Rickles, or
you think of Bert Reynolds, or you think of Sinatra
or Buddy Hackett or any major Hollywood star.
Speaker 1: They were the future guests. Now with this guy, Stephen.
Speaker 4: Colbert, it's Corey Booker, it's Zoran Mam Donnie, it's AOC,
it's Jake Tapper, who lives to be on this show,
or Nicole Wallace or Chris Hayes or name your MSNBC
host who loves to be on Colbert. So it's no
longer entertainment at this point. It's basically MSNBC, CNN, c
Span at night. And to your point, it just ain't
funny when you don't have funny people on there, and
all they do is talk about how horrible Donald Trump
is and how Democrats want to save democracy.
Speaker 1: It's a joke.
Speaker 4: Oh sure, Carson like almost never when political, and when
he did it ended up being a big deal, but
he would do it in a way that wasn't as
nasty and as partisan, and as the way Colbert speaks
about Trump, or Kimmel for that matter, or Seth Myers.
Speaker 1: They're all the same.
Speaker 4: And that's a problem when every late night show outside
of a guy named Greg Guttfeld, does the same material
every night in terms of just basically bashing Trump.
Speaker 1: And I spoke about Greg Guttfeld.
Speaker 4: He is beating right now Colbert by nearly a million
viewers a night with a fraction of the resources that
Colbert has over at CBS.
Speaker 2: I think that's the problem with the whole setup is
it used to be comedy. Also, remember Johnny Carson used
to do the show originally that The Night Show in
New York and then moved it to Los Angeles and
La is where he basically spent most of his years
doing The Tonight Show, which is the home of entertainment.
It wasn't a political talk show. He might crack a
joke about whoever the president was, but it was it
was no matter which president he made a little joke,
but it was about Joe was talking about Hollywood movie stars,
things that made you laugh. The last thing you want
to do if you're in bed watching The Tonight Show
or Cobert Show, the Late Night Show, the last thing
you want to do is have some serious politician like
Adam Schiff to stand you off into dreamland. There's more
from Joe Well.
Speaker 4: From a financial perspective, the network's argument actually makes sense,
and let me break it down for you best I can.
Colbert is reportedly making upwards of twenty million dollars a year,
all for a return on investment to finish a distance
second to Greg Gotfeld on this network and Late Night.
But the cost of CBS doesn't stop there. Obviously. I mean,
this is a program that has a staff of more
than one hundred people. I mean we're talking about an
army of writers, house band, multiple producers, directors, and bookers,
it staff.
Speaker 1: You name it.
Speaker 4: Overall, it costs one hundred and thirty million dollars just
in production, just in a production budget to put this
show on the air.
Speaker 1: And I'm not even talking about the.
Speaker 4: Salary of Colbert and one hundred other staffers in New
York City. So the show's ratings are a fraction of
what they were under Colbert's predecessor, David Letterman.
Speaker 1: So was it losing money? Most likely? Yeah.
Speaker 4: Is Colbert's show patently predictable, myopic and a hatred of
Trump and therefore anything but fun and entertaining? Absolutely, I
mean I'll leave it here. Adam Schiff was on the
show last night, the Senator from California. He did three
segments and at one point he turned to the camera
and said to Donald Trump, Donald blank off. If that's entertainment,
I'm just not seeing it. It's not the late night
that we grew up with the Hollywood's biggest stars, comedians, entertainers.
I mean, every night looks like the DNC convention. This
is the Statden Doll stats. Bernie Sanders has appeared on
Colbert's show six times more than Tom Hanks. Bernie's been
on twenty one times overall, and the show is just
ten years old. Elizabeth Warren, who is hilarious and entertaining,
we all know that sixteen times media figures, Anderson Cooper
twenty times. Gale came fourteen times, Jake Tapper twelve, Rachel
Mattow eight. These are profoundly unfunny people, which in a
good combination if you're looking for the escapism of late
night comedy, and I think that's what they've lost here.
And if they're losing money, then maybe this isn't a
different era where late night comedy isn't what it used
to be.
Speaker 2: So I'm the first to admit Stephen Colbert when he
was on the Comedy Central show that he played the
role of a conservative. He played it. He's an actor,
but it was funny. I thought he was funny. But
they have lost their edge. It's all political talk, and
political talk at eleven thirty at night is just isn't
being bought. So I think this is the death knell
now that They've gone ahead at CBS and killed this,
and I know they're saying it has nothing to do
with the sale of Paramount at Paramount and trying to
get approval from the Federal Trade Commission to do that
probably was falling on its own. And watch NBC. I
don't know how they're going to kill the Tonight show
that is, Like I said, Jimmy Fallon, I think is terrible.
I'm just not a fan. And Jimmy Kimmel, I think
all of those shows are going to be put to sleep.
If you look at the ratings and you look at
who's winning of all the awards and the audiences, it's streamers.
Streamers are out doing broadcast television. It's Netflix essentially, and
then all the others. So say good night. You can
go to bed an hour early now or if you ever,
I think if you're like me, you probably already did.
So that's the story of Stephen Colbert. So let's go back,
move on to Yeah, the Epstein story is not going
to go away. Also, last night there was this big
bombshell report and I looked at the bombshell and I thought, well,
what's so bombshelly about this? This is the story that
came out from the Wall Street Journal last night that
Donald Trump, Jelaane Maxwell was putting together a fiftieth birthday
party for Jeffrey Epstein and she called up a bunch
of people that were his friends and said, can you
put something together on a letter that we'll put it
into a book and we'll give it to him for
his fiftieth birthday party. And the letter that they said
that Donald Trump sent along with the rest of them,
were all a bunch of body letters, and that they
had an outlaw drawing of a naked woman and you know,
good luck, Jeffrey, and keep on keeping your secrets. And
it was it was not a good thing, but they
were trying to make it sound like it was recent.
It was two thousand and three, so we're talking what
twenty two years ago, and what Trump came out and said,
he's going to do the Wall Street Journal unless Rupert
Murdoch and we'll se I threatens everybody.
Speaker 1: But I looked at it.
Speaker 2: And I thought, I remember, I don't know why Trump
is so upset about it, and I don't know why
anybody would be all that upset about it. Donald Trump
in two thousand and three in the late nineties early
two thousands, was basically advertised himself as a man about town,
a playboy with all kinds of girlfriends and Hollywood starlets
and things like that, and that was his bet. He
used to go on Howard Stern's show all the time,
and in those days, even Howard, they would brag about
all the women and this and that and everything else,
and it was very man cave stuff. And so I'm going, okay,
So it was body well, that was kind of his
thing at that time. He's now a seventy nine year
old man. But in any case, the other thing about
it was that, yeah, Trump was not trying to pretend
that he was the community priest. And so I don't
know what the problem was with that letter from a playboy,
single man. He wasn't married at the time. I don't
know what he's so upset about his That was what
he advertised himself as that kind of guy. I also
truly believe that people knew that when they voted for
him in twenty sixteen, not like it was a surprise.
People voted for him again in two thousand, would be
able to vote for him in twenty twenty. People voted
for him in twenty twenty four. Every time we knew
who he was. I mean, if you want a real playboy,
you can go to Bill Clinton. And people knew that
about Bill Clinton and they elected him twice. So I
don't know where this pious sort of attitude about that
Trump is some sort of community priest. It doesn't make
any sense to me. He was a playboy and he
advertised it, and he sent a letter to Jeffrey Epstein,
who The other part about this is he and Epstein.
There's tons of history on the fact they were good
friends for about a decade.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: I don't know what it was. It was probably the
arrest for pedophilia that that was ed. Trump drew the
line at that, But before that happened, he and Epstein
were friends. So why try to pretend like you weren't.
That's anyway, That's my take on. Ellie Honig weighs in
about exactly this letter and what's going to happen next
In the Epstein story, one of the postings by Donald
Trump last night on True Social he wrote, based on
the ridiculous amount of publicity given to Jeffrey Epstein, I
have asked Attorney General Pam BONDI to produce andy and
all pertinent grand jury testimony subject to court approval. This
scam perpetrated by the Democrats should end right now. Here's
Ellen conig Well.
Speaker 1: Pertinent's doing an awful lot of work there on.
Speaker 5: First of all, just grand jury testimony itself is only
going to be a fairly small fraction of the entire file.
In addition to that, we now have this word pertinent,
So that begs the question pertinent to what and pertinent
as determined by who. So it gives the Attorney General
in some respect wiggle room, but it also puts her
in a very difficult position where apparently she's going to
have to a decide what's pertinent and then b you
have to go in front of a federal judge and
get permission to release grand jury materials. So there's a
lot of hurdles still in place here. If you think
of the entire file here, and by the way, we
know from last week's FBI memo that this is a
huge file, three hundred gigabytes of information. That's millions and
millions of pages of documents. You can sort of separate
it into two perceptual categories.
Speaker 1: There's grand jury materials.
Speaker 5: Those are presumptively confidential by law. You cannot turn them
over to the public as a p prosecutor unless you
get a judge's permission first.
Speaker 1: But then there's all the rest of it.
Speaker 5: That's something that the President the Attorney General can decide
on their own without going through a judge first and
say I'm going to release this. And so what the
President has done here is that I only want to
focus on the narrow category, the grand jury stuff that
you first have to go to a judge for.
Speaker 1: As to all that.
Speaker 5: Other stuff, the remaining the majority of the file, that
is entirely up to the AG and the President. If
they want to release that today, they can do that.
When you think of a file, you have your grand
jury materials. Actually you typically store your grand jury materials
in a physically different colored folder because you need to
set that aside because that's the confidentialist stuff. So all
the stuff that's in a red or yellow folder, all
the grand jury materials that.
Speaker 1: Has to go through a judge.
Speaker 5: That's what Donald Trump is saying, I want you to
ask a judge to release, But then the bulk of
the file is going to be everything else, everything that
is not grand jury testimony. All of that is within
Donald Trump, is within Pam Bondi's discretion to release. Now,
of course they'd have to make all sorts of determinations
about it. They'd have to redact out to protect victims
and witnesses and miners. And by the way, ordinary DOJ
procedure is, you would never release any of this. This
is a closed case, investigative file. Try to serve a
Freedom of Information Act request on DOJ for any such
file and watch how quickly they reject it in the
ordinary course. So Trump and Bondi are already painting way
outside the lines here. But yes, John, the specific portion
that Donald Trump has said I want you to try
to release that also happens to be the exact portion
that a judge has to sign off on first.
Speaker 2: So that's where it stands now, is that the President
has told Pam Bondi to release what she can, and
the debate is what she will be able to release,
what the judge will allow to be released. So this
story is not going to go away, as I predict it. Well,
I predicated it will probably last forever in way of
who shot JR. But it will not go away. Even
in current news cycles, it's still alive and well. Sorry,
So with other political bickering going on in Washington, you
want to check in with Harriet and see what the
chances are of a third party. This is Elon Musk
said he is going to personally break out the checkbook
and start a third political party. I don't think it's necessary.
We've already have. I mean, the Democrats have multiple parties
within under the Democrat umbrella. So do the Republicans. There's
the Freedom Caucus, there's the Moderate Republicans, the old establishment Republicans.
The Democrats have the Squad, and then they have moderate
Old Democrats. There's a variety of different ideologies within these parties.
I don't think a third party is going to solve anything.
But what Elon Musk wants to do is focus on
some key states, maybe three or four states, and get
a third party's started there and if they can win there,
then that would expand it throughout the country. But Harry
Entton has done some research in all of this is
what he has to say.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I would say that I have rarely seen someone
who entered the political scene and it has been so
unkind to them.
Speaker 1: What are we talking about here?
Speaker 6: All I can say is, jeez, Louise, you know, the
first time we ever saw Elon Musk ever polled was
all the way back in June of twenty sixteen. He
was the most popular person polled by Bloomberg back in
June of twenty sixteen, with a plus twenty nine percentage
point net favorable rating down only go as we go
to this side of the screen July of twenty twenty five,
minus thirty seven points on the net favorable scale at
cornor our latest CNN poll. Get this, That is a
sixty six point drop. He is now the least popular
person that we polled. So the bottom line is, as
I said at the top, Jeez Louise, you rarely see
sixty six point drops.
Speaker 1: But the political scene has been quite unkind.
Speaker 6: I think the last time we spoke about this, we
spoke about the fact that when you mess with Donald Trump,
you're going the grinder. To quote the great movie Good
Burger and Elon Musk net favorable rating with the GOP
and March of twenty twenty five. Look at that plus
sixty one points, two thumbs up. We come to this
side July of twenty twenty five after announcing that he
is going to try and form a third party two
thumbs down. Oh my goodness, a drop of fifty five
points in the course of just four months. I mean,
you don't want to mess with Donald Trump. And then
finally miss I will know. You know, there's all this
talk of Elon Musk in a third party. Look he's
talking about he's talking it out, he's putting it out there.
I'd there say it's close, pretty much close to dead
on arrival. Look at this favorite third party started by
Elon Musk. Look at this just twenty five percent favorite,
seventy four percent, three quarters of Americans opposed. And remember
Ross pro started a third party back in nineteen hundreds
and ninety three, or was going to start one fifty
percent favorite it far more than Elon Musk.
Speaker 1: And of course that third party not successful.
Speaker 6: This one, as I said, pretty cool much close to
dead on arrival.
Speaker 2: Speaking to parties, there were a number of former Biden
aids that have been called into Congress to testify, and
they've been taking the Fifth Amendment.
Speaker 7: Today.
Speaker 2: A woman by the name of Annie Thomasini. She came in.
She was one of Biden's top people she did the
same thing. She took the Fifth Amendment in New York
City's the Mayor's race here in New York City. This
is also pretty odd. Hakem Jefferies is a congressman. You
know who he is. He's the head of the Democrats
in the House. He's a congressman from Brooklyn, and so
he apparently has been avoiding meeting with Man Downey, and
they set up a meeting at Hakem Jeffreys' office apparently
in Brooklyn, and then I'm not sure if they changed it,
but it's basically a secret if he even met with him.
He's hiding the fact he doesn't want the media to
take his photo next to Mandanni's photo photo. And so
the same thing happened the last week or earlier this
week and down in DC where he went to go
meet with a bunch of Democrats in Congress, and again
it was through a back door, and some of the
Democrat members of especially the squad Win, they were fine,
was saying, yeah, we met with him, but otherwise it's
all very secretive as they move him around to meet
with the large or at least leadership Democrats in this case,
Hawkim Jeffrey's playing hide and seek with the media on
all of that. AOC's not afraid she's shuttling him around,
But that's because he sees the far left side of
the party. There's a cliptic that they're starting to somebody found.
I'll play it for you here. This is man Donnie
going back a few years where he was talking about
his idea about housing should be for everyone.
Speaker 8: My platform is that I'm saying to abolish it, but
my platform is to decommodify it. My platform is that
every single person should have housed. And I think faced
with these two options, the system, the system has hundreds
of thousands of people unhoused right for what And if
there was any system that could guarantee each person housing,
whether you call it the abolition of private property or
you call it, you know, just a state wide housing guarantee,
it is preferable to what is going on right now.
Speaker 2: Well, that's what they have in socialist or communist countries
is that you don't get private ownership of your house.
The government owns the house and the government owns everything,
and they will assign you to a property, an apartment,
a house, whatever they deem necessary. So that's kind of
that kind of that's very much what he is thinking about.
And then there's Alcatraz, and I know there's a couple
of now Alcatraz, Alligator, Alcatraz, which is that new Dench
facility in Florida that's surrounded by alligators, or Alcatraz, the
famous island out in San Francisco Bay and that is
surrounded by water. And yeah, there could be some sharks
in there. Sharks in northern California once in a while,
not a lot, but Pambondi and Doug Bergham actually went
to Alcatraz yesterday to look it over. Now, I've got
to tell you, if you're in San Francisco, you're visiting,
you got to put that on your checklist of things
to see. You can take. There's a little ferry boat
that brings you out to Alcatraz. I don't know what
it cost. It's a tourist trap thing, but it's really
an interesting tour. And they bring you out to Alcatraz
and you can walk around through the prison and they
have these hearing devices you can hear kind of a
self guided tour, and Al capones Sell is there and
it's a fun tour. But I'll tell you it's been
a few years since I've been out to Alcatraz, but
it was really run down, and they say it is
it is falling apart internally, So it would take it
would take a lot of money, billions according to the
National Park Service, they're the ones who own it. It
would take billions to rehab Alcatraz. I don't see it
as a practical solution to some detention facility. I mean,
if the president's complaining about one and a half billion
dollars in rehabbing the Federal Reserve building, is it okay
to rehab Alcatraz? And Pam Bondi she says no one's
ever escaped from there, and that's the great debate. There
are books written about people that have escaped, and there's
a book written there's a couple of guys that are
believe brothers that figured out how to get out. There
were three of them, two brothers than another guy, and
they swam away and they were never ever seen again.
So did they drown. There's a lot of evidence that
they made it. So people I think they have escaped
from Alcatraz, but it belongs to the National Park Service.
It would have to be transferred to the Bureau of
Prisons and then billions of dollars and it would take
ten years to get Alcatraz going. But it's kind of,
I guess, a fun thing to think about. NPR, the House,
I told you a couple of days ago. The House
is probably going to take some time on the Senate
bill that claws back at nine billion dollars of excess spending.
But they passed it that they they the House passed
it last night, so they have clawed back the nine billion.
Most of it's foreign aid, and one point one billion
goes to NPR and PBS, And as a result, they
are squealing pretty loud about the fact that they are
what are they? We'll watch and see, but they have
to try to figure out how to make it go.
PBS and NPR, like all the other media companies out there,
get advertisers, get I know, you've got contributors, you do
your begathon, but they're going to have to do something
along those lines. The lady who runs the PBS, she
was on a bunch of different places crying about the
fact that they've never done anything with any bias, but
they wildly reported about the COVID virus was zero evidence
that it was created in a lab. They reported that
the value of property in the United States is derived
through whiteness and black oppression. They've reported that right wing
conspiracy about eating bugs is as racist as you can think.
And if you look at the staff at MS headquarters
in DC, apparently there is not one single Republican. They're
all Democrats. So they are That's fine. I said this before.
That's fine. They can be a left wing operation. There's
already they've got competition in that arena. You've got CBS, MSNBC, CNN.
They're all to the left, so they would just have
to compete with those people. And if they're any good
and have good programs, they'll do fine. But right now
they've been relying on the government to give them the money,
and one point one billion of it's going to go away.
I saw an article in the Seattle Times about how
the MPR station in Yakama, Washington, it's a Spanish speaking
station and there's a lot of Spanish speaking people that
live in that part of the state of Washington. The
radio station is KDNA, and they were doing this article
about it, and they showed the news director there got
by the name of Francisco Rios. Okay, and then they
had a consortium coordinator, Martin Yanez. What's a consortium coordinator?
And the next person that they portrayed was director of operations. Okay,
you need one of those. And then there's another one
that is a program coordinator. I got to tell you.
Right there, they're sitting at a table talking and took
a photo of them. I don't know of any I've
been radio a long time. I don't know of any
radio facility that has a consortium coordinator, nor do they
have a program coordinator. Program directors and the director of
operation used for the same person. They don't have this,
all these titles and all these people working in most
radio stations. So maybe they need to learn how to
be a four per and best of wishes to them.
By the way, you see the story about the couple
that was caught on the kiss camera. I believe it
was in the Boston area. It was a Coldplay concert,
fifty six thousand people at the stadium, and they did
the kiss camera where the camera zoomed in on a
couple and this guy was holding this woman from behind
in kind of an embrace and she was kind of
swaying with the music in his arms and smiling, and
the kiss camera came up. And the problem is is
this guy is the CEO of a company and that's
not his wife. He's married as two kids, and it's
actually the head of his HR department. I know, and
she's divorced. But HR aren't they the people that are
supposed to keep everything on the up and up and
make sure funny business doesn't happen to the most corporate So
this thing not only has gone viral, it's been going
for a couple two or three days in the media
about this couple at a Coldplay concert. I believe it
was Boston, and it's gone totally viral, and I don't know.
The wife apparently has already filed for divorce. That didn't
take long. Well, as we have here today, we've done Epstein. Oh,
let's talk about the FED. Wild Week for the Federal Reserve.
Rick Santelli, who does a lot of the market information
on CNBC. Let's listen to him talking about his view
of the FED.
Speaker 1: Everybody agrees, you agree, I agree.
Speaker 9: We've been saying it for years, Joe, Listen, the FED
has a big job. I wouldn't want to be FED chairman.
But they aren't all seen. They don't have a crystal ball.
In many ways, you and I and a lot of
our viewers. When you scrutinize data markets, you're going to
end up with sane head full of knowledge as anybody
on the FED. But in the end, of course, they
get to make those key decisions and whether it's QE,
whether it's keeping interest rates too long. Yes, they've had
their share of activity that I would question. I wouldn't
have done it the same way, but hey, they're the FED.
But criticism, they have to be open to criticism because
they aren't flawless.
Speaker 1: And we all know that.
Speaker 2: We all know they're not They're not perfect. They're human
beings and they have made mistakes. And I do agree
with the President they should have already dropped interest rates,
but they have it. They're slow to react. And that's
the key here is that they are independent. They always
have been independent, and they should remain. Actually they weren't always.
During World War Two, FDR put his nose on what
the Federal Reserve should do. During yeah, during the middle
of wartime, but after that the FED did everything they
could get their independence back and they've been independent, and
I think most people Wall Street thinks they should remain independent.
Loretta Mester, she is with the Wharton School at University
of Pennsylvania School of Business. She was a former president
of the Federal Reserve of Cleveland, and this is her
take on the independence of the Federal Reserve.
Speaker 10: It isn't helpful to have the president be so aggressively
antagonistic trying to pressure the FED. It's not unprecedented that
a president has views on monetary policy.
Speaker 1: We've seen that over time.
Speaker 10: But I think what's different about this time is that
it's been pretty persistent and unrelenting. That will not change
how the FED makes it goes about making its decisions
on monetary policy.
Speaker 1: They're going to do the same kind of evaluations.
Speaker 10: Of the risks to the outlook, what the modal outlook is,
you know, what they believe policy should be doing to
achieve the dualmantic goals, and that kind of analysis and
looking at the data coming in is going to guide
their decisions. It certainly is a distraction and it complicates
the process of monetary policy because we're all talking about it.
The markets are skeptical about, you know, will the FED
be basing its decisions on the data and the analysis
or whether you know, the president's comments are going to
basically influence policy, and so the FED has to spend
more time making sure that market participants in the public
understand that they're going to be doing the analysis that's
needed to guide monetary policy and using their best judgment
about where the economy is going and the risks around
the outlook. So it complicates the process, but it doesn't
change the decision making calculus.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I.
Speaker 10: Heard Roger earlier, Roger Ferguson earlier on the program, and
I guess I would disagree a little bit with what
his view is is I agree totally that it does
complicate things because it does bring up that appearance issue,
but it's not going to change how they do their
decision making.
Speaker 1: They're going to have to then go out and really.
Speaker 10: Explain which they should be doing anyway it's appropriate to
do it. So they're going to use the analysis and
the type of calculus to actually do the evaluation.
Speaker 1: That's the best way, right if they maintain.
Speaker 10: Their ability to look at markets, look at what's going
on in the economy, use the data, do the evaluation.
Speaker 1: And then make the appropriate decision.
Speaker 10: That's the best way they can support an independent institution.
Speaker 1: So you know they're going to play a long.
Speaker 10: Game, which is they have to do the analysis and
do the evaluations that Congress has asked them to do
and charge them to do, and make the decisions based
on that, and then make sure that they're going out
and explaining to the public and to the legislators and
to the administration and to everyone in the markets why
they made the decisions they made.
Speaker 1: So that is kind of how the process is going
to work.
Speaker 10: But I totally agree with you, with Roger and with
others who this does raise a concern about how the
fit is going to go about his work, and that
is not helpful.
Speaker 2: Just so you're clear, there's monetary policy. You'll hear people
talking about that. You'll hear people talking about fiscal policy.
Fiscal policy is the policy that comes out of Congress
about how much to spend, how much to tax. All
of that is fiscal policy. Monetary policy is the purview
of the Federal Reserve, and they determine short term interest rates.
Now indirectly that affects long term interistrates, but they decide
essentially short term interest rates. I'm talking about two years
and less as far as treasuries go. So there's a
battle going on for who's going to be the next
Federal Reserve chairman. I remember that J. Powell's term goes
until May, but they're already starting to do the dance
and audition for that job. Kevin Walsh is probably the lead.
He used to be on the FED at some years ago.
Christopher Waller is on the Federal Reserve Board and he's
looking to be the chairman. And Kevin Hassett, who's the
head of the National Economy Council for President Trump. Kevin
Warsh was talking about what he thinks the FED should do.
Speaker 11: This isn't the first time you've heard me in the
last decade say we need regime change at the FED.
It's not just about a person. It's about an approach
to economics. It's about approach to what they're doing. And
I'm troubled when I see them moving the goal posts.
It is very puzzling to me how you could think
that we should do emergency rate cuts last September and
now all of a sudden you stand there like a hawk.
That's not good for the institution. I don't think it's
good for the economy to be changing the goalposts like that,
and so their hesitancy to cut rates, they think is
actually quite a mark against them. It's as if they've
lost some of the credibility. Truth is in economics and
inflation bygones are not bygones. The specter of the miss
they made on inflation it is stuck with them. So
one of the reasons why the President, I think is
right to be pushing the FED publicly is we need
regime changing the conduct of policy. And I hear from
Andrew I heard from an early speaker that was on well,
well the new FED chairman, regardless of who it is,
will he have credibility because the presence being so mean
and pushing them around. The credibility deficit lies with the
incumbents that are at the FED in my view.
Speaker 2: Well, he didn't come right out and say it, but
he was obviously obviously implying that the FED got political
in twenty four by having an emergency rate cut and
then sitting there like a hockey said and not doing
anything right now. So that's Kevin Warsh. Chris Waller, by
the way, today said that he is calling for an
interest rate cut at the next meeting that's coming up
at July twenty ninth and thirty. I think Kevin Hassett
is just dancing behind the scenes since he's already the
head of the National Economic Advisors to the President. Let's
get some phone calls in. Number of you had called
the program this past week. The phone numbers eight, five, five, two, nine,
sixty six hundred. Here's Laurie the comment line lady talking
about the CEO and his main squeeze at the Coldplay concert.
Speaker 12: The wife of the CEO who was caught canoodling at
the Coldplay concert will be filing for divorce. She'll cite
irreconcilable differences. She couldn't reconcile herself to his girlfriend.
Speaker 2: Uh no, no, she could not. That's not the way
it works. Salty checked in. Let's talk to Salty.
Speaker 13: Hey, Tom, it's salty. Oh my gosh, I should have
drank something for a called you got a little frog
in the throat. But anyway, Uh is it true that
date bird Stephen cole Bear? Oh my gosh. Uh, well, well,
what are we gonna do for our late night pop again?
And now? Tom, holy cow, Hey, do you know what
Pool Pool. I just had a thought, why don't you
take that job doing late night and I'll do it
with you. Tom. I'll be your head McMahon. I promised
to do a good job, and we can have her
only the orchestra and have her own late night show. Uh,
you know, you get top filling. It can be Tom
and Salty late Night. Anyway, Buddy, I miss you, and
I do listen to the program of When I'm Going
to Sleep. So you have a great weekend and we'll
see you later maybe on TP.
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course, yeah, Salty.
Speaker 2: So so you listen to the podcast and you go
to sleep, So this podcast puts you to sleep. All right, Well,
I guess that would tie in with doing a late
night show. Yeah, I'll call CBS and I'll get started
on it, Salty. I'll let you know what they say.
Here's a call from David. Let's see what he has
to say.
Speaker 7: Hi, right, Tom. First of all, I love your podcast.
The reason I'm calling is this, Mam Donnie thing. If
Cromo and Eric Adams stand in the race against him
and only one Republican runs against them, couldn't that split
the vote enough to where the Republican could actually win
the mayoral seat in New York City. What do you think? Yeah,
By the way, my name is David Love Show.
Speaker 2: Go Thanks David. I did see some pulling on on
that they're trying to do the four people that are
running and match them up with each other. Eric Adams
is in last place right now, but it's still early.
This vote isn't until next November. But Mandanni is the
is the clear favorite. I mean, New Yorkers are crazy
if they vote for this guy. But right now it
seems to be a movement more than anything else. But
Curtis lee Wall, he's been running for mayor. He's the
guy who started the Guardian Angels, and the people of
New York love him. You see him around town. He's
walking down the street with his red beret on and
people yell out, hey, Curtis. They love the guy, but
they're not going to vote for him. I would be
shocked if he was actually successful after I think he's
a gadfi. He runs every four years and he has
for decades, and he's never come close. And here's one
more from Lori the comment Line Lady on her views
regarding PBS.
Speaker 12: You know, I like a lot of the programs on PBS.
I like them enough that I'm willing to contribute every
month to keep the programs on the air. But I
don't think that all the taxpayers of the United States
should pay to keep PBS on the a. They need
to either get advertising or get more subscribers.
Speaker 2: Okay, man, I'm right there with you. I don't have
a problem with PBS. I'm not a big fan of
most of their shows, but they have some good programming.
But if they want to be another left wing television network,
then hallelujah, go out there and compete with the other
left wing channels that are out They're the CBS IS
and NBCs and MSNBCS. But I just don't think taxpayers
should be writing checks. The government should not be subsidizing
one television network and not the others. I want to
subsidize all of them. I don't even like that. So subsidies.
Let's see if Wall Street gave us any subsidies today.
Let me check. Let's see. Nope, Wall Straight down today,
not a lot, but it's down one hundred and forty
two doubt each today at forty four thousand and three
forty two. The S and P basically unchanged. Naz Dack
up ten points, gold was up ten dollars to thirty
three p fifty five, and oil basically staying about where
it's been all week. Down a quarter, yeah, twenty five
cents down to sixty seven dollars and some change for
one barrel of oil. So that's it for today. Thank
you for coming by, have yourself a wonderful weekend. We'll
be back here on Monday. Hope you are too,