← Bulwark Takes
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- [00:00]
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- [01:00]
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- [01:15]
Sam Stein
What do you have to lose?
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- [01:30]
Sam Stein
All right. Hey everybody, it's me, Sam Stein, managing editor at the BoR. I'm joined by Sarah Longwell, Katherine Rampel. I'm going to pull back the curtain a little bit on this live show we had initially planned talk about Donald Trump's choice for the next Fed chairman Kevin Wash. And then a bunch of happened and we had to revamp our programming choices. Don Lemon, ex CNN host, independent journalist substacker was arrested this morning. He was arrested in connection with a protest that was done in the St. Paul church in Minnesota around what's happening with ice in the state. Don Lemon was there broadcasting from the protest, interviewing the pastor his accusers and said insist that he was inciting the protests. But he was a journalist and he was arrested and it's and it's a bit of a frightening encroachment on our first amendment right. So we're going to cover both those. What we're not going to cover, which we could probably still cover if we wanted to, because so much insane stuff is happening. Is Donald Trump suing the IRS for $10 billion for the leak of his tax returns? Just a minor little story on the side. We'll get to that, maybe in another live stream. But, Sarah, you go first. I. I'm pretty hot about this story. I find it really troubling. I. I'm going to get to the insane hypocrisy that I see from a bunch of the people who supported Trump on First Amendment grounds. But what is, what was your initial reaction when you woke up, or I shouldn't say when you woke up, when you saw the news break that Don Lemon had been arrested?
- [03:03]
Sarah Longwell
Well, the first thing is I know Don. Like, we all know Don. We know him. And, and we're all in this world of journalists who are critical of Donald Trump. I mean, I am maybe, you know, Katherine Rampel is a. Is a very serious economic reporter, but I am in the world.
- [03:22]
Katherine Rampel
I've been known to say critical things of Trump. Yeah.
- [03:24]
Sam Stein
Where do I come down in the spectrum? I want. No, we don't need to go there.
- [03:29]
Sarah Longwell
I just, we. We are people who are not in, let's say, a CBS vein trying to pull our punches or find a new way of thinking about Donald Trump. Like, we are here to say what is happening is wrong. And so when you're one of those people and you see somebody else who does that, whether or not you agree, like, I would not have gone into a church protest. That's just like, not something. A thing. That's not a thing I would do. That being said, he has a First Amendment right to report on this. And, like, so anyway, the point is, it is meant to be chilling to anybody like us who is out there. So my first reaction is like, okay, this has started, right? Like, we are in an accelerated point in history where Donald Trump is ratcheting up rather than ratcheting back, their attempts to go after people who are critical of them using law enforcement, the Department of Justice, the FBI, and every single one of us should lose our shit about this. Because much like it is not exactly what happened in Minneapolis, but it is a part of red lines that previously in our free society did not get crossed. And, like, we should be hot about it, and we need everybody to object to it.
- [04:46]
Sam Stein
I totally agree. A couple data points, and then we'll show the Don Lemon video that caused all this. One is, they're not hiding the Ball, what they're doing here. Pam Bondi put out a tweet. We could put it up on this screen because it's important. The first three words are the, the most important part. At my direction, this is not like local law enforcement saying, hey, we got, we got an issue here. We have some, you know, disruption at a church, he assaulted someone, or whatever. You want to put gloss on it. This is the Attorney General of the United States taking time to ensure that a journalist, and he is a journalist who is critical of the president, very openly critical at her direction that he was arrested. And keep in mind, they tried this a couple times and the magistrate judges rejected the idea. So they clearly found someone who was willing to do their bidding. So that's one thing that's incredibly chilling. The other thing that really gets me, and I know the hypocrisy is not the main point, but the, the people who supported Trump back in 2024 because they thought he would be a paragon of free speech and First Amendment values. It was all at the time, and we know it. But there was a huge contingency of people who, who had that sort of COVID where like, ah, you know, we need someone who's not going to, like, crack down on companies who, you know, don't tow the administration line. The whole Twitter files, the stuff that Zuckerberg was saying where it's like, well, the Biden administration was really tough on us because they wanted Covid disinformation taken off our platform. They sent a bunch of mean emails to us, and we, we just can't have that from an administration. Those people were full of. They were full of. We knew it. And not a single one of them is going to speak up as this administration goes about and arrests a journalist for doing something they didn't like. Now, look, let's play the videotape of Don, because I didn't. I wouldn't have done what he did. I mean, I would have covered it a lot differently. But watch what he did and then we can react to it afterwards.
- [06:50]
Church Pastor
What do you think of it? I mean, this is unacceptable. It's shameful. It's shameful to, to interrupt a public gathering of Christians in Worsh. But there were folks. I have to take care of my flock. Listen, we live in a. There's a constitution in the First Amendment to freedom of speech and freedom to assemble and protest. We're here to worship. We're here to worship Jesus because that's the hope of these cities. That's the hope of the world is Jesus Christ. I'm gonna be very respectful. Please don't push me, though. We're here. We're here to worship Jesus. That's why we're here. Okay? That's why we're here. That's what we're about. Don't you think Jesus would be understanding? And we're about love, these folks. We're about spreading the love of Jesus. But did you try to talk to.
- [07:33]
Sarah Longwell
As a.
- [07:33]
Church Pastor
No one is willing to talk, okay? I have to take care of my church, my family. So I asked this. You actually would also leave this building. You don't want us to worship? I'm always worship. I'm a Christian. We're here. Well, we're here to worship. We're here to worship.
- [07:46]
Sam Stein
Okay.
- [07:46]
Church Pastor
Thank you very much.
- [07:49]
Sam Stein
Okay. I will just take this, and then I'll kick it to Catherine or Sierra. The protest of the church was stupid. Like, it's stupid. It was disruptive. It didn't accomplish anything. It was. And look, you can. You can be comfortable with, you know, local or federal authorities saying, hey, these people need to be arrested for disrupting a gathering of faith. Right? Like, you. You can say they.
- [08:13]
Mint Mobile Advertiser
They.
- [08:14]
Sam Stein
They made a decision that crossed the line and they should be arrested. You can say, Don Lemon, you know.
- [08:20]
Katherine Rampel
Was way private property. I mean.
- [08:22]
Sam Stein
Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, totally fine. You could say Don Lemon was way. You know, I didn't like how Don Lemon was so sympathetic to the protesters. I think it was kind of gross that he was, you know, taking their side in this. You can totally sympathize with the pastor there, which I do. Which is, hey, these are my people. You're disrupting them. They have a right to worship, and you disrupted that. Yeah, I agree with all that. And yet I cannot agree with the idea that you arrest Don Lemon for what he did, which is he was chronicling it as a journalist. And there is a right in the Constitution that grants him the ability to do that. And if you're going to say, no, no, no, no, no, doesn't work for Don Lemon, we're going to arrest that guy. Where does it end? Like, where does it end? At what point do you say, well, that's actually the First Amendment line. And this is. This is what really is gone to me. And kind of chilling. Honestly, I don't know. Can I ask?
- [09:09]
Katherine Rampel
Yeah. I wanted to add some other data points that are not specific to Don Lemon. Don Lemon is probably the most famous person who has come into the crosshairs as a journalist in Minneapolis, but he's definitely not the only journalist. You've had ICE either threatening and. Or roughing up lots of other journalists who are there. There was a lot of coverage of some Italian media reporters who were at least yelled at and threatened by ice. I think we covered it in morning shots. At some point earlier this week, one of the local, I think it was an NBC affiliate news anchors was kind of roughed up while trying to cover peaceful protest activity. Roughed up, I should say, by, she alleges, by government, federal officials. AP reporters have put out some footage showing how they were also yelled at, intimidated, threatened by ice. So there have been a lot of attacks on press coverage. First Amendment freedoms throughout all of this. Again, people just trying to document what's going on in much less dicey situations than, you know, interrupting a worship service at a church. So, you know, they can claim that this is all about protecting religious freedom and. And Don Lemon and. Or the protesters crossed some red line, but they're really not confining their crackdown on First Amendment rights to churches. Now you could say, like, there's maybe a difference, like, Don Lemon actually had charges filed against him. I don't know about these other journalists, but it wouldn't surprise me if they actually went that far with some of the other journalists who are again, trying to chronicle what is going on so that the public is aware of the crackdown on peaceful protesters on, you know, again, First Amendment guarantees not only freedom of the press, but freedom to peaceably assemble and freedom of speech. So, you know, all of those things are in the crosshairs right now because Donald Trump doesn't want criticism and they don't want any transparency into their admin, you know, the administration's actual actions on the ground.
- [11:25]
Sam Stein
Yeah. I mean, Don Lemon wasn't even the only journalist arrested for this episode.
- [11:29]
Katherine Rampel
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [11:32]
Sam Stein
Her name is Georgia, for she says federal agents came to her door at 6:30am arrested her for filming the protests in the St. Paul church. The other thing that's notable here, a lot of what's happening in Minneapolis was instigated by an independent journalist who was a MAGA supporter, guy named Nick Shirley.
- [11:50]
Mint Mobile Advertiser
Right.
- [11:50]
Sarah Longwell
I was about to say this.
- [11:51]
Sam Stein
Yeah. I mean, it doesn't take like a big brain to envision a scenario where President Gavin Newsom directs his Justice Department to go after Nick Shirley for trying to barge into a daycare center, again, private property, and says, you know what?
- [12:09]
Sarah Longwell
You.
- [12:09]
Sam Stein
You violated their property. You endangered children. We're going to arrest you. And how would the Megan Kelly's of the world who are gleefully absorbing the Don Lemon News this morning. How would they react to that? They'd be pissed. And you know what? I'd be pissed, too. I don't think Nick Shirley did, like, particularly. You know, Nick Shirley's journalism was suspect, let's put it that way. A lot of holes in it, a lot of lack of context. But it, man, I'm happy that he actually went with a camera and tried to do some exposes. I support his right to do it. And I'd be pissed if the government said, no, we're going to arrest you for it. That would be fucking bullshit.
- [12:45]
Sarah Longwell
Can I ask you something? You guys. You guys both come out of much more institutional news outlets. You know, Nick Shirley's a guy with the phone, and so are lots. Like, everybody now can be a citizen journalist. This is kind of Elon Musk's whole thing, what do we do now? Like, with a guy who just says, I'm going to walk into a daycare center, like, is that. That is journalism? Like, and that is protected. I mean, because where is it trespassing? I'm genuinely curious. I mean, I'm thinking about a church situation, and it's like, a church is open to the public. Yes, but if the church pastor says, please leave, then you're trespassing, like, because it is private property or it's not open to the public, it's open for worship. And if somebody also on private property says, hey, guy with a camera, who I've never heard of, you can't be in here filming with young children is. I'm just. I. I don't know, like. Like, part of why everything is harder now is because this is true with the cops. When we're talking about doxing and covering their faces is like, it didn't used to be an issue, didn't used to be a thing, because everyone wasn't walking around with videotapes in their pocket.
- [14:00]
Katherine Rampel
Well, it's not. It's not only about the technological change. It's also about, like, our things being done in good faith or bad faith, which is very hard to, like, interpret. You know, I. I don't know what Nick Shirley's, you know, genuine internal motivations were. And. And some of your questions, I think, are probably best answered by a First Amendment lawyer who can, like, yes, you know, differentiate between what is allowed and what is not allowed. And probably it depends also on the state. And to some ext, some of this is about the Constitution, and some of this might be about, like, state trespassing. Laws. You know, I think the idea about documenting something in public space is very different from barging into, you know, uninvited, a daycare center where there are minors. I think probably, if I had to guess, I would guess that, like, a place of public accommodation, like a church, is more of a gray area, but maybe there's probably, again, not a lawyer here. I should maybe shut up. But there's probably some other gray area about, like, what constitutes a hate crime and stuff like that that I'm not familiar with, that it might be at the state level. Of course, Don Lemon was arrested by the feds, so maybe the state stuff doesn't really matter. But, yeah, I think it is reasonable to ask, like, what is a journalist today?
- [15:17]
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- [16:19]
Katherine Rampel
The part of the First Amendment protections that relate to freedom of the press. But freedom of speech is available to everyone, regardless of whether, you know, you have the fedora with the little feather and the thing that says press in it.
- [16:31]
Sam Stein
Like, you have that.
- [16:33]
Katherine Rampel
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
- [16:36]
Sarah Longwell
Well, part of the reason I asked is because, you know, I'd never heard of Nick Shirley before, and I'm sure most people hadn't. There is actually no question about Don Lemon. Like, I, I think, like, it's a pretty easy distinction, actually. Like, like, if you're talking about good faith distinction and, and sort of objective distinction is Don Lemon has been a reporter in the public sphere for major news sources. Like, he has his own media channel now, and he was there as a. A biased Journalist, I think, like, he's on the side of the protesters, but he was not the protesters. Like, so what are they. They are arresting him for covering it.
- [17:17]
Sam Stein
They're gonna. They're going to come out. This is what's going to happen. They're going to come out, and they're going to have some sort of evidence that they produce that says, well, actually, he was coordinating with the protesters, right. Like, he. You know, he was exchanging emails or they were talking in advance about how they're going to do this, and they were orchestrating the whole thing, and Don Lemon was part of the orchestration, and he's just using the veneer of journalism to get away with it. But he was actually an agitator, not a journalist. And frankly, like, you can make the same case for Nick Shirley.
- [17:44]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah.
- [17:45]
Sam Stein
If you wanted to. And that's why this is a story as much about the motivations of the Justice Department and what they're actually trying to accomplish here as it is about the limits and extent of First Amendment law in this country. And it's very clear what they're trying to do here. Right. They're trying to not just arrest Don Lemon because they like the idea of getting a scalp, so to speak. They're trying to fill any future coverage of what's happening at night. I mean, that's. That's basically it.
- [18:13]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah. I mean, this is. This is where I just. I think it. We can quickly say, like, that's not what I would have done as a journalist, but everybody should be defending Don Lemon against the Justice Department coming after him, because it is. They're gonna. They do this, right. That. Where they try to find one. Where your sympathies aren't quite with, like, the action, but the overarching principle is. Is clear. Right. Like, even, like, they. They want to try to be like, well, aren't you mad about what he did? And so therefore, shouldn't he go to jail? It's sort of like what they do with Alex Preddy. It's like, did you see the way he kicked that car 11 days ago? So didn't he deserve to get shot in the back?
- [18:58]
Sam Stein
No.
- [18:58]
Katherine Rampel
Or. Or even. I mean, I remember thinking exactly along those lines when Mahmoud Khalil, for example, right. You know, the. The Columbia encampment, you know, pro pasnilian encampment. Protester was arrested by ICE last year. And it's like, in many ways, you know, he is not a sympathetic figure to a lot of Americans because he was part of this encampment. And, you know, I don't know that he specifically did anything bad, but there were some bad actors in those, you know, in those encampments. Even if most of the students, I think, were probably, you know, acting in good faith and generally concerned about the Palestinian people, whatever, there were some people who were bad there. And, you know, like, he was one of the leaders, but that doesn't mean that he should be jailed and deported because of his views there. And, you know, so. And I think that's what it's about. It's about sort of like having this slippery slope into acceptance of authoritarian actions and crack down on First Amendment rights by finding targets who are in some ways, unsympathetic. Right.
- [20:09]
Sam Stein
Well, oh, 100%.
- [20:10]
Katherine Rampel
It's not such a big deal if they go after Mahmoud Khalil. It's, you know, because, like, maybe he did some. Like, maybe he said some things or associated with people who said things that were objectionable to me, you know, as random American. Not such a big deal if they go after Don Lemon because, like, I don't know, it seems kind of unsavory at the very least that there were these protesters that he was covering who went into a church. You know, again, I don't know about the legality of all of that. Not such a big deal if they go after other targets who, again, seem unsympathetic in a way, and it's just like a hop, skip, and a jump from. Well, maybe they can take away the civil rights, the First Amendment rights of that person who I don't agree with to maybe somebody else who looks more like me. But I don't know that people always make that connection. You're normalizing the bad behavior.
- [21:00]
Sam Stein
And this is why I think. I mean, I just get so mad, like, Elon Musk. I just want to, like, kind of riff a little bit on Musk, like, this whole thing. I'm gonna buy Twitter because we need a global town square. And by the way, you should be subjected to offensive material. It's good for you to be called a. Or we should be able to, like, yell at people and post whatever we want. And just going to level the playing field, and we're all going to just have to endure, and it's going to create thicker skin. These people are the thinnest skinned people ever.
- [21:28]
Sarah Longwell
Oh, my God.
- [21:29]
Sam Stein
It's like the thinnest skin. Like, they can't tolerate protests they don't like. They can't tolerate coverage they don't like. And instead of enduring it, like, they insist everyone else has To. And should they recoil at the first drop of it, and then they bring the. The power of the state against it. We have footage. I haven't seen this, but we have footage of Georgia Fort, the other independent journalist who we talked about, who was arrested. We have footage, I believe, of federal agents at her home. Let's play here.
- [21:59]
Georgia Fort
There's kids in the house. You guys have not been really friendly in the community. And to me, this seems a little. Can I finish, sir? This. Can I finish? Can I get your.
- [22:12]
Sarah Longwell
Get your phone?
- [22:13]
Georgia Fort
This seems a little bit aggressive to have all these cars in our cul de sac. Two, three agents. And now I saw the one disappear to the back. So to me, this is a little aggressive to just serve a warrant. Slide the warrant. Let me see the warrant.
- [22:40]
Sam Stein
Jesus. That's frightening. I mean, that's. That's over the top. That's over the top, but that's. That's the country we're living now. I will just say we had. I have a old reporter that I worked with. Her name's Aaron Banko. She was tweeting this morning about what she remembers from being a foreign correspondent. She wrote this. Remember the days when I used to be nervous of arrest or detention while reporting at a large gathering or a protest to. As a Middle east correspondent in Syria, in Iraq, in Turkey. And that's. That's what this is. That's what this gets me. I mean, it's just like, what are we becoming here?
- [23:19]
Katherine Rampel
Yeah, I mean, the international comparisons are really striking right now, particularly since. What was it like two weeks ago? Donald Trump was lashing out at. Properly, I should say, at the Iranian regime for violence against protesters. You know, that he basically said. I forgot exactly his words, but he basically said, we're gonna, you know, send in. We're gonna. There's gonna be hell to pay. I don't remember what he said. If the. If Iran kills protesters here, we have killed protesters, too. Not maybe as many as Iran, but that's the same red line that Trump once said should not be crossed. We have cracked down on First Amendment rights by protesters, dissidents, journalists, and for some reason, we are not holding ourselves to the same standard as we are holding other authoritarian regimes, too.
- [24:12]
Sam Stein
Let me play Don Lemon. Let me read Don Lemon's statement. And then, Sarah, I know you have to go in a little bit, but I'll let you. I'll tee you up for thoughts after we read the Don Lemon statement on the matter. It says Don was taken into custody by federal agents last night in Los Angeles, where he was covering the Grammy Awards. Don has been a journalist for 30 years, and his constitutionally protected work in Minneapolis was no different than what he has always done. The First Amendment exists to protect journalists whose role it is to shine light on the truth and hold those in power accountable. There is no more important time for people like Don to be doing this work. Instead of investigating the federal agents who killed two peaceful Minnesota protesters, the Trump Justice Department is devoting its time, attention, and resources to this arrest. And that is the real indictment of Ron doing this case. Yes, that is absolutely true. We don't know the names of the people who killed Alex Brady, but the DOJ does have time for this.
- [25:03]
Sarah Longwell
Sarah, you know, here's one thing I want to say, which is specifically about Don Lemon, which is. I bet he is only a little scared right now. I bet Don. Because, actually, I don't know how scared he is. Maybe. But I guess my. My point is, is that Don Lemon understands what this moment is about. He understands what his role is in this moment, and if he happens to hear this, just want to say, like, shining a light on what they're doing right now. And, like, being in the that fray, it might be scary, but, like, this is an important moment. You are at an important inflection point right now of making it clear that this is not okay, that they are. You are a red line, and you should be a red line. And I just want to make sure that other people, if they want to quick clear their throat like I did, and say, like, that's not what I would have done. That's all you can say about it, though, because the rest of it needs to be, like, stand with Don in this. And it is not okay what this administration is doing. And they are trying to scare us. They are trying to scare us in the streets of Minneapolis. They are trying to scare us right now out of saying negative things about Donald Trump. And so everybody needs to start speaking up about it. The only way that they win is if we do go quiet and let them and, like, let that fear dominate us, and we shouldn't.
- [26:33]
Sam Stein
Yeah, no, Amen to that. I'll let you go because I know you got other work to do, but I will just say, little plug, we're going to be in Minneapolis. We got a live show coming up there.
- [26:42]
Sarah Longwell
Do you have a live show coming up? Yeah, we do have the dates, but I forget them right off the top of my head. But it's like. It's like, in a week and a half, we're Going out there in like, in like 10 days. I also, I just got off with Tim. We're gonna release it. But I did a focus group, two focus groups with cops from Minneapolis.
- [27:02]
Katherine Rampel
And.
- [27:03]
Sarah Longwell
We split them up by Trump voting cops and Harris voting cops. Oh, I was just told. It's February 19th, guys. February 19th. Get your tickets, get your tickets. And I gotta say, the Harris voting law enforcement officers are so horrified by what they are seeing. They feel like it is casting a negative light on them. They feel, they are like they were devastated by the shooting of these people. Like, everybody needs to think right now about what we are becoming, what is happening to us, us as a country. And if we tolerate any of this, it is only going to get worse. So don't tolerate it.
- [27:45]
Sam Stein
I hear that just to that point, it's, you know, there's data that, you know, your focus group, which is essential. People should be watching the pod and all that stuff. There's data that shows that ICE officers, CBP officers, the rank and file are like despondent over what's happening.
- [28:01]
Katherine Rampel
Oh, yeah, yeah. It's crazy.
- [28:04]
Sam Stein
And then on top of that, we have this break. Yeah, we have this breaking news from Carol Lenning this morning that career DOJ prosecutors in both Minnesota and Los Angeles refused to be involved in the Lemon suit. They believe that the evidence did not support the charges. So the actual professionals who staff these agencies in these institutions, the cops, the prosecutors, the actual long serving ICE officials, they see it, they know it's horrible. You know, I have the source that I, I don't want to reveal too much. She works for one of the, I don't want to get. She works for one of the circuits, the judicial circuits. And she, she, she hit me up yesterday. She's like, I, I want to quit. Like, it is the, the, it is horrible here. I'm miserable here. I've lasted a year, but it's just, you know, the despondency and I honestly don't know what to say. Like, if you work there, what do you do? It's really tough. But I take your point very well, Sarah. All right, Sarah, thank you.
- [29:06]
Sarah Longwell
Go talk about important economic things with.
- [29:08]
Sam Stein
I don't know how I'm going to.
- [29:09]
Sarah Longwell
Do this transition a much smarter colleague.
- [29:13]
Katherine Rampel
And I don't know about that.
- [29:14]
Sarah Longwell
I'm going to go listen on the other side.
- [29:16]
Katherine Rampel
Nerdier maybe.
- [29:18]
Sarah Longwell
All right. Bye, guys.
- [29:19]
Sam Stein
Sarah, Take care.
- [29:20]
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- [30:20]
Sam Stein
All right, we're going to try to effectuate this transition somehow. I'm not really sure how this is going to work, but there was other important news this morning, which is Donald Trump has revealed his nominee to be the next Fed chair. This is like Catherine's domain. So I'm going to come at this as just sort of a simpleton and ask her very basic questions. But the person is Kevin Warsh. You can see there. It looked almost like Donald Trump copied and pasted a LinkedIn page into a bleat. But he did add a little Trumpian flourish at the very bottom there. You can see on top of everything else, he has central casting and he will never let you down. Okay, Catherine, what should we know about Kevin?
- [31:03]
Katherine Rampel
Well, one thing that I would point out, I don't know exactly what Trump means by central casting. I can tell you this means he's.
- [31:08]
Sam Stein
A handsome ish guy.
- [31:10]
Katherine Rampel
You know, I have other theories about that. I mean, he did reportedly reject Janet Yellen's reappointment to the Fed, even though she probably would have been closer to it would have executed closer to his preferred interest rate measures back in whenever that was 2018.
- [31:31]
Sam Stein
Because the report was appointed.
- [31:33]
Katherine Rampel
Yeah, yeah. Reportedly because she was too short. But I think there is one criterion on which Kevin Warsh definitely checks the box for Donald Trump, which is that Warsh is very wealthy, not because he was an investment banker, which can also make someone very wealthy. But he did it the old fashioned way. He married into the Estee Lauder fortune. His, his father in law is Ron Louder and who is also a big Trump mega donor, by the way. And so, you know, in that sense, he is generally what Trump is looking for. Is that why Trump hired him? I don't know.
- [32:14]
Sam Stein
Let's just set this, let's set the stage. Trump hates Donald Trump. Jerome Powell, he's been pining for Jerome Powell to quit. He has tried to make him quit and then he, you know, there was an investigation launched into Jerome Powell. All the while, Powell's term is about to end anyway. And so the question was, who would Trump appoint in his place? Can you just sort of set the stage about like, what's happening with the Fed, why Trump cares so much, like really basic handholding stuff. Because I'm a. And I need, I need the information.
- [32:47]
Katherine Rampel
The Federal Reserve is politically independent. It is supposed to be politically independent anyway. It has been independent for decades and it needs to be independent to function, actually to keep inflation down. This is not just about like some lofty ideal about, you know, the, the platonic version of government that you have technocrats who are independent and untouched, you know, untainted by dirty politics. You actually need it because if politicians are in charge of the money supply, their incentives are never to, to do tough things like just lower those interest.
- [33:22]
Sam Stein
Rates, get more money out.
- [33:23]
Katherine Rampel
Yeah, right. So, so that's sort of the backdrop of all of this, that you want the Fed to be independent and shielded from like near term political incentives, such as a coming midterm, because you need them to like be willing to administer really bitter medicine when it is necessary to help the economy in the long run, to help inflation get down in the long run. So that's the backdrop of all of this. The idea that anyone in government should be independent is completely foreign. It's anathema to Donald Trump, but especially the Federal Reserve. Again, Federal Reserve needs to be politically independent. Donald Trump does not want it to be because he only cares about near term political outcomes and he always wants lower interest rates, regardless of whether that's, you know, in the experts best judgment, the best strategy or the best policy for the economy. So when Donald Trump appointed Jay Powell, Powell had been on the Fed as a Fed governor appointed by Obama. And, and Powell, you know, is or was, I don't know what his registration is now, a Republican. And so I think Donald Trump thought that Powell was just going to do whatever it was Donald Trump wanted, rather than the role that he was actually hired and confirmed by the Senate to do, which is to be independent and to foster consensus on the Federal Reserve to figure out what interest rates should be. When Powell and The rest of the Fed did not do what Trump preferred, which was to continually cut interest rates. Trump flipped out. He flipped out in his first term. He referred to Powell as an enemy of the people. I think he said something like a bigger enemy than President Xi of China, stuff like that. He railed against him then. And at the time, this was considered like jarring that the President would even tweet about Fed policy because there had been this norm that the President and others in the administration in the, in the executive branch didn't even talk about Fed policy. So even then that was considered like a very, very big deal. Now, fast forward to the last year. Donald Trump has not only like, voiced his outrage at Powell and Fed policy, as you point out, his administration has launched what appears to be a bogus prosecutor, excuse me, a bogus investigation, criminal investigation, into Powell, even as, as you point out, rightly, Powell is already on his way out. I think it's just like Powell lives rent free in Donald Trump's head because Trump is feel so betrayed that Powell did not do his bidding. So that's the whole backdrop. Now. Trump has been like interviewing replacements for Powell for months, and it wasn't really clear which way he was going. It seemed like for a long time he was leaning toward this guy, Kevin Hassett, who is like a complete political hack, has a PhD in economics. Yeah, once upon a time, I think was respected, but today, like, he goes on TV to basically talk about how handsome the President is. I mean, I'm exaggerating, but it's like that's his job. His job is to say flattery.
- [36:34]
Sam Stein
The sky is green, the ocean is red. Just don't.
- [36:37]
Katherine Rampel
Yeah, all that sky is green, ocean is red. And Donald Trump is the greatest. Right. That's, that's basically the message he has been communicating. And the markets have, like, not really liked Hassett because. Exactly. The thing that made him attractive to Donald Trump, which was that he seemed pliable and like a political tool of the President, is again, the thing that you least want for someone in this.
- [37:03]
Sam Stein
So let's talk about Wash then. So a little bit of background on him. He was the youngest ever elected Fed governor. I believe he was 35, something like that. Yeah, confirmed. He was sort of known, I believe, as a kind of an inflation hawk. Even during the Great Recession, he was, you know, worried about inflation. When everyone, everyone of sort of sound economic respectability was saying, we need to stimulate the economy, he was on the opposite side of that argument. But there is a criticism out there, and I want you to just tell me if it's valid that he is pliable and that he tends to be, not to the degree of Kevin Hassett, but that he will be more willing to get behind lower interest rates if it's a Republican president, basically. I mean, that's just it.
- [37:59]
Katherine Rampel
Yeah, sorry, I had a very long wind up there, but that's basically what I was getting to, which is that Kevin Hassett is like an overt political hack horse, is maybe a more covert political. Either that or he is the worst forecaster in the history of the Fed. Because when he was on the Fed board during the financial crisis, he, as you point out, was, you know, like raising hue and cry about the coming inflation. Now, everybody else, or almost everybody else was worried about deflation. Right. That they were worried that we were going to, like, drop into a depression and that prices were going to go down. And you have this downward spiral of like, cratering and cratering and creating demand. And meanwhile, unemployment was at a, you know, multi decade high at the, at the point. So normally, like most people were much more worried about unemployment than inflation. He was the opposite. He was like out there saying, this is really bad, like, I'm still really worried about inflation. He didn't exactly say, screw those unemployed workers. But that was kind of the subtext. Then, miraculously, around 2017, when Donald Trump was in office for the first time and was as we just discussed getting ready to appoint a new Fed president, he suddenly became more dovish. He became much less worried about inflation. And, you know, Biden was in office after that, became an inflation hawk again. Now Trump is back in office and suddenly he doesn't care about inflation. So it does seem like he cares about, you know, he's very worried about high prices and more and wants to raise interest rates. Much of the time when a Democrat is in office, and then when a Republican is in office, suddenly all of that goes out the window.
- [39:55]
Sam Stein
It's very reminiscent of how Congressional Republicans are deficit hawks, one of the Democrats, the president, all that stuff.
- [40:01]
Katherine Rampel
Yeah, yes. It's. They're like, you know, it's like the human equivalent of like cicadas, you know, it's like they go underground. Exactly. The deficit hawks go underground and then they, they pop back up when suddenly there's a Democrat in office. And it's kind of the same thing with some inflation hawks as well.
- [40:21]
Sam Stein
I'm having real flashbacks to that Cicada.
- [40:24]
Katherine Rampel
Invasion in D.C. sorry, maybe it's like unseemly to like use bugs as a metaphor, but you know, What? I mean, it's like they're hib or something. Maybe that's better.
- [40:33]
Sam Stein
Fair enough.
- [40:34]
Katherine Rampel
So, so, so basically that's the situation with, with Warsh. Either he made really, really bad forecasts in the period, you know, during the financial crisis and afterward.
- [40:46]
Sam Stein
Yeah.
- [40:47]
Katherine Rampel
And he's making like bad forecasts on the other side of things today, or it's a very, you know, he's, he's doing what is more politically expedient and it could be both. I mean, maybe there's some more innocent. I have not, I should say I have not interviewed Warsh. Maybe there is some more like intellectually consistent explanation for his evolution. Not really one that he's provided.
- [41:09]
Sam Stein
Yeah, he has some defense. He has defenders in serious places, like Jason Furman, longtime advisor to Democratic presidents on economic policy. He came out, he called him a good pick, more or less, but it doesn't, it's going to be curious to see what happens in the Senate where he needs to get confirmation, in part because of what's happening with Powell right now and Cook and the attacks on the independence of the Fed and a critical Senator, Thom Tillis. He's retiring, but he's on the Banking Committee. Has been very public and we'll put up a tweet even today. Here it is. He says he's qualified. But the last graph is the important one. My position has not changed. I will oppose the confirmation of any Federal Reserve nominee, including for the position of Chairman, until the DOJ's inquiry into Chairman Powell is fully and transparently resolved. Now, as I understand it, and no one's refuted this, I stole it from Burgess Everett over at Semaphore. But if you cannot be reported out of the Banking Committee, which is where these Fed Chairman nominees must go first, if you cannot be reported out, you can still get to the Senate floor. Majority Leader Thune can say, we're just going to take the NAMI straight to the floor. But at that point, it's no longer a 50, it's no longer a 50 vote confirmation. It's a 60 vote confirmation. And so that's why Tillis's opposition matters, because he could potentially make it difficult, if not impossible for it to be voted out by majority from the committee. So that's an interesting tidbit about how it's going to be received on the Hill, but I'm just sort of curious how you predict others on the Hill might look at this. I mean, is this a case where we're obviously going to get very tough questions from Democrats we know what we're going to get. Are we going to get pure acquiescence from other Republicans other than Tillis?
- [43:00]
Katherine Rampel
I think probably Warsh has been around for a long time. He's not that old as you point out. You know he was, he was like unusually young to have gotten a job on the Fed board in the 2000s or whenever it was like 2006. You know he's in his 50s now but he's been politically active for a very long time. He has relationships on the Hill. As I mentioned, his father in law is a big GOP donor. He's worshiping the Greenland stuff. Yes, also true. And I think in mineral rights in Ukraine. I may be misspeaking1.
- [43:37]
Sam Stein
I think you're right. I think you might be right about that.
- [43:39]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah.
- [43:40]
Katherine Rampel
In any event but Warsh himself, you know, he's been at Hoover for a long time. This is like the bastion of right wing think Tankery thought.
- [43:49]
Sam Stein
Sure.
- [43:50]
Katherine Rampel
So he has connections. You know, I think normally in a normal environment he would be a, probably a very easy confirmation if this Powell investigation were not a live issue. Now should he be someone that Republicans like should let skate? I don't know. I don't. Probably not.
- [44:11]
Sam Stein
Hassit. That's the thing. It's not Hassit. You're looking at the other options. You're like okay, yeah, that's like more sensible, right?
- [44:18]
Katherine Rampel
Yeah. I mean the Overton window has definitely shifted for sure. So saying like it's not like a complete toady. Therefore this person.
- [44:28]
Sam Stein
And you can imagine how the confirmation hearing will go, right. They're everyone's going to press them. Well, what do you believe about Fed independence? And I'll have some stock answer. You know, it's important to preserve. I'm going to make my own judgments. I'm not going to be influenced. I'm just going to go by the data and it's just going to be a lot of theta.
- [44:43]
Katherine Rampel
Yeah. So as I said, I think normally he would have no problem and he may yet have no problem, particularly if Trump, you know, does something to like dispel any concerns about they suddenly drop the Powell investigation. Yes. And the other piece of all of this that we haven't discussed is what happens to Powell after he.
- [45:07]
Sam Stein
I was just going to ask you that.
- [45:08]
Katherine Rampel
Okay, we can talk about that in a second.
- [45:10]
Sarah Longwell
Sure.
- [45:10]
Katherine Rampel
But yeah, I think that, that Warsh would normally be a very easy confirmation but that doesn't necessarily mean that he is going to protect the Fed's independence. We don't know. Look, I very Much hope that he will be a normal, run of the mill Fed chair. You know, maybe not my first choice in, in some ways, but like, maybe he'll be a professional and all of that. I'm. I don't know. It's interesting. I've heard, I've seen a number of more dovish type out there, like people who are more worried about unemployment than inflation. Not buying his recent turn towards dovishness. You know, like, I've seen a bunch of people suggest, oh, he must have fooled Donald Trump. Like, Trump has been duped into thinking that he's going to actually cut interest rates. We don't know.
- [45:57]
Sam Stein
Can I ask you about that? Let me ask you about that quickly, because I think a lot of people who are watching this just were, may assume wrongly that the next chair gets to set the rates himself. That's not how this works.
- [46:08]
Katherine Rampel
No, no. Yeah. So the entire. There's a committee called the Federal Open Market Committee that's comprised of Fed governors as well as a rotating group of regional Fed bank presidents. They all vote together. Traditionally, the job of the chair is to like, foster consensus. And up until recently, there were not that many dissents even. That's a relatively recent phenomenon. Like, basically everybody kind of went along with the vote because it was important to have, you know, a unified message. And even, in fact, when Warsh was on the Fed board before, from whatever it was, like 2006 to 2011 or thereabouts, when he was speaking publicly about his concerns on inflation, he was still voting with the board. Like, he was still voting for low interest rates or he didn't dissent. I should say so. And I think it's something about what the norms were then. Like, he sort of like had a descent light, like he would say publicly. He even wrote op eds saying that the suggesting that the Fed was like too weak on inflation. And then he didn't depart from it. So today the job of the Fed president, whether it's Warsh or someone else, will still to be to like hold the group together. But it is a little bit more fractured than it used to be, in part because, you know, norms have changed unrelated to Trump. Like, there's more public discussion and speeches and things like that from Fed officials, but also because of Trump, because I think that there's more of a need to kind of like push back and show your independence. And now the dissents are partly from people who were like, trying to prove their bona fides to Trump. Like, one of the recent dissents was from someone who was in the running to get this job and didn't ultimately get it. And I, you know, well, this again, I don't know what his motivations were, but certainly it could be read as he was he was trying to make.
- [48:11]
Sam Stein
Well, this leads me to my last.
- [48:12]
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- [49:12]
Sam Stein
Which is where we want it to end, which is what happens with Powell? Because you've been of the mindset that Powell might not I mean he's obviously not gonna be chair, but you think he might go back to the Board of Governors.
- [49:23]
Katherine Rampel
Yeah. So the way that the Fed is set up is very confusing. As like as you can probably deduce from that explanation gave about like who's on the open market committee and all of that, people who are Fed chair have historically oh, and maybe by law have also been a Fed governor. So there's like a group of people who are governors of the board and then one of them gets elevated to chair. But those terms are not necessarily aligned. Like, you can be governor for a different period that overlaps with being chair, but it's not the exact same period. In Powell's case, his term as chair ends in a couple of months, but his term as a governor doesn't end until 2028. So in theory he could stick around. Historically, that never happens. Like, people don't really want to stick around after they've been passed over. Or they're like, you know, they've been the boss. You know, do you really want to go Back. Yeah, exactly. The last time this happened twice actually in history where the Fed chair, after no longer being chair, stuck around. The last time was in 1978 with Arthur Burns. And he was only there for like two months, I think, because of a transition. And he was like, I'm out of here. And a lot of people were like, good riddance at the time, but that's a whole other issue. So it would be very unusual for Powell to stick around, but he has not ruled it out. He has said publicly that he hasn't made a decision, which is, again, like, crazy. Normally it'd be like, yeah, obviously I'm like, nobody would even ask whether the person who was the Fed chair was going to stick around because it was just. Just know that they would leave. And the reason he might stick around is, you know, he has this investigation still going into him. You know, look, criminal investigation into Powell, the person that's a motivation to stick around. If he's concerned about the independence of the Federal Reserve, he might want to stay, to, like, be some sort of counterweight, you know, to. Because again, the Fed chair doesn't get to unilaterally make decisions. Everybody else gets a vote. So, sure, Powell could stick around and vote. I don't think he really wants to undercut whoever succeeds him. And if he thinks it would be bad for the future of the Fed, but I think if he thinks it would be good for protecting its independence, he might be persuaded to stay. And if he thinks it would be important for his own criminal liability or whatever, I think he might stay. He's like 73. So it's not only that it's unusual for somebody to want to stick around for like a lesser position, basically a demotion. It's also like, I think he's probably ready to retire close to retirement. So I'm working.
- [52:13]
Sam Stein
I'm working till 83 at least. I'm gonna be doing these live streams for another 40 years.
- [52:20]
Katherine Rampel
Yeah, yeah, okay.
- [52:22]
Sam Stein
Well, I will note, and I have to leave it here, that Powell has done. Has taken some extraordinary steps in recent weeks, which would give some credence the idea that he might actually be thinking about saying he. He cut that video when the investigation was launched direct to camera. He back challenged to a number of senators around it to get ahead of it. And then he showed up at the Supreme Court arguments around Lisa Cook, which were directly related to the independence of the Fed. So he's asserting himself in ways that are totally unfamiliar for anyone who served in that role already. So it might not be Totally insane to think that he continues to do so.
- [53:04]
Katherine Rampel
Yeah. One thing I want to be clear about is that I don't think Powell wants to become a hero of the resistance. I don't think this is like, he wants to be seen as anti Trump.
- [53:13]
Sam Stein
Sure.
- [53:14]
Katherine Rampel
But I think he does care about his reputation and the reputation of the Fed and the Fed as the. A functional institution and that being part of his legacy. So my guess is he has some mixed feelings about sort of the justified political outrage that's out there, including from myself and, and others at the Bulwark and elsewhere. But I think, you know, he's trying to walk this fine line of, like, showing he's principled and cares about his legacy and not, like, wants to be a. You know, wants to be a. A hero of the resistance.
- [53:50]
Sam Stein
Yeah, we'll.
- [53:50]
Katherine Rampel
We'll.
- [53:51]
Sam Stein
We'll know if he wants to be hero resistance when he appears in the next Don Lemon live stream. Just bunding them to funding those two together. All right. At that point, I want to say thank you to Catherine, who we had the dessert first and then the. The veggies today on the live stream, but that's. That's appropriate sometimes in this business. Thank you so much for doing this, Catherine. Really appreciate it. For those who are watching, uh, thank you, too. Uh, I hope. I'm gonna look at. I'm going to look at the numbers for this live cast, and if there were more people who reviewed the Don Lemon portion than the Fed portion, I'm going to be disappointed with our audience. Okay. I'm just going to say that you got to have both. Talk to you guys soon. Please subscribe to the Bulwark. Take care. Stay safe out there. Bye.