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- [00:00]
Michael Popak
I'm going to put on my Wall street legal and political hat right now and synthesize a couple of things that have all happened at or around the same time and for a reason. The Federal Reserve's beige book about the 12 districts of our United States and the worst sitting economy because it's all the Trump failed policies are already making their way into the economy and into the beige book. And it's important because it is the book that is used by the Fed and made a set policy is out at the same time almost identically that the polling numbers for Donald Trump are plummeting like a stone, driven by independence and the rejection of his policies. And Donald Trump now saying, I'm not going to fire the Federal Reserve chairman all because he made a complete mess of the economy in the first 90 days, taking a roaring bull market and making it a scary bear market on the way to stagflation. Let me combine the Donald Trump's distractive policies in order to try distract from his failures, his poll numbers, what he's doing at the Fed and why the new Fed matters. The new Fed numbers matter. I'll do it all here on Midas Touch Network. Let me jump right in. I told you last week that this week was the week that all the central banks, including the Federal Reserve of the United States, start setting policy and dropping rates or raising rates, depending upon how they see the economy. Donald Trump, of course, knew that that was this week also. So he launched a series of attacks on Jay Powell, who's the only thing as our Federal Reserve chairman that's keeping the United States in our universe connected to an economy. He is the umbilical cord. He is the tether to reality. He is the only reason that the markets haven't done worse under Donald Trump is because there's an adult in the room. His name is Jay Powell. And the markets, the economy and the world global leaders and stakeholders believe in him. And if he were to leave, involuntarily or otherwise, God forbid, he resigned. You think we're doing bad now on the way to stagflation, high inflation rates, low productivity. Wait till you see what would happen if Jay Powell left. And finally people within the Trump administration talked him off the ledge. But knowing that Jay Powell and the beige book was about to come out and look terrible for the beginning of the Trump administration and that the polling numbers were looking worse. Donald Trump backed off cuz he watches cable news, cuz he watches polls. That's why his policies are and his actions are so erratic. Cuz they're not based on any thought process, no executive function. They're based on whoever talked to him last, whoever went into his office last. One of the reasons that he backed off of China. This whole thing we've been covering here on the Midas Touch network and on legal aforementioned about Scott Besant, the Treasury Secretary saying well the 145% tariff, you know, percent tariffs on China isn't sustainable, we'll eventually have to drop them. And Donald Trump saying yeah, I'm gonna be nice with them, I'm gonna drop their tariffs. You know, I'm not gonna be a hard play hardball with them. You know why that happened? Because a series of corporate leaders led by Walmart and Home Depot and the rest all marched into Donald Trump's office and told him to cut it out. That's all it takes. He changed his tariff policy originally and put a pause on it because he got a phone call from Jamie Dimon at JPMorgan Chase and also the guy that runs Pershing Square private equity who told him you are killing the economy. This is a nuclear winter that you are creating. And then he watched an interview with Maria Bartiromo on cable news. Cuz he's not, he's got nothing better to do. And then he hit the brakes on the, on the tariff war for 90 days but not before the damage is done. Let me tell you what the Beige Book says, why it's important for America and what the polling says because those two things do go hand in glove. First of all, the Beige book comes out eight times a year. It's the 12 district diff, the 12 districts in America, the different Federal Reserve, you know, Federal Reserve of Atlanta, Federal Reserve of Chicago, Federal Reserve of New York State. There's 12 districts. They all issue an individual report anecdotally about what they're observing in their various economic sectors. And that's all combined together in the beige book. And here's what the overarching in all 12 districts is telling us. 90 days or so under the Trump administration there is tremendous uncertainty about trade policy and immigration. It is a, I would say, I wouldn't even say a mixed picture in it is low growth already and major declines with tightening lending standards. So banks sphincters are starting to close, they don't want to lend. So if you like an economy with, with tightening financial lending requirements, tourism is in the trash because Canadians are not coming here any longer and that's impacting many of the districts. People are insecure about disposable income so leisure tourism is down, and federal workers who are now on the unemployment lines are not traveling. Federal worker travel makes our hospitality and airline industry run. Take them out of the equation, you've got cratering. Tourism prices are increasing. Food banks and the demand on people who are hungry in this country is also the need there is also increasing. That means that we have an economic crisis caused by Donald Trump that is rippling across all 12 of our districts. The. The based on that, when the Fed meets in May to set policy and to discuss whether they're going to drop the rate in order to stimulate the economy, they also have to worry about inflation. See, all Donald Trump wants, you know, he's just a drunken sailor, you know, sorry to drunken sailors with nothing to lose. Riverboat gambler with nothing to lose. He wants to print more house money. And the way you print more house money, you know, even though we've got trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars of debt because of Donald Trump's first administration and a second administration, he wants the Fed to lower the interest rate, making lending easier, you know, pushing more money into the economy, more house. He wants to play with house money, and he wants Jay Powell to be his, his dealer. And he's not going to because he has to worry about macroeconomic policy like inflation, more. We saw what happens when $3 trillion worth of stimulus money went through the economy after Covid, when, when Joe Biden had to restart the heart of the economy, prices rose. You know, there was also a logistical supply chain warping and housing market issues because people suddenly were migrating. You know, it was like the prehistoric times after, you know, after the meteor hit. We have migration patterns that change people moving, you know, north to south, south to west, all, you know, putting pressure on the housing market, and that led to increase in prices as well. So we know what will happen if we push too much money too soon into the economy. So Jay Powell, the adult, has to fix that. Listen, that extra hour of daylight, it's so good for the mental health, but.
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Unknown Co-Host
So hard on the morning routine.
- [07:38]
Michael Popak
If you like me, take like 15.
- [07:40]
Unknown Co-Host
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- [07:51]
Michael Popak
Bidet was just like some awkwardly placed.
- [07:53]
Unknown Co-Host
Water fountain next to that shower with no glass divider that soaked my hotel bathroom floor.
- [07:58]
Michael Popak
But now I know I'm worthy of a bidet, too.
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Unknown Co-Host
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- [08:03]
Michael Popak
Was a lot easier than I envisioned.
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Unknown Co-Host
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- [08:10]
Michael Popak
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- [08:13]
Unknown Co-Host
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- [09:26]
Michael Popak
Order@hellotushy.com with promo code LEGAL AF. Now, Donald Trump wanted to fire Jay Powell. I mean, one of the things he's arguing at different courts, including up to the Supreme Court, is to remove a precedent. It's called Humphrey's Executor, came out in 1935. And it is a firewall that stops the President from taking complete control of independent, bipartisan, quasi executive, cabinet level positions like the Fed and taking them under his complete control. Because he'd fire everybody on the Fed. He'd put in all of his lackeys and toadies and bootlickers and then we'd be in a real pickle. J if Jay Powell quit tomorrow, we'd be in a real pickle. Unless he put somebody like Jamie Dimon or somebody that the that the world financial markets appreciate and respect, which Donald Trump doesn't seem to do that ever. So he got talked off the ledge by a combination of Scott Bessette, his Treasury secretary, maybe Howard Lutnick, his Commerce Secretary, guys that had worked around Wall street and said we can't get rid of Jay Powell. And so he backed off. But he knew this beige report was coming out and he knew the International Monetary Fund was cutting their rates. And claiming that there was, as we could all see, a world economic crisis caused by Donald Trump in just this short amount of time, explains the polling. As I transition to polling, Donald Trump's poll numbers are in the trash. He came, let me just give you the baseline. He came into office. Came into office with the second lowest approval rating of any president in the modern era. The second lowest. Now you might be thinking, who was the first lowest? Trump. 45. So he only, he just, he just was the second lowest this time. His first lowest was the first time he was president. And it's gotten only worse. He's down seven points, which is well beyond the margin of error and well beyond underreporting around Trump voters since the day after his inauguration. So just since January, he started out riding high 52%. The most of America thought in January thought he'd be a good president and approved of him. And now it's flipped 52% more than the majority in America think that he's doing a terrible job. And only 45% approve. It's actually a faster drop than any other president in history. And it's driven by the independents in the polling who are abandoning Donald Trump in droves. What is not working is the weakness of Donald Trump, not only in the people that he picked that are self destructing and immolating and imploding before our very eyes, like Pete Hegseth, who won't be at the Pentagon too much longer. He then took the crown jewel of his cabinet, the State Department, and completely destroyed it and hollowed it out and shrunk it, destroying our diplomatic missions around the world and undermining our national security. And then he tried this flood the zone policy. You know, you know how like Obama tried one big thing in his term to get Obamacare up and running, the Affordable Care Act. Well, Donald Trump decided we're gonna come in and quote, unquote, flood the zone. We're gonna go after all at the very same time. We're gonna go after universities and law firms and judges and shrink the government and take on all those lawsuits and immigration all at the same time because we're going to overwhelm our opposition. Well, how's that going so far? Because you didn't overwhelm anybody. Because the public interest groups like the American Civil Liberties Union, the attorneys general, there's 22 Democratic ones around the country and Other groups that have been formed recently, like Democracy Forward, Democracy Now, Court Accountability Action, they're running into courts and they're doing it at great success. There's 140 or 150 cases already filed against the Trump administration, almost 70 preliminary injunctions and permanent injunctions. And at the Supreme Court level, Donald Trump is on the losing end of the last two decisions, 17 to 2, the other 90 about his immigration is depraved immigration and deportation policy. And even if you look at all the emergency applications at the United States Supreme Court. Right, right now it is 4, 4 to 3 in favor of democracy and against the Trump administration at the United States Supreme Court. And so the shock and awe flood the zone. You know, that miscalculated because that's the sign of Donald Trump's administration miscalculation, lack of thought process. They miscalculated that. The public interest groups, the ACLU of the world, the attorneys general of the world, they've been ready. They thought there was a good chance that, that the Democrats weren't going to win, that Kamala was going to be rejected by the voters. And they were ready six months before they were drafting white papers and draft lawsuits. That's why some people are surprised. Like they jumped into court. They were in court in Washington state five days after the administration on birthright citizenship. Within the. So January 25th was the first round of cases after January 20th. He was signing all those executive orders. They were ready. So they didn't catch anybody flat footed or by surprise. Certainly didn't catch Legal laugh at Midas Dutch network. I mean, I mean, for God's sake, we formed Legal AF, the YouTube channel, about two months before the election because I kind of had a sneaking suspicion that it was going to be really important that we were here. The Legal AF was present and accounted for, bringing truth to our, to our audience. So when you've got the economic issues that have gone down the drain for Donald Trump, trying to take the rest of us with it, with him, you've got the, you always have to look for Donald Trump. You have to look to the polls. You know what they say, Follow the money. You got to follow the polling. Because he's driven by polls, he's driven by personal entreaties and lobbying by people that he thinks that he respects. So if you wonder why we're watching such an erratic foreign policy, an erratic military policy, an erratic economic policy, it's because Donald Trump is a broken person and he allows himself to be flattered and lobbied by anybody. You know, comes up with a new policy because he's watching television, because he's watching cable news, because somebody phones him, because somebody schedules a meeting with him. That's not policy. That's suicide. And I feel like we're strapped to a suicide bomber as an America, and we all want to get off and extricate ourselves, continue to do it together here, first, speaking truth to each other as we then move forward. And the only way we can do this is at the midterms and eventually, of course, the presidency in 2028. Because if there was a cabinet with any balls, which we don't have, they would already already be invoking the 25th Amendment. And if we had a Congress that was in the hands of the Democrats, there would already be impeachment proceedings and possibly convictions. But we don't have that right now. So we got to rely on the court system. We got to rely on truth and, and information. No smoke or sunshine here on the Midas Dutch network. Take a minute. Hit the free subscribe button. Help them continue to grow to 5 million. Come on over to Legal AF, the YouTube channel LegalAF MTN. As we march towards 1 million, which we hope to accomplish this year with your help, we will. We're adding 70,000 subscribers a month because of you. So until my next reporting, I'm Michael Popak.
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Unknown Co-Host
In collaboration with the Midas Touch Network, we just launched the Legal AF YouTube channel. Help us build this pro democracy channel where I'll be curating the top stories. The intersection of law and politics. Go to YouTube now and free subscribe @legalafmtn. That's egalafmtn.