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- [00:00]
Progressive Insurance Announcer
This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home and auto policies. Try it@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states.
- [00:20]
Parent at Playground
Are you really buying a car online on autotrader right now?
- [00:22]
Parent Buying Car
Really? I can get super specific with dealer listings and see cars based on my budget.
- [00:27]
Parent at Playground
You can really have it delivered or pick it up. I think kid is walking up the slide.
- [00:32]
Isaac Saul
Really?
- [00:32]
Parent Buying Car
Autotrader? Buy your car online? Really?
- [00:35]
Sleep Number Announcer
Why Choose a Sleep Number Smart bed.
- [00:36]
Parent Buying Car
Can I make my site softer?
- [00:38]
Progressive Insurance Announcer
Can I make my site firmer? Can we sleep cooler?
- [00:41]
Sleep Number Announcer
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- [01:10]
Parent Buying Car
From executive producer isaac saul, this is tangle.
- [01:25]
Isaac Saul
Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tango Podcast, a place we get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, and a little bit of my take. I'm your host, Isaac Sell. Today is Friday, January 23rd. I'm here in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, bracing for what's supposed to be a historic winter storm all across the United States, or across a vast swath of the United States. But today we're here with a different agenda. Twelve months ago, we laid the groundwork to evaluate President Donald Trump's second term as objectively as possible. Our goal was to take a few objective metrics to judge a president's success, things like economic data, promises kept, and the sentiment of American citizens. Given how much analysis and opinion we engage with every day, we thought we could refer back to these benchmarks periodically as a nearly unimpeachable way to judge the president's performance. When I think back to this time 12 months ago, one big detail stands out. I wasn't here. In fact, with the timing of a true troll, my son was born on the day of Trump's inauguration. Just days before, we had published the set of metrics we'd used to evaluate the president. It was the last major piece we published before I stepped away from tangle for a month. Now here we are. Trump's second term is now one year old, just like my son. And I'm back in the driver's seat ready to use the metrics we developed last year to evaluate the Trump administration. Before we get started, I want to give you a quick note about our process. The benchmarks we chose to track are mostly hard metrics, but with a few qualitative assessments. We wanted to include things that are easy to measure, like gas prices, as well as some things that take a little more effort to evaluate, like whether the administration has kept a promise or not. We put these benchmarks into four groups for today's episode. One, traditional economic metrics that presidents are judged by, like the price of gasoline and unemployment rates. And economic metrics we think their administrations should be judged by, like how many people have credit card debt. Number two, promises that is the things President Trump said he would do before he took office. Note we are not giving our opinion on Trump's promises, just evaluating his follow through on them. Number three, national interests, that is the successes and failures of our foreign policy, the safety of the American people at home, and the strength of our domestic institutions. This is a mix of Trump's priorities and things we think are important. Number four. Lastly, we'll review some predictions from commentators we found noteworthy last January and wanted to capture for posterity so we could compare the national mood then to now. Today's edition is our best effort at reviewing Trump's presidency dispassionately, objectively, and without any of our own opinions mixed in. Though I will offer some reflections at the end of the podcast if you want to hear a more subjective assessment, where Camille Foster, Ari Weitzman and I sit down to discuss what surprised us and what didn't. The biggest pros and cons of Year one. Check out our latest episode of Suspension of the Rules, which should be in your podcast feed, and you can also find it on YouTube if you want to watch a video of it. As a final note, we plan to return to this review each year in January for the rest of Trump's term. When the next administration takes office in 2029, we'll do the same for it. So without further ado, let's get started. And one last note. I am going to get some help today because this is a long episode and I'm not going to read an entire 8,000 word script. I tagged in Audrey and Will and Lindsay to help out with the recording, so you'll also be hearing from them. All right, with that, I'm going to start off by passing it over to Ari, who's going to tackle the Metrics.
- [05:29]
Ari Weitzman
Thanks, Isaac. We've got a lot of metrics that we're going to be stepping through here, which is going to require a lot of me saying some numbers one after the other. I'm going to do my best to keep it really clear what I'm talking about. We're going to be covering things from gas prices to housing to unemployment to gdp. Just a bunch of the things that you'd expect and some of the things that you wouldn't. So let's get started with gas prices. The way we decided to track this started out pretty simple. We wanted to use AAA's Price Tracker to compare the price of gas on January 17, 2025 when we did our first edition to the price. When we were finished drafting this one on January 22, however, we decided to make the metric more robust by doing the following. We took an average of the prices of all fuels by fuel type. So from regular fuel to mid grade to premium to ethanol 85 and diesel. Then we weighted them based on usage. So for example, about 64% of people use regular petroleum compared to 5% for mid grade premium, 15% for diesel and about 1% for ethanol 85. After we weighted those averages, we took a average of the three month total to get a full one metric readout of petroleum prices. So that's a three month weighted petroleum average. Got that?
- [06:55]
Will Kbach
Cool.
- [06:55]
Ari Weitzman
So our three month weighted average for January of 2025 was $3.32 per gallon. Today that three month weighted average is $3.22 per gallon, which is a 10 cent reduction or a reduction of 3.01%. Next up is housing prices. What we wanted to track is both home prices and the health of the rental market. The way we decided to do that was using two metrics to track home prices. First, the s&P CoreLogic Case Shiller Index, which is the leading measure of US home prices and the median home prices as measured by the Federal Reserve Economic Data, which we'll continue to refer to as fred. We're also using two indicators to measure the health of the rental market. One, Redfin's measure of the median US asking rent and two, a custom metric we developed. That's a sample of rental vacancy rates in the 10 largest US cities as measured by the Census Bureau. That one's also a bit of a complicated metric where we take the vacancy rates, weight them by population in those cities and then average that into one whole metric. Last note about these metrics. Given the seasonal variance of housing prices, we are taking rolling averages for both the current readings and the baseline readings for the Case Shiller Index, which measures home prices. The Redfin figures about rental prices are reported monthly but are already represented by three month rolling averages. The FRED pricing data and our custom vacancy rate composite are based on quarterly reports, so we're not going to do anything more to them. Where things were at the Beginning of Trump's term the three month average baseline of the Case Shiller index as of October 2024 was 324.61. The median sales price of houses sold in the US in Q3 2024. The last time that we were able to get data before we published was $415,300. From July to August 2024, the median US asking rent was $1,745. Lastly, our custom population weighted average vacancy rate for the 10 largest US metropolitan areas as of Q3 2024 was 6.87%. And just to give some framing there, we typically want to see that number above 5%. Somewhere between 5 and 10 is healthy. It was 6.87% at the end of Q3 2024. Where things stand now the three month average baseline of the Case Shiller index as of October 2025 was 329.1, a 1.4% increase. The median sales price of houses sold in the United States in Q2 2025, the last quarter with reported figures was $410,800, or a 1.1% decrease from July to August 2025. The median US asking grant was $1,790, an increase of about 2.6%. And lastly, the population weighted average for the vacancy rate in the 10 largest US metropolitan areas as of Q3 2025 was 7.06%, a 0.19 point increase.
- [10:23]
Isaac Saul
We'll be right back after this quick break.
- [10:27]
John Law
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- [11:01]
Isaac Saul
Right.
- [11:01]
John Law
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- [11:35]
Progressive Insurance Announcer
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- [12:14]
Ari Weitzman
Okay, still with me? Great. That brings us next to financial markets. While the stock market is not the economy, the performance of retail investments is one important indicator of economic health. We've reported recordings from the leading market indices, Dow Jones Industrial Average, The S&P 500 and the NASDAQ, as well as the Yield on the 10 year treasury note. Where things were On January 16, 2025, the Dow Jones closed at 43,153, the S&P 500 closed at 5,937 and the NASDAQ closed at 19,338. On January 20, the yield on the 10 year T note was 4.61%. Where things stand today these are the three month averages for all of those metrics. The Dow Jones 48,388, a 12.1% increase the S&P 506,869, a 15.7% year over year increase the NASDAQ 23,348 or a 20.7% increase and the yield on the 10 year T Note is down to 4.1%, a decrease of 0.47 points. Next up, personal finances. Here's how we're tracking that savings and debt of U.S. households. For savings, we're using the personal savings Rate or PSA V E R T or PSA vert, which tracks the percentage of disposable income that households save rather than spend on consumption. For household debt, we use the Federal Reserve bank of New York's Debt Tracker, which accounts for housing and non housing Categories where things were in January 2025 the three month average PSA vert was 4.77%. Total US housing debt as of Q4 2024 was $13 trillion and total non housing debt stood at $5.04 trillion. In Q3 2024, American's total credit card balance was $1.17 trillion, which at the time was an 8.1% increase from the year prior. Where Things Stand Today as of November 2025, the last month that we have data for that PSA vert reading on disposable income that households save, the percentage was 3.73% which is down 1.04 points from our baseline. For Q3 2025, total US housing debt was $13.49 trillion, an increase of 3.8% and total non housing debt was 5.09 trillion, an increase of 1%. American's total credit card balance was 1.23 trillion, an increase of 5.1%. Next up economic Activity what we're tracking is the growth in and total of US Gross domestic Product or gdp, using data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis and Fred Where Things were GDP had increased at an annual rate of 2.3% in Q4 2024 following increases of 3.1% in Q3 2024, 3% in Q2 2024 and 1.3% in Q1 2024. Total annualized GDP as of Q4 2024 was a total of $29.8 trillion. Where things stand today GDP increased at an annual rate of 4.4%, a 2.1 point increase over last year in Q3 2025. That followed an increase of 3.8% in Q2 2025 and a decrease of 0.5% in Q1. In total annualized GDP as of Q3 2025 was $31.1 trillion which as we said already is a 4.4% year over year increase. Next up is employment. What we're tracking is the Department of Labor data measuring several things 1 the unemployment rate, 2 non farm jobs, 3 the labor force participation rate and 4 the number of people not in the labor force but seeking a job. Where things were in January 2025, the three month average unemployment rate was 4.1%. Payroll employment increased by 256,000 to a seasonally adjusted total of 160 million. The labor force participation rate was 62.5% and 5.5 million people were not in the labor force but said they wanted a job. Note on some of these measures I'm about to give for where things stand today. The 2025 government shutdown disrupted labor data collection efforts in October and delayed the release of November's jobs report. Some of these numbers are based on some we got from September instead of October. So where Things stood in December 2025 the three month average unemployment rate was 4.43%, up 0.33 points over our baseline. With the revised rates for the previous 12 months ranging from 4% to 4.5%. Non farm payroll employment decreased by 50,000 to a seasonally adjusted total of 1.59.5 million, or a decrease of 0.53%. That brings us to the labor force participation rate which was 62.4%, down 0.1 points from our baseline. And lastly, 6.2 million people were not in the labor force but said they wanted a job, which is an increase of 12.7% over our baseline. All right, I know it's a lot of numbers, but I did warn you was going to be a lot of numbers. We've got a little bit more to go. Inflation, consumer confidence, interest rates, oil production and national debt and deficit, so we're going to get through those. If you want to stand up and get a drink of water though, I don't blame you. Lot of things to get in your head. Next up is going to be inflation. What we're tracking for that is no surprise. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics tracking the Consumer Price Index or CPI and Core cpi, which excludes volatile food and energy prices as well as the Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index or pce, which is the Federal Reserve's preferred metric for inflation. Where things were in December 2024, the CPI increased by 2.9% on an adjusted annual basis and 0.4% from the previous month. Core CPI rose 0.2% from the previous month. Those are our baselines. In November, the PCE rose from 2.4% annually and 0.1% from the previous month. Somewhat similar but a little bit lower than what we saw on CPI. Here are the three month averages as of January for those three metrics. CPI was 314.35, Core CP was 323.55.
- [19:08]
Isaac Saul
And.
- [19:10]
Ari Weitzman
PCE was 20430.03. Where things stand Today When Trump entered office, the latest three month average for the CPI increased over the baseline average by 3.43%. Core CPI increased by 2.35% and PCE increased by 4.28% over the baseline averages. Next up is consumer confidence. We're tracking consumer confidence using the University of Michigan's Consumer Sentiment Index, which uses surveying to measure how optimistic or pessimistic consumers are about their personal financial situations, the economy and their purchasing plans. Where Things Were takes us back to November since some expectations of Trump's performance were baked into consumer sentiment in January. So we're reading the three month average of consumer sentiment in November. Before Trump was elected, that measure for consumer sentiment was 70.8. Where things stand today as of January 2026, the three month average of the Consumer Sentiment Index was 53.4, a decrease of 24.6%. Next up, interest rates. We're tracking changes to the Federal Reserve's range for the federal funds rate, also known as the interest rate, as well as the average 30 year mortgage rate as measured by Freddie Mac. Where things were in January 2025, the Fed's interest rate was 4.25% to 4.5%. That was the range they gave. And remember, the Federal Reserve had cut interest rates three times in 2024 up until that point. The 30 year mortgage rate at that time was 6.16%, up from the year low of 6.08% in September 2024. Where things stand Today the Federal Open Market Committee voted to cut interest rates three more times in 2025 and the current federal funds rate stands at 3.5 to 3.7%, which is down 75 basis points on the year. President Trump has called on the central bank to cut rates more aggressively, publicly criticizing Chairman Jerome Powell and calling for him to step down. The FOMC's next meeting begins on January 27th and economists do not expect it to vote for another rate cut at that time. Meanwhile, and lastly, for this section, the average 30 year mortgage rate is 6.09% as of January 22, down 0.07 points. That brings us to domestic oil production, which we're tracking using US Field production of crude oil in barrels per day as measured by the U.S. energy Information Administration. Where things were in January 2025 was the three month average of U.S. field production of crude oil was 13,324,000 barrels of oil per day. Where things stand in October 2025, the last month that we had reported data, the three month average of US field production of crude oil was 13 million 840,000 barrels of oil per day, a 3.87% increase and an all time high. Lastly, that's right, you're just about done with me. The last metric that I have is the national debt and deficit. We're tracking changes to the national debt, which is the amount of outstanding borrowing owed by the US Government and the deficit, the total amount the US Government has spent exceeding what it has collected in revenue. Where things were before Trump was inaugurated, the total national debt was $35.46 trillion in fiscal year 2024, and the national deficit was $1.83 trillion. Where things stand now, the total national debt was $37.64 trillion, an increase of 6.1% in fiscal year 2025, and the national deficit was $1.78 trillion, or a decrease of 2.7%. One metric that we did not list last year that gives a more complete picture is the amount of debt held by the public, which excludes money the federal government owes to itself. On January 21, 2025, the public held approximately $28.9 trillion of debt. As of January 20, 2026, the publicly held debt is approximately $30.8 trillion, an increase of 6.6%. The Congressional Budget Office projected in December that the federal budget deficit totaled 601. $1 billion in the first quarter of 2026, $110 billion less than the deficit recorded in the same quarter in 2025. If this continues, the US deficit will still increase in fiscal year 2026, but by a smaller amount than it had the year prior. That is it for all of the hard economic metrics that we are tracking, and that is it for me on the POD today. So I'm going to pass it over to Will Kbach, our senior editor who has the task. All of Trump's promises that he made, which ones he's kept and how he's progressing during this administration will take it away.
- [24:24]
Isaac Saul
We'll be right back after this quick break.
- [24:30]
Parent at Playground
Are you really buying a car online on Autotrader right now?
- [24:33]
Parent Buying Car
Really? I can get super specific with dealer listings and see cars based on my budget.
- [24:37]
Parent at Playground
You can really have it delivered or pick it up. I think kid is walking up the slide.
- [24:42]
Isaac Saul
Really?
- [24:42]
Parent Buying Car
Autotrader, Buy your car online. Really?
- [24:45]
Progressive Insurance Announcer
This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well, with the name your price tool from Progressive, you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try it@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates Price and coverage match limited by state law. Not available in all states.
- [25:13]
Will Kbach
Thanks, Ari. All right, let's dive into the promises section. Our first issue is no tax on Social Security benefits. Here's what was said on the campaign trail, Trump said that Americans who rely on Social Security as their primary source of income were being hurt by Biden administration policies. As a remedy, Trump said he would eliminate the federal income tax some Social Security recipients pay on their benefits. The Social Security Administration estimated that roughly 40% of Social Security recipients pay federal taxes on their benefits, usually when they have other substantial income in addition to those benefits. Here's what we said we'd Whether any tax reform legislation passed during Trump's term includes a provision that eliminates federal income taxes on Social Security payments. Now, here's where things stand one year in well, it's complicated. The One Big Beautiful Bill act included a temporary additional standard tax deduction of $6,000 for filers aged 65 or older and $12,000 per couple, which the administration claims effectively eliminates federal income taxes on Social Security payments. Effectively, that's almost right. According to a White House press sheet, 88% of Social Security beneficiaries will no longer pay any income tax because of this provision. However, the provision definitively does not eliminate the tax on Social Security benefits. Furthermore, this is a deduction for seniors that's set to expire in 2028, meaning the next president will either have to approve legislation to continue the deduction or let it lapse. The next issue is the war in Ukraine.
- [26:56]
John Law
Hey everybody, this is John, Executive producer for Tangle. We hope you enjoyed this preview of our latest episode. If you are not currently a newsletter subscriber or a premium podcast subscriber and you are enjoying this content and would like to finish it, you can go to readtangle.com and sign up for a newsletter subscription. Or you can sign up for a podcast subscription or a bundled subscription which gets you both the podcast and the newsletter and unlocks the rest of this episode as well as ad free daily podcasts, more Friday editions, Sunday editions, bonus content, interviews and so much more. Most importantly, we just want to say thank you so much for your support. We're working hard to bring you much more content and more offerings, so stay tuned. I will join you again for the daily podcast. For the rest of the crew, this is John Law signing off. Have a great day, y'. All. Peace.
- [27:52]
Isaac Saul
Our Executive Editor and founder is me, Isaac Saul, and our Executive Producer is John Lowell. Today's episode was edited and engineered by Dewey Thomas. Our editorial staff is led by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman with Senior Editor Will K. Back and Associate Editors Audrey Moorhead, Lindsay Knuth and Delta. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet75 to learn more about Tango and to sign up for a membership, please visit our website@retangle.com.
- [28:31]
Parent at Playground
Are you really buying a car online on Autotrader right now?
- [28:34]
Ari Weitzman
Really?
- [28:35]
Parent at Playground
At a playground?
- [28:36]
Parent Buying Car
Yeah, really. Look at these listings from dealers.
- [28:38]
Parent at Playground
Wow, your search can really get that specific.
- [28:41]
Parent Buying Car
Really?
- [28:41]
Parent at Playground
And you just put in your info and boom. Car's in your budget.
- [28:45]
Parent Buying Car
Mom needs a second.
- [28:46]
Parent at Playground
Honey, you can really have it delivered?
- [28:48]
Parent Buying Car
Really? Or I can pick it up at the dealership. One sec, sweetie. Mommy's buying a car.
- [28:53]
Isaac Saul
Mommy, look.
- [28:54]
Parent at Playground
I think your kid is walking up the slide.
- [28:56]
Ari Weitzman
Kyle.
- [28:57]
Parent Buying Car
Again?
- [28:57]
Isaac Saul
Really?
- [28:58]
Parent Buying Car
Autotrader? Buy your car online? Really?
- [29:01]
Progressive Insurance Announcer
This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Shifting a little money here, a little there and hoping it all works out well. With the name your price tool from Progressive, you can be a better budgeter and potentially lower your insurance bill too. You tell Progressive what you want to pay for car insurance and they'll help you find options within your budget. Try it today@progressive.com progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates price and coverage match limited by state law. Not available in all states.
- [29:30]
Parent Buying Car
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