SCOTUS Crushes Trump's Midterm Mail Plot

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Beat with Ari Melber

Episode: "SCOTUS Crushes Trump's Midterm Mail Plot"

Date: June 29, 2026
Host: Ari Melber (MS NOW)
Notable Guests: John Flannery (Attorney, former federal prosecutor), Senator Cory Booker, Andrew Ross Sorkin (CNBC)

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Overview of the Episode

This episode of "The Beat with Ari Melber" dives into a highly eventful day at the U.S. Supreme Court, unpacking a flurry of decisions with deep political and practical significance for the Trump administration, the balance of power in the federal government, and the upcoming midterm elections. Key themes include the Supreme Court’s rejection of Donald Trump’s bid to limit mail ballots in the midterms, a pivotal ruling increasing presidential power over independent agencies (except the Federal Reserve), and the broader ramifications of the court’s apparent inconsistencies. The episode features expert analysis from attorney John Flannery, a probing interview with Senator Cory Booker, and a sharp segment with Andrew Ross Sorkin on economic sentiment, tech bubbles, and AI.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Supreme Court Rulings: Limits and Expansions of Presidential Power

• Trump's Legal Defeats:
  • The Court denied Trump’s appeal to avoid civil liability in the E. Jean Carroll defamation case.
  • Most notably, the Court blocked Trump’s attempt to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, enforcing independence for the Fed (01:00–07:00).
    • Ari Melber: “The Supreme Court today saying no… telling Trump he is powerless to oust this federal official the way he tried. And that's a big loss.” (03:30)
    • Ruling was a 5–4 split, with Chief Justice Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh joining liberals.
• Supreme Court's Inconsistencies:
  • Despite safeguarding the Fed, the Court simultaneously granted the President sweeping new authority to remove leaders of most other independent federal commissions (e.g., FTC), raising alarm over eroding checks and balances (05:00–07:00).
    • Ari Melber: “They are handing Trump new powers that recent presidents haven't had over everything except the economy, which apparently they think is different.” (09:34)
  • The contradiction: Why is the Fed uniquely protected while other agencies lose independence?
    • John Flannery: "We have this entire structure created by Congress to accomplish certain things... and Trump comes in and wants to make it all political, all about his power..." (10:54)
• Possible Motivation for Fed Exception:
  • Speculation that the Fed’s ‘untouchable’ status reflects Wall Street and elite financial interests, versus other agencies impacting everyday Americans (12:18–14:05).

2. Midterm Mail Ballot Plot Thwarted

• SCOTUS Blocks GOP Effort to Disqualify Mail Ballots:
  • Trump and Republican allies sought to limit vote counting to disqualify ballots that arrived after Election Day.
  • The Supreme Court, in a 5–4 ruling, rejected the GOP plan—allowing all timely, legally cast mail ballots to be counted in the upcoming midterms (07:21–08:30).
    • Ari Melber: “You can exhale a sigh of relief tonight. They will in the next election. But that's just by one vote.” (09:49)
    • Notably, Amy Coney Barrett, a Trump appointee, provided the decisive swing vote alongside Roberts.
• Context on Voting Rights:
  • Melber contextualizes the ruling as a crucial, albeit narrow, defense against anti-democratic, exclusionary efforts, highlighting how one justice’s vote can preserve or endanger participatory democracy (07:21–10:22).
    • John Flannery's analysis: The Court was unwilling to repeat the “Gore v. Bush” scenario and overtly hand an election to one party (10:22–12:00).

3. The Corruption of Power and the Supreme Court

• Senator Cory Booker's Perspective:
  • Booker delivers a forceful critique of the Court, labeling it "corrupt and compromised," susceptible to outside billionaire influence, and now responsible for removing vital independence from federal agencies (18:30–19:50).
    • Sen. Booker (18:30): "We have a corrupt and compromised court in ways we've never seen in American history, continuing to make decisions that pull power away from everyday Americans..."
  • Booker calls for Supreme Court reform—ethics laws, term limits, banning dark money in politics—to protect democracy from further erosion (19:50–20:53).
• Economic Motives Behind Judicial Decisions:
  • Both Melber and Booker suggest the Supreme Court’s concern for the Fed's independence reflects elite self-interest, in contrast to disregard for protections for ordinary Americans (20:14–21:56).

4. Economic Realities, Midterm Politics, and the AI Bubble

• Affordability Crisis and Polling:
  • Melber, joined by Andrew Ross Sorkin, discusses the disconnect between persistently high gas prices, the impact of global politics (notably Iran), and the pain felt by working families (26:30–31:01).
    • Ari Melber: “The economic data shows that Donald Trump's policies have made it worse. Any president tends to own the economy, but this is above and beyond… his approval is crashing.” (27:15)
    • 66% of Americans disapprove of Trump’s economy, with 82% of those feeling things are getting worse.
• Stock Market's Contradiction:
  • Sorkin explains the “split screen”: everyday Americans struggle, but the stock market (heavily buoyed by tech and AI) soars, deepening inequality and risk for average investors (31:01–32:03).
    • Andrew Ross Sorkin (32:03): “The split screen is you have the polls and the lived experience of a lot of Americans... but the stock market has remained shockingly high.”
• The AI Boom (and Risk of a Bubble):
  • A deep dive on the risks and hype around the AI sector:
    • Tech giants are investing hundreds of billions per year, but there are doubts whether such investments are sustainable or will yield consumer value (38:29–39:45).
    • Sorkin (39:00): “The negative case is... there’s not enough consumer demand… or is there actually an end state?”
    • The risk: If these companies go public and are overvalued, average Americans (via retirement accounts) could bear the brunt in a crash (40:04–41:11).
    • Sorkin (41:11): “If you throw in AI, you have real growth. And that is… contractors, it’s electricians, it’s the energy complex... But if it fails, it will fail and touch all of us.”
  • On the upside: transformative technological growth could create new industries and possibilities—though job displacement remains a central fear (41:51–44:45).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On SCOTUS’ Internal Contradictions:
  • Ari Melber (06:40): “People are left wondering why the court is this inconsistent and why the Trump rules that give him so much more power… don’t extend to the Fed? Is that just because the Fed deals with money and we live in a capitalist system where the Supreme Court's like, hey, they have the MAGA votes, … but they don’t want to mess with the economy too much because money matters more?”
• On Agency Capture:
  • John Flannery (10:54): “Trump comes in and wants to make it all political, all about his power, and basically strangle the government created by Congress.”
• On Judicial Corruption:
  • Sen. Booker (19:20): “This court, unlike any other, takes gifts, unlimited gifts from billionaires, RVs, tuition, lavish vacations. Billionaires have swarmed around this court, deeply influencing them and compromising them. In most states, what this Supreme Court is doing would get judges in other states jailed…”
• On the AI Bubble:
  • Andrew Ross Sorkin (43:02): “I think it’s very hard to believe that there is not some kind of correction slash crash of some sort along the way. … This is much more to me like 1999. There are the Amazons… and a lot of things that don’t [survive].”

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• SCOTUS rulings rundown & inconsistency: 01:00–07:00
• Analysis of the ruling’s impact on government: 07:00–10:22
• Expert commentary (John Flannery): 10:22–15:21
• Senator Cory Booker interview: 17:32–24:08
• Economic sentiment & gas prices: 26:30–31:01
• Tech bubble & AI market discussion (Andrew Ross Sorkin): 36:20–44:45
• Closing/Upcoming SCOTUS cases preview: 45:01–46:02

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Summary Takeaways

• The Supreme Court issued a mixed-bag of rulings: blocking Trump’s attempt to limit mail balloting (a victory for voting rights), but simultaneously stripping independence from most federal agencies (a presidential power grab)—with the Fed as a special exception.
• Guests and the host explicitly frame the Court as inconsistent, politically motivated, and possibly swayed by elite interests, raising alarms about American democratic institutions and fairness.
• Economic pain among ordinary Americans stands in contrast with Wall Street optimism; persistent high costs and an affordable housing crisis may shape midterm politics.
• The burgeoning AI industry could pose risks to the retirement savings of average Americans if the tech bubble bursts—a modern echo of the past financial crises.
• The episode calls for vigilance, reform, and awareness: The line between democracy and unchecked power appears thinner than ever, with critical issues decided by just one or two votes on the Court.

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End of Summary.

Transcript

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[Ari Melber]

I'm Ari Melber and boy do we have a lot of developments tonight. We have a Supreme Court that's dealt Donald Trump multiple losses today on major issues, including one that we know he has fought tooth and nail for. But he is losing today, refusing the Supreme Court to take his appeal, which means he loses his bid to try to override the E. Jean Carroll defamation cases. That's a big one. Then also the court siding with voting rights to stop GOP efforts to basically get in the way of the midterms and try to see if they could get away with not counting some of the ballots. It gets into mail and details, but the bottom line is the GOP wanted to stop counting certain ballots. The Supreme Court today saying no to that. But in the most consequential case, the court ruling President Trump cannot go forward with this plot he had trying to fire someone that he doesn't have the authority to fire, at least not the way he tried. So the court rejecting Trump's effort to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook for basically no reason. And that means for now, Trump loses the effort to oust her. She stays in that powerful seat which affects economic policy. The court ruling that Donald Trump basically cooked his own goose by denying any basic process following the rules in how they tried to remove her. Now, the administration can still go to court in the future to work on what is still a long shot bid to oust her for what so far has been no longer real reason or process. Today that's a big loss A decision, a 5, 4 split. Republican appointee Chief Justice Roberts and Republican appointee Brett Kavanaugh joining the Court's liberals in stating, our Constitution creates three branches but only one president. That president is not all powerful, not by any means. If that theme is familiar, it is how so many of these cases and controversies have gone in Trump's first term. He was not trying to do this in every direction. And we saw him face rulings that trimmed and sometimes reset his powers. We saw that on the so called travel ban in the second term. They've been trying everything and at times they've gotten away with more and they've gotten away in the short run where they sort of do it and see what happens. This is a big deal today because the Supreme Court, at least on the Fed issue, says you don't have that kind of power. So they are telling Trump he is powerless to oust this federal official the way he tried. And that's a big loss. But as is often the case with this Supreme Court, it's not all consistent and it's certainly not all anti Trump. So whether you consider this good news or not, I'm gonna give you the full rundown in plain English of what happened here so you understand some of the several cases we hope, because while the court upheld that independence for the Fed and remember the logic I mentioned, President's not all powerful. We don't have a one person government. That's certainly not what the Constitution imagined. It then went in the opposite direction, undercutting that same principle not just in, say, one other agency, but basically in all the other federal agencies. Justice's ruling that Trump is basically a one person government when it comes to these independent commissions, which for many decades under congressional rules in both parties for a long time have been independent for that very reason that they're set up different than, say, the Cabinet. And yet now the justices say that Trump gets a power that they didn't say Biden had, they didn't say Obama had. Trump has the power, they say, to fire key independent commissioners, like at the FTC and other independent agencies, raising the question of whether we're still going to call them that independent. This decision comes down along a familiar break. NPR notes it was a significant win for the Trump administration, a major expansion of the president's control over parts of the government once seen as a check on his powers. The Washington Post, which is owned by Jeff Bezos and is not exactly some raging set of Trump criticism in the news section, simply stated the obvious, that this is the largest change to the structure of government in the United States in, quote, decades. And so this is where we are tonight. Now, if you go online, you might go to one site and only hear part of the story. You might hear the pro Trump part, the part that's positive for his power. Or you could go to another website, another podcast, and they might focus on the other part. Here we are going to try to show all parts of what the Supreme Court's really doing. And you can make up your own mind about it. I will just tell you that it is glaringly inconsistent. I happen to be someone who went to law school. You can hold that against me or not. But in law school, they talk a lot about precedent and jurisprudence, and the lower courts generally follow that. The Supreme Court is different because it can do what it wants. And lately, it's been doing a lot of what it wants, which turns out to be exactly, exactly what Donald Trump and MAGA want. Because Joe Biden clashed with independent parts of government. He followed the rules. They never popped up. And it's a very similar court. Of course, we don't have new justices for most of the positions. They never popped up and said, you know what? Let's give Joe Biden a lot more power over those independent agencies or student loans or what have you. And so then you say, okay, well, is this a shift where this is just a completely new doctrine? No, for the reasons I just told you, when it comes to the Fed, it's still gotta be independent. And so people are left wondering why the court is this inconsistent and why the Trump rules that give him so much more power over all these agencies today, new for the first time in decades, don't extend to the Fed? And is that just because the Fed deals with money and we live in a capitalist system where the Supreme Court's like, hey, they have the MAGA votes. They're going to give him as much as they can. But they don't want to mess with the economy too much because money matters more. If there is a better argument for these rulings, I guess we'll have to find it in the days ahead. But there is a big tension here. I'm telling you that in plain English. As for the official who lost out today, here was her reaction.

[Livy Dunn]

I'm very worried about a future where presidents like President Trump can wield this enormous strand of executive power that the president that the Supreme Court just handed to him in order to reward his friends and punish his enemies, and do so with impunity.

[Ari Melber]

That's fair. The Supreme Court has now provided more impunity for that kind of abuse and revenge, something that Donald Trump has done in the very recent past and may do again now given this legal weaponry. The court gave him that avenue. They also removed another check on his power. So there we are again. This inconsistency or the two directions I'm telling you about. It's that kind of day at the court, because Donald Trump, more than anyone since, say, probably going all the way back to Jim Crow, has actively admitted an effort to only count certain votes and to go after redistricting in ways we haven't seen in decades and to basically say he wants ballots counted if they're for him and not for others. He also, of course, is associated with an insurrection. So all of this is the era we're living through. And he wanted to work with Republicans to count fewer ballots in the upcoming midterms. Why? Obviously because they thought it might help them win, and they found that the court is checking that power for these upcoming midterms. It's ruling that they will be counting all the ballots, including ones that come in, as long as they are cast on time, rather than accepting a GOP plan that was gonna try to limit certain ballots depending on when they arrived. A five, four split there. Chief Justice Roberts, and we should note a Trump appointee, Amy Coney Barrett, siding against the gop. If you look at the chart on the screen, I've told you, things are a little all over the place or inconsistent. Today, we've swapped out Kavanaugh. Basically, he's gone there with the GOP on counting fewer ballots, you decide whether you think that's a good thing or not. Obviously, if you're for democracy, you wouldn't want to count all the legally cast ballots, not pick and choose. But it's only because another Trump appointee, Barrett, has swung into the majority that you even have this. That is how tenuous a line we are on for counting all the ballots in the next election. Election Day. Statutes don't set a deadline for ballot receipt. They don't prevent, the court ruled, the state at issue from counting those ballots. Now, that is a move to stop Trump led Republican efforts to interfere. You know, in the media, sometimes we are rightfully held accountable for searching for big headlines and narratives. There's no clear narrative here because the court has gone in different directions on these different issues all in one day. And whether it is aware of that or not, whether it cares whether Chief Justice Roberts would tell us he's doing the best he can because he's got a MAGA court. Or whether they think this all makes perfect sense is open to interpretation. What I can tell you is they are handing Trump new powers that recent presidents haven't had over everything except the economy, which apparently they think is different. And when it comes to whether or not all the ballots will be counted, well, you can exhale a sigh of relief tonight. They will in the next election. But that's just by one vote. John Flannery is here, former federal prosecutor, a no nonsense lawyer. Your thoughts?

[John Flannery]

Well, my thoughts on the last point are that I think the court decided they couldn't do what had happened in Gore and Bush. That is to say, when they had that case, they decided a presidential election in an unjustified, unlawful, unconstitutional way. And all the wringing of hands made no difference. Here we have an approaching vote and Trump and company are asking the Supreme Court to make it easier to win an election across Congress. And I think, though some say they're not political, this is certainly political. It seems to be. And they decided they went as far as they could. And Roberts would like to retain his notion that this is a court of law, not an ideological and supporter of Trump for whatever he needs. As for the other, which is the power, that's both startling and terrifying. We already had a Supreme Court that gave him immunity. Now we have a Supreme Court that basically said, with one exception, the Cook case in the Federal Reserve, you have complete control over these people appointed, hired by independent agencies formed by the Congress, directing the executive Trump and his predecessors to do what Congress authorized to be done, but not to destroy. Trump wants to destroy all these many agencies. Nlrb, you know, you go through them, I think, I don't know if there are two dozen, but there's quite a number of them. In other words, we have this entire structure created by Congress to accomplish certain things and to give independence so that it would be impartial and not political. And Trump comes in and wants to make it all political, all about government, all about his power, and basically strangle the government created by Congress.

[Ari Melber]

I think you put that well. And I'm curious, do you see any reason other than money as to why they don't apply that to the Fed? It's almost like, you know, it's almost like a 401k exception where they say, well, we're going to let Trump have at it, but not with our savings.

[John Flannery]

Well, you know, I'd like to be able to draw a line from Adam Smith and Wealth of nations and his feeling about trust forward with Alexander Hamilton and his sense of the bank, the American bank, and what a torturous historical path that was. But I have to wonder that it's not written on the pages why they decided it the way they did.

[Ari Melber]

Right.

[John Flannery]

Not this person, Cook, someone else. And why not Cook? Because Cook is like Comey and the other BS investigations, prosecutions by the Justice Department. So it's not said, but it sure is a concern. And the only clue we have that they may be thinking that way is give the governor a chance to prove her case in court, her defense, really. And that's the thing they single out. They say, well, look at it down the road and we'll see what happens. But what we're.

[Ari Melber]

Yeah, they all jump in. I mean, they hang it on process. Right. And our job as lawyers and analysts and journalists is. Will tell you what they said. They say process, and I'm telling folks that doesn't seem logical. It seems like it has more to do with money. And maybe they don't care about this or other presidents running roughshod over these other agencies, but something about the financial system bothers them more. And last time I checked, a lot of Americans are worried not only about their jobs, but about clean water and having independent, nonpartisan officials. This is a blow against that.

[John Flannery]

Well, I think it's true whenever Trump's involved, it's about power and money, but the money part is always complemented by the power part and in this case, immunity for himself, various deals he's trying to get, money he's trying to get from the government. And now I can deal with these independent agencies because now they're dependent on me. And so it's a march toward an autocracy, toward a modern monarchy that even Hamilton himself, though he mentioned favorably in certain circumstances, never embraced. So they're kind of exceeding their birthright as Federalists. And I would hope that what we're going to see is the Jeffersonian Republicans of today are going to put us back on the right path. And so we have a reason to celebrate the 250 years.

[Ari Melber]

We got Senator Booker standing by, but here, here to that, the 250. I can only wait with bated breath as to which bow tie you will dawn on this July 4th. I hope you'll share a picture, sir.

[John Flannery]

Yes. Well, I wear the tie and I wear the stars and stripes for the government we're going to resume that has been in abeyance, and the one that once was, that I spent most of my life admiring and being respectful for.

[Ari Melber]

Well, there you have it, Councillor thank you very much. Let me tell folks what's coming up. Sorkin is here on whether we're facing a bubble. Almost no one else you could ask for better informed on that topic, our colleagues. But as mentioned, Senator Cory Booker is standing by on the Supreme Court developments. When we're back in 90 seconds.

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[John Flannery]

Foreign

[Ari Melber]

we are back with United States Senator Cory Booker. Welcome. I want to jump right into the tension in the Supreme Court rulings today. As I told viewers at the top, one ruling basically gives a lot more power to this President that this court didn't give to other recent Presidents, eliminating nearly all of Congress's more than a century old power. I think it's about 90 years to create agencies that act with independence from the President. Vox, writing that it's worth noting the decision was handed down alongside the Fed case I mentioned, which strongly suggests members of the Federal Reserve are independent from the President. If you look at the practical implications, it basically means this president can fire all of the independent agency chiefs, making them less than independent. We could put this up, but can't fire. This is number seven. Can't fire just the members of the Fed. As a Judiciary Committee member and a legal scholar in your own right, a lawmaker and law writer, does this make any sense, what happened today?

[Senator Cory Booker]

Yeah, it makes sense to me. First of all, and I'll come back to this point, we have a corrupt and compromised court in ways we've never seen in American history, continuing to make decisions that pull power away from everyday Americans, taking away their reproductive rights to control their own body, pulling away their voting rights. More recently, when they tried to access the court to sue big corporations like Monsanto and Bayer, it just recently in the last days, pulled away their power to be able to successfully fight against corporations. Now here they are again, men making a decision that will benefit the wealthy and the powerful against the people. Because think about these independent agencies. You have the Federal Trade Commission that protects people against unjust mergers and corporate concentration. You have the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau that has already returned in the past literally tens of millions, hundreds of millions of dollars to consumers who've been screwed over by the big banks. There's going to be agency after agency that now is gonna be at the behest of powerful people like this president who doesn't care about people, but it's gonna use and abuse them and turn independent agencies into political arms. And so let me just say, I say this court is corrupt. And I'm making it my mission to bring this court under ethics laws. Cause remember, this court, unlike any other, takes gifts, unlimited gifts from billionaires, RVs, tuition, lavish vacations. Billionaires have swarmed around this court, deeply influencing them and compromising them. In most states, what this Supreme Court is doing would get judges in other states jailed, literally brought out in handcuffs and put in jail. And so we have to make it a point to save our democracy by reforming this court.

[Ari Melber]

Do you think they treat the Fed differently because it's involved in money?

[Senator Cory Booker]

I think they're terrified because there are lots of people who, because of the Fed and having a stable markets, stable, full faith and credit in this country, are seeing the windfall years where they're making people who have invested in their Stock, their wealth comes from the stock market, are making a lot of money because of the stability of the Fed. So they left that one alone. But all these other ones that protect our health, our safety, protect us against monopolies, all of these other ones now are at the whim of a President and have been these independent agencies created in a bipartisan manner, never challenged before, now can be thoroughly corrupted by the corruption of money and politics, which we're seeing growing more and more from the executive branch to mine to the.

[Ari Melber]

Well, you're hitting important stuff. I think most people can feel this. If they don't, they might not know all the details. Jurisdiction, you know, jurisdiction, jurisprudence, standing, forget it. I think people feel that there is a kind of a rot of elites in Washington. You just laid out some of the reasons and so they say, oh, oh yeah, if it involves your money and these dividends and you know, most people don't have enough money to be doing a lot in the stock market or to be thinking about interest rates, except for maybe how it hits their regular consumer savings account. And so, you know, everybody in politics knows about nimby. Not in my backyard. And you get the feeling that Supreme Court, for them, NIMBY is their money, their elites and the rich people around them. And so for them, nimby, they don't want Trump running roughshod there. Trump can't just fire all the Federal Reserve chairs cuz what would happen? And yet for every other part of the government, apparently that's now okay.

[Senator Cory Booker]

Yeah, I mean look, the biggest threat to our democracy unleashed like in an incendiary way by the Supreme Court and Citizens United. But it's the corruption of money in politics where you're seeing in the Supreme Court, I've just described that the President. It's open. If you want contracts, donate to my ballroom. Those people got $50 billion worth of contracts. I'm trading stocks. This is a president in companies I am influencing with my decisions. Senators, the reason why I don't own individual stocks, but senators trading stock. Senators playing in the market with their insider information. And I just came from Texas and Ohio campaigning. We have never seen such a deluge of dark money flowing into these elections industries. Hundreds of millions of dollars. We have normalized corruption in our country and we're seeing the scorecard in these Supreme Court decisions where the people are losing and the powerful continue to win at our highest court.

[Ari Melber]

No, it's super important and I think what you're saying connects with a lot of what people are angry about out there. The Final silver lining, if you will, or I don't know if you're a deadhead senator. Touch a gray silver lining, however you want to look at it. A narrow decision to defend counting all the ballots. That's a low bar. And what's your reaction to that and Amy Coney Barrett going that way?

[Senator Cory Booker]

Well, I saw the cynicism in the oral arguments. I figured this one was going to land this way. People forget we have red states that have been doing mail in ballots for a long time. What it would do to Alaska, what it would do to Utah. So this one did not surprise me, was really ringing alarm bells. I think we're coming to a real crossroads in our democracy. In these next two elections, we're either gonna get a course correction and put term limits on our Supreme Court. Ethics laws on the supreme court. Ban corporate PACs, ban dark money. We're at a cross multiple. Either we correct for this or we are gonna go into a tailspin out of control as a democracy where the wealth and the power in this country are gonna continue to concentrate and the rights of individuals and the well being of of everyday Americans is going to continue to suffer.

[Ari Melber]

Understood. And Senator Booker, with all these rulings, we wanted to hear from you. Thanks for making the time tonight.

[Senator Cory Booker]

Thank you for having me. I appreciate you.

[Ari Melber]

Appreciate it. We've just been discussing the markets. Meanwhile, prices going up for many people in Trump's economy. We have the story that could haunt him in these midterms. Musk and the tech bubble concerns combined with the gas prices, the energy, CNBC and New York Times that Andrew Roth Sorkin here next.

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[Livy Dunn]

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[Ari Melber]

There are new indicators that this Trump economy is a problem for Republicans. Even their candidates say it Oil prices jumping again today with the choppiness of the peace deal with Iran. Everyday Americans are still facing gas prices that are high. You watch the news and you say, oh, maybe the Iran thing is fading as a story. Well, it's not fading as an issue. Just below 4 bucks a gallon as you see there, a surge when the war first began. Ms. Now just spoke with Americans in California about these concerns.

[Livy Dunn]

Are you worried about your little girl being able to buy a house someday?

[Ari Melber]

I don't know if that's a realistic possibility with the direction we're going.

[Livy Dunn]

I think everything is just overpriced today.

[Ari Melber]

Not just me, but a lot of other people that I grew up with

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

have been sort of priced out of the home that we grew up in.

[Ari Melber]

This is the affordability crisis. We keep hearing about the facts. The economic data shows that Donald Trump's policies have made it worse. Any president tends to own the economy, but this is above and beyond that and his approval is crashing. If you look around and say, is anybody seeing this? Are people against this? Yeah, 66% of the country disapproving of Trump. Inside that majority, 82% worried things are getting worse. The reality rattling the GOP. One Republican senator says it's not great. Trump is clearly not trying to address the situation. He doesn't even say the words that he used to at least say on the campaign trail. Affordability is no longer his priority. We are joined now by Andrew Ross Sorkin, he is the acclaimed financial journalist, cnbc, host of Squawkbox. He created the show Billions, a best selling author. His latest book, 1929 Inside the Greatest crash in Wall Street History and How it Shattered a nation. A topic we will get to because soon we're going to talk about the crash. Just not in this segment. Okay.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

In this segment, hope is not one. Okay.

[Ari Melber]

What you see there is the real lived experience of the economy which is different from oh, Iran looks like it might get better, which means someday other things will get better from now to November. How does this play out for people's so it's complicated.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Look, oil prices have been elevated and they've been elevated in large part because of war. Iran. There's no question. The truth is that if you buy a barrel of oil, a barrel of oil, the prices come down a lot. The point is we don't buy it by the barrel, we buy it by the gallon at the pump.

[Ari Melber]

I'll tell you something, the price at the pump, I'll keep this brief.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Yes.

[Ari Melber]

The only thing you buy the by the barrel is Inc. For those long books. Okay, I'm done. Go ahead.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

So the truth is by the barrel, it's come down a lot. The question, and this is, look, I think the administration, part of the reason that they've even gone down the road of the ceasefire in the timing of that ceasefire is the price of oil. And the midterms, I think they're completely and utterly connected. And the question is how quickly can the price of oil from the buy it by the barrel to buying it at the pump translate. One of the things you saw, I don't know if you saw in the last week, President Trump was out there saying that he thought that the gasoline companies were gouging customers over the price of oil. By the way, arguably the price should be lower than it is at this point given where given what you can buy for by the barrel. So that is an issue. How long the ceasefire lasts, whether the ceasefire lasts, what that ultimately looks like. And can you get the price down given by the way, part of its insurance companies. Are you going to ensure a boat that's going through the Strait of Hormuz right now? That is a big question. So some boats are going through, some other boats are not going through.

[Ari Melber]

You're asking me? We're going to have to negotiate. It might, might be expensive.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

And so it's possible right now gas prices are still elevated even though the price of a barrel has come down, the price of the pump still Elevated. And the question is, how long does that stay? Does it come down more, which is what he and the administration is hoping for, or does it, does it remain higher and elevated? Because there's an expectation that actually there is no deal and that they're back at it all over again.

[Ari Melber]

And how do you measure consumer sentiment, how people are feeling and living in this economy? We have one data point here. When you ask people, oh, almost half look at the polls. Well, here's a poll. I'm almost half say they're skipping summer vacation entirely, which could involve, you know, driving to the lake for a day or the weekend. They're skipping this NPR sighting costs.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

So, look, there's a split screen situation going on here. The split screen is you have the polls and the sort of lived experience of a lot of Americans who are saying this is expensive. This is, this is making us hurt, by the way, at the same time that, you know, you look at those, all the booing going on, commencement speeches over AI in large part because younger people really think it's going to be much harder and it statistically is harder to get a job today than out of college, than it's been in years. All of that is true. But the other split screen of this is the stock market has remained shockingly high. I mean, shockingly high. I mean, look, we've had a bit of a roller coaster even the past week or two, but you look at the SpaceX IPO and all this stuff, and I know we'll get into some of that. But I think that when I say split screen on one end, you say to yourself, oh, my goodness, it looks like people are, people are betting that the future, you know, 12 months, 18 months from now is so much better. And yet my lived experience today doesn't feel bad.

[Ari Melber]

And so do you. When you look at that economy, do you think going into November that is likely to change a lot or not? Because Republicans are set, Republican candidates, forget everybody else, are saying they're going to lose on this hand. They need the hand to change.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

I think to a large degree, they're going to need the hand to change. And the question is, what can happen between now and now?

[Ari Melber]

That's what I'm asking you.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Yes. No, I'm agreeing with you.

[Ari Melber]

Can it change a lot or not?

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

I think it's going to be very hard to fundamentally change that game unless there really is a meaningful ceasefire. And you really do see oil prices drop at the pump meaningfully. And by the way, it's possible that they will. I don't I don't want to take that possibility away. I think it's possible that it drops. And if that happens, it's not just what it is at the pump. We always think about oil as, you know, our own experience at the pump, in the, in the back of the car, it's everything. Right. It's, it's every product.

[Ari Melber]

Yeah. All the prices are elevated.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

So it's, that's the way. In the way, at least I think about it. And I think it's possible that things get marginally better in the short term. But what I don't know is whether it'll be enough to change that dynamic for this administration or Republicans in that, in that context. By the way, if you're a Democrat, and this is, this is the hardest part, if you're a Democrat today,

[John Flannery]

you

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

can't, you can't hope for higher oil prices. But there is this sort of very interesting sort of disconnect between.

[Ari Melber]

You get a lot of that worlds right now.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Politics.

[Ari Melber]

Yeah. You get disaster planning. Right.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

And so your own politics. What, what are you supposed to be sort of rooting for?

[Ari Melber]

I'm going to tell you how we came up with the idea for the next segment.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Okay.

[Ari Melber]

We're talking in the office, we got journalists, you know, we talk about everything. And AI is pretty transformative. But, but is it going to change everything? And is it a bubble going back and forth and then people start throwing around terms that we don't all know and then said, we got, we got to ask Sorkin. We got just, we just got to ask Sorkin. Okay, go for it. That's the next segment. Is this transformative? Why do people hate AI? Both parties turning on it. Is it a tech bubble? And Andrew Ossorkin will explain it next. There's been a lot of Obama buzz as he just opened his presidential library in Chicago and discussion of his presidency, including of course, his barrier breaking initial win. People say he was a great campaigner, orator, he was promising change. But there's also no doubt that the 2020, the 2008 financial crisis was a big on ramp to him winning because it soured voters on the GOP and made people more receptive to his call for change. We're thinking about crashes these days and remember just how seismic that one was. Meltdown. The American financial system is rocked to its foundation.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

He has no idea how bad it is out there. He has no idea.

[Ari Melber]

He has no idea. Bear Stearns today leading the tumble on Wall Street. The stock plunging 45%. Lehman Brothers is going Bankrupt.

[Senator Cory Booker]

The news from Wall street has shaken

[Ari Melber]

the American people's faith in our economy. History in the making. The Dow plummets more than 777 points, its biggest one day point drop. And on it went, a financial meltdown that upended people's lives, jobs, homes. There was ultimately action from the government. There was a backlash to the bailouts. And now we're in a place where all of that could seem like ancient history or perhaps lessons learned. And yet there is new talk of an AI kind of bubble and scrutiny on how AI is affecting us. Everything from lost jobs or security risks to whether it's going to have more harm than good for us. Think about this. Four AI giants setting records for their spending, which means eventually the bills come due. $700 billion this year. It's a big part of the wider economic growth story we've been hearing about. Wall street though starting to get nervous. And while there's all kinds of volatility we're not telling you to day trade. There have been already some blinking alarms in a partial sell off, concerns over

[OnDeck Advertiser]

the rising cost of artificial intelligence. It led to a major tech stock

[Ari Melber]

sell off that Dr. Down the S&P and NASDAQ.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

All great technology changes

[Senator Cory Booker]

produce bubbles. Artificial intelligence gives a massive boost to the markets. But for how long?

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

So what's the end? Is it a bubble that bursts eventually? So I think it is, yes, Ray

[Ari Melber]

Dalio says it is. The big AI companies are still losing money. That's not uncommon at early stage. But financial documents from OpenAI show billions in losses. The cost of building the data centers and computer processing outpaces revenues for now. And we just had that SpaceX rollout, which briefly made Elon Musk a paper trillionaire. That company loses billions a year. When it went public at one point it was allegedly worth $2 trillion. I say that because at the time it was being valued higher than Amazon, which everyone understands to be a ridiculous comparison given Amazon is a real working company that's profitable all over the world and SpaceX is right now, well, some say the harbinger of a potential bubble. Now that doesn't mean AI isn't amazing. There is a lot of already clear evidence of medical breakthroughs, of discoveries. But skeptics say the idea that it is worth what we're paying for it is already in doubt. A handful of tech companies last year were accounting for the majority of of the measured growth in the stock market, which again speaks to that concentration. So if there's a problem in tech, it could end up being all of our problems. Andrew Ross Sorkin is back. He's the author of 1929 Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History and How It Shattered a Nation, a book a lot of people have been looking to. Let's start with the negative case and then the positive case. You're not endorsing either. So what is the negative case? Meaning this stuff's overvalued, it's not regulated well enough. It could be a big bubble that if not contained, ends up hurting people who didn't want to invest in it in the first place.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Okay, so the negative case is that effectively. OpenAI anthropic meta the other companies that are spending tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars a year to build these data centers realize that the math doesn't math on the other end, meaning that there's not enough consumer demand, consumers, companies are not willing to pay them enough money to ultimately pay for the build outs of these things. There's also a slightly different and important nuance to all this, which is when you're building all these data centers which cost so much money, is this one of these things where you just keep having to build more and more and more data centers, or is there actually an end state? You know, in most businesses there's sort of an upfront cost. You build something and then you don't have to build it again. But there's a question about whether you're going to have to keep building, meaning this the scale of it is enormous and that the chips, you're going to have to replace the chips. It's a little bit like a phone. Are you going to want to get the next generation chips every year, every two years? And so do those costs just skyrocket to the point where the math doesn't, doesn't show up on the other end? That is the negative case. And, and there's the jobs case.

[Ari Melber]

Well, before we get to the jobs case, inside the market negative case, if these companies keep going public, if everything keeps going in this rate in the next two years, SpaceX, OpenAI, which I mentioned, and another one of them, anthropic, go public and that means they're seeking trillions of dollars which comes out of what? Retirement accounts, index funds.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

What it ultimately means is that investors in index funds, typically in retirement accounts, 401ks, get invested into these firms. By the way, SpaceX is a good example of that. The NASDAQ 100, which is a major index just this week, has now invested money. So if you're in the NASDAQ 100. You are now a SpaceX investor. If SpaceX goes down, that's a problem for you.

[Ari Melber]

So we showed the clip of 08 because a lot of people said, aren't the experts supposed to see this coming? Aren't the regulators supposed to care? Well, we have a very deregulatory MAGA government. And my question to you is for someone watching, going, oh, well, I'm not involved. But if all these companies go public and they go into the indexes and the index S&P 500 is already tech weighted right now.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Super, super. We're all tied. The entire stock market is tied to AI.

[Ari Melber]

Do regular people get left holding the bag and is that messed up?

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Well, look, regular people arguably are benefiting from all of this right now and not just the tech companies, because I think there is. I hate the phrase trickle down, but if you really look at the economy.

[Ari Melber]

Now sound like the man. Now you sound like the man. No, it's just Jason argument.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Jason Furman, a Democrat I know worked for a month, you know the whole story. He looked at economic growth in this country and he says if you take out AI, you basically have a flat economy.

[Ari Melber]

Right?

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

If you throw in AI, you have real growth. And that is, by the way, not just in the tech space. It's contractors, it's electricians, it's the energy complex, it's the financial industry. I mean, it is impacting lots of things. So there's the argument that it's benefiting on one end and if it fails, it will fail and touch all of us.

[Ari Melber]

Now let's go to the positive case. Okay, Also not an endorsement. What is the positive case for? This is new and people say you thought the personal computer was big, you thought the printing press was big, you thought that phone was big. As technology, this is bigger and faster and so there will be an economic and societal benefit. What does that take?

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Well, the true shoot the moon case is that we create all sorts of new industries that we don't even know about. We create drugs that allow us to live longer, that allow us to live better. All sorts of things happen that we never even contemplated. Having said that, there is a big question, and I hate to sound like, you know, the skeptic. In great success, there's still going to be a question about jobs.

[Ari Melber]

Oh yeah, there's definitely.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

The job piece is such a huge component of this.

[Ari Melber]

But you, you're saying that there's a world where this stuff pays off in, let's call it near term of three to five years. There's gyrations but there's no giant crash and then we're looking up an economy that what that's producing 20% every year.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

I think it's very hard to believe that there is not some kind of correction slash crash of some sort along the way. Every time we've ever had. I'll say what Ray Dalio just said. Every time we've had any technological change like this, that's what's happened. Because what happens is money moves into these spaces indiscriminately. They people invest in some things that work out very, very well and in a lot of things that don't. This is much more to me like 1999 there, there are the Amazons that are embedded in that which was Amazon was almost worthless. Amazon was went bankrupt. And yet it succeeded in a great way. Pets.com is not with us anymore.

[Ari Melber]

There are going to be shout out to pets.com but RIP pets.com there are

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

going to be a lot of pets.com along the way and hopefully a bunch of winners along the way too. That's the sort of very balanced view of where this all goes. The only thing that makes it more complicated I think is I can tell you the downside in terms of like the bubble bursting piece of it on one end. But even in success, even in success, I think there's a real question to get to these productivity numbers. You know, we say it's going to make everything great. Well, how's that really going to happen? What does productivity really mean? You need to grow at a lower cost. How do you lower the cost? We are the cost. We're the cost. The people can oftentimes be the cost. And that I think is of course what has most people worried. The flip side is that some people think that all of a sudden, you know, it's go. We're all going to be doing side hustles and single. You know, everybody's going to be their own hustler and you're going to be

[Ari Melber]

able to have a company AI agen assistance.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Both of us will have a company that'll be worth billions of dollars and we won't have any employees.

[Ari Melber]

You make it make sense. You gave us the full sp sides and when I talk to you, yeah, you know how I feel. I feel like I'm looking at myself. If I were more productive, wrote more books and was better at math, it's like me, but if I could do math and others say that's how I feel.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Can I, can I please? Let's let's let's light that up for light it up.

[Ari Melber]

There it is. The be lighter and rust Orkin on two topics, two segments. Thank you, sir. Buy the book 1929, wherever books are sold. When we come back even. But more big drama at the Supreme Court. That's next. We've seen a lot come out of the Supreme Court today. Trump facing setbacks on the Fed on this ballot plot and the E. Jean Carroll case, while he also saw the court side with his efforts to expand presidential power. Now, tomorrow could be a major day at the court. It's the last decision day of this term, which means we will get the final rulings we expect on birthright citizenship, on the transgender athlete cases and on some key campaign finance questions. So I'm telling you that because sometimes you know what news is going to happen. We know we will learn something tomorrow. You can check out Ms. Now all day and the beat at 6pm Waking

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