← The Bulwark Podcast
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- [00:00]
Ameca Insurance
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- [00:31]
Rodney Williams
I'm Rodney Williams.
- [00:32]
Travis Holloway
And I'm Travis Holloway. Welcome to the Wealth Break.
- [00:36]
Rodney Williams
Let's be honest, building wealth doesn't look the same for everyone. It's not just about saving. It's about investing. It's about navigating systems that weren't built for you, embracing your hustle, and relying on your community to create something bigger.
- [00:49]
Travis Holloway
And that's exactly why we created the Wealth Break. We made something different, something more human. It's not just another financial podcast. It's a conversation about real life, real struggles and real wins.
- [01:01]
Rodney Williams
We're here to talk about the journey. You're hearing from people who've broken barriers, found creative ways to succeed, and learn to build wealth on their terms. Whether it's the first time homeowner, a gig worker, or someone turning a side hustle into a six figure business, we're bringing you their stories.
- [01:19]
Travis Holloway
And we're not stopping at success stories. We're breaking down the realities, like what it means to take risk, how to navigate failure, and why resilience matters. Because wealth isn't about money. It's about creating a life where you can thrive and help others to do the same.
- [01:34]
Rodney Williams
So if you're ready for a podcast as much as about people as it is about money, you're in the right place.
- [01:41]
Travis Holloway
Listen to the Wealth Break podcast on the iHeartRadio app.
- [01:46]
Tim Miller
Hey, guys, we've got a great double header for you today. Mallory McMorrow announced she was running for Senate yesterday. So I'm planning to have her on to discuss the case, campaign and more. And then I wanted to bring in somebody who had real expertise on what's happening with the markets and the tariffs following yesterday's Liberation Day announcement. And so we brought in Tracy Alloway, who's who's a very insightful observer of what is happening in the markets. She writes a newsletter and does podcasts with my guy, Joe Weisenthal. So she, I think, is going to educate us. I'm going to have more economy experts on in the coming weeks and months because that is what Donald Trump has thrust upon us, and so look forward to that. And we'll probably have Tracy back when the time is right. But before we get to it, since we got so wonky and nerdy in that first segment, I want to emote with you guys for a second. It is fucking insane that we are here with regards to the stock market and the economy. I mean, as I am taping this right now, the Nasdaq is down 5%, almost 6%. Really? The S&P 500 is down 4.5%. This is all self inflicted. None of this had to happen. There is not a bubble that has burst. There is not some issue in the credit markets. There were not a bunch of credit default swaps being bundled. This is not the big short. This is not a global recession. This is not a pandemic. It is just Trump chaos. Any pain you have in your retirement account or your 401k right now is only due to Trump chaos. If you're one of the people who are gonna lose their job over this, it's only due to Trump chaos. And here's the thing. Trump's whole career has been failures like this. This was utterly predictable across every metric. We screamed it from the rooftops here at the Bulwark and elsewhere. He bankrupted a casino. How do you go bankrupt in the casino business? Trump stakes, Trump airlines, Trump water. Fail, fail, fail. He's failed at everything. He was a horrific businessman. He was a good marketer. And we can be honest, he's been a pretty good political manipulator. That's what he's good at. He's a con man. He's good at conning people. But we are all about to experience unbelievable pain, unbelievable economic pain, because people who should have been smarter than this went along with the con. People who should have known better, who should have known Trump for who he is, went along with this and decided to take this risk because they thought maybe they might get a little tax cut or maybe there might be a little regulation cut that might help their business. Well, guess what? All of your fucking businesses are going into the tank right now and it's hard to see a way out. Tracey Alloway will talk about that in a little bit more dispassionate way. Up next, she'll educate us, get us smart on what's happening. After that, we'll get to Mallory McMorrow. Very much look forward to it. Stick around. Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. We are on the morning following Liberation Day and we have been liberated from the value of our 401s. I want to talk about that and much more with One of my favorite finance journalists, Tracy Alloway. She's the co host of Bloomberg's Odd Lots podcast alongside the stalwart Joe Weisenthal and also author of the Odd Lots newsletter. How you doing, Tracy?
- [05:26]
Tracy Alloway
I'm good, thanks. There's a lot going on, huh?
- [05:29]
Tim Miller
Busy morning. Thanks for taking the time with us here at the Bulwark. I'm just pulling up my little Bloomberg account here because we're right off the top. Not looking great, Creators is the word you guys have got up here on the website.
- [05:43]
Tracy Alloway
That's right. And you've made this tricky by recording at exactly when the market actually opens. But at this point, we all know the direction is going to be down, right? The announcement in the Rose Garden Liberation Day was a lot worse than a lot of the professional economists and analysts were expecting. And this morning, if you look at my inbox, it's just a flurry of notes with the words recession and stagflation in them. Everyone is rushing to revise their forecast for the rest of the year. Most of the notes that I've seen are forecasting a dip in gdp. So that would be recession. And a lot of them are ratcheting up inflation outlooks as well, going to as high as 4 or 5%. That's a pretty big deal given that we've just been seeing inflation actually come down.
- [06:34]
Tim Miller
It is quite a big deal. And I want to get into kind of exactly what the announcement was with the tariffs and the big picture economic stuff. But initially I just have to react to the fact that your friends in finance world, your sources of people you talk to, there did seem like a level of surprise. And over on CNBC after the announcement, they said it was the worst, worst of worst case scenarios. Obviously the market is reflecting surprise, as you said. By the time this posts, things might be different. But Nasdaq opened down 4%, Dow down 2.5% S&P 500 down 3%. Why are they surprised? I guess is my question. They could have just listened to Trump or listened to the Bulwark or listen to Newsmax. It wasn't like there was a secret here. I mean, he said it was his favorite word. He kept promising it. Why? Why didn't they believe him?
- [07:21]
Tracy Alloway
A couple reasons. I think it's a totally fair point to make. I would say the main reason when it comes to finance professionals, it's really hard for them to imagine someone in power doing something that is so clearly against the grain of, you know, canonical economic thought. I don't think there's A single, you know, seriously taken economist out there who actually thinks that destroying global trade is gonna help the American economy actually go up. So there's just.
- [07:52]
Tim Miller
They didn't think he could possibly be this much of a moron. Like, it was like it was unimaginable to them that it could be. That he could be that dumb, is essentially it.
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Tracy Alloway
Well, the other thing I would say is, like, that's the case for a lot of non professional armchair economists as well. Right. Even Trump supporters, when you talk to them about, well, what do you think Trump wants to impose these massive tariffs, that seems like a big deal. They'll say, well, you know, Trump, he just says stuff, he's not necessarily really going to do it. And then lo and behold, he actually does it. And even now after he's done it, there's still plenty of people who are arguing about whether or not this is just a negotiation tactic and whether or not some of the tariffs are gonna come right back down.
- [08:33]
Tim Miller
Well, I guess I had the benefit of having to obsess over Donald Trump. There's a lot of downsides to that. You know, having to know a lot about Donald Trump, having that take up space in my brain. But you know, one thing that you could realize is he bankrupted basically everything that he ever said. He bankrupted a casino. And he was, he's a very good PR person and a very good media person. He was never really that good of a manager of businesses. And we're seeing that now. But I guess maybe they all thought since the first term had three good years, I guess that was it. That's the rationale, that he didn't do it the first three years of the first term.
- [09:09]
Tracy Alloway
Yeah, I mean, the media story is strong. Right. And by the way, if Trump is living rent free in your head, maybe you should impose a 30% tariff on that. That's one idea.
- [09:19]
Tim Miller
How would I collect that? It's kind of similar to, I don't know, did you see his bleep the other day where he said that we are the Fentany smugglers are going to have to pay tariffs tariffing the value of this. So whatever vehicle he uses to tariff the fentanyl smugglers, I'll use to tariff him?
- [09:33]
Tracy Alloway
I guess that's right. It's all very confusing. And I got to say, like, when you look at some of the tariffs that have been unleashed, there are weird things in there. Like, I was just writing about this, actually there's a 30% reciprocal tariff imposed on Nehru, which is this tiny island in The South Pacific that mostly exports like fish and pig meat and some phosphates, but not that much anymore to the rest of the world. Even if you think this isn't necessarily an economic tool, it's a political tool, it's a tool of diplomacy. Maybe the question is, what exactly do we want from a place like Nehru? I can't imagine that like many Americans want to become phosphate miners. America's fishing industry has been in decline for a long time. And in fact there's, there's other things that Trump administration is doing that reportedly are hurting the fishing industry right now. So it's just all very confusing. And I think like the big question is, what exactly do we want? Like when do we declare success from these particular policies?
- [10:40]
Tim Miller
Nehru has been screwing us for years. Tracy, you don't understand. Our leaders have been too dumb and Nehru has been taking advantage of them. Let's talk about some of the specifics here. J.P. morgan calls it the largest tax increase since 1968. James Surowiecki caught this, and you're kind of alluding to this here, but the reciprocal tariffs is a little bit of a misnomer actually, because they didn't really look at the other countries tariff rates. They looked at the trade deficit, I guess. So this, as James uses this example, Indonesia exports 64% more than they import from us. So we used 64% as the baseline and we were very generous, actually only did a half of. Only half of that. So 32%. This is like nonsense math. I mean, like it's, it's much more than a reciprocal tariff, actually.
- [11:26]
Tracy Alloway
It's all very weird. There was a lot of confusion when they released the numbers yesterday because at first no one could figure out what those figures were actually based on, to your point. And it does seem like they basically made a simple math calculation where they took the trade deficit and divided it by exports. And I gotta say, like if you look at the table, you start seeing some very strange stuff. So South Korea, for instance, has a higher tariff rate than Brazil. We have a free trade agreement with South Korea and tariffs are coming in higher than Brazil, which actually does compete a lot with the US in agriculture. It's just weird. And then the other thing to remember is that famous billboard that Trump trotted out, that was just the reciprocal tariffs. So these tariffs are coming in on top of other tariffs that have already been imposed. So for instance, China, it's getting an additional 34% tariff, but it had 20% worth of tariffs imported, sorry, imposed on it earlier. So its effective rate is now 54%.
- [12:32]
Tim Miller
Right? Yeah. I don't think you should feel bad or anyone should about being confused by this because this. Treasury Secretary Scott Besant was on CNN last night and Kaitlan Collins asked him about that very issue, this China issue. They said, well, you said it's 34. So is that on top of the existing 20? And Beston was like, I believe it is. He couldn't even say with confidence that. And it does turn out, yes, that it was. I mean, the chaos is stemming from that. It felt like somebody that was honestly what it felt like to me, Tracy, and this is maybe outside your wheelhouse of knowing the criminology of the White House, but it felt like the people didn't they even inside they didn't really believe Trump and they were cramming on there midterm and had to push something out before April 2nd. It's like, oh shit, he's really serious about this. We gotta come up with a billboard.
- [13:19]
Tracy Alloway
This is exactly to your point earlier about why didn't people expect this? I mean, people in the administration don't seem to have expected this. Right. Trump was talking about tariffs all of last year and that's his big thing. I mean, someone pointed out earlier that he's been talking about tariffs when he was like on oprah in the 1980s. It's a long held belief. And yet, you know, we are months into the new administration, not that many to be fair, but we are certainly a lot more months longer into his campaign, his planning for taking a new presidency. And here we are, and no one seems to have worked out the details, much less communicated them to people, people you would imagine are important, like Bessant.
- [14:05]
Tim Miller
Like the Treasury Secretary. Yeah, you would think. Also just worth noting that Russia, Belarus was not included in the reciprocal. Everybody can just sit with that if they want. I want to get into your newsletter about the long term effects. Was there anything else about kind of the details of yesterday that stood out to you?
- [14:21]
Tracy Alloway
Well, the other thing I would say is all of these reciprocal tariffs, they're focused on goods, right? Actual exports, things that Americans like to buy, I don't know, T shirts, Nike sneakers, whatever. When we're talking about economic losses as a result of the tariffs, it's not just that these products become more expensive for Americans. It's also that they start to lose some of their associated, I guess, brand value. So for instance, if I'm, I don't know, a teenager over in China, am I going to want to buy a bunch of Nike gear nowadays? I'm not sure that's clear. You know, it's becoming more expensive, potentially even in China. And at the same time that brand value is diminishing very, very quickly. So there are all sorts of intangibles, soft power that are wrapped up in the taxation of actual things.
- [15:14]
Tim Miller
Yeah. You're seeing this in Canada, I think most starkly. Right. A friend of mine said, I'm forgetting if it was their sibling or their friend or whatever is living in Canada and keeps sending them photos from the grocery store of how like no one is buying any of the American products. Like they're the only things left on the shelf because people are like, f this. Yeah. I mean part of it's the tariff, but part of it is like you said, the associated brand value. So you had a great newsletter on the other kind of long term effects on this earlier this week. And there were two things that jumped out to me. One was just even if this turns out to be kind of a bluff, which just doesn't seem like to me like there could be long term impact on inflation and prices. And also it's going to benefit the bigger companies over the, over the little guy. So talk about both of those.
- [15:57]
Tracy Alloway
Sure. So the thing that markets and investors hate the most has to be uncertainty, right. And boy, are we seeing a lot of uncertainty lately. We are seeing it in the, at the consumer level, in the confidence surveys, but we're also seeing it in things like the manufacturing surveys. The Dallas Fed put out a really interesting survey of energy companies in the area and everyone is scratching their heads trying to figure out what all of this means for their business. A lot of them are talking about, well, maybe we're not going to invest as much capital over the next year because we're just don't know what's going to happen. Like why would I start building a factory in one place if I'm not sure the tariffs are actually going to be around in five months or whatever. So uncertainty weighs very heavily, not just in the immediate term, but in the long term. And we're talking years and years and years. And Joe and I like to talk about one of our favorite examples of this is US housing. So in the aftermath of 2008, a lot of house builders obviously went bankrupt. There was a lot of capacity taken out of the home building market. And you could argue that even today, you know, more than a decade later, that capacity hasn't been replaced. So, you know, memories for this kind of stuff are actually fairly long. And so the capacity question is going to be a Big one. How long will it actually take for us to react to some of these tariffs? These are huge, expensive projects, take a lot of time, take a lot of money to build massive factories, even simplistic ones to make sneakers or whatever. The other thing I would just add on to that is all of this is happening at a time when there doesn't seem to be what economists call a fiscal offset. So the government isn't planning on spending any more money to try to boost domestic industries, or at least we certainly haven't seen it yet. You know, if you oppose tariffs and then said, well, we're going to send billions of dollars into the US Economy to target strategic industries that, you know, that could help, it would at least be a sort of cohesive economic plan. But we're not seeing that.
- [18:13]
Tim Miller
Yeah, not a traditional free market, conservative economic plan, but yeah, that would be at least something. The thing that jumped out to me about that Dallas Fed thing that you mentioned is if there was a sector that is more Trump's base than that, I don't know what it would be. Right. Like, those folks, most of the people that they interview, they talk to for that are going to be Trump supporters. And so if that group is saying that we are seeing uncertainty, we're going to hold off on investing rather than saying, oh, we trust Mr. Trump, we're going forward. That is particularly alarming because imagine what people in more skeptical sectors are thinking.
- [18:51]
Tracy Alloway
I mean, the energy industry is the heart of Trump space in many ways. And the interesting thing about that Dallas Fed survey is it's not just short term things. Like, there was one guy, he was a supplier for parts in the oil industry, and he was basically saying, well, we had one supplier ask us if we could move all our production to Canada. Which is ironic because you would assume that's the opposite of what Trump intended. And one can only imagine how that supplier actually feels about all of this happening to his business. But the other thing to point out is there were people in that survey who are questioning the fundamental tensions in Trump's policy. So there is. Again, this is all anonymous. You just get a vague idea of what these businesses actually do. But there was one business that basically said Trump's plan for energy independence in America doesn't work with oil prices at like, $50 a barrel. We're seeing oil fall again today. You can't incentivize drillers to build new drills and produce more oil. If the price is really low and capital costs remain pretty high, it's just not going to work.
- [20:03]
Tim Miller
I'm sorry, Tracy, that doesn't seem right to me because we have the liquid gold that's underneath our feet. And wouldn't they just be so excited that Mr. Trump wants them to drill the liquid gold? It doesn't matter what the cost is.
- [20:13]
Tracy Alloway
Someone has to pay for it to come out of the ground. It's not the government. I'm not sure it's going to be the businesses either.
- [20:21]
Tim Miller
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- [22:26]
Tracy Alloway
Sure. So if you look at a lot of the short term moves today, I mean oil would Be a good one, right? Like oil is the lifeblood of the global economy still. And we're seeing that drop precipitously this morning, which means people expect less economic activity in the future. I imagine over the next few days you're going to see some interesting things happen, like more risk premium being built into U.S. treasuries. We call it the premium. And it basically means investors want more compensation for added uncertainty way out in the future. So again, that idea of long term uncertainty really being here to stay. And then the other thing I would say is there are a lot of questions swirling around what this means for the Fed for the rest of this year.
- [23:14]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I want to get to the Fed next. But just some of the other things, the job numbers, like, number of openings are going down. I think I saw you mentioned this in a newsletter. Consumer spending is slowing. You had a newsletter about the credit market also. There's some issues and you're a dispassionate analyst of all this, but when you kind of look at all that together, the recession chances, like right now, April 3, compared to say, I don't know, six months ago, November 3 of last year, and has gone up a little bit significantly.
- [23:45]
Tracy Alloway
Okay, So I am a dispassionate journalist, as you said, which means I have no opinions whatsoever. I am going to quote some opinions from other people.
- [23:54]
Tim Miller
But you have, you have opinions. That is not true. That is not true. You very much have opinions. I've seen your opinions.
- [23:59]
Tracy Alloway
All right, let me hide behind others opinions for this one moment. I've seen people ratchet up the expectation for a recession this year to like 89%, 90%. I mean, I haven't seen anyone ratchet up growth expectations. That's not happening. And again, if you look at what was happening in November of last year, people felt pretty good about the economy. In fact, they were feeling even better, possibly because they thought Trump was gonna win by then. And so you were seeing a lot of the consumer surveys come in stronger, particularly from Republicans versus Democrats. Now we're sort of getting into the reality of the administration and I think the business friendliness of it is, you know, in question, to put it mildly.
- [24:48]
Tim Miller
I think this is an obvious point, but it's just worth asking because, you know, sometimes my Trump derangement syndrome takes over. Nothing else caused this beside just the chaos he put into the markets over the tariffs. Right. Like there's no other outside factor or, you know, kind of cyclical economic factor that is, that is bringing this to bear. Right.
- [25:09]
Tracy Alloway
Well, to be fair, I will say there were signs of the economy slowing, you know, for the past few months. And you pointed out a bunch of the indicators that we've been seeing. So, you know, that's kind of been happening a little bit. But what's really interesting about yesterday, and Joe actually made this point very well. You know, both of us have been in finance journalism for a long time. We've seen a lot of policy speeches over the years and we've seen lots of big ones that the market has reacted to negatively. But all of those have tended to be like crisis communications. You know, you're in the depths of 2008 or the eurozone crisis. You're saying this is going to be your emergency plan, emergency funding. The market doesn't like, it starts tanking. Usually the market is tanking because the crisis response is not enough. This time it's too much. Right. It's like a purely self manufactured market crisis impact, which is extremely unusual in itself. And then the other thing I would.
- [26:15]
Tim Miller
Say is unusual is about the nicest way to put it, a totally self inflicted market crisis.
- [26:21]
Tracy Alloway
Well, the other thing I would say that's really worrying for investors and I think it's one of the reasons we're seeing such a strong reaction. I mean, Trump and the administration, all the professionals in that administration, they must have known that stocks were going to react very, very negatively to this. I mean they, they moved the announcement till after the market closed, which is one indication that they were. At least they had the market reaction on their mind. They did it anyway. Right. Which suggests if you're a stockholder or even a businessman, I mean, businesses fund a lot of their activity through the stock market. Still, the administration isn't really thinking about you that much, or at least they're very comfortable with inflicting short term losses on you.
- [27:09]
Tim Miller
Yeah. One of my finance friends sent me a picture of the NASDAQ stock chart and I can't verify that he's 100% right about this, but he said that this is the largest 10 minute drop in the history of the NASDAQ futures. So even if it's in the ballpark, not great. To your last point there on the Trump thing, and you've talked to folks that are pro Trump, that are in, that are supportive of the view. Is there any rational argument for this? Like can they make a case that they're like they're trying to weaken the dollar because they're trying to strengthen crypto or they're trying, is there any rational argument for what they did yesterday?
- [27:49]
Tracy Alloway
I think it's really, really difficult to make that case. I mean, I'll just throw out here. My dad's a Trump supporter, so I hear a lot of the talking points. The one that he's on at the moment is the market is overreacting. You know, it's the globalist international investors fault that this is happening, which, you know, okay, blame it on someone else. That's a classic reaction when something blows up in your face. But at the same time, like we are seeing this happen, right? America is losing its importance in the global financial system. One of the things that's been happening in the past month or so is we've seen European stocks go up by quite a lot. People are talking about the rebirth of Europe, the biggest moment in European history since the Berlin Wall fell, all because America is basically retreating from Europe. And it means Europe is going to have to come together, start spending a lot on defense, maybe start spending more on its domestic industry, funded by the government, I might add. Not like the US which seems to be stepping away from a lot of federal funding. And so that's going to create more economic integration, more growth, more togetherness, cohesion, whatever you want to call it. People are pricing in the idea of a, how should I put it, submerging America. We are seeing that in asset prices.
- [29:13]
Tim Miller
You did it, Donald. We've made the German military sector great again. Has its benefits and downsides. All right, back to what you mentioned earlier, the risk to Fed independence, because I am totally with you and Joe on this. I think it's underappreciated right now and a potential kind of medium to long term crisis risk on top of all this other stuff. Talk about that. And what would happen if Trump and this administration does something to undermine the independence of the Fed?
- [29:45]
Tracy Alloway
Sure. So all of this is stemming from an action they took on the ftc. So it was kind of funny. We interviewed actually in D.C. the FTC commissioner, Andy Ferguson, the head of the FTC. It was like a Tuesday night. And he was talking about how much he loves bipartisan opinion within the commission, how much he values it. It's very important. And then the next day, news came that Trump had fired the two Democrats commissioners at the FTC. And he had used this like, you know, kind of special power to do it that's now working its way through the courts. In fact, odd lots is cited in the lawsuit that those commissioners are now filing. And the interesting thing here, the relevance for the Fed is if Trump succeeds in doing this and if the lawyers fail at arguing against this in court. It could have implications for the central bank. It could mean that Trump. Trump can effectively fire whoever he wants at the Fed. You know, a regional Fed president, whatever. That would give unprecedented control, at least in America, to a president over the central bank. And markets and investors, as a rule, tend not to be fans of a central bank that is not very independent.
- [31:00]
Tim Miller
Yeah, so we love catastrophizing here. So give us the catastrophic risk outcome of removing fat independence.
- [31:08]
Tracy Alloway
Oh, man. Are you ready to be traumatized?
- [31:12]
Tim Miller
Yeah, we are. People that tune into this podcast, come for a little afternoon trauma.
- [31:17]
Tracy Alloway
Okay. All right. Well, I mean, I think the analogy you could look at is Turkey, for instance. That's a pretty good one. We've seen a sort of revolving door of central bank heads go through the Turkish central bank. They come in for like, a few months or a year, and then they're out the door very, very quickly, presumably because they're not doing the things that Erdogan wants. Erdogan has been pushing for lower interest rates even though inflation has been staggeringly high. And, yeah, that's sort of the outlook. Right. If you have someone in power who's pushing for low interest rates, but at the same time you have capacity pressures as a result of hypothetical tariffs, for instance, then you're going to see prices go up. The central bank, in theory, should be raising rates, but, you know, the combination of lower economic growth and higher prices stagflation is a difficult one for the central bank to react to, to be fair. But in theory, they should be raising rates, but the president wants to push them down. That is a recipe for, you know, prices going up quite a lot.
- [32:24]
Tim Miller
How's the Turkish economy doing?
- [32:26]
Tracy Alloway
I actually haven't looked at it that closely recently, which, again, you know, we're talking kind of emerging market stuff, right? Like these are like we comparing us.
- [32:37]
Tim Miller
To the types of things that are happening in emerging markets. You know, capitalists. Yeah, quasi. Quasi capitalists, Authoritarian states.
- [32:44]
Tracy Alloway
I think that's also the important thing to remember here. A lot of the US investment case. I mean, the US's primary export is financial assets. We sell lots of stocks to foreigners. We sell lots of our debt, US Treasuries to foreigners. That's been funding a lot of our business model. If the primary export is that. You have to talk about how important the rule of law actually is in this country. The stability investors investing in the us, they're not expecting, I don't know, like a coup or the president to be controlling interest rates. They're expecting a very, I guess, normal, normal line of proceedings. Right. And instead we're seeing all this uncertainty injected into the market and sort of the, the US Normality premium, I guess, being eroded.
- [33:36]
Tim Miller
All right, I want to do just a full catastrophizing episode on what would happen if that doesn't just get eroded, but goes away here in this country and we can do it another time. I appreciate you coming on on a very busy day. Tracy Alloway, everybody. Check out the Odd Lots podcast and newsletter.
- [33:52]
Tracy Alloway
Thanks so much. It was fun. Terrifying.
- [33:55]
Tim Miller
Yes, terrifying is more on brand. Up next, Mallory Mcm.
- [34:15]
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- [34:45]
Rodney Williams
I'm Rodney Williams.
- [34:47]
Travis Holloway
And I'm Travis Holloway. Welcome to the Wealth Break.
- [34:50]
Rodney Williams
Let's be honest. Building wealth doesn't look the same for everyone. It's not just about saving. It's about investing. It's about navigating systems that weren't built for for you, embracing your hustle and relying on your community to create something bigger.
- [35:04]
Travis Holloway
And that's exactly why we created the Wealth Break. We made something different, something more human. It's not just another financial podcast. It's a conversation about real life, real struggles and real wins.
- [35:15]
Rodney Williams
We're here to talk about the journey you're hearing from people who've broken barriers, found creative ways to succeed, and learn to build wealth on their terms. Whether it's the first time homeowner, a gig worker, or someone turning a side hustle into a six figure business, we're bringing you their stories.
- [35:34]
Travis Holloway
And we're not stopping at success stories. We're breaking down the realities, like what it means to take risk, how to navigate failure, and why resilience matters. Because wealth isn't about money. It's about creating a life where you can thrive and help others to do the same.
- [35:49]
Rodney Williams
So if you're ready for a podcast as much as about people as it is about money, you're in the right place.
- [35:56]
Travis Holloway
Listen to the Wealth Break podcast on the iHeartRadio app.
- [36:02]
Tim Miller
All right, we are back. She is a Democratic Michigan state senator and Majority whip. She's the author of the new book hate won't find you'd power and leave this place better than we found it. Yesterday, she launched her campaign for the U.S. senate. Welcome back to the podcast, Mallory McMorrah.
- [36:20]
Mallory McMorrow
Thanks, Tim. Good to be here.
- [36:22]
Tim Miller
Are we sure hate won't win?
- [36:24]
Mallory McMorrow
Hate is having a moment. Let's just say that he's having a moment, but that's having a moment. But it's on us. It's on us to decide if hate is going to win, and we're not going to let it.
- [36:35]
Tim Miller
Okay. All right. I like that mindset. I'm not 100% sure I'm bought in, but you know, the power of positive thinking. I want to play for everybody a little bit of your announcement yesterday and then we'll talk about it.
- [36:47]
Mallory McMorrow
There are moments that will break you. This is not that moment. This moment will challenge us, test us. And if it all feels like too much, that's their plan. They want to make you feel powerless, but you are not powerless. So you know what won't fix it? The same old crap. Out of Washington, the Democrats came, ready.
- [37:09]
Tim Miller
To fight back with their little paddles.
- [37:11]
Mallory McMorrow
Do you know who will? We will. We need new leaders because the Same people in D.C. who got us into this mess are not gonna be the ones to get us out of it. I'm Mallory McMurrow, and yes, I'm running for U.S. senate.
- [37:24]
Tim Miller
All right. Are you feeling it? Are you ready to run through a wall?
- [37:27]
Mallory McMorrow
Ready to run through every wall. Let's go.
- [37:30]
Tim Miller
I want to get into that second part of the ad, talking about what won't fix it. But first, I mean, you've been on a couple times, but for folks who aren't familiar with you, maybe give us a little TL doctor on your childhood, your life, how you got here, why you're running for.
- [37:46]
Mallory McMorrow
I was born in a small town where I pig sat for my neighbors. We're not gonna go that far back. I ran for office for the first time after the 2016 election. I googled how to run for office, took on a Republican incumbent in a Republican district and won. We flipped a district 20 points, and I came in representing Mitt Romney's hometown, largely on the idea that residents looked at me and said, you remind me a lot of my daughter who left and went to Chicago or den in New York. Why did you come back? So I am now in my second term in the state Senate. I am the Senate Majority Whip, the first Democratic Senate majority whip since 1984. And, yeah, I announced for U.S. senate yesterday, and the response has been incredible. But I think fundamentally, this is a time for new leadership to lead us out of the wilderness and lead us out of this moment. And that's a huge part of why I'm running.
- [38:41]
Tim Miller
How do you think you did with, like, Romney family members in that state Senate district slash other kind of Cranbrook graduates?
- [38:49]
Mallory McMorrow
Well, I. I don't think the Romney members answered their door surprisingly, but I did. Well, you know, Cranbrook's a private school. We know that, but Papa Doc went there, actually.
- [39:00]
Tim Miller
A couple famous, famous graduates.
- [39:03]
Mallory McMorrow
Yeah, I did well in my. My first. One of my first digital ads. I'm an industrial designer. And speaking of Cranbrook, one thing I love about Cranbrook is that is where Ray and Charles Eames met and fell in love and changed the face of industrial design and furniture design. They actually invented the skateboard. So the process of, like, the Eames chair people. Like the Eames chair people, yeah. So that frame from the chair is why we have skateboards. Fun fact. Yes.
- [39:32]
Tim Miller
Really?
- [39:33]
Mallory McMorrow
That manufacturing process. They invented it.
- [39:36]
Tim Miller
No shit.
- [39:37]
Mallory McMorrow
Yeah.
- [39:37]
Tim Miller
Learn something new every day on the Bulwark podcast.
- [39:40]
Mallory McMorrow
All right, There you go.
- [39:40]
Tim Miller
So, okay. It's a little different to run for Senate, though, than for state Senate. The door knocking thing. You can't door knock every door in Michigan. And so I'm curious. Curious what? I was listening to the ad, and it's like, okay, Democrats need to do things differently. How? What? It could be anything. Right? What do you have in mind?
- [40:01]
Mallory McMorrow
So, first of all, we have to lay out a positive vision. Something that I heard loud and clear in 2024 was people don't know what Democrats stand for. What they heard over and over was that Donald Trump is a dictator and a fascist and this is the end of democracy.
- [40:19]
Tim Miller
Those were some good points.
- [40:20]
Mallory McMorrow
They're good points. But people are also like, I know that. What do you stand for? So there was a willingness to kind of say, like, yeah, I know who that guy is, but that guy's also successful, and Elon Musk is successful, and I want to be successful. And for all of the horrors that is Donald Trump, he promised to lower costs, so people were willing to give him a chance. So we are going to go out with a vision for a new American dream, leaning into the fact that for way too many people, the status quo has not been working. And that means three things to me. That means that people deserve success, that we are not going to demonize success, that we are going to lean into what people aspire to. That means safety, your fundamental rights, safety from gun violence, safe communities, safe schools, and sanity. Because what we're seeing right now is absolute bullshit. And people are exhausted and just want government to work and not be a reality TV show.
- [41:21]
Tim Miller
I like that you had the three points ready, because I think that Kamala did as good as she could have done. Maybe not as good as she could have done, but I think she did pretty well in a tough circumstance. But my biggest complaint was when I had Carville on the pod a couple weeks before the election, I said, you were famous for it's the economy, stupid, and change versus more of the same. And don't forget healthcare. People knew what Bill Clinton was running on. It's like, what is Kamala's whiteboard? And he couldn't come up with it. And I couldn't come up with it because there just kind of wasn't one. Right. And I do think that, like, that you're right on something there as far as, like, the positive side of it is concerned that the Democrats have kind of run on this sort of amorphous. From Hillary all the way through Kamala, Hillary and Biden and Harris. Right. That all of them kind of ran on sort of amorphous arc of history, kind of, you know, we care about people's stuff, but not like, anything tangible that, like, people who are casual observers of politics could really wrap their head around. So, like, you know, how are you going to kind of try to buck that?
- [42:26]
Mallory McMorrow
I think that's right. I was at a meeting with Alyssa Slotkin, now Senator Slotkin, and she said that a guy came up to her at a farmer's market once and asked, what's your guy's hat? And she was like, what do you mean, make America great again? It fits on a hat. What's your guy's hat? And that's been something that I think about a lot. I came from product design and branding and media, and the idea of a story and a vision is really important. And in a place like Michigan, the idea of make America great again was really compelling because, you know, as late as the 1980s, five of the top 10 metro regions in the entire country for median household income were in Michigan. So we were one of the wealthiest, most prosperous states in the entire country. So that that vision is very appealing to people who remember what it was like to be able to afford the house that you dreamed of, not just a house and have two cars and go on vacation and maybe have a place up north. Like, that was a pretty normal standard of living. And for what I've seen in. In the Democratic Party, particularly leadership on the federal level, is just really living in the weeds of policy and kind of micro targeting people to death. So what we saw in 2024 was, oh, if you're a must care about abortion. If you're Latino, you must care about immigration. And there was like this hodgepodge of policies and the idea that maybe we can stitch this coalition together by giving every micro targeted group of people one policy, which completely misses. Well, what's the bigger vision? And I think the bigger vision is everybody wants to succeed. Everybody wants to believe in the American dream. And for somebody like me, you know, I'm a millennial. I graduated right into the recession in 2008 wanting be a car designer. Possibly the worst time in American history to want to go into bad industry.
- [44:20]
Tim Miller
And, well, maybe right now we'll see what's happening after the terrorists.
- [44:24]
Mallory McMorrow
Yeah, we can talk about that in a minute. Oh, my goodness. But, but, you know, I. I had tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt. I didn't have any health care because the Affordable Care act didn't exist yet. I had had a great internship, but then the industry crashed, so I applied to hundreds of jobs. I slept in the back of my car for a few nights and tried to figure it out. And there are so many people that I talk to who just. The idea of getting ahead is impossible. I can't afford to buy a house. I can't afford to start a family. Childcare is astronomically expensive. And that isn't even getting to. People don't believe Social Security is going to exist for a lot of Gen X and millennials and Gen Z that we're paying into it and we're not going to get it back. So for me, I'm going to have a campaign that acknowledges the status quo and how things were going was not working. And when people hear Democrats saying things like, we are defending democracy, I think for the average person, it sounds like you're defending the status quo, and that doesn't work. But the answer is not to burn it down. Like we see Donald Trump and Elon Musk, although I guess Elon just got fired and is being sent back to Tesla. We'll see, we'll see, we'll see. That's not the answer either. And there's a lot of energy at our town halls and coffee hours with people coming out and saying, wait a second, this is not what I vote voted for. So there's an opportunity right now to step into that void. But you have to provide a positive vision that people want to be a part of.
- [45:54]
Tim Miller
I want to throw two hats at you. Then we'll talk about Donald Trump. There are two hats that are kind of out there right now, the Democratic world. You've got Ezra Klein over at the New York Times going around with a hat that says abundance on it, talking about bringing more abundance to the American society. She's got AOC out there on the road with a fight oligarchy hat. Do either of those appeal to you? Where do you think? What might you think might be more fruitful for the party? Is there something that could, you could take from one or the other? What do you think?
- [46:27]
Mallory McMorrow
I think there's some truth in both of those. But if I'm very honest, I think both of those fall into a trap that Democrats fall into. They sound very lofty and elitist. Like to the, to the average person who is not listening to the Ezra Klein show, what is abundance? I don't think that actually says anything. But if you explain it to people that if we are going to spend billions of dollars on things like high speed rail, we should actually have high speed rail. It's not enough just to introduce policies and budgets if you don't do the thing that's real, you know, if you're going to fund housing, you should build housing. And by the way, that's something we've done in Michigan. We passed $50 million annually since majority in the state senate for a housing fund and we've built 10,000 new housing units. So we're actually doing the thing that we said we would do and fighting oligarchy. Again, like sounds very academic.
- [47:23]
Tim Miller
And eat the rich maybe about.
- [47:27]
Mallory McMorrow
I don't love that either. Because again, what's frustrating to me is when I hear, you know, kind of Democrats are thinking about what went wrong in 2024. And there's all the analysis that said Democrats lost the working class class. So as a result, you see phrases like eat the rich and also Democrats saying we are fighting for the working class. We tend to talk about people instead of to them. And I don't know that people like that very much. So, you know, when I talk to people, everybody I grew up with wants to believe that if you work hard enough, you're never going to have to work again, that you're going to make enough money and you can take time off and you can go on vacation and we have to stop demonizing success. And that's what I want to do in my campaign, that, you know, you deserve a foundation where if you work hard enough and you do all the right things that maybe you won't have to work and you'll be able to retire when you want to and you won't have to. For people in kind of my generation have a job and a side hustle and a gig and just be working constantly as if that's what we aspire to. Because it's not. It's burning everybody out.
- [48:30]
Tim Miller
So what is a way then? Because I, I agree with that. You're speaking to my former Republican self there. We can, you know, people want aspire to success and we shouldn't attack people for that. On the other hand, obviously there's, you know, I mean, we have like a gazillionaire class that has the percentage of our GDP that we haven't seen since, you know, the Gilded Age. And we have a lot of really rich guys that have way too much influence on our government and our policies. It's like, how can you talk about that and talk about empowering working class people in a way that you don't think. Think sounds academic.
- [49:08]
Mallory McMorrow
So I think Wisconsin showed us exactly how, first of all. And there was a really good visualization. I'm a visual person. And there's a woman who runs an Instagram account called Motherhood for Good. And she showed, okay, if you take like George Soros and it was like one little blue block of how much was invested in that race, and then you take Elon Musk and she started stacking up red blocks, her kids blocks, and it was just like a tower of blocks so that you could actually visualize and understand what 25 million doll into a state Supreme Court race looks like. And then her toddler comes over and like falls over into it. It's very cute and I think very effective. We have to start talking about it in real terms. And what I do when I'm talking to people, either on social media or at my town halls, is not use phrases like, oh, Republicans are giving a tax break to billionaires. That's true. But it sounds like money is just falling out of the sky. And that's not true.
- [50:05]
Tim Miller
True.
- [50:05]
Mallory McMorrow
What is true is Donald Trump lied to you and said he was going to lower your costs. And instead the Republicans are falling in line to slash Medicare and Medicaid in the Department of Education and steal your tax dollars to give it to Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos. And I think really honing in on the fact that this is not a wide swath of people, I think still in the back of people's minds, you want to believe, yeah, maybe one day I will be a billionaire. But if you talk about the fact it's stealing your to give to like six guys, people really get that and it pisses them off.
- [50:43]
Tim Miller
And giving it to six guys who are now like controlling who's hired and fired. And it is crazy. Like to me, like that is a tangible thing. It is crazy to me that one of the richest men in the world who gets huge subsidies from your tax dollars is like firing people that are nurses at the va. Oh, that's right, yeah.
- [51:02]
Mallory McMorrow
I mean Elon Musk would not, not be successful without government subsidies. I mean Tesla would not exist, SpaceX would not exist without government contracts and the amount of money that he makes from the government. I had a town hall recently and I would traditionally get like five to 10 people who come to a state legislators town hall. It's not exactly the hottest ticket in town. We had more than 100 people. It was in a library and there was overflow into the hallway. And of that group, three people were fired, federal workers, one from the va, one from the nih, and one woman who, you know, she stood up and said, I make 75% of our household income and I cover my kids health care costs and I have a son with special needs and he is not going to have health care. But she, she was so scared to even tell us what department she worked for because the fear of retribution there, there's no rhyme or reason. And to have this guy, these 20 something software engineers that he pulled over from X, just go in and slash and burn or send an email like tell me five things you did this week. And you know, a woman from the NIH is like, well I tried to cure cancer and that's what I did the week before that and that's what I did the week before that. And guess what, we haven't cured it yet, but we have to keep trying. Like it's just, it's infuriating. And I've gotten emails from people who, you know, went straight into the VA or another federal department straight out of school, who have been there for 30 years, this is their life's work, who've said, I've never applied for a job, I don't have a resume. What do I do? This is what I do. And I do it because I care about the work and what I do for my community. And it's just heartbreaking and infuriating.
- [52:53]
Tim Miller
What are the impacts you're seeing on the ground in Michigan here from these first couple of months? I don't want to get to tariffs next, but what about on the government worker side. And is any. Is that trickling down to what you're saying in Michigan?
- [53:06]
Mallory McMorrow
Oh, yeah, absolutely it is. You know, I, I sit on the appropriations committee in the, the Michigan Senate, and we had our first budget presentation the governor presents to the legislature, and that kind of kicks off the budget cycle. And 42% of our state's budget is federal dollars. So if there's a federal funding freeze, if there's a slash in departments, I mean, that directly impacts tax our state. And unlike the federal government, we can't run a deficit. We have to constitutionally pass a balanced budget every year. So I'm sitting in this hearing and one of my Republican colleagues on the state level raises his hand and he, you know, very blustery, says, is this finally going to be the year that we cut off our addiction to federal funding? And I say, further record, I'm like, they're our tax dollars. Michigan is already a donor state, meaning we receive back a disproportionately lower am amount of tax dollars then we send out. It's usually going to southern states. So the idea that like a, there's not an understanding of how taxation works and, and policy works and that we wouldn't fight tooth and nail to bring every single dollar back in is infuriating. And we are really struggling right now, as we think about the state budget, to understand what are the impacts going to be. Are we going to be able to fund Medicare, Medicaid, school aid fund? If the Department of education, that's about $2 billion that we lose. And that's school meals, that's IEPs, that's special education. Like all of those programs go away and we don't have the ability to backfill it.
- [54:45]
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Tracy Alloway
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Mallory McMorrow
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- [55:15]
Rodney Williams
I'm Rodney Williams.
- [55:16]
Travis Holloway
And I'm Travis Holloway. Welcome to the wealth break.
- [55:19]
Rodney Williams
Let's be honest. Building wealth doesn't look the same for everyone. It's not just about saving. It's about investing. It's about navigating systems that weren't built for you, embracing your hustle and relying on your community to create something bigger.
- [55:33]
Travis Holloway
And that's exactly why we created the wealth Break. We made something different, something more human. It's not just another financial podcast. It's a conversation about real life, real struggles and real wins.
- [55:44]
Rodney Williams
We're here to talk about the journey. You're hearing from people who've broken barriers, found creative ways to succeed, succeed and learn to build wealth on their terms. Whether it's the first time homeowner, a gig worker, or someone turning a side hustle into a six figure business. We're bringing you their stories.
- [56:03]
Travis Holloway
And we're not stopping at success stories. We're breaking down the realities, like what it means to take risk, how to navigate failure, and why resilience matters. Because wealth isn't about money. It's about creating a life where you can thrive and help others do the same.
- [56:18]
Rodney Williams
So if you're ready for a podcast as much as about people as it is about money, you're in the right place.
- [56:25]
Travis Holloway
Listen to the Wealth Break podcast on the iHeartRadio app.
- [56:31]
Tim Miller
All right, let's talk about the tariffs and more. More uplifting news coming from our, our new oligarchs, our leaders in Washington. This is a news item from your state. Stellantis is temporarily laying 900 US workers in Indiana and Michigan off after it opted to idle production at two plants in Canada and Mexico in response to the Trump tariffs. And that's just one example. What else are you seeing about the economic stewardship from, from these guys?
- [56:59]
Mallory McMorrow
I mean, that. Let's just think about that for a second. I said yesterday in an interview that Michigan stands to be hit harder than just about any other state in the country based on Trump, Trump's chaotic tariff policy. And it hasn't even been 24 hours. He announced this. He brought out big charts and then complained about the wind and he didn't want the charts to be blown away. And almost immediately, 900 people in Michigan have lost their jobs. Like, just think about that. This is not temporary pain or whatever Trump is trying to claim that it is where we're going to be liberated from the rest of the world. This, this is 900 people who don't know if they're going to be able to pay their mortgage and don't know if they're going to be able to cover healthcare costs today, one day later. If that doesn't tell you that this is terrible policy, it's immediate and it's painful and it's devastating to our state.
- [57:58]
Tim Miller
I assume you understand better than me. Maybe the interstate commerce relationship with Canada in Michigan might be one of the reasons why Michigan will be hardest hit when we did the live event together a couple months ago. We're trying to block that out. That was before the election, so I don't want to bring back bad memories, but I kind of. I hadn't actually spent a lot of time in Detroit. I loved it. I really loved our little weekend in Detroit that I had with my family. But we. I didn't quite realize that you just, like, take the bridge over to Windsor there, like, you're just driving.
- [58:27]
Mallory McMorrow
Did you see it?
- [58:28]
Tim Miller
Did you like it? Yeah, I saw it. And when we were there, there was like a run, like a marathon maybe, or half marathon, and people ran into Canada and back into Michigan.
- [58:36]
Mallory McMorrow
I've run that race a few times. You run over the bridge to Canada and come back through the tunnel. It's the only international half marathon and marathon, I think, in the world.
- [58:44]
Tim Miller
Right. And so in a place like that, where it's that easy to go back and forth across the border, like, something like this has a lot of, like, real effects, even greater than it would, you know, in, like, Louisiana.
- [58:57]
Mallory McMorrow
Yeah, I mean, you know, there's. There's automotive manufacturing, and a car can travel back and forth across the border in the process of being a assembled more than a dozen times before it's a final assembled vehicle. But then there's also just how we interact between Michigan and Canada. I mean, this is just like driving to the next town over. People cross the border every single day to work in Detroit or Canada in our hospitals or. Or in one of the automakers. We've seen visits from Canada drop already 10%. I know the folks leading on Mackinac island are really worried about this summer season, for we have a lot of Canadian tourists who come and visit Mackinac island and, you know, spend the summer on the grand porch and ride around on horses and eat fudge, and it's delightful. But if people don't come, that devastates our economy on top of the fact that seasonal workers for Mackinac island are almost entirely immigrants. So you're not going to have visitors. You're not going to have people to work for the summer. What do we do?
- [60:01]
Tim Miller
Who wants to come here on an immigrant work visa, by the way? I just. Because I have people asking me all the time, because I've been talking a lot about these Venezuelan deportations. People like, are you worried? And I said, you know, U.S. citizens are still on pretty good turf. We'll see how dark things get. But if you're somebody who's coming in on a work visa from another country, watching what this administration is doing to people, wrongly sending them to a San Salvador concentration camp camp. I don't want to work on a work visa here if I'm in a foreign country. Like, what happens if they, like, look at my phone or they decide that I overstayed it for a week or something, and next thing you know, I'm shackled in the Natchez prison in Louisiana? That's a legit concern, I think, that those seasonal workers would have.
- [60:43]
Mallory McMorrow
I don't think you can overstate the chilling effect that it has not only on immigrant workers, but on. When we saw the federal funding freeze for Head Start, we held an oversight committee hearing in the state Senate where I'm the vice chair of the oversight committee. And we brought, brought in Head Start program directors who said, beyond even the uncertainty of whether or not we're going to receive the funding, we cannot hire. Now nobody's applying, nobody's coming in. And that is the hardest challenge of running any childcare and early childhood education facility is hiring qualified workers. And people just do not want to apply for a job where they don't know that they're going to get paid.
- [61:21]
Tim Miller
What do you make of the. About this, the immigration part of this? In this question? I do feel like some Democrats have been reluctant to want to engage on what we've seen with the Venezuelan Asylees, with the student at Tufts, you know, because immigration has been a tough issue for Democrats. It does kind of fall into your number two, your safety number two of your three S's. Like, do you think that Democrats should be scared to talk about what this administration is doing with regards to these deportations and in some cases, not even really deportations, kidnappings, things really.
- [61:53]
Mallory McMorrow
No, we shouldn't be afraid really to talk about any issue because then they get to own the conversation. I want to make sure that as we go out and we start this campaign, we are emphasizing that communities should be safe. I have served in a legislature where we've increased local revenue sharing to our cities year over year for police. I represent the city of Detroit. That's a huge priority, is making sure that our communities are safe, that criminals are held accountable. But we've had, had what we've seen here in Michigan, a couple of examples. There was a dad in down river, so just kind of south of Detroit who is a permanent resident here, has started a painting business who was picked up by ICE at gunpoint after dropping his son off, his autistic son at school. And they haven't seen him again. You know, they they don't know where he is. They haven't had a hearing, and they.
- [62:48]
Tim Miller
Don'T know where he is right now. Right now.
- [62:50]
Mallory McMorrow
Right? And. And to everybody in this community, they're like, this is. This is our dad. This is our neighbor. This is a man who has never committed a single crime in the United States. And he's gone. There was also a woman last week, there was a story in the Detroit Free Press who. She wanted to go to Costco. She lives in Detroit. She typed in Costco. The GPS accidentally took her. You want to talk about Canada? To the one in Windsor instead of the one that's up by me in the suburbs. So she got in the car.
- [63:18]
Tim Miller
It shouldn't be a problem in a normal world you can just accidentally go to when Costco.
- [63:22]
Mallory McMorrow
You're taking your kids to Costco, you're following the gps. And they were held in a detention center for days. This woman with her children, One of her kids developed a fever. They had no access. It was like ramen noodles. They could not have access to a lawyer. And now she's on the deportation list. It's this chaotic approach to people who have done nothing wrong. And, you know, you talk about the. The students being picked up. Like, in what world should writing an op ed get you deported or sent to a detention center in a state?
- [63:58]
Tim Miller
Six guys with masks come up on you in the street like you're some fucking, like, dangerous criminal.
- [64:03]
Mallory McMorrow
That is terrifying. And if we cannot articulate, you know, I'm going to be very clear in articulating. This is not keeping us safe. This is not ensuring that we are going after criminals. This is an approach that they get to show. You know, it's. It's really disgusting what they're doing. It's a profound performance that is hurting people and, by the way, is not actually forwarding any policy about comprehensive immigration reform. There's nothing on the table to fix this system.
- [64:32]
Tim Miller
I appreciate you going there on that. And those stories are horrible. And again, I think you're right. People can talk about this and talk about wanting safe communities without excusing or being silent about this, because people really need to speak up. This is just the behavior of a Stalinist country, not America.
- [64:50]
Ameca Insurance
At Ameca Insurance, we know it's more than just a car or a house. It's the four wheels that get you where you're going and the four walls that welcome you home. When you combine auto and home insurance with Amica, we'll help protect it all. And the more you cover, the more you can save Amica empathy is our best policy.
- [65:20]
Rodney Williams
I'm Rodney Williams.
- [65:22]
Travis Holloway
And I'm Travis Holloway. Welcome to the Wealth Break.
- [65:25]
Rodney Williams
Let's be honest, building wealth doesn't look the same for everyone. It's not just about saving. It's about investing. It's about navigating systems that weren't built for you, embracing your hustle and relying on your community to create something bigger.
- [65:39]
Travis Holloway
And that's exactly why we created the Wealth Break. We made something different, something more human. It's not just another financial podcast. It's a conversation about real life, real struggles and real wins.
- [65:50]
Rodney Williams
We're here to talk about the journey. You're hearing from people who've broken barriers, found creative ways to succeed, and learn to build wealth on their terms. Whether it's the first time homeowner, a gig worker, or someone turning a software side hustle into a six figure business, we're bringing you their stories.
- [66:09]
Travis Holloway
And we're not stopping at success stories. We're breaking down the realities, like what it means to take risk, how to navigate failure, and why resilience matters. Because wealth isn't about money. It's about creating a life where you can thrive and help others to do the same.
- [66:24]
Rodney Williams
So if you're ready for a podcast as much as about people as it is about money, you're in the right place.
- [66:31]
Travis Holloway
Listen to the Wealth Break podcast on the iHeartRadio app.
- [66:36]
Tim Miller
Mallory, you know we gotta do this. If you're gonna be a new candidate, I gotta take you into rapid fire questions. All right, People gotta know a little bit more about Mallory. We mentioned already we alluded to. For the ELDER Millennials listening, 8 Mile. What is your favorite Eminem track?
- [66:50]
Mallory McMorrow
Oh, it's Lose Yourself. It's on my running soundtrack. Classic all time.
- [66:55]
Tim Miller
Okay. Running, lift, lifting. What is your exercise? What's your routine?
- [66:59]
Mallory McMorrow
Running and yoga.
- [67:01]
Tim Miller
Running and yoga. So what is your. Have you seen the morning routine? The guy that gets up at 3:30 and puts his face in ice cold water and then dives into a pool. Do you have one of those for your campaign?
- [67:13]
Mallory McMorrow
I get up at a normal hour and make a cup of cold brew coffee and sit down. It's really at the same level.
- [67:22]
Tim Miller
You might want to think about the ice bowl. It might just be something to do now that you're into a campaign. Might be something to think about.
- [67:27]
Mallory McMorrow
About.
- [67:27]
Tim Miller
All right. Michigan Mount Rushmore.
- [67:30]
Mallory McMorrow
Oh, Michigan Mount Rushmore. The Mackinaw Bridge. Mighty Mac.
- [67:36]
Tim Miller
Oh. That was a very literal, that was a literal way to answer that question. I was like, mackinaw Bridge is a good answer. I want to know who is on it. Which Michiganders you would put on the Michigan Mount Rushmore.
- [67:45]
Mallory McMorrow
Oh, on the Michigan Mount Rushmore. I think Gretchen Whitmer. And then I'm going to go a completely different direction. George Romney.
- [67:53]
Tim Miller
Oh, that's nice.
- [67:54]
Mallory McMorrow
Eminem.
- [67:56]
Tim Miller
Okay.
- [67:57]
Mallory McMorrow
And Aretha Franklin.
- [67:59]
Tim Miller
Ooh, Aretha. Joe Lewis. I was gonna say you can't do Henry Ford. Unfortunately turned out to be an anti Semite redhead. Mount Rushmore. I'm looking at the very different Mount Rushmores that you could possibly be on one day. What if we made a red headed Mount Rushmore?
- [68:13]
Mallory McMorrow
What kind of rock is that?
- [68:15]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I guess it would have to be in the Mountain west to be kind of like a. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [68:20]
Mallory McMorrow
Redhead. Mount Rushmore. Was Shirley Temple at. Redhead.
- [68:25]
Tim Miller
Shirley Temple. Yeah, yeah. I don't know, I assumed you redheads like had like other redheads that you aspired to be like.
- [68:32]
Mallory McMorrow
No. Can I tell you, I. I went on a blind date with a redhead once and we sat down and we were having a lovely time. And the waitress comes over and says it's so nice to see a brother and sister spending time together.
- [68:43]
Tim Miller
And you're like, this is, this has been fun. We'll see ya.
- [68:45]
Mallory McMorrow
And I was like, this is fun.
- [68:46]
Tim Miller
You wanna split the check?
- [68:48]
Mallory McMorrow
I'm never gonna talk to you again. Thanks.
- [68:51]
Tim Miller
If you could go. They're all Mount Rushmore themed. Rapid Fire. If you could go back in time and make a deal with Donald Trump that we put his face on Mount Rushmore but he doesn't get to run again for president, would you have cut the deal? Oh my God, of course.
- [69:04]
Mallory McMorrow
Are you kidding? Let's just go back in time and give him an egot. He should have an Emmy and a Grammy and an Oscar and just like give him all the awards so he doesn't run.
- [69:13]
Tim Miller
You have a daughter, she's what, four now? Three.
- [69:15]
Mallory McMorrow
She's four? Yeah.
- [69:16]
Tim Miller
What's the cutest thing that she's done.
- [69:17]
Mallory McMorrow
In the last month I signed her up for. Speaking of running, there's Corktown in Detroit. There's a St. Patrick's Day, 5K. They have a kid's quarter mile that I signed her up for and she was so excited. So we run right in front of the new Michigan Central, the train station that's been reopened. And she wore a little tutu and she got a medal and she wore that medal metal for like four straight days. And she told everybody in the grocery store, she yelled at them, she gave them High fives. She said, I'm a Corktown runner. I'm the fastest kid alive. Even though she saw every kid running past her, she didn't care. And it was the cutest thing she's done.
- [69:53]
Tim Miller
I love that. I love that confidence. Okay, my two hardest rapid fire questions to leave with. You want to be in the Senate? Should Chuck Schumer be the Democratic leader in the Senate anymore?
- [70:03]
Mallory McMorrow
We need new leadership in the Senate. Full stop.
- [70:06]
Tim Miller
All right. Last one is really going to be the hardest one. It's more. It's less of a rapid fire than a gotcha. I follow your ask me anythings on Instagram. They're very good. Other politicians can learn from that. But one thing I learned from following your ask me anythings is a little bit about your Michigan. You don't really have a full Michigan accent. And the best way to prove it is by asking you this question. What is your favorite video game?
- [70:30]
Mallory McMorrow
Super Mario Kart.
- [70:31]
Tim Miller
Super Mario what?
- [70:32]
Mallory McMorrow
Mario Mario. It's a meme. Mario Mario.
- [70:36]
Tim Miller
That sounds a little bit more like outer borough than Upper Peninsula to me.
- [70:41]
Mallory McMorrow
Yeah. Yeah. I grew up in central New Jersey, which I swear is a real place, but that is full Mario country.
- [70:49]
Tim Miller
All right. I bet the Michigan are happy that you immigrated there. Are you happy about your new.
- [70:54]
Mallory McMorrow
That was the best decision I have ever made. Best decision I ran for office because this has made me the best version of myself, this place.
- [71:00]
Tim Miller
All right, I appreciate you very much, Mallory McMorrow. Good luck on the campaign. We'll be checking in with you over the next whatever it is. 20 months or so, assuming we survive.
- [71:08]
Mallory McMorrow
Thanks, Tim. And I hope people come check us out. McMorrow for Michigan dot com.
- [71:12]
Tim Miller
All right, everybody else, we'll see you back here tomorrow for another edition of the Bull Work podcast. Peace.
- [71:18]
Eminem
His palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy. There's vomit on his sweater already Mom's spaghetti. He's nervous, but on the surface, he looks calm and ready to drop bombs. But he keeps on forgetting what he wrote down. The whole crowd goes so loud. He opens his mouth but the words won't come out. He's choking. How everybody's choking now the clocks run out. Time's up, over Snap back to reality. Oh, there goes gravity. Oh, there goes rabbity joke. He's so mad but he won't give up Daddy Z. No, he won't. Gravity knows his whole backsity's ropes. It don't matter. He's cold, he knows that but he's pro. He's so stacked he knows when he goes back to this mobile home that's when it's back to the lab again. Yo, this old rhapsody better go capture this moment and hope it don't do it Lose his health in the music the moment you own it you better never let it go you only get one shot do not miss your chance to blow this opportunity grows once in a lifetime you better lose his in the music the moment you own it you better never let it go you only get one shot do not miss your chance to blow this opportunity comes once in a lifetime kills. Escaping through this hole that is gaping this world is mine for the taking make me king. As we move toward a new world order A normal life is boring but superstardom's close to post mortem. It only grows harder, homie grows hotter he blows, it's all over These hose is all on him coast to coast shows he's known as the Globetrotter? Lonely roads, God only knows he's grown father from home he's no father he goes home and barely knows his own daughter. But hold your nose cuz here goes the cold water These hoes don't want him no more he's cold product they moved on to the next mo who flows he knows dove and sold nada sold the soul popper his toll it unfolds I suppose old partner but the beat goes on that it don't let him. You better lose yourself in the music the moment you own it, you better.
- [73:14]
Mallory McMorrow
Never let it go.
- [73:15]
Eminem
You only get one shot do not miss your chance to blow this opportunity comes once in a lifetime you better lose his counts in the music the moment you own it you better never let it go. You only get one shot do not miss your chance to blow this opportunity comes once in a lifetime. Do better. You can do anything you set your mind to, man.
- [73:42]
Tim Miller
The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.
- [73:48]
Ameca Insurance
At Ameca Insurance, we know it's more than just a car or a house. It's the four wheels that get you where you're going and the four walls that welcome you home.
- [73:59]
Mallory McMorrow
Home.
- [74:02]
Ameca Insurance
When you combine auto and home insurance with ama, we'll help protect it all. And the more you cover, the more you can save. AM Empathy is our best policy.
- [74:18]
Rodney Williams
I'm Rodney Williams.
- [74:19]
Travis Holloway
And I'm Travis Holloway. Welcome to the Wealth Break Podcast, a real conversation about finance.
- [74:26]
Rodney Williams
Let's be honest, building weft doesn't look the same for everyone.
- [74:30]
Tim Miller
I feel like sometimes being broke is a cycle and that we might have.
- [74:34]
Travis Holloway
To revisit that and we're not stopping at success stories.
- [74:37]
Mallory McMorrow
What happens when it doesn't go right? How do you cope with it?
- [74:41]
Rodney Williams
Because wealth isn't just about money. It's about creating a life where you thrive and help others do the same.
- [74:47]
Travis Holloway
Listen to the Wealth Break podcast on the iHeartRadio app.
- [74:55]
Tim Miller
Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway with the Stock up sale at Safeway and Albertson. Stock up and earn four times points at your local store when you purchase participating products. Save now on your favorite beverages from Red Bull to Coke, Monster 7Up body armor and Pepsi. Clip the offer in the app for event savings and look for participating items throughout the store. Shop in store or online. Plus you can even have your groceries delivered or use Drop Drive up and go to have your groceries brought to your car at the store. Restrictions and exclusions apply. Visit Albertsons or Safeway.com for more details.