How Trump Is Changing American Capitalism

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Daily – "How Trump Is Changing American Capitalism"

Date: September 2, 2025
Host: Natalie Kitroeff
Featured Guest: Andrew Ross Sorkin, Columnist and DealBook founder, The New York Times

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Overview

This episode explores the seismic shifts in American capitalism prompted by a series of unprecedented government interventions in major corporations by President Donald Trump. Through the voices of Natalie Kitroeff and Andrew Ross Sorkin, the episode investigates the ramifications of the U.S. government taking ownership stakes in companies—such as Intel, U.S. Steel, and MP Materials—and imposing revenue-sharing deals on chipmakers like Nvidia. These moves blur traditional party lines and are upending the established norms of American free market capitalism.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Historic U.S. Government Stakes in Major Corporations

• Intel Deal as a Watershed Moment
  • The U.S. government recently took a 10% stake in Intel, a move "almost uncharted" outside crisis contexts—such as the 2008 financial rescue of banks and automakers.
  • Sorkin calls it "a watershed not just for the world of business, but for the much larger idea around capitalism, around free markets" (02:26).
• Golden Share in U.S. Steel (Nippon Deal)
  • In response to a Japanese firm's proposed purchase of U.S. Steel, Trump demanded a "golden share" for the government, granting significant governance powers—including veto rights over plant closures and forced investments (05:14–06:11).
• Pentagon Stake in Rare Earth Minerals
  • The U.S. government acquired shares in MP Materials, a rare earths company, citing national security—something "we've also never seen...in this kind of context" (06:12).

2. Revenue-Sharing—The Nvidia Example

• Imposed ‘Vig’ on Chip Sales to China
  • After lobbying, the White House allowed Nvidia and AMD to sell less advanced chips to China in exchange for a 15% revenue share to the U.S. government.
    • Sorkin likens it to a "vig," "like what the Mafia would do...we're gonna take a piece of the action" (07:08).
  • This tactic is characterized as the antithesis of traditional Republican orthodoxy against taxing businesses.

3. Political and Historical Context

• Trump’s Motivations and Philosophy
  • Trump believes the American taxpayer is often "getting ripped off" by businesses and foreign countries (12:21).
  • Historically, grants aimed for indirect societal benefit. Trump seeks direct, tangible compensation or control in return for government support (13:38).
• Leverage and National Security
  • Trump values "leverage" for negotiation, sometimes more than the immediate benefit itself. National security—especially regarding the U.S. chip supply chain and Chinese influence—is cited as a major motivation (14:22–15:55).
• Challenging the ‘Myth’ of Free Market Capitalism
  • Sorkin: Trump is "puncturing the idea that free market capitalism ever existed" because the U.S. has always subsidized industries, now just "getting something back for it" in a direct way (15:55).

4. Political Realignment and Reaction

• Support from the Left
  • Progressives like Bernie Sanders praise the moves. Sanders has long called for reciprocal returns on government grants, likening subsidies to “corporate welfare” (19:20).
    • “So much of what the President's doing is taxing corporate America—something Democrats have long been advocating for.” (19:56)
• Conservative Outrage
  • Conservatives such as Senator Rand Paul warn that government ownership of production is "a step towards socialism" (21:20).
  • Republican establishment mostly silent; conservative commentators are incensed at the perceived embrace of socialism.
• Tonal Shift in Economic Policy Lines
  • Trump's moves defy traditional Republican dogma—echoed in Kitroeff’s observation: “It's fascinating... Trump's economic policies just don't fall within traditional party politics” (20:05).

5. International Comparisons & Precedents

• Comparison to European Models
  • Major economies in France and Germany have stakes in critical companies (e.g., Airbus). However, the U.S. has always critiqued such models for less dynamism and innovation (22:18–23:18).
    • Sorkin: "Where's AI come from? Not Europe...what's made the American experiment so successful has been this very idea of a, quote, unquote, free market." (22:40)
• Potential Expansion Beyond Current Targets
  • Trump administration insiders (e.g., Kevin Hassett, Howard Lutnick) claim this is "the beginning"—with defense contractors and other companies doing government business as potential next targets (23:34).

6. Risks, Critiques, and Unintended Consequences

• Impact on Competition
  • Critics warn "the government picking winners and losers" undermines Adam Smith's "invisible hand"—replacing it with "the very visible hand of Donald Trump" (22:04–22:13).
  • Potential for increased consolidation, conflicts of interest, and less competition if the government is both regulator and part-owner (25:57–26:39).
• Debates Over Real Taxpayer Benefits
  • Sorkin: Tangible benefits to taxpayers remain unclear, even as the moves ostensibly address the budget deficit and intend to recapture value from business and trade (27:11–28:36).
  • Lessons from 2008: government bailouts, often unpopular, ultimately turned a profit—but controversy persists.

7. Broader Economic and Political Implications

• A ‘Generational Shift’ in Capitalism

  • There's a suggestion that these interventions—if expanded or continued—could mark a "generational shift" in American capitalism, with private enterprise becoming more politicized and directed by Washington (29:05–30:34).
    • Sorkin: “We are in the midst of a generational shift in capitalism... that influence shifts the direction of travel, such that business could potentially become deeply political.” (30:20)

• Public Sentiment

  • Trump’s popularity is rooted in his promise to “break the glass” of an economic system that underserved millions; these moves may appeal to such voters even as their permanence remains uncertain.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Andrew Ross Sorkin:

  • “There's no question that the decision by the administration to take a 10% stake in intel is a watershed... this flips the entire script of the approach that Republicans and conservatives have taken towards business for so many years.” (02:26)
  • "A vig is like what the Mafia would do... you can sell the chips, but we're gonna take a piece of the action." (07:08)
  • “Ronald Reagan has a famous quote where he says the nine most terrifying words in the English language are, I'm from the government and I'm here to help. And here we are in a situation now where a Republican president is saying, the US Government is here to help and not just here to help. We want to own you.” (07:31)
  • “Trump is puncturing the idea that free market capitalism ever existed... instead of pretending it's a free market and getting nothing for it, he's saying give us something back for it. And that very idea in America is so provocative.” (15:55)
  • "His approach really has pulled in a certain subset of Democrats... Now, on the other end of the spectrum... Republican Senator Rand Paul criticized the deal... If you support socialism, apparently Donald Trump is your guy.” (20:27)
  • "Where's AI come from? Not Europe. Where did the Internet come from? Not Europe. And so... what's made the American experiment so successful has been this very idea of a, quote, unquote, free market." (22:40)
  • "We are in the midst of a generational shift in capitalism... business could potentially become deeply political." (30:20)

• Natalie Kitroeff:

  • "Right. No more invisible hand. Now we have the very visible hand of Donald Trump, of the US Government, the strong arm, if you will." (22:04)
  • "Trump won two elections now on the argument that this economic system has not worked for a huge swath of people in this country, that people had been left behind, they had lost good factory jobs. And so I wonder if there aren't going to be people who look at this and say, sure, you may be kind of breaking the system, but that's what I voted for." (28:36)

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Important Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:34–01:25: Trump’s interventions in corporate America overview
• 02:26–04:20: The historical context and parallels to past crises
• 05:14–06:11: The "golden share" in U.S. Steel and what it means
• 06:12–07:24: Pentagon stake in MP Materials, Nvidia's 15% revenue deal
• 07:31: Reference to Reagan and ideological contrasts
• 08:01–11:42: The inside story of the Intel deal
• 12:21–13:59: Trump’s philosophical rationale for the approaches
• 14:22–15:55: National security and quest for 'leverage'
• 19:20–20:27: Sanders and progressive reactions, conservative criticism
• 22:04–23:18: Free market critique, European comparisons
• 23:34–25:22: Signs of a broader, more lasting economic policy shift
• 28:36–30:34: The ‘generational shift’ in capitalism and potential politicization of business

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Conclusion

This episode of The Daily provides a nuanced and in-depth look at how President Trump’s direct intervention in major American companies—through ownership stakes, revenue-sharing, and leverage over decision-making—may be fundamentally reallocating the balance between public power and private enterprise. The moves have scrambled traditional political alliances, provoked comparisons to European-style industrial policies, and triggered fears of creeping state capitalism—while simultaneously addressing some populist voter frustrations with a system seen as stacked against ordinary Americans. Whether this is a lasting reimagining of American capitalism or a disruptive moment remains an open—and urgent—question.

Transcript

[Union of Concerned Scientists Announcer]

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[Natalie Kitroeff]

From the new York Times, I'm Natalie Kitroweff. This is the Daily.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

The president spoke with reporters. He says that the US will have a golden share in US steel shares of rare earth producer MP Materials on pace for their best day in history. DoD will be MP's largest shareholder after Nvidia AMD have agreed to give the US government 15% of the revenue.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

In a series of extraordinary deals, President Trump has muscled himself directly into the business of corporate America.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Friday night, breaking news.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

It's on intel, including making the US Government the largest shareholder of intel, one of the most iconic companies in the country.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

It really is almost uncharted territory. Is it?

[Natalie Kitroeff]

It's a move that's been praised by Bernie Sanders and criticized by conservatives as socialism. Today, my colleague Andrew Ross Sorkin on what all this means and how it could reshape America's approach to capitalism. It's Tuesday, September 2nd. Andrew We've seen Trump insert the government into US companies in a bunch of ways in the last few months. But the recent news that the US Government was taking this ownership stake in intel is the thing that convinced us we had to come to you. This was the bombshell. This is a major corporation and this kind of move is just extremely rare. And you, as our resident expert on all things corporate America, have been trying to make sense of it.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

There's no question that the decision by the administration to take a 10% stake in intel is a watershed. It's a watershed not just for the world of business, but for the much larger idea around capitalism, around free markets, around the idea of that the United States has spent the last century exporting the concept of free market capitalism and has been critical of state run capitalism. And in so many ways, even politically, this flips the entire script of the approach that Republicans and conservatives have taken towards business for so many years. I can't tell you how many business leaders I've spoken to over the last several days who are looking at this and have so many questions, have so many questions, not just about the particulars of the US Taking stake in this company. But in what it portends, what it means. You know, the last time we saw anything like this, and really the only times this has ever happened in American history where the US Government's gotten this engaged in business, it's been in the context of a crisis. We had this happen in 2008 with the investment banks, with the automobile makers. But it happened because those companies were considered in absolute distress and that the effect of letting them go bankrupt was going to be cataclysmic for the rest of the. The country and its economy.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

Right. The idea then was that these banks were too big to fail. Incidentally, the title of your book on this subject, the idea was this was necessary to contain major economic fallout.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Exactly. And look, that moment unto itself created all sorts of debates around the country that last even to this day around the very idea of bailouts and, and how the government should or should not be involved in the world of business. And so here we have this example of intel, which is just the latest in a string of transactions in which the US Government has taken effectively stakes in businesses or otherwise collecting tolls or other things that they haven't done before at a time when we're not in crisis, and how that may rewrite the rules of capitalism.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

So let's talk about how all this started. You mentioned that intel is part of this string of transactions. Take me through that.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

So earlier this year, we saw Nippon, which is a steel maker in Japan, try to buy U.S. steel. And the president stepped in and said, I'll approve this deal, but I'll only approve this deal if. If the United States gets what's called a golden share. So this is a special share that has certain governance powers which effectively allow the US Government in many cases, to control what Nippon Steel does with US Steel in the future.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

How so? In what way?

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Well, for example, if the US Government decides that Nippon wants to close down a factory that's owned by U.S. steel, they could say no. In certain cases, they may try to even be able to require Nippon Steel to make investments in ways that Nippon Steel wouldn't normally. So it just changes the complete dynamic of the business.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

Right.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

And then in July, we saw the Pentagon take a stake in a rare earths minerals company, which is something we've also never seen the government do in this kind of context. And then after that, we. We saw an even more unique transaction. Trump administration officials, you know, they had been railing about how we should not allow our chip makers to export their chips to China.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

Right. It Was prohibited.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

It was prohibited until the CEO of Nvidia goes to the White House and makes the case to the President that they should be able to sell less advanced chips in China.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

Right.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

And, and the President says, you know what? Okay, I'll let you do that, but you are gonna pay me. You're gonna pay the US government a 15% tax on those chips. Now some people look at that and say, that's a 15% vig.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

What's a vig?

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

A vig is like what the Mafia would do. You take a vig. Uh huh.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

Like extortion.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

I mean that's one way to. I'm being polite about it, but you can sell the chips, but we're gonna take a, a piece of the action. We're going to take 15% of every chip that you sell.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

It's also, just as you said, it's a tax. Right. Which is not something that Republicans typically want to do. Tax corporations.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

It's the antithesis of what they've talked about for all of these years. You know, Ronald Reagan has a famous quote where he says the nine most terrifying words in the English language are, I'm from the government and I'm here to help. And here we are in a situation now where a Republican president is saying, the US Government is here to help and not just here to help. We want to own you.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

And then we get this intel deal.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

And that was really the biggest bombshell of all. And let me go backwards just a minute to give you the backstory of that, because unto itself, I think it's fascinating and it has the entire business world wondering what comes next. In this instance, Fox News does a.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

Report, the CEO's name is Lip Bhutan.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

About the CEO of Intel.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

He was formerly the head of Cadence.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Design Systems, a software company enabling chip.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

Design, but it was found guilty of.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Violating export control, selling the technology and.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

Cadence designed to a Chinese military university.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Alleging and claiming that he has ties to the Chinese government. And that report sets off President Trump to the point where he literally takes to Truth Social. On Truth Social, President Trump wrote, the CEO of Intel is highly conflicted and must resign immediately. There is no other solution to this problem. Questioning the CEO whether he should be the CEO of Intel and, and what's happening at Intel. And remember importantly, intel was a recipient of billions of dollars of grants from the Chips act in 2022 during the Biden administration where they had committed to build advanced chips and what are called foundries in the United States. And that came after Covid, where we decided as A country that we needed to have a more resilient supply chain. We couldn't rely on all of the major important chips being manufactured in Taiwan. And so intel is literally building huge manufacturing facilities in places like Arizona with the expectation that this grant money is coming their way.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

So they have a lot at stake in all of this.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

All of the construction workers are there, and they're just waiting for more checks to keep coming for years.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

Right.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

So the CEO of Intel is now under fire in the biggest way because you have the President of the United States criticizing him, criticizing intel, and he and the board of intel go into crisis management mode, and what do they tell him to do? They say, go try to take a meeting with the President of the United States in the White House. This president loves to meet with CEOs, call the White House and get a.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

Meeting like, make this go away. This needs to be solved somehow.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Make this go away. Because if it doesn't go away, the CEO might lose his job, and he would go away. So the CEO goes to the White House, sits in the Oval Office with President Trump and makes his case. And in the context of making his case for himself, for the company, the president has a suggestion. Well, you know, we're giving you all of this money, and by the way, there's still billions of dollars in grant money that has been allocated to you, but we have not sent the check yet, so you're going to still need that money. I think the US Government, given the fact that we're helping you so much, should own a piece of your company. The CEO, given, I think, all of the pressures around him against him personally and the pressure on the company and the pressure on the board says, okay, wow. And so the president then takes to truth Social and says that we, the US taxpayer, has just gotten 10% of the company. And he says that we got it for free.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

Did we get it for free?

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

It's a good question. Sort of. We had committed and allocated this money as part of the CHIPS act to Intel. That money was supposed to go to intel anyway. Intel now is justifying its decision to give the 10%, in part because if you were to add up all of the dollars that the US Government had granted the company, it would buy you the equivalent of 10% of the company.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

Do we know why Trump is doing these deals, like with intel, but also with these other companies that we talked about? Is there a motivation that ties all of this together?

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

You know, if there's a through line to all of this, it's the general concept that Trump believes, as he has articulated for decades, that he believes the US Government and the taxpayer is ultimately getting ripped off and is oftentimes getting ripped off by businesses and in many cases, getting ripped off by other countries. That's the rationale, for example, behind the tariffs.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

Right.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

And he's somebody who's saying, there's no free lunch. If the taxpayer is going to give a business money, the taxpayer should get something directly from it. Historically, the philosophy of grants, for example, was that the U.S. economy, and therefore the taxpayer indirectly would be a beneficiary of giving various grants to different industries or businesses or whatnot. Sometimes we've wanted to increase innovation in EVs, and so we've subsidized that in the. In the past, or windmills, something the President is against. But we never asked for something directly in return, because what we were getting in return was hopefully a larger economic benefit.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

And in this case, Trump is saying, we, the American taxpayer, the American government, we need something much more tangible than that.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Very much so. He wants to be able to say, I gave out X amount of money, and I can look right here and I can do the math, and I can show you that we got X amount back and then some.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

And it's not just money compensation that he's getting in these deals. He and the US Government are also getting control, control over these companies, sway over their decisions. This is something that we've seen the Trump administration do over and over again with a bunch of institutions in this country. In this case, what is that control about?

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

There's two things going on here. One is this issue of national security. The President has been very outspoken about his worries that China is going to one day take over Taiwan. And if that happens, the US Is going to be in a real problem spot because most advanced chips in the world are made there. And so he says to himself that he needs to have more control over the idea that intel is going to have success in the United States, and he would like to have a hand in that. There's another issue, which is just broader, that has almost nothing to do with national security and has everything to do with what President Trump would call the art of the deal. You use the word control, he might use the word leverage. He likes to have leverage over somebody else, over a company, over an individual, over a country. And he is now finding every opportunity he can to create that leverage. He doesn't have to be able to use the leverage. He may not even know what he wants from the leverage. But leverage creates optionality that's the negotiating theory of the case.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

But on the other hand, Trump isn't running a company. He is the president of America. And the tools that he's doing to get leverage in these cases, the extent of the government intervention, that's just a pretty big departure from what you normally see in America. There isn't all that much precedent for this.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

As you've said, there's almost no precedent for these kinds of deals in this country. There's precedent for them in China, there's precedent for them in Russia, there's precedent for them in France. But we've always been a country that has advocated for this idea of free market capitalism. Having said that, it's not exactly like free market capitalism is somehow the most popular concept in the world these days. And there are a lot of people who look at the idea of free market capitalism and say it's not working for them. And in many ways, Donald Trump is puncturing the idea that free market capitalism ever existed. He's saying free market capitalism has actually been a myth, that the US Government has always been subsidizing all of these businesses in all sorts of different ways. And instead of pretending it's a free market and getting nothing for it, he's saying give us something back for it. And that very idea in America is so provocative.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

We'll be right back.

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[Natalie Kitroeff]

Okay, Andrew, tell us about the reaction to these moves, to this provocative idea that the government should get a stake or some kind of say in the companies that it is helping in one way or another.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Well, the real surprising part of this in Washington is just how the politics have almost flipped. So Bernie Sanders, for example, loves this idea. When the Chips act was first put in place in 2022, folks like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders were specifically articulating the idea that we should be getting something for these big grants. So he's been out there for years advocating the idea that corporations should not be getting welfare, that all of these subsidies are bailouts, and that we shouldn't be involved in it. And if we are, we should be getting something for it, in a way. So much of what the President's doing is taxing corporate America, something the Democrats have long been advocating for.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

It is fascinating. You know, there. There's so many ways in which Trump's economic policies just don't fall within traditional party politics. Tariffs obviously being so something that Republicans don't typically favor. And this too, in a kind of dramatic way, because here you have one of the most progressive members of Congress saying, good, this is good.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

You know, his approach really has pulled in a certain subset of Democrats who look at at least some of his policies and say, yeah, that's what we should be doing. Now, on the other end of the spectrum, while much of the Republican establishment has in truth been pretty quiet about all this, they're not commenting on what the President is doing. There are some prominent conservatives who are kind of going out of their mind about this. Republican Senator Rand Paul criticized the deal before it was finalized, posting, if socialism is government owning the means of production, wouldn't the government owning part of intel be a step towards socialism? The conservative commentators look at this and say to themselves, this is a slippery slope. You can't just be against socialism when the left does it. So if you support socialism, apparently Donald Trump is your guy.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

If you are a free market capitalist, you do not want government investing in public companies. It may prioritize government goals as opposed to profit maximization.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

The United States is the most dynamic economy in the world. They would argue that capitalism across the globe has raised people out of poverty. They would tell you that innovation comes from competition, not protectionism. And once you have the government picking winners and losers, and that's the phrase, picking winners and losers, you no longer have the idea of Adam Smith's invisible hand at work.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

Right. No more invisible hand. Now we have the very visible hand of Donald Trump, of the US Government, the strong arm, if you will.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Exactly.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

So just to do a reality check here, as dramatic as these moves may be, there are plenty of other countries that own stakes in corporations that they think are important to national security. This happens in Europe. France and Germany have a stake in Airbus. I covered aerospace. That's a really successful company. And those countries are some of the biggest economies in the world.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Sure. But we've been critical of those countries for years for that approach, in large part because we look at their economy and we say that it doesn't grow nearly as fast as the United States. It's not nearly as dynamic. You're not seeing the kind of innovation out of Europe that you've seen as out of the US over all of these years. Where's AI come from? Not Europe. Where did the Internet come from? Not Europe. And so I think, sure, there are other places that have economies that work to some degree. But what's made the American experiment so successful has been this very idea of a, quote, unquote, free market.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

You're saying this kind of free market where you limit government intervention as much as possible, that's a key part of America's economic identity. It also explains our success as a country, at least until now.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Well, that's the argument. And the question is, is this just a one off or is this really the beginning of something much bigger? You know, I spoke with Kevin Hassett, who runs the National Economic Council for the Trump administration. And he has said, as has the President, as has now Howard Lutnick, Secretary of Commerce, that this is the beginning, that the administration wants to have stakes in more businesses. Specifically has identified the idea that defense companies may be up for grabs in terms of the US Government taking stakes in them. Given how much business the US Government is, gives them, you know, Lockheed Martin a huge part of their business. As you might imagine, the US Government is their largest customer. Should the taxpayer not just pay them, but have a stake in the company itself? These are the questions. And it's not just defense companies. Think about all of the businesses that interact with the US Government. There are construction companies in America whose biggest client is the US Government. Should we own a stake in those construction companies? And this goes then to the competition question, which is once you own a stake in the business. Does the competition end, meaning the next time the US Government has to choose between two companies that it wants to use for whatever? Maybe it's building an airplane, maybe it's building a building. Is there actually competition based on the lowest price and the best service? Or does the U.S. government say, actually, we own a 10% stake in this one, so we actually have to use this one? And then, by the way, longer term, does the US Taxpayer actually pay more?

[Natalie Kitroeff]

But if I could push you on that just a little bit, some might argue that Americans already live in a world where competition has been stifled. You know, there's antitrust cases against some of the biggest tech companies in this country. And when you think about one of the this country's biggest industries, healthcare, there's been all this consolidation. And I think a lot of Americans would probably say, look, we're already paying through the nose on hospital bills and drug costs. Is the argument from critics that that would be worse if the government owns stakes in a lot of these companies?

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

I think the critique is that you're right, we don't have enough competition in this country as it is, but that this would make it worse, not better. And think about this. The next time a company in which the government has a stake wants to buy another company, how would regulators think about that? For example, would they say, well, this is good for the American taxpayer because we own a stake in it, even though it would be bad for competition?

[Natalie Kitroeff]

You're saying it could lead to more consolidation. Potentially.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

It just changes the entire incentive structure because all of a sudden, the government, the taxpayer, is now an official owner in these businesses.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

I want to turn to the potential benefits that we'd theoretically be getting in exchange for these deals, including the government stakes and private companies. The whole argument from the Trump administration is that ultimately they are extracting better deals on behalf of the U.S. taxpayer. My question is, does that money that the administration, that the government may be getting from intel, from Nvidia, Sales, from these other companies, do we know how it would actually benefit the American taxpayer?

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Well, ostensibly, the benefit would be in the form of revenue to the government. And if you think about the enormous budget deficit, which is in the trillions of dollars that we have today, I mean, I think there's no question that we already live beyond our means. We're already trying to find other ways to raise revenue to pay for things. I can't tell you where the money directly is going to go. Will it be used for the social safety net? Will it be used to pay down debt? Will it be used for infrastructure spending in the United States, will be used for education? I don't think we know the answer to that question, but the arguable benefit is that it would go into the coffers of the US Government, and the coffers need filling. It's also worth noting that, you know, you go back to the financial crisis of 2008, and US government did rescue the banks at that time and the automakers at that time, and it was very unpopular. And it was unpopular because people thought it was a freebie. People thought that the money was going out and was never coming back. And the truth is that the US Government made a profit on that money. And so the benefit was that not only did it make a profit directly, it also managed to prop up those companies and businesses and keep them in business, which kept the economy alive, kept people in their jobs, etc.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

Okay, stepping back, I think it's probably worth noting that Trump won two elections now on the argument that this economic system has not worked for a huge swath of people in this country, that people had been left behind, they had lost good factory jobs. And so I wonder if there aren't going to be people who look at this and say, sure, you may be kind of breaking the system, but that's what I voted for.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

There's no question that many Americans voted for Trump to break the glass. That's what they wanted him to do. They wanted him to change the way this economy works. Now, whether they want these specific changes, I think, is still a big question. I think an even bigger question is how permanent these changes really are. You know, when I talk to CEOs, even in the past couple of days, they talk about this phrase, a generational shift, that we are in the midst of a generational shift in capitalism, a generational shift in the very idea of free markets where we own these businesses for decades to come. The decisions that get made around that business or industry no longer have to do with profits or employees or anything else. It has to do with potentially the influence of what comes from Washington. And who knows who's going to be in the White House. Maybe it'll be President Trump who's influencing this, but down the line, it could be a Democrat, could be Bernie Sanders. But when the government becomes an owner in the business, that influence shifts the direction of travel, such that business could potentially become deeply political.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

Andrew, thanks so much for your time.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Thanks for having me.

[Natalie Kitroeff]

We'll be right back.

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[Natalie Kitroeff]

Here's what else you need to know today. In a last minute flurry of legal action on Sunday, a federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration from deporting Guatemalan children who had already been put onto planes. The judge expressed frustration with the government, saying it was surprising that the administration had tried to get the miners and out of the country in the wee hours of the morning on a holiday weekend. A lawyer for the government said the children were going to be reunited with their parents in Guatemala, but a lawyer for the children disputed that, saying that at least some of the children didn't want to return. Migrant children have posed a challenge for the Trump administration's immigration crackdown because they're entitled to special legal protections and the death toll from an earthquake that hit Afghanistan on Sunday has climbed to more than 800 people, authorities said, warning that the fatality count would likely rise. So far, only a handful of countries have offered humanitarian assistance to the Taliban government. Foreign countries have become reluctant to send aid to Afghanistan in recent years as the Taliban faces accusations of diverting humanitarian assistance to their fighters and favoring some communities over others. Afghanistan has been battling various crises, and hospitals have shut down since the Trump administration completely cut off all U.S. foreign aid to the country earlier this year. Today's episode was produced by Ricky Novetsky, Stella Tan and Carlos Prieto. It was edited by Lisa Chow and Chris Haxel and was engineered by Chris W. That's it for the Daily I'm Natalie Kitrov. See you tomorrow.

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This podcast is supported by On Investing, an original podcast from Charles Schwab. Each week, hosts Liz Ann Saunders, Schwab's chief investment strategist, and Kathy Jones, Schwab's chief fixed income strategist, along with their guests, analyze economic developments and bring context to conversations around stocks, fixed income, the economy and more. Download the latest episode and [e-mail] oninvesting or wherever you get your podcasts.