Consumer Sentiment Just Hit an All-Time Low. Trump Calls it Best Economy Ever.

Summary

The Peter Schiff Show Podcast

Episode: Consumer Sentiment Just Hit an All-Time Low. Trump Calls it Best Economy Ever.

Date: May 23, 2026
Host: Peter Schiff

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Episode Overview

Peter Schiff unpacks the apparent disconnect between soaring stock market numbers, specifically the Dow Jones crossing 50,000, and record-low consumer sentiment. Contrasting upbeat claims from President Trump about the U.S. economy with stark economic data, Schiff challenges the "best economy ever" narrative. The episode scrutinizes Federal Reserve policy, inflation, the real state of employment, the trajectory of assets like gold, silver, and Bitcoin, and features a segment dedicated to fact-checking Trump's recent public statements.

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Key Discussion Points

1. Market Reaction to Fed Chair Kevin Walsh’s Swearing-in (00:00–07:13)

• Schiff notes the media spectacle and Trump’s self-congratulatory tone at the swearing-in of Kevin Walsh as Fed Chair, with Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas officiating.
• The Dow Jones hits a record 50,700, prompting Trump to boast about achieving what "everyone told him was impossible," which Schiff dismisses as untrue and overblown.
  • Quote: “Of course, most of [Trump’s claims], probably all of them, were lies. In fact, I refer to him as the liar in chief.” (00:38 — Peter Schiff)

Market Wrap:

• Dow: New record high close at 50,579.
• S&P 500, NASDAQ, Russell 2000: Positive week, but not all at record highs.
• Gold & Silver: Both down for the week (Gold -1.5%, Silver -3%), but Schiff suggests metals will rise soon, as the underlying fundamentals for higher precious metal prices remain in place.
• Bond Yields: 10-Year Treasury yield closes at 4.56%; 30-Year hits 5.19% intraday high.
• Oil: Drops below $100 to $97/barrel; Still considered high, with price pressures expected to continue beyond geopolitical conflict.

Notable Quotes:

• “The markets were celebrating... but the precious metals investors were not as enthusiastic—although they should be.” (03:47 — Peter Schiff)
• “Oil prices are not going to come crashing like the President claims...any drop will be temporary.” (07:00 — Peter Schiff)

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2. Asset Decoupling and Critique of Bitcoin (12:00–15:15)

• Bitcoin: Down 1.75% on the week, now decoupled from both gold and the NASDAQ.
  • Schiff highlights Michael Saylor’s cost basis and stagnant returns, asserting Bitcoin’s failure as both “digital gold” and a high-growth asset.
  • Criticism of MicroStrategy’s “Ponzi” logic in their yield product, and the SEC’s lack of enforcement.

Notable Quotes:

• “What they marketed as digital gold didn’t perform like actual gold.” (12:18 — Peter Schiff)
• “Michael Saylor's cost basis is 75,700. We're now at 75,800. He has zero gains.” (13:05 — Peter Schiff)
• “This thing is just going to implode. And nobody is pointing this out but me and the SEC is asleep at the switch.” (15:05 — Peter Schiff)

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3. Consumer Sentiment and Inflation Data (15:15–22:13)

Consumer Sentiment Index:

• Final May reading: 44.8 (record all-time low), well below expectations.
  • Quote: “Nobody had a number that low on their bingo card. That is an all time record low.” (15:46 — Peter Schiff)
• Consumers cite inflation as top concern, countering Trump’s narrative about taming price rises.
• Inflation expectations for the coming year: 4.8%; 10-year outlook: 3.9%—double the Fed’s 2% target.
  • Critique of Fed: Schiff lambasts the Fed for relying on unrealistic expectations, suggesting even “random people off the street” would do a better forecasting job.

Notable Quotes:

• “One of the reasons consumers are in such a bad mood... is because of inflation. And inflation was the thing that Donald Trump ran to eliminate.” (16:17 — Peter Schiff)
• “Any random person off the street would probably do better than anybody on the FOMC.” (17:56 — Peter Schiff)
• “Consumers think the economy is lousy. In fact, they've never thought it was this bad.” (19:41 — Peter Schiff)

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4. Fact-Checking Trump’s Economic Claims (22:13–41:45)

Peter Schiff provides a detailed breakdown of what he calls a “torrent of lies” from Trump’s speech at the Fed Chair swearing-in:

Independence of the Federal Reserve

• Trump claims to want “complete Fed independence,” yet Schiff calls this a farce based on Trump’s history of attacking Powell for not cutting rates fast enough.
  • Quote: “If [Trump] was happy with [Fed independence], then why was he constantly criticizing Powell for not cutting rates enough?” (24:25 — Peter Schiff)

Deficit Blame Game

• Trump blames Biden for deficit blowouts, omitting rise under his own administration.
  • Quote: “It’s ridiculous for Trump to accuse any other president of blowing out the deficit. When you live in a glass White House, you don't throw stones.” (26:22 — Peter Schiff)

Employment Claims

• Trump touts record employment; Schiff calls this misleading—part-time, not full-time, jobs are at records, with overall job creation lagging Biden’s term.
  • Quote: “There may be more people working part time jobs for low rates of pay, but we don’t have more full time jobs.” (27:09 — Peter Schiff's Co-host)

Claims about Government Spending

• Trump claims historic government spending cuts; Schiff points out spending actually increased.
  • Quote: “How do you dramatically increase government spending and then say you’re responsible for the largest spending cuts in history?” (32:42 — Peter Schiff)

Fired Government Workers' “Happiness”

• Trump says fired government workers are “now earning 2-3 times more”; Schiff dismisses this as "no way true," suggesting most haven’t found equivalent employment.
  • Quote: “The reason so many people want to work for the government is because you make more money [there] than in the private sector. That’s the reality.” (33:43 — Peter Schiff)

Foreign Investment Boasts and Trade

• Trump claims $18 trillion in new foreign investment—Schiff flatly calls this number fake.
• Critique of Trump’s tariffs: Schiff argues they hurt U.S. agriculture exports and didn’t revive manufacturing.
  • Quote: “Trump destroyed our exports to China with his tariffs. China stopped buying basically our agriculture... and now he’s bragging about bringing back half of what he destroyed.” (36:48 — Peter Schiff)

General State of the Economy vs. Reality

• Schiff rails against the “unprecedented boom” narrative, pointing to record-low sentiment and persistent economic malaise.
  • Quote: “We have a boom. Unprecedented things have never been this good... Yet despite this unprecedented prosperity actual Americans have never been more pessimistic.” (40:22 — Peter Schiff)

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5. Schiff’s Market Outlook & Final Thoughts (43:00–End)

• Schiff doubles down on warning: the U.S. is heading into a severe inflationary spiral, a sovereign debt crisis, and a U.S. dollar crisis.
  • Quote: "The economy is lousy and it’s going to get much, much worse. Inflation is about to explode like we've never seen." (43:00 — Peter Schiff's Co-host)
• Gold and silver’s dip is, in his view, a buying opportunity, as rising interest rates will soon become a tailwind for precious metals.
• Urges listeners to convert Bitcoin holdings to gold while it’s still possible and reiterates his gold investment vehicles.

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:00–07:13 — Market reaction to Fed Chair Kevin Walsh’s swearing-in, Trump’s Dow Jones claims
• 12:00–15:15 — Bitcoin analysis and MicroStrategy/Saylor critique
• 15:15–22:13 — Consumer sentiment collapse and inflation outlook
• 22:13–41:45 — Fact-checking Trump’s economic claims in detail
• 43:00–End — Schiff’s outlook: inflation, crisis warnings, gold/silver bullish case

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Notable Quotes (with timestamps)

• “Of course, most of them, probably all of them, were lies. In fact, I refer to him as the liar in chief.” (00:38 — Peter Schiff)
• “Nobody had a number that low on their bingo card. That is an all time record low.” (15:46 — Peter Schiff)
• “Consumers think the economy is lousy. In fact, they've never thought it was this bad.” (19:41 — Peter Schiff)
• “It’s ridiculous for Trump to accuse any other president of blowing out the deficit. When you live in a glass White House, you don't throw stones.” (26:22 — Peter Schiff)
• “The reason so many people want to work for the government is because you make more money [there] than in the private sector. That’s the reality.” (33:43 — Peter Schiff)
• “Trump destroyed our exports to China with his tariffs. China stopped buying basically our agriculture... and now he’s bragging about bringing back half of what he destroyed.” (36:48 — Peter Schiff)
• “The economy is lousy and it’s going to get much, much worse. Inflation is about to explode like we've never seen.” (43:00 — Peter Schiff's Co-host)

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Summary Tone and Style

Schiff is caustic, skeptical, and often sarcastic, with an emphasis on debunking official narratives from Trump and the mainstream media. He champions hard asset investment (gold/silver), warns of systemic U.S. economic risk, and uses pointed humor and directness to drive home critiques.

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For First-Time Listeners

This episode is a thorough, data-driven, and argumentative take on the clash between official optimism and consumer reality, punctuated by Schiff’s signature market analysis and persistent criticism of policy missteps. If you want a skeptical, bearish, and contrarian breakdown of the week’s financial news, this episode delivers.

Transcript

[Peter Schiff]

Hi, this is Peter Schiff for the Schiff Gold Friday Market Wrap. Well, today was the day that Kevin Walsh got sworn in as the new Fed chairman. And you know, the fact that there was so much media attention on this, there was this, you know, big press conference at the Federal, not at the White House. And Donald Trump spoke, of course, he didn't waste the opportunity to make it all about himself and all of the great accomplishments he's had as president. Of course, most of them, probably all of them were lies. In fact, I refer to him as the liar in chief. But he made the press conference more about him than about Walsh. And to the extent that he was complimenting Walsh, it was more about complimenting himself for, you know, being smart enough to have chosen him for this coveted job. And he was sworn in by Clarence Thomas. The markets were celebrating, at least the stock market. The Dow Jones hit an all time record high. Maybe just while he was up there or just before, I think maybe 10 or 15 minutes before he started talking, the Dow hit a record high, trading above 50,700 for the first time ever. So something the President mentioned during his talk, to take credit for this historic accomplishment that everybody told him was impossible. You know, Trump tells a lot of lies. Again, I'm going to get to those later in this weekly Gold Wrap. But one of the lies he likes to tell is that when he was first sworn in as president, all of the experts, all of the greatest pundits in the world, stock market pundits told him that it was an impossible feat, that there's no way, sir, that the Dow can ever hit 50,000 in your term. I mean, you're only gonna be president for four years and it's impossible. So don't even think about it, sir. I mean, we know you're great and all, but there's no way the Dow could ever get to 50,000 in just four short years.

[Peter Schiff's Co-host or Guest]

And now here it is, already there

[Peter Schiff]

and he's taking credit for something that everybody told him was impossible. But Donald Trump, the miracle worker, the economy is just so great that we've done the impossible. Yet when Donald Trump was sworn in, the Dow Jones was just 13% below 50,000. So you're talking about about like a 3% per year, 3.5% annual return. That's all it would have taken to get to a 50,000 Dow. Yet according to Trump, all the greatest stock market pundits in the world told him that that was impossible, which of course we know is a lie. I don't know if Trump Knows it's a lie or not, but he says it every time he makes a speech. Every time he mentions the dow, he. And 50,000. He reminds everybody how he was told that was impossible, how that could never happen. But lucky for us, we have Donald Trump because he's the miracle worker who does the impossible. But anyway, the stock market investors were celebrating Kevin Walsh. Although the S And P, the Russell

[Peter Schiff's Co-host or Guest]

2000, the NASDAQ, they were all up today, but not at record highs like the Dow. In fact, the Dow did close at 50,005, 79. I think that's a record close. Not exactly sure, but I know the intraday high was a record. But the precious metals investors were not

[Peter Schiff]

as enthusiastic, although they should be.

[Peter Schiff's Co-host or Guest]

But their enthusiasm has been tempered somewhat. Gold was down on the day, so was silver. In fact, on the week gold dropped 1 1/2 percent.

[Peter Schiff]

Silver dropped 3%.

[Peter Schiff's Co-host or Guest]

Excuse me. On the week, gold did manage to close above 4500 though. 4508, not bad. And silver closed above $75 at $75.39. So both gold and silver on the defensive with higher bond yields. But I don't think they're gonna be on the defensive much longer. Mining stocks, of course also, as you would expect, had a bad week with gold and silver down. The GDX was down 4.5% and the GDXJ was down 5.5%. On the week the Dow managed to rise just under 1%. So not a huge gain, but enough to get it into record territory. Same thing with the Nasdaq up almost 1% on the week. Not quite a new record high. S and P didn't do as good, up less than a half a percent. Russell 2000 was the star stock market index on the week, up 2.7% but not enough to get it to a record high. I think what helped the stock market was a slight improvement in the bond market. Bond rallied a bit on the week, but and this is significant, the Yield on the ten year treasury still closed a week above four and a half percent at 4.56. I think that we've had a breakout. Cause there was a lot of resistance just below 4 and a half and now we're above it.

[Peter Schiff]

And on the 30 year we closed at 5.06. The highest we got is. Was 5.19.

[Peter Schiff's Co-host or Guest]

At least that's the highest I happened to notice. I don't know if it ever hit

[Peter Schiff]

5.2, but I saw 5.19.

[Peter Schiff's Co-host or Guest]

But the yield improved, went down a little bit on the week. Although mortgage rates now are getting closer

[Peter Schiff]

and closer to 7%. I think they're at a nine month

[Peter Schiff's Co-host or Guest]

high, think around 6.8%.

[Peter Schiff]

But I think that trend is gonna continue in the weeks ahead. You're gonna see rising yields on the long bond and rising mortgage rates. The dollar index, I think was relatively flat, maybe a bit higher. Closed at 99, 29. Oil dropped and I think that was a big part of the stock market rise, was that we got a drop in the price of oil. Oil dropped from above $100 a barrel to close below. Close at $97 a barrel. But that's still a high price for oil. And the high is not in. The war is nowhere near over.

[Peter Schiff's Co-host or Guest]

And even when it does end, who

[Peter Schiff]

knows when that's gonna be.

[Peter Schiff's Co-host or Guest]

But even when it does end, oil

[Peter Schiff]

prices are not going to come crashing

[Peter Schiff's Co-host or Guest]

like the President claims.

[Peter Schiff]

They're not gonna drop like a rock.

[Peter Schiff's Co-host or Guest]

They may drop a little bit, although who knows where they're gonna drop from. They could be a lot higher than they are now when they drop. And maybe they'll drop down to where

[Peter Schiff]

we are now, I don't know.

[Peter Schiff's Co-host or Guest]

But I think any drop will be

[Peter Schiff]

temporary because I think oil prices are gonna continue to rise after the war ends. And they will ultimately make new highs. Because the war was the catalyst for all this. The same thing with bond yields. Bond yields spiked after the war started, just like oil prices bond. But that was just the catalyst for a move that was going to happen anyway. So if it wasn't the war, it

[Peter Schiff's Co-host or Guest]

would have been something else that would

[Peter Schiff]

have set it off. But yields were going to go up and so were the price of oil. Look, I sit through a lot of conversations, interviews, client calls, strategy sessions, research discussions, a lot. And here's what I've noticed. The moment you stop paying attention to take a note, you miss something every time because. Because you can't do both. And then that insight or that number or that line of reasoning that was actually worth remembering, it's gone. That's the problem that Plaud AI solves. Plaud, spelled P L A U D is a hardware and software system built around one idea. Capture the conversation completely so you can be fully present in it. The device records, the AI transcribes. And then it does something genuinely useful. It generates a structured summary, key points, decisions, action items. Not just a raw transcript dump, but actual structure. You can search past conversations, ask questions about what was said, pull up a meeting from three months ago and find exactly what you need in seconds. I do a lot of recorded content. This show interviews, research sessions. The last thing I want to do is manage notes while I'm trying to have an actual conversation. Plod handles that with just one click. Whether it's in person, over the phone, or on Zoom. It captures it, transcribes it, and organizes it. And the Ask Plod feature allows me to go back to a conversation from weeks ago and just ask a question like what did we decide about X? And then I have my answer. That's not a small thing. That's a searchable knowledge base of every important conversation you've had. If you're running a business, managing a team, doing research, or just trying to stay on top of more information than

[Peter Schiff's Co-host or Guest]

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[Peter Schiff]

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[Peter Schiff's Co-host or Guest]

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[Peter Schiff]

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[Peter Schiff's Co-host or Guest]

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[Peter Schiff]

by the way,

[Peter Schiff's Co-host or Guest]

bitcoin was down on the week, down

[Peter Schiff]

today, down about 1.75%. It's interesting though, because bitcoin has now decoupled from the nasdaq. See first it decoupled from gold and it. I don't know if it ever was

[Peter Schiff's Co-host or Guest]

really correlated with it, but gold went

[Peter Schiff]

on a huge move up and bitcoin went down. And so what they marketed as digital gold didn't perform like actual gold, but it was moving up with the NASDAQ with tech stocks. But now you have, you know, stocks

[Peter Schiff's Co-host or Guest]

going up and bitcoin is still going down.

[Peter Schiff]

So it's decoupled and it doesn't go up when gold goes up, and it

[Peter Schiff's Co-host or Guest]

doesn't go up when bit.

[Peter Schiff]

When, when, when tech stocks go up, it kind of just goes down. In fact, as I'm recording this right now, the price of bitcoin is barely above 75,800.

[Peter Schiff's Co-host or Guest]

Michael Saylor's cost basis.

[Peter Schiff]

He's been buying bitcoin for more than five years through strategy.

[Peter Schiff's Co-host or Guest]

His cost basis is 75,700. We're now at 75,800. I mean, he has no gains.

[Peter Schiff]

In fact, by the time I finish this podcast, bitcoin can be below 75,700. It's only $100 above it. He's been buying for six years. He has zero return over or five years, zero return.

[Peter Schiff's Co-host or Guest]

Remember, the premise that he's built the

[Peter Schiff]

Ponzi scheme called Stretch on is that bitcoin is gonna go up by 30% per year.

[Peter Schiff's Co-host or Guest]

And so they can keep paying the

[Peter Schiff]

11.5% dividend on stretch because they're just giving up the first 11 and a half percent of that 30% expected return. So one third is going to the

[Peter Schiff's Co-host or Guest]

preferred and the equity holders are still gonna get 2/3 of what they expect bitcoin to do.

[Peter Schiff]

But you know what they say about expectations, right?

[Peter Schiff's Co-host or Guest]

I mean, what you expect to happen is generally not what's going to happen.

[Peter Schiff]

And I don't know how Strategy or sailor can expect that bitcoin will go up 30% a year compounded over the next five years. When it's compounded return over the last

[Peter Schiff's Co-host or Guest]

five years for him is zero.

[Peter Schiff]

Strategy has made no money over five

[Peter Schiff's Co-host or Guest]

years of Bitcoin buying, so why should it make 30% a year over the next five years? But the one thing that they're going

[Peter Schiff]

to have to do Is, is pay 11% per year, 11.5% to stretch holders

[Peter Schiff's Co-host or Guest]

whether they make any money or not. How much does 11 and a half

[Peter Schiff]

percent compound to over five years?

[Peter Schiff's Co-host or Guest]

That's more than 50% and it's especially gonna be even bigger number because they're gonna keep issuing more preferreds and the dollar value of that commitment is going to keep on rising. So this thing is just going to implode. And, and nobody is pointing this out

[Peter Schiff]

but me and the SEC is asleep at the switch, probably on purpose and

[Peter Schiff's Co-host or Guest]

allowing this fraudulent scheme to continue.

[Peter Schiff]

But anyway, I want to talk about. Oh, before I get to the Trump speech to celebrate the swearing in of Kevin Walsh, I want to talk about an economic data point that came out today.

[Peter Schiff's Co-host or Guest]

And this of course flies in the

[Peter Schiff]

face of everything Donald Trump said earlier today.

[Peter Schiff's Co-host or Guest]

This is consumer sentiment for the month of May

[Peter Schiff]

and the prior estimate, I guess this is the final. There must have been a preliminary. So the first estimate was consumer confidence index was 48.2, which in and of itself is pretty low. The expectation was that it would stay at 48.2. Instead it collapsed to 44.8. Nobody had a number that low on their bingo card. That is an all time record low. The range of expectations was 47.9 to 49. And we came in way under the, the, under. So in the history of this sentiment index and I'm, I really, I'm not sure when it started. Obviously we haven't been doing it for 250 years. I, I forget when they started doing it, but this is the lowest it's been. Oh since they've been keeping, keeping score. Now one of the reasons that consumers are in such a bad mood and are so pessimistic about their future is because of inflation. And inflation was the thing that Donald Trump ran to eliminate. And remember, Donald Trump didn't just promise that the rate of inflation would come down, meaning that prices would keep going up, they would just go up slower under his administration than they rose under Biden's. No, no, no. Trump promised to reverse the Biden inflation. He promised lower prices the day he was sworn in. Instead, inflation is now the biggest problem on the minds of consumers, even though Donald Trump, in his mind, he solved inflation, the problem no longer exists. So year ahead inflation expectations. The first read was four and a half percent. That's now 4.8% for the next year. So almost 5%. The Fed is targeting two and the consumers are prepared for almost five. Now the reality is that consumers are probably still too optimistic about inflation. It's probably gonna be higher than 4.8 for the year, but at least they're closer than the Fed, which means any random person that you just grabbed off the street would probably do better than anybody on the fomc. So why don't we get rid of all these guys with these fancy economics degrees and these long resumes cuz they don't know what the hell they're talking about and just grab some random people off the street and fill out the board of the FMOC, right? That's all you need. But anyway, the 10 year forecast though, this is the one that really shouldn't be a problem for the Fed. Consumers now expect inflation over the next 10 years. Although how the hell would they know? Of course, how the hell would the Fed know? So their guess is probably even better than the Fed's guess. Right? But consumers are expecting inflation to average 3.9% over the next 10 years. That's every year. That's almost 4% now according to the Fed. According to Jerome Powell, who's now just a regular FOMC member. Right. He's not chair anymore. But what he's been saying for the past couple of years, probably more, is that the consumer expectations remain well anchored at 2%. He keeps saying this long term inflation expectations despite the fact that we're above 2% now he feels good about the fact that expectations remain well anchored at 2%. What the hell is he talking about? They're not anchored at all. We've been drifting far away from 2%. We're almost at 5. I mean almost 4% for 10 years out double. How can he say we're anchored at 2 when people are expecting 4? So again, it's just all these lies that the Fed is telling. I mean, maybe they're taking their cues from Trump. But anyway, consumers think the economy is lousy. In fact, they've never thought it was this bad. Including of course during the four years that Biden was president.

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[Peter Schiff]

I want to get to the Trump lies the conference because I was trying to write down all the lies and I couldn't even write them down that fast because he kept spewing them out one after another. He's good at it, and that's because he's had a lot of practice. That's how he was able to tell so many lies about Thomas Massie. I talked about that on my last podcast a couple of days ago, which is getting a lot of attraction on YouTube. It's got almost 150,000 views in two days. So if you didn't watch that podcast, it's probably a pretty good one. So you should check it out and you should go subscribe to that YouTube channel if you haven't already subscribed. And by the way, make sure you subscribe to this channel right now. Go ahead, take a second and subscribe. Hit the subscribe button, give it a like, and maybe at the end you could leave me a comment. But I talked about the lies that Trump was telling about Thomas Massie, of course the biggest one was that he was really a Democrat. He's, you know, he's not just a rhino, he's a, he's an outright Democrat because according to Trump, he always votes with the Democrats. So he's secretly just a Democrat. The reality is, if you look at the Biden term, Thomas Massie voted with Democrats fewer. Fewer than any other Republican in Congress. That's because in reality, Massie is further away from any of the Democrats than the rest of the Republicans in Congress. In fact, there's not that much distance between most Democrats and most Republicans. They're virtually the same. That's why they wanted to get rid of Thomas Massie, because he's actually what a Republican is supposed to be. The other Republicans are basically Democrats in disguise, cuz they all want big government. Massie was the one that wanted small government and that's why they had to get rid of him. He was the one that wanted fiscal responsibility. He didn't want us starting wars that we couldn't afford and that Congress didn't declare. Yeah, get rid of that guy. And he was the one guy in Congress who voted his conscience, who wasn't a political hack and who honored his oath of office for the Constitution. Yep, that guy's gotta go. We can't have any honest people like that screwing up what we're trying to do. Right? That's why they had to get rid of him. But it was easy for Donald Trump to tell those lies, cuz again, he's the liar in chief. But anyway, so let me get back to his remarks today. So first of all, the first thing he said had to be a lie. So the first thing he said was that he wants Kevin Walsh to be completely independent. He said, Kevin, don't look at me, doesn't matter what I say. You do what you think is right. You do whatever you want. Really? Because if he was happy with that, then why was he constantly criticizing Powell for not cutting rates enough or not printing as much enough money? Does that mean he's not gonna criticize Kevin Walsh? When he doesn't do that, we'll see. Or does he know? Is there a secret deal? Hey, I'm not gonna have to criticize Walsh cuz he's already agreed to do whatever I want. But I know for sure that he's lying about that. He does not want Kevin Walsh to be independent. If that independence means he starts hiking interest rates and shrinking the balance sheet and crashing the markets or crashing housing or the economy. He obviously does not want that. So to claim that he wants an independent Fed is clearly a lie. The next thing he did was he accused the Biden administration of blowing out the deficit. The prior administration blew out the deficit.

[Peter Schiff's Co-host or Guest]

Well, yes, but so did his prior

[Peter Schiff]

administration and his current administration. The deficit skyrocketed under Trump's first term. It kept skyrocketing under Biden's, and now it's skyrocketing again. In fact, when Trump finishes his second

[Peter Schiff's Co-host or Guest]

term, the national debt will have risen more under Trump than any other president.

[Peter Schiff]

In fact, Trump has the record. For a single term, there has been no president.

[Peter Schiff's Co-host or Guest]

Well, actually, no, maybe Biden, Biden might have beat him. I think Biden did beat him. But Trump is gonna win. I have to check my facts on one, but Trump is definitely gonna win. By far, Obama has the record. Cuz Obama served eight years and Trump and Biden only had four. But Trump is gonna blow away Biden's record. So it's ridiculous for Trump to accuse any other president of blowing out the deficit. When you live in a glass White House, you don't throw stones. And he is the biggest deficit spender of them all. He is the king of blowing out the deficit. So how do you accuse Biden of

[Peter Schiff]

doing it when you're doing the same thing?

[Peter Schiff's Co-host or Guest]

I mean, if it was bad for Biden, isn't it bad for you? And of course, you know, he's promising to make that deficit a whole lot better, bigger. And I'll get to that because I'm taking these lies in the order in which they were told and you can see this on YouTube. So if, you know, if you're not sure what I'm, you wanna fact check me checking Trump's lies, you go to YouTube and watch the speech. So he said we have more people working now than ever before. That may be true. The problem is they're working part time jobs because I know full time employment is lower now than it was when Trump took office. So there may be more people working part time jobs for low rates of pay, but we don't have more full time jobs. In fact, he kept bragging about all the jobs he's creating when he is probably as far as job creation, this is the lowest, it's way below any of the years of Biden. I mean, job creation is far below what we had under Biden. Not that it was great under Biden, it's just worse under Trump. Then he said that one of the reasons that he's appointing Kevin Walsh is because he's gonna restore Fed independence. That Fed independence has been in question recently, and Kevin Walsh is going to restore it, which he claimed was really, really important. Okay, well, if Fed independence was in question, why was that? It was because of Trump. The reason that people were questioning Fed independence was because of the actions of Donald Trump. He's the reason that people were worried about Fed independence. And now he's saying we need to fix that problem, the problem that he created. Now he's claiming credit for picking Walsh because he's going to fix the problem that he created. And of course, he doesn't really want Fed independence because he didn't like Fed independence.

[Peter Schiff]

When

[Peter Schiff's Co-host or Guest]

Powell was president of the Fed or chairman of the Fed, not president,

[Peter Schiff]

then he said something about economics that was not a lie until he made it a lie. But he said, kevin knows when the economy is booming, you let it boom so we can grow our way out of debt. Now, what he was talking about is growth doesn't cause inflation, which it doesn't. So that's true. But when you have a boom, that is a speculative mania, that is a bubble that is the consequence of cheap money, that is not actual economic growth, you don't let that continue. You don't let that bubble get bigger, because that's not how we get out of debt. That's how we get into more debt when the bubble pops. In fact, according to Donald Trump, the US Economy is booming right now. It's anything but booming. Again, yes. He said economic growth doesn't cause inflation. That is correct. Except when the economic growth is phony. When there is no real economic growth, it's just an illusion that was created by inflation. And that's not the kind of illusion that we want the Fed to help sustain. We want the market to prick that bubble so we can start repairing the damage. Reallocating resources, liquidating the mal investments. Trump doesn't seem to get that. Now, I mentioned earlier, he talked about the stock market. He said the Dow is up 600 points. He knew exactly where it was. He said it said 50,702. Right. He didn't leave off the two. He said that's where it was like 10 minutes ago, I guess, before he started talking. He's probably checking the Dow constantly because he wants to take credit for every single tick. But that's when he went into his talk about how everybody said it was impossible and there's no way I could get to 50,000. I already talked about that. But then he said that the rise in the Dow was the market saying how much they, like Kevin Walsh, like this is great news, Kevin. You see, the market loves you. That's why the market is up. Well, you know, the market knew he was a Fed chair for a long time. It's not news that he's getting sworn in, but the fact that the market loves Kevin Walsh. That shows you that he's a bad pick. Because we don't need another stock market cheerleader, another Fed chairman committed to a higher stock market. We need a Fed chairman that the stock market hates because he's gonna rain on their parade that he's gonna do what's right for the country, even if it means lower stock prices. But if the main job of the Fed chair is to keep this party going and to keep the bubble inflating, well, then those consumer sentiment numbers are gonna get even lower and we're gonna keep hitting new record lows. Cause we need an unpopular Fed chair. We need a Fed chair that the stock market hates, not another guy that they love. That's been. The problem is that these Fed chairs have been beholden to the stock market, and they've sacrificed the real economy in order to keep it going up. Then he went off about how he's cut government spending the most. He claimed he's the biggest cutter of government spending in history. Meanwhile, the US Government is spending more money under his presidency than in any one of his predecessors. Government spending increased. How do you dramatically increase government spending and then say that you're responsible for the largest spending cuts in history? If by spending cuts he means spending increases, then I guess he's being honest now. He also talked about all the government workers that he fired. And I know he did let some go or there was some attrition. I'm not really sure the exact numbers. But the lie was not that he fired government workers.

[Peter Schiff's Co-host or Guest]

The lie was how happy they now

[Peter Schiff]

are because they got fired.

[Peter Schiff's Co-host or Guest]

Because according to Donald Trump, everybody that

[Peter Schiff]

he fired is now gainfully employed in the private sector, earning two to three times what they used to make in the government. Two to three times.

[Peter Schiff's Co-host or Guest]

So if these guys were making $50,000 a year working for the government, they're now making 100 to $150,000 a year in the private sector.

[Peter Schiff]

Well, first of all, there's just no way. I mean, if these government workers could actually make this much more money in

[Peter Schiff's Co-host or Guest]

the private sector, don't you think they'd quit? Don't you think they'd run out?

[Peter Schiff]

If there were all kinds of jobs

[Peter Schiff's Co-host or Guest]

with double and triple the pay, don't you think they'd want to take advantage

[Peter Schiff]

of those great opportunities, why would they

[Peter Schiff's Co-host or Guest]

stay with the government? Because it's a lie. Because there's no way that that's true. My bet would be a lot of these government workers are unemployed. They haven't even gotten jobs. And the ones that are probably have a couple of part time jobs and they're making way less than they made at the government. I mean, the reason so many people wanna work for the government is because you make more money in the government than you make in the private sector. That's the reality. And you get way more benefits and you don't really have to work very hard. So to say that these guys are so happy that now they have jobs where they're making two or three times as much money. And believe me, if they actually were making double the money, they'd be working their asses off for the first time in our lives. They'd actually be responsible. They'd have a boss that cared. They'd be beholden right to an owner of a company. But there's no way. If there were so many jobs out there waiting to be filled that paid

[Peter Schiff]

double to triple what government workers used

[Peter Schiff's Co-host or Guest]

to earn, don't you think other people who have never worked for government would be wanting those great jobs? If there were so many great jobs out there, wouldn't more people have these great full time jobs? Why is full time employment at an all time record low if so many fired government workers are earning double or triple what they used to make? In fact, if there's so many high paying jobs out there that anybody can just grab them, why is consumer sentiment at an all time record low? Don't these consumers realize that there's all these great jobs out there who all they got to do is apply for? Look at all these government workers that are so happy that they got fired because now they're making a fortune in this booming private sector economy that only exists in the imagination of Donald Trump.

[Peter Schiff]

Speaking of Trump's imagination, he also spoke about the $18 trillion that foreigners are investing in the United States. Eighteen trillion? Where the hell does he get this number? It's not even 1 trillion. This is all a make believe number that Donald Trump talks about so he can claim all this investment is booming into the economy. You know, I'll give you another example of how Trump lies about stuff, right? So Trump had this summit in China and I mentioned on my other podcast, all much to do about, nothing accomplished, absolutely nothing. With this summit, complete waste of time. They could have just had a zoom call, saved the taxpayers a Bunch of money. They got a deal, Boeing, you know, China's gonna buy a couple hundred Boeing planes. Yeah, big deal. They do that all the time. The other deal that was announced, and the President is actually bragging about this on Truth Social. Cuz, you know, obviously a lot of the MAGA crowd, you know, they don't know anything. They just, they just think that, you know, their messiah is, you know, you know, could do no wrong and whatever he says is the true truth. Right. So anyway, he's bragging about this new deal where China has committed to spending $17 billion a year to buy U.S. agriculture. Oh my God. $17 billion a year. Oh, that's more than double what they bought last year. Congratulations, Donald Trump. You really stuck it to the Chinese. You went in there and you negotiated this great deal where they're going to spend 17 billion. How lucrative is that for our farmers? Except what he didn't say is the only reason that China bought less than 10 billion worth of US agriculture last year was because of his tariffs. That's when Chinese imports collapsed. In fact, during the four years where Biden was president. Right. The worst economy in the world, according to Trump. We had a debt economy during those four years. China spent on average over $30 billion a year buying US agriculture. Donald Trump destroyed our exports to China with his tariffs. China stopped buying basically our agriculture and started buying more from South America and other exporters. He's been able to get the Chinese to agree to purchase about half of what they used to purchase before he screwed the whole thing up for us. And now he's bragging about that. Gee, that's easy to do. Right? Destroy something and then bring half of it back and then claim credit for the half you brought back. But it's still half of what we had before he blew the whole thing up. Right, That's Trump. That's in a nutshell, describes the entirety of the success of his administration. In fact, then he talked about tariffs. He bragged about him. He said that the reason we have this booming economy is his tariffs. My tariffs were so great. All this great stuff is happening. No, there's been no great stuff that has happened as a result of your tariffs. A, they're unconstitutional, but B, all they did is increase prices for the things that a lot of Americans had to buy. And so Americans paid higher prices and paid tariffs. That's it. It didn't bring back US Manufacturing. Manufacturing recession continues on Trump's watch. We continue to lose manufacturing jobs. Just look at the numbers. Forget about what Donald Trump is saying,

[Peter Schiff's Co-host or Guest]

look at what's actually happening

[Peter Schiff]

in manufacturing. Then he said that things are going to boom more. And he said that the numbers are gonna get so good that the world had never seen anything like it. In fact, then he said the world has never seen numbers like the ones we got right now. Right? He said, we have never experienced numbers like this in the 250 year history of America. But nowhere in the world has there ever been economic numbers as good as the ones we got right now. And it's gonna be even better because of these tariffs and the economic boom that he has started because of these tariffs. Now again, if this is true, we have the boom, this huge economic boom like we've never seen in history. And he also repeated that lie about

[Peter Schiff's Co-host or Guest]

how we were a dead country two years ago.

[Peter Schiff]

And now everybody says you got the hottest country in the world. We have the hottest country in the world.

[Peter Schiff's Co-host or Guest]

We were dead and now we're not

[Peter Schiff]

only alive, but we're the hottest country there is.

[Peter Schiff's Co-host or Guest]

So we have a boom.

[Peter Schiff]

Unprecedented things have never been this good.

[Peter Schiff's Co-host or Guest]

Not only have they never been this

[Peter Schiff]

good in America, they've never been this good anywhere in the history of the world. Yet despite this unprecedented prosperity that we

[Peter Schiff's Co-host or Guest]

have right now thanks to Donald Trump,

[Peter Schiff]

actual Americans have never been more pessimistic.

[Peter Schiff's Co-host or Guest]

They've never been more worried about their present circumstances and about their future than

[Peter Schiff]

they are right now. So who's right? Is Donald Trump right?

[Peter Schiff's Co-host or Guest]

And the average Americans just don't realize how great it is. They're just so dumb, they don't realize how much prosperity they have.

[Peter Schiff]

They're making so much money in this

[Peter Schiff's Co-host or Guest]

booming economy that they don't realize how good they have it. Or is it possible that the economy is lousy, the people actually living and working in this lousy economy are upset about it and are pessimistic.

[Peter Schiff]

And Donald Trump is the one that's delusional. He's the one that doesn't know he's

[Peter Schiff's Co-host or Guest]

sitting in the White House with his billions of dollars in net worth. That's double maybe whatever it was since he got elected.

[Peter Schiff]

And he thinks everything is great.

[Peter Schiff's Co-host or Guest]

Now again, I don't know what he thinks, cuz he could just be lying.

[Peter Schiff]

He may know how bad it is,

[Peter Schiff's Co-host or Guest]

but he knows that. Well, I can't acknowledge that it's bad. I just have to repeat a lie often enough. Cuz if I say a lie enough, it becomes true, right? That's what Donald Trump thinks. And so that's what's going on.

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[Peter Schiff's Co-host or Guest]

But the truth of the matter is the economy is lousy and it's going to get much, much worse. Inflation is about to explode like we've never seen in this country. We are in a lot of trouble. We're not just heading for a financial crisis. We are heading for a sovereign debt crisis, a US Dollar crisis. And the fact that gold and silver went down this week is just another opportunity for Shift Gold customers to buy more. $4,500 is going to look like a low price for gold years from now. Same thing with $75 silver. You just gotta buy it again. Remember we are open 247 at Shift Gold. You don't have to wait for Monday. You can buy right [e-mail] or you can go and download my app on the App Store, the Shift Gold app. You can use the app to buy. You can also sign up for T Gold, start buying some gold there that will ultimately be able to be used as a medium of exchange. And you know, so you have to have a T Gold account in addition to owning physical gold. And again, if you still have some of this bitcoin, as I said earlier in the podcast, I thought that by the time I finished Michael Saylor would be in the red instead of in the black. And that is the case because Now Bitcoin is 75,600 and change it is below the 75,700 cost basis for all of the 64 billion that Michael Saylor Blue buying Bitcoin. So if you have any Bitcoin before the bottom drops out of the market, remember Shift Gold has partnered with Bitpay. We make it easy to convert your Bitcoin into real gold by using Bitpay. You check out on the Shift Gold website that you want to pay with Bitcoin and that helps you. Basically what happens is you sell your Bitcoin to Bitpay and then Bitpay takes

[Peter Schiff]

the dollars they get by selling your Bitcoin and sends it to Shift Gold to cover the cost of your gold.

[Peter Schiff's Co-host or Guest]

So we don't actually take bitcoin, but we make it easy in one process. When you check out, you can get rid of your bitcoin and pay for your gold.

[Peter Schiff]

So you kill two birds with one stone, right?

[Peter Schiff's Co-host or Guest]

Not only do you get bitcoin, but you get, not only do you get gold, but you get rid of your bitcoin, right?

[Peter Schiff]

So it's a twofer.

[Peter Schiff's Co-host or Guest]

And again, you know, the gold mining stocks, I keep on hammering that, that if you're not also a customer of my asset management company, you should contact europact.com, talk to our representatives about setting up a managed account. We have a gold based strategy too, focused exclusively on gold and silver mining stocks. But we also incorporate mining stocks into our other strategies, our dividend payer and growth oriented foreign stock strategies. And of course you can access those strategies through my mutual funds, including the gold strategy. You can get information on those mutual [e-mail] and you can also just go to any discount broker, the gold fund in particular, if you're interested. Epgix is the ticker symbol for the no load version. You can buy it at all the major discount houses there. You gotta wait till Monday though, unlike Shift Gold, you can't buy that fund over the weekend, you gotta wait till Monday. But you can pick it up. But you know, you could just start buying gold, either physical gold or T gold, right away. And again, I wouldn't wait. At some point, gold investors are gonna wake up to the reality of rising interest rates. Right now, rising interest rates are a headwind for gold. Soon they're gonna be a tailwind. Because the reason interest rates are rising is because inflation is rising and confidence in the US government is falling. And that is the best possible environment for gold and silver. Real interest rates are collapsing. There's no way that Walsh and his buddies at the Fed are going to aggressively raise rates. In fact, I still think they're going to start cutting at some time, but more importantly, they're going to ramp up the balance sheet. Some people think that Kevin Walsh is there to shrink the balance sheet. It's gonna explode, I think more under Walsh's term than in any prior FOMC chairman. And all of this is bullish for gold, not bearish. And pretty soon the rest of the investment community will figure this out. You wanna beat them to the punch and you wanna buy before they do. Meanwhile, have a great weekend, everybody. Next week I will be at sea. So to the extent that I do a Friday market wrap, it will be from somewhere in the Caribbean on my boat. Bye for now.