158. Who’s Really Running Trump’s Foreign Policy?

Welcome to the Rest is Politics US with me Katy Kay in very snowy chilly Maine and Robocop appears to be joining us from the Caribbean. Alright, I'm gonna take the glasses off, Caddy, but I thought the glasses needed an appearance in the show. I think they deserve their own show actually, those are the things that are taking the glasses off.

I'm down here in uh Cayman for the week, uh, thankfully. While I am outside in this paradox, you may hear some noise and some uh landscaping going on, which I apologize for. But uh I can't do the podcast inside'cause everybody's sleeping, Caddy, and I like my life. I like my domestic life, Caddy, and I want to keep it that way. In the meantime, Caddy, what are we talking about? Go ahead. I don't know. It seems a little bit, you know

like making you work too hard to be talking about the Munich Security Conference all the way from the Cayman Islands. I feel a little bad we should be letting you enjoy the palm trees, but there we go. Uh we are gonna talk about what's been happening at the Munich Security Conference over the weekend.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio offering a slightly warmer, flavoured message, but basically the same message to the Europeans. Uh not much change I don't see in MAGA foreign policy. And also the fact that For some reason Munich seems to have become the new

Manchester, New Hampshire, and all of the Democratic hopefuls are actually out there having the first primary race of the twenty twenty eight presidential season. So we'll talk about that. The audition for the next election was taking place this weekend. in Germany, not in the United States. And in the second half we're gonna look at the economy. Um headlines suggesting

kind of mixed inflation easing jobs holding up, but some businesses saying they're about to hike prices with all those tariffs. And something that you've been hearing, Anthony, which I thought was very interesting, which is the decline not just of the kind of

global political order, security order, which is what we've heard about in Munich and you and I heard about in Davos, but also the global economic order. And then there's a lot more this week, by the way. It's a busy week. So in our question and answer for our founding members,

Um if you'd like to tune into that, we're also going to get into the latest on the Epstein files because there's now obviously a huge number of documents have been released. The DOJ says that's it, they've released everything. But democrats and people looking at those documents aren't happy and aren't convinced because of all the redactions and then

A big question, which I know you're gonna have views on for our founding members, are aliens real? Somebody unexpected is weighing in on that. Uh so let's start with Marco Rubio's speech.

to the Munich Security Conference, and then I think just as important the fact that Marco Rubio went from Munich to the two countries in Europe that are most MAGA aligned. He went to Slovakia,

and saw the Prime Minister there. Today he's in Hungary, um, seeing Victor Orban, obviously very magger aligned. It didn't escape anyone's notice at the Munich Security Conference that Marco Rubio gave a speech to all of these attendees, which was really about sort of protecting civilizational aspects of white European culture, not so much protecting democracy and liberal democracy.

And then he got a standing ovation because he didn't trash Europeans. He wasn't rude to European leaders like Donald Trump had been in Davos or JD Vance had been in Munich last year, but from my point of view it was not a very different message. And the message to the Europeans is you've got to spend a lot more on your own defence.

We'll be here to protect civilizational things that we agree with, but we're not gonna be protecting all of that woke stuff that you might have liked in the past, including green energy. By the way, I'm not actually gonna say anything about Ukraine and Russia. And then I'm gonna go and fly off and see the two leaders who are most aligned with Donald Trump in Europe. What did you make of it? Was this, you know, a big departure? Should Europeans heave a big sigh of relief?

Uh no, they shouldn't do that. And obviously he's going to Hungary, uh, as opposed to Germany, which is sort of odd because Hungary is an ally, but it's not really the European allies that we've traditionally would say are our top allies, let's put it that way. But what I heard is Rubio's trying to tell the Europeans, hey, if for some reason I get the nomination

uh and I become the president, I'm really actually an older school person than Donald Trump. I did hear that in the speech and I think that's why they applauded. But

What I also heard is that you guys are on your own unless you meet our terms, and these are Donald Trump's terms. This is not like it just wanna explain to people uh the State Department would dictate the terms of our protocol and our diplomacy and in general Caddy over the last eighty years the administrations adhered to that protocol.

And so Donald Trump obviously is ripping that up. You know, I I heard also as a Wall Street person buy European defense manufacturing stocks because let me tell you something, Europe is going to have a reduced reliance on the United States and Europe is looking at the United States and saying, wow, there is political instability in the United States. And so You know, that's that's what I heard. And listen, what I don't like about Rubio is the weather vane.

Okay, and trust me, Trump did not like that speech. Yeah. He's trying to have it every way, right? He's trying to Appeal to the Europeans. I mean Rubio actually comes out of the stock of American foreign policy, which is work with our allies. There's a post Second World War order. America should be a leader in that order. It's based around democracy.

Rubio is the one who when the Russians invaded Ukraine actually stood up on the Senate floor and lambasted President Putin and Russian aggression and said we can never trust them and now that here he is not even mentioning Russia and Ukraine in his speech. But I think the other thing that was stark about this,'cause this although we're talking about Munich, we're really actually talking about the twenty twenty eight race, let's be honest here.

there is Marco Rubio not actually making American foreign policy. So yes, he flies off to Slovakia and Hungary. If you're gonna be charitable to Marco Rubio, there's a valid reason to do that because those two countries are buying a lot of Russian oil and maybe he's going there telling them

Look, guys, that's enough. You know, we're gonna bang our heads together. You actually can't carry on defying our wishes and carry on buying Russian oil because that's propping up the Russian war machine. Maybe that's what he's doing in Slovakia and Hungary. But he doesn't actually make American foreign policy. Who's actually getting the White House's attention? Who's Donald Trump actually interested in this week to the extent that he's interested in these issues?

He's interested in Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, who are the ones that are flying to Geneva right now who are going to negotiate with with the Iranians and then are gonna carry on with Russia Ukraine negotiations. Neither of them actually Senate confirmed, neither of them elected officials. Neither of them, as far as we know, maybe Jared, I'm wrong. Maybe they are thinking of running for president. But I thought Marco Rubio's appearance at Munich

almost kind of underscored how little power he has. I mean you talk about making foreign policy from the state department that just isn't what's happening now, right, in this administration. And so Marco Rubio is not the one making the power. Listen, I agree with you, but I want to just explain to people why Trump did not like this speech.

Uh Trump didn't like the speech because it wasn't JD Vance's speech. Uh Trump didn't like the speech because it wasn't Pam Bondi's excoriation of the Senators last week. You know, Trump Trump wanted Rubio to go there and say, hey, listen You beta males and you beta females. Uh we're the big dog in town. Washed up old Europeans. And by the way, you're letting your culture go. You know, I'm a white supremacist and you're letting your culture go by having immigration.

and uh this is nonsensical and a result of which we're gonna punish you. And oh by the way, if you haven't noticed, our supply of material to Ukraine has dropped to basically zero. Uh so you're gonna have to fix the Ukraine thing from your end while I'm doing an economic deal with Vladimir Putin. That's what Trump wanted. to have happen and then Trump wanted a couple of uh biting remarks against all the other European leaders and then he would have s said what he said about Pam Bondi's

testimony to the Senate. That was fantastic. Fantastic. So if you're not rude, it doesn't wash, basically. Yeah, I'm gonna take people into the inner sanctum of Trump because I spoke to two guys that talked to him after Rubio's speech. That sounded like Bush republicanism. That sounded like establishment republicanism. And so he didn't like it. Okay? And last but not least, with Rubio,

It shifted the spotlight away from Trump to Marco Rubio. Let me tell you something about Donald Trump. Do not, and I repeat, do not get a standing ovation from anybody. while you are in the Trump administration, unless your name is Donald J. Trump. So everybody understand that? Can't have anybody in there That uh has why are you laughing? Why you laughing?

You know what makes me think? We've just been doing this series that we're doing for our founding member about the early years of Donald Trump. And it's exactly the same. There he is. you know, trying to organize the ice rink to be rebuilt in Central Park. And what do the contractors say and the mayor say? There's only room for one person on the podium when it comes to taking the applause of the crowd and that's Donald Trump.

hasn't changed. It was ever thus. So there you go. So Caddy, what are you hearing from the administration? People who are in the kind of more traditional Republican world, who are hoping for a Republican nominee. I haven't spoken to anyone in the administration. I'm glad you managed to get hold of a couple of people that were close to Trump on this,'cause that's interesting that he didn't like it.

Doesn't totally surprise me. It's too soft. But for people who are in the kind of traditional Republican world, they are hoping that Marco Rubio's performance they told me in Munich gave them a sense that yes, there is an alternative to JD Vance. There is somebody who still believes in a more, as Munich was set up to do, celebrate John McCain and there's still a John McCain dinner.

That there's a kind of still a John McCain type wing for the Republican Party. I think what it highlighted for me, and we're gonna talk about the Democrats. in a minute,'cause it was also super interesting watching all of them there. What it highlighted for me is this incredibly narrow path that Marco Rubio has to the nomination. I don't know that we are living in a political world that allows candidates to try to be multiple things to multiple audiences.

we are living in this political world that rewards this kind of slightly weird concept of authenticity and sticking to your guns and a social media world that rewards that. And if Marco Rubio thinks he can do what he did in Munich, but still keep MAGA on board, which is what I think he was trying to do with all of these references to civilizational

uh dec you know, he he talked about this I i this word civilizational he used uh as much as he used the word democracy. And let's be honest, what he means is white Europeans. and white Americans in that context, that you need to keep your countries and that your countries kind of homogeneous. Is that enough, do you think, to keep Marco Rubio popular with the MAGA crowd and try and peel away enough people in the center of American politics who don't like the Pam Bondy, JD Vance?

Donald Trump tone of politics. So I so I don't think so, no. I don't think so either. I think it's too I think it's not possible. You can't split the baby at the moment. You can't split the baby, but the other the other thing that's gonna happen to Rubio now is he's gonna become less and less relevant. So you mentioned Wickhoff and Jared Kushner and I think they are basically the de facto secretaries of state. Uh and Rubio is out there, you know, on a little bit of a diplomatic tour.

I just wanna contrast it briefly and get your reaction to this because I I listened to Newsom's entire speech and uh I was fascinated by that because there was levels of traditionalism in that and there was levels of expressing the importance of the coalition. And there's nuance to to Newsom's speech in the sense that he has that Kissinger esque George Cannon S diplomatic idea about America being stronger through the coalitions. But I think what I didn't hear, what I'm worried about for Newsom

is underestimating the domestic appetite that Americans have for global leadership. Okay, I don't I i i i i it could be overly idealistic. So I'm not one of Gavin's advisors. But if I was, I would say Gavin Uh the country's changed. People feel very stressed. Uh they've been told by Fox News and Donald Trump that we've overextended our commitments internationally and they want us to spend more time

spending money here at home. They're connected, Caddy, by the way. Okay. We the the reason why the country's still got twenty six percent of the global GDP is that our outside foreign policy strategy over eighty years and our inside domestic policy has generally been good. I mean we we we've we've missed the mark on deficit spending Uh but we've generally had the right ideas and so I just think that there's gotta be more

nuance to what Newsom's saying because if he really wants to win the nomination and win the election, he's gotta get some moderate Republicans in addition to the independents to vote for him. He's gonna be'cause this stuff's gonna be very close.

But that that that was my reaction to Newsom in contrast and comparison to Rubio. I mean let's talk about the Democrats because it was a striking scene to see Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, Governor Gazav Newsom of California Uh Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Senator Ruben Gallego and Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, Governor Gretchen Whitman and Gina Raimondo. All democratic hopefuls.

making time in their very busy schedules to attend the Munich Security Conference to show themselves on the world stage. I mean partly they were going there as you and I found in Davos, we s met Democrats who were going there in order to say, look, America hasn't abandoned you, there is another way, Gavin Newsom said it directly. Uh Donald Trump will be gone. Don't think this is permanent. He's becoming a lame duck. He's got three more years and then things return to kinda normal.

So you had the Democrats there giving that message, kind of promoting the traditional American Alliance message, but also, let's be honest, there in order to show that they had foreign policy credentials. and national security credentials and show themselves on the world stage because those clips will then be part of their own campaign platforms when they run in twenty twenty eight. So

Forget Ile caucuses, forget the New Hampshire primaries. It all starts in Munich. Apparently, it happens three years before the actual election, but that's why they were there. On on Gavin Newsom's message I actually thought the most interesting thing Gavin Newsom said was not when he was speaking at the speech. It was in a si he gave lots of little interviews to people. He was very happy to get his name out there. He wanted to be covered an awful lot.

he was sort of dominating the spotlight there. But one of the things that I thought was interesting that he said, he acknowledged that he was in Munich to learn. He said, I'm not trying to give foreign policy advice, I need it. That, to me, showed

a politician with political skills. Because going to Munich with all of these foreign policy experts and say, actually I'm still learning and you guys can teach me things I thought for s for a politician who's sometimes dismissed as being a little too perfect, perfect height, perfect hair, perfectly kind of, you know

uh presented. I mean I'm sure it was studied vulnerability, studied openness, but it wa I thought it was pretty effective. So I'm I'm I'm I'm gonna push back and give you a different point of view and tell me what you think of it. I I think that It's the wrong form for them. They shouldn't be there at all. They shouldn't be there. It comes across as global global elite optics to me. It also comes across as like you're freelancing foreign policy a little bit.

You you know that America is overseas and we can't speak with one voice. Now I recognize that Trump's voice is not their voice, and I recognize that with Trump having a fifty-eight or sixty-one percent disapproval rating, it may not even be the voice of America on foreign policy. But I think playing domestic politics on foreign soil.

in an environment like this in the United States is a bad move. Just me personally. You don't think that's a kind of old school type of thing that you that you don't talk about foreign policy on foreign soil and you stick with the president. I just feel like that's gone out the window. These guys are there to get attention. I don't really necessarily have a problem with that. I I have a problem with the optics of it as how it's gonna be viewed. Right.

Uh it reinforces this perception that uh we're torn related to our foreign allies and nobody's addressing the domestic anxiety. They they would have been better off having a Michigan domestic conference. Uh to juxtaposition the Munich Security Conference. They would have been better off having an Ohio domestic conference where they all got together.

That's why they do it, right? They go because the press is there, they can get attention there, they can break through. All of these people are trying to break through at the moment. Okay, but it looks it looks performative, Caddy. That's the th I'm listening. It it could be for the Average voter in America, it could be the wrong type of attention. Right. What are you doing abroad? Yeah. It could be for the media it could be for the media elite, good attention, it could be for Yes, I get that.

But if I'm a steel worker in Pittsburgh or an auto worker in Michigan, I really wanna know what we're doing to improve my disposable income and to make my sons and daughters' lives better than my life. That's really what I wanna know.

And even if they didn't get the attention, the notion that they did it and they stayed on it. See see one thing they could learn from Trump

is repetition, right? You know, we learned in elementary school repetition is the mother of memory. But they could be pounding the domestic agenda and they could be having these quote unquote Michigan domestic conference, Ohio domestic conference, and promoting this and doing town halls with CNN and others, I think it would scare the daylights out of the Republicans because because the Republicans have not delivered

on a domestic agenda, Caddy. I mean we're gonna we're gonna talk about the economy I guess uh uh later in the show. And even though the stock market is up, like I said to you six months ago the policies that Trump is putting in place is actually hurting the people that more or less voted for him and that's the irony of it. So to me if they focus on those people I think they can win back many of'em. I think I think that's I think that's true. I think it's also true

That you can't run for president of the United States with zero profile on national security and international affairs. But I think it didn't be a good idea. Twenty six, yes. I think I agree with you. And one person who didn't do herself any favours was Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, which actually who actually went with quite an interesting you may agree with her or you may not, but went with a kind of theory of the case. of global affairs based on income inequality.

but had such a um weak performance when she was asked that key question about w whether she would send American troops to protect Taiwan and I listened to the whole thing and I think the answer is so excruciating that you should take a listen. Would and should the US actually commit US troops to defend Taiwan if China were to move? I think that uh uh this is such a uh you know, I th I think that this is a um This is of course a uh a very long standing um

policy of the United States. Uh and I think what we are hoping for is that we want to make sure that we never get to that point and we want to make sure that we are moving in all of our economic research and our global positions to avoid any such confrontation and for that question to even arise.

The risk for somebody like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes or any of these democratic hopefuls is that you turn up on the global stage and you don't do yourself any favors because that clip will be as it is being at the moment. It's kind of going viral. online, uh, particularly being promoted by MAGA types who love the fact that she messed up, but it was a mess up. It it showed her not particularly

adept at that kind of field. Now, okay, you could argue that Donald Trump has compared Ukraine and Russia to two kids fighting in a playground or has told Iranian protesters that America would be with them when they weren't necessarily. And so he's messed up a lot as well and said things that are contradictory and incomplete. I think you have to have some foreign policy credentials and I guess that's why they were going there. So Caddy, I I hear you on AOC, she did damage herself.

But and she's not ready. You know, s I'm not one of her advisors either, but I would say to her, Hey listen, you're great on messaging, you're great on social media, you're great on movement mobilization But if you're gonna be the president, you have to negotiate with political opponents and you have to develop some centrist like coalitional support.

You're not gonna get there on the hard left lane solo. You may get there in New York on the hard left lane, but to your points that you've made earlier on these shows about Mickey Sherrill Or uh the the woman that won in in Abigail Spanberger. Abigail Spanberger, you gotta have more of that. You gotta manage the intra party factions.

And she's not doing that. And so so so for those reasons I don't think she's ready. Despite her charm, her charisma, she's a formidable and very successful politician. But I think the presidency requires something else. And again, hate Donald Trump. But he built quite a republican coalition in the two times that he won the presidency. I think the key there is she's not ready. And I think even despite, you know, her policies on income inequality around

national security, that clip showed she's not ready. If you can't have a good answer to a fairly obvious question about Taiwan, then you probably shouldn't be have your finger on the nuclear button and be America's commander in chief, or at least not yet. And I think I think that's why it was useful. For me, I found that that's why it's useful having them go there.

Um, by the way, the Democrat who's getting the most attention as all of these aspirational types that are rushing off to Munich, it turns out all you really have to do is go courtside. at an NBA All Stars game and catch a ball efficiently. Because if you can do that, you get a standing applause and if your name is Barack Obama, you're still the Democrat that actually all Democrats really love. The aliens are real Barack Obama. Oh, or maybe they're not for real. Actually real.

Uh, he had a good weekend. Barack Obama is still the one that they all look to, which must hurt if you're Gavin, Newsom, or AOC or any of the other other types who were there. I think that must be pretty tricky for them. But they would have liked the poll numbers. Quickly before we go to break, I do think it's worth bringing that up. The latest Economist Ugov poll shows a swing that I don't think Anthony I have ever seen in American politics a swing this big in a particular group of people.

Poll that was released just a couple of days ago shows that Trump's approval rating among young voters, people ages eighteen to twenty nine, not us sadly, but anyway, young voters. has cratered since he took office last year. It's dropped by fifty one points. Have you ever seen a swing that big in a group of people in the space of one year from approval to disapproval of somebody?

That's pretty dramatic. Just just a sports team. You know, like I I the the disapproval rating on the New York Jets I think has swung like that over the years. And perhaps there are British football teams that have had the same thing. But I I I I think that's something to really look at, Caddy, because Trump is super frustrated by this.

Uh so much so that Gallup, who has a lot of government contracts, has now said no more on approval rating uh polling. We're not gonna do it anymore because they don't wanna upset King Trump. Uh but you know, if you go to Pew Research and these others

If you're sitting at thirty six, thirty seven percent I mean my uh reaction, this is terrible for me to say but I'll say it, I'll say who the hell are these thirty six percent that are actually supporting this nonsense? You know, I want I wanna go out and interview every one of them, you know?

But I I I I still think given the damage he's done internationally, the damage he's done to the economy, uh I th I still think that the thirty six percent number is surprising. You know, if the stock market rolls over And you have this underlying surface cracks in the economy that we're gonna discuss, plus a poor stock market, which may not happen because the Fed will likely cut rates into this environment.

But listen, he could end up with a twenty-five percent approval rating before this thing is over. Okay, we're gonna take a break and come back and dig more into those economic numbers. This episode is brought to you by Aura Frames. Now it's Mother's Day coming up, and Aura Frames is what I call a genuine upgrade from the predictable gift.

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McDonald's är stolt sponsor av Melodifestivalten. Så tillåt oss att presentera ett av våra bidrag: Festivalmenyn. Sour Cream Onion Company, fyra Pepper Chicken Strips och en Apple Pie för 99 kronor. Festivalmaten finns på McDonald's. Anthony, I know you've signed up as a founding member to the podcast, but do you also follow us on your app? If you guys never want to miss an episode, especially with all the craziness in American politics right now.

Just hit follow on your podcast app. On Spotify it's follow. On Apple it's that little plus at the top. Just to make life easy. All right, back to the episode. Welcome back to the Rest is Politics US with me, Anthony Scaramucci. Caddy, we're gonna talk about the economy. So we've been talking about it over the last six months. The uh the core headline

Caddy, is that there's a soft landing, but if you really look at the data, there's not a lot to celebrate. Inflation is still North of 2%. The unemployment rate, while it's ticked down to 4.3%, there's something called the U6 unemployment rate. And I just want people to understand this in America because there are lies, there are damn lies, and then there are statistics, Caddy. And so what ends up happening is we lower that number

Because if you've looked for a job for a year and you have not found a job, uh, then you fall off of the unemployment role. But if you build in the U six number, it's closer to eight percent. uh which means that there's a lot of people that are out of the labor participation market now, uh, which is uh the pressing thing for the United States. So so the reality, Caddy, is things are a little bit worse.

uh than the superficial numbers are showing. And a lot of this has to do with Trump's tariffs, it has to do with the tension overseas, it has to do with the complaints by American manufacturers, Caddy, that need Products from overseas that they're paying for. And again, I'll use the example of Boeing. If they're gonna make an aircraft here in the United States. sixty percent of the parts are coming from overseas and they've now uh incurring those taxes, if you will.

Uh so what do you what do you make of the economy and what are you hearing inside the beltway? I hear from people in MAGA world that they're Th there's quite a lot of frustration that they feel they have done all of these things that ought to be juicing the economy, particularly around the big beautiful bill. They send a lot of money out into the country.

They're hoping that the tax rebates that Americans are about to receive in the post, which should be something like thirty six hundred dollars. higher than the average tax rebate, which is usually around three thousand dollars, that people will feel richer and they'll start spending. I mean what you hear from people in the president's circle is It's going to get better, it's going to get better, it's going to be get better. We have primed the economy for a midterm rally.

effectively, that we know it was bad last year, but very soon Americans will start feeling that it's better because these tax cuts and the tax rebates will filter through and people will have more money in their pockets. But then you hear from companies, from the private sector, exactly what you're just saying

which is that a lot of companies said they're actually about to start raising prices. They swallowed a lot of the tariff cuts as we've said before, but you've now got companies like Levi's, McCormick and Company who are saying that actually we're gonna be raising prices on things like jeans and household goods and industrial products.

a lot more than we normally would at this stage in the year. And so prices could actually be of general household things could actually be about to go up further. When you look at those polls that we mentioned earlier, Anthony, the big drop off has been around the two issues of immigration obviously and the activities of ICE around the country, but also around the economy and prices. So I don't know if the president can the president you tell me this, you've spoken about this.

Can they do something to turn around this perception that the thing he ran on successfully he hasn't actually managed to deliver on?

I think it's gonna be tough. I mean, I think we you have the affordability issue which is really weighing on uh the average person. I think the other the other big issue which we have to address is the labor market. So he's thrown the people out of the country. Uh and so it's had a chilling effect on GDP. If you actually just look at the labor numbers, we need more workers.

Uh we had the workers in the country, he's throwing them out of the country. You know you know, i i the the global pressures on tariff and trade. uh are injecting a tremendous amount of uncertainty into the market and the supply chain. Uh and so listen, he's growing modestly. But Caddy you probably saw the poll over the weekend. Would you rather have Joe Biden back as president sixty percent of the people said yes.

And so if you look at the numbers, you know, and th this happens to presidents by the way, when When Biden was in office he had a forty, forty five percent approval rating. We live in an era of low approval ratings for leaders everywhere, not just in America but in the West as well. unenthusiastic people are about political leadership, particularly here in the country. But remember, you know, Biden pushed the CHIPS Act, he pushed the infrastructure bill, he pushed clean energy incentives.

Uh Trump is dumping money into people's hands. Yes, the tax refunds will be better. But he hasn't done anything structurally. Like he can't get to the podium and say, Okay, listen I've made a five year investment. We've used some of the government's money to rebuild manufacturing centers or we made we invested in jobs training or retooling people that are delivering pizzas or working for DoorDash. We're gonna teach them how to use AI and get white collar jobs. He hasn't done any of that.

And so the economy is vulnerable and it's gonna be offset by rate cuts. I'm not saying that the stock market's gonna implode or anything like that. But we're talking about the average person. You know, you've mentioned a K shape economy where a group of people are doing very well, Caddy, and then another group of people are doing poorly. And so the question is, is the group of people that are doing poorly gonna turn up at the polls and vote the Republicans out? Because remember they own

They own this. They've got the House, the Senate, and the Presidency, and so it'll be interesting to see what happens. over the weekend, which is that when a president's job approval rating is below 50%, the average loss of seats in that midterm election uh is thirty two. So President Trump's job approval rating sits at around forty percent, you know, if you take an average of all the polls out there, which suggests they're in for a hammering, according to Witair's

in the midterm elections. And the thing they have to do is they have to it's exactly what you're talking about, is that K-shaped economy because who are the people they're losing vote support amongst? Young people who are struggling the most economically.

and Hispanic voters who are not traditionally in the top one percent of American voters, so also the people that are struggling in the economy. Before we go, one of the things that you thought he might try to do is by getting Kevin Washington to cut interest rates uh that that would help juice the American economy and the American stock market heading into the midterms.

Is that gonna happen and will it have the effect that he wants it to have? I think I I I think so. You know, our our our economic team is expecting now four rate cuts by the end of the year. Uh of course we've got to get rid of the criminal investigation against Jerome Powell. I really do believe Tom Tillis that that nomination is not going to go forward in the committee. He's going to vote against it.

So remember how this works, it's gotta go to the Senate Banking Committee, it's gotta be approved by the committee and then put down on the floor for a vote until it says, Hey, I'm not doing that until you get rid of this cr criminal investigation. So Uh you know, we'll have to see what happens there. But my guess is is that criminal investigation will slink away. Uh you know, and the it's preposterous that there's actually a criminal investigation against Jerome Powell. It just speaks to

how bad everything is. You know, we we I know we have to go, but the corruption index in the United States has gone up and I want people to think about that. Uh we're not enforcing the bribery acts. We're not enforcing the emoluments clause against the president. And, you know, there's a h there's a stink going on. In the economy Which is also going to affect the economy, Caddy. So

So if you bring ice agents into blue states, you're gonna scare people, it's gonna slow down economic innovation. If you're gonna grift people, people are not gonna trust the system as much as they once did. It's all It's all connected. So will rates get go lower if Walsh gets into the job and I predict he will get into the job? Yes. Will that act as a buffer for the stock market? Yes.

But the president and his team is gonna have to pull back on these tariffs. And and you know this and I know this. The reason why that Supreme Court decision on the tariffs has been delayed is Roberts does not want this to be a five four decision. Okay, he's not gonna get it to be nine oh, uh, but he's looking for seven two and he's lobbying those justices.

uh to make that happen. And so and so, you know, that that that's coming down the pike. So so there there's a lot of economic uncertainty. If you're a an executive and a capital allocator You're sitting there saying, geez, I don't know if the tariffs are gonna stay in place. I don't know what's going on with ICE. I'm worried about the bribery and corruption that's going on in my own industry. Should I also be a briber and a corrupt person to make more business for myself?

I mean he set up a true disaster for the American economy and it and it's starting to hurt him and you can see it in his approval ratings. And you can see it in the value of the dollar as well. I mean it's hard to know exactly which of those plays what role, but it's all certainly playing some sort of role. Um That is all we have time for today. Clearly another busy week uh shaping up here in in the United States. Uh thanks so much for listening, everybody. If you would like to become

a founding member, please do so. We'll be taking your questions. We'll be looking at Epstein um this week and uh you can send us your questions and we'll answer them every week as well. And get our special series on Donald J. Trump, which is coming up soon. Thanks for listening, guys. Thanks guys. We'll see you soon.