January 16, 2026 • 24 mins
On this MiniPod, our hosts Angela Rye, Andrew Gillum, and Bakari Sellers are STUNNED by what Fed Chair Jerome Powell did.
The chair of the Federal Reserve, which sets our nationwide interest rates, is under investigation by the Trump administration. A stalwart bureaucrat, Jerome Powell made a rare public statement about the investigation, claiming that it’s politically motivated, and an attack on the independence of the Federal Reserve.
Let’s back it up, what does the Federal Reserve do again? Why is their independence important, and why are our hosts so SHOCKED by Jerome Powell’s statement?
Read more:
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/14/business/economy/housing-pulte-fannie-freddie.html
https://www.axios.com/2026/01/14/trump-mortgages-credit-cards-rates
If you’d like to submit a question, check out our tutorial video: http://www.instagram.com/reel/C5j_oBXLIg0/ and send to @nativelandpod.
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Native Land Pod is brought to you by Reasoned Choice Media.
Thank you to the Native Land Pod team:
Angela Rye as host, executive producer, and cofounder of Reasoned Choice Media; Andrew Gillum as host and producer, Bakari Sellers as host and producer, and Lauren Hansen as executive producer; LoLo Mychael is our research producer, and Nikolas Harter is our editor and producer. Special thanks to Chris Morrow and Lenard McKelvey, co-founders of Reasoned Choice Media.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Native Landpod is a production of iHeartRadio in partnership with
Reason Choice Media.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
And welcome to this week's mini pod.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
After a great, great long pod with our special guest
Joy and Reed and Nicole Hanna Jones, we now have
this mini pod.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Welcome home, y'all come.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
One of the things we wanted to do was dig
a little deeper on the Federal Reserve. I just felt
like this week, one of the episodes, or one of
the things that we needed to spend some time on,
particularly in an episode or mini pod, was the Federal Reserve,
because a lot of people don't really understand what it does,
and they don't understand the implications of not having an
independent Federal Reserve. So I want to tell you what
the Federal Reserve is quickly, and then I want to
(00:42):
flip to a clip from Jerome Pile from earlier in
the week, actually he released it on Sunday night. That
tells you how damning it is, and then we'll go
from there. But the Federal Reserve acts as the central
Bank of the United States. It manages monetary policy to
achieve maximum employment and stable price. It supervises excuse me,
stable prices. It supervises banks, maintains financial system stability, provides
(01:07):
financial services to banks and the government, and promotes consumer
protection and community development.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Its core role is.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
To ensure a safe, flexible, and stable US monetary and
financial system by controlling money supply. The FED is the
backbone for the dollar, It's the backbone of our economy,
and that's why it has to be independent. But apparently
Donald Trump has some other thoughts thanks to Project twenty
twenty five, and we're going to roll a clip just
(01:35):
so you can see how angry Jerome Power was.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
On Friday, the Department of Justice served the Federal Reserve
with grand jury subpoenas threatening a criminal indictment related to
my testimony before the Senate Banking Committee last June. That
testimony concerned, in part, a multi year project to renovate
historic Federal Reserve office buildings. I have deep respect for
(01:59):
the rule of law and for accountability in our democracy.
No one, certainly not the Chair of the Federal Reserve,
is above the law.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
And I mean, I think that's the larger point. That
nobody is above the law. That's the point that Jerome
Pile was trying to make and you know, a lot
of people are wondering what this is about and why
is he picking on the You know, why is he
picking on the FED chair? First of all, I don't
think you should pick on any man named Jerome, even
if he is five eight and white.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
That ain't that ain't what you spoke. That should not
be something that you out here doing.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Before he got angry, I was like, I don't think
I sent sensed a sense changing emotion.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
That them the ones you need to be afraid to swallow.
Speaker 5 (02:38):
You could hear it in the swallow?
Speaker 3 (02:40):
Is that where it is? Swallow?
Speaker 6 (02:42):
Because he referenced the renovation project, I think we should
harken our listeners back to what actually happened. It might
be associated with the project, but it probably has a
lot more to do with the fact that Donald Trump
left that press conference about the renovation of the FED
feeling pretty embarrassed.
Speaker 5 (02:59):
Let's roll this clip, HM.
Speaker 7 (03:00):
So we taking a look, and it looks like it's
about three point one billion, one up a little bit
or a lot. So the two point seven is now
three point one.
Speaker 5 (03:12):
Yeah, it just jeral is standing next to him, shaking
his head.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
I haven't heard that from anybody the Fed. I know
about three point one as well.
Speaker 6 (03:19):
Care come, Tim Scott, nobody asked you, Tim, standing from us.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Yes, are you're including the Martin renovation?
Speaker 3 (03:25):
You just add our retire capital.
Speaker 4 (03:27):
You just you just added in the third building.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
Is what that is?
Speaker 4 (03:29):
That's a third building.
Speaker 7 (03:31):
It's a building that's being built.
Speaker 4 (03:33):
It's been it was built five years ago. We finished
Martin five years was.
Speaker 7 (03:36):
Over as part of the overall. So so we're going
to take a look.
Speaker 5 (03:44):
Jero pals like, you're not the liar on me.
Speaker 6 (03:46):
So he he included a building in his estimate of
how much the renovation was costing that was finished five
years ago. I just want to shout out Tim Scott,
Senator Tim Scott in this clip or providing the documentation
that would say that the building that was engaging in
cost overruns and somehow as a result of a cost
(04:09):
overrun of a federal building construction project, now the Federal
Reserve Chair and the Federal Reserve in total, is receiving
subpoenas about a potential criminal indictment. I think it's about
the interest rate, y'all. I think Donald Trump wanted him
to reduce the interest rates regardless of the impact.
Speaker 5 (04:30):
That may have.
Speaker 6 (04:30):
I mean, personally, I would like to see lower interest rates,
but at what costs?
Speaker 2 (04:34):
No pun intended, Well, you lower interest rates can get inflation.
Hell ut yeah, I mean the other For the average
person listening, this is an agency and organization and entity
that most of us aren't thinking about. We it just
doesn't cross our mind. But I will tell you that
(04:56):
it is probably one of the most significant can't reasons
why anybody outside of the United States, any other government,
any other country, any other wealthy person would ever invest
in the United States of America, Because it's the same
judgment that they make in every other country around the world,
(05:16):
and that is is this a banana republic where the
financial system is run by politicians and politics, or is
this a safe, secure, reliable country or entity that prioritizes
expertise and stability over politics and, in Trump's case, buffoonery.
(05:43):
So it's one of the Put another way, it is
the hallmark of a country that is either a banana republic,
which is a place you don't put money, and a
first world civilized, safe and secure monetary system that is
worth your investment. Even if you're like the United States
(06:03):
and you're buried in debt. It's a good place to
invest because over the long run, those debts payoff.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
You know.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Also, we have to look at nothing happens in a vacuum.
I think that's like my mantra on this show, nothing
happens in a vacuum or exclusive. I mean, you have
to look at these large corporations, many of which are
the President's friends, buying up many of these homes throughout
the country that we're seeing. They're not buying one or
two homes, they're buying thousands of properties. You have to
(06:33):
look at his first of all, that they're being a nonpartisan,
independent banking safeguard or safety net is paramount to the
financial security of this country. But if when you're looking
when you're talking about housing in particular, the President talking
about buying back mortgages and all of these other things,
(06:56):
you have the you have outside of inflation, as you
all talked about, you have the ability or the likelihood
that we're going to have another housing bubble or housing
crisis that we just emerge from between two thousand and
six and two thousand and eight. I mean, we're going
backwards when it comes to forward looking policy. I mean
we have to create more supply in this country if
(07:17):
we're going to do anything about the housing crisis that
we have, the only way to make the only way
to make housing affordable is to create more supply.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
And what he wants to do is inversely enrichest friends.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Limit supply, buy up all the homes, jack up all
the prices, and we won't have a backstop in place
like the FED to prevent things like this from happening.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Well, God help us, if we if we if this
is supply, If right now what we're seeing in housing
crosses land and the largest of supply, that's the problem
I don't want to see. We need more homes, need
we need more homes and that. But this is why
it's so stupid and my opic. Even the investors, the
big banks who are the money by behind big builders,
(08:01):
they don't want no damn political a FED board. They
don't want a political FED board because it is. It
is what president wouldn't want to say, I presided over
an economy that had the lowest interest rates consecutively for
four years. Politicians are going to be incentivized never to
(08:21):
raise interest rates, never to make it look like it's
a hard thing. When it comes to money, but the
truth is supplying demand. And we all saw those curves.
I had a hard time with it, right, because when
one goes up, one goes down, and you have to
figure out those graphs and that kind of thing, which
is why I'm not math and I'm not science. I
can read, and I'm good on history and some other
literature literary pieces, but there has to be people who
(08:44):
pay close attention to the delicate balance, not just here
in America, but around the globe of economies. Because just
like we calls the global economy to tank with a
US based housing bubble, again, everybody was thrown off the
yoke and it didn't matter where you were in the world.
(09:05):
The United States was able to destabilize your economy because
of the foolishness that was done here in the housing market.
So it's just too interwoven a global system to put
idiots who are sick of fans to Donald Trump in
charge of it. It's not about Jern Powell. I don't
know the man. What it is about is not letting
(09:27):
politicians get control of the money.
Speaker 6 (09:30):
I want to say this really quickly on I'm going
to raise a couple of points that are going to
feel contradictory. But this administration is highly contradictory. So one
of the things that's happened is he was pushing the
Federal Reserve, essentially lobbying them, which is unheard of, is
certainly unprecedented, lobbying the Federal Reserve for these lower interest
rates because they were not moving quick enough, because they
(09:53):
were not aligned with Donald Trump's actions. He's now attempting
to circumvent that process and go oh directly to agency.
So he's told Fanny May and Freddie Mack to buy
two hundred billion dollars worth of mortgage bonds. According to
this Axios piece, that has impacted rates rates lowered as
(10:14):
a result of that pressure. He also suggested that credit
card rates should be capped at ten percent for a year.
Speaker 5 (10:23):
Coming up really soon.
Speaker 6 (10:24):
And there are Republicans who have kind of been like,
this sounds crazy. This is his attempt to do what
the Federal Reserve does himself. The other thing that I
want to raise that there should be some bipartisan or
nonpartisan support for from the Trump administration. I certainly agree
with this, and it goes right to what Bakari's last
point was. He was talking about Donald Trump's friends buying
(10:47):
up homes. Well, the President suggested last week on a
true Social post that he was ready to immediately ban
Wall Street from buying up family homes. He said that
people don't live in corporations, they live in homes, and
so I am fascinated to see what happens with this. Certainly,
(11:08):
we know that there's long been a democratic led ideal
that people should not be corporations should not be buying
up homes that people should have access to.
Speaker 5 (11:18):
While all of this.
Speaker 6 (11:19):
Is going on, though, his chairman of f HFA, the
Federal Housing Financing Agency, is working to make home ownership
more difficult.
Speaker 5 (11:32):
So even if Wall Street is.
Speaker 6 (11:33):
Not buying up these homes, if you are restricting fair
housing opportunities and affordable housing opportunities, what difference does it
make if you implement good policy on one side, if
your f HFA chair doesn't do the same thing or
director doesn't do the same thing.
Speaker 5 (11:50):
I thought it was a no, there's no clip, there's
no clip.
Speaker 6 (11:55):
I just wanted to I wanted to dive into all
the pieces because there are a lot of moving It's overwhelming.
It's gonna have a lot of impact on us the
White House just last week talked about, oh, well, the
mortgage rates are falling, this is because of Donald Trump.
Speaker 5 (12:09):
Their gas prices are falling because of Donald Trump.
Speaker 6 (12:11):
Let me tell you the campaign thing that he like,
his biggest campaign promise that is still unfulfilled, and in
fact it has been worse under the Trump administration.
Speaker 5 (12:21):
That is grocery prices. Grocery prices still are not down.
Speaker 6 (12:25):
So while he's doing all this market manipulation, he's not
fulfilled the one campaign promise that he I think rode
to victory on.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
He's my He is looking at this only through the
lens of his family business. He's not even looking at
it in the interest of his big friends of wealthy
friends who are homebuilders, because the people who are the
money behind those homebuilders know that it is a terrible idea.
(12:57):
And the other truth is I love Elizabeth Warren and
I want her to get as much reform as can
be had when it comes to protecting the rights and.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
The gross how do you say the gross.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Overtaking and manipulation that's done against the average American consumer.
The fact that we were able to go through a
Biden era and a portion of the Obama era, with
these fees for overdrafts cut significantly. Not one of us
heard a bank talk about I'm going out of business
because the overdraft. Right, So that was a good thing.
(13:36):
But I honestly got to tell you this fight for
who can own homes. That train has left the station,
circled the globe.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
It's built the whole.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
New platform two thousand. If we didn't learn anything from
the two thousand and seven eight collapse, we ought to
know it now. Pensions, everybody pension, all our money. If
you work for a government, municipal, state, federal, if you
(14:07):
are one of the big big hedge funds on Wall Street,
you are deeply, deeply invested in housing in this country.
And right now, I mean, I'd love to see the numbers,
but I mean, certainly new housing overwhelmingly disproportionately owned by
(14:27):
hedge fund managers and hedge hedge fund companies and pensions
public pensions, not just anybody's pension. Let me be specific,
public pension funds meaning the same government workers who can't
afford to buy a home in the communities where they
work serve diligently. They also happen to be owners of
(14:50):
much of the housing in this country, except they don't
do it directly. It's through their retirement investment funds.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
You know, just kind of put a pin on your
own pile.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
I mean senators, Republican senators have already let the cat
out the bag. In fact, they said that he should
go to Uh, what's the woman's name? Who's the United
States Attorney in DC. She had the show on Fox News.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Oh perier Piere hero Piero.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Janine, yes her, and make it deal a clip and
simply say we'll talk to it and simply say that
I will resign in exchange for this investigation being over.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
Roll that clip, Angela.
Speaker 8 (15:32):
And my request in this case with the Federal Reserve
was a legal request, and the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Powell,
chose not to give a legal response. Instead, he chose
to politicize and publicize. I did not politicize or publicize
any of this. I followed the federal rules. I investigate
(15:54):
until I have evidence, uh, and if in what I do,
then I go forward with the public SA statement. Now
what are we talking about. We're talking about a billion
dollars in cost overruns. Talk about fiscal irresponsibility, talk about
bureaucratic blow.
Speaker 5 (16:12):
Now we're talking.
Speaker 8 (16:13):
About a million, ten million, one hundred million, we're talking
about a billion dollars in cost overruns in DC and
something that is purely in my lane as the United
States Attorney to investigate as well as lying before Congress.
So both of these things are our issues that I
(16:34):
looked at, and on December nineteenth, we started the investigation
in November. On December nineteenth, shortest investigation in history. An
email and we said, we'd like to talk to people
at the Federal Reserve. Give us a call. No response
for ten days. December twenty ninth, Please give us a call.
We'd like to talk to you. We'd like to speak
(16:54):
to you. No response for ten days. We want to
meet them the first week of January. No response. So
then we did what any normal prosecutor we're doing. We
issued legal process. I'm not saying that he's saying that.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Okay, So all the over runs that ain't no damn
crime at all, and on all believe a referral. What
committee referred what Committee chairman referred to you that they
were concerned about a witness who came before the Congress
in life.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
What are the what are the what are the overruns
for what are the overruns for the for the Trump
Convention Center?
Speaker 3 (17:27):
They building on the side of the building.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
I'm sorry, where are the permits for tearing down the
goddamn half of the White House?
Speaker 5 (17:34):
Well know that?
Speaker 1 (17:35):
And then she's talking about she's talking about he made
it public. And then she went to Fox News. How
many United States attorneys have you seen on Fox News
during the Biden administration.
Speaker 6 (17:44):
But this is what happens when you put media personalities
in charge of the federal government. You have the guy
who ran The Apprentice and ran several businesses into the ground,
lied all through New York about the amount of money
that he was making so that he had to pay
hundreds of million dollars back to the state of New York,
thanks Tis James. And then now you have Pete Hegg says,
the drunk running the Department of Defense.
Speaker 5 (18:06):
And you have Janine.
Speaker 6 (18:08):
Pirot like taking all of her marching orders from Donald
Trump to target all of his political enemies. Again, this
is an a political entity with an a political fed chair.
This is Jerome Powell that they're claiming lied before Congress
would love to see that proof, and we'd love to
understand when construction project. Mind you, tariffs and the costs
(18:29):
of goods probably have everything to do with any potential
cost overrun the experience. So thank you Donald Trump for that.
You are now prosecuting or seeking to prosecute someone based
on the economic conditions that you created, targeting all of
these countries around the world with these crazy tariffs.
Speaker 5 (18:47):
What do you think is going to happen?
Speaker 6 (18:49):
Construction goods are going to cost more. Basic supplies at a
grocery store is going to cost more. That is not criminal.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
That is a building built in DC that didn't anyway.
Speaker 5 (19:00):
And I know it wasn't a billion dollars.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
It's also not criminal. I mean what is.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
Criminal is destroying a historic building without having achieved the
appropriate permits and sign offs from the respective governing boards
who are responsible by statute for what happens at the building.
So anytime they bring this mess up, I'll just say,
east wing, east wing. This conversation starts and stops.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
That's how we know. That's how we know it's not
about that. That's how we know. It's about monetary policy.
It's about interest rates, it's about making sure his friends
can get richer.
Speaker 5 (19:39):
It's about his ego being destroyed at at press conference too.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
I think it's about getting rid of your own pole
because they know fascism.
Speaker 5 (19:46):
They're literally waiting on you.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
Guys are all saying the same thing.
Speaker 6 (19:51):
But I was going to say to your point, Bakari,
they have the Supreme Court is slated to hear Lisa
Cook's case week on whether or not Donald Trump had
the authority to fire her, and that is going to
be instrumental in what happens next with Chairpal. I don't
(20:11):
know that the case would continue if to your point,
he was able to get rid of him. But he
wants people in positions that have typically been you know,
crossover tenured through various presidential administrations so that he can
manipulate the outcome of this.
Speaker 5 (20:26):
He's lying to us. He's telling us our lies.
Speaker 6 (20:29):
Our eyes are lying our to us every time a
new piece comes out, every time he puts something else
on truth social every time, like the way that even
Fox News reports was happening with Ice in Minnesota. It
is anti ice protests. It's violent protesters. It's all this nonsense,
and they are on a propaganda campaign and it's violent.
Speaker 5 (20:47):
At this point, it.
Speaker 6 (20:49):
Is not okay to be targeting your people who you're
making political enemies who are not political.
Speaker 5 (20:54):
To begin with.
Speaker 6 (20:55):
And it's not okay to target people who just think
differently than you or see the means the end differently
than you, right, I mean, at the end of the day,
for me, the American dream is not about Donald Trump
and his family getting richer. It is about people being
able to afford the homes they live in. It's about
people being paid fair wages. It's about our kids being
educated and facts being found on government websites, which is
(21:17):
also a tall order in this day and age.
Speaker 5 (21:19):
That is what we're up against again.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Jerome Powell just happens to be the person in the position.
I don't know him. I think he should continue doing
this thing about Donald Trump. I'm glad about it. I'm
glad about it all.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
But what.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
I don't want us to miss the whole forest here,
and that is when a president comes out and says
the fundamentals of the economy are strong, it's because they
have been told so by people like the Federal Reserve,
and it's several banks distributed throughout the United States and
(21:55):
other economic careerist professionals who are un tainted and unmanipulated
by the political whims of Washington, DC. We cannot, and
I don't care how many people he makes wealthy, we
cannot turn topsy turvy the fundamentals of the US economy
(22:16):
because if that happens, if we thought that two thousand
and seven and eight were bad, just just you wait
what it would do to the global economic structure of structure.
Every country that is of any importance or significance owns
parts of the United States. We paid them debt service,
China being the greatest holder. Right, so when we tank
(22:40):
everything tanks that's what's at stake here. When you start
to screw around with the fundamentals of the economy for
something as ministerial as helping your builder friend get buy
more land and some more houses, right, that that is
the tree, not even the trees, That is the tree
(23:02):
for the forest.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
Well, look, guys, I wanted to make sure that we
that we plugged this in. I think that this was
a this was a very important topic, very very important issue.
Shout out to Jerome. Jerome got a lot of new friends.
So now y'all can say y'all know, y'all know clip anyway, y'all.
Y'all know some y'all. Y'all all know a cool brother
named Jerome. Y'all saw him act up from trying to
(23:25):
fight back against the fascist president of the United States
of America.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
This has been another.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Amazing by the angry part of them.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
Yeah you heard it, You heard it in this throat.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
This has been another mini pod, a product of Native
Land Pod and Reason Choice Media.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
Welcome Home, y'all, Welcome.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
Home Native Lampod is a production of iHeart Radio and
partnership with Reasons Choice Media. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you
(24:06):
listen to your favorite shows.
Native Landpod is a production of iHeartRadio in partnership with
Reason Choice Media.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
And welcome to this week's mini pod.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
After a great, great long pod with our special guest
Joy and Reed and Nicole Hanna Jones, we now have
this mini pod.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Welcome home, y'all come.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
One of the things we wanted to do was dig
a little deeper on the Federal Reserve. I just felt
like this week, one of the episodes, or one of
the things that we needed to spend some time on,
particularly in an episode or mini pod, was the Federal Reserve,
because a lot of people don't really understand what it does,
and they don't understand the implications of not having an
independent Federal Reserve. So I want to tell you what
the Federal Reserve is quickly, and then I want to
(00:42):
flip to a clip from Jerome Pile from earlier in
the week, actually he released it on Sunday night. That
tells you how damning it is, and then we'll go
from there. But the Federal Reserve acts as the central
Bank of the United States. It manages monetary policy to
achieve maximum employment and stable price. It supervises excuse me,
stable prices. It supervises banks, maintains financial system stability, provides
(01:07):
financial services to banks and the government, and promotes consumer
protection and community development.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Its core role is.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
To ensure a safe, flexible, and stable US monetary and
financial system by controlling money supply. The FED is the
backbone for the dollar, It's the backbone of our economy,
and that's why it has to be independent. But apparently
Donald Trump has some other thoughts thanks to Project twenty
twenty five, and we're going to roll a clip just
(01:35):
so you can see how angry Jerome Power was.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
On Friday, the Department of Justice served the Federal Reserve
with grand jury subpoenas threatening a criminal indictment related to
my testimony before the Senate Banking Committee last June. That
testimony concerned, in part, a multi year project to renovate
historic Federal Reserve office buildings. I have deep respect for
(01:59):
the rule of law and for accountability in our democracy.
No one, certainly not the Chair of the Federal Reserve,
is above the law.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
And I mean, I think that's the larger point. That
nobody is above the law. That's the point that Jerome
Pile was trying to make and you know, a lot
of people are wondering what this is about and why
is he picking on the You know, why is he
picking on the FED chair? First of all, I don't
think you should pick on any man named Jerome, even
if he is five eight and white.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
That ain't that ain't what you spoke. That should not
be something that you out here doing.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Before he got angry, I was like, I don't think
I sent sensed a sense changing emotion.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
That them the ones you need to be afraid to swallow.
Speaker 5 (02:38):
You could hear it in the swallow?
Speaker 3 (02:40):
Is that where it is? Swallow?
Speaker 6 (02:42):
Because he referenced the renovation project, I think we should
harken our listeners back to what actually happened. It might
be associated with the project, but it probably has a
lot more to do with the fact that Donald Trump
left that press conference about the renovation of the FED
feeling pretty embarrassed.
Speaker 5 (02:59):
Let's roll this clip, HM.
Speaker 7 (03:00):
So we taking a look, and it looks like it's
about three point one billion, one up a little bit
or a lot. So the two point seven is now
three point one.
Speaker 5 (03:12):
Yeah, it just jeral is standing next to him, shaking
his head.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
I haven't heard that from anybody the Fed. I know
about three point one as well.
Speaker 6 (03:19):
Care come, Tim Scott, nobody asked you, Tim, standing from us.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Yes, are you're including the Martin renovation?
Speaker 3 (03:25):
You just add our retire capital.
Speaker 4 (03:27):
You just you just added in the third building.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
Is what that is?
Speaker 4 (03:29):
That's a third building.
Speaker 7 (03:31):
It's a building that's being built.
Speaker 4 (03:33):
It's been it was built five years ago. We finished
Martin five years was.
Speaker 7 (03:36):
Over as part of the overall. So so we're going
to take a look.
Speaker 5 (03:44):
Jero pals like, you're not the liar on me.
Speaker 6 (03:46):
So he he included a building in his estimate of
how much the renovation was costing that was finished five
years ago. I just want to shout out Tim Scott,
Senator Tim Scott in this clip or providing the documentation
that would say that the building that was engaging in
cost overruns and somehow as a result of a cost
(04:09):
overrun of a federal building construction project, now the Federal
Reserve Chair and the Federal Reserve in total, is receiving
subpoenas about a potential criminal indictment. I think it's about
the interest rate, y'all. I think Donald Trump wanted him
to reduce the interest rates regardless of the impact.
Speaker 5 (04:30):
That may have.
Speaker 6 (04:30):
I mean, personally, I would like to see lower interest rates,
but at what costs?
Speaker 2 (04:34):
No pun intended, Well, you lower interest rates can get inflation.
Hell ut yeah, I mean the other For the average
person listening, this is an agency and organization and entity
that most of us aren't thinking about. We it just
doesn't cross our mind. But I will tell you that
(04:56):
it is probably one of the most significant can't reasons
why anybody outside of the United States, any other government,
any other country, any other wealthy person would ever invest
in the United States of America, Because it's the same
judgment that they make in every other country around the world,
(05:16):
and that is is this a banana republic where the
financial system is run by politicians and politics, or is
this a safe, secure, reliable country or entity that prioritizes
expertise and stability over politics and, in Trump's case, buffoonery.
(05:43):
So it's one of the Put another way, it is
the hallmark of a country that is either a banana republic,
which is a place you don't put money, and a
first world civilized, safe and secure monetary system that is
worth your investment. Even if you're like the United States
(06:03):
and you're buried in debt. It's a good place to
invest because over the long run, those debts payoff.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
You know.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Also, we have to look at nothing happens in a vacuum.
I think that's like my mantra on this show, nothing
happens in a vacuum or exclusive. I mean, you have
to look at these large corporations, many of which are
the President's friends, buying up many of these homes throughout
the country that we're seeing. They're not buying one or
two homes, they're buying thousands of properties. You have to
(06:33):
look at his first of all, that they're being a nonpartisan,
independent banking safeguard or safety net is paramount to the
financial security of this country. But if when you're looking
when you're talking about housing in particular, the President talking
about buying back mortgages and all of these other things,
(06:56):
you have the you have outside of inflation, as you
all talked about, you have the ability or the likelihood
that we're going to have another housing bubble or housing
crisis that we just emerge from between two thousand and
six and two thousand and eight. I mean, we're going
backwards when it comes to forward looking policy. I mean
we have to create more supply in this country if
(07:17):
we're going to do anything about the housing crisis that
we have, the only way to make the only way
to make housing affordable is to create more supply.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
And what he wants to do is inversely enrichest friends.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Limit supply, buy up all the homes, jack up all
the prices, and we won't have a backstop in place
like the FED to prevent things like this from happening.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Well, God help us, if we if we if this
is supply, If right now what we're seeing in housing
crosses land and the largest of supply, that's the problem
I don't want to see. We need more homes, need
we need more homes and that. But this is why
it's so stupid and my opic. Even the investors, the
big banks who are the money by behind big builders,
(08:01):
they don't want no damn political a FED board. They
don't want a political FED board because it is. It
is what president wouldn't want to say, I presided over
an economy that had the lowest interest rates consecutively for
four years. Politicians are going to be incentivized never to
(08:21):
raise interest rates, never to make it look like it's
a hard thing. When it comes to money, but the
truth is supplying demand. And we all saw those curves.
I had a hard time with it, right, because when
one goes up, one goes down, and you have to
figure out those graphs and that kind of thing, which
is why I'm not math and I'm not science. I
can read, and I'm good on history and some other
literature literary pieces, but there has to be people who
(08:44):
pay close attention to the delicate balance, not just here
in America, but around the globe of economies. Because just
like we calls the global economy to tank with a
US based housing bubble, again, everybody was thrown off the
yoke and it didn't matter where you were in the world.
(09:05):
The United States was able to destabilize your economy because
of the foolishness that was done here in the housing market.
So it's just too interwoven a global system to put
idiots who are sick of fans to Donald Trump in
charge of it. It's not about Jern Powell. I don't
know the man. What it is about is not letting
(09:27):
politicians get control of the money.
Speaker 6 (09:30):
I want to say this really quickly on I'm going
to raise a couple of points that are going to
feel contradictory. But this administration is highly contradictory. So one
of the things that's happened is he was pushing the
Federal Reserve, essentially lobbying them, which is unheard of, is
certainly unprecedented, lobbying the Federal Reserve for these lower interest
rates because they were not moving quick enough, because they
(09:53):
were not aligned with Donald Trump's actions. He's now attempting
to circumvent that process and go oh directly to agency.
So he's told Fanny May and Freddie Mack to buy
two hundred billion dollars worth of mortgage bonds. According to
this Axios piece, that has impacted rates rates lowered as
(10:14):
a result of that pressure. He also suggested that credit
card rates should be capped at ten percent for a year.
Speaker 5 (10:23):
Coming up really soon.
Speaker 6 (10:24):
And there are Republicans who have kind of been like,
this sounds crazy. This is his attempt to do what
the Federal Reserve does himself. The other thing that I
want to raise that there should be some bipartisan or
nonpartisan support for from the Trump administration. I certainly agree
with this, and it goes right to what Bakari's last
point was. He was talking about Donald Trump's friends buying
(10:47):
up homes. Well, the President suggested last week on a
true Social post that he was ready to immediately ban
Wall Street from buying up family homes. He said that
people don't live in corporations, they live in homes, and
so I am fascinated to see what happens with this. Certainly,
(11:08):
we know that there's long been a democratic led ideal
that people should not be corporations should not be buying
up homes that people should have access to.
Speaker 5 (11:18):
While all of this.
Speaker 6 (11:19):
Is going on, though, his chairman of f HFA, the
Federal Housing Financing Agency, is working to make home ownership
more difficult.
Speaker 5 (11:32):
So even if Wall Street is.
Speaker 6 (11:33):
Not buying up these homes, if you are restricting fair
housing opportunities and affordable housing opportunities, what difference does it
make if you implement good policy on one side, if
your f HFA chair doesn't do the same thing or
director doesn't do the same thing.
Speaker 5 (11:50):
I thought it was a no, there's no clip, there's
no clip.
Speaker 6 (11:55):
I just wanted to I wanted to dive into all
the pieces because there are a lot of moving It's overwhelming.
It's gonna have a lot of impact on us the
White House just last week talked about, oh, well, the
mortgage rates are falling, this is because of Donald Trump.
Speaker 5 (12:09):
Their gas prices are falling because of Donald Trump.
Speaker 6 (12:11):
Let me tell you the campaign thing that he like,
his biggest campaign promise that is still unfulfilled, and in
fact it has been worse under the Trump administration.
Speaker 5 (12:21):
That is grocery prices. Grocery prices still are not down.
Speaker 6 (12:25):
So while he's doing all this market manipulation, he's not
fulfilled the one campaign promise that he I think rode
to victory on.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
He's my He is looking at this only through the
lens of his family business. He's not even looking at
it in the interest of his big friends of wealthy
friends who are homebuilders, because the people who are the
money behind those homebuilders know that it is a terrible idea.
(12:57):
And the other truth is I love Elizabeth Warren and
I want her to get as much reform as can
be had when it comes to protecting the rights and.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
The gross how do you say the gross.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Overtaking and manipulation that's done against the average American consumer.
The fact that we were able to go through a
Biden era and a portion of the Obama era, with
these fees for overdrafts cut significantly. Not one of us
heard a bank talk about I'm going out of business
because the overdraft. Right, So that was a good thing.
(13:36):
But I honestly got to tell you this fight for
who can own homes. That train has left the station,
circled the globe.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
It's built the whole.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
New platform two thousand. If we didn't learn anything from
the two thousand and seven eight collapse, we ought to
know it now. Pensions, everybody pension, all our money. If
you work for a government, municipal, state, federal, if you
(14:07):
are one of the big big hedge funds on Wall Street,
you are deeply, deeply invested in housing in this country.
And right now, I mean, I'd love to see the numbers,
but I mean, certainly new housing overwhelmingly disproportionately owned by
(14:27):
hedge fund managers and hedge hedge fund companies and pensions
public pensions, not just anybody's pension. Let me be specific,
public pension funds meaning the same government workers who can't
afford to buy a home in the communities where they
work serve diligently. They also happen to be owners of
(14:50):
much of the housing in this country, except they don't
do it directly. It's through their retirement investment funds.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
You know, just kind of put a pin on your
own pile.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
I mean senators, Republican senators have already let the cat
out the bag. In fact, they said that he should
go to Uh, what's the woman's name? Who's the United
States Attorney in DC. She had the show on Fox News.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Oh perier Piere hero Piero.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Janine, yes her, and make it deal a clip and
simply say we'll talk to it and simply say that
I will resign in exchange for this investigation being over.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
Roll that clip, Angela.
Speaker 8 (15:32):
And my request in this case with the Federal Reserve
was a legal request, and the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Powell,
chose not to give a legal response. Instead, he chose
to politicize and publicize. I did not politicize or publicize
any of this. I followed the federal rules. I investigate
(15:54):
until I have evidence, uh, and if in what I do,
then I go forward with the public SA statement. Now
what are we talking about. We're talking about a billion
dollars in cost overruns. Talk about fiscal irresponsibility, talk about
bureaucratic blow.
Speaker 5 (16:12):
Now we're talking.
Speaker 8 (16:13):
About a million, ten million, one hundred million, we're talking
about a billion dollars in cost overruns in DC and
something that is purely in my lane as the United
States Attorney to investigate as well as lying before Congress.
So both of these things are our issues that I
(16:34):
looked at, and on December nineteenth, we started the investigation
in November. On December nineteenth, shortest investigation in history. An
email and we said, we'd like to talk to people
at the Federal Reserve. Give us a call. No response
for ten days. December twenty ninth, Please give us a call.
We'd like to talk to you. We'd like to speak
(16:54):
to you. No response for ten days. We want to
meet them the first week of January. No response. So
then we did what any normal prosecutor we're doing. We
issued legal process. I'm not saying that he's saying that.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Okay, So all the over runs that ain't no damn
crime at all, and on all believe a referral. What
committee referred what Committee chairman referred to you that they
were concerned about a witness who came before the Congress
in life.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
What are the what are the what are the overruns
for what are the overruns for the for the Trump
Convention Center?
Speaker 3 (17:27):
They building on the side of the building.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
I'm sorry, where are the permits for tearing down the
goddamn half of the White House?
Speaker 5 (17:34):
Well know that?
Speaker 1 (17:35):
And then she's talking about she's talking about he made
it public. And then she went to Fox News. How
many United States attorneys have you seen on Fox News
during the Biden administration.
Speaker 6 (17:44):
But this is what happens when you put media personalities
in charge of the federal government. You have the guy
who ran The Apprentice and ran several businesses into the ground,
lied all through New York about the amount of money
that he was making so that he had to pay
hundreds of million dollars back to the state of New York,
thanks Tis James. And then now you have Pete Hegg says,
the drunk running the Department of Defense.
Speaker 5 (18:06):
And you have Janine.
Speaker 6 (18:08):
Pirot like taking all of her marching orders from Donald
Trump to target all of his political enemies. Again, this
is an a political entity with an a political fed chair.
This is Jerome Powell that they're claiming lied before Congress
would love to see that proof, and we'd love to
understand when construction project. Mind you, tariffs and the costs
(18:29):
of goods probably have everything to do with any potential
cost overrun the experience. So thank you Donald Trump for that.
You are now prosecuting or seeking to prosecute someone based
on the economic conditions that you created, targeting all of
these countries around the world with these crazy tariffs.
Speaker 5 (18:47):
What do you think is going to happen?
Speaker 6 (18:49):
Construction goods are going to cost more. Basic supplies at a
grocery store is going to cost more. That is not criminal.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
That is a building built in DC that didn't anyway.
Speaker 5 (19:00):
And I know it wasn't a billion dollars.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
It's also not criminal. I mean what is.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
Criminal is destroying a historic building without having achieved the
appropriate permits and sign offs from the respective governing boards
who are responsible by statute for what happens at the building.
So anytime they bring this mess up, I'll just say,
east wing, east wing. This conversation starts and stops.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
That's how we know. That's how we know it's not
about that. That's how we know. It's about monetary policy.
It's about interest rates, it's about making sure his friends
can get richer.
Speaker 5 (19:39):
It's about his ego being destroyed at at press conference too.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
I think it's about getting rid of your own pole
because they know fascism.
Speaker 5 (19:46):
They're literally waiting on you.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
Guys are all saying the same thing.
Speaker 6 (19:51):
But I was going to say to your point, Bakari,
they have the Supreme Court is slated to hear Lisa
Cook's case week on whether or not Donald Trump had
the authority to fire her, and that is going to
be instrumental in what happens next with Chairpal. I don't
(20:11):
know that the case would continue if to your point,
he was able to get rid of him. But he
wants people in positions that have typically been you know,
crossover tenured through various presidential administrations so that he can
manipulate the outcome of this.
Speaker 5 (20:26):
He's lying to us. He's telling us our lies.
Speaker 6 (20:29):
Our eyes are lying our to us every time a
new piece comes out, every time he puts something else
on truth social every time, like the way that even
Fox News reports was happening with Ice in Minnesota. It
is anti ice protests. It's violent protesters. It's all this nonsense,
and they are on a propaganda campaign and it's violent.
Speaker 5 (20:47):
At this point, it.
Speaker 6 (20:49):
Is not okay to be targeting your people who you're
making political enemies who are not political.
Speaker 5 (20:54):
To begin with.
Speaker 6 (20:55):
And it's not okay to target people who just think
differently than you or see the means the end differently
than you, right, I mean, at the end of the day,
for me, the American dream is not about Donald Trump
and his family getting richer. It is about people being
able to afford the homes they live in. It's about
people being paid fair wages. It's about our kids being
educated and facts being found on government websites, which is
(21:17):
also a tall order in this day and age.
Speaker 5 (21:19):
That is what we're up against again.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Jerome Powell just happens to be the person in the position.
I don't know him. I think he should continue doing
this thing about Donald Trump. I'm glad about it. I'm
glad about it all.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
But what.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
I don't want us to miss the whole forest here,
and that is when a president comes out and says
the fundamentals of the economy are strong, it's because they
have been told so by people like the Federal Reserve,
and it's several banks distributed throughout the United States and
(21:55):
other economic careerist professionals who are un tainted and unmanipulated
by the political whims of Washington, DC. We cannot, and
I don't care how many people he makes wealthy, we
cannot turn topsy turvy the fundamentals of the US economy
(22:16):
because if that happens, if we thought that two thousand
and seven and eight were bad, just just you wait
what it would do to the global economic structure of structure.
Every country that is of any importance or significance owns
parts of the United States. We paid them debt service,
China being the greatest holder. Right, so when we tank
(22:40):
everything tanks that's what's at stake here. When you start
to screw around with the fundamentals of the economy for
something as ministerial as helping your builder friend get buy
more land and some more houses, right, that that is
the tree, not even the trees, That is the tree
(23:02):
for the forest.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
Well, look, guys, I wanted to make sure that we
that we plugged this in. I think that this was
a this was a very important topic, very very important issue.
Shout out to Jerome. Jerome got a lot of new friends.
So now y'all can say y'all know, y'all know clip anyway, y'all.
Y'all know some y'all. Y'all all know a cool brother
named Jerome. Y'all saw him act up from trying to
(23:25):
fight back against the fascist president of the United States
of America.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
This has been another.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Amazing by the angry part of them.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
Yeah you heard it, You heard it in this throat.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
This has been another mini pod, a product of Native
Land Pod and Reason Choice Media.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
Welcome Home, y'all, Welcome.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
Home Native Lampod is a production of iHeart Radio and
partnership with Reasons Choice Media. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you
(24:06):
listen to your favorite shows.
Hosts And Creators
Tiffany Cross
Andrew Gillum
Angela Rye
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