In this hard-hitting episode of The Truth with Lisa Boothe, Lisa sits down with Heritage Foundation economist EJ Antoni to break down the real story behind the U.S. economy. They discuss how President Trump’s America-first policies—like bold trade deals and sweeping deregulation—spurred wage growth and helped working-class Americans thrive. In contrast, they criticize the Biden administration's economic performance and call out the Federal Reserve’s missteps under Jerome Powell. The Truth with Lisa Boothe is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Tuesday & Thursday.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Truth with Lisa Booth, where we cut
through the noise to get to the heart of what
matters to you. So today we're talking about Trump's economy.
With inflation cooling and the Federal Reserve fumbling, President Trump
has been pushing for lower rates, smarter trade deals, and
(00:21):
executing his vision of the Golden Age of America.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Today, we're going to talk to EJ. And Tony.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
He is an economist over at the Heritage Foundation. We're
going to talk to him about all this exposing the
Fed's failures, you know, how we can get the economy
under control, and most importantly, what is the state of
the economy in America today, particularly compared to Biden's economy.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
So we'll dig into all of that.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Also, these big trade deals at President Trump's getting done,
what does it mean for you?
Speaker 2 (00:51):
What's the significance of all of it.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
So stay tuned for my friend EJ and Tony from
the Heritage Foundation.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
E j Antoni, it's great to have you back on
the show.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
The last time we had talked, you know, there were
some of the certainty around Traffs. It was after Liberation Day.
Everyone was kind of trying to figure out what this
would mean for the country, what it would mean for
the economy. You know, now it's been a little bit
of time, what's sort of like your reflection and where
do you see.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Things now that were a little bit removed.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
And there's been some trade deals, especially the big one
with the EU.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Well, Lisa, I'm really really happy to see that since
our last conversation, the administration has really course corrected here.
They've gotten away from from some of the kind of
political talking points, and I feel like they're getting back
to more sound economics and that's being reflected in these
different trade deals that are getting done and the various
(01:50):
agreements you mentioned the one with the EU. We also
have a recent one with Japan. And in each of
these instances, we're getting greater access to foreign consumer marks,
so that means American exporters are going to be able
to export more. That increases the demand for American exports,
and it increases the demand for the American labor producing
those exports. So you're going to look You're going to
(02:11):
be looking for not only more job growth, Lisa, in
these different industries, but also faster wage growth too, and
that's really important for an American middle class, especially blue
collar workers, who have been so beaten down by inflation
outpacing their wage growth over the last four years. So
really good news on that front, and again, very very
(02:34):
positive to see the administration not talk so much about
the trade deficit and some of these metrics that don't
necessarily matter, at least not in the way they're talking
about them, And very very positive to see them moving
towards these different agreements that are actually going to give
us more free trade, not less. It'll give us more
interaction with different economies around the world, because again it's
(02:57):
giving us better access to those foreign consumer markets. It
really is amazing how President Trump is essentially overturning, especially
in the case of the EU, He's overturning an international
trading system that's literally eighty years old. After World War Two,
we allowed Europe to put all these trade barriers in
(03:17):
place so that their industries would not have to compete
with ours because they were trying to rebuild their industries
from the devastation of World War Two. There is no
reason that eighty years later, that same international trading order
should still be in place. And yet somehow Trump is
the first president to question it and to say we
need to improve this and get a better deal for
(03:38):
the American people, specifically the American worker. So that's all
a very very positive development.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Yeah, why do you think he's the first to say, hey,
wait a minute, like this doesn't make sense for America,
we need to change it.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Like why hasn't anyone tried it before him?
Speaker 3 (03:55):
That's a really great question, Lisa. And if you'll allow
me to speculate here a little bit, I.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Think, because I do it all the time, Well.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
I think it's because Trump is really the first president
in I mean at least over forty years, really to
not be beholden to a lot of special interests, particularly
international special interests. Ironically, it took the New York City
billionaire to be the most connected with the common man,
(04:24):
with the average joe, with the blue collar worker across
the heartland of this nation. And again, I think that's
because he's not beholden to a lot of special interests,
which include a lot of foreign special interests. If you
look at previous presidents, it doesn't matter if it was Biden,
if it was either of the Bushes, if it was Obama.
So many of those of those guys, really all of
(04:46):
those guys were beholden to donors, including ones who had
key international stakes, and so there was a vested interest
in maintaining, in my opinion, in maintaining the existing post
World War or to international trading system. And I think
that's why you never saw any real progress made to
dismantle it. Even the landmark trade agreements that we had,
(05:09):
things like NAFTA, never did anything to give us that
kind of greater access to foreign consumer markets that foreign
exporters have had. In terms of our consumer markets, there
was never a two way street because there were too
many special interests that didn't want it, you know.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
And we've been able to raise a bunch of money
from the tariffs so far. But then you're also seeing
things like you know, Procter and Gamble recently said that
they've had like the weakest sales growth since twenty eighteen,
that they planned some layoffs and too, they're also planning
on raising prices on twenty five percent of its North
(05:49):
American products. They're saying because of tariffs and product innovation.
Is what they're saying, is that like a Procter and
Gamble problem or or is this result of the tariffs
and like where it kind of where is this all heading.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
Well, it's a bit of a mixed bag, honestly. So
you're going to have some instances where tariffs are passed
on to consumers, but not in all instances. You know,
this is kind of like, well, let me put it
this way, Lisa, if you have as a consumer alternatives,
when you go to the store and you have five
or six different products, all more or less the same thing,
(06:27):
and you know one brand might be slightly different from another.
One brand might be made in America, another might be
made in Europe, once made in Canada, whatever the case
may be, tariffs are not going to affect all of
those products the same. There's, markets are dynamic, and so
we have to anticipate dynamic effects here, and even the
foreign made products companies who source their products from a
(06:49):
location again, you know in Canada and Mexico and China
and Europe, they're going to start changing, whether they increase
their prices, whether they source their products from a different low.
There are a lot of different again, dynamic effects that
we have to take into account here, and there will
be differences between the short run effects and the long
(07:10):
run effects. It would not surprise me if you get
increases and prices in the short run on a lot
of these products, but then you actually get not only
a decrease back to the baseline in the long run,
but a further decrease even after that, because as you
start shifting some of this production to the United States,
(07:30):
and you couple that with tax and regulatory reform, you
actually get a net decrease in your production costs because
you not only avoid the tariffs by moving production here
to the United States, but now producing in the United
States is cheaper than it was previously. So this is,
you know, this is kind of the whole carrot and
stick approach that the administration is doing. The stick is tariffs.
(07:53):
If you don't produce stuff here, you'll pay a tax
and import duty. But also there's a carrot. If you
produce here, you're going to get tax and regulatory benefits
that you never saw before. And so again it's going
to be a very mixed bag. You will actually see
some consumer products in the long run go down in price.
You will see some go up in price, But the
net effects, the net effect right now, it's mixed. There's
(08:17):
no way to tell yet which magnitude is going to
outweigh each other. Are the price increases going to outweigh
the price decreases or vice versa.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Got to take a quick commercial break more with EJ
and Tony on the economy. On the other side, you know,
President Trump recently visited the Federal Reserve headquarters. I called
it sort of like a public flogging. You know, it
kind of seems like it was an embarrassment ritual to
(08:46):
call J. Powell out for not lowering interest rates and
then also for going so grossly over budget on the
renovations at the headquarters. We have recently found out that
the Fed will not lower interest rates, and there was
some descent within the Federal Reserve.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Like I think you had.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Two Fed governor's descent, which is the first time that's
happened since like nineteen ninety three, so kind of a
big deal.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Why do you think that decision was reached?
Speaker 1 (09:20):
What does it tell you that there was sort of
discord and disagreement within the Federal Reserve?
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Your what's your takeaway from all that?
Speaker 3 (09:29):
Well, Lisa, you're absolutely right. It was the first time
you had more than one member of the Board of
Governors dissenting in over thirty years. That's significant now, it's
not unprecedented. In fact, if you go back further into
the fed's history, multiple descents were actually increasingly common. It's
only been in recent decades where we've had these FED
(09:52):
regimes of kind of you know, one person rule, if
you will, where the FED chairman comes down with his
dictator or her dictate from on high, and then everyone
just kind of has to follow along, regardless of what
the data says, regardless of what their personal feelings on
the matter are. So I actually view the increasing descent
(10:12):
as a good thing. Hopefully it's a sign of more
individual thinking at the FED instead of just this group
think which has led to absolute disaster. But kind of
taking a broader view here, thirty thousand foot view, so
to speak. I think Trump's visit to the FED was
a good move on multiple levels. It lets them know, look,
(10:33):
we're watching you. You don't get to run amok here.
In terms of these renovation costs, you could have knocked
down all of the building and rebuilt them from scratch
for a lower price than the cost of these renovations.
So that's certainly pretty asinine on the Fed's part that
they're doing this. The opulence of the renovations is also
(10:55):
I mean, it's not only ostentatious and in bad taste,
but it's especially in bad taste from the standpoint of
how much the American people are suffering right now because
of the Fed's monetary malfeasance. So again the President going
in there and letting everybody know, look, we're watching you guys.
This is not going unnoticed. I really like that move.
(11:15):
I also really like the fact that the President is
continuing to exert pressure on the FED, essentially telling them, look,
you guys cut interest rates last year during an election season.
What I think was blatant election interference. You did that
when inflation was worse than it is today. All of
the indicators are actually more in favor of a rate
(11:36):
cut now than they were in the autumn. But why
did we get one hundred basis points of cuts back then?
In other words, a full percentage point, specifically because it
was an election And if you look at political donations
from people who work at the FED, the race show
is literally ninety ten. It's ninety percent go exclusively to
Democrats and only ten percent to Republicans. There is clear
(11:59):
political You can also see that in the so called
research I'm using air quotes here for the so called
research that the economists that the FED produced. It is
overwhelmingly in favor of Democrat talking points. It's not based
on sound economics, it's not based on empirical analysis necessarily.
(12:19):
So again, I like the fact that the President is
exerting some authority here. The FED is clearly acting, you know,
from a political standpoint. They're clearly political animals. They are
neither data dependent nor politically independent. That is very, very
clear if you look at the record.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
So it's fair to say that j. Powell is a
big glib with Trump arrangement syndrome.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
Well, there's certainly a whole lot of animosity between the
two of them, and I'm not saying the President has
done anything to help that. That's for sure. He certainly
has not been playing nice in the sandbox. But you know,
maybe he shouldn't. I mean, pal has completely botched the job.
And it's not as if that that's a recent phenomenon, Lisa,
(13:06):
You know, we forget that going back to the first
Trump administration, Palell was raising rates the entire time before
COVID when there was really no reason to do so.
He was operating on this ludicrous idea that somehow economic
growth causes inflation, and so the faster Trump got economic
growth to move, the more Pale said, well, we have
(13:27):
to keep raising rates. That's part of the reason why
the Trump economic miracle from the first term was just
that a miracle. He was working against the Fed the
entire time, and then Palll gave Biden all the low
rates he wanted until inflation shot up to forty year highs,
and then Palll gave us the fastest interest rates interest
(13:48):
rate hikes also in over forty years. It's been a
complete disaster. Palell has played a key role in destroying
the middle classes, upward mobility over the last several years.
I mean, really good reason for firing firing him quite frankly, well,
see that's what.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
I was thinking.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
I know, after the visit he said he wasn't going
to fire them. But the way I read that, you know,
off of no, you know, not not based on any
internal knowledge or anything. But like the way I kind
of read the visit was this was Trump potentially setting
him up for a four cause firing, like highlighting to
the public, here's this guy who has grossly misbused, abused
(14:26):
your money, like the way over budget right, like sort
of like I felt like that was kind of like
the leading the horse to slaughter a little bit if
he needed to. Is that like fair or you know,
I don't know, do you do you read that the
same because I know that to fire him, you know,
there has to be a quote unquote four cause under
(14:47):
the Federal Reserve Act, and it typically is some sort
of misconduct, malfeasance, like negligence. There's got to be, you know,
some big legitimate reason you're firing the FED chair.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
But I kind of felt like he was seeing them
up for that.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
Yeah, you're exactly right, Lis, And I think that analysis
is spot on that this could definitely be Trump doing
his art of the deal, so to speak. Well, maybe
it's more sun Zoo right where you know, you're setting
your enemy up for failure essentially, and you're exposing him
to the eyes of the world. I think that's a
(15:21):
very very good point, and I do think there is
absolutely a cause for firing power on multiple levels, not
just these these crazy cost overruns and whether or not
there might be some malfeasance there and and some misuse
of taxpayer dollars. Again, why are we spending all of
this money on gold inlays and imported marble for the
(15:44):
Federal Reserve building. Was that a misuse of taxpayer dollars?
And people have this crazy idea that somehow the Fed's
expenses do not come out of the taxpayer's pocket. They
absolutely do, just not directly. Right, if the Treasury has
an expense, it's a little easier to see that that
is directly coming out of the taxpayer's pocket. But people
(16:05):
forget that the FED is mandated by its charter that
you just mentioned, the Federal Reserve Act. The FED is
mandated to turn over to the Treasury all of its
profits we call those remittances. And because of complete mismanagement,
the FED hasn't had any profits since September of twenty
twenty two. Instead, they're over two hundred and thirty five
billion dollars in the hole because of they're cumulative losses
(16:29):
again since the fall of twenty two. But all of
the profits that the FED has not earned that have
been replaced with losses now are not being turned over
to the Treasury. And who has to make up for
those losses, Well, the taxpayer does any of the money
that is not going to the Treasury ends up adding
to the deficit because it's a receipt essentially for the Treasury.
(16:51):
It's on the revenue side of the balance sheet, and
it's been removed, So again, the taxpayer has to make
up for that. Every additional expense by the Fed, every
law of revenue by the Fed is an indirect cost
to taxpayers, but a cost nonetheless, and so every dime
that the Treasury has spent on these renovations has indirectly
been paid for by the taxpayer. But on top of that,
(17:14):
the FED has again they've completely botched the job on
inflation on interest rates that has helped create the cost
of living crisis we're in today. And on top of that,
Jerome Powell has actually violated the Fed's charter because they
have been essentially illegally funding the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau,
(17:34):
which is a very odd entity, not so much in
the fact that it's Elizabeth Warren's like personal regulatory attack
dog that she sticks on whatever conservative group she wants,
but more so because the CFPB does not get its
funding through the normal congressional appropriations process. Instead, it gets
its operating expenses paid for out of the profits at
(17:58):
the FED. So the FED take a portion of its
profits and then sends that over to the CFPB. Well,
the problem is, as we said, the FED hasn't had
any profits since September of twenty twenty two. So instead,
what the FED has been doing was literally creating the
money to send to the CFPB, which it is not
allowed to do. Nowhere in its charter does it have
(18:21):
the authority to do that. It may have the power
to do that, clearly it does, but it hasn't been
granted the authority by Congress to do that. And so
pal has actually been illegally funding the CFPB, which again
is caused for firing him. So there's plenty of reasons
if we really want to go down that road. Granted,
it'll cause a bunch of court battles, it'll be a
(18:42):
drawn out process, you know, it'll cause market turmoil. But
I think there is cause for firing him if you
want to risk that market turmoil.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
And I mean he's out pretty soon, right.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
So, And that's exactly LISTA.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
That's a great point, and that that's oil worth it.
Speaker 3 (18:59):
Just wait it out, Bingo, you hit the nail on
the head. It's a it's a typical cost benefit analysis,
he's out by May, and not only that, but we'll
get a FED chair named and probably confirmed by the
Senate before May. And so once markets see who is
coming in, and once markets see what monetary policy is
(19:21):
going to look like, as soon as Powell is removed,
markets will anticipate that, because that's the nature of markets.
They are anticipating, anticipatory. If you look at stock prices,
what justifies stock prices future company earnings? Well, you don't
have future company earnings today by definition, right, They're for
the future. So markets are always anticipatory in nature, and
(19:45):
once they see who the next FED chair is likely
to be and then will be again after the confirmation process,
markets will already start adapting to the future monetary policy
before it's even put into place. So I don't even
think we'll necessarily have to wait until May before we
see the economy really adapting to Powell's replacement.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
So what's he denying to the people you had mentioned previously,
the harm it's done to the middle class.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
Well, the big thing right now, if we take kind
of as a given all of the past mistakes, so
we can't go back and fix them, right, This is
not about the damage Pal has already done. But what
is as you said, Pale denying to the American people
today by not acting by kind of maintaining the status quo.
The status quo here, Lisa, is not just interest rates,
(20:35):
but it includes a lot of other failed federal reserve
policies too, not the least of which is Pal has
been paying banks and other financial institutions to not lend money.
He has been paying them instead, you could call it
to lend money to the FED. If these institutions keep
money parked at the FED, whether it's by paying interest
(20:56):
on reserve balances or interest paid out through something called
the reverse Repurchase Agreement operations at the New York FED,
these are all different mechanisms by which the FED is
getting money to stay parked in its own vaults instead
of being lent out in the private sector. And not
just to the private sector, but also to the Treasury.
(21:17):
Powell has now set up in this bizarre scenario where
the private sector and the Treasury have to compete with
the FED for liquidity. So one of the things driving
Treasury yields higher today. In other words, the interest that
the Treasury has to pay on the federal debt is
the fact that they have to offer a rate that
beats the FED. And it's not just a rate that
(21:40):
beats the Fed in terms of just looking at the
interest rate. The FED is allowing people to keep money
parked on a daily basis, so there's no liquidity premium.
In other words, your money is tied up for twenty
four hours and then you get it back, So that's
a really, really great deal. The Treasury, on the other hand,
is asking you to keep your money tied up for
(22:02):
either several weeks in the case of Treasury bills, or
several years in the case of Treasury notes, or many
years in the case of Treasury bonds, which are twenty
or thirty years, So there's a huge liquidity premium attached
to it. So if the FED is willing to pay
you four point four percent interest for some of these
operations in order to keep your money tied up for
(22:24):
only twenty four hours, you're going to require much more
to keep your money tied up for thirty years. And
that's where you're getting these yields on Treasury bonds in
excess of five percent. What PAL really should be doing
is stopping all of that entirely. We should go back
to the previous requirement, which is banks have to keep
(22:45):
a certain percentage of their money in reserve at the FED,
they don't get paid interest on it. And now banks
will be out there looking for a rate of return
on their money. They will go to the private market
and loan it out, so we'll we'll get more capital
formation that way, which will help growth in the private sector.
And they will also be loaning it to the treasury,
(23:05):
which will help bring down treasury yields, so it's not
just a matter of lower interest rates. Would do things
like reduce people's costs to borrow money for a home
or reduce people's financing charges on their credit cards. But
on top of that, it would also help taxpayers by
reducing the cost to service the federal debt. And that's
(23:29):
something a lot of people aren't talking about today when
they should be, because we're paying about one point two
trillion dollars a year right now to service that debt.
That's a huge expense to the taxpayer. It accounts for
most of the deficit.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
Got to take quick break.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
If you like what you're hearing, please share it on
social media or maybe send it to a friend.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
More EJ. On the other side, sort of looking at the.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
Economy today compared to before President Trump took office, Like
where do things stand today versus.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Where they were under Joe Biden?
Speaker 1 (24:05):
Like what's the state of the How would you assess
the strength of our economy today? I mean, it seems
like the rest of the world would place.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
It at a.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
You know, at a high degree considering the fact everyone
wants access to a markets based off of these trade deals.
But sort of like, how would you assess the strength
of the American economy today?
Speaker 3 (24:25):
Well, at least I think you're really right on the direction.
You know, things are looking up. We have a lot
of a lot of positive indicators, Like you were saying,
all of these foreign interests who really really want to
make sure they maintain access to American consumer markets, and
they're willing to make concessions because of that. This is
all a result of the President realizing that he can
(24:47):
wield the American consumers purchasing power like a weapon on
the world stage. That's paying a lot of dividends right now.
On top of that, you're finally seeing the average Americans
wage growth outpace inflation. In other words, not only is
their weekly paycheck getting bigger, but it's buying more too,
(25:08):
because the paycheck is growing faster than prices are. Under Biden,
it was exactly the opposite. We've talked about this a
lot on your program. How despite the fact that the
average Americans weekly paycheck grew about twenty percent, which is
huge in only four years, the problem was that prices
grew even faster. So by the end of Biden's term,
(25:29):
the average Americans weekly paycheck bought four percent less than
it had four years earlier. Under Trump, again, that's reversed.
The average Americans weekly paycheck now buys about one percent
more than it did when he took office. So you
can see things are moving in the right direction, but
you can also see we haven't made up for all
(25:49):
the lost ground. We've still lost ground compared to when
Trump first left office, or compared to these different pre
pandemic measures. So again I would define this economy as
one that is moving in the right direction, but it's
still not all sunshine and rainbows. We have lost a
tremendous amount of ground. We are still in a cost
(26:11):
of living crisis. The cost of living is still way
too high. American standard of living is still way too low,
and so we need to keep making progress before we
will even get back to where we were, let alone,
before we can actually start making progress compared to twenty
nineteen levels again in terms of standard of living and
(26:32):
cost of living. But again I'm very optimistic not only
from the trade deals and agreements and those frameworks that
are coming in. The international front is looking better, but
the domestic front, we're seeing a lot of progress there too.
The One big beautiful Bill, you know, it might not
have been the legislation that I would have written, right.
(26:53):
There were some things in it I loved. There were
some things in it I certainly didn't love. But overall,
net positive regulatory efforts that we are seeing from this
administration could very well be the best we have ever
seen in American history, because what we saw during the
first Trump administration was literally the best deregulation that we
(27:14):
saw in American history, and this second Trump administration right
now is poised to top it because of the whole
of government approach that they have taken, where every department,
every agency is doing what they can to roll back
these burdens some regulations. So again, all of those things
pointing in the right direction. The dials are really lining
(27:35):
up here on the machine. But we have to be honest,
and we have to be realistic about where we are
coming from, and we have to acknowledge I think the
pain that the American middle class is still facing today.
Just because things are moving in the right direction, just
because things are getting better, doesn't mean they're okay yet.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
All right, But you're saying there's a chance that we're
going to get Mark get.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
Back, absolutely exactly, and that's why, and you know that's
why I'm optimistic kind of, you know, Lisa, if I
can use the analogy here, where we're at right now
is kind of like Sunday morning after you went out
and had too much to drink Saturday night. Right, So
you went out Saturday night, you had way too much
to drink, and now you feel like absolute garbage. Well
(28:24):
maybe that was you know, the second half of the
Biden years was when you felt like absolute garbage. Now
it's it's later in the morning on Sunday, so you're
feeling a little bit better, you're sobering up, but your
head is still pounding, right, and it's gonna be a while.
It's gonna be a few more hours before you're really
feeling better. You know that. That's kind of where we're
at economically. So we're heading in the right direction. We're
(28:47):
sobering up, but it still really hurts.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
Although the good news is I don't do that to
myself as much anymore. So Amen, we've grown up.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
BJA.
Speaker 3 (28:59):
That's right. We can't even if we wanted to. I
don't think we could.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
EJ and Tony, thanks for coming on.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
Really always appreciate your insight and just appreciate connecting.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
Thanks so much, my friend.
Speaker 3 (29:10):
Lisa always my pleasure. Love the show.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
It was EJ and Tony over at the Heritage Foundation.
Appreciate him for making the time to come on the show.
Appreciate you guys at home for listening every Tuesday and Thursday,
but you can listen throughout the week. I also want
to thank my producer, John Cassio for putting the show together.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Until next time.
Welcome to the Truth with Lisa Booth, where we cut
through the noise to get to the heart of what
matters to you. So today we're talking about Trump's economy.
With inflation cooling and the Federal Reserve fumbling, President Trump
has been pushing for lower rates, smarter trade deals, and
(00:21):
executing his vision of the Golden Age of America.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Today, we're going to talk to EJ. And Tony.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
He is an economist over at the Heritage Foundation. We're
going to talk to him about all this exposing the
Fed's failures, you know, how we can get the economy
under control, and most importantly, what is the state of
the economy in America today, particularly compared to Biden's economy.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
So we'll dig into all of that.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Also, these big trade deals at President Trump's getting done,
what does it mean for you?
Speaker 2 (00:51):
What's the significance of all of it.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
So stay tuned for my friend EJ and Tony from
the Heritage Foundation.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
E j Antoni, it's great to have you back on
the show.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
The last time we had talked, you know, there were
some of the certainty around Traffs. It was after Liberation Day.
Everyone was kind of trying to figure out what this
would mean for the country, what it would mean for
the economy. You know, now it's been a little bit
of time, what's sort of like your reflection and where
do you see.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Things now that were a little bit removed.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
And there's been some trade deals, especially the big one
with the EU.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Well, Lisa, I'm really really happy to see that since
our last conversation, the administration has really course corrected here.
They've gotten away from from some of the kind of
political talking points, and I feel like they're getting back
to more sound economics and that's being reflected in these
different trade deals that are getting done and the various
(01:50):
agreements you mentioned the one with the EU. We also
have a recent one with Japan. And in each of
these instances, we're getting greater access to foreign consumer marks,
so that means American exporters are going to be able
to export more. That increases the demand for American exports,
and it increases the demand for the American labor producing
those exports. So you're going to look You're going to
(02:11):
be looking for not only more job growth, Lisa, in
these different industries, but also faster wage growth too, and
that's really important for an American middle class, especially blue
collar workers, who have been so beaten down by inflation
outpacing their wage growth over the last four years. So
really good news on that front, and again, very very
(02:34):
positive to see the administration not talk so much about
the trade deficit and some of these metrics that don't
necessarily matter, at least not in the way they're talking
about them, And very very positive to see them moving
towards these different agreements that are actually going to give
us more free trade, not less. It'll give us more
interaction with different economies around the world, because again it's
(02:57):
giving us better access to those foreign consumer markets. It
really is amazing how President Trump is essentially overturning, especially
in the case of the EU, He's overturning an international
trading system that's literally eighty years old. After World War Two,
we allowed Europe to put all these trade barriers in
(03:17):
place so that their industries would not have to compete
with ours because they were trying to rebuild their industries
from the devastation of World War Two. There is no
reason that eighty years later, that same international trading order
should still be in place. And yet somehow Trump is
the first president to question it and to say we
need to improve this and get a better deal for
(03:38):
the American people, specifically the American worker. So that's all
a very very positive development.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Yeah, why do you think he's the first to say, hey,
wait a minute, like this doesn't make sense for America,
we need to change it.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Like why hasn't anyone tried it before him?
Speaker 3 (03:55):
That's a really great question, Lisa. And if you'll allow
me to speculate here a little bit, I.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Think, because I do it all the time, Well.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
I think it's because Trump is really the first president
in I mean at least over forty years, really to
not be beholden to a lot of special interests, particularly
international special interests. Ironically, it took the New York City
billionaire to be the most connected with the common man,
(04:24):
with the average joe, with the blue collar worker across
the heartland of this nation. And again, I think that's
because he's not beholden to a lot of special interests,
which include a lot of foreign special interests. If you
look at previous presidents, it doesn't matter if it was Biden,
if it was either of the Bushes, if it was Obama.
So many of those of those guys, really all of
(04:46):
those guys were beholden to donors, including ones who had
key international stakes, and so there was a vested interest
in maintaining, in my opinion, in maintaining the existing post
World War or to international trading system. And I think
that's why you never saw any real progress made to
dismantle it. Even the landmark trade agreements that we had,
(05:09):
things like NAFTA, never did anything to give us that
kind of greater access to foreign consumer markets that foreign
exporters have had. In terms of our consumer markets, there
was never a two way street because there were too
many special interests that didn't want it, you know.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
And we've been able to raise a bunch of money
from the tariffs so far. But then you're also seeing
things like you know, Procter and Gamble recently said that
they've had like the weakest sales growth since twenty eighteen,
that they planned some layoffs and too, they're also planning
on raising prices on twenty five percent of its North
(05:49):
American products. They're saying because of tariffs and product innovation.
Is what they're saying, is that like a Procter and
Gamble problem or or is this result of the tariffs
and like where it kind of where is this all heading.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
Well, it's a bit of a mixed bag, honestly. So
you're going to have some instances where tariffs are passed
on to consumers, but not in all instances. You know,
this is kind of like, well, let me put it
this way, Lisa, if you have as a consumer alternatives,
when you go to the store and you have five
or six different products, all more or less the same thing,
(06:27):
and you know one brand might be slightly different from another.
One brand might be made in America, another might be
made in Europe, once made in Canada, whatever the case
may be, tariffs are not going to affect all of
those products the same. There's, markets are dynamic, and so
we have to anticipate dynamic effects here, and even the
foreign made products companies who source their products from a
(06:49):
location again, you know in Canada and Mexico and China
and Europe, they're going to start changing, whether they increase
their prices, whether they source their products from a different low.
There are a lot of different again, dynamic effects that
we have to take into account here, and there will
be differences between the short run effects and the long
(07:10):
run effects. It would not surprise me if you get
increases and prices in the short run on a lot
of these products, but then you actually get not only
a decrease back to the baseline in the long run,
but a further decrease even after that, because as you
start shifting some of this production to the United States,
(07:30):
and you couple that with tax and regulatory reform, you
actually get a net decrease in your production costs because
you not only avoid the tariffs by moving production here
to the United States, but now producing in the United
States is cheaper than it was previously. So this is,
you know, this is kind of the whole carrot and
stick approach that the administration is doing. The stick is tariffs.
(07:53):
If you don't produce stuff here, you'll pay a tax
and import duty. But also there's a carrot. If you
produce here, you're going to get tax and regulatory benefits
that you never saw before. And so again it's going
to be a very mixed bag. You will actually see
some consumer products in the long run go down in price.
You will see some go up in price, But the
net effects, the net effect right now, it's mixed. There's
(08:17):
no way to tell yet which magnitude is going to
outweigh each other. Are the price increases going to outweigh
the price decreases or vice versa.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Got to take a quick commercial break more with EJ
and Tony on the economy. On the other side, you know,
President Trump recently visited the Federal Reserve headquarters. I called
it sort of like a public flogging. You know, it
kind of seems like it was an embarrassment ritual to
(08:46):
call J. Powell out for not lowering interest rates and
then also for going so grossly over budget on the
renovations at the headquarters. We have recently found out that
the Fed will not lower interest rates, and there was
some descent within the Federal Reserve.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Like I think you had.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Two Fed governor's descent, which is the first time that's
happened since like nineteen ninety three, so kind of a
big deal.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Why do you think that decision was reached?
Speaker 1 (09:20):
What does it tell you that there was sort of
discord and disagreement within the Federal Reserve?
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Your what's your takeaway from all that?
Speaker 3 (09:29):
Well, Lisa, you're absolutely right. It was the first time
you had more than one member of the Board of
Governors dissenting in over thirty years. That's significant now, it's
not unprecedented. In fact, if you go back further into
the fed's history, multiple descents were actually increasingly common. It's
only been in recent decades where we've had these FED
(09:52):
regimes of kind of you know, one person rule, if
you will, where the FED chairman comes down with his
dictator or her dictate from on high, and then everyone
just kind of has to follow along, regardless of what
the data says, regardless of what their personal feelings on
the matter are. So I actually view the increasing descent
(10:12):
as a good thing. Hopefully it's a sign of more
individual thinking at the FED instead of just this group
think which has led to absolute disaster. But kind of
taking a broader view here, thirty thousand foot view, so
to speak. I think Trump's visit to the FED was
a good move on multiple levels. It lets them know, look,
(10:33):
we're watching you. You don't get to run amok here.
In terms of these renovation costs, you could have knocked
down all of the building and rebuilt them from scratch
for a lower price than the cost of these renovations.
So that's certainly pretty asinine on the Fed's part that
they're doing this. The opulence of the renovations is also
(10:55):
I mean, it's not only ostentatious and in bad taste,
but it's especially in bad taste from the standpoint of
how much the American people are suffering right now because
of the Fed's monetary malfeasance. So again the President going
in there and letting everybody know, look, we're watching you guys.
This is not going unnoticed. I really like that move.
(11:15):
I also really like the fact that the President is
continuing to exert pressure on the FED, essentially telling them, look,
you guys cut interest rates last year during an election season.
What I think was blatant election interference. You did that
when inflation was worse than it is today. All of
the indicators are actually more in favor of a rate
(11:36):
cut now than they were in the autumn. But why
did we get one hundred basis points of cuts back then?
In other words, a full percentage point, specifically because it
was an election And if you look at political donations
from people who work at the FED, the race show
is literally ninety ten. It's ninety percent go exclusively to
Democrats and only ten percent to Republicans. There is clear
(11:59):
political You can also see that in the so called
research I'm using air quotes here for the so called
research that the economists that the FED produced. It is
overwhelmingly in favor of Democrat talking points. It's not based
on sound economics, it's not based on empirical analysis necessarily.
(12:19):
So again, I like the fact that the President is
exerting some authority here. The FED is clearly acting, you know,
from a political standpoint. They're clearly political animals. They are
neither data dependent nor politically independent. That is very, very
clear if you look at the record.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
So it's fair to say that j. Powell is a
big glib with Trump arrangement syndrome.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
Well, there's certainly a whole lot of animosity between the
two of them, and I'm not saying the President has
done anything to help that. That's for sure. He certainly
has not been playing nice in the sandbox. But you know,
maybe he shouldn't. I mean, pal has completely botched the job.
And it's not as if that that's a recent phenomenon, Lisa,
(13:06):
You know, we forget that going back to the first
Trump administration, Palell was raising rates the entire time before
COVID when there was really no reason to do so.
He was operating on this ludicrous idea that somehow economic
growth causes inflation, and so the faster Trump got economic
growth to move, the more Pale said, well, we have
(13:27):
to keep raising rates. That's part of the reason why
the Trump economic miracle from the first term was just
that a miracle. He was working against the Fed the
entire time, and then Palll gave Biden all the low
rates he wanted until inflation shot up to forty year highs,
and then Palll gave us the fastest interest rates interest
(13:48):
rate hikes also in over forty years. It's been a
complete disaster. Palell has played a key role in destroying
the middle classes, upward mobility over the last several years.
I mean, really good reason for firing firing him quite frankly, well,
see that's what.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
I was thinking.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
I know, after the visit he said he wasn't going
to fire them. But the way I read that, you know,
off of no, you know, not not based on any
internal knowledge or anything. But like the way I kind
of read the visit was this was Trump potentially setting
him up for a four cause firing, like highlighting to
the public, here's this guy who has grossly misbused, abused
(14:26):
your money, like the way over budget right, like sort
of like I felt like that was kind of like
the leading the horse to slaughter a little bit if
he needed to. Is that like fair or you know,
I don't know, do you do you read that the
same because I know that to fire him, you know,
there has to be a quote unquote four cause under
(14:47):
the Federal Reserve Act, and it typically is some sort
of misconduct, malfeasance, like negligence. There's got to be, you know,
some big legitimate reason you're firing the FED chair.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
But I kind of felt like he was seeing them
up for that.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
Yeah, you're exactly right, Lis, And I think that analysis
is spot on that this could definitely be Trump doing
his art of the deal, so to speak. Well, maybe
it's more sun Zoo right where you know, you're setting
your enemy up for failure essentially, and you're exposing him
to the eyes of the world. I think that's a
(15:21):
very very good point, and I do think there is
absolutely a cause for firing power on multiple levels, not
just these these crazy cost overruns and whether or not
there might be some malfeasance there and and some misuse
of taxpayer dollars. Again, why are we spending all of
this money on gold inlays and imported marble for the
(15:44):
Federal Reserve building. Was that a misuse of taxpayer dollars?
And people have this crazy idea that somehow the Fed's
expenses do not come out of the taxpayer's pocket. They
absolutely do, just not directly. Right, if the Treasury has
an expense, it's a little easier to see that that
is directly coming out of the taxpayer's pocket. But people
(16:05):
forget that the FED is mandated by its charter that
you just mentioned, the Federal Reserve Act. The FED is
mandated to turn over to the Treasury all of its
profits we call those remittances. And because of complete mismanagement,
the FED hasn't had any profits since September of twenty
twenty two. Instead, they're over two hundred and thirty five
billion dollars in the hole because of they're cumulative losses
(16:29):
again since the fall of twenty two. But all of
the profits that the FED has not earned that have
been replaced with losses now are not being turned over
to the Treasury. And who has to make up for
those losses, Well, the taxpayer does any of the money
that is not going to the Treasury ends up adding
to the deficit because it's a receipt essentially for the Treasury.
(16:51):
It's on the revenue side of the balance sheet, and
it's been removed, So again, the taxpayer has to make
up for that. Every additional expense by the Fed, every
law of revenue by the Fed is an indirect cost
to taxpayers, but a cost nonetheless, and so every dime
that the Treasury has spent on these renovations has indirectly
been paid for by the taxpayer. But on top of that,
(17:14):
the FED has again they've completely botched the job on
inflation on interest rates that has helped create the cost
of living crisis we're in today. And on top of that,
Jerome Powell has actually violated the Fed's charter because they
have been essentially illegally funding the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau,
(17:34):
which is a very odd entity, not so much in
the fact that it's Elizabeth Warren's like personal regulatory attack
dog that she sticks on whatever conservative group she wants,
but more so because the CFPB does not get its
funding through the normal congressional appropriations process. Instead, it gets
its operating expenses paid for out of the profits at
(17:58):
the FED. So the FED take a portion of its
profits and then sends that over to the CFPB. Well,
the problem is, as we said, the FED hasn't had
any profits since September of twenty twenty two. So instead,
what the FED has been doing was literally creating the
money to send to the CFPB, which it is not
allowed to do. Nowhere in its charter does it have
(18:21):
the authority to do that. It may have the power
to do that, clearly it does, but it hasn't been
granted the authority by Congress to do that. And so
pal has actually been illegally funding the CFPB, which again
is caused for firing him. So there's plenty of reasons
if we really want to go down that road. Granted,
it'll cause a bunch of court battles, it'll be a
(18:42):
drawn out process, you know, it'll cause market turmoil. But
I think there is cause for firing him if you
want to risk that market turmoil.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
And I mean he's out pretty soon, right.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
So, And that's exactly LISTA.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
That's a great point, and that that's oil worth it.
Speaker 3 (18:59):
Just wait it out, Bingo, you hit the nail on
the head. It's a it's a typical cost benefit analysis,
he's out by May, and not only that, but we'll
get a FED chair named and probably confirmed by the
Senate before May. And so once markets see who is
coming in, and once markets see what monetary policy is
(19:21):
going to look like, as soon as Powell is removed,
markets will anticipate that, because that's the nature of markets.
They are anticipating, anticipatory. If you look at stock prices,
what justifies stock prices future company earnings? Well, you don't
have future company earnings today by definition, right, They're for
the future. So markets are always anticipatory in nature, and
(19:45):
once they see who the next FED chair is likely
to be and then will be again after the confirmation process,
markets will already start adapting to the future monetary policy
before it's even put into place. So I don't even
think we'll necessarily have to wait until May before we
see the economy really adapting to Powell's replacement.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
So what's he denying to the people you had mentioned previously,
the harm it's done to the middle class.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
Well, the big thing right now, if we take kind
of as a given all of the past mistakes, so
we can't go back and fix them, right, This is
not about the damage Pal has already done. But what
is as you said, Pale denying to the American people
today by not acting by kind of maintaining the status quo.
The status quo here, Lisa, is not just interest rates,
(20:35):
but it includes a lot of other failed federal reserve
policies too, not the least of which is Pal has
been paying banks and other financial institutions to not lend money.
He has been paying them instead, you could call it
to lend money to the FED. If these institutions keep
money parked at the FED, whether it's by paying interest
(20:56):
on reserve balances or interest paid out through something called
the reverse Repurchase Agreement operations at the New York FED,
these are all different mechanisms by which the FED is
getting money to stay parked in its own vaults instead
of being lent out in the private sector. And not
just to the private sector, but also to the Treasury.
(21:17):
Powell has now set up in this bizarre scenario where
the private sector and the Treasury have to compete with
the FED for liquidity. So one of the things driving
Treasury yields higher today. In other words, the interest that
the Treasury has to pay on the federal debt is
the fact that they have to offer a rate that
beats the FED. And it's not just a rate that
(21:40):
beats the Fed in terms of just looking at the
interest rate. The FED is allowing people to keep money
parked on a daily basis, so there's no liquidity premium.
In other words, your money is tied up for twenty
four hours and then you get it back, So that's
a really, really great deal. The Treasury, on the other hand,
is asking you to keep your money tied up for
(22:02):
either several weeks in the case of Treasury bills, or
several years in the case of Treasury notes, or many
years in the case of Treasury bonds, which are twenty
or thirty years, So there's a huge liquidity premium attached
to it. So if the FED is willing to pay
you four point four percent interest for some of these
operations in order to keep your money tied up for
(22:24):
only twenty four hours, you're going to require much more
to keep your money tied up for thirty years. And
that's where you're getting these yields on Treasury bonds in
excess of five percent. What PAL really should be doing
is stopping all of that entirely. We should go back
to the previous requirement, which is banks have to keep
(22:45):
a certain percentage of their money in reserve at the FED,
they don't get paid interest on it. And now banks
will be out there looking for a rate of return
on their money. They will go to the private market
and loan it out, so we'll we'll get more capital
formation that way, which will help growth in the private sector.
And they will also be loaning it to the treasury,
(23:05):
which will help bring down treasury yields, so it's not
just a matter of lower interest rates. Would do things
like reduce people's costs to borrow money for a home
or reduce people's financing charges on their credit cards. But
on top of that, it would also help taxpayers by
reducing the cost to service the federal debt. And that's
(23:29):
something a lot of people aren't talking about today when
they should be, because we're paying about one point two
trillion dollars a year right now to service that debt.
That's a huge expense to the taxpayer. It accounts for
most of the deficit.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
Got to take quick break.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
If you like what you're hearing, please share it on
social media or maybe send it to a friend.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
More EJ. On the other side, sort of looking at the.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
Economy today compared to before President Trump took office, Like
where do things stand today versus.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Where they were under Joe Biden?
Speaker 1 (24:05):
Like what's the state of the How would you assess
the strength of our economy today? I mean, it seems
like the rest of the world would place.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
It at a.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
You know, at a high degree considering the fact everyone
wants access to a markets based off of these trade deals.
But sort of like, how would you assess the strength
of the American economy today?
Speaker 3 (24:25):
Well, at least I think you're really right on the direction.
You know, things are looking up. We have a lot
of a lot of positive indicators, Like you were saying,
all of these foreign interests who really really want to
make sure they maintain access to American consumer markets, and
they're willing to make concessions because of that. This is
all a result of the President realizing that he can
(24:47):
wield the American consumers purchasing power like a weapon on
the world stage. That's paying a lot of dividends right now.
On top of that, you're finally seeing the average Americans
wage growth outpace inflation. In other words, not only is
their weekly paycheck getting bigger, but it's buying more too,
(25:08):
because the paycheck is growing faster than prices are. Under Biden,
it was exactly the opposite. We've talked about this a
lot on your program. How despite the fact that the
average Americans weekly paycheck grew about twenty percent, which is
huge in only four years, the problem was that prices
grew even faster. So by the end of Biden's term,
(25:29):
the average Americans weekly paycheck bought four percent less than
it had four years earlier. Under Trump, again, that's reversed.
The average Americans weekly paycheck now buys about one percent
more than it did when he took office. So you
can see things are moving in the right direction, but
you can also see we haven't made up for all
(25:49):
the lost ground. We've still lost ground compared to when
Trump first left office, or compared to these different pre
pandemic measures. So again I would define this economy as
one that is moving in the right direction, but it's
still not all sunshine and rainbows. We have lost a
tremendous amount of ground. We are still in a cost
(26:11):
of living crisis. The cost of living is still way
too high. American standard of living is still way too low,
and so we need to keep making progress before we
will even get back to where we were, let alone,
before we can actually start making progress compared to twenty
nineteen levels again in terms of standard of living and
(26:32):
cost of living. But again I'm very optimistic not only
from the trade deals and agreements and those frameworks that
are coming in. The international front is looking better, but
the domestic front, we're seeing a lot of progress there too.
The One big beautiful Bill, you know, it might not
have been the legislation that I would have written, right.
(26:53):
There were some things in it I loved. There were
some things in it I certainly didn't love. But overall,
net positive regulatory efforts that we are seeing from this
administration could very well be the best we have ever
seen in American history, because what we saw during the
first Trump administration was literally the best deregulation that we
(27:14):
saw in American history, and this second Trump administration right
now is poised to top it because of the whole
of government approach that they have taken, where every department,
every agency is doing what they can to roll back
these burdens some regulations. So again, all of those things
pointing in the right direction. The dials are really lining
(27:35):
up here on the machine. But we have to be honest,
and we have to be realistic about where we are
coming from, and we have to acknowledge I think the
pain that the American middle class is still facing today.
Just because things are moving in the right direction, just
because things are getting better, doesn't mean they're okay yet.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
All right, But you're saying there's a chance that we're
going to get Mark get.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
Back, absolutely exactly, and that's why, and you know that's
why I'm optimistic kind of, you know, Lisa, if I
can use the analogy here, where we're at right now
is kind of like Sunday morning after you went out
and had too much to drink Saturday night. Right, So
you went out Saturday night, you had way too much
to drink, and now you feel like absolute garbage. Well
(28:24):
maybe that was you know, the second half of the
Biden years was when you felt like absolute garbage. Now
it's it's later in the morning on Sunday, so you're
feeling a little bit better, you're sobering up, but your
head is still pounding, right, and it's gonna be a while.
It's gonna be a few more hours before you're really
feeling better. You know that. That's kind of where we're
at economically. So we're heading in the right direction. We're
(28:47):
sobering up, but it still really hurts.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
Although the good news is I don't do that to
myself as much anymore. So Amen, we've grown up.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
BJA.
Speaker 3 (28:59):
That's right. We can't even if we wanted to. I
don't think we could.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
EJ and Tony, thanks for coming on.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
Really always appreciate your insight and just appreciate connecting.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
Thanks so much, my friend.
Speaker 3 (29:10):
Lisa always my pleasure. Love the show.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
It was EJ and Tony over at the Heritage Foundation.
Appreciate him for making the time to come on the show.
Appreciate you guys at home for listening every Tuesday and Thursday,
but you can listen throughout the week. I also want
to thank my producer, John Cassio for putting the show together.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Until next time.
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show News
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Clay Travis
Buck Sexton
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