July 21, 2025 • 13 mins
In this Briefing, Jon Decker provides an overview of key issues facing President Trump this week, including his relationship with the Federal Reserve, a lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal, and the president's approval ratings. Decker emphasizes the economic concerns surrounding interest rates and the implications of Trump's legal actions against media outlets. He also discusses the president's legislative achievements and executive orders, highlighting the ongoing political landscape. The White House Briefing Room with Job Decker airs daily - Like, Share, & Subscribe
(00:00) – Inside the Iconic White House Briefing Room
(00:53) – Rising Rates & Recession Fears: What the Fed Is Signaling
(03:15) – Trump vs. The Wall Street Journal: Breaking Down the Lawsuit
(09:41) – How Is the President Performing? Polls, Policy Wins & Public Perception
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the White House Briefing Room. I'm John Decker,
and this is the briefing Room up date for one day,
July the twenty first. Every day, I'll give you an
idea about what you can expect coming from the White House,
what's happened at the White House, and I'll give you
an unbiased, unvarnished view of that. I won't have any
(00:22):
type of spin. I won't give you my opinions about
what's happening at the White House. I'll leave that to
others and I'll let you form your own opinions. But
what you'll get here in just fifteen minutes is an
idea about what is going on on any given day,
what the major issues for President Trump will be, and
what issues the White House correspondence like myself will cover
(00:45):
not only today but throughout the week. Three big issues
I think are on the President's plate for today and
throughout the rest of the week. We've spent a lot
of time last week talking about the President his relationship
with Fed SHA Chairman Jerome Powell. I think that continues.
I think that continues for this week as well. The
(01:05):
President unhappy that the FED has not lowered interest rates,
since he's taken office. He thinks that the economy is
in a place right now where it would benefit from
an interest rate cut. It would benefit in terms of
the housing market and having lower interest rates for individuals
to purchase a new home. It would benefit the President
(01:28):
believes in terms of lower borrowing costs. But the FED
doesn't see it that way. They are concerned about a
slowdown in growth. They're concerned as well about an increase
in inflation between now.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
And the end of the year.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
And the President last week asked directly in the White
House Oval Office about whether or not he'll fire Jerome
Powell said, for now, the answer is no, But I
think that's really critical in terms of a caveat for now.
The President has raised this idea of possible fraud at
the Federal Reserve in term of a renovation that's been
(02:01):
taking place at the FED. Building cost overruns is what
the President says. It's a stretch to say that's fraud,
but you know, anything's possible. I always say that with
President Trump, anything is possible. And is it possible that
the President removes Jerome Powell from serving in that capacity.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Absolutely, it's possible.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Even though the Treasury Secretary Scott Besson has told the
President it's not good. It's not good if he does
that in terms of confidence in the US financial system,
confidence in the US financial markets as well. And I
think the President does listen to his Treasury Secretary Scott Besson.
He says that the markets pay attention to what Scott
(02:43):
Besson says, unlike sometimes what the President says. And I
think that for that reason, the President will hold off
in terms of removing Jerome Powell from serving in that capacity.
But the President also making it clear he already has
individuals lined up to serve as the next FED chair
if Jerome Palell is removed or he serves out the
(03:04):
rest of his term until May of next year. I
think one of other President's economic advisors certainly fits that bill.
And you know, we'll have to see if that indeed
happens over the course of the next few weeks. The
other big issue, of course, is the President filing a
lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal. This is not a surprise.
(03:24):
The President spoke about this in terms of an article
that appeared in the Wall Street Journal last week that
he believes to famed him. It's an article about a
birthday letter that was sent to Jeffrey Epstein back in
two thousand and three to mark his fiftieth birthday. And
(03:46):
that letter that the President is accused of sending to
Jeffrey Epstein is a letter that is signed, allegedly, according
to the Wall Street Journal article, by Donald Trump. It includes, allegedly,
according to the Wall Street Journal, a drawing of a
naked woman for Epstein, and according to the lawsuit, this
is a defamatory.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Story that was printed by the Wall Street Journal.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
It's the reason why the President has filed this lawsuit
in a federal court in the Southern District of Florida
against the dal Jones and Company its parent company, News Corp.
It also names the News Corp Cher Emeritus Rupert Murdoch,
its chief executive Robert Thompson, and the two authors of
that story as defendants. And what the President, through his lawyers,
(04:32):
are saying in this lawsuit is that this letter is
not a true letter. This letter contains a signature that
is not Donald Trump's. This letter contains a drawing of
a naked woman that was not drawn by Donald Trump,
and as a result of the lawsuit, says the defendants
in this case, the Wall Street Journal concocted this story,
(04:54):
they say, to malign President Trump, his character, his integrity,
and deceptively portray him in a false light. Now News Corp.
Has put out a statement. Spokeswoman said that we have
full confidence in the rigor the accuracy of their reporting.
They'll vigorously defend against any lawsuit, and you have to
bet that it did go through that kind of vetting.
(05:16):
The Law Street Journal just doesn't print stories to defame individuals.
They have to make certain that everything's buttoned up. I
say this speaking as a lawyer. I'm a member of
the Supreme Court Bar. I've covered the White House for
thirty years, and I can tell you that you know,
if you're a reporter and your name's behind a story,
you better be sure that what you're writing, what you're printing,
(05:38):
what you're broadcasting, is one hundred percent accurate. Otherwise you
could indeed be the subject the object of a lawsuit
being filed by an individual, even an individual as high
profile as the President of the United States. The President
has for years filed lawsuits against media outlets. These filed
suits against a number of newspapers, a number of networks,
(06:02):
a number of his cases have been dismissed. But it's
also important to keep in mind that in recent months
he's had a string of victories the ABC News, which
is owned by the Walt Disney Company. They agreed to
pay fifteen million dollars plus attorney's fees to settle a
suit against ABC against its star anchor George Stephanopolis because
(06:26):
the President claimed that Stephanopolis defamed him repeatedly in a
broadcast on his Sunday Morning show. And then in July,
just a few weeks ago, the President also settled a
lawsuit that he filed against Paramount, which owns CBS. CBS
agreed to pay a similar amount of money to settle
(06:46):
President Donald Trump's lawsuit over a sixty minutes interview with
Vice President Harris. The President had claimed that the interview
was misleading and was intended to help Kamala Harris for
her presidential election camp. This lawsuit is one in which
the President is seeking a pretty large number ten billion
(07:08):
dollars in monetary damages from the Wall Street Journal and
those defendants. But the bar, now I'm speaking as a lawyer,
the bar to win a lawsuit for a public.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Figure is really high.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
If you're a public figure, if you're a politician, if
you're the President of the United States, and you're filing
a lawsuit for defamation.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
The Supreme Court has.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Already ruled on this in terms of what is necessary,
what is required in order to prove that a defendant
knowingly published a false statement or acted with reckless disregard
for the truth. That's a very high bar in terms
of getting a jury if it goes that far to
agree that a defendant in this case, the Wall Street
(07:51):
Journal knowingly published this story knowing it was false, and
they also acted with reckless.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Disregard for the truth.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
That is what the president lawyers ultimately must prove in
a court of law. Or the President could be hoping
for what happened with ABC News and what happened with
CBS News in sixty minutes, and that is that this
particular lawsuit settles in the same manner that those two
lawsuits settled. And there were a number of legal scholars
(08:18):
that would tell you that in terms of getting a
jury to find that ABC News defamed Donald Trump or
getting a jury to agree that CBS News defamed Donald
Trump in their sixty minute story, that would be difficult
but both of those companies I think were under an
(08:39):
incredible amount of pressure to settle for different reasons. I
always thought that the case that the President brought against
ABC News was a much much stronger case than the
case that he brought against Sixty Minutes. But you look
at the sixty Minutes case that was brought by the
President's lawyers, and it was being brought against a company
(08:59):
that was seeking regulatory approval for a merger that was
going to happen, an acquisition that was going to happen
paramounts selling this company to a company that is controlled
by the son of Oracles chairman Larry Ellison, and I
think that that certainly factored into their decision to settle
(09:19):
that lawsuit. As it relates to George Stefanopolis, look, I
think that if you're paying attention to what George Stefanopolis
said on his program, in which he said repeatedly that
Donald Trump is a convicted rapist, that is just not accurate.
And I think that ultimately is why ABC News just
chose to go down the road of settling that lawsuit
(09:39):
in this particular case. I can't predict what the future
is going to be, but you know, it seems to
me the Wall Street Journal that you wouldn't publish that
unless you were pretty confident in terms of what it
was you were publishing in the first place. So we'll
have to see how that ultimately works its way out,
and that will take months and months before that's settled.
The last thing I want to talk about today is
the president's rating six months into his presidency. CBS just
(10:03):
came out with a new approval poll and it indicates
the president's approval rating according to their poll. According to
those polled in that poll, forty two percent give the
president a positive approval rating. That is around where the
president was maybe slightly below when he was sworn into
office in January. If you look at two other polls
(10:25):
which have come out in the past week, again marking
the president's first six months in office, you have a
CNN poll which has the president's disapproval rating around fifty
five percent, about a forty five percent approval rating for CNN.
And then you have a poll that was conducted by
the Economist which also has a similar result. You know,
fifty four percent disapproval rating, forty five percent approval rating
(10:50):
for the president. The president has accomplished much during the
course of his first six months in office, the one big,
beautiful bill, huge accomplishment in the residents of first six
months in office, and that will have a major impact
in terms of what we see in the economy and
the impact that we'll have on not only companies but
(11:10):
individuals all across the country. The President's deportation plan has
been brought about in high gear, you could say, and
that's something the President promised when he was campaigning for president.
And of course the President continues to threaten every one
of America's trading partners as it relates to his tariffs policy.
(11:31):
And then on top of all of that, he has
signed a record number of executive orders since taking office,
at least a record number in terms of the time
that he's been in office thus far, one hundred seventy
executive orders in twenty twenty five. That compares with two
hundred and twenty executive orders in the president's first term alone.
(11:54):
And he's not done. There's not a week that goes
by virtually in which the President doesn't sign another executive order.
And the president knows full well by the way that
the next president can undo the executive orders that he's
put in place. But this is the power of the presidency.
It's the power of the executive office of the presidency.
And I think that what we've seen is the President
really has garnered full control of the Republican control of
(12:17):
Congress to get legislation moving forward, to get it to
his desk for his signature. The Recisions package is a
perfect example of that. And perhaps the President will focus
more on legislation over the course of the next six months,
because legislation has more impact than these eos. Legislation is law.
Eos can be undone by the next president. But perhaps
(12:40):
the president we'll focus on now working the power that
he has with the Republican led House and the Republican
led Senate to move legislation forward and put a stamp
on his presidency and a stamp on his legacy. That's
about it for a day one of the White House
Briefing Room with John Decker.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
I will be here every day.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Giving you an unvarnished look and unbiased look about what's
happening at the White House, what has happened at the
White House, and I'll do so with great institutional knowledge.
I've covered the White House since Bill Clinton's first term,
and I've covered Donald Trump quite a bit. First time
I interviewed Donald Trump was way back in nineteen ninety nine.
(13:23):
I've got a good relationship with the President and with
the team that works for him, and so I'm a
trusted voice, I'm a trusted source, and I hope you'll
give me a shot to tell you what's happening every day.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
I know you won't be disappointed. Have a good one.
I'm John Decker.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
Bye bye,
Welcome to the White House Briefing Room. I'm John Decker,
and this is the briefing Room up date for one day,
July the twenty first. Every day, I'll give you an
idea about what you can expect coming from the White House,
what's happened at the White House, and I'll give you
an unbiased, unvarnished view of that. I won't have any
(00:22):
type of spin. I won't give you my opinions about
what's happening at the White House. I'll leave that to
others and I'll let you form your own opinions. But
what you'll get here in just fifteen minutes is an
idea about what is going on on any given day,
what the major issues for President Trump will be, and
what issues the White House correspondence like myself will cover
(00:45):
not only today but throughout the week. Three big issues
I think are on the President's plate for today and
throughout the rest of the week. We've spent a lot
of time last week talking about the President his relationship
with Fed SHA Chairman Jerome Powell. I think that continues.
I think that continues for this week as well. The
(01:05):
President unhappy that the FED has not lowered interest rates,
since he's taken office. He thinks that the economy is
in a place right now where it would benefit from
an interest rate cut. It would benefit in terms of
the housing market and having lower interest rates for individuals
to purchase a new home. It would benefit the President
(01:28):
believes in terms of lower borrowing costs. But the FED
doesn't see it that way. They are concerned about a
slowdown in growth. They're concerned as well about an increase
in inflation between now.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
And the end of the year.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
And the President last week asked directly in the White
House Oval Office about whether or not he'll fire Jerome
Powell said, for now, the answer is no, But I
think that's really critical in terms of a caveat for now.
The President has raised this idea of possible fraud at
the Federal Reserve in term of a renovation that's been
(02:01):
taking place at the FED. Building cost overruns is what
the President says. It's a stretch to say that's fraud,
but you know, anything's possible. I always say that with
President Trump, anything is possible. And is it possible that
the President removes Jerome Powell from serving in that capacity.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Absolutely, it's possible.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Even though the Treasury Secretary Scott Besson has told the
President it's not good. It's not good if he does
that in terms of confidence in the US financial system,
confidence in the US financial markets as well. And I
think the President does listen to his Treasury Secretary Scott Besson.
He says that the markets pay attention to what Scott
(02:43):
Besson says, unlike sometimes what the President says. And I
think that for that reason, the President will hold off
in terms of removing Jerome Powell from serving in that capacity.
But the President also making it clear he already has
individuals lined up to serve as the next FED chair
if Jerome Palell is removed or he serves out the
(03:04):
rest of his term until May of next year. I
think one of other President's economic advisors certainly fits that bill.
And you know, we'll have to see if that indeed
happens over the course of the next few weeks. The
other big issue, of course, is the President filing a
lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal. This is not a surprise.
(03:24):
The President spoke about this in terms of an article
that appeared in the Wall Street Journal last week that
he believes to famed him. It's an article about a
birthday letter that was sent to Jeffrey Epstein back in
two thousand and three to mark his fiftieth birthday. And
(03:46):
that letter that the President is accused of sending to
Jeffrey Epstein is a letter that is signed, allegedly, according
to the Wall Street Journal article, by Donald Trump. It includes, allegedly,
according to the Wall Street Journal, a drawing of a
naked woman for Epstein, and according to the lawsuit, this
is a defamatory.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Story that was printed by the Wall Street Journal.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
It's the reason why the President has filed this lawsuit
in a federal court in the Southern District of Florida
against the dal Jones and Company its parent company, News Corp.
It also names the News Corp Cher Emeritus Rupert Murdoch,
its chief executive Robert Thompson, and the two authors of
that story as defendants. And what the President, through his lawyers,
(04:32):
are saying in this lawsuit is that this letter is
not a true letter. This letter contains a signature that
is not Donald Trump's. This letter contains a drawing of
a naked woman that was not drawn by Donald Trump,
and as a result of the lawsuit, says the defendants
in this case, the Wall Street Journal concocted this story,
(04:54):
they say, to malign President Trump, his character, his integrity,
and deceptively portray him in a false light. Now News Corp.
Has put out a statement. Spokeswoman said that we have
full confidence in the rigor the accuracy of their reporting.
They'll vigorously defend against any lawsuit, and you have to
bet that it did go through that kind of vetting.
(05:16):
The Law Street Journal just doesn't print stories to defame individuals.
They have to make certain that everything's buttoned up. I
say this speaking as a lawyer. I'm a member of
the Supreme Court Bar. I've covered the White House for
thirty years, and I can tell you that you know,
if you're a reporter and your name's behind a story,
you better be sure that what you're writing, what you're printing,
(05:38):
what you're broadcasting, is one hundred percent accurate. Otherwise you
could indeed be the subject the object of a lawsuit
being filed by an individual, even an individual as high
profile as the President of the United States. The President
has for years filed lawsuits against media outlets. These filed
suits against a number of newspapers, a number of networks,
(06:02):
a number of his cases have been dismissed. But it's
also important to keep in mind that in recent months
he's had a string of victories the ABC News, which
is owned by the Walt Disney Company. They agreed to
pay fifteen million dollars plus attorney's fees to settle a
suit against ABC against its star anchor George Stephanopolis because
(06:26):
the President claimed that Stephanopolis defamed him repeatedly in a
broadcast on his Sunday Morning show. And then in July,
just a few weeks ago, the President also settled a
lawsuit that he filed against Paramount, which owns CBS. CBS
agreed to pay a similar amount of money to settle
(06:46):
President Donald Trump's lawsuit over a sixty minutes interview with
Vice President Harris. The President had claimed that the interview
was misleading and was intended to help Kamala Harris for
her presidential election camp. This lawsuit is one in which
the President is seeking a pretty large number ten billion
(07:08):
dollars in monetary damages from the Wall Street Journal and
those defendants. But the bar, now I'm speaking as a lawyer,
the bar to win a lawsuit for a public.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Figure is really high.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
If you're a public figure, if you're a politician, if
you're the President of the United States, and you're filing
a lawsuit for defamation.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
The Supreme Court has.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Already ruled on this in terms of what is necessary,
what is required in order to prove that a defendant
knowingly published a false statement or acted with reckless disregard
for the truth. That's a very high bar in terms
of getting a jury if it goes that far to
agree that a defendant in this case, the Wall Street
(07:51):
Journal knowingly published this story knowing it was false, and
they also acted with reckless.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Disregard for the truth.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
That is what the president lawyers ultimately must prove in
a court of law. Or the President could be hoping
for what happened with ABC News and what happened with
CBS News in sixty minutes, and that is that this
particular lawsuit settles in the same manner that those two
lawsuits settled. And there were a number of legal scholars
(08:18):
that would tell you that in terms of getting a
jury to find that ABC News defamed Donald Trump or
getting a jury to agree that CBS News defamed Donald
Trump in their sixty minute story, that would be difficult
but both of those companies I think were under an
(08:39):
incredible amount of pressure to settle for different reasons. I
always thought that the case that the President brought against
ABC News was a much much stronger case than the
case that he brought against Sixty Minutes. But you look
at the sixty Minutes case that was brought by the
President's lawyers, and it was being brought against a company
(08:59):
that was seeking regulatory approval for a merger that was
going to happen, an acquisition that was going to happen
paramounts selling this company to a company that is controlled
by the son of Oracles chairman Larry Ellison, and I
think that that certainly factored into their decision to settle
(09:19):
that lawsuit. As it relates to George Stefanopolis, look, I
think that if you're paying attention to what George Stefanopolis
said on his program, in which he said repeatedly that
Donald Trump is a convicted rapist, that is just not accurate.
And I think that ultimately is why ABC News just
chose to go down the road of settling that lawsuit
(09:39):
in this particular case. I can't predict what the future
is going to be, but you know, it seems to
me the Wall Street Journal that you wouldn't publish that
unless you were pretty confident in terms of what it
was you were publishing in the first place. So we'll
have to see how that ultimately works its way out,
and that will take months and months before that's settled.
The last thing I want to talk about today is
the president's rating six months into his presidency. CBS just
(10:03):
came out with a new approval poll and it indicates
the president's approval rating according to their poll. According to
those polled in that poll, forty two percent give the
president a positive approval rating. That is around where the
president was maybe slightly below when he was sworn into
office in January. If you look at two other polls
(10:25):
which have come out in the past week, again marking
the president's first six months in office, you have a
CNN poll which has the president's disapproval rating around fifty
five percent, about a forty five percent approval rating for CNN.
And then you have a poll that was conducted by
the Economist which also has a similar result. You know,
fifty four percent disapproval rating, forty five percent approval rating
(10:50):
for the president. The president has accomplished much during the
course of his first six months in office, the one big,
beautiful bill, huge accomplishment in the residents of first six
months in office, and that will have a major impact
in terms of what we see in the economy and
the impact that we'll have on not only companies but
(11:10):
individuals all across the country. The President's deportation plan has
been brought about in high gear, you could say, and
that's something the President promised when he was campaigning for president.
And of course the President continues to threaten every one
of America's trading partners as it relates to his tariffs policy.
(11:31):
And then on top of all of that, he has
signed a record number of executive orders since taking office,
at least a record number in terms of the time
that he's been in office thus far, one hundred seventy
executive orders in twenty twenty five. That compares with two
hundred and twenty executive orders in the president's first term alone.
(11:54):
And he's not done. There's not a week that goes
by virtually in which the President doesn't sign another executive order.
And the president knows full well by the way that
the next president can undo the executive orders that he's
put in place. But this is the power of the presidency.
It's the power of the executive office of the presidency.
And I think that what we've seen is the President
really has garnered full control of the Republican control of
(12:17):
Congress to get legislation moving forward, to get it to
his desk for his signature. The Recisions package is a
perfect example of that. And perhaps the President will focus
more on legislation over the course of the next six months,
because legislation has more impact than these eos. Legislation is law.
Eos can be undone by the next president. But perhaps
(12:40):
the president we'll focus on now working the power that
he has with the Republican led House and the Republican
led Senate to move legislation forward and put a stamp
on his presidency and a stamp on his legacy. That's
about it for a day one of the White House
Briefing Room with John Decker.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
I will be here every day.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Giving you an unvarnished look and unbiased look about what's
happening at the White House, what has happened at the
White House, and I'll do so with great institutional knowledge.
I've covered the White House since Bill Clinton's first term,
and I've covered Donald Trump quite a bit. First time
I interviewed Donald Trump was way back in nineteen ninety nine.
(13:23):
I've got a good relationship with the President and with
the team that works for him, and so I'm a
trusted voice, I'm a trusted source, and I hope you'll
give me a shot to tell you what's happening every day.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
I know you won't be disappointed. Have a good one.
I'm John Decker.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
Bye bye,
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