July 16, 2025 • 40 mins
Watch Joe and Kailey LIVE every day on YouTube: http://bit.ly/3vTiACF.
President Donald Trump denied he is seeking to remove Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, after raising the idea in a closed-door meeting with congressional Republicans that leaked to the media.
“No, we’re not planning on doing anything,” Trump told reporters on Wednesday. He later added, “I don’t rule out anything, but I think it’s highly unlikely, unless he has to leave for fraud.”
A White House official, speaking on the condition of anonymity earlier Wednesday, said they expected Trump to soon move against the Fed chief after his meeting with members of Congress visiting the White House to discuss cryptocurrency legislation. Some lawmakers also left that Tuesday evening meeting with that impression, and Trump acknowledged that he had polled the participants about dismissing Powell.
Bloomberg Washington Correspondents Joe Mathieu and Kailey Leinz deliver insight and analysis on the latest headlines from the White House and Capitol Hill, including conversations with influential lawmakers and key figures in politics and policy. On this edition, Bloomberg's Michael Shepard is in for Joe. Kailey and Mike speak with:
- Bloomberg Capitol Influence Team Lead Megan Scully.
- Republican Congressman Jason Smith of Missouri, Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.
- Bloomberg Politics Contributors Rick Davis and Jeanne Sheehan Zaino.
- Bloomberg Chief Political Correspondent Annmarie Hordern.
- Bloomberg International Economics and Policy Correspondent Michael McKee.
- Bloomberg Contributor and former Republican Congressman Patrick McHenry.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. You're listening to the
Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast. Catch us live weekdays at
noon and five pm Eastern on Apple, Cocklay and Android
Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. Listen on demand wherever
(00:20):
you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
The House right now as we speak, is voting on
a motion to reconsider a rule that failed yesterday. This
is a procedural hurdle to try to get them to
be able to vote for final passage on various pieces
of crypto legislation, because yes, it is still crypto week
in the House, and what they want to consider is
a stable Coin Bill, a Genius Act that was passed
by the US Senate already, a market structure legislation, a
(00:47):
package called the Clarity Act, and then some anti CBDC
legislation as well. That rule that failed yesterday wasn't supposed
to see another failure again today after President Trump met
with the holdouts at the White House yesterday and came
they had all agreed to let this rule pass. Yet
there's three no votes on the board right now. So
(01:07):
let's get the latest with Megan Scully, who leads our
capital influence team here in Washington covering Congress for US. So, Megan,
is there a chance that we see failure again here?
I thought the President said he had a deal.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Yes he did.
Speaker 4 (01:18):
Sounds like it was all wrapped up tight, didn't it.
But it does appear that it is in trouble now.
Votes can change before they gable it. So I'm sure
that there is a lot of lobbying happening on the
floor right now. The President definitely doesn't want to see
this go down, particularly after calling all of these hardliners
into the Oval office last night. So, but we are
(01:40):
watching it closely and we'll see this. If this does
go down, it does not necessarily mean crypto Week is over.
It could certainly they could strike another deal. They could
bring this up again within a matter of a few
hours and get this all back on track, as we've
seen happen again and again this year.
Speaker 5 (01:58):
What are the hardliners asking for and maybe not getting
if we're seeing them still hold out or drag their
feet despite Donald Trump trying to get them aboard.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
So last night, what they were asking for was to
attach this Central Bank language to.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
The stable coin bill.
Speaker 4 (02:16):
Yes, which essentially would force the Senate's hand would require
the Senate to amend its own stable coin bill, which
it doesn't want to do. It just wants the House
to pass the Senate bill so they could all move on.
But this would force the Senate then to address the
issue later this week presumably. As for what is the
issue right now, we are trying to find that out.
Speaker 6 (02:40):
Well.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
It's interesting.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
We spoke with Senator Tom Tillis of North Carolina on
Balance of Power last night. Magan about the idea that
the Fed or the House rather could try to change
the Genius Act and send it back to the Senate,
and he suggested that could be a deal breaker, that
the House shouldn't do that. The problem is that the
House doesn't do that. The House once again, he's gotten
jammed by the Senate. This is just lawmakers in Congress,
least some of them, feeling like there's a repeated pattern
(03:02):
here where they don't have the power of the authority.
Speaker 4 (03:05):
Yes, I think part of what we are seeing here,
the undercurrent here are these hardliners feeling like, as you said,
that they are being jammed by the Senate, that they
need to sort of take whatever the Senate ultimately passes
and you're talking about people who don't typically work well
in that area, Marjorie Taylor Green, Victoria's Sparks, several others.
(03:28):
So they are trying to essentially lay down a marker
here and make a point and say, you know, we
are our own chamber, equal powers, all of that. And
I think that's a lot of what is playing out here, Megan.
Speaker 5 (03:41):
We've seen bitcoin climb to new records this week in
anticipation that there would be a breakthrough on at least
the Genius Act. How significant is this for the industry,
for the crypto industry, which is trying to shed some
of its I guess outsider.
Speaker 4 (03:57):
Image, right, Yes, this package of bills all very heavily
supported by industry. This is something that for the last
year plus they've been trying to shepherd through Congress. So
this is an incredibly big deal for the industry as
a whole and its top priority, particularly the stable coin bill.
(04:19):
You know this this year failure to get this through
we saw yesterday, you know stockstrop after the procedural rule fail.
So I presume you know, everyone in the industry and
elsewhere is looking at this at this vote going on
right now, very.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Closely well, and one quickly on a vote that could
happen shortly megan in the Senate, specifically the Recisions package,
where we saw two procedural votes yesterday having to be
a tiebreaker with Vice President jd Vance casting the tie
breaking vote. Is there a guarantee that this is going
to actually be able to pass these nine billion dollars
in recisions?
Speaker 4 (04:54):
Well, I don't think anything is a guarantee right now
as we're seeing play out on the House floor. But
what we are kind of continuing to see in the
Senate is Fune seems to be the majority leader, seems
to be very a tune with his caucus, and he's
able to lose three with jd Vance you know, casting
the tie breaking vote. We saw that as long ago,
(05:16):
as as Trump's nominees like Pete Hegseth getting over the
line with tie breaking votes. And you know, I would
suspect we're going to see more hemming and hying. We're
going to see some consternation, but ultimately, you know, perhaps
jade Van's coming in with a tiebreaker. I do think
the decision to protect the AIDS funding, the PEP FAR
(05:40):
funding yesterday, that is a very popular program and the
decision to protect that instead of stripping it from the
already appropriated funds, that that surely sweetened the pot for
some on the fence.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Republicans, all right, Megan Scully leading our capital influence team
here in Washington, Thank you so much. And it's too
the cap eth Capitol buildings that we go now live
on Capitol Hill. We're joined by the chair of the
House Ways and Means Committee, Congressman Jason Smith of Missouri,
is here with us live on Bloomberg TV and radio.
Mister Chairman, welcome back to Balance of Power. There's a
lot we want to discuss with you, But if we
(06:14):
could begin with Crypto Week, which perhaps is not going
as smoothly as you or many of your colleagues may
have intended it to. Is this ultimately going to move
forward or do you get the sense that the holdouts
are still willing to hold out on this trio of legislation.
Speaker 7 (06:32):
Let's just look at thee hundred nineteenth Congress. It has
some ups and downs along the way. We just passed
the biggest piece of legislation in years in the one
big beautiful Bill, just the last week that we were
in session, and people said that there was no way
that we could ever do it, and I continue to
(06:54):
say failures not an option. I of course, the crypto
legislation that is on the floor is within other committees
of jurisdiction from the House Ways and Means Committee. We're
working on our own crypto items that's not on the floor.
But I truly believe that we'll be able to iron
and out, get it together and pass it. We have always,
(07:16):
whether it's funding government, whether it's the debt extension. People
didn't think we could do it. It got a little rocky,
but we still got it done and it's going to
happen the same here today.
Speaker 5 (07:27):
Chairman Smith, if we see passage today or even later
this week of the Genius Act, do you anticipate that
this will clear a path eventually for something on market structure.
We know that this is another bill that has been
in the works, but it seems a little bit further
behind in terms of development and perhaps support to among lawmakers.
Speaker 7 (07:49):
I think, without a doubt there's a comprehensive effort to
make sure that we are the crypto capital of the world.
That's what President Trump has said over and over again.
We had a hearing this morning in the Ways and
Means Committee on cryptocurrency and taxing digital assets. This is
another point that has to be addressed and looked at,
(08:12):
and that's what the Ways and Means Committee is focused on.
From this gambut within the digital assets space super important
as you know, to the markets to investments. There's fifty million,
fifty million Americans that are involved with a digital assets
so that's pretty substantial and we need to make sure
we continue to be the world leader. Well.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Of course, markets and investments also care very much about
tax policy, which is why we all played such close
attention to the tax changes and extensions that were included
in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, one piece of
budget reconciliation. But mister Chairman, the chair of the Budget Committee,
Jody Errington, told our colleagues this week that he wants
to work on a second budget passage package to pass
(08:56):
by the end of the year. I wonder if you
see that as likely, given how hard it was to
get the first line across the finish line, and what
if any tax changes you would want included in a
second reconciliation package.
Speaker 7 (09:08):
Well, let me just say there has never there has
never been two partisan reconciliation bills that have become law
in the same year. It's never happened before, So trying
to do a second one is doing something that when
the Democrats controlled the White House, the House and the
Senate they attempted to do too, and then ultimately couldn't
(09:29):
pass build back better and then the next year they
did a second reconciliation bill, but it wasn't in the
same year. So it is extremely difficult to do because
passing a budget reconciliation is not easy. As you saw
what we passed just recently, which is the largest tax
cut in US history, the largest spending cuts in US history,
(09:50):
the largest welfare reforms in US history, the largest one
time investment in border security in US history. That wasn't easy,
and we had to pass it just in the House.
The first initial vote was two hundred and fifteen to
two hundred and fourteen, so it was by one vote
the Senate, Jade Vance had to do the tie breaking vote.
(10:11):
So it's very, very difficult. But if we come up
with a reconciliation package that addresses needs for working families,
small businesses, and farmers, we'll get it done. But it
needs to make sure to addresses those points.
Speaker 5 (10:25):
Chairman Smith, I wanted to shift gears a little bit
and talk about tariffs and tariff revenue. To set up
the conversation. I wanted to bring in something we heard
from Peter Navara on Friday on this program talking about
tariff revenue.
Speaker 8 (10:39):
I would say that for the American people, these tariffs
are a great boon that brought a chart here shows
that we've already collected like one hundred billion dollars of tariffs.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
A record for a long single fiscal.
Speaker 8 (10:53):
Yeah, the terrors are working, and they were these kind
of revenues that were getting. It's a very important part
of the big beautiful bill in terms of financing that
as well.
Speaker 5 (11:07):
Chairman Smith, how much are you expecting on the committee
in terms of revenue from tariffs that the President has
imposed this year already and the other tariffs we are
expecting not only on US trading partners, but on sectors
on goods and various sectors including drugs and semiconductors and
autos and so forth.
Speaker 7 (11:27):
So let's just look at the last month in June.
This is something that a lot of people's not paying
attention to or discussing. If you look at the revenues
that came within the federal government and the expenses we
had last month was the first time since June of
two thy sixteen, then we had a month that created
(11:47):
a surplus, not a deficit. Of course, we need a
surplus for twelve different months. But if you look into
why did the month of June actually have a surplus
and not a deficit, spin because of the increase tax revenues,
but also the increase tariff revenues. Those are the two
biggest issues that led to making sure that government was
(12:10):
balanced for the month of June. So tariffs do play
a part of the role. I've said all along. When
you're looking at the fiscal sanity, the fiscal responsibility of government,
you have to look at three different legs. You have
the tax issue. You need certainty in the tax code.
We just finished that with the one big beautiful bill.
Then you have the trade mechanisms, and then you have
(12:32):
the deregulation. Once you do those three legs, that will
create an economy that will go gamebusters and it will
help us balance our budgets. And these trade agreements that
the president's working on. You're even having CEOs now of
some major US companies that's going out there saying I
was opposed to the President's tariff policies, but they're really
(12:55):
not making an impact. They're not inflationary, they're not raising price,
and I think they're working.
Speaker 6 (13:03):
Well.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
Mister chairman.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
We know that President Trump is paying close attention to
that lack of an inflationary read through, at least at
this time from his tariff policy, and he sees that
as further justification for his view that the Federal Reserve
should be cutting interest rates right now.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
I'm sure you're aware of the reporting which.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
The President has pushed back on, that he was considering
firing the chair of the Federal Reserve. Do you believe
he would have the legal authority to do that, as
questions over the cost of the renovations to the FED
buildings here in Washington justification for firing for cause.
Speaker 7 (13:33):
First off, I will tell you I agree with the
President that interest rates should be cut. Interest rates were
raised because we went through an inflationary crisis during the
Biden administration or inflation went up twenty two percent. We
now have the lowest inflation that we've had in four years,
but yet they've not reduced one time the interest rates.
(13:56):
So he has a valid point when you're talking about
the interest perspective when you look at other heads of
different agencies, whether it's the IRS. The IRS Commissioner chose
to step down whenever President President Trump was elected so
that President Trump could put in place his person. This
(14:16):
is something that I would consider mister Powell to do.
He should consider resigning because clearly he's not aligned with
the President of the United States. Other people's done that
with the agencies. I think Chairman Powell should consider his
place in government right now.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
All right, mister chairman, we appreciate you joining US Congressman
Jason Smith, the Republican representing Missouri, of course and chair
of the House Ways and Means Committee here with us
on balance of power. Thank you so much. And that
is another question, Mike, of course, is not just whether
or not the chair of the Federal Reserve could end
up being fired, but whether he could resign under what
is still immense pressure from not just President Trump but
others in the administry.
Speaker 5 (14:55):
Even though he has indicated that he would do no
such thing, and he has tried in every way possible
to resist that pressure.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Yep, and has also tried to say repeatedly that there
is it is not applicable with the law to fire
the Chair of the Federal Reserve. We'll see whether or
not we have to actually test that legal theory. We'll
continue to follow this story here on Balance of Power
on Bloomberg TV and Radio.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcasts. Catch
us live weekdays at noon and five pm Eastern on
Apple Cocklay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app.
You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our
flagship New York station Just Say Alexa played Bloomberg eleven thirty.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Kayleie Lines alongside Mike Shephard here in Washingtonday. Welcome Washington Today.
Welcome back to Balance of Power on Bloomberg TV and Radio,
where we just spoke with, as Charlie mentioned, the Chair
of the House Ways and Means Committee, Congressman Jason Smith,
who yes, said the Chair of the Federal Reserve should
resign when we asked him about whether or not President
Trump could legally fire Chairman Powell, whose term is said
(15:58):
to expire as chairman in May of twenty twenty six.
But President Trump, of course, in the Oval office, would
be questioned by reporters about this earlier Today, suggested he's
not planning to fire him, in part because May twenty
twenty six isn't all that far away and he soon
gets to pick POW's replacement.
Speaker 9 (16:14):
We get to make a change in the next what
eight months or so, and we'll pick somebody that's good,
and we'll pick somebody. I just want a fair job.
We want to see lower interest rates. Our country deserves it.
We're making a lot of money. We're doing great as
a country who had no inflation record, stock market record, business,
(16:35):
everything's a record. Now. We had the worst inflation in
history under Biden, and now we have almost no inflation.
We've done a great job, and we should have the
interest rates cut.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
President Trump, perhaps Mike feeling empowered to talk about the
lack of inflation by the inflation data we got today
PPI literally zero percent gain.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
Month on month too.
Speaker 5 (17:00):
The CPI, at least at the top level. If you
drill a little bit lower into actual categories like appliances,
we are seeing some upward price pressure. But for the
White House, that top level number and CPI also surely
gave the President some free reign to talk about cutting
interest rates, and that's something that's critical to his agenda.
He wants see mortgage rates go down, and he also
(17:20):
wants to see the cost of investing for business go
down too, given all of his interest in having plants
built across the US.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Yeah, and that's why President Trump says when he's choosing
pow'ser placement, he's only interested in low interest people. So
on that note, let's bring our political panel into the conversation.
Bloomberg Politics contributors Rick Davis and Jeanie Shanzano are with us. Rick,
of course, Stone Court Capital partner and Republican strategist. Genie
Democratic analyst and senior Democracy fellow at the Center for
the Study of the Presidency and Congress.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
Genie, I wonder.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
How you read into the reasoning President Trump has around
interest rates that Mike was just referring to. That Actually,
at the end of the day, what this really is
about for him, in large part, he says, is about
the interest burden of the United States making sure those
payments are lower. Is this the president that maybe is
a bit more worried about our debt and deficit, knowing
that his one big, beautiful bill just passed that will
(18:11):
add to.
Speaker 10 (18:11):
It, Yeah, I don't know of a president, Republican, Democrat,
anywhere in between who has not wanted lower interest rates.
So in this way, Donald Trump is perfectly in keeping
with every not just President probably, but every politician or
most of them. And sure he is going to be
concerned about the interest rates. He's going to be concerned
(18:33):
about debt and deficit because this reflects on him. The
number one reason he was elected, according to those exit
bulls in twenty twenty four, was that he promised to
be able to manage the economy in a way that
people felt Joe Biden simply wasn't doing that. He was
a sound manager as a former businessman of the economy.
(18:58):
And so as he sits here today, six seven months in,
he knows he owns this economy and interest rates are
something that we all feel as consumers and voters. So
it does matter. And we all of course see the
ticking up of the deficit and that matters as well.
So he's looking at the same numbers we are voters
feel it, and so it matters to him.
Speaker 5 (19:21):
Rick when it comes to numbers and what the President
and his allies in Congress as well are looking at
how much are they factoring in the market reaction. It
was quite negative when those reports began to emerge that
the President had not only floated the idea of firing J.
Powell in private, but even waved around a letter. We've
seen those numbers recover a little bit. But how much
(19:43):
of this is a factor in their thinking.
Speaker 11 (19:47):
Yeah, I think quite different from his first term, where
he seemed hyper sensitive to market changes, he seems a
little bit more immune to them in this term. Obviously,
the biggest crisis he'd had in the market it was
when he got into a bit of a trade war
earlier in his administration, and back right off of that,
yielding US a new acronym taco tariffs and the taco
(20:11):
trade and and and and so I think he's thinking
more long term on this. I think you guys are
absolutely correct that he's got the deficits in his rearview mirror,
looking at those every day, realizing that these interest rates
that that that that keep ticking away are not very dynamic.
They're they're they're very much of a penalty to any administration.
(20:34):
It runs up the deficit. And that's exactly what he's
just done with his big Beautiful bill. But the other
key component to his entire budget strategy is economic growth,
and he needs these low interest rates for economic growth.
So maybe less focused on the markets today and much
more focused on new building development, manufacturing starts, things like
(20:57):
that that really require lower economic lower interest rates in
order to create that kind of economic growth, which, of course,
all his models that he argued for in selling the
big Beautiful Bill were three and a half four percent GDP.
He's a long way off of that, and so I
think that's what's really fuel in his interests here.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Well, but it doesn't that just speak to the kind
of catch twenty two for the President Rick where he
wants juice to grow, or he wants growth to be juced,
so he wants interest rates lower, knowing growth might take
a hit ultimately from his tariff policy, depending on the
extent to which tariffs are actually implemented and for how
long they stay in place. But it's those very tariffs
that is keeping the federal reserve on the sidelines for now,
not wanting to cut interest rates because of infletion. Can't
(21:41):
we chalk up all of the difficulty he has around
interest rates to his own policy, not necessarily the FEDS.
Speaker 11 (21:48):
Yeah, I think that this is a massive change. This
is not a small change. And if you follow sort
of the Marlago Accord, in the significant alterations of the
global economic infrastructure that exists today that this administration is pursuing,
there's a lot of friction, and I think this is
the kind of friction you're seeing happen right now on
(22:10):
these issues. You know, could he get the Fed to
move more quickly if there weren't pressures on prices because
of tariffs. Absolutely, But he needs those tariffs to generate
revenue in order to reset the financial relationships. And of
course one of the fundamental aspects of his realignment economically
is getting down the trade deficits, and so you know,
(22:32):
he's not going to give that up. What he wants
to do is get rid of Jerome Powell.
Speaker 5 (22:39):
Genie, it's been very hard to keep up with a
fast moving pace of everything that is happening here with Trump,
from j Powell to tariffs. How do Democrats keep up
with this? And can they form a coherent argument around
the economy that packages all of this together.
Speaker 10 (22:55):
Yeah, they're going to try now, Mike, I always say
Democrats and forming a co cohesive sort of narrative to
sell it an election. It's something like an oxymoron. It
doesn't work so well all the time. But given the
big beautiful bill, they should be able to do that.
And you know what's working against them are things like
(23:15):
Mumdani's potential election in New York City. But putting that aside,
they are going to be arguing, number one, about healthcare
and the impact of this big beautiful bill on healthcare,
the impact of inflation we've seen that tick up, the
impact of debt and deficits on their children, their grandchildren.
(23:35):
But I think most important to make the case that
Donald Trump is doing the bidding of the billionaires and
he the very wealthy, and he is leaving aside the
people he claims to care most about, the working in
the middle class, who bear the brunt of all of this, including,
by the way, on his tariffs. I know his talk
about tariffs as always they meaning the other country will
(23:58):
pay nineteen percent in the case of Indonesia. The fact
is Americans at home will bear the brunt of that,
and it is a regressive tax. So Democrats have to
make that case.
Speaker 7 (24:11):
All right.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
Jeanie Schanzeno and Rick Davis our political panel here on
balance of power, both of them, Bloomberg Politics contributors, thanks
for being with us as always.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
Here on Bloomberg TV and Radio.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
And we want to go live now here on Bloomberg
to the North lawn of the White House, where we
find Bloomberg's chief political correspondent, Anne Marie hor Dern, having
just been in the Oval Office with President Trump and
having the chance to question him about his intentions with
the Chair of the Federal Reserve. So, Anne Marie, obviously
some pushback to today's earlier reporting.
Speaker 12 (24:38):
Yeah, a lot of pushback from the President in the
Oval Office. He talked about the fact that he is
not looking or planning to fire J.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
Powell.
Speaker 12 (24:45):
When I asked him about this draft letter, did he
write it? Did he wave it in front of congressional
Republicans at this dinner last night? He said, no, there
is no letter. He discussed the quote concept of the
idea of firing the FED chair. He actually said that lawmakers,
most of them are really in favor of it, but
he said he is more conservative than they are, so
(25:06):
he pushed back on this notion. But he continued, of
course to bring up his gripes with Fedchair J. Powell,
one of course being the fact that he thinks the
FED should be lowering interest rates and we have not
seen the Fed do that, of course since last year
before the election, and now this new one that you've
seen a lot of administrative officials really start to push
(25:27):
going after the FED Chair for the renovations that are
taking place at the Federal Reserve building. So he kept
those talking points, but he made it pretty clear that
at this moment he has no plans to fire the
FED Chair, which of course would open up a huge
legal battle because this would be a president in American history.
Speaker 5 (25:47):
Emory, are you getting a sense that that whole question
of the renovation of the FED headquarters is emerging as
a coherent means of arguing for and justifying the FED
Chair's exit.
Speaker 12 (25:58):
Well, they definitely are looking into it, and even within
the FED, we do know that the FED Chair J.
Powell is asking questions about it. How did the renovations
become over budget, etc. So he clearly wants to make
sure that he has the answers if there are those questions.
But this seems to be a new line of attack
(26:18):
on the FED. But the President continues to go after
what for him is the biggest problem, which is where
interest rates are right now, and he wants to see
them lower. Of course, a lot of economists on Wall Street,
even ones that are sympathetic to the President's view, like
Neil Dutta of Renmack, who says the Fed should be
lowering interest rates, said, if you were to file fire him,
(26:41):
it'll have the exact effect in the market that the
president's looking for.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
Yeah, well, it all comes down to the behavior of
the bond market. I guess at the end of the day,
Annrie Horder and live at the White House for us,
thank you so much for being here on Balance of Power,
and we'll have more straight ahead.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
I'm Kaylee Lions alongside Mike.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
Shephard right here on Bloomberg TV and Radio.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast. Catch
us live weekdays at noon and five pm Eastern on Apple,
Cocklay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. Listen
on demand wherever you get your podcasts, or watch us
live on YouTube.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
Both Wall Street and Washington paying attention to the narrative
around the Fed chair Jerom Howell with Equal Interest today
as President Trump again, as we've told you repeatedly this hour,
has said he is not planning on firing the FED chairman,
but he still is unsatisfied with the chair's performance and
with the current state of interest rates.
Speaker 3 (27:37):
Which he wants to see lower.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
In the face of what he said in the Oval
Office today, Mike is quote no inflation, and at least
looking at the.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
PPI data that we got today, you could see.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
How that technically might be true, at least in this
particular instance, is both PPI on the headline and Core
exiting out food and energy month on month rose zero percent.
Speaker 5 (27:58):
It would be a very favorable reading for the President
and his point of view, but it's only one month,
and the trend is something that Scott Bessett yesterday had
pointed to before the CPI numbers came out. And what
was interesting in our conversation with Stuart Paul earlier today
is that he dug through the numbers a little bit
more deeply infants and increases in appliances and other goods
(28:19):
that suggest that yes, tarris are actually starting to have
an effect at that level where consumers and yes, voters
too could start seeing.
Speaker 3 (28:26):
You know who else digs through the inflation numbers.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
Michael McKee, Bloomberg's International economics and Policy correspondent, and he's
joining us now here on balance of power. So Mike,
to the point that Mike Shepherd was just making about
it being was actually underneath the surface of the data
that ultimately matters when you look underneath. It's not necessarily
true that we see no inflation, as President Trump suggests.
Speaker 6 (28:50):
That's right, Kayleie. What we saw was a drop in
service industry inflation in the PPI that was strong enough
because it's a service industry economy to push down the
overall number or to keep it flat rather which on
a year over year basis brought down the PPI inflation numbers,
but the goods inflation went up, and we saw goods
(29:11):
prices rise on a number of areas that are tariffed.
So for the FED, they're going to be looking at
this and saying there's evidence that tariffs are going to
bleed through into the economy and they are going to
cause prices to go up. I go back to what
Mike just said about it's only one month, so the
Fed's going to want to make sure that this is
(29:32):
a continuing pattern and it could get worse before they
do anything. So even though this would make the case
to somebody who didn't understand economics, like perhaps the person
in the Oval office, it's not going to make the
case for the FED. And so I suspect that the
President is going to be disappointed at the July meeting,
(29:52):
even if the numbers suggest that inflation is somewhat tame.
Speaker 5 (29:57):
Now, the FED chair has insisted that the law backs
him up and staying in his role, but he is
under significant pressure from the administration to maybe move on,
and perhaps move on once his term ends and leave
the board. Do you see or get a sense that
he may decide to stay on after all once he
(30:18):
leaves his role as chair.
Speaker 6 (30:20):
There's sort of a unanimous feeling, Mike among the people
I've talked to, both at the FED and the economics profession,
that the only reason Powell would stay on after the
end of his chairman's term is if he worried about
the FED as an institution. If the President put in
somebody who was going to be a bullet and china
shop and take away credibility from the FED, he might
(30:42):
try to stay on. But even he knows that that
would cause problems for the overall FED, because in essence,
you'd have two FED chairs. You'd have somebody the President
appointed whom the markets may not want to listen to,
and then you'd have Jay Powell, whom the markets are
used to listening to. And if the new chair said something,
Powell could contradict it, and that would really throw markets
(31:03):
for a loop. So it would be difficult for the
Fed if that happened. But if he thought it was
a bad enough situation, he might do that. And I
think that's why he's not saying he's going to leave.
He's trying to use that as a bit of leverage
on the White House to keep them from going too far.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
Well, as we consider how the markets view all of this, Mike,
it ultimately is the bond market that will dictate the
interest rates that are actually paid on things like our
national debt, which President Trump said in the Oval Office
once again, is really his issue with where the FED
funds rate is.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
Right now, let's remind ourselves what Trump said earlier.
Speaker 9 (31:42):
He's not doing the right job. We should be saving
a trillion dollars a year an interest you know, when
he talks about costs. We should be saving think of it,
a trillion dollars a year, add that with the tariffs
and everything else. But he just doesn't want he's a knucklehead.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
I'll leave the knucklehead comment aside for now, Mike. But
if ultimately the objective here is to make sure that
rates come down to the credibility point that you were
just making, isn't there a chance that even if the
President were to get what he wants, either through a
new chairman or the FED actually cutting rates under pressure,
then its credibility is a problem. The bond market doesn't
buy it, and it doesn't actually change the amount we
(32:19):
have to pay an interest or makes it higher.
Speaker 6 (32:22):
Yeah. Absolutely, that's the base case for the opponents of
all of this is that the president isn't going to
get what he wants because while the Fed can lower
short end rates, they can't affect long end rates. That's
the province of the markets, and the markets are going
to decide whether they think there's a possible inflation problem
or whether they think that there's a debt problem, and
(32:45):
they're going to react to it. So odds are that
if the president put in a toady who basically tried
to force through a rate cut, markets would send rates
much higher. And that's another reason people just don't understand
what the president's problem is here, because his strategy for
getting lower interest rates is kind of the opposite of
(33:06):
what you need to do.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Indeed, it is Michael McKee, Bloomberg International Economics and Policy Correspondent,
Thank you so much. And as we watch this here
at Bloomberg, as Wall Street watches this, we know Capitol
Hill is watching this as well, and people who used
to spend.
Speaker 5 (33:22):
A lot of time on the Hill, well, that's right, Kayley.
And we're joined now by Patrick McHenry. He is the
former chair of the House Financial Services Committee and former
Speaker pro tempore and a Bloomberg contributor. Char McHenry, it's
so glad to have We're so glad to have you
with us today. You have to be watching this fed
(33:43):
drama unfold today with a certain amount of, I don't know,
nostalgia or maybe an insider's appreciation of what is going
on now. Is it your sense that the president actually
is serious about what he said to lawmakers behind closed
doors last night, or is he more serious about what
he said in public today at the White House.
Speaker 13 (34:06):
Well, both things can be true. What this president has
been very clear about is that he doesn't like the
interest rate policy of the Federal Reserve. He puts that
fully on the chair of the Federal Reserve. So there
are two things that can be true at once. One
is that he doesn't like Howell's approach to rates being
(34:28):
too late at the beginning of COVID and thinks that
our rates should come down now, and then the second
part is to see that The second part is that
the Open Markets Committee is dominated by Biden appointees. So
even if you remove the FED Chair, you still have
(34:49):
an Open Markets Committee that has a different view than
the President does. And you're talking about the FED chair's
term of office ending at the beginning of next year.
I think what we're seeing today as the President highlighting
the fact that inflation has come way down, that the
tariffs haven't had a dramatic negative impact on inflation counter
(35:11):
to expectations, and is trying to drive his economic message
in light of what we know is in the inflation
print this morning. So all these things are complicated and
there's a lot going on here, but the key message
that the president's trying to drive is an economic one,
not a personnel conversation.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
Well, I'd like to ask you about a separate live
conversation happening as we speak, mister Chairman on Capitol Hill
right now is the House is moving toward reconsidering the
rule that failed yesterday, a procedural hurdle to advance three
different pieces of crypto legislation as part of Crypto Week.
The rule that failed yesterday was because of a handful
of lawmakers who actually convened with the President at the
White House last night, meeting which the President emerged from
(35:56):
saying we have a deal. They're now going to vote
to pass the rule, and the chair of the Freedom Caucus,
Andy Harris, confirmed that on XTS a few minutes ago
that they will be voting in favor of the rule today.
When do we break out of this pattern of people
voting no initially President Trump stepping in and they ultimately
decide to change their minds.
Speaker 3 (36:16):
What's the point of the exercise?
Speaker 13 (36:19):
That is the point of the exercise, which is I'm
going to stop your again to President Trump, You're going
to bring me to the Oval Office. I will say
to you, I love you and I didn't want to
hurt you. Give me assurances about some extraneous random thing
and then they vote yes. So what they want is
the attention and love of the sun, the moon, and
(36:41):
the stars. And right now in the Republican ecosystem, that
is in the person of Donald J. Trump, who controls
this party. Unlike any other politician and modern American history,
he has control over his party and thereby the policy
making on Capitol Hill. So it is a messy way
to do it. It is very embarrassing for congressional leadership
(37:04):
to have to send members over to the White House
for the President to close them again. But that's the
process that we're going through. And inevitably, what they've shown
with policymakers on Capitol Hill have shown, especially the Freedom Caucus,
is that they will cave, they will fold, and they
must do that in the person in the room with
the person of Donald Trump. But they will inevitably fold
(37:27):
for no change in policy. And that's what's happening once
again with Crypto that happened on reconciliation. It's happened probably
a half dozen times so far this legislate year and
will continue.
Speaker 8 (37:39):
Cherr.
Speaker 5 (37:40):
McHenry, Is your sense then that this actually gets through
this week? Do we actually see crypto week ending in
this victory lab for crypto advocates.
Speaker 13 (37:50):
Yes we do. We see a bipartisan vote for the
stable Coin bill, a genius act, and we see less
of a bipartison vote because of the maneuvers of the
Ridom Caucus for the Market Structure Bill, which brings clarity
to ninety three percent of the crypto marketplace. And that's
the bigger bill that we'll have to come later. But
(38:12):
the stable coin regime will have a nice bipartisan vote
this week, which will show that crypto does have massive
power within both of the parties, much more so in
the Republican Party than the Democratic Party, but a significant
group within the Democratic Party or pro crypto.
Speaker 5 (38:29):
Well's follow up chair McHenry, how much more work does
need to be done on that Market Structure bill to
get it through, to win the support it needs.
Speaker 13 (38:37):
Well, my colleagues and I worked very hard for the
last five years on crypto in the House of Representatives,
and so we've got a pretty well baked approach of
policymakers on both sides of the isle who are engaged
in policy making. That's a smaller group, but they are
well versed in the set of policies that are in
the Clarity Act or last Congress called Fit twenty one,
(39:01):
that is the Market Structure Bill that brings clarity to
commodities and securities and defines a digital asset and a
means of exchange. So House members are much further along
on this than Senate members, and so the Senate is
going to have to take a lot of time to
actually understand this policy, the trade offs, to go through
this and then go through the stages of grief before
(39:22):
they can get to actually voting on a market structure bill.
Hopefully that happens this fall, but it should, it's going
to take longer than expectations. Unfortunately.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
Well, mister Chairman, we just have a minute left. Is
that effort in the Senate, knowing it would require democratic
buy in potentially disrupted by a recisions vote we could
see later today or tomorrow that Democrats obviously don't want
to see. Do you see that disrupting potentially the appropriations
process and any further bypart is an effort on crypto
or other things?
Speaker 13 (39:52):
Yes, I think when Chuck Schummer got played by the
President Trump and Elon Musk and the Doge process, that
that kept the government open at the beginning of the year.
I don't think Schumer and the Democratic Senate will play
the same rules by the same rules going into the fall.
I think the likelihod of government shutdown is rather high
(40:12):
given the environment we're currently in. Highly partisan environment we're
currently in, and that will curtail a lot of serious
policy making that could otherwise be done.
Speaker 2 (40:23):
All right, not an optimistic note to end on, but
we'll leave it there, mister Chairman, Thank you as always
for joining us. Of course, former Congressman from North Carolina,
former Chair of the House Financial Services Committee, Patrick McHenry,
now a Bloomberg contributor here with us.
Speaker 10 (40:38):
Thanks for listening to the Balance of Power podcast.
Speaker 6 (40:41):
Make sure to subscribe if you haven't already, at Apple,
Spotify
Speaker 11 (40:44):
Or wherever you get your podcasts, and you can find
us live every weekday from Washington, DC at noontime Eastern
at Bloomberg dot com.
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. You're listening to the
Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast. Catch us live weekdays at
noon and five pm Eastern on Apple, Cocklay and Android
Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. Listen on demand wherever
(00:20):
you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
The House right now as we speak, is voting on
a motion to reconsider a rule that failed yesterday. This
is a procedural hurdle to try to get them to
be able to vote for final passage on various pieces
of crypto legislation, because yes, it is still crypto week
in the House, and what they want to consider is
a stable Coin Bill, a Genius Act that was passed
by the US Senate already, a market structure legislation, a
(00:47):
package called the Clarity Act, and then some anti CBDC
legislation as well. That rule that failed yesterday wasn't supposed
to see another failure again today after President Trump met
with the holdouts at the White House yesterday and came
they had all agreed to let this rule pass. Yet
there's three no votes on the board right now. So
(01:07):
let's get the latest with Megan Scully, who leads our
capital influence team here in Washington covering Congress for US. So, Megan,
is there a chance that we see failure again here?
I thought the President said he had a deal.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Yes he did.
Speaker 4 (01:18):
Sounds like it was all wrapped up tight, didn't it.
But it does appear that it is in trouble now.
Votes can change before they gable it. So I'm sure
that there is a lot of lobbying happening on the
floor right now. The President definitely doesn't want to see
this go down, particularly after calling all of these hardliners
into the Oval office last night. So, but we are
(01:40):
watching it closely and we'll see this. If this does
go down, it does not necessarily mean crypto Week is over.
It could certainly they could strike another deal. They could
bring this up again within a matter of a few
hours and get this all back on track, as we've
seen happen again and again this year.
Speaker 5 (01:58):
What are the hardliners asking for and maybe not getting
if we're seeing them still hold out or drag their
feet despite Donald Trump trying to get them aboard.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
So last night, what they were asking for was to
attach this Central Bank language to.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
The stable coin bill.
Speaker 4 (02:16):
Yes, which essentially would force the Senate's hand would require
the Senate to amend its own stable coin bill, which
it doesn't want to do. It just wants the House
to pass the Senate bill so they could all move on.
But this would force the Senate then to address the
issue later this week presumably. As for what is the
issue right now, we are trying to find that out.
Speaker 6 (02:40):
Well.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
It's interesting.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
We spoke with Senator Tom Tillis of North Carolina on
Balance of Power last night. Magan about the idea that
the Fed or the House rather could try to change
the Genius Act and send it back to the Senate,
and he suggested that could be a deal breaker, that
the House shouldn't do that. The problem is that the
House doesn't do that. The House once again, he's gotten
jammed by the Senate. This is just lawmakers in Congress,
least some of them, feeling like there's a repeated pattern
(03:02):
here where they don't have the power of the authority.
Speaker 4 (03:05):
Yes, I think part of what we are seeing here,
the undercurrent here are these hardliners feeling like, as you said,
that they are being jammed by the Senate, that they
need to sort of take whatever the Senate ultimately passes
and you're talking about people who don't typically work well
in that area, Marjorie Taylor Green, Victoria's Sparks, several others.
(03:28):
So they are trying to essentially lay down a marker
here and make a point and say, you know, we
are our own chamber, equal powers, all of that. And
I think that's a lot of what is playing out here, Megan.
Speaker 5 (03:41):
We've seen bitcoin climb to new records this week in
anticipation that there would be a breakthrough on at least
the Genius Act. How significant is this for the industry,
for the crypto industry, which is trying to shed some
of its I guess outsider.
Speaker 4 (03:57):
Image, right, Yes, this package of bills all very heavily
supported by industry. This is something that for the last
year plus they've been trying to shepherd through Congress. So
this is an incredibly big deal for the industry as
a whole and its top priority, particularly the stable coin bill.
(04:19):
You know this this year failure to get this through
we saw yesterday, you know stockstrop after the procedural rule fail.
So I presume you know, everyone in the industry and
elsewhere is looking at this at this vote going on
right now, very.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Closely well, and one quickly on a vote that could
happen shortly megan in the Senate, specifically the Recisions package,
where we saw two procedural votes yesterday having to be
a tiebreaker with Vice President jd Vance casting the tie
breaking vote. Is there a guarantee that this is going
to actually be able to pass these nine billion dollars
in recisions?
Speaker 4 (04:54):
Well, I don't think anything is a guarantee right now
as we're seeing play out on the House floor. But
what we are kind of continuing to see in the
Senate is Fune seems to be the majority leader, seems
to be very a tune with his caucus, and he's
able to lose three with jd Vance you know, casting
the tie breaking vote. We saw that as long ago,
(05:16):
as as Trump's nominees like Pete Hegseth getting over the
line with tie breaking votes. And you know, I would
suspect we're going to see more hemming and hying. We're
going to see some consternation, but ultimately, you know, perhaps
jade Van's coming in with a tiebreaker. I do think
the decision to protect the AIDS funding, the PEP FAR
(05:40):
funding yesterday, that is a very popular program and the
decision to protect that instead of stripping it from the
already appropriated funds, that that surely sweetened the pot for
some on the fence.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Republicans, all right, Megan Scully leading our capital influence team
here in Washington, Thank you so much. And it's too
the cap eth Capitol buildings that we go now live
on Capitol Hill. We're joined by the chair of the
House Ways and Means Committee, Congressman Jason Smith of Missouri,
is here with us live on Bloomberg TV and radio.
Mister Chairman, welcome back to Balance of Power. There's a
lot we want to discuss with you, But if we
(06:14):
could begin with Crypto Week, which perhaps is not going
as smoothly as you or many of your colleagues may
have intended it to. Is this ultimately going to move
forward or do you get the sense that the holdouts
are still willing to hold out on this trio of legislation.
Speaker 7 (06:32):
Let's just look at thee hundred nineteenth Congress. It has
some ups and downs along the way. We just passed
the biggest piece of legislation in years in the one
big beautiful Bill, just the last week that we were
in session, and people said that there was no way
that we could ever do it, and I continue to
(06:54):
say failures not an option. I of course, the crypto
legislation that is on the floor is within other committees
of jurisdiction from the House Ways and Means Committee. We're
working on our own crypto items that's not on the floor.
But I truly believe that we'll be able to iron
and out, get it together and pass it. We have always,
(07:16):
whether it's funding government, whether it's the debt extension. People
didn't think we could do it. It got a little rocky,
but we still got it done and it's going to
happen the same here today.
Speaker 5 (07:27):
Chairman Smith, if we see passage today or even later
this week of the Genius Act, do you anticipate that
this will clear a path eventually for something on market structure.
We know that this is another bill that has been
in the works, but it seems a little bit further
behind in terms of development and perhaps support to among lawmakers.
Speaker 7 (07:49):
I think, without a doubt there's a comprehensive effort to
make sure that we are the crypto capital of the world.
That's what President Trump has said over and over again.
We had a hearing this morning in the Ways and
Means Committee on cryptocurrency and taxing digital assets. This is
another point that has to be addressed and looked at,
(08:12):
and that's what the Ways and Means Committee is focused on.
From this gambut within the digital assets space super important
as you know, to the markets to investments. There's fifty million,
fifty million Americans that are involved with a digital assets
so that's pretty substantial and we need to make sure
we continue to be the world leader. Well.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Of course, markets and investments also care very much about
tax policy, which is why we all played such close
attention to the tax changes and extensions that were included
in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, one piece of
budget reconciliation. But mister Chairman, the chair of the Budget Committee,
Jody Errington, told our colleagues this week that he wants
to work on a second budget passage package to pass
(08:56):
by the end of the year. I wonder if you
see that as likely, given how hard it was to
get the first line across the finish line, and what
if any tax changes you would want included in a
second reconciliation package.
Speaker 7 (09:08):
Well, let me just say there has never there has
never been two partisan reconciliation bills that have become law
in the same year. It's never happened before, So trying
to do a second one is doing something that when
the Democrats controlled the White House, the House and the
Senate they attempted to do too, and then ultimately couldn't
(09:29):
pass build back better and then the next year they
did a second reconciliation bill, but it wasn't in the
same year. So it is extremely difficult to do because
passing a budget reconciliation is not easy. As you saw
what we passed just recently, which is the largest tax
cut in US history, the largest spending cuts in US history,
(09:50):
the largest welfare reforms in US history, the largest one
time investment in border security in US history. That wasn't easy,
and we had to pass it just in the House.
The first initial vote was two hundred and fifteen to
two hundred and fourteen, so it was by one vote
the Senate, Jade Vance had to do the tie breaking vote.
(10:11):
So it's very, very difficult. But if we come up
with a reconciliation package that addresses needs for working families,
small businesses, and farmers, we'll get it done. But it
needs to make sure to addresses those points.
Speaker 5 (10:25):
Chairman Smith, I wanted to shift gears a little bit
and talk about tariffs and tariff revenue. To set up
the conversation. I wanted to bring in something we heard
from Peter Navara on Friday on this program talking about
tariff revenue.
Speaker 8 (10:39):
I would say that for the American people, these tariffs
are a great boon that brought a chart here shows
that we've already collected like one hundred billion dollars of tariffs.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
A record for a long single fiscal.
Speaker 8 (10:53):
Yeah, the terrors are working, and they were these kind
of revenues that were getting. It's a very important part
of the big beautiful bill in terms of financing that
as well.
Speaker 5 (11:07):
Chairman Smith, how much are you expecting on the committee
in terms of revenue from tariffs that the President has
imposed this year already and the other tariffs we are
expecting not only on US trading partners, but on sectors
on goods and various sectors including drugs and semiconductors and
autos and so forth.
Speaker 7 (11:27):
So let's just look at the last month in June.
This is something that a lot of people's not paying
attention to or discussing. If you look at the revenues
that came within the federal government and the expenses we
had last month was the first time since June of
two thy sixteen, then we had a month that created
(11:47):
a surplus, not a deficit. Of course, we need a
surplus for twelve different months. But if you look into
why did the month of June actually have a surplus
and not a deficit, spin because of the increase tax revenues,
but also the increase tariff revenues. Those are the two
biggest issues that led to making sure that government was
(12:10):
balanced for the month of June. So tariffs do play
a part of the role. I've said all along. When
you're looking at the fiscal sanity, the fiscal responsibility of government,
you have to look at three different legs. You have
the tax issue. You need certainty in the tax code.
We just finished that with the one big beautiful bill.
Then you have the trade mechanisms, and then you have
(12:32):
the deregulation. Once you do those three legs, that will
create an economy that will go gamebusters and it will
help us balance our budgets. And these trade agreements that
the president's working on. You're even having CEOs now of
some major US companies that's going out there saying I
was opposed to the President's tariff policies, but they're really
(12:55):
not making an impact. They're not inflationary, they're not raising price,
and I think they're working.
Speaker 6 (13:03):
Well.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
Mister chairman.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
We know that President Trump is paying close attention to
that lack of an inflationary read through, at least at
this time from his tariff policy, and he sees that
as further justification for his view that the Federal Reserve
should be cutting interest rates right now.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
I'm sure you're aware of the reporting which.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
The President has pushed back on, that he was considering
firing the chair of the Federal Reserve. Do you believe
he would have the legal authority to do that, as
questions over the cost of the renovations to the FED
buildings here in Washington justification for firing for cause.
Speaker 7 (13:33):
First off, I will tell you I agree with the
President that interest rates should be cut. Interest rates were
raised because we went through an inflationary crisis during the
Biden administration or inflation went up twenty two percent. We
now have the lowest inflation that we've had in four years,
but yet they've not reduced one time the interest rates.
(13:56):
So he has a valid point when you're talking about
the interest perspective when you look at other heads of
different agencies, whether it's the IRS. The IRS Commissioner chose
to step down whenever President President Trump was elected so
that President Trump could put in place his person. This
(14:16):
is something that I would consider mister Powell to do.
He should consider resigning because clearly he's not aligned with
the President of the United States. Other people's done that
with the agencies. I think Chairman Powell should consider his
place in government right now.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
All right, mister chairman, we appreciate you joining US Congressman
Jason Smith, the Republican representing Missouri, of course and chair
of the House Ways and Means Committee here with us
on balance of power. Thank you so much. And that
is another question, Mike, of course, is not just whether
or not the chair of the Federal Reserve could end
up being fired, but whether he could resign under what
is still immense pressure from not just President Trump but
others in the administry.
Speaker 5 (14:55):
Even though he has indicated that he would do no
such thing, and he has tried in every way possible
to resist that pressure.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Yep, and has also tried to say repeatedly that there
is it is not applicable with the law to fire
the Chair of the Federal Reserve. We'll see whether or
not we have to actually test that legal theory. We'll
continue to follow this story here on Balance of Power
on Bloomberg TV and Radio.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcasts. Catch
us live weekdays at noon and five pm Eastern on
Apple Cocklay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app.
You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our
flagship New York station Just Say Alexa played Bloomberg eleven thirty.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Kayleie Lines alongside Mike Shephard here in Washingtonday. Welcome Washington Today.
Welcome back to Balance of Power on Bloomberg TV and Radio,
where we just spoke with, as Charlie mentioned, the Chair
of the House Ways and Means Committee, Congressman Jason Smith,
who yes, said the Chair of the Federal Reserve should
resign when we asked him about whether or not President
Trump could legally fire Chairman Powell, whose term is said
(15:58):
to expire as chairman in May of twenty twenty six.
But President Trump, of course, in the Oval office, would
be questioned by reporters about this earlier Today, suggested he's
not planning to fire him, in part because May twenty
twenty six isn't all that far away and he soon
gets to pick POW's replacement.
Speaker 9 (16:14):
We get to make a change in the next what
eight months or so, and we'll pick somebody that's good,
and we'll pick somebody. I just want a fair job.
We want to see lower interest rates. Our country deserves it.
We're making a lot of money. We're doing great as
a country who had no inflation record, stock market record, business,
(16:35):
everything's a record. Now. We had the worst inflation in
history under Biden, and now we have almost no inflation.
We've done a great job, and we should have the
interest rates cut.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
President Trump, perhaps Mike feeling empowered to talk about the
lack of inflation by the inflation data we got today
PPI literally zero percent gain.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
Month on month too.
Speaker 5 (17:00):
The CPI, at least at the top level. If you
drill a little bit lower into actual categories like appliances,
we are seeing some upward price pressure. But for the
White House, that top level number and CPI also surely
gave the President some free reign to talk about cutting
interest rates, and that's something that's critical to his agenda.
He wants see mortgage rates go down, and he also
(17:20):
wants to see the cost of investing for business go
down too, given all of his interest in having plants
built across the US.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Yeah, and that's why President Trump says when he's choosing
pow'ser placement, he's only interested in low interest people. So
on that note, let's bring our political panel into the conversation.
Bloomberg Politics contributors Rick Davis and Jeanie Shanzano are with us. Rick,
of course, Stone Court Capital partner and Republican strategist. Genie
Democratic analyst and senior Democracy fellow at the Center for
the Study of the Presidency and Congress.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
Genie, I wonder.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
How you read into the reasoning President Trump has around
interest rates that Mike was just referring to. That Actually,
at the end of the day, what this really is
about for him, in large part, he says, is about
the interest burden of the United States making sure those
payments are lower. Is this the president that maybe is
a bit more worried about our debt and deficit, knowing
that his one big, beautiful bill just passed that will
(18:11):
add to.
Speaker 10 (18:11):
It, Yeah, I don't know of a president, Republican, Democrat,
anywhere in between who has not wanted lower interest rates.
So in this way, Donald Trump is perfectly in keeping
with every not just President probably, but every politician or
most of them. And sure he is going to be
concerned about the interest rates. He's going to be concerned
(18:33):
about debt and deficit because this reflects on him. The
number one reason he was elected, according to those exit
bulls in twenty twenty four, was that he promised to
be able to manage the economy in a way that
people felt Joe Biden simply wasn't doing that. He was
a sound manager as a former businessman of the economy.
(18:58):
And so as he sits here today, six seven months in,
he knows he owns this economy and interest rates are
something that we all feel as consumers and voters. So
it does matter. And we all of course see the
ticking up of the deficit and that matters as well.
So he's looking at the same numbers we are voters
feel it, and so it matters to him.
Speaker 5 (19:21):
Rick when it comes to numbers and what the President
and his allies in Congress as well are looking at
how much are they factoring in the market reaction. It
was quite negative when those reports began to emerge that
the President had not only floated the idea of firing J.
Powell in private, but even waved around a letter. We've
seen those numbers recover a little bit. But how much
(19:43):
of this is a factor in their thinking.
Speaker 11 (19:47):
Yeah, I think quite different from his first term, where
he seemed hyper sensitive to market changes, he seems a
little bit more immune to them in this term. Obviously,
the biggest crisis he'd had in the market it was
when he got into a bit of a trade war
earlier in his administration, and back right off of that,
yielding US a new acronym taco tariffs and the taco
(20:11):
trade and and and and so I think he's thinking
more long term on this. I think you guys are
absolutely correct that he's got the deficits in his rearview mirror,
looking at those every day, realizing that these interest rates
that that that that keep ticking away are not very dynamic.
They're they're they're very much of a penalty to any administration.
(20:34):
It runs up the deficit. And that's exactly what he's
just done with his big Beautiful bill. But the other
key component to his entire budget strategy is economic growth,
and he needs these low interest rates for economic growth.
So maybe less focused on the markets today and much
more focused on new building development, manufacturing starts, things like
(20:57):
that that really require lower economic lower interest rates in
order to create that kind of economic growth, which, of course,
all his models that he argued for in selling the
big Beautiful Bill were three and a half four percent GDP.
He's a long way off of that, and so I
think that's what's really fuel in his interests here.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Well, but it doesn't that just speak to the kind
of catch twenty two for the President Rick where he
wants juice to grow, or he wants growth to be juced,
so he wants interest rates lower, knowing growth might take
a hit ultimately from his tariff policy, depending on the
extent to which tariffs are actually implemented and for how
long they stay in place. But it's those very tariffs
that is keeping the federal reserve on the sidelines for now,
not wanting to cut interest rates because of infletion. Can't
(21:41):
we chalk up all of the difficulty he has around
interest rates to his own policy, not necessarily the FEDS.
Speaker 11 (21:48):
Yeah, I think that this is a massive change. This
is not a small change. And if you follow sort
of the Marlago Accord, in the significant alterations of the
global economic infrastructure that exists today that this administration is pursuing,
there's a lot of friction, and I think this is
the kind of friction you're seeing happen right now on
(22:10):
these issues. You know, could he get the Fed to
move more quickly if there weren't pressures on prices because
of tariffs. Absolutely, But he needs those tariffs to generate
revenue in order to reset the financial relationships. And of
course one of the fundamental aspects of his realignment economically
is getting down the trade deficits, and so you know,
(22:32):
he's not going to give that up. What he wants
to do is get rid of Jerome Powell.
Speaker 5 (22:39):
Genie, it's been very hard to keep up with a
fast moving pace of everything that is happening here with Trump,
from j Powell to tariffs. How do Democrats keep up
with this? And can they form a coherent argument around
the economy that packages all of this together.
Speaker 10 (22:55):
Yeah, they're going to try now, Mike, I always say
Democrats and forming a co cohesive sort of narrative to
sell it an election. It's something like an oxymoron. It
doesn't work so well all the time. But given the
big beautiful bill, they should be able to do that.
And you know what's working against them are things like
(23:15):
Mumdani's potential election in New York City. But putting that aside,
they are going to be arguing, number one, about healthcare
and the impact of this big beautiful bill on healthcare,
the impact of inflation we've seen that tick up, the
impact of debt and deficits on their children, their grandchildren.
(23:35):
But I think most important to make the case that
Donald Trump is doing the bidding of the billionaires and
he the very wealthy, and he is leaving aside the
people he claims to care most about, the working in
the middle class, who bear the brunt of all of this, including,
by the way, on his tariffs. I know his talk
about tariffs as always they meaning the other country will
(23:58):
pay nineteen percent in the case of Indonesia. The fact
is Americans at home will bear the brunt of that,
and it is a regressive tax. So Democrats have to
make that case.
Speaker 7 (24:11):
All right.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
Jeanie Schanzeno and Rick Davis our political panel here on
balance of power, both of them, Bloomberg Politics contributors, thanks
for being with us as always.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
Here on Bloomberg TV and Radio.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
And we want to go live now here on Bloomberg
to the North lawn of the White House, where we
find Bloomberg's chief political correspondent, Anne Marie hor Dern, having
just been in the Oval Office with President Trump and
having the chance to question him about his intentions with
the Chair of the Federal Reserve. So, Anne Marie, obviously
some pushback to today's earlier reporting.
Speaker 12 (24:38):
Yeah, a lot of pushback from the President in the
Oval Office. He talked about the fact that he is
not looking or planning to fire J.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
Powell.
Speaker 12 (24:45):
When I asked him about this draft letter, did he
write it? Did he wave it in front of congressional
Republicans at this dinner last night? He said, no, there
is no letter. He discussed the quote concept of the
idea of firing the FED chair. He actually said that lawmakers,
most of them are really in favor of it, but
he said he is more conservative than they are, so
(25:06):
he pushed back on this notion. But he continued, of
course to bring up his gripes with Fedchair J. Powell,
one of course being the fact that he thinks the
FED should be lowering interest rates and we have not
seen the Fed do that, of course since last year
before the election, and now this new one that you've
seen a lot of administrative officials really start to push
(25:27):
going after the FED Chair for the renovations that are
taking place at the Federal Reserve building. So he kept
those talking points, but he made it pretty clear that
at this moment he has no plans to fire the
FED Chair, which of course would open up a huge
legal battle because this would be a president in American history.
Speaker 5 (25:47):
Emory, are you getting a sense that that whole question
of the renovation of the FED headquarters is emerging as
a coherent means of arguing for and justifying the FED
Chair's exit.
Speaker 12 (25:58):
Well, they definitely are looking into it, and even within
the FED, we do know that the FED Chair J.
Powell is asking questions about it. How did the renovations
become over budget, etc. So he clearly wants to make
sure that he has the answers if there are those questions.
But this seems to be a new line of attack
(26:18):
on the FED. But the President continues to go after
what for him is the biggest problem, which is where
interest rates are right now, and he wants to see
them lower. Of course, a lot of economists on Wall Street,
even ones that are sympathetic to the President's view, like
Neil Dutta of Renmack, who says the Fed should be
lowering interest rates, said, if you were to file fire him,
(26:41):
it'll have the exact effect in the market that the
president's looking for.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
Yeah, well, it all comes down to the behavior of
the bond market. I guess at the end of the day,
Annrie Horder and live at the White House for us,
thank you so much for being here on Balance of Power,
and we'll have more straight ahead.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
I'm Kaylee Lions alongside Mike.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
Shephard right here on Bloomberg TV and Radio.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast. Catch
us live weekdays at noon and five pm Eastern on Apple,
Cocklay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. Listen
on demand wherever you get your podcasts, or watch us
live on YouTube.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
Both Wall Street and Washington paying attention to the narrative
around the Fed chair Jerom Howell with Equal Interest today
as President Trump again, as we've told you repeatedly this hour,
has said he is not planning on firing the FED chairman,
but he still is unsatisfied with the chair's performance and
with the current state of interest rates.
Speaker 3 (27:37):
Which he wants to see lower.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
In the face of what he said in the Oval
Office today, Mike is quote no inflation, and at least
looking at the.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
PPI data that we got today, you could see.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
How that technically might be true, at least in this
particular instance, is both PPI on the headline and Core
exiting out food and energy month on month rose zero percent.
Speaker 5 (27:58):
It would be a very favorable reading for the President
and his point of view, but it's only one month,
and the trend is something that Scott Bessett yesterday had
pointed to before the CPI numbers came out. And what
was interesting in our conversation with Stuart Paul earlier today
is that he dug through the numbers a little bit
more deeply infants and increases in appliances and other goods
(28:19):
that suggest that yes, tarris are actually starting to have
an effect at that level where consumers and yes, voters
too could start seeing.
Speaker 3 (28:26):
You know who else digs through the inflation numbers.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
Michael McKee, Bloomberg's International economics and Policy correspondent, and he's
joining us now here on balance of power. So Mike,
to the point that Mike Shepherd was just making about
it being was actually underneath the surface of the data
that ultimately matters when you look underneath. It's not necessarily
true that we see no inflation, as President Trump suggests.
Speaker 6 (28:50):
That's right, Kayleie. What we saw was a drop in
service industry inflation in the PPI that was strong enough
because it's a service industry economy to push down the
overall number or to keep it flat rather which on
a year over year basis brought down the PPI inflation numbers,
but the goods inflation went up, and we saw goods
(29:11):
prices rise on a number of areas that are tariffed.
So for the FED, they're going to be looking at
this and saying there's evidence that tariffs are going to
bleed through into the economy and they are going to
cause prices to go up. I go back to what
Mike just said about it's only one month, so the
Fed's going to want to make sure that this is
(29:32):
a continuing pattern and it could get worse before they
do anything. So even though this would make the case
to somebody who didn't understand economics, like perhaps the person
in the Oval office, it's not going to make the
case for the FED. And so I suspect that the
President is going to be disappointed at the July meeting,
(29:52):
even if the numbers suggest that inflation is somewhat tame.
Speaker 5 (29:57):
Now, the FED chair has insisted that the law backs
him up and staying in his role, but he is
under significant pressure from the administration to maybe move on,
and perhaps move on once his term ends and leave
the board. Do you see or get a sense that
he may decide to stay on after all once he
(30:18):
leaves his role as chair.
Speaker 6 (30:20):
There's sort of a unanimous feeling, Mike among the people
I've talked to, both at the FED and the economics profession,
that the only reason Powell would stay on after the
end of his chairman's term is if he worried about
the FED as an institution. If the President put in
somebody who was going to be a bullet and china
shop and take away credibility from the FED, he might
(30:42):
try to stay on. But even he knows that that
would cause problems for the overall FED, because in essence,
you'd have two FED chairs. You'd have somebody the President
appointed whom the markets may not want to listen to,
and then you'd have Jay Powell, whom the markets are
used to listening to. And if the new chair said something,
Powell could contradict it, and that would really throw markets
(31:03):
for a loop. So it would be difficult for the
Fed if that happened. But if he thought it was
a bad enough situation, he might do that. And I
think that's why he's not saying he's going to leave.
He's trying to use that as a bit of leverage
on the White House to keep them from going too far.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
Well, as we consider how the markets view all of this, Mike,
it ultimately is the bond market that will dictate the
interest rates that are actually paid on things like our
national debt, which President Trump said in the Oval Office
once again, is really his issue with where the FED
funds rate is.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
Right now, let's remind ourselves what Trump said earlier.
Speaker 9 (31:42):
He's not doing the right job. We should be saving
a trillion dollars a year an interest you know, when
he talks about costs. We should be saving think of it,
a trillion dollars a year, add that with the tariffs
and everything else. But he just doesn't want he's a knucklehead.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
I'll leave the knucklehead comment aside for now, Mike. But
if ultimately the objective here is to make sure that
rates come down to the credibility point that you were
just making, isn't there a chance that even if the
President were to get what he wants, either through a
new chairman or the FED actually cutting rates under pressure,
then its credibility is a problem. The bond market doesn't
buy it, and it doesn't actually change the amount we
(32:19):
have to pay an interest or makes it higher.
Speaker 6 (32:22):
Yeah. Absolutely, that's the base case for the opponents of
all of this is that the president isn't going to
get what he wants because while the Fed can lower
short end rates, they can't affect long end rates. That's
the province of the markets, and the markets are going
to decide whether they think there's a possible inflation problem
or whether they think that there's a debt problem, and
(32:45):
they're going to react to it. So odds are that
if the president put in a toady who basically tried
to force through a rate cut, markets would send rates
much higher. And that's another reason people just don't understand
what the president's problem is here, because his strategy for
getting lower interest rates is kind of the opposite of
(33:06):
what you need to do.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Indeed, it is Michael McKee, Bloomberg International Economics and Policy Correspondent,
Thank you so much. And as we watch this here
at Bloomberg, as Wall Street watches this, we know Capitol
Hill is watching this as well, and people who used
to spend.
Speaker 5 (33:22):
A lot of time on the Hill, well, that's right, Kayley.
And we're joined now by Patrick McHenry. He is the
former chair of the House Financial Services Committee and former
Speaker pro tempore and a Bloomberg contributor. Char McHenry, it's
so glad to have We're so glad to have you
with us today. You have to be watching this fed
(33:43):
drama unfold today with a certain amount of, I don't know,
nostalgia or maybe an insider's appreciation of what is going
on now. Is it your sense that the president actually
is serious about what he said to lawmakers behind closed
doors last night, or is he more serious about what
he said in public today at the White House.
Speaker 13 (34:06):
Well, both things can be true. What this president has
been very clear about is that he doesn't like the
interest rate policy of the Federal Reserve. He puts that
fully on the chair of the Federal Reserve. So there
are two things that can be true at once. One
is that he doesn't like Howell's approach to rates being
(34:28):
too late at the beginning of COVID and thinks that
our rates should come down now, and then the second
part is to see that The second part is that
the Open Markets Committee is dominated by Biden appointees. So
even if you remove the FED Chair, you still have
(34:49):
an Open Markets Committee that has a different view than
the President does. And you're talking about the FED chair's
term of office ending at the beginning of next year.
I think what we're seeing today as the President highlighting
the fact that inflation has come way down, that the
tariffs haven't had a dramatic negative impact on inflation counter
(35:11):
to expectations, and is trying to drive his economic message
in light of what we know is in the inflation
print this morning. So all these things are complicated and
there's a lot going on here, but the key message
that the president's trying to drive is an economic one,
not a personnel conversation.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
Well, I'd like to ask you about a separate live
conversation happening as we speak, mister Chairman on Capitol Hill
right now is the House is moving toward reconsidering the
rule that failed yesterday, a procedural hurdle to advance three
different pieces of crypto legislation as part of Crypto Week.
The rule that failed yesterday was because of a handful
of lawmakers who actually convened with the President at the
White House last night, meeting which the President emerged from
(35:56):
saying we have a deal. They're now going to vote
to pass the rule, and the chair of the Freedom Caucus,
Andy Harris, confirmed that on XTS a few minutes ago
that they will be voting in favor of the rule today.
When do we break out of this pattern of people
voting no initially President Trump stepping in and they ultimately
decide to change their minds.
Speaker 3 (36:16):
What's the point of the exercise?
Speaker 13 (36:19):
That is the point of the exercise, which is I'm
going to stop your again to President Trump, You're going
to bring me to the Oval Office. I will say
to you, I love you and I didn't want to
hurt you. Give me assurances about some extraneous random thing
and then they vote yes. So what they want is
the attention and love of the sun, the moon, and
(36:41):
the stars. And right now in the Republican ecosystem, that
is in the person of Donald J. Trump, who controls
this party. Unlike any other politician and modern American history,
he has control over his party and thereby the policy
making on Capitol Hill. So it is a messy way
to do it. It is very embarrassing for congressional leadership
(37:04):
to have to send members over to the White House
for the President to close them again. But that's the
process that we're going through. And inevitably, what they've shown
with policymakers on Capitol Hill have shown, especially the Freedom Caucus,
is that they will cave, they will fold, and they
must do that in the person in the room with
the person of Donald Trump. But they will inevitably fold
(37:27):
for no change in policy. And that's what's happening once
again with Crypto that happened on reconciliation. It's happened probably
a half dozen times so far this legislate year and
will continue.
Speaker 8 (37:39):
Cherr.
Speaker 5 (37:40):
McHenry, Is your sense then that this actually gets through
this week? Do we actually see crypto week ending in
this victory lab for crypto advocates.
Speaker 13 (37:50):
Yes we do. We see a bipartisan vote for the
stable Coin bill, a genius act, and we see less
of a bipartison vote because of the maneuvers of the
Ridom Caucus for the Market Structure Bill, which brings clarity
to ninety three percent of the crypto marketplace. And that's
the bigger bill that we'll have to come later. But
(38:12):
the stable coin regime will have a nice bipartisan vote
this week, which will show that crypto does have massive
power within both of the parties, much more so in
the Republican Party than the Democratic Party, but a significant
group within the Democratic Party or pro crypto.
Speaker 5 (38:29):
Well's follow up chair McHenry, how much more work does
need to be done on that Market Structure bill to
get it through, to win the support it needs.
Speaker 13 (38:37):
Well, my colleagues and I worked very hard for the
last five years on crypto in the House of Representatives,
and so we've got a pretty well baked approach of
policymakers on both sides of the isle who are engaged
in policy making. That's a smaller group, but they are
well versed in the set of policies that are in
the Clarity Act or last Congress called Fit twenty one,
(39:01):
that is the Market Structure Bill that brings clarity to
commodities and securities and defines a digital asset and a
means of exchange. So House members are much further along
on this than Senate members, and so the Senate is
going to have to take a lot of time to
actually understand this policy, the trade offs, to go through
this and then go through the stages of grief before
(39:22):
they can get to actually voting on a market structure bill.
Hopefully that happens this fall, but it should, it's going
to take longer than expectations. Unfortunately.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
Well, mister Chairman, we just have a minute left. Is
that effort in the Senate, knowing it would require democratic
buy in potentially disrupted by a recisions vote we could
see later today or tomorrow that Democrats obviously don't want
to see. Do you see that disrupting potentially the appropriations
process and any further bypart is an effort on crypto
or other things?
Speaker 13 (39:52):
Yes, I think when Chuck Schummer got played by the
President Trump and Elon Musk and the Doge process, that
that kept the government open at the beginning of the year.
I don't think Schumer and the Democratic Senate will play
the same rules by the same rules going into the fall.
I think the likelihod of government shutdown is rather high
(40:12):
given the environment we're currently in. Highly partisan environment we're
currently in, and that will curtail a lot of serious
policy making that could otherwise be done.
Speaker 2 (40:23):
All right, not an optimistic note to end on, but
we'll leave it there, mister Chairman, Thank you as always
for joining us. Of course, former Congressman from North Carolina,
former Chair of the House Financial Services Committee, Patrick McHenry,
now a Bloomberg contributor here with us.
Speaker 10 (40:38):
Thanks for listening to the Balance of Power podcast.
Speaker 6 (40:41):
Make sure to subscribe if you haven't already, at Apple,
Spotify
Speaker 11 (40:44):
Or wherever you get your podcasts, and you can find
us live every weekday from Washington, DC at noontime Eastern
at Bloomberg dot com.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!