Bulwark Takes - WSJ Finally Admits Trump Doesn't Understand Money

Episode Date: February 13, 2025

Tim Miller discusses the WSJ Editorial Board calling out Donald Trump's rising inflation with "Trumponomics" as it appears he has no understand how money and economics work at all.

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There's an editorial out this morning from the Wall Street Journal called Trumponomics and Rising Inflation. I wanted to share with you guys. You know, sometimes some people might come to this feed and be like, that guy hates Donald Trump. He's a never Trumper. You know, what he's saying about the plans that Donald Trump is putting forth is colored by his views. Okay. Um, that's possible. Uh, I, I certainly admit to having a tinge of Trump derangement syndrome. And so that's why I also like to show you guys, uh, critiques that are coming from people that are credulous when it comes to Donald Trump, that have been pro Donald Trump, that attack Democrats to a degree that is sometimes irrational.

And that is the Wall Street Journal editorial board. This is not the news side of the paper. The news side of the paper is, I think, plays it pretty straight down the middle. The editorial board has been for a long time, essentially, you know, the newspaper mouthpiece for Republican economic policy. They have crushed Democrats across the board, are always defending Republicans' efforts to, you know, cut taxes, to cut social services. And so when the Wall Street Journal comes out and says that Trump's economic plans don't make sense, that's something that we should listen to and think about what it is that, and think about why they're making the case that they are.

So I want to pull up some of this article for you. It begins like this. Does President Trump understand money? Not money is in cash, but the supply of money, the price of money as measured by interest rates and their impact on inflation. The Wall Street Journal's answer is that it would appear to be no. I could tell the Wall Street Journal that it shouldn't have taken them until February 13th, 2025 to realize that Donald Trump doesn't actually understand how money supply works. He understands how to con people out of their money. But I'm glad they've come around to that realization, probably when it's too late here after his second election.

But what was it that prompted this rebuke? It was a comment yesterday from Trump calling for lower interest rates. The interest rates will come down. You said that you would demand that the interest rates come down. Well, I would put in a strong statement. Do you expect the Fed to listen to you? Yeah. Trump sent out a bleat that was basically bullying Federal Reserve Jerome Powell, saying that you should lower interest rates so people can get a cheaper price on their mortgage, get cheaper prices on other borrowing. Now, I would love for there to be lower interest rates. I would love to refinance on my house.

We moved to New Orleans after interest rates went up. And so we're paying a higher interest rate on our mortgage than we were in California. And that's causing our mortgage to be more expensive than I wish it should be. There are a lot of people out there that are going through this. There are a lot of people out there who are trying to sell homes, who are struggling to sell their home because the market is soft, because people don't want to buy homes when interest rates are this high. So like the instinct of Trump to say interest rates should be lowered, I get it. Like when you talk about inflation and what is crunching people, mortgage rates and interest rates broadly are one of the big reasons. It's not just the price of the pump and at the grocery store. It's also that people feel either stuck in their home or, for those who've purchased homes more recently, they feel like they're paying a mortgage rate that is exorbitant.

This has an impact on rents. This has an impact on young people who are now trying to get into the housing market. So it's correct that these high interest rates have a negative consequence. But here's the problem. The interest rates are up as a way to try to tamp down inflation. And I mean, this news that I covered yesterday with Sam Stein, that inflation has ticked back up. So if you're, as the Wall Street Journal says, the president's call for easier money during a time when consumer prices keep rising means that he's calling for higher prices. They ask rhetorically, does he want even higher prices? And I can answer this question for them.

No, he just doesn't know what the fuck he's doing. All right. He doesn't want higher prices. He just doesn't understand any of this. He doesn't understand inflation. He just he just wants stock market go up. Interest prices go down. Donald Trump takes people's money from his first fake shit coin. None of his policies, in addition to the demands for cutting interest rates, whether it's tariffs, whether it's less immigration, whether it's the massive tax cut that I talked to Brendan Boyle about yesterday that they're proposing, all of that is inflationary. If you put that all together, let's say you got what you wanted and the interest rates go down, a huge tax cut goes into effect, particularly for the wealthiest, um, tariffs are put in place on goods and we limit the supply of workers, uh, because of deportations and, uh, capping immigration. Like that is the recipe for permanent permanent inflation.

Um, and so like on the one issue that he supposedly got elected on, all of his proposals are doing the opposite of what people say they want, which is cheaper prices. Back to The Wall Street Journal. So at this point, they say as a political matter, an inflation revival may be the biggest threat to the Trump presidency. Trump was elected as voters reacted to inflation and falling real incomes under Joe Biden. Real average earnings are flat over the last three months as inflation has bounced up. If this persists, Trump won't have a 53% job approval rating for long. So, I mean, that just kind of sums up where we're at on this. The Wall Street Journal, say what you want about them, that they've been cowardly, that they've accommodated Trump, that they've gone along with him, that they have some pretty unpopular views when it comes to, you know, cutting spending and paying for that by

giving more money to Wall Street robber barons. You know, there's plenty of, they said a lot of untrue things. There's plenty of things to criticize the Wall Street Journal about. But here's something. The people at the Wall Street Journal, people at the Wall Street Journal editorial board at least understand how markets work, how monetary policy works. And they are sending a flashing red light to Donald Trump that says, what you are doing is only going to increase costs and only going to lead to greater inflation. I don't expect that Donald Trump is going to listen to them. I expect that he will continue to bully Jerome Powell, that he will continue to reduce the supply of workers through

deportations and less immigration, that he'll continue to drive up costs on goods via tariffs, and that he'll continue to push through his massive tax decrease. And all that together is going to mean continued higher prices for all of us. So that's latest. When you get a chance to say you got to hand it to the Wall Street Journal, well, usually I don't take that chance. But today, I'm going to take it. You are correct, editorial board. You can't rely on blind faith to get the pregnancy support you deserve. Ritual's Essential Prenatal Multivitamin is the only leading prenatal backed by its own human clinical trial. Essential prenatal is proven to deliver key nutrients,

including folate, biotin, and vitamin D during pregnancy. Get 25% off when you visit ritual.com slash clinical. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.