Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump LOSES HIS MIND as Fed Chair REFUSES TO OBEY

Episode Date: January 31, 2025

I know one federal employee Trump is dying to fire..but can’t—Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell; and Powell knows it and is taking on Trump by showing him who is the real boss of the economy. Michael Popok explains how just one 40 minute briefing by Powell not only put a halt to the plunging of the crypto market because of Trump; but also signaled to Trump he was not going to rescue his erratic policies with a lending rate cut to lower mortgage and credit card rates. Get up to 40% off for a limited time when you go to https://shopbeam.com/LEGALAF and use code LEGALAF at checkout! Visit https://meidasplus.com for more! Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Coalition of the Sane: https://meidasnews.com/tag/coalition-of-the-sane Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Well, I know one federal government employee that Donald Trump would love to give the axe to. That's Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell. Jay Powell just stuck it to Donald Trump once again, showing him who's boss in a 50-minute meeting he gives every Wednesday, a briefing. He did two things I'm going to talk about here on the Midas Touch Network. I'm Michael Popak. One, he fixed the falling cryptocurrency market that Donald Trump accidentally, inadvertently, on purpose tanked after his inaugural speech and one of his first executive orders failed to impress the crypto bros.

Federal Reserve Chairman put an end to that with one sentence, and I'm going to tell you what that is in a minute. Secondly, Donald Trump's erratic and hyperbolic and manic policymaking through executive orders on immigration tariffs, fiscal policy, and regulations has led J-PAL to pump the brakes, no, slam on the brakes, and block any further rate cuts. There won't be any more rate cuts that impacts how much you and I pay for any of our borrowing, our lending, our credit cards, our loans, our mortgages. He has put a hold on rate blocks because of Donald Trump's erratic conduct. That's not exactly how he put it, but he sort of put it that way.

Every Wednesday, the Federal Reserve Chairman, who Donald Trump can't get rid of, did I mention that at the top of the hot take, takes a look at the macroeconomic issues and microeconomic issues and gives his opinion. He also announces whether on behalf of the Fed, they're going to cut the prime rate. Prime rate then determines how much you and I pay at the pump, so to speak, or at the bank, consumer credit, credit cards, and the like. All ties off of that rate cut. Rates go down at the Federal Reserve level.

They go down at the inner bank level, the lending between banks. They then trickle down and go down with consumer lending and loans and mortgages. If the rates stay where they are or the rates go up, and we have the domino effect, cascading effect going the other way. So every week, Federal Reserve decides whether they're gonna heat up or cool down or leave stagnant the economy.

Donald Trump almost, almost tanked the cryptocurrency or digital asset sector in global economy. How did he do that? And why was there a drop of over $1 trillion in equity or in value in financial markets devoted to cryptocurrency or digital assets? Because of Donald Trump? Because he failed to mention cryptocurrency at all in his inaugural address. And crypto bros were listening and said, where's the mention of how this is going to be the

golden age of cryptocurrency like your sons told us you were going to say? Wasn't mentioned. Then he doubled down on not protecting the cryptocurrency industry despite them giving him hundreds of millions of dollars in the campaign. Trump then doubled down by passing an executive order, assigning an executive order that did not go far enough for the cryptocurrency community.

They wanted him to set up like a one trillion or half a trillion dollars strategic reserve of cryptocurrency, and Donald Trump was like, well, let's take a look, well, I'll do a study. Maybe six months from now, we'll have a stockpile made of the $20 billion that we already have obtained through civil forfeiture actions. The cryptocurrency community was like, you're going to do a blue ribbon panel that's going

to look at something for the next six months? And off the cliff went the cryptocurrency community. Powell seeing that, that it was in freefall, stopped it, caught it, was a parachute for it, once again trolling Donald Trump. All he had to say was the following. He said today in the briefing, I don't see any reason why banks can't have relationships with cryptocurrency holders in traditional banks as long as they manage their risk properly. In other words, big banks can have on their portfolio and get into the cryptocurrency

business as long as they manage risk appropriately. Risk management, sorry, it's a big thing in financial services. I worked in financial services. I worked as the Deputy General Counsel and Global Head of Litigation for a large Wall Street firm. Managing risk along the portfolio, it's a top job in these firms. You have to balance the risk. You have to decide whether you're going to take a trade, make a trade, make an investment,

take somebody's money, get into certain sectors, certain segments, get into cryptocurrency or not, and make sure you hedge it in the back with some sort of protection So that if it all goes downhill, you don't drag the company and everybody's money down with it. That's risk management Right and every one of these financial services Financial services companies or banks has or anybody that's in investment or credit situation has a risk manager, has a credit manager, and they all work together. Here question was, could traditional banks take on cryptocurrency on their balance sheet or would the Federal Reserve have a problem with that? Now, in the past, the not so recent past, somebody like Jamie Diamond at JP Morgan Chase would say,

I just don't see how any cryptocurrency is secure. I wouldn't have it on my balance sheet. There we go. Powell said one line, I think cryptocurrency can be on the balance sheet of banks as long as they take proper risk management protocol and the cryptocurrency market celebrated with a giant hooray and Traded up now over three and a half percent return that is again showing Donald Trump through a muscular response measured adult Confident but a robust response by the Federal Reserve Chairman

that he's not gonna cut rates and he's gonna save Donald Trump's butt about cryptocurrency all in a 50 minute, 50 minute briefing on Wednesday. My household just welcomed our bouncy bundle of joy infant daughter, and now our sleep has been changed forever. My sleep has been what's the word I'm struggling for now? Awful. Interrupted and frenetic. The result? Low energy and

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That's the power of the Federal Reserve Chairman. And that's something that Donald Trump has never acknowledged or never admitted, that he's got to work through the Federal Reserve, who's watching his monetary policy, his fiscal policy, his tax policy, his fiscal policy, his tax policy, his spend policy, his immigration deportation tariff policy, and the rest, and its impact on the macro and the micro of the economy. Now, Powell will tell you, he's the first one to tell you, that we have a giant

economy, and it's very hard through direct policy to impact it, but it has to be analyzed. That's something we're not watching at all in the first 11 days of the Trump administration. A deep analysis, a deep thought about policy, how it impacts its ramifications, the cascading effects of making a decision. We don't see that. He's just pandering to his base. Get rid of the immigrants. It doesn't matter what it does to the public housing, I mean to the housing sector, to the disaster recovery

sector, to the food supply sector. He doesn't care about that. He's pandering, pandering, pandering, and the like. So I love this reporting about Powell. Powell is one of the few that didn't throw in the towel, no pun intended, no rhyme intended. He had a term that is not expiring for another year or two. He could have said, because Donald Trump wanted to get rid of him, he could have said, I don't need this, and walked out. But he didn't. Instead, he stayed, unlike Christopher Wray for the FBI and a number of other ones. And Donald Trump sort of knows that he can't get rid of him because he did respond in social

media posts right after the Fed refused to cut rates and said, you're, Jay Powell, you're not cutting rates to solve the inflation problem that you created. I mean, look, let's talk about inflation for a minute. Inflation is down considerably. It was trending down considerably. It's now below 3.5% or so. Yes, it was as high as 7% or 8% or 9% at one time when Joe Biden had to restart the heart of the economy

with paddles and put $3 trillion into it in stimulus. Of course, as it coursed its way through the blood supply and the money supply of America, it was going to cause inflation. He then spent the next four years paying the political price for it as inflation, because of monetary and fiscal policy, was brought under control and tamed. That's what Donald Trump inherited as an economy that he's busy wrecking. Federal Reserve represents control over rates, monetary policy, and also has a role in looking

at the balance sheet of banks, pressure testing banks, making sure that they're not lending too much, they're balancing risk and the like. Money supply, free money, availability of money, all of that comes through the United States Federal Reserve. There's a reason why they have a long tenure or so. Tenure is because we want it to be bipartisan. We want it to be independent. I'm sorry, we want it to be nonpartisan.

We want it to be independent. That chaps Donald Trump's backside because he doesn't want that. It's a huge lever on our economy that runs through the Federal Reserve. The M1, the flow of money or the levels of money in America, they can turn on the spigot, they can turn off the spigot. They can turn off the spigot. They can buy treasury notes and bonds. They can sell treasury notes and bonds. Depending upon what they do, expand or contrast is going to have a direct impact, a giant

lever on the economy. Donald Trump's all these policies impact it at a macro and micro level, but it has to be analyzed. Let's just put it this way. We want to have Jay Powell be in charge of our economy and not Donald Trump. Every time somebody that's independent fights back against Donald Trump, we're here to report on it and expose it on the Midas Touch Network and on Legal AF. Follow me, Michael Popak, every Wednesday and Saturday at 8 p.m. Eastern time, right

here on the Midas Touch Network. Legal AF, we sit at the intersection of law and politics, so you don't have to, and you can pick us up on all your audio podcast platforms. Then, Popock Live, a new podcast, Tuesday nights at 8 p.m. Also, Eastern Time, here on the Midas Touch YouTube channel. And then, on top of that, we've got the Legal AF YouTube channel that we're growing. We're going to be at 500,000, but only with your help, free subscribers in the next month. I'm curating all the content there.

We're doing six videos a day. We're soon going to go to 10 videos a day as I onboard some new contributors. So until my next Legal AF contribution, I'm Michael Pupak. In collaboration with the Midas Touch Network, we just launched the Legal AF YouTube channel. Contribution on Michael Popak.