Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump Screws It All Up Instantly With Fatal Plan

Episode Date: April 7, 2025

When you see warped Trump policies that hurt the middle class, follow the money for an explanation. Michael Popok examines how Trump’s insane tariff policies that caused the “dumbest recession ever” overnight, have caused investors to run to the bond market, a market controlled in part by companies owned by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. Michael Popok puts on his Wall Street hat to discuss how the flight to bonds caused by the Lutnick phony “reciprocal” tariff stampede, is benefiting his companies and crushing American dreams. Start your new morning ritual & get up to 43% OFF your @MUDWTR by going to https://mudwtr.com/LEGALAF #mudwtrpod 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

Things are so dire with Donald Trump kicking off the dumbest recession in history in just 24 hour period that even his own cabinet secretaries are having to admit the obvious. The markets are crashing as a result of Donald Trump's already failed policy. If this was a show on television, it would have been canceled already. If it was a Broadway show, it would have closed after opening night. Thank you Marco Rubio, Secretary of State who can barely balance his own checkbook. Thank you for telling us that the markets are crashing and stating the obvious.

Now let me point out another obvious thing that's happening, and I'll do a little Wall Street breakdown about how people are rushing into the bond market and who among the Trump administration would benefit from people rushing into the bond market. I'm Michael Popak. You're on the Midas Touch Network. Let's get to it. This is going to be like a TED Talk on Wall Street meets a law school class meets Midas Touch, and I'm up for it.

Let's first start with Marco Rubio. Little Marco, he's at, I was surprised he was actually there, he's at the NATO summit in Brussels. I thought NATO didn't exist. I thought that was a figment of Donald Trump's imagination. I thought he wanted to get rid of it and chloroform it like everything else he doesn't like. But no, he sent little Marco Rubio to the NATO summit. And while he was there, some of the reporters asked him about the impact of the non-reciprocal tariff, and again indicating that Donald Trump doesn't know what the word reciprocity means. Here's what Marco Rubio had to say about that.

Economies are not crashing. Their markets are reacting to a dramatic change in the global order in terms of trade. And so what happens is pretty straightforward. If you're a company and you make a bunch of your products in China, and all of a sudden shareholders or people that play the stock market realize that it's going to cost a lot more to produce in China, your stock is going to go down. But ultimately, the markets, as long as they know what the rules are going to be moving forward,

and as long as that's set and you can sustain where you're going to be, the markets, as long as they know what the rules are going to be moving forward, and as long as that's set in, and you can sustain where you're going to be, the markets will adjust. Businesses around the world, including in trade and global trade, they just need to know what the rules are. Once they know what the rules are, they will adjust to those rules. So I don't think it's fair to say economies are crashing. Markets are crashing because markets are based on the stock value of companies who today are embedded in modes of production

that are bad for the United States. We have to be a country that think we're the largest consumer market in the world. And yet the only thing we export is services. And we need to stop that. We need to get back to a time of where a country that can make things. And to do that, we have to reset the global order of trade.

Okay, so you've got a guy who famously, famously was so much in debt himself personally, that he could barely buy a house, it all came out when he was running for the Senate in Florida, telling you, don't worry, the markets will just recalibrate. Do you feel better now? Are you all going to rush back into the market or are you going to head for the hills? Now one of the places where investors are starting to head, because you've got to go somewhere, you know, if you want to sell out your, your whatever stock and bond you have,

whatever stock you have, you may be looking for more, what you think are more secure assets. It's not the treasury notes, because they're crashing under Donald Trump in 24 hours as well. So there's a couple of places people historically go. They go into commodities like gold. That's why gold is through the roof.

You got an old 14 carat chain, your boyfriend gave you, your girlfriend gave you an ice skull, go find it. It's probably worth a lot of money. Go down to your local pawn shop or jewelry store. That's where we're at right now, folks. You want to compensate? Go look in your jewelry box. The other place people rush to is the bond market.

Quick tutorial on the difference between stocks and bonds. And if you know this already, I'll just try to make it lively and informative and entertaining. Stocks mean you own equity in the company, you're a shareholder, you're not a creditor of the company, they don't owe you money, they don't owe you anything other than proper stewardship of the of the finances of the company. But you own a piece of the rock, you own a piece of the company, maybe fractional, maybe small, but you own it, that's your share, you're on the equity side.

In the capital structure of a company, they need money. So they need shareholders to buy their stock, which goes to the general treasury of the company, can be used for investment, payoff debt, and loans, that kind of thing. They might even issue more stock in order to increase the amount of revenue into the company. They may even buy back stock.

Literally the company buys it back in order to increase the stock price. That's all equities. We call that equities. In the world of Wall Street, it's equities or it's debt. Debt takes many forms. One major form of debt that people buy as a product are called bonds. Bonds are effectively an IOU from the company. You are now the creditor of the company. The company is a debtor. It owes you money based on a promise to pay on a bond based on an amount, a percentage,

a return on your investment, an ROI. You are a bond holder. That is on the debt side. On the equity side, that's all the famous scenes of the New York Stock Exchange. You know, every time the stock market crashes and goes into a bear market like Donald Trump just created by shoving the American economy

and stock market off the ledge, you always see that picture. We'll put a version of it up. That harried broker or trader on the stock floor, and all the guys in little blue coats, usually men were walking around. That's a stock exchange. That's the buying and selling

through brokers and traders. Traders usually work for institutional institutions like banks and they move stock in big blocks, big purchases. You and I use brokers. Those people either take the mom and pops like you and me or they may take larger family funds or they may take larger wealthy people or companies, and they do stock trading for those people. That's created on an open, transparent market where you're buying and selling publicly traded stock generally.

You can own other types of shares in private companies, but I'm talking about public companies that are on a major exchange. The NASDAQ, the New York Stock Exchange, in Europe, the FTSE, the Nikkei, that kind of thing. Publicly traded companies, you own stock, you can see the price, you can see the up and downs. Usually they're regulated by something like

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for anything less than clean, delicious energy. On the bond side, there's no exchange. There's no exchange. There's no open and transparent thing. Bonds are set by brokers handling transactions on the buy and sell and making a market for a particular bond. And guess who's the leader in the bond market,

one of the leaders in the bond market? A little company that people don't know unless you're in that business, that niche of the world, known as Canter Fitzgerald, which is owned by the family, or Howard Lutnick, who's the commerce secretary. So when you see crazy policies that aren't helping you and me, look, follow the money. Who is it helping? It's helping the brokers and traders of bonds.

He owns two companies that do that. One is BGC, he owns three companies that do that. BGC, GFI, and Canter Fitzgerald. They love volatility. Why? Because they make a commission on the sale and the buy and the sell and the sell and the buy and the buy and the trade and the put and the op, all that. That's all done through them being a market maker of bonds.

They don't take a position. They might hold a small position for a minute, but then they trade it within a day or two to make the market, to give liquidity to the market. That's the role of a market maker in the bond business. And they are the leader in that, meaning they should be making tons of money now for the Lutnick family, et cetera, because of this volatility created by policies

supported by Howard Lutnick, get it? Now, the stock market, because his companies are also publicly traded, so to round out this tutorial, he's got, a lot of his wealth is tied up in the value of the shares of his company. They were hit, they were hammered. They're down 9%. Everybody in the Trump administration's cabinet

took a major hit in their personal wealth and in their company's value because of Donald Trump's policies, right? BGC and Newmark, a real estate company owned by Howard Lutnick, down 9%. Linda McMahon and her husband own World Wrestling Entertainment, which trades as TKO. Down 9%.

Tesla, down another 7%. On top of the 20 or 30%, it's been sliding down to over the last three months, two months. So whenever you see weird policies, warped policies, somebody in the Trump administration is being benefited. Weird policies about energy and electric cars, that's because Elon Musk is in benefited. Weird policies about energy and electric cars, that's because Elon Musk is in there.

Weird policies about internet connection in the rural areas and in Latin and South America, that's because of Elon Musk and Starlink. Weird policies about space program, Elon Musk. Weird policies that help the bond market, Howard Lutnick. This is a cabinet of kleptocracy who were lining their pockets, who didn't go into public service

because they want to be public servants. They didn't take a vow of poverty. They went into public service, such as it is, is under the Trump administration to make as much money as possible. This is like if the robber barons during the late 1800s and early 1900s had gotten in, actually were able to co-opt and take over a White House and an administration. That's what we're watching. There's a reason they were called the robber barons. And we're just watching Robber Baron 2.0

and who's suffering? You, me, your grandmother's retirement plan, social security being undermined, Medicare being undermined, student loans being undermined. And I'm gonna end it this way again. Donald Trump inherited a gleaming, gleaming, steaming, hot economy that was helping everyone under the Biden administration. Remember the Biden administration? I'm so nostalgic for them. And what did he do with it? He took it,

and he crapped all over it. And now we have to clean up behind it. I'm Michael Popock. You're on the Midas Touch Network. Follow me on all things law, politics and economy right here on the Midas Touch Network, Wednesdays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. Eastern time. Legal AF, our podcast, and wherever you get audio podcasts from.

And now come over to the Legal AF YouTube channel. I curate with about 10 or 11 different contributors, including me, every day at the intersection of law and politics. Legal AF MTN on YouTube. Come on over, help us and continue to build that pro-democracy channel. Until my next report, I'm Michael Popak. In collaboration with the Midas Touch Network, we just launched the Legal AF YouTube channel. Help us build this pro-democracy channel where I'll be curating the top stories, the intersection of law and politics. Go to YouTube now and free subscribe at Legal AF MTN.

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