Morning Wire - Trump’s Seismic Economic Shift | 2.15.25

Episode Date: February 15, 2025

Inflation was up in January as the Biden Administration came to close. Meanwhile, President Trump has announced major economic changes as part of his agenda. We speak with financial expert Eric Schiffer about the impact these changes could have on inflation, trade and American industry. Get the facts first with Morning Wire. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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to the world entire. Trouvee to little enterprises like on our own.com. President Trump has rolled into office announcing seismic changes to U.S. trade, energy, and economic policies, including reciprocal tariffs,

slashing regulations, and downsizing the federal government. The changes come as the final inflation report from the last month of the Biden administration showed an uptick in inflation, including 4% increases in housing costs. In this episode, we talked with financial expert Eric Schiffer about the impact Trump's policies will have on inflation, trade, and American industry. I'm Daily Wire, editor-in-chief John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's Saturday, February 15th, and this is a weekend edition of Morning Wire. The latest inflation report for January came in

higher than expected up 0.5% with housing up 4%. President Trump is calling it Biden's inflation. Joining us to discuss is Eric Schiffer, CEO of the Los Angeles-based private equity firm, the Patriarch Organization. Eric, first, thank you so much for joining us. It is my pleasure. So look, we've got this recent inflation report that's come out showing inflation ticking up last month. What numbers jump out to you? What should the American people know? Look, there are some concern about elements within the report that may be lasting, but in reality, some of the report is likely to change in a good way for the market and for the economy in that housing typically has a long delay. So what you're seeing is likely to go down. And you can't read

anything over one report. I mean, and it's largely what you saw. in terms of the reaction from the market was consistent with that, which is that the market has discounted one report. I think if we saw some of the indicators like housing, for instance, or shelter, that was unlikely to begin to recede, it would be another thing. Now, look, tariffs can short-term create some challenges, but I think there are also other factors at play here that will allow inflation over the next year to be largely within a range that's manageable for the economy. There's a lot you said there that I want to unpack. First, why are you optimistic about the housing situation in particular? I think in part because of the way the data is recorded, so there's a

lag period. And if you look at some of the more recent data, it's far more beneficial in terms of numbers. And again, it's structured on a delayed system. So you're not getting real-time. data, you're getting sort of an accumulated set of data. And I think it's optimistic for the future. Again, you know, you can have these spikes and it doesn't mean that we're heading back into a period like we did with the pandemic where, you know, the inflation was draconian. And it was very powerful and caused a lot of challenges, including the Fed. And you saw the way the Fed reacted to this. I mean, they didn't say that things wouldn't get under control. what they said is we're just going to have to watch it more. And I think that's the case. I don't think

that there's anything at this point for investors or certainly consumers to be concerned about. You mentioned the Fed there. We had several interest rate cuts last year. Jerome Powell testified earlier this week that he doesn't know when we may have another one. Where do you fall on cutting rates? Do we need another cut? I don't think you need to have to cut rates just yet. One of the considerations that I think the administration is looking at is how do we take down the tenure. And the tenure is ultimately going to sort based on how well the deficit is managed. And when you have Elon who's going to town taking out all of the junk and the corruption and what has been systemic overspending, that message to the market, I think it all

also will help to take. So you'll see financial engineering in which I think the tenure will come down. And ultimately, the Fed will drive rates down in time as they get comfort that inflation is not going to rear itself. But in reality, when you think about interest rates, the tenure has a bigger driver on mortgages and other kinds of financing. And that's something the administration can control. They don't need power to do anything with that. And they control it through some of the mechanics that is underway, which is reducing the deficit, which is a good thing for the country. You said something interesting there. It's the sort of the symbolic nature, some of the signals, the message being sent from the White House, and how cutting costs on a federal

level could impact the economy. Can you unpack that a little bit more for us? What it does is it tells investors that there's less risk, right? So it signals to the investor community that the risk is being reduced, that America is stronger financially. And that allows you to be able to have debt that sells at a lower interest rate overall. And that's the underlying fundamental of this. And so anything that can be done to prove out to show evidence that we are fiscally stronger serves the tenure. And President Trump has really gone all in on tariffs. You mentioned tariffs at the top.

We had the tariffs on China, tariffs on steel and aluminum, threats of tariffs against Mexico and Canada. there's some concern that this may cause inflation to worsen. You mentioned that maybe there's some short-term effects on this. What's the truth? Are these tariffs beneficial in the end? Will there be pain? How do you see it playing out? I think it will depend upon what each government chooses to do

and what the political situation is in the various governments. So when you do have some governments that may come back with more draconian industry-specific tariffs, then yeah, you can see secondary effects of that. And that can mean higher prices in certain verticals, for instance. But we've yet to see that fully instituted. What we've seen is a bit of a dance today. I mean, there are tariffs,

but we haven't seen governments come out with any type of what I would consider to be draconian implementation. There's been a lot of threats. And those threats are directed at farmers. they've been directed at Elon and Tesla, et cetera. But the actual execution is still, the missiles haven't been fired. And so this is going to be a dance for a bit. And we'll have to see, we're going to need to see.

We'll also need to see how aggressive the Trump administration will ultimately want to go. Because part of this is for them to balance both inflation, what's real time against what the goals are from a revenue standpoint. And look, if Elon can continue to cut, But that takes pressure off of the Trump administration to drive revenues through tariffs, right? Because they're able to balance the budget and reduce the deficit other ways. So I think they're taking a much more measured approach than the press ever gave them credit for, which is why, strategically. And I think it goes to having a solid team economically that's thinking about all the second level effects of making these moves. trying to balance everything accordingly. But just because a government comes back and threatens

doesn't mean they're going to do it, especially with the United States that has so much ultimate power at its hands. Trump has also promised growth in the energy sector that's a huge component to wealth everything, but definitely includes inflation. Obviously, all this stuff takes time. You can't just start drilling instantly. It takes years and years. But do you see any short-term effects of this growth-minded nature of the administration? Will that have a more immediate impact on the cost of some things? Well, look, I think it's going to have a big impact on revenues. And so everyone's talking about, or certain individuals are talking about the negative effects, but what about the positive effects, right? When you begin to strip regulation, when you begin to

strip laws that have impacted commerce, when you have foreign entities that the only, the only way financially that makes sense for them to manage through any kind of tariff specific to them would be to invest in the United States. These are revenue streams and growth opportunities that I don't think have been fully calculated in terms of their impact. And you can get what I'd call a Lollapalooza event where so many of them stack up that you can get growth that may even exceed what people are thinking about. As to the negative effects, look, as it relates to energy, these These things, they're slower gears, you're correct. It will take some time for energy to really make those investments.

And then the question is, will they make the investments? But I think what President Trump is doing overall is setting us up for what is the next big, gigantic set of opportunities, which is AI and data centers. And the power needs to be able to supply the continued dominance of the United States in that arena, which is one, we must win. And if we don't, then, you know, we put ourselves in a position where we could be captive to a foreign country that has far greater artificial intelligence and thus intelligence can control the government and control liberty, even. And so I think the administration gets it, David Sachs and others who are helping to lead the vision for this, Mark Andreessen and even Elon, they understand the importance of it and the importance of. winning here. And a big component of winning is making sure that we have the energy source,

whether that's uranium powered in the form of nuclear capabilities that are safe and able to be contained even smaller in nature to natural gas. And then also our ability to also have oil capacity unleashed in ways that are beneficial to those that can power that. Now, tax cuts are a major part of Trump's platform. He wants to extend. the expiring tax cuts, what could those do for the economy? What happens if these cuts don't get extended? Well, if they don't get extended, then you're going to have less spending, right? I mean, because you're going to have to pay out more in taxes. And there's a chilling effect that goes into play, as we've seen consistently. I do think they'll get passed. And I think what happens

in that is that it allows for both investors, but also businesses and higher net worth individuals that may be making investments to continue with their planning process versus having to be concerned about implications and the downsides of not having such a program that allows them to have more discretionary use of their funds. Final question. And pretty broad one. What do you expect to see over the course of this year in terms of the economy? By the end of the year, where do you see this all going?

Well, I think it's pretty clear that up until Q3, we should do really. really well. And the reason we should do well is just when you think about all of the conference calls of recent in this first quarter from public companies, most are bullish. There's very few that don't see opportunities and continued opportunities. Yes, they're talking about tariffs, but in ways that can be managed. So I would expect that growth may slow down slightly in the Q3, Q4 arena because of, I think, maybe hesitation and or implications from tariffs. But what we don't fully know is what are all the upsides and the upsides that are baked in in these deals that President Trump continues to implement, the loosening of regulation and the vibe that is that secondary

effect of it, which is unleashing a greater entrepreneurial spirit and greater, I think, optimism about what the positives will come from investing. And that, I think, may be bigger than we are calculating. So I'm optimistic. through this year, and I think the market will be consistent with that. The only X factor will be so much when you think about the Biden administration, the growth. It was government-driven growth. It was growth through the hiring of government employees. It was growth through the unleashing of and crushing of immigration enforcement that brought in so many that were coming in from foreign countries that were spending money, by the way. And what happens when you begin to then

extract out the inefficiencies within government, and that means jobs. And those are spenders, right, in the short run. Now, part of that is being mitigated through the payout of like an eight-month retirement. But if you're not taking that, if you chose to not take it, you'll have limited spending. So we don't know what that implication will be fully and how heavy it will go. But I think you could argue that it will be buttressed against what will be these removals of regulation and incentives to invest that should help to overcome that to a large degree. But the way typical recessions are defined, it's job loss, right?

Even if that job loss ultimately is good for America in the sense that it makes it stronger, we could have some months in which you're seeing negative job numbers because of governmental employees. And while it could be technically challenging from a recessionary standpoint, and that it's very positive for the country. Well, you mentioned the term X-Factor, and there are certainly many of them here, including just Trump himself. Things are changing fast, and it'll be fascinating to see how it all impacts the economy. Eric, thank you so much for joining us. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me. That was Eric Schiffer, CEO of the Patriarch Organization Equity Firm, and this has been a

weekend edition of Morning Wire.