The Trish Regan Show - RPT: Ilhan Omar CAUGHT — Steve Forbes REVEALS the Alleged SCAM! Jail Next?

Episode Date: February 16, 2026

Ilhan Omar is facing mounting scrutiny as Congress — and reportedly the Treasury Department — investigate allegations that her husband, Tim Mynett, ran a money-laundering operation tied to fraudulent schemes. On today’s Trish Regan Show, Trish is joined by legendary business leader and former presidential candidate Steve Forbes to break down what we know — and what these allegations could mean. But Omar isn’t alone. Massachusetts Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley is also under fire amid new calls for an investigation after dramatic increases in personal wealth. Are these lawmakers operating “pay-to-play” schemes through their spouses to sell access and influence? Plus, Steve Forbes lays out why the Federal Reserve’s economic manipulation must end — and why President Trump’s pick Kevin Warsh could be the key to restoring a stable dollar and long-term economic growth. All this and more on today’s Trish Regan Show with special guest Steve Forbes. 🔔 SUBSCRIBE and remember to hit ALL notifications ▶️ https://Youtube.com/TrishReganChannel ✅ JOIN the Team to support independent journalism: ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBlMo25WDUKJNQ7G8sAk4Zw/join 📈 For financial insights, subscribe to Trish Regan's own research with The 76 Report: ▶️ https://76research.com — Use CODE: DOLLAR for special offer. ✅🔔 CHECK OUT MY NEW SPOTIFY SHOW AND PLEASE SUBSCRIBE FOR FULL DAILY EDITIONS: https://open.spotify.com/show/2blgbg4OaN5dqFhkBy12ii?si=HPdSujPDRrapZWtxbsgAjQ&nd=1&dlsi=979e048c08c04e13 SUBSCRIBE To My YOUTUBE Channel ▶️ https://Youtube.com/TrishReganChannel for daily videos from the Trish Regan Show Become a Trish TEAM MEMBER to get access to perks: ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBlMo25WDUKJNQ7G8sAk4Zw/join SUBSCRIBE to my financial newsletter at ▶️ https://76research.com - Use Code DOLLAR to get the $1 a month special price for ▶️ https://76report.com Help support the show and check out my MERCH! ▶️ https://trishregan.shop/ Follow me on: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/trish_regan/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/trish_regan Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RealTrishRegan #trish #trishreganshow #trishregan #shorts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Things are going from bad to worse, for one, Ilhan Omar as James Comer and the House Ethics Committee looks into just exactly what may or may not have gone down with the winery, with the venture capital firm, with the, oh, I don't know, negative wealth up to nearly $30 million, just a year or two later. I mean, this is very, very suspicious stuff. We've been reporting on it at length here on the Trish Regan show, which is important because we've got to expose it, and it doesn't seem quite right, right?

When it doesn't really pass the smell test, you've got to say, this doesn't seem right. This is a guy, Timmy, MyNet, as I like to call him, MyNet, as in Ilhan saying to herself, My Net worth is going to skyrocket when I marry this guy. Apparently it did. But, you know, concerns about whether or not it was all on the up and up have also skyrocketed.

and she's now facing serious, serious allegations. So people wonder, was this money laundering? People wonder, was he engaged in some kind of pay-to-play scheme? Was there fraud going on? Was it the idea that, oh, if you want to participate in feeding our future, which built taxpayers, American taxpayers, out of $250 million, did you need to somehow have an in with Timmy, who would then make sure that Ilhan put you on the list?

That's what's being questioned. That's what they want answers to. Let's go to James Comer, who has spearheaded this entire investigation into her. But I want to point out that it's also bipartisan because the House Ethics Committee is a bipartisan committee. So she's fair game. Here we go. There's a thing called money laundering where people have businesses and they deposit lots of cash. Again, I'm not accusing them of any wrongdoing.

But she should answer a simple question. If any member of Congress is asked what business is. their family's involved in. I've never seen one fail to answer it. That's not a hard question. My husband has a private equity firm and he's done exceptionally well in the last 12 months. She won't answer that question. And everybody in America suspects foul play here. And again, we're going to find out. It's not going to be hard to figure out what business he's in and where the money came from. So that's going to be a central part of our entire Minnesota fraud investigation because She is the leader in Congress in the district, in the congressional district, where the overwhelming

majority of the welfare fraud is taking place. Her name, as well as the Attorney General Keith Ellison's name, had been mentioned as people of interest. I'll put it like that. She's going to have some difficult questions, answer. Okay, so she's got to answer these questions, and she's got to start, or at least a hubby has to start with first, explaining just exactly how he became worth up to $30 million. from basically nothing. If you look at the letter that Comer sent out last week,

this is where, you know, Timmy suddenly got some homework to do. He's got to figure out just exactly how he's going to explain to Congress how everything went from, what, $51,000 in 2023 to as much as $30 million in 2024. That's kind of what you would call a big jump, but I don't care how great an investor you are. That's not happening. Speaking of investing, you know what, let's do it the old-fashioned way. Let's actually try and make money by making good decisions, right? I encourage you all to go and check out my company, 76 research. Let's see if we can put that on the screen. Here we go. Yes, 76 research. You know, the markets have been pretty volatile right now. Lately, they've been reacting to the Fed chair as well as some concerns about

AI and software, et cetera. So we've seen this volatility. Well, what do you do in this environment? We've been pretty explicit about how to think through this. I would encourage you to go and get the 76 report, it's just a dollar a month with my code, dollar, D-O-L-L-L-A-R, or, you know, the real value add, in my opinion, would be with those model portfolios. We have three of them there. They have all beaten the S&P quite handily. So some really good ideas for what to invest in right there. I would take a look at that. But back to Timmy, Timmy, poor Timmy, you know, Comer's all over this. He's putting out a tweet here. I'm demanding financial information from companies linked to Minnesota's representative Ilhan Omar's husband. So he wants to know just exactly, you know, what the guy

was investing in, if anything, because I think everybody's looking at and saying, how do you have this massive valuation? It just doesn't make any sense. It all came to light when she recently, within the last year, reported this information. This would have been in May of 2025. And I remember saying to you in May of 25, you know, this doesn't look right. What kind of venture capital firm is this? And I went online, I saw the venture capital firm. He says he's got $60 billion assets under management. There's no way this guy has $60 billion. Assets under management, it doesn't even make any sense. I mean, it's just not a big enough firm. and you would be registered with the SEC.

And let me just also cherry on top, if you did have $60 billion asset under management, as you can see in this little graphic, you would certainly be one of the top firms in the country. And this is a little firm that we've never even heard of. And by the way, has a we work address. Like a we work address. I'm sorry, but like it's just not cutting it.

Right? It's just not cutting it. Now, Ilhan doesn't want to answer any questions. As you heard, of course, from James Comer. They've been asking her. And this reporter caught up with her. Nicholas Balancy, if I'm saying that right, he found her in the halls of Congress,

and she didn't want to say, boo. ...into your net worth, you and your husband's net worth. They're claiming that it's risen rapidly. What's your response to what they're saying? Absolutely not. Do you think they'll find anything in their investigation to your network. Nothing. Okay, she's not talking. Definitely not talking.

Listen, they're going to get to the bottom of this, and I think she's in a whole lot of trouble. I want to bring into the conversation right now, somebody who knows a lot about finance, a lot about business, and can kind of provide us with some perspective on all of this, somebody who's definitely not a fan of Ilhan Omar's, and I think suspects a lot of funny stuff going on. I'd like to welcome to the show, Steve Forbes. Wonderful to see you. Good to see you again, Trish. Happy Valentine's Day and everything else.

Thank you. Thank you. And the same to you. I've been covering this Ilhan Omar story, and I'm looking at these numbers, and none of it makes sense. I mean, if you go to his website, for example, he says, this is the hubby. He said he's running a venture capital firm. They're operating in 80 different countries. He's got $60 billion.

Assets under management, I'm like $60 billion. I mean, buddy. And you're not even registered with the SEC. So that doesn't make any sense to me, but I'd like you to weigh in on just what you've seen in terms of his company. No SEC registrations, $403,000 in back taxes. It appears in the state of Delaware, a winery that sort of isn't. What's your initial impression? Well, with him, if he offers you a bridge, don't buy it.

And what we have here is a classic case of connecting, government and using that as a means to get money. And one of the favorite forms is you set up a consulting firm. The nice thing about that is they really can't measure the product. You can just turn out a lot of paper and they get a lot of money from the government for all of this great advice that means absolutely nothing. It's just it's money laundering, scam, whatever you want to call it. And that's how we got the Learing Center in Minnesota, where they can't even spell the

thing right no kids are there so there's no there there except a lot of wasted and stolen the taxpayer money and it's amazing how it's it's quite something when you mix Marxism with joining the government how these people these socialists suddenly become brilliant investors brilliant entrepreneurs who knew that Marx had that in him and well we all know what it is and the other thing of discussed with Lizzie the other day is that these people, even though they portray themselves as tribunes of the people, champions of the underdog and all that sort of thing, they loved to live the high life at your expense. It certainly seems that way. I want to go back to the VC

firm in the winery in a second, but when I look even just at his salary, for example, I mean, She paid him somewhere in the vicinity of $850,000 over the two-year period before they got married. And then what do you know? I mean, it was a bonanza once they got married. The guy's making nearly $3 million as her campaign manager. Steve, who makes $3 million? I mean, everybody was all up in arms because Biden's guy was going to get a sweetener if he won, although frankly, I think. You know, I might have demanded that too, given that that was a pretty tall hurdle. Three million bucks, nearly $3 million, to run a campaign, a congressional campaign.

Dane? Yeah, this is the kind of thing you should have investigations. And even if they can skirt the law, publicity is the best way to cure these things. Keep asking them, how do you get that kind of money? And even if they get reelected, their influence is reduced in the sense that people know they are scammers, that they are feasting off the taxpayer. So as they say, Sunshine's a great disinfectant. In this case, publicity and uncovering this stuff is a great disinfectant like that intrepid reporter in Minneapolis going to actually one of these places and finding out they can't even spell and who's there. And if you find somebody, they try to chase you away. And then you have the leader of the Democrats in the House saying, oh, this is just racism and blah, blah, blah. People see it for what it is.

And that's what you have to do, exposure. And in this day of media, social media, online, what you're doing, you have many, many avenues. And so even if the traditional media press, even if legacy media refuses to cover it, by golly, you've got many, many out there who will be very happy to cover it. We've actually been all over the story. Nick Shirley, you mentioned him. He went out there. Gosh, I'm looking at him saying, you know, CBS. is trying to reinvent itself, maybe just make him all of 60 minutes.

I mean, this reminds me of Mike Wallace back in the day when he'd like take a camera, right, and like chase somebody down in the streets. And that's effectively what Nick was doing. He was just putting, you know, one plus one together and getting two. You know, does this match with this? And it seems like basic reporting, but you don't have the legacy media doing enough of that because everybody's scared, right? I mean, the Democrat Party is controlling everything.

And the minute, the minute you say, gee, this doesn't seem right? Where do they go? I mean, just look at what Ilhan Omar keeps saying over and over and over again. Ilhan tells us this is racism, that they're just trying to say she can't have the American dream. There's always this sort of sad reference to the fact that I'm a refugee. It seems like these people seem to have a problem with the fact that I am living the American dream. Yes, I was once a refugee. Yes, I did survive war. Yes, I did come to the people. United States when I was 12 years old not speaking English but I did make it to the United States of Congress well she's having the American dream but the wrong kind of dream the Al Capone dream and and people see through it when you

uncover the evidence as you mentioned mr. Shirley did make surely did guess what then you see their excuses their spin whereas before they could just say that and you had nothing to counter it with he and others are providing the counter stuff, the actual evidence, the visual evidence, leering, and it's not a porn site. And you get to see what it truly is. And that's the glory of online. You can just put this out there and by golly, their excuses, look what they are, just a sham, lame, trying to deflect attention. And it doesn't work if you keep hitting them at it. But it takes a little scut work. There's so much gold out there.

So this is a big jump. We're saying, okay, and I think if I understand you right, the way you're phrasing this is being a consulting company, certainly not a venture capital firm. I mean, I looked at the website. I'm like, this is a political consulting firm. I don't know who he's trying to do here, calling it a VC. But I guess, you know, VC, he's taking a portion of your business maybe. I don't know.

I mean, if this is a money laundering shop or if this is a, you know, consulting pay-to-play shop, how would that work? If I want a daycare center and I'm part of the Somali, you know, click there in Minneapolis, and I want to live high on the hog off the American taxpayer, what do I do? Go see Ilhan's husband and he sets me up and the next thing, you know, she's got me, you know, they were trying to get, as recently as, you know, 21 days ago, they were trying to get another million bucks for a Somali restaurant owner who claimed he had a mental health clinic right above his kitchen in the restaurant. And it was fortunate that some members of the GOP shut that one down. But I'm like, wow, even in the light of everything going on, they're still

trying to get some money. And I'm just wondering how you think it may have worked. Well, it worked because no one was looking. And the reason they didn't want to look is because there was a source of campaign funding, a source of campaign support. And especially on the Democrat side, fear of primaries. That if you will call this thing out, you're going to get primary. You might win the primary, but by golly, you're going to go through hell to win and win the general election. So it's fear of getting challenged that has people looking away. That if you challenge these things, obviously you're against immigrants, you're against this, you're against that. And it was very intimidating. It was like in the 50s, call you a communist. Oh, no, don't want to be called that.

So you can set up anything and you usually go to these people because you want something like a learning center or a daycare center above a restaurant or whatever. And they sign off on her. Remember the candidate for governor of Georgia, she was going to get $2 billion before the EPA under Lee Zeldon said, uh-uh, not going to happen. And so, and one of the big, I think, and I think Elon Musk realizes this in terms of Doge, it was a mistake to you, that image of him with the chainsaw. That looked like he was just cutting things and taking things away from people.

But as we see, the real scandal was that these programs were not going for their stated purpose. And that's why Governor Walts is suddenly going to be dusting off his resume to look for new operations. next year. Maybe he can set up a daycare center for a fellow politicians. I don't think I'd want him taking care of my kids, though. So this is big problem. I mean, Marshall Blackburn came out and said, she thinks it's a $750 billion problem. We know that just late last week, they were talking about the Medicaid crisis and the tremendous amount of fraud that they are uncovered. there. Well, one of the things on that, you're making a good point there, is things like on Medicare

or your Medicaid, the amount of testing that they give a patient. And their Nick Shirley type can go in and say a patient goes in with the flu or whatever, you know, your knee hurts, and you show six different things they charge as a disease so they can get six different kinds of payments. And again, illustrating that, John Stossel did it for years, and again, bringing that stuff to life. So it doesn't look like you're trying to take something away from people, cutting back. You're actually trying to make sure that the resources are going for the stated purpose. And so you're not taking anything away.

The key thing politically is you're not taking things away from people. You just stop in the stealing. And it's not an abstraction. It's a very real thing. illustrations are impactful. I guess I'm sort of stunned at the number of spouses that are working as lobbyists. We're recently learning about Ianna Presley and her husband who actually did time. I believe it was a drug-related conviction.

I mean, wow. These squad members really know how to pick the guys. So she did. She's now under fire because she's making something like, I don't know, $300K in income properties. I don't necessarily have as big an issue with that as I do. Apparently the husband's been making seven figures a year. Again, former convicted felon. And I wonder how much is like pay to play. And is it like, okay, if you want Iona to push for this, you got to go through the hubby who's going to charge you a consulting fee. I mean, that's pretty bad, Steve. And that's sort of what you're not supposed to. it's new forms of bribery. And it's the whole lobbying thing. And this just gets to the big picture is this is what happens when you have big government.

Where you have big government, lots of resources. People are going to find a try to way to tap into it. And so that's one of the reasons you've got to reduce the size of government. And the way you reduce it is show how the things they say they're doing, they're not doing. And again, if you're not taking things away from people, they're all for you rooting this stuff out. And they can spot a scammer when they say, oh, it's this, that, and the other thing, you're against Somali people and all that kind of stuff. No, you've exposed it. And again, setting up a consulting firm.

And, yeah, what are you consulting about? You're just simply a middleman in this case for getting money for what they think is a good cause. their bank account. So one of the things I noticed was that they announced their marriage, Ilhan Omar and Timmy Minet. I remember his name always because I think she's probably saying to herself, what do you know, Minet Worth went up when I married Timmy. So she marries Timmy Minet. And the day they announced their marriage also, interestingly, was the same exact day that she also put forward the legislation for feeding our future, which turned out to even involve one of her campaign staffers. who made off with millions of dollars.

He's convicted. He was tried and convicted. And I'm like, wow, that must have been a very expensive. I don't know. Gives new meaning to the word dowry when you get married. Barely. But so if she's involved in this, how are they going to prove this? You know, Besson is a dog with a bone here.

And he has to be because at Treasury, they're also looking at the possibility of finances going to groups like al-Shabaab, and that's a concern, especially with the Huala system. I've done a lot of reporting on this in the past. It can be pretty opaque, but they can still trace it. And he's promising he came out recently and said, listen, we're putting a whole investigative team on this. We're looking at all of the bank accounts that may have been involved, all the money transferring services.

But again, Huala is sort of a cash system. And when you look at the amount of money, $700 million in a two-year time period, stuffed in suitcases. is this is what they declared with TSA that made its way out of Minneapolis the most of any, any single city in the entire country, which also, you know, again, happens to be home to this very large Somali population and made its way to the Middle East in suitcases. Well, Treasury, I mean, and the concern is al-Shabaab has taken a cut, right? That's the fear here, and this is one of the ways that terror financing actually works.

So Treasury has to look at this, not just because of what she may have done, but the threat of this going to elicit sources is very much in their domain. How are they going about this? Well, are they doing what he's doing now? You examine it. You follow the money trail. And high tech makes money laundering take it to a new level. You also have the tools where you can track that down in a way you haven't been able to do before.

So it's just a matter of going after it. It's like crime. People, so you get criminals, but you then. find a way to track them down and arrest them. So it's always a race. Human nature's not changed. And Besson is a guy who's not going to back off. And again, when people see where the money's going already for wasteful things at home, it's very easy to imagine it's going for illicit purposes overseas. And one of the things Doge did point out, here we have the Treasury Department spending over $7 trillion a year. And they have no real idea where those.

checks are going. I mean, a grocery store has a more sophisticated tracking system than the Treasury Department did. So it's a virtue of free society. People are moving in on this. And with the website, I guarantee you have a lot of detectives out there, slews out there. You know, a lot of people love to track these crimes and play, play detective. Well, you're going to have a lot of people doing the same thing on trying to figure out where some of this money is going. So it's a it's like a information site like forbes.com. It's not just a magazine but you have thousands of people online providing information. So in effect you don't just have a couple of hundred journalists. You have any in effect hundreds and thousands of them. Same thing in terms of tracking this stuff

down and like anything a lot of it is going to be it's like a gold mine. Most of the stuff you get out is a sludge, but you do find those nuggets in there. And so you're going to have a lot of nugget finders out there. So the key thing is the exposure. Nobody had any idea how bad this thing was. And now we're beginning to get it. And this is a case of the old cliche where the genies out of the bottle, they ain't going to put it back, even if the Democrats come back in power,

that does not shut down the Internet, does not shut down social media. People are going to find a way to do it. Yeah, it doesn't shut down our voices. And by the way, Forbes.com has done tremendous reporting on this as well. It was Forbes that, I believe, was one of the first to cite the $403,000 in unpaid taxes. I'm like, what a winner. I mean, what a winner this guy is. Whoa.

Let me turn to the Federal Reserve. Kevin Warsh, getting the gig. I kept saying to viewers, you know, it's going to come down to one of the Kevin's. What's your take on this? I know how strong, I've known you for years advocating a very strong. dollar and the importance of King dollar and how much that matters on the world stage. So any thoughts on the new Treasury Secretary coming in? Yeah, I think he understands better than the Fed does today, that money measures value,

the way that a ruler measures length or scale measures weight, and that if the measure of way you measure value is unreliable, it's like a virus in a computer. You know, when you go to the supermarket and you buy a pound of cheese, you don't have to have to worry whether the pound is floating each day. Talking about the weight, not the British pound, whether it's 14 ounces or 18 ounces. I'd love to point out, imagine if the Fed was in charge of the time bureau and they floated the clock, you know, 60 minutes one day, 40 minutes the next. Imagine Trish baking a cake. Cake directions say, bake the batter 30 minutes. You have to figure out of those nominal minutes, inflation adjusted minutes, New York minute, Mexican

minute so it makes commerce much more difficult much more expensive and it provides it's like putting sand in the gas tank and so in terms so i think uh warr recognizes that and i also think he recognizes a basic fundamental flaw of the fed the fed believes and most central banks believe that prosperity economic growth is suspicious because they think it causes inflation and uh so and that's why when the economy starts to do well, you get to start to hear talk about the economy overheating. Just ask yourself, if your pay goes up, your income goes up, do you start to sweat at night? You feel you're overheating because you're doing better? No.

You feel pretty good, actually. Yeah, it's preposterous. So I think he realizes that the real enemy is not a prosperous economy. The enemy is reducing the value of the dollar. And so I think another thing he's going to do is he stated it, he's going to reduce the size of the Fed's portfolio, now $6.5 trillion. And that is grossly distorted financial markets. It has grossly hurt small business lending over the years, enabled governments of these zero interest rates to go heavily in debt. Today in the world, total debt is now almost $300 trillion, depending on who does the counting.

but it's two and a half to three times global GDP. And so you look at Japan, their debt per capita. Government debt per capita is more than twice of the United States, and it's not as if we're doing very well on that front either. So I think he recognizes the Fed has got to reduce its mission. It should not get involved in woke stuff like climate change and political things. The reason the Fed's independence is under question is because they went beyond their original writ, which is a stable dollar.

and dealing with the financial crisis that arise from time to time. So stop the mission creep, reduce the size of the Fed's portfolio, which distorts the markets and hurts all of us. Another thing I think he's going to do is this sounds nerdy, but it impacts us all. Oh, we love nerdy here. Go for it. What I think he's also going to do is the Fed bought literally trillions of dollars of long-term bonds, long-term mortgages.

And that just stored the market. they should go short term. So I think he's going to change what they call the duration of the portfolio and take that distortion out of the marketplace. So I think he's got the right instincts. What does that accomplishes is you get a normal lending market again where you have a normal yield curve, as they say, where short rates now, what, three and a half, four percent still for treasuries?

Ridiculous. Should be in a normal market about two, two and a half percent. if that. So you get functioning markets again. You also get an environment where it's easier, not easier, but small businesses have a better chance of getting financing. And with all the regulations the Fed and others put on the banking system, it's why we have this huge rise of private credit. It was response to the fact that banks had to spend more money on compliance officers than lending officers. So I think he's going to attack those kinds of distortion. And the good thing is that being in the Fed, he's been in the Fed, he knows where they bury bodies.

He knows how the system operates. So I think he has a better chance and the authority to make changes and get something normal again, which is the only way we're going to get good, sustainable, strong prosperity. If he trims the QE, right, he ends the QE, he starts whittling down that balance sheet, but he wants to lower rates possibly, or at least the president wants them to, if he comes, and I've seen an argument for this, and I actually think Besson has written on this, I think Worse has written on this, walk me through the advantage of lower rates for everyday consumers, right? Because I guess that would bring down mortgage rates, that would bring down car loans,

et cetera, and that probably is a bigger effect on the middle class than, you know, QE? Well, the key thing is, the way you get lower rates without distorting the market and creating inflation, is by having a stable dollar, trustworthy dollar. Why are interest rates much lower in Switzerland than here? Because people trust the Swiss franc. By the way, it's kept its purchasing power better than any other currency in the world in the last hundred years. So if you ever look at the money supply of Switzerland,

you say, oh my God, that poor little country has hyperinflation. No, people demand the currency around the world because they trust it. So when you restore trust to the dollar, you get to people will pay, you know, accept lower interest rates because they know they're going to get something real in a few years down the road. So when you get that kind of a market, then one, you don't get the kind of violent volatility we have today. And you get lower rates, which means you get a more vibrant economy, which means more income, less borrowing on your credit card. but it also means you will get competition, more competition, and you'll get lower rates. And so it's virtuous, but it's amazing how these institutions, because they've never been called to account, get away with, imagine, a bunch of Fed governors, as they call themselves, the Open Market Committee,

12 people, try to manipulate the activities of the United States economy. I mean, they tried that in the Soviet Union and didn't work very well, but the Federal Reserve should never be trying to suppress or stimulate economic activity. He's just there for sort of really scary times, right? I mean, when you really need them and push comes to shove, it's a lender of glass resort. So they have to be smacked down. And so I think Warsh knows how to do it. It's one thing to go in and know what should be done.

But I think I hope because of his experience there, he'll know how to do it and do it. and do it in a way in which we can get lower rates without stoking inflation. And so he can meet President Trump's desire without upending financial markets, which is what some people fear. But he knows the place, and that's key. Well, the markets freaked out, Steve. I mean, I couldn't believe the negative reaction. The markets actually came back.

when he was first announced. And I think when he starts, I think the markets will really start to pay attention when he does his testimony when he goes before the Senate Finance Committee for his confirmation. And I hope he lays out that there's going to be a different way the Fed's going to be looking at the world. I think financial markets will be relieved that they're going to focus on what they should be focusing on a stable dollar. And then you'll see the bond markets behave better. You'll see, I think, the stock market is responding to other things, but it won't have to worry about the Fed anymore. All good stuff. Now, it's healthy long term, for sure. Any sort of overall view on where we're heading right now? Do you feel good about things? I mean, some people

were worked up about the recent jobs report. There were some discrepancies, right, within the household number and the overall number. But I mean, I still feel like. But by the way, there are always discrepancies but what has been unusual in the last couple of years is usually they work out overtime you know when you add up 12 months or 18 months they kind of come out together even though month to month they have big differences but right now the way they try to collect the data especially after COVID and during COVID and especially now the people are leery about answering questions especially if you have an immigrant in the house so the data is

kind of suspect now. But the key thing is if we get things right, and I hope that means another tax cut, reducing tax rates directly for individuals, businesses, as President Trump wanted to do on the business side initially, reducing cap gains, you will see real job growth and not have to worry whether the bean counters at the BLS or the B-EA get it right or not. People feel it. And that's what the key thing is. It's not the numbers. It's people's perceptions. Are things moving in the right direction? Right now they don't feel that way.

But hopefully if these things that come together, that'll be a good thing. But in the meantime, one of the things Warsh is going to have to worry about, a weak dollar is not good. And President Trump has to forswear. He doesn't want a weak dollar for trade purposes. President George W. Bush, by the way, tried that, and we saw where that led.

And so we're going to I hope the president will say we want a strong and stable dollar and Warsh will carry that out at the Fed. That'll be a huge relief that we're not going to have the kind of dollar devaluation and turmoil that results from it that we had in the early part of this century. Yeah, there's been a heck of a lot. And the whole debasement trade, right, has been based off of that. And, you know, look, if we can get away from that and we can really return to the normalcy that you refer to, I think it would be healthy, very healthy long term. And look, you can't sustain yourself. The way we're going, we don't want to be Japan. No, and Japan's in deep trouble

now because one, I think she's willing to face down China. China is trying to intimidate her because she realized the importance of a close relationship with the United States, but also she's got to get a lesson on economic growth. So I jocularly, not so jocularly suggested to our friend Arthur Laffer, that he go over there and give her a tutorial on the virtues of tax cuts and the Laffer Curve. Yes, the napkin. Just draw it out. Just like he did for Reagan.

Yep. Have some sushi with it and, you know, life will be better. We've taken the Laffer Curve Global. Oh, Steve, it is so good to see you. We hope you come back on the show again soon. And this is all very, very valuable insight from you. We really appreciate your time today. Well, thank you.

And thank you for bringing me on and allowing me to discuss some nerdy things. And one closing nerdy thing that I hope Warsh does at the Fed is lower and eliminate paying interest on bank reserves, which in effect sterilizes money instead of letting it be put out in the marketplace and doing good active things. Say that again. So the Fed right now, the Fed right now, the Fed right now pays interest on bank reserves, over $3 trillion of bank reserves. And that's why the Federal Reserve is probably the first central bank in history. Remember, central banks can print money, as they say, that has an operating loss.

In the last few years, the Fed has lost over $100 billion because their bond portfolio earns less interest than what they're paying banks on bank reserves. really dumb and again another distortion that's got to be phased out they shouldn't be paying interest on bank research. I don't understand how they got so irresponsible, right? I mean, Powell, I never understood it. You know, my husband would try and say, well, just try and put yourself in his shoes. I mean, he's got the weight of the world on his shoulders.

And I'm like, why does he keep printing and printing and printing? And, you know, what do we get to 9. something percent on consumer prices over 10 percent on the PPI number, producer prices? And I was like, you could just see it coming. Who couldn't see that one coming? The problem with Jerome Powell, sadly, was he got captured by the bureaucracy in the Federal Reserve. And this is a good thing about Warsh is that he knows their games and the spiders can spin all their webs, but he's not going to get caught in him. I think he probably has a good relationship with Bessent as well.

And by the way, I have a tremendous. tremendous amount of respect for Bessent. I mean, you know, the guy basically took down the bank of England. So I think we want him on our side, right? Yeah. He's no joke. Watch out Ilhan Omar. So you've got Besson there.

You've got Warsh. And interestingly, a lot of people are trying to, you know, there's conspiracy theories because of Jucka Miller. They're like, well, Warsh was a consultant for the family fund at Jucka Miller. And of course, Bessent worked for him. But I'm like, you know, Stan's pretty smart. Okay, so he's pretty smooth. You know, I feel better about the folks there now as opposed to Janet Yellen and her sort of rag-tag team.

She disappointed me tremendously because she could have done so much good stuff, but she really didn't. Well, that's a, as we were talking about with Warsh, she can say even more about Bessent. He knows the markets. So I don't care who he was working for, what he did to help do to the pound, which didn't know what it was doing in the early 90s. He knows the game and he learns, and that's what you want. Strong person, strong leader who can learn and know something about the markets, and not just in an academic sense, but in an everyday sense, operating sense. So that's what you want.

I think we've got a good team. I mean, for all the criticism the president takes and even some questions, some of the appointments, I'm like, look at those economic appointments. I mean, those are great. And also, by the way, his energy appointments, Doug Bergam, Wright, and Lee Zeldon, good threesome there on the energy front, too. Well, we love seeing you, love talking to you, and we'll connect again soon. Appreciate your time. Thank you, Trish.

Look forward to it. You know, I always feel smarter when I talk to him. A lot of really great insight there. I think for all of us. In terms of understanding what happened with Ilhan Omar, I think more will come to light, but it's helpful to have his perspective. The other thing is Kevin Warsh, that is somebody who I realize the markets are scared of. They don't quite understand. We haven't been living in a king dollar kind of world. But understanding what Steve said about that was a very, I think, valuable perspective because we do need that sort of normalcy, right, returned to our country and returned to our currency. I want to encourage you. to, if you're thinking about investing, to go check out my research. We do have volatility coming back. Everybody's digesting the new Fed share. You've got, of course, what's going on in Bitcoin and gold and silver. And certainly what's been happening in the AI and software sector. So all the more reason for you to have some powerful research. And I'm not too shabby myself at this kind of thing.

I encourage you to go and look at that. That's my other company, 76research.com. And my co-founder, Rob Horton, has been a stockpicker his entire career and is very, very talented. Do check that out. And check out the model portfolio. The portfolios are really in my estimation where the value ad is. So 76 research.com. You can get it for a dollar a month, just a dollar a month, the 76 report, or you can add on those model portfolios. It is great to have you guys all here.

Very, very important time. I think Ilhan might actually one day regret that little marriage to Timmy Minet. Just saying, okay? Great to have you here. We're going to be back live on the show again tomorrow. I will see you then.