The Young Turks - Zohran Mamdani Postmortem - July 2, 2025

Episode Date: July 3, 2025

Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month Shopify trial and start selling today at ⁠shopify.com/tyt PBD Podcast panelist Adam Sosnick sparks outrage by declaring a large segment of Gen Z should attend “American reeducation camps.” Ana breaks down why Zohran Mamdani won in New York. Trump announces Israel has accepted terms for a 60-day Gaza ceasefire, while also bragging that his tariffs pressured the Fed into keeping rates high. CBS parent company Paramount agrees to a $16 million settlement with Trump over a lawsuit stemming from a Harris interview. Hosts: Ana Kasparian SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE ☞  https://www.youtube.com/@TheYoungTurks FOLLOW US ON: FACEBOOK  ☞   https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER  ☞       https://twitter.com/TheYoungTurks INSTAGRAM  ☞  https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK  ☞          https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕MERCH  ☞      https:/www.shoptyt.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. Welcome to TYT, I'm your host, Anna Kasparian, and we have a massive show ahead for you all today. We're gonna do some updates on the travesty of a bill that's been dubbed a big, beautiful bill. We're also going to talk a little bit about this back and forth between President Donald Trump and Jerome Powell, who of course is the head of the Federal Reserve. Trump is very salty about the fact that Powell refuses to lower interest rates further.

There's a very specific reason why he has made that decision. We're gonna get into the details of that story as well. And also, President Donald Trump claims that Israel has agreed to a ceasefire. Israel says otherwise, so we'll tell you where that issue currently stands a little later in the first hour as well. The second hour, Jank Yugar, will be joining me to talk about more stories, including princess treatment in modern day relationships. What is that? And is it a good thing? We'll discuss that and more. TYT.com slash join to become a member. If you'd like to support this show and keep us independent from corporate influence, you can also help support the show for free by liking and sharing the stream if you're watching us live. All right, without further ado, let's get to our first story.

You see the numbers, and I'm sure we'll get into it, of Gen Z and college-educated Gen Z, college-educated female Gen Z who are voting for this in New York. There's a big portion of Gen Z that needs to go to American re-education camps. And I know what that basically means re-education camps. I'm not talking about the really, really bad kind, but there's a whole segment of society that genuinely needs to be re-educated on what American. is and what America is not. And America is not. Zoran Mandani, you're telling me that a democratic socialist communist, communist jihadist is going to be mayor. Yeah, Adam Sosnik, wanting to send

Americans to re-education camp simply because they have a different political or economic perspective makes it pretty clear that maybe he's the one who needs a refresher course on what America really is. And no, Zoran Mamdani is not a jihadist. He's just smeared as one by those who don't like the fact that he's balzy enough to criticize Israel, which is basically a third rail among most American politicians for reasons that were actually perfectly outlined by libertarian congressman Thomas Massey. Everybody but me has an APEC person. What does that mean an APEC person? It's like your babysitter, your APEC babysitter, who is always talking to you for APEC.

They're probably a constituent in your district. they are, you know, firmly embedded in APAC and every member has something like this? Every, I don't know how it works on the Democrat side, but that's how it works on the Republican side. And when they, and when they come to D.C., you go have lunch with them. I guarantee there's some spreadsheet at APAC where, you know, the APAC dude who's matched up with the congressman is there and then all the congressman's votes on the issue. Oh, has the congressman into Israel. They pay for trips for congressmen and their spouses to go to Israel. I'm pretty sure it works the same way on the Democratic side, just based on their behavior.

But nonetheless, Mamdani also happens to be literally the only New York City mayoral candidate who stated during a debate that he wanted to stay in the city to quote, address the concerns of New Yorkers across the five boroughs. Every single other candidate, named a foreign country that they wanted to travel to immediately after getting elected as mayor. Four of them, including former disgraced New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, declared that their country of choice is Israel. And I know how hard it is for someone like Sosnik to understand because of the fact that he has family in Israel, that most Americans actually want leaders who want to take care of business here at home. Plus, New York City is still a Democratic strong

hold and Democrats aren't exactly vibing with genocide in Gaza these days. Andrew Cuomo during the primary attack Mondania as being insufficiently pro-Israel. I'm not quite sure the former governor understood how much the politics have changed around this issue among Democrats. What are we talking about here? All right, who Democrat sympathize more with Israelis or Palestinians? In 2017, the Democratic Party was a pro-Israeli party. Look at this. They sympathized with the Israelis by 13 points. More with the Israelis than the Palestinians. But look at the sea change. Now Democrats sympathize one with the Palestinians by 43 points. Oh my God, that is a change in the margin of 56 points over the course of just eight

years. Well, I mean, when you get nearly two years of these insane images and videos showing children being slaughtered, hearing, you know, stories and testimony from American doctors who risked their lives to go to Gaza in order to try to save people's lives when they come back and they talk about how infants, toddlers are showing up in the hospital with bullet wounds to their heads. It's going to start changing people's minds about whether it makes sense to support Israel at any and all cost. But nonetheless, I really do want to try to explain the rise of Mamdani, a Democratic socialist, who does appear poise, at least for now, to win the general election and become New York City's new mayor.

His popularity really isn't that hard to understand because his campaign emphasized policies that redistribute wealth and tackle the precarity American workers have been suffering rather than protect the status quo that has severely widened economic inequality, especially in a high cost of living city like New York. It's not some fluke or an accident that young voters find Mamdani's socialist policies appealing. especially at a time when achieving what used to be considered normal milestones like buying a home is really out of reach for most young Americans. Now look, the cost of living has exploded while wages have largely remained stagnant since the 1970s.

Homelessness, as you see from this video, has exploded across the country in recent years, and it isn't rare to see makeshift structures housing people on the side of highways. This is the richest country in the world, and this is what we're dealing with. Homelessness in the United States has been a rising trend for years. In fact, since 2017, according to data from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, there were 771,480 people recorded as homeless in 2024, nearly a million people. That's insane. That represents an increase of over 18% from just a year earlier in 2023.

The data show that 36% of the homeless were unsheltered, that is they lived in places not considered fit for human habitation, with the remainder living in emergency shelters, transitional housing, or safe haven programs. By the way, this survey does not count people who live in overcrowded apartments or in government subsidized accommodation as homeless. Momdani's campaign made a point to address housing and more. He even made a point to reach out to Trump voters to get a better understanding of why they decided to support the president in the last race. And we didn't just win places that were considered to be progressive. We won neighborhoods that voted for Donald Trump. We won neighborhoods that voted for Eric Adams. New York was the state that swung most towards Donald Trump, 11 and a half points.

And that swing happened far from the caricatures of Trump voters. It happened in the hearts of immigrant New York City. And when I went to Fordham Road in the Bronx, when I went to Hillside Avenue in Queens a few days after that election, and I asked Democrats, who did you vote for and why? They told me again and again. They voted for Donald Trump because they remembered being able to afford their life four years ago more than they could today. They cited their rent, their groceries, their childcare. And I asked them, what would it take to bring you back?

And they said a relentless focus on an economic agenda. And that's what he did. Focusing on the bread and butter issues was a smart campaign strategy for Mamdani, someone who clearly wanted to win, who wanted to, you know, touch the hearts of the very constituents who ended up supporting him, especially at a time when the other Democratic candidates were preaching for more of the same with maybe a few tweaks around the edges. In fact, now that I think about it, Mamdani's rise really should not be hard for Trump for Trump supporters like Sosnik to understand considering their beloved Gulf

resort dweller paid a lot of lip service to the economic frustrations of working Americans as well. It's just that Trump clearly wasn't serious about most of it or any of it. The president's so-called big beautiful bill ensures deep cuts to the nation's social safety net that helps the poorest Americans while the richest will get to enjoy even deeper tax cuts. One of the biggest battles, one of the biggest lines when it comes to the president's tax cut and spending bill are the cuts to Medicaid. And the very real impact those cuts will have on millions of Americans, especially in rural communities. Nearly 12 million Americans are expected to lose health insurance with this bill.

That includes almost 2 million in rural areas. And one report estimates nearly 400 rural hospitals would be at risk of closing if the proposed cuts go into effect. Pretty sure that there will be some political consequences for this bill. But notably, the Senate version of the big travestiva bill cuts 1.1 trillion dollars from Medicaid, and also slashes funding for SNAP benefits, food assistance. While the United States is already spending a trillion dollars a year just to service our 37 trillion dollars in federal debt, Trump's budget bill exacerbates that situation by tacking on trillions more in debt. The tax savings provisions that would actually benefit

ordinary Americans, like no tax on tips and overtime, well, that will be means tested. If you're making more than $150,000 a year, you will not qualify for it. And those tax savings provisions for working class Americans are said to expire in just four years. The tax cuts for the rich, Oh, don't worry. Those are permanent. And as less and less taxpayer money goes toward taking care of our own here in the United States, more and more gets doled out for Israel's genocidal campaign in Gaza and the West Bank. The United States has provisionally agreed via a memorandum of understanding, MOU, to provide Israel with $3.8 billion per year through 2028. Funneling cash to Israel is the most bipartisan effort imaginable. So let's actually start

with the Biden administration. Between October 7th, 2023 and November of 24, the United States has enacted legislation providing at least $12.5 billion in direct military aid to Israel, which includes $3.8 billion in line with the current MOU and $8.7 billion from a Supplemental Appropriations Act in April 24. There are other estimates with higher numbers because these estimates actually take into consideration the cost of restocking American weapons that had been sent to Israel. So Linda Bilmes at all from Brown University have reported that Israel received $17.9 billion in U.S. military aid during this period, a figure that additionally accounts for the cost to the

United States Defense Department of replenishing the stock of weapons provided to Israel. Not only does the United States largely provide offensive weaponry for Israel, American taxpayers are also maintaining Israel's defense capabilities as well. Additionally, $500 million a year is slated for Israeli and joint U.S. Israel Israeli missile defense programs in which the two countries collaborate on the research, development, and production of these systems used by Israel, including Iron Dome, David Sling, and Arrow 2. Now, that's a pretty comprehensive list of taxpayer resources. The Biden administration was willing to take out of your pocket and ship on over to a country

that's been occupying, persecuting, and slaughtering innocent Palestinians literally for decades. But there's a new Stoge in town, and his administration ain't any better. On this matter, I mean, just take a look at what Trump has managed to do. in the short time that he's been in office for a second term. In March of this year, Trump's secretary of state, Marco Rubio, put out a statement bragging about the redistribution of your wealth to Israel, writing that since taking office, the Trump administration has approved nearly $12 billion in major FMS, that means weapon sales, to Israel.

The State Department, by the way, also reported that as of April of this year, the United States has 751 active foreign military sales cases with Israel that are valued at nearly $40 billion. That's $40 billion of your dollars if you're an American taxpayer. USAID reportedly accounts for 15% of Israel's defense budget. Americans are dealing with a housing crisis, drug overdose epidemic, unsafe drinking water, unimaginable economic inequality, a broken healthcare system and more. Yet a whopping 78% of Israel's arms imports came from and were paid for by the United States. No money for Medicaid, but endless funds for genocide. So if anyone is wondering why all of these disgusting smears about Mamdani being a jihadist or an alleged anti-Semite,

why they're not working, maybe it's because the candidate's economic priorities are shared by the very voters who helped him trounce Anthony, or I should say, Andrew Cuomo. Refusing to serve Israel before the American people should not be controversial. Refusing to prioritize New Yorkers as the mayor of New York City should be. So that's my take on Mamdani. And this is the winning strategy. You focus on the issues that impact the pocketbooks of Americans. make their lives better, okay, don't feed into the BS culture war topics that are only

meant to distract from the economic policies that Americans want to focus on and hear about. Focus on the bread and butter issues, focus on what your policies are and how you intend to make people's lives better. There was a lot of that in Trump's campaign, regardless of how you feel about him, and we all know that he wasn't serious about any of it. With Mamdani, I think there's a possibility that he is very serious about these ideas and that he intends to try to implement them. Nonetheless, smearing him as a jihadist because he has the audacity to be openly critical of the genocide that Israel is currently engaging in is ridiculous to me. And it's not working, and I'm happy to see that. We've got to take a break when we come back.

We've got a lot more to get into, including this supposed ceasefire deal that Trump has allegedly brokered and Israel has a lot. allegedly agreed to, they haven't. And then we'll also talk a little bit about where interest rates are headed in the United States. Come right back. I started using the word, the groceries. Ugo writes in our member section and says, reeducation camps like those in the socialist slash communist countries that they're they're like complaining about all the time. I know, I know.

Anyway, let's move on. Hopefully that segment was able to talk some sense into some people. And Twisty Fox, thank you for your comment. Anna is great. Is she solo tonight? Only for the first hour. Jank Yuga will be joining me for the second hour and the bonus episode. So stick around for that as well.

All right, well, let's talk a little bit about updates on a possible ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. Don't get too excited though. What are you going to talk to me, Johnny, about this Monday? Well, he's coming here. We're going to talk about a lot of things. We're going to talk about the great success we had. I mean, we had an incredible, in Iran, we had an incredible success.

It was a great, brilliant strike, and how to get, go forward. We also are going to talk about Gaza. We want to get the rest. We've got a lot of hostages back, but we're going to talk about Gaza. Well, ahead of yet another meeting, another meeting. with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Donald Trump announced that he has helped broker a new agreement for a ceasefire, a 60 day ceasefire, which is just a pause in a genocide.

And he claims that Israel has agreed to the ceasefire. But have they? Because right now, I think that your expectations should be tempered if you're excited about a ceasefire being agreed upon. Now, on truth social yesterday, Trump posted the following. My representatives had a long and productive meeting with the Israelis today on Gaza. Israel has agreed to the necessary conditions to finalize the 60 day ceasefire, during which time we will work with all parties to end the war.

The Qataris and Egyptians who have worked very hard to help bring peace will deliver this final proposal. I hope for the good of the Middle East that Hamas takes this deal, because because it will not get better. It will only get worse. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Okay. How could it get any worse than every single building being bombed?

Every single hospital being completely and utterly destroyed, tens of thousands of innocent civilians being killed. I mean, how does it get worse than luring innocent, starving Palestinians to humanitarian aid hubs only to shoot and kill them as they they try to get their hands on some food to feed themselves and their families. How does it get worse than that? I mean, when it comes to the Israelis and the Israeli government, I totally believe that it can get worse. So I'll just take Trump's word for it. But nonetheless, this idea that Israel has

agreed to a ceasefire is false, okay? So administration sources said that the deal was finalized after months of behind the scenes efforts led by a special envoy, Steve Whitkoff, of course. But as usual, it seems that Trump has gotten out over his skis. So despite, despite, his statement, an Israeli source, this is reported by CNN, an Israeli source familiar with the matter said Israel had not approved the new proposal, which revolves around timetables and guarantees for ending the war, the critical sticking points in previous negotiations. So I'm just going to pause for a second so we can get caught up on all the context, because this has been the situation since the Biden administration. Netanyahu does not want to end the war.

And I really get mad at myself every time I call it a war, because how can you even call it a war? They're just annihilating Gaza. Hamas doesn't have, it's not a country with a military, with the kind of military capability that Israel has. The people of Gaza are trapped in that region and that strip of land. They're just completely being annihilated. It's a genocide. So let's be clear about that.

He doesn't want to end the genocide, okay? He knows that the second he does, he's going to, he's not going to have an excuse anymore. He has to go testify in his corruption trials. He doesn't want to do that. I think part of the reason why Trump is trying to get the corruption charges against Netanyahu dropped is so he'll finally agree to a ceasefire. How pathetic is that? And by the way, who's the leader here?

I thought Donald Trump was like this alpha. I thought he had some pride. I thought he wasn't willing to get dog walked like other. previous presidents have been by Israel. I mean, Biden was just totally embarrassed, humiliated on a regular basis by Benjamin Netanyahu, but Trump's allowing the same thing to happen. They don't want an end to the war, okay? And the sticking point isn't Hamas, the sticking point has always been Israel.

So I really do take issue with the way that he framed this whole negotiation process in his truth social post. Nonetheless, in other words, you know, Israel does not want to end the genocide in Gaza. And a source told CNN that this new version of a ceasefire agreement attempted to take into account Hamas's concerns with the earlier proposal. During the ceasefire, Israeli hostages would be released in exchange for Palestinian prisoners. The source added, who by the way are also hostages when you consider the fact that most of them haven't been charged with the crime, they never get to see a judge or, you know, undergo a trial. They're just sitting in these Israeli prisons with no charges and no end in sight.

So sure, I guess you can call them prisoners. but I like to reserve that word specifically for individuals who are accused of committing an actual crime. Anyway, of the 50 hostages who are still in Gaza, at least 20 of them are believed to still be alive. And as part of the latest proposal, humanitarian aid would once again flow through UN-run channels rather than this just absolutely horrific U.S.-backed Gaza humanitarian aid Foundation. These are the humanitarian aid hubs in which Israeli soldiers open fire and shoot

and kill desperate Palestinians who are trying to get their hands on some food. And more than 500 Palestinians have been killed while seeking aid since the GHF started operating in late May. Now Netanyahu is apparently planning to convene his full cabinet on Saturday night to discuss this proposal. I'm sure that it'll be a good faith effort. Hamas, which has been pushing for a permanent ceasefire as opposed to a 60 day pause has not agreed to the deal either. The group said it was studying the new ceasefire offer received from mediators in Egypt and Qatar. Now Hamas official Tahr al-Nunu said that the militant group was ready and serious regarding reaching an agreement. He said Hamas was ready to accept any

initiative that clearly leads to the complete end to the war. They've been saying the same thing for a while now, dating all the way back to the Biden administration. But again, Israel won't agree to that because they don't want an end to the war. Now, a senior Hamas official said in late May that the group is ready to return the hostages in one day, just we want a guarantee that the war will not, I'm sorry, that war will not come again after that. So again, they don't, they don't want a temporary pause in fighting. They want this war to end. And I think that that's actually the best option for all parties involved. But Hamas delegation is expected to meet with Egypt and Qatari mediators in Cairo on Wednesday

to discuss the proposal. Trump, meanwhile, is scheduled to meet on Monday with Benjamin Netanyahu, and he told reporters yesterday that he would be very firm in his discussions with Netanyahu, claiming that Beebe wanted to end the war. I don't think so. But here's what Trump said. He wants to, meaning he wants to end the war, I can tell you he wants to, I think we'll have a deal next week. But in his first public remarks since Trump's announcement of this alleged ceasefire deal, Netanyahu made no indication that he intends to accept. I'm not here Hamas, not yet Hamas tan, not hosering to it. The thing is, we'll end up.

So it's unclear yet whether anything will come of Trump's announcement. It really is reminiscent of all of the, we're so close to a ceasefire deal reports that we were getting during Biden's administration. At this point, neither side has said that they're compromising on previous demand. So we're right back at square one. There is no indication that anything has changed or that we're anywhere near a ceasefire next week. The only slight indication, though, of some movement toward an end to this war is that a

Qatari foreign ministry spokesman told CNN, the Israel-Iran agreement had created momentum for the latest talks between Israel and Hamas. But that's it. The suffering people of Gaza desperately hope the deal comes to fruition. Adnan al-Assar, a resident of Khan Yunus, says of Trump, quote, We hope he is serious like he was serious during the Israeli-Iranian war when he said the war should stop, and it's stopped. But some Gazans, not so hopeful. This is not the first time he has said this. Since the beginning of the war, they've been promising us something like this.

Release the hostages and we will stop the war. Every time they say the war is ending, the war is ending. They kill us. The death toll rises and we lose more of our loved ones. If they wanted to end the war, it would have ended a long time ago. This war will not end, but it is a war that will end us. Sadly, I think he's right. So as much as I want to feel a level of excitement or maybe a little bit of hope that there will be a ceasefire next week, I definitely wouldn't put money on it. I don't think it's going to happen. That's where my bet is. And it like pains me to say that. The war needs to come to an end. It's not a war. It's a genocide. Innocent people are dying.

We as Americans are using up our resources to aid and abet this genocide in Gaza. It needs to stop and it needs to stop now. And it won't stop unless Trump is willing to be as harsh toward the Israeli government as he is toward, you know, Hamas or any other party when it comes to these types of agreements. You know, treating Israel favorably has not worked out well in getting this war to end. So we'll see what happens. But again, I don't have much hope that there will be a ceasefire next week. All right, let's talk about interest rates. Fun topic, although Trump is having a tough going. with things lately.

You were criticizing the Federal Reserve chair before coming to this summit. I think he's terrible. I was wondering if you've begun interviewing different candidates for the Fed pick. Yeah, I know within three or four people who are all going to pick. I mean, he goes out pretty soon, unfortunately, because I think he's terrible. He's an average mentally person. I'd say low in terms of what he does, low, low IQ for what he does, okay? President Donald Trump is absolutely furious with Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell,

who has essentially defended his decision to hold off on lowering interest rates due to uncertainty stemming from the president's tariffs and trade policy. Now, tariffs, of course, are essentially taxes on imports to the United States. And those costs are transferred over to U.S. consumers, meaning it adds inflationary pressure to the market. And as a result of that, and over concerns that that will happen, Jerome Powell has decided, okay, we're just not going to stimulate the economy by lowering interest rates further. We want to wait and see.

That is his strategy here. And Trump is not happy about it. And you're about to hear why. Instead of paying $900 billion, we don't want to pay $900, just because he doesn't want to lower the rate. I said, if there's inflation in two years or three years or one year from now, you raise the rate. You take care of the inflation, among other things. But he's probably a very political guy, I guess. I don't know.

I think he's a very stupid person, actually. The 900 billion that Trump was referencing there is the 900 billion that the United States spent last year in servicing our debt. So we have 37 trillion dollars in federal debt. And when interest rates are higher, obviously that debt becomes more expensive. He wants interest rates to go down so our debt is a little less expensive. Servicing our debt won't cost as much. But it is This is a little bit of a problem, right, that this so called big beautiful bill adds another four to five trillion dollars to the federal debt. That's what he's thinking about, that's what he's worried about.

And rather than do the right thing in maybe raining in these goodies that billionaires are going to be getting as a result of that big beautiful bill, Trump has decided to direct his ire toward Jerome Powell, who's worried about overstimulating the market at a time when when Trump's trade policies could lead to higher inflation. That's what's going on here. Now, about a week ago, Powell made clear that the Federal Reserve has decided to wait and see what type of inflationary pressure Trump's trade policies will have on the U.S. economy.

Take a look. For the time being, we are well positioned to wait to learn more about the likely course of the economy before considering any adjustments to our policy stance. Are we in a position where it would be appropriate to do something as, as, as big as a half percent cut again? Well, look, as I said earlier, if not for, if you just look at the basic data and don't look at the forecast, you would say that we would have continued cutting. The difference, of course, is at this time, all forecasters are expecting pretty soon

that some significant inflation will show up from tariffs. Now, and, you know, we can't just ignore that, but we're not, we're just saying let's wait and see more. That's all we're doing. And that has absolutely infuriated Trump. So Trump's ever-changing tariff agenda has caused months of deep uncertainty for global markets and businesses, as NBC News reports. Many have struggled to make predictions and plan ahead for duties that have shifted,

sometimes with no warning other than social media posts by the president. So it's not just that Trump is threatening these massive tariffs on. on goods that are being imported from our trade partners, it's that he goes back and forth, he waivers. You don't know what he's actually going to land on in terms of his trade policies. And so that uncertainty, of course, is making, you know, the Federal Reserve a little uneasy. And they want to wait and see what happens. Now Powell shared that sentiment on Tuesday this week when Bloomberg news anchor Francine

LACWA asked point blank if the Fed would have cut interest rates or cut interest rates more, because they have actually cut interest rates a little bit. But if they would cut interest rates even more if it weren't for Trump's trade policies. Let's take a look at how he answered. Chair, would the Fed have cut more by now if it weren't for the tariffs? So I do think that I think that's right. In effect, we went on hold when we saw the size of the tariffs. and essentially all inflation forecasts for the United States went up materially as a consequence of the tariffs.

Now, President Trump responded, honestly, how you would expect him to. We're doing well as a country, if the Fed would ever lower rates, you know, would buy debt for a lot less. It's a shame. This guy, I have a guy, do you ever have a guy that's not a smart person and you're dealing with him and you have to deal? He's not a smart guy. A stupid person, frankly, at the Fed. The only thing is we have a Fed chairman that is he doesn't get it. I'd love him to resign if he wanted to use it done a lousy job.

The president sent a letter to Jerome Powell essentially calling on him to once again lower interest rates to what he said should be 1%. And he sent this handwritten letter on top of what was essentially a printout of world central bank rates from around the world. And he notes on this letter that you can see on your screen that there are 34 central banks around the world that have lower interest rates than the United States. Yeah, no, no, that's true. Other countries do have lower interest rates. Their central banks have implemented lower interest rates than the interest rates we have here in the United

States. That is absolutely true. You know what's also absolutely true? And this is something that Trump who's calling Jerome Powell stupid should probably take note of. Those other countries haven't slapped massive tariffs on imported goods that would lead to inflation for their consumers. So there's a puzzle piece there that Trump isn't addressing at all. He's treating all of these countries as if they're all being led by the same person who's implementing the same policies, but that is not the case. And look, the leaders of those countries, again, they have different policies. I don't know what the policies are for every single one of those countries that have lower

interest rates than we do. But I think with Jerome, I can't believe I'm saying this, because I'm not a huge fan of Jerome Powell, but I actually do want to commend him for wanting to remain independent, not caving to pressure from President Trump, and continuing in the path that he thinks is appropriate, the uncertainty that's been brought upon us as a result of Trump's wavering trade policies. And look, if you're wondering, okay, well, how are those trade negotiations going? I kind of want to give you a little update, want to give you a little update. I know there's been a lot going on in the news.

People haven't been paying close attention to these trade negotiations that Trump would have you believe are going really well, but they're not going really well. Okay, so let me just give you two examples, beginning with Vietnam. Those negotiations have concluded with Trump announcing Vietnam trade deal, 20% tariff on its imports to the United States, you're going to pay for that. You, the American consumer, are going to pay for that. There's more. Vietnam also agreed that goods would be hit with a 40% tariff rate if they originated in another country and were transferred to Vietnam for final shipment to the United States. So what are American consumers going to get out of that exactly? Kind of hard to understand.

We're going to pay more for goods that are produced in Vietnam. We're not manufacturing those goods here in the United States. Doesn't look good. If that's the art of the deal, I don't know. If that's considered a good deal, maybe I want some bad deals because that's awful. But there's more. Another big trade partner of ours is Japan, of course, and things are looking pretty bleak because Japan's like, yeah, no, we're not going to cave to your demands. After failing to cut a trade deal with Japan following weeks of talks, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik and U.S. Trade Representative Jameson Greer decided to turn up the pressure.

Ooh, okay. The Americans said they might demand a cap on the number of vehicles Japan could export to the U.S. A policy known as a voluntary export restriction. Well, I'm sure Japanese officials were like, oh my God, we better give the U.S. everything they want. But the Japanese officials stood their ground. From the start, they had told the Americans they wouldn't agree to any deal that preserves Trump's 25% automotive tariff, according to people familiar with the conversations. On Monday, Trump appeared to cut off talks with Tokyo. Art of the deal.

So here's a good way to sum up how things are going with these trade negotiations. Administration officials attempting to negotiate multiple deals have at times contradicted one another about goals and timelines. and Trump has further muddied the picture. The chaotic situation has left Japan and other countries bewildered, unsure of what the White House wants or when they have to deliver a deal. And by the way, just to reiterate something that I've been saying repeatedly while covering Trump's trade policies, I am not necessarily against tariffs.

I actually think free trade has been pretty disastrous for sectors of the American. American economy. I am open to tariffs. This though is chaos, it's nonsense. And rather than maybe do a little bit of self-reflection and pivot to a better policy, Trump is deciding to lash out at Jerome Powell for not being his little puppet who just lowers interest rates on demand. By the way, Federal Reserve, of course, is supposed to be an independent body. It's not supposed to be influenced by the Congress or the executive branch. It is supposed to act independently. Now, Powell has repeatedly defended the central bank's independence, by the way, and I should note that the Supreme Court bolstered the Fed's independence in a ruling

just last month. So Powell is defending the decision to hold interest rate steady, saying on Tuesday of this week that as long as the U.S. economy is in solid shape, the prudent thing to do is to wait and learn more and see what the effect might be. We have, haven't seen effects much from tariffs, and we didn't expect to by now, we have always said the timing, amount, and persistence would be highly uncertain. And asked about the impact of Trump's insult-laden criticism, here's what Powell said, quote, I'm very focused on just doing my job. He said the only two things that matter to him and fellow rate-setting officials are full employment and price stability, the two sides of the Fed so-called dual mandate.

The ECB conference attendees applauded his response. Now, Trump has also expanded his attacks. He's not just attacking Jerome Powell anymore. He's attacking the entire committee that sets interest rates, saying that its members should be ashamed, ashamed of their monetary policy. Well, they're not. The board just sits there, he says, and watches. So they are equally to blame, we should be paying 1% interest or better.

As for Powell's possible successor, look, he could remain as a board member all the way through January of 2028 if he chooses to. But his term as chair doesn't end soon. It ends in May of 26. So he's got another two years. No, wait, one year, it's 25. So he's got another year at least serving as the chair, if he chooses to remain in that position, refuses to resign. And it would be a wonderful act of defiance for him to serve his term and then decide what he does after that. But he shouldn't cave to Trump.

Trump should for once in his life understand what you do sometimes has consequences. If you pursue a chaotic ham-handed tariffs policy, there will be consequence. And he's experiencing it right now, but just refuses to accept it. Let's take our final break for the first hour. When we come back, I'll do one more story, and then we'll bring Jank in. Don't miss it. We'll be right back. They dropped the load, the biggest load that we've seen.

Okay, well, welcome back to the show, everyone. going to do it live. Kate, I love that story. We should produce it and do it on the show today. All right. And Linens was a typo. All right. Let's get to our next story. One of the things, and there was a lot of arguments about Trump that worries me very, very much, is this movement toward authoritarianism. And going after media, suing media, taking away the authority that Congress has. When you say suing media, are you talking about the CBS lawsuit? those things. But don't you think there's a real issue with what they did?

No. You don't think that there's a real issue in editing conversations to give someone an answer. I've been on- Than what they really answered? Last month, Joe Rogan and Senator Bernie Sanders had a pretty long debate about President Donald Trump's lawsuit against Paramount. Now Paramount just agreed to settle that lawsuit for $16 million. Technically, the lawsuit was about Kamala Harris' now infamous 60 Minutes interview.

But there's a lot going on behind the scenes that you should be aware of. It looks like Paramount wanted to settle because they were hoping to get some cookies from Trump's FCC. We'll get to that in just a moment. But before we do, let's talk about the settlement itself, what it's stemming from, whether there was any credibility to it and more. So, look, Trump sued CBS News specifically, which is owned by Paramount. Paramount is the parent company for CBS News, and this lawsuit was filed in October of last year.

Now, his lawsuit came after CBS's 60 Minutes released two different versions of an answer then Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris gave to a question about Israel. Look, I think that both versions were bad. I think that she was terrible in most of these interviews. I'm just keeping it real. One of the versions which was less edited had more word salad involved. The more edited version was still bad, but it had less word salad involved. So with that in mind, you know, you have essentially Donald Trump thinking or claiming that

The more edited version, which actually aired on television, the television version of 60 Minutes, was edited specifically to give Kamala Harris an upper hand. Essentially, CBS put their thumb on the scale and tried to make Kamala Harris look better in order to help her defeat Donald Trump in the presidential race. That is his claim. So he files this lawsuit. The more edited or the less edited version was like a promo clip that was posted on social media. So both versions were out there. But nonetheless, Trump thought that there was something

shady going on in order to hurt his chances of beating Kamala Harris. And as we all know, not only did he beat Kamala Harris, he won the popular vote. And these types of lawsuits, in my opinion, are super pathetic, petty, unnecessary. But the man loves lawsuits. So I'm not surprised that he's pursuing this. Now, CBS has opted to settle rather than fight this. And I should also know one other thing. And this is what I hate about broadcast news, television news. We're kind of in the same camp, even though, yeah, we're kind of in the same camp. You have time constraints. You have to go to break. You have hard outs. Okay, you don't have endless time like you would in a podcast to have these long form conversations.

So things unfortunately need to get cut out. Videos do need to get edited down in order to ensure that you make the time obligations and go to the obligated breaks for commercials. And so you should keep that in mind when it comes to television news because, again, it's different from what you would get online or through social media. Now, per the settlement, the money will go toward legal fees and Trump's future presidential library, but not to Trump directly. By the way, Trump's presidential library is going to be like a palatial library from what it looks like. I mean, the guy is going to get like a fancy

plane from the Qataris for his library. He's going to get a $16 million settlement from Paramount that's going to go to his library. It's going to be a dope library. Paramount will not be forced, by the way, to apologize for the edits, and I'm glad that that's the case because I don't think that they did anything wrong here. And Paramount also announced that they're not going to, that they are going to release full transcripts of 60 minutes interviews with presidential candidates moving forward. And I think that's the right thing to do. And I'm glad that they're going to do that. So if there's a silver lining, that that would be it. I think it's important to release the full transcripts. Now, a spokesperson for Trump's legal team said the settlement is another

win for the American people as he holds the fake news media accountable for their wrongdoing and deceit. Again, both versions of Kamala Harris's answer were not good. Okay, they didn't make her look good. But okay. Now, as we mentioned, there's another angle to the story. And I think this is the real reason why Paramount opted to settle as opposed to fight Trump in court over this. And I do think that if they fought Trump in court, they would have won. Now, Paramount has a pending merger with Skydance media, and Trump's FCC would need to approve the merger in order for it to move forward. So it's an $8 billion merger, and it was announced in July of last year, that proposed

merger again is currently under review by the FCC. So you can probably see how the settlement could look like a quid pro quo if the merger all of a sudden goes through, in fact, the freedom of the Press Foundation, a paramount shareholder, by the way, had already threatened to sue the company's board over a potential settlement, arguing that it would damage the institution's reputation and do harm to its journalists. Now, in recent months, both 60 Minutes executive producer Bill Owens and CBS News and station's chief executive, Wendy McMahon, yeah, McMahon, resigned from their jobs, and they both opposed the settlement with Trump.

They think that it's the wrong thing to do, and I can understand why that's the case. But Shari Redstone, who is Paramount's controlling shareholder, has been basically pushing for the settlement. The Washington Post reported in May, let's take a look. Paramount is seeking government approval to merge with another entertainment conglomerate. skydance media, and a settlement is seen internally as a way to ease that process. By the way, I do not agree with these conglomerates. I don't agree with the mergers. I think that the FCC should block this merger. But now that Paramount has agreed to a $16 million

ridiculous settlement for Trump, it's very likely that the merger will go through. Edward Claris, a media attorney, told the Washington Post that these kinds of settlements could lead to a bit of a vicious cycle, you think? If you settle cases, you're going to send a message to your news team to not push the envelope for fear of people being sued. And you're going to court more cases against your company because they might think that if they sue, or if they sue you, they're going to collect. No, that's definitely true. That's absolutely true. I think that this is going to have a chilling effect on the way broadcast journalists do their jobs. I mean, think about it, Trump has sued a pollster for getting a poll wrong.

He thinks that the pollster was trying to put her thumb on the scale by claiming that Kamala Harris was going to beat him in one of the battleground states. You have Trump now suing CNN for simply reporting on an app that informs Americans about where ICE is conducting operations so they can avoid those areas. CNN didn't promote it. CNN simply and merely reported on it. Now they're getting sued by Trump over that. But a note that I'd like to give to anyone who considers themselves a journalist who's working in the field and might feel tempted to run for the hills or to play ball with Trump because they're afraid of a lawsuit. Journalism isn't supposed to be and has never really been a glamorous job.

It is a difficult job. It's a job where you're supposed to attract the ire of people in positions of power. You're supposed to upset corrupt business owners who screw over the American people. Being a journalist sucks. Everyone hates you. You anger all sorts of powerful people. And if that's appealing to you, then you're meant to be a journalist. If that's unappealing to you and you're always running scared, well then maybe retire

and find another profession to work in. Let the president sue you. Fight back because the freedom of press is literally dependent on it. Otherwise, yeah, pack your bags, go home, do something else. work in any other field, but you shouldn't allow the president to have a chilling effect on journalism in a country that is supposed to value freedom of the press and freedom of speech. All right, we got to take a break when we come back. Jank Uger will be joining us for the second hour.

Don't miss it.