WSJ What’s News - A Defiant Trump Is Sentenced in Hush-Money Case

Episode Date: January 10, 2025

P.M. Edition for Jan. 10. Donald Trump has become the first former U.S. president to be sentenced for a crime—in this case, falsifying business records. WSJ courts reporter Corinne Ramey weighs in on why this sentence matters. And a strong jobs report is good news about the health of the economy, but sends stocks trending downward. Reporter Paul Kiernan lays out what this could mean for the Federal Reserve’s next steps. And why this weekend could be critical for the effort to contain the wildfires around Los Angeles. Alex Ossola hosts. Sign up for the WSJ's free What's News newsletter.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

3, 2, 1. What will the world look like 10 or 20 years from now? The Wall Street Journal's Future of Everything podcast is here to give you a peek. And we can't wait to show you what's coming. Subscribe now. Donald Trump becomes the first former president to be sentenced for a felony. In some ways, it's largely symbolic. There's no punishment, there's not even a minimal fine or anything like that.

In other ways it matters because it cements the status of a felon. And a better than expected jobs report is good news for the economy, but not necessarily the stock market. Plus, why this weekend could be critical for fighting the wildfires in Los Angeles. It's Friday, January 10th. I'm Alex Osela for The Wall Street Journal. This is the PM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories that move the world today.

Today was a big down day for U.S. stocks. All three major indexes fell more than 1.5%, with the Dow losing nearly 700 points and the S&P 500 seeing all of its 2025 gains wiped out. The big reason? The Labor Department's jobs report came with stronger than expected numbers this morning. Last month, the U.S. economy added 256,000 jobs, about 100,000 more than economists had anticipated. The unemployment rate was 4.1 percent, slightly lower than expected. Paul Kiernan, who covers the U.S. economy for the Wall Street Journal,

is here to tell us more about what this means. Paul, what do these numbers tell us about how the economy is doing? They just sort of reinforced that the economy in 2024 was stronger than a lot of people expected going into the year. GDP grew faster and the economy added more than twice as many jobs as economists had expected at the beginning of 2024. So we're in good shape. This is really the soft landing that the Federal Reserve had been hoping for during 2023 and

2024 as inflation was coming down, that interest rates high. There was a little bit of concern in the late summer as the unemployment rate ticked up to 4.3% that maybe the labor market was cooling faster than it needed to, or that it wanted to, and that there could be a sharper deterioration, maybe a recession in the offing. But what we've really seen since the fall is the labor market stabilize or if anything accelerate slightly. So that's really kind of a great sign if you're a worker or an employer. So it seems like this is quite a solid picture for the labor market, but stocks fell sharply

after the report came out and bond yields rose. Why did investors have this reaction? Lately, good news for the economy has not been good news for the market. In particular, today's report really cemented the Fed's inclination to not cut interest rates any further in January and potentially even in March. So the Fed has reduced its main interest rate by a full percentage point since September and markets are always hoping for lower rates. And they've been hoping that the Fed would continue easing policy in 2025. Well, today's report shows that the labor market concerns that had been driving those interest rate cuts are no longer

really there, at least for the time being. And with a lot of the Trump administration policies, uncertainty on the horizon, Fed officials are really going to want to wait before they cut rates. And in a further source of concern for markets, we've seen some economists start to suggest that maybe the conversation might need to shift away from, you know, when is the next rate cut coming to, is a rate increase more likely than a cut at this point. That was Wall Street Journal reporter Paul Kiernan. Thanks Paul.

Thanks Alex. Donald Trump has become the first former president to be sentenced for a crime. In 2023, Trump was indicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records for covering up hush money paid to adult film actress Stormy Daniels. Today, he was sentenced for those crimes. Trump addressed the court virtually from his home in Florida before the sentencing.

It's been a political witch hunt. It was done to damage my reputation so that I'd lose the election. And obviously, that didn't work. Justice Juan Marchand handed down a sentence called an unconditional discharge, which carries no punishment. The only lawful sentence that permits entry

of a judgment of conviction without encroaching upon the highest office in the land is an unconditional discharge, which the New York State Legislature has determined is a lawful and permissible sentence for the crime of falsifying business records in the first degree. Joining me now to talk more about this unprecedented hearing is Corinne Raimi, who covers courts for the Wall Street Journal.

Corinne, tell me about this unconditional discharge. What does it mean and why this sentence? So this is a sentence that's really quite rare and unusual, particularly for somebody who was convicted at trial of a felony. But in this case, Mershon said in court that there really wasn't any other possibility, that a normal defendant could have faced jail time or probation, but you can't put

someone who's about to be president in jail. You can't have probation officers randomly searching the White House or doing drug tests. It just didn't work in the circumstances of this very unusual defendant. Okay, so if this sentence comes with no punishment, why does it even matter? Well, in some ways, it's largely symbolic because it's true. There's no punishment, why does it even matter? Well, in some ways it's largely symbolic because it's true. There's no punishment. There's not even a minimal fine or anything like that. In other ways, it matters because it cements

the status of a felon. It kickstarts the appeal process, which could continue on for years. Has Trump said that he plans to appeal? Where does the case go from here? He has said he plans to appeal. He will appeal to an intermediate New York appeals court, which is called the First Department, and it could then go to a higher court and possibly even the Supreme Court.

LESLIE KENDRICK-KLEIN That was WSJ reporter Keryn Ramy. And in other Trump news, we're exclusively reporting that his family's real estate company is in talks to reclaim its former Washington, D.C. hotel. People familiar with the property's operations and revenues say reacquiring the rights to the Trump International Hotel could cost more than $300 million. It's a move that could offer an early test of how the president-elect will handle potential conflicts of interest. In an ethics plan released today, the Trump Organization said Trump won't be involved

in the day-to-day management of the organization once he takes office. Coming up, the latest from Los Angeles as fires continue to burn. That and more after the break. What then will the future reveal? There's one thing we know about the future. It's being built now. We all have a stake in the future reveal? There's one thing we know about the future. It's being built now. We all have a stake in the future. The future. The future. The future. And the Wall Street Journal's Future of Everything podcast is here to give you a

glimpse of what's on the way. I'm Danny Lewis. Join us as we dig into how science and technology are shaping the future. For that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. The fires in and around Los Angeles have so far scorched more than 35,000 acres and destroyed at least 10,000 buildings. More than 150,000 people have been forced to leave their homes and so far at least 10 people are dead. President Biden told reporters today that the death toll is likely to rise. It is likely it will increase, whether it's significantly or not. We don't know yet. There's still a lot of people unaccounted for. We don't know where they are. I think this toll is

likely to go up, whether it's significant or not. Pray God it's not, but it could be. The dangerous winds of the past few days are expected to ease slightly this weekend. Firefighters see the weekend as their best shot to make progress containing the massive blazes, with conditions for extreme fire spread forecast to return on Monday. Shares of US home and auto insurers fell today

because of concerns about how the Los Angeles Infernos will hit earnings. today because of concerns about how the Los Angeles infernos will hit earnings. In business news, Disney's ESPN, Fox Corp, and Warner Bros. Discovery have called off their joint live sports streaming venture Venue Sports. Last year, the three media companies announced plans to pool some of their most valuable sports programming. On Monday, Disney agreed to merge its Hulu Plus live TV service with the sports-focused streamer FuboTV. We report that by later in the week, confidence in the future of Venue was eroding. Fox and the Wall Street Journal's parent News Corp share

common ownership. A big acquisition in the energy sector. Constellation Energy has agreed to buy Calpine for $16.4 billion. The move combines two of the country's largest electricity generators. The value of power generators has soared in the past year due in large part to the massive energy demands of artificial intelligence. And the Supreme Court today seemed inclined

to uphold a law banning TikTok. The court heard oral arguments on the constitutionality of the law passed last April. TikTok's lawyer said the law passed last April. TikTok's lawyer said the law threatens to silence a popular platform, a violation of its First Amendment rights. But in early questioning, most judges voiced doubts about TikTok's arguments, viewing the law not as a restriction on speech, but instead as targeting the platform's ownership by Beijing-based ByteDance. Pending any further intervention, the app will have

to shut down or find new owners by January 19th. And finally, between SpaceX, Tesla, and Doge, Elon Musk is famously a pretty busy guy. But despite all those endeavors, he also claims another achievement, to have quickly beaten a very difficult level in the dark fantasy video game Diablo IV. It takes dozens of hours to reach that final challenge, and it appears Musk found the time to do it in no more than 45 days. Becky Peterson covers Musk for the journal, and she looked into how his real-world business partners feel about how he's spending his time. Diablo is a role-playing game, and we know that Elon's playing it because he's always

posting about it. He's posting clips of himself playing. He does these screen shares. Sometimes, shockingly, we hear him having conversations about his businesses. A few weeks ago, presumably, he was having a SpaceX meeting while he was playing. And so the fact that we now know he's spending so much time on Diablo just raises more questions of when he's focusing on companies. But there are people who follow Musk closely who see this and are impressed with him.

Sometimes when he's playing, it seems like he's maybe in his private plane streaming over Starlink, SpaceX's internet service. Or he's streaming it on X and really showing the capability of the technology. And a lot of those companies are doing well. So sometimes investors think whatever he's doing, it's working. And Musk isn't the only tech executive who's known to mix business and play. Metas Mark Zuckerberg and Microsoft gaming CEO Phil Spencer, for example, have also found ways to game while managing big companies. And that's What's News for this week. Tomorrow you can look out for our weekly markets roundup,

What's News in Markets. Then on Sunday, we'll be looking beyond today's jobs report to some big trends that'll affect the labor market this year, that's in What's News Sunday. And we'll be back with our regular show on Monday morning. Today's show was produced by Anthony Bansi and Pierre Bienneme with supervising producer Emily Martosi, Michael Laval, Rodar Theme Music.

Aisha Al Mousselim is our development producer, Scott Salloway and Chris Dinsley are our deputy editors, and Falana Patterson is the Wall Street Journal's head of news audio. I'm Alex Osala, thanks for listening.