Trump’s Economic Policies Face Growing Scrutiny as Challenges Mount

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1:25Ben Meiselas:Talk to your doctor or pharmacist today. sponsored by GSK. Spotify advertising connects you with an audience that's engaged and ready to discover your brand. Launch a campaign with Spotify Ads Manager. Donald Trump and Treasury Secretary Besant are getting so utterly desperate. They went from economic D-Day to posting photos of Jake Paul in the Treasury Department building. And of course, Jake Paul has to further be clown and already incredibly be clown situations. So you have Treasury Secretary Besant posting this photo that says, great to welcome Jake Paul to the Treasury Department today. Jake's path from content creator to entrepreneur and professional boxer is a distinctly American story.

2:16Ben Meiselas:You know, it's a fascinating link right there. I would say doing the logic games from law school, Jake Paul is to professional boxing as the United States is to being a credible actor right now in the international competition for being viewed as a stable and predictable player in global economic affairs. That's a complicated logic game right there. I'm sure the test examiners would do a much better job. The point is he's not really a professional boxer and this is who the U.S. is wrapping their arms around. I remember that last fight, right, where Jake Paul was kind of exposed. That does kind of remind me of the current situation of the United States when we're run by a cabinet of actual grifters.

3:00Ben Meiselas:And Treasury Secretary Besant, who after he left the fund he was with to go on his own, really didn't impress people. I think it was 90 % redemptions before his MAGA arc took place, or I should say leading to his MAGA arc. So it kind of perfectly encapsulates the situation of the United States right now. Donald Trump acting like everything's going great. We brought in$21 trillion. It's Hollywood. It's reality TV. It's, you know, just being inflammatory. But the reality tells a very different story that we're actually not behaving as a professional country. We're not conducting ourselves the way we should in global economic markets.

3:42Ben Meiselas:So you take a look right over here and you say, OK, well, what's diesel? How's the economy going as we head into this weekend? Really bad. The answer is really freaking bad. U.S. diesel prices hit another fresh record high of$6.45 a gallon, now up 40 cents over the week. Here in California, it's approaching$9 a gallon, if you can find it. I mean, there's some areas in Southeast Michigan and Northern Texas and other areas where they're kind of just out of diesel right now. And you've got lots of airlines warning that they're going to be cutting flights. You have Saudi Arabia saying they're not going to be able to ship crew to Europe for the foreseeable future as Saudi Arabia continues to get hit overnight by the Houthis.

4:29Ben Meiselas:But Donald Trump says the following. He says, look, here's the thing. Not only not only if you vote Republican, we're going to give you five thousand dollar checks, but only if you vote Republican. But also if you vote Democrat and if the Democrats win Great Depression, the president of the United States said literally word for word, we will go into a Great Depression if Democrats win the House and the Senate or just one of the House or the one of the Senate. But really, that's coming from the president of the United States, really sick and disturbing language. And what it also tells you is, is that this was his whole strategy all along.

5:08Ben Meiselas:And it's not a strategy. It's he breaks things. He burns it down. And then he blames. And now he's in blame posture. That's where he is. And, you know, with Dr. Fauci, with former President Biden, you know, he had his marks. You know, he said, OK, I'm going to put it all on them. The problem is we still have this guy even after the midterms for two years. And I say this in not a political way. I say this in a way that they say Jake Paul is a professional boxer way. And he proceeds to go to the Treasury Department and just look how he's like touching the paintings. things he goes out in front of the treasury department and says if Elon is so rich how come I never seen him do a money spread in front of the treasury I also believe that Jake Paul lives in Puerto Rico in order to not pay all that much or nothing or in state income tax as well despite making all of that money I think that was I think he said that's one of the reasons he goes there so there you have it I want to bring in Justin Wolfers chief economist at the Midas Touch Network.

6:15Ben Meiselas:Justin, this is like when you do a cable hit. He's also runs Platypus Economics. That's his YouTube channel. Make sure you subscribe there. Just like your cable hits that you do, right? I mean, this is the intro they give you. But seriously, I think this is so telling. You and I have been covering Treasury Secretary Besson's kind of all bluff, being exposed quickly. And here we are a week where interest rates were hyped um a week where things are looking very grim in all seriousness and they end it by bringing in a reality you know youtube kind of guy you know and say he's a professional boxer no offense to youtubers by the way talk to us about no offense to professional boxers either um and maybe no offense to professional wrestlers who provide wonderful entertainment, but at least they're honest that it's not true.

7:06There's a number of ways to take this. Let me just start as a person, Ben. This is not wearing an economist hat. But the coarseness in our public discourse today is something I'd not seen prior to the Trump era. Something that disturbs me as a dad, as a parent, as a teacher, as a citizen, as a voter, as someone who has aspirations for this country, as someone who believes in leadership. And what we have is a carnival barker as president, a reality TV show. And who would be the natural character to put right next to him? A fake sort of boxer, a bloke who spends his life just provoking others because provocation yields attention and in Jake Paul's case, attention then yields income.

8:00So very much just cut from exactly the same cloth as the president. And the question I think the American people face is, do you want Jake Paul or the 40-year-old version of Jake Paul to represent your country? I look back at past leaders, Democratic and Republican, And I see people of resolute minds in most cases of serious conviction who may have different beliefs than me, but carry themselves with a certain dignity. So that's the personal side. I want to come back and add a little bit of economics to this. Look, it's not unusual that cabinet members will meet with some random famous person.

8:43It does, in fact, happen all the time. But usually there's a claim that it's got something to do with an agenda. that if you want to talk about poor kids in Africa, you bring in Bono. What's going on here, though, is Besant isn't announcing anything related to Jake Paul. Besant, who should have his hands full running an economy with no shortage of problems, is literally just doing a photo op. I got to meet Jake Paul, which is very nice. Put that in your Instagram page if that's what you need. but the other thing it doesn't help with is Besson has been all blustered this is the thing you and I've gone back and forward on Ben I can't quite find the right language for it it feels like testosterone poisoning it feels like someone fell down an internet rabbit hole and other blokes talked to him about being high t whatever the heck that means.

9:40And he's putting on this front that doesn't really seem like who he is, that doesn't accord well with the office. And more to the point, that sort of pointless provocation then leads everyone to discount everything else he says. And the Treasury Secretary's words are and should be among the most powerful things in the world.

10:04Ben Meiselas:And it's been an evolution in a way different than some of the other psychopaths. And I'm saying in that shoe, so it's all right. What I mean by that is, you know, a lot of these people came in as psychos in my view, you know, the RFKs, the Hegsiths, and maybe they became more, you know, but there was at least a period of time where people looked at Besant and perhaps didn't look into his background, but looked at him and some of the hype and people wrote decent, you know, pieces on him as he came in. He's a more serious guy. Things will be okay with him. And kind of even gave him a break after so-called Liberation Day when it was, you know, that's not him.

10:46Ben Meiselas:That's actually Lutnik. And that's this, you know, okay. He's the rational guy in the room. You know, but then you saw as all of these promises or fraudulent representations were kind of clearly demonstrated to be just that, you see like a personality shift. And it's so visible and it's so desperate looking. And it's an oddity to see this in someone in a leadership position who usually works those kind of things out in their childhood. and it's for real. And they work it out in their childhood and not having to work about it, you know, in their sixties. I, you know, it's a, I don't know, midlife, whatever.

11:31Ben Meiselas:It's a, it's clearly a personality crisis as he's contending with what's obvious fear because he screwed things up and more and more down the rabbit hole he goes, bluffing and bluffing and bluffing. And it's like, we know, we know, like the world knows, the world sees it. And it's not just a personality evaluation, which in and of itself would be F, but this is now permeating into our economics. And it's having an impact where we've never seen Janet Yellen or named the Treasury Department person having a deranged personality that impacts our lives as Americans or as global citizens. It's impacting everybody.

12:20Ben Meiselas:I'll leave you with the final word on this one. So I actually know several, at a personal level, several past Treasury secretaries, and I know none of them would ever act this way. I'm not going to get into people's personalities. I believe in playing the issues and the actions rather than speculation. But when he's speaking, Besant, he's speaking on our behalf. When he's speaking, he's using the credibility of the US government, and it's up to us to decide whether he's using it effectively or not. It's up to us to decide whether he's wasting it or he's serving America's purposes. My judgment, to be crystal clear, and the judgment of really everyone else I've seen is, you should never spend your credibility the way that the Treasury Secretary is currently doing.

13:12Not his credibility, our credibility. We own it. He works for us. He inherited the credibility of the office from his predecessors, and he will hopefully leave some shred of dignity left for whoever holds that role next. Look, again, we can come back to how would this make sense? One answer is that he has a boss and the boss sets the tone. and if he wants to be seen in his boss's best graces, almost every worker knows that they sometimes have to work the boss, that we sometimes have a different personality at work than we do at home. And when that affects the company's performance, it's the boss who's accountable for that.

13:55And the boss here is Donald Trump. But I want to go a step further. Donald Trump's boss is us. we are the ones who are here to hold people to account and if we fail at that that judgment is on us so next time you see besant beclowning himself realize he's beclowning his office which is working for us and we're the ones who are meant to pull him into line sorry if that sounds dark but i just it's a great privilege to be able to help a people it's a great privilege to be able to help steer one of the greatest economies in the world. And you should live up to it. And you should do everything you can to live up to the dignity, the responsibility, and also to hold the credibility of that office so that it will continue to be a powerful economic force in the future.

14:48Ben Meiselas:Justin, well said. Always appreciate doing these videos with you over the weekend. If you want to see more Justin, who wouldn't want to see more Justin? Go to Platypus Economics. Seriously. Seriously, go to Platypus, you know, people love when we do these videos together. Go to Platypus. I love it. Go to Platypus. Me too. Go to Platypus Economics on YouTube. Watch any of Justin's videos and all of them, anyone you want to know. Tell Justin that Ben sent you there so he can see it in the comments. And Justin Wolfer's chief economist at Midas Touch and founder of Platypus Economics. Thanks, Justin.

15:25Ben Meiselas:Thanks, Pat. Breaking news right now. My brothers and I wrote a book. It's called WTF America. And well, doesn't that just say it all? It comes out officially this October, but you can pre-order your copy today. Just scan the QR code or click the link in the description below.