Trumponomics: Is Trump Right About the Fed Getting It Wrong?
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
16 minutes ago
Trump admin live updates: Trump, Schumer trade barbs over Senate nominations
The Senate voted on some of Trump's nominations before the August recess. 2:17 The Senate on Saturday considered some of President Donald Trump's nominations before the August recess. Earlier this week, Trump issued an executive order slapping tariffs on many of America's trading partners but the new duties are set to go into effect in seven days. Trump also continues to face questions over his administration's handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files and his relationship with the accused sex trafficker. Latest headlines: 3 minutes ago Johnson makes last-minute visit to Israel 57 minutes ago Greer suggests Aug. 12 tariff deadline for China could slide 1 hour and 37 minutes ago Texas state House set to consider new congressional maps on Monday Here's how the news is developing. 46 Updates Jul 28, 2025, 10:00 AM EDT Trump says he is 'allowed' to pardon Ghislaine Maxwell, but it's 'inappropriate' to discuss When asked by reporters if he would pardon Ghislaine Maxwell -- the convicted associate of deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein -- President Donald Trump said he is "allowed to give her a pardon" but "nobody's approached me with it." "Nobody's asked me about it. Right now, it would be inappropriate to talk about it," Trump said on Monday. He said he hasn't been "overly interested" in the Epstein files, and called the 'whole thing a hoax' in regard to whether his name is in the files. Jul 28, 2025, 9:56 AM EDT Starmer says he has a 'very good relationship' with Trump British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he has a "very good personal relationship" with President Donald Trump, emphasizing that the United Kingdom and the United States have "always stood together." In terms of best interests for the two countries, Starmer added that he and Trump have a "huge amount of common ground." Trump says he is 'not interested in talking' to Putin President Donald Trump said he has "always gotten along" with Russian President Vladimir Putin, but on Monday, he said he is "not interested in talking" to him. "Russia could be so rich right now. But instead, they spend everything on war. I really thought this was going to end. Every time I think it's going to end, he kills people," Trump said. Earlier on Monday, Trump said he would reduce the 50-day window for Russia to agree to a peace deal with Ukraine. Jul 28, 2025, 9:37 AM EDT Trump says Powell 'has to' cut interest rates While meeting British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, President Donald Trump said Fed Chair Jerome Powell "has to" cut interest rates. "He should cut. A smart person should cut," Trump said. This comes after Trump visited the Federal Reserve on Thursday, repeating calls for lower interest rates while standing alongside Powell.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Transcript: Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan," Aug. 3, 2025
The following is the transcript of an interview with Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan that aired on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" on Aug. 3, 2025. MARGARET BRENNAN: And we're back with Bank of America CEO, Brian Moynihan, good morning, and thank you for being here with us. BRIAN MOYNIHAN: Good to be here again, Margaret, hope you're doing well. MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, I'm hoping you can give us some clarity here on what's going on with the economy. Your Bank of America economists say no rate hikes this year and no recession. Is that still the case after Friday's jobs report? BRIAN MOYNIHAN: Yeah, it's still the case, and that's a—less growth than they would have had six, nine months ago, and reflects the impact of the tariff war and the trade and all that—but they still think we continue to grow. And we're growing at a slow rate, say, one and a half percent this year, little more next year, and a little more the year after that. But it will take inflation—for the Fed to get inflation out of the system, really through the end of '26 into '27 down to the 2% level. And that's why they have the Fed holding. What they believe is sort of in the middle of next year, the Fed will start cutting and bring the Fed funds rate closer to what would be a more normal rate, around three percent, three and a half percent. MARGARET BRENNAN: Even though we saw this, really, kind of astounding dissent by two members of the Fed saying, we do need to move on interest rates. Your prediction from your economists is that that's not appropriate at this time. BRIAN MOYNIHAN: They don't think it's—they're going to move. Now, the market says they're going to move in September, maybe twice this year. The market was at seven times one point this year. Now they're down to two—then they're down to one, now they're up to two. This is going to move around, but the reality is, two things people should really keep in focus. One is, until the inflation is out of the system, the Fed is going to be a little—very careful, and that's what they said. And then secondly, the rate we're going to go to is a rate that is more normal than pre-global financial crisis, more of a 3%, 3.5% percent rate, which actually means the American economy is probably functioning better, frankly. MARGARET BRENNAN: So on that point, the Wall Street Journal, we were reading in, puts the tariff tax increase as costing $360 billion a year. That's one of the largest tax increases in history, they say. Do you believe the administration's arguments that it's really only foreigners who are going to pay the cost of this. Do you think economists are overstating the negative impact? BRIAN MOYNIHAN: Well, I think no one really knows, honestly, because this is a different regime than we've been in before. And there's- so they're trying to extrapolate from things from 50 years ago, when economies were different structured. Our team thinks it's- has an impact on inflation of about a, you know, 30, 40 basis points— MARGARET BRENNAN: Meaning adding to prices people are paying. BRIAN MOYNIHAN: Yeah, adding to the inflation rate in the United States. But we need to back up. What the real impact right now is the new Trump administration coming in had four or five policy areas they were really going to go after, having learned in the four years, they had to move very quickly. Those were around trades and tariff, immigration and taxation and deregulation. What businesses, and I just was in the Midwest with a bunch of businesses, they're all trying to do is figure out what the answer will be so they can go ahead and make their plans for '26. So the activity that's slowed down has more to do with people just trying to figure out the answer. It doesn't mean every answer is acceptable. Most answers are. So what do they have answers on? Obviously, a tax bill getting done. That's a good answer for business, because it makes the rates permanent. What's the second thing they have an answer on. They have an answer now on the range of trade possibilities. And so as they think about the trade possibilities, they sit there and say, tariffs might not be worse than x. They see some deals getting done, all of which is good work. What they don't have an answer on is deregulation. Yes, new regulations stop, but they are hoping for more deregulation, so that will help their business models going forward. And then the last is immigration. What will immigration really settle in like. And that's what they tell us. So they're not using their lines of credit, they're not- the indications from them are they're being a little more cautious, really waiting for some answers. MARGARET BRENNAN: Businesses aren't hiring, either, we saw in this jobs data on Friday, that was the worst three months for job growth since the pandemic. Your firm, when I was reading the analysis, points to a number of different factors, and one of them is artificial intelligence and the adoption of that impacting hiring. How dramatically is it reshaping the job market? BRIAN MOYNIHAN: I think this is sort of a question of almost a glass half full, half empty type of thing. So the impact— MARGARET BRENNAN: No pun intended. BRIAN MOYNIHAN: Exactly, sorry about that. But the impact of technology on human work content as a percentage of productivity has been huge. In our company- in 2010 when I started with the management team, we had 285,000 people. We have 212,000 people today. That was the impact of technology. We're bigger, more customers, more transactions, more reports to the government, more data, et cetera. So the impact has always been huge. AI gives you a place to go that we've never been able to go before. In other words, they're jobs that take text, think about it, and produce it. Many, many jobs in a company. Our research team, now you're able to maybe use a machine to enhance that activity. So we believe that people harness AI for their benefit are going to be very successful. My teammates who harness AI for their benefit are very successful. It's nervous making for young kids now, saying, will the jobs be there for me? MARGARET BRENNAN: Right. BRIAN MOYNIHAN: Then I say, look back historically. America has a lot more people working here. And think about the amount of technology came in over the last 50 years, and we have twice as many people work in this country as we did 50 years ago, twice as many, and the population has only gone up by about a third. So think about that dynamic as it finds its way through. That's the glass half full part of it. But it will have an impact. I don't think it's impacting a lot right now, because many companies are just trying to learn how to use it. Technology has impacted, and AI gives it a place to go it hasn't gone so far. MARGARET BRENNAN: So we're talking about all the unknowns and why it's kind of hard to model things right now. Well, Friday, the President fired, as you know, the head statistician that comes up with these jobs numbers and presents them to the public. The former head during the first Trump administration came out in her defense and said this is- this is without merit, and it undermines credibility of data. Are you concerned by this firing, and do you feel there is political pressure here? BRIAN MOYNIHAN: Well, I think that's more politics. And I know I'm in Washington, DC, and that's what we're supposed to talk about-- [CROSSTALK] MARGARET BRENNAN: Government data is, is— BRIAN MOYNIHAN: but the reality is, the data— MARGARET BRENNAN: hugely important modeling BRIAN MOYNIHAN: It's 2025 MARGARET BRENNAN: as you know. [END CROSSTALK] BRIAN MOYNIHAN: It's 2025 and the data should be able to be— they use surveys and things like that, which, frankly, just aren't as effective anymore. So if you look at the rate of people who respond to their surveys, it's down from 60% level to 50% level. You know, we don't use surveys (unintelligible) we do. We watch what consumers really do. We watch what businesses really do. They can get this data, I think, other ways and I think that's where the focus ought to be. How do we get the data to be more resilient and more predictable and more understandable? Because what bounces around is restatements, and that was one of the largest restatements, going back five or seven years in the pandemic, five years in the pandemic, that creates doubt around it. And so I think the key is, let's get- let's spend some money. Let's bring the information together. Let's find where else in the government money is reported. We report millions and millions of data points to the government every day. The data is out there somewhere. MARGARET BRENNAN: Finally, back in January, you were at Davos, President Trump talked about Bank of America. TRUMP ON TAPE: Many conservatives complained that the banks are not allowing them to do business within the bank, and that included a place called Bank of America. This conservative- They don't take conservative business. And I don't know if the regulators mandated that because of Biden or what. MARGARET BRENNAN: Do you want to respond to the allegation that conservatives are not being allowed to do business with your bank? BRIAN MOYNIHAN: We have 70 million consumers, and we're the biggest small business lender. That's not- the issue they're focused on is the regulators impact on this industry. And you heard Senator Scott talk about this this week. This reputation, this after the fact, look, that you banked x, and now after the fact, you're gonna say x didn't turn out to be what you thought. So we look at it. We look at it based on risk. People may feel those decisions are made for some other reason, but we always make it on what's best for our company, what's best for our client. MARGARET BRENNAN: Are there industries you're uncomfortable doing business with? BRIAN MOYNIHAN: No, we do business with really-- MARGARET BRENNAN: Guns, oil and gas, tobacco, all of it? BRIAN MOYNIHAN: We do business with all those industries. Individual companies because of credit decision stuff, that's different. But the reality is, is that if they gave us clarity from the regulatory thing and avoid the second guessing, that would be helpful, and I think that's what the President was pointing out, if you listen to him. MARGARET BRENNAN: All right. Brian Moynihan, thank you for giving us some insight into the data you are seeing. Face the Nation will be back in a moment. Stay with us. Black swimmers teach others amid history of aquatic segregation In Gaza, hunger forces impossible choices as Hamas releases propaganda video of hostage Open: This is "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan," Aug. 3. 2025 Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Newsweek
an hour ago
- Newsweek
Former Treasury Secretary Says Trump Is Trying to 'Scapegoat' Jerome Powell
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers warned that President Donald Trump may be trying to "scapegoat" Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell in the event the economy slows down enough to hit a recession. "He's looking to set up a scapegoat if the economy performs badly," Summers said during an appearance on ABC News' This Week. "That's what this attacking chairman Powell is really about. It's not really about trying to change policy." Newsweek reached out to the White House by email outside of normal business hours on Sunday morning for comment. Why It Matters Trump has made tariffs the centerpiece of his economic and foreign policy plans, using trade negotiations to try and end conflicts and completely reshape the international trade landscape to more heavily favor the United States. However, many economists and business leaders have warned that Trump's plan will cause a recession as the tariffs raise prices for Americans, which could deter buying and prompt more Americans to hold onto their money. Trump has therefore urged Powell to cut the interest rate in order to spur the economy and get people to spend more money, but Powell has resisted—much to Trump's frustration. What To Know The stock market took a hit on Friday after Trump signed a series of executive orders to impose tariffs on over 90 countries, ranging from 10 to 41 percent. The July Jobs report showed that growth had slowed, showing just 73,000 new jobs—well under the projected 100,000 that the Dow Jones had estimated. Additionally, the jobs reports for May and June were hit with significant revisions that showed very weak growth across those months. Trump fired Dr. Erika McEntarfer, the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), and accused her of manipulating the reports for "political purposes." Summers, who served in former presidents Bill Clinton's and Barack Obama's administrations, suggested on Sunday that Trump is likely also trying to line up Powell as a scapegoat should the economy continue to struggle, even though Trump appointed Powell during his first term in office. "I think that this kind of political Fed bashing is a fool's game," Summers said. "The Fed doesn't listen, so short-term interest rates aren't going to be different because of it." He continued: "The market does listen, and so longer-term rates are going to go higher, which is going to make it more expensive to buy a house. This is hurting the economy, not helping. I think the president understands that and what the president is doing is recognizing that, for all kinds of reasons, of which his policies are very important ones, the economy is at a lot of risk." Summers also expressed surprise that more people hadn't responded within the administration to McEntarfer's firing, saying that the decision to remove her "is way beyond anything that Richard Nixon ever did." When Nixon dismissed special prosecutor Archibald Cox during the Watergate Scandal, it prompted several officials to resign rather than fire Cox, causing what was known as the "Saturday Night Massacre." Trump faced a similar issue in February, which has been likened to Nixon as the "Thursday Night Massacre," when Department of Justice (DOJ) officials resigned rather than execute an order to dismiss federal corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. No one has yet resigned in response to McEntarfer's firing, but Summers indicated that he sees the firing as a scapegoating as well, saying: "These numbers are put together by teams of literally hundreds of people following detailed procedures that are in manuals." "There's no conceivable way that the head of the BLS could have manipulated this number," he added. "The numbers are in line with what we're seeing from all kinds of private sector sources." Summers remains cautious about suggesting the economy is headed for a recession. Instead, he said the economy is at "stall speed," which "could tip into recession," but that "wouldn't be my prediction right now." Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers speaks during the World Economic Summit in Washington, D.C., on April 17, 2024. Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers speaks during the World Economic Summit in Washington, D.C., on April 17, 2024. Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images What People Are Saying President Donald Trump in a post on Truth Social on Saturday wrote: "'Too Late' Powell should resign, just like Adriana Kugler, a Biden Appointee, resigned. She knew he was doing the wrong thing on Interest Rates. He should resign, also!" In a post from Friday, Trump wrote: "Jerome 'Too Late' Powell, a stubborn MORON, must substantially lower interest rates, NOW. IF HE CONTINUES TO REFUSE, THE BOARD SHOULD ASSUME CONTROL, AND DO WHAT EVERYONE KNOWS HAS TO BE DONE!" Ernie Tedeschi, the former head of Yale University's Budget Lab, wrote on X on Friday about McEntarfer's firing: "I've worked closely with Erika. I know of no economist who is more data-focused & devoted to truth in statistics. She never shied from speaking truth to power when the data were disappointing. Nothing would be worse for US credibility than political meddling in our economic data."
