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Jane Coaston: It’s Wednesday, August 27th, I’m Jane Coaston, and this is What a Day, the show celebrating the biggest pop culture news of the week. The Princess of Wales is blonde now. Wait, was there other pop culture news? Nothing comes to mind. [music break] On today’s show, President Donald Trump and friends hold a televised cabinet meeting longer than the runtime of the godfather. And DOGE puts American social security data at risk. Fun! But let’s start with socialism. That’s what conservatives love to cry when federal and local governments control portions of private companies, or when a mayoral candidate champions city-owned grocery stores in New York. But according to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on Fox News Monday, When President Donald Trump takes control of private companies like U.S. Steel or Nvidia or Intel. 

[clip of Howard Lutnick] That is not socialism. I’ll tell you what that is. That’s the best businessman in the United States of America in the Oval Office doing fair things for us, the American taxpayers. I mean, look, I helped him structure the deal. 

Jane Coaston: And he wouldn’t structure a socialist deal. Yes, and a move that made independent Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders very happy. Really. The U.S. Government announced last week that it has taken a 10% stake in Intel, propping up a company that has not had a very good time over the past few years. And that’s just the most recent federal excursion into the private sector. There’s the Defense Department becoming the biggest shareholder in a mining company, the deals with AI chip makers, NVIDIA and AMD we discuss on the show and a golden share in US Steel. And because we all love a command economy, don’t we, folks? Trump is also continuing to take aim at the independence of the Federal Reserve. On Monday, he announced his desire to fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook over allegations of mortgage fraud. And before you ask, she has been charged with no crimes. In response, Cook announced her decision to sue over the removal attempt on Tuesday. Her lawyer said, quote, “President Trump has no authority to remove Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook.” To court we go, I guess. So for more on state-sponsored capitalism and the seemingly never-ending Federal Reserve fight, I spoke to Scott Lincicome. He’s the Vice President of General Economics at the Cato Institute. Scott Scott Lincicome, welcome back to What a Day. 

Scott Lincicome: Well, thanks for having me back. I must have done okay the first time. 

Jane Coaston: Let’s start with the government directly involving itself in running corporations. 

Scott Lincicome: Yeah. 

Jane Coaston: There’s been a trend here. The government secured decision-making at U.S. Steel with after its takeover with by Nippon Steel early this summer, getting a golden share that means they can apparently do anything as far as I can tell. The government invested in Nvidia, the AI and graphics chip maker, and it bought a 10% stake in Intel, a company that was not doing very well. 

Scott Lincicome: Yeah. 

Jane Coaston: You wrote about this trend this week. You’re not a fan. It sounds like, one, um why is the administration doing this? And two, why is this a bad idea? 

Scott Lincicome: Honestly, why they’re doing it, I think is a bigger question. Trump likes to do deals and really likes to puppeteer big businesses. And I should note, I almost corrected you there. They didn’t buy an equity stake in Intel, they took it. They hauled the CEO into the Oval Office after accusing him of being compromised by China. And then suddenly came to a deal in which their subsidies, which are grants, they are money literally handed to the company to do make chips and do whatever, was converted into equity, which is kinda like debt, right? I mean, you know you gotta pay it back if you’re the company in some form. So they just took it. And again, I think that’s that’s about you know this kind of control and dominance over the company’s business operations that subsidies and cajoling don’t really provide. Now, okay, now on your second point, what are the problems with it? I mean, the big problem is the politicization of things that are best left to markets. And what we don’t want is politicians supplanting that market process with their own decisions. Because let’s face it, politicians are self-interested individuals. They are not necessarily worried about company’s long-term health or actual economic growth. They’re worried about getting re-elected. Uh, and probably other things too, in the case of this Trump administration. And so they, you end up with decisions that are made for political reasons, like say, you know, we need to keep that Ohio mega fab facility that Intel is building and make, maybe they’ll someday finish it. Got to keep the gravy train rolling. Cause all the jobs in Ohio that you need that’s, that’s a political calculation, not a market one. So that’s just bad. It means, you know less growth, less innovation, all the things we want um for the U.S. Economy and have you know because our tech sector contrary to what you might hear still is globally dominant in the vast majority of areas that you care about um it would really suck to lose that. 

Jane Coaston: The tariffs have been another leg in the, you know, on the table of the Trumpification of the U.S. economy. You’ve been watching Trump threaten negotiate back off and then double down on some tariffs for the past six months. And we talked about this. 

Scott Lincicome: Yeah. 

Jane Coaston: You warned that the economic growth we saw in the spring and summer might be less growthy as more–

Scott Lincicome: Yeah. 

Jane Coaston: –tariffs actually take effect. What are you watching most closely and why? 

Scott Lincicome: Yeah, so the two big things for the fall are how tariffs really start leaking into consumer prices. Because so far, a lot of the pain caused by the tariffs has been borne by American companies. So it’s kind of acted like a corporate tax. Now, that’s not good, but it’s just not a visible daily reminder like going to the grocery store and seeing prices go up. So economists expect the full brunt of the tariffs to leak into consumer prices this fall and winter. And so I think that’s one thing to really keep an eye on. But the other is how tariffs are affecting companies. Um. Because you’re talking about tens of billions of dollars in new taxes that are being eaten in most cases by companies like John Deere that just laid off 300 employees in part because of additional tariff costs. You know, I think we talked about this last time that we have this stuff called soft data and that’s surveys of various businesses and there’s the fed surveys and there is private surveys. So the soft data of surveys of businesses has said problems are coming. These companies are reporting much higher prices. And dwindling inventories that were tariff-free, they’re seeing softer demand in the market. So contrary to what J.D. Vance might tell you, the economists have not been proven wrong here. You are seeing the data start to show the effects of tariffs. It’s just taking a little longer than we thought, and American companies are eating more of the costs than we thought. 

Jane Coaston: You mentioned the Fed during surveys, and the Fed is one of Trump’s latest obsessions. Um. Trump just tried firing one of the Federal Reserve’s governors, Lisa Cook, setting aside his accusations of whatever it is she did. 

Scott Lincicome: Right. 

Jane Coaston: That she hasn’t been charged with or accused of by anybody else. It’s clear he’s been angling to shuffle governor seats. 

Scott Lincicome: Yeah. 

Jane Coaston: At the Federal Reserve. Why and to do what? 

Scott Lincicome: Yeah, very simply to cut interest rates. So, Trump believes that the Fed is holding interest rates too high. Basically the idea is you have lower rates, you tend to have more um economic activity in things like you know businesses will take out loans and do more expansions and hire more and that kind of stuff. So, if he wants lower rates and he doesn’t like that the fed has been quite cautious in terms of continuing to lower rates. From the kind of high higher rate environment we had because of the inflation we had a couple of years ago. He wants it lower now. Now, nevermind that our inflation metrics are actually still well above the Fed’s target. Nevermind that, again, we’re still waiting for tariffs to show up in the data. Now, economists will say tariffs are a one-off thing. The Fed should look through that, but That’s easier said than done. And so there’s a decent argument that the Fed shouldn’t be cutting rates right now. I would call it reasonable minds can differ about this stuff, but Trump doesn’t care. He wants to cut, cut, cut, cut, cut because he thinks that’s gonna super power the US economy and then he’ll of course take credit for all of that. Um. There are huge risks both in some sort of cutting spree at the Fed. Higher inflation, a weaker dollar, things we don’t want, um and of course, there are risks sacrificing the independence of the Federal Reserve generally because the Fed prides itself on being independent from politics. So it makes rate decisions not based on what, who’s in office, but based on what the data say. Now, some of my libertarian colleagues would would question how just how apolitical the Fed is, but regardless. Um. Actively trying to find reasons to fire fed governors is a bad idea because it it may it doesn’t it makes things even worse Right. It makes it even more political So we want to avoid that and I think that caught well if if it happens and if it continues, you know again, it further calls into question um the united states economy as some sort of safe haven for investment. Which we’ve been forever and that’s we’ve all benefited from that in a lot of ways. And and that might sadly not be the case if this continues. 

Jane Coaston: I am aware of just one instance where there was a direct push by a president to get the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates. That was Richard Nixon in 1971. Um. One of the many things Richard Nixon got up to around that time. How did that turn out? 

Scott Lincicome: Not great, a lot of inflation. Um. This was not like a very rigorous economic decision. And of course, again, the result was a decade of very, very painful inflation, stagflation. So low growth, high prices. We do not want that. And you know we’re not we’re not anywhere near that level of of economic problem yet, but growth is slowing. Prices again are higher than the Fed wants. Um, the last thing we should be doing is kind of in, uh, embarking on a very reckless monetary policy. 

Jane Coaston: Given these three big moves, the administration directly investing in companies and demanding money from those companies too, months of tariffs, and now this news with the Federal Reserve, is there a picture emerging to you of what economic Trumpism looks like? 

Scott Lincicome: Uh. Argentina in the 1990s? I mean. 

Jane Coaston: Great, fantastic news. 

Scott Lincicome: Yeah. 

Jane Coaston: I’m sure that worked out awesomely. 

Scott Lincicome: Yeah, there is a little more than a hint of Peronism in the terms of very expansive monetary policy to kind of paper over very large debt. Cause we have that too. We have a lot of debt going on. Um, we just actually increased that debt, a lot of goofy import substitution and industrial policy and the government, you know, being basically directly involved on corporate boards and the rest. So all joking aside, this is developing country stuff. This is not what uh the United States is known for and what has made the U.S. Economy the envy of the world even today. You know the Economist had a big cover story just like six, eight months ago that was like even now, U. S. Economy is outperforming its peers across all sorts of metrics. It’s foolish to just abandon that. But here we are.

Jane Coaston: Well Donald Trump loves musicals, I wonder how he feels about Evita. 

Scott Lincicome: Uh, don’t cry for me uh I don’t know.

Jane Coaston: U.S. Economy? 

Scott Lincicome: Yeah. 

Jane Coaston: Scott, once again, thanks again so much for joining me. 

Scott Lincicome: My pleasure. 

Jane Coaston: That was my conversation with Scott Lincicome, Vice President of General Economics at the Cato Institute. We’ll link to his work in the show notes. We’ll get to more of the news in a moment, but if you like the show, make sure to subscribe, leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, watch us on YouTube, and share with your friends. More to come after some ads. [music break]

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Jane Coaston: Here’s what else we’re following today. 

[sung] Headlines.

[clip of President Donald Trump] The country is doing well, we’re respected all over the world like uh like never before probably. 

Jane Coaston: President Trump’s cabinet gathered for its latest round of ass-kissing during Tuesday’s meeting, which, by the way, was apparently the president’s longest televised appearance ever, coming in at over three hours. During the meeting, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. went on a long-winded tirade against, well, the wind, or wind turbines. Kennedy alleged that turbines endanger ocean life, and pre-complimented Trump for accomplishing a pretty impressive feet. 

[clip of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.] They’re wiping out the whale population, the Atlantic whale population. The big whales, [?], the gray whale or the humpback whales, [?] whales. And you are going to save the whales on the East Coast because of this. 

Jane Coaston: Ah yes, I remember a certain someone telling Joe Rogan that the vibrations from the turbines drive whales crazy, right? Later during the cabinet-a-thon, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth grabbed an opportunity to pitch a new title for himself. 

[clip of Pete Hegseth] Maybe next time we’re here, my card will be Department of War, we’ll see. 

Jane Coaston: Trump has repeatedly floated the idea of renaming the Department of Defense the Department of War. Just this week, he said the new moniker, quote, “just sounded better.” Does it? And speaking of things that just sound better, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was light on specifics but heavy on praise for the president. 

[clip of Kristi Noem] You made this country safe, you opened up the economy, you enforced the law, now people can get up and provide for their families and go to work every day and be confident in that. 

Jane Coaston: Sure they can. Just ask anyone who works at a restaurant, or on a farm, or on construction site, or just looks Latino. Officials at the Department of Government Efficiency, or as we so lovingly know it, DOGE, reportedly put Social Security data of more than 300 million Americans at risk. How? By uploading sensitive information to a cloud server earlier this summer. That’s according to a whistleblower disclosure submitted to the Special Counsel’s Office and House and Senate Oversight Lawmakers Tuesday. The whistleblowers, Charles Borges, worked as the chief data officer at the Social Security Administration. According to Borges, the potential sensitive information that risks being released includes social security numbers, health diagnoses, income, banking information, familial relationships, and personal biographic data. It probably would have been faster to list what information isn’t at risk. The complaint says if the data gets in the wrong hands, quote, “the government may be responsible for reissuing every American a new social security number at great cost.” And then I’d have to memorize a new Social Security Number. And who has time for that. SSA said in a statement that it takes whistleblower complaints seriously, but it wrote in part, quote, “we are not aware of any compromise to this environment and remain dedicated to protecting sensitive personal data.” In a cloud that probably can be hacked. Just where I want my social security number to be held. A federal judge dismissed a Department of Justice lawsuit against Maryland’s entire federal court bench Tuesday. This started back in June, when the DOJ sued all 15 judges after the court temporarily paused contested deportations of migrants. In Tuesday’s ruling, the Trump-nominated U.S. District judge ripped the administration a new one. He noted the DOJ’s attempt to cast federal judges as left-wing lunatics, writing, quote, “This concerted effort by the executive to smear and impugn individual judges who rule against it is both unprecedented and unfortunate.” But the decision really came down to the fact that a district court isn’t the best place to settle a dispute between the judiciary and the executive. Typically, the DOJ could appeal specific decisions or they could fight the blanket rule that has paused some deportations. But as the federal judge wrote, quote, “it’s no surprise that the executive chose a different and more confrontational path entirely.” The judge did note that these are not normal times. Not normal times indeed. The Trump administration is resurrecting a long-abandoned practice called neighborhood checks as it vets immigrants for citizenship. CBS News first reported it Tuesday after obtaining a memo outlining the change. Basically, citizenship and immigration services would conduct on-the-ground investigations of applicants’ homes and workplaces. The checks could include interviews with neighbors and coworkers to determine candidates’ moral character and loyalties to the Constitution. The agency might visit residences and employers going back five years prior to an application. Neighborhood checks were once required before becoming an optional part of the naturalization process in 1991. After that, the government ended up waiving them entirely. The Citizenship and Immigration Services memo went out last week and terminated the waiver. It lets individual officers decide whether to actually conduct a neighborhood check. And that’s the news. [music break] One more thing. Do you remember Jade Helm? 

[clip of unnamed news reporter] The U.S. Military is planning an unprecedented training exercise this summer called Operation Jade Helm 15 across seven states. And with polls showing trust in the government near record lows, that exercise has some Americans feeling uneasy. 

Jane Coaston: Yeah, that’s an understatement. See, back in 2015, the US military organized a military exercise called Operation Jade Helm. Over eight weeks across Texas, New Mexico, and a host of other states, roughly 1,200 members of the US Military held a series of trainings focused on helping soldiers prepare for combat environments. In response, many people on the right, from longtime conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones to Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott, lost their ever-loving minds. And while Jones and others ranted online about how this was clearly a means by which then-President Barack Obama would seize control of states that didn’t support his election through martial law, Abbott took the step of asking the Texas State Guard to keep an eye on things. Here’s CBS 7. 

[clip of unnamed CBS 7 News reporter] Now Governor Greg Abbott is stepping in and ordering the Texas State Guard to monitor the operation. In a letter to the Texas state guard commander, Abbott states his reasoning is, quote, “to address concerns of Texas citizens and to ensure that Texas communities remain safe.” 

Jane Coaston: This all was how some portion of the American right sounded pretty much all the time during the Obama administration. Federal Emergency Management Agency concentration camps for all gun-owning Americans! Obama will institute the New World Order and enslave all conservatives! The message was clear. Nothing is more terrifying than the federal government. And nothing is more critical than to limit the power of the federal government. Unless, of course, the President of the United States, the head of the federal government is a Republican. Earlier this month, Mother Jones reporter Stephanie Mensahmir went back to Jade Helm and the conspiracy-minded right-wing activists. And it turns out that actually they are by and large totally fine with Trump. Nothing wrong with a president who sends the National Guard into major cities on the pretext of skyrocketing crime rates while presenting no real data to support this conclusion. Which is odd, because one might think that the do-not-comply anti-government activists, who were so convinced that Obama or former president Joe Biden were trying to put them all in Guantanamo Bay would be a little nonplussed by a president who says things like this. 

[clip of President Donald Trump] You have a guy in Illinois, the governor of Illinois, saying that crime has been much better in Chicago recently, and Trump is a dictator. And most people say, if you call him a dictator, that if he stops crime, he can be, he can be whatever he wants. 

Jane Coaston: Or this. 

[clip of President Donald Trump] I don’t have I have the right to do anything I want to do. I’m the president of the United States. 

Jane Coaston: But they aren’t. It’s pretty clear. The don’t tread on me flag these folks are such big fans of must have a tiny little asterisk on it that reads, tread on them instead. [music break]

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Jane Coaston: That’s all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, contemplate how DC has apparently become a haven for gay Trump staffers, and tell your friends to listen. And if you’re into reading, and not just about how the New York Times wrote about the surprisingly high number of gay men working for the Trump administration who are just fine with a president who will wield homophobia and transphobia as a weapon for absolutely no reason, like me, What a Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at Crooked.com/subscribe. I’m Jane Coaston, and I’d like to quote a MAGA media influencer quoted in the piece who said that her straight lady Trump fan friends in DC quote, “Thought the dating scene would be really great, that MAGA would bring in a whole wave of like, you know, eligible, conservative, smart, enterprising men.” But she said instead, quote, “Everybody’s freaking gay.” Indeed. [music break] What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It’s recorded and mixed by Desmond Taylor. Our associate producer is Emily Fohr. Our video editor is Joseph Dutra. Our video producer is Johanna Case. We had production help today from Greg Walters, Matt Berg, Shawna Lee, and Gina Pollock. Our senior producer is Erica Morrison, and our senior vice president of news and politics is Adriene Hill. We had help with our headlines from the Associated Press. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. 

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