Welcome to the deep dive. If you've been keeping
an eye on the news, you know things in Washington
DC and well everywhere else have been moving
incredibly fast. So today we're going deep on
three really interconnected stories that are
shaping the American landscape right now. Our
mission for you today is simple. We want to untangle
this recent Senate budget bill, explore the president's,
let's say, evolving legal tactics and their kind
of surprising effects, and then really get into
this intense debate around the Federal Reserve's
independence. You'll walk away with a much clearer
picture of all these moving pieces and what they
actually mean. Absolutely. And we've pulled together
a really rich set of sources to help us navigate
all this. It gives a pretty comprehensive view
of these, you know, high stakes decisions and
often the hidden reasons behind it. We're going
to try and connect the dots for you between policy,
power, and personal influence to help you see
the bigger picture. Right. Let's start with that
Senate budget bill. It just passed, and I mean,
the vote couldn't have been closer. 51 -50. J
.D. Vance cast the deciding vote. So who voted
no? Well, all the Democrats and independents,
naturally, but also three Republicans, Susan
Collins, Rand Paul, and Tom Tillis. And, you
know, isn't it interesting about Senator Collins?
Once again, she sort of manages to rebel. Right.
But without her vote actually being the one to...
tip the scales. Yeah, that's a pattern some observers
definitely point out. But what really jumps out
here is just the sheer size of this thing. Our
sources are calling it a mega bill. It's around
a thousand pages, even longer than the House
version, actually. A thousand pages. Wow. Yeah.
And it's well, let's just say it's highly unlikely
any senator actually read it cover to cover before
voting. OK, so what actually is in this beast?
Well, the big ticket items are pretty significant.
You've got major tax cuts, primarily benefiting
wealthier folks, tougher requirements for Medicaid
recipients, cuts to subsidies for green energy
and credits for electric vehicles, also reductions
in SNAP funding, that's the food stamp program,
changes that make it harder to discharge student
loan debt, huge $5 trillion hike in the debt
limit. $5 trillion, okay. And tax credits for
donations to school choice scholarship funds.
Now, the CBO, the Congressional Budget Office,
hasn't put out its final score yet. Right. The
nonpartisan scorekeepers. Exactly. But there's
really no doubt this bill is going to add dramatically
to the deficit. And just as important as what's
in it. It's like it got cut out, right? Absolutely.
Some major things hit the cutting room floor.
There was a plan to sell off huge amounts of
public land out west. It's gone. A proposed tax
on wind and solar projects using Chinese components
also out. and a provision that would have stopped
states from regulating artificial intelligence.
That didn't make it either. And, you know, it's
kind of funny, one source noted that the Senate
parliamentarian, basically the rules referee,
ended up cutting more items from the bill than
all hundred senators combined. That's wild. OK,
so we see what's in, what's out. But how did
something this contentious, with so many moving
parts, actually manage to pass that 51 -50 vote?
This is where Senator Lisa Murkowski comes in,
right? Her vote was key. It really was. And to
understand it, you kind of have to rewind about
seven years. Remember Senator John McCain's famous
thumbs down vote that saved Obamacare? Oh, yeah,
absolutely. Dramatic moment. Well, Murkowski
was also a no vote back then, and she famously
turned down a deal from Mitch McConnell, who
was majority leader at the time. The deal would
have exempted Alaska from the changes to the
ACA, but she rejected it, apparently out of a
sense of fairness to other states. Right. I remember
that. So fast forward to now. Right. So this
time, it was a very similar situation. The current
majority leader, John Thune, needed just one
more vote. He needed either Murkowski, Collins,
Tillis, or Paul. Now, Paul and Tillis were seen
as pretty much definite nos. Collins, she's facing
a tough re -election campaign. OK. So Murkowski
became, let's say, the most likely target. Thune
offered her basically the same kind of deal as
before, exempt Alaska from the proposed cuts
to Medicaid and SNAP. And this time? This time
she took the deal. Now, the parliamentarian did
end up striking down the specific Medicaid exemption
part, but it got sort of replaced with about
$50 billion in new funding targeted at certain
types of rural hospitals. The kind that, wouldn't
you know it, happened to be quite common in Alaska.
50 billion? That's quite a replacement. So how
do people react? Our sources seem pretty critical
of her explanation. Yeah, they didn't mince words.
One described her tears after the vote as crocodile
tears. Sarah claims about having to do it for
Alaskans were either dishonest or naive. She
did admit she didn't actually like the final
bill and said she hoped the House would fix it.
But... You know, the source points out the House
is way more conservative and they were the ones
pushing for the Medicaid cuts in the first place.
So that hope seems unlikely. Yeah, that doesn't
quite add up. And Senator Rand Paul really went
after her, didn't he? He did. Slammed her publicly,
said she basically took a bailout for Alaska,
and threw everyone else under the bus. And her
response. According to one reporter, when asked
about Paul's comments, she just gave this furious
stare for like 10 seconds. And then finally stammered
something about her obligation to the people
of Alaska. Intense. OK, so the bill passes the
Senate. What happens now in the House? Well,
predictably, the Freedom Caucus members are not
happy. They're saying they can't vote for the
Senate version. But will they stick to that?
History suggests maybe not. One source rather
bluntly says they eventually fold like a cheap
suit every time they make these kinds of threats.
So we'll see. Talks just started today, July
2nd. And there's this July 4th deadline hanging
over everything. Trump wants it on his desk by
then. Yeah, he set that deadline. Says he wants
the pageantry of signing it on Independence Day.
Pageantry. Right. But our sources are pretty
skeptical that pageantry is the real driver here.
Deadlines like this are incredibly useful tools.
They force Congress to move fast, often before
members can fully read what they're voting on
or before constituents can really weigh in. Creates
urgency, limits scrutiny. Exactly. And plus,
there's this tactic, kind of Nixonian, that Trump
uses regularly. Yeah. potentially bad news or
controversial stuff over a weekend, or in this
case a holiday weekend when people aren't paying
as much attention, mute the coverage. Makes sense.
OK, let's pivot now. Another major theme from
our sources is the president's approach to the
legal system. He's often described as using lawsuits
very strategically. That's putting it mildly.
One source says he puts the frivolous in frivolous
lawsuits, often using them just to delay payments
or pressure opponents into concessions. And the
Paramount settlement is a key example here. It
really is. Yeah. So Trump sued CBS's 60 Minutes
program for defamation. The claim was they edited
an interview with Kamala Harris in a way that
misrepresented her, made her look better, and
that this somehow personally damaged him. Which
sounds... Odd. Yeah. Our sources flat out call
it a meritless claim. That's just not how defamation
law works. You generally need to show a false
statement of fact, cause actual harm to your
reputation, not just that an opponent looked
good in an edited interview. So if the claim
was weak, why on earth did Paramount settle?
Well, that's where the strategy comes in. Our
sources lay out a few key reasons. First, Trump
has basically unlimited resources and willingness
to drag things out in court forever. Defending
against that, even if you eventually win, gets
incredibly expensive. Right. Bleed them dry financially.
Pretty much. Second, he's very effective at turning
his base against companies or media outlets he
targets. That can mean lower viewership, lost
advertising revenue, real financial pain. And
finally, the big one here. Paramount, the parent
company of CBS, had a huge merger pending. As
president, Trump had the power to potentially
interfere with that, complicate it, maybe even
kill it outright. We're talking potential losses
in the hundreds of millions, maybe billions.
Wow. So huge leverage. Massive leverage. So they
settled. The deal was $16 million in cash. $16
million? Yeah. But it went to his presidential
library foundation, not directly into his pocket.
They also agreed to give about $14 million worth
of free advertising and PSAs promoting conservative
causes. And they agreed to release unedited transcripts
of any future interviews with presidential candidates.
Paramount tried to spin those last points as
wins, right? Like, see, he didn't get the money
directly and we didn't have to apologize. Yeah,
but our sources found that argument laughable.
They argue the lines between Trump the person,
Trump the business, Trump the foundation, Trump
the payticey. They're basically meaningless.
It's all fungible. Exactly. They suggest he can
easily find ways to use that 16 million dollars
for personal benefit, fixing up Mar -a -Lago,
paying family members, whatever. One source even
quotes Oliver Wendell Holmes, sort of paraphrasing,
saying Trump has a second class intellect, but
he's a first class grifter. Strong words. But
the core point is this settlement shows a way
to use presidential power for personal financial
gain and also to force private companies to push
a political agenda. Precisely. Our sources connect
those two aspects very directly. The financial
part they compare to, like mafia protection money.
The political agenda part, they invoke the historical
image of the black shirts, forcing compliance.
Heavy comparisons. Very. And they even speculate
the whole thing might have been planned before
the 60 minutes interview even aired, like setting
up the pretext. OK, so that's the Paramount case.
But this isn't a one off, is it? There's a next
wave of lawsuits. Seems like it. And one looks
remarkably similar. Trump is suing Ann Seltzer,
a well -respected pollster, and the Des Moines
Register newspaper for fraud. Fraud. Why? Because
Seltzer's final poll before the 2024 election
predicted Kamala Harris would win Iowa. But Trump
actually won the state. Wait. He won. How is
that fraud that damaged him? Exactly the question
our sources raise. It seems completely counterintuitive.
So what's the legal maneuvering here? Well, his
lawyers first tried to dismiss the case in federal
court without prejudice, meaning they could refile
it. Why? Because a new Iowa state law just took
effect yesterday. making these kinds of lawsuits
much harder to win. Ah, timing. Yep. So they
quickly refiled the same lawsuit in Iowa State
Court just under the wire to try and use the
older, more favorable version of the law. And
the goal here isn't really winning damages, is
it? Probably not. Yeah. Our sources figure he'll
mostly use it to, as they put it, bloviate about
being a victim, fuel the narrative. But does
this fight actually make sense for him? Strategically,
he's not likely to get a big payout like with
Paramount. No free media advertising. Right.
And interestingly, the defense for Selser and
the Register is being handled pro bono for free
by FIRE, the Foundation for Individual Rights
and Expression. And our sources say FIRE would
love, love, love the chance to take Trump on
publicly over this. They think he might end up
looking pretty foolish with lots of egg on his
face. Interesting. An opponent eager for the
public fight. What else is happening on the lawsuit
front? There's another one down in Los Angeles.
The Department of Justice is suing the city,
the mayor, Karen Bass, and the city council.
Over what? They're arguing LA's sanctuary -hitty
policies are causing violence, chaos, and attacks
on law enforcement and leading to lawlessness,
rioting, looting, and vandalism. Strong accusations.
Is there a legal basis? Well... Our sources can
see there might be a legitimate argument that
some of L .A.'s specific immigration policies
could potentially overstep federal authority.
But they argue the DOJ lawsuit is mostly just
posturing and spending lots of hot air. Why?
Because in their view, L .A. is an easy target.
It's a blue city in a blue state, predominantly
non -white population. So a useful bugaboo, as
the source puts it, political theater. That's
the assessment. Yeah. A convenient enemy for
the administration. OK, so Trump himself seems
pretty adept at using the legal system, delaying
things, applying pressure. But what about the
people working for him, carrying out these plans?
That's where things get trickier. Our sources
suggest that while Trump might be well armored
legally, his underlings are much more vulnerable.
Their armor is far less impenetrable. Why is
that? Several reasons. Many of them aren't government
employees, so they don't have the same legal
protections. A lot of the questionable actions
could be state -level crimes or civil offenses,
things the presidential pardons can't touch.
Right. Pardons are mostly for federal crimes.
Exactly. And if they're lawyers, they can face
consequences from their state bar associations.
Losing your law license in a bar court hearing
can sometimes be easier than getting convicted
in a criminal or civil trial. Their careers are
directly on the line. And we're seeing examples
of this play out. We really are. Just recently,
Kenneth Cheesebrough, he was one of the architects
of the fake elector scheme. He just lost his
law license in New York for unethical conduct.
His appeal was denied. John Eastman, another
lawyer central to the efforts to overturn the
2020 election, who pushed those theories and,
according to courts, lied in legal filings. Yeah.
He's disbarred in California. The ruling cited
multiple acts of moral turpitude, his appeal.
Also rejected. Disbarred. That's serious. Very
serious. And then you have someone like Mike
Lindell, the MyPillow founder. His relentless
pushing of 2020 election conspiracies has absolutely
wrecked his business and reputation. He just
lost another lawsuit this week. This one was
brought by Eric Kummer, formerly of Dominion
Voting Systems. Lindell had accused Kummer of
being a traitor, part of the conspiracy. What
was Lindell's defense? Basically, he argued that
if you genuinely believe something is true, even
if it's false, it can't be defamatory. The jury
didn't buy it. And the verdict? They awarded
Coomer $2 .3 million. Now, given all the other
judgments against Lindell, Coomer might never
actually see that money. But there's still real
value, our sources argue, in having a court and
a jury officially declare that these claims were,
in fact, Yeah, the public record matters. And
Lindell, Cheesebro, Eastman, they join others
like Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, who've also
faced disbarment or hefty judgments. So the big
question is, are the people currently doing the
president's bidding, are they looking at these
examples? Are they getting nervous about what
might happen to their careers, their lives down
the road? It certainly raises that question.
The potential consequences are becoming clearer
and clearer. OK, let's shift to our final major
topic, the Federal Reserve, an institution usually
seen as independent, but now facing intense scrutiny.
Our sources even float this really provocative
idea that, quote, Fed independence is already
dead. Yeah, it's a stark argument. The reason
goes something like this. Central banks don't
have some God given right to be independent.
There's nothing in the U .S. Constitution that
sets up the Fed to operate like a shadow government,
making policy outside the normal political process.
And President Trump's rhetoric towards the current
Fed chair, Jay Powell, has been intense. Oh,
absolutely relentless. Trump has called Powell
low IQ, a very stupid person, terrible, a major
loser, Mr. Too Late, and even a total and complete
moron. Just scathing personal attacks. And this
is a pattern, right? It does. Our sources point
out Trump has already... effectively purged the
top leadership at the military, the CIA, NSA,
FBI, the Justice Department. So they argue it
would actually be out of character if he didn't
go after the Fed, too. So why? Why is he so focused
on getting control over interest rates, over
the Fed's bond buying programs? Our sources suggest
it's basically an admission, perhaps an unconscious
one, that his own fiscal policies, particularly
that big, beautiful bill we talked about earlier,
the budget plan, are really straining the limits
of U .S. debt. Oh, so? Well, the CBO, as we mentioned,
projects that draft bill, adds another $3 .3
trillion to the deficit by 2034. And a huge chunk
of that comes from just making the Trump 1 .0
tax cuts permanent. OK, so the debt picture is
getting worse. Connect that to the Fed. Right.
So the bigger picture, according to these sources,
is that the US is caught in a runaway debt compound
trap. Think of compound interest, but for national
debt. And it's spiraling. Our budget deficit
is already high, 6 .7 % of GDP, even with the
economy supposedly at full employment. If we
hit a recession, that could easily jump into
diggle digits. And the cost of servicing that
debt? It's climbing fast. Interest payments were
1 .6 % of GDP back in 2018. This year, they're
expected to be 3 .2%. That makes the whole federal
budget incredibly sensitive to any changes in
interest rates. Wow, doubled in just a few years.
Exactly. And we're apparently about to cross
this threshold called the Niall Ferguson rule,
named after the historian, which basically says
great powers start to decline when the cost of
paying interest on their debt exceeds their military
spending. That sounds ominous. It does. And just
look at the overall debt level. Net public debt
was about 54 % of GDP back around the year 2000.
Now it's 121%. and heading towards 140 percent.
So what's driving this massive increase? Is it
just demographics, social programs? Those play
a role, certainly demographics, middle class
entitlements. But interestingly, our sources
also point a finger directly at the era of independent
central banks. They're saying independent central
banks contributed to the debt problem. That seems
counterintuitive. It does, doesn't it? But the
argument is this. Have these powerful, unelected
Overmighty technocrats, as one source calls them,
actually made things better. They argue that
these economists, these econometric presbyters,
have made serious and repeated mistakes in monetary
policy. They were supposedly enthralled to economic
models that had a built -in bias towards creating
more debt. How so? Well, they focused intensely
on keeping consumer price inflation low, which
was easy when China was flooding the world with
cheap manufactured goods. Right. prices down.
But while they were focused on consumer prices,
they let asset price inflation think stocks,
real estate run wild and they allowed huge debt
bubbles to form, which, of course, blew up spectacularly
in 2008. OK, I see the argument. And they point
to other central banks, too. Oh, yeah. The European
Central Bank gets singled out, described as being
like Vatican City answerable to no one. The claim
is the ECB actually caused Europe's lost decade
of growth by tightening monetary policy too much,
pushing half the eurozone into a debt crisis
it didn't need to have. Wow. And it gets worse.
The source claims the ECB used instruments of
financial torture basically, threatening financial
stability to effectively force out elected governments
in Greece and Italy. And they sent secret letters
demanding Spain and Italy change their constitutions
and labor laws. Secret letters dictating policy.
That's quite an accusation against an independent
central bank. It is. And they also argue the
Fed, the ECB, the Bank of England, they all made
a hash of COVID inflation. They kept pushing
quantitative easing, pumping money into the system
long after the economic recovery was clearly
underway, making inflation worse. So the argument
is, maybe this independence isn't all it's cracked
up to be. And historically, the Fed wasn't always
this independent. Not at all. Yeah. That's a
really key point from our sources. For most of
its 111 year history, the Fed wasn't truly independent
in the way we think of it now until 1937. They
didn't even have their own building. They met
in a borrowed room in the Treasury Department.
Seriously? Yeah. And one former chairman, Mariner
Echols, later complained that during his tenure,
he was basically just a cipher who did whatever
the Treasury told him to do. So when did the
president start really leaning on the Fed? President
Harry Truman is a prime example. He apparently
harassed Echols' successor relentlessly because
the guy wouldn't agree to just buy up all the
government debt needed to keep on yields low
after World War II. What happened? Truman basically
forced him into something called the Fed -Treasury
Accord. Our sources call it total subjugation.
The Fed essentially agreed to keep interest rates
artificially low. Then the effect of that. It
helped wipe out a lot of America's war debt,
but it did it through something called financial
repression and by letting inflation run into
double digits. Basically, savers and bondholders
got screwed. So Truman bullied the Fed chair
into submission. Pretty much. He eventually forced
the guy to resign. And Truman even accused him
publicly of serving Stalin's interests for wanting
higher interest rates. Wow. Using foreign adversaries.
Yeah. Our sources speculate Trump might find
appealing today. Maybe swapping Stalin for Xi
Jinping. Yeah. And it didn't stop with Truman.
Even Paul Volcker. The guy famous for taming
inflation in the 80s. That's the one. Even he
got bullied. Ronald Reagan's chief of staff apparently
called him up in 1984 and explicitly ordered
him not to raise interest rates. before the presidential
election. So this idea of presidential interference
isn't new at all. Not even close. Adorno Campanella,
an analyst at Unicredit, basically says Trump
is just trying to turn back the clock to how
things used to be, the historical norm. And it's
not just Republicans pushing on the Fed's autonomy.
No. Our sources point out Democrats have also
chipped away at it. Many on the left have been
pushing the Fed to take on mandates beyond just
inflation and employment. things like fighting
climate change or addressing social injustice.
That also arguably erodes its traditional independence.
OK, so legally, can the president just fire the
Fed chair? Powell's term runs until 2026. Technically,
the law says Fed board members can only be removed
for cause during their 14 -year terms, but...
Trump has fired lots of officials with similar
protections before. Exactly. Our sources point
out he's removed dozens of top people from agencies
where the law supposedly protected them. So could
he fire Powell before May 2026? Maybe. He can
try to invent some fictitious emergency as justification.
Or find other ways to sideline him. Right. He
could try to emasculate Powell by appointing
a loyalist as a shadow chairman, someone waiting
in the wings, constantly pushing for rate cuts,
undermining Powell's authority. Apparently, a
team of Trump loyalists even drafted a secret
10 page memo before the election outlining ways
to break any resistance within the Fed. A secret
plan. OK, this raises the crucial question. If
Trump does manage to capture the Fed, bring it
under his control. Will it actually give him
the economic results he wants? That's the million
dollar or maybe trillion dollar question. There
was a moment back in April when Trump was openly
talking about firing Powell. Yeah. What happened?
The bond market reacted badly. The bond vigilantes,
as they're called, big investors who punish governments,
they see as fiscally irresponsible by selling
off their bonds. They pushed back? They did.
Long -term interest rates shot up the rates that
influence mortgages and corporate borrowing costs.
It was called Trump's trust moment. Like lose
trust in the UK whose unfunded tax cuts. tanked
the British bond market. Exactly like that. It
was a reminder that there's this global deep
state of financial markets, as one source put
it, that can actually be more powerful than even
a U .S. president. Global capital, basically
Trump Trump himself. But rates have calmed down
since then. They have settled a bit. But the
question our sources ask is, have investors just
been lulled into complacency or is this just
the calm before the next storm? What could trigger
another storm? Well, think about the tariffs
Trump is proposing. The price increases from
those won't hit immediately. There's a lag. Importers
built up big inventories before the tariffs took
effect. It takes weeks for those higher priced
goods to actually reach consumers. The tariff
fog, as the source calls it. Yeah. The Fed is
probably right to wait to hold off on cutting
rates until they can see clearly through that
fog. And they also need to figure out the economic
impact, potentially stagflationary, meaning high
inflation and slow growth of things like mass
deportations. So forcing the Fed to cut rates
now could be dangerous. Very dangerous, according
to these sources. If Trump forces the Fed into,
quote, Turkish style monetary expansion, meaning
politically driven easing that ignores economic
fundamentals, you could see a massive global
exodus from U .S. debt markets. Foreign investors
dumping U .S. bonds. Exactly. Trump's ultimate
plan seems to be compelling the Fed to just buy
up U .S. debt to keep interest rates artificially
low, regardless of inflation or the autonomy.
And the end game of that. Our sources warn that
path leads straight to a collapse of the dollar
and the path to perdition. They bring up the
Rudy Dorn Bush rule, named after another famous
economist. What's the rule? It says, crises take
longer to arrive than you can possibly imagine,
but when they do come, they happen faster than
you can possibly imagine. Chilling thought. Wow.
What a journey we've taken through all these
interconnected issues. We've really seen how
one single budget bill can ripple through Senate
politics, blow up the national debt, and then
directly impact the independence or lack thereof
of the Federal Reserve. And all of that is happening
while these legal strategies are evolving, blurring
those lines between personal gain, political
power, and institutional norms. We really hope
this deep dive gave you some of those aha moments
and maybe a clearer, more nuanced view of these
really pivotal events shaping our world. Absolutely.
And as you think about everything we've discussed.
Maybe mull over this question. We've seen the
history, right? Presidents have influenced the
Fed before. We see these legal pressure tactics
becoming more assertive. So if these trends collide,
more political control over the Fed combined
with aggressive legal maneuvering, how might
that fundamentally redefine the balance of power,
not just in American government, but in the global
economy in the years ahead? Definitely something
to think about. Thank you so much for joining
us for this deep dive. Stay curious. and keep
seeking those deeper insights.