Prof G Markets
00:12:47 · Catherine Rampell
[00:12:47] S4: I don't think he has... He's capable of that level of introspection or strategic thinking. Okay. But he may lose interest in a lot of these things in the same way that if you saw his press briefing today, it was like showing off the ballroom. That was his response to this, again, generational route for his party that he himself caused. He was like, let's go look at this beam over here. And he answered a couple of questions about the election, but then disavowed any sort of responsibility for it and and said, oh, it was maybe related to that Iran thing, now calling it a thing. A war in which 23 service members that we're aware of have passed away is pretty callous, but it also reveals the fact that he's... This is just not top of mind for him. He's never really been that interested in He's much more interested in these vanity projects. So will he actually, like, undo the damage, or will he just, get distracted and do something else? I think the latter is more likely. And the war aside on some of these other kinds of questions like tariffs, Congress does have a lot of power here. If you look at the constitution, which which one should in the current environment or always, the constitution says that it is Congress that controls power of the purse and that is supposed to control trade among the nations. So Congress has really abdicated some responsibility or delegated away some of these authorities over the years, and they can clearly take those back and may have more willingness to take those back. I think actually on on the tariffs, what's been interesting is that even in the kind of Rust Belt states, the Midwest, places where Democrats used to run on a very protectionist message. They are... They did not this cycle. Even people like Sherrod Brown were criticizing the Trump tariff agenda. So you may well see that on things like that, which besides raising costs, downstream costs for consumers, have also been really, really disruptive to companies and to markets. You may see some greater intervention or, like, reclaiming of those constitutional responsibilities in a way that both Hems and Trump... At least I hope maybe this is wish casting, but I I hope this is what happens. You know, Hems and Trump and also creates a lot less uncertainty and erratic policy making for markets.
00:15:21 · Catherine Rampell, Ed Elson
So I think that's part of the the market reaction here that we're seeing. [00:15:26] S3: Yeah. The markets have reacted positively. I guess that is... There's... We're sort of reducing the amount of risk now that we have a little bit of pushback. I mean, just in terms of what the Democrats should do at this point, it seems like one of the questions has been around prosecuting corruption and crime or alleged crime, apparent crime by the president, by his associates. What do you think they're going to do? Do you think they're going to go after this stuff? Do you think they are going to prosecute him? Are they gonna hand him subpoenas? What is the next step for the Democrats?
00:16:13 · Catherine Rampell
[00:16:13] S4: Well, they do have subpoena power, and the places where I think they are more likely to be successful with it are with the people outside of the government, outside of the executive branch, who have been somehow collaborating with the regime, whether reluctantly or gleefully. So you mentioned companies that have been cooperative, shall we say, with him. There are the companies that donated... I'm I'm using scare quotes if you can't see this, donated to the ballroom, in some cases for apparent favor trading. We don't know in in some cases, but in in some cases, it certainly looks that way. You have lots of other, at best, unseemly, at worst, potentially criminal types of arrangements, no bid contracts, other kinds of contracts, cooperation with the immigration agenda, equity stakes being taken in companies. All of that, I think, is going to be on the table for for Congress, a Democratic majority Congress and Senate to look into. There's lots to dig into. Elon Musk, obviously, a very prime target for them as well. I think the challenge for Democrats as they pursue some of these things is to not look like this is score settling, that this is the kind of lawfare that Trump has waged upon his own enemies. This isn't about, like, oh, these guys didn't vote for us, and therefore, we're gonna subpoena them up the wazoo and and make them spend a lot of money on lawyers and such. They have to make clear that this is about actual lawbreaking, and particularly, if they're smart, law breaking that actually hurts the general public. So it's not just that, like, these are companies that, I don't know, that got rich somehow, and that's... That was all that was at stake. And maybe there was insider trading or I don't know. Some things where it's a little bit abstract to figure out who the victims are. But to focus on, like, with Elon Musk, let's say, what happened with Starlink. And was... You know, were US interests being compromised? Or Jamie Raskin, is a congressman from Maryland... Democratic congressman from Maryland, sent a letter recently to the oil companies saying, basically, don't you dare cooperate with Donald Trump's imperative, whatever, direction to help import oil from Russia because that's still sanctioned. That would still be against the law. We don't care what the executive orders in the deal with Putin say.
00:18:49 · Catherine Rampell, Ed Elson
So I think that there are particular cases where it'll be more fruitful to look at potential law breaking where you can actually show that, like, US national security interests or US economic interests, you know, regular people's economic interests, financial concerns, were potentially sacrificed in order for these companies to somehow enrich themselves. [00:19:13] S3: It's gonna be such a a thorny issue because at the same time, I would hate for them to be overly cautious about prosecuting actual crime out of fear of being seen as pursuing some form of law... Of lawfare. And, mean, even that is a form of lawfare, not not prosecuting the law for political reasons, essentially, because you're scared that you're gonna be seen as doing something political. I mean, it's gonna be it's gonna be fascinating to watch. I I'm... It'll be very interesting to see what they actually pursue.
00:19:13 · Ed Elson, Catherine Rampell
[00:19:13] S3: It's gonna be such a a thorny issue because at the same time, I would hate for them to be overly cautious about prosecuting actual crime out of fear of being seen as pursuing some form of law... Of lawfare. And, mean, even that is a form of lawfare, not not prosecuting the law for political reasons, essentially, because you're scared that you're gonna be seen as doing something political. I mean, it's gonna be it's gonna be fascinating to watch. I I'm... It'll be very interesting to see what they actually pursue. [00:19:45] S4: I was watching how different networks were covering the results today, and so I was watching Fox News earlier, and Trey Gowdy, who... If his name sounds familiar, he was like representative Trey, middle name Benghazi, Gowdy. He was complaining about how he anticipated that Democrats were going to use their gavels and their subpoena power to just, like, punish... Put... Know, do these... Mete out these political punishments to punish anybody who believed in the Trump agenda as opposed to looking at actual lawbreaking or pretend... You know, suspected lawbreaking. And so Republicans are already crafting that narrative around it even when they themselves, you might argue, were, again, looking at Benghazi, for example, and and made a dog and pony show out of all of that. But it will be challenging for Democrats to to show that they're, like, focused on the American people and their voters, the people who put them there, and not just, like, settling scores.
00:19:45 · Catherine Rampell, Ed Elson
[00:19:45] S4: I was watching how different networks were covering the results today, and so I was watching Fox News earlier, and Trey Gowdy, who... If his name sounds familiar, he was like representative Trey, middle name Benghazi, Gowdy. He was complaining about how he anticipated that Democrats were going to use their gavels and their subpoena power to just, like, punish... Put... Know, do these... Mete out these political punishments to punish anybody who believed in the Trump agenda as opposed to looking at actual lawbreaking or pretend... You know, suspected lawbreaking. And so Republicans are already crafting that narrative around it even when they themselves, you might argue, were, again, looking at Benghazi, for example, and and made a dog and pony show out of all of that. But it will be challenging for Democrats to to show that they're, like, focused on the American people and their voters, the people who put them there, and not just, like, settling scores. [00:20:46] S3: Well, I hope they just provide evidence. And once we see evidence, then then we'll know. Were crimes committed? Just to wrap up, is this the end of MAGA in your view? Is this the end of Trump? Like, this is the most, I think, the most resounding message saying we've had enough of this. It's been, you know, ten, eleven years of of of Trump being around and the MAGA movement being alive and well. Do you think this is it?