Trump’s Economic Policies Face Growing Scrutiny as Challenges Mount

Donald Trump and Treasury Secretary Bessent 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 Bessent 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. 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 and Treasury Secretary Bessent who after he left the fund he was with to go on his own really didn't impress people. I think it was 90 percent 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 dollars. 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 market. So you take a look right over here and you say, okay, well, what's diesel? How's the economy going as we headed to this? We can really bad. The answer is really freaking bad. US 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. But Donald Trump says the following. He says, look, here's the thing. Not only if you vote Republican, we're going to give you $5,000 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. Really, that's coming from the president of the United. It's really sick and disturbing language. And what it also tells you is that this was his whole strategy all along 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, okay, 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. 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 Wolff first, Chief Economist at the Midest Touch Network. 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 this, this is the intro they give you. But seriously, I think this is so telling you and I have been covering Treasury Secretary Bessons kind of all bluff being exposed quickly. And here we are, a week where interest rates were hyped, a week where things are looking very grim and 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, Dr. Zimbabwe. No offense to professional boxes either. And maybe no offense to professional wrestlers who provide wonderful entertainment, but at least are honest that it's not true. There'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 had not seen prior to the Trump era. Something just 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. There's 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 it? 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. So 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 older 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 carried 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. It does, in fact, happen all the time, but usually there's a claim that it's got something to do with an agenda. That's, you know, if you want to talk about poor kids in Africa, you bring in Bono. What's going on here, though, is Bessent isn't announcing anything related to Jake Paul. Bessent, who should have his hands full running an economy with no shortage of problems. It's 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 Bessent has been all blistered. This is the theme 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 tea, whatever the heck that means. And he's putting on this front. It doesn't really seem like who he is. It 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. And it's been an evolution in a way different than some of the other psychopaths. What I mean by that is a lot of these people came in as psychos, in my view, the RFKs, the headsets, and maybe they became more. But there was at least a period of time where people looked at Bessent and perhaps didn't look into his background, but looked at him and some of the hype that people wrote decent 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, that's actually Lutnik, and that's this, you know, okay, he's the rational guy in the room. 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 there's for real, and they work it out in their childhood and not having to work about it, you know, in their 60s. I know, it's a midlife, whatever it's a, it's clearly a personality crisis as he's contending with what's obvious fear because he's 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. 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 am 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, peasant, he's speaking on our behalf. When he's speaking, he's using the credibility of the U.S. 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's currently, you know, not 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. And the boss here is Donald Trump. But I want to go 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 Bessent be clowning himself, realize he's be clowning his office, which is working for us and where the ones who are meant to pull him in the 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. Justin Wells 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, I'm curiously, 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 sends you there so we can see it in the comments. And Justin will first chief economist, might as touch, and founder of Platypus economics. Thanks, Justin. Thanks, bye. 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.