By coinnews 
00:00 Speaker A
History may be somewhat repeating itself with President Trump’s attacks on Fed Chair Jerome Powell. Trump’s criticisms the past few weeks have echoed similar comments he made back in 2019. Here at those similarities and what’s different this time around, we’ve got our Washington correspondent, Ben Wershko. Ben, great to have you. Tell us what you’re monitoring in terms of whether or not we’ve seen this movie before.
00:20 Ben Wershko
For sure. Yeah, we have seen this movie on on a certain level before. There’s a bit of a wash rinse repeat cycle here. There, I looked back at what I wrote this morning about a sequence of events in 2019 that I think is illustrative here. Step one was the Trump administration announced new tariff plans. That time it was on China specifically. Step two was Jerome Powell gives a speech. That time it was in Jackson Hole, Wyoming in August of 2019, that suggested that trade uncertainty could be a factor in in in delaying in delaying rate cuts. Step three was Trump responding immediately in the days that followed with a wave of insults. That that that that three-step process you could sort of is almost exactly what happened in the last week. You just have to replace Jackson Hole with with Trump’s speech last week at the Economic Club, or Powell’s speech, excuse me, at the Economic Club of Chicago. As for how it played out in the months that followed, it was a lot of of kind of more of the same of insults from Trump, but a declined declining to test it. Um, as for what’s different this time around, a few I a few I’d point out. One is that the economy is in a very different place than it was in 2019. Powell in 2019 described the economy as in a, quote, favorable place. His speech last week, he described it as in a as in a challenging place. And that that that that there’s a lot of measures that show that. And so that sort of changes the political calculation for Trump perhaps a little bit here. The second one, though, is that Trump has really moved aggressively to perhaps back up his insults with actions this time around. There’s a case before the Supreme Court about firing independent, um, of independent heads of agencies in the government that could apply to Powell. We have to wait for that decision that’s expected sometime this summer, whether that applies to Powell, but but it’s a different situation. But so far at least, it’s playing out that this movie is definitely repeating for certain.
03:04 Speaker A
Yeah, certainly a big question mark for financial markets that we’ll continue to unpack. Ben, always great to have your insights. Thank you so much. Appreciate it.
03:12 Ben Wershko
Thanks.