Trump’s Getting His Economy. Yikes.

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News, Daily News, News Commentary, Politics

4.6 • 2.3K Ratings

🗓️ 18 September 2025

⏱️ 28 minutes

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Summary

Donald Trump has been calling for the Fed to cut rates to bolster the economy, and yesterday, they announced they would. The bad news is that’s because the economy is going to need a lot more bolstering. Guest: Justin Wolfers, economist and professor at the University of Michigan Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen. Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey Sainsbury's. Any way you can save me a few quid on my weekly shop?
0:03.6	Well, Jane, try your nectar prices. Every week in your nectar app, you can unlock up to 10
0:08.8	personalised discounts on things you love at Sainsbury's. A, Jainsbury's, if you will.
0:14.3	Sounds like my kind of place. Get personalized discounts with your nectar prices. That's good
0:19.1	food for all of us. Jamespris.
0:21.3	I mean Sainsbury.
0:22.8	18 plus nectar app required.
0:24.4	Unlock up to 10 your nectar prices weekly,
0:26.4	available in supermarkets online and in locals with smart shop.
0:29.2	TNCs apply.
0:36.7	There are a couple of ways to look at what happened when the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors met in Washington this week.
0:44.2	One story goes like this. It was a clash of the Titans. For months, President Trump has been pressuring Fed Chair Jerome Powell to slash interest rates, which he said would
0:56.0	supercharge the economy. In the process, the president has threatened to fire Powell, along with
1:02.5	another Fed governor, he dislikes. Then, just hours before this week's meeting, Congress confirmed
1:09.3	a new governor, a White House economist.
1:12.7	Presumably, this guy showed up to make the president's case in person.
1:17.4	This all sounds tense, right?
1:20.7	But economist Justin Wolfer's, he sees this meeting differently.
1:25.4	It was relentlessly dull, uninteresting.
1:28.3	There's not much to talk about.
1:30.3	Everyone thought there'd be a 25 basis point cut.
1:35.3	They cut by that.
	...

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