What is even happening with the politics of this economy?!

Make Me Smart

Marketplace

News, Business

4.6 • 5.4K Ratings

🗓️ 6 March 2025

⏱️ 13 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On today’s episode, we’re discussing a pair of recent rulings about the Trump administration’s efforts to cut foreign aid and fire federal workers, leaving us with a “Through the Looking-Glass” moment, where the nonsensical is reality. Plus, we’ll explain some ways to catch a breath in the midst of uncertain economic times. And, we’ll smile at a math problem solved through the power of anime fans.

Here’s everything we talked about today:

“Supreme Court Rejects Trump’s Bid to Freeze Foreign Aid” from The New York Times
“How to handle the stress of tariff escalation and stock market jitters” from The Washington Post
“‘He Finally Shot the Hostage’: Trump’s Trade War Is a Brutal Reality Check” from Politico
“OPM retroactively edits probationary firing guidance to note it did not order probationary firings” from Government Executive
“How Anime Fans Stumbled upon a Mathematical Proof” from Scientific American
“Steve Carell tells students affected by wildfires that prom tickets are paid for” from The Washington Post

Got a question or comment for the hosts? Email [email protected] or leave us a voicemail at 508-U-B-SMART.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	All right.
0:04.3	Since you don't have a smile, I'm going to give you one, Kai.
0:07.8	Why don't you just do two?
0:09.3	Why don't you just do two?
0:12.0	Just do two.
0:13.1	Let's go.
0:14.2	I'd be ready.
0:15.2	Actually, it's probably not true.
0:16.1	Yes, I am.
0:16.7	I'm definitely ready.
0:18.7	I am definitely ready.
0:22.6	I'm ready for Friday. Hey, everybody, I'm Kai ready. I am definitely ready. I'm ready to Friday.
0:23.9	Hey everybody, I'm Kyle.
0:24.8	I'm Kyle Rizzol.
0:25.2	Welcome back to Make Me Smart.
0:26.4	Where we make today makes sense.
0:27.8	Five March today, Wednesday.
0:31.8	Which is how all of us write it out.
0:35.6	Well, I mean, you know, right? It's not Wednesday, it's Wednesday. Right? Exactly.
0:41.5	That's what I'm saying. All right. I'm Kimberly Adams. Thank you everyone for joining us. Today we are going to
0:47.9	dig into some news and some smiles later on. So, Kai, what caught your attention in the maelstrom? So obviously, maelstrom, and we
0:56.3	can talk about speech, we can talk about whatever we want. I was struck this morning by the Supreme
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Marketplace, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Marketplace and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.