What is even happening with the politics of this economy?!
Make Me Smart
Marketplace
4.6 • 5.5K Ratings
🗓️ 6 March 2025
⏱️ 13 minutes
🧾️ 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 makemesmart@marketplace.org or leave us a voicemail at 508-U-B-SMART.
Transcript
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| 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 |
... |
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