00:00President Trump says he is not thinking at all about Americans financial well-being when it
00:04comes to the war in Iran and he says he meant it this weekend he called that a perfect statement
00:11but new polling shows that Americans don't really feel his work on the economy is perfect
00:17with us now CNN chief data analyst Harriet and so not perfect at all when they compare their
00:24when you compare their feelings about what Trump will do to the economy a few years ago to now
00:29yeah you know the promise of a Trump presidency in the minds of the American people have turned
00:35into a reality and a reality that for them is a nightmare because just take a look here okay
00:40Trump will or is making you financially worse off better off back in October of 2024 the reason why
00:46he won a second term 44 percent said better off outrunning the worse off at 38 percent but look
00:52at these numbers down through the floor on the better off now just 14 percent just 14 percent
00:58I see Johnny off on the side shaking he said Trump making them financially better off meanwhile the
01:03worse off up like a rocket the clear majority now 57 percent of Americans now say that Trump is making
01:10them financially worse off you know back in 1980 Ronald Reagan asked are you better off than you were four
01:16years ago as Americans look back now compared to a year and a half ago their minds on Donald Trump
01:20are definitely saying he's made them worse off I mean look at that drop a 30 point drop in a
01:25couple
01:25of years and if you think 14 percent is low yeah if you think 14 percent is how low can
01:31you go well
01:32how about this okay Trump will or is making you financially worse off better off among independents
01:38among independents look at this the better off now is just eight it's just eight when you can count on
01:45your hands you know the number is low just eight percent say that Trump is making them financially
01:50better off among independents way way down from the 40 percent who said that back in October of 2024
01:56when the better off was out running the worse off at 38 percent look at that that 38 percent again
02:01up like a rocket I feel like I'm at NASA look at this 64 percent of independents now say that
02:07Trump is
02:07making them financially worse off these are numbers we've seen among independents over and over and
02:12over again they have turned against Trump and now about two-thirds I mean these independent numbers
02:16are staggering I mean eight percent is not zero no but it's closer to zero than it is to 50
02:20that's
02:20exactly right when you when you when you're close when you're close to the zero percent that you are
02:24to 50 percent as a politician you know your numbers are all right independence obviously a key swing group
02:29what about some of the groups that were key or have been in the past to Donald Trump's electoral
02:33success yeah normally you want to be winning over independence because the way independents go
02:37is the way the nation goes but you definitely want to be holding on to your base and of course
02:41one key
02:41part of Donald Trump's base is non-college whites whites without a college degree and even they are
02:46flipping on the president united states Trump is or making will make you financially worse off better off
02:51back in October of 2024 look at that 54 percent better off well outpacing worse off at 30 percent
02:57now we're looking at basically the infrastructure just 15 percent say better off among white voters
03:02without a college degree Trump is making them financially better off and now even there the majority
03:06of non-college whites a key part of Donald Trump's base are saying he's making them financially worse
03:11off these are numbers that would make me if i were republican running in the midterm elections be quite
03:16quite worried these numbers are sure telling a story the question is you know it's 1600 pennsylvania
03:20avenue are they reading it according to the consumer price index data u.s inflation rose to 3.8 percent
03:29in
03:29april that's the highest rate of inflation in almost three years in part due to the iran war
03:34americans are feeling the economic pain meanwhile the stock market has kept going up what should we
03:42make of all this joining me now is jason firman he's a professor at harvard's kennedy school and the
03:48former chair of the council on economic advisors under president obama jason thanks for coming so first
03:54explain to us what how how significant is the rise in inflation and let's take them you know a kind
04:02of
04:03a best case scenario which is the iran war is resolved in say let's say six weeks um does it
04:11persist or does
04:12it rapidly come down yeah so farid you have to understand there's two big things going on in the
04:19economy right now one of them is the iran war the second is the enormous demand from the ai build
04:27out
04:28both of those are adding to inflation one of them is helping the economy one of them is hurting the
04:34economy so they're canceling out to a draw when it comes to something like the unemployment rate
04:39when you're thinking about inflation going forward i think the iran war part of it could probably be
04:46transitory but i say probably because it depends on the degree to which it gets built into people's
04:51expectations the ai build out and the extra demand from that um actually might have more of a permanent
04:59component to it so when you look at the micro data in the u.s economy earnings uh and not
05:08just of ai
05:09companies but earnings in general fairly strong uh the stock market keeps going up um unemployment rates
05:16still very very uh low i guess it's not mike i'm i'm gonna mix some some of the data points
05:22seem to be very positive and then you look at inflation you look at consumer sentiment it's very
05:29bad um you know what is the what is the picture of the economy i saw somebody say the u
05:35.s economy is
05:36weak in every way except there it is one mass on artificial intelligence which is keeping it going
05:44yeah i think that's about right a really disproportionate share of our economic growth
05:49over the last year has come from that one sector from building data centers from building the power
05:55um that they need and you can look at different parts of financial markets and they tell you about
06:00different parts of the economy so the stock market tells you what you expect corporate earnings to be
06:06but it also tells you about risk inflation and it's all bundled together and on balance the higher
06:12expected earnings are dominating everything else that's why it's done well but then look over at
06:17the bond market that doesn't care about corporate earnings all it really cares about is risk expected
06:23inflation those types of things it's a really pure measure of that um and and interest rates are
06:30incredibly high they rose a lot over the last week the 30 year is the highest in nearly um two
06:36decades
06:36and you're going to start to see that by the way um in mortgage rates so it's going to be
06:40really
06:41concrete and tangible for american families so in the 1970s we had a middle east war we had energy
06:49prices go up by a lot more but energy prices tripled after the oil crisis and we had a president
06:56richard
06:57nixon who bullied the fed chairman to lower interest rates and that time the fed chairman arthur burns
07:05agreed agreed to be bullied and the result was we got a combination of slow growth and high inflation
07:12which people call stagflation what's the danger of something like that happening this time around
07:20look i think it's a danger it's one i'm going to be watching closely and certainly commenting on and
07:27warning if i see it materialize but right now i'm cautiously optimistic um the incoming chair um kevin
07:34warsh i didn't love everything he said to get the job but he's a serious person he's going to care
07:40about
07:40his standing in history i don't think he's going to want to badly mess things up and the other thing
07:46to understand is interest rates are set by a committee of 12 people it's a majority vote the chair is
07:52one out
07:53of 12 votes and right now the committee is thinking in a very independent way the last meeting four
07:59different members dissented and so i don't think the chair can walk in there and say you know here's
08:05what donald trump wants here's what we're going to do he's going to have to have analytically
08:10persuasive arguments or the committee's just going to say you know no um we're going to vote on
08:16something else so i think there's some real checks and balances there i feel okay about it
08:21um but i don't feel a hundred percent so i'll be watching carefully uh quickly we don't have a lot
08:27of time but kevin warsh has strike me most of his life as an inflation hawk when you were in
08:33the in
08:33the white house he was assailing you guys uh he was saying there was too much quantitative easing the
08:38fed was being you know essentially too dovish um it feels like he's somehow convinced trump he's
08:46he's dovish on inflation uh do you share my view that they you know underneath there's a there's
08:54somebody who's generally speaking wanted rates higher for the last 20 years
09:00yeah i think that's right um and look donald trump i think was nervous about this he probably would
09:06have named him a year ago if he thought he would do his bidding but you know i think what
09:11he was going
09:12through his head is this is a credible person financial markets respect him but i'm nervous
09:16that he's too independent that he's not going to do what i want and that's why he dithered tried
09:21other options thought about other things and eventually came back to kevin warsh so i don't
09:26think he was exactly what donald trump wants i think it's possible he'll be closer to something
09:31that the rest of us want but again we'll have to wait and see and you know the other thing
09:37about kevin
09:37warsh is he's been a real critic of the fed he's never said exactly what he's going to do differently
09:42and so trying to understand what his affirmative vision is and how he fleshes that out is still a
09:48little bit unclear and i'll be watching all of that as we go forward jason firman thank you that was
09:55so
09:55helpful
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