On today’s episode of Wealth!, Yahoo Finance Host Brad Smith breaks down Former President Donald Trump’s criminal conviction in his New York hush money trial. Yahoo Finance Legal Reporter Alexis Keenan lays out a timeline of important dates as Trump continues his 2024 presidential campaign, from his appeal deadline to sentencing. Senior Columnist Rick Newman reacts to the former president’s press conference from Trump Tower and fact-checks his claims about the trial.
Pangaea Policy Founder Terry Haines believes that Trump is going to take “more drastic action to try to unify the party,” following his conviction, which could win over independent voters. The Washington Note publisher and Editor Steve Clemons adds that the former president will campaign on his conviction in “a kind of pugnacious nationalism” that will appeal to voters frustrated with the current system of government.
Jeep has unveiled the Wagoneer, its first fully electric SUV for the North American market. Jeep CEO Antonio Filosa joins Yahoo Finance’s Pras Subramanian to discuss how the Wagoneer fits into the company’s overall goals: “This is one element of our complete strategy. What is our strategy? We call it freedom of choice. Today in the market exists seven powertrain systems…nYou take out the fuel cell, all the other six will be part of our strategy. That means that we will be provided in our range.”
We are expecting former President Donald Trump to start speaking here in New York at Trump Tower at any minute.
On Thursday night, Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts related to falsifying business records in his hush money criminal trial.
Trump is the first former US president in history to be convicted of a felony.
We’ve got team coverage.
I’m joined here in studio by Yahoo Finances, Shana Smith and Rick Newman, as well as Alexis Keenan who got much more on the legal elements of this.
We’ve been discussing this at length throughout the morning, Rick, I’ll turn to you here.
First one of the huge things that everyone is wondering, what could he possibly say in this type of press conference.
And at this juncture, I think we know exactly what he’s gonna say.
Uh, I’m a, I’m a political martyr.
It’s the Biden witch hunt out to get me, um, pay attention to what he doesn’t say.
Uh, what I, what I think we’re not going to hear from Trump is, uh, you know, he’s gonna have a prime time audience here.
Uh, probably not going to hear him say, hey, here’s my plan to improve the lives of Americans in 2025 and 2026.
I know you’re struggling with whatever high food prices, high gas prices.
Here’s my plan, here’s how I’m going to do it.
I mean, we’re just going to hear more about the politics of grievance and probably more than ever before.
That’s going to be the whole point of Trump’s 2024 presidential election.
I’m persecuted.
If you feel persecuted, you should support me and please send me all your money and Sean as we’ve been discussing it throughout the morning too to the extent that there are ramifications for the markets for the economy and this being an election year to what extent that would actually show up today.
Yeah, and, and that’s the key question, right?
Just in terms of our audience trying to figure out how exactly this could potentially impact your portfolio from all of the guests that we have asked this morning from political strategists to we even asked our very own Rick Newman to market strategists here.
Many of their uh the consensus was that, hey, it actually doesn’t really matter here for the markets, at least in the short term.
Yes, maybe it could add to some volatility.
But Ed Yardeni making the case just a few minutes ago here on Yahoo finance, that investors should actually be using any sort of volatility, especially Pullbacks there, obviously Pullbacks to the downside as a buying opportunity.
He doesn’t really see this having a massive impact for your portfolio.
Obviously, as we get closer to the election, moving beyond some of the chaos that could potentially ensue here in terms of the headlines.
So that will be coming out in the coming weeks as we turn that focus to policies and what exactly that they are going to look like under President Trump or under current president Joe Biden.
That of course is then when we could really see winners and losers versus uh depending on who is in the White House.
But over the next several weeks, I think the consensus is that, hey, it actually doesn’t matter too much here for the markets, markets have shrugged, have shrugged this off so far.
We’re not too far from the flat line and I think the big driver is going to be those inflation prints.
It’s going to be the fed rather than what is happening on the political front right now.
We were just a live shot of the interior of Trump tower.
And of course, it brings back some of those reminiscent memories of summer 2016 vastly different though Alexis Keenan.
And there, we’re seeing the former president Donald Trump who looks like he’s making his way to a lectern stopping posing for photos here and we believe we’re going to have those comments starting in a moment.
Here.
Let’s go to the former President Donald Trump at Trump Tower a case where if they can do this to me, they can do this to anyone.
When you look at our country, what’s happening where millions and millions of people are flowing in from all parts of the world, not just South America from Africa, from Asia, from the Middle East.
And they’re coming in from jails and prisons and they’re coming in from mental institutions and insane asylums.
They’re coming in from all over the world into our country.
And we have a president and a group of fascists that don’t want to do anything about it because they could right now today he could stop it, but he’s not there destroying our country.
Our country is in very bad shape and they’re very much against me saying these things, uh they wanna raise your taxes by four times.
They want to stop you from having cars with their ridiculous mandates that make it impossible for you to get a car, for a car.
Make it very possible for China to build all of our cars.
It’s a very serious problem that we have.
We just went through one of many experiences where we had a conflicted judge highly conflicted.
There’s never been a more conflicted judge now I’m under a gag order which nobody’s ever been under no presidential candidates ever been under a gag order before I’m under a gag order.
Nasty gag order where I’ve had to pay thousands of dollars in penalties and fines and was threatened with jail.
Think of it, I’m the leading candidate, I’m leading Biden by a lot and I’m leading the Republicans to the point where that’s over.
So I’m the leading person for president and I am under a gag order by a man that can’t put two sentences together given by a court and they are in total conjunction with the White House and the DOJ.
Just so you understand, this is all done by Biden and his people.
Maybe his people.
More importantly, I don’t know if Biden knows too much about it cause I don’t know if he knows about anything, but he’s nevertheless the president.
So we have to use his name and this is done by Washington and nobody’s ever seen anything like it.
Nobody, nobody wants to write about it and I’m not allowed to talk about it if I do.
We won’t talk about it, but you’re allowed to talk about it.
I hope you do because there’s never been anybody so conflicted as this, as far as the trial itself, it was very unfair.
We weren’t allowed to, allowed to use our election expert under any circumstances.
Uh You saw what happened to some of the witnesses that were on our side.
They were literally crucified by this man who looks like an angel, but he’s really a devil.
Now, unless you saw him in action and you saw that with a certain witness that went through hell.
And when we wanted to do things, he wouldn’t let him, he wouldn’t let us do those things.
But when the government wanted something, they got everything, they got everything they wanted.
It’s a rigged, it was a rigged trial.
We wanted a venue change where we could have a fair trial.
It wasn’t conflicted and obviously he didn’t do that.
Uh, there’s nobody’s ever seen anything like it.
We had ad a who is a failed d A crime is rampant in New York.
Crime is rampant in New York yesterday in mcdonald’s.
You had a man hitting him up with, with, uh, machetes, a machete.
Whoever can imagine even a machete being wielded in a store in a place where they’re eating and he’s going rampant and brag is down watching a trial on what they call, uh, crimes, crimes.
It sounds very bad, you know, it’s only a misdemeanor.
But to me it sounds so bad when they say falsifying business.
I’m falsifying, you know what falsifying business records is in the first degree.
They say falsifying business records sounds so good.
I paid a lawyer a legal expense and a bookkeeper without any knowledge from me correctly marked it down in the books.
A very professional woman, highly respected, she testified marked it down in the books as a legal expense.
So a legal expense paid a lawyer is a legal expense in the books.
It’s not uh, sheet rock construction or any other thing.
This is what the falsification of business records were.
The theory is you never testify because as soon as you test for anybody, if it were George Washington don’t testify because they’ll get you on something that you said slightly wrong and then they sue you for perjury.
But the judge allowed them to go into everything that I was ever involved in.
Not this case, everything that I was ever involved in which is a first, in other words, you could go into every single thing that I ever did.
And all you wanted to do is testify simply on this case?
Because I would have loved to have testified to this day.
I would have liked to have testified.
But you would have been, you would have said something out of whack like it was a beautiful sunny day and it was actually raining out.
And I very much appreciate the big crowd of people outside.
So the whole thing is legal expense was marked down as legal expense.
Think of it.
This is my, this is the crime that I committed that I’m supposed to go to jail for 100 and 87 years for when you have violent crime all over the city at levels that nobody’s ever seen before where you have businesses leaving and businesses are leaving because of this because heads of businesses say, man, we don’t wanna get involved with that.
I could go through the books of any business person in the city and I could find things that in theory, I guess let’s indict him, let’s destroy his life.
But I’m out there and I don’t mind being out there because I’m doing something for this country and I’m doing something for our constitution.
And this can’t be allowed to happen to other presidents.
It should never be allowed to happen in the future.
This is bigger than my presidency and the people understand it because I just see a poll just came out the Daily Mail.
That was the first one came out.
It was done last night right after the verdict where I’m up six points, six points from what we already were.
Now, maybe other polls come out and it says something differently, but a lot of people have predicted it because the public understands and they understand what’s, what’s going on.
He should have allowed, allowed us to have an election expert.
We had the best expert, most respected expert, head of the Federal elections Commission.
He was all set to testify.
He was waiting for two days and when it was his turn, Greg’s people protested and the judge knocked him out said you can’t testify.
He actually said you can’t testify for anything having to do with the trial.
You can say what the federal elections is.
Well, that doesn’t help everybody knows that, but you can’t testify.
So essentially he wasn’t able to testify, other people weren’t able to testify.
But with these people, they were able to use people salacious by the way and nothing ever happened.
There was no anything, nothing ever happened and they know it, but they were sala, as salacious as they could be and it had nothing to do with the case but it had to do with politics.
It was dropped by every agency, every governmental board, it was dropped by the highly respected Southern district.
This is about a federal election, not a state election.
You’re not even allowed to look at it.
They took the state and the city and they went into a federal election.
They’re not allowed the people from federal election Southern district and Washington dropped the case.
Cy Vance dropped the case and when Brad came in, he said this is the most ridiculous case I’ve ever seen and who would have a certain person again?
Gag order, who would have a certain person like this ever testify?
He said this is essentially one of the worst people I’ve ever seen ever to testify.
He said the craziest case I’ve ever seen this is brag.
Then when I announced I was running for president, long time later, they decided to revive this case.
And they got a judge, Judge Martian who was responsible for another case that was also brought, it destroyed the life of a very good man, by the way, destroyed the life of a very good man who went to prison once and then they just put him in prison again because they said he, he lied.
In fact, he didn’t remember something and they put him in jail again.
And if you look at what he did, supposedly it never happened.
There’s never been anything like this over the education of his grandchildren over, he didn’t report that he had a car or two cars on his income.
I wonder how many people said, oh, gee, I have a car that’s worth X does.
They put this man, they destroyed this man but they put him in jail again because they didn’t want him to testify.
Now, normally I’d say that’s an old guy but I don’t feel 77.
Nobody ever says that about me.
I’d like him to say, gee, we have to have a little sorrow for this man because they don’t, they just don’t say that about me.
But they put him in jail twice and you have to see what they put him in jail and he was threatened by the judge.
This man was told you’re gonna get 15 years in jail if you don’t give up Trump.
And he was told that you’re gonna get 15 years in jail.
And he made a plea deal because he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life.
And he was told that viciously, we’re living in a, in a fascist state.
He was told that viciously.
So you can go to jail for four months, five months or you can get 15 years in jail.
There’s a whole group of lawyers that fight that it’s so unfair.
Uh You look at southern district didn’t want to bring the case.
Nobody wanted to bring the case and then you know who didn’t want to bring the case?
Most of all is brag, brag didn’t want to bring it.
But then he brought it and they tried to make it a different case.
They didn’t say legal expense, equal legal expense again if I wrote down and paid a lawyer.
And by the way, this was a highly qualified lawyer now, I’m not allowed to use his name because of the gag order.
He got into trouble because he made outside deals and he had something to do with taxicabs and Medallions and he borrowed money and that’s why he went and then he pled to three, uh, three election violations.
And as soon as I saw that, I said, I wonder why he did that.
In other words, I’ll take a plea deal and I want to get off and he wanted to make a deal with the southern district.
And they wrote the worst report I think I’ve ever seen on any human being other than the report that was written on James Comey by the inspector general.
A very great inspector general actually wrote a report that was so bad.
This is about the man, but he got in trouble for a very simple reason because he was involved with borrowing a lot of money and he did something with the banks.
I don’t know if it’s defrauded the banks but something happened.
You guys know what it is.
And then in addition to that, he gave up on three things where he wasn’t guilty.
In fact, they were gonna testify in that the, uh, head of the FEC, the Brad Smith, the election expert number one raided in the country was gonna testify.
He took a plea on three things.
He just added them in because that gave him more bargaining power with respect to me.
But the three things that he pled on having to do with the election and having to do essentially a little bit with me, uh, they weren’t crimes, they weren’t crimes nor is paying money under an ND A.
Totally honorable, totally good, totally accepted.
Everybody has them.
Every company has non disclosure agreements but the press called it slush Fund and all sorts of other things.
And most of the people in this room have a non-disclosure agreement with their company.
And what happened is he signed a non disclosure agreement with this person, I guess, other people.
But it’s totally honest, you’re allowed to make the payment could, you don’t have to make it and you can make it any way you want.
It’s a non-disclosure agreement.
And he said that and there was nothing wrong with signing it.
And this should have been a non case.
And everybody said it was a non case, including brag, brag said until I ran for office and then they saw the polls, I was leading the Republicans, I was leading the Democrats.
I was leading everybody and all of a sudden they brought it back.
It’s a very sad thing that’s happening in our country and it’s a, uh it’s a thing that I’m honored in a way I’m honored.
It’s not that it’s pleasant, it’s very bad for family.
It’s very bad for friends and businesses, but I’m honored to be involved in it because somebody has to do it.
And I might as well keep going and be the one.
But I’m very honored to be involved because we’re fighting for our constitution.
In fact, the lawyer in creating the ND A because at that time, he was a fully accredited lawyer.
The media called him a fixer or the prosecutors called him a fixer.
I didn’t like, for instance, I didn’t like that when I became president, he went around and made deals with companies.
When I heard that he was gone, he was gone and he had payments coming to him.
And a lot of this involved things that are very simple.
There was nothing wrong.
These were standard, this was standard stuff, all standard stuff, everything involved was standard, there was no crime here.
In fact, I just watched a couple of the reports.
You watch Jonathan Turley, Andy mccarthy, Greg Jarrett.
You look at all of these people.
Uh Mark Levin, all very talented people, great people, many more, many more.
And they don’t know me essentially.
They don’t know me that legal scholars and experts.
But I look at them, I watched uh Turley this morning saying there’s no crime here.
Everybody says there’s no crime here except for this D A that’s got the city out of control with crime.
It’s out of, it’s absolutely out of control.
That was former President Donald Trump following his criminal conviction related to falsifying business records in his hush money trial.
He is at Trump Tower continuing to give a disorganized array of comments and wide ranging as they may be.
Let’s bring in our own Rick Newman who’s been sitting here next to me tracking and keeping tabs on exactly what the former president is saying here.
So that is Trump’s for people who are watching that is Trump’s re election pitch.
I mean, I think this is now going to become a staple of his rallies where he goes out.
I mean, this is going to be now the top of his list of grievances.
But let’s just go through and we can’t fact check everything he’s saying.
There, there are a lot of misstatements there but just a couple of things I’ll address.
He said nobody wanted to bring this case.
It told news, even Alvin Bragg, the district attorney didn’t want to bring this case.
Here’s what I happened.
This information about the hush money payment to Stormy Daniels uh became public because journalists ferreted it out.
Uh It was first uh put put out there by a Wall Street Journal article in 2018, I believe.
Um and then more information came out.
And so, uh and Michael Cohen actually went to jail in part because of his role in facilitating these payments.
So now you have prosecutors in uh in New York City where this is now become public knowledge this, that this happened.
And you’re a prosecutor looking at something that is now publicly known that looks like a crime.
It is your job to investigate that and charge it if it seems like a crime.
So that’s basically what Alvin Bragg did here.
Um There is no, this, it does not involve the US Justice Department.
Uh, as Trump said, this is New York State and the city prosecutor in New York City.
Uh, it is not connected with the justice department President Biden has nothing to do with it.
Um Just to go through a couple of other things here.
Trump started by talking about immigration, which is the, which is the main thing he talked about when he announced his candidacy the first time in 2015, probably in the same area he’s at now.
Uh he did, he complains about, about the gag order that he’s under but, but he’s gonna be talking about this forever and ever.
He said Biden has made it so you can’t buy a car in the United States.
Um That’s not true.
Uh Biden actually just put 100% tariff on any Chinese electric vehicles.
He said he’s lead, leading by Biden by a lot.
Uh The polls actually show they’re very close uh that he said that witnesses who testified on his behalf were literally crucified in the courtroom.
That is not true.
There were no dead bodies hanging from um crosses in the courtroom.
Something about a machete at a mcdonald’s.
Uh he said that whatever happened with regard to the crimes he’s now been convicted of was a bookkeeper’s fault.
He said he wanted to testify in this trial, but he definitely did not want to testify in this trial because one of the first questions prosecutors would have asked was, did you have sex with Stormy Daniels on this night in 2006?
He, there’s no way he was ever going to answer that question.
Complained about Allen Weissberg being prosecuted.
His former CFO Weissberg, um, did commit tax crimes.
I mean, he just did and a New York jury convicted him and I guess I could go on and on with that.
But the one last thing I would add is the idea that this is rigged because it took place in New York City is bogus if you pick 12 people at random in New York City and you assume they are all gonna be Trump haters, that is just wrong.
I mean, there actually are Republicans in New York City.
There are Trump fans in New York City.
Supposedly, some of them are lined up outside Trump Tower.
Um, so Trump was convicted by a jury which is the fairest, uh, process we have in the US legal system.
They found him guilty.
He has a right to appeal, uh, that will run, that will run its course.
And the best bet is that when this is all over, Trump will continue to be a felon convicted of 34 crimes in New York City.
And there seems to be a lot of confusion over just what goes into that jury selection process as well.
I want to bring in our and Alexis Keenan, who could perhaps give us a little bit more color on that as well as just the what comes next as we know that there’s going to be some type of appellate proceeding here too.
So Trump’s fate though now really in the hands of the trial judge at this stage, but he’s got a lot of campaigning to do before that after that.
Uh And all these questions swirling around, will the trial judge send him to jail?
If so, will he grant him bail?
So let’s kind of walk through what this timeline looks like over the course of the rest of the year here.
So starting out on June 4th, you have democratic primaries in some states.
You’ve got the GOP non-binding primary.
You also jump then to uh beyond that a few weeks from now, June 27th.
That’s when the first presidential debate is supposed to take place.
Uh with CNN.
We’ll see if that happens some things to iron out from both sides before then, then jump to June 29th.
That is a critical date for Trump and his team.
That’s when his appeal in this case is due barring any extension we kind of expect that to go to one of New York’s four appellate.
We don’t know exactly which one though, but that is expected that alone to take months years.
So it’s expected that that would go well beyond the November election.
And of course, legal minds also disagreeing over the last hours since the verdict here about the issues on appeal.
Some saying that there are some real issues there over the fairness of the jury instructions that the judge gave to those, those 12 jurors next jump to July 11th.
Another critic date for Donald Trump, that’s when he’s going to have to appear in front of this trial, judge that he just talked about so much and he’s going to have to face his sentencing.
And so that is going to come just four days before the GOP convention and the sentence, it’s up to the judge.
Now, most defendants who are convicted at this level, it’s a class E felony.
Um Also some arguments out there that it just wouldn’t be good for the country.
Um But on the other hand, he did violate the judge’s gag order and the judge can take that into consideration when deciding what the sentence should be.
And there are some questions there too because I don’t believe the gag order has been lifted yet.
And just Trump speaking there today, whether he tiptoed around the gag order and trying to abide by it today is questionable.
So that’s going to come into play and then you jump down further back into July, the tail end of July.
You’ve got the national conventions for both parties and then you have a series of debates through September all before that election on November 5th.
Once again, Alexis, thank you so much for breaking this all down.
Rick stick with us here.
We’ve got much more to discuss here with more reaction to former president Donald Trump’s remarks as Terry Haines Pangaea policy founder, Terry, the uh old saying, I believe goes, history doesn’t always repeat itself, but it may rhyme in, in this case, it’s kind of repeating itself just a little bit.
There are traces of what we’ve heard from Trump before, from that same location in 2016.
Now again, here in 2024 with the added wrinkle or hiccup of now, a 34 count felony conviction that is set to be appealed, want to get your take on everything as it’s continuing to play out in front of our eyes.
Well, two things and thanks for having me on two things.
One is that sure a lot of this is about the politics of grievance.
Uh But I it shouldn’t be missed that uh interwoven with a lot of that uh was the idea that, you know, they’re trying to, that, that the powers that be the entrenched, the elites are trying to stop Trump because they don’t want action on the border.
They don’t want to make the economy better.
Uh You know, this is part of what the, you know, coming to take your cars and letting the Chinese CV S in is about, he even mentioned taxes.
Uh He also talked about the uh the New York, uh uh you know, being uh with businesses leaving and crime up, that sort of thing.
So, you know, all those, all those issues are, are what, you know, his core and other people are going to hear.
Um And so this is all interwoven for, for good or ill and uh well done or not, well done.
Second thing is for markets, I think it needs to be understood that the conviction I think is a small net negative for Trump’s election chances.
Uh I’ve been non consensus saying that in November, I think Biden’s going to squeak through to a win.
I think that just became a little bit more likely today.
This, you know, Trump is in a situation now where he needs to unify the Republican party, he needs to get a majority of independents in order to win.
That’s how he won in 2016.
Uh That’s how he lost in 2020 is the inability to do that so far.
The Republican Party is still split, evidenced by primaries with 20 to 40% for Haley when she was a candidate, even 15% in Pennsylvania recently when she wasn’t.
Uh, so you’ve got a split there and you’ve got independence, uh, that Trump Trump’s underwater with those independents.
So, you know, that’s a serious problem and he’s gonna have to, uh, to take much more drastic action to try to unify the party.
Uh, and this makes that harder too because you’ve got a lot, you’ve got enough voters in swing states who are saying, well, you know what this, uh, polled so far anyway, that this makes it a little less likely that I would support Trump in November, uh, that he’s going to have to do something, uh, you know, to get over that.
Now, as was pointed out a minute ago, there are plenty of opportunities to try to do that.
There are plenty more bumps in the road between the debate, the sentencing, the Republican national convention, all the rest.
And finally, let’s not forget that, uh, President Biden is going to have his own legal troubles too in the persona of his son, uh, who is going to have two trials this summer and fall first is going about to start.
Second one I think is in September.
So, you know, there’s going to be an awful lot of ability for both sides to sling mud and both sides frankly to uh to try to attack the other while, while pumping up their bases at the same time.
So this is, this isn’t just kind of a one and done for Trump Terry, if you were advising President Biden how to handle this, the Trump conviction, uh What would you tell him, would you say?
Uh basically, just stay quiet and let Trump ramble the way he’s doing there, would you say, uh no, get out there and troll Trump on this, uh play dirty the way he plays dirty or something different?
Well, Biden is doing two things that I think are both politically necessary.
One for uh pumping up the base purposes and for fundraising purposes.
He’s, he is starting to repeat and will continue to repeat for the next five months.
The phrase convicted felon as much as possible.
And at the same time, uh what he’s doing is suggesting that in, they’ve already done this in public statements, for example, saying that, you know, the, the ultimate test here, the ultimate uh jury for Trump, if you will, is going to be the November election, you know, they, they’ve, they’ve judged, they need both of those messages and to move forward and, you know, people will selectively hear one or the other based on whether they’re involved in fundraising, whether they’re part of the base or whether or not they’re, they’re an independent voter that Biden’s trying to appeal to, uh you know, it’s all one reason I have Biden as a little more likely to win than Trump is because I think that uh I think the message discipline that Biden will have will be superior even though the message isn’t great in a lot of ways including uh inflation and prices uh border, for example.
But the message discipline will be superior, I think.
And uh and also I think the get out the vote effort will be superior.
And in states where Biden is, is essentially neck and neck with Trump, which is all the swing states effectively.
They’re going to need that superior discipline to win.
They learned from the Clinton campaign which didn’t have that discipline and showed that they had it in 2020.
I think they have it again this year.
Terry Haines Pea policy founder, Terry, thanks so much for standing by and hopping on with us here on Yahoo Finance.
Certainly, we’re joined by now by Steve Clemons, who’s the Washington Note publisher and editor Rick, still standing by here with us as well.
Steve.
Uh you, you were just listening in to what Terry Haines had to say, giving the edge to Biden in November as of today as of this event.
How much does this event move the needle for the general election?
Look, I think it’s a real toss up and I, I think Rick Newman framed it, right, Donald, this is what we’re going to hear from Donald Trump uh throughout the rest of the campaign, this is a defining moment historically, it’s also going to be the way that, that President Trump continues to play this victim card, a victim of the system and why the system needs to be strangled and brought to its knees.
Um That is all Donald Trump.
It’s a kind of ug nationalism, let’s take back the country kind of ethic and, and so I think it’s going to play well for those people who like Donald Trump and who feel frustrated with the system.
I don’t sense that it’s going to play well with any Democrats and I don’t sense that that many independents, independents are complicated.
They’re not on one line or the other, but Donald Trump is losing, losing the reason race right now of someone who’s likable.
And I think it’s very, very hard to get a public to maintain anger and frustration for month after month.
If there’s anyone that can do it, Donald Trump can.
But I think the public at the end wants to feel more hopeful and optimistic about something.
Um And that is not what we’re hearing from Donald Trump and that’s not the campaign card that I think he’s going to play.
So I think I’m in Terry’s camp.
But look, I still think there’s so many issues in this race and it’s a toss up and it’s going to come down to independent voters, not Republicans or Democrats in these battleground states and you know, check with me the week before.
Yeah, Steve, we just saw a former president Trump wrap his conference at and we can barely even call it a conference.
He took the lectern, he spoke and then he left.
Ultimately that taking place at Trump Tower, we heard a range of topics that he was throwing out at anyone who would listen here.
Uh Rick’s been standing by, I know that Rick has a question for you as well.
Steve, hey, Steve, uh, you know, I, I listen to the, these, um, rambling talks, Trump gives and I, I, it just mystifies me that anybody would really get fired up by just this whining in the, in the victimology and all of this.
Uh, so I guess the question is, yes, Trump, we know Trump supporters like it.
I, I mean, what, what do you think are the odds that people are just gonna get so tired of this?
That those, some of those fences just won’t even vote.
They, they, they won’t, they, they’re not gonna willing to vote for Biden, but they might have voted for Trump and they, they might just say I’m out this time.
Look, I, I think the way you, I’ve been waiting for that to happen for a long time in a way because I’ve always sort of thought that Donald Trump does not represent a cos of principles of policy ideas of, of issues, you know, he represents himself, whatever is largely good for himself.
And a lot of, and, and, and the frustration that he, his muscularity with his frustration appeals to a lot of frustrated Americans and that’s there.
He’s kind of like a popular TV, or music rock star who’s riding really high until one day where all of a sudden they saturated the market and that popularity falls.
And for whatever reason, Donald Trump has been able to kind of keep himself above the fold in the pages as we say and very, very high in people’s minds and is, you know, spell his name, right?
And keep him his identity out there and people are not yet saturated with it.
And I can’t tell you why Rick, but I think the way you framed it is right?
But we don’t know that day I think will come.
But I don’t know when it will come, will it come when they hear more pomposity and more outrageous comments and this kind of sprawling talk.
Like I think we in the media make a big mistake, Donald Trump because sometimes he’s very in Kuwait in what he speaks.
Uh I remember when the New York Times used to take Maggie Haberman and David Sanger’s interviews with him and run every single word or syllable he ran and it was indecipherable into some, in some cases.
But we’re actually looking for the meaning in what Donald Trump says and then reporting that very coherently and I think he’s, he’s often in Kuwait in what he says.
And so we’re helping to fashion, you know, Donald Trump into a message that maybe he doesn’t represent.
Here’s another head scratcher, Steve is the fundraising phenomenon.
So the worst legal trouble Trump gets in the more money people send him.
And I just sometimes wonder like if he, if he goes through these other trials and he, and he gets sentenced to like 150 years in jail, are there people who are just going to empty their entire bank account and send Trump everything they have?
I mean, do you understand this phenomenon?
Well, I mean, some people are, but look, I think it’s something very important for those who care about a more cohesive America to hear down down the road in this is that there are a lot of Americans who feel really gut punched by the financial crises we’ve had in the past and sort of see a system that’s stacked in favor of a certain number of Americans, whether they’re right or wrong in that they have the impression that they have been screwed by a system and left behind and demeaned by a system.
And many of these families and I’ll call them white working class families are very, see themselves as very patriotic and in fight not only in recent wars that we’ve had, but generations of wars and they feel like America has somehow fought these wars played global cop.
China is somehow coming out ahead and they’re coming out way behind.
And so they don’t care about Washington, they don’t care about policy.
They really want someone who’s going to be a wrecking ball for this place because it only brings them uh tragedy and, and essentially humiliation and that humiliation in politics is something I don’t think democrats have figured out how to reach to.
Um, I remember Joe Biden telling me in 2016, the problem with the Democratic Party is it had become a party of snobs now.
He was not running them.
But he said that and I think that whether or not that’s an accurate synopsis of it, many Americans who are supporting Donald Trump, feel that and feel left behind and that’s why they’re willing to give to him in some ways.
Uh You know, like, like they would any kind of other cult figure frankly, just lastly while we have you, I mean, even within that and the international and foreign relations element and representing America on that world stage, it seemed 2020 had become almost a poll or a, an election of decency.
At least that’s what the, the ultimate pitching came down to.
What is 20 c 24 in that kind of same analogy.
If you will look, I think I, I tend to still be optimistic about America, but I think America is feeling fragile with its identity and its place in the world, it’s feeling fragile at home.
Like you look across a lot of economic indicators and they have never been better.
Even the markets are sky high except for the last couple of days.
But when you kind of look broadly at these economic measures, you have the inflation thing that really, really hit people.
And I got to tell you people, the bulk of these voters that we’re talking about, they eat at Arby’s, they eat at Burger King.
They may grab a coffee and a, and a roll at Starbucks.
And we’re seeing the profits coming out of the grocery sector and they’re astronomically high.
That is really bad for Joe Biden.
And I think that that level many people are not junkies sitting around for the next political hit one way or another asking themselves, do they feel anxious or do they feel confident in the future?
And the truth is right now, there’s a lot of anxiousness, you know, and, and you just have to deal with it and process it.
Both parties do.
And I think that the Biden team and the Democratic Party have done a lot of deep structural things that have not impressed or relieved the anxiety of a lot of Americans.
And what, what Trump and GOP right now are doing is saying it’s all their fault for not responding to your kitchen table economics and coming around and helping to relieve some of your, you know, front facing problems.
So in that.
That’s what this election is gonna be gone over Steve Clemens, the Washington Note publisher and editor.
Thanks so much for joining us here on Yahoo Finance and thanks to our very own Rick Newman as well.
This has been a Yahoo Finance special report on former President Donald Trump’s criminal conviction in his hush money trial.
We’ve got much more Yahoo finance after the break, everybody step back.
Let’s do a check of the markets as we’re taking a look at the dow, the S and P 500 the NASDAQ, the dow was higher by about 2/10 of a percent.
The S and P 500 the NASDAQ still in negative territory.
The dow the worst performer on a percentage basis down about one and a quarter of a percent.
Stocks are mixed after P ce personal consumption expenditures came in in line with expectations for the month of April.
The data shows inflation slowed in April.
So what does this all mean for you and your money here with more?
We’ve got Kathy Bos Janick who is the nationwide chief economist and senior vice president, Kathy.
Thanks so much for sticking around and hanging tight as we had some uh breaking news to cover here.
But we’ve also got the breaking economic data that came out this morning giving us a little bit more sense of where inflation sits.
Um So I think overall the data showed that we had moderation in economic activity and inflation in April and, and really both welcomed and the particularly as you mentioned, you know, the core reading there of the personal consumption expenditure price index, the core reading was up just 2/10 of a percent.
That’s a really welcomed um outcome, especially since we saw much higher readings um in the first quarter.
So, you know, the the it’s not enough to maybe give the fed a confidence at this point.
Yes, we’re gonna be able to cut rates later this year, but it’s certainly welcome news to see a little bit of relief there.
Um And on the consumer spending and income front, when you adjust for inflation, um both were negative.
So some moderation, it doesn’t mean the economy is tanking far from it, but it does show some moderation which again in the big picture, this is good news because the Federal Reserve wants slightly slower economic activity for inflation to trend lower.
Um You know, going forward, where do you believe that core P ce inflation needs to fall to in order for the FO MC to feel comfortable with cutting rates?
Yeah, great question.
So yeah, I was looking um ahead of the data you know, what was the Federal Reserve, assuming, like the, the fourth quarter, year and year reading would be, you know, of the year.
So ending the year they thought, well, we’d be at 2.4%.
Um, the, the problem is we’re, we’re, we’re above that now.
And because the month, the year of the year comparisons aren’t that favorable.
Meaning we have to have really low readings going forward to hit that 2.4% rate.
Uh meaning probably get 2/10 and then for the coming months and then August through December, you’d have to have 1/10 per month.
That was possible, but it, it’s really a high hurdle.
Um So I think that’s why three rate cuts which what they had when they published that inflation report has are off the table, but we could still get to one cuts if fed officials believe we’re like securely heading in the right direction and eventually get back to 2%.
Kathy Bonn, who is the nationwide chief economist and senior vice president, Kathy.
Thank you so much for helping us break down some of this morning’s data and a read on the economy.
Well, Jeep unveiled its first fully electric SUV for the North American market yesterday.
Our very own pros super Romanian is live from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange with the Jeep Ceo Frost.
Take it away.
We’re actually outside the nice here with with the, the new all new first ever Jeep.
This car is entering a very competitive market right now ev market.
What makes you think of this car at $72,000 is going to stand out from the competition?
First of all, it’s a Jeep.
So it embodies all the values that the Jeep represents.
Freedom, authenticity, love for adventure and passion of our community.
The best specs in the market, for instance, speed and acceleration.
It’s got 300 miles plus of range technology, 45 inches inside of usable display, luxurious sophistication, the choice of material, the beautiful of graft machine is top class, the sides, this guy has leg sides inside leg room better than Grand Cherokee for instance, which is a larger Jeep.
So really we are talking about many many attributes that specs wise, range wise, technology wise and capability wise.
It’s got the salary to go off road, gives a plus to the market.
You know, it’s big in the market.
We’re talking about Stan GM Ford, all sort of re evaluating their plans.
But here we see Jeep coming out with the wagon es why do you think now is the right time to bring this car to market when there may be some hesitation?
Well, as you, as you can see, the growth of is still there with a pace which is lower than expected, but it is growing in the industry.
Number one, number two, this is one element of our complete strategy.
What is our strategy, we call it freedom of choice today in the market exists seven power train systems, right?
So you’ve got the high, you’ve got the mild hybrid, you’ve got the hybrid, you’ve got the plug in, you got a batter electric vehicle, you got the re the standing range and finally the fuel cell, you take out the fuel cell, all the other six will be part of our strategy.
Then we will have in three months, the Jeep Recon which is purely off road, the excelence of capability off road capability that is coming with the vehicle and other options.
And then six months later, we will have what will be the substitution of the old Jeep Cherokee brand new car.
We don’t know the name yet that is coming with different options of power.
So the freedom of choice to us means flexibility.
You as a consumer or Jeep Law or somebody that wants to buy the first Jeep will have many possibilities of selection.
So, you know, the wagon came under the $80,000 tax credit limit.
So that means they will qualify for that.
Now, Donald Trump is running for president has said that he wants to get rid of that tax credit.
Is that a concern for Jeep?
Not just for this vehicle but also other vehicles going forward.
No, no, not at all.
Obviously, we want to get it and this is a full loaded.
So the other version that will come that are not as loaded as this one has some rule, for instance, that you can open it, it’s going to get even more competent.
So yes, we want that.
It is part of our strategy and the, the new president of the United States wants to decide we will be open to compete as the other competitors.
And also here are two other vehicles, the Grand Cherokee and also the Rubicon Wrangler.
Both of them are four by E hybrid models, plug in hybrid models.
As I said to you, we will offer six power train combination in our entire Jeep range.
That means that we will have more, we will have, we will have global not mild hybrids, we will have that stays still at the core of the market, we will have a vehicle and next year we are coming Jeep Bone and Jeep Graia with the extending range.
So the re technology, what has been recently offered from celant by celant to another brand.
So really we want to be flexible in the market to have all consumer have a reason to be interested into a Jeep.
So a lot of Jeeps out here in front of the nicey battered electric as well as hybrid and maybe some raging centers down the line.
I was just telling our team, it’s one of my favorite occurrences when we have cars lined up outside of the NYSC.
Let you know where things stand as we get closer to the beginning of the lunch hour, 12 noon here on Wall Street there where pro Romanian was standing by.
And then we’re taking a look at the dow, the S and P 500 the NASDAQ.
Although it’s been a good month of May here as we close out this the final training session of May in just a few hours as we’re taking a look at the dow holding on to gains of about 1/10 of a percent.
Thanks so much for watching and stay tuned for market domination with Julie Hyman and Josh Lipton that’s coming up at 3 p.m. Eastern.