Joel Griffith - Senior Fellow, Advancing American Freedom Joins Houston's Morning News

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
They're going pretty so yeah, I kind of the opposite
of that, right, we need a new version of this
six twenty three, soir time here in Houston's Morning News.
All right, So the Fed, as expected, left interest rates
alone yesterday. What was more interesting, I think is probably
what Jay Powell had to say afterwards at the press conference,

(00:20):
and because the topic of tariffs came up, and it's
been interesting to watch how people have interpreted what he
said about tariffs. Some interpreted his comments on tariffs is
saying that, you know, we don't believe there'll be any
immediate impact. We have to wait and see what happens
with the tariffs, which I think is the right answer.
And there are those who are interpreting into the same see,

(00:41):
tariffs are going to cause inflation. So I guess it
depends a little bit on what you want to hear.
Let's let's find out what Joel Griffith heard yesterday. He's
a Senior Fellow and advancing American freedom. What do you
think that Jay Powell was? I know he's trying always
to kind of thread the needle when it comes to
comments on what's going on with interest rates. What did
you make what he had to say yesterday, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
Well good morning. Well you know there are two things.
Number One, the FED releases that's a written statement after
each rate height decision. I think it was quite interesting
to see the Fed is now predicting lower economic growth
than prior, higher inflation than prior, higher unemployment. These are
not positives. And in fact, the Chair Pal during his

(01:26):
oral remarks said that there's an unusually high level of
economic uncertainty in general, and part of that is because
of the erratic tariff policies from President Trump, where you'll
see him put in place in executive order imposing new
tariffs and then sometimes he backs down. The other day,

(01:49):
after imposing twenty five percent tariffs on a number of
Canadian products, he threatened to double that tariffy rate and
then back down with an hour. So there's a lot
of certain to here. And what Power is trying to
say is that they want to see how everything plays out,
because a lot of these threats they don't materialize. Some

(02:11):
of them do. So I think it's unfortunate that we
continue to see this administration play games with our economy.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
Basically on the tariffs, it's called negotiation, is what it's called.
And it's been highly effective. You know, you can threaten
anything you want as far as what you're going to
do with tariffs. If the end result is the other
side blinks and decides that they're going to change their
trade policies to your advantage, then guess what you just
won the negotiation.

Speaker 2 (02:39):
Well, I know the President, some of his advocates continue
to say this is a negotiation tactic, but I think
we should actually take President Trump at his work. President
Trump believes in tariffs. He believes that tariffs will actually
create jobs, will enhance our economy. But guess what. President

(02:59):
Trump is wrong on this, completely wrong on this.

Speaker 1 (03:03):
I think I think, I think you're wrong. I think
you're wrong on this. Joel Griffith, Time will tell who's
right about this. But we will certainly see, won't we.

Speaker 2 (03:15):
Well, look, we have a lot of economic data, a
lot of past issues from mark countries and others to
show us what tears do. We actually went through higher
tariffs in the prior Trump administration that Biden kept in place,
and guess what, and we had those tears and pose
on aluminum one.

Speaker 1 (03:31):
Deal and guess what we number? We didn't have inflation issue,
we didn't have inflation issues during the first Trump administration.
We only had them during the Biden administration. And it's
not because of the terrorists. Has stay in place. I
got to leave it at that for now. Joel Griffith,
Senior Fellow in Advancing American Freedom,