Latest / Trend Watch / #50: Trump Overwhelms Washington and Sparks Legal Challenges

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#50: Trump Overwhelms Washington and Sparks Legal Challenges · Trend Watch

• 0:04
  Ready to take a deeper look at where history,
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  politics,
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  and economics all intersect?
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: Well, then you've come to the right place.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: Each week,
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  SPEAKER_01: here's where we pull back the headlines and focus on the big trends,
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: the stuff that actually shapes our future.
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  SPEAKER_01: Through the noise, we focus on the signal.
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  SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Neil Howe, and this is Trend Watch.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: Today is January 30th, 2025, and this is Trend Watch.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome back, everybody.
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  SPEAKER_01: As per usual, I have on my fellow analyst, Christian Ford.
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  SPEAKER_01: So Christian, how was your week?
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  SPEAKER_01: And I might just say, what did you see of the crash?
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  yeah well it's it's definitely been a tragic day here i haven't
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  really gone out and
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  seen much but you know i've been talking with my one of my
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  friends is a pilot and
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  he flies out of dca quite a bit by the way we we should we
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  should probably just
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  mention this is the collision of the uh you live in dc we
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  should remind everyone so
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  this is the collision of the helicopter and the uh the american
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  airlines american
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  SPEAKER_01: canadian jet yeah
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  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
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  SPEAKER_00: Go ahead.
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  SPEAKER_00: He's just told me that,
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  SPEAKER_00: you know,
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  with the shortage of the air traffic controllers and they have
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  to work this
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  SPEAKER_00: incredible overtime that he's always said,
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  SPEAKER_00: it's just inevitable.
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  SPEAKER_00: There's going to be a large crash.
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  SPEAKER_00: You know, we don't know exactly what caused this one.
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  I think New York Times report has said there was some anomalies
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  with the staffing.
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  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, definitely tragic.
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  SPEAKER_01: Well, one thing I find really interesting is that
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  In 1981,
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  when Reagan came in,
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  right,
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  he fired all the traffic controllers,
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  right?
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  SPEAKER_01: So they had to hire a whole bunch of young ones.
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  SPEAKER_01: And guess how many years it's been?
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  SPEAKER_01: It's been about 40, right?
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  SPEAKER_01: 44 years.
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  SPEAKER_00: So they're all retiring, right?
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  SPEAKER_00: Right.
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  SPEAKER_00: That's part of the issue.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I think they force retirement on them.
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  SPEAKER_00: You can't go past a certain age.
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  In the last few years,
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  they've all been retiring,
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  causing this great shortage.
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  And I think it takes a few years,
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  too,
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  to train to become an air traffic controller.
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  SPEAKER_01: Well, of course it does.
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  SPEAKER_01: But not only that,
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  you want the more senior ones to be bringing the younger ones
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  on and passing on
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  SPEAKER_01: your craft.
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  SPEAKER_01: And they still do a lot of this manually.
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  SPEAKER_01: They still pass the little pieces of paper and so on.
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  SPEAKER_01: And
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  but we're a demography uh podcast you know we love this kind of
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  stuff that this is
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  this is a a whole cohort of workers who were hired almost the
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  same time they were
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  probably all young right relatively young um and and moving on
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  and certainly
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  certainly a great tragedy it does bring memories back to my
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  mind of um of uh
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  SPEAKER_01: What happened in January of 1982, I had just moved down to D.C.
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  SPEAKER_01: and there was a plane that took off from DCA in a snowstorm,
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  SPEAKER_01: probably still had ice on its wings.
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  It slammed into the 14th Street Bridge and then the rest of it
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  went into the Potomac Bridge.
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  SPEAKER_01: 78 people died.
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  SPEAKER_01: But what was amazing is,
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  SPEAKER_01: is that,
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  SPEAKER_01: uh,
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  SPEAKER_01: a lot of people got out of their cars and jumped into the icy river,
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  SPEAKER_01: right.
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  SPEAKER_01: To save them.
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  SPEAKER_01: And many were saved.
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  SPEAKER_01: Right.
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  SPEAKER_01: Right.
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  SPEAKER_01: Um, but, uh, you know, tragic, uh, tragic then, um,
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  SPEAKER_01: Tragic then, tragic now.
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  And I know that pilots who have to come into DCA,
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  obviously,
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  they're very constrained,
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  right?
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  SPEAKER_01: They can't go out of their flight path.
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  It's a special airport,
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  we might say,
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  and certainly an airport that has special problems.
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  SPEAKER_01: Well,
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  SPEAKER_01: as always,
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  SPEAKER_01: let me remind all you listeners,
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  SPEAKER_01: if you care for this podcast,
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  SPEAKER_01: please go ahead and share it with your friends and family.
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  SPEAKER_01: Repost it on social media.
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  SPEAKER_01: From now on, only some episodes will remain free.
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  SPEAKER_01: And let's get into this podcast we have today.
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  SPEAKER_01: We always say we have lots to talk about, but this is just amazing.
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  SPEAKER_01: It's hard to keep up with the flow of news.
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  SPEAKER_01: Wouldn't you agree, Christian?
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  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
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  SPEAKER_01: It's like a fire hose right now.
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  SPEAKER_01: We've got market news, but let's go down...
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  SPEAKER_01: First, through some of the stories we'll be covering.
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  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, Senate confirmation hearings.
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  Senate confirmation hearings on President Trump's leadership
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  picks are moving along rapidly,
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  SPEAKER_01: with the full Senate confirming all candidates thus far,
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  SPEAKER_01: though a few may still face trouble,
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  SPEAKER_01: right?
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  SPEAKER_01: And so we'll certainly talk about that.
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  SPEAKER_01: Got a lot to talk about.
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  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, from Tulsi Gabbard and RFK Jr.,
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  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot to talk about.
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  Our next story is President Trump has signed 38 executive
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  orders in his first nine days,
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  SPEAKER_01: a historical record.
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  SPEAKER_01: And in fact,
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  so many executive orders that Democrats and even Republicans
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  are struggling to keep up.
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  SPEAKER_01: with the pace of Trump's overhaul of the status quo.
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  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's interesting how the media is sort of picking up on that.
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  SPEAKER_01: In just his first few days,
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  three of Trump's biggest initiatives seem to be heading
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  directly to the Supreme Court.
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  SPEAKER_01: the constitutionality of firing executive personnel,
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  SPEAKER_01: the constitutionality of impounding federal funds,
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  SPEAKER_01: and the constitutionality of birthright citizenship.
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  SPEAKER_01: Christian,
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  SPEAKER_01: I will say,
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  SPEAKER_01: if you're a budding law student and you're into constitutional law,
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  SPEAKER_01: wow,
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  SPEAKER_01: what a great time to be around,
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  SPEAKER_01: right?
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  SPEAKER_01: To be
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  SPEAKER_01: to be looking at everyone arguing about this stuff.
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  SPEAKER_01: And it will be argued over there at the Supreme Court.
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  Michigan Democratic Senator Gary Peters announced last week he
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  will retire in 2026,
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  disappointing national Democratic leaders by tilting the map a
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  bit toward the GOP
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  SPEAKER_01: two years from now.
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  SPEAKER_01: And moving forward,
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  SPEAKER_01: Moving abroad,
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  SPEAKER_01: moving internationally,
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  SPEAKER_01: in his first week of office,
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  SPEAKER_01: Trump tries wielding a big stick in international diplomacy,
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  SPEAKER_01: for example,
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  by arm-twisting the president of Colombia to accept deportees
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  from the U.S.
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  SPEAKER_01: and by motivating Mexico and Canada to crack down on border crossings.
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  SPEAKER_01: Last week,
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  North Koreans reportedly pulled back entirely from the Kursk
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  front after suffering
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  SPEAKER_01: brutal casualties as high as one-third killed or wounded people.
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  SPEAKER_01: while they've been fighting Ukrainian forces.
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  SPEAKER_01: We'll look at the implications of that.
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  SPEAKER_01: And then finally,
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  SPEAKER_01: moving to Germany,
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  SPEAKER_01: Friedrich Merz,
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  SPEAKER_01: the leader of the German CDU,
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  ignited a political firestorm yesterday when he relied on the
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  shunned AFD,
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  SPEAKER_01: Alternative für Deutschland Party,
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  SPEAKER_01: to push a measure restricting immigration through the Bundestag.
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  SPEAKER_01: And that certainly reverberated throughout Germany today.
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  SPEAKER_01: So with that,
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  we're going to just move right back to markets and plunge in
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  because we got a lot
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  SPEAKER_01: to cover.
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  SPEAKER_00: All right, Neil.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's been a mixed week for the markets.
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  Today,
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  the S&P closed up 0.53%,
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  but over the last five days,
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  it's actually down 0.78%.
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  SPEAKER_00: Global Dow has looked a little better.
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  SPEAKER_00: It closed up today 0.65%.
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  SPEAKER_00: Over the last five market days, it's up 1.22%.
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  The VIX was high beginning of the week,
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  but it has now settled back down around 15.8%.
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  SPEAKER_00: And as for the 10-year Treasury,
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  SPEAKER_00: that is at 4.52%,
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  SPEAKER_00: down 12.7 basis points over the last five days.
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  SPEAKER_01: Nothing big there.
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  I mean,
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  obviously,
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  I think you're going to say something about DeepSeek and OpenAI.
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  SPEAKER_01: What do we have in economic reports?
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  SPEAKER_01: I know...
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  SPEAKER_01: The Commerce Department came in with Q4 on GDP,
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  SPEAKER_01: and I believe the EU zone,
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  SPEAKER_01: the Eurozone as well,
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  SPEAKER_01: right?
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  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
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  SPEAKER_00: So for the U.S., we got our Q4 GDP came in at 2.3% growth.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now it's actually below forecast of 2.6%.
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  SPEAKER_00: For the whole year, growth came in at 2.5%.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'll say, you know, we did get flash PMIs for January, S&P Global.
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  SPEAKER_00: Manufacturing rose from 49.4 to 50.1, so we're in growth there.
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  SPEAKER_00: And services fell from 56.8 to 52.8, but again, still growth.
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  SPEAKER_01: Really interesting.
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  SPEAKER_01: That's U.S.
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  SPEAKER_01: from the global market.
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  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
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  SPEAKER_01: And what do we have from Europe?
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  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, the Eurozone, we got the Q4 GDP quarter over quarter.
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  SPEAKER_00: That was 0% growth, weakest performance of the year.
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  SPEAKER_00: We look at some of the individual countries in the Eurozone.
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  SPEAKER_00: Germany declined 0.2%.
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  SPEAKER_00: France declined 0.1%.
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  SPEAKER_00: Italy was stagnant.
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  SPEAKER_00: And the biggest growth was in Spain at 0.8%.
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  SPEAKER_00: And Portugal with 1.5%.
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  SPEAKER_01: My God, that kind of says it all, right?
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  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
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  SPEAKER_01: real GDP growth in the United States at 2.5,
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  SPEAKER_01: Europe at zero,
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  and the leading high per capita GDP powerhouses in Europe
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  actually slightly negative.
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  SPEAKER_01: Well, I don't know what to add to that.
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  SPEAKER_01: I think it speaks for itself.
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  SPEAKER_01: Anything else?
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  SPEAKER_00: Well, should we talk about DeepSeek here?
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  SPEAKER_00: Because that was the big news of the markets.
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  SPEAKER_00: What do you think?
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  SPEAKER_00: Well,
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  SPEAKER_00: you know,
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  SPEAKER_00: as for people,
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  SPEAKER_00: if you haven't been following this,
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  SPEAKER_00: DeepSeek is this new Chinese AI upstart,
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  which made headlines because it created a new open source AI
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  model that it
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  SPEAKER_00: built without the most advanced chips and for a fraction of the price.
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  SPEAKER_00: Supposedly, it cost them only around $6 million.
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  SPEAKER_00: Well,
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  companies like Meta announced last week that they were planning
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  to spend $60
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  SPEAKER_00: billion for AI projects.
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  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, investors started questioning these large investments.
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  SPEAKER_00: NVIDIA stock has dropped around 18%.
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  SPEAKER_00: Of course,
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  SPEAKER_00: OpenAI now,
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  SPEAKER_00: the creator of ChatGPT,
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  is accusing DeepSeek of using OpenAI technologies to train its
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  models through a
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  SPEAKER_00: process called distillation,
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  SPEAKER_00: where a smaller model tries to replicate a larger one.
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  This process is commonly used,
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  but OpenAI still claims it violates their terms of usage.
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  SPEAKER_00: You know,
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  SPEAKER_00: Neil,
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  what do you think this says about the market that this one
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  piece of news I felt
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  SPEAKER_00: like just caused absolute chaos?
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: Does it show that this great...
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  SPEAKER_00: faith in AI was overblown?
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  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's a sign of a fragile, overvalued market.
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  It's also a sign that the leading narrative behind this market,
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  which is the
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  SPEAKER_01: Huge productivity,
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  SPEAKER_01: you know,
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  supposed great future productivity payoffs of these large
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  language models,
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  SPEAKER_01: in my opinion,
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  SPEAKER_01: is just is is is terrifically overhyped.
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  SPEAKER_01: Right.
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  So I think anything like this is bound to cause these,
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  you know,
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  huge shuttering.
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  SPEAKER_01: declines in the market.
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  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
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  you just have declines in some of those big companies and the
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  entire SAP goes down,
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  SPEAKER_01: right?
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
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  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they're so dominant right now.
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  SPEAKER_01: And as for,
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  SPEAKER_01: you know,
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  SPEAKER_01: Sam Altman's charge that they've been,
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  SPEAKER_01: you know,
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  SPEAKER_01: the distillation is going on.
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  SPEAKER_01: Of course, everyone uses that with everyone's model.
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  And to me,
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  that really points to what's so disappointing about large
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  language models,
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  right?
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  SPEAKER_01: Right.
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  SPEAKER_01: Their whole distillation is exactly what all of them are doing, right?
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: Your effort is to go out there,
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  scrape the web and distill the wisdom of whatever anything's
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  being said on the web.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: And of course,
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: if you want to get a head start in developing your model,
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: go and study how another model is already doing it.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
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  SPEAKER_01: Right.
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  SPEAKER_01: Nothing original.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
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  And of course,
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  open AI,
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  as you know,
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  is kind of plagiarizing off everything else.
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  SPEAKER_01: And when they have to go into media like New York Times,
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: with which they haven't already done a financial deal,
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: the New York Times sues them.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: So they got all kinds of
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: IP suits against him.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: And DeepSync is just sort of plagiarizing off that.
• 12:37
  And ultimately,
• 12:38
  as you may know,
• 12:40
  this is kind of an interesting technical issue.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: If you try to...
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: If you try to train your model by actually training on generated text,
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: right,
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: that leads to a complete chaos singularity,
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: right?
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: It just turns your language into mush.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's one of the...
• 13:00
  It's one of the interesting features of large language models
• 13:04
  that in the end,
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  SPEAKER_01: they're like snakes trying to devour themselves.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway,
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: but it says a lot more about about valuations,
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
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  evaluations of these of these huge tech equities and how much
• 13:24
  people see large
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: language models in their future.
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  I think most of the really smart people that you look at think
• 13:34
  it's overhyped.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, that's
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: That's my view.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: You want my view?
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: There it is.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: All right, Neil.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well, let's move on here to some of the politics of Washington.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want to go through an update on Trump's cabinet?
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: Well,
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: first of all,
• 13:51
  we might just mention a few of them that don't need
• 13:54
  confirmation who are in now,
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: right?
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: Tom Holman, the border czar, career border patrol, ICE, he's in.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: Stephen Miller, deputy chief of staff for policy, he's in.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: Mike Waltz, the Green Beret, he's now NSC advisor.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: He's probably somewhere in the West Wing, right?
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: He doesn't need confirmation.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: So all these guys are in.
• 14:16
  Can I go quickly down confirmed and then you can look at – I'll
• 14:19
  let you kind of
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: take on everyone who's sort of mid-passage.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
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  Marco Rubio,
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  just by majority of confirmation vote,
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  we'll go from least controversial to most.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: Marco Rubio, Secretary of State, confirmed 99 to 0.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: Sean Duffy, Secretary of Transportation, 77 to 22, confirmed.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: John Ratcliffe, CIA, 72 to 25.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: He got a lot of bipartisan support.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: Scott Besant, Treasury, 68 to 29.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: Got significant bipartisan support.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: Kristi Noem, we're getting a little bit lower.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: 59 to 34.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: Lee Zeldin, EPA.
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  SPEAKER_01: And obviously those are getting much more controversial agencies.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: The Environmental Protection Agency, 56 to 42.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: And obviously Pete Hegseth,
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: a squeaker,
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: now Secretary of Defense,
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: having been confirmed by a J.D.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: Vance tiebreaker, 51 to 50.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: And then we've got these ones that are coming up for a full vote.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: I believe Pam Bondi is ready for a full vote.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm sure she'll be confirmed, right?
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they'll probably be down party lines.
• 15:33
  She advanced out of the Senate Judiciary Committee by no
• 15:37
  Democrats voted for.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: Interesting.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: Well, let's talk about, I think, what's really interesting.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: These are the harder ones.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: Tulsi Gabbard, director of the...
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: Director of National Intelligence,
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: Kash Patel,
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: FBI Director,
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: Howard Lutnick,
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_01: Secretary of Commerce,
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: and finally,
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: not least,
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: who is a big hearing today and will do a hearing tomorrow,
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: RFK Jr.,