BRIAN SULLIVAN (ANCHOR): President Trump firing the person who effectively oversees the creation of the monthly jobs numbers. Megan, thank you very much. Peter Mallouk of Creative Planning is still with us. Peter, I’m not — you don’t need to wait into politics. Don’t worry.
But it’s probably — we’re now politicizing the Fed. We’re politicizing the jobs number.
PETER MALLOUK (GUEST): Unbelievable.
SULLIVAN: That’s not a market confidence building headline, I don’t think.
MALLOUK: No. I felt like I was watching — like I’m being punked or in The Onion, you know, parody satire, video. I can’t believe what I just saw. I mean, look. I’m not a fan of some government statistics.
You just have to look historically at their inflation numbers or what they say health care inflation is. I’m not a fan of the way Fed handled COVID. I think it widened the gap between the rich and the poor and created a big asset bubble, but this is not healthy. We can’t have a set of numbers come out and fire somebody that served under numerous administrations in various roles because you don’t like the numbers. Plus, Trump wants Powell to cut rates. These are the kind of statistics that the market today is telling us. The bond market is saying, we we went from a 30% chance Powell is gonna cut rate to more than 50%. That’s why the stock market’s reacting negatively. These things are intertwined. I mean, he’s getting what he wants, and he just — it’s unbelievable.
SULLIVAN: Well, I and and it is unbelievable. And you do actually I hate to say it, but you kind of do want bad numbers because that would then press your case, your own case —
MALLOUK: Right.
SULLIVAN: — to have the Federal Reserve lower rates. They’re not gonna lower rates if the economy is going gangbusters. And I get your point, Peter. Trust me. I get your point about many of our viewers and listeners, I could tell you right now, because I talk to them. I see them in airports. I see them in restaurants. I see. — I hear them on Twitter. They don’t trust government numbers. Fine. That’s fine. And there’s reason to not trust all of them through either just human error or things get adjusted. Whatever.
But politicizing stuff to this level —
MALLOUK: A hundred percent.
SULLIVAN: Creates a level of distrust which I don’t think is very healthy long term.
MALLOUK: No. I think it sends a a a bad message to the markets and and to everybody. It doesn’t matter what side of the aisle you’re on. You just you you can’t have an announcement you don’t like and fire somebody the next day, and say it was for reasons that have gone on for five or ten years. It’s obviously sends a chilling effect.
Markets do not like chilling effects. They’re not gonna respond super favorably to this. I mean, to me, the big thing here is how what you just said. These pieces go together. You cannot say the economy is absolutely amazing and Powell should cut rates.
That’s not that’s not how those two things go together. You cut rates when you need to stimulate the economy because it’s it’s not doing well. We get some numbers that actually feed into that, and now, you know, we’re upset with the numbers. I think it’s — it would just play out. We’d see a rate cut towards the end of the year. We’d start to see the market respond favorably, and everything would work out the way, you know, the way he wanted. And so I can’t believe I saw that announcement in real time.
SULLIVAN: Well, it’s hard to I I don’t know, and it’s unclear if she if she has been fired or she will be fired. Trump’s tweet or social media post was that he’s ordered his team to fire her, so I don’t know what that means in the grand scheme.
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