Quick agenda for everybody on the call today. We want to talk a little bit more about the election, about Trump’s administration. We’ve already got one appointee. We’re looking for Jim’s predictions and sort of what’s going to happen the next few days and weeks with Trump, maybe Trump’s cabinet and some ways that that could unfold. We want to talk big picture on something we didn’t talk about two days ago, Jim, which was a little bit more of the economy, talking about possible recession. Even though we’ve got Trump in, we might have some headwinds, as you were saying in the green room.

And then there’s also the fomc. We just had rate cuts, another rate cut. And you know, let’s get a little bit of your take on where you see things going there. And importantly, you brought it up. You’ve got your book. The book is live now. Money GPT is out. So we want to get the inside scoop on that as well. So that’s what we’ve got for everybody today. We’ll, we might keep it a little bit short, but we’ll hit everything as, as quickly and as deeply as we need to. So Jim, why don’t you kick us off.

We didn’t cover this too in depth, but we’ve already got Susie WS appointed by Trump and we’ve got some other maybe potential. She’s the chief of staff. Where do you see things going in the next few days and weeks with the Trump administration? Sure, I’d be glad to go through that. Just before we do, Matt, one footnote to the election result. You know, our Strategic Intelligence subscribers got their last pre election issue on November 1st. We wrapped it up the night of October 30th. But you know, takes a day to in pre production got it out November 1st.

And you look at all the top names in polling, Nate Silver, New York Times, you know, Washington Post, et cetera. And what did they say before? What was their prediction for the election? They all too close to call. Too close to call. They no, I couldn’t find anyone who predicted Kamala who wasn’t working for her campaign. But nobody wanted to predict Trump because it’s like the polls were and they really were close. We, we basically were categorical about it. We said, we told our readers Trump’s going to win. We said he would have exactly 312 electoral votes.

We said he would have 54 Senate seats and the Republicans would keep the House. I forget the exact number. I put down something like 222 something like that. Well, the results are in. It took a few days because, you know, counting in Arizona, Nevada and Pennsylvania, some of these states are a little funky. But Trump, now all the vote, all the states are done. Trump got 312 electoral votes. In others, we stuck the landing. We just nailed that to, you know, to a single digit 312 electoral votes. That was our forecast. Right now The Republicans have 53 Senate seats.

We said 54, but two of them are still open. Carrie Lake in Nevada, sorry, in Arizona. And the Nevada seats open. So the final numbers are, they’re going to be 53, 54 if we win one, or 55 if the Republicans win both. But we said 54. So we’re right in the middle of the fairway within one or maybe exact when all is said and done. And now according to the Cook report, the latest polls looks like the Republicans are going to keep the House with about the exact number. So we, we not only called it, we got the numbers exactly right.

I just, I feel good about it. You know, we use proprietary models, of course, we look at polls, of course, we look at news and speeches and everything everyone else looks at. But we have our own models and our own way of taking all that raw data and turning into a forecast. We, you know, candidly, Matt, we had the best forecast in the world. We just, yeah, we just nailed it with single digit out of 435. So. But I feel good about that in terms of the readers because they got best information in the world in advance of the election.

Yeah, well, we get heat every now and then for, you know, I’m shameless about it. I’m the publisher at Paradigm Press. I love strategic intelligence. And we push it hard, right? We want more readers, we want to get, we want to sort of scream from the rooftops. And a lot of times we say, you know, very boldly, Jim is the best at this. This is going to be a Jim Rickards world. This is, look at all the past predictions and you’re saying it absolutely true. So it’s good. If you’re on the call right now, you watch this later and you’re part of Jim’s community here, consider yourself, you know, a front row seat to easily the best at predicting and having the, having the guts to say it.

Like you’re saying, Jim, like a lot of these people wouldn’t even say things. So great, great work. And now the question is, what’s next? So where do you see things shaking out? Anybody Cabinet wise or appointees or any directors from Trump? Yeah, Well, I think regular readers and listeners know that I’ve been. I was. I still am extremely critical of Trump’s transition process in 2016. He won the election, but we predicted that one also. But back in the day, when everyone was 90% Hillary, but he completely bungled the transition process. Trump never drained the swamp because he couldn’t find the swamp.

He didn’t know where it is. We know where it is. It’s in the. It’s in the plum book. We’ve talk to viewers about that. The Plum book is a. It’s kind of like the Yellow Pages. It’s a. It’s a paperback book produced by the Government Printing Office, official US Government document. But basically, it lists every single job in the administration where the president can just pick whoever he wants. Some of them require Senate approval, but the point is, they’re not subject to civil service protections. They’re not subject to other considerations. The president can just say, you know, cabinet level, but not just Cabinet, cabinet level, Deputy secretary, assistant secretary, deputy assistant secretary, something called the das, all the way down to, like, administrative assistant and the assistant to the assistant.

And, you know, not really overstating. That’s what the plum book is. Lists all the jobs broken down by department, agency, not just the Cabinet. It’s, you know, the FCC, the FTC, the FAA. It’s on SEC, on and on and on. There are about 8,000 jobs. You want to drain the swamp, you better have three or four thousand people who share view, share your politics, loyal to the administration, good to go, and put them in those positions as quickly as possible, like almost overnight. On day one, you got to fire a lot of people, and then you got to fill in the ranks, but do it with loyalties.

Trump bungled that process. We don’t have to spend a lot of time on that, but he put Chris Christie in charge of it. Chris Christie, you know, Trump’s daughter Ivanka, was part one of his closest advisors. Her husband, Jared Kushner, was a close adviser. Chris Christie put Jared Kushner’s father in jail. So why do you pick Chris Christie as your transition advisor when you know Jared Kushner hates his guts and vice versa? So that’s just a simple vignette, but it’s an example of how badly that process was bungled. And Trump, you know, brought it in. The New York mentality said, well, if I hire you and I make a mistake, you’re fired.

You know, the Apprentice thing, you’re fired. That may work in New York, does work in New York, although it’s necessarily good management. It does not work in Washington. The political baggage, the publicity, the legal constraints, et cetera, et cetera. You can’t just fire people. And he picked some of the worst people ever. Jeff Sessions, probably the worst attorney general in history. You know, people call Christopher Wray, head of the FBI, a neo fascist. I agree with that. I think he is a neo fascist. But Trump picked him. Trump put Christopher Wray in the FBI. Now Trump’s going to fire Christopher Wray.

And in fact, the latest news is Christopher Wray will probably resign in the next 60 days rather than wait around to get fired by Trump. But that’s. The message has sunk in anyway. Trump has a much better team. They’re, they’re familiar with the Plum book. They, you know, put it under their pillow at night. They get it. They’ve taken, they’ve had widgets on a couple websites, Heritage foundation and others, where you can put your resume in, put your name on the list or whatever. They’ll, they’ll get back to you. So they’re, they’re really ready to go.

His first pick came out yesterday. We know Susie Wiles is the chief of staff, by the way, first female chief of staff and White House chief of staff in history. You know, all the, Trump’s like, you know, hates women. Trump, you know, all this Mark Cuban stuff. Mark Cuban kind of embarrassed himself for life by saying, you know, smart, independent women don’t vote for Trump. Well, not only did they vote for Trump, Trump got a majority of the female vote, but he picks the first woman chief of staff in history. So that just shows you how, you know, kind of full of hot air, most of the demo, obviously, all the democr systems.

So Susie Wallace is the chief of staff. But that’s a very big deal because you’re the gatekeeper to the, to the Oval Office. Like, you don’t just walk. I’ve been to the West Wing. I’ve been in the Oval Office. I’ve been there on official business. It’s, it’s a lot smaller than people realize. It’s not like the TV show. It’s kind of, it’s kind of actually pretty small. But, but the point being, in Trump’s first administration, it was like a frat house, you know, you know, you know, Peter Navarro, Steve Bannon, KT McFarland, all good people, but they could just walk into the Oval Office, say, you know, Mr.

President S. You know, whatever, that it’s maybe creative, but it’s also chaotic. Anyway, starting now, if you want to see Trump, you’re going to have to go through Susie WS she’ll be the gatekeeper. She does not like publicity. Very unusual for Washington. She, she’s not a leaker. She won’t tolerate leakers. She doesn’t want to see her name in the newspapers. Most people you say Susie Wild, like, who’s she? Well, she was the campaign manager. I mean, Trump won in large part because of her. Of course Trump won because he was Trump. But she managed the campaign very, very tight fist.

She’s, she’s about 60 years old. She’s not one of these, you know, you know, Fox News anchors, whatever, you know, that they’re, they’re very attractive, very smart. But she’s, she’s a little bit old school. Her father was Pat Summerall, if you remember him. He was the famous CBS football announcer, you know, back in the day. So she’s very savvy and a very good choice. But that’s a big deal because as the gatekeeper, she will now have an influence on all the other choices. Now, as we go around the horn, so to speak, with the cab, Trump made a lot of mistakes in his first term, but he learned a lot.

So that’s the good thing, you know, okay, bungled the transition, made some bad picks, couldn’t fire them. But he learned the hard way, I would say, how to do it right and how to get loyalists involved. And that’s, that’s where they’re going to get right. So, secretary, and we don’t know these, by the way, these announcements will be coming out over the next couple of weeks. So the transition goes from now or technically November 6th until January 20th. Trump won’t be president until January 20th. So that’s when he’s sworn in. That’s when he can sign executive orders and hire people and all that.

But they’ll be, and they’ve got the list so they know what they’re doing. They’ll be making these announcements over the next several weeks and sometimes they do them in bunches. They’ll do three or four cabinet secretaries. They’ll announce them all at once and have a little photo op or whatever and then another batch of three a few days later. They won’t wait until, you know, January 19th to announce all this. They’ll get it done. The other good news for the Trump administration is the Republicans took the Senate and not by one or two votes, as I mentioned, they’ve got 53 in the bag.

Two open, two seats still being fought out, still county votes. Don’t know the Outcome very close, but they might end up with 54. That’s a big deal because you need, well, technically you only need 50 senators to confirm these appointments because if you had a 50, 50 tie with the Republicans in the White House, J.D. vance, J.D. vance is the new Vice President. But under the Constitution, the Vice President is the President of the Senate. He’s the presiding officer of the Senate. If you have a 50, 50 tie, JD Vance can cast a tie breaking vote obviously in favor of the Republicans.

So you only need 50. 51 is better, 53 is awesome. And then as I say, maybe 54. The importance of that. There are a couple flaky Republicans. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine. Now they got to do what they got to do to get elected. I’m looking at Maine. I live here in New Hampshire. Maine’s right across the river. It’s a pretty liberal place. So, you know, credit to Susan Collins for hanging in there and getting elected as a Republican. But it was often the case that you’d have these really close votes going back again to Trump’s first term.

And if Murkowski and Collins were not happy, you’d either have to kowtow to them or maybe it wouldn’t get done, or maybe they switched sides, you know, rhino style. You know, Manchin did the same thing to the Demos Democrats. He was a Democrat, but sometimes he would side with the Republicans. That’s what happens when it’s 50, 50. But with 53, you could lose. Here’s my point. You could lose Collins and you could lose Murkowski and still win. So it’s nice when you could lose a couple votes and still have 51 or even 50 to get it done.

That means Trump’s going to be able to get his appointments confirmed and he’ll be able to be Trump. He’ll be able to pick loyalists and know that the Senate will get them through. And you’ve got a lot of MAGA senators now, not pure maga, but very favorable to Trump, Rand Paul, Rick Scott, we’ll see what happens with Carrie Lake in Arizona and so forth. Ted Cruz was reelected, you know, so it’s much more MAGA friendly. So they’ll get these people appointed. Attorney General may be the single most important position. Typically they say the Secretary of State, that’s the most senior cabinet appointment.

But the President has so much power in foreign policy that, you know, being Secretary of State is important, but that’s where the President’s really going to be hands on. So you’re almost like A, you’re number two because the President’s number one when it comes to foreign policy. It’s different with the Attorney General for two reasons. Number one, Trump’s not a lawyer. So, so president who’s not a lawyer is always going to rely on lawyers. And you start with the White House counsel and the Attorney General, number one. Number two, you at least want to keep your distance.

You know, if you interfere too much with the Department of Justice, it looks like you’re which, which Biden did all by the way. Merrick Garland was just a. Well, he was a lot smarter than Biden, but a ruthless, didn’t care about the Constitution, didn’t care about the rule of law. You know, breaking into Mar A Lago, breaking into Roger Stone’s house. You Putting Peter Navarro, 73 year old, mild mannered Arvid economist, putting him in leg irons and handcuffs and frog marching him out of National Airport under arrest in the middle of the day. You know, things like that.

That’s Merrick Garland’s Justice Department. So with Trump, it’s not going to be about vengeance or revenge, but it is going to be about justice and accountability. You have to operate within the law. There’s a fellow named Mike Davis. Keep your eye on him. I’ve met him down in Washington. He’s on the short list for Attorney General. You don’t hear a lot about him. You hear about, you know, Josh Hawley, you know some of the senators, Tom Cotton maybe who are lawyers, have a legal background. Keep your eye on Mike Davis. I’m not making a hard prediction that he’ll be the Attorney General, but he might be.

And he’s the least, he’s, he’s definitely known to insiders. He’s well known to insiders. Well known to Trump. Not as well known in the public. I met him. Very nice conversation. But I got to say, this guy is hard as nails. I mean I couldn’t get a laugh out of him. You know, it was, we were at a bar, it was a casual conversation but it just, just like hard shell. So he was the guy who yesterday, because Letitia James is the Attorney General of the state of New York, she’s the one who brought the case that where they got a judgment against Trump, the Trump organization, for $500 million.

Actually more with interest and penalties. $600 million for nothing. I mean stuff that every businessman in New York does. But for somehow with Trump, they took it into a, they turned it into a crime. Well, it was a civil case by the way, but they turned it into a, a civil fraud. This is what, this one where they were borrowing money from Deutsche Bank. Deutsche bank said we never relied on Trump’s valuations. We did our own due diligence, we made the loan, he paid us back on time as agreed, and we would lend to him again.

It was the friendliest relationship ever, but somehow that was turned into a fraud. And you had this smarmy judge in the Bronx. I mean, you know, I’m not violent, but you kind of, if he saw the guy, you’d want to smack him in the face, you know, at least notionally. And they got this 500 anyway, so she’s out already. This is the resistance. Don’t underestimate the resistance, the Trump haters who are still in office. She said, we’re not done with him. We’re going to use New York law. You haven’t heard the last of us. You know, we’re going to bring new case, et cetera.

Anyway, Mike Davis comes out and he does an interview. He, and he’s speaking, it’s an interview, but he’s basically addressing Letitia James. He said, stop it. We’re not fooling around. We’re going to put your fat ass in jail. And that’s a quote. We’re going to put your fat ass in jail. Because There are Title 18 of the Federal Code of Criminal. The Federal Criminal Code has provisions that if you violate the civil, if you are in a conspiracy to violate the civil rights of others, that’s a crime in and of itself. So he said basically, you’re breaking the law by bringing these phony baloney cases with your crew of, you know, jumped up lawyers.

And we’re gonna, we’re gonna prosecute you criminally under title 18. So we’ll basically put your fat ass in jail so they’re not messing around. So keep your eye on Mike Davis, Secretary of State. The, the good thing there is there’s a deep bench. There are a number of people you could pick. Richard Grenell would be very high. A former ambassador to Germany, former Director of National Intelligence, you know, very important position. So look for him, maybe as Secretary of State there’ll be, I can give you names who will get high positions. I don’t, can’t necessarily match up everybody with every department.

But you’re going to hear more from Vivek Ramaswamy, maybe Department of Education. The latest. Cash Patel, head of the CIA. Well, I worked at the CIA for 10 years. I know Cash. So Cash Patel was the chief of staff to Devin Nunes. So if you go back to 2017, 2018, 2019, Russia, Russia, Russia. All the Hillary Clinton hoax, all the Russian influence, disinformation, Trump’s a Putin puppet, it was all false. But that was the narrative in the media round with Jake Tapper and what’s her name, Rachel Maddow. And all these people just lied about it. Adam Schiff, you know, the League of Liars.

Well, Devin Nunes was the person, the member of Congress, the committee chair who pushed back against all that, exposed the fraud, etc. Anyway, Cash Patel was his right hand. Cash is a lawyer. He did a lot of the hard work. He got the documents. He was a bulldog. He unveiled all this stuff. His name is being floated as Director of the CIA now, having worked there and for a number of directors. I started with George Tennant and through Leon Panetta, Porter guy, Josh didn’t last long. He lasted like six months. But then Leon Panetta came in and David Petraeus and I left right around the time Brandon came in.

So I was able to, you know, he was the worst, but almost anti American, I would say. But anyway, General Hayden, who I also know is the Director of the CIA, he said, if you’re, if you’re going to be director of the CIA, come alone, meaning don’t bring an entourage of people and try to fill all these places. It’s too insular. It’s too, it’s a, it’s not a cult, but it’s like a, it’s like a family that shares information but can’t talk to anybody else about it, you know, other than, other than, you know, inside the CIA bubble.

So you can come in as director and you can get a lot done, but you better be prepared to work with people there because as Jeff Schumer said, they’ll, they’ll get you six ways to Sunday. So. An interesting choice, but one of the things Cash said was if he CIA director said, we’re going to declassify not everything, but a ton of stuff. So the Epstein files, the JFK assassination files, the UFO files, I, I know people in the agency who worked on ufo. Can’t say more, but they looked at it, believe me. And P. Diddy, you know, Sean Combs, I don’t know what the CIA has to do with that, but they, the intelligence community shares all this information.

I’m sure he’s speaking more broadly about not just the CIA, but the FBI. So we’re gonna, we’re gonna, we’re gonna declassify all of it and people are gonna see what’s going on. So that’s an earth, get ready for that earthquake. You know, one of the, during the late stages of the Harris campaign, you saw these celebrity endorsements. You know, Beyonce, J. Lo, Julia Roberts did a voiceover for a commercial. George Clooney, you know, you know the name Bruce Springsteen. They were all out there. This is kind of a little bit of a stretch. You know, can’t quite prove it, but it’s, it’s highly plausible that they may have supported Harris.

But a lot of them knew that if Trump won they were going to release all this stuff and their names would show up. You would be on the Epstein guest list, you would be at the P. Diddy party, Sean Coombs party, you know, et cetera. And so the embarrassment factor, maybe the legal liability factor is sky high. And that was part of their motivation for supporting Harris. So to use cliches, but stay tuned. If Cash Patel is in the CIA or even dni, Director of National Intelligence, watch out because they are going to declassify this and RFK Jr is behind a lot of it.

By the way, I should mention the transition team. So we talked about the transition. Who’s leading that team? There are five people. The formal co heads. Howard Lutnick, who was CEO of Kenneth Fitzgerald. I know him from my Greenwich Capital primary dealer days. Kenneth Fitzgerald was, we were one of the biggest dealers in government securities but Kenneth Fischer was our broker. They were a broker between all the big bank dealers. So he’s well known. I knew him at the time. Linda McMahon, if the name is not familiar. She’s the co founder of the World Wrestling Federation.

I forget her husband’s name, but she, but she was also head of the Small Business Administration during the Trump administration. I met her as she almost wrestled me to the ground once. I was a, I was an unpledged delegate at the Republican State Convention, Hartford, Connecticut, lived in Connecticut at the time and she was running for governor and she had, she had a list of unpledged, you know, she, she like charged me, almost like knocked me down but trying to get my vote. But the other, the other three are Tulsi Gabbert, I know Tulsi RFK Jr and JD Vance.

So Linda McMahon, Howard Lutnick, Tulsi Gabbert, RFK Jr and JD Vance. That’s your five person transition team all stars. Every one of them are stars in their own way. They apparently get along very well and they’re meeting daily and figuring this out. And Susie Wiles is chief of staff looking over their shoulders so it’s a good team, good process. You’re going to see some big names. I don’t think they’re going to make the mistakes they made in 2016. Keep an eye on Mike Davis for Attorney General. He, he doesn’t believe in vengeance, but he does believe in justice.

And that means a lot of people might be going to jail and then cash and the CIA. I believe we want to see it, but that would be an interesting one. Yeah. All right. A lot of good points. A lot of good things to be keeping an eye on in the next couple weeks because we’re going to see a lot of it unfold. And really the Trump 2.0 is really just about to roll out. Jim, let’s switch gears. Sorry. I can just drop two more names. Look for Peter Navarro and Robert Lighthizer in the White House.

Whether Lighthizer is Secretary of Commerce or National Director of National Economics, Navarro will be maybe U.S. trade representative. But they’re the two behind Trump’s the high tariff. Build it here. You want to sell cars in the U.S. that’s fine. Build them here, create high paying U.S. jobs. So Lighthizer and Navarro are the dual, you know, double barrel shotgun on high tariffs and the Trump economic policy. Right. Well, speaking of economic policy, let’s talk the economy in general. We can kind of lump all this stuff together, but tell us what you see for the economy here in the US We’ve got the potential for a recession and then maybe if we can kind of loop it all together with the FOMC and what we’re seeing with rate cuts, because we haven’t talked about this in a while, we had so much politics.

Let’s just talk about the real economy here. What do you see happening in the next few weeks, months and maybe 20, 25? Yeah, yeah. I think you have to, you have to have two horizon settings. One is I’ll say six to nine months and then the other one, two to four years and they could end up in different places. So, so the two to four year forecast, very positive, very bullish for the US Economy and you know, by extension for stocks and commodities and other other markets. I’m not going to spend a lot of time on the American system.

We’ve written a lot about it. So regular Strategic Intelligence subscribers or if you got those issues or if you’re a new subscriber, first of all welcome. And then you’re, you have access to the archives so you can find stuff. We’ve written about this and some of our other newsletters. We’ve written about it. But basically the American system started with Alexander Hamilton. In 1790, it was endorsed by George Washington, carried forward by Henry Clay, who was a senator. John Quincy Adams was president. Abraham Lincoln was a big advocate. William McKinley at the turn of the 20th century, all the way through to Dwight Eisenhower.

This is the group that is the exact opposite of the globalists. So the globalists are the neoliberal consensus, you know, Hayek, the Austrian economists, the libertarians. Ludicrous. They are. They’re globalists to the point that they want open borders, free trade, which is kind of a chimera. There isn’t really any free trade, but they talk about it. Open borders and open capital accounts. So they want all the people, all the money and all the goods to go wherever they want. And so you can have what they call price discovery, price efficiency. But it’s almost like a religion and a culture.

But it ignores a lot. It ignores too much. It ignores America. Like what? This is what America first is all about. So the American system is opposed to that. The American system is high tariffs. We’re going to protect US Industry, we’re going to encourage US Industry. The other pillars are, is high tariffs, infrastructure, a central bank, but with very limited powers. A central bank that would provide liquidity, lender of last resort, but nothing else. Get the sense, get the Federal Reserve out of the business of micromanaging the economy, micromanaging interest rates. They do a lousy job of it.

A bank can just be a lender that provides liquidity and nothing else. And that’s what the first bank of the United States was in from 1792 to 1812. So, and then the fourth one is a strong defense, but again, to be clear, Matt, it’s a strong army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Space Force, it’s a strong defense. But don’t run around the world starting wars. Don’t run around the world invading countries. Protect the United States, protect US interests, Intervene if you have to in the US Interests, but stop trying to do regime change and get involved in places like Ukraine and Iraq and elsewhere.

Unless there’s some strategic interest, the US Produces enough oil because Trump’s going to say, drill, baby, drill. We might not even care that much about the Middle East. Let China worry about it. So, so, you know, basically high tariffs, which means high paying jobs, central bank with limited powers, military that defends us but doesn’t start wars, and infrastructure investment. That’s the American plan. So in the 19th century, what were they building? You know, canals, roads, bridges, you know, late 19th century railroads. Today it would be telecommunications technology and advanced supercomputing and AI and things like that.

But whatever it is, there’s a role for government, but don’t make it productive investment, not wasteful investment. Instead of building windmills which fall apart, don’t work and you know, it’s just, it’s part of the green New scam. How about investing in things that actually do help people or at least get regulation out of the way so the private sector can do it themselves. So that’s the American system. Trump’s going to bring it back again. The two knights in shining armor. Robert Lighthizer, Mr. High Tariffs. Peter Navarro, Mr. Infrastructure. And you give you a concrete example, massive right now, Trump put tariffs on Chinese automobiles when he was still president.

Biden never removed them. For all the talk about Biden bashing Trump, you know, et cetera. And they did. The one thing they never touched were the tariffs. They left them in place. So anyway, Trump’s back, Lighthizer’s back, they’re going to raise those tariffs and what they’re saying to China is, hey, you can sell cars to Americans no problem, but put your plants in South Carolina or Tennessee or Michigan or wherever. And if you don’t, the tariffs are going to stick and US Autoworkers are going to be the beneficiary. They’re going to have high paying jobs, higher real incomes.

And that has knock on effects in terms of, you know, consumption and, you know, lower prices and a stronger U.S. economy. Now we have something called the USMCA. It’s not the Village People song, it’s USMCA is the successor to NAFTA. So NAFTA was the North American Free Trade Agreement. USMCA is the same thing. It stands for U.S. mexico, Canada Agreement. Now here’s the thing. It allows Mexican imports to come into the United States free of tariffs. I told you that Trump threw tariffs on China. So what the Chinese did, the Chinese bought the Mexican plants. The Chinese put car factories or bought car factories in Mexico and can ship them to the United States without the tariffs that if they ship them right from China would apply.

Trump says no, we’re going to, we’ll do what we have to do. We’ll amend the treaty, we’ll do a carve out. We’ll just say, you know, we send the treaty, whatever it takes. Trump’s going to put tariffs on Mexican manufactured automobiles if you’re owned by China. So they’re not going to let China do the end run through Mexico. This is all good news. For the autoworkers. It’s why Trump got so many votes from unions, endorsements from the, I didn’t get an endorsement from the United Auto Workers, but I think they were neutral. But the workers themselves voted for Trump.

But what it means for the economy is, as I say, high paying jobs. You know, there’s a, it’s a true story. Around 1910, maybe a little bit later in 1912 or so, Henry Ford gave his workers a $5 a day raise and everyone went crazy. You know, all the billionaires at the time said, what are you thinking? You know, you’re practically a monopoly. Why are you giving your workers a raise? And Ford said, I want them to be able to buy my cars. In other words, what good does it do to manufacture something if the people in the country can’t afford it? So if you want, if you want to get the economy going, let’s, let’s get tariffs.

There’s a short term cost involved, but it’s a one time thing. And then after that, real wages go up and the economy gets going and it works very well. So, so definitely look for that. Now here’s, here’s the problem. To your point, Matt, everything I just described is great. It’s going to work, it’s good for the economy, but it’s going to take that horizon is kind of two to four years. In the next three to six months, we may have a recession. Now this recession will not be Trump’s fault, it’ll be Biden’s fault. But every president gets blamed for whatever happens when they’re president.

It doesn’t matter if it’s Biden’s fault or not. I mean, it is Biden’s fault, the Biden Harris administration. But it could well emerge in the early stages of the Trump administration and Trump’s just going to have to power through it, keep his eye on the ball. I think he will. And get to a much better outcome. And by the way, the example, the example of this, the president who had the same problem was Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan was sworn in in January 1981. In 1981, 1982, the US had the worst recession since the Great Depression up to that time.

We’ve had worse recessions since then. But 1982, and I was, you know, I was working on as a senior officer at Citibank at the time, living in New York. I mean, I kind of lived through it. That was a very bad recession. Unemployment went over 10%. Inflation was, you know, with 15, 20% until it came down later. So Reagan had to open with this really bad recession. But beginning in 1983, from 1983 to 1986, we had 16% real growth. So 83, 84, 85, 86, 16% real growth. It was compound annual growth rate was over 4%. It was a great economy.

And of course, in 1984, Reagan was reelected by one of the, well, just about the largest landslide in American history. I think it took 49 states. They, they let Mondale have Minnesota, but they took 49 states. So, so I guess the moral of the story is, you know, recessions, business cycles, real, it hasn’t gone away. Recessions come and go. If you’re president, get your recession out of the way first, you get a recession over with and then, and then finish strong. And, you know, Trump can’t run again. But whether he’s handing off to, you know, J.D.

vance or Ron DeSantis or that remains to be seen. But he’ll be handing off to a Republican successor with a very strong economy, which bodes well for another Republican victory in 2028. But, you know, we don’t have to get into that yet. But, so my forecast is maybe some rough sledding right now, starting now for the next three to six months, but then beyond that, very strong growth for the US Economy. But it’s going to, we’re going to have to get over this hump first. Kind of the residue of the Biden administration before Trump can really do his thing.

Yeah, a lot of good points there. One of the things that we sent around, I can share my screen real quick just on tariffs. And again, this is something that it, this came through from Bob Byrne on our editorial staff. But it’s something a lot of people don’t realize. Like Trump started the tariffs, but Biden collected more tariffs. Right. So it’s, tariffs aren’t a new thing, as you’re saying. And the other thing that I think we’ve been sort of saying around the office, too, and it’s important for people to say because it’s almost like the Democrats and the way they talk about tariffs are like, oh, my gosh, it’s almost like Trump invented this.

And it’s, we were starting from zero beforehand, but really you said this and you sort of opened up this, this worldview in my, my mind as well with like the Green New scam, but with all of the deals that the US signed around the world in the last 20, 30 years, those are just basically tariffs on us. You know, we’re agreeing to this, we’re agreeing to that. Trump is finally one of the first people that came in is like, hey, all these deals aren’t fair. You know, China’s not paying their, their fair share. They’re not, not signed up for anything environmental.

All these other deals that we’re sort of a piece of. So it’s not like the tariffs are coming out of nowhere. They’re, they’re coming here because we have to combat all this other crazy stuff that we’ve already signed. It’s nuts. Yeah. And the other thing, the other thing that Trump does really well, Trump doesn’t like multilateral agreements. You know, the Trans Pacific Partnership and we have 20 countries and the US always gets screwed. Like we, you’re exactly right. We lower our tariffs for all these trading partners, but we don’t seem to get much out of it.

Trump does trade deals, but he does bilateral deals. He says, hey, okay, South Korea, let’s sit down and talk. Malaysia, fine, let’s sit down and talk. Same thing. Web, Mexico and Canada is a little different, but, but he does bilateral deals. We can drive a hard bargain. The art of the deal and yeah, give up something, but get something for the United States. So, so there will be treaties, definitely tariffs, but we’re going to get out of these. You know, the Paris Accord, by the way, real, real quick footnote, Matt. When Trump is sworn in and he goes to his desk in the Oval Office, there’s going to be a pile of executive orders this high, I don’t know, 50, 60.

And they, they’re high quality paper with seals and stuff like that. But they come in these really nice leather binders, these really expensive leather binders with the gold seal of the President. You just sit there and sign them and hand it to your aid and keep signing. He’s going to day one, get out of the Paris Accord, reinstate Iranian sanctions, slap more tariffs on China, fire a bunch of people. You don’t need an executive order for that. You just call them, tell them they’re fired. You’re going to see your, your head’s going to spin. All of her head’s going to spin on day one when you see, because they’ve, they’re doing it all in advance.

It’s not like they, they do an all nighter and get them ready. They’re ready now. They’ll tweak them. You know, Susie Wiles will look in, other people will, will make their voices heard, but they’ll have that all good to go. You’re gonna see like 50 executive orders on day one. Yeah. And investors should get ready for that. We’re gonna. Part of our job, of course, is to like, you know, give them a heads up and let them know what’s coming and so you can adjust your portfolio accordingly. Yeah, you need the Trump Folio. See what. Yes.

The executive orders that are going to be signed. The, the people in his cabinet, the administration, like, everybody. Where are they going? Because in the next, next two to four years, I mean, it could be huge. Yep. Anything to be said with the FOMC J pal? We had a rate cut. Anything there that you see, good or bad? Yeah, I read the release. I watched the press conference and wrote an article on it late, late Thursday night. It was a little unusual. Normally the Fed meetings are Tuesday, Wednesday and Wednesday’s announcement. This, this the first time ever, like I recall, that they did it Wednesday, Thursday because they didn’t want to work on election day.

That’s fine. Yeah. They cut rates 25 basis points. That’s what we predicted. Of course, that was widely known. We didn’t have a crystal ball. They kind of signaled that Powell, I mean, I thought the best way to think about it, it was like a replay of the September meeting. September was 50 basis points. That was a little bit bigger deal. But they just said, you know, we have a dual mandate. Inflation looks like it’s under control. And yes, it has been coming down. We’re a little more concerned about the economy, so we’re going to cut rates.

But it was just a replay of the September meeting. In terms of substance, the only part that I thought was interesting is some reporter said to Powell, and bear in mind, Powell’s not an economist, he’s a lawyer. He is chairman of the Fed, but he’s a lawyer. So. Reporter said, you know, President, well, Donald Trump has said he would fire you on day one. Are you, are you prepared to resign? And Powell was, no. There’s no elaborate. He said, no. I said, well, does the President have the ability to fire you? And he goes, no. And then another reporter said, what kind of repeating the same question.

What if the President fires you and any members of the board of governors? And he goes, law does not allow that. He was given these really curt, I mean, a technical legal answer, these really curt answers. And the look on his face, I always look at the body language because it tells you a lot. He was angry and he’s not usually like that, pal. Back in the days, pretty, a pretty nice guy, but he, he was angry and he was, no, no, no. So, but I, I thought about, I said, well, first of all, no president has ever fired a Fed chair, so we don’t actually know the answer.

It’s could he maybe Pal says no. Pal’s a lawyer, fine. Maybe some other lawyer says yes. So we don’t know. But I thought about it. I was like, why would Trump do that? Pal’s term is up in early 2026. It’s not that far away, you know, 14 months or whatever. Why make a political. Why create a political battleground or headlines or, you know, you’re a dictator, all this stuff. Powell’s gone away in 15 months or sooner because he can choose to resign even if he’s not forced out. But I thought leaving Powell in office is actually a smart move because if I’m right about the recession in the front end of the Trump administration, you can blame Powell, make Pal your punching bag.

I mean, keep him around so you can use him as a punching bag if the economy doesn’t work out. I don’t think Pal is actually that powerful, but everyone else thinks he is. And so if Pal’s in office and something goes wrong, hey, what’s Powell’s fault? You know, so, so I think Pal is a very convenient punching bag, pinata, so to speak, in the early stage of the Trump administration, especially if the economy’s a little bit funky. So I’d keep him around just for, for, you know, kind of like a dartboard. Yep. All right, Jim, let’s, let’s get it.

We got Money GPT is out on the streets, right? You’ve got your hard copy. I don’t. Let’s. I’m not big on what they call stage business, but, but there it is. Money GPT. It’s my new book coming out on Tuesday, but it’s available for pre order on Amazon right now. But I know that Paradigm is going to be making a very, a very sweet offer to readers who, who subscribe. So that’s one way. But if you want to get it on your doorstep Tuesday, order it on Amazon. By the way, the Financial Times listed on the best new books in economics.

Financial Times are pretty strict, but they had a column, best new books in Economics, they included the Money GPT is one of the five best books Amazon ranks at number one new release in finance and number one new release in economic conditions. So it’s, it’s already hot. It’s getting great reviews. It’s about artificial intelligence, but it’s the, it’s the impact of artificial intelligence on the stock market. So really it’s an economic book and a market book with Good advice for investors. Tells you how the market could melt down, but also how to look for that, how to protect yourself.

And it’s a real good introduction. It’s not dumbed down at all, but it covers some highly technical issues. In plain English, I think it’s very accessible. Also talks about GPT, censorship, bias and nuclear war fighting, how AI could lead to a nuclear war. And you have to keep it out of the, out of the kill chain. And some. It’s one of the first things I’ve ever written about bitcoin. There’s a chapter where I talk a little bit about bitcoin. People go, hey Jim, why don’t you write about bitcoin? I never have. I mean, I abuse. I’ll talk about it, but it’s the first time I’ve actually written about bitcoin and also banking panics with a little focus on Silicon Valley bank.

But how artificial intelligence can make that worse, accelerate it, exacerbate it, amplify it in ways that investors are not ready. It’s not a doom and gloom book, but we’re giving you a warning as to what could happen and what you can do to preserve your wealth. So I hope people kind of rush right out and get a copy again. Money GPT, Amazon ranks it the number one new release in finance. And I hope people enjoy it. Yeah, the book looks great. The, the COVID art looks great. And then even better, it’s, it’s a really in depth view on AI markets and a lot of Jim’s worldview there of what could happen in the next, you know, few weeks, months and years.

So we’ll be looking forward. Hopefully everybody out there that’s watching right now, you either have a copy on the way or you’re going to get one on Tuesday. All right, Jim, Well, I believe you’ve got all kinds of things going on today. You’re a busy man, so we’ll, we’ll wrap things up. I’ll give you the last word here. I know you got other hits on different. I don’t know if it’s shows, radio shows, you got interviews all over the place. But we’ll give you the last word. Anything we missed, thank you. We got, we got a prefill that.

Yeah, look, it was great news. The thing about Trump is he not only won the White House. Trump in advance. Okay. But it was a trifecta. They got the House, sorry, the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives, which means you can also control Supreme Court appointments. The, the Democratic lynch mob’s already trying to get rid of Sotomayor, try to push towards justice in the next three months. That’s not going to happen. But so indirectly control the Supreme Court, which is another branch of government. So this is as good as it gets. And Trump learned his lessons.

He’s much sharper now. Great team around him. I look for very good things. Yep, a lot of interesting stuff to keep an eye out for. So, everyone, thanks for tuning in today. And pay attention. Stay tuned. Strategic Intelligence will be covering everything you need to know about Trump 2.0, the administration, the Trump folio, whatever we go from there. Jim, thanks a lot and we’ll see you next time.
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