• Inflation rose more than expected in January according to federal data released Wednesday, as the cost of things like groceries, housing and energy ticked up. While we’re still only a few weeks into Donald Trump’s second term, he did campaign on lowering prices for consumers on ‘Day 1,’ a promise he and his team have been backing away from since his election victory. The new inflation data raises big questions about the state of the economy and the potential effects of Trump’s policy plans to cut taxes, impose tariffs and slash the federal workforce. Victoria Guida, economics correspondent for Politico, helps us make sense of what’s actually going on with the economy right now and what it all means for Trump.
• Later in the show, Crooked Media’s climate correspondent Anya Zoledziowski talks about what’s happening at the Environmental Protection Agency.
• And in headlines: Tulsi Gabbard is confirmed by the Senate and sworn in as the new director of national intelligence, Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed ways to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine over the phone (not on the call: Ukraine), and Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green presided over the first meeting of the House DOGE Subcommittee.

• Check out Victoria’s work – politico.com/staff/victoria-guida
• Subscribe to the What A Day Newsletter – https://tinyurl.com/3kk4nyz8
• Support victims of the fire – votesaveamerica.com/relief
• What A Day – YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@whatadaypodcast

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TRANSCRIPT

Jane Coaston: It’s Thursday, February 13th. I’m Jane Coaston. And this is What a Day, the show that believes that while Bourbon the nine year old whippet did not win the Westminster dog show, her efforts to come out of retirement for one last run of the crown, make her the champion in our hearts. [music break] On today’s show. Tulsi Gabbard is our new director of national intelligence, thanks to all but one Republican senator and President Donald Trump chit chats on the phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin about the war in Ukraine. But first, the economy. Is it good, bad? Something in the middle? Who gets to decide? I know those seem like silly questions. One could easily look at the stock market, the unemployment rate, and have a pretty good idea of how well the economy is doing right now. But during the 2024 presidential election, millions of Americans said that while the economy might be doing well on paper, their own personal economies, their ability to buy groceries, pay their mortgage and, who knows, take time off for a vacation were not. President Trump said a lot about the economy during his campaign. You remember how he was going to lower prices on day one. But now the Trump administration is trying to lower expectations for what they can actually do to help consumers and when Americans can expect relief. And on Wednesday, the consumer price index jumped, raising concerns that inflation, which had been declining since it hit a recent peak of 9% in 2022, might get worse again, which the Trump administration immediately took responsibility– no, no, they didn’t. Here’s White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. 

[clip of Karoline Leavitt] On the inflation point, we did receive those numbers and they were worse than expected, which tells us that the Biden administration indeed left us with a mess to deal with. 

Jane Coaston: Of course, part of the challenge of thinking about the economy is that how voters view the economy is often tied to who they vote for. Pew Research Center found in a study released on Tuesday that 64% of Democrats expect the economy to get worse this year, while 73% of Republicans think the economy will get better. You probably won’t be surprised to learn that this is a big decline for Democrats from last year and a big increase from Republicans. So to make sense of what’s actually going on with the economy right now and what it all means for Trump, I spoke with Victoria Guida. She’s an economics correspondent for Politico. Victoria, welcome to What a Day. 

Victoria Guida: Thanks for having me on. 

Jane Coaston: So I think a lot of us saw the inflation numbers went up unexpectedly Wednesday morning and maybe had a little bit of a panic because I remember how inflation was a couple of years ago and that was bad. So what’s your take? What do you see in those numbers? 

Victoria Guida: So I don’t think there’s reason to panic yet. The problem that we’ve had with inflation, so it peaked in 2022. Right. And inflation was above 9% then and we’re now down to 3%. So, first of all, way better than it was. But also, it’s it improved a lot. And then it hasn’t really gotten that much better for a while. Right? So for much of last year, it’s been sort of bouncing around in, you know, the high twos, low threes kind of area. So while this was hotter than, you know, economists were expecting, this isn’t necessarily hugely out of line with what it’s been doing. But the Federal Reserve, which is the body that’s responsible for fighting inflation, wants to see it come all the way back down to 2%. 

Jane Coaston: Now, we’re a little over three weeks into the Trump administration. How much blame can we reasonably put on them for this spike? 

Victoria Guida: So that is a complicated question, as you might guess. Generally, I would say the economy does not change very much in the course of three weeks. However, there are a couple of things to take into account. One of the biggest things that President Trump did in sort of the lead up to and in the early days of his presidency was to do tariff threats. So in January, there are there is a lot of price setting that happens, right? People write contracts and stuff. And so the question would be and I don’t have an answer to this question, whether the anticipation of tariffs could have potentially led to price increases. Now, that doesn’t mean that that’s what happened here, because um usually you often do see prices go up a lot in January. They went up they went up a lot last January. And so I would say to be safe, inflation is not doing that much different from what it had been doing, that this probably isn’t President Trump’s fault. However, you can’t you can’t rule out completely that there was some Trump effect here. 

Jane Coaston: Now, Trump campaigned hard on lowering prices, but is starting to back away from that. I know that I think every president goes through their election season kind of pretending like there is a button in the Oval Office that makes the economy go boom. But realistically, how much control does any president have over prices for things like groceries and other goods? 

Victoria Guida: So it’s a fantastic question because, yes, you’re absolutely right. The president doesn’t really have that much control. And you’ll notice that President Trump actually wasn’t the only candidate who ran on lowering prices. This is something that a lot of politicians run on because they know that this is something that matters to people. Right. And so if you talk about it, it’s sort of an acknowledgment of the fact that, you know, this is something people are struggling with. But actually, if prices generally go down and deflation, that’s usually caused by a recession. So unless they really want to crash the economy. Prices are not going to come down and the more healthy way to try and to deal with cost of living is to try and pursue things that will help people’s wages rise faster than prices so that people then get ahead. But yeah, I mean, prices are set by private businesses. That’s the way our economy works. 

Jane Coaston: Trump said on social media Wednesday that the government should slash interest rates. Now, could you explain in terms for people like me, why is he saying this now? And what would cutting interest rates do to the economy? 

Victoria Guida: So President Trump generally likes lower rates. I mean, he’s he built his career in real estate, and real estate is financed by, you know, mortgages, commercial mortgages uh and and residential mortgages. And so he’s somebody who likes to have a lower cost of debt in general. But the way that the Federal Reserve works is they raise rates or keep rates high when they’re worried about inflation and they cut rates um when the when the economy is weakening. And so this isn’t really the time where the Fed wants to be lowering rates. They were lowering rates a little bit last year because there was signs that the unemployment rate started to go up. But now uh, as I mentioned, inflation has continued to stall. And so the Fed has decided they kind of just want to hold here. But basically, to answer your question, if they were to cut rates, it could cause more of a problem for inflation if it allows prices to start creeping up faster. 

Jane Coaston: At least within the last decade or so, it seems like so much of people’s perceptions of the economy has been tied up in politics. And you see this happening right now that with Trump in office, Democrats are increasingly negative on how the economy is doing. And we saw the reverse under Biden. But what’s your read on the state of the economy? For the average American, is it good or is it at least okay? 

Victoria Guida: So this is a really difficult thing to answer because it’s compared to what? Right. So one of the reasons why the economy is good right now is because the unemployment rate is low. And so people generally have jobs. Now, whether those are jobs that they want, that’s another question. I will say that wages have been growing faster than prices for at least a couple of years now. And so people are starting to gain a bit of an edge. But there are a lot of reasons why people might be unhappy. Another reason that the economy isn’t as good as maybe it was is it’s a lot harder to switch jobs now because there are fewer job openings. So you might remember the great resignation that everyone talked about where people were quitting their jobs. And the reason that happened was because there were a lot of opportunities for people to move to other jobs. And so that’s something that um is empowering to workers and allows them to get more pay and maybe get a better job. And we see less of that now. So I would say that the economy is definitely a lot better than it was. Unemployment is low. Inflation is a lot lower than it was, but there’s a lot of reasons why people still might not feel great. 

Jane Coaston: And I think during the election, Democrats really struggled with their messaging on the economy because even if the kind of monthly reports looked good on paper, people were not feeling it for some of the reasons you just mentioned, and they were not in the mood to be told that things were actually good. So what are the risks, in your view, for Trump and Republicans right now, now that they’re in control of the government and they’ll be the ones telling everyone that the economy is good? 

Victoria Guida: Well, we have the midterm elections. And so uh, you know, this is the time period when the Republicans have control of both chambers of Congress and the White House. Obviously, President Trump is on his second term, so he’s not personally going to be running for reelection. But we could see in in just a couple of years the Republicans lose some power in Congress. And so the risk is real still for them. 

Jane Coaston: I’m not an economist. I did not do very well on econ in college. But it seems like the economy is in this kind of precarious moment. Where do you see the headwinds going forward? 

Victoria Guida: Well, first of all, I would say that one of the things that’s been surprising is that we were sort of supposed to have a recession. Uh. That’s a weird thing to say, but the Fed was raising rates to fight inflation. And often when the Fed raises rates to fight inflation, they cause a recession. And that didn’t happen. And one of the reasons for that is because the economy has been really resilient and the labor force has been really resilient. And so the precarious moment comes from all of this policy uncertainty. Right? So we talked about, for example, the tariffs. Is that going to slow the economy? Is that going to raise prices? Um. Some of the immigration policies could have an impact as well, where if we have fewer workers to do jobs, when people are still spending money that can lead to inflation. And so I would say that the precariousness comes from whether the economy continues to just sort of keep on keeping on. And, you know, there is there is a lot of business optimism because of President Trump. But some of the stuff that I was just mentioning, right? Like the tax cuts and the deregulation are good for businesses, but the tariffs and the immigration might hurt some of them. And so the question is, what’s the next? So we could see a shift now just because there’s so much changing. 

Jane Coaston: Victoria, thank you so much for your time. 

Victoria Guida: Thank you. 

Jane Coaston: That was my conversation with Victoria Guida, economics correspondent for Politico. We’ll get to more of the news in a moment. But if you like the show, make sure to subscribe. Leave a five star review on Apple Podcasts. Watch us on YouTube and share with your friends. More to come after some ads. [music break]

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Jane Coaston: Here’s what else we’re following today. 

[sung] Headlines. 

[clip of President Donald Trump] President Putin wants to have peace now, and that’s good. And he didn’t want to have peace with Biden. And you tell me why that is, okay. 

Jane Coaston: President Trump said on Wednesday that he and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke by phone and have agreed to, quote, “work together very closely to end the war in Ukraine.” In a post on Truth Social, Trump said that his call with Putin was productive and that the U.S. and Russia will begin negotiating how to resolve the conflict immediately. You know the conflict Putin started by invading Ukraine, a sovereign country. This is the first publicly announced call between Trump and Putin since Trump took office. Trump has kept in contact with the Russian dictator privately since he lost the 2020 election. The White House has not contacted the Kremlin in years. Former President Biden refused to speak with Putin over his invasion of Ukraine. Trump also called Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelenskyy on Wednesday after speaking with Putin. Trump wrote in another Truth Social post that their call went, quote, “very well.” Zelenskyy later tweeted that their conversation was, quote, “meaningful.” Also on Wednesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth spoke to NATO allies in Belgium about Trump’s commitment to end the war. 

[clip of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth] We want, like you, a sovereign and prosperous Ukraine. 

Jane Coaston: But he also said that Ukraine likely won’t become a member of NATO, despite Zelenskyy’s pleas to join the alliance. 

[clip of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth] The United States does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement. 

Jane Coaston: Trump said on Wednesday that he plans to meet with Putin in person in Saudi Arabia. Though it’s unclear when. A spokesman for the Kremlin said that Putin has invited Trump to Moscow. 

[clip of Tulsi Gabbard] I just want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart for the trust that you have placed in me to fulfill this critical position as director of National Intelligence. 

Jane Coaston: Tulsi Gabbard was sworn in as director of National Intelligence on Wednesday after the Senate voted to confirm her. Gabbard was one of President Trump’s more contentious Cabinet nominees. Republicans expressed concerns about her ties to authoritarian world leaders like Putin and former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, when Trump tapped her to be the country’s top intelligence official. The Senate voted mostly along party lines to confirm Gabbard. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky was the lone Republican to vote against her. His office released a statement on Wednesday saying that he couldn’t back Gabbard because she, quote, “failed to demonstrate that she is prepared to assume this tremendous national trust during her confirmation hearings” and that Gabbard has a, quote, “history of alarming lapses in judgment.” Also on Wednesday, the Senate voted to advance anti-vax activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s nomination to be secretary for Health and Human Services. He is expected to be confirmed. Linda McMahon, Trump’s education secretary nominee, is scheduled for a senate confirmation hearing today. 

[clip of Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene] This is not a time for political theater and partisan attacks. The American people are watching. The legislative branch can’t sit on the sidelines. 

Jane Coaston: Oh, they can’t? Could have fooled me. Georgia Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene was all business as the House Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency or DOGE, held its first meeting Wednesday. Greene, who chairs the subcommittee, said she will fight the war on waste shoulder to shoulder with President Trump, Elon Musk, and the Department of Government Efficiency, also DOGE. Greene said the committee is focused on, quote, “improper payments by the federal government.” Wednesday’s hearing was focused on Medicare and Medicaid. Democratic Representative Robert Garcia of California said, quote, “We should in no way be cooperating with House Republicans who want to shut down the Department of Education and destroy Medicare and Medicaid.” He also seemed to ignore Greene’s comment about political theater and referenced the time she showed sexually explicit photos of Hunter Biden in a 2023 hearing. 

[clip of Representative Robert Garcia] In the last Congress, Chairwoman Greene literally showed a dick pic in our oversight congressional hearing. So I thought I’d bring one as well. Now, this, of course, we know, is President Elon Musk. 

Jane Coaston: Garcia then held up a picture of Musk’s face and said he’s leading a power grab encouraged by both Trump and Greene. The top Democrat on the subcommittee, Melanie Stansbury of New Mexico, said Democrats have bipartisan ideas to root out waste, fraud, and abuse and referenced the recent dismantling of government agencies. 

[clip of Melanie Stransbury] And the people who actually investigate waste, fraud and abuse at these agencies are the inspector generals who Donald Trump fired his first week in office in a midnight massacre. So we have to ask ourselves, what is really going on here? 

Jane Coaston: She called on Musk to testify in front of the subcommittee because the American people, quote, “want to know what you’re up to.” Trump’s interest in buying Greenland has one Georgia congressman very excited. House Republican Earl Buddy Carter, no relation to the late President Carter, introduced a bill Tuesday that suggests renaming Greenland Red, White, and Blueland. Glad we have our priorities straight. Carter’s proposal would give President Trump authority to enter negotiations to acquire the autonomous territory which belongs to Denmark. It would also require the federal government to call it red, white, and you know that name on official maps and documents. Trump has said buying Greenland is essential for national security and freedom throughout the world. His other current obsessions include making Canada the 51st state, taking back the Panama Canal, oh and taking over Gaza. He’s just a president with normal dreams. But leaders from both Denmark and Greenland have pushed back on Trump’s idea, saying Greenland is not for sale. And Danes are now making light of the plan by turning the tables. A petition to Danify California is trying to garner 500,000 signatures and raise $1 trillion. The petition says, quote, “Let’s buy California from Trump. Denmark’s next big adventure.” It currently has more than 230,000 signatures. And that’s the news. [music break] One more thing. Donald Trump’s all out attack on climate and environmental policy is still in full force. On Tuesday, the president took yet another step back in time, saying he is instructing the Environmental Protection Agency or EPA, to relax efficiency requirements for household items like dishwashers, washing machines, toilets, faucets and light bulbs. Let the water gush and the electricity burn basically. Side note, I did not ask to know this much about Donald Trump’s views on toilets. Back in January, the Trump administration also withdrew a plan to set limits for PFAS chemicals, so-called forever chemicals, in industrial wastewater because clean water is woke I guess. This is all bad news and it gets even worse. The Trump administration is sparking intense chaos at the EPA. Last week, a thousand staffers were told they could lose their jobs. Days later, the 168 staffers who make up the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights were put on administrative leave. Here to tell us why that matters is Crooked climate correspondent Anya Zoledziowski. Anya, welcome back to What a Day. 

Anya Zoledziowski: Hello. So good to be here. 

Jane Coaston: Can you just remind us what the EPA does and what’s at stake here? 

Anya Zoledziowski: Yeah, absolutely. Like it does a lot, from testing chemicals to environmental stewardship, doling out grants and testing sites for contamination and pollution, and ultimately enforcing and creating rules that force industries like the fossil fuel industry to comply with laws like the Clean Air Act or the Toxic Substances Control Act. And so the point is to keep water and air clean for all Americans, and especially in areas that are most likely to suffer environmental harms. A former administrator at the EPA had told me that the Environmental Justice office is particularly important because it’s the office that basically serves as an intermediary between communities that are underserved by government. And so they’re really like the boots on the ground that go and consult with these communities. Recently, there was billions of funding promised and allocated to these community led projects, largely thanks to Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act. Right now, that money is frozen. And so everyone I spoke with put it bluntly that by eroding the EPA and the Environmental Justice Office specifically, we are risking dirtier air, dirtier water, and that’s going to harm Black, Brown, Indigenous and low income communities the most. Here is what Jasmine Gil said. She’s the climate and environmental justice lead at Hip Hop caucus. 

[clip of Jasmine Gil] Single handedly the fossil fuel industry. Petrochemicals. LNG, oil and gas. You name it. They are polluting our communities with illnesses. What we’re losing here is a strong ally in being able to protect our communities across the nation against this major villain. 

Anya Zoledziowski: So really, we’re losing, you know, our frontline defense against big industries like the fossil fuel industry. 

Jane Coaston: You mentioned this a little bit earlier, but I’d love to know more about how EPA staffers are feeling in this moment. 

Anya Zoledziowski: Everyone who’s been speaking with folks on the inside has said that, one, they’re super nervous about their livelihoods. But also what’s come up a lot is that, you know, these are really mission driven folks and they’re feeling really isolated from their ability to protect the communities that they have devoted their lives to protect. And finally, a concerning thing that came up in the interviews was that young people may not want to go into this line of work if it continues to be this unstable. And so what where does that leave an agency that is so critical to public and environmental health? 

Jane Coaston: How are people fighting all of this at the state and local level? Because it sounds like this is something that’s going to need to be, once again a grassroots effort. 

Anya Zoledziowski: So these battles will have to play out at state and local levels now. You need to be paying attention to mayoral elections, county commissioner elections, any sort of legal battle, protests. And what Jasmine said was, even if it seems like a small win, it’s actually a big win. You know, even a delay in a project means that the air will be cleaner for that much longer. So here’s what she had to say about, you know, the onslaught of executive orders that we’re seeing right now. 

[clip of Jasmine Gil] These things can feel finalized. They can feel one and done, and they are not. And so that’s another thing that people need to understand is that you still have power. The American people still have the power to turn around a lot of these things. And we still have a long way to go in order to be able to fight some of these things that are being passed through executive orders. 

Anya Zoledziowski: So all that to say, even though it seems pretty, pretty dire, people can still push ahead. 

Jane Coaston: Anya, as always, thank you so much for joining me. 

Anya Zoledziowski: Thank you so much for having me. 

Jane Coaston: That was my conversation with Crooked climate correspondent Anya Zoledziowski. This segment was supported by our nonprofit partner, Crooked Ideas. [music break]

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Jane Coaston: That’s all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe. Leave a review. Remember that Valentine’s Day is tomorrow and tell your friends to listen. And if you’re into reading and not just about how seriously Valentine’s Day is tomorrow, like me, What a Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at Crooked.com/subscribe. I’m Jane Coaston and get your flower orders in now. [music break] What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It’s recorded and mixed by Desmond Taylor. Our associate producers are Raven Yamamoto and Emily Fohr. Our producer is Michell Eloy. We had production help today from Johanna Case, Joseph Dutra, Greg Walters and Julia Claire. Our senior producer is Erica Morrison and our executive producer as Adriene Hill. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. [music break]

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