• Is the U.S. economy … good? Bad? Somewhere in the middle? If it feels like you’re desperately shaking a Magic 8 Ball for economic tea leaves, and even it’s telling you, ‘Ask again later.’ Well, it might be on to something. While we’re all hearing anecdotes about empty cargo ships from China and fewer people eating at McDonald’s, the hard data that would point to a possible recession hasn’t shown up yet. Case in point: Tuesday’s better-than-expected Consumer Price Index numbers, showed inflation cooled slightly last month despite uncertainty around President Donald Trump’s tariffs. Ben Casselman, chief economics correspondent for The New York Times, explains why the vibes don’t match the data.
• And in headlines: President Trump eliminated sanctions on Syria, Cassie Ventura began testifying in music mogul Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’ federal sex-trafficking and racketeering trial, and the Trump Administration ended federal temporary protected status for Afghans in the U.S.

• Check out Ben’s work – www.nytimes.com/by/ben-casselman
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TRANSCRIPT

 

Jane Coaston: It’s Wednesday, May 14th. I’m Jane Coaston, and this is What a Day, the show that appreciates Pope Leo XIV’s sense of brevity. When asked by a reporter if he had any message for the United States, the pope said, and I quote, “many,” your holiness, same. [music break] On today’s show, singer Cassie Ventura takes the stand in music mogul Sean Diddy Combs’ federal sex trafficking and racketeering trial, and the Trump administration ends temporary protected status for Afghans in the U.S. But let’s start with the economy, which is, well, actually, I don’t know. And that’s frustrating as a consumer and an American. On Tuesday, new federal data showed inflation slowed in the month of April. It rose a little more than 2% from a year earlier. The slowest annual pace since 2021. Egg prices fell, and so did the price of gas. Separately, some economists are also saying that the U.S.’s new deal with China to temporarily slash tariffs might be enough to stave off a recession. And that’s good, seriously. So why do I, and maybe you, still feel pretty anxious about how the economy is doing? And I’m not just saying that. Consumer confidence is on par with where it set in May of 2020 during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Companies are warning us that they may have to raise prices. And President Donald Trump is very helpfully telling us all to just buy fewer dolls while he’s gifted a $400 million plane from Qatar. Make it make sense. And sure, the stock market may be happy right now, but that’s because the Trump administration, which put high tariffs in place on almost every country, made a deal with a country that retaliated against those high tariffs. Meaning, maybe all the uncertainty could have been avoided had Trump just not levied the tariffs in the first place. Create a crisis with a new policy, walk back said policy but call it a deal, declare victory, wash, rinse, repeat. But Trump also loves tariffs, as we know. So this could all change with a Truth Social post, which might explain the anxiety I feel whenever I go to the grocery store. So, to help us understand why the hard data and the economic vibes don’t line up. I talked to Ben Casselman, Chief Economics Correspondent for the New York Times. Ben, welcome to What a Day. 

 

Ben Casselman: Thanks for having me. 

 

Jane Coaston: So what’s your takeaway from the latest inflation numbers that were posted Tuesday? Inflation rose a little, but the annual rate eased a bit. 

 

Ben Casselman: I mean, basically, it was good news and old news, right? I mean inflation was cooling before, it continues to cool, so that’s all good. And you know the kind of month to month pace of price increases has been gradually coming down, that’s all good. The thing is that we’ve got this huge thing sitting out there, which is the tariffs. We haven’t really seen that in the data yet because this is April data that’s kind of before it really trickles through the system. But we know it’s coming, and so whether that’s May or June or July, it’s going to hit the data. 

 

Jane Coaston: So that actually gets us into a piece you wrote last week in the Times about how we’re hearing and seeing all these warning signs that a recession might be coming, but it’s not showing up in the hard economic data. So first, walk us through what some of those warning signs are. 

 

Ben Casselman: Yeah, I mean, so basically any data that is about how people are feeling right now is really bad. So that’s true if you look at consumer sentiment numbers. It’s true if you look at people’s expectations for inflation. It’s true if you look at business sentiment numbers, whether businesses say they’re feeling good about the economy, whether they say they are investing, whether they say they are planning on hiring. All of that has really tanked over the past few months, I mean basically since Trump took office. If you look at the hard data, the data that actually measures what people are doing and spending and what businesses are doing in terms of hiring and investing, we don’t really see that same weakness. The inflation numbers haven’t taken off, like we were just saying, the jobs numbers were good last week, sort of all of those numbers look pretty strong, and so you get this disconnect. And so it’s this sort of moment of waiting for the other shoe to drop that we know is coming in some form. 

 

Jane Coaston: Is this normal? Like, of course, the hard data will lag what’s happening on the ground because, you know, it makes sense that things that happened in the past are going to look a little different than what we’re expecting in the future. But the grasping for tea leaves about where the economy is headed right now feels more acute than ever. Why is that? 

 

Ben Casselman: I mean, it mostly is because our measurement is backward looking and it takes time for stuff to hit. You know, I’m reminded of the very early days of the pandemic, right? There’s this moment where we all knew stuff was happening, right. We were getting sent home. People were losing their jobs. You know whole sectors of the economy were shutting down. But it took a while for that to show up in the data. And in the meantime, we were kind of all grasping at straws. And we were using the anecdotes that we were hearing about layoffs and jammed phone lines for unemployment insurance offices. And we’re kind of piecing it all together. And this is, in some sense, a similar situation. The critical difference, of course, being this time around, this is being brought on not by uh you know hopefully once in a century pandemic, but rather by policies being imposed by the president. 

 

Jane Coaston: Where does that leave average Americans, or the quote, “consumers?” Us, you know, I’m seeing businesses that I follow on Instagram saying they’re scrambling to navigate tariffs, or they’re emailing me to be like, we may have to raise our prices. The president himself is telling us an adjustment period may be required for all of us. We get to have fewer dolls or pencils or something. Is all of that just vibes? Are our politics dictating our feelings about the economy? 

 

Ben Casselman: I mean, I think well there is this sort of interesting thing right now where policy is changing so rapidly that it’s affecting the way we feel sort of before we see any of this hit any of the actual evidence and right if the tariffs all go away before they ever have a chance to actually affect anything then that will have made for a very confusing few months for all of us but like it may not have that huge an economic effect if they’re allowed to remain in place then of course we’re going to see those effects in the real world. 

 

Jane Coaston: Well, let’s talk about the concrete signs and the data that we would be heading toward a recession. When might that start to show up and what will it look like? 

 

Ben Casselman: Well, I mean, so it’s funny. You referenced the piece I wrote last week. The world has, as it has been doing a lot recently, changed significantly since the piece I wrote, last week, in that we’ve now put up a partial pause on a bunch of these China tariffs, instead of going to the 145%, which you might as well sort of think of as an embargo. Now they’re at 30%, which is high. It’s higher than anybody would have expected, I think, coming into this year, but it’s a little bit more manageable. So that reduces, I think, the risks that we see the sort of full-blown worst case scenario that we were talking about. The worst case scenario version was nothing comes in from China, and so there are real shortages on the shelves, which is reminiscent of COVID. And then also, if you don’t have stuff coming in, then you don’t need as many truck drivers, and you don’t need as many people working in warehouses and stocking the shelves and working in retail stores. And so people start losing their jobs. And you know that sets off that recessionary spiral. I think what we’re talking about now is more the kind of classic impact of tariffs, which is higher prices, which is going to hurt a lot of consumers. It’s going to hurt lower income consumers harder, right? Lower income consumers are the ones who spend the most of their money and who need, who don’t have the ability to pull back in the same way. So they’re going to feel it. It will lead to a slow down in the economy, but not necessarily that sort of full blown recession that people were worried about. 

 

Jane Coaston: Now here’s what gets me about this whole situation. The pause that you mentioned on the tariffs between US and China is for 90 days. So that’s three months. So in three months, theoretically, we could go right back to that 145% level, correct? 

 

Ben Casselman: We could, I mean, for that matter, we think it’s gonna be 90 days, but there’s nothing in writing. There’s no congressionally passed, you know, treaty here. There’s nothing to say that the president couldn’t wake up tomorrow and decide that actually he liked those 145% tariffs after all. I think most people are sort of taking this, quote unquote, “deal,” it’s not really a full deal, right, but they’re taking this as a sign that neither side wants to sort of go to the brink. And that there’s sort of some recognition that like a full stop in trade between China and the U.S. Is not gonna be good for either side, and so that that suggests there’ll be some sort of deal. But I don’t know what stock to put in that, like what percentage to apply to that. I mean, it’s certainly possible that this all blows up. 

 

Jane Coaston: So I think that that gets to my last question, which is that we are dealing with, this is not mercifully a pandemic. You know and I keep thinking about how during the pandemic, people at the beginning thought we were headed for another great recession, a la 2008, 2009, and that didn’t happen, but people sure didn’t feel great about the economy. This is a matter of policy decisions and a matter of policy decisions that, as you said, could change on the turn of a dime. So what does that do to the economy? Have we ever been in a situation before in which the economy is basically riding on what one person posts on their own personal social media at any given time? 

 

Ben Casselman: No, because I think the short answer to that, no, I don’t think there’s any precedent for a president sort of potentially intentionally causing a recession, certainly not seeming that he is that concerned about the possibility of causing a recession for sort of no obvious reason. I mean, Trump would of course argue that there are sort of long term things that he’s trying to fix in the economy. We can debate that. Um. But I don’t I  haven’t spoken to sort of any expert who thinks that this set of policies is the best way to address that. I’ll add one other thing, which is you mentioned the pandemic period. The reason, or at least part of the reason why we didn’t get that Great Depression redux, right, was that there was a lot of aid that was provided to regular Americans in the form of expanded unemployment benefits, in the form of, you know, tax rebates, in a form of aid to small businesses. It’s not obvious that any of that will be coming this time if we get a recession. Um. I mean, who knows how Congress will react, but there doesn’t seem to be a lot of enthusiasm for those kinds of policies. And so if we do end up in a recession, it’s possible there won’t be nearly the kind of support for sort of everyday Americans that there was the last time around. 

 

Jane Coaston: Fantastic. Ben, thank you so much for joining us. 

 

Ben Casselman: Thanks for having me, glad to brighten your day with this good news. 

 

Jane Coaston: That was my conversation with Ben Casselman, chief economics correspondent for the New York Times. We’ll link to his work in our show notes. 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 so you can watch me gesture, 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] I will be ordering the cessation of sanctions against Syria in order to give them a chance at greatness.

 

Jane Coaston: President Trump said Tuesday that the US will lift sanctions on Syria, and that his administration has taken steps toward, quote, “restoring normal relations between the two countries.” He made the announcement during a speech at the US-Saudi investment forum in Saudi Arabia. 

 

[clip of President Donald Trump] The sanctions were brutal and crippling and served as an important, really an important function nevertheless at the time, but now it’s their time to shine. It’s their time to shine, we’re taking them all off. 

 

Jane Coaston: You can hear exactly when he goes off script every time. Trump is set to meet with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa today. Al-Sharaa was appointed president earlier this year after Syrian rebels overthrew the country’s former president Bashar al-Assad, ending his brutal dictatorship. Al-Sharaa led that offensive as head of the militant group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS. It was initially unclear what relationship the US would have with Syria’s new government. HTS is a US designated terrorist organization. A Syrian leader hasn’t met an American president since 2000. Trump also met with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. They announced a $600 billion Saudi investment in the US. The US also agreed to sell arms to the country in the biggest defense cooperation agreement the White House has ever made. The president is scheduled to stop in Qatar today to continue his tour of the Middle East. He’s set to visit the United Arab Emirates on Thursday. Avelo Airlines, a budget airline that mostly serves smaller cities in the U.S., is teaming up with the Trump administration. The airline’s first deportation flight reportedly took off Monday. In April, Avelo Air Lines announced it had signed an agreement with the Department of Homeland Security to operate chartered deportation flights out of Mesa Gateway Airport, saying it would help stabilize the company. Avelo’s CEO said in a statement, quote, “We realize this is a sensitive and complicated topic.” And, uh, he’s right. The decision prompted union pushback. The Association of Flight Attendants, CWA, said flight attendants can’t do their jobs under these conditions. In a statement, the union wrote, quote, “Having an entire flight of people handcuffed and shackled would hinder any evacuation and risk injury or death. It also impedes our ability to respond to a medical emergency, fire on board, decompression, et cetera.” And speaking of deportation flights, Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts is ringing the alarm about military flights being used to deport migrants. According to military data shared by Senator Warren, the U.S. Conducted 46 flights on military aircraft to Guantanamo Bay. The figures show the Trump administration spent more than $20 million on these flights from late January to early April. The State Department welcomed the first group of white Afrikaner refugees to the United States on the same day the Department of Homeland Security said it’s terminating temporary protected status for Afghanistan. Now, that’s a mouthful, so let’s dissect. After the US withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021, Afghans were offered protected legal status in the US because of Taliban rule. But on Monday, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said in a statement, quote, “Afghanistan has had an improved security situation. And its stabilizing economy no longer prevent them from returning to their home country.” Now, thousands of Afghans in the U.S. could face potential deportation, and Afghanistan is still very much under Taliban rule. While the country turns its back on Afghans, we are welcoming white South African refugees. The administration said in a statement the Afrikaners are a, quote, “vulnerable group facing unjust racial discrimination in South Africa.” South Africa strongly denies the way Trump is painting the country. South Africa’s Ministry of International Relations and Cooperation said in February the Afrikaners remain some of the most economically privileged people in the country. R&B singer Casandra Cassie Ventura took the stands Tuesday as a star witness in the federal trial against Sean Diddy Combs. Combs faces charges of racketeering and sex trafficking. Federal prosecutors say his alleged crimes took place over the course of 20 years. The hip hop music executive has pleaded not guilty to all charges. Opening statements in the trial were made on Monday in Manhattan. Cassie, Combs’ former girlfriend, filed a civil lawsuit against him in 2023. Accusing him of physically and sexually abusing her throughout their relationship. She and Combs settled a day later. Her lawsuit spurred several other civil lawsuits accusing Combs of sexual misconduct. During her testimony, Cassie recounted the abuse she detailed in her initial lawsuit. She said Combs would, quote, “Mash me in the head, knock me over, drag me, kick me, stomp me in the head if I was down.” She also said Combs would force her to have sex with male prostitutes at parties he called freak-offs. If convicted, Combs could face up to life in prison. Cassie is expected to appear in court again today. And that’s the news. [music break] One more thing. Let’s talk about Trump’s very special present from the kingdom of Qatar. It’s a super luxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet intended to serve as the new Air Force One. And according to the president of the United States, it would be stupid not to take it. 

 

[clip of President Donald Trump] I would never be one to turn down that kind of an offer. I mean, I could be a stupid person and say, no, we don’t want a free, very expensive airplane. Uh but it was I thought it was a great gesture. 

 

Jane Coaston: Look I get it. I also love very expensive gifts from countries that desperately want me to be nice to them and maybe do them favors occasionally. Now, I’ve never gotten such a gift, but the point remains. But notably, a bunch of people from across the political spectrum, and that includes some of Donald Trump’s biggest supporters, are raising the alarm. Because actually, taking this plane would be very, very, very, very stupid. First, a few key facts you should know about our brand new second-hand plane that is definitely not a Trojan horse kind of plane. Number one, because of the current condition of the plane and the requirements needed for Air Force One, there’s a decent chance it would not be usable during Trump’s term in office. According to the Washington Post, quote, “retrofitting the 13 year old aircraft to current Air Force one requirements would take years of work and billions of dollars current and former U.S. Officials say.” Such a task would be impossible to complete before Trump leaves office. As in, it would not be usable as Air Force One. But as the plane would be transferred to Trump’s private presidential library foundation, it would be usable for Donald Trump to spend his golden years, or given that he’s 78 years old and will be turning 82 in 2028, his even more golden years jittering around on a big luxury plane. Number two, the plane is a gift from the Qatari royal family. Now the United States and the Trump Expanded Universe has had a long relationship with Qatar. Doha, the capital city, is close to the U.S. Military’s largest base in the Middle East. And if we get Trump specific, Attorney General Pam Bondi previously made a reported $100,000 a month lobbying for the Qatari government. And Eric Trump, Donald Trump’s son, just signed a deal with a state-owned company to open the Trump International Golf Club at a location north of Doha. And, all those minor quibbles about timelines and conflicts of interest aside, let’s not forget who is giving Trump this jet. The nation of Qatar also gave a patronage job to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed before he helped plan the 9/11 attacks, and has allegedly helped to finance several terrorist organizations, including the Islamic State and al-Qaeda. So, you know, maybe not the number one best place to get a plane that is supposed to be, as one U.S. Official called it, a quote, “flying nuclear-hardened command post for the President of the United States.” But what do I know? I’m just some liberal lady who happens to have read the section of the Constitution that reads that no person holding a federal office of public trust can accept, quote, “any present, emolument, office, or title of any kind whatsoever from any king, prince, or foreign state.” What’s interesting is that a lot of people on the right seem to be just as concerned as I am. Here’s right-wing podcast host Ben Shapiro on the subject of how, if President Joe Biden took a $400 million plane from Qatar, the right would be pretty ticked off. 

 

[clip of Ben Shapiro] I think if we switch the names to Hunter Biden and Joe Biden, we’d all be freaking out on the right. Let’s say if Qatar was giving Joe a four hundred million dollar jet for his use at his presidential library after his presidency, or if Hunter launched a crypto firm with the son of Antony Blinken and then launched a series of crypto products in which mysterious strangers, including foreigners, were investing. All while that crypto firm was being regulated by Joe’s administration. We’d all have been pretty upset on the right, we might have said that it was worthy of some coverage. 

 

Jane Coaston: And here’s Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul saying that this maybe, perhaps, isn’t such a great idea. At least, he wouldn’t take the plane. 

 

[clip of Senator Rand Paul] I think it’s not worth the appearance of impropriety, whether it’s improper or not, I don’t think it’s worth it. The other problem with Qatar is, see, I’ve spent time trying not to sell weapons to Qatar because they have human rights violations of their people. 

 

Jane Coaston: And Laura Loomer, a right-wing activist who appears to be one of the five people Donald Trump actually listens to, tweeted, quote, “I love President Trump. I would take a bullet for him, but I have to call a spade a spade. We cannot accept a 400 million dollar gift from jihadists in suits.” Her bat shit words, not mine. But Trump absolutely can do this. And honestly, he probably will because once again, he is not playing 12 dimensional chess. It’s easy. He wants a big fancy plane, and the kingdom of Qatar wants to give him one. It’s actually pretty straightforward. [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, contemplate how you’re gonna do white-collar crime now, and tell your friends to listen. And if you’re into reading, and not just about how the Trump administration has directed the FBI to scale back investigations into white- collar crime because, according to a memo written by the head of DOJ’s criminal division, a white-coller crime investigation, quote, “burdens U.S. Businesses and harms U. S. Interests.” Like me, What a Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at Crooked.com/subscribe. I’m Jane Coaston and uh who wants to do some Rico with me? 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 is Adriene Hill. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. 

 

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