The Democratic Debates, The Fed, Trade Wars Continued, the Director of National Intelligence

Trey and Mike begin the show by discussing the Democratic primary debates. Mike outlines his rubric for picking the best candidate, listen to find out who, and then rank orders the options. Trey, an outsider to the party, argues that Democrats are not running strongly enough against a powerful presidency and are unfortunately embracing the trade policies of President Trump with better packaging. Next, they talk the federal interest rate cut, the first since 2008. Mike argues this is more of the same erratic behavior predictable of the Trump era and, further, limits the tools the Fed has to deal with a real crisis. Mike’s economic data is found here. Trey suggests Powell is bowing to political pressure and that this is precisely the problem with the current Fed. He also doesn’t understand how, even if you agree with Keynesianism the rate cut is a bad idea. After that, Trey and Mike move to the related topic of Chinese tariffs. Mike is in large agreement with the underlying goals of the Trump administration, but concerned that they are not using the best tools to get Chinese compliance on issues including intellectual property rights. Trey sees the consumer fallout as being a potential electoral question in the 2020 presidential election. The show closes by discussing the drama surrounding the exit of Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and the withdraw from consideration of Congressman John Ratcliffe. Listener support helps make The Politics Guys possible. If you’re interested in supporting the show, go to patreon.com/politicsguys or politicsguys.com/support.   Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-politics-guys/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesThe Politics Guys on Facebook | XListener support helps make The Politics Guys possible. You can support us or change your level of support at patreon.com/politicsguys or politicsguys.com/support. On Venmo, we’re @PoliticsGuys.The Politics Guys is part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts that examines what's broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.