More than 160 million Americans. Mr. Secretary, as you know, are invested in the market. Many of them have spent their lives saving for their retirement. What is your message to Americans who want to retire right now, and who've just seen their lifetime savings drop significantly? [00:00:19] A very tough question. And we're going to get back to what Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had to say in response to that question in just a bit. So hold on tight for that. But first, we absolutely need to dive into this fire hot feud between billionaire Trump donor Bill Ackman and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, [00:00:38] who is now being accused by Ackman of not being an honest player. So as Ackman spent his weekend pleading with Trump to essentially do a 90 day pause on his tariffs in order to, you know, create some space for trade negotiations, [00:00:55] he also jumped into this interesting accusation against Howard Lutnick, who has been making his rounds on cable television. In defense of Donald Trump's tariffs policy, he says, I just figured out why. Howard Lutnick is indifferent to the stock market and the economy crashing. [00:01:11] He and Cantor are long bonds. He profits when our economy implodes. It's a bad idea to pick a secretary of commerce whose firm is levered long fixed income. It's an irreconcilable, irreconcilable conflict of interest. [00:01:28] Now Ackman is, of course talking about Cantor Fitzgerald, which is the financial firm that Howard Lutnick led for 35 years prior to joining the Trump administration. And he's basically just, you know, accusing him of being so heavily [00:01:44] invested in, in bonds that, you know, the stock market blowing up as a result of Trump's tariff policies is actually a good thing for those who are heavily invested in bonds. But like, I don't know how much truth there is behind that. There is a lot of truth. [00:02:00] - Oh. Is there? - Okay. Go ahead. So, look, first of all, I got no love for anybody on the on either side here. Lutnick has been running Cantor Fitzgerald, a big Wall Street firm, for 35 years. Bill Ackman is a really despicable billionaire who bullies people [00:02:16] on the issue of Israel and on and on. Right. And they both support Trump. So okay. But we don't really much care about the personalities to begin with on this show. We actually focus on facts and what's right and not right. So who's right between these two in terms of the tariffs? I mean, it physically bothers me to say it. [00:02:32] But Bill Ackman is right. Right. On the facts of what tariffs do at least these particular tariffs. Okay. And so on the issue of will Howard Lutnick firm profit from these tariffs. Yes. Are they among the few that will. Yes. [00:02:47] Because long in Wall Street speak means that you're betting in that direction. Short means you're betting against it. Right. So if you're long on, what Cantor Fitzgerald is long on bonds. When the markets go down, bonds go up because people take their [00:03:03] money out of the markets, which is a little bit riskier, and they put it into something safer bonds. So the value of bonds go up. So if his firm was heavy into bonds, long on bonds, then they're going to make out like bandits. Now this is a little bit of speculation on my part, but I didn't know that until Ackman pointed it out. [00:03:19] And I did wonder. I swear to you you take it at face for whatever it's worth because I didn't even say it on air before, but I was like like, A lot of them look uncomfortable. Besson looks uncomfortable. - Does Besson. - Tons of. They're like, they go on air and they're like, the tariffs are really good for [00:03:36] the economy because they know it's not. They know they're lying. It's super embarrassing, etc. But the one guy who always seemed so happy, and maybe it's for other reasons, but was lutnick lutnick is like every picture. He's like, ha ha! And you can see it for yourself. Every video, every picture. [00:03:51] He's like, we're doing the tariffs. It's great. And we're like, I'm like, really? You're that excited as the market is crashing. ET cetera. And this would explain why he's excited again. I can't say for sure that that's what Scott Lutnick jazzed up, [00:04:08] but it is true that that is where his financial incentive is. So, Jake, you beat me to it because I was going to ask. Well, I mean, Nick's not the only Trump administration official who's making his rounds defending what Trump is doing with the tariffs. Like, what about Scott Bessent? But you make an excellent point about how uncomfortable other [00:04:26] administration officials appear to be as they're defending Trump's tariffs. So, by the way, prior to joining the Trump administration, there's evidence he's on the record, Scott said that tariffs are bad. They cause inflation. Now it's an entirely different storyline that we're hearing from Bessent. [00:04:43] But what you just said, Jake, reminded me of the interview that Bessent recently had with Tucker Carlson. Now, that, of course, is the Treasury Secretary. And just pay close attention to this video and how he looks like he's in physical pain as he's talking about something that he typically would not want to talk about. [00:05:00] Let's watch. If I were to say, like, was there any good outcome from Covid? It was. It woke the world up to the supply chain problems. So economic security is national security. President Trump and I have talked about that a lot. [00:05:15] So this is a national security issue that we're seeing here. But it's also an economic security issue. And it's to. I don't want to say redistribute, but it is to give working Americans [00:05:33] real wage gains and enhance their lives. I don't want to say redistribute. That was so good. Let's let's just distill that moment. Let's go to the last video here B5. It's to. [00:05:49] - I don't want to say redistribute. - It's so good. Yeah. So Besson's got a couple problems. One, he's a giant Wall Street banker, so he doesn't want to redistribute to the average working guy. So he's like, oh, like it makes him physically ill to think of that. [00:06:05] Okay. But in this case, the bigger problem is that's not going to do that anyway. If it was going to do that, then I'd be happy. Right. But so he knows that these tariffs aren't going to work in any way, shape or form. He's too smart not to know that. Right. So look he's deeply uncomfortable here. We'll throw this on the record. [00:06:23] Scott Bessent not long for this administration. It's April 7th today. Let's see how long he lasts. Okay. Interesting. Yeah. So he's too rational for this, and it's obvious that it's making him deeply uncomfortable. So, you know, we could disagree with him on other policies, but it's [00:06:39] obvious that he didn't sign up for this. And, you know, that's the problem with people that go into the Trump administration or that support him, like Bill Ackman. Right. Or maybe even Elon Musk, as we're going to get to a little bit later in the show. So they never realize how irrational is. So they always assume like yeah, but he's got to have some [00:06:55] strategy behind the scenes. I mean, he won the presidency twice. He's got to be a genius. He's got to be. I mean, not even not a genius strategic in a way that I can't see from the outside. They get inside and they're like, whoa, it's way worse than from the outside. I thought it was going to be better. It's the guy has never done any homework and has no rational strategy, [00:07:14] has no idea what he's talking about. So professionals like best are going to be the first to go. Okay, so now, one seemingly random thing that gets to two of the themes here, though, Tucker Carlson today randomly or it seemed random to me, but I get why he's doing it, said, hey, we better not attack Iran right now. [00:07:33] We're in this tariff mess and this would be the very worst time to attack them. Which made me go, wait, does he know something I don't know? Did Netanyahu go to the white House? Not on tariffs, mainly, but to get America to attack Iran, because Tucker has way more inside information than we do on this. [00:07:50] So whoa watch out okay. But notice here's Ackman breaking against Trump for the tariffs. There's Tucker Carlson warning Trump. You better not attack Iran. There is a ton of disagreement here in right wing circles. Now I want to get to what I promised. [00:08:08] How exactly did you know that question about retirement get answered. So let's get to that video. Let's look at video three. What is your message to Americans who want to retire right now, [00:08:23] and who've just seen their lifetime savings drop significantly? Well, Chris, I think that's a false narrative. Americans who want to retire right now, Americans who have put away for years in their savings accounts. I think the don't look at the day to day fluctuations of what's happening. [00:08:41] And in fact, most Americans don't have everything in the market. Most Americans in a 401 K have what's called a 60 over 40 account. That is, 60 to 40 accounts that are down 5 or 6% on the year. People have a long term view. [00:08:58] They have a program that the reason the stock market is considered a good investment is because it's a long term investment. If you look day to day, week to week, it's very risky. Over the long term, it's a good investment. I'm going to leave Genk to directly respond to what Besson said [00:09:16] in that video, but I'm going to use this as an opportunity to say, this is why Social Security is lit, because it is not tied to the risk of the stock market. Okay. It is money that you can look forward to getting in your retirement years. [00:09:34] You've paid into the system, and it's just a fixed amount that you are entitled to. And it has nothing to do with the stock market. We must protect Social Security at any and all costs. - Jake, take it away. - Yeah. Dave Portnoy actually made a good point about this particular comment by Besson. [00:09:50] He's like, yeah, you're saying that people who are about to retire aren't going to panic over this huge drop in the stock market and hence their holdings. He's like, brother, if you're as wealthy as Bessent is, you might not panic. And by the way. Or Portnoy. Right. And he says, and he's very frank about it, said, I lost 20 million. [00:10:07] That's 10 to 15% of my wealth. I'm okay overall, right? I hate it, but I'm okay overall. He's like, the real problem is people who are about to retire and they're not going to be okay overall. And so if you think in your la la land that they're going to look at that, oh, I have a long term view on it because I'm a professional investor [00:10:24] and I know that that's going to stay there for a year or two years. And how are we doing over the, you know, the the market indexes over the five year period? They're not know any rational person is going to see their 401 K or their pensions or whatever it might be plummeting and justifiably worry. [00:10:41] Right. No normal human being wouldn't do that. So their lies are becoming absurd. Every time you ring the bell below, an angel gets its wings. Totally not true. But it does keep you updated on our live shows.