Once upon a time, Maria Bartiromo had a sweet gig at CNBC, the Cartoon Network of market coverage. Then, in 2013, she decided to depart for even more cartoonish pastures, jumping ship to Fox Business, where she now shills shamelessly for Donald Trump.
Earlier this year, Bartiromo sat down with the President for what would end up being one of the most hilariously absurd interviews anyone had ever witnessed. You remember that interview, right? That would be the one where Trump recounted how he broke the news about bombing Iraq Syria to Xi Jinping over a giant piece of chocolate cake. Here are some choice excerpts from our original post on that for anyone in need of some comic relief:
Ok, so according to Donald Trump (who spoke to CNBC anchor-turned Fox News reporter Maria Bartiromo), the question on everyone’s mind is: “when exactly did you tell President Xi Jinping that you conducted airstrikes on Syria?”
Well, “because [Fox] has treated [him] so good for so long,” Trump decided to tell Bartiromo the story.
Apparently, Trump gave the order to launch 59 Tomahawk missiles just as the “most beautiful piece of chocolate cake you’ve ever seen” was arriving at the table. It was, according to Trump’s estimates, about yea bigly…
“President Xi,” Trump explains, “was really enjoying it.”
It was at exactly that point that “the Generals” told Trump “the ships were locked and loaded.”
Now to be sure, Xi was probably going to be shocked anyway to learn that Trump had just made a mid-chocolate-cake-bite decision to bomb another country, but I’d imagine the real surprise came when Trump informed the Chinese President that the target was in fact “Iraq”. Listen below:
Trump remembers details of cake he was eating while launching missiles, but not which country he was attacking. pic.twitter.com/TYfqXXDeCZ
— Kenneth P. Vogel (@kenvogel) April 12, 2017
Given how “well” that went, we were extremely excited to hear that Bartiromo has secured another interview with Trump, which will air as a two-part series scheduled for Sunday and Monday.
Fox said in an announcement that Trump and Bartiromo will “discuss the latest surrounding tax reform, the budget vote, health care, North Korea relations, global trade sanctions and more.”
Great. Well now the transcript is out and it reveals they also discussed the Fed. Now recall what we said in our Friday wrap about Trump’s imminent Fed announcement:
Of course it makes no sense to speculate where that means citing “people familiar with the President’s thinking” because when it comes to Trump and his “thinking,” here’s what he told Fox today when asked about Powell and Taylor teaming up:
- It is in my thinking, and I have a couple of other things in my thinking.
Yes, Trump “has a couple of other things in [his] thinking” and now that the transcript has been released, we know that those “other things” are. Here are the relevant excerpts:
BARTIROMO: Mr. President who do you want to see running the Fed?
TRUMP: Well as you know I — I’ve been seeing a number of people and most people are saying it’s down to two, Mr. Taylor, Mr. Powell. I also met with Janet Yellen, who I like a lot. I really like her a lot. So I have three people that I’m looking at. And there are a couple of others.
I said I will make my decision very shortly, pretty shortly.
BARTIROMO: Isn’t there a way that you can get Taylor and Powell in there? Because you’ve got a vice chairman opening as well, you can actually put them both in there. Is that in your thinking?
TRUMP: It is in my thinking. And I have a couple of other things in my thinking. But I like talent. And they are both very talented people. And it’s a hard decision. It’s actually a very important decision. People have no — most people have no idea how important that position is. That position is actually — more — a lot of people get rid of the Fed.
Take the Fed out. That’s a very important position. It’s also important psychotically. If the right person is there a lot of good things can happen. I think I’m doing a good job for businesses in that way. People are coming into the country; you saw what happened with Foxconn going to Wisconsin.
Now I certainly hope we don’t have to light up the “laughter” sign for you there, because it should be readily apparent how absolutely disjointed and weird that is.
First of all, literally everyone knows “how important that position is,” but aside from that, what exactly does he mean by “a lot of people get rid of the Fed?”
And then, what the fuck is he talking about when he says “it’s also important psychotically?” Sure, he’s “psychotic” and yes, lots of people think QE is “psychotic”, but is that what he’s driving at? Or is it maybe that he has no idea what that word means? Or is the transcript wrong? Here’s one source, but there are others:
This is a very odd bit of the Trump/@MariaBartiromo transcript. pic.twitter.com/C282lCCwS8
— Ben White (@EconomyBen) October 20, 2017
Finally, what connection does any of that have to “what happened with Foxconn going to Wisconsin”? That’s a pretty hard pivot.
Ultimately, this is just further evidence to support our contention that the nominee will be dark horse candidate Krusty the Clown…
Trump just inadvertently said the most prescient thing he’s ever said: the Fed is indeed psychotic.
I know, right? that’s the best part here
Yes indeed and also the “get rid of the Fed” quip.
Clearly it is a vocabulary deficency. But then, years ago maybe they thought M3 was psychotic.
He’s a 5 yr old probably trying to say psychologically but he is too stupid to use the right word.
And yes, he is absolutely psychotic. The longer he is in the WH, the more danger he imposes on this Country.
I thought Trump was Krusty the Clown.
Donald the Clown has elbowed Krusty out of the way.
Worthless notion about teaming up Powell and Taylor, if the vice is just an ornament. Look at Yellen and Fisher. He was irrelevant and finally quit in quiet disgust. Instead, Yellen’s confidante and soul mate was always uber-dove Lael Brainard.
Brainard was expected to resign if Yellen wasn’t re-appointed, but will she reconsider if fellow dove Powell becomes chair? Hope not.
Psychologically* is likely what he meant, or should have meant. It’s the only thing that could possibly make sense.
Unless, like the commenter above noted, it was a Freudian slip of the true nature of the Fed? Ha.