It’s tempting to ignore Donald Trump’s nonsensical ramblings — “malarkey,” to channel a certain senior citizen who maybe should’ve stayed atop the Democratic ticket after all, even if he didn’t always know what year it was — particularly when they emanate from rallies.

But I’d be remiss, I suppose, as someone condemned to pen daily color commentary on markets in the era of Trump, not to briefly mention that he assailed Jerome Powell again on Tuesday evening while regaling the faithful in Detroit.

I should note that sitting presidents don’t generally hold rallies. Trump does, though. He likes the theater, and it’s just another manifestation of his autocratic tendencies. He needs to bluster and poke his chest out and, just as importantly, publicly berate perceived enemies and antagonists so as to instill fear.

Trump elicited scattered jeers on Tuesday night from the audience when he mentioned Powell, as if anyone in that crowd of deluded deplorables knows the first thing about the Fed. Make no mistake: When Trump does that, it’s a tacit call to action. “Hey rednecks, I’m not necessarily saying you should snort a bunch of ice, drive down to D.C. and leave the severed head of a house cat in Jay’s mailbox, buuuuuut… I could pardon you if you did!”

As ever, there was an air of farce to Trump’s bullsh-t. “Interest rates came down despite the fact that I have a Fed person who’s not really doing a good job,” he told the crowd. A couple of things on that. First, 10-year yields — what Trump means by “interest rates” — were 4.57% on Inauguration Day. They’re 4.23% now. There wasn’t a single person in Trump’s Detroit audience who’s going to benefit in a meaningful way from a 34bps decline in 10-year yields.

Second, “interest rates” were down more than that, and might be still were it not for Trump’s laughably ridiculous “Liberation Day” tariff unveil which, although accompanied initially by a sharp drop in yields on risk-off sentiment, triggered a 50bps jump in just a handful of sessions thereafter on a combination of unwinds, stop-outs and, according to many, foreign selling as the world was forced to grapple with just how far gone this US president really is.

Trump continued. “…but I won’t say that, I want to be very nice.” That’s a rhetorical trick he uses frequently. Stylized: “That ol’ Jay’s a traitorous son of a b-tch, just like Mike Pence, and back in the old days, people like that got what they deserved, but I’m not going to say that, because that’d be me telling you to kill them, and you’re not supposed to kill people.” In other words, he says something, then says he’s not going to say it.

To be clear: Trump was openly mocking Fed independence. He smirked, the crowd snickered and so on. “I want to be very nice and respectful to the Fed,” Trump said, employing the most sarcastic cadence he could muster. “You’re not supposed to criticize the Fed, you’re supposed to let him do his own thing, but I know much more than he does about interest rates, believe me.”

I don’t. “Believe me,” I mean. In fact, I doubt seriously that Trump has full mastery of multiplication and division, and no, that’s not a joke. If you asked Trump, on the spot, what 2,000 divided by five is, I’m not at all confident he could give you an answer off the top of his head. Indeed, I don’t think, necessarily, that he could do that math if you gave him a pencil and a piece of paper and said, “Here, take all the time you need, but no calculator and no phone.” George W. Bush would probably have trouble with that too, but here’s the difference: Bush is just regular old dumb, whereas Trump has a disability. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, and I don’t give a single damn — not one — if this offends any of you: Trump’s mildly retarded.

In any event, he’s not done with Powell, despite claiming otherwise last week. If the S&P were at 4900 right now instead of 5560, he wouldn’t have said a word about Powell on Tuesday night. The only reason he backed off last week was the specter of a stock crash, which looked quite real on April 21.

Even if Powell survives in the job though the end of his term next year, it’s obvious that Trump’s next Fed Chair will be a moronic, beholden sycophant, which is why I personally doubt the notion that Kevin Warsh is ultimately the “right” choice. Warsh doesn’t fit the Pam Bondi, Kash Patel, RFK Jr., Pete Hegseth mold. Trump needs someone whose only “qualification” is loyalty. That’s where we’re headed. It’s just a matter of whether we get there sooner or later.