Valuetainment - January 13, 2026


＂The Fed Got Caught＂ - DOJ DROPS THE HAMMER on Powell Over $2B SCANDAL


Episode Stats

Length

9 minutes

Words per Minute

186.66667

Word Count

1,820

Sentence Count

139


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Federal prosecutors open investigation into Federal Chair Powell.
00:00:05.440 Uh-oh.
00:00:06.060 Oh, boy.
00:00:07.020 Yep, they're going after Jerome Powell, which is steering up a lot of conversation.
00:00:13.680 Rob, is this him saying it, that it's happening?
00:00:15.420 Yep.
00:00:15.680 Go ahead, Rob.
00:00:17.360 Good evening.
00:00:19.380 On Friday, the Department of Justice served the Federal Reserve with grand jury subpoenas,
00:00:24.400 threatening a criminal indictment related to my testimony before the Senate Banking Committee last June.
00:00:30.000 That testimony concerned, in part, a multi-year project to renovate historic Federal Reserve office buildings.
00:00:39.500 I have deep respect for the rule of law and for accountability in our democracy.
00:00:44.920 No one, certainly not the Chair of the Federal Reserve, is above the law.
00:00:48.900 You.
00:00:49.120 But this unprecedented action should be seen in the broader context of the administration's threats and ongoing pressure.
00:00:55.900 This new threat is not about my testimony last June, or about the renovation of the Federal Reserve buildings.
00:01:03.300 It is not about Congress's oversight role.
00:01:06.140 The Fed, through testimony and other public disclosures, made every effort to keep Congress informed about the renovation project.
00:01:13.800 Those are pretexts.
00:01:15.120 The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public,
00:01:25.040 rather than following the preferences of the President.
00:01:28.640 This is about whether the Fed will be able to continue to set interest rates based on evidence and economic conditions,
00:01:34.620 or whether instead monetary policy will be directed by political pressure or intimidation.
00:01:39.120 I have served at the Federal Reserve under four administrations, Republicans and Democrats alike.
00:01:47.400 In every case, I have carried out my duties without political fear or favor, focused solely on our mandate of price stability and maximum.
00:01:55.620 You get the idea of what's happening.
00:01:56.660 So, Tom, what's going on over here, Tom?
00:01:58.080 So, what he did was the Fed chairman, Powell, was in front of Congress because to renovate a building, an individual building,
00:02:08.700 suddenly the price tag was $2.5 billion.
00:02:11.540 Now, when you look at the Department of Defense who once got caught paying $6,000 for a simple hammer,
00:02:17.360 you know that when the government is paying for things, there's graft, there's kickbacks, there's things, there's all these allegations.
00:02:25.040 I'm not saying that there was that on the Fed building, but all those allegations, usually when there's audits, really go, you know, point bad.
00:02:34.860 So, last year, in the ad there, there it is, Federal Reserve blows $2.5 billion on Palace of Versailles headquarters.
00:02:42.140 So, this was, they really got caught, Pat.
00:02:45.060 They were, this building is poorly managed.
00:02:47.800 So, it's embarrassing.
00:02:48.620 $2.5 billion.
00:02:49.140 And it's embarrassing.
00:02:50.240 $1 million?
00:02:50.260 So, Powell was over there, said a couple things that in Congress turned out to be not perfectly correct,
00:02:57.940 but no one, including the Congressional Committee, thought that Powell was out and out lying the way, say, Minneapolis-level fraud lying.
00:03:05.360 Well, Trump, at the same time, has been putting pressure on Powell, as has Fannie and Freddie, you know, Bill Pulte,
00:03:15.880 has been pushing on Powell to lower interest rates to see if we could help the housing market a little bit or a little bit more.
00:03:24.880 And Trump also wants to lower those rates for, Pat, U.S. debt is coming due, and it's going to be refinanced.
00:03:31.760 He wants it refinanced at lower interest rates.
00:03:34.420 So, he wants the rates down.
00:03:36.740 The Fed was saying no.
00:03:38.120 Well, the Fed is now saying, okay, the federal investigators of doing this, and this is Powell saying,
00:03:43.980 I think this is a little bit over the top considering what's going on at the Fed building,
00:03:48.460 and I think they're using it to exert political pressure on me regarding interest rates.
00:03:53.900 So, it's not about me operating as the Fed.
00:03:56.780 Suddenly, this is the president, you know, pushing politically because he didn't like my answer,
00:04:02.300 and so now he's having people investigate the building.
00:04:04.840 I think there's a little of both going on, Pat, quite frankly.
00:04:08.660 There is pressure on Powell to lower interest rates from the White House and from the Secretary Besant.
00:04:15.020 There is definitely pressure.
00:04:16.240 But there also is, let's face it, yet again, the American taxpayer paying 20x what they should be paying for something.
00:04:24.680 And so, somebody needs to be, and if the head of the Fed, who's a political position, is managing a building project,
00:04:32.380 the first thing I say is, wait a minute.
00:04:34.880 You're not going to take a career policy guy and have him manage a building project.
00:04:39.660 Pat and I have managed building projects.
00:04:41.420 It takes the special people to hold developers' feet to the fire, keep your bids low, get your delivery dates,
00:04:48.700 and not all those phone calls are going to be pleasant.
00:04:50.920 Sometimes it really takes some arm wrestling.
00:04:53.440 So, if Trump Powell is managing a renovation, it kind of doesn't surprise me that a policy wonk, you know,
00:05:01.080 ends up, you know, with his you-know-what stuck in the shredder because the thing is out of control.
00:05:09.020 You've got to know what it looks like to the average person.
00:05:10.580 The average person who's looking at this, Tom, is saying, you're not lowering the rates, I'm coming after you.
00:05:16.200 The average person sees it that way.
00:05:18.580 Forget about the whole thing.
00:05:20.160 You know, you talk to the average person.
00:05:21.780 That's very, that's partly true here.
00:05:23.580 Yeah, so if you look at the average person, the average person is saying, screw Jerome Powell,
00:05:28.040 all I care about is lower the rates, I want to refinance.
00:05:30.340 And I get that.
00:05:31.100 And that's 80%, 90% of America.
00:05:33.120 But the other side, you can also sit there and say, flip the, you know, tables.
00:05:36.800 And, you know, if it happens the other way around and it's not a term that you're running
00:05:40.640 and the president is Joe Biden doing this to Jerome Powell, what would you be saying?
00:05:44.540 Would you be sitting there saying, I agree with him?
00:05:46.200 Would you not agree with him?
00:05:47.060 So you have to be fair and see optics.
00:05:50.060 You know, I don't know if this is.
00:05:52.220 You just have to know, when is his time up, Rob?
00:05:54.120 Isn't his time coming up in June?
00:05:55.360 In May of 2026.
00:05:57.580 He's got four months.
00:05:58.160 It's coming up.
00:05:58.940 It's coming up in the next four months.
00:06:00.560 So I get it.
00:06:01.280 I mean, for four months to do that, you know, you don't want to just wait four more months
00:06:07.260 to get this just wrapped up and move on.
00:06:09.480 I don't know.
00:06:10.080 Adam, if you got some thoughts on this, we'll go.
00:06:11.680 Yeah, nobody's surprised to see Trump beefing with Jerome Powell.
00:06:15.260 We've covered this multiple times.
00:06:16.600 I kind of said it's like an East Coast, West Coast rap beef.
00:06:19.620 They're out there throwing threats.
00:06:20.800 Biggie versus Tupac.
00:06:21.640 You go, Biggie versus Tupac.
00:06:23.440 This is more like Tupac versus Sade.
00:06:25.760 So the reality is we shouldn't have Jerome Powell speaking.
00:06:30.820 The Fed doesn't speak unless there's some major problems, usually, unless they're announcing
00:06:34.940 some major announcement.
00:06:37.160 You know, monetary policy via the Fed, they have two primary components.
00:06:40.920 Setting the interest rate, which Trump is basically pissed about.
00:06:43.860 Right now, the current Fed fund rate is around three and a half, three, maybe four at the most.
00:06:51.000 The prime rate is around six and a half, seven.
00:06:53.340 And the number two, unemployment.
00:06:54.980 Unemployment is basically right where we need it to be, under 5%, I think around four, four and a half percent.
00:07:01.820 As much as I give Trump credit, and I'm completely all in on the Trump MAGA 2.0 state of affairs in America,
00:07:10.920 I don't like what he's doing with Powell.
00:07:12.540 I think Powell has overall done a good job.
00:07:16.300 Could he lower interest rates?
00:07:17.860 Yeah.
00:07:18.460 Should he?
00:07:19.420 Maybe.
00:07:20.180 But he's not going to jail.
00:07:21.780 He's not going to get in trouble.
00:07:22.920 The worst that's going to happen to him is exactly what he's dealing with, Trump's pressure and intimidation.
00:07:29.740 And he has four more months until he can go retire.
00:07:32.140 Okay.
00:07:32.500 Let me tell you what's going on and who the real MVP in America is the last four weeks, the last three weeks.
00:07:39.080 You know who the real MVP in America is?
00:07:41.300 That, unfortunately, they will not get the credit.
00:07:44.280 They will not be talked about.
00:07:45.720 You will not know their names.
00:07:47.860 You will not be able to give to their GoFundMe.
00:07:50.240 You will not be able to do anything with those guys.
00:07:52.540 You know who the real MVP the last few weeks has been in America?
00:07:55.420 The Delta Force.
00:07:57.080 The Delta Force.
00:07:58.420 When I was in the Army, I asked my orders to be, I was going to go be 18 Delta, 5th group.
00:08:03.260 I did all my interviews.
00:08:04.580 I got my orders.
00:08:05.500 I was going to re-enlist six years, go to DLI, go to SEER school, go to, you know, airborne, go to Special Forces.
00:08:12.360 And then I was going to go straight to Vicenza, Italy, to be in that area.
00:08:14.940 My friend ends up getting the orders.
00:08:16.760 He ends up becoming Delta.
00:08:18.740 The stuff you're hearing about on how they're going in in Venezuela and how they got them, the reports that are coming out, unreal.
00:08:25.100 And by the way, you know who's watching that very quickly?
00:08:28.180 Khamenei and Iran better be watching very closely because our Delta Force is really strong.
00:08:31.940 If they want to do something, they could get a lot of stuff done.
00:08:34.720 So, guess what is back?
00:08:36.300 You know these USA hats that we had, these beautiful USA hats with the future looks bright on the side and the future looks bright on the bottom?
00:08:44.780 These sell out within seconds when we launch these.
00:08:48.100 If you haven't picked one of these up, you love America.
00:08:51.600 There's never been a more important time, especially the 250-year anniversary, to go wear this.
00:08:56.940 This is the USA on the front, American flag on the side.
00:09:01.180 Future looks bright on the back.
00:09:03.000 And then you've got future looks bright here.
00:09:04.860 You can go back on this link, Rob, if you can put it below.
00:09:08.580 We also have the shirts to go with it.
00:09:10.520 Go back on that page as well.
00:09:13.380 It's right there.
00:09:15.100 There's the shirts to go with it.
00:09:16.660 There's the different kind of hats for women, for men.
00:09:20.020 Go a little bit lower if you could, Rob.
00:09:21.460 But if you haven't yet ordered one of these USA hats, buy one for yourself, for a friend, for a family member who loves America.
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00:09:39.500 If you enjoyed this video, you want to watch more videos like this, click here.
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