Background Briefing: September 17, 2025
The Fed Lowers Interest Rates As Risks of Unemployment Have Risen
We begin with the Fed lowering interest rates today from 4.3% to 4.1% with an expectation that two more rate cuts will follow in response to the recent precipitous drop in the labor market, announcing that “Downside risks to employment have risen.” Joining us is Dean Baker, senior economist and co-founder of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a progressive economic think-tank based in Washington DC. He is the author of Rigged: How Globalization and the Rules of the Modern Economy Were Structured to Make the Rich Richer, and writes the popular economics blog, “Beat the Press” where his latest articles include “Cheap Advice for the Fed.”
The Monetization of the Presidency By the Most Corrupt and Criminal President Ever
Then we investigate the monetization of the presidency by the most corrupt and criminal president in the nation’s history who is raking in billions out of foreign policy deals he and Witkoff are making with the world’s worst despots. We examine the New York Times revelations that Trump along with Witkoff, whose son co-founded Trump’s crypto scam World Liberty Financial, got the UAE to give the Trump family $2 billion in exchange for handing over the latest AI chips against the pleas from Trump’s own National Security Council that our latest AI technology will then end up with China. Trump ignored his own intelligence officials and then fired them. Joining us is Ben Freeman, a Research Fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. Previously, he was Director of the Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative at the Center for International Policy and a National Security Fellow at the Project On Government Oversight where he spear-headed the “Foreign Influence Database.” He is the author of The Foreign Policy Auction and he has a recent article at Responsible Statecraft, “US foreign policy is for sale with $TRUMP meme coin.”
How the Democrats Can Shut Down the Government and Not Get Blamed
Then we look into how the Democrats can fight for the vast majority of Americans who will be hurt by Trump’s giveaways to the rich at the expense of healthcare, cancer research etc. without being blamed for a government shutdown at the end of the month. Joining us is Jonathan Alter, an analyst and contributing correspondent for NBC News and MSNBC. He is a former senior editor and columnist for Newsweek and is the author of The Promise: President Obama, Year One and The Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope, both New York Times bestsellers, and his latest books are The Center Holds: Obama and His Enemies and His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, A Life. His latest book is American Reckoning: Inside Trump’s Trial—and My Own, and he runs the Substack newsletter Old Goats, and we discuss his article at The New York Times, “How Democrats Can Shut Down the Government With Voters on Their Side.”