Crypto Critics' Corner

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Episode 174 – Trump v. Powell: The Murder of the Federal Reserve

Trump v. Powell: The Murder of the Federal Reserve – Crypto Critics' Corner

Bennett Tomlin and Cas Piancey‬ discuss the accelerated assault on the Federal Reserve by the Trump administration. This episode was streamed live on January 12th, 2026.

Cas Piancey and Bennett Tomlin discuss the most recent assault on the Federal Reserve by the Trump administration.

This podcast was streamed live on January 12th, 2026.

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English Transcript:

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:11:10
Speaker 1
Welcome back everyone. Long time no see. I am cas PNC. I am joined, as usual, by my partner in crime, Mr. Bennett Tomlin. How are you today?

00:00:11:12 - 00:00:14:16
Speaker 2
I'm doing okay. A little scared, but.

00:00:14:18 - 00:00:15:11
Speaker 1
Hanging in there.

00:00:15:12 - 00:00:16:18
Speaker 2
How are you doing, Cass?

00:00:16:19 - 00:00:37:23
Speaker 1
Same, same. We decided it was a good idea to to do a live stream today. Because. Yeah. What the hell? What the hell? And we're just going to kick it off by showing you the statement from Jerome Powell. So, yeah.

00:00:38:01 - 00:01:05:07
Speaker 3
Good evening. On Friday, the Department of Justice served the Federal Reserve with grand jury subpoenas threatening a criminal indictment related to my testimony before the Senate Banking Committee last June. That testimony, concerned, in part, a multi-year project to renovate historic Federal Reserve office buildings. I have deep respect for the rule of law and for accountability in our democracy.

00:01:05:09 - 00:01:34:06
Speaker 3
No one. Certainly not the chair of the Federal Reserve is above the law. But this unprecedented action should be seen in the broader context of the administration's threats and ongoing pressure. This new threat is not about my testimony last June or about the renovation of the Federal Reserve buildings. It is not about Congress's oversight role. The fed, through testimony and other public disclosures, made every effort to keep Congress informed about the renovation project.

00:01:34:08 - 00:02:01:18
Speaker 3
Those are pretexts. 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, rather than following the preferences of the president. This is about whether the fed will be able to continue to set interest rates based on evidence and economic conditions, or whether instead, monetary policy will be directed by political pressure or intimidation.

00:02:01:20 - 00:02:31:09
Speaker 3
I have served at the Federal Reserve under four administrations, Republicans and Democrats alike. In every case, I have carried out my duties without political fear or favor, focused solely on our mandate of price stability and maximum employment. Public service sometimes requires standing firm in the face of threats. I will continue to do the job the Senate confirmed me to do with integrity and a commitment to serving the American people.

00:02:31:11 - 00:02:34:01
Speaker 3
Thank you.

00:02:34:03 - 00:02:38:09
Speaker 2
So no Federal Reserve chairman has ever had to make a statement like that before.

00:02:38:11 - 00:02:56:06
Speaker 1
Yeah, I to just point something out to anyone who was listening to that. He said threat or threatening five times in that very short speech. And he said intimidation as well. So that gives you a sense of.

00:02:56:08 - 00:03:34:15
Speaker 1
The message that he was trying to get across. And I think he got that message across quite effectively. I think people, at least in finance and politics, I guess as well, were quite freaked out by all of this. I, I don't know if you want to add anything, but I think the one thing I want to add to this right now, at this very particular second is that, this morning in response to this, Senator Tillis and Senator Murkowski both put out a statement saying, hey, this is not okay.

00:03:34:16 - 00:04:02:23
Speaker 1
You cannot go after Jerome Powell. Like this. And we are going to hold up any nomination that you put forward until this stops. And we urge you to investigate the DOJ. So I think that really sets back the. Momentum that maybe Donald Trump and this administration thought they had on this, this issue. I don't know, what do you think, Bennett.

00:04:03:01 - 00:04:30:20
Speaker 2
I think it would have been great if Tillis and Murkowski were willing to make those statements after Lisa Cook was targeted by criminal indictments by the Or was targeted with criminal investigations, and where Trump tried to fire her, because a lot of those same things they're saying now about Powell applied in that case as well. But more broadly, whatever, like you want to say about when they should have said it.

00:04:30:22 - 00:04:59:23
Speaker 2
This is one of those critical moments. And during this administration, I think half of the episodes we've done, it feels like have been about these attacks in the Federal Reserve because it is such an important institution and it has for so long been seen as independent from some of these political processes and especially from like the day to day vagaries of the executive.

00:05:00:04 - 00:05:10:04
Speaker 2
And that seems to have that seems to be crumbling. And like even more than that, it seems like when it started to crumble, when we were raising this alarm months ago.

00:05:10:05 - 00:05:12:04
Speaker 1
Almost a year. Yeah, yeah, 11 months ago.

00:05:12:06 - 00:05:44:06
Speaker 2
People close to the administration were confident that they were going to be able to redirect Trump, to keep him focused on other issues and things like that. And based on like the reporting about Scott Bezzant like calling Trump up today or meeting with Trump today and freaking out and stuff like that. It suggests that, one, a lot of people didn't know that this was about to happen, and two, they were unsuccessful in distracting Trump from what Trump said he was going to do.

00:05:45:02 - 00:06:13:00
Speaker 1
Well, and I think someone else pointed out that in the, was it called the 2025, the project 2025 thing or whatever? That they specifically called for getting complete control and essentially destroying the independence and usefulness of the Federal Reserve. So they are doing exactly what they said they were going to do. And there is nobody who is successfully going to stop them from doing that.

00:06:13:00 - 00:06:34:06
Speaker 1
And I don't think as I said earlier today, I don't think that Scott Bezzant calling Donald Trump and being like, I'm really disappointed in you is going to have any effect whatsoever on this administration. So, you know that that, it's it's a silly, it's a silly retort. I also want to bring up sorry, we forgot to do this.

00:06:34:06 - 00:06:59:16
Speaker 1
So the there was also a joint statement, from Ben Bernanke, Jared Bernstein, I guess I should Ben Bernanke, who served two terms as the chair of the Board of governors of the fed, Jared Bernstein, who served as the chair of the Council of Economic Advisers under Joe Biden. Jason Furman served as chair of the Council of Economic Advisers under Barack Obama.

00:06:59:18 - 00:07:36:13
Speaker 1
Tim Geithner, the 75th secretary of the Treasury and the, president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Alan Greenspan, who served five terms as the chair of the Board of governors of the fed. He's 99 years old. Apparently, he is still going ahead and talking to these people about this stuff. Janet Yellen, who served as the 78 Secretary of Treasury, and had numerous titles at the fed, and Henry Paulson, who was the 74 Secretary of the Treasury, basically, a who's who of people who have worked in the Treasury and the Federal Reserve all thing.

00:07:36:13 - 00:08:04:14
Speaker 2
Every living fed chair, I believe, is a signatory to this statement. And we should be clear, like, we'll just read the statement. It's a couple of sentences. So there's all these signatories and it says the Federal Reserve's independence and the public's perception of that independence are critical for economic performance, including achieving the goals Congress has set for the Federal Reserve of stable prices, maximum employment and moderate long term interest rates.

00:08:04:16 - 00:08:34:19
Speaker 2
The reported criminal inquiry into Federal Reserve Chair Jay Powell is an unprecedented attempt to use prosecutorial attacks to undermine that independence. This is how monetary policy is made in emerging markets with weak institutions with highly negative consequences for inflation and the functioning of their economies more broadly. It has no place in the United States whose greatest strength is the rule of law, which is at the foundation of our economic success.

00:08:34:21 - 00:08:39:07
Speaker 1
Pretty damning stuff.

00:08:39:09 - 00:09:09:11
Speaker 1
So, look, I know a lot of our listeners are anti fed, and I know a lot of our listeners, are anti central bank in general, probably. I just want to make sure everyone understands this is a dual decision. Either you have central bank independence with a Federal Reserve that doesn't get persecuted for the decisions that they make, or you don't.

00:09:09:13 - 00:09:31:10
Speaker 1
And that's that's it. That's the choice you have right now. And while I would love to, I know we had Rowan Gray on, multiple times and, you know, no love lost from Rowan for the fed. I know that, and I know that he's likely just looking at this and just shaking his head like these idiots. They had every opportunity to fix this for decades, and they didn't do it.

00:09:31:12 - 00:09:51:04
Speaker 1
I urge everyone to listen to those episodes as well. They're very informative and interesting, but I just need people to understand that this is it's a dual choice right now. You don't there is not this third greater idea where we can be like, well, so we're going to slowly move away from the fed and do this other central like, no, that's not a thing.

00:09:51:06 - 00:09:56:05
Speaker 1
So we are in the midst of chaos. I mean, this is complete and utter chaos.

00:09:56:07 - 00:10:22:06
Speaker 2
Well, and insofar as, like that could be a thing, like there are alternative conceptions of, like, central bank independence that you'll encounter in, like, modern Monetary theory and things like that. But all of those involve like the legislative branch, branch Congress having like complete control over the purse, like absolute control over the purse. And we've seen that Congress no longer really has the power of the purse.

00:10:22:09 - 00:10:47:07
Speaker 2
And so discussing that right now is missing the point that, like Donald Trump is specifically attacking like the dollar in these under these financial institutions that underpin the United States and for like the world's dumbest pretext. Right. Like this entire thing is because the federal Reserve decided they needed to do some renovations across like 12 of their different banks or whatever, and they've made a bunch of those changes.

00:10:47:12 - 00:11:18:01
Speaker 2
They disclosed all of it to Congress at the appropriate times with the appropriate reports. Everything was approved by all the appropriate people at all the appropriate times. Powell went to, the Senate Banking Committee to testify about all this. And yet, despite despite, like Powell said, all that openness about these things, that willingness to engage with the congressional oversight of the fed, they are still trying to find something he misrepresented in that testimony, like it's fundamental nonsense, right?

00:11:18:07 - 00:11:26:12
Speaker 2
It's they're doing renovations like the East Wing, the ball room, that Coinbase doesn't fund the East wing. But here you go. This is not.

00:11:26:12 - 00:11:49:15
Speaker 1
Okay. I think this is a really important point that someone else, a mutual of ours, Jen on Blue Sky, pointed out, which is if Trump really wants to go down the road of exploring every renovation overrun and construction overrun cost like you're you are going to find a lot of skeletons in that closet for Donald Trump.

00:11:49:19 - 00:12:08:23
Speaker 1
So if he really wants to go down this path, we should do it. And we should do it for everything that he he's involved with from, you know, the his hotels to the the east wing of the white House to whatever, like every, every single thing he touches should be deeply investigated. And if there's any cost overrun whatsoever.

00:12:09:01 - 00:12:37:00
Speaker 1
Well, what the hell, man? That's fraud. Right? According according to the Donald Trump, administration, I guess. But sorry to pause for a second. I just want to also add that while we have all of this fed drama going on, which is insane and important and unprecedented, truly unprecedented. We also have, like, strange capital control decisions happening right now.

00:12:37:02 - 00:12:56:12
Speaker 1
Right? We have, you pointed it out, the the the was it Bezzant who who was this person present? Yeah. Bezzant talking about. Oh, well, if you have Snap benefits or if you have any benefits at all that you received from the government, you can't do any remittances anymore. You can't send you can't wire money abroad anymore.

00:12:56:17 - 00:13:13:22
Speaker 1
And this is a crazy decision. And it is a crazy capital control that I don't think there's any justification. Like, I don't know what entity is allowed to suddenly do that on a whim without congressional approval. And right, like other approval.

00:13:13:23 - 00:13:38:07
Speaker 2
Maybe the fed or the OC could, like in their bank supervisory role, change the expectations for what's documented with each wire, but like doing it in the middle of an interview on CNBC or whatever it was that person was is crazy. It's that's not how this works. That's gone. So you do this and like, like that's crazy. We're doing capital controls in the United States and we're not at war.

00:13:38:07 - 00:14:04:04
Speaker 2
One crazy, crazy thing we don't do. And like two, Trump is trying to do monetary policy without even going to the fed. Right. We saw I think it was last week Trump announced that he was going to order Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to, sell 200 billion in no, sorry to buy 200 billion in mortgage bonds in an attempt to drive down mortgage rates.

00:14:04:06 - 00:14:29:16
Speaker 2
And like one that's not going to make that big of a difference. I mean, like the Federal Reserve has $2 trillion worth of mortgage bonds on their balance sheet. If the fed wanted, they could entirely cancel out, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mac there. And like two. What are you doing? Why are you trying to affect mortgage rates by by for George Bonds on the open market.

00:14:29:18 - 00:15:07:09
Speaker 2
Why are you going to Truth Social in announcing that you're going to crap your credit card interest rates at 10%, and then saying that any firm that doesn't do that is somehow breaking the law despite there being no law involved. It's it's just absurd. It's absurd. We've like, crossed through a looking glass into like, this place where a single bad decision by the Trump administration could fundamentally destabilize the entire global financial system and lead to millions of deaths.

00:15:07:11 - 00:15:08:17
Speaker 2
Like that's where we're at.

00:15:08:19 - 00:15:36:17
Speaker 1
Yeah. I mean, we really did. Like, I know that this sounds insane, but a year ago, this was the discussion that we had, which was they're going to try to destroy the Federal Reserve, the independence of the Federal Reserve. And that will destroy the dollar and that will destroy a lot of things. And so I guess I feel bad that we were right, because you don't want to see that.

00:15:36:17 - 00:15:49:18
Speaker 1
I wish that we were wrong. I wish that in the years since that we recorded that episode, the Trump administration realized that this was a silly cause and that everyone was going to push back against this. But.

00:15:49:18 - 00:16:08:15
Speaker 2
They had and most of them apparently have. Right. Like the white House is going to every political reporter they can and like leaking that they're upset about this. Bassett is going around saying he's upset about this, but like it's out there that a bunch of people in the administration are mad. But fundamentally, you are part of the Trump administration.

00:16:08:17 - 00:16:46:01
Speaker 2
Your entire administration is centered around the one mad king who governs by edict on truth, social like you're madness is pointless. He said he was going to do this. He tried to do this term one like if you actually didn't think a president should do this, you should not be involved with Donald Trump. And that applies similarly to like all of the billionaires and venture capitalists and stuff who supported Trump in the first place, like they are the ones who, in a very substantial sense, need and depend upon this, like global financial system, global system of trade, global system of finance that largely benefits the United States and these billionaires.

00:16:46:01 - 00:16:51:12
Speaker 2
Well, and they are supporting the person who is taking the most direct steps to destroy it.

00:16:51:14 - 00:17:15:04
Speaker 1
Yeah. So I'm the I'm going to push back on this just for a second. And I know we're a little off topic now, but I am going to push back on this just because I think that billionaires in general have reached a level of wealth where they no longer believe that they. They're immune to the problems with the dollar.

00:17:15:05 - 00:17:36:15
Speaker 1
They're immune to problems with the global economy. They can ride it out no matter what. As far as they're concerned. Like they can figure out ways they have the means to escape any kind of global catastrophe. So they're not worried about it. And in fact, I think a lot of them want this to happen because it will solidify.

00:17:36:15 - 00:17:50:17
Speaker 1
It'll it'll put in concrete these foundations of where the upper class now. Right. Like, whoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo. Financial collapse has hurt the most. It's not like you see Rockefeller taking the L during the Great Depression. Like, hey.

00:17:50:19 - 00:17:58:23
Speaker 2
Hey, some of those rich people lost more dollars than anyone else. They still had more dollars than anyone else at the end of it.

00:17:59:03 - 00:18:21:02
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah. Well, no, I think what we've I think it's already been determined that Elon Musk is both made the most money and lost the most money of anybody in history. But or at least in a single day, I guess it's the way they've, they've termed it. But yeah. So I like that it's a little off topic, but I do think that it's I think the billionaires are all almost all on board with this.

00:18:21:02 - 00:18:44:20
Speaker 1
They're, they're okay with this. It's fine for them. They don't see they don't think they're going to feel the repercussions of this. The politicians do. I think the politicians do. And I think the financial experts do. Right. But I don't think, I do not think that the billionaires care. They they're desperate to, push this narrative as well.

00:18:44:22 - 00:18:45:10
Speaker 1
Which.

00:18:45:12 - 00:19:09:04
Speaker 2
Also kind of like leads into, like I remember when we had, Georgie and Moon Cat to talk about her video and we were talking about techno feudalism. There was a tendency in certain circles to dismiss it, like saying the only people who actually believe in this are cranks with no real power, right? This isn't actually in line with their best interest.

00:19:09:04 - 00:19:27:03
Speaker 2
None of them are actually going to go through with it. And I just want to say moon Cat was right. And everyone who said that was apparently wrong because they literally do want citadels. They really do want to secure themselves as the plutocrats over a burning husk of what was once the most powerful nation on earth.

00:19:27:05 - 00:19:48:15
Speaker 1
Yeah, I do think we're learning to take people in general at their word, if nothing else, from all of this, right? Like like if Donald Trump says he wants to destroy the federal Reserve, just believe him. I know that it's hard to believe if he says he's going to fight to take Greenland, you might as well just believe him, even if it doesn't seem like a real thing, you might as well just believe him.

00:19:48:21 - 00:19:51:04
Speaker 1
I like the and.

00:19:51:06 - 00:20:09:07
Speaker 2
Well, because even saying it in the first place should be disqualifying. Being like, I'm going to personally take over the fed or I'm going to personally take over Greenland should be something that makes you go, this person cannot have power. Even if you think they can't actually do it, you shouldn't want them anywhere close to that button.

00:20:09:09 - 00:20:28:19
Speaker 1
So I do think that there's this is the last point I want to personally make on this, this matter, which is, I think that the administration is reaching a tipping point. They're doing a lot of really unpopular stuff right now. Right. So even stuff where you can see the legitimacy of it. Right? Maduro was a bad guy.

00:20:28:21 - 00:21:03:08
Speaker 1
It's good that he's gone from leadership in Venezuela. The, the, the way that happened. I might not agree with, what has happened since I might not even fully understand. But I think the main issue is that we now understand it was totally for oil and all that oil is oil that nobody wants. So okay. And then we're talking about the government taking shares of those companies so that they can help get that oil out and taking revenue from that and that okay.

00:21:03:08 - 00:21:29:13
Speaker 1
So that's socialism. That's weird that Donald Trump is pushing for that. But okay, so that's weird. I assume that's not super, super popular with his base or with anyone else, really. And then you have him threatening an ally that's generally not super popular abroad or multiple allies, right? He threatened Greenland. He threatened Mexico. He Canada.

00:21:29:15 - 00:21:52:22
Speaker 1
He threatened Canada and others that I guess we wouldn't call allies, but still, like, threatening Cuba and Colombia is not great when you're threatening everyone else at the same time. So you're ostracizing yourself that way, too. And then you also have a Department of Homeland Security going around attacking people and killing people, its own citizens. Right. Which is so all of these are unpopular.

00:21:53:00 - 00:22:18:21
Speaker 1
And then after all of that, I and genuinely I feel like this is just a a fit of desperation. You go after who is essentially one of the most popular, even though he's not that popular. I think his approval rating is 44%, but that's higher than any other politician. Basically. Like people really like people. Really. They kind of they're okay with Jerome Powell after all of this.

00:22:19:02 - 00:22:30:15
Speaker 1
And so attacking him, it just seemed so unhinged and fruitless to me. You know?

00:22:30:17 - 00:23:00:03
Speaker 2
Yeah. And like, we should wrap this up soon. But the last point I want to make is the world they are trying to shape is scary in a lot of ways. Like, I can't even imagine what a world looks like without NATO and without the Federal Reserve. And where like, the dollar is no longer the global reserve currency.

00:23:00:03 - 00:23:26:08
Speaker 2
And we have like multiple competing currencies where like the United States has strict capital controls and has shut it up, shut itself off from the global market where countries are considering sanctioning the United States, where European countries are considering sanctioning the United States. The European Union is considering sanctioning the United States. That's an insane sentence. Like Colombian leaders Bolivia Boulevard.

00:23:26:10 - 00:24:17:21
Speaker 2
Bolivarian Bolivia versions are like once again talking about Gran Colombia and like creating new unions of your trees like across South America and stuff like these. The it's truly unprecedented and it is fundamentally a destruction of every part of the United, like every good part of what the United States has ever tried to be like the promises of equality in the declaration, the promises of like restraints on state power in the Constitution, the like work done after World War One and World War two to try to build like a global system, to arbitrate disputes, to avoid war, and like, treaty agreements, to try to prevent, like imperial expansion, like so many of those things

00:24:17:21 - 00:24:35:07
Speaker 2
are now dead or dying, and it's unclear if they're going to be able to save. And the world that is struggling to be born is one that is going to be destructive, violent, hateful and challenging to just existing.

00:24:35:09 - 00:24:42:13
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah, I guess that'll that'll do it for this episode.

00:24:42:15 - 00:24:55:06
Speaker 1
Rooting for rooting for the fed. I think they should probably still consider, setting up cash coin as legal tender. And that could probably fix a lot of the problems that we have going on right now.

00:24:55:08 - 00:24:57:03
Speaker 2
It is a safe haven asset.

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