California Governor Gavin Newsom has offered up a biting “translation” of President Donald Trump’s off-the-rails rant about the economy.
Speaking for more than an hour at a U.S.-Saudi investment forum at the Kennedy Center on Wednesday, Trump threatened to fire Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent if the Federal Reserve doesn’t cut interest rates.
“The only thing Scott is blowing it on is the Fed. The rates are too high, Scott. And if you don’t get it fixed fast, I’m going to fire your a–,” he said, pointing to the Treasury secretary.
Trump, 79, suggested that Bessent, 63, a former hedge fund manager, had been “the voice of reason” dissuading him from firing Fed Chair Jerome Powell, whom he’s hammered for months.
It didn’t take long for Newsom, 58, to seize on the president’s bonkers ramble, torching his handling of an economy marked by a softening job market, a cost-of-living crisis, and lingering inflation.
Reposting a clip of Trump’s speech, the governor’s press office quipped on X, “Translation: the economy isn’t bad enough, let’s speedrun a recession!”
Trump, a former real estate developer, has aggressively pushed the Fed to cut interest rates, believing cheaper borrowing will boost the economy, particularly the housing sector.
But while the Fed cut rates in September and October as hiring slowed, it has remained wary about deeper cuts—Trump has called for the central bank to lower rates to zero—over fears that moving too quickly could worsen inflation.
Inflation ticked up to 3 percent in September—in part due to the president’s tariffs—still above the Fed’s 2 percent target.
In October, Powell stressed that a December cut, desired by Trump, is “not to be seen as a foregone conclusion—in fact, far from it.”
On Wednesday, Trump threw another round of insults at the Fed chair, whom he himself appointed in 2017, saying Powell has “mental problems” and is “grossly incompetent.”
Earlier this week, Trump also expressed his desire to fire Powell, whose term as chair ends in May 2026, but said, “people are holding me back.” The central bank’s credibility has long rested on its independence from political meddling.
Trump’s approval rating has tumbled as he has struggled to deliver on his campaign promises. Just 26 percent of Americans said they thought Trump was doing a good job of handling the high cost of living in an Ipsos/Reuters poll, while his overall approval fell to 38 percent—the lowest since his return to office.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment on Newsom’s post.
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