Trump Turns Up the Heat on Wall Street
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First of all, the banks say that they don't discriminate. People on the conservative side of things feel otherwise. They think that companies as well in the oil and gas industry were discriminated against over the last few years.
Plus, a grand jury will now investigate the 2016 probe into then-presidential candidate Trump and Russia. And a new program could end up requiring some travelers to the U.S. to post a $15,000 bond. It's Tuesday, August the 5th. I'm Azhar Sukri for The Wall Street Journal. Here is the AM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories moving your world today. Thank you. We are exclusively reporting that the White House is preparing to step up pressure against big banks over perceived discrimination against conservatives and crypto companies. A draft of an executive order which was viewed by the Wall Street Journal threatens to fine lenders that drop customers for political reasons. Combined with last week's dismissal of a top official at the Bureau of Labor Statistics and Trump's continued calls to fire Fed Chair Jerome Powell,
The moves have some investors worried about the independence of key Wall Street institutions. Journal finance editor Alex Frangos is with me once again. Welcome back, Alex. Let's start with that executive order that could punish banks that discriminate against conservatives. What more do we know about this?
Well, first of all, the banks say that they don't discriminate. There have been instances that folks in the conservative community point to, and the banks say that they dropped customers for all sorts of reasons, some of which have to do with rules that the government itself implemented about anti-money laundering. or trying to avoid reputational risks. People in the conservative side of things feel otherwise. They think that companies as well in the oil and gas industry were discriminated against over the last few years when there was this kind of movement towards green energy and that banks were trying to kind of decarbonize their banking books. The other thing is that the Trump family itself, its business had done business with Capital One and a bunch of their accounts were shut down.
This is something that Eric Trump has brought up as a reason for them to be suspicious and skeptical about how the banks are treating certain types of customers.
Yeah, this is definitely a new kind of front that the Trump administration seems to be opening up. And the firing last week of the Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Erica McIntyre is continuing to reverberate through Wall Street, right?
Yeah, I mean, that's less of a direct impact on the banks and more kind of a collateral damage where the investment community on Wall Street has relied on the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the other organs of government that collect data to make investments. And it's something that sets the U.S. apart is that we've been perceived as having this gold standard statistical collection service, a lot of other countries, you just can't trust the numbers. And in the US, compared to everywhere else, you have been able to trust the numbers. And this matters a lot. You know, if you're making an investment, if you're buying US government debt, You want to know what the inflation rate is. You want to know that you're going to be told what the inflation rate is in the future, because that's going to affect the value of your bond that you're buying.
There's also a huge market in inflation indexed securities that the government issues every year.
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Chapters
3 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–7:20
2
What is the White House executive order targeting banks that allegedly discriminate against conservatives and crypto firms?
7:20–8:28
3
How could fines for banks that drop customers for political reasons work and what triggers them?
8:28–11:54
Speakers
3 identifiedMore from WSJ What’s News
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