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| | Republicans on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley have reopened their hearts (and wallets) to former President Donald Trump. They should not expect a tranquil relationship, says former Trump supporter and hedge fund executive Anthony Scaramucci. “I have empathy for them. I was there. I did it. I did exactly what they're doing,” said Scaramucci, who was one of the first financiers to back Trump during the 2016 campaign. “I did the hopeless equivocation. I did cognitive dissonance. I've been through the cycle.” Scaramucci was fired as Trump’s communications director in the White House after just 10 days in 2017. Two years later, the SkyBridge Capital founder publicly broke with Trump, saying he’d become too erratic and divisive to effectively lead. After supporting former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in the Republican primary in 2024, Scramucci is now backing President Joe Biden in the general election. Among GOP financiers, that political position has become exceedingly rare. As your host reports, “Many high-dollar donors at banks, hedge funds and other financial firms had turned their backs on Trump as he spun unfounded claims that the 2020 election had been stolen and savaged the judicial system with attacks. Today, they’re setting aside those concerns, looking past qualms about his personality and willingness to bulldoze institutional norms and focusing instead on issues closer to the heart: how he might ease regulations, cut their taxes or flex U.S. power on the global stage.” Three years after the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol, Trump’s return to the good graces of top-tier Wall Street financiers is a direct rejoinder to Biden’s claim that the former president poses a danger to the legal system that underpins the U.S. economy and its markets. But many Republican donors – including those who had said they’d never support Trump again after Jan. 6 — believe the current regulatory climate for businesses is also an existential danger. Kathy Wylde, president and CEO of the Partnership for New York City — a nonprofit organization representing the city’s top business leaders — said Republicans have conveyed to her that they consider that “the threat to capitalism from the Democrats is more concerning than the threat to democracy from Trump.” To Scaramucci, that argument is “brutally naive.” Trump’s plans to systematically deport what he says are 15 million to 20 million undocumented immigrants, reshape the justice system and politicize the federal workforce, would represent an unprecedented amassing of executive power, and that would ultimately “be bad for business,” he said. “You need a democracy to have effective capitalism,” he said. “If you don't, you get cronyism. You get oligarchy. You get crony capitalism. You get arbitrary and capricious administration to the law, which reduces people's tendency to invest in your country.” For many GOP donors, those possibilities are no longer significant enough to withhold an endorsement. “Donors big and small are coming to the table to support President Trump because they realize Joe Biden is weak and dishonest, and America cannot afford four more years of his failed policies,” Trump campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. IT’S MONDAY — The family and friends of longtime Morning Money host Ben White celebrated his life over the weekend. They launched a GoFundMe page to support the education and well-being of his sons, Jacob and Raphael. The family has also suggested donating to the National Alliance on Mental Illness in Ben’s honor. Give me a call, shoot me a DM, or send tips and suggestions to me at ssutton@politico.com or @samjsutton.
| | A message from U.S. Bank: At U.S. Bank, we believe everyone deserves financial freedom. That’s why we provided 1.5 million people with financial education in 2023. Through partnerships like our program with the University of St. Thomas, we’re empowering young people with tools to lay the foundation for long-term financial wellness. Because U.S. Bank is small enough to care, and big enough to make a difference. Learn more. | | | | | MONDAY … The Atlantic Council and the World Bank hold a discussion on "From competition to competitiveness: Unlocking growth and productivity in Latin America and the Caribbean” at 2 p.m. … TUESDAY … The NFIB optimism survey will be released at 6 a.m. … The Peterson Institute for International Economics will hold an event China’s venture capital sector at 9 a.m. … WEDNESDAY … The consumer price index for May will be released at 8:30 a.m. … CFPB Director Rohit Chopra will testify at Senate Banking at 9:45 a.m. … Acting Comptroller of the Currency Michael Hsu, FDIC Director Jonathan McKernan, and Cleary Gottlieb partners Joon Kim and Abena Mainoo testify at a House Financial Services hearing on workplace misconduct at the FDIC … The Federal Open Market Committee announces its monetary policy decision at 2 p.m. … Fed Chair Jerome Powell will hold a press conference at 2:30 p.m. … THURSDAY … The producer price index for May will be released at 8:30 a.m. … Chopra will testify at House Financial Services at 10 a.m. … Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will address The New York Economic Club in a fireside chat moderated by New York Fed President John Williams at noon … The SEC holds a closed meeting at 2 p.m. FRIDAY … The preliminary consumer sentiment estimate for June will be released at 10 a.m. … Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee has a fireside chat at the Iowa Farm Bureau Economic Summit at 2 p.m. FDIC hearing — Outgoing FDIC Chair Martin Gruenberg will not attend Wednesday’s House Financial Services meeting on the toxic workplace at the agency, Jasper Goodman and Michael Stratford report. The Biden economy — Friday’s gangbusters jobs report was evidence of the economy’s continued resilience in the face of high borrowing costs and elevated inflation. While that would normally be good news for Biden — particularly in an election year — it also complicates the Fed’s path to lowering interest rates. — Government has represented a significant chunk of recent job gains, Nick Niedzwiadek reports. “Governments didn't have the money to compete when the job market was really hot in 2021 and 2022,” said Ron Hetrick, a senior economist at the labor market analytics firm Lightcast. “But now, they are the more attractive option with the private sector no longer throwing out those really huge pay increases.” — Adam Cancryn reports that the White House is running out of tools to convince voters on the President’s economic agenda. Despite strong wage growth and low unemployment, the public has given Biden low marks on his handling of the economy. “The policies are working. They are quite successful,” Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s Analytics, told Adam. “But you can’t even talk about it because everyone’s got a food item they’re buying that’s 25 percent more than four years ago, and they can’t get beyond that.” — To wit. The Wall Street Journal’s Justin Lahart reports on new survey data that found “people on average view a one-percentage-point increase in the inflation rate as twice as bad as a one-percentage-point increase in the unemployment rate.” — A Trump-allied super PAC Maga Inc., argued that the May jobs report “actually paints a dire picture for the American economy,” citing a decrease in the number of native-born workers who are employed and an increase in the number of foreign-born workers who had jobs in May compared to April, Isabella Ramirez and Victoria Guida report. — But but but: New polling from the Financial Times and the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business found that Biden is gaining ground on Trump in regard to the economy.
| | | | THE GOLD STANDARD OF FINANCIAL SERVICES POLICY REPORTING & INTELLIGENCE: POLITICO has more than 500 journalists delivering unrivaled reporting and illuminating the policy and regulatory landscape for those who need to know what’s next. Throughout the election and the legislative and regulatory pushes that will follow, POLITICO Pro is indispensable to those who need to make informed decisions fast. The Pro platform dives deeper into critical and quickly evolving sectors and industries, like financial services, equipping policymakers and those who shape legislation and regulation with essential news and intelligence from the world’s best politics and policy journalists.
Our newsroom is deeper, more experienced, and better sourced than any other. Our financial services reporting team—including Zach Warmbrodt, Victoria Guida and Declan Harty—is embedded with the market-moving legislative committees and agencies in Washington and across states, delivering unparalleled coverage of financial policy and the financial services industry. We bring subscribers inside the conversations that determine policy outcomes and the future of industries, providing insight that cannot be found anywhere else. Get the premier news and policy intelligence service, SUBSCRIBE TO POLITICO PRO TODAY. | | | | | | | | First in MM: Housing groups unveil tenants’ rights platform — Three top housing groups have joined together to push candidates to endorse a new “national tenants bill of rights.” The platform, which will be launched today, includes a right to “predictable rents” and calls for new regulation at the federal, state and local level to “prevent unreasonable rent increases.” “Tenants need federal protections, especially when rents are higher than they have ever been and landlords have more consolidated power than ever before,” said Tara Raghuveer, director of the Tenant Union Federation, which produced the platform with the National Housing Law Project and the National Low Income Housing Coalition. The idea is to elevate housing as a national campaign issue: “There’s a lot of pushback that landlord-tenant law is the domain of the states, and although that has typically been the case it’s not working and it’s leaving a lot of people behind,” said Marie-Claire Tran Leung, director of the NHLP’s evictions initiative project. “The federal government needs to step up in this space – this is something that is on people’s minds for the election.” — Katy O’Donnell
| | | | A message from U.S. Bank:   | | | | | Bottom line — Trump’s promise to renew tax cuts that are set to expire next year has boosted his sales pitch to Wall Street donors, Bloomberg’s Christopher Condon and Steven Dennis report. The donor class has shrugged off the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate that expanding the cuts would cost $4.6 trillion over time. Reid Hoffman’s case against a second Trump term — Trump is slated to pitch the CEOs of some of America’s biggest companies on his platform at a Business Roundtable meeting on Wednesday. Longtime Democratic donor and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman argued in The Economist that the former president’s policies would harm business conditions in the U.S. The other election — Far-right parties surged in European Union elections on Sunday. It was enough to compel French President Emmanuel Macron to call “a high-risk national election that could determine the future not only of his country but of the European Union itself,” Giorgio Leali, Nicolas Camut and Eddy Wax report.
| | | | JOIN US ON 6/13 FOR A TALK ON THE FUTURE OF HEALTH CARE: As Congress and the White House work to strengthen health care affordability and access, innovative technologies and treatments are increasingly important for patient health and lower costs. What barriers are appearing as new tech emerges? Is the Medicare payment process keeping up with new technologies and procedures? Join us on June 13 as POLITICO convenes a panel of lawmakers, officials and experts to discuss what policy solutions could expand access to innovative therapies and tech. REGISTER HERE. | | | | | | | | | Here comes hurricane season — With forecasters predicting an active hurricane season, some investors are shedding their exposure to catastrophe bonds, according to Bloomberg’s Gautam Naik. Does the commissary take BNB? — The value of Binance’s native crypto token BNB has spiked. That’s made the crypto exchange’s incarcerated co-founder Changpeng Zhao even wealthier, writes Bloomberg’s Sidhartha Shukla.
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