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Ukraine, US sign minerals deal | The Excerpt


On Thursday’s episode of The Excerpt podcast: The U.S. and Ukraine have signed a mineral deal after weeks of tense negotiations. Paste BN Personal Finance Reporter Daniel de Visé takes a look at some rough news for the country's GDP. The Supreme Court's conservative majority in oral arguments seemed open to allowing the Catholic Church in Oklahoma to run the nation's first religious charter school. House Republicans propose new immigration fees. Paste BN Domestic Security Correspondent Josh Meyer takes a closer look at President Donald Trump's personal wealth. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is pushing curbs on fluoride.

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Taylor Wilson:

Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson, and today is Thursday, May 1st, 2025. This is The Excerpt. Today, the US and Ukraine sign a mineral deal, plus the economy shrank in the first quarter, and we discuss what's happened to Trump's personal wealth while in office.

The US and Ukraine said yesterday that they've signed an agreement on a joint fund to invest in Ukraine's reconstruction. A draft of the deal said it would give the US preferential access to new Ukrainian natural resources deals. The accord comes after months of at times tense negotiations and a turbulent relationship between President Donald Trump and Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

The deal provides for the creation of a joint US-Ukrainian fund for reconstruction, which will receive 50% of profits and royalties accruing to the Ukrainian state from new natural resources permits in Ukraine. The US has been Ukraine's single largest military donor since Russia's 2022 invasion with some $72 billion in aid according to the Kiel Institute in Germany.

The country's gross domestic product or GDP, the value of all goods and services shrank in the first three months of the year. I spoke with Paste BN personal finance reporter, Daniel de Visé for more. Daniel, how are you today?

Daniel de Visé:

I'm pretty well and how are you?

Taylor Wilson:

Pretty well. Thanks for hopping on. So let's just start with some not so hot news though, for the US economy. What did we learn from this gross domestic product news and just how bad really was this recent quarter for the US economy?

Daniel de Visé:

The gross domestic product, which is the value of all goods and services, shrank by 0.3% in the first three months of the year. And the reason that's significant is that the GDP has been going up, up, up. It went up two point a half percent last year and it's been going up every single quarter, three month period, since I think the last time it dropped was the beginning of 2022, which was a bad year in a lot of ways. But it's been going up, up, up, so this was a blow.

Taylor Wilson:

All right. And how did economists react to this GDP news? And I guess who do they blame this news on?

Daniel de Visé:

Oh, boy. The Democrats blame the Republicans, the Republicans blame the Democrats. The economists who usually are kind of on the money with this stuff, well, they say that it has to do with there was this mass amount of importing that was happening. You know how people were talking about, oh, get your Temu stuff now while you can? I guess all these companies imported tons of stuff from overseas in anticipation of tariffs.

And so you picture these huge warehouses all over the country, they're all filled now with products that companies imported in the first few months of the year. You kind of imagine a lot of that might've been in March when the tariff thing was really coming. And so all this stuff got imported and it's not domestically produced. And so it looks like there's been no stuff being produced domestically. That's kind of why it went down a little rather than go up.

Taylor Wilson:

Well, as you say, some finger pointing here this week. Trump was quick to blame Biden after this week's numbers. What did we hear from him and how are some pushing back against those comments?

Daniel de Visé:

President Trump and some of his advisors said, this is sort of the hangover of the Biden economy. Might be a little hard to support that because the economists all said this was a very clear thing. The tariffs themselves didn't do anything to gross domestic product, but all of these folks importing stuff were reacting to tariffs. So it was indirectly a result of the tariffs. And any economist, these are impartial people who just look at the numbers, would say it was very much Trump's fault if you want to blame anybody.

And so Democrats of course chimed in and said, "Hey, you know the GDP, our economy grew steadily through most of the Biden administration." And here is this, to them, a manufactured crisis. We're being put on this cleanse, this economic cleanse by President Trump, where the Democrats would say, we didn't need that.

Taylor Wilson:

Well, are there any, I guess, underlying or clearly obvious positive signs from the economy right now? Or is it all kind of doom and gloom, Daniel?

Daniel de Visé:

No, there's some good stuff. The PCE inflation measure came out also. That is a form of inflation and it's the metric that the Fed actually follows. So it's important. It's basically consumer spending. And consumer spending went up very modestly in March, I think it was 2.3%, which is really darn good because the Fed, their target for inflation is 2% a year. A little inflation is considered to be good for you, and 2% is the target. So 2.3% PCE, personal consumption expenditures inflation in March, that is good. So people are happy about that.

Taylor Wilson:

Lots still changing day to day. We'll keep an eye on it. Daniel de Visé covers personal finance for Paste BN. Thanks, Daniel.

Daniel de Visé:

Thank you, sir.

Taylor Wilson:

The Supreme Court's conservatives argued religious institutions cannot be treated as second class and railed against discrimination. Concerns about opening the door to public funding for religious charter schools of all faiths reeks of hostility one said. Its liberal justices defended the country's longstanding separation between church and state as the court yesterday debated whether to allow the nation's first religious charter school. Attorneys for the Catholic Church and Oklahoma Charter School Board and the Justice Department told the Supreme Court that allowing St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School was the natural next step following a series of recent decisions from the court.

But an attorney defending the State Supreme Court's ruling rejecting the Catholic charter pointed to landmark rulings against teaching religion in public schools. "Requiring Oklahoma to allow religious schools in its charter school program," he said, "would be an astounding reversal from the court's time-honored precedents." The Catholic Church's appeal is just one of three religious rights cases the Supreme Court is deciding in the coming weeks that could increase the role of religion in public life. You can read more with a link in today's show notes.

Republicans in Congress want to make it much more expensive for immigrants to seek refuge in the US. A new proposal would hike the price of legal immigration to pay for President Donald Trump's sprawling enforcement agenda. The House Republicans plan would slap a $1,000 price tag on requests for asylum, require $500 payments for work authorization every six months, and charge immigrants hundreds of dollars if they appeal court decisions among other fees.

Immigration advocates say the proposal is punitive and unrealistic. House Judiciary Chair Republican Congressman Jim Jordan said in a committee hearing yesterday that the new fees could raise $77 billion, allowing Congress to make necessary investments in immigration enforcement in a fiscally responsible manner.

In his first 100 days in office, president Trump has continued to rake in large sums of money from a number of ventures. I spoke with Paste BN domestic security correspondent, Josh Meyer for more on Trump's wealth and the rules around how a commander-in-chief can personally enrich themselves using the powers of office. Josh, hiya, sir.

Josh Meyer:

How you doing, Taylor?

Taylor Wilson:

Doing good. Thanks for hopping on. So in these first 100 days in office for President Donald Trump, let's just start with this. What kind of money has he brought into his personal wealth? What have we been seeing him profit off of?

Josh Meyer:

That's a very good question. Nobody that I've talked to, and I've talked to a few dozen people about this, congressional investigators, senators, I've talked to nonprofit watchdog groups, nobody can really tell. But what they're certain about is that it's at least hundreds of millions of dollars that Trump has brought into his own personal coffers in his first 100 days as president, which obviously is in stark contrast to most if not all prior presidents who sought to not profit from the office.

Taylor Wilson:

Well, I know a lot of focus has been specifically on this kind of Trump meme coin. This was in the headlines. Can you just refresh our listeners on what this was and how this enters this conversation?

Josh Meyer:

So a meme coin is kind of a digital coin. It doesn't really have any intrinsic value. It's just something that you invest in because of the name attached or because of a specific event. And Trump launched his meme coin just before taking office. And then Melania, the first lady, also launched her own meme coin. And Trump's meme coin was worth several billion dollars at one point. It dropped down in price. And then the meme coin company announced that they would be having a special exclusive private dinner with Trump for the people that bought the most meme coins or the most value in the meme coins. And then there would be a special tour of the White House for those that were even more exclusive.

So basically that jumped the profits for Trump and his allies by millions of dollars. But what's also worth noting is that Trump and the other people that were the insiders who got in on this deal made at least $350 million in fees from the sale and purchase of the coin according to Chainalysis, which is a blockchain data company.

Taylor Wilson:

Wow. So Josh, there are rules in theory, at least governing how a president can personally enrich themselves using the powers of office or while in office. How so? Let's get to those rules specifically if you don't mind. And has Trump clearly skated around them?

Josh Meyer:

The rules for the president are different than for any other politician, and it's harder to accuse a President of the United States with conflict of interest. He does have to file a financial disclosure form. The one for the first quarter is due in May, so we don't really know what that says. But the President of the United States through policy, if not law, is really supposed to not profit off of the office. There's important reasons for that.

I talked to a bunch of different watchdog groups and what they said is you want the President of the United States and the American public would want the American president to be making policy decisions based on what's best for the country, not what's best for their own bottom line. And Trump is so different than any other president we've had in that sense that it's hard to really quantify exactly how much of a conflict of interest this is. Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, a Democrat, brought oversized charts to the Senate floor to denounce what he called Trump's 100 days of corruption, and he described the Trump crypto coin as, quote, "The biggest scandal in the history of the American presidency."

Taylor Wilson:

Wow, strong words. All right, so in terms of the president himself, did we hear from him at all, Josh? What's his response amid some of these worries and concerns?

Josh Meyer:

Well, the White House told me that the president's assets are in a trust managed by his children. There are no conflicts of interest. Watchdog groups say that's ridiculous because he knows exactly where the profits are coming from, what the entities involved are. He is also the top crypto regulator in the country as the president. He's also called himself the crypto president. So it's not really a blind trust if you know that you have a huge crypto company and a meme coin and that they're benefiting from some of the decisions you've made.

Trump was asked about this on his second day in office and he was asked specifically about the meme coin and asked if he would not seek to profit from his time in office. And Trump said he wasn't really following the meme coin and how much money it had made. He said, "I don't know much about it other than I launched it. I heard it was very successful."

And then Trump said to a reporter who asked about that at a news event, "I haven't checked it, where is it today?" And the reporter said, "You made a lot of money, sir. Several billion dollars it seems like in the last several days." And Trump said, "Several billion? That's peanuts for these guys." And he pointed to the tech billionaires that were at the event with him. So Trump acknowledged that potentially he's made as much as several billion dollars from this or at least a part of that. Noteworthy, he did not answer the question about whether he intended to stop trying to make money from this once he was in office.

But remember too, Trump is also making money from his many real estate ventures. He was criticized for that very heavily during his first term. He has Saudi investors from their LIV Golf tour that had seven of their tournaments at his golf clubs at the same time that he has tried to have a merger between them and the PGA. He's got his Truth Social messaging platform of which he has at least $3 billion controlling interest. He's also selling all sorts of branded merchandise, including, as we all know, sneakers, jewelry, a lot of things that say fight, fight, fight that are tied to the failed assassination attempt of him last July and a lot of other things. So it's really hard to get a handle on exactly how much money Trump is making from all of this, but it is unprecedented.

Taylor Wilson:

We'll be waiting for that financial disclosure form out, what, in a couple of weeks. Until then, Josh Meyer covers domestic security for Paste BN. Thanks, Josh.

Josh Meyer:

My pleasure, Taylor, as always.

Taylor Wilson:

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is again going after fluoride. During a Cabinet meeting yesterday with President Trump, he said the chemical used to protect teeth is making Americans, quote, "stupider," as he touted his plan to scale it back in the country's drinking water. Kennedy praised Utah for becoming the first state to prohibit local governments from adding fluoride to public water systems and said he was working to change the federal fluoride regulations to change the recommendations. The health secretary said he will tell the CDC to stop recommending cities and states add fluoride to public water systems. Adding fluoride to water is not required by law. You can read more with a link in today's show notes.

The post-feminist era ushered in a period of time where women were hyper-objectified, a shift led by the ubiquitous presence of pornography.

Sophie Gilbert:

I always compare porn to reality television because they're both products that people engage with in vast numbers, but no one really wants to take them seriously or consider them, but they also both have enormous influence.

Taylor Wilson:

That was author Sophie Gilbert. In her new book, Girl on Girl, Gilbert takes a closer look at how porn and other pop-cultural influences impacted how women see themselves and what women today can do to reverse that trend. You can hear her conversation with my colleague, Dana Taylor, right here beginning at 4:00 PM Eastern Time.

And thanks for listening to The Excerpt. You can get the podcast wherever you get your audio. If you're on a smart speaker, just ask for The Excerpt. I'm Taylor Wilson, and I'll be back tomorrow with more of The Excerpt from Paste BN.