Coffee Talk with Tiff

October 29, 2025 12:49 pm EDT Tiff Coffee Talk with Tiff 0
Coffee. Photo by Jonathan Thursfield.

It’s Wednesday…

President Shitshow’s public schedule for…

His schedule today is one of those marathon, pre-sunrise, globe-trottin’, “look at me doing diplomacy” itineraries that all wrapped before we even caffeinated. I’m not bothering with the screenshot wall today

Now.
This whole Asia trip was supposed to be about trade cooperation — building stable supply chains, developing joint manufacturing hubs, and creating economic policies that benefit both sides. Real world stakes. Real world agreements. Grown-up work.

Instead, we’ve spent the past several days watching President Grandpa stand in front of foreign audiences and talk almost exclusively about himself. How great he is. How historic his numbers are. How everything is the biggest, the strongest, the most tremendous in the history of anything, ever.

Trade deals, when they appear at all, feel like afterthoughts stapled to the end of his monologues. “Oh, and also we did a thing with billions. Moving on.”

So we’re going to walk through what he actually said — clip by clip — and gently compare it to reality.
It’s like a cultural exchange program, except only one side remembered to bring notes.

Prices, According to Him

Gasoline prices are down, grocery prices are down, mortgage rates are down. Despite the fact that we have an incompetent head of the Fed, he’s incompetent. I call him Jerome “too late.” He’s always too late. Jerome “too late” Powell. But he’s out of there in another couple of months. We’ll be very happy about that. We’ll appoint somebody that we all like. Because we should have the lowest interest rates of any country, because without us, there are no other countries, really. I mean, the whole thing falls apart. You know.

Roll Call.com.

Meanwhile, in reality:

Grocery and housing costs are still elevated.
Mortgage rates do not move because the president says so — they track the 10-year Treasury yield, which moves with inflation expectations and market stability.

And Powell?
He isn’t “out in a couple months.”
His term runs through May 2026, and replacing a Fed Chair requires a nomination and Senate confirmation.
You don’t get to fire the Federal Reserve like a contestant on The Apprentice.

Interest rates are not determined by main character syndrome.
They exist to prevent the dollar from faceplanting into the pavement.

This was supposed to be a trade tour.
We are currently in Economics by Storytelling Hour.

Markets, According to Him

We’re going to go back to the way it used to be. When we announce good news, the stock markets are going to go up and that’s the way it should be. And we’re going to really ride that very hard. And when we announce good news, we’re not going to have a Fed that’s going to raise interest rates because they’re worried about inflation three years from now or something. When we announce good news, we want the stock market to go up, not to go down.

Roll Call.com.

Meanwhile, in reality:

The stock market is not a presidential applause meter.
It reacts to earnings, bonds, inflation expectations, labor conditions, supply chains, global risk, and investor sentiment.

If the market goes down after “good news,” that usually means the data suggests inflationary pressure, and the Fed is expected to tighten, which affects long-term borrowing costs.
This is not a conspiracy.
It’s literally how markets work.

Also — presidents do not “ride” the stock market “very hard.”
The only people who talk about markets like that are:

  • penny-stock pumpers,
  • men who explain crypto like it’s a religion,
  • and this guy.

He isn’t describing economic leadership.
He’s describing emotional ownership of a thing he does not control.

This was supposed to be a trade diplomacy tour.
He is doing Ted Talk: Feelings-Based Finance.

Tax Cuts, According to Him

In July, I proudly said — it was very important. I went into the archives. We looked at every possible thing you could look at and I signed into law the largest tax cuts in American history.

Roll Call.com.

Meanwhile, in reality:

The July 4th bill did not reduce taxes for most households.
It permanently lowered the corporate rate and expanded high-income and pass-through business deductions, while many of the middle-income provisions were temporary or structured in ways that didn’t reach most households.

Independent budget analysts — including the CBO, Tax Policy Center, and Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget — estimated that:

  • Benefits skewed heavily to the top 10% of earners
  • The deficit increased
  • And the bill did not produce the sustained GDP lift the White House promised

In fact, several of the projections built into the bill assumed economic growth that never materialized — meaning the “historic tax cut” relies on imaginary macroeconomic outcomes to justify itself.

So when he presents the bill as a middle-class victory, he’s really describing a corporate rate restructuring with a ceremonial soundtrack.

The fireworks were real.
The prosperity was… more of a press release.

The Manhattan-Sized Data Plants & DIY Electricity Saga

(Infrastructure, According to Him)

And what they need more than anything is electricity. So if a country was able to do that, it would be, you know, pretty unusual. It’d be very hard. Maybe you could say impossible. So I came up with a concept — when they build this massive plant, sometimes the size of Manhattan — think of that, the size of Manhattan. These plants are the big, I’ve never seen anything like it, actually. Nobody has. There’s never been anything like it. But I let them build their own electricity-generating plants with it. So they’re building their own electric. They’re sort of becoming an electric-producing company in addition to all of the other things that they produce, including information. And what they’re able to do is start immediately. We’re giving them very fast permits. We’re no longer having them wait for 10 years, 12 years, 15 years prior to rejection. They’d go 15 years and then they’d get a vote — rejection.

Roll Call.com.

Meanwhile, in reality:

Large-scale manufacturing projects — especially semiconductor fabs and data centers — already build dedicated substation power infrastructure because the U.S. electrical grid can’t carry that demand without local reinforcement.
This has been standard engineering and regulatory practice for decades.

Permitting timelines vary based on:

  • State review boards
  • EPA environmental impact assessments
  • Local zoning
  • Utility capacity studies

Not presidential whim.

No one is “becoming a new electric company.”
They’re tying into utility service under existing industrial-scale energy frameworks.

And those “plants the size of Manhattan”?
They are not the size of Manhattan.
They are large, yes.
They are not borough-scale landmasses visible from space.

This is not innovation.
This is basic industrial power planning meeting storytelling bravado.

This was supposed to be a conversation about cooperative development and clean energy investment.
Instead, we got “I invented electricity, you’re welcome.”

Jobs, According to Him

Four years ago — I mean, if you look — 100% of all new jobs created in America under my administration have been created by the private sector. Think of that. The government created no new jobs. The private sector created the record number of jobs that we’re talking about. That’s a country, that’s really a success. It’s easy to create government jobs. I could say, add a lot of people to your payrolls. I can fake up the numbers if I want, but that’s no way — that’s not the way you build a great country. You don’t do that here. And that’s not the way. But it’s a good way to show good numbers, I’ll tell you — you just tell everybody, “Hire a lot of people.” That’s what they used to do under the Biden administration, under Barack Hussein Obama. They’d say, “Hire, hire a lot of people so we can make our numbers look good.” I do the opposite. And we have real numbers. These are real numbers.

Roll Call.com.

Meanwhile, in reality:

This is not how job accounting works.

  • The Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks job creation across both private and public sectors
  • The private sector did add jobs — yes — but the public sector also grew, especially in:
    • State and local education
    • Healthcare
    • Infrastructure and public utilities
    • Defense-adjacent contracting

There has never been a period where all new jobs were exclusively private sector.
Not under Trump.
Not under Obama.
Not under Bush.
Not under Reagan.
Because the economy is not two separate aquariums.

And the idea that previous administrations “just hired people to fake job numbers” isn’t a policy critique; it’s a bedtime story he tells to turn data into villains.

He isn’t describing employment.
He’s describing vibes about employment.

This was supposed to be a joint economic development tour in Asia.
We are, again, in Campaign Rally: International Edition.

The Election, According to Him

We’ve done so many different things — economically, militarily, peace-wise, you know, peace through strength. And yet, one year ago — it’s not long ago — I was campaigning. I was campaigning. We didn’t win. We were campaigning, and then we had the election and we had a great election. And the spirit in our country is like, uh, incredible. If you compare that, we lost a lot of spirit in our country. Our country was depressed. They were very depressed, and they had a right to be.

Roll Call.com.

Meanwhile, in reality:

  • He lost the 2020 election.
    Certified. Court-reviewed. Audited. Upheld.
  • He won the 2024 election.
    Also certified. Also real.

These two things can be true at the same time.

Winning later does not retroactively undo losing earlier.
Elections aren’t store credit.

The “restored national spirit” he describes isn’t national sentiment returning — it’s his emotional equilibrium returning once the world matched the story he tells himself about himself.

This is not governance.
It’s myth maintenance.

Because nothing says “global leadership” like subtweeting Canada during a summit in South Korea.

International relations by vibes.
Sure. Why not.

This is an open thread

PS.

I am going on vacation for a few days. Halodoc has kindly offered to cover me for the next three weekdays; that’s Thursday (Going to Disneyland), Friday (Halloween, cleaning house, getting ready for some candy giving), Monday (My husband is off tomorrow, and Thursday, Monday is my day of recovery).

I’ll see you in the comment section!

About the opinions in this article…

Any opinions expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this website or of the other authors/contributors who write for it.

About Tiff 3353 Articles
Member of the Free Press who is politically homeless and a political junkie.