Sen. Warren slams Fed's Powell ahead of rate hike decision, Trump expects to be arrested Tuesday

Yahoo Finance senior columnist Rick Newman details Senator Elizabeth Warren's latest comments questioning Fed Chair Jerome Powell's competency amid the unfolding banking turmoil, while also highlighting the anticipation surrounding former President Trump's supposed arrest to come tomorrow.

Video transcript

DAVE BRIGGS: Welcome in Yahoo Finance's senior columnist Rick Newman for more on this. Good to see you, sir. She reiterated on "Meet the Press," she does not believe he is the right person for this job. Not entirely clear how she thinks we should get inflation down. What's the fallout here, Rick?

RICK NEWMAN: Well, Powell's already obviously under pressure. She's all over Jerome Powell's case. She's been bashing him at hearings for monetary policy for raising interest rates in order to get inflation under control. She says she's just going to throw a lot of people out of work. That hasn't happened yet, but it could. And now she's going after him saying he has failed with regard to regulation and the bank closures we've seen recently. I think it's a little bit premature, Dave.

We know that the regulator for Silicon Valley Bank, the failed bank that got this-- got all these bank troubles going, we know that the San Francisco Fed which regulated that bank knew there were some problems at the bank. They raised some red flags, but they didn't do anything. So I know we don't have any reason to think that that's because Jerome Powell intervened and said, hey, let Silicon Valley Bank off the hook. That's where all my friends do their banking.

The Fed has said it's going to provide a report on what exactly happened there. And that's really what we need answers on. What did happen? Why didn't the Fed do more to prevent that bank from failing? We should know at least a little bit more about that within, let's say, a month or a month and a half. Meanwhile, there was this law that eased regulations a little bit on midsized banks that passed back in 2018. Elizabeth Warren voted against that, and she now wants to change the legislation, basically, go back to the way it was before that law.

That is not going to happen anytime soon mainly because Republicans control the House, and they're not going to vote to go back to the 2018 way of regulating banks. And it's not even clear that would have made a difference. So we really have a lot more to do on the post mortem to figure out what happened, but it's Washington. So fingers are being pointed.

SEANA SMITH: Fingers are certainly being pointed. They've been pointing now for quite some time, many times over the last couple of weeks. Rick, we've got to also turn to another potentially huge story this week. A Manhattan grand jury is deciding whether to indict former president Trump over a hush money payment that he made to Stormy Daniels. Now Trump did take to Truth Social media site this weekend to say that he does expect to be-- he may be arrested as early as tomorrow, Tuesday. Rick, what do you make of this? There are reports that barricades are now being unloaded near the Manhattan court. Do you think he's going to get charged?

RICK NEWMAN: Well, Trump never passes up an opportunity to portray himself as a victim. And that, of course, is what he's doing. And if you're on Trump's email list, you are getting fundraising appeals, saying, they're about to-- there's about to be this huge miscarriage of justice. Send me your money. But first of all, the Manhattan District attorney, I don't think they have to arrest him to indict him. And it would actually be extremely foolish to do a whole SWAT raid with the perp walk and the agents with the long guns for the television cameras. That would be completely foolish to indict Trump in that manner and try to embarrass him.

And keep in mind that the Manhattan District attorney is not the FBI, and it's known as a very conservative outfit. So I don't think the fireworks on this are going to be quite what Trump is previewing, but if they do indict him on this charge, it would be the first time that a US president has been indicted. And I would add that it's a peculiar charge if that's the one they go after, this hush money payment. The hush money payment itself is not illegal under New York law. They would have to prove that it was the falsification of business records. And it might not even be a felony.

So they-- it's a weird case, if that's what it ends up being, because it's certainly not open and shut. There's a chance they could lose, and there's a chance that people could look at it and say this doesn't seem like that big a deal, but Trump, of course, is going to make it a big deal. So it's going to be an interesting week.

DAVE BRIGGS: Yeah, they're likening it to almost how they got Capone, right? If anything, how do you think it impacts the '24 nomination? Does it just inflame his base? Does it hurt him in any way?

RICK NEWMAN: I think there's going to be so much more coming that this is not going to end up being very decisive. It looks like the bigger deal is going to be the case in Georgia, which is looking into election fraud. And that is-- that seems more significant, and it could end up being a better case. And then there's whatever comes out of whatever the Justice Department is doing with regard to January 6, Trump's involvement in that, whatever was going on with all the classified material that Trump had at Mar-a-Lago. And there could be a lot of other stuff in that. So it feels like this thing out of the Manhattan District attorney is like a little nibble of an appetizer that we may not even remember once we've gotten into the main part of this meal.

SEANA SMITH: An eventful several, several months ahead. Rick Newman, as always, great stuff. Thanks so much.

RICK NEWMAN: Bye, guys.