Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell had a clear, direct response when asked during a press conference Thursday if he would step down if asked to do so by President-elect Trump.
“No,” said Powell, whose term as chair ends in 2026.
When asked to elaborate and if he would be legally required to leave, he again said, “No.”
Powell later said it is “not permitted under the law” for the president to fire or demote him or any of the other Fed governors with leadership positions.
Trump appointed Powell during his first term in 2017 but repeatedly and publicly criticized the Fed and its chair for not cutting rates fast enough throughout his tenure.
Powell also said in 2019 that he would not resign if asked by Trump. President Biden reappointed Powell in 2021 — despite objections from progressives who have criticized the chair — saying he has burdened the average American by keeping rates too high for too long.
Trump suggested earlier this year that Powell, a lifelong Republican, was “political” and would cut rates ahead of the 2024 election to help Democrats. While the Fed did cut rates in September by a whopping 50 basis points, Trump handily defeated Vice President Harris this week.
The Fed is a politically independent agency and closely guards its reputation. But in August, Trump suggested he should “have at least a say” in monetary policy, including interest rates, because he has “made a lot of money.”
Trump later walked back his comments during an interview with Bloomberg.
“I think it’s fine for a president to talk,” he said. “It doesn’t mean that they have to listen.”
“A president certainly can be talking about interest rates, because I think I have very good instincts,” he said. “That doesn’t mean I’m calling the shot, but it does mean that I should have a right to be able to talk about it like anybody else.”
Trump also said over the summer that he would let Powell serve out his term, “especially if I thought he was doing the right thing,” but that he would not reappoint him for another term.
Novo Nordisk has abandoned a drug it licensed from KBP Biosciences last year in a deal valued at up to $1.3 billion after it missed the mark in a chronic kidney disease (CKD) trial.
The Danish group bought rights to ocedurenone, an oral non-steroidal mineralocorticoid receptor antagonist (nsMRA), from the Singapore biotech in October 2023 as a companion to its GLP-1-based therapies for reducing cardiovascular risk and kidney disease in people with diabetes and obesity.
In its announcement of the deal, Novo said it was an important deal to advance its strategy of "expanding from our core in diabetes into other serious chronic diseases."
The deal was signed when there were high hopes for the results of an ongoing phase 3 trial – CLARION-CKD – which was testing ocedurenone as a treatment for uncontrolled hypertension in patients with advanced CKD.
Prospects were dashed earlier this year, however, when the study missed its primary endpoint, with the drug failing to achieve a significant reduction in blood pressure.
At the time, Novo said it was evaluating oceduronone's potential in other indications, having previously suggested it was considering additional phase 3 trials in other cardiovascular and kidney disease settings.
News of the demise of ocedurenone came in the company's third-quarter results update, in which it said that, "based on the interim analysis in June, Novo Nordisk has further analysed detailed trial data and decided to terminate further development of ocedurenone." It took a DKK 5.7 billion ($822 million) write-off charge in the period in connection with the decision.
Uncontrolled hypertension is a leading risk factor for cardiovascular events, heart failure, CKD, and premature death, so ocedurenone could have slotted perfectly alongside Novo's semaglutide-based products, which are approved for diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular risk reduction.
Earlier this year, the company also reported positive results from the FLOW trial of semaglutide in patients with type 2 diabetes and CKD, showing that it slashed the risk of major cardiovascular events by 18% and all-cause mortality by 20%, which it said set up regulatory filings in the US and Europe before the end of this year.
While a disappointment, the announcement came alongside a buoyant set of financial results for Novo, with third-quarter sales of semaglutide-based obesity therapy Wegovy rising 79% to nearly $2.5 billion after a worrying slowdown in the second quarter.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday described China as Russia's ally and threw his weight behind Beijing's claims over Taiwan, while stating that no countries had anything to fear from deepening Sino-Russian cooperation.
The two countries have not declared a formal military alliance, but Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping signed a "no limits" partnership deal in 2022, less than three weeks before Putin sent his troops into Ukraine.
In May this year they agreed to deepen what they called their "comprehensive partnership and strategic cooperation" for a new era.
"We do not believe that China is pursuing an aggressive policy in the region," Putin said at the Valdai discussion club in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi.
He suggested that Taiwan was trying to stir up a Ukraine-style crisis in Asia in order to attract outside support.
China views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory and regularly conducts wargames near the island.
"A lot is going on around Taiwan. Everyone formally acknowledges, yes, Taiwan is part of China. But in reality? In reality, it is acting in a completely different direction. Provoking the situation towards escalation," Putin said.
"We do support China. And because of this, we believe that (China) is conducting a completely reasonable policy. And also because it is our ally. We have a very large trade turnover, we cooperate in the security sector."
Putin compared bilateral military drills between Russia and China with those the United States conducts with Japan.
"These exercises do not threaten anyone," Putin said. "They are aimed at ensuring our security."
Argentina's libertarian President Javier Milei will meet with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and tycoon Elon Musk next week in the United States, a government spokesperson said on Thursday.
The meeting with Trump will take place at Mar-a-Lago, the incoming U.S. leader's private south Florida club, according to the spokesperson.
Since his election late last year, Milei has sought close ties with the United States and, since Tuesday's U.S. election, has stressed his support for Trump with a fireworks display as well as posts on social media.
The same government source said Milei will also meet with billionaire Elon Musk, the Tesla CEO and owner of social media platform X, who is also a major Trump supporter.
A gathering of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) is scheduled to take place from November 14-16 at Mar-a-Lago.
The 2024 election was truly a contest between traditional polling and betting markets; so-callednominative opinion pollscast through betting websites such as Peter Thiel-backed Polymarket. and Kalshi, where decentralized groups of individuals were able to wager on various contests in a hyper-efficient free market (notwithstanding regulators' best efforts to limit access).
The day before the election, Bloombergwrote: Election Gambling Markets Face Their Moment of Truth
The prevailing wisdom on Wall Street is that prediction markets have an edge over polls because participants are economically motivated to incorporate every drip of new information faster. Between a single forecasting model and the wisdom of a crowd that has digested all that information, the latter might reasonably do better.
After the election, the outlet noted that betting markets were thoroughly vindicated after the election - writing: Trump Win Boosts Prediction Markets That Nailed Election Outcome
“These markets will run the world,” said Thomas Peterffy, the billionaire founder of Interactive Brokers. “People tend to say what they want, but in these markets, they will bet the way they think the outcome will occur, not what they want the outcome to be. It takes the emotion out of these questions.”
Perhaps the most notable aspect of this year's betting markets was a French trader who walked away with an estimated $85 million - betting on a Trump win using as 11 accounts on Polymarket.
Polymarket Takes Victory Lap
"Last night, Polymarket proved the wisdom of markets over the polls, the media, and the pundits," Polymarket posted on X, after the platform "Polymarket consistently and accurately forecasted outcomes well ahead of all three, demonstrating the power of high volume, deeply liquid prediction markets like those pioneered by Polymarket."
As did Kalshi:
On Thursday, Polymarket CEO Shane Coplan appeared on CNBC, where he explained "I think the thing that people get wrong about Polymarket, the thing I wish people would understand better—and maybe now that they’re more open-minded to it—is that if someone takes a really big position on Trump, for example, there’s someone on the other side, a counterparty. It's all peer-to-peer.
"There’s a big position being taken on Harris. And because of that, when you see the odds on Polymarket, it’s not a function of how much money was put on either side. It’s a function of the market price at that moment. It’s the tightest spread for this market in the world. And I think when you think about it like that, a trade someone made two weeks ago doesn’t have bearing on what the market price is right now. So, all I can say is I understand that it’s a novel concept, and people were skeptical when it came around, but hopefully, people will be more embracing of market-based information."
When host Joe Kernen asked if Polymarket could be manipulated, Coplan replied: "If there’s uninformed flow or price-insensitive flow, people will take that risk. Granted, it’s up to the market to interpret a lot of that flow. If there’s a large influx of flow—whether informed or uninformed—that’s a function of the markets working.
"As we saw this time around, right, this was someone with an infinite bankroll and they didn’t push the market up that much. And they had done a lot of research and had non-consensus information."
"The thing that is undeniable was that on the night of the election, Polymarket was the first destination to basically convey that Trump had won. It was a good two, three hours ahead of the media," Coplan added.
Watch:
In sharp contrast - one of the most highly touted traditional pollsters couldn't have gotten her prediction more wrong that Iowa would go to Kamala Harris, with her call 17 points off.
France Freaks
Following the US election, the French National Gaming Authority flipped out and has opened a probe into Polymarket.
"We are familiar with this site and are currently examining its operation and compliance with France's legislation on gambling," said the Authority in a statement.
Polymarket is not authorized to operate in France, and had been "been under French regulators' "radars" since before the U.S. election, said an official familiar with the probe," Politico reports.
The Big Whale, a cryptocurrency news publication, reported Wednesday that the authority was getting ready to ban Polymarket in France. Polymarket declined to respond to POLITICO's request for comment.
While most presidential forecasts had the race between Trump and Kamala Harris as a toss-up, bets on Polymarket showed Trump favored to win, which the now-president elect boasted about on his Truth Social account two weeks before the election. However, in the weeks leading up to the vote, Polymarket consistently showed Harris winning the popular vote, which is now on track to go to Trump as well.
Are they going to ban VPNs too?
Disclosure: In case you couldn't tell from the widget on our homepage, Polymarket is an advertising partner of ZeroHedge.
Far-left activists and self-identified Democrats appear to have found a scapegoat for their humiliating defeat in the 2024 presidential election: Hispanic Americans.
Many leftists have unleashed racist insults and smears against Hispanic Americans after they played a major role in fueling Donald Trump’s comeback on Election Day.
On average, Hispanic-majority counties went for Trump by 10 percentage points, according to The New York Times.These numbers have sparked vitriolic responses from prominent left-wing voices.
On Wednesday’s episode of The View, host Sunny Hostin suggested Latino men supported Trump to “deport” themselves, invoking a racist stereotype about Hispanics and legal status. Hostin also referred to pro-Trump white women as “uneducated.”
Elie Mystal, a columnist for the leftist site The Nation, posted several tweets, including one where he accused Hispanics of thinking “they’re white.” In one tweet, he appeared to conflate an unnamed racial minority with white supremacy.
“White supremacy cannot be defeated unless we’re all in it together (obviously, a majority of white people are not gonna help). But… this election *really shows* that a lot of other ‘people of color’ do not want to defeat white supremacy, they want to join it,” Mystal wrote.
Other left-leaning users, similar to Hostin, expressed shock that Hispanic Americans would vote for Trump and his pro-border security policies.
“45% from Latinos while running on a massive mass deportation campaign. I just don’t get it man,” one user wrote, garnering nearly 30 million views and hundreds of mocking replies.
Chandler Crump, a 20-year-old Republican commentator, swiftly shut down the viral post with a blunt reply: “Did you ever consider the possibility that Latinos are… legal citizens?”
Commentator Melissa Chen chimed in on the discussion, mocking the left’s rhetoric by tweeting, “Dear Latino Men, You’re now the new face of white supremacy. Welcome to the club. Signed, Asians and Jews.”
Chen’s tweet reflected how Asian and Jewish Americans have also faced condemnation from the far left.
Screenshots of Reddit conversations revealed additional attacks on Hispanics...
...with a user commenting, “I know this will sound racist, but Latinos f***ing disgust me,” and another adding, “Latinos aren’t immune from being f***ing idiots.”
