nicle the world in the so-called first draft of history.

Today's guest is helping lead one of America's great newspapers as it tells the story of President Trump's second administration with a particular focus on its impact on the world of business and finance.

He's Michael Corkery, this week on "Story in the Public Square."

(lively thoughtful music) (lively thoughtful music continues) Hello and welcome to "Story in the Public Square," where storytelling meets public affairs.

I'm Jim Ludes from the Pell Center at Salve Regina University.

- And I'm G. Wayne Miller, also with Salve's Pell Center.

- And our guest this week is Michael Corkery, a distinguished veteran journalist who now serves as finance editor of The New York Times.

He joins us today from New York.

Michael, it's so great to see you again.

- Nice to see you, Jim.

Nice to see you, Wayne.

- Yes.

- You were one of our first guests on the show way back in 2017, and it feels like a few things have happened since then.

(hosts laughing) but we are, you know, six months or so into the first year of the second term of the Trump presidency.

And this has been a chaotic time, I think, in the world of finance.

Do you wanna give us just a quick overview to begin the conversation about where have things come in the world of finance in the first several months of the Trump presidency?

- Yeah, chaotic is a good word for it.

I think when, you know, Donald Trump was elected, reelected in November, the financial markets and Wall Street were quite excited.

He was promising, as he did in his first term, to wanna stimulate economic growth, to create policies that would be pro-business, all of which the markets like.

He was gonna cut taxes.

So they were ready for... You know, I mean, things had been booming in the markets under Biden, but they were ready for them to even go even further under the second Trump administration.

And then, all of a sudden, Trump seemed to actually be serious about going and engaging in a trade war and imposing sort of startlingly high sanctions on America's largest trading partners.

And the markets, frankly, were shocked that he would do this and follow through.

And not only, you know, with the economic ramifications it would have for business growth, for trade, for global relations; not only did that, you know, cause stocks to fall, but it was also just the uncertainty of it, you know?

And I think we've all watched that over the past few months.

You know, one day it's 20% tariffs, the next it's 145%.

One day it's on, one day it's off.

So markets can adjust to a lot of things.

Stock investors, hedge funds, banks can adjust, you know, to good times and bad times.

The thing they hate the most is uncertainty.

And that really rattled this market.

At one point, from a peak on February 19th, in just a few weeks, it fell 20%.

And this is the S&P 500.

And the speed and the depth with which it fell were quite startling.

So things have recovered since April 2nd, when the tariffs were, you know, about to hit.

But it's been quite a wild ride.

- Yeah, so you mentioned sort of the uncertainty that businesses are operating with, and this is the thing that I've been struggling with.

Whether you're a small business owner or you're a Fortune 100 company, how do you plan?

How do you do business planning?

How do you plan investments in this kind of environment, where there's so much uncertainty about the basic cost of doing business because your supply chains are gonna be tariffed?

- That's right.

You're exactly right, Jim.

It's everyone from a small business owner that's literally just trying to, like, you know, their balance sheet and what it's gonna cost them and how much they should then charge for what they sell, all the way up to, you know, a big investment firm that is trying, you know, with...

I mean, they have very sophisticated models, but they need to know what the inputs are for that to figure out how to value a stock, how to value a company, how to know what its revenues are gonna be, how to know what its profits are gonna be.

So when things so fundamental like the cost of goods imported from overseas, it's literally the calculations about how much they're gonna cost are changing day to day.

I mean, it threw everything into turmoil.

And, you know, one of the things, I think there was some... At least on Wall Street, there was a bit of a, you know, sense that the rug had been pulled out from underneath them because they thought they had figured Trump out.

They thought that, you know, Trump 2.0 would be a lot like Trump 1.0, which was very good for the markets.

And I think at a certain point they couldn't trust him.

So, yeah, it was chaos up and down the economy.

- So, Michael, can you zero in on a few industries?

And I'm thinking car sales, car manufacturing, retailing.

Just give us a little bit about each of those and anything else that you want to, in terms of large industries and where they stand now, and the future if you can.

- Yeah, I mean, again, a lot has changed.

So, you know, auto sales, you know, imported parts are still, you know, subjected to a 25% tariff.

That's likely very much gonna cause the cost of cars to go up.

I think Ford has warned, you know, it's gonna cost their company over the next year $1.5 billion more.

That gets passed along, most likely, to consumers.

Electronics, there was an exception made for electronics parts coming out of China.

So some of the sort of dreaded fear about iPhones spiking in cost, some of that has subsided.

So, again, it's all over the map.

But again, you mentioned small businesses, you talk about Wall Street investors hating uncertainty.

You know, the economy and spending and buying a thing like a car, even going to McDonald's, which is warning people are spending less money there, when you're not sure about where things are headed and you're reading all these headlines about the stock market crashing, you pull back as an average consumer.

You stop making purchases that you don't need to make.

And that has a sort of domino effect, which then takes what had been a pretty solid economy heading into the second Trump administration: job growth was still on track, inflation was still persistent, but, you know, there was some effort, and some progress in bringing it down or at least bringing it under control.

But then when people and consumers, which are the driving force of the economy, when they get uncertain, they pull back, and then you're starting to get warnings about a recession coming on.

So I think Trump and his advisors saw how far they kind of pushed it and have since backed off.

But I think the real question over the next few months will be, you know, was that in time?

You know, did they pull back in time so that the economy can still keep going?

- So one of those advisors, of course, is Elon Musk.

Give us a little bit about him.

Where he started at the beginning of the second administration and where things stand with him now.

- Elon Musk is certainly the most unusual of his, you know, in terms of his profile of having such a top spot, you know, in the administration.

You know, he came in as the cost-cutter-in-chief and, you know, has really been driving a lot of the work to upend the federal government, rein in regulation, close, you know, agencies.

And, you know, that is in various fits and starts.

Again, you know, from a finance perspective, investors were okay with that.

I mean, one, they don't like regulation, much of it.

And two, you know, on Wall Street there is concern about the deficit.

And so I think there was broad support, you know, to try to rein in federal spending.

But Musk, he's a complicated person, and he speaks his mind, and it feels like he is now, you know, as that has somewhat bogged down his cost-cutting in lawsuits and in the courts, feels like he's taking less and less of a prominent role.

And what has happened, at least when it comes to trade, which has really been, you know, the big issue.

At least, financially and economically.

Some of Trump's advisors, Bessent, the Treasury Secretary, who has, you know, a very distinguished Wall Street pedigree.

He has, I think, from what we can tell, you know, gained more prominence and gained, you know, more of the president's ear and has tried to, you know, I think, rein in some of, you know, the rhetoric around the trade war and try to calm the markets down because they were getting very, very jittery.

I mean, it got pretty...

I think it was actually...

I mean, I think it was Trump himself, used the word "squirrely" to describe how things were feeling.

And they've since changed a lot of their tune.

- Michael, let's get into a few of the stories that have been published by members of your reporting team.

Seven very distinguished journalists.

One of them was: "Rivals Pounce on Paul Weiss, a Top Law Firm, After Trump's Order."

Give us an overview, please, of that story.

- So, yes, as we all know, following the news, it's not all about tariffs.

There have been some other really interesting and important developments that have affected Wall Street as part of the second Trump administration.

And a big one has been Trump's, many call it his retribution campaign, on the legal industry.

Trump has been, you know, very clear that he has felt that he has been unfairly "persecuted," is his word, technically prosecuted for what he did in his first term and even before that, you know, in the various cases in New York and federally.

And some of the lawyers that have worked on those cases, either officially or even in advisory roles, have come from elite law firms that, you know, spend most of their time working on mergers and acquisitions, doing corporate litigation.

I mean, you know, these are extremely well-paid lawyers.

These are the Paul Weisses, the Gibson Dunns of the world, the WilmerHales.

And Trump decided to, as he's done throughout industries, throughout government, he issued an executive order.

The first one was against... Well, the one that resulted in the story that I'm about to talk about, he was about to issue an executive order on Paul Weiss, which is a really big white-shoe law firm in New York.

And essentially, the order would've barred the lawyers to that firm, and there are thousands of them, from working to represent clients before the federal government.

Literally, it would not allow Paul Weiss's lawyers to go into a federal building.

So, federal courthouse, federal agency.

So for a law firm that, you know, if it's representing a company that's gonna merge with another company, you need to be able to get into a federal building to talk to the agencies that need to, you know, approve of that merger.

I mean, that's just one way that these law firms need to do work with the federal government.

It was stunning in its brazenness what it would've restricted.

And in order to avoid that restriction, Paul Weiss cut a deal with the president, and the firm agreed to do millions of dollars' worth of pro bono work for causes that the president supported: veterans', antisemitism.

And in the middle of that turmoil, 'cause these are law firms that are... You know, they're highly competitive.

Highly competitive for work and to get deals and to get clients.

There was an enormous pressure being put on the firm by other firms that were trying to steal away their lawyers, knowing that Paul Weiss was vulnerable at that moment to Trump and his executive order.

So it was quite a moment for the legal industry.

- Yeah, can you maybe put into context, whether we're talking about tariffs, which are a massive intervention by the federal government in the free market, or we're talking about compelling companies to produce goods in the United States rather than overseas, or we're talking about the targeting of law firms or universities.

We keep going down this list.

This is a fundamental shift in the function of the US government in its interaction with private enterprise, isn't it?

- Yes, it very much is.

And I think, again, this is why I think even to corporate America and to Wall Street, why this second Trump administration is something they didn't anticipate.

I mean, certainly, people on the left and the Democrats, you know, they have lots of criticism.

And it's criticism they had of Trump in the first term is the same for the second.

But this is a new thing for him to attack companies and to go after companies and extract concessions from companies.

It is fundamentally a different thing.

- So Jim mentioned universities and your team has written about Harvard, which has been confrontational with the Trump administration.

Tell us about one of those stories: "Trump Officials Blame Mistake for Setting Off Confrontation with Harvard."

- Yes.

So, again, similarly aggressive and different approach to trying to get a major institution to bend to his will.

Trump, as he's done to a bunch of Ivy League schools, but Harvard is squarely in the crosshairs.

He has threatened and pulled federal funding, hundreds of millions of dollars of it, because his administration has felt like Harvard hasn't done enough for, you know, combat antisemitism, some of the issues that were surrounding the Gaza protests, also wanting more viewpoint diversity.

So basically feeling like there's not enough conservative viewpoints represented on the faculty.

But the way he's sort of gone about that is to take funding away, and it's real.

And so Harvard is in a tricky spot.

They, you know, on the one hand, want to stand up for academic freedom.

On the other hand, they need money to function.

And so there's a lot of internal debate about how to deal with this Trump administration.

Whether to fight, like some of the law firms have started to do, or to seek a deal.

And from a finance perspective, a big voice in that are the big donors that give lots of money to Harvard.

And sort of many of those donors felt like it's better to do a deal with Trump than it is to fight.

And so we captured that in our piece.

- Yeah, it's a vexing question.

The example of Columbia stands in contrast to that approach, right?

One of the questions that I keep coming back to: is there a method to the madness?

So we talk about this chaos, we talk about these unprecedented interventions into the marketplace.

Is there a theory of the method behind it?

Why is Trump taking such aggressive action in so many different fields, so early in this presidency?

- Well, I mean, it's a good question whether there's a method.

I mean, I think there is a, you know, sort of shock and awe aspect to it.

I mean, just from a, as you guys can appreciate, the trying to even keep up with the news.

I mean, every day there's something new.

It does keep all of these different industries, institutions, political constituencies, it keeps them on their heels because, you know, there's always something new.

And so I think that is part of the strategy, is just, again, to just kind of shock the system.

And, you know, again, even with trade, you know, you wanna keep your counterparty, the countries you're negotiating with, to keep them, you know, on their heels.

Like, that's part of how you negotiate a deal that's favorable.

But again, there are consequences to that kind of strategy.

And you're seeing that; you saw that with the stock market reacting the way it did, and now the economic consequences of that, it creates a lot of uncertainty.

And so I think that's what the consequences of Trump's shock and awe campaign.

To try to change things and bend them to his agenda.

- So we're taping this in the second week of May.

Just the day before we were here, the president of the United States met with the newly elected prime minister of Canada, one of America's most important trading relationships.

What, you know, whether we're talking about just trade in the Americas, with the Canadians and with Mexico, what is the future?

What can American businesses expect about those very important relationships, whether we're talking about markets or suppliers of raw materials?

- Well, I think, again, what it seems like in the past, again, Trump, when tariffs were about to take hold, April 2nd, and the stock market was crashing, the bond market, which actually ended up being kind of the deciding factor in his decision to pull back, was also in turmoil.

Yields were spiking.

I mean, stocks are important.

Everybody kind of watches it 'cause their 401k and, you know, see the S&P go up and down.

But the bond market and interest rates, that's the lifeblood of the economy.

That's how companies fund themselves.

That's how mortgage rates are set.

So when the yields on sort of very, very, you know, staid, vanilla treasuries started going up at an alarming rate, that's when his advisors pulled him back from the brink and he put that 90-day pause on most tariffs.

So it really signaled at that moment that, you know, when there's real damage that potentially could result from tariffs, he seems willing to blink.

So, yes, like his tough talk continues with the likes of Canada and China, but we'll have to see how it actually plays out.

Like if there is real hurt, if there is real examples in the economic data of consumer slowdown, retail sales going down, job losses, you may him singing a different tune than his tough talk now with the likes of Canada.

- So, we just have just about one minute left here, Michael.

So very quickly talk about your workday.

(laughs) It seems like you're very busy.

- How do you stay on top of it?

(laughs) - I mean, you're editing and managing or, you know, working with seven reporters.

And talk about your day.

I mean, just hearing about it, and I've known you for a very long time, makes me tired (Michael laughs) just thinking about it.

- And it's great always to talk to you, Wayne, and to you, Jim.

But Wayne, you and I, you know, we do go a long way back to our days of the Providence Journal.

- Yeah.

- The news certainly, we didn't have a president like Trump back then in the '90s.

That makes an enormous amount of news.

I mean, the news business is just different too.

And yes, The New York Times still has a print newspaper, but this is a 24-hour news operation.

And so, you know, at midnight, you know, let's say midnight on a Tuesday, I'll know what the Asian markets are up to 'cause they're opening, and I'll wake up, you know, around 6:00 a.m., and I'll know what the markets are doing in Europe.

And then by 9:00, you know, as the markets are about to open in the U.S., you know, we're fully engaged, and my markets reporters are on the latest developments.

And then, you know, many of my really great team is just out talking to folks on Wall Street and finding out what's actually going on: who's winning, who's losing, you know, who's lobbying behind the scenes on a lot of these policies.

And I've got, you know, a few investigative reporters that have just been digging into this law firm story.

Again, these law firms are core to Wall Street and to corporate America.

But this is the rule of law that, you know, is really at stake in how he's gone after these firms.

So they have been out, you know, breaking great stories on that.

So it's busy, but people are reading the stories, they're engaged.

You know, it does feel, I mean, this probably goes without saying, but a lot is at stake.

We've never had a president like this.

We've never seen, to your point Jim, policies and an approach to governing this way.

So we just gotta stay on top of it.

And, yeah, it's busy, but it's worthwhile for sure.

- It makes it hugely important work.

Michael Corkery, The New York Times, thank you for being with us today.

That is all the time we have this week, but if you wanna learn more, you can find us at pellcenter.org.

He's Wayne, I'm Jim, asking you to join us again next time for more "Story in the Public Square."

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