Fed hikes interest rate despite turmoil, Denver high school shooting: 5 Things podcast

On today's episode of the 5 Things podcast: Fed hikes interest rate to curb inflation despite banking turmoil

USA TODAY Personal Finance and Markets Reporter Elisabeth Buchwald explains the reasoning behind the Federal Reserve's latest rate hike. Plus, USA TODAY National Correspondent for extremism and emerging issues Will Carless looks at a busy week for Trump and his supporters, a student opens fire at a Denver high school, police are investigating the 2015 death of Stephen Smith as a homicide after the Murdaugh murder trial, and the Supreme Court fetches a trademark battle between a dog toy and Jack Daniel's.

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Hit play on the player above to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript below. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.

Taylor Wilson:

Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson, and this is 5 Things you need to know Thursday, the 23rd of March 2023. Today, what the Fed's interest rate hike means for the economy. Plus a closer look at Trump and his supporters as he tells them to prepare for his arrest, and a student opens fire at a Denver High School.

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The Federal Reserve raised its key short-term interest rate again yesterday. So what does that mean for the economy as a whole? USA TODAY Personal Finance and Markets Reporter Elisabeth Buchwald has us covered. Hi, Elisabeth.

Elisabeth Buchwald:

Hey, thanks for having me.

Taylor Wilson:

Thanks for coming back on. So what happened with this latest rate hike?

Elisabeth Buchwald:

Fed raised interest rates by 25 basis points despite the turmoil going on with banking, saying that the priority is still with inflation and that the banking sector is still strong.

Taylor Wilson:

What factors led to this rate increase?

Elisabeth Buchwald:

A bunch of different things, but I think the most important, as I highlighted, is inflation still remains much higher than the Fed would like it to be. A lot of different indicators, like employment, have all come in stronger than the Fed has expected. So that's paved the way for them to say, okay, we can risk raising interest rates and potentially slowing down the economy a little bit more since things are still so strong.

Taylor Wilson:

What did we learn from the Fed's quarterly economic projections that were also released?

Elisabeth Buchwald:

A bunch of different things. So one thing, they released what's called a dot plot. That is sort of a visualization of where each voting member sees interest rates going. And so, they gave their predictions for the end of 2023, and it looked like it was lower than what they had been projecting in December. So that was one thing.

They also revised some projections for unemployment, for inflation. They see inflation going a little bit higher by the end of the year than they had anticipated in December. I guess the big thing, too, is that they don't see inflation coming down to the Fed's 2% target until 2025.

Taylor Wilson:

Elisabeth, it's been obviously a chaotic week, week-plus for banks. Do these Fed numbers ease concerns about more potential bank failures, or do they fan the flames?

Elisabeth Buchwald:

Powell tried to stress during the press conference that the two may not be related. In a sense, he's trying to get it both ways where he can fight inflation and maintain that banks are stable. On the other hand, we do know that the two that failed, Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, they had their investments in the wrong place. In particular for Silicon Valley Bank, they were investing in treasuries, which were a poor choice during these Fed interest rate hikes.

So they're aware that banks had been doing that, but there's also going to be more regulation. I think it is fair to say, though, that banks were anticipating this, so it's not coming as a surprise to them.

Taylor Wilson:

All right. Elisabeth Buchwald, thanks so much.

Elisabeth Buchwald:

Thank you.

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Taylor Wilson:

It's been a busy week on social media for former President Donald Trump after he told his supporters he would be arrested this week. I spoke with USA TODAY National Correspondent on Extremism and Emerging Issues Will Carless to find out the latest. Will, welcome back to 5 Things.

Will Carless:

Thanks for having me.

Taylor Wilson:

So former President Donald Trump said he would be arrested this week. It still hasn't happened. What's the latest on that, Will, and is Trump still drumming up his supporters on social media surrounding this claim?

Will Carless:

Well, to take the first of those questions, it's not just Trump saying that he's going to be arrested. There are also various outlets reporting various unnamed sources within law enforcement that say that an indictment from the Manhattan District Attorney is forthcoming. So that certainly does seem to be a thing that is supposed to happen sometime soon. When it happens? Your guess is as good as mine. As far as Trump drumming up support, he has been basically posting incessantly on Truth Social, which is the social media company he founded, and posting continuously on there, asking people to get out and protest, calling this an outrage, making all sorts of claims about this being a witch hunt and a political persecution.

That doesn't seem to have worked. As I reported in a story on Monday, these calls for protests seem to have fallen on deaf ears. I haven't really seen anything more than a few dozen people showing up at protests around the country. So it's been very muted so far in response. But of course he hasn't been arrested yet. So if and when he's arrested, that will probably lead to some sort of protest.

Taylor Wilson:

Will, you wrote about this conversation among some Trump supporters, that there might be a kind of trap at play here. Can you talk a little about that?

Will Carless:

Yeah. So I spent much of the weekend looking through pro-Trump forums and also I cover extremism. So looking at the extremist forums, just trying to get an idea if some of these extremist groups are going to take to the streets in defense of Donald Trump. Of course, not every Trump supporter is an extremist, but pretty much every right-wing extremist that I cover is a Trump supporter. He has immense support from that wing of the GOP.

So I was watching them and essentially, yeah, that was the main narrative. This is a trap. This is a federal trap. If you get out and protest, you're going to get arrested. This is not a new narrative. This is a claim that's made pretty much every time there are public protests and people are arrested.

Taylor Wilson:

So shifting to this coming weekend, Trump is planning a rally in Waco, Texas on Saturday. Why is Waco so important to parts of the far right?

Will Carless:

I'm glad you asked me the question like that, because I want to make it clear it could be a complete coincidence. It could be not related to the siege 30 years ago that Trump chose Waco. But here's why some experts I talked to think that that was chosen very specifically to hold his next rally.

Trump's narrative over the last couple of years since he lost the election has essentially been, "I didn't lose the election. There is a shadowy cabal running our government called the deep state that is out to get me and is out to get you and wants to arrest me, because it's evil and I'm good," essentially is what it boils down to.

Now, of course, that's not true and the charges against Donald Trump have very legitimate grounds in reality. But, it plays into this idea on the far right that there is this all-seeing, all-knowing federal government that is out to get you and that will commit atrocities against you and wants to throw you in jail or take away your guns or whatever.

The most potent piece of history in this regard is the Waco siege, in which the federal government, in a botched raid against the Branch Davidians, a Christian cult essentially just outside of Waco, 76 people ended up dying in a horrific fire there. Now that's often cited as one of the worst excesses of the federal government, and if you believe in conspiracy theories, the worst excesses and the worst tragedies of the deep state.

Taylor Wilson:

Could there be any other reasons that he's doing Waco this weekend, Will?

Will Carless:

Absolutely, there are other reasons. I mean, look, Texas is obviously a red state still. It's also been pointed out that if you want to hold a big rally in Texas, most of the cities in Texas are actually leaning Democrat with a few exceptions, one of them being Waco. It just seems very convenient and very coincidental that he's holding it in Waco of all times, right as the government hones in on him and seeks to bring these criminal charges against him.

Taylor Wilson:

Will Carless covers extremism and emerging issues for USA TODAY. Thanks, Will.

Will Carless:

Thank you.

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Taylor Wilson:

A male student, who was being patted down during a routine safety check, shot two faculty members at a Denver high school yesterday. They were taken to the hospital, with one in serious but stable condition while the other was in surgery in critical condition as of yesterday. Police initially said the suspected shooter, identified as a 17-year-old, was still at large and the weapon was not found at the school.

Officials later said last night that a body was found in the woods near his vehicle, but wouldn't say whether the body was identified as the suspect. Before the shooting, the student had a so-called safety plan with school staff and was regularly searched when entering the building.

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The media can't seem to look away from Hampton, South Carolina. The latest chapter comes this week. The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division is now investigating the death of 19-year-old Stephen Smith as a homicide. That's after reopening the case amid its investigation into the murders of Maggie and Paul Murdaugh, family lawyers said yesterday.

Smith was found dead on a rural road in July of 2015. His death was ruled a hit and run after an initial investigation, which his family has criticized. Next up, Smith's body will be exhumed for an independent autopsy.

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Supreme Court justices wrestled yesterday with whether a squeezy dog toy that mimics a bottle of Jack Daniels whiskey violated the company's trademark or whether it's protected as a parody under the First Amendment. Jack Daniels argues that the toy, which carries the words "bad spaniels" on the label, could confuse customers about who made the product and could tarnish the company's reputation. Jokes aside, it's not clear which way the court might be leaning. The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit cited with the toy maker, ruling that the product gets special protection from trademark claims because it's a parody.

Thanks for listening to 5 Things. You can find us every morning on whatever your favorite podcast app is. I'm back tomorrow with more of 5 Things from USA TODAY.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump holding rally in Waco, school shooting in Denver: 5 things podcast