Good to be with you. Im katy tur. This is a monumental day, the Federal Reserve cut Interest Rates for the first time in four years. This was an aggressive 50 Basis Point Cut or half a Percentage Point that will move markets and Mortgage Rates. It might also move the tide of the election. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell followed the announcement with a speech of his own, appearing to signal more aggressive cuts to come, indicating that inflation is finally under control, all of this, just 48 days before the president ial election. Big day. Joining us now, nbc News Business and data reporter, brian cheung, national Affairs Correspondent with the nation John Nichols, and director of polling at the Harvard Kennedy Institute of politics and msnbc political contributor, John Della volpe. Nbc Business Correspondent Christine romans will be here in just a second. Brian, i shall begin with you, explain what We Saw, and also tell me what he said in his news conference. Yeah, and its still going on right now. The big news,s big Take Away is Federal Reserve went big, decided to cut the Interest Rate by half a Percentage Point. There was expectation they could do that. It was a tossup. Wall street analysts were arguing with one another. We know theyre going to cut Interest Rates, would they cut by a Quarter Point or go big and a Half Point. Theyre going with the bigger option. The reason why is really the concerns about the labor market. What has been the story in the economy, its been high inflation. The Federal Reserve raised Interest Rates to make those Inflation Rates come down, which they have, but the concern as of late is the Unemployment Rate has been Ticking Up thanks to also the high Interest Rates. The fed said we need to calibrate it and calibrate it quickly. Thats why they went with the half Percentage Point. Jay powell saying you can take this as a sign of our commitment to not get behind. Its a strong move. Whats going to happen in real life . Whats it going to mean for Mortgage Rates and other goods and services . The Fed Announcement is high finance Wall Street stuff. Just because they cut Interest Rates by a Half Percent doesnt mean a Half Percent on our Mortgage Rates, Credit Card rates and Auto Loan rates. The Mortgage Rates on a 30year fixed have been going down as a leading indicator to the Federal Reserve. Thats great news. Its come down from 8 in october of last year to 6. 2 now. Credit card and Auto Loan rates will go down in the next few months. Dont expect anything dramatic. The fed is not slashing rates. Were not talking about rates going down to 3 1 2 on a 30year fixed. You and i talked so much about the economy. Especially in the upper middle west, and about how the economic news thats out there is going to potentially change this election. Having this news from the fed today, a half a Percentage Point, and an indication that theyre going to do more in the future, whats that going to mean in the Voting Booth . John nichols. Remember, people dont understand that, and thats an important thing to state up front. Most americans know it exists, they know it does stuff, but they dont have a deep understanding of it. This is something Bernie Sanders has talked about for a long time, there needs to be a much deeper comprehension of how it works, what its impact is, et cetera. They do understand the impact of what the fed does, and if there is a rapid shift in where many of the aspects of life that people feel comes into play, and thats sort of a reducing of Interest Rates, things like that. It can have an impact, but what i would really suggest to you is that this opens up a remarkable moment in our political history, especially in the upper midwest, and that is for the narrative. Who gets to define whats going on. Donald trump will say this is being done because the economy is in bad shape, and something horrible is happening and the fed had to intervene. Kamala harris has a challenge here, and in fact, a political duty, if you will, to counter that narrative with an argument that actually, exactly what worked during the biden administration is now still in play. Ie, the fed has pulled back and jumped in at different points where it seemed to make sense and the federal government is, you know, worked with them to the extent that they can. These obviously being separate entities. Each of these candidates have a challenge to talk about this in a way that defines it and makes it understandable for the average voter, and for trump, we know where he will go. For harris, this is a great challenge, and an important one at this point. We just got some news, john, this is for you on the teamsters, they will not be endorsing a u. S. President, not doing it this year. Yep. Whats your reaction . Well, that looked to be where they were going, and heres the complexity. The teamsters are very divided. They released polling this afternoon that showed a substantial portion of their members, the majority of their members in Survey Research like trump over harris. They had some surveys from earlier that had folks liking biden over trump. Its sort of a complex, mixed picture. At the heart of it, there is a significant level of support within the Teamsters Union for Donald Trump. At the same time, there are sectors of that union, including locals around the country, one in North Florida or one in south florida, i apologize, another big unit in michigan that have indicated that they really want to back the democrats in this race. And so in this divided circumstance, the teamsters have chosen to stand down, right . And what youre now going to see is a very interesting competition around the country for teamsters units, right, for these members of the union. It isnt like the teamsters go out of play here. What happens is now theres going to be a lot of listening to what leaders of the union, local leaders and others have to say in places like michigan, wisconsin, florida, georgia, because this is a very big union. It has a lot of diversity within it, and its significant. One bottom line, though, one bottom line. This is a tough one for harris because the teamsters did back biden. They have tended in recent cycles to back democrats, and she had made a final play just this week to try and get their endorsement. She would have liked this very much. What she got is the second best option, which is they didnt endorse trump. But also didnt endorse anybody else. All right. Let me ask you about the economy, John Della volpe, theres new polling from the financial times, ft, regarding those who watched the debate and how they feel about Kamala Harris on economic issues and theyre now feeling pretty good. 44 of registered voters, these are ones who watched the debate say they trust her to handle the economy compared to 42 who would pick Donald Trump. And this goes into, i think, something that we have a part of a Sound Bite, not the full Sound Bite on. Donald trump was at a Town Hall the other day, and he was asked by a woman at the Town Hall, she said shes a mom of three, grandmother to seven, she has three great grand kids, a Registered Nurse and retired now. She says i know the cost going into raising children and running a household. People just cant survive, how are you going to bring down the cost of food and groceries . Heres part of what he said to her. The economy is now not good. And Interest Rates, youll see theyll do the Rate Cut and the political stuff tomorrow, will he do a Half Point or a Quarter Point. The reason is because the economy is not good. Otherwise you wouldnt be able to do it. Again, he was asked how are you going to bring down the cost of food and groceries. That was part of it. The rest of the answer talks about energy bills, talks again about Interest Rates. He doesnt get to the cost of groceries. He doesnt get to the cost of food in answering this womans question in a Town Hall, a very specific question, didnt go anywhere near what she was asking. Is it that the people who are watching Donald Trump when he answers questions on the economy, like he did in the debate, are finding him just not to make any sense . Well, listen, katy, i think that number that you just showed is one of the single worst Polling Responses i have seen about Donald Trump in a very long time. If he is losing to Kamala Harris on the economy, im not sure where else he goes. It is clearly the number one issue in this country. It is the number one issue among the undecided voters that i talk to on a regular basis. And what theyre looking for is some sense of stability in their lives. That is what i think this Interest Rate cut could mean if its messaged properly. This is something that has an opportunity to boost young people, to boost families, to boost businesses. It is a significant advantage for harris if she runs with that. Shes already leading on a variety of other critically important issues like Health Care, like climate, like vision for the future and obviously temperament, trust, and ways in which she can communicate. Making that progress on the economy is very very significant for her. When i talk to young people, especially younger people who are the most undecided in this election, what they tell me, every day they wake up hoping to survive, hoping to keep a roof over their heads, the idea of an American Dream of a new house is something thats quite distant, and the idea of this potentially stabilizing the economic situation, the political situation could go a long way in the final few weeks of the campaign. The Interest Rate on the Credit Card is going to matter in the immediate term, also the price of groceries matters in the immediate term, especially for young people, even if a house is not in the near future. Christine romans has joined us as well. We have been talking about the fed cut rate, half a Percentage Point, big news. Jerome Powell Signaling theres more to come, probably not until after the election. There will be more Rate Cuts to come, im sure. Theyre forecasting, you know, theyre kind of telegraphing that more will be coming. They say the u. S. Economy is strong, inflation appears to be closer to its target of 2 . The Job Market is sturdy but slowing, and over all, they say we want to keep it that way. When will voters feel it . Right away youre seeing Mortgage Rates have been declining in anticipation of this. Its one of those Pressure Points for people. Even if they just know that it used to be 8 , and now its 6 , that is some relief there. I think on Credit Cards and on car loans, it will take a little bit longer to filter through, but this is one of those Pain Points for american households, high Interest Rates. Were at the beginning of the Pain Point starting to subside a little bit. The timing of this, the fact that he did it 48 days before an election, did he have to do it today . Is there a political aspect to this . No, the fed is so, and says over and over again, its not political. Jerome powell, a republican appointed by a republican, by the way, i mean, this is something you could almost argue if they had been doing it in the summer, you could say, this is political, youre trying to help joe biden. Joe biden is not the nominee anymore. The fed really trying to measure whats happening in the labor market, and whats happening with inflation, thats its quote unquote duel mandate. Its got to just make sure that is the right kind of special sauce for american families to be able to keep their head above water and prosper. What is he doing here . He should go for a 2 point cut, arguing for 200 basis points, which i think is a twopoint cut. We saw a 100 Basis Point Cut when there was a global Health Crisis that shut down the world. You would only cut like that if there was something terrible happening. Hes saying inflation is under control, the economy is moving in the right direction, things are good, why waste time, and why not just doing it. You run the risk of alarming the markets and everybody else in the economy too much by more aggressively cutting rates. Some people made that argument for larger cut size, isnt the fed messaging the last time the fed did a 50 Point Basis Cut was right into a lead into the pandemic where after that they slashed it to zero. I think what the Federal Reserve is saying, we dont want to alarm the markets but we need to get this Calibration Right so its not just an issue of inflation, that people arent put out of their jobs because of the concern about the Unemployment Rate which has been Ticking Up, starting to shoot up, which hasnt happened yet but could if the Federal Reserve kept the Interest Rates too high. They were behind the curve, remember, in the beginning. They cut rates to zero, and waited too long to raise rates. Theyre not going to be behind the curve now. John della volpe, hes still with us, and John Nichols about how this is going to affect politics. Im curious, christine, we had an Ft Poll showing harris leading trump on the economy, among those who watched the debate. Thoughts on that . When you see her on the trail or see her talking about Child Care, medical debt i heard her talking extensively about medical debt yesterday. She was saying she wants to cap Child Care costs at 7 of your pay. Thats a very specific thing. Donald trump has talked about Child Care in terms of a Golf Game in the first president ial debate and in tariffs, he mentioned his extreme tariffs would help somehow pay individual families Child Care costs. I think it might be that shes just hitting more on something that families can say, oh, i need that right now. I dont need the sort of theoretical of tariffs in china somehow helping my Child Care bill. J. D. Vance, John Nichols to make a bit of a left turn here. Shoot. This is going to be a real swerve, but i want to get you on this because we have been talking about it. It came to light that the Wall Street journal reported that somebody from his team, after he first posted about the haitians and eating pets thing, someone from his team called the Town Manager in springfield and said is this true, and the Town Manager said its not true, weve got no credible evidence of this. Its not real. Then j. D. Vance went on again after his team knew this and hit it, and then that night, Donald Trump went on the Debate Stage and hit it. So when we have, i mean, i think it kind of plays into all of this spiraling news, the economys getting better and yet Donald Trump is still hitting these, instead of talking about the economics of things, or immigration, theyre talking about in policy, theyre talking about racist memes and this fear mongering, you were talking about how this is not going to play well in the upper midwest. You even mentioned iowa where actually polls are tightening. This story is still living on. How do you see it continuing to affect things . I think it continues to affect things because it lives on. You have the former president of the united states, the republican nominee for Vice President continuing to talk about this. Even when we have mounting evidence that they know what theyre saying is false. The more that this is discussed, actually, i think the more it ultimately harms trump. Now, thats an interesting twist because on the base level, i think that Donald Trump wants to keep the immigration issue alive, and he and j. D. Vance are willing to talk it to death, if they can, you know, find a way to keep it at the forefront of the discussion, and youre seeing them go to extreme places and to places that are frankly very dangerous. With that said, however, i think that if you saw Kamala Harriss interview with the Nabj Yesterday where she was very pointed and very poignant in how she discussed this. If she continues to discuss this, not just as the sole issue of the campaign, and pushing back against the lies and extremism, i think it has the potential to present her as the adult in the room, the president ial figure who is saying, look, we have to deal in truth, we have to deal in the fundamentals of these issues. So i think theres a space there, and it will go on. Donald trump is not going to abandon immigration as an issue. Its going to be a part of his campaign, and i think if i can just add one quick final element here, you were just talking about unions, right . Unions become important in this. The teamsters did not endorse Kamala Harris. The vast majority of unions have. They do a lot of internal education, and frankly, in recent years, they have done a lot of internal education about the value of immigrants, what they contribute to the american economy, to our society, and even to the unions they are members of. And so going forward, there is a lot of potential here to frame this issue in a way that i think shifts the debate. We know where Donald Trumps going to be. To symptom extent, the question is will Kamala Harris and Tim Walz