The Cost

because money was meant to be a measure, to be a standard of value. I think that money has to work the same for everyone in the economy, and it’s important that it serve that purpose as a reliable measure, so that people can plan their lives.

I don’t see how you can have a free market economy if people can’t rely on the most vital tool that makes markets work. It’s through money that we transmit market signals. And you need clarity of those signals or supply and demand can’t figure out what’s the optimal solution.… [A]t the Federal Reserve is a responsibility to remember that money has to work for everyone and that in a sense it’s a moral contract between the government and the citizens.³⁰

Credit President Donald Trump with another great hire. If Shelton can help the Fed maintain the value of the dollar, tariff fights ease, and legal migration is allowed to rise, the earlier Trump tax and regulatory reforms can allow America’s economy to roar again. The results could be truly historic.

In addition to the president’s immigration, tax cut, and further energy deregulation plans, the Trump campaign released a set of principles for a second term. They include creating 10 million new jobs in ten months, developing a Covid vaccine by the end of 2020, providing school choice for students, and continuing to “drain the swamp” by pushing congressional term limits, among other moves.

The administration has also been clear about holding China in check and returning law and order to our cities, partly by fully funding and hiring more police and law enforcement officers.

And if Americans are able to enjoy continued peace and prosperity in a second Trump term, they should also expect that a historically informal method of presidential communication will continue. When we inquired whether he ever asks anyone—for example, First Lady Melania Trump—to review tweets before he sends them, Trump responded, “A little bit. But basically, I do what I do. You know, I’m president. Somebody said, ‘Oh, that’s not good.’ I said, ‘Oh, really? Where are we?’ ‘Sir, we’re in the Oval Office.’ I said, ‘That’s right.’ ”³¹

Acknowledgments

This book builds on our work at the Fox Business Network, Fox News, and the Wall Street Journal. We’re grateful to the people who allow us to do the jobs we love and helped us to tell this story about an extraordinary period in U.S. political history. We thank Suzanne Scott and Jay Wallace at Fox News, Lauren Petterson at the Fox Business Network, Robert Thomson at News Corp, and Almar Latour and Paul Gigot at the Wall Street Journal. We’re also grateful to Lachlan and Rupert Murdoch for creating and maintaining the vibrant media competition that helps a free society to thrive.

Speaking of vibrant competitors, we thank our parents, Vinny and Josephine Bartiromo and Neal and Jane Freeman, for teaching us the value of hard work and for all their love and support.

We’ve also lately been fortunate to have the support of Abby Grossberg and Patrick Michael Ignozzi in conducting research and producing news-making television.

We thank James’s kids, Will, Neal, Jane, and Jack, for their good cheer and for often remaining quiet while their father was working.

Thanks are also due to Anthony Mattero, David Larabell, and Andy Elkin of the Creative Artists Agency and to Natasha Simons of Simon & Schuster, who made it happen.

About the Authors

MARIA BARTIROMO is the anchor of the influential premarket program Mornings with Maria and the investing program Maria Bartiromo’s Wall Street on Fox Business Network. She also anchors Sunday Morning Futures on Fox News Channel, which is consistently rated the number one program in all of cable during its time slot. The two-time Emmy Award—winning journalist was the first person to report live from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, in 1995, and in 2011 made history once again as the first female journalist to be inducted into the Cable Hall of Fame. The Cost is her fourth book.

JAMES FREEMAN is assistant editor of The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page and author of the Best of the Web column. He is the coauthor of Borrowed Time: Two Centuries of Booms, Busts, and Bailouts at Citi, a New York Times Editors’ Choice and Financial Times Business Book of the Month. He is a Fox News contributor and former investor advocate at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

FOR MORE ON THESE AUTHORS:

SimonandSchuster.com/Authors/Maria-Bartiromo

SimonandSchuster.com/Authors/James-Freeman

SimonandSchuster.com

@ThresholdEditions

@Threshold_Books

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Notes

Introduction

1. “As Mar-a-Lago Resort Opens, How to Make the President’s Favorite Dessert That’s Served There,” Inside Edition, Nov. 3, 2017, article and TV segment at https://www.insideedition.com/mar-lago-resort-opens-how-make-presidents-favorite-dessert-thats-served-there-37786.

2. Mornings with Maria, hosted by Maria Bartiromo, Fox Business Network, Apr. 12, 2017.

3. Geoff Raby, “How Xi Jingping Got Trumped by Cruise Missile Diplomacy,” Opinion, Financial Review, updated Apr. 10, 2017, https://www.afr.com/opinion/how-xi-jinping-got-trumped-by-cruise-missile-diplomacy-20170410-gvhjdo.

4. Sunday Morning Futures, hosted by Maria Bartiromo, Fox News Channel, Feb. 16, 2020.

5. Chao Deng and Josh Chin, “Chinese Doctor Who Issued Early Warning on Virus Dies,” Wall Street Journal, Feb. 7, 2020, https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinese-doctor-who-issued-early-warning-on-virus-dies-11581019816.

6. Lev Borodovsky, “The Number of Job Openings Matches the Number of Unemployed for the First Time,” Daily Shot (blog), Wall Street Journal, Mar. 19, 2018, https://blogs.wsj.com/dailyshot/2018/03/19/the-daily-shot-the-number-of-job-openings-matches-the-number-of-unemployed-for-the-first-time/.

7. “Transcript: Donald Trump at the G.O.P. Convention,” New York Times, July 22, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/22/us/politics/trump-transcript-rnc-address.html.

8. “Full Text: Donald Trump 2016 RNC Draft Speech Transcript,” Politico, July 21, 2016, https://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/full-transcript-donald-trump-nomination-acceptance-speech-at-rnc-225974.

9. In Re Accuracy Concerns Regarding FBI Matters Submitted to the