Finance guru and mentor Dave Ramsey is known for his no-nonsense approach to debt and wealth.
Ramsey, who has built a personal finance empire, has also sat down with past presidents and presidential candidates to press them on how they would handle the finances of the U.S. — much like he does with everyday people.
Yesterday, Ramsey sat down with Donald Trump to discuss all things finance.
Ramsey wants to hold the same interview with Kamala Harris, but according to Ramsey, Trump was the first (and only) candidate to respond.
Here’s a look at what Ramsey and Trump discussed, including an admission from Ramsey that indicated he wasn’t sold on one of Trump’s economic initiatives.
Ramsey’s interview, titled, “Can Trump’s Plan Clean Up America’s Financial Mess?” included questions about inflation and then goes into topics like U.S. energy dominance, real estate and the president’s two assassination attempts.
“I tried to just sit back and listen. I wanted to talk about ideas on a pretty low, even keel instead of getting into stump hyperbole and all of that. And by and large, if you watch the interview, we were able to do that,” Ramsey said on “Varney & Co.” yesterday in response to the interview.
“He was very direct and very knowledgeable about tax rates and about the things that move in the energy world,” he continued, “and how that does intersect the economy, and how to control a commodity market as best you can from the presidential seat.”
One of the key points during the sit down was Trump’s plan to bring down energy costs, what would trickle down into lowering other costs.
“In terms of inflation, you’re right. And it’s almost inflation over the economy, if you want to really know, because people are getting wiped out like never before,” Trump said. “I think it’s the highest inflation we’ve ever had. They say it’s the highest in 48 years. I think it’s the highest ever. The first thing you have to do is get the energy [costs] down.”
“You can encourage, ‘drill, baby, drill.’ You can encourage opening the Keystone Pipeline, and if you flood any commodity market with that commodity, we all know it’s supply-demand that drives the price down,” Ramsey countered.
In Trump’s beginning answers to Ramsey, he argues that once energy prices come down, “other things are going to follow,” like interest rates. Trump also said that he aims to have prices decrease by 50% in his first year back in office.
But Ramsey indicated he wasn’t sold.
“That’s your indirect connectivity of energy if you want to bring inflation down and stimulate an economy,” Ramsey explained. “But I have no idea of 50%. That didn’t make sense to me.”
As mentioned earlier, Ramsey has also reached out to the Harris campaign for an interview with the vice president.
In a TikTok caption, he writes that he’ll “do the same thing with Vice President Harris if I get the chance.”
Watch Ramsey’s entire interview with Trump here: