Susan Kokinda: The Economic Revolution Is Already Here
Transcript — TFTC
Article: https://www.tftc.io/susan-kokinda-economic-revolution-reindustrialization-midterms
Transcript page: https://www.tftc.io/susan-kokinda-economic-revolution-reindustrialization-midterms-transcript
Published: 2026-10-07
Machine transcription, lightly cleaned; may contain errors.
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[0:07] Susan Kokinda: You've had a dynamic where money's become freer than free. Let me talk about a Fed just gone nuts, all, all the central banks going nuts. So it's all acting like safe haven.

[0:18] Marty Bent: I believe that in a world where central bankers are tripping over themselves to devalue their currency, Bitcoin wins. In the world of fiat currencies, Bitcoin is the victor.

[0:29] Susan Kokinda: I mean, that's part of the bull case for Bitcoin.

[0:31] Marty Bent: If you're not paying attention, you probably should be.

[0:34] Susan Kokinda: Probably should be. Probably should be.

[0:36] Marty Bent: Susan Kikinda, welcome back to the show.

[0:40] Susan Kokinda: Good to be here.

[0:41] Marty Bent: Well, glad to have you back as we approach midterms here in the US. Last time you were here was about 10 months ago, beginning of December of 2025. And I think this is a good check-in period because you made some calls about Q2 and Q3. at that time when we last spoke, and obviously we have the luxury of retrospect today as we speak. So you expected, particularly around the tariff regime and the reindustrialization of the United States, that the tangible effects of the policies that were put in place when Trump got back into power would come in Q2 and Q3 of this year. So With that in mind, how, how has the Trump administration done in terms of the economic policy they laid forth, uh, in Trump 2?

[1:29] Susan Kokinda: Well, it's, it's pretty clear, especially since the Dallas midterm convention, uh, that the administration is really drilling down hard on the fact that these policies are beginning to take effect, uh, from the standpoint of Construction jobs, manufacturing, you know, Trump, Vance, they're out there literally every day now, whether it's in Ohio or Alaska or Oklahoma. And they're talking about, you know, the jobs that they're bringing, this brand new steel mill in Iowa, which is going to have 6,000 construction workers and then 1,700 permanent workers ultimately. So that's all there. And when you, when you look at the government statistics, you look at, for example, the BLS statistics, What you see is something very interesting, which is starting when we spoke back in December, since you mentioned that date, I can't believe it was that long.

[5:56] Marty Bent: Well, I think President Trump was— I forget exactly where, which press conference it was, but he said something along the lines of the GOP or the Republicans have done a bad job of messaging that this economic revolution is well underway. And if you look at statistics like PMI and Labor wage growth, it is up and to the right, a little slower, maybe not as widespread as many people would like. But with 30 days left between now and midterms, how imperative do you think it is to really get that narrative out there and highlight to Americans that this is happening? Because if I'm looking objectively, I think that is the one thing that they've really dropped the ball on is messaging.

[6:47] Susan Kokinda: Yeah, I know he's— the president said it, JD has said it, they've said it more, we say it. It's why we do what we do, because I think we message better than the administration, you know, in terms of these questions. Um, but I think the president's going to take every single day between now and November 3rd to find some way, you know, to really make that message absolutely clear. And who knows, he may have some of his own October surprises up his sleeve. in terms of maybe some of these conflicts being resolved. But at the same time, he was also very clear at the United Nations where he said, I'm not making my decisions on Iran from the standpoint of the midterm elections.

[7:56] Marty Bent: Yeah, and I, I think I'm excited to get, get you on now because there's so many balls in the air with the reindustrialization of the US here domestically. I know you've been covering the Thucydides problem between the, the Thucydides trap between the US and China, where that may end up, obviously. We have riots in France. You have the spread between the French OATBAN and German Bund blowing out to Greek credit crisis levels. And then Canada to the north, they're making moves. I believe Quebec is voting today on whether or not they will secede from Canada or at least move in that direction. And then obviously Iran, Ukraine, Russia still on the borders, a ton of balls in the air.

[9:10] Susan Kokinda: Well, I think it's actually good that you throw them all out there at once, because I think it does illustrate a more fundamental point, which is for literally 125 years, I mean, I date as a certain marker 1901. It's when McKinley was killed, assassinated, our last American system president. And if you think about it, there's a certain symmetry to this because that is literally halfway between now and 1776. So take this last 125 years. What has characterized most of that 125 years? The United States was increasingly coming under the thumb of British imperial policy. Coming out of World War I, you look at things like the Round Table, you look at institutions that are set up like Chatham House and other institutions and discussions in Britain among the elites, they were all basically saying the same thing.

[14:37] Marty Bent: Well, let's dive deeper into the relationship with China because I think the mainstream narrative is particularly focused on the race with artificial intelligence, now superintelligence after last week's press conference or the week before. Many people, many pundits here in the West say it's an existential race to win, to get to AGI first. that you can have one or the other be the predominant superpower in the world. But following your commentary in recent weeks and months, it seems like it's not all what the mainstream will lead you to believe in that terms. And to your point, it's more of a sort of nationalist US saying, hey, we want to take care of our interests. China similarly saying, we want to do the same. And this ties back to the national security strategy that was released last year, which is why you came on initially 10 months ago. Um, but what are the misconceptions in, in the mainstream in terms of what is happening between the US and China right now?

[15:44] Susan Kokinda: Well, I think the main problem is not even a misconception. I mean, most of your mainstream media of both varieties, left and right— Fox is just as wacky on these questions as MS Now, you know, is, is this British Great Game geopolitical concept that there are always going to be permanent enemies, you know, or, or there, there is an enemy of the day which has been picked by the man behind the curtain, basically, to keep the world constantly— keep the superpowers constantly at each other's throats so that this little financial and imperial elite sitting on top somehow still maintains all of the control? And that's how China's relations with the United States are constantly being presented, that this is going to be an existential enemy forever and ever and ever.

[20:05] Marty Bent: No.

[20:06] Susan Kokinda: Very few people saw that. I happened to work for one of the people who did, but very few people saw that. So maybe President Trump is looking at some kind of future like that down the road in terms of his relations with China. And in the meantime, yeah, we probably shouldn't blow up the world over Taiwan.

[20:21] Marty Bent: Yeah, and I think turning this to, to Iran now, because I think that's where— and I've been doing a Monday show, you know, with my partner John Arnold, and we've been covering the Iran situation closely, and it seems like Iran being used as this leverage point, obviously in the Middle East, but also with China to get them to negotiating table, particularly around oil, diesel as well. And so how does Iran play to this? How do you see Iran playing out in the next few months? From what I can see, it looks like oil is making its way through the strait. Yes, prices are still Elevated, but that probably due to the refinery issue, which you described earlier.

[21:32] Susan Kokinda: Well, I think there's— I mean, I think there's 2 things, you know, and Scott Bessant has been very clear on this. This has been a very deliberate strategy. Um, you know, would—

[21:42] Marty Bent: would—

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[29:16] Susan Kokinda: Oh, I think they're very desperate. Because look, think of it. Think of the old adage, you know, empires rise and fall. And they do. And there's a reason for that. Because imperial economic policies are based on looting and stealing, not building, not growing. There's never a future for an imperial system if it doesn't have some new place to go loot, because it just eats its own population. And that's what you've seen in Europe. That's what you're seeing in Canada. Where they foolishly continue, or criminally continue, to impose insane ideologies like free trade, where China's taking advantage of it and it's wiping out the European auto industry.

[32:34] Marty Bent: What do you think the likelihood— I mean, they're desperate, few arrows in the quiver, so I, I'm assuming war with Russia is like the nuclear option. Okay, let's send them in. What do you think the likelihood of that is at this point?

[32:47] Susan Kokinda: Well, it's, you know, you have to be quite mad to, you know, to push it that far, but desperate people are mad. I mean, I'm not ruling it out. Um, you know, I'm not one of, you know, people running around saying we're going to be at war with Russia tomorrow, because part of it is Putin— Putin also understands the dynamic. He understands it's coming from Europe. He understands what Trump is doing. He gets along with Trump when it comes to standing up to the globalists. Putin and Trump are pretty much on the same side. So I think the major mitigating factor in all, all of this is 2 things.

[33:55] Marty Bent: Yeah. And bringing this back domestically, how, how much credence can we put in polling data that's coming out leading up to midterms? I think there's been a lot of discussion I've been following on X. It looks like, uh, I forget if it's the House or the Senate, uh, one of the— looks like one of them will say with the Republicans and one is going to go towards the Democrats, but I've learned to not really trust the polls. But then you read the tea leaves of public sentiment on X, and it seems like Gen Z is a bit disenfranchised with everything that's going on and everything that has gone on since Trump started his second term.

[35:02] Susan Kokinda: No. I mean, have the polls ever been accurate? Have the polls ever been accurate related to Donald Trump? No. No, I mean, I dismiss the polls. Completely. Now, that being said, do I— am I going to make a prediction myself? No. But what I will say is that if the administration continues what it has kicked off since the Dallas midterm convention, where it is going to be out there every single day painting a picture for people of what this nation is becoming, you know, and again, this is the challenge. The enemy is hoping that people will vote from the standpoint of what I feel today.

[41:08] Marty Bent: Yeah, I mean, that's been, that's been another knock I've seen on X in recent weeks is that comparing Democrats and Republicans around election season, the Democrats are much better at mobilizing the vote compared to Republicans. And do you think Republicans are learning that lesson? I think many people are. I think so. Like, Cernovich has been very vocal that they haven't, but I think that, uh, that'll be—

[41:37] Susan Kokinda: No, I think there's— yeah, I think there's a lot of, you know, doom-telling in terms of this. Uh, you know, I, uh, people— a lot of people are mobilized. Obviously Elon Musk is out there. Um, Trump is out there with his super PAC. Uh, there are ground games going— I mean, again, I'm here in Michigan. You know, there's layers of ground games going on. The Senate candidate Mike Rogers has got a complete statewide operation going on, which is going to pull all sorts of other people along with him. The party's got operations going on. Musk has got operations going on. Turning Point's got operations going on.

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[45:50] Susan Kokinda: Well, let me, let me just say this, and I don't want to take any pressure off of anybody. I think Donald Trump is going to be able to continue to rule and govern and do amazing things no matter what the outcome of the midterms. Now, obviously, if the Democrats take both the House and the Senate, there's going to be a lot more roadblocks and nothing will happen in the Congress except for bad stuff. president is just going to continue to govern through executive orders, foreign, you know, foreign relations, and so on. So, you know, I just want people to sort of have that in mind because you fight the wars and sometimes the battles don't turn out, you know, the way that you think they will.

[49:27] Marty Bent: No, I think the DSA is filled with individuals who have bloodlust for, um, for certain, certain archetypes of, of Americans and successful people. And it is incredibly dangerous. I think Canada's MAiD system is, uh, a walk in the park compared to what some people would like to happen here. Uh, I mean, you hear—

[49:49] Susan Kokinda: Would like to have— and in Canada, 1 out of 10 deaths are assisted— 1 out of 20 deaths are assisted suicide. And some of those are people who are not terminally ill. Some of those are people who just said, I'm lonely, I want to die. And the government says, okay, let's— here, let's hurry that process up. They, they— their parliament actually did a cost-benefit study of how much money they've saved because people killed themselves. So yeah.

[50:15] Marty Bent: It's very disgusting. Um, bringing this back to immigration, but moving Back to Europe. And again, I think that's a broader City of London question I have is, do the people in Europe and France and the UK right now specifically, are they subjected to this City of London rule too? And are they beginning to wake up? Again, going back to the French protest, I'm sure you've seen the video of the police escorts of the illegal immigrants who landed on the coast of the UK.

[50:48] Susan Kokinda: Right.

[50:49] Marty Bent: Over the weekend, and who knows if I have a certain algorithm that's just feeding me this and I have confirmation bias, but it seems like people in Europe are beginning to wake up to the ills of this sort of open borders economic policy and beginning to—

[51:06] Susan Kokinda: Oh yeah. I mean, look at the votes in Germany for the AfD. It's now the leading party. in a couple of the areas of Germany. Marine Le Pen's party is— the elections are next year, but they're on a trajectory to win despite the fact that they threw her in jail and tried to silence her and so on. No, I think there's tremendous opposition to this, and I think there's opposition to it in Britain or in England. The challenge in most of these cases, and I think this is going to get us back to Donald Trump, is It's not enough to just be against the bad stuff.

[54:07] Marty Bent: Yeah. I mean, speaking of the Treasury and appointees, bringing in Judy Shelton was a bit of a shock last week. It's a shock. As a sound money advocate, I was happy to see that because Judy is a Very staunch advocate of a gold standard.

[54:26] Susan Kokinda: And somebody who actually understands how the Bretton Woods system worked and what a disaster it was that it was dismantled. So, you know, the obvious question, it's not just sound money, it's somebody who— are they actually thinking of how do we recalibrate back to a saner international financial system? Is that something that could be on the agenda for the last 2 years of the president's term? That appointment certainly is intriguing from that standpoint.

[55:01] Marty Bent: It is. I mean, it's Scott Bessen, famously at the Manhattan Institute, what was it, July of '24, saying he wants to be part of the global economic reordering and help the president navigate this. That's right. And then you have, I mean, in my world, in the world of Bitcoin and Via extension, broader crypto and stablecoins specifically. It looks like despite the Clarity Act not passing, the executive has given all the agencies, the SEC, the CFTC, the OCC, the go-ahead to rulemake around there. And I think it's pretty clear if you're paying attention that stablecoins have a role here on the monetary side of things as well.

[55:38] Susan Kokinda: Yeah. I mean, what's clear is that this administration, this gets back to the AISI question, I mean, this administration is staffed with people who understand you're in a new world. A lot of people say, well, let's just go back to what Abraham Lincoln did or go back to what Alexander Hamilton did. Well, in principle, yes, in terms of national banking, in terms of the fact that you want to have sovereignty over how your credit and your currency is issued and deployed. But how does that work in the 21st century? That's a very, very different question. So you can't just cookie-cutter the national bank in the form that Hamilton had it or the national banking system in the form that Lincoln had it and just plunk, we're gonna do that again in the 21st century.

[56:53] Marty Bent: So— Awesome. Well, I know you're an extremely busy woman right now, so I want to be respectful of your time. Um, any final Parting notes, thoughts, words of wisdom before we wrap up here?

[57:08] Susan Kokinda: Well, I, I often go back to a quote that Scott Bessant said where he said the Democratic Party strategy is to compensate the loser. Um, you know, first they make you a loser and then they compensate you, you know, by throwing you welfare checks or drugs or, you know, gambling apps or whatever to keep you pacified. The— as we go into the midterms, I think it's extremely important for Americans to ask themselves the question, am I going to make my decision on these midterm elections from the standpoint of being a perpetual loser and just hoping that somebody will lessen the pain for me in the short term?

[59:19] Marty Bent: Yeah, it reminds me, uh, of a tweet I saw over the weekend, that, uh, quote from Augustine, and it plays into the never doom and it's all a mindset thing, but it's bad times, hard times. This is what people keep saying. Let us live well and times shall be good. We are the times. It's, uh, it's, uh, that's been sitting with me for the last few days because, uh, you get consumed by all the doom and The algorithm. But at the end of the day, it's a decision to be productive, to go do things. That's right. And you can change your mentality and change the world.

[59:53] Marty Bent: That's right. Susan, really appreciate you. I'm sure we'll check in at some point. Hopefully we don't have to wait 10 months, but thank you.

[1:00:03] Susan Kokinda: I was going to say, I was shocked that it's 10 months. We don't have to wait that long.

[1:00:07] Marty Bent: Well, thank you for coming on. Thank you for the work that you do. I deeply enjoy it. It's incredible analysis. You bet. Unique analysis that you won't get in the mainstream. So, if you're listening, make sure you go check out Promethean Action. Check out the YouTube channel as well. It's a different name, right? It's Promethean.

[1:00:25] Susan Kokinda: Promethean Updates. Updates. Yeah, the channel is Promethean Updates.

[1:00:31] Marty Bent: Awesome. Well, until next time, Susan, thank you and peace and blessings.

[1:00:36] Susan Kokinda: You bet, Marty.

[1:00:37] Marty Bent: Okay. Thank you for listening to this episode of TFTC. If you've made it this far, I imagine you got some value out of the episode. If so, please share it far and wide with your friends and family. We're looking to get the word out there. Also, wherever you're listening, whether that's YouTube, Apple, Spotify, make sure you like and subscribe to the show. And if you can leave a rating on the podcasting platforms, that goes a long way. Last but not least, if you want to get these episodes A day early and ad-free. Make sure you download the Fountain podcasting app. You can go to fountain.fm to find that.

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