The Dictatorship
Trump might give away access to your 401(k) retirement funds
The private equity industry wants to get into your 401(k). The industry is lobbying the Trump administration to issue an executive order that would open the way for retirement plans to add private equity investments. The effort brings to mind Groucho Marx’s famous observation“I don’t want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member.” Why would this supposedly elite investment class want the Trump administration to make it easier for small-time savers to invest in their offerings?
The answer, as you might suspect, is nothing good.
Before I proceed further, some explanations are in order. Private equity consists of companies and other investments controlled by private firms, which are almost always acquired with significant amounts of debt — hence the term “leveraged buyout.” The stated idea is to buy a company, overhaul its underlying finances, and then sell it again within a few years at a profit.
The private equity industry boomed following the 2008 financial crisis, when consistently low interest rates facilitated mergers and acquisitions. While the industry blamed then-Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan and the Biden administration’s tougher antitrust enforcement for the end of the M&A boom, the real culprit was the return of high interest rates and private equity shops overvaluing their holdings. Unable to sell many of their holdings at the price they would like, and short of traditional institutional investors in their funds, where can private equity turn? I’m afraid that this is where you enter the picture.
The industry has every reason to expect help from this White House. Republicans in Congress have already placed a provision in Trump’s big, beautiful budget bill that would increase the tax break for interest payments on the leveraged buyouts that private equity loves. And toward the end of Trump’s first term, his administration loosened regulations surrounding 401(k) accounts, agreeing with industry lobbyists that the arena met the standard of a “prudent” investment for retirement savers.
To be clear, in the view of many, it is not. The Biden administration, for instance, backtracked on much of the previous Trump-era guidance. And employers, who are considered fiduciaries for worker retirement accounts and can find themselves in court battling their former employees if things don’t work out, didn’t exactly race in to offer up private equity offerings in 401(k) accounts.
Champions of private equity claim that with promising startups and other companies less likely to go public than in the past, private equity could give mom-and-pop savers access to greater diversity in their portfolios as well as the possibility of higher returns.
The reality is different. The industry is famously opaque, and its high fees cannibalize much of the gains. “PE funds may look good on paper since they place a high value on their unsold companies, but this is not money that investors can take to the bank,” says Eileen Appelbaum, the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. “Since mid-2022, the companies in private equity portfolios have been overvalued, and PE funds have been unable to sell them at the price they are demanding.”
The result is a poor investment — except for the fat cats collecting management fees on it, that is. A recent analysis found that the S&P 500 returned better results than private equity over a one-, three-, five-, and 10-year period. Multiple other studies have yielded similar results.
Compounding this: The private equity model can be horrible for consumers and employees of the companies acquired and owned in this fashion. That’s because the debt to acquire the company isn’t the responsibility of the private equity firms, their partners or principals. It is, instead, a dead weight on the books of the company unfortunate enough to be purchased in this way, often leading to service and staff cutbacks, price increases and selling off companies piecemeal.
Private equity-controlled companies are more likely to declare bankruptcy than those with different ownership structures, and those filings are hovering at record rates. Of the 10 largest corporate bankruptcies in the first quarter of 2025, seven companies were owned by private equity. Think Forever 21. Think Joann, the fabrics and crafts chain. Think Prospect Medical Holdings, which owns more than dozen hospitals. In fact, health care companies controlled by private equity charge higher prices, yet their patients have higher rates of accidents, complications and deaths.
In other words, private equity all too often acts as an economic scavenger and parasite. The efficiencies of scale the industry claims it can find can literally be deadly. And for what? To make some fabulously wealthy members of the investment class even wealthier?
Nonetheless, now with Trump back in the White House, the financial services industry is racing in to make private equity in your retirement accounts a reality. Earlier this week, BlackRock announced it was debuting a target date fund that would include stocks, bonds and private equity and credit investments. This follows similar moves by State Street and retirement plan provider Empower.
Again, none of this is appropriate for savings that are supposed to let Americans enjoy a stable retirement. This won’t end well — for you, that is. Private equity is a club, and you don’t want it to accept you as a member.
Helaine Olen is a managing editor at the American Economic Liberties Project. She is the author of “Pound Foolish: Exposing the Dark Side of the Personal Finance Industry” and a co-author of “The Index Card: Why Personal Finance Doesn’t Have to Be Complicated.” She has been a columnist for The Washington Post and Slate, and her work has also appeared in numerous other publications, including The New York Times and The Atlantic.
The Dictatorship
Monday’s Campaign Round-Up, 6.22.26: Why Trump backed both Republicans in a key S.C. race
Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* In South Carolina’s gubernatorial raceDonald Trump endorsed Lt. Gov. Pam Evette last month. Last week, however, ahead of this week’s primary runoff election in the race, the president published an online item telling voters that “you can’t go wrong” with either Evette or state Attorney General Alan Wilson.
If this sounds at all familiar, it’s because Trump has done this before. Around this time two years ago, for example, he endorsed both Republicans running in a congressional primary in Arizona. And two years before that, he endorsed two leading contenders in a Senate primary in Missouri.
Only the president can say for sure why he ended up endorsing Evette and Wilson in the South Carolina race, though it’s worth emphasizing for context that GOP primary voters have already ignored his direction into two gubernatorial primaries this month, and it stands to reason that he hoped to avoid a third.
* We’re one day away from a variety of notable racesincluding but not limited to South Carolina’s gubernatorial race. There are also some congressional primaries in a handful of statesincluding Maryland, New York and Utah.
* In took a while, but the ballots have been tallied under Maine’s ranked-choice systemand we now know that Democrat Hannah Pingree, the former state House speaker, will face off against Republican Bobby Charles, who worked at the State Department during the Bush-Cheney era.
* As for Maine’s closely watched congressional racestate Auditor Matt Dunlap won the Democratic nomination in the battleground 2nd District, defeating state Sen. Joe Baldacci, who enjoyed the backing of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Dunlap will run in the fall against a familiar figure: former Republican Gov. Paul LePage, who had moved to Florida a few years ago, but who returned to run for Congress.
* In California’s congressional special electiontwo Democratic candidates — state Sen. Aisha Wahab and Melissa Hernandez, a Bay Area Rapid Transit director — have advanced to an Aug. 18 special general election. The winner will fill the vacancy left by disgraced former Rep. Eric Swalwell, who resigned in April.
* In a new commercial shared first with MS NOWDemocrat James Talarico has launched his campaign’s first multimillion-dollar ad buy in Texas’ gubernatorial race. In the 30-second spot, Talarico focuses on affordability and the cost of living. The state lawmaker will face scandal-plagued state Attorney General Ken Paxton in the fall.
* And in New Jersey, Republican Rep. Tom Kean Jr.who has been missing from Capitol Hill since early March, will reportedly return to work on June 30according to a statement from his spokesperson. Neither Kean nor his office have offered any public information about why he has been away.
Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
The Dictatorship
Trump tries dual endorsement in South Carolina as his pick for governor flounders in polls
After President Donald Trump’s pick for governor in Iowa lost in the Republican primary earlier this month, the president argued that he “would have endorsed the other person” if he had “the proper information.”
Trump is taking no chances in the South Carolina gubernatorial primary. Over the weekend he rescinded his exclusive endorsement of Pamela Evette, the lieutenant governor, announcing instead that he would support both Evette and her runoff opponent, Alan Wilson, the state’s attorney general.
The move put Evette’s political future in jeopardy: Even before Trump’s dual endorsement, she trailed in limited public polling and was seen by political observers in South Carolina as a weak candidate with little to show besides the president’s coveted endorsement.
“Her chief distinction from Alan Wilson was that Trump endorsed her,” said Dr. Dubose Kapeluck, a professor of political science at the Citadel Military College of South Carolina.
Trump’s dual endorsement “was a kiss of death,” he told MS NOW.
Evette, who moved to South Carolina from Ohio to found a successful payroll and HR company in 2000, has been lieutenant governor since 2019, serving under Gov. Henry McMaster, who is term-limited.
In office, she has pursued meaningful but little-celebrated policies, like a key tort reform bill, according to Gil Gatch, a Republican member of the South Carolina state House and an Evette supporter.
But voters could be forgiven for knowing little about Evette besides the fact that Trump endorsed her, which he did just days before the June 9 primary. Visitors to her campaign website are greeted with a full-screen message labeling Evette as “Trump-endorsed.” The first line in her X bio states the same. Pro-Evette television ads are quick to tout the endorsement.
An accomplishment like tort reform, while noted on Evette’s website, “maybe could have been something that was highlighted more heavily,” Gatch told MS NOW.
The political makeup of South Carolina nearly guarantees the next governor will be whoever emerges on Tuesday between Evette and Wilson. They survived a crowded primary field on June 9, and nearly every challenger who fell short of the runoff publicly endorsed the attorney general.
“She’s just not a good candidate,” Josh Kimbrell, a state senator who failed to make the runoff and has since said he’d back Wilson, said of Evette.
“She kind of assumed this was a coronation, and that was never going to go over that well,” he added.
Even some pro-Trump voters were confused by the president’s initial endorsement of Evette, whom he called “a good friend, fighter, and WINNER” in a social media post in May.
“I have no clue why Trump would endorse Pamela Evette,” Leland Lemmons, a 30-year-old Trump supporter told MS NOW as he exited a polling site in the Greenville suburb of Easley on June 9.
“She’s served, you know, a decent time. I just haven’t seen much fruition of what she’s done in office,” he added.
In a post on Truth Social Friday announcing his dual endorsement, Trump wrote, “I can’t hurt one of them by only Endorsing the other, so, therefore, I am going to Endorse, for Governor of South Carolina, both Pam Evette and Alan Wilson!”
In a subsequent statement on X, Evette said, “I was proud to come in first as [Trump’s] endorsed candidate for Governor on June 9th. Looking forward to doing it again on June 23rd.”
After The Washington Post foreshadowed the dual endorsement last Tuesday, allies of Evette were quick to denounce the possibility.
“I would guess that’s fake news,” Suzanne Pucci, a member of Evette’s finance committee, told MS NOW of the chance Trump would also endorse Wilson. “She’s probably not real worried about it.”
Another close ally and supporter told MS NOW at the time the report was “a total, fabricated lie.”
“[Trump] is invested in Pamela Evette because she invested in him. He’s a loyal guy. That kind of stuff is important to him,” added the supporter, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
“With or without Trump, I think she is going to win,” they said.
On Thursday, a senior campaign aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity, brushed off the idea of a dual endorsement, telling MS NOW in a statement, “Pamela Evette has earned the complete and total endorsement of President Trump. She is the only Trump-endorsed candidate in this race and we look forward to delivering a big win for the president on Tuesday.”
Roughly 24 hours later, Trump retracted the exclusive endorsement.
Will McDuffie is a reporter for MS NOW.
As last week’s G7 summit in France got underway, a reporter asked Donald Trump whether his purported deal with Iran was final. “No, it’s not final,” the president replied. Later that day — during a visit to Versaillesof all places — he signed the framework anyway.
But moments after signing his name to the memorandum of understanding, Trump offered an unsubtle hint about what he was thinking at the time. Amid applause from those around him, the American president pointed down and then up while saying“Oil down, stocks up.”
In other words, Trump’s focus had nothing to do with natural security and everything to do with the economy. What’s more, the four-word phrase was part of a larger and underappreciated pattern. The Washington Post reported:
In the more than 100 days since President Donald Trump launched a war with Iran, he has offered a shifting list of reasons for why he started the conflict. But in explaining his push for peace, he named a priority much closer to home: protecting the stock market.
“I didn’t want to see economic catastrophe,” Trump told reporters gathered in the Alpine spa town of Évian-les-Bains, France, after the Group of Seven summit.
As the summit wrapped up, the Republican similarly said“I’ve studied presidents, some good, some bad, some great. Not too many are great and some really bad. … And the one president I did not want to be was the late, great Herbert Hoover. I didn’t want that and who knows what would have happened.”
He pushed the same point in an interview with Axios, which was released over the weekend.
“If I went further, the stock market would be much lower,” the president said. “Now think of this: I have one primary wish as president, in terms of people: I never want to be the late, great Herbert Hoover.”
The comments came days after Trump similarly argued“The alternative to this deal was a global recession. There are stupid people who want to see a global recession. They are just stupid people.”
Whether the president fully appreciates the implications of his own rhetoric, this string of comments doesn’t just shed light on his motivations for accepting a defeat, it also suggests he saw his failed policy in Iran as pushing the global economy toward a dangerous cliff.
In other words, based on Trump’s own comments, the war he started was poised to create an “economic catastrophe,” which he was desperate to avoid — and which led him to accept a framework that empowered Iran to get what it wanted in exchange for effectively no concessions at all.
Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
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