Trump’s Shock-and-Awe Crackdown Sows Fear Among Migrants

The Federal Reserve holds interest rates steady as it enters a new wait and see phase. Plus, RFK Jr. faces off with Congress on the first day of his confirmation hearing. And as President Trump ramps up his efforts to crack down on immigration, the shock and awe around them might be just as effective. They are really trying to amplify each of those efforts and make it look huge so that they can satisfy their voters and their base that they're meeting the expectations of this mass deportation effort they promised.

It's Wednesday, January 29th. I'm Alex Osala for The Wall Street Journal. This is the PM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories that move the world today.

Today, as expected, the Federal Reserve announced that it was holding rates steady. It was a Fed's first decision since Trump was sworn in as president. In a press conference, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said the Fed felt it could adopt a new wait and see approach as it tries to determine whether and how much more to lower rates from a recent two-decade high. With our policy stance significantly less restrictive than it had been and the economy remaining strong, we do not need to be in a hurry to adjust our policy stance.

Spencer Jacob, global editor of Heard on the Street, joins now to talk about the Fed's decision. Spencer, let's go a bit beyond that top line decision to hold rates steady. Were there any indications about how the Fed was thinking about Trump's policies? There definitely were. And so you're talking about a meeting that was seen as probably the least interesting, least exciting Fed meeting in quite a while. And it did turn out to be more interesting because they removed some language about the unemployment rate. They removed some language about inflation. And so you did have

Not a sharp, but you had an immediate market reaction. And the sense that it left the market with is that there's some trepidation over the inflationary impacts of Trump policies and just in general the stubbornness of inflation.

Of course, the question that comes after every single Fed meeting is whether there's any indication about what is to come in the future. I know that a lot of people were expecting the Fed to lower rates this year. What came out today changed that thinking at all? It's slightly tempered that thinking. If you look at market expectations, there's a futures market.

where people make bets on this. And I wouldn't bet my life on this futures market getting things right. But the latest there is that there's probably a 77% chance that nothing is done at the next Fed meeting, which is seven weeks from today. Of course, by mid-March, we're going to know a lot more about the impacts of Trump policy. And we're going to have some more economic data points. That was global editor of Heard on the Street Spencer Jacob. Thanks, Spencer. Thank you.

US stock indexes closed lower today after the Fed's decision. The Dow was down about 0.3%, and the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq both fell roughly half a percent.

They're calling it Super Wednesday. Not only did the Fed announce its decision on interest rates, but several big companies reported earnings. Here's a quick roundup of some of the most notable ones. Tesla's fourth quarter profit rose 3% due to growth in its energy and service businesses. That's helped it regain some momentum in the final months of what has been a rollercoaster year for the world's most valuable automaker.

Meta posted record revenue in the fourth quarter, aided by artificial intelligence improvements to its ad business. The Facebook and Instagram parent reported a 21% increase in sales, which was ahead of analyst expectations, an estimated first quarter revenue growth of 8% to 15%. And Microsoft reported that its overall revenue went up 12% to nearly $70 billion, and its net income was up 10% to about $24 billion. Both figures were ahead of analyst expectations.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Trump's pick for health secretary, stood in front of Congress today. It was the first of two days of his confirmation hearing, and members of the Senate Finance Committee asked him about his personal opinions that could affect how he would run the sprawling Department of Health and Human Services. I'm joined now by our reporter Laura Cusisto.

Laura, how has RFK Jr. done so far? He's done more or less as expected. He, on controversial shows like abortion, really kind of punted to the president. Said, I'm not going to take a stance on this. I'm going to follow the president's lead. On vaccines, you saw him really kind of trying to soften

His stance on that issue to reassure Democrats and other people who might be concerned that he wasn't going to be anti-vaccine. You definitely saw some stumbles. He struggled on some more technical questions about things like Medicare and Medicaid. But broadly, I don't think we saw any kind of big blow up that's going to really capture the popular imagination or anything like that. RFK Jr. responded to criticism he had received after raising questions about the efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccine. I believe that

of my that vaccines play a critical role in healthcare. All of my kids are vaccinated. I've written many books on vaccines. My first book in 2014, the first line of it is I am not any vaccine. And the last line is I am not any vaccine.

Is this stance on COVID surprising? Well, that it is something that has really helped him a little bit with Republicans who are somewhat skeptical of the US government's approach to COVID, who felt like it was an example of overreach. And of course, Democrats are going to really pin him down, though, on this question of pandemic preparedness, that this isn't likely to be the last pandemic we experience. And so it's going to be a little bit of from where do you sit and how do you kind of see what happened with COVID?

So, RFK Jr. has another day of hearings tomorrow. How are things looking for him at this stage? The hearing broke very much along party lines, perhaps more than we expected, certainly more than he had hoped, given that he's a little bit of an unorthodox candidate. That was Journal reporter Laura Cosisto. Thank you, Laura. Thank you so much.

Meta platforms has agreed to pay roughly $25 million to settle a 2021 lawsuit that President Trump brought against the company and its CEO after the social media platform suspended his accounts following the attacks on the US Capitol that year. That's according to people familiar with the agreement. Meta declined to comment.

The Trump administration rescinded its order to freeze federal aid funding. The move comes a day after a federal judge temporarily blocked the directive that had sowed widespread confusion. The move marked a rare and sudden about face for Trump.

President Trump said today he plans to order the Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security to construct a facility for holding as many as 30,000 migrants at Guantanamo Bay. Pentagon officials said they were unaware of the plan. Coming up, how immigrants are reacting to Trump's crackdown. That's after the break.

President Trump's immigration directives are clearing the path for officials to step up deportations. His administration has launched raids and marshaled federal powers across the government to make immigration his top priority. In Trump's first week, agency data showed that immigration and customs enforcement arrested nearly 5,000 migrants, more than double the average number of weekly arrests made during former President Joe Biden's last year in office.

But Trump's PR campaign might be just as effective. It's unsettling immigrant communities across the country. I'm joined now by Michelle Hackman, who covers immigration policy for the Wall Street Journal. Michelle, what exactly is the strategy here as far as the PR campaign is concerned? As far as we can tell, ICE is continuing to operate how it has in the past.

ICE develops these what they call target lists of people with criminal backgrounds that they're prioritizing for arrest and deportation. They then strategize about how to go and hit each of those targets. That has continued. The big thing that we've seen is, especially in the last three days, they've been putting agents on overtime, making them work weekends and hitting those targets faster.

But the real big difference we're seeing is that they are really trying to amplify each of those efforts and make it look huge so that they can satisfy their voters and their base, that they're meeting the expectations of this mass deportation effort they promised. How are immigrants reacting to this? People are really scared. People have really already changed their behavior. We're hearing all sorts of reports that

in Latino neighborhoods, streets are kind of empty. We've heard reports that public transportation is emptier than usual. The people are scared to get on the subway or the bus. People are scared to go to work or go to a supermarket. We spoke to someone in the story who's a construction worker who said, I've been avoiding my normal supermarket. I actually go to supermarkets like really far from where I live in white neighborhoods because I feel like it's less likely I'd get picked up there.

Just turning back to Trump for a moment, given that immigration is his top priority, why is he seeming to come out at kind of piecemeal? Why isn't he taking these sort of big sweeping steps against immigrants?

It's an interesting question. During the campaign, he said that he wanted to go after 15 or 20 million people. And after he won, we saw this really interesting narrowing where they were talking about, we're really going to go for the worst of the worst firsts. We're going for criminals. And that happened. We've reported in the past because they've realized like what they were promising was logistically impossible. And so they needed to sell something that still sounded exciting to people.

was a little bit more logistically possible. And since then, I think we've seen yet another shift where they've actually gone and set basically these quotas that ICE needs to arrest roughly 1,000 to 1,500 people a day. And the fastest way to do that is to actually go after non-criminals because they're easier to find and arrest. That was WSJ reporter Michelle Hackman. Thanks, Michelle. Thank you.

In other news, former New Jersey Democratic Senator Bob Menendez was sentenced to 11 years in prison. Last summer, a federal jury found Menendez guilty of bribery, fraud, and illegal foreign agent offenses. His lawyers have said he will appeal the conviction.

And, disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein will face a new trial on sexual assault charges in New York starting April 15th. Weinstein was convicted in 2020 by a Manhattan jury of third-degree rape for a 2013 incident in which he had sex with aspiring actress Jessica Mann against her will. New York's top appeals court overturned the 2020 conviction in April last year citing significant errors from the judge.

And that's what's news for this Wednesday afternoon. Today's show is produced by Pierre Bienname and Anthony Bancie with supervising producer Michael Cosmetis. I'm Alex Osala for The Wall Street Journal. We'll be back with a new show tomorrow morning. Thanks for listening.