Speaker 1: Now from our nation's capital. This is Bloomberg's sound on
Speaker 1: Italian American people, and then we're gonna get control the flesh.
Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell, is a disgrace and I hope you're gonna
Speaker 1: do something about it. Ja, they hit the Jackpot to
Speaker 1: be able to be in the wealthiest sanctuary jurisdiction in
Speaker 1: the world. Bloomberg sound on politics, policy and perspective from
Speaker 1: DC's top name, samual trump said. No, I'm not inciting,
Speaker 1: this is just my opinion, but he has a way
Speaker 1: of saying things that we know insight. It's kind of
Speaker 1: like the United States of Nicaragua. I mean Bloomberg sound
Speaker 1: on with Joe Matthew on Bloomberg Radio. President Biden opens
Speaker 1: a busy week with hopes for a soft landing. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the fastest hour in politics. As the President returns
Speaker 1: to the nation's capital after attending the Queen's funeral and
Speaker 1: before tomorrow's trip to the U N will be joined
Speaker 1: in a moment by Pangia policy founder Terry Haines. On
Speaker 1: the president's rising approval ratings and the fiscal instability he's facing.
Speaker 1: The president has declared an end of the pandemic, but
Speaker 1: not everyone agrees. We'll talk with Dr Eric Topel, professor
Speaker 1: of Molecular Medicine at Scripts Research Institute, later this hour
Speaker 1: and we'll put all that and more to our signature panel.
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Politics Contributors Jeanie Chanzano and Rick Davis are with
Speaker 1: us for the hour. President Biden touchdown at Andrew's about
Speaker 1: a half hour ago. Quick trip to London for the
Speaker 1: Queen's funeral. Sound of the funeral procession following the service
Speaker 1: at Westminster Abbey. Dignitaries from around the world gathered to
Speaker 1: pay final respects. It was really something to see, and
Speaker 1: you saw it and heard it unfold, of course, live
Speaker 1: here on Bloomberg radio. Many of these same dignitaries will
Speaker 1: be back together in a matter of hours as the
Speaker 1: U N General Assembly takes place this week. President Biden
Speaker 1: quick to head home with the first lady. For that
Speaker 1: reason he will speak Wednesday, which, yes, of course, is
Speaker 1: fed day after telling sixty minutes last night's that we
Speaker 1: are getting our arms around inflation. I'm telling American people
Speaker 1: then we're going to get control the flesh it. We're
Speaker 1: in a position where for the last several months it
Speaker 1: hasn't spiked and in the meantime we've created all these
Speaker 1: jobs and prices have have gone up, but they've come down.
Speaker 1: For Energy, it hasn't spiked, he says, but of course
Speaker 1: it still needs to go down and buy a lot,
Speaker 1: and the Federal Reserve will likely remind every one of
Speaker 1: this in just two days. Joining us to talk about
Speaker 1: it Terry Haynes, founder of Pangea policy here in Washington.
Speaker 1: He just happens to be in London, as a matter
Speaker 1: of fact, and I can't imagine, Terry, that you had
Speaker 1: this funeral in mind when you first scheduled this trip.
Speaker 1: You're doing all right. Yeah, doing fine. Thank you very much.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us so late. No, no, of course
Speaker 1: it's it looks it's quite something. It's, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of Washingtonians have been in and around inaugurals.
Speaker 1: Imagine this on one level. Imagine this time is about
Speaker 1: five Uh. And of course the significance of it is, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, almost unprecedented. You've got change out of the
Speaker 1: head of state after seventy years. So it's very, very consequential.
Speaker 1: A lot of wit. So, Terry, the Biden Administration seems
Speaker 1: to have won the argument that we are not in
Speaker 1: any recession right now, despite the two quarters of negative growth.
Speaker 1: Can It win the argument that Joe Biden just made
Speaker 1: the sixty minutes that inflation is bad but the rest
Speaker 1: of the economy is good? No, I don't think they can.
Speaker 1: Joe A couple of things. It is, you know, the
Speaker 1: facts Auger against them, uh, number one. Number two, I
Speaker 1: think the experiences of the lived experience of people every
Speaker 1: day augurs against them. Uh, you know, who have not
Speaker 1: only experienced the inflation but they're being told that there's
Speaker 1: serious inflation that's not going to go down anytime soon. Thirdly,
Speaker 1: uh Biden seems to have a basic messaging prob uh
Speaker 1: on this. I thought this was the I thought this
Speaker 1: was the feds issue to solve a few months ago,
Speaker 1: and now he wants to take it back and say
Speaker 1: that we will um, which of course puts him more
Speaker 1: in the bulls eye rather than less. So you know,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm not. I don't mistake messaging for reality, but
Speaker 1: messaging shapes reality sometimes and UH, they're having a hard ton. Well,
Speaker 1: if you know, he likes to talk about gas prices
Speaker 1: and reminding that we, uh you know, they've been been
Speaker 1: releasing millions of barrels from the strategic reserve. So taking
Speaker 1: credit for that, um. But of course, you know, as
Speaker 1: we look at this winter approaching, oil prices may not
Speaker 1: stay where they are. We're celebrating mid eighties right now, Terry.
Speaker 1: What do you expect we're gonna WE'RE gonna be talking
Speaker 1: about when it gets cold outside, because that changes the
Speaker 1: whole picture for the CPI, for everything we're talking about. Sure, sure,
Speaker 1: and I well, I expected to go off for a
Speaker 1: variety of reasons, uh, one being uh, one being Ukraine
Speaker 1: and the continue new difficulties there. Another being, uh, what
Speaker 1: needs to happen in order to help Europe, and I
Speaker 1: think there's not enough attention paid to that in the
Speaker 1: United States and why it will be in our interests
Speaker 1: to do as much proactively for Europe as possible. So
Speaker 1: Net net is that, uh, they will probably have there'll
Speaker 1: probably be a situation where where the price of oil
Speaker 1: goes up yet again. Uh, the administration is going to
Speaker 1: need to do something about that. So I think I
Speaker 1: wouldn't over promise if I were them. You're writing, H Terry,
Speaker 1: about fiscal instability as another byproduct of these conditions of
Speaker 1: inflation of monetary policy combining rising fiscal instability. That is
Speaker 1: not music to the ears of the Biden Administration. What
Speaker 1: does it mean? You know, it's not gonna it's not
Speaker 1: gonna change a lot between now and November. But as
Speaker 1: we go into next year and this president thinks about
Speaker 1: running for re election, it's going to be a major story. Right. Oh,
Speaker 1: I think so. Two things about this. One is, you know,
Speaker 1: it'd be very facile of me to sit this week,
Speaker 1: and particularly sit in London this week, and say, you know,
Speaker 1: we're it's some kind of a hinge here, but a
Speaker 1: number of ways we are. But the you know, one
Speaker 1: hinge we're in right now is the divergence, for the
Speaker 1: first time in the generation, between monetary policy and fiscal policy.
Speaker 1: Monetary policy has enabled continued fiscal growth. It has enabled,
Speaker 1: among other things, uh, the huge splash outs we've seen
Speaker 1: over the past several years for covid related things and
Speaker 1: for the Biden Administration's priorities. Uh, that's all well and
Speaker 1: good as long as there's a communative monetary policy, but
Speaker 1: when it starts diverging as it as it will in
Speaker 1: the UK with the new trust government, that who wants
Speaker 1: to want to spend a lot, as it will with
Speaker 1: the Biden administration, as it probably will in Europe, what
Speaker 1: you're going to have is a situation where debt and
Speaker 1: deficits are going to rise and that's probably gonna scoop
Speaker 1: markets further. So, Um, you know, it's we're we're really
Speaker 1: looking at the first time, as I say, in a
Speaker 1: generation where UH policy, fiscal policy makers are gonna have
Speaker 1: to get out of the Rut they've been in and
Speaker 1: start thinking more creatively and frankly working across the aisland. Well,
Speaker 1: the president is feeling pretty hopeful, you know, when you
Speaker 1: listen to him talk. We've got this new NBC News
Speaker 1: pull out showing his approval rating rising to forty, which
Speaker 1: you wouldn't think we'd be cheering. You know, a water,
Speaker 1: an underwater number, but that's the highest and almost a year,
Speaker 1: the highest ince October. How does he push that over fifty?
Speaker 1: Is it possible? Um, technically yes, I think. In Reality No.
Speaker 1: I mean, you've got a so this is the high
Speaker 1: water mark? I think probably you've got forty of the
Speaker 1: country that's that's dead set against him and you've got
Speaker 1: another in the Middle Um that you know are are
Speaker 1: resisting being reached by a lot of the messaging we
Speaker 1: talked about before. So he's not gonna have any serious
Speaker 1: breakthrough any time since. Well, speaking of messaging, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: Taiwan came up in this sixty minutes interview and I
Speaker 1: wonder if there is actually a market uh angle to this,
Speaker 1: and I think your answer is gonna be yes. But
Speaker 1: listen to what the president said last night when he
Speaker 1: was asked directly by Scott Kelly at the United States
Speaker 1: would come militarily. This is men and women on the ground,
Speaker 1: airplanes in the air, whatever we're talking about, ships at
Speaker 1: sea here to help defend Taiwan in the case of
Speaker 1: a Chinese invasion. We agree with what we signed on
Speaker 1: do a long time ago and that there's one China
Speaker 1: policy and Taiwan makes their own judgments about their independence.
Speaker 1: We are not moving, we're not encouraging or being independent.
Speaker 1: We're not that that's their decision. But would US forces
Speaker 1: defend the island? Yes, if in fact there was an
Speaker 1: unprecedented an attack. So that kind of talk rattles China.
Speaker 1: We heard back from them very quickly, very stern reply
Speaker 1: from the Foreign Ministry, terryhanes. Does it start to rattle
Speaker 1: the markets. I think it will fairly soon. You know
Speaker 1: that there's been a divergence of two things, Joe. One
Speaker 1: is there's been a divergence of opinion between the president
Speaker 1: and his own uh State Department and military establishments for
Speaker 1: quite some time about this. Uh. Secondly, there's a divergence
Speaker 1: of opinion between the Biden Administration and Congress. Uh. Strategic
Speaker 1: Ambiguity doesn't mean, uh, you know, going into two different
Speaker 1: directions in the executive branch. Uh, it means there's some
Speaker 1: ambiguity in the policy uh and UH. And finally, there
Speaker 1: is you know, as Bloomberg's own reporting uh points out
Speaker 1: just this afternoon, there's some yeah, there's some serious question
Speaker 1: about whether, uh, the United States used a force in
Speaker 1: Taiwan and the Taiwan straight could actually accomplish the subjectives.
Speaker 1: So you know, you you pile all that up together
Speaker 1: and uh and combine that with the Chinese response, and
Speaker 1: there is what you've got is increased instability in the
Speaker 1: region rather than decreased instability in the region. China's got
Speaker 1: their own issues and inconsistencies, which I won't go into,
Speaker 1: but they do. So you've got two powers here that
Speaker 1: are that are not consistently messaging and uh, and that's bad.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that will affect them, mark. So I'm sure
Speaker 1: it's interesting. Now he's said it over four times and
Speaker 1: the White House has come out to clarify his remarks
Speaker 1: each time, but without he never seems to change his
Speaker 1: tune off that. So does he need to call the
Speaker 1: communications office? Um, I just think they need whatever it is,
Speaker 1: whatever our policy is, it needs to be consistently expressed,
Speaker 1: because that's the thing that's best for the United States
Speaker 1: and the United States military. That's the best thing that
Speaker 1: for the people of Taiwan. Getting back to our our
Speaker 1: conversation about the Fed, Terry Haynes, your expectation, I'm assuming,
Speaker 1: is seventy five basis points for Wednesday. Do you think
Speaker 1: they signal a pause after that? and I wonder if
Speaker 1: you're in the camp that's worried more than this president
Speaker 1: suggested in that comment to sixty minutes that in fact
Speaker 1: continued hiking is going to push this economy into a recession. Maybe,
Speaker 1: maybe there's no turning back from it already. Well, I
Speaker 1: think I think this show the United Conversation about this
Speaker 1: not long ago, and you said to me and what
Speaker 1: we have the US, two smart people agreed on was
Speaker 1: that it's sort of obvious to the both of us,
Speaker 1: and I still think it's obvious, frankly. The Fed wants
Speaker 1: to raise and they want to continue to raise and
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of the Fed boffins, the people
Speaker 1: that that focused monemaatically on fed policy, I think miss
Speaker 1: the obvious, which is, you know, by law the Fed
Speaker 1: is the Fed's job is to get inflation down and
Speaker 1: get to get it down into a two percent rate Um.
Speaker 1: I think they're I think what they're doing is they're
Speaker 1: doing their job. That Congress told them to do. So
Speaker 1: I think they're going to continue to do that. And
Speaker 1: if the result of that is a recession, by the
Speaker 1: public statements of Pal and brainerd and many others, uh,
Speaker 1: the Fed's willing to risk that. That's the cost of
Speaker 1: doing business. Terry Haynes, get home safely and thank you
Speaker 1: for joining us from this night in London, the founder
Speaker 1: of Pangia policy and of a regular voice here on
Speaker 1: Bloomberg radio. I'm Joe Matthew in Washington, where the sun
Speaker 1: is still up, but for long, and we're gonna assemble
Speaker 1: the panel next Rick Davis and Jeannie Chanzano with their
Speaker 1: take on everything we just discussed and more of what
Speaker 1: the president said to sixty minutes. IS HE gonna run again?
Speaker 1: Was that an answer? There's more ahead. I'm Joe Matthew.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg. You're listening to Bloomberg. You sound on
Speaker 1: with Joe Matthew on Bloomberg Radio and after we just
Speaker 1: talked to Terry Haynes. He's in the camp for seventy
Speaker 1: five basis points, which is, of course the expectation. talked
Speaker 1: a lot more with Terry about the president's sixty minutes
Speaker 1: interview and we've of course got the job ahead at
Speaker 1: the United Nations General Assembly this week. So let's assemble
Speaker 1: the panel, coming off the weekend, our signature panel, this here,
Speaker 1: Rick Davis and Jennie Chanzano, Bloomberg politics contributors and this
Speaker 1: idea of Taiwan again being clarified, if you will, by
Speaker 1: the White House. Rick Davis, what's your thought on this?
Speaker 1: More than four times now for Joe Biden to make
Speaker 1: it clear that the United States military is going to
Speaker 1: be there to defend Taiwan if China moves in. At
Speaker 1: what point does Beijing not deal with that line of
Speaker 1: fire if I could say that as as as it
Speaker 1: has been. Usually we get the statement back. When does
Speaker 1: this become a problem, though? Yeah, they, they, they put
Speaker 1: out a pretty vociferous protest. Uh, you know, shortly after
Speaker 1: his comments. And I think the key this time is
Speaker 1: that he actually confirmed that that we would use US
Speaker 1: forces in a defense of Taiwan. Now, you know, in
Speaker 1: the past it's always been one of these things where, yeah,
Speaker 1: sure we would, we would be willing to defend them,
Speaker 1: but but that could be coming in all kinds of
Speaker 1: different forms, right, weapons systems, like what we're doing in Ukraine.
Speaker 1: We don't have any boots on the ground there. But
Speaker 1: this was a distinctly specific question and he agreed that
Speaker 1: we would be willing to put us for is in Taiwan,
Speaker 1: in defensive Taiwan. And and that is distinctly different. And so,
Speaker 1: even though he's been sort of off the reservation on
Speaker 1: strategic ambiguity four times, this latest time is a real
Speaker 1: strategic shift. And if it, if this is what his
Speaker 1: view is, he should give a speech and lay out
Speaker 1: what he believes to be the doctrine change that he's doing,
Speaker 1: because what is getting a little bit dizzying is to
Speaker 1: have the White House back it up and say, Oh,
Speaker 1: no policy change here, except you can't take his words
Speaker 1: and think that that's not a policy change. He's trying
Speaker 1: to slice this somehow down the middle. I Guess Genie Right.
Speaker 1: He's saying that I will defend Taiwan, but we're not
Speaker 1: encouraging their independence and we're still being true to the
Speaker 1: one China policy. How do you have all of those
Speaker 1: at once? Well, you can't. And the reality is is
Speaker 1: this policy never made much sense from the beginning. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you just think about it, what does strategic ambiguity
Speaker 1: actually mean? It's an oxymoron to begin with, and for
Speaker 1: the United States to have a policy which says that
Speaker 1: China and Taiwan are one country. Um, yet the president
Speaker 1: who has said now five times that we'll go in
Speaker 1: into rick's point with our military defend Taiwan as an
Speaker 1: independent country. Well, you really can't have it both ways
Speaker 1: and I think the reality is, as Joe Biden is saying,
Speaker 1: sort of the quiet part out loud here, which is
Speaker 1: that the United States has long sort of wanted to
Speaker 1: have it both ways. We want to say this, we
Speaker 1: have this ambiguous policy, but it's in our strategic interest
Speaker 1: to have it. And when the president comes out and says, yeah,
Speaker 1: we'd go in and defend everything about Taiwan, you know
Speaker 1: this is in keeping with our commitment to what he
Speaker 1: says is the challenge of the twenty one century democracy.
Speaker 1: So he actually is saying what makes sense in terms
Speaker 1: of his beliefs, in the plee's, quite frankly, of most Americans.
Speaker 1: Yet you have the White House coming back and saying no, no, no,
Speaker 1: we we are not going to go in and do that.
Speaker 1: So you know, the policy doesn't make much stense. We
Speaker 1: do need clarity on it, but it's been the policy
Speaker 1: of the United States for decades now. You know, I'm wondering, Rick,
Speaker 1: if this idea of the of the meeting of the presidents,
Speaker 1: she and Biden is just off the table these comments,
Speaker 1: than then what we heard from presidents she last week,
Speaker 1: uh as, he met with Vladimir Putin in Uzbekistan. I
Speaker 1: mean this relationship is not warming. Yeah, I think that's
Speaker 1: a really important distinction, Joe, because we're talking about how
Speaker 1: Biden is reacting in a vacuum. He's reacting to a
Speaker 1: very muscular, very provocative China. Right part of the reason
Speaker 1: we're even talking about. This is because China is claiming
Speaker 1: large portions of the South China Sea, is our own
Speaker 1: territorial water, which is not according to international law. They're
Speaker 1: flying their jets into, you know, Taiwanese airspace, or at
Speaker 1: least what they believe to be Taiwanese airspace. This is
Speaker 1: this is coming on the heels of a lot of
Speaker 1: provocative behavior by China. So they're forcing this issue right.
Speaker 1: I mean in the past, I think the concept of
Speaker 1: China invading Taiwan was not something that that that that
Speaker 1: that anybody thought was imminent, and therefore strategic ambiguity, the
Speaker 1: idea that you leave opened the door to doing something
Speaker 1: but you don't actually specifically say what it is you're
Speaker 1: gonna do it, seemed like a good policy. So, I
Speaker 1: mean Biden may have something here in the sense that
Speaker 1: if he's going to be called Um, you know, to
Speaker 1: show his hand by China, might as well show his hand.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, there are many in the foreign
Speaker 1: policy community that believe China should understand the clear implications
Speaker 1: of a potential attack on Taiwan. He won't show his
Speaker 1: hand on the next four years either. Genie. This came up,
Speaker 1: of course, during the interview on sixty minutes. Are you
Speaker 1: going to run again? And pretty interesting. It's it's a
Speaker 1: different answer actually than we've been hearing. Look, if I
Speaker 1: were to say to you I'm running again, all of
Speaker 1: a sudden the whole range of things come into play,
Speaker 1: that I have requirements, I have to change and move
Speaker 1: and do in terms of election, in terms of election loss,
Speaker 1: and this much too early to make that kind of decision.
Speaker 1: I'm a great respect or of fate, and so what
Speaker 1: I'm doing is I'm doing my job. We're going to
Speaker 1: do that job and within the time frame that makes sense.
Speaker 1: After this next election cycle here going in the next
Speaker 1: year and making judgment of what to do. Hasn't he
Speaker 1: been saying he's going to run? Jeanie, he has, but
Speaker 1: this is smart politics. You know. He is right, by
Speaker 1: the way, on the campaign finance rules. If he announced,
Speaker 1: he would have to address that. That's why Donald Trump
Speaker 1: probably hasn't announced, amongst other reasons, because he loses control
Speaker 1: of the millions of dollars he's raised if he decided
Speaker 1: to run. So that is a reality and the other
Speaker 1: reality is political. You know, if if Joe Biden or
Speaker 1: Donald Trump was to say today that they were running.
Speaker 1: That would change entirely for their respective political parties what
Speaker 1: was happening in the mid term elections. So it wouldn't
Speaker 1: make political sense. He's smart to stay out of it
Speaker 1: and he'll make a decision, I think, in the New Year,
Speaker 1: after the mid term has decided. So is that the
Speaker 1: unanswerable question? Rick Well, I mean we've heard from other
Speaker 1: Democratic Congress people he wasn't going to run. So he's
Speaker 1: they're not doing him any favors by keep bringing it up.
Speaker 1: Genie's right, right. Nobody in their right mind would actually
Speaker 1: step ahead of a mid term election and put their
Speaker 1: name on the back. That's what he would do. He'd say, Oh,
Speaker 1: this election is gonna be all about my re election
Speaker 1: and there's gonna be a lot of Democratic candidates like,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, I thought it was about us this year.
Speaker 1: So it is something that I think he has to
Speaker 1: be cautious about. But again, uh Democrats are going to
Speaker 1: try and force his hand. Spending time with Rick Davis
Speaker 1: and Jeannie Chanzano on a Monday, the fastest hour in politics,
Speaker 1: this is sound on I'm Joe Matthew and Washington president
Speaker 1: also declared an end of the pandemic. A couple of
Speaker 1: months ago, that would have been the top story right.
Speaker 1: We're gonna talk about that. Coming up next, this is Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: President made quite a lot of news last night sixty
Speaker 1: minutes interview, as we've covered in the first half of
Speaker 1: this program but one line that really jumped out and
Speaker 1: grabbed me that we're have been on the front page
Speaker 1: of every newspaper in the world two years ago, maybe
Speaker 1: even as he was coming into office. The pandemic is over.
Speaker 1: We still have a problem with Covid we're still doing
Speaker 1: a lot of work on it. Uh, it's but the
Speaker 1: pandemic is over. That's a remarkable statement, and not everyone
Speaker 1: agrees with him, of course. Dave Chalk, she the former
Speaker 1: New York City Health Commissioner, talked to David Weston about
Speaker 1: it on balance of power earlier. David asked him if
Speaker 1: the president's right. Well, I wish it were true, David Um,
Speaker 1: but it's not. You know, we've got tens of thousands
Speaker 1: of Americans who have died just in the last few
Speaker 1: months related to Covid nineteen, tens of thousands of infections
Speaker 1: a day. Dr Eric Topel joins this executive vice president
Speaker 1: and professor of Molecular Medicine at Script Research Institute, Author
Speaker 1: of the Newsletter Ground Truth's doctor. It's great to have
Speaker 1: you back here. Uh. One, were you surprised to hear
Speaker 1: of the president of the United States say that so uh, candidly?
Speaker 1: And two, is he right? We're going to be with you, Joe. Yes,
Speaker 1: I was surprised, like you and many others, because unfortunately
Speaker 1: we're not at a point where we could declare the
Speaker 1: pandemic is over. The only way to do that is
Speaker 1: to be many months of very low cases, things that
Speaker 1: are under control, the virus contained, and we're nowhere near that.
Speaker 1: And you can't declare the pandemic is over until you
Speaker 1: look backwards and see that you're in this durable, stable situation.
Speaker 1: I guess you know. Another way that that I tend
Speaker 1: to think of this is imagine if there were any
Speaker 1: other reason why four hundred, five hundred people were dying
Speaker 1: a day, it would be the biggest story in the world.
Speaker 1: But we've actually grown used to this. Yeah, we've been
Speaker 1: made numb to it, unfortunately, and that's been going on, Joe. UH,
Speaker 1: four to five hundred deaths per day from covid nineteen,
Speaker 1: since April. For over six months, it's been a long
Speaker 1: plateau and there's no sign that that's letting up. So
Speaker 1: Dr I wonder, you know, are you expecting a surge
Speaker 1: in the cold weather? Is that not going to happen
Speaker 1: this time around? If, if the pandemic is at least
Speaker 1: less intense than it was, uh, say, last winter? I mean,
Speaker 1: what happens if we get a new O macron? What's
Speaker 1: going to happen to that statement? I'm assuming it doesn't
Speaker 1: age very well. Well, in the near term things are
Speaker 1: going to look fairly good because we're coming down. There's
Speaker 1: B a five variant wave, so there'll be lower levels
Speaker 1: of circulating virus. That will come down progressively over the
Speaker 1: weeks ahead. So there will be a law, we will
Speaker 1: get a reprieve. But in the next couple of months,
Speaker 1: like November or later, we will see another surge because
Speaker 1: a new variant, whether it's one we've already seen that
Speaker 1: has the most immune evasiveness of any variant yet in
Speaker 1: the pandemic, so called be a dot two, dot seven,
Speaker 1: five dot two. I wish it had a better name
Speaker 1: in that Joe, but that one looks really, really rough
Speaker 1: because it's going to challenge our vaccines and our infection immunity.
Speaker 1: But it could be something else, like you said, it
Speaker 1: could be a whole new family. More than likely it's
Speaker 1: going to be something we've seen already, which is at
Speaker 1: right in the country now, one percent level. But remember
Speaker 1: when that gets legs, it goes into exponential growth. That's
Speaker 1: why November, somewhere along the line December, we could be
Speaker 1: in for more trouble. Wow, no one's gonna have a
Speaker 1: mask on by them right. No one's testing the way
Speaker 1: they were, so that sneaks up on us. We haven't
Speaker 1: been funding covid no one's gonna be able to get
Speaker 1: tests and Joe Biden is going to get blamed, right, well, uh,
Speaker 1: it's certainly not going to be right. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: if we were, if we were going after this virus,
Speaker 1: getting ahead of the virus, you know, working hard to
Speaker 1: get nasal vaccines, getting better vaccines that last longer, instead
Speaker 1: of declaring that we could have an annual shot, where
Speaker 1: there's no evidence to support that. But we're not doing
Speaker 1: those things. So the best way is to, you know,
Speaker 1: really leverage the science, the great science that's ongoing, get
Speaker 1: us better tools to work with. So we don't have
Speaker 1: to rely on masks or the booster shots that last
Speaker 1: only four months. We have to do better than that. Well, look,
Speaker 1: although I'm curious, you point out that it's most likely
Speaker 1: going to be something we've already seen. Does that mean
Speaker 1: if you are fully vaccinated, if you're given up with
Speaker 1: your boosting and so forth, you're you're good? Well, it depends.
Speaker 1: You See, the variant that is most troubling right now
Speaker 1: is different enough than be a five the one that
Speaker 1: we've just been for or going through that it's going
Speaker 1: to challenge. Uh, the vaccines, probably it will not help.
Speaker 1: It will be a lot more infections. UH, there'll be
Speaker 1: a lot of spread. There'll be some protection, of course,
Speaker 1: from the vaccines and from prior infections in the combination,
Speaker 1: but it's just it's gonna Challenge things. There's gonna be
Speaker 1: more people getting sick, more long covid more suffering. Where
Speaker 1: is it right now, doctor, and is it around the country?
Speaker 1: But a very small percentage of infections. Or okay, so
Speaker 1: that that's how you describe it. It's at the one
Speaker 1: percent level. So, Joe, if you just look at it, if,
Speaker 1: let's say, it doubles every week right by the time.
Speaker 1: It doesn't really you don't see it until it gets
Speaker 1: to fifty or greater it becomes dominant. So we've got
Speaker 1: several weeks of, you know, relative quiescence. But if that
Speaker 1: one gets going, like it likely will, or others that
Speaker 1: are in our site, we're gonna we have some more trouble,
Speaker 1: we have some more bumps in the road ahead. Sounds
Speaker 1: like it's not time to declare our mission accomplished here.
Speaker 1: To me, hardly. At what point is it an endemic?
Speaker 1: When do we start calling it that? Well, you know,
Speaker 1: it depends on what definition you prefer. But the way
Speaker 1: I like to look at it is, you know, if
Speaker 1: you go back to June, we were down to less
Speaker 1: than twelve thousand cases a day. You know, right now
Speaker 1: we're at seventy and we're not, as you said, testing
Speaker 1: very much. It's a lot more than that, in the
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands. So we got down to, UH, two
Speaker 1: hundreds some deaths a day instead of close to five hundreds.
Speaker 1: That's what you call containment. We've been there. We can
Speaker 1: get there again, but we have to aggressively pursue it.
Speaker 1: And if you tell people the pandemics over, who's gonna
Speaker 1: go get a booster shot. Well, that's right. Seriously, especially
Speaker 1: when people are told now, guys, you don't even need
Speaker 1: a mask on the New York City subway. Good luck
Speaker 1: getting everyone to mask up again when the next search happens.
Speaker 1: That's that's the concern here to doctor. Yeah, no, if you,
Speaker 1: if you feed into the fantasy that the that this
Speaker 1: is over, you're not gonna get anybody to mitigate get boosters,
Speaker 1: or I mean any significant proportion. We have a big
Speaker 1: booster problem as it exists today in the United States.
Speaker 1: We are ranked seventy second as countries in the world
Speaker 1: for our booster rate, which is one in three Americans only.
Speaker 1: And so it's it's actually really a pathetic uptake of boosters.
Speaker 1: And then to declare the pandemics over. How are we
Speaker 1: going to get this booster rate up, because that's the
Speaker 1: best way to protect our population? Unbelievable. Doctor, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for putting things in perspective. That is a
Speaker 1: serious reality check from Dr Eric Topel. Oh boy, looking
Speaker 1: forward to Christmas this year. We're gonna reassemble the panel
Speaker 1: next rick and Jeannie with their take on the pandemic over.
Speaker 1: We'll see. This is Bloomberg you're listening to Bloomberg. You
Speaker 1: sound on with Joe Matthew on Bloomberg Radio. Thanks for
Speaker 1: being with us as we get a new week underway here.
Speaker 1: I'm Joe Matthew and Washington. This is Bloomberg. Sound on
Speaker 1: and we reassemble the panel. Jeanie Schanzano and Rick Davis
Speaker 1: or with us as we consider this idea of the
Speaker 1: pandemic suddenly being over again, the words of Joe Biden
Speaker 1: in sixty minutes. We still have a problem with covid.
Speaker 1: We're still doing a lot of work on it. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's but the pandemic is over. Do any I'm pretty
Speaker 1: depressed after hearing from Dr Eric Tulple. I think everyone
Speaker 1: agrees on that. I mean the idea of going through
Speaker 1: this again this winter and the numbers now compared to
Speaker 1: where they were six months a year ago. Why is
Speaker 1: the president saying that on national TV? This, to me,
Speaker 1: was one of the most stunning parts of this interview. Um,
Speaker 1: the president says the pandemic is over. In part he
Speaker 1: gave a reason, as I heard it, because people aren't
Speaker 1: wearing masks. But as you listen to the doctor, of
Speaker 1: course that is not the situation and you know, you
Speaker 1: move beyond this. Let's not forget the administration has asked
Speaker 1: Congress for twenty two point four billion dollars. That is
Speaker 1: that funding is necessary. And you couple that with the
Speaker 1: fact if the pandemic is over, what happens to his
Speaker 1: student loan right off? What happens to the issue of
Speaker 1: all these people on Medicaid that the states can't remove
Speaker 1: unless the emergency is called off, and food stamps for
Speaker 1: work requirements? All of these factors are, you know, tied
Speaker 1: to the idea that we are in a pandemic and
Speaker 1: there is an emergency. All of a sudden he announced
Speaker 1: that that that it's over. I thought maybe, like Taiwan,
Speaker 1: the White House would come back and push back against that,
Speaker 1: but they didn't as far as I know, and so
Speaker 1: it leaves a very precarious situation. That doesn't mean they
Speaker 1: can't still right, does the just should the White House
Speaker 1: clarify those remarks? Rick? You know, I think that maybe
Speaker 1: where they are. Um, at some point they you think
Speaker 1: they're gonna want to turn the page? Uh. You know,
Speaker 1: you mentioned mission impossible during the the Bush administration. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, at some point the president gets tired of
Speaker 1: fighting the old fight and says, okay, I'm turning the page. mission.
Speaker 1: Mission has been accomplished. There is I'm sorry, mission impossible.
Speaker 1: Mission has been accomplished and Um, there's no more pandemic
Speaker 1: like a wave of of of a wand. And Uh,
Speaker 1: where is he going to be, though, if we do
Speaker 1: have another surge next winter, people are told they can't
Speaker 1: get on a train or a plane without putting a
Speaker 1: mask on? I mean, you thought it was bad the
Speaker 1: first time around. Yeah, I don't think there's any going back.
Speaker 1: I think at that stage she's gonna sort of adopt
Speaker 1: the trump type policy, which is just blow through it everybody,
Speaker 1: I mean like do the best weekend, write it like
Speaker 1: a cowboy. Well, speaking of Donald Trump, uh, he held
Speaker 1: a rally over the weekend and I'm not going to
Speaker 1: pick through the whole I mean it was so long
Speaker 1: and he said so many things, but I was really
Speaker 1: compelled by the way this speech closed. It was quite
Speaker 1: remarkable actually. You you remember this video that came out
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks back that some people, including myself, asked,
Speaker 1: is this the launch of his presidential campaign? And it
Speaker 1: was essentially titled I believe a nation in decline and
Speaker 1: it included very sad sounding music that we've since learned
Speaker 1: as apparently some sort of has some sort of q
Speaker 1: and on connection. But just from an optics standpoint, from
Speaker 1: a performance stamp, want to think this is. This is
Speaker 1: happening at one of these wild west trump rallies where
Speaker 1: he really gets the crowd moving. Now He's speaking over
Speaker 1: canned music to close the speech, with essentially the same
Speaker 1: script he used in that video. This is how he
Speaker 1: walks into it. I'm gonna just take you through this quickly.
Speaker 1: We won't do the whole thing, but now we are
Speaker 1: a nation in decline. Okay, the music comes up. We
Speaker 1: are a failing nation. We are a nation that has
Speaker 1: the highest inflation in fifty years. And now so he
Speaker 1: and he gets sort of lower tones like this and
Speaker 1: and you know, Gosh, this went on for minutes. We
Speaker 1: are a nation that allowed Russia to devastate the country Ukraine,
Speaker 1: killing hundreds of thousands of people, and it will only
Speaker 1: get worse. It would never have happened with me as
Speaker 1: your commander in chief. We've got a federal fueral of
Speaker 1: investigation that won't allow bed election changing facts to be
Speaker 1: presented to the public. The string has come up bump
Speaker 1: where Biden's laptop information. We come to the clothes here,
Speaker 1: and think you remember how Donald Trump used to wind
Speaker 1: up the crowd with the make America smarter again, safer again,
Speaker 1: going through to make it rich again. But he sticks
Speaker 1: with the low tones over the strings at the end.
Speaker 1: We will make America proud again, we will make America
Speaker 1: safe again and we will make America Great. Thank you, Ohio,
Speaker 1: God bless you. Thank you all. Then the music goes
Speaker 1: down and SAMBA DAVE come on. I don't know who's
Speaker 1: planning this exactly, but some people think that the music
Speaker 1: is intentional. We'll get to that in a second. Rick,
Speaker 1: I'm just wondering where you are on this use of
Speaker 1: you know, for what's really an unpredictable event. That's why
Speaker 1: people want to go this use of pre production here
Speaker 1: and music behind Donald Trump. Well, you know, it's always
Speaker 1: been the greatest show on earth for politics, right. I
Speaker 1: mean he speaks for almost two hours. He usually unloads
Speaker 1: on the candidates that he's there to endorse. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: it's really all about him and his grievances, and we
Speaker 1: saw that in the clips that you were playing. But
Speaker 1: you know that went on for our over an hour.
Speaker 1: So so it is predictable in that regard. But I
Speaker 1: imagine too. I mean they've got to keep this audience
Speaker 1: Um um entertained and it's a lot of it is
Speaker 1: the same money that goes to all his rallies. I mean,
Speaker 1: he's he's like the grateful debt of politics. I mean
Speaker 1: people travel around the country going to his rallies, the
Speaker 1: same people, and so he's he and it was. It
Speaker 1: was seen that way. I mean part of what was
Speaker 1: happening in the audience while that was going on is
Speaker 1: not only people doing the usual thing, which is holding
Speaker 1: up their phones to record every minute of his last monologue,
Speaker 1: but also this sort of you know, what we're told
Speaker 1: is that Q and on salute, which is pointing the
Speaker 1: one finger up, you know, and uh, and I was
Speaker 1: really amazed because I had not seen that in previous rallies.
Speaker 1: Now this is a very important detail that rick is
Speaker 1: pointing out. As the music starts, the strings come up,
Speaker 1: the president starts talking and, you know, they keep the
Speaker 1: lights up, I think, for the whole speech. Right. That's
Speaker 1: just not every trump. All the lights of house lights
Speaker 1: are up. Uh, everyone. I'm not gonna say everyone, a massive,
Speaker 1: a wide majority of people in the room, hold their
Speaker 1: arms up high with the with the one finger and
Speaker 1: number one finger salute to the air. You think maybe
Speaker 1: that means America first, but rick, this is a q
Speaker 1: and on sign. Yeah, I mean, and it's incredulous to
Speaker 1: me because I know how hard it is to get
Speaker 1: a crowd to react. Normally you hand them out a
Speaker 1: piece of paper when they come in saying on this
Speaker 1: queue you must do and this look completely spontaneous, as
Speaker 1: if they knew something none of us knew, uh, and
Speaker 1: we're responding to it in mass. And so I'd love,
Speaker 1: I mean, talk about something. You want to learn, a
Speaker 1: mystery of what in the world was going on in Ohio. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, for this speech, I'd like to know, genie
Speaker 1: does it is it when people point their fingers to
Speaker 1: the sky? Does that mean more than it appears? Well,
Speaker 1: we are told, as Rick said, and this is all
Speaker 1: new to me, that it is an index finger salute
Speaker 1: symbolizing America first, and it is part of this sort
Speaker 1: of culture within this q and on community, I guess,
Speaker 1: if you can call it that, and this America first community.
Speaker 1: But you know, what I thought was going on in Ohio,
Speaker 1: quite frankly, was a mid term election and you have
Speaker 1: donald trump out there doing this and you've just got
Speaker 1: to wonder who is he trying to help? This certainly
Speaker 1: is not helping the candidates for election. You know, it's
Speaker 1: not going to help them, Mike Dewine, it's not going
Speaker 1: to help the J D Vance to be out there.
Speaker 1: You can't court court, rather swing voter and moderate voters
Speaker 1: needed to win close elections like this by, you know,
Speaker 1: going in with this kind of you know, sort of Um,
Speaker 1: you know, conspiracy theory laden rallies. You know, no matter
Speaker 1: how moving it is to the people there, it's simply
Speaker 1: not moving to independent voters. And you know, you had
Speaker 1: people like Barry McCaffrey standing out there on twitter saying
Speaker 1: that this was like a Nuremberg hit Hitler rally x.
Speaker 1: This is what it's come to. So I'm not sure
Speaker 1: what he is trying to do. Yeah, well, media matters,
Speaker 1: uh says they've identified this song as a q and
Speaker 1: on uh I guess, dog whistle or in this case, theme,
Speaker 1: identified as W W G, one W G A. that's it.
Speaker 1: It's posted with that name on spotify. It stands for
Speaker 1: where we go, one we go all, written by an
Speaker 1: artist named Richard feel good, which I that's great. Um,
Speaker 1: but that's the slogan. Yeah, that's the slogan for Q
Speaker 1: and on. Right, where we go, one we go all hands.
Speaker 1: Also the finger in the air. Uh per media matters,
Speaker 1: one of the Q and on followers commenting online described
Speaker 1: this as the mother of all q proofs and quote,
Speaker 1: the biggest nod they've ever given us. Unquote. This is
Speaker 1: the song music again, and it's it's a real down
Speaker 1: or else. I don't know if what the world this
Speaker 1: has really to do with q and on, but maybe
Speaker 1: it's a meditative theme, but it's perfect when you're describing
Speaker 1: a nation in decline, as it turns out. And I
Speaker 1: don't know, I just wonder, Rick Are we going to
Speaker 1: see this as the close to all of these speeches?
Speaker 1: You know, it's hard to tell. I mean what kind
Speaker 1: of reaction he got on. For me, that sounds like
Speaker 1: don't want to replicate that, but I just don't know
Speaker 1: what the meaning of it is. In other words, if
Speaker 1: where we go, one we go all, where are we going? Uh?
Speaker 1: And if you look at the conspiracy theories that back
Speaker 1: up the Q and on, called uh it's pretty disturbing.
Speaker 1: So I think that any legitimate reporter that interviews Donald
Speaker 1: Trump in the near term should ask him the question,
Speaker 1: what was this all about to start asking? Producer Christine
Speaker 1: reminds us that's also a motley crue song where we
Speaker 1: go when we go all genie. Maybe he had to
Speaker 1: try that one next time. Yeah, that might be a
Speaker 1: little bit more uplifting. I'll tell you where they're probably
Speaker 1: not going if they keep this up, is to take
Speaker 1: over the Senate. And you know poor Dat Vance must be.
Speaker 1: I wonder if he knows that song. I mean, I've
Speaker 1: learned a lot here. I really I didn't know anything
Speaker 1: about any of this cute stuff. But Rick and genie,
Speaker 1: thank you. As always, our signature panel, Rick Dave was
Speaker 1: Geenie Schanzano Bloomberg politics contributors with us here on a Monday.
Speaker 1: That's not the song. I can leave you with, though,
Speaker 1: because you know, today is an important anniversary. So Twenty
Speaker 1: Years September two thousand two, President George W Bush speaking
Speaker 1: on teaching American history and civic education with a classic
Speaker 1: I know it's a blooper, but a classic moment in
Speaker 1: presidential history's an old Shang in Tennessee? I know it's
Speaker 1: in Texas, probably in Tennessee this as fool me once. Yea.
Speaker 1: Shame on no, shame on you fool me. We can't
Speaker 1: get fooled again. Can't get fooled again. That's more like it.
Speaker 1: Apologies to the former president. I'll meet you back here
Speaker 1: tomorrow on the fastest hour in politics. I'm Joe Matthew.
Speaker 1: This is bloomber