Speaker 1: Joining us right now. It's pretty good when your first
Speaker 1: book out with Bob Woodward Peril launches at number one
Speaker 1: in the New York Times Bestseller Robert Costa, of course,
Speaker 1: legendary at the Washington Post, has wandered over to any
Speaker 1: number of jobs, and of course joins us now this
Speaker 1: morning with CBS and Face the Nation. Robert Costa, within
Speaker 1: the frenzy in your world right now, you are a
Speaker 1: calm voice. Who are you listening to into the weekend?
Speaker 1: Which kind of source are you listening to?
Speaker 2: I'm listening to people who really know President Biden, not
Speaker 2: just top Democrats, not just House Democrats and Senate Democrats
Speaker 2: who are on the outer perimeter of Biden's circle. People
Speaker 2: who really know this guy who was elected to the
Speaker 2: Senate in nineteen seventy two, who has been through public
Speaker 2: humiliation and public loss for a long time, And they're
Speaker 2: telling me behind the scenes that he wants to stay
Speaker 2: in this race. He's telling people close to him and
Speaker 2: family members he's adamant he should be the nominee and
Speaker 2: he's best positioned to be Trump. But that doesn't mean
Speaker 2: it's quieting Democrats.
Speaker 1: You're the only one I could say this to I
Speaker 1: mean when he was in high school, prep school, Costa
Speaker 1: was booking the beautiful people of Hollywood, Oh to play
Speaker 1: as prep school. I mean, he's on a first thing basis.
Speaker 1: It's sixteen with Maroon five. What is that about, Robert
Speaker 1: Costa on the Democratic Party donor class? Who are these guys?
Speaker 1: To take it from?
Speaker 2: Butch Cassidy, Well, you have people like Jeffrey Katzenberg around
Speaker 2: President Biden, Hollywood moguls. They just had the big Hollywood
Speaker 2: fundraiser for Biden a few weeks ago, and they're so
Speaker 2: motivated not by putting Biden in the presidency again, but
Speaker 2: by stopping Trump. And that dynamic has to be noted
Speaker 2: as this all plows ahead in the days to come,
Speaker 2: because it's really about stopping Trump for a lot of
Speaker 2: these donors and Democrats not giving Biden a second term.
Speaker 2: And that's so then past presidential cycles.
Speaker 3: And so Robert, how do you guys set this up
Speaker 3: for a Face Nation this Sunday morning on a CBS
Speaker 3: television network.
Speaker 2: So I'm lucky enough to be guest anchor this weekend,
Speaker 2: and we're going to talk to Jim Clyburn, And I
Speaker 2: think he's really important because he actually has political capital.
Speaker 2: A lot of people claim to have political capital. He
Speaker 2: actually has it. He made Biden the nominee in twenty
Speaker 2: with his endorsement. Where is he going to stand harce
Speaker 2: his words carefully and listen to what he has to say.
Speaker 2: What's notable is that Clyiber's been talking publicly about maybe
Speaker 2: backing Vice President Harris if Biden steps away. Does Cliburgs
Speaker 2: start to really escalate that talk or not? Senator Bernie Sanders,
Speaker 2: what's he going to do if Biden steps away? He's
Speaker 2: always one of the presidency, he's eighty two. Does he run?
Speaker 2: Does he back Harris? Where does the progressive the left
Speaker 2: wing do they stick with the Biden pick or the
Speaker 2: new the Harris pick or not? Right, we're in a
Speaker 2: very fluid, in fragile moments.
Speaker 1: Way, Robert Costa, I can see you doing a Dan
Speaker 1: Rather imitation on the floor in Chicago like nineteen sixty eight.
Speaker 1: I mean, how close are we? Robert Costa within CBS
Speaker 1: reporting to not the certitude of a migration from the
Speaker 1: president to the vice president, but an actual cohesive debate
Speaker 1: or sets of dialogue to get to a selection choice
Speaker 1: for president and vice president in Chicago.
Speaker 2: What's stunning to me is how this kind of corporate
Speaker 2: culture has fallen over the Democratic Party that so few
Speaker 2: people want to take any kind of risk publicly. And
Speaker 2: politics used to be about risk. As you noted, you
Speaker 2: had conventions that were rough and tumble. People wanted power,
Speaker 2: you had to fight for it. Democrats are averse, it
Speaker 2: seems to political war, and at this point it seems
Speaker 2: like Harris would be the logical choice for a lot
Speaker 2: of them to avoid it. They would think, maybe she loses,
Speaker 2: maybe she wins, but they would look ahead to twenty
Speaker 2: twenty eight. But look, in presidential politics, I've only covered
Speaker 2: it for fifteen years. You only have one shot most
Speaker 2: of the time. And this is a rare, rare opening
Speaker 2: for somebody maybe to step into the vacuum. So I
Speaker 2: expect somebody to maybe give Harris.
Speaker 1: Interesting rob This is great, Robert Costa, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: And for Margaret Brennan Face the Nation Sunday on radio
Speaker 1: at two on Bloomberg. We now turned to someone constans,
Speaker 1: a young buck, you know, fifteen years in flip the numbers.
Speaker 1: Joe Matthew's been doing this for fifty one years. It
Speaker 1: joins us with balance of power as well. Joe. I'm
Speaker 1: sure you remember a given election in the cold and slush.
Speaker 1: Maybe it was a primary. I think it was William
Speaker 1: Well Ted Kennedy in Boston. I can't remember, but it
Speaker 1: was rough in tumble politics. People were swearing at Durgan
Speaker 1: Park trying to get a dinner, and I mean it
Speaker 1: was the way it used to be. A lot of
Speaker 1: idiots like me want the Romance of nineteen sixty eight
Speaker 1: or a rough and tumble tip on neopolitics of Boston.
Speaker 1: Am I delusional to look forward to that?
Speaker 4: We all do every four years.
Speaker 5: What a contested convention is like Christmas morning a political reporter,
Speaker 5: and then it never happens. I will remind you they've
Speaker 5: now auctioned off all of the restaurant equipment from Durgan Park.
Speaker 5: It doesn't exist anymore, and I don't know if there's
Speaker 5: a high Brent condo there or something now. But much
Speaker 5: like the politics you describe, I'm not sure they're going
Speaker 5: to recreate it. And there's a real worry that if
Speaker 5: that's where we're going here, that this will be so
Speaker 5: disruptive that it's exactly what Donald Trump is hoping for.
Speaker 5: But I don't know They've set up a week long
Speaker 5: obstacle course for Joe Biden, and let's see if he
Speaker 5: can clear it.
Speaker 1: I mean, what's important to understand. I gave you good
Speaker 1: just surveillance correction here, Joe Matthew never darkened the door
Speaker 1: at Durgen Park. He was over at Lockover having the
Speaker 1: oyster soup under a portrait that made you blush when
Speaker 1: you were ten years old.
Speaker 5: A Hi, Jill, you can't get cornbefitt Locko.
Speaker 1: That would be true.
Speaker 2: Joe.
Speaker 3: What's the what's the realistic time frame here for President
Speaker 3: Biden to make a decision here? How do we think
Speaker 3: about that?
Speaker 5: It's a great question, they seem, Paul. They seem to
Speaker 5: have carved out a week. It starts today with the
Speaker 5: interview being deemed as the most important interview of his
Speaker 5: political life.
Speaker 4: And boy, that's gonna be interesting.
Speaker 5: I'm really curious to see how much time he commits
Speaker 5: to this. If it's fifteen minutes or if it's forty
Speaker 5: five minutes, that's gonna tell us a lot. But he's
Speaker 5: gonna be speaking in Wisconsin, albeit with a teleprompter. He's
Speaker 5: got NATO next week, He's got a trip to Philadelphia
Speaker 5: as well, but NATO, I want to just go ahead
Speaker 5: pass the interview today. Think about the stakes of that
Speaker 5: solo news conference he's going to hold to conclude NATO.
Speaker 5: That's not a bilateral He's not gonna have Voladimir Zelenski
Speaker 5: sitting next to him. It's not going to be two
Speaker 5: and two for the reporters. This is the big one,
Speaker 5: This is the big slog. He's never done this East
Speaker 5: room primetime news conference thing, but his predecessors were pretty
Speaker 5: good at and so is he going to be able
Speaker 5: to take the skip gates question forty five minutes into
Speaker 5: that exercise because they're going to be throwing curveballs at
Speaker 5: him in real time. He's going to be tired after
Speaker 5: all the meetings, and I'm thinking next week that news
Speaker 5: conference is the most important thing on his schedule.
Speaker 3: Are the Democrats to the extent that he does decide
Speaker 3: to step back here, is there an accepted process from
Speaker 3: where the party would go from there?
Speaker 1: Or is it we haven't gotten to that point yet.
Speaker 4: No, we haven't gotten to that point.
Speaker 5: But I do find it interesting that over the past
Speaker 5: couple of days, the narrative has really turned us back
Speaker 5: to Kamala Harris and away from this idea of wretching
Speaker 5: Whitmer or Gavin Newsom or somebody popping in. Look, there's
Speaker 5: a reason why she's there. There's a reason why he
Speaker 5: picked her. And I don't think you're going to find
Speaker 5: a lot of people who want to run against, frankly,
Speaker 5: somebody who could make history as the first black female president.
Speaker 5: If you're teeing up yourself for twenty eight, you're not
Speaker 5: running against her.
Speaker 1: Now the show quickly here, do you observe any polls?
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, let's be clearer, folks, Matthews encyclopedic
Speaker 1: on this. Are there a pole that support Vice President
Speaker 1: Harris becoming president? Yes?
Speaker 5: Well, Look, her favorability rating in our own Bloomberg Swing
Speaker 5: State pole with Morning Consult was on the rise, and
Speaker 5: in fact higher than Joe Biden's in the last turn.
Speaker 5: But CNN ran numbers and found her in a statistical
Speaker 5: tie with Donald Trump. We all say that Joe Biden
Speaker 5: might be the only person who can beat him. This
Speaker 5: challenge is that and she's stronger than Biden with women
Speaker 5: and with independence. Imagine a ticket where she's got maybe
Speaker 5: a Democratic governor like a Shapiro or a Roy Cooper,
Speaker 5: with her, and she's got the mantle of abortion, the
Speaker 5: moral clarity on that issue, and potentially could make history
Speaker 5: as the first black female president. That's a story that
Speaker 5: Democrats can get their heads around. Throwing all the pieces
Speaker 5: up in the air and doing a mini primary like
Speaker 5: they're talking about a series of five debates with people
Speaker 5: who have no name recognition.
Speaker 4: Sounds dangerous.
Speaker 1: Joe Matthew, thank you so much, Bounce, That's what this
Speaker 1: is about, folks, Robert Costa, Joe Matthew, back to Beck.
Speaker 1: Terry Haines joins us now to pick up the pieces
Speaker 1: and piece together. I guess the second week of July
Speaker 1: in Washington. I don't know if he's capable of doing that.
Speaker 1: Terry Hayes with pangea, joins us, Terry right now after
Speaker 1: the bizarreness of this weekend, the uniqueness in American history.
Speaker 1: What is Terry Haynes unknown? Unknown?
Speaker 6: Well, very very simply, it's Uh, it's it's whether Biden's
Speaker 6: up to the job or not, and whether he can
Speaker 6: prove it or not. I mean, we've been his citizens
Speaker 6: have been misinformed about the president's condition.
Speaker 1: To put it.
Speaker 6: Kindly, Uh, and much of the news media not this network,
Speaker 6: but much of the news media has has willfully ignored it.
Speaker 6: Now they're over compensating. The question is whether he's up
Speaker 6: to it or not. I mean, I wouldn't put a
Speaker 6: lot of I wouldn't put a lot of money on
Speaker 6: it in Vegas. But at the same time, you know,
Speaker 6: you've had situations where he's he's gone out in public
Speaker 6: a few times and just shown fire and shown the
Speaker 6: ability to talk. And he's got Stephanopolis coming up tonight
Speaker 6: and it may be a huge moment for the campaign
Speaker 6: and we'll have to see that.
Speaker 1: Bloomberg, of course, will be synthesizing the questions edited and
Speaker 1: edited at ABC. Terry, excuse me choking on a fifth
Speaker 1: hot dog? I didn't do Nathan's budding. I got up
Speaker 1: to five hot dogs. What can I say, Terry Haynes?
Speaker 1: What is the probability, the likelihood the ability of the
Speaker 1: Democratic Party to squeeze into X number of weeks a
Speaker 1: diverse campaign process of four, five, six, seven candidates to
Speaker 1: get to a smoke filled convention. Oh, by what you mean?
Speaker 1: Replaced Biden? Is that where we're going? Yeah, well, replaced Biden.
Speaker 1: But to go beyond just the idea of the vice
Speaker 1: president will take over.
Speaker 6: Yeah, well, you know, it depends on whether we're talking
Speaker 6: about him leaving the presidency or leaving his candidacy or both.
Speaker 6: And you know, that's a little more finally judged than
Speaker 6: I think the company wanted. But the answer is, you know, yeah,
Speaker 6: they can absolutely get a situation where this virtual nomination
Speaker 6: process they're going to try to pull in a couple
Speaker 6: of weeks, you know, might get short circuited by a
Speaker 6: number of the delegates themselves, who will who may well
Speaker 6: insist on our rewriting of the rules. You know, there's
Speaker 6: an awful lot of dissatisfaction out there, but there's not
Speaker 6: a lot of ability by those who are most dissatisfied
Speaker 6: with being able to do something about it. This is
Speaker 6: still pretty tightly controlled, and I think certainly, I think
Speaker 6: Biden's trying to brazen it out right now.
Speaker 3: So Terry, obviously it's it's really up to President Biden
Speaker 3: where this whole thing goes here. What's your sense of
Speaker 3: timing when do you think that president really has to
Speaker 3: make a decision of whether he is in it or not?
Speaker 6: Probably between now, almost certainly, Paul, between now and the
Speaker 6: convention in mid August. But uh, you know, but then
Speaker 6: there's this trip wire where where the virtual convention happens
Speaker 6: and sometime in mid July late July. So uh, you
Speaker 6: know what they're what they're trying to do right now
Speaker 6: is you know, we're going to wrap up the party
Speaker 6: regulars make it all but impossible for the convention itself
Speaker 6: to remove him, which makes it even more in his
Speaker 6: judgment about whether he wants to continue or not.
Speaker 3: And Terry X, I guess the question for a lot
Speaker 3: of folks within the Democratic Party is if he were
Speaker 3: to say I'm going to step aside for this next election,
Speaker 3: is there any sense of what the process might be.
Speaker 3: Would there be a series of debates among party leaders,
Speaker 3: would it just be handed to vice president?
Speaker 4: How how would it work out? Do you think?
Speaker 6: Well, I think that you know, there's a there's a
Speaker 6: group that wants it handed to Harris. Uh. You know,
Speaker 6: but Biden of course is using is using Harris. I
Speaker 6: think is Uh as a backstop for his own ambitions
Speaker 6: to stay Uh. I think what ends up happening is
Speaker 6: you have a you have a change to the party
Speaker 6: rules that releases delegates from their releases delegates from their
Speaker 6: first ballot commitment to Biden and you actually have, as
Speaker 6: we had before nineteen seventy two, actually have an open
Speaker 6: convention where the delegates actually get to decide who they want.
Speaker 6: And in that situation, you'd have nominations by different people,
Speaker 6: you'd have speeches, you'd have unruliness galore, just like you
Speaker 6: used to have.
Speaker 1: Aware this is I mean, obviously you know the media
Speaker 1: that's exciting. I mean, we're talking our book, which is
Speaker 1: we want a crazy convention. But Terrians, I want you
Speaker 1: to take us right now to four thirty South Capitol Streets,
Speaker 1: Southeast Washington, d C. To the headquarters of the Democratic
Speaker 1: National Party. I guess Jamie Harrison, Chris Cork, Jason Ray,
Speaker 1: and others. Does the president, routinely any Democratic president, do
Speaker 1: they just control the DNC or does the DNC have
Speaker 1: a vote to get to that convention we all want.
Speaker 6: They control the DNC, particularly in the months and year
Speaker 6: leading up to the election. That's been standard in both
Speaker 6: parties for quite a while. And when you combine that
Speaker 6: with the fact that the parties as party organizations have
Speaker 6: been have been a trophying over the past several decades,
Speaker 6: you know, it's it's interesting to talk about it today
Speaker 6: because I'm sitting in London. You've just had conversations about
Speaker 6: the UK elections. The party organizations are very strong in
Speaker 6: the UK, whereas they're very weak in the United States,
Speaker 6: and nowhere weaker or no when weaker than the year
Speaker 6: of a presidential election. So Jamie Harrison's taking orders from
Speaker 6: the White.
Speaker 1: House to sum this up to Paul's good question, the
Speaker 1: President of the United States really is going to decide
Speaker 1: the process of his future and his party's future in
Speaker 1: the coming days and weeks, maybe to get to a
Speaker 1: Donnie Brook that gets us to Chicago. Is that right?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I think so.
Speaker 6: You know, they've exercised huge control over this process from
Speaker 6: day one, you know, basically making it a primary free process,
Speaker 6: you know, exercising a grip on the on the party controls,
Speaker 6: exercising a grip on the money. As people are now
Speaker 6: starting to figure out, you know, the money gets the
Speaker 6: Biden Harris money gets dispersed away unless it's anybody but
Speaker 6: Biden or Harris at the top of the ticket. So
Speaker 6: there's a lot of considerations mechanical for Democrats to go through,
Speaker 6: much less the fundamental question of whether Biden ought to
Speaker 6: be their nominee and whether we ought to remain as president.
Speaker 1: This is a Bloomberg Surveillance podcast, bringing you the best
Speaker 1: in economics, finance, investment, and international relations. You can also
Speaker 1: watch the show live on YouTube. Visit the Bloomberg Podcast
Speaker 1: channel on YouTube to see the show weekday mornings from
Speaker 1: seven to ten am Eastern from our Oldo headquarters in
Speaker 1: New York City. Subscribe to the podcast on Apple, Spotify,
Speaker 1: or anywhere else you listen, and always on Bloomberg Radio,
Speaker 1: the Bloomberg Terminal, and the Bloomberg Business app.