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Speaker 2: We spent all day yesterday telling you the House was
Speaker 2: planning to vote on its budget resolution. At least that
Speaker 2: was the initial plan, and House leadership wasn't making it
Speaker 2: firmly clear if they were still planning to go ahead
Speaker 2: with it, as there were four Republican holdouts who were
Speaker 2: suggesting they would vote no. You couldn't afford to lose
Speaker 2: four votes with the margin Republicans were dealing with last night.
Speaker 2: So they bring this thing to the floor and then
Speaker 2: they pull it and members actually start to leave the Capitol.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they were told to go home.
Speaker 2: And then they're called back to vote again. And what happens.
Speaker 2: Three of the holdouts flip and the thing passes.
Speaker 3: It's almost as if you were watching this in real time,
Speaker 3: as we all were.
Speaker 4: Magical. Thirteen minutes passed. Donald Trump on the phone with
Speaker 4: the holdouts. I believe, Kaylee, he flipped two of the
Speaker 4: three holdouts that made this all possible two seventeen two
Speaker 4: point fifteen. The vote here remindingly one and a half
Speaker 4: trillion to two trillion dollars in spending cuts to pay
Speaker 4: for four and a half trillion dollars in tax cuts.
Speaker 4: The math is still hard for some members.
Speaker 2: Here well, certainly Tom Massey, the one Republican who insisted
Speaker 2: on still voting no, being one of them. And we
Speaker 2: heard this question asked in the cabinet meeting that took
Speaker 2: place at the White House just a while ago about
Speaker 2: not cutting Medicaid. The President maintains that he doesn't want
Speaker 2: to touch other than looking at fraud. The problem is
Speaker 2: the budget outline, which yes, did not dictate cuts to Medicaid,
Speaker 2: did say the Energy and Commerce Committee needs to find
Speaker 2: eight hundred and eighty billion dollars worth of cuts somewhere.
Speaker 2: The question is where, if not there, why.
Speaker 4: We keep hearing about medicaid because it seems inevitable to
Speaker 4: those reading the tea leaves here. Donald Trump untruth social
Speaker 4: Following passage of the bill, I hope the House and
Speaker 4: Senator are able to agree on making the tax cuts permanent,
Speaker 4: he writes in all caps, exclamation point, and that's where
Speaker 4: we start with Bloomberg's Tyler Kendall, who is on Capitol
Speaker 4: Hill looking at the fine print and some very challenging math.
Speaker 3: Tyler, what happens next?
Speaker 5: Yeah, Hey, Joe, Well, I actually caught up with Senator
Speaker 5: Shelley Moore Capito, a Republican from West Virginia on the
Speaker 5: Appropriations Committee, earlier today, and she told me she congratulates
Speaker 5: the House, but that her chamber has some adjustments to do.
Speaker 5: There's a few different issues at play here, but as
Speaker 5: you mentioned, tax cuts perhaps the most contingents this House
Speaker 5: plan calling for four point five brillion dollars that is
Speaker 5: likely only enough runway to extend President Trump's twenty seventeen
Speaker 5: A tax plan. And we heard from the Senate Budget
Speaker 5: chair at Lindsay Graham, who called this bill neither big
Speaker 5: nor beautiful when it comes to tax cuts and says
Speaker 5: that he will work in order to try to make
Speaker 5: those tax cuts permanent. But also important to keep in
Speaker 5: mind here, there are a lot of other campaign promises
Speaker 5: when it comes to tax priorities that could be left
Speaker 5: out of this, including no taxes on tips, overtime paid
Speaker 5: social Security, a lower corporate tax rate for companies who
Speaker 5: try to move their manufacturing to the US. So all
Speaker 5: of this starting to bubble up for Republicans to try
Speaker 5: to find some additional pay for Is and Joe and Kelly.
Speaker 5: Those negotiations are already in full are already in full swing.
Speaker 5: Bloomberg News reporting that House Speaker Mike Johnson Senate Majority
Speaker 5: Leader John Thune heading to the White House later today.
Speaker 5: In that White House Chief of Staff Susie Wilds is
Speaker 5: expected here on Capitol Hill for a lunch.
Speaker 2: Shortly yeah, after leaving the cabinet meeting that just took
Speaker 2: place at the White House early Tyler, And as we
Speaker 2: just heard Elon Musk there with the rest of the
Speaker 2: Cabinet and the President talking about their efforts to cut costs,
Speaker 2: how is that working in tandem with the cuts that
Speaker 2: Congress is currently trying to find.
Speaker 5: It's going to be very difficult, right because we are
Speaker 5: seeing potentially huge numbers when it comes to adding to
Speaker 5: the deficit. The Committee for a Responsible Budget estimating that
Speaker 5: this House plan at least would add at least three
Speaker 5: trillion dollars, and particularly when we are looking for those
Speaker 5: cuts you mentioned there. How President Trump has vowed that
Speaker 5: Medicaid will not be impacted. But it's very difficult to
Speaker 5: see how the math outlined in this House plan would
Speaker 5: prevent that eight hundred and eighty billion dollars potentially could
Speaker 5: go towards Medicaid. If just for the exercise, all of
Speaker 5: that money was taken out of the program, it would
Speaker 5: slash the program's annual budget by ten percent over the
Speaker 5: next ten years. This get very politically fraught for Republicans.
Speaker 5: I was struck by one database kept by NYU which
Speaker 5: found that thirty seven percent of House Speaker Mike Johnson's
Speaker 5: constituents in Louisiana or on Medicaid. This is going to
Speaker 5: be a tricky vote ahead.
Speaker 2: Indeed, there's still a lot of work left to do.
Speaker 2: Last night was really just step one Bloomberg Styler kind
Speaker 2: of live on Capitol Hill for us. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: Of course, I would point out that on this show
Speaker 2: or Balance of Power of the late edition yesterday, when
Speaker 2: we were still ahead of the vote and talking to
Speaker 2: lawmakers about that, we spoke with Congress and Brian Style
Speaker 2: of Wisconsin, who was sounding pretty confident it would pass
Speaker 2: last night, even though the face of a lot of
Speaker 2: people questioning that.
Speaker 4: That's true, but also perfectly articulated the push and pull
Speaker 4: here between two sides within the Republican conference. Remember we're
Speaker 4: not even talking about Democratic members here. Some obviously concerned
Speaker 4: about the potential for cuts to Medicaid. We've spoken with
Speaker 4: some of them, including Nicole Malia Takis.
Speaker 3: She ended up being yes.
Speaker 4: Others don't think that we're cutting enough to make good
Speaker 4: on the promise of tax cuts and Donald Trump's request
Speaker 4: to make this permanent. That's another big ask, And how
Speaker 4: you get these two together in the same room is
Speaker 4: going to be interesting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is how the Congressman phrased it to us yesterday.
Speaker 6: To my colleagues on the right that say the reduction
Speaker 6: and spending is insufficient, I remind them that by passing
Speaker 6: this procedural vote today, it's simply a floor that we
Speaker 6: can build on the spending and saving reforms. To my
Speaker 6: colleagues that think it's too much, I would offer them
Speaker 6: to really look hard and make sure that we're not
Speaker 6: simply measuring the inputs into some of our key programs,
Speaker 6: in particular Medicaid, but instead we're measuring the outputs.
Speaker 2: So for more we want to turn to another veteran
Speaker 2: of Capitol Hill. Former Congressman and former chair of the
Speaker 2: Ways and Means Committee, Kevin Brady is here with us
Speaker 2: in Oer Washington, d C. Studio. He's now a spokesperson
Speaker 2: for the Alliance for Competitive Taxation, making him a pretty
Speaker 2: good person to talk to about all of this. Mister chairman,
Speaker 2: welcome back.
Speaker 7: Good to see.
Speaker 2: I would ask you if you were surprised that this
Speaker 2: ultimately passed last night, but it also wasn't without its challenges,
Speaker 2: and it makes me wonder, if it was that hard
Speaker 2: to just get this done initially, how hard is the
Speaker 2: next part going to be?
Speaker 7: Yeah, they I would like to tell you every steps easier,
Speaker 7: but it's not. It's just a different type of difficult.
Speaker 7: But there's no question House Republicans defied expectations, you know,
Speaker 7: delivered more quickly. I think then people expected lots of momentum,
Speaker 7: you know, coming off the floor last night. Talking to
Speaker 7: members of Congress and leadership, tax writers, budgeted folks, they
Speaker 7: felt like, to Joe's point, they had found that common
Speaker 7: ground that's sort of that design that could move it
Speaker 7: through a near zero majority if you think about it,
Speaker 7: just unprecedent that way. So yeah, I don't think you
Speaker 7: can underestimate how important a step this is, not that
Speaker 7: there's not more of them. And as the reporter said,
Speaker 7: you know, launching right away in those reconciliation discussions with
Speaker 7: the Senate in the White House, you know, I think
Speaker 7: they're hopeful that they can reach agreement, hopefully in March,
Speaker 7: but certainly by early April's when the two new special elections.
Speaker 7: I think that's right seat those two members from Florida.
Speaker 7: So it looks like that's the timetable, and that's that's
Speaker 7: a that too, is a pretty prompt timetable.
Speaker 4: I'm sure you remember what it was like to get
Speaker 4: a telephone call from the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.
Speaker 3: What do these members go through?
Speaker 4: What did Victoria Sparks here when Donald Trump called the
Speaker 4: cell phone last night?
Speaker 7: So I think they so one. I think to the
Speaker 7: House leadership credit, they had really narrowed the number of
Speaker 7: people who were on the fence to a very like
Speaker 7: a surprisingly small number. And I think that's because of
Speaker 7: the work they had done in Budget Committee earlier that
Speaker 7: had really struck this this deal. And so I think
Speaker 7: cong Truman Sparks wanted to know the president administration was
Speaker 7: serious about those budget cuts, you know, finding way.
Speaker 3: Is that a happy call though?
Speaker 8: Is it?
Speaker 3: Hey, how you doing? Kevin?
Speaker 4: I got a problem? Or is he upset? What he
Speaker 4: calls and puts on the pressure what he needs?
Speaker 7: You know, one he says, you'd imagine direct You know, No,
Speaker 7: it is not threatening. People understand he's got a long memory.
Speaker 7: He's very successful in his primaries. You don't really have
Speaker 7: to say it much my experiences, he talks you through
Speaker 7: the need to move. In this case, it isn't even
Speaker 7: doing the tax cuts, it's giving creating the runway. It's
Speaker 7: a procedural step that allows you to build what tax
Speaker 7: your form you know, can land on, which is his
Speaker 7: top priority. So normally I think positive. And they were
Speaker 7: on the phone quite a while, so clearly we had
Speaker 7: a good conversation.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, while we would all love to know what exactly
Speaker 2: he said on those phone calls, we do know what
Speaker 2: exactly he said on True Social this morning, which is
Speaker 2: that he wants his twenty seventeen tax cuts made permanent
Speaker 2: and he can hope both chambers can get their heads
Speaker 2: around that. The problem is, if you look at what
Speaker 2: was outlined last night, four and a half trillion dollars
Speaker 2: the Ways and Means Committee has in terms of headway,
Speaker 2: that's just enough to extend the tax cuts. So how
Speaker 2: do they actually make permanence happen?
Speaker 7: Yeah, so one music to my ears on the front
Speaker 7: that's clearly the most pro growth for the country and
Speaker 7: for families, certainly main street businesses. So that's a good thing.
Speaker 7: I think their House and Center Republicans are both headed
Speaker 7: the same direction on permanence. They're just coming at it
Speaker 7: from different directions, different baselines, sort of different designs on
Speaker 7: how they get their bodies together.
Speaker 2: Tell us more about that, because the Senate wants to
Speaker 2: do current baseline right, So what difference does that make
Speaker 2: in the ultimate architecture of this pulse.
Speaker 7: So the bottom line is today, if Congress spends, you know,
Speaker 7: our budget organization assumes that spending will go forever. If
Speaker 7: you have tax cuts, they assume they expire. So sort
Speaker 7: of different treatment of Congress's action and so current policy
Speaker 7: based on basically levels that was spending and says we
Speaker 7: assume in the budget those that current policy will go
Speaker 7: on unless Congress change. What that does is delivers a
Speaker 7: smaller deficit number for them to work through, allows them
Speaker 7: I think a clear path to permanency. But I think
Speaker 7: to the House, I think on the fiscal side of this,
Speaker 7: the House is saying, you know, should we adopt current
Speaker 7: policy baseline, because now they're a current law. We still
Speaker 7: want to tether tax cuts to the spending cuts. So
Speaker 7: right now they sort of have a like rock climbers,
Speaker 7: they have this static line. You know, the higher the
Speaker 7: spending cuts climb, the higher the tax space climbs. And
Speaker 7: so I think that'll be one of the key key
Speaker 7: discussions at the White House today.
Speaker 4: We'll speak to that balance a little bit more because
Speaker 4: people hear a lot of jargon, they billion trillion nothing
Speaker 4: matters anymore. The difference between extending and making permanent. Knowing
Speaker 4: that we're talking about at the moment two trillion dollars
Speaker 4: in cuts, can we actually define that that cost between
Speaker 4: these two options.
Speaker 7: So you've got to reconcile a lot designed and a
Speaker 7: lot of the numbers on the on these things. Permanency really, uh, Joe,
Speaker 7: is if you can pay for that for a decade,
Speaker 7: you know that that in effect creates permanency.
Speaker 3: So that's.
Speaker 7: No, no, no, it is not.
Speaker 3: In fact, what number do we need to be talking about?
Speaker 7: Well, great question. I think it's shaped by the President's
Speaker 7: new tax proposals and overtime on tips, on Social Security
Speaker 7: salt and because yeah, at the end of the day,
Speaker 7: you know, my bet would be it will be in
Speaker 7: some form because what I learned as Ways and Means
Speaker 7: Chairman is you know, you can pay attention to his tweets,
Speaker 7: but pay real attention to his campaign promises because that's
Speaker 7: what he wants to deliver on. I know, the Ways
Speaker 7: and Means Committee has been preparing options for the President
Speaker 7: since day one on those proposals, so they'll have to
Speaker 7: find a way to accommodate those priorities for the president. Yes,
Speaker 7: they will add money to to that overall. Number one
Speaker 7: of the questions are those permanent you know what I mean?
Speaker 7: Or all are those like pilot tax cuts to go
Speaker 7: a number of years you know? And then are they're reassessed?
Speaker 7: So yeah, lots of way to sort of turn the
Speaker 7: Rubik's cube, you know what I mean, to try to
Speaker 7: make this work.
Speaker 2: Well, one thing the President made clear again and he
Speaker 2: actually said I've said this over and over when he
Speaker 2: was asked about it in the cabinet meeting today, is
Speaker 2: that he doesn't want Medicaid to be touched. I think
Speaker 2: he referred to it as a read my lips thing
Speaker 2: or that, throwing it back to the first President Bush,
Speaker 2: I guess Christian. Yeah, well so I do wonder though,
Speaker 2: when you consider the pots that are available, if that
Speaker 2: is not one of them, how steep do the cuts
Speaker 2: everywhere else in terms of discretionary spending really have to get?
Speaker 9: You know?
Speaker 7: So two thoughts. One, I think the President, House, Republicans
Speaker 7: sent Republicans are all I think pretty much on the
Speaker 7: same page. Don't touch those Medicaid benefits, but touch the
Speaker 7: program that sends money to ineligible people, waste money goes
Speaker 7: to undocumented immigrants, issues like that. So there are significant
Speaker 7: numbers there, you know, that can really turn the turn
Speaker 7: the dial on savings while protecting Medicaid itself and then
Speaker 7: the other cuts. If you think about it, just since COVID,
Speaker 7: our federal budget has grown by more than a third.
Speaker 7: It just exploded over the last four five years, and
Speaker 7: it's not sustainable. I mean, running two trillion dollars deficits
Speaker 7: just from the growth of that. So clearly they've got
Speaker 7: a right size it back down, you know what I
Speaker 7: mean to a more manageable budget over spending budget over time.
Speaker 7: And so I think that's where to your question, where
Speaker 7: else do you need to go? You know, you would
Speaker 7: start with where have we grown over the last four years?
Speaker 7: And do we still need to be spending the COVID
Speaker 7: levels in the non COVID world.
Speaker 3: Just in our remaining moment.
Speaker 4: You're one of the principles of this group Coalition for
Speaker 4: North American t Yeah to protect, to renegotiate the USMCA.
Speaker 4: Donald Trump says he's still headlong on Canada Mexico's tariffs
Speaker 4: April second.
Speaker 3: Is that good for our economy?
Speaker 7: You know it's not. In fact, I think the US
Speaker 7: Mexico Canada trading block is the most consequential trading partnership
Speaker 7: in the world. Has served us well in the past,
Speaker 7: and with the new agreement, President renegotiate even stronger, especially
Speaker 7: as we seek to compete against the Chinas of the world.
Speaker 7: And so I think what our goal is to create
Speaker 7: a framework to keep that agreement in place when it
Speaker 7: expires in twenty twenty six or is up for review.
Speaker 7: And I think those countries are very willing to sit
Speaker 7: down work the problems with President Trump, whether it's border
Speaker 7: or fentanyl or Chinese transhipments. You know what I mean.
Speaker 7: In the US, I see a big willingness to try
Speaker 7: to figure out a way to keep this trading partnership going.
Speaker 4: That's why some think they will never be implemented. Maybe
Speaker 4: you're one of them.
Speaker 7: Yeah, hard to know.
Speaker 4: All right, We won't try to fordict. Donald Trump's next
Speaker 4: move was with Kevin Brady. It's great to see your Congressman.
Speaker 4: Always a pleasure to have the Chairman with us here
Speaker 4: at the table in Washington. Will assemble our panel next
Speaker 4: on the fastest show in politics. Stay with us alongside
Speaker 4: Kaylee Lines. I'm Joe Matthew. This is Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power Podcast. Catch
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Speaker 2: First Cabinet Meeting for the forty seventh President Wednesday. Donald
Speaker 2: Trump convening the secretaries and the heads of various agencies
Speaker 2: at the White House today for the first time of
Speaker 2: this term. So far, and it wasn't just those who
Speaker 2: have actually gone through the confirmation process in the Senate
Speaker 2: who were in attendance. Elon Musk was there as well, representing,
Speaker 2: of course, the Department of Government Efficiency and an effort
Speaker 2: to cost cutting, even though the White House also said
Speaker 2: earlier this week he is not the actual administrator of DOGE.
Speaker 2: That's someone else named Emy Gleeson, who's a holdover from
Speaker 2: when this was still the US Digital Service. But nonetheless,
Speaker 2: it was DOGE that Elon Musk was there to speak about,
Speaker 2: and President Trump commended those efforts as well, including talking
Speaker 2: about the actual dollar figure they're ultimately targeting here.
Speaker 10: One of the most important initiatives is DOGE, and we
Speaker 10: have cut billions and billions and billions of dollars. We're
Speaker 10: looking to get it maybe to a trillion dollars. If
Speaker 10: we could do that, we're going to start getting to
Speaker 10: be at a point where we can think in terms
Speaker 10: of balancing budgets. Believe it or not, something you haven't
Speaker 10: heard in many, many years, decades.
Speaker 4: Actually, I'm not sure we've ever heard or seen a
Speaker 4: cabinet meeting that resolved into a round of applause, which
Speaker 4: all of the cabinet officials gave Elon Musk when they
Speaker 4: were asked openly by the President if they had a
Speaker 4: problem with them. He said he'd throw them out if
Speaker 4: they did. And Elon Musk did address the room sitting
Speaker 4: behind he wasn't actually seated at the table, and we
Speaker 4: do want to be clear about that. There's fascinating reporting
Speaker 4: in the Washington Post today about the layer inside the
Speaker 4: Eisenhower Executive Office building right across the driveway from the
Speaker 4: White House, where Elon Musk's office has been set up.
Speaker 4: It's in the old Secretary of War suite, where rainbow
Speaker 4: colored lights emanate from the tower and keyboard of a
Speaker 4: powerful gaming computer he uses to conduct government business. Imagining
Speaker 4: the Alienware machine right. A Maga hat and a placard
Speaker 4: reading doge sit in a large wooden desk, cord sneaking
Speaker 4: across the carpet into a surge protector.
Speaker 3: It sounds like a dorm room.
Speaker 2: Well, and if you were seeing on Bloomberg TV, on
Speaker 2: YouTube or anywhere else, Elon Musk in the back of
Speaker 2: the cabinet room, standing at the side of the table.
Speaker 2: He was wearing a hat, a baseball cap, and.
Speaker 3: A tech support sex supports.
Speaker 2: T shirt, saying that essentially the work they're doing in
Speaker 2: that building you just described is tech support for the government,
Speaker 2: looking at software and things that are outdated, that kind
Speaker 2: of thing.
Speaker 3: Let's see how the panel feels about this.
Speaker 4: They were listening and watching along with all of us
Speaker 4: an hour plus experience in the cabinet room. Jendi Shanzino
Speaker 4: is here Bloomberg Politics contributor, our Democratic analyst and senior
Speaker 4: Democracy Fellow with the Center for the Study of the
Speaker 4: Presidency in Congress, and Republican strategist Mora Gillespie is back
Speaker 4: Bluestack Strategy.
Speaker 3: It's great to see you both.
Speaker 4: Hear the optics that we're talking about, Genie are pretty remarkable.
Speaker 4: To Kaylee's point, Elon Musk said, I call myself humble
Speaker 4: tech support here.
Speaker 3: Is that all he's doing in this administration?
Speaker 11: Well, I think there may be more to it.
Speaker 12: But I was so glad to hear that he too
Speaker 12: has wires everywhere. Since I have wires in my office,
Speaker 12: I thought maybe the healthiest man in the world ever
Speaker 12: could hide those wires.
Speaker 11: So I'm glad to hear I'm not alone.
Speaker 12: Yeah, it was quite a sight, and you know, he
Speaker 12: talked very deferentially to obviously the President as he normally would,
Speaker 12: and to the cabinet, given that we've heard. You know,
Speaker 12: there was some perhaps consternation about the email that went out.
Speaker 12: The President said, oh no, there wasn't, as you said,
Speaker 12: if there was, they could just say now and get out.
Speaker 12: So they tried to present a very unified front. And
Speaker 12: I love the fact that Donald Trump said, you know,
Speaker 12: dojing is now a verb, because he said many secretaries
Speaker 12: are going to be doging in their own departments in
Speaker 12: the next few days or the next few weeks, including
Speaker 12: he said the EPA where he said Zelden is prepared
Speaker 12: to cut sixty five percent of the workforce, which is
Speaker 12: quite astonishing.
Speaker 11: So there was some news made.
Speaker 12: There, but certainly, you know, they were very clear optically
Speaker 12: that Elon Musk is not a member of the cabinet.
Speaker 2: Well as Genie talks about the consternation or at least
Speaker 2: reported consternation over the whole email asking federal employees to
Speaker 2: justify their jobs or at least prove, if you were
Speaker 2: to use the word of Elon Musk, that they have
Speaker 2: a pulse by saying what they did last week. Mara,
Speaker 2: if there's not consternation there at the very least is confusionists.
Speaker 2: There's been some mixed messaging from department heads from the
Speaker 2: Office of Personnel Management specifically as to whether or not
Speaker 2: a response is required. We heard the President describe those people,
Speaker 2: well over a million of them who haven't responded as
Speaker 2: being quote on the bubble today. Are these people actually
Speaker 2: at risk of getting fired or do we just not
Speaker 2: have clarity around that.
Speaker 8: It does seem a bit confusing at the moment, and
Speaker 8: I don't know that this cabinet meeting answered some of
Speaker 8: those questions or alleviated that confusion. But I do think
Speaker 8: it's important that the DOGE entity gives the department heads
Speaker 8: a chance to clean house or to assess what's going
Speaker 8: on in their own departments. Some of them, as the
Speaker 8: President did mention, only got in there one two days ago, so,
Speaker 8: you know, giving them a chance to take an assessment
Speaker 8: of what's going on at their department, identify some of
Speaker 8: those broadways and abuse issues, whether that's pointed out by
Speaker 8: DOGE through a coordinated effort or an assistance from Elon
Speaker 8: Musk and his department. Sure, but without allowing them even
Speaker 8: the chance, I think is what confused many and there
Speaker 8: needs to be some clarity there. I am glad to
Speaker 8: hear that Elon Musk has an office there, because I
Speaker 8: think that coming in and making grands, sweeping gestures and
Speaker 8: blanket statements about all federal employees and without having had
Speaker 8: any experience is a little bit immature, because coming in
Speaker 8: there and saying, Naye, five things you did this week
Speaker 8: that varies based on week to week, and I don't
Speaker 8: think that that's really an effective use. So he did
Speaker 8: try and downplay that, which I was glad to hear,
Speaker 8: and I do think that there's, you know, some importance
Speaker 8: there in recognizing the different nuances because government work, and
Speaker 8: at least from my experience, isn't necessary glamorous. I don't
Speaker 8: think that people are banging down the doors is nothing.
Speaker 8: It's a money making machine. It's you know, people wanted
Speaker 8: to do the right thing for the right reason for
Speaker 8: the large part, and so I think it's important to
Speaker 8: remember that these are people who, while you know, went
Speaker 8: to work into government for attempts to leave it better
Speaker 8: than they found it.
Speaker 4: Enter the gold card genie that would create a path
Speaker 4: to citizenship for anyone who pays five million dollars or more.
Speaker 4: This would be a placement of the older I guess
Speaker 4: the reinstatement of the old EB five visa program. Donald
Speaker 4: Trump today saying, if we sell ten million, ten million
Speaker 4: highly productive people coming in, they'll be young, they'll be talented.
Speaker 4: That's fifty trillion dollars. That means our debt is totally
Speaker 4: paid off. Did he just solve the puzzle?
Speaker 11: He thinks he did.
Speaker 12: And he pushed back a little bit on Lutnick. They
Speaker 12: are saying, you know, he was using another number. But
Speaker 12: you know, this could this could go much higher. And
Speaker 12: you know, with Donald Trump's usual bombast, it was very optimistic.
Speaker 12: And in the clip you just played, of course, Donald
Speaker 12: Trump said something which is just stunning that nobody in
Speaker 12: years has talked about eliminating the debt. In fact, he
Speaker 12: talked about it in twenty sixteen. He said he would
Speaker 12: eliminate the entire national debt. And what did he do.
Speaker 12: He added over eight trillion dollars to it in ten years.
Speaker 12: And of course this brings us to where we are headed.
Speaker 12: You know, his gold card, which he is holding up
Speaker 12: as potentially a panacea for debt. Elon Musk talking about
Speaker 12: firing people, are identifying people who don't even exist who
Speaker 12: are receiving sums of money from the public dole.
Speaker 11: As you know, Mora just said, this is not a
Speaker 11: money making thing.
Speaker 12: And of course you eliminate the entire federal the federal employees,
Speaker 12: you're only at five percent. So the numbers they're using
Speaker 12: don't add up. And if Elon Musk really wants to
Speaker 12: make an impact, go after the contractors, because that is
Speaker 12: what some people referred to as the deep state. But
Speaker 12: of course he can't do that since he himself is
Speaker 12: thirty eight billion in as a federal contractor at this point.
Speaker 12: So lots of what they say sound very exciting and
Speaker 12: if they worked, would be incredibly, you know, wonderful, But
Speaker 12: the numbers, as usual, are not adding up here.
Speaker 2: Well, and we of course know what they were saying
Speaker 2: in that cabinet room today, in part because it was live,
Speaker 2: but also there were reporters there asking questions about the
Speaker 2: subjects that we've talked about in many others that we
Speaker 2: simply don't have the time to get to all of
Speaker 2: those who were in the room, which of course has
Speaker 2: some space constraints considering you're just tuttled around a cabinet table.
Speaker 2: Part of the White House Press Pool, which had some
Speaker 2: changes effective today more Genie, as you're well awares, the
Speaker 2: White House is now picking the group of outlets that
Speaker 2: can actually be represented in that pool, and today two
Speaker 2: of the wire services Associated Press and Reuters were not
Speaker 2: part of it. Instead, Newsmax and Blaze Media were added instead.
Speaker 2: Have Post also wasn't allowed to participate this time. That
Speaker 2: slot went to Axios. We should note Bloomberg also is
Speaker 2: a wire service and was allowed to participate in the
Speaker 2: pool today. But this is obviously a change in the
Speaker 2: way this has always been done usually. More that is
Speaker 2: the White House Correspondence Association that is coordinating this. In
Speaker 2: wire services which distribute news to outlets all across the
Speaker 2: country have always all three of them had a seat
Speaker 2: on the plane or a spot in room. What does
Speaker 2: this do to the way in which the information coming out
Speaker 2: of this administration in this White House is going to spread?
Speaker 8: Yeah, if you listen to the Press Secretary talking about it,
Speaker 8: you would think, yeah, sure, And if you're a Republican
Speaker 8: you would think, of course we should have decided to
Speaker 8: have you know, who gets to be in the room.
Speaker 8: It's a privilege, as she said, and all these things
Speaker 8: I don't know that they're going to have the same
Speaker 8: tune in for eight years from now, when let's say
Speaker 8: the Republicans don't win and they're not in the presidency.
Speaker 8: But you've now allowed this to be the case. You've
Speaker 8: allowed this to be the norm now. And so how
Speaker 8: will these members of the press feel, or how will
Speaker 8: these members of the public feel if they're Republican and
Speaker 8: now the Democratic president in control is dictating who can
Speaker 8: be in the room covering news the way that he
Speaker 8: wants it or she wants it covered. I think that
Speaker 8: it s it's a terrible president moving forward, and there
Speaker 8: is a need for objectivity, and if nothing else, I
Speaker 8: wish people would look at it without having their Republican
Speaker 8: or Democratic lens on and think about it from the
Speaker 8: standpoint of the freedom of the press and just the
Speaker 8: important of having objective lenses in the room asking tough
Speaker 8: questions and you know that they're free to answer however
Speaker 8: they feel. But this, this has caused for concern.
Speaker 4: There was a time earlier in my career in a
Speaker 4: different spot, Genie was my job to get a satellite
Speaker 4: radio channel assigned to the radio pool. It was not
Speaker 4: easy and it ended up resolving in a vote among
Speaker 4: my peers. It was a successful voter. We started as
Speaker 4: part of that rotation. What is the difference between the
Speaker 4: White House picking who's in the pool and the self
Speaker 4: policing White House Correspondence Association.
Speaker 11: Well, there's a big difference, you know.
Speaker 12: The number one is that the White House, as more
Speaker 12: just mentioned, Republicans may not be happy who the next
Speaker 12: Democratic president or White House chooses to put in that pool.
Speaker 11: So it is very concerning, you know.
Speaker 12: I think if we just think about it broadly, there
Speaker 12: is a reason that the framers of the Constitution put
Speaker 12: only one private business, if you will, into the Constitution,
Speaker 12: and that is the freedom of the press.
Speaker 11: It's that important to democracy, all right.
Speaker 2: Jeanie Shanzano and Mara Gillespie our political panel today. Thank
Speaker 2: you so much for joining us as we follow what's
Speaker 2: happening at the White House also on Capitol Hill or
Speaker 2: we'll be going next after the passage of that House
Speaker 2: budget resolution last night. This is Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast. Catch
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Speaker 4: We weren't sure we'd be talking about results from a vote,
Speaker 4: but it did happen last night, even after at one
Speaker 4: point lawmakers were cleared from the House floor, they were
Speaker 4: sent home, they didn't have the votes. Thirteen minutes later
Speaker 4: they did two seventeen two point fifteen, Kaylee. A big victory,
Speaker 4: one of many that will be required for Speaker Mike
Speaker 4: Johnson to close the deal on Donald.
Speaker 2: Trump's Yeah, a big victory, if not a big margin
Speaker 2: of victory. This thing did come down to the wire.
Speaker 2: It was very, very close, and arguably there is still
Speaker 2: even harder work ahead because this was, as we heard
Speaker 2: from lawmakers ourselves yesterday, just a blueprint. Now they actually
Speaker 2: have to iron out where these spending cuts are going
Speaker 2: to come from, whether the tax cuts will be made
Speaker 2: permanent as the Senate wants. It's still a lot of
Speaker 2: work left to do. In joining us now with a
Speaker 2: look from Capitol Hill is Republican Congressman Troy Downing of Montana,
Speaker 2: who represents Montana's second district. Congressman, thanks so much for
Speaker 2: being here on Bloomberg TV and Radio. Obviously, last night
Speaker 2: was a little bit dramatic, and I do wonder what
Speaker 2: you're hearing from your colleagues today on the path forward,
Speaker 2: given how much arm wrestling, including phone calls from the President,
Speaker 2: needed to happen just to get to the blueprint pasted.
Speaker 9: Well, I'm going to tell you I'm really happy with
Speaker 9: how it turned out. And I think it's a healthy process.
Speaker 9: I mean, we don't just all, you know, automatically give
Speaker 9: an answer. We need an opportunity to talk about to
Speaker 9: you know, air our grievances for lack of a better word.
Speaker 9: And I think it's a healthy process. But then we
Speaker 9: understand this is a team sport. We had to get
Speaker 9: come together and actually pass this. And I think there's
Speaker 9: been you mentioned it briefly, a lot of misconception. I mean,
Speaker 9: this resolution really is almost a procedural part, you know,
Speaker 9: on the budget where the real work begins on the committees.
Speaker 9: And you know, we're ready to start doing that work.
Speaker 9: Obviously there's a lot of work that's gonna you know,
Speaker 9: come of that, but I think it'll go through that
Speaker 9: same process where we will you know, debate in the
Speaker 9: at the committee level, figure out you know, where we
Speaker 9: come together to get this all together and I'll ultimately
Speaker 9: get this into a bill to you know, uh, really
Speaker 9: make some changes that Donald Trump promised that we all
Speaker 9: ran on and that the American people want, and I'm
Speaker 9: excited about the opportunity to do this.
Speaker 4: It does say a lot about the potential drama when
Speaker 4: just passing the instructions requires so much angst. Here, Congressman,
Speaker 4: we just had a conversation with Kevin Brady, the former
Speaker 4: chair of the Ways and Means Committee, who is charged
Speaker 4: with helping to get the Trump tax cuts not just
Speaker 4: extended but made permanent. He suggests this idea of cutting
Speaker 4: two trillion dollars in spending is not nearly enough to
Speaker 4: pay for what the president wants.
Speaker 9: Do you agree, Well, here, here's the thing is the
Speaker 9: Tax Cuts and Jobs Acts, it needs to be extended.
Speaker 9: That's that would be a twenty six percent tax increase
Speaker 9: to Montana's if we don't get that extended, and that
Speaker 9: goes across the board, you know, from you know, from
Speaker 9: every strata of taxpayer, and you know, one of the
Speaker 9: things that's really important to a lot of my constituents
Speaker 9: is making sure that that death tax isn't repealed, because
Speaker 9: that could potentially start taking production agriculture out of production
Speaker 9: as airs and farms and ranches in Montana have to
Speaker 9: sell to pay their taxes. Everybody thinks that this is
Speaker 9: some you know, wealthy loophole, where the reality of it
Speaker 9: is is a lot of these you know, farmers ranchers
Speaker 9: Montana are very you know, land rich and you know,
Speaker 9: capital poor, and this would just start to start to
Speaker 9: destroy them. But I do think that we all ran
Speaker 9: on this. You know, the American people want it, and
Speaker 9: we need to extend these I've heard that the Senate
Speaker 9: is likely going to you know, try to make these permanent.
Speaker 9: I personally think that that's a good idea. I think
Speaker 9: that's positive, But we have to go through the process
Speaker 9: and see where we actually get with that.
Speaker 2: Well, and part of this process, or at least part
Speaker 2: of the math, if you listen to the words of
Speaker 2: the President, may include revenue that will come in because
Speaker 2: of tariffs he intends to implements. As you talk about
Speaker 2: your constituents in Montana how they would be affected by
Speaker 2: tax policy, I do wonder both for your constituents and
Speaker 2: for the small businesses that you hear from as you
Speaker 2: sit on the Small Business Committee, what you're hearing about
Speaker 2: the potential negative impact of tariffs that could go into
Speaker 2: places He once again today said twenty five percent on
Speaker 2: Mexican and Canadian goods.
Speaker 9: That's happening, right, And you know where where the administration
Speaker 9: falls on the tariffs or not. Obviously in Congress we're
Speaker 9: not you know, we're not doing that part of it,
Speaker 9: but we are trying to be very thoughtful in.
Speaker 2: Making and I'm sure you're hearing about it.
Speaker 9: Oh, yes, of course we're hearing about it. And there's
Speaker 9: there's a lot of concern and where that actually you
Speaker 9: know falls or doesn't fall, you know, will continue to
Speaker 9: make sure that the administration understands what our concerns are.
Speaker 9: And I mean there's two parts of it. You talk about, uh,
Speaker 9: you know, the inflationary you know, potential of it coming in,
Speaker 9: but you can balance that in tax policy. You talk
Speaker 9: about nobody you know wants a trade war. What's that mean?
Speaker 9: As you export, we need to be very thoughtful about
Speaker 9: how surgical we are in applying that because you know,
Speaker 9: coming from an agricultural state, a lot of my producers
Speaker 9: are selling abroad. We need to make sure that they're
Speaker 9: not disadvantaged. And these are the conversations we'll have with
Speaker 9: the administration to make sure that we are using a
Speaker 9: scalpel and not a sledgehammer when when he starts to
Speaker 9: push out this care policy.
Speaker 4: Well, Congressman, our viewers and listeners should know before you
Speaker 4: got to Capitol Hill in this most recent Congress, you
Speaker 4: were a business owner, not just an Air Force veteran,
Speaker 4: but you were the founder and former CEO of a
Speaker 4: story solutions company. You also founded a web calendar company.
Speaker 4: You sold the Yahoo So you know what it's like
Speaker 4: to balance a budget. You know what it's like to
Speaker 4: face a balance sheet. And I wonder how important it
Speaker 4: is to you for these tax cuts, whether their extended
Speaker 4: or made permanent, are paid for.
Speaker 9: Yeah, well, here's here's the thing. Is coming from the
Speaker 9: private sector, you understand, you know, the fits and spurts
Speaker 9: of having to you know, balance your budget, you know,
Speaker 9: for lack of a better word, making sure that you
Speaker 9: know you can stay afloat, making sure you have access
Speaker 9: to capital, making sure you can you know, pay your expenses,
Speaker 9: all of that stuff, and sometimes you need to downsize
Speaker 9: and regroup. And I think that's an important thing to
Speaker 9: think about. You see a lot of companies that get
Speaker 9: to a point where they have to you know, start
Speaker 9: to downsize as they restructure, and they always will not always,
Speaker 9: but often it will come back stronger. And I think
Speaker 9: it's important to understand that. You know, one of the
Speaker 9: things that's going on right now with with DOGE is
Speaker 9: they're starting to you know, uncover all of this wasteful
Speaker 9: spending and I think a lot of the stuff that
Speaker 9: we're going to find and continue to find is that
Speaker 9: we're paying for a lot of things, overpaying for a
Speaker 9: lot of things. The most Americans had no idea that
Speaker 9: we were involved in. And there's a recent poll that
Speaker 9: came out. I just saw it this morning. The shows
Speaker 9: between a super majority between seventy six and seventy seven
Speaker 9: percent approve of what the president is doing and rooting
Speaker 9: out this fraud, waste and abuse. And so, you know,
Speaker 9: one of the issues there that I think is important
Speaker 9: is to you know, understand that that that that's going
Speaker 9: to start to release a lot of a lot of
Speaker 9: this potential and we're not you know, necessarily going to
Speaker 9: get fair you know CBO rating on that, and so
Speaker 9: I think it's important to keep that in your back
Speaker 9: pocket that we might see a lot more than most
Speaker 9: people expected, but the American people voted for Trump to
Speaker 9: do what he's doing, and I'm I'm very supportive of
Speaker 9: that because in anything from private business to government, you
Speaker 9: need to root out, you know, wasteful spending, fraud, and abuse.
Speaker 9: And I'm happy that we're doing that.
Speaker 2: Are there concerns, though, Congressmen, around things that could get
Speaker 2: thrown out with that bathwater when we consider the reductions
Speaker 2: in the federal workforce, specifically in the Office of Personnel
Speaker 2: Management just sent out a memo today that agencies have
Speaker 2: til March thirteenth to essentially outline their plans for large
Speaker 2: scale reductions in their workforces. Veterans like yourself make up
Speaker 2: a large chunk of the federal workforce. Are you worried
Speaker 2: about the people ultimately who could be affected by this, Well.
Speaker 9: First of all, you never want to see anybody being
Speaker 9: affected like that. Obviously the effect on that person, that
Speaker 9: person's family is important. But on the other hand, we
Speaker 9: have to figure out where we're spending money. I mean,
Speaker 9: we were elected to be stewards to you know, to
Speaker 9: the people that elected us, to the people of the
Speaker 9: United States of America. Making sure that we're being stewards
Speaker 9: to the taxpayer money and doing the right thing. And
Speaker 9: so as we start to look at these programs, we're
Speaker 9: going to have, you know, very serious conversations about what
Speaker 9: is in the interest of the United States of America,
Speaker 9: what is stewardship of taxpayer dollars. And you know, there's
Speaker 9: going to be a lot of trimming of the fat
Speaker 9: that is going to be part of it. I don't
Speaker 9: discount the fact that this, you know, will affect some people,
Speaker 9: and you know, I don't discount that at all, but
Speaker 9: it's something that we have to do. We're at the
Speaker 9: precipice where we just don't have the ability as a country,
Speaker 9: the funds to continue spending ourselves into oblivion. You know,
Speaker 9: I think about my path of you know, growing up
Speaker 9: without you know, without money, without you know, family connections,
Speaker 9: without means, and being successful because the opportunities I had
Speaker 9: as an American, and I worry about that being squandered
Speaker 9: with a complete lack of fiscal restraint. And I think
Speaker 9: that that American dream, you know, this country that was
Speaker 9: so good to me when I'm growing up, is harder
Speaker 9: and harder to achieve for this next generation of the
Speaker 9: generation after I think of that brass ring of that
Speaker 9: American dream. I worry about how a young family starting
Speaker 9: out today ever has a path to buy their first house.
Speaker 9: I mean that that's the you know, the main part
Speaker 9: of that American dream, and we need to start clawing
Speaker 9: that back. I think a complete lack of fiscal constraint,
Speaker 9: a complete lack of your stewardship for government funds, and
Speaker 9: you know, it just comes down to you know, economics,
Speaker 9: one on one. You keep pouring money into a system,
Speaker 9: it's not helping anything. It's an inflationary factor. And we
Speaker 9: need to start clawing that back so that we make
Speaker 9: it so that our kids have the opportunities that I did.
Speaker 9: We make it so they can buy that first house.
Speaker 9: We make it so they can be successful.
Speaker 4: I appreciate the principle of what you're saying, Congressman, but
Speaker 4: I wonder if there should be a carve out for
Speaker 4: veterans and veterans services. Not only are you a veteran yourself,
Speaker 4: but I know you work with Warriors and Quiet Waters Foundation.
Speaker 4: The Post this morning reporting in Washington DOGE canceling government contracts,
Speaker 4: eight hundred and seventy five of them that includes support
Speaker 4: for medical and burial services, cancer programs and efforts to
Speaker 4: recruit doctors for critical vacancies. Is there a space for
Speaker 4: nonprofit to fill this gap or are you worried about
Speaker 4: what's happening.
Speaker 9: Well, obviously there's a lot of nonprofits that do fill
Speaker 9: those GAPSS. You know an upward of sixty five thousand
Speaker 9: veteran nonprofits in this country, and actually that's old data
Speaker 9: might be more by now, but let me just be
Speaker 9: really clear. I will always stand up and support our veterans,
Speaker 9: and to the point that we start to lose programs
Speaker 9: that they're depending on the then I will stand up
Speaker 9: to that because that that is something that that can't
Speaker 9: happen under my watch. What I'm saying right now and
Speaker 9: what I'm hopeful for is we're starting to trim that
Speaker 9: fat that's not directly related to veteran services, but to
Speaker 9: the administrative side parts where we can actually, you know,
Speaker 9: trim the fat that is not directly related to services
Speaker 9: that we've promised and have been giving our veterans. And
Speaker 9: I will always stand up for that. The numbers that
Speaker 9: you just gave me, it's first i've I've heard. So
Speaker 9: I'm going to refrain from talking about that un till
Speaker 9: I've had a chance to look at it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, I appreciate your answering that question, sir, and
Speaker 4: we thank you for your service. That's Congressman Troy Downing,
Speaker 4: Republican from Montana's second District, with us LIDE from Capitol
Speaker 4: Hill here on Bloomberg.
Speaker 3: Thanks for listening to the Balance of Power podcast.
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