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Speaker 2: We're expecting the House is going to try to move
Speaker 2: forward on its budget resolution. I say I guess because
Speaker 2: even the House Speaker himself wasn't totally clear as to
Speaker 2: whether or not tonight was going to be go time
Speaker 2: keeping in mind, the vote was originally scheduled to take
Speaker 2: place around six pm, but Mike Johnson, when speaking to
Speaker 2: reporters at the Capitol earlier, seemed a little uh wishy
Speaker 2: washy on this though he does stand by the one
Speaker 2: built package. This is what he said.
Speaker 3: We do not have time to waste. The American people
Speaker 3: are expecting us to deliver on this and we will.
Speaker 3: And House Republicans need da night so we can keep
Speaker 3: this process moving forward. And I think they all understand
Speaker 3: that we're working right now to get everybody on board.
Speaker 3: I think everybody wants to be on this train and
Speaker 3: not in front of it.
Speaker 4: There may not be time to waste, but we have
Speaker 4: no clarity on how much time I guess we have.
Speaker 5: Here, Kaylee.
Speaker 4: To your point, speaker was asked right after that moment,
Speaker 4: are you committed to the vote being today? He said,
Speaker 4: there may be a vote tonight, there may not be.
Speaker 4: Stay tuned, so we've got another game day call here,
Speaker 4: Mike Johnson. Yeah, Look, if you can only lose one here,
Speaker 4: obviously this is a pretty difficult exercise. He had meetings
Speaker 4: late last evening that resumed early this morning with some
Speaker 4: of the holdouts. And we're joined right now by Jack Fitzpatrick,
Speaker 4: specializes in appropriations for US here covering Congress at Bloomberg Government. Jack,
Speaker 4: what do you think? I know you're here on a
Speaker 4: lot of the same stuff we're describing. Will there be
Speaker 4: a vote today?
Speaker 6: It's not looking great for a vote today. They haven't
Speaker 6: officially put it off. But when you hear the speaker
Speaker 6: kind of hesitating on the vote plan, that tells you something.
Speaker 6: And even this morning we heard from four people directly
Speaker 6: who right now are no votes on the House Republican side,
Speaker 6: and as you mentioned, you can only afford to lose
Speaker 6: one assuming all the Democrats show up. Now, some of
Speaker 6: those no votes are pretty dug in. I would say
Speaker 6: Thomas Massey, who described himself as a hard no on
Speaker 6: this budget resolution, I'm not sure if they can really
Speaker 6: negotiate with him right now. There are others, though, Tim Burchett,
Speaker 6: Republican from Tennessee, said, nobody's met with me. The Speaker
Speaker 6: hasn't met with Burchett. Leadership haven't really tried to win
Speaker 6: him over. He wants some at least verbal promises on
Speaker 6: spending cuts and something very conservative in the ultimate bill.
Speaker 6: So there are some people you can work on, but
Speaker 6: right now they have more than one no vote and
Speaker 6: so they've definitely got work to do to get to
Speaker 6: actually holding this vote. Doing it today would seem pretty tough.
Speaker 2: Well, in the first real test is coming pretty shortly,
Speaker 2: right Jack. They have to vote on the rule on
Speaker 2: this bill first, and that's schedule to happen at this hour.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that could be a test.
Speaker 6: So someone asked Warren Davidson, who is one of the no's,
Speaker 6: right now, are you going to vote against the rule?
Speaker 5: And he was kind of wishy washy on that.
Speaker 6: The thing to know about the reconciliation process in all
Speaker 6: of this is there are a ton of opportunities to
Speaker 6: block it, so you don't need if you're a conservative
Speaker 6: who wants a more aggressive path to spending cuts.
Speaker 5: You don't need to oppose the rule.
Speaker 6: And we haven't really heard a lot of people specifically
Speaker 6: saying they're going to oppose the rule. You can vote
Speaker 6: in favor of the rule and then take down the
Speaker 6: budget resolution, or you can support the budget resolution and
Speaker 6: then take down the ultimate bill, so it gets progressively harder.
Speaker 6: I'm not sure that an acceptance of the rule would
Speaker 6: necessarily even be a good sign. A lot of people
Speaker 6: are focused on that second vote that's supposed to be
Speaker 6: later today on the resolution itself.
Speaker 4: Well, that's really interesting and a great point that you
Speaker 4: make here, Jack, because the fact of the matter is
Speaker 4: it doesn't say anything about cutting medicaid in this budget resolution.
Speaker 5: Correct.
Speaker 4: This is the assumption that if you're going to reach
Speaker 4: a certain level of cuts, you're going to have to
Speaker 4: raid the cookie jar at some point and get to entitlements,
Speaker 4: and it looks like medicaid would be the answer there.
Speaker 4: But a lawmaker can vote for this still not be
Speaker 4: pinned down in a campaign ad saying that they voted
Speaker 4: to slash medicaid.
Speaker 6: Yes, what's in writing here is a direction among many directions,
Speaker 6: but a direction to the Energy and Commerce Committee saying
Speaker 6: you have to cut eight hundred eighty billion dollars or
Speaker 6: raise revenue, which Republicans don't really want to do.
Speaker 5: It's hard to see how they get to that without.
Speaker 6: Probably cutting a combination of Medicaid and maybe of the
Speaker 6: snap nutrition Aid. So there are some politically sensitive things there.
Speaker 6: But because this is not the bill itself that would
Speaker 6: do that, you've seen some openness from the moderates who
Speaker 6: might be scared off. Nicole Maliatakis, who was a kind
Speaker 6: of negative sounding when speaking to you yesterday, sounded a
Speaker 6: bit more positive this morning. It's more the Conservatives who
Speaker 6: are holding things up than the moderates, because the moderates know,
Speaker 6: if I don't like the details of what happens on Medicaid,
Speaker 6: you can stop the bill later in the process, even
Speaker 6: if you let this resolution go forward.
Speaker 2: Well, and of course there is still a lot of
Speaker 2: time left for debate on this jack as the expiring
Speaker 2: tax cuts do so at the end of the year,
Speaker 2: so theoretically they could have until then to get their
Speaker 2: act together on this. The timeline we're working with on
Speaker 2: keeping the government funded, though, is much shorter. We're seventeen
Speaker 2: days out from the deadline. Are you seeing any signs
Speaker 2: of progress being made toward a deal to avert the
Speaker 2: lights going off?
Speaker 6: Very little progress on government funding. It's the March fourteenth
Speaker 6: deadline to avoid a shutdown. The negotiators have told us
Speaker 6: they're not that far off on the numbers, at least
Speaker 6: the preliminary numbers of how much you're going to spend
Speaker 6: on defense and non defense. But Democrats have said, why
Speaker 6: would we support this agreement if we don't have assurances
Speaker 6: that the money is going to be spent, Because simultaneously
Speaker 6: you have these efforts by President Trump and Elon Musk
Speaker 6: to pause funding, to cancel contracts. They want something, either
Speaker 6: verbally or in writing. I'm not exactly sure what the
Speaker 6: latest offer is from. So they need something to ensure
Speaker 6: that the money will be spent, and that is a
Speaker 6: hard thing to get across. There's not a lot of
Speaker 6: progress on that discussion, and so there's a big, big
Speaker 6: gap to bridge still as we get closer to March fourteenth.
Speaker 2: Glaucus ticking. Jack Fitzpatrick of Bloomberg Government Live for us
Speaker 2: from Capitol Hill. Thank you so much. And of course
Speaker 2: shows us jack us here in Washington. I'll focus on
Speaker 2: the way in which this policy is getting done, in
Speaker 2: all of the politics behind it. There also is just
Speaker 2: a question of the need for the policy to get
Speaker 2: done in the first place, and what it means for
Speaker 2: financial markets and our audience, specifically here on Bloomberg TV
Speaker 2: and radio, dealing.
Speaker 4: With massive amounts of uncertainty right now, whether it's this
Speaker 4: budget resolution, what form of tax cuts, how long will
Speaker 4: the extension be? Don't even ask me about dog Well.
Speaker 2: And then there's on the subject of dough and attempts
Speaker 2: to cut spending. What it all means for a deficit
Speaker 2: that the bond market increasingly seems a bit worried about.
Speaker 2: And that is something that we spoke with Maya McGuinness
Speaker 2: of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget about last night.
Speaker 2: She was walking us through the actual math here WHI
Speaker 2: should her view doesn't make sense.
Speaker 7: We can also scale back the price tag of this
Speaker 7: tax cut four and a half trillion, five trillion. This
Speaker 7: makes no sense given our fiscal situation right now. If
Speaker 7: we want to extend these tax cuts, we should extend
Speaker 7: the ones that are most pro growth, most important, and
Speaker 7: all settle as a lot of them by broadening the
Speaker 7: tax base. There's eighty five trillion dollars in spending over
Speaker 7: ten years. They're cutting two trillion out of that. This
Speaker 7: is not taking a sledge hammer to the government. It's
Speaker 7: a very small amount.
Speaker 2: So for more on this, we turned to Libby Cantrell,
Speaker 2: pimco's head of US Public Policy, who was here with
Speaker 2: us on Balance of Power. Libby, I'm sure you're getting
Speaker 2: a lot of questions about this tax package, and welcome back.
Speaker 2: It's good to see you. What aren't you telling clients
Speaker 2: that ask, ay, if this is all going to be
Speaker 2: able to get done in the first place and be
Speaker 2: what it means in the long term. If yes, markets
Speaker 2: like tax cuts, but there's also the deficit to consider.
Speaker 8: Yeah, to be with you, I mean, I think you
Speaker 8: know the sort of the bottom line that our clients
Speaker 8: are most interested in is it's your earlier point. Will
Speaker 8: this get done and for how long? I think there's
Speaker 8: a real question of whether this is extended for a
Speaker 8: short period of time just several years, whether it's extended
Speaker 8: for the entire what's called the budget window for ten years,
Speaker 8: or whether it's made permanent. And of course they're members
Speaker 8: in the Senate in particular, Setate Finance Chairman Mike Crapo
Speaker 8: in particular, who wants to see an extension, you know,
Speaker 8: a permanent extension. So I think that, you know, for
Speaker 8: kind of the bond market, for investors and client our clients,
Speaker 8: I think they're most focused on, you know, will this
Speaker 8: get done? And I think our message is unequivocally yes,
Speaker 8: this will. But again, there are just some questions about
Speaker 8: what the kind of the scope of this looks like
Speaker 8: and if this is just an extension or whether they're
Speaker 8: additional task cuts. The other thing I will just say is,
Speaker 8: you know, more more clients are asking, as maybe some
Speaker 8: concerns of growth or starting to weigh on the market,
Speaker 8: is what the cuts would look like and how draconian
Speaker 8: are they, how frontloaded they are, and how significant could
Speaker 8: they be from a growth perspective. So kind of two
Speaker 8: sides of the coin.
Speaker 4: Of course, it's great to see you back, Libby. Where's
Speaker 4: your optimism coming from? Because, as you point out in
Speaker 4: your notes to clients just yesterday, getting them ready for
Speaker 4: this moment, the Ultimate Reconciliation Bill is this is basically
Speaker 4: instructions the guardrails for the ultimate reconciliation build and we
Speaker 4: can't even agree on this.
Speaker 5: What makes you think.
Speaker 4: The actual bill with the actual money inside, can pass
Speaker 4: with a majority of one.
Speaker 8: Well, Joe, it is a good question. But my optimism,
Speaker 8: I think, just comes from the place that there really
Speaker 8: is no decision otherwise. This is in many ways existential
Speaker 8: for House members and for members of the Senate. They
Speaker 8: just simply cannot let the US economy kind of go
Speaker 8: over this fiscal cliff, if you will, That's how they
Speaker 8: would characterize it. So for politically speaking, there really is
Speaker 8: no other choice, and as we all know, political expedients
Speaker 8: oftentimes rules the day in Washington. So that is where
Speaker 8: my optimism is coming from. However, I do think it
Speaker 8: is going to be a circuitous route to get to
Speaker 8: that destination, as we are just seen. As you point out,
Speaker 8: if you can only lose one vote, that's not really
Speaker 8: a governing majority, if you will, even on something like
Speaker 8: tax cuts, and particularly when you sort of put into
Speaker 8: more controversial items like potential Medicaid cuts. So this will
Speaker 8: not be again a linear road by any means, but
Speaker 8: we're confident by the end of this year you will
Speaker 8: see an extension of the tax cuts again, just a
Speaker 8: question for how long and if there are additional task
Speaker 8: cuts and accompanied by other spending cuts.
Speaker 2: Are you as confident Libby that lawmakers can find a
Speaker 2: way to avert a shutdown just weeks from now, ors
Speaker 2: that something markets need to start bracing for.
Speaker 8: Yeah, well, again, I think markets are you know, have
Speaker 8: become and maybe rightfully so, relatively impervious to this sort
Speaker 8: of shut down rhetoric. I think that folks sort of
Speaker 8: assume that they've seen this movie before that even if
Speaker 8: the government does shut down, as long as it's a
Speaker 8: temporary shutdown, that it actually hasn't really weighed on economic growth.
Speaker 8: I think it's probably too early to put odds on
Speaker 8: whether there will be a shutdown. I do agree though,
Speaker 8: with the previous reporter that you know that Democrats are
Speaker 8: really not don't have really any appetite to play ball
Speaker 8: with Republicans right now. I think there's some real concerns
Speaker 8: that they're hearing from their constituents about the DOGE impact
Speaker 8: and particularly around federal employee terminations and what have you.
Speaker 8: So I think they're going to want something in order
Speaker 8: to you know, to advance a government funding bill. And
Speaker 8: I think it's just the real question is whether Republicans
Speaker 8: are willing to give that to them. So I think, again,
Speaker 8: probably too early to say, and you never underestimate kind
Speaker 8: of the power of again political expedients. And I think
Speaker 8: that the political incentive here is to keep the government funded.
Speaker 8: But you know, again open question of whether they'll play
Speaker 8: ball with each other.
Speaker 4: Well, that's a pretty difficult balancing act that you're describing
Speaker 4: there for Mike Johnson. And I suppose he's getting.
Speaker 9: Used to these.
Speaker 4: If he ostracizes Democrats here in the budget resolution but
Speaker 4: needs to rely on them to pass a continuing resolution
Speaker 4: to keep the government funded, how does he do both?
Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean I do not you know, I don't
Speaker 8: think any of us and the Speaker Johnson's position right now. Again,
Speaker 8: I mean, he has the smallest Republican majority in the
Speaker 8: history of the Republican Party. Uh, so he is, you know,
Speaker 8: he is really trying to navigate a very difficult, uh,
Speaker 8: you know road right now. And I think that you know,
Speaker 8: Jim as you know, I think that the Joe that
Speaker 8: the that the reconciliation package is going to be a
Speaker 8: partisan package. So I think that your Democrats were expected
Speaker 8: to be alienated. I don't think they were expected to
Speaker 8: be included in this process. But again, I think that
Speaker 8: there is going to be some sort of you know,
Speaker 8: demand for concessions from Republicans going into this government funding fight.
Speaker 8: And I think it's a question of whether Speaker Johnson
Speaker 8: feels like he can give that to Democrats. And again,
Speaker 8: I think that's really really an open question. He has
Speaker 8: a very full plate, though, I think that's the upshot.
Speaker 8: And then, of course we haven't even talked about the
Speaker 8: debt ceiling. And even though the debt ceiling increase is
Speaker 8: included in this reconciliation, there is this budget package. You know,
Speaker 8: I think it remains to be seen whether that's addressed
Speaker 8: as well. So this is going to be a very
Speaker 8: you know, busy few months for the Speaker. And again,
Speaker 8: you know, I don't think any sort of an enviable position,
Speaker 8: you know, by and.
Speaker 2: Large, well, the President's been busy too, Libyan. In our
Speaker 2: final moments here, he told our colleague Jordan Fabian at
Speaker 2: the White House yesterday that he is intending to move
Speaker 2: forward with twenty five percent tariffs on Canadian and Mexican
Speaker 2: goods a week from today day. Do you call that bluff?
Speaker 8: Well, I don't think, you know, we're not in a
Speaker 8: position to call the president's bluff or or not. I
Speaker 8: will say, though, Okaylee, that what we're hearing from our
Speaker 8: clients is both domestically and abroad, is a lot of
Speaker 8: concern just about just tariffs writ large, of course, but
Speaker 8: particularly on these potential twenty five percent tariffs on Canada
Speaker 8: and Mexico. As we all know, the three economies are
Speaker 8: incredibly enmeshed. There could be a lot of knock on effects,
Speaker 8: both from an inflation perspective, but even more from a
Speaker 8: growth perspective. I think this is something that the market
Speaker 8: may you know, they're very oriented towards the inflationary impacts
Speaker 8: of tariffs, but you know, we have a guided our
Speaker 8: clients to be focused just on the headwind of growth
Speaker 8: from tariffs as well, and particularly if you put twenty
Speaker 8: five percent on Canada and Mexico. Again, just given how
Speaker 8: entrenched those economies are, so a lot of concerns. I
Speaker 8: don't again, not calling his bluff or not, but we
Speaker 8: had to take his threat seriously. He is, of course
Speaker 8: the President.
Speaker 4: The United States program is brought to us by the
Speaker 4: word uncertainty today. Libby Cantrill, thank you so much Libby.
Speaker 4: It's great to see you back with us here on
Speaker 4: Balance of Power. Head of you US Public Policy at PIMCO.
Speaker 4: I'm Joe Matthew alongside Kaylee Lions will assemble our panel. Next,
Speaker 4: we have both Rick Davis and Jeanie Shanzeno with us
Speaker 4: as we stare down the barrel of a possible vote
Speaker 4: on a budget resolution later today in the House and
Speaker 4: count down to a possible government shutdown the middle of
Speaker 4: next month. It's all ahead right here on Bloomberg.
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Speaker 2: Stop me if you've heard this before. But here in Washington,
Speaker 2: on Capitol Hill, specifically, we find the Speaker of the House,
Speaker 2: to Mike Johnson, in a pretty tough spot today. He,
Speaker 2: of course, trying to get a budget resolution through his
Speaker 2: chamber with only the votes of his conference. Just Republicans
Speaker 2: are expected to get this thing across the finish line.
Speaker 2: And once again counting them with only one vote that
Speaker 2: he can afford to lose is proving to be pretty difficult.
Speaker 4: So it's just another Tuesday. Yeah, are you suggesting that.
Speaker 5: We've seen this movie before a few times?
Speaker 4: Maybe Mike Johnson has majority of one though, is sort
Speaker 4: of new level, to the point where at least Aphonic
Speaker 4: has to hang around Washington for weeks longer than expected.
Speaker 4: Instead of being confirmed as our next ambassador to the UN,
Speaker 4: they have basically shelved the confirmation process to maintain the
Speaker 4: one seat majority that we're talking about today, and it
Speaker 4: is unclear if we're even going to get a vote
Speaker 4: on a budget resolution, Kaylee, because corraling all of these
Speaker 4: members to agree on this massive bill has proven this,
Speaker 4: at least so far, be impossible for Mike Johnson.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we were just checking in with our colleague Jack
Speaker 2: Fitzpatrick from Bloomberg Government, who said, already four Republicans have
Speaker 2: said they are nos at this point, and unless that
Speaker 2: change in a matter of hours, hard to see how
Speaker 2: you justify putting this thing on the floor. Although this
Speaker 2: speaker also has not been shy and letting things well,
Speaker 2: that's true, before all the votes are and solidly in
Speaker 2: his corner.
Speaker 4: Miracles can happen. He was asked, committed to the vote
Speaker 4: being today. This is a direct quote. There may be
Speaker 4: a vote tonight, there may not be. Stay tuned. That's
Speaker 4: where we start with our signature panel. Rick and Jennie
Speaker 4: are both with us today on Balance of Power. Rick Davis,
Speaker 4: Republican strategist and partner at Stone Court Capital. Genie is
Speaker 4: our democratic analyst and senior democracy Fellow with the Center
Speaker 4: for the Study of the Presidency and Congress. Genie, I'm
Speaker 4: pretty sure there are no Democrats who are going to
Speaker 4: help out with this process today. Can Mike Johnson get
Speaker 4: Republicans to clear this bill?
Speaker 9: Yeah?
Speaker 10: That statement he made was about as clear as mud.
Speaker 10: There may there may not be. You know, certainly no
Speaker 10: Democrats are going to go along. But I'm going to
Speaker 10: go out on a limb here and say if I
Speaker 10: was Donald Trump, which I clearly am not, I would
Speaker 10: say to Mike Johnson, this is about the easiest thing
Speaker 10: I'm asking you to do. I know you have a
Speaker 10: one vote majority, but here's the reality. You are asking
Speaker 10: people to vote to move forward. There is nothing in
Speaker 10: this language which talks about cutting on Medicaid or anything else.
Speaker 10: So if he cannot bring these people to help them
Speaker 10: move forward for a budget blueprint, how is he going
Speaker 10: to get to the next difficult step of putting actual
Speaker 10: numbers and cuts on the table. So, if I'm Donald Trump,
Speaker 10: I'm thinking of this as like, this is it, Mike,
Speaker 10: you get this vote. If you can't do this, there's
Speaker 10: no hope. So I think Mike Johnson gets this done
Speaker 10: at some point.
Speaker 2: Well, if we all just rewind to January when Mike
Speaker 2: Johnson was trying to get the speaker's gavel in the
Speaker 2: first place and didn't look like he was going to
Speaker 2: have the votes on the first round, Guess who got
Speaker 2: on the phone, Rick Davis. It was then President elect
Speaker 2: Donald Trump to force the hand of those Republicans who
Speaker 2: were still holdouts. Do you think we could see something
Speaker 2: similar happen here?
Speaker 11: Yeah? I suspect even today, if Johnson doesn't have the votes,
Speaker 11: and it sounds like he doesn't and it's not that close,
Speaker 11: if he has three or four, then he probably has
Speaker 11: more holdouts. Then he's going to need some help. And
Speaker 11: what's interesting is some of the reporting we've been getting
Speaker 11: from our team at Bloomberg is that some of these
Speaker 11: folks haven't even been contacted yet. So before you go
Speaker 11: to Donald Trump, maybe it's better to have your whip
Speaker 11: actually do a vote count and these would be standard
Speaker 11: operating procedures before a big vote like this. So I
Speaker 11: guess we maybe are on a slow roll and this
Speaker 11: is going to take longer and they've got to reach
Speaker 11: out to some of these recalcuatrant members. But Donald Trump's
Speaker 11: not going to want his big, beautiful bill to fail.
Speaker 11: That actually reflects poorly on him. He has no distance
Speaker 11: between him and the House Republicans. He is the basically
Speaker 11: the speaker of the House of Representative. He owns that
Speaker 11: caucus and so if he's going to own it, then
Speaker 11: he better make sure it doesn't break.
Speaker 4: Well, what do you think about that?
Speaker 12: Rick?
Speaker 4: Tom Massey hasn't even gotten a phone call yet. Meanwhile,
Speaker 4: Mike Johnson was in meetings late last night that resumed
Speaker 4: again earlier this morning. Is this a speaker who's still
Speaker 4: learning on the job.
Speaker 11: Well, for sure, he's always had some issues with vote counting,
Speaker 11: and you really wonder what's going on in the leadership.
Speaker 11: Scalise just a couple of hours ago was out saying
Speaker 11: we're still going to vote today, and so you know,
Speaker 11: doesn't seem like they've got the best of communication. And
Speaker 11: this is a speaker who is actually spent a lot
Speaker 11: of time, unlike previous speakers, getting into one on one
Speaker 11: conversations with members broker in these deals rather than having
Speaker 11: his leadership to him, like Scalise, give them at least
Speaker 11: some deniability so that he can weigh in with any
Speaker 11: benefits that need to go to these members in order
Speaker 11: to get them to do the right thing for the
Speaker 11: for the leadership. So you know, this is not what
Speaker 11: you've gotten used to if you've been hanging around Washington
Speaker 11: for a long time and watch the powerful job of
Speaker 11: the speaker get executed in a more i would say,
Speaker 11: refined method.
Speaker 2: Well, if we think about what we heard from Steve
Speaker 2: Scalice earlier this morning, as the Republican leadership in the
Speaker 2: House spoke to journalist Genie he noted that medicaid cuts
Speaker 2: are not actually mandated in the language of this budget resolution.
Speaker 2: It's just where everybody is naturally drawing a line when
Speaker 2: they see eight hundred and eighty billion dollars that need
Speaker 2: to be cut in the Energy and Commerce Committee specifically,
Speaker 2: Does he have a point there, as Democrats are trying
Speaker 2: to say, this is Republicans setting the stage to cut
Speaker 2: Medicaid benefits. Is there still some cover provided to those
Speaker 2: moderate Republicans potentially who are considering voting yes for this.
Speaker 10: Yeah, that's absolutely right. There is cover.
Speaker 12: Now.
Speaker 10: The reality is there's no other place to cut. So
Speaker 10: once they get this blueprint, if they do, it's going
Speaker 10: to be Medicaid. So the Democrats are absolutely right on that.
Speaker 10: But the reality is they do have that cover. And
Speaker 10: this is why I go back to if this is
Speaker 10: the biggest test Mike Johnson faces and he can't jump
Speaker 10: over this hurdle, how can he be expected or how
Speaker 10: can the president have any faith he would be able
Speaker 10: to get the next really difficult part of this done,
Speaker 10: which is going to be the actual cuts. So I
Speaker 10: don't think this is a huge haul for Mike Johnson,
Speaker 10: but if it proves to be and he doesn't get
Speaker 10: this done, this votes very badly. And I agree with Rick,
Speaker 10: this is a huge, huge legacy moment for Donald Trump.
Speaker 10: Legacies are not built on eos, no matter how many
Speaker 10: of them you sign. It is all about legislation. Joe
Speaker 10: Biden got a lot of legislation done in his first year.
Speaker 10: If Donald Trump cannot keep that up, if he cannot
Speaker 10: meet that moment, he is not gonna have a legacy
Speaker 10: to stand on. And he knows that, which is why
Speaker 10: what happens today and in the next few months in
Speaker 10: the House, or what doesn't happen, is gonna be so
Speaker 10: sortant to him.
Speaker 4: That's when I mentioned a couple of headlines that are
Speaker 4: coming from the White House briefing room right now. Caroline
Speaker 4: Levitt is briefing reporters as we speak with a million
Speaker 4: federal workers. We see the headline now responding to the
Speaker 4: email requests that went out for them to justify their
Speaker 4: jobs for last week. There's still some confusion over a
Speaker 4: new midnight deadline tonight as agencies tell their workers not
Speaker 4: to acknowledge Elon Musk's email. Also, Kaylee, Donald Trump expecting
Speaker 4: Vladimir Zelenski to sign a minerals deal. I guess that's
Speaker 4: not too far away from what he said yesterday, suggesting
Speaker 4: when Scott Bessen spoke that they were on the one
Speaker 4: yard line.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the Treasury Secretary certainly sounded optimistic, and we heard
Speaker 2: from the President as he had the French President Emmanuel
Speaker 2: Macron there with him. At the White House, suggesting that
Speaker 2: Vladimir's Lensky, at least in Trump's mind, could make a
Speaker 2: trip to Washington this week or next to actually sign.
Speaker 4: This there, which might fulfill that headline as we learn more.
Speaker 4: Interesting though, as we keep our eyes on the briefing room,
Speaker 4: we haven't had a chance to talk about this much
Speaker 4: with Rick and Jeanie. The competition that we're watching right
Speaker 4: now between if I can use that word, the Trump
Speaker 4: administration and the Associated Press. This has gone to the courts.
Speaker 4: Of course, the AP was removed from a few Oval
Speaker 4: Office events because they wouldn't call the Gulf of Mexico
Speaker 4: the Gulf of America. By the way, they did move
Speaker 4: Mount McKinley away from Denali, but that's a different matter.
Speaker 4: A federal judge cleared the way for the White House
Speaker 4: to continue barring the AP from these events. And interesting, Kayley,
Speaker 4: as we were winding down the program yesterday, we were
Speaker 4: looking at the briefing room sitting here in the studio,
Speaker 4: we saw on the big led screens in there a
Speaker 4: victory banner with an image of the Gulf of America
Speaker 4: to troll the Associated Press, and Caroline Levitt has been
Speaker 4: taking questions on this, Genie, I wonder your thoughts here. Quote,
Speaker 4: it is beyond time the White House press operation reflects
Speaker 4: the media habits of the American people in twenty twenty five,
Speaker 4: not nineteen twenty five.
Speaker 10: Is she right? No, she's not right. In fact, when
Speaker 10: I heard there was a victory sign up in the
Speaker 10: White House, I couldn't imagine what they were celebrating, because
Speaker 10: and it hasn't been a very good few days for them,
Speaker 10: But they are apparently celebrating what this judge decided. But
Speaker 10: if they really paid attention to what he decided. He said, yes,
Speaker 10: we're not going to order the AP back in right now,
Speaker 10: but he said it is very possible that the AP
Speaker 10: could win here because the White House did not follow
Speaker 10: due process, arguably when it removed the AP for an
Speaker 10: editorial decision. So I think this may be a little premature.
Speaker 10: I'm having like, I don't know who was it George
Speaker 10: Bush vibes about you know what did his sign say?
Speaker 4: Accomplished?
Speaker 12: He got those?
Speaker 9: Well?
Speaker 2: Rick Rick Way in here because the Press Secretary is
Speaker 2: also telling journalists that the White House is going to
Speaker 2: be opening it's presspool to new voices. We already, of course,
Speaker 2: have seen the addition of some of those we're talking about, Yes,
Speaker 2: different kind of journalists than we historically have seen covering
Speaker 2: the White House. Does that serve a purpose in this
Speaker 2: day and age.
Speaker 11: Well, for sure. I think there's a realization that everyone
Speaker 11: should make, which is podcasters are not only making news,
Speaker 11: but conveying it, certainly their version of it, and it
Speaker 11: has proliferated. Tens of millions, if not one, hundreds of
Speaker 11: millions of Americans get their news from these unique digital sources.
Speaker 11: And you see places like the Department of Defense bringing
Speaker 11: podcasters in to run their public affairs business. They'll have
Speaker 11: them in the room when they brief every day. So
Speaker 11: this is just a recognition of a trend going forward.
Speaker 11: I mean, the AP issue is a different issue, which
Speaker 11: is getting kicked out for not you know, addressing the
Speaker 11: Gulf of Mexico's Golf of America. And I guess I
Speaker 11: would actually question, I mean, what's the relevance of the debate.
Speaker 11: Do we really need a due process legal argument to
Speaker 11: boot somebody out of the White House Press Office. I've
Speaker 11: always had the impression that was a privilege, not a require.
Speaker 11: I'd prefer to have AP, you know, on record every
Speaker 11: single day reporting from the White House. But I think
Speaker 11: that's really up to the White House. I mean, I
Speaker 11: can't imagine there's an argument that says AP owns a
Speaker 11: seat in the press room.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Lots of First Amendment questions at play here that
Speaker 2: we'll have to get into later on Rick Davis and
Speaker 2: Genie Shanzino our signature political panel here with us on
Speaker 2: Balance of Power. We'll have more ahead on Bloomberg TV
Speaker 2: and radio.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast. Catch
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Speaker 2: Plenty of talk about this yesterday at the White House
Speaker 2: when Trump was meeting with French President Emmanuel McCrone. They
Speaker 2: had long talk with reporters in the Oval ahead of
Speaker 2: their bilateral meeting, then again at a joint press conference.
Speaker 2: But interestingly, the very first question asked at that press
Speaker 2: conference of President Trump, specifically, it was not about Ukraine,
Speaker 2: not about relations with France. Instead, it was about the
Speaker 2: new Harvard Harris poll that had come out showing pretty
Speaker 2: good numbers for the president. This is what's Trump responded with.
Speaker 12: It was a big poll, and it's usually a poll
Speaker 12: that leans on the other side of things, the other
Speaker 12: side of the world, so to speak. But the Harvard
Speaker 12: Pole is a respected pole and it has us not
Speaker 12: only leading, but leading by a lot, and leading on
Speaker 12: every single issue that we've we've talked about and as
Speaker 12: I said, we've become the Party of common sense.
Speaker 2: So for more on this, we turned to Frank Lunz,
Speaker 2: politics and communications consultant also CEO of fil INQ, is
Speaker 2: here with us in our Washington, DC studio. It's been
Speaker 2: a while, Frank, good to see you. Welcome back.
Speaker 9: This place just gets nicer and nicer every time I
Speaker 9: come back.
Speaker 2: Oh you flatter us.
Speaker 12: Well.
Speaker 2: I want to talk about what the actual figures in
Speaker 2: this poll were. Fifty eight percent of voters are more
Speaker 2: satisfied with trus job as president than Biden's. Does that
Speaker 2: track with what you're hearing too.
Speaker 9: We've been doing focus groups every single week since the
Speaker 9: election and the inauguration, and Donald Trump is keeping his
Speaker 9: He's keeping his focus. He promised to deal with immigration.
Speaker 9: That's one of the first things that he that he's
Speaker 9: set forward, he promised to address Ukraine. Now I need
Speaker 9: to point out one thing that's important, which is that
Speaker 9: the language that he's using is not as effective as
Speaker 9: it could be. But that aside the issues, the priorities,
Speaker 9: what the public wants him to do, he seems to
Speaker 9: be doing, and so he's being rewarded for in essence
Speaker 9: keeping his campaign promises.
Speaker 4: You add the Doge and things start to get a
Speaker 4: little bit more complicated. This is red meat. They love
Speaker 4: the chainsaw at Seapack for a lot of maga, but
Speaker 4: even some Republicans are starting to worry. I don't know
Speaker 4: what the Doge focus group is going to tell us,
Speaker 4: Frank Lentz. But the Washington Post compiled comments from Republican
Speaker 4: members of Congress, specifically Lisa Murkowski. No, granted, these are
Speaker 4: not big Trumpers, Lisa Murkowski, John Curtis, Don Bacon, Brian Fitzpatrick.
Speaker 4: They've used words such as embarrassing, cruel, absurd, extortion, and trauma.
Speaker 9: Yes, issues in the language, not the goal, not the mission.
Speaker 4: The voters.
Speaker 9: Voters are tired of waste for Washington, spending, waste, fraud, abuse, mismanagement,
Speaker 9: even corruption, and they applaud what he's doing the question
Speaker 9: is is he doing it in a way that they appreciate.
Speaker 9: There's some sadness when someone loses their job. There's pain
Speaker 9: when a family suddenly finds that the breadwinners out of work,
Speaker 9: and that doesn't seem to be communicated from this White House.
Speaker 9: The public has an issue with his language, but not
Speaker 9: with his strategy. And this is the same thing that
Speaker 9: I hear up on Capitol Hill. If you're on the
Speaker 9: side of the status quo, you're losing. The American people
Speaker 9: have said enough with all caps and an ext point, enough,
Speaker 9: but they haven't said enough about compassion, about empathy. And
Speaker 9: if this administration tones it down and does exactly what
Speaker 9: they say, says what they mean, means what they say,
Speaker 9: but does so with empathy and compassion, they're going to
Speaker 9: be even more popular than they are today.
Speaker 2: Well, Frank, we just heard from the Press Secretary Caroline
Speaker 2: love It that Elon Musk is going to be attending
Speaker 2: the president's first cabinet meeting tomorrow. The rest of the
Speaker 2: cabinet officials, presumably who will be in that room are
Speaker 2: the ones who have been confirmed through the confirmed through
Speaker 2: the advice and consent process in the US Senate. That
Speaker 2: don't or have divested from conflicts of interest they may have,
Speaker 2: those things are not true for Elon Musk. Does that
Speaker 2: matter to the American voter.
Speaker 9: Nobody cares. Nobody cares, and in fact, Musk is almost
Speaker 9: a lightning rod. Musk is the best thing for Donald
Speaker 9: Trump because he's out there with the chainsaw appealing to
Speaker 9: the hardcore maga people. It allows Trump to do what
Speaker 9: he's doing, and everyone angry at it is now angry
Speaker 9: at Elon Musk. It's actually a brilliant strategy. People keep
Speaker 9: saying that the two of them going to blow apart.
Speaker 9: I don't see that. But Musk's language as well, and
Speaker 9: I realized I sound like a broken record. But this
Speaker 9: stuff matters in government. It matters in getting stuff done.
Speaker 9: If you communicate in a way that the public starts
Speaker 9: to resent you or reject you, it slows your momentum
Speaker 9: and it undermines your ability to get things done. Trump
Speaker 9: has focused on waste, and that is what the public
Speaker 9: has waited for, frankly for forty years. But they don't
Speaker 9: want to punish people just because you happen to get
Speaker 9: a check from the government. They don't want to punish
Speaker 9: you because you work for the government. And that's the
Speaker 9: feeling that's happening. You saw all these town halls when
Speaker 9: they're attacking the politicians, they're not really attacking the politicians.
Speaker 9: They want to know, can we do this better? Use
Speaker 9: a scalpel rather than a machine gun.
Speaker 4: There have been comparisons to the town halls back in
Speaker 4: Baraco Obama's first term that tipped over the whole idea
Speaker 4: of obama Care and the Affordable Care Act. Is it
Speaker 4: different this time or is that an apt comparison.
Speaker 9: It's I think it's an apt comparison because it's performance.
Speaker 9: People are going there not to learn, They're going there
Speaker 9: not to listen. They're going there to shout, okay, and
Speaker 9: so they want to be heard. But that was Trump's campaign,
Speaker 9: was a campaign of shouting, and it gave him the election.
Speaker 9: It's okay to shout if you get something done. The
Speaker 9: most important word in Washington right now is results. And
Speaker 9: if Trump gets results, he will get president and Trump
Speaker 9: I'm sorry. If President Trump gets results, that will move
Speaker 9: his agenda forward and he'll be able to go even
Speaker 9: further on some of these other issues that it hasn't
Speaker 9: gotten to. And the key to that is successful messaging
Speaker 9: that the public hears and sees and feels the change.
Speaker 9: They are hearing and seeing and feeling it, but they're
Speaker 9: getting the negative as well, and that doesn't need to
Speaker 9: be happening well.
Speaker 2: So when we talk about the change the public is
Speaker 2: looking for, what about what they're seeing at the grocery
Speaker 2: store price of eggs, just inflationary dynamics in general. We
Speaker 2: look at the consumer confidence data we got today, felt
Speaker 2: by the most since August of twenty twenty one, on
Speaker 2: concerns about the outlook. You saw inflation expectations pick up.
Speaker 2: Is that going to come back to bite this administration
Speaker 2: in short order?
Speaker 9: It absolutely could, and the key for the president is
Speaker 9: to lower expectations. There are some things that you can
Speaker 9: do in thirty days, such as what he's doing with Ukraine.
Speaker 9: Whether whether you agree with it or not, he is
Speaker 9: moving towards bringing that to an end. Inflation doesn't rise
Speaker 9: or fall in thirty days. It's a longer process, requires
Speaker 9: supply chain fixes, requires lower energy prices. There's so much
Speaker 9: involved in it, and from a political standpoint, Americans don't
Speaker 9: pay attention to that. They simply pay attention to affordability, food, fuel, housing,
Speaker 9: and healthcare the present be well served to lower expectations
Speaker 9: because it's going to take six months or a year
Speaker 9: for his policies to actually have an impact. And by
Speaker 9: saying that he's going to bring it down now, you
Speaker 9: can't make you shouldn't make that promise, and that could
Speaker 9: hurt him as well. You know, it's weird because I'm
Speaker 9: listening to what I'm saying here. As a president, he's
Speaker 9: been the most significant since FDR. He's caused more change,
Speaker 9: more agitation than any president since Andrew Jackson. And it's
Speaker 9: remarkable how people have already taken sides. But the public
Speaker 9: is supporting what he's doing. The concern is how he's
Speaker 9: doing it, and that's something that maybe he'll get the message,
Speaker 9: maybe he'll see this video. I think he wants to
Speaker 9: do it his way. I can hear Frank Sinatra playing
Speaker 9: in the background, But in the end, how he does
Speaker 9: it determines his success or his failure.
Speaker 4: You could hear Steve Bannon talking in the background soon
Speaker 4: not even about Elon, but about flooding the zone. You're
Speaker 4: a communications expert, this is essentially what we're talking about.
Speaker 4: Can he keep up this clip beyond the first one,
Speaker 4: hundred days. Is that even a strategy or is it
Speaker 4: to get them on their heels at the beginning of
Speaker 4: the term. So you can get done as much as
Speaker 4: you can in a closed window.
Speaker 9: So again, I do this often to compliment both of you,
Speaker 9: because you're saying exactly what the public is thinking. Can
Speaker 9: he keep it up? He answers, Yes, he absolutely can.
Speaker 9: But when you do that, when you flood the zone,
Speaker 9: you make mistakes. When you flood the zone. There's a
Speaker 9: positive and a negative to it. And the question for
Speaker 9: the Trump administration does he seize every opportunity and minimize
Speaker 9: the risks of failure? At this point, he looks like
Speaker 9: it's maximum efforts with maximum challenge to that agenda. He's
Speaker 9: going to do it. So the question is can he
Speaker 9: prepare himself? And there are people around him to say
Speaker 9: that one you shouldn't do that, one you should pull
Speaker 9: back on. I don't think so. But that's the challenge
Speaker 9: for this administration.
Speaker 2: Well, and there's also a question too here, Frank about
Speaker 2: how much approval of what Trump is doing even matters.
Speaker 2: When he entered a lame duck. He can't, at least
Speaker 2: the way the laws are written now, run for a
Speaker 2: third term in office. That same thing is not true
Speaker 2: for a number of people on Capitol Hill who are
Speaker 2: trying to get re elected next year. When you look
Speaker 2: at the midterms, is the pictures? Is the road ahead
Speaker 2: as easy for some of these lawmakers who are going
Speaker 2: to try to seek reelection because of the policies of
Speaker 2: this administration.
Speaker 9: So promise me you won't get angry with this response.
Speaker 9: Never there, that's not true. There's somethings more important than elections.
Speaker 9: This is a very critical time for this country. There
Speaker 9: are serious divides, there's serious anger, there's a loss of
Speaker 9: faith and trust in the future. There's a belief that
Speaker 9: our institutions are failing us. That whether or not they
Speaker 9: get re elected is not the question at this moment.
Speaker 9: It's whether or not we can put our country back together,
Speaker 9: whether we can take this shattered puzzle that is incredibly
Speaker 9: beautiful and it's united, but it looks pretty ugly as
Speaker 9: pieces on the table. I'm hoping that this president keeps
Speaker 9: his promises, continues pushing forward, adopts the language so that
Speaker 9: the public can really hear and see what's happening, and
Speaker 9: it has a little bit of empathy, because that's a
Speaker 9: successful democracy, when your voice is heard, when it's paid
Speaker 9: attention to, and you can actually see the changes happening.
Speaker 9: Some of that in the first thirty five days is happening,
Speaker 9: but they're danger there's threats that that is also and
Speaker 9: that messaging. I would just love a little bit of
Speaker 9: a Lincoln or a Jefferson or a Washington to kind
Speaker 9: of get or at Churchill to get into this communication
Speaker 9: because it's not just about the details of today or
Speaker 9: how they impact the election tomorrow. It's what happens for
Speaker 9: your children and your grandchildren and the generations to come.
Speaker 4: Let us know what they call you and you have
Speaker 4: that conversation at the White House Frank Luntz fl What
Speaker 4: a treat to have Frank Lunz in studio. Thanks for
Speaker 4: coming in. It's great to see you. Thanks as always
Speaker 4: here on the fastest show in politics. Thanks for listening
Speaker 4: to the Balance of Power podcast. Make sure to subscribe
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