Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. You're listening to the
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Speaker 2: I'm Kayley Lines alongside Joe Matthew here in Washington where
Speaker 2: we're looking at Capitol Hill today and the divergence we're
Speaker 2: seeing between the two chambers and their paths, respective paths
Speaker 2: to trying to achieve the legislative agenda of President Trump.
Speaker 2: They're all trying to get to the same place. Pass
Speaker 2: greater tax cuts, extending the twenty seventeen tax cuts, providing
Speaker 2: more funding for the border and new immigration policy, energy,
Speaker 2: more defense spending as well. It really is a question
Speaker 2: of how they get there, and the Senate is suggesting
Speaker 2: that you may not get there the way the House wants,
Speaker 2: which is in one big package, so they better carve
Speaker 2: an alternate route, and they are taking the first steps
Speaker 2: toward doing so today.
Speaker 3: Something Lindsey Graham calls Plan B. Now that Donald Trump
Speaker 3: has endorsed the House plan, but maybe that skepticism is
Speaker 3: warranted based on what we're hearing in these conversations. Either way,
Speaker 3: we got a big voterama that's coming tonight. Jd Vance,
Speaker 3: the Vice President, spoke at Sea Pack a little bit
Speaker 3: earlier today, had this to say about the process.
Speaker 4: So the Senate obviously has its own approach, and the
Speaker 4: President has been very clear that his preference is to
Speaker 4: put everything in one bill, and part of that is
Speaker 4: just simple legislative strategy. I think the President has learned
Speaker 4: a lot about how DC works, and I actually talked
Speaker 4: to the President about this yesterday and he said to me, Look,
Speaker 4: it's very rare that you can get two reconciliation bills
Speaker 4: done in one Congress, which is why he thinks we've
Speaker 4: got to do a lot with that one big beautiful bill,
Speaker 4: that first reconciliation package that we're going to get through
Speaker 4: the House and the Senate.
Speaker 3: Now, if you're with us on a daily basis here
Speaker 3: on balance of power, how many times have you heard
Speaker 3: this argument on both sides. We're just going to keep
Speaker 3: doing this apparently until like what the middle of March,
Speaker 3: that's when we run out of money. Joining us someone
Speaker 3: who's been in the middle of negotiations like these Patrick McHenry,
Speaker 3: former Republican congressman who, of course chaired the House Financial
Speaker 3: Services Committee and at one time held the speaker's gavel,
Speaker 3: if only for a short time. Congressman, good to see you,
Speaker 3: welcome back. What do you make of all of this?
Speaker 3: Can you believe we're still talking about it? And is
Speaker 3: a Plan B actually going to be necessary?
Speaker 5: No, there's a Plan B is always necessary in Washington.
Speaker 5: But look, the reconciliation process is to get around Senate
Speaker 5: rules and the need for sixty votes in the Senate
Speaker 5: to pass legislation. And it's been utilized before. But like
Speaker 5: you just said, and like the Vice President Vance said,
Speaker 5: is it's highly unlike you get two reconciliation bills out
Speaker 5: of the same Congress. It's very difficult to achieve that.
Speaker 5: In fact, it's a very difficult and high hurdle to
Speaker 5: achieve one. So the president is now applying through his
Speaker 5: vice president to say he does have a view. Everybody
Speaker 5: wants Trump to President Trump to jump in and define
Speaker 5: the very particulars of a tactic. He doesn't care about that.
Speaker 5: He wants to get his policies enacted in whatever form
Speaker 5: they can be enacted, like any president, and he is
Speaker 5: his versed in the legislative politics on the procedural pieces
Speaker 5: as any president. Right, even President Obama, who had served
Speaker 5: in the Senate, did not have a deep understanding nor
Speaker 5: experience with reconciliation until he became president. So these things
Speaker 5: are always secondary questions, not the primary question. The primary
Speaker 5: question is what is the policy you want enacted. You've
Speaker 5: heard from Secretary Bessett, You've got great news out of
Speaker 5: him today. You've now heard from the Vice President. They
Speaker 5: have a view. They want one bill, they want to
Speaker 5: maximize that one bill, which means that one bill will
Speaker 5: not be fast, which is what Senator Thune, majority of
Speaker 5: Leader Thune was trying to achieve. And Senator Graham is saying,
Speaker 5: let's get police he wins fast and show progress. And
Speaker 5: what you heard from the Treasury Secretary was what matters
Speaker 5: is the economy and our economic impact, which is what
Speaker 5: we need to get done fast and first, which means
Speaker 5: you get a big bill and it goes a little longer,
Speaker 5: but still faster than waiting for the fall for a
Speaker 5: tax book.
Speaker 2: So I understand that this is ultimately about just getting
Speaker 2: to the end game, regardless of what mechanics have to
Speaker 2: happen in both chambers to actually get there. But is
Speaker 2: the endgame that this administration, the President specifically, is outlining,
Speaker 2: actually realistic given the political reality in the House of
Speaker 2: Representatives specifically, where the Ways and Means Committee has four
Speaker 2: and a half trillion dollars of wiggle room essentially barely
Speaker 2: enough to just extend the twenty seventeen tax cuts and
Speaker 2: is being told spending cuts will have to be in
Speaker 2: place as offsets for any other tax policy you want
Speaker 2: to pursue, be it eliminating taxes and social security or
Speaker 2: over time or lifting the salt cap. Are those cuts
Speaker 2: really there? Where would they be found?
Speaker 5: Oh, they can be found everywhere. We did this.
Speaker 2: Does it go to medicaid, which the President said he
Speaker 2: doesn't want to see?
Speaker 5: Well, there's there's a lot of waste and a lot
Speaker 5: of government as the doge TikTok is going around. But
Speaker 5: let's step back when when the federal government is spending
Speaker 5: dramatically more than it's ever spent before, our debt is
Speaker 5: dramatically more than ever before, and our structural deficit is
Speaker 5: quite severe, especially we've had the worst deficits of our
Speaker 5: nation's history outside of war wartime in the last decade.
Speaker 5: This is the thing that needs to be fixed for
Speaker 5: us to be economically prosperous for the long term. So
Speaker 5: you do need to get governmental savings, and you do
Speaker 5: need to have a restriction on the on the on
Speaker 5: the tax plane. We went through this in twenty seventeen
Speaker 5: for the original Trump tax cuts. You had to actually
Speaker 5: put a fence around the number and then contain policy
Speaker 5: within those within that fence. That was a Senate operation.
Speaker 5: Now you're seeing the White House in this game, and
Speaker 5: the Treasury in particular in this game to define what
Speaker 5: that looks like. Because we have a map for treasuries
Speaker 5: and treasury auctions that will make your eyes water the
Speaker 5: volume and the dollar amount of indebtedness and this interest
Speaker 5: rate reset the American people are going to face for
Speaker 5: the cost of our government. So you do have to
Speaker 5: put you have do have to constrain these things and
Speaker 5: have government efficiency in order to in order for us
Speaker 5: to have a sustainable path on the budget going forward.
Speaker 3: Well, we talk about one big beautiful bill that's going
Speaker 3: to take longer than say the fourteenth of March. Somebody's
Speaker 3: got to fund the government a month from now. A
Speaker 3: continuing resolution gets the freedom Caucus upset. Does that complicate
Speaker 3: the math in a final vote on reconciliation in the House.
Speaker 5: So this idea that the Freedom Caucus has a view
Speaker 5: on a continued resolution, they don't like the continued resolutions
Speaker 5: that they don't want, and they like the ones that
Speaker 5: they want.
Speaker 3: Them want to fire the speaker, Well.
Speaker 5: Yeah, exactly, it just makes them dyspeptic, right, are more dyspeptic.
Speaker 5: And so it's not a firmly held conviction moral principle
Speaker 5: that we can't have a continued resolution. I think the
Speaker 5: odds are you're going to have a continued resolution. And
Speaker 5: second to that is a government shutdown. This is my
Speaker 5: view from outside. Look, I'm sure you know just my view.
Speaker 5: And then the third option is the funding for the
Speaker 5: rest of the year in a normal way. I think
Speaker 5: that has the lowest change what's happening. Right, you have
Speaker 5: a higher likelihood of a government shutdown than a normal
Speaker 5: appropriations process. Given where Hill Democrats are and they are
Speaker 5: necessary for government funding reconciliation, Sands separate is a Republican
Speaker 5: only proposition. Government funding has to be bipartisan, requires sixty
Speaker 5: votes in the Senate. That is a difficult and mighty
Speaker 5: nasty beast.
Speaker 2: Well, speaking of mighty nasty beats, I want to return
Speaker 2: to the conversation of the debt and deficit and your
Speaker 2: talk about efficiency, because we were hearing from Stephen Miller
Speaker 2: in the White House Press briefing about this notion of
Speaker 2: the Doge dividend of taking some of those savings that
Speaker 2: they're working so hard to find and just funneling it
Speaker 2: back to taxpayers, and I wonder what you think of
Speaker 2: that notion. Why not just put it all toward paying
Speaker 2: down the debt.
Speaker 5: Well, I think they want to connect this back to
Speaker 5: the American people, and I think this is a visible
Speaker 5: manifestation of that goal. But I think the better way
Speaker 5: to explain this is that we need to peer down
Speaker 5: the cost of government to save the American people money.
Speaker 5: This is a literal way of showing that. I don't
Speaker 5: think it's the most effective way. I think we need
Speaker 5: to be more aggressive with the tax cuts. If there's
Speaker 5: a Doge benefit, that would be the way to see this.
Speaker 3: The Republican voters want to check in the mail though,
Speaker 3: that the association of getting checks from the Biden administration
Speaker 3: For me, yeah, right. It brings you back to COVID.
Speaker 3: Why not pay off the deficits since that was the job,
Speaker 3: or is it in fact proof of performance?
Speaker 5: You know what, I got my money back. That's why
Speaker 5: voted for Yeah. I think it's proof of performance. I
Speaker 5: think that's the motivation behind it. And so, stepping back
Speaker 5: from the literal mechanism of this, the point they're trying
Speaker 5: to make is that the taxpayer actually benefits. We have
Speaker 5: federal salaries that are much higher than the national media
Speaker 5: in salary for the American people funding the government. That's
Speaker 5: out of whack. We have a federal government that has
Speaker 5: a highest head account we've ever had outside of wartime.
Speaker 5: That is out of whack. We don't have the ability
Speaker 5: to pay for government. Even if we double tax rates
Speaker 5: and double tax income or double tax income, we would
Speaker 5: still have a deficit. So we actually do need to
Speaker 5: pay down government spending. It is a priority for the
Speaker 5: American people, and they're just trying to manifest to They're
Speaker 5: trying to explain this to the American people that it
Speaker 5: does matter to them. That's what I hear out of it.
Speaker 2: I want to ask you about something else, Congressman, that
Speaker 2: has been dominating the news in the last several days,
Speaker 2: and that is the now started negotiations are at least
Speaker 2: very initial early talks to end the war in Ukraine,
Speaker 2: talks to which Ukraine itself was not invited, And we
Speaker 2: now have the President referring to Ukrainian President Zelensky as
Speaker 2: a dictator. Do you see this as a means for negotiation,
Speaker 2: a setting of a different kind of stage to bring
Speaker 2: putin on side, or is this a signal that President
Speaker 2: Trump actually intends to not allow Ukraine to pursue the
Speaker 2: kind of deal that it wants to pursue.
Speaker 5: Well, first, President Trump campaigned on this. This was a
Speaker 5: campaign pledge that he would end the war in Ukraine.
Speaker 5: Now I voted to arm Ukraine free people's wanting to
Speaker 5: remain free against oppression. I think it is a vital
Speaker 5: national interest in the United States. A land war in
Speaker 5: Europe does implicate the United States and the global economy.
Speaker 5: We have enemies abroad and we need to be serious
Speaker 5: about it. And that's how I voted in Congress. The
Speaker 5: President campaigned on something different, though, and he said we'd
Speaker 5: bring it into the war. We don't have a means
Speaker 5: and a goal for success, and we need to have
Speaker 5: a view for what is this successful into the war
Speaker 5: in Ukraine now, so he's falling through on his pledge. Okay,
Speaker 5: the second piece of this information is what he said
Speaker 5: about Zelensky. That is something new and different. This tells
Speaker 5: me that this relationship has been mismanaged by the Ukrainians
Speaker 5: such that Trump goes public with this, with this comment,
Speaker 5: that should be bring greater that that should that should
Speaker 5: really be a chilling effect for the Ukrainians that they
Speaker 5: have mismanaged this their principal ally and their principal funder,
Speaker 5: and the president being in a very bad way and
Speaker 5: very bad view of President Zelensky. I think that is
Speaker 5: problematic for the Ukrainian people, and I think it's problematic
Speaker 5: for a successful into the war.
Speaker 3: I suspect we're going to hear about this, maybe everything
Speaker 3: we've discussed so far less than two weeks. When Donald
Speaker 3: Trump is in front of a joint session of Congress,
Speaker 3: it's the State of the Union, without actually calling him that.
Speaker 3: In his first year back, you've been through a couple
Speaker 3: of these, and the last few were pretty chippy when
Speaker 3: you consider the decorum in the room. Marjorie Taylor Green,
Speaker 3: Lauren Bolbert yelling everyone remembers the the the images, Joe
Speaker 3: Biden riffing with the Republican Conference. What are we in
Speaker 3: for when Donald Trump makes his return? Does the decorum shift?
Speaker 3: Are you gonna have Democrats yelling at the roster.
Speaker 5: Shifts? It's this is look, this is fight club in America.
Speaker 5: This is this is Prime Minister's questions. Now, that's effectively
Speaker 5: what the state of Union is like because the jeering
Speaker 5: is like that. So that oh my gosh, it's two
Speaker 5: weeks from now, Joe. This is this is the reason why,
Speaker 5: like you have much must watch TV, right, we're all
Speaker 5: in this Trump era where each hour is different. This
Speaker 5: Joe Biden, it was like glacier's moving and glaciers melting.
Speaker 5: And I won't get into all the other jokes to
Speaker 5: go along with that about the president himself. But but
Speaker 5: the era of Trump is such a fast paced place.
Speaker 5: So in two weeks we may not be talking about
Speaker 5: any of this stuff, that's right, but it will be
Speaker 5: wild to watch the super Bowl of politics now, absolutely.
Speaker 2: And of course we'll have a cover for you here
Speaker 2: on Bloomberg.
Speaker 3: By all means.
Speaker 2: As this White House Press briefing, by the way, is
Speaker 2: still ongoing, and they're marking one month of Trump and
Speaker 2: office that's why all these characters are gathered.
Speaker 3: Here one single month today incredible and what we've covered.
Speaker 3: Does this pace continue? For our course, it does four years?
Speaker 5: Does this is? This is in the nature of Donald
Speaker 5: Trump and what he does the media cycle. It's it's
Speaker 5: amazing what he does. But to me on substance on policy,
Speaker 5: on substance on regulational law, you have to look to
Speaker 5: folks like Secretary Bessett on where where is the administration
Speaker 5: moving on these policy goals to get the economy right well?
Speaker 2: And folks like the former Chair of the House Financial
Speaker 2: Services Commits, Congressman Patrick mcchenry here with us in our Washington,
Speaker 2: d C. Studio. Green is always to see you. Thank
Speaker 2: you so much for joining us.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast. Catch
Speaker 1: us live weekdays at noon and den on Apple, Cocklay
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Speaker 1: York station Just Say Alexa played Bloomberg eleven thirty.
Speaker 3: Just down the river. If you squint your eyes, you
Speaker 3: see down by the Wilson Bridge. There there's there's that
Speaker 3: amusement park looking resort down there. That's where seapack is
Speaker 3: getting underway right now. You get on the big ferris wheel.
Speaker 3: You listen to JD. Evans this morning, it's like a
Speaker 3: whole day out with the family. Donald Trump will be
Speaker 3: the keynote there tomorrow and we'll talk more about that
Speaker 3: coming up as we consider the next step here when
Speaker 3: it comes to the Doge, and based on what we're hearing,
Speaker 3: it's the Pentagon. In fact, the Doge has already showed up.
Speaker 3: The Defense Secretary is starting to dig into this now. Pete.
Speaker 3: Hegseth out with a memo you likely right about by
Speaker 3: now on the terminal that plans to reduce projected military
Speaker 3: spending by eight percent the next five years. And you
Speaker 3: wonder why Palenteer is dropping today, why the defense contractors
Speaker 3: have been ruggling on Wall Street. Some areas we're told
Speaker 3: will be spared. And we're joined by the expert on
Speaker 3: all of this. He made his way over just to
Speaker 3: talk to us from the Pentagon. Tony Capassio, Bloomberg Pentagon
Speaker 3: reporter who had his hands on that memo last week,
Speaker 3: Good to see you.
Speaker 6: Well, I had it hit yesterday, but we broke the
Speaker 6: story on it Friday. So that was last week, right,
Speaker 6: I didn't have the memo. Okay, I knew what the contents.
Speaker 3: See how honest this guy is. Are we really going
Speaker 3: to see an eight percent cut? I thought we were
Speaker 3: about to get the first trillion dollar defense budget.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so this is an interesting issue. It's not a
Speaker 6: cut in the classic sense that the Pentagon is going
Speaker 6: to lose the money, got it. It's going to be
Speaker 6: a shift. The original memo or the memo wasn't very
Speaker 6: clear on that. Then a major news organization yesterday, not Bloomberg,
Speaker 6: and played implied massive shifts in the spending cuts that
Speaker 6: hurt market. Last night, at about seven o'clock, they put
Speaker 6: out a statement saying, oh no, it's the The impact
Speaker 6: in fiscal twenty six will be about fifty billion dollars.
Speaker 6: That's their eight percent. They put out a list of
Speaker 6: seventeen exempted programs that were among the biggest defense programs,
Speaker 6: like nuclear modernization from one Virginia class submarine. The one
Speaker 6: they didn't put out there for an exemption from these
Speaker 6: cuts is the F thirty five, the biggest defense program
Speaker 6: in the world. So I'd be a little nervous if
Speaker 6: I was an F thirty five Officionado.
Speaker 3: So when you talk winners and losers, here there's one
Speaker 3: potential loser. Who are the winners.
Speaker 6: The winners are missile defense, the shipbuilders, seeing junior enlisted
Speaker 6: pay rays. But we're talking. And then then there's military
Speaker 6: construction contracts for Indo Pacific and some of the other
Speaker 6: combat commanders. And then there's the drone makers autonomous one
Speaker 6: way drones. Those are winners. That would be Arrow Environment
Speaker 6: be one company that comes to mind. But the interesting
Speaker 6: thing is the loser parts. The Pentagon has until like
Speaker 6: the Tuesday to come up with these lists to give
Speaker 6: to the Controller's office. There's interesting conversions here. Joe, the
Speaker 6: House Armed Services Committee about a week ago asked the
Speaker 6: services for lists of their obsolete programs that could be cut,
Speaker 6: and those lists are due like next early next month.
Speaker 6: So you've got this perfect storm of wow hask which
Speaker 6: a week leaked right away in terms of the programs,
Speaker 6: and then you've got this twenty five budget drill going on.
Speaker 6: So it's a perfect convergence of a storm for defense company.
Speaker 3: If you're a Lockheed, since you called them out, you're
Speaker 3: doing a lot of stuff right. You've got the f
Speaker 3: thirty five program. That could be a problem. But you're
Speaker 3: also making missiles that the Pentagon's going to buy more from.
Speaker 3: Does does that end up being a wash?
Speaker 6: I don't think it's an awesome But Lockheed makes the
Speaker 6: Pack three along with the Wraith, and they make parts
Speaker 6: of it. They make the THAD missile, They're making the
Speaker 6: long the long range, the Loraz and the long range
Speaker 6: anti ship missile. But nothing makes up for the F
Speaker 6: thirty five. Last earlier this year, the Air Force projected
Speaker 6: that for fiscal twenty five they would buy forty eight
Speaker 6: F thirty five's and the total bill for the would
Speaker 6: be like thirteen billion dollars, including six billion in procurement
Speaker 6: for F y twenty five. The rest of it's milk
Speaker 6: con and R and D and olly L. But it's
Speaker 6: a rich target if you're looking for a program that
Speaker 6: Elon Musk doesn't like.
Speaker 3: Fascinating, not just the eight percent cuts here, and that's
Speaker 3: over five years. Apparently every year, over every year, we
Speaker 3: may see a dismissal of generals of flag officers. What
Speaker 3: are you hearing about.
Speaker 6: That this is in the romance stage, really rumant stage.
Speaker 6: I don't have any insight into it, and it's so ruminant.
Speaker 6: I mean it's started with a tweet from some reporter
Speaker 6: and it said they're considering firing.
Speaker 3: Understood, this is one of these This purge that we're
Speaker 3: seeing in other federal agencies is not landing at the Pentagon.
Speaker 6: Well, it's landing in terms of probationary employees. It could
Speaker 6: be like saw I heard one figure like fifty five
Speaker 6: thousand employees. But the Night of the Generals isn't there yet.
Speaker 6: You know, you can say anything's being considered. You'll never
Speaker 6: be wrong if you say it's being considered.
Speaker 3: Well, look, you talk about the bureaucracy you work, and
Speaker 3: I believe what is the biggest office in the world.
Speaker 6: Correct, right, with good restaurants though too.
Speaker 3: I'm sure most people don't know about that. But what
Speaker 3: I mean it's a building full of civilian bureaucrats as well. Correct.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's a it's a little minute. It's a mini city.
Speaker 6: After nine to eleven, they did a great job of
Speaker 6: putting making a better lit You can find a way
Speaker 6: a rattle, lot of user there's Kentucky that cut the lights,
Speaker 6: but now Kentucky Fried Chicken, Panda Cafe's there's a lot
Speaker 6: of light the Pana Express at the Pana Express.
Speaker 3: Excuse how about that? I really need to come visit
Speaker 3: you over there.
Speaker 6: Sometimes I don't know if you can be cleared to
Speaker 6: get in.
Speaker 3: They wouldn't let me in the building. The war in
Speaker 3: Ukraine is supposedly winding down. I don't have any timeline
Speaker 3: for you on that, but you know the story about
Speaker 3: the talks. You see a ceasefire in place right now.
Speaker 3: Don't know how long that'll last. In Gaza. Do developments
Speaker 3: like these change our plans for procurement, for spending, et cetera.
Speaker 3: We were in the middle of multiple hot wars a
Speaker 3: couple of months ago. We might not be a couple
Speaker 3: months from now.
Speaker 6: Now now, we're in the replenishment phase. They used many,
Speaker 6: any many missiles against the Hoodies in and in Iran
Speaker 6: last year. Expensive missiles, the SM six, the Navy's best.
Speaker 6: They's fired like eighty of those against Hoodie targets. Those
Speaker 6: are about four and a half million apiece. So we're
Speaker 6: in the replenishment phase for precision weapons and also the
Speaker 6: build up phase for one five to five millimeters shells.
Speaker 6: So you got to wonder, if there's a Ukraine cease fire,
Speaker 6: let's hope that something does happen like that. We're going
Speaker 6: to have a surfit, a surplus excuse me, of one
Speaker 6: five to five shells and a capacity to build those.
Speaker 6: But we're in the replenishment phase. The big issue is
Speaker 6: going to be the into Pacific and how this replicator
Speaker 6: program plays out. It's cloaked in mystery. It's drones up
Speaker 6: the gazoo, so to speak, but it's supposed to be
Speaker 6: in thousands in place by next August. I think that's
Speaker 6: where a lot of the Heckxit attention is going to
Speaker 6: turn to because he wants to focus more closely on China.
Speaker 3: So these drone makers are the hottest thing going right
Speaker 3: now when it comes to kindagon spending.
Speaker 6: I would think that people should take a look at them.
Speaker 6: Not that I'm giving an investments, but.
Speaker 3: They're But the replicator program is something that you've identified here.
Speaker 6: It's going to be a big deal. And then the
Speaker 6: command and control links for a replicator underwater drones. I
Speaker 6: mean those are areas that are they're not on the
Speaker 6: hit list, that they're kind of on the excluded list.
Speaker 3: They they've been They've got carve outs here because we
Speaker 3: need to do some spending in that area to catch up, right,
Speaker 3: if you're an old line defense contractor getting back to
Speaker 3: this though, if you're a Raytheon, if you're a Lockeyed,
Speaker 3: that replenishment job sounds like a pretty lucrative year ahead.
Speaker 6: It certainly does. A lot of this is made in
Speaker 6: an Alabama, in Troy, Alabama in those areas, the High
Speaker 6: Mars missile, the High Mars Carrier, the THAD missile, the
Speaker 6: Patriot which is split with Raythiana, I want to note,
Speaker 6: but now they have a good backdrop of missiles and
Speaker 6: fire control systems. The F thirty five though, is a
Speaker 6: huge part of their revenue. I think it was like
Speaker 6: twenty five percent locked excuse me for Lockeed. But the
Speaker 6: replenishment part, and he Hexit's Melmo does specifically singles out
Speaker 6: for an exemption munitions. So this is a very constrained
Speaker 6: amount of what's left. And the interesting part the game
Speaker 6: in Washington will be what are those programs being cut?
Speaker 3: Fascinating always to spend time with Tony Caposio in our
Speaker 3: remaining moment, are we going to get a new fifth
Speaker 3: generation fighter jet in this new administration? Something in the
Speaker 3: air or on the sea that we've never seen before.
Speaker 6: No, No, maybe on the sea. We're going to see
Speaker 6: some underwater programs under what are drone programs? We haven't
Speaker 6: seen unmanned under man but I don't see the next generation.
Speaker 6: That was the endged program with g air Force put
Speaker 6: on hold.
Speaker 3: Amazing. Great to spend time with Tony Capossio. He even
Speaker 3: brought the memo over with us, Panda Express, Kentucky Fried Chicken.
Speaker 3: What else do you have over there? De Pago, Baskinger Robbins.
Speaker 3: Really you guys reading ice cream over there too?
Speaker 6: There's a good Lebanese to verna that just opened.
Speaker 3: See how about it? All right, if you can get
Speaker 3: me in the building, I'd like to come see it
Speaker 3: first Clearances to Clearances with Tony Capossio. I'm Joe, Matthew
Speaker 3: and Washington. Glad you're with us here on the fastest
Speaker 3: show in politics. It's the Thursday edition We are Balance
Speaker 3: of Power.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast. Catch
Speaker 1: us live weekdays at noon and five pm Eastern on Apple,
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Speaker 3: So we had the voice of Michael Bright, CEO of
Speaker 3: the Structured Finance Association here in Washington. Michael, welcome back.
Speaker 3: It's great to see you.
Speaker 6: Yeah, great, Thanks for me.
Speaker 3: I want to ask you about your take on Fanny
Speaker 3: and Freddie, which you've been writing a lot about and
Speaker 3: it's going to be a big story in a minute
Speaker 3: here in Washington. But first, your take on what we
Speaker 3: just heard here the consideration of elevated inflation and its
Speaker 3: impact on the contours of the bond market, the treasury
Speaker 3: market specifically. A lot of people think this looks like
Speaker 3: Janet Yellen's treasury more than what they expected from Trump.
Speaker 5: What do you think.
Speaker 7: I mean, this is going to be a challenge for
Speaker 7: them for a very long time. I mean, inflation is
Speaker 7: still sticky high, and the Fed can do you know,
Speaker 7: so many, so much. But if we got here because
Speaker 7: of too much spending, we certainly got here because of
Speaker 7: too much quantitative easing. I think, you know, everybody can
Speaker 7: look back at sort of that twenty twenty one period
Speaker 7: and say some of that spending, you know, probably contributed
Speaker 7: to this. The Fed was wrong and thinking that it
Speaker 7: was transitory, and so it's been a long way out.
Speaker 7: They did get us down from nine on CPI to
Speaker 7: in the threes without really taking the economy and keeping
Speaker 7: it kept unemployment low. But you know, three four percent
Speaker 7: CPI is not going to cut it. You know, the
Speaker 7: Fed really needs to get it down below two to
Speaker 7: maintain their credibility. And so spending is going to be
Speaker 7: a big part of whether or not that's successful spending.
Speaker 3: My goodness, well, we're about to have a grand debate
Speaker 3: over that right now. A lot of people are writing
Speaker 3: off the ear when it comes to interest rate cuts,
Speaker 3: are you among them?
Speaker 7: They can't cut until it's credibly it's credible that CPI's
Speaker 7: heading down. I mean, because what will happen is that
Speaker 7: the Fed cuts rates and the market doesn't really believe
Speaker 7: that they have inflation under control. The longer term rates
Speaker 7: are just going to go up, so there's nothing that
Speaker 7: you can do. So inflation is the boundary condition on
Speaker 7: what the Fed can do. It really is their primary mandate.
Speaker 7: And so yeah, I've been bearish on the prospect for
Speaker 7: some of these rate cuts. I was actually wrong when
Speaker 7: they cut fifty. I thought they should only gone twenty five.
Speaker 7: Then that they wouldn't only get twenty five. I think
Speaker 7: that was probably the right call actually, you know, because
Speaker 7: you saw longer term reach check up because the markets
Speaker 7: are to get concerned again about information.
Speaker 3: Well, it's interesting. Another thing that people thought was a
Speaker 3: likelihood of Donald Trump won the election would be action
Speaker 3: on Fanny and Freddie. And it's something that you've been
Speaker 3: engaged in. Bill Ackman really got people's hopes up when
Speaker 3: he issued this was the end of December. His thoughts
Speaker 3: on this, sent out a series of tweets and said
Speaker 3: that they're particularly interesting today versus any other time in history.
Speaker 3: As he wrote that there's a credible path for their
Speaker 3: removal from conservatorship in the relative short term and by
Speaker 3: that he means the next two years. Now, you say, fine,
Speaker 3: but not without reforms. And you've suggested in an op
Speaker 3: ed a series of reforms. Simply releasing Fanny and Freddy
Speaker 3: to the private world would, for instance, hurt lower end
Speaker 3: borrowers in your take, So what do you do about it?
Speaker 7: Well, I think, look, this is a very complicated debate.
Speaker 7: So they've been in conservatorship fifteen years.
Speaker 3: Imagine that's been fifteen years.
Speaker 7: It's pretty crazy, right, But there there's reasons for that.
Speaker 7: I mean, ending it is going to be very, very complicated.
Speaker 7: So I don't think you can do it just by Congress,
Speaker 7: Congress acting on its own without leadership from the administration. Conversely,
Speaker 7: I don't think it's why to do it with administrative
Speaker 7: action only. There are things that need to be codified
Speaker 7: by Congress in order to get the system sort of
Speaker 7: to the right place where it's going to be. So
Speaker 7: one of them would be of course, you know, we
Speaker 7: lived what I kind of called the big lie for
Speaker 7: a very long time, which was said that these bonds
Speaker 7: were not backed by the federal government, that the NBS,
Speaker 7: the mortgage backed securities they issue were not backed. If
Speaker 7: you look at a perspective prior to the financial crisis,
Speaker 7: it says these are not backed by the full faith
Speaker 7: and credit of the United States. But everybody kind of
Speaker 7: assumed that they probably would be, but unclear about that,
Speaker 7: and so it kind of culminated at this one anecdote
Speaker 7: that I don't know if you remember, but during the
Speaker 7: two thousand and eight financial crisis is also coincided with
Speaker 7: the Beijing Olympics, and then Secretary of State John Pulson
Speaker 7: had to go and reassure the Chinese, we are going
Speaker 7: to back these companies up, I promise, please don't sell
Speaker 7: all the bonds that you own or you know, otherwise
Speaker 7: US interestrates with skyrocket. That's a that's a risk that
Speaker 7: we'd be facing again if they are released from conservatorship
Speaker 7: only through administrative action. It's possible to Bill Lackman's point
Speaker 7: that this could be one of the confluence of administrative
Speaker 7: leadership on the issue. If it's coupled with congressional reforms,
Speaker 7: that would be very helpful. There's other things that Congress
Speaker 7: need to do as well, some of those I outlined.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, just but to begin with just to
Speaker 3: think that we're talking about this in this moment politically
Speaker 3: with a Republican majority of what could be one at
Speaker 3: some point by spring, is Washington really prepared to have
Speaker 3: a grown up conversation about this.
Speaker 7: There's a reason it's taken fifteen years. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 7: there have been bipartisan legislative efforts that had some momentum
Speaker 7: but didn't get over the finish line. There would been
Speaker 7: purely administrative efforts. In fact, in the Trump one point
Speaker 7: zero administration, there were there was quite a strong push
Speaker 7: for that, I think because it was administrative only. You know,
Speaker 7: there was a negative market reaction that kind of put
Speaker 7: a pause on that. So is it likely in the
Speaker 7: next two years. I disagree with the thought that it's like, okay,
Speaker 7: I think that we do have a unique alignment of
Speaker 7: administrative leadership and potential congressional willingness to do it, but
Speaker 7: it would need to be a bipartisan in my opinion,
Speaker 7: in order to really.
Speaker 3: So this is just in case basically what you're laying
Speaker 3: out here. So let's talk about lower loan limits on
Speaker 3: mortgages they can guarantee you suggest sensible restrictions on the
Speaker 3: activities of GSS. Those two alone would be considered pretty
Speaker 3: major feats.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that would be helpful.
Speaker 7: So one of the premises that I'm coming to this with,
Speaker 7: and that is important to our market that we represent,
Speaker 7: which is serving a lot of private borrowers very well.
Speaker 7: So predominantly the private securitization market is serving borrowers that
Speaker 7: are above the loan limits of Fanny and Freddy conservatives
Speaker 7: sort of super prime jumbo mortgages, and those barbers are
Speaker 7: getting rates some times even lower than Fanny and Freddie rates.
Speaker 7: But built into the law right now is that the
Speaker 7: GSE loan limits have to go up with home price appreciation.
Speaker 7: Now we've seen enormous home price appreciation and we've seen
Speaker 7: the loan limits continue to go up along with that.
Speaker 7: So you've got government sponsored enterprises backing loans of a
Speaker 7: million and a half dollars in a lot of areas.
Speaker 7: As a lot of people argue, and I would be
Speaker 7: one of them, that this is actually contributing to the
Speaker 7: increase in home prices, that's making, you know, causing an
Speaker 7: affordability crisis.
Speaker 6: So I think that.
Speaker 7: It us Congress too, if these guys are going to
Speaker 7: come out of conservatorship to say, great, but we're going
Speaker 7: to have them focus more on their core mission as
Speaker 7: opposed to letting them, you know, juice up home prices
Speaker 7: at the super upper end of the market.
Speaker 3: Does any arrangement if there's a congressional deal, which I
Speaker 3: think we're assuming here, otherwise none of this is probably
Speaker 3: going to be considered some sort of a supervisory or
Speaker 3: is there a probationary period following their release?
Speaker 7: Well that that hopefully there'll be a lot of regulation,
Speaker 7: So you certainly need a strong regulator of them. You know,
Speaker 7: there are some idea that you could have charter authority
Speaker 7: to have more of them, so they are some of
Speaker 7: the bipartisan buils in the past suggested having several, you know, small,
Speaker 7: smaller gcs so that they could be resolved if there
Speaker 7: was a problem without it sort of taking down the market.
Speaker 7: And then that leads kind of into the third point,
Speaker 7: which was, you really do need a credible resolution regime
Speaker 7: for anything if it's a private company. So if you're
Speaker 7: going to privatize them, again, I have some skepticism on
Speaker 7: the idea of a private government sponsored enterprise. It feels
Speaker 7: a little bit oxymoronic to me. But if you're going
Speaker 7: to do that, and you want the market to believe
Speaker 7: that these are companies that could go insolvent, then you
Speaker 7: do need a credible resolution regime that says we could
Speaker 7: put somebody you know away while with the market continuing
Speaker 7: to function. And that really is where I think congressional
Speaker 7: you know, a stamp on the NBS itself that's well
Speaker 7: behind a bunch of private capital would be important.
Speaker 3: I'm just glad to talk to somebody who's thought this
Speaker 3: through on the level that you have here. We're work time.
Speaker 3: It's been fifteen years. It's been fifteen years. Maybe not
Speaker 3: in the next two you say will it be before
Speaker 3: twenty go by? No, So we're just talking for the
Speaker 3: fun of it here always. Wow, that's Washington everyone. You
Speaker 3: just saw it in a real time Michael Brake. Great
Speaker 3: to have you back here. Check out when he was
Speaker 3: writing the op eds in the American Bank Correct CEO
Speaker 3: Structured Finance Association. But we brought it to you right
Speaker 3: here on the fastest show in politics. We'll assemble our
Speaker 3: panel next, Rick and Genie. Right here on Bloomberg.
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Speaker 3: Around this time yesterday, we were waiting for a judge's
Speaker 3: ruling on Eric Adams. It never came. District Judge dale
Speaker 3: Hoe did not make a decision and what was a
Speaker 3: ninety minute hearing after he instructed parties to be prepared
Speaker 3: to discuss why the corruption case against him, Eric Adams,
Speaker 3: that is, should be thrown out or not. So maybe
Speaker 3: where you left off on this whole story was Kathy Hokl,
Speaker 3: the governor of New York considering removing Eric Adams from office.
Speaker 3: It's unclear whether that is going to happen. It is
Speaker 3: clear the walls are closing in. This is coming now
Speaker 3: from New York One. In a fascinating development in this
Speaker 3: whole saga, Kathy Hochel considering sanctions now against Eric Adams
Speaker 3: New York One, says. The governor's team developing legislation that
Speaker 3: would need city council and state legislative approval. Details still developing,
Speaker 3: expected to include legal limits on the mayor's power as executive.
Speaker 3: But he just hangs out there living with these restrictions.
Speaker 3: Let's get the panel's take on this before we move
Speaker 3: on to some other topics. This is just breaking right now,
Speaker 3: and glad to say we have Rick and Jenie both
Speaker 3: with us today. Bloomberg Politics contributors Genie Shanzino, of course,
Speaker 3: democratic strategist and political science professor at Iona University. Rick Davis,
Speaker 3: republican strategist and partner at Stone Court Capital. Does this
Speaker 3: sound realistic to you? How does Eric Adams continue running
Speaker 3: the city under sanctions if that's in fact Kathy Hokal's choice.
Speaker 8: Yeah, Joe, you say sanctions, I think we're talking about Russia,
Speaker 8: and yet no, we're talking about the mayor of New
Speaker 8: York City. It's you know, it's astonishing. Apparently, if what
Speaker 8: we're hearing is to be believed, what they're really talking
Speaker 8: about is legislation that would go through the New York
Speaker 8: State Assembly, the Legislature, and the Senate and get approved
Speaker 8: by the New York City Council that would sanction and
Speaker 8: limit the power of the New York City mayor. I
Speaker 8: think that this is a far fetched idea. I think
Speaker 8: it is an indication that the governor does not feel
Speaker 8: she is ready to try to take the step to
Speaker 8: remove him, and so I think that they are thinking
Speaker 8: of this as sort of a backstop. But it is
Speaker 8: highly problematic, and let's not forget New York City is
Speaker 8: facing an election for mayor this year. She didn't move
Speaker 8: when he was indicted. I'm not sure we have a
Speaker 8: good reason from her yet that she should move either
Speaker 8: to sanctions or to a some kind of removal at
Speaker 8: this point.
Speaker 3: So, Rick, does this sound like Mayor Eric Adams keeps
Speaker 3: his job at least for now.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I mean this is the most non action action
Speaker 9: I've seen taken by a chief executive of the state
Speaker 9: in a long time. And maybe you can just rack
Speaker 9: it up to democratic politics in New York. Genny would
Speaker 9: know more about that stuff than I do.
Speaker 3: But this is this is nuts.
Speaker 9: Either either think he's violated the law and done a
Speaker 9: deal with the Trump Administration's inappropriate and he ought to
Speaker 9: be removed, or leave him alone. Just what we need
Speaker 9: is more strings attached to run in the City of
Speaker 9: New York, by the by the Albany.
Speaker 3: Oh great, great strategy. Governor.
Speaker 9: My guess is she's just got those footsteps Andrew colemo
Speaker 9: on in the back of her mind. The idea that
Speaker 9: somehow she would elevate his chances of being mayor would
Speaker 9: absolutely destroyer. And that's too bad because instead of doing
Speaker 9: the right thing, she's got this convoluted mess that she's
Speaker 9: now going to expose to the voters and people of
Speaker 9: New York.
Speaker 3: Wow. Well, I'm just loving listening to your instant reactions here, Genie.
Speaker 3: While this may be good news, I guess in the
Speaker 3: short term for Eric Adams, what does it mean for
Speaker 3: potential long term damage to the office.
Speaker 8: There's so much potential damage to the office. And Rick
Speaker 8: is absolutely right. What about the people of the city
Speaker 8: of New York. We have had four aids to the
Speaker 8: mayor have resigned, as we know over the weekend. You know,
Speaker 8: New York City has over eight million people. It is
Speaker 8: a complicated Some people say it's the second hardest job
Speaker 8: in the country besides yours, Joe Matthew. And so you know,
Speaker 8: we're having somebody do this under indictment, under all of
Speaker 8: this pressure. It is very, very tough to imagine. But
Speaker 8: I also think from Kathy Hochl's perspective, it is another
Speaker 8: and a long line of reminders to people that she
Speaker 8: doesn't seem to be able to exhibit the kind of
Speaker 8: strength that people want in a governor, the decisive action
Speaker 8: that people are hoping for. She is holding meetings, now,
Speaker 8: she's thinking about removal, now she's thinking about sanctions. I
Speaker 8: don't think either one is a good deal.
Speaker 9: But here she.
Speaker 8: Goes now throwing out another trial balloon. It is not good.
Speaker 8: By the way, today she has also deployed the National
Speaker 8: Guard because of a prison strike. And she's got Donald
Speaker 8: Trump breathing down her neck about congestion pricing. So Kathy
Speaker 8: Local has her hands full. But this is a really
Speaker 8: tough moment, and I don't think this makes sense.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, I just wonder what the Trump effect
Speaker 3: is here, Rick, what do you think a day after
Speaker 3: the congestion pricing move. You know, he's pals with Eric Adams.
Speaker 3: Now that's why this case is being ordered to be
Speaker 3: thrown out despite all the resignations. Is Kathy Hilchel afraid
Speaker 3: of Trump?
Speaker 9: Yeah, if she's afraid of Trump, then she ought to
Speaker 9: resign herself as governor of New York. She's got an
Speaker 9: obligation to serve the people in New York, as Genie said,
Speaker 9: and that includes everybody in New York City. She thinks
Speaker 9: something's wrong occurred, then she had to say so and
Speaker 9: act accordingly. If not, then then shut up and go
Speaker 9: back to Albany and see what you can do about
Speaker 9: saving your state, because it's got enough problems.
Speaker 3: On its own.
Speaker 9: Look, I mean, this is just another example of half
Speaker 9: measures trying to equate to managing a crisis. They have
Speaker 9: a crisis in New York City right now, and and
Speaker 9: and fomented in part because of what looks like a
Speaker 9: you know, sort of devil's bargain with the Justice Department
Speaker 9: to do the bidding of the you know, Czar of
Speaker 9: Immigration in New York City in return for getting off
Speaker 9: a indictment. I mean, like that should be what we're
Speaker 9: talking about today, not this idea that somehow you're going
Speaker 9: to put strings attached to being mayor of New York.
Speaker 9: By the way, do those all go away if he
Speaker 9: doesn't win reelection?
Speaker 5: I mean, like it's nuts.
Speaker 3: They won't even get it done.
Speaker 9: By the time the election occurs in New York City.
Speaker 9: And what chances do this guy have of getting re
Speaker 9: elected with the problems that he's created for himself.
Speaker 3: Wow, this is Rick and Genie at their best here.
Speaker 3: I mean, we may as well go from one crisis
Speaker 3: to another. Can we call it a crisis? What's happening
Speaker 3: on Capitol Hill right now? We're walking up on a
Speaker 3: funding deadline here. We've got this massive agenda. Donald Trump
Speaker 3: wants in one big bill in the Senate. In meantime,
Speaker 3: is going ahead this afternoon with a two bill plan.
Speaker 3: This is pretty remarkable, Rick Davis. Lindsey Graham, who you
Speaker 3: knew well in your years working in the Senate, says, yeah,
Speaker 3: the President prefers one big, beautiful bill, but you always
Speaker 3: need a plan B around here. Will he get credit for.
Speaker 9: It in the end, probably not. My guess is no
Speaker 9: good deed goes unpunished on Capitol Hill, and this is
Speaker 9: going to go into that category. You know, we'll see
Speaker 9: what happens. We know that the House of Representatives is
Speaker 9: not a reliable partner. They don't have enough of a
Speaker 9: margin to guarantee outcomes, and so I think the idea is,
Speaker 9: so let let let both these flowers bloom and see
Speaker 9: what comes of it. I think that's probably as best
Speaker 9: an option as you can get when you have the
Speaker 9: President United States trying to make legislative strategy for these
Speaker 9: guys and and frankly tying them up quite a bit
Speaker 9: after saying whatever you guys, bring me works for me.
Speaker 9: Don't know what changed Trump's mind, but it has caused
Speaker 9: a lot of trouble on Capitol Hill.
Speaker 3: Well yeah, you know, so, enter Senate Democrats, Genie. This
Speaker 3: means it's time for the voter rama, and it's going
Speaker 3: to be a late night, if not an early morning.
Speaker 3: Maybe they're still underway at this time tomorrow, but we're
Speaker 3: expecting a lot of amendments. This is part of the
Speaker 3: pleasure of working in the Senate here, and I bet
Speaker 3: Rick has many scars to show for the late nights
Speaker 3: when it came time for voter rama. Schumer's going to
Speaker 3: strategy here, what's it going to be?
Speaker 8: Well, I think they are going to try to put
Speaker 8: up so the Republicans have to take as many hard
Speaker 8: votes as they can force them to make. You know,
Speaker 8: the fascinating thing here, I think is for all the
Speaker 8: distractions that Donald Trump presents and just I guess today
Speaker 8: is one month. I can't believe it. One month he's
Speaker 8: been in office. Seems like an eternity. But the most
Speaker 8: important thing that can define his presidency is going to
Speaker 8: be what we're talking about now, which is legislation. For
Speaker 8: all the eos and all of this stuff that he
Speaker 8: has been doing, it can all be easily overturned or
Speaker 8: relatively easily overturned by whoever comes in next, whatever Democrat
Speaker 8: next gets in office. But legislation is much harder. So
Speaker 8: this is really where the rubber meets the road. And
Speaker 8: that's why I think we see the President saying to
Speaker 8: the House, you know, we want you and Senate, we
Speaker 8: want you as this backup, so all of you keep
Speaker 8: going full steam ahead. The reality is, though, is that
Speaker 8: it is going to be very tough to get either
Speaker 8: one of these bills through, and so of course the
Speaker 8: Democrats in the opposition are going to play that up
Speaker 8: as much as possible, and you know, Chuck Schumer does
Speaker 8: have a game plan. But this is all really about
Speaker 8: the Republicans at this point.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you wonder what John Thune is in for and
Speaker 3: how he can control all of this later on. But
Speaker 3: as I consider the Republican majority leader and his challenges
Speaker 3: ahead here, Rick, the news about Mitch McConnell today is
Speaker 3: worth mentioning. Says he's not going to seek the honor
Speaker 3: of serving in the Senate an eighth time. His current
Speaker 3: term will be his last. What does this tell us
Speaker 3: not only about his career, but the makeup of the
Speaker 3: upper Chamber.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I think it's kind of one of the last
Speaker 9: tumblers to fall from a Republican party that was really
Speaker 9: born out of the nineteen eighties, the Reagan Revolution, And
Speaker 9: there aren't many of those stormtroopers left, and Mitt McColl's
Speaker 9: obviously one of them. Also, the Senate will be losing,
Speaker 9: you know, one of its master strategists, somebody who you
Speaker 9: know led the Republican Caucus for the longest time in history.
Speaker 9: Uh and and was was relatively successful in that endeavor.
Speaker 9: So uh, it'll it'll change the institution. And and frankly,
Speaker 9: you know, it's kind of an interesting dynamic. He's an
Speaker 9: outspoken critic of Donald Trump's and yet probably one of
Speaker 9: the things that will be remembered most is his unwillingness
Speaker 9: to support a second impeachment, which you know, killed it
Speaker 9: in the cradle in the United States Senate. And uh
Speaker 9: and likely that will define some of his tenure as
Speaker 9: a senator. So it's a it's a passing of the torch.
Speaker 9: There's no question the chamber is moving more MAGA uh
Speaker 9: in its complexion rather than the traditional GOP and this
Speaker 9: will this will make a big lurch in that direction.
Speaker 3: That's very well put, Genie. What can John Thune learn
Speaker 3: from Mitch McConnell. How does he chanre Mitch McConnell in
Speaker 3: shepherding through this budget resolution?
Speaker 8: Yeah, I'm not sure he wants to channel Mitch McConnell
Speaker 8: at this point. You know, I think what Mitch McConnell
Speaker 8: ending shows is that the party has moved away, far away.
Speaker 8: As Rick was just talking about from where he was,
Speaker 8: and you know, he was elected in nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 8: When you talked to freshman in college today, many of
Speaker 8: them were born in like two thousand and six, two
Speaker 8: thousand and seven, and oh, but nineteen eighty four to
Speaker 8: them sounds like seventeen fifty two. So you know, Mitch
Speaker 8: McConnell has been there a long time and the party
Speaker 8: has quite frankly moved on. So so there are things
Speaker 8: that any of us can learn. But I think, you know,
Speaker 8: from the democratic perspective, there is still a lot of
Speaker 8: animosity towards Mitch McConnell for what he did. For instance,
Speaker 8: with Merrick Garland, he really for Republicans and conservatives shaped
Speaker 8: the Supreme Court for democrats, he ushered in the loss
Speaker 8: of really critical liberties and rights. So you know, it
Speaker 8: is a very mixed legacy. But he did give a
Speaker 8: very emotional speech on before today, that's for certain.
Speaker 3: Well, we all feel really old now, Genie, I mean
Speaker 3: really Van Halen nineteen eighty four. Come on, guys, our
Speaker 3: signature panel, Rick Davis and Genie Shanzano. Thanks for listening
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