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Speaker 2: A Republican planned to cut two hundred and fifty billion
Speaker 2: dollars in medicaid another healthcare spending hit a procedural roadblock
Speaker 2: in the Senate today. It complicates efforts to pass Donald
Speaker 2: Trump's massive tax and spending package. We go down to
Speaker 2: Katherine Lucy, Bloomberg News White House correspondent, Catherine, is this
Speaker 2: bill at risk as a result of cutting two hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty billion dollars in medicaid?
Speaker 3: It just certainly slows this bill down. It certainly complicates it.
Speaker 3: As you said said, what's an issue here is a
Speaker 3: plan to cut two hundred and fifty billion in medicaid
Speaker 3: and healthcare spending that the Senate parliamentarian has said they
Speaker 3: can't move in this bill with the processes that they
Speaker 3: are doing here. Leaders are saying they have time, that
Speaker 3: they have plans they can do this, and I think
Speaker 3: they are looking at ways to refashion this. But it
Speaker 3: does take time to rewrite legislation. It does take time
Speaker 3: to do this and to keep a sort of combative
Speaker 3: a group of Republicans on board. So trying to keep
Speaker 3: everyone rowing in the same direction is an issue. That said,
Speaker 3: the event at the White House today is Donald Trump
Speaker 3: trying to do just that. He is trying to rally
Speaker 3: support behind this bill. He is aggressively pushing for it
Speaker 3: to be passed by July fourth, He is personally a
Speaker 3: lobbying for it, and so I think he's going to
Speaker 3: pull out all the stops to try and make sure
Speaker 3: that this happens.
Speaker 4: So what's the time? What does this due to the timeline? Right,
Speaker 4: that's what everybody We know that there's a lot of
Speaker 4: pressure Catherine on the President in the next couple of
Speaker 4: weeks to get a bunch of stuff done, including trade
Speaker 4: tariffs and of course his tax and spending bill. So
Speaker 4: what's the timetable if there is a rewrite, how do
Speaker 4: they do it? You're right, that's complicated, it's complicated.
Speaker 3: You know they are now working to do this and
Speaker 3: we'll have to see how quickly they can come up with,
Speaker 3: you know, a new version of it. I mean, I
Speaker 3: think you guys know as well as anyone that Congress
Speaker 3: never does anything until they're up against a hard deadline.
Speaker 3: So things do happen when they feel like they're just
Speaker 3: against the wall. So there is a little bit of that.
Speaker 3: But I think you are really going to see an
Speaker 3: aggressive effort by the President who really wants to do
Speaker 3: this by July for them, and we'll see if he
Speaker 3: can make it happen. But it is I mean, this
Speaker 3: is his main legislative focus, you know that, you know,
Speaker 3: for this term, this is his top legislative priority, and
Speaker 3: he and Republicans really think that they need to pass
Speaker 3: this to have something to run on next year in
Speaker 3: the midterms, so it is a top priority.
Speaker 4: All right, good stuff. We wanted to check in and
Speaker 4: find out what kind of where we are on this,
Speaker 4: so really appreciate it. Catherine Lucy. She has Bloomberg News
Speaker 4: White House correspondent joining us from our bureau in the
Speaker 4: nation's capital.
Speaker 2: Well from the nation's capital to the financial capital of
Speaker 2: the world. We are of course talking about New York City,
Speaker 2: where Andrew Cuomo's loss is Eric adams game. Just days ago,
Speaker 2: the New York City mayor faced steep reelection odds, but Adams,
Speaker 2: who dropped out of the campaign as a Democrat to
Speaker 2: run as an independent, is suddenly looking less toxic to
Speaker 2: a class of moderate voters. Laura Namius is Bloomberg News
Speaker 2: New York politics reporter. She joins us here in the
Speaker 2: Bloomberg Interactive Brokers studio. Laura, you were honor with us
Speaker 2: earlier this week, and you said, don't count out Eric Adams, right, essentially,
Speaker 2: and that's what the strategists have been telling you. But
Speaker 2: I think a lot of the public had said, you know,
Speaker 2: after the challenges he faced and him dropping off the
Speaker 2: Democratic tick, he's kind of done.
Speaker 5: He's not so done now he's not so done, in
Speaker 5: part because of the drastic underperformance of Andrew Cuomo in
Speaker 5: the primary. I think toward then there, Cuomo backers were
Speaker 5: maybe expecting the race to be close. They didn't expect
Speaker 5: Andrew Cuomo to be losing on the first ballot in
Speaker 5: this contest by more than six percentage points, a gap
Speaker 5: that's likely to widen next week when all of the
Speaker 5: ballots are fully counted. Despite the fact that he had
Speaker 5: an insane money advantage over every other candidate in the race,
Speaker 5: including a twenty five million dollars super pack backing his candidacy.
Speaker 5: So they're wondering, if he couldn't win this, can he
Speaker 5: win the whole thing? And should Cuomo drop out and
Speaker 5: consolidate behind a different moderate candidate, maybe Eric Adams, so
Speaker 5: that he doesn't play spoiler in hand the election to
Speaker 5: Mom Donnie or a Republican Curtis Lee was running on
Speaker 5: the GOP line Laura.
Speaker 4: Eric Adams looking less toxic is still toxic. So I'm
Speaker 4: just curious, like how that plays politically.
Speaker 5: That remains to be seen. We haven't seen fresh polling
Speaker 5: that's non partisan post primary, but the most recent poll
Speaker 5: numbers for Eric Adams are terrible. He was polling in
Speaker 5: the teens. His favorability in New York City among voters
Speaker 5: was in the teens. Like seventy percent of New Yorker's
Speaker 5: disapproved of the job that he was doing as mayor
Speaker 5: as recently as a month ago.
Speaker 4: So it's not an.
Speaker 5: Easy path to victory. But there's some thinking that maybe
Speaker 5: if people are disenchanted enough with the idea of a
Speaker 5: Mom Donnie candidacy they could get behind in Eric Adams.
Speaker 2: One, have you heard anything? So there's the supporters of
Speaker 2: former Governor Cuomo. Yes, And we should note that Michael Bloomberg,
Speaker 2: the founder of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg Radio,
Speaker 2: did support Governor Cuomo ahead of the primary. Do you
Speaker 2: supporters of Have any supporters of Governor Cuomo come and said,
Speaker 2: wait a second, we can now support Mom Donnie.
Speaker 5: So here's what's going on. Donors are having a conversation.
Speaker 5: There are also some powerful backers of Andrew Cuomo who
Speaker 5: are labor unions, and right now conversations are happening with
Speaker 5: labor unions about who they are going to pivot toward
Speaker 5: backing in the general and we are hearing from some
Speaker 5: sources that it's likely that a lot of them are
Speaker 5: going to coalesce behind Mom Donnie. Their agenda largely dovetails
Speaker 5: with some of the things he said he wants. That's
Speaker 5: very different from some of the donors who backed Cuomo
Speaker 5: who are in finance or real estate, who are seeing
Speaker 5: some of Mom Donnie's policies around rent control, around taxes
Speaker 5: as like an existential threat. But those conversations are happening
Speaker 5: right now. It's fair to say that a lot of
Speaker 5: conversations are happening, and that there's maybe a panicked air
Speaker 5: to some of the conversations they're going on right now.
Speaker 5: It's likely or that the unions might back Mom Donnie
Speaker 5: than some of the big money backers.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, that's really fascinating, right, Like, you know, where
Speaker 4: there's politics, there's money, and where there's money, there's politics.
Speaker 4: But it's just like you do wonder if ultimately Cuomo
Speaker 4: is out. You know, what's the assumption about a lot
Speaker 4: of those you know, a lot of the political donations.
Speaker 4: Does it automatically go to Adams like we could.
Speaker 5: See so in twenty thirteen, if people will remember back then,
Speaker 5: Christine Quinn was the favorite of moderates and a lot
Speaker 5: of people in finance in the Democratic mayoral primary. She lost,
Speaker 5: build a Blasio ultimately won. There was an effort to
Speaker 5: consolidate support behind Deblasio because it was thought that he
Speaker 5: was going to face a competitive general election against Joe Lodo,
Speaker 5: the Republican at the time, and a lot of people
Speaker 5: got behind Deblasio, and they also sort of talked to
Speaker 5: him about moderating his positions about his nominees and who
Speaker 5: he was going to bring into his administration, and there
Speaker 5: was this sort of a moderating force by people who
Speaker 5: had backed his opponents getting behind him at that point.
Speaker 2: Well, speaking of backers, prominent backer Bill Ackman, who was
Speaker 2: one of the most prominent backers in the super Pac
Speaker 2: supporting guests former Governor Cuomo. He has a very long
Speaker 2: post on x which is pretty typical for him. He
Speaker 2: writes very long messages on the platform, and he writes
Speaker 2: about crowdsourcing the next candidate. He's really worried about Mom Donnie.
Speaker 2: He said, who is your best centrist candidate who could
Speaker 2: go toe to toe with Mom Donnie on the campaign
Speaker 2: trail and on the debate stage. Let's crowdsource the names
Speaker 2: and then do a poll. If someone is ready to
Speaker 2: raise their hand, I will take care of the fundraising.
Speaker 6: Is it that easy.
Speaker 5: It is definitely not that easy. This is a little
Speaker 5: bit of inside baseball. But after tomorrow, Andrew Cuomo cannot
Speaker 5: get his name off of the November ballot. He's running
Speaker 5: on an independent line that he set up in case
Speaker 5: he lost the primary, which it looks like he did.
Speaker 5: After tomorrow, if he doesn't decline that nomination, it's impossible
Speaker 5: to get his name off the ballot. The ballot is
Speaker 5: basically set. In order to get someone off of the ballot,
Speaker 5: that person has to either be nominated to run for
Speaker 5: a vacant position somewhere else, or be disqualified by death,
Speaker 5: going to prison, or moving out of the state. Those
Speaker 5: are really significant events. You don't want to force someone
Speaker 5: to die or move out of the state or prison.
Speaker 5: So it's just not that easy. It's not a question
Speaker 5: of right candidate plus right money. There's rules, you know,
Speaker 5: in elections, and they've.
Speaker 4: Been said in I'm gonna say favorite quote of the day.
Speaker 4: We gotta put that one and send it out. It's
Speaker 4: still early. A lot can happen.
Speaker 5: Oh yes, I mean think about three months ago, if
Speaker 5: we were having this conversation, nobody in the general public
Speaker 5: really knew who Zoron mom Donnie was, And now he's
Speaker 5: looking like the next mayor we're talking about right now,
Speaker 5: possibly of the City of New York.
Speaker 2: Anecdotally speaking, I live in South Brooklyn. The ground game
Speaker 2: that Mom Donnie had was unbelievable. I would get notifications
Speaker 2: Carol saw him of like door knockers. Yes, you know,
Speaker 2: coming over to talk to different members of our building
Speaker 2: and it's kind of wild, like he built something really
Speaker 2: from the ground up. Do we see that happening during
Speaker 2: the general election from now until November? Does that continue
Speaker 2: for him?
Speaker 4: I think that that's plausible.
Speaker 5: It's too soon to say what will happen for the
Speaker 5: other candidates who are in the race. Curtis Leiwa, there's
Speaker 5: independent Jim Walden, an attorney, and Eric Adams of course
Speaker 5: running on his own ballot line. You know, we can't
Speaker 5: predict the future. But this enthusiasm that mom Donnie had
Speaker 5: and actually this sort of managerial competence that he did
Speaker 5: show in getting this campaign organization off the ground and
Speaker 5: ultimately looks like winning this primary is nothing to be
Speaker 5: trifled with. It's a serious operation. He had a huge
Speaker 5: get out the vote effort and the data is really
Speaker 5: showing us that he was able to convert people who
Speaker 5: had never voted before into voters in a New York primary,
Speaker 5: usually a very low turnout affair. He has shocked everyone.
Speaker 4: That's a big deal. Yeah, an indication that we would
Speaker 4: assume that that interest is going to carry all the
Speaker 4: way through or it depends like who's left in the race,
Speaker 4: right yes, definitely. I don't know you're the New Yorker.
Speaker 4: What's your last question?
Speaker 7: It is?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I'm just I'm still blown away by
Speaker 2: the ground game and the interest. I think he was
Speaker 2: seen as somebody literally twelve weeks ago that didn't have
Speaker 2: name recognition.
Speaker 5: Yes, and he also really lacks managerial experience or much
Speaker 5: experience in all money to be Yes.
Speaker 8: His opponent's made on the debate stage, right.
Speaker 5: But he has been saying, and I think people are
Speaker 5: really starting to take this more seriously now that his
Speaker 5: biggest qualification managerially is look at the campaign that I've
Speaker 5: runage built up from nowhere to more than twenty thousand
Speaker 5: individual donors, tons of volunteers, that converted enthusiasm into actual votes,
Speaker 5: a much more difficult thing to do than it looks like.
Speaker 4: And there's a leader, and then there's all the people
Speaker 4: that are around him too, right, it's not just the one.
Speaker 4: I mean, it obviously the candidate first and foremost, but
Speaker 4: it's his whole team or her team. Laura, thank you
Speaker 4: so much, Laura and Omius keeping us informed on New
Speaker 4: York City politics. She is Bloomberg New York, bloom News
Speaker 4: New York Politics reporter.
Speaker 9: You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Weekdaily Podcast. Catch us
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Speaker 8: There's a lot we want to talk about with Mark Moriol.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we certainly do. He is, of course, president and
Speaker 4: CEO of the National Urban League. It is called itself
Speaker 4: the nation's largest historic civil rights and urban advocacy organization,
Speaker 4: devoted to empowering communities and changing lives since nineteen ten.
Speaker 4: He's also a former state senator in Louisiana and the
Speaker 4: former mayor of New Orleans. When he was elected, he
Speaker 4: was the youngest mayor of New Orleans in fifty years.
Speaker 4: He jones us from Atlanta. Hey, that's where we want
Speaker 4: to start.
Speaker 6: Mark.
Speaker 4: First of all, great to be talking with you again.
Speaker 6: Thank you, Greg to be with you this afternoon.
Speaker 4: Well, thank you. You were thirty six when you were
Speaker 4: elected mayor. If our math is right, age, how is
Speaker 4: that like? How do you don't know when is age?
Speaker 4: It could be a problem for someone when isn't it not?
Speaker 10: So every thirty six year old is not the same age.
Speaker 10: Sometimes gives you energy or willingness to innovate, But the
Speaker 10: question is really a question of maturity and the ability
Speaker 10: to deal with a difficult and demanding job, pressure on
Speaker 10: all fronts, and the ability to make decisions under pressure.
Speaker 10: So age can be both a asset, but it also
Speaker 10: can be a liability if you've never experienced pressure, you've
Speaker 10: never been in a decision making position before, and then
Speaker 10: all of a sudden you find yourself leading a major
Speaker 10: American city, So you.
Speaker 6: Know, the jury is out.
Speaker 10: It was out on me when I first got elected,
Speaker 10: although I had a political career as a state senator
Speaker 10: and a very successful state senator who had passed at
Speaker 10: that time some fifty bills, and a career as an
Speaker 10: active lawyer doing a lot of high profile cases. So
Speaker 10: when I got elected, certainly the city of New Orleans
Speaker 10: was in a great crisis of murder and police corruption.
Speaker 6: And economic stagnation for the for the.
Speaker 10: Busting of the oil bust, and uh, you know, I
Speaker 10: think at the end of the day, I proved all
Speaker 10: my critics wrong and and and and had an incredibly
Speaker 10: successful career turning the city around in those days.
Speaker 6: So you know, in the New York situation, with my
Speaker 6: mam Donnie.
Speaker 10: Uh. You know, he is a new face, not a
Speaker 10: very well known face, but pulled off a very important
Speaker 10: and spectacular upset. But forty four percent of the Democratic
Speaker 10: primary does not achieve a consensus of New York voters.
Speaker 10: And there's a general election ahead, and I think although
Speaker 10: he has momentum, I don't think he can pop the
Speaker 10: cork and say I'm going to be the next mayor
Speaker 10: just yet.
Speaker 8: What do you think it's that is? That is so clear?
Speaker 2: And we had a conversation with one of our colleagues here,
Speaker 2: Laura Naimus, earlier in the day, about the challenges that
Speaker 2: he still faces. Lornamias, you know, Mark, the question that
Speaker 2: I have for you is a bigger question about the
Speaker 2: Democratic Party and what this says about if anything, If
Speaker 2: it says anything about the identity of the Democratic Party
Speaker 2: on a national level, can you extrapolate from New York City.
Speaker 10: Though some people want to focus on this sort of
Speaker 10: what I call an idiological distinction between progressives and moderates,
Speaker 10: I think maybe one way to look at it is
Speaker 10: that there may be an generational shift that this represents
Speaker 10: in many respects, A younger candidate who ran an aggressive
Speaker 10: grassroots campaign and used the taxic to social media, running
Speaker 10: against candidates who ran more traditional campaigns that focus heavily
Speaker 10: on television and indeed endorsements and so underneath that, for Mamdanie,
Speaker 10: he has to demonstrate that he.
Speaker 6: Can expand his coalition.
Speaker 10: He has to demonstrate that he can govern govern right.
Speaker 10: Govern is not an ideological thing. Governing does bring into
Speaker 10: play one's values and one's philosophy, but it is The
Speaker 10: mayor is the local chief executive officer. Basic services, public safety, education,
Speaker 10: the condition and cleanliness of streets and neighborhoods, affordable housing.
Speaker 6: Those are the issues. It's not a.
Speaker 10: Job of foreign affairs, although because it is New York,
Speaker 10: there are global issues that the mayor of New York
Speaker 10: has to deal with. So to me, one of his
Speaker 10: challenges is can he expand that coalition in an effort
Speaker 10: to win a general election and build a kind of
Speaker 10: coalition it will require to govern. I can say this,
Speaker 10: I learned that getting elected. I had a decisive win,
Speaker 10: but I had a win in a somewhat racially polarized situation.
Speaker 10: I got ninety five percent of the African American vote.
Speaker 10: At the time, I got less than ten percent of
Speaker 10: the white vote. I had to expand my coalition home
Speaker 10: my base, but expand my coalition to be able to
Speaker 10: effectively govern, get things done, make things happen, reform the police,
Speaker 10: expand you services, put together a coherent economic development plan.
Speaker 10: And that indeed is a challenge that is in front
Speaker 10: of him. So I think people need to watch his
Speaker 10: early moves and what he does. But Andrew Como right
Speaker 10: now is on the ballot in the general election. Eric
Speaker 10: Adams is on the ballot in the general election. There's
Speaker 10: a Republican candidate on the ballot in the general election.
Speaker 10: And as I understand it, in the general election there's
Speaker 10: no rank choice voting. So obstensibly someone could get elected
Speaker 10: with twenty eight percent of the vote in a general
Speaker 10: election in a four way general election. So it remains
Speaker 10: to be seen. You know, the Democratic Party, like the
Speaker 10: Republican Party, is a coalition. I think that using the
Speaker 10: term party may be outmoded and outdated, and for it
Speaker 10: to achieve success in local elections like mayor of New York,
Speaker 10: or mayor of Philadelphia, mayor of Chicago, mayor Detroit may
Speaker 10: be different than what is required in a national election.
Speaker 10: So someone that may be successful in a New York
Speaker 10: where there's a strong progressive base.
Speaker 6: May not be.
Speaker 10: And so I don't tape the Mayor of New York
Speaker 10: or who wins the mayoralty in New York as a
Speaker 10: stalking horse on the Democratic Party on a national basis.
Speaker 6: It never has been.
Speaker 10: It wasn't that way with Mayor Bloomberg, who turned who
Speaker 10: was a Republican term Democratic. Wasn't that way with Mayor Kacha,
Speaker 10: Mayor Dinkins or Mayor Adams, even though they may have
Speaker 10: said I'm the future of the Democratic Party, I don't
Speaker 10: think who the Mayor of New York is represents necessarily
Speaker 10: the future of a party that exists in fifty states
Speaker 10: and what may happen in a national election.
Speaker 6: But having said that, like the Republican.
Speaker 10: Party has to unite its far conservative wing and its
Speaker 10: more moderate wing, a Democratic candidate running nationally in a
Speaker 10: presidential election, right, he has to do the same thing.
Speaker 4: Well, we should point out right now we are talking
Speaker 4: with Mark Moril, he's president and chief executive officer of
Speaker 4: the National Urban League, joining us remotely. At the same time,
Speaker 4: we're keeping an eye on Washington, DC and the White
Speaker 4: House specifically where Republicans are gathering as they expect the
Speaker 4: president to participate in what his press office calls one big,
Speaker 4: beautiful event. So we do assume he is going to
Speaker 4: talk about that spending and tax bill that he is
Speaker 4: trying to get through in the next couple of weeks.
Speaker 4: So there's some pressure on that. And we also do
Speaker 4: have some earnings out that have crossed the Bloomberg and
Speaker 4: we're talking about Nike, and that's docked him. We are
Speaker 4: seeing it trend a little bit lower right now in
Speaker 4: the aftermarket, down about one and a half percent.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the company did report revenue for the fourth quarter
Speaker 2: that beat the average analyst estimate. The estimate was for
Speaker 2: ten point seven billion dollars. It came in at eleven
Speaker 2: point one billion dollars. North America revenue was higher than
Speaker 2: analysts expected. EMEA revenue came in at three billion dollars
Speaker 2: that was higher than estimates. Greater China revenue came in
Speaker 2: right in line with estimates at one point four eight
Speaker 2: billion dollars. We're going to be speaking with Punamguyl of
Speaker 2: Bloomberg Intelligence a little later to break down these Nike earnings.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it does seem like investors are trying to make
Speaker 4: sense of it because the stock has been down a
Speaker 4: few percentage points. Now it's relatively flat, but still a
Speaker 4: little bit lower, So we're going to continue to track it.
Speaker 4: We should point out that the company did say the
Speaker 4: results are in line with expectations, but not what we want.
Speaker 8: This is really interesting.
Speaker 2: Elliott Hill in the press release saying, our financial results
Speaker 2: are in line with our expectations, they are not where
Speaker 2: we want them to be moving forward, we expect our
Speaker 2: business to improve as a result of the progress we're making.
Speaker 8: Three are win now actions.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so kind of interesting. I will point out that
Speaker 4: the gross margin was forty point three percent versus forty
Speaker 4: four point seven percent a year ago. The estudent was
Speaker 4: forty point two percent, so it did beat that. But
Speaker 4: again and now this stocks up about half a percent,
Speaker 4: So continue to track that, watching and waiting for the
Speaker 4: President to make some comments. And we're talking with Mark Morel,
Speaker 4: president and CEO at the National Urban League, and Mark,
Speaker 4: you know, we are awaiting comments from the President when
Speaker 4: it comes to this massive spending and tax bill. What
Speaker 4: do you want to see?
Speaker 10: Well, I think it's clear that this bill is in
Speaker 10: somewhat trouble the polling is two to one against. There
Speaker 10: are number of Republicans in the Senate and many in
Speaker 10: the House who I think have become less enthusiastic about
Speaker 10: deep cuts to Medicaid, veterans programs, and other programs, and
Speaker 10: they're hearing from their constituents. I think because it's been
Speaker 10: an aggressive campaign to educate people. I sent is the
Speaker 10: more people learn about the bill, the less likely they
Speaker 10: are to support the bill. And most of the polling
Speaker 10: shows that Democrats and independents, and maybe twenty five to
Speaker 10: thirty percent of Republicans are not in favor of the
Speaker 10: bill and would like to see them sort of scrap it,
Speaker 10: go back to the drawing board and put something together
Speaker 10: that's better and that may be able to achieve some
Speaker 10: bipartisan support. The great concern I have is the deep
Speaker 10: cuts to programs like Medicaid, the deep cuts to workforce,
Speaker 10: job training, and education, and the potential recessionary impact.
Speaker 6: Data I've seen shows that.
Speaker 10: There would be layoffs, that there would be holes bloan
Speaker 10: into the budgets of many states Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia,
Speaker 10: to name a few. If Medicaid is cut, it would
Speaker 10: damage them fiscally in a really, really be a way.
Speaker 10: So I think the President with this today is trying
Speaker 10: to rally support, trying to play a bit of catch
Speaker 10: up in an effort to demonstrate to the Congress his
Speaker 10: strong support for the bill. But that runs counter to
Speaker 10: what the American people are saying. And now this bill
Speaker 10: is too much on the cut side to pay for
Speaker 10: tax cuts that benefit only a handful of people. That's
Speaker 10: really the misbalance here. And they could do a better job.
Speaker 10: They could come up with a better package. Congress has
Speaker 10: achieved consensus packages in the past, and I think that's
Speaker 10: what's in order today.
Speaker 8: Mark, when you look at the bill.
Speaker 2: The President, by the way, speaking right now, and again
Speaker 2: we'll bring you comments if he does make comments that
Speaker 2: are really focused on our investing audience. As you mentioned,
Speaker 2: he is trying to garner support for this. In your view,
Speaker 2: do you think that the bill in this current iteration
Speaker 2: will become law?
Speaker 10: No, I do not think the margins right now with
Speaker 10: the changes that are being made in the Senate in
Speaker 10: an effort to put the votes together. The bill yet
Speaker 10: has to go back to the House of Representatives.
Speaker 11: If it does pass the Senate, and it passed by
Speaker 11: one vote in the House the last time, so there
Speaker 11: will be an effort to get the House to accept
Speaker 11: the changes that the Senate made. But I think this
Speaker 11: bill is in precarious shape and I do not think
Speaker 11: that it will ultimately be passed in its current form,
Speaker 11: although there's going to be a great effort to do so.
Speaker 11: Because you know, politicians, I'm a recovering politician, you know,
Speaker 11: think long and hard about the impact of a vote.
Speaker 11: One certainly on their constitutions, the two on their elect
Speaker 11: on their reelection.
Speaker 6: And I think.
Speaker 12: If swing district are as Republicans think that this is
Speaker 12: going to really make their reelection difficult and hard may
Speaker 12: say I've got to put push back for a better
Speaker 12: deal because that is in my best political interest.
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Speaker 2: I did want to bring in Wayne Sanders. He's Bloomberg
Speaker 2: Intelligence senior defense analyst. He's a former colonel in the Army.
Speaker 2: He's got a keen knowledge of intelligence analysis, information technology, counterinsurgency,
Speaker 2: and more.
Speaker 8: Wayne.
Speaker 2: Good to have you back with us. Thanks for patiently waiting.
Speaker 2: Things are little off schedule thanks to comments that we
Speaker 2: took from the President a little earlier speaking of Washington, DC,
Speaker 2: though we did hear from the US Defense Secretary earlier.
Speaker 2: He took aim at press coverage of a preliminary assessment
Speaker 2: by the Defense Intelligence Agency that the US attack likely
Speaker 2: didn't cripple core components of Iran's uranium and richmond program
Speaker 2: at the underground FOURDO facility. The President has said the
Speaker 2: facility was quote completely complete and totally obliterated. In your experience,
Speaker 2: do we have to wait for a battle damage assessment
Speaker 2: to understand the full extent of damage in a situation
Speaker 2: such as this, or can we take comments that we
Speaker 2: get through the press, from leaks from the president, from
Speaker 2: other sources. Can we take those at face value?
Speaker 7: Yeah, it's a great question, and thanks for having me back.
Speaker 13: I think that for the President when he said that
Speaker 13: right when you're actually when you watch the video that
Speaker 13: was part of that press conference this morning, it was
Speaker 13: pretty definitive that there was a lot of damage, But
Speaker 13: it's once we talked about it before, you're three hundred
Speaker 13: feet down and so it's very difficult to see what
Speaker 13: kind of damage that specifically is. And so when somebody
Speaker 13: puts out this preliminary assessment, right, I used to be
Speaker 13: an intel guy. I used to do battle damage assessment
Speaker 13: for the army, and so that initial report that comes in,
Speaker 13: you have a very limited amount of information, and so
Speaker 13: you normally look to try and corroborate all that.
Speaker 7: You look for.
Speaker 13: Signals intelligence, human intelligence as well as as well as
Speaker 13: imagery intelligent in it, and there are others as well.
Speaker 13: You try to put all those together and corroborate what
Speaker 13: it is. And that's why I think that Secretary Heasas
Speaker 13: is really trying to push and say, stop trying to
Speaker 13: jump directly to what we said originally that was the
Speaker 13: initial assessment, and then let us be able to do
Speaker 13: as much as we can, let the intelligence community do
Speaker 13: what they're supposed to do and provide a better assessment. So,
Speaker 13: even with de IA putting out what they had that
Speaker 13: was from a leaked perspective, we don't know when that
Speaker 13: initial assessment was made. A secondary piece of that that's
Speaker 13: really important is a lot of battle damage assessment that's
Speaker 13: normally done is normally classified.
Speaker 7: So in terms of what the.
Speaker 13: Public normally gets a hold of, what is normally comes
Speaker 13: out that is normally something that is almost like pared
Speaker 13: down based off it because you're always trying to protect
Speaker 13: sources and methods of how you found out that information.
Speaker 4: So here we are doing the math. There, what six
Speaker 4: days since the US attacked those sites, the nuclear sites
Speaker 4: in or on. How long does it really take Wayne
Speaker 4: to get a really accurate picture or maybe you never
Speaker 4: get a fully accurate picture, but a mostly accurate picture
Speaker 4: of exactly what happened.
Speaker 13: Yeah, the pieces start to fall into place a little
Speaker 13: bit over time, right. I think that the chatter that
Speaker 13: comes from signals intelligence, right as well as the human
Speaker 13: source network that provides some of that intel, some of
Speaker 13: that does take time. I was working, I was working
Speaker 13: National Security Agency, US cyberc Command all the way back
Speaker 13: when the bin Ladin strike. And the funny part about
Speaker 13: that is is that we were still getting we were
Speaker 13: still getting reports even three weeks a month, two months
Speaker 13: after bin Laden was killed that he was alive.
Speaker 7: You know that there was this one piece of tell
Speaker 7: that came up that was that way right.
Speaker 13: That's why you always look and it's so important to
Speaker 13: corroborate what that information is. If we put out a
Speaker 13: piece of news, we put out a piece of intel
Speaker 13: that says says he if it then goes and the
Speaker 13: UK picks up on it or another one of our
Speaker 13: allies and says, hey, I've got this piece of reporting.
Speaker 7: If they end up reporting on.
Speaker 13: That, somebody might grab it and think that that's too
Speaker 13: corroborating piece of information. But somebody's just reporting off the
Speaker 13: original and so that's a very dangerous thing. And that's
Speaker 13: why you heard the chairman, you heard General Kine talk
Speaker 13: about allowing the IC to do their independent assessment. That's
Speaker 13: why CIA has one versus what the DEA had and
Speaker 13: I know that's why a Secretary of Access is bringing
Speaker 13: that up to.
Speaker 4: So what you know, interesting times. I mean, there was
Speaker 4: a lot of criticism at media. Media reacts to what
Speaker 4: gets leaked, right, and that's what we that's what we do,
Speaker 4: and we are supposed to be responsible with it and
Speaker 4: you know, do our own reporting and check it out.
Speaker 4: But we're also there to ask questions. So you know,
Speaker 4: I mean, obviously somebody leaked it and put it out there.
Speaker 4: So I mean, I'm just trying to understand, you know,
Speaker 4: are they right to be so defensive and critical or
Speaker 4: this is just kind of how it goes, not the
Speaker 4: first administration where stuff gets leaked.
Speaker 14: No.
Speaker 7: Absolutely.
Speaker 13: The biggest thing there is it's we call it raw intelligence,
Speaker 13: right if it is unanalyzed data. At that point in time,
Speaker 13: data becomes information, information becomes intelligence, Intelligence becomes decisions. So
Speaker 13: that's just the way that the military mindset looks. So
Speaker 13: if you're at that data layer and you have something
Speaker 13: that's leaked that's still at that raw unanalyzed data, then
Speaker 13: it's important to know where that is in that So
Speaker 13: when it comes to a leak and it's something that
Speaker 13: we can't completely substantiate in terms of an actual report
Speaker 13: that's been put together, that's why the intelligence community takes
Speaker 13: the time that it has. Is why they're safeguards in
Speaker 13: intelligence directives that are in place, is to when you
Speaker 13: want to publish a report, you have to go through
Speaker 13: a lot of different pieces to make sure that you're
Speaker 13: not providing misinformation to the American public.
Speaker 4: Well, so in this environment where there's a lot of
Speaker 4: tensions between Republicans, Democrats and so on and so forth,
Speaker 4: or the White House and members of press at large.
Speaker 4: I mean, what we need to do is just kind
Speaker 4: of though then be smart and maybe possibly would have
Speaker 4: been better to say, listen, guys, it's raw data, so
Speaker 4: just understand that it's out there. We've got to deal
Speaker 4: with it. We're just going to let you know it's
Speaker 4: raw data. And we all know raw data can have flaws.
Speaker 4: And that's kind of the point right here, because we
Speaker 4: just think about our audience and we're saying the endgame
Speaker 4: is to understand what are the enrichment capabilities, nuclear enrichment capabilities,
Speaker 4: ever on. That's the endgame, right, and so that's what
Speaker 4: all these questions are all about. Ultimately, yep, no.
Speaker 13: Absolutely, when you're trying to put that together, the other
Speaker 13: piece of it is, hey, the intelligence community never stops.
Speaker 7: They are going to continue to look.
Speaker 13: Last time we were talking about whether or not they
Speaker 13: moved any of the FISTLE material to another location.
Speaker 7: The intelligence apparatus the United States.
Speaker 13: Never sleeps, it never sleeps, So they are going to
Speaker 13: confirm or deny everything that is out there, with every
Speaker 13: piece of intelligence collection that's underneath the US arsenal.
Speaker 15: Okay, next step, well, I want I want to I
Speaker 15: want to ask about the enrich geranium. Okay, yeah, well
Speaker 15: we heard we exactly we don't know, well, do we
Speaker 15: know where it is? Do you think the US government
Speaker 15: actually knows where it is? Because they seem confident in
Speaker 15: some comments that we've heard from officials that it was
Speaker 15: not moved out of facilities.
Speaker 13: So so that that's the difference I think between commercial capabilities,
Speaker 13: uh and military capabilities as well.
Speaker 7: Right, So I trust I trust the military leaders. I
Speaker 7: always have.
Speaker 13: Obviously, I think that they've they've earned that respect, they've
Speaker 13: earned that trust. And so when when you look at
Speaker 13: the difference between it that intelligent, those intelligence apparatus, all
Speaker 13: the pieces of information that they have uh in terms
Speaker 13: of what they're doing and all that, they're not going
Speaker 13: to come out and make an assertion unless they're able
Speaker 13: to it up. So I would trust that side a
Speaker 13: little bit more when it comes to that because they
Speaker 13: have no political agenda involved in being able to do that.
Speaker 7: Right.
Speaker 13: They want the truth because at the end of the day,
Speaker 13: they provide the commander in chief and the National Command Authority,
Speaker 13: they provide the president with options. They provide them with
Speaker 13: the latest and greatest and says here's the situation and
Speaker 13: hear your military strike in response options based off of that.
Speaker 13: There's no reason to try and skew the numbers or
Speaker 13: anything of that nature, because at the end of the day,
Speaker 13: then you're making a decision off of bad intel and
Speaker 13: nobody wins there.
Speaker 4: All right, We're going to have to leave it there.
Speaker 4: It sounds like, you know, we all got to be
Speaker 4: a little bit patient and wait for more of the
Speaker 4: intel to come in. Hey, Wayne, thank you so much
Speaker 4: always walking us through exactly what's going on so that
Speaker 4: we have a better understanding. Wayne Sanders, Senior Defense analyst
Speaker 4: at Bloomberg Intelligence, joining us once again from Maryland.
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Speaker 4: Hey, folks, us up forget. We've still got some earnings
Speaker 4: and we did have Nike crossing after the closing, bellstock
Speaker 4: down about two percent in the aftermarket. Let's get to
Speaker 4: our Punam Goyle, who follows Nike as well as e
Speaker 4: commerce at leisure. At leisure, excuse me an off price retail.
Speaker 4: She's there in our Princeton bureau bi headquarters. All right,
Speaker 4: Nike's down. It's been bouncing around. Punhum, what do we
Speaker 4: need to know?
Speaker 14: You know, the numbers are better than expected, but the
Speaker 14: issue here is the inventory was just flat, and we
Speaker 14: expected inventory to be down more. You know, if there's
Speaker 14: one thing I'm looking for in this turnaround, it's that
Speaker 14: they rework their inventory levels down to get aligned with sales.
Speaker 14: So when sales are down double digits and inventory is flat,
Speaker 14: it's still a problem.
Speaker 2: We'll explain why you want inventory down.
Speaker 14: Well, they have a lot of inventory that's old in aged, right,
Speaker 14: that they just need to sell and get rid of
Speaker 14: so they could introduce more new product that resonates better
Speaker 14: with shoppers and can drive more full price sales. There's
Speaker 14: a lot of old inventory in the pipeline. They've talked
Speaker 14: about it. They need to bring it down. I was
Speaker 14: surprised with sales doing better that inventory isn't actually down
Speaker 14: a lot more.
Speaker 10: So.
Speaker 14: Really, you know, the question going into this call in
Speaker 14: just ten minutes is that what is the mix of
Speaker 14: this inventory? Is the inventory higher because you have a
Speaker 14: lot more new stuff now in it and a lot
Speaker 14: of the old stuff is in fact gone? Or is
Speaker 14: there still too much of the old stuff?
Speaker 10: Right?
Speaker 4: Doesn't everybody want the snowfer?
Speaker 8: What is it?
Speaker 4: The sneaker loafer? I mean, isn't that the big thing?
Speaker 14: The five hundred dollars one?
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, that's like the big platform.
Speaker 8: Why is that so expensive?
Speaker 4: Hey, it's not.
Speaker 14: It's one hundred and fifty five dollars when they actually
Speaker 14: drop it, I believe if that's the right price.
Speaker 4: The resale prices, right, these are resale price.
Speaker 14: These are resale prices. So you know the prices are
Speaker 14: or what they are.
Speaker 4: Just look up by the Nike ticker snow for s
Speaker 4: no a FVR like a loafer, snowfer, snoffer, sneaker loafer. Yeah,
Speaker 4: we get the cross between sneakers and high heels, right,
Speaker 4: I forget right, So we get that, but the guys
Speaker 4: get the snow first, all right, So it does. So
Speaker 4: what's the number one question you want to you want
Speaker 4: to be asking about the inventory? What specifically? Or is
Speaker 4: it just as simple as like, why is it still
Speaker 4: so high?
Speaker 14: It's actually the mix of it, right, it's an inventory,
Speaker 14: they're just flat. How much old inventory still needs to
Speaker 14: be cleared? How much of it Have they cleared right?
Speaker 10: So?
Speaker 14: Have they cleared half of it by now, three fourths
Speaker 14: of it, a fourth of it versus where they were
Speaker 14: last quarter. Just to get a sense of their inventory position,
Speaker 14: to know the new and old balance within it, that's
Speaker 14: probably my biggest question. And then of course you know
Speaker 14: there's questions around the Skims partnership that's being delayed for
Speaker 14: this year. What's going on there? Why is it being delayed?
Speaker 14: The tarriff question. They're raising prices, but are they seeing
Speaker 14: any demand fall off from consumers or consumers pulling back?
Speaker 14: That's all uncertainty. We'd love to hear sentiment around new launches,
Speaker 14: new product, the basic questions.
Speaker 2: Aside from that, Jeerlan, we're both drawn to this headline
Speaker 2: in commentary from Elliot Hill, the president and CEO of
Speaker 2: the company, who said, well, our financial results are in
Speaker 2: line with our expectations. They are not where we want
Speaker 2: them to be moving forward, we expect our business to
Speaker 2: improve as a result of the progress we're making through
Speaker 2: our win now actions. Matthew Friend, the CFO and EVP,
Speaker 2: also said that the fourth quarter reflected the largest financial
Speaker 2: impact from our win now actions. Remind everybody what win
Speaker 2: now means for Nike investors.
Speaker 14: So this is a strategic plan to get Nike to
Speaker 14: come back to growth. So when you think about all
Speaker 14: the actions that they've taken, the inventory reductions, staffing reductions,
Speaker 14: the investments and technology creating efficiencies, etc. I think what
Speaker 14: they're trying to say is we've done a lot of that,
Speaker 14: and now here's the path forward. The headwinds will be fewer,
Speaker 14: and now they can actually start to push the pedal
Speaker 14: to accelerate into growth. So the dirty work is kind
Speaker 14: of done, all right.
Speaker 4: So massive company, ninety two billion dollar market caps stocks
Speaker 4: down seventeen percent year today.
Speaker 8: I feels to be a bigger market cup it did
Speaker 8: used to be.
Speaker 4: And I feel like punam. We've been talking about their
Speaker 4: struggles for a while. I mean, is Nike's heyday over
Speaker 4: or they just have to kind of figure out the
Speaker 4: inventories and get their groove back.
Speaker 14: Their heyday is not over. We actually ran a survey
Speaker 14: just probably a few weeks ago that published this week,
Speaker 14: and it asked people, just surveyors, one thousand people, this
Speaker 14: common question, what do you want to buy in the
Speaker 14: next six months? And the number one response when you're
Speaker 14: buying sneakers was Nike. So Nike still is very very
Speaker 14: visible with people in the US for sure, because that's
Speaker 14: where the survey was run. But I'd say even around
Speaker 14: the world, it's still the largest athlet uar brand. I
Speaker 14: believe that if they can fix their inventory position and
Speaker 14: really focus on product, which I think Elliott Hill is
Speaker 14: doing and that is what he came in for. I
Speaker 14: think they can win back customers as long as they
Speaker 14: can stay on top of innovation, true to their game,
Speaker 14: true to sports, because Nike is a sports for a company. Yes,
Speaker 14: we'd love to see more snowfers or you know, those
Speaker 14: kind of things, but at the end of the day,
Speaker 14: it's a performance company, right, and I think they have
Speaker 14: to stay true to that.
Speaker 4: I don't know if you do this. I sometimes in
Speaker 4: the subway and I'm just kind of looking down and
Speaker 4: of course all you see is feet, right if you're
Speaker 4: sitting or standing, and like I kind of count like
Speaker 4: what the brands are. There's a lot of on sneakers
Speaker 4: I have on full discleasure, but I do I try
Speaker 4: to get an idea of like what people are really
Speaker 4: into in terms of what they're wearing on their feet.
Speaker 4: I know I'm strange. What can I tell you?
Speaker 14: I do that too, so you're not.
Speaker 8: You guys are both analysts.
Speaker 4: That's the way I had a good company. But here's
Speaker 4: the thing to get an idea. A year ago, I'll
Speaker 4: look at ages too, to see who's wearing one.
Speaker 2: Wasn't it like a year ago or maybe two years
Speaker 2: ago that analyst went to Central Park and he actually
Speaker 2: looked at who was running and what and that was
Speaker 2: a big issue because Nike had lost market share just
Speaker 2: twenty seconds.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 14: Absolutely, Look, Nike has lost market share and it is
Speaker 14: losing market share. But Ken it went it back as
Speaker 14: a question. We think yes, On is definitely growing. But
Speaker 14: if you look at the size of the two companies,
Speaker 14: you're looking at someone with, you know, more than forty
Speaker 14: billion dollars in sales versus someone with less than ten.
Speaker 14: So there's a big difference.
Speaker 4: Good point, all right, Nike, you shows down one point
Speaker 4: seven percent. Put of you Rock Punam Goyle Senior analysts
Speaker 4: for e Commerce at Leisure, off Price Retail at Bloomberg Intelligence,
Speaker 4: joining us from BI headquarters in Princent.
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