Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Surveillance Podcast. I'm Tom Keane. Daily
Speaker 1: we bring you insight from the best in economics, finance, investment,
Speaker 1: and international relations. Find Bloomberg Surveillance on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud,
Speaker 1: Bloomberg dot Com, and of course on the Bloomberg. Who
Speaker 1: does George Magnus listen to? He listens to Leland Miller.
Speaker 1: Miller has come out of Washington and Lee University and
Speaker 1: carved out a career. Is the absolute definitive micro analyst
Speaker 1: of China. No One and I mean no one, folks,
Speaker 1: does it better than Leland Miller of trying to figure
Speaker 1: out what rail traffic or what electric utility rates are
Speaker 1: doing to China and what its signals. So Leland, let
Speaker 1: me get right to it and your China Beige book.
Speaker 1: What do you see of in ferior demand dynamics across
Speaker 1: Great China. Well, one of the major problems because the
Speaker 1: the last several months haven't been syncred since the beginning
Speaker 1: of the year hasn't been synchronized with the Chinese economy
Speaker 1: shutting down and then most of the rest of the
Speaker 1: world is shutting down after that, is that firms that
Speaker 1: have relied on export orders are doing really really poorly
Speaker 1: right now, which means the coast, so the interior you're seeing.
Speaker 1: You're seeing much better numbers right now in the interior
Speaker 1: simply because they're not and and there are banking on
Speaker 1: a domestic rebound, which you'll see as the as the
Speaker 1: Chinese recovery incrementally gets better over this year. So right now,
Speaker 1: China doesn't want to be relying on its interior provinces.
Speaker 1: But that's that's where the growth is right now, while
Speaker 1: the coast really feel some pain. Let's talk about Beijing
Speaker 1: Leland really really hard to get a read on what
Speaker 1: is actually happening on the ground in China at the moment.
Speaker 1: Some people have told me what's what they do, not
Speaker 1: what they say. What they say is that they've got
Speaker 1: a small outbreak of COVID infections. What they're doing is
Speaker 1: canceling flights and closing schools. Again, what's your done things
Speaker 1: at the moment? Well, yeah, if you look at the numbers,
Speaker 1: it looks like this very micro blip that you see
Speaker 1: all over the all over the world, particularly United States
Speaker 1: right now. But the important thing is it's in Beijing,
Speaker 1: and Beijing has symbolic power for the Chinese Communist Party.
Speaker 1: So they lose control of that city, then you have
Speaker 1: a potential political crisis on their hands in addition to
Speaker 1: it to economic repercussions. So what the government is doing
Speaker 1: is very much the opposite of what they were talking
Speaker 1: about doing a few months ago when they started coming
Speaker 1: out of the covid UH the COVID shutdown. They forced
Speaker 1: everyone back to work. It was a very aggressive move back.
Speaker 1: We're gonna get everyone back and running and you know,
Speaker 1: dan the consequences. But when it comes to Beijing, they're
Speaker 1: doing the opposite. They're being extremely careful. They're shutting everything down.
Speaker 1: They want to make sure that that Beijing is not
Speaker 1: the center of the new outbreak for the symbolic for
Speaker 1: symbolic reasons as well as the fact that it's it's
Speaker 1: it's it's the major political uh center of power and leland.
Speaker 1: One major political issue is the jobs picture. And we've
Speaker 1: heard from George Magnus that while the official rate of
Speaker 1: joblessness is about five point nine percent, he estimated it
Speaker 1: more at fifteen to twenty percent. Is that accurate? Is
Speaker 1: that what your figures are showing as well? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think George as usual is right. You know, The problem
Speaker 1: here is that when you track employment in China and
Speaker 1: look the government gate is don't even try to get
Speaker 1: into it because they don't want to tell the negative story.
Speaker 1: But even when you do things like China Beige books
Speaker 1: job job gauges, you have a problem in that firms
Speaker 1: typically report formal employment and there's this floating migrant population
Speaker 1: that is in this set of hiatus from from being
Speaker 1: paid right now, Some are furloughed. They haven't been laid
Speaker 1: off technically, but they have. Some haven't been rehired back.
Speaker 1: When they get rehired back, you sometimes see a bump
Speaker 1: in the job's number even though they weren't laid off
Speaker 1: in the first place. So there's a very weird, opaque
Speaker 1: universe that the Chinese will will never announce because if
Speaker 1: they came out with the number that said fifteen people,
Speaker 1: people would lose their minds the same way that they announced,
Speaker 1: you know, one percent GDP growth. So these are the
Speaker 1: types of numbers that you just can't pay attention to.
Speaker 1: You know, the situation is much worse um, but you
Speaker 1: don't know what the exact numbers are Behind the scenes.
Speaker 1: We land one thing that we are seeing is that
Speaker 1: the PBOC is planning to increase credit in the economy
Speaker 1: by nearly a fifth this year. This according to an
Speaker 1: announcement overnight. A lot of people saying this isn't enough.
Speaker 1: What's your take, Yeah, it's not enough, But there's a
Speaker 1: couple of things going on, and it's not just about
Speaker 1: the supply of credit. So when I look at our
Speaker 1: credit gauges, I'm shocked by what I'm seeing because you
Speaker 1: would expect the same type of liquidity rollout that you
Speaker 1: saw in the United States or in Europe. You're not
Speaker 1: seeing that in China. And you can understand some restraint
Speaker 1: because they are worried about nonperforming loans, but the levels
Speaker 1: are quite shocking, and we're gonna have numbers on those
Speaker 1: coming out next week. But you know, it's it's it's
Speaker 1: looking pretty surprising. But the opposite of that is the
Speaker 1: demand picture and the fact that a lot of firms
Speaker 1: aren't asking for loans right now, and when you have
Speaker 1: this reduced loan demand, and begs the question why during
Speaker 1: this extremely trying time are firms not more desirous of loans?
Speaker 1: Is it because and don't like the horo economic horizon
Speaker 1: that they're worried about piling on loans during an uncertain
Speaker 1: economic environment is because of other credit dynamics. So this
Speaker 1: is really the big picture. Yes, look at supply, but
Speaker 1: loan demand is going to be the absolute key thing
Speaker 1: to watch for the next three or four months. Lela
Speaker 1: Miller of China Basebook International, the CEO of a situation
Speaker 1: in China right now. Fascinated stuff. Okay, more Blank Rocks,
Speaker 1: chief equity strategist, another central bankcake doing a whole lot
Speaker 1: more and maybe still more to come. Can you tell
Speaker 1: me whether traditional valuation approaches mats or anymore and it
Speaker 1: will dominated by monasty policy. Well, let me just say
Speaker 1: good morning, and then also let you know that I
Speaker 1: think valuations at this point are really tricky, especially forward
Speaker 1: measures of valuations. You know, no one at this point, analysts, companies, strategists,
Speaker 1: portfolio managers has a great sense for what earnings will
Speaker 1: be in or I've had people start talking about medium
Speaker 1: term trend earnings and that may be fair, but I
Speaker 1: think we're experiencing a lot of dislocations in the economy
Speaker 1: and consumption patterns and it's pretty difficult to predict. So valuations, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, in and of themselves are a difficult way
Speaker 1: to make investment decisions. But I will say is on
Speaker 1: a cross asset basis, with all of this QUEUEI, with
Speaker 1: all of this policy support, with all this repression of yields,
Speaker 1: you know, equities may look a little bit better. Okay,
Speaker 1: this is extraordinary. I agree with you. It's completely unusual times.
Speaker 1: But June thirty, beccons, how will institutional by side money
Speaker 1: reset for July one. I'm not sure we're going to
Speaker 1: have a giant rebalance after the second quarter. I mean,
Speaker 1: we always get excited about pension rebalances and flows and
Speaker 1: index rebounces when those times come. Uh, and they never
Speaker 1: tend to move the market as much as we might fear.
Speaker 1: I think there's been a consistent rebalancing of institutional portfolios
Speaker 1: along the way. And you know, people still are trying
Speaker 1: to figure out what to do with the second half
Speaker 1: of the year, let alone make big asset allocation shifts
Speaker 1: that will affect, you know, multi year horizons. So at
Speaker 1: this point I would expect people to continue to ride
Speaker 1: ride the risk wave a little bit, conscious of the
Speaker 1: fact that in the second half of the year we
Speaker 1: do have another big set of big risk factors. Um
Speaker 1: Please to just mentioned the election. I think that's something
Speaker 1: we're gonna have to focus very closely on. There's gonna
Speaker 1: be a lot more news out of d C over
Speaker 1: the next couple uh months, and you know, a lot
Speaker 1: of posturing by both the Democrats and the Republicans, and
Speaker 1: I think that's perhaps gonna gonna shake the market a
Speaker 1: little bit at some point. Okay, I've been struggling with
Speaker 1: riding the risk curve at a time when people really
Speaker 1: are still hiding out and some of the more defensive names.
Speaker 1: You're seeing this, certainly with the text docs, uh and
Speaker 1: you're seeing this in investment grade credit. At what point
Speaker 1: will investors get conviction? What do they have to see
Speaker 1: to go further into risk? Well least, I feel like
Speaker 1: you're sort of asking it, what point do we get
Speaker 1: a rotation into value into perhaps some of the lower
Speaker 1: quality stuff. The hiding out has really been in higher
Speaker 1: quality companies with good balance sheets, strong business models, with
Speaker 1: management teams that investors have conviction in and confidence in
Speaker 1: their ability to execute. And I think that makes sense.
Speaker 1: I mean, the trouble with what falls into value or
Speaker 1: what falls into the highly cyclical parts of the of
Speaker 1: the market at this point is that some of it
Speaker 1: is structurally impaired. It's a much harder call whether we're
Speaker 1: talking about, you know, the next couple of weeks or
Speaker 1: the next couple of years. I think you have to
Speaker 1: be more selective. One of the ways that we've been
Speaker 1: talking about it is on my team is to go
Speaker 1: into the whimpy cyclicals. These are cyclical companies if you
Speaker 1: want to make a rotation towards better global growth and
Speaker 1: better US growth, that also have the balance sheets and
Speaker 1: decent management teams. They may not be the cheapest in
Speaker 1: the cyclical bucket, but I think they're the better bet.
Speaker 1: Okay More always tries to catch with Okay More j
Speaker 1: wanting us from black Rock on some of the cyclicals
Speaker 1: out there. Jacker Earlisa Brown with some time Kena. What
Speaker 1: we know is ed bastion of Delta always at every
Speaker 1: moment will listen to Robert Crandell. He's in his eighty
Speaker 1: fourth year. Mr. Crandell is without question the spirit of
Speaker 1: the American aviation industry, and he's also someone who has
Speaker 1: been brutally frank. He is iconic for telling American airlines
Speaker 1: employees they need to understand that you don't invest in
Speaker 1: airlines you just have fun working for them, and we're
Speaker 1: thrilled that Mr. Crandell could join us this morning. Bob Crandell,
Speaker 1: this has been an exogenous shock that your industry has
Speaker 1: never felt before. What is the best practice for the
Speaker 1: American aviation industry to extract themselves from this pandemic? But Tom,
Speaker 1: I think the airlines are all of the airlines are
Speaker 1: die have done pretty well. They're all there's quite by
Speaker 1: the way, there's quite a nice week gap in this
Speaker 1: morning's journal about what each individual parity is doing UH
Speaker 1: outdown American United, each one of the by one. They're
Speaker 1: all working hard to try and persuade the public that
Speaker 1: it is safe to go back, that they won't get
Speaker 1: sick if they get on the airplane and take a trip,
Speaker 1: they go see Grand mop, they go see the grandkids,
Speaker 1: or if they go to a business meeting. UH. The
Speaker 1: airlines obviously want the public to feel safe flying and
Speaker 1: they're doing the investigator to make that part of the
Speaker 1: cleaning the airplanes very assiduously. They are reducing the point
Speaker 1: to point contacts within the terminal UH. And they're and
Speaker 1: they're increasingly and I'm glad to see this. They are
Speaker 1: becoming increasingly insistent that people wear masks on the airplane,
Speaker 1: which I think was a very important step and an event.
Speaker 1: They're all working hard at it, And his ed said
Speaker 1: a few minutes ago on your show, I think everybody
Speaker 1: is hoping that by the end of the summer the
Speaker 1: public will feel a lot safer than they feel have
Speaker 1: felt up to this point. And it isn't travel if
Speaker 1: you but the issue is what they have to do
Speaker 1: to make the public feel safe, and right now that
Speaker 1: capping capacity on those planes is SI. I just wonder
Speaker 1: if you're running an airline again and had to cap
Speaker 1: capacity at six through year, and what are the heart
Speaker 1: decisions you'd have to make? How sweat all? Wait, wait,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of you're gonna have to make elsewhere,
Speaker 1: including how how do you best reduce costs and conserved care?
Speaker 1: After after all, if you are capping modes and if
Speaker 1: you are not increasing prices dramatically, then obviously your cash
Speaker 1: poles are going to go way down. And what you've
Speaker 1: got to do is you you've got to stay in
Speaker 1: the game. You've got to you've got to conserve enough
Speaker 1: cash so that you can get through this difficulty to
Speaker 1: get to the point where we finally have a vaccine
Speaker 1: and people are finally able to go back to traveling
Speaker 1: where they have in the past. That's a very difficult
Speaker 1: thing to do, and inevitably going involved throws or some people,
Speaker 1: uh voluntary throwers, perhaps more part time work. Each individual
Speaker 1: care I think it's going to shape its response the
Speaker 1: cash conservation according to its own balance sheet and its
Speaker 1: own reading of what what public movie is web. There's
Speaker 1: a question when you talk about business travel resuming, A
Speaker 1: lot of companies are realizing they don't need to do
Speaker 1: the same kind of travel that they hadn't the past.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking in particular of road trips with respect to
Speaker 1: selling I p O s or even just face to
Speaker 1: face meetings that now could be done via zoom. How
Speaker 1: long do you think it will take before business travel
Speaker 1: gets back up to levels that we saw last year?
Speaker 1: Do you ever think it will at least I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: I think nobody. I don't think anybody is smart enough
Speaker 1: findal I'm not smart enough to tell you precisely have
Speaker 1: the business community will respond to the sort of suspension
Speaker 1: of travel that we've had and the use of alternatives
Speaker 1: like like the alternative we are using this morning to
Speaker 1: talk to each other and talk to the public, but
Speaker 1: not be in the same place. I suspect that that
Speaker 1: will that will over time reduce the accumulative amount of
Speaker 1: business travel somewhat. How much is anybody's get but I
Speaker 1: think it will be a long time before the aline
Speaker 1: see as much business travel as they saw in in
Speaker 1: the pre COVID days of later out of the nineteen
Speaker 1: early but always fantastic to get your unique insight on
Speaker 1: an industry that has really really come under a ton
Speaker 1: of pressure over the last several months. Bob krandled that
Speaker 1: the former American Alliance CEO what we like to do
Speaker 1: is have an important conversation now with a gentle lady
Speaker 1: from Utah. Vivian ly is with Verily of course the
Speaker 1: story career in health academics and health medicine. We're thrilled
Speaker 1: Dr Lea could join us in the long Fix is
Speaker 1: an important book on healthcare and healthcare lucians in America.
Speaker 1: Dr Lee, I can't have a normal conversation Utah in
Speaker 1: the Mountains states down to Arizona having a new epidemic
Speaker 1: of the pandemic. Give us an update on what Utah
Speaker 1: sees with the COVID virus. Great to be with you,
Speaker 1: Tom and um As you know, a couple of years ago,
Speaker 1: up until a couple of years ago, I was leading
Speaker 1: the University of Utah's health care system, and UH now
Speaker 1: really have been full of admiration for the way in
Speaker 1: which that state had has been managing the crisis, really
Speaker 1: had been keeping it um and has been among the
Speaker 1: lowest in the country. But as we're seeing now, you know,
Speaker 1: all across the country, places that we thought we're going
Speaker 1: to survive, you know, relatively unscathed, they're seeing these upticks
Speaker 1: in the COVID crisis. And it's just all the more
Speaker 1: important that we recognize that the guidance that we're hearing
Speaker 1: from our public health officials, we need much more testing,
Speaker 1: we need to do the social distancing and masking, those
Speaker 1: are just ever more imperative. Now no one is immune.
Speaker 1: I have to ask the professional question, and that one
Speaker 1: of the most piercing comments we had was with the
Speaker 1: chief radiologist at Mount Sinai on the virus. You are
Speaker 1: a radiologist, What have you learned about the inflammation around
Speaker 1: the chest cavity in this virus? What do you discern
Speaker 1: about how we can battle this virus vaccine or no
Speaker 1: vaccine in terms of the cavity of the body. You know,
Speaker 1: what is so striking about this virus is the fact
Speaker 1: that there are so many people who feel pretty good.
Speaker 1: They actually are relatively asymptomatic, and even though they walk
Speaker 1: around they don't necessarily feel a fever, they don't necessarily
Speaker 1: have a cough, they actually are COVID positive. And we've
Speaker 1: seen the reports and the literature that they actually have
Speaker 1: findings on their chest CT scans, they have abnormal findings
Speaker 1: and their lungs that that virus is affecting them, but
Speaker 1: they're not manifesting it in symptoms. And and that's really
Speaker 1: I think we're hearing. Just just yesterday, the f d
Speaker 1: A issued a guidance that said, look, you know, none
Speaker 1: of these tests for COVID are approved for wide scale
Speaker 1: testing of people who are asymptomatic, but they acknowledged that
Speaker 1: that is going to be necessary, that we are going
Speaker 1: to need to test people who are asymptomatic. And they
Speaker 1: actually provided templates for laboratories and for manufacturers to get
Speaker 1: that approval to be able to test asymptomatic people for COVID.
Speaker 1: And that's going to be a critical component of getting
Speaker 1: people back to work, getting students back to campuses. We're
Speaker 1: going to have to have a strategy because we're seeing
Speaker 1: from from taking the images, as you say, of people
Speaker 1: who actually feel fine that they are infected, and that
Speaker 1: means they are also infectious. They can spread that disease
Speaker 1: to other people, and we need to identify those folks
Speaker 1: and be able to quarantine them to protect everyone else. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: doctor Lely, we have seen the resurgence in cases in
Speaker 1: places like Arizona and Texas and Florida with anecdotal accounts
Speaker 1: of the i C you beds getting filled up, any
Speaker 1: shortage being highlighted of general practitioners and I see you nurses,
Speaker 1: what do you see as some of the ways to
Speaker 1: fill that gap that is so sorely being reflected in
Speaker 1: this pandemic of general practitioners, of nurses who perhaps haven't
Speaker 1: been favored as far as a professional career because they
Speaker 1: haven't been as well paid, perhaps as some of the
Speaker 1: more highly compensated specialists. You know, one of the things
Speaker 1: that the COVID crisis is laying there is the fundamental
Speaker 1: shortcomings of our health care system. You know, we were
Speaker 1: such we are a fee for service health care system,
Speaker 1: meaning that our healthcare hospitals are designed to focus on
Speaker 1: things that generate fees, and as soon as those fees
Speaker 1: start going away, like the primary care clinics, like all
Speaker 1: of the hospital beds that were not caring for COVID,
Speaker 1: we had to lay people off. The April data showed
Speaker 1: we laid almost one and a half million healthcare workers off.
Speaker 1: Last month was a little bit better. Three thousand were rehired,
Speaker 1: but that's still almost one point two million healthcare workers.
Speaker 1: And you know, the majority our nurses and also dentists
Speaker 1: as well as physicians. And that's just a tragedy because
Speaker 1: the people who are being laid off are exactly the
Speaker 1: folks that we need to care for the most vulnerable.
Speaker 1: We see that the people were you know, across the country,
Speaker 1: and they are the ones we need to get back
Speaker 1: into work now. Vivianly, I need to be in the
Speaker 1: time out chair of Dr Lee because we spent no
Speaker 1: time on your wonderful book, The Long Fix. We will
Speaker 1: have you back on soon to talk about an important book, folks,
Speaker 1: on what actually can be done to begin to fix
Speaker 1: this amazing and a mess the American medical system. Vivian
Speaker 1: Ly with us this morning. The author of The Long Six,
Speaker 1: thanks so much. Now, President Trump asked for China's help
Speaker 1: to win re election. That's the allegation made by John
Speaker 1: Bolton in his tell All memoir. The White House is
Speaker 1: seeking an injunction preventing the former National Security advisor from
Speaker 1: publishing the book. Now, the president's campaign team dismissed the
Speaker 1: claim as absurd, But he broke the law very simple.
Speaker 1: I mean, as much as it's going to be broken.
Speaker 1: This is highly classified. That's the highest stage. It's highly
Speaker 1: classified information. That was the President's himself now joining us
Speaker 1: as Craig Gordon or Bloomberg Washington d C. Very chief, Greg,
Speaker 1: Great to have you on Bloomberg surveillance. When you look
Speaker 1: at what the allegations were, does it actually move the
Speaker 1: polls as we get closer to the election or do
Speaker 1: the people that support President Trump not care about these allegations.
Speaker 1: I mean, look, people who support President Donald Trump are
Speaker 1: pretty dug in, and I think we're going to see many,
Speaker 1: many thousands of them this weekend when he does his
Speaker 1: first rally in a long time. And also Oklahoma. We
Speaker 1: talked about that in a minute. So yeah, it's going
Speaker 1: to take a lot to shake some of them more. Um,
Speaker 1: the sort of the true believers are, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: who still think Donald Trump is doing a great job.
Speaker 1: I do believe there's a small but important kind of
Speaker 1: section of people who took a chance on Trump in
Speaker 1: twos sixteen and perhaps are going a little bit tired
Speaker 1: of some of the some of what they're seeing, whether
Speaker 1: it's the tweeting or in the case of what John
Speaker 1: Bolton is alleging, you know, essentially selling out u S
Speaker 1: foreign policy to help himself get reelected, which is Bolton's allegations.
Speaker 1: So those are serious charges and I think serious minded
Speaker 1: Americans would would look at them pretty um, you know,
Speaker 1: as an important piece of evidence as they decide whether
Speaker 1: vote for Donald Trump. Craig, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: joining us today and thrilled that you're with us, and folks,
Speaker 1: I can only say that Craig is in the absolute
Speaker 1: crosshairs of the micro debates that we have every day
Speaker 1: on our Washington coverage. You did that by leading over
Speaker 1: from political a million years ago. We really helped invent
Speaker 1: political Craig. I want to ask you up politico type question,
Speaker 1: which is I understand that the Bolton papers is an
Speaker 1: inside the Beltway phenomenon. How outside the belt Way is
Speaker 1: this or is this just something you're gonna talk to
Speaker 1: twelve people about at that bar in the basement of
Speaker 1: the hay Adams. Well, if I could get to the
Speaker 1: bar at the basement of the hay Adams, I would
Speaker 1: love to have that conversation. But right now I'm in
Speaker 1: the basement of my home in suburban Washington. So there's that.
Speaker 1: There's that to start with. But look, Tom, it's a
Speaker 1: fair question. I mean, a lot of these things become
Speaker 1: you know, the sort of the tempest in the teapot
Speaker 1: here in d C. Beltway insiders using air quotes there,
Speaker 1: you know, love to love to chew on this stuff.
Speaker 1: I actually think so one answer to your question is, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of truth to that. I actually think
Speaker 1: Joe Biden has some work to do here. Um, he
Speaker 1: has to find a way obviously, the Democrat running against
Speaker 1: Donald Trump in the fall. He has to find a
Speaker 1: way to take you know, hundreds of pages of kind
Speaker 1: of Washington insidery, uh stuff, and and and form it
Speaker 1: into a very sharply formed charge again the president, which
Speaker 1: is you know, come up, okay, well said totally well said,
Speaker 1: we have an allegation, folks, and I'm going to speak
Speaker 1: in an off hand manner here of the president of
Speaker 1: the United States telling the leadership of China that concentration
Speaker 1: camps in western China are in some way appropriate. Whatever
Speaker 1: the language was, the niceties don't matter. Are you telling
Speaker 1: me Vice President Biden can't work with that? Well, we're
Speaker 1: gonna fight out, aren't we. I mean, I think that
Speaker 1: you know, criticism a lot of Democrats have have of
Speaker 1: biding that he's not terribly light on his feet um,
Speaker 1: and you know, he does have a little bit of
Speaker 1: trouble sometimes sharpening these attacks we saw during the debates
Speaker 1: when he was debating his fellow fellow Democrats. What I
Speaker 1: personally think these books do is there just another like
Speaker 1: sort of brick on the pile, Like there's another sense
Speaker 1: that Donald Trump maybe isn't up to the job of
Speaker 1: being president according to these allegations, or maybe you know,
Speaker 1: he is doing some side dealing with foreign leaders that
Speaker 1: that you know, a president probably shouldn't be dealing would
Speaker 1: like the g or you know Air Towan there in Turkey.
Speaker 1: And I don't know if most Americans could give you
Speaker 1: the details of this I think most Americans have a
Speaker 1: sense something is a miss and it's just another thing
Speaker 1: that's a miss on top of all the other things
Speaker 1: that they may be questions they have about Trump. And
Speaker 1: in that way, I do think this kind of breaks through,
Speaker 1: maybe not in a detailed way, but in a very
Speaker 1: general way. That adds to the sense that that you know,
Speaker 1: you know, the question they might have if Donald trumps
Speaker 1: up to the job of president Craig did, does you
Speaker 1: know does the average voter in November actually think about
Speaker 1: foreign policy? So you're giving us a sense of what
Speaker 1: they think about the president that may influence or vote.
Speaker 1: But what will they actually vote on is that the economy?
Speaker 1: Is that the handling of COVID nineteen and their jobs?
Speaker 1: I mean it is true almost every U S presidential election,
Speaker 1: with you know, maybe a few around the wartime, I
Speaker 1: would say push and no four after nine eleven. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, got some got some some of his reelection
Speaker 1: based on the fact that he you know, he kind
Speaker 1: of handled that situation. But no American voters are worried
Speaker 1: about the economy. Kitchen table is whose can I feed
Speaker 1: my family? Do I have a job as my job stable?
Speaker 1: Do I have health insurance, all of those things. That's
Speaker 1: where elections are won and loss. I think in America,
Speaker 1: I think for Trump, for Biden, and for Trump, there's
Speaker 1: an added question around, you know, to be really blunt,
Speaker 1: the Democrats questions whether Trump is like his fitness for
Speaker 1: the presidency. And I think that's it's such a cosmic
Speaker 1: issue that it says, again, it's hard to sort of
Speaker 1: talk about it or get people to think about in
Speaker 1: a really specific way. But I think in these very
Speaker 1: general ways, you know, should the president be tweeting, Should
Speaker 1: the president calling people liars and losers and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: Should he be you know, going on TV and you know,
Speaker 1: and saying sort of colorful things about his opponents. I
Speaker 1: think those things are starting to kind of weigh on
Speaker 1: the president. We see his poll numbers right now, the
Speaker 1: extent we still believe the polls after sixteen, he's losing
Speaker 1: by about eight points to Biden. Nationally. That's gonna narrow
Speaker 1: that this is a country and it's gonna be a
Speaker 1: fifty election. I think in the end it's gonna stay
Speaker 1: pretty close. But there is a sense of sort of
Speaker 1: fatigue with Trump of you know, people talk about it's
Speaker 1: sort of wearing on people, the daily drama that constant,
Speaker 1: you know, sniping the whole thing. I think Joe Biden,
Speaker 1: for some people might just look like a pleasant break
Speaker 1: um from from what is essentially a day to day
Speaker 1: soap opera that every American voter has to live with. Craig,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for the briefing. Cred Gordon, there are
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Washington d Security. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg
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