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Speaker 3: Looking at shares of meta here following that TikTok ruling
Speaker 3: up about three percent right now, little more than eighteen dollars.
Speaker 3: Remember Donald Trump said if you get rid of TikTok,
Speaker 3: well that's going to help Mark Zuckerberg. And there are
Speaker 3: questions about exactly where this is all going today. It's
Speaker 3: just one of the things that we want to talk
Speaker 3: about with Congressman Tim Burchett on a busy Friday that
Speaker 3: I mentioned. You have made it to the threshold of
Speaker 3: the weekend. It feels nice today. Now lawmakers have left
Speaker 3: town after spending some time here in Washington. Tim Burchett
Speaker 3: might be an exception. Everyone's still talking about the fifteen
Speaker 3: minute Christmas party. Congressman, welcome back to Bloomberg. It's great
Speaker 3: to see you, sir. You've got the most famous barn
Speaker 3: jacket in Washington here for our viewers, and I wonder
Speaker 3: your thoughts on this ruling. This basically keeps in place
Speaker 3: the bill that you voted for. I was looking at
Speaker 3: a news release a short time ago thirteen March from
Speaker 3: your office. Birchett votes to require CCP affiliated company to
Speaker 3: divest from TikTok.
Speaker 4: So has anything changed following this ruling today?
Speaker 5: Not with me, and I know I'm on opposite side
Speaker 5: where President Trump is. I would hope that we could
Speaker 5: get China out of it, out of that business. When
Speaker 5: China's out of it, I'd be okay with that. It's
Speaker 5: just another currently right now. I think it's just another
Speaker 5: avenue for the communist Chinese to indoctrinate our children, and
Speaker 5: we should watch that because of the way they target
Speaker 5: them and through algorithms and stuff that I really don't understand.
Speaker 5: But I know that when I'm talking about I was
Speaker 5: talking about aluminum solo cups.
Speaker 6: The other day.
Speaker 5: My wife and I were talking about them, and then
Speaker 5: all of a sudden, we both get ads on our
Speaker 5: phones about them, and so they're listening to us and
Speaker 5: as we're listening to them.
Speaker 6: So I would hope parents would be very cautious with with.
Speaker 3: That happens to the best of us, right, Congressman, you're
Speaker 3: talking to your wife, Like you said, you mentioned something
Speaker 3: that I'm getting all these ads that I didn't know
Speaker 3: was the Chinese doing it.
Speaker 5: Though, well they with with TikTok it is they I
Speaker 5: think they're they're under They don't even allow it in
Speaker 5: their own country, and their country it is an educational device.
Speaker 5: Over here, it's just a marketing tool for some whacked
Speaker 5: out clauses. I think that's why you're seeing some In
Speaker 5: my opinion, you saw arise and mental issues with children
Speaker 5: after COVID because when they were blocked off from the world,
Speaker 5: that's all they had to communicate with was their cell phones.
Speaker 5: And and I think they're they're using that. I think
Speaker 5: they're using that to undermine our society. And I just
Speaker 5: think it's a real it's a real tough tough thing.
Speaker 5: It's tough enough being a kid growing up today, and
Speaker 5: it's even tougher if you got somebody whispering in your
Speaker 5: ear continuously about you're too fat, you're not pretty, you're
Speaker 5: not strong enough, you're this or that. And I just
Speaker 5: think that we should really be careful about what we
Speaker 5: expose our children to.
Speaker 6: Well.
Speaker 3: Listen, I know this is a real issue for a
Speaker 3: lot of parents. As you put it in your statement
Speaker 3: that day, you voted against allowing bye Edance to control
Speaker 3: what you called an enormous information mining source in the
Speaker 3: United States. You also mentioned Donald Trump just now, do
Speaker 3: we really know how he feels about this. I know
Speaker 3: he had said on the campaign trail that he might
Speaker 3: work to save TikTok, but he also took action to
Speaker 3: Bennett when he was in office.
Speaker 4: Where do you think he really falls down on this?
Speaker 5: I think he falls down the sides of I hope
Speaker 5: on patriotism and in the American way. If we could
Speaker 5: get the communist Chinese influence out of it, I think
Speaker 5: it would probably pass muster. Then I'll still be sticking
Speaker 5: where I'm at. I don't trust them. They do not
Speaker 5: have our best interests at heart, and I'm very cautious
Speaker 5: of anything they have anything to do with.
Speaker 4: Well, you think it's as good as banned, then, I
Speaker 4: mean we're looking at a January deadline here.
Speaker 5: Well, you know, it's sort of like when we say
Speaker 5: we're going to ban all these crazy random phone calls
Speaker 5: from our cell phone, from these marketing groups and things.
Speaker 5: We banned it for about three minutes and then they
Speaker 5: figured out a way around it. If it affects their
Speaker 5: pocket books, they'll do it, but if not, they'll claim
Speaker 5: they can't do it. And you know, it's like when
Speaker 5: they say they can't the FBI says they can't crack
Speaker 5: into somebody's computer or whatever, and then musk bring somebody
Speaker 5: out and they get into it in fifteen minutes. I
Speaker 5: think if the financial incentives there, they can do it.
Speaker 5: Otherwise they're not going to do it.
Speaker 3: Well, Congressman, I want to ask you about what's happening
Speaker 3: or will happen on the floor of the House in
Speaker 3: the next couple of weeks here, because you've got some
Speaker 3: business to take care of. There is news today House
Speaker 3: GEOP leadership plans to put the NDAA on.
Speaker 4: The floor next week.
Speaker 3: I understand there's a bit of a difference with the
Speaker 3: Senate when it comes to top line numbers there, but
Speaker 3: then it's a matter of funding the government, and we
Speaker 3: understand that the Speaker wants to see a vote on
Speaker 3: the cr not sure how long it'll last in the
Speaker 3: week of December sixteenth. Will that just get us through
Speaker 3: the new year so you can come back and finish
Speaker 3: or push us to March.
Speaker 4: What's the right plan here?
Speaker 6: Well, that remains to be seen.
Speaker 5: I don't want a hamstring President Trump in the first
Speaker 5: one hundred days. I have traditionally not been poor crs.
Speaker 5: I think we're abdicating our duties. You know, we're really
Speaker 5: constitutionally bound to do one thing, and that's past a budget,
Speaker 5: and we haven't done that in thirty years. And that's
Speaker 5: by design. Both parties love it when you pass. They
Speaker 5: drop a three thousand page bill on your desk and
Speaker 5: you got two hours to read it, and all you
Speaker 5: do is for the stuff in your.
Speaker 6: District, or which.
Speaker 5: Lobbyist you're going to agree, or where your wife and
Speaker 5: or your girlfriend, which group they work for, and then
Speaker 5: you end up voting for those terrible things. And that's
Speaker 5: why we're what thirty six trillion dollars in debt. So
Speaker 5: I think we need to do like we do in
Speaker 5: Tennessee in the legislature, single issue spending bills. And people
Speaker 5: will say, well, Bartiet will be here all night. Well
Speaker 5: you pay us over one hundred and seventy thousand.
Speaker 6: Dollars a year.
Speaker 5: Dad, we ought to be here all night work and
Speaker 5: these two hour workdays, to me are kind of annoying.
Speaker 5: It doesn't sell well back in Tennessee. I can tell
Speaker 5: you that until we treat this as what it is,
Speaker 5: it's just going to continue getting worse.
Speaker 3: What I want to ask you about the matter of
Speaker 3: supplemental funding, because you obviously are in a state that
Speaker 3: was impacted by the hurricanes that tour through the southeast
Speaker 3: a couple of months ago. Should that be added to
Speaker 3: the cr for the sake of expediating that money. Expediting
Speaker 3: that money, I should say, Or should that go into
Speaker 3: an actual budget, assuming there's regular order.
Speaker 5: In the new year, Well, make no bones about it.
Speaker 5: If they put it in there, they're just trying to
Speaker 5: get more boats. It's funny money. They're spending money we
Speaker 5: do not have. It's our great grandchildren. You say, we're
Speaker 5: spending our kids money. Man, We're spending our great grandchildren's
Speaker 5: money right now.
Speaker 6: It's just more of the same.
Speaker 5: If we managed our money better, we wouldn't be in
Speaker 5: this situation. You know, I've got people still up there,
Speaker 5: have been standing in line and they're told they can't
Speaker 5: get a seven hundred and fifty dollars check because guess what,
Speaker 5: they don't have a cell phone, they don't have a
Speaker 5: dadgum computer. They don't have any identification that got washed
Speaker 5: away in the flood, for goodness sakes, and you got
Speaker 5: some smartle bureaucrat up there telling them to no.
Speaker 6: Or they've got these houses for them that are two
Speaker 6: hours away.
Speaker 5: They'll end up losing their jobs and they can't and
Speaker 5: they can't maintain their own property. This thing's a nightmare.
Speaker 5: It needs to be. It is a trash can. Quit
Speaker 5: picking and choosing things to clean out of it. We
Speaker 5: need to turn it upside down like a trash can,
Speaker 5: put a garden hose on it, and dismantle all these
Speaker 5: groups that are doing this stuff. And you know we
Speaker 5: had when it all went down, Franklin Graham's group, Samaritans
Speaker 5: Persons up there, Mountain Bride, all these other groups are
Speaker 5: up there on the ground. FEMA still there as of
Speaker 5: about a month ago. There's people in North Carolina still.
Speaker 5: I haven't seen anybody from FEMA.
Speaker 3: So are you seeing FEMA is the trash can or
Speaker 3: the government or I just want to understand.
Speaker 5: Congressmen, Well, they're part of it. FEMA is a trash
Speaker 5: can in itself. In my opinion, you might have some
Speaker 5: good people.
Speaker 6: Up there, but it's just a you know.
Speaker 5: When you're talking when you're in a Walmart parking lot,
Speaker 5: playing god with these people's lives, staying in a three
Speaker 5: hundred dollars a night motel and they don't have running
Speaker 5: water or electricity, and then you're giving over a billion
Speaker 5: dollars to illegals, and we got American citizens that have
Speaker 5: paid into the system that are being turned away. To me,
Speaker 5: that's a real problem and that there's an arrogance there.
Speaker 5: There's a lack of connectivity. I think what FEMA needs
Speaker 5: to be is just to flow through for money that
Speaker 5: can get to these organizations that actually do the job,
Speaker 5: like Samaritans perse Well.
Speaker 3: We do like to think that there are some patriotic
Speaker 3: Americans working for FEMA who are trying to help people out. Congressman,
Speaker 3: I'm glad that you could join us today, and happy
Speaker 3: holidays to you. I hope you still got some cheese
Speaker 3: whiz left over after the big party yesterday. He's a
Speaker 3: member of the House Oversight, Foreign Affairs Transportation committees. Congressman
Speaker 3: Tim Burchett, Republican from Tennessee.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast kens
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Speaker 3: As we turn to the transition, it's been a very
Speaker 3: busy week here in Washington, DC, with Donald Trump's nominees
Speaker 3: for some awfully important jobs walking the halls of the Senate.
Speaker 3: As we've told you, we've walked you through all of
Speaker 3: these alongside names like Pete Hegseth, who has had quite
Speaker 3: the journey personally and professionally. I think we can say
Speaker 3: this week with allegations from sexual assault to alcohol abuse
Speaker 3: following him into all of these meetings, including the sit
Speaker 3: down with Joni Ernst that we heard so much about,
Speaker 3: she is still not a yes based on what we're
Speaker 3: hearing in some aer, suggesting that this could be a
Speaker 3: short run here for Pete Hegseth. As Donald Trump also
Speaker 3: talks to Ron DeSantis.
Speaker 4: About potentially having the job.
Speaker 3: I've got a little bit of news for you on
Speaker 3: Ron DeSantis, by the way, but let's hear from heg
Speaker 3: Seth from last night talking about some of the doubts
Speaker 3: surrounding his confirmation on Capitol Hill.
Speaker 4: Let's listen to.
Speaker 7: Senators who are the ones that deserve it, answers to
Speaker 7: every question they have, and in every office we've stood in,
Speaker 7: you've welcomed that opportunity.
Speaker 8: It has been a great week.
Speaker 7: It's a process that's ongoing, and we look forward to
Speaker 7: finishing up.
Speaker 3: I wanted to talk to a sage, someone who understands
Speaker 3: how Capitol Hill works when it comes to the transition
Speaker 3: and to all the matters we just discussed with Tim
Speaker 3: Burchett here creeping up on a funding deadline and a
Speaker 3: whole new Congress. Lisa Camusa Miller is, of course that voice,
Speaker 3: Republican strategist, host of the Friday Reporter podcast, and former
Speaker 3: communications director at the Republican National Committee. Lisa, great to
Speaker 3: see if, Happy Friday, and welcome back. You've got deep
Speaker 3: contacts at the Pentagon, and I know that you're closely
Speaker 3: associated with the national security and defense spaces. There are
Speaker 3: a lot of concerns, not only about some of the
Speaker 3: personal issues surrounding Pete Hegseth, and he denies them all,
Speaker 3: but even just his lack of managerial experience. Now, before
Speaker 3: I ask you whether you think he's going to get
Speaker 3: through the week. We've got a headline here, Donald Trump
Speaker 3: the Army Navy game, and he's bringing Ron DeSantis with.
Speaker 4: Him this weekend. Now, what do you think about petex Seth.
Speaker 9: I've been watching all week, Joe, and I think that
Speaker 9: the time is running out for this nominee. That's my
Speaker 9: point of view. This has been a tremendous distraction from
Speaker 9: the transition and from Donald Trump's ascension back to the
Speaker 9: White House. So to me, it just doesn't add up.
Speaker 9: There's so many reasons why this nominee is not the
Speaker 9: right nominee. It seems like an unforced error and one
Speaker 9: that on all accounts will not possibly make it to Sunday.
Speaker 9: That would be my if I had two dollars to
Speaker 9: put on this one, Joe, I'd say, Sunday is today?
Speaker 8: Wow?
Speaker 3: All right, So that's he's not doing well obviously, and
Speaker 3: it's not going to be another John Tower. Some folks thought,
Speaker 3: you know what, Donald Trump's is going to stand by
Speaker 3: his man. He said so just this morning. So let's
Speaker 3: let this thing go through committee and see what the
Speaker 3: Senators can do.
Speaker 4: That's not the way this ends in your view.
Speaker 9: It just doesn't feel that way, Joe. It just feels
Speaker 9: like the energy is running out for heg Seth. I mean, yes,
Speaker 9: he's making some progress on the hill. He's having meetings
Speaker 9: and he's answering questions, and that's really part of the
Speaker 9: process for sure, But to me, all of the other
Speaker 9: optics behind the scene, all of the questions about whether
Speaker 9: or not, I mean, it sounds like he may already
Speaker 9: have a pick in mind after hag Seth goes away.
Speaker 9: So to me, more than anything, I feel like he's
Speaker 9: probably hearing from the Senate, He's probably hearing from his
Speaker 9: colleagues and the Party, hearing from colleagues and people that
Speaker 9: he knows and works with well inside the Pentagon and
Speaker 9: inside the National Defense space. It just seems to me
Speaker 9: like this is an unnecessary fight to take on, and
Speaker 9: it seems like one that might go the way that
Speaker 9: the Gates nominee went, and that is that he would
Speaker 9: bow out knowing that it's too big a distraction.
Speaker 3: Well, you know what's going to happen next, Lisa's We're
Speaker 3: going to turn to Tulsey Gabbard. And considering everything that's
Speaker 3: blowing up literally right now in Syria, you've got a
Speaker 3: lot of people saying that she might not make it either.
Speaker 4: What is that process going to look like?
Speaker 9: You know, this is like a whack a mole situation, Joe.
Speaker 9: I mean, it seems to me like there are really
Speaker 9: four nominees that are very, very vulnerable. The first one
Speaker 9: we've already seen go in. That's Gates. I think Haig sith.
Speaker 9: Number two seems like Tulsi Gabbard and and uh and
Speaker 9: Kennedy is also on the on the chopping block. Those
Speaker 9: two guys are going to be they'll be the next ones.
Speaker 9: And you know, look, if you're the if you're the transition,
Speaker 9: you knew that these were going to be controversial and
Speaker 9: that they potentially might not be nominees that would ultimately
Speaker 9: get through. But also it to me feels like it
Speaker 9: may have even been a strategy, may have been on
Speaker 9: by design that that they nominate the nominee. Some of
Speaker 9: these nominees were a little bit out of the box,
Speaker 9: and we're an opportunity for for nominations beyond those to
Speaker 9: be ones that would sail right through. So to me,
Speaker 9: I think that we're going to see that Tulsi Gabbard
Speaker 9: will be the next one. We look very closely at
Speaker 9: and we see as one that will also not likely
Speaker 9: make it over the finish line.
Speaker 3: Well, I gotta throw this one at you because you
Speaker 3: mentioned at Gates. Don't make me bring up mad Gates, Lisa.
Speaker 3: I have been hearing over the last couple of days
Speaker 3: a growing level of concern that he is going to
Speaker 3: show up to fill his seat in January as elected.
Speaker 3: He has not filed paperwork suggesting otherwise, and has only
Speaker 3: said that he intends to step down.
Speaker 4: What happens if he shows up? Do you think he
Speaker 4: does it?
Speaker 9: I mean, you know these I hate to say it, Joe,
Speaker 9: but these are politicians, I mean so much about politics
Speaker 9: as ego, right, And so when you step away, he
Speaker 9: won that seat. And so if he's not going to
Speaker 9: be a g and he's not going to be a
Speaker 9: replacement for the US Senate or a candidate for governor
Speaker 9: in Florida, then what's in his mind? The way he's
Speaker 9: moving seems like he would go back potentially to that seat.
Speaker 9: The only thing that I think holds him back from
Speaker 9: doing that is the possibility that then that ethics report
Speaker 9: that so far has held as a secret and not
Speaker 9: been released potentially could be by those who want to
Speaker 9: see him go away for good.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm glad you mentioned that, because the House last
Speaker 3: night blocked the release of that Ethics Committee report, having
Speaker 3: forced a vote on this. We talked about that privileged
Speaker 3: resolution from Sean Casten. Does this thing have to leak
Speaker 3: now because you know it's going to come.
Speaker 9: Out, Lisa, Right, it's coming, Joe, It's just it's I mean,
Speaker 9: you know, the joke in Washington is if you want
Speaker 9: something out there, you tell Capitol Hill, right, So to me,
Speaker 9: it seems like it is very likely that that will
Speaker 9: get out. Matt Gates has made no friends on Capitol Hill.
Speaker 9: He's done everything to make enemies, and there are plenty
Speaker 9: of people that st aren't even in the House anymore
Speaker 9: that want to see him go away. So to me,
Speaker 9: this feels like the other shoe that drops for him,
Speaker 9: and it's one that really would cause him a tremendous
Speaker 9: amount of discomfort and legal trouble moving forward. So for him,
Speaker 9: I don't know, I don't think the risk out weighs
Speaker 9: the reward. But like I said, in politics, you know,
Speaker 9: it's a lot of ego, and a lot of it
Speaker 9: has to do with how that particular candidate feels about themselves.
Speaker 3: Well, let's do a little lame duck lightning round here, Lisa.
Speaker 3: Don't you miss the lame duck when you were working
Speaker 3: in the Speaker's office. Mike Johnson is trying to craft
Speaker 3: a plan here. We've got two weeks to go until
Speaker 3: the government runs out of money. The plan as we
Speaker 3: see it now is to get the NDAA on the
Speaker 3: floor next week, even though they cannot agree on top
Speaker 3: lines with the Senate, and then a vote on the
Speaker 3: cr the week of December sixteenth. Is that actually going
Speaker 3: to work? And do we avoid a shutdown? How much
Speaker 3: breathing room do we get?
Speaker 9: That's going to happen?
Speaker 8: Joe?
Speaker 9: It always happens. It's messy. You and I talk about it, twisting,
Speaker 9: twisting our pearls in our hands, waiting for it to
Speaker 9: go down. But yeah, the NDAA is going to get done,
Speaker 9: There's no doubt about it. It'll be negotiation, They'll be
Speaker 9: back and forth. They'll have to decide whether or not
Speaker 9: they want to do it under a rule suspension or
Speaker 9: you know what that all comes down to. But funding
Speaker 9: for the funding for the Department of Defense and for
Speaker 9: the support of the country and the and national security
Speaker 9: is one that everybody has to come together on. Ultimately,
Speaker 9: the government is another one. I mean, there's no way
Speaker 9: we come to the end of the year without that
Speaker 9: getting done. Now, there'll be plenty of threats for having
Speaker 9: to stay late, having to stay long, having to stay
Speaker 9: into a Saturday for this congress. But you know better
Speaker 9: than anything that the smell of jet fumes gets people
Speaker 9: motivated to vote for legislation to get it done.
Speaker 4: God knows. I'll tell you what.
Speaker 3: I talked to a lot of Republican members just yesterday
Speaker 3: off the record about this, Lisa.
Speaker 4: None of them knew what the plan was going to be.
Speaker 3: And if you heard what Tim Burchett just told us
Speaker 3: at the top of the hour, he's going to have
Speaker 3: to hold his nose to vote for another cr So
Speaker 3: you wonder how much space they find here.
Speaker 4: Do they get the NDAA done?
Speaker 9: Yeah, I think they do. They're absolutely going to have
Speaker 9: to get that, and both of those are must pass legislation.
Speaker 9: They've got to get done before the end of the year.
Speaker 9: It's going to be a mess before it all gets decided.
Speaker 9: But yeah, I think more than anything, they are going
Speaker 9: to have to make a decision. Nobody likes the fact
Speaker 9: that we have to get to a position where we
Speaker 9: have to have a continuing resolution into the next year.
Speaker 9: But the truth of it is is that they have
Speaker 9: a job they are elected to do, and that job
Speaker 9: is to get that business done, and so I think
Speaker 9: more than anything, they'll be motivated to finish it and
Speaker 9: get it right, because otherwise it's just another big, big
Speaker 9: battle to have to get through over the course of
Speaker 9: the holidays and into the new year.
Speaker 3: I mentioned Tim Burchett. You see at his fifteen minute
Speaker 3: Christmas party yesterday. This is like, you have to attend
Speaker 3: this if you're in the house now. I guess that
Speaker 3: they didn't have this when you were there, Lisa. Fifteen minutes,
Speaker 3: he gives you a little cheese whiz on a cracker,
Speaker 3: You take a picture with Santa, and you go on
Speaker 3: your way.
Speaker 4: But the question is who is Santa? Do we have
Speaker 4: this picture here? Did you see Santos Claus?
Speaker 3: We spent enough time talking about George Santos in his
Speaker 3: illustrious political career, Lisa, that you should have a piece
Speaker 3: of this.
Speaker 4: There he is with.
Speaker 3: Congresswoman Debbie Dingle, wearing the beard and the full outfit.
Speaker 4: We have clearly come to a new level here in Washington.
Speaker 4: What do you think?
Speaker 9: Yeah, I think that it's just silly and it's what
Speaker 9: people are really tired of from Washington, d C. We
Speaker 9: probably need to clean up our act.
Speaker 3: I think did Debbie Dingle take that picture on purpose?
Speaker 3: Merry Christmas, Santos Claus. We are clearly through the looking glass.
Speaker 3: We'll assemble our panel next. I'm Joe Matthew at Washington.
Speaker 3: This is Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast.
Speaker 2: Catch Just Live weekdays at noon Eastern Onmocarplay and then
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Speaker 4: Let's get the panel back together.
Speaker 3: It's Friday, and we've got both of our signature panelists
Speaker 3: with us. The aforementioned Genie Schanze, no Bloomberg Politics contributor
Speaker 3: and democratic analyst, political science professor at Iona University.
Speaker 4: And there's Rick.
Speaker 3: Davis, republican strategist partner at Stone Court Capital, Bloomberg Politics contributors.
Speaker 4: Both Hey, Rick Block, the talk. Is it going to happen?
Speaker 10: Yeah, look, it's already happened. The question is who's going
Speaker 10: to make it unhappen. I don't think there's any chance
Speaker 10: that it's going to sell between now and the end
Speaker 10: of the year and the Supreme Court, I can't imagine
Speaker 10: them overturning this.
Speaker 11: Federal Appeeals Court decision.
Speaker 10: So government has expended its will, and I think all
Speaker 10: of this could be sort of settled case load by
Speaker 10: the time Donald Trump takes his oath of office on
Speaker 10: January twentieth.
Speaker 11: So we'll see.
Speaker 10: But it seems like the blockers are getting the way
Speaker 10: they want with talk.
Speaker 3: Wow, amazing, Genie, What do you think about this? And
Speaker 3: does Donald Trump really know what he wants? We've heard
Speaker 3: every version of this, but most recently from the President elect.
Speaker 3: He said at least before the election that he is
Speaker 3: now against a TikTok ban, will work to save the
Speaker 3: word he used the social media platform. Do you think
Speaker 3: he talked about this with Zuckerberg over dinner?
Speaker 8: Oh?
Speaker 11: I bet they did.
Speaker 12: And by the way, the best part of this and
Speaker 12: why we must keep the block the talk is to
Speaker 12: hear Rick Davis say that repeatedly while we move forward.
Speaker 12: So it's so fun to listen to.
Speaker 8: You know.
Speaker 12: The big question here is going to be does the
Speaker 12: Supreme Court grant cert do they get four justices to
Speaker 12: area to hear this case. I am not quite sure
Speaker 12: they're going to get there. And if that's the case,
Speaker 12: then this decision by this court will stand, and of course,
Speaker 12: going forward, it's going to be a quick question of
Speaker 12: you know, does TikTok sell? And what could Donald Trump
Speaker 12: do at that point to stop that? I mean, they
Speaker 12: are Republicans taking over the Congress. I suppose that if
Speaker 12: he exerts pressure, if he's really so intended, he could
Speaker 12: try to do something. But that is really going to
Speaker 12: be an uphill battle. So I think unless the Supreme
Speaker 12: Court takes this case, and you know, that would just
Speaker 12: extend this out for a while longer, because if they
Speaker 12: took it now and heard it, that would be pretty
Speaker 12: fast to hear it and decide by early next spring
Speaker 12: for the Court.
Speaker 3: It's kind of funny Rick to be having this conversation
Speaker 3: after both campaigns used TikTok on the daily right to
Speaker 3: be posting information. You can't get away from this thing.
Speaker 3: It's the very same people who are debating whether we
Speaker 3: should ban it that are using it.
Speaker 11: Absolutely.
Speaker 10: But like when you're running a campaign, you use whatever
Speaker 10: resources are available. Uh and and you know, look at
Speaker 10: there are hundreds of millions of eyeballs on TikTok.
Speaker 11: So it's not that they haven't been successful.
Speaker 10: It's that, you know, there are links to the Communist
Speaker 10: Party of China and their pernicious effect on you know,
Speaker 10: our young people is enough cause to warrant Congress and
Speaker 10: the administer, this current administration to want to kick them out.
Speaker 10: And I think that right now, unless Steve Manuchin or
Speaker 10: Kevin O'Leary or one of these guys comes out of
Speaker 10: the woodwork with you know, tens of billions of dollars
Speaker 10: of money to buy it from the Chinese, this thing
Speaker 10: is done well.
Speaker 3: Remembering China's got to approve this too. It's just something
Speaker 3: that we don't always talk about. I want to get
Speaker 3: to the to do list here because I'm guessing this
Speaker 3: is not keeping Mike Johnson up at night.
Speaker 4: They've already dealt with the legislation.
Speaker 3: Now we need to deal with closing out this Congress
Speaker 3: and Rick and Genie, we do have a bit of
Speaker 3: a roadmap as of yesterday. How's GOP leadership telling us
Speaker 3: they put the NDAA on the floor next week, the
Speaker 3: week after week of December sixteenth, we get to vote
Speaker 3: on a CR, everyone leaves town, and then the Senate
Speaker 3: would take up government funding. I guess that week of
Speaker 3: the twentieth, which means we're going to walk right up
Speaker 3: to the line. Jeanie, does that sound like a plan.
Speaker 12: It sounds like the one hundred and eighteenth Congress, Joe.
Speaker 12: I was just thinking back. The three of us sat
Speaker 12: here and talked about what a bizarre Congress this has
Speaker 12: been from start to finish two years ago when they
Speaker 12: came in, you know, and now where are we there
Speaker 12: limping their way out. I think it's probably the best
Speaker 12: case scenario we can think of at this point. But
Speaker 12: the reality is is that this is in Congress that
Speaker 12: has been really the definition of a do nothing Congress.
Speaker 12: They have been really unable to do even the most
Speaker 12: basic aspects of governing, and so many people's frustration. The
Speaker 12: idea that we are going to keep this government funded,
Speaker 12: or hopefully keep it funded again on a CR is
Speaker 12: just depressing, and I think that is what will likely happen.
Speaker 12: Best case scenario, neither side see sees that it's in
Speaker 12: their political interest to let the government shut down, and
Speaker 12: I can't imagine anybody sees that in their interest.
Speaker 4: Right, now, give us your take on this.
Speaker 6: Rick.
Speaker 3: We talked to Tim Burchet a little while ago. He
Speaker 3: is to hold his nose, I guess, and vote for
Speaker 3: what the Republican leadership decides. What are we going to
Speaker 3: have a situation where we just kick things into early
Speaker 3: next year and then have to decide whether it's March
Speaker 3: or September or God forbid, regular order.
Speaker 10: Yeah, look, I think that they'll wind up getting a
Speaker 10: package put together. I mean, the number one priority obviously
Speaker 10: is the National Defense Authorization Act, and that's scheduled to
Speaker 10: go and very little mystery around that getting done. It's
Speaker 10: just a procedural matter. But look, this has been a
Speaker 10: do nothing Congress, and look how well our country's doing.
Speaker 10: I mean, maybe this should be the pattern in the futures.
Speaker 10: Do nothing, don't screw up our country anymore, and then
Speaker 10: maybe we in the private sector can actually continue to
Speaker 10: motivate investment and job creation and prosperity. Those are three
Speaker 10: things that the United States government has never been good at.
Speaker 10: So yeah, I don't think it's going to be so
Speaker 10: much about what are we going to get past this year?
Speaker 11: That's set in stone.
Speaker 10: Now they'll be working Christmas week, but that won't be
Speaker 10: the first time that's ever happened. And I think it's
Speaker 10: a clear slate for the next administration and the Republican
Speaker 10: Congress to put its stamp on, not just this budget that'll,
Speaker 10: you know, basically run out in March if they stayed
Speaker 10: a plan, or and the next year's budget, which will
Speaker 10: give them plenty of time to work their will on that.
Speaker 4: Are we going to light up this Christmas tree with
Speaker 4: anything else?
Speaker 6: Here?
Speaker 7: Rick?
Speaker 3: I talked to Congressman Birchett, for instance, about emergency funding.
Speaker 3: There's going to be a supplemental, whether it's attached to
Speaker 3: this one or the next. But are lawmakers going to
Speaker 3: be able to attach amendments, get any last minute prizes
Speaker 3: under the tree before they go home.
Speaker 10: Yeah, they'll try to decorate the tree, and I have
Speaker 10: no doubt that right now the discussions between the House
Speaker 10: and Senator are going on to create that supplemental that
Speaker 10: will add money to our emergency spending, FEMA, disaster assistance,
Speaker 10: that kind of thing. Look, we need to help the
Speaker 10: people who have been affected by these horrible storms, including
Speaker 10: those in Burkett's district, and I think those are just
Speaker 10: the most responsible measures. I don't get the sense that
Speaker 10: they are going to have any trouble getting time limits,
Speaker 10: for instance, in the Senate, to limit the number of
Speaker 10: amendments so it won't be like shootout, OK corral. You know,
Speaker 10: it only ends when the bullets are done, you know,
Speaker 10: and you run out of AMMO. I think everyone really
Speaker 10: wants to get out of here, wants to celebrate the
Speaker 10: victories on the Republican side and explore their losses on
Speaker 10: the Democratic side. And I don't see the real burning
Speaker 10: interest in fighting in Congress right now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, one thing that we do know is that there's
Speaker 3: no agreement on any of this genie you talk about
Speaker 3: the NDAA. The Senate is twenty five billion dollars apart
Speaker 3: from the House, and there's no agreement on top line
Speaker 3: numbers for funding the government for the CR. Is there
Speaker 3: a chance I'm going to get people upset by asking
Speaker 3: is there a chance?
Speaker 4: Do we sleep walk into a shutdown?
Speaker 8: Gosh? I hope not.
Speaker 12: There's always a chance, But again I don't see it
Speaker 12: in anybody's interest. But what you just mentioned, Joe, is
Speaker 12: so important the timing of this thing. If they only
Speaker 12: get a short term extension and that goes until March.
Speaker 12: Think about the impact of that on the President and
Speaker 12: the new Republican House and Senate's ability to move forward
Speaker 12: with their really, really ambitious policy agenda. We're already seeing
Speaker 12: the GOP sort of starting to battle it out between
Speaker 12: the House and the Senate as to whether, in fact
Speaker 12: they should try to do two reconciliation bills or one.
Speaker 11: Donald Trump has.
Speaker 12: An ambitious agenda, That's why he's been moving forward so
Speaker 12: quickly gets trying to get these appointments done. But imagine
Speaker 12: if the short term extension goes until March and their
Speaker 12: one hundred days is disrupted by that. And add on
Speaker 12: to that the fact that Donald Trump is entering with
Speaker 12: the thinnest of thinnest majorities in the House, if you
Speaker 12: can even call it a majority, and that is going
Speaker 12: to just make this so much more difficult. A razor
Speaker 12: thin majority of just one vote, and a far more
Speaker 12: conservative number of members in that MAGA group, and so
Speaker 12: all of that is going to make it difficult to
Speaker 12: move forward. So what happens in these next two weeks
Speaker 12: matters so much for the GOP as to what they
Speaker 12: do going forward. Not to mention that Mike Johnson has
Speaker 12: to have a vote to be speaker again in January.
Speaker 12: So he's got to try to keep everybody moving forward,
Speaker 12: knowing that just one or two of them can disrupt
Speaker 12: his plans to become speaker again.
Speaker 3: All I know is Rick Davis's preferred political poll came
Speaker 3: out this morning on this job's day. That, of course
Speaker 3: would not be a poll. It's the University of Michigan
Speaker 3: Consumer Sentiment Index. We're going to be talking about the jobs,
Speaker 3: reporting a lot about the economy at the top of
Speaker 3: our next hour, Rick, what we have here is the
Speaker 3: highest level since April hit seventy four.
Speaker 4: But at the same time, inflation.
Speaker 3: Expectations rose to a five month high because people see
Speaker 3: a greater risk with Donald Trump's proposed tariffs coming into
Speaker 3: the picture.
Speaker 4: Which number is more important.
Speaker 11: Look, I think they're both important.
Speaker 10: The good news is consumers were trying to feel the
Speaker 10: impact of what has been a robust economy for the
Speaker 10: last six months. Came a little bit too late for
Speaker 10: the Harris campaign, but they are and should be cautious
Speaker 10: about the future because they have seen good times past
Speaker 10: and have been disappointed with the economic stewardship of the
Speaker 10: government that brought us the inflation to begin with so, yeah,
Speaker 10: I think that I think that both these numbers are
Speaker 10: not actually in contrast to one another, but predictive of
Speaker 10: the future. And I think this is one of the
Speaker 10: big burning questions after the meetings with the Doge Group
Speaker 10: on Capitol Hill, is are we cutting the budget to
Speaker 10: reduce the deficit or are we spending more money to
Speaker 10: you know, promote our goals and objectives you know, in
Speaker 10: you know, with these policy positions, and both of those
Speaker 10: don't work together.
Speaker 4: Great to have you both with us.
Speaker 3: As always, there are signature panel Rick Davis and Genie Shanzano.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast kens
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Speaker 3: Really glad to say that we can spend some time
Speaker 3: with Jim Times today. The gentleman from Connecticut is with
Speaker 3: us here, Democratic Congressman, ranking member House Permanent Select Committee
Speaker 3: on Intelligence. He's also a member the Financial Services Committee. Congressman.
Speaker 3: Welcome back to Bloomberg TV and radio. We've been talking
Speaker 3: about TikTok all day long, and it wouldn't be the
Speaker 3: first time that you and I have spoken about this.
Speaker 3: I remember distinctly you're voting against that bill, the divest
Speaker 3: Or band bill, when it was standalone, and voted for
Speaker 3: it when it was part of a larger package that
Speaker 3: included a bunch of things, including Ukraine funding. Where's your
Speaker 3: head on this today.
Speaker 13: Yeah, so my head is where it always has been,
Speaker 13: which is, you know, I remain deeply uncomfortable with the
Speaker 13: United States government telling the citizens of the United States
Speaker 13: that there are media outlets.
Speaker 8: That they cannot have access to.
Speaker 13: Now, you know, I'm the senior Democrat on the Intelligence Committee,
Speaker 13: so I have a pretty specific sense for what China
Speaker 13: is able to do. I also know that todate they
Speaker 13: have not used TikTok as a way to either exfiltrade
Speaker 13: information on Americans or as a way to try to
Speaker 13: influence Americans. So, you know, we're talking about a potential danger,
Speaker 13: no question that. But you know, before the appellate ruling
Speaker 13: on you know, just today, I guess it was you know,
Speaker 13: I thought it would be pretty clearly unconstitutional for the
Speaker 13: government to take the position it had. You know, now,
Speaker 13: I guess they'll either go to the full appellate court
Speaker 13: or the Supreme Court for a file decision on the constitutionality.
Speaker 3: Yeah, bite Dan says it will appeal this to the
Speaker 3: Supreme Court or I guess TikTok In this case, A
Speaker 3: lot of this seems to be resting on what Donald
Speaker 3: Trump wants to do. I don't know if you see
Speaker 3: it that way, Congressman, but he's had an evolution here,
Speaker 3: having tried to ban TikTok at one point, he now
Speaker 3: says he wants to save the platform. But I guess
Speaker 3: I'm not sure how that would work now that this
Speaker 3: is law, and based on the court ruling we saw today,
Speaker 3: that might not be changing. Unless, of course, Mike Johnson
Speaker 3: Craft's a whole new bill to overturn what has been passed.
Speaker 4: Would you support that effort?
Speaker 13: Well, you ask a really interesting question, right, I mean,
Speaker 13: you know, Donald Trump is pretty attuned to those things
Speaker 13: that would reduce his popularity. You know, I'm told that
Speaker 13: almost half of Americans whatever it is, one hundred and
Speaker 13: seventy five million or so, have accounts on TikTok, especially
Speaker 13: young people. You're you know, setting aside the constitutionality and
Speaker 13: all the other national security questions.
Speaker 8: Here, Wow, talk about a major disruption.
Speaker 13: So my guess is that Donald Trump, attune, dizzy is
Speaker 13: to his own popularity, may come into this saying, you know,
Speaker 13: can I find a way to postpone this or to
Speaker 13: you know, try to engineer an acquisition of the property
Speaker 13: away from ByteDance. But my guess is that he's going
Speaker 13: to kind of double down on his opposition to it,
Speaker 13: just because if it happens on his watch. Look, he
Speaker 13: can try to blame Joe Biden, who signed the law,
Speaker 13: but it'll happen on his watch, and my guess is
Speaker 13: that that's not going to be a comfortable moment for him.
Speaker 3: As we spend time with Congressman Jim Hims of Connecticut,
Speaker 3: a couple of things I'd love to ask you about.
Speaker 3: Starting with a lame duck session, We've got a funding
Speaker 3: deadline in two weeks.
Speaker 4: Congressman, is there going.
Speaker 3: To be a deal here in time to avoid a shutdown?
Speaker 4: And how long?
Speaker 3: How much time will that provide. We're hearing stories about
Speaker 3: potentially kicking the can into early next year, so you
Speaker 3: can revisit the ODID issue in a new Congress. There's
Speaker 3: some Republicans, though, say kick it all the way to September,
Speaker 3: so Donald Trump doesn't have to worry about it.
Speaker 4: Where are you?
Speaker 13: Wouldn't it be nice if we lived in a country
Speaker 13: where the president's worries weren't what determined whether we have
Speaker 13: a budget for the United States of America or not.
Speaker 13: But anyway, I think the answer to your question is
Speaker 13: pretty clear. Yes, the budget expires on January twentieth. No,
Speaker 13: there will not be other than maybe a couple of
Speaker 13: fringy social media colleagues that I have, that will be
Speaker 13: zero appetite for a risk of a government shutdown. Especially
Speaker 13: going into a period when we're going to have a
Speaker 13: Republican House, Senate, and presidency. There's going to be zero,
Speaker 13: zero appetite for the kind of histrionics that led to
Speaker 13: shutdowns in the past. So my guess is that, no,
Speaker 13: there won't be a shutdown. In fact, they may even
Speaker 13: try to get it done earlier than December twentieth so
Speaker 13: that people can go home.
Speaker 8: For the holidays.
Speaker 13: My best guess is that they kick it into you know,
Speaker 13: probably late winter, early spring. And if I were a Republican,
Speaker 13: I would say why not at that point. We've got
Speaker 13: the House and the Senate, the presidency, so we can
Speaker 13: work our will. But that's my best guess as to
Speaker 13: how this proceeds.
Speaker 3: Congress Span you're the ranking member, as we have already
Speaker 3: determined here on the Intelligence Committee. And there's a wild
Speaker 3: story unfolding in Syria right now that's difficult to tell
Speaker 3: where it is going, with government forces reinforcing some strongholds
Speaker 3: here even as rebel fighters make their way closer to Damascus.
Speaker 3: I know that you can't predict the way this is
Speaker 3: going to end, but I wonder if this story is
Speaker 3: going to revisit Tulsi Gabbard's relationship with Bashar Ala Sad.
Speaker 3: It's something that you know more about than most Americans,
Speaker 3: and how that might impact her confirmation process to be
Speaker 3: the next d and.
Speaker 8: I yeah, yeah, interesting. Interesting.
Speaker 13: The Tulsia angle is an interesting one, you know, one
Speaker 13: of the many causes of concern for Tulsi Gabbard. I
Speaker 13: think the reason you asked the question is that after
Speaker 13: Basher alas Sad, you know, gassed his own people and
Speaker 13: just did you know all that horrible stuff during the
Speaker 13: Obama administration, After all of that, Tulsa Gabbard went to
Speaker 13: Damascus to sit with them, and you sort of scratch
Speaker 13: your head and say, what the heck is happening there.
Speaker 13: I can't imagine it's a happy thing for Tulsi Gabbard's
Speaker 13: confirmation process and the Senate to have all of the
Speaker 13: Senators and much of the world reminded of what an
Speaker 13: appalling character Assad is. So yeah, I'm sure I don't
Speaker 13: think Telsea's timing was or at least the timing of
Speaker 13: this rebellion against Assad was particularly good for Telsey Gabbard.
Speaker 8: But look, it's a remarkable event.
Speaker 13: It's pretty clear that the rebels saw that Assad's helpers,
Speaker 13: that is to say, the Iranians and the Russians are
Speaker 13: shall we say occupied elsewhere, and took advantage of that
Speaker 13: fact to really make remarkable gains. They've taken the city
Speaker 13: of Aleppo, I understand, they may have taken some of
Speaker 13: the cities on the way to Damascus, Homs and Hama.
Speaker 13: And it looks like the Assad regime is collapsing. And now,
Speaker 13: by the way, when I say collapsing, that doesn't mean
Speaker 13: that he's on a plane out of there. But it
Speaker 13: sort of feels like the regime now is in control
Speaker 13: largely of Damascus and the surrounding areas.
Speaker 3: When you hear members of Congress called Tulsey Gabbard a
Speaker 3: Russian asset, what do you say?
Speaker 13: You know, I am not a fan of hyperbole, and
Speaker 13: I think that people in positions of responsibility should should
Speaker 13: be very careful about the language they use. There's no
Speaker 13: reason to believe that Telsea Gabbard is a Russian asset.
Speaker 13: There is also no reason to believe that she has
Speaker 13: the experience or the temperament necessary to have the top
Speaker 13: position in our intelligence community. But look, when we start
Speaker 13: throwing around loose language like that, what we do is
Speaker 13: we degrade the quality of the really important conversations that
Speaker 13: we do need to have about our national security.
Speaker 3: I appreciate that answer. I've only got about two minutes left.
Speaker 4: Congressman.
Speaker 3: I want to ask you about something important that is
Speaker 3: personal to you, and that is a series of bomb
Speaker 3: threats that were posed against yourself and other members of
Speaker 3: the Connecticut and New England House delegations. You issued a
Speaker 3: statement about this. On the twenty eighth of November. You
Speaker 3: were notified of a bomb threat targeting your home while
Speaker 3: you were celebrating Thanksgiving with your family. Based on the
Speaker 3: multiple assassination attempts that we saw against Donald Trump during
Speaker 3: the campaign. This, of course, now the killing of a
Speaker 3: prominent healthcare CEO in midtown Manhattan. Is it about time
Speaker 3: that members of Congress are provided security details?
Speaker 8: Yeah?
Speaker 13: I you know, I've been doing this for a little
Speaker 13: while now, sixteen years to be exact, and honestly, I
Speaker 13: have never felt perhaps with the exception of January sixth,
Speaker 13: twenty twenty one, when my workplace was attacked as we
Speaker 13: were trying to tally the electoral votes, I've really never
Speaker 13: felt insecure. A bomb threat on Thanksgiving is an awful thing,
Speaker 13: but you know, it was also very clear right up
Speaker 13: front that this was not a was not a serious thing.
Speaker 8: So before I went.
Speaker 13: To providing a security detail for all five hundred and
Speaker 13: thirty five members of Congress, I would say it would
Speaker 13: really help if we, as leaders, but as the American people,
Speaker 13: as citizens of a great democracy, would work really hard
Speaker 13: to take the tone of our conversations down.
Speaker 8: Is that going to solve the problem? No, it won't.
Speaker 13: But if we start using decent language and start treating
Speaker 13: each other as fellow Americans, a lot of this stuff
Speaker 13: will eventually begin to dissipate.
Speaker 3: Congressman Jim Himes, Democrat from Connecticut. We thank you, sir
Speaker 3: for the insights today. I'm Joe, Matthew and Washington. This
Speaker 3: is Bloomberg. Thanks for listening to the Balance of Power podcast.
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