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Speaker 3: And welcome to the Tuesday edition of Balance of Power
Speaker 3: here on Bloomberg Radio, on the satellite and on YouTube.
Speaker 4: Glad you're with us.
Speaker 3: I'm Joe, Matthew and Washington as we cook up something
Speaker 3: special for you here that I mentioned you were not
Speaker 3: going to see or hear anywhere else today but on
Speaker 3: Bloomberg TV and Radio. And that's a conversation with Dave McCormick,
Speaker 3: now a US Senate candidate in the swing state of Pennsylvania,
Speaker 3: the former Bridgewater CEO, in a campaign against longtime Senator
Speaker 3: Bob Casey, the Democrat. They each cleared their respective primaries,
Speaker 3: and now it's onto the general with a lot to
Speaker 3: talk about. Week that found us reviewing the impact of
Speaker 3: Donald Trump's first visit to Capitol Hill since January sixth,
Speaker 3: and reviewing the conversations that took place inside the room
Speaker 3: at the Business Roundtable when Donald Trump rolled out his
Speaker 3: economic vision that included higher tariffs and making permanent the
Speaker 3: twenty seventeen Trump tax cuts. Now, Dave McCormick has been
Speaker 3: endorsed by Donald Trump in this campaign, and we're going
Speaker 3: to talk about his vision and the vision more broadly
Speaker 3: of the Republican Party. Let's get to it right now
Speaker 3: with my colleague Shanali Bossick in New York live on Bloomberg.
Speaker 5: I want to welcome and now our audience is across
Speaker 5: our Bloomberg television, radio, and YouTube platforms as one of
Speaker 5: finance's most notable names is running for a US Senate seat.
Speaker 5: That is, combat veteran and former Bridgewater CEO Dave McCormick
Speaker 5: is a Republican Senate candidate in Pennsylvania and joins me
Speaker 5: with Bloomberg's Joe Matthew and Dave. There are a number
Speaker 5: of things we want to get to with you, but
Speaker 5: we were reconnected after you wrote an op ed entitled
Speaker 5: America Must Lead on Cryptocurrency, and you know, it was
Speaker 5: somewhat interesting to see the former CEO of the world's
Speaker 5: largest head fund take a pro crypto view given how
Speaker 5: reticent the financial industry has been in adopting crypto. Why
Speaker 5: is this a platform that's important to you?
Speaker 6: Well, thanks for having me. Nice to see both of you.
Speaker 6: You know, the reason that I advocated this is I
Speaker 6: think it's it's good economic policy, but it's also good
Speaker 6: national security policy. And I've obviously been following a crypto
Speaker 6: for a while now and the developments around blockchain, and
Speaker 6: I always thought it had appeal as around the principles
Speaker 6: of individual freedom and privacy. You know, data security and
Speaker 6: data privacy is something that is incredibly important and increasingly so.
Speaker 6: But I was always worried about the national security implications.
Speaker 6: And I think what's become clear is that we are
Speaker 6: in the next great wave of innovation with crypto and blockchain,
Speaker 6: and if America doesn't embrace that, we're going to be
Speaker 6: left behind. And by embracing it, we can create great jobs,
Speaker 6: a great source of innovation. I've lived through a number
Speaker 6: of waves of innovation, whether it was the PC and
Speaker 6: the Internet, or whether it's some of the new developments
Speaker 6: around AI. This is one such wave that we need
Speaker 6: to embrace. And the national security implications of this are clear,
Speaker 6: which is that blockchain has very limited and crypto very
Speaker 6: limited listed activity, something like zero point three four five
Speaker 6: percent of the transactions. But it gives a roadmap for
Speaker 6: national security officials and prosecutors to zero in on a
Speaker 6: listed activity. So the national security and legal experts I
Speaker 6: talked to think that it offers a real source of eliminating,
Speaker 6: not increasing a listed activity. And so, for all those
Speaker 6: reasons and important to Pennsylvania, a job creation engine for Pennsylvania,
Speaker 6: I've embraced this and encouraged lawmakers to lay out a
Speaker 6: regulatory framework that will allow innovation to continue.
Speaker 3: It's interesting, Dave, Welcome, It's Joe Matthew in Washington, and
Speaker 3: great to see you as we consider this. You point
Speaker 3: out in your op ed that this is also a
Speaker 3: matter of staying competitive with, if not beating, China when
Speaker 3: it comes to crypto and I wonder if we could
Speaker 3: get to the matter of China right off the top,
Speaker 3: because we have a lot of questions for you on
Speaker 3: the economy, on taxes and tariffs. Your opponent in your
Speaker 3: Senate race, Bob Casey, has pointed out repeatedly the role
Speaker 3: that you had at Bridgewater and directing investments toward companies
Speaker 3: based in China. Can you tell our listeners and viewers
Speaker 3: the extent to which you were personally involved, and the
Speaker 3: effort behind those investments, how you see them now?
Speaker 6: Sure, Well, I've been very involved with China for more
Speaker 6: than twenty years as a policymaker in the Bush administration.
Speaker 6: I was one of the folks that was very involved
Speaker 6: in making sure that China didn't either steal or get
Speaker 6: access to some of our key technologies and is the
Speaker 6: global economy has evolved, and as China's evolved, it's become
Speaker 6: more and more of a national security threat, particularly with
Speaker 6: the rise of President Sheep, who has a very very
Speaker 6: aggressive view of China's role in the world visa the
Speaker 6: United States. With regard to Bridgewater, Bridgewater is a global
Speaker 6: investment firm. We serve global clients. While I was there
Speaker 6: and still in Bridgewater's portfolio, there was something like two
Speaker 6: percent of its allocation that was to China, and that
Speaker 6: was mostly in portfolio types of investments. And so this
Speaker 6: is one of the challenges as we think about national
Speaker 6: security going forward. One of the things I've advocated is
Speaker 6: we need to make sure that investors are not investing
Speaker 6: of any kind, are not investing in companies that support
Speaker 6: the Chinese military, support the PLA support the Communist Party,
Speaker 6: and the government should take a much more active role,
Speaker 6: and I've said this in testimony and so forth, to
Speaker 6: identify which companies we do not want American investors or
Speaker 6: American companies to invest in. And that's one of the
Speaker 6: things I'd be advocating as a senator, as well as
Speaker 6: decoupling in key industries that are going to be absolutely
Speaker 6: critical to America's economic and national security going forward. So
Speaker 6: that's the vision that I've laid out, and I think
Speaker 6: what's going to be required, and I honestly think my
Speaker 6: experienced with China, both as a national security official but
Speaker 6: also as a global CEO, is going to help me
Speaker 6: be much more sophisticated in how we deal with the
Speaker 6: Chinese because I actually know what I'm.
Speaker 7: Talking about, Dave.
Speaker 5: To that end, I want to get your view here
Speaker 5: on the tariff policies put forth during Donald Trump and
Speaker 5: his pet presidential run. There are a lot of mainstream economists,
Speaker 5: including Larry Summers, concerned about the inflationary impact that such
Speaker 5: policies could have. Do you share those concerns?
Speaker 6: Well, Listen, I was someone who has been generally skeptical
Speaker 6: of tariffs, but when President Trump came into office, I
Speaker 6: thought that selective use of tariffs to ensure a fair
Speaker 6: playing field, insure reciprocity, ensure negotiating leverage made sense, and
Speaker 6: so I supported the tariffs the President Trump put in
Speaker 6: place under the last administration. And I do think that
Speaker 6: there's the risk of inflationary impact. And frankly, I think
Speaker 6: there's two dimensions of present Biden's policies which are relevant
Speaker 6: to this. One is the enormous spending is the primary
Speaker 6: driver of inflation. That and the policies that are directed
Speaker 6: on reducing oil and gas consumption, those are the primary
Speaker 6: drivers of inflation, and economists like Larry Summers have said
Speaker 6: as much. The second problem with those policies of the
Speaker 6: Biden administration, particularly as it relates to evs and solar
Speaker 6: panels and so forth, the policies that have been in
Speaker 6: place have made us ironically highly dependent on China, because
Speaker 6: seventy percent of the lithium batteries and eighty percent of
Speaker 6: the solar panels are manufactured in China. So in one
Speaker 6: fell swoop, in my opinion, the Biden administration's economic agenda
Speaker 6: has driven up inflation and made us more dependent on
Speaker 6: our primary adversary. And that's why as I've run for
Speaker 6: the Senate, I've advocated set of policies that take us
Speaker 6: in the opposite direction.
Speaker 4: Let's put a finer point on this, Dave.
Speaker 3: The idea of tariffs here against China will put aside
Speaker 3: for a second, because Donald Trump is also proposing and
Speaker 3: across the board, a global ten percent tariff that he
Speaker 3: says would help to pay for tax cuts if he's reelected.
Speaker 3: This has been a big debate, as I'm sure you
Speaker 3: well know in Washington over the past week or so.
Speaker 3: It's about to get a lot louder making permanent the
Speaker 3: twenty seventeen tax cuts that are set to expire next year.
Speaker 3: We saw a new analysis from the Committee for a
Speaker 3: Responsible Federal Budget says that would cost in excess of
Speaker 3: four trillion dollars, that it could add that much to
Speaker 3: our deficit. So if it's not tariffs that offset the
Speaker 3: cost here, how do you pay for it?
Speaker 6: Well, first of all, you got to pay for it
Speaker 6: with a growing economy that's generating tax proceeds. The best
Speaker 6: way to do this, and in the Bush, rather the
Speaker 6: Trump tax cuts, if President Biden's reelected and those tax
Speaker 6: cuts are allowed to fire. That's going to hurt all Americans.
Speaker 6: So if you look at someone who's making seventy thousand
Speaker 6: dollars a year, the impact on them is something like
Speaker 6: two thousand dollars of tax reduction benefit that they lose.
Speaker 6: And this is the the.
Speaker 3: Impact of inflation is pretty great on a household as well. Right,
Speaker 3: how do you find four point six billion dollars I
Speaker 3: think is the number that they put down your to
Speaker 3: pay for that without stoking inflation even further.
Speaker 6: Well, the inflation has already been stoked by six trillion
Speaker 6: dollars of incremental spending under President.
Speaker 4: Biden year, so you'd add another four No, no, no.
Speaker 6: The primary driver of the inflation we had has been
Speaker 6: the spending policies of Biden and Republicans and Democrats have
Speaker 6: been spending too much. I'm not saying this is solely Democrats,
Speaker 6: but what's happened under Biden is six trillion dollars of spending.
Speaker 6: And if you think about the types of spending, you
Speaker 6: can talk about one hundred and seventy billion dollars of
Speaker 6: loan forgiveness, which is absolutely, in my opinion, an un
Speaker 6: American and unfair, or you can talk about tax cuts
Speaker 6: that are going to benefit all Americans and all Pennsylvanians.
Speaker 6: And absolutely inflation is the most regressive tax at all.
Speaker 6: So we've got to get inflation under control. But the
Speaker 6: drivers of inflation are bad energy policy. They've driven up
Speaker 6: the prices of fuel and too much spending. And so
Speaker 6: I would say reversing certainly some of those Biden spending
Speaker 6: bills and rolling back the war on natural gas and
Speaker 6: fossil fuels is the key to getting our economy back
Speaker 6: in check. And I wouldn't, particularly now, when so many
Speaker 6: families are burdened by this inflation, I wouldn't burden them
Speaker 6: further by rolling back the tax cuts the President Trump place.
Speaker 5: Speaking of burdens on families, you know, when you think
Speaker 5: about the deficit issue largely in the US, doesn't mean
Speaker 5: that you've also ruled out the idea of more spending
Speaker 5: or slow and spending rather on Medicare and Social Security
Speaker 5: doesn't be part of the solution in closing that gap.
Speaker 6: Well, I think the primary thing we need to do
Speaker 6: now is roll back some of the spending that President
Speaker 6: Biden has been in place. Again, I keep pointing to
Speaker 6: it because it's such an obvious one is the one
Speaker 6: hundred and sixty eight billion dollars of most recent student
Speaker 6: loan forgiveness. I mean, look at that, it's extraoriny. That's
Speaker 6: the size of the army's budget. That kind of spending
Speaker 6: doesn't make sense to most Americans. So we've got to
Speaker 6: roll back that spending. We've got to attack a number
Speaker 6: of sources of discretionary spending. And certainly when you look
Speaker 6: down the road, there's questions around entitlements, but the basic
Speaker 6: premise there you have to start with this. We have
Speaker 6: to live up to the obligations that we promise people.
Speaker 6: And so it's you know, it's a balancing act for sure,
Speaker 6: but a pro growth economic agenda that deregulates that allows
Speaker 6: businesses to grow is going to be the primary driver
Speaker 6: of driving tax receipts. We've got to drive back or
Speaker 6: pull back on spending. I certainly agree with that, but
Speaker 6: the starting point has to be the war on oil
Speaker 6: and gas, which which has hindered us dramatically, and some
Speaker 6: of the priorities which I honestly think are indefensive. One
Speaker 6: the most notable one is the student loan forgiveness.
Speaker 3: Well, we should note I realized that you're speaking in
Speaker 3: some cases here about the moratorium on new LNG permits,
Speaker 3: but the United States is pumping more oil than it
Speaker 3: has ever in history right now. Dave, I want to
Speaker 3: ask you about your policy or your proposals if you're
Speaker 3: elected on Israel. I'd like to get to Israel if
Speaker 3: we can here to try to get to as many
Speaker 3: topics as we can. Dave, there are a lot of
Speaker 3: questions about whether we're going to see a cease fire
Speaker 3: at any point soon, and I wonder if you think
Speaker 3: that Israel should declare war on Hesbolah, if that is
Speaker 3: in fact the mission here for Israel to combat the
Speaker 3: influence of Iran proxies. Iranian proxies that have brought so
Speaker 3: much terror to Israel and a very difficult quagmire that
Speaker 3: we find ourselves in now.
Speaker 6: My wife and I went to Israel right after Christmas
Speaker 6: and saw firsthand the horrible Barbara that happened October seventh,
Speaker 6: and are fully supportive of Israel doing what it must
Speaker 6: do to eradicate Hamas and destroy that threat. I'm not
Speaker 6: going to comment on what Israel should do in terms
Speaker 6: of dealing with Hasblid much more confidence in their ability
Speaker 6: to decide what's best for Israel as a democracy. What
Speaker 6: I will say is that they are absolutely being attacked
Speaker 6: from all sides by these proxy that are underwritten by
Speaker 6: Iran and the original sin. The thing that put us
Speaker 6: in this position was President Obama's deal in twenty fifteen
Speaker 6: to give back one hundred million dollars of sanctioned money,
Speaker 6: and the deciding vote on that was Bob Casey and
Speaker 6: my opponent in the Senate race. And that money is
Speaker 6: being used to underwrite terrorist groups, the UTIs, has Belazlami
Speaker 6: ji Hut and of course Hamas, and We're gonna have
Speaker 6: to deal with that. Israel's gonna have to deal with that.
Speaker 6: And a final point, this is not just a war
Speaker 6: against Israel. This is very much directed at the West,
Speaker 6: and sadly, it's raising the risk for Americans around the
Speaker 6: world and in the Middle East.
Speaker 3: Yeah, let me guys ask you this from another angle though, Dave.
Speaker 4: As we wait for a.
Speaker 3: Possible ceasefire, and you look at the destruction that has
Speaker 3: been wrought in Gaza, more than thirty thousand civilians killed
Speaker 3: according to the Gaza Health Ministry, at what point is
Speaker 3: the response disproportionate?
Speaker 6: Yeah, well, listen, I obviously watch the same clips you
Speaker 6: do when you see human suffering and innocent people injured
Speaker 6: or killed. It's heartbreaking. You know, the source of this
Speaker 6: pain is Hamas that has integrated itself into the civilian population.
Speaker 6: Their explicit strategy is to increase civilian casualties. And Israel
Speaker 6: certainly has every right to eradicate the risks that destroyed
Speaker 6: the lives of twelve hundred Israelis, and you know, hopefully
Speaker 6: we're going to be able to find resolution on that soon.
Speaker 6: I think it's very difficult to imagine Israel letting a
Speaker 6: military capability can continue with Hamas, and so I'll leave
Speaker 6: it to them to figure out the best timing and
Speaker 6: path for that. But obviously I was very gratified to
Speaker 6: see all the efforts that are being put in place
Speaker 6: to allow humanitarian corridors, to allow as much humanitarian support
Speaker 6: as possible into Gaza. And it's absolutely heartbreaking to see
Speaker 6: not only what happened on October seventh, but to see
Speaker 6: innocence killed in Gaza. But make no mistake, the root
Speaker 6: of this, the root cause, the source of this evil,
Speaker 6: and the culpable party is Hamas.
Speaker 5: Dave. Before we let you go here, I do want
Speaker 5: to get your thoughts on the US election this cycle here,
Speaker 5: especially because you yourself are also on the campaign trail
Speaker 5: and going around the country looking for fresh donors, new fundraising.
Speaker 7: What is it.
Speaker 5: About Donald Trump that Wall Street finds attractive at this point,
Speaker 5: because we know that even those who have shied away
Speaker 5: after January sixth, some of them have come back in
Speaker 5: the fundraising circuit. What is it that they're latching onto.
Speaker 6: Well, I think the primary thing is that the country's
Speaker 6: just going in a really bad direction, and most Americans
Speaker 6: see it. So the economy I talked about, there's certainly
Speaker 6: positive economic factors, but for sixty percent of Americans, they're
Speaker 6: living paycheck to paycheck, and compounded inflation is really driven
Speaker 6: higher prices have really made it much harder for them
Speaker 6: to make ends meet. You see it with the border crisis,
Speaker 6: ten million illegal migrants coming into the country, a huge
Speaker 6: national security risk, a huge fentannel risk. You see this
Speaker 6: in the which we just talked about, the war on
Speaker 6: oil and gas, which is particularly a big deal for
Speaker 6: Pennsylvania and many states across our great country. So I
Speaker 6: think the policies of President Biden are taking us in
Speaker 6: a terrible direction. And I think that people compare the
Speaker 6: policies of President Trump with the policies of President Biden
Speaker 6: and say, you know what, we were better off and
Speaker 6: our future was much brighter under the leadership of President Trump.
Speaker 6: I think that's what's happening. That's certainly what's happening on
Speaker 6: the ground in Pennsylvania. And I'm running as someone who's
Speaker 6: an independent voice, be someone who will fight for the
Speaker 6: fight for the interest of Pennsylvanian someone who's led in
Speaker 6: the military, created jobs in Pennsylvania, led companies, and someone
Speaker 6: who can get into the Senate and make a real
Speaker 6: difference and be a real advocate for policies that help Pennsylvanians.
Speaker 5: We have to leave it there. Dave McCormick, Republican candidate
Speaker 5: for Senate in Pennsylvania. We thank you for your time today.
Speaker 2: You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast kens
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Speaker 3: Thirty fascinating conversation and a taste there of our back
Speaker 3: and forth today with Dave McCormick. I'm Joe Matthew in
Speaker 3: Washington alongside Kaylee Lines. That Senate race is going to
Speaker 3: be one that decides the balance of power in the
Speaker 3: United States Senate, and it also happens to be one
Speaker 3: of the most important swing states for Joe Biden. It'll
Speaker 3: be interesting to see how the top of the ticket
Speaker 3: argues potentially with what's below it.
Speaker 8: Yeah, how much split voting you actually may see come November.
Speaker 8: Of course, we still have a long way to go
Speaker 8: before actual election day. In the meantime, the country tomorrow
Speaker 8: is getting ready to mark Juneteenth. This, of course, became
Speaker 8: a federal holiday just three years ago in twenty twenty
Speaker 8: one under the Biden administration, commemorating the end of slavery
Speaker 8: in the United States. It has been one hundred and
Speaker 8: fifty nine years tomorrow since that day, and we wanted
Speaker 8: to have an important conversation now with Hillary Shelton. He
Speaker 8: is National Advisor of Governance and Policy for the NAACP,
Speaker 8: and he is joining us here in our Washington, d C.
Speaker 7: Studio.
Speaker 8: Hillary, Welcome to Balance of Power. Thank you so much
Speaker 8: for being with us. Of course, a lot of progress
Speaker 8: was made to get to juneteenth. Certainly there has been
Speaker 8: progress made in one hundred and fifty nine years since,
Speaker 8: but there are also areas in which more progress still
Speaker 8: needs to be made. As we get ready to mark
Speaker 8: June teenth tomorrow, what is your view of how far
Speaker 8: we've come and how much further there is to go?
Speaker 1: Well?
Speaker 9: I think as we're talked about how far we've come,
Speaker 9: it's important to recognize that we want to make sure
Speaker 9: that it's clear that is that as a society and
Speaker 9: a country, that we recognize what had gone wrong and
Speaker 9: that we moved to do the right thing in the
Speaker 9: right direction. Even as we recognized the nineteenth as June teenth,
Speaker 9: we know that the Emancipation's Proclamation, so to speak, was
Speaker 9: actually something they had to roll out and work its
Speaker 9: way to Texas, and it wasn't until it got there
Speaker 9: that we were actually able to fully recognize, with support
Speaker 9: of the new government of our country, that much more
Speaker 9: needs to be done. But we've accomplished an awful lot
Speaker 9: by being able to eradicate and recognize how awful slavery was.
Speaker 9: As we're looking ahead, we're thinking about things to make
Speaker 9: sure that it still lives up. We know that even
Speaker 9: as we were recognized the end of slavery, we still
Speaker 9: had to clare with the constitution meant to as the
Speaker 9: term was ues, even those of former servitude, that is,
Speaker 9: those who had been enslaved in our country and other
Speaker 9: people as well. There. It's amazing how the impact of
Speaker 9: slavery economically hit so many different places, in so many
Speaker 9: different ways in our country, and eliminating that awful scourge
Speaker 9: was something moved us forward and unified us even greater
Speaker 9: as a nation.
Speaker 3: Well, you go back three years to Kailly's point, to
Speaker 3: where we were as this became an official federal holiday.
Speaker 3: Markets are going to be closed tomorrow. It's pretty remarkable achievement.
Speaker 3: But go back another year, four years ago to the
Speaker 3: death of George Floyd that was critical mass leading to
Speaker 3: this holiday, and we've seen a lot of promises made
Speaker 3: then not kept when it comes to DEI policies, when
Speaker 3: it comes to investments that many major corporations promised to make.
Speaker 3: How important is it to go back three or four
Speaker 3: years to those initial promises and that feeling that this
Speaker 3: country had to remind ourselves of what's important.
Speaker 1: Well, it's extremely important.
Speaker 9: It's extremely important that we gauge the improvements that we
Speaker 9: make are quite frankly, where we fall behind and the
Speaker 9: promises made, and we were.
Speaker 1: Disappointed what has transpired in a lot of ways.
Speaker 9: Yes, there's so many things that still should be done,
Speaker 9: so as much as it hasn't transpired, hopefully we'll learn
Speaker 9: from our mistakes of the fix that wasn't taken and
Speaker 9: what needs to be done to make sure we live
Speaker 9: up to those promises.
Speaker 1: That is, when we watched George Floyd.
Speaker 9: I think one of the reasons so many Americans were
Speaker 9: so outraged that we saw what was happening. Perhaps new
Speaker 9: technology added quite a bit to us sing what was
Speaker 9: going on and watching this man literally being assassinated on
Speaker 9: the streets in our country and whatnot for no good reason.
Speaker 9: The police were overly a grubbed or overly violent. It
Speaker 9: was a big problem. We'd put TV cameras on police offices,
Speaker 9: body cams as we call them, and whatnot, but they
Speaker 9: still didn't meet the need of our communities to make
Speaker 9: sure that there's oversight that very well people's rights are
Speaker 9: protected as we move and the important role of our
Speaker 9: law enforcement officials and being able to secure those things,
Speaker 9: and even the trust between those who live in our
Speaker 9: country and those who work for our governments.
Speaker 8: What about the role of the people who make the laws,
Speaker 8: as there are members of Congress who are sitting in
Speaker 8: those halls now who are actively pushing back against the
Speaker 8: entire notion of DEI of things like affirmative action. What
Speaker 8: do you still hope to see from Congress?
Speaker 1: We hope this said.
Speaker 9: Congress began with continuing to analyze the data as we
Speaker 9: move ahead, being able to know what the numbers are
Speaker 9: and see where we've continued to move ahead and fixing
Speaker 9: these problems or whether we've fallen behind. In so many
Speaker 9: cases we've seen that as well. George Floyd was a
Speaker 9: falling behind because George Floyd came after Ferguson Missouri. It
Speaker 9: came after so many other cases along those lines. We
Speaker 9: thought in each of these steps we'd fix the problems,
Speaker 9: and clearly we have it. So so you think about
Speaker 9: what needs to be done now. We need to recalculate
Speaker 9: those laws and actually repair them where we need to
Speaker 9: repair them, fix them and improve them, change them, in
Speaker 9: some cases, replace them so we have the great laws
Speaker 9: that we can enforce that actually lead up to the
Speaker 9: kind of support we want for our constitutional rights, so
Speaker 9: eco protection and equal opportunity under law. We to make
Speaker 9: sure we continue to gauge those issues along the SNES.
Speaker 9: Even if we think about hate crimes in our country,
Speaker 9: we still have to calculate the data. That is, we've
Speaker 9: passed something called the Hate Crime Statistics Act first to
Speaker 9: show that the data very clearly indicated that we had
Speaker 9: a real problem with hate group activity, hate violence because
Speaker 9: of race, gender, ethnics and other changes and so forth,
Speaker 9: and it's something more needed to be done, and in
Speaker 9: essence we began pushing that direction. We then pass the
Speaker 9: Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which included the data and the
Speaker 9: necessary resources to be able to accurately collect the data.
Speaker 9: One of our big challenges now is that we have
Speaker 9: jurisdictions that simply don't want to recognize that the crimes
Speaker 9: that are committed are indeed hate crimes, and indeed the
Speaker 9: commitment of a nation to actually emanate those hate crimes.
Speaker 1: It's something we would work towards doing.
Speaker 9: And once we were very clear there's still a problem,
Speaker 9: so we have a lot to do.
Speaker 4: You talk about the fix that wasn't taken. That's a
Speaker 4: great phrase.
Speaker 3: When we go back there and talk about some of
Speaker 3: the things that you just said, some of the promises
Speaker 3: that were made three and four years ago, we've actually
Speaker 3: seen progress on the state level with things like body camps,
Speaker 3: to your point, banning chokeholds, no knock warrants. That's all
Speaker 3: been done on many cases on the state level. Is
Speaker 3: the federal government then and Congress the hindrance to getting
Speaker 3: further progress.
Speaker 9: Well, I would say that that they are major contributors
Speaker 9: to the problem, because we do still have local and
Speaker 9: state problems with the implementation of any of these programs
Speaker 9: as well.
Speaker 1: Sure did very well.
Speaker 9: As we think about law enforcement officials, police officers, those
Speaker 9: are basically controlled at the state and the local levels
Speaker 9: the federal government oversight. As a matter of fact, the
Speaker 9: Justice Department does a lot more to accurately collect that
Speaker 9: data than some of the jurisdictions that are wanted to protect.
Speaker 9: Whether it's there are tourism programs and whatnot that who
Speaker 9: wants to go to a city or a state that
Speaker 9: we know participates in racial violence or other things along
Speaker 9: those lines. So they don't want the data to come
Speaker 9: out sometimes, but you can't repair the problem if you
Speaker 9: don't have that data. We can't do it right to
Speaker 9: make sure everyone is protected along those lines. So being
Speaker 9: able to do what we do at the federal level
Speaker 9: is important too. So let me just say, nobody gets
Speaker 9: a break. We need to make sure the federal government,
Speaker 9: the state governments, and the municipalities are all actively involved
Speaker 9: in working together in coalition to be able to address
Speaker 9: these problems and fix these issues once.
Speaker 1: And for all.
Speaker 8: In our final moment with you, let's talk about the
Speaker 8: head of the federal government. The next US president obviously
Speaker 8: is still an open question. What is at stake for
Speaker 8: people of color in this election depending on who ultimately wins.
Speaker 9: Well, if you think about the issues that impact us
Speaker 9: the most, the question that if you have to ask
Speaker 9: of any candidate this running is where do you stand
Speaker 9: on the issues? As we've seen the agenda of mister
Speaker 9: Trump and the agenda of mister Biden. Let me first say,
Speaker 9: the NAACPS and nonpartisan organization that does not endorse political
Speaker 9: candidates our political parties, but we do pay very close
Speaker 9: attention to the details and the policy itself. So the
Speaker 9: question then is, as we think about why it is
Speaker 9: we don't have more African Americans going to colleges and
Speaker 9: universities and being able to become professionals because in many
Speaker 9: cases they can't afford it.
Speaker 1: Who's going to help us.
Speaker 9: With those issues and what I actually think about things
Speaker 9: on those times, whether it's student loans, whether we're talking
Speaker 9: about grants, Well, let me just say that mister Biden
Speaker 9: has indicated and has shown actually through his actions, that
Speaker 9: he recognizes that problem.
Speaker 1: Let me put it this way.
Speaker 9: You're sitting next to a guy that barely made it
Speaker 9: through on student loans. Though both my parents went to
Speaker 9: college and very well, being able to raise the money
Speaker 9: to get that good, high quality education really took a
Speaker 9: lot of doing. It's not just education. We have to
Speaker 9: talk about criminal justice the same way, and so many
Speaker 9: other issues that affect all of us in our daily life.
Speaker 3: Hillary Shelton, what a pleasure to have you with us
Speaker 3: here at the table in Washington. Come back and see
Speaker 3: us again on this day before Juneteenth. From the NUBACP,
Speaker 3: I'm Joe Matthew with Kaylee Lyons on Bloomberg.
Speaker 2: You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast. Catch
Speaker 2: us live weekdays at noon Eastern on Apple car Play
Speaker 2: and then Froudoto with the Bloomberg Business app. Listen on
Speaker 2: demand wherever you get your podcasts, or watch us live
Speaker 2: on YouTube.
Speaker 8: Here in Washington, where we're very interested in what's happening
Speaker 8: today across the river in Virginia as its primary day,
Speaker 8: and there's one rece in particular. We're watching Bob Good,
Speaker 8: the incumbent, the chair of the House Freedom Caucus, against
Speaker 8: his challenger, John McGuire, who is backed by Donald Trump.
Speaker 8: But if you take a look at Donald Trump's true
Speaker 8: social posts within the last twenty four hours, Joe, one
Speaker 8: of them reads, this is the beginning. Bob Good is
Speaker 8: bad for Virginia and bad for the USA.
Speaker 4: That's pretty simple.
Speaker 3: He held a tell a rally from McGuire last night,
Speaker 3: said more things about Bob Good. Quote, if he's reelected,
Speaker 3: he will stab Virginia in the back, sort of like
Speaker 3: he did with me. And that's where we start our
Speaker 3: conversation with Mick mulvaney, co founder of the Freedom Caucus,
Speaker 3: the group the Caucus that Bob Good now leads, A
Speaker 3: former acting White House Chief of Staff and the Trump administration.
Speaker 3: I could keep going, former OMB director. He's held half
Speaker 3: the jobs in Washington. Nick Mulvaney, Welcome back to Bloomberg.
Speaker 3: How are you looking at this settling scores or a
Speaker 3: new fissure between Donald Trump and the Freedom Caucus in
Speaker 3: the House.
Speaker 10: Joe and Fairness a lot of more jobs than nobody
Speaker 10: else wanted, so that doesn't really count the sadly, listen,
Speaker 10: politics makes strange badfellows.
Speaker 4: It just does, right.
Speaker 10: I don't have any personal insight into the Trump support
Speaker 10: for the good challenger. I obviously do have some on
Speaker 10: the McCarthy angle there, And curiously, even more interesting to
Speaker 10: me was Warren Davidson this morning, a sitting member of
Speaker 10: the House Caucus, actually came out from MacGuire over the weekend.
Speaker 10: So clearly there are things happening within the Freedom Caucus
Speaker 10: that we don't hear that much about. There is has
Speaker 10: been some discussions about whether or not they've sort of
Speaker 10: strayed from their course or not. But it also could
Speaker 10: come down to just friendships. McCarthy's certainly not a friendship.
Speaker 10: McCarthy wants goods head on a platter. He did not
Speaker 10: get in it Nancy Mace's last week here in South Carolina.
Speaker 10: In fact, Nancy cruised to an easy re election here
Speaker 10: in South Carolina, which I know stung Kevin a good bit.
Speaker 10: So Kevin would love to get at least one scalp,
Speaker 10: and with Trump on Maguire's side, Good might be that
Speaker 10: one scalp that Kevin can claim.
Speaker 8: So, Mick, as we think about how that changes the
Speaker 8: dynamics within the House Freedom Caucus, as you say, even
Speaker 8: a member of that caucus coming out against the chair
Speaker 8: this weekend, would that actually be a catalyst for a reabsorption,
Speaker 8: if you will, of the House Freedom Caucus with the
Speaker 8: rest of the Republican Conference considering started to see a
Speaker 8: break among conservatives in some sense, with that group and
Speaker 8: then the larger one.
Speaker 10: Bailly, you know, I've been looking for that, and I've
Speaker 10: not seen it yet. I've been looking for that now
Speaker 10: for eighteen months. I was looking for a little bit
Speaker 10: of it during the during the Trump administration, when I
Speaker 10: thought that the Freedom Caucus would come down more on
Speaker 10: the fiscal tightening that they did. They weren't nearly as
Speaker 10: fiscally tight as I thought they would be. They were
Speaker 10: much more pro Trump. So I think they're probably staying there.
Speaker 10: Here's what's going to happen, I think is that regardless
Speaker 10: what happens with Good, the Freedom Caucus will re coalesce
Speaker 10: around Donald Trump on the back side of these primaries,
Speaker 10: which you're probably seeing are some family squabble, some personality issues,
Speaker 10: and not really big macro trends within the caucus.
Speaker 3: Abigail Spanberger's seat opening up as she runs for governor,
Speaker 3: Mick and I wonder your thoughts on Eugene Vinman, the
Speaker 3: retired Army colonel, of course, became a household name in
Speaker 3: his role as a whistleblower in Donald Trump's first impeachment.
Speaker 3: I live around here, and every time I turn on
Speaker 3: the TV, I see a vinmin ad. I mean, you
Speaker 3: literally just cannot hide from it. There are pictures of him,
Speaker 3: his family. It's it's been an endless stream of TV
Speaker 3: advertising as he raises a boatload of money here I
Speaker 3: think it was five million dollars and he's got something
Speaker 3: like six opponents. What's your thought on the role that
Speaker 3: he could play here in congressional politics?
Speaker 4: Can he win this seat well?
Speaker 10: In Virginia? Right now? The answer is sure, anybody could win.
Speaker 10: I've seen some data that says that says Trump is
Speaker 10: neck and neck with Biden in Virginia. Now I don't
Speaker 10: I don't believe that that. You know that just that
Speaker 10: doesn't feel right, But the poll was there was a
Speaker 10: halfway decent poll, and it was after the conviction in
Speaker 10: New York City. So I don't know what's happening in
Speaker 10: Virginia at the local level. Well, Vinman doesn't surprise It
Speaker 10: doesn't surprise me that he's he's doing what he's doing
Speaker 10: as well as he's doing it.
Speaker 1: He was.
Speaker 10: Look, you want to talk about getting personalities involved. I'm
Speaker 10: absolutely convinced that that's what drove a large part of
Speaker 10: his involvement in the first impeachment, so that.
Speaker 4: He wanted to run for Congress.
Speaker 10: Absolutely, he was a publicity hound. I'd never heard of
Speaker 10: the guy before. No one had ever heard of the guy.
Speaker 10: But he's trying to the phone call. That's like, but
Speaker 10: just goes to show you who's on the calls. I
Speaker 10: wasn't even on the call. So but anyway, that's going
Speaker 10: back a couple of years. Look, Virginia is an interesting
Speaker 10: place right now. The Democrats are losing ground in the
Speaker 10: rural areas. You guys live there, you know it. It's
Speaker 10: probably more bifurcated than any state in the nation. You've
Speaker 10: got two states. You've got sort of the northern Virginia suburbs,
Speaker 10: and then you've got the rest of the state. And
Speaker 10: it'll be really curious to see whether or not these
Speaker 10: primaries are any sort of bell weather going into November,
Speaker 10: and whether or not these numbers you're seeing the shows
Speaker 10: Trump pulling closer to Biden or anything close to reality.
Speaker 8: Yeah, this Virginia thing keeps coming up. We know that
Speaker 8: Donald Trump raised it and his meeting with House Republicans
Speaker 8: here in Washington last week. Lawmakers who were in the
Speaker 8: room told me he's looking to spend money in Virginia,
Speaker 8: also New York and New Jersey. I guess we have
Speaker 8: to consider whether we need to expand our understanding of
Speaker 8: what the battleground states actually are. But Mick, while he
Speaker 8: was in Washington, he wasn't just talking to lawmakers. He
Speaker 8: also had a meeting with the Business Roundtable and a
Speaker 8: number of high profile executives. The scuttle butt is a
Speaker 8: lot of them walked out of that room feeling a
Speaker 8: little bit disconcerted about what Donald Trump was saying and
Speaker 8: maybe the manner in which he was saying it. If
Speaker 8: you're an executive right now looking at this election, should
Speaker 8: you more welcome the idea of some of the policies
Speaker 8: a second Trump administration would bring in terms of tax
Speaker 8: relief and deregulation, or should you be concerned with the
Speaker 8: idea of the general uncertainty, it could bring.
Speaker 10: A couple of things. I do put some weight on
Speaker 10: the first hand comments that some of the CEO's made.
Speaker 10: Let's talk talk about that a second. To answer your question,
Speaker 10: A lot of the scuttle butt comes from some of
Speaker 10: the reporting that somebody from a different network, a different
Speaker 10: financial news network that I'm familiar with and do occasionally
Speaker 10: came from. And I can assure you that that person
Speaker 10: is no big fan of Donald Trump.
Speaker 4: I read the accounts. I didn't see in the video.
Speaker 10: I don't think there was any video, and it sounded
Speaker 10: like every other CEO meeting I've ever had with Donald Trump.
Speaker 10: Was he wide ranging? Was he going from topic to topic?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 10: Was he disjointed? Yes, That's every single meeting that every
Speaker 10: CEO has ever had with Donald Trump. So I'm not
Speaker 10: sure why people say they were surprised by this. I
Speaker 10: didn't hear anything that was any different in twenty seventeen,
Speaker 10: twenty eighteen. So if I'm a CEO, what am I
Speaker 10: asking myself? Okay, I've never liked that. I'd never liked
Speaker 10: the package anyway. But let me look at the policies.
Speaker 10: Let me look how it was for business. What is
Speaker 10: Donald Trump really believe in. He really believes in tariffs,
Speaker 10: he really believes in deregulation, and he really believes in
Speaker 10: a simpler tax code. You know, if you're a corporate ceo,
Speaker 10: goodness gracious, if you're an ordinary person, that might be compelling. Look,
Speaker 10: there's a lot of folks who don't like a stile.
Speaker 10: I struggle with a style from time to time. We've
Speaker 10: talked about that. But at the end of the day,
Speaker 10: I think the CEOs are looking their hands over and say,
Speaker 10: this is a choice between Biden policies in Trump policies,
Speaker 10: and I wouldn't be surprised that they come down on
Speaker 10: Trump's sign.
Speaker 3: We talked to David McCormick last hour, running for the
Speaker 3: Senate in Pennsylvania. Republican asked him about Donald Trump's proposals
Speaker 3: for tariffs and making the twenty seventeen tax cuts permanent.
Speaker 4: How to pay for them? The question here.
Speaker 3: He basically said, you pay for these through growth. And
Speaker 3: I know that Donald Trump has taken a couple of
Speaker 3: stabs at this including offsetting the impact of tax cuts
Speaker 3: with higher tariffs. But the issue of deficits not going
Speaker 3: away here, Mick. We're not talking about reforming Medicare and
Speaker 3: social Security. We're not talking about pronounced spending cuts. So
Speaker 3: are the CEOs in that room only concerned with the
Speaker 3: immediate term here cut red tape, cut taxes or are
Speaker 3: they worried about the long term corrosive effect of deficits.
Speaker 10: You've asked a bunch of questions of the cynic and
Speaker 10: me will tell you that they're just interested in the
Speaker 10: short term balance sheets at the p and LS. I
Speaker 10: hear Jamie Diamond talk about the threats of the deficit,
Speaker 10: but he was one of the largest voices for stimulus
Speaker 10: in two thousand and eight, nine and ten, twenty, nineteen,
Speaker 10: twenty twenty. I get it. But welcome to the party,
Speaker 10: is all I can say is that, you know, been
Speaker 10: a lot of folks in Washington worried about the death
Speaker 10: for a long time. Glad to have some big names
Speaker 10: along for the ride. On the tariff plan for taxes
Speaker 10: that one. I don't don't put any credence in at all.
Speaker 10: The idea of raising tariffs to get rid of the
Speaker 10: income tax. That was a throwaway line. It takes you.
Speaker 10: I've talked to the policy people inside the Trump policy team.
Speaker 10: None of them have mentioned that that specific proposal to
Speaker 10: me in my many conversations with him. I think it
Speaker 10: was an off the cuff for Mark designed to sort
Speaker 10: of measure out where people how people felt about tariffs.
Speaker 10: Besides Joe Kayley, if you do the math, it doesn't work.
Speaker 10: Income text chairs just north of two trillion dollars a year.
Speaker 10: We import about four trillion dollars a year. That's a
Speaker 10: fifty percent tariff on a static basis. But of course
Speaker 10: if you put a fifty percent tariff on something, you
Speaker 10: probably import less, So you're not going to generate that
Speaker 10: two point two. It's a it's a it's a it's
Speaker 10: a it's a cycle into disaster. Yeah, So this math
Speaker 10: doesn't work on tariff's replacing INGRAM taxes. But tariff's are real,
Speaker 10: and he's serious about extending the tax cuts. He's serious
Speaker 10: about taking the corporate text right down from twenty one
Speaker 10: to twenty. He always wanted twenty in the to begin with,
Speaker 10: back in two thousand and seventeen when they cut the
Speaker 10: original deal. So that's going to be a priority for
Speaker 10: him on day one.
Speaker 8: All right, Mick mlvaney, former acting White House Chief of Staff,
Speaker 8: former O and B director, founder of the Freedom Caucus,
Speaker 8: former congressman from North Carolina or South Carolina, rather too
Speaker 8: many titles, Mick, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 8: We want to get an economist's view now on what
Speaker 8: we just talked about with Mick there, and bring in
Speaker 8: Kitty Richard. She is Groundwork Collaborative senior strategic advisor who
Speaker 8: is here with us in our Washington studio. So, Kitty,
Speaker 8: we also want to talk to you about the retail
Speaker 8: sales data that we got today, which was a lot
Speaker 8: weaker than expected. If we could first begin though, with
Speaker 8: what we're all talking about here in Washington as of late,
Speaker 8: higher tariffs in exchange for lower taxes. Does this make
Speaker 8: any economic sense in your mind?
Speaker 11: Thank you so much for having me on. You know,
Speaker 11: I actually rarely find myself saying that I would agree
Speaker 11: with what mcmulvaney just said. But I don't think that
Speaker 11: we should take former President Trump seriously when he talks
Speaker 11: about paying for getting rid of the income tax with
Speaker 11: higher tariffs. But I do think that we should really
Speaker 11: think about why he is throwing that out to test
Speaker 11: the waters, and what his real commitments are is cutting
Speaker 11: taxes for the wealthy and for big corporations. And that's
Speaker 11: what we just heard. It's what we hear over and
Speaker 11: over on the campaign trail, and that's the part that
Speaker 11: I do think we really need to take seriously. And frankly,
Speaker 11: we have been experimenting with huge cuts to taxes for
Speaker 11: the wealthy and corporations over the last forty to fifty years.
Speaker 11: At this point, they have not delivered for the American people,
Speaker 11: and that's why they're so deeply, deeply unpopular, and so
Speaker 11: any claims that this is going to be positive and
Speaker 11: grow the economy really are just more of the same
Speaker 11: failed trickle down economics.
Speaker 3: If these tax cuts were made permanent, though, and there's
Speaker 3: no effort to offset them to pay for them. On
Speaker 3: Capitol Hill, what do you say to those Trump supporters
Speaker 3: who say it's about growth, that we will grow our
Speaker 3: way out of the deaficity.
Speaker 11: Yeah, so, you know, the corporate side of the Trump
Speaker 11: tax cuts actually are permanent, and they were the largest
Speaker 11: part of the TCJA's revenue raiser or revenue losers, and
Speaker 11: they have completely failed to deliver the Trump administration. So
Speaker 11: on the individual side, I think again, the model of
Speaker 11: growth that is built on funneling more and more cash
Speaker 11: to the very wealthiest in this country has not delivered
Speaker 11: for working people. It hasn't delivered for families. And I'd
Speaker 11: also like to talk about you know, we hear a
Speaker 11: lot of concern about the deficit. What I'm concerned about
Speaker 11: is using these huge deficits that have been entirely created
Speaker 11: by first the Bush tax cuts and then their extension,
Speaker 11: and then the Trump tax cuts on top of them,
Speaker 11: as justification for cutting the programs that families and seniors
Speaker 11: rely on in their day to day economic lives. I
Speaker 11: think that is really really dangerous for economic growth as
Speaker 11: well as for the pocketbooks of ordinary Americans.
Speaker 8: Well, when considering dangerous to economic growth, we know the
Speaker 8: consumer is the engine for that. And if you look
Speaker 8: at the retail sales data we got this morning, it
Speaker 8: would seem that there are signs that the consumer at
Speaker 8: the very least is slowing down, if not starting to
Speaker 8: crack in a more material way. It's not just the
Speaker 8: only tenth of a percent month on month figure that
Speaker 8: we got, but the downward revision from the month prior. Kitty,
Speaker 8: how concerned are you by the data we've.
Speaker 10: Just seen come in?
Speaker 11: So I'm concerned primarily because over the last year eighteen months,
Speaker 11: as the FED has pursued its rate hiking campaign, the
Speaker 11: American consumer has actually been surprisingly resilient and that has
Speaker 11: driven a strong labor market, had good spillover effects into wages.
Speaker 11: Those are all positive things, but it's sort of been
Speaker 11: a question of when that would start to pull back.
Speaker 11: And this data, on top of what we're seeing with
Speaker 11: growing credit card balances and delinquencies, we're starting to see
Speaker 11: some stress on American families who have run through the
Speaker 11: little bit of savings that they were able to accumulate
Speaker 11: during the pandemic and are facing higher prices, especially on
Speaker 11: things like housing and childcare, where the Fed's not really
Speaker 11: able to bring those prices down, and in fact, those
Speaker 11: high interest rates are really taxing American families very directly.
Speaker 3: Kitty, we just have a minute left. When you hear
Speaker 3: Walmart talk about affluent people trading down to shop at
Speaker 3: their stores as opposed to going out to whatever luxury
Speaker 3: retailer they might be used to, what does that tell
Speaker 3: you about where we're going to be six months from now.
Speaker 11: You know, I think that the good side of that
Speaker 11: is that we should have retailers competing on price. What
Speaker 11: we've seen instead over the past eighteen months is prices
Speaker 11: going up and up and retailers really absorbing that and
Speaker 11: creating higher profit margins for themselves. So I like to
Speaker 11: see that competition going. But what we really want to
Speaker 11: see is that competition leading to lower prices for all consumers,
Speaker 11: leading to higher wages for workers and for families to
Speaker 11: be able to get ahead on the things that really matter,
Speaker 11: like education and healthcare, childcare, housing. And so that's what
Speaker 11: I want us to focus on, and I think that's
Speaker 11: really what the FED needs to be focused on as well.
Speaker 3: It's great to have you at the table. Thank you
Speaker 3: for coming to talk to us. Thank you from the
Speaker 3: Groundwork Collaborative. She's senior strategic advisor, Kitty Richard's many thanks
Speaker 3: for being with us today.
Speaker 2: You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast kens
Speaker 2: just Live weekdays at noon Eastern on Applecarplay and then
Speaker 2: Ronoo with the Bloomberg Business App. You can also listen
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Speaker 2: Just Say Alexa Play Bloomberg eleven thirty.
Speaker 3: Great to have you with us on Bloomberg Radio, on
Speaker 3: the satellite and on YouTube. It's Ballance of Power, the
Speaker 3: fastest show in politics, and we've covered some ground already
Speaker 3: this hour. We're not done yet with our eyes on
Speaker 3: the campaign trail, even though the White House probably would
Speaker 3: not want me to be framing it this way. Joe
Speaker 3: Biden announcing today a streamlined path to legal status for
Speaker 3: more than five hundred thousand immigrants making his administrations brought
Speaker 3: us efforts so far to offer deportation protections, knowing that
Speaker 3: Donald Trump is promising the biggest deportation in the history
Speaker 3: of America. It's still unclear exactly on how that would work,
Speaker 3: so we move to the democratic side of things. We
Speaker 3: talked to Dave McCormick earlier, the Republican Senate candidate in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 3: We talked to Greg Duo about the Trump effect on
Speaker 3: this primary day. We assembled our panel now with what's
Speaker 3: coming out of the Biden White House and the Biden campaign.
Speaker 3: With me in studio is Genie Shanzey, no Bloomberg Politics contributor.
Speaker 3: And Rick Davis is with us as well. Bloomberg Politics contributor.
Speaker 3: Great to see you both here with some important stuff
Speaker 3: to talk about.
Speaker 4: Genie, I'll start with you on this.
Speaker 3: Joe Biden's been getting an earfull on the border, not
Speaker 3: just from Republicans criticizing him for being too light on
Speaker 3: the border, but from progressive Democrats who don't think he
Speaker 3: has done enough for legal immigration for Dreamers, as they
Speaker 3: call them. Does this help to quell some of that upset.
Speaker 7: It should help to quell it.
Speaker 12: I think what the administration is saying here is that
Speaker 12: we agree with Republicans and the American people that our
Speaker 12: immigration system is broken and has been for decades. We
Speaker 12: agree we need to strengthen the bord and we need
Speaker 12: to protect our border, but we also agree that our
Speaker 12: processes have broken down, and one of those processes is
Speaker 12: addressed today in this EO critically important, which is that
Speaker 12: if you are married to an American citizen, that there
Speaker 12: will be a pathway for you to be in this
Speaker 12: country legally. And you know, I can just tell you,
Speaker 12: and I don't know your experience growing up. My experience
Speaker 12: in growing up in the US was that we were
Speaker 12: taught if you married a US citizen, you automatically became
Speaker 12: a US citizen.
Speaker 7: That is not the case.
Speaker 12: The case is you then apply and then in many
Speaker 12: cases are sent out of the country for ten years,
Speaker 12: and what that does to the children of people in
Speaker 12: this position. So I think they're trying to fix a
Speaker 12: very broken process and at the same time protect the border,
Speaker 12: and that is.
Speaker 7: Very, very important.
Speaker 12: And the polls show that the American public supports both
Speaker 12: of those things. So from that perspective, I hope it
Speaker 12: quells and it shows that the Democrats are taking a
Speaker 12: positive step to address this, whereas the Republicans have just
Speaker 12: been sitting there saying, we don't want to address the
Speaker 12: problem until our guy is in the office, and that's
Speaker 12: not the way we should run our policy.
Speaker 4: Well, I'm glad the way you described this.
Speaker 3: Under the policy that's being proposed here, eligible spouses and
Speaker 3: children of American citizens who have been in the country
Speaker 3: for at least a decade would be able to apply
Speaker 3: for lawful permanent residents without first being forced to leave
Speaker 3: the country, as Genie says, which is currently the case.
Speaker 4: Rick, is this.
Speaker 3: Good politics for Joe Biden or just another reason for
Speaker 3: Republicans to call them softs on immigration?
Speaker 13: Yeah? I wouldn't get too in love with Genie's analysis.
Speaker 13: Somehow Republicans and Democrats agree on this, and I know
Speaker 13: that's not exactly what you were saying, but kind of
Speaker 13: the implication. Eighty five percent of Democrats, according to a
Speaker 13: recent pupoll, love this policy that Biden has just announced.
Speaker 13: You know, let them stay, let them work it out,
Speaker 13: go for citizenship while they're in the country. Once they're here,
Speaker 13: they should be able to stick around. Seventy percent of
Speaker 13: Republicans think, no, this is not the law.
Speaker 4: The law says they got to go, just like.
Speaker 13: Genny said, and they should be deported, and they should
Speaker 13: be deported in mass if need be. And so it
Speaker 13: is a very very split issue in America. There isn't
Speaker 13: a consensus, certainly by Republicans or Democrats, or Trump supporters
Speaker 13: or Biden supporters about what needs to be done on this.
Speaker 13: So Biden is definitely leaning into his base on this.
Speaker 13: In his base is almost in unanimous support of this policy.
Speaker 13: I would say he was doing better a month ago
Speaker 13: when he announced through executive orders, you know, some curbs
Speaker 13: on immigration once they hit a certain threshold. And so
Speaker 13: that was much more crossing the line of partisanship and
Speaker 13: giving Republicans a little bit of flavor that he can
Speaker 13: go both ways on immigration. But look, I mean, all
Speaker 13: of this is case by case. We need comprehensive immigration reform.
Speaker 13: None of this is going to fix the problem on
Speaker 13: a small ball basis. But you know, I think that
Speaker 13: Biden administration probably felt like they did a good thing
Speaker 13: politically last month and wanted to follow up with more
Speaker 13: work on immigration this month.
Speaker 3: Because that's the knock from the president's left here.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: We had a huge debate about border security, but not
Speaker 3: about legal immigration, which the country needs, the job market
Speaker 3: needs to function. Is this the way the president is
Speaker 3: answering that?
Speaker 7: It is in part the way he's answering it.
Speaker 4: It's far from comprehensive.
Speaker 7: It's far from it. And that wasn't his choice.
Speaker 12: That was the choice of the Republicans, who, after negotiating
Speaker 12: a bipartisan bill which had widespread bipartisan support, it was
Speaker 12: not passed because Donald Trump said he didn't want to
Speaker 12: give Joe Biden a win. That left the President either
Speaker 12: doing nothing, which he's not comfortable with, or going ahead
Speaker 12: securing the border and trying to take steps to fix
Speaker 12: a broken immigration process as best a president can VIAEO.
Speaker 12: When Congress is doing nothing about it. I mean, I
Speaker 12: agree with Rick. I think it's important we get comprehensive
Speaker 12: immigration reform. I wish the Republicans agreed and the Democrats
Speaker 12: and Republicans could come together and do that. I also
Speaker 12: agree with Rick. I like to spread the love, so
Speaker 12: you know, I like to do that as well. But
Speaker 12: where we are, the president has to not just be
Speaker 12: wishing for things that aren't there, but he has to
Speaker 12: act as best he can legally, and that's what he's
Speaker 12: done here. But let's not forget the people helped by
Speaker 12: this order as long as it stays in place, are
Speaker 12: our friends, our neighbors, our coworkers, our colleagues. These are
Speaker 12: people in our country who have been here, in many
Speaker 12: cases for decades. Fifty thousand children who are here who
Speaker 12: should not be victimized by a horrible, horrible process that
Speaker 12: is broken at this point. So I think the president,
Speaker 12: and if it was Donald Trump, I'd say the same thing.
Speaker 12: Fix the process. I wish Congress did it, but they're not.
Speaker 4: Rick.
Speaker 3: The President's rolling this out today at a White House
Speaker 3: event commemorating the anniversary of the DHACA program Deferred Action
Speaker 3: for child's arrivals if.
Speaker 4: You weren't there for that whole experience.
Speaker 3: Are you surprised we don't hear about this part of
Speaker 3: the conversation any longer in Washington. Have Democrats lost the
Speaker 3: edge on this or has everyone come to agree that
Speaker 3: security needs to be handled first.
Speaker 13: I think that there's a general consensus that politically, you
Speaker 13: need to be talking about border security first. I mean,
Speaker 13: the unregulated border over the last three years has caused
Speaker 13: a lot of displacement around the country, not just border states,
Speaker 13: but you know, Texas and Florida shipping immigrants to places
Speaker 13: like New York and Chicago, and you know, Martha's Vineyard
Speaker 13: has caused a great stir within the Democratic administration and voters,
Speaker 13: and so yeah, I think there's consensus that you've got
Speaker 13: to get control of the border. And what's ironic is
Speaker 13: you've got sort of the least number of border crossings
Speaker 13: that we've had in you know, a couple of years
Speaker 13: happening right now. So border crossings haven't actually been a
Speaker 13: big problem in the last couple of months. You know,
Speaker 13: since December, I think we had three hundred thousand border crossings,
Speaker 13: and you know, this last two weeks, you know, a
Speaker 13: couple thousand, So that is I think one of the
Speaker 13: top issues. Then you can play around with things like this,
Speaker 13: but DACA has been around for the longest period of
Speaker 13: time that has gone least address I know. I remember
Speaker 13: Lindsey Graham going into the Oval Office with Donald Trump
Speaker 13: trying to get DAKA fixed. I mean, it's the easiest.
Speaker 4: Fix in the world.
Speaker 13: It's a compassion issue, and yet no administration has made
Speaker 13: any progress on it, not Obama, not Trump, not Biden.
Speaker 13: It's it's a real failure of the political process to
Speaker 13: leave these kids behind.
Speaker 4: There you have it from Rick Davis and Jeanie Shanzano.
Speaker 3: By the way, I will mention a story on the
Speaker 3: terminal border crossings fall materially since Biden plan.
Speaker 4: According to Allehundro Maiorcis, the Homeland.
Speaker 3: Security Secretary, was here at Bloomberg yesterday and a really
Speaker 3: interesting take on the at least the infant stages of
Speaker 3: this new policy. Thanks for listening to the Balance of
Speaker 3: Power podcast. Make sure to subscribe if you haven't already,
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Speaker 3: at noontime Eastern at bloomberg dot com,