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Speaker 2: And we got a heads up on this late last
Speaker 2: night that there'd be a ruling at ten o'clock this morning,
Speaker 2: and here we are. Fourteenth Amendment Donald Trump can appear
Speaker 2: on presidential ballots this year. This brings us back to
Speaker 2: the case in Colorado and Greg's store by god us
Speaker 2: with us at the table right now, having written the story,
Speaker 2: filed it on the terminal, and here we are. It's
Speaker 2: great to see you, Greg, Thank you for this.
Speaker 1: Much.
Speaker 2: Is a strangely busy day out of nowhere. How rare
Speaker 2: is that to get a heads up the night before
Speaker 2: something like this.
Speaker 3: Well, very rare to get a heads up over the
Speaker 3: weekend that something is coming in. And this is a
Speaker 3: ruling that normally when they issue rulings, they take the bench.
Speaker 3: They weren't scheduled to take the bench today and they
Speaker 3: weren't there. We just got the paper copy done in
Speaker 3: the press room.
Speaker 2: Okay, so checking a box here. This is one we've
Speaker 2: been waiting for. I mentioned the Colorado case, but there
Speaker 2: were some other states who had taken him off the
Speaker 2: ballot on these grounds. Does this nullify them all?
Speaker 3: Yeah, this essentially nullifies them all. There'll be some formalities
Speaker 3: to go through, but this issue is essentially over with.
Speaker 3: Donald Trump will be able to appear on presidential ballots
Speaker 3: across the country.
Speaker 2: Fascinating. The grounds here were interesting because this had to
Speaker 2: do with being an insurrectionist essentially, and it brought us
Speaker 2: back to January sixth. Those who argued against it said
Speaker 2: that it was written a bit more narrowly than that.
Speaker 2: What did we learn about that underlying argument?
Speaker 3: Well, we learned that the Court as a whole thinks
Speaker 3: that that provision of the Constitution can't be enforced unless
Speaker 3: Congress passes legislation to say, here's what we're going to
Speaker 3: do to decide whether somebody is indeed an insurrectionist. And
Speaker 3: that means that a state can't on its own say
Speaker 3: we've concluded under our processes that he is an insurrectionist
Speaker 3: and is therefore ineligible. It's going to have to be
Speaker 3: up to Congress and for the purposes of Donald Trump.
Speaker 3: That means he'll be on the ballot.
Speaker 2: So it comes down to the definition then of an insurrectionist.
Speaker 2: Many folks were pointing back to the Civil War which
Speaker 2: spawned this to begin with, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and really like who decides in house it is
Speaker 3: decided that somebody is an insurrectionist. So the court didn't
Speaker 3: get into those questions about whether Donald Trump incited the
Speaker 3: Capitol riot, whether he was culpable for what happened that day.
Speaker 3: This was all about the process for deciding whether he
Speaker 3: is culpable that day. And what they said was Congress
Speaker 3: has to lay down the rules for the process, and
Speaker 3: so far Congress hasn't done that.
Speaker 2: This was originally the spirit of this was originally written
Speaker 2: to keep Confederates from running for office, is that.
Speaker 3: Right, yeah, or at least from holding office. That was
Speaker 3: kind of one of the issues in this case about
Speaker 3: whether we are talking about somebody running for office, which
Speaker 3: is the way Colorado thought about it, or holding office,
Speaker 3: which would mean that up until January twentieth, when the
Speaker 3: president the next president will take will take the oath
Speaker 3: of office, then there hasn't been a violation.
Speaker 2: Boy, all right, Now we're still waiting for a ruling
Speaker 2: on presidential immunity that is separate. Everyone should be reminded.
Speaker 2: This is with regard to Jack Smith's case that has
Speaker 2: now been taken off the calendar. Here. Do we have
Speaker 2: any reason to believe, having heard this today, that we
Speaker 2: might get a ruling on that soon.
Speaker 3: Well, we're not gonna have arguments in that until we
Speaker 3: don't even have an argument date yet, but it will
Speaker 3: be the week of April the twenty first, so probably
Speaker 3: we're many months down the road now. They move pretty
Speaker 3: quickly in this case. One of the interesting things about
Speaker 3: this and the timing is, of course it's right before
Speaker 3: Super Tuesday, and Super Tuesday is the day that the
Speaker 3: vote happens in Colorado, so it seems pretty clear that
Speaker 3: they rushed to get this out before Colorado voters go
Speaker 3: to the polls tomorrow. There's not that sort of clear
Speaker 3: deadline in the immunity case. Jack Smith wants to get
Speaker 3: the Supreme Court to rule quickly because you know, that's
Speaker 3: the only way there's a significant chance that there will
Speaker 3: be a trial this year before the election. So it's
Speaker 3: hard to say just how quickly. After that argument in
Speaker 3: late April, the Supreme Court will rule.
Speaker 2: Well, even when the Supreme Court is acting in an
Speaker 2: expedited fashion, it still feels slow, doesn't it. But that's
Speaker 2: your life day in and day out.
Speaker 4: Greg Store.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I mean, you know, one case that people
Speaker 3: have pointed to is back in bushby Gore in two thousand.
Speaker 3: That was a case where the Supreme Court actually did
Speaker 3: all this in the span of three days. Incredible, but
Speaker 3: again there they had a very specific date they were
Speaker 3: shooting for.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: Absolutely great to see you. Thank you so much for
Speaker 2: coming in the best Supreme Court reporter in the country.
Speaker 2: For you there, mister Store, with us on Bloomberg to
Speaker 2: get things started off. That's the phone call you make
Speaker 2: when the news breaks like it did this morning. And
Speaker 2: great to hear from Greg. One of these days or months,
Speaker 2: we'll be talking about that immunity case as well as
Speaker 2: we burrow down the whole here on another primary weekend
Speaker 2: and ahead of Super Tuesday. Of course, great implications with
Speaker 2: this ruling, not that it came as a surprise. And
Speaker 2: that's where we start our conversation with David Kotchel, who
Speaker 2: we last spoke with when we were in Iowa. I
Speaker 2: love this Republican strategist he's the owner of red Wave Communications. David,
Speaker 2: it's good to see you as you kind of help
Speaker 2: us get back to the beginning here and remind us
Speaker 2: of where we've been and where we might be going.
Speaker 2: Before I start asking you about states and issues, David,
Speaker 2: I want to just ask you about this this ruling quickly.
Speaker 2: It's a box week in check. You glad you got
Speaker 2: one thing you don't have to worry about now, the
Speaker 2: fourteenth Amendment.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Look, I mean this was always going to turn out
Speaker 5: this way. There's no First of all, you know, nobody's
Speaker 5: never been convicted of insurrection or anything like that, and
Speaker 5: there're just is no standing for these states to do this.
Speaker 5: And I think Supreme Court got it right. You need
Speaker 5: to leave elections in the hands of the voters, not
Speaker 5: in law fair or the courts. You know, this is
Speaker 5: always going to turn out this way, and I'm glad
Speaker 5: it's resolved so we don't have to worry about it
Speaker 5: anymore going forward.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, there's one we can put to the side.
Speaker 2: Of course, there are a lot other several others that
Speaker 2: we're waiting for, as I mentioned, but we're coming off
Speaker 2: another primary weekend. I could ask you about the three
Speaker 2: states Donald Trump swept. But there's not a lot of
Speaker 2: new there, David. What's new is Nicky Haley got one.
Speaker 2: She won a primary. It's in the district of Columbia.
Speaker 2: I realized this is not exactly a big deal. But
Speaker 2: her campaign is saying now that she is the first
Speaker 2: ever woman to win a Republican primary contest. Does that
Speaker 2: deserve some credit.
Speaker 5: Yeah, from that standpoint, it's historic and it's a big deal.
Speaker 5: But I think if there was any any contest she
Speaker 5: wanted to win in the country, watching DC probably be
Speaker 5: the last one she wants to win, because, as you saw,
Speaker 5: the Trump campaign immediately dubbed her Queen of the Swamp.
Speaker 5: It's just, you know, it's just one of those things
Speaker 5: that's kind of going to go in the history books
Speaker 5: as a little bit of a footnote.
Speaker 4: To all of this.
Speaker 5: You know, we started this back in Iowa, if you
Speaker 5: remember on you know, on your set that night, and
Speaker 5: you know, I think a lot of people who wanted
Speaker 5: to see something different than a Trump Biden remap. We're
Speaker 5: very hopeful that night that something could happen and kind
Speaker 5: of break through and change this race from the inevitability
Speaker 5: of these two candidates and although Trump was under fifty
Speaker 5: in that race, you know, and we did get to
Speaker 5: a one on one race, a two person race, which
Speaker 5: is what everybody always wanted. Things have not turned out
Speaker 5: very well for Nicki Haley, and it looks like he's
Speaker 5: going to sew this thing up pretty quickly here in
Speaker 5: the next week or two.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, what's your thought on this. We were heading
Speaker 2: into New Hampshire to your point, coming out of Io,
Speaker 2: and there was still a sense of possibility here. We're
Speaker 2: going into Super Tuesday now where it's going to become
Speaker 2: not mathematically impossible, but maybe psychologically impossible for Nicki Haley
Speaker 2: to keep going here when you start looking at another
Speaker 2: fifteen states and that many delegates added to the pile, David,
Speaker 2: is this her last? Dan?
Speaker 5: I think so. Look, she gave it a heck of
Speaker 5: a try. And like I said, the theory of the
Speaker 5: case was, if you get Donald Trump one on one,
Speaker 5: then you've got a chance. And you know, he had
Speaker 5: been consistently kind of polling in the in the forties,
Speaker 5: he was in the thirties through the twenty sixteen contests,
Speaker 5: but then once this national lead really consolidated around him,
Speaker 5: and you can go back to the Alvin Bragg indictment
Speaker 5: when Republicans really started to rally behind him. He's been
Speaker 5: in the fifties consistently in the national polls. These early
Speaker 5: state polls had some vulnerability because the voters are really
Speaker 5: paying closer attention they're looking at all these other candidates.
Speaker 5: But at the end of the day, the Republican Party
Speaker 5: was kind of ready to foreclose this this primary and
Speaker 5: move on to the general election with Biden. And it
Speaker 5: looks like that's what's going to happen.
Speaker 6: Now.
Speaker 5: I don't begrudge Nicky Haley for staying in. She's got
Speaker 5: a point to make and she's making it. And you know,
Speaker 5: as long as she's not mathematically out of this thing,
Speaker 5: you know, there's no reason to get out. She's had
Speaker 5: enough money to stick around, which is usually white people
Speaker 5: get out of these races. But it does look like
Speaker 5: he won't be probably the mathematical nominee by tomorrow. But
Speaker 5: the campaign says they're pretty sure he's going to get
Speaker 5: there on March twelfth, and it looks like that's going
Speaker 5: to happen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it does. That's a week from tomorrow. For those
Speaker 2: playing along on their home game, Nikki Haley says she
Speaker 2: may not abide by the pledge. I wonder, David if
Speaker 2: that matters, the pledge to endorse whomever the eventual nominee
Speaker 2: would be. She was asked about this on Sunday morning
Speaker 2: and says, I think I'll make what decision I want
Speaker 2: to make, indicating that the RNC has changed, that it's
Speaker 2: a different organization than the ones she made that pledge
Speaker 2: to Ronald McDaniel's gone. Does that give her cover?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Sure, I mean it's all transactional anyway. Everybody made that
Speaker 5: pledge so that they get to get on the debate
Speaker 5: stage and have a shot, hopefully at Donald Trump, which
Speaker 5: they never got. You know. She rightfully turns the tables
Speaker 5: on that argument and says, well, is he going to
Speaker 5: make a pledge that if I were to be the
Speaker 5: nominee he'd support me. Nobody believes that he would do that,
Speaker 5: you know, so I don't think any Look, there are
Speaker 5: some people in MAGA world that are upset this, and
Speaker 5: I'm sure it'll bring a lot of mean tweets her way,
Speaker 5: but she's not obligated to support this president. She doesn't
Speaker 5: want to. I mean, it's a free country, and you know,
Speaker 5: by the way, he's treated her pretty poorly over her
Speaker 5: husband's military service. And I don't think I think if
Speaker 5: you are sympathetic to Nicky Haley's argument at all, I
Speaker 5: don't think you're going to begrudge her from taking her
Speaker 5: time or withholding her endorsement altogether. Not that at this
Speaker 5: point he really needs it. He's going to get support
Speaker 5: of most Republicans. You've seen Congress and that leadership get
Speaker 5: behind him now increasingly, and I think there are very
Speaker 5: few people who are going to kind of hold out
Speaker 5: on that support.
Speaker 2: Those of us who are watching on YouTube or seeing
Speaker 2: images of Ralph Norman. What's Ralph Norman going to do?
Speaker 2: Although I guess he's going to make a pretty quick
Speaker 2: pivot to Donald Trump. Spending time with David Koshel, Republican
Speaker 2: strategists looking ahead to Super Tuesday, Bring us to school, David,
Speaker 2: We've got about fifteen states at hand tomorrow. What should
Speaker 2: we be looking at with what seems to be an
Speaker 2: an evening of inevitability?
Speaker 5: Yeah, Look, I mean the things you're looking at right
Speaker 5: now are signs of what the general election could hold.
Speaker 5: Republican primaries really don't always tell you what you need
Speaker 5: to know. And neither do Democratic primaries about the general election.
Speaker 5: But I think there's a weakness for Trump among suburban women,
Speaker 5: which has been the Nicky Haley message all along. And
Speaker 5: I think if you see in places where there's a
Speaker 5: higher college attendance, where there are you know, where he's
Speaker 5: not doing well with women, that could portend trouble for
Speaker 5: him in the general election. But beyond that, you know,
Speaker 5: the support in the party has consolidated around him to
Speaker 5: a great extent. I think also we can just look
Speaker 5: at the numbers, the turnout numbers. There seems to be
Speaker 5: more enthusiasm in the Republican Party right now than there
Speaker 5: is in the Democratic Party. Now, they've had success in
Speaker 5: special elections recently. They're counting on things like you know,
Speaker 5: the Roe decision to motivate their voters, but certainly President
Speaker 5: Biden is not motivating Democratic voters. It's going to have
Speaker 5: to be based on issues. So we can look for
Speaker 5: where Trump has some of his kind of you know,
Speaker 5: historic weakness, which is suburban voters and college educated voters.
Speaker 5: That might that might show us a little bit of
Speaker 5: a problem. The thing is, he's offset those concerns by
Speaker 5: growing his numbers among non white working class voters, Black
Speaker 5: and Hispanic working class voters are increasingly moving towards Trump. Now,
Speaker 5: he may not win those voters, but he'll get a
Speaker 5: significantly better percentage of them than he did in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 5: So Trump is an interesting way of where he loses votes,
Speaker 5: he tends to find them elsewhere. And you know, the
Speaker 5: latest round of polls New York Times Cenpol in particular,
Speaker 5: has real concern among Democrats for Biden and whether or
Speaker 5: not he's going to be able to pull this off,
Speaker 5: because you know, his net favorability is terrible, his job
Speaker 5: approval is way down. Trump's favorability is actually higher than
Speaker 5: Joe Biden's right now, which is kind of funny. We
Speaker 5: haven't seen that until the last couple of years here.
Speaker 5: And I think this is going to be a real
Speaker 5: nail bier of an election. It's going to come down
Speaker 5: to those you know, five or six states that it
Speaker 5: has the last few cycles, and you know, I don't
Speaker 5: know how much we'll learn about that tomorrow, but certainly
Speaker 5: you have a lot more enthusiasm for Trump on the
Speaker 5: Republican side than you do for Biden among Democrats. In fact,
Speaker 5: I think there is a lot of nail biting going
Speaker 5: on in the Democratic Party right now.
Speaker 2: Well, it seems to me, after all the talk, all
Speaker 2: the questions I should say about to what extent Iowa
Speaker 2: represents the nation or it gives us a forward looking
Speaker 2: view at what's going to happen in the race. Iowa
Speaker 2: and New Hampshire seem to have been pretty on point
Speaker 2: in the twenty twenty four campaign. David is great to see.
Speaker 2: You don't be a stranger. He's run a lot of
Speaker 2: campaigns outside of the Iowa caucuses and we love to
Speaker 2: stay in touch with David Kaschel Red Wave Communications getting
Speaker 2: things rolling here for us on a Monday Super Tuesday
Speaker 2: special coverage Tomorrow night, Kayley and I will be with
Speaker 2: you starting eight pm Eastern Time, and we're going to
Speaker 2: go late into the evening as we follow the time
Speaker 2: zones across the country and get a sense of how
Speaker 2: close Donald Trump might get to actually putting this in
Speaker 2: the bag.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast kens
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Speaker 2: Let's assemble our panel with Genie Shanzano and Rick Davis,
Speaker 2: Bloomberg Politics contributors. It's great to have both of you
Speaker 2: with us here. I have to ask you, I guess
Speaker 2: about Donald Trump's legal status to start here by way
Speaker 2: of that ruling today, I don't think either of you
Speaker 2: expected that he would be knocked off the ballot. But
Speaker 2: Rick Davis, do you agree with Republicans who say it's
Speaker 2: a good thing because the people should be deciding elections,
Speaker 2: not the court.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 7: First of all, yes, people should decide elections, not the court.
Speaker 7: And if there are issues of insurrection, which in this
Speaker 7: case are arguable, then it should be the federal government
Speaker 7: that makes that decision out of state government. You can
Speaker 7: imagine the chaos if state started pulling people off of
Speaker 7: state ballots just because they might disagree with the policy
Speaker 7: or program. And we've already seen that happen at the
Speaker 7: federal level. With impeachment, the last thing we want to
Speaker 7: do is see state started. So I think the Supreme
Speaker 7: Court did the right thing, and it's notable that it
Speaker 7: was a unanimous decision with no dissent, So I think
Speaker 7: it makes total sense.
Speaker 2: Your thought on this, Genie. Joe Biden has said repeatedly
Speaker 2: he wants to beat him at the ballot box. He
Speaker 2: didn't want the Supreme Court to stand on the way
Speaker 2: here ring No.
Speaker 8: And neither did I. I mean I wrote an editorial
Speaker 8: in January and the Washington Examiner which said precisely that,
Speaker 8: I mean putting aside the legal aspects of this decision. Politically,
Speaker 8: had the Court gone the other way, that would have
Speaker 8: been a death noll for Democrats. They need to Benald
Speaker 8: Trump at the ballot box. So politically, this is absolutely
Speaker 8: the best outcome for Democrats. And the reason of course
Speaker 8: Donald Trump is talking about the next case up in
Speaker 8: the Supreme Court on immunity in January sixth as opposed
Speaker 8: to this one today is because he knows full well
Speaker 8: and everybody knew that the Court was going to come
Speaker 8: down this way today on the ballot issue. The bigger question,
Speaker 8: and the more difficult one for us to read the
Speaker 8: Tea leaves on is the immunity one. And I think
Speaker 8: that is likely, and I believe Donald Trump believes it
Speaker 8: is likely not to go in his favor. You know
Speaker 8: this idea, as they said in the appellate court, that
Speaker 8: he could shoot somebody and you know, a Seal Team
Speaker 8: member have had them executed and then not be held
Speaker 8: responsible for that is so out of the realm of
Speaker 8: democratic norms that I'm hard pressed to believe the court
Speaker 8: says he has absolute immunity, or any other president for
Speaker 8: that matter.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about some actual ballots, because we saw a
Speaker 2: couple of them over the weekend. We're going to see
Speaker 2: a lot more tomorrow. Donald Trump sweeps Missouri, Idaho, Michigan
Speaker 2: over the weekend, and he is on track, it appears
Speaker 2: rick to be the presumptive nominee by the twelfth of March,
Speaker 2: by a week from tomorrow. There is a narrative out
Speaker 2: there that Nicki Haley is doing better now than she
Speaker 2: has yet. She won her first primary, and I realized
Speaker 2: it was in the DC primary, the district of Columbia.
Speaker 2: Nobody's taking that terribly seriously. But what's it going to
Speaker 2: look like after tomorrow night? Is Nicki Haley really going
Speaker 2: to keep pushing this as Donald Trump walks into fifteen
Speaker 2: states he might win, you know, no.
Speaker 7: Telling what her motivation is. I think we've talked about it.
Speaker 7: In many cases, it depends upon whether or not people
Speaker 7: continue to fund her campaign.
Speaker 2: Everybody's going to see something.
Speaker 7: Different in the kind of quixotic effort she's putting forth
Speaker 7: to contrast with him. She has been getting tougher and
Speaker 7: tougher on him in the press, so I imagine she
Speaker 7: sees this as opportunity to create a contrast and maybe
Speaker 7: create some space with for her in the Republican Party,
Speaker 7: certainly in the mainstream party. I would say that he
Speaker 7: may or may not get to the to the fifty
Speaker 7: percent point by the twelfth, probably more likely the nineteenth,
Speaker 7: where you have a slew of states like Arizona and
Speaker 7: Florida and Illinois, Kansas and Ohio. That's the that's kind
Speaker 7: of the end game. But the bottom line is nobody
Speaker 7: thinks that Donald Trump isn't going to be the nominee,
Speaker 7: and he's sorted acting accordingly by taking over the RNC
Speaker 7: and doing the things he's doing. But this nagging, you know,
Speaker 7: presence of Nicki Haley on a campaign trail, even though
Speaker 7: it doesn't have a legitimate strategy and victory, you know,
Speaker 7: is going to keep him, you know, from having a
Speaker 7: clean shot. And so there are a lot of Republicans
Speaker 7: who just want that to stay in the keep her
Speaker 7: in the race for as long as humanly possible.
Speaker 2: There you have it. DC Primary Nikki Haley's sixty three
Speaker 2: three percent, Donald Trump thirty three. Two thousand and thirty
Speaker 2: five people voted. The Trump campaign says Haley has now
Speaker 2: been quote crowned Queen of the Swamp unquote. I'm Joe
Speaker 2: Matthew knee deep in the swamp. More ahead, This is Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast. Catch
Speaker 1: Just Live weekdays at noon Eastern on Applecarplay and then
Speaker 1: Rounoto with the Bloomberg Business at Listen on demand wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
Speaker 2: Donald Trump's the one who took credit for stopping the
Speaker 2: budget deal, the supplemental funding for Ukraine. So you really
Speaker 2: can't have one conversation without the other here, Kayley, because
Speaker 2: what's happening in Washington's being discussed on the campaign trail
Speaker 2: and vice versa. We got a thousand page bill out
Speaker 2: last night, as we discussed a little while ago, that
Speaker 2: might keep the government from shutting down, unless, of course,
Speaker 2: Donald Trump says.
Speaker 9: Yeah, might keep the government. I'm shutting down is probably
Speaker 9: the correct way of phrasing that at this point of shime.
Speaker 9: And of course, when Joe and I talked about Washington
Speaker 9: in this context, we're talking about Washington, DC, not the
Speaker 9: states of Washington, but that actually is where we would
Speaker 9: like to go this segment next Live to Seattle, where
Speaker 9: a Republican candidate for the governor of Washington is joining us. Now,
Speaker 9: Dave Record, great to have you on the show, sir.
Speaker 9: Of course, you are running as a Republican in a
Speaker 9: state pretty dominated by Democrats. It's been decades since someone
Speaker 9: of your party was elected governor. Why is the time
Speaker 9: where someone like you could do it now?
Speaker 6: Yeah, Well, you're absolutely right. I've run in districts. Of course,
Speaker 6: when I was in the US Congress that was pretty
Speaker 6: much dominated by Democrats too, But the timing is right,
Speaker 6: the issues are right. It's been forty years since we
Speaker 6: have had a Republican governor here in Washington State. The
Speaker 6: seat is going to be open this time around, and
Speaker 6: I've looked at the race. I really believe that the
Speaker 6: issues really line up with my experience, and those issues
Speaker 6: are obviously public safety, and secondly is homelessness, which is
Speaker 6: really substance abuse and mental illness. And then third is
Speaker 6: the economy. And I also like to talk about education
Speaker 6: a lot, and people are looking for some moderation.
Speaker 2: Mister Rekert, you were, of course a congressman, and I
Speaker 2: wonder when you look back to the debate around that
Speaker 2: period of time, if you recognize the Republican conference that
Speaker 2: we have today in Washington.
Speaker 6: I absolutely do. I have watched some of that discussion.
Speaker 6: You don't really disconnect from that world after you leave it,
Speaker 6: so you find yourself on c SPAN sort of following
Speaker 6: some of the committees sadly.
Speaker 9: Well, and of course speaking of still being involved in
Speaker 9: the world after you leave it. At this point, Donald
Speaker 9: Trump isn't even the Republican nominee. He's just a former
Speaker 9: Republican president. And yet it's it's been proven that he
Speaker 9: actually holds a great deal of sway in the halls
Speaker 9: on Capitol Hill, and it has kind of underscored, sir,
Speaker 9: if you will, that there are some more Trump allied
Speaker 9: Republicans and then those that are not so much. How
Speaker 9: do you present your campaign to both ends of that
Speaker 9: spectrum of what the Republican Party is today? Is that
Speaker 9: really possible?
Speaker 4: It is possible.
Speaker 6: Fortunately, I've had the opportunity to work with President Bush
Speaker 6: and President Obama and President Trump, and I still have
Speaker 6: a lot of friends back in the House representatives and
Speaker 6: also on the Senate side and from both parties. So
Speaker 6: I think there's a great advantage in having those relationships
Speaker 6: already built in Washington, DC as a member of Congress
Speaker 6: for fourteen years, I think that being able to carry
Speaker 6: our message of what Washington State needs and how we
Speaker 6: want to move forward here in a way that's really
Speaker 6: listening to every community here in Washington State and every
Speaker 6: viewpoint which hasn't happened. The government that we've had in
Speaker 6: Washington State for the last forty years really has shut
Speaker 6: out the people of Washington State.
Speaker 2: You referred to, I think your time in law enforcement
Speaker 2: in your career before you were in the world of politics. Congressman,
Speaker 2: you're a sheriff. You've been hearing Republicans criticize the city
Speaker 2: of Portland on a regular basis, along with others including Seattle,
Speaker 2: going back to a couple of years ago here, and
Speaker 2: I wonder if you think the narrative surrounding crime in
Speaker 2: our inner cities is accurate.
Speaker 4: It's absolutely accurate.
Speaker 6: Accurate everywhere I go, and in the state of Washington,
Speaker 6: this is the number one issue that's been brought up,
Speaker 6: and that's crime and safety. People are worried about going
Speaker 6: to work and even in going home, their kids, going
Speaker 6: to school, and being safe. We are fifty first in
Speaker 6: the country as relates to the number of police officers
Speaker 6: per capita protecting the citizens of Washington State. Fifty first,
Speaker 6: including Washington DC. Seattle PD is four hundred people down.
Speaker 6: King County Sheriff's about one hundred and fifty people down.
Speaker 6: Our crime rate in Washington State is actually is actually
Speaker 6: increasing rather than decreasing. We're letting violent criminals out of
Speaker 6: our state prison. So yes, I really believe my experience
Speaker 6: in law enforcement is going to be very beneficial here
Speaker 6: in this campaign. Look, I was a hostage negotiator when
Speaker 6: I was in the Sheriff's office. I was also a
Speaker 6: swat commander, So I know when to negotiate and I
Speaker 6: know when to kick the damn door down.
Speaker 4: It's time to kick the door down.
Speaker 9: Well on needing to negotiate. Just finally, we have about
Speaker 9: a minute left with you, sir. Even if you were
Speaker 9: to win as a Republican governor, it's highly likely that
Speaker 9: Democrats would still control the state legislature. How do you
Speaker 9: get anything done in that scenario.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, that's absolutely true.
Speaker 6: Do I fully anticipate working with House Democrats and Senate Democrats.
Speaker 6: I think it really creates an opportunity here in the
Speaker 6: state for us to begin a dialogue with the other party.
Speaker 6: And I think people here in Washington State actually want
Speaker 6: a balanced government this time around. They want to see
Speaker 6: that dialogue created. They want to see a conversation between
Speaker 6: ideas and differing ideas to solve the problems that we're
Speaker 6: facing today.
Speaker 2: He's running for governor of Washington. The former Congressman Dave Reichert.
Speaker 2: We thank you for the time congressman with us today
Speaker 2: on Bloomberg, KAYLEA fascinating discussion as we look at another
Speaker 2: race with national.
Speaker 9: Implications, absolutely, and a lot of the issues that he
Speaker 9: just brought up, including the issue of prime we know
Speaker 9: is a national issue at play at all levels on
Speaker 9: the ballot this year, including of course twenty twenty four,
Speaker 9: and we're going to have more on that.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast kens
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Speaker 2: Thirty alongside Kaylee lines. I'm looking forward to the State
Speaker 2: of the Union here and what's just going to be
Speaker 2: a wild week. We've got super Tuesday, Powell testimony, State
Speaker 2: of the Union, and a potential shutdown at least the
Speaker 2: beginning of one on Friday. But Kayleie, I wonder if
Speaker 2: we're getting a better sense of the posture that Joe
Speaker 2: Biden will take, specifically on the issue of Israel in
Speaker 2: this State of the Union address. Having heard from Kamala
Speaker 2: Harris over the weekend, Joe Biden already said that Israel
Speaker 2: has gone quote unquote over the top. I think was
Speaker 2: his line when it comes to Israel's response in Gaza,
Speaker 2: and Kamala Harris now the Vice President is calling for
Speaker 2: an immediate ceasefire and did so in Selma, Alabama, a
Speaker 2: day before she met with Israeli Minister Benny Gantz. Let's
Speaker 2: listen to Vice President Harris from yesterday.
Speaker 10: Given the immense scale of suffering in Gaza, there must
Speaker 10: be an immediate ceasefire or at least the next six weeks,
Speaker 10: which is what is currently on the tape.
Speaker 2: A six week pause, Kayley, that would be a pretty
Speaker 2: big deal, and of course BENJAMINETTYA who has made clear
Speaker 2: that that's not going to happen until they get information
Speaker 2: on hostages being held.
Speaker 9: Yeah, that's exactly right. Doesn't seem like a ton of
Speaker 9: forward progress is being made at this point in time,
Speaker 9: but we wanted to really get a check on where
Speaker 9: we stand, just why these conversations are so difficult. Joining
Speaker 9: us now is Hgar Shimali. She has now founder and
Speaker 9: CEO at Greenwich Media Strategies, but was former lead the
Speaker 9: director for Syria and Lebanon at the National Security Council.
Speaker 9: Hook are always great to have you on the show.
Speaker 9: When we think about these these ceasefire talks, obviously it
Speaker 9: is not just Israel and Hamasa is involved. There are
Speaker 9: a number of intermediate air as well, Cutter, Egypt, the US.
Speaker 9: Which party is bringing the difficulty to these talks? Is
Speaker 9: this more on Israel's end or Hamas's end?
Speaker 11: Oh, without a doubt, it's Hamas's end right now. The
Speaker 11: latest proposal is a six week ceasefire that would be temporary,
Speaker 11: it would include an additional amount of humanitarian aid brought
Speaker 11: into the country, and it would include about the latest
Speaker 11: numbers at least, though they shift on a daily basis,
Speaker 11: are forty Israeli hostages who would be released for about
Speaker 11: four hundred Palaestine prisoners. But like I said, those numbers
Speaker 11: really do change on a day to day basis. But
Speaker 11: they are still allegedly considering that that request, and they've
Speaker 11: turned down the last two proposals that Israel was in
Speaker 11: agreement to. So it's on the ball, is in Hamas's
Speaker 11: court as we see it right now, and that is
Speaker 11: really what Vice President Harris was honing in on. That
Speaker 11: is what she was talking about. She was calling for
Speaker 11: an immediate ceasefire, but that is what she was referencing.
Speaker 11: She's referencing this deal that's on the table for six weeks.
Speaker 11: She wants both parties to come to it immediately and
Speaker 11: to include that the parts of the deal that include
Speaker 11: a prisoner swap, prisoner hostage swap, and also humanitarian aid,
Speaker 11: additional homilitarian aid going into Gaza.
Speaker 2: Some reports that are say that Prime Minister Netanyah, who
Speaker 2: wants to know about the hostages well being their condition
Speaker 2: now and how many are still alive before moving forward,
Speaker 2: Does Hamas have all of that information?
Speaker 11: The Hamas that I know because I worked in counter
Speaker 11: terrorism in the US government and Hamas was in my portfolio.
Speaker 11: The Hamas, I know, should know that information and would
Speaker 11: know that information because they have control over Gaza completely.
Speaker 11: And even though you have other terrorist groups obviously of
Speaker 11: Palstini in Islamic Shahad, which we know has taken hostages,
Speaker 11: it doesn't mean that Hamas doesn't know where they are
Speaker 11: or their or their state. It just means that it
Speaker 11: may not be within their complete power to negotiate them
Speaker 11: or to exchange them without incl tating other deals on
Speaker 11: their side. Between Hamas and Palestinian Islamicha Hid, the palsie
Speaker 11: Islamacha Had is going to try and get something out
Speaker 11: of that as well for themselves, and so that's really more.
Speaker 11: I would never believe when Hamas says that they just
Speaker 11: don't know the state of something, or they don't know
Speaker 11: where someone is being held that I find that very
Speaker 11: hard to believe. I understand that in a war zone
Speaker 11: it could be it could be different, but they have
Speaker 11: ways of communicating then, and technically this is a This
Speaker 11: is an area that has always been under their thumb
Speaker 11: since two thousand and six, and so I don't see
Speaker 11: why that they wouldn't know that now.
Speaker 9: So Hgar, you say that Hamas effectively has control over
Speaker 9: everything in Gaza, So we should also keep that in
Speaker 9: mind that it is Hamas's run health ministry in Gaza
Speaker 9: that is reporting these figures. But we're not talking about
Speaker 9: thirty thousand Palestinian deaths. And even now that the administration
Speaker 9: seems to have ramped up its rhetoric, we just heard
Speaker 9: Vice President Harris, they're talking about this as a humanitarian catastrophe.
Speaker 9: Has the US reached this point too late?
Speaker 11: This is really important. I'm glad you asked about this
Speaker 11: because the issue that you have at hand here, the
Speaker 11: reason the United States hasn't called for a permanent ceasefire,
Speaker 11: and the reason that they still aren't calling for a
Speaker 11: permanent one, is because they don't want to give any
Speaker 11: kind of gift to Hamas. They don't want to give
Speaker 11: a seaspire without anything in exchange. For example, the hostage
Speaker 11: is In particular, this could all end tomorrow if Hamas
Speaker 11: gave all the hostages back and so that's what's holding
Speaker 11: them back. But with the US, you can see, number one,
Speaker 11: they've shifted their tone publicly, right, and you saw that
Speaker 11: ever since the Jordanian King's visit where Biden came out stronger.
Speaker 11: He said Israel's behavior has been over the top. He
Speaker 11: tried to show more compassion for the Palestinians and feel
Speaker 11: more and show more empathy for their pain. And since
Speaker 11: then we've seen the rhetoric grow, but particularly since the
Speaker 11: tragic event that happened on Friday where you had Palestinians
Speaker 11: who were there for a humanitarian convoy. There was gunfire
Speaker 11: and over one hundred were killed. And each side has
Speaker 11: their story, but the fact is that it doesn't even
Speaker 11: really matter when democracies are at war. This is not
Speaker 11: supposed to happen. And that's why President Biden came out
Speaker 11: and said that there is no excuse, there's no justification
Speaker 11: from the Israeli government side on what happened on that
Speaker 11: tragic day. So that said, why do you see the
Speaker 11: US pushing for this still for this six week ceasefire.
Speaker 11: That is because they're trying to push for something that
Speaker 11: could lead to a permanent ceasefire. But to do it
Speaker 11: in a way where a they get the hostages out
Speaker 11: and get something in exchange without giving something a freebee
Speaker 11: the way they view it to Hamas because ultimately there's
Speaker 11: one goal here, and that's that Hamas is not able
Speaker 11: to govern Gaza any longer. And so if you have
Speaker 11: that six week ceasefire, they can kickstart or expedite negotiations
Speaker 11: on one hand, one hand, between the Israelis and Palestinians
Speaker 11: to ensure who controls Gaza, and on the other between
Speaker 11: the Israelis and the rest of the Middle East to
Speaker 11: have normalization deals to try and kickstart a two state solution. Now,
Speaker 11: I know I sound like that sounds impossible. It is
Speaker 11: a very tall order, but that is what the US
Speaker 11: government is.
Speaker 8: Hoping to do.
Speaker 2: Tigar, we only have a minute. You worked on the
Speaker 2: National Security Council. I wonder your expectation for Joe Biden
Speaker 2: on Thursday night, the administration's message on Israel. This is
Speaker 2: a political speech, of course, but it's one that's being
Speaker 2: driven in part by folks like you who now work
Speaker 2: in the White House, who are briefing him every day.
Speaker 11: Well, I believe he'll be He'll continue this tougher tone
Speaker 11: against Israel's behavior, but he's also going to be very
Speaker 11: careful to remind everyone that Israel is an ally and
Speaker 11: why Israel is an ally, that we benefit enormously for
Speaker 11: our own counter terrorism objectives from Israel, and so I
Speaker 11: think he'll try and toe that line and be very
Speaker 11: careful about it.
Speaker 4: But on the question of.
Speaker 11: Ceasefire, I think they're going to hit this point much
Speaker 11: harder about calling for an immediate ceasefire, even if it's temporary.
Speaker 11: That the goal is to lead into a permanent ceasefire.
Speaker 11: But the only way to do that is to not
Speaker 11: allow Hamas to govern Gaza any longer. So I think
Speaker 11: he's going to expan a bit better.
Speaker 2: You wonder if he gets both sides of the room
Speaker 2: up off their seats for that one. Hagar Shamali, Great
Speaker 2: to see you, Hugar again, formerly National Security Council on
Speaker 2: Syria and Lebanon founder as well of Greenwich Media Strategies.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to the Balance of Power podcast. Make
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