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Speaker 2: That was President Trump speaking virtually to the crowd at
Speaker 2: Davos in the World Economic for Borger Brende, He's a
Speaker 2: president of the World Economic Form. Kind of moderating that.
Speaker 2: Brian Mornihan, Bank of America, Blackstone, Stephen Schwartzman, Vaco Santander's
Speaker 2: on a boutein and total Energies. Patrick Puyan po any,
Speaker 2: thank you very much asking questions. So we kind of
Speaker 2: spirited back and forth there. Let's get a little bit
Speaker 2: of a breakdown kind of what we just heard over
Speaker 2: the last forty five fifty minutes. We can do that
Speaker 2: with Nick Wadams. He is a US national security reporter
Speaker 2: for Bloomberg News based down in Washington, DC. Nick, anything
Speaker 2: new for you in President Trump's.
Speaker 3: Remarks, Well, to me, what you just saw there was
Speaker 3: a president who was in almost complete control, I mean
Speaker 3: a just an extraordinary moment. The amount of deference from
Speaker 3: these titans of industry from around the globe, essentially giving
Speaker 3: the President everything he wants. I mean, Brian and Brian moynihan,
Speaker 3: they're dodging. The President criticizes Bank of America for allegedly
Speaker 3: not banking conservatives, and Brian moynihan just kind of takes
Speaker 3: it and says, thank you, and hey, we're getting ready
Speaker 3: to sponsor the Olympics. Trump demands OPEC lower prices, increased output.
Speaker 3: He tells everybody, listen, if you want to build in
Speaker 3: the US, that's great. Otherwise we're going to tear a few.
Speaker 3: And the response is essentially applause. So an extraordinary, extraordinary
Speaker 3: dynamic where you just sort of see the degree to
Speaker 3: which global the real power players who are all collected
Speaker 3: in Davos there are giving him an extraordinary amount of deference.
Speaker 4: We were talking to Nathan dena Bloomberg Intelligence before about
Speaker 4: last two hours and said that he was looking for
Speaker 4: the confrontational or negotiator President Trump if we parse him
Speaker 4: in those ways, which Trump did you just see?
Speaker 3: I mean, sounded pretty confrontational to me, essentially saying listen,
Speaker 3: if you don't build here, we're going to Jack Tariff's
Speaker 3: up on all of you. He criticized the EU. He
Speaker 3: takes a quick shot at Bank of America. He goes
Speaker 3: after Opek. He also tells a story which is not
Speaker 3: one hundred percent true on the issue of denuclearization that
Speaker 3: part at the end, talks with Russia and especially China
Speaker 3: were essentially at a standstill at the end of his
Speaker 3: first administration on the idea of denuclearization. So very much
Speaker 3: in keeping with the president where he is obviously in
Speaker 3: his MILU feels very comfortable but has no qualms about
Speaker 3: being extremely confrontational, presumably in part because he knows the
Speaker 3: response he's going to get, which is essentially applause and
Speaker 3: in some cases a little bit of awkward laughter. But
Speaker 3: there at the end a hope that he'll come in
Speaker 3: person next year.
Speaker 2: Nick. A lot of questions on Ukraine and the ability
Speaker 2: of the US to play a role in ending that conflict.
Speaker 5: Here, what's the.
Speaker 2: Feeling within your realm national security about the role the
Speaker 2: US can play, and maybe the timing associated with him.
Speaker 3: Well, the timing is obviously quite unclear. The President had
Speaker 3: said before he came into office that this was something
Speaker 3: he was going to be able to do to solve
Speaker 3: before inauguration day or within twenty four hours. That obviously
Speaker 3: hasn't happened. What we've understood is that officials within the
Speaker 3: administration are recognizing the enormity of the task and that
Speaker 3: it may take some time. And that was one element
Speaker 3: I thought was quite interesting from President Trump where he
Speaker 3: essentially said, there, listen, this is something that is the
Speaker 3: ball is in President Putin's court, you know, saying Ukraine
Speaker 3: is ready to come to the table, so he can
Speaker 3: act very much as a point of leverage and a
Speaker 3: pressure point. But whereas before the inauguration there was a
Speaker 3: lot of focus on Ukraine and his transition team saying
Speaker 3: really that Ukraine needed to come to the table, they're
Speaker 3: now really trying to put the pressure on Vladimir Putin.
Speaker 3: So though he's essentially saying he wants to talk to Putin,
Speaker 3: he respects him. I did see some more pressure there
Speaker 3: that this is really in Russia's court to kickstart the negotiations,
Speaker 3: but in terms of timing, they're really not willing to
Speaker 3: say at this point.
Speaker 4: I was really struck by how much energy took center stage.
Speaker 4: I mean, clearly total CEO is there. So that was
Speaker 4: definitely part of it. But there were some clear statements made.
Speaker 4: He will make sure that Europe gets US L and G.
Speaker 4: He talked about coal. He did say clean coal, but
Speaker 4: that that was going to be a backup for generation
Speaker 4: Peabody Energy, which is a coal producer, spiking on that news.
Speaker 4: Europeans hate coal, So that was like something that was
Speaker 4: a pretty interesting moment in your world. Nick, how much
Speaker 4: of an energy analyst do you have to become if
Speaker 4: you're national security and now you have President Trump in office.
Speaker 3: I would say that's going to be a huge priority
Speaker 3: for all of us going forward. I mean, you know,
Speaker 3: in some ways, it's really no surprise the president is
Speaker 3: essentially repeating elements, sometimes word for word, of his campaign speech.
Speaker 3: I don't think he mentioned his dislike for windmills there,
Speaker 3: but he has taken a bunch of actions already to
Speaker 3: essentially try to steer US energy production away from renewables.
Speaker 3: You know, this really is at the center of his
Speaker 3: campaign and his ethos, that he believes the US needs
Speaker 3: to increase energy production, and it really speaks to his
Speaker 3: sense of what the US role is in the world
Speaker 3: as a provider of energy to other countries. He really
Speaker 3: sees it as as a point of leverage for the
Speaker 3: United States, and that's something he's going to double down on,
Speaker 3: you can be certain in the years to come.
Speaker 2: And Nick Nac. Surprisingly, President Trump also brought up the
Speaker 2: issue of immigration, illegal immigration in the United States and
Speaker 2: perhaps deportations. What do we know at this early stage
Speaker 2: about the plans of this administration to implement maybe some
Speaker 2: deportation measures to what except will National Guard or even
Speaker 2: active duty troops be involved, if at all.
Speaker 3: Well, the US is in the process of deploying about
Speaker 3: fifteen hundred troops to the border, though it's unclear what
Speaker 3: exactly their role will be. The President has also sought
Speaker 3: to give more authority to various government agents around the country,
Speaker 3: and we do have reports coming in that some of
Speaker 3: those arrests and have basically already started, So I mean,
Speaker 3: he is absolutely determined to do this. We've heard today
Speaker 3: that Secretary of State Mark Rubio is in fact going
Speaker 3: to be going to several Central American countries in his
Speaker 3: first trip. And the point there really is to have
Speaker 3: conversations and say, listen, okay, we want to kick these
Speaker 3: people out. They have to go someplace, they have to
Speaker 3: have a place to go. The planes need to fly somewhere,
Speaker 3: So where is that going to be a lot of
Speaker 3: focus right now on El Salvador, Guatemala, obviously, but this
Speaker 3: is one of the top two or three priorities for
Speaker 3: this administration, proceeding with those deportations and finding places that
Speaker 3: will receive those people. So negotiations are fully underway on
Speaker 3: that score.
Speaker 2: All right, Nick, thank you so much. We appreciate that.
Speaker 2: Nick Wadams, US National Security team leader for Bloomberg News,
Speaker 2: just give us a little recap of the comments we
Speaker 2: heard from President Trump, who spoke virtually to the audience
Speaker 2: at the World Economic Forum in Davost.
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Speaker 4: Now, speaking of we had initial jobless claims, the continuing
Speaker 4: claims rising to I think it was like a three
Speaker 4: month high, but that's going to be distorted quite a
Speaker 4: lot by those LA wildfires. So Michael McKee is joining
Speaker 4: us Boomberg International Economics and Policy correspondent, How did the
Speaker 4: do we know how the LA fires have now affected
Speaker 4: the readings for jabas claims?
Speaker 5: Well, we have a rough idea. The number for California
Speaker 5: jobas claims last week was up by seven thousand, which
Speaker 5: doesn't seem like a lot. But the week before which
Speaker 5: the fires were in that week as well were up
Speaker 5: by thirteen thousand, So you've got a number of people
Speaker 5: who have contributed to this slight rise we've seen in
Speaker 5: initial jobs claims slide. It's two twenty three, up from
Speaker 5: two seventeen, and most states saw declines. Now we're in
Speaker 5: the holiday distortion period as well, so it's hard to
Speaker 5: get a clear read on what all this means. You
Speaker 5: reference the continuing claims up to one million, eight hundred
Speaker 5: ninety nine thousand. That's getting a little bit of a
Speaker 5: boost from the California fires because the people who that
Speaker 5: thirteen thousand who filed two weeks ago are still on
Speaker 5: the rolls. But what that's kind of telling us is
Speaker 5: something also that we already knew that companies they may
Speaker 5: not be letting people go, but they're not hiring either.
Speaker 2: We're going to hear from President Trump's speech virtual speech
Speaker 2: in Davos and just about a half an hour as
Speaker 2: per schedule, expecting economic topics to be discussed from the President.
Speaker 4: Well, you know, it is the World Economics, it is
Speaker 4: the World Economic Forum, but it is Donald Trump.
Speaker 5: So it's really hard to know exactly what he's going
Speaker 5: to say. But you can bet that the audience of
Speaker 5: CEOs is going to be sitting there anxiously awaiting to
Speaker 5: see if he might say something about tariffs. That's from
Speaker 5: what I can glean of the Davos coverage, that seems
Speaker 5: to be the number one concern of people in Davos.
Speaker 5: They're also looking for more talk about deregulation because they
Speaker 5: feel that's an important thing for them, and so those
Speaker 5: two would be the subjects I think would get the
Speaker 5: most attention from the audience.
Speaker 4: What are you working on right now at your desk?
Speaker 4: So here's the thing with Mike. He'll sit at his
Speaker 4: desk and he'll tinker. He'll read the most random reports.
Speaker 4: Then he'll make all these tie ins and link the
Speaker 4: nice theses together and I'll send it to me and
Speaker 4: be like, look at this, and then we'll talk about
Speaker 4: it on an email. What are you going to send
Speaker 4: me in like an hour.
Speaker 5: Well, I've been putting together a couple of things today.
Speaker 5: I'm looking at the overall change in auto imports from
Speaker 5: Canada and Mexico since the USMCA, the replacement for NAFTA
Speaker 5: came in to be, which was July first in twenty twenty,
Speaker 5: and you can see it's it's quite interesting the trade
Speaker 5: balance between the countries. Our trade deficit widened with Mexico
Speaker 5: and Canada Mexico somewhat significantly, but at the same time,
Speaker 5: over that period, the trade balance with China shrink So
Speaker 5: you know, it's still too big for Donald Trump's liking,
Speaker 5: obviously from what he says. But what we're seeing in
Speaker 5: terms of the cross border Canada Mexico stuff is that
Speaker 5: you know, we're importing more things from them.
Speaker 2: Is that the friend shoring impact? Do you think a
Speaker 2: little bit?
Speaker 5: A lot of that's the friend shoring impact and the
Speaker 5: fact that wages and costs so much lower in Mexico.
Speaker 5: So with a free trade agreement, it's been easy for companies,
Speaker 5: particularly auto companies, to move production to Mexico and then
Speaker 5: just import those cars because it doesn't cost them anything.
Speaker 4: So oil, our biggest importer of oil is Canada. They
Speaker 4: import our oil either way around, we import there. We
Speaker 4: still import a bunch of oil, and our biggest trading
Speaker 4: partner for that is Canada, so that's also a big
Speaker 4: one there.
Speaker 5: That's gonna be interesting.
Speaker 1: Oh, I know question.
Speaker 4: We'll talk about that.
Speaker 5: Later the Canadians actually do.
Speaker 4: Something about that, all right, Mike, Thanks lot. Mike McKee,
Speaker 4: Bloomberg International Economics and Policy correspondent on the nerdy things
Speaker 4: that he is looking at.
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Speaker 2: and that's the easy way to find this. Donald Trump
Speaker 2: self proclaimed greatest friend to the crypto space, Elon Musk
Speaker 2: in his inner circle. That's got to help. What does
Speaker 2: that mean for the crypto space over the next several years.
Speaker 2: Aisha Kiani joints the chief Operating officer for m n
Speaker 2: n C Group. She joins us here in our Bloomberg
Speaker 2: Interactive Broker studio. Your community, the crypto community, are you
Speaker 2: enthused about having President Donald Trump back in the White House?
Speaker 2: Is it positive for the crypto world or not so much?
Speaker 2: Or is it too early to tell?
Speaker 6: Too early to tell? So it's been both mixed signals.
Speaker 6: We obviously he's made the right moves with you know,
Speaker 6: a task force at SEC, with you know, the right
Speaker 6: CEA of TC chairman. Yes, all of those are uh,
Speaker 6: you know, the right moves and the moves we you know,
Speaker 6: we've been anticipating. But what happened over the weekend was
Speaker 6: that Trump launched his own meme coin and wait.
Speaker 2: You famouses Okay, yeah, you missed it. Missed you missed it.
Speaker 6: Everyone missed it other than us, the industry folks and we,
Speaker 6: you know, we were basically like, what is happening? And
Speaker 6: then Milania launched a trump coin on Sunday night?
Speaker 5: Nice?
Speaker 2: What does that mean? To launch a coin?
Speaker 6: You just go on So in this case, you go
Speaker 6: on Solana's blockchain and you launch a coin.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna launch a steal coin.
Speaker 6: Steal yeah, yeah, yes, does it trade yes, it does
Speaker 6: it It tads and trades in crypto markets at a
Speaker 6: crazy centralize value today. I mean combined both of the
Speaker 6: coins had of a combined value of forty billion at
Speaker 6: a pointy billion with the Bee big forty billion with
Speaker 6: the Bee.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So help us understand football this weekend?
Speaker 5: It wasn't you were not.
Speaker 4: Focused on that? Yeah, help us understand like the meme
Speaker 4: coin situation and all the frath versus the reality of
Speaker 4: crypto changing under Trump administration.
Speaker 6: I would call meme coins the froth right, and that
Speaker 6: is not that's a very bad look on us, and
Speaker 6: that's a very bad institutional look of the entire industry.
Speaker 6: That's something you know, we do not support. What you
Speaker 6: know we're here to support is Bitcoin eat Solana as
Speaker 6: like the real assets, so the real tech. But but
Speaker 6: if you're just going to go launch a coin raise
Speaker 6: So I wanted to bring like mention the stats here
Speaker 6: today because Shane Analysis just ran the research report yesterday.
Speaker 6: So fifty percent of Trump and Millennia had never bought
Speaker 6: a Solana alts coin before. Forty seven percent of buyers
Speaker 6: created their wallets the same day they purchased the tokens
Speaker 6: and then eighty three percent of the holder's own sub
Speaker 6: one thousand dollars of Solana assets. So he onboarded this
Speaker 6: many people on Solana's blockchain for the ecosystem.
Speaker 2: So is that I mean, and the suggestion is they
Speaker 2: these for lack of a better word, investors don't really
Speaker 2: we'd have no idea to know who they are or
Speaker 2: maybe help educated they are.
Speaker 6: Exactly right, Like, what's what's the value? What's the intrinsic value? Right,
Speaker 6: if you're going to invest in bitcoin or either Solon
Speaker 6: or Avalanche, there is an intrinsic value to it. It's
Speaker 6: a trusted chain. But what's an intrinsic value to a
Speaker 6: meme coin? Okay, I mean I don't know.
Speaker 4: I don't think that's probably the point, right, So what
Speaker 4: are you guys talking about in class? Also? You uh,
Speaker 4: do you teach it? What are you guys talking about
Speaker 4: when it relates to crypto and regulation? What's like the
Speaker 4: zeitgeist there?
Speaker 6: So, I mean, obviously all positive news for us, you know,
Speaker 6: going forward starting this administration, that what we're looking forward to, Like,
Speaker 6: you know, is it a commodity? Are all of them
Speaker 6: are commodities? Are all of them are utilities? Or Are
Speaker 6: we just going to give this a new class, you know,
Speaker 6: shared class or a new asset class. That's one thing.
Speaker 6: The other thing is that obviously on how the tech works.
Speaker 6: So something that this meme coin craze over the weekend
Speaker 6: did was it kind of pointed out faults in our
Speaker 6: own space. Right like coin based, the largest retail institutional
Speaker 6: exchange had issues. Solana, the blockchain itself had issues. Right,
Speaker 6: are we ready? Are we ready to onboard this many users?
Speaker 6: So I would be opening up my semester with that.
Speaker 6: Normally I do it with bitcoin, but this time I
Speaker 6: would say, guys, this is the perfect use case. Right,
Speaker 6: does it work, does it not work? Which case worked,
Speaker 6: which case didn't work? And we can analyze it chain
Speaker 6: by chain? What broke? At what point?
Speaker 2: What is the expectation of the industry about regulation under
Speaker 2: a Trump administration? Is this something that you expect the
Speaker 2: SEC to take the lead? The CFTC something new, So he.
Speaker 6: Has set up a special task for at SEC. And
Speaker 6: Caroline fam the acting chair at CFTC, is also very
Speaker 6: pro crypto. I've known her for a while, you know,
Speaker 6: phenomenal person. It's just that they have a better understanding
Speaker 6: of the asset. So when you know, when we'd go
Speaker 6: you know, for guidelines or when we'd go to help
Speaker 6: or when we'd ask for more clarity, they know what
Speaker 6: we're talking about other than you know, just be being
Speaker 6: an onshore acid or an offshore asset.
Speaker 4: So it's less like open season for crypto and it's
Speaker 4: more just like the people in the positions have the
Speaker 4: right kind of language to sort of move things along
Speaker 4: in a helpful way that's correct or someone understands like
Speaker 4: the words you're saying if you're talking about crypto. Right,
Speaker 4: So based on that, what's realistic in this administration and
Speaker 4: what is the stuff that we should be ignoring, like
Speaker 4: the strategic reserve kind of thing, like what's real what's not?
Speaker 6: I think anything that touches Bitcoin and anything touches ethereum
Speaker 6: or anything that touches any of the original legacy coins
Speaker 6: is real. Right, Bitcoin reserve, Yes, that should be you
Speaker 6: know real because Bitcoin does have a limited supply, but
Speaker 6: like launches off meme coins to generate like you know,
Speaker 6: additional wealth and the word liberty financial that is considered frauth.
Speaker 2: Okay, so the strategic reserve alex is for with this
Speaker 2: oil you think it has some value. It should be
Speaker 2: considered for bitcoin.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think it does because again limited value, limited number,
Speaker 6: limited quantity, only twenty one million in value, twenty one
Speaker 6: million in quantity, nineteen million and change have already been mined.
Speaker 6: So and oil you can still keep on drilling right,
Speaker 6: like you'd find oil at like you know, unknown places still,
Speaker 6: but Bitcoin, we cannot go back and change the code
Speaker 6: to make it from twenty one million to twenty.
Speaker 4: Five I mean fair enough, Thanks very much. It's so
Speaker 4: good to get your perspective. We love having you on.
Speaker 4: Ayisha Kiani, chief operating officer at MNNC Group and professor
Speaker 4: at m YU.
Speaker 6: What's your class called Introduction to Blockchain and DLT.
Speaker 4: Don't you feel like we should take that class?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Audit, I mean kinda right.
Speaker 6: I'll send you my lectures. And the more he keeps
Speaker 6: on making these announcements, I feel like the more I'll
Speaker 6: be coming here, So I'll start just sending you my lectures.
Speaker 4: Okay, we'll take it.
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