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Speaker 2: We're talking politics here in Washington. We will get back
Speaker 2: to trolley a bit later on here. Not the most
Speaker 2: inspired session, but then again, we broke through some tough
Speaker 2: technical levels on Friday, and we'll keep tabs on this.
Speaker 2: It is a tough headline to wake up to today
Speaker 2: that the markets are back to where they were the
Speaker 2: day before the election. But maybe that's because we're waiting
Speaker 2: for news. Isn't that the point here? And we're going
Speaker 2: to have a lot of news, by the way, not
Speaker 2: only in the next twenty four hours here as lawmakers
Speaker 2: get back to town, but also from the White House
Speaker 2: as we cover both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. It's the
Speaker 2: big farewell tour this week. It starts today Joe Biden
Speaker 2: two pm Eastern, a foreign policy address at the State Department.
Speaker 2: You'll of course be hearing about that here on Bloomberg.
Speaker 2: The big one though, is Wednesday night. That's the actual
Speaker 2: farewell address, as it's being billed by the White House
Speaker 2: Primetime Oval Office. They're treating it like it's the real thing.
Speaker 2: And then he'll continue at Department of Defense Thursday, and
Speaker 2: we'll speak to mayors on Friday. And of course we're
Speaker 2: all winding up to the big inauguration here. It's the
Speaker 2: thirteenth of January. We're almost there. Not that lawmakers are waiting.
Speaker 2: They were meeting with Donald Trump over the weekend on
Speaker 2: the patio at Mar A Lago. We talked to many
Speaker 2: of them leading up to these meetings last week, the
Speaker 2: different factions with different priorities, and still some questions when
Speaker 2: it comes to sequencing.
Speaker 3: By the way, you.
Speaker 2: Might be reassured to know the House Ways and Means
Speaker 2: Committee is actually holding its first hearing on making the
Speaker 2: Trump tax cuts permanent. So, as I said at the outset,
Speaker 2: the gears are turning. The question is exactly what will
Speaker 2: be the approach. That's why we wanted to talk to
Speaker 2: Grover Norquist, of course a long time hand in this conversation.
Speaker 2: We're about to have it all over again with making
Speaker 2: the Trump tax cuts permanent, and mister Norquist is already
Speaker 2: talking about it from his perch at Americans for Tax Reform,
Speaker 2: roughly two blocks from where we sit here at Bloomberg.
Speaker 3: Welcome.
Speaker 2: It's good to see you here in Washingtonuely, you are
Speaker 2: writing in an opbed that I caught in the Las
Speaker 2: Vegas Review Journal. Unleashing growth is the headline, and you're
Speaker 2: pretty blunt about this. I don't know if you're having
Speaker 2: conversations like these with lawmakers and what their reaction is,
Speaker 2: but you say two things very clearly off the top.
Speaker 2: To delay the tax cut is to kill.
Speaker 3: The tax cut.
Speaker 2: But more than that, if Republicans delay the Trump tax cuts,
Speaker 2: you say, they will lose the House. This window will
Speaker 2: be open for how long.
Speaker 4: We really need to move and get something in the
Speaker 4: next four months. And you need to date when the
Speaker 4: tax cut continuation begins to January first of this year.
Speaker 4: And we've had two times this is not work. One
Speaker 4: was Trump's first presidency, which is why he and the
Speaker 4: Republicans who were here in twenty seventeen. That bill was
Speaker 4: discussed for a year. It didn't pass until December twenty
Speaker 4: second of twenty seventeen. It didn't take effect until January first,
Speaker 4: and twenty eighteen, and then there was strong growth, very
Speaker 4: strong economic growth in twenty nineteen. But in twenty eighteen
Speaker 4: the Republicans lost forty House seats and control of.
Speaker 3: The House because of the lagged effect in that coal process.
Speaker 4: Well, if you're a small businessman or a large business
Speaker 4: and you're trying to decide, do we build another building,
Speaker 4: do we build another factory, do we hire one more
Speaker 4: person or ten more people, do we get a second truck?
Speaker 4: You know, just small decisions that add up. Well, if
Speaker 4: I don't know what's happening to expensing, I think, oh wait,
Speaker 4: because spencing expensing has been weakening, And unless I know
Speaker 4: that it kicks in this year January of twenty five,
Speaker 4: why would I make a decision. Why would I do
Speaker 4: it now instead of waiting until later. So the delay
Speaker 4: means any strengthening of the economy would show up much
Speaker 4: too late to help in the election in twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: It also comes to just certainty, right confidence. To your point,
Speaker 2: you're talking about business owners. We talk about that a
Speaker 2: lot here too.
Speaker 3: It's bloomberg.
Speaker 2: We also talk about people simply making investment decisions. This
Speaker 2: market starting to teeter a little bit was a rocket
Speaker 2: ship the day after the election, and some folks do
Speaker 2: point to uncertain year when it comes to policy. You've
Speaker 2: got a debt sealing matter hanging out there, you've got
Speaker 2: tax cuts, and we don't even have a funding mechanism
Speaker 2: for the government beyond March. So when lawmakers dig in
Speaker 2: here president will be in office in just days.
Speaker 3: What should be the sequence and how do they get
Speaker 3: to this?
Speaker 2: I want to deal with border policy, you want to
Speaker 2: deal with tax cuts out of the gate?
Speaker 3: Is it one bill?
Speaker 4: It will be one bill, and the path to getting
Speaker 4: to one bill it was always obvious that it had
Speaker 4: to be one built Two bills is much too confusing
Speaker 4: and everyone would sit there wanting to jump onto Bill
Speaker 4: number one. Okay, whoever was put in numbers to criticize it,
Speaker 4: you mean, or to move to say I want my
Speaker 4: project in Bill one. Not built too right, and it'd
Speaker 4: be very confusing. We've been working those groups that are
Speaker 4: supportive of continuing the tax cut, and the House and
Speaker 4: Senate leadership in Ways and Means and finance, Jason Smith
Speaker 4: and Senator Crapo, they've been working together for a year
Speaker 4: on this stuff. So this is an awful lot of
Speaker 4: work done and the President is having meetings now, not
Speaker 4: three months from now, with the House and Senate to
Speaker 4: move these things forward. There's a great consensus on everything
Speaker 4: should get done. There are a few issues that where
Speaker 4: people could go one of two ways. Compromises have been
Speaker 4: been put forward seven months ago, eight months ago.
Speaker 2: Intercontinuing, what about the Thoon argument, John Thune says, one
Speaker 2: an early win, I can give you the border within
Speaker 2: days of Donald Trump taking off. It's going to take
Speaker 2: me a couple of months to write the tax legislation.
Speaker 2: Why don't we do this now? Take the win, and
Speaker 2: then we'll come back around because we get two swings
Speaker 2: at reconciliation.
Speaker 3: Where's the problem there?
Speaker 4: It's not a problem, but there's a better way to
Speaker 4: do it. The President's going to put forward about one
Speaker 4: hundred executive orders on day one. Many of those deal
Speaker 4: with the border. What went wrong at the border over
Speaker 4: the last four years was all executive orders. There was
Speaker 4: no change in the law between when very few people
Speaker 4: were coming in illegally to where millions were. Those were
Speaker 4: all decisions by the Biden administration. In effect, executive orders,
Speaker 4: decisions by the presidency and the Border Guard, Order patrol,
Speaker 4: Border patrol system.
Speaker 5: Just undo them.
Speaker 4: Okay, the president made the bad decision, or if you
Speaker 4: want border security, he made ones that made this order
Speaker 4: less secure. Trump just return to the status quo.
Speaker 3: You don't have to wait for legislation, is your point.
Speaker 3: Just let him do that. Start working, start right the
Speaker 3: tax bill.
Speaker 4: And with the tax bill, you can find money in
Speaker 4: the Defense Department in various places to rebuild the wall.
Speaker 4: The walls largely built. They just left the doors open
Speaker 4: in the last four years, so doesn't take a lot
Speaker 4: of money to get that wall back up and going
Speaker 4: to where it was a pretty secure border as Trump
Speaker 4: left the White House. So these things can happen inside
Speaker 4: the tax bill. The tax bill will have spending cuts,
Speaker 4: but also some spending on defense and the border. That
Speaker 4: will happen very quickly. But the executive orders can happen immediately.
Speaker 2: Spending time with Grover Norquist, who says it's one big bill,
Speaker 2: as Donald Trump would say, one big, beautiful bill when
Speaker 2: it comes to border, tax cuts and the rest of
Speaker 2: the congressional agenda. Scott Bessen's going to be on the
Speaker 2: hill this week for his confirmation.
Speaker 5: Here.
Speaker 2: Yes, he has sat right in the chair you're in
Speaker 2: now to try to answer questions about how this cocktail
Speaker 2: of tariffs and tax cuts does not lead to higher
Speaker 2: deficts and potentially reinflation. You've spent your entire career trying
Speaker 2: to not taxes lower, and I realized that that is
Speaker 2: your focus. Do you worry about that seeing deficits increase
Speaker 2: or you believe that revenues will rise enough by growth
Speaker 2: that somehow it offsets the loss of revenue from cuts.
Speaker 4: The cost of government is total spending, and it's not
Speaker 4: the deficit. The deficit is the tip of the iceberg. Okay,
Speaker 4: but what sinks the Titanic is the part of the
Speaker 4: iceberg under the water. I understand total government spending is
Speaker 4: what causes inflation, is what slows economic growth. So we
Speaker 4: want two things. We want spending to be as low
Speaker 4: as possible, and that means reforming entitlements. We were within
Speaker 4: one vote then in the last Trump presidency when John
Speaker 4: McCain voted no on what would have block granted to
Speaker 4: the States Medicate that was a tremendous savings over a decade.
Speaker 4: Simply by saying it will grow with inflation, but not
Speaker 4: further than not faster than that. Huge says to be
Speaker 4: made in block granting the welfare programs, not social Security,
Speaker 4: not care, but the welfare programs. And there's more than
Speaker 4: one hundred various means tested programs. Reagan block granted about
Speaker 4: one hundred of them when he came in, a lot
Speaker 4: of smaller ones. So that's a huge savings you can
Speaker 4: sell Fanny and Freddie. I mean there are a number
Speaker 4: of things. One of the things they want to do
Speaker 4: with more energy, at leasting more properties. There's a lot
Speaker 4: of cash to be earned that can pay for budget.
Speaker 3: So you see some flexibility here.
Speaker 2: I just want to make sure we understand before we're
Speaker 2: done growth, growth the most understand the.
Speaker 4: Most important way to keep the deficit down.
Speaker 2: A strung I read you, will the deficit be lower
Speaker 2: after four years of Donald Trump than it is now?
Speaker 3: I think so, yeah, does it need to be?
Speaker 4: It should be, and it can be both. We need
Speaker 4: more spending cuts and we need more growth.
Speaker 2: Come talk to us when the debate gets real the
Speaker 2: ways it means that we start having a real conversation
Speaker 2: about this bill. Grover Norquist with us here on Bloomberg.
Speaker 2: Americans for Tax Reform.
Speaker 3: Stay with us.
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Speaker 1: Bloomberg eleven thirty.
Speaker 6: Back down here to Washington, where many members of the
Speaker 6: House Republican Conference has made their way back after spending
Speaker 6: some time in Florida this weekend. The Salt Republicans, as
Speaker 6: we've mentioned, having an audience with the President elect at
Speaker 6: mar A Lago, but others as well, Joe, including members
Speaker 6: of say, the House Freedom Caucus, basically groups of people
Speaker 6: within the conference who are going to have to try
Speaker 6: to find a way to compromise on.
Speaker 7: Issues like specifically tax balls.
Speaker 3: Must have been quite a crowd. I mean, I always
Speaker 3: wonder they get their own cabin when they go.
Speaker 2: When that many people are there, because you had Main
Speaker 2: Street partnership there too, Cayley, and a lot of the
Speaker 2: questions that we've been asking you have not been answered
Speaker 2: in terms of sequencing, and that's where we want to
Speaker 2: start with Zach Cohen ahead of our conversation with Nicole
Speaker 2: Malia Takus, who's going to join us live from Capitol
Speaker 2: Hill in just a moment. Zach sets the baseline at
Speaker 2: Bluemberg Tax. Zach, you're a full time Salt reporter. We
Speaker 2: want to know what's happening there. But also in the
Speaker 2: greater picture, will the Republican leadership in the House pursue
Speaker 2: one big bill here as we've been asking, or will
Speaker 2: take longer to write this tax bill, including elements like
Speaker 2: salt that are making things a bit more complicated than
Speaker 2: they were in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 8: Right because before they can figure out what or how
Speaker 8: they're going to change the tax God, they got to
Speaker 8: figure out when there's business ongoing debate where you have
Speaker 8: House Republicans mostly on one side, set of Republicans on
Speaker 8: the other talking about do we include an extension of
Speaker 8: the twenty seventeen tax cuts that were pass during the
Speaker 8: first Trump administration and a first reconciliation bill along with
Speaker 8: things like board security and energy, military and defense spending,
Speaker 8: or do we punt on that issue and deal with
Speaker 8: it later in the year. Congress is known to really
Speaker 8: only work when it's under a deadline. At the deadline
Speaker 8: that they're keeping in mind is the end of this
Speaker 8: calendar year when vas swats of the twenty seventeen tax
Speaker 8: cuts of job ZACH do expire. And so there's some
Speaker 8: thought that we compare that end of your deadline with
Speaker 8: some of the cuts that E La musk If vec
Speaker 8: Bamaswami are putting together at at DOGE as one way
Speaker 8: to offset the multi trillion dollar tax cut that would
Speaker 8: be extended over the next ten years. I Republicans do
Speaker 8: indeed have the votes in bote, the House and the
Speaker 8: Senate to do just that. They have to work through
Speaker 8: some of the trickier issues like things like the state
Speaker 8: and local tax deduction, which I'm sure we'll talk about.
Speaker 8: Things like, you know, do they make any changes to
Speaker 8: the corporate tax rate? What do they do about these
Speaker 8: expiring business provisions. These are all the things that are going
Speaker 8: to have to figure out in the next couple of months,
Speaker 8: and there's a difference of opinion on exactly how much
Speaker 8: time it would take to actually work out those details.
Speaker 6: Well, so, when it comes to salt, specifically ZACH, which
Speaker 6: obviously right now is capped at ten thousand dollars, was
Speaker 6: there a firm discussion of numbers as we understand it
Speaker 6: at mar A Lago or was it just you know, hey,
Speaker 6: making it clear that lawmakers from New York and California
Speaker 6: and a handful of other districts want to see this done,
Speaker 6: and Donald Trump was like, Okay, yeah, let's think about.
Speaker 9: It some more.
Speaker 10: Yeah.
Speaker 8: I think Trump on a very regular basis said he
Speaker 8: wants to try to lift the cap. I think eliminating
Speaker 8: it entirely is unlikely, just given how expensive that would be.
Speaker 8: But Trump, even during the presidential campaign said we should
Speaker 8: do something about the salt cap, which we should point
Speaker 8: out was included in twenty seventeen tax bill that he
Speaker 8: himself signed as a way to offset some of the
Speaker 8: other changes they have bade to the task Code to
Speaker 8: try to keep the trice tag down, and so they
Speaker 8: come up with a couple of different ideas. The Trump
Speaker 8: economic advisors have talked about doubling the current salt cap
Speaker 8: from ten thousand to twenty thousand dollars. That's something that
Speaker 8: people like Congressman Mike Lawler and Nickeol Loota, both from
Speaker 8: New York, have said is insufficient to helping some of
Speaker 8: their constituents, who, while making six figures is certainly as
Speaker 8: you know, in New York is basically a middle class
Speaker 8: lifestyle given how expensive how expensive it is to live there,
Speaker 8: and so Lawler has said, let's bost it to one
Speaker 8: hundred thousand dollars single filers, two hundred thousand for married couples.
Speaker 8: That might be a bit of a stretch, so they
Speaker 8: may end up somewhere in the middle. I was talking
Speaker 8: to your next guest, Congressman Malia Takis over the week.
Speaker 8: She said they talked about indexing the salt caps, similar
Speaker 8: to how the standard deduction increases year over year without
Speaker 8: congressional action to account for inflation. So there's a bunch
Speaker 8: of different ideas on the table. The question is how
Speaker 8: do you get the two hundred and eighteen votes in
Speaker 8: the House and fifty one votes in the Senate off.
Speaker 8: The MAT's little harder in the House, especially when you
Speaker 8: have fiscal hawks who are trying to keep the price
Speaker 8: tag down. Even Lindsey Graham, the incoming chairman of the
Speaker 8: Budget Committee from South Carolina, was saying, I don't want
Speaker 8: to be subsidizing high tax states places like New York,
Speaker 8: New Jersey, California, and so they're going to have to
Speaker 8: figure out some way to make both ends of their
Speaker 8: publican conference work and if they can, going to Democrats
Speaker 8: and try to work out some bi parisan deal.
Speaker 6: All right, Bloomberg Tax Congress reporter Zach Cohen, thank you
Speaker 6: so much for the reporting and also for the perfect
Speaker 6: ties ahead to our next guest who is joining us
Speaker 6: now live from Capitol Hill. Republican Congressoman Nicole mally Takis
Speaker 6: of New York, who Zach just mentioned, is with us
Speaker 6: now here on Bloomberg TV and Radio. Congresswoman, welcome back
Speaker 6: to Balance of Power. You've obviously made it back safely
Speaker 6: to Washington from mar A Lago. I know you told
Speaker 6: Zach and have expressed that really this is about getting
Speaker 6: to two hundred and eighteen and whatever number it is
Speaker 6: on SALT that can get the requisite votes. But is
Speaker 6: there a floor and a ceiling, some kind of parameter
Speaker 6: around what that number actually realistically could look like you
Speaker 6: could share with us.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 11: Look, I think your reporter got it just right. At
Speaker 11: the low end, it would be doubling it from ten
Speaker 11: to twenty. On the high end, it would be one
Speaker 11: hundred thousand for individual I quite frankly think that is
Speaker 11: a little too high, in particular if we're looking to
Speaker 11: target middle class families. I think it could be really
Speaker 11: more between the twenty and the sixty range. And this
Speaker 11: is just me knowing all the information I know as
Speaker 11: a member of Ways and Means and looking at the
Speaker 11: big piece, big picture, the big puzzle, knowing all the
Speaker 11: other pieces that need to fit into this equation. I
Speaker 11: think the idea here is to get some type of
Speaker 11: relief from the federal level. Four our constituents in New York,
Speaker 11: New Jersey, California, because their mayors and governors, quite frankly,
Speaker 11: are abusing them, keep increasing their taxes. The property tax
Speaker 11: levy in New York City goes up year after year
Speaker 11: after year. It's the only municipality in the state that
Speaker 11: does not have a two percent.
Speaker 5: Cap, and that's unfortunate.
Speaker 11: This problem could obviously be resolved by our mayor and
Speaker 11: governor if they were just to freeze property taxes or
Speaker 11: lower the personal income tax rate, as President Trump did
Speaker 11: in TCJA in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 5: But you have to remember there's the other pieces. You
Speaker 5: have the standard deduction that was doubled. You had the
Speaker 5: child tax credit that was doubled.
Speaker 11: You had the Alternative minimum tax which went away completely
Speaker 11: for the middle class, which was really crushing them, and
Speaker 11: it actually prevented them from benefiting from salt.
Speaker 5: So we can't have the AMT come back as part
Speaker 5: of this.
Speaker 11: I've made that very clear, and so we're working with
Speaker 11: all these different pieces, not to mention the corporate stuff
Speaker 11: and the R and D tax credit and bonus appreciation,
Speaker 11: so many.
Speaker 5: Other pieces that are going to be part of this package.
Speaker 2: Fascinating Congresswoman that you're also exploring some more creative ideas here.
Speaker 2: The reporting that we're reading coming out of the mar
Speaker 2: A Lago conference quotes you to suggest maybe we increase
Speaker 2: the deduction. If your state freezes or lowers the tax rate,
Speaker 2: maybe the deduction goes even higher. Now, this is getting interesting,
Speaker 2: and I wonder what the reaction that you got was
Speaker 2: from your fellow lawmakers, from the President elect, and maybe
Speaker 2: even from Democrats who you've floated this to.
Speaker 5: Well.
Speaker 11: I think my colleagues actually really like that idea, because
Speaker 11: part of the problem is we want to give relief.
Speaker 9: But if we give.
Speaker 11: Taxpayers money back with one hand, and the governor and
Speaker 11: mayor come along and just raise taxes and take it
Speaker 11: with the other, that's a problem and the taxpayer ends
Speaker 11: up losing at the end of the day, and so
Speaker 11: how do we incentivize, how do we change.
Speaker 5: Behavior, How do we hold the.
Speaker 11: Mayors and the governors that are treating taxpayers like ATMs accountable?
Speaker 5: And so we have to see if this can legally
Speaker 5: be done. That's the big question.
Speaker 11: Can we let's say double this deduction and then say
Speaker 11: maybe it goes up, it.
Speaker 5: Triples or quadruples if your state take.
Speaker 11: Action to freeze put a cap on property taxes and
Speaker 11: freeze income taxes or reduce them. You know, these are
Speaker 11: ideas that we're tossing around. I've also said, maybe we
Speaker 11: want to limit the property tax portion of this deduction
Speaker 11: for primary residences, right so that could actually target the
Speaker 11: people that truly needed. I think there's a lot of
Speaker 11: different ideas being floated around, and as a member of
Speaker 11: the Ways and Means Committee, we are obviously crunching the numbers,
Speaker 11: but we have to wait until the Budgets Committee gives
Speaker 11: us the top line and the reconciliation instructions to really figure.
Speaker 5: Out how to put together this Rubik's cube. And that's
Speaker 5: you know.
Speaker 11: In the meantime, we're doing the math and trying to
Speaker 11: figure out what our options are and we'll go from there.
Speaker 6: Well as we talk about the kind of structure of
Speaker 6: reconciliation Congressoman, was there consensus built at mar A Lago
Speaker 6: this week und around the one bill or two idea?
Speaker 6: Is this still a live debate? What messaging was you?
Speaker 6: Were you, you and your colleagues delivering to the president elect?
Speaker 6: And what was he saying in return?
Speaker 11: I think the majority of our membership, certainly all the
Speaker 11: members of the Houseways and Means Committee, want to see
Speaker 11: one bill. And if you saw what happened in the
Speaker 11: last week of session right last year, that's the reason
Speaker 11: why we need one bill. It's hard to build consensus
Speaker 11: when you have such a slim majority. And the last
Speaker 11: time they did two reconciliation bills, it was under Gingridge
Speaker 11: in nineteen ninety seven and he had a much larger majority.
Speaker 11: You have to remember TCJA there were thirteen no Republican votes.
Speaker 11: We don't have that luxury.
Speaker 5: We have one. We have a majority of one. So
Speaker 5: we have to build consensus, and I think.
Speaker 11: The best way to do that is to put the
Speaker 11: different pieces that members care about together. The border security measures,
Speaker 11: the energy production measures.
Speaker 5: Those will satisfy some of the border states.
Speaker 11: The energy producing states, and you have the salt states,
Speaker 11: get something with our salt relief. And overall we support
Speaker 11: as a conference, we support tax cuts, we support border security,
Speaker 11: we support American energy dominance. So let's just drill down
Speaker 11: and negotiate with each other on those finer details of
Speaker 11: each of these and get one bill passed.
Speaker 5: So we get to the two eighteen.
Speaker 11: If you kick tax to the end of the year
Speaker 11: in a separate package, I very much fear that it
Speaker 11: will expire and America will see four trillion dollars in
Speaker 11: tax increases. We cannot afford to allow that to happen.
Speaker 11: It's too risky to do it later on in the
Speaker 11: year and not upfront with this first package.
Speaker 2: Well, Congresswoman, that's as long as we've ever gone in
Speaker 2: a conversation. I think before you mentioned the border, So
Speaker 2: let's get to it. There is a thought out there,
Speaker 2: and Grover Norquist suggested it a little bit earlier in
Speaker 2: the broadcast that Donald Trump's plans to issue some one
Speaker 2: hundred executive orders, many of them aimed at the border,
Speaker 2: will give you breathing room to actually craft a single
Speaker 2: bill that would include border security and the tax issues
Speaker 2: that we're talking about Is that the way you're looking
Speaker 2: at this. Let the President handle the border out of
Speaker 2: the gate. We'll back them up with legislation when it's
Speaker 2: done being written here and our debate concludes on the hill.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Well, you know, the Senate has made the argument
Speaker 5: that we need.
Speaker 11: To do too, because we want to do the border
Speaker 11: wins early on. There's a way we can achieve that. First,
Speaker 11: as you say, the President can issue the executive orders,
Speaker 11: and he will do that to undo the policies of
Speaker 11: the Biden administration. But we've also passed legislation. Just the
Speaker 11: other day, we passed the Lake and Riley Act, which
Speaker 11: would require those who commit certain crimes to be detained
Speaker 11: and deported.
Speaker 5: And we're working.
Speaker 11: Through pieces of legislation that can get bipartisan support and
Speaker 11: the sixty votes needed in the Senate to get that
Speaker 11: out the door and put it on the president's desk
Speaker 11: for when he arrives next week. So I think we
Speaker 11: can score those border victories early and then really when
Speaker 11: it comes to the reconciliation, it has to have a
Speaker 11: fiscal implication, right, So we can't necessarily do Lake and
Speaker 11: Riley Act in reconciliation, but we can increase border patrol.
Speaker 11: We can increase technology, we can put some things in
Speaker 11: there that would help with the deportation of criminals, and
Speaker 11: maybe adding judges to hear these asylum cases faster.
Speaker 5: So I think we can achieve.
Speaker 11: Both things here. And the bottom line is a president
Speaker 11: really just wants to get it done. I don't think
Speaker 11: he cares at the end of the day on whether
Speaker 11: it's one or two. I think he just wants to
Speaker 11: get the policies done that will get America back on track.
Speaker 11: We've made the case that it should be one bill,
Speaker 11: and I think he sees the merit of one bill.
Speaker 11: As I said, considering what happened at the end of
Speaker 11: last year where we had so much back and forth
Speaker 11: within our conference.
Speaker 6: Well and part of that saga at the end of
Speaker 6: last year congressoman was a question over whether the debt
Speaker 6: ceiling should be lifted or abolished entirely before Trump takes office.
Speaker 6: How was that interplaying in the conversations this weekend. When
Speaker 6: is that going to happen, in what legislation and what
Speaker 6: could potentially be the Trade Office we've seen reporting that
Speaker 6: it might be debt ceiling in exchange for wildfire relief
Speaker 6: in California.
Speaker 11: Well, you know, interestingly enough, a lot of members believe
Speaker 11: that the debt limit piece of this is probably the
Speaker 11: most complicated, because that's where you see the most friction
Speaker 11: in our conference. There are some members who never voted
Speaker 11: to increase the debt limit, and we have to understand
Speaker 11: that the debt limit is money that's already been spent
Speaker 11: that we're paying the bill. We don't want to prevent
Speaker 11: a default. So the responsible thing to do is to
Speaker 11: address that debt limit.
Speaker 5: And do it before June.
Speaker 11: I think we're just going to look for any vehicle
Speaker 11: where we can get it. It could be with disaster aid,
Speaker 11: it could be within the reconciliation, it could be within
Speaker 11: the government funding mechanism, the you know, the federal budget.
Speaker 11: So we'll see, we'll see what vehicle where we can
Speaker 11: get it. But it does need to be addressed before June.
Speaker 11: The sooner we can do it, the better. Let's get
Speaker 11: it out of the way. It's just the most contentious piece.
Speaker 11: And then and then get to the other real policy
Speaker 11: issues that the Americans people have been waiting for. Right
Speaker 11: They want to get this economy back on track. They
Speaker 11: want to see the tax cuts extended and enhanced. They
Speaker 11: want to see our border secure and people who are
Speaker 11: here illegally committing crimes deported, and they want to see
Speaker 11: us lower those energy costs and produce more energy domestically.
Speaker 2: Congresswoman, with regard to the border, while you're with us
Speaker 2: here in our remaining couple of moments, a warning from
Speaker 2: Immigrations and custom enforcement. Without emergency funding, they could be
Speaker 2: forced to release tens of thousands of immigrants, including some
Speaker 2: deemed to be public safety threats. We've talked a lot
Speaker 2: about the number of migrants being held in hotels, for instance,
Speaker 2: in places like New York City. Are you in touch
Speaker 2: with ICE and with border patrol on this matter? Would
Speaker 2: Congress be there to prevent the release of people dangerous
Speaker 2: to Americans?
Speaker 5: Well, I have not heard about this.
Speaker 11: If there's an issue with the funding, because the funding
Speaker 11: is there for the next to the end of March,
Speaker 11: I think what they need to do is actually find
Speaker 11: a way to shift the funding so instead of housing
Speaker 11: individuals and transporting individuals into America's cities, were actually deporting
Speaker 11: them and repatriating them. And if there are committing crimes
Speaker 11: and they don't have legitimate asylum claims, I think that
Speaker 11: we met with Tom Homan about this. I mean, particularly
Speaker 11: New York City has been destroyed, you know, by havoc
Speaker 11: being wreaked by illegal immigrants, gang members, drug traffickers, people
Speaker 11: who are bad, dangerous people. They've they've committed murder, they've
Speaker 11: committed robberies, they've committed all sorts of crimes in our city,
Speaker 11: and we need to get them out of our city
Speaker 11: and our country. And so the question really has been
Speaker 11: how does the incoming administration legally Is there a way
Speaker 11: for them to shift some of the funny mondy money
Speaker 11: that has actually been used to provide incentives and house
Speaker 11: these individuals and give them free services to actually.
Speaker 5: Remove them from our country.
Speaker 11: And that's I think what the incoming administration is gonna
Speaker 11: have to address when they get there next week.
Speaker 2: From New York's eleventh District, Nicole Malia Taka is great
Speaker 2: to see you, Congress women. We thank you giving us
Speaker 2: a little report from mar A Lago there, Kaylee, interesting
Speaker 2: to consider some of the options that lawmakers are facing
Speaker 2: or we're going to have more with our political panel
Speaker 2: on that matter. Straight Head Jeanie Shanzano and Chapin Fay,
Speaker 2: our Democrat and Republican, respectively, trying to find the way
Speaker 2: forward as lawmakers get back to town.
Speaker 3: This is Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast. Catch
Speaker 1: us live weekdays at noon and five pm Eastern on Apple,
Speaker 1: Cockley and Android, Otto with the Bloomberg Business App. Listen
Speaker 1: on demand wherever you get your podcasts, or watch us
Speaker 1: live on YouTube.
Speaker 6: Next Monday will not be an ordinary debut of the
Speaker 6: treaty week because it will be an inauguration, which happens
Speaker 6: to fall on Martin Luther King Junior Day this year, Joe.
Speaker 6: But that does mean we are in the final week
Speaker 6: here of the Biden administration before it becomes a Trump administration,
Speaker 6: and many of the individuals who intend to join that
Speaker 6: administration have been nominated by the President elect. Are going
Speaker 6: to have a busy week leading up to the inauguration
Speaker 6: as they get ready to sit and be questioned drilled
Speaker 6: by lawmakers in the Senate beginning tomorrow with the Defense
Speaker 6: Secretary nominee Pete Hegsea.
Speaker 2: More stressful than others, but quite a number here, Kaylee.
Speaker 2: We're all paying attention to the more dramatic potentials and
Speaker 2: some of the more bold faces here, but we're talking
Speaker 2: about thirteen nominees before eleven different committees.
Speaker 3: This is going to be an extremely busy week.
Speaker 2: The one everyone's talking about Pete Hegseth Department of Defense,
Speaker 2: that's tomorrow, but much more where that came from. We'll
Speaker 2: see Pam Bondi and Marco Rubio on Wednesday, right, AG
Speaker 2: and State Department. John Ratcliffe is CIA that same day,
Speaker 2: and on Thursday we'll see the man tap for Treasury,
Speaker 2: Scott bessen That's just the tip of the iceberg that
Speaker 2: We've got a lot more where these come from. I
Speaker 2: suspect we're going to hear a lot about Pete Hegseth tomorrow,
Speaker 2: no matter what happens, as long as Elizabeth Warren shows up.
Speaker 6: Yeah, she has a long list of questions for him
Speaker 6: as he spaced scrutiny when it comes to a number
Speaker 6: of his views and of course past allegations of sexual
Speaker 6: assault that he denies. She has a long list of
Speaker 6: questions for Scott Bessant, though, did you see that?
Speaker 3: Just longer than PE's currently one page?
Speaker 6: I mean, and some of them are like question, sub bullet,
Speaker 6: second sub bullet, triple sub bullet. He's going to have
Speaker 6: a lot to answer, not just in the hearing, but
Speaker 6: probably in writing.
Speaker 3: Gives you a.
Speaker 2: Chance to rehearse maybe some answers. Let's get our panel together.
Speaker 2: They're going to be watching all of this, and I
Speaker 2: do wonder if any of these could take on a
Speaker 2: different course based on the Q and A that we
Speaker 2: see in here this week. Gdi Shanzeno is with us,
Speaker 2: of course, our democratic analyst, political science professor at Iona
Speaker 2: University and Bloomberg Politics contributors.
Speaker 3: She's joined by Republican.
Speaker 2: Analyst Chapein Faye, founder Lighthouse Public Affairs.
Speaker 3: Great to have both of you with us.
Speaker 2: Chapin, Pete Hegseth surely knows that he's going to have
Speaker 2: some difficult questions. To Kaylie's point, Elizabeth Warren has already
Speaker 2: sent her seventy two questions to him. We're going to
Speaker 2: be hearing from Kirsten, jillibrand Joni Ernst. Who will you
Speaker 2: be watching tomorrow that could potentially change the course of
Speaker 2: this nomination.
Speaker 9: We'll I'll be watching Pete Hegseth and how he handles it.
Speaker 12: You know, this is their job and their prerogative to
Speaker 12: ask questions and tough questions of the president's nominees and
Speaker 12: in today's you know, can it change course from what
Speaker 12: we think absolutely in any second if you watch, you know,
Speaker 12: if you are steeped in you know, social media, congressional
Speaker 12: hearings like I am, you see all the time he
Speaker 12: gets served by these viral moments.
Speaker 9: You know, AOC has many of them.
Speaker 12: Senator Hawley has a lot of them on the constrict side,
Speaker 12: Senator Kennedy where they're sort of holding Biden administration.
Speaker 9: Folks to the feet of the fire.
Speaker 12: I think you'll see a lot of that in reverse
Speaker 12: once these hearings start, and it's up to the nominees
Speaker 12: to have been prepared, both of the nominees and their
Speaker 12: teams right to prepare, to be prepared and anticipate any
Speaker 12: difficult question and come up with legitimate, truthful answers to it.
Speaker 12: And if a nominee cannot do that, then that's a
Speaker 12: minimum threshold question. And if they can't do that, then
Speaker 12: they shouldn't be Trump's candidate nominee.
Speaker 9: So we'll see all that play out.
Speaker 12: I think the vast majority of them are going to
Speaker 12: have tough questions, but ultimately nominated. I think President Trump
Speaker 12: was elected with a mandate and he has, as was
Speaker 12: the House and Congress and the Senate, so as they
Speaker 12: do their jobs rightly. So they should keep in mind
Speaker 12: that the President should get a little latitude on.
Speaker 9: Some of these nominees.
Speaker 12: As long as there's not huge issues in their background,
Speaker 12: they should be confirmed. But again, that's what the process
Speaker 12: is for, and if things come out and it changes
Speaker 12: the nature of the hearing, then so be it.
Speaker 9: That's on the nominees to be able to handle that.
Speaker 12: Well.
Speaker 6: So, Genie, obviously we have to see the hearing play
Speaker 6: out tomorrow. But it does seem that the feeling in
Speaker 6: Washington is that Hegset's chances are significantly better than they
Speaker 6: were in those first weeks after his nomination was announced.
Speaker 6: And if he is able to get through, does that
Speaker 6: still leave a door open for Republicans to potentially tank
Speaker 6: another nominee like Tulci Gabbard for example, or maybe RFK Junior.
Speaker 13: It certainly does. But the reality is I looked back today, Kayla,
Speaker 13: you know, I love to do this. Since George Bush here,
Speaker 13: there have only been thirteen nominees who have not gotten through,
Speaker 13: and twelve of those were with drawn. Only one, John
Speaker 13: Tower was rejected. So Historically, you make it to this
Speaker 13: hearing unless you implode, or to Chapin's point, something comes
Speaker 13: out unexpected. You're going to make it through. And Republicans
Speaker 13: are going to see that through. So you know what
Speaker 13: I'm going to be watching, certainly the nominees themselves heg
Speaker 13: Seth is our marquee person tomorrow, but also how Democrats
Speaker 13: perform and what they are setting up in terms of
Speaker 13: addressing the takeover of the Republicans of DC, and how
Speaker 13: they're going to do a Trump two point zero in
Speaker 13: a way that's different than they did in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 13: which was quite frankly not particularly useful for the party.
Speaker 2: Well, so, Jennie, what will be Elizabeth Warren's mission tomorrow,
Speaker 2: Kirsten Gillibrand's mission? Are they trying to on a singular level,
Speaker 2: trying to derail these nominations or is it just about
Speaker 2: getting all the poison out, getting all the bad stuff
Speaker 2: out there so people can read about it.
Speaker 13: You know, I think what they're going to do, Elizabeth
Speaker 13: Warren you mentioned, you know some of the Democrats. We're
Speaker 13: going to be watching Alyssa Slotkin, there's some other cy Duckworth,
Speaker 13: All of these folks are going to be trying to
Speaker 13: do what Chuck Schumer talked about privately, which is to
Speaker 13: poke holes strategically in Republican governance so that going forward,
Speaker 13: when things aren't working well for Republicans, if that happens,
Speaker 13: they can point back and say, look it, we noted this.
Speaker 13: So I think that's what we're going to see. And
Speaker 13: again it depends on what happens in the hearing. But
Speaker 13: you know, somebody like Pete Hegseth, he's a smart guy.
Speaker 13: He's practicing, we know that, and he's good in front
Speaker 13: of both the camera and he's good at taking questions.
Speaker 13: So I find it hard to believe there's going to
Speaker 13: be a viral moment on his part, unless, of course,
Speaker 13: Democrats succeed and get somebody to testify against him, which
Speaker 13: so far we haven't gotten any inclination is going to happen.
Speaker 6: Well, given our audience here on Bloomberg TV and Radio Shape,
Speaker 6: and I was particularly interested not just in Senator Warren's
Speaker 6: questions for Hegseth, but the laundry list of questions she
Speaker 6: has for the Treasury Secretary nominee Scott Besson, including this
Speaker 6: entire section on tariffs, including what tariffs do you.
Speaker 7: Intend to impose on what timeline.
Speaker 6: What products? What is the goal of this is raising revenue?
Speaker 6: Is it to pay for the tax cuts? Do you
Speaker 6: think Scott Besson can actually answer any of these questions? Honestly,
Speaker 6: when everybody is saying, oh, tariffs might just be a
Speaker 6: negotiating tactic for Donald Trump, no one really knows what
Speaker 6: he's actually going to pursue once in office.
Speaker 9: I do think he can answer the questions.
Speaker 12: I think he's going to be prepared and he's going
Speaker 12: to be totally aligned with what the President wants to do.
Speaker 12: So if it is a negotiating tactic, right, you'll see
Speaker 12: I think him allographing some of that, because it is.
Speaker 12: He is in a tight tough position, as you rightly
Speaker 12: point out. But what I would say, what I'd also
Speaker 12: like to say is, I think what we're also going
Speaker 12: to see in Gi mentioned this somewhat, This is also
Speaker 12: a time for Democrats to establish themselves as sort of
Speaker 12: the chief antagonizer, right of the Democratic Party or the
Speaker 12: chief of the opposition. And so you're gonna see, you know,
Speaker 12: you mentioned Senator Jillibrand and Senator Warren when it comes
Speaker 12: to the Treasury that's something she cared very much about.
Speaker 12: You're gonna see them auditioning for who's going to be
Speaker 12: the thorn in Trump's side, who the media is going
Speaker 12: to go to, you know how, you know how is
Speaker 12: Senator Schumer uh sort of running uh the opposition party, right,
Speaker 12: And you're gonna see all that. I think you're gonna
Speaker 12: see that even more so for Genie's point, I think
Speaker 12: I agree right that you know a lot of these nominees,
Speaker 12: including except are going to get through. So you're gonna
Speaker 12: see the Democrats actually auditioning right to steal the limelight
Speaker 12: or to or to or to or to suck to
Speaker 12: you know, everything out out of the rooks like the
Speaker 12: air at the room.
Speaker 9: So I think that's what you're also going to see.
Speaker 12: But back to your original question about the Treasury sectary again,
Speaker 12: this is this is Senator Warren. This is what she
Speaker 12: cares about, and she has every right to ask tough
Speaker 12: questions and she should. And I do think this is
Speaker 12: a good issue, uh to put the you know these nominee,
Speaker 12: this nominee particularly through his bases because it's something the
Speaker 12: general PubL I don't think has a really tight grasp
Speaker 12: on how tariffs work, why President Trump wants to use
Speaker 12: them in the way that he's using them, right, So
Speaker 12: I think there's a little confusion here that she can
Speaker 12: run into and get hurt, you know, if you're going
Speaker 12: to try and get.
Speaker 9: Her narrative to take hold through these hearings. So I
Speaker 9: do think you're going to see, you.
Speaker 12: Know, pay attention to a lot of who's asking the
Speaker 12: questions and what questions are being asked.
Speaker 6: All right, Shape and Fay and Jeanie Shanzino our political
Speaker 6: panel today, helping us keep tabs of everything happening here
Speaker 6: in Washington.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast. Catch
Speaker 1: us live weekdays at noon and five pm. He's durn
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Speaker 1: You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our
Speaker 1: flagship New York station, Just say Alexa play Bloomberg eleven thirty.
Speaker 6: Here in Washington, we are marking the beginning of the
Speaker 6: end for the Biden administration. This is the final week
Speaker 6: that Joe Biden will spend in the Oval Office, and
Speaker 6: he is using it in part to try to cement
Speaker 6: his legacy through farewell addresses. There will be a big
Speaker 6: one on Wednesday evening primetime eight pm Eastern from the
Speaker 6: Oval Office. But before that, he'll be speaking actually at
Speaker 6: the top of the next hour two pm Eastern time
Speaker 6: on this Monday at the State Department, specifically on his
Speaker 6: foreign policy legacy, Joe, and certainly on that front, there
Speaker 6: is no shortage of events of circumstances geopolitically over the
Speaker 6: last four years for him to talk about.
Speaker 3: Well, that's for sure.
Speaker 2: It is hard to believe that a week from right
Speaker 2: now we'll be watching a parade. Yeah, imagine that a
Speaker 2: new president Donald Trump's worn in will be the president
Speaker 2: of the United States. They'll be in their luncheon preparing
Speaker 2: to go back down to the other round of Pennsylvania
Speaker 2: Avenue to actually move into the White House. And what
Speaker 2: will happen, to your point between now and then is
Speaker 2: going to be remarkable. We'll go through this altogether, or
Speaker 2: there are some things we cannot predict. We know there's
Speaker 2: one they're hoping for in this White House, and that's
Speaker 2: a ceasefire in Gaza. Of course, Donald Trump has visions
Speaker 2: potentially in his mind as well as they intendem try
Speaker 2: to negotiate a ceasefire to see the release upon of
Speaker 2: hostages upon his swearing in.
Speaker 6: Yeah, as Donald Trump has maintained that he would like
Speaker 6: to see the hostages have been released by inauguration day,
Speaker 6: or's promise pretty serious consequences. So it's kind of the
Speaker 6: story of an outgoing and income president incoming president trying
Speaker 6: at the same time to achieve the same means on
Speaker 6: the same timeline.
Speaker 2: The shades of Carter and Reagan spent some time earlier
Speaker 2: in the Bureau today listening to Jake Sullivan, the President's
Speaker 2: National security advisor. He sat down in conversation with Bloomberg's
Speaker 2: Jenny Leonard to talk about this very matter.
Speaker 3: Here's what he said.
Speaker 14: I think the pressure is building for Hamas to come
Speaker 14: to yes. I think Israel also has achieved a huge
Speaker 14: amount of its military objectives in Gaza, and therefore they
Speaker 14: are in a position to be able to say yes.
Speaker 14: So there is a distinct possibility that we can get
Speaker 14: this deal done this week before President Biden leaves office.
Speaker 14: But as you say, we've been here before, We've been
Speaker 14: close before and haven't gotten across the finish line. So
Speaker 14: I can't make any promises or predictions. But just this
Speaker 14: morning I was on the phone with Brett McGirk, who
Speaker 14: has been basically camped out in Doha. He's been there
Speaker 14: for more than a week working the details within the
Speaker 14: framework President Biden set out last year. I spoke also
Speaker 14: this morning with the Cuty Prime Minister and with one
Speaker 14: of the key Israeli negotiators, and there is a general
Speaker 14: sense that this is moving in the right direction. The
Speaker 14: question now over the next short while is can Hamas
Speaker 14: get to yes? Can we get to a final agreement,
Speaker 14: and then can we begin implementing in the coming days.
Speaker 14: It's there for the taking. So the question is now
Speaker 14: can we all collectively seize the moment and make this happen?
Speaker 15: Vice President elect JD. Van said yesterday it will probably
Speaker 15: get done a day or two before you leave office.
Speaker 15: Do deadlines like this specific deadlines help or hurt the negotiations?
Speaker 15: And does rhetoric like the one employed by President elect
Speaker 15: Donald Trump is it useful to get Hamas to yes?
Speaker 14: I think deadlines can serve two functions in a negotiation.
Speaker 14: When they're imposed by one party, frequently a deadline can
Speaker 14: make the other party think, hey, if I just wait
Speaker 14: till the last minute, they'll give me everything. If they're
Speaker 14: imposed by the mediators. If the Americans, the Cutteries, the
Speaker 14: Egyptians all basically say let's focus the mining, get this
Speaker 14: thing done, I think they can have a positive impact.
Speaker 14: And so I think the pressure building here towards the
Speaker 14: end of President Biden's term has been considerable and that
Speaker 14: that will help contribute to a positive outcome if we
Speaker 14: can generate that final yes from both sides. At the
Speaker 14: same time. This has been a circumstance in which President
Speaker 14: Biden gave direction shortly after the election to me, to
Speaker 14: Brett and to others on our team. Work closely with
Speaker 14: the incoming team. Make sure we have a united front,
Speaker 14: we have a coordinated message, and we have tried to
Speaker 14: do that over the course of the last several weeks,
Speaker 14: as has the Trump team that's coming in. I think
Speaker 14: this is not a partisan issue. This is an American
Speaker 14: issue to get our hostages out and all of the
Speaker 14: hostages out, bring the fighting to an end, and surge
Speaker 14: humanitarian assistants into Gaza. And I think it's how a
Speaker 14: transition should operate, and it's consistent with President Biden's worldview
Speaker 14: about his stewardship of this country.
Speaker 6: US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan in conversation with Bloomberg's
Speaker 6: Jenny Leonard in our offices here in Washington, d C.
Speaker 7: Earlier today. Again, there is a week left to go
Speaker 7: of this.
Speaker 6: Current administration before inauguration, and we'll see if a deal
Speaker 6: can be reached over the course of the.
Speaker 7: Next I guess less than seven days.
Speaker 6: We want to extend this conversation further as we await
Speaker 6: the foreign policy speech of President Biden at the State
Speaker 6: Department just a few minutes from now. In tern of
Speaker 6: retired for Star General Wesley Clark, former Supreme Allied Commander
Speaker 6: for Europe and of course was a presidential candidate in
Speaker 6: two thousand and four. General, thank you so much for
Speaker 6: being here on balance of power when we consider the
Speaker 6: Middle East, specifically in the kind of bookending of the
Speaker 6: Biden administration with an Afghanistan withdrawal and the summer of
Speaker 6: twenty twenty one, now at the end at war in
Speaker 6: Gaza that has been going on for well more than
Speaker 6: a year, how much would being able to secure the
Speaker 6: release of the hostages to reach this agreement that has
Speaker 6: long been fought for right at the end of the
Speaker 6: administration define the president's legacy when it comes to the
Speaker 6: Middle East.
Speaker 10: Well, I think the president, if he can get the
Speaker 10: hostages released, I think there will be a great legacy
Speaker 10: for President Biden to leave. But I don't think there's
Speaker 10: any assurance that you're going to get the hostages released,
Speaker 10: and we don't know how many are still alive. The
Speaker 10: problem is that from the beginning, from the October seventh
Speaker 10: attack on, it's always been the Hamas strategy to draw
Speaker 10: Israel in, to implicate the United States in this, and
Speaker 10: to use Israel's military force against Savillians because Hamas is
Speaker 10: using them as human shields, as moral shields, as a
Speaker 10: way of protecting its own path forward, and Hamas sought
Speaker 10: to involve Iran and his blaw in its conflict. It's failed,
Speaker 10: but there's still diehards in a moss So who's in
Speaker 10: charge and will they give in? I hope they do.
Speaker 2: Is it a help or a hindrance to have two
Speaker 2: parallel lines of communication underway right now? Generally this White
Speaker 2: House is clearly engaged and has been for months with
Speaker 2: regard to a ceasefire, But having mar A Lago involved
Speaker 2: as well means what.
Speaker 10: Well, it's confusing, It's difficult. It depends really on what's
Speaker 10: going on on the inside that we don't have any
Speaker 10: access to. If there's really teamwork between the two groups,
Speaker 10: then that's fine. But in previous decades there hasn't been
Speaker 10: that teamwork. There's been jostling, there's been a partisan one upsmanship,
Speaker 10: there's been efforts to stall things and get credit for
Speaker 10: it and so forth from transitions of administrations, and so
Speaker 10: we just don't know how that's really going to work
Speaker 10: out here. I'm sure if the hostages are released of
Speaker 10: tomorrow a President Biden will be very proud of it.
Speaker 10: But if they're released two weeks from now, President Trump
Speaker 10: will certainly take credit for it. And yet surely some
Speaker 10: of that credit belongs to President Biden, so there'd be
Speaker 10: some Joscelyn going on, even if they're working in the
Speaker 10: closest cooperation.
Speaker 6: Well, so, when we consider what we've already seen general,
Speaker 6: which of course has been the destruction of vast parts
Speaker 6: of Gaza, obviously of Lebanon, as well as that front
Speaker 6: opened up between Israel and Hesbela, we have seen an
Speaker 6: overturning of Syrian dictator Bashar al Assad's regime, and still
Speaker 6: have questions about what the future will look like there
Speaker 6: can you just define the situation in the Middle East
Speaker 6: that Donald Trump will be inheriting and what decisions he
Speaker 6: is going to have to make in fairly short order
Speaker 6: after taking the oath of office that could define the
Speaker 6: way the region moves forward in the US's relationship with it.
Speaker 10: Situation in the Middle East is really best defined by
Speaker 10: the weakness of Iran for the first time in decades.
Speaker 10: Iran is substantially weakened by the failure of his Blah
Speaker 10: and also by the Israeli air strikes and the fact
Speaker 10: that the Russians haven't really come in and replaced all
Speaker 10: those air defenses yet so far as we know. Iran's
Speaker 10: also weakened because it's ballistic missiles and so forth really
Speaker 10: didn't have that much impact even when they launched them
Speaker 10: in the hundreds, and so Iran is weak. This is
Speaker 10: the moment to change the balance of power in the
Speaker 10: Middle East. Lebanon needs to be freed from the grip
Speaker 10: of his Belah. Syria needs to become an independent country.
Speaker 10: Hopefully HTS is not going to revert to a pur
Speaker 10: Islamist state that's hostiled to its neighbors. Turkey is reaching
Speaker 10: out and something has to be done with respect to
Speaker 10: our Kurdish allies and the fifty so terrorists and family
Speaker 10: members that are being held in prisons and camps by
Speaker 10: the Syrian Democratic forces. If terrorists are released, we're going
Speaker 10: to have a huge problem, just like what happened in
Speaker 10: Afghanistan when we released the Taliban prisoners as part of
Speaker 10: the peace deal that was negotiated by President Trump. So
Speaker 10: I think that I think President Trump has an historic opportunity.
Speaker 10: The window is open to go to Iran with an ultimatum,
Speaker 10: really is cough up the nuclear stuff, do it now
Speaker 10: or face the consequences. The Iranian population is restive, they're
Speaker 10: ready for a change in regime by all accounts, we
Speaker 10: don't know what that would bring exactly. And the Iyatolas
Speaker 10: and the Mullahs there are in an historically weak position.
Speaker 10: So this is the overriding element that President Trump has
Speaker 10: to look at in dealing with the Middle East, Siria, Lebanon, Gaza.
Speaker 10: They're actually secondary to getting to the source of the trouble,
Speaker 10: which is Iran.
Speaker 2: General Clark, the individual's Donald Trump is tapped to make
Speaker 2: up his national security team, will begin their confirmation hearings
Speaker 2: tomorrow by way of Pete Hegseth, of course, his nominee
Speaker 2: to be the next Secretary of Defense. And I'm sure
Speaker 2: you're aware of the conversation and the concerns that many senators,
Speaker 2: many Democratic senators it seems, have over his nomination. He
Speaker 2: has said, with regard to women serving in combat, that
Speaker 2: he is in fact open to this idea and supports
Speaker 2: women who are serving in uniform. He is also pledged
Speaker 2: to stop drinking alcohol if confirmed to be the next
Speaker 2: Secretary of Defense. With what you know about that job,
Speaker 2: which is more than most Americans, I wonder if that
Speaker 2: should be enough to win the support of senators.
Speaker 10: You know, he's he's served in uniform. He knows something
Speaker 10: about the army. He's been there, he's been on deployments,
Speaker 10: he's been in the National Guard. He's got a lot
Speaker 10: of characteristics. A Princeton graduate, he's not a dumb guy.
Speaker 10: He's got a lot of talent. So and he's loyal
Speaker 10: to President Trump or President elect Trump, and so all
Speaker 10: these things weigh in his favor. The senators are going
Speaker 10: to have to decide whether the other elements in his
Speaker 10: background are disqualifying in some way. But I think on
Speaker 10: balance it always goes to the President elect, he gets
Speaker 10: his choice. So I think it's going to be difficult.
Speaker 10: No matter what some Democratic senators say about him and
Speaker 10: his attitudes, what he's written in books and so forth,
Speaker 10: I think it's going to be difficult to deny him
Speaker 10: the nomination. And I would expect that when he gets
Speaker 10: in and he's confronted with the enormities of that job,
Speaker 10: the responsibilities, the details that have to be worked, the
Speaker 10: teamwork that's required in there, that a lot of the
Speaker 10: statements he made and so forth are going to go
Speaker 10: by the board. It's going to be a Secretary of Defense.
Speaker 10: It's got important responsibilities. Got to focus on that job.
Speaker 5: General.
Speaker 6: We just have about ninety seconds left here, but I
Speaker 6: would imagine when the President speaks a few minutes from now,
Speaker 6: he will be touching on NATO expanding under his watch,
Speaker 6: as well as the support his administration has provided for Ukraine.
Speaker 6: But a week from now, when Donald Trump takes office,
Speaker 6: can NATO and Ukraine be as confident the US will
Speaker 6: still be there to support.
Speaker 10: I don't think Ukraine is confident yet, and they don't
Speaker 10: know what kind of support the United States will provide.
Speaker 10: But I will say this, the United States has provided
Speaker 10: good support, but not exclusive support to Ukraine, and the
Speaker 10: European Allies have actually provided more military hardware than the
Speaker 10: United States, and the money that's gone in it's gone
Speaker 10: to replenish our own arsenals. We could have done a
Speaker 10: lot more, in my view, we should have done a
Speaker 10: lot more. And I hope that Trump administration will understand
Speaker 10: that if you want to cut a good deal to
Speaker 10: preserve and protect Ukraine in a sustainable way, you have
Speaker 10: to continue to support it. You have to have a
Speaker 10: strong front and that means some connection to NATO for
Speaker 10: security guarantees for Ukraine.
Speaker 2: General, it's great to have you back, Wesley Clark, former
Speaker 2: Supreme Allied Commander for Europe. Of course, General Wesley Clark
Speaker 2: on Bloomberg TV and Radio. I'm Joe Matthew alongside Kaylee
Speaker 2: Lines in Washington, will be keeping tabs on what Joe
Speaker 2: Biden says in his address to the State Department.
Speaker 3: Coming up shortly with what will.
Speaker 2: Essentially be a series of farewell addresses, culminating with the
Speaker 2: big one, the Oval Office address in primetime to the
Speaker 2: American public on Wednesday, one that we'll bring you here
Speaker 2: on Bloomberg TV and Radio. Thanks for listening to the
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Speaker 2: DC at noontime Eastern at Bloomberg dot com.