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Speaker 3: Well, not exactly what many were thinking about when it
Speaker 3: came to a second term for Donald Trump, and as
Speaker 3: our Max Ablson puts it, less than one hundred days
Speaker 3: into the new US administration, bankers from Wall Street to
Speaker 3: Shanghai's Poondong and the city of London are bracing for
Speaker 3: soured loans, canceled deals, forfeited fees, and perhaps threats to
Speaker 3: their own jobs. Credit markets are paralyzed, while mergers and
Speaker 3: initial stock offerings are being pulled amid fears of recession.
Speaker 3: Out a big out not with people we're expecting. Max is,
Speaker 3: of course, Bloomberg News Finance reporter joining us here in studio.
Speaker 4: I it's safe to say, if you think.
Speaker 3: About the rally coming off of the election, right, everybody
Speaker 3: expected easier regulatory environment, pro business policies. I think all
Speaker 3: of the tech CEOs thought all of those cases from
Speaker 3: the government were not going to happen, and then yet
Speaker 3: here we are.
Speaker 4: It's very different. It's very different. And let's go back
Speaker 4: to that moment. Actually, the post the post election giddiness
Speaker 4: from from the kind of billionaire class, from from the
Speaker 4: high echelons of the international finance industry, which is what
Speaker 4: I focus on what I write about. I think there
Speaker 4: was everything you said is is so accurate, Carol, But
Speaker 4: then there was this other there was other, this other
Speaker 4: dynamic that was happening at the same time too, which
Speaker 4: was there was a kind of dismissal of the more
Speaker 4: chaotic side of Trump, the part that zigzags and goes
Speaker 4: left but then goes right and then goes left again.
Speaker 4: And there was a thing that Trump was going to
Speaker 4: deliver the things that they wanted and would avoid the
Speaker 4: things that make them nauseous or that make them angry,
Speaker 4: or that would make the market tank out of out
Speaker 4: of a difference that they saw in Trump. They saw
Speaker 4: that Trump had a difference for the stock market, both
Speaker 4: both for the kind of Manhattan financial elite in particular,
Speaker 4: and then also for the more abstract stock market as
Speaker 4: a kind of benchmark, a report card. This this is
Speaker 4: what they believed. I mean, this is what they told
Speaker 4: me and talked about publicly. I wrote a couple of
Speaker 4: stories for Business Week and Bloomberg Markets at the time
Speaker 4: that it is fair to say was really wrong and
Speaker 4: they were wrong based on what we're seeing now. The
Speaker 4: lovely sentence that you that you read aloud is from
Speaker 4: Leonard and Claudia and Arnold. I just think you really
Speaker 4: I want to give them a credit. Listeners know that
Speaker 4: it was them who read it, not me, beautifully written,
Speaker 4: and the wrongness is has caught them unawares.
Speaker 3: They really shocked, like when you talked to him, or
Speaker 3: they're like, oh my god, Carol.
Speaker 4: They are surprised, but more than a surprise, they're annoyed.
Speaker 4: They're annoyed and they're angry and they did not see
Speaker 4: this coming.
Speaker 5: Is it because they took him seriously but not literally
Speaker 5: the famous way that people were described to take the
Speaker 5: way that Trump spoke. Is it because of what he
Speaker 5: did during his first term pointing two the Dow in
Speaker 5: the s and P five hundred as a scorecard, or.
Speaker 4: The fact that he was the president for four years
Speaker 4: and he did not put on gigantic tariffs on every
Speaker 4: country in the world, almost every country, I should say,
Speaker 4: but you know, taking someone serious or someone literal, they
Speaker 4: could have taken Trump at his word. But the thing
Speaker 4: about his leadership is he really does seem to change
Speaker 4: his mind pretty quickly. In fact, there was that burst
Speaker 4: earlier today, like as in a few hours ago, where
Speaker 4: I think people, I think that there was a sense
Speaker 4: of relief in the market that he going to change
Speaker 4: his mind again. And you know, woe to the journalist
Speaker 4: or to the investor, or to the executive who thinks
Speaker 4: that he's that they know what he's going to do.
Speaker 4: I think that the one thing that I feel sure
Speaker 4: about when it comes to Donald Trump, and I really
Speaker 4: don't feel sure about much. The one thing I feel
Speaker 4: sure about is that it's sort of impossible to prognosticate.
Speaker 4: It's impossible to predict. I really admire anyone who can
Speaker 4: sort of say with honesty that they've got him right
Speaker 4: and that they know what's going to happen, because I
Speaker 4: certainly don't. And these investors who thought that he was
Speaker 4: going to really koutout to the market, they certainly don't either.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, what's interesting in Max and I think
Speaker 3: about this all the time, that we said so often
Speaker 3: going into the election that if he wins a second term,
Speaker 3: he's not going to have the guard rails right that
Speaker 3: he had during the first term. That were people from
Speaker 3: business CEOs. I guess from the more I don't want
Speaker 3: to say normal community, but people who would say, wait,
Speaker 3: you can't do that, mister president, or you need to
Speaker 3: think about this. There are some people, though, Scott bessont
Speaker 3: right whose Treasury secretary, who understands the importance of markets
Speaker 3: that function well, understands the impact tariffs have, and yet
Speaker 3: not so sure that he's a guardrail.
Speaker 4: Well, I think, how does that now?
Speaker 3: Are the people you talk to do they say, well,
Speaker 3: wait a minute, we thought he might be a guardrail.
Speaker 4: Well, your your excellent question brings to mind Anie Massa
Speaker 4: and Kathy Burton's absolutely terrific story this morning. That's the
Speaker 4: Bloomberg Big Take. That's a profile of Bill Ackman, who
Speaker 4: Bill Ackman is one of many members of you. You
Speaker 4: called it normal. I think a little bit tongue in cheek.
Speaker 4: I think you're really talking about the professional class and
Speaker 4: the executive class, the billionaires. That's why you're the reporter
Speaker 4: in the right. No no, no, no, no no, you can
Speaker 4: do not wrong in my mind. But what their piece
Speaker 4: captures so well is the sense of my bad app
Speaker 4: which is a well that's a quote from from Acman.
Speaker 4: I mean, really, he really said that. He this is
Speaker 4: exactly what we're talking about. He predicted pro growth, probate, business,
Speaker 4: pro American. That was That was Acman celebrating Trump's victory,
Speaker 4: saying that this is going to be this incredible administration.
Speaker 4: And then and then what does he say on on X.
Speaker 4: I don't think this was foreseeable. I assumed economic rationality
Speaker 4: would be paramount.
Speaker 5: This was the sorry the president telegraph this. He said
Speaker 5: this that he would he said he loves tariffs.
Speaker 4: Right, and in fact, he told our editor in chief
Speaker 4: that for an interview last year. But let's talk about that,
Speaker 4: because what he said was that he loved tariffs. He
Speaker 4: did not, however, talk about the depth, the extent, the volume,
Speaker 4: the hugeness, to use a Donald Trump word, of his tariffs.
Speaker 4: I'm thinking of the difference between the moment, speaking of markets,
Speaker 4: the moment when when the markets seemed to breathe a
Speaker 4: sigh of relief, when he when he used the number
Speaker 4: ten ten percent tariffs. I'm talking about the big presentation
Speaker 4: just a few days ago. Feels like ancient history, right,
Speaker 4: the difference. What he did not telegraph. What he did
Speaker 4: not telegraph was the remember the giant signs, you know,
Speaker 4: country by country down to like small islands, island nations
Speaker 4: filled with penguins, filled with penguins. Shout out to penguins,
Speaker 4: a wonderful animal.
Speaker 1: Love them.
Speaker 4: But those are those were high numbers, Yeah, those are
Speaker 4: high numbers. What he did not telegraph was that that
Speaker 4: mathematical equation that my friend to colleague Matt Levine wrote
Speaker 4: about where they're basically they're doing something that was you know,
Speaker 4: I don't know, is unthinkable the right word? How about
Speaker 4: just simply unpredictable? Unpredictable?
Speaker 3: I was going to ask you just got twenty seconds,
Speaker 3: there is there one word from the people that you
Speaker 3: talk to that kind of came to mind in trying
Speaker 3: to assess the situation. And I know we've used uncertainty
Speaker 3: a lot, but I just I was just curious.
Speaker 4: I want to just quickly the words startled, surprise and
Speaker 4: ultimately very disappointed. Those are Tom Glosser's words, and Tom
Speaker 4: Glosser is the lead and independent board member at Morgan Stanley.
Speaker 4: So this is a guy who's a perfect symbol of
Speaker 4: that professional class, and he's talking about a group of
Speaker 4: people who are used to being inner circle, used to
Speaker 4: being relevant, working to preserve access, and they are startled.
Speaker 3: It's Keller Stone Worry, both of them men, the one
Speaker 3: on Bill Ackman as well Maxabilsen, Bloomberg News Finance reporter,
Speaker 3: right here in our studio. I feel like those words
Speaker 3: are something you might use with a teenager startled.
Speaker 5: Have you had experience just a little.
Speaker 4: She's really great, though. This is Bloomberg.
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