Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Surveillance Podcast. I'm Tom Keane. Daily
Speaker 1: we bring you insight from the best in economics, finance, investment,
Speaker 1: and international relations. Find Bloomberg Surveillance on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud,
Speaker 1: Bloomberg dot Com, and of course, on the Bloomberg. The
Speaker 1: uproar at Bloomberg today is off one article. Let me
Speaker 1: look down at the terminal New York City landlords press
Speaker 1: finance bosses to speed return in safe city. And as
Speaker 1: I said to Anna Edwards in the simulcast a bit ago,
Speaker 1: I heard the same story out of the city of London.
Speaker 1: I think it was two or three weeks ago as well.
Speaker 1: To give us perspective on this is Anthony Malkin of
Speaker 1: Empire States Reality Trust. He's got a big fancy title.
Speaker 1: Other than that, what you need to know is he
Speaker 1: holds ordered five O one seventh Avenue at thirty seven
Speaker 1: one Grand Central Place, at the Grand Central Terminal two
Speaker 1: fifty West fifty seventh at Broadway. These are tangible properties
Speaker 1: of his Empire State Reality Tony, what's the what's the
Speaker 1: level of panic right now about the empty Midtown that
Speaker 1: I observe? And I really don't think it's a. It's
Speaker 1: a matter of panic. I think it's time for people
Speaker 1: to get out of the Hampton's and get out of Aspen,
Speaker 1: and get out of the mountains and show up to work.
Speaker 1: The leaders who are very comfortable in their their their
Speaker 1: country homes need to lead. People want to be back
Speaker 1: at work. The young people want to be back at work.
Speaker 1: It's a competitive advantage to those people who come back
Speaker 1: to work. It's maybe an elitist thing. I take your
Speaker 1: point on the fancy people are at the fancy properties
Speaker 1: and the people that work for them, do they want
Speaker 1: to go to the office as well or do they
Speaker 1: want to be at home? You know, I think that
Speaker 1: the whole issue of work from home, the death of
Speaker 1: work from home, has been written Amazon, Facebook, smartest companies,
Speaker 1: biggest companies have stated very clearly they're expanding, and they're
Speaker 1: expanding in cities, are expanding in New York City. And
Speaker 1: the fact of the matter is that you cannot understand
Speaker 1: halloway validation what happens before the zoom after the zoom,
Speaker 1: unless you're actually in the office. And I attended a
Speaker 1: board meeting the public company on his board, I sit
Speaker 1: in minny Apolais on Monday, and Tuesday last week. It's
Speaker 1: so critical to be there. Uh and and in person,
Speaker 1: you just don't get the world from the shoulders up
Speaker 1: and in the length of the zoom call, it doesn't work.
Speaker 1: What you can you can you can maintain and you
Speaker 1: can sustain, but you cannot build and you cannot grow.
Speaker 1: But the reality is Tony and you and I know
Speaker 1: all the restaurants have frequent all your wonderful properties, those
Speaker 1: restaurants have to be open. Essentially, they're not. I mean,
Speaker 1: you can go down to Benoit on fifty fifth Street,
Speaker 1: I think, and they've got their wonderful cafe outside and
Speaker 1: do the French a faith thing Alan dukas, thank you.
Speaker 1: Guess what you can't go in the restaurant. How critical
Speaker 1: is it to link your opening of real estate to
Speaker 1: their opening of restaurants. You know the fact is that
Speaker 1: at the Empire State Building, for instance, we have a
Speaker 1: lot of services, a lot of restaurants, a lot of
Speaker 1: different food vendors. They will deliver two people's desks, they'll
Speaker 1: deliver to their offices. People need to be there for
Speaker 1: people to have the justification to open their stores and
Speaker 1: open their doors and employ people and and it all
Speaker 1: starts at the top. That's where it starts. And if
Speaker 1: people are going to sit there, comfortable in there and
Speaker 1: looking in there, I'm tired of zooms with people who
Speaker 1: are in their beach homes getting delivered iced tea by
Speaker 1: somebody who's off camera, you know, get to your desk.
Speaker 1: I take I take your message on board, Anthony. I'm
Speaker 1: not in New York. I'm not in the Hampton's Lam
Speaker 1: in London, but I am in my house. And parts
Speaker 1: of that is to do with and keeping occupancy of
Speaker 1: office space down. It might be possible for some people
Speaker 1: to go back to offices, but do you accept that
Speaker 1: we're going to be in a sort of new normal
Speaker 1: situation in some of these big world cities where not
Speaker 1: everybody can go back at the same time. Not yet.
Speaker 1: I think we've got four phases lockdown, pre therapy, vaccine,
Speaker 1: post therapy vaccine, and then clean up and and replanting
Speaker 1: the field, if you will. We're definitely in that phase
Speaker 1: two right now, and we've got a ways to go
Speaker 1: till we get to phase three. So there absolutely are
Speaker 1: quote new temporary normals unquote, and we have to adjust
Speaker 1: and address that. That said, if people will not lead,
Speaker 1: people will not follow. And what really is interesting is
Speaker 1: the young people today, ranging from their junior year in
Speaker 1: high school to two years out of college, they will
Speaker 1: follow those people who lead, and those people who sit
Speaker 1: at home will remain at a competitive disadvantage from those
Speaker 1: people who show up and work. So the bottom line is, hey,
Speaker 1: look you need indoor environmental quality. It has been a
Speaker 1: major factor of all of our work in the over
Speaker 1: one billion dollars we've spent modernizing our PORTFOLI you in
Speaker 1: New York City, making an energy efficient MERV third team filters, ventilation,
Speaker 1: ion transfer, air purification. We have a benefit in our
Speaker 1: buildings the fact that they are older, so they didn't
Speaker 1: used to have centralized air conditioning systems. Consequently, fan rooms
Speaker 1: are located per floor. You're not recirculating the air for
Speaker 1: the entire building when you cooler heat and individual floor.
Speaker 1: That said, you can make these changes. You can make
Speaker 1: these adjustments, and people need to adjust and adapt. That's true.
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean that you don't try and you don't start.
Speaker 1: Those people who do are going to win. So, Anthony,
Speaker 1: and what do you think people are afraid of? The
Speaker 1: managers you say aren't coming back. Are they afraid of
Speaker 1: the virus, or they're afraid of the legal system perhaps
Speaker 1: and the legal implications of getting back bringing people back
Speaker 1: if it isn't entirely safe. You know, you make a
Speaker 1: really good point. This whole issue of liability capping is
Speaker 1: so critical. You cannot take a look at let's say,
Speaker 1: what happened in New York City and compared to what
Speaker 1: happened in Miami. Miami happened several months after what happened
Speaker 1: in New York City. The lessons learned in New York
Speaker 1: City have helped everyone else in the world. Nobody's fault
Speaker 1: that these things occurred when we didn't know what was
Speaker 1: going on. Now that you do know what's going on, however,
Speaker 1: you have to take prudent steps, wear a mask, have
Speaker 1: your distancing, have your cleaning, do the appropriate measures. That said,
Speaker 1: it is a matter where you can operate at the
Speaker 1: occupancy which is allowable. We're operating at the Empire State
Speaker 1: Building Observatory right now. We've got the same ventilation they're
Speaker 1: depending upon the density that we planned for visitors there.
Speaker 1: The fresh air comes into that space three to twenty
Speaker 1: two times an hour, very quickly. Or Tony Malco and
Speaker 1: last question, what portion of rents are not being paid.
Speaker 1: So h in July we reported collection lower in retail
Speaker 1: than in office. Very good, Tony Malcoln, thank you so much,
Speaker 1: just really really love have you, and we'll do this
Speaker 1: again soon with the Empire State Reality Trust. Mr Melkin,
Speaker 1: of course part of New York City. I really can't
Speaker 1: say enough about the Bloomberg article right now. We need
Speaker 1: a clinic any equity market. We turn to Laurie Calvacina
Speaker 1: of RBC Capital Markets, airhead of all of US equity
Speaker 1: strategy as well. Laurie, what will you write about? What
Speaker 1: will you frame from Monday morning? So look, I think
Speaker 1: it's a quiet week. I think that there hasn't been
Speaker 1: a ton of news, but the news that has come
Speaker 1: out has moved markets, and I think what my takeaway
Speaker 1: for the week so far is that there's still an
Speaker 1: undercurrent of nervousness. I mean, arguably the Fed minutes really
Speaker 1: shouldn't have rattled markets, and it's not like they rattled
Speaker 1: them in a major way, but they did reveal that
Speaker 1: there's still some underlying concern about this fork in the
Speaker 1: road that the US economy seems to be at. Which
Speaker 1: way are we going? Are we going? To start recovering
Speaker 1: again after a bit of a plateau over the summer,
Speaker 1: or are we going to take another leg down? And
Speaker 1: I think markets are still concerned about that. We have
Speaker 1: seen a reaffirmation this week, Lorie, of digital dominance. We
Speaker 1: see it in any number of companies. We all know them,
Speaker 1: Home Depot, Walmart, etcetera. Apple with the two trillion dollar
Speaker 1: valuation as well. How do you do a strategy in
Speaker 1: a time of big box digital dominance. So our call
Speaker 1: has been not to chase all of the little individual moves,
Speaker 1: and we think that we're going to see a lot
Speaker 1: of volatility in terms of leadership at the style level,
Speaker 1: at the sector level. UM. We're continuing to tell people
Speaker 1: to stay balanced between things like growth and value. We're
Speaker 1: neutral on the tech and T I M T space.
Speaker 1: We fully understand what's driving it. And as well as
Speaker 1: those big buck retailers that the work from home UM,
Speaker 1: you know sort of quarantine type names. We get what's
Speaker 1: going on there. But we think we're going to see
Speaker 1: a lot of volatility, that this is going to be
Speaker 1: a long, uneven recovery and you just need to buy
Speaker 1: the best in the cyclical camp, the defensive camp, and
Speaker 1: the longer term growth camp and not try to chase
Speaker 1: all of these little individual moves because we think you'll
Speaker 1: get whiplash. Wise, were as lowering good morning. Why do
Speaker 1: you not have a moll positive view on small camps
Speaker 1: If you think they're cheap, if you think they could
Speaker 1: have the potential to capt up with some of those
Speaker 1: big box moves, that's only talk me about that. And
Speaker 1: if they're underowned and they and they like recoveries, why
Speaker 1: not go more aggressively into the smaller camp. End. So
Speaker 1: our call on small cap is very nuancedpace on your
Speaker 1: time horizon. And you know, I think everybody on the
Speaker 1: street likes to think of themselves as a long term investor,
Speaker 1: but at the end of the day, a lot of
Speaker 1: people aren't and can't really afford to be a lot
Speaker 1: of people live in that kind of six months, next
Speaker 1: few quarters, one year time horizon. If you're in that
Speaker 1: six to twelve month time horizon, we think you should
Speaker 1: stay neutral. Um, we think that the small caps are
Speaker 1: giving you a historic valuation opportunity. That means said, we
Speaker 1: do also think that they're functioning the way that they
Speaker 1: typically function as cyclical expressions of confidence in the market.
Speaker 1: So as we you know, as we think one of
Speaker 1: the reasons, frankly, they haven't broken out in a bigger
Speaker 1: way is that there are still all these doubts about
Speaker 1: the near term trajectory of the economy. But if you
Speaker 1: really are, in your heart of hearts, a three to
Speaker 1: five year investor, and you can ignore the noise of
Speaker 1: the next year, no, we will come out of this.
Speaker 1: We know that valuations are back to tech bubble extremes,
Speaker 1: and what I mean by that is that small caps
Speaker 1: are historically cheap relative to large caps. So we think
Speaker 1: you're going to be in a good place in this
Speaker 1: trade on a three to five year view, but over
Speaker 1: the next six to twelve months, our confidence level is
Speaker 1: a bit lower, and so we want to be intellectually
Speaker 1: honest about that. Okay, so you'd be a bit more cautious.
Speaker 1: They're picking up on something you said earlier about the
Speaker 1: fork in the road, and and it makes me wonder
Speaker 1: whether actually what we're dealing with in the US is many, many, many,
Speaker 1: many different forks. Because of the size of the economy
Speaker 1: and the way that the coronavirus regulations are being implemented
Speaker 1: rightly in a very localized fashion, and you can apply
Speaker 1: this to Europe to some extent. If we don't see
Speaker 1: big lockdowns, big statewide or big country wide lockdowns, if
Speaker 1: they are more nuanced, more targeted, that's going to make
Speaker 1: the job of of working out which fork in the
Speaker 1: road is going to be taken here for the for
Speaker 1: the big picture economy, that's going to make that really difficult.
Speaker 1: I think that's true. And you know, we're all watching
Speaker 1: this alternative high frequency economic data, things like the open table,
Speaker 1: restaurant book games, flying trends, public transit activity, that sort
Speaker 1: of stuff. And one of the things that we do
Speaker 1: on my team is an addition to looking at it
Speaker 1: at say US versus Europe, where we can, we try
Speaker 1: to look at the different regions around the country. Within
Speaker 1: the US, and we noticed over the summer, as the
Speaker 1: case counts were rising in Texas and Arizona and Florida,
Speaker 1: you were seeing different reactions and consumer confidence, you were
Speaker 1: seeing different reactions in mobility and engagement. UM that the
Speaker 1: trends were simply not uniform across region different regions of
Speaker 1: the country. Oftentimes the you, the Northeast was looking a
Speaker 1: bit better than some of these other hotspots. UM And
Speaker 1: I think that makes it very very difficult. UM. But
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, Um, what we're seeing
Speaker 1: at the national level is the data has generally plateaued.
Speaker 1: A few things are starting to perk up a little bit,
Speaker 1: but a lot of stuff has stayed stalled. And that's
Speaker 1: telling me this economy hasn't decided which way it wants
Speaker 1: to head yet. Will we see M and A here
Speaker 1: in the coming quarters simply because of a dearth of
Speaker 1: revenue growth? I think you'll get M and A down
Speaker 1: the road. Um. You know, one of the things our
Speaker 1: industrial analyst Dean dre has talked about is just how
Speaker 1: strong the balance sheets are of his companies, and he
Speaker 1: thinks they'll have a lot of dry powdered down the
Speaker 1: road once confidence returns to go out and do some deals. UM.
Speaker 1: And I think that's probably a pretty true statement of
Speaker 1: the broader market. UM. But I'll tell you tom As
Speaker 1: I went through the transcripts of this last reporting season,
Speaker 1: one thing that really struck me was that companies, when
Speaker 1: they were giving guidance, we're giving you a quarter's worth,
Speaker 1: not generally anything more than that. Um. And also, you know,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of companies that said, hey, things
Speaker 1: are better in June and July, but still had a
Speaker 1: cautious tone about the longer term outlook. So that's telling
Speaker 1: me they're going to keep that dry, that powder dry
Speaker 1: for a little bit longer. I mean, I'm glad you
Speaker 1: mentioned Dean Dre. He's just wonderful on Honeywell and on
Speaker 1: the other great industrials and what i'd almost call multinational
Speaker 1: industrials as well. I know you can't talk individual stocks,
Speaker 1: but what does Mr Dre tell you about the confidence
Speaker 1: of these executives? You know what I what I think
Speaker 1: we've heard on the industrial side is that the trade war,
Speaker 1: you know it really was was was a great sort
Speaker 1: of test run for this not intentionally, obviously nobody saw
Speaker 1: this coming. But these companies are really focused on cost cutting,
Speaker 1: They're really focused on margins, they're trying to defend the dividends.
Speaker 1: They're really in a good place to weather this pandemic.
Speaker 1: And that's really, you know, what I've seen in my work,
Speaker 1: That's also what I've been hearing from Dean and some
Speaker 1: of our other industrial analysts. And I'm actually overweight the
Speaker 1: industrial sector while I have, you know, an expectation that
Speaker 1: this market is going to give back some of the
Speaker 1: games in the final few months of the year, and
Speaker 1: I don't want to be holy encyclicals right now. Industrials
Speaker 1: is the one spot in cyclicals that I'm really comfortable
Speaker 1: leaning into at the sector level. Laurie Calvacina, thank you
Speaker 1: so much. With RBC Capital Markets, there's a really great
Speaker 1: indecision about where we're heading on inflation and particularly on
Speaker 1: the general economy. Kathy Jones studies this. She has a
Speaker 1: great joy of working with Lizzie Sanders at Charles Schwab.
Speaker 1: It's arguably the best flow team on the street. Kathy,
Speaker 1: question I'd ask liz Anne, let me ask you to
Speaker 1: you as well. Schwab sees the flow of money nobody.
Speaker 1: What are you seeing right now among Schwab clients? Are
Speaker 1: they in the markets? Yeah? Absolutely, Um. I think our
Speaker 1: clients have learned the lesson of hanging in there after
Speaker 1: the ups and downs of the markets. Uh. You know,
Speaker 1: there's there's a lot of different clients, so each has
Speaker 1: a different kind of view, but in general, our clients
Speaker 1: have stayed in. We didn't see a big exodus when
Speaker 1: the economy declined, and we've actually seen clients come back
Speaker 1: and uh and increase their positions as the markets improved.
Speaker 1: What is your general yield prediction given the worries this
Speaker 1: morning over future aggregate demand. Yeah, so we've been saying
Speaker 1: since the beginning of the year that we thought that
Speaker 1: well actually since the pandemic hit, that we thought the
Speaker 1: tenure yield would stay in a fifty two five hundred
Speaker 1: basis point range this year. We're looking for a continued
Speaker 1: improvement in the economy, but the pace will probably slow
Speaker 1: down now that we've had this as quick rebound, and
Speaker 1: we think that that puts a lid on the upper
Speaker 1: end of yields. But with the improvement in the economy,
Speaker 1: even to a small extent, or even if we continue
Speaker 1: to kind of roll along here, should hold tenure yields
Speaker 1: around fifty basis points. And of course the short end
Speaker 1: is completely anchored by the fed um near zero, so
Speaker 1: there's not going to be a lot of play there. Kathy,
Speaker 1: good to speak to you Anna in London. Let me
Speaker 1: go into the minutes. We're just getting through from the ECB,
Speaker 1: just dropping across the bloomberg right now. They talk about
Speaker 1: positive market developments not being fully backed by data. Let's
Speaker 1: remember this is for July. This is the minutes of
Speaker 1: the fift to the sixteenth of July. But something catches
Speaker 1: my eye at Kathy, and that is what they're saying
Speaker 1: around the PEP, and that's the plan that the ECB
Speaker 1: put in place, of course, to to buy up assets.
Speaker 1: Some said in the minutes that the pet envelope should
Speaker 1: be a ceiling, not a target, and I wonder if
Speaker 1: that will lead some to conclude that maybe the ECB
Speaker 1: isn't about to increase the amount of money it puts
Speaker 1: into the PEP in the future. What are you expecting
Speaker 1: to see. Um, I think that that's still going to
Speaker 1: be somewhat flexible. You know, in the ECB you have
Speaker 1: different different factions there, and I think probably that statement,
Speaker 1: off the top of my head sounds like they're trying
Speaker 1: to satisfy different different factions within the e c B.
Speaker 1: But I do think that they're still under Christie regard this,
Speaker 1: you know, the continuation of the draggy whatever it takes philosophy.
Speaker 1: So if they have to increase, they will increase. But
Speaker 1: in the short run that probably sends a little bit
Speaker 1: of a signal that will firm up the Euro if
Speaker 1: people believe there is a ceiling on it. Yeah. They're
Speaker 1: also saying that they expect more clarity about inflation and
Speaker 1: the outlook for that in September. They'll have plenty more
Speaker 1: data to play with in September when it comes to that.
Speaker 1: The global conversation that seems to be going on around inflation, Kathy,
Speaker 1: if we can, if we can talk globally about inflation.
Speaker 1: I know these things are much more nuanced and geographical,
Speaker 1: but in general terms, we spent many years with central
Speaker 1: banks struggling to get inflation ray to meet their targets
Speaker 1: in developed markets. This is going to be even more
Speaker 1: difficult now, isn't it, with unemployment rates as high as
Speaker 1: they are, or as high as they're going to be.
Speaker 1: So where do you see the inflation and narrative gemming? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's gonna be a real struggle. We've got
Speaker 1: several years here before we close those output gaps, we
Speaker 1: get unemployment rates down, we get wages up, and enough
Speaker 1: that you have, you know, enough money in people's pockets
Speaker 1: to fuel some inflation. It's going to take a couple
Speaker 1: of years. But I'm not in the doom and gloom
Speaker 1: sort of a deflation camp. I think the abundant liquidity
Speaker 1: and the efforts of the central banks will mean that
Speaker 1: we will gradually see a little bit better inflation. But
Speaker 1: it's gonna take time because we doubled into unemployment and
Speaker 1: on all of the damage that's been done to the
Speaker 1: major developed economies economies around the world. It's going to
Speaker 1: take some time. The kitty, you know, we just had
Speaker 1: launched time. I'm Bloomberg, folks. This is an incredibly important
Speaker 1: story and I'll get it out shoot Nagina Natalie Wong
Speaker 1: on the real estate and the emptiness of our big cities.
Speaker 1: The article focuses on New York City, but in Edwards.
Speaker 1: To be honest, I saw a like article on London
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks ago as well. Kathy Jones to Schwab,
Speaker 1: just assume that there will be a lower g d
Speaker 1: P number and that the level we get back to
Speaker 1: could even be sub two real g d P. No,
Speaker 1: I don't think we're assuming that at all. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: we do know that there are structural changes taking place.
Speaker 1: So a commercial real estate is certainly an area where
Speaker 1: a lot of questions as to how that's going to evolve.
Speaker 1: But I really take on more optimistic view of things.
Speaker 1: If you look at how anxious people are to get
Speaker 1: back to their quote unquote normal lives. What you see
Speaker 1: is they're willing to risk their health and well being
Speaker 1: in order to just go to a bar or have
Speaker 1: a party or go to the gym. Um, I'm actually
Speaker 1: fairly optimistic about the resilience of the major economies once
Speaker 1: once we get further down the road. Obviously a vaccine
Speaker 1: would be a huge game changer, but I don't assume
Speaker 1: that we necessarily go to a lower level of economic
Speaker 1: activity below two percent going forward. I think we can
Speaker 1: get back to that two to two and a half
Speaker 1: percent area. I don't know that we can go be
Speaker 1: a pond differ. Well, that's yield up at some point,
Speaker 1: that's yield up priced down. How do you protect on
Speaker 1: price erosion on fixed income? Well, right now, we're keeping
Speaker 1: duration a little bit short of average or whatever the
Speaker 1: benchmark is. So if you take the egg the benchmark,
Speaker 1: it's around six or seven. Right now, we'd keep it
Speaker 1: a little bit shorter because the risk reward at the
Speaker 1: long end just isn't that great unless you have a
Speaker 1: very deflationary outlook, which we don't have. So we're keeping
Speaker 1: duration a little bit short. Um, we like high quality credit,
Speaker 1: you know, I investment grade credit. You can actually take
Speaker 1: some duration there and get a bit more yield, and
Speaker 1: you can venture out into some of the riskier segments
Speaker 1: of them market if you have the risk appetite for
Speaker 1: a little bit um and get some duration plus yield there. Yeah.
Speaker 1: What is appetite like for some of the new issuance
Speaker 1: we've seen coming through Kathy from the corporate world in
Speaker 1: in the US, and I'm thinking of investment grade. I
Speaker 1: was looking at a chant that showed issue instead of
Speaker 1: record for the year, and that was on Monday, So
Speaker 1: midway through August, we've already reached a full year record
Speaker 1: on on corporate issues. Is there still the appetite and
Speaker 1: the market still soaked this up? Oh? I think so. Um,
Speaker 1: if you look at the issue that Apple did a
Speaker 1: little while ago. Um, I think investment grade will find
Speaker 1: very strong appetite. You know, have the support programs from
Speaker 1: the FED. We know the FED has been buying some
Speaker 1: investment grade. You can't get a lot of yield anywhere,
Speaker 1: and um, when you're up in credit quality, there's just
Speaker 1: tremendous demand for some sort of yield out there. And
Speaker 1: I g definitely satisfies that. Kathy, thank you so much,
Speaker 1: Kathy Jones and rush So I greatly appreciated. What we
Speaker 1: know for certain is that the gentleman from Delaware has
Speaker 1: to go out and find disaffected Republicans. That's happened before,
Speaker 1: including the disaffected Republican Dean family of years ago, where
Speaker 1: Howard Dean wandered from GOP over to the Democratic Party
Speaker 1: and had a sterling career in Vermont and wandered out
Speaker 1: as a presidential candidate just a few years ago. We're
Speaker 1: thrilled that Howard Dean could join us this morning. The
Speaker 1: former d n C chair, Howard the vice president, has
Speaker 1: to go out and find disaffected Republicans. How does he
Speaker 1: do that? Actually he doesn't. He's going to do that,
Speaker 1: but he doesn't. All he has to do is get
Speaker 1: a bigger turn out than we had in two thousand sixteen.
Speaker 1: And I think they're well on their way to doing that.
Speaker 1: But this is a convention that is aimed at Republicans.
Speaker 1: You just want to see honesty back in our government. Uh.
Speaker 1: And that's why you had two or three pretty big
Speaker 1: Republican figures, Guy John Kasey, Cindy McCain, and Colin Powell
Speaker 1: basically giving permission for disaffected Republicans to vote for Joe Biden. Uh.
Speaker 1: This is a good job that I don't think conventions
Speaker 1: are ever going to go back to the way they work.
Speaker 1: This convention has been very effective with this format, and
Speaker 1: it's obviously much less expensive and much easier logistically. What
Speaker 1: happens when these two odd conventions are over, how do
Speaker 1: the Democrats move forward to get the vote out and
Speaker 1: to get those independence and disaffected Republicans. Well, that's why
Speaker 1: you're seeing so much hassle about the male system and
Speaker 1: Trump's attempt to disrupt the mail. Uh, it's clearly going
Speaker 1: to be mail ballots. In Vermont, we had the largest
Speaker 1: turnout in the history of the primary. The primary vote
Speaker 1: was up something like over the previous record of primary voters.
Speaker 1: That's just unheard of. Uh. And I think you know,
Speaker 1: voting by mail is convenient, people like it. Five states,
Speaker 1: including Utah and Oregon, both at the opposite ends of
Speaker 1: the political polls, have been doing this for a while
Speaker 1: and it's very successful in people like it regardless of
Speaker 1: their party. So that's going to be a critical key.
Speaker 1: Has have the post office run and function properly and
Speaker 1: that's a big get out of the vote tool. How
Speaker 1: is it easier to vote by posts than vote in
Speaker 1: person as far, well, it's much easier in the COVID
Speaker 1: epidemic where you have to worry about getting you know,
Speaker 1: pretty serious medical problem. And uh and it's always been
Speaker 1: a problem, and more so recently voting machines. The voting
Speaker 1: machine technology really doesn't work in this country because they've
Speaker 1: adopted a system that you can't really recount it. You
Speaker 1: just keep staring at the numbers. That's that's the recount.
Speaker 1: Now there's some states that don't use that technology that
Speaker 1: you can actually see ballots that get counted by the machine,
Speaker 1: which is the right way to go. So voting in
Speaker 1: this country has been a big problem since about two
Speaker 1: thousand with a very controversial Bush versus Score court case,
Speaker 1: and we need to do much better there. What is
Speaker 1: the message that the Democrats should do not to make
Speaker 1: sure that people just turn out and vote. How do
Speaker 1: you energize people? It's pretty well, you know, Trump is
Speaker 1: the interget I mean most most inner interim elections when
Speaker 1: a president's running for re election is about as a
Speaker 1: referendum on the president. So Trump is our best weapon
Speaker 1: Trump is incredibly destructive. He's certainly the most dishonest president
Speaker 1: we've ever had, and going back over the years, that's
Speaker 1: quite a statement to make. So people are first they're
Speaker 1: gonna go out and vote against Trump. Second of all,
Speaker 1: they do want decency. One of the great things about
Speaker 1: Biden's candidacy, even though he's seventy eight years old and
Speaker 1: all this stuff, is he's a decent guy and he
Speaker 1: does listen to people. He has empathy, which Trump completely lacked.
Speaker 1: So there's gonna be a huge contrast between the personal styles.
Speaker 1: And I know we all talked about issues and what
Speaker 1: people are gonna do with the real issue is always
Speaker 1: does this person care about people like me and Joe
Speaker 1: Biden does and Trump doesn't. Where do you sit Dr
Speaker 1: Dean with the idea of shocking the nation in October
Speaker 1: into the third week of October by starting to announce
Speaker 1: cabinet members. If this is a president Biden who has
Speaker 1: to delegate authority for whatever the reasons, can he like
Speaker 1: tear up the political playbook and say so and so
Speaker 1: will be my Secretary State, so and so will be
Speaker 1: my Secretary Treasury. That's controversial. I thought about that when
Speaker 1: I was running. The reason people don't do it, I
Speaker 1: think is because, um, there's some concern that if you
Speaker 1: do that, it appears that you're trading your your cabinet
Speaker 1: appointment for a for support. And you know, I've I've
Speaker 1: always heard this. We thought about doing it ourselves. That
Speaker 1: was an explanation I got from a lawyer. Uh So
Speaker 1: that I think may have something to do with the
Speaker 1: fact that candidates just don't do that. What is the
Speaker 1: best process for the vice president when he debates President Trump?
Speaker 1: We always saw the debate of of Trump Clinton. How
Speaker 1: should Biden debate the sitting president? He just needs to
Speaker 1: be himself. Trump will get out there and say all
Speaker 1: kinds of Atlantish things about conspiracy theories and drinking bleach
Speaker 1: and god knows what else, and Biden testing himself for
Speaker 1: whatever Biden's position on the political spectrum, and he's probably
Speaker 1: more conservative than I am. Um, he's just a good
Speaker 1: guy and just people would like to have a normal
Speaker 1: president again after this four years of reality television. So
Speaker 1: he just has to be himself. And if he makes
Speaker 1: a flub or says something you know that's uh, you know,
Speaker 1: that's out of line and out of whack. He's been
Speaker 1: doing that for thirty five years. He's just just makes
Speaker 1: him more human. But Howardina, I also keep on reading
Speaker 1: and that actually that there's a lot more googling on
Speaker 1: conspiracy theories. I think we had a story, um you know,
Speaker 1: on Q and On and the fact that President Trump
Speaker 1: didn't say it was nonsense. Does it really you know,
Speaker 1: is it really you know taking ground in the US?
Speaker 1: Are a lot more people, um, you know, believing in
Speaker 1: conspiracy theories or is it just still a very small part. Well,
Speaker 1: it's a small part, but it's a lot more people
Speaker 1: than it was. Because Trump floats these conspiracy theories and
Speaker 1: then Q and on, look, he has he has energized
Speaker 1: that what I would call the crackpot, right, um and
Speaker 1: and it's a problem. And because people do believe this
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. I mean we did, we seriously did
Speaker 1: have two Americans who died because they drank a swimming
Speaker 1: pool cleaner because Trump apparently recommended that that was how
Speaker 1: you're gonna get rid of coronavirus. I mean, really, you know,
Speaker 1: I hate to say that, I think I don't hate
Speaker 1: to say it's true. I think Trump is crazy. I
Speaker 1: really do think he's mentally unbalanced, and he's been mentally
Speaker 1: imbalanced most of his life. Dr Dean, we didn't have
Speaker 1: you on to talk politics. We need to get some
Speaker 1: medicine out of the way here. Right now. We have
Speaker 1: a new solution for this virus. It is a derivative
Speaker 1: called oleander her oleand rin whatever it is. And the
Speaker 1: President is not endorsed it, but said quote will look
Speaker 1: at it. Can you speak to our global audience about
Speaker 1: the pathology and the the almost the physiology of these
Speaker 1: these easy solutions on a virus pathology? Isn't there are
Speaker 1: no easy solution. There are plenty of fantastic sciences scientists
Speaker 1: in many countries around the globe. There's a hundred potential vaccines,
Speaker 1: several of which are probably gonna work. I think the most,
Speaker 1: uh most further furthest along is astro Zeneca and Oxford
Speaker 1: University in the UK. That appears to be far advancing
Speaker 1: because the drug company is going to do an unusual
Speaker 1: kind of test called the Challenge tests, which will even
Speaker 1: move that and they're also already making doses on the
Speaker 1: com That is uh to to take the risk of
Speaker 1: making something that's not gonna work, I think it will work. Uh.
Speaker 1: It certainly isn't going to be there by the election,
Speaker 1: but you know it's possible it will be there by January,
Speaker 1: and that will make a difference. It won't make a
Speaker 1: difference right away because there's seven billion people in the
Speaker 1: world and at least sixty or seventy of them have
Speaker 1: to be vaccinated in order to get hurt immunity. But
Speaker 1: these cracked by theories people should not. I mean, the
Speaker 1: President the United States is just keep his mouth chef
Speaker 1: that that's clinically impossible for US. Dr Dean, thank you
Speaker 1: so much, of course, a former DNC chair. Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening to the Bloomberg Surveillance podcast. Subscribe and listen to
Speaker 1: interviews on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, or whichever podcast platform you prefer.
Speaker 1: I'm on Twitter at Tom Keene before the podcast. You
Speaker 1: can always catch us worldwide. I'm Bloomberg Radio.