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Speaker 1: Donald Trump has named his three eldest children and his

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Speaker 1: son in law to his presidential transition team, despite assurances

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Speaker 1: that there would be a line separating them, and they're

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Speaker 1: running of the Trump organization from the workings of the

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Speaker 1: White House. Timothy O'Brien, the executive editor of Bloomberg Gadfly

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Speaker 1: and Bloomberg View, has written a column entitled Trump's Tangled

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Speaker 1: web of family and business ties, and he joins me, Now, Tim,

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Speaker 1: let's start with how important is it that the Trump

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Speaker 1: children and son in law are on this transition team. Well,

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Speaker 1: it's significant because it undermines the notion that he's created

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Speaker 1: clear dividing lines from his own business and financial interests

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Speaker 1: from the policies he might pursue or help enact as president. Uh.

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Speaker 1: The whole core of this issue right now is about

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Speaker 1: self dealing and the conflict of interest. Laws that exist

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Speaker 1: now were put in place, quite obviously to prevent politicians

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Speaker 1: of all parties, all stripes, and all intentions from you

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Speaker 1: using their power or their office to feather their own

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Speaker 1: financial mess. The problem arises in that Congress never made

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Speaker 1: those laws applicable to the president, and there's some good

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Speaker 1: reason around that. The reason is the president touches so

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Speaker 1: many issues that legislators believe there was no way you

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Speaker 1: could come up with an equitable conflicts law that wouldn't

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Speaker 1: leave a president twisting and turning at every moment to

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Speaker 1: decide what to do to make sure there wasn't a

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Speaker 1: conflict in in the breach. Then we have tradition, and

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Speaker 1: presidents have relied essentially on two things, disclosure and what

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Speaker 1: I call distance. UM disclosures pure and simple. Release your

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Speaker 1: tax returns, Let the voters and the American public know

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Speaker 1: what you have at stake financially. We know that Trump

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Speaker 1: has fully and flagrantly ignored this. He had a presidential

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Speaker 1: campaign that lasted a year and a half. He refused

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Speaker 1: to release his tax as a spokesman said, there's going

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Speaker 1: to be no change in that course. The other thing

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Speaker 1: we have to rely on is distance, And by distance,

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Speaker 1: I mean setting up a facility or a person or

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Speaker 1: a blind trust that manages all of your business and

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Speaker 1: financial interests without your input. Trump has said, sure, I'll

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Speaker 1: set up a blind trust my children, my children will

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Speaker 1: run that. Well, that's also not viable. Now, what do

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Speaker 1: you see as the most serious potential conflict of interest? UM,

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Speaker 1: there's a number. Uh. He's a real estate guy. He's

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Speaker 1: got a very very modest real estate business. It's a

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Speaker 1: boutique business. He's never been one of New York's biggest

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Speaker 1: real estate developers, but he has some some well known

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Speaker 1: holdings obviously, and um, he's going to be involved with

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Speaker 1: tax code that would affect how the buying and selling

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Speaker 1: of properties are affected. Um. He's, like many real estate developers,

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Speaker 1: highly leveraged. He has quite a bit of bank debt, UH,

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Speaker 1: including to a major German bank, Deutsche Bank, which is

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Speaker 1: currently under investigation by the Justice Department, which currently would

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Speaker 1: be the beneficiary of any deregulatory moves that the Trump

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Speaker 1: administration makes in Washington. And of course that would put

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Speaker 1: him in a position to benefit from a lender treating

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Speaker 1: him well because he treated the lender well. And is

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Speaker 1: there any kind of watchdog, any kind of group that

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Speaker 1: is going to be looking at this. There's the Office

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Speaker 1: of Government Ethics in Washington. It's a federal office house

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Speaker 1: in the Executive Branch, and it reports to the President. UH.

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Speaker 1: It can suggest guidelines. For example, o g E has

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Speaker 1: said that you can't have a blind trust that your

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Speaker 1: children oversea or any family member overseas, that it undermines

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Speaker 1: the whole notion of a blind trust um, and whether

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Speaker 1: or not they want to enforce that and enforce it

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Speaker 1: against a president who also employs them, will be an

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Speaker 1: interesting moment. Also, I was reading in your column that

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Speaker 1: he hasn't necessarily ruled out having his son in law

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Speaker 1: in involved in administration. Well, all the children are on

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Speaker 1: the transition team. They're they're involved with appointing four thousand

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Speaker 1: people to the federal government. They buy virtue of those positions,

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Speaker 1: now have skin in the policy game. He's asked for

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Speaker 1: security clearances for his children. They don't need it. Why

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Speaker 1: he's asking for it is a little bit beyond but

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Speaker 1: nonetheless it shows that he's not creating clear divisions between

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Speaker 1: his family and the federal government. Rudy Giuliani on CNN

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Speaker 1: over the weekend suggested that none of this applied to

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Speaker 1: Jared Kushner, Trump's son in law because he's got his

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Speaker 1: own business interests. But the reality is that Jared Kushner

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Speaker 1: is married to Donald's daughter. So does Donald talked to

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Speaker 1: Ivanka about policy, but Jared about business, or does Jared

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Speaker 1: talked to Ivanka about business but not about policy. It

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Speaker 1: all gets very confusing. Finally, about thirty seconds, what is

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Speaker 1: you're looking forward? Do you think that there will be

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Speaker 1: something coming out, some kind of a structure. I think.

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Speaker 1: I think it would be useful for Donald Trump to

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Speaker 1: show that he stands strongly in the tradition of his

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Speaker 1: predecessors in the Oval Office, and he discloses his taxes

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Speaker 1: to the American public, and he acknowledges strong divisions between

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Speaker 1: business and policymaking. But I don't expect either of those

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Speaker 1: things to occur. Thank you. That's Timothy O'Brien. He is

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Speaker 1: the executive editor of Bloomberg Gadfly and Bloomberg View, and

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Speaker 1: if you want to read more of his columns, go

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Speaker 1: to View, go on the Bloomberg terminal. That's it for

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Speaker 1: this edition of Bloomberg Law. I want to say thanks

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Speaker 1: to my producer Mark Sinnis Counchy and my technical director

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Speaker 1: Reginald Basil. And coming up next we have Carol Masser

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Speaker 1: and Corey Johnson. Carol, what's up? I wanted to continue

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Speaker 1: your conversation with Tam. Really great. We're gonna try and

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Speaker 1: continue that. We're gonna take a look at that transition team.

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Speaker 1: What it means for the next administration. We've also got

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Speaker 1: the CFO at NAP story. They've got some new partnerships

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Speaker 1: with Sprint and some others. So what are the implications

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Speaker 1: for the company. But we're gonna let going on the

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Speaker 1: next couple of hours. All right, that's Bloomberg Markets with

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Speaker 1: Carol Master and Corey Johnson coming up right here on

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio. Stay tuned for all that and more. This

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Speaker 1: is Bloomberg