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Speaker 2: Thank you for being with us here on the Monday
Speaker 2: edition of Balance of Power. A new weekend hand and
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Speaker 2: us on YouTube search Bloomberg Business News Live. We've got
Speaker 2: a lot to talk about here, a lot to talk
Speaker 2: about after a wild weekend on the campaign trail, certainly
Speaker 2: on the golf course. And we have heard from Donald
Speaker 2: Trump this morning in an interview with Fox News Digital,
Speaker 2: the first comment from the former president since what is
Speaker 2: now being billed as a second attempted assassination attempt knowing
Speaker 2: the suspect, from what we understand from authorities, did not
Speaker 2: even fire his weapon, but was apparently getting to be
Speaker 2: in a position to do so, Donald Trump telling Fox
Speaker 2: News Digital quote, he accused gunman believed the rhetoric of
Speaker 2: Biden and Harris, and he acted on it. Unquote. He
Speaker 2: wanted to say, their rhetoric is causing me to be
Speaker 2: shot at when I am the one who is going
Speaker 2: to save the country and they are the ones that
Speaker 2: are destroying the country, both from the inside and out.
Speaker 2: He went on to say, they use highly inflammatory language.
Speaker 2: I can use it too, far better than they can,
Speaker 2: but I don't unquote. We heard from Joe Biden, of course,
Speaker 2: the president that Donald Trump is talking about. He spoke
Speaker 2: with reporters in the driveway on his way out of
Speaker 2: the White House earlier. Let's listen with one thing.
Speaker 3: I want to make clear. The Service needs more help,
Speaker 3: and I think that Congress should respond to their needs
Speaker 3: if they fact need more services. So that's what we're
Speaker 3: going to be talking about.
Speaker 1: More personnel. They need more money.
Speaker 4: What kind of helps me?
Speaker 3: And I think they need some more person I think
Speaker 3: they may need. They made their deciding whether they need
Speaker 3: more personnel or not.
Speaker 2: We'll see what the Secret Service needs. As Donald Trump
Speaker 2: today plans to meet with the acting Director of the
Speaker 2: Secret Service, and there is news that Joe Biden has
Speaker 2: directed his team. This is, according to a statement from
Speaker 2: the White House to continue to quote ensure that Secret
Speaker 2: Service has every resource, capability and protective measure necessary unquote
Speaker 2: to ensure Donald Trump's safety. That's according to a statement
Speaker 2: from the President, knowing the trouble with which the Secret
Speaker 2: Service has had securing golf courses for Donald Trump, knowing
Speaker 2: as well that he does not get the same level
Speaker 2: of security protection that the sitting president of the United
Speaker 2: States gets. And this is where we start our conversation
Speaker 2: with Laura Davison, who had a working weekend Bloomberg Politics
Speaker 2: editor pulled out of a Sunday slumber. I'm guessing, Laura,
Speaker 2: once again, with news like this at just the news cycle,
Speaker 2: if you can speak to this broadly that Americans have
Speaker 2: had to endure going back two months from Butler, Pennsylvania
Speaker 2: to now having spent the weekend talking about Springfield, Ohio
Speaker 2: and the madness the rhetoric is really something to consider here, Laura,
Speaker 2: What should voters do with this information? Does it actually
Speaker 2: impact the race itself?
Speaker 5: I mean, I think that the broad takeaway here is
Speaker 5: that this race has been so calamitous, so disruptive. So
Speaker 5: you know, I hate to use the word, but unprecedented,
Speaker 5: and just all of the different inflection points there have been,
Speaker 5: just you know, going back to mid July when the
Speaker 5: first assassination attempt occurred. You know what's really interesting is
Speaker 5: how much this is now just becoming a political event
Speaker 5: versus a security event, versus you know, sort of viewed
Speaker 5: as a tragedy. We saw this with the first assassination attempt.
Speaker 5: There was a couple days of morning reflection thinking about,
Speaker 5: you know, what does all this mean? But then it
Speaker 5: would quickly pivoted to Biden dropping out of the race.
Speaker 5: You know, in this situation because you know, the gunman
Speaker 5: didn't even get a chance to fire his weapon. You know,
Speaker 5: it quickly became a political event. You saw both Democrats
Speaker 5: and Trump himself in his comments, both sides are you know,
Speaker 5: continuing with fundraising, continuing with sort of this heated rhetoric,
Speaker 5: you know, at each other.
Speaker 2: Right the the statements from Donald Trump that I just
Speaker 2: brought to our viewers and listeners here from Fox News Digital.
Speaker 2: If he is going to be blaming Donald Trump or
Speaker 2: Joe Biden and Kamala Harris for this, this campaign is
Speaker 2: about to take on a whole new course, isn't it.
Speaker 5: Yes, I mean this is you know, you kind of
Speaker 5: really see that the knives are out, you know, and
Speaker 5: that you know, after the first assassination at temp we
Speaker 5: saw Democrats pull their ads from the airwaves. We saw
Speaker 5: and you and you hear you know, both Harris and
Speaker 5: Biden and their statements saying, look, there is no room
Speaker 5: for political violence. But Trump is turning up the heat
Speaker 5: a little bit saying, look, I can be inflammatory too.
Speaker 5: I'm not you know, that's not really true. Trump is
Speaker 5: you know, had multiple occasions of using inflammatory language, you know,
Speaker 5: most recently at the debate just last week.
Speaker 2: Even at that debate, he did suggest that it was
Speaker 2: democratic rhetoric that led to the first shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2: You might have seen the tweet from Elon Musk. I
Speaker 2: don't know your thoughts on this, Laura, but this has
Speaker 2: been since deleted. Elon Musk posting on his own platform
Speaker 2: X quote and no one is even trying to assassinate
Speaker 2: Biden and Kamala with an emoji of someone thinking here
Speaker 2: a thought balloon. What does this do to the national
Speaker 2: rhetoric around this campaign?
Speaker 5: It doesn't turn it down, that's for sure. And you saw,
Speaker 5: you know, the White House respond to this statement. You know,
Speaker 5: there is a sort of a clear, uh you know,
Speaker 5: sort of concern that's building, you know, all around it.
Speaker 5: You know, what does political violence look like? You know,
Speaker 5: in twenty twenty four, you know, we've already seen two
Speaker 5: examples of this, and you know clearly this also raches
Speaker 5: questions about you know, Trump's protection himself. But there is
Speaker 5: a lot of concern going into election day. After election day,
Speaker 5: you know that there will be more violence, which is
Speaker 5: a really, really scary thought.
Speaker 2: It really is. We're not going to talk about this
Speaker 2: all day today, but obviously this is a major story
Speaker 2: and one that we're covering here from a hard news standpoint.
Speaker 2: Gun charges have been filed against this individual, and will
Speaker 2: of course let you know as we learn more. We'll
Speaker 2: get into it with our panel later. But I wanted
Speaker 2: to just start with Laura here on this and I
Speaker 2: appreciate your work and help on this matter. Laura. It's
Speaker 2: great to see you. Thank you for being with us.
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Speaker 6: Remember it was nine weeks ago yesterday that Joe and
Speaker 6: I were in Milwaukee in the aftermath of the first
Speaker 6: attempted assassination against Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, when, of
Speaker 6: course he actually was shot and the assailant was killed.
Speaker 6: Then yesterday on a golf course in Florida, just over
Speaker 6: nine weeks later, with a different opponent now Kamala Harris
Speaker 6: running against Donald Trump instead of Joe Biden. Because yes,
Speaker 6: that much has changed in such a short period of time,
Speaker 6: there was a threat against Donald Trump's life again, although
Speaker 6: he escaped unscathed and the suspect was apprehended. It raises
Speaker 6: the same questions, though, how is it possible that the
Speaker 6: former president and Republican nominee to be president once more
Speaker 6: had a gunman within just a few hundred yards away
Speaker 6: from him? And the Secret Service, of course, is in
Speaker 6: the spotlight here. Even President Biden today, when addressing this event,
Speaker 6: said they need more resources.
Speaker 3: With one thing, I want to make clear, the Service
Speaker 3: needs more help, and I think that Congress should respond
Speaker 3: to their needs if they fact need more service. So
Speaker 3: I to what we're going to be talking about, the.
Speaker 4: More personality, need more money, what kind of helped me?
Speaker 3: I think Green needs some more person I think they
Speaker 3: made their deciding whether they need more personnel.
Speaker 2: Or not, either money or personnel. Maybe it's both, Kayley.
Speaker 2: That's one of the big questions coming off of this
Speaker 2: second event, what resources the Secret Service needs to protect
Speaker 2: Donald Trump? Knowing that a golf course can be a
Speaker 2: very difficult setting to do this job to begin with,
Speaker 2: but also following word from Joe Biden that he would
Speaker 2: make every resource available, as he said, resource capability and
Speaker 2: protective measure necessary to ensure Donald Trump's safety. It's where
Speaker 2: we start our conversation with Brian Gant, Assistant Professor of
Speaker 2: cybersecurity at Maryville University and importantly a former member of
Speaker 2: the Secret Service who helped to provide protection for Presidents
Speaker 2: Obama and Clinton. Brian, welcome back to Bloomberg. It's great
Speaker 2: to see you here. Donald Trump was very quick to
Speaker 2: acknowledge the success the Secret Service had in foiling what
Speaker 2: they are calling a possible attempt to assassination but of
Speaker 2: course he still got within three to five hundred yards
Speaker 2: of the former president. Was this a success or a
Speaker 2: failure for the Secret Service?
Speaker 4: Thanks for having me first of all, and I would
Speaker 4: say anytime you know you can walk away, you know,
Speaker 4: with your health and your safety, I view it as
Speaker 4: a success. Are there things to learn from it? I'm
Speaker 4: sure the investigation will will yield that out. But you know,
Speaker 4: absolutely as a president Joe Biden mentioned, you know resources,
Speaker 4: and this is something that I've harped on in previous
Speaker 4: interviews as well. The Secret Service is a relatively small
Speaker 4: agency in terms of agents, I believe maybe three thousand
Speaker 4: or so worldwide. And so when you think of the
Speaker 4: mission that you have and you think of protecting sites
Speaker 4: like the first assassination attempt or sites like the golf course,
Speaker 4: these types of sites all have a lot of different
Speaker 4: areas where you can have a shooter's nests, as you
Speaker 4: say on this particular case, areas of egress and ingress.
Speaker 4: And so you have to make sure that you have
Speaker 4: the appropriate resources to provide that three sixty coverage around
Speaker 4: the sites that you saw yesterday.
Speaker 6: But what scaling up of resources would actually provide coverage
Speaker 6: for say an eighteen whole open air golf course. Realistically,
Speaker 6: I just wonder if there is enough staff in personnel
Speaker 6: in the world to make this a completely fool proof
Speaker 6: scenario for the former president, who of course golfs a lot.
Speaker 4: Yeah, nothing is full proof, but I think the sheriff
Speaker 4: mentioned this before in his press conference. He talked about
Speaker 4: how he felt his own or he knows that if
Speaker 4: the former president Trump doesn't have or he's not a
Speaker 4: sitting president, right, and so he doesn't have the the
Speaker 4: the cadre of resources that you might see Joe Biden have,
Speaker 4: and even with his threat level being high, you know
Speaker 4: he still doesn't. Everyone knows from the president in town.
Speaker 4: You see the big motor k, you see the number
Speaker 4: of local resources, state and federal police. I'm not saying
Speaker 4: that it has to be to that degree, right, but
Speaker 4: there has to be some some middle ground. And with
Speaker 4: that middle ground there there's a lot of resources from
Speaker 4: the local and state level that are involved with that
Speaker 4: three sixty coverage. You're tapping into the county departments, the
Speaker 4: sheriff's apartments, the local pds. You're asking for mark units
Speaker 4: to be at a different areas so you can kind
Speaker 4: of deter someone who could possibly hide in the bushes.
Speaker 4: But that takes a lot of resources, that takes a
Speaker 4: lot of financial responsibility, and it takes a lot of
Speaker 4: planning logistically, and I think that's kind of where we
Speaker 4: are in terms of copycatter artists and things of that
Speaker 4: nature that we see kind of coming up the woodworks.
Speaker 2: Donald Trump today is blaming rhetoric from Democrats for what
Speaker 2: happened here. Brian, that's I realized something that you can't
Speaker 2: comment on because it's pretty difficult to connect the dots
Speaker 2: directly to an attack like this. But he's also suggested
Speaker 2: since the attack in Butler that President Biden has essentially
Speaker 2: slow walked this issue, that he hasn't been given the
Speaker 2: resources that he needs despite requests. Can you just speak
Speaker 2: to the way the service works, how a request would
Speaker 2: be honored like that, and following what we saw in Butler,
Speaker 2: why he didn't have additional security.
Speaker 4: You know, there are a lot of layers that go
Speaker 4: into getting different resources, and a lot of those layers, ironically,
Speaker 4: you know, fall on some of White House staff as well.
Speaker 4: You know, at the end of the day, President from
Speaker 4: President Trump is conducting the campaign and there's often a
Speaker 4: kind of a tug of war, if you will, between
Speaker 4: staff and security. You know, if the Secret Service had
Speaker 4: their way, President Trump wouldn't go into any open air areas.
Speaker 4: He would always be in hard areas. He wouldn't do
Speaker 4: any rope lines, wouldn't do the things that as a
Speaker 4: security professional, you know, put him in danger. But staff,
Speaker 4: and understandably so, they want him to be seen. They
Speaker 4: want him to be a man of the people. They
Speaker 4: want him to reach out and shake hands, and so
Speaker 4: you know that tug of war is a real thing,
Speaker 4: and so there may have to be a little bit
Speaker 4: more on the security side in terms of those negotiations
Speaker 4: as you go from site to site and stop to
Speaker 4: stop in the rest of his campaign.
Speaker 6: Well, Brian, it's not just the slow walking allegations that
Speaker 6: Donald Trump is making about President Biden, but also rhetoric
Speaker 6: that he says both President Biden and Vice President Kamala
Speaker 6: Harris have been using that he said this particular would
Speaker 6: be shooter believed in that this is the reason for
Speaker 6: the attempts on his life, especially given your focus now
Speaker 6: on cybersecurity. To what extent should we be factoring rhetoric
Speaker 6: into this and the kind of theories that can be
Speaker 6: propagated propagated online through social media, and how hard that
Speaker 6: could be if you're the Secret Service or another charge
Speaker 6: with protecting a candidate or former president to filter through
Speaker 6: when there's so much of it out there.
Speaker 4: You know, this is where I think interagency plays a
Speaker 4: critical role. You know, I spent five of my federal
Speaker 4: government years with the FBI as an intel analysts before
Speaker 4: I became a Secret Service agent and combing you know,
Speaker 4: those sites, looking at looking for the rhetoric, you know,
Speaker 4: whether it be homegrown militias or international aspects. They enter
Speaker 4: agency communication and uh that that communication filtering to agents
Speaker 4: on the ground, agents on the shift, professional staff within
Speaker 4: the organization, providing great intelligence, real time threat intelligence. I
Speaker 4: think will be very very important moving forward in terms
Speaker 4: of you know, conjecture or the walk in the back
Speaker 4: of whether or not President Biden is offering in those resources.
Speaker 4: I think the Service is focused and rightly so, on
Speaker 4: the facts that hand, and hopefully the different layers of government,
Speaker 4: hopefully they can get through some of this red tape
Speaker 4: and provide those agents on the ground with what they need.
Speaker 2: Mister Khan, it's great to have you back, Assistant Professor
Speaker 2: of cyber Security, Maryville University of former Secret Service member Brian.
Speaker 2: Thank you for being with us again here on Bloomberg.
Speaker 2: We did not anticipate having a reason like this to
Speaker 2: call you again so quickly.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast. Catch
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Speaker 2: I'm Joe Matthew alongside Kaylee Lions as we try to
Speaker 2: pick up the pieces and not only understand what happened yesterday,
Speaker 2: but where this investigation is headed, speaking to many of
Speaker 2: the issues we just discussed with Brian Gant Palm Beach
Speaker 2: County Sheriff Rick Bradshaw in a news briefing yesterday.
Speaker 7: Let's listen, golf course is surrounded by shrubbery, so when
Speaker 7: somebody gets into the shrubbery, they're pretty much out of sight,
Speaker 7: all right. And at this level that he is at
Speaker 7: right now, he's not the sitting president. If he was,
Speaker 7: we would have had this hire golf course around it.
Speaker 8: Well.
Speaker 7: Because he's not. The security is limited to the areas
Speaker 7: that the Secret Service deems possible. The Secret Service did
Speaker 7: exactly what they should have done. They provided exactly what
Speaker 7: the protection should have been, and their agent did a
Speaker 7: fantastic job.
Speaker 6: Palm Beach County Sheriff Rick Bradshaw and if you're joining
Speaker 6: us on Bloomberg Television or on YouTube, he saw standing
Speaker 6: just behind him in that news conference. Our next guest,
Speaker 6: Dave Arenberg, who is the Palm Beach County State Attorney,
Speaker 6: is joining us here on Bloomberg TV and radio. Dave,
Speaker 6: It's always good to have you, even despite circumstances like this.
Speaker 6: We understand now that the would be assailant has been
Speaker 6: charged after appearing in federal court today with possessing a
Speaker 6: firearm despite being a convicted felon, as well as possessing
Speaker 6: a firearm with an obliterated serial number. But are more
Speaker 6: charges possible here?
Speaker 9: You know it's possible because these charges saw on. The
Speaker 9: firearm charges are the lowest hanging fruit in that I
Speaker 9: think they're the easiest to prove. You don't need to
Speaker 9: show intent. You just have to show that he's an
Speaker 9: ex fellon check and that he was in possession of
Speaker 9: a firearm. Check also for the second charge of obliterating
Speaker 9: the serial number. I mean it is what it is.
Speaker 9: Those are good charges. They can catch up to ten
Speaker 9: years in prison per charge, and they'll keep him in
Speaker 9: lockdown in jail pending trial because the beds are making
Speaker 9: the argument to the magistrate that this guy is a
Speaker 9: threat to the community, is a danger, and so he's
Speaker 9: not going to get out before trial. And I do
Speaker 9: expect that there may be other charges forth coming, perhaps
Speaker 9: aggravated assault with a firearm against a federal law enforcement officer.
Speaker 9: According to reports, he pointed his ar Ak forty seven
Speaker 9: style rifle at a Secret Service agent. That'll catch you
Speaker 9: up to twenty years if they decide to pursue that charge.
Speaker 2: Wow, we heard from your governor, Ron DeSantis, who says, quote,
Speaker 2: we're going to do a state level investigation. Asked in
Speaker 2: a news conference a short time ago by reporters this morning,
Speaker 2: he says, quote, we do believe there were multiple violations
Speaker 2: of state law. Dave, what's the governor talking about in
Speaker 2: terms of a state run investigation, knowing the FBI is
Speaker 2: already at this how will it work? Well?
Speaker 9: He knows how to capture headlines. I think he's referring
Speaker 9: to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement under his control,
Speaker 9: which is a very professional law enforcement agency. And I
Speaker 9: guess they're going to be doing a separate investigation that's
Speaker 9: in addition to the investigation by the Secret Service, and
Speaker 9: in addition to the investigation by Congress, by partisan investigation
Speaker 9: that incorporates the first attempted assassination. So this is just
Speaker 9: yet another layer of investigations. And I'm sure you know
Speaker 9: it'll be a popular move in.
Speaker 6: And does that make a case like this inherently more
Speaker 6: complicated if you have so many different players seeking similar answers, Dave?
Speaker 6: Or is it actually helpful to have state and federal
Speaker 6: and congressional officials all involved?
Speaker 9: Well, Kayley, the investigation by DeSantis and by Congress is
Speaker 9: not as to whom shot or fired the gun. It's
Speaker 9: how did it get to that point, what breakdowns occurred
Speaker 9: within the Secret Service. They're trying to fix the issues
Speaker 9: within Secret Service, and that's why the Feds are better
Speaker 9: equip that then the state. Now, to my knowledge, DeSantis
Speaker 9: is not duplicating the federal investigation of this particular crime
Speaker 9: because there's not gonna be state charges here. This is
Speaker 9: a federal case where there will be federal charges. So
Speaker 9: I think what Governor's stantus is talking about is to
Speaker 9: investigate how someone was able to breach the shrubbery the
Speaker 9: property of mar Lago without secrets, excuse me, the golf
Speaker 9: club without Secret Service knowing about it. So you know,
Speaker 9: some would call that political, others would call it smart politics.
Speaker 9: Whatever it is, I don't think it's necessarily important right now.
Speaker 9: I think the most important thing is to fix the
Speaker 9: problems within the Secret Service and to also make sure
Speaker 9: you've got the right charges against this guy so he's
Speaker 9: held accountable to the full concent of the law.
Speaker 2: Dave, how would this man? How would any American go
Speaker 2: about acquiring an AK forty seven, a foreign made semi
Speaker 2: automatic weapon, Joe.
Speaker 9: With all the talk about we need more money for
Speaker 9: Secret Service to guard the president and the former president,
Speaker 9: with all the talk about the heated rhetoric in our
Speaker 9: political culture, why are we talking about the easy access
Speaker 9: to guns, especially weapons of war semi automatic weapons that
Speaker 9: are used in mass shootings. Perhaps it's a little too
Speaker 9: easy for a guy with a lengthy felony rap sheet
Speaker 9: to get access to this a K forty seven style rifle.
Speaker 9: Maybe we should discuss that but it doesn't seem like
Speaker 9: the politicians want to have that conversation. They'd rather talk
Speaker 9: about the fact that Democrats are using overheated language and
Speaker 9: Trump's using overheated language.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 9: Okay, well there's some of that on both sides. But
Speaker 9: if we're not going to talk about easy access to guns,
Speaker 9: then I think you're not really dealing with the problem.
Speaker 6: Dave, just to have an understanding. Given one of the
Speaker 6: crimes he was charged with as possessing a firearm despite
Speaker 6: being a felon, it was illegal for him to have
Speaker 6: this weapon, right, This was this was not something obtained legally.
Speaker 6: He could have owned guns legally. As my understanding, that's correct.
Speaker 9: But the fact is you see these weapons still on
Speaker 9: the streets so easily accessible. He used to have a
Speaker 9: assault weapons ban in this country, and I know that
Speaker 9: assault weapons ban was not perfect, but the fact is
Speaker 9: it made it harder to get access to these weapons.
Speaker 9: We won't even have that. I mean, it's like bare minimum.
Speaker 9: You don't even want to try at the federal level
Speaker 9: to make it harder to get access to these weapons
Speaker 9: of war. So, yes, we're going to prosecute him after
Speaker 9: the fact for being a fellon in possession of an
Speaker 9: AK forty seven style rifle. But why was he able
Speaker 9: to get such easy access to this weapon to begin with?
Speaker 9: And until we talk about the easily accessiful weapons like
Speaker 9: in this case, like the case where the young man
Speaker 9: in Georgia got access to a similar weapon and then
Speaker 9: shot up a school, you know, then we're really doing
Speaker 9: a disservice because you're not dealing with a full problem.
Speaker 9: I Meanwhile, we'll do these grandstanding investigations of how the
Speaker 9: guy got past secret service. Okay, that's fine, but you
Speaker 9: need to talk about the guns or else you're not
Speaker 9: talking about the whole problem.
Speaker 2: As we spent time with Dave Ehrenberg, Palm Beach County
Speaker 2: State Attorney, can you bring us in the room for
Speaker 2: a moment yesterday, Dave, we just showed our viewers and
Speaker 2: listeners a snippet of the sheriff talking. And what was
Speaker 2: I'm sure a very stressful moment for law enforcement in
Speaker 2: Florida yesterday. What was it like behind the scenes. How
Speaker 2: did the sheriff do?
Speaker 9: Sheriff was great, and he really led the coordinated effort
Speaker 9: among local, state, and federal officials. It was like you
Speaker 9: would imagine it. There were no turf wars. We met
Speaker 9: beforehand around a table and discuss who would go first,
Speaker 9: and we at the state level, we're going to go
Speaker 9: first with a motion for pre trial detention so this
Speaker 9: guy would not slip through the cracks and be released.
Speaker 9: We were going to go first with the warrants to
Speaker 9: arrest him for state crimes. And then after the press conference,
Speaker 9: the federal officials told me that they had decided to
Speaker 9: move forward with charges, and so we then stood down.
Speaker 9: And that's the way it should be. There was no
Speaker 9: turf war. We are happy to defer to the Feds.
Speaker 9: They're the right agencies to deal with this. And so
Speaker 9: we've been working really well together. And there is a
Speaker 9: press conference again today at four pm. I won't be
Speaker 9: at this one, but it will be with the sheriff
Speaker 9: and federal officials. That's a type of cooperation you want
Speaker 9: to see.
Speaker 6: And finally, Dave, considering the investigations into the first attempt
Speaker 6: on Trump's life back in July are still ongoing. There's
Speaker 6: so many questions still unanswered, how quickly at least in
Speaker 6: terms of the legal aspect and the actual prosecution of
Speaker 6: the suspect in question. Do you expect this process will
Speaker 6: play out.
Speaker 9: Well as compared to the first one. You have a
Speaker 9: live suspect and we want to know exactly what motivated him.
Speaker 9: It's important to notice we're gonna look thoroughly through his
Speaker 9: social media, through all his statements, all his posts, and
Speaker 9: what we're seeing right now is a guy who has
Speaker 9: a screw lowse who is very zealous about the war
Speaker 9: in Ukraine, and he's on the right side of that one,
Speaker 9: thinking that the Ukrainians are the good guys and the
Speaker 9: Russians are the bad guys. In this one, yes, I
Speaker 9: would agree, but he seems to take everything a step
Speaker 9: too far. He's out there trying to recruit Afghanis to
Speaker 9: fight in the war, and he's so upset about what's
Speaker 9: happening that he's going to get a semi automatic weapon
Speaker 9: and try, apparently to assassinate a former president. He's lost
Speaker 9: his sense of morality. If able to see the good
Speaker 9: in Ukrainians and the bad in Putin, but unable to
Speaker 9: see how evil his alleged act would have been to
Speaker 9: try to kill or President Trump. So yeah, clearly he's
Speaker 9: not all there. But then again, normal people don't try
Speaker 9: to commit crimes like this.
Speaker 2: Dave we're out of time, but I have to ask
Speaker 2: you about something that just emerged from court earlier. This
Speaker 2: court filing about this individual finds that he apparently was
Speaker 2: camped out waiting for Donald Trump to appear for more
Speaker 2: than eleven hours, that he was in that so called
Speaker 2: shooter's nest that Brian Gant referred to for eleven hours
Speaker 2: according to cell phone location data obtained by the FBI.
Speaker 2: Does that in any way change the contours of this
Speaker 2: case in the way you're looking at it.
Speaker 9: No, this has always been an investigation of an attempted
Speaker 9: assassination of the former president. The fact that he hid
Speaker 9: for eleven hours does help us understand how he got
Speaker 9: by Secret Service, which all over at mar A Lago.
Speaker 9: But it is a little too easy to sneak through
Speaker 9: the bushes and to look through that fence. But fortunately
Speaker 9: the Secret Service saw him before he could do anything,
Speaker 9: and the Secret Service so the only ones according to
Speaker 9: my information, that fired shots. After shots were fired against him,
Speaker 9: he then ran and fled. But it does show you
Speaker 9: the lengths people will go to try to do bad things.
Speaker 2: It's great to see you, David. I appreciate your joining us.
Speaker 2: I know that this is a very busy and wild
Speaker 2: moment for your office down there. Dave Arenberg, Palm Beach
Speaker 2: County State Attorney. We got it from the source there, Kaylee.
Speaker 2: Really interesting and important conversation with new information here from
Speaker 2: Dave who was in the middle of all that yesterday.
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Speaker 6: Thirty Live in Washington, where, of course we are all
Speaker 6: still grappling with the aftermath of another attempt on Donald
Speaker 6: Trump's life yesterday, this of course the second in the
Speaker 6: span of just a few months. But in the aftermath,
Speaker 6: the language around it is a little bit different. Remember
Speaker 6: and the eve of the RNC when Donald Trump had
Speaker 6: just been shot in the ear, he talked about unity
Speaker 6: and it being a moment to bring the country together.
Speaker 6: What we're hearing instead from the former president this time
Speaker 6: around is about rhetoric from his opponents. This just posted
Speaker 6: on his true social within the last hour. The rhetoric lies,
Speaker 6: as exemplified by the false statements made by Comrade Kamala
Speaker 6: Harris during the rigged and highly partisan ABC debate, goes on,
Speaker 6: has taken politics in our country to a whole new
Speaker 6: level of hatred, abuse, and distrust. Donald Trump says, this
Speaker 6: is a quote because of this communist left rhetoric, the
Speaker 6: bullets are flying and it will only get worse.
Speaker 2: Joe, Yeah, that post goes on quite a bit longer
Speaker 2: in all caps, talking about the border, but that's consistent
Speaker 2: with what Donald Trump said early to Fox News Digital.
Speaker 2: He said the accused gunman quote, believe the rhetoric of
Speaker 2: Biden and Harris, and he acted on it, going further
Speaker 2: to say, they use highly inflammatory language. I can use
Speaker 2: it too, far better than they can, but I don't.
Speaker 2: And it does feel a bit different than when we
Speaker 2: showed up in Milwaukee a day after the first attempt. Kaylee,
Speaker 2: I think to your point, when there was a call
Speaker 2: free unity and a presumption that Donald Trump would be
Speaker 2: a changed man.
Speaker 6: Yeah, So let's play this to our political panel now.
Speaker 6: Rick Davis Stone Court Capital Partner, and Jeanie Shanzino, Senior
Speaker 6: Democracy Fellow with the Center for the Study of the
Speaker 6: presidency in Congress are both joining us. Now, Rick, if
Speaker 6: I could come to you first, is this is not
Speaker 6: just former President Trump saying this having just had his
Speaker 6: life threatened once again, but Republican nominee Donald Trump, who
Speaker 6: is trying to win an election against Kamala Harris, is
Speaker 6: this kind of blame casting helping him do that in
Speaker 6: the aftermath and event of an event like this.
Speaker 8: I think this is what his base would expect from him.
Speaker 8: You know, he you know, levels grievances on a daily
Speaker 8: basis that are targeted to everything issues related to the border,
Speaker 8: the economy, and personal slights about his crowds. I mean,
Speaker 8: you name it. He doesn't really discern between what is
Speaker 8: a priority issue to voters and what is a priority issue.
Speaker 10: To Donald Trump.
Speaker 8: And so he's just feeding the beast. I think, you know,
Speaker 8: he has to declare this country a broken model for
Speaker 8: his model to be implemented. And so, you know, it's
Speaker 8: it's all part of this overall cast of the United
Speaker 8: States is in decay.
Speaker 2: It's unruly, it's.
Speaker 8: Lawless, and and so I think it fits into his narrative.
Speaker 8: It's just his narrative is a very dark and and
Speaker 8: and determined narrative to you know, basically broadcast the kind
Speaker 8: of chaos that he would like to solve for the
Speaker 8: American public.
Speaker 2: Well, I'll tell you it was not just the rhetoric
Speaker 2: that was different after the first attempt here, Genie. The
Speaker 2: polls were too. The reaction was significant. There was empathy
Speaker 2: for the former president. People seemed to look at him
Speaker 2: a bit differently. As I just mentioned, we were told
Speaker 2: that he was a changed man. And I wonder now
Speaker 2: that we've seen this entire race up ended and there's
Speaker 2: been so much rhetoric under the bridge since the RNC,
Speaker 2: if there is any impact politically speaking on the horse race.
Speaker 11: Yeah, it's really hard to tell. I mean, what we
Speaker 11: do know is to your earlier point, the rhetoric has
Speaker 11: shifted very very quickly this time from concerns and empathy
Speaker 11: to the political realm. And we've seen that on both sides,
Speaker 11: not just from the former president. So it's hard to
Speaker 11: tell if it will have this impact. There's also another factor,
Speaker 11: as Kaylee was mentioning, last time he came within hours
Speaker 11: to the RNC and had a hero's welcome. He doesn't
Speaker 11: have that. Although he is going to be back on
Speaker 11: the campaign trail this week, I understand tomorrow, so you know,
Speaker 11: we'll see if that shifts anything. And if I could
Speaker 11: just go back to your interviews, which were excellent. I
Speaker 11: thought it was so interesting to hear about that eleven
Speaker 11: or twelve hours that this shooter sat there. And this
Speaker 11: raises so many questions about the Secret Service. And again
Speaker 11: we were supposed to get the report on Butler today,
Speaker 11: which even Democrats like Blumenthal said would shock us. So
Speaker 11: to the President's earlier point and to so much of
Speaker 11: the discussion, we really need to take a look at
Speaker 11: the Secret Service. They may be underfunded, they may need
Speaker 11: more personnel, but something has got a shift when you
Speaker 11: have these two attempts within just a few weeks, and
Speaker 11: you have an attempted assassin sitting for eleven hours on
Speaker 11: the side of the president's golf course within what four
Speaker 11: or five hundred feet yards, rather, it's shocking to think
Speaker 11: that could have happened again.
Speaker 6: Well, and of course it has resulted already in a
Speaker 6: change of Secret Service leadership. The first attempt, that is,
Speaker 6: Kimberley Cheatle resigned in the aftermath. We have an acting
Speaker 6: director now in Robert Rowe, who I guess as a
Speaker 6: result of this may or may not ever be in
Speaker 6: a formal directing capacity. That's a question we'll have to
Speaker 6: await the answer to. If we could just go Genie
Speaker 6: back to this whole notion Donald Trump is putting out
Speaker 6: there about rhetoric. It's specifically him talking about Joe Biden
Speaker 6: and Kamala Harris casting him as a threat to democracy,
Speaker 6: and people taking that threat potentially literally, is a threat
Speaker 6: that needs to be eliminated. Will this need to change
Speaker 6: the way in which Kamala Harris talks about her opponent
Speaker 6: on the campaign trail because she hasn't been hitting that
Speaker 6: democracy lined as heavily as Joe Biden was when he
Speaker 6: was the nominee.
Speaker 11: That's right, that's been one of the changes since Kamala
Speaker 11: Harris came on board. That was Joe Biden's mantra, Donald
Speaker 11: threat is a Trump to a Trump, a threat to democracy.
Speaker 11: Kamala Harris has not gone in that direction. I don't
Speaker 11: think we'll see a change in her rhetoric. And to
Speaker 11: your point, when you find your opponent as a threat
Speaker 11: to the existence of the country, to the existence of democracy,
Speaker 11: and both sides have done this, you can't be surprised
Speaker 11: if somebody who is unhinged, as Dave Ehrenberg described, this
Speaker 11: assassin potentially unhinged acts on that rhetoric, and that's why
Speaker 11: leadership matters, and Donald Trump should not be speaking the
Speaker 11: way he is this morning, and the Democrats have to
Speaker 11: tone it down and we have to demand better from
Speaker 11: our leaders. I'm not convinced we will see that because
Speaker 11: to Rick's point, this has been happening for a long
Speaker 11: time on Trump's side in the Democrat side, but that
Speaker 11: leadership does matter, and we are much in need of
Speaker 11: leadership which takes the rhetoric and the impact of it seriously.
Speaker 2: Kayleie mentions the acting director of the Secret Service, we
Speaker 2: can tell you that he has arrived in Palm Beach
Speaker 2: and is expected to be meeting with Donald Trump today.
Speaker 2: If that hasn't happened already, Rick, we heard from the
Speaker 2: Speaker of the House, Joe Biden, suggesting earth that the
Speaker 2: Secret Service needs additional resources and needs Congress to act.
Speaker 2: He said, I think Congress should respond to their need.
Speaker 2: Mike Johnson on Fox News says he will demand that
Speaker 2: Donald Trump have every asset available, but he argues with
Speaker 2: the issue of funding. Quote, President Trump needs the most
Speaker 2: coverage of anyone, he said, he's the most attacked, He's
Speaker 2: the most threatened. But shocking it up to an issue
Speaker 2: of manpower allocation is the idea that the speaker is
Speaker 2: arguing with this being a funding problem. As someone Rick
Speaker 2: who has worked directly with the Secret Service in managing
Speaker 2: a presidential campaign, can you speak to that argument here
Speaker 2: funding versus manpower.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it's not like there are a bunch of very
Speaker 8: well trained members of the Secret Service sitting around waiting
Speaker 8: to be deployed for additional service to presidential candidates. And
Speaker 8: in this case Donald Trump, they come with a lot
Speaker 8: of equipment, both kinetic, you know, military style weapons, communication gear, transportation.
Speaker 8: I mean, it's an amazing accomplishment to have built out
Speaker 8: our security services the way we have. So when you
Speaker 8: talk about, you know, bolstering that to a significant degree,
Speaker 8: you're talking about reassigning people from all over the country
Speaker 8: into revolving groups of three different teams that cover the
Speaker 8: president twenty four hours a day. And so it is
Speaker 8: not an insignificant resource drain, and that comes with added
Speaker 8: financial burden, and so you have to then start making
Speaker 8: decisions as to whether you are going to then take
Speaker 8: people off of current protectees. Remember there's an Iranian dust
Speaker 8: squads operating in the United States trying to kill public officials,
Speaker 8: both in the current and previous administrations. I mean, you know,
Speaker 8: this is not a country that sticks its snack out
Speaker 8: without taking a risk. And so yeah, I would think
Speaker 8: it wouldn't be a political issue. You want more money
Speaker 8: to protect President Trump, you got it. How much you need,
Speaker 8: We'll put it in the continuing resolution and you know,
Speaker 8: get that done next week. I just don't understand why
Speaker 8: this has got to be a partisan issue. Frankly, I
Speaker 8: would love to see Donald Trump, Joe Biden, and Kamala
Speaker 8: Harris have a press conference and say, you know what
Speaker 8: we got to do. We got to tone down the
Speaker 8: political rhetoric. We've got to try and you know, calm
Speaker 8: the public because this kind of political violence is not
Speaker 8: healthy for our democracy or for our candidates, and it's
Speaker 8: got to stop now. I mean, I would think that
Speaker 8: would go farther than anything else imaginable when it comes
Speaker 8: to trying to protect the lives of our political leaders.
Speaker 6: All Right, Rick Davis and Jeanie Shansay know our signature
Speaker 6: political panel, thank you so much, And of course, show
Speaker 6: within the last twenty four hours. We have seen partisan
Speaker 6: condemnation of political violence, that's for sure, and plenty from
Speaker 6: both sides of the isle in Congress. It's just a
Speaker 6: matter when they return tomorrow how quickly they might address it.
Speaker 2: And what form that's true. We're going to have a
Speaker 2: conversation as well about organized labor coming up, an important
Speaker 2: meeting for Kamala Harris today. It's coming up next. This
Speaker 2: is Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast. Catch
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Speaker 6: I'm Kaylee Liones alongside Joe Matthew here in Washington, where
Speaker 6: we of course are following a presidential race that has
Speaker 6: had many twists and turns, another presenting itself just yesterday
Speaker 6: with the attempted assassination again of Donald Trump. He of
Speaker 6: course came out of that unscathed and the suspect has
Speaker 6: been charged with federal gun crimes. But against that backdrop,
Speaker 6: the presidential campaign continues. Donald Trump himself will make a
Speaker 6: number of campaign stops this week, and Kamala Harris is
Speaker 6: doing campaigning of her own today in some sense, as
Speaker 6: she is participating in a meeting with the Teamsters Union,
Speaker 6: of course, helmed by Sean O'Brien, who spoke at the
Speaker 6: RNC in Milwaukee and to this point has withheld an
Speaker 6: endorsement from the union for either candidate. Of course, after
Speaker 6: speaking at the RNC, he has since dubbed Donald Trump
Speaker 6: and his idea around laying off workers as economic terrorism.
Speaker 6: But that doesn't mean that he's speaking in favor of
Speaker 6: Harris yet to this point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that followed the interview with Elon Musk remember on
Speaker 2: Twitter spaces, in which he credited Elon with being the
Speaker 2: greatest cutter of all time, and they kind of laughed
Speaker 2: at the idea of firing workers who were interested in organizing.
Speaker 2: So the conversation changed a lot since Milwaukee, but they
Speaker 2: still haven't met. And there was an important line that
Speaker 2: the head of the Teamsters Union brought on CBS. He
Speaker 2: said he has not endorsed Kamala Harris yet because quote,
Speaker 2: you don't hire someone unless you give them an interview.
Speaker 2: The interview is happening today, Kayle and were joined by
Speaker 2: somebody who knows a little bit about this. Seth Harris
Speaker 2: a frequent voice on this program when it comes to
Speaker 2: matters involving labor. He's senior Fellow at the Burn Center
Speaker 2: for Social Change at Northeastern University, former top labor advisor
Speaker 2: to Joe Biden, in fact, former Deputy Secretary of Labor. Seth,
Speaker 2: It's great to see you. Welcome back to Bloomberg. So
Speaker 2: we finally have the interview today, the Job Interview. Kamala
Speaker 2: Harris is sitting down with the head of the Teamsters Union.
Speaker 2: Will it end in an endorsement?
Speaker 10: I think it will. She's actually going to meet with
Speaker 10: President O'Brien and some members of the executive board, but
Speaker 10: also there will be frank and file Teamsters involved in
Speaker 10: the meeting, and I think it'll end up an endorsement
Speaker 10: because the discussion will be about policy and on labor policy.
Speaker 10: There is simply no question that Vice President Harris has
Speaker 10: built a record that is far better for the Teamsters
Speaker 10: Union than President Trump's record. President Trump pretty aggressively anti
Speaker 10: union when he was president. Vice President Harris cast the
Speaker 10: deciding vote that assured that tens of thousands of Teamsters
Speaker 10: retirees would have their pensions secured strong supporter of collective
Speaker 10: bargaining and worker organizing. The Biden administration, Biden Harris administration
Speaker 10: appointments to the NLRB and to the Labor Department have
Speaker 10: made a tremendous difference in Teamster organizing and Teamster collective bargaining.
Speaker 10: And one of the biggest issues for the Teamsters is
Speaker 10: what should be done when employers misclassify workers as independent
Speaker 10: contractors and therefore deprived them of the minimum wage and
Speaker 10: collective bargaining rights and organizing rights. Vice President Harris has
Speaker 10: been very, very strong on that issue, dating back to
Speaker 10: her time as an attorney general. President Trump's administration made
Speaker 10: it a lot easier for employers to misclassify workers. So
Speaker 10: if that's where the conversation lies, I expect the Teamsters
Speaker 10: will endorse Vice President Harris.
Speaker 6: But if steth all of that is true raises the
Speaker 6: question of why such an endorsement hasn't happened already. If
Speaker 6: she is so obviously pro labor as you describe her,
Speaker 6: the fact that it has yet to happen and may
Speaker 6: happen after this meeting, does that suggest there's going to
Speaker 6: be an ask from the union. Do you expect they're
Speaker 6: going to want something specific from a Harris administration.
Speaker 10: I don't think it'll be a quid pro quo kind
Speaker 10: of meeting. I take President O'Brien at his word that
Speaker 10: what matters to him is allowing his members and the
Speaker 10: leaders of the union alongside him to hear the views
Speaker 10: of the candidates for president up close and personal, to
Speaker 10: be able to ask them pointed questions about their what
Speaker 10: their presidency would mean for the Teamsters Union. I think
Speaker 10: that's a reasonable thing to expect. It's you know, the
Speaker 10: Teamsters have said all along that they're going to wait
Speaker 10: until after the conventions to make their endorsement. I think
Speaker 10: this will be the last step.
Speaker 2: Okay, that said, one point three million members. That's a
Speaker 2: serious ground game if you activate them, regardless of the campaign,
Speaker 2: regardless the endorsement seth How do the Teamsters use one
Speaker 2: point three million members to get someone elected.
Speaker 10: Well, they give a lot of money, They give a
Speaker 10: lot of elbow grease, they give a lot of shoe leather.
Speaker 10: They will campaign among their members, because I think that
Speaker 10: some of their members are still almost certainly undecided in
Speaker 10: this race. They will mobilize their members who are for
Speaker 10: vice president Harris to get out to vote, but they'll
Speaker 10: also communicate with Teamster family members, with Teamster community members,
Speaker 10: and I think that they will get out and support
Speaker 10: the campaign very aggressively with volunteer hours and with telephone
Speaker 10: calls and with door to door canvas, saying Teamsters can
Speaker 10: be a very very effective union, and they have significant
Speaker 10: prominence in a lot of the critical swing states that
Speaker 10: are going to decide this election. Remember there's a UPS
Speaker 10: driver almost everywhere in America, and those folks are Teamsters.
Speaker 6: Well, and we remember well last year's negotiations between the
Speaker 6: Teamsters and UPS as well. That was one of the
Speaker 6: prominent periods of labor strife, if you will, that we
Speaker 6: were paying attention to, followed of course by the actors
Speaker 6: and writers in Hollywood, than the UAW strikes with the
Speaker 6: auto workers. And now we're dealing with a different situation
Speaker 6: seth it's Boeing with thirty three thousand workers having walked
Speaker 6: off the job in Seattle last week, something that could
Speaker 6: hamper production. Boeing now saying it's going to freeze hiring
Speaker 6: to try to preserve cash during this period. Because this
Speaker 6: is a company that's actually on junk watch. It could
Speaker 6: lose its investment grade credit rating potentially as a result
Speaker 6: of this seth If you're the union trying to extract
Speaker 6: or exercise leverage against the company that arguably is in
Speaker 6: very precarious position, how much room do you really have
Speaker 6: when you don't want to actually risk these jobs just
Speaker 6: disappearing altogether.
Speaker 10: Well, let's start by acknowledging that Boeing has been the
Speaker 10: company that has shot itself in the foot more than
Speaker 10: maybe any other in America. They have safety problems, they
Speaker 10: have law problems, they have debt problems, and this is
Speaker 10: a company that has had really serious challenges over the
Speaker 10: course of the last let's go back a decade. They
Speaker 10: could enter into a partnership with their union, and the
Speaker 10: union could help them to be much much more successful
Speaker 10: at what they're doing. But they came to the table
Speaker 10: with an offer that frankly was an insult to the
Speaker 10: members of the Machinist's union. They represented their pay increases
Speaker 10: being twenty five percent, but then they took back an
Speaker 10: annual bonus of four percent, so the increase the pay
Speaker 10: increase would have only been about nine percent a year.
Speaker 10: These members have not had a pay increase over almost
Speaker 10: a decade except for costs of living adjustments. I think
Speaker 10: that you have a lot of very very very angry
Speaker 10: machinists out in Washington State who have been cut out
Speaker 10: of the collective bargaining process for almost sixteen years for
Speaker 10: a whole bunch of reasons. A bunch of their work
Speaker 10: was shifted at out of Washington to a non union
Speaker 10: plant in South Carolina. They want to see significant progress
Speaker 10: in this collective bargaining agreement, and I think they're going
Speaker 10: to continue to hold Boeing's feet to the fire. It's
Speaker 10: going to be up to management to figure out how
Speaker 10: to produce the resources that are needed.
Speaker 2: Should Kamala Harris walk the picket line with these members
Speaker 2: the way Joe Biden did the UAW.
Speaker 10: You know, I don't know if they've asked her to
Speaker 10: do that yet, but my guess is that if they
Speaker 10: invited her that she would come. She's walked picket lines before,
Speaker 10: and she is very very strongly supportive of workers getting
Speaker 10: a fair share of the profits that they produce. I
Speaker 10: think she would like to see workers' wages go up.
Speaker 10: The union here has demanded forty percent without the take
Speaker 10: back of the bonuses, So I think it's going to
Speaker 10: be a very very interesting strike going forward. My hope
Speaker 10: is that it will be resolved quickly by the parties
Speaker 10: coming to the table and they their ability to reach
Speaker 10: a deal. But I have to be honest, I'm a
Speaker 10: little bit skeptical. I think, you know, you have new
Speaker 10: leadership at Boeing that has never seen anything like this before,
Speaker 10: and you have some very very angry machinists. Hopefully they'll
Speaker 10: get some of that anger out on the picket line
Speaker 10: and they'll be able to get to a deal.
Speaker 6: All right, Well, we'll all be watching to see how
Speaker 6: this develops in the coming days and potentially weeks ahead.
Speaker 6: Seth meantime, this week, we're all really focused on one
Speaker 6: big event that comes on Wednesday. It's the great decision
Speaker 6: from the Federal Reserve. Yes, it's expected to be a cut.
Speaker 6: The question is of what size, and this gets to
Speaker 6: the labor market in the position it is in very specifically,
Speaker 6: as you look at the concerns raised by a trio
Speaker 6: of senators in a letter to the Fed today, Elizabeth Warden,
Speaker 6: Warren Sheldon Whitehouse, and John Hickenlooper authoring a letter urging
Speaker 6: the Fed to cut by seventy five basis points on Wednesday,
Speaker 6: because they think if the FED is too cautious and
Speaker 6: cutting rates, it would quote needlessly risk our economy heading
Speaker 6: towards a recession. Is that of you you share seth.
Speaker 10: I would like to see the FED cut interest rates
Speaker 10: by at least fifty basis points. I think there is
Speaker 10: a justification for doing seventy five basis points. But the
Speaker 10: truth of the matter is the Fed has been extraordinarily cautious.
Speaker 10: They are very concerned about inflation, I think too concerned
Speaker 10: about it, and not concerned enough about jobs and the
Speaker 10: state of the labor market. We have seen some meaningful
Speaker 10: slippage in the labor market over the course of the
Speaker 10: last year. We have seen the number of job openings decline.
Speaker 10: We've seen the number of workers quitting their jobs decline.
Speaker 10: We have not seen a big increase in layoffs because
Speaker 10: employers continue to hug their workers. They don't want to
Speaker 10: have to go out into the labor market and find
Speaker 10: new workers. But I think we need to juice growth
Speaker 10: in the economy and juice the labor market. So I
Speaker 10: think the Senator's position is certainly justifiable. I think it's
Speaker 10: unlikely that the FED is going to go quite that far.
Speaker 10: I think fifty basis points is more likely, and I
Speaker 10: fear it could be twenty five basis would send a
Speaker 10: terrible signal both to workers and to Wall Street.
Speaker 2: Well, that's interesting. If there's room for seventy five or
Speaker 2: justification for seventy five south, does that mean the FED
Speaker 2: was that late or things have deteriorated that much since July.
Speaker 10: I think they are late. I think they are late
Speaker 10: to the game here. You know, we have seen slow,
Speaker 10: drip drip deterioration in the labor market for many months now.
Speaker 10: It didn't all happen over the summer, and there have
Speaker 10: been signals sent to the FED that the labor market
Speaker 10: was beginning to face trouble. Now, it's not a crisis,
Speaker 10: it's not the end of the world. We're not headed
Speaker 10: towards a recession. But certainly the revisions that we have
Speaker 10: seen from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the number
Speaker 10: of jobs that have been created tell us that the
Speaker 10: labor market has been growing much much more slowly than
Speaker 10: we believe. The FED should have since that, they should
Speaker 10: have understood that from their beage book, and they should
Speaker 10: have acted much much sooner. I'm concerned that they're going
Speaker 10: to do too little and it might be too late.
Speaker 3: Seth.
Speaker 6: Finally, before we let you go, as we consider the
Speaker 6: dynamics in the labor market and the pace of job creation,
Speaker 6: I wonder if some of the policy proposals we've heard
Speaker 6: from former President Trump, specifically the notion of not taxing
Speaker 6: overtime hours worked if you're worried about the disruptive effect
Speaker 6: that could have in the labor market. If you can
Speaker 6: make more or not be taxed on your overtime hours,
Speaker 6: does that actually encourage existing employees to work longer rather
Speaker 6: than another employee potentially filling those hours.
Speaker 10: Well, that's the theory of overtime, is that if you
Speaker 10: make overtime more expensive, employers will hire additional workers instead
Speaker 10: of making their current workers work harder. It was all
Speaker 10: about trying to bring down the number of hours that
Speaker 10: current incumbent employees are working. Removing the income tax on
Speaker 10: overtime don't have any effect on employer behavior because the
Speaker 10: costs will be the same for employers. It's just that
Speaker 10: employees will do a little bit better. But that's not
Speaker 10: the best solution for our economy. That workers should have
Speaker 10: to work really, really, really hard and then get a
Speaker 10: small marginal increase in their pay because we've gotten rid
Speaker 10: of income taxes on overtime. The better strategy is higher
Speaker 10: wages for workers across the board, a higher minimum wage,
Speaker 10: higher prevailing wages, higher wages through union organizing, and workers
Speaker 10: collectively bargaining for better wages. In that way, very tight
Speaker 10: labor markets that make labor a seller's commodity, not a
Speaker 10: buyer's commodity. That is the way that we help the
Speaker 10: largest number of workers more. We want workers to balance
Speaker 10: their work life and their home life.
Speaker 9: More.
Speaker 10: Overtime is not the solution to that.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 6: Seth Harris, Senior Fellow at the Burn Center for Social
Speaker 6: Change at Northeastern University, former top labor policy advisor to
Speaker 6: President Biden. Thank you so much.
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Speaker 2: There is important news beyond this here in Washington, like
Speaker 2: funding our government. Lawmakers don't come back until tomorrow, and
Speaker 2: when they do, they may as well be starting from scratch,
Speaker 2: because what we saw last week resulted in nothing. This
Speaker 2: idea of a six month CR combined with the Save
Speaker 2: Act couldn't get enough Democrats or Republicans to make it happen.
Speaker 2: So there are great questions about what is going to
Speaker 2: happen with the clock ticking now, what are we fifteen
Speaker 2: days away? It's two fridays off here right the thirtieth
Speaker 2: of September, and there's no floor action in sight. Now,
Speaker 2: there are many different sides to this story. When we
Speaker 2: talk about a potential shutdown, people get really bogged down
Speaker 2: into that. No one's calling for a shutdown right now.
Speaker 2: There are great concerns, however, about what corrosive effect a
Speaker 2: long CR would do here to various programs, including something
Speaker 2: called the military. I will point you to a statement
Speaker 2: from the Office of Management and Budget as we prepare
Speaker 2: to talk to Retire General Arnold Panaro. The bill it
Speaker 2: read when this CR was put on the floor is
Speaker 2: especially irresponsible in terms of national security, as a quote,
Speaker 2: six months CR would erode our military advantage relative to
Speaker 2: the People's Republic of China, degrade readiness and fail to
Speaker 2: provide the support our troops deserve. Unquote Arnold Panaro, a
Speaker 2: retired two star Marine Corps major general, former staff director
Speaker 2: of the Senate Armed Services Committee, author of the book
Speaker 2: The Ever Shrinking Fight Force. General, it's great to have
Speaker 2: you back. Welcome, good to see you today. On Bloomberg.
Speaker 2: Can you put a finer point on this what a
Speaker 2: six month CR would mean for our pentagon?
Speaker 12: Well, first, let me say you can sleep walk into
Speaker 12: government shutdown, and so we should not rule out that possibility.
Speaker 12: Certainly people are saying they don't want it, but we've
Speaker 12: seen it happen many times before with the current situation.
Speaker 12: The second point I would make picking up and I'm
Speaker 12: going to stay clear of any political rhetoric on the
Speaker 12: military man, but if you perimeter in your military is
Speaker 12: not secure, you bring in more people. It's clear to
Speaker 12: me that the Secret Service needs more people, more resources.
Speaker 12: You can't get that under a government shutdown. In fact,
Speaker 12: the Secret Service wouldn't be able to go to work,
Speaker 12: although they would be deemed essential personnel, but they wouldn't
Speaker 12: be paid in their support. And you certainly can't increase
Speaker 12: resources under continuing resolution because it keeps it flat. So
Speaker 12: we're event. As devastating as that would be, it would
Speaker 12: be even more harmful to our national security. Secretary of
Speaker 12: Lord Austin sent a nine page letter to the congressional
Speaker 12: leadership last week outlining all the devastations. And typically, you
Speaker 12: know at this time of year, we do a lot
Speaker 12: of hand raadings. This was very different because what we're
Speaker 12: talking about is a lack of perch power of about
Speaker 12: forty billion dollars. China doesn't operate under CRS Russia, North Korea, Ukraine.
Speaker 12: You know, we have to get our government funded and
Speaker 12: we have to keep the military funded. You would lose
Speaker 12: an actual cut the program increases. They can't adjust over
Speaker 12: one hundred and sixty eight monernization programs. It would be
Speaker 12: over one hundred programs WRO with about forty billion that
Speaker 12: couldn't get rate increases. We would con the sequestor will
Speaker 12: happen if the appropriation bills don't pass all this is
Speaker 12: totally avoidable. We knew at the beginning of this this
Speaker 12: current calendar year, in January, we're going to be under
Speaker 12: a cr If they could have passed this and gone home,
Speaker 12: gone back to get re elected, and so really it's
Speaker 12: inexcusable that Congress has not done its work. Again, We've
Speaker 12: now had five years of tumultive CRS on DoD China
Speaker 12: can basically go from concept to first flight in five years.
Speaker 12: We take twenty five years and under five. We've lost
Speaker 12: five years of government funding with CRS for our national defense.
Speaker 2: Incredible, five years without regular order. You mentioned an important
Speaker 2: word general of the sequester. If this CR in fact pass,
Speaker 2: doesn't look like it will. But I guess a different
Speaker 2: six month verson could if it would end March twenty eighth,
Speaker 2: walking us right up to the line to across the
Speaker 2: board cuts if there is no this is part of
Speaker 2: the Fiscal Responsibility Act, remembering from last year. If in
Speaker 2: fact there's no good old fashioned budget twelve spending bills,
Speaker 2: and nobody seems to see that coming anytime soon, this,
Speaker 2: I guess the point is, could get much worse, couldn't it.
Speaker 12: Absolutely, and frankly being candid, we didn't see it coming
Speaker 12: back in fiscal twelve and thirteen. Oh, the sequester is
Speaker 12: never going to happen. It didn't happen, and we got
Speaker 12: stuck with a sequester level for defense for ten years,
Speaker 12: and we lost five years of readiness, and so we're
Speaker 12: in a very dangerous and uncertain, turbulent world. We cannot
Speaker 12: afford to go into one October, certainly not with a
Speaker 12: government shutdown, but also not tying our financial security is
Speaker 12: behind our back. When one day we may have to
Speaker 12: move a carrier from the Indo Pacific to the Mediterranean,
Speaker 12: we may be send truths in harms. Way, we live
Speaker 12: in a very dangerous world. This is so irres responsible
Speaker 12: on the part of Congress. Great break. I would say
Speaker 12: the Republican leadership in national security the Chairman of the
Speaker 12: House Owned Services of Any Mike Rogers, the ranking member
Speaker 12: and Armed Services, Roger Wicker. The Republican leadership is very
Speaker 12: much on the national security side against what the Speaker
Speaker 12: has outlined six months. They are with say that, so
Speaker 12: I want to give credit to the national security bipartisan
Speaker 12: group in the House and Senate. They're pushing back on this,
Speaker 12: but so far we don't have a solution.
Speaker 2: You are right, is creating a bit of a fissure
Speaker 2: inside the Republican conference. You're inside the Republican Party general.
Speaker 2: You've said a lot of things here, and I wonder
Speaker 2: if the idea of an emergency supplemental budget request for
Speaker 2: both the military and as you mentioned, the Secret Service.
Speaker 2: If there is an additional request you're mid be part
Speaker 2: of the lame duck session or had early next year.
Speaker 2: Is that the way this ends with an emergency supplemental.
Speaker 12: We can't own the Secret Service, We can't wait for
Speaker 12: the lane DOT. Both candidates need security now. They need
Speaker 12: to beef up security, and there's a lot that goes
Speaker 12: with that when they travel. When the candidates travel, they
Speaker 12: need all kind of support. They need local law enforcement
Speaker 12: that has to be paid for. So even under a
Speaker 12: continuing resolution, it could adversely hamper the candidate's travel plans
Speaker 12: because they've got to be secure. So we can't wait
Speaker 12: for a lane DT for emergency funding for the Secret Service,
Speaker 12: and frankly for some of the things that our military needs.
Speaker 4: To do right now.
Speaker 2: Can you speak general when you consider the idea of
Speaker 2: projecting power internationally? Can you speak to the message that
Speaker 2: we are projecting as a nation. When it becomes apparent
Speaker 2: that we're having trouble keeping our presidential candidates safe, I
Speaker 2: think it's.
Speaker 12: A signal of of extreme weakness, and frankly, deterrence is
Speaker 12: the key we in the military we're the last people
Speaker 12: that want to get in the shooting war. You want
Speaker 12: to deter war. For deterrence to be credible, you have
Speaker 12: to have the capability. So you have to have the
Speaker 12: forces in place that has to be credible, and your
Speaker 12: adversaries have to know you'd be able to use it.
Speaker 12: If you can't fund your government and your government sets down,
Speaker 12: you lose the terrence. And so frankly, I think it
Speaker 12: sends a very great signal of weakness, and I think
Speaker 12: that's one of the reasons by Secretary of Austin. I've
Speaker 12: been around a long time, decades and decades and decadies,
Speaker 12: I have never seen a letter from a Secretary of
Speaker 12: Defense that is damaging in terms of the adverse impacts
Speaker 12: on our national security as the one that he sent
Speaker 12: to the congressional leadership last week, and they ought to
Speaker 12: pay attention to it.
Speaker 2: Can the Republican Hawks in our last moment here generally
Speaker 2: you mentioned can the Michael McCalls. Can the Vickers turn
Speaker 2: Speaker Johnson to a different position in the next two weeks.
Speaker 12: On this well, I had the greatest respect for the
Speaker 12: bipartisan national security leadership, particularly of the Republican leadership on
Speaker 12: national Security. Let's see, they should and they should listen.
Speaker 12: The Speaker should listen to them, and I hope you will.
Speaker 12: I can't predict because it's such an uncertain because you
Speaker 12: have people in the Freedom Caucus that basically the isolation
Speaker 12: this wing in both parties, and so I would hope
Speaker 12: they would listen to Mike Rogers and Roger Ricker and
Speaker 12: Mike McCall and Ken Calvert and Mike Turner on the
Speaker 12: Intelligence Committee, just like I know that Speaker Schumer and
Speaker 12: Leader Schumer and Minority Leader Jefferies are listening to Adam
Speaker 12: Smith and Jack Reid and Don Tester and Susan Collins
Speaker 12: and Susan Collins by the way, on the appropriations it.
Speaker 2: Said they'd be time for another family conversation. General Arnold Ponaro,
Speaker 2: Thank you General. As always, this is Bloomberg. Thanks for
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