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Speaker 3: It's the Tuesday edition of Balance of Power here on
Speaker 3: Bloomberg Radio, on the satellite and on YouTube. I'm Joe,
Speaker 3: Matthew and Washington and glad you joined us. This is
Speaker 3: a big deal, of course here in the DMV, as
Speaker 3: we like to call it, the mid Atlantic region, but
Speaker 3: of course nationally there is an impact from this bridge
Speaker 3: collapse that happened in the wee hours this morning in Baltimore,
Speaker 3: the Key Bridge. If you're with us on YouTube, we're
Speaker 3: showing you pictures here, horrifying pictures of what is left
Speaker 3: at the scene here, a bridge essentially underwater after being
Speaker 3: struck by a cargo ship that ran out of power.
Speaker 3: As it turns out, around one thirty in the morning.
Speaker 3: This is of course a major commuter route and a
Speaker 3: major trade route there in the Baltimore port, in fact,
Speaker 3: the number one port for autos for the past thirteen
Speaker 3: years running we're learning a lot about the Francis Key Bridge.
Speaker 3: Here the fire chief James Wallace briefing reporters earlier in
Speaker 3: the morning. They have pulled two people out of the water.
Speaker 3: There are as many as seven from what we understand,
Speaker 3: they're still looking for so this is still a rescue
Speaker 3: operation before we start talking about timelines and rebuilding and
Speaker 3: the rest of it. This is a major test for
Speaker 3: authorities and for politicians elected officials in Baltimore and in Maryland.
Speaker 3: And that's where we start our conversation with Bloomberg Radio's
Speaker 3: Amy Morris. Amy, I woke up this morning and heard
Speaker 3: local news coverage that wasn't telling me a lot until
Speaker 3: I turned to Bloomberg Radio and heard what you were
Speaker 3: doing with Tom Keen. And I first want to thank
Speaker 3: you for bringing us the insights that we needed. So
Speaker 3: much of this has to do with text and the
Speaker 3: importance of this bridge for the community and for the
Speaker 3: nation in terms of a trade route is difficult to overstate.
Speaker 3: In this case, speak to us about what it means
Speaker 3: for the city.
Speaker 4: Let's start from the granular perspective, right, you have thirty
Speaker 4: one thousand people who take this bridge every single day.
Speaker 5: That's eleven million, and some change every year.
Speaker 4: And last night thirty one thousand people took this bridge,
Speaker 4: and this morning the bridge is gone. They're waking up
Speaker 4: to no more bridge. And it has been a staple
Speaker 4: in the Baltimore area for so long.
Speaker 5: It's part of the landscape. It is a landmark, and
Speaker 5: it's an.
Speaker 4: Historic bridge as well. It's been there since nineteen seventy seven.
Speaker 4: And did you know that its birthday was this past Saturday.
Speaker 4: It's forty seven years old.
Speaker 3: Remarkable, it was up to code. According to Wesmore. This
Speaker 3: it's not necessarily an infrastructure story. This is an emergency
Speaker 3: preparedness story. And we're going to, I'm sure, learn a
Speaker 3: lot more about the communications between that cargo ship. But
Speaker 3: they did send a mayday call before they hit the.
Speaker 4: Brit they did, and that a small amount of time
Speaker 4: between that may day call and when the bridge collapsed
Speaker 4: was just enough time for Maryland officials to scramble and
Speaker 4: keep people from going on the bridge.
Speaker 5: There were already some people on.
Speaker 3: The bridge, as you mentioned, tell us about that. There
Speaker 3: are people then who could have been on the bridge
Speaker 3: who were stopped. Is that fair to say?
Speaker 4: That is fair to say, But they would not speak
Speaker 4: to that at the press conference, but they did speak
Speaker 4: to is that there was construction going on on the bridge.
Speaker 4: You know, it's overnight. It's a major highway, so they're
Speaker 4: going to save all of the road work for when
Speaker 4: nobody's there.
Speaker 5: And there were several.
Speaker 4: Construction workers filling potholes, handling the concrete on the bridge.
Speaker 5: They say the bridge was up to code, but they
Speaker 5: were just you know, doing a little maintenance and they
Speaker 5: went into the water.
Speaker 3: Yeah, tell us about the rescue operation. I refer to
Speaker 3: as many as seven. Do we have any more detail?
Speaker 3: We've heard six thrown around? Where are we know?
Speaker 4: I've heard six are still unaccounted for. And those are
Speaker 4: all the construction crew I see. And we heard a
Speaker 4: lot about the rescue operation and how it was a
Speaker 4: big challenge, especially at one point thirty in the morning
Speaker 4: because it was so dark, you had so many currents,
Speaker 4: the tide was coming in. And this is an area
Speaker 4: for people who are not familiar with the Baltimore Bay
Speaker 4: or the Baltimore Port area, it's the currents are a
Speaker 4: big deal. It's a rough area, and especially since this
Speaker 4: is the river that leads into that port.
Speaker 5: Yes, so that made the search and rescue even that
Speaker 5: much more difficult.
Speaker 3: Great work today, Amy Morris. We're all proud to be
Speaker 3: working with Amy Morris today, have Bloomberg ready and appreciate
Speaker 3: your being with us here to get things started on
Speaker 3: balance of power. Our colleague Andrew O'Day, who also lives
Speaker 3: in the Baltimore area, described this earlier as Baltimore's Golden
Speaker 3: gate Bridge. It's difficult without living there to understand the
Speaker 3: significance of it in the community, and we wanted to
Speaker 3: start granular with Amy Morris and Widening now to talk
Speaker 3: about the economic impact. As I mentioned, this is the
Speaker 3: most important port in America for autos. Think of the
Speaker 3: economic impact on that sector a loan, and that's why
Speaker 3: we wanted to talk with Brendan Murray, who's covering this
Speaker 3: for us as Bloomberg's trades are and used to live
Speaker 3: here in the DC Baltimore area. Brendan, it's great to
Speaker 3: see you. The economic impact is it possible to quantify yet?
Speaker 6: Well, look, this is ifport that does about eighty billion
Speaker 6: dollars in global trade a year, so that works out
Speaker 6: to about six and a half billion per month, so
Speaker 6: you know every day it's closed, it's hundreds of millions
Speaker 6: of dollars of economic impact that are not flowing through
Speaker 6: this port. These are you know, these are good jobs,
Speaker 6: high paying jobs on the docks and and and the
Speaker 6: industrial areas around there. So if if maritime traffic and shipping,
Speaker 6: you know, needs to come to a halt for weeks
Speaker 6: or months, however long it's going to take, that's going
Speaker 6: to be a big hit to the to the folks
Speaker 6: who work in and around the port.
Speaker 3: So shippers like merrisk as saying that they are re routing. Now,
Speaker 3: what are the options available for shippers?
Speaker 6: The main ones that the shipping lines are looking at
Speaker 6: would be New York, New Jersey, UH, Norfolk, the Port
Speaker 6: of Virginia.
Speaker 7: UH.
Speaker 6: There's also UH Charleston, South Carolina, and Savannah, Georgia. Those
Speaker 6: are also UH. And the big question is which which
Speaker 6: of these other ports can handle the added import of
Speaker 6: an export of automobiles like you mentioned. And you know
Speaker 6: that's not something that you you know, you can do
Speaker 6: if you're not if you don't have the equipment for it,
Speaker 6: if you don't have the parking lot. You know, the
Speaker 6: ports that handle a lot of cars have these massive
Speaker 6: parking lots where the cars sit until they're you know,
Speaker 6: put on trucks or trains, you know, off on their way.
Speaker 6: So it's not that you can just you can't just
Speaker 6: turn a ship from Baltimore to any any port with
Speaker 6: with your with the with a load of cars. You
Speaker 6: know that that kind of thing has to be worked
Speaker 6: out pretty well in advance. So uh yeah, it's gonna
Speaker 6: cost some some headaches and some congestion, uh for the
Speaker 6: next several weeks from the people that I talk to,
Speaker 6: until until the kind of initial shock of this can
Speaker 6: be absorbed.
Speaker 3: That's for sure. We have to remind ourselves as well.
Speaker 3: Carnival and Royal Caribbean, two cruise lines that use that
Speaker 3: port actively, we're going to be understanding, I'm sure over
Speaker 3: the next twenty four to forty eight hours exactly how
Speaker 3: much reach this collapse will have. Brendan, thank you for
Speaker 3: jumping on with us. Brendan Murray covers this for a
Speaker 3: living our trade czar here with an eye of course
Speaker 3: on the port of Baltimore. We're going to have much
Speaker 3: more for you on the story throughout the hour. My
Speaker 3: colleague Kaylee Lynes, who of course you hear every day
Speaker 3: on this broadcast, has made her way to Baltimore and
Speaker 3: we'll bring us live coverage from the scene as soon
Speaker 3: as she gets set up there, with attention paid to
Speaker 3: our other major story here in the world of politics,
Speaker 3: and that is the day of days for Donald Trump.
Speaker 3: If you were with us yesterday, we got a trial date.
Speaker 3: Of course, we also had a remarkable development in the
Speaker 3: civil case against Donald Trump, course questioning the value of
Speaker 3: his companies as he's presented them. That led to a
Speaker 3: four hundred and fifty four million dollar penalty and he
Speaker 3: has to post bond. An appeals court yesterday brought that
Speaker 3: bond payment down by about two thirds, making life a
Speaker 3: lot easier for Donald Trump, especially as he watches his
Speaker 3: spack take off today. This new digital world's truth social
Speaker 3: thing has put about three billion dollars in his bank account,
Speaker 3: or at least it will when he's able to sell
Speaker 3: those shares a couple of months down the road. But
Speaker 3: as we consider the value of Trump Inc. And look
Speaker 3: at the potential impact on his political career in the
Speaker 3: throes of a campaign, we wanted to talk to Tim O'Brien,
Speaker 3: who literally wrote the book on Donald Trump and his finances.
Speaker 3: Of course, the senior executive editor of Bloomberg Opinion with
Speaker 3: us from New York. Tim O'Brien, it's great to see you.
Speaker 3: I could only imagine what was going through your mind
Speaker 3: yesterday when that appeals court dropped the bond payment that
Speaker 3: Donald Trump will have to face. Why is the court
Speaker 3: going easy on him?
Speaker 8: Well, I think, Joe the I think the court, the
Speaker 8: appellate court, has signaled. I think that they think the
Speaker 8: lower court clearly overreached and that they you know, I
Speaker 8: think both in terms of the size of the judgment
Speaker 8: and possibly in some of the other associated penalties. You know,
Speaker 8: they also stayed a ruling that kept Trump's two eldest
Speaker 8: sons out of the business, as well as a number
Speaker 8: of other restrictions that Arthur and Gore on the lower
Speaker 8: court judge imposed. So I think that that's a leading indicator,
Speaker 8: possibly that they're going to scale back the judgment on appeal.
Speaker 8: What surprised me was that they did this now as
Speaker 8: an interim measure. You know, I don't a typical defendant
Speaker 8: doesn't get that kind of treatment, I think, and Trump
Speaker 8: had already ended. I mean, Trump had had these varying
Speaker 8: pardon me, he had these varying accountings of whether or
Speaker 8: not he could actually pay into escrow the amount of
Speaker 8: money he needed as a as a to essentially collateralize
Speaker 8: the judgment against him. You know, a year ago under oath,
Speaker 8: he said he had four hundred million dollars in cash
Speaker 8: on hand and that was growing substantially each month, and
Speaker 8: then more recently he said, I actually don't have the money,
Speaker 8: and then he took to social media last Thursday and said,
Speaker 8: actually I have five hundred million dollars. So he's either
Speaker 8: been lying or very very forgetful, or he spends money
Speaker 8: at the speed that some people turn queas and arts
Speaker 8: on and off. Be that as it may, he had demonstrated.
Speaker 8: I think that he had, by his own words, that
Speaker 8: he had the wherewithal to pay the court judgment. So
Speaker 8: I don't know why the court decided to intercede at
Speaker 8: this moment in time.
Speaker 2: That was unusual. It is pretty yeah, pretty remarkable.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you and I get a party.
Speaker 8: If you and I get a party ticket and we
Speaker 8: don't pay it, you know, the fine goes up on
Speaker 8: a pretty regular basis.
Speaker 3: So folks are getting nervous. Wonder folks are getting nervous
Speaker 3: about the idea of seizing property. Letitia James had already
Speaker 3: marked a couple in Westchester County and it looks like
Speaker 3: they will not have to be seized. Now does that
Speaker 3: play into this decision?
Speaker 8: Well, I think she probably actually would have seized his
Speaker 8: entire portfolio because it's so complex. Some of the real
Speaker 8: estate can't be used as collateral against a bond, so
Speaker 8: she would have to get you know, equity in some
Speaker 8: of these properties. She would have gone for all the
Speaker 8: low hanging fruit versus brokerage accounts as bank accounts. I
Speaker 8: don't think his truth social stake is as as robust
Speaker 8: as that has become, is something that any kind of
Speaker 8: surety company would have wanted as collateral because the value
Speaker 8: obviously has a great possibility at changing, including going down substantially,
Speaker 8: So it would have been very complex. And he holds
Speaker 8: all of this. He's got about you know, four hundred
Speaker 8: and fifteen or so shell companies under the Trump organization umbrella,
Speaker 8: and only seventy of those produced revenue, So anyone attaching
Speaker 8: ascents had a lot of homework in front of them.
Speaker 8: So I think she would have done a sweeping, taken
Speaker 8: an undertaken a sweeping effort to get her hands on
Speaker 8: as much as she could.
Speaker 3: You wrote a piece that went up on the eighteenth
Speaker 3: of this month that plays into what we're talking about here.
Speaker 3: Tim Trump's empty pockets make him an overseas mark. Pretty
Speaker 3: remarkable when you consider someone who is cash poor even
Speaker 3: though they claimed to be a billionaire, and the vulnerabilities
Speaker 3: that that might present, the liabilities and should Americans be
Speaker 3: watching well, Joe, I.
Speaker 8: Think that's been there since he made his first tour
Speaker 8: through the White House. He has not been shy about
Speaker 8: trying to monetize the presidency. As we know when he
Speaker 8: was running back in twenty fifteen and twenty sixteen, he
Speaker 8: was trying to get a real estate done deal done
Speaker 8: at the same time in Moscow, he you know, he
Speaker 8: pulled in millions of dollars from the hotel that he
Speaker 8: owned near the White House that was host of foreign
Speaker 8: dignitaries and emissaries. So that's oh, we lurked around him,
Speaker 8: and it has raised his question of whether or not
Speaker 8: he's making objective for policy decisions, or whether or not
Speaker 8: someone has their hooks into him. That's even more true
Speaker 8: now if he had to scramble to pay big court judgments,
Speaker 8: which by the way, he may still have to Even
Speaker 8: though the fine in this case is but the bond
Speaker 8: amount has been reduced, I still think it pressures him
Speaker 8: because he's already had to post over I think one
Speaker 8: hundred million dollars in the EG and Carrol case, and
Speaker 8: you add, you know, another two hundred million to that,
Speaker 8: I think, you know, I think that significantly cuts into
Speaker 8: his cash pile, and that raises issues about his ability
Speaker 8: to operate his company. So that makes him possibly vulnerable
Speaker 8: to any foreign entity that would like to make a
Speaker 8: smart investment in a possible future president.
Speaker 3: The boom and bust cycle has been a whole of
Speaker 3: Donald Trump's career. I think we can say, and I
Speaker 3: wonder just in our remaining moment here, Tim, and I
Speaker 3: don't want to set you up with some big think question,
Speaker 3: but just to frame this in our remaining moment, Donald
Speaker 3: Trump here he is again on the verge of, you know,
Speaker 3: bringing another three billion dollars, coming down to the line,
Speaker 3: almost failing. How does he continue to reconstruct this scenario?
Speaker 8: He is both the luckiest man on the face of
Speaker 8: the earth, and he is also an amazing grifter who
Speaker 8: is able to I think, pursue things most people don't
Speaker 8: without much embarrassment, and he stays in the battle and
Speaker 8: he knows right now, I think that he needs the
Speaker 8: insulation of the presidency to protect himself from what could
Speaker 8: be some fairly existential court judgments. And you know this
Speaker 8: spack could not have arrived at a more perfect moment, because
Speaker 8: otherwise he would have emburried.
Speaker 3: It's financial master. Yes, isn't that the truth? He's, of
Speaker 3: course the author of Trump Nation, but also runs our
Speaker 3: opinion section on the Terminal and at Bloomberg dot Com.
Speaker 3: Senior executive Editor Bloomberg Opinion. Tim O'Bryan, Tim, thank you.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast kens
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Speaker 1: Just Say Alexa Play Bloomberg eleven thirty.
Speaker 2: So, Larry, welcome.
Speaker 9: It's good to have you here on the day of
Speaker 9: your annual Chairman's letter to the investors. And it's a
Speaker 9: bit of a different, I think letter from what you've
Speaker 9: done before. Personal starts with your parents, right, and they're earning,
Speaker 9: saving for retirement and include your grandkids as well. Yes,
Speaker 9: the retirement crisis. Give us your diagnosis of that problem
Speaker 9: right now.
Speaker 10: Well, somebody I've been writing about for years, but I
Speaker 10: emphasize it in this letter. And you know, all my
Speaker 10: letters have been based on some long term issues. And
Speaker 10: let me be really truthful about my letters. My letters
Speaker 10: are a reflection of my conversation with clients.
Speaker 2: So it is.
Speaker 10: And so over the past year, I heard more and
Speaker 10: more conversation about retirement or retirement crisis from many parts
Speaker 10: of the world, from middle class developing countries to developed countries.
Speaker 10: The acute problem here in the United States is that
Speaker 10: we have still fifty seven million Americans who don't have
Speaker 10: any savings or any retirement plan. So security is a
Speaker 10: fantastic foundation for retirement. But if that's how you have
Speaker 10: when you retire, you're going.
Speaker 2: To be living in.
Speaker 10: Poverty, below the poverty line, because it just is. It's supplemental,
Speaker 10: but it's not meant to be the totality of what
Speaker 10: you have in retirement.
Speaker 2: And the whole concept that we're aging, we're you know,
Speaker 2: we're all living longer.
Speaker 10: And I think one of the big narratives I had
Speaker 10: to reflect in twenty twenty three was the miracles of medicine.
Speaker 10: When we talk about the drugs like a zumpec and
Speaker 10: all the different weight loss drugs, how that is extending life.
Speaker 10: It's conquering kidney disease and liver disease and heart disease
Speaker 10: and joint disease. And then there are new medicines now
Speaker 10: for dementia that extends life. So you think about the
Speaker 10: miracles of technology and how it transforms our lives and
Speaker 10: extends our life. There is not a dialogue in America
Speaker 10: or most places about can't we afford that longevity and
Speaker 10: our entire retirement system was based on statistics that were
Speaker 10: created fifty years ago, whereby most Americans retired between sixty
Speaker 10: and sixty two then, but most Americans then.
Speaker 2: Passed away at sixty seven.
Speaker 10: And today, statistically a couple sixty years old in good health,
Speaker 10: one of them is going to live over ninety. And
Speaker 10: so the other question is should we re evaluate how
Speaker 10: we work and how long we work because we all
Speaker 10: need purpose in life, and in most plays most people
Speaker 10: get find purpose. Obviously maybe with their grandchildren, their children,
Speaker 10: their their community.
Speaker 2: Many people find purpose in.
Speaker 10: Their jobs and the thought of retiring at sixty with
Speaker 10: thirty more years or a thirty year year life in
Speaker 10: front of you. These we need to have a dialogue.
Speaker 10: We need to have a conversation. And you know, I'm
Speaker 10: an optimist. I am very optimistic about the long term
Speaker 10: vitality of our markets. I'm bullish on capitalism. The reason
Speaker 10: why I'm bullish is when I read the newspapers every
Speaker 10: morning and listen to Bloomberg and other news organizations, it's
Speaker 10: full of scary things.
Speaker 2: We talk about the problems.
Speaker 10: We talk about all the problems life, but we solve
Speaker 10: problems through conversation. And the one area where we have
Speaker 10: no conversation is the affordability of retirement and the whole
Speaker 10: concept of retirement. And we need to start a global
Speaker 10: and most importantly and national dialogue.
Speaker 9: So in your letter you have a very powerful, i think,
Speaker 9: diagnosis of the problem, not just the United States but global. Yes,
Speaker 9: we are living longer, we need more money therefore to live.
Speaker 9: At the same time, there's also a bit of a
Speaker 9: pin there to capitalism and particularly capital markets and the
Speaker 9: extraordinary things they've done, what they can do. Connect the
Speaker 9: two of those up. Could we use the capital markets
Speaker 9: to address at least some of the problem we're talking about,
Speaker 9: and let me be very specific. Social security you mentioned
Speaker 9: is really in trouble. Should we be taking the Social
Speaker 9: Security Trust Fund what's left of it and put it
Speaker 9: into capital markets.
Speaker 10: We need to put it in a long term investment.
Speaker 10: I mean, we have a system of pay as you go. Okay,
Speaker 10: there are other countries like Australia that have a whole
Speaker 10: unique system whereby you're contributing. But there are right now
Speaker 10: in Congress there are a number of senators and congressmen
Speaker 10: that are talking about rehabilitating our security pool and maybe
Speaker 10: contributing big block of money into it so it has sufficiency.
Speaker 10: But to me, as I said, social security is just
Speaker 10: a foundation of retirement. We need to really educate our
Speaker 10: citizens about the need for savings.
Speaker 2: We see worldwide.
Speaker 10: Most people who are really thrifty, they keep most of
Speaker 10: their money in a bank account. Like in Japan, almost
Speaker 10: there's a high savings rate of eighteen percent. Most of
Speaker 10: that isn't a bank account. In Europe there's a high
Speaker 10: savings rate of fifteen ish percent. Most of that's in
Speaker 10: a bank account. That is not going to provide you
Speaker 10: the adequacy of the compounding of what capital markets can do.
Speaker 10: But probably one of the big conversations I've had with
Speaker 10: so many political leaders is the connection of retirement and
Speaker 10: the capital markets. When you think about the vitality of
Speaker 10: the US capital markets so much it's based on the
Speaker 10: long term money of pension funds of our whether it's
Speaker 10: a defined benefit plan or defined contribution plan. And Americans
Speaker 10: are more optimistic and so we have a higher investment
Speaker 10: in equities beyond any other society. And so in my
Speaker 10: conversation with many political leaders as they think about retirement,
Speaker 10: and Japan is a great example.
Speaker 2: The Kashida government just this.
Speaker 10: Past October raised the amount of tax deductibility to put
Speaker 10: in your four to one k.
Speaker 2: They double the size.
Speaker 10: And it's not a coincidence that the Japanese equity market
Speaker 10: since October is up thirty percent, and it's because we're
Speaker 10: seeing more and more money that it is going into
Speaker 10: the long term capital markets. So not only does it
Speaker 10: give financial returns for those who are retiring and saving
Speaker 10: for retirement, but it's a big foundation for domestic companies
Speaker 10: to have local investing in your own companies. If you
Speaker 10: look at the United States, are our equity markets generally
Speaker 10: traded a two to three pe racial higher than any
Speaker 10: place in the world. Now, you could argue we have
Speaker 10: better companies and an a place in the world, but
Speaker 10: you also have to attribute this to that we have
Speaker 10: a larger retirement system in terms of what we invested.
Speaker 2: Now, that doesn't mean we need and we need more.
Speaker 10: We need more money for more people to be putting
Speaker 10: it into their system.
Speaker 9: Take it a step further, because something you're very involved
Speaker 9: in Blackrock is is alternative investments.
Speaker 2: Yes, the private markets, credit.
Speaker 9: Debt, things like that. Should we be changing the rules
Speaker 9: so we can put our four to one kse our
Speaker 9: iris into private markets.
Speaker 10: I believe there are some great areas of private markets
Speaker 10: that are going to be great investments for retirement, and
Speaker 10: I would channel that more towards infrastructure because infrastructure has
Speaker 10: a long maturity, It has a higher coupon, but it
Speaker 10: has a lower profile of returns and what I would
Speaker 10: say other areas of the private markets, so it has
Speaker 10: more a good corridor of returns, but higher probabilities of
Speaker 10: meeting those returns. And so yes, we need to be
Speaker 10: relooking at how we think about investing, whether that is
Speaker 10: going to be in private equity or infrastructure.
Speaker 2: I do believe you know, we need to be putting more.
Speaker 10: Long dated assets into retirement and so that you could
Speaker 10: so that you could meet the returns that you need
Speaker 10: to have the pool of money that we require during retirement.
Speaker 9: Something else you mentioned was our longevity, which has increased substantially.
Speaker 9: We all benefit from that. That's a good thing, exactly
Speaker 9: planning at the same time, Should we be encouraging, as
Speaker 9: you suggested a letter, people working longer. Should we making
Speaker 9: a possible facility thing. Should we frankly increase the age
Speaker 9: for social security?
Speaker 10: That is not for me to make a decision, but
Speaker 10: I think we need to have a conversation. Look at
Speaker 10: you and I are the same age. Okay, we are
Speaker 10: working longer. We have find purpose and what we do.
Speaker 10: The founder of Bloomberg, Mike, is still working. I believe.
Speaker 10: I believe for those who can and they find purpose
Speaker 10: and work, my gosh, work as long as you can.
Speaker 10: If you find blessings, if you find purpose and other things,
Speaker 10: do that. But I do believe we need to discuss
Speaker 10: these opportunities.
Speaker 2: I don't think the average citizen knows that.
Speaker 10: You know the extent of how much longer we're going
Speaker 10: to be able to live. You know, so the beauty
Speaker 10: and the miracles of medicine has allowed us to live
Speaker 10: you know, ten, fifteen, twenty years longer than two generations ago.
Speaker 10: And so, but we haven't changed our system of retirement
Speaker 10: or our system of social security. So the most important
Speaker 10: thing we need to do, David, is have a conversation,
Speaker 10: and through that conversation, I think most people are going
Speaker 10: to elect to do things, maybe working longer, We're electing
Speaker 10: to be more, to be more involved in how they
Speaker 10: put their money to work for retirement.
Speaker 9: As I say in your letter, you talk a lot
Speaker 9: about the success of the capital markets, all that they've accomplished.
Speaker 9: At the same time, you do mention the problem with
Speaker 9: particularly US debt. You think it's more urgent than anytime.
Speaker 9: I think you said you can remember in your lifetime.
Speaker 9: Put those two things together. To what extent has the
Speaker 9: success of the capital markets come, specifically because we've taken
Speaker 9: more debt on the public balance sheet. We've shifted debt
Speaker 9: from private balance sheets to public balance sheets.
Speaker 2: No question.
Speaker 10: Let's just use a statistic, and I think when I
Speaker 10: talk about this statistic, I get frightened.
Speaker 2: In the year.
Speaker 10: Two thousand, the US deficit was eight trillion dollars today
Speaker 10: it's thirty four trillion dollars. So twenty three years later
Speaker 10: we increased our deficit by twenty six trillion dollars. So
Speaker 10: for the first two hundred and thirty forty years, we
Speaker 10: increased our deficit the eight trillion, and in the last
Speaker 10: twenty three years we went we increased it by twenty
Speaker 10: six trillion dollars. I think that speaks volumes of what's
Speaker 10: happening in our country today. The problem with these type
Speaker 10: of deficits is and now, with and I believe higher
Speaker 10: interest rates for longer, the cost of financing our deficits
Speaker 10: are going to erode more and more of our of
Speaker 10: our disposable income as a country.
Speaker 2: And I do.
Speaker 10: Believe there we're getting to a point where our public
Speaker 10: debt is going to start up crowding out private capital,
Speaker 10: and we're going to have structurally higher interest rates.
Speaker 9: What can the private sector do to trigger some action
Speaker 9: in that regard. I mean, you're the head of the
Speaker 9: largest asset manager in the world. IRY think it's not
Speaker 9: just you, but you have some influence. At this point,
Speaker 9: we have Candide running for president who aren't even talking
Speaker 9: about this.
Speaker 2: That's not even a conversation.
Speaker 10: So in my letter, I talk about the need for
Speaker 10: more public private investments. Well, the United States is one
Speaker 10: of the last countries where we've had private capital investing
Speaker 10: in our infrastructure. And I believe if we changed our policies,
Speaker 10: privatized our airports and privatized maybe our ports and having
Speaker 10: private capital investing that then our public spending could be
Speaker 10: rededicated to more urgent social needs, more urgent needs, elevating
Speaker 10: our education, elevating issues around social security and healthcare.
Speaker 2: And so I.
Speaker 10: Believe the need is to rethink what is a role
Speaker 10: and responsibility of a public sector for the development of
Speaker 10: better twenty first century infrastructure.
Speaker 2: We know that we are going to have.
Speaker 10: To digitize our entire economy, we know we're going to
Speaker 10: have to move forward on carbonization. These require huge pools
Speaker 10: of money. Allow the private sector to be part of that.
Speaker 10: We have this enormous functional capital markets that can provide
Speaker 10: the capital we as a country must use it more
Speaker 10: often and access the role of private sector.
Speaker 2: And so I think we still.
Speaker 10: You know, that does not change the course of our deficits,
Speaker 10: but we could certainly reallocate some of our monies into
Speaker 10: more urgent issues and I would say, and my letter
Speaker 10: speaks about it to we need to grow our economy
Speaker 10: so our deficits are a smaller component of our GDP.
Speaker 10: That is the bigger issue. If we continue to just
Speaker 10: grow at two percent and we have these type of deficits,
Speaker 10: that's when the deficits really are going to be a.
Speaker 2: Problem out five and ten years.
Speaker 9: But you suggest three percent, is that realistic?
Speaker 2: We need that has to be our target.
Speaker 10: We need to find ways of growing at three percent
Speaker 10: instead of just cutting taxes, or we need to find
Speaker 10: ways of insenting private capital to be investing more.
Speaker 2: We need to encourage growth, and we need to.
Speaker 10: Be and this is a debate now and there's a
Speaker 10: lot of people talking against this. We need to embrace
Speaker 10: our capitalism because our capitalism has shown to be the
Speaker 10: best economic force in the world.
Speaker 9: And finally, Larry, let's come back to the personal here
Speaker 9: for a moment. As you mentioned, you and I happened
Speaker 9: to be exactly the same age, right, we're boomers. Yes,
Speaker 9: we have some responsibility to the succeeding generation that I'm
Speaker 9: not sure with delivering on how much of your letter
Speaker 9: was really saying to us boomers. We owe it to
Speaker 9: our children and our grandchildren to get our arms around
Speaker 9: these problems.
Speaker 10: We were born at a great economic moment. It's we
Speaker 10: all have a responsibility to try to recreate that environment
Speaker 10: for our grandchildren and hopefully make a better outcome for
Speaker 10: our children. But now at our age, we've got to
Speaker 10: be focused on the future for our grandchildren.
Speaker 9: Okay, Larry, thank you so much. Really great to have
Speaker 9: you here. That's Larry Fink, He's Black chairman and CEO.
Speaker 9: Joe back to you.
Speaker 3: David Weston, thank you. Fascinating conversation, having read mister Fink's
Speaker 3: letter this morning and something that we were looking forward to.
Speaker 3: Recalling the conversation that we were having here in Washington
Speaker 3: about the retirement age just days ago, and I want
Speaker 3: to hear from the panel on this. Rick Davis is
Speaker 3: with us here along with Brad Howard, as we dig
Speaker 3: into the politics of this, Recalling the conversation about social
Speaker 3: security in the budget that emerged Rick Davis from the
Speaker 3: Republican Study Committee. Highly controversial, it actually addressed the issue
Speaker 3: and recommended increasing the age for retirement. This is something
Speaker 3: that neither presidential candidate will touch. Right now, we're going
Speaker 3: back to the old lock box. Here is it time
Speaker 3: to start having this conversation out loud.
Speaker 11: Well, you kind of started that conversation at the presidential
Speaker 11: level when you interviewed Nicki Haley this primary cycle and
Speaker 11: got heard talking about Social Security. And the bottom line is,
Speaker 11: I think what Larry Fink points out is just a
Speaker 11: fact Berkans are living longer, We're being more productive in
Speaker 11: that old age. Medicine has given us a new chance
Speaker 11: to extend our lives, and yet public policy isn't following
Speaker 11: any of that. And as you point out, Rick Scott
Speaker 11: in the Republican Study Committee and Nikki Haley have said
Speaker 11: something about needing to reform Social Security. It is on
Speaker 11: the brink of being a financial disaster, and yet presidential
Speaker 11: candidates Donald Trump and Joe Biden seem to feel like
Speaker 11: it's some kind of toxic third rail that you can't
Speaker 11: talk about in politics, and you.
Speaker 7: Know you'd be a disaster if you did.
Speaker 11: I think Americans are more sophisticated than that, and I
Speaker 11: think a national dialogue is exactly what Larry Fink has
Speaker 11: calm for and I think it's a smart move on
Speaker 11: his part.
Speaker 3: With the Democratic view, Brad Howard in our remaining moment
Speaker 3: in this conversation, Brad, We've got an eighty one year
Speaker 3: old president. All we do is talk about age around
Speaker 3: here in Washington, d C. How come we can't have
Speaker 3: this conversation.
Speaker 12: Well, look, the critics, it isn't that we're having. The
Speaker 12: conversation is that the Republican proposal immediately makes seniors bear
Speaker 12: the burden of the bad decisions of Washington. And I
Speaker 12: think Democrats want to look at it more holistically, like
Speaker 12: there's there's ways you can tax the wealthy, or to
Speaker 12: help ensure the longevity of a SOB Security Trust fund,
Speaker 12: there's other mechanisms like why are millionaires and billionaires getting
Speaker 12: so security benefits? Those are questions that Democrats are asking,
Speaker 12: So I think why no. The criticism is that they're
Speaker 12: looking at it from this angle. But let me say like,
Speaker 12: there was a strong momentum behind a bipartisan national commission
Speaker 12: that would look at the nation's debt, including entitlement spending,
Speaker 12: which is so security and medicare. It made it through that.
Speaker 12: It was the Scott Peters Bill. It made it through
Speaker 12: the Budget Committee on a bipartisan vote, and Democrats were
Speaker 12: willing to go forward with this. Who killed it was
Speaker 12: Grover Norquist and the Americans for Tax Reform because they
Speaker 12: left on the table the idea of raising taxes to
Speaker 12: help ensure the longevity of SOB security. So you know,
Speaker 12: both sides have are are to blame here, but again
Speaker 12: the criticism and not that they're bringing it up. The
Speaker 12: criticism is their proposal to do.
Speaker 3: So a right Howard and Rick Davis are great panel. Today.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast. Catch
Speaker 1: us live weekdays at noon Eastern on Applecarplay and then
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Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
Speaker 3: Welcome to the Tuesday edition of Ballance of Power. I'm
Speaker 3: Joe Matthew in Washington. Normally I would say alongside Kaylee Lines,
Speaker 3: but Kaylee is in Baltimore today having responded to the
Speaker 3: bridge collapse this morning, and we want to bring you
Speaker 3: up to date on what is happening there because the
Speaker 3: administration is now responding. It's not just local officials. We
Speaker 3: heard from Joe Biden live here on this program just
Speaker 3: within the last hour, pledging that the federal government will
Speaker 3: pay for the bridge replacement in full. They will not
Speaker 3: wait to find out who was at fault or whether
Speaker 3: the shipping line is liable in this case. After the
Speaker 3: Dolly lost power that cargo ship and slammed into the bridge,
Speaker 3: bringing it down. Most of that bridge underwater right now,
Speaker 3: and Kaylee joins us from the scene. Kaylle, we understand
Speaker 3: the Transportation Secretary is on his way there today.
Speaker 13: Yes, we do expect, Joe, that Secretary Buddha Jedge will
Speaker 13: be coming here to view the scene to partake in
Speaker 13: the efforts, which, of course, right now is still a
Speaker 13: search and rescue effort as we speak, at the invitation
Speaker 13: of Governor Wesmore. We have not yet seen the Secretary arrived,
Speaker 13: but of course we'll keep all on Bloomberg television and
Speaker 13: radio posted as we do have developments here, and of
Speaker 13: course he will likely reiterate what we have heard, as
Speaker 13: you said from the President, that the federal government is
Speaker 13: going to be leading this effort in terms of financing
Speaker 13: the reconstruction of this bridge. Of course that could be
Speaker 13: a figure in the billions of dollars potentially, and of course,
Speaker 13: before any reconstruction effort can be underway, they do have
Speaker 13: to clear out just the debris that is currently in
Speaker 13: the river behind me. Keeping in mind that basically the
Speaker 13: entirety of this bridge collapsed and started to be at
Speaker 13: least partially submerged. It is going to take some time
Speaker 13: to get all of that out, to clear out the waterway,
Speaker 13: not just so the bridge can be reconstructed or that
Speaker 13: project can begin, but also so that the port can
Speaker 13: be reopened and that ships can transit this waterway. Once again,
Speaker 13: it's worth keeping in mind here as we think about
Speaker 13: the timeline, which could be potentially very long. Governor Moore
Speaker 13: talked about it being a long haul project earlier this
Speaker 13: morning at a press conference, but also the question of
Speaker 13: how quickly this financing can be secured. When President Biden
Speaker 13: said he does intend for the federal government to pick
Speaker 13: up the tab on this, he said that he does
Speaker 13: expect Congress will approve that. But we know that this
Speaker 13: president hasn't had an immense degree of ease in asking
Speaker 13: Congress for money and that passing in an expeditious matter. Joe,
Speaker 13: we all know what just happened with government funding. Of course,
Speaker 13: there is a supplemental request, including emergency aid for US
Speaker 13: allies like Ukraine and Israel, that still hasn't been acted.
Speaker 13: On by the House, so we'll see just how quickly
Speaker 13: it can work its way through the workings of the
Speaker 13: federal government as state officials are responding here in real
Speaker 13: time today, that's for sure.
Speaker 3: Kayleie, We're really glad that you could get there and
Speaker 3: bring this information to us. Thank you for being at
Speaker 3: the scene. You'll be hearing from Kaylee of course throughout
Speaker 3: the day here on Bloomberg Radio and TV, my partner
Speaker 3: here on Balance of Power doing the good work that
Speaker 3: you're hearing. We started our broadcast talking with Amy Morris
Speaker 3: from Bloomberg Radio, who really brought home the impact that
Speaker 3: this has on a local level. We're going to talk
Speaker 3: a lot in the days and weeks ahead about the
Speaker 3: national impact, maybe even international economic impact on trade. The
Speaker 3: biggest port in America for autos, the ninth largest overall
Speaker 3: coal shipments being brought to a standstill now for some
Speaker 3: six weeks. But if you live in the Baltimore area,
Speaker 3: this is your home. It's actually known or was as
Speaker 3: the Golden gate Bridge of Baltimore, was part of the
Speaker 3: skyline there and this is something that is hitting the
Speaker 3: community hard. We're actually hearing now from the sports teams
Speaker 3: in Baltimore. The orioles out with a statement that says,
Speaker 3: in part, Baltimore, We're a tight knit and resilient city. Together,
Speaker 3: we will get through this. The Baltimore ravens similar. We
Speaker 3: know that the Baltimore community will stand together in the
Speaker 3: aftermath of this tragic event. We'll have a lot more
Speaker 3: for you on the later edition of Balance of Power,
Speaker 3: starts at five pm Washington time here on Bloomberg TV
Speaker 3: and Radio, in a conversation with former Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood,
Speaker 3: among others, who will join us to talk about the
Speaker 3: impact and the recovery. Here on a day that we
Speaker 3: would typically be leading with the new Bloomberg Swing State Pole,
Speaker 3: we got new numbers out this morning. There has been
Speaker 3: so much breaking news so far today I haven't had
Speaker 3: a chance to get to it until now, And as
Speaker 3: we heard from Joe Biden ahead of his trip to
Speaker 3: North Carolina, the news is quite good for him. The
Speaker 3: blue wall we talk so much about may in fact
Speaker 3: be in place for him by the time we vote,
Speaker 3: if the trajectory remains intact in the polling that we've seen. Bloomberg,
Speaker 3: of course, working with morning consults on this on the
Speaker 3: monthly this has been a rolling pole, if you will,
Speaker 3: or a monthly pole that we've been updating in the
Speaker 3: seven swing states that will likely to side the election,
Speaker 3: will likely pick the next president of the United States.
Speaker 3: The headline on the terminal Biden erases Trump's lead in
Speaker 3: blue wall states he needs to win, and to that end,
Speaker 3: we bring in Eli Yoakley, US politics analyst that morning
Speaker 3: consult our partners on this poll. Eli, It's great to
Speaker 3: see you back. Where is Joe Biden making headway?
Speaker 14: Things are looking a little better for President Biden since
Speaker 14: we last checked in on this. Joe Biden has improved
Speaker 14: his standing in Michigan, a very key states his reelection.
Speaker 14: He's made improvements in Nevada, and in North Carolina, and
Speaker 14: in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Look, he's above water for the
Speaker 14: first time in our survey since October in Wisconsin. This
Speaker 14: is positive forward movement. But look, he still faces a
Speaker 14: very tough electorate this year. We've seen some signs of
Speaker 14: improvement in terms of the favorability rating, how folks are
Speaker 14: thinking about the economy, the kind of news voters are
Speaker 14: taking away about the president. But in a number of
Speaker 14: these states he's still trailing President Trump.
Speaker 3: And to be tied in Pennsylvania. Let's be honest, Eli,
Speaker 3: this is home for Joe Biden. He's been to that
Speaker 3: state I think more than any other since he's been
Speaker 3: in office. He went up there to drop his budget,
Speaker 3: He's delivered some very important speeches. He calls Scranton home.
Speaker 3: Whether you buy into that narrative in the biography, is
Speaker 3: that the first place the campaign needs to get to work.
Speaker 14: I mean, he's spent a tremendous amount of time there.
Speaker 14: It's like I'm running joke that he goes there every month.
Speaker 14: He goes there a lot. It's an important state for him,
Speaker 14: it's an important state for Democrats. I think one thing
Speaker 14: that he's going to need to lean into there is
Speaker 14: convincing voters that the economy at the local level has
Speaker 14: actually improved.
Speaker 7: It's one of the worst states right now.
Speaker 14: We saw a trend across all of these states we
Speaker 14: tested where economic sentiment, the kind of the way people
Speaker 14: are thinking about the direction of the economy, has gone
Speaker 14: on the rise across the swing safe map, and it's
Speaker 14: been driven by perceptions of their local economy. Pennsylvania has
Speaker 14: one of the states where that is still underwater. The
Speaker 14: President has an opportunity here to try to make that case.
Speaker 14: But right now it's not breaking to the same extent
Speaker 14: that it is in places like Wisconsin, where he finally
Speaker 14: has a lead over Trump.
Speaker 3: Something we said about peaking late in this game. Eli,
Speaker 3: if you're Joe Biden and you're looking out across the
Speaker 3: next eight months, here you see people feeling better about
Speaker 3: the economy now, knowing that interest rates might be coming,
Speaker 3: knowing that you have twice as much cash on hand
Speaker 3: as Donald Trump. When you look to I guess across
Speaker 3: the valley here to November. If you're this campaign, do
Speaker 3: you not see the stars aligning.
Speaker 7: I think that it's early in this campaign.
Speaker 14: I mean a good chunck of voters a couple months
Speaker 14: ago didn't even think that Donald Trump would be denominated,
Speaker 14: or they.
Speaker 7: Weren't so sure.
Speaker 14: A number of voters still say that the American people
Speaker 14: are not paying attention to this, or at least hadn't
Speaker 14: been paying attention to this to the extent that Washington is.
Speaker 14: I think we're seeing signs that more voters are paying attention.
Speaker 14: I think that folks are taking note of as Biden
Speaker 14: would cast, at the threat of another Trump presidency. That
Speaker 14: is something that he's going to need to rely on, very,
Speaker 14: very heavily to try to rebuild that anti Trump coalition
Speaker 14: that got him the White House in the first place.
Speaker 14: It wasn't really a pro Biden coalition that got across
Speaker 14: the finish slide four years ago. It was an anti
Speaker 14: Trump coalition, and you're starting to see signs in places
Speaker 14: like Wisconsin that is materializing. Some of this is driven
Speaker 14: by independent voters, who are far more likely to cast
Speaker 14: their vote if they're supporting Joe Biden as a vote
Speaker 14: against Donald Trump than a vote for the incumbent. This
Speaker 14: negative energy activates folks, and the Biden campaign is going
Speaker 14: to need to spend a lot of time in the
Speaker 14: coming months to try to revive that as it builds
Speaker 14: up perceptions of its own handling of the presidency.
Speaker 3: Spending time with Eli Yoakley at Morning consult, Eli, I'm
Speaker 3: really struck by something that everyone seems to agree on here,
Speaker 3: Progressives as well as Donald Trump supporters eat the rich.
Speaker 3: This is something that came out of the poll here.
Speaker 3: Those sixty nine percent those you pulled in seven swing
Speaker 3: states favor higher taxes on billionaires, even Americans making over
Speaker 3: four hundred thousand dollars a year. What else can you
Speaker 3: tell us about this?
Speaker 14: Yeah, it turns out that the vast majority of the
Speaker 14: American people like taxing the rich.
Speaker 7: It's very popular. And by the way, it's very popular
Speaker 7: among Trump supporters too.
Speaker 14: I mean, over half of Donald Trump's support support taxing
Speaker 14: people who make over four hundred thousand dollars A good
Speaker 14: number of them, about a third, which which is a
Speaker 14: lot of Republicans support tax raising taxes on corporations. This
Speaker 14: is the two major parties maybe finding a place of
Speaker 14: agreement on a populist policy, which is maybe the American
Speaker 14: people think the rich are making too much money right now.
Speaker 7: We saw some of this.
Speaker 14: Emerge during the inflation discussion early in Biden's presidency, where
Speaker 14: a lot of voters were blaming corporations for being greedy.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 14: I think this is an underlying current in American politics.
Speaker 14: So Donald Trump has had a lot of luck allowing
Speaker 14: the Republican Party to tap into it's where I think
Speaker 14: people normally are with the Democratic Party. But if you
Speaker 14: could see if he moves forward in this campaign and
Speaker 14: maybe try to offer some compromises to restore his twenty
Speaker 14: fifteen tax cuts for all Americans, maybe a place of
Speaker 14: possible common ground in the next presidency.
Speaker 3: Well, that's how does that help Trump? Though? This is
Speaker 3: the man behind the twenty seventeen tax cuts. He's a billionaire.
Speaker 3: This is actually what we're talking about. He wants to
Speaker 3: lower the corporate tax rate, doesn't he?
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 14: I think it helps Trump in the sense that a
Speaker 14: good number of people associate the Republican Party more with
Speaker 14: people like them than they did before he took over.
Speaker 14: He is rebuilding a populist regardless of his wealth and
Speaker 14: his billionaire status.
Speaker 7: He has helped rebuild the Republican.
Speaker 14: Party's brand as a party of the cares more about
Speaker 14: everyday Americans. The other thing that stands out in this,
Speaker 14: by the way, is the American people seem inclined to
Speaker 14: be on board with some of his tariff discussion. He's
Speaker 14: talked a lot about raising of tariffs on some foreign imports.
Speaker 7: The American people seem to be there.
Speaker 14: That seems like something that might raise costs for everyday folks.
Speaker 14: But this going after big business is more protectionist bent
Speaker 14: in America's populist bit in American politics is something that
Speaker 14: is becoming a bit of a unifier this year.
Speaker 3: That's pretty remarkable. I guess the populist election, even if
Speaker 3: it doesn't always agree with one candidate or the other,
Speaker 3: you go with the message. Eli. We've been talking a
Speaker 3: lot about third parties lately. No Labels is scratch and
Speaker 3: looking for a candidate. Here, RFK Junior is trying to
Speaker 3: make news. You put up a running mate today, even
Speaker 3: though he's only on a couple of ballots. Is this
Speaker 3: going to be a factor in pulling and actual election
Speaker 3: results in the November.
Speaker 14: I mean, some of these states are so close. I mean, Pennsylvania, Michigan,
Speaker 14: Wisconsin are tight, tight races. A couple points here and
Speaker 14: there matter a lot. I think what stood out in
Speaker 14: this latest survey is that RFK does pull from President
Speaker 14: Biden along with folks like Cornell West and Jill Stein.
Speaker 7: It's going to be something to watch. I mean, RFK
Speaker 7: keeps getting.
Speaker 14: More popular in all of these surveys. There's not been
Speaker 14: much of an effort against him yet, and we're still
Speaker 14: going to see what kind of balance he can get on.
Speaker 2: But you know, the.
Speaker 14: Presidence of some of these third party candidates, especially when
Speaker 14: so many voters dislike both of the major party candidates,
Speaker 14: is obviously something that both side Saints watched and right
Speaker 14: now it does appear to be a bit of a
Speaker 14: challenge for President Biden.
Speaker 3: Fascinating stuff here with so much time left. Eli. You know,
Speaker 3: we started this campaign cycle warning everybody don't read into
Speaker 3: national polls too much. Here there's too much time to go,
Speaker 3: and this poll really seems to underscore that argument. If
Speaker 3: you're not looking specifically at Wisconsin, if you're not looking
Speaker 3: specifically at Pennsylvania, for instance, these are two that we've
Speaker 3: really isolated in our conversation here, you have no idea
Speaker 3: what's going on in this campaign.
Speaker 14: Yeah, I mean we always think of our national surveys
Speaker 14: as a leading indicator. I mean, we saw some of
Speaker 14: this in the national data we collected after the State
Speaker 14: of the Union that fewer voters were concerned about the
Speaker 14: president's age. Since Donald Trump won the Super Tuesday contest,
Speaker 14: we started to see this race solidify in a very
Speaker 14: tight way. But the importance of what we're doing every
Speaker 14: single mompp helps explain to the American people what's happening on
Speaker 14: the ground in some of these key states and pick
Speaker 14: up some of these small movements.
Speaker 7: They're going to matter a lot come November.
Speaker 3: Are we going to be talking about a blue wall
Speaker 3: in November.
Speaker 14: We're always talking about a blue wall. Well, we talked
Speaker 14: about a blue wall, will be talking about Arizona. We've
Speaker 14: already heard folks start talking about North Carolina and we'll
Speaker 14: see how that pans out.
Speaker 7: But it does appear that, you know, folk places.
Speaker 14: Like Wisconsin and Michigan are going to be a big
Speaker 14: deal come November.
Speaker 3: You come on today, Eli, Thanks for listening to the
Speaker 3: Balance of Power podcast. Make sure to subscribe if you
Speaker 3: haven't already, at Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts,
Speaker 3: and you can find us live every weekday from Washington,
Speaker 3: DC at noontime Eastern at Bloomberg dot com.