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Speaker 2: The first Democratic member of Congress calls for Joe Biden
Speaker 2: to drop out of the presidential race.
Speaker 3: Welcome to the fastest show in politics.
Speaker 2: As a representative from Texas pulls the ripcord. I'm Joe
Speaker 2: Matthew alongside Kaylee Lines in Washington, DC and Kaylee. This
Speaker 2: comes today as Joe Biden reports raising tens of millions
Speaker 2: of dollars after the debate.
Speaker 3: That was said to be such a disaster.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and the four days since the debate thirty eight
Speaker 4: million dollars raised. They had a record month of June
Speaker 4: with one hundred and twenty seven million dollars according to
Speaker 4: the campaign. And yet there are still calls within the
Speaker 4: Democratic Party for Biden to consider not being officially the
Speaker 4: Democratic nominee. One of those, as you mentioned, now, coming
Speaker 4: from Congressman Lloyd Doggett, who represents the congressional district that
Speaker 4: was once represented by Lyndon B.
Speaker 3: Johnson. How about that?
Speaker 4: And he says in this letter, under very different circumstances,
Speaker 4: he made the painful decision to withdraw. President Biden should
Speaker 4: do the same.
Speaker 2: A native of Austin saying out loud what a lot
Speaker 2: of Democrats are saying quietly here. Joe Biden, of course,
Speaker 2: will be hosting veterans and their families on the south
Speaker 2: lawn of the White House on the fourth of July,
Speaker 2: which is a really wonderful event that takes place every
Speaker 2: year that now is typically geared toward veterans and Gold
Speaker 2: Star families, and it's a really wonderful thing if you've
Speaker 2: ever been in Washington, d C. On the fourth, we
Speaker 2: will hopefully transcend politics for a couple of hours.
Speaker 3: Kayley, on what has been a divisive week.
Speaker 2: Think of everything that we just added up here that
Speaker 2: we've learned in only the past couple of days, from
Speaker 2: the Supreme Court ruling on immunity, the sentencing New York
Speaker 2: being delayed, the great concern coming off last week's debate
Speaker 2: among Democrats for Joe Biden, only to be followed up
Speaker 2: with a chaser of one hundred and twenty seven million
Speaker 2: dollars in a fundraising hall. These are noisy times on
Speaker 2: the trail.
Speaker 4: Indeed, it's a lot to parse through, and of course
Speaker 4: parsing it through in a holiday week, and a holiday
Speaker 4: specifically that is marking the United States declaring its independence
Speaker 4: from the tyrannical king. Oh true, and yet the Supreme
Speaker 4: Court this week, some might argue, gave king like powers
Speaker 4: to a democratically elected president at least presumptive immunity from
Speaker 4: anything prosecuting Official Act.
Speaker 2: Coast is clear on a lot of things that we
Speaker 2: wouldn't have thought about before. We talked to Tim O'Brien
Speaker 2: from Bloomberg Opinion a little bit earlier on in the broadcast.
Speaker 2: Trump ruling invites presidents to commit crime, which is really
Speaker 2: how a lot of people are looking at this today.
Speaker 2: And this is going to play itself out on the
Speaker 2: campaign trail. It's something that we're going to talk about
Speaker 2: Keilly with Congressman Seth Moulton, the Democrat from Massachusetts not
Speaker 2: only supporting Joe Biden, but has actually made a run
Speaker 2: for president himself. If you think back, he's taken a
Speaker 2: stab at this as well.
Speaker 5: Well.
Speaker 4: It's so much to consider as who who has run
Speaker 4: for president in the past and didn't get the nomination
Speaker 4: as Joe Biden did in twenty twenty. And those who
Speaker 4: were instrumental in getting Joe Biden elected in the first
Speaker 4: go round, like say Congressman Jim Clyburn of South Carolina,
Speaker 4: who arguably is what ultimately put Joe Biden over the
Speaker 4: finish line with that victory in that state, if you
Speaker 4: start to see those people turner, at least more publicly,
Speaker 4: start to doubt him, I wonder if that's really the
Speaker 4: tell when we consider whether the pressure is going to
Speaker 4: go all the way there, so much so that Joe
Speaker 4: Biden has no choice but to decide not to.
Speaker 6: Be the nominee.
Speaker 2: The congressman is with us now, Seth Moulton from the
Speaker 2: North shore of Boston in Massachusetts US. Great to see
Speaker 2: a congressman happy fourth in advance. I wonder what's going
Speaker 2: through your mind here and what's going through your phone.
Speaker 2: I bet it's been blowing up all weekend like a
Speaker 2: lot of Democratic lawmakers. We now have one of your
Speaker 2: colleagues from Texas, a Congressman Doggett, calling for Joe Biden.
Speaker 3: To drop out of this race.
Speaker 2: Is that a call based on what you're hearing that's
Speaker 2: about to get louder for the rest of us.
Speaker 5: Well, I don't know if it's going to get louder
Speaker 5: or not. But look, I'm not going to sugarcoat anything.
Speaker 5: I think the debate was a disaster, and right now
Speaker 5: a lot of people have concerns about President Biden's age
Speaker 5: and his ability to go toe to toe with Donald Trump.
Speaker 5: That's the reality that we face. And of course, I
Speaker 5: deeply respect President Biden's love for our country. He's done
Speaker 5: amazing things for America, and he has a deeply abiding
Speaker 5: desire to continue serving. I have a lot of respect
Speaker 5: for that. But I've also never been one to shy
Speaker 5: away from speaking the truth, and I think we ultimately
Speaker 5: have to do what's best for our country and our
Speaker 5: democracy here. I don't know what the right answer is.
Speaker 5: I don't have all the right answers, but I'm not
Speaker 5: gonna I'm not going to sugarcoat this.
Speaker 4: The debate was bad, well, the debate, in your words,
Speaker 4: was bad. That was days ago, on Thursday evening, And
Speaker 4: potentially you could argue that the stakes of this election
Speaker 4: got ratcheted significantly higher by the Supreme Court decision yesterday
Speaker 4: Congressman in which they said that Donald Trump or any
Speaker 4: other president from here on out, does have presumptive immunity
Speaker 4: from prosecution for official acts. Given the language we have
Speaker 4: seen from Donald Trump as a candidate about retribution, about
Speaker 4: being a dictator on day one, does that not make
Speaker 4: it more incumbent on President Biden to actually consider what
Speaker 4: Donald Trump could do now if he were to win
Speaker 4: a second term. Does that change the narrative even from
Speaker 4: Thursday to now?
Speaker 5: Well, the stakes for this election are incredibly high, and
Speaker 5: you haven't even mentioned what I think is the greatest threat,
Speaker 5: which is the national security threats to our country if
Speaker 5: Trump is elected. Their threats to our democracy. There are
Speaker 5: threats to our very existence, we get into World War III.
Speaker 5: There are enormous threats to just individual rights. All the
Speaker 5: women around the country who are wondering what rights are
Speaker 5: Trump and the Republicans going to take away next? These
Speaker 5: stakes are enormous. Every American should have those stakes in mind.
Speaker 5: But I don't think there's an American who has them
Speaker 5: more in mind than President Biden. And that's why this
Speaker 5: conversation that Democrats are having right now a tough conversation.
Speaker 5: The same conversation that President Biden is having with his
Speaker 5: family and his advisors is so important. It's an important conversation.
Speaker 5: And some people will criticize Democrats for having this conversation,
Speaker 5: or for even maybe they'll criticize me for talking about
Speaker 5: having this conversation. But that's fundamentally what democracies are about.
Speaker 5: Right Republicans just cave and do whatever Donald Trump says.
Speaker 5: You know, look at how quickly the party caved to
Speaker 5: just making him a convicted criminal their nominee. We're not
Speaker 5: doing that because we take democracy more seriously. We take
Speaker 5: the stakes of this election more seriously, and that's why
Speaker 5: we're having tough conversations right now about the best path forward.
Speaker 2: Well, it's not lost on me, Congressman, that we were
Speaker 2: talking back in twenty nineteen about a new generation of
Speaker 2: leadership when you raised your hand to run for president.
Speaker 2: You've had this conversation inside the Democratic family here for
Speaker 2: quite a few years. Isn't that call for a new
Speaker 2: generation of leadership getting louder?
Speaker 5: I certainly haven't diminished my call for it since I
Speaker 5: first ran for Congress back in twenty fourteen. I said
Speaker 5: we need a new generation of leaders in this country.
Speaker 5: We need a new generation to step up. And I
Speaker 5: think that's especially true in our party. If you look
Speaker 5: at our party, we have an enormously talented new generation
Speaker 5: of leaders, but they're not many of many of them
Speaker 5: not really empowered right now. And I think that's something
Speaker 5: that we need to do. I mean, Joe, let me
Speaker 5: just acknowledge it. It's always an honor to find one
Speaker 5: of this small group of Americans who even remembers that
Speaker 5: I ran for president. So I'm flattered to bring that up.
Speaker 2: I remember seeing you at Politics and Eggs. We can
Speaker 2: joke about it, Congressman, but is that still part.
Speaker 3: Of your charge?
Speaker 6: Absolutely?
Speaker 5: Absolutely. I mean I've been in Congress for almost ten
Speaker 5: years and I'm still one of the youngest members of Congress.
Speaker 5: And so there are a lot of young Americans who
Speaker 5: don't feel like they're even represented by our representative democracy.
Speaker 5: Their views are not being represented in Congress, White House,
Speaker 5: and whatnot. This is work that we all have to
Speaker 5: engage in. And by the way, it's not just a
Speaker 5: Democratic Party issue. Donald Trump's only two years younger than
Speaker 5: Joe Biden, if I have it right, So I mean
Speaker 5: this is, you know, this is an issue that I
Speaker 5: think politics in general in America has to wrestle with
Speaker 5: We need a new generation of leaders. We still do.
Speaker 4: Well as we consider those leaders in all of the
Speaker 4: different facets of government, specifically the House of Representatives. Congressman,
Speaker 4: you are right now in the minority. The prevailing thinking,
Speaker 4: at least it was until Thursday, was that the Democrats
Speaker 4: stood a fairly good chance of flipping the House blue
Speaker 4: in November. Do you now have concerned that Joe Biden
Speaker 4: being at the top of the ticket hurts those odds.
Speaker 5: Well, I've had concerns about the House for a while
Speaker 5: because I think the problem is that while insiders in politics,
Speaker 5: like the three of us on this conversation who follow
Speaker 5: this every day, we know how totally dysfunctional the Republican
Speaker 5: House has been. We know that it's almost inconceivable that
Speaker 5: these bozos could get re elected, the likes of Speaker Johnson,
Speaker 5: with his acolytes Marjorie Taylor Green and Lauren Bobert, I
Speaker 5: mean all these, I mean, frankly nut cases. But I'm
Speaker 5: not sure that everybody is so tuned in to realize
Speaker 5: that the reason the House is dysfunctional is because of
Speaker 5: this extremist Republican leadership. And if you look at the
Speaker 5: simple baseline, how many safe seats do Republicans have versus
Speaker 5: how many safe seats do Democrats have In the House,
Speaker 5: Republicans are actually ahead. So the case I've been making
Speaker 5: all year is we need to pay attention to the House.
Speaker 5: It's so it's getting lost because people are so focused
Speaker 5: on Biden versus Trump, and then they're focused on the Senate,
Speaker 5: which we've known for years would be a tough road
Speaker 5: for Democrats in twenty twenty four. And the worst case
Speaker 5: scenario is that we wake up the day after the
Speaker 5: election and we say, oh my god, we lost the
Speaker 5: White House, we lost the Senate, And if we had
Speaker 5: just paid a little attention to the House, we'd have
Speaker 5: a backstop on democracy. But we didn't. So I've been
Speaker 5: leading my group Serve America that's helping to elect great leaders,
Speaker 5: great service veterans in key races across the country. I've
Speaker 5: been encouraging people to invest in Serve America because I
Speaker 5: think this is the best return on investment in democratic
Speaker 5: politics right now. I think it's incredibly important to focus
Speaker 5: on the House. We all know the stakes are high
Speaker 5: with the presidency. We all know the Senate, our Senate
Speaker 5: majority is in peril. Let's not forget about the House, though.
Speaker 5: It could be the backstop on democracy that we need.
Speaker 2: M Well, there's a lot here, a lot of cross
Speaker 2: currents and a lot of overlap and all of these
Speaker 2: races that we're talking about here, Congressman Seth Moulton, I
Speaker 2: feel like we're dancing around this a little bit here
Speaker 2: because everybody's trying to be polite. Should Joe Biden drop
Speaker 2: out of the presidential race or not?
Speaker 5: I don't have the answer to that right now. I've
Speaker 5: had a lot of conversations about this candidly, and you know,
Speaker 5: there's a there's certainly a view that the chaos that
Speaker 5: would follow would would be worse than just having a
Speaker 5: nominee that we know and that can trust. And then
Speaker 5: of course there's the other view that the debate was
Speaker 5: a disaster and and we just need to move on.
Speaker 5: I'm not sure exactly what the right answer is is
Speaker 5: yet here, but I can tell you we are having
Speaker 5: those serious conversations as any serious party should.
Speaker 4: How does the Vice President Kamala Harris factor into those conversations?
Speaker 4: Is the thinking that she should be the nominee instead
Speaker 4: or that someone else entirely, who is unattached to this
Speaker 4: administration should be the one to take the helm if
Speaker 4: indeed Joe Biden makes the decision to exit.
Speaker 5: It's a great question because that's a debate that's happening
Speaker 5: behind the scenes right now as well. If the President
Speaker 5: were to say he's not going to run, would automatically
Speaker 5: go to the vice president or would there be an
Speaker 5: open contest? This is tricky. I mean, I'm not even
Speaker 5: sure exactly what all the party rules are in terms
Speaker 5: of shifting delegates around and whatnot. That's certainly not my
Speaker 5: area of expertise, but that's something that would have to
Speaker 5: be sore out because this really is an unprecedented situation.
Speaker 5: I can't think of a time when something like this
Speaker 5: happened before. You know, I'll tell you one of the considerations,
Speaker 5: just to lay all the cards on the table, is
Speaker 5: that there's been great concern that the Democratic Convention in
Speaker 5: Chicago this year will be chaotic to begin with. There
Speaker 5: are a lot of protests planned, There are a lot
Speaker 5: of people who are upset with the president's policy around
Speaker 5: Israel and Gaza in particular, who probably want to disrupt
Speaker 5: the convention. And you know, some people are saying, do
Speaker 5: we want to disrupt the convention even more? I mean,
Speaker 5: these are real serious considerations and real debates that are
Speaker 5: happening right now amongst members of Congress and other leaders
Speaker 5: in the party.
Speaker 2: As this debate takes place in the wake of the
Speaker 2: Supreme Court ruling yesterday, Congressman, there's a lot of speculation
Speaker 2: going on, and people are kind of letting their imaginations
Speaker 2: run wild with what a president is in fact allowed
Speaker 2: to do. As we wake up today in this new reality,
Speaker 2: what do you think how far are you allowing your
Speaker 2: imagination to run in a world now where president can
Speaker 2: effectively commit a crime as long as it's considered part
Speaker 2: of his official business.
Speaker 5: We founded this country, our founding fathers wrote the Constitution
Speaker 5: to shed the shackles of a monarchy, to get away
Speaker 5: from a king. That's why my ancestors came here in
Speaker 5: the sixteen thirties, to get away from the King of England.
Speaker 5: And I think what the Supreme Court has done is
Speaker 5: essentially restoring a monarchy, restoring the power of a king
Speaker 5: to the president. And so I think, just at a
Speaker 5: very visceral level, this Supreme Court ruling is about as
Speaker 5: un American as you can get the founding fathers must
Speaker 5: be rolling over in their graves. And I don't think
Speaker 5: we fully understand what the implications of this ruling could
Speaker 5: be for the future of our democracy, because you're right,
Speaker 5: I mean, I don't know where it stops. If he
Speaker 5: just chooses to assassinate a political rival, is he from that? Oh,
Speaker 5: I'm sorry, it was an official act. If he just
Speaker 5: chooses to start a war ignoring the will of Congress,
Speaker 5: because it's written in the Constitution that Congress is supposed
Speaker 5: to have a check on that does he does he
Speaker 5: suddenly become immune because it's for you to official act.
Speaker 5: He could send thousands and thousands of Americans to their
Speaker 5: deaths and we just turn a blind eye because it's
Speaker 5: an official act. I mean, it seems legally absurd and
Speaker 5: deeply deeply un Americans. So I'm I mean, I can't
Speaker 5: describe how concerned I am.
Speaker 4: And it falls on the week of the fourth of July,
Speaker 4: of all things. Congressman, thank you so much for being
Speaker 4: with us on balance of power that is democratic Congressman
Speaker 4: Seth Moulton of Massachusetts, we appreciate your time.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power Podcast kench
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Speaker 2: I want to bring it to the North lawn of
Speaker 2: the White House today where there is some important business
Speaker 2: being had. We're talking about obviously a lot of politics,
Speaker 2: but let's deal with policy today at the White House.
Speaker 2: It's directed at severe weather, Kayley. President Biden giving remarks
Speaker 2: on extreme weather as we follow this Hurricane Beryl toward
Speaker 2: Jamaica and what could be a very destructive storm eventually
Speaker 2: touching us here in the US. And I'm glad to
Speaker 2: say that we're joined by Almost Hochstein, Senior Advisor to
Speaker 2: the President on Energy and Investments, with us from a
Speaker 2: sunny and warm north lawn. Almost, welcome back to Bloomberg
Speaker 2: TV and Radio. It's great to see you.
Speaker 3: Can we just.
Speaker 2: Start with the matter at hand here, and the potential
Speaker 2: threat from this storm is the Strategic Petroleum Reserve for instance,
Speaker 2: safe and sound is our infrastructure protected along the Gulf coast.
Speaker 7: Well, First, Joe and Kaylee, thank you for having me.
Speaker 7: It's good to be back here.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Look, this is exactly why.
Speaker 7: We have planning all year long to make sure that
Speaker 7: we are ready for moments like this. We have a
Speaker 7: hurricane that is tragically affecting people on lives in the Caribbean,
Speaker 7: Mexico and could be coming towards Gulf of Mexico in
Speaker 7: the United States, and making sure that we have a
Speaker 7: response to it, both to support people and communities as
Speaker 7: well as making sure that we have the ability if
Speaker 7: we have to do something to address shortages and energy.
Speaker 7: We're already prepared to do that, and so the President
Speaker 7: has ordered us a long time ago to make sure
Speaker 7: we are prepared, and I believe that we are. The
Speaker 7: spr has enough in it to address concerns of weather
Speaker 7: concerns or other geopolitical issues, and there are other eras
Speaker 7: and tools that we have at our disposal that we're
Speaker 7: always willing to do. Look, just today, we're releasing a
Speaker 7: million barrels of gasoline from the Northeast Reserve into the market,
Speaker 7: which should help bring additional capacity into the market ahead
Speaker 7: of the storm and most importantly ahead of July fourth,
Speaker 7: when so many Americans get in their cars and RVs
Speaker 7: and are to travel across the country at record numbers.
Speaker 4: Well, as we consider the SPR in the availability of
Speaker 4: the contents of it for emergencies, of course, it is
Speaker 4: not as full as it once was after it was
Speaker 4: tapped earlier in this administration, when we saw gas prices
Speaker 4: so high almost obviously, gas prices are not at those
Speaker 4: levels now. The average, according to Triple A is about
Speaker 4: three point fifty a gallon across the US. How high
Speaker 4: would gas prices need to get for the President to
Speaker 4: consider tapping the SPR again exactly for that purpose to
Speaker 4: get those prices down?
Speaker 7: Well, I think that, as you mentioned, when the advent
Speaker 7: of the Russian War in Ukraine, and then as that
Speaker 7: war continued, we had soaring oil prices in the United
Speaker 7: States and around the world, and gas prices soared to
Speaker 7: five dollars a gallon, and that's when the president ordered.
Speaker 7: President Biden ordered that historic release from the SPR of
Speaker 7: one hundred and eighty million barrels over a period of
Speaker 7: six months. Since then, we've seen two things happen. One,
Speaker 7: the private sector that was just really in coming out
Speaker 7: of a very bad era for COVID during COVID of
Speaker 7: production has gone to record production in the United States.
Speaker 7: We are producing more oil today in the United States
Speaker 7: than at any time any country has in history, and
Speaker 7: we are near those records for natural gas production as well,
Speaker 7: And so that's one thing that happened. We have more
Speaker 7: supply on the market today. The second is that we've
Speaker 7: been repurchasing back oil into the Strategic Reserve. Roughly about
Speaker 7: forty million barrels have been purchased back into the reserve
Speaker 7: and replenished. And most as importantly, we canceled the congressional
Speaker 7: mandated sales out of the SPR that we're supposed to
Speaker 7: come into effect over the last several months.
Speaker 3: So we're in good shape.
Speaker 7: We have enough capacity in the SBR to address what
Speaker 7: we need to do. And no, it's not as full
Speaker 7: as it was two years ago, but it is a
Speaker 7: significant reserve that we still are able to tap. And
Speaker 7: I would say it's not about prices, it's about the
Speaker 7: overall environment of the market and do we need to
Speaker 7: put liquidity of oil into the market at any given moment,
Speaker 7: whether it's geopolitical pressures or weather or other issues that
Speaker 7: are affecting the US economy.
Speaker 2: Almost I know your time is tight, but we have
Speaker 2: to ask you as well about the potential for shock
Speaker 2: based on geopolitics in the Middle East. I wonder you're
Speaker 2: concerned about ready supplies. You mentioned this release of a
Speaker 2: million barrels of gasoline from the Northeast gasoline supply reserve.
Speaker 2: But as our energy infrastructures the global market able to absorb,
Speaker 2: a new front in the war with.
Speaker 3: Israel is real word.
Speaker 2: To open a front to the north with Hesbalah, what
Speaker 2: would happen to the price of oil?
Speaker 7: Well, first, I think we're trying to do a couple
Speaker 7: of things. One is to make sure try as hard
Speaker 7: as we can, the President spending normose amount of time
Speaker 7: every day. I'm trying to get us to a ceasefire
Speaker 7: that brings hostages home and practically ends the war in Gaza. Second,
Speaker 7: to keep the escalation that we have seen over the
Speaker 7: last several weeks on the border between on the Blue Line,
Speaker 7: the area between Israel and Lebanon. We saw this has
Speaker 7: been going on for eight months. We saw the escalation
Speaker 7: really ramp up over the month of May and early June.
Speaker 7: We've seen that come down a bit, which is a
Speaker 7: good thing, and we have told both sides we're working
Speaker 7: with both sides I've spoken to them. I was in
Speaker 7: Lebanon and Israel last week, and we are going to
Speaker 7: try to continue to work as hard as we can
Speaker 7: to prevent a further escalation. That war is any kind
Speaker 7: of escalation would have It's not just about markets. It
Speaker 7: would have significantification for thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of lives,
Speaker 7: and we believe that it is possible to get to
Speaker 7: a resolution of that and to end that conflict so
Speaker 7: that Israelis can go back to their homes securely, that
Speaker 7: Lebanese can go back to their homes and farms, respectively
Speaker 7: on the Lib and East side, and that we can
Speaker 7: end this goal.
Speaker 3: However, we are preparing.
Speaker 7: For every scenario, and the President has been adamant that
Speaker 7: while we try to prevent war, we are prepared to
Speaker 7: handle the consequences, even the ones that will affect the economy.
Speaker 7: The reason the Northeast Reserve that you mentioned is important.
Speaker 7: In the summer, we do import gasoline from the global
Speaker 7: market in the Northeast, so this does have a pretty
Speaker 7: significant impact on what we're trying to do and make
Speaker 7: sure that people's effects for their budgets as they travel
Speaker 7: in July fourth, that prices are as low as they
Speaker 7: can be.
Speaker 4: All right, almost, thank you so much for joining us
Speaker 4: today from the north lawn of the White House. That's
Speaker 4: almost Hakstein, Senior Advisor to the President for Energy and Investment,
Speaker 4: running through a few issues that President Biden, for all
Speaker 4: of the talk in recent days about his ability to
Speaker 4: serve as president of the United States through the remainder
Speaker 4: of this term, yet, let alone another four years, is
Speaker 4: still focused on policy, whether it be foreign policy in
Speaker 4: the Middle East or policy here at home as we
Speaker 4: consider gas prices and the tool they may have taken
Speaker 4: on his popularity.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast. Catch
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Speaker 2: As we carry on here on Balance of Power Live
Speaker 2: from Washington at the Bloomberg Bureau in downtown d C.
Speaker 2: I'm Joe Matthew here on Bloomberg Radio, on the satellite
Speaker 2: and on YouTube. With so many questions about what last
Speaker 2: week's debate actually means for this campaign and whether Joe
Speaker 2: Biden will end up in fact being the nominee, i'd
Speaker 2: say in Chicago and August. But of course Bloomberg is
Speaker 2: now reporting that the DNC wants to get this done
Speaker 2: the middle of July. And maybe with news today that
Speaker 2: Donald Trump's sentencing in July is surely to be delayed,
Speaker 2: maybe this starts to make a little bit of sense.
Speaker 3: But there is a new.
Speaker 2: Poll out on the debate, well sort of at least
Speaker 2: the way people are feeling in the wake of the debate,
Speaker 2: and it's from the progressive group Our Revolution, surveyed by email.
Speaker 2: This is not a traditional poll, to be clear. Surveyedd
Speaker 2: supporters by email in the seventy two hours after the
Speaker 2: debate on Thursday, seventeen thousand respondents. As we read at Politico.
Speaker 2: The top line takeaway sixty seven percent of respondents think
Speaker 2: Joe Biden should suspend his campaign. Now, as soon as
Speaker 2: you start thinking about that, look at the money. Remarkable
Speaker 2: turn here again with fundraising being announced in the last
Speaker 2: twenty four hours. They were hoping for a big one,
Speaker 2: and they got one. The Biden campaign raised one hundred
Speaker 2: and twenty seven million dollars in June. Now you see, Yeah,
Speaker 2: but the debate was just last Thursday. Fine, that includes
Speaker 2: thirty eight million dollars raised in the four days starting Thursday,
Speaker 2: the day.
Speaker 3: Of the debate.
Speaker 2: The overall number, by the way, an almost fifty percent
Speaker 2: increase from the previous month. So what the heck is
Speaker 2: going on?
Speaker 3: Here?
Speaker 2: We assemble our panel for their take. Rick Davis, of course,
Speaker 2: is with us Bloomberg Politics contributor and Republican strategist partner
Speaker 2: at Stone Court Capital, Joined today by Lincoln Mitchell, political
Speaker 2: analyst lecture at the School of International and Public Affairs
Speaker 2: at Columbia University. Great to have both of you, gentlemen
Speaker 2: with us. Lincoln, how do you rationalize one hundred and
Speaker 2: twenty seven million dollars for a candidate no one seems
Speaker 2: to want?
Speaker 6: Well, the first thing I would say is that one
Speaker 6: thing you learn when you study polling is that when
Speaker 6: organizations tell you how big they're sample size is, that's
Speaker 6: a tell that means the methodology is terrible. So I
Speaker 6: wouldn't put too much stock in that our Revolution poll
Speaker 6: either way in email tools.
Speaker 2: Okay, but there was also a CBS News poll over
Speaker 2: the weekend that I think had seventy two percent suggesting
Speaker 2: that Joe Biden should step down from it and that.
Speaker 6: Data also includes Republicans and independents. Right, our revolution is
Speaker 6: only the left wing of the Democratic Party. But just
Speaker 6: to get to your question, what strikes me is that,
Speaker 6: first of all, you know, we all have cell phones,
Speaker 6: and we all know that when something, regardless of what
Speaker 6: party you are, when something good happens in Washington, your
Speaker 6: party asked you for money, and when something bad happens,
Speaker 6: your party asks you for money.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 6: My sense here is that Democratic donors, whether low or
Speaker 6: high dollar, saw that debate, which, let's be frank here,
Speaker 6: was a complete disaster for Joe Biden and said he
Speaker 6: needs all the help he can get. Right. No one
Speaker 6: who was watching and paying attention and going to give
Speaker 6: money to the Democratic candidate watched that debate and said, O,
Speaker 6: g Now I'll give money to Donald Trump because at
Speaker 6: least he can finish his sentences. So in some sense,
Speaker 6: Biden's poor debate showing just revealed his desperation, and people
Speaker 6: who are legitimately want to do anything to stop Donald
Speaker 6: Trump said, well, you know, you've got to keep throwing
Speaker 6: money at this, So that doesn't altogether surprise me.
Speaker 2: Rick, what's your take on the cash and if you're
Speaker 2: sitting across the street at Trump HQ. How do you
Speaker 2: interpret this surge thirty eight million dollars after what was
Speaker 2: said to be a disaster of a debate.
Speaker 8: Yeah, look, I think there's a combination of what Lincoln
Speaker 8: just said, but also, I mean these things it's hard
Speaker 8: to attract attention of voters this early in the cycle.
Speaker 8: I keep reminding everybody summer. Number One, voters are out
Speaker 8: doing things that normal people do. They don't sit around
Speaker 8: like we do and watch debates. And that was indicated
Speaker 8: by the lackluster numbers of the tenants of the debate.
Speaker 8: And then two, it's early in the cycle. I mean
Speaker 8: most people really focus in much later. So when you
Speaker 8: have an event that's either bad or good, it does
Speaker 8: tend to attract eyeball people. Soa wake up and say, hey,
Speaker 8: what's going on in that presidential campaign? And whether it's
Speaker 8: you know, a conviction in court or a disaster's debate performance,
Speaker 8: it is part of what starts to happen when it
Speaker 8: comes time to raise money. And these campaigns are very
Speaker 8: adept at playing off of that, Oh my god, we've
Speaker 8: just had this disastrous to make performance. Please send us money.
Speaker 8: It's not their message, but it's it pretty.
Speaker 3: Is subliminal, fascinating.
Speaker 2: When you look at money on hand, Rick, the June
Speaker 2: fundraising total includes money raised directly by the campaign as
Speaker 2: well as the DNC again, and we also have two
Speaker 2: joint fundraising committees. The four groups collectively have two hundred
Speaker 2: and forty dollars cash on hand. That's up from two
Speaker 2: hundred and twelve at the end of May. To be clear,
Speaker 2: we don't have Donald Trumps numbers yet, but at last check,
Speaker 2: he was at one hundred and sixteen million dollars. Rick,
Speaker 2: if you're making campaign plans here, you just got the
Speaker 2: sentencing pushed off. It looks like for Donald Trump, you're
Speaker 2: the Supreme Court ruling yesterday means these guys are Donald
Speaker 2: Trump's not going to be in court for the summer.
Speaker 3: Here, How does Joe Biden use that money in a
Speaker 3: way that.
Speaker 8: Counts well, He's already pretty well invested in media, much
Speaker 8: different than Donald Trump, who hasn't been spending much on
Speaker 8: broadcast at all, and so I think he's really bound
Speaker 8: to have to keep that up because even though he's
Speaker 8: spending a lot, he's not seeing much improvement in these
Speaker 8: state numbers where these polls are where these ads are
Speaker 8: being played. So I think he's either got to find
Speaker 8: a new poll find a new ad maker, or get
Speaker 8: a lot tougher because his real objective right now is
Speaker 8: to put some hurt on Donald Trump, take the attention
Speaker 8: away from himself. He's got to use earned media to
Speaker 8: try and get back to status quo ante before that debate.
Speaker 8: But the paid media has got to go to take
Speaker 8: down Donald Trump. And frankly, if he's got a quarter
Speaker 8: of a billion dollars in the bank, he better start
Speaker 8: using it in some new states too, because we see
Speaker 8: polling in places like New Hampshire and Virginia and Minnesota
Speaker 8: that looks like it's flipping away from Donald from Joe Biden,
Speaker 8: and he probably ought to be adding to his media
Speaker 8: buy to include those states.
Speaker 2: What's your thought on that link And if you're sitting
Speaker 2: on a pile of cash like this, two hundred and
Speaker 2: forty million dollars in your Joe Biden, are you reformulating
Speaker 2: the message now to get these ads out to reflect
Speaker 2: what happened yesterday in the Supreme Court that democracy is
Speaker 2: on the line, that Donald Trump will change the country
Speaker 2: for the worse if he gets elected, or do you
Speaker 2: stay disciplined and keep beating the drum on the economy,
Speaker 2: on inflation, on abortion.
Speaker 6: Well, obviously the Biden campaign has I would hope access
Speaker 6: to a really deep and good polling here. My sense
Speaker 6: for some time now is that the crisis of democracy,
Speaker 6: which I believe is absolutely profound. I mean, I think
Speaker 6: the court ruling yesterday really shows just that we are
Speaker 6: really on the precipice of something very terrible here. But
Speaker 6: in my view, in my sense, that's a donor class
Speaker 6: concern within the Democratic Party coalition. It is something that
Speaker 6: people who have money and give money and our Democrats
Speaker 6: care about, But it's not something that those people that
Speaker 6: you need to mobilize to get to the polls as
Speaker 6: well as people you need to bring back to the party,
Speaker 6: as well as some of the loosive swing voters. They
Speaker 6: don't care about that. And I think Rick gets to
Speaker 6: something very important here. The main issues, the main issue
Speaker 6: that is going this issue, this vote elections, to some extent,
Speaker 6: a battle between Joe Biden screaming democracies at stake here
Speaker 6: and Donald Trump screaming everything costs more, and that election
Speaker 6: everything costs more is likely to win. So for Biden,
Speaker 6: I think his only path to victory here is exactly
Speaker 6: what Rick says. If most of the punitory, the thing
Speaker 6: you're supposed to say on shows like this is that
Speaker 6: Biden needs to talk about the issues and what he's
Speaker 6: done with the infrastructure, and then played alt the fact.
Speaker 6: What if he doesn't metaphorically speaking Donald Trump's head off,
Speaker 6: he loses. That's the mistake Hillary Clinton made in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 6: She and the people around her thought that everyone in
Speaker 6: America knew as much about Trump and hated him as
Speaker 6: much as she and the people around her did, and
Speaker 6: they didn't. Biden has to remind people of how bad
Speaker 6: the Trump presidency was. Of what Donald Trump has said,
Speaker 6: you know the things that people like us who pay
Speaker 6: attention see that he truths on truth social I think
Speaker 6: that's the verb form I don't know exactly that he
Speaker 6: says in his rallies, even in the last twenty four hours,
Speaker 6: and show that to the American people. If this becomes
Speaker 6: a referendum on Joe Biden's presidency, I think Biden probably loses,
Speaker 6: especially after what we've seen in recently last week the debate,
Speaker 6: where he really doesn't seem up to this. If this
Speaker 6: is a referendum on Donald Trump, his mental stability, his policies,
Speaker 6: his avarice. The Democrats have a chance. So I think
Speaker 6: you're down a little bit. You got to take Trump
Speaker 6: down and if they don't do that, they may lose
Speaker 6: this thing.
Speaker 2: Wow, this is a fascinating conversation. This is why the
Speaker 2: campaigns love to listen and watch. So Rick, you agree,
Speaker 2: I'm guessing Lincoln says this. This ruling yesterday, the bag
Speaker 2: of worms, as Tim O'Brien called it, is a donor
Speaker 2: class concern.
Speaker 3: Is that the takeaway?
Speaker 8: Yeah, you never listen to donors when you're running a campaign.
Speaker 8: It's a disaster if you do. And so no offense
Speaker 8: to the donors. But what we need is your money,
Speaker 8: not your advice. And so yeah, I mean I think
Speaker 8: it's pretty plain what's happening here. Number one, the best
Speaker 8: strategy for the Democrats is to dump Biden and get
Speaker 8: a new candidate too. If you got to eat Biden,
Speaker 8: then you better start tearing down Trump. Because the only
Speaker 8: way Biden wins this is if his fave on Paves
Speaker 8: are hired donald Trump's, and that's not the case right now.
Speaker 8: It may surprise and shock people that Donald Trump is
Speaker 8: more popular in America than Joe Biden is, and there's
Speaker 8: only one way to fix that. Going to get more popular,
Speaker 8: and he's not going to get it younger. So they
Speaker 8: got to go after Trump. And the spectacular failure of
Speaker 8: this campaign is the fact that they hadn't done it yet,
Speaker 8: that they're still messing around with this idea that they've
Speaker 8: got something to sell with the American people. The vote'es
Speaker 8: in on that.
Speaker 2: Do you still make good on a second debate with
Speaker 2: all that said, Lincoln, or do you keep him home
Speaker 2: in September.
Speaker 6: I don't know that that decision will even come to
Speaker 6: Biden because I think Trump doesn't do the second debate.
Speaker 6: Why take the risk? Right, let's say early September. Mid
Speaker 6: September rolls around, Trump is leading by five or six points.
Speaker 6: And if you watch that debate, what gotten a lot
Speaker 6: of coverage here, of course, is just how out of
Speaker 6: it Joe Biden looked. But one thing that struck me,
Speaker 6: perhaps even more than that, was how much more kojent
Speaker 6: Donald Trump was compared to what we've seen from him
Speaker 6: on the stump. And I think that took a lot
Speaker 6: out of him. And if you're a Trump advisor, two leagues,
Speaker 6: stent Trump listens to anybody, you don't want to roll
Speaker 6: the dice again. That So, if I'm Biden, if as
Speaker 6: Rick points out, Biden is still the nominee, I want
Speaker 6: that debate because at that point I'm losing by six
Speaker 6: points and I have nothing to lose. If I'm Trump,
Speaker 6: I don't now if we have a different nominee, then
Speaker 6: of course you want that debate because any of the
Speaker 6: Democratic names that we're hearing would all destroy Donald Trump
Speaker 6: in a debate. So I would be surprised, regardless of
Speaker 6: who the Democratic nominee is, whether we have a second debate,
Speaker 6: because I don't think Trump wants one. Now, Trump marquismo
Speaker 6: and bluster may get in the way here and he
Speaker 6: may insist on one, and that could be a big
Speaker 6: brank break for the Democrats, regardless of who the nominee is.
Speaker 3: Fascinating, Rick, we only have a minute here.
Speaker 2: You've long said you never let your candidate on a
Speaker 2: stage with Donald Trump. Do you think Trump shows up
Speaker 2: on stage for a second debate himself.
Speaker 8: Well, you know his instinct is Lincoln says, is you know,
Speaker 8: nobody can beat me, and I'm really good at this,
Speaker 8: So you know, I'm sure Chris Losivita and the rest
Speaker 8: of the team would lay themselves across the railroad tracks
Speaker 8: to stop that train from going. But the bottom line
Speaker 8: is it may not even matter then. If the trajectory
Speaker 8: of this campaign's going, you know, they'll be clocking in
Speaker 8: at over three hundred and fifty electoral votes by then.
Speaker 8: And so even a disastrous debate performance in September by
Speaker 8: Donald Trump, as long as he's opposing you know, the
Speaker 8: Biden candidacy probably is meaningless. So let's have a party.
Speaker 8: I mean, what's one more presidential debate? It can't get
Speaker 8: any worse for the.
Speaker 2: Last one, Right, Let's have a party, says Rick Davis.
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast. Can
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Speaker 4: Here in Washington, myself and Joe Matthew have had our
Speaker 4: eyes on what was coming up in New York next
Speaker 4: week to be on July eleventh, the sentencing a former
Speaker 4: President Donald Trump, who of course has been convicted of
Speaker 4: thirty four fellon accounts of falsifying business records. Then the
Speaker 4: Supreme Court threw a bit of a wrench in that
Speaker 4: plan yesterday, ruling in part that Donald Trump has at
Speaker 4: least presumptive immunity from official acts taken while in office.
Speaker 4: And now Trump and his defense team contend that that
Speaker 4: means the New York case should get thrown out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so cancel your plans for the eleventh. We will
Speaker 2: not be talking about a sentencing, will be packing our
Speaker 2: bags for the Republican National Convention. Yes, pretty remarkable as
Speaker 2: we bring in Elizabeth Widra this day after the Supreme
Speaker 2: Court ruled, and we're already feeling the ripple effects. As
Speaker 2: Kelly just said, legally and certainly politically, Elizabeth is Constitutional
Speaker 2: Accountability Center president and Supreme Court litigator, has been there
Speaker 2: before and joins us once again. Now, Elizabeth, it's great
Speaker 2: to have you back here. A lot of folks are
Speaker 2: using their imaginations on what this means for the presidency
Speaker 2: more immediately, and I'd love for you to weigh in
Speaker 2: on that. As we talked this out here on Bloomberg
Speaker 2: TV and Radio. More immediately. We're seeing the impact of
Speaker 2: this ruling even on a state level case like this
Speaker 2: in New York. Do you think Donald Trump will be
Speaker 2: sentenced in New York before the election?
Speaker 9: You know, this case honestly has in part been extraordinary
Speaker 9: for many reasons, but the delay that it has caused
Speaker 9: in the criminal cases against Donald Trump continues to have
Speaker 9: its effect. So with respect to his January sixth trial
Speaker 9: that this appeal came out of, that case obviously has
Speaker 9: been delayed for months and months and is unlikely to
Speaker 9: go forward before the presidential election. And then as we're
Speaker 9: seeing in the sentencing in the New York state case,
Speaker 9: we're going to see a delay there as well, even
Speaker 9: after a jury of former President Trump's peers found him
Speaker 9: guilty on thirty four felony counts. And that's because the
Speaker 9: Supreme Court's immunity ruling yesterday from this conservative supermajority didn't
Speaker 9: just grant really breathtaking, me sweeping absolute immunity for core
Speaker 9: official actions and then presumed immunity for official actions sort
Speaker 9: of within the outer perimeter of what could count as
Speaker 9: an official action. They also said that if you are
Speaker 9: being prosecuted for private conduct for which you don't have
Speaker 9: immunity if there's evidence that's relevant to that private conduct.
Speaker 9: So this New York State fraud case is private conduct.
Speaker 9: If there's evidence that comes out of an official context,
Speaker 9: so like communicating with your aids, et cetera, that can't
Speaker 9: even be presented in the aid of those charges that
Speaker 9: can be brought even under this immunity ruling. So that
Speaker 9: prevents certain evidence from being presented. And that's what Trump's
Speaker 9: motion in the New York courts will focus on. That
Speaker 9: without the evidence that relates to his official conduct, his
Speaker 9: conversations with aids, his communications with the public while he
Speaker 9: was in office, without that evidence, you can't support the
Speaker 9: criminal charges based on his private conduct. So the conservative
Speaker 9: Supreme Court majorities ruling on the immunity case is so
Speaker 9: sweeping we're already seeing its effects. And as the dissentse noted,
Speaker 9: the potential dangers for our democracy are real and are
Speaker 9: frankly terrifying.
Speaker 4: Well, and that's something we were speaking with Elizabeth Democratic
Speaker 4: Congressman Seth Moulton about earlier this hour. He described how
Speaker 4: his ancestors came to the colonies, originally to escape a
Speaker 4: tyrannical king. The British monarchy in that in some ways
Speaker 4: he saw the Supreme Court as taking a step back
Speaker 4: toward that direction. On this week in which we're celebrating
Speaker 4: the declaration of the independence from Great Britain. To what
Speaker 4: extent is that actually true and not hyperbole? Elizabeth? Has
Speaker 4: this effectively made the president more like a king? Or
Speaker 4: is the Court reinforcing what was already constitutionally understood to
Speaker 4: be true?
Speaker 9: So unfortunately, I don't think it's hyperbole.
Speaker 8: You know.
Speaker 9: We one of the kind of principles of the founding
Speaker 9: of our nation was that no one would be a
Speaker 9: king in this country. Even the most powerful executive elected officer,
Speaker 9: the President of the United States, would in many ways
Speaker 9: be as an equal with the people who elected them.
Speaker 9: And the idea that no one is above the law
Speaker 9: is so central to that idea of equal justice and
Speaker 9: equal citizenship and democracy that this ruling really works a
Speaker 9: shift in the very understanding of the office of the
Speaker 9: presidency under the American Constitution. So before there were certainly
Speaker 9: some understandings of ways in which the president would not
Speaker 9: be the same as you know, you and me. Before
Speaker 9: the courts, there's generally an understanding that you couldn't criminally
Speaker 9: indict a sitting president, although you could they left the office.
Speaker 9: You know, there were all these different ways in which
Speaker 9: the president's ability to act was protected, but never was
Speaker 9: there ever contemplated this absolute immunity in these core functions
Speaker 9: and the outer perimeter of official conduct. In fact, it
Speaker 9: was very clear at the time of the drafting of
Speaker 9: the Constitution that the framers of our Constitution were well
Speaker 9: aware of how to write in immunities when they wanted it.
Speaker 9: They knew that some colonial era governors had some criminal immunity,
Speaker 9: and they specifically chose not to include that because they
Speaker 9: wanted the president to be like their fellow citizens, subject
Speaker 9: to American criminal laws if they violate the law, because
Speaker 9: they are a person just like the rest of us.
Speaker 9: We don't have hereditary lines, we don't have you know,
Speaker 9: divine right of kings, and this ruling really upends that understanding,
Speaker 9: and it is very dangerous because, as you know, the
Speaker 9: saying goes, absolute power corrupts, and it's perhaps even more
Speaker 9: important for the president to be subject to criminal liability
Speaker 9: when they act with their utmost power, because that's when
Speaker 9: they can really abuse that power if they so choose
Speaker 9: and So what the court has done is really given
Speaker 9: a dangerous blank check to future presidents. Well, and I
Speaker 9: guess the current president as well to presidents going forward
Speaker 9: from yesterday to really act with impunity. And you know
Speaker 9: that some of the not hyperbolic, unfortunately examples from the
Speaker 9: descents were okay. So it's a core executive function to
Speaker 9: be able to remove your the president. The president to
Speaker 9: be able to remove his attorney general. What if he
Speaker 9: decides to remove him by poisoning him to death, then
Speaker 9: he can't be criminally prosecuted for that. That is just
Speaker 9: I'm crazy, not the technical legal term, but legally insupportable.
Speaker 2: Well, it sounds like you're letting your imagination go there too.
Speaker 2: Elizabeth tim O'Brien ready for Bloomberg opinion that this ruling
Speaker 2: invites presidents to commit crimes. And with that in mind,
Speaker 2: what does the court think about this idea of sentencing
Speaker 2: a president even though it's a state court. If Donald
Speaker 2: Trump is sentenced and wins election, is he still going
Speaker 2: to be meeting with a probation officer while is at
Speaker 2: the White House or wearing an ankle bracelet.
Speaker 9: Well, you know, the New York case is interesting because
Speaker 9: it is a state proceeding, and in our federalist system,
Speaker 9: we have different systems of justice for the federal criminal
Speaker 9: docket and the state dockets. So, you know, the January
Speaker 9: sixth case, it's very important that it tried to occur
Speaker 9: before the election because again it's a case brought by
Speaker 9: the DOJ, and so if Trump were elected, he could
Speaker 9: simply order his DOJ to drop the case against him.
Speaker 9: The New York case is different because technically the president
Speaker 9: does not have authority over the New York state justice system.
Speaker 9: But you know, I think at the very least, the
Speaker 9: Conservative Supreme Court's immunity decision is going to delay and
Speaker 9: delay and delay that case to the point that he
Speaker 9: might not be sentenced before the presidential election. And then
Speaker 9: of course you have all these additional layers of how
Speaker 9: do you if Trump were to win the election, how
Speaker 9: do you deal with with potential sense thing? We just
Speaker 9: have never been there before. It's unprecedented, like so many
Speaker 9: things we're talking about today.
Speaker 4: Well, we focused so much of the conversation over the
Speaker 4: course of the last twenty four hours and change Elizabeth
Speaker 4: on what Donald Trump could do if he does indeed
Speaker 4: win in November. But we have a president in the meantime,
Speaker 4: and President Biden did weigh in on this decision from
Speaker 4: the Supreme Court yesterday. Just take a listen to what
Speaker 4: he said, and then I have a question for you.
Speaker 10: I know, I will respect the limits of the presidential
Speaker 10: powers I have for three and a half years, but
Speaker 10: any president, including Donald Trump, will now be free to
Speaker 10: ignore the law. I concur with Justine Sodemeyer's descent today.
Speaker 10: She hears what she said. She said, in every use
Speaker 10: of a visual power, the president is now a king
Speaker 10: above the law. With fear for our democracy. I dissent,
Speaker 10: end of quote, sociald the American people dissent.
Speaker 4: I dissent, Elizabeth. He began that sentence with I know,
Speaker 4: I will respect the limits of the presidential powers I
Speaker 4: have for three and a half years. But given what
Speaker 4: the court ruled yesterday, could Joe Biden theoretically act against
Speaker 4: Donald Trump as a political opponent without fear of prosecution
Speaker 4: if he was doing so in an official capacity? I mean,
Speaker 4: what power has this given him while he is still
Speaker 4: president at least for the next six months.
Speaker 9: Yes, you know, I think if we're talking purely legally,
Speaker 9: based on the legal standard that was articulated by the
Speaker 9: majority of the Supreme Court in their decision. Yes, I
Speaker 9: do think he could take all sorts of actions against
Speaker 9: Donald Trump as a political rival. You know, one of
Speaker 9: the hypotheticals in the court was, could a president using
Speaker 9: his military or.
Speaker 6: Official function or.
Speaker 9: Team to assassinate a political rival? And I think they
Speaker 9: would be immune criminal prosecution. While does it seems for
Speaker 9: articulate those words, I think they would be immune from
Speaker 9: priminal prosecution based on the Conservative Supreme Court's ruling yesterday. Now,
Speaker 9: of course, President Biden says, I will respect the limits
Speaker 9: that we have understood to be on the president's power.
Speaker 9: But the whole point of drafting the Constitution of the
Speaker 9: way it was was an understanding that we were never
Speaker 9: going to have a government of angels. We were going
Speaker 9: to have a government of human beings who are flawed,
Speaker 9: and we didn't want to depend on people being good,
Speaker 9: honest people and not being willing to act in their
Speaker 9: own selfish best and and perhaps for evil purposes. And
Speaker 9: so the fact that the Supreme Court is hoping that
Speaker 9: I guess the American people will not elect someone who
Speaker 9: would act in that way to the presidency going forward,
Speaker 9: or that a person would themselves decide to hold back
Speaker 9: and not use the terrible authority that they've now been
Speaker 9: given by this Supreme Court ruling. That's just not why
Speaker 9: the Constitution was supposed to work. So, you know, this
Speaker 9: ruling is really very astorical, you know from the court
Speaker 9: that cims to be bound constitutions text and history. The
Speaker 9: founders of the Constitution would be agast at this ruling,
Speaker 9: and it really has no basis other than in the
Speaker 9: Conservative supermajority's views about what a president needs in order
Speaker 9: to take, as they said, bold action.
Speaker 5: But I would be far more.
Speaker 9: Concerned about the structure of American democracy and the need
Speaker 9: to make sure that no.
Speaker 5: One is above the law.
Speaker 9: That Elizabeth in the ruling that we saw from the
Speaker 9: majority yesterday on the.
Speaker 2: Court, Well, I'm glad we could spend some time talking
Speaker 2: about it. Elizabeth Wider has been great with us as
Speaker 2: long as this case has been rolling in its way.
Speaker 2: To have you back, President, Constitutional Accountability Center, Elizabeth Wider,
Speaker 2: thank you for the time here on Bloomberg TV and radio.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to the Balance of Power podcast. Make
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