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Speaker 2: Twenty twenty four. Man, it was a benchmark year for
Speaker 2: the semiconductor industry, companies including Nvidia and Broadcom reaching new highs.
Speaker 2: Not everyone that was sharing in the good fortune. Intel,
Speaker 2: as we know, a story we talked throughout the year,
Speaker 2: falling sharply in twenty twenty four as the company contended
Speaker 2: with losses and grim forecasts and really trying to figure
Speaker 2: its way forward for more. We are joined by someone
Speaker 2: who knows the semi space like no other, Bloomberg Semiconductor
Speaker 2: and networking reporter Ian King, joining us on this money Monday. Ian,
Speaker 2: good to have you here with Fannie and me. I
Speaker 2: do want to start with Intel. I do wonder if
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five is going to be the year where
Speaker 2: it figures itself out. I don't know, how are you
Speaker 2: thinking about it as we get ready to kick off
Speaker 2: a new year.
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: No, I mean, it's a huge question right now. It
Speaker 3: doesn't even have a CEO. Remember, we still don't even
Speaker 3: know who is going to lead this company forward. The
Speaker 3: last thing we heard from its two co CEOs, who
Speaker 3: the interim appointees, was that is a company going to
Speaker 3: be broken up? We don't know that'll be for something
Speaker 3: that whoever takes the CEO role will decide. So that's
Speaker 3: even the existence of this company as it currently is,
Speaker 3: as it always has been. Even that's a question at
Speaker 3: this point.
Speaker 4: What's its expertise in now? Ian, sorry I expertise? What
Speaker 4: would it be bought for?
Speaker 3: Well, historically it had one of the strongest design teams
Speaker 3: in microprocesses, still owns a huge percentage of the PC
Speaker 3: market in terms of market share, still owns a big
Speaker 3: percentage of the server market in terms of market share,
Speaker 3: and it used to have the best factories in the world.
Speaker 3: All of those bright and shiny things are a little
Speaker 3: bit duller these days, unfortunately, but there's still in many
Speaker 3: respects and intrinsic value in that capacity in those engineering.
Speaker 2: Hey, one thing I do think about Ian is what
Speaker 2: kind of leader does Intel need going forward? You know,
Speaker 2: we've talked a lot about it. You know, the insider
Speaker 2: versus the outsider, And I do wonder what is the
Speaker 2: kind of leader that this company needs to compete in
Speaker 2: this and video world, if you will, or Nvidia dominated
Speaker 2: world at least at this moment.
Speaker 3: No, I mean, that's the question. And I think once
Speaker 3: the board decide who that is, that the type of
Speaker 3: choice they make will be a really important indicator as
Speaker 3: to what they see as the future of this company.
Speaker 3: If they look to sort of replace Pat Gelsinger, the
Speaker 3: outgo and CEO, with somebody similar, somebody who knows the company,
Speaker 3: somebody who's committed to keeping it together, then that's a
Speaker 3: sign that they're still believers. If they looked perhaps bringing
Speaker 3: an outsider, somebody who's perhaps towards the end of their career,
Speaker 3: who kind of knows the industry in general, has all
Speaker 3: the contacts, maybe that's because they see it as a
Speaker 3: breakup situation at this point.
Speaker 5: And then, of course, and you have the other side
Speaker 5: of the coin. Let's take Broadcom for example. We waited
Speaker 5: all year long and then suddenly Broadcom had this resurgence
Speaker 5: and twenty five percent.
Speaker 4: Move in one day alone.
Speaker 5: What's behind that sort of you know, revitalization of Broadcom.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean, you've got Hoctan, the CEO there, who's made
Speaker 3: this kind of company out of sort of the leftover
Speaker 3: parts of other companies. He sort of identified what he
Speaker 3: sees as these kind of staid but strong franchises, and
Speaker 3: that's been the atmosphere surrounding this company. But then all
Speaker 3: of a sudden, it's like, bang, we're exploding with growth
Speaker 3: because Broadcom does the design work for companies like Google
Speaker 3: who want to make their own semiconductors. And what he's
Speaker 3: saying is, Hey, I've got a pessimistic view of chips overall,
Speaker 3: but guess what this sector is amazing.
Speaker 2: Is Broadcom ian potentially the company we talk more about
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty five Over in Vidia.
Speaker 3: Difficult to say if you look at the raw numbers.
Speaker 3: No broadcoms projecting massive growth an available market as much
Speaker 3: as I think ninety billion by twenty twenty seven for
Speaker 3: its you know, AI related chip designs in videos already
Speaker 3: there right. In Vidia this year is going to have,
Speaker 3: you know, a data center division that's going to be
Speaker 3: somewhere in the one hundred hundred and twenty billion dollars.
Speaker 3: And that's just one division. So clearly in video is
Speaker 3: already there. Clearly we all have a long way to
Speaker 3: go to get even close to them. But the one
Speaker 3: that appears to be closest at this point would be Broadcome.
Speaker 4: So Nvidia is one of the stocks that is hirer today.
Speaker 5: Ian and today are always seeing right across the screen
Speaker 5: and spartially, I would imagine because of this acquisition.
Speaker 4: And Israeli software.
Speaker 5: Company tell us a little bit about one AI and
Speaker 5: what it will do for Invidea.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean this is a software acquisition. This software
Speaker 3: from this is rarely startup. Helps owners of data centers
Speaker 3: to get the best out of their infrastructure, to sort
Speaker 3: of coordinate it, to make sure the utilization is up,
Speaker 3: to make sure the software is being balanced in the
Speaker 3: right way. This kind of intermediary role, which is very
Speaker 3: important when you're spending you know, tens of thousands of
Speaker 3: dollars per chip. So that's very useful for Invidea. And
Speaker 3: there was some you know, concerns that in Vidia, because
Speaker 3: of its market influence, because of its size, just wouldn't
Speaker 3: be able to get anything past regulators. That's obviously not
Speaker 3: the case. It's obviously been able to close this deal
Speaker 3: and it's shown, you know, that Invidia perhaps still has
Speaker 3: room to do deals and to be able to sort
Speaker 3: of make moves and influence the industry externally.
Speaker 2: Hey, Ian, one quick last question forty five seconds here.
Speaker 2: I am curious you. We've talked so much about the
Speaker 2: semiconductor cycles right where there's lots of demand, then there's
Speaker 2: the build up, and then there's over supply. Will the
Speaker 2: AI semi cycle be the same thing or is it
Speaker 2: something different this time?
Speaker 1: Every time?
Speaker 3: I mean, I Scarlett likes to point out how long
Speaker 3: I've been covering this industry. I've been listening to CEOs
Speaker 3: telling me this time is different for most of those
Speaker 3: twenty five years, and that's never been the case. So
Speaker 3: why would that change now?
Speaker 6: Fair enough?
Speaker 2: I will definitely whatever you say, I'm going to follow it. Ian,
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Tappy Holidays, Happy New Year, Ian
Speaker 2: King of course, Bloomberg Semiconductor and Networking reporter. All right, folks,
Speaker 2: we just chatted, of course about semis with e on.
Speaker 2: Twenty twenty four was once again a year about artificial
Speaker 2: intelligence in.
Speaker 7: A big way.
Speaker 2: Check out one measure on that. If you look at
Speaker 2: the two point six billion dollar global X funds, global
Speaker 2: X artificial intelligence and Technology ETF. It's up about twenty
Speaker 2: six percent year to date, and that's after a fifty
Speaker 2: five percent gain in twenty twenty three. So the question
Speaker 2: at this point is can it outperformed for a third
Speaker 2: year in a row. Let's get some thoughts on that.
Speaker 2: We welcome Xeno Mercer senior research analyst a Vetefi Zino.
Speaker 2: Good to have you here with Vonnie and me. Strong
Speaker 2: year in twenty twenty four, strong year in twenty twenty three,
Speaker 2: much stronger in twenty twenty three. What's your investment outlook
Speaker 2: for AI related investing come twenty twenty five. Do you
Speaker 2: have any clarity on that?
Speaker 8: I think it's clear at this point to most people
Speaker 8: and viewers or the show that AI is coming down
Speaker 8: the pipeline and every facet of society. It's not just
Speaker 8: chat and interfaces. It's advanced you know, autonomous vehicles, it's logistics,
Speaker 8: it's you know, human you know, we're advancing to the
Speaker 8: next kind of phase of human tech interaction. It's not
Speaker 8: just going to be locked in the screens. It's going
Speaker 8: to be real time with us. You know, we had
Speaker 8: the iPhone atwe Haven seven. Maybe wireless your buds and
Speaker 8: then chat GPT and now you know, from a consumer, enterprise, government,
Speaker 8: industrial standpoint, we're starting to see kind of the aifurcation
Speaker 8: of everything. And to be clear, there's still a lot
Speaker 8: of challenges and roadblocks ahead for deployment and implementation. There's
Speaker 8: new safeguards, there's new challenges that occur when you start
Speaker 8: to automate more. You know, human society isn't perfect. We
Speaker 8: operate off communication and assumptions and ledgers and things of
Speaker 8: our own, you know, AI and then robots, for example,
Speaker 8: also depend on real time and accumulated knowledge to make decisions,
Speaker 8: both from an individual basis as well as you know.
Speaker 9: A societal basis.
Speaker 8: And so what we expect to see is continued implementation
Speaker 8: of AI and robotics that you know, we expect to
Speaker 8: start to continue to eat the world to kind of
Speaker 8: paraphrase Mark Indreas and and and that's definitely something that
Speaker 8: we don't expect to slow down at all, especially when
Speaker 8: you consider some of the policies and global dynamics that
Speaker 8: are happening right now.
Speaker 5: Sure, but what kind of return on investment will it provide?
Speaker 5: And specifically for investors and companies that are making those investments,
Speaker 5: is there a case for waiting to see what it
Speaker 5: can actually do. In terms of the bottom.
Speaker 8: Line, well, I mean if you look at you know,
Speaker 8: just to look at how Wall Street's looking at it,
Speaker 8: classic the projected top and bottom lines for AI and
Speaker 8: robotics companies are both projected to continue to accelerate next year.
Speaker 8: Now and video might start to you know, grow into
Speaker 8: its accelerated growth that's been going on since you know,
Speaker 8: October twenty twenty two or you know, November since when
Speaker 8: it bottomed out. But you know, these end markets are
Speaker 8: expected to grow rapidly. I mean we're talking about, you know,
Speaker 8: majority of GDP starting to be AI and robotics driven.
Speaker 8: That's a huge you know, you're talking talking about the
Speaker 8: tam of the world that you can reverse engineer task
Speaker 8: and processes and everything else. So you if you break
Speaker 8: down the stack of what AI or robotics are, let's
Speaker 8: talk about you know, cerebral digital automation and all the
Speaker 8: connectivity and data stores that happens on that side, and
Speaker 8: the physical inputs, right we're physics found and then physical automation,
Speaker 8: which is even less automated. There's a lot of sub
Speaker 8: sectors within those that are that are that are parts
Speaker 8: of that sensors. For example, as we start to have
Speaker 8: robots that can connect and do more rather than just
Speaker 8: stat and non dynamic, We're going to have dynamic robots
Speaker 8: with more skills, higher adoption rates because they can do more.
Speaker 8: The payback periods are going to be better both for
Speaker 8: you know, manufacturers. Right now, there's a lot of push
Speaker 8: to move away from China. So we've got Vietnam, India,
Speaker 8: and even the US. A lot of people are saying like, hey,
Speaker 8: why don't we build more here? We've got very low
Speaker 8: robotics penetration rates here. You know, we're tenth in the
Speaker 8: world the United States. There's a lot of room to grow.
Speaker 8: And if we actually want to be able to match
Speaker 8: parity of cost and make this efficient for everybody, we
Speaker 8: have to we have to do more there.
Speaker 7: So z you know, walk us through.
Speaker 2: Then how does my life maybe change as a result
Speaker 2: of what you're saying? How does Bonni's life? How does
Speaker 2: everybody who's listening and watching their life change? Maybe in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five as a result of what you're saying.
Speaker 2: This collaboration between AI and robotics, well.
Speaker 8: Some of it will be less obvious and behind the
Speaker 8: scenes right, like how food and deliveries get to you
Speaker 8: right when you We're used to pressing a button and
Speaker 8: magically things appear, so kind of continue, like, let's go
Speaker 8: a step further, right, navigating around your home for but
Speaker 8: we have remotes and automatic doors and dispensers and things
Speaker 8: like that.
Speaker 9: But what's the next level of that? Right?
Speaker 8: You know, Meta, for example, is working on interfaces that
Speaker 8: combine your real time vision.
Speaker 9: And you know, potentially a risk a wrisk worn sensor
Speaker 9: that allows you to navigate your environment.
Speaker 8: Now, this could be huge for elderly and pair you know,
Speaker 8: disabled other people as well as everyone else. On the
Speaker 8: other side, you know, personal AI assistance. I think we'll
Speaker 8: start to take off a little bit more in a
Speaker 8: more impactful way in twenty twenty five. We've seen GEM
Speaker 8: and I do this. You know, it starts connect with
Speaker 8: your calendar, your goal is your budget.
Speaker 9: You know it's not exactly there yet, but kind.
Speaker 8: Of a more simple way is you know, just even
Speaker 8: you know Open Eye's latest and others, you know, ability
Speaker 8: to look at a scene and ask questions it's asked.
Speaker 9: You know, it's kind of there's a lag period.
Speaker 8: We'll start to see that inference time disappear, maybe we'll
Speaker 8: even see that full AI capability on that specific device,
Speaker 8: whether it's a glasses or a camera on your phone,
Speaker 8: and that allows you to basically have kind of like
Speaker 8: a personal AI assistant, life coach or you know, trainer
Speaker 8: or just kind of this omni all knowing thing that
Speaker 8: can help you solve whatever problem you have.
Speaker 5: Are there companies then that have been overlooked so far
Speaker 5: in this bull run, Companies you know that are doing
Speaker 5: some of the things you just laid out.
Speaker 8: Well, there's certainly a lot of companies that are putting
Speaker 8: their hat in the ring. There's public and private companies.
Speaker 8: To be clear, You've got humanoid robots that are coming.
Speaker 8: That's one form factor of many. To be clear, you
Speaker 8: might not even have humanoids be the phone factor in
Speaker 8: your home. It might be on a base or the
Speaker 8: stand in a telescopic arm and things.
Speaker 9: To do chores for you.
Speaker 8: So we probably will have an iPhone like moment or
Speaker 8: chat GBT moment in the next year or two to say,
Speaker 8: twenty twenty five might be a bit bullish, but it's coming.
Speaker 8: You're seeing lots of companies working on it, I think
Speaker 8: at this point because things are moving so fast. It's
Speaker 8: almost better to have a basket of companies that are out.
Speaker 9: You know, that have exposure.
Speaker 8: And you know, if you have AI and autonomous vehicles
Speaker 8: to take off, you need cloud connectivity, right because they're
Speaker 8: not just operating as a loan device their network, so
Speaker 8: they depend on inputs and sensors and so a.
Speaker 9: Lot of these components like actuation, computer vision.
Speaker 8: You know, I would almost look at it as sub
Speaker 8: leaders of these sub sectors that make a lot of
Speaker 8: sense to get access to how we're seeing the majority
Speaker 8: of the GDP transforming into a more automated world.
Speaker 2: Heze and know, I do wonder do we make the
Speaker 2: leap of AI having its own agency?
Speaker 9: Right?
Speaker 2: We talk a lot about autonomous agents and basically AI
Speaker 2: not needing human intervention to respond react, just got about
Speaker 2: thirty seconds. Do we have that?
Speaker 4: Do we see?
Speaker 2: Do we hear more about that in twenty twenty five
Speaker 2: because it feels like that's the next big step.
Speaker 8: Yeah, AI agents and mixture of experts. We're going to
Speaker 8: see a lot of advances here. Clearly, you know, AI
Speaker 8: can start to solve problems on its own. We saw
Speaker 8: three from open AI come out. We're seeing open source
Speaker 8: AI come out with new models, and ultimately AI agents
Speaker 8: will will certainly start to be utilized more in twenty
Speaker 8: twenty five.
Speaker 9: That there's no question about it.
Speaker 8: It's it's going to start, you know again, open source
Speaker 8: or even just directed AI will start to eat the world,
Speaker 8: and AI agents is certainly a big part, but a
Speaker 8: slice of that pie.
Speaker 5: Well, you know, we will no doubt be talking to
Speaker 5: you again then in twenty twenty five and looking forward
Speaker 5: to a happy new year to.
Speaker 2: You that I'm not looking forward to the agent or
Speaker 2: the personal AI assistant that says, do you really need.
Speaker 7: Those new shoes? I'm not so worried about how much
Speaker 7: they get. They kind of invade your life.
Speaker 4: I totally agree.
Speaker 5: Although I bought the new iPhone, the one that's supposed to
Speaker 5: have AI capabilities, I don't know.
Speaker 4: I do not notice any difference.
Speaker 5: Alasino Mercer, they're a senior research analyst at Vertify joining us.
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Speaker 5: Let's turn out to Lauren zeidel Baker, who is an
Speaker 5: economist at it R Economics, and Lauren will start with,
Speaker 5: you know, the most recent data out today, Dallas FED
Speaker 5: manufacturing activity coming.
Speaker 4: In strong three point four.
Speaker 5: We were anticipating a decline for December and pending home
Speaker 5: sales month over month of two point two percent, year
Speaker 5: of year of five point six percent less strong, but
Speaker 5: nevertheless getting up there.
Speaker 4: What concerns do you have?
Speaker 5: Let's start there with the US economy for twenty twenty five.
Speaker 6: Sure, we see actually good news ahead for the economy,
Speaker 6: so my concerns are really limited to these black Swan
Speaker 6: type events. So something like tariff policy, as Matt mentioned,
Speaker 6: really could constrain It could cause them upward pricing for
Speaker 6: a US consumer that's already been very squeezed by inflation.
Speaker 6: Could cause some additional hindrances for businesses here. But overall,
Speaker 6: the foundational pieces are in place for a very resilient economy,
Speaker 6: so I don't see any underlying cracks now. Later into
Speaker 6: twenty twenty five, that's when we at ITR Economics do
Speaker 6: see inflation starting to build again. Some of those inflationary
Speaker 6: pressures already in place, So something that has been squeezing
Speaker 6: both consumers and businesses, could even cause the FED to
Speaker 6: stop decreasing rates potentially even start raising them again by
Speaker 6: the end of next year, but those impacts would probably
Speaker 6: be felt more strongly by twenty two, twenty six, or seven.
Speaker 6: So all signs really pointing to good news ahead in
Speaker 6: the year to come.
Speaker 2: All right, I want to go back to how you
Speaker 2: started black swan events, whether it's tariffs, because if anything
Speaker 2: we've learned over the last decade or so or two decades,
Speaker 2: is that black swan events actually do happen, and I've
Speaker 2: had a couple in my lifetime, whether it's the Great
Speaker 2: Financial Crisis or whether it's the global pandemic. So when
Speaker 2: you say that, what in particular is it what kind
Speaker 2: of trade war we see? What is it in particular
Speaker 2: that you are so most worried about.
Speaker 6: The big ones for me are all geopolitical. So if
Speaker 6: we see wars right, increasing tensions or conflicts globally, that
Speaker 6: is a big one that we just couldn't really predict.
Speaker 6: I'm an economist, not a geopolitical analyst. But other than that,
Speaker 6: we do see the trade war, especially if we get
Speaker 6: reciprocal tariffs on some broad based US tariffs that could
Speaker 6: hinder some global trade activities. Now globally we are sort
Speaker 6: of seeing the pendulum swing away from globalization back towards nationalism.
Speaker 6: There are certainly some benefits, especially to US manufacturers, a
Speaker 6: lot of foreign direct and flowing into the United States.
Speaker 7: But this is just tipping the scale.
Speaker 6: So there will be winners and there will be losers
Speaker 6: of this tariff policy of changes right to the trade policy.
Speaker 6: It's more a matter of which side of the table
Speaker 6: you're sitting on. Certainly some opportunities for some, but it
Speaker 6: does also cause that disruption which could have those unintended
Speaker 6: consequences economy wide and.
Speaker 2: Can make things more expensive. Correct, I mean this is
Speaker 2: what I worry about. The inflationary pressures.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I want to be clear, we see fundamental reasons
Speaker 6: for inflation coming back next year on top of the
Speaker 6: tariff's tariffs would really just to boost that level of
Speaker 6: price rise. But at the end of the day, tariffs
Speaker 6: do tend to be inflationary. We have really good case
Speaker 6: studies historically from either the twenty eighteen round of tariffs.
Speaker 6: Even domestic producers do tend to increase their own prices
Speaker 6: when they get that room from their foreign competition being
Speaker 6: priced up.
Speaker 7: So I would expect.
Speaker 6: This is building on what we already see as again
Speaker 6: fundamentally resurgent inflation.
Speaker 5: So we see quite the rebound and yields treasuries just
Speaker 5: really having the most phenomenally.
Speaker 4: Awkward and strange year.
Speaker 5: Lauren Neil DNA is saying today the rise and yields
Speaker 5: is about the term premium going up, and that's because
Speaker 5: of deficit concerns. He sort of puts away the idea
Speaker 5: that it's anything to do with economic growth.
Speaker 4: What do you think.
Speaker 6: I think there's a real case for the market just
Speaker 6: putting its hand on the scale in this case. So
Speaker 6: we've seen even things like government, you know, kind of
Speaker 6: funding treasury levels, mortgage rate with certainly we think would
Speaker 6: be driven by something like the Federal funds rate, but
Speaker 6: seem much more closely correlated, especially this cycle, with those
Speaker 6: treasury yields and just not reacting in quite the same
Speaker 6: way to the Fed funds rate as they have historically.
Speaker 1: So there is.
Speaker 6: Certainly a lot of money at play right The kind
Speaker 6: of differential between global central bank policy is coming into
Speaker 6: effect here. But overall, the US is still a very
Speaker 6: good place to do business. Anytime we get that additional
Speaker 6: risk premium. Right, we are the gold standards. So I
Speaker 6: see why yields have reacted in the way. Will deficit concerns.
Speaker 6: I'm watching those in the i'll call it medium term.
Speaker 6: I'm looking toward twenty thirty to be where we really
Speaker 6: have to do something about this debt level, something about
Speaker 6: this deficit. That's when I see the problem coming to
Speaker 6: an abrupt end. But in the very near term, the
Speaker 6: US is still the gold standard. So this, technically, yes,
Speaker 6: is what we consider, right, the risk free premium.
Speaker 2: When you think about Lauren doing something about the deficit, Okay,
Speaker 2: we have been here before, but it does feel like
Speaker 2: it's something different, and the pressure is certainly building. And
Speaker 2: if it means cutting the deficit, that means either cutting
Speaker 2: programs or cutting spending somewhere. And I do wonder about
Speaker 2: and worry about the economic impact. So how do you
Speaker 2: see this potentially playing out and the impact on the
Speaker 2: US economy that might result?
Speaker 6: No good answer to that question. There are a lot
Speaker 6: of different things we could do, from cutting programs, raising taxes,
Speaker 6: to monetizing the debt to defaulting on the debt. Right,
Speaker 6: throw our hands in the air and just say we're
Speaker 6: done with it. None of those would be pain free
Speaker 6: for the US economy. Some would be clearly more painful
Speaker 6: than others. But at this point, with our debt burden
Speaker 6: being so high, with our deficit really growing year after
Speaker 6: year after year, contributing to more and more debt with
Speaker 6: higher interest rates, today just the mere interest payments on
Speaker 6: our national debt are a huge and growing problem, again
Speaker 6: contributing to that higher and higher deficit spending year after year.
Speaker 6: It seems like we're far enough down this road that
Speaker 6: there just isn't any easy answer anymore.
Speaker 2: It never is easy. Lauren, Thank you so much. Lauren
Speaker 2: is economist at ITR Economics.
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Speaker 2: President Biden said he'll order a state funeral in the
Speaker 2: capital for Jimmy Carter, calling the former Democratic president who
Speaker 2: died Sunday an extraordinary leader, statesman and humanitarian shooting us
Speaker 2: now to talk about this and Jimmy Carter's place in
Speaker 2: the presidential history, if you will, and really his legacy
Speaker 2: after he was out of the White House. Is Barbara Perry,
Speaker 2: University of Virginia's Miller Center Presidential Oral History Program CoA chair.
Speaker 2: So nice to have you here with Vonnie and myself.
Speaker 7: Barbara.
Speaker 2: My understanding is that Jimmy Carter was the first president
Speaker 2: that you voted for. Take us back to then and
Speaker 2: tell us how you are thinking about the former president today.
Speaker 7: Oh well, first of all, thank you for having me.
Speaker 10: And I do think of it very personally because I
Speaker 10: saw Jimmy Carter when.
Speaker 7: He was certainly Jimmy who. In nineteen seventy.
Speaker 10: Three, he was here for a Democratic conference of governors
Speaker 10: from the Democratic Party and I was a high schooler
Speaker 10: and I was selected as a page to help with
Speaker 10: that meeting, and people didn't pay too much of attention
Speaker 10: to him than in terms of a presidential candidate. But
Speaker 10: by nineteen seventy five he came back to Louisville for.
Speaker 7: An issues convention for the Democrats, and.
Speaker 10: By that time eight other people had joined him to
Speaker 10: run for the nomination of the Democratic Party. In nineteen
Speaker 10: seventy six, and since I knew that was going to
Speaker 10: be the first election I voted in, I was really
Speaker 10: looking for a candidate, and I thought all the other people,
Speaker 10: these eight other people who were big names in the
Speaker 10: country and around the world, and they had been in
Speaker 10: Washington for years.
Speaker 7: But I was really impressed with Jimmy Carter. I kept
Speaker 7: an open mind. He spoke about.
Speaker 10: Foreign affairs, which wouldn't have been an area of expertise
Speaker 10: for him, but he had traveled all over the world
Speaker 10: and he obviously had a very good mind. So I thought, well,
Speaker 10: this is somebody who could maybe be in the mixed
Speaker 10: and sure enough he won the Iowa caucuses and then
Speaker 10: went on to win the nomination and just improbably went
Speaker 10: on to win the presidency in nineteen seventy six, and
Speaker 10: I decided to go to his inaugural.
Speaker 7: So it was freezing cold. That was so cold.
Speaker 10: The Potomac River froze over. But I had a warm
Speaker 10: feeling because he did something very and he got out
Speaker 10: of the limousine and he and Rosalind walked hand in
Speaker 10: hand from the Capitol all the way to the White
Speaker 10: House with their family behind them. And that was the
Speaker 10: first time a president had done that. It really did
Speaker 10: make them seem like they were of the people.
Speaker 5: It's pretty impossible to do counterfactuals. But what if he
Speaker 5: had had a second term.
Speaker 10: Oh, you know, it's a fascinating question, isn't it.
Speaker 7: I love counterfactuals.
Speaker 10: I think that the country wouldn't necessarily have been better.
Speaker 10: Often by that, I mean that the economy was not
Speaker 10: good when he left office. That was one of the
Speaker 10: main reasons he lost to Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter.
Speaker 10: While we think of him, I think now in terms
Speaker 10: of his positive contributions as a post president, there was
Speaker 10: a side to him, maybe that came from his Christian background,
Speaker 10: that was sort of a dark side and a light side.
Speaker 10: And his dark side tended to be a little bit
Speaker 10: lecturing and hectoring of the American people. And that was
Speaker 10: not Ronald Reagan. What we needed in nineteen eighty was
Speaker 10: a positive view, and that's what Ronald Reagan brought to
Speaker 10: the United States. And so I don't know if we
Speaker 10: would necessarily have been better off as a country, but
Speaker 10: we certainly were better off as a country to have
Speaker 10: Jimmy Carter in a post presidency.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And having said that, and this is something we talked
Speaker 2: about with our David Weston. I mean, you think about
Speaker 2: him bringing awareness to energy conservation, the solar panels on
Speaker 2: the roof of the White House, creating the Department of Education.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of things that he did that I
Speaker 2: think we credit maybe to the Reagan administration that he
Speaker 2: actually started to put initially into work.
Speaker 10: Yes, well, it turned out that his lecture to the
Speaker 10: American people, the so called misnamed Malay Speech, Busy never
Speaker 10: used the term malaise, but it was a crisis that
Speaker 10: he was calling Americans to face. But instead of doing
Speaker 10: it in a more positive way that an FDR or
Speaker 10: Reagan might have done again, it was a bit too
Speaker 10: negative for the American taste, and particularly since right after
Speaker 10: that he got rid of most of his cabinets, so
Speaker 10: it made people feel like things were a bit unstable. So, yes,
Speaker 10: he did the things you just mentioned, and he also
Speaker 10: upgraded our defenses during the Cold War that obviously Ronald
Speaker 10: Reagan could could work on that, and in the end,
Speaker 10: thanks goodness, under George Bush the First and.
Speaker 7: The Cold War.
Speaker 10: So I do think that there were many positives from
Speaker 10: the Carter administration, but there were just some unlucky events
Speaker 10: that he either mishandled or wasn't able to handle, and
Speaker 10: that brought Ronald Reagan to power.
Speaker 4: Barbara, we're out of time, But is there a lineage?
Speaker 5: Do you see any politicians out there that are carrying
Speaker 5: on a Jimmy Carter type legacy?
Speaker 7: I do, and it's Joe Biden.
Speaker 10: And as he said yesterday, decency, decency, decency, That's what
Speaker 10: he took from Jimmy Carter, and that is Joe Biden.
Speaker 10: Where that will go come this January twentieth is hard
Speaker 10: to say.
Speaker 5: That's for sure, all right, Barbara, thank you so much
Speaker 5: for giving us your time today.
Speaker 4: And he was the first president she voted for as well.
Speaker 2: Carol, I love that story and just taking us back there.
Speaker 2: But is the point of him and his moral compass
Speaker 2: is certainly something that in this division that we are
Speaker 2: seeing and money in politics and so many things that
Speaker 2: seem to get in the way. It's just something to
Speaker 2: really think about in this current environment.
Speaker 4: Liked on exactly.
Speaker 5: That was Barbara Perry, University of Virginia's Military Center Presidential
Speaker 5: Oral History.
Speaker 4: Program co chair.
Speaker 5: Thank you for helping us honor the life of President
Speaker 5: Jimmy Carter.
Speaker 4: This is Bloomberg.
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