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Speaker 3: Welcome to the Thursday edition of Balance of Power. It's
Speaker 3: Little Friday, and we pick up in Washington right where
Speaker 3: we left off yesterday, with big questions about how this
Speaker 3: is all going to work in the US House when
Speaker 3: it comes to funding for Ukraine, for Israel and Taiwan.
Speaker 3: The fourth bill, by the way, did eventually drop. This
Speaker 3: is the divest Or band TikTok bill. It's got the
Speaker 3: REPO money and apparently some Iranian sanctions.
Speaker 4: The question is will all of this pass?
Speaker 3: And it looks like the answer maybe yes, but only
Speaker 3: with the help of Democrats. The headline on the terminal
Speaker 3: today Eric Wasson, reporting from Capitol Hill, Ukraine is reelaid
Speaker 3: on track to pass as Democrats back plan. That's not
Speaker 3: going to help his standing, most likely with the Freedom
Speaker 3: Caucus today, but it might get the job done. With
Speaker 3: questions about his potential to be fired in the middle
Speaker 3: of all this with a motion to vacate. Now two
Speaker 3: lawmakers on it. We can get into that as well
Speaker 3: with Eric in a moment. But I will point you
Speaker 3: to another headline. The White House is not waiting US
Speaker 3: ready's Ukraine package that can be sent when aid bill passes.
Speaker 3: Bloomberg News also reporting the Biden administration preparing a military
Speaker 3: aid shipment the minute he signs the bill. So the
Speaker 3: gears are turning here. It's just a question exactly how
Speaker 3: all of this is going to end. And Eric Wasson
Speaker 3: has been in the halls of Congress all day, joins
Speaker 3: us right now with the latest on this. Eric, We've
Speaker 3: got to pass a rule first, Right, this is the
Speaker 3: hard part for Mike Johnson.
Speaker 4: What's the latest?
Speaker 5: You know, I just I got to emphasize to the
Speaker 5: listeners this is really my base case. Is this Ukraine
Speaker 5: package is going out, is going to pass. I mean,
Speaker 5: this is really on track here. Democrats are lining up.
Speaker 5: Of course they're saying we want to see the rules,
Speaker 5: we want to see the details. But you know, the
Speaker 5: momentum is here. The die is cast. This fourth build
Speaker 5: up materialized, does not have poison pills. There's some question
Speaker 5: about liquid natural gas exports being put in there top
Speaker 5: priority for the speaker. He did not put that in
Speaker 5: there knowing Democrats didn't like it. The stuff that is
Speaker 5: in there, the TikTok ban very popular in both parties.
Speaker 5: In fact, they even made it more popular by giving
Speaker 5: TikTok until after the election to be dealt with. So
Speaker 5: there's no real chance that, you know, you're gonna have
Speaker 5: young people streaming to the polls to House politicians for
Speaker 5: banning their favorite social media app. I mean, this is
Speaker 5: really the glide path has really been set, you know,
Speaker 5: as you said, the real question is too Johnson, you know,
Speaker 5: face an ouster threat. I just came from extraordinary scrum
Speaker 5: with Matt Gates and Lauren Bobert, who are irate. There's,
Speaker 5: you know, some talk among Republicans of trying to defang
Speaker 5: this motion to vacate to make it more difficult, you know,
Speaker 5: make sure there's more people have to be on board
Speaker 5: to raise this. And they basically told the speaker moments
Speaker 5: ago on the House floor, if you do that, we're
Speaker 5: going to pull the motion to vacate right now. We're
Speaker 5: going to fire this gun before you take it away,
Speaker 5: you know. So I just think that they're they're very
Speaker 5: angry with him about that. I think he's going to
Speaker 5: probably have to back off. But we'll see that's something
Speaker 5: going on behind the scenes. They might sert us into
Speaker 5: the rule of the Ukraine bill because it's going to
Speaker 5: need Democrats anyhow.
Speaker 3: So that you just said a lot, Eric, just to
Speaker 3: unpack a little bit of that. The motion to vacate
Speaker 3: there was a movement that would require more than one lawmaker, right,
Speaker 3: that would make it more difficult to fire the speaker.
Speaker 3: It sounds like that movement might be going down in flames.
Speaker 4: Will there be a.
Speaker 3: Rule though, Eric, or does the speaker have to suspend
Speaker 3: rules and use Democrats to pass these?
Speaker 5: Now that's going to be a rule vote, you know,
Speaker 5: It's it's an interesting combination of things. There's Democrats who
Speaker 5: you know, object to the Israel bill. This is all
Speaker 5: going to come up under a rule I just think
Speaker 5: what's going to happen. It's very extraordinary here Democrats and
Speaker 5: the Rules committee and on the floor are going to
Speaker 5: have to vote for it. I know this sounds all
Speaker 5: very procedural, but basically this is usually shirts and skins
Speaker 5: type of vote, like the party in charge votes for
Speaker 5: the rules sets for debate and the plready out of
Speaker 5: power votes against it. But this has there is precedent
Speaker 5: for crossing the lines. In May, on the debt ceialing vote,
Speaker 5: when the US was facing a payment's default, Democrats fifty
Speaker 5: two of them crossed the line to make sure that
Speaker 5: debate could start on that bill. So you know they've
Speaker 5: done this before, and I think that's where we're headed
Speaker 5: right now.
Speaker 3: There was an attempt to move a border bill through
Speaker 3: the Rules Committee that.
Speaker 4: Did not work out last night.
Speaker 3: Eric chip Roy, of course, a Republican from Texas Freedom
Speaker 3: Caucus and thorn in the side of the speaker, wrote
Speaker 3: sorry not sorry for opposing a crappy rule that is
Speaker 3: a show vote cover vote for funding Ukraine instead of
Speaker 3: border security. Does that mean there will be no border
Speaker 3: component here or is it up in the air.
Speaker 5: Well, you know, there was not going to be a
Speaker 5: border component. There was going to be a separate vote,
Speaker 5: and that was really something to sort of like, you know,
Speaker 5: a distraction. Basically, I think Roy is correct if you're
Speaker 5: not going to put it in the package, just holding
Speaker 5: that vote. The House has already passed a border security
Speaker 5: bill that's dead in the Senate. If it's not attached
Speaker 5: to Ukraine, this would be dead as well. So it's
Speaker 5: something kind of like God, you know, give me And
Speaker 5: they were like, we're not having any part of that.
Speaker 5: We're not going to allow to do that. It's interesting
Speaker 5: the Speaker puts out fact sheets on this Ukraine bill
Speaker 5: and he mentions border, but if you know what's going on,
Speaker 5: the border is not part of it.
Speaker 3: Lastly, Eric, I just wonder the evolution of the speaker,
Speaker 3: if you can talk about this. This Ukraine funding has
Speaker 3: been very controversial. He's been talking about how we need
Speaker 3: to secure our own border first.
Speaker 4: But as words yesterday were powerful.
Speaker 3: As he talked to reporters and I think you were
Speaker 3: standing there, he said, I think he might go to
Speaker 3: the Balkans next. Referring to Vladimir Putin, he said, I
Speaker 3: really do believe the intel and the briefings that we've gotten.
Speaker 3: I believe she Putin and Iran really are an access
Speaker 3: of evil. I think they're in coordination on it. Did
Speaker 3: he get an intelligence briefing recently that changed his mind.
Speaker 5: He's had a bunch of them, and I've talked to
Speaker 5: him for you know, several months over this. I think
Speaker 5: he's been supportive of Ukraine ad. He's just trying to
Speaker 5: find the right way to do it, to be respectful
Speaker 5: of his caucus. But at the end of the day,
Speaker 5: he is a man of principle, a man of strong faith.
Speaker 5: He's a devout Christian, but also does a man of
Speaker 5: you know, he's been a defense office as someone who's
Speaker 5: on the Arm Services Committee, and I think he's made
Speaker 5: the calculation. You know, he's going to stand by his
Speaker 5: principles if he gets ousted. You know, as he said
Speaker 5: later in that in that press conference, you know, he
Speaker 5: can't live under the threat of being ousted. It'd be
Speaker 5: like any of us living on the thread of being fired,
Speaker 5: constantly panicking about it, worried. You can't really live life
Speaker 5: like that. So I think he's just decided, you know,
Speaker 5: he's going to try his bat and if they do
Speaker 5: ask him, you know, he's had a career, he'll find
Speaker 5: something else to do.
Speaker 4: He's had a career. Eric.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Eric Watson live on Capitol Hill. A great reporting.
Speaker 3: Eric has been a news machine, which is why you
Speaker 3: see his byline all over the terminal and the website.
Speaker 4: When the news breaks, he'll have it for you.
Speaker 3: He's been living outside the Speaker's office and great to
Speaker 3: have him with us here on Bloomberg Radio, on the satellite,
Speaker 3: and on YouTube.
Speaker 4: I'm Joe Matthew in Washington.
Speaker 3: There are questions, of course, about whether the speaker could
Speaker 3: get fired here, and based on what we just heard
Speaker 3: from Eric, it's not going to get any more difficult,
Speaker 3: at least to fire a Speaker of the House.
Speaker 4: There was a.
Speaker 3: Thought that they might increase the threshold required, but that
Speaker 3: doesn't appear based on what we just heard from Eric.
Speaker 4: To be clearing the Rules committee.
Speaker 3: We talked to Congressman Adam Smith about this yesterday, Democrat
Speaker 3: from Washington about the idea of Democrats coming to potentially
Speaker 3: save Mike Johnson to either leave the chamber or actually
Speaker 3: vote for him to be speaker.
Speaker 4: He's ready to do that.
Speaker 6: Into what he said, I for one will not vote
Speaker 6: to remove Speaker Johnson, and I know a number of
Speaker 6: other Democrats feel the same way that I do. There's
Speaker 6: kind of this KOI little thing back and forth as
Speaker 6: to whether or not we say that publicly. I tend
Speaker 6: to be more blunt and straightforward than most members, so
Speaker 6: I'm not going to be KOI about it. It doesn't
Speaker 6: serve the interests of Congress or the country to remove
Speaker 6: the speaker at this point, and he's carried through with
Speaker 6: his pledge to not abandon Ukraine, to give us a
Speaker 6: vote on Ukraine. And as long as he's done that,
Speaker 6: I'm certainly not going to agree with Marjorie Taylor Green
Speaker 6: about who the Speaker of the.
Speaker 1: House should be.
Speaker 4: How about it?
Speaker 3: So Democrats are not just lining up to help pass
Speaker 3: these bills, They're maybe lining up to save his job,
Speaker 3: which would answer one of the two big questions we
Speaker 3: have today. Is the Speaker going to get fired for this?
Speaker 3: And what will happen in the Senate when this legislation
Speaker 3: set to pass, we're told goes next door. That's what
Speaker 3: we want to talk to Bill Holdman about. Senior Vice
Speaker 3: President of the Bipartisan Policies and worked a career in
Speaker 3: the Senate before his time across the street from us
Speaker 3: here in downtown Washington, Bill, it's great to have you back.
Speaker 3: Is the Senate just ready to pass this thing? Or
Speaker 3: is jd Vance, Is Rand Paul and others set to
Speaker 3: slow it down?
Speaker 7: No?
Speaker 8: I think first of all, if it does pass out
Speaker 8: of the House, it will be the three bills that
Speaker 8: will be bundled into one under the rule as we speak.
Speaker 8: The Rules Committee, as course, is meeting right now to
Speaker 8: deliberate the rule for consideration of the three bills. Interestingly enough,
Speaker 8: normally the Democrats don't vote for the rule, the Democrats
Speaker 8: on the Rules Committee, but it's my understanding that the
Speaker 8: census has been worked out on a bipartisan basis, something
Speaker 8: very unusual these days, of course, but to that extent
Speaker 8: that the Democrats on the Rules Committee will overcome the
Speaker 8: Freedom Caucus votes against reporting it out. Long story short,
Speaker 8: then that those three bills will be debated individually, and
Speaker 8: then the rule will allow for those three bills to
Speaker 8: be bundled up into one and sent to the Senate.
Speaker 8: And I believe at that particular point there will be
Speaker 8: more than sixty votes in the United States Senate to
Speaker 8: pass the bill, whether that's on Sunday night or Monday morning.
Speaker 8: Literally the House and Senates to be out next week.
Speaker 8: But I think the Majority Leader Schumer will keep amensasion
Speaker 8: to pass this bill. It should have been passed a
Speaker 8: long time ago.
Speaker 4: So we have a working weekend bill.
Speaker 3: We've been talking about this for months, with your help,
Speaker 3: what do you think it is that actually got the
Speaker 3: gears turning so quickly. Here was just the beginning of
Speaker 3: this week we were told, hey, this might not be
Speaker 3: done until June. It's just too complicated. But here we
Speaker 3: are with the President who's pulling out the pen getting
Speaker 3: ready to sign this.
Speaker 8: Well, I think obviously the rounds missile attack on Israel
Speaker 8: was a issue that created the impetus to move forward quickly.
Speaker 8: I also think, to be honest with you, that well,
Speaker 8: the new Speaker has kind of grown into his job
Speaker 8: and realizes that the only way in a very divided
Speaker 8: and very narrow United States House, the only way that
Speaker 8: we can get anything done and move forward on some
Speaker 8: of these critical issues is in a biparisan way. And
Speaker 8: I think this is real credit to his leadership. Is
Speaker 8: growing into his leadership that he has moved forward with
Speaker 8: this approach, which I find an interesting approach. It clearly
Speaker 8: does have some a small piece of this It is
Speaker 8: the top It is the same top line ninety five
Speaker 8: point three billion dollars that was out of the Senate.
Speaker 8: But there is a small element of that ninety five
Speaker 8: point three which is a loane, non recourse loan. In
Speaker 8: the end of the day and I think that's enough
Speaker 8: to get it, to get it over the hurdle in
Speaker 8: the House and over to the Senate quickly.
Speaker 3: Well, this is pretty remarkable if Mike Johnson survives this,
Speaker 3: even if there is or is not a a privileged
Speaker 3: motion to vacate, If he gets through this, and if
Speaker 3: he gets this done, is he a made man? Does
Speaker 3: this actually get him into the woodwork in a way
Speaker 3: create support a galvanizing moment that he might not have
Speaker 3: had otherwise, or are we just going to have motion
Speaker 3: to vacates every week for the rest of this Congress.
Speaker 8: Well, as you know, I'm a Senate staffer, a former
Speaker 8: Senate staffer, not a house I don't know. I think
Speaker 8: that the clock is clicking down here. We're moving into
Speaker 8: clearly into the fall elections. I don't think most Republicans
Speaker 8: want to go through another vacate of the speakers and
Speaker 8: all that. So I think that he can get over
Speaker 8: this hurdle. He shows that he has dship capability, that
Speaker 8: he can negotiate and work it out. I wish that
Speaker 8: we had moved faster on it, and I think he
Speaker 8: probably does too. He's always been a supporter at the
Speaker 8: end of the day for Ukraine funding. So I think
Speaker 8: he's had to work with a very difficult caucus, obviously
Speaker 8: the Freedom Caucus. But I think he's showed him some
Speaker 8: real smril gumption here in terms of moving forward and
Speaker 8: standing up and saying the only thing that we can
Speaker 8: do in this very divided Congress is to have bipartisanship.
Speaker 8: And of course, coming from the Bi Parson Policy Center,
Speaker 8: I respect and admire him for finally getting to that
Speaker 8: position that that's the only way to govern in a
Speaker 8: very divided House of Representatives.
Speaker 4: I hate pulling you into the lower chamber bill. I
Speaker 4: know you're better than that.
Speaker 3: But I'll ask you lastly, with the Senate in mind,
Speaker 3: they've been hemming and hawing about this TikTok divestor band bill,
Speaker 3: and apparently it's going to be on its way to
Speaker 3: the Senate here, tied to this fourth piece of legislation.
Speaker 3: Will senators have to just swallow it?
Speaker 4: Listen.
Speaker 8: I'll be honest with you. I'm not clear that that
Speaker 8: fourth bill that includes the TikTok and imposing sanctions on Russia,
Speaker 8: I may be Eric. I missed Eric's comment so and
Speaker 8: he is great. I comment on Eric Watson. I thought
Speaker 8: it was a separate I thought that the only three
Speaker 8: bills that would be buddled into one would be the
Speaker 8: Foreign Aid of bills. But you may be right. I
Speaker 8: did not realize that the TikTok bill, if it passes
Speaker 8: the House, that it would be buddled with the other three.
Speaker 8: I thought it was separate apart. But I apologize I don't.
Speaker 4: That's quite all right.
Speaker 3: The fact of the matter is, we're not exactly sure
Speaker 3: how that's going to work here, Bill, but it sounds
Speaker 3: like the Senate has a problem with that legislation. We'll
Speaker 3: just have to see where the narrative goes from here.
Speaker 3: It's great to have you back, Bill Hoagland at the
Speaker 3: Bipartisan Policy Center. Thank you, sir for being with us.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast Ken
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Speaker 3: I'm Joe Matthew in Washington with an eye on Pennsylvania
Speaker 3: for a third day. Right, We're on day three. Joe
Speaker 3: Biden back again. Today's stumping in Pennsylvania, Philadelphia to be exact,
Speaker 3: and the gosh the tire Kennedy family is with him.
Speaker 3: Former Congressman Joe Kennedy the third is going to be
Speaker 3: introducing him today. Of course, he is Joe Biden's special
Speaker 3: envoy to Northern Ireland, as we told you here on
Speaker 3: the program when we spoke a couple of weeks ago
Speaker 3: in advance of Saint Patrick's day. Today, the President having
Speaker 3: a pair of campaign events. This is the big one
Speaker 3: though is the administration. The campaign, i should say, tries
Speaker 3: to delineate between the Kennedys and RFK Junior Donald Trump. Meanwhile,
Speaker 3: in court today, jury selection continues and it has been
Speaker 3: an apps wild series of stories that we'll talk about
Speaker 3: a little bit later on this hour. It brings me
Speaker 3: to the latest research from the Harvard Kennedy School. Remarkable,
Speaker 3: the Institute of Politics out with its latest poll of
Speaker 3: young voters. We spend so much time talking about this,
Speaker 3: specifically with regard to Joe Biden, but we're going to
Speaker 3: tackle both candidates in this case. In a conversation with
Speaker 3: John Della Volpi, Harvard Kennedy School, Institute of Politics, director
Speaker 3: of Polling, John, It's wonderful to have you on Bloomberg.
Speaker 3: I appreciate your time today and thank you for joining
Speaker 3: us today as part of our conversation. You actually found
Speaker 3: reasons to worry for both candidates, which I'd love to
Speaker 3: hear about here. But the fact of the matter is
Speaker 3: Donald Trump. When you look at voters eighteen to twenty nine,
Speaker 3: which I thought was the sweet spot for a Democrat,
Speaker 3: Donald Trump is actually eating into Joe Biden's lead.
Speaker 7: What did you learn, Well, yes, Joe, I think the
Speaker 7: lesson from this survey for me is there's a significant
Speaker 7: mood shift from the beginning to the end of this survey, seismic.
Speaker 7: I think, you know, for example, there's a real concern
Speaker 7: that young people have about the state of the nation.
Speaker 7: Only nine percent say it's on the right track. You know,
Speaker 7: President Biden's approval ratings are not what he would like
Speaker 7: them to be. Let's say it this way. There's concerns
Speaker 7: about the economy, inflation, costs of living, of course, the
Speaker 7: wars overseas. Despite that, Despite that, on a two person
Speaker 7: race between Biden and Trump, when I look at the
Speaker 7: likeliest of likely voters, we see that Joe Biden has
Speaker 7: a nineteen point lead, so that nineteen poll lead was
Speaker 7: larger four years ago, So there is some degree of
Speaker 7: appealing away some of that lead. But we haven't seen
Speaker 7: what a lot of other polls have been producing. We
Speaker 7: haven't seen a wholesale shift from Democrats, Republicans, or from
Speaker 7: Biden to Trump in this poll.
Speaker 3: I just wonder if this is a conversation for you
Speaker 3: and I to have right now and for the campaign
Speaker 3: to sweat over, knowing that young people, assuming they show up,
Speaker 3: are going to vote for Joe Biden because he is
Speaker 3: aligned in many cases with their priorities. When he's talking
Speaker 3: about forgiving student loan debt, when he's talking about bottom up,
Speaker 3: middle out housing initiatives, and so forth.
Speaker 4: What happens in the.
Speaker 3: Polls in November can frequently be a disconnected exercise.
Speaker 7: What do you think, Well, I think that's right. We
Speaker 7: need to be listening better in the polling. As I
Speaker 7: just said it, right, his approval rating, his right track,
Speaker 7: wrong truck. You could look at those numbers in a vacuum,
Speaker 7: Joe and say there's no way someone like that could
Speaker 7: be reelected. Okay, but he is because, as you said,
Speaker 7: it's about values. And I think as the campaign moves forward,
Speaker 7: there will be kind of a direct comparison between life,
Speaker 7: what life was like under Trump, what life was like
Speaker 7: under Biden, and what the future looks like. The good
Speaker 7: news in this poll for all of us, in my opinion,
Speaker 7: is that there's been a significate shift of attitudes. Young
Speaker 7: people can see the difference that engagement makes. They can
Speaker 7: they're more today than there were a couple years. I've
Speaker 7: seeing the differences between the parties and are as likely
Speaker 7: to vote at this time as they were in twenty twenty,
Speaker 7: And as we know, in twenty twenty there was record
Speaker 7: turnout among younger people. So I'm cautious optimistic we'll see
Speaker 7: significant turnout again in November.
Speaker 3: Well, that's remarkable and contrarian because I keep hearing that,
Speaker 3: you know, young people are going to stay in betteror something.
Speaker 3: The cause for worry for Donald Trump. Here, John, as
Speaker 3: he sits in the courtroom today, this could get a
Speaker 3: lot worse if he's convicted. What did you learn about
Speaker 3: that in your research?
Speaker 7: That's right, So you know, and I've said for quite
Speaker 7: some time that for Democrats to feel good about winning
Speaker 7: this electoral college, they need they should be around sixty
Speaker 7: percent with younger people. The way that he gets there
Speaker 7: very the quickest route actually for Biden to get to
Speaker 7: sixty percent in our poll is if Trump gets convicted
Speaker 7: on any in one of these trials. There was roughly
Speaker 7: an eight to ten point swing based upon that information,
Speaker 7: so that could be a game changer. This isn't just
Speaker 7: about guilty or not guilty for Trump. This is about
Speaker 7: president or not president for Trump.
Speaker 3: Fifty one percent support a permanent cease fire in Gaza.
Speaker 3: Ten percent of pose at some point between now and November.
Speaker 3: I think most people agree this conflict in Gaza will end.
Speaker 3: If Joe Biden can have his fingerprints on a ceasefire
Speaker 3: or some sort of construct going forward that would invoke peace,
Speaker 3: does that help him immediately with these voters.
Speaker 7: Yeah, more than anything. More than anything, young people want peace.
Speaker 7: They want peace and security, stability in their lives, and
Speaker 7: for those people more vulnerable than even themselves around the world.
Speaker 7: This poll clearly shows that young people sympathize not just
Speaker 7: with one side, but with both sides. With a sympathy
Speaker 7: lies with the Palestinian people, and sympathy also lies with
Speaker 7: the Israeli people, not necessarily where their leaders or were
Speaker 7: their governments. If Joe Biden can help architect an end
Speaker 7: to this war, create a pathway to a state solution,
Speaker 7: that could be one of those moments again, Joe, right
Speaker 7: when we're talking about going from the mid fifties to
Speaker 7: sixty percent, that easily could do that.
Speaker 4: John, it's great to have you back.
Speaker 3: I'd love to stay in touch with you over the
Speaker 3: course of this campaign on your youth poll, but your
Speaker 3: other research as well. Your insights are important to us.
Speaker 3: John Delavolfi, Harvard Kennedy School, Institute of Politics, Director of Polling.
Speaker 3: Great to see you here on Balance of Power. Want
Speaker 3: to hear some insights on the research here from Bloomberg
Speaker 3: Politics contributor Rick Davis. Of course, no stranger to polling
Speaker 3: and bringing us a slightly different view here as our
Speaker 3: Republican strategist.
Speaker 4: Rick, how do you interpret the.
Speaker 3: Numbers here because it looks like there are causes for
Speaker 3: concern on both sides.
Speaker 9: Yeah, there's no question that in this you know poll
Speaker 9: at Harvard, it shows what some of the other surveys,
Speaker 9: including the Bloomberg survey of swing states, have shown, which is,
Speaker 9: you know, byen underperforming his twenty twenty levels with young people,
Speaker 9: and you know, presso Volpi nailed it. He needs another
Speaker 9: ten percent to be able to build off of the
Speaker 9: same winning coalition that he had before, and there are
Speaker 9: ways in this survey.
Speaker 5: To do that.
Speaker 9: Although I would say the sort of blinking yellow light
Speaker 9: is on intensity, and this survey and others that I've
Speaker 9: seen indicate that there is just a you know, slightly
Speaker 9: less intense vote, especially in certain demographics, and in this
Speaker 9: case in the Harvard Pole may actually hurt Trump. He
Speaker 9: is much more popular with those who say they're least
Speaker 9: likely to turn.
Speaker 4: Out to vote.
Speaker 9: But at the end of the day, Democrats have going
Speaker 9: to have their hands full to try and turn out
Speaker 9: the voters that are for Biden who might have issues
Speaker 9: with any list of many things that they were talking about.
Speaker 9: I mean the student debt relief I thought was fascinating.
Speaker 9: There are fewer people who think of Joe Biden as
Speaker 9: being positive on debt relief. I think, like thirty three
Speaker 9: percent in this poll, and then he had a higher
Speaker 9: job approval than that, So like, people aren't giving him
Speaker 9: as high a positive on his job approval related to
Speaker 9: student debt as they are overall, which I was stunned by.
Speaker 3: Only nine percent trick of young Americans think that our
Speaker 3: country is headed in the right direction.
Speaker 4: Yeah. That's pretty terrible, isn't it? Out number?
Speaker 9: Yeah? I agree, I mean about the normal fifty eight
Speaker 9: percent in that poll indicated that they thought it was
Speaker 9: on the wrong track. But nine percent is less than
Speaker 9: half of that number from the same period of time
Speaker 9: in twenty and twenty twenty two. And so one of
Speaker 9: the things that I think is a major theme of
Speaker 9: this survey is how these young people, especially the eighteen
Speaker 9: to twenty four year olds, think about their institutions of government.
Speaker 9: And it's less positive than it's ever been. And so
Speaker 9: I do think this is a more generic issue, less
Speaker 9: to do with the horse race of Biden versus Trump.
Speaker 3: Yeah, honestly, I mentioned it for that very reason. I
Speaker 3: don't even know how that breaks. I suppose it doesn't
Speaker 3: health the incumbent. But to think that people eighteen to
Speaker 3: twenty nine in this country think that overwhelmingly that we
Speaker 3: are going in the wrong direction really says a lot
Speaker 3: to us right now, Rick, and I wonder how much
Speaker 3: it has to do with just the noise we talk
Speaker 3: so much today every day on this program of about division,
Speaker 3: about chaos or is it their their own lifestyle, their
Speaker 3: feeling of security.
Speaker 4: What do you chalk it up to?
Speaker 9: You know, I think you got it. Also can consider
Speaker 9: the historical perspective. I mean, think about these people. They
Speaker 9: have come to age politically, you know, with massive economic dislocation,
Speaker 9: you know, global pandemics that such shut down governments and
Speaker 9: private sector for years at a time, education systems where
Speaker 9: they didn't attend their own graduations from college because of COVID.
Speaker 9: I mean, like you think about their perspective, and and
Speaker 9: they have to be wary, right, they have not gotten
Speaker 9: a particularly fair shake, you know, through their teenage years
Speaker 9: and now they're you know, in their voting age level,
Speaker 9: and they have a lot of skepticism. They've been disappointed
Speaker 9: time and time again, probably more so than any generation
Speaker 9: outside of the you know, World War two generation that
Speaker 9: had to you know, deal with a world war and
Speaker 9: a depression all at the same time. This group is
Speaker 9: not far off from that.
Speaker 4: This is why I wanted to talk to Rick Davis
Speaker 4: about the poll. Thank you, Rick.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast.
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Speaker 10: Welcome back, or we're taking you live inside the happenings
Speaker 10: in Washington on Bloomberg Television and Radio. Certainly, Joe, it
Speaker 10: has been a doozy of the last couple of days.
Speaker 10: We've gone from not being sure whether or not Ukraine
Speaker 10: ad whatever reached the House floor to knowing that it's
Speaker 10: going to come in tandem with a B eight for
Speaker 10: Israel Taiwan and a so called sidecar bill that will
Speaker 10: include the TikTok divestit shirts, issue repo, frozen Russian assets,
Speaker 10: also with Ron sanctions. All of this then going to
Speaker 10: get mashed together and sent over to the Senate.
Speaker 4: That was all off the top of her head.
Speaker 3: That's very good, I think introducing more jargon sidecar Come on, stop, guys,
Speaker 3: everyone's having a hard enough time. I'm following along with
Speaker 3: Senator Tom Tillis who said I don't care how the
Speaker 3: sausage is made.
Speaker 4: Some people do care how it's made.
Speaker 3: And the Republican conference in the House included the Freedom
Speaker 3: Caucus specifically not happy about this, and that's why it's
Speaker 3: been jammed up in the rules making process. This is
Speaker 3: how it goes in Washington, where you want to talk
Speaker 3: about the sausage being made. We probably won't see an
Speaker 3: actual vote on the real bill until Saturday. Jonathan Tamari
Speaker 3: from Bloomberg Government joins us now after an attempt to
Speaker 3: pass a rule on the so called sidecar failed last night.
Speaker 3: Jonathan the line from the sorry not sorry statement from
Speaker 3: Chip Roy, Republican on the Rules committee. He said, sorry
Speaker 3: for opposing a crappy rule that is a show vote
Speaker 3: cover vote for funding Ukraine instead of border security. There
Speaker 3: was an attempt to fold the border into this. I
Speaker 3: don't know if that's going to survive the process here, Jonathan,
Speaker 3: we don't know if there even will be a rule.
Speaker 4: What can you tell us?
Speaker 11: Yeah, it seems very unlikely at this moment at the
Speaker 11: border policies are going to survive or are going to
Speaker 11: be part of anything that can actually pass the House
Speaker 11: because this is going to require Democratic votes. They're strongly
Speaker 11: opposed to what Republicans want to do on the border.
Speaker 11: And remember in their mind, the Democrats reached out and
Speaker 11: made compromises back in February to do a deal that
Speaker 11: would include foreign aid and border security, and Speaker Johnson
Speaker 11: rejected that they're looking for a clean foreign aid bill
Speaker 11: here with some of these sidecar provisions that you mentioned,
Speaker 11: but nothing that goes as far as the border does.
Speaker 10: So obviously, those like Chip Roy are not all too
Speaker 10: pleased with this. It's just a question of how many
Speaker 10: are not pleased enough that they could potentially move to
Speaker 10: oust the speaker. Jonathan Joe and I were just talking
Speaker 10: about the idea that you may have Democrats coming to
Speaker 10: save the day. But we also woke up this morning
Speaker 10: to murmurs around this idea that they may actually just
Speaker 10: change the rules so that it's no longer one individual
Speaker 10: member who can bring a motion to vacate. That seems though,
Speaker 10: that it died a very very quick death right.
Speaker 11: It appears to be. There's been it's been very murky.
Speaker 11: It's been back and forth all morning. But Speaker Johnson
Speaker 11: was in a heated discussion with some of the more
Speaker 11: far right members of his conference on the House floor
Speaker 11: this morning. They seem to think that the idea has
Speaker 11: been dropped. Some of them said that listen, if you
Speaker 11: change the rules for the motion to vacate, it will
Speaker 11: trigger a motion to vacate, So it's almost like a
Speaker 11: you know, heads, we win, tails, you lose situation. There.
Speaker 11: It does seem like that's falling by the wayside. But
Speaker 11: as if you could tell from my discussions, your discussions,
Speaker 11: it's been a very fluid and fast moving situation and
Speaker 11: it's still evolving right now.
Speaker 4: Well, it sure sounds like it if we cut to
Speaker 4: the chase.
Speaker 3: Though it's sometimes so hard to cut through the noise, Jonathan,
Speaker 3: you're very good at doing that. Our analysts on this
Speaker 3: broadcast have said that these bills, the three spending bills specifically,
Speaker 3: could attract three hundred or more votes that they will pass.
Speaker 3: I know there are concerns about the way things get
Speaker 3: stick together in this Frankenstein strategy, but do you see
Speaker 3: that being the case when we get to Saturday, we're
Speaker 3: going to talk about bills passing the House of Representatives.
Speaker 11: I think, so, you know, it's sure these are issues
Speaker 11: that have support from the vast majority of Democrats and
Speaker 11: probably a significant majority of Republicans as well. It's only
Speaker 11: the process and the procedures that have allowed a small
Speaker 11: faction of Republicans to really jam up the works until now.
Speaker 11: And Speaker Johnson's own reluctance to actually go ahead and
Speaker 11: put these things on the floor. But once the Speaker
Speaker 11: decides to put it up for a vote, there is
Speaker 11: a significant majority in the House. I believe that we'll
Speaker 11: support these things. There might be different coalitions. You might
Speaker 11: see some people defect on Ukraine, more Republicans defect on Ukraine,
Speaker 11: some more Democrats defect on Israel. But I think taken together,
Speaker 11: you'll see a significant majority of the House get this
Speaker 11: done by the end of the week.
Speaker 10: All right, going to be a working weekend in all likelihood.
Speaker 10: For Jonathan Tomari, who covers Congress, Bloomberg Government, thank you
Speaker 10: so much for working hard today as well in joining
Speaker 10: us here on Bloomberg Television and Radio. And Joe like
Speaker 10: we've spoken into existence almost just by raising the question
Speaker 10: of changing the rules on the motion to vacate. Congressman
Speaker 10: Dusty Johnson, a Republican, just posted a video on x
Speaker 10: the platform formerly known as Twitter. Enough is enough, The
Speaker 10: motion to vacate is a waste of time. We need
Speaker 10: to change the rules. He says. He's working with a
Speaker 10: group to change those rules on the motion to boot
Speaker 10: out a speaker, So maybe the effort isn't all too dead.
Speaker 10: It's just coming from outside the leadership ranks.
Speaker 3: Well, and of course that's chair of the main Street
Speaker 3: Republican Caucus, right, so he's going to have that establishment
Speaker 3: view that might not be shared by folks like Marjorie
Speaker 3: Taylor Green and Tom Massey and some others who were
Speaker 3: the instigators here, but pretty remarkable. I think that we're
Speaker 3: our mission today is to cut through the drama because
Speaker 3: there's a lot. We could write tabloids all day to day.
Speaker 3: We could tmz this thing for the rest of the afternoon,
Speaker 3: but there does seem to be a prize at the
Speaker 3: end of the road here come Saturday, whether you're talking
Speaker 3: about allies in Ukraine or in Israel, Kyley, Which is
Speaker 3: why this next conversation is so important.
Speaker 10: Yeah, against the domestic political backdrop is a very real
Speaker 10: and potentially dangerous geopolitical one. Is there a hot conflicts
Speaker 10: all around the world, on the continent of Europe and
Speaker 10: of course in the Middle East. And that is where
Speaker 10: we begin our conversation now with retired General Ken mackenzie.
Speaker 10: He is executive director of the University of South Florida's
Speaker 10: Global and National Security Institute, but also former US Central
Speaker 10: Command Commander General, thank you so much for joining us
Speaker 10: here on Bloomberg Television and Radio. You recently penned an
Speaker 10: op ed in the Wall Street Journal about how you
Speaker 10: viewed the attack we saw last weekend, Aron sending hundreds
Speaker 10: of drones and missiles in Israel's direction. You say that
Speaker 10: was a show of weakness. What does Israel need to
Speaker 10: do to not show weakness in return in its response
Speaker 10: that is still calibrated to not escalate this conflict any further.
Speaker 12: Well, first of all, thanks for having me on today.
Speaker 12: I believe that one of the hardest things you can
Speaker 12: do is translate an operational victory into strategic success, and
Speaker 12: that's the challenge ahead of Israel. Look, Iran is weakened
Speaker 12: in every way by this attack. They're more cut off
Speaker 12: from people in the region, more cut off internationally, and
Speaker 12: they have reason to now look at their own offensive
Speaker 12: capabilities with some concern. So they face their own set
Speaker 12: of problems. Israel's set of problems, though, is really not
Speaker 12: so much the technical military aspect of it, which worked
Speaker 12: quite well over the weekend, but rather how to maintain
Speaker 12: this alliance structure, this collective security approach that was so
Speaker 12: profitable for them and they need to do that while
Speaker 12: still considering whether they or not they're going to strike
Speaker 12: back at Iran. And I think that's the big question.
Speaker 12: How where in the scope of that potential attack. That's
Speaker 12: the big question that lies ahead of Israel right now,
Speaker 12: and they need to think strategically as they come to
Speaker 12: a conclusion.
Speaker 4: Where the US support comes into play.
Speaker 3: General is what I'd love to hear you speak to
Speaker 3: We're talking about sixty billion dollars plus being invested in
Speaker 3: hardware for Ukraine. We know that Ukraine has ammunition shortages.
Speaker 3: You know that every shell at this point matters. Israel
Speaker 3: is in a very different situation. What does it need
Speaker 3: that this fourteen billion dollars can buy?
Speaker 12: Well, I think the main thing Israel is going to
Speaker 12: need is continued supply of interceptors, all the systems, the
Speaker 12: defensive systems that we saw employed over the weekend, because
Speaker 12: I'll tell you we fired a lot of air to
Speaker 12: air missiles shooting down those drones, and we and our
Speaker 12: partners fired a lot of surface to air missiles and
Speaker 12: anti ballistic missiles bringing down those other platforms that were inbound.
Speaker 12: So they're going to need constant replenishment of that you know,
Speaker 12: the good side of the weekend's attack is we successfully
Speaker 12: defended Israel. The bad side is, frankly, you're on the
Speaker 12: wrong side of the cost and position curve. It's easier
Speaker 12: to build the drones, missiles and land attack cruise missiles
Speaker 12: than cheaper, I should say, than it is to build
Speaker 12: the systems that are the Israel So you're on the
Speaker 12: wrong side of that, but we're going to need to
Speaker 12: continue it into the future.
Speaker 10: I think, well, okay, so you're saying basically that what
Speaker 10: all Iron needs to do is do the cheaper thing
Speaker 10: were is. It's much more costly for Israel to do
Speaker 10: what they need to do defensively. So I guess it
Speaker 10: raises the wider question general of how we may need
Speaker 10: to rethink what it is that deters Iran. Is Iran
Speaker 10: likely to change its behavior as a result of this
Speaker 10: attack that sure they called successful, but as we know,
Speaker 10: largely was not, as most of this incoming missile and
Speaker 10: drone to Israel was intercepted, as you've been talking about.
Speaker 10: So is Iran likely to be more dangerous now or
Speaker 10: less dangerous now? I guess is the question? And then
Speaker 10: how do you deter that level of danger?
Speaker 6: Sure.
Speaker 12: So let me back up a step and say why
Speaker 12: did I Ran launch this attack. They launched this attack
Speaker 12: because over the past many months they've been consistently out
Speaker 12: fought by Israel in this shadow war, this dialogue of
Speaker 12: targets that's gone on, culminating in the one April attack
Speaker 12: on Iranian leaders in Damascus. So I think what Iran felt,
Speaker 12: they were in a corner. They were on the wrong
Speaker 12: side of this equation. And so what they try to
Speaker 12: do take a page out of the Russian playbook what
Speaker 12: we call escalate to de escalate, do something profoundly aggressive
Speaker 12: that makes your opponents rock back on their heels and
Speaker 12: realize that maybe the game getting too rich for them.
Speaker 12: Here's the problem, though, Russia uses this because Russia has
Speaker 12: vast resources, including nuclear capabilities. Iran tried it, but their
Speaker 12: attempt was found to be hollow. It was unsuccessful. So
Speaker 12: Iran is in a markedly weaker strategic position today than
Speaker 12: they were last week. Because at the bottom line, the
Speaker 12: most important priority for Iran is preservation of the theocratic
Speaker 12: regime that runs the country, and they have viewed their
Speaker 12: ballistic missiles, drones and land attack cruise missiles as the
Speaker 12: principal thing that deters others from attacking them. So that
Speaker 12: capability now been tested and it has failed. So Iran's
Speaker 12: in a very difficult position. Even as Israel phases difficult choices,
Speaker 12: the harder choices are Iran's because something they viewed as
Speaker 12: very powerful has been exposed.
Speaker 3: General, we'd like to ask you about a couple of
Speaker 3: things beyond Israel, including your time as commander of US
Speaker 3: Central Command, in which you helped to oversee the withdrawal
Speaker 3: from Afghanistan. You testified recently on Capitol Hill about this.
Speaker 3: I would love for our viewers and listeners to get
Speaker 3: a sense of what you said, and we'll have you
Speaker 3: respond on the other side. Let's go back to that
Speaker 3: hearing on Capitol Hill.
Speaker 4: Here's the General.
Speaker 1: Having a plan is one thing.
Speaker 12: Preparing the plan, vetting the plan, coordinating the plan with
Speaker 12: the people that are going to actually carry you out
Speaker 12: the Department of Defense, that's another set of tasks completely.
Speaker 4: And that was too little, too late.
Speaker 12: Was my judgment that it was far too little, far
Speaker 12: too late.
Speaker 3: Speaking with Chairman McCall there just a couple of weeks
Speaker 3: ago on Capitol Hill. General, I'm bringing this up because
Speaker 3: this is going to be an issue on the campaign trail,
Speaker 3: something that we're covering very closely here as we enter
Speaker 3: the general election cycle. And I wonder if you agree
Speaker 3: that Joe Biden should be judged by this.
Speaker 12: Well, the presidence of the Commander in chief, he makes
Speaker 12: ultimate decisions for the military of the United States. He
Speaker 12: made the ultimate decision to withdraw from Afghanistan, and that
Speaker 12: decision was executed by US. I believe that part of
Speaker 12: the decision called for trying to keep an embassy platform
Speaker 12: en Kabo after we've withdrawn our military forces, and we
Speaker 12: also chose not to bring out our citizens and at
Speaker 12: risk Afghans as we pulled our military forces out. So
Speaker 12: you get to the middle of August, we predicted the
Speaker 12: government of Afghanistan's falling. You've got the embassy at risk,
Speaker 12: you've got our citizens at risk, and you've got these
Speaker 12: tens of thousands of Afghans that you want to bring out. Unfortunately,
Speaker 12: you're not positioned to do that, so you have to react.
Speaker 12: You have to go back in, establish a very tenuous
Speaker 12: but ultimately effective defense of Harmed Karzi International Airfield and
Speaker 12: get people out. And that was a difficult, dangerous operation
Speaker 12: and it involved that large element of tragedy. Thirteen brave
Speaker 12: Americans died trying to conduct that operation. That weighs very
Speaker 12: heavily on me, and it will weigh heavily on me
Speaker 12: for the rest of my life.
Speaker 3: Well, I understand that, General, and I appreciate your sharing
Speaker 3: that did you give the president advice that he did
Speaker 3: not take?
Speaker 12: So, as you know, we prefer not to actually talk
Speaker 12: directly about that. I think my opinion at the time
Speaker 12: was leaving completely was a mistake. Uh And I've been
Speaker 12: pretty open about that ever since my views were heard.
Speaker 12: Present made a decision, and he is actually decision maker.
Speaker 12: He gets to make that call, and my opinion then
Speaker 12: my opinion now remains the same. We would have been
Speaker 12: wiser to keep a small residual force in Afghanistan. Uh
Speaker 12: and I stand by that.
Speaker 10: Today, General, we just have a minute left with you.
Speaker 10: But Mitch McConnell said on the Senate floor today that
Speaker 10: the political reality is, if you think the fall off
Speaker 10: Afghanistan was bad, the fall of a European capital city
Speaker 10: like Kiev to Russian troops will be unimaginably worse. And
Speaker 10: I wonder if you agree with that characterization, Sir, Given
Speaker 10: what you've already seen.
Speaker 12: Well. My position would be that I think the fall
Speaker 12: of Kiev would be disastrous for NATO, It would be
Speaker 12: disastrous for our credibility and the credibility of the North
Speaker 12: Atlantic Treaty organization, and it would probably prompt further aggressive
Speaker 12: moves from Vladimir put.
Speaker 4: General, we thank you for the time. We would love
Speaker 4: to have you back.
Speaker 3: Retired General Ken McKenzie, retired four star, also former commander
Speaker 3: US Central Command. We also want to note his forthcoming book,
Speaker 3: The Melting Point, High Command and War in the twenty
Speaker 3: first Century.
Speaker 4: Congratulations on the book. General, come and talk to us
Speaker 4: again on Balancing Power.
Speaker 3: Thanks for listening to the Balance of Power podcast. Make
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