Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Votes and Verdicts podcast, hosted
Speaker 1: by the litigation and policy team at Bloomberg Intelligence, the
Speaker 1: investment research platform of Bloomberg LP. This podcast series examines
Speaker 1: the intersection of business policy and law. I'm Elliott Stein,
Speaker 1: an analyst with Bloomberg Intelligence covering financials litigation.
Speaker 2: And my name is Nathan Dean, and I'm an analyst
Speaker 2: with Bloomberg Intelligence covering financials policy.
Speaker 1: So our topic for today is one of the subjects
Speaker 1: that is going to dominate the news headlines throughout the year. Washington, DC.
Speaker 1: What can we expect to come out of Congress, from
Speaker 1: regulators and the White House in twenty twenty four? Will
Speaker 1: Congress pass any legislation this year that will have an
Speaker 1: impact on your portfolio? While regulators increase their rulemaking pace
Speaker 1: this year to finalize items before the twenty twenty four
Speaker 1: elections and perhaps to get ahead of a ruling on
Speaker 1: the Chevron case. How will the elections shape US policy
Speaker 1: for years to come? How should investors think about a
Speaker 1: potential rematch between President Biden and former President Trump. Joining
Speaker 1: us today to help answer those questions are some of
Speaker 1: the best individuals distributing policy research and analysis to Wall Street,
Speaker 1: and we could not be more delighted to have them
Speaker 1: on our podcast. First, we'd like to introduce Henrietta Treys,
Speaker 1: director of Economic policy Research with Vada Partners. Henrietta has
Speaker 1: provided investors with economic policy analysis for over fifteen years
Speaker 1: on a broad set of topics, including financial services and
Speaker 1: healthcare reform. She is also in a lum of Congress,
Speaker 1: having worked for the Senate Finance Committee and as a
Speaker 1: research fellow for a congressional member, and she's also a
Speaker 1: frequent contributor to Bloomberg TV and Radio. Henrietta, Welcome to
Speaker 1: the podcast.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having me. Grilled to be here.
Speaker 1: And also joining us is another contributor to Bloomberg TV
Speaker 1: and Radio. Isaac Boltanski Managing director and Director of Policy
Speaker 1: Research at BTIG, where he is responsible for coordinating the
Speaker 1: firm's Washington policy analysis and forecasting how potential policy shifts
Speaker 1: could impact investors, corporations, and other market participants. Prior to BTIG,
Speaker 1: Isaac was the director of policy research at Compass Point
Speaker 1: Research and Trading and also served as a research analyst
Speaker 1: on the Troubled Asset Relief Program TARP. As many of you,
Speaker 1: I'm sir know it a TARP Congressional oversight panel. So, Isaac,
Speaker 1: welcome to the Votes and Verdicts Podcast.
Speaker 4: Thanks for the invite, Happy to be here with both
Speaker 4: of you. I appreciate your research, and always good to
Speaker 4: be with Henrietta.
Speaker 1: Thank you both. So for our regular listeners, we're gonna
Speaker 1: do things a little bit differently for this episode because
Speaker 1: we have this great panel of Washington experts, So we're
Speaker 1: gonna sort of do this as a round robin of sorts,
Speaker 1: asking you know, some of the key questions that we've
Speaker 1: that are on our minds, on clients' minds, on investors' minds. So,
Speaker 1: without further ado, let's get right into it. Let's talk
Speaker 1: about predictions for twenty twenty four. Henrietta, why don't we
Speaker 1: start with you and then Isaac and Nathan, you guys
Speaker 1: can jump in after. I'd like to, you know, start with,
Speaker 1: you know, sort of a broad question, what is the
Speaker 1: one thing in twenty twenty four a key prediction that
Speaker 1: you think the market is out of consensus on. Is
Speaker 1: there something that markets aren't paying attention to, whether it's legislative, regulatory,
Speaker 1: or from the executive branch?
Speaker 5: Oh Man, Where to start I would say that the
Speaker 5: most frequent conversation I have with investors is really around
Speaker 5: FED interest rate cuts.
Speaker 3: When's that going to start? When's it going to end.
Speaker 5: There is a prevailing view in any meeting I go
Speaker 5: to that the Fed is going to hold off reducing
Speaker 5: interest rates as we get closer to the election, and
Speaker 5: I disagree with that. That's not my experience having worked
Speaker 5: closely with those agencies during the Great Recession. You know,
Speaker 5: whatever the FED needs to do, whenever they're going to
Speaker 5: need to do it, they will act. I think that
Speaker 5: will be independent of a lot of sort of political
Speaker 5: maybe conspiracy theories. I sometimes think about them as But
Speaker 5: expectations is for starting cuts in March and going through
Speaker 5: maybe August September. I think if they need to go
Speaker 5: well into September, they will do so.
Speaker 3: So that's one big one.
Speaker 5: The next big disconnect is really just a commitment to
Speaker 5: the idea that there will be another candidate on the
Speaker 5: twenty twenty four presidential election ballot that is not named
Speaker 5: Biden or Trump.
Speaker 3: We get that a lot.
Speaker 5: Every single room I walk into, we have that conversation
Speaker 5: for a long time, you know, ten fifteen, twenty minutes
Speaker 5: just spitballing ideas about who else could it be, what
Speaker 5: happens if one of them drops out? If this were
Speaker 5: any other two people in any other year, I don't
Speaker 5: think anybody would question the lock that Donald Trump has
Speaker 5: on the Republican Party.
Speaker 3: And Joe Briden is the Democratic nominee.
Speaker 5: He is the preferred candidate of eighty three percent of
Speaker 5: Democrats now and I expect that will rise.
Speaker 3: So I don't see a path forward for other candidates.
Speaker 5: By the time y'all publish this podcast, maybe we'll have
Speaker 5: more information out of New Hampshire. But after New Hampshire,
Speaker 5: I think the primary season is done, and then investors
Speaker 5: will really start potentially being able to bake in what
Speaker 5: their expectations are for the election. There is probably the
Speaker 5: most to do on the tax front, and then also
Speaker 5: on the trade front. So those are two areas that
Speaker 5: I focus on heavily with clients, and.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about some of those issues some more in
Speaker 1: terms of congressional and presidential priorities. But sticking on twenty
Speaker 1: four key predictions, Isaac, anything you want to anything to
Speaker 1: keep it in an eye on.
Speaker 6: Yeah, Look, I think Henrietta's right.
Speaker 4: The number of conversations I have where people are just
Speaker 4: high on hopium regarding some other candidate riding in to
Speaker 4: save the twenty twenty four election. Nobody wants it to
Speaker 4: be Biden v. Trump, but it's going to be Biden v. Trump,
Speaker 4: And I think that there is definitely in the investor
Speaker 4: community some hope that there'll be another set up.
Speaker 6: I just don't see it.
Speaker 4: So I think really getting our arms around understanding what's
Speaker 4: going to be an ugly and emotionally exhausting election cycle,
Speaker 4: because that is what it's setting up as. I would
Speaker 4: also say that I don't think that market's fully ready
Speaker 4: yet for the absolute flurry of rule making that we're
Speaker 4: going to get from the agencies in advance of the
Speaker 4: Congressional Review Act, deadline, advance of the Chevron ruling, advance
Speaker 4: of the election, and so you know, you can you
Speaker 4: can pick any part of the alphabet soup that runs down,
Speaker 4: and they're trying to get these papers out and done
Speaker 4: as soon as they can, because look, we get into
Speaker 4: May of this year, and if you are releasing something
Speaker 4: after that, you may be in trouble. In terms of
Speaker 4: the Congressional Review Act, which allows for an expedited means
Speaker 4: of reversing a rule, and so I think that's the
Speaker 4: one area that I've been highlighting in terms of something
Speaker 4: that might not be that sexy but could have an
Speaker 4: enormous impact for certain sectors with real finalization.
Speaker 1: I was just going to say, often comes litigation, So
Speaker 1: which is what I covered. So I'm looking forward to back.
Speaker 1: All right, Nathan, what did you want to tie name it?
Speaker 2: So I was gonna just echo Isaac's comment about the
Speaker 2: rule making. I mean, even if you just look at
Speaker 2: the SEC calendar, they're starting with a rule on specs
Speaker 2: on January twenty fourth, and I think they're just going
Speaker 2: to go straight through. It's almost gonna be like primary
Speaker 2: season for the SEC. They've got so much stuff on
Speaker 2: the docket. But my one prediction that I'm going to
Speaker 2: go out there is I'm going to say that the
Speaker 2: Puzzil three and is finalized.
Speaker 1: I don't think.
Speaker 2: I think there is a growing consensus in Wall Street
Speaker 2: and amongst the banks that this may not happen, and
Speaker 2: I certainly don't. I certainly think there is a decent
Speaker 2: chance that it may not happen. But if you look
Speaker 2: at the regulatory agendas that the regulators, the FED, the
Speaker 2: OCC and the FDIC to put out. They've said that
Speaker 2: their goal for finalizing the Bosle three.
Speaker 1: End game is June.
Speaker 2: Now, that is so fast in terms of going from
Speaker 2: proposal to finalization and so forth like that. But like
Speaker 2: Isaac has pointed out, you know, you've got a Congressional
Speaker 2: Review Act out there, You've got this potential for a
Speaker 2: GP victory out there, You've got a lot of things
Speaker 2: that are just uncertain for the regulatory framework going forward.
Speaker 2: So I think you're going to have to make massive changes.
Speaker 2: And we can talk about this later, but as of
Speaker 2: right now, we're still saying sixty percent chance that the
Speaker 2: Buzzle three end game gets out this year.
Speaker 1: Let's stick Let's stick on that for a moment. Isaac
Speaker 1: or Henrietta, either of you think they don't get it
Speaker 1: done by their anticipated timeline of what did you say,
Speaker 1: married June?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I could see it slip, but I
Speaker 2: still you know they're they're aiming for June. And and
Speaker 2: this says everybody knows those those dates aren't set in stone,
Speaker 2: but uh, I think they're gonna right now. They're proceeding
Speaker 2: is if they're going to finalize it this.
Speaker 1: Year, And the comments have been voluminous, as I'm sure
Speaker 1: you guys all saw. So Isaaca Henry had any thoughts
Speaker 1: on on the timing, I'm.
Speaker 4: I'm happy to jump in on this one because I've
Speaker 4: I've spent the past day and a half of my
Speaker 4: life reading comment letters, and god knows, I'm not going
Speaker 4: to get bad time back. But you know, my view is,
Speaker 4: I don't think they're going to have it finalized this year.
Speaker 4: I think that the odds of a reproposal have have
Speaker 4: increased meaningfully over the past few weeks. I think that
Speaker 4: the letters that you've seen from the Hill, as well
Speaker 4: as everything I've been able to pick up in regards
Speaker 4: to some consternation within the agencies and the principles in
Speaker 4: the agencies, and then you throw on top of it
Speaker 4: some of these comment letters where you have a pretty
Speaker 4: diverse set of folks expressing concern regarding this proposal and
Speaker 4: it's economic impact. So look, I'm taking the over on
Speaker 4: that I'm not as fearful of the Congressional Review Act.
Speaker 4: One of the peculiarities of the Congressional Review Act is
Speaker 4: that if you do use it, which by the way,
Speaker 4: they don't really like using it for financial services issues.
Speaker 4: When you know, they're going to have control of these
Speaker 4: agencies shortly after, so they can just change the issues
Speaker 4: at hand. But then also it effectively salts the earth
Speaker 4: for new rule making anything that's substantively similar, which Elliott
Speaker 4: hasn't been fully litigated yet, so there's still questions around that,
Speaker 4: of course. But look, I'm taking the over. I think
Speaker 4: that they're going to do an impact study that's going
Speaker 4: to take time. I think they're going to work to
Speaker 4: find a way to try to handle some of the
Speaker 4: low hanging fruit, everything for mortgage to the treatment of
Speaker 4: corporate loans. But they're massive fights over the use of
Speaker 4: internal models and other things that lead me and believe
Speaker 4: this is going to slip into the end of twenty
Speaker 4: four and maybe even twenty five if they decide to repropose.
Speaker 1: All right, Nathan with the under, Isaac with the over, Henrietta,
Speaker 1: you want to be peace maker or his side with
Speaker 1: one of these gentlemen.
Speaker 5: I very much agree with Isaac on the level of
Speaker 5: consternation that's coming out, and I don't think Nathan is
Speaker 5: discounting that at all either.
Speaker 3: What's interesting from my perspective is the.
Speaker 5: That the reach that the complaints have been able to
Speaker 5: secure so you know, whether it's a healthcare conference or
Speaker 5: you know, Jamie Diamond is out speaking somewhere. The trickle
Speaker 5: down effect of somebody at the top having a negative
Speaker 5: reaction to these rules and proposals is so widespread that
Speaker 5: it's covered the blanket at the whole street at this point.
Speaker 5: So I'd expect exactly the dynamic Isaac is talking about.
Speaker 5: Just to get louder I did not spend the last
Speaker 5: day and a half reading those complaint letters, so thank
Speaker 5: you for doing it, Isaac.
Speaker 1: You're waiting for the movie. Yes, all right, let's uh,
Speaker 1: let's which gears a little and talk about Congress. So
Speaker 1: we're recording this on January eighteenth, and at this time,
Speaker 1: Speaker Johnson and congressional negotiators are still trying to find
Speaker 1: a deal to keep the government open, and so because
Speaker 1: of that, we're not going to talk about, you know,
Speaker 1: a potential government shut down, since that issue could be
Speaker 1: resolved by the time this episode there is. Maybe maybe not,
Speaker 1: but I do want to focus a little bit on
Speaker 1: congressional priorities for twenty twenty four from Speaker Mike Johnson.
Speaker 1: Once we get past this government funding issue, can Speaker
Speaker 1: Johnson effectively run the House? What are his priorities for
Speaker 1: the coming year? Can he handle you know, the many
Speaker 1: internal disagreements that he has with his party, similar to
Speaker 1: what we saw recently when twelve Republicans helped bring down
Speaker 1: and otherwise ordinary rules vote. Do you even think he'll
Speaker 1: be speaker at the end of twenty twenty four? So
Speaker 1: a lot of questions that I wanted to sort of
Speaker 1: throw out there, Isa, think, why don't we start with
Speaker 1: you this time?
Speaker 4: So the initial question is does Speaker Johnson is he
Speaker 4: able to effectively manage the house? The answer is no.
Speaker 4: What's the next question? You know, I think it's been
Speaker 4: pretty clear that this is an ungovernable house. And when
Speaker 4: I and I would even take a step farther and
Speaker 4: to say, you know, look, we're an earning season now.
Speaker 4: An earning season is all about expectations management, And boy,
Speaker 4: oh boy, was the bar set low for one hundred
Speaker 4: and eighteenth Congress and somehow they can't even clear that
Speaker 4: low bar. And that's what you have when you have
Speaker 4: margins this this tight on each side.
Speaker 6: And so look, I.
Speaker 4: Think that we are we are gearing up to get
Speaker 4: a Christmas tree done and I'm very interested in what
Speaker 4: Henrietta and Nathan think on this, But I do think
Speaker 4: that there's a path forward on one of these catch
Speaker 4: all bills that everyone gets to hang their ornament on.
Speaker 4: But no, I don't expect much more, And really I
Speaker 4: think it's it's almost an impossible task with the margins
Speaker 4: where they are in the way that our political discourses
Speaker 4: has unfolded over the past few years. So no, I
Speaker 4: don't think that we should expect much more than the
Speaker 4: absolute bare minimum. And let's just hope they can even
Speaker 4: do that.
Speaker 1: Always good to go with the under with on what
Speaker 1: Congress is going to get done. Nathan thoughts on this, Yeah.
Speaker 2: So you know, I do think Speaker Johnson's going to
Speaker 2: be Speaker at the end of the House. I think
Speaker 2: he's somewhat called a little bit of a bluff during
Speaker 2: the most recent government funding deal when he refused to
Speaker 2: back off his one point sixty six or one point
Speaker 2: five to nine trillion dollar government spending bill, depending who
Speaker 2: you talk to. They think they somewhat disagree on the
Speaker 2: top playing number here, But I echo Isaac's comments that
Speaker 2: I think once they figure out this spending package and
Speaker 2: they avoid this automatic sequester that's coming on April thirtieth.
Speaker 2: You know, if we're still under a cr there's a
Speaker 2: one percent sequester coming. Once they figure that out, and
Speaker 2: I think they will. I think folks are just going
Speaker 2: to say we're tired, We're going to go to the election,
Speaker 2: you know, spend the entire summer, because you know, I
Speaker 2: often tell it to clients that when Congress is stuck
Speaker 2: here in Washington doing this stuff, like let's just say
Speaker 2: that somebody tries to kick Speaker Johnson out and they're
Speaker 2: going to have like ten days of trying to figure
Speaker 2: out who the next speaker is. That's ten days that
Speaker 2: your opponent is out in your district campaigning against you,
Speaker 2: if you're in the House. And so I certainly think
Speaker 2: that most of the folks over in Congress will say, look,
Speaker 2: let's just get our end of the year priority set
Speaker 2: up in May or June. Let's just call it what
Speaker 2: it is. Let's go for the election. And obviously there
Speaker 2: are things like Ukraine and Israel and border security, and
Speaker 2: I'm going to defer to my other two guests on
Speaker 2: those because they are better versed than that than I am.
Speaker 2: You know, all that stuff has to get resolved, but
Speaker 2: there will come a point where like, look, I'm just
Speaker 2: thinking about November and I don't care about anything else.
Speaker 1: Henrietta thoughts on this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, my favorite thing.
Speaker 5: I don't know if my client it's like enough, but
Speaker 5: I always go by the Congressional calendar. I find it
Speaker 5: to be deeply informative and helpful in predicting when they
Speaker 5: will come up with conclusions. So right now as we speak,
Speaker 5: the House and Sentative reached a deal on voting on
Speaker 5: the CR so.
Speaker 3: They can get out tomorrow before the storm.
Speaker 5: But if you look ahead, it sounds like we've got
Speaker 5: a good deal of time between March first and March chase,
Speaker 5: but they're in session almost none of February, so we,
Speaker 5: by functionality, have to have another CR. And this is
Speaker 5: going to be a tightrope walk for Speaker Johnson. I
Speaker 5: suspect he will succeed. The guys have kind of alluded
Speaker 5: to a dynamic that I think is really informative here,
Speaker 5: which is that members remember the three week period where
Speaker 5: they were trying to re elect a new Speaker and
Speaker 5: that was awful. They've gone through their whole roster, so
Speaker 5: at this point Speaker Johnson is not really somebody that
Speaker 5: they're unwilling to bash. Obviously that's happening, but there's no
Speaker 5: other candidate, so he's going to do exactly what Kevin
Speaker 5: McCarthy did, which is just move the needle, move the
Speaker 5: ball down the field every couple of weeks by four,
Speaker 5: six weeks at a time. And I think for investors
Speaker 5: the sequester is of interest, mostly on the defense side.
Speaker 5: We have a lot of defense clients who want to
Speaker 5: know when spending cuts are going into effect. With ninety
Speaker 5: percent odds, I think the sequester will never go into effect.
Speaker 5: I was in Congress when they were writing the Budget
Speaker 5: Control Act, and if you remember that one trillion dollar sequester,
Speaker 5: the most notable thing about it was that it never happened.
Speaker 5: So I suspect that will happen this time around as well.
Speaker 3: But if you really wanted to look and.
Speaker 5: See when a major spending bill, the Christmas tree kind
Speaker 5: of idea that Isaac is referencing, I don't think it's
Speaker 5: coming in February because they're not in session, but the
Speaker 5: period between March fifth and April eighteenth is one we'll
Speaker 5: see the next big spending bill written, and probably the
Speaker 5: last bill that they pass all year. Aside from regulatory stuff,
Speaker 5: We're not going to see anything out of DC. There
Speaker 5: is no tax bill that's going to pass. There is
Speaker 5: no additional stimulus coming down the pike. We are just
Speaker 5: going to fund the government at the most basic of levels.
Speaker 5: I do think that we will get an international aid package,
Speaker 5: in no small part because we also need fifty five
Speaker 5: billion dollars in domestic aid for things like back billing FEMA,
Speaker 5: things like wildland firefighters, some broadband components that a lot
Speaker 5: of investors are interested in seeing renewed.
Speaker 3: So I do think that there is.
Speaker 5: Enough money to throw around to get these guys to
Speaker 5: vote on a bill before they leave down and go campaign.
Speaker 5: And of course that's my politics usually works. Pork barrel
Speaker 5: spending gets the job done.
Speaker 1: What about crypto and something getting done in Congress on crypto?
Speaker 1: I know, you know, it's been talked about a long time.
Speaker 1: You know, there have been cryptocurrency frameworks proposed, some of
Speaker 1: them bipartisan. You know, I think there is talk about
Speaker 1: maybe a stable coin bill getting done first, potentially. Wondering
Speaker 1: if you guys had any thoughts on this, Nathan, you
Speaker 1: want to go first?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So what I told my crypto clients is that
Speaker 2: they need to start paying attention to twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2: I mean, like they are more better framed the courts,
Speaker 2: you know, like the coin based SEC court that I
Speaker 2: know Elliott was visiting yesterday and we'll have his analysis
Speaker 2: out on the terminal for that. But I don't think
Speaker 2: Congress is going to be doing anything now when it
Speaker 2: comes to stable coins. I even have said as soon
Speaker 2: as late December that I thought a stable coin bill
Speaker 2: could get done. And the reason being is is that
Speaker 2: there is a regulatory gap that I think pretty much
Speaker 2: anybody can agree on when it comes to stable coins,
Speaker 2: you know, other than SEC Chairman Gary genslerre viewing them
Speaker 2: sort of like a money market account. There who regulates
Speaker 2: the stable coin. Nobody really knows, and so I think
Speaker 2: there is general agreement on that they can get there
Speaker 2: on a stable coin, having it one hundred percent backed
Speaker 2: by high quality liquid assets and have it registered with
Speaker 2: the FED and or another regulator. The question is can
Speaker 2: something get done into Congress, like we just allude to,
Speaker 2: is so toxic and so at the end of the year,
Speaker 2: I even put in one of her predictions, I thought
Speaker 2: there was a sixty percent chance every day that we goes.
Speaker 2: I just feel less and less certain on that. And
Speaker 2: so if there's any crypto investors out there listening to
Speaker 2: the podcast right now, I think it's more importantly to
Speaker 2: watch the courts and see what happens in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2: But just remember, even as of yesterday, President Trump gave
Speaker 2: a statement that there's no way, in his words of way,
Speaker 2: no chance of ever having essential being digital currency. So
Speaker 2: you know, what you get in twenty twenty five may
Speaker 2: not be what you want to see either.
Speaker 1: And I wasn't in court yesterday for the SEC versus
Speaker 1: Coinbase here in in my note Nathan is already published
Speaker 1: on the terminal this morning. I like Coinbase's chances in
Speaker 1: that case, which raises a question which we can throw
Speaker 1: into the next for you all. Let's say the SEC
Speaker 1: loses and loses badly, and that they're theory of evacuating crypto.
Speaker 1: You know, one of the securities laws gets rejected by
Speaker 1: the courts. That and motivate Democrats in Congress to play
Speaker 1: ball a little more with Republicans in terms of legislation.
Speaker 1: I'll add to the next Henrietta, do you want to
Speaker 1: go next talking about this issue?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'd back up to the thirty thousand foot view
Speaker 5: on that one. I think Democrats and Republicans both have
Speaker 5: a substantial interest in engaging on the topic because that
Speaker 5: legislation is going to be a lobbying bonanza. It's a
Speaker 5: great opportunity for fundraising. I think any member would like
Speaker 5: to be one of the co sponsors.
Speaker 3: Of legislation on this. It's just a matter of getting
Speaker 3: the details correct.
Speaker 5: And one thing about DC that is universal is that
Speaker 5: they are very lumbering when it comes to learning about
Speaker 5: a new product.
Speaker 3: I mean, they still haven't adequately regulated the internet to
Speaker 3: internet sales.
Speaker 5: So to do crypto as quickly as we're asking, I
Speaker 5: think is to sort of miss that Congress loves to
Speaker 5: take its time. These things are great opportunities for members
Speaker 5: to get their name out there, may press comments, differentiate
Speaker 5: themselves on the campaign trail. So I do expect that
Speaker 5: there will be legislation, but I wouldn't expect it anytime soon,
Speaker 5: certainly not this year.
Speaker 1: Got it, Isaac? You want to turn in?
Speaker 6: Yeah, Look, it's all so silly.
Speaker 4: We spend so much time talking about these crypto bills,
Speaker 4: and the stable coin bill was actually a good bill.
Speaker 4: They still haven't really figured out what to do with
Speaker 4: state regulatory authority, and that's a huge, huge issue, and
Speaker 4: until they get that handled, I just don't see that moving.
Speaker 4: But that's a good bill. All of the other bills
Speaker 4: are just nibbling around the edges. It's absurd to me
Speaker 4: how much time we spent talking about some of these
Speaker 4: leading bills that don't actually define what a security is. Right,
Speaker 4: we're still dodging the huge central question of all of this,
Speaker 4: and so look, I don't see Congress doing anything on this.
Speaker 4: I think that we've got to keep in mind a
Speaker 4: lot of democratic lawmakers feel really burned by the crypto world.
Speaker 4: A lot of these lawmakers staffers spent the past year
Speaker 4: scrubbing the social media profiles of their bosses to make
Speaker 4: sure there weren't any pictures of them with Sam Bankman
Speaker 4: Freed left up right. So there's definitely some are more
Speaker 4: from the democratic side, and they think that they've got
Speaker 4: their regulators in and the regulators will handle it. So Congress,
Speaker 4: I just don't see them actually moving on this, and
Speaker 4: I think it's all going to be in Elliott's world.
Speaker 4: We got to keep in mind the biggest news of
Speaker 4: the past few weeks in digital assets were these ETFs
Speaker 4: being approved? Why did they get approved because of the
Speaker 4: gray scale court decision. Right, it's the courts who are
Speaker 4: going to force us, and that takes time.
Speaker 6: But that's why you got to read what Elliott writes.
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you for that endorsement. I appreciate that.
Speaker 1: All right, let's move on down to the White House
Speaker 1: down Pennsylvania Avenue, where you know, as you've talked about,
Speaker 1: President Biden is likely running for the election against former
Speaker 1: President Trump, and so let's talk about some of President
Speaker 1: Biden's goals between now and the election. What do you
Speaker 1: think his key goal is going to be before between
Speaker 1: now and the election, if he has one. Are there
Speaker 1: any policy catalysts that you anticipate focus on before November.
Speaker 1: Let's see who goes first here, Henriette, I want't you
Speaker 1: go first? Sure?
Speaker 3: I think there's two things for the president to do.
Speaker 5: Bring abortion back to the fold, make sure that that's
Speaker 5: a front, top of mind issue for voters. It was
Speaker 5: able to sway every single election, even in a nine
Speaker 5: percent inflation environment that we've had since the Dobbs decision,
Speaker 5: So it is clearly an effective and permanent source of
Speaker 5: galvanization that Democrats must seize on. The good news for
Speaker 5: Biden is he's not going to have to try very hard.
Speaker 5: The Supreme Court is going to rule on a very
Speaker 5: important case that will determine the process by which fifty
Speaker 5: percent of abortions in America are conducted this summer. So
Speaker 5: it's a natural development that the administration can take advantage of.
Speaker 5: And I think it'll be very difficult for the Republican
Speaker 5: Party to distance itself from the fact that Rob Wade
Speaker 5: was overturned because of Trump's Supreme Court nominee endorsements and
Speaker 5: picks beyond abortion, which in my opinion and experience shows
Speaker 5: is efficient to win Democrats and election despite hardships on
Speaker 5: the economy side. You do want to see the administration
Speaker 5: get a serious reality check about their messaging on the
Speaker 5: state of the US economy. Thirty percent of Americans believe
Speaker 5: that we are in an economic recovery. The remaining seventy
Speaker 5: percent believe we're in stagnation, depression, or recession. That is
Speaker 5: a disconnect that has I think no room to go
Speaker 5: lower because it's preposterously out of balance, and a lot
Speaker 5: of room to go higher. So the Biden administration has
Speaker 5: a ripe opportunity to build the big mo which in
Speaker 5: politics is all important, especially coming out of Super Tuesday
Speaker 5: March fifth, and then they'll have the State of the
Speaker 5: Union on March seventh. It's a good opportunity for the
Speaker 5: Biden administration to really pivot to exclusively talking about a
Speaker 5: three point seven percent unemployment rate, the best inflation on
Speaker 5: the globe, strong GDP growth, and no recession soft landing,
Speaker 5: which we can debate how long that will be sustained for,
Speaker 5: but if that has occurred, all.
Speaker 4: Right, you want to jump in here, Yeah, I make
Speaker 4: you a point to never disagree with Henrietta when she's
Speaker 4: absolutely right.
Speaker 6: I mean, that's that's the that's the that's one of
Speaker 6: the core political focuses.
Speaker 4: I'll just add a little bit more from my seat
Speaker 4: that I think we should be prepared for when we
Speaker 4: talk about the economy. The White House has really gone
Speaker 4: all in on this junk fee push. We saw yesterday
Speaker 4: the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released a rule regarding bank
Speaker 4: and credit union overdraft fees. I think that we're going
Speaker 4: to see the CFPB finalize its credit card late fee
Speaker 4: rule right around the State of the Union that Henrietta
Speaker 4: mentioned and that's going to get some primetime, so that'll
Speaker 4: continue on on the economic front, they think that they've
Speaker 4: got a winner on that end. And also, look, you know,
Speaker 4: the other issue that's come up over the past few
Speaker 4: weeks is I do think that they're going to alter
Speaker 4: the treatment of cannabis under the Controlled Substances Act and
Speaker 4: move it from Schedule one to Schedule three. I know
Speaker 4: that's probably flight under the radar for some folks, but
Speaker 4: that's another part of I think their election year to
Speaker 4: do list, and they've they've set that up for movement
Speaker 4: I think in the next couple of months.
Speaker 1: And Nathan, anything you want to time in with.
Speaker 2: The only other thing I would add is that I
Speaker 2: would expect more talk about infrastructure and the Inflation Reduction Act,
Speaker 2: because you know, we had news reports at the end
Speaker 2: of the year and this was never verified, but news
Speaker 2: reports that President Biden was quite upset that he wasn't
Speaker 2: as getting as much play for those infrastructure related projects,
Speaker 2: which you know come in in this case in the
Speaker 2: variety of tax credits and tax incentives and so forth
Speaker 2: like that. And you know, I think that you know
Speaker 2: a lot of investors, especially non US investors, want to
Speaker 2: know what the future of the Inflation Reduction Act is
Speaker 2: if somebody like President Trump were to come into office,
Speaker 2: and so I think you're going to see.
Speaker 1: Maybe not so much.
Speaker 2: Look, I don't think going out to you know, Nevada
Speaker 2: and saying we got the Inflation Reduction Act. I don't
Speaker 2: think that's going to sway as much votes as like
Speaker 2: abortion or something else would. But I do think that
Speaker 2: maybe in the business community you may see a push
Speaker 2: from the White House to try and highlight some more
Speaker 2: examples of these tax incentives and solar energy, clean energy
Speaker 2: and so forth like that. So that's one of the
Speaker 2: things that we're interested in the election more so of
Speaker 2: is that where do all these carrots that are in
Speaker 2: the IRA fall, you know, in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 5: If I could just say briefly on that, Nathan, I
Speaker 5: think that's such an excellent point. There's so much economic
Speaker 5: activity that has been sort of locked up and delayed
Speaker 5: because it took so long to get the tax rules
Speaker 5: written for those credits.
Speaker 3: And one of the most.
Speaker 5: Frequent things I hear when I speak with Republicans is
Speaker 5: really reminiscent of the Affordable Care Act, and the Republicans
Speaker 5: and Trump have seized on the IRA as just being
Speaker 5: vehemently opposed as sort of like a knee jerk reaction.
Speaker 3: And that's all fine, and well, you know, nobody likes
Speaker 3: eighty billion dollars in IRS.
Speaker 5: That's fine, But it's the tax credits that are so
Speaker 5: economically effective that haven't even gone out yet, that are
Speaker 5: going to unlock billions of dollars in private equity across
Speaker 5: the entire South, which is where a lot of those
Speaker 5: jobs are going to be created. So it's a great
Speaker 5: opportunity for the Biden administration to put Republicans who are
Speaker 5: happy to run in the anti IRA basket, but their
Speaker 5: districts and their seats benefit greatly from the job creation
Speaker 5: and the economic activity they'll be spurred by those tax credits.
Speaker 5: So it's a great way to put Republican lawmakers between
Speaker 5: a rock and a hard place.
Speaker 3: I would say focus on Georgia.
Speaker 5: The President needs all the help you can get there
Speaker 5: if he wants to repeat at twenty twenty, this would
Speaker 5: be a good opportunity.
Speaker 2: I was going to say, if anybody from the White
Speaker 2: House is listening, I think at the greater Atlanta area
Speaker 2: is probably one of those areas that you want to
Speaker 2: put the IRA adverts up for.
Speaker 3: Couldn't agree more.
Speaker 1: Speaking of Fulton County, let's talk about President Trump's legal
Speaker 1: issues and how those might play in an election. Does
Speaker 1: that you know, does anyone here think that, you know,
Speaker 1: the many indictments and several cases that he's facing will
Speaker 1: prevent him in any way from from obtaining the nomination
Speaker 1: or winning the presidency. I just saw the chart the
Speaker 1: other the other day showing that, you know, his polling
Speaker 1: was declining and the santises and disantans at least was
Speaker 1: rising up until the first indictment of Trump, I believe
Speaker 1: last March or so, and then you know, Trump's numbers
Speaker 1: started going up. So what are your thoughts on that, Isaac?
Speaker 1: Let's start with you.
Speaker 4: I feel like a lot of it is is honestly
Speaker 4: a distraction from what investors care about, which is who
Speaker 4: is going to be the nominee. Trump is going to
Speaker 4: be the nominee. I think that the indictments that we've
Speaker 4: seen have helped him. You can make that argument in
Speaker 4: the polling, but more so I just focused on the
Speaker 4: fact that a third of the GOP primary voters are
Speaker 4: going to vote for him no matter what, no matter
Speaker 4: who is on the ballot, no matter what issues are
Speaker 4: driving the news that day, and when we have this
Speaker 4: shift that we have to more winner take all primaries,
Speaker 4: it's just so clear that he's going to be the nominee.
Speaker 4: So we have to track the cases. They're meaningful from
Speaker 4: a headline perspective for investors, but substantively I just don't
Speaker 4: think it matters because he is cruising to the nomination.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I got this question recently because the polling does suggest
Speaker 5: that Trump is benefiting from these indictments. He's obviously doing
Speaker 5: public relations campaignings by showing up at his civil trials
Speaker 5: as well. The question that I encourage people to focus on,
Speaker 5: and I think the big defining feature of the current
Speaker 5: polling data which suggests that Biden and Trump are neck
Speaker 5: and neck, is that you still have a this optimism
Speaker 5: that somebody else is going to come into the race,
Speaker 5: and so moves the needle that I couldn't agree with
Speaker 5: Isaac anymore. It is so plainly obvious that Trump and
Speaker 5: Biden are the nominees. Anything that would change that is
Speaker 5: going to come from.
Speaker 3: The voter base. It's going to come from the conventions.
Speaker 5: Should we get to July and August, and need some
Speaker 5: sort of upsetting moment because of the trials, because of
Speaker 5: any other anomaly that might happen. But that's sort of
Speaker 5: an act of God event that I inherently can't play
Speaker 5: odds on. But that's really what people are waiting for.
Speaker 5: And you have to ask who is the trial helping with. Yes,
Speaker 5: he's fundraising, but it's not like Democrats are giving him money.
Speaker 5: This is helping him with his base. He's turning out
Speaker 5: those small dollar donations from the buried voters who've been
Speaker 5: with him since twenty sixteen and would.
Speaker 3: Never leave him.
Speaker 5: So that is exactly the issue that a lot of
Speaker 5: the Republican establishment is trying to relay to everybody else
Speaker 5: that'll listen here, which is you get the third of
Speaker 5: Republican voters who are always going to back Trump, but
Speaker 5: you lose everybody else, as they have in every single
Speaker 5: election since twenty sixteen in a nine percent inflation environment.
Speaker 5: It couldn't be any better for Republicans right now, and
Speaker 5: they cannot get past the fact that Trump is toxic
Speaker 5: to the majority of the rest of the population and
Speaker 5: has been consistently And that's why our odds here are
Speaker 5: sixty percent. That Biden wins with the Republican Senate, twenty
Speaker 5: percent odds that Biden wins with a fifty fifty split
Speaker 5: in Democratic control of the Senate, and only twenty percent
Speaker 5: odds that Trump wins. In which case, here basically pretending
Speaker 5: a red wave where Democrats stay home, do not come
Speaker 5: out to vote, and Republicans show up in huge numbers,
Speaker 5: and then you get a Republican White House, a Republican Senate,
Speaker 5: and probably a Republican House able to overcome the redistricting
Speaker 5: and things that have gone on last tuple years.
Speaker 1: And then the CIA comes into playing in that scenario, Isaac,
Speaker 1: would you have to say something, Yeah, Look.
Speaker 4: I think i'd also just throw in here and you know,
Speaker 4: shout out to the FED chairman here. I'm going to
Speaker 4: use the word humility on this. We should have a
Speaker 4: humility about this. Four months ago, no one was talking
Speaker 4: about war with Israel and Gaza. No one was talking
Speaker 4: about hoofy rabbles, and you know, the world can change,
Speaker 4: the world will change. So goodness only knows what we're
Speaker 4: going to talk about a few months from now. And
Speaker 4: we've got to keep in mind the last election between
Speaker 4: these two was decided by three states and only about
Speaker 4: forty four thousand voters in those three states, and so
Speaker 4: I do think that we need to be cognizant of
Speaker 4: that slim majority in that reality, and also that no
Speaker 4: one knows what the issues of the day are going
Speaker 4: to be in six months, and so I think it's
Speaker 4: going to be a close election. I think that I
Speaker 4: think that it's going to be a long election. And
Speaker 4: I think that we also need to throw into our
Speaker 4: calculus how the possible entrance of a third party candidate
Speaker 4: will damper enthusiasm, which Henrietta mentioned before for certain voter
Speaker 4: blocks in certain states, and it will be a turnout
Speaker 4: dynamic on that end driving the decisioning.
Speaker 1: In November, you mentioned some of the unforeseen geopolitical issues
Speaker 1: around the world, So let's just stay on that for
Speaker 1: a moment and talk about China and Russia. Henrietta and Isaac,
Speaker 1: you know, what are some of the key concerns you
Speaker 1: think markets should have about foreign policy towards those countries
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty four. We've often heard you know that
Speaker 1: geopolitical risk is high this year, but do you think
Speaker 1: there's are there any key catalysts that you see coming?
Speaker 1: Even though I know a lot of this is unpredictable.
Speaker 5: Well, some of the predictable ones are coming from the
Speaker 5: Trade World. Ambassador Tie, the US Trade Representative, is gearing
Speaker 5: up to complete her four year review of the Section
Speaker 5: three oh one tariffs, which are of course three hundred
Speaker 5: and sixty billion dollars worth of goods coming in from
Speaker 5: China that have been tariff since the Trump age. She
Speaker 5: is going to complete that review sometime in the next
Speaker 5: few months. And I suspect there are some tariffs that
Speaker 5: could come off specifically on this four A which are
Speaker 5: very consumer focused, but they're going to be replaced with
Speaker 5: equal and opposite tariffs on electric vehicles by every indication
Speaker 5: that she's giving us. And so when you think about
Speaker 5: geopolitical tensions, imagine how that is responded to by the EU,
Speaker 5: by Japan, by Taiwan, and then how China decides that
Speaker 5: it needs to retaliate. So I do think that that's
Speaker 5: a flashpoint that will come, and it behooves both Trump
Speaker 5: and Biden and any other person up for a re
Speaker 5: election this year to bash China. Eighty three percent of
Speaker 5: Americans are very happy to bash China right now. I
Speaker 5: can and see it as our biggest sort of existential
Speaker 5: threat facing the United States. So I suspect that will
Speaker 5: ramp up as investor type of pairs to update the
Speaker 5: Section three or one tariffs.
Speaker 1: Isaac, anything you want to say on this topic.
Speaker 4: No, I think that's fair. I would just add I'm
Speaker 4: starting to get more and more questions about Trump's tariff policy,
Speaker 4: which obviously we can pull a thread on his ten
Speaker 4: percent tariff commentary. But I think once again we're going
Speaker 4: to We're going to have to see how much of
Speaker 4: this he means, how much of this is positioning. But
Speaker 4: that's something that I think some investors are starting to
Speaker 4: focus on now that they're coming to terms with the
Speaker 4: fact that Trump is going to be the Republican nominee.
Speaker 1: No, I was just going to say.
Speaker 2: The only thing I would add is the power of
Speaker 2: the presidency. For those, you know, non government policy folks
Speaker 2: that are listening right now, power of the presidency is
Speaker 2: so much more powerful when it comes to foreign policy,
Speaker 2: trade and so forth like that, because you can avoid
Speaker 2: a lot of Congress. So I think even if you
Speaker 2: get into a situation where a president Trump wins and
Speaker 2: there's like a gridlock, you know, House and Senate and
Speaker 2: so forth, like that. It's just a lot of the
Speaker 2: headline risk we see comes in this foreign policy space
Speaker 2: without gaining any predictions. It's just good to keep in
Speaker 2: your hip pocket. Is that's usually a lot of the
Speaker 2: challenges in that space comes from the presidency in the headlines.
Speaker 3: Yeah, i'd layer on here.
Speaker 5: I mentioned that the outset that investors haven't really priced
Speaker 5: in the election yet, in part because they're hoping that
Speaker 5: there's another candidate. But when they do the universal baseline TIREFF,
Speaker 5: which really rolls off the time for the former president,
Speaker 5: for his campaign team, for Bob Leithheiser, who was obviously
Speaker 5: out work shopping the idea, it seems to be one
Speaker 5: of the easiest pillars for them to discuss after drill, drill, drill,
Speaker 5: And I think investors really pay attention to that. And
Speaker 5: unlike in twenty seventeen and twenty eighteen when we were
Speaker 5: running up to the release of that investigation over IP
Speaker 5: theft and the implementation of those tyriffs in the first place,
Speaker 5: investors take this very seriously now, so they don't really
Speaker 5: know what a UBT is. That's because it's something akin
Speaker 5: to the borderline sorry, the border adjustment tax that people
Speaker 5: remember from Paul Ryan's initial tax reform proposal, but it
Speaker 5: is the number one paid for in Trump's tax bill,
Speaker 5: and if I could have my way, I would have
Speaker 5: investors focused on tax policy every day. But the individual
Speaker 5: tax cuts that expired at the end of twenty twenty
Speaker 5: five are going to cost two point three trillion.
Speaker 3: Dollars just to keep them even.
Speaker 5: You're going to need some sort of revenue raiser or
Speaker 5: you will be blowing out the death said by two
Speaker 5: three trillion dollars. Now, they don't really have problems blowing
Speaker 5: out the deficit when it's one party control in Congress,
Speaker 5: so I don't have a concern with that. But the
Speaker 5: Universal Baseline tariff is the number one revenue raiser in
Speaker 5: the Trump platform, and they speak about it with ease,
Speaker 5: so I think it's appropriate for investors to take it seriously.
Speaker 1: That's really interesting, all right. I have one final substantive
Speaker 1: topic that we wanted to just talk about, and it
Speaker 1: shouldn't take too much time, and that is the SEC
Speaker 1: and Chairman Gary Gernsler. What do you all think he
Speaker 1: does in twenty twenty four and do you think he
Speaker 1: sticks around in twenty twenty five? If President Biden wins reelection,
Speaker 1: and if he doesn't, where does he go next? Nathan?
Speaker 1: Why don't we start with you? Yeah?
Speaker 2: So on the SEC actions front, I mean, one all
Speaker 2: one needs to do is go to the regulatory Agenda,
Speaker 2: which obviously is this wonky website that you don't need
Speaker 2: to look for. Just call us and we will get
Speaker 2: you in touch with that website. But if you go
Speaker 2: to the regulatory Agenda, the SEC has like fifty rule
Speaker 2: makings on it, and not all of them are going
Speaker 2: to be finalized in twenty twenty four, but there's like
Speaker 2: probably twenty or so rules that the SEC has to
Speaker 2: get off their plate, from spacks which they're going to
Speaker 2: finalize on January fourth, to equity market structure, to this
Speaker 2: climate change proposal on whether or not it includes Scope
Speaker 2: three or not. So where I'm going with this is
Speaker 2: that between January twenty fourth and this May time frame
Speaker 2: that Isaac alluded to earlier, I think the SEC is
Speaker 2: just going to be finalizing rule after rule after rule
Speaker 2: after rule, and then once this, you know, we get
Speaker 2: closer to the election, I think the SEC is going
Speaker 2: to calm down a bit now for whether Chairman Ginzler
Speaker 2: sticks around after the election. At President Biden wins, I
Speaker 2: could see him maybe for a year or so. I
Speaker 2: have not heard anything about what his next wishes are.
Speaker 2: I could see him sticking around. But I think for him,
Speaker 2: it's the equity market structure, I think is what his
Speaker 2: most important. To call it legacy is because I think
Speaker 2: I think, you know, the SEC or the climate change
Speaker 2: rule could get overturned and so forth, So I think
Speaker 2: I think he's going to be more so about this
Speaker 2: investor protection, customer protection, and so forth. A lot of
Speaker 2: these transparency initiatives I think are what he's really going
Speaker 2: to want to get out this year.
Speaker 1: Although I got to think equity market structure rules are
Speaker 1: also going to get litigated once finalized. You know, no
Speaker 1: matter how much they're they're tweaked, and so in these cases,
Speaker 1: you know, if are most likely to survive. You know,
Speaker 1: if Gencer leaves, the litigation will still be around after
Speaker 1: he's gone.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm not a lawyer, but at this point
Speaker 2: I'll just go out there and say that the SEC
Speaker 2: can put out a rule saying the Earth is round,
Speaker 2: and somebody will soon in the Fifth Circuit. So you know,
Speaker 2: it's just one of those things that I think it's
Speaker 2: going to happen no matter what.
Speaker 1: Henriettare any thoughts on Gensler and the SEC, Well, I
Speaker 1: do think.
Speaker 3: It's an interesting time in the second term of a president.
Speaker 5: In this scenario, obviously the assumption would be that Biden wins,
Speaker 5: you might want to go, you know, to the mat
Speaker 5: for the first year or two, and then after that,
Speaker 5: you know you're on the outside. The party is going
Speaker 5: to start switching over. We'll have fresh faces at the
Speaker 5: presidential level. We already have a fresh base in the
Speaker 5: House speakership with the Keem Jeffries, so there's a lot
Speaker 5: of opportunity for movement, best fresh braces to get in there.
Speaker 5: I think there's a lot of work to do elsewhere,
Speaker 5: and I wouldn't be surprised if after a year or
Speaker 5: two we've would move on Isaac.
Speaker 6: You know, let's take a step back.
Speaker 4: It's pretty remarkable what we've seen over the past few
Speaker 4: years from the SEC. I mean, their agenda is longer
Speaker 4: than a Leonard Cohen song, as Nathan pointed out earlier,
Speaker 4: and it's pretty incredible what we've seen from there. But
Speaker 4: what I'm struck by is how much of it I
Speaker 4: think it's going to be struck down.
Speaker 6: By the courts.
Speaker 4: Right, I think that the private equity transparency proposal could
Speaker 4: be struck down. I think the climate change one could
Speaker 4: be struck down. On equity market structure, I am almost
Speaker 4: certain that if ialize, some of that will be struck down.
Speaker 4: And not to mention that I think some of it
Speaker 4: a bit preposterous given that our equity market structure actually
Speaker 4: functions pretty darn well. Every effort to kill payment for
Speaker 4: order flow over my fifteen.
Speaker 6: Plus years of watching has died.
Speaker 4: Because our current equity market structure that relies on payment
Speaker 4: for order flow is the worst system except for all
Speaker 4: the other options, right, it still gives the best outcome
Speaker 4: for retail investors, And so to me, when you think
Speaker 4: about the SEC, I think that many many of these
Speaker 4: proposals will be reversed by the courts. And in terms
Speaker 4: of what Chairman Genzler does next, I have absolutely no idea.
Speaker 4: I've heard that he was leaving seventy five different times,
Speaker 4: almost exclusively from crypto investors, so who knows. But I
Speaker 4: do think that we need to be more cognizant and
Speaker 4: justus A good shout out again for Elliott of how
Speaker 4: many of these financial proposals are going to be challenged
Speaker 4: in courts from the CFPB's late fee proposal, which could
Speaker 4: come out any day and will almost immediately be challenged
Speaker 4: a basle to darn near everything the SEC is going
Speaker 4: to finalize this year, and so that that really underscores
Speaker 4: the importance of the litigation part of this story for investors.
Speaker 1: Yep, I agree with that, all right, and I'll just
Speaker 1: add that Nathan and I at some point I want
Speaker 1: to have Chairman Gensler and his twin brother on as
Speaker 1: podcast guests, but that is we'll see if that ever happens,
Speaker 1: all right, So that that's it for the substance of discussion.
Speaker 1: We always like to end our episodes with some fun
Speaker 1: stuff or maybe you know, difficult questions, depending on how
Speaker 1: you look at it. But this is something that Nathan
Speaker 1: and I always ask our guests. If you are stuck
Speaker 1: on a desert island and could only bring three pieces
Speaker 1: of music, you know, whether it's songs or albums or
Speaker 1: an artist, what would you bring? Henrietta, let's start with you,
Speaker 1: all right.
Speaker 5: Well, I'm as you know, I'm based here in New
Speaker 5: Orleans and it is fully marty grass season, so I
Speaker 5: refuse to move on from that and to my island.
Speaker 5: I'm bringing Alan to say, Professor long Hair, doctor John
Speaker 5: and Arma Thomas.
Speaker 1: Can't go wrong with that. What about the radiators? Do
Speaker 1: you like the radiators?
Speaker 3: The radiators?
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're good too. Yeah, Okay, I'm good, all right, good,
Speaker 1: it's a party, all right, Isaac? How about you?
Speaker 4: I mean, my favorite band of all time is the
Speaker 4: Band and so my answer is the Last Waltz. I
Speaker 4: think that if you have that, you really don't need
Speaker 4: anything else.
Speaker 1: By the way, you are the second guests we've had
Speaker 1: to say that. Dan Horwitz, who we had on several
Speaker 1: months ago, also included the Last Waltz soundtrack as his
Speaker 1: go to for a desert island. All right, that's a
Speaker 1: good one, Nathan. You've gotten to ask this question many times,
Speaker 1: but I don't know if I know your answer.
Speaker 2: You know, nineteen nineties rap, nineteen nineties alternative, pretty much
Speaker 2: anything that was put out between nineteen and two thousand,
Speaker 2: I will take to my grave.
Speaker 1: All right, all right, this is good stuff. All right. Well,
Speaker 1: with that, I think we'll wrap up this episode of
Speaker 1: Votes and Verdicts. We are extremely grateful to both Henrietta
Speaker 1: and Isaac for appearing on this episode. I think this
Speaker 1: was a really informative discussion about, you know, one of
Speaker 1: the most important years in Washington, that that that will
Speaker 1: we'll have this year, and that we've had in a
Speaker 1: long time. So thank you to our listeners for taking
Speaker 1: the time to join. And as a reminder, you can
Speaker 1: read all of our Bloomberg intelligence research on the Bloomberg
Speaker 1: terminal at Big Thank you again and have a great day.