Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Sound on podcast. Catch us
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Speaker 3: We reassembled our panel. Genie Shanzano is here Bloomberg Politics contributor,
Speaker 3: along with John Sidaliiti's partner at Trilogy Advisors. Genie, what's
Speaker 3: your thought on this specific number, because it does inform
Speaker 3: what you were just talking about that Joe Biden. Donald
Speaker 3: Trump rather doesn't think he should be on the debate
Speaker 3: stage with a bunch of other candidates because well, basically
Speaker 3: he's still the president and if fifty one percent of
Speaker 3: his supporters in Iowa feel that way, then he's probably
Speaker 3: doing the right thing here.
Speaker 4: Politically, that's right, And that's why, you know, I think
Speaker 4: he and his team decided that he didn't make sense
Speaker 4: for him to go. We do know that they weighed,
Speaker 4: you know, the pros and cons, and simply the reality
Speaker 4: is this, he believes he won many of the supporters do.
Speaker 4: Is that poll shows and if he to show up,
Speaker 4: the danger to him would be greater than not showing up,
Speaker 4: because with a pole margin this big. Even if somebody
Speaker 4: does have a really good showing on Wednesday night, it's
Speaker 4: unlikely they're going to close this kind of polling gap,
Speaker 4: whether it's the state poles like Iowa, New Hampshire or
Speaker 4: the national polls. And if they do, he's got plans
Speaker 4: to turn himself in Thursday and sort of take the
Speaker 4: oxygen out of any sort of you know, running room
Speaker 4: they get, so they don't feel like there's much of
Speaker 4: a loss from him skipping this. We know he always
Speaker 4: intended to skip the second Republican debate because of the location,
Speaker 4: and we he's indicated he may not attend any of them.
Speaker 4: So this is you know, he's running as if he
Speaker 4: is president, and his supporters believe, many of his supporters
Speaker 4: believe he should be.
Speaker 3: Well, let's think about everybody else on that stage for
Speaker 3: a moment, John, because if fifty one percent of the
Speaker 3: people watching them, people you're trying to win over in
Speaker 3: Iowa believe that Donald Trump is actually the president or
Speaker 3: one somehow the election in twenty twenty, that's going to
Speaker 3: that's going to dictate your posture, your messaging that night,
Speaker 3: because you can't disagree with them and win them over.
Speaker 5: Can you, it's going to be a very great challenge
Speaker 5: for many of the Republican candidates. I expect Brett Baer
Speaker 5: and Martha McCallum to ask that type of a question. Yeah,
Speaker 5: and you may even have a Chris Christy who prides
Speaker 5: himself on being the anti Trump. It's really the only
Speaker 5: reason he's in this campaign to begin with. He has
Speaker 5: no real shot at winning the primary, and he's stuck
Speaker 5: at three percent, but he'll probably take on some of
Speaker 5: the other Republicans and try to take them down a
Speaker 5: few notches and defy them to defend Trump in terms
Speaker 5: of his perspective on whether or not he won or lost.
Speaker 5: To the Iowa numbers, though, Joe, I wouldn't be surprised
Speaker 5: if you see similar, if not greater numbers in other
Speaker 5: states among GOP voters. So let's not be surprised that
Speaker 5: the majority of Republicans believe that Donald Trump either had
Speaker 5: the election stolen from him or that it was a
Speaker 5: rigged election. So I think that's going to be a
Speaker 5: firmament in Republican primaries in the weeks ahead. Let me
Speaker 5: also offer this thought. A My guess is that Trump
Speaker 5: may decide he's not going to waste his time with
Speaker 5: an Asa Hutchinson or a Francis Suarez or other one
Speaker 5: percent opponents taking shots at him. But maybe by the
Speaker 5: third or fourth debate, if there were three, four or
Speaker 5: five candidates standing, he may decide to knock them out
Speaker 5: at that time. And one more thing, if I might,
Speaker 5: just the way Donald Trump feels that his numbers are
Speaker 5: so strong, he doesn't need to take all of these
Speaker 5: hits them, all of these lesser candidates. Look at Joe Biden.
Speaker 5: I mean, Joe Biden is I think he's got the
Speaker 5: support of seventy percent of Democratic voters.
Speaker 3: But Robert F.
Speaker 5: Kennedy Junior is polling at around twelve to fourteen percent,
Speaker 5: sort of ron descent is territory. And Marian Williamson is
Speaker 5: polling at around six percent, well above Chris Christy, who's
Speaker 5: on new shows across America, and above most of the
Speaker 5: Republican candidates. And yet there's no calls for Biden to
Speaker 5: debate Kennedy and Williamson. So an interesting dynamic there between
Speaker 5: the two parties.
Speaker 3: Boy, and I don't think that's going to be happening
Speaker 3: anytime soon. Should an incumbent have to do such a
Speaker 3: thing Genie.
Speaker 4: You know, I am in favor of debates, and so
Speaker 4: I would love to see everybody who has a shot debate,
Speaker 4: and I'd also love to see people who are low
Speaker 4: in the polls debate because quite frankly, as voters, we
Speaker 4: can't decide who we want to support if we don't
Speaker 4: get to see them in action. So I am in
Speaker 4: favor of it, but it is not something we usually
Speaker 4: see with incumbents. And I would also just remind everybody that,
Speaker 4: you know, the reality for Trump is this, the more
Speaker 4: people in this race is are better for Trump, and
Speaker 4: so he is going to want to keep all of
Speaker 4: these people in this race. He's even if you look
Speaker 4: at the Iowa Coccus poll, you know, the persuadables are
Speaker 4: just over fifty percent, which we may say, oh that's great,
Speaker 4: they're open to somebody besides Trump, But he has twenty
Speaker 4: seven percent of those people. So if you can't consolidate
Speaker 4: the never trumpers, he's going to win even if he
Speaker 4: has a thirty thirty five percent base, and he's probably
Speaker 4: got a little higher. So for him, the more people
Speaker 4: out there, the better. This all works to his advantage.
Speaker 4: The way it is playing out at this point.
Speaker 3: We're spending time with our panel, Genie Schanzano and John
Speaker 3: si Laitis. I want to ask you about some of
Speaker 3: the messaging the posturing that we're hearing now on this
Speaker 3: eve of the debate, and I love both of your reactions.
Speaker 1: Here.
Speaker 3: Ron de Santis is upping the ante. It seems like
Speaker 3: on a daily basis etging closer to real attacks on
Speaker 3: Donald Trump, but also just the tough guy routine. Everybody's
Speaker 3: apparently out toffing each other on this stage. Here HEAs
Speaker 3: in Iowa es to.
Speaker 6: When they try, if they try to bring the fence
Speaker 6: and all across the southern border, when I am president,
Speaker 6: we are gonna shoot him stone cold dead.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 3: I guess that's a winning line. Was that really though?
Speaker 3: I mean, that's gonna be What do you think, Johnthan,
Speaker 3: is that a winning policy that we're gonna I guess
Speaker 3: he was talking about Mexican drug cartels, but we'll just
Speaker 3: shoot people from across the river as they're coming in.
Speaker 5: I don't know what exactly, or is that just tough
Speaker 5: guy talk ahead of the debate. Well, but a lot
Speaker 5: of Republicans would like to hear tough guy talk about
Speaker 5: border secure it's one of the most important issues for
Speaker 5: Republican voters. They feel that the economy is failing, that
Speaker 5: our cities are running rampant with criminal activity.
Speaker 3: We have a lot of promises like this though, and
Speaker 3: no real pos right.
Speaker 5: But it's also why Donald Trump, I think, just put
Speaker 5: out a Twitter message or part of the truth social
Speaker 5: Trump's first term we destroyed isis Trump's second term, we
Speaker 5: destroy the Mexican cartels. So it is going to resonate
Speaker 5: with a large number of voters. And again, you know,
Speaker 5: to the degree that candidates keep messaging simple and leave
Speaker 5: the details till later. But I think it is going
Speaker 5: to be a positive outcome, hopefully from the debates tomorrow,
Speaker 5: that we're not only looking at sort of the thunderdome
Speaker 5: aspect of all of this, but there's actual policy debates
Speaker 5: and to help Republican voters, and for that matter, Democrats
Speaker 5: and independents talk about the issues that really matter to
Speaker 5: everyday Americans in ways that I think getting caught up
Speaker 5: in the polling and the horse race.
Speaker 3: Yes, eludes us absolutely, and I know you're speaking truth there, Genie.
Speaker 3: I'll give you a chants with what we heard last
Speaker 3: night from the veg Ramaswami on CNN defending comments that
Speaker 3: he's made about some sort of conspiracy around nine to eleven,
Speaker 3: never mind January sixth. I mean, that's something if you're
Speaker 3: going to bite that off both of those in one sentence.
Speaker 7: Here he is Saudi Arabia. Absolutely their intelligence was involved
Speaker 7: in nine to eleven, and that's a difficult thing. You're
Speaker 7: not supposed to say the facts back that up. Separately
Speaker 7: as it relates to January sixth, same story all over again.
Speaker 7: There were federal agents in the field. I think they've
Speaker 7: lied about how many there were. And we the people
Speaker 7: deserve the truth despite the layers of distortion that exist
Speaker 7: in the media.
Speaker 3: To prevent us from getting the layers of distortion in
Speaker 3: the media, how about conspiracy on the debate stage.
Speaker 4: Genie, it's something that sells with this primary, with this
Speaker 4: Republican primary voters, and so he is really reflecting something
Speaker 4: that is out there. And you know, you just listen
Speaker 4: to the difference between that and the and what you
Speaker 4: played the clip from Dysantis. DeSantis can talk about shooting people,
Speaker 4: and you know the reality is DeSantis cannot find the message.
Speaker 4: It doesn't sound authentic when he tries this tough guy act.
Speaker 4: And when Vivek Ramaswami does, people do listen. His poll
Speaker 4: numbers have been really impressive. He is very good on
Speaker 4: the stump. And you know, it may sound crazy some
Speaker 4: of these conspiracy theories, but they do resonate with some
Speaker 4: of these voters.
Speaker 3: I only have a minute left here, John, before a
Speaker 3: news update. Is is it smart politics to be talking about,
Speaker 3: you know, black helicopters and tinfoil hats like this? Maybe
Speaker 3: you agree with what he said, but if we're talking
Speaker 3: about federal agents in nine to eleven being an inside job,
Speaker 3: is that serious?
Speaker 5: Well, that's not what I heard, Joe. Now, he did
Speaker 5: talk about what came out in the nine to eleven commission,
Speaker 5: but was on the surface and didn't go much deeper
Speaker 5: than that. But there is a sense that the Saudi
Speaker 5: Kingdom and the royal family did enjoy certain benefits, including
Speaker 5: private jets to get their people out of the United
Speaker 5: States while we shut down the entire more.
Speaker 3: Because he talks about how the federal agents on that
Speaker 3: plane and this was the much.
Speaker 5: Of this was, don't I don't have the exact sentence,
Speaker 5: and I want to be careful that we don't take
Speaker 5: things out of context, but I think that was where
Speaker 5: he was going with the nine to eleven commissioner in
Speaker 5: January sixth. There are a large number of Republican voters
Speaker 5: who would like questions coming out of the House Committee
Speaker 5: that it's investigating what took place on January sixth, to
Speaker 5: the degree that they may have been federal agents that
Speaker 5: have been obfuscated in a lot of the reports over
Speaker 5: the last three years. So to Jeanie's point, yes, many
Speaker 5: Republicans believe we don't have all the facts, and the
Speaker 5: profound mistrust in national media by Republican voters is going
Speaker 5: to be an important issue for Republican candidates to address
Speaker 5: tonight and in future debates.
Speaker 3: Do you better believe it, We're going to hear a
Speaker 3: lot about it. I have no doubt. Jeanie Schanzano is
Speaker 3: with us, of course, Bloomberg Politics contributor today John sidaliities
Speaker 3: joins as well partner at Trilogy Advisors. John even watching
Speaker 3: this relationship unfold or maybe fall apart for some time now,
Speaker 3: since before Joe Biden got into the White House. What
Speaker 3: do these excursions do for us as we're trying to
Speaker 3: keep high technology out of the hands of the Chinese
Speaker 3: trying to limit investment in what's the point of the
Speaker 3: Commerce secretary here to make everybody feel good or to
Speaker 3: create a new path forward.
Speaker 5: Let's talk about what's working first, and I think the
Speaker 5: Biden administration deserves credit for upping the Trump sanctions and
Speaker 5: export controls on advanced technologies such as the most advanced semiconductors,
Speaker 5: on artificial intelligence, on quantum computing. We're not going to
Speaker 5: help China try to take the dominant lead on these
Speaker 5: technologies that will be the most important of the twenty
Speaker 5: first century global economy without stiff competition from our own
Speaker 5: American innovators and dynamic companies. I think it's going to
Speaker 5: be very important that Rimando Secretary Ramondo sends the message
Speaker 5: to Beijing that de risking will continue, that we are
Speaker 5: going to protect the import of military parts that are
Speaker 5: most essential for our national security. As I mentioned before,
Speaker 5: the frontier technologies that will dominate the economy and the
Speaker 5: years ahead. We're looking at health products and pharmaceuticals that
Speaker 5: we learned during the COVID lockdowns we were dependent on
Speaker 5: China for, and also a number of the rare earth
Speaker 5: metals and elements that are so important for the products
Speaker 5: that sustain our way of life. But by the same token,
Speaker 5: can we continue to buy t shirts and furniture and
Speaker 5: electronics from China? Sure, we want to continue to sell
Speaker 5: our agricultural products to help feed the Chinese people. So
Speaker 5: I think that level of interdependence can be sustained while
Speaker 5: we protect our national security and our economic well being.
Speaker 5: I think the one thing that we have to be
Speaker 5: careful about, Joe, is that the President says diplomacy is
Speaker 5: a good thing, and by and large, it is a
Speaker 5: good thing for its own sake, But we have to
Speaker 5: be careful to not be seen as supplicants that we're
Speaker 5: always begging for meetings with Chinese leaders, and we don't
Speaker 5: seem to see any news coverage of Chinese leaders begging
Speaker 5: to meet their American counterparts. It seems to be a
Speaker 5: one way street so far. We'll see what happens if
Speaker 5: President Biden and Chairman she meet in November. But maybe
Speaker 5: this is the preparation for what could be some type
Speaker 5: of a breakthrough. I don't see it right now.
Speaker 3: That's the question, Geenie. Is this the meeting that could
Speaker 3: lead to the summit, or at least the conversation between
Speaker 3: the two presidents.
Speaker 4: You know, I think we are all still hoping that
Speaker 4: there is a conversation, whether that occurs, you know, in
Speaker 4: the US in San Francisco, whether it occurs on the
Speaker 4: sidelines in New Delhi of the G twenty. The reality
Speaker 4: is these high level visits that we keep seeing, and
Speaker 4: you just listed the ones that have occurred since June,
Speaker 4: they haven't yielded as much as some people would have hoped.
Speaker 4: Although I am of the opinion that the more conversation
Speaker 4: the better, so I don't see a problem with that.
Speaker 4: But I think as we look just at our own
Speaker 4: domestic politics, the Biden administration is getting a lot of
Speaker 4: pressure from Congress, particularly the Hawks and Congress who want
Speaker 4: to take a harder line, and they are sinnd of
Speaker 4: walking this tightrope, and it's going to continue, and during
Speaker 4: an election year, it is going to be very very
Speaker 4: hard for them to move against that pressure that they're
Speaker 4: hearing out of Washington and out of Congress and Republicans
Speaker 4: in particular. So it's something to be mindful of as
Speaker 4: we move forward towards the election.
Speaker 3: I'll tell you, in the last week or two, the
Speaker 3: most underreported story was this summit at Camp David. At least,
Speaker 3: I would argue Joe Biden's bike ride that he took
Speaker 3: on vacation last week got more attention than this summit
Speaker 3: with Japan and South Korea at Camp David, and I wonder,
Speaker 3: obviously this is with China in mind, John, the impact
Speaker 3: that this is having as Beijing now considers canceling a
Speaker 3: three way summit that it was planning with Japan and
Speaker 3: South Korea.
Speaker 5: Well, China only needs to look inwardly for the blame
Speaker 5: for all of this. I think this would have been
Speaker 5: a very difficult trilateral partnership to put together in say
Speaker 5: twenty fourteen twenty fifteen. Japan and South Korea, however nervous
Speaker 5: they are about China's economic rise, did not feel as
Speaker 5: intimidated security wise and militarily as they have over the
Speaker 5: last five to seven years.
Speaker 3: Does the administration deserve credit for bringing them to the
Speaker 3: other Is this meaningful?
Speaker 5: I think it's a very positive step, absolutely, and I
Speaker 5: think it reinforces the defense relationships that we've already had
Speaker 5: with Japan and with South Korea. Keep in mind, we
Speaker 5: don't need a formal NATO type alliance in Asia, right,
Speaker 5: we already have twenty eight thousand troops in South Korea
Speaker 5: fifty thousand troops in Japan. So our American forces are
Speaker 5: trip wires. If they're attacked because of any external attack
Speaker 5: on South Korea or Japan, we're going to war, simple
Speaker 5: as that. But what you have for the first time
Speaker 5: is Japan and South Korea coordinating their defense, intelligence sharing,
Speaker 5: and the like because of the historic enmity between these
Speaker 5: two peoples over the past century. So I think the
Speaker 5: Biden administration deserves credit for bringing them together and the
Speaker 5: three countries together, signaling to China and also to countries
Speaker 5: in Southeast Asia that there are alternatives to China's very belligerent,
Speaker 5: if not outright hostile behavior towards almost every one of
Speaker 5: its Asian neighbors over the last ten years under Shareman Chep.
Speaker 3: It's really something, Genie. You're getting back to where we
Speaker 3: start with Gina Romando. This is not going to be
Speaker 3: an easy meeting. She might actually have the hardest job
Speaker 3: of any cabinet officials gone over there, with the exception
Speaker 3: of Anthony Blincoln.
Speaker 4: She absolutely will. I think this is going to be
Speaker 4: very tough. She has a lot on her plate, and
Speaker 4: she is feeling pressures all around. Let's not forget it
Speaker 4: wasn't that long ago that we heard Janet Yellen talk
Speaker 4: about the impact of the economic slowdown in China in
Speaker 4: the US. And to your point about the coverage of
Speaker 4: that meeting at Camp David, those arguments are really difficult
Speaker 4: to make because they don't resonate with Americans in particular,
Speaker 4: especially during an election year. And so all of these visits,
Speaker 4: as important as they are, and these meetings, you know,
Speaker 4: the administration doesn't get the credit they deserve for them,
Speaker 4: and when they get the blame when the economy slows down,
Speaker 4: they will feel that.
Speaker 3: Boy Tini Shanzano, Johnson Ledis are panel today on Bloomberg
Speaker 3: Sound On. I'm Joe Matthew in Washington, wondering always why
Speaker 3: modern presidents don't use Camp David more often. It's one
Speaker 3: of the best assets they have. But I digressed. This
Speaker 3: is Bloomberg.
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Speaker 3: The F sixteen's are apparently coming though there's two of
Speaker 3: the Netherlands now that we learned about in just the
Speaker 3: past couple of days, but those won't be ready to
Speaker 3: fly for months. And so, boy, you start thinking about
Speaker 3: all of this and the conversations that we had months
Speaker 3: ago with Kelly Grico, and you wonder exactly how this
Speaker 3: is all going to pan out. The senior fellow Stimpson
Speaker 3: Center's re imaging US Grand Strategy Programs with us in studio,
Speaker 3: Kelly Greco, It's great to see you. Thanks for this
Speaker 3: year in the bureau. Absolutely you didn't see the F
Speaker 3: sixteen is being needed, not necessarily the most effective weapon
Speaker 3: in this fight. Fast forward a couple of months, here
Speaker 3: we are. I'm assuming you still feel the same way
Speaker 3: because these lines haven't really budged in that period of time.
Speaker 8: No, And I think if we look at the counter
Speaker 8: offensive and we're trying to diagnose the problem, it's easy
Speaker 8: to point to the lack of air power and the
Speaker 8: lack of F sixteen is that's sort of, you know,
Speaker 8: an easy thing to blame. But when you actually look
Speaker 8: at what we know about the battle history. It seems
Speaker 8: to be more about the inability of the Ukrainians to
Speaker 8: have mastered combined arms warfare. And what I mean by
Speaker 8: that is, in order to overcome all these defensive fortifications
Speaker 8: the Russians have, what you need to be able to
Speaker 8: do is to combine artillery with armor with infantry almost
Speaker 8: near simultaneously rather than sequentially. And that takes a lot
Speaker 8: to do that, and you're doing that under fire and
Speaker 8: that kind of coordination, and what we've seen is that
Speaker 8: they're not really able to do that under fire. That
Speaker 8: it's a really big ask for a military to learn
Speaker 8: to do that mid war.
Speaker 9: Okay, so it's an operational issue, not a specific weapons issue, correct.
Speaker 8: I think that's exactly right. I think you know, in
Speaker 8: the West, we love technology and we're always looking for
Speaker 8: sort of technological silver bullets, and we've seen, you know,
Speaker 8: throughout the war people turn to these, you know, whether
Speaker 8: it was High Mars or Western tanks or now you
Speaker 8: know this F sixteen debate. And at the end of
Speaker 8: the day, it's actually technology can only get you so far.
Speaker 8: It's your ability to be able to use it and
Speaker 8: combine technologies in a way that is really allows you
Speaker 8: to overcome defensive power and be able to take territory.
Speaker 8: And at the end of the day, I'll also say,
Speaker 8: armies take territory, not your forces.
Speaker 3: How about that Washington Post reporting the end of last
Speaker 3: week the US Intelligence community assessing Ukraine's counter offensive will
Speaker 3: fail to reach the key southeastern city of melotsopel of finding.
Speaker 3: Should it prove to be correct, the Post rights would
Speaker 3: mean Key will not fulfill its principal objective of severings
Speaker 3: Russia's land bridge to Crimea. With that said, has the
Speaker 3: counter offensive been lost? What's the decision that needs to
Speaker 3: be made here?
Speaker 8: Well, you know, I will just say that I think
Speaker 8: that as an objective was always very ambitious, and I
Speaker 8: think one of the things that has happened is that
Speaker 8: last fall the Ukrainians conducted a counter offensive and they
Speaker 8: were able to take back large swaths of territory. And
Speaker 8: I almost think it created sort of a false optimism
Speaker 8: because at that time the Russian Army was at its
Speaker 8: absolute weakest point, and the Ukrainians, to their credit, really
Speaker 8: seized that moment of vulnerability and exploited it to the full.
Speaker 8: And what they're facing in this counter offensive is just
Speaker 8: a completely different enemy. One that's dug in and hardened.
Speaker 8: And so the idea that they were going to be
Speaker 8: able to really punch through, break through the line and
Speaker 8: take large amounts of territory and get to that objective
Speaker 8: I think was always very ambitious, and so you know,
Speaker 8: I hate to call it a failure because in some
Speaker 8: sense it has allowed an opportunity for the Ukrainians, for
Speaker 8: the Western supporters as well, to maybe become a little
Speaker 8: bit more realistic about what the balance of power might
Speaker 8: look like on you.
Speaker 3: You know, what we were told though, Kaylee, leading up
Speaker 3: to this is that they're empty in jails, they don't
Speaker 3: even have These aren't even real soldiers. There are a
Speaker 3: bunch of drunks out there. This is an opportunity for
Speaker 3: Ukraine to take ground. And you just wonder how credible
Speaker 3: a lot of those analysts were.
Speaker 9: Oh totally. And the question that then follows is if
Speaker 9: expectations were too high for this specific counter offensive, what
Speaker 9: about expectation at all for Ukraine to be able to
Speaker 9: win this war? I mean, what endgame realistically are we
Speaker 9: looking at here? If they can't find success in this.
Speaker 8: Well, I think again we had asked what does it
Speaker 8: mean by win? Because in some sense, you could say
Speaker 8: that they've already won in one way because they denied
Speaker 8: Russia its main objective in this war, which was the
Speaker 8: top of the government and capture Kia.
Speaker 3: And that's more than a moral victory. That's real.
Speaker 8: That's real, and you know, most people didn't think they
Speaker 8: stood a chance, you know, at the start of the war.
Speaker 8: They've also managed to take back a lot of territory
Speaker 8: from the Russians. Those are real accomplishments. I think what
Speaker 8: we're seeing is most wars don't like World War Two,
Speaker 8: where one side is completely victorious on the battlefield and
Speaker 8: the others, you know, unconditional surrender. What we're seeing is
Speaker 8: what most wars actually look like, and that they're messier,
Speaker 8: and that is probably gonna end up at some negotiating
Speaker 8: table and they're going to be arguing over pieces of
Speaker 8: territory and exchanging pieces of territory and where the lines
Speaker 8: are going to be drawn.
Speaker 3: That could be in a month and a year or more.
Speaker 3: But we have to figure out funding in the meantime here,
Speaker 3: and that's going to be a pretty ugly debate. It's
Speaker 3: looking like as we hear from all sides, won't even
Speaker 3: say both because I think there are some folks kind
Speaker 3: of caught in the middle on this, from the not
Speaker 3: another dollar to you know, as long as it takes
Speaker 3: on the other side with Joe Biden. If there is
Speaker 3: not a sense though that victory is at hand or
Speaker 3: even possible, how long can the administration keep this going?
Speaker 8: Yes, And I think this actually weighs very heavily on
Speaker 8: the Ukrainians as well, because they're aware of this dynamic.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 8: I think what you will start to see, you know,
Speaker 8: if we don't see more progress with this controfensive is
Speaker 8: over the next share, more talk about what a settlement
Speaker 8: like look like, and more pressure perhaps on the Ukrainian
Speaker 8: It's not just coming from the Americans, but also for
Speaker 8: a Western European alibis as well about really starting to
Speaker 8: think seriously about negotiations and how to provide some kind
Speaker 8: of security guarantees to Ukraine, you know, not necessary NATO membership,
Speaker 8: but maybe you know, the Israeli model has often talked
Speaker 8: about to sweeten that deal so that they're willing to
Speaker 8: accept it. So I think the pressure's really going to
Speaker 8: build and us to master politics, I think is going
Speaker 8: to be a big factor in that.
Speaker 9: Okay, so if we're talking about potential de escalation if
Speaker 9: you will in the future, when so much to this
Speaker 9: point of the allies of the US's action has been
Speaker 9: keeping in mind that they don't want to escalate things further.
Speaker 9: Hence the hesitation to even deliver F sixteens in the
Speaker 9: first place, or any other list of weaponry and tanks
Speaker 9: for example, that they hesitated on for a really long
Speaker 9: time before finally doing so. Is there anything else that
Speaker 9: could be left to give that could be seen as escalatory?
Speaker 8: Yeah, I'm laughing because I just read something today where
Speaker 8: you know, the F sixteens are you know, going to
Speaker 8: be coming eventually to Ukraine. And then I think it's
Speaker 8: also significant they're coming from the Netherlents in Denmark. They're
Speaker 8: not coming from the United States, so it's like one,
Speaker 8: you know, step removed from US. But I've read something
Speaker 8: where someone was saying, well, now they need cruise missiles.
Speaker 3: Uh, so not sure that's going to.
Speaker 8: Happen right exactly.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 3: Again, so there's always nothing layer.
Speaker 8: Yes, you've heard a Tacklem's brought up. There's always going
Speaker 8: to be some other system. The F sixteens if they
Speaker 8: don't work, and you know, can't deal with the air defenses.
Speaker 8: We're going to start hearing about F thirty Five's probably so.
Speaker 8: But again, it's not a technology problem or real lack
Speaker 8: of capability. It's about trying to master something that's so difficult,
Speaker 8: which is how to combine all of that in a
Speaker 8: way that can overcome defensive fortifications.
Speaker 3: So we've isolated a strategic problem also a political one.
Speaker 3: What happens if we're heading into a Trump administration. Does
Speaker 3: this administration start to work against the clock?
Speaker 8: Yes, I mean I think that, Yes, I think that
Speaker 8: is is a rail. You know, I think that happens
Speaker 8: with this administration. I think it happens with Europe, and
Speaker 8: it's a kind of support it's been providing for Ukraine
Speaker 8: and trying to figure out, maybe rather rapidly, how it
Speaker 8: can shift some of that over. It's going to put
Speaker 8: a lot of pressure, I think, on the administration and
Speaker 8: on Zolenski himself to try to perhaps come to a deal,
Speaker 8: but a't the same time, Putin's going to be aware
Speaker 8: of these factors and he may not want to negotiate
Speaker 8: under those circumstances.
Speaker 3: Thinking exactly right, I thought Trump would have that done
Speaker 3: in twenty four hours.
Speaker 9: That's what he said. Right one day after he takes
Speaker 9: the Oval office back, all of this would be over.
Speaker 9: So he says, So to come back to the idea
Speaker 9: that no one technology is going to fix this. This
Speaker 9: is really about the operations of the Ukrainian military, their
Speaker 9: ability to fire and all these different soilators at once. Essentially,
Speaker 9: So is this a training question for Western allies? Is
Speaker 9: that really what we should be focusing on? I mean,
Speaker 9: how can aid in that effort?
Speaker 8: Well, that's a really great question because it raises I
Speaker 8: think like two different approaches, which is one, should we
Speaker 8: be training them more in our Western way of war,
Speaker 8: which is this combined armed warfare approach, which is what
Speaker 8: we did over the winter when there were forces in
Speaker 8: Ukraine that went to Germany and the United Kingdom And
Speaker 8: three months was clearly, you know, maybe not long enough,
Speaker 8: particularly because they're a way accustomed to an old way
Speaker 8: of warfare, so it's almost like you have to unlearn
Speaker 8: a bad habits and then learn a new way. The
Speaker 8: other question, though, I think the other approach is should
Speaker 8: we actually not be encouraging them to fight a Western way?
Speaker 8: They have a way of warfare that works for them
Speaker 8: and should we be allowing them to use their own
Speaker 8: tactics it's what they know best, and supporting it with
Speaker 8: capability in that way.
Speaker 3: Wait, you know, you talk about the idea of a settlement,
Speaker 3: I'm assuming that if that were to take place right now,
Speaker 3: it would be crime in parts of the Dunboss that
Speaker 3: go to Russia. That said, though, I want to get
Speaker 3: back to something you mentioned earlier Kiev, the rest of
Speaker 3: the country still standing, while flattened in many cases from
Speaker 3: these horrible attacks, but also NATO not still intact, but
Speaker 3: having been expanded in a way that nobody could have
Speaker 3: seen and likely would not have happened without this war
Speaker 3: taking place. That actually still sounds like victory for the
Speaker 3: quote unquote West, I.
Speaker 8: Mean, certainly. I mean the first thing I would say
Speaker 8: was a success is the Russian military has been really degraded.
Speaker 8: You know, I was never one who really believed Russia's
Speaker 8: opposed a very significant military conventional military threat before this
Speaker 8: war to NATO, and even more so now it's going
Speaker 8: to take them, you know, at least ten years, if
Speaker 8: not longer, to recover from this. And so you know,
Speaker 8: the Russian threat is being degraded, and unfortunately is being
Speaker 8: degraded at the cost of Ukrainian lives, blood treasure.
Speaker 9: Yeah, so, I guess it was probably initially, as you
Speaker 9: were talking about, you know, at the beginning of this war,
Speaker 9: we all thought Kiev was going to fall eminently, very
Speaker 9: shortly four days and it may have been a matter
Speaker 9: of not just underestimating the Ukrainian forces, but also overestimating
Speaker 9: the Russian ones.
Speaker 8: Yes, the combination. And you know, one of the things
Speaker 8: about the fact the Russians are degraded is that it
Speaker 8: makes it a much more manageable problem for our NATO allies,
Speaker 8: our EUROPEANATO allies to step up and take more responsibility
Speaker 8: for their defense and security that they don't necessarily need,
Speaker 8: you know, as much direct American support in Europe, which
Speaker 8: would allow us to shift resources attention to the Indo Pacific,
Speaker 8: where we're more concerned about the China threat.
Speaker 3: Great conversation, Kelly, I'm to light that you come in
Speaker 3: to talk to us. With all of that said, let's
Speaker 3: say they finally get the F sixteen six months down
Speaker 3: the road post settlement, is it easier for Ukraine to
Speaker 3: defend itself with an air force that has F sixteens?
Speaker 3: Is that a long term gain.
Speaker 8: Well, I would just say, first of all, I actually
Speaker 8: don't think it will be six months. I know Ukraine
Speaker 8: is saying that. I think it's going to be at
Speaker 8: least a year, all right, just based on some things
Speaker 8: that General Hecker said and pretty.
Speaker 3: Tough fighter jets. Though when the time comes, maybe.
Speaker 8: It will be useful for creating a new Ukrainian Air Force.
Speaker 3: Kelly greek So, senior fellow the Stimpson Center. Great to
Speaker 3: have you with us. I'm Joe Matthew with Kayleie Lines.
Speaker 3: This is Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Sound on podcast. Catch us
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Speaker 2: On Bloomberg dot com, the iHeartRadio app, and the Bloomberg
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Speaker 3: Let's talk to Joel Rosenblatt about the recovery a bit here,
Speaker 3: because look, the the number of uninsured people, the number
Speaker 3: of homeowners who have nothing, it's just unclear how exactly
Speaker 3: this is going to play out for them. The federal
Speaker 3: government may be offering help, but so far seven hundred
Speaker 3: dollars checks are a bit short of what people are
Speaker 3: going to need. So there's a question about this strategy
Speaker 3: that actually pushed PG and E stock down, and Hawaiian
Speaker 3: Electric stock was down like fifty eight percent the end
Speaker 3: of last week. On the strategy that property owners may use.
Speaker 3: Here illegal shortcut that was used by fire victims in
Speaker 3: California to secure compensation, and Joel is writing about this.
Speaker 3: Joel Rosenblatt is Bloomberg's legal reporter in with us now
Speaker 3: on sound on Joel, it's great to have you can
Speaker 3: describe how the strategy works.
Speaker 10: I sure. The strategy is known as inverse condemnation, which
Speaker 10: is kind of a complicated term that's actually rooted in
Speaker 10: a rather basic and simple principle of eminent domain, which
Speaker 10: is maybe more familiar to everybody listening, which is the
Speaker 10: power of the government to take private property for public
Speaker 10: infrastructure and in return compensate the owner. Another expression for
Speaker 10: that is the property being condemned, and inverse condemnation is
Speaker 10: kind of is the inverse of that. It's property owners
Speaker 10: suing a government agency to recover damages to property that
Speaker 10: was accidental.
Speaker 9: Usually, but je does it first need to be proved
Speaker 9: that it was Hawaiian electric equipment that contributed to these fires.
Speaker 9: I just wonder, you know, if that's kind of step
Speaker 9: one that needs to be established first, or they can
Speaker 9: pursue the strategy even an absence of that.
Speaker 10: Well, great question, because that's the great advantage of inverse
Speaker 10: condemnation is that you don't you don't have to prove
Speaker 10: that the company was negligent at all. You do have
Speaker 10: to prove you do have to show that that the
Speaker 10: company's equipment was the source of the fire. But that's
Speaker 10: that's in many cases, in a surprisingly number of cases,
Speaker 10: not that difficult to show. What's more difficult to show
Speaker 10: is that there was a there was negligence, that the
Speaker 10: company was actually negligent. That's a that's illegal fight that
Speaker 10: can take years, and inverse condemnation side steps that fight.
Speaker 10: You don't have to prove that the company's negligent, just
Speaker 10: that the company's equipment was the source of the fire.
Speaker 3: This ended in a third thirteen zero point five billion
Speaker 3: dollars settlement in California in twenty twenty. Joel, do we
Speaker 3: know how long residents have to make this plan or
Speaker 3: to decide which course to take.
Speaker 10: Well, it's really it's really you don't have to It's
Speaker 10: not one or the others. So the lawsuits that have
Speaker 10: been filed against Hawaiian Electric a legend number of different counts,
Speaker 10: a number of different claims, not all of them are
Speaker 10: pursuing in verse condemnation. So even ones that are pursuing
Speaker 10: wrongful death or other claims of negligence, have some have
Speaker 10: added in verse condemnation and others have not. There's a
Speaker 10: there's not a history of inverse condemnation in Hawaii in
Speaker 10: the wildfire context at all. So Hawaiian courts are going
Speaker 10: to have to consider, you know, consider that claim, and
Speaker 10: I think it's likely that they're going to look to
Speaker 10: California for for what's happened here in making those decisions.
Speaker 9: I wonder how in factoring into an ultimate decision, though,
Speaker 9: it would be taken into account that this is the
Speaker 9: main utility for Hawaii. It provides power to I believe,
Speaker 9: ninety five percent of the state's population. Theoretically, if they
Speaker 9: were to be pursued for billions of dollars in potential liabilities,
Speaker 9: it could mean its entire existence is in question. Would
Speaker 9: that be allowed to happen given its importance as a.
Speaker 10: Utility, Well, well, that's a great question, and we're just
Speaker 10: going to see what happens there. The same was true
Speaker 10: of PG. I mean, PG this utility Hawaiian Electric is
Speaker 10: just teeny compared to PGEN in California. But in California,
Speaker 10: the damages were just unbelievable, right, I don't know, you know,
Speaker 10: if everybody remembers the fire in Paradise that killed more
Speaker 10: than eighty five people and many other fires, I mean,
Speaker 10: the damage was just overwhelming the company. The claims together,
Speaker 10: not just the inverse condemnation claims, but all the claims
Speaker 10: together pushed PGN into bankruptcy. And then it was restructured
Speaker 10: and the victims, the fire victims were eventually paid out
Speaker 10: in this settlement. So I think the same thing could
Speaker 10: happen here. The scale is just different.
Speaker 3: Joe Rosenblatt, Thank you, Joel. Find the story on the
Speaker 3: terminal Maui fire lawyers I tactic that got Californian's thirteen
Speaker 3: point five billion dollars. Thanks for listening to the Sound
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Speaker 3: And you can find us live every weekday from Washington,
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