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Speaker 1: This Weekend Podcast with David Gura, Christina Raffini, and Elisa Matteo.
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us for today's selection of conversations from
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Speaker 5: Our focus this.
Speaker 6: Morning, yes, let's say these negotiations between the US and
Speaker 6: the Iranians, But much more acutely, now, what happened last
Speaker 6: night at the White House Correspondents Association dinner in Washington, DC.
Speaker 6: The three of us were in attendance there, along with
Speaker 6: many of our Bloomberg colleagues, and to get everyone up
Speaker 6: to speed, shots were fired early on in that dinner.
Speaker 6: The President, the Vice President, many members of his cabinet
Speaker 6: ushered out of that building the present giving a statement
Speaker 6: afterward at the White House about what had happened. We
Speaker 6: know that the suspect has been apprehended from California. But
Speaker 6: still the uncertainty that followed in the immediate aftermath of
Speaker 6: that shooting remains.
Speaker 5: There's a lot that we still don't know.
Speaker 2: And I'm going I mean, we are assuming a motive,
Speaker 2: but to what we were talking about earlier, they haven't
Speaker 2: charged him with that yet, so that means that they
Speaker 2: haven't proven that's too. Charges to come on Monday, which
Speaker 2: had to do with guns weapons charges because that is,
Speaker 2: you know, the clearest thing that they can get before
Speaker 2: investigating this more. But we need to know more about
Speaker 2: this subject. And the other big question is basically how
Speaker 2: did this happen? And that's something that we think we're
Speaker 2: gonna be talking about a lot here in Washington and
Speaker 2: throughout the week.
Speaker 5: We were sitting near each other and it was just
Speaker 5: a startling.
Speaker 4: It's amazing it was, and hearing the stories of everyone
Speaker 4: we've had on this morning of exactly what happened, from
Speaker 4: people ducking under tables, to the confusion, to the fear
Speaker 4: in people's faces. I saw one woman in tears. So
Speaker 4: it's an example of what can happen in this type
Speaker 4: of situation that people were just confused and didn't know.
Speaker 7: Where to go and what to turn and what to do.
Speaker 2: All right, we've got some sound and video were going
Speaker 2: to kind of run everybody through what happened. As a
Speaker 2: president was having his mind read by the evening's entertainment,
Speaker 2: several thuds could be heard in the ballroom. Initially, neither
Speaker 2: the president nor the guests took much notice. Then a
Speaker 2: column of security, Secret Service, and tactical teams swarmed the ballroom.
Speaker 2: The Vice president and President were quickly whisked off stage,
Speaker 2: followed by the president of the White House Press Corps.
Speaker 7: Uijajang.
Speaker 2: Secret Service jumped tables and flip chairs to rush cabinet members,
Speaker 2: including Stephen Miller and a pregnant Katie Miller, out of
Speaker 2: side door. The Speaker of the House resurched through the lobby.
Speaker 2: Cabinet secretaries were extracted from their tables, while ambassadors, VIPs
Speaker 2: and guests sheltered under them. Journalists decked for cover while
Speaker 2: trying to record on their phones. Guests who weren't evacuated
Speaker 2: were asked to wait, but with an active crime scene
Speaker 2: just outside the ballroom door, the President instead called a
Speaker 2: press conference at the White House.
Speaker 8: Can you described what was going through your mind, how
Speaker 8: you were feeling in that moment.
Speaker 9: That's very good question. Actually, it was always shocking when
Speaker 9: something like this happens. Happened to me a little bit,
Speaker 9: and that never changes the fact we were sitting right
Speaker 9: next to each other. First, Lady, am I right, And
Speaker 9: I heard a noise and sort of thought it was
Speaker 9: a tray. I thought it was a tray going down.
Speaker 9: I've heard that many times, and it was pretty loud noise,
Speaker 9: and it was from quite far away. He hadn't preached
Speaker 9: the area at all. They really got him, but so
Speaker 9: it was quite far away. But it was a gun,
Speaker 9: and some people really understood that pretty quickly.
Speaker 10: Other people didn't.
Speaker 9: I was watching to see what was happening. Probably should
Speaker 9: have gone down even faster.
Speaker 2: Back at the Hilton, the US Attorney for the District
Speaker 2: of Columbia, Mayor of DC, and chief of Police held
Speaker 2: a press conference.
Speaker 5: I'm not exactly one hundred percent from there with this.
Speaker 5: I do know in this instant tonight.
Speaker 6: I know there was a security plane that was developed
Speaker 6: by the Secret Service at the Metropolitan Police Department, assisted
Speaker 6: with and I know that security plan did.
Speaker 2: Work this evening, leaving many unanswered questions, an empty ballroom
Speaker 2: and visibly shaken staff left to clean up the mess.
Speaker 3: Stay with us for more on Bloomberg this weekend. Right
Speaker 3: after this, getting a tweet.
Speaker 6: Here from the President post on truth Social from the
Speaker 6: President United States, talking about the prospects of there being
Speaker 6: a new ballroom at the White House that we've been
Speaker 6: discussing over the course of the morning. The President brought
Speaker 6: that up in his comments to the press last night, saying,
Speaker 6: what happened last night at the Hilton here in Washington,
Speaker 6: d C.
Speaker 5: Is further evidence of the.
Speaker 6: Fact there needs to be a space of size at
Speaker 6: the White House for an event like this could be helped.
Speaker 6: We've talked with Jeff Mason a bit about the complication
Speaker 6: factors around all of that. That wouldn't be a public venue,
Speaker 6: of course, But the President here taking issue with the
Speaker 6: lawsuit that's been filed against the construction of that ballm
Speaker 6: You see, they're a very lengthy post. I'm not going
Speaker 6: to read all of it, but taking that litigant to task,
Speaker 6: suggesting again that this is something that needs to happen
Speaker 6: and would have perhaps prevented.
Speaker 5: What we saw last night.
Speaker 2: Ye yeah, and Jeff Mason in that big block of text,
Speaker 2: the part that stands out to me is right at
Speaker 2: the top, and the President says, this.
Speaker 7: Is the exactly what happened last night is exact.
Speaker 2: Reason our great military, secret Service, law enforcement, and every
Speaker 2: president for the last one hundred and fifty years have
Speaker 2: been demanding that a large, safe and secure ballroom be
Speaker 2: built on the grounds of the White House. Is that
Speaker 2: accurate and why is this something the president is focused
Speaker 2: on this morning.
Speaker 11: No, it's not accurate, and it seems almost uncomfortable to
Speaker 11: have to be fact checking the president on something that
Speaker 11: is not as important as what happened last night. But
Speaker 11: he is following a political adage, which is never let
Speaker 11: a good crisis go to waste, and I think that's
Speaker 11: exemplified in what he said last night and in this
Speaker 11: particular post.
Speaker 5: The president's ballroom.
Speaker 11: Is going through a whole bunch of legal threats that's
Speaker 11: really gotten under his skin. He wants to have it
Speaker 11: built before he leaves office at the end of his
Speaker 11: second term. There are question marks about that, even as
Speaker 11: there's a big pile of nothingness the East Wing used
Speaker 11: to stand, and he is emphasizing that if this event
Speaker 11: had been there, if that existed, then there would be
Speaker 11: more security. But you're right to mention, which I did
Speaker 11: earlier as well.
Speaker 12: It was the ballroom at the White.
Speaker 11: House is not going to be a public ballroom for
Speaker 11: outside organizations to use. And the White House Correspondence Association
Speaker 11: is an organization of journalists, not of that that does
Speaker 11: not work.
Speaker 7: For it, like the wedding venue.
Speaker 6: Correct, some twelve hours after this incident took place, we're
Speaker 6: getting more information on what transpired, more information about the suspect,
Speaker 6: Jeff and across television this morning, we're hearing from policymakers
Speaker 6: and politicians who were in attendance at this dinner. We're
Speaker 6: going to hear from a couple here in just a moment.
Speaker 6: But Todd Blanche, the Acting Attorney General, was on Meet
Speaker 6: the Press this morning talking about that investigation. What did
Speaker 6: he learn, How does that advance the stories we know
Speaker 6: it of who this individual is, and indeed what the
Speaker 6: focus of this law enforced investigation is going to be
Speaker 6: going forward.
Speaker 11: It's getting a few more details, but not a lot.
Speaker 11: It's a thirty one year old apparently teacher from California
Speaker 11: who traveled to Washington, d c.
Speaker 5: By train.
Speaker 11: To the extent that that's interesting, we know that he
Speaker 11: had apparently a shotgun, another gun.
Speaker 5: And multiple knives.
Speaker 11: He stayed at the hotel at the Washington Hilton, which
Speaker 11: we were referring to earlier as the Hinckley Hilton, and
Speaker 11: that is how he had those weapons, but still raising
Speaker 11: a lot of security questions about how he made it
Speaker 11: down at least two escalators to get very close to
Speaker 11: the ballroom before he was taken down.
Speaker 7: All right, Jeff Mason, thank you so much.
Speaker 2: And joining us now is Republican Congressman Michael McCall of Texas.
Speaker 2: He serves on the Foreign Affairs and Homeland Security committees.
Speaker 7: He was also our guest at the.
Speaker 2: White House correspidence correspond It's dinner last night.
Speaker 7: Chairman, First of all, how are you? And the first
Speaker 7: thing I.
Speaker 2: Want to ask you is we spent a lot of
Speaker 2: time standing in that well after this all happened last night.
Speaker 2: When you went about the dinner last night, do you
Speaker 2: think there was enough security there?
Speaker 7: You've been there before, what are your thoughts?
Speaker 13: Yees put my chairman of Homeland Security had on his
Speaker 13: former counter terrorism federal prosecutor. I would say the secret
Speaker 13: serch did an amazing job. Capitol police escorted the members
Speaker 13: out in the emergency vehicles, but the outer perimeter, if
Speaker 13: you will, was very free access. It's an open hotel,
Speaker 13: and I think that was part of the risk you know,
Speaker 13: involved here, if you had.
Speaker 10: To analyze it.
Speaker 13: It's very difficult to harden that kind of environment when
Speaker 13: you have the president coming in. When I was sort
Speaker 13: of amazed, you had the president and the vice president
Speaker 13: at the head table and the speaker, so you had
Speaker 13: the line of secession right there. If a bomb had
Speaker 13: gone off or something more dramatic, you know it would
Speaker 13: be it would fallow Chuck Grassley Amazingly.
Speaker 6: After this took place, you think Secret Service and the
Speaker 6: Capitol Police for squiring you and hear congressional colleagues out
Speaker 6: of the room. Something Joe Matthew brought up a few
Speaker 6: minutes ago is what it was like to see those
Speaker 6: security officials on stage, Yes, with weapons, but then how
Speaker 6: secret Service those law enforcement knew exactly where everybody was.
Speaker 6: There was an ear quiet in this space. But talk
Speaker 6: a bit about that. What you were thinking is you
Speaker 6: watched all of that unfold because I confess from where
Speaker 6: I was sitting, we were beginning to eat. There was
Speaker 6: some commotion and then it became very very quiet in
Speaker 6: the room.
Speaker 13: Well, I heard three gunshots, so I knew something was
Speaker 13: horribly rolling, and you're not quite sure what's going to
Speaker 13: happen after that, right, and I saw the President being
Speaker 13: taken off the stage, a secret service jumping up on
Speaker 13: the stage with their weapons pointed towards the audience, and
Speaker 13: it was surreal, you know, like you know, it's not
Speaker 13: an ordinary event. Unfortunately, it's becoming too commonplace in this country.
Speaker 13: But they went into action very quickly and escorted the
Speaker 13: cabinet members out of the room. But you don't know
Speaker 13: what's gonna happen quite after that. I didn't know before
Speaker 13: you can have like an AR fifteen and a spray
Speaker 13: of bullets and or we're gonna be diving under the tables.
Speaker 13: And fortunately we heard the three gunshots and that was
Speaker 13: the end of it. But you know, this country's getting
Speaker 13: too violent, you know, and the rhetoric needs to tone down.
Speaker 10: In my opinion.
Speaker 13: I was at Texas A and M talking about civility
Speaker 13: and politics just this last week with Henry Quaer or
Speaker 13: a Democrat, talking about you know, how we can agree
Speaker 13: to disagree, but with civility, and I think last night
Speaker 13: it's a good lesson for all of this and you know,
Speaker 13: amazingly the press, right, we were celebrating the First Amendment
Speaker 13: and the freedom of the press, and the press were
Speaker 13: there along with Republicans and Democrats all together celebrating our constitution.
Speaker 13: And the First Amendment does not allow for political violence.
Speaker 2: We were talking about the First Amendment, but it often
Speaker 2: comes into contradiction, it seems, with the Second Amendment, especially
Speaker 2: when your party votes on issues, they've been very reticent.
Speaker 2: More and more we were talking about Jim Brady and
Speaker 2: the Brady Bill that was the Reagan administration. This is
Speaker 2: a current Republican climate in which almost any gun control,
Speaker 2: even lawns gun control, is impossible to get past. Is
Speaker 2: that something your party should reevaluate, given what you just
Speaker 2: talked about, the heated political rhetoric and the violence that
Speaker 2: we're seeing.
Speaker 13: Yeah, it's interesting as I was talking to your CEO
Speaker 13: right next to me about this very issue before the shooting,
Speaker 13: and when I met with Michael Bloomberg and he donated
Speaker 13: my campaign. This is many years ago. He said, you're
Speaker 13: from Texas and you know, where are you on guns?
Speaker 10: Right?
Speaker 13: And you know we were having this conversation that you know,
Speaker 13: of course the weapons purchased I think it wasn't like
Speaker 13: an AR fifteen.
Speaker 10: It wasn't.
Speaker 13: I used to prosecute gun cases. A lot of them
Speaker 13: were stolen, but there has to be a way too.
Speaker 13: Usually after the fact, flags come up, like yeah, I
Speaker 13: knew this guy and I thought there was a problem,
Speaker 13: but they don't report it until after. And I had
Speaker 13: to build like a fusion center to capture the red
Speaker 13: flags and then be able to act beforehand, or at
Speaker 13: least provide more security if there's a threat out there.
Speaker 13: So I think there is room for improvement here. I
Speaker 13: don't think you're going to see my party, you know,
Speaker 13: infringing on the Second Amendment, per se. But you know,
Speaker 13: there are certain weapons under the nineteen sixty eight Gun
Speaker 13: Control Act, you know, like fully automatic machine guns or
Speaker 13: you know, And that was an out growth of you know,
Speaker 13: Robert Kennedy. You know, of course, you had John jfk
Speaker 13: assassinated in sixties, Robert Kennedy, and then you had Martin
Speaker 13: Luther King, and we had that legislation in nineteen sixty eight.
Speaker 13: That's the last time we've done that.
Speaker 6: Cherman Maritis mentioned Michael Blomberg, of course, the majority shareholder
Speaker 6: of Bloomberg LP. The parent company of Bloomberg News. When
Speaker 6: we get that out there, I want to ask you
Speaker 6: about what Homeland Security is going to do next year
Speaker 6: the Committee on Homeland Security.
Speaker 5: Will there be an investigation?
Speaker 6: Do you think what questions do you have about the
Speaker 6: way in which all of this unfolded. I think a
Speaker 6: lot of us took note of the way that security
Speaker 6: was set up. You rightly bring up the fact this
Speaker 6: was an open hotel, there were guests, they are totally
Speaker 6: unaffiliated with this dinner. What do you want to see
Speaker 6: investigated in terms of what that perimeter was, like, how fortified.
Speaker 13: I think we have to we have to take a
Speaker 13: look at the outer perimeter. Now, as I understand, he
Speaker 13: was a guest at the hotel, So anytime you have
Speaker 13: a big event like that, and you know, it's known
Speaker 13: as a Hinckley Hotel because in nineteen eighty one, Regae
Speaker 13: was shot there, so it has a bit of a
Speaker 13: checkered past, and so I do think we'll be analyzing that.
Speaker 13: I think also it just re emphasizes how important it
Speaker 13: is to fully fund the Department of Homeland Security and
Speaker 13: stop this nonsense of a shutdown of a very important
Speaker 13: agency within our federal government.
Speaker 5: Still partially shut down.
Speaker 10: It is.
Speaker 2: What is your take on the appropriateness of the president's
Speaker 2: true social posts that we just saw this morning and
Speaker 2: everything we've talked about violence, political rhetoric, that the president
Speaker 2: is focusing on building a ballroom.
Speaker 7: What's your take on that.
Speaker 13: Well, let me say first, I think his remarks last
Speaker 13: night were very gracious towards the press, you know, into
Speaker 13: both Democrats and Republican alike. I'm glad he took the
Speaker 13: high road in the rhetoric, which I think needs to
Speaker 13: be addressed. You know, the ballroom, you know, I was
Speaker 13: in the East wing and he pointed to it.
Speaker 10: It's a big hole in the ground.
Speaker 13: It's gonna have a lot of security features to it
Speaker 13: in the basement. But I think, as I was pointed
Speaker 13: out earlier, this is a private association, It's not that's
Speaker 13: a federal building essentially.
Speaker 10: So I don't know.
Speaker 13: I mean, I think it would certainly be a lot
Speaker 13: more secure if it was done in a place like that.
Speaker 13: The next time the president shows up, I think they're
Speaker 13: going to tighten up security even more so on the
Speaker 13: outer perimeter and again the line of secession all being there.
Speaker 13: At the same time, I think we had to take
Speaker 13: a look at that as well.
Speaker 7: Is that concerning? Is that something Congress should investigate?
Speaker 13: Yeah, of course. I was really shocked that the president
Speaker 13: and vice president were.
Speaker 5: At the table Togain surprise.
Speaker 10: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I'm going to go back to the rhetoric, and
Speaker 6: I'm cure is how hot a rhetoric has shaped the
Speaker 6: way that you approach your job? Is it something that
Speaker 6: you give more thought to God forbid something like this
Speaker 6: were to happen. How has it shaped the way that
Speaker 6: you and your colleagues in Congress approach the job. We've
Speaker 6: seen some reticence to attend town hall meetings if they
Speaker 6: get pretty fractious. Who knows what might happen. What are
Speaker 6: the consequences on a day to day basis for having
Speaker 6: the kind of heated rhetoric that we have in this country.
Speaker 13: We're a reflection of the American people, and there is
Speaker 13: a violent rhetoric out there, but we don't have to
Speaker 13: be an echo chamber for that. And the irony was
Speaker 13: I was just at this symposium at a university in
Speaker 13: my district where we talked about this very issue and
Speaker 13: how it needs to be I've been up there twenty
Speaker 13: two years up here, and it's changed for the worse,
Speaker 13: and it's okay to go on social media and say
Speaker 13: vile things about the other party and other members of Congress,
Speaker 13: and the president.
Speaker 2: Doesn't some of that coming from the top down. Isn't
Speaker 2: the president partly to blame for that?
Speaker 13: Well, I think we're probably all to blame. And you
Speaker 13: know what happens when these when these things occur, everybody
Speaker 13: says the right things for a couple of days, and
Speaker 13: then I'll give this a couple of weeks and we're
Speaker 13: going to be right back at you know, this violent
Speaker 13: rhetoric out there, and it doesn't seem to change. You
Speaker 13: can't legislate that that that is a conduct issue. It's
Speaker 13: a moral clarity issue. And I think, uh, the institution
Speaker 13: is weakened and hurt by the political politics in general
Speaker 13: are hurt by this violent rhetoric that is out there today.
Speaker 13: And I hope members do reflect on this, the ones
Speaker 13: that want they're five minutes of fame on YouTube and
Speaker 13: social media. I hope they reflect. It's not how I
Speaker 13: conduct myself. I wasn't raised that way. It's on my
Speaker 13: value system. I show respect for people that have other opinions,
Speaker 13: and that's what democracy is all about. That's what the press,
Speaker 13: the First Amendment, freedom of speech and press is all about.
Speaker 13: And we got to respect each other a little.
Speaker 10: Bit more last night.
Speaker 13: You know, I've been in war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Speaker 13: I've you know, heard mortar shells and you know ammunition.
Speaker 13: I'm going to Ukraine and this summer and you know,
Speaker 13: drones and all that kind of stuff. But you don't
Speaker 13: expect that. You know that the Hilton Hotel in Washington, DC.
Speaker 6: You have confidence in who's going to be leading this
Speaker 6: investigation prosecution, so cash matel not somebody who has traficial
Speaker 6: background for somebody running the FBI. Mark Wayne Mullen just
Speaker 6: taking this job over his DHS secretary. Should we be
Speaker 6: at all worried about those individuals' capacity to see this through?
Speaker 10: Well, they're the figurehead.
Speaker 13: I do think, like when I was a Federal protesty,
Speaker 13: the line, FBI agent's line, you know, secret service, They've
Speaker 13: been doing this for many years. They're professional and they
Speaker 13: know how to conduct this. I'm almost surprised we don't
Speaker 13: know anything more about the shooter, to be honest with you,
Speaker 13: other than you took a train, which I think is
Speaker 13: very strange. He had a couple of weapons and knives.
Speaker 13: You were there last night, Christina, We were at the
Speaker 13: table together. Yeah, somehow he runs in, he gets pretty
Speaker 13: darn close to the ballroom, and then we heard the gunshots,
Speaker 13: and so, yeah, there were a lot of unanswered questions.
Speaker 13: I didn't know if it was going to be like
Speaker 13: in Austin, Texas we had the property of all Islamist
Speaker 13: terrorist you know, does it look like this is that's
Speaker 13: the case here? And I don't know what motivates somebody
Speaker 13: to do something like this, and we don't know the
Speaker 13: answer to that right now.
Speaker 2: Very quickly, before I let you go, you said you
Speaker 2: think Congress should look into why all the cabinet officials
Speaker 2: were there, you know, the last survivor issue. But I'm
Speaker 2: wondering you think there should be a congressional investigation into
Speaker 2: what we've been talking about, how he got that far
Speaker 2: the perimeter and the security precautions around the president.
Speaker 13: Oh, ye, one hundred percent, And we will, and I
Speaker 13: think the Homeland Security Committee will be charged with that responsibility.
Speaker 10: But I do.
Speaker 13: Let's not lose fact that the Secret Service immediately popped
Speaker 13: up in the room, went into action, and the captal police.
Speaker 10: So I'm very proud of what they did.
Speaker 2: All right, thank you so much for joining US. Congress,
Speaker 2: Michael Paul, nice to see you again. Stay with us
Speaker 2: for more on Bloomberg this weekend. Right after this, we
Speaker 2: want to turn it out to Democratic Congressman Don Bayer
Speaker 2: of Virginia. He serves on the Ways and Means and
Speaker 2: Joint Economic Committees.
Speaker 7: And thank you for coming down. I know, I guess up,
Speaker 7: it's be long to hit. I know you weren't at the.
Speaker 2: Dinner last night, but I also know you know what's
Speaker 2: going on and you watched it. I just want to
Speaker 2: get your reactions to what happened and where you think
Speaker 2: we go from here, and what, if anything Congress should
Speaker 2: be investigating.
Speaker 14: My youth was dominated by the assassination of doctor President Kennedy,
Speaker 14: doctor King Bobby Kennedy, and we had this long other
Speaker 14: than the tragic shots at the same hotel with Ronald Reagan,
Speaker 14: a long period of time with peacefulness.
Speaker 12: This has really been upsetting.
Speaker 14: And you find that on Capitol Hill a lot more
Speaker 14: security all around, metal detectors everywhere, a lot more Capital police.
Speaker 14: They actually put a lot of money in the buzzet
Speaker 14: for personal security for members, And now when we do
Speaker 14: town hall meetings, we're always talking to the local police
Speaker 14: making sure there's two or three of them there on
Speaker 14: just in case.
Speaker 7: And that's because the rhetoric has gotten so.
Speaker 14: Huge, exactly, and it's a terrible thing. You know, I
Speaker 14: don't support much of what President Trump has done, but
Speaker 14: the last thing I want is for him to be shot.
Speaker 6: Like, give you a variation on the question, I asked
Speaker 6: the chairman Emeritis of the FORDA Fairs Cuddy, that is,
Speaker 6: has it affected the way that you go about your job,
Speaker 6: your awareness of that rhetoric, a sense that something terrible
Speaker 6: could happen at a town hall or a public event.
Speaker 5: Is it something you worry about?
Speaker 12: I think I don't worry. I think my wife worries
Speaker 12: about more than I do.
Speaker 14: Also, I don't feel like I'm a particularly high profile
Speaker 14: in terms of going versus of viral And you know,
Speaker 14: if I were AOC or Margorie Taylor Green something like that,
Speaker 14: I'd be much more worried about it.
Speaker 2: We have Attorney General Toald blanch Is on CNN moments ago.
Speaker 7: We want to play you what he just said. It
Speaker 7: doesn't sound.
Speaker 15: From our preliminary investigation it does appear the suspect was
Speaker 15: targeting members of the administration.
Speaker 5: I don't want to go beyond.
Speaker 15: That because we don't have specifics yet about particular members
Speaker 15: of the administration, except that we do understand that that
Speaker 15: was his goal and his target he, of.
Speaker 7: Course, is the acting AG.
Speaker 2: I want to correct myself there, but what is your
Speaker 2: take on the fact that he was there to possibly
Speaker 2: harm not just the president but members of the administration
Speaker 2: and the cabinet and people who may not be his
Speaker 2: high profile maybe not safe in this climate either, although.
Speaker 14: You know, if you look through different administrations, a lot
Speaker 14: of Trump's folks think peak heagteth or Cash Mattel there
Speaker 14: much higher profile, that's than Pam Bondi than they have
Speaker 14: been in the past. I'm trying to think sometimes you'd
Speaker 14: reach back and say, who was that person for Barack
Speaker 14: Obama or Joe Biden.
Speaker 6: We want to talk about what's happened in Virginia politics
Speaker 6: over the last few weeks, but let me get one
Speaker 6: more question to you about this, and that is, how
Speaker 6: would you like to see Congress's.
Speaker 5: Role going forward in all of this?
Speaker 6: So it's really early hours yet, not even early days yet,
Speaker 6: in this investigation. The suspect likely to be charged on Monday,
Speaker 6: as we understand it. What's Congress's role here in the
Speaker 6: wake of what happened yesterday?
Speaker 14: You know, the very first thing, David I'd say is
Speaker 14: that we continue to try to improve our rhetoric.
Speaker 12: You know that we're in the country. One of the
Speaker 12: things most obsessed me is that.
Speaker 14: We are more divided than we've ever been, maybe back
Speaker 14: to the Civil War. We seem to have different understandings
Speaker 14: of who we are in our factories, our understanding of
Speaker 14: our history. So the notion of treating each other with respect,
Speaker 14: even though we could have very different policy approaches, seems
Speaker 14: to still be essential to that.
Speaker 2: Should Congress be investigating either why so many members within
Speaker 2: the line of succession were in the same room, or
Speaker 2: the security apparatus and how this all happened.
Speaker 14: I was really concerned myself as Marco Rubio and the
Speaker 14: vice president and the president.
Speaker 12: That's really concerning.
Speaker 14: I know it shouldn't just be one person that good takeover.
Speaker 7: Should you be investigating, I just show Congress investigator.
Speaker 14: Well, that'd be a good oversight thing for sure. On
Speaker 14: ways and means, I tend not to thinking more about
Speaker 14: the tariffs in the taxes.
Speaker 5: There enough and plenty to think about that.
Speaker 6: We can talk about that in a minute as well,
Speaker 6: But let's talk about redistricting and what's happening in Virginia.
Speaker 6: Did what's stalled for the moment in Virginia? I was
Speaker 6: saying during the break, I was on vacation traveling through
Speaker 6: Virginia and the signs were everywhere, vote yes, vote no,
Speaker 6: really yes on this referendum just a few days. I
Speaker 6: still love to see if they get taken down. It
Speaker 6: did pass what your governor had pushed for here, this
Speaker 6: redistrict that was advantageous for Democrats. Now it's a stand
Speaker 6: still as Republicans have filed a lawsuit against it.
Speaker 5: Where does it stand? How do you see all of
Speaker 5: this playing out?
Speaker 6: And I don't need to point out we're getting closer
Speaker 6: and closer here to the midterm elections.
Speaker 14: Well, I was glad that it passed with some reluctance.
Speaker 14: So we passed a construcial amendment four or five years ago,
Speaker 14: getting rid of jerry manderins. We have the least gerrymandered
Speaker 14: districts in the country before this, but after Donald Trump
Speaker 14: said he's entitled to five seats, in It took three
Speaker 14: in North Carolina, two in Ohio, one coming up in Missouri.
Speaker 12: Florida is about to meet. I think to do the
Speaker 12: same thing.
Speaker 14: We felt we had to push back and we got
Speaker 14: three million people showed up was gubernatorial style turnout for
Speaker 14: an election in April, and it didn't pass by a
Speaker 14: lot three percent of ninety thousand votes. And now you know,
Speaker 14: in a perfect democratic world is ten Democrats and one Republican.
Speaker 14: But that's not a given. We still have to go
Speaker 14: win those seats, and we'll be running in many cases
Speaker 14: against Republican incumbents who've been there many years and have
Speaker 14: deep relationships in the community.
Speaker 2: But I do want to ask you as we talk
Speaker 2: about turning down the political rhetoric, it is very hard
Speaker 2: to get elected as a moderate in Congress right now,
Speaker 2: partly because of the way these districts are drawn and
Speaker 2: the way voters are mobilized. That these tend to vote
Speaker 2: for the extremes of the party, which is why initially
Speaker 2: Democrats worthy.
Speaker 7: You know, when they go low, we go high.
Speaker 2: Party is there could there be a potential backlash to
Speaker 2: changing tactics here and that the things you say that
Speaker 2: we should have in Congress might be harder.
Speaker 12: To get there could be a backlash.
Speaker 14: But Christine digo to something that's been really important to
Speaker 14: me my eleven years in Congress, which is the notion
Speaker 14: that you have so many safe seats that Democrats have
Speaker 14: to run to the left and their primary Republicans run
Speaker 14: to the right. We typically worry about who's going to
Speaker 14: take us out in the primary, not in the general election.
Speaker 14: And that then means when you come to Congress, there's
Speaker 14: no overlap. When I was a kid, there are lots
Speaker 14: of very conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans there are you
Speaker 14: don't have many of them anymore.
Speaker 12: Not to get nerdy on.
Speaker 7: You, but nerdy this is Bloomberg.
Speaker 14: Bring it out a fair representation actors that have been
Speaker 14: pushing for eleven years. Takes us back to multi member districts,
Speaker 14: which we had for the first sixty years in America
Speaker 14: and ranked choice voting, and that then makes you Northern
Speaker 14: Virginia that I represent, would have three districts, and you'd
Speaker 14: be fighting for the middle rather than the extreme. It
Speaker 14: would hopefully bring also you end up not that you
Speaker 14: don't want to have the extremes. The Marjorie Tayl of
Speaker 14: Green and the like, but it should get cut off
Speaker 14: those ends and bring people back together.
Speaker 5: Mention your own ways and means.
Speaker 6: You're also the senior Democrat on the Joint Economic Committee.
Speaker 6: We just got news that Senator Tom Tillis of North
Speaker 6: Carolina is prepared to go ahead with voting for Kevin
Speaker 6: Warsh because of what's happened with the investigation in Jerome
Speaker 6: Powell and the Federal Reserve. Your reaction to that, I
Speaker 6: wonder if you are a supporter of Kevin Worsh's candidacy
Speaker 6: for that position, and also just your reaction to the
Speaker 6: way that all of this has unfolded, both the investigation
Speaker 6: on the Justice Department side and now it being punted
Speaker 6: over to the IG at the Federals.
Speaker 14: I'm thrilled that they've withdrawn the the case against j.
Speaker 10: Powell.
Speaker 14: It was silly to begin with. If you look at
Speaker 14: cost overruns. There are so many in the federal government
Speaker 14: for many, many different reasons, and the thought that blaming
Speaker 14: him for it was pretty ridiculous. I'm so glad that
Speaker 14: Senator Tillis had stood up for that.
Speaker 12: And for Kevin wors It's interesting you look at his history.
Speaker 14: He was largely at a deficit hawk and somebody that
Speaker 14: believed in manishing higher interust rates.
Speaker 12: So and I was very.
Speaker 14: Pleased with his testimony saying that he wasn't going to
Speaker 14: be a sock buffet.
Speaker 12: For Donald Trump.
Speaker 2: But do you think this is enough for Powell to
Speaker 2: step away, because as we've been talking about here, there's
Speaker 2: no guarantee that they can't restart this investigation. He could
Speaker 2: do what the President wants him to do and then
Speaker 2: still end up facing these charges.
Speaker 12: Yeah.
Speaker 14: But Wes, we've seen so many of these investigations. Once
Speaker 14: you get to a grand jury, they throw it out
Speaker 14: right away. You know, there's a lot a lot of
Speaker 14: this is showmanship that and it does have It costs
Speaker 14: the poor person that's being persecuted.
Speaker 12: Dollars, money, money, and anxiety.
Speaker 14: And of course so it's it's unfair and that the
Speaker 14: going after political enemies, whether it's a Democrat or Republican.
Speaker 5: Is a bad thing.
Speaker 6: You again, join Economics Committee have a great vantage on
Speaker 6: this US economy, it's placed in the global economy. This
Speaker 6: war is continuing, lasting longer than the President said it wouldn't.
Speaker 6: We've heard so many warning signs from our guests, policymakers
Speaker 6: and experts about what the fallout has been so far
Speaker 6: and what it's likely to be as we see in
Speaker 6: Asia parts of the world, real difficulty in getting oil,
Speaker 6: getting refined.
Speaker 5: Fuel products and fertilizer.
Speaker 6: All that's going to have your sense of what this
Speaker 6: means for the economy. How worried you are about the
Speaker 6: prospects of a war that lasts longer and longer.
Speaker 14: Well, I think one of the main reasons down Trump
Speaker 14: kind elector was because of the all the inflation during COVID,
Speaker 14: which is during Biden and his tariffs have moved us
Speaker 14: in the wrong direction, and then the war having get
Speaker 14: a huge impact on both grocery prices and fuel I'm
Speaker 14: paying in northern Virginia.
Speaker 12: It's only four ninety nine.
Speaker 5: If only only yeah, yeah.
Speaker 12: That, and it could get worse.
Speaker 14: How a big picture, I still very much believe in
Speaker 14: the American economy. We have an awful lot of interesting
Speaker 14: things going on, including and I know Mike and I
Speaker 14: your previous guest co co chair of the AI Caucus,
Speaker 14: there's so much good coming out of AI, including five
Speaker 14: percent productivity growth in the last quarter, and so much
Speaker 14: danger because of the real plause of huge job displacement
Speaker 14: you're studying.
Speaker 6: Weren't you remember that you were like studying eyes.
Speaker 5: I'm still in a masters or something that.
Speaker 14: Yeah, I still get nine courses to go out of
Speaker 14: Jards Mason, but I'm working on it.
Speaker 7: So we only have a tiny bit of time.
Speaker 2: But when it comes to AI spiking energy prices, this
Speaker 2: is all coming into focus with what's going on in
Speaker 2: Iran and there's a crunch on supply and demand everything else.
Speaker 2: As you look towards the midterms, as you look towards November,
Speaker 2: you talk about those kitchen table issues and how they
Speaker 2: got President Trump into office.
Speaker 7: Will Democrats take.
Speaker 2: Advantage of that and will this help you going into
Speaker 2: the fall?
Speaker 10: Oh?
Speaker 14: I think so, you know, things look very good right now,
Speaker 14: but it's April and a week's a long time in politics.
Speaker 14: But we have many seats we think we can take,
Speaker 14: relatively few that we need to defend, and with the
Speaker 14: presidents disapprove, we're rating at fifty eight percent.
Speaker 12: This is potentially wave election.
Speaker 14: Although you look back to Charlie Cooky said wave elections
Speaker 14: tend to follow wave elections one way or the other.
Speaker 14: So there aren't that we have to temper our expectations.
Speaker 14: You only need three or four seats.
Speaker 6: Gentlemen from the eighth Congressional District of Virginia, Don Bayer,
Speaker 6: thank you very much for joining us.
Speaker 4: Stay with us for more on Bloomberg this weekend. Right
Speaker 4: after this.
Speaker 6: Here to discuss more is Rise Communications founder and former
Speaker 6: Republican Congression advisor Leslie Shedd and former Senior Advisor for
Speaker 6: Political Engagement during the Biden administration, John McCarthy. Great to
Speaker 6: have both of you with us. We saw you at
Speaker 6: the dinner last night, and John, let me start with you.
Speaker 6: I'm piecing together each of our own experience of what
Speaker 6: unfolded there, and I'm curious sort of where you were
Speaker 6: in the room and the degree to which in the
Speaker 6: moment you had an understanding of what was happening and
Speaker 6: what unfolded after that.
Speaker 16: Well, I don't think that anybody in the moment had
Speaker 16: any clear picture of what was going on, obviously, it
Speaker 16: being a room full of journalists people. Kind of then
Speaker 16: once the activities stopped, I went around the room and
Speaker 16: kind of started comparing notes, and I think I heard
Speaker 16: about six different retellings of what had actually transpired.
Speaker 5: I was sitting at the.
Speaker 16: Back of the room, kind of by the door, where
Speaker 16: the lot of the main central activity occurred, and my
Speaker 16: face was to the door, and at the time you
Speaker 16: saw agents kind of come out of that door, you'd
Speaker 16: hear gunshots, and at that point people dropped to the
Speaker 16: table pretty quickly. It's obviously a very crowded ballroom, and
Speaker 16: you know, people watching don't always know, but you don't
Speaker 16: actually know a lot of the people you're sitting around necessarily,
Speaker 16: so about half your tables kind of under the table,
Speaker 16: under the tablecloths.
Speaker 5: Other people have their heads down.
Speaker 16: That transpires for a couple of minutes, probably, and then
Speaker 16: folks kind of started to put their heads up, and
Speaker 16: then there ended up being a lot more kind of
Speaker 16: noise coming from the center of the room, which in
Speaker 16: retrospect was probably the detail ees being kind of removed
Speaker 16: from the room, cabinet members exactly. And then the thing
Speaker 16: that really amazed me is kind of once that seemed
Speaker 16: to clear, I mean, there was no kind of announcement
Speaker 16: that everything had cleared. But the thing that kind of
Speaker 16: amazed me is once you're looking up for a second,
Speaker 16: you look around the room, and I mean, I spent
Speaker 16: four years in the last administration, and I have always
Speaker 16: been so amazed by the Secret Service. I mean without
Speaker 16: missing a beat. I mean they stood up and physically
Speaker 16: stood in front of the President, which I am always
Speaker 16: amazed by them. And then I was really amazed by
Speaker 16: the journalists in the room. The fact that they were
Speaker 16: able to kind of stand up and just start muscle memory,
Speaker 16: you know, kicking and start doing their job again, I
Speaker 16: thought was pretty remarkable. And you know, people sometimes give
Speaker 16: this dinner in this weekend a little flak, but you know,
Speaker 16: as you looked around the room and saw those people
Speaker 16: kind of stepping in and doing what they're supposed to
Speaker 16: do in that moment, they kind of reminded you that
Speaker 16: what they're doing is very important and that a lot
Speaker 16: of the people who do it are very good at it.
Speaker 7: And you also said, we've been talking about the other
Speaker 7: folks who.
Speaker 2: Helped make that dinner happen, including all the back of
Speaker 2: house staff, and you said some point you saw them with.
Speaker 16: Their hands up or yeah, in the kind of rooms
Speaker 16: that kind of open up off the ballroom, A couple
Speaker 16: of the doors flung open, and it looked at you know,
Speaker 16: at some point that they were kind of being held
Speaker 16: in kind of a security like posture, and that was
Speaker 16: pretty alarming too, because at this point you didn't know
Speaker 16: what was happening at all. You didn't know if someone
Speaker 16: was still in the room. You know, you didn't know
Speaker 16: how many. And again no one sits and says, okay,
Speaker 16: now you're clear, feel free to move about. So it
Speaker 16: was kind of a jarring posture. And you know, a
Speaker 16: lot of the people in that room are probably used
Speaker 16: to being around, you know, protected individuals situations like this. Obviously,
Speaker 16: a lot of the journalists were there for the incident
Speaker 16: in Pennsylvania with President Trump and Generos six, but for
Speaker 16: these people who you know, are there just to kind
Speaker 16: of support this function. I've been going to the dinner
Speaker 16: for years, and I've actually really enjoyed talking to a
Speaker 16: lot of the weight staff there because they actually take
Speaker 16: such a point of pride in working there. I actually
Speaker 16: remember a couple of years ago there was this one
Speaker 16: man who was a waiter there and I was asking
Speaker 16: him how many of these he'd worked at, and he
Speaker 16: actually went back in and pulled out a bunch of
Speaker 16: the old programs that he kept there with him because
Speaker 16: he always took it as such a point of pride
Speaker 16: that he gets to kind of work at this historic event,
Speaker 16: and it really, when you step back for a second,
Speaker 16: it is exactly what Washington is supposed to be in
Speaker 16: the sense of it should be about mutual respect, It
Speaker 16: should be about lowering the temperature and finding kind of
Speaker 16: comedy in difficult times. So I mean again, every kind
Speaker 16: of player in it, from the weight staff to the
Speaker 16: journalists in the room kind of all ended up doing
Speaker 16: what they were supposed to do and it does kind
Speaker 16: of give you some hope in humanity in pretty difficult times.
Speaker 6: Let's see, I want to ask you about rhetoric. So
Speaker 6: there have been these calls to tone down the rhetoric.
Speaker 5: I mean, I think the cover station about hetoric began
Speaker 5: before the event itself.
Speaker 6: There were a lot of people wondering what tack the
Speaker 6: President would take giving this speech to the White House
Speaker 6: Correspondents Association and its guests.
Speaker 5: Given he hadn't gone to the dinner before.
Speaker 6: Given what he said to the press before, there was
Speaker 6: a market change in his tone last night when he
Speaker 6: did speak to the press in the briefing room, he
Speaker 6: was very gracious to the President the association and also
Speaker 6: somewhat chokingly said he couldn't give the speech that he
Speaker 6: intended to give.
Speaker 5: After what had happened.
Speaker 6: It's maybe folly to kind of look at a moment
Speaker 6: like this and predict whether it's going to change things.
Speaker 6: But does it feel like this is a moment when
Speaker 6: there's the prospect of change in the way that people
Speaker 6: of differing views get along with?
Speaker 8: Yes, I mean, I would love to see that right
Speaker 8: civility in our conversation. It seems to be gone. And
Speaker 8: it's really frustrating and scary when you work in politics
Speaker 8: to think I can't go to a party with my
Speaker 8: friends without having to walk through magnometers and have secret
Speaker 8: service and police and roads closed off everywhere just so
Speaker 8: that we can get together and celebrate the First Amendment.
Speaker 8: I mean, it's just a really it's a scary time.
Speaker 8: I will say one of the things that stood out
Speaker 8: to me last night with the president's remarks was when
Speaker 8: he said, you know, it wasn't a Trump event. There
Speaker 8: were Republicans there there, Democrats, they're conservatives, liberals, members of
Speaker 8: the media. We were all gathered there together to celebrate
Speaker 8: the First Amendment, and this horrible thing happened, and it's
Speaker 8: just it's scary to me more than anything.
Speaker 2: But you know, Mike McCall you're for a boss who
Speaker 2: has this long time.
Speaker 7: We just swapped you out of these seats.
Speaker 2: He was saying that this is not something you can legislate,
Speaker 2: and there is a point to that.
Speaker 7: So what do you do. You're a realist, you've.
Speaker 2: Been this town a long time, but you guys are
Speaker 2: on opposite ends that are very close friends.
Speaker 7: What do you do?
Speaker 2: Does it have to come from the top down or
Speaker 2: could Republicans in Congress take the lead on this and
Speaker 2: will be.
Speaker 8: I have to, like, I don't want to not place
Speaker 8: blame on different politicians and.
Speaker 17: People in DC.
Speaker 8: For sure, there are definitely some politicians that have not
Speaker 8: great rhetoric on both sides of the aisle. But you know,
Speaker 8: you just said that John and I are friends. I
Speaker 8: have a lot of friends that are Democrats. Republicans and
Speaker 8: Democrats get along here. This is our city. We all
Speaker 8: work together, we all live together. I do think that
Speaker 8: there's a lot of camaraderie between Republicans, Democrats, journalists, you know,
Speaker 8: people that work here and that what you see online
Speaker 8: often are people that don't know anything about DC.
Speaker 17: They've never been here before.
Speaker 8: They see something online and they want to be a
Speaker 8: part of a conversation or they have a specific, you know,
Speaker 8: idea about something and they go off the rails.
Speaker 17: This guy came.
Speaker 8: From California, so you know, I think that the Congressman's right.
Speaker 17: They're trying to legislate the.
Speaker 8: Way that somebody thinks, and especially in a country that
Speaker 8: prioritizes free speech, it's going to be hard. I do
Speaker 8: think that, you know, we want to see more leaders
Speaker 8: out there trying to lower the tone.
Speaker 17: Of the rhetoric, and you know, Congressman McCall is a
Speaker 17: perfect example of that. I think he mentioned this.
Speaker 8: He was just at a big event like last week,
Speaker 8: I think in Texas with Henry Quaar talking about the
Speaker 8: importance of bipartisanship and civility.
Speaker 16: Yeah, and I mean, I hope that that's true. I
Speaker 16: think there's kind of two issues at hand here. The
Speaker 16: first of which is there's not really a political reward
Speaker 16: for being a centrist and being kind of a you know,
Speaker 16: not that flashy, not that exciting elected official.
Speaker 7: That's true, and that's.
Speaker 2: Not what we're partly to blame for this as well,
Speaker 2: because that's not what we pick up it.
Speaker 16: Was the second point, Yeah, exactly, I was going to
Speaker 16: say that's part of the problem, whether it's the media
Speaker 16: or the algorithms. It doesn't reward someone who wants to
Speaker 16: sit and say have you read my substant of white
Speaker 16: paper on this issue. Instead, it's the kind of snappy
Speaker 16: SoundBite that gets the political reward in the end. So,
Speaker 16: you know, I think that these elected officials need to
Speaker 16: step up and remember that they are really elected to
Speaker 16: be in many ways chief citizens. But simultaneously, both the
Speaker 16: media and of course the tech platform is et cetera
Speaker 16: need to also recognize that they play an important moderating
Speaker 16: force in all of this too.
Speaker 5: I will read your snappy white paper or whatever you've
Speaker 5: David Gara.
Speaker 2: Reads all of the snappy white papers. John McCarthy Leslie said,
Speaker 2: hang on, we're going to keep you here. Actually we've
Speaker 2: got to go to break but we want to keep
Speaker 2: talking to you more about all of this because a
Speaker 2: lots of breakdown and we do want to talk. We
Speaker 2: don't want you to fight, but we want to talk
Speaker 2: a little bit about some of the contentious issues going
Speaker 2: on on the hill. We are still in a partial
Speaker 2: government shutdown. We've got a fed chair, we've got a
Speaker 2: whole bunch of other stuff, and the King is going
Speaker 2: a visit, so we want to discuss all of this,
Speaker 2: So stay in your seats and you at home, please
Speaker 2: stay in your seats.
Speaker 7: Bloomberg this weekend will be.
Speaker 2: Right back on all the platforms and stick with us
Speaker 2: this morning.
Speaker 6: Welcome back to Bloomery this weekend. David Gerr with Pristina Rafina.
Speaker 6: We have John McCarthy and Leslie shed with a skin
Speaker 6: as well. John, let me start with you on what's
Speaker 6: just transpired over the last hour. That is, Senator Tom
Speaker 6: Tillis of North Carolina has dropped his opposition to the
Speaker 6: nomination of Kevin Warsh. He had locked it in protests
Speaker 6: because of what had been happening with the Department of
Speaker 6: Justice and Jerome Powell. He writes in a statement that
Speaker 6: he's posted on x with the assurances that he's gotten.
Speaker 6: I look forward to supporting Kevin Worsh's confirmation. He's an
Speaker 6: outstanding nominee and it's time for the Federal Reserve to
Speaker 6: move beyond this distraction and return its full attention to
Speaker 6: its mission. Curious for your reaction broadly, but more specifically,
Speaker 6: your reaction to this. Emboldened Tom Tillis, who yes, is
Speaker 6: outgoing his days are numbered as a Senator from North Carolina.
Speaker 6: But what is his attitude toward this, the way that
Speaker 6: he's approached this, say to you about the way that lawmakers,
Speaker 6: perhaps more broadly, could take a.
Speaker 5: Stand in a way that they haven't in recent months
Speaker 5: and years.
Speaker 16: Yeah, I mean outgoing lawmakers tend to be some of
Speaker 16: them bolden in boldened, yes, but they also, you know,
Speaker 16: are the most ones open.
Speaker 5: To deal making.
Speaker 16: When I was back in the Biden administration, when we
Speaker 16: were looking towards the bipartisan Infrastructure law, the senators who
Speaker 16: are really available to us are no longer serving. By
Speaker 16: and large, they're the ones who are willing to kind
Speaker 16: of cross the aisle get a couple things done, and
Speaker 16: they're thinking about their legacy. The only thing I would
Speaker 16: caution here is that assurances tend to not last very long.
Speaker 16: Inside of the Trump administration, I think we saw a
Speaker 16: lot of assurances given around the nomination of Secretary Kennedy.
Speaker 16: We've heard people kind of speak out since saying that
Speaker 16: they were a little concerned about some of his actions
Speaker 16: since so I don't know, you know, what these assurances were,
Speaker 16: but I don't know that I would, you know, take
Speaker 16: them to the bank if I were the senator, Let's say,
Speaker 16: I want.
Speaker 2: To get your take on why this happened. Why the
Speaker 2: dog backed off this investigation, because the President had gone
Speaker 2: really hard on this, despite members of his own part
Speaker 2: already saying, you are you know, as my mother would say,
Speaker 2: cutting off your nose, despite your face, you have a
Speaker 2: long term goal. This is going to complicate it. Why
Speaker 2: was he so set on this in the first place,
Speaker 2: and what do you think ultimately changed his mind.
Speaker 8: Well, I want to start by saying, I am here
Speaker 8: for Tom Tillis's yolo like moment right now. I honestly
Speaker 8: just can't wait to see what happens next on this one,
Speaker 8: because you know, he's funny and he cares about stuff,
Speaker 8: and he's not afraid to, you know, hold people's feet
Speaker 8: to the fire.
Speaker 17: You know, I'm a lawyer too.
Speaker 8: I like to say I play a lawyer on TV,
Speaker 8: But you know, I think if you go through and
Speaker 8: look at the case, it just wasn't a strong case.
Speaker 8: And attorneys can actually get in trouble if they are
Speaker 8: pursuing cases like aggressively over time where they just don't
Speaker 8: have the evidence to.
Speaker 17: Back that up.
Speaker 8: So I'd be willing to bet it's probably a little
Speaker 8: bit to do with that, probably definitely to do with
Speaker 8: the Kevin Morsh nomination.
Speaker 17: I personally thought always that this was a bit of
Speaker 17: a distraction.
Speaker 8: We've got a really big election coming up in November
Speaker 8: and a little bit, and i'd really like to see,
Speaker 8: you know, the president and the administration one hundred percent
Speaker 8: focused on that.
Speaker 6: Right now, we're talking about jerrymandering. What happened in Virginia
Speaker 6: a couple of weeks back, And I'm curious how you
Speaker 6: see the evolution of this story. So Florida is poised
Speaker 6: perhaps to do some of this itself. But I think
Speaker 6: a warning that we got early on was if Republicans
Speaker 6: initially were to start doing this, it would be this
Speaker 6: kind of tit for tap thing, and lo it seems
Speaker 6: to have been that. Where do you see all of
Speaker 6: this leading this conversation about the way that states decided?
Speaker 8: Yeah, Io, I think no offense to John, but I
Speaker 8: think that there was kind of a belief among Republicans
Speaker 8: that Democrats would roll over because they had been for
Speaker 8: quite you know, several months at the beginning of the administration.
Speaker 16: Several years, perhaps Democratic party right there look at this agreement.
Speaker 8: So you know, I think what we're at a wash
Speaker 8: kind of right now. Right like ten seats for Democrats,
Speaker 8: nine seats for Republicans. I go back again to you know,
Speaker 8: I just feel like this is a bit of a distraction.
Speaker 8: It's taking time away from people, it's taking money away,
Speaker 8: it's taking political capital away that I would.
Speaker 17: Rather be seen invested in.
Speaker 8: Racist is that we need to try to protect members
Speaker 8: that we already have, as well as really great candidates
Speaker 8: that we've got coming up. And you know, I know
Speaker 8: there's a lot of attention paid to these federal races,
Speaker 8: but we've got a lot of really great governor's candidates,
Speaker 8: attorney's general candidates. There's gonna be a lot of interesting
Speaker 8: races this November.
Speaker 7: So all right, we've got about two minutes left.
Speaker 5: Yeah, okay.
Speaker 16: I would just say that it actually exemplifies the tension
Speaker 16: that's in the Democratic Party right now, because, you know,
Speaker 16: this is something that Democrats would largely not be for.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 16: Democrats have overwhelmingly each Congress introduced a lot of good
Speaker 16: government bills, from money out of Politics to independent redistricting.
Speaker 16: But there's also this new lane of the party that's
Speaker 16: telling them that they want their nominee to fight more So,
Speaker 16: I think that this is playing out in a really
Speaker 16: weird way where Democrats are trying to find their new
Speaker 16: footing in this new generation. And I think that's why
Speaker 16: you're seeing some of the kind of you know, outside
Speaker 16: groups come in and support with such vigor some of
Speaker 16: these independent redistricting efforts, you know, reforms, but you know,
Speaker 16: these kind of more partisan efforts in practice.
Speaker 8: Trying to correct the over correction, right with Joe Biden,
Speaker 8: that was this over correction, I think, to President Trump
Speaker 8: and trying to figure out this new happy medium. How
Speaker 8: can they be you know, against the way that they
Speaker 8: don't like the way the President speaks or his policies,
Speaker 8: but still be interesting and you know, get attention.
Speaker 5: Exactly.
Speaker 2: We've got a very short jump ball here when it
Speaker 2: comes to kitchen table issues and the midterms and November.
Speaker 7: Which party is going to do it better easily?
Speaker 16: Democrats and the Republican Party. The Republican Party has not
Speaker 16: been able to focus on this since they got here.
Speaker 16: I mean, the president had a mandate to lower costs,
Speaker 16: and I mean take your pick ballroom wars, you know,
Speaker 16: foreign invasions, you know, none of that is bringing down costs.
Speaker 5: I don't need to ows the mentalist here too.
Speaker 8: Exacinitely Republicans, Oh, you know, and I know, I know
Speaker 8: everybody's surprised, right, but I think to the biggest reason
Speaker 8: is that Republicans have a record to run on right now.
Speaker 8: I just see a lot of anti Trump stuff for Democrats,
Speaker 8: and you know, not a lot of ideas.
Speaker 5: Leslie Shad John McCarthy.
Speaker 6: Thanks to both of you if you're joining us here
Speaker 6: on this Sunday after what was an eventful and difficult
Speaker 6: weekend for a lot of folks, but appreciate your perspective
Speaker 6: here on the Sunday morning.
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us on today's Bloomberg This Weekend podcast.
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