Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Surveillance Podcast. I'm Tom Keane Jailey.
Speaker 1: We bring you insight from the best in economics, finance, investment,
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Speaker 1: This is our interview of the day. Are Michael McKee
Speaker 1: with the great dissenter Robert Caplan. Michael, Thank you, Tom,
Speaker 1: and good morning to you President Caplan, Dallas Fed. President
Speaker 1: Caplan one of two dissenters. Last week, as the FAN
Speaker 1: adopted new forward guidance that incorporates average inflation targeting. You
Speaker 1: endorsed the old forward guidance and dissented on the new because,
Speaker 1: according to this statement, you prefer the committee retained greater
Speaker 1: policy flexibility beyond that point. What does that mean? Uh?
Speaker 1: What it means is UH, I believe strongly we should
Speaker 1: keep the current setting of the FED funds rate I
Speaker 1: at zero zero to basis points until we've weathered the
Speaker 1: pandemic and we're well on track to achieve full employment
Speaker 1: and price stability. UH. That, by the way, is probably
Speaker 1: gonna take at least two two and a half three years.
Speaker 1: The issue is beyond that point, once we've weathered the
Speaker 1: pandemic and we're on track to reach our goals, I
Speaker 1: probably think it's appropriate to remain accommodative, or maybe even
Speaker 1: highly accommodative. I'm not sure it's appropriate to decide right
Speaker 1: now that at that point we should leave rates at zero.
Speaker 1: I would rather leave those judgments to future committees, because
Speaker 1: I think the world is going to look very different
Speaker 1: post pandemic than it does now, and I'd rather leave
Speaker 1: the judgment to future committees who can assess all the
Speaker 1: factors that are relevant in order to make that decision. Well,
Speaker 1: does that suggests you think that we could come out
Speaker 1: of this with faster growth than most people are anticipating. Uh?
Speaker 1: Or I'll put it a different way. Uh. In my
Speaker 1: own forecast, I think we're gonna have solid growth in
Speaker 1: the third quarter, annualize a strong fourth quarter, above trend
Speaker 1: growth in one and in my own forecast by the
Speaker 1: year three, and I know that's going out a long ways. Uh,
Speaker 1: we could we could start to approach an unemployment rate
Speaker 1: certainly below four percent, say three and a half to
Speaker 1: four percent, And so I believe that is possible. Obviously,
Speaker 1: we'll have to see, and a lot of that is
Speaker 1: going to depend on how will we manage this virus,
Speaker 1: fiscal policy, and the whole range of other decisions. But
Speaker 1: when we get to that point, the question before the
Speaker 1: House is do you want to do you want to
Speaker 1: still be accommodative and a light of our new framework
Speaker 1: in order to meet our inflation goal? Uh? In order
Speaker 1: to remain accommodative, does that mean we need to leave
Speaker 1: rates at zero? And I'm not sure, but that's the point.
Speaker 1: I think it's hard to know right now that far
Speaker 1: in advance, and I want to make those judgments at
Speaker 1: the time. Is that enough to dissent on important enough
Speaker 1: for me? It? For me it was, And the reason
Speaker 1: it is is by making this commitment now, First of all,
Speaker 1: there are a few reasons why I descended what I
Speaker 1: just went through. And then my own view is I'd
Speaker 1: rather use forward guidance where we got more positive benefit.
Speaker 1: Going into the meeting, the world already thought that rates
Speaker 1: were gonna stay extremely low for the next two or
Speaker 1: three years, and so my concern was by making this
Speaker 1: commitment now, I wasn't sure how much additional benefit we're
Speaker 1: going to be. But on the negative side, it means
Speaker 1: if you're in the in the asset markets, if you're
Speaker 1: a saver, if you're a pension fund, if you're an
Speaker 1: insurance company, if you're a market participant, it basically gives
Speaker 1: you a signal that you're not gonna be You're gonna
Speaker 1: need to take more risk. And my concern is about
Speaker 1: building up excess risk taking, which can create fragilities and
Speaker 1: other excesses in the system which are hard to see
Speaker 1: in real time and easier to seeing in hindsight. That
Speaker 1: could create issues for us to meet our goals. And
Speaker 1: so that was the reason I felt that the costs
Speaker 1: were not worth the benefits. Well, in his news kind
Speaker 1: of French Chairman Powell was it pains to say over
Speaker 1: and over again the new guidance is strong and powerful,
Speaker 1: but there seems to be a lot of skepticism on
Speaker 1: Wall Street about that. Well, and I wouldn't overread the
Speaker 1: market reaction. It's been a few days, and I think
Speaker 1: these decisions usually are not are not. The reaction is
Speaker 1: not measured in three or four trading days. It's measured
Speaker 1: in the full fullness of time. I think making a
Speaker 1: statement that people should expect even beyond the pandemic, that
Speaker 1: rates are going to stay at zero until we reach
Speaker 1: two percent and are on track to moderate leaks. See
Speaker 1: two percent for some time, I think is the months
Speaker 1: and the years go by, I think people will will
Speaker 1: increasingly realize the power of that commitment, and and so
Speaker 1: I think it's more significant than the markets may be
Speaker 1: initially realizing. Well, Washington is consumed now by a fight
Speaker 1: over the Supreme Court, which many analysts say pretty much
Speaker 1: ends chances of getting any kind of additional stimulus, at
Speaker 1: least before the election and possibly afterwards. What does that
Speaker 1: mean for the economy. Well, I think in my forecast
Speaker 1: for this year, UM, I think some additional fiscal stimulus
Speaker 1: is UH is part of that. And one of the
Speaker 1: unusual features of this downturn has been UH consumer spending
Speaker 1: has been very strong despite the elevated unemployment rate. That
Speaker 1: usually doesn't happen in a downturn, and it's happening because
Speaker 1: of strong fiscal support. And so I think some extension
Speaker 1: of unemployment benefits is critical. And I also the second
Speaker 1: thing I mentioned is a to state and local governments
Speaker 1: I think is also important. They all they have big
Speaker 1: fiscal holes they are they are needing to cut back
Speaker 1: because of that right now at a time where we're
Speaker 1: asking the shoulder more responsibilities and fighting the pandemic and
Speaker 1: getting kids back to school and a number of other responsibilities.
Speaker 1: And so I think fiscal uh, some fiscal support. I'm
Speaker 1: still hopeful for it, and I think it's important to
Speaker 1: this recovery. The markets are at this point not just
Speaker 1: discounting what you did last week, but concerns over the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court and a round of uh pandemics. We've been
Speaker 1: asking for months about whether markets were too high and
Speaker 1: might fall, dragging down the economy. What's your read on
Speaker 1: what's going now? Uh? Well, I won't go too far
Speaker 1: in this job commented on the markets other than to say, uh,
Speaker 1: market cap to g d P is currently at historic
Speaker 1: high uh and at historic eise. There's some there's some
Speaker 1: understandable reasons for that, but normally when you've had this
Speaker 1: kind of run, some kind of correction could actually be healthy.
Speaker 1: And so UH. The thing I watch when I see
Speaker 1: a market sell off is our credit spreads widening, and
Speaker 1: I don't see them widening, which tells me right now
Speaker 1: this is more of a correction, maybe not a fundamental change.
Speaker 1: If I saw credit spreads widening along with the sell off,
Speaker 1: that would tell me something different, but I'm not seeing that.
Speaker 1: We'll type, credit spreads and low interest rates suggest the
Speaker 1: FED policy is working at the moment. But if we
Speaker 1: do have a need for additional stimulus and we don't
Speaker 1: get it, is there anything the FED can do or
Speaker 1: are you sort of out of the game done what
Speaker 1: you can do. I think monetary policy has done a lot.
Speaker 1: We still have more things we could do. Uh and
Speaker 1: certainly with either asset purchases, I think we could do
Speaker 1: more to help small mid sized businesses. But I think
Speaker 1: the path of the pandemic, the incidents of the virus,
Speaker 1: is still going to be the number one determinant of
Speaker 1: how fast we recover. And I think some amount of
Speaker 1: fiscal policy secondarily is important. But but I think monetary
Speaker 1: policy will do its part. It's not, though, the primary
Speaker 1: driver of this recovery right now. I think it's still
Speaker 1: how well we manage the virus. The other issue you
Speaker 1: just mentioned the main street lending program, and you also
Speaker 1: talked about the municipal lending facility. UH. German Pole goes
Speaker 1: up to Capitol Hill and they're gonna be asking the
Speaker 1: question why aren't those working. There's been almost no take
Speaker 1: up one loan for the municipal facility, and only two
Speaker 1: tenths of one percent of the money for main Street
Speaker 1: has been lent. What's wrong with the FED programs? Well,
Speaker 1: so let me just segment these. I think it's a
Speaker 1: mistake to judge the effectiveness of most of these programs
Speaker 1: by the take up. The main Street program. Let me
Speaker 1: put off to the side that that's a little bit different.
Speaker 1: But on the municipal finance program is a good example.
Speaker 1: We have backstopped issuance in the municipal finance market with
Speaker 1: a capacity of six billion dollars. As soon as we
Speaker 1: announced that program, uh the municipal finance market rallied money
Speaker 1: flowed into those market. That market. That's true with the
Speaker 1: corporate bond market, it's true with other markets that we've
Speaker 1: done this for. So I actually think that the measure
Speaker 1: of how effective those programs are is is are people
Speaker 1: able to issue in the private market. The fact there
Speaker 1: haven't been there hasn't been much take up. We're intended
Speaker 1: to be backstop pricing. So I think those programs have
Speaker 1: actually been very, very successful. The one program we've scrutinized
Speaker 1: more though, is the main Street program on that program
Speaker 1: take up is a good measure of how effective it's
Speaker 1: been and has has been a lot of discussion. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's still stringent credit requirements for that program. Um the
Speaker 1: banks have to agreed to lend as part of that program,
Speaker 1: and and so we are looking at ways and there's
Speaker 1: been discussion can more be done to make that program
Speaker 1: more attractive? But again, the FED is a lender, not
Speaker 1: a spender, and in order to ease the requirements of
Speaker 1: main Street, you'd have to be willing to tolerate more
Speaker 1: credit losses. And that's not a FED decision, that's a
Speaker 1: decision for Congress in the Treasury. Robert Kaplan, President of
Speaker 1: the Dallas Federal Reserve, thank you for joining us this
Speaker 1: morning on Bloomberg Radio and television worldwide. She has the
Speaker 1: toughest admitted academics, which is women's lacrosse at Stanford. Everybody
Speaker 1: knows that's the toughest thing to do at the undergraduate level.
Speaker 1: And she went on off the lex field to clerk
Speaker 1: for one Ruth Bader Ginsberg, and she joins us now
Speaker 1: this morning. There's so much talked about Lisa we're you know,
Speaker 1: the the the the notoriety of it in the RBG
Speaker 1: thing and all that. I want you to take us
Speaker 1: back to the grind of the day, as David Weston said,
Speaker 1: the grind of clerking at the court. What was the
Speaker 1: Ginsburg grind like? Well? Um, first of all, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: it was my great good fortune to be able to
Speaker 1: clerk with her. Um. She had been a hero of
Speaker 1: mine for many years, having worked at the SLU before
Speaker 1: going to Stanford. Um. You know that the walking into chambers,
Speaker 1: it was a serious place. It was a everybody worked
Speaker 1: extremely hard. She um. She lived for justice, she lived
Speaker 1: for the law. She um, you know, she ran terrific chambers. Um.
Speaker 1: Right at Lisa. The summary of this in Linda Greenhouse's
Speaker 1: effort in The New York Times, I thought really captured it.
Speaker 1: It was a series of steps which culminated with the
Speaker 1: Virginia Military Institute case, the v m I case. You
Speaker 1: were with her then, Was she aware when vm I
Speaker 1: occurred how momentous it would be. Oh, of course, I
Speaker 1: mean the justice having really been responsible for establishing, you know,
Speaker 1: gender equality before the law. As an advocate, Um was
Speaker 1: acutely aware of the importance of that case. And in fact,
Speaker 1: two cases had come up that term. That was both
Speaker 1: the Citadel and v. M I came up at the
Speaker 1: same time. Um. You know, the v. M I case
Speaker 1: was the better case for the Court to take, UM,
Speaker 1: and it was a very important case to her. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, she was honored to be able to draft
Speaker 1: to the opinion, for to write the opinion, to offer
Speaker 1: the opinion for the court. UM, and she cared tremendously
Speaker 1: about everybody's views on that court and holding the the
Speaker 1: big majority that she did in that case that was
Speaker 1: a seven to one case. Justice Thomas Um was refused
Speaker 1: because his son attended b. M I and the loan dissenter.
Speaker 1: There was just it was Justice Scalia, her friend, UM.
Speaker 1: But it was an important case. She thought a great
Speaker 1: deal about it, and she articulated, with reference to Justice
Speaker 1: O'Connor's case before that, she articulated the standard that states
Speaker 1: had to meet when excluding were um, the exceedingly persuasive
Speaker 1: justification standard, which is quite a high hurdle. What would
Speaker 1: you expect from Chief Justice Roberts is he tackles the
Speaker 1: future court whatever the outcome. Maybe what can Chief Justice
Speaker 1: Roberts learn from your tenure. There the the the idea
Speaker 1: of Scalia and Ginsburg is close friends. Can that goodwill
Speaker 1: still maintain on the Roberts Court? I think so. I
Speaker 1: think that the court is an extremely cordial place. There's
Speaker 1: a number of things that they do to maintain that collegiality.
Speaker 1: They shake hands before each oral argument with each other.
Speaker 1: They are good natured and friendly. Um. That is not
Speaker 1: to say that they don't disagree, um, quite vehemently with
Speaker 1: each other. UM. But I do think that with respect
Speaker 1: to the spirit on the court, it's a very cordial place. UM.
Speaker 1: I think you know, it was it was sad to
Speaker 1: see that that middle, that moderate group uh leaves at
Speaker 1: Justice Kennedy, Justice O'Connor, Justice Suitor, and the court become, um,
Speaker 1: you know, a bit more like the country, a bit
Speaker 1: more polarized. UM. But I do think that, you know,
Speaker 1: the justices care about the law, about the interpretation of
Speaker 1: the court. There's tremendous respect for each other on that court, um.
Speaker 1: And I do think there are things to learned from
Speaker 1: her tremendous friendship with Justice Scaliah Lisa. For people who
Speaker 1: are not familiar with the Supreme Court, can you give
Speaker 1: us a sense of the proportion of cases that actually
Speaker 1: do come to a party line vote or a very
Speaker 1: heavily split vote. I mean, can you give us a
Speaker 1: sense of how much unanimity there is actually in the
Speaker 1: vast majority of cases. The majority of the cases are
Speaker 1: decided I believe on unanimous grounds. I mean, it differs
Speaker 1: year to year, but it's really just the big, more
Speaker 1: political cases that tend to come down um in a
Speaker 1: divided in a divided court. And you know those cases
Speaker 1: are usually there's a lot of back and forth during
Speaker 1: the drafting of those opinions and the descents, and those
Speaker 1: cases cases, excuse me, tend to come down at the
Speaker 1: very end of the court's term, the end of June UM.
Speaker 1: But the vast majority of the cases are unanimous decisions
Speaker 1: because the law is relatively clear. Lisa writes, to catch
Speaker 1: up with you this morning, and thank for your time.
Speaker 1: And I's been an upsetting weekends, so thank you very
Speaker 1: much for joining us, Lisa Beattie, Frenning HIGs and that
Speaker 1: they full of collects justice Ruth Bettikinsbeck. Well, we've tried
Speaker 1: to do this morning with work from Lisa fran Heisen,
Speaker 1: David Our, David Weston is get your people with real,
Speaker 1: real tangible experience in this uproar. One of those is
Speaker 1: Russell Wheeler out of the University of Chicago. He's former
Speaker 1: deputy director of the Federal Judicial Center and at Brooking's
Speaker 1: as well, and we are thrilled that Dr Wheeler could
Speaker 1: join us this morning. Dr Wheeler, I want to go
Speaker 1: back to nineteen fifty six and Dwight David Eisenhower, who
Speaker 1: needed the Catholic vote badly. Cardinal Spellman was given it
Speaker 1: to him. You need to hire a Catholic and they
Speaker 1: literally went out and got a guy they thought was
Speaker 1: somewhat conservative and Mr Brennan. Well, that you know changed
Speaker 1: over the years. But we have many many times, back
Speaker 1: to the Middle Supreme Court of the eighteen eighties, we
Speaker 1: have many many times gone through this, haven't we, well,
Speaker 1: many many times gone through what if it's gone through
Speaker 1: election year of vacancies? Not really, there have been eight
Speaker 1: by my account. One of them was the Brennan vacancy
Speaker 1: created by Sherman Minton, whose health failed him. Eisenhower recessed
Speaker 1: appoint to Justice Brandon. Then the Senate handily confirmed him
Speaker 1: in early nineteen fifty seven. That was not controversial, but
Speaker 1: you know, we've come a long way since those days.
Speaker 1: Those days back in the nineteen twenties and justices were
Speaker 1: confirmed basically on the day they were nominated. It's a
Speaker 1: different world. It's a different world today, and what world
Speaker 1: would you expect to see her as a president? Moments ago,
Speaker 1: says he's taking the line of conservative Republicans, let's go,
Speaker 1: let's get this done by the election. Can they accomplish that? Well,
Speaker 1: I they have enough time. I mean, they'd have to
Speaker 1: rush it through. But the Democrats, so they have a
Speaker 1: few monkey ranches. They can slow things down, but not
Speaker 1: much really. So they get there fifty votes plus pence,
Speaker 1: they'll they'll be able to confirm a justice pretty much
Speaker 1: any time before the election or after the election. It
Speaker 1: all hinges, I think on on whether or not how
Speaker 1: many Republican senators decide that it's too hypocritical to vote
Speaker 1: to confirms Trump appointee at this point? How many at
Speaker 1: this point given what happened to Merrick Garland, for you know,
Speaker 1: back in two thousand sixteen, there's been some discussion by
Speaker 1: some Democrats that if Republicans push a nomination, nomination and
Speaker 1: confirmation through, they would possibly talk about packing the court
Speaker 1: if Joe Biden does win the presidency. How realistic is
Speaker 1: that threat? Well, I think it's a lot more realistic
Speaker 1: than it was a couple of days ago. I was
Speaker 1: quite skeptical of that, figuring that you know, you don't
Speaker 1: tamper with institutions that lightly. But I must admit I
Speaker 1: think there's gonna be a lot of pressure to counteract
Speaker 1: a a midnight appointment as what this is? What this
Speaker 1: would be late in the late in the election season
Speaker 1: by a president who you have to say, it looks
Speaker 1: like he's not going to get re elected, so it's
Speaker 1: it's um, it's not a pretty picture. And I think
Speaker 1: the Democrats will come back if they have the Senate
Speaker 1: of the House and the White House, they're going to
Speaker 1: seriously consider doing something to off set it. So what
Speaker 1: would that look like? I mean, this was tried by
Speaker 1: FDR back in the day, But what would a court
Speaker 1: packing kind of measure proceed as as likely? Well, Roosevelt's
Speaker 1: was a little more duplicit. As Roosevelt said, I want
Speaker 1: the authority appoint another judge for any any appellate judge
Speaker 1: over the age of seventy. Um. This is quite direct.
Speaker 1: It just says the Court has been at ninth since
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty eighteen sixty seven traced the size to eleven. Well,
Speaker 1: that's that just there's a lot of work to the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court carpentery shop. But that's all they about. That's
Speaker 1: about all this entail. This is critical. This is just
Speaker 1: just critical. Though the act, the Supreme Court Act of
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty nine, got us to nine members. Is that
Speaker 1: sacral saying? Is that just something that's untouchable. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: the reason it's nine is because at that point there
Speaker 1: were nine circuits and the justice's job back then was
Speaker 1: largely just serve as trial judge on what used to
Speaker 1: be called the circuit courts trial courts, nine circuits, nine justices.
Speaker 1: That's the reason that went up and down when the
Speaker 1: Court locked it in at nine. There's nothing magic about
Speaker 1: that number. It's come, it's come to be regarded that way,
Speaker 1: and most supreme most state supreme courts are nine or less.
Speaker 1: Most world common law courts are are nine or less.
Speaker 1: But you know, in eleven court member member court confunction obviously.
Speaker 1: So this is one final question, and this is just
Speaker 1: so important. You're not uncomfortable forgetting about conservative liberal with
Speaker 1: the idea of an eleven member court. I am uncomfortable
Speaker 1: with it, but I think there's a lot of justification
Speaker 1: if the Republicans ran through this light in a an
Speaker 1: election by a president who's clearly has no he has
Speaker 1: no popular mandate whatsoever to impose a very conservative federal
Speaker 1: judiciary on the country. He ran on that and he
Speaker 1: lost the popular vote massively. So I think the course
Speaker 1: legitimacy is already going to be in tatters if he
Speaker 1: gets another appointment, and it's it's just one more ratcheting
Speaker 1: down of the of the institution. This has been hugely
Speaker 1: beneficial Russell Wheeler, Thank you so much. Dr Wheeler. Of course,
Speaker 1: with Brookings of the former deputy director of the Federal
Speaker 1: Judicial right now, a four hour conversation with Timothy O.
Speaker 1: Barn You can do that with his knowledge of our
Speaker 1: economic politics. Were thrilled that he could join us today
Speaker 1: from Bloomberg Opinion. Tim mcbrian, you and your team after
Speaker 1: right next, I want you to write about the Senate
Speaker 1: decisions that need to be made. I want you to
Speaker 1: do that right now. Collins has spoken, Murkowski has spoken
Speaker 1: of Alaska, Collins of Maine. There's many others. Let's start
Speaker 1: with the former presidential candidate Romney of Utah. Is it
Speaker 1: just a given that he won't support the president on this? Um,
Speaker 1: I don't know that's a given, Tom. I think it's
Speaker 1: a really hard call. I would think that Romney would
Speaker 1: have the same perspective on this is Murkowsky and Collins,
Speaker 1: But I don't know. And imagine there's some horse trading
Speaker 1: going on as well. We spoke to Russell Wheeler of
Speaker 1: Brookings today and he mentioned eight times this is a
Speaker 1: curseince eighty, etcetera. How did the Democrats respond besides raise
Speaker 1: a lot of outrage and raise a lot of money.
Speaker 1: What is their plan? Well, I mean they're powerless right
Speaker 1: now until the election, uh happens because the Republicans stroll
Speaker 1: the Senate and and and the President is going to
Speaker 1: name somebody by the end of the week, and then
Speaker 1: there's going to be thirty nine days to election. To UM,
Speaker 1: I think all Democrats can do at this point is
Speaker 1: rely between now an election day on the integrity and
Speaker 1: courage of Republicans who want the process to remain above board. UM.
Speaker 1: After election day, the real wild cards will then be
Speaker 1: at the Senate, change his hands and if it does, hum,
Speaker 1: you know, then there's I think gonna be some real
Speaker 1: real mud wrestling around this. If McConnell goes ahead and
Speaker 1: Trump goes ahead, and they push this through during a
Speaker 1: lame duck period before next January, and um uh that's
Speaker 1: how it plays out, then I think the issue for
Speaker 1: Democrats will be do they seek retribution come January? Do
Speaker 1: they decide to expand the size of the court and
Speaker 1: make DC in Puerto Rico states? And that's that's going
Speaker 1: to be level three of all this. There's gonna be
Speaker 1: a whole cascading series of events around this. Tim what's
Speaker 1: the downside to President Trump for trying to push this through? Um?
Speaker 1: You know, I think uh, I think for from where
Speaker 1: he sits, nothing because his his strategic view, well doesn't
Speaker 1: have a strategic view. He all he has been about
Speaker 1: is courting his base and and I think putting up
Speaker 1: a conservatives with good bona fides is going to appeal
Speaker 1: to his base. But I think this could be really
Speaker 1: problematic for Republican senators in swing states who are going
Speaker 1: to really need to get women out and uh and
Speaker 1: others on their side to stay alive. And this could
Speaker 1: be a very polarizing nomination. Tim, at the time, we've
Speaker 1: got left with you. I've got to switch gears here,
Speaker 1: and I want to go back to your perspective on
Speaker 1: Bob Woodward and the tapes of the President. I had
Speaker 1: a hockey injury actually in the summer of Vree. Tim,
Speaker 1: this is you were like in grade school whatever, And
Speaker 1: I was and flat on my back and my parents
Speaker 1: family room watching the Watergate hearings addictively. And there it
Speaker 1: was John Dene in June, and then Butterfield I think
Speaker 1: a month later that there were tapes. How did Lindsey
Speaker 1: Graham get the president to do tapes? With Mr Woodward
Speaker 1: as the post I don't think Lindsey Graham got the
Speaker 1: president to do anything. No one really makes Donald Trump
Speaker 1: do something he doesn't want to do. And putting a
Speaker 1: prominent journalist in front of Donald Trump for an interview
Speaker 1: is cat nip to him. And he's an attention addict.
Speaker 1: He's a media addict, and and he can't help himself.
Speaker 1: He the last thing he wants is to not be
Speaker 1: in the spotlight. He'll take bad coverage and he'll take
Speaker 1: good coverage, but he doesn't want to be ignored. And
Speaker 1: and you see glints of this throughout Woodward, the count
Speaker 1: you know. Milania Trump walks into the Olbal office and
Speaker 1: Trump says, look, honey, I'm talking to Bob Woodward while
Speaker 1: what he's saying on tape is utterly uh self. You
Speaker 1: know it's self, imlay. But he doesn't anyway because he
Speaker 1: can't help himself. How will he not help himself in
Speaker 1: this Supreme Court dash? I think. I think if he
Speaker 1: starts campaigning in swing states and this nomination is what's
Speaker 1: front of mine for him as a political uh tool,
Speaker 1: when what's on voters minds for the most part is
Speaker 1: going to be healthcare and the coronavirus in the economy,
Speaker 1: he'll be off message and he has no wiggle room
Speaker 1: to be off message. Too short to visit, Tim O'Brien,
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Timothy O'Brien, thank your opinion. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening to the Bloomberg Surveillance podcast. Subscribe and listen
Speaker 1: to interviews on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, or whichever podcast platform
Speaker 1: you prefer. I'm on Twitter at Tom Keane before the podcast,
Speaker 1: you can always catch us worldwide. I'm Bloomberg Radio