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Speaker 3: Welcome back to reality here in the Monday edition of
Speaker 3: Balance of Power on Bloomberg Radio, on the satellite, and
Speaker 3: on YouTube, where we invite you to join us. Search
Speaker 3: Bloomberg Global News you'll find our live stream. We're often
Speaker 3: running here with big questions about what's going to happen
Speaker 3: even tomorrow in this presidential race. Of course, we're a
Speaker 3: week away, a week from today, the Republican National Convention
Speaker 3: starting in Milwaukee. We'll meet you there right at this
Speaker 3: time in one week. What happens between now and then?
Speaker 3: A big question here, as Joe Biden survived the interview,
Speaker 3: saw it right? What did I see? Eight million of
Speaker 3: you watched it? Maybe I'm inflating that number versus the
Speaker 3: fifty million who watched the debate days earlier. The President
Speaker 3: sends a letter to start off the week, not a
Speaker 3: dear colleague, but essentially the same thing here you can
Speaker 3: read it right on the terminal. Pretty fascinating. A letter
Speaker 3: to Democrats in Congress who are just returning back to town.
Speaker 3: I am firmly committed to staying in the race, he writes,
Speaker 3: to running this race to the end and to beating
Speaker 3: Donald Trump. I wouldn't be running again if I didn't
Speaker 3: absolutely believe I was the best person to win, he says.
Speaker 3: And that's not all. We saw some campaigning over the
Speaker 3: weekend without a teleprompter, and then the big phone call
Speaker 3: this morning to a friendly crowd. Joe Biden called Morning
Speaker 3: Joe on MSNBC, where, of course he was asked about
Speaker 3: this idea of dropping out, resounding hell no is the answer.
Speaker 3: Let's listen, it's.
Speaker 4: Not an option. And I'm not lost. I haven't lost.
Speaker 4: I beat him last time, I'll beat him this time.
Speaker 4: And this is a guy who, look we talk about debate,
Speaker 4: look at his performance to debates. He lied over you know,
Speaker 4: Trump has fifty lies. I mean, look, this is a
Speaker 4: guy who says ten percent of the universe. Yeah, I
Speaker 4: want to get into bet he's just a liar. And
Speaker 4: he hadn't done a damn thing since the debate.
Speaker 3: Hasn't done a damn thing since the debate, he says,
Speaker 3: step drive around the golf cart. And we haven't seen
Speaker 3: a lot of Donald Trump since the debate, But what
Speaker 3: do we think about what we've seen of Joe Biden.
Speaker 3: By the way, on the phone there the extended phone call,
Speaker 3: we all have Donald Trump to thank for normalizing the
Speaker 3: morning phone call to cable news shows. Just keep on going,
Speaker 3: they'll never hang up on you. As we bring Jordan
Speaker 3: Fabian in on the conversation, someone who has spent more
Speaker 3: time around Joe Biden than probably anyone you're going to
Speaker 3: talk to today. By that we mean he is Bloomberg
Speaker 3: White House correspondent, and Jordan, it's great to see you.
Speaker 3: Bizarre weekend for Joe Biden. I guess, bizarre day today,
Speaker 3: and it's going to stay that way through another demanding week.
Speaker 3: I've been saying the real test is actually this week
Speaker 3: in this NATO news conference he's gonna have to hold
Speaker 3: on Thursday. Do you agree?
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's gonna be the latest or the latest and
Speaker 5: long line of tests. But getting up there in front
Speaker 5: of reporters unscripted, you know, even without I know they
Speaker 5: aired the whole ABC interview, but it's gonna be his
Speaker 5: biggest you know, cognitive mental tests, as he described it
Speaker 5: in that interview. He's going to have to hold court
Speaker 5: not only on his you know, on his future in politics,
Speaker 5: but also with the NATO alliance.
Speaker 3: That's a lot of things.
Speaker 5: That's something that foreign leaders are very concerned with, whether
Speaker 5: he is the stamina to serve another four years and
Speaker 5: keep the liberal world order together. And that's a lot
Speaker 5: of heavy stuff that he's going to have to tackle
Speaker 5: on Thursday. Well, let's pick through both of these and
Speaker 5: we'll start with the more obvious that the question of
Speaker 5: stamina here and the questions that folks like you are
Speaker 5: going to be lobbing at him on Thursday. I suspect
Speaker 5: it's not going to be all about how much money
Speaker 5: our allies are paying it a NATO.
Speaker 3: It's going to be how tired are you? How do
Speaker 3: you feel? Are you dropping out? Is it going to
Speaker 3: be an hour of that?
Speaker 5: I'm sure there's going to be more than one by
Speaker 5: the apple, I mean, whether it's an hour, how long?
Speaker 5: He can't a statis in short though, That's the thing,
Speaker 5: and he hasn't done extended one of these things, even
Speaker 5: in the solo news conferences.
Speaker 3: He's done.
Speaker 5: You know, it's been more like the twenty thirty minute variety,
Speaker 5: not the hour. There's been a lot of reporting about
Speaker 5: how Joe Biden, the first Lady was very upset with
Speaker 5: that very long news conference he did after the twenty
Speaker 5: twenty terms. Yeah, yeah, and so since it was an
Speaker 5: hour and a half or something, right, something like that,
Speaker 5: it was a marathon. But he hasn't done anything like that.
Speaker 5: And it's like, we're coming up on two years and
Speaker 5: he is facing the biggest political crisis of his presidency,
Speaker 5: and so you know, his critics want to see him
Speaker 5: do something folsome like that now that cut it short,
Speaker 5: they mean they could, and that's going to further fuel
Speaker 5: the worries that he doesn't have the stamina to do
Speaker 5: this for another four years.
Speaker 3: Well, so talk to us about what we have here today.
Speaker 3: I've barely mentioned Capitol Hill his letter. I did read
Speaker 3: a portion of two Democrats, but we've got what ten now,
Speaker 3: including four senior Democrats in the House, calling for him
Speaker 3: to step down, either publicly or in this virtual meeting
Speaker 3: that the leadership held last night, a call usually held
Speaker 3: on Wednesdays. They moved it up because of such extreme
Speaker 3: levels of concern. But it strikes me this White House
Speaker 3: and this campaign isn't having any of it. That's why
Speaker 3: he called Morning Joe today. Has any of this caused
Speaker 3: doubts within the inner circle. It was a preemptive shot
Speaker 3: across the bow. Definitely.
Speaker 5: Between the the letter and that TV interview, he knew
Speaker 5: that lawmakers are coming back from the July fourth holiday
Speaker 5: of the town, that the questions about his candidacy were
Speaker 5: going to be multiplying on Capitol Hill, and he wanted
Speaker 5: to shut down this talk about push him off the
Speaker 5: ticket and basically challenging congressional Democrats. Listen, you know, do
Speaker 5: something or get off the stage either, you know, challenge me,
Speaker 5: come out, you know, make that Nixonian drive down Pennsylvania
Speaker 5: Avenue and asked me to get out of the race,
Speaker 5: challenge me at the convention, or get behind my candidacy
Speaker 5: and let's beat Donald Trump. Because I think he is
Speaker 5: tired a lot of you know, you mentioned some of
Speaker 5: those lawmakers have come out privately. He's tired of all
Speaker 5: these little leaks coming out in the leaks, Yeah about
Speaker 5: the lawmakers you know, behind closed doors having in highing.
Speaker 5: He's basically saying put up or shut up, and you know, look,
Speaker 5: there's a lot of questions about whether he should remain
Speaker 5: in the race, but you can't blame him and that
Speaker 5: divided party, a party that's infighting. You know, whether or
Speaker 5: not the nominee has been crippled at this point, is
Speaker 5: going to have a hard time beating Donald Trump. Press
Speaker 5: office treating you in any different way than before the debate,
Speaker 5: or is it business as usual at the White House?
Speaker 5: I mean, they're certainly on their toes. I mean there's
Speaker 5: a lot of reporting over the weekend about this word
Speaker 5: in the ABC interview where he said yes and the
Speaker 5: good pressuring ABC to change the transcripts exactly. And so
Speaker 5: this is the level that they're operating at. I mean,
Speaker 5: it's you know, in some ways you could say they've
Speaker 5: lost the plot a bit, and as far as challenging
Speaker 5: these things here and there instead of you know, trying
Speaker 5: to you know, level set with Frankly, I mean not
Speaker 5: only members but the news media who feel like, you know,
Speaker 5: the Biden operation has been less than truthful in dealing
Speaker 5: with all these questions about your age and fitness, et cetera.
Speaker 3: Safe to say you've heard from the Press office more
Speaker 3: often since the debate than you were. Yeah, certainly. Yeah,
Speaker 3: he's in the middle of the hurricane everybody. Jordan Fabian,
Speaker 3: great to see thanks. After a wild weekend at the
Speaker 3: White House and on the trail he covers the White
Speaker 3: House for us here at Bloomberg. Looked for his byline
Speaker 3: because the next big job here is NATO. The summit
Speaker 3: starts tomorrow and there are thirty one world leaders other
Speaker 3: than Joe Biden wondering about this whole conversation we're having
Speaker 3: right now. We saw Jen Stoltenberg twisting himself into a
Speaker 3: pressol on Sunday morning television. Be very careful. They're all
Speaker 3: going to be very careful unless your name's Victor Orbon
Speaker 3: of course, but that's another matter when it comes to
Speaker 3: European leaders weighing in on Joe Biden's veracity, and they're
Speaker 3: all going to be together in the same room this week.
Speaker 3: If you add the noise from over the weekend, French
Speaker 3: election and of course a new prime minister in the UK,
Speaker 3: this ought to be a pretty wild week and that's
Speaker 3: why we wanted to talk to Andreas Kluth about it.
Speaker 3: He's writing about it, of course at Bloomberg Opinion. Great
Speaker 3: to see you, sir Jo. This is a tough headline
Speaker 3: Biden needs to go for NATO's sake. To what's being
Speaker 3: said behind closed doors as these leaders prepared to arrive
Speaker 3: in DC.
Speaker 6: What's being said behind closed and in front of the
Speaker 6: closed doors, around all doors is there are so many
Speaker 6: things that NATO has to worry about, even as they're
Speaker 6: trying to celebrate something which is seventy five years of
Speaker 6: the most successful packed defensive packed in history. But on
Speaker 6: top of all the other worries about Ukraine and so forth,
Speaker 6: they now have, I would say, and the most existential worry,
Speaker 6: which is the weakness, the frailty as displayed in the
Speaker 6: debate on TV, but the weakness of the putative leader
Speaker 6: of this as US President and now also a host
Speaker 6: of this alliance, which is Joe Biden. And the alternative
Speaker 6: to you know, given the uncertainty, what is next for
Speaker 6: the alliance because of the alternative being Trump comes in,
Speaker 6: it could be curtains and even if Biden steps down,
Speaker 6: there'll be uncertainty, although I think it'll be less bad
Speaker 6: than what we have now is more of this, more
Speaker 6: of a frail week leadership.
Speaker 3: How much of this Joe Biden that America seems to
Speaker 3: be waking up to, since the debate at least is
Speaker 3: already known among particularly our European allies, he was just
Speaker 3: a normandy. In fact, he made two trips. They see
Speaker 3: more of him, frankly than a lot of Democratic lawmakers
Speaker 3: see of this Joe Biden. Is this a surprise or
Speaker 3: do they feel like there's been some gaslighting?
Speaker 6: God there, I don't mean to pile on on Biden,
Speaker 6: but that they are not surprised. And as you said,
Speaker 6: they spend unscripted time with him, probably more than some
Speaker 6: people here stateside, and they've been at the G eight summit,
Speaker 6: at varies, other summits Normandy. But before that, even last October,
Speaker 6: they've encountered and of course the same episodes happen. Then
Speaker 6: he trails off, he mumbles, there are moments, then he
Speaker 6: comes back, and so they've been worried and thinking, okay,
Speaker 6: how long can this stone worried.
Speaker 3: Just the fact that you said that alone is important.
Speaker 6: They have noticed some of them more and more than others.
Speaker 6: There are many of them are weak. Macron is weak.
Speaker 6: He's essentially lame duck. He's lost control of his parliament
Speaker 6: in Spain and Germany, they're a week. The strongest one
Speaker 6: is arguably the new UK Prime Minister, But the one
Speaker 6: that matters is the US President, not because he's host
Speaker 6: but because the US he's US President, and everyone looks
Speaker 6: forward to November and then January and what happens next
Speaker 6: when someone comes in who would like to withdraw if
Speaker 6: he could, from the Alliance although Congress has made that hard,
Speaker 6: but could defund, could essentially hobble the Alliance in a
Speaker 6: hundred other ways just by being vague about Article five.
Speaker 6: So what happened and if someone if Biden does step down,
Speaker 6: which I think would be good, as my title said
Speaker 6: in the column for NATO, because you want to resolve
Speaker 6: this uncertainty, Well then who is it next?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 6: I don't think that you know, we have nineteen forty five.
Speaker 6: I think like Harry Truman came in at a very
Speaker 6: crucial moment in history and immediately showed some of the
Speaker 6: strongest leadership in history. So it is possible, and there
Speaker 6: are other good options, but right now they're any kind
Speaker 6: of limbo.
Speaker 3: Do these leaders have a feel about Kamala Harris?
Speaker 6: It could be Kamala Harris or someone else they do,
Speaker 6: or we're talking just about foreign policy, and she kind
Speaker 6: of did a debut. She's been traveling, She's been going
Speaker 6: to lots of summits in place of Biden. He's been
Speaker 6: good about lettings to get Biden. The Unich Security Conference
Speaker 6: was a big moment she in terms of the substance
Speaker 6: the content, they are the same atlanticist, pro allies, pro alliances, internationalist,
Speaker 6: not isolationist like Trump, not transactionalist, but principles and back
Speaker 6: in Ukraine, back in Taiwan, sending the right messages. The
Speaker 6: issue is does she have the knowledge of the experience.
Speaker 6: I mean that was supposed to be Joe Biden's thing
Speaker 6: for decades. He knows everyone in world politics. She has
Speaker 6: started to meet people in world politics for the last
Speaker 6: couple of years. But she at the Munich Security Conference,
Speaker 6: she gave a good speech, better than most of her
Speaker 6: domestic speeches. And if it were her, I think she
Speaker 6: might well rise to the occasion.
Speaker 3: As we spend time with Andreas Klouf writing for Bloomberg Opinion,
Speaker 3: there's so much talk of Trump proofing the Alliance at
Speaker 3: this meeting. What do they mean by that? What could
Speaker 3: they actually do?
Speaker 6: You cannot Trump prove this alliance, which was always in
Speaker 6: the key was always the American nuclear and conventional military
Speaker 6: umbrella over Canada, but mainly Europe. If you take that away,
Speaker 6: there's very little left. What is the one alternative they
Speaker 6: could work on. It's what this idea has been around
Speaker 6: since the fifties when the French shot it down over
Speaker 6: worries about the Germans. It's the European army. So to
Speaker 6: build a second pillar, a European pillar of NATO. Madeline
Speaker 6: Albright and Americans until recently were against that because they
Speaker 6: were word it would duplicate processes, be redundant and so forth.
Speaker 6: But I think now, given that America wants to under
Speaker 6: anybody in future presidents withdraw and pivot to Asia, the
Speaker 6: Europeans will have to form a pillar of their own.
Speaker 6: And the sad thing Joe is that they won't. They're not.
Speaker 6: They're going in the opposite direction with populist rising in
Speaker 6: Europe that want to renationalize Europe as opposed to integrate
Speaker 6: and form a common defense pillar, maybe even a Commas
Speaker 6: is fascinating.
Speaker 3: So against the backdrop of French elections over the weekend,
Speaker 3: you see that as being less likely because the idea
Speaker 3: is Europe would then have the end up an army
Speaker 3: essentially in the vacuum left by Trump, they would Europe.
Speaker 6: Would have to solve things like who would command this army.
Speaker 6: It's not just about defense procurement, who would command it?
Speaker 6: But I'll give you just the hardest right on top,
Speaker 6: what about the nuclear umbrella? If there is doubt America
Speaker 6: still has about one hundred estimated tactical nuclear warheads in Europe.
Speaker 3: Trump could pull those out.
Speaker 6: Who would defend Europe against Russian blackmail or even the
Speaker 6: actual use. Only the French and the Brits have nukes
Speaker 6: within NATO? Would they extend theirs their umbrella over Europe?
Speaker 6: Would Germany have to get nukes Poland would they have
Speaker 6: to form a European union? Did this I don't think
Speaker 6: at the moment can be resolved. And that's why we're
Speaker 6: at a difficult moment in history.
Speaker 3: Fascinating and really important that we point you to Andreas's column.
Speaker 3: Biden needs to go for NATO's sake. Andreas Kluth, great
Speaker 3: to have you with us here an important week. Let's
Speaker 3: talk at the conclusion of this summit and see where
Speaker 3: we are with so many questions about what will be accomplished.
Speaker 3: If anything more than a photo op. But for Joe Biden,
Speaker 3: a news conference that'll take place late Thursday. You'll see
Speaker 3: it and hear it, of course, right here on Bloomberg
Speaker 3: TV and on YouTube. But lo and behold the best
Speaker 3: poll for Joe Biden in months. Yeah, we'll talk about
Speaker 3: it next, only on Balance of Power on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast. Can
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Speaker 3: The Monday edition of Balance of Power. I am Joe Matthew,
Speaker 3: and we have breaking news a couple of headlines here
Speaker 3: coming from the presidential campaign, in specific to the Trump campaign,
Speaker 3: with a conference call under way a short time ago,
Speaker 3: in which it has been confirmed what we've already been
Speaker 3: reporting that Trump will announce his vice presidential candidate by
Speaker 3: next Monday. And of course one week from today is
Speaker 3: the start of the Republican National Convention show. So that
Speaker 3: shouldn't be huge news based on what we've been learning
Speaker 3: so far, the Washington Post reporting this morning that has
Speaker 3: come down to two, most likely jd Vance and Marco
Speaker 3: Rubio if you believe that Governor Doug Bergham also said
Speaker 3: to still be in the mix. We also now have, interestingly,
Speaker 3: our first glimpse at the party platform that will be
Speaker 3: adopted here as part of the Republican National Committee, and
Speaker 3: of course, with the standard bearer being Donald Trump, the
Speaker 3: presumptive nominee, not a surprise to see it written in
Speaker 3: all caps. We're going to pick through some of these
Speaker 3: elements here. On the day that Joe Biden decided to
Speaker 3: pick up the telephone and call into MSNBC and another
Speaker 3: attempt to try to tamp down calls for him to
Speaker 3: drop out of the presidential race following his performance in
Speaker 3: the debate that despite his best showing yet in the
Speaker 3: Bloomberg News Swing statephole that just came out over the weekend,
Speaker 3: here's a taste of Joe Biden on Morning Joe earlier today.
Speaker 4: But I don't care what those big names tins. They're
Speaker 4: wrong in twenty twenty they're wrong in twenty twenty two
Speaker 4: about the red wave, they're wrong in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 4: And go with it come out with me, watch people react,
Speaker 4: you make.
Speaker 3: A judgement, and that's where we start our conversation with
Speaker 3: Laura Davison, Bloomberg's politics editor, who had a busy weekend.
Speaker 3: You might suggest your phone's probably still blowing up right now.
Speaker 3: So it's very kind of you to join me, and
Speaker 3: it's great to see you. I hope you had a
Speaker 3: great holiday. This was the latest attempt here before we
Speaker 3: go through this party platform that we're going to hear
Speaker 3: about in Milwaukee next week. Joe Biden picks up the
Speaker 3: phone this morning, arguably calling a friendly crowd here to
Speaker 3: talk to a supportive broadcaster, or we're going to get
Speaker 3: more of this. Does that mean that it's working?
Speaker 7: It definitely means that that Biden is definitely feeling the pressure,
Speaker 7: feeling a little bit more desperate. There was also a
Speaker 7: letter he sent to all House Democrats today, House and
Speaker 7: Senate Democrats saying, hey, look, I'm not going anywhere. It's
Speaker 7: time to unite, almost chastising them a little bit of like, hey,
Speaker 7: you know, we're wasting time here.
Speaker 8: You know, I'm staying put, you know.
Speaker 7: Then he goes calls into MSNBC trying to reach you know,
Speaker 7: the broader electorate, you know, Democratic base.
Speaker 8: And then he just had a call that just ended.
Speaker 7: Moments ago with top donors where he said, look, you know,
Speaker 7: we need to stop wasting time. We all need to
Speaker 7: get behind me. This, you know, is a really critical
Speaker 7: time for the campaign. Is that you know, if you
Speaker 7: have a lot of donors in full freak out here,
Speaker 7: who are you know, deciding whether to withhold donations to
Speaker 7: the party or give to only House and Senate.
Speaker 8: All of this is not good news for President Biden.
Speaker 3: Full freak out is the headline. We have ten now
Speaker 3: House Democrats for seniors, either publicly or off the record
Speaker 3: on this call that took place last night, calling for
Speaker 3: him to step down. He was trying to head this
Speaker 3: off with the letter that you described this morning. It's
Speaker 3: two pager, tersely written, I'm going nowhere is the sentiment here,
Speaker 3: i am not dropping out of this race. How many
Speaker 3: more Democrats are we going to hear from? I'm assuming
Speaker 3: this is the prelude to the real headline of how
Speaker 3: many Democrats in the House following tomorrow's caucus meeting.
Speaker 7: Yes, remember that that House and Senate democrats really haven't
Speaker 7: been together since the debate they've been on recess. It's
Speaker 7: been the fourth of July holiday, So tonight they will
Speaker 7: all descend back upon the Capitol and there will be
Speaker 7: all sorts of chatter amongst themselves, kind of polling their colleagues,
Speaker 7: seeing where everyone is. You know, it takes a lot
Speaker 7: of guts to you know, those ten that have come
Speaker 7: out and say, look, you know, I want the leader
Speaker 7: of my party to step down. If Biden doesn't, you
Speaker 7: can imagine that they are not going to be on
Speaker 7: a short list for any sort of special appointment or
Speaker 7: getting the President to help support their.
Speaker 8: Bill or call.
Speaker 7: So we will really see, you know, by midday tomorrow.
Speaker 7: You know, is this just a small group of outliers
Speaker 7: who you know, in some cases we're never huge fans
Speaker 7: of Biden, or are we going to see you know,
Speaker 7: dozens more potentially come out and say, look, Biden needs
Speaker 7: to go.
Speaker 8: At what point that the pressure on.
Speaker 7: Biden really amps up if he has you know, a
Speaker 7: good portion of his party saying hey.
Speaker 3: We need you to go, even as he declares he's
Speaker 3: going nowhere here. This show of confidence is only good
Speaker 3: until it's not right, And there seems to be this
Speaker 3: tacit Friday deadline, How does he do it, Nato? How
Speaker 3: does he do in the news conference on Thursday? Is
Speaker 3: that a fair read?
Speaker 7: That is at least kind of what the conventional thinking is,
Speaker 7: you know, of course, you know it's not to say,
Speaker 7: like say he survives to Friday and then there's another
Speaker 7: incident next week. That doesn't necessarily mean that he's safe.
Speaker 7: It still will be a persistent issue throughout this campaign,
Speaker 7: and that is really the pressure on Biden and the
Speaker 7: problem for Biden. You know, any sort of mistake, any
Speaker 7: sort of miss speaking, you know, a trip, a fall,
Speaker 7: all those things will be heavily, heavily scrutinized.
Speaker 3: For sure, We're going to Milwaukee in a week, as
Speaker 3: we mentioned, we're going to be talking about Donald Trump's
Speaker 3: campaign and likely a vice presidential candidate that could potentially
Speaker 3: give Joe Biden another week's time. So let's focus on
Speaker 3: Milwaukee for a second. Here, Washington Post says it's down
Speaker 3: to two jd or Mark Rubio. Do we really believe
Speaker 3: that with Donald Trump? Does he actually even know? He
Speaker 3: said it's already in his head or something like that.
Speaker 3: But he's known for doing what's not expected.
Speaker 7: Well, and he likes to also kind of kind of
Speaker 7: keep the tension up till the very last minute. You know,
Speaker 7: this is really you know, Apprentice two point zero, you know,
Speaker 7: a game style, game show style announcement here. You know, Well,
Speaker 7: he has this rally on Tuesday night, Marco Rubio. It's
Speaker 7: in Florida, Marco Rubio will be there. He has another
Speaker 7: rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday night, and then of course
Speaker 7: the RNC and Milwaukee next week. So lots of different
Speaker 7: opportunities to either one just bring all the candidates and
Speaker 7: have them you know, out on stage saying nice things
Speaker 7: about him doing a final audition, or you know, he
Speaker 7: could use these other opportunities to to roll out his
Speaker 7: his VP pick. But this is going to be, you know,
Speaker 7: a time for him to shine. He's also very cognizant
Speaker 7: about the timing. While Biden is having a bad day,
Speaker 7: you hate to take the spotlight away from your opponent
Speaker 7: who's struggling. So that's a lot of the thinking that's
Speaker 7: happening behind the scenes at the Trump campaign.
Speaker 3: Before we bring in Eli Oakley at morning consults, and
Speaker 3: these numbers are pretty remarkable for Joe Biden to have
Speaker 3: his best showing against the backdrop of this whole conversation.
Speaker 3: Look look at this platform, Republican Party platform for Milwaukee
Speaker 3: number one. By the way, these are kind of bullets here.
Speaker 3: It's a list all caps. I guess maybe Donald Trump
Speaker 3: wrote this, or it's on the spirit of Trump. Seal
Speaker 3: the border. Number one, Stop the migrant invasion. It says,
Speaker 3: to carry out the largest deportation operation in American history.
Speaker 3: First two on immigration. Three end inflation, Make America affordable again.
Speaker 3: Maybe that should be a T shirt. Then we go
Speaker 3: down to a lot of other things. Stop outsourcing, large
Speaker 3: tax cuts, and it gets to be a little bit
Speaker 3: out there, as you can cancel the electric vehicle mandate
Speaker 3: is fifteen for instance, seventeen keep men out of women's sports.
Speaker 3: How should people interpret this platform? Does it matter?
Speaker 7: This is basically a summary of Biden's or of Trump's
Speaker 7: rather rally speeches. You know, these are the points he
Speaker 7: makes time and time again. These are not, you know,
Speaker 7: serious policy proposals. This is not, you know, something that
Speaker 7: could be turned into legislation. But this is capturing the
Speaker 7: essence of Donald Trump and what he stands for. You know,
Speaker 7: above those twenty bullet points, there's a little pre am
Speaker 7: that's written very much sounds like it's in the voice
Speaker 7: of Trump.
Speaker 8: You know, this is not a.
Speaker 7: Party platform like anything we've ever seen before. The last
Speaker 7: time Republicans did one was in twenty sixteen. They didn't
Speaker 7: even bother doing one in.
Speaker 3: Twenty twenty twenty, which was a big deal of it.
Speaker 7: And this is really sort of a campaign document. This
Speaker 7: is if you were to compare this to what's on
Speaker 7: Donald Trump's you know, website that's been out there for
Speaker 7: months on all his policy positions, very very similar.
Speaker 3: So this will be the official platform. This is what
Speaker 3: we'll be talking about next week. And Joe Biden's going
Speaker 3: to be hitting the road while we're there. He's got
Speaker 3: what Texas, Nevada, that's the plan. Travel while Donald Trump
Speaker 3: is in Milwaukee.
Speaker 7: Travel, donation, campaign events, all sorts of stuff.
Speaker 8: You know, he's in.
Speaker 7: His campaign has been very you know, aggressive at sort
Speaker 7: of making sure we know, hey, here's where the president's going,
Speaker 7: here's what he's doing.
Speaker 8: He's not dropping out, of.
Speaker 7: Course, I will add that how this always works is
Speaker 7: you can't signal you're going to drop out until the
Speaker 7: exact second you are, So that right, you will expect
Speaker 7: him to be you know, firmly defiant, you know, up
Speaker 7: until the point if he does, you know, announce that.
Speaker 3: He's That's the most important thing. I feel like you
Speaker 3: can tell our viewers and listeners today because that is
Speaker 3: going to be the case until it isn't people expecting it. Well,
Speaker 3: I don't know. I think maybe I will drop out.
Speaker 3: Just aren't reading this properly. So all of these interviews
Speaker 3: have to be viewed in that regard. I'll meet you
Speaker 3: in a week in Milwaukee. Laura Davison will be central
Speaker 3: to our coverage. There is Bloomberg Politics Editor, and we'll
Speaker 3: look forward to special coverage from the RNC as we
Speaker 3: turn our attention back to the Bloomberg New Swing State Pole.
Speaker 3: We do this with Morning consult and that's why we
Speaker 3: call in Eli Yoakley on a Pole day. The numbers
Speaker 3: came out over the weekend and quite remarkable to find
Speaker 3: Joe Biden not only narrowing the gap with Donald Trump
Speaker 3: and the states that will decide this election, but in
Speaker 3: fact scoring his best showing yet in the most comprehensive,
Speaker 3: the first comprehensive look at the swing states since the
Speaker 3: debate that was said to be a disaster. So Eli,
Speaker 3: welcome back. It's great to have you US politics analyst
Speaker 3: at morning consult Are you scratching your head? How do
Speaker 3: you rationalize the timing on this poll?
Speaker 9: What a time to be alive? I mean, who knew
Speaker 9: there's nothing not surprising in politics anymore. Look, I mean,
Speaker 9: Joe Biden, all these contests in all these states that
Speaker 9: we've a bit now nine times are pretty close. Trump
Speaker 9: has a bigger advantage in Pennsylvania, you know, Joe Biden
Speaker 9: has a bigger advantage in Wisconsin. But a lot of
Speaker 9: these races are really tight. You know, we survey voters,
Speaker 9: thousands of voters every day nationally, and we haven't seen
Speaker 9: much of a movement since the debate. My takeaway from
Speaker 9: that is a lot of this stuff is already baked
Speaker 9: in about Joe Biden. I mean, for the last few years,
Speaker 9: Republicans have worked really hard to inundate this he's too
Speaker 9: old message. A lot of voters thought that. The only
Speaker 9: thing that seems different this time is elis and Washington
Speaker 9: are starting to take notice.
Speaker 3: Well, that's for sure, and when lawmakers get back, they
Speaker 3: could make a lot of noise for Joe Biden. Here
Speaker 3: the headline to start at the top, elive forty seven percent,
Speaker 3: Donald Trump forty five for Joe Biden. That's when we
Speaker 3: consolidate the numbers from the states. But when you look
Speaker 3: under the hood a little bit, and if you're with
Speaker 3: us on Bloomberg TV, you can see our map, Joe
Speaker 3: Biden leads Trump in Michigan and Wisconsin, very important when
Speaker 3: we consider the blue wall here, he's so far though,
Speaker 3: farthest behind in the critical state of Pennsylvania. Is that
Speaker 3: the most important thing for Joe Biden to turn around
Speaker 3: right now?
Speaker 2: Oh for sure.
Speaker 9: I mean, if he gets Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, he
Speaker 9: probably dons reelection. I think that's why you're seeing him
Speaker 9: spend so much time over the weekend in Pennsylvania. He
Speaker 9: was once referred to as a state's third center. That's
Speaker 9: clearly an important state for him, and Donald Trump knows
Speaker 9: that too. I think we're going to see the former
Speaker 9: president spend a lot of time and energy there. You know,
Speaker 9: Joe Biden has a lot of work to do in
Speaker 9: Pennsylvania right now. That's a state that's been a challenge
Speaker 9: for Democrats some extent. Joe Biden brought it back for them.
Speaker 9: I think showing up is going to help to try
Speaker 9: to alleviate some of these concerns. I mean, Pennsylvania was
Speaker 9: one of the states where where voters were most likely
Speaker 9: to have tuned into all the debate, which means they
Speaker 9: noticed this more than voters and other swing saints may have.
Speaker 9: And so he's going to have to spend some time
Speaker 9: there to try to bring back some of these growing
Speaker 9: concerns among voters there that are showing up, and also
Speaker 9: try to push back on Donald Trump. I mean, I
Speaker 9: think every time I've been on here, I said Joe
Speaker 9: Biden's case for reelection is going to be to remind
Speaker 9: voters why they didn't like Donald Trump four years ago,
Speaker 9: and in this moment where his age has been questioned
Speaker 9: in its most dramatic way possible, we've seen that. I mean,
Speaker 9: he called Donald Trump a liar multiple times this morning
Speaker 9: when he called in the Morning TV, clearly trying to
Speaker 9: revive a lot of these fears that voters had about
Speaker 9: Donald Trump.
Speaker 3: Well, we write right in our piece here, Eli, this
Speaker 3: poll could turn out to be a statistical outlier. It
Speaker 3: does run counter to the national polls that we've seen
Speaker 3: since the debate, and so that's why it's pretty big news.
Speaker 3: That's why the campaign is highlighting it. How do you
Speaker 3: square the difference between what we're seeing in the swing
Speaker 3: states and nationally.
Speaker 9: Well, first of all, we have not seen a lot
Speaker 9: of numbers since the debate from the swing states. I
Speaker 9: think this is the first comprehensive look at these seven
Speaker 9: swing states since the late June debate. What we're seeing
Speaker 9: in our national tracking that we do every day among
Speaker 9: thousands of voters. I just got data back today from
Speaker 9: ten thousand voters. Donald Trump is up by two points.
Speaker 9: The race was tied before the debate. If we look
Speaker 9: at that, and we're seeing this is not having a
Speaker 9: massive impact on the electrode. A lot of voters already
Speaker 9: thought he shouldn't be running for president. That's a different
Speaker 9: discussion than who are you going to vote for? Barack
Speaker 9: Obama in twenty sixteen at the White House, correspond as
Speaker 9: Cinner whenever Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were both highly dislike,
Speaker 9: had this whole riff that you get to choose between
Speaker 9: chicken and steak, And that's kind of the choice footers
Speaker 9: have right now as the race stands today.
Speaker 3: I'm curious how people thought about or felt about Donald
Speaker 3: Trump's performance. I know they think he won the debate.
Speaker 3: Do we have any other insights into what people saw
Speaker 3: from Donald Trump, who, of course was recorded by seeing
Speaker 3: End to have lied thirty times over the course of
Speaker 3: ninety minutes.
Speaker 9: Well, I mean, just as we saw some small declines
Speaker 9: in the shares of voters who saw Donald Joe Biden
Speaker 9: is mentally fit or in good health, we saw a
Speaker 9: bit of an increase in the share who saw Donald
Speaker 9: Trump as dangerous. And it kind of goes back to
Speaker 9: what we were talking about in February, is our voter
Speaker 9: is going to be more concerned about somebody who they
Speaker 9: think is too old or somebody they think is too dangerous,
Speaker 9: and right now those seem to be weighing on the
Speaker 9: minds of a lot of these states, just given how
Speaker 9: close these contests are. I mean, one thing to remember
Speaker 9: is we feel this survey after his conviction in New
Speaker 9: York and after this Supreme Court immunity ruling, and that
Speaker 9: is something that I think has really fired up Democrats
Speaker 9: and concerned independent voters nationally and at the swings. I mean,
Speaker 9: this is the first time in our swing state survey
Speaker 9: where we've seen Donald Trump and Joe Biden tied among
Speaker 9: independent voters. Look voters are complicated people. There's a lot
Speaker 9: of things weighing on their minds. And it's not just
Speaker 9: Joe Biden's age that they're concerned about.
Speaker 3: Spending time with Eli Yoakley at Morning Consults, which of
Speaker 3: course runs our Bloomberg News Swing State pole with us
Speaker 3: every month, and the double haters are popping off the
Speaker 3: page to me here, Eli, if there's something Joe Biden
Speaker 3: really needs to worry about. Large majorities of undecided voters
Speaker 3: and so called double haters say the president should step aside.
Speaker 3: That's a number that could haunt him as he continues
Speaker 3: this public exercise in proving people that he has the
Speaker 3: mental acuity to do this.
Speaker 9: Yeah, for sure, a lot of people think Donald Trump
Speaker 9: should step aside too. From this contest. I mean, the
Speaker 9: American people are not happy with the two major party
Speaker 9: candidates they're facing today. I mean Joe Biden and Donald
Speaker 9: Trump as of today are equally unpopular or among the electorate. Clearly,
Speaker 9: the American people are not happy with the choices they have.
Speaker 9: But we're about to see in Milwaukee next week, probably
Speaker 9: in Chicago next month, these two guys elevated. If things
Speaker 9: say the way they are today, that this is the
Speaker 9: election voters have, and so those double hairs are going
Speaker 9: to matter a lot. And that's why I think you're
Speaker 9: seeing the president, the incumbent president, lean into a lot
Speaker 9: of these attacks on Donald.
Speaker 3: Trump Reality Check in our remaining moment, ELI, debates usually
Speaker 3: don't decide races, do they.
Speaker 2: They do not.
Speaker 9: They need to douce states of the Union. I mean,
Speaker 9: that's where we saw Joe Biden get some of his
Speaker 9: better numbers when this race is solidified. But this is
Speaker 9: not a normal year, as we're all see it.
Speaker 3: It's not a normal year. And I don't mean to
Speaker 3: underscore the importance of this debate. I just think it's
Speaker 3: interesting how we're turning away from history time and again.
Speaker 3: In this case. We'll see the next one, assuming they
Speaker 3: make good on the deal on the tenth of September,
Speaker 3: but we'll have more numbers before then, and we're going
Speaker 3: to be looking for trends here. Next time, we talked
Speaker 3: to Eli Oakley. Great to have you back, Eli from
Speaker 3: Morning Consults in our Bloomberg News Swing State poll. You
Speaker 3: can find it again on the terminal and online. Pick
Speaker 3: through the states. Who've got the graphics and the maps
Speaker 3: set up for you there to really understand the numbers
Speaker 3: that we're seeing here in the first comprehensive look at
Speaker 3: this campaign in terms of swing state voters since the debate.
Speaker 3: I'm Joe Matthew in Washington. Glad you're with us on
Speaker 3: the Monday edition of Ballots of Power. We'll assemble our
Speaker 3: panel next only on Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast. Catch
Speaker 1: us live weekdays at noon Eastern on Appocarplay and then
Speaker 1: roun Oto with the Bloomberg Business app. Listen on demand
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
Speaker 3: Lawmakers streaming back into town today. Democrats, namely who have
Speaker 3: a big meeting tomorrow when they get together the Democratic
Speaker 3: Conference in the House. They're going to be talking about
Speaker 3: Joe Biden. Members in the Senate will too. But the
Speaker 3: House seems to be having its moment because so many
Speaker 3: members thought they were going to flip the House to
Speaker 3: Democratic control. Think about what they have seen over the
Speaker 3: last year, going back to the dismissal of Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
Speaker 3: It's not feeling so much like that now, which is
Speaker 3: why we have roughly ten Democrats, including four seniors in
Speaker 3: the House, either publicly or privately, calling on Joe Biden
Speaker 3: to drop out of the presidential race. Of course, all
Speaker 3: in the wake of his performance in the debate, and
Speaker 3: it didn't seem like the Friday interview helped a lot either,
Speaker 3: since more names emerged over the weekend. In fact, there
Speaker 3: was a virtual call leadership call last evening in which
Speaker 3: the four seniors emerged, including Jerry Nadler, to say that
Speaker 3: it's time for Joe Biden to drop now. This could
Speaker 3: result in many more. They're going to meet in person
Speaker 3: tomorrow when they're back, and we are expecting a letter,
Speaker 3: as Bloomberg has been reporting since last week, to go
Speaker 3: to the president. The question will be what's the number?
Speaker 3: How many Democrats? Joe Biden trying to head them off
Speaker 3: this morning with a letter of his own saying he's
Speaker 3: going nowhere and a phone call to MSNBC. If the
Speaker 3: Friday interview didn't work, how about the Monday interview He
Speaker 3: called in the morning Joe a phoner Trump style, no
Speaker 3: camera and talked at length about the campaign, reasserting his
Speaker 3: intention to stay in it and win and try to
Speaker 3: knock down some of the conventional wisdom about the Trump campaign,
Speaker 3: including its support by black voters. Here's Joe Biden earlier.
Speaker 4: I don't have the black support. Come on, give me
Speaker 4: a break, come with me. Why why I'm getting so
Speaker 4: frustrated by the lease Now, I'm not talking about you guys,
Speaker 4: but about the elase in the party who.
Speaker 1: They know so much more.
Speaker 4: With any of these guys. Don't think I should run
Speaker 4: against me, announced the president. Challenge me at the convention.
Speaker 3: Challenge me at the convention, of course, a month away
Speaker 3: in Chicago. I kind of funny he had to qualify
Speaker 3: the elites, not you guys. That didn't mean you two elites.
Speaker 3: Let's assemble the panel. Chape and Fayse whe us Republican
Speaker 3: strategist from Actum and great to have Jenay Wartel back
Speaker 3: with his democratic strategist partner at ARC Initiatives. Jonay, what's
Speaker 3: your thought on this new strategy to just keep knocking
Speaker 3: it down? Joe Biden started to raise his voice in
Speaker 3: this interview, was a very different posture than he held
Speaker 3: with George Stephanopolis on Friday. Does that work for you
Speaker 3: as a Democrat? Do you want to hear him fight
Speaker 3: for it?
Speaker 10: It is, of course really great to see the president
Speaker 10: being a bit defiant, especially in the face of these
Speaker 10: increasing calls for him to step aside. I think what
Speaker 10: we want to see from the President is that he's
Speaker 10: in it to win it right, that he's going to
Speaker 10: fight for every vote, that he has the energy and
Speaker 10: the bigger to defeat Donald Trump. And I think that's
Speaker 10: what you saw in that phone call, in that interview
Speaker 10: this morning. And so I think what's important here is
Speaker 10: to again look at the president in the days since
Speaker 10: the debate, how he's performed on the campaign trail, look
Speaker 10: at how he's engaged with supporters, look at the support
Speaker 10: that has been coming in for the president, despite there
Speaker 10: being a handful of members who are saying the contrary.
Speaker 10: I think it's important to watch him in these last
Speaker 10: couple of days. Has he demonstrated that he has the energy,
Speaker 10: that he has the vision to lead America?
Speaker 11: And I believe that he does.
Speaker 3: Jape, and I know as a Republican you're sitting on
Speaker 3: the sidelines just letting Joe Biden do his thing. But
Speaker 3: based on your experience in running campaigns, I wonder what
Speaker 3: is the more effective posture for him? Is it the
Speaker 3: collegial self deprecating Joe Biden poking fun. Hey, I don't
Speaker 3: look forward to anymore. Or is it the guy who
Speaker 3: raises his voice and reasserts himself as he did on
Speaker 3: the air this morning. Well, not to be a lawyer,
Speaker 3: but it depends.
Speaker 12: I think you have to strike the balance. Certain events
Speaker 12: and speeches and audiences require the different personalities that you
Speaker 12: just mentioned on the trail.
Speaker 2: Though, what I've always liked about Joe Biden.
Speaker 12: Is that he is a fighter. I think that is
Speaker 12: the posture of public posture he should be taking. And again,
Speaker 12: you know, one of the things that this is all
Speaker 12: about is winning is the only thing that matters. Right
Speaker 12: If Joe Biden thinks he can win and he does win,
Speaker 12: that is the only thing that matters. And which is
Speaker 12: why you're also seeing this sort of tension in the
Speaker 12: Democratic Party because everyone was fine with Joe Biden's mental
Speaker 12: state until it turns out, oh wait, maybe he can lose,
Speaker 12: and now we're having a big scramble, you know, for
Speaker 12: the good of the country. Though the last three years
Speaker 12: when the country was in decline, you know, everyone kept silent,
Speaker 12: but winning is all that matters. So I do think
Speaker 12: that posture is helpful. Though you also have to be
Speaker 12: able to pull off self deprecating when the circumstances called
Speaker 12: for it. But I have no problem with you know,
Speaker 12: I praised his State of the State's speech, not the substance,
Speaker 12: but the fire in the belly. You know, that's what
Speaker 12: people are looking for, at least New Yorkers are looking.
Speaker 3: For in their Yeah, that's why I ask you, Janay.
Speaker 3: Let's talk about the elites for a moment. Biden says
Speaker 3: he he wasn't talking about Joe and Mika's the other elites.
Speaker 3: How about we named names. Rob Reiner, the movie director Hollywood,
Speaker 3: has come and calling now a major of course, Democratic supporter,
Speaker 3: democratic activist, progressive activist tweets it's time to stop effing around.
Speaker 3: Time for Joe Biden to step down. Netflix co founder
Speaker 3: Reid Hastings calling on Joe Biden to step aside. He's
Speaker 3: given millions i AC chair Barry Diller says he and
Speaker 3: his wife, Diane von Furstenberg were no longer supporting Joe
Speaker 3: Biden as the nominee. How does he answer these names?
Speaker 3: You can write them off as elites, but these are
Speaker 3: the donors.
Speaker 10: Well, again, we are a political party, in the Democratic Party.
Speaker 10: We're not A. Foulton, So we welcome the freedom of ideas. Folks,
Speaker 10: whether they're supporters at the highest level or grassroots volunteers,
Speaker 10: are welcome to have opinions. I think that what's important
Speaker 10: here is that the majority of Democrats, and many top Democrats,
Speaker 10: especially Democrats in these battleground states that President Biden needs
Speaker 10: to win again, are supporting him. When we look at
Speaker 10: these these polls and these key battleground states that were
Speaker 10: mentioned earlier, these polls are tight, and I think it's
Speaker 10: no coincidence that so many of the Democrats in those
Speaker 10: key states have come out in full thrown support of
Speaker 10: President Biden's reelection campaign. So I think what you have
Speaker 10: to focus on is are we reaching and engaging the
Speaker 10: folks who are ultimately going to be the votes that
Speaker 10: we need to win in November. And so I think
Speaker 10: that from a strategic standpoint, that is what the campaign
Speaker 10: is continuing to do and continuing to focus on and
Speaker 10: not focusing exclusively on the donor class, because that is
Speaker 10: a handful of opinions, though very well financed opinions.
Speaker 9: Opinions Nonetheless, sure Japin.
Speaker 3: We spoke earlier with Elioakley at Morning consult this hour.
Speaker 3: Our part or is in the Bloomberg New Swing State Pole,
Speaker 3: which brought some fascinating and counterintuitive numbers when released over
Speaker 3: the weekend. This is Joe Biden's best showing in this
Speaker 3: poll that's gone back to October here with a monthly
Speaker 3: check in from Bloomberg in Morning Consult He's losing to
Speaker 3: Donald Trump by only two points forty seven forty five.
Speaker 3: And it's swing states here. So interestingly, Biden's beating Trump
Speaker 3: in Michigan and Wisconsin. He's trailing Trump in Pennsylvania. But
Speaker 3: I wonder, when you look at this poll and you
Speaker 3: consider the public discourse that's going on right now, kind
Speaker 3: of the laughing that we're hearing from Republicans, does the
Speaker 3: GOP risk becoming too complacent at this moment in the race?
Speaker 12: That is always a risk in every campaign. I have
Speaker 12: to warn candidates all the time about becoming complacent. And
Speaker 12: if we have thought of being you know, we have
Speaker 12: thought of a tactic, the other side has always thought
Speaker 12: of it, as you know, you have to assume they
Speaker 12: can think of it too and not get over confident.
Speaker 12: But yeah, you know, I think again on the on
Speaker 12: the Republican side, there's also a balancing act of when
Speaker 12: to sit back and let your opponents do it out themselves,
Speaker 12: and when to step in. I think you saw immediately after,
Speaker 12: on a few days after the debate performance, you saw
Speaker 12: Trump sort of putting out just enough statements to keep
Speaker 12: his base, you know, paying attention to it, but didn't
Speaker 12: really you know, didn't really go for the juggular, so
Speaker 12: to speak, as he has in the past about opponents.
Speaker 12: So I think you're seeing them sort of play that
Speaker 12: balancing act as well.
Speaker 3: How would you manage them the timing this week, Chapin,
Speaker 3: We've got a Republican National Convention starting Monday, Joe Biden's
Speaker 3: NATO news conference going to be Thursday. When do you
Speaker 3: drop the news on a vice presidential candidate if you're
Speaker 3: Donald Trump.
Speaker 12: Well, probably having a conversation right now within the campaign
Speaker 12: about whether that's the day.
Speaker 3: Of the NATO thing, the day after, right during or when.
Speaker 12: I think, you know, it's a it's ripe opportunity to
Speaker 12: steal the news cycle, at least for domestic the domestic
Speaker 12: news here in America. So I do think that that
Speaker 12: is the perfect timing to announce it in the lead
Speaker 12: up to the convention, though the flip side of that
Speaker 12: coin is they may want to manage it a little
Speaker 12: bit better than that and.
Speaker 2: You know, have a big show on a surprise. Though.
Speaker 12: I do think getting the most out of it, uh,
Speaker 12: you know it gives your opponent is the best tactic
Speaker 12: or the best strategy.
Speaker 2: So I do think right around, you know whatever.
Speaker 12: The biggest inflection point during that time, during the NATO
Speaker 12: summit is would be when the you know, when the
Speaker 12: when the leak would happen or when the announcement would happen.
Speaker 2: Just to take the news back. Donald Trump is a
Speaker 2: master at.
Speaker 3: That, no doubt, and you do wonder if it's going
Speaker 3: to come via a leak. That was great Chape and
Speaker 3: Faye Jane Wartel, great panel, and many thanks to you
Speaker 3: both for the insights.
Speaker 2: Here.
Speaker 3: I will point out two events. One tomorrow in Miami,
Speaker 3: I think Marco Rubio. We're supposedly down to two according
Speaker 3: to the Washington Post. And then the other Saturday Butler Pennsylvania.
Speaker 3: We'll be watching these very closely for potential vice presidential
Speaker 3: candidate announcements or leaks from the Trump campaign.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast kens
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Speaker 3: Back to work indeed here on the fastest show in Politics,
Speaker 3: Live from Washington on Bloomberg TV and Radio. As we
Speaker 3: track Hurricane Beryl making landfall in Texas earlier today as
Speaker 3: a Category one. It has since been downgraded to a
Speaker 3: tropical storm, but there are two million customers without power
Speaker 3: along the Gulf Coast of Texas and questions about what
Speaker 3: this means for our energy infrastructure. In a conversation, we
Speaker 3: were a planning to focus on summer gas and oil prices.
Speaker 3: It's taken on a bit of a different wrinkle, but
Speaker 3: that's all part of summer. Just ask Bob McNally, the
Speaker 3: president of Rapidant Energy Group, is with us right now.
Speaker 2: Bob.
Speaker 3: We're looking at the price for crude oil, Texas crude
Speaker 3: lower today, the majors Exxon, Chevron lower. This is a
Speaker 3: non event for the energy market, Hi Joe.
Speaker 11: So far, thankfully it is, and we first and foremost
Speaker 11: think of our friends in Texas and those folks without power.
Speaker 11: But so far it looks like the worst case and
Speaker 11: the worst case would be a prolonged outage of those
Speaker 11: on shore, those refining centers and gas processing centers. That
Speaker 11: would be really bad. And so far we seem to
Speaker 11: be skin missing that bullet, duck in that bullet right now.
Speaker 3: So what's the summer look like? With eighty two dollars
Speaker 3: a barrel roughly for WTI, it's down one percent actually
Speaker 3: today the active futures contract, the White House touting gas
Speaker 3: prices and pointing to this decision to release a million
Speaker 3: barrels of gasoline from the Northeast Reserve, despite the fact
Speaker 3: that we didn't have a shock to the system, there
Speaker 3: was no emergency, and so we're talking about this against
Speaker 3: the backdrop of politics. Shocker, Bob. What do oil and
Speaker 3: gas prices look like for the duration of this summer?
Speaker 11: You know, the market's pretty stable, Joe. I mean, gasoline
Speaker 11: prices will more or less follow crude oil prices, and
Speaker 11: the crude oil market is probably.
Speaker 3: Balanced around where it is right now.
Speaker 11: We think we're transitioning from a soggy over supplied global
Speaker 11: market in the first half of this year to a
Speaker 11: little bit of a firmer one. Right, China is going
Speaker 11: to have some stimulus, we think later this summer. If
Speaker 11: we don't have a macro accident here, demand'll pick up,
Speaker 11: inventories will get a little leaner, so we're probably balanced.
Speaker 11: But Joe, the oil market, I mean traders are tiptoeing
Speaker 11: through a minefield of risk, black Swan risk and geopolitics,
Speaker 11: and a disruption could send oil price is crude and
Speaker 11: gaslink sharply higher. And our main concern there would be
Speaker 11: in the Middle East in the battle between Israel and
Speaker 11: its enemies on its border, not just Gaza, but Hesbola
Speaker 11: and Iran and then to some degree Russia. And the
Speaker 11: downside risk is macroeconomic conditions and the fragile economy generally,
Speaker 11: so a lot of risk. But if we avoid black swans,
Speaker 11: were probably stable. As for the spr thing, I mean,
Speaker 11: selling off the Northeast Preserve was a kind of a
Speaker 11: joke for oil supply. That's about a morning's worth of
Speaker 11: gasoline demand up in the Northeast. They were going to
Speaker 11: get rid of that thing anyway, so that was really
Speaker 11: a nothing burder.
Speaker 3: Well, it's kind of surprising when we're at three fifty, right,
Speaker 3: Triple a's got it said, a national average three fifty
Speaker 3: a gallon, we were at three fifty three a year ago.
Speaker 3: Seems like kind of a non factor for the Biden
Speaker 3: administration right now, unless maybe you're right, if we're looking
Speaker 3: at the potential for a black swan, would Israel engaging
Speaker 3: Hesbela on a real war fulfill that definition.
Speaker 11: I think it would because unlike Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah
Speaker 11: is a strategic arm of Iran, and we don't think
Speaker 11: Iran would open up against the United States and its
Speaker 11: allies in the Gulf full Bore, but they would likely
Speaker 11: harass ships and threaten US with a supply loss and
Speaker 11: a price increase during an election year were Israel to
Speaker 11: invade Lebanon go after Hesbola. So it's a risk. The
Speaker 11: market's been pretty skeptical about that so far. One reason
Speaker 11: we're a little lower today in oil prices is there's
Speaker 11: more news of a potential ceasefire between Israel and Humas,
Speaker 11: which could also then lead to a ceasefire with Hesbella.
Speaker 11: So geopolitics are in the market, but in a soft way,
Speaker 11: I'd say.
Speaker 3: Right now, yep, fascinating. Bob McNally is the president of
Speaker 3: Rapid and Energy Group with us live on Bloomberg TV
Speaker 3: and Radio. And I want to point you, Bob to
Speaker 3: the new Republican Party platform that was released today ahead
Speaker 3: of next week's Republican National Convention. There's a lot of
Speaker 3: stuff on here about the border, about inflation. I'm not
Speaker 3: going to pull you into any of that. But number
Speaker 3: four on this list of bullets here make America the
Speaker 3: dominant energy producer in the world by far, it says
Speaker 3: exclamation point. And I'm wondering how we're defining this now,
Speaker 3: because we already know, when we've established here, that the
Speaker 3: US is pumping more oil right now than it ever has.
Speaker 3: And as you look at the numbers here in terms
Speaker 3: of production and consumption, we're far and away the leader.
Speaker 3: How would you fulfill that then, or how would you
Speaker 3: define being the dominant energy producer in the world. Aren't
Speaker 3: we already?
Speaker 11: You know we are for oil and gas, we are
Speaker 11: top in the world now. If you define it to
Speaker 11: include electricity, then we rival China sometimes they're a little
Speaker 11: ahead of us. But if we talk about primary energy
Speaker 11: production energy you know, flowing from the ground or produce
Speaker 11: in a primary sense, the United States is number one
Speaker 11: I think perhaps, you know, keep us the number one
Speaker 11: dominant energy superpower is probably a little more accurate than then.
Speaker 2: Get us there.
Speaker 11: But you know, Joe stepping back, I think the left
Speaker 11: tends to overstate how much policy drives demand. Like the
Speaker 11: left thinks we're going to have peak demand by twenty thirty,
Speaker 11: and then the right perhaps thinks that policy has a
Speaker 11: bigger impact on supply than it does. I think there's
Speaker 11: a little bit of a wishful thinking and overstatement on
Speaker 11: both sides. The end of the day, outcomes, even our
Speaker 11: dominant energy position is not due mainly to policy. It's
Speaker 11: due to structural factors, the macroeconomy, the industry itself, innovators,
Speaker 11: producers of energy, the industry reacting to signals, to investment,
Speaker 11: and so forth. Those are the factors that drive outcomes,
Speaker 11: not policy. Final thing just on this, perhaps the one
Speaker 11: thing on policy is it can do harm. It can
Speaker 11: do harm, especially on trade. If you look at the
Speaker 11: last big success we had as a country bipartisan energy success,
Speaker 11: it was when President Obama, working with Republicans in Congress,
Speaker 11: got rid of the crude oil Export Band twenty fourteen
Speaker 11: twenty fifteen. We needed that to save the sha away
Speaker 11: industry just the same way going forward, a return to
Speaker 11: export restrictions that could hurt productions. So policy can do harm,
Speaker 11: but it's otherwise hard to improve on a good thing
Speaker 11: we already have going here.
Speaker 3: This is really important as we try to figure out
Speaker 3: what a Trump two point zero would mean for the
Speaker 3: energy markets versus what we've seen from Joe Biden's first term. Bob,
Speaker 3: you got off easy. I didn't even ask you what
Speaker 3: you thought of the debate.
Speaker 11: Wow, you know what.
Speaker 9: I was at band practice.
Speaker 11: I was doing rock and roll. I didn't even watch
Speaker 11: the debate, and I'm in a way glad I didn't.
Speaker 3: But I'll tell you what.
Speaker 11: We upped our chances for our clients and President Trump
Speaker 11: winning after that debate.
Speaker 9: So we're all in.
Speaker 11: It's a sensitive situation right now. I will say, if
Speaker 11: Kamala Harris steps forward, Joe, she has promised to ban fracking.
Speaker 11: Now she walked that back when she joined the Biden ticket.
Speaker 11: But if Kamala Harris moves forward, I think you and
Speaker 11: I are going to be talking in a few weeks
Speaker 11: about whether the whether the next president might try and
Speaker 11: ban fracking indirectly or directly.
Speaker 3: You didn't even have to watch it. Bob McNally, President
Speaker 3: Rapidan Energy, it's great to see you, Bob. Thank you
Speaker 3: for being with us. Thanks for listening to the Balance
Speaker 3: of Power podcast. Make sure to subscribe if you haven't already,
Speaker 3: at Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts, and
Speaker 3: you can find us live every weekday from Washington, DC
Speaker 3: at noontime Eastern at Bloomberg dot com.