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Speaker 2: A presidential visit to Hawaii today as the Bidens stopped
Speaker 2: the vacation at Lake Tahoe for a couple and head
Speaker 2: over to the island. And if you have been following
Speaker 2: the beat on this, we talked about it last week
Speaker 2: here on Bloomberg Sound On. The President got a lot
Speaker 2: of criticism for a no comment, a lack of I
Speaker 2: guess passionate response when he was on his vacation, which
Speaker 2: is why we asked Marcus Coleman about that. What's FEMA
Speaker 2: actually been up to this whole time? But when it
Speaker 2: comes to politics, that doesn't matter when you're the president.
Speaker 2: Asked George Bush about Katrina and they started cleaning this
Speaker 2: up last week. President said some words at unrelated events
Speaker 2: Press secretary wide in as it became clear that a
Speaker 2: trip was in the offing.
Speaker 3: As one food bank worker described a resilient spirit that
Speaker 3: we're saying, he said nothing but heloha.
Speaker 4: That's all you see.
Speaker 5: That's Hawaii. That's America, and I want to people of
Speaker 5: why to know your country's with you as long as
Speaker 5: it takes.
Speaker 2: And the President also saying that FEMA is ready to
Speaker 2: respond to Hillary in California, though by the sounds of things,
Speaker 2: FEMA is already busy in California. And we bring in
Speaker 2: our panel now, Jeanie Shanzano is with US Bloomberg Politics
Speaker 2: contributor and Democratic Ana. Let's join a day by Chape
Speaker 2: and Fay, the managing director at Actum Republican strategist. Great
Speaker 2: to have you both here, Genie. I don't want to
Speaker 2: spend all day on this. We just really wanted to
Speaker 2: learn what was going on. People have a sense of
Speaker 2: why the president is going to Hawaii, the extent of
Speaker 2: loss and the need for resources on the political side
Speaker 2: of it. Though, does this trip clean up the mess
Speaker 2: for Joe Biden?
Speaker 6: I think it will. I think we're going to see
Speaker 6: the empathetic Joe Biden that he has displayed himself as
Speaker 6: as a candidate and now as president. And he did
Speaker 6: make an enormous flub, if you can call it, last
Speaker 6: week when he had a no comment and he's going
Speaker 6: to try to make up for that but I think
Speaker 6: the reality is for Joe Biden, this is all about,
Speaker 6: you know, watching what he is doing and watching what
Speaker 6: the administration has been doing. And as you just discussed,
Speaker 6: they've been doing an enormous amount to help the people
Speaker 6: in Hawaii and now the people in California. So he's
Speaker 6: going to be empathetic and he's going to talk about delivering.
Speaker 6: We know he flubs his words, but that's not what
Speaker 6: this is about.
Speaker 2: I don't know how you see the scripts playing out today.
Speaker 2: Chapin will see and hear from the president later on.
Speaker 2: He's got a number of events planned in Hawaii. They're
Speaker 2: going to be surveying damage and so forth, and this
Speaker 2: is part of the job of being president. Does he
Speaker 2: deserve criticism for going late?
Speaker 7: He does.
Speaker 5: And you know, you mentioned the job of president. Americans
Speaker 5: understated tuitively that the president is not going to be
Speaker 5: on the ground, you know, helping rebuild houses himself and
Speaker 5: doing all that things. The role of the president is
Speaker 5: to one comfort the victims and the nation and most importantly,
Speaker 5: to reassure everyone that they're doing everything that they can
Speaker 5: to make the situation better and that they're working for Americans.
Speaker 5: That is what his stutter stuff that separated you know,
Speaker 5: him from America in that, you know, saying no comment
Speaker 5: when you know people have just lost their lives during
Speaker 5: a tragedy. That does not instill the confidence you know
Speaker 5: that he is on top of it, that all of
Speaker 5: government is responding, and you know he's the guy in
Speaker 5: charge that things are going to happen. And then the
Speaker 5: last I will say the reason he's going Now you
Speaker 5: know his goal and I think I agree with Genie.
Speaker 5: I think this will be good for him, right, It's
Speaker 5: always you know good and he can be empathetic for sure.
Speaker 5: And on Wednesday night, I know you were planning on
Speaker 5: talking this. We're talking about this more, I think. But
Speaker 5: on Wednesday night he's going to be fielding some major
Speaker 5: attacks from you know, eight or nine or ten or
Speaker 5: haveing many different Republican policisms are on the stage for
Speaker 5: you know, however long the media cycle is twenty four
Speaker 5: and forty eight maybe even seventy two hours if someone
Speaker 5: has a moment, so he really needs to contrast. I'm
Speaker 5: on the grand and why doing every that I can?
Speaker 5: You know, while the nine politicians are up, you know,
Speaker 5: throwing jabs on a stage.
Speaker 4: I think that's going to be a good comparison for
Speaker 4: the president.
Speaker 2: Well, it's certainly a good point and something I indeed
Speaker 2: wanted to talk about today because well, we know who's
Speaker 2: not going to be there when we're just gonna we're
Speaker 2: going to the debate, right, We're not. He's not showing
Speaker 2: up on Wednesday. Ronald McDaniel at the RNC on five.
Speaker 3: I'm still holding out hope that President Trump will come.
Speaker 3: I think it's so important that the American people here
Speaker 3: from all the candidates. But there's a lot of candidates
Speaker 3: that have qualified. We're at seven right now that have officially.
Speaker 2: Qualified, and we'll get the official word on the rest.
Speaker 2: I guess tonight. So here's the latest. You know, Donald Trump,
Speaker 2: he's he made good on the threat. I believe it
Speaker 2: was Rick Davis who predicted this several months ago, not
Speaker 2: showing up, or so he says today. At the same time,
Speaker 2: Asa Hutchinson makes the grade he's actually going to be
Speaker 2: on stage and meaning that, gosh, the kids table would
Speaker 2: only be two people. I guess right, So, Genie Shanzana,
Speaker 2: we finally know, or we think we do, who's going
Speaker 2: to be on the stage here. Based on this knowledge,
Speaker 2: do you buy into the conventional wisdom, is going to
Speaker 2: be a really tough night to be a guy named Ron.
Speaker 6: I think it is going to be a tough night
Speaker 6: to be a guy named Ron, But I think it's
Speaker 6: going to be a tough night to be any of
Speaker 6: these guys on this stage. First of all, imagine if
Speaker 6: Trump shows up after all, I mean, that is one
Speaker 6: thing that people are watching. He said he's not going to,
Speaker 6: but he does things he says he won't, So you know,
Speaker 6: this is going to be all about Trump. And DeSantis
Speaker 6: is going to have a tough night because while his
Speaker 6: poll numbers are dropping, he's still in second place in
Speaker 6: most of these poles. He will be under attack. His
Speaker 6: campaign has been, you know, suffering a bit. And then
Speaker 6: of course, you know it's tough for all of these people,
Speaker 6: the people at the very bottom. This may be their
Speaker 6: last shot because it only gets tougher from here to
Speaker 6: make this debate stage. The people in the middle are
Speaker 6: going to try to be attacking the people on the
Speaker 6: top make a name for themselves. So it's going to
Speaker 6: be a tough night. But it is going to be
Speaker 6: a tough night because overall of it will be done Trump.
Speaker 6: They're not there, you know, in in you know, turning
Speaker 6: himself in munk shots all the rest, and that's what
Speaker 6: everybody's going to be watching.
Speaker 2: Well, of course he's done. He's actually it's in the
Speaker 2: can already. In an interview with Tucker Carlson that will
Speaker 2: air against this encounter program against the debate, Genie does
Speaker 2: mention a great possibility shape And if you're Donald Trump,
Speaker 2: why don't you just show up anyway, surprise everybody. You're
Speaker 2: already going to be on with Tucker. Now you'll be
Speaker 2: on here too.
Speaker 7: Well, listen, it's Donald Trump.
Speaker 4: I mean.
Speaker 5: One of the problems with running against a guy like
Speaker 5: Donald Trump, when the reason that Democrats always in fits
Speaker 5: is you never know what he's going to do. You know,
Speaker 5: it's very hard to run against someone you don't know
Speaker 5: what your opponent and how your opponent's going to react.
Speaker 5: But if I was advising him, you know his campaign,
Speaker 5: he is so far ahead. There's just no reason for
Speaker 5: him to be on that debate stage.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 5: The con for him to be up there is that
Speaker 5: you know, he makes a mistake or someone you know,
Speaker 5: an attack lands and you know some of his status
Speaker 5: is brought down a level and by the way being
Speaker 5: on a stage was.
Speaker 4: One like Aasa Hudginson.
Speaker 5: You know, does that elevate him or or while we're
Speaker 5: the president or these are the calculations. The one risk
Speaker 5: he does run is that, you know, his legal and
Speaker 5: political future is a little uncertain. You know, this debate
Speaker 5: is going to give maybe a lower here candidate the
Speaker 5: opportunity to have a moment. You know, if one of
Speaker 5: the one of these candidates has a real moment and
Speaker 5: then you know, dominates the news for a couple of days. Yeah,
Speaker 5: you know, that could cause problems. But again, he is
Speaker 5: so far ahead, there's really nothing for him to gain
Speaker 5: to be on the debate stage.
Speaker 2: Well, so go to his post on truth social here
Speaker 2: all caps and I won't do the whole probuddle, it's
Speaker 2: a it's a poll. I will therefore not be doing
Speaker 2: the debates plural. So are we talking no primary debates
Speaker 2: at all? Because he thinks, you know, he's running for reelection.
Speaker 2: He thinks he is the president. He's going to wait
Speaker 2: to debate Joe Biden. As for Ron DeSantis, by the way,
Speaker 2: and we'll talk more about this. See I look the
Speaker 2: listless vessels bit. Did you hear this? He was talking
Speaker 2: to the flor to standard. This is going on to
Speaker 2: all the deplorables, right.
Speaker 7: A movement can't be about the personality of one individual.
Speaker 7: The movement has got to be about what are you
Speaker 7: trying to achieve on behalf of the American people?
Speaker 2: Okay, and that's got.
Speaker 7: To be based in principle, talking about because if you're
Speaker 7: not rooted in principle, if all we are is listless vessels,
Speaker 7: that's just supposed to follow, you know, whatever happens to
Speaker 7: come down the pike on truth social every morning. That
Speaker 7: that's not going to be a durable movement listless vessels.
Speaker 7: Now I'm seeing memes and these weird fake videos on
Speaker 7: Twitter genie of Ronda Santis as Hillary Clinton? Is this
Speaker 7: the end of the campaign? Oh? Ron?
Speaker 6: He just never learned the real rule of politics, which
Speaker 6: is you don't attack the voters by calling them deplorable
Speaker 6: or listless vessels. You know, I like to, you know, say,
Speaker 6: this is very much like dating. You don't that's not
Speaker 6: an attractive quality when you're trying to date somebody, to
Speaker 6: call them a listless vessel. It's not, nor is it
Speaker 6: when you're trying to get votes. So I feel badly
Speaker 6: for Ron, he flubbed it again. He's got to be
Speaker 6: very careful. He's learning, he's you know, I think the
Speaker 6: big question for Ron does he get better by the
Speaker 6: end of the summer. And we haven't seen a sign
Speaker 6: of that yet, although he's out in Iowa, New Hampshire
Speaker 6: an awful lot trying.
Speaker 2: I have less than a minute shaven. Did he just
Speaker 2: guarantee Ronda Santa's guarantee the pile on Wednesday night?
Speaker 5: Listen, Genie's right. I mean, anytime you focus your fire
Speaker 5: on a candidate, supporters, your fellow Americans, rather than the
Speaker 5: candid himself, you're just going to get into trouble to
Speaker 5: no matter what you say, it's not worth it. And
Speaker 5: I think, you know, Governor Santis has proven over now
Speaker 5: some time that he's just not catching fire. And in fact,
Speaker 5: some candidates are moving up on him, and they're going
Speaker 5: to try even you know, to have their moment even
Speaker 5: more on Wednesday. But some of the Cantis are moving
Speaker 5: up on him, and I just don't think he's caught
Speaker 5: fire the way he thought he would.
Speaker 2: So we're gonna put.
Speaker 1: Numbers on who knows.
Speaker 2: Indeed, by by the way listless vessels. So now You've
Speaker 2: got all these boating memes. You know, remember the boat
Speaker 2: parades there all over Twitter? Didn't he mean empty vessels?
Speaker 1: You're listening to The Bloomberg Sound on podcast. Catch the
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Speaker 2: What a day to have Charlie Cook with us. Charlie
Speaker 2: Cook just must wake up every morning and have has
Speaker 2: his head explode and then goes back to reading and writing,
Speaker 2: the founder and contributor The Cook Political Report. Charlie, it's
Speaker 2: great to have you back. Is Does Donald Trump have
Speaker 2: a point? Can I come to this from a different angles?
Speaker 2: Donald Trump have a point? With such a resounding lead,
Speaker 2: why should he go?
Speaker 4: I would think he would have the former president Trump
Speaker 4: should have his head examined if he did go into debate.
Speaker 4: What wow, you know he's got everything to lose, nothing
Speaker 4: to gain from it. What was the new Des Moines Register?
Speaker 4: NBC Paul a forty six point lead in Iowa and
Speaker 4: that's less than it is nationally and a lot of
Speaker 4: a lot of polls. So there's no reason for Trump
Speaker 4: to do this. And what I'm curious about is can
Speaker 4: you see the have the advertising rates on Fox for
Speaker 4: that debate? Have they? Have they plummeted? I mean, if
Speaker 4: I pay good money for an audience, it's not going
Speaker 4: to be nearly as big. I'd be a little upset.
Speaker 2: That's why they're begging him, right.
Speaker 8: Well, I was going to say, that's why you've had
Speaker 8: executives from Fox meeting with the former president. Even I
Speaker 8: believe a moderator of the debate.
Speaker 2: Yeah, supposedly bred Barr got got on the phone, not
Speaker 2: showing it. Then again, Kaylee, it's Donald Trump. Maybe he
Speaker 2: does show up.
Speaker 8: Right, I mean, from what we know about him as
Speaker 8: a president, as a candidate, Charlie, wouldn't it suggest that
Speaker 8: he could still surprise us?
Speaker 4: You know, Look, I'm I'm going to say there's no
Speaker 4: way that Donald Trump does or doesn't do anything. But
Speaker 4: it just doesn't make a lot of sense. And one
Speaker 4: thing is that his campaign this time it is far
Speaker 4: far more sophisticated than it ever was in twenty sixteen
Speaker 4: and twenty twenty. I mean, they're serious adults running this thing,
Speaker 4: and I think he's letting the pros do their job, so,
Speaker 4: I you know, to be honest, I think if this
Speaker 4: is not a Biden Trump matchup in the fall, I
Speaker 4: think it's it would be uh, it would be something
Speaker 4: in the health or medical field and not legal or
Speaker 4: political that would keep that rematch from happening.
Speaker 2: I know what you mean by that. And so you
Speaker 2: see new numbers from Ann Selzer today Iowa Trump forty two,
Speaker 2: Desantus nineteen. The next is Scott at nine. You've covered
Speaker 2: a few Iowa caucuses, Charlie, what are these numbers tell you?
Speaker 2: Can you put them in perspective for our listeners?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean when it's it's it's that this is
Speaker 4: a really really big lead. And Iowa caucuses have gotten
Speaker 4: so large that they're almost like primaries, uh, you know,
Speaker 4: with with very widespread participation, and so polling these things
Speaker 4: aren't it's not they're not real bad. They're not bad.
Speaker 4: And you know, I think this is uh and the
Speaker 4: fact that Desanta's dropping, nobody else has gained much. And
Speaker 4: when you look at a lot of the polling, when
Speaker 4: you look at people whose first choices are one of
Speaker 4: the alternatives to Trump when you ask him their second choice,
Speaker 4: A lot of them it is Trump. So as this
Speaker 4: field windows, it's it's you know, he's going to get
Speaker 4: more than his share of of of of the second
Speaker 4: the second choice vote. So I would be astonished. Again,
Speaker 4: it would be if one of them had an adverse
Speaker 4: health event. Okay, that might disrupt this rematch. But other
Speaker 4: than that, I don't think it's going to be political.
Speaker 4: I don't think it's going to be legal.
Speaker 8: So as you talk about kind of winnowing things to here,
Speaker 8: Kristin Nuknu, of course, wrote an op ed that has
Speaker 8: gotten a lot of attention in the last twenty four
Speaker 8: hours about how anything they can do to narrow the
Speaker 8: primary field to avoid having former President Trump be the
Speaker 8: Republican nominee should be should be done. He will put
Speaker 8: an effort towards Do you think a narrower field would
Speaker 8: ultimately make a difference, Charlie, Well.
Speaker 4: The big field's not healthy, so you know not, why
Speaker 4: not try a narrow one?
Speaker 6: You know?
Speaker 4: I think that what was the term in Catch twenty
Speaker 4: two about over choice, that sometimes when people have too
Speaker 4: many choices, they can't choose, and a lot of these
Speaker 4: can it. They're just sort of stuck in a they
Speaker 4: just can't get any traction. But the other thing, though,
Speaker 4: is that the people who win in Iowa generally don't
Speaker 4: win in New Hampshire. In other words, let's say DeSantis
Speaker 4: or whoever comes through a breakthrough. True, the Iowa caucus attendees,
Speaker 4: they're so different. I mean, it's more social conservatives, evangelicals.
Speaker 4: It's one group of people. And meanwhile, in the New
Speaker 4: Hampshire primary, where independence can vote in a primary, it's
Speaker 4: much more moderate. It's in seven of the last eight
Speaker 4: competitive Republican contests, the winner of the Iowa caucus did
Speaker 4: not win the New Hampshire primary. So the idea that
Speaker 4: one of these people can do well in Iowa and
Speaker 4: leverage it into New Hampshire given the different constituencies there,
Speaker 4: I don't think that's going to happen.
Speaker 2: Very interesting your thoughts on the RNC, Charlie Cook. This
Speaker 2: is We've got a debate this week, so it's in
Speaker 2: the air. And there was an interesting story in the
Speaker 2: New York Times today about Donald Trump's desire to debate
Speaker 2: Joe Biden. That's what he wants to do. He doesn't
Speaker 2: care about the Republican field. He thinks he deserves to
Speaker 2: debate the president right now, and may as a result,
Speaker 2: undercut the work by the RNC to somehow replace or
Speaker 2: find an alternative to the Commission on Presidential Debates, which
Speaker 2: they've been working on for a couple of years, and
Speaker 2: based on any reporting that I've seen, they haven't gotten
Speaker 2: very far. Is the CPD going to actually run these debates?
Speaker 2: Regardless Ron McDaniel's view, I.
Speaker 4: Don't know what's going to happen. The thing is that
Speaker 4: Donald Trump likes to play by his own rules. He
Speaker 4: likes to write the rules, and the Commission pretty much
Speaker 4: does things, you know, for the most part, the way
Speaker 4: they always have, and the campaigns aren't in charge, and
Speaker 4: so this is it would be an event that's you know,
Speaker 4: almost entirely outside of his control, and he can't possibly
Speaker 4: like that. And you know, I don't know whether he
Speaker 4: will want a debate or not. But you know, I
Speaker 4: think this is a grudge match. It's about and you know,
Speaker 4: a lot of it's going to get back to you know,
Speaker 4: this will be the first time since eighteen ninety two
Speaker 4: we've had back to back presidents face off, and so
Speaker 4: you could do a side by side compare. And the
Speaker 4: problem for President Biden is when ABC and The Washington
Speaker 4: Post asked if I think it was in May who
Speaker 4: did a better job of handling the economy Donald Trump
Speaker 4: when he was president or Joe Biden during his presidency
Speaker 4: so far, now, overall registered voters, fifty three percent said Trump,
Speaker 4: thirty eight percent said Biden, a sixteen point difference. But
Speaker 4: among independents, in other words, the people that are probably
Speaker 4: going to decide this thing, fifty four percent said Biden,
Speaker 4: as I mean, said Trump, fifty four percent, thirty one
Speaker 4: percent said Biden, a twenty three point an even wider gap.
Speaker 4: So President Biden has got to figure out A. The
Speaker 4: economy's got to improve, and b he needs people to
Speaker 4: acknowledge it and to give him credit for it, And
Speaker 4: so far that's not happening. But I'm watching purely independence,
Speaker 4: like independence in the Gallop Pole and independence in the
Speaker 4: Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment. Just you know, forget the partisans,
Speaker 4: we know how they're going to vote, and watching the
Speaker 4: gap between consumer confidence and Biden's jobacrower ready, but only
Speaker 4: among independence in both cases.
Speaker 8: Well to that point on that gap when the economic
Speaker 8: data is actually looking fairly good. And President Biden was
Speaker 8: on the road last week touting the Inflation Reduction Act
Speaker 8: and Bidenomics and how the economy has improved under the
Speaker 8: course during the course of his term thus far. What
Speaker 8: is causing that disconnect and is going around the country
Speaker 8: talking about Bidenomics something that's going to close it?
Speaker 4: You know, in politics, perception is more important than reality.
Speaker 4: And the America, the average American voters not an economists,
Speaker 4: and they're not watching them. I mean, they're watching their
Speaker 4: daily lives and they know they're paying more than they were.
Speaker 4: And there's just sort of a lot of scar tissue
Speaker 4: from twenty twenty one that's out there that they're not
Speaker 4: over it yet, and they associate even though you know,
Speaker 4: the four years that Donald Trump was in the White
Speaker 4: House were totally different from the four years that Biden
Speaker 4: has been there. But the thing is, I mean, there
Speaker 4: were different circumstances, but people are going to say I
Speaker 4: felt better off then, you know, economically speaking. But I mean, sure,
Speaker 4: of course the circumstances were different, but the average voter,
Speaker 4: they're going to say I was doing better then than
Speaker 4: I am now.
Speaker 2: The other poll that's out, I think you referenced it earlier, Charlie,
Speaker 2: that's out in the last twenty four hours CBS News
Speaker 2: and you gov this is the one with the forty
Speaker 2: six point lead Trumps sixty two.
Speaker 4: Yea, yeah, I'm sorry, I confused the number, none of
Speaker 4: which is like gargagua.
Speaker 2: But does that I mean, I'm actually impressed that you
Speaker 2: brought it up, because I thought that that might not
Speaker 2: get your attention. Being a national poll, should we be
Speaker 2: watching these.
Speaker 4: Well, I mean, I use I tried not to base
Speaker 4: the overall analysis on it, but that's sort of the
Speaker 4: shorthand thing that people lo. I mean to me, there
Speaker 4: are lots of other, you know, elements in this that
Speaker 4: the Republican Party today doesn't look anything like it did ten, fifteen,
Speaker 4: twenty years ago, and it is more Donald Trump's image
Speaker 4: than I think a lot of Republicans. You referenced Christnunu
Speaker 4: a little while ago. This isn't the party that elected
Speaker 4: George W. Bush and his father and you know all
Speaker 4: these other nominated McCain and Romney. I mean, this is
Speaker 4: a different party. And when you have the share of
Speaker 4: the Republicans nationwide, the share of whites that do not
Speaker 4: have a college degree, going up in ten years, going
Speaker 4: up fourteen points from forty eight to sixty two percent,
Speaker 4: and the percentage of whites with a college degree dropped
Speaker 4: from forty to twenty five percent. So this is a
Speaker 4: you know, we're seeing a realignment in American politics, and
Speaker 4: that those working class whites that are largely leaving the
Speaker 4: Democratic Party, they moved over and changed the complexion of
Speaker 4: the republic Party. And a lot of the college educated
Speaker 4: suburban voters, particularly women, that left the Republican Party, they're
Speaker 4: over on the Democratic side. Now we're talking about two
Speaker 4: different parties than fifteen twenty years.
Speaker 2: In governable, two different parties and four more indictments than
Speaker 2: we're used to. Charlie Cook, it's great to have you
Speaker 2: as always, the founder and contributor to the Cook Political Report.
Speaker 2: Just great insights, Kaye. I love hearing from him. I
Speaker 2: could just listen all day. This is why you choose
Speaker 2: Bloomberg Radio.
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Speaker 2: We spent a lot of time talking about woke policies,
Speaker 2: so called woke at the Pentagon, to the extent that
Speaker 2: one senator is even blocking promotions for military officers over this.
Speaker 2: But Kayley, this really came to a head during the
Speaker 2: budget debate that led to this whole debt ceiling deal
Speaker 2: that's now not a deal any longer. When House Republicans
Speaker 2: made clear they wanted cuts in defense spending and I
Speaker 2: say House Republicans to be clear, Freedom Caucus House Republicans
Speaker 2: they wanted cuts. They wanted to bring it back to
Speaker 2: fiscal year twenty two. Then the whole thing kind of
Speaker 2: went puff because they took the Pentagon off the table
Speaker 2: a little bit. But in that effort to cut money
Speaker 2: from so called woke policy, there was a major request
Speaker 2: by the Pentagon five billion dollars I believe it was
Speaker 2: for climate mitigation. These they come out with these reports
Speaker 2: every year that show programs that are needed to keep
Speaker 2: facilities up and running. This is about readiness. So that
Speaker 2: got a know in the House, and John Conger actually
Speaker 2: spent a lot of time at the Pentagon is the
Speaker 2: Deputy under Secretary of Defense now at the Center for
Speaker 2: Climate and Security. It's writing an op bad about this.
Speaker 2: It's a fascinating view because you talk about ESG and climate,
Speaker 2: you start thinking about well, just about everything but the Pentagon, right,
Speaker 2: And it's a big deal for the DoD yes.
Speaker 8: In terms of actual military facilities and infrastructure that could
Speaker 8: be in the path of some of these natural disasters,
Speaker 8: like we're seeing in California with Hillary the tropical storm.
Speaker 8: There's a huge military presence basis in southern California, be
Speaker 8: it the Navy or the Marines, others as well. So
Speaker 8: there's that aspect of it, but also just in terms
Speaker 8: of military engagement, if you're somewhere where there's a typhoon,
Speaker 8: things like that, you have to have the weather and
Speaker 8: the climate in mind. That's the central thesis of what
Speaker 8: John is saying here.
Speaker 2: The Pentagon doesn't fool around with climate because it has
Speaker 2: to do with readiness and it has to do with
Speaker 2: our ability to respond. Conger joins us now, Director emeritus
Speaker 2: the Center for Climate and Security. John, this is going
Speaker 2: to come back up, I presume in the appropriations debate
Speaker 2: that will follow Lawmakers eventual return here, But looking at
Speaker 2: the stories we're covering, the flooding, as Kaylee mentioned, in
Speaker 2: California right now, hurricane season up and down the East Coast.
Speaker 2: It's been mercifully light so far this season. The situation
Speaker 2: in Hawaii. These are all places that are home to
Speaker 2: major military installations. What's Washington need to do well?
Speaker 9: I think Washington needs to keep its eyes open and
Speaker 9: avoid pretending that these problems don't exist. That's the first thing.
Speaker 9: And that's a little bit of what Congress was doing
Speaker 9: when they said that, oh, this is obviously politics and
Speaker 9: we have to put this aside. When I was at
Speaker 9: the Pentagon and currently, the Pentagon clearly cares about the
Speaker 9: impacts of extreme weather on its basis, on its infrastructure,
Speaker 9: on its ability to train, and we need to be ready.
Speaker 9: We need to be able to keep the lights on,
Speaker 9: keep the missions going no matter what the weather. And
Speaker 9: that means planning and it means being ready.
Speaker 8: So when we're talking about mitigating climate risks the military
Speaker 8: in defense, what does that actually look like that they
Speaker 8: need the funding for? What does it fund?
Speaker 9: So you're going to be funding energy resilience projects, putting
Speaker 9: microgrids on bases so that when the electric grid goes down,
Speaker 9: the base days open and the lights stay on. You're
Speaker 9: going to be funding infrastructure projects like there was a
Speaker 9: project in Norfolk where they do the maintenance on nuclear submarines.
Speaker 9: They did flood protection there because of sea level rise.
Speaker 9: You don't want when your nuclear reactor is open and
Speaker 9: you're doing maintenance on the submarines for the water to
Speaker 9: rush in, and so they had to lift the sea
Speaker 9: walls up a few feet higher. That was actually proposed
Speaker 9: by the Trump administration. This is historically not a partisan
Speaker 9: issue when you're just talking about protecting military forces and
Speaker 9: military capability.
Speaker 2: It becomes a part of an issue when you put
Speaker 2: the term climate change on it though. Right, This is
Speaker 2: the issue here, John, is that there are a lot
Speaker 2: of preconceived notions. One of your roles at the Pentagon
Speaker 2: in your time with the DoD was helping to manage
Speaker 2: budget for the Pentagon's real estate property portfolio. Can you
Speaker 2: imagine the size of this klee eight hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: billion dollars? What does that portfolio need to keep it whole?
Speaker 9: Well, that portfolio is historically a little bit underfunded. And
Speaker 9: the fact of the matter is is that DoD, right
Speaker 9: now has over one hundred billion dollars in unfunded maintenance
Speaker 9: that they've just deferred. That's never mind the climate change aspects.
Speaker 9: But what they need to be able to do is
Speaker 9: to anticipate the most severe impacts and put in, you know,
Speaker 9: infrastructure that can allow them to continue to operate, continue
Speaker 9: to protect their missions. This is really about mission assurance.
Speaker 9: Climate is one impact. You could have cyber attacks on
Speaker 9: the grid and these same kinds of investments would protect
Speaker 9: against those, depending on you know, for the micro rids
Speaker 9: and so on. So the god.
Speaker 8: Sorry John, to interrupt your thought, but it's one thing
Speaker 8: to talk about how this impacts you know, US military operations,
Speaker 8: but also climate can have a role in what the
Speaker 8: military actually has to engage in.
Speaker 7: Right.
Speaker 8: You made a really interesting point, I thought in your
Speaker 8: piece about how climate change increases things like food security,
Speaker 8: water scarcity, forces, migration, and all of that can drive
Speaker 8: global instability. So it can actually become just a broader
Speaker 8: security concern when we're thinking about you know, the military
Speaker 8: and security interests.
Speaker 9: Absolutely, it pushes in particular nations that have limited government
Speaker 9: capacity to deal with problems. It has a tendency to
Speaker 9: leave the people there more upset more angry, and it
Speaker 9: can lead to civil conflict. And in Syria, that's the
Speaker 9: best example that I have of sort of climate driving
Speaker 9: problems that lead to conflict. You had hundreds of thousands
Speaker 9: of refugees from the Iraq War already in Syria, and
Speaker 9: you add a multi year drought that drove farmers off
Speaker 9: their lands. There was the agricultural lands were left useless,
Speaker 9: and they all moved into the same cities. Nobody had jobs,
Speaker 9: and it created the seeds of discontent. The climate change
Speaker 9: caused the Syrian Civil War, No, but it certainly pushed
Speaker 9: it in that direction.
Speaker 2: Okay, so let's get back to appropriations here. Republicans in
Speaker 2: the House said no to that five billion dollar request.
Speaker 2: What if the final answer is, though, John, we're not
Speaker 2: here with any agenda. I'm trying to learn from you
Speaker 2: what happens if we do nothing?
Speaker 9: All right, Well, first of all, the Republicans cut about
Speaker 9: seven hundred and fifteen million dollars out of the five
Speaker 9: billion dollar requests, so a lot of it did actually
Speaker 9: get approved. They sort of targeted their cuts in a
Speaker 9: few areas. Some of it was research and development that
Speaker 9: puts us behind the eight ball. As we're trying to
Speaker 9: solve hard problems. Some of it was targeted at base operations.
Speaker 9: Why you would undermine planning for this kind of thing
Speaker 9: and trying to figure out how you're going to address
Speaker 9: location by location the climate change, I'm not sure. And
Speaker 9: then the other big thing they cut was the Army's
Speaker 9: efforts to try and integrate hybrid and electric technology into
Speaker 9: some of their ground vehicles. I've heard it characterized as
Speaker 9: the hybrid imperative. If you can save twenty five percent
Speaker 9: of your fuel efficiency by making these vehicles hybrid vehicles,
Speaker 9: why wouldn't you A lot of the people that died
Speaker 9: in recent wars were in fuel convoys. Wouldn't you want
Speaker 9: fuel fuel convoys? Isn't this make sense from a just
Speaker 9: preserving life perspective? This isn't about emissions that you could make.
Speaker 9: You could take away all those emissions from all those
Speaker 9: vehicles and it wouldn't dent the global picture. This is
Speaker 9: about war fighting.
Speaker 8: Okay, so just quickly, John, we only have about a
Speaker 8: minute left. But even with just that seven hundred and
Speaker 8: fifteen million dollars cut out of what the Pentagon asks for,
Speaker 8: how does that impact military readiness?
Speaker 9: It impacts military readiness. In the biggest part where it
Speaker 9: impacts military readiness is it takes away the funding for
Speaker 9: their ability to plan for, you know, what they need
Speaker 9: to do at each base in order to prevent climate
Speaker 9: change from stopping missions. It's it is a the projects
Speaker 9: at the individual basis to harden the infrastructure. That is
Speaker 9: the biggest individual impact that you're going to see.
Speaker 2: Fascinating conversation, John, Thanks for being with us, director emeritus
Speaker 2: of the Center for Climate and Security. He spend time
Speaker 2: I'm as Deputy under Secretary of Defense while at the Pentagon.
Speaker 2: John Kunger here on Bloomberg's sound On. Thanks for listening
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