Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2: This is a breaking news update from Bloomberg, instant reaction
Speaker 2: and analysis from our three thousand journalists and analysts around
Speaker 2: the world.
Speaker 3: I'm Kaylie lyones alongside Joe Matthew, the President, including his
Speaker 3: speech which lasted just under two hours, setting a new
Speaker 3: record for a State of the Union address. At about
Speaker 3: one hour and forty seven minutes. President Trump now leaving
Speaker 3: the rostrum. He will make his way back up the aisle,
Speaker 3: probably Joe Matthews, shaking hands as he goes, having concluded
Speaker 3: this speech which took us from domestic affairs to geopolitics
Speaker 3: and of course, as the President concluded his speech, through
Speaker 3: two hundred and fifty years of American history.
Speaker 2: That's right, Kayley, as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs
Speaker 2: and the Chiefs themselves leave the chamber, the President of
Speaker 2: the United States wrapping the longest State of the Union
Speaker 2: address in American history. As I speak to you live
Speaker 2: from Statutory Hall just outside of the House Chamber where
Speaker 2: this is taking place, with the live view of the
Speaker 2: President still taking selfies there with Kat Camick, We're going
Speaker 2: to see all the members stream by. In fact, they're
Speaker 2: just now beginning to leave the room. There were a
Speaker 2: couple of folks who left early in elon Omar and
Speaker 2: some of the other Democrats who are not very happy
Speaker 2: about what the President was saying there. That did Kaylee
Speaker 2: break into a little bit of a call in response
Speaker 2: there as the President feared off the script.
Speaker 4: But you're right.
Speaker 2: He began with the issue that we've been talking about
Speaker 2: every day here on Bloomberg TV and radio for weeks
Speaker 2: and months, and that's affordability. The president of the United
Speaker 2: States talking about getting prices down. He talked about seeing
Speaker 2: gas when he was on the road for less than
Speaker 2: two dollars a gallon, which is not something that many
Speaker 2: Americans enjoy. Saying that our state of the Union is strong,
Speaker 2: and pointing to the end of Dei, among other issues
Speaker 2: that he got to very early in the speech, and
Speaker 2: then of course got to the tariffs. Kaylee, many of
Speaker 2: us were wondering exactly what he was going to say
Speaker 2: to the justices of the Supreme Court who was sitting
Speaker 2: there in the front row, and he kept his remarks
Speaker 2: fairly temperate. He talked about the unfortunate decision, He didn't
Speaker 2: call anyone out by name, spent more time calling out
Speaker 2: Democrats tonight, Kaylee, for not standing up to applaud him yes.
Speaker 3: And telling Democrats that they were to blame for higher
Speaker 3: prices Americans are facing, including on healthcare. To your point
Speaker 3: on tariff's Joe, after calling the Supreme Court ruling unfortunate,
Speaker 3: he also said congressional action on tariffs will not be necessary,
Speaker 3: suggesting he will be taking other action at the executive level.
Speaker 3: But he did have some specific asss of Congress tonight,
Speaker 3: calling on Congress to codify his most favored nation rule
Speaker 3: when it comes to drug prices, to pass an investment
Speaker 3: ban on firms buying homes, to pass the stock trading
Speaker 3: ban for members of Congress. He also wants to the
Speaker 3: Congress to pass a law barring any state from granting
Speaker 3: commercial driving licenses to illegal alien So he did have
Speaker 3: some requests for the legislative branch, even if he largely
Speaker 3: spent the majority of this almost two hours Joe talking
Speaker 3: about things he has seen himself as achieving at the executive.
Speaker 4: Level and pointing to more things that he wants to
Speaker 4: get done.
Speaker 2: To your point, calling on Congress to pass Save America Acts, Kaylee,
Speaker 2: and when he got to that matter, of voter id.
Speaker 4: He called out Democrats.
Speaker 2: He said, they want to cheat, they have cheated, and
Speaker 2: their policy is so bad. The only way to get
Speaker 2: elected is to cheat, and we're going to stop it.
Speaker 4: He said.
Speaker 2: This was a very tough speech on Democrats, most of
Speaker 2: whom sat on their hands for most of the night.
Speaker 2: And I'll just let everybody know that we did replay
Speaker 2: the beginning of the speech from last year.
Speaker 4: Al Green, the.
Speaker 2: Congressman Democrat from Texas, was escorted from the chamber once again.
Speaker 2: He brought a sign with him Kaylee, which does not
Speaker 2: make the sergeant at arms or the speaker very happy,
Speaker 2: and as he tried to address the president firsthand, he
Speaker 2: was taken out of the room by the sergeant at arms.
Speaker 2: He went straight to Stathall to start doing interviews.
Speaker 3: After that, we turned to our panel that is here
Speaker 3: with me on set in Washington, Bloomberg's Jeff Mason alongside me,
Speaker 3: as well as Bloomberg Politics contributors at Rick Davis and
Speaker 3: Jeanie shan Zeno. So this was perhaps not as long
Speaker 3: as some of us anticipated or maybe feared. He covered
Speaker 3: a lot of ground, though Rick Davis, as promised, he
Speaker 3: said he had a lot to talk about. He certainly
Speaker 3: did how to do.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Look, I think it was a different kind of speech
Speaker 5: than what we're used to seeing from President Trump. Normally,
Speaker 5: he paints a pretty dark picture of the country in
Speaker 5: order to say how much he has changed and made
Speaker 5: it better. He actually started off with the positive report card,
Speaker 5: and at a time when most people are tuned in
Speaker 5: the first thirty minutes of this speech, he's going to
Speaker 5: get the highest number of eyeballs on the TV. He
Speaker 5: talked about affordability, the economy, the things that he said
Speaker 5: he has to do to be able to get this
Speaker 5: thing reset for the midterm elections. Then the next thirty
Speaker 5: minutes he descended into that evil place, attacking Democrats viciously.
Speaker 5: But then he did something that I thought was actually
Speaker 5: new to him and a pretty good construct. That is,
Speaker 5: he built the rest of his speech around the great
Speaker 5: deeds of ordinary Americans, things that they've done to come
Speaker 5: back from adversity, challenges they met and one and I
Speaker 5: think that that will be part of what people remember
Speaker 5: in this speech, with those incredibly important and transformational stories.
Speaker 5: And he did one after the other after the other
Speaker 5: on topics that were really key to his administration.
Speaker 3: Jeff talking about this kind of narrative reset or lack thereof.
Speaker 3: Is that what the President was able to achieve tonight
Speaker 3: or not.
Speaker 6: It doesn't seem like a reset to me. You know,
Speaker 6: my job as a White House reporter and all the
Speaker 6: other reporters who are covering this tonight would be to
Speaker 6: look for the news and usually we look for new policy,
Speaker 6: something that he would unveil or suggest this is what
Speaker 6: I'm going to work on in the coming year, And
Speaker 6: there just wasn't a lot of that in this speech.
Speaker 6: I think Rick is right that there was. There was
Speaker 6: certainly a nice tone at the end that wouldn't be
Speaker 6: applicable to the entire speech, but that there was a
Speaker 6: nice tone at the end.
Speaker 4: But what was new.
Speaker 6: It was mostly a lot of President Trump's greatest hits
Speaker 6: and certainly talking about his defense, which we were discussing
Speaker 6: before the speech. His defense of his performance is defense
Speaker 6: of his administration of the economy that he inherited, which
Speaker 6: he blamed on President Biden.
Speaker 4: Those are all things that are.
Speaker 6: Pretty regular aspects of a Donald Trump's speech. There weren't
Speaker 6: at least a lot of major new policies with regard
Speaker 6: to the economy, with regard to affordability, even though again
Speaker 6: he did address it and he touched on it, but
Speaker 6: he didn't offer a vision for how it's going to
Speaker 6: go forward.
Speaker 2: Joining us now, as you can see if you're with
Speaker 2: us on Bloomberg TV is the Secretary of the Interior,
Speaker 2: Doug Bergham, mister Secretary, Great to have you with us
Speaker 2: yere on Bloomberg TV and radio. I'd like to zero
Speaker 2: win on the President's speech with you from your vantage point,
Speaker 2: record length and a lot to talk about. What did
Speaker 2: he propose for the year ahead that's important to your agency?
Speaker 1: Well, start of the top line, this is incredibly courageous,
Speaker 1: forward looking talk and celebrating our two hundred and fiftieth
Speaker 1: anniversary as a country, going literally back to our founding.
Speaker 1: And then tonight, who would have known when you're coming
Speaker 1: to hear the speech, you're going to get a opportunity
Speaker 1: to be present for the Medal of honor being delivered twice,
Speaker 1: one for heroics from a warrior from World War Two
Speaker 1: and Korea War who's one hundred years old. And then
Speaker 1: someone who just weeks ago was courageously led the charge
Speaker 1: as one of our helicopter pilots when they were arresting Maduro.
Speaker 1: So it spanned the whole two hundred and fifty years.
Speaker 1: But again I would just say it two takeaways. Peace
Speaker 1: around the world, prosperity for Americans, affordability. President Trump's policies
Speaker 1: turning this country around in the last twelve months.
Speaker 2: A lot of focus on energy, as we expected this evening,
Speaker 2: as he reminded, drill, Baby, Drill, but also talked about
Speaker 2: what he would like to see the ability of the
Speaker 2: big tech companies, the hyper scaler having the opportunity to
Speaker 2: bring in their own power plants to put aside their
Speaker 2: data centers essentially off the grid.
Speaker 4: Is that something that.
Speaker 2: The Interior Department is in the process of unlocking.
Speaker 1: Well, absolutely, through the National Energy Dominance Council that runs
Speaker 1: out of the White House that President Trump has asked
Speaker 1: Secretary of Chris Wright and I to lead Secretary of Energy.
Speaker 1: We're working hard to make sure that we can do this,
Speaker 1: have this behind the meter capability byop bringing your own
Speaker 1: power because we need power. This is about energy addition.
Speaker 1: There is no energy transition. President Trump understands that we've
Speaker 1: got to have energy abundance. We've got to be able
Speaker 1: to sell ownergy to our friends and allies, including those
Speaker 1: that have been dependent on our adversaries. I mean, if
Speaker 1: you're getting energy from Iran or Russia and they're funding
Speaker 1: terrorism or wars, I mean, we can stop wars and
Speaker 1: stop terrorism by having energy abundance from the US, but
Speaker 1: enough abundance that we can keep prices for energy here
Speaker 1: at home low even with the demand increase, so that
Speaker 1: we can win the AI arms race against China, which
Speaker 1: part of that race is who can generate the most
Speaker 1: electricity because this is the first time in history you
Speaker 1: can take a killo wout of electricity and turn it
Speaker 1: into intelligence. President Trump understands that his policy is going
Speaker 1: to work for both winning the aarms race and for
Speaker 1: keeping electricity affordable for Americans.
Speaker 4: There's so much there.
Speaker 2: Do you worry about some of the concern that people
Speaker 2: have expressed about data centers, the NIMBI concerns, the worry
Speaker 2: about their electricity bills rising.
Speaker 4: Is this plan the way around that?
Speaker 1: Absolutely, because if it's off the grid, it's not putting
Speaker 1: any burden on the grid itself, and it's not putting any.
Speaker 4: Pressure on rate pays.
Speaker 1: Matter of fact, in North Dkota, when I was still
Speaker 1: a governor, there are just fifteen months ago, we were
Speaker 1: completing a one point two billion dollar data center and
Speaker 1: the electricity rates were going to go down for all
Speaker 1: the people. And that are because you're spreading the cost
Speaker 1: across a big industrial buyer in a rural area. So
Speaker 1: there are ways where you can add capable add a
Speaker 1: big power user like that, and if you do it
Speaker 1: in the right way, it actually brings power down. So
Speaker 1: it's only people that would be opposed to for other reasons,
Speaker 1: including the climate extremists, would come up with a story
Speaker 1: that says that that artificial intelligence is going to raise
Speaker 1: your rates automatically. That's only with the wrong policies. With
Speaker 1: the right policies, they'll stay the same or go down.
Speaker 4: Really interesting.
Speaker 2: The audience is deeply concerned about the future of that
Speaker 2: AI race, what it means for this country. The President
Speaker 2: said a bit about that this evening, but clearly it's
Speaker 2: one of many priorities that he's pursuing in this new year.
Speaker 2: What's the most important way to win that AI race?
Speaker 2: Even as the markets start to question some of the
Speaker 2: spending that we're seeing from these massive companies, they're the
Speaker 2: size of countries.
Speaker 1: Mister Secretary, Yes, well, but again this is a recovery
Speaker 1: new territory, and we're going to see incredible capital flows
Speaker 1: around the world. And those capital flows, record capital flows
Speaker 1: are going to go to places that have ample A four,
Speaker 1: reliable and secure power and that's going to be countries,
Speaker 1: and it's going to be states within those countries. Within Europe,
Speaker 1: it may be certain countries as opposed to all of
Speaker 1: the EU. Secretary Chris Right and I today met with
Speaker 1: twenty one energy ministers from Central and Eastern Europe.
Speaker 4: Again, the race is on.
Speaker 1: People that have sensible energy policies that focus on affordable,
Speaker 1: reliable and secure energy are going to see a boom
Speaker 1: in investment going forward. Because it's not just the data center,
Speaker 1: it's what follows that advanced manufacturing the physical AI, because
Speaker 1: AI will be the greatest productivity increase that humanity has
Speaker 1: ever seen. It really is an extension of human capability,
Speaker 1: whether it's curing cancer, providing a tutor for every school
Speaker 1: kid in the world, or solving the most clipplex problems
Speaker 1: that we've ever faced. This is something that we need
Speaker 1: in America and the free world needs to make sure
Speaker 1: that we're competitive in this aarms race.
Speaker 4: And the way we do that is generate more.
Speaker 1: Power energy addition, there is no such thing as energy transition.
Speaker 1: If you're shutting down seven by twenty four secure base
Speaker 1: load and adding intermit unreliable foreign sourced energy, that's energy fantasy.
Speaker 1: President Trump's focused on energy reality.
Speaker 2: You're not only the Interior secretary, but you're also a
Speaker 2: surrogate of the president.
Speaker 4: Typically, after the State of the Union, we.
Speaker 2: See cabinet secretaries fan out across the country to hit
Speaker 2: home to deliver the message that the president began tonight.
Speaker 4: Do you have travel plans? What are the next weeks
Speaker 4: and months looked like for you?
Speaker 6: Well?
Speaker 1: Absolutely, and of course all the cabinet sectors will tie
Speaker 1: it in with part of their job. So I'm going
Speaker 1: to be heading heading out to Western States where we
Speaker 1: have a large degree of federal land, a lot of
Speaker 1: intersection with those federal assets. What we like to say,
Speaker 1: the Department of Materia has got the largest balance sheet
Speaker 1: in the world. Five hundred million acres of land, seven
Speaker 1: hundred million acres of subservice rich with minerals, three billion
Speaker 1: acres of offshore from American Samoa of the US Virgin Islands,
Speaker 1: Gulf of America, which represents a huge energy component mix
Speaker 1: for our country. But yeah, we'll be spanning out and
Speaker 1: delivering the message. And the message is one that's a
Speaker 1: forward looking prosperity. When you talk about the policies through
Speaker 1: your businessors, we're talking about cutting taxes, massively, cutting regulations.
Speaker 1: Record investment incomes are up, inflation is down, interest rates
Speaker 1: are down, and affordability of housing is becoming more affordable.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is President Trump's right. We are entering
Speaker 1: a new golden age of abundance. This first year was
Speaker 1: an amazing one hundred and eight degree turnaround. The next
Speaker 1: year going forward could be nothing short of an economic miracle.
Speaker 2: We'll be watching for you here in Washington on the
Speaker 2: campaign trail throughout the midterms. Mister Secretary, thanks for joining
Speaker 2: us once again on Bloomberg TJ Radio.
Speaker 1: Thank you for being here. Absolutely Doug burning in front
Speaker 1: of this great statue. One of the great Martha Cooche worked.
Speaker 2: That out for you on the North Dakota statue here
Speaker 2: in stat Hall, Kayley, I'll send it back to you
Speaker 2: in the bureau.
Speaker 3: All right, Joe with the Secretary of the Interior, Thank
Speaker 3: you so much, and here with me in our Washington studio.
Speaker 3: Still as we run about this evening Bloomberg' Jeff alongside
Speaker 3: Bloomberg Politics contributors Rick Davis and Jeanie Shanzano. So we've
Speaker 3: now gotten through the speech the Democratic response, both of
Speaker 3: which at least in part centered around the idea of affordability.
Speaker 3: The question is going to be where that narrative goes
Speaker 3: next in the aftermath of this, Jeff, did we really
Speaker 3: hear the president saying much today in terms of how
Speaker 3: he is going to further advance the so called affordability agenda?
Speaker 3: If you will, what's the action we can expect next,
Speaker 3: if he wants to get prices down?
Speaker 6: Yeah? I think that's I think that's the big question
Speaker 6: for Republicans, and it's the question that he had to
Speaker 6: answer tonight, and that his administration and his fellow lawmaker
Speaker 6: or Republican lawmakers and Congress have to answer as they
Speaker 6: go into the midterms. I don't know what the answer is.
Speaker 6: He talked a little bit about tariffs, He talked about
Speaker 6: the tax cuts from the Big Beautiful Bill. He again,
Speaker 6: as I said before, defended his record or praise his
Speaker 6: record really from the first year as something worth running on.
Speaker 6: But he didn't come out and say this is part too,
Speaker 6: this is my next sort of goal for working on
Speaker 6: affordability going forward. He talked a little bit about healthcare,
Speaker 6: but otherwise not a whole long list of policy ideas
Speaker 6: for the next several months.
Speaker 3: Well in healthcare was one of the areas Rick in
Speaker 3: which she was making a specific ass to Congress codify
Speaker 3: my most Favored Nation rule. He also asked them to
Speaker 3: ban investment firms from buying homes in an effort to
Speaker 3: obviously address the housing and supply issue we have in
Speaker 3: this country. But given that it is an election year,
Speaker 3: the midterms are getting closer with every day that passes,
Speaker 3: are we actually going to see legislation in that regard
Speaker 3: or any others?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I don't think there's really going to be an
Speaker 5: appetite in Congress to spend a lot of time legislating.
Speaker 5: You know, this is a year where they go back
Speaker 5: to their districts and they try to win reelection. So
Speaker 5: certainly the energy that the House had to pass his
Speaker 5: you know, big beautiful bill and other items and the
Speaker 5: first year agenda is just not going to be there
Speaker 5: this time. Plus, even their margins are slimmer than they
Speaker 5: were at the start of the last year, and I
Speaker 5: too was prize that he didn't spend more time on
Speaker 5: healthcare in the sense that, you know, this is the
Speaker 5: cause of the greatest longest government shutdown in history just
Speaker 5: a few months ago, and yet he really just sort
Speaker 5: of retreaded the same rhetoric that he's done before. So yeah,
Speaker 5: I mean, I think there's something in there that he
Speaker 5: could campaign on. These are not programs that are necessarily new,
Speaker 5: but if he actually stuck with it and talked about
Speaker 5: these housing issues, talked about some of the drug pricing activity,
Speaker 5: you know, talked a little bit about you know, what's
Speaker 5: going on with healthcare, and of course really dug in
Speaker 5: on some of these affordability issues, that could actually be
Speaker 5: a platform to go forward. I don't think it's so
Speaker 5: much he needed something new today, but like, can he
Speaker 5: actually sustain the rhetoric that he gave to the American
Speaker 5: people tonight longer than one night?
Speaker 3: Well that is the question, and not just of course,
Speaker 3: his remarks on the economy, but on what is supposed
Speaker 3: to be his other strongest issue, Genie, which is immigration.
Speaker 3: Knowing he delivered this speech with the Department of Homelands
Speaker 3: Security still shut down, calling for Democrats to fund it, Yes,
Speaker 3: But did you sense a president that is any closer
Speaker 3: to reaching some kind of compromise with Democrats on reforms
Speaker 3: to ice and in immigration enforcement.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 7: And this was another area I was surprised, and I
Speaker 7: was surprised by because the President seemed to double down.
Speaker 7: He talked a lot about the border, and then he
Speaker 7: consistently kept talking about the fact that the immigrants are criminals,
Speaker 7: something that we know is not true, and the people
Speaker 7: they are deporting our criminals. Even his own government says
Speaker 7: that is seven to fourteen percent of the people deported.
Speaker 7: And it doesn't work for him in any way. It
Speaker 7: is not true, and it doesn't address the problems that
Speaker 7: Democrats have raised or the problems quite frankly, the American
Speaker 7: public have raised, and the Democrats would like nothing more
Speaker 7: than to keep talking about this.
Speaker 4: It's the first time.
Speaker 7: And I know that Rick knows this issue so well
Speaker 7: that Democrats probably in decades, have been on the popular
Speaker 7: right side of immigration. They are thrilled and they want
Speaker 7: to stay there. So he did him a favor.
Speaker 6: I also thought it was interesting how Governor Spanberger addressed
Speaker 6: both that issue and the economy. I think it's probably
Speaker 6: a little bit of a playbook for how Democrats are
Speaker 6: going to address these issues in the coming months. She asked,
Speaker 6: is the president working for you? Is the president helping
Speaker 6: on affordability? She named or she didn't name check that
Speaker 6: the two people who were killed in Minneapolis, but she
Speaker 6: mentioned that Ice agents had killed Americans on the streets
Speaker 6: of the United States. Those are pretty salient points that
Speaker 6: she made in a much shorter speech that I imagine
Speaker 6: we'll be hearing Democrats repeating in the coming months.
Speaker 3: And we just have less than a minute left, Jeff.
Speaker 3: But the President did touch on Iran this evening, saying
Speaker 3: he would prefer diplomacy, but saying he will never allow
Speaker 3: the world's number one sponsor of terror to have a
Speaker 3: nuclear weapon. By the time this week is out, could
Speaker 3: we very well have see the President decide that diplomacy
Speaker 3: will not work.
Speaker 4: It's hard to say.
Speaker 6: I mean, this is a decision that we've been looking
Speaker 6: for and waiting for for some time now. He talked
Speaker 6: about it, as he said, but he didn't really give
Speaker 6: an indication of the direction that he's going. Saying that
Speaker 6: he wants diplomacy is something that he has said before.
Speaker 6: So we'll see if they are able to come up
Speaker 6: with a deal.
Speaker 3: Talks in Geneva on Thursday. Meantime, it's almost Wednesday here
Speaker 3: in the United States. As we found out the State
Speaker 3: of the Union evening, we're approaching midnight. Bloomberg's Jeff Mason
Speaker 3: and Bloomberg Politics contributors Rick Davis and Jeanie shanzena with
Speaker 3: us throughout the coverage this evening. We so appreciate you
Speaker 3: joining us, and we thank you for joining us on
Speaker 3: this special coverage of President Trump State of the Union.
Speaker 3: I'm Kaylee Lines alongside Joe matth