Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Sound on podcast. Catch us
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Speaker 2: Stephen Dennis is with US now, Bloomberg congressional reporter who's
Speaker 2: always very close to the leadership and has a good
Speaker 2: sense of this conversation surrounding Mitch McConnell. Stephen, it's great
Speaker 2: to see you. I'm gonna ask you a few things
Speaker 2: about this, but I'd like everyone to remember what Joe
Speaker 2: Biden said yesterday after he spoke with Mitch McConnell. He
Speaker 2: went down to FEMA headquarters talk about the hurricane. But
Speaker 2: of course this is what was on people's mind.
Speaker 3: McConnell, Yes, I have.
Speaker 4: I spoke to Mitch. He's a friend, and I spoke
Speaker 4: to him today and you know, he was his old
Speaker 4: self on the telephone and having a little understanding of
Speaker 4: dealing with neurosurgeons and people. And one of the leading
Speaker 4: women of my staff was in neurosurgeon as well. It's
Speaker 4: not at all unusual to have the response that sometimes
Speaker 4: happens to Mitch when you've had a severe concussion.
Speaker 2: So he sounds kind of like what the doctor actually
Speaker 2: said that The Mitch McConnell's office quick to put out
Speaker 2: the doctor's note, Stephen Dennis. They're pointing us essentially to
Speaker 2: the symptoms that would follow a concussion. He did have
Speaker 2: a fall last year, as opposed to something age related
Speaker 2: or more than that. What are you hearing?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, I think it's troubling when you see
Speaker 5: one of the leaders have these freezing moments, one of
Speaker 5: the most important people in the country, you know, and
Speaker 5: it's not the first time, you know. So there's now
Speaker 5: questions about whether he's going to be able to continue
Speaker 5: his leader. Right now, all the people around him are
Speaker 5: sort of wishing him well. There are no Republican senators
Speaker 5: yet calling on him to step down. But there's going
Speaker 5: to be a very important meeting next week the Senate
Speaker 5: Republicans when they come back from their August recess. Uh,
Speaker 5: they'll have lunch on Wednesday. They'll all be in the
Speaker 5: same room. I expect McConnell will be trying to put
Speaker 5: to rest questions about his ability to do the job.
Speaker 5: And then he has a press conference usually right afterward,
Speaker 5: where it's the exact same scenario where he first froze.
Speaker 5: And and you know, I think there are real questions
Speaker 5: that you're starting to see. Even typical allies of the Senator,
Speaker 5: like National Review last yesterday said you know, hey, it's
Speaker 5: time to start putting in place a succession plan. Let's
Speaker 5: let's time for you to step aside.
Speaker 2: There could be one that we don't know about right now.
Speaker 5: There's no succession plan, but there are you know, the
Speaker 5: three Johns who are who all.
Speaker 2: Want They all want McConnell's job.
Speaker 5: I mean, it's one of the best jobs in America.
Speaker 5: You basically have a veto over any law that passes.
Speaker 5: If you go back to two thousand and seven when
Speaker 5: McConnell first got this job to today, you know, there's
Speaker 5: like a handful of laws that have been made in
Speaker 5: that time that he did not either support or acquiesce to,
Speaker 5: you know, other than the Affordable Care Act and you know,
Speaker 5: the Inflation Reduction Act and several more, every other law
Speaker 5: has had to go through Mitch McConnell's veto. And that's
Speaker 5: just the power that he has over personnel, over timing.
Speaker 5: You know, a few years ago, Mitch McConnell woke up
Speaker 5: and decided to ban smoking or ban people under twenty
Speaker 5: one from buying tobacco products, and it just happened. You know,
Speaker 5: It's just, you know, it's amazing the amount of power
Speaker 5: that guy has had. And one of the ways that
Speaker 5: you're seeing the power is just how quiet people are
Speaker 5: being in the Senate. You know that nobody is getting
Speaker 5: out in front of him. They're giving him time to
Speaker 5: sort of process. He put out this very short statement
Speaker 5: from the Capital Attending Physician saying that he had been
Speaker 5: cleared to resume his schedule. But it was there. There
Speaker 5: was a lot that wasn't in that statement. It didn't
Speaker 5: really say what his underlying condition was. It didn't say
Speaker 5: if he has you know, if he's on any medications
Speaker 5: or or has any other issues that we should be
Speaker 5: worried about, other than saying that, you know, he's able
Speaker 5: to do the job. And and I think that this is
Speaker 5: going to be something where he's going to have a
Speaker 5: lot of tests to prove that he's still able to
Speaker 5: do the job. And keep in mind, there's a lot
Speaker 5: of other things going on. We have a government shut down.
Speaker 2: As I say, let's talk about the job There are
Speaker 2: questions because we've you know, we've we've talked about the
Speaker 2: budget battle a lot on this program, the idea of
Speaker 2: supplemental funding requests for FEMA for Ukraine, an actual budget
Speaker 2: for the government. Knowing that I think one appropriations build
Speaker 2: cleared committee in the House, does it matter to have
Speaker 2: a potentially compromised leader at a time like these? How
Speaker 2: would it impact the negotiations?
Speaker 5: I think it could impact them a little bit. But
Speaker 5: you know, the reality is this year is about Kevin McCarthy.
Speaker 5: You know, a government shutdown will happen or not, depending
Speaker 5: on whether Kevin McCarthy wants to sort of rip off
Speaker 5: the band aid and tell the Freedom Caucus and others
Speaker 5: who are demanding all sorts of things like defunding the
Speaker 5: Department of Justice's investigations into the former president and a
Speaker 5: bunch of other demands they have, that they're not going
Speaker 5: to get what they want on this stopgap spending bill
Speaker 5: to keep the government open after September thirty without them.
Speaker 5: You can certainly he could put a bill on the
Speaker 5: floor tomorrow that just extended existing spending and it would
Speaker 5: probably get three hundred votes. Now, the thing is that
Speaker 5: with Democrats supporting yes, of course. And this is you know,
Speaker 5: this is how Washington's worked. When Republicans have been in charge.
Speaker 5: They haven't been able to pass too many bills with
Speaker 5: their only Republican votes. They've been able to pass bill
Speaker 5: with Democratic votes and a majority of Republicans. And you know,
Speaker 5: McConnell in the past had been the guy cutting those deals.
Speaker 5: After the House passed over some bill that was never
Speaker 5: going to pass the Senate, McConnell would cobble together something
Speaker 5: that would get enough Republican support and enough Democratic support
Speaker 5: and get to the president's signature. But already this year,
Speaker 5: you know, during the deat limit crisis, McConnell, you know,
Speaker 5: sat down with me before the deal was cut and said, look,
Speaker 5: you know, people think I have like some deal in
Speaker 5: my pocket here, and they reached into his yay, he
Speaker 5: reached into his jacket, and it's like, you know, I
Speaker 5: don't have some secret plan to end the deat limit crisis.
Speaker 5: McCarthy and Biden have to solve it. And he said
Speaker 5: that this time was different than you know, a decade
Speaker 5: ago when he cut these deals with Biden, that the
Speaker 5: House Republican Party is different, and I think the House Republicans.
Speaker 5: There's so many of them that don't like McConnell. Trump
Speaker 5: doesn't like McConnell. Trump's been trying to get rid of
Speaker 5: McConnell's So you know, a McConnell blessed deal isn't necessarily
Speaker 5: gonna help McCarthy get past this point.
Speaker 2: Steven Dennis, great to talk with you when everyone comes
Speaker 2: back to town. I'd love to do this again in
Speaker 2: a week or two when we actually have a sense
Speaker 2: of the trajectory of this whole thing. Is one of
Speaker 2: the only reporters to actually sit down with Mitch McConnell
Speaker 2: this year, Stephen Dennis, Thanks for being with us Bloomberg
Speaker 2: Congressional reporter as we had the voice of Lester Munson.
Speaker 2: You know Lester from our political panels BGR Government Affairs.
Speaker 2: Do you know he was not only the former staff
Speaker 2: director Senate Foreign Relations committe he was the chief of
Speaker 2: staff for Senator Mark Kirk. When Senator Kirk had a stroke.
Speaker 2: This was a senator from Illinois, you might remember. This
Speaker 2: caused by the dissection of his carotid artery, and for
Speaker 2: an entire calendar year he was in recovery. Lester, thanks
Speaker 2: for coming to talk to us about this, because I'm
Speaker 2: sure you will not forget that year, and I wonder
Speaker 2: your thoughts on the best way for Mitch McConnell's staff
Speaker 2: to handle him in these sensitive weeks going forward.
Speaker 3: Joe, one of the first things we did when we
Speaker 3: realized Sendra Kirk wouldn't be out for a while, so
Speaker 3: we asked Senator McConnell to come in as the leader
Speaker 3: and talk to the staff and reassure them that they
Speaker 3: were part of the Senate family and that we're all
Speaker 3: going to get through this together. And he did that,
Speaker 3: and he did a great job, so did Senator Durban
Speaker 3: and some other senators who are friends of Senator Kirk's.
Speaker 3: And what that brought home for me is that and
Speaker 3: people don't really perceive this on the outside, I don't think,
Speaker 3: but when you're inside the Senate, you realize it is
Speaker 3: kind of a family and there is a lot of support.
Speaker 3: And I think that's the reason we're seeing President Biden
Speaker 3: be so. I mean, there's some political reasons perhaps for
Speaker 3: him as well, but he's genuinely friends with Sendra McConnell
Speaker 3: and he is concerned about him, and he wants to
Speaker 3: be supportive and that's largely how the Senate operates. When
Speaker 3: someone's in distress, the entire institution rallies around that senator,
Speaker 3: that staff, that office, those functions, and they work together
Speaker 3: to try and keep things going in the breach, if
Speaker 3: you will. And so that's maybe something that we don't
Speaker 3: see as well from the outside. Yes, there are going
Speaker 3: to be members who are thinking about replacing McConnell, of course,
Speaker 3: because he's not going to be a leader forever. But
Speaker 3: what's really going on now is everyone is coming together,
Speaker 3: particularly Republicans, to try and support the leader and get
Speaker 3: him through this to where you know, he's it's apparent
Speaker 3: that he's fully functional and able to do the job.
Speaker 3: So that's the thing. There's a Senate really comes together
Speaker 3: and it's kind of a nice thing.
Speaker 2: So if this ends up being side effects from a
Speaker 2: stroke and there is actual recovery ahead, Lester, could Mitch
Speaker 2: McConnell be in the Senate for years he's eighty one
Speaker 2: years old.
Speaker 3: Well, I think he could. There was a Senator from
Speaker 3: South Dakota, Tim Johnson, who got re elected after having
Speaker 3: a very severe stroke and he had, you know, there
Speaker 3: were some consequences for his faculties physically mostly after that stroke,
Speaker 3: but he got re elected. He continued to do the
Speaker 3: job as Center I think, as even Chairman of the
Speaker 3: Banking Committee for quite some time. So there's precedent for this.
Speaker 3: Can he be the leader, that's maybe a separate question
Speaker 3: from whether he can be a senator. So I think
Speaker 3: his colleagues in the conference, as Stephen was saying earlier,
Speaker 3: they're going to come together next week. They're going to
Speaker 3: take a look at Senator McConnell. They're going to listen
Speaker 3: to him. They're probably already talking to him. They're going
Speaker 3: to have to make a kind of a group decision
Speaker 3: about how to proceed here. And if it looks like
Speaker 3: Senator McConnell is fine, as his doctor says, and as
Speaker 3: he's saying, then the things will keep going. If there's
Speaker 3: some evidence that he can't do the job of leader,
Speaker 3: then there may be a move afoot to have an
Speaker 3: election in the next few months to replace him. Again,
Speaker 3: this is not he's not the commander in chief, not
Speaker 3: going to have to wake up at three am to
Speaker 3: make some difficult call about American forces in harm's way
Speaker 3: or something like that. The Senates of Deliberative Body, it
Speaker 3: takes months for the Senate to make any kind of
Speaker 3: decision anyway. So I'm I'm pretty confident Senator mcconnald's going
Speaker 3: to continue his job, even under under bad circumstances for
Speaker 3: the for the time being, because the simply don't you know,
Speaker 3: he's going to be okay in the in the context
Speaker 3: of the Senate the longer term, I think we might
Speaker 3: be looking at some questions.
Speaker 2: There have been questions about, you know, the turnover here
Speaker 2: and potentially the next session of Congress, especially lesser if
Speaker 2: Republicans win the majority, which is entirely possible. In fact,
Speaker 2: a lot of people are predicting that would the Republican
Speaker 2: conference in the Senate demand new leadership if that were
Speaker 2: the case.
Speaker 3: It's that's a great question. There was a there was
Speaker 3: a contentious vote with Sendor McConnell before this kind of
Speaker 3: started between Sender Scott from Florida and Senator McConnell, and
Speaker 3: Senator Scott got eleven votes, So that's that's not not
Speaker 3: nearly a majority, of course, but it's a magnificant number
Speaker 3: of votes in the conference. There's there is a there's
Speaker 3: already kind of a national competition going between the three Johns,
Speaker 3: and perhaps there are others who may throw their their
Speaker 3: hat into the ring. I think we're I think we're
Speaker 3: likely to see a battle at the appropriate point in
Speaker 3: the future. If there's a in the new Congress in
Speaker 3: early twenty twenty five, if Republicans are the majority, it's
Speaker 3: either either we're going to see Senator McConnell re elected
Speaker 3: with a with a probably a tough battle as there
Speaker 3: was a few months ago, or or we're going to
Speaker 3: see new leadership that may that may have been selected
Speaker 3: at some point in the next year and a half,
Speaker 3: depending on his health situation. So I think, regardless of circumstances,
Speaker 3: we're going to we're going to see some changes and
Speaker 3: some some competition here for the top job.
Speaker 2: I only have a minute left, Lester. Would you make
Speaker 2: sure to get Mitch McConnell at the podium next week
Speaker 2: answer questions from reporters.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think you know. That's That's what I'd be doing.
Speaker 3: If what we're hearing is the is the kind of
Speaker 3: a full story that his health is in fact fine,
Speaker 3: he can do his job. He's been cleared. They should
Speaker 3: get him out there to be seen in public doing
Speaker 3: his job and reassure folks that most important test, though,
Speaker 3: is with his fellow Republicans, and they are right. They
Speaker 3: are going to kind of go through that at lunch
Speaker 3: on Wednesday of next week. That'll be the first.
Speaker 2: Test next Wednesday lunch. Maybe we'll talk to Lester after that.
Speaker 2: Great to have you back, Lester. Lester months and at
Speaker 2: BG our government affairs typically a panelist, a Republican strategist.
Speaker 2: We talked to you here on Bloomberg sound On, but
Speaker 2: a special first hand insight to share it today, and
Speaker 2: we thank you for it. Lester, m Joe Matthew. This
Speaker 2: is Bloomberg. You're listening to the Bloomberg Sound On podcast.
Speaker 2: Catch the program live weekdays at one Eastern.
Speaker 1: On Bloomberg Radio, the tune in app, Bloomberg dot Com,
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Speaker 1: on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station, Day
Speaker 1: Alexa played Bloomberg eleven.
Speaker 2: It is Jobs Day, and for the White House, it
Speaker 2: brings good news. I'm stronger than expected. Payrolls up one
Speaker 2: hundred and eighty seven thousand jobs, Wage growth the slowest
Speaker 2: pace since early last year. Participation up for the first
Speaker 2: time since March, President Biden speaking to the nation from
Speaker 2: the Rose Garden A short time ago.
Speaker 4: We've recovered all the jobs lost during the pandemic. We've
Speaker 4: added a million more new jobs. More than seven hundred
Speaker 4: thousand people joined the labor force last month, which means
Speaker 4: he's the highest shared of working age Americans are in
Speaker 4: the workforce now than at any time in the past
Speaker 4: twenty years.
Speaker 2: It's a good story to tell le you wonder where
Speaker 2: we're heading with some real cross currents, some headwinds coming
Speaker 2: in September. So I went down to the Labor Department
Speaker 2: this morning to talk about it with the Acting Secretary
Speaker 2: of Labor, Julie Sue. We met outside and started by
Speaker 2: reading her a tweet from our next guest, Mark Xandy.
Speaker 2: He's going to be with us in just a minute.
Speaker 2: This is what Mark said on Twitter. The August jobs
Speaker 2: report could not be much better. Job growth solid but slowing.
Speaker 2: Unemployment rose, but for the right reason, more labor supply
Speaker 2: participation jumped, Wage growth growth continues to moderate, ours work rose.
Speaker 2: The report, he says, has soft landing written all over it,
Speaker 2: And so I started by asking Madam Secretary if that's
Speaker 2: how she sees it. Here she is being written all
Speaker 2: over it?
Speaker 1: Is that how you see it?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean this is the kind of job growth
Speaker 6: we'd want to see if we're looking for soft landing.
Speaker 2: Well, with that said, unemployment is rising, and it's interesting
Speaker 2: to see Wall Street celebrating that. I'll ask you your
Speaker 2: thoughts on that in a moment. But the duration of
Speaker 2: unemployment is increasing. Is that because more people are looking
Speaker 2: for work or because of the many people on strike
Speaker 2: right now country?
Speaker 6: So the slight uptick in unemployment was due entirely to
Speaker 6: more people coming into labor market. I think that is
Speaker 6: also a sign of optimism, right. It's a sign of
Speaker 6: the strength of our co It was also a very
Speaker 6: small uptick, so that the overall unemployment rate remains under
Speaker 6: four percent for the longest stretch since the nineteen sixties.
Speaker 2: What do you think as we walk into this labor
Speaker 2: day when you see Wall Street rally on the idea
Speaker 2: of rising unemployment.
Speaker 6: I think that these are all signs that the president's
Speaker 6: economic agenda, what we call Bidenomics, is investing in America right,
Speaker 6: the idea that if we do our jobs well, we
Speaker 6: can have a tight labor market where workers share in prosperity.
Speaker 6: Where we recover from the economic catastrophe of the global
Speaker 6: pandemic to a point where we have steady and stable growth,
Speaker 6: that all this is not only possible, but it's actually happening.
Speaker 2: You've been asked a lot about union actions lately with
Speaker 2: regard to the UAW. What's going on in Hollywood right now.
Speaker 2: There could be flight attendants involved, This could go beyond that.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to ask you if you're getting involved yet,
Speaker 2: because I know you're waiting to be asked if that happens,
Speaker 2: to make a decision at some point. But what are
Speaker 2: your models telling you if all of these strikes were
Speaker 2: to coincide in the fall, what whatd that mean for
Speaker 2: our economy?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 6: So, let's put all this in the context of the
Speaker 6: job's day numbers that we're talking about. This is an
Speaker 6: economy that has defied all expectations in terms of its recovery,
Speaker 6: both the rapid pace of it and and how broadly
Speaker 6: shared it is. This is Bidenomics in action. Part of
Speaker 6: the President's commitment is to empowering workers, making sure that
Speaker 6: workers get their fair share and do well, and part
Speaker 6: of that has meant that unions have more ability power
Speaker 6: to demand changes at the bargaining table. We've seen some
Speaker 6: really good results from that. Right the teamsters and ups
Speaker 6: resolved their issues. People wrung their hands about that too
Speaker 6: and wondered expected that not to happen. It not only happened,
Speaker 6: but they ratified a contract with some eighty six percent
Speaker 6: of members. The West Coast Ports twenty nine ports resolved
Speaker 6: issues that were really complicated as well and have a
Speaker 6: multi year contracting. These are what happens.
Speaker 2: Do you see this resolving itself?
Speaker 6: I mean, I'm not going to make a prediction about that,
Speaker 6: but I do think that the process requires that we
Speaker 6: respect the party's ability and their continued commitment to bargaining
Speaker 6: at the table.
Speaker 2: I have to ask you about Taylor Swift. I don't
Speaker 2: know if you saw Taylor Swift when she came to town,
Speaker 2: but we're hearing that the impact the Federal Reserve. You
Speaker 2: even mentioned this of her tour and even Beyonce's tour
Speaker 2: to some extent, helped to paper over some weakness that
Speaker 2: might have otherwise emerged in this job's report. What's it
Speaker 2: going to look like when everyone comes off tour after
Speaker 2: the summer.
Speaker 6: So I'm going to say something about women in general, right.
Speaker 6: Women are powering this economic recovery. We can talk about Beyonce,
Speaker 6: we can about Taylor Swift. I want to talk about
Speaker 6: the record numbers of women in the job market now.
Speaker 6: Remember during the pandemic, women were pushed out of the
Speaker 6: labor market through things like our lack of paid leave,
Speaker 6: difficulty with ascessing childcare. Those women are now back in
Speaker 6: the labor market. We have the fifth month of historic
Speaker 6: percentage of women in jobs, and I think we should
Speaker 6: continue that effort to create good jobs, create good union jobs,
Speaker 6: and make sure that everybody has access to them, including
Speaker 6: we see Ahad.
Speaker 2: Couple when all of these tours come to an end,
Speaker 2: they're obviously employee more than women.
Speaker 6: Yeah, but women. I've been looking at the labor market
Speaker 6: as a whole and jobs as a whole. I think
Speaker 6: that we're fortunately broad based recovery means we're not just
Speaker 6: reliant on one or two superstars, but we're really seeing
Speaker 6: what happens when people have confidence when you create good
Speaker 6: jobs in all communities. As the Department of Labor, we're
Speaker 6: really focused on making sure that everybody can get those
Speaker 6: jobs out.
Speaker 2: Of Secretary, Happy Labor Day, Happy to Labor doing in.
Speaker 1: A month, you're listening to the Bloomberg Sound on podcast.
Speaker 1: Catch us live weekdays at one Eastern on Bloomberg dot com,
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app and the Bloomberg Business app, or listening
Speaker 1: on demand wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2: Iswan DeSantis Never Backed Down, Superpack backing down. The headline
Speaker 2: of the terminal Desanta's faces new sat back is super
Speaker 2: Pack halt some canvassing and this is happening right now.
Speaker 2: The Never Back Down cap shuttering door knocking operations in
Speaker 2: early voting Nevada. They go before South Carolina as well
Speaker 2: as California. In the latest cut to the Republican contenders, campaign,
Speaker 2: officials from Never Back Down confirming the group plans to
Speaker 2: halt door to door canvassing in those states and preserve
Speaker 2: resources in early voting Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, which
Speaker 2: brings us to another headline. DeSantis Pack asks donors for
Speaker 2: fifty million dollars. Anybody got a spare fifty We need
Speaker 2: fifty million bucks. Let's reassemble the panel. Genie Shanzano joins
Speaker 2: Bloomberg Politics contributor and Democratic analyst, and Lisa Camuso Miller
Speaker 2: is back with us today Republican strategist at RESET Public Affairs,
Speaker 2: former RNC communications director. What's going on here, Lisa. I
Speaker 2: know that after the debate, there was a lot of
Speaker 2: question about the trajectory of the Dessantas campaign, having seen
Speaker 2: polling numbers decline significantly over the past couple of months
Speaker 2: and just constant attacks from Donald Trump. Ron DeSantis came
Speaker 2: off the campaign trail to deal with a hurricane in Florida.
Speaker 2: Some thought that might be another reset. What does this
Speaker 2: tell you when a super pack starts to reorganize resources like.
Speaker 7: This, Well, they certainly reevaluate and change plans all the
Speaker 7: time on the campaign level, and that's certainly something that
Speaker 7: it doesn't necessarily surprise me. It surprises me more, Joe
Speaker 7: to read that there are questions inside of the super
Speaker 7: pack about whether or not some of those states have
Speaker 7: such a heavy influence from the Trump campaign that they've
Speaker 7: decided to reconfigure some of their approach. And that's interesting
Speaker 7: to me too. Does the Trump campaign have so far
Speaker 7: over reach into some of these states that it's making
Speaker 7: it difficult for Desanta's money to go far enough in
Speaker 7: order to make a difference. That to me is even
Speaker 7: more interesting. So as much as I see that they're
Speaker 7: recalibrating and they're changing process, I also think, though Joe,
Speaker 7: it's so early still that to be spending money so
Speaker 7: their burn rate must be off the charts. They must
Speaker 7: be reconfiguring some to make sure that they're more tactically smarter,
Speaker 7: making decisions that aren't necessarily putting all of their money
Speaker 7: out there too quickly in advance. But he already has
Speaker 7: probably more money than every other candidate, So to me,
Speaker 7: I just feel like it's a recalibration. Yes, there's been
Speaker 7: a lot of recalibration, but I also think that there
Speaker 7: is something to be said for Ron DeSantis and his
Speaker 7: political team in a state like Florida, he won thirty
Speaker 7: three out of thirty seven counties. I mean, he is
Speaker 7: a smart political guy, so I would not count him out.
Speaker 2: Well, that's important, Genie. As we hear from Jeff Rowe
Speaker 2: strategists to Desanta's strategists talking to donors last Wednesday, quote
Speaker 2: let me tell you a secret, don't leak this unquote
Speaker 2: my favorite part of the story. We need to do
Speaker 2: this now, he says, after Labor Day we're launching. We
Speaker 2: need your help and stay up and go hard the
Speaker 2: rest of the way, we need fifty million bucks. It's like,
Speaker 2: it reminds me of that scene in Vacation when Chevy
Speaker 2: Chase's brother in law asks him for the money and
Speaker 2: he puts the wallet right back in his pocket. Fifty
Speaker 2: million dollars at this stage, Genie, can they do that?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 8: That was my favorite part too. Don't like this, And
Speaker 8: I also liked when he said the good news is
Speaker 8: we have the money in this room. The bad news
Speaker 8: is it's in your pockets. I mean, it was like
Speaker 8: a bad you know, Hollywood movie where he was pitching
Speaker 8: for this money. And let's not forget he wants fifty
Speaker 8: million before the second debate that's September twenty seventh, you know.
Speaker 8: But Jeff ro he knows how to raise money. He
Speaker 8: does it well, he's always done it well. He probably
Speaker 8: will get it. But this is just to me speaks
Speaker 8: volumes because another thing he said in this, well a
Speaker 8: couple things. Number one, he said that if they don't
Speaker 8: get this, they are likely to lose because this is
Speaker 8: all going to come down to the big states. We
Speaker 8: know about Wisconsin, Pennsylvania in the end. In other words,
Speaker 8: he is saying, what a lot of establishment Republicans are
Speaker 8: saying is that Trump can simply not win the general election.
Speaker 8: So there's that. Then he also really put a timeline
Speaker 8: on this thing. He said, give me this fifty million
Speaker 8: sixty days. Well, that takes you to about November. So
Speaker 8: I read this as jeffro saying, if DeSantis doesn't have
Speaker 8: his what one hundredth come back by November, this thing
Speaker 8: is done. So I don't think that we have as
Speaker 8: much time as we usually do in a typical election.
Speaker 8: I think the clock is ticking. Jeffrow is telling big
Speaker 8: time donors. Why because in that debate Nikki Hayley really
Speaker 8: wiped the floor with Ron DeSantis. Donors are attracted to her.
Speaker 8: He's worried they're fleeing, and he's saying, one last time,
Speaker 8: give it to me. I'll show you some return on
Speaker 8: your investment. If that doesn't come, DeSantis is probably toast
Speaker 8: in this thing.
Speaker 2: Wow, all right, Well we have a lo disagreement here,
Speaker 2: I guess. And by the way, this is all coming
Speaker 2: from the New York Times. They got an audio recording
Speaker 2: of this whole thing in which Roe did say that
Speaker 2: DeSantis needs to beat Donald Trump in the next sixty
Speaker 2: days and separate himself from the pack from the other rivals.
Speaker 2: Quote unquote, Now with an update on Donald Trump and
Speaker 2: his legal woes, remembering he pleaded not guilty or as
Speaker 2: going to without showing up in court. And Georgia, there's
Speaker 2: been this big push for a special legislative session by
Speaker 2: the former president and his allies to oust Fannie Willis,
Speaker 2: the Fulton County DA enter Governor Brian Kemp, remember the
Speaker 2: Republican governor of Georgia.
Speaker 9: You know, these are the distractions that gets you to
Speaker 9: lose elections. The last time we were talking about special
Speaker 9: sessions here in the state of Georgia, just a few
Speaker 9: weeks later, the Republican majority lost two US Senate races.
Speaker 2: Lisa Brian Kemp continues to be Donald Trump's worst nightmare.
Speaker 2: He says, come back in the regular session if you
Speaker 2: want to do this. It appears there may be no
Speaker 2: hiding for the charges Fannie Willis has brought for Donald Trump.
Speaker 2: Is that how you see it?
Speaker 7: I mean, Governor Kemp is a leader in our party.
Speaker 7: He is I mean, he is saying the truth. He
Speaker 7: is talking about the fact that the election has not
Speaker 7: been stolen. He's standing behind the elected officials and the
Speaker 7: leaders in the state. He's doing what we expect our
Speaker 7: elected officials to do, Joe and so to me, yeah,
Speaker 7: he absolutely is the fly in the ointment for the
Speaker 7: former president. But he is a patriot. I mean, it's
Speaker 7: amazing and it's fantastic, and I wish there were more
Speaker 7: Republicans that would stand up and say the same.
Speaker 2: It's talking like a Democrat, almost genie. But that's kind
Speaker 2: of the special thing about Georgia, isn't it. The Republican
Speaker 2: leadership in that state just not big fans of Donald Trump.
Speaker 8: Yeah, that's right, and he is absolutely telling the truth.
Speaker 8: I agree with Lisa. You know, they lost. The Republicans
Speaker 8: lost two Senate seats for the first time in modern history,
Speaker 8: just about and they lost it because they were playing
Speaker 8: these kind of games that Brian Kemp is pushing back against.
Speaker 8: This is not the way to win the suburbs. This
Speaker 8: is not the way to win independence and moderates. When
Speaker 8: you go down this road, you risk losing, and that's
Speaker 8: what they did in twenty twenty one. And the risk
Speaker 8: is they do it again all over and so he's
Speaker 8: trying to stop that.
Speaker 2: But he's going to It doesn't seem like the governor
Speaker 2: is going to allow that to happen. I'm sure that's
Speaker 2: also simultaneously true. We'll keep the beat on. Brian Kemp
Speaker 2: for you. Final thoughts from our panel. Next, I'm Joe Matthew.
Speaker 2: This is Bloomberg.
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Speaker 2: As we head into this weekend where you might see
Speaker 2: a barbecue or I don't know, maybe a bottle of beer.
Speaker 2: At some point we have to put this story to bed.
Speaker 2: We'll do it right. Just pour one for the panel.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm still working there. You can't do that
Speaker 2: on the air. Let's bring back Genie Shanzo and Lisa
Speaker 2: Camussa Miller. Listen to the head on that thing, all right.
Speaker 2: So we got an update from the White House on
Speaker 2: the two beers a week scandal. We talked about it yesterday.
Speaker 2: This is the biggest controversy gripping the nation's Capital. Remember
Speaker 2: what Ted Cruz said about this. He was very upset
Speaker 2: about it that Americans could be limited to no more
Speaker 2: than two beers a week. He suggested do strict alcohol
Speaker 2: guidelines and follows an interview with doctor George Koob. This
Speaker 2: is one of the health czars, I guess at the
Speaker 2: White House Health. He's talking to the Daily Mail of
Speaker 2: all people, of all places about whether the US might
Speaker 2: revise its alcohol guidance to match Canada's, where indeed people
Speaker 2: were advised to have just two drinks a week.
Speaker 5: I never heard that.
Speaker 2: I thought they loved beering. Canada just want to work.
Speaker 2: There's two panelists. Okay, here we are. Now we finally
Speaker 2: heard from the White ight House on this. It's straight
Speaker 2: from the Press Secretary Karine John Pierre. Pretty tight tweet here.
Speaker 2: Quote this claim is absolutely false, Genie Shanzo. Does this
Speaker 2: go into the gas stove file?
Speaker 8: It goes into the gas stoves file, it goes into
Speaker 8: the Green eminem file. Joe Matthew, it's a Labor Day
Speaker 8: weekend and you're not giving Lisa or any of this
Speaker 8: beer that you're opening. I just want to note that.
Speaker 2: I SUP.
Speaker 8: That's all right.
Speaker 2: So does this stuffs listen to Ted Crusey. Did you
Speaker 2: hear him on Fox? We did this yesterday.
Speaker 10: I just I can't trying to go after and regulate
Speaker 10: ceiling fans. I gotta tell you, yes, we don't want
Speaker 10: to get rid of our ceiling fans. And now these
Speaker 10: idiots have come out and said drink two beers a week,
Speaker 10: that's their guideline. Well, I gotta tell you if they
Speaker 10: want us to drink two beers a week, frankly, they
Speaker 10: can kiss my ass.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 2: So I don't know that was news Max, actually Lisa,
Speaker 2: who's right here.
Speaker 7: I don't know, but it's certainly not good news. Friend
Speaker 7: money to make that kind of recommendation. With the way
Speaker 7: that the White Hopkinson administration ooops bingo saying hello, it
Speaker 7: just seems to me like it's going. It's going in
Speaker 7: the category with the gas stoves and all the rest.
Speaker 7: Absolutely not I guess.
Speaker 2: It is, yeah, gas stoves, showerheads, toilets, dishwashers. Thank you
Speaker 2: for humoring me, Genie Shanzano and Lisa Camuso Miller. Thanks
Speaker 2: for listening to the Sound on podcast. Make sure to
Speaker 2: subscribe if you haven't already, at Apple, Spotify, and anywhere
Speaker 2: else you get your podcasts, and you can find us
Speaker 2: live every weekday from Washington, DC at one pm Eastern
Speaker 2: Time at Bloomberg dot com