Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. The Republican National Convention
Speaker 1: is underway in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and former President Donald Trump is,
Speaker 1: of course at the center of it. Ladies and gentlemen, President,
Speaker 1: please welcome the next President of the United States, Donald J. Trump.
Speaker 1: It was the first time the public saw Trump sends
Speaker 1: an attempt on his life over the weekend, and Nancy Cook,
Speaker 1: who's a senior national political correspondent for Bloomberg, says we
Speaker 1: can expect to see a lot more of Trump over
Speaker 1: the coming days.
Speaker 2: He is a showman at heart, you know, a huge
Speaker 2: part of his rise in politics is fueled by his
Speaker 2: reality TV career and his appearance on The Apprentice. I
Speaker 2: don't know if he'll talk every night, but I think
Speaker 2: visually he's going to be front and center the whole time.
Speaker 1: The Trump campaign says Saturday's assassination attempt won't up end
Speaker 1: the rnc's plan, and the former president posted this on
Speaker 1: truth Social I cannot allow a shooter or potential assassin
Speaker 1: to force change to scheduling or anything else.
Speaker 2: I think he sees this as a moment to really
Speaker 2: pick up independence. You know, white suburban women voters who
Speaker 2: maybe were nervous about him, but may have sympathy for
Speaker 2: him after the assassination attempt. I think he really really
Speaker 2: wants to win, and so I think he's doing things
Speaker 2: like putting forth a much more disciplined message as he
Speaker 2: has since the shooting, talking much more about unity. You know,
Speaker 2: he's approaching this in the most disciplined way that I've
Speaker 2: ever seen him since I've covered him since twenty fifteen.
Speaker 1: Nancy says that more disciplined approach is unlike what we
Speaker 1: saw in Trump's previous campaigns.
Speaker 2: This is not the Trump White House where there's people
Speaker 2: knife in each other and there's leaks all the time,
Speaker 2: and you know, there's policy pronouncements at six am over Twitter.
Speaker 1: Nancy told me the former president staffers are exceeding this
Speaker 1: time around at keeping him focused on core issues, including
Speaker 1: the economy. The economic data look good when it comes
Speaker 1: to inflation and the jobs market, but there is still
Speaker 1: a disconnect between that and sentiment. How Americans feel about
Speaker 1: the economy and their prospects. And what Trump is promising
Speaker 1: is a return to the way things were before the
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen pandemic. But what's Trump's plan? How does he
Speaker 1: propose to do that well. Nancy was one of a
Speaker 1: small group of Bloomberg journalists who sat down with the
Speaker 1: former president a few days before that first presidential debate.
Speaker 1: Brad Stone was another. He's the editor of Bloomberg BusinessWeek,
Speaker 1: and he says that during a newsy hour and a
Speaker 1: half long interview, they pressed the candidate for details on trumppanomics.
Speaker 3: It's low inflation, it's lower interest rates, it's higher growth,
Speaker 3: and you know, to him critically, it's bringing manufacturing back
Speaker 3: to the States.
Speaker 1: They came back with a lot of news, new information
Speaker 1: about the former president's plans and about potential policies and personnel.
Speaker 1: I'm David Gura, and this is the big take from
Speaker 1: Bloomberg News Today. On the show, Donald Trump's conversation about
Speaker 1: the economy and his economic platform with Bloomberg BusinessWeek and
Speaker 1: his plans for a second term. Now, the former president
Speaker 1: is trying to appeal to voters and to business leaders
Speaker 1: who abandoned him. Bloomberg BusinessWeek's interview with Donald Trump took
Speaker 1: place in late June, just before the CNN presidential debate.
Speaker 1: Brat and Nancy have written a profile of the former
Speaker 1: president with Mario Parker and Josh Green, and you can
Speaker 1: find that and a transcript of their conversation at Bloomberg
Speaker 1: dot com. They had ninety minutes with Trump at his
Speaker 1: Mara a Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida. Set the
Speaker 1: scene for us. Are you in a ballroom? Are you
Speaker 1: in his office? What does it look like? I would
Speaker 1: say this was.
Speaker 3: The clubhouse, one of the main gathering spaces and dining
Speaker 3: spaces for the club membership. You might imagine some very
Speaker 3: Trump style luxury, high vaulted ceilings, lots of mementos and
Speaker 3: celebrations of President Trump himself, including in the bathrooms.
Speaker 1: The interview happened at a busy time, on the eve
Speaker 1: of what turned out to be a very consequential debate,
Speaker 1: as both candidates were ramping up their campaigning and their fundraising. Well,
Speaker 1: I ask Brad and Nancy why they thought Trump agreed
Speaker 1: to do the interview at such a pivotal moment, why
Speaker 1: he gave them so much time.
Speaker 2: I mean, Trump is a transactional person, and so I
Speaker 2: think that he agreed to the interview with BusinessWeek because
Speaker 2: it's a magazine, and you know, as a product of
Speaker 2: you know, someone whose sort of height of popularity was
Speaker 2: the nineteen eighties or nineteen nineties in New York. He
Speaker 2: still likes being on the cover of magazines, and so
Speaker 2: I think he likes the idea of being on the
Speaker 2: cover of BusinessWeek. He likes the idea that it's business
Speaker 2: we can you know, his economic message is the one
Speaker 2: that he wants to lead with, and so he wants
Speaker 2: to talk about the business. He wants to talk about
Speaker 2: the economy. At one point, when the club manager came
Speaker 2: through and they were sort of talking about how this
Speaker 2: was the best club and the best location, Trump at
Speaker 2: the end sort of excuses him and says, well, you know,
Speaker 2: we've got to get back to our conversation. We've got
Speaker 2: to go macro, and the club manager leaves. And so
Speaker 2: I think he wants to associate with donors and CEOs
Speaker 2: and win them over, and and he views this as
Speaker 2: part of it.
Speaker 1: In fact, most of what my colleagues talked about with
Speaker 1: Trump was the economy. President Biden has been campaigning on
Speaker 1: Bidenomics shorthand for his economic agenda. Rad and Nancy asked
Speaker 1: the former president about Trumppanomics.
Speaker 3: There's perhaps not a lot of depth to it, which
Speaker 3: is why you're seeing a little bit of a struggle
Speaker 3: right now among the Trump campaign that distance itself from
Speaker 3: potential proxies that would try to define it. But you
Speaker 3: know what he said, how he answered is it's it's
Speaker 3: slow and inflation, it's lower interest rates, it's higher growth,
Speaker 3: and you know, to him critically, it's bringing manufacturing back
Speaker 3: to the States.
Speaker 1: Nancy, I know that you look at and study polling,
Speaker 1: and when you look at kind of the latest survey results,
Speaker 1: a lot of Americans express optimism in how Donald Trump
Speaker 1: would shape the economy or direct the economy. What stands
Speaker 1: out to them Trump?
Speaker 2: You know, inflation was not high during his presidency, and
Speaker 2: I think that Americans remember that, and he is really
Speaker 2: trying to lead with his economic message. You know that
Speaker 2: he feels like, given what he did on the Apprentice,
Speaker 2: given his background as a real estate developer, he is
Speaker 2: best positioned to really appeal to new voters, swing voters
Speaker 2: based on this idea that the economy was better under
Speaker 2: him than Biden. And that is the message that he's
Speaker 2: leading with.
Speaker 1: Nancy. Does he have a plan for bringing down inflation?
Speaker 2: So that's a good question. We pressed him several times
Speaker 2: on both what he would do with the Federal Reserve, which,
Speaker 2: as you know, Dave, it sets the interest rates to
Speaker 2: try to deal with inflation, and then also what his
Speaker 2: plan was to deal with inflation, And the most concrete
Speaker 2: response we got from him was that he would open
Speaker 2: up more oil drilling and energy exploration in the US
Speaker 2: as a means of increasing the supply of energy and
Speaker 2: bringing down gas prices. And that was sort of his
Speaker 2: answer to inflation.
Speaker 1: A few months ago, the former president said, if he's reelected,
Speaker 1: he would remove the chair of the federally serve Jerome Powell.
Speaker 1: I know you asked him about that. Is that still
Speaker 1: his position that if he's reelected he wants a change
Speaker 1: in leadership at the US Central Bank?
Speaker 2: He said there's a lot of false information out there.
Speaker 2: These were his words. And then we asked him if
Speaker 2: he would allow j. Powell to serve out the term
Speaker 2: that Biden appointed him to, and he said he would
Speaker 2: allow him to serve. He did add the caveat like,
Speaker 2: as long as I thought he was doing things right,
Speaker 2: I mean, my completely speculation, just as someone who's covered
Speaker 2: him for a long time, as I do think he
Speaker 2: was a little cod on that answer, But you know,
Speaker 2: that's what he said. He said he would allow j.
Speaker 2: Powell to serve.
Speaker 1: And Nancy, he has opinions, it's clear of what the
Speaker 1: FED should be doing at this moment in time.
Speaker 2: He does. And it was interesting because he said he
Speaker 2: did not think that they should cut interest rates before
Speaker 2: the election, sort of again implying that if they did,
Speaker 2: that would be like a political move to sort of
Speaker 2: help Biden. And also he sort of resisted several questions
Speaker 2: that we asked him about sort of nudging the FED
Speaker 2: or what he would do. You know, he did not
Speaker 2: give the impression that he was going to threaten the
Speaker 2: independence of the Federal Reserve, which is what a handful
Speaker 2: of his formal advisors has sort of talked about among themselves,
Speaker 2: and is not a plan that the Trump campaign or
Speaker 2: Trump has endorsed her gotten behind.
Speaker 1: Is this likely to a lay fears about that?
Speaker 2: I think it all lay fears for a little while.
Speaker 2: I also think that it seems like the FED will
Speaker 2: start cutting interest rates potentially by the time Trump takes
Speaker 2: office if he wins, and I feel like that would
Speaker 2: sort of remove a lot of this will he won't
Speaker 2: he with Powell.
Speaker 1: As Nancy said, something the former president talks a lot
Speaker 1: about and has talked a lot about is trade and
Speaker 1: the power, as he sees it, of protectionist trade policies. Well,
Speaker 1: Trump's a big believer in tariffs, which are effectively taxes
Speaker 1: on imported goods, and he said he'll impose more of
Speaker 1: them and higher tariffs if he's elected again. It's a
Speaker 1: proposal that's gotten a lot of pushback. What did Donald
Speaker 1: Trump say in the face of data that suggests that higher,
Speaker 1: broader tariffs the likes of which he's proposing, would be
Speaker 1: devastating to the US economy? And what does he say
Speaker 1: to all those economists who were saying the exact same thing. Nancy, Well,
Speaker 1: I think that what.
Speaker 2: He said to us at one point, you know, even
Speaker 2: really really smart people do not understand tariffs. And his
Speaker 2: response to the people who say that tariffs will raise
Speaker 2: prices erect the US economy is that they didn't wreck
Speaker 2: the US economy when he was president, and they have
Speaker 2: not wrecked the US economy when Biden was president. You
Speaker 2: have to remember, Biden kept in place the tariffs that
Speaker 2: Trump had imposed on China and also recently increase them,
Speaker 2: increase some of them on specific products. And so I
Speaker 2: think the Trump campaign feels very vindicated in their tariffs
Speaker 2: on China because the Democrats have sort of come around
Speaker 2: to their view, and I think he feels like this
Speaker 2: is an area where economists and pundits have really gotten
Speaker 2: things wrong.
Speaker 1: In his interview with Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Trump talked about his
Speaker 1: relationships with world leaders and CEOs, including Apple's Tim Cook.
Speaker 1: After the break, Brad and Nancy fill us in on
Speaker 1: the former president's plans for policing big tech, his approach
Speaker 1: to China and Taiwan, and we get a sense of
Speaker 1: how the Trump campaign will move forward after the assassination attempt.
Speaker 2: Trump is actually like sort of hospitable in person and
Speaker 2: like really kind of solicited in a way you wouldn't expect,
Speaker 2: which is true when he was president.
Speaker 1: Nancy Cook and Bradstone interviewed Donald Trump a couple weeks
Speaker 1: ago with Josh Green and Mario Parker for a Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week profile of the former president, and I asked
Speaker 1: Brad what it was like to be in the room
Speaker 1: with him.
Speaker 3: I will say that spending time with President Trump at
Speaker 3: mar A Lago, you know, one thing that comes through
Speaker 3: is his inordinate and almost ridiculous pride in the club itself.
Speaker 3: So you know, he met us in the clubroom. He
Speaker 3: walked us around a little bit, trying to find a
Speaker 3: comfortable seat. He of course offered us cox and trotted
Speaker 3: out his familiar riff, which I think debuted about ten
Speaker 3: years ago on Twitter about dia coke and how only
Speaker 3: overweight people ordered dia coke. He introduced a hat, a
Speaker 3: Maga hat that said Trump was right about everything, and
Speaker 3: then at the end of the interview he tried to
Speaker 3: give me the hat, which of course I politely declined.
Speaker 1: Before Brad became the editor of Bloomberg business Week earlier
Speaker 1: this year, spent decades covering technology, so of course he
Speaker 1: had a few questions for the former president about big
Speaker 1: tech and the titans of Silicon Valley.
Speaker 3: Let me just say, when it comes to tech and Trump,
Speaker 3: they're two strong and almost opposite forces. You know, one
Speaker 3: is the pride in US companies, the evangelism for US
Speaker 3: companies in addition to the skepticism of social media companies.
Speaker 3: And then you also have the fear and the skepticism
Speaker 3: of China and the desire to bring manufacturing and keep
Speaker 3: a US tech primacy here in the States. So Facebook,
Speaker 3: you know, Mark Zuckerberg committed the cardinal sin in trump'size
Speaker 3: of booting him off the platform after January sixth. TikTok
Speaker 3: is a Chinese company owned by byte Dance that Trump
Speaker 3: for a long time was skeptical of and even discussed banning,
Speaker 3: and now says he supports. He's very popular on the
Speaker 3: TikTok platform and one of the major investors of byte Dance,
Speaker 3: a US financier named jeff yass is a supporter of
Speaker 3: President Trump. And so the politics of personal loyalty, of
Speaker 3: the injuries that he seems to carry, they kind of
Speaker 3: conflict here.
Speaker 1: Brow you bring up Mark Zuckerberg, I think also of
Speaker 1: Tim Cook, who did seem to have at least a
Speaker 1: working relationship with the president. Does that continue, Does he
Speaker 1: continue to have what seemed like admiration for the head
Speaker 1: of Apple the first.
Speaker 3: Time around, Apple I think won some exemptions from the
Speaker 3: Trump tariffs in part because Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple,
Speaker 3: went to the White House, you know, talked to President
Speaker 3: Trump and then announced or at least re announced, perhaps
Speaker 3: a manufacturing facility in Austin, Texas where they were going
Speaker 3: to make one of the models of the MacBook. So
Speaker 3: I think Tim Cook is a great example of how,
Speaker 3: you know, CEOs can kind of navigate these terriffs, but
Speaker 3: also kind of Trump policy through a combination of big
Speaker 3: landmark announcements of bringing manufacturing back to the US and
Speaker 3: taking the time to go and show President Trump the
Speaker 3: respect that he seems to crave.
Speaker 1: Because of the growth we're seeing in artificial intelligence, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of demand for high end microchips, most of
Speaker 1: which are manufactured in Taiwan, which has added to Washington's
Speaker 1: concern about the safety and security of that country. What
Speaker 1: did he say about a role that the United States
Speaker 1: would play under his leadership if China were to threaten
Speaker 1: in Taiwan.
Speaker 2: He was very cool to the idea of the US
Speaker 2: sort of standing up for and protecting Taiwan against Chinese aggression.
Speaker 2: And his whole rationale for that was what have they
Speaker 2: done for us? He made the argument that Taiwan has
Speaker 2: basically stolen all of the US chips business. You know,
Speaker 2: they should be paying us for our protection. He called
Speaker 2: the US like an insurance policy for them, and he
Speaker 2: basically made it clear that if he was president, like
Speaker 2: the US defending Taiwan all the time like that would
Speaker 2: be a policy that would be very much up for
Speaker 2: grabs and very much could change. And I think it
Speaker 2: just shows like if he becomes president again, he will
Speaker 2: not only shift the way the US economy runs and
Speaker 2: business runs, but there will be huge shifts globally, not
Speaker 2: just on trade but also on these foreign policy questions.
Speaker 2: I know allies in Europe are really freaking out about that,
Speaker 2: over the potential for ten percent, these global minimum terists.
Speaker 2: But I think that everyone's just very worried about sort
Speaker 2: of the world order in general and how it could
Speaker 2: be reordered if he's president.
Speaker 1: Uncertainty abounds about what to expect if there is a
Speaker 1: second Trump administration. Now he'd approached the economy and foreign policy,
Speaker 1: but also about something more personal. Rad you wanted to
Speaker 1: talk a lot about the economy, economic policy. Of course,
Speaker 1: the backdrop to that conversation was Donald Trump's recent conviction
Speaker 1: here in New York. What's his thinking on sort of
Speaker 1: his legal vulnerability going into a second term if he wins.
Speaker 3: When Nancy talked about his answer on the FED feeling
Speaker 3: kind of coached, I think it was the same here,
Speaker 3: and he said he wouldn't pardon himself. But look, I
Speaker 3: mean the grievance over these cases and over the convey
Speaker 3: I think is still strongly held. You know, he lashed
Speaker 3: out of President Biden, no surprise. He feels that these
Speaker 3: cases are politically motivated and thinks he'll be vindicated. Believes
Speaker 3: or even or least says that this was a political process,
Speaker 3: and the least claims to let the justice process play
Speaker 3: out and.
Speaker 1: Believes he'll be vindicated. On Monday, Judge A. Lean Cannon
Speaker 1: dismissed the case against Trump. The Justice Department had accused
Speaker 1: him of mishandling classified information. Minutes later, the former president
Speaker 1: reacted to the judge's decision on truth social using a
Speaker 1: familiar phrase. This should be the first step, he wrote,
Speaker 1: followed quickly by the dismissal of all the witch hunts.
Speaker 1: You can find Bloomberg BusinessWeek's profile of Donald Trump online
Speaker 1: now at Bloomberg dot com, and you can also read
Speaker 1: a transcript of what was a wide ranging interview at
Speaker 1: the former president, including an exchange about Trump's plans to
Speaker 1: overhaul the immigration system. This is the Big Take from
Speaker 1: Bloomy News. I'm David Gerret. This episode was produced by
Speaker 1: Julia Press, David Fox, and Thomas lou It was edited
Speaker 1: by Stacey Vanock Smith and Caitlin Kenney and fact checked
Speaker 1: by Jessica Beck. It was mixed by Blake Maples. Special
Speaker 1: thanks to Angel Ressio. Our senior producers are Kim Gittleson
Speaker 1: and Naomi Shaven, and our senior editor is Elizabeth Ponso.
Speaker 1: Nicole Beemster bor is our executive producer. Sage Bauman is
Speaker 1: Bloomberg's head of podcasts. Thanks so much for listening. Please
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Speaker 1: It helps new listeners find the show. We'll be back tomorrow.