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Speaker 2: This is the Bloomberg Surveillance Podcast. I'm Jonathan Ferrow, along
Speaker 2: with Lisa Bromwitz and Amrie Hordern. Join us each day
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Speaker 2: Terminal and the Bloomberg Business app. So here's the laces
Speaker 2: this morning, economic impacts of the Iran war mounting, with
Speaker 2: average gasoline prices in the US nearing four dollars per
Speaker 2: gallon globe was central banks weighing potential rate hikes with
Speaker 2: inflation not expected to fall to target levels. Joining us
Speaker 2: now to discuss Francis Donald of RBC. Francis, can we
Speaker 2: just begin with your outlook, your base case before this
Speaker 2: war and whether it's changed it to all looking out
Speaker 2: twelve months beast.
Speaker 3: Key before this war was something that looked a lot
Speaker 3: like stagflation, like growth that was slightly below comfort level
Speaker 3: and inflation that was slightly above comfort level, importantly driven
Speaker 3: by services inflation. Our outlook now is vibe stagflation medium,
Speaker 3: so more weighing on growth and more upside to inflation.
Speaker 4: Now, these are not massive figures.
Speaker 3: We're looking at three plus ish inflation, still high ones
Speaker 3: on growth, but it's not as comfortable as we would
Speaker 3: have liked. It certainly negates the tailwind coming from government spending,
Speaker 3: and inflation is probably going to.
Speaker 4: Lap itself again.
Speaker 3: I suspect next March we'll be celebrating the six year
Speaker 3: anniversary of inflation above that two percent target. So same
Speaker 3: directions and the wrong directions for this economy.
Speaker 2: Let's go with your medium grade stagflation, Francis. If we
Speaker 2: get medium grade stagflation, how does this fed A reserve respond?
Speaker 2: How much space do they have?
Speaker 4: They don't have space.
Speaker 3: Monetary policy is not the right tool for what ails.
Speaker 4: The US economy. And let's be clear, the US economy
Speaker 4: is not close to a recession.
Speaker 3: The unemployment rate is going to stay very low for
Speaker 3: supply side reasons lack of workers in the American economy
Speaker 3: rather than lack of demand going forward, and there's nothing
Speaker 3: the Federal Reserve can do. They can hiker cut all
Speaker 3: they want, it's not going to open the straight of
Speaker 3: horror moves. We are once again in a supply shock
Speaker 3: that limits the abilities of central banks to deal with
Speaker 3: what needs help in the US economy or any economy
Speaker 3: across the world. This is why we are increasingly leaning
Speaker 3: on fiscal policy. This is why government spending gets bigger
Speaker 3: and bigger.
Speaker 4: This is why the long end starts to rise.
Speaker 3: It's the same type of shock, of a different flavor.
Speaker 5: Unfortunately, So we're talking about the fiscal lever and a
Speaker 5: lot of people are looking at that and wondering are
Speaker 5: we really going to fit the bill for it. Yesterday
Speaker 5: we saw a pretty messy two year bond auction. Today
Speaker 5: we've got five year Tomorrow, we have seven year notes
Speaker 5: being sold by the US Treasury. How much are you
Speaker 5: getting concerned about buying government debt at these levels given
Speaker 5: the concern about how much that fiscal lever will be
Speaker 5: pulled on.
Speaker 3: Well, what I'm concerned about is more long run with
Speaker 3: US fiscal position, which is we have rising pressures on
Speaker 3: social security coming through. Interest costs are also rising, Defense costs.
Speaker 4: Are high, and again this.
Speaker 3: Is not a uniquely US situation. We see this in
Speaker 3: developed markets across the entire world, So leaving or having
Speaker 3: to rely on the fiscal lever necessitates big government and
Speaker 3: big government becoming the new norm going forward.
Speaker 4: And again it's not just a US issue, it's a
Speaker 4: new global macro factor.
Speaker 3: We've just switched our minds away from monetary policy being
Speaker 3: a cyclical driver towards governments and fiscal being the cyclical driver.
Speaker 3: The problem is that fiscal levers or governments tend to
Speaker 3: be more politically motivated, so your cycle becomes more attached
Speaker 3: to the political cycle as opposed.
Speaker 4: To the economic one.
Speaker 5: How much does your outlook change should this conflict go
Speaker 5: on in the Middle East for a longer period of time.
Speaker 5: In other words, you're talking about stagflation, like going to
Speaker 5: stagflation medium. The rest of the world is talking about
Speaker 5: runaway growth or recession, and there's nothing in between, depending
Speaker 5: on whether there's de escalation or not. How do you
Speaker 5: look at an ongoing prolonged enclosure of the Strait up
Speaker 5: removes and conflict in Iran as pressuring stiflation media.
Speaker 3: It's very uneven, and this is one of the challenges
Speaker 3: with the shock of this magnitude.
Speaker 4: Of course, we have net exporters of energy, so the.
Speaker 3: United States Canada where GDP doesn't get impacted on the.
Speaker 4: Top line to the same amount. And then you have
Speaker 4: net importers.
Speaker 3: Your net exporters, like the United States or Canada, for example,
Speaker 3: they're dealing with predominantly a price shock. That's one type
Speaker 3: of shock. But your net importers, well, they're dealing with
Speaker 3: a price shock and a supply shock that's a whole
Speaker 3: different ballgame than just an inflationary element.
Speaker 4: That's being on top of what the US and.
Speaker 3: Canada are currently facing underneath the surface. We also know
Speaker 3: it's an incredibly uneven thought uneven shocked for consumers. So
Speaker 3: on average, Americans, for example, spend less than two percent
Speaker 3: of all of what they spend on gasoline, but it's
Speaker 3: more near four percent for the bottom half of Americans.
Speaker 3: And so what concerns me more is we've talked a
Speaker 3: lot about things like case shapes, We've talked a lot
Speaker 3: about the US separating from the rest of the world.
Speaker 3: The longer this shock goes on, of course, it's going
Speaker 3: to change forecast numbers, but there's something a little more
Speaker 3: nefarious happening under the surface. We should be mindful of
Speaker 3: what that divergence underneath the forecast is going to do
Speaker 3: both to households but also to their sentiment, shocks, how
Speaker 3: they vote, their big implications to these shops that are
Speaker 3: very that create these divergences.
Speaker 2: Stay with US, multile Impex. Savana's coming up off to this.
Speaker 1: What we have is this administration potentially looking for this
Speaker 1: diplomatic off ramp and the Associated press saying that via
Speaker 1: Pakistani officials, the Iranians have received this plan, but it's
Speaker 1: really unclear, and you hear that from the President even
Speaker 1: yesterday saying we're unclear of who is running the country.
Speaker 1: So it's unclear Jonathan, who exactly in Washington is talking
Speaker 1: to who exactly in Tehran. And amidst all of this,
Speaker 1: we still have the straight of her moves effectively shut,
Speaker 1: especially for Western allies, as the Iranians continue to control
Speaker 1: that key waterway. And that is the focus of this
Speaker 1: morning's conversation with Ryan Peterson of Flexport, of course, the
Speaker 1: global logistics company. He is here in Washington, DC. He's
Speaker 1: a friend of the show, and I want to begin
Speaker 1: with a trip you made to the White House this week.
Speaker 1: You have been in discussions with this administration. What are
Speaker 1: they telling you about what is going on in terms
Speaker 1: of cargoes and shipping throughout these key waterways.
Speaker 6: Yeah, thanks for having me on. Well, so actually a
Speaker 6: lot of our conversations are about Terriss, but I did
Speaker 6: get a little bit of insight into what's happening, especially
Speaker 6: with jet fuel. With the accessibility of fuel on the
Speaker 6: West Coast and in Alaska, that's been a major concern
Speaker 6: for the administration to make sure that these areas get fuel.
Speaker 6: And as you know, California shut down a lot of
Speaker 6: our refineries in California where I live, and so there's
Speaker 6: a real risk there because they don't have enough connectivity
Speaker 6: to the rest of America's energy infrastructure. So they waved
Speaker 6: the Jones Act. So the Jones Act is this act
Speaker 6: that says that for domestic ocean freight. So if you
Speaker 6: want to ship oil or refined products from Texas other
Speaker 6: parts of the United States to California, or especially to Alaska,
Speaker 6: because Anchorage is such an important air freight airport, you
Speaker 6: can't do it on a foreign ship. That's what the
Speaker 6: Jones Act said. So the President waved the Jones Act
Speaker 6: to allow for these regions to get jet fuel from
Speaker 6: other parts of our country on non US made ships,
Speaker 6: which I think was a vital There was a real
Speaker 6: fear that Anchorage Airport wouldn't have air freight, and a
Speaker 6: lot of people don't know this, but Anchorage is probably
Speaker 6: the most important cargo airport in the United States, as
Speaker 6: cargo planes flying from Asia to the United States have
Speaker 6: to stop in Anchorage to refuel.
Speaker 1: What are companies your clients telling you right now, do
Speaker 1: they feel like some of the pressure is easing or
Speaker 1: things getting even more challenging.
Speaker 6: There's something I'm getting more and more challenging. I mean,
Speaker 6: the price of the price of air freight, especially has
Speaker 6: gone through the roof. If you're shipping from Asia to
Speaker 6: the United States, we're seeing prices have doubled since the
Speaker 6: beginning of the month, since the start of the conflict.
Speaker 6: Even that's carried over to the Asia to US trade lanes,
Speaker 6: where air freight prices have gone up a lot around well,
Speaker 6: initially it was around sixty percent. It's kind of stabilized
Speaker 6: a little bit, but more like across all of the lanes,
Speaker 6: Asia to US is up about twenty five percent. So
Speaker 6: obviously you're going to hear about that, complaints about that,
Speaker 6: but Actually the bigger problem is it's just available capacity.
Speaker 6: Twenty percent of all the capacity an air cargo. It's
Speaker 6: actually eighteen percent of the air cargo capacity in the
Speaker 6: world is operated by Middle Eastern airlines.
Speaker 2: So that's been caught off.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think Emirates, think Katar Airways at the HOD.
Speaker 6: That probably includes SAD, the Saudi Airline, So that's a
Speaker 6: lot of capacity. It's effectively removed from the market. They've
Speaker 6: been operating limited flights. They've been trying to restore, but
Speaker 6: every time they come back, there's like another attack at
Speaker 6: the airport and they drop it again. So that's actually
Speaker 6: made it very difficult to get air freight moving at all.
Speaker 6: In some cases, there's just not enough capacity.
Speaker 1: I want to briefly end on the point you made
Speaker 1: about most of your conversation with the White Houses about tariffs,
Speaker 1: about what exactly.
Speaker 6: Yeah, well, we've been seeing a lot of tariff fraud.
Speaker 6: The United States allows foreign companies to import goods into
Speaker 6: the US without having any nexus any like a think
Speaker 6: of an entity or an LLC or anything like that.
Speaker 6: You can just foreign companies can just import into the
Speaker 6: United States. I mean, so we've observed at Flexport a
Speaker 6: huge percentage of trade has flipped to where the Chinese
Speaker 6: companies are importing it with Chinese freight forwarders and under
Speaker 6: declaring the commercial invoice value, effectively cheating on their terrafts.
Speaker 6: So we've been calling attention to this and partnering with
Speaker 6: them on how they might enforce this, and so that
Speaker 6: was a big agenda point for me, is sharing what
Speaker 6: we're seeing in the data how this is happening, but
Speaker 6: also trying to learn what's going to happen with tariff refunds.
Speaker 6: And as you know, the Supreme Court overturned the AIPA tariffs.
Speaker 6: Is one hundred and sixty six billion dollars that companies
Speaker 6: are owed and CBP has said publicly that only six
Speaker 6: percent of companies have registered their bank account with the
Speaker 6: government to receive these refunds. So that's something that flex
Speaker 6: Sport has been all over trying to help companies get
Speaker 6: their refunds back when when that process starts.
Speaker 2: Stay with US multil index to fan it's coming up
Speaker 2: off to this.
Speaker 1: The Iranians are saying that these talks are illogical, and
Speaker 1: a man that sits really at the center the intersection
Speaker 1: of all of this has experienced now in prior experience,
Speaker 1: whether it's geopolitics, financial markets, are actually a decorated combat veteran.
Speaker 1: I am joined now by Senator David mccormy from Pennsylvania. Senator,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining me, and good morning
Speaker 1: to you.
Speaker 7: Good morning.
Speaker 1: So I'm not sure if you just saw the news,
Speaker 1: but Iran has saying that these ceasefire talks are non
Speaker 1: existed and they're calling what the US is calling for
Speaker 1: as elogical. What is your understanding right now at the
Speaker 1: White House is putting forward? You sit on the Senate
Speaker 1: Foreign Relations Committee? Is the President buying time? Is this
Speaker 1: diplomacy or is this a distraction?
Speaker 7: Well, I wouldn't put much stock into what the Iranian
Speaker 7: spokesman say. Think about this way. If you're the person
Speaker 7: that's trying to negotiate some sort of endgame and you've
Speaker 7: got a bunch of radicals as part of the constellation
Speaker 7: of forces in Iran, you're certainly not going to present
Speaker 7: yourself as the voice of reason. So a lot of
Speaker 7: what's happening I think in the public domain shouldn't give
Speaker 7: us too much insight into what's happening behind the scenes.
Speaker 7: I think, stepping back bottom line, if you would have
Speaker 7: said on the first day of common operations, where will
Speaker 7: we be twenty twenty one days, twenty two days into this.
Speaker 7: I think from a military perspective, we've made enormous progress.
Speaker 7: We still have work to do, but we've eliminated ballistic missiles, drones,
Speaker 7: manufacturing capability the Navy, and those are the goals that
Speaker 7: President Trump set out, along with making sure Ron can
Speaker 7: never get a nuclear weapon. So question one for America,
Speaker 7: I think is where are we relative to those goals.
Speaker 7: I think we've made a lot of progress, but we've
Speaker 7: got to finish that job. And then second, we've got
Speaker 7: to make sure we secure the Straits of Hormuz, and
Speaker 7: I think there's multiple ways to try to lessen the
Speaker 7: blow of an oil markets. One, the administration is doing
Speaker 7: a lot of things to make sure there's adequate supply,
Speaker 7: but inevitably we're going to have to be able to
Speaker 7: show the markets and show the world that we can
Speaker 7: put ships through the straits, and that's going to require
Speaker 7: some combination of our allies working together with our military
Speaker 7: to eliminate that threat. Once those two things happen, I
Speaker 7: think we have a much more stable, secure situation, and
Speaker 7: I think well, you know, we're on a path to
Speaker 7: being able to look back and saying we've achieved the
Speaker 7: objectives there, but obviously there's more.
Speaker 6: Work to do.
Speaker 1: We could that happen through this fifteen point plan the
Speaker 1: administration has given the Iranians via Pakistani officials.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I think it could. I mean, you know, the
Speaker 7: most important goal of the United States, and it was
Speaker 7: the goal from day one. This was a regime that
Speaker 7: was underwriting to terrorist organizations around the world. It had
Speaker 7: more American blood on its hands than any other country.
Speaker 7: It was building up an enormous ballistic missile capability. To
Speaker 7: think Iran was formidable today, imagine three years from now.
Speaker 7: It had called America the Great Satan that I wanted
Speaker 7: to destroy, and it was committed to a new groar weapon.
Speaker 7: That was an unsustainable position. We had to eliminate that threat.
Speaker 7: If that threat is eliminated and the Iranian regime, whatever
Speaker 7: form it takes, is committed to not rebuilding nuclear weapons
Speaker 7: and not restarting its ballistic missile that's the basis for
Speaker 7: a negotiation. You know. The straits of hormous This is
Speaker 7: I laugh when when I hear people saying, maybe they
Speaker 7: didn't think of that. I mean, this has been the
Speaker 7: strategic question for decades. When I deployed to the golf
Speaker 7: in nineteen ninety, this was a primary consideration. Oil prices
Speaker 7: were over one hundred dollars in today's dollars, and in
Speaker 7: the financial crisis when I was the undersect for the Treasury,
Speaker 7: oil prices hit two hundred dollars in today's prices. So
Speaker 7: creating stability in the Straits and making sure it's secure
Speaker 7: is a critical geopolitical objectives, and we're going to have
Speaker 7: to We can't leave this situation until we're sure the
Speaker 7: Straits are going to be secure, and certainly Iran is
Speaker 7: a military threat is going to be dramatically diminished, which
Speaker 7: was the goal.
Speaker 1: I want to pick up on your pass your old division.
Speaker 1: The eighty second Airborne is being deployed two thousand troops.
Speaker 1: Is it your understanding that those SERVE members, along with
Speaker 1: the two Marine Expeditionary units will be used to secure
Speaker 1: the straight.
Speaker 7: I think the President's doing exactly what he should do,
Speaker 7: which is he's creating maximum optionality. Those forces in the
Speaker 7: region relatively small numbers five or six thousand in total.
Speaker 7: Once the eighty second gets there, they just give him
Speaker 7: lots of optionality. There's all sorts of potential ways that
Speaker 7: you might use the combination of air power, naval power,
Speaker 7: and ground troops to secure the Straits. So I think
Speaker 7: the president's smart to create options, and he's made the
Speaker 7: objectives clear, which is, we got to get rid of
Speaker 7: this military capacity to kill Americans, threaten our allies, and
Speaker 7: we've got to have the straits secure and open to
Speaker 7: global commerce. Those two things are critical. I also want
Speaker 7: to make a point that if you look at this
Speaker 7: situation compared to those past situations two thousand and eight
Speaker 7: that I mentioned or nineteen ninety, what's different is the
Speaker 7: commitment to energy dominance that we have here in America,
Speaker 7: and I give President Trump a lot of credit for that.
Speaker 7: We're a net exporter. We are well on the way
Speaker 7: to building enormous capacity based on the steps that President
Speaker 7: has taken. So we are more isolated from the shock
Speaker 7: associated with what's going on in the Middle East than
Speaker 7: we've ever been in the past. And others China and
Speaker 7: Europe and others are not as isolated because they haven't
Speaker 7: had that kind of capability and leadership that we have
Speaker 7: in the United States.
Speaker 1: Of course, your former job. Our audience knows you very well.
Speaker 1: You ran Bridgewater Associates, this massive hedge fund. I just
Speaker 1: would also love to get your take in terms of
Speaker 1: what's going on with financial markets. Energy prices have been whipsawing.
Speaker 1: We're seeing trading ranges you would normally see in a year,
Speaker 1: even two years, that are happening within moments, especially most
Speaker 1: recently regarding what's happening in the oil futures moment. Do
Speaker 1: you understand exactly what is going on in terms of
Speaker 1: the financial markets. Do you think they're too paying too
Speaker 1: close attention to potentially what Trump says and not exactly
Speaker 1: what he's doing.
Speaker 7: Well, listen, I wouldn't be one to want to stand
Speaker 7: here and try to predict markets, but I do think
Speaker 7: if you look through this moment, so look weeks months
Speaker 7: ahead and don't get caught up in the day to
Speaker 7: day whip sawing, I think you can see a path
Speaker 7: to a circumstance where energy markets more broadly and American
Speaker 7: interests more specifically are in much better, a much better
Speaker 7: situation than they were before the President took action in
Speaker 7: Venezuela and in Iran. So imagine a world where Iran
Speaker 7: no longer has the capacity to threaten the straits. The
Speaker 7: straits are open, and so we have that constant supply
Speaker 7: that goes through there with security. Thirty percent of the
Speaker 7: oil reserves in the world are in Venezuela and Iran,
Speaker 7: and those certainly Venezuela, but hopefully Iran will be much
Speaker 7: more amendable pro Western when the dust settles. I'm not
Speaker 7: trying to be too pollyannish here, but if you think
Speaker 7: through the path of what we might see in three months,
Speaker 7: six months, I think it's a much more stable world.
Speaker 7: I think it's a much more stable Middle East. I
Speaker 7: think the Straits of Hormouse are more secure than they
Speaker 7: were before this started. And I think global oil markets
Speaker 7: and global energy markets are much more stable. And again,
Speaker 7: I want to come back to this. This happens within
Speaker 7: the context of America Energy and Pennsylvania Energy. We're the
Speaker 7: second largest energy producer in America. We're the fourth largest
Speaker 7: natural gas reserves in the world. We're unlocking that potential.
Speaker 7: So I would imagine again when the dust settles, that
Speaker 7: Europe will be a much bigger buyer and recipient of
Speaker 7: American energy because they've now seen some of the uncertainty
Speaker 7: that goes with having Russia as a supplier, the Middle
Speaker 7: East as a supplier, So I think specifically.
Speaker 1: Says that are just specifically on the oil futures market,
Speaker 1: there was a massive trade just minutes before the President's
Speaker 1: truth came out, and we've had guests on this program,
Speaker 1: some of your former colleagues in your old world saying
Speaker 1: that is highly suspicious. At minimum, didn't want to go
Speaker 1: far to say it's manipulation, but are you concern that
Speaker 1: there has been manipulation when it comes to some of
Speaker 1: the posts or statements we're seeing from the White House
Speaker 1: and massive trades taken just before those moments.
Speaker 7: Well, in general, without going specific to that, in general,
Speaker 7: I'm concerned about the fact that information can be leaked
Speaker 7: in a way out of the government or two public
Speaker 7: officials in a way that people benefit from, whether it's
Speaker 7: public officials or otherwise. I just cosponsored a piece of
Speaker 7: legislation to eliminate the ability of members of Congress to
Speaker 7: trade equities. Not because I think there's massive fraud going
Speaker 7: on or something like that, but because even the perception
Speaker 7: of people benefiting from insider information that resides within the
Speaker 7: government I think is extremely problematic. So I can't comment
Speaker 7: on the specifics of those trades, but what I will
Speaker 7: comment on is I think there's a clear set of
Speaker 7: rules and laws thatverybody needs to adhere to if you're
Speaker 7: in public life. And then second, we also need to
Speaker 7: worry about the perceptions associated with that and take the
Speaker 7: extra mile to make sure that the public can be
Speaker 7: confident that public officials are acting solely in the interest
Speaker 7: of the public.
Speaker 1: We hear a lot, and I've been hearing a lot
Speaker 1: how the physical market is so different right now than
Speaker 1: the paper market when it comes to energy. You mentioned
Speaker 1: what is going on in terms of how America really
Speaker 1: is a net ex border now, so we are a
Speaker 1: little bit more insulated from this. But still, I'm sure
Speaker 1: you've heard from constituents prices are going up, Gasoline is
Speaker 1: a hair away from four dollars a gallon. How is
Speaker 1: Congress set to address this?
Speaker 7: Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that. I should have mentioned
Speaker 7: that that's a huge issue that's happening on the ground.
Speaker 7: In Pennsylvania. The gallon of gas is about sixty cents
Speaker 7: more than it was before this started. And if you're
Speaker 7: a working family, the meeting income in Pennsylvany is about
Speaker 7: fifty two thousand dollars a year. If you're a working family,
Speaker 7: this pushs real pressure on you. We've made enormous progress
Speaker 7: since the President took office on bringing down the rate
Speaker 7: of inflation to about two point five it was on
Speaker 7: average five during the Bide administration twenty two percent total,
Speaker 7: and wages up, so wages are greater than inflation. But
Speaker 7: people are still feeling pressures from housing costs, from healthcare
Speaker 7: cost and from energy prices, and so there's a number
Speaker 7: of things we're trying to do. The President just sat
Speaker 7: down with a number of the governors from the PGM
Speaker 7: states in the Northeast to try to bring down electricity prices.
Speaker 7: These deals that are being done with the hyperscalers for
Speaker 7: the big data centers. We're a big recipient of that investment.
Speaker 7: They're now being done with a covenant that essentially ensures
Speaker 7: that they bring energy that exceeds what their demand's going
Speaker 7: to be, so it doesn't raise energy prices for folks.
Speaker 7: So there's a number of things underway permitting reform to
Speaker 7: bring down the price of energy. But in the near term,
Speaker 7: I take your point, and it's a very real one.
Speaker 7: People are feeling this pressure, and that's I think one
Speaker 7: of the reasons we hope to get this thing wrapped
Speaker 7: up in the coming weeks so we could have that
Speaker 7: stability and get these price increases behind us and go
Speaker 7: back to normal.
Speaker 1: And some of our viewers, of course, might be and
Speaker 1: I just want to end on this might be going
Speaker 1: to the airport today and I'm sure you've seen the line,
Speaker 1: some of them up to five hours long. What is
Speaker 1: going on with funding DHS. You know, there's lots of
Speaker 1: reporting that there is this GOP bill potentially where we
Speaker 1: could fund DHS, but it wouldn't go to ICE enforcement.
Speaker 1: Would you be a yes on that?
Speaker 7: Well, you know, listen, and I hope you help me
Speaker 7: be back to my programmer. You can you can test
Speaker 7: this sometime down the road if this ever happens. But
Speaker 7: whether I'm a Republican or Democrat in the majority of
Speaker 7: the minority, I will never vote to defund the government
Speaker 7: or not fund the government. This is a it's a
Speaker 7: real disgrace, and this is the second time it happened.
Speaker 7: And what happens is people, the Democrats are trying to
Speaker 7: use this as political leverage to get reforms in ICE
Speaker 7: and the people that are suffering. Are the members of
Speaker 7: TSA or the Coastguard, the Secret Service SISA, which is
Speaker 7: which is the Homeland Security Cyber Office. The bottom line
Speaker 7: here is this is creating additional risk for Americans because
Speaker 7: the threat levels up based on what's going on in
Speaker 7: the Middle East. It's a huge burden on those TSA agents.
Speaker 7: We've got to call in rate in Philadelphia about twenty
Speaker 7: five percent, So twenty five percent of people aren't coming
Speaker 7: to work. They have to go earn money elsewhere, and
Speaker 7: it's a huge burden. I flew on Monday. It was
Speaker 7: a disaster. I had flights canceled. I said on the
Speaker 7: runway it was a six hour trip that took us.
Speaker 1: It sounds like you're a yes.
Speaker 7: I am a yes. Sounds like you're cost We've got
Speaker 7: to fund the government, absolutely, We've got to fund homeland security.
Speaker 7: They reforms that the Democrats are talking about, many of
Speaker 7: them were already in the bill body cams, money for
Speaker 7: de escalation training. The President already put forward a set
Speaker 7: of performs. This is political theater. This is not good policy,
Speaker 7: and we got to get behind us. I think the
Speaker 7: American people are right incredibly frustrated, as am.
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