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How Equifax Missed Its Chance to Prevent the Massive Hack · Bloomberg Intelligence

0:05
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg p m L Podcast. I'm Pim Fox.
0:08
Speaker 1: Along with my co host Lisa Abramowitz. Each day we
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Speaker 1: bring you the most important, noteworthy, and useful interviews for
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Speaker 1: or the trading floor. Find the Bloomberg p m L
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Speaker 1: Podcast on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and Bloomberg dot Com. Well,
0:32
Speaker 1: there's a debate over the National Flood Insurance Program in
0:35
Speaker 1: the wake of the damage by Hurricanes Harvey and Her
0:38
Speaker 1: and Irma, and here to explain exactly what the program
0:42
Speaker 1: does and its future is David Sampson. He is the
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Speaker 1: chief executive of the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America
0:49
Speaker 1: and he's also the former Deputy Secretary of the U.
0:51
Speaker 1: S Department of Commerce under George W. Bush. David Samson,
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Speaker 1: thank you for being with us. Can you just describe
0:58
Speaker 1: for people what is the National Flood Insurance Program, how
1:01
Speaker 1: does it work, and what are some of the challenges
1:04
Speaker 1: it faces. Well, the National Flood Insurance Program is in
1:08
Speaker 1: existence because your regular homeowners or business policy UH doesn't
1:15
Speaker 1: cover flood insurance. That dates it dates back to the
1:18
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties where there was problems with flood maps and
1:25
Speaker 1: and UH being able to underwrite flood risk, and so
1:28
Speaker 1: the National Flood Insurance Program was created UH in the
1:33
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties as a supplement to your regular homeowners policy,
1:38
Speaker 1: and we emphasize all the time with homeowners and business
1:41
Speaker 1: owners that your regular policy doesn't cover flood, and to
1:47
Speaker 1: be covered for flood, you need to buy that that
1:49
Speaker 1: separate policy. UM. The policy UM no pun intended is underwater.
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Speaker 1: It's twenty five billion dollars UH in debt. It's not
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Speaker 1: run on an actuarily sound basis UH like your private
2:06
Speaker 1: sector infurence insurance companies would be required to do. The
2:10
Speaker 1: premiums are heavily subsidized by the taxpayer, and as a
2:15
Speaker 1: result of that, after Katrina and UH Sandy, the program
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Speaker 1: is now about twenty five billion dollars in debt. So
2:22
Speaker 1: there's a lot of discussion in Congress about what reforms
2:25
Speaker 1: need to be made to the program. It was set
2:28
Speaker 1: to expire September UM we supported a um an extension
2:33
Speaker 1: of that in the wake of Harvey and IRMA. It's
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Speaker 1: now extended through December eight, but long term, there needs
2:41
Speaker 1: to be a discussion in Congress about how to put
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Speaker 1: that program on more sound financial footing. David, you represent
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Speaker 1: about a thousand companies that of the US is home, auto,
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Speaker 1: and business insurance. I'm wondering what rule they could or
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Speaker 1: would be willing to lay. In the flood insurance market.
3:02
Speaker 1: Do you expect that there will be some kind of
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Speaker 1: convergence of public and private insurance plans to cover flooding,
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Speaker 1: especially as the expectation for these types of storms increases. Yeah, well,
3:14
Speaker 1: there's always going to be a need for a federal
3:16
Speaker 1: backstop for the flood insurance. So I think there's going
3:19
Speaker 1: to need to be a long term reauthorization of the
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Speaker 1: flood in National Flood Insurance program. But clearly there is
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Speaker 1: increasing appetite in the private sector among private insurers and
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Speaker 1: reinsurers UH to write some flood coverage. The flood mapping
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Speaker 1: technology is much better today than it was in nineteen
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Speaker 1: sixty eight. You can just imagine the advances there UH,
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Speaker 1: and UH underwriting is much more advanced. Insurance underwriting is
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Speaker 1: more advanced today than it was in the nineteen sixties,
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Speaker 1: and so we do think that there is financial capacity
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Speaker 1: out there and appetite among UH insurers, some insurers and
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Speaker 1: reinsurers to take on some of this risk and to
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Speaker 1: be able to take some of the risk away from
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Speaker 1: the federal government and the and the federal taxpayer. David Sampson,
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Speaker 1: what is being done or what can be done to
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Speaker 1: avoid the scams and the frauds that are perpetrated on
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Speaker 1: people who are rebuilding their lives, their homes and their neighborhoods. Well. Uh.
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Speaker 1: First of all, the insurers number one priority right now
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Speaker 1: is getting checks into the hands of policy holders to
4:36
Speaker 1: get families back in their homes and cars back on
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Speaker 1: the road and businesses opened again. UM. We're surging um
4:43
Speaker 1: an army of claims adjusters into uh Florida just as
4:48
Speaker 1: soon as the local officials UM uh say it's safe
4:52
Speaker 1: to get back in and allow us in. But consumers
4:55
Speaker 1: need to be very uh, you know, careful. The first
4:58
Speaker 1: thing that consumers need do, UH is to call their
5:02
Speaker 1: insurance agent or their insurance company, report the damage, photograph,
5:09
Speaker 1: take video of all household items that are damaged or
5:13
Speaker 1: destroyed in the storm. Unfortunately, we know that there are
5:17
Speaker 1: some bad actors who prey on storm victims, and so
5:20
Speaker 1: we encourage folks to be very very careful of riffing
5:24
Speaker 1: companies or contractors or restoration companies that just come walking
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Speaker 1: down the neighborhood and UH put pressure on people to
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Speaker 1: sign to sign a contract right now and tell them
5:37
Speaker 1: that if you don't sign up right now, you're gonna
5:39
Speaker 1: be at the back of a line. UH. Consumers need
5:42
Speaker 1: to be very very suspicious of that kind of activity.
5:47
Speaker 1: Check professional references, be sure you before you sign a contract,
5:52
Speaker 1: be sure you know the scope of the work that
5:54
Speaker 1: they're going to do, the time frame, the cost um.
5:59
Speaker 1: And the good news is today that a lot of
6:02
Speaker 1: insurers are deploying a lot of technology to make it
6:06
Speaker 1: easier for policy holders to file their claims. There's mobile apps,
6:11
Speaker 1: there's online applications. Insurers will be using drones in Florida
6:17
Speaker 1: to try to assess rooftop damage. UH. And you can
6:22
Speaker 1: always ask for good references from your claims adjuster as well.
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Speaker 1: David Samson, thank you so much for joining us. David
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Speaker 1: Sampson is chief executive Officer of the Property Casualty Insures
6:33
Speaker 1: Association of America, also the former Deputy Secretary of the U.
6:37
Speaker 1: S Department of Commerce under George W. Bush, and he
6:40
Speaker 1: has based in Washington, d C. Equifax has been in
6:56
Speaker 1: the news, shares dropping further today, bonds as well falling
7:00
Speaker 1: after they specified that they had a particular software vulnerability
7:05
Speaker 1: that they knew about or were warned about before their
7:10
Speaker 1: whole system was breached and one hundred million US consumers
7:14
Speaker 1: data we were exposed and potentially put into the hands
7:19
Speaker 1: of mallet intended people. Jordan Robertson joins us now his
7:22
Speaker 1: technology reporter for Bloomberg News, as well as Viny Troy,
7:26
Speaker 1: a chief executive officer of night Lion Security in St. Louis. Jordan,
7:30
Speaker 1: can you just set this up for us? What is
7:32
Speaker 1: the latest development in this story and how damaging is
7:36
Speaker 1: it for Equifax? Sure, as everyone knows by now, Equifax
7:40
Speaker 1: was the victim of a breach that affected you know,
7:42
Speaker 1: more than a hundred and forty million people social security
7:45
Speaker 1: numbers and other details of their consumer credit accounts. And
7:48
Speaker 1: what Equifax announced last night was it confirmed some earlier
7:52
Speaker 1: reporting that had gotten out that it was The way
7:55
Speaker 1: the attackers got in was through a particular software vulnerability
7:58
Speaker 1: UH in software used to build websites. Many large companies
8:02
Speaker 1: use this. It's called Apache strut software. It's open source
8:05
Speaker 1: software UH and the key thing about this software is
8:08
Speaker 1: that there was a critical vulnerability in it, but that
8:11
Speaker 1: vulnerability was patched or it was fixed, was two months ago,
8:15
Speaker 1: but Equifax apparently didn't apply that fix by the time
8:19
Speaker 1: the hackers got in in mid May. There's a caveat there, though,
8:23
Speaker 1: is that many organizations take you know, can take weeks
8:26
Speaker 1: even months to apply patches. However, uh, you know, for
8:30
Speaker 1: critical vulnerabilities like this one. Uh, you know, that's that's
8:33
Speaker 1: an off a long time and and Equifax is going
8:35
Speaker 1: to take some heat, uh you know, and have to
8:36
Speaker 1: answer some questions about you know, what caused that delay. Well,
8:39
Speaker 1: the stock of equifaxes down another one percent after falling
8:42
Speaker 1: more than fourteen percent yesterday. If any Troy, maybe you
8:46
Speaker 1: could describe for us if you went to visit Equifax,
8:50
Speaker 1: what would you see. Would you see a you know,
8:53
Speaker 1: the most modern, the most up to date and secure
8:57
Speaker 1: cyberg prevention facility, or just see people that are racing
9:01
Speaker 1: around to try to put their fingers in the dike? Yeah,
9:04
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, and I could tell you kind
9:06
Speaker 1: of firsthand. I mean, Equifax had recently, you know a
9:10
Speaker 1: number of job postings um regarding you know, different security
9:14
Speaker 1: positions that they were looking for. And I mean I
9:16
Speaker 1: know firsthand some of employees over Equifax that had a
9:19
Speaker 1: number of legacy systems, all these kind of um legacy
9:24
Speaker 1: means old in technology speak, right, Yeah, that's all right.
9:27
Speaker 1: So they had all these old systems with you know,
9:29
Speaker 1: basically there's all these different technology stacks running around there,
9:32
Speaker 1: and they were trying very hard to consolidate them all.
9:35
Speaker 1: But many of those systems, from what I understand, simply
9:37
Speaker 1: we're going unchecked or unpatched. You know, they weren't updated
9:40
Speaker 1: for any of these critical vulnerabilities, and they were just
9:43
Speaker 1: left to kind of, you know, fend for themselves. And
9:45
Speaker 1: I think that's the problem. You know, that's where we
9:48
Speaker 1: ended up today. Vinny. What was the motivation behind not
9:51
Speaker 1: patching up these problems? Was it motivated from saving money
9:55
Speaker 1: or was it just simply that the problem didn't seem
9:58
Speaker 1: that urgent. I don't, to be honest, I don't. I
10:02
Speaker 1: think it was just a lack of resources. I mean,
10:04
Speaker 1: when you have all these different systems, with all these
10:06
Speaker 1: different technology stacks and not enough people to maintain them.
10:09
Speaker 1: I mean, I know they were in progress to try
10:12
Speaker 1: to consolidate all of them, so that they could maintain
10:14
Speaker 1: them all. Um, but I just don't think they were
10:17
Speaker 1: caught up to that point yet, Vinnie. I'd love to
10:19
Speaker 1: get a sense of how widespread this lack of taking
10:23
Speaker 1: care of business is among big corporate America. Are there
10:27
Speaker 1: other companies that have similar problems and vulnerabilities that aren't
10:31
Speaker 1: being patched simply because they don't know the resources or
10:35
Speaker 1: they're trying to do too much with too little. I mean,
10:38
Speaker 1: I think this applies to everybody. I mean, I don't
10:40
Speaker 1: think there's a large company out there that I've seen
10:43
Speaker 1: that doesn't do this. Um. You know, lack of good
10:47
Speaker 1: security resources is a is a very widespread problem right now.
10:51
Speaker 1: And organizations, I mean even if sometimes even if they
10:54
Speaker 1: are willing to spend the money, just can't find the
10:56
Speaker 1: people to do the work. I mean, there's definitely a
10:59
Speaker 1: shortage of good security people right now. Jordan's speak to
11:03
Speaker 1: the issue of the response on the part of Equifax,
11:05
Speaker 1: because there have been stories that the website tool that
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Speaker 1: would let consumers see if their individual information had been breached,
11:13
Speaker 1: uh doesn't work. Also, I understand for there's been a
11:17
Speaker 1: directive that was sent out by the Federal Trade Commission
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Speaker 1: earlier today saying that there are now scammers. There are
11:25
Speaker 1: people impersonating credit bureau staff. They are calling people telling
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Speaker 1: them that they are from Equifax looking to verify their
11:33
Speaker 1: account information, and the FTC says, don't tell them anything.
11:37
Speaker 1: No one from Equifax is going to call you. What
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Speaker 1: have you learned? Yeah, you know, my assessment is Equifax
11:44
Speaker 1: is really blown it when it comes to the response
11:46
Speaker 1: to this breach. You know, people feel very vulnerable when
11:49
Speaker 1: this type of information leaks. Uh. You know, as you
11:52
Speaker 1: mentioned Equifax's website for trying to determine if you you know,
11:56
Speaker 1: were affected, Uh, it really didn't seem to work. People
11:59
Speaker 1: punched in all kinds of random characters and codes and
12:01
Speaker 1: still got responses back that they will breach. It didn't
12:04
Speaker 1: seem to be like a very functional website. You know.
12:06
Speaker 1: In addition, Equifax originally had a language on that website saying,
12:11
Speaker 1: you know, if you sign up for these protections and
12:12
Speaker 1: if if you are a victim, you know, you remove
12:15
Speaker 1: all rights to sue the company in any class action suit.
12:18
Speaker 1: And on top of that, the thing that really kind
12:20
Speaker 1: of sticks in my cross is, you know, when companies
12:22
Speaker 1: get breached like this, there's a very standard response. There's
12:25
Speaker 1: a playbook now, which is, you know, you offer people
12:27
Speaker 1: a year or two a free credit monitoring protection. These
12:30
Speaker 1: are paying These are pay services that normally cost uh,
12:33
Speaker 1: you know, fifteen dollars a month. Uh, you know, and
12:37
Speaker 1: that that shields companies from liability. In other words, if
12:40
Speaker 1: you can't prove damages and you can't prove you were harmed,
12:43
Speaker 1: and the company says, hey, we offered these slee protections,
12:46
Speaker 1: then you can't sue. So it's illegal. Is illegal shield
12:49
Speaker 1: What Equifax did in this case is they didn't go
12:51
Speaker 1: with a third party company to provide that service all
12:54
Speaker 1: clear ideas a big company that does this LifeLock and others.
12:57
Speaker 1: They went with their own service. They're signing people up
12:59
Speaker 1: for for credit fraud monitoring, you know, from one of
13:03
Speaker 1: their own services, which you know, in theory at the
13:05
Speaker 1: end of the year, which is their their their monitoring period,
13:08
Speaker 1: you know, they're going to try to sign you up
13:09
Speaker 1: for the service. You're already of the database. It's very cynical.
13:12
Speaker 1: I understand why the company would do it. Uh, you know,
13:14
Speaker 1: it's a service under their control and they can they
13:17
Speaker 1: can account for that. But from a public relations and
13:19
Speaker 1: a perspective, a perception standpoint. You know, it's really it's
13:23
Speaker 1: it's deeply cynical to be a victim of their breach
13:26
Speaker 1: and then have to go sign up for one of
13:28
Speaker 1: their services. Indeed, well, I know you're gonna be following
13:30
Speaker 1: this story because it is nowhere near over talking about
13:34
Speaker 1: Equifax and a hundred and forty three million US consumers
13:38
Speaker 1: whose specific information, whether that is social security numbers, addresses, passwords,
13:43
Speaker 1: user ID numbers, have been breached. I want to thank
13:46
Speaker 1: you very much. Jordan Robertson. Robertson is our technology reporter
13:49
Speaker 1: for Bloomberg News, joining us from our Washington, d C. Bureau,
13:52
Speaker 1: and you can follow Jordan's at Jordan's are one thousand
13:56
Speaker 1: on Twitter. And our thanks also to Any Troya, the
13:59
Speaker 1: chief executive of of night Lion Security. They're based in St. Louis.
14:16
Speaker 1: The Sheepa Corporation, the struggling Japanese conglomerate, has been trying
14:21
Speaker 1: to sell it's immensely valuable microchip business to a group
14:25
Speaker 1: of American and Japanese buyers. Bain Capital has emerged as
14:29
Speaker 1: the leader, along with some other investors that are contributing money.
14:32
Speaker 1: And now we're getting news that Apple maybe joining that
14:35
Speaker 1: particular team to bid on this business. To discuss more,
14:39
Speaker 1: I want to bring in Alex Sherman, Technology Media and
14:42
Speaker 1: Telecom m and a reporter for Bloomberg News, as well
14:45
Speaker 1: as an On Street of Austin senior semiconductor and hardware
14:48
Speaker 1: analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence. Alex, let's start with you. Is
14:52
Speaker 1: this a surprise Apple is joining this and what would
14:55
Speaker 1: be the structure of this arrangement. I don't think Apple
14:57
Speaker 1: joining it is necessarily. The surprise is they've been sort
15:00
Speaker 1: of hovering around this process the the you know, for
15:03
Speaker 1: months and months. What's the surprise might be the number
15:06
Speaker 1: that they're thinking about investing in this Bain consortium, which
15:10
Speaker 1: we broke the story yesterday that they're in talks to
15:12
Speaker 1: invest about three billion dollars maybe even a little more
15:16
Speaker 1: um in Toshiba's memory chip business. The strategic logic here
15:20
Speaker 1: is simply that these chips are in iPhones, so you know,
15:23
Speaker 1: they their flash memory chips that store photos and video
15:26
Speaker 1: clips and augmented reality. So Apple has a you know,
15:31
Speaker 1: has a big reason to to to to want to
15:35
Speaker 1: have control over the future of these chips and not
15:38
Speaker 1: to lose them um or at least lose pricing power
15:42
Speaker 1: over them. However, you know, three billion dollars that may
15:45
Speaker 1: not seem like a lot to Apple. You figure, what
15:47
Speaker 1: Apple has two hundred and sixty one billion dollars of
15:49
Speaker 1: cash on their balance sheet. What's three billion dollars? But
15:52
Speaker 1: Apple does not have a big track record of doing
15:55
Speaker 1: investments in M and A like this. In fact, the
15:57
Speaker 1: largest deal they've ever done was the three billion dollar
15:59
Speaker 1: deal for Beats a few years ago. Uh and this
16:03
Speaker 1: may actually exceed that. So really, if you put it
16:05
Speaker 1: into those terms, it would be Apple's largest acquisition slash investment. Ever,
16:10
Speaker 1: I want to bring it on entrene of us and
16:12
Speaker 1: on speak to the actual hardware and semiconductor aspect. That
16:17
Speaker 1: is the technical sort of situation and the value that
16:20
Speaker 1: this company has to to Apple and to Bain capital. Look,
16:25
Speaker 1: this is supply sourcing, right, so you moreant to lock
16:27
Speaker 1: up as many components of your supply in clear way
16:32
Speaker 1: as possible for as long as you can, so to
16:35
Speaker 1: the extent that you can relieve. The financing situation of
16:40
Speaker 1: a of a key component of yours is a wind
16:45
Speaker 1: for Apple in so far it's a commodity, right, So
16:49
Speaker 1: the fact that they're able to get a long term
16:51
Speaker 1: view on commodity clear sourcing. On a long term view,
16:54
Speaker 1: it's a wind for It's a wind for Apple. Yeah one.
16:58
Speaker 1: But if you step back and look at the longer
17:00
Speaker 1: room carn text of Apple, Apple is fast becoming one
17:02
Speaker 1: of the largest semiconnector companies. To the extent that it's
17:05
Speaker 1: logic chips, highly differentiated chips with their substantial intellectual property,
17:10
Speaker 1: Apples designing and making those chips. To the extent that
17:13
Speaker 1: it's a commodity, it is trying to show up supply agreement.
17:16
Speaker 1: So depending on the value of that component in the
17:21
Speaker 1: Apple food chain, Apple staking different steps. You know, given
17:25
Speaker 1: the importance to Apple of this business and that it's
17:29
Speaker 1: trying to lock up its supply chain, it is a commodity.
17:32
Speaker 1: I have to wonder, Alex, are there any other competing
17:35
Speaker 1: bids that could even be floated that could rival this
17:39
Speaker 1: composite bid that now includes Apple. Uh sure? So there
17:44
Speaker 1: have been there are three bits around this, and there
17:46
Speaker 1: have been three bits around this for some time. Although
17:49
Speaker 1: the bit players have shifted, the biggest hurdle for a
17:54
Speaker 1: deal to get done here still is the presence of
17:57
Speaker 1: Western Digital which feels like it has some legal rights
18:01
Speaker 1: to the Toshiba memory chip business through a deal it
18:06
Speaker 1: did with sand Disc a couple of years ago. So
18:08
Speaker 1: Western Digital has paired with KKR for a competing bid
18:12
Speaker 1: here and sort of continues to threaten UH litigation if
18:16
Speaker 1: in fact Toshiba decides to go with any other consortium
18:20
Speaker 1: in the bank consortium seems like the most likely one
18:23
Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier. Apple had been hovering around this for
18:25
Speaker 1: a while. Initially, Apple actually back to bid from a
18:30
Speaker 1: consortium led by fox Con, which of course makes iPhones,
18:34
Speaker 1: But it became clear over the past few weeks that
18:37
Speaker 1: there was very strong political opposition, Japanese opposition towards fox
18:41
Speaker 1: Con winning a bid um given UH, you know, fox
18:45
Speaker 1: CON's presence in China and Taiwan and the political implications
18:48
Speaker 1: of losing a a gold star business like this UH
18:52
Speaker 1: and and and setting it over from Japan to a
18:55
Speaker 1: sort of you know, Chinese Taiwanese business UH that didn't
18:59
Speaker 1: fly plow. So. So a couple of things that interesting.
19:04
Speaker 1: One is the deal price is very high. If you
19:06
Speaker 1: wanted the maximumount of money, you would have gone with
19:08
Speaker 1: han Hi. Obviously, the China Japan venture doesn't fly so easily.
19:12
Speaker 1: Western digitals interested in this in the Toshiba stake where
19:16
Speaker 1: sandsc It's acquired entities already a JB partner. Is also
19:21
Speaker 1: about supply. Remember that the flash memory business is relatively
19:25
Speaker 1: consolidated with Samsung with share, so Toshiba sandes because the
19:30
Speaker 1: next in the in the thirties, so that wouldn't have
19:35
Speaker 1: flown that easily. So this is all about shoring up supply.
19:39
Speaker 1: And the reason Apple is important is because they consume
19:43
Speaker 1: of nan memory supply and too Man thanks very much
19:46
Speaker 1: on answer us and our senior semi conductor hardware analysts
19:49
Speaker 1: for Bloomberg Intelligence and alex A. Sherman M and a
19:53
Speaker 1: reporter for Bloomberg speaking about Apple, Bain Capital and a
19:57
Speaker 1: potential acquisition of Toshiba's chip business. Can we call upon
20:13
Speaker 1: Laura Litvin, our congressional reporter for Bloomberg News who can
20:16
Speaker 1: be followed on Twitter at Laura Litvin, l I t
20:19
Speaker 1: v A N and Laura maybe just begin with what
20:23
Speaker 1: was in the food last night? With the President's dinner
20:27
Speaker 1: with Nancy Pelosi, minority leader and the Bernard leader in
20:31
Speaker 1: the Senate, Senator Chuck Schumer. Were they eating from the
20:33
Speaker 1: same menu, because it seems as they came away with
20:35
Speaker 1: two different versions of the meeting. Well, they apparently ate
20:39
Speaker 1: the same Chinese food at the meal, but they did
20:41
Speaker 1: certainly come away with very different representations of what happened.
20:44
Speaker 1: At least initially, UH. They seemed to pull a closure
20:47
Speaker 1: together the UH. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House
20:51
Speaker 1: Minority Leader Against Plosi said last night that they had
20:54
Speaker 1: a tentative deal with the President to marry UH protections
20:59
Speaker 1: against deportation for eight hundred thousand young immigrants brought whose
21:02
Speaker 1: kids with a worder security package, and they said there
21:06
Speaker 1: was an understanding there would not be funding for a
21:08
Speaker 1: border wall as part of that. And then Trump this
21:11
Speaker 1: morning tweeted there was no deal UH, and but also
21:14
Speaker 1: tweeted in UH defending the young immigrants and the fairness
21:19
Speaker 1: of letting them stay here because their parents have brought
21:21
Speaker 1: them here. And then he later did make some comments
21:24
Speaker 1: to reporters where he said UH seemed to confirm the deal,
21:27
Speaker 1: and he said he wants to pursue a wall, but
21:29
Speaker 1: it would be later. The White House is really wrestling
21:32
Speaker 1: with this, though, they a White House spokes appointedly said
21:36
Speaker 1: they will not be amnesty in this bill. Wanted to
21:38
Speaker 1: make that case this morning to reporters. Well, Laura, I
21:40
Speaker 1: want to also touch on President Trump's comments that he
21:44
Speaker 1: just made when he was on the tarmac in Florida.
21:48
Speaker 1: He talked about the wall being crucial important. If the
21:52
Speaker 1: wall doesn't get done, nothing gets done. Uh. You know,
21:55
Speaker 1: this is is clearly talking to his base, which has
21:58
Speaker 1: been expressing some uh dissatisfaction with his deals with the
22:03
Speaker 1: Democrats recently. How realistic is it that he would come
22:06
Speaker 1: through on something like that and really kind of put
22:09
Speaker 1: the wall into some legislation. Well, I he's if you
22:14
Speaker 1: really look at it, he's not really saying necessarily has
22:17
Speaker 1: to be done this year or at this time when
22:20
Speaker 1: he says that we're going to do a wall. Um.
22:23
Speaker 1: And but the fact is the fact that he keeps
22:26
Speaker 1: seeming to send different messages to people, and the fact
22:28
Speaker 1: that he's under pressure and is even being attacked by
22:30
Speaker 1: bart news headlines today that say he's amnesty don and
22:34
Speaker 1: is being attacked by tweets by uh conservative Republican Steve
22:38
Speaker 1: King in the House. These things are a lot of
22:40
Speaker 1: pressure and it makes people wonder where this is going
22:42
Speaker 1: and if things could fall apart, and um, there's some
22:46
Speaker 1: prospect for that. But I did notice today that Republican
22:49
Speaker 1: leaders in the Senate, two of them told us that
22:52
Speaker 1: they do see some potential in doing something that marries um,
22:56
Speaker 1: what's called DOCCA, the Deportation Order, the protections that Obama
23:00
Speaker 1: put in place with a strong border security bill. Um.
23:03
Speaker 1: They said, there's negotiating to be done, but there's some
23:05
Speaker 1: possible uh, you know, some possible agreement here. Well, we
23:09
Speaker 1: know that the President is also speaking in Fort Maris, Florida,
23:13
Speaker 1: as you mentioned, arriving to check on the reconstruction and
23:18
Speaker 1: the rescue operations related to Hurricane Irma. Do many Republicans,
23:25
Speaker 1: Republican senators who are represent the border states, do they
23:30
Speaker 1: really want this wall? Uh? No, there's been opposition from
23:35
Speaker 1: border state lawmakers about a wall. Um. There's been a
23:39
Speaker 1: real effort by members like John Cornyn from Texas, Republican
23:44
Speaker 1: leader and the House Homeland Security Chairman might call both
23:48
Speaker 1: are from both from Texas. Both have really pushed the
23:50
Speaker 1: president very hard behind the scenes to treat levies that
23:54
Speaker 1: are down along the Rio Grand River as a wall
23:57
Speaker 1: and to put more money into those and then just
23:59
Speaker 1: move on to other things like fencing technologies, other things
24:02
Speaker 1: that are needed. Um and you know there there may
24:06
Speaker 1: be some potential with the storms for Trump to pivot
24:08
Speaker 1: and do and call that a wall. We'll have to
24:11
Speaker 1: see how that comes together. You know, it's interesting. I'm
24:13
Speaker 1: wondering what President Trump's relationship will be with fellow congressman.
24:18
Speaker 1: There was quite an amazing Twitter post by Senator Chuck
24:21
Speaker 1: Grassley which is as uh one news outlet put in
24:25
Speaker 1: a post modern work of art um all in sort
24:29
Speaker 1: of acronyms. Morning News says, you made a deal with
24:31
Speaker 1: Schumer and Dacca. Have you have your staff brief me?
24:34
Speaker 1: I know you undercut jud commission. It's like all not
24:37
Speaker 1: English effort for by party agreement is their dissent in
24:40
Speaker 1: just ten seconds. Do you think that Republican congressmen are
24:43
Speaker 1: getting sick of President Trump's working with Democrats. I think
24:48
Speaker 1: they're concerned about it. Uh In. Grassley is the chairman
24:51
Speaker 1: of the di Ugiciary Committee with with jurisdiction over this
24:54
Speaker 1: and seemed to be taken completely by surprise, and that
24:56
Speaker 1: particularly is undercutting Trump's relationship with many of them. Thank
25:00
Speaker 1: you so much for joining us. Laura Litvin, Congressional reporter
25:03
Speaker 1: for Bloomberg. We will bring you more as we get it.
25:06
Speaker 1: At President Trump today, kind of giving some mixed messages
25:10
Speaker 1: trying to figure out how to move forward on the
25:12
Speaker 1: data issue. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg P and
25:18
Speaker 1: L podcast. You can subscribe and listen to interviews at
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Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, or whatever podcast platform you prefer. I'm
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Speaker 1: Pim Fox. I'm on Twitter at pim Fox. I'm on
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Speaker 1: Twitter at Lisa Abramo. It's one before the podcast. You
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Speaker 1: can always catch us worldwide on Bloomberg Radio