Latest / Balance of Power / Trump Says Fed Must Cut Rates
Transcript
- 0:02Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios.
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- 0:25Speaker 6: The happy Friday perhaps at the White House as well
- 0:27Speaker 6: as President Trump celebrates these jobs numbers today. He noted
- 0:32Speaker 6: on True Social, great job numbers just announced breaking all estimates.
- 0:35Speaker 6: except mine, he says in parentheses, by double and triple,
- 0:39Speaker 6: and you haven't seen anything yet. He goes on, quote,
- 0:42Speaker 6: lower the interest rates because the USA is a much
- 0:45Speaker 6: stronger credit than it was just a short time ago.
- 0:47Speaker 6: A strong country means a lower interest rate. It's a
- 0:50Speaker 6: better credit. Very simple, the president says. Later on in
- 0:54Speaker 6: the post, making a call or perhaps issuing a threat,
- 0:58Speaker 6: lower the rate or I'll stop trading with countries with
- 1:00Speaker 6: which we have a deficit. So obviously, this is the
- 1:05Speaker 6: president's theory of the case. And the director of the
- 1:07Speaker 6: National Economic Council at the White House, Kevin Hassett, was
- 1:09Speaker 6: asked about this notion that better economic figures should lead
- 1:13Speaker 6: to lower rates, not higher ones.
- 1:15Speaker 1: This was Mr. Hassett's response.
- 1:17Speaker 7: I spoke to the president last night, and his view
- 1:20Speaker 7: is that when we get really, really good news like
- 1:22Speaker 7: we have. and really, really good news like we have
- 1:26Speaker 7: on inflation. He's not giving the Fed policy advice. He's
- 1:31Speaker 7: saying it's natural that people would say, oh, well, the U.S.
- 1:34Speaker 7: is in a better fiscal situation because it's growing so
- 1:36Speaker 7: much it'll have more tariff and tax revenue. And over time,
- 1:39Speaker 7: that should affect bond markets.
- 1:43Speaker 8: But of course, it just doesn't work that way. And
- 1:45Speaker 8: we want to continue the conversation with Skylar Woodhouse, who's
- 1:48Speaker 8: at the White House with the president's reaction before we
- 1:51Speaker 8: bring in Liz Pancotti. from Groundwork Collaborative. Skyler, White House correspondent,
- 1:57Speaker 8: thanks for joining us, Skyler. I guess I'm just trying
- 1:59Speaker 8: to figure out what the president's motivations are here. Is
- 2:04Speaker 8: he trying to change the way that we in media
- 2:07Speaker 8: and the way markets look at this as an economic concept,
- 2:12Speaker 8: or is he having trouble understanding it himself?
- 2:17Speaker 9: Yeah, Joe.
- 2:18Speaker 10: Well, the president does like to say he's an expert
- 2:21Speaker 10: across various sectors. So this is not really surprising that he.
- 2:26Speaker 1: Is sort of leaning into giving, you.
- 2:29Speaker 10: Know, economic advice on what interests— on what should happen to
- 2:33Speaker 10: interest rates. Now, he, in one of his true social posts,
- 2:36Speaker 10: had alluded that growth does.
- 2:38Speaker 1: Not cause inflation.
- 2:39Speaker 10: And it's obvious, you know, he really wants to see
- 2:42Speaker 10: those interest rates lowered.
- 2:44Speaker 1: It's sort of just become this point.
- 2:45Speaker 10: Now that he started and it's like he won't give
- 2:49Speaker 10: up on it. So he's just going to keep going
- 2:51Speaker 10: until we'll see if he gets what he wants with
- 2:52Speaker 10: the lower interest rates.
- 2:56Speaker 6: Well, even as he has said that he trusts Kevin Warsh,
- 2:59Speaker 6: the new man helming the Federal Reserve, to do what
- 3:02Speaker 6: he thinks is best, the suggestion that the Fed independence
- 3:06Speaker 6: will be respected under the Warsh regime, it's the other members,
- 3:10Speaker 6: at least according to his True Social post, that he's
- 3:13Speaker 6: concerned with, saying that they need to find their patriotism,
- 3:16Speaker 6: to summarize his words.
- 3:18Speaker 1: Skylar, I wonder if we'll get more of this.
- 3:19Speaker 6: From the president on stage when he takes the stage
- 3:22Speaker 6: two nights in a row in Dallas, the RNC confirming
- 3:25Speaker 6: that he will be headlining both nights.
- 3:28Speaker 1: What's that about?
- 3:30Speaker 10: Yeah, Kayleigh, look, next week, this convention, it'll be pretty interesting.
- 3:34Speaker 10: It's rather unconventional, the fact that they're pulling this together
- 3:39Speaker 10: during a midterm year and not a presidential year, which
- 3:42Speaker 10: is when we typically see these large-scale events. So this
- 3:47Speaker 10: will be very interesting. You know, the president... sort of
- 3:51Speaker 10: pitch this idea and it's something that they have run with.
- 3:53Speaker 10: But Republicans who, you know, are still maybe have tougher
- 3:58Speaker 10: races are trying to distance themselves from Trump and from
- 4:02Speaker 10: sort of some of his policies, especially as affordability, the
- 4:05Speaker 10: war in Iran, higher gas prices have really become front
- 4:09Speaker 10: and center as the midterms near. So we'll see what
- 4:13Speaker 10: the president has in stores next week. But it certainly
- 4:16Speaker 10: will be historic, as this is something we traditionally don't
- 4:19Speaker 10: typically see.
- 4:22Speaker 2: All right.
- 4:22Speaker 6: Skylar Woodhouse on the White House North Lawn for us.
- 4:25Speaker 6: Thank you so much, Skylar, for the coverage and looking
- 4:27Speaker 6: forward to the coverage into next week as well.
- 4:29Speaker 1: I myself will be heading to Dallas.
- 4:31Speaker 3: See the forecast?
- 4:32Speaker 1: Yeah, I've seen the forecast, Joe. Not thrilled about it.
- 4:35Speaker 1: It's going to be very hot.
- 4:38Speaker 8: I'm not jealous for what you're going to experience, but
- 4:39Speaker 8: a lot of indoor, a lot of air conditioning.
- 4:41Speaker 6: Yes, I will be in a nice air conditioned studio
- 4:44Speaker 6: for a lot of it. Any Republican attendees at this
- 4:47Speaker 6: convention who'd like to come by and chat with us
- 4:49Speaker 6: on Bloomberg TV and radio, you are more than welcome
- 4:51Speaker 6: to our air conditioning.
- 4:52Speaker 1: Yes, we very much do.
- 4:54Speaker 6: Of course, when Dallas is happening, we also will be
- 4:56Speaker 6: getting some pretty important inflation data that day. And I'm
- 4:59Speaker 6: wondering how Republicans are going to be messaging on that
- 5:02Speaker 6: as well. Of course, depending on what the print is,
- 5:04Speaker 6: whether it's hot or cold, is that, of course, could
- 5:06Speaker 6: indicate the direction that the Federal Reserve may want to
- 5:10Speaker 6: trend in in the next couple of weeks.
- 5:11Speaker 1: Thank you, Joe.
- 5:12Speaker 6: I thought about that one in advance. Inflation, of course,
- 5:14Speaker 6: is one thing to consider. The labor market is another.
- 5:16Speaker 6: And the labor market, at least on the surface, when
- 5:19Speaker 6: you look at today's report, looks like it's doing pretty well.
- 5:23Speaker 6: So let's get more on this with Liz Pancotti, Vice
- 5:24Speaker 6: President of Policy, Advocacy and Research at the Groundwork Collaborative.
- 5:29Speaker 6: Welcome back to Bloomberg TV and Radio. Liz, the president
- 5:32Speaker 6: clearly happy with these numbers. He thinks they're great. The
- 5:34Speaker 6: economy's doing well. Therefore, rates should be going down, not up,
- 5:38Speaker 6: because we're a better credit. Is his thinking right?
- 5:42Speaker 11: You know, I think the president took to Truth Social
- 5:45Speaker 11: after the jobs report this morning. Good that he did
- 5:47Speaker 11: it after the jobs report rather than before, because we
- 5:49Speaker 11: had a couple mishaps where he kind of scooped the
- 5:51Speaker 11: BLS numbers. But this morning's print of 160,000 jobs added
- 5:56Speaker 11: is kind of a noisy one in my mind.
- 5:58Speaker 1: Last month we had 12,000 jobs.
- 6:00Speaker 11: Taken away from the economy, revisions have that actually flipped
- 6:04Speaker 11: to positive. Things are pretty noisy in the economic data
- 6:07Speaker 11: right now. But I think the two big things that
- 6:09Speaker 11: jumped out to me this morning are one, about a
- 6:12Speaker 11: third of jobs were added in food and restaurant service
- 6:15Speaker 11: sector jobs. We know that those are typically lower wage jobs.
- 6:18Speaker 11: And so as we think about affordability, we're losing jobs
- 6:22Speaker 11: in white collar fields like IT and financial services, gaining
- 6:25Speaker 11: jobs in food service. Something that looks maybe a little
- 6:29Speaker 11: bit like the 2010 to 2012 job sector.
- 6:32Speaker 1: So keeping an eye on that.
- 6:33Speaker 11: The other thing is that we have seen wage growth
- 6:35Speaker 11: slow once again for an additional month. And as you mentioned,
- 6:38Speaker 11: we've got CPI coming next week, which will tell us
- 6:41Speaker 11: if those gains were actually wiped away for price increases.
- 6:44Speaker 11: I think all accounts point to that being the case,
- 6:46Speaker 11: a difficult thing for the Fed to manage at its
- 6:49Speaker 11: meeting later this month, though the president has weighed in
- 6:52Speaker 11: and said if they don't cut rates, he will go
- 6:55Speaker 11: back to Liberation Day and cut off all trade with
- 6:58Speaker 11: countries with which we have a surplus.
- 7:00Speaker 1: So a big two weeks, I think, to keep an
- 7:03Speaker 1: eye on.
- 7:03Speaker 8: Okay, so I want to explore this a little bit
- 7:05Speaker 8: more with you, abstract as it may be. A strong
- 7:09Speaker 8: country means a lower interest rate, in all caps. It's
- 7:13Speaker 8: a better credit. Park that and listen to what he
- 7:17Speaker 8: said on August 19th in an effort to try to
- 7:20Speaker 8: make the same point.
- 7:21Speaker 3: Here's the president.
- 7:22Speaker 4: Now when we announce good numbers, the better they are,
- 7:24Speaker 4: the worse it is for interest rates. We could have
- 7:27Speaker 4: a GDP of 10, 12, 15 times if they just
- 7:31Speaker 4: leave us alone.
- 7:33Speaker 1: Let the rates go down.
- 7:35Speaker 4: We should pay the lowest interest rates. You know, every
- 7:37Speaker 4: point of interest is $ 600 billion.
- 7:40Speaker 1: Think of that.
- 7:41Speaker 4: When our country does well, interest rates should go down.
- 7:48Speaker 8: Okay, I don't know if you're following that, but he's
- 7:51Speaker 8: looking at this as someone seeking a loan and would
- 7:55Speaker 8: receive a lower interest rate based on his good credit.
- 7:58Speaker 8: Would you still fail him in your economics class for
- 8:01Speaker 8: making that point?
- 8:02Speaker 11: I think that the issue with the president is he
- 8:04Speaker 11: approaches this job as the same way he approached the
- 8:08Speaker 11: job when he was a real estate mogul. He's looking
- 8:10Speaker 11: at how much it's going to cost to build his
- 8:12Speaker 11: archway and his ballroom and not how much it's going
- 8:14Speaker 11: to cost for the American people to buy a house
- 8:17Speaker 11: or afford groceries, which is really the mandate voters have
- 8:19Speaker 11: given him. unfortunately for the president, if he would like
- 8:23Speaker 11: lower rates, there's a very easy way to get them.
- 8:25Speaker 11: And it's to stop his war in Iran and to
- 8:27Speaker 11: reverse his tariffs, which will bring prices down.
- 8:29Speaker 1: It's very simple.
- 8:30Speaker 11: And he has instead proposed doing the opposite, which will
- 8:33Speaker 11: send rates even higher.
- 8:35Speaker 6: Well, so your point is he needs to address the
- 8:36Speaker 6: inflationary pressures that exist. He also argues growth does not
- 8:41Speaker 6: cause inflation. Can that not at least sometimes be true,
- 8:45Speaker 6: that you can have growth that isn't inflationary.
- 8:48Speaker 11: That's true, completely. I think we have a couple issues
- 8:50Speaker 11: with that right now. One, we don't have great growth.
- 8:53Speaker 11: We've seen pretty sluggish growth that is almost entirely driven
- 8:57Speaker 11: by the AI data center build out over the last
- 8:59Speaker 11: 18 months. When we look at the sectors that the
- 9:02Speaker 11: president promised to really deliver a boom to, manufacturing, construction.
- 9:08Speaker 11: Those sectors aren't seeing the rebound that he has suggested
- 9:11Speaker 11: they will. We are importing a lot of those data
- 9:14Speaker 11: center materials. And he continues to press forward with tariff
- 9:17Speaker 11: regimes like the new tariffs on Canada, which will affect
- 9:20Speaker 11: the auto supply chain, where we saw actually a pretty
- 9:22Speaker 11: sizable drop in employment in the automotive sector last month.
- 9:26Speaker 11: So I don't think that those are incompatible on face value.
- 9:30Speaker 11: In fact, the last year of the Biden administration, we
- 9:32Speaker 11: saw a lot of progress on inflation.
- 9:34Speaker 1: And very high GDP growth. I think that's possible to have.
- 9:38Speaker 11: It is not, however, possible to have massive sweeping tariffs,
- 9:41Speaker 11: a war in Iran, stoking global supply chain pressures, very
- 9:46Speaker 11: slow GDP growth, a labor market that is whiplashing, and
- 9:50Speaker 11: stable prices.
- 9:51Speaker 6: Well, on this tariff notion, our colleagues Mike McKee and
- 9:54Speaker 6: Isabel Lee spoke earlier today with the chair of the
- 9:56Speaker 6: Council of Economic Advisors at the White House, Christopher Phelan,
- 9:59Speaker 6: about tariff and the pricing pressures that they cause. This
- 10:03Speaker 6: is what he told them.
- 10:04Speaker 12: I think the important thing is... The Trump administration has
- 10:08Speaker 12: specifically said they want manufacturing to come back to the
- 10:12Speaker 12: United States. We are saying to companies, either pay a tariff,
- 10:17Speaker 12: somebody pays the tariff, or produce it in the United States.
- 10:20Speaker 12: And we are seeing a good fraction of them saying, okay,
- 10:25Speaker 12: we'll make it in the United States. The manufacturing boom,
- 10:28Speaker 12: the non-residential construction boom is real, and it's showing up
- 10:34Speaker 12: in the data. It's showing up in the data for
- 10:36Speaker 12: capital expenditures. It's showing up in the jobs data.
- 10:40Speaker 6: But you're saying, Liz, that that boom is not real
- 10:42Speaker 6: if you take out data centers from the equation.
- 10:45Speaker 11: I think that is unequivocally true from the GDP data
- 10:48Speaker 11: we have seen over the past year and a half.
- 10:50Speaker 11: The other issue is if I'm a company looking to
- 10:52Speaker 11: onshore my supply chains, I've got to figure out how
- 10:54Speaker 11: to build a new factory. There are tariffs on the steel,
- 10:57Speaker 11: the aluminum, the cement, the lumber, all of the parts
- 11:00Speaker 11: that go into that factory, all of the chips that
- 11:02Speaker 11: go into that factory, all of the cooling materials that
- 11:04Speaker 11: go into that factory. It is more expensive to onshore,
- 11:08Speaker 11: separate from labor costs that differ between countries and kind
- 11:11Speaker 11: of all the normal things that companies consider when they
- 11:13Speaker 11: decide where to put their supply chains. But right now,
- 11:16Speaker 11: if you wanted to onshore operations, it would be more
- 11:19Speaker 11: expensive for you to do so. And it's going to
- 11:21Speaker 11: take you four years. President Trump called oil execs last
- 11:24Speaker 11: week to talk about increasing refining capacity and what he.
- 11:27Speaker 1: Could do to do that.
- 11:28Speaker 11: And they said, could you please make it easier for
- 11:30Speaker 11: us to build? All fine and good, except it takes
- 11:33Speaker 11: four to five years to bring on a new refinery
- 11:35Speaker 11: or even to fire up an old one. And so
- 11:37Speaker 11: I think that the timeline that these actions are on, again,
- 11:41Speaker 11: is much less immediate in terms of providing relief than
- 11:45Speaker 11: reversing the tariffs and ending the war.
- 11:47Speaker 8: With the idea of data centers playing a role here,
- 11:50Speaker 8: such a pronounced role, In our economy, there have been
- 11:53Speaker 8: questions about the jobs component. There was one example in Virginia.
- 11:56Speaker 8: It took 1,500 construction workers to build it and 50
- 12:00Speaker 8: to operate it. These massive warehouses are largely empty. humans
- 12:04Speaker 8: once they start getting up and running. But we saw
- 12:07Speaker 8: the most construction jobs added since January, and people are
- 12:10Speaker 8: trying to connect the dots here to data center. Are
- 12:12Speaker 8: we finally seeing that come through in the numbers?
- 12:15Speaker 11: I think it's true that we need workers to build
- 12:18Speaker 11: data centers.
- 12:18Speaker 1: You've got to dig a big hole. It's very complicated.
- 12:22Speaker 11: I mean, the clean rooms that have to exist on
- 12:24Speaker 11: these are very technical. In fact, more than 90% of
- 12:27Speaker 11: the plumbing jobs on these job sites are actually union
- 12:30Speaker 11: jobs for the politicians who are keeping an eye on that.
- 12:34Speaker 11: The big issue is once they're built, the maintenance and
- 12:36Speaker 11: servicing of those data centers, the requirements are very small.
- 12:40Speaker 11: And it's not like a factory where you've got a
- 12:42Speaker 11: bunch of people in there operating machines.
- 12:44Speaker 1: They're literally computers. They run on their own. Or it
- 12:47Speaker 1: can be serviced remotely.
- 12:49Speaker 11: And so I think for communities who are assessing the
- 12:51Speaker 11: benefits or lack thereof that these bring, they really are
- 12:55Speaker 11: temporary ones, though the effects on electricity bills, on water bills,
- 12:59Speaker 11: on noise, those are much more permanent.
- 13:02Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
- 13:02Speaker 6: Well, when we consider the timelines here, the Treasury Secretary
- 13:05Speaker 6: Scott Besson suggested along the G20 finance ministerial that took
- 13:10Speaker 6: place this week that within six months, we could start
- 13:13Speaker 6: to see the disinflationary effects of artificial intelligence actually having
- 13:17Speaker 6: an impact, that the greater productivity is coming.
- 13:21Speaker 1: Does that timeline match with which one is.
- 13:23Speaker 6: In your mind?
- 13:24Speaker 11: I don't think that's what we've seen in our research
- 13:26Speaker 11: or from the street. I think Goldman, Bank of America,
- 13:29Speaker 11: lots of firms, lots of macro shops are putting out
- 13:31Speaker 11: estimates of this. I think the big issue that everyone's
- 13:34Speaker 11: trying to figure out is when will we have an
- 13:36Speaker 11: end to the war in Iran? Because if you recall,
- 13:39Speaker 11: a couple weeks into the conflict in February, we were
- 13:42Speaker 11: all saying, look, if you can end this thing within
- 13:44Speaker 11: six weeks, the effects will be short-lived. They'll be max
- 13:47Speaker 11: six months. We are now six months into that war.
- 13:50Speaker 11: And what we've all been saying for the past six
- 13:52Speaker 11: months is the longer it drags out, the longer you
- 13:54Speaker 11: see the effects. And so if the AI effects show
- 13:58Speaker 11: up in the next six months is really not, I think,
- 14:00Speaker 11: the thing I'm keeping an eye on. It's if we
- 14:02Speaker 11: can put this war to a close so we can
- 14:04Speaker 11: close up shop on those effects within six months.
- 14:06Speaker 8: We've got a relative high for gasoline here this late
- 14:09Speaker 8: in the season. Diesel's at an all-time high.
- 14:13Speaker 3: With that said.
- 14:15Speaker 8: What could we see in the final quarter of the
- 14:17Speaker 8: year that maybe we've not seen before with the impact
- 14:21Speaker 8: of just these gas prices alone?
- 14:23Speaker 11: I think we're going to see two things. One, heading
- 14:25Speaker 11: into the holiday season, prices are going to be much
- 14:27Speaker 11: higher for travel. Prices are going to be much higher
- 14:30Speaker 11: for the stuff that goes under the Christmas tree. And
- 14:32Speaker 11: that is a combination of both the tariffs that have
- 14:35Speaker 11: been flipping on and off switch by the president for
- 14:38Speaker 11: the last year and a half. and also from packaging,
- 14:41Speaker 11: which is made from petroleum-derived products, so is affected by
- 14:44Speaker 11: oil prices. Those shipping rates, I mean, freight shipping rates
- 14:47Speaker 11: are through the roof. And so whether you're trying to
- 14:50Speaker 11: buy a pint of Ben and Jerry's or a couple
- 14:53Speaker 11: of things to put under the Christmas tree, I think
- 14:55Speaker 11: parents are in.
- 14:56Speaker 1: For higher prices.
- 14:57Speaker 8: Can't wait. Liz Pancotti, always great to have you, and
- 15:00Speaker 8: on Jobs Day, happy Jobs Day. Thanks for joining us.
- 15:02Speaker 8: From the Groundwork Collaborative with Great Analysis... Thanks to Skyler
- 15:06Speaker 8: as well from the White House. We're going to play
- 15:08Speaker 8: all of this to the panel next as the president
- 15:10Speaker 8: gets prepared for Dallas next week and the big midterm convention.
- 15:15Speaker 8: Will affordability be on the menu? We'll talk to Rick
- 15:18Speaker 8: and Jeannie next, only here on Bloomberg TV and radio.
- 15:21Speaker 8: Stay with us on Balance of Power. We'll have much
- 15:23Speaker 8: more coming up after this.
- 15:27Speaker 5: You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast. Catch
- 15:31Speaker 5: us live weekdays at noon and 5 p.m. Eastern on
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- 15:46Speaker 6: We close out the trading week on Wall Street and
- 15:48Speaker 6: the week here in Washington. And of course, it's going
- 15:51Speaker 6: to be a very busy week next week for everyone.
- 15:54Speaker 6: We have CPI data coming, but we also have the
- 15:56Speaker 6: Republican Midterm Convention being held in Dallas, Texas on Wednesday
- 16:01Speaker 6: and Thursday. Just so happens that those are also the
- 16:04Speaker 6: days of the first two games of the NFL season.
- 16:06Speaker 6: And President Trump himself will be providing the counter-programming to
- 16:09Speaker 6: the Super Bowl rematch on Wednesday.
- 16:12Speaker 1: It wasn't initially the plan.
- 16:13Speaker 6: It was supposed to be J.D. Vance's night to speak,
- 16:15Speaker 6: and he Still will. But President Trump, according to the RNC, Joe,
- 16:19Speaker 6: is also going to be speaking that night. Then again
- 16:21Speaker 6: on Thursday, as they try to rally his base in
- 16:25Speaker 6: a year.
- 16:25Speaker 1: In which he is not himself on the ballot. That's right.
- 16:28Speaker 8: Look, we remember it was the first time we ever
- 16:30Speaker 8: saw the nominee show up. Every night of their convention,
- 16:36Speaker 8: right when we were in Milwaukee, typically there's a big unveiling.
- 16:40Speaker 8: It's almost like seeing the bride before, you know, they
- 16:43Speaker 8: come out of the big. The president was up there
- 16:46Speaker 8: hugging the flag, waving. It was in the box, remember,
- 16:48Speaker 8: with the bandage on the ear tonight. This time he'll
- 16:50Speaker 8: be actually speaking on both nights. I thought that J.D.
- 16:53Speaker 8: Vance was headlining the first of the two. Does that
- 16:55Speaker 8: not happen now?
- 16:56Speaker 1: Or maybe he just tees up.
- 16:58Speaker 8: Opens for the press. We want to get into all
- 17:01Speaker 8: of this. Kayleigh is going to be in Dallas with
- 17:02Speaker 8: special coverage, and we'll let you know that. Texas Radio
- 17:05Speaker 8: and the Big Beat right here on Bloomberg TV and radio.
- 17:08Speaker 8: Julie Fine, our bureau chief, will be there. They're putting
- 17:10Speaker 8: the whole band together in Texas. And, of course, we're
- 17:14Speaker 8: 60 days out from the midterm election, so there are
- 17:16Speaker 8: big questions about what impact this would have, if any.
- 17:19Speaker 8: We'll find out from Rick and Jeannie, Bloomberg Politics contributors.
- 17:22Speaker 8: Rick is our Republican strategist. Of course, partner at Stonecourt Capital.
- 17:26Speaker 8: Jeannie is our Democratic analyst and Democracy Visiting Fellow. at
- 17:29Speaker 8: Harvard Kennedy School's Ash Center. You know, Jeannie, there's so
- 17:32Speaker 8: much that's going to be on TV. Are Democrats going
- 17:34Speaker 8: to try to counter-program Republicans? I mean, there's not going
- 17:36Speaker 8: to be any eyeballs left, are there?
- 17:39Speaker 13: No way they're not going to counter program, Joe. The
- 17:42Speaker 13: one thing that Democrats agree on Donald Trump with is
- 17:46Speaker 13: more Donald Trump. So they are not going to counter program.
- 17:49Speaker 13: They hope there are more eyeballs on Donald Trump. You know,
- 17:53Speaker 13: I keep thinking, you remember how when Rush Limbaugh used
- 17:55Speaker 13: to be so popular with liberals and Democrats because just
- 17:59Speaker 13: listening to him would.
- 17:59Speaker 9: Get them angry?
- 18:01Speaker 13: This could be counterproductive for Republicans where you get the
- 18:05Speaker 13: only people who listen and get angry are really frustrated
- 18:08Speaker 13: lefties who just, you know, that Donald Trump just gets
- 18:12Speaker 13: them mad and gets them out to vote.
- 18:13Speaker 9: So, no, no counterprogramming. Let him rip. Do two nights.
- 18:17Speaker 9: Do more.
- 18:18Speaker 13: Democrats will be happy. And Kayleigh, 100 degrees. I hope
- 18:21Speaker 13: you're bringing a fan.
- 18:23Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah, I am still not happy with the weather forecast.
- 18:31Speaker 6: And it does raise the question, Rick, if anyone really
- 18:35Speaker 6: wants to be in Dallas, of all places, ahead of
- 18:38Speaker 6: the midterms next week, not just because of the weather,
- 18:40Speaker 6: but because they have races to run at home, not
- 18:43Speaker 6: in Texas in the vast majority of cases. Are they
- 18:47Speaker 6: going to be able to fill the American Airlines Center
- 18:50Speaker 6: with enough people?
- 18:52Speaker 2: You know, there's lots of tactics that you can use
- 18:55Speaker 2: to fill a convention hall like that. I put on
- 19:00Speaker 2: a lot of national conventions. In fact, I was involved
- 19:03Speaker 2: in the last convention in Dallas, Texas. I ran all
- 19:07Speaker 2: the delegate selection and political operation on the floor of
- 19:09Speaker 2: the convention for Ronald Reagan. And that was the last
- 19:13Speaker 2: time we had a Republican convention in Dallas. And so
- 19:17Speaker 2: this is the follow-up to that. And sure, I have
- 19:20Speaker 2: no doubt they will have what is going to be
- 19:23Speaker 2: looking like a full and enthusiastic convention hall. I mean,
- 19:27Speaker 2: this is actually what they do well. I mean, Donald
- 19:31Speaker 2: Trump has presided over three conventions that he's been the nominee,
- 19:36Speaker 2: a record, I might add. And they've all been good, right?
- 19:41Speaker 2: They've all started and stopped on time. They've used the
- 19:45Speaker 2: time to attack Democrats and promote their agenda and as
- 19:50Speaker 2: you pointed out, Joe, Donald Trump in the last convention
- 19:54Speaker 2: in Milwaukee got lots of time on air. And I
- 19:58Speaker 2: think this will just be a recitation of that. And look,
- 20:02Speaker 2: I am shocked, frankly, that the Democrats aren't doing anything.
- 20:06Speaker 2: I mean, this is a chip shot. I mean, you
- 20:09Speaker 2: get free airtime to promote your own politics. campaigns and candidates.
- 20:15Speaker 2: You don't have to attack Donald Trump. Do whatever you
- 20:17Speaker 2: want to do, but you're giving that up because you
- 20:20Speaker 2: don't want to be in the narrative this campaign season
- 20:23Speaker 2: and let Donald Trump have two days. I see lots
- 20:26Speaker 2: of them are going to watch the football game, which is,
- 20:28Speaker 2: of course, what most of America will do.
- 20:31Speaker 3: Yeah, indeed.
- 20:32Speaker 8: Well, look, of course, no one will even be nominated
- 20:35Speaker 8: at this thing. Jeannie, the problem is those who were
- 20:39Speaker 8: nominated in Missouri.
- 20:42Speaker 8: Aren't going to know what district they're running in unless
- 20:44Speaker 8: the Supreme Court steps in. I'm very confused about this
- 20:47Speaker 8: whole situation. The Missouri Supreme Court is blocking the new
- 20:52Speaker 8: Republican drawn congressional map, the one that was used for primaries.
- 20:58Speaker 8: Unless the Supreme Court, the U.S. Supreme Court steps in,
- 21:02Speaker 8: how do we figure out who's running where?
- 21:06Speaker 9: That is going to be up to Missouri. And it
- 21:08Speaker 9: is a conundrum.
- 21:09Speaker 13: But it's important to remember why we're in this conundrum.
- 21:13Speaker 13: Republicans wanted this redistricting. They pushed for it.
- 21:17Speaker 9: They got it.
- 21:18Speaker 13: When 300,000 Missourians stood up and said, wait, we should
- 21:22Speaker 13: have a say in who.
- 21:24Speaker 9: In how our districts are drawn.
- 21:25Speaker 13: The Secretary of State in Missouri sat on that until
- 21:29Speaker 13: just a few weeks ago.
- 21:31Speaker 9: Then he denied the petition.
- 21:32Speaker 13: And now the Missouri Supreme Court, made up of mostly
- 21:35Speaker 13: Republican appointees, has said not so fast.
- 21:38Speaker 9: And they are right on that.
- 21:40Speaker 13: Now, of course, we know Missouri will appeal to the
- 21:42Speaker 13: Supreme Court. We don't know if the Supreme Court will
- 21:44Speaker 13: take it. Their emergency docket, shadow docket, is pretty full
- 21:48Speaker 13: these days. This is really an issue about Missouri state law,
- 21:52Speaker 13: Missouri referendums.
- 21:53Speaker 9: It should, I think, be left up to Missouri, but
- 21:56Speaker 9: they could step in.
- 21:57Speaker 13: But, you know, this is the problem of trying to
- 22:00Speaker 13: engage in mid-decade redistricting. And just look at Politico's report
- 22:04Speaker 13: out of Florida the other day. You've got Florida operatives saying.
- 22:07Speaker 9: We might lose at least a few.
- 22:10Speaker 13: Of these seats, these four seats we tried to redistrict.
- 22:13Speaker 13: We talked about this before. It was really risky for
- 22:17Speaker 13: Republicans to engage in this, and they are seeing it
- 22:19Speaker 13: now in Missouri.
- 22:22Speaker 6: Well, so when we consider Republicans' efforts to draw themselves
- 22:25Speaker 6: into more safe seats, could they potentially have the new
- 22:29Speaker 6: map backfire on them, not just given this development in Missouri, Rick,
- 22:33Speaker 6: but like Jeannie was talking about, if you look at
- 22:35Speaker 6: Texas or Florida, for example, how likely is it in
- 22:39Speaker 6: your mind that this could come down to just the
- 22:42Speaker 6: majority of the House comes down to the case of
- 22:46Speaker 6: just a few redrawn or not redrawn seats?
- 22:49Speaker 8: Yeah, two things are at play, right?
- 22:52Speaker 2: If there's a blue wave, if Democrats, like the current
- 22:55Speaker 2: polling indicate, have a congressional ballot advantage of six points
- 23:00Speaker 2: or more, then, yeah, it could wipe out a lot
- 23:04Speaker 2: of these House seats that have been redrawn and watered
- 23:08Speaker 2: down in order to get rid of Democratic districts. If
- 23:14Speaker 2: it's not a blue wave, then it's going to probably
- 23:17Speaker 2: be more of a state-by-state knife fight between Republicans and Democrats.
- 23:22Speaker 2: And those seats will be the target of Democrats to
- 23:27Speaker 2: try and throw out those Republicans who are a more
- 23:30Speaker 2: vulnerable position because they added Democrats in.
- 23:33Speaker 1: To those districts.
- 23:35Speaker 2: So honestly, it could wind up backfiring on Republicans, probably
- 23:42Speaker 2: be more of a state-by-state impact, not something universal. But
- 23:48Speaker 2: I'm watching the macro issue. If it's a blue wave,
- 23:51Speaker 2: a lot of these guys are going to go bye-bye.
- 23:54Speaker 8: Rick, as someone who's run campaigns, what do you do
- 23:57Speaker 8: in a world like this, though, when the Supreme Court
- 24:01Speaker 8: in Missouri drops the hammer, do you just suspend all spending?
- 24:06Speaker 8: Or you could be advertising and door knocking in the
- 24:08Speaker 8: wrong places.
- 24:10Speaker 2: Yeah, this is especially problematic because they really did redraw
- 24:15Speaker 2: these districts substantially, right? They weren't just a couple of
- 24:18Speaker 2: streets and things like that. You know, thousands of residents
- 24:21Speaker 2: were moved from one district to another. But look, I mean,
- 24:26Speaker 2: most of it is like things like TV. You're still
- 24:29Speaker 2: going to run TV in Kansas City. And that TV
- 24:33Speaker 2: is going to cover all these districts. So you're just
- 24:35Speaker 2: going to pound away at that. The door-to-door stuff is
- 24:38Speaker 2: going to be more complicated. Hopefully they get a definition
- 24:41Speaker 2: of that before you run out of time to do that.
- 24:44Speaker 2: But a lot of the social media and things like
- 24:47Speaker 2: that can be broadly delivered to any district. And so
- 24:53Speaker 2: a lot of it is generic, running against the Democratic Party.
- 24:57Speaker 2: You don't need a district to label on it. So
- 25:00Speaker 2: there are plenty of things you can do.
- 25:01Speaker 3: I mean, obviously, it's.
- 25:02Speaker 2: Not optimal for campaigns to have to steer through this stuff,
- 25:08Speaker 2: but it does seem to be more and more litigious
- 25:10Speaker 2: in the campaign realm. And so these are becoming more
- 25:14Speaker 2: typical than not. In the past, you never saw situations
- 25:17Speaker 2: like this.
- 25:20Speaker 6: Well, and so late in the game, too, it's multiple
- 25:22Speaker 6: situations that are arising. Jeannie, you have this in Missouri,
- 25:26Speaker 6: then in North Carolina. They're supposed to start sending in
- 25:29Speaker 6: or sending out mail-in ballots to those who want them
- 25:31Speaker 6: in the state today. Well, there's still a pending question
- 25:33Speaker 6: around the U.S. Postal Service and mail-in ballots. before the
- 25:37Speaker 6: Supreme Court, or at least the DOJ has asked the
- 25:39Speaker 6: Supreme Court to come down on this. What are state
- 25:41Speaker 6: election officials, what are postal workers supposed to do in
- 25:46Speaker 6: this situation? What do you do if you're a voter
- 25:48Speaker 6: in North Carolina? Can you trust that if you send
- 25:50Speaker 6: your ballot in, it's gonna count?
- 25:53Speaker 13: Yeah, I don't think so at this point. And I
- 25:55Speaker 13: think that is the big concern. You know, we've got
- 25:59Speaker 13: North Carolina, as you mentioned, is a September 4th date.
- 26:02Speaker 13: You've got Minnesota, Virginia, Vermont, Illinois all coming up in September.
- 26:07Speaker 13: Then by October, you have 17 states beginning early voting.
- 26:11Speaker 13: This is why the Supreme Court has long held with
- 26:15Speaker 13: the Purcell principle. You don't change and they don't get
- 26:18Speaker 13: involved in changes to voting rules and elections late in
- 26:22Speaker 13: the game, as, of course, Rick just talked about.
- 26:24Speaker 9: All of that has blown up now.
- 26:26Speaker 13: And the concern is this works to the advantage of
- 26:29Speaker 13: a president who has long questioned the sanctity of our elections,
- 26:32Speaker 13: because if things go bad for the GOP in November,
- 26:36Speaker 13: he's going to say, I tried to bring order to
- 26:39Speaker 13: this thing. I tried to get the Supreme Court to
- 26:41Speaker 13: uphold my EO.
- 26:43Speaker 9: They didn't. I tried to get the SAVE Act passed.
- 26:45Speaker 9: They didn't. I tried to get them to stop the
- 26:47Speaker 9: Missouri Supreme Court. Maybe they don't. If they don't. And
- 26:50Speaker 9: so we can't trust these results in which Republicans have lost.
- 26:54Speaker 13: Mike Johnson, as speaker in the lame duck, you can't
- 26:58Speaker 13: seat these new candidates. And that is the big concern here. And,
- 27:02Speaker 13: you know, I am looking for a question by several
- 27:05Speaker 13: reporters over time as to what Mike Johnson says to
- 27:08Speaker 13: that and how he'll make that decision because it's up
- 27:11Speaker 13: to him.
- 27:13Speaker 1: All right.
- 27:13Speaker 6: Jeanne Shanzano and Rick Davis, Bloomberg Politics contributors in our
- 27:17Speaker 6: political panel on this Friday. Thank you so much. Looking ahead,
- 27:20Speaker 6: of course, to the convention next week where President Trump
- 27:23Speaker 6: is going to be taking the Qatari Air Force One
- 27:26Speaker 6: to Dallas.
- 27:27Speaker 1: We'll have more next.
- 27:28Speaker 8: Stay with us on Balance of Power. We'll have much
- 27:30Speaker 8: more coming up after this.
- 27:35Speaker 5: You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast. Catch
- 27:39Speaker 5: us live weekdays at noon and 5 p.m. Eastern on
- 27:42Speaker 5: Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app.
- 27:45Speaker 5: Listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts or watch
- 27:49Speaker 5: us live on YouTube.
- 27:52Speaker 8: On this jobs day. That's confounded a lot of folks
- 27:55Speaker 8: here in Washington. By now, you've seen the numbers. They
- 27:58Speaker 8: tripled expectations. And there's been, of course, a huge debate
- 28:01Speaker 8: over interest rates, and it's now clouded by what we learned. 162,000, Kayleigh, 4.1% unemployment.
- 28:10Speaker 8: This blows away even the most ambitious expectations. Big jump
- 28:15Speaker 8: in leisure and hospitality. And now many are wondering if
- 28:19Speaker 8: this will simply be revised again in a month.
- 28:22Speaker 6: Well, considering last month, remember when the initial print was
- 28:25Speaker 6: for negative 23,000 payrolls, we got an upward revision to
- 28:28Speaker 6: positive 21,000 payrolls. So there is a degree of noisiness
- 28:33Speaker 6: in the data. that maybe complicates this picture a little bit.
- 28:37Speaker 6: And covering the picture for us here at Bloomberg is
- 28:39Speaker 6: Reid Pickard, Bloomberg News U.S. economy team leader, who's here
- 28:42Speaker 6: with us in our Washington, D.C.
- 28:44Speaker 3: Studio.
- 28:45Speaker 1: Reid, good to see you.
- 28:46Speaker 6: So when we consider these numbers, not the August number
- 28:50Speaker 6: in isolation, but the revision in July, what exactly is
- 28:54Speaker 6: going on here? Is this an issue with the way
- 28:57Speaker 6: in which this data is collected, or is it really
- 28:59Speaker 6: just a strong labor market that continually surprises to the upside.
- 29:04Speaker 14: This is a great report. There's not a lot to
- 29:06Speaker 14: not like about it. Even when looking at where the
- 29:09Speaker 14: job gains were, we saw a lot of breadth there.
- 29:12Speaker 14: So it wasn't just a rebound in leisure and hospitality
- 29:15Speaker 14: jobs and local education jobs, which can be finicky around
- 29:19Speaker 14: the start of the school year. But even excluding those,
- 29:21Speaker 14: you saw strength in things like manufacturing and in construction,
- 29:26Speaker 14: both of which that are benefiting from the AI build-out.
- 29:29Speaker 14: And then that unemployment rate, it held steady even though
- 29:32Speaker 14: we saw more people join the workforce. So one thing
- 29:35Speaker 14: that we've been seeing, for instance, is that the share
- 29:38Speaker 14: of Americans that are either employed or looking for work,
- 29:42Speaker 14: participation has really fallen this year. And so seeing that
- 29:45Speaker 14: come up at the same time was really strong.
- 29:48Speaker 1: If I had to nitpick, you know, one of the
- 29:51Speaker 1: kind of only.
- 29:52Speaker 14: Weaker parts of today's report was you saw this continued
- 29:56Speaker 14: wage pressure. So Thinking about the year-over-year increase in wages
- 30:01Speaker 14: was the slowest that we've seen in about five years
- 30:04Speaker 14: and really kind of reinforces this picture of Americans who
- 30:09Speaker 14: are feeling the weight of inflation.
- 30:11Speaker 3: Interesting.
- 30:12Speaker 8: To Kaylee's point earlier, though, the noise is pretty hard
- 30:16Speaker 8: to ignore. Why has it been so much more difficult
- 30:19Speaker 8: to capture accurate readings in real time?
- 30:22Speaker 14: So a longstanding challenge that the BLS has had that
- 30:26Speaker 14: accelerated around the pandemic and has continued to happen is
- 30:29Speaker 14: the decline in survey response rates. So in terms of
- 30:32Speaker 14: thinking about these data, there's this trade-off between accuracy and timeliness.
- 30:39Speaker 14: And the payrolls report is a really timely report. But
- 30:44Speaker 14: that comes with the caveat that there may be revisions
- 30:46Speaker 14: in the months to come. And in the case of
- 30:49Speaker 14: this month, we certainly saw a big revision to the
- 30:52Speaker 14: July number, and just kind of a change in what
- 30:55Speaker 14: we are seeing and talking about in terms of the
- 30:58Speaker 14: labor market. But certainly paints a pretty clear picture for
- 31:01Speaker 14: the Fed next week.
- 31:03Speaker 6: Well, that picture will be further animated by inflation report
- 31:08Speaker 6: next week. If the labor market, by all accounts, as
- 31:11Speaker 6: you say, this is a good report, there's not a
- 31:13Speaker 6: ton of holes that you can poke, and it seems
- 31:15Speaker 6: to be fine, does that put the focus squarely on
- 31:17Speaker 6: the inflation side?
- 31:19Speaker 1: Of the mandate? That's what economists are saying.
- 31:21Speaker 14: So, you know, this gives Fed officials to really, the
- 31:25Speaker 14: opportunity to look at next week's CPI report. The question
- 31:29Speaker 14: will be, you know, the CPI report will be a
- 31:31Speaker 14: little bit of a choose your own adventure in terms
- 31:33Speaker 14: of thinking about seeing, you know, if we see core inflation,
- 31:37Speaker 14: which strips out food and energy, if we see a
- 31:39Speaker 14: number around 0.2% of an increase. I've seen some economists
- 31:44Speaker 14: say that that would suggest that the Fed should hold rates.
- 31:48Speaker 14: And I've seen economists say that that means that they
- 31:50Speaker 14: should hike. So how much clarity that we ascertain from
- 31:53Speaker 14: that is a little unclear at this moment.
- 31:55Speaker 8: That's interesting, because I did hear a number. Look, you
- 31:57Speaker 8: can see the odds on the market today. A hike
- 32:00Speaker 8: is more likely. But not many economists are saying that
- 32:04Speaker 8: this single report will change the Fed's mind on this, right?
- 32:08Speaker 1: In terms of today's jobs report?
- 32:09Speaker 3: In terms of today's jobs report.
- 32:10Speaker 1: That's absolutely correct.
- 32:11Speaker 8: You'd have to have a pretty wild number of CPI
- 32:13Speaker 8: next week to really.
- 32:14Speaker 3: Move the needle on this.
- 32:15Speaker 14: CPI is really what the focus is on. And we've
- 32:17Speaker 14: heard policymakers talk about how much they're looking to the
- 32:20Speaker 14: upcoming inflation numbers, too, to make their decisions. So I
- 32:23Speaker 14: think a particularly negative report today could have really complicated
- 32:27Speaker 14: the decision. But now all focus is on inflation next week.
- 32:32Speaker 6: Well, and on the inflation side, as you point to
- 32:34Speaker 6: wages that are still not really keeping pace with inflation,
- 32:38Speaker 6: wouldn't indicate that there's going to be a wage price
- 32:40Speaker 6: spiral anytime soon. Maybe it cools some of their expectation
- 32:45Speaker 6: on the inflation side. On the labor force participation rate, 61.6%. Yes,
- 32:51Speaker 6: that is up relative to last month's reading, but it
- 32:54Speaker 6: is still fairly low. And do we have a sense
- 32:56Speaker 6: of what the driving forces are in the relatively lower
- 33:00Speaker 6: participation rate and how much of this has to do
- 33:03Speaker 6: with some of those economic pressures and not being able
- 33:05Speaker 6: to get a high enough wage to deal with an
- 33:09Speaker 6: economic reality that we're in right now?
- 33:10Speaker 1: It's a great question.
- 33:11Speaker 14: It's something that economists can't really seem to agree on.
- 33:14Speaker 14: My colleague, Julia Fanzara, has had a great story on
- 33:16Speaker 14: this this week, breaking down the different reasons behind this.
- 33:21Speaker 14: So there's some short-term potential factors and some cyclical factors.
- 33:25Speaker 14: So on the short term, some economists have pointed to
- 33:28Speaker 14: just kind of seasonal adjustment issues. On the longer-term side,
- 33:32Speaker 14: we've got an aging population, and we also have President
- 33:36Speaker 14: Donald Trump's immigration crackdown.
- 33:38Speaker 3: And when.
- 33:40Speaker 14: So native-born workers, or I guess foreign-born workers, tend to
- 33:45Speaker 14: have higher participation rates than native-born workers. So if those
- 33:48Speaker 14: folks drop out of the workforce... then that can push
- 33:51Speaker 14: down as well. But the challenge is, though, if these
- 33:55Speaker 14: factors are short-term, what you could see is the unemployment
- 33:58Speaker 14: rate snap back up in a couple months, which would
- 34:01Speaker 14: change the picture of the labor market. But if there
- 34:04Speaker 14: are these longer-term trends, then kind of more what you
- 34:08Speaker 14: see is what you get in terms of the unemployment rate.
- 34:10Speaker 8: A couple of months around here means November, so we'll
- 34:11Speaker 8: have to see how that pans out, Reid.
- 34:13Speaker 9: Thank you.
- 34:14Speaker 8: It's great to have you with us on the program.
- 34:15Speaker 8: Reid Pickert, A Bloomberg News economy team leader here as
- 34:19Speaker 8: we turn to something a little bit different for us
- 34:21Speaker 8: on balance of power. And that's the story about the
- 34:23Speaker 8: private equity firm Black Sun, which has raised a billion
- 34:28Speaker 8: dollars for its prime investment vehicle called Mega Fund One,
- 34:32Speaker 8: targeting a $ 7 billion total here. And it just so
- 34:35Speaker 8: happens to be the likely NBA expansion fee as they're
- 34:39Speaker 8: looking to ignite a new Supersonics franchise in Seattle. Two
- 34:43Speaker 8: important names we want you to be introduced to. One
- 34:46Speaker 8: of them you've heard from before. Etan Mohamed, CEO of
- 34:49Speaker 8: the new private equity firm Black Sun, is with us
- 34:52Speaker 8: alongside former boxing champion Roy Jones Jr. It's great to
- 34:56Speaker 8: see both of you gentlemen here on Balance of Power
- 35:00Speaker 8: on Bloomberg TV and radio. And Etan, I'm going to
- 35:02Speaker 8: start with you. You and your team, including Roy, launched
- 35:05Speaker 8: Black Sun here with the specific purpose of changing the
- 35:09Speaker 8: nature of private equity. Are you in the business as
- 35:12Speaker 8: well of making a profit?
- 35:15Speaker 15: Of course, we could not be in business without making
- 35:17Speaker 15: a profit. But we believe in the opportunity of being
- 35:22Speaker 15: able to create compassionate capitalism where we don't see the
- 35:26Speaker 15: difference between the distinction of providing good services for human
- 35:30Speaker 15: beings as well as for investors.
- 35:35Speaker 6: Well, when you bring in the compassion element and the
- 35:38Speaker 6: kind of compassion human side of this equation, if you will.
- 35:42Speaker 6: Does that explain some of the people you've brought on
- 35:44Speaker 6: board here? Why is it that you turn to politicos
- 35:46Speaker 6: like former Obama administration alumni for this effort of time?
- 35:51Speaker 15: Well, first, it's always an incredible situation where you can
- 35:55Speaker 15: be able to have people who have been in really
- 35:59Speaker 15: difficult situations that have managed, you know, at the highest
- 36:02Speaker 15: levels of power. Not only that, Nick Ratho, is an
- 36:07Speaker 15: incredible human being with amazing insights. And being able to
- 36:12Speaker 15: leverage the merger between political and some of the financial
- 36:17Speaker 15: insights that we bring to the table, it makes for
- 36:20Speaker 15: a perfect marriage.
- 36:23Speaker 8: Roy, I want to welcome you to Bloomberg.
- 36:25Speaker 3: It's great to see you.
- 36:26Speaker 8: You were inducted in the Boxing Hall of Fame in 2022,
- 36:28Speaker 8: but I'm pretty sure You haven't had to pay for
- 36:31Speaker 8: a beer since the 1980s. Someone like yourself, one of
- 36:34Speaker 8: the greatest athletes in the world, could be doing a
- 36:37Speaker 8: lot of stuff right now. Why private equity?
- 36:41Speaker 16: Well, private equity because they're trying to do things to help.
- 36:45Speaker 16: level the field in sports. And one sport that needs
- 36:48Speaker 16: to feel leveling bad is boxing. There are so many
- 36:51Speaker 16: different situations in boxing where the boxers are not getting
- 36:54Speaker 16: taken care of, where the boxers are being the guys
- 36:57Speaker 16: who are less fortunate at the end of their careers.
- 37:00Speaker 16: And Black Sun wants to step in and try to
- 37:02Speaker 16: do something about that. And that's something that I've been
- 37:04Speaker 16: lobbying for my entire career. So this was a perfect
- 37:07Speaker 16: opportunity to line up with a perfect group of people
- 37:10Speaker 16: who see the problem and who want to address the issues.
- 37:15Speaker 1: Well, how do you consider that then, Roy?
- 37:19Speaker 6: When we consider this climate that we are in, this
- 37:21Speaker 6: president in the White House, he hosted a UFC fight
- 37:24Speaker 6: on the lawn of the White House, as I'm sure
- 37:27Speaker 6: you saw. Talk to us about the collision here and
- 37:30Speaker 6: what that does to those kind of sports, combat sports
- 37:34Speaker 6: in particular, in the public theater.
- 37:38Speaker 3: Brings more attention to the situation at hand.
- 37:40Speaker 16: A lot of people that are doing these combat sports
- 37:43Speaker 16: are not really caring about the athletes the way the
- 37:44Speaker 16: athletes should be cared for. For example, they are now
- 37:47Speaker 16: trying to change or kind of almost abolish the Muhammad
- 37:51Speaker 16: Ali Act, which was put in place to protect the
- 37:54Speaker 16: fighters in the sport of boxing.
- 37:55Speaker 3: You can't take that and throw it away now because.
- 37:58Speaker 16: who's in charge or who's trying to get involved, we've
- 38:00Speaker 16: got to be able to take advantage of those situations.
- 38:03Speaker 16: Any instruments that are put in place to help protect
- 38:06Speaker 16: foxes is an instrument that is definitely needed and well overdue.
- 38:12Speaker 8: Tom, let's bring you back in. There are a number
- 38:13Speaker 8: of political alumni inside the ranks of Black Sun, many
- 38:18Speaker 8: from the Obama administration. This money could have gone to
- 38:21Speaker 8: a lot of things. Why private equity for you?
- 38:25Speaker 15: Well, Let's face it, private equity, you know, has the
- 38:29Speaker 15: hold on the grasp of power, pretty much every major component,
- 38:33Speaker 15: not just in America, but globally. The largest private equity
- 38:36Speaker 15: firms hold the majority percentage of most of the major
- 38:40Speaker 15: public corporations. And like it or let it alone, they
- 38:44Speaker 15: wield an enormous amount of power.
- 38:46Speaker 9: And we felt that in order.
- 38:47Speaker 15: For us to be able to make an impact globally,
- 38:49Speaker 15: There needed to be a change in how traditional private
- 38:53Speaker 15: equity is used and how they wield their power, not
- 38:56Speaker 15: just for excessive profits to be put in a position.
- 39:00Speaker 15: We have to strip away things and be able to
- 39:04Speaker 15: limit what can go back to community. We want to
- 39:06Speaker 15: find ways of being able to leverage community partnerships. as
- 39:10Speaker 15: well as things that can be able to benefit our
- 39:12Speaker 15: investors also. So we want the mutual benefit that comes
- 39:16Speaker 15: with a compassionate outlook on how we treat capital.
- 39:21Speaker 6: Well, and when it comes to the sectors being targeted here,
- 39:24Speaker 6: sports appears to be a big one, Roy, and something
- 39:27Speaker 6: we talk about a lot here on Bloomberg. TV and
- 39:30Speaker 6: radio is the disruption of artificial intelligence and what it
- 39:33Speaker 6: means for the future.
- 39:35Speaker 1: Is sports, live sports, going to be.
- 39:37Speaker 6: One area that is going to be insulated from that
- 39:41Speaker 6: for some time to come?
- 39:44Speaker 16: I think it is because live sports is one of
- 39:46Speaker 16: the biggest things going, one of the biggest betting things
- 39:48Speaker 16: they do right now. So live sports is a big thing.
- 39:52Speaker 16: It's always going to be a big thing. Boxing is
- 39:54Speaker 16: one of the oldest sports around. So live sports are
- 39:56Speaker 16: going to be always a thing and it will always
- 39:58Speaker 16: be something that everybody can benefit from.
- 40:01Speaker 3: But you also got to take care of those who
- 40:03Speaker 3: are participating.
- 40:04Speaker 16: So for so long, everybody's benefited, but the participants have suffered.
- 40:08Speaker 16: And to see Black Sun come in with this new
- 40:11Speaker 16: idea of merging it, making it to where now boxers
- 40:14Speaker 16: can buy back into something that they were a part of,
- 40:18Speaker 16: that's never happened before, never been offered before. Nobody's offered
- 40:22Speaker 16: a box to buy back into that situation that helped
- 40:24Speaker 16: them get to where they got. You know, it just
- 40:26Speaker 16: doesn't happen. in a whole different ballgame. We got a
- 40:32Speaker 16: lifetime health care. They got pensions we're going to be
- 40:34Speaker 16: able to do now. It's so much that they're adding
- 40:36Speaker 16: back to the sport of boxing that boxing has needed
- 40:38Speaker 16: for years, but nobody addressed.
- 40:41Speaker 1: All right.
- 40:41Speaker 6: Roy joins Junior and Atan Mohamed joining us from the
- 40:44Speaker 6: private equity firm Black Sun. Thanks for being here on
- 40:46Speaker 6: Balance of Power on Bloomberg TV and radio.
- 40:51Speaker 8: Thanks for listening to the Balance of Power podcast. Make
- 40:54Speaker 8: sure to subscribe if you haven't already at Apple, Spotify,
- 40:57Speaker 8: or wherever you get your podcasts. And you can find
- 41:00Speaker 8: us live every weekday from Washington, D.C. at noontime Eastern
- 41:04Speaker 8: at Bloomberg.com.