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Trump’s New White House Press Secretary Out After Five Days · Balance of Power

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Speaker 6: I'm Kaylee Lines in Washington, keeping an eye on Or
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Speaker 6: an ear to the extent possible on President Trump, who
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Speaker 6: right now is departing the White House en route to
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Speaker 6: a rally in Dalton, Georgia, that he'll be partaking in
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Speaker 6: this afternoon. Of course, we can't bring you the words
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Speaker 6: of the president as easily as we normally would be
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Speaker 6: able to, as there is no pool that is covering
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Speaker 6: the president for his travels today once again. due to
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Speaker 6: one member of that five-member TV pool being barred from
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Speaker 6: Air Force One, there will be not the usual TV
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Speaker 6: cameras traveling with President Trump on this trip. All that said, he,
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Speaker 6: of course, is going to Georgia to stump for Republicans
1:01
Speaker 6: with just 18 days to go until the midterm, specifically
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Speaker 6: with this trip trying to shore up the Republican Senate nominee,
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Speaker 6: Mike Collins, who is in a very tough race against
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Speaker 6: the Democratic incumbent, John Ossoff, both in terms of what
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Speaker 6: the and what the financial picture is like. So for more,
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Speaker 6: we turn to Tyler Kendall, our Washington correspondent, who's here
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Speaker 6: with me in the DC studio. Tyler, it's interesting that
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Speaker 6: he's going to Georgia because to this point, we've really
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Speaker 6: seen him target firmly red states, not purple swinging ones.
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Speaker 7: Firmly red states. I mean, trips in the last few
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Speaker 7: days to Texas, Montana, and he's still going to on Kansas.
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Speaker 7: On Monday, he'll be in Kansas. But today, as you mentioned,
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Speaker 7: this is firmly a battleground. President Trump had won Georgia
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Speaker 7: in 2024 by two percentage points, so a much closer battleground.
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Speaker 7: margin in terms of the vote count when it comes
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Speaker 7: to that state. But this is a place where President
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Speaker 7: Trump is still hoping to rally voters as Republicans continue
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Speaker 7: to face headwinds closer to Election Day. There's two races
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Speaker 7: we're watching here. One is, of course, the Senate race.
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Speaker 7: Incumbent Senator John Ossoff seems to have the lead over
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Speaker 7: a Republican, his Republican challenger, Mike Collins, a congressman. President
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Speaker 7: Trump has often said that he wants to reward loyalists
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Speaker 7: and those that have stood behind him. So that's part
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Speaker 7: of him making good on that bid to get out
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Speaker 7: on the campaign trail for candidates like that.
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Speaker 1: But also, we can't.
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Speaker 7: Take our eyes off the gubernatorial contest that's happening there.
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Speaker 7: We are expecting a Republican nominee Rick Jackson in that
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Speaker 7: race to appear on stage with President Trump. A tough race,
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Speaker 7: a close race with Keisha Lance Bottoms, the former Atlanta
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Speaker 7: mayor who has been running this race on data centers,
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Speaker 7: of all things. That has really made an impact when
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Speaker 7: it comes to the election.
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Speaker 6: Well, President Trump, of course, is trying to bring his
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Speaker 6: own message out there to states like Georgia and elsewhere.
2:47
Speaker 6: The White House press secretary, the new one, Katie Zachariah,
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Speaker 6: also says that her goal is just to amplify it,
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Speaker 6: though she struggled to do so in her first briefing
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Speaker 6: earlier this week, which I'm sure our audience has seen
2:57
Speaker 6: or heard by now. She did sort of struggle her
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Speaker 6: way through it and has faced a lot of backlash
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Speaker 6: for calling herself a lawyer when she, in fact, has
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Speaker 6: not passed the bar exam. President Trump is speaking with
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Speaker 6: reporters right now, saying he told Katie Zachariah that she
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Speaker 6: doesn't have to do this if she doesn't want to,
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Speaker 6: that he will let her make her own decision, but said,
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Speaker 6: I'd reconsider if I were you. Tyler, is she about
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Speaker 6: to last for less time than Scaramucci did in the
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Speaker 6: first term?
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Speaker 1: I knew that one was coming.
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Speaker 7: Yeah, he says, quote, I just want her to be happy.
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Speaker 7: Questions here, of course. really emerged amid the reports that
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Speaker 7: she did and her confirming that she didn't pass the bar,
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Speaker 7: though has called herself a lawyer. He goes on to
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Speaker 7: say right now the press is really being unfair to her.
3:49
Speaker 7: We'll see what happens. Of course, this comes just days
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Speaker 7: after she was announced to be the press secretary. She's
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Speaker 7: filling the role that was left by Caroline Leavitt, who
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Speaker 7: had held it for such a long time and is
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Speaker 7: still considered to be such a close and.
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Speaker 1: Trusted ally of President Trump.
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Speaker 7: Trump will have to see if this is now something
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Speaker 7: that's hanging in the balance. Yeah.
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Speaker 6: Trump telling reporters as to Katie Zachariah being the press secretary,
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Speaker 6: maybe it's not for her.
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Speaker 1: So stay tuned on.
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Speaker 6: This one because it feels like something might be brewing
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Speaker 6: here for Katie, who has been in this job for
4:21
Speaker 6: only a few days. The president's making some other comments
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Speaker 6: as well. I want to know, Tyler, as it pertains
4:26
Speaker 6: to Starlink and the service that Ukraine provides.
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Speaker 1: Alleges was slowed. And the question is by who?
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Speaker 6: The president just told reporters that it wasn't him that
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Speaker 6: gave the order, that he doesn't know who gave the
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Speaker 6: order on Star Shield.
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Speaker 1: It wasn't us. Yeah, it wasn't us.
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Speaker 7: He says that he did check in on it this morning, though,
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Speaker 7: and that it appears to be back up and running.
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Speaker 7: We should say normal service on Star Shield, which is
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Speaker 7: the defense part of the Starlink network. had resumed, though
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Speaker 7: the Ukrainian President Zelenskyy in an interview with some reporters
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Speaker 7: earlier today did indicate that speed has improved, but that
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Speaker 7: as of this morning, it was not yet fully restored.
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Speaker 7: Our own reporting from Bloomberg News, a U.S. official saying
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Speaker 7: that President Trump was not the one that ordered any
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Speaker 7: limitations on Ukraine's access to this technology, which has been
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Speaker 7: absolutely critical in terms of intelligence sharing, though it has
5:20
Speaker 7: opened up reports and questions about whether somebody else in
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Speaker 7: the administration might have ordered such a limitation, either on
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Speaker 7: speed or usage. But so far, the administration is denying
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Speaker 7: that involvement.
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Speaker 6: Well, and even if the president didn't order Starlink to
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Speaker 6: be slowed down, he's not being shy about the fact
5:39
Speaker 6: that he's not very happy with Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine's president,
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Speaker 6: right now. He talked about that in an interview on
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Speaker 6: Newsmax last night.
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Speaker 8: Zelensky is not a good guy for us to deal with.
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Speaker 8: Biden gave him hundreds of billions of dollars, billions and
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Speaker 8: billions of dollars.
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Speaker 1: Have you lost faith in him?
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Speaker 8: Well, I think if they're going to end up with
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Speaker 8: a settlement of some kind, they're not going to do
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Speaker 8: it with him. He doesn't want to settle. He says
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Speaker 8: he wants to settle, but he doesn't. No, I'm not
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Speaker 8: a big fan of Zelensky. They've destroyed that country.
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Speaker 6: He's not a big fan of Zelensky, he says, Tyler,
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Speaker 6: and we have seen this kind of pattern of him
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Speaker 6: being unsatisfied with the Ukrainian president and then drawing him closer.
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Speaker 6: It was just, what, a few weeks ago that he
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Speaker 6: met with him on the sidelines of the U.N.? General Assembly.
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Speaker 6: What might this mean for further negotiations and the U.S.
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Speaker 1: 's involvement?
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Speaker 7: It has been a push and pull of the relationship,
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Speaker 7: as we have covered at this point for months. Interestingly enough,
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Speaker 7: we did again hear from the Ukrainian president earlier this
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Speaker 7: morning who said that he is expecting the U.S. and
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Speaker 7: Ukraine negotiators to meet soon despite this escalation. So perhaps
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Speaker 7: that Brings us back to what has been this cycle
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Speaker 7: of ups and downs. We do know that the U.S.
6:52
Speaker 7: was trying to jumpstart negotiations. We saw some a couple
6:56
Speaker 7: of weeks ago in Miami that didn't really seem to
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Speaker 7: yield anything fruitful or tangible, especially as President Trump had
7:04
Speaker 7: started this week calling for an energy truce. And we
7:07
Speaker 7: are ending this week with only more attacks when it
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Speaker 7: comes to energy infrastructure issues. Ukraine attacking Russian diesel refineries
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Speaker 7: in retaliation for Russia hitting Ukrainian gas infrastructure and power plants.
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Speaker 7: We mentioned this last hour on the program, but a
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Speaker 7: new report out from the United Nations today finds that
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Speaker 7: civilian casualties in Ukraine jumped 85 percent in September from
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Speaker 7: the month before as we continue to see escalation in
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Speaker 7: the wrong direction.
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Speaker 4: All right.
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Speaker 6: Tyler Kendall, our Washington correspondent. Tyler, thanks so much, as always.
7:39
Speaker 6: And we want to get more on Ukraine now. As
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Speaker 6: we turn to Melinda Herring, we're a senior fellow at
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Speaker 6: the Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center who travels to the country
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Speaker 6: frequently and, of course, comes on this program to share
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Speaker 6: her insights often. Melinda, it's good to have you back,
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Speaker 6: especially given the week that Ukraine has had and that
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Speaker 6: Zelensky in particular has had in relation to to President Trump.
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Speaker 1: What do you make of this latest breakdown?
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Speaker 6: And does Zelensky risk allowing the rift to widen too far?
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Speaker 9: Hey, Kayleigh, it's great to be with you. So it
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Speaker 9: has been a week that we will all remember. It
8:17
Speaker 9: might be accurate to say that U.S.-Ukrainian relations are at
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Speaker 9: the lowest point we've seen since that Oval Office visit
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Speaker 9: last year. It's hard to believe we're back there again.
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Speaker 9: I think one of the big questions I have, is
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Speaker 9: it repairable? And I think that it may be repairable.
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Speaker 9: Remember that President Trump is someone who feuds and then
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Speaker 9: he forgets. If you look at his long-term lawyer, Michael Cohen,
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Speaker 9: he went to jail, and now Trump is friendly with
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Speaker 9: him again. So it may be repairable, but the real
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Speaker 9: question now is, can Ukraine get through this winter? I
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Speaker 9: think I say this every year to you, and I
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Speaker 9: believe it when I say it, but this winter is different.
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Speaker 9: Ukraine is out of patriots. It doesn't have enough air defense.
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Speaker 9: And the Starlink Starshield outage is tremendously damaging for the
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Speaker 9: front line, both for Ukraine's ability to defend itself and
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Speaker 9: also for civilians along the front line.
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Speaker 6: OK, there's a few different things there, Melinda. Let's talk
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Speaker 6: about being out of Patriots. What alternatives does Ukraine have
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Speaker 6: to defend itself in the absence of them?
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Speaker 9: So you remember Ukraine was trying to get an agreement
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Speaker 9: with President Trump for patriots, and that fell through, and
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Speaker 9: then it was back and forth.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and for licensing.
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Speaker 9: Right. And it's not going to go anywhere and it's
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Speaker 9: going to take too long. So there's alternative air defense systems,
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Speaker 9: but the Patriots are the ones that take down the ballistics.
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Speaker 9: There's not a great alternative. So right now, the name
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Speaker 9: of the game, President Zelensky is working the phones. He
9:45
Speaker 9: always works the phones, but he's working them harder than
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Speaker 9: he has because he needs Patriots. They don't have any.
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Speaker 9: And these ballistics are starting to get through. So there
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Speaker 9: are a number of countries in Western Europe and also
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Speaker 9: Asia that have additional Patriot interceptors. So President Zelensky needs
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Speaker 9: to convince the Japanese and the South Koreans, the Italians
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Speaker 9: and the Spanish, just to give you some examples, to
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Speaker 9: give them their extra interceptors. I don't know if he'll
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Speaker 9: be successful, but that's high on his priority list.
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Speaker 6: Well, so if he can get the interceptors to help
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Speaker 6: defend against Russian attacks, Melinda, it's also a question as
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Speaker 6: to whether or not he is going to continue to
10:23
Speaker 6: be able to get information about incoming attacks, because that
10:26
Speaker 6: was part of the story this week was not just
10:28
Speaker 6: the slowing of of Starshield, but also perhaps a lack
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Speaker 6: of sharing information in a timely manner about Russian missiles
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Speaker 6: and drones that were heading Ukraine's way. If we were
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Speaker 6: to actually see a reduction in intelligence sharing information, by
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Speaker 6: the United States, what would that mean for Ukraine right now?
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Speaker 1: Great question.
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Speaker 9: It's not the end of the world. It's bad. But
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Speaker 9: Ukraine does have alternative intel sharing arrangements that it can
10:54
Speaker 9: arrange with Europe. And it's working on its own system.
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Speaker 9: So it would make things difficult. But it's not the
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Speaker 9: end of the war is how I would answer that
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Speaker 9: question really directly.
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Speaker 10: Hmm.
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Speaker 6: Well, you've made a few references to the Europeans stepping
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Speaker 6: in to provide help as they can to Ukraine. The
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Speaker 6: Latvian prime minister was actually on Bloomberg earlier this morning
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Speaker 6: talking about Europe's alliance with Ukraine and going as far
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Speaker 6: as to suggest that really Europe is the only entity
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Speaker 6: on Ukraine's side right now.
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Speaker 1: Just listen, Melinda.
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Speaker 11: We see that Zelensky has only one ally now. It's
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Speaker 11: actually Europeans. We're the ones backing him up, and that's
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Speaker 11: what I want to tell him. We're all fully backing
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Speaker 11: and doing all the best we can do from our side,
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Speaker 11: and that's how it's going to stay.
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Speaker 1: Do you agree with Andrius Kuhlberg's assessment, Melinda?
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Speaker 11: Yeah.
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Speaker 9: I'm glad that Europe is standing up and it is
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Speaker 9: giving weapons and it's doing its part. But I disagree
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Speaker 9: politely because when I look at the American people, Americans
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Speaker 9: overwhelmingly still support Ukraine. And even among Republicans, there is
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Speaker 9: strong support. So the actions of the White House over
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Speaker 9: the last week are unpopular. When you look at public
12:16
Speaker 9: opinion polling, 53% of Americans support say that they support U.S.
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Speaker 9: sanctions on Russian oil and gas, which is fueling the
12:24
Speaker 9: war economy. So I think there is still strong support
12:28
Speaker 9: for Ukraine within the American public. It's a question of
12:33
Speaker 9: making that known. And we see Congress Republicans and Democrats
12:36
Speaker 9: speaking out both about this outage with Starlink and also
12:40
Speaker 9: the diesel deal, which you've covered. So I wouldn't say
12:42
Speaker 9: that Ukraine is alone at this point. There's still there's
12:46
Speaker 9: still Starlink. There's still Intel sharing the Pearl deal. This
12:49
Speaker 9: is the deal that allows the Europeans to buy American
12:53
Speaker 9: weapons is still ongoing. And there's still some legacy deliveries
12:57
Speaker 9: from from the Biden administration as well. And the American people.
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Speaker 9: So the other conversation that I am having this week
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Speaker 9: is Americans are really upset and they're giving more and
13:05
Speaker 9: more money to charity. They're giving more money to Ukrainian
13:08
Speaker 9: charities because they they're ashamed of what's happening in Washington, D.C.
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Speaker 6: Well, and on that notion of Americans being upset of
13:18
Speaker 6: both Republicans and Democrats wanting to stand on the side
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Speaker 6: of Ukraine and not on Russia, we did see both
13:25
Speaker 6: Republicans and Democrats in a bipartisan manner passing that Russia
13:29
Speaker 6: sanctions bill that President Trump signed into law. Part of
13:32
Speaker 6: that bill, though, Melinda, said that the president within 30
13:35
Speaker 6: days needed to use the tools that empowered him with
13:38
Speaker 6: enforcing tariffs on buyers of Russian oil. And that 30-day
13:42
Speaker 6: window ends on Sunday. What signal would it send to
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Speaker 6: the Kremlin if the president doesn't do any of it
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Speaker 6: by then?
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Speaker 9: That's a great question. So all eyes are on the
13:53
Speaker 9: White House right now. They have two days to make
13:55
Speaker 9: a decision on the Lindsey Graham sanctioning bill. So we
14:00
Speaker 9: simply don't know which way they're going to go. We see, though,
14:02
Speaker 9: a group of congresspeople urging them to live up to
14:05
Speaker 9: the expectations of that bill. If they don't put these
14:09
Speaker 9: sanctions in place— It's going to send a very strong
14:12
Speaker 9: message that the bill was a farce and that there's
14:16
Speaker 9: nothing really behind it. And it also says really terrible
14:20
Speaker 9: things about executive power and the nature of democracy in America.
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Speaker 6: Well, and it is kind of striking to consider that
14:30
Speaker 6: the president at least was empowered to say, punish buyers
14:33
Speaker 6: of Russian oil at the very same time that he
14:35
Speaker 6: struck a deal to allow more Russian diesel onto the
14:38
Speaker 6: global market. He's actually speaking with reporters at the White
14:40
Speaker 6: House right now about that, Melinda, saying that it's not
14:43
Speaker 6: just a U.S. deal, that it's a world deal. This
14:45
Speaker 6: is about the global market, but this is Russian product
14:48
Speaker 6: that will be sold globally.
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Speaker 1: How does that.
14:51
Speaker 6: Incrementally advantage the Kremlin? What kind of revenue source is it?
14:57
Speaker 9: So the deal that went through last Friday is not
15:02
Speaker 9: an everlasting deal. There's no economist in the world that
15:05
Speaker 9: thinks that this is going to bring prices down. The
15:09
Speaker 9: Institute for the Study of War also just did a
15:12
Speaker 9: really interesting study, and it shows that the Ukrainian strikes
15:17
Speaker 9: on refineries in Russia is not what's driving prices up.
15:20
Speaker 9: So I think President Trump needs to get some new
15:24
Speaker 9: advice and some new briefings on diesel prices.
15:30
Speaker 6: All right, Melinda Herring of the Atlantic Council, always great
15:32
Speaker 6: to have your thoughts on Ukraine. We appreciate you joining
15:35
Speaker 6: us on Balance of Power. And President Trump isn't just
15:38
Speaker 6: weighing in on Ukraine. As we've told you, he's talking
15:41
Speaker 6: about a few other things with reporters at the White
15:42
Speaker 6: House right now, too, including floating the idea that maybe
15:45
Speaker 6: the new press secretary, Katie Zachariah, would be happier not
15:49
Speaker 6: serving in that role. He says he'll talk to her
15:53
Speaker 6: about it when he gets back from Georgia, where, of course,
15:55
Speaker 6: he's traveling, too. He's talking to reporters on his way
15:58
Speaker 6: to getting on the helicopter to get on the plane
16:00
Speaker 6: to go down to Dalton, Georgia to campaign for Mike Collins.
16:04
Speaker 6: So we'll get into the political dynamics around Georgia with
16:07
Speaker 6: our political panel. And I would imagine they have a
16:09
Speaker 6: thought or two on Katie Zachariah as well.
16:11
Speaker 12: Stay with us on Balance of Power. We'll have much
16:14
Speaker 12: more coming up after this.
16:18
Speaker 5: You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast. Catch
16:22
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16:37
Speaker 6: I'm Kayleigh Lyons in Washington, where President Trump has just
16:41
Speaker 6: aborted Marine One. He's en route to Joint Base Andrews
16:44
Speaker 6: to get on Air Force One to travel to Dalton, Georgia,
16:46
Speaker 6: to stump for Republican Senate candidate Mike Collins and others
16:51
Speaker 6: in the Peach State. En route out of the White House, though,
16:55
Speaker 6: he stopped to talk to reporters and fielded a number
16:57
Speaker 6: of questions about his brand new press secretary, Katie Zachariah,
17:01
Speaker 6: who had her debut briefing earlier this week, didn't go
17:04
Speaker 6: particularly well, was quite short. She has been taking a
17:08
Speaker 6: lot of flack for that, and the president suggests the
17:10
Speaker 6: media is treating her unfairly, saying that if he were her,
17:15
Speaker 6: he might reconsider the job. And now we have some
17:20
Speaker 6: news from Fox News, which says that a senior White
17:24
Speaker 6: House official has told Peter Doocy that Katie Zachariah is, quote,
17:29
Speaker 6: transitioning out of the press secretary position. She only lasted
17:35
Speaker 6: in that position, it seems, for a couple days, if
17:38
Speaker 6: this is true. So let's play this now to our
17:40
Speaker 6: political panel. Rick Davis and Jeannie Shanzano are with me.
17:43
Speaker 6: Both of them Bloomberg Politics contributors. Jeannie, a Democratic analyst
17:46
Speaker 6: and Democracy Visiting Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School's Ash Center. Rick,
17:50
Speaker 6: a Republican strategist and partner at Stonecourt Capital. Rick, this
17:55
Speaker 6: is not confirmation from the president.
17:56
Speaker 1: I want to be clear.
17:57
Speaker 6: The president seemed like he was leaving this up to
17:59
Speaker 6: her as he talked about it with reporters, but he
18:01
Speaker 6: certainly wasn't stepping up to say he defends her and
18:04
Speaker 6: wants her to stay in this role. He said that
18:07
Speaker 6: he thinks she would be happier not doing it, given
18:10
Speaker 6: the treatment that she's getting right now from the media.
18:13
Speaker 6: Would you be surprised if she doesn't even last as
18:16
Speaker 6: long as half of an Anthony Scaramucci?
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Speaker 2: There's kind of a betting pool on her longevity here
18:22
Speaker 2: in Washington these days. Look, she was on last night
18:27
Speaker 2: to try and fix some of these problems around her, quote,
18:29
Speaker 2: legal career on Fox TV. Couldn't have gotten a more
18:35
Speaker 2: opportunistic chance to clean it all up. And from what
18:39
Speaker 2: I could tell, she didn't do a very good job
18:41
Speaker 2: because she was back on this morning with the sort
18:43
Speaker 2: of make good. And Fox asked her this morning, hey,
18:47
Speaker 2: do you have anything you want to add to your
18:48
Speaker 2: interview last night?
18:49
Speaker 9: Meaning, can you clean this up, please?
18:52
Speaker 2: Or you're going to lose your job. She's like, no,
18:55
Speaker 2: everything's good on this. Tone deaf, I think, is not
19:00
Speaker 2: a quality you want in your press secretary. All this
19:04
Speaker 2: at a time when we're starting to hear about cracks
19:06
Speaker 2: in the White House. leadership, you know, issues that Susie
19:11
Speaker 2: Wiles is having with some of the teams. So my
19:14
Speaker 2: guess is that it's always hard during election time to
19:18
Speaker 2: be inside the bunker. But this sounds like the bunker's
19:22
Speaker 2: having some water taken on pretty quickly. So yeah, does
19:25
Speaker 2: she even make it to Anthony Scaramucci's 11 days?
19:30
Speaker 6: Yeah, it has not even been, what, five days at
19:34
Speaker 6: this point, Jeannie? So weigh in here, because as Fox
19:37
Speaker 6: is reporting, she's transitioning out of the press secretary position.
19:42
Speaker 1: Should she have any position in the.
19:44
Speaker 6: White House if this is how her debut within it went?
19:48
Speaker 4: Yeah, if she's at five, Kayleigh, if she's at five,
19:49
Speaker 4: I don't know. like half a Scaramucci? Is that what
19:52
Speaker 4: we're at? That's quite a record to be at. And,
19:55
Speaker 4: you know, listening to these comments that we're hearing from
20:00
Speaker 4: the president about she'd feel better if she wasn't in
20:03
Speaker 4: this position, maybe she wants to reconsider the position. I
20:08
Speaker 4: I have to say this is a kinder and gentler
20:11
Speaker 4: Donald Trump than we knew from The Apprentice. He was
20:14
Speaker 4: always like, you're fired, you're fired. That was his brand.
20:17
Speaker 4: Now it's like maybe you'll feel better if you step away. So, yeah,
20:22
Speaker 4: I think they will likely give her something to do
20:26
Speaker 4: behind the scenes at the White House if she wants it.
20:29
Speaker 4: In her defense, this is a heck of a time
20:32
Speaker 4: to have been moved into this position, apparently without sort
20:37
Speaker 4: of the discussion that might have been necessary with Susie Wiles,
20:42
Speaker 4: the chief of staff. You know, Donald Trump apparently planned
20:47
Speaker 4: that press conference that Bloomberg was covering. And, you know,
20:51
Speaker 4: it was all of 14 minutes or something and really,
20:54
Speaker 4: really not a very good first showing. She needed more time.
20:58
Speaker 4: I was listening to a former press secretary the other
21:00
Speaker 4: day say they took two months to transition from deputy
21:04
Speaker 4: to press secretary. So, you know, that is the way
21:08
Speaker 4: you do it. You don't just hoist a newcomer into
21:11
Speaker 4: that terrible, difficult position. And I'm not saying, Kaylee, that
21:15
Speaker 4: you reporters are terrible. I'm saying it's a tough position.
21:18
Speaker 4: It's a tough crowd.
21:19
Speaker 9: You need to.
21:20
Speaker 4: Have been working at it. You need to have been
21:23
Speaker 4: prepared for it. And she clearly wasn't. So move her
21:26
Speaker 4: someplace where she's not right up in front of these folks.
21:31
Speaker 6: Well, Katie, Zachariah might not be long for her position
21:34
Speaker 6: within the White House, Rick, but there's also a question
21:38
Speaker 6: about Susie Wiles, the chief of staff, after reporting in
21:41
Speaker 6: Politico this week that indicated the president's been asking around
21:44
Speaker 6: about how people feel about Susie Wiles. He just defended
21:49
Speaker 6: her in this same period of remarks to reporters as
21:52
Speaker 6: he was saying that Katie Zachariah might need to reconsider.
21:56
Speaker 6: He was saying that Susie Wiles has been great pushing
21:58
Speaker 6: back on the reporting. But would it be unusual to
22:01
Speaker 6: see a chief of staff depart just after a midterm
22:04
Speaker 6: election cycle, especially if it does turn out to be
22:06
Speaker 6: a bruising one?
22:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's never a good time for a chief of
22:11
Speaker 2: staff to exit the White House under any circumstances. We
22:15
Speaker 2: become dependent upon them for information and management. And when
22:20
Speaker 2: they go, you hate thinking there's a vacuum that's created there.
22:24
Speaker 2: That being said, yes, a lot of White House staff
22:27
Speaker 2: transition out after a couple of years. It's a very
22:30
Speaker 2: difficult environment, especially going through midterms. And so you would
22:35
Speaker 2: expect to see a lot of senior management changes, both
22:39
Speaker 2: inside the White House, but also around the cabinet and subcabinet.
22:42
Speaker 2: So I think we can expect to see movement here,
22:46
Speaker 2: whether Susie Wiles succumbs to some of the pressure that
22:49
Speaker 2: she's under, you know, her former collaborators in the White House,
22:53
Speaker 2: you know, have been caught taking money from, you know,
22:56
Speaker 2: Russia type candidates in Europe, you know, same firm that
23:01
Speaker 2: her daughter works for. I mean, these are all pressures
23:04
Speaker 2: she did not need in what is already a very
23:07
Speaker 2: difficult midterm.
23:10
Speaker 6: Well, and speaking to the difficulty of the midterms, that's
23:13
Speaker 6: why President Trump has been keeping quite the pace of
23:16
Speaker 6: travel schedule, largely to red states. Jeannie, today, though, he's
23:20
Speaker 6: traveling to a swing state, which he did win in 2024.
23:23
Speaker 1: He's going down to Dalton, Georgia.
23:24
Speaker 6: He'll be rallying there in just over an hour or
23:27
Speaker 6: so alongside Mike Collins, the Republican Senate nominee. We expect
23:31
Speaker 6: the Republican gubernatorial nominee, Rick Jackson, will.
23:33
Speaker 1: Be there, too.
23:34
Speaker 6: What kind of sway does the president have in a
23:37
Speaker 6: state like this? Is his presence potentially a danger to
23:43
Speaker 6: John Ossoff and Keisha Lance Bottoms? Could it provide fuel
23:46
Speaker 6: to their Republican opponents?
23:49
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, Ossoff has been and is way ahead
23:52
Speaker 4: in the polls. So he'd have to make up a
23:54
Speaker 4: lot of ground for Collins if he was able to
23:57
Speaker 4: do that. We also should note that early voting has
24:00
Speaker 4: already started in Georgia.
24:02
Speaker 9: So some of this is baked in.
24:04
Speaker 1: Jackson is a different story.
24:06
Speaker 4: Within the margin of error, he is leading in most polls,
24:09
Speaker 4: you know, one, two, three percentage points at the gubernatorial level.
24:13
Speaker 4: And that's critically important because one of the under-told stories
24:16
Speaker 4: of this election cycle is that Democrats at the gubernatorial
24:21
Speaker 4: level are doing much, much better than expected and may
24:25
Speaker 4: win in at least 10 or more states where Donald
24:29
Speaker 4: Trump won. That would be a big story. So it's
24:32
Speaker 4: really important. He tries to keep Georgia in the Republican
24:37
Speaker 4: side with Jackson, who, again, is narrowly up in the polls. But,
24:41
Speaker 4: you know, if he's going to make this work, he
24:43
Speaker 4: cannot do what he has been doing while he's been.
24:47
Speaker 9: Out in these other states.
24:48
Speaker 4: And I just noted coming across on the Bloomberg terminal
24:52
Speaker 4: the comments that he keeps making and is making right
24:54
Speaker 4: at this moment about the economy being the best ever
24:57
Speaker 4: in the world. It's the greatest economy. He's out in
25:00
Speaker 4: Arizona the other day saying things like the economy is
25:04
Speaker 4: better than anybody ever saw in the entire world.
25:07
Speaker 9: I mean, it's astonishing.
25:09
Speaker 4: Just look at the price of gas alone and people
25:12
Speaker 4: know what they are facing at the pump and at
25:15
Speaker 4: the grocery store. So he seems completely out of touch
25:19
Speaker 4: with what the people of Georgia and people around the
25:22
Speaker 4: country are feeling as they go to the gas pump.
25:25
Speaker 4: If he can correct some of his commentary, he might
25:28
Speaker 4: have a shot of getting his supporters out. But the
25:30
Speaker 4: enthusiasm level is pretty low amongst Republicans right now who
25:34
Speaker 4: are really feeling like this election, particularly in the House
25:37
Speaker 4: and maybe in the Senate, is lost to them.
25:41
Speaker 6: Rick, do you feel like they're saving Mike Collins at
25:44
Speaker 6: this point? Or could this really be about Rick Jackson
25:46
Speaker 6: and trying to hold on to a Republican governor's mansion?
25:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's no effort to try and prop up the
25:53
Speaker 2: Senate race there. I think Republicans all agree Ossoff's lapping
25:57
Speaker 2: this one and spending money and time on that doesn't
26:00
Speaker 2: make any sense. Rick Jackson is in a tight race
26:04
Speaker 2: with Keisha Lance Bottoms, and there has been a noticeable
26:09
Speaker 2: shift in the president's interest in these governor's races, like
26:13
Speaker 2: Jeannie mentioned. You know, there's not a whole lot that
26:18
Speaker 2: the president can do on these Senate races, especially with
26:21
Speaker 2: the issue set. And Rick Jackson is having a little
26:25
Speaker 2: bit of a moment here where he's improving in some
26:29
Speaker 2: of the polls. But as Jeannie points out, with half
26:32
Speaker 2: a million people already voting, Democrats exceed the Republican count
26:37
Speaker 2: by about 80,000. So it's a good time for the
26:39
Speaker 2: president to go into a base area like Dalton. It
26:43
Speaker 2: makes me laugh, though, that it's Marjorie Taylor Greene's old
26:46
Speaker 2: district that he's in today. I mean, like all politics
26:49
Speaker 2: is circular.
26:51
Speaker 7: Yeah.
26:52
Speaker 6: And we know how Marjorie Taylor Greene currently feels about
26:55
Speaker 6: President Trump. She's not shy about that on social media.
26:58
Speaker 6: Just quickly, Jeannie, while the president's going to Georgia, we
27:00
Speaker 6: obviously saw the vice president in Michigan yesterday attacking the
27:04
Speaker 6: Democratic Senate nominee, Abdul El-Sayed, trying to prop up Mike Rogers.
27:09
Speaker 1: Is J.D.
27:09
Speaker 6: Vance potentially a better messenger for Republicans than the president
27:14
Speaker 6: is right now?
27:16
Speaker 4: I can't believe I'm going to say this, Kayleigh, but no,
27:19
Speaker 4: I mean, the president has not been doing a great job.
27:23
Speaker 1: But J.D.
27:24
Speaker 4: Vance, in my mind, is doing worse, calling candidates a weasel.
27:29
Speaker 4: This is not the stuff of J.D. Vance or the
27:31
Speaker 4: vice presidency. He could do a lot better on focusing
27:34
Speaker 4: what the White House and the administration are going to
27:36
Speaker 4: do on the economy.
27:39
Speaker 9: All right.
27:39
Speaker 6: Jeannie Shanzano and Rick Davis, our political panel, thank you
27:42
Speaker 6: both so much for weighing in on the midterms landscape
27:44
Speaker 6: and also the White House press secretary, which now the
27:48
Speaker 6: New York Times is reporting has been relieved of her position.
27:51
Speaker 1: The New York Times reporting Katie.
27:52
Speaker 6: Zachariah is out as White House press secretary. This, of course,
27:56
Speaker 6: is after Fox reported that she would be transitioning out
27:58
Speaker 6: of that role, with President Trump having just told reporters
28:01
Speaker 6: that he would reconsider if he were her secretary. We'll
28:04
Speaker 6: continue to follow this story here on Balance of Power.
28:07
Speaker 12: Stay with us on Balance of Power. We'll have much
28:09
Speaker 12: more coming up after this.
28:31
Speaker 6: It was Friday a week ago, October 9th, that President
28:34
Speaker 6: Trump announced he was naming Katie Zachariah as the next
28:38
Speaker 6: White House press secretary. Her term officially began on Monday,
28:43
Speaker 6: this past Monday. October 12th, her first briefing was the
28:47
Speaker 6: morning of Tuesday, October 13th. I think you've all heard
28:50
Speaker 6: by now how exactly that went for her. And now
28:53
Speaker 6: on Friday, October 16th, not even five full days after
28:57
Speaker 6: her term began, the New York Times is reporting that
29:00
Speaker 6: Katie Zachariah has been fired from her role as the
29:05
Speaker 6: White House press secretary. So let's get more on this
29:07
Speaker 6: now as we turn to Tyler Kendall, Bloomberg Washington correspondent,
29:11
Speaker 6: who is back with me here. in our DC studio. Tyler,
29:15
Speaker 6: this might be a record for shortest tenure for a
29:18
Speaker 6: Trump press secretary. This is what, half the time that
29:21
Speaker 6: Anthony Scaramucci lasted in the first term?
29:23
Speaker 1: That was 11 days. This is less than five.
29:25
Speaker 7: It is a pretty stunning announcement, a pretty remarkable development,
29:29
Speaker 7: but it does go to underscore perhaps how dismayed President
29:32
Speaker 7: Trump was with Katie Zachariah's first appearance, first and final
29:36
Speaker 7: appearance in the White House briefing room. He himself alluded
29:40
Speaker 7: to that, telling reporters less than an hour ago that
29:43
Speaker 7: he had encouraged her to, quote, reconsider the job, adding, quote, honestly,
29:48
Speaker 7: if I were you, I'd reconsider. That is what he
29:51
Speaker 7: told reporters when recounting this conversation with his now former
29:56
Speaker 7: press secretary, according to this reporting. Now, Zachariah had faced
30:00
Speaker 7: scrutiny about whether she misrepresented herself as a lawyer despite
30:04
Speaker 7: failing her bar exam. We had heard President Trump refer
30:07
Speaker 7: to her as an attorney. And some of the scrutiny
30:09
Speaker 7: came even from conservative media. She had held this interview
30:13
Speaker 7: last night with Sean Hannity, who had pressed her on
30:16
Speaker 7: her background. Keep in mind, we'll see what does ultimately
30:21
Speaker 7: happen here yet as we await official confirmation from the
30:23
Speaker 7: White House side. We should say that there was a
30:26
Speaker 7: six-week gap between the former press secretary, Caroline Leavitt, leaving
30:31
Speaker 7: the role and Katie Zachariah ultimately being announced as appointed
30:36
Speaker 7: to the press secretary position. We'll have to see if
30:40
Speaker 7: we have to wait long for her replacement to be
30:42
Speaker 7: announced because what we really saw in those weeks was
30:45
Speaker 7: a rotating cast of the cabinet secretaries coming out to
30:49
Speaker 7: brief the press. There wasn't really this rush to have
30:52
Speaker 7: somebody in that position, but now we're so close the
30:56
Speaker 7: midterm elections that no doubt is going to raise questions
30:59
Speaker 7: about what the messaging operation is going to look like
31:02
Speaker 7: from this.
31:02
Speaker 6: White house well if or if president trump will just
31:04
Speaker 6: power it himself she herself in that uh very short
31:07
Speaker 6: briefing on tuesday said i'm going to stop taking questions
31:11
Speaker 6: now the president's going to go to marine one and
31:13
Speaker 6: he'll answer your questions directly in many ways this president
31:17
Speaker 6: more so than others in the past kind of not
31:20
Speaker 6: serves as its own press secretary but certainly has a
31:22
Speaker 6: more open relationship directly with the press than many of
31:25
Speaker 6: his predecessors.
31:26
Speaker 7: And Caroline Lovett said that in her departing comments when
31:29
Speaker 7: she was leaving as press secretary. He said he does
31:32
Speaker 7: the job basically on his own. Still with that said,
31:35
Speaker 7: the press secretary serves other essential functions beyond what you
31:39
Speaker 7: see in the briefing room, including answering questions from reporters
31:43
Speaker 7: on a daily basis and sort of fielding how those
31:46
Speaker 7: end up going, how events could be structured, things like that.
31:50
Speaker 7: So there is going to have to be somebody that
31:52
Speaker 7: does ultimately fill that role. Whether they fill it as
31:55
Speaker 7: a messenger for the administration probably remains to be seen,
31:59
Speaker 7: but we're so close. to the midterms, that no doubt
32:02
Speaker 7: is going to put even more of a highlight on
32:04
Speaker 7: how President Trump himself has been hitting the campaign trail
32:08
Speaker 7: nearly every day, this report coming as he is now
32:12
Speaker 7: en route to Georgia for another midterm event.
32:14
Speaker 6: Yeah, I wonder if he'll be addressing this at all
32:16
Speaker 6: on the stage down in Dalton. Tyler Kendall, joining us
32:19
Speaker 6: with that breaking news.
32:20
Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
32:21
Speaker 6: Again, The New York Times reporting that Katie Zachariah has
32:23
Speaker 6: been fired from the role of the White House press secretary.
32:28
Speaker 6: And yes, the timing is interesting as we are just
32:30
Speaker 6: 18 days out from the midterm elections. That is one
32:32
Speaker 6: of the big news areas that we are focusing on
32:35
Speaker 6: in the month of November. But we are still expecting
32:37
Speaker 6: November to bring something else very big for financial markets specifically.
32:42
Speaker 6: That would be the IPO of Anthropic. Of course, Anthropic's
32:47
Speaker 6: IPO is something that the New York City controller, as
32:50
Speaker 6: we told you.
32:50
Speaker 1: Yesterday, would like to see slowed down.
32:53
Speaker 6: Mark Levine penned a letter to Dario Amadei, the CEO
32:56
Speaker 6: of Anthropic, suggesting that if they really want to focus
32:58
Speaker 6: on safety concerns, they would pause the IPO process for now.
33:03
Speaker 6: And he joined my colleagues Jonathan Farrow and Anne-Marie Hordern
33:06
Speaker 6: on Bloomberg Surveillance this morning to talk about it further.
33:08
Speaker 7: Listen.
33:09
Speaker 10: I support frontier AI companies ultimately going public because I
33:13
Speaker 10: want democratic control of world-changing technology. I want the transparency.
33:19
Speaker 10: I want the broader public to have a piece of this.
33:22
Speaker 10: So I am not opposed to public listing of these companies,
33:26
Speaker 10: but it's got to be done right. It's got to
33:27
Speaker 10: be done when it's safe.
33:32
Speaker 6: Of course, the public listing, as we know, is still
33:34
Speaker 6: on track for next month, which is a contrast to
33:38
Speaker 6: Anthropix competitor OpenAI. Sam Altman, the CEO there, has, of course,
33:42
Speaker 6: suggested that doing the safety work he wants to focus
33:44
Speaker 6: on would be harder to do as a public company.
33:47
Speaker 6: than continuing to be a private one. And as we
33:49
Speaker 6: think about these safety concerns and the wider AI landscape
33:53
Speaker 6: right now, we turn back to Gregory Allen, who is
33:55
Speaker 6: here with me in our Washington, D.C.
33:57
Speaker 8: Studio.
33:57
Speaker 6: He is founder and CEO of Decision Tree Research. He's
34:00
Speaker 6: also former director of strategy and policy at the Department
34:03
Speaker 6: of Defense Joint Artificial Intelligence Center.
34:06
Speaker 1: Good to have you back, Greg.
34:07
Speaker 6: As always, thank you for joining me. Can we start
34:10
Speaker 6: just broadly on this notion that it's harder for a
34:13
Speaker 6: public company to address safety around AI specifically.
34:17
Speaker 1: Do you subscribe to that idea?
34:19
Speaker 3: Well, I think you can see in principle how that
34:21
Speaker 3: would be true. If you are accountable to shareholders and
34:25
Speaker 3: you're accountable to them for financial returns, how are you
34:29
Speaker 3: going to say that you're going to reliably make decisions
34:32
Speaker 3: that prioritize safety over returns? I think Anthropic is insulated
34:37
Speaker 3: from this criticism in two ways. Number one is they
34:40
Speaker 3: are a public benefit corporation. They have the ability to
34:43
Speaker 3: say that they have a fiduciary duty that is to
34:46
Speaker 3: something other than instantaneous quarterly profit expansion. And at the
34:50
Speaker 3: same time, Anthropic has a theory of the case for
34:54
Speaker 3: how safety is the mechanism by which they are increasing
34:58
Speaker 3: their business. When Dario says that he is paranoid about
35:02
Speaker 3: all the ways that AI could be going wrong, that
35:05
Speaker 3: paranoia is almost an endorsement of working with this model, right?
35:09
Speaker 3: Which company do you want to give your credit card
35:11
Speaker 3: information to? Probably the one that's safety obsessed.
35:15
Speaker 7: Right.
35:16
Speaker 6: Well, and that safety obsession the company has long had,
35:19
Speaker 6: and Dario Amadei has made calls for a kind of
35:22
Speaker 6: safety blueprint more universally across AI companies and calls for
35:26
Speaker 6: government regulation. Just a few months ago, we were having
35:30
Speaker 6: the conversation about how out of this White House, that
35:32
Speaker 6: government view seemed to be, do this on your own.
35:37
Speaker 6: Companies can self-police. This is what we were hearing from
35:39
Speaker 6: the president just a few weeks ago when he had
35:40
Speaker 6: all of these CEOs together. They were signing essentially a
35:44
Speaker 6: self-regulatory agreement.
35:45
Speaker 1: Agreement.
35:47
Speaker 6: But now the White House is suggesting that for some
35:49
Speaker 6: of these incidents, as Anthropic has reported, where the models
35:52
Speaker 6: have gone beyond their instructions, fixing those instances is in
35:55
Speaker 6: fact mandatory, not voluntary. How big of a break is
35:59
Speaker 6: that in the idea structure around this in this White House?
36:03
Speaker 3: So I think the volatility of the Trump administration on
36:08
Speaker 3: AI regulation policy, at least in its messaging, is extremely
36:12
Speaker 3: difficult to overstate, to put it mildly. There have been
36:15
Speaker 3: wild swings during the campaign. It was AI regulation is bad.
36:20
Speaker 3: AI safety is a hoax. Then you saw mythos. And
36:24
Speaker 3: then suddenly we were banning the fable model worldwide. And
36:28
Speaker 3: then Kimmy K3 of China came out back to let
36:31
Speaker 3: it rip. We don't need AI safety. That was the
36:33
Speaker 3: message going into the meeting with Xi Jinping. And then
36:36
Speaker 3: only a few weeks later, here we are again talking
36:39
Speaker 3: about mandatory AI regulation coming out of this Trump administration.
36:43
Speaker 3: And you better believe, even though the Trump administration didn't
36:46
Speaker 3: cite a legal authority, didn't specify a punishment, all of
36:50
Speaker 3: these companies saw what happened to Anthropic with the worldwide
36:54
Speaker 3: ban using export control authority of Fable 5 just for
36:57
Speaker 3: that week. And they know that the government means business
37:01
Speaker 3: when they say mandatory.
37:02
Speaker 1: They have to act on that.
37:04
Speaker 6: Well, part of the volatility perhaps around the administration's thinking
37:08
Speaker 6: has been due to this push and pull that President
37:10
Speaker 6: Trump has talked about in public, which is that he
37:14
Speaker 6: wants to allow the technology to go forward so that
37:17
Speaker 6: it can continue to outrun China's advancement in this technology.
37:21
Speaker 6: Even if he wants safety, he doesn't want safety-oriented regulation
37:24
Speaker 6: to hold U.S.
37:25
Speaker 1: Technology back. when it comes to China.
37:28
Speaker 6: How is that narrative evolving around China's capabilities right now
37:32
Speaker 6: and U.S. capabilities to continue to outrun them even with.
37:34
Speaker 1: Safety in mind?
37:35
Speaker 3: So it's totally right to say that this push and
37:38
Speaker 3: pull dynamic exists because there are real tensions between these
37:42
Speaker 3: issues exactly as you've outlined them. I think the good
37:45
Speaker 3: news here is that there are actually some research results
37:49
Speaker 3: that show the ability to slow down China's ability to
37:52
Speaker 3: distill American AI models, essentially to extract the intelligence by
37:57
Speaker 3: copying the hard work of American AI companies. We finally
38:00
Speaker 3: have some technical safeguards that are moving the needle. Anthropic
38:04
Speaker 3: disclosed this in a recent paper where they said that
38:06
Speaker 3: they were able to shut down 99% of distillation instances
38:11
Speaker 3: and also to reduce the efficacy of the ones that
38:14
Speaker 3: they couldn't necessarily catch in time. What that suggests is
38:18
Speaker 3: that China is going to continue making progress by copying
38:22
Speaker 3: the homework of American AI companies. for some period of
38:25
Speaker 3: time based on what they've already gotten, based on what
38:27
Speaker 3: they can get from the other companies that haven't yet
38:29
Speaker 3: replicated America's, or sorry, Anthropic's AI safeguards. But that might
38:34
Speaker 3: actually not keep going for the next two years, which
38:37
Speaker 3: would have been everybody's prediction even three months ago. So
38:42
Speaker 3: if the United States now has durable defenses, and that's
38:45
Speaker 3: yet to be proven, even anthropic acknowledges they don't know
38:48
Speaker 3: if these defenses will keep working in the cat and
38:50
Speaker 3: mouse game. But if that is the case, then perhaps
38:53
Speaker 3: we could extend our lead over China to an even
38:56
Speaker 3: more meaningful extent. And that might give American companies and
38:59
Speaker 3: the American government the space and time to think through
39:03
Speaker 3: more effective safeguards.
39:04
Speaker 6: Well, if there is a potential solve for the distillation
39:08
Speaker 6: issue and you still have export controls put around the
39:11
Speaker 6: actual chips that China is able to access to build
39:13
Speaker 6: up their own technology, if you keep them from the stack,
39:17
Speaker 6: could that effectively choke China out from this market in
39:20
Speaker 6: a pretty material way?
39:22
Speaker 3: Absolutely. I mean, you're not going to stop Chinese companies
39:25
Speaker 3: from dominating the Chinese market. But if you think about
39:29
Speaker 3: not just the American market, but the worldwide market, so
39:33
Speaker 3: much of China's success inside China and outside China is
39:37
Speaker 3: dependent upon the American AI stack. And you can see
39:40
Speaker 3: that not just in the computer chips, where China is
39:42
Speaker 3: continuing to try and buy all the Nvidia chips that
39:46
Speaker 3: they can possibly get, most recently with the Blackwell generation
39:49
Speaker 3: of RTX chips. Theoretically, those are gaming and graphics chips,
39:54
Speaker 3: but China is absolutely pumping them into their AI data
39:57
Speaker 3: center servers because that's what they're allowed to buy. There's
40:00
Speaker 3: also a massive amount of renting of AI chips going on.
40:04
Speaker 3: We saw Oracle announce a deal to lease data center
40:07
Speaker 3: capacity in Southeast Asia to a Chinese tech company, talking
40:11
Speaker 3: about hundreds of thousands of chips worth of capacity. So,
40:15
Speaker 3: so much of China's progress depends upon not just the
40:19
Speaker 3: talent and hard work of the Chinese people working at
40:21
Speaker 3: the Chinese companies, but also all these advantages that America's
40:27
Speaker 3: AI ecosystem is supplying. And while export controls have been effective,
40:30
Speaker 3: there's so much more we could be doing.
40:33
Speaker 6: We just have about a minute left here, Greg, on chips.
40:35
Speaker 6: We are seeing chip stocks getting pummeled once again today.
40:38
Speaker 6: This is the worst losing streak we've seen for the
40:40
Speaker 6: stocks going back to 2008. The concern here is all
40:43
Speaker 6: of this investment into the infrastructure powering artificial intelligence isn't
40:46
Speaker 6: going to provide the kind of return these valuations demand.
40:49
Speaker 6: Do you think investors have this story right right now?
40:51
Speaker 3: Well, I want to just point out the contrast between
40:54
Speaker 3: where we are now and where we were at the
40:55
Speaker 3: beginning of the year. You know, at December 2025 to
40:59
Speaker 3: May 2025, Anthropic's revenue run rate, so just taking the
41:03
Speaker 3: monthly total and annualizing it, increased fivefold in five months.
41:08
Speaker 3: If that's going to keep happening forever, sure, spend $ 5
41:11
Speaker 3: trillion on infrastructure. Where do I sign is basically the
41:15
Speaker 3: answer there. Now, revenue has continued to grow to an
41:18
Speaker 3: extraordinary extent, but it's not 5Xing every five months anymore.
41:23
Speaker 3: And so the investors have to ask themselves, we know
41:26
Speaker 3: that there is an easy way to justify a massive,
41:30
Speaker 3: massive investment in AI infrastructure. But right now, we're spending
41:33
Speaker 3: an Apollo moon program every four months. So can we
41:37
Speaker 3: justify something quite that massive? That's the real question.
41:40
Speaker 1: Indeed, it is. And the market's grappling with it right now.
41:43
Speaker 6: Greg Allen of Decision Tree Research, always great to have you.
41:45
Speaker 7: Thank you.
41:45
Speaker 1: And appreciate you joining us.
41:47
Speaker 6: I'll be back for more Balance of Power later this
41:50
Speaker 6: afternoon at 5 p.m.
41:51
Speaker 1: Eastern.
41:51
Speaker 6: And we'll return to the breaking news reported by The
41:53
Speaker 6: New York Times. Katie Zachariah is out as the White
41:56
Speaker 6: House press secretary.
42:00
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42:03
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Speaker 12: us live every weekday from Washington, D.C. at noontime Eastern
42:12
Speaker 12: at Bloomberg.com.