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P&L: Bloomberg's Meyer on the Sense of Growing Alarm in Kremlin · Bloomberg Intelligence

0:04
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg pm L podcast. I'm pim Fox.
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Speaker 1: Along with my co host Lisa Abramowitz. Each day we
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Speaker 1: bring you the most important, noteworthy, and useful interviews for
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Speaker 1: or the trading floor. Find the Bloomberg p L podcast
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Speaker 1: on iTunes, SoundCloud and at Bloomberg dot com pim Fox.
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Speaker 1: There has been a lot of discussion about the Kremlin's
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Speaker 1: response to the election of Donald Trump as the next
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Speaker 1: president of the US, and our Bloomberg News reporter Henry
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Speaker 1: Meyer has dug in and gotten a sense from behind
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Speaker 1: the scenes in Moscow what actually are Russian officials expecting
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Speaker 1: from President elect Trump's administration and just how excited they
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Speaker 1: may be. Henri, thank you so much for joining us.
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Speaker 1: You wrote this terrific story. Can you just give us
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Speaker 1: a snapshot of what the mood is among Russian officials
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Speaker 1: right now? I mean, I think what you're seeing at
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Speaker 1: the moment, you know, behind the scenes is a sense
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Speaker 1: of growing alarm, principally because they have seen how the
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Speaker 1: accusations of Russian interference in the election, of the ties
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Speaker 1: between Russia and Donald Trump are now snowballing, and there
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Speaker 1: is a sense that they don't know where this is heading.
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Speaker 1: Can you speak about Rex Tillerson and the Russian view
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Speaker 1: of his role not only in the administration, but his
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Speaker 1: role in the general US Russia relations. I mean, when
1:42
Speaker 1: his appointment was announced, there was a sense that this
1:46
Speaker 1: is someone we can do business with. It was very
1:50
Speaker 1: positively received. Obviously, during his confirmation hearing, there was a
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Speaker 1: different message that went out from Rex to listen, he
2:00
Speaker 1: called Russia a threat. The assumption here was that he
2:05
Speaker 1: had to take a tougher line on Russia in order
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Speaker 1: to win um, you know, the confidence of lawmakers and
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Speaker 1: and and get confirmed in his job. But I think
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Speaker 1: that they do now believe that a number of appointees
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Speaker 1: of Donald Trump you may turn out to have a
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Speaker 1: different view than Trump has on Russia, a more hawkish
2:26
Speaker 1: view and and and that's a problem. One of the
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Speaker 1: policies that Russia would most like to see changed coming
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Speaker 1: out of the US, I mean, first and foremost obviously
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Speaker 1: they want to see sanctions lifted, you know, whatever the
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Speaker 1: Russians say, and they put on a brave face and
2:46
Speaker 1: talk about how sanctions have actually had a positive impact
2:51
Speaker 1: by by getting them to become more self sufficient. It's
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Speaker 1: been a huge drag on growth because it's limited financing.
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Speaker 1: So that is probably the biggest thing they're looking for.
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Speaker 1: Other than that, they would be very happy to work
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Speaker 1: together with the US on fighting terrorism. That's something they've
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Speaker 1: been pushing for for a long time. And as well,
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Speaker 1: to that point, why hasn't the US been more cooperative
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Speaker 1: with Russia and fighting terrorism? Well, Syria has been a
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Speaker 1: huge area of disagreement. I mean, the US and Russia
3:25
Speaker 1: have tried to to reach agreement on that, but you know,
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Speaker 1: they they've always fell apart these agreements. So you know,
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Speaker 1: they are hoping that if Trump doesn't place any importance
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Speaker 1: on Assad's departure as the outgoing administration did, that they
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Speaker 1: can in fact find some common ground. Now Henry, the
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Speaker 1: nominee for US Ambassador to the United Nations, South Carolina
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Speaker 1: Governor and Nikki Hailey Calls said in a question during
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Speaker 1: her nomination hearing, said, I don't think that we can
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Speaker 1: trust them, meaning the Russians. Is this rhetoric or is
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Speaker 1: this just unveiling of of what the administration really feels. Well,
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Speaker 1: that's what the Russians are asking themselves. I mean, you know,
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Speaker 1: they certainly believe that you know that there's that there isn't.
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Speaker 1: These people have to take a tough line, you know,
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Speaker 1: and otherwise they're not going to get confirmed. Um. You know.
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Speaker 1: On the other hand, UM, I think they understand that
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Speaker 1: that there will be people in the administration who do
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Speaker 1: not share Trump's views. Now the issue is is he
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Speaker 1: going to rain them in, is he going to make
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Speaker 1: sure that everyone sticks to to to his stuns or not.
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Speaker 1: But they understand they will be dissenting voices within the administration.
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Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Henry Meyers, our politics and international
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Speaker 1: affairs reporter for Bloomberg News, joining us from Moscow, and
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Speaker 1: he gets to write fabulous sentences like this from Putin.
5:01
Speaker 1: I find it hard to believe that he President elect
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Speaker 1: Trump rushed to some hotel to meet girls of loose morals.
5:07
Speaker 1: Although ours are undoubtedly the best in the world. I'm
5:12
Speaker 1: not going to even try to top that one. This
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Speaker 1: is Bloomberg pim Fox. I have been looking at headlines
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Speaker 1: crossing my terminal all morning about just how optimistic everybody is,
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Speaker 1: whether it's consumer confidence rising to the highest level since
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Speaker 1: two thousand two, or some investor surveys, fund manager surveys
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Speaker 1: coming out of US and Bank of America Maryland showing
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Speaker 1: the most optimism since the financial crisis. But is this warranted?
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Speaker 1: I want to bring in John Augustine c E c
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Speaker 1: IO of Huntington's Bank, who's going to answer that question
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Speaker 1: for us? John, thank you for being here. Do you
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Speaker 1: think people are too optimistic? No, we don't. We just
6:01
Speaker 1: don't think so. We think that was a game changer
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Speaker 1: the election. We think we're in a we're in somewhat
6:06
Speaker 1: of a time out around confirmation hearings. Now, what what
6:09
Speaker 1: we notice now is the economic numbers are also picking up. UH.
6:15
Speaker 1: To support let's say, all these consumer numbers and business
6:18
Speaker 1: surveys that have been coming out, we think the the
6:22
Speaker 1: economic numbers are impressive as well, to go along with
6:25
Speaker 1: this pickup we've seen in confidence and animal spirits. And
6:29
Speaker 1: we'll see how the FED reacts to that. If that's
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Speaker 1: the case. Do you not find it ironic that the
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Speaker 1: central theme of not only the US presidential election, but
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Speaker 1: also seemingly the Brexit vote and a variety of other
6:41
Speaker 1: populist movements around the world is inequality and the lack
6:45
Speaker 1: of economic growth. When you're saying things, look pretty good.
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Speaker 1: What what I would say to that is the populism
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Speaker 1: movement seems to us to be about economic wealth at
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Speaker 1: home at this point in time, and how can it
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Speaker 1: be directed that way versus spread out among other countries.
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Speaker 1: So tariffs and protectionist policies that may make goods from
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Speaker 1: overseas and at least in the case the United States
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Speaker 1: overseas more expensive for US as long as the dollar
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Speaker 1: doesn't decrease in value. Yeah, in general, one of our thoughts,
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Speaker 1: one of our top ten thoughts this year at Huntington's
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Speaker 1: is about populism and is about in general, we would
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Speaker 1: view it as inflationary. We've taken steps in portfolios there
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Speaker 1: of our customers already, so yes, what would be some
7:34
Speaker 1: of those steps, Well, we look at we started a
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Speaker 1: gold position, for instance in December. Then we're moving into
7:42
Speaker 1: tips as well. Our fixed income team is looking treasury
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Speaker 1: inflation protective securities. Okay, so and just a gold ETFs
7:49
Speaker 1: or actual gold E G L D E t f S.
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Speaker 1: So we're trying to think about that. In December, our
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Speaker 1: risk of inflation flipped with the risk of recession. Now
8:03
Speaker 1: it's higher over the next six to twelve months, so
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Speaker 1: We're we're following a very deliberate pattern to try to
8:09
Speaker 1: look out for our customers as we see this as
8:12
Speaker 1: a little bit of a game changer. John, you help
8:14
Speaker 1: oversee about seventeen and a half billion dollars as chief
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Speaker 1: investment officer at Huntington's. Have you started to reduce the
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Speaker 1: cash allocation in your client's portfolios. It's been consistently low,
8:30
Speaker 1: you know, that's one of the things we've lost as
8:32
Speaker 1: investment managers on the buy side where we are that
8:35
Speaker 1: we've lost really since the Great Recession as cash as
8:38
Speaker 1: an asset class. So it's been consistently low. We really
8:42
Speaker 1: can't get it much lower. We we go down about
8:44
Speaker 1: two percent. That's just for cash flow purposes. So these
8:48
Speaker 1: scenario that you're portraying really is a bullish one one
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Speaker 1: that would favor stocks. How much of the bond allocation
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Speaker 1: are you shifting to stocks? What's the new allocation for today?
8:59
Speaker 1: So in percent overweight stocks versus bonds, we did take
9:05
Speaker 1: some profits in high yield bonds. Recently we move those
9:08
Speaker 1: proceeds to tips, so we're looking at more defensive allocation
9:13
Speaker 1: within the bonds. When did you shift the tem percent
9:16
Speaker 1: overweight in stocks over the past two weeks. Excuse me,
9:20
Speaker 1: the tem percent overweight in stocks that was mid year
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Speaker 1: last year, Okay, But the the high yield problems, it's
9:27
Speaker 1: because you think that the yields have just gotten too
9:29
Speaker 1: low relative to where the fundamentals are correct correct, and
9:33
Speaker 1: we still have a cyclical stance in stocks where we're
9:36
Speaker 1: looking at smaller MidCap us primarily keeping dollars. Here's the
9:40
Speaker 1: stock market kind of rotates as it does generally in January.
9:44
Speaker 1: I noticed also that you're looking at technology, uh, and
9:48
Speaker 1: Microsoft is one example. What are some of the characteristics
9:52
Speaker 1: that led you to microsoft restructuring being completed more towards
9:57
Speaker 1: the cloud, let's say, and more towards revenues annuity type
10:01
Speaker 1: revenues coming out of that. So in our view, restructuring
10:04
Speaker 1: is done. Profit growth has has increased and been elevated
10:08
Speaker 1: out of that. Now to us in our equity team,
10:11
Speaker 1: there's a consistency to that that we like. How insulated
10:14
Speaker 1: do you think the US economy is from what's going
10:17
Speaker 1: on around the rest of the world. Um, let's see policy.
10:22
Speaker 1: Let's say, if if the economic numbers started getting better
10:27
Speaker 1: before the election, that's what we're coming to realize now.
10:31
Speaker 1: Now the question to us is how much will the
10:33
Speaker 1: new administration, for lack of a better term, juice the
10:36
Speaker 1: economic numbers to get us from one to three percent
10:40
Speaker 1: and then the US is the relative leader in the world.
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Speaker 1: Are you hedging against possibly being wrong? And if so,
10:48
Speaker 1: how we're not hedging yet. I mean, the first place
10:52
Speaker 1: we moved is in the bond bond portfolios. If we
10:56
Speaker 1: don't see policy initiatives come out pro growth US policy
11:01
Speaker 1: initiatives come out the second area, then we would look
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Speaker 1: to trim as US small and mid caps, which, like
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Speaker 1: a lot of stocks, have had a good run. So
11:10
Speaker 1: we're waiting for the agenda to come out. We think
11:12
Speaker 1: we're in this time out around confirmation hearings right now,
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Speaker 1: and we still suggest that this administration and these cabinet
11:20
Speaker 1: members it's going to be bold whatever comes out of
11:23
Speaker 1: the group energy. Give me your thoughts on energy. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: fifty five dollars a barrel. That's what's the futures market,
11:31
Speaker 1: and market has a fifty five out the rest of
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Speaker 1: the year. The oil companies say they can make money
11:37
Speaker 1: there and it's a big turnaround in profits this year.
11:40
Speaker 1: That's the sector right that in financials or the two
11:42
Speaker 1: sectors X Mobile X on Mobile slumberge Valerio is interesting
11:47
Speaker 1: because it's is a big export. Now, what about ten
11:52
Speaker 1: year treasuries? What level would the yield have to go
11:55
Speaker 1: to to be attractive? Again to you, nominal GDP. So
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Speaker 1: with what we've noticed, very definitively since the election, the
12:04
Speaker 1: tenure treasury yield was hanging out since the Great Recession
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Speaker 1: at real year over year GDP growth rate. Now that's flipped.
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Speaker 1: It's trying to get up to nominal year over year GDP,
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Speaker 1: which is about two point nine percent now, so north
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Speaker 1: at two point nine, then we'd look at it. Thanks
12:24
Speaker 1: very much for spending time with us. Thank you for
12:26
Speaker 1: interesting and um, I guess since you're in Columbus, Ohio,
12:30
Speaker 1: do you think it's just a quick thing. Is it
12:32
Speaker 1: a better view from Columbus the economy than it is,
12:35
Speaker 1: let's say, on the two coasts. In my view, I've
12:38
Speaker 1: always been in Ohio in Chicago and Colorado have always
12:41
Speaker 1: been in the interior. And yes, it's always good having
12:44
Speaker 1: a view that you can look both ways outwards. Thank
12:47
Speaker 1: you very much. John Augustine. Augustine he is the chief
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Speaker 1: investment officer for a Huntington's National Bank. They have approximately
12:54
Speaker 1: seventeen and a half billion assets under management. Based in Columbus, Ohio,
12:59
Speaker 1: and you can follow him on Twitter at John Underscore.
13:03
Speaker 1: Augustine pim Fox. I'm very glad that we get to
13:19
Speaker 1: talk about something that I've ever seen a lot of
13:21
Speaker 1: catastrophic headlines about recently. For example, a Business Insider has
13:24
Speaker 1: a headline today there will be no one in charge
13:27
Speaker 1: of America's nuclear arsenal when Trump takes office. I want
13:30
Speaker 1: to bring in Jonathan Bernstein. He's a Bloomberg View columnist.
13:33
Speaker 1: He's also uh teaches political science at the University of
13:37
Speaker 1: Texas at San Antonio, and he wrote a really great
13:40
Speaker 1: column talking about how the empty Trump administration will struggle Jonathan,
13:45
Speaker 1: how empty is the administration at this point? Well? Very um. Eventually, Um,
13:53
Speaker 1: they're supposed to put thousands of people into the executive branch. Um,
13:58
Speaker 1: we have a so far they put twenty nine. Um.
14:01
Speaker 1: That is, they've named twenty nine people. Of course, nobody's
14:04
Speaker 1: been confirmed yet, and a lot of them aren't even
14:06
Speaker 1: ready for the Senate attack. Out of a thousand, out
14:11
Speaker 1: of thousands, really, um, about a thousand yet confirmed by
14:16
Speaker 1: the Senate and then out of those, we have about
14:18
Speaker 1: six hundred and nineties that one of the experts seem
14:22
Speaker 1: to think are the top positions out of those nine. Well,
14:27
Speaker 1: we've got news that says that President elect Donald Trump
14:30
Speaker 1: is asking about fifty senior Obama administration officials to stay
14:34
Speaker 1: on in their roles. That's according to Trump spokesman Sean Spicer.
14:40
Speaker 1: That's fifty, and it includes such roles as a special
14:44
Speaker 1: envoy to the Global Coalition fighting the Islamic State in
14:47
Speaker 1: Iraq and Syria. That's uh, Brett McGurk, Is that enough
14:52
Speaker 1: or are are we really just you know, fifty out
14:55
Speaker 1: of a thousand. That doesn't sound like quite a lot. Well,
14:58
Speaker 1: there are people that keep the lights on. There are
15:00
Speaker 1: permanent civil servants who will do the work of the
15:04
Speaker 1: of the various agencies um as caretakers. And it's not
15:08
Speaker 1: unusual too for for administrations take time. The Obama administration
15:14
Speaker 1: was ahead of this space, but not way ahead of
15:16
Speaker 1: this space. And actually they had some stumbles around just
15:20
Speaker 1: after he was sworn in, which load them further. So
15:23
Speaker 1: you know, it's not, if not as catastrophic as the
15:27
Speaker 1: initial number makes it sound, but it's bad. So what
15:30
Speaker 1: are the potential consequences of this. Well, there's there's really two.
15:33
Speaker 1: First of all, the agencies and the departments are not
15:37
Speaker 1: going to work as well without UM people in place.
15:41
Speaker 1: They will continue to carry on what they're doing, but
15:44
Speaker 1: how well will they react to new things? You know,
15:47
Speaker 1: not necessarily all that Well? Which departments do you think
15:50
Speaker 1: are most at risk for being less efficient than usual?
15:54
Speaker 1: You know, I would guess if I had to say,
15:57
Speaker 1: the ones that you don't read about in the headlines,
15:59
Speaker 1: or the ones that have sort of that may be
16:02
Speaker 1: called on to suddenly do things. So you know, we
16:04
Speaker 1: have no FEMA director named by the new UM the
16:08
Speaker 1: Emergency Management Agency named by the new administration, so sorry,
16:15
Speaker 1: might get lower. Yeah, um. But the National Security Council, right,
16:20
Speaker 1: I mean there are vacancies there. Okay. The National Security
16:23
Speaker 1: Council is in a different category because those people are
16:26
Speaker 1: not confirmed by Congress. It's not clear how many people
16:30
Speaker 1: they have. We have competing articles, some of which say
16:33
Speaker 1: they're ready to go and some would say it's chaos. Uh,
16:36
Speaker 1: And you start to wonder, well, who is leaking to
16:38
Speaker 1: try to undermine who. We have a lot of reports
16:40
Speaker 1: about bickering between the incoming national Security advisor and the
16:46
Speaker 1: incoming Secretary Defense, UM, perhaps other factions going on. Some
16:52
Speaker 1: of this is normal for administration, but the level of
16:55
Speaker 1: it seems to be way beyond normal. Is it normal
16:58
Speaker 1: to turf out all ambassadors political ambassadors, people that had
17:02
Speaker 1: in a political appointment to become US ambassador to foreign nations?
17:06
Speaker 1: Is it is it normal to turf them all out
17:09
Speaker 1: on inauguration day? There was a story about that UM
17:13
Speaker 1: that sort of treated as as a real explorer. It
17:16
Speaker 1: seems like it's a minor I'm not a specific expert
17:20
Speaker 1: in the ambassadors, but from what I can tell, it's
17:24
Speaker 1: a fairly minor issue. UM, they're not doing that as
17:28
Speaker 1: far as I can tell. With the UM career diplomats right,
17:32
Speaker 1: the career diplomats so and most of the other people
17:37
Speaker 1: the political pointe's expect to leave anyway, We do have,
17:41
Speaker 1: you know, again, career people below them at all of
17:44
Speaker 1: the importance in all of the important country. So it's
17:46
Speaker 1: not like nobody can turn the lights on. But again,
17:49
Speaker 1: there there are several of these stories that sort of
17:53
Speaker 1: imply more cast than usual. Just real quick, Jonathan, do
17:56
Speaker 1: you expect the rank and file the careers to around
18:01
Speaker 1: that's a very good question. We don't know the answer yet. Um.
18:05
Speaker 1: One of the things that I wrote about this week is,
18:08
Speaker 1: you know, most career civil servants, despite the you know,
18:14
Speaker 1: popular image, they're very good professionals. They take their jobs seriously. Um.
18:19
Speaker 1: But if you ask me, having no new supervision, plus
18:25
Speaker 1: a president coming in who in some cases has disdained
18:28
Speaker 1: for the mission of their agencies, you've got a question.
18:30
Speaker 1: What happens? Jonathan Bernstein, thanks very much, Bloomberg of you columnist,
18:35
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg. President elect Donald Trump selected Sonny Perdue,
18:51
Speaker 1: the former governor of Georgia, to be his Secretary of Agriculture,
18:55
Speaker 1: and here to tell us more about the nominee is
18:59
Speaker 1: Alan bure Our, Bloomberg markets reporter when it comes to
19:03
Speaker 1: everything agriculture, and of course he is the co host
19:06
Speaker 1: of the great radio program Politics, Policy and Power UH
19:11
Speaker 1: on Bloomberg Radio Bloomberg Studios in Washington, d C. And
19:15
Speaker 1: you can follow Allen on Twitter at Allen BURGA B
19:19
Speaker 1: B J E R G A. Allen. Um, go ahead,
19:23
Speaker 1: give us the lowdown on Sunny Purdue. Well, thanks for
19:26
Speaker 1: having me on the show, and let me get down
19:28
Speaker 1: to my rural roots here pim and UH having the
19:31
Speaker 1: j and the Twitter that everybody is very considerate towards
19:34
Speaker 1: that all the time talking about Sunny Purdue. Um. He
19:37
Speaker 1: is uh former governor of Georgia, the first governor of
19:40
Speaker 1: Georgia since reconstruction from the Republican Party. So his election
19:44
Speaker 1: in two thousand two into two thousand three was a
19:46
Speaker 1: big deal. Governed a little bit as a centrist, but
19:50
Speaker 1: at the same time a very traditional profile for an
19:52
Speaker 1: agricultural secretary. You know, governor of a state with a
19:55
Speaker 1: large rural population. Now it is different that his orientation
19:59
Speaker 1: is more Southern. A lot of your agriculture secretaries will
20:02
Speaker 1: be Midwestern governors, and that matters in agriculture, your regional orientation,
20:06
Speaker 1: because it makes you more aware of some crops than others.
20:10
Speaker 1: He will be seen as a cotton guy, a peanut guy.
20:12
Speaker 1: He has a doctorate in veterinary medicine, so he understands
20:16
Speaker 1: animal agriculture as well. But we really don't know what
20:19
Speaker 1: he thinks about ethanol and bile fields. Producers are watching
20:21
Speaker 1: that pretty closely. I should also just mention that he
20:24
Speaker 1: has no relation to the Purdue family, famed for UH
20:28
Speaker 1: the Purdue farms chicken. No, he does not, because I
20:32
Speaker 1: feel like I have to mention that, and that is
20:34
Speaker 1: important to know because when you have all these billionaires
20:37
Speaker 1: in the cabinet, that would be a very logical association
20:40
Speaker 1: to make Lisa. But he is a cousin to Senator
20:44
Speaker 1: David Purdue, a Republican of Georgia, and after Jeff's sessions,
20:48
Speaker 1: David Perdue may have been Donald Trump's biggest supporter in
20:51
Speaker 1: the Senate was stumping for him early, was also pushing
20:53
Speaker 1: for his cousin to be Secretary of Agriculture. Purdue met
20:58
Speaker 1: with Donald Trump and Trumps how we're way back November
21:00
Speaker 1: thirty to talk about this job. It got held up
21:03
Speaker 1: because there was a hope that agriculture could be a
21:06
Speaker 1: way to diversify Trump's cabinet. A lot of Hispanics were
21:09
Speaker 1: brought in um including lieutenant governor former Lieutenant governor of California,
21:13
Speaker 1: Abel Maldonado. But in the end they kind of ran
21:15
Speaker 1: into a time crunch and they went back to the
21:17
Speaker 1: tried and true, which turned out to be sunny Perdue. Well, so,
21:20
Speaker 1: what exactly are the main issues that he's going to
21:22
Speaker 1: be facing? I mean, is it ethanol? Well, ethanol is
21:25
Speaker 1: going to be a big one because you have a
21:26
Speaker 1: lot of people in Trump administration who are very skeptical
21:29
Speaker 1: of ethanol policy and agriculture. Even though rural votes helped
21:33
Speaker 1: put Donald Trump in the White House, the farm vote
21:35
Speaker 1: can be across purposes with the Trump administration. Um, you know,
21:38
Speaker 1: immigration reform is a big deal to these folks because
21:41
Speaker 1: of the agricultural workforce. So is trade because agriculture actually
21:45
Speaker 1: has a net trade surplus. It's one of the few
21:47
Speaker 1: industries that that do in the United States. So Sunny Perdue,
21:51
Speaker 1: interestingly enough, supported an immigration crackdown when he was in Georgia,
21:55
Speaker 1: and and that may actually make him a little more
21:57
Speaker 1: amenable to what Donald Trump may have to say. But
21:59
Speaker 1: in trade, there's a real fear in the agricultural community
22:02
Speaker 1: that Donald Trump is going to do something on manufacturing
22:05
Speaker 1: that's going to make China angry and they're going to
22:07
Speaker 1: cut off their sales of soybeans. And it's a lot
22:09
Speaker 1: of years. China is the number one buyer of US
22:11
Speaker 1: agricultural goods. Sonny produced business background he once ran a
22:17
Speaker 1: grain and fertilizer business. Is that creating some pushback from
22:22
Speaker 1: opponents of the nomination. Well, there's a lot of concern
22:25
Speaker 1: you know that this is another voice of big agriculture
22:28
Speaker 1: um and actually that also was echoed in the Obama administration.
22:31
Speaker 1: Even you know, the previous Secretary, Tom Vilsack was very
22:35
Speaker 1: supportive of things like organic farming, agriculture and such, but
22:38
Speaker 1: he was from the number one US ethanol state. You know,
22:41
Speaker 1: with Sonny Purdue, you know, you take a look at
22:43
Speaker 1: some of these mergers that are going on with you know,
22:45
Speaker 1: Bearman Santo, is he going to speak out as a
22:47
Speaker 1: critical voice on some of this? Also, he was a
22:50
Speaker 1: big supporter of the expansion of the poultry industry in Georgia,
22:53
Speaker 1: and and a lot of folks who care about animal welfare,
22:55
Speaker 1: environmental sustainability, they look at sort of these megapoultry forms
22:59
Speaker 1: farms as as the poster child of environmental waste in
23:03
Speaker 1: modern agriculture. So this isn't the only nomination that is
23:07
Speaker 1: getting making headlines today. Steve Minusian President Elect Trump's nominee
23:12
Speaker 1: for Treasury Secretary, is currently at the moment testifying in
23:17
Speaker 1: front of Senate. What are the big issues that he's facing. Well,
23:21
Speaker 1: so he is speaking right now, and it's a very
23:23
Speaker 1: traditional looking hearing. You know, he has his fiancee and
23:27
Speaker 1: his three children there. Um, there's a lot of hard
23:30
Speaker 1: hits from him from senators like Elizabeth Warren and others
23:33
Speaker 1: that this guy ran a foreclosure machine during the financial crisis.
23:37
Speaker 1: Of course, you know, profiting during the financial crisis. He's
23:40
Speaker 1: saying that this was a loan modification machine he was running.
23:44
Speaker 1: That he was trying to help people as much as
23:45
Speaker 1: he could, but in the end, he was running a business. Um.
23:48
Speaker 1: And then there's that big interest in business and that
23:50
Speaker 1: experience in business that will make him a good practical
23:53
Speaker 1: Treasury secretary. That seems to be where the fault lines
23:55
Speaker 1: are being drawn right now. Alan, in your role additional
23:59
Speaker 1: role co host of Politics, Policy and Power, can you
24:03
Speaker 1: characterize what it has been like to be in Washington
24:06
Speaker 1: and try to read the tea leaves of what is
24:09
Speaker 1: going to happen tomorrow and after tomorrow. It's an incredibly
24:13
Speaker 1: complex picture with a lot of moving pieces. I mean,
24:16
Speaker 1: let's look at the inauguration itself. You're experiencing a lower
24:20
Speaker 1: number of people coming to town and yet higher security
24:23
Speaker 1: for those people because you just don't know how the
24:25
Speaker 1: volatile combination of people who have come to see Trump
24:28
Speaker 1: and the people who have come to march against Trump.
24:31
Speaker 1: How that's going to mix from a policy standpoint. You know,
24:34
Speaker 1: you have a lot of these nominations that are sort
24:36
Speaker 1: of being rushed through Capitol Hill right now. There's some
24:39
Speaker 1: concern about ethics and about the potential amount of time
24:41
Speaker 1: that they have to take a look at these folks.
24:43
Speaker 1: Chuck Schumer from New York is trying to slow walk
24:46
Speaker 1: some of the nominations, maybe drag out the process a
24:49
Speaker 1: little bit while the Democrats make their points um. And then,
24:52
Speaker 1: of course you have these huge questions about foreign policy
24:54
Speaker 1: coming up in the next few weeks. You simply do
24:57
Speaker 1: not know what u s foreign policy is going to
24:59
Speaker 1: look like. That, of course, gives us a lot of
25:01
Speaker 1: smart people to talk about a lot of smart things
25:03
Speaker 1: on the show. Thank you so much. Alan berga Bloomberg
25:05
Speaker 1: News reporter as well as co host of Politics, Policy
25:08
Speaker 1: and Power coming up after us on Bloomberg Radio This. Yeah,
25:20
Speaker 1: thanks for listening to the Bloomberg pian L podcast. You
25:23
Speaker 1: can subscribe and listen to interviews at iTunes, SoundCloud, or
25:27
Speaker 1: whatever podcast platform you prefer. I'm Pim Fox. I'm out
25:31
Speaker 1: there on Twitter at pim Fox. I'm out there on
25:34
Speaker 1: Twitter at Lisa Abramo. It's one before the podcast. You
25:38
Speaker 1: can always catch us worldwide on Bloomberg Radio