Latest / Trumponomics / The Midterms May Hinge on One Thing: How the Economy Feels

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The Midterms May Hinge on One Thing: How the Economy Feels · Trumponomics

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio News.
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Speaker 2: I'm seventy Flanders, head of Government and Economics at Bloomberg.
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Speaker 2: This Trumpanomics the podcast the looks at the economic world
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Speaker 2: of Donald Trump, how he's already shaking up the global economy,
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Speaker 2: and what on earth is going to happen next. This week,
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Speaker 2: we're taking a first look at how the US economy
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Speaker 2: could affect the midterm elections coming up in November. In
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Speaker 2: the US elections that of course, the Democrats are hoping
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Speaker 2: will favor the out of power party them even more
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Speaker 2: than usual, potentially giving them control of one house even
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Speaker 2: conceivably both houses of Congress. When you look at the
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Speaker 2: world economy, there's a sort of feeling that it's been
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Speaker 2: remarkably resilient in the face of continued inflation, Donald Trump's
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Speaker 2: tariffs war, and Ukraine the Iran war most recently, and
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Speaker 2: related to all that, some pretty big energy shocks. We
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Speaker 2: still see stock markets going up, and we have now
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Speaker 2: in the last few weeks seen oil price has come
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Speaker 2: down quite sharply, despite the Iran agreement seeming to be
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Speaker 2: quite tenuous. But how much damage has already been done
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Speaker 2: and how can the Republicans make voters feel more positive
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Speaker 2: about the economy, because when you look at the polling,
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Speaker 2: they seem to be pretty down on it at the moment.
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Speaker 2: We're going to get into all of that with our
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Speaker 2: usual kind of two sides of the street. Here at Bloomberg.
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Speaker 2: We have Nancy Cook, senior national political correspondent in Washington. Nancy,
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Speaker 2: thanks very much for joining. It's been a while.
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Speaker 1: Actually, yeah, thanks for having me, Stephanie, I'm delighted to
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Speaker 1: be here.
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Speaker 2: And Stu Paul, based in New York, who covers the
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Speaker 2: US and Canadian economies for Bloomberg Economics. Stu, nice to
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Speaker 2: have you.
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Speaker 3: Thank you for having me, Stephanie.
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Speaker 2: So, Nancy, you're sitting in DC. You're writing often about
2:11
Speaker 2: how Republicans are thinking about the midterm some of the
2:15
Speaker 2: sort of ways in which they're hoping to rebuild Republicans support.
2:20
Speaker 2: Is the economy the main thing they're worried about at
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Speaker 2: this point?
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Speaker 1: Well, I think that Republicans take a very overconfident stance
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Speaker 1: when you talk to them publicly or when they talk
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Speaker 1: about things, but privately they are pretty worried about the
2:33
Speaker 1: state of the economy. It's not that the actual economy
2:37
Speaker 1: is poor in the US. For instance, the labor market
2:41
Speaker 1: remains really healthy. Unemployment is hovering around four percent, and
2:45
Speaker 1: so there are like a lot of really bright spots
2:47
Speaker 1: in the economy. However, American voters are in a bad
2:51
Speaker 1: mood about the economy and that has just been persistent.
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Speaker 1: I have done some traveling in this spring to very
2:58
Speaker 1: red districts in Texas. I went to Kentucky in May,
3:02
Speaker 1: and people are just not happy. And these are people
3:04
Speaker 1: who are really core to the Trump base, and they
3:08
Speaker 1: feel like the cost of living is too high. I've
3:11
Speaker 1: talked to a late twenty something couple in Kentucky. They
3:14
Speaker 1: want to buy a house, they want to have children,
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Speaker 1: They're worried about the cost of childcare. So these voters
3:19
Speaker 1: are just in a bad mood and no matter what
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Speaker 1: the Trump people say, they're having a hard time overcoming that.
3:24
Speaker 1: And so they privately are very freaked out about this.
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Speaker 1: And I was at a conference on Friday last week
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Speaker 1: of evangelical voters who are some of the most hardcore
3:36
Speaker 1: supporters of the Republican Party, and they're not in a
3:38
Speaker 1: good mood. So that to me is just a real
3:40
Speaker 1: warning sign. And I think that there's a few things
3:43
Speaker 1: at play one, people are not happy about gas prices,
3:46
Speaker 1: people are not happy that the war and Iran seems
3:49
Speaker 1: to be going on. And then a lot of people
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Speaker 1: are just really mad about the cost of living. They
3:54
Speaker 1: feel groceries are still high. They just feel like everything
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Speaker 1: costs more, and they held President Biden responsible for that.
4:00
Speaker 1: But now the economy squarely belongs to Trump and they
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Speaker 1: are holding him responsible.
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Speaker 2: I remember he has said in the past when they
4:08
Speaker 2: say which bits of the economy your responsible for, and
4:10
Speaker 2: he says very clearly, well, the good bits and the
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Speaker 2: bad bits are all. He's as upfront about it STU.
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Speaker 2: So let's get into this a bit about what the
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Speaker 2: damage might be and the particular groups that might be affected.
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Speaker 2: Because part of this is gas prices have always been
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Speaker 2: a concern for all presidents, but there was a specific
4:28
Speaker 2: aspect to the Trump coalition that really was quite new,
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Speaker 2: and then that affects maybe the voter blocks that we're
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Speaker 2: looking at when we think about the impact of things
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Speaker 2: like inflation and rising gas prices. Remind us what was
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Speaker 2: different about his coalition.
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Speaker 3: The Trump coalition that really formed before the twenty twenty
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Speaker 3: for election was one in which the Republicans gained even
4:55
Speaker 3: more of unadvantage among men, particularly young men, and the
5:01
Speaker 3: Trump coalition included a larger share of Hispanic and Black
5:05
Speaker 3: voters in twenty twenty four, So we wanted to dig
5:10
Speaker 3: into the data to see a little bit how each
5:12
Speaker 3: of those voting blocks have been faring since President Trump
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Speaker 3: took office. Of course, it's easiest to start with men
5:19
Speaker 3: and to think about employment for men versus women, for example,
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Speaker 3: and if you look at the industries that are dominated
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Speaker 3: by men, things like construction or manufacturing, or transportation and warehousing,
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Speaker 3: all of those industries overall basically lost jobs. The industries
5:38
Speaker 3: that have been gaining jobs are those that are primarily
5:41
Speaker 3: dominated by women, education and healthcare in particular. And so
5:46
Speaker 3: the durability of Trump's coalition starts to come into question
5:50
Speaker 3: when you look at the data with a little bit
5:53
Speaker 3: of a finer toothcomb. Where he might still have a
5:58
Speaker 3: little bit of an advantage or where the data have
6:03
Speaker 3: swung somewhat in his favor, is that the unemployment rate
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Speaker 3: for black men and Hispanic men has fallen just slightly
6:11
Speaker 3: by about half a percentage point in and a quarter
6:14
Speaker 3: percentage point respectively since President Trump took office. That's probably
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Speaker 3: not quite enough. That's just one dimension of analysis for
6:23
Speaker 3: thinking about maintaining a pretty significant voting block. But that
6:28
Speaker 3: is one data point at least that he could point
6:31
Speaker 3: to to try to get voters to show up for
6:33
Speaker 3: the polls. Nancy brought up a really important point about affordability,
6:38
Speaker 3: and of course, gasoline prices, food prices, shelter prices are
6:43
Speaker 3: front of mind for everybody. And I'm here in New
6:47
Speaker 3: York where the election of Mayor Mom Donnie, that entire
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Speaker 3: campaign was entirely focused around that key word of affordability.
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Speaker 3: And so we looked at the US voting population by
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Speaker 3: income decile, and it's those lowest income households that are
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Speaker 3: experiencing the highest inflation. We estimate that cumulative inflation over
7:13
Speaker 3: Trump's most recent term in office for those in the
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Speaker 3: lowest income decile is about four point eight percent. For
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Speaker 3: those in the highest income decile richest households, cumulative inflation
7:24
Speaker 3: is just about three point eight percent of full percentage
7:27
Speaker 3: point lower for the richest among us. What's interesting, though, Stephani,
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Speaker 3: is that gasoline prices seem to be hitting those middle
7:36
Speaker 3: class households and upper middle class households relatively more even
7:41
Speaker 3: than those at the lowest end of the income distribution.
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Speaker 3: These are suburban folks, These are two car households, These
7:47
Speaker 3: are suv households that need to fill up and bring
7:50
Speaker 3: the kids to schools, commute into the office. And so
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Speaker 3: even those households that seem to be faring slightly better
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Speaker 3: than the worst among us, those who are faring even
8:01
Speaker 3: slightly better are feeling the effects of higher energy prices.
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Speaker 2: You and you remind us in that piece this is
8:07
Speaker 2: a relatively new phenomenon, but that Trump had got seventy
8:10
Speaker 2: percent among voters earning between thirty thousand dollars and one
8:14
Speaker 2: hundred thousand dollars a year. So those kind of classic
8:16
Speaker 2: working class group, and you're right to point out that
8:20
Speaker 2: the inflation rate affects them differently. I guess one more
8:23
Speaker 2: thing for you, Stuart, because I know there's some related work.
8:26
Speaker 2: We did a little bit more on the geography of
8:30
Speaker 2: some of these sort of key races in the Senate.
8:34
Speaker 2: There's only there's a sort of just over half a
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Speaker 2: dozen I think Senate seats that are in play if
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Speaker 2: the Democrats are going to have a chance of retaking control,
8:41
Speaker 2: which I think is probably a tough ask. And there
8:44
Speaker 2: are some pretty wide differences across states in how much
8:48
Speaker 2: gas prices have gone up. It seems that sometimes I
8:50
Speaker 2: hear people talking in California seem to have really had
8:53
Speaker 2: a massive increase, but that's they're less in the frame
8:57
Speaker 2: for the Senate. But just on that do how is
9:01
Speaker 2: the difference in gas prices potentially affecting some of those races.
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Speaker 3: So on a dollar basis, there's a little bit less
9:10
Speaker 3: dispersion in gasoline price increases across states. Among those states
9:15
Speaker 3: that have contested Senate seats, Georgia and North Carolina have
9:19
Speaker 3: had a relatively small increase in gasoline prices since the
9:22
Speaker 3: onset of the war in Iran, Ohio Michigan have had
9:26
Speaker 3: a relatively larger increase in gasoline prices. When we talk
9:29
Speaker 3: about states like California, of course, state level gasoline taxes
9:34
Speaker 3: matter a lot, and I imagine that those voters might
9:39
Speaker 3: be blaming their state and local governments more so than
9:41
Speaker 3: the president. And as you say, California isn't so much
9:44
Speaker 3: in play. But you're right to look at the geographic
9:47
Speaker 3: differences for things like gasoline prices. If we look at
9:51
Speaker 3: something like unemployment, also, there's pretty stark differences across those
9:56
Speaker 3: key battle ground states. So, for example, and Georgia have
10:02
Speaker 3: seen a relative increase in the unemployment rate since President
10:05
Speaker 3: Trump took office. Of course, pretty important contested Senate seats
10:08
Speaker 3: in those states Maine, North Carolina, Michigan have actually seen
10:13
Speaker 3: a decrease in their unemployment rate. All eyes on main
10:16
Speaker 3: right now with Platner and Susan Collins, but the data
10:20
Speaker 3: are faring relatively well for Susan Collins at this point.
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Speaker 2: I guess we should say, Nazi. Obviously we're just focusing
10:26
Speaker 2: on the economics here, but there's plenty of other things.
10:28
Speaker 2: As people always saying, you mustn't make assumptions about how
10:31
Speaker 2: all Hispanic people voting it, For example, whether or not
10:33
Speaker 2: their unemployment rate has gone up, maybe less important than
10:35
Speaker 2: how they're feeling about ice. But still on the economics.
10:40
Speaker 2: You highlighted, Nancy, this seemed a bit similar from some
10:44
Speaker 2: of the debates we had in the Biden era that
10:46
Speaker 2: the numbers didn't look that bad. But as you say,
10:49
Speaker 2: there's just a lot of grumpy people around who don't
10:51
Speaker 2: really care that inflation is lower because everything's still costs
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Speaker 2: a lot more than it did a few years ago.
10:56
Speaker 2: Just the fact that the price is not rising anymore
10:59
Speaker 2: doesn't mean they're fed up every time they go to
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Speaker 2: the grocery store. And the dynamic was that President Biden
11:05
Speaker 2: kept telling them they were wrong to be down on
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Speaker 2: the economy and the economy was really doing very well.
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Speaker 2: That didn't work out so well. There has been this tension,
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Speaker 2: and you've talked about it before about the President seeming
11:17
Speaker 2: to do the same thing, seeming to just not want
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Speaker 2: to recognize that anyone is feeling anything negative about the economy,
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Speaker 2: even though his advisors might be suggesting that he feel
11:29
Speaker 2: voter's pain a bit more. Is that tension got any
11:32
Speaker 2: better they has his advisors had any success on that.
11:36
Speaker 2: I feel like there was supposed to be a whole
11:38
Speaker 2: affordability tour that didn't really happen. Were seeing that reprieved
11:43
Speaker 2: maybe in the fall.
11:45
Speaker 1: Interestingly, I feel like President Trump is going even further
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Speaker 1: than President Biden did and dismissing American's concerns. I mean,
11:52
Speaker 1: Biden tried to actively convince Americans that what they were
11:55
Speaker 1: feeling was not true. But Trump is just actively saying
11:59
Speaker 1: that he you know, he has called affordability a democratic hoax,
12:04
Speaker 1: so oh, he.
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Speaker 4: Doesn't realize prices. Prices are coming down very substantially. But
12:09
Speaker 4: they have a new word.
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Speaker 1: You know, they always have a hoax.
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Speaker 4: The new word is affordability.
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Speaker 1: Last week, he refused to sign a bipartisan housing bill
12:18
Speaker 1: that both Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill were very
12:21
Speaker 1: excited about because it would have given money to create
12:24
Speaker 1: new housing supply, which is a big problem in the US.
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Speaker 1: He called that a quote big yawn compared to this
12:30
Speaker 1: voter id legislation he wants.
12:33
Speaker 4: Here's what I would like to say, much more than
12:35
Speaker 4: a bill, that big deal. It's a yawn something. It's
12:39
Speaker 4: wonderful to me. Compared to the Save America Act. Just
12:45
Speaker 4: about everything is a big yawn.
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Speaker 1: And so it's not like that he's trying to convince
12:51
Speaker 1: voters of something. He just is not taking it seriously.
12:53
Speaker 1: And that's like a whole new level to the problem.
12:56
Speaker 1: What has been interesting to me is that Republicans have
13:00
Speaker 1: really shifted their strategy in the last month, and so
13:02
Speaker 1: they know that the historical headwinds for them to lose
13:06
Speaker 1: congressional seats that is very much in play this time,
13:09
Speaker 1: and Trump is really not playing ball with them on campaigning,
13:13
Speaker 1: on the economy or trying to stand up Republicans for
13:16
Speaker 1: House and Senate races. So what they're trying to do
13:19
Speaker 1: instead is they're trying to call out the Democrats. And
13:23
Speaker 1: so you've seen a lot of top Trump advisors go
13:25
Speaker 1: on TV or say, hey, look, the Democrats are crazy now,
13:28
Speaker 1: they're too liberal, and they're trying to make Mayor Mondami
13:32
Speaker 1: in New York the poster child for all of the
13:34
Speaker 1: Democratic Party and basically scare voters into continuing to support
13:39
Speaker 1: Republicans even though voters may not be super happy about
13:42
Speaker 1: the economy. And that has been a shift we've seen
13:45
Speaker 1: in the last six months. They're trying to make it
13:47
Speaker 1: not a referendum on Trump, but just a referendum on
13:50
Speaker 1: the two parties in general.
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Speaker 2: And as far as there's quite left wing candidates in
13:54
Speaker 2: some of the Democrat races, they're going to get and
13:56
Speaker 2: enormous amount of publicity. I suspect, Stuart, we've been sort
14:14
Speaker 2: of backward looking how have these particular parts of the
14:17
Speaker 2: electorate been affected by what's happened so far under the
14:21
Speaker 2: second Trump administration. But obviously we're also in the business
14:24
Speaker 2: of forecasting, and we have seen the old price fall
14:28
Speaker 2: pretty sharply, which if sustained, could feed into pump prices
14:33
Speaker 2: in the US fairly quickly presumably also have a softening
14:37
Speaker 2: effect on inflation. Right now, is it looking like it
14:41
Speaker 2: is going to be a slightly better environment just from
14:43
Speaker 2: those kind of those basic headline numbers on inflation.
14:47
Speaker 3: I think so. It's particularly difficult to forecast in the
14:52
Speaker 3: most granular level, so for example, the level of the
14:55
Speaker 3: congressional district. But if we look at a more zoomed
14:58
Speaker 3: out level and we think out a lot of the
15:01
Speaker 3: factors that send voters to the polls, things like living
15:05
Speaker 3: standards and as you say, inflation, it actually looks as
15:09
Speaker 3: though it's the case that softening inflation throughout the rest
15:13
Speaker 3: of the year, paired with solid economic growth fueled by
15:18
Speaker 3: a lot of investment and solid hiring plans, will be
15:23
Speaker 3: enough to keep it a little bit closer than betting
15:26
Speaker 3: markets are currently thinking that the midterms are going to be. So,
15:29
Speaker 3: for example, if you just use a strictly top down
15:32
Speaker 3: model that forecast the share that Republicans will retain in
15:38
Speaker 3: the House of Representatives, for example, based on these high
15:41
Speaker 3: level economic statistics, and you plug in some of our
15:44
Speaker 3: forecasts for inflation, GP growth and so on. It looks
15:48
Speaker 3: like they're just about five House seats flipping from a
15:53
Speaker 3: publican to democratic control. Now again, with betting markets assigning
15:58
Speaker 3: really high probabilities the Senate flipping or the House flipping,
16:03
Speaker 3: the top down statistics, the aggregate economic activity and data
16:07
Speaker 3: that are nationwide make it look like it's a bit
16:11
Speaker 3: more of a contested set of midterm elections than the
16:15
Speaker 3: betting markets are currently supposing.
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Speaker 2: And we haven't talked about interest rates. And obviously the
16:20
Speaker 2: vast majority of the mortgages are on long term fixed
16:24
Speaker 2: rate mortgages, so they're not affected day to day by
16:27
Speaker 2: what happens at the Fed. But the President has put
16:30
Speaker 2: a pretty big emphasis on getting interest rates down and
16:33
Speaker 2: doesn't seem to be much evidence that his new head
16:37
Speaker 2: of the Central Bank, Kevin Walsh, is itching to lower rates.
16:41
Speaker 2: If anything, he sounded a bit more hawkish on inflation.
16:45
Speaker 2: So just on that, remind me, is Donald Trump going
16:47
Speaker 2: to get any rate cuts between now and the midterms?
16:50
Speaker 3: I don't.
16:50
Speaker 1: It's interesting. I've talked with a lot of Trump advisors
16:53
Speaker 1: who have spent months actually laying the groundwork to try
16:57
Speaker 1: to make sure that Kevin Walsh the new head of
16:59
Speaker 1: the Federals has an easier time than Jay Powell, and
17:03
Speaker 1: so no one thinks that the interest rates are going
17:06
Speaker 1: to drop before the November midterms. And a lot of
17:08
Speaker 1: people have spent time trying to explain to Donald Trump
17:12
Speaker 1: why that's okay, and let's give Kevin wash some runway
17:16
Speaker 1: and this is going to be your guy, because they
17:18
Speaker 1: really don't want him to turn against Wash. But that
17:20
Speaker 1: is another piece of the economic puzzle that's making voters
17:24
Speaker 1: feel bad, really, the gas prices, the interest rates, and
17:26
Speaker 1: then people just being mad about the war in Iran.
17:29
Speaker 1: And I would pinpoint those three things as when I
17:31
Speaker 1: talk to Republican voters the things that people are most
17:34
Speaker 1: concerned about.
17:36
Speaker 2: Gee, where where are you seeing rates?
17:39
Speaker 3: As much as we know Donald Trump to be a
17:41
Speaker 3: low interest rate guy, I'm glad to hear from Nancy
17:44
Speaker 3: that a lot of his staff is setting him up
17:47
Speaker 3: to be a little bit disappointed. I do not think
17:49
Speaker 3: that we are going to get any interest rate cuts
17:51
Speaker 3: from the Fed through year end. I expect also to
17:55
Speaker 3: get a significant amount of jawbwning from our central bankers
17:59
Speaker 3: that's more hawkish in nature to try to anchor inflation.
18:04
Speaker 3: Expectations and to try to buy quite a little bit
18:07
Speaker 3: of time and credibility on the inflation price stability front.
18:11
Speaker 3: And so it is good to hear from Nancy that
18:14
Speaker 3: folks in the White House and the Treasury have been
18:16
Speaker 3: clearing a path to allow Kevin Walsh to maintain policy
18:20
Speaker 3: rates where they are and to try to assert his
18:23
Speaker 3: independence and to try to retain some price stability and
18:28
Speaker 3: inflation credibility, which hopefully could lead to a little bit
18:33
Speaker 3: of softening of long term interest rates over which they
18:36
Speaker 3: only have loose control, which of.
18:38
Speaker 2: Course would also then help anyone who's getting a new
18:40
Speaker 2: mortgage or remortgaging. Nancy, I'll give you the sort of
18:43
Speaker 2: last word. As I said at the start, I don't
18:45
Speaker 2: think this will be the first conversation we have on
18:47
Speaker 2: this topic. But you know, we have the summer. Congress
18:50
Speaker 2: is now out, we have the summer, we have there's
18:53
Speaker 2: going to be sort of mad July fourth celebrations. I
18:56
Speaker 2: was just hearing from colleagues how hard it is to
18:58
Speaker 2: get around DC at the moment with all the Ferris
19:01
Speaker 2: wheels and the construction works and everything else. But we
19:05
Speaker 2: have that assuming that you end up that you're still
19:08
Speaker 2: in a sort of uneasy stalemate when it comes to
19:12
Speaker 2: the Iran situation, where no one feels particularly good about it,
19:16
Speaker 2: but all price is stay reasonably low. How Democrats are
19:21
Speaker 2: going to play this in the summer. Are they just
19:22
Speaker 2: going to keep on banging the drum for everything that's
19:24
Speaker 2: happened so far and they're convinced that the bad news
19:27
Speaker 2: is going to stick even if the headlines get a
19:30
Speaker 2: bit better, or is there an opening for Republicans to
19:34
Speaker 2: make this a bit better.
19:36
Speaker 1: I think that there's an opening for Republicans to make
19:38
Speaker 1: this better than people are anticipating, just because the Democratic
19:42
Speaker 1: Party continues to be in such disarray since the twenty
19:45
Speaker 1: twenty four election. There's just an extraordinary amount of infighting
19:50
Speaker 1: in the Democratic Party right now. There's no clear leader
19:53
Speaker 1: of it, not that there would be at this point,
19:55
Speaker 1: but there's major disagreements over policy, particularly over the like
20:00
Speaker 1: support of Israel, how far people should go on the
20:03
Speaker 1: cost of living agenda. And what we're seeing is there
20:07
Speaker 1: in primaries, particularly in Colorado for instance, there are people
20:11
Speaker 1: who are part of the Democratic Socialist Party, this is
20:14
Speaker 1: the party Mayor Mandami's part of in New York that
20:16
Speaker 1: are winning primaries, and there's these major upsets in these
20:20
Speaker 1: Democratic primaries, and what that does is it a makes
20:24
Speaker 1: centrist Democratic voters really uncomfortable, but b it furthers this
20:28
Speaker 1: notion that Republicans are trying to advance that Democrats are
20:31
Speaker 1: super super liberal. And so there's just huge infighting between
20:34
Speaker 1: the progressive wing of the Democratic Party and the more
20:37
Speaker 1: moderate wing. And I think that is going to potentially
20:40
Speaker 1: hurt them in the midterms because the more left leaning
20:44
Speaker 1: candidates who end up running for House and Senate races,
20:48
Speaker 1: it's just going to potentially alienate swing voters who are
20:51
Speaker 1: really up for grabs. Some of what Stuart was talking
20:54
Speaker 1: about with these young men and black men and hispanics,
20:58
Speaker 1: those are voters that were part of the Trump colid
21:00
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty four, but they were, you know, I think,
21:03
Speaker 1: sort of borrowing them. They're not solidly Republican. And so
21:07
Speaker 1: in order for Democrats to appeal to a wider coalition,
21:10
Speaker 1: they need policies that are a little bit more centrist
21:13
Speaker 1: or moderate. And I think that Democrats just continue to
21:16
Speaker 1: tear each other apart just.
21:18
Speaker 2: As a final thing. But those of us who thought
21:19
Speaker 2: once every four years was really enough for conventions. You're
21:23
Speaker 2: going to have the delight of a midterm convention, is
21:25
Speaker 2: that right?
21:26
Speaker 1: That's right. This is President Trump's idea. The Republican National
21:29
Speaker 1: Committee had to change their by laws in January to
21:33
Speaker 1: accommodate this new idea. And really, normally conventions are a
21:37
Speaker 1: place where the party nominates the candidate who's actually going
21:43
Speaker 1: to run for president. Trump really wants a made for
21:46
Speaker 1: TV showmanship party that he can put on TV before
21:52
Speaker 1: the fall when voters really make up their minds who
21:54
Speaker 1: they're going to vote for. And so it's going to
21:56
Speaker 1: be two days in Dallas, Texas, September ninth and tenth.
22:00
Speaker 1: And it's really there's not going to be party business
22:02
Speaker 1: that's conducted. No one's going to sign off on a
22:04
Speaker 1: party platform, no one's going to nominate a candidate. It's
22:08
Speaker 1: really just something to try to juice Republican voters to
22:11
Speaker 1: go to the polls.
22:12
Speaker 2: What's the difference between that and all the other Trump
22:15
Speaker 2: sort of rallies that he does.
22:17
Speaker 1: It's going to be like a two day rally in Texas,
22:19
Speaker 1: and Texas has a huge number of Republican donors, huge
22:23
Speaker 1: oil and gas industry. This is a new thing. This
22:26
Speaker 1: midterm convention and we'll see how it goes. Stephanie, you
22:29
Speaker 1: should come to Dallas.
22:31
Speaker 2: I'm just looking at my calendar. I don't think I
22:33
Speaker 2: think it's looking terribly busy in that week, but I
22:37
Speaker 2: will leave it to you, NATSI, Stu, Paul, Natcy Cook.
22:40
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Thanks Stephanie, thank you, thank you,
22:53
Speaker 2: Thanks as ever for listening to Trumponomics from Bloomberg. It
22:57
Speaker 2: was hosted by me, Stephanie Flanders and I was joined
22:59
Speaker 2: by Now and See Cook from Bloomberg News and Stuart Paul,
23:03
Speaker 2: economist at Bloomberg Economics. Trumponomics was produced by Summer Sunni
23:07
Speaker 2: and Mostes and IM with help from Amy Keen and
23:10
Speaker 2: sound design is by Blake Maples and Aaron Casper. And
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Speaker 2: wherever you listen,