Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / Bloomberg's McLoughlin on Gun Tax, McCormick on Trump (Audio)

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Bloomberg's McLoughlin on Gun Tax, McCormick on Trump (Audio) · Bloomberg Intelligence

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  Speaker 1: listening to Taking Stock with Kathleen and pim Box on
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  Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio, Columbine, Virginia, tech Ford, Hood, San Bernardino, Orlando.
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  Speaker 1: The list goes longer and longer, and so does the
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  Speaker 1: the debate over advocates for gun control and gun rights
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  Speaker 1: and others. Again, this is just heating up this debate
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  Speaker 1: all the time. But there's a new friction seeping into
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  Speaker 1: this debate that you don't always see among the immediate
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  Speaker 1: post shooting rhetoric, where the states and local tax laws
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  Speaker 1: can target firearms and ammunition. So we are happy to
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  Speaker 1: welcome back to the show, Jenni. Jennifer McLachlin. She's tax
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  Speaker 1: reporter for Bloomberg b An, a holly On subsidiary of
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  Speaker 1: Bloomberg On, the leading source of legal, regulatory and business
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  Speaker 1: information for professionals. So, Jennifer, Uh, many cities and states
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  Speaker 1: now are adding yet not not a sales tax necessarily,
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  Speaker 1: but a whole other kind of tax that they can
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  Speaker 1: to guns ammunition. Why and what are they doing? But
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  Speaker 1: we're seeing with states and localities is this attempt to
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  Speaker 1: tax firearms ammunition and not just with the basic sales tax,
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  Speaker 1: but was an extra exercise tax. And what we're hearing
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  Speaker 1: from localities that have actually pass these tax is that
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  Speaker 1: these are meant to raise revenue in order to fund
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  Speaker 1: programs to address safety concerns and also to reduce crime. Jennifer,
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  Speaker 1: what if you could tell us a little detail about
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  Speaker 1: what happened in the Northern Marianas Islands. This is a
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  Speaker 1: US territory and the governor said that this was something
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  Speaker 1: that none of us wanted. They said that we wanted
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  Speaker 1: to make it as strict as possible. And it also
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  Speaker 1: has to do with a court decision. And what if
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  Speaker 1: you could elaborate what happened with the Northern Mariana Islands recently.
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  Speaker 1: Is they imposed they enact the legislation imposing a thousand
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  Speaker 1: dollar tax on handguns. And actually we've heard that people
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  Speaker 1: have thought that this could be a role model for
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  Speaker 1: the States, but we're not hearing States locality suggest that
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  Speaker 1: they're going to actually follow suit with this example that
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  Speaker 1: thousand dollar tax. Well, the idea of these taxes, as
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  Speaker 1: I understand it from your excellent story being a story,
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  Speaker 1: is that cover the costs of medical bills. Someone gets shocked, right,
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  Speaker 1: that involves hospital costs and also um police enforcement. So
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  Speaker 1: that's that's part of the logic here. Now, Um, the opposition,
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  Speaker 1: for example, the Lawrence Keene from the National Shooting Sports Foundation,
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  Speaker 1: UH told you that he says is a disconnect. They're
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  Speaker 1: basically arguing this side that that you can put these
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  Speaker 1: taxes on, it's not going to cause less mass shootings. Correct.
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  Speaker 1: They're saying that they the objective behind the tax not
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  Speaker 1: actually connect to the externalities or the consequential costs of
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  Speaker 1: gun violence. It's not going to do anything to actually
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  Speaker 1: deter violence because criminals are not buying these taxes or
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  Speaker 1: excuse me, you do not buying firearms remmunition. They're actually
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  Speaker 1: buying them from underground sales. And so in order to
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  Speaker 1: reduce crime, you need to actually go after the criminals themselves.
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  Speaker 1: And um Mr King had actually said won't. When you
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  Speaker 1: do that is through law enforcement, but not through taxation. Now,
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  Speaker 1: Chicago also has a tax on firearms. Correct, that's a
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  Speaker 1: twenty five dollar per firearm. Correct. And are there other
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  Speaker 1: states that are going to in some way use this
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  Speaker 1: not necessarily to restrict gun ownership, but as you described earlier,
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  Speaker 1: to just raise money. Other than Cook County in Illinois
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  Speaker 1: and Seattle, we have not seen a trend emerging with
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  Speaker 1: states mortality seeking to tax firearms ammunition. In the past,
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  Speaker 1: some states have introduced proposals, but none of them actually
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  Speaker 1: went through the General Assembly and became law, and we're
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  Speaker 1: not seeing this becoming a turn in the near future.
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  Speaker 1: So what is it? Is it a big tax revenue
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  Speaker 1: builder for certain, depending on what kind of tax you
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  Speaker 1: you pass, I guess if quite apart from trying to
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  Speaker 1: end gun violence and mass shootings, a lot of a
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  Speaker 1: lot of states and cities could use some help with
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  Speaker 1: their budgets. Correct And when we speak with Cooke County
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  Speaker 1: in Seattle, they have revenue projections that indicate they will
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  Speaker 1: be pulling in quite a bit of revenue with these taxes. However,
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  Speaker 1: we have heard from opposition that that is those figures
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  Speaker 1: are illusories because in fact, customers and businesses will leave
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  Speaker 1: the city to go elsewhere in order to set up
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  Speaker 1: business or to buy guns. And also we have avoid
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  Speaker 1: the information with regard to what the revenue projections for
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  Speaker 1: these taxes are. There's just terribal information about the tax
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  Speaker 1: In general, the organizations who conduct research have not been
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  Speaker 1: able to actually generate an estimate of what these laws
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  Speaker 1: could actually bring in terms of revenue. Thank you very much.
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  Speaker 1: Jennifer McLaughlin, tax reporter for Bloomberg b NA located in Arlington, Virginia,
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  Speaker 1: Bloomberg b NA, a wholly owned subsidi or Bloomberg and
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  Speaker 1: a leading source of legal, regulatory and business information for professionals.
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  Speaker 1: Turn our attention now to professional politics. John McCormick, our
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  Speaker 1: reporter from Bloomberg Politics, joins us from Chicago. John, and
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  Speaker 1: wonder if you could just give us a summary of
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  Speaker 1: the new polls that have been released, particularly in key
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  Speaker 1: battleground states between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Yeah, none
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  Speaker 1: of them really, you are particularly good for Donald Trump.
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  Speaker 1: These are in battleground states like New Hampshire in Pennsylvania,
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  Speaker 1: places that are most likely going to decide the election. UM.
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  Speaker 1: One one poll out today had Clinton at forty three
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  Speaker 1: to thirty nine UM in a four way race. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: That one was out of Uh Pennsylvania. Excuse me? That
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  Speaker 1: one was Florida another obviously really important battleground states. So
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  Speaker 1: that the state polls are reflecting what we've been in
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  Speaker 1: the national pool since the convention, which is generally an
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  Speaker 1: uptick in support for Clinton and a downtick for Trump. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: and of course it doesn't seem coincidental that this downtick
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  Speaker 1: has occurred as Donald Trump has made the comments about
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  Speaker 1: the military family the most American military family who lost
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  Speaker 1: their son and then has still seen a odds with
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  Speaker 1: key players in the Republican Party like Paul Ryan and
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  Speaker 1: John McCain. Yeah. Absolutely. I mean you could make the
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  Speaker 1: case that Trump has had about the worst ten day
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  Speaker 1: period of his his campaign and just mostly almost entirely
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  Speaker 1: self inflicted too. And of course Republicans are are again
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  Speaker 1: losing patients with him because they feel like he's creating
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  Speaker 1: these campaign distractions that are unnecessary instead of focusing on
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  Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton. And uh, you know who, who in her
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  Speaker 1: own right is is a not the strongest candidate. There's
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  Speaker 1: a large proportion of the country who is inclined not
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  Speaker 1: to like her and is inclined to not support her
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  Speaker 1: in the election. And so um, you know this, this,
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  Speaker 1: the self inflicted wounds that Trump Trump keeps invoking are
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  Speaker 1: just really maddening to Republicans. John tell us about what's
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  Speaker 1: going on in the Wisconsin first, the congressional district. This
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  Speaker 1: is the House Speaker Paul Ryan's home base. Yeah, I
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  Speaker 1: was just up there yesterday, and uh, you know, there's
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  Speaker 1: there's no real sense here that Paul Ryan is a
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  Speaker 1: you know, severe threat to being defeated in a primary
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  Speaker 1: on Tuesday. You know, has happened with Eric Cantor in Virginia.
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  Speaker 1: Back in Ryan has paid more attention to the district.
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  Speaker 1: He goes back more frequently in and you know, has
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  Speaker 1: been very aware of sort of constituent services there and
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  Speaker 1: generally it is popular. But a challenger is really trying
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  Speaker 1: to use uh, Brian's poor relationship with Trump to try
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  Speaker 1: to present himself as a more conservative alternative to Ryan
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  Speaker 1: and trying to you know, rally the Republican base behind him. Um,
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  Speaker 1: it's probably not going to be successful, but he's getting
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  Speaker 1: a lot of national tension and and really taking some
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  Speaker 1: very aggressive and hostile pokes at at the speaker. Um.
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  Speaker 1: You know, it was really you know, the top elected
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  Speaker 1: Republican elected official in the country. Um. So he uh,
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  Speaker 1: the primary on Tuesday night is going to be interesting
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  Speaker 1: to watch. There's no real public polling that would suggest
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  Speaker 1: that the race is that close. Ryan favorability ratings in
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  Speaker 1: the in the last public poll up there showed him
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  Speaker 1: popular with about eighty per plus of Republicans and independence
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  Speaker 1: who lean that way. But it's it's not everybody's radar,
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  Speaker 1: just because it would be obviously a huge deal if
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  Speaker 1: Ryan were defeated in the primary next week. Well, in public,
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  Speaker 1: of course, the Trump campaign from the best face on
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  Speaker 1: all of this. Uh, Paul Manifortis, you just mentioned him,
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  Speaker 1: the campaign chairman, seeming to say, everything's fine. If I
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  Speaker 1: could paraphrase, what are you hearing though? From inside the
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  Speaker 1: camp pain itself? For people who are close to the
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  Speaker 1: Trump's are they dismayed? Are what's next? Well? I think
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  Speaker 1: you know, the reports suggest that manaford Is is obviously frustrated,
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  Speaker 1: but he's sort of resigned himself. The fact that you know,
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  Speaker 1: you live by Donald Trump, you die by Donald Trump.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, he is a sort of a one man show,
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  Speaker 1: and the campaign is sort of set up around him
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  Speaker 1: to support him. But he's he seems like a guy
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  Speaker 1: who ultimately is going to do whatever his gut tells
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  Speaker 1: him to do. He's he's run his campaign for you know,
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  Speaker 1: a year plus that way, and then up until now
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  Speaker 1: it's generally served him fairly well. Um, but running a
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  Speaker 1: you know, a general election presidential campaign is extremely different
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  Speaker 1: from a primary campaign, and Trump is learning that. So
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  Speaker 1: that people in the campaign who are obviously frustrated. There
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  Speaker 1: are people in the Republican National Committee who are trying
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  Speaker 1: to advise Trump's campaign and give him guidance and try
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  Speaker 1: to keep him on message, but they are not having
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  Speaker 1: success doing that. John McCormick, thank you so very much
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  Speaker 1: for joining us from Bloomberg Politics. I'm Kathleen Hayes. Along
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  Speaker 1: bonds to stocks and more. This is taking Stock, this
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