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We're talking about all time highs after the earnings report last evening, as the markets dive headfirst into artificial intelligence with no looking back here. Apparently, the question is is Washington already looking at this in the rearview mirror as a missed opportunity. We've seen the administration take swings at AI. We've seen attempts by the legislature to tackle AI. Remember they had everybody come on in the big executives, from
Elon Musk to Mark Zuckerberg and so on. Yet there's no path here in Congress that can't even figure out a way to fund the government. But I'll add this news this week, a new swing at the ball bipartisan as Speaker Mike Johnson and Minority Leader Hakim Jeffries announced together the creation of a twenty four member bi partisan panel.
This happened just two days ago, tasked with examining how Congress should respond to the rise of AI and its risks of misinformation, discrimination, copyright infringement, among other potential harms, some of which are already creeping into the campaign cycle. As we've talked about the deep fakes that could absolutely impact the outcome of the election. And that's where we
start today with Greg Allen. He's the director of the wad Wani Center for AI in Advanced Technologies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, with a long career in this going back to the Pentagon, and a unique sense of how the government is using AI right now.
Greg.
It's good to see you, and I appreciate your being with us. I'll get more specific with some questions about attempts to regulate this, but I guess broadly the question is has Washington already missed the opportunity.
No, I don't think that's the case. The United States government does not always jump quickly on every new topic, including every new regulatory topic. Sure, but I think there's been some genuine speed in this area. And that's true both on the congressional side and especially in the executive
branch side. You know, the White House under the Biden administration passed an executive order on AI technology, and we're now, you know, past the ninety day mark, and every single federal agency, you know, met their deadlines for that ninety day period. And I think the House effort should be interpreted as the counterpart to what's going on in the Senate.
And both of these are bip bipartisan initiatives, and both of them are aiming at coming up with comprehensive legislation sometime this year.
You sound optimistic, which is great to hear for such a fast moving technology and such a slow moving apparatus as Congress, as I mentioned, and we can't even figure out a funding mechanism right now, never mind helping our allies in Ukraine and Israel. What makes you think they can get this done?
Well? Getting it done when, I think would be the critical question. In that regard, something is almost certainly going to pass, and when that occurs in under what time frame is a little bit unclear. It could happen this year, although as we get closer to the election, passing big
pieces of law gets more difficult. It's also possible that it could pass during the lame duck period in between the election and the inauguration of the next Congress and the next president, some folks who will be retiring, you know, might be a little bit more open to bipartisan legislation and passing stuff that might otherwise be politically difficult. So those are passages that could take place in the congressional action.
On the federal agency action, you're already seeing some movement on these areas, you know, after a recent deep fake AI generated voice of President Biden that was falsely you know, used during a robo call to discourage turnout in one of the recent presidential primaries, the Federal Communications Commission has already moved to ban the use of AI generated voices
in electoral robo calls. So some of this stuff can move pretty quickly on a piecemeal basis, but on a broad basis, you know, going after all foundation models or the large sort of general purpose AI systems exemplified by products such as chat GPT. You know, of course, developing these regulations and developing them in the right way is going to take some time.
To what extent the go to what extent are we actually using it already as a government greg you were at the Pentagon to see firsthand in the very early stages of adopting AI, but I know it can go way beyond that. Let's start there though with our Defense department.
Sure, well, the Department Department of Defenses flagship AI adoption initiative originally was something called Project Maven, and that was using AI for computer vision capabilities, essentially recognizing what's actually taking place in what's present in images and video. Well, that got started all the way back in twenty seventeen and actually has a great deal to show for its efforts.
So those types of things in recognizing tanks in satellite images or recognizing you know, aircraft in drone images, that type of technology is relatively mature at this point for certain types of use cases. For the other types of AI systems, you know it exemplified as I said by chat GPT, the Department of Defense has a task force underway called Task Force LIMA that is really studying sort of what are the best use cases for this in the near term and in the long term.
Task Force LIMA. We had a conversation with Congressman Seth Moulton from his view on the Armed Services Committee. He wrote a not ed that was chilling about the use of AI in weaponry by the United States and other countries. He was calling for an AI Geneva Convention, knowing that players like Russia are going to seize on this as soon as they can. Do you worry about this getting out of control in terms of an AI arms race.
Well, I think the Geneva Convention is actually kind of illustrative as the nature of the problem. You know, the Niva Convention defined the key principles underpinning international humanitarian law and the law of war, stuff like proportionality in your response in the use of military force and ensuring that
there is military necessity of attacking a target. Well, when you've got the Russian military intentionally bombing hospitals in Ukraine, intentionally bombing civilian infrastructure, they are a signatory to the Geneva Convention and they're openly, willingly violating it in rather
cavalier terms. So I think the idea that some kind of convention is going to stop their adoption of military AI and also to stop their unethical use of military AI, the prospects are pretty grim, to be frank that said, I think there is opportunity among democratically aligned nations, those that share the same values the United States government has shepherd an initiative around the use of autonomy in weapons systems and codifying sort of what is the code of
conduct for what constitutes responsible use. Of course, it's possible to use military AI systems in a way that it is unethical, but it's also possible to use your fists in a way that is unethical. Fair enough, and I think the question sort of then becomes, is there a way to actually codify what would constitute ethical behavior? And that's the type of work I was engaged in the Department of Defense. And now there's more than four dozen countries who are signing up to the US view on this topic.
Well, that's fascinating to hear and encouraging, to be honest, Greg Allen. The knock on this, by the way, is that any attempt to regulate this technology could set back the US as a leader in AI. And this is what lawmakers frequently here when they bring tech executives to Capitol Hill. And it makes you wonder if government is going to do this or if it ends up being a self policing high tech industry.
Well, I think the most advanced regulatory work in the United States is, of course exemplified by the Biden Administration's Executive Order. In the European Union, they just recently passed the European Union's AI Act, which is actually a much broader set of regulations that covers AI in a much
more horizontal, cross cutting fashion. So they still have to pass that version of that bill in all of the European Union's languages across all twenty seven countries, but that'll probably take place in April, and then various parts of this law will start entering into force over the next year, two years, three years.
You know, we cover political campaigns here day in and day out, Greg, and we're starting to see you mentioned the Joe Biden and we're starting to see some of the examsamples of AI creep into at least that part of campaigning. Some are actually using AI as an organizing tool. But when it comes to deep fakes and trying to make a message out of things, I wonder if if you see that becoming a greater problem between now and the November.
Election, certainly, and in countries around the world that are having their elections or have already had their elections, such as for example, Bangladesh. Deep fakes have already played a reasonably large role in the electoral politics. Of course, if you can generate high quality false audio or false video of the candidate in question doing something controversial or embarrassing or unethical, you can get that now through social media or through other channels in front of a lot of
potential voters. And so I think what the US government and what governments around the world are thinking through is what is actually available in the legal and regulatory toolbox to belase this type of activity. You know, some types of speech you're obviously protected, other types are not in an elections context, and so they're trying to figure out what is the what's available in the regulatory toolbox, and what's actually likely to be affected.
I'm really glad you could come spend some time with us. Greg Allen a voice of experience on artificial intelligence and a conversation I hope you'll think about when you hear reports of Nvidia soaring to all time highs today. This is the conversation that we're having about this in Washington. He's the director of the Wadwani Center for AI and Advanced Technologies, the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Greg, thank you as we bring it to the campaign trail.
Now we're just a couple of days out from the South Carolina primary. I wanted to talk to you, Laura Davison, who is on the ground in South Carolina preparing for what could be a very ugly experience for Nicki Haley in her home state. Laura, it's great to see you. All of the data, all the polling that we've seen so far would suggest that Nicki Haley could lose by anywhere from twenty to thirty points. What's it feel like on the ground.
You know that really is is the message and kind of what you're feeling. Obviously, this is Haley's new state. She's served as governor here for two terms, and she is popular. She was very popular as governor and remains to me. But people still want Trump and you see that reflected in the pooling. That's not that they dislike Haley, but they just want Trump more. Haley is really fighting here.
She's on the airway, she's spending lots of money on advertising, she is criss crossing the state having a bunch of events. By contrast, you see Trump not even in the state today. He has an event later in Tennessee which doesn't vote until Super Tuesday, So that really tells you how both candidates are feeling about their chances. Trump very confident, making Haley fighting it out.
She's making news on in vitro fertilization following this ruling from Alabama's Supreme Court. The headline on our story says, at all embryos to me are babies, Laura, she's talking about her own personal experience. Is this resonating locally?
Yeah? This is has been interesting. You know, she has been very nuanced on abortion of you know, kind of saying that she is a personally pro life but doesn't want to judge others who are not, and also looking at clear that you know, some of these bands in the federal level just aren't likely you know here in you know, saying that embryos or baby, she's taking a
little bit more of a conservative tax. But she also was asked about that later last night and kind of seemed to walk that back and said, you know, look, you know that that that she wants parents to be able to do what they can with you know, in vitro fertilization and the embryos that they create, much like she and her husband were able to do to conceive their children.
You mentioned her husband, Donald Trump's been calling him out. He's deployed in the military overseas, has been calling him out for not being present in the campaign. That that could cut both ways. With the number of active military and veterans in South Carolina, Laura, are people talking about it.
Yeah, that's something that's gotten a lot of coverage and you've seen that can really really get you know, emotional in the campaign trail and asked about that. You know, this is a very heavily military area. Uh, you know, there's a there's a lot of folks here. But also you see time and time again, you know, no matter who Trump goes out where people don't dig him as
part of his brand. You know, whether he's going after people with you know, mental disabilities or you know, gold Star families or you know, deployed in the active military members, it doesn't really seem to to rub off on him.
That's something. When are we going to find out? This is gonna, I guess be an early call if we're talking about a twenty thirty point spread here, Laura.
Yes, we saw early calls both Iowa and New Hampshire. You know, polls closed in South Carolina at seven pm Eastern time on Saturday night, and I anticipate will be seeing results and perhaps a call very shortly after that, like.
As you say, eight oh one, maybe as we saw to your point in the two early states, is turnout going to be part of this story.
Turnout will be part of this story, but it's not really the biggest part. You know, there's there will be some potential, you know, for things like next week we'll have Michigan where you have again one of those more open primaries where you know Democrats or independence could vote
South Carolina. It's really you know, the cake is baked here, and you know that may be able to be able to make some of the deficit by having more supporters come out or have some Democrats who liked her as governor, but it won't it won't change the game.
The cake is baked. When Laura Davison says that, you know, it's real great to see you or appreciate your reporting and joining us from South Carolina. We'll stay in touch with Laura as we approach primary day on Saturday, and we'll be able to distill the results for you. Of course, on Monday, Laura makes a great point. As soon as we get back to it. Next week, we're talking about the Michigan primary that's on Tuesday, and it's Joe Biden we're going to be watching this time.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast kens just Live weekdays at noon Eastern on Apple car Play and then royd Oro with the Bloomberg Business App. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station, Just Say Alexa Play Bloomberg eleven thirty.
Welcome to Bloomberg Radio and TV. Here on Balance of Power. It is the Thursday edition. I'm Joe Matthew in New York. Kayley lines with me in Washington, d C. Where Kaylee Joe Biden has got to be feeling damned if he does, damned if he doesn't. When it comes to the border, we're talking about unilateral executive action, which is exactly what Republicans were calling for following the meltdown of the border deal on the Hill, and apparently the Speaker doesn't like it. He's calling it a gimmick.
An election, youre gimmick, specifically considering that, yes, this is a big problem for an incumbent president in an election year, knowing he has to deal with the border issue if he wants to potentially improve his approval on that front. And what were we hearing from Congressional Republicans when they were shooting down the deal that sent negotiators had struck with the White House. It was the idea that the president already had this authority. He had the authority to
make changes at the border. He just wasn't using it. And I guess the question is is he going to be using it now? To help us answer this, Bloomberg Stordan Fabian is here with me in our Washington, d C.
Studios.
He of course covers the White House for us, So Bloomberg is reporting, we're looking at the Section twelve, two hundred and twelve f powers that were used by former President Trump and now maybe used by his Democratic successor. What exactly are these things? What is the president looking to do here?
The administration is looking at a few things, trying to make it harder for migrants to claim asylum at the border, and trying to sort of stop the flow if crossings get to a certain level.
And as you mentioned, it.
Would be quite controversial because those are the same powers the administration is looking at that Donald Trump used to invoke the ban on travelers some mostly majority Muslim countries.
And it's a difficult balance for Biden.
On the one hand, he's certainly moved to the right since twenty twenty one when he promised to take down Donald Trump's immigration agenda because of the situation this year and how politically toxic it is for him. At the same time, he has a lot of voters in his base, Latino voters, progressives who don't want to see him make moves like this, So he has to balance those priorities here going forward. I should mention that it's not a
certainty he does take this executive action right now. It's something that's just being considered within the administration.
That's important to note because it's already getting reaction out of the Speaker of the House. And I wonder what you make of the pushback here, Jordan. Conservatives have been asking Joe Biden to use executive action to deal with the border. Here the Speaker's calling it an election your gimmick, as we just said, Is there something further is that they want Title forty two back in place. What would make Capitol Hill. Republicans happy here.
It's an impossible question to answer, Joe. I mean, their stance on this has been totally bizarre. The goalposts keep moving up and down the field. To summarize Speaker Johnson's position, you can't have legislation because the president can do executive action. And you also can't have executive action because that's an election you're gimmick, which, by the way, proves that Joe Biden can't be trusted to negotiate legislation. I mean, it's
like talking in circles here. So you can see why the White House is so frustrated with him because their position is constantly changing. And you know, to your question of what they want, I don't think they know what they want either. They might not want anything. They might want the current situation to remain status quo and use the chast of the border as a political weapon against Joe Biden and Democrats.
Well, but to your point about the messaging we've gotten from Republicans in the House, to go back to this idea that they have maintained that the president has this authority and he wasn't using it. If Biden then decides to exercise that authority. Isn't he proving their point and could face blowback for just doing so too late?
He certainly could. I mean you can look at it that way.
I think you can look at it the other way, which is that he's exhausted all the options and this is what he has to do. And look, I mean both sides I think have changed their position on this should be mentioned. The House Republicans one of the first thing they did was past HR two, which was this extremely hardline border bill, and so that would suggested they also believe that legislation was necessary to fix the problem.
At the border.
And look, I've covered immigration for a long time. A lot of presidents Barack Obama, Donald Trump have taken executive action. What's been proven is always on stronger legal ground to do legislation because these executive actions get tied up in lawsuits and a lot of them get struck down. So that's I think of the point that the President was trying to make that he needs Congress's authority to make these changes permanent and make them real.
There we have it from Jordan Fabian. Good to see reporting from the White House for Bloomberg every day in Washington I'm Joe Matthew and New York Kiley's of course in Washington with Jordan and Mohammed Yunis. I'm looking forward to this conversation. Always, we learned something from Mohammad, the editor in chief at Gallup Kayley, because we're talking about a number of different angles on Joe Biden right now. It's not just the border, it's also Israel as he
heads for the primary in Michigan next week. Add the economy, and we're still looking at underwater approval ratings as actual voters hit the polls.
Yeah, that's absolutely right. There is a number of issues, arguably that are working against the incumbent president, not even to speak of his age, which is something Joe that frankly, he cannot change. He is an octagenarian and that is just fact, and the vast majority of voters and consistent polling we are seeing think he is too old to
serve another term as president. Granted, there are a number of individuals who also think that former President Trump, the likely Republican nominee, is too old, but that's not something you can fix with policy.
It is what it is that's right. As opposed to the economy, where you can have a policy, and this president likes to call it Bidenomics, as he's adopted that moniker put forth by the Wall Street Journal, and some folks don't think that's a good thing, Kayley. The consistent disconnect between the economy and approval ratings and what people think of Joe Biden's handling of the econom of me has just been an unavoidable story for a Securit Bloomberg and it's likely to carry through the campaign.
Absolutely, And so let's carry on the conversation now. Joining me in studio here in Washington is Mohammad Unis, who is the editor in chief of gallupt. Mohammed, great to see you. As always, Joe and I were both really taken aback to some extent in both Iowa and New Hampshire these early Republican primary contests where we were on the ground finding out that maybe it wasn't the economy stupid as much as it was immigration as voters were
going to make their selection in the polls. Have we seen the economy now actually trumped in terms of an issue? What does Gallup's polling suggest.
Well, historically, and we've had this conversation before the economy has been kind of the most potent topic. But it's interesting that you mentioned immigration because in the next coming days, what we're going to be doing is releasing our most important problem question that we ask every month, and right now, immigration is the open ended answer of the most important album facing America by twenty eight percent of Americans, and that is a very significant increase just coming up in
the last several months. So as the situation at the border gets more critical, I think this topic is going to absolutely be coming up time and again. The other point on immigration that's interesting is when we ask people why do you disapprove of President Biden, one of the most important and frequently mentioned subjects is in fact immigration, second to which only is how he's managing the economy. So both the economy and immigration I think are going
to be really critical for Americans. They have been in the past less immigration, but I think what's happening right now is pretty consistent. And also other data points show that more Americans, beyond just folks who are traditionally concerned about immigration, are growing more concerned.
About the situation right now.
Another data point we'll be releasing soon is that right now, a majority of Americans I believe it's fifty five percent of those that are dissatisfied with the state of immigration in the country want to see less people coming into the country. And that's also a relative high when you look at the past several years to a decade. So immigration is absolutely perking up as a more potent subject for people as they think about this election.
Well, for voters who are going to be making their decisions based on the economy, Muhammad, it's not looking good for Joe Biden. As you wrote recently, political economic indicators not promising for the president. Sub fifty percent presidential job ratings have usually resulted in electoral defeat. So what are we talking about here.
President Biden?
Right now, looking at historical metrics, and my colleague JFF Jones did a great run up of all of the really important five to six metrics that we've looked at with previous presidents at similar moments in their presidency seeking reelection, He's behind almost every single one of them on every single metric, with the exception of President Carter.
On some of them, he definitely is behind.
And I think that's a really important thing to realize and keep in the forefront of our minds as we look to November. However, we're also seeing now the third month of continued improvement in American's economic confidence in the situation with the economy here at home, So our economic confidence index as Americans to think about the economy right now and where do they think it's going, essentially, and this will be the third month where we've seen an improvement.
So that's moving in the right direction, But a lot of these other traditional historic metrics are not promising for President Biden. His three year average at thirty nine point eight percent has him behind everybody but Carter at this
point in their presidency. And that number, now we're going to release later this afternoon, will be thirty eight, which is our new number that actually isn't published yet, but when we come out with that, that means that he's now almost two points below his own three year average at this point in the campaign.
Raises the question of what he is going to be able to campaign on or to try to do to improve his image, What issues can work in his favor. And I want to ask you about abortion specifically, because we know that has resulted in very high voter turnout in Democratic victories in the midterms and then some other
special elections across a number of states. And of course we've seen just within the last week in Alabama the Supreme Court there ruling that an embryo is a child, a life that must be protective protected, calling into question IVF treatments, fertility treatments that even conservatives have been very public about supporting broadly this kind of fertility treatment is supportive.
How do you think that may serve as a catalyst come this November, when we're even further out from the overturning of Roe versus Weight, and yet you're still feeling the effects with new developments like this one.
It's interesting that this is a topic now that will be implicated into the public conscience really through local decision making, right, because that's where a lot of these things happened as a situation you just mentioned. Overall, what we found in
our decades old trends. After the Dobbs decision, America has increasingly become slightly, not dramatically, but more identifying more as pro choice, and those who are experiencing dissatisfaction with the state of abortion laws want to see less, not more restrictive laws in the country.
You know, Roe v.
Wade was an interesting case in that over six and ten Americans didn't want it to didn't want to see it overturned, so it was by nature a uniquely unpopular decision. What's interesting is that since then, what we've seen is a slight cooling of those temperaments. So, for example, people identified as pro choice, it was fifty five percent last year, it's down to fifty two percent this year. So it's
that cooling you see consistently across those metrics. The other thing that's important to keep in mind is that people who identify as pro life are also on the uptick now, So we're kind of a recalibration moment in terms of public opinion reacting to the Roe v.
Wade overthrow.
But again, the more that these state decisions bring this topic back into focus, the more the significant. Now twenty eight percent of Americans that say that the candidate they vote were has to share their views, and that's increased dramatic notably since Roe v.
Wade. Those voters are going to be.
Mobilized by that national focus and it's going to show in their vote.
Pretty incredible to think about it, But the State of the Union address is two weeks from tonight, Mohammed. In our remaining moment here, based on your metrics, when the President says the state of the Union is strong, while the majority of Americans not believe.
Him, well, most Americans have been dissatisfied with the state of affairs in the United States now for a quite a long time, for years, and that predates President Biden. So I think that's going to be a hard sell just for the average public. What's really going to be interesting politically is how many of the folks that consider themselves to be independents will be drawn by his argument and to what degree outcome or really turnout is going to determine how this election ultimately goes.
As with all elections, but.
Most Americans are pretty negative on the state of national politics and national policy on many fronts immigration, abortion. I mean, it breaks on each side, but I don't think just one speech is going to get that done.
We're always smarter for some time with Mohammad. Units great to see you, Mohammad. Thanks for coming by our Washington bureau. As always, the editor in chief at Gallup, I'm Joe Matthew in New York, Kayley Lines in DC. We assemble our panel next for their take on what we're talking about here. Lester Munson and Pat Dennis are on the way. In This is Bloomberg.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast. Catch Just Live weekdays at noon Eastern on epocar Play and then Prounoro with the Bloomberg Business app demand wherever you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
Welcome back to Balance of Power on both Bloomberg Television and radio, where we always have our eyes on the polls on this program as we get closer and closer to not just the upcoming primary contest in South Carolina, but ultimately what's looking likely to be a general election
matchup between Trump and Biden come November. And yet, Joe, we also have to consider who else might be on the ballot come November, because a new Quinnipiac poll that came out yesterday showed if it's Biden Trump, Biden wins forty nine to forty five. When you add third parties into the mix. Guess who gets fifteen percent?
Huh.
This is fascinating to me, our FK Junior, Kaylee. We've been hearing Democrats and many of them on this program, Nash teeth ring hands over the idea of a no labels candidate, and we could still get one, presumably after Super Tuesday, but much less chatter about this man fifteen percent.
I don't know if you're reading into these polls to the extent that we should be here on a national poll this early on, but that's a real number, Kley, and it would put him on stage, I believe, in a general election debate, which is something to consider at this point. That's where we want to start with our panel. Lester Munson is with US Republican Strategist b g R Group,
alongside Pat Dennis, Democratic strategist. He's the president of American Bridge. Pat, of all the things that keep you up at night, is it No Labels or our RFK junior that could provide the real nightmare?
It's absolutely both of them, to be clear. Lots of things keep me up at night, but they both come back down to this fundamental Trump math problem, which is he can't win unless he's able to divide the anti Trump coalition. And you know, at American Bridge, we've been digging through rfk's financial filings and it's no surprise that one of the biggest owners that Donald Trump is also the biggest owner at RFK Superman, So it is a real worry for us. It's something we're taking extremely seriously.
But sort of the nice thing about RFK is voters who don't know anything about him tend to be the ones who have who support him. The second they learn anything about his positions, his personality, the things he's done, they flee the RFK train pretty quickly. So that's really what we're focused on, is being sure people are aware of his extreme positions.
Well, Lester, it raises the question of people are just pulling and saying, Okay, yeah, I vote for that guy because he's just the alternative that's there on the piece of paper, on the list of options that isn't Trump or Biden.
Yeah. I have to say I find mister Kennedy to be a little strange and some of his positions to be a little bit out there, And I think his success is largely due to the fact that the incumbent is so weak and people are looking for alternatives. Mister Kennedy, I think what is it age seventy two seems to have some youthful vigor compared to the other candidates. Maybe that's a big factor here.
Well, he's out there doing pushups in the street for you know, social media videos. Pat, is that what's in store for Joe Biden? Here more more topless days on the beach? How does he deal with the age issue?
I mean, the real contrast to make here is whether or not you're a serious politician or not. And with RFK, like we've seen his absolutely disgusting positions on vaccines, really spreading dangerous misinformation that the vast majority of the country absolutely rejects. And then you know, it's just a grab bag of positions across the board that people sort of loath. So yeah, he wants this to be a campaign about
you know, Instagram posts or whatever. But ultimately he has to run against the natural president who's solving problems for people.
Well, let's talk about the actual president, because we were just having a conversation in our prior segment about what he could do when it comes to the border. Pat, he's talking about or at least the administration is considering executive action that would bring about similar policies, if not the same as what we saw in the Trump administration. And this is a democratic president who came into office singing a very different tune on immigration in the border
issue than he's singing now. Is this just political reality for him and how's it going to go down with his party?
Well, I think the important thing to know here is that the problem with the Muslim band wasn't which section of law he used. The problem was it was a non constitutional, racist, xenophobic policy that was completely illegal and disgusting and a moral Now actually using the laws of the United States, as he's been forced to do by having an intrangent Republican party who refuses to sign legislation.
The American people support using the laws that are on the books in a way that is ethical and responsible and all the things you know, bipartisan that Joe Biden has shown you so good at over years.
I want to ask you both about what's going on in Michigan. This is going to be interesting as we all obsess over South Carolina and it appears to be a predetermined outcome here in favor of Donald Trump. Joe Biden's kind of worried about what goes on in Michigan. He's dispatched high level officials from the administration to go to that state to talk to Arab leaders Arab American voters who helped to deliver a win in Michigan for
Joe Biden in twenty twenty. Rashida Talib is now behind this uncommitted vote next week, encouraging Democrats to not vote for the incumbent. Here, Pat, how much of a problem does he have in Michigan? What's this going to look like on Tuesday?
Well, you know, the Democratic Party, we're a big, happy family. And if that's anything like my family, sometimes you throw a plate of food across the table at Thanksgiving, but you know, everybody comes back to play poker afterwards. At least if you're in my family. Sounds like a fun Finerald Trump is just oh yeah, Donald Trump is just too dangerous. We will come together in November to defeat him. And look, Joe Biden's doing the right thing. You need
to take states like Michigan seriously. You know, at American Bridge, this sort of the core of our program is focused on states like Michigan, also Wisconsin and Pennsylvania because they're really gonna decide the election.
Well, it makes me wonder Lester. Also, as we talk about voters who may be more reluctant to vote for Biden. Does that make them more likely to vote for Trump? Is that really the point to point thing we should be drawing, or is it just that this is going to be a turnout problem at the end of the day.
You know, so far it looks a lot like a turnout election. We're only in February, though, and no one's voting in the general election in February. There's primaries going on. As much as the Democrats tried to avoid having one
at all, they're having to go through that process. Also, once, I presume, at some point here in the summer, once we're pivot to the conventions and the actual general election, that these candidates, mister Biden and presumably mister trumpel though maybe Ambassador Haley will make a case to those independent swing voters. I sure would like to see that. The conundrum for the President in Michigan is very telling. His foreign policy is not what he's talking about to a
lot of audiences in the United States. He is basically supporting the Israeli government in their actions in Gaza, which by the way, I think is the right thing to do. That's not what he's saying back home. He's trying to kind of have his cake and eat it too here. I think people are seeing through that and they're a little skeptical about what they're hearing.
Pat, I'm curious what you think about the primary itself. I know you see Democrats winning Michigan, although it was only by one hundred and fifty one hundred and fifty five thousand votes in twenty twenty, with the vast majority of the state's two hundred thousand Muslim voters going for Biden. But is there a markin he needs to worry about if that uncommitted vote reaches a certain level, does that send a message that makes his life more difficult next week?
Well, at American Bridge, we think about Michigan pretty much every day. Primaries are primaries. It's extremely it's extremely important that we win this in November. And the what Joe Biden is doing, you know, sending people focusing on the state, focusing on jobs in the audio industry, focusing on infrastructure, this is all the stuff that's going to win it for him. Now, you know, this is a primary. We're
in February. I keep reminding people we're very early in the campaign, but ultimately, you know, you need to run the campaign, and you need to need to come in strong.
Well, it's early, and at this early stage we do see that the president has a very large war chest. Once the January figures came in Lester we learned he had raised forty two million dollars, he was now sitting on a pile of about one hundred and thirty million dollars. Whereas for the Trump campaign, they spent more than they raised and we saw millions of dollars going out the
door once again to pay for legal fees. As we talk about how it's going to require real investment in states swing states like Michigan, how much at the end of the day is this going to come to who has the most money in the bank.
It's going to be a big factor, and I think there's no doubt the Democrats are going to be in a much more advantageous position when it comes to raising massive amounts of campaign funds. And the Trumpet campaign, let's face it, has a problem with legal fees and a lot of that the money that's being raised is going straight into his legal fees, which makes the case for Nicki Haley so much better. She doesn't have to worry about that she can spend money on Ashley trying to
persuade voters. So that kind of gets you pretty quickly to who's going to win the free advertising battle? Who can go get free media? Former President Trump is, if indeed he's a nominee, has demonstrated he can do that pretty well, whether he's sitting in a courtroom or doing a press conference right outside the courtroom. And the President for some reason, is not taking advantage of free media opportunities. He skipped his opportunity to do an interview with the
Super Bowl. He hasn't been out there very much, and when he does get out there, it doesn't go super well for him. So I think he needs to address that issue if he's going to be as competitive as he can be in the general election.
All right, Lester Munson of BGR Group and Pat Dennis of American Bridge, thank you so much.
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