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We are back in Washington, back to reality with breaking news. I'm Joe Matthew here in the nation's capital and glad you're with us on the Monday edition of Sound On. We just heard officially from the White House that we have a deal to extend the pause in Israel. It will result in more hostages being released, two more days for twenty hostages. That's just coming together in the last hour or so. And I want to bring in Jordan
Fabian right now, White House correspondent at Bloomberg Jordan. This was the hope we heard from Joe Biden over the weekend, who said, you know, we've got this initial four day plan. The hope was to extend it and maybe get additional hostages. It's not a coincidence that we have twenty hostages in this case. There was an agreement that called for some structure here for each day I believe reached two days, it was ten hostages. Could this just keep going on indefinitely.
I think President Joe Biden and the US would love to see that. Israel has still made it clear that after this pause, after there are hostages released, that they plan to continue their military campaign against Hamas and Gaza. And so we haven't heard any indication so far that they plan to change those plans. But the longer this goes on, I think the US hopes, the more time they have to maybe talk Israel down, maybe downsize that continued defensive once this is over.
Yeah, this is something that came up on Sunday Morning television. Mike Turner, who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, a Republican, was concerned about the lack of detail that the administration had, or at least was making public about the hostages. Do you have a sense of whether the White House knows where they are?
I think you heard John Kirby in the briefing today admit that they don't really have a ton of details about the whereabouts, particularly of the remaining Americans who are being held. Part of the complication of this is that you're dealing with Hamas, which is a group whose leadership is deep underground in Gaza. All of this is being done through an intermediary in cutter and so they're not
the two parties are not talking directly. The hostages are also being held not just by Hamas but by other groups like Palestinine Islamic hi Had, who may have moved them around to different locations.
So it's a lot of this is a leap of faith.
A lot of this is not like, you know, information like proof of life well being is not really readily available. But what we've seen so far over the last few days is that the releases have taken place, the hostages are getting back, So I think the hope is that they can continue to do.
That while you're still with US Jordan. The matter of Israeli funding is obviously a real one, and it's something that we're going to be talking about quite a bit as lawmakers return to Washington. There are questions though about what form it might take. Chris Murphy, the Senator, a Democrat from Connecticut, suggested over the weekend that essentially humanitarian strings would be attached, that it would be based on
making good on international humanitarian law. Knowing that there have been a number of an extraordinary number of Palestinian civilians who have been killed in this conflict. Is that something that the White House is open to.
President Biden said on Friday that he would look at ways of conditioning this aid. That's a shift before in the beginning, when this was first proposed, said you know, we're going to help Israel, no strings attached. But since then, this offensive has taken place in Gaza, a lot of palace sittings have died, whole cities have been leveled, and so the mood has turned among Democrats. They want to see some concessions here. But then the calculus gets tough
because Republicans don't want to see concessions. There's also the broader disagreements over Ukraine and immigration that could subsume this Israel issue. So the at the passing Israel Aid is a lot harder than it was just a month ago, Isn't that?
For sure? It does seem like it's kind of out of the White House's hands at this point the President needs to wait to hear from leaders on the hill. Is that the case.
Reading between the lines of what the President has said, I think he's saying, look, if you guys have a proposal for conditioning this AID, let's see it right into law. And we can see if we can get a pass, but I don't see the President acting unilaterally to do that. He's looking to Congress, So as you said, yes, it's now in lawmaker's hands.
Hope had a great holiday. It's good to see you. Thank you as always. Jordan Fabian covering the White House for us here at Bloomberg, getting things started here on the Monday after. As we mentioned, news is breaking here and we're also watching the price of oil, remembering great concerns that so many people had about what might happen to energy prices if the war between Israel and Hamas somehow grew into a second or third front. We've seen
the opposite happen. Oil prices have in fact come down in a bit of relief over that, but also with of course supply and demand issues really driving prices here, a slowing economy in China and expected slow down here in the US. So it's something that we wanted to talk to Bob McNally about it Rapidan Energy, because we do have an OPEC meeting that's coming up this week and oil ministers will likely be reacting to everything that
I just mentioned. Bob is with us right now of course Rapidan Energy, as I mentioned, former National Security Council Senior director for International Energy. You also spent some time in the White House, Bob, it's great to see. I hope you had a great holiday. We're looking at crude oil here and I'm looking at WTI at this point below seventy five dollars a barrel. The OPEC meeting is
on Thursday. Is there anything that ministers will do? And I suspect you've got an answer to this to try to shore up prices going into winter.
Hey, Joe, it's great to be with you. Yeah, you know, there is a little bit of sort of side business though, before we get to keeping a floor under prices. OPEK plus kind of set it up, set itself up for some discussions back in the summer when they said, look for a few countries in Africa, Nigeria and Gola, Congo,
we're going to lower your quota starting in January. So even if we were here at a hundred dollars a barrel, Joe, there still is going to be some litigation going on about finalizing those lower quotas for some of those producers. Then you get EUAE, which got a bump, so there's that, and that's largely why we delayed, why we didn't have the meeting of the OPECK plus meeting on Sunday and now it's going to be Thursday. I think it's largely
because of that, let's call it side business. But then comes the as you just described, oil price are a lot softer than they thought. Balances are softer. We didn't see the big inventory draws everyone expect in the third quarter, So now they have to decide whether to extend their voluntary cut, the Saudi voluntary cut, or even cut deeper, and Joe, I think chances are they will. They'll at least extend the current Saudi cut through the third first
quarter of next year. OPEC plus remains in proactive, you know, a cautionary and preemptive mode, so that is our best case. I think odds favor some form of continued restraint on supply to keep prices from falling out of bed.
Here, what does it mean if that's the case. If they do get some cuts here, and I know that the Saudis are asking others to lower their quotas to try to shore up prices, what could we see between now and the end of the year.
Well.
I think if we get a solid extension of the Saudi cut, at the very least an extension of the three hundred thousand barrel a day Russian restraint on exports, UAE may be asked to wait a bit before increasing its production as was promised in the summer. You know, that's additional restraint of a million and a half barrels a day. I think we'll see a rally. I hope we talk about geopolitical risk. I think it's a little
too low. So I think between here and the end of the year, if we get the OPEC plus restraint, I think geopolitical risk is stewed higher. I think we can get a nice little rally here into year end. If they fail to cut, if they fail to signal the market there continued resolve, you know, oil prices could be heading south pretty fast.
This is fascinating considering the fact that there's a hot war in the Middle East, Bob, and that's where we started the hour here talking about Israel Hamas and now what appears to be and in fact is an extended truce. We're going to get twenty more hostages out here. The headlines have been a bit better over the past couple of days, but we've seen massive destruction and continued fighting
with an expectation that fighting will resume. I know we're not at war with Iran, but are you surprised to see oil prices continuing to sink in this environment?
I am a little bit.
I have to say, we don't. Our base case is not that this Gaza war will spread regionally, but it's not zero. And we look at options pricing and flat price and just talk to our clients. You get the impression there's zero risk of disruption, and it's not zero. It's at least thirty percent. I'm surprised at how many of our traders think that somehow Israel's not going to resume the war, that this truce will get extended, extended
and become permanent. We're pretty sure once they've gotten all the hostages out they can they will go back to business, you know, and in Gaza, and we think, you know, the risk is not zero. And you see now we're boarding ships that the houties are seizing. We're starting to attack the United States and kill Iranian proxies that are
attacking our troops. So you know, neither Tarun nor Washington wants to see a global conflict, but you can't always get what you want, and we think the cycle of violence is going to resume here when the truce is done. And so another thing Joe surprising that the Biden administration, I would say, to its credit, is not only filling the spr amiss two wars going on, but also I think is getting ready to really crack down on cheating
under the G seven price cap on Russian exports. They're willing to take more risk than they were this summer or before in restricting supplies in order to fill that spr and also make life a little more uncomfortable for Joe Biden. So rack that up there too as another bit of a man bite's dog story a little bit.
Yeah, well, I'm glad you mentioned what's happening with the Hoothi's. We should let our listeners and viewers know what took place over the weekend. The USS Mason responded to a distress call off Yemen an attempted hijacking of a chemical tanker owned by an Israeli billionaire. They managed to pursue the attackers. They tried to get away and they were apprehended, but all the while two ballistic missiles were fired at the Mason from hoothy controlled Yemen. They landed about ten
miles away. That could have ended very differently, Bob. And that's the kind of story you're talking about, isn't it.
Absolutely. You know, we've had about eighty attacks and rising on US forces. So far, god, thanks to God, we haven't had anyone killed. But you know, a lot of folks looked at the Iranian Foreign Minister when he came out and said, look, we don't want this war to go regional. Fine, but then they didn't pay attention to his next sentence when he said, but if Israel continues
as a tax and gaza, it will become inevitable. And I think folks are just whistling past the graveyard a little bit about geopolitical risk in the Middle East.
It's not zero. We learned today that the President will not attend COP twenty eighth this week, the big UN Climate Summit. I don't know if that was on your radar. Apparently John Kerry is going to go in his place. But that's of course an organization and an event that wants to put quotas to transition to green energy in a more aggressive place than they are.
Now.
What does it tell you about just the menu of options here and the priorities that this president is facing that he decided not to go.
You know, it must have been a difficult decision for him because ever since the Biden administration approved the Willow Project back in the spring in Alaska, they have been losing you see it in the polls, losing a lot of you young, young voter support. Really under pressure, and that's why it cracked down a little bit more. They're trying to get tighter on the environment. So I have to say I was a little bit surprised to see
the President not going there and waving the flag. I think there is a concern that maybe there's not going to be some very good deliverables there. They're talking about restraint on methane, trying to get together with China on a renewable target, but really there's not a lot of a substance there, and so maybe he's concerned about going
to a kind of a substance free meeting. There's also controversy because the COP twenty eight, after all, is being hosted by one of the world's largest oil producers and exporters oil and gas, and there's controversy there, but a bit surprising because he's underwater with his young voters, and I would think he'd want to shore up his green conventions by going that's.
A great point, Bob. It's good to talk to you. I appreciate your joining today. Bob McNally at Rapidan Energy where he's president, also former National Security Council Senior Director for International Energy and a unique perspective, which is why we talked to Bob frequently here on Bloomberg's sound on, I'm Joe, Matthew and Washington want to assemble the panel. Rick Davis and Genie Shanzano are with us. We're going to have a lot of time for Rick and Jeannie
throughout the hour here. But just to pick up on where Bob left off here, Genie, your thoughts on Joe Biden deciding to stay at home to manage this crisis and not attend the COP twenty eight summit in Dubai. Will he regret that?
I don't know, ife'l gret it, regret it? But I too was as surprised as Bob, you know, just given the poll numbers as he mentioned, and We've talked about eighteen to thirty four year olds. He is suffering in that age range in the environment. Climate really really key issue for him for them, and of course the poll number is suffering now because of Israel. But you add those together. I was surprised he chose not to go, But the reality is he does have so much on
his plate. It is really really possible that he just couldn't fit it into his schedule and he's going to find another way to shore up those green credentials.
I can only assume that that is the case here. Rick. Would it also suggest that this truce could be extended again?
Yeah?
I think that obviously it's gotten extended, you know, just notified today for another couple of days. Hopefully many more hostages will be released that could be a positive impact on the presence numbers. But we also see in recent polling that the young people eighteen to thirty five are turning against the war in Israel, and so you couple that with the lack of commitment on climbing.
That's where we'll pick up when we come back with Rick and Jeanie. This is Bloomberg.
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Just don't call it a cease fire. The pause or the truce, if you will, is being extended. This is breaking news today from the White House. Thanks for joining us. I'm Joe Matthew in Washington. Welcome to the fastest show in politics. It's been a couple of days. We've got a lot to talk about here. Having seen the release of dozens of hostages over the weekend, it appears there will now be twenty more in an extra two days of pausing, of course, in the fighting between Israel and Hamas.
Here's Admiral John Kirby a short time ago at the White House.
Humanitarian pause has already brought a halt of the fighting, together with a surge of humanitarian assistance. Now, in order to extend the pause, Hamas has committed to releasing another twenty women and children over the next two days. We would, of course hope to see the pause extended further, and that will depend upon Hamas continuing to release hostages.
We reassemble our panel for their take on what's happening. Rick Davis and Genie Shanzano Bloomberg Politics contributors join us here for the balance of the hour, and Rick, I wonder your thoughts here as Joe Biden cancels his trip to Do Buy for COP twenty eight this week to focus on this matter. I know the Cutteries are helping to broker this deal, but the White House is taking some credit for making it happen. Is this the way it keeps on rolling? Another day, another extension?
Yeah, I don't want to jinx it, but the point you made in the last segment that a pause doesn't necessarily go to a ceasefire, well, Joe Biden said for the Weekend Nantucket that he hopes the pause does result in a ceasefire, and of course, I think that's what everybody is hoping for right now, is some more tangible end of hostilities so that the balance of these hostages
can be returned. Also thought that one of the things that was not well reported is that the Cuttery Foreign Minister Sheik Muhammad al Thani has made the point that part of the Hamas's issues with releasing prisoners is that there are a number of other terrorist groups operating within Gaza that hold hostages that are not directly under the control of Hamas, and so Hamas has to go fetch them.
They don't know where they are, all of them. So it just shows you the level of disarray that exists in Gaza and how hard it's going to be to be able to secure the release of all these hostages.
President just tweeted Genie I have consistently pressed her rights for a pause in the fighting to accelerate and expand the humanitarian assistance. This, of course is something we've talked about a lot, having seen a real shift and sentiment among young voters. To Rick's point earlier, eighteen to thirty five year olds are largely not happy with the stand
that the administration has taken on this. This is why the President, of course, at least partly, was out over the weekend talking about the deal that had been put together. Let's remember the fact that a four year old girl, a dual US citizen, was freed over the weekend. You've probably heard about Abigail. Here's the president.
A little girl named Abigail turned four years old. She spent her birthday that birthday and at least fifty days before that hell hostage by Amas. Today she's free, and Joe and I together as so many Americans, are praying for the fact that she is going to.
Be all right.
Abigail Eden is her name, Jeanie. To what extent does this revelation help Joe Biden here at home and making the case for why the administration is backing Israel?
You know, I think that people have to look at what has happened over the last several days. I don't think in the aftermath of October seventh many of us would have thought that we would see these hostages coming home. They were obviously held too long, There's obviously a lot
more there. But the Biden administration does, to a certain extent, feel and rightly so, vindicated that his approach, this hard driving private diplomacy, has gotten us to where we are just today, as you've been reporting, another two days in this pause that we all hope gets extended and gets everybody out, so they do feel they are headed in
the right direction. With the pause, there has been enormous opportunity to get humanitarian aid into Gaza, much needed there, and so all of those factors for anybody who reflects seriously on this would help people, and particularly young people support what the Biden administration is doing, or at least it should. You know, we can't say how people will feel in the polls. The numbers are pretty stark for
them right now. But you know, every once in a while a leader has got to say I'm doing the right thing regardless of the polls, and in this case, Joe Biden is and let the chips fall where they may. He has been supporting our ally Israel. He has been working hard to get aid in there and working hard to get hostage out. I don't know what more you could ask for. So to a certain extent, the polls have to be damned in this case, whether they're young people or not.
Quite remarkable to see Elon Musk walking around in Israel today. Rick. This of course, is following as he says, you know, watch my actions, not my words. This follows a severe backlash on what we used to call Twitter, following what I think we can agree was an anti Semitic repost
that he made. It's driven some major advertisers away and now suddenly, if you're with us on YouTube, you see this video of Elon Musk walking around with a kevlar vest side by side with Benjamin Nett Yahoo, pulling out his phone taking pictures of the carnage left behind as they tore him through the area. Here, he described the attack by Hamas as evil and jarring and says he
wants to help help rebuild Gaza after the war. Following his conversation with Benjamin et Yahoo, who by the way, did not address the anti semitism on X, Rick, what in the world is going on here? Is this to prelude for a starlink deal in Israel?
Well, I think it's more a hope that the platform X isn't actually being canceled by all their advertisers because of the anti Semitic retweet that re X that that got him into all this trouble. I mean, this is the most high profile apology tour that I've seen in a long time.
You know, he's in the woodshed.
Only BBN Yahoo can get him out of it, and maybe ultimately the untying of all of Bbie's relationships in the United States because of it. It's very difficult to see how this is anything in his favor. So doing a doing a piece of work for for Elon Musk by trying to get him out of self and posed exile, is going to be maybe his last act as Prime Minister. I can't see how this is actually going to do anything but put him under the political thumb of voters in Israel.
Well, that would be quite a price for him to pay in this case, Genie. It is reported that the Israeli government is in talks with Musk about setting up Starlink as a backup to its own military communications. What do you make of this though, a rehabilitation tour in a hot war zone.
Yeah, to stop advertiser bleeding. I mean it's really astounding. And you know, Elon Musk rightly so has really found himself caught after he retweeted that horrific anti Semitic posting, and you know, the advertisers rightly fled. He's also got this controversy going on about anti Semitism with media matters, so he's over there trying to shure that up. You know, I think really critically important as we think about Benjamin nettan Yahoo, is that the Biden administration doesn't stop here.
I think what we heard from Bernie Sanders over the weekend you mentioned Chris Murphy, what we've heard from other folks is that this blank check rightly so cannot and should not continue, whether we attach it to. Obviously, you have to respond to an abide by international laws, certainly, but another thing it should be attached to is that bibe Net and Yahoo commits to no more settlements and he stops his rhetoric that continues to this moment about the fact that he will not work with the PLO.
You can't destroy Gaza, take out Hamas and leave it with absolutely no power structure. And if we're going to give aid over there, as we should and we have, we should make sure that the views of Americans attached to that aid are perfectly clear. And yes, the of civilian deaths an important part, but there's also the strategic part of that. For us, we have an interest in that, and that interest needs to be addressed.
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There is a deal. It's official now and the White House has confirmed this deal to elxtend the truce for the release of twenty more hostages. And this follows what I think most of us would agree as a successful weekend in getting a lot of folks out of arms way.
Yeah. Absolutely, there's been more than fifty hostages already released by Hamas even more Palestinians who were held prison in Israel who have been leased. Because of course there's this one to three ratio as part of this deal, and it is pretty much the same deal terms that will go forward for another two days. This Originally this ceasefire was expected to expire early hours local time tomorrow and
instead it'll run through Thursday. But so, of course, despite the extension, Net and Yahoo is still maintaining when this temporary cease fire is over, the fighting is going to keep going.
Which might be I guess the genius part to the way this agreement was written because there was a structure for extending it two days ten hostages and it's actually working in this case. That doesn't mean it will be extended again. With great questions here now in Washington, about funding going forward. We talked about this with Rick and
Jeanie last hour. I'm not sure they agreed, Kayley, because you've got Mike Turner, who chairs the Intelligence Committee, saying we can't figure out a border deal by the end of the year, and without it there is no funding, and Chris Murphy, the Democrat from Connecticut saying we're not going to prove Israel funding without humanitarian strings attached. So you think they're going to get this done by the end of December.
If they do, it's going to be a very hard fought battle to actually get it over the finish line, in that you have these kind of competing priorities. On the one hand, there is bipartisan support largely to continue funding Israel, but you are starting to see more pushback on the progress Democratic side because of the humanitarian concerns in the civilian death tool that continues to just climb higher and hire until at least the ceasefire went into place.
On the other hand, you have Republicans who are just wary of spending more money in general, who want to try to extract some border security measures out of any potential deal, and it's just very unclear to me, Joe, how you put all of that together and actually do so within a relatively short timeline. I'm not sure that they're going to get this.
Done for you.
I don't know.
I don't know.
Rick was of the mind there might be enough pressure to actually make it happen, Jeanie says, call me back when you have a serious question. I mean, we can't figure out how to find the government here, we're going to figure out comprehensive immigration reform. I don't know. Rick's been there as well, so I do give him a lot of credit for his view. Mick mulvaney, I'm sure has strong feelings about all of this. He's back with us for his weekly conversation. It's great to see you, sir.
I'll forego the business cards for everyone because I'm pretty sure everyone knows who you are at this point. But I don't know your thoughts on that. So do we put Chris Turner in a room?
I hope they're hope they can figure out who I am, because I'm still trying to figure it out myself. Looking getting folks in a room is not the problem. But Kaylee's absolutely right, and there's all these sort of contributing factors. That's going to make it difficult. And the only one I think she forgot is that the time pressure is
off now. And I know that's sort of a perverse reverse incentive, but typically big deals would get done at Christmas and again right before the August recess because that's when Congress wants to go home. Well, they don't have the sort of the sort of damicles to hold over the members right now because the funny deals go beyond Christmas. So I think it's highly unlikely anything gets done, at least on some of the border security. Israel is a
little different story. I know there's been some pushback on the humanitarian issues and the Democrat side. That's not unexpected, but I still think there's broad support for is reel funding. If anything gets done by Christmas, that might be the one.
So, Mick, you don't think two ongoing hot wars are enough pressure on the timeline, even if it isn't an actual in writing funding deadline.
You know, when they vote, when they vote for money, Kaylee, it's it's mostly to sort of you know, say, hi, I voted for something I care about this right, They know in the back of their minds It takes a long time for that money to go out anyway. So if they approve a deal December fifteenth or January fifteenth, it doesn't really make that much of a real world difference in terms of when the money gets to where it needs to be. A lot of the Ukraine money,
for example, hasn't even gone yet. They've spent billions of dollars there. It takes a long time to spend that much money. You know, you heard Biden I think last week say there was one hundred million dollar package. That's a rounding error in some of these these these dollar figures they're talking about. So yeah, look there's pressure, but the pressure is pr pressure. It's it's not real world pressure. It's not like the outcomes are going to change overseas and they take an extra thirty days.
Fifty three days, I believe, until the government starts at least running out of money, and that that first trunch. I wonder what form this takes then, Mick, because obviously we've outlined the challenges here, and you know that of course the Speaker already brought Israel funding to the floor as a standalone. Will it then be at the mercy of a border deal, or is there another swing at this that looks like something we're not even aware of now, Yeah, sort.
Of all the old textbooks are. You sort of take him out the window because everybody in DC knows how this would have been worked out over the course of the last decade and a half, which is there would have been some monstrous omnibus bill that covered all of this. I just don't see you getting that with Mike Johnson as the Speaker of the House, at least not right away.
I think he's going to have to. If he does go that way, it's going to be because it's an absolute last resort to get the stuff that the Republicans want. But I still don't see that. Look, you're in a strange new world. Now we're voting for bipartisan things in the House. Could cost you your gavel. I know it didn't cost Mike Johnson's gat a couple of weeks back when he cut that Ladders deal. But even then there were people pushing back saying, how is this different than
what Kevin McCarthy would have given us? So you take the Washington that you know him for the last decade and a half and sort of push it aside. You don't throw it away, but you push it aside and say, look, that might be the way it goes, but that also might be the thing that doesn't happen ever. Again, so we're at a learning curve with a sort of a new regime in the House for sure.
Yeah, maybe the new Speaker used his one time free pass on a continuing resolution with Democratic support, And of course, Mick he has said he's not going to support another stopgap measure. He wants to get these appropriation bills done. Knowing the stance of Mike Johnson and the House, knowing the stance or just the reality of what a Democratic Senate and Democratic president are going to sign. Who do you think ultimately has is likely to come out on the losing side of.
This, Mick, Oh, it's going to be the conservative right wing of the Republican Party, because that's the minority right. The majority of the House wants to spend money on something, and the Senate always wants to spend money on everything. I know that's being sort of tongue in cheek, but that's not that far from the truth. So the conservative wing of the Republican Party is the minority within that party, and they're probably going to be the ones that take
the short shrift here. Why because everything has to be by partisan in the Senate. They have to have sixty votes, which means it's going to be a Democrat dominated document coming out of the Senate. So if anything passes at the end of the day, it's going to be something that most conservatives in the House aren't going to like.
I wonder your thoughts on what we saw over the weekend, Mick, and how an event like this might change the entire conversation we're having. And that's the latest by a group of hoothy rebels who fired two ballistic missiles at a US naval vessel. This is the USS Mason that was responding to a distress call off Yemen, as apparently in Israeli billionaires can tanker was being hijacked. Something like this
could have taken on a very different form. They fired those missiles and they landed about ten miles away from the navy vessel. And I'm sure that the Navy has a lot of methods up its sleeve to counteract a missile attack like that. But if that had gone in a different direction, what would it mean for the debate here in Washington.
Oh, dramatically different. That's what everybody's afraid of, Joe, everybody here, everybody in d C. I'm not in DC right now. Everyone in DC. Of course, anybody who pays attention to this worldwide is worried about expansion. They're worried about a bleed over into Lebanon with Hisbela. They're worried about Iran's intervention. They're worried about Russia's role. So far, so far, the Israelis have kept a pretty everybody's been able to keep
it sort of concentrated around Gazi. Yes, there have been incursions across the Lebanon Israel border. There have been events like you just described with the hooties and so forth. These have been sporadic. However, that hasn't been sort of an organized expand of this dispute. I got to give, you know, some of the GCC countries credit for that, because I think they're probably interested in think keeping things
as quiet and as contained as possible. Everybody's interested in that, with the possible exception of Hamas's ball and maybe Iran. So yeah, that's the kind of stuff that's the outlier, right, that's the Black Swan. That's what you really worry about, is this this this exogenous shock to the system takes this from an incident in Gaza that blows up in the entire in the entire Gulf coast, in the in
the Gulf region. So that's a yeah, that's the kind of stuff against everybody's attention over the weekend.
Well, would would it mean funding more likely? Or would it mean a more difficult debate?
Now more likely and more quickly if things really got out of hand right right now, you've got it's a convenience, right. You could argue about border security, you can argue about Ukraine funding, you can argue about Taiwan funding. Because things have sort of calmed down, and I don't want to say that they're fit, they're not finically, that's I hope I'm making myself clear. It's calmed down a little bit from where it was, but it's still very, very tense.
But you can still you've got you've got the ability to take your time a little bit. If Iran is what launching you know, nuclear weapons at Israel or vice versa, you don't have time to think about that kind of stuff.
Well, make of course all of US were glued to the developments in the Middle East over the region, but there were other things in the news over the weekend as well, including this very long conversation that Republican Congressman from New York, George Santos, had on X Spaces, of course, formerly known at Twitter. Joe, I think we have a little bit. Yeah right, he's of course facing down a very likely expulsion vote, potentially as soon as this week.
And yeah, rans yeah, extended.
Yes, you can choose your you can choose your wording here. But this is a little taste of Congressman Santos.
The United States Congress. There's Felon's Doore, there's people with all sorts of sisty backgrounds, and all of a sudden, George Santos is the very Magdalene of the United States Congress.
He also called himself a Republican it girl. At one point he said, though he knows he'll get expelled when this expulsion resolution goes to the floor, But Nick, does he have a point about everybody else?
No, no, he does. The guy doesn't have a point about anything. Look, you could have a really intelligent conversation about ethics in Washington. D c they're not nearly as bad as everybody believes them to be. I've been there for fifteen years. It's not like Hollywood makes it out to be. Are there folks there who are doing stuff they shouldn't be doing? Yeah, but this five hundred and thirty five of them. Show me any group of five
hundred and thirty five Americans, and they're not. All of them are going to be as pure as the driven snow. But no to try and distract from his own whatever it is by, you know, sort of saying, well, everybody else does it. It's just it's par for the course with this guy. Look, step back and realize what's getting
ready to happen here. We just had a long conversation about how difficult it is for the Republicans in the House, especially but in Washington generally to get anything done because the margins are so tight, and yet they are fully expected now to discharge, to expel one of their own into a seat that likely becomes a Democrat. How bad does it have to be with George Santos for that to happen. Let's take some faith in the system under
these circumstances. Say, look, even though it doesn't help them politically, it hurts them politically. It looks like the Republicans are getting ready to kick this nut job out. The system is working, and that's this takeaway from George Santos, not whether or not he's Mary Magdalene or an it girl, or whether everybody else does it.
I kind of want to know who the girl is. But so is he out this week? Mick? I think you just answered that question. If this becomes a privileged resolution, it's just a matter of days then, right.
Yeah, it's the first it's the first opportunity. It is it. It's as soon as he The sooner the better. I don't think they're waiting on They don't. They're not sitting around going, well, we need George's vote on this one last thing. Even mind the government is fund is past Christmas, That's not how they're looking at this thing. I think the sooner we're done to talking about George Santos, the happier the Republicans in the House are going to be.
Hm, we only have about a minute left, Mick. But who is the it girl?
I thought you'd follow it, you do you have?
I thought it was Kayley. I thought I thought you were the easy.
Oh, you flatter me.
But right now, I mean when we will do this next week, Maybe it's Nicki Haley. It just is she's had a really good run of a couple of weeks. I don't think she's got a chance yet to dig into Trump's leadership, but she certainly cemented herself so far as the preferred anti Trump candidate. That probably is there's not enough anti Trump votes to give anybody the nomination right now. But you said, are pretty good couple of weeks.
There's a lot of Republicans on the Hill wishing that they'd see more of Nicki Haley and less of George Santos.
Wow. I didn't expect a serious answer to that. Yeah, for starters. But now you know, now Donald Trump's going to call you because I think he wants to be the girl. Mick.
Yeah, you know that's he's going to be the nominee and that should be good enough for him.
Wow. Well, if you still feel that way, we won't break that to Dickie Haley yet. It's great to see you, Mick every week at this time. Mick mulvaney with us on Bloomberg Sound On wherever you are. Get back to Washington safely. We look forward to doing again here at the Table McK mulvaney, I'm Joe Matthew alongside Kaylee Lines. It's the fastest show in politics, with breaking news today from Washington on this Monday. Glad you're with us only
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