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As we head now to New Hampshire, less than a week off, and there are new numbers today, it's getting pretty noisy, you know. We talked to David Paleologos last week from Suffolk University and they're out with new numbers this morning. They are not tied as we talked yesterday. Donald Trump gets fifty percent in this poll, Nicky Haley thirty four percent. Bron DeSantis has all of five percent in New Hampshire. So it is looking like at two way race in the Granite State, but also a runaway
win potentially once again for Donald Trump. And the question is what will happen if there is a gap like that. Knowing that expectations are very high for Nicky Haley, remember this ARC poll yesterday arg has Trump forty, Hayley forty. That's a pretty different story than what we have here. And what is a survey of five hundred likely Republican primary voters jan fifteen, Jan sixteen, the day and day
after the Iowa CAUCUSUS. So you wonder if these numbers are moving based on that commanding win that we saw from Donald Trump, that race that was called so early. I'll back up a little bit further here to Emerson College's most recent poll, which is interesting because this brings you back to the eleventh and it was a bit of a different picture, which is why we wanted to talk about this with the polling director at Emerson, Spencer Kimball. He's with us right now. Spencer. It's great to see
you and we welcome you. Has the landscape shifted in New Hampshire since Iowa, Well, we're.
Going to see that over the next couple of days. But at this time, it looks like Trump still holds a double digit lead and Hailey is the alternative. DeSantis is where he was before Iowa, So it doesn't look like that second place finish out there really gave him much of a bump.
Yet at the time, Wow, that's something else. Our expectations too high for Nikki Haley to be able to call this a win. The idea was if she struck within single digits, maybe even one, this thing that she'd be having new momentum that could carry her into South Carolina to make a difference. But it's feeling less like that, isn't it.
It sure is. I think the big win she needed was out in Iowa to get that second place show. She didn't get there, came up a little bit short, and now she's in New Hampshire, and I think you got it. She's got to win New Hampshire in order to really become a player to win the nomination, because if you look forward, as you mentioned, South Carolina's at the end of February where she's trailing by twenty twenty five points, but that is her home state, so maybe
she can rally some support at the last minute. But then you got to go to Texas and California for Super Tuesday, and she's trailing out there by over fifty points against Trump. So even if she was able to get over a couple of these hurdles, there's a big wall coming on Super Tuesday that she's going to have to get through.
I mentioned your last poll of jen you were eleven that had Donald Trump at forty four percent in New Hampshire, followed by Haley at twenty eight who was up ten points since November. Do you think that momentum has gone.
Then, yeah, it has slowed. So we've seen Trump's numbers drop over the course of the year. Basically he was up in the sixties, then down in the fifties. Now we have him in the mid forties going into Iowa. If you look at that Suffolk poll today, it looks like he actually gets a bump out of Iowa. Their previous poll had him at forty six. We had him at forty four, Now they have him at fifty, So
I would presume our numbers would go up. I think the biggest difference though, is the two candidates that have dropped out since our poll. You have Chris Christy, who is more in the Haley lane where those voters would split in that direction. But then you had Ramaswami, who was actually beating DeSantis at that point when he's dropped out, and those votes are probably going to line up more with Trump. So there looks like there's some room for
Haley to gain a little ground between those two. But based on what Suffolk put out today and what we've been seeing, she's got definitely a lot of room to make up.
Pretty amazing as we spend time with Spencer Kimball, who runs polling at Emerson College, my alma mater. If I'm supposed to have disclose that Spencer. Nikki Haley says she's not going to debate again unless Donald Trump shows up. And ABC News and WMU are an important station in New Hampshire, have canceled their debate ahead of the primaries, and I don't think Donald Trump's about to show up. Ron de Santis said he'd be happy to debate two empty chairs, and I guess he's not going to have
that opportunity. Is this important? Does it matter anymore? Has Donald Trump taught us that debates don't matter?
Well, I hope not. I think they do matter. And I think it was a mistake for Haley to drop out of this debate. If you look at these numbers where she's trailing, she needs a bit of a game changer, and for her to be able to go on stage with DeSantis, even though he's in single digits out here, it would still give her some sort of platform to be able to make the case to the New Hampshire vo that might get people to focus in now. Granted, their debate before IOWA had lower ratings than expected, So
maybe that goes into the equation. But without a debate or some focusing event, it's hard to imagine what's going to, you know, change the momentum. If she had come out of Iowa in second place, I think that's a different story. But without that second place, when where does that momentum where's you know, start pushing her in the you know, in the back as opposed to blowing in her face at this time.
Well, Spencer, a lot of eyes were rolling where they heard from both Nicky Haley and Ronda Santis the night of the Iowa caucus. I'm sure you saw these speeches. Rond de Santis with the rock and roll It's got a C d C play, and Ia the Tiger. He says, we punched our ticket coming out of Iowa. People went crazy. Nicky Haley said that this is now a one on one race, a two candidate race between her and Donald Trump because she won one of ninety nine counties in Iowa.
Do both of them need a reality check or are they about to get one? In New Hampshire?
Well, certainly, I think Governor DeSantis is going to get a reality check if he comes in single digits in New Hampshire. Plus you know he's got to fight in South Carolina next. He doesn't have Florida coming up that might be a firewall, though he in the polling is trailing in Florida by thirty points to the former president.
So I was surprised by those. I thought it was an opportunity for DeSantis to kind of take the high road, come in second above expectations and walk off the stage at that time, because look what's coming ahead of him in New Hampshire or South Carolina. Hailey, on the other hand, I think had already had pre planned speech for her performance in Iowa and should have pivoted a little bit
based on the results. But without that, she's now looking at this as at least in New Hampshire and probably South Carolina, it is a two person race, but she's trailing by fifteen points, which in politics, as we know, is a considerable margin to make up.
Well, what do you make of the whole last minute thing in New Hampshire. Not to mention the unpredictable nature of forty percent independent showing up coming from different corners of the state can create some noise here. Obviously, there's almost a week left of campaigning, more town halls, more door knocking. Do you think that these numbers could move.
Yeah, I think that there is. The window is slightly cracked for Nicki Haley if you look at the road ahead, but it's a crack. You know. Donald Trump is walking through a garage door at this point for the nomination. Lots of space for him to make up and to continue to grow his delegate count. So at some point you don't want it to boomerang on Haley, who's run a really well primary member She was in single digits.
She's picked up twenty four points in New Hampshire in the last seven eight months, so you can see that she has run a good campaign. But if she stays in it too long, she might upset the base of the party and could hurt her chances if she was to run again in twenty.
Eight Fascinating stuff here. All the while, Donald Trump maybe going through a garage door. I think that's what you said. It was a courtroom door or yesterday, and he's going to be back today a jury selection of the case of Egene Carrol. Not I think what you would describe as a positive story for any candidate yet he continues to spend a majority of his time in courtrooms as
opposed to early states, and his numbers keep rising. Should Dicky Haley and Rond de Santis try to get indicted at this point, Spencer.
Well, that's generally not the traditional ways canidates to get attention. But in this day and age, things that were up or down, and you know, backwards is forwards. So no, I wouldn't encourage that type of behavior. I think that they kind of need to be looking more big picture and think about maybe it's not twenty four is their year, Maybe twenty twenty eight is their year when we know
that most likely it's an open seat. And so while you want to get things lined up right now and to win now, there is that big picture to consider for both of them.
Glad we got some time together, Spencer Kibble. Are you going to be in New Hampshire when we're there next week or are you running numbers from Boston?
Oh? No, they sent me up to Manchester. I was out and I as well.
It was cold.
Oh come on, how did you get home? I'm still trying to get home. I'll tell you what.
Chicago at seven in the morning.
All right, So we understand each other. Let's meet up in Manchester. Let's have you come on from the primary and I look forward to seeing you there.
Spencer.
That's great. Well see and we'll have a new poll at the end of the week.
When is that on Friday Sunday? We use all right, perfect, keep us posted. I look forward to it. It we'll have late numbers from Spencer Kimball. Thank you, sir, Emerson College polling director. With us here on Bloomberg's sound on as we assembled the panel. They made it home. Rick Davis and Geenie Shanzano fresh off the Iowa caucuses and on your radio and on YouTube with us now are Bloomberg Politics signature panel. And boy, this is interesting here. Genie.
I'm not sure your thoughts on these new polls, but it looks like Nicky Haley may have peaked in New Hampshire. Is that how you're reading it? Yeah?
First of all, Joe Matthew, it is great to see you, and I hope you make it home. You have and killing it out there trying to get home. It's like plain strains and autumn it is.
I'm looking for John Candy. I haven't found him yet, but you just got home yourself, so I think you know what we're going for.
You just got home and warmed up. You know, I think this thing does seem to be Donald Trump did get a bump out of Iowa as we look at New Hampshire. But I would just preface all of this by saying New Hampshire, as I am sure all of our posters can tell us, is notoriously hard to pull. And so that is one caveat I would put to looking out all these numbers. Just look at the Senate race in twenty twenty two. They had enormous challenges. They were off by eight to twelve points. Tough place to pull.
Putting that aside, I do think that both Trump and Nicky Haley are getting something of a bump out of it. But in my mind, as we look at New Hampshire overall, I can see this as a case where winning for Nicky Haley is actually losing if she wins on the backs of independence. And that's the thing I think we have to keep in mind, because Donald Trump will come right back and he will make Hay out of that and make her into the poster child of the never trumpers. And that is a thing strategy for her.
Well, it's interesting, Rick Davis, because I think we can argue that John McCain made his way to the nomination on the backs of independence. But we're in a different world now, aren't we.
Yeah, the party's a little different. I mean, it's a little more polarization. It gets worse every year. But I would say, I mean, you know, if Donald Trump would be willing to give up all the independents that are voting for him, and in the recent arg poll it shows, let me see, as many as twenty four percent of his base going in there on his vote is independent. So now Haley appeals to fifty one percent, so he's
losing badly in that category. But I'm not sure he's going to take a quarter of his vote and say go what. So I think people have to be a little cautious about complaining about independence in New Hampshire. And we do know that South Carolina allows it's an open primary state. I was independence vote there, and you know, I'm sure Haley's like, go ahead, you know, throw that punch, piss off all those independence in South Carolina before we
get there. So it's not as easy as what he was able to make it out to be in Iowa because really it's a much more conservative state than any of them that they're going to play in between now and Super Tuesday.
Genie the Hailey super Pac SFA Fund Catchy is up with a new anti Trump ad campaign. They're framing him as a bully and a liar. The line is Trump is lying about Nicky. That's what bullies do. Is that the right message for the closing week?
Yeah?
I think it's the right message. They've got to get the independence out to vote. And when you compare to Iowa, sixteen percent of those Iowa caucus goers saw themselves as independent, it's close to half in a New Hampshire primary where Democrats aren't playing. So she's got to make that case, and I think she could have a very good night in New Hampshire potentially on the backs of that kind of spending, that kind of organization, and that kind of.
Argument, all the while Donald Trump in court and poised to win another We'll see. We're not making predictions here, but the polls out today would suggest that this could be an interesting contest in New Hampshire. And we'll have a lot more on this. This is Bloomberg.
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As we consider what's going on in New Hampshire or not going on leading up to the New Hampshire primary, there'll be no debate. There was supposed to be on more ABC News and WMUIR. We talked about it a bit earlier with Spencer Kimball from Emerson Polling. Nikki Haley, taking a cue from Donald Trump, says she's not going to go unless he does. And ron De Santis, who was looking forward to sharing time with two empty chairs, says she's making the wrong move. Here's Ronda Santis in New Hampshire.
You owe the people of New Hampshire a debate. This is a time honored tradition that you debate in New Hampshire the week before the New Hampshire primary. So I plan on being there on Thursday. I understand why she doesn't want to debate and yes, Donald Trump should debate as well, But either way, I'm going to be there, and.
So I hope both of them come. You can plan on it all he wants. They canceled it. As we reassemble our panel with Rick Davis and Genie Shanzy o Bloomberg Politics contributors. You know the line, Rick, People in New Hampshire don't only expect to meet all the candidates. They judge them by how many times they get to meet them, how many times they shake their hands. And boy, I don't know the impact of this. DoD debates not
matter anymore in a place like New Hampshire. Did Nicky Haley make the right move here?
Yeah, it's hard to tell. Donald Trump already upset the debate Apple Car a long time ago. Right, we haven't had a debate with the front runner in it, and so maybe voters have become desensitized to the fact that you're just not going to see a legitimate Republican debate
where all the contestants are there. And I have absolutely no doubt my own judgment that the debates have actually hurt the undercard, right, I mean, by debating each other, they have actually diminished their own candidacies amongst each other and elevated Trump's. And the fact is, other than Chris Christy, nobody really attacked Donald Trump in these debates. So he's
had a real free hand at this thing. And so I think Nicki Haley look at out for he own self interest, looks at the debate with a candidate who's got less than five percent, probably round five. That's simply a bad political decision to make, getting on a stage with someone who literally cannot beat you, but will spend the entire debate, as he did in the last one, attacking you over and over and over.
Right, Well, that sounds like Donald Trump's argument, Jeanie, are we done with old fashioned debates? Or is this just a symptom of this cycle.
I think it's a symptom that this cycle. I hope it is. I know people who are going to attend that debate, young people, I should say, their first presidential primary debate. They were excited to do that in New Hampshire. It's been taken away from them. Even Trump supporters have said that they do wish he was on that stage just so they could see him. That said, you know, I think Nicky Haley, if I was advising her. I
would say it's the right decision. She got a lot of support coming out of those first you know, three four debates, but quite frankly, in that last debate, she didn't really help herself that much. And it doesn't make a lot of sense for her to go there and get beat up by Ron DeSantis, who's essentially doing Trump's dirty work. Because the thing to keep in mind is
that what Donald Trump. As conciliatory as he was the few minutes after the Iowa win, six hours later, he was taking to truth social calling her Nimroda, and he was also showing these pictures of her morphing into Hillary Clinton. He is going to say, even if she wins big in New Hampshire, she isn't winning amongst Republicans. She's winning on the backs of independence and the big bad media, and he is going to attack her for that. So this is what she is facing. She needs to debate him,
not Ron DeSantis. And she knows that.
What did he call her?
I shouldn't repeat it. It nimroda, nim rod.
That's a new one. I haven't gosh, we're testing out new names, I guess for Donald Trump. What do you make of this sort of last minute framing here, Rick, this is the way he turned on Vivik Ramaswami going into Iowa. Not that he's had nice things to say about his former ambassador, but some think that she might even be vying for a vice presidential role here. Does that still remain a possibility? You know?
I mean, I've never met a presidential candidate in forty years who conducted their campaign in order to be the vice presidential candidate. Especially at this point where you've crossed so many bridges and you've spent so much money, and you've committed so much your time. You're looking for that brass ring, and at this point, everybody in this race believes they have a way to get it, and so I think all of that is just chatter. I would say.
On the name thing, let's just be totally clear. This was a birther attack on Nikki Hayley by Donald Trump on truth social It's her first name. He misspelled it, which may have been intentional, and he's trying to draw people's attention to her ethnic heritage. And it's exactly what he did to Barack Obama. And it should be absolutely deplored because it is a way to interject racism into the New Hampshire campaign.
Well, that seems to be a familiar place for him here, Genie, how does that play in New Hampshire?
Hopefully it doesn't play well anywhere. It's an ugly, ugly thing that he has done and he continues to do. And I hope that the New Hampshire voters and voters across the country see it for the racist statement that it is. It is an ugly thing to say. But the reality is these things have only helped Donald Trump with the magabase, and unfortunately for Republicans, the magabase is
pretty much where the party is now. We only need to look at the fact that senators and House members of the House keep endorsing him because they feel that they are threatened to be challenged. And so again, a win in New Hampshire for her, unless she finds a way back into that Republican full a win on the backs of independence and Democrats or even one he can describe that way, is going to make it very difficult for her to go forward. She can go forward, but
it's gonna make it difficult for her. And let's not forget Nikki Haley was endorsed in her gubernatorial race by Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin. She was able to cross that. So if anybody can do it, it's her. But it is a tough thing to do in the face of a president who's really should be seen as an incumbent and who really is willing to play dirty as he moves forward. She's up to the challenge, but it is a big challenge for anybody to meet.
You guys forced me onto the truth social I'm looking at this picture morphing her face into Hillary Clinton. It says, Haley with the old Clinton logo and you get the Clinton pants suit going here. It's nightmare fuel. I can't look away from it. So bizarre, Rick Davis, what's going on inside Nikki haley headquarters right now as they try to take advantage of these remaining days.
Well for her, the focus is much like where they were in Iowa at this point, the final sort of pitch. She's pushing the electability and how she can beat Biden in a way that's significantly better for the GOP than the claims of victory by Donald Trump. And they're worried about turnout right. I mean, there was a huge decrease in turnout in Iowa because of the storm, probably, but
certainly that's a good way to blame it. But almost eighty thousand out of the one hundred and ten thousand, I mean, the difference between them, seventy thousand people fewer showed up in Iowa. And they need a turnout, They need people showing up. It's pretty clear a low turnout helps Donald Trump. His base going to come no matter what. And so I know that they're looking at sort of
how do they deliver that vote. And in a primary, arguably it's a little easier without the incredibly cold weather, it should be easier. And so this is going to be a test really of whether or not she can take the momentum that she has drive into the final weekend of the election and identify her voters to turn out.
He knows because he's been there and he's done it. Rick Davis, great analysis, along with Genie Shanzo, both of whom will be with us in New Hampshire. And I'll tell you what, We're heading there this weekend. Wonderful. We'll get back home from there at least it won't be quite as cold as Rick said, and we'll have special coverage straight through the process, the day of the primary day and the day after here on Bloomberg's Sound On.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Sound On podcast. Catch us live weekdays at one Eastern on Bloomberg dot com, the iHeartRadio app and the Bloomberg Business App, or listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts.
Considering the stakes in the game that's being played here, this idea that the President and even Republican Senate leaders like Mitch McConnell, who's one of the Big four that are going to be there, desperately want to get aid for Ukraine through and are probably finding themselves pretty frustrated with the reticence on the part of the House and at least maybe willing to make a deal with the
House on the border. I guess it's just a question of how hard a line Mike Johnson is going to want to walk here.
That's true, and it's all happening against the backdrop of this funding debate. I'm guessing we're not shutting down. Kale I was making the point last hour. We've got all the screens up on the wall here. You and I don't always have that in Washington, but all the you know, the TV screens are up here in the big fish bowl studio.
You're in the fancy studio.
Well, yours is pretty fancy too. But still I don't see any countdown clocks anywhere. That's nobody's taken this seriously, or I guess we're just bored with it. I don't know. Maybe we're always about to shut down. It's like a nightmare.
Third time we've found ourselves in this situation, isn't it exactly? And we might find ourselves again in early March.
That's true, that's the new ladder right March one, March eight, assuming this thing passes. The Senate got their procedural vote done last night, sixty eight thirteen, pretty encouraging, So I guess we're going to figure this out. The question is, will we ever have a real budget? Something we've asked Miam againness before. She's president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. Amaya, it's great to have you back. Are you encouraged by no countdown clocks? Or is it just me.
Right?
We don't want to keep counting kind of down and seeing that nothing happens. But on the other hand, how discouraging it is that this has just become normal and that it's all for show, so we are going to kick the can again. We are by the time we start to deal with the next moment where decisions have to be made, we will almost be halfway through the
fiscal year. And if you're actually thinking about how the budget process is supposed to work, it's just a few weeks from now that the President is supposed to be submitting his budget for the next fiscal year. We haven't even begun to deal with this fiscal year. So it's all to routine, a reminder of just how broken we are. And yeah, I guess we're tired of the drama, but it doesn't mean that it's any less dysfunctional than it has been the entire time.
Yeah, maya, the timeline is all out of whack here, But just on the timeline is the real deadline that we're going to be dealing with April when that sequester kicks in. The one percent quittes across the board, including for defense.
You know, I think there are a number of moments where they are action forcing in one way or another, because there's always something that if not enough people go along with there will be real consequences. So I do think that March deadline absolutely matters. But we are still kind of skirting around what the specific funding levels will be. And if we hit that sequester moment, then we know what they will be, and so I think that's always
been an important date. But right now my belief is we will start to have whatever funding bills are able to pass, that they will be done by the beginning of March, and then the tricky thing will be how do you figure about out what to do with the rest of the govern the pieces they couldn't pass an individual appropriations? Will it look like a big Christmas tree omnibus with lots of things hidden inside of it, or will it just be a CR maybe at the sequester level or somewhere around there.
Yeah, we've heard the idea of a year long CR floated. I could almost hear you. Your ears must have been burning, Maya. We're talking about a tax deal as well, though, and it's interesting that we're trying to tweak revenue even though we can't seem to figure out a budget here. But Chuck Schumer's endorsed this new tax compromise that's coming from Jason Smith and Ron Wyden Ways and Means Chair, Senate
Finance Chair. I'm going to let everyone know right now that Kayley is going to be interviewing Jason Smith on balance of power later he's going to be the man of the moment. This would pair an expansion of the child tax credit MAYA with more corporate friendly tax policy. Is that a wash in your mind? Where's the committee on this?
Yeah?
So first, let me agree with the point that you just made that really we should pass budgets before we do a lot of policies that would normally be a part of budgets. I had some folks from other countries in here the other day asking me about how our budget process works, and they just didn't get it. They were like, you don't have a budget, but you still pass policies spending taxes. How does that work? And I could not give them a good answer. So I wish
we did this in a normal sequence. On this specific deal, there's really both very very good things and some discouraging things. On the good side, these folks who I didn't think would come up with a deal necessarily, we're able to come up with a tax deal that is pretty much offset or paid for, And one of the goals from a fiscal perspective is how do we rebuild that muscle memory that if something is worth doing, whether it's a spending increase or a tax cut, you also have to
figure out how you're going to pay for it. You should borrow during emergencies, borrow during recessions, but normal times you've got to pay for things. And so they do use some offsets that actually bring the policies back down to where they are paid for. So that's the way a compromise canon should work. Nonetheless, there's still some gimmicks. One of them is that these are only temporary tax extensions, both on the business side and the child tax credit side.
They're sensible policies, they make sense that they're brought together, but they're going to expire in twenty twenty five. And this whole thing of let's put in place policies that we want to be permanent, but will just make them
temporary to shrink the price tag. That doesn't work. And if you actually what you estimate the overall costs making this permanent or an antenure window, you're looking at upwards of half a trillion dollars, So there is a big price tag here if we tackle this comprehensibly.
So for that reason, do you not think this deal, which has not yet been written into legislation, should be passed by Congress?
You know?
I think, yeah, this is a one hand or the other for real. For me, I think I'm very supportive of the fact that it is paid for and that the Chairman went through that work of figuring out where the offsets are and they're not all gimmicks that which we often see just made up things. They're real pay
for us, and they're decent policies. They make sense. I think I would go ahead with this bill, and then we're going to have twenty twenty five to figure out all of the tax policies which will be expiring all of the Trump tax cuts, many of which both Republicans and Democrats want to extend, but lots of people are rightfully saying you can only do so if you pay
for them. But I hope on the budget process front, we will yes get in the habit of paying for things like they do here, but stop the habit of making things just for one or two years, which adds to the uncertainty and some cynics would say, adds to the fundraising capabilities of people on various committees because you have tax Lobbyistsy's pushing for those things to be extended. I don't think that's the right way to make policy.
Can't imagine such things in Washington. As we spend time with Miami, Guinnis from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. That's a big meeting at the White House today that we've been talking about Maya, not about this budget specifically, but the request, the supplemental request that the President made for Ukraine that also now has been sort of linked with this potential deal on the border. I was joking earlier with Kayley about the way the President may or
may not handle this. Remember back in twenty twelve, Barack Obama had John Bayner over and he served hogies, he served sandwiches, and was supposed to be some huge insult that he didn't break out the the White House China. What's the reception. What's the strategy today from the White House is they try to get into the Speaker's head. The stakes around Ukraine.
Well, this is a really complicated and interesting negotiation, both because the policies are immensely complicated. A foreign aid not so much, but coupling it with border security obviously a huge issue, one of the biggest issues in the country and not easy to solve, and they're really working on
deep policy there. But also you have very complicated politics where many of the folks, including I believe, I've been told the Speaker does support a number of these aid packages, but they have to deal with some of their conference members who do not. I think if you let any of these things stand on their own, there'd be enough support to pass them, whether it's Israel, Ukraine, even the border,
depending on what the specifics look like. And so it's a complicated sort of coalition of ideas and people to build here. I hope and I believe that they are working on building trust in this because each one of those leaders also has a very complicated constituency that they have to sell the deal to. But I think they're more unified and that would be good to get these
things done. And again to show a little bit of optimism, I think they're going to I've said that to a number of groups of people and they've rolled their eyes at me. And it may be that the deal.
Just implodes on its own weight, but.
I believe there's enough support for all elements of the package that they will be able to get something done well.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell seems to be wanting to move forward. He's speaking to reporters right now and has just told them that he expects the Senate will act on the Ukraine supplemental next week. So I guess trying to set a bit of a timeline here as they try to come to a compromise. Obviously, what the Senate wants and what the House wants here maya probably a little bit different, as there are many in the House advocating for greater fiscal restraint would not like to see
this kind of spending going to Ukraine. The thing is, though, in the actual appropriations process, as you have rightly pointed out to us many times, the pile of money we're talking about here, the actual programs that could be cut is a very very small part of the spending of
the US government. Entitlements are a massive issue. And I bring this up because Joe Matthew is actually currently in a TV ad by the Trump administration because he talked to NICKI Haley about this months ago, and she said, yeah, we have to lift the retirement age above sixty five,
and she's getting kind of crucified for it, Maya. So does this just indicate that that actual entitlement conversation, that huge line item when it comes to us spending is not going to be a ball that can be touched for this entire election year.
Yeah, that is a great, great question, I think one of the most important in terms of how things play out out in this election. And so it is without question the truth that Social Security has to be reformed. This is a program that will become insolvent in roughly a decade and there will be across the board twenty three percent benefit cuts for everybody people who depend on the program. There are so many ways to fix this program.
You can means test, you can cut benefits, you can raise the retirement age, you can raise the payroll tax cap or the payroll tax rate. There are so many different solutions. The one thing that we should not be arguing about is whether we have to make those changes. The truth is that we have waited for decades more than we should have. We could have made the changes in a much easier manner if we'd acted more quickly.
And I think it's just the truth that when you have a candidate like Nikki Haley saying we need to look at raising and the retirement age down the road for much younger workers, that is somebody who is leveling with the American people about what kinds of choices there are. There's no one option. We can disagree on what they should be, but anybody who's saying I'm not going to touch that program is doing a huge disservice to voters
and not telling people. And the reason I kind of want to be so strong in US and I'm a political independent and we're more nonpartisan, but it is really easy to pretend that you will do nothing and that that is protecting people when it comes to Social security, that's just not true. We need actual answers, and we need leaders who are willing to talk about what changes
they support in order to fix the program. I just I think social security right now is the political issue that both parties are trying to pretend the other party is going to you know, slash benefits, trying to scare people, and it's really a short term political strategy that's reckless in terms of protecting the program, and it deeply concerns me that we're so caught up in those politics.
All right, Maya, thank you so much for joining us. That's Maya McGinnis there. She's president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. She thinks this is an issue that needs to be talked about. But I'm not sure how much Joe Nicki Hayley's going to wanting to talk about this issue in the next few days as she is running the sprint toward the finish line of that New Hampshire primary.
That's right, And I've noticed by the way they're doing local news stories on that ad and I guess and we're going to see that a lot while we're up there. This may be something we can't touch till after the election.
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Enter the Kaibar Breaker. Kyley, have you seen this?
I have it's a precision guided missile basically, and it can go a really long distance. Joe. That is the crux of the matter here. It was sent from Iran into Syria and strike on Isis That's about thirteen hundred kilometers eight hundred miles, and Iran says it can go even further than that fourteen hundred and fifty kilometer maximum range, and that maybe gives Israel a pretty big reason to be nervous.
Incredible to learn that Iran could in fact hit Israel directly, and after we saw what they did in Syria and Iraq for that matter. Kayley, this is pretty scary stuff. It's an incredible piece of reporting, and it sounds scary. I don't know what the Kaibar breaker means exactly, but this would make it the farthest such attack in the IRGC's history, what we saw in Syria. Peter Martin's with you in Washington. We know when we bring in Peter, it's serious.
Yeah, absolutely right, he's here. I'm here. Joe still isn't here, Peter. But wherever you are, you probably pay attention to a story like this. Is there are these heightened concerns around escalating tensions in the Middle East and the potential for this to turn into a substantial regional conflict. How nervous is the US about not the Iranian proxies, but about Iran specifically directly involving itself in some of this activity.
Well, I think that's a concern for US official that's kind of been running throughout this whole process. It's one thing to deter proxies, whether it's Hezbla in northern Israel or proxies in Iraqan Syria. It's another thing to think about direct war between Israel in Iran or maybe even the US in Iran. I think for the moment, US officials feel like they have kind of deterred that from happening.
But certainly this latest show of Iranian military force demonstrates why officials in Israel and indeed Washington are worried.
Peter, as you covered the Pentagon. Are we just learning about this or is everyone just learning about it? Did Israel did know about this? Did the US know this existed?
I mean, I'm not entirely clear on this. I think there has been a widespread assumption that Israel is capable of hitting, that Iran is capable of hitting Israel if it needs to, And certainly that's been a concern running through you know, Iran has been able to set up a network of proxy actors throughout the Middle East, stretching all the way to Israel's borders. Of course, her mass is backed by Iran, and so is Hezbala, and so that kind of near and present threat has been something
that's been there for a little while. But of course these new missiles will will just add to that.
Would it change anything about the composition of the aid of the weaponry the US would provide to Israel or is it still just continues supplying the Iron Dome some of these similar questions. And I just asked this knowing that at that White House meeting Joe is alluding to that's going to take place between congressional leaders and the President. The supplemental we're talking about isn't just aid for Ukraine,
it is also aid for Israel. And I wonder how the US is thinking about what Israel needs when you know there's threats like this out there.
I mean, I think my impression is that Israel has a pretty strong shelf of capabilities when it comes to hitting back against Iranian conventional threats. The question here would be can the US help to dampen tensions in a way that would make war less likely overall, you know, getting to a point where Israel doesn't need to use those capabilities.
Pretty incredible to read, as all Ran also hit Pakistan with missiles on Tuesday. Peter, where's the Pentagon on concerns over a wider conflict?
I mean, I would say from the White House, through the Pentagon to the State Department, US officials have been very concerned about the risks of a of a widening conflict for the whole time.
Here.
The latest strikes inside Pakistan and indeed some additional strikes inside Iraq just kind of hit that home. It's something that the Iraqi government has responded to in a kind of rare public rebuke of Iran, and it's something where Pakistan has responded too strongly as well, even recalling its ambassador from Tehran.
Of course, as we talk about Iran and the Iranian proxies, the US has taken direct action against one of the proxy groups, the Huthis, with multiple strikes trying to take out their capability as they continue to threaten and attack vessels in the Red Sea. Do we have a sense of to what degree those direct strikes are going to continue, how many more offensive maneuvers we could see coming from the US military?
Yeah, I mean the Pentagon's quite cagy about putting numbers on that kind of thing. They like to use the sort of generic language about we will strike at a time of our own choosing. But I think the expectation is that there is more military action to come, simply because there are very few signs that the Houthis have
yet been deterred. And of course the reason for that, I think US officials and everyone else would recognizes that the Huthis are not acting on their own, They're acting in accordance with the of Tehran.
Peter Martin, we understand the Secretary of Defenses back home, or at least he's out of the hospital and he's quote unquote working from home. To what extent do we know anything about his condition at this point or is this still shrouded in mystery?
I mean, beyond the disclosures we saw last week about his diagnosis of prostate cancer is the initial cause of this, we don't have much more information. Pentagon officials were very keen distress that Secretary Austin was conducting his full duties from his hospital room, including the use of secure communications, which they said they had set up there for him, and I'm sure that that would always have been the case at his home.
All right.
Peter Martin, who covers the Pentagon for us here at Bloomberg, from drama around personnel to what's happening in the Middle East, thank you so much for thank you for joining us and Joe. That Lloyd Austin story, I think is one that isn't going to go away anytime soon, even if his hospital stay has come to an end. Of the questions around it. The communication failures that we saw happen, the inquiries into that I think are really just getting started.
Did you see Kaylee audio from the phone call.
That his security detail on.
Fairfax County Dispatch. This is remarkable. They deserve credit. The Daily Beast got this through a foyer request and you could hear the staffer asking them to remain subtle, no sirens or lights as they came to get the Secretary at home.
They're trying to do this in an subtle way. I think was the quote on the phone call, which just speaks again to the perhaps privacy concerns that the Secretary had surrounding his own medical issues. But again, when you're the Secretary of Defense, that privacy may not be as robust as you would like to think.
We're still talking about this though. The things we don't know to your point, and how's this going with him at home is see on zoom like we're in a bathrobe. I don't want to understand. We'll have more on Austin as we learn it with Kaylee Lines. I'm Joe Matthew. This is Bloomberg. Thanks for listening to the Sound On podcast. Make sure to subscribe if you haven't already, at Apple, Spotify,
and anywhere else you get your podcasts. And you can find us live every weekday from Washington, DC at one pm Eastern Time at Bloomberg dot com.