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Welcome to the Friday edition of Balance of Power. You made it to the threshold of the weekend, and this ought to be a fun one if you care about this stuff. Maybe you're getting turned off by the celebrity, but we've got a big Joe Rogan interview the podcast today. Donald Trump is in Texas in Austin for that recording. I suspect a few people will hear it. And he's going there because well, Kamala Harris was already planning to be in Texas. She's in Houston, yes, with Beyonce and
Willie Nelson a big rally there. Plan for tonight is she tries to seize on the issue of reproductive rights abortion, of course, noting Texas's abortion band. That's the backdrop for her, and we're going to go cascading into a weekend of showbiz and celebrity that will culminate on stage at Madison Square Garden, where Donald Trump is rented out the room for a million dollars, and I'm deeply curious to see who shows up because this is a big battle of the celebrities.
Right.
Thanks for joining us on Bloomberg Radio, on the satellite, and on YouTube, where you can find us right now by searching Bloomberg Business News Live. This is right around the time when the national anxiety reaches a fever pitch. People are starting to turn off newscasts, turning away from the doom scroll, even though I know you're looking when we're not watching. Because we have another poll today that says what we already told you yesterday and what you're
probably feeling, and that's why the anxiety exists. It's a tie yesterday Bloomberg Swing State Pole, remember forty nine forty nine in the seven Swing States, not just like a statistical tie, a real tie. And today it's the New York Times Siana College. I remember we've talked to Don Levy a lot around here, forty eight forty eight in their poll, so we do have some consistency, which is
pretty interesting. I want to bring in Laura Davison at this moment because she is feeling the collective anxiety every day. This is what she does, Bloomberg Politics editor, with eleven days to go, how you holding up?
You know we're going to be in there. We're almost on a single ed you are, and you know it is tighter than ever, which I think.
Just adds to the fun.
That's right, tighter than a tube soak, As Dan rather would have said, interesting to see another poll like this, right, we were just talking about the Bloomberg Morning Console poll yesterday. To see an entirely different organization with a presumably different sample to come to essentially the same result tells you what.
It tells us that this is a really really close race and sort of what we saw over the past, you know, kind of August September time period where Harris was kind of steadily gaining, steadily gaining, that has really tightened off as a lot of people you know, this undecided have you know, finally tuned in and said, look, I'm either going to you know, land on Harris's side, land on Trump's side, and that there's just this teeny teeny tiny sliver of people in the middle who are
still undecided. And that's why you see the star Power, the Beyonce, the Joe Rogan. You know, the candidates are going out trying to reach to people who you know, do not want to listen to political news regularly.
Before yeah, God love him. Before we get into the Star Power, does this Rogan interview, I mean, he was saying nice things about RFK Junior. Does it end up being an endorsement?
Do we know?
Is this going to be a challenging interview? What are you expecting to come from this?
You know this will be a one It'll be a long interview, That's what Brogan does. You know, we could have you know, two or three hours of you know, Trump hours with Rogan sitting down. You know, Rogan did endorse RFK Junior. He or you know, sort of said he supported us, and then he also said some nice things about Harris after that debate. He said that, you know, Harris, you know, was very polished, that she was well prepped,
and that Trump was failing a little bit. You know, that was to remember the debate about Springfield and eat the cats and dogs. You know, Rogan in the past has espoused a lot of the same ideas that Trump has. You know that this is very much a podcast that is geared towards young men, people who are very online dabbling in conspiracy theory. So this is sort of a key audience for Trump. But you know, I don't think
he needs necessarily the you know, explicit endorsement. He doesn't need Joe Rogan to say the words I endorse you. Just having him on the show and having a what will probably be a relatively friendly conversation is enough to get Trump what he needs do.
Something whacky happened as Rogan light had joined in this interview of the way he did with Elon Musk. Does Elon Musk show up with him? It's in Austin, right, Do they roll in there together?
Maybe?
Highly possible. Do Elon Musk is spending a lot of time in Pennsylvania these days? Do you and get out the vote efforts? But expect that there will be all sorts of pageantry, all sorts of you know, fun surprises. This is a pas you know, because it's not really news. This is entertainment.
So well, thank you for saying that that's true. Okay, so let's get into that for a minute, because everybody's saying that Kamala Harris is surrounding yourself and Democrats tend to be embraced by Hollywood. This thing last night night, My god, I mean, I'm just watching It's like entertainment tonight. You have Bruce Springsteen out there, Tyler Perry, Samuel L. Jackson, who else was speaking before, Kamala Harris. It was one
after the other, one celeb after the other. But when you think about it, Donald Trump has quite a bit of celebrity power. Beyond Hulk Hogan and Dana White, He's got arguably one of the most famous people in the world named Elon Musk, who's also putting tens of millions of dollars into the campaign. So this is really something that's being used by both sides.
Isn't it.
This This really is And you see, you know, Musk is hosting his own events. You know, he was out, you know, in the past several days holding all these you know events in high school auditoriums in Pennsylvania. You know, we had some reporters on the ground talking to people there, and some of these folks were saying, look, I'm here because I'm an Elon fan, and I because I like Musk. You know, that kind of opened my eyes to Trump. So this is you know, sort of a thing that works,
you know, in Trump's favor in many ways. You know, even though he is perhaps the most well known person in the world, you know, having you know, some a star power, someone who kind of has seen as cool as Musk is, you know, supporting him is super helpful.
And another forty three million I think we were reporting that he's added to the kitty.
Here, Yes, another more than forty three million. That puts his total for you know, both Trump as well as you know, Republicans down a ballot, you know, somewhere around one hundred and thirty two million at least incredible, which means that he goes from being basically a you know, someone who doesn't donate at all to being probably he'll end up on the top five for this election cycle, which is huge.
You wonder what happens if Donald Trump doesn't win. Elon Musk go to the White House sit down.
I don't know.
Good luck this weekend. Deep breaths, You're doing great. We're relying on you. Laura Davison, Bloomberg Politics editor, Imagine being charge of at this moment, the sensitive moment of all the content that's going on the terminal and on the website, that's Laura, I'm Joe, Matthew and Washington and glad you're with us here as we zero in specifically on one of the swing states that we've been talking about. The seven, of course include Arizona, and it's ground zero for early
voting because in Arizona this is nothing new. Republicans and Democrats have been doing this for me any cycles in Arizona because of the heat, because of the long way you have to drive, and a lot of these instances, and a lot of other reasons. So we've been watching very closely Republican and Democratic ballots in the states that we can, and we want to zero went on Arizona with an expert. Sam Almi is a Democratic political strategist and head of a data at a company called Uplift.
I have been reading about Sam in just about every major newspaper on the daily all week, because if you want to know what's going on with early voting in Arizona, this is who you call. Sam. Welcome to Bloomberg and Balance of Power. It's great to see you give me a sense because you're on the ground looking at the latest numbers where we stand with the early vote in Arizona today.
All right, thanks Joe, Right now today, I just updated my numbers about fifteen minutes before I got on the show. Here we're at one point two million returns statewide. That gives us a turnout of about twenty eight percent. I think we're ending We're looking to end up around probably seventy seven seventy six percent. How the parties break down
right now? We have four hundred and twenty thousand Democratic ballots, five hundred thousand GOP ballots, and two hundred and seventy four thousand independent ballots.
So give us a little historical perspective here and how that compares to twenty and sixteen. Are the two parties on track with what you expected?
Yeah, this is where it gets really interesting for a little for wonks like me. Compared to twenty twenty, this looks very different for Democrats. For Republicans, they're on pace with their they're a little bit ahead of their twenty twenty pace. Democrats are way further behind on their twenty twenty pace. They're down about nine percent in overall turnout. But as we all know, twenty twenty that was.
A weird year.
If we could look back to If we look back to twenty sixteen, everything's on pace. Democrats are about two percent ahead in turnout of where they were same for Republicans Independence, however, they're down about one percent. So it's really tricky for people like me to find that right sweet spot of an election to compare to understood.
So does that give us a sense then that the RNC got its arms around the messaging here even as Donald Trump is called early voting stupid and dangerous, or does it suggest a normalizing coming out of a pandemic election.
This is really confounding for me too. I think early in our voting periods. In the first week, we saw a lot of early in person voting, which is not very popular in Arizona because as you mentioned, we've had about two decades of early by male voting. It's very safe, very secure. People love it, All parties use it. But I think we saw some very hard partisans who are
very engaged on the GOP side. They are making a compromise saying, Okay, I'm going to vote early, but I'm not going to do it by the mail, so they do it early in person.
Okay, that's actually really interesting color and you kind of have to be there to know about this. Arizona is not the only one we're watching. If you consider some of the other states that are in play here where we actually have a breakdown on Democrats and Republicans, the GOP is doing pretty well if you look at Nevada, for instance, Sam, it's not just Arizona where we're seeing this. Is this a national trend?
It probably is, just if you compare to twenty twenty, there's a lot of anti vote by mail sentiment. Turns out, voting by mail is safe, easy, and convenient. The GOP has decided to embrace that. They are on pace with their twenty twenty and twenty sixteen turnout numbers.
Right now, the story in Arizona has been pretty fascinating. And I know that we're here to talk about pulling ballots, but there are questions about ballot splitting here where you've got a Senate race and a presidential campaign that just don't seem to align unless Republicans are leaving something blank or Democrats or deciding to vote for Donald Trump. How do you rationalize the narrative right now in Arizona.
Yeah, that is going to be a really interesting thing in twenty twenty twenty. The GOP has always had a registration advantage over the Democrats. In twenty twenty it was about one hundred and hundred and thirty thousand, twenty twenty sixteen, it was closer to one hundred and fifty thousand. Right now, the advantage for Republicans is closer to three hundred thousand ballots.
So both the presidential and US Senate campaign are going to have to rely heavily on these tickets splitting Republicans that are that are turned off by the MAGA type politics that follow You know, our former US Senator John McCain, our top of the ticket campaigns are really going to heavily rely on those tickets splitting Republicans, that's for sure.
When it comes to overall turnout, when do you start to draw conclusions, You've got I think until November first, Right, is it going to be throughout next week? By the end of next week, you're going to be able to take a stab at what overall turnout in this election will be like when you include actual election day voting.
Yeah, that's that's another thing. I actually looked a couple days ago, and my turnout projection was was just so low I didn't I had to throw it out. So I'm going to take a look probably in the next couple days. I know one of our major counties, Pima County, was they had a little bit of a delay in sending out ballots, so their returns are about three days behind where they have been in the past couple cycles.
You know, I still am expecting overall turnout to be a little bit less than our eighty percent record high in twenty twenty, but not any any sort of record low or anything like that.
Sure the other we're dealing with hard numbers. Here, go ahead, Sam finished, Yeah, oh.
Yeah, absolutely. So. One of the other things that I'm very curious about is I'm comparing this I'm starting to look at twenty eighteen data because that's when there was the red mirage of Republicans built up a huge early ballot lead, but Democrats turned out on election day where they dropped off their early ballots and showed up and voted at the polls.
How about that?
You know, the question I've got to ask you that you don't want to answer, is when they're going to call the state of Arizona.
Oh, it's not going to be on November fifth. I'll tell you that. I yeah, I would probably. I would probably guess at probably a week later, but I'm pretty conservative with that estimate. Yeah would, I wouldn't. If we have results on the ninth or tenth that weekend, I'd be pretty surprised.
And that's because of the distances involves and the time it takes to count all these early ballots.
Yeah. Absolutely. You know, usually at the when when the polls close, there are a lot of early ballots that are simply dropped off at the polls. We have about half a million. We have to verify those, we have to make sure that they are valid, and then we count them.
Man, he's right in the thick of it, Sam, I appreciate you taking time for us today. Sam Almi, Democratic political Strategists. He's at Uplift where he's the head of data and tracking the ballots as they drop. That's real time stuff you'll only hear on Bloomberg.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast kens just live weekdays at noon Eastern on have a CarPlay and then Roynoto with the Bloomberg Business app. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station, Just Say Alexa, playing Bloomberg eleven thirty.
A conversation we've been having for the last several days about how this is a fifty to fifty election, a tass up, a coin flip. We aren't sure who will win. It looks like it is dead. Even Terry Haynes of Pangea Policy might be slightly more sure than the rest of us, not by much, but he gives Harris sixty percent odds of winning, Donald Trump forty percent, and Terry is with us now here on Bloomberg TV, Got It and radio. So Terry provide the justification here what everyone's saying.
Fifty to fifty, don't trust your gut. We can't call this, No one credibly can. Why do you see it as more likely that Harris pulls this out at this point?
Well, well, one of the first things I ever learned about markets, many years ago, was that fifty to fifty is no call at all, And if you're in a calling business, you better make at all. And you know, likely you know for what or ill you know? I'm in the call business, So you know, in a true fifty to fifty race, you've got to move to the intangibles, and I think Harris has the better argument. She's got I think a better get out the vote, turnout machine.
I think there's higher voter enthusiasm for her. I think she's had greater message discipline that enables people to be voters, to be motivated, you know, and that that's on both social issues I think and Trump loathing. There's this kind of tabula rasa appeal about Harris I think has diminished some recently when she gets specific about issues, but that's been out there, and frankly, there's a lack of serious
policy difference between the two candidates. It's not as if we're talking about, you know, whether the federal government ought to be involved in providing health care or not. It's a matter of shade gradations and you know, so there's there's nothing that's kind of a big issue that's going to turn the public on or off other than the social issues I already mentioned. So I think at the end of the day, she gets the better of it. But you know, I've got Trump at forty percent and
he can still surprise the upside. But I do think that there's a very hard ceiling that's been demonstrated all year with Trump.
I know your ears were burning when I was talking about you on the air earlier this week, Terry, because you have the note of the moment. Drunks leaning on lamp posts, of course, invoking the great Vinn Scully quote. Statistics are used much as a drunk uses a lamp post, this great old saying for support, not illumination. With that said, everybody's given us a gut check now, and we have
a couple of other factors here. Nate Silver, by the way, in a guest essay in The New York Times, says his gut points to Trump, and he points to shy voter theory, non response bias, the undersampling of Donald Trump. He's got potentially some things going in his favor, too, doesn't he.
Yeah, Yeah, there's I mean, look, there's a lot of different shades to this, and you know any one of them can can surprise. You know, my threshold issue on this all along and people talk about issue issue issue. The threshold issue is is is the credibility of Harris as a president. That's an issue for good or ill that Trump doesn't have as much because he actually has
been a president. So you know, you have your own opinion about that, but it's the credibility of Harris, and you know she's going to continue to hammer that in in two ways. One by continuing to make the case for herself. That's what this Ellipse visit is about next week rally. And secondly, you know she's going to continue to make the case that Trump has disqualified himself for a variety of reasons. And and you know she hangs her hat on that because that everything else flows from that.
If you think if you as a voter, I think Harris isn't qualified or as anything else, then you know you make a different choice. But if Harris and Trump are both in the conversation, Harris is more so than you. She's passed the first and most important test and she's got the likely or ability I think to convince about her.
So let's talk about convincing the financial markets, Terry, because there was a lot of conversation this week about what we were seeing in the bond markets, specifically a selloff pressure upward on yields, and a lot of people were pointing to fiscal policy. Concerned forget about what the Federal Reserve is doing for a second, when you look at the policy proposals that both of them have put forward during this campaign, perhaps that is something that is a
little frightening to the bond market at this time. What do you see as actual reality that the market should be paying attention to. How worried should they be about fiscal discipline or lack thereof? But from both of these candidates, regardless of who wins the presidency, but considering who might win control of Congress.
Well, they're absolutely right to be hugely concerned about the candidates, and not just because they went through this whole Oprah phase of their campaigns where they were promised lots of things to lots of people. Markets once every four years, markets forget what they know the other three years, which is that it's really the Congress that's more important to
the policy equation than the president. And you know, so what markets always do, when analysts always do, is they put out these you know, baskets of stocks, Trump baskets and Harris baskets and how this is going to how this is going to affect The assumption is wrong though. The assumption is somehow that the president provides a gravitational pull when in fact, it's much more of the opposite. You get a situation where, you know, twenty seventeen tax
law is a perfect example of this. Trump and A and all Republican Congress made it possible, but the all Republican Congress, you know, decided how low the rates could be, decided the specifics, all the rest. Trump was essentially limited to details and making sure you got the thing assigned.
Anybody that doubts that Congress is more important than the president when it comes to the vast majority of economic policies has only to ask Jimmy Carter how energy policy went, how George W. Bush, asked George W. Bush how Social Security went, or asked Obama about pretty much anything after twenty ten when he couldn't get anything through thanks to the makeup of Congress, so including a lot of trade laws and trade treaties. So Congress, the makeup of Congress
here is more important for policy. And the makeup of Congress is about seventy percent likely to be a tiny Democratic majority in the House and a tiny Republican majority in the Senate. That guarantees a lot of things, but one is that there's not going to be any serious action on fiscal debt and deficit going forward.
That seems to be true. Is that how you're looking at the results on the Hill. I know we're going to be waiting a while probably to find out about the House, but the conventional wisdom seems to be pretty consistent here, Terry tough map for Democrats in the Senate and a likely pickup to have a speaker HACKEM. Jeffreyes.
Well, yeah, I think so. The you know, the path for Democrats in the House has been evident and likely since the day after the election in twenty twenty two. They need to pick up some seats they lost to Republicans in largely blue states New York and California, and they're likelier than not to do that. At the same time, you got a Senate map that where you have seven or eight competitive races on the Democratic side, all of which they have to sweep to maintain a majority. Are
they likely to do that? I've never been likely to do that, and now it's apparent that they probably won't. Is you know, I'll give you thirty percent that one or both of those is wrong, but those are by far the likeliest results. So what you get on that I think is post election, you get negative fiscal debt and deficit. You get negative on tax since Democrats won't want to ratify an extension of the twenty seventeen tax law.
I think you get negatives on tariffs because I think what markets don't understand is tariffs are not only you know, part of the policy in both parties now, but they're going to get bigger because of national security concerns, which both both candidacies are talking about. And I think you're positive for defense and defense industrial base frankly, so you know that's what they're going to be looking at going forward.
It's a mistake to think that whatever it's just being discussed today is what's going to be discussed after the election.
Terry, we've got thirty seconds left you Michigan consumer sentiment hit a six month high in data today. What political signal does that send?
I think it doesn't send much of anything. You've got a situation where the vast majority of voters are baked in number one, generally on who they like. Secondly, they're baked in on how they feel about the economy already. You know, if you're if you're a Western Pennsylvania and it's severely affected by high prices. You're not going to magically feel better in the last month or so.
The line to remember from Terry's note I meant and investors are wise to keep the full salt shaker on hand from Pangaea Policy. Good to see you, Terry Haynes. This is Bloomberg TV and Radio.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast. Catch us live weekdays at noon Eastern on Applecarplay and then Proud Otto with the Bloomberg Business App. Listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
The home stretch of this election cycle, with just eleven days to go until election Day, which means it is closing arguments time. We've been running through many of the closing arguments we've seen from these two presidential campaigns here on Balance of Power on Bloomberg TV and Radio for the last several days. But to reiterate for Kamala Harris, in part it focuses on reproductive rates that will be
highlighted in her visit to Texas Today with Beyonce. She's focusing on the issue of abortion in a state which has very restrictive policies in that regard. But she also was in Georgia yesterday. Former President Barack Obama was there rallying with her, and she was focusing on the other closing message that we have seen her reiterate time and again that Donald Trump is unfit for office and a danger to democracy.
Someone who suggests we should terminate the Constitution of the United States of America should never again stand behind the seal of the President of the United States of America.
Let's assemble our signature panel here on the Friday edition to Ballants of Power Genie Shanzano, Bloomberg Politics contributor, Democratic analyst, and political science professor at Iona University, joined by Rick Davis, of course, Republican strategist partner at Stone Court Capital. So here's the way. The closing arguments, at least the bumper sticker versions are boiling down. And we talked to Jim Messina about this right around this time yesterday. For Kamala Harris,
she has a to do list. He has an enemy list for Donald Trump. It's she broke it, Trump can fix it, which one resonates Rick.
Look, I mean, if you take a look at how people feel about the direction of the country, you know, significantly negative. We've been talking about the consumer sentiment index well lower than a party in power wants to see it going into an election. They broke it, He's going
to fix it. Is a very compelling argument. I suspect he'd be doing even better in this election if he would not go into these various controversial places he's been and just said that over and over, this would not be a close election.
And yet it is one Genie. So it raises the question of how effective Harris's closing argument actually is. If this is making if she is making it too much about him and not enough about her, does she need to course correct on that, including tonight in Texas.
No, I don't think so. I think it is an effective message because it resonates with what she has been trying to tell these voters out there, which is that Donald Trump is all about himself. Just listen to him, just watch him go to his rallies, and I am about you. I'm going to be working for you. So I think as a message it works. I do think her event tonight is really important. She starts the year on abortion and reproductive healths. She's going to end it there.
And as we look at these polls that are coming out just in the last few days, abortion is a winning issue for her. And Texas of course has one of the most restrictive abortion laws, not even an exception for rape or incest, only an exception for the life of the mother. And of course they have been focusing on women and men who want children and who have not been able to get the healthcare they need because down there are scared there facing ninety nine years in jail.
So it's an effective strategy. And of course she's got the Queen Bee down there with her. How could she lose.
That's a fair point.
Rick.
We talked earlier in the program with a man named Sam Almi. You might know him as, of course, a veteran of Arizona politics, although he's a Democrat, and he's been monitoring the early vote, specifically counting ballots here for D's and RS. We have an important story on the terminal and you've talked to us about this before. Right now, more registered Republicans have voted in Arizona, Nevada, and North Carolina than Democrats have. This is public data. This is
not something we're speculating on. It's not a poll, and so what does it mean for the final outcome in this election?
Rick?
Yeah, some of.
Those places like Arizona that you mentioned have a long history of Republicans voting early by turning an air ballot or by mail. So that's not a surprise, and I think you know that was born out by your guest earlier. And Republican registrations are up in a lot of these places, so you just have a larger pool of voters to
pull from than we did four years ago. That being said, you do see big, disparaging, big desperate numbers in places like Pennsylvania and specifically around the Coller counties of Philadelphia, where I think the election in Pennsylvania will be decided. And in those places, Democrats are voting at a higher frequency with bigger margins than they had before. And in places like Bucks County, you really wonder how many of those could be Republicans voting for Kamala Harris since that's
been the focus of her efforts there. So you know, it's just like the polling, the early vote is a mixed bag. If you want to take a partisan point of view on it, you can make a case very easily for Democrats doing better or Republicans doing better. It just depends upon which state you think you're going to win.
But Rick, if we consider the fact that, well, we don't know who Republicans are voting for, Republicans are showing out up to vote, despite some of the rhetoric we have heard from Donald Trump about that as a as a voting method, He's called it stupid at one point during this cycle. This is the RNC who has kind
of forced this to happen. Right, For all of the conversation we've had here on balance of power over the course of the last many many months about how Donald Trump is not necessarily a candidate you can discipline the campaign. The RNC can only control this so much. They have been able to control this in some sense.
What does that say, Yeah, I'm not sure it's the rn C controlling this. The reality is Arizona again, good example, right, Republicans voting at a higher level, higher levels of registration. The rn C has not been on the ground in Arizona doing any of that. There's a very small get out to vote operation in Arizona, a fraction of which would be normal compared to previous presidential elections.
Cycle.
So look, I mean, you know, and when you look at how these voting patterns are changing, all of these early voting patterns are different than in twenty twenty two, which were significantly different than in twenty twenty. So is what are we comparing it to? Are we comparing it to the twenty two get out the vote efforts in early voting which actually look a lot more like what's
happening today than in twenty twenty or twenty sixteen. So look, we've talked a lot about how this is a replay of the twenty twenty elections when Biden and Trump were in but the reality is it's a unique election and it's performing differently than any previous presidential election.
Really fascinating as well when you consider, well both campaigns want us to be talking about today, we've already gone there. Kamala Harris going to be talking about reproductive rights, yep, Beyonce by her side in Texas. Donald Trump is going to be sitting down with Joe Rogan. They're doing the podcast this afternoon. I suspect a lot of people Genie are going to watch and to hear it. And when you look at the gender gap in this campaign. We've
spent some time on this men versus women. It's underscored again in the Siena College, New York Times Pool. Harris leads Trump among women fifty four to forty two percent. Trump leads Harris among men fifty five to forty one percent. What they're doing today is not going to change this. It might actually make it worse. Geenie, what do you think?
Yeah, I mean, it really shows you. They're both in Texas. I don't think we'd ever have thought that. Eleven days to go, they find themselves in a state where Donald Trump's definitely going to win. But it is in part because of these issues that appeal to their supporters. For Donald Trump, that's immigration, For you know, obviously Kamala Harris, that's abortion, and of course Donald Trump is down there
to talk to Joe Rogan. I think the last time I checked, he has like one hundred and ninety million downloads a day on his or maybe it's a month. It's got to be a month right on his podcast, and it's just incredible number lots of those young men. And I just am so fascinated by this interview because she's, you know, not that far away. Does she like go out and you know, stalk them. I don't know. Does Elon Musk show up and light up like he's done
with Joe Rogan in the past. So much can go wrong with this interview, and it's gonna be like typical Joe Rogan three hours. So I'm fascinated by it, and I really hope that Kamala Harris surprises us with one of her own on Joe Rogan. But so far we.
Don't get that well. Speaking of a following Elon Musk cause and two hundred and two million followers on X the platform of course that he owns. He also, according to new reporting from The Wall Street Journal that hit yesterday, has been in communication with Russian President Vladimir Putin, just as we also have questions about Donald Trump's own communication with Putin since he left the White House, remembering Bob Woodward's new book that suggests they had spoken on multiple
occasions since Trump was president. Remember our Bloomberg editor chief John Micklelthwaite asked Trump directly about this, and this is how it went.
Well.
I don't comment on that, but I will tell you that if I did, it's a smart thing. If I'm friendly with people. If I have a relationship with people, that's a good thing, not a bit thing in terms of a country. He's got two thousand nuclear weapons, and so do we. China has a lot less, but they'll catch us within five years.
Genie, we've got a minute left here. Even if Donald Trump isn't directly communicating with Putin privately, what would it say if Elon Musk, who has been so who has become so close to him and his campaign is doing so.
Yeah, I mean, I think it just reinvigorates the conversation which is really important about Donald Trump's relationship with Vladimir Putin. And you know, you listen to Donald Trump in that interview, and what does he say, Oh, it's important to be friendly with everybody, especially somebody who has this many nuclear weapons. The reality is the United States has a president right now.
Former presidents don't talk to autocratic leaders of other nations without going through the government at least, it's not good form. And so the fact that he may have done that, and his number one donor apparently may be doing it as well, is deeply, deeply concerning to the security of the United States.
All Right, Geenie, Shanzino of the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress, alongside Rick Davis of stone Court Capital. Both of them Bloomberg Politics contributors, are always closing us out on every single Friday. Thank you both so much for being here. Joe, We're going to continue the conversation around Vladimir Putin and his ongoing war with Ukraine. Coming up next is Melinda Herring will be joining us from the Atlanta Council.
I can only imagine what went through her mind when she heard about this. By the way, the head of NASA, Bill Nelson, talking to Semaphore about this just a short time ago, Kaylee says, if true, the Pentagon and NASA would be concerned and it should be investigated. We'll have a lot more on this coming.
Up, indeed, we will so stay with us here on Balance of Power Live from both Washington and New York today. Right here on Bloomberg TV and Radio.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast ken just live weekdays at noon Eastern on Applecarplay and then roun Oo with the Bloomberg Business app. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York Station, just say Alexa playing Bloomberg eleven thirty.
Turning our attention to geopolitics and a story that is impossible to separate from the presidential election that's of course underway right now here. We've heard from President Zelensky Kaylei, following up on a story that we discussed earlier this week with Ambassador James Jeffrey. Ukraine expects a major change in the dynamic on the battlefield this weekend. In fact, expects Russia to start using North Korean troops in combat
in theater in Ukraine. And it comes against the backdrop of another headline from Vladimir Putin who says Russia is open to a quote reasonable compromise on quote, but will make no concessions to bring this war to an end.
Yeah, and we just heard from Admiral John Kirby, who of course is a spokesperson with the White House, who said they do think the number of North Korean troops could number in about three thousand or more. So serious considerations to be had on the European continent right now as we look to the future of this conflict and frankly, how it could change ultimately depending on who becomes President
of the United States in January. We could see very different approaches under a Kamala Harris administration or another Donald Trump administration. We understand that the differences between the two potential outcomes here have been a well discussed topic in Washington this week at the annual meetings of the IMF a World Bank, the fall meetings of that and that's where we want to go to. Now why from the IMF where we're joined by Palo Gentaloni. He is European
Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs Commissioner. Welcome back to Bloomberg TV and Radio. It's great to have you on Balance of Power, sir. If we could just start right there is I know that this has been talked about in Washington this week. How are you from an economic perspective considering the two outcomes here, what a Donald Trump presidency could mean economically for Europe versus a Harris one.
Well, first of all, I'm talking about the European perspective, not the overall IMF meeting's perspective. On the European side, I would say the diplomatic and official answer is very clear. We will work with our American partners independently for who
will win the elections. Substantially, we know that we had a very good cooperation with the Biden administration because the Biden administration was able not only to protect the American interests, but also to keep alive and even strengthen in some way the multilateral framework, which is important for US. So the fact that they decided to go back to the Parish Agreement on climate Change, the Agreement on Corporate Taxation,
the WTO. So this is something that the European Union is considering very important, and this is the legacy of the buy An administration, and we hope to continue to work together with our American partners keeping the multilateral system alive.
Well, so if we're talking about systems of multilateralism and multilateral trades specifically you mentioned the WTO, there are potential tariffs your greatest concern Commission, not just for direct tariffs that could be placed on European goods, but potentially just greater protectionism in general. If there is an outright trade war, for example, between the US and China, how could that by extension impact Europe.
Well, I think that this is one of the real risks that our global economy is running because here in the IMF and World Bank meetings we are broadly satisfied because indeed we were able to manage the high inflation. The inflation is now under control despite a low level
of growth. But if we look to the future, the risk of the fact that geopolitical tensions, trade tensions, tariffs will undermine growth and global trade is particularly strong for Europe because, of course the European Union is a big, big trade powerhouse. Our trade with the US is one point six trillion per year only goods and services, so it's a mountain that is very important for our economic
welfare in the coming years. And this is the reason why we should be very careful in keeping trade open. Of course having it more secure, as we all are saying now, but secure doesn't mean protection is and closing trade well.
In Europe is trying to calibrate tariff policy of its own. I understand that the Commission and China will be continuing conversations around how to avert potentially that more than thirty five percent here, if that could go into place on Chinese made evs, are you confident that can be averted? And if this does indeed come into place, what economic impact. Are you gaming out?
Well, I think this is something very reasonable proportionate on our side. The reason is Chinese over capacity in this sector are also subsidies to their industries. So for us, for the European Union, it was also a learning process. We had until maybe three or four years ago, a more optimistic attitude on trade with China. Now we know that to have a level playing field we need to be much more monitoring how much subsidies are working and
how several sectors are affected by overproduction. But again, having this new approach doesn't mean that we will adopt a protectionist attitude, because this is something that for the European Union is impossible to adopt. We are confident that it is possible to have a more secure but to keep trade open.
And Commissioner, if we could just widen out and look at broadly the growth picture for Europe right now, how strong or weak do you think it is? And when you look at what's happening in particular countries, the slump in Germany specifically, how concerned are you about the drag that could create on the overall euro Area economy.
Well, what is happening now is that we are very good in inflation. The last figure in September was one point seven, so well below our two percent target. And we all remember that only two years ago it was double digit inflation in Europe. So good for inflation. We'll see the next months, but the direction is very clear. Very good in terms of labor market, not good in
terms of growth. Growth is too low. Why is growth solow? Well, we have structural problems that we have to invest in innovation, productivity, but also the international situation and the geopolitic risk we were referring to are influencing our level of growth. If you look to some countries, for example Germany, where growth is particularly law or even negative. This is also the impact of the decision that we had to take for geopolitical reasons to abandon Russian cheap gas to have a
new approach with global trade, especially with China. And it is no surprise that this is affecting some European economists.
All right, Commissioner, thank you so much for joining us here on Bloomberg. That is Palo Gentaloni, European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs, appreciate your times are an important ending note Joe, as he points to the geopolitical considerations that are factoring into the growth picture for Europe there, namely the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine.
That's for sure, and this is something we want to talk about with Melinda Herring from the Atlantic Council CA. We heard from Jamie Diamond on this very delicate moment in Ukraine and the potential as he sees it, for nuclear war. Let's listen to what he said earlier this week in Washington. He was speaking at the Institute for International Finance. This was just earlier this week yesterday, in fact, in the nation's capital.
Here he is, we have to be quite clear, this is that we can't have a bid outcome there. You know, if you know you travel around all the you know a lot of other nations you know that border Russia they're quite worried, you know, and some that don't border Russia quite worried. And we've never had a situation where man is threatening nuclear blackmail.
That's where we start our conversation with the aforementioned Melinda Herring, Senior Fellow, Atlantic Council Senior Advisor for Ukraine at RASAM. It's great to see you, Melinda. Welcome back to Bloomberg TV and Radio. We have a lot of headlines that are crossing the terminal today, beginning with President Zelenski saying that he expects Russia to deploy North Korean troops inside Ukraine over the course of this weekend, in fact, as
soon as Sunday, he says, possibly on Monday. How would that change the dynamic on the battlefield.
Hey Jo, thanks for having me back. Look, this is a major escalation. According to the Ukrainians, they expect twelve thousand North Korean troops to be deployed on Russia side. They will be wearing Russian uniforms and they will be under the command of the Russian military. So this is a worrisome, major escalation. The South Koreans are tearing their hair out, calling the North Koreans to go home, and also saying that they may put some intelligence of muscle on the Ukrainian side as a result.
Well, as we consider it the muscle on the Ukrainian side, what response would be needed to be able to adequately withstand this additional military personnel that could be used to fortify Russia's own position? Melinda, Should the US be considering other forms of aid?
Thanks for that question. So it's time for the United States to take off the remaining restrictions that it's put on the long range missiles that the United States has given to Ukraine. We've tied the Ukrainians' hands behind their backs. There are many restrictions, and they're not allowed to strike deep into Russia. And it doesn't make sense why we're forcing the Ukrainians to fight this way when they now
have other nations fighting on their behalf. So that would be one practical step that I would urge the US government to make. It's also time that the US government look at real security guarantees, and this would be NATO membership. That's the only thing that's going to get Ukraine out of this war, and it should be on the table now.
Well Indo, The Wall Street Journal reports that Elon Musk has been speaking on the regular with Vladimir Putin, not just small talk either. Apparently. In fact, Putin asked Elon Musk, according to this report, at least which the Krumlin denies, asked Elon Musk to turn off the Starlink service over Taiwan. At one point, Bloomberg News asked Donald Trump if he's been in touch with Vladimir Putin since he left the White House. He wouldn't answer the question, but said it
would be smart to do. So, what does this triangle, this telephone game between the three of them mean for the outcome in Ukraine if Donald Trump is the next.
President, Joe, this is a humdinger of a story. And the first thing that I would say is that if it's true, it's a major security violation. So if an American has a top security clearance, as Elon Musk does, and he has communication, private communication with any foreign citizen, not Vladimir Putin, any Russian citizen, he has to report that. Now, if he has private communication with Vladimir Putin and he doesn't report it, he's toast. His clearance should be ended immediately.
The head of NASA is calling for an investigation. But this is a major This is a major security violation. It's a major It puts US national interest at stake. Remember, Musk owns the former Twitter platform X. He also is in charge of SpaceX and he's in charge of Starlink. The US government has more than a hundred contracts with him in the last year that total three billion dollars.
There's seventeen federal agencies that work with Elon Musk. So this is really shocking and it's something that needs to be looked into immediately.
Melinda, we just have a minute left here, But where do you expect this conflict will be on January twentieth when a new president takes office.
Kaylei, that is the money question. It all depends on who is elected. If you're looking at the race from just a Ukraine lens, the difference between the two candidates couldn't be more stark. Harris supports Ukraine full stop. Trump does not support Ukraine. In fact, he said that the war was a genius idea, and I expect him to undermine US leadership and look at ways to undermine our part in NATO as well.
All Right, Melinda Harring, always great to have you here on Balance of Power. She is non resident Senior Fellow at the Atlanta Council and senior advisor at razinfor Ukraine.
Thanks for listening to the Balance of Power podcast. Make sure to subscribe if you haven't already, at Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts, and you can find us live every weekday from Washington, DC at Noontimeeastern at bloomberg dot com.