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We're expecting the House is going to try to move forward on its budget resolution. I say I guess because even the House Speaker himself wasn't totally clear as to whether or not tonight was going to be go time keeping in mind, the vote was originally scheduled to take place around six pm, but Mike Johnson, when speaking to reporters at the Capitol earlier, seemed a little uh wishy washy on this though he does stand by the one built package. This is what he said.
We do not have time to waste. The American people are expecting us to deliver on this and we will. And House Republicans need da night so we can keep this process moving forward. And I think they all understand that we're working right now to get everybody on board. I think everybody wants to be on this train and not in front of it.
There may not be time to waste, but we have no clarity on how much time I guess we have.
Here, Kaylee.
To your point, speaker was asked right after that moment, are you committed to the vote being today? He said, there may be a vote tonight, there may not be. Stay tuned, so we've got another game day call here, Mike Johnson. Yeah, Look, if you can only lose one here, obviously this is a pretty difficult exercise. He had meetings late last evening that resumed early this morning with some of the holdouts. And we're joined right now by Jack Fitzpatrick,
specializes in appropriations for US here covering Congress at Bloomberg Government. Jack, what do you think? I know you're here on a lot of the same stuff we're describing. Will there be a vote today?
It's not looking great for a vote today. They haven't officially put it off. But when you hear the speaker kind of hesitating on the vote plan, that tells you something. And even this morning we heard from four people directly who right now are no votes on the House Republican side, and as you mentioned, you can only afford to lose one assuming all the Democrats show up. Now, some of
those no votes are pretty dug in. I would say Thomas Massey, who described himself as a hard no on this budget resolution, I'm not sure if they can really negotiate with him right now. There are others, though, Tim Burchett, Republican from Tennessee, said, nobody's met with me. The Speaker hasn't met with Burchett. Leadership haven't really tried to win him over. He wants some at least verbal promises on spending cuts and something very conservative in the ultimate bill.
So there are some people you can work on, but right now they have more than one no vote and so they've definitely got work to do to get to actually holding this vote. Doing it today would seem pretty tough.
Well, in the first real test is coming pretty shortly, right Jack. They have to vote on the rule on this bill first, and that's schedule to happen at this hour.
Yeah, that could be a test.
So someone asked Warren Davidson, who is one of the no's, right now, are you going to vote against the rule?
And he was kind of wishy washy on that.
The thing to know about the reconciliation process in all of this is there are a ton of opportunities to block it, so you don't need if you're a conservative who wants a more aggressive path to spending cuts.
You don't need to oppose the rule.
And we haven't really heard a lot of people specifically saying they're going to oppose the rule. You can vote in favor of the rule and then take down the budget resolution, or you can support the budget resolution and then take down the ultimate bill, so it gets progressively harder. I'm not sure that an acceptance of the rule would necessarily even be a good sign. A lot of people are focused on that second vote that's supposed to be later today on the resolution itself.
Well, that's really interesting and a great point that you make here, Jack, because the fact of the matter is it doesn't say anything about cutting medicaid in this budget resolution.
Correct.
This is the assumption that if you're going to reach a certain level of cuts, you're going to have to raid the cookie jar at some point and get to entitlements, and it looks like medicaid would be the answer there. But a lawmaker can vote for this still not be pinned down in a campaign ad saying that they voted to slash medicaid.
Yes, what's in writing here is a direction among many directions, but a direction to the Energy and Commerce Committee saying you have to cut eight hundred eighty billion dollars or raise revenue, which Republicans don't really want to do.
It's hard to see how they get to that without.
Probably cutting a combination of Medicaid and maybe of the snap nutrition Aid. So there are some politically sensitive things there. But because this is not the bill itself that would do that, you've seen some openness from the moderates who might be scared off. Nicole Maliatakis, who was a kind of negative sounding when speaking to you yesterday, sounded a
bit more positive this morning. It's more the Conservatives who are holding things up than the moderates, because the moderates know, if I don't like the details of what happens on Medicaid, you can stop the bill later in the process, even if you let this resolution go forward.
Well, and of course there is still a lot of time left for debate on this jack as the expiring tax cuts do so at the end of the year, so theoretically they could have until then to get their act together on this. The timeline we're working with on keeping the government funded, though, is much shorter. We're seventeen days out from the deadline. Are you seeing any signs of progress being made toward a deal to avert the lights going off?
Very little progress on government funding. It's the March fourteenth deadline to avoid a shutdown. The negotiators have told us they're not that far off on the numbers, at least the preliminary numbers of how much you're going to spend on defense and non defense. But Democrats have said, why would we support this agreement if we don't have assurances that the money is going to be spent, Because simultaneously you have these efforts by President Trump and Elon Musk
to pause funding, to cancel contracts. They want something, either verbally or in writing. I'm not exactly sure what the latest offer is from. So they need something to ensure that the money will be spent, and that is a hard thing to get across. There's not a lot of progress on that discussion, and so there's a big, big gap to bridge still as we get closer to March fourteenth.
Glaucus ticking. Jack Fitzpatrick of Bloomberg Government Live for us from Capitol Hill. Thank you so much. And of course shows us jack us here in Washington. I'll focus on the way in which this policy is getting done, in all of the politics behind it. There also is just a question of the need for the policy to get done in the first place, and what it means for financial markets and our audience, specifically here on Bloomberg TV and radio, dealing.
With massive amounts of uncertainty right now, whether it's this budget resolution, what form of tax cuts, how long will the extension be? Don't even ask me about dog Well.
And then there's on the subject of dough and attempts to cut spending. What it all means for a deficit that the bond market increasingly seems a bit worried about. And that is something that we spoke with Maya McGuinness of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget about last night. She was walking us through the actual math here WHI should her view doesn't make sense.
We can also scale back the price tag of this tax cut four and a half trillion, five trillion. This makes no sense given our fiscal situation right now. If we want to extend these tax cuts, we should extend the ones that are most pro growth, most important, and all settle as a lot of them by broadening the tax base. There's eighty five trillion dollars in spending over ten years. They're cutting two trillion out of that. This
is not taking a sledge hammer to the government. It's a very small amount.
So for more on this, we turned to Libby Cantrell, pimco's head of US Public Policy, who was here with us on Balance of Power. Libby, I'm sure you're getting a lot of questions about this tax package, and welcome back. It's good to see you. What aren't you telling clients that ask, ay, if this is all going to be able to get done in the first place and be what it means in the long term. If yes, markets like tax cuts, but there's also the deficit to consider.
Yeah, to be with you, I mean, I think you know the sort of the bottom line that our clients are most interested in is it's your earlier point. Will this get done and for how long? I think there's a real question of whether this is extended for a short period of time just several years, whether it's extended for the entire what's called the budget window for ten years,
or whether it's made permanent. And of course they're members in the Senate in particular, Setate Finance Chairman Mike Crapo in particular, who wants to see an extension, you know, a permanent extension. So I think that, you know, for kind of the bond market, for investors and client our clients, I think they're most focused on, you know, will this get done? And I think our message is unequivocally yes,
this will. But again, there are just some questions about what the kind of the scope of this looks like and if this is just an extension or whether they're additional task cuts. The other thing I will just say is, you know, more more clients are asking, as maybe some concerns of growth or starting to weigh on the market, is what the cuts would look like and how draconian are they, how frontloaded they are, and how significant could
they be from a growth perspective. So kind of two sides of the coin.
Of course, it's great to see you back, Libby. Where's your optimism coming from? Because, as you point out in your notes to clients just yesterday, getting them ready for this moment, the Ultimate Reconciliation Bill is this is basically instructions the guardrails for the ultimate reconciliation build and we can't even agree on this.
What makes you think.
The actual bill with the actual money inside, can pass with a majority of one.
Well, Joe, it is a good question. But my optimism, I think, just comes from the place that there really is no decision otherwise. This is in many ways existential for House members and for members of the Senate. They just simply cannot let the US economy kind of go over this fiscal cliff, if you will, That's how they would characterize it. So for politically speaking, there really is no other choice, and as we all know, political expedients
oftentimes rules the day in Washington. So that is where my optimism is coming from. However, I do think it is going to be a circuitous route to get to that destination, as we are just seen. As you point out, if you can only lose one vote, that's not really a governing majority, if you will, even on something like tax cuts, and particularly when you sort of put into
more controversial items like potential Medicaid cuts. So this will not be again a linear road by any means, but we're confident by the end of this year you will see an extension of the tax cuts again, just a question for how long and if there are additional task cuts and accompanied by other spending cuts.
Are you as confident Libby that lawmakers can find a way to avert a shutdown just weeks from now, ors that something markets need to start bracing for.
Yeah, well, again, I think markets are you know, have become and maybe rightfully so, relatively impervious to this sort of shut down rhetoric. I think that folks sort of assume that they've seen this movie before that even if the government does shut down, as long as it's a temporary shutdown, that it actually hasn't really weighed on economic growth. I think it's probably too early to put odds on
whether there will be a shutdown. I do agree though, with the previous reporter that you know that Democrats are really not don't have really any appetite to play ball with Republicans right now. I think there's some real concerns that they're hearing from their constituents about the DOGE impact and particularly around federal employee terminations and what have you. So I think they're going to want something in order
to you know, to advance a government funding bill. And I think it's just the real question is whether Republicans are willing to give that to them. So I think, again, probably too early to say, and you never underestimate kind of the power of again political expedients. And I think that the political incentive here is to keep the government funded. But you know, again open question of whether they'll play ball with each other.
Well, that's a pretty difficult balancing act that you're describing there for Mike Johnson. And I suppose he's getting.
Used to these.
If he ostracizes Democrats here in the budget resolution but needs to rely on them to pass a continuing resolution to keep the government funded, how does he do both?
Yeah, I mean I do not you know, I don't think any of us and the Speaker Johnson's position right now. Again, I mean, he has the smallest Republican majority in the history of the Republican Party. Uh, so he is, you know, he is really trying to navigate a very difficult, uh, you know road right now. And I think that you know, Jim as you know, I think that the Joe that the that the reconciliation package is going to be a partisan package. So I think that your Democrats were expected
to be alienated. I don't think they were expected to be included in this process. But again, I think that there is going to be some sort of you know, demand for concessions from Republicans going into this government funding fight. And I think it's a question of whether Speaker Johnson feels like he can give that to Democrats. And again, I think that's really really an open question. He has a very full plate, though, I think that's the upshot. And then, of course we haven't even talked about the
debt ceiling. And even though the debt ceiling increase is included in this reconciliation, there is this budget package. You know, I think it remains to be seen whether that's addressed as well. So this is going to be a very you know, busy few months for the Speaker. And again, you know, I don't think any sort of an enviable position, you know, by and.
Large, well, the President's been busy too, Libyan. In our final moments here, he told our colleague Jordan Fabian at the White House yesterday that he is intending to move forward with twenty five percent tariffs on Canadian and Mexican goods a week from today day. Do you call that bluff?
Well, I don't think, you know, we're not in a position to call the president's bluff or or not. I will say, though, Okaylee, that what we're hearing from our clients is both domestically and abroad, is a lot of concern just about just tariffs writ large, of course, but particularly on these potential twenty five percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico. As we all know, the three economies are
incredibly enmeshed. There could be a lot of knock on effects, both from an inflation perspective, but even more from a growth perspective. I think this is something that the market may you know, they're very oriented towards the inflationary impacts of tariffs, but you know, we have a guided our clients to be focused just on the headwind of growth from tariffs as well, and particularly if you put twenty five percent on Canada and Mexico. Again, just given how
entrenched those economies are, so a lot of concerns. I don't again, not calling his bluff or not, but we had to take his threat seriously. He is, of course the President.
The United States program is brought to us by the word uncertainty today. Libby Cantrill, thank you so much Libby. It's great to see you back with us here on Balance of Power. Head of you US Public Policy at PIMCO. I'm Joe Matthew alongside Kaylee Lions will assemble our panel. Next, we have both Rick Davis and Jeanie Shanzeno with us as we stare down the barrel of a possible vote on a budget resolution later today in the House and count down to a possible government shutdown the middle of
next month. It's all ahead right here on Bloomberg.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power Podcast. Catch us live weekdays at noon and five pm Eastern on Apple Cockley and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station. Just say Alexa play Bloomberg eleven thirty.
Stop me if you've heard this before. But here in Washington, on Capitol Hill, specifically, we find the Speaker of the House, to Mike Johnson, in a pretty tough spot today. He, of course, trying to get a budget resolution through his chamber with only the votes of his conference. Just Republicans are expected to get this thing across the finish line. And once again counting them with only one vote that he can afford to lose is proving to be pretty difficult.
So it's just another Tuesday. Yeah, are you suggesting that.
We've seen this movie before a few times?
Maybe Mike Johnson has majority of one though, is sort of new level, to the point where at least Aphonic has to hang around Washington for weeks longer than expected.
Instead of being confirmed as our next ambassador to the UN, they have basically shelved the confirmation process to maintain the one seat majority that we're talking about today, and it is unclear if we're even going to get a vote on a budget resolution, Kaylee, because corraling all of these members to agree on this massive bill has proven this, at least so far, be impossible for Mike Johnson.
Yeah, we were just checking in with our colleague Jack Fitzpatrick from Bloomberg Government, who said, already four Republicans have said they are nos at this point, and unless that change in a matter of hours, hard to see how you justify putting this thing on the floor. Although this speaker also has not been shy and letting things well, that's true, before all the votes are and solidly in his corner.
Miracles can happen. He was asked, committed to the vote being today. This is a direct quote. There may be a vote tonight, there may not be. Stay tuned. That's where we start with our signature panel. Rick and Jennie are both with us today on Balance of Power. Rick Davis, Republican strategist and partner at Stone Court Capital. Genie is our democratic analyst and senior democracy Fellow with the Center
for the Study of the Presidency and Congress. Genie, I'm pretty sure there are no Democrats who are going to help out with this process today. Can Mike Johnson get Republicans to clear this bill?
Yeah?
That statement he made was about as clear as mud. There may there may not be. You know, certainly no Democrats are going to go along. But I'm going to go out on a limb here and say if I was Donald Trump, which I clearly am not, I would say to Mike Johnson, this is about the easiest thing I'm asking you to do. I know you have a one vote majority, but here's the reality. You are asking
people to vote to move forward. There is nothing in this language which talks about cutting on Medicaid or anything else. So if he cannot bring these people to help them move forward for a budget blueprint, how is he going to get to the next difficult step of putting actual numbers and cuts on the table. So, if I'm Donald Trump, I'm thinking of this as like, this is it, Mike, you get this vote. If you can't do this, there's no hope. So I think Mike Johnson gets this done at some point.
Well, if we all just rewind to January when Mike Johnson was trying to get the speaker's gavel in the first place and didn't look like he was going to have the votes on the first round, Guess who got on the phone, Rick Davis. It was then President elect Donald Trump to force the hand of those Republicans who were still holdouts. Do you think we could see something similar happen here?
Yeah? I suspect even today, if Johnson doesn't have the votes, and it sounds like he doesn't and it's not that close, if he has three or four, then he probably has more holdouts. Then he's going to need some help. And what's interesting is some of the reporting we've been getting from our team at Bloomberg is that some of these folks haven't even been contacted yet. So before you go to Donald Trump, maybe it's better to have your whip actually do a vote count and these would be standard
operating procedures before a big vote like this. So I guess we maybe are on a slow roll and this is going to take longer and they've got to reach out to some of these recalcuatrant members. But Donald Trump's not going to want his big, beautiful bill to fail. That actually reflects poorly on him. He has no distance between him and the House Republicans. He is the basically
the speaker of the House of Representative. He owns that caucus and so if he's going to own it, then he better make sure it doesn't break.
Well, what do you think about that?
Rick?
Tom Massey hasn't even gotten a phone call yet. Meanwhile, Mike Johnson was in meetings late last night that resumed again earlier this morning. Is this a speaker who's still learning on the job.
Well, for sure, he's always had some issues with vote counting, and you really wonder what's going on in the leadership. Scalise just a couple of hours ago was out saying we're still going to vote today, and so you know,
doesn't seem like they've got the best of communication. And this is a speaker who is actually spent a lot of time, unlike previous speakers, getting into one on one conversations with members broker in these deals rather than having his leadership to him, like Scalise, give them at least some deniability so that he can weigh in with any benefits that need to go to these members in order to get them to do the right thing for the
for the leadership. So you know, this is not what you've gotten used to if you've been hanging around Washington for a long time and watch the powerful job of the speaker get executed in a more i would say, refined method.
Well, if we think about what we heard from Steve Scalice earlier this morning, as the Republican leadership in the House spoke to journalist Genie he noted that medicaid cuts are not actually mandated in the language of this budget resolution.
It's just where everybody is naturally drawing a line when they see eight hundred and eighty billion dollars that need to be cut in the Energy and Commerce Committee specifically, Does he have a point there, as Democrats are trying to say, this is Republicans setting the stage to cut Medicaid benefits. Is there still some cover provided to those moderate Republicans potentially who are considering voting yes for this.
Yeah, that's absolutely right. There is cover.
Now.
The reality is there's no other place to cut. So once they get this blueprint, if they do, it's going to be Medicaid. So the Democrats are absolutely right on that. But the reality is they do have that cover. And this is why I go back to if this is the biggest test Mike Johnson faces and he can't jump over this hurdle, how can he be expected or how can the president have any faith he would be able to get the next really difficult part of this done,
which is going to be the actual cuts. So I don't think this is a huge haul for Mike Johnson, but if it proves to be and he doesn't get this done, this votes very badly. And I agree with Rick, this is a huge, huge legacy moment for Donald Trump. Legacies are not built on eos, no matter how many of them you sign. It is all about legislation. Joe Biden got a lot of legislation done in his first year. If Donald Trump cannot keep that up, if he cannot meet that moment, he is not gonna have a legacy
to stand on. And he knows that, which is why what happens today and in the next few months in the House, or what doesn't happen, is gonna be so sortant to him.
That's when I mentioned a couple of headlines that are coming from the White House briefing room right now. Caroline Levitt is briefing reporters as we speak with a million federal workers. We see the headline now responding to the email requests that went out for them to justify their jobs for last week. There's still some confusion over a new midnight deadline tonight as agencies tell their workers not to acknowledge Elon Musk's email. Also, Kaylee, Donald Trump expecting
Vladimir Zelenski to sign a minerals deal. I guess that's not too far away from what he said yesterday, suggesting when Scott Bessen spoke that they were on the one yard line.
Yeah, the Treasury Secretary certainly sounded optimistic, and we heard from the President as he had the French President Emmanuel Macron there with him. At the White House, suggesting that Vladimir's Lensky, at least in Trump's mind, could make a trip to Washington this week or next to actually sign.
This there, which might fulfill that headline as we learn more. Interesting though, as we keep our eyes on the briefing room, we haven't had a chance to talk about this much with Rick and Jeanie. The competition that we're watching right now between if I can use that word, the Trump administration and the Associated Press. This has gone to the courts. Of course, the AP was removed from a few Oval Office events because they wouldn't call the Gulf of Mexico
the Gulf of America. By the way, they did move Mount McKinley away from Denali, but that's a different matter. A federal judge cleared the way for the White House to continue barring the AP from these events. And interesting, Kayley, as we were winding down the program yesterday, we were looking at the briefing room sitting here in the studio, we saw on the big led screens in there a victory banner with an image of the Gulf of America to troll the Associated Press, and Caroline Levitt has been
taking questions on this, Genie, I wonder your thoughts here. Quote, it is beyond time the White House press operation reflects the media habits of the American people in twenty twenty five, not nineteen twenty five.
Is she right? No, she's not right. In fact, when I heard there was a victory sign up in the White House, I couldn't imagine what they were celebrating, because and it hasn't been a very good few days for them, But they are apparently celebrating what this judge decided. But
if they really paid attention to what he decided. He said, yes, we're not going to order the AP back in right now, but he said it is very possible that the AP could win here because the White House did not follow due process, arguably when it removed the AP for an editorial decision. So I think this may be a little premature. I'm having like, I don't know who was it George Bush vibes about you know what did his sign say?
Accomplished?
He got those?
Well?
Rick Rick Way in here because the Press Secretary is also telling journalists that the White House is going to be opening it's presspool to new voices. We already, of course, have seen the addition of some of those we're talking about, Yes, different kind of journalists than we historically have seen covering the White House. Does that serve a purpose in this day and age.
Well, for sure. I think there's a realization that everyone should make, which is podcasters are not only making news, but conveying it, certainly their version of it, and it has proliferated. Tens of millions, if not one, hundreds of millions of Americans get their news from these unique digital sources. And you see places like the Department of Defense bringing podcasters in to run their public affairs business. They'll have
them in the room when they brief every day. So this is just a recognition of a trend going forward. I mean, the AP issue is a different issue, which is getting kicked out for not you know, addressing the Gulf of Mexico's Golf of America. And I guess I would actually question, I mean, what's the relevance of the debate. Do we really need a due process legal argument to boot somebody out of the White House Press Office. I've always had the impression that was a privilege, not a require.
I'd prefer to have AP, you know, on record every single day reporting from the White House. But I think that's really up to the White House. I mean, I can't imagine there's an argument that says AP owns a seat in the press room.
Yeah. Lots of First Amendment questions at play here that we'll have to get into later on Rick Davis and Genie Shanzino our signature political panel here with us on Balance of Power. We'll have more ahead on Bloomberg TV and radio.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast. Catch us live weekdays at noon and five pm Eastern on Apple, Cocklay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. Listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
Plenty of talk about this yesterday at the White House when Trump was meeting with French President Emmanuel McCrone. They had long talk with reporters in the Oval ahead of their bilateral meeting, then again at a joint press conference. But interestingly, the very first question asked at that press conference of President Trump, specifically, it was not about Ukraine, not about relations with France. Instead, it was about the new Harvard Harris poll that had come out showing pretty
good numbers for the president. This is what's Trump responded with.
It was a big poll, and it's usually a poll that leans on the other side of things, the other side of the world, so to speak. But the Harvard Pole is a respected pole and it has us not only leading, but leading by a lot, and leading on every single issue that we've we've talked about and as I said, we've become the Party of common sense.
So for more on this, we turned to Frank Lunz, politics and communications consultant also CEO of fil INQ, is here with us in our Washington, DC studio. It's been a while, Frank, good to see you. Welcome back.
This place just gets nicer and nicer every time I come back.
Oh you flatter us.
Well.
I want to talk about what the actual figures in this poll were. Fifty eight percent of voters are more satisfied with trus job as president than Biden's. Does that track with what you're hearing too.
We've been doing focus groups every single week since the election and the inauguration, and Donald Trump is keeping his He's keeping his focus. He promised to deal with immigration. That's one of the first things that he that he's set forward, he promised to address Ukraine. Now I need to point out one thing that's important, which is that the language that he's using is not as effective as
it could be. But that aside the issues, the priorities, what the public wants him to do, he seems to be doing, and so he's being rewarded for in essence keeping his campaign promises.
You add the Doge and things start to get a little bit more complicated. This is red meat. They love the chainsaw at Seapack for a lot of maga, but even some Republicans are starting to worry. I don't know what the Doge focus group is going to tell us, Frank Lentz. But the Washington Post compiled comments from Republican members of Congress, specifically Lisa Murkowski. No, granted, these are not big Trumpers, Lisa Murkowski, John Curtis, Don Bacon, Brian Fitzpatrick.
They've used words such as embarrassing, cruel, absurd, extortion, and trauma.
Yes, issues in the language, not the goal, not the mission.
The voters.
Voters are tired of waste for Washington, spending, waste, fraud, abuse, mismanagement, even corruption, and they applaud what he's doing the question is is he doing it in a way that they appreciate. There's some sadness when someone loses their job. There's pain when a family suddenly finds that the breadwinners out of work, and that doesn't seem to be communicated from this White House. The public has an issue with his language, but not with his strategy. And this is the same thing that
I hear up on Capitol Hill. If you're on the side of the status quo, you're losing. The American people have said enough with all caps and an ext point, enough, but they haven't said enough about compassion, about empathy. And if this administration tones it down and does exactly what they say, says what they mean, means what they say, but does so with empathy and compassion, they're going to be even more popular than they are today.
Well, Frank, we just heard from the Press Secretary Caroline love It that Elon Musk is going to be attending the president's first cabinet meeting tomorrow. The rest of the cabinet officials, presumably who will be in that room are the ones who have been confirmed through the confirmed through the advice and consent process in the US Senate. That don't or have divested from conflicts of interest they may have, those things are not true for Elon Musk. Does that matter to the American voter.
Nobody cares. Nobody cares, and in fact, Musk is almost a lightning rod. Musk is the best thing for Donald Trump because he's out there with the chainsaw appealing to the hardcore maga people. It allows Trump to do what he's doing, and everyone angry at it is now angry at Elon Musk. It's actually a brilliant strategy. People keep saying that the two of them going to blow apart. I don't see that. But Musk's language as well, and I realized I sound like a broken record. But this
stuff matters in government. It matters in getting stuff done. If you communicate in a way that the public starts to resent you or reject you, it slows your momentum and it undermines your ability to get things done. Trump has focused on waste, and that is what the public has waited for, frankly for forty years. But they don't want to punish people just because you happen to get a check from the government. They don't want to punish you because you work for the government. And that's the
feeling that's happening. You saw all these town halls when they're attacking the politicians, they're not really attacking the politicians. They want to know, can we do this better? Use a scalpel rather than a machine gun.
There have been comparisons to the town halls back in Baraco Obama's first term that tipped over the whole idea of obama Care and the Affordable Care Act. Is it different this time or is that an apt comparison.
It's I think it's an apt comparison because it's performance. People are going there not to learn, They're going there not to listen. They're going there to shout, okay, and so they want to be heard. But that was Trump's campaign, was a campaign of shouting, and it gave him the election. It's okay to shout if you get something done. The most important word in Washington right now is results. And if Trump gets results, he will get president and Trump
I'm sorry. If President Trump gets results, that will move his agenda forward and he'll be able to go even further on some of these other issues that it hasn't gotten to. And the key to that is successful messaging that the public hears and sees and feels the change. They are hearing and seeing and feeling it, but they're getting the negative as well, and that doesn't need to be happening well.
So when we talk about the change the public is looking for, what about what they're seeing at the grocery store price of eggs, just inflationary dynamics in general. We look at the consumer confidence data we got today, felt by the most since August of twenty twenty one, on concerns about the outlook. You saw inflation expectations pick up. Is that going to come back to bite this administration in short order?
It absolutely could, and the key for the president is to lower expectations. There are some things that you can do in thirty days, such as what he's doing with Ukraine. Whether whether you agree with it or not, he is moving towards bringing that to an end. Inflation doesn't rise or fall in thirty days. It's a longer process, requires supply chain fixes, requires lower energy prices. There's so much involved in it, and from a political standpoint, Americans don't
pay attention to that. They simply pay attention to affordability, food, fuel, housing, and healthcare the present be well served to lower expectations because it's going to take six months or a year for his policies to actually have an impact. And by saying that he's going to bring it down now, you can't make you shouldn't make that promise, and that could hurt him as well. You know, it's weird because I'm listening to what I'm saying here. As a president, he's
been the most significant since FDR. He's caused more change, more agitation than any president since Andrew Jackson. And it's remarkable how people have already taken sides. But the public is supporting what he's doing. The concern is how he's doing it, and that's something that maybe he'll get the message, maybe he'll see this video. I think he wants to do it his way. I can hear Frank Sinatra playing in the background, But in the end, how he does it determines his success or his failure.
You could hear Steve Bannon talking in the background soon not even about Elon, but about flooding the zone. You're a communications expert, this is essentially what we're talking about. Can he keep up this clip beyond the first one, hundred days. Is that even a strategy or is it to get them on their heels at the beginning of the term. So you can get done as much as you can in a closed window.
So again, I do this often to compliment both of you, because you're saying exactly what the public is thinking. Can he keep it up? He answers, Yes, he absolutely can. But when you do that, when you flood the zone, you make mistakes. When you flood the zone. There's a positive and a negative to it. And the question for the Trump administration does he seize every opportunity and minimize the risks of failure? At this point, he looks like
it's maximum efforts with maximum challenge to that agenda. He's going to do it. So the question is can he prepare himself? And there are people around him to say that one you shouldn't do that, one you should pull back on. I don't think so. But that's the challenge for this administration.
Well, and there's also a question too here, Frank about how much approval of what Trump is doing even matters. When he entered a lame duck. He can't, at least the way the laws are written now, run for a third term in office. That same thing is not true for a number of people on Capitol Hill who are trying to get re elected next year. When you look
at the midterms, is the pictures? Is the road ahead as easy for some of these lawmakers who are going to try to seek reelection because of the policies of this administration.
So promise me you won't get angry with this response. Never there, that's not true. There's somethings more important than elections. This is a very critical time for this country. There are serious divides, there's serious anger, there's a loss of faith and trust in the future. There's a belief that our institutions are failing us. That whether or not they get re elected is not the question at this moment.
It's whether or not we can put our country back together, whether we can take this shattered puzzle that is incredibly beautiful and it's united, but it looks pretty ugly as
pieces on the table. I'm hoping that this president keeps his promises, continues pushing forward, adopts the language so that the public can really hear and see what's happening, and it has a little bit of empathy, because that's a successful democracy, when your voice is heard, when it's paid attention to, and you can actually see the changes happening. Some of that in the first thirty five days is happening, but they're danger there's threats that that is also and
that messaging. I would just love a little bit of a Lincoln or a Jefferson or a Washington to kind of get or at Churchill to get into this communication because it's not just about the details of today or how they impact the election tomorrow. It's what happens for your children and your grandchildren and the generations to come.
Let us know what they call you and you have that conversation at the White House Frank Luntz fl What a treat to have Frank Lunz in studio. Thanks for coming in. It's great to see you. Thanks as always here on the fastest show in politics. 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 noontime Eastern at Bloomberg dot com.