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.
You'll see that we're somewhere a little different today as we join you live from Bloomberg City Labs twenty twenty three event in downtown Washington, DC, gathering mayors, innovators, and business leaders from all over the country at a time of chaos here in the nation's capital, and over the next two hours, will be joined by city leaders from across the nation, from Allentown, Pennsylvania to Fort Collins, Colorado.
So stay with us. We have a lot to learn and a lot to cover here the next two hours. We start though, with an update on Capitol Hill. Bloomberg's Kaylee Lines has been there for a couple of hours. As things shift under Jim Jordan's feet and Kaylee, it looks like the Republican from Ohio is out of the running for speaker. What's the latest.
Yeah, he's not taking himself out of the running entirely, Joe. What he is trying to support is temporarily giving more power to the Speaker pro tem Patrick m henry, so that he can try to continue whipping votes that he will need to actually get the gabble. There's a number of different proposals on the table. We understand that the GOP conference is actually still meeting in the basement of the Capital trying to hammer all of this out. One
proposal on the table is from Congressman Joyce. It would empower McHenry through January third. There's another on the table, though, from Mike Flood, which would actually give mckenry full power of the speakership, but for a shorter period of time until November thirtieth. There are a number of representatives who came out who spoke with reporters who have suggested they do not like this planned. Tim Burchett, Marjorie Taylor Green, Ralph Norman, just to name a few, are not on board.
So it's going to come down to the math here. It's not clear Joe, that that kind of resolution has the support within the Republican Conference. Then it would be up, of course, to the Democrats to see if something like that could get done.
So help me understand this, help all of our listeners and viewers here, Kaylee, because when you and I were talking at this time yesterday, we thought there was going to be a third round. That's not happening now. Your point is that Jim Jordan essentially will stand in the wings. Well Patrick McHenry gets the hard work done as an empowered temporary speaker, and then what there's another election, say in January, whenever that period ends.
Yeah, that's exactly right, Joe. To put it in the words of Congressman Tim Burchett from Tennessee, who is just speaking to me and a couple other reporters, he thinks this is just essentially kicking the can down the road.
But in some ways it kind of is empower McHenry to do the work of the House in the interim term, things that need to get done, like funding the government past November seventeenth, trying to get potentially a supplemental package with funding for Israel through Congress as well, and in the meantime, behind the scenes, Jim Jordan will be trying to garner the support he needs to actually get the
full speakership. So that seems to be the plan, but again it's unclear at this time whether or not that plan will move forward if my understanding from speaking to members in the hallways that they're going to try to sort this out to some degree behind closed doors before taking anything to the floor. So remains very unclear whether we'll see anything heading to the floor today.
Wow, really amazing stuff here, Kayley. Of course, that means funding for Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan and the border as we've discussed coming together into one piece of legislation. We'll just have to wait the presidents speaking of the nation tonight to make the case for it. But there's no one to receive the bill.
Well, that's exactly right. It's going to have a hard time getting congressional approval when there's only one chamber of Congress at the moment that is actually functioning. The Senate seems eager to move on that, Joe, But of course the House is a different question, which comes back to the idea of if they can't co a less around one individual who at this time can get two hundred and seventeen votes, which it seems at the moment Jim Jordan cannot. That McHenry needs to be able to act
in that way to do that. But a lot of these members who are opposed to the idea, think this is unconstitutional, that it may set a bad precedent. Despite the need to actually get things done in the House, it's just not something it seems that they can support. So they're still trying to figure out a way forward here to just be in a position to be able
to pass that kind of supplemental request. Actually getting members to vote for something that includes funding for Ukraine, for example, is going to be an entirely different story that either a more powerful Patrick mckenry in a temporary role or ultimately a House Speaker is going to have the job of trying to do.
Pretty remarkable. Kaylee is great to see you, Thanks for the update, great work today on the Hill, and I'll meet you back in the Bureau a little bit later on Bloomberg'skaylee lines who's normally with us here on the broadcast, but we're on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue as I join you from the Waldorf in downtown d C, which today is hosting Bloomberg City Labs twenty twenty three event, and we're surrounded by a lot of people who work
for government elected officials who do not have the luxury of this kind of Well, I guess we'll say politics that we're seeing in Washington. They have to deal with real matters in real time. Those are the mayors of towns and cities across the country, many of whom we're going to meet over the next two hours, beginning right now with Mayor Jenny Aren't, Democrat from Fort Collins, Colorado. Welcome to Washington. It's great to see you. Well, thanks for having me, Thanks for being with us here on
Bloomberg Radio. You just heard Kaylee disc I have the madness that's happening just blocks away from here, and I wonder, first of all, what you're hearing from folks in Fort Collins when they watch the news, read the papers, go online and read stories that just don't seem to make sense.
Well, they fundamentally, I think washingting is broken, and I think that we can see that it is right now, and hopefully we all hope for the best, and in the meantime we continue with our work at the city.
So tell me what people are talking about and what you're focused on right now, because we're speaking a different language here inside the bubble. That's right.
Well, one of the advantages we have in city government, our city government. Is you introduce me as a Democrat and I am lifelong. Yeah, but we run on a non partisan basis in Fort Collins, so we don't have that sort of divide pulling us and pushing us in different directions. I think that's an advantage of some cities run that way. Right now, we're just in the middle of a housing crisis. Fort Collins is the third most expensive housing market outside the Coats in the United States.
So we have restrictive and c limits. We call it U plus two just you and two other people can live in a house. And we have a thirty five thousand person university, Colorado State University in our city, so we have occupancy restrictions, and then we have a lot of restrictions on building. And right now, Tuesday night, I had to miss the first part of City lab because I was up taking the second vote on creating more housing and Fort Collins, and I just read right before
I came down here. We passed it last year, there was a citizen's initiative to have a repealed that they were successful. We passed it again on Tuesday, and I just read right now that they're trying to repeal it again.
Well, Jeeves, and we're here. We are with nearly eight percent mortgage rates on a thirty year mortgage. This is very real for people who are particularly young people who are trying to buy into the housing market. Does that make it more difficult to draw workers to Fort Collins? Oh, it is a growing economy.
It's one of the least climate awareness things we can do as the block piece pull out of our city. Yet ask them to come in and be our police officers, our teachers, you know, our nurses. We're closing and consolidating schools at the same time our city is growing, so we are fundamentally not attracting or being able to have people affordably live in our town.
You reached first for the housing market, which is fascinating to me, and it leads us directly into interest rates, which brings me to inflation. We hear about it every day here as almost an abstract. In Washington, we of course, are a data company here. We pour over this stuff on a daily basis at Bloomberg, but bring it home for me a way that we might not hear conversations in Washington apply. How much do you hear about higher
prices making life difficult? Beyond housing, but just day to day needs.
Sure also on Tuesday Night. So recent red hot. You know, we just increased our utility rates. I mean those things are real bills that go to real people every month. And course it hits the least among us the hardest because they have to pay a higher percentage of their income on utility. Yeah, so we increase that power and water. So these are real, real things.
So what are you getting from Washington or not getting from Washington? We talk a lot about infrastructure and investments through the Inflation Reduction Act that are bringing investments to cities like yours, But you might not have a relationship with your member of Congress that supports those ideas.
I do. I have Jonah Goose is our congressional represents, and we have two wonderful senators from Colorado. Yeah, we work really closely together. Sometimes Fort Collins doesn't get the grants other communities due because as a wealthy community, we have already sponsored some of these initiatives on our own. And you know what, I'm fine with that. If there's another community that needs it more than we do, I
think it should go there. But we have been successful in federal grants and our best rapid transit and other things.
You have another member of Congress in Colorado, Lauren Bobert, who's been making some waves and making some news. Yes, sir, well, she'll see will she still have that seat following the election.
We're trying every thing we can to store the reputation and the good representation for the people of Colorado.
Yeah. Is that a talker, as we say, is at an issue on the table for people in Colorado to the extent that it is the sort of tabloid of political media.
Yes, it is, Yes, and I'm very familiar. I was in the legislature for seven years and I have a lot of West Slope colleagues, and although it's a more conservative part of our state, everyone deserves to be represented.
Yeah. I'm glad you joined us. Thanks for being with us, and I wish you luck at City Lab here. I hope it's a productive visit. It is to the nation's capital. Absolutely, Mayor Jenny aren't with us from Fort Collins, Colorado.
You're listening to The Bloomberg Sound on podcast. Catch the program live weekdays at one eastern on Bloomberg Radio, the tune in app, Bloomberg dot Com, and 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.
I'm Joe Matthew in Washington and glad you're with us here on Bloomberg Sound On. As we had the voice now of Mayor Aftab. It's wonderful to see you from the great city of Cincinnati. Welcome to Washington. Thank you so much for having it brings you to City Lab. First of all, I've been talking to various mayors from around the country and everyone seems to have a different issue or a different agenda in a way that you can make this event productive. Yeah.
We we have been really fortunate to be the recipient of extraordinary investment from Bloomberg Philanthropies and a whole host of issues, but predominantly in closing the racial wealth gap in Cincinnati and using data.
In order to do it.
We partnered with Bloomberg to study a year long study of the barriers to wealth generation amongst Cincinnatians, specifically Black Cincinnatians, and that year long process resulted in recommendations on how to mitigate the damage and also improve wealth generation in specifically are black and historically black neighborhoods. And the data is very very clear that if you invest dollars into programs that put money into the hands of people who
need it most, the results are transformative. And so with Bloomberg, we were able to pass baby bonds for all of our preschool students going through our Preschool Promise program. They will get savings accounts that will follow them over the next three years because sixty percent of kids who have access to a savings account go to college. We're spending one point three million dollars to wipe out medical debt for thirty thousand residents because medical debt is the biggest
barrier for wealth generation amongst our black citizens. And finally, we have seated a universal based income program. During the pandemic, the federal government's injection of cash into low income communities showed huge benefits, and so we're trying to prolong those ARP dollars with our own local program.
Well, that was quite a list. It's a lot different than the lists I hear in Washington, and that's been a theme and I suspect we'll be throughout the broadcast here. But what do you make of what's happening in town right now. The story is that we can't get along, we can't get anything done. Congress is literally on hold right now without a speaker, and we're dealing with some very pressing issues at a clearly urgent time here for
our democracy, For funding our government. Does that have a spillover effect in the cities like yours?
Of course it has a spillover effect. Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill, President Biden's ARP program, the Chips Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, These are having profound impacts government. Federal government legislation, federal action is having profound impacts on our local economy, on our public safety, on our housing issues, on climate, and without those federal dollars, without that leadership, we just don't have the resources necessary to fight back against these macro
economic problems. So what you see in DC is the opposite of what you'll see in major American cities. It is impossible for a mayor not to be pragmatic. It is impossible for a mayor to be extreme. Because we are so proximate to our citizens and so proximate to the issues. No one cares if I'm spinning or obfuscating.
People expect a mayor to be the moral voice of their city, to take clear, specific stands on hard issues, and most importantly lead, and that's what we are seeing across the country, specifically in Cincinnati on racial wealth gap inequalities, and that's what we need to see more of in Washington, d C.
Do you have a partner in the Biden administration. We do.
I'm very close with the Biden administration. Cincinnati recently got the single largest federal grant in our country's history, one point six billion dollars to redo the Brent Spence Bridge, which is critically important to Cincinnati but also critically important to interstate commerce. Three percent of our GDP goes over that bridge. We're using the bipartisan Infrastructure Dollars to reconnect historically black communities that were destroyed by the highway development
in the fifties and sixties. The Chips Act paved the way for Intel to make a two hundred billion dollar investment in Central Ohio, the largest semiconductor plant in our country, and we will see a massive supply chain impact in Cincinnati based on that investment. So across the board, we are seeing real impacts in Cincinnati for what's going on in DC.
We have a new pull out today Bloomberg and Morning Consult that really makes clear the importance to which the economy is going to factor into this election cycle coming up here. We talk about a lot of different issues around this campaign, from reproductive rights to student loans, but the economy clearly rises to the top. I wonder if you see and feel that and what the concerns are
from people who live in Cincinnati. We talk about inflation and in the abstract, what does it mean for people in your city.
It's a real challenge the macroeconomic factors inflation, interest rates being so high, insurance rates being so high, construction costs being so high. It's very, very hard to get anything out of the ground right now.
Does that end up being a problem for Democrats?
I don't think so. No, because the Biden administration has passed legislation to address those issues. And by passing those pieces of legislation, Cincinnati, just our example, is seeing huge benefits from our local economy. To even think like public safety. President Biden's leadership getting ARP dollars into cities literally saved Cincinnati.
We would not have been able to afford to exist as a city without those ARP dollars, and so much of the negative rhetoric around police funding happening in Washington, d C. Has nothing to do with the lived reality in Cincinnati. In fact, it's President Biden and Democratic mayors across the city that are actually funding public safety.
We're spending some time here with the Mayor off tap pure Vall, the Democratic mayor of Cincinnati, as part of Bloomberg's City Lab event here in Washington, d C. What do you end up taking away from this when you see your counterparts from cities in very different parts of the country who are dealing with different realities.
Similar The issues are every major American city and every Americans you're talking about as dealing with housing shortages, is dealing with climate change, is dealing with public safety and gun violence, and is dealing with economic development in a really kind of uncertain economic period. Those issues are not
unique across the country. But tailoring bespoke strategies to make an impact on your specific municipality, getting feedback from other mayors who've tried similar things on similar issues is really incredibly important.
As you look ahead to a time with the Speaker of the House, maybe some funding and issuatives that go into this new year. What's the priority for Cincinnati. You've mentioned a housing shortage. Jenny Aren't from Fort Collins grab that as the first issue that she mentioned as well. What can Washington do when we have eight percent on a thirty year mortgage.
Yeah, well, public safety will always be first, second, and third from a priority perspective for probably most American mayors. But I do think housing shortages is a real problem across the country, and more and more people of view housing as a basic service, akin to snow removal or
trash pickup or fixing potholes. Fortunately, the way our city governments are structured, we do not have the resources that a HUD does on the national level, and so having the federal government take a more active role in cracking down on institutional investors on providing more creative solutions to rental equity. You know, the Emergency Rental Assistance Program through
ARP was wildly successful. More national legislation around that, around access to housing and renters' rights is absolutely necessary.
I'mily glad you could join us. Nice to meet you, Mayor Pirwall. Great you to have you with us here on Bloomberg Radio.
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.
I'm Joe, Matthew and Washington. We're not in the normal location, as you can see on YouTube. If you want to join us, search Bloomberg Global News on YouTube. We've got Hamra's set up here at the Waldorf Astoria in downtown Washington for Bloomberg City Labs twenty twenty three event, gathering mayors and innovators from around the country. It's already brought
some fascinating conversations to the program. Here is we go to ground in towns and cities around the country that are dealing with reality as opposed to the fantasy land that you might describe here in Washington, DC. Now one of the top stories today beyond the speaker race, beyond the President's address later, and we're going to get to
those as we move through the hour. Jim Jordan not standing for a third round as speaker, and President Biden will address the nation from the Oval Office at eight pm Washington time. It all comes against the backdrop of new data, new polling data from Bloomberg and Morning Consult that we're going to dig into with Eli Yoakley, our colleague at Morning Consult where he's political analyst and no
stranger to this broadcast. Eli, welcome back. We can call each other colleagues now, right because we're working on polls together. I think that's right.
It's good to be here. You're like two blocks away from me right now.
I love this. Come by for the crab cakes later. I'll meet you in like an hour. Joe Biden, based on what I'm reading here, has a bit to worry about.
And this is important, Eli, And let's start broad because we talk about national poles just about every day, I feel like, and they seem to mean less over time, because not only are the samples in some cases questionable, but we're so early and it really comes down to battleground states and this pole does just that, as zero's in on seven battleground states that will likely decide the next president of the United States. And when you cut out the noise nationally and look at these races, Joe
Biden's got some work on his hands. What do you see.
Joe Biden has a tough road ahead of him. I mean, the national poles are telling us the same thing. These state poles almost starved. Well, this race is much closer than he wishes it would be. He's underwater in Arizona and in Georgia and in Wisconsin. These states were so important to his victory in twenty twenty and right now losing a lot of people there. That's not where you
want to be a year af from election day. But we are about a year from election day, and there's time for the president to improve on some.
Of these Well, let's dig into some of the numbers more specifically here and the issues ELI because the economy was what was supposed to be the winning issue for Joe Biden. Bidenomics, the Inflation Reduction Act, the Infrastructure Deal, all of those bring lower scores for Joe Biden than Donald Trump. Can you walk us through.
I mean, the headline figure to me was half of voters in all of these states combined think Bidenomics has been bad for the country's economy.
His message is not winning in these swing states where.
He needs it to be.
And that's something we've also noticed in some of our national tracking you know, when good things happen for the economy, voters are far less likely to hear about them than they are the bad things.
He's got a case to make.
The problem is the voters aren't hearing about it. And on every economy the economic issue we tested, from housing to cost, Donald Trump has an advantage. Only about a third voters trust Joe Biden to handle those things. He's president. This is his problem right now. Donald Trump is not in office, but you know, clearly over the next year he's got to work to convince the American people that Bidenomics is working for.
Him if it hasn't happened yet. Though we lie. I know you're not a political strategist advising the president here, but my goodness, I was talking to Rick Davis a little while ago about these numbers. You can only have so many campaign events with a hard hat and a back ho Is that the next year for Joe Biden?
Yeah?
I mean, And part of it is, you know, the ad spending really hasn't started yet. The President hasn't yet made his political case to the American people. A lot of his campaign events have been going out and raising a lot of money. The other thing is you know, a lot of the economic news when it's good, it's kind of doesn't get a lot of attention. And meanwhile, you've got a hot war in Israel, a hot war in Ukraine.
The national media attention has focused sought on that the American people are too.
And and still folks are going to the grocery store and things are expensive. And so whenever you hear about these wins of hiss, bet on chips, be it on infrastructure, those are like long term policy victories that over time will yield results. That doesn't do anything about gas prices or how much it costs it by.
A gallon Milker.
Well, we can go beyond the table kitchen table issues here. As you point out, foreign policy is a problem as well. Trump fares better than Joe Biden on US China relations as well as the war in Ukraine. And I don't know how much that has to do with the fact that Donald Trump has not been in office for this conflict. It's not necessarily a real comparison to be made there. But he frequently says if he were president, this never
would have happened. And if he becomes president again and he could fix it and end this war in twenty four hours. What do you make of that?
I think a lot of that is Donald Trump's distance from the Oval Office at this point.
Honestly, I mean, Joe.
Biden's underwater on every issue, almost every issue we tested, except for things like climate. I think the American people have just a bad view of him at this moment. And meanwhile, Donald Trump is just not getting the same kind of attention that he used to whenever he was in the Oval Office.
I think part of this is the.
Biden campaign will need to litigate a case against the President on these national security issues. I think the Jack Smith case involving the classified documents, it's a pretty clear way of doing it. The challenge has been the president has been afraid to touch it given the Justice Department's involvement in it. But you have the present the for president of classified documents down at mar Lago. That seems like a pretty easy case to make the American people
not to trust the former president. But the challenge is Joe Biden is overseeing now two wars and this issue is front and center for it.
Spending time with Eli Yoakley, politics analyst at Morning Consult, which helped us generate the poll that we're talking about today at Bloomberg News. In these swing states, Nevada was actually the best showing for Joe Biden among the seven that you isolated, ELI, Is that because of organized labor on the Las Vegas Strip or is it something I'm not thinking of.
I think it probably a lot of that is It's also a rather more diverse state than some of these other states we've tested in this survey. I mean, Joe Biden is really struggling with white voters generally, and especially among the white working class, and that's dragging him down both nationally and in some of these other states. Joe Biden is still doing okay with members of labor unions
across the board. I think he has some challenges maybe in some of these states, but clearly his attrition with white people in the white working class generally is a problem for him.
I mean, since twenty sixteen dollars, his.
Republican Party has made notable gains in terms of caring about people like caring about people like me, like the classic campaign question, and a lot of that has come from white people, A lot of it has come from lower earners, and a lot of these states, those people side elections, and they're not siding with they're not signing with Joe Biden.
Before I get to some of the other issues here, I have to ask you about infrastructure. Donald Trump, it was a meme, it was a joke here in town that every week was infrastructure Week. He promised it, he never got it done. Joe Biden made this his signature achievement. The biggest investment in infrastructure since FDR, we were told, and Trump has an edge on the matter of infrastructure here as we look at the data on the terminal forty two to thirty eight percent, how do we rationalize that?
Is it because these jobs haven't actually begun.
I think it's a long term policy victory that's a while for voters to see. And I also just think Joe Biden is getting dogged down by people not liking him. I think they've got a lot of bombs about his age, and they've got a lot of qualms about the economy, and so you ask them about just about anything, and he gets negative views from the American people and these swing state voters we talked to.
Let's talk about demographics for a moment, Eli, Joe Biden still has one point of strength here that Donald Trump could be envious of, and that's female voters. Could women save his campaign?
I think they could. I think that that's what we saw in twenty twenty two.
I mean, part of what we might be seeing in this election cycle is another setup of the circumstances we saw in the midterm elections. Voters talk a lot about the economy, but there's also other issues on their minds, and the abortion issue is one where Joe Biden has a slight advantage over Donald Trump. It's one that has clearly excited.
The Democrat at a base. But he's got to fix this economy issue.
I mean, in our survey we did together, women notice this a lot more and the cost, the cost thing hits them hard. There's been political science studies on this that you women notice the price of groceries because they're often the ones doing the grocery shopping. This is this is clearly weighing on him. He should be doing better with them than he is today.
Well, when you say fix this, the White House would say, hey, look we've got the strongest job market in history. We've come out of the hole with COVID, We've brought inflation down, albeit not all the way to the Fed's target. What else do you want us to fix?
It's costs. I mean, it's the cost of everyday goods is just dragging down.
So it's finishing the job on inflation.
It is finishing the job on inflation. And look, he's seen some good numbers. I think last week's report was a good report for the president. But who was talking about the inflation report last week? We were all talking about Israel and Hamas and some of us were talking about the speaker's phrase in Washington, which is really not breaking.
Through to the American people.
The good news that Joe Biden has seen on the economy just isn't breaking through to the American people. That's incumbent on his campaign with all of the money they raised to try to tell that story next year.
What are the surprises for you? Here? Were they? The top line numbers? He like you do this for a living? Is that a lot of these numbers surprised many of us, But for a Polster, what was unexpected?
I think I was surprised to see him actually underwater in some of these states like Arizona and Georgia.
We knew he wasn't popular there, but we hadn't.
Really dug much into the numbers in terms of the head to head contests with President Trump.
The other thing is, in this survey and all these.
States we tested third party contenders generally just going to be saw that the margins really didn't change between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. It seemed that maybe Biden took more of a hit, but in terms of the distance between him and the president generally maybe with the exception of Nevada, actually it did not change things dramatically in his standing against Donald Trump.
Well, that's fascinating because you don't need me to tell you that people are working overtime and spending a lot of money to try to prevent a no labels candidate, for instance, from running, suggesting that that could make the difference in a state like Georgio. Cornell West could even were told, make the difference in a state like Georgia, where it could be down to two percent. You don't see it that way, then this poll does not support that.
You don't need much.
I mean, that's the thing here is in these surveys, one point matters. I mean, ask President Hillary Clinton how Michigan and Wisconsin went for her. The good news for President Biden here is where he's struggling the most is among his former supporters from twenty twenty. He lacks the backing of about fourteen of them, compared to only nine percent of the attrition Donald Trump has seen since twenty twenty. He has a chance to win these folks back, and
he has a story to tell. He just needs to be able to sell it to the people, and especially the people who voted for him last time. And maybe Donald Trump will help as we get out of the Republican primary phase, he takes center stage and President Biden's able to revive some of the same dynamics from twenty twenty.
So give me the grain of salt in Eli Yoakley before you leave us. How much are these numbers going to change in the next six months? What could they look like between now and actual election day.
Well, there's a good chunk of voters in all of these states, you know, about six to eleven percent who said they don't know who they're supporting, and so that could make or break either side of this equation for either of these contenders.
Because these numbers are so close.
When you look at the national contests the race is neck and neck. A lot of folks are still sitting on the sideline.
The thing I'll be.
Watching over the next year between now an election day, it is the Democratic enthusiasm number.
Clearly that clearly Joe Biden has an enthusiasm problem.
I think the question for him and his campaign is whether running against Donald Trump again.
We'll allow him to fix that problem. You'll revive his twenty twenty base.
We've got a lot to learn and sometime to learn it. Eli, thank you for sharing time with us. This is going to be monthly, right, You're going to come back every month and talk to us about the latest data. Absolutely, I think you're not getting away without it. Eli, Thank you, Eli Yoakley. Political analysts that morning consult find this poll. You can dig through all the crosstabs Bloomberg dot Com.
Find it on the terminal as well with some really interesting and in some cases counterintuitive findings from the campaign trail.
You're listening to The Bloomberg Sound on podcast. Catch the program live weekdays at one Eastern on Bloomberg Radio, the tune in app Bloomberg, and 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.
Live from Bloomberg City Lab twenty twenty three event at the Waldorf Downtown. We're not in studio, as you can see if you're with us on YouTube search Bloomberg Global News. I'm Joe Matthew in Washington, and we do have some breaking news from Capitol Hill. We've been following this all day. Bloomberg'skaylee Lines reporting now that the Republican conference meeting in the House has ended and we still have no idea
what happens from here. Jim Jordan apparently will not stand for a third vote, at least not today, and there are a lot of questions about what happens to Patrick McHenry and potential enhancement of powers there. Will keep you posted as we learn more about it, because this is a conversation we're having today that's going to be resonating for some time. I don't know if it's resonating in Scranton, Pennsylvania, but we'll find out right now because we're joined by
the mayor, Paige Cognetti. It's great to see you. Thank you so much for Joe us here at City Lab on Bloomberg.
Thanks for having me. It's great to be here.
We'll get to all that stuff. Of course. The son of Scranton, we hear about so often, is going to be in everyone's living room tonight with an oval office address. Do you love hearing that? When Joe Biden says Scranton as his hometown even though he's lived in Delaware for so long. Is that good for business?
Absolutely? He is the son of Scranton. You walk down the street, you're going to meet somebody. If you asked everyone whose mother's or uncle's funeral he attended. In the last forty years, he has always come back to Scranton.
He really is.
So he's helped to nurture those ties.
Throughout from the very moment he left me. He really his status Scrantonian. So yeah, he makes it easy on us when people ask, how is he really from scratch making yes, the answer is yes, go down the street next.
Well, he always drops his address in his old address when he was a kid in the stump speech. I know that's part of the deal here. So let's talk about issues for a moment, because you're here dealing with reality and that's kind of been the theme of our program. Mayors don't have the luxury of fooling around the way lawmakers in Washington do, and so here you are to
the rescue. I guess we can say, dealing with a lot of the same issues that we're talking about here in Washington, from inflation to reproductive rights, a lot of the things that voters are going to make their decisions based on in the next year. We're just scrant and fall there, and let's start with the issue of inflation. We have a new Bloomberg poll out today showing the economy is going to still be no matter what you think,
the number one issue in this campaign. Do you hear about high prices, about high costs, about gasoline now to the extent that you may have for a year.
Ago, We don't hear as much as a year ago. But I think that's in part because people have gotten accustomed to some of these higher prices. Food prices have gone down, thankfully, that was really rough last year. Right now, though we've had we've seen water and sewer increases in Scranton that are unsustainable for a lot of our families. So that is very much on people's minds at the city. We've tried to do what we can to keep those
issues out in front. We've used our Rescue Plan money to do things like our Wage boost program, where we help small businesses increase their wages for their employees to where the market. So let's say you're paying a factory line worker fourteen dollars, but that Pennsylvania average is eighteen. We're going to pay you that four dollars. We're gonna give you that four dollars to for the first year. We're gonna split the difference with you the second year.
Just need you to guarantee in the third year that you're going to keep that wage at that higher level. So we're trying to do some tailored programming in the City of Scranton to help people meet those costs and help keep our small businesses alive.
We've spoken to your counterparts from Cincinnati to Fort Collins to Allentown not too far away. I suppose over the last couple of hours and ask them, you know, what are the issues that people are talking to you about the most, that you're most concerned with. And there's been a steady theme housing. Housing shortage is scranting any different.
It is absolutely the top set now.
On a thirty year mortgage, and you don't have enough places to.
Live, right, And we're continuing to see our real estate transfer tax go There's still a lot of people buying in Scranton. Our housing prices are low relative to the rest of the country, which is a double edged sword.
Right.
It's good for our economy, it's good for our tax revenues, but those people that are selling, I'm not sure where they're going. And we do have a shortage of houses. We've got you know Section eight lines that are you eight hundred names long?
Wow, we have a lot.
Of places to go at homelessness and housing looks different in Scranton than it might in some of West Coast cities. You might not see it and when you drive around, but there's a lot of people living in unsafe housing. They might have a roof funded over their head, but it might not be a safe place for a family to live.
So it was Washington helping with this. Do you look to the Governor's office, then he looks to Washington and is anyone answering the phone?
Absolutely, And that's that's what's been so great about working with the Biden administration and the Shapiro administration in Pennsylvania is we have leaders in those offices and staff that
understand that we have issues. No one has the silver bullet, but we're working together with HUD working to figure out what those programs and those grants look like, to get to those solutions, build those senior housing complexes, figure out what types of development can work some scattered site where city properties, if we can, if we can get seed funding in there and have private developers come in and either fix up houses or build new ones, get wrap
around services in as a full court press. But the federal and state governments are actually working with local governments since the Biden administration. That's been really valuable.
When you come from Scranton and you're here in the bubble in Washington, d C. Well, part of your reality, do we not understand? What's your message? What are you taking people by the shoulders and telling them so?
Well, I lived here for seven years, so that is helpful though, because I worked at the Treasury Department during the financial crisis and I am now in Scranton's going federal to local is helpful because I can see what
does and doesn't work. At the local level, and it's great to be able to take it to Washington and say, I know that your intention with this white paper, this policy is it's right on in terms of what should be, but I need to help walk you through what can actually be, what a city can implement, what a small
team can implement. And we work really well, I think as mayors with the current administration in closing those gaps between the aspirational policy and the on the ground implication implementation.
We're spending time with the mayor of Scranton, Pennsylvania, which you've heard about a few times on this show, the home of, of course, the President of the United States, Page Cognety. You've been to Washington, back to Scranton. Would you come back to Washington.
I love it here. It's a wonderful place. But we're very committed to scritch And my husband.
Has supposed to say, I love my job.
Right now, I love my job, Mayor, is.
The job A lot of people have a real allergy to Washington. You don't.
You can make so much change here, but you have to listen. And that's the point, right is you have the ability of the federal government to give out life changing money to cities and to families into different programs, but you have to know how to use it and know how to allocate it. So there's a great, very great power to do good in Washington, but you've got to be able to make it realistic.
Well that's right, someday, but we're someday. Okay. In the meantime, you never stay more than two nights, right.
You get out of It's like Vegas, right, you got to go in and out.
I heard something about that. Yes, exactly. It's wonderful to meet you, Paige Cognetti. Thank you for being part of Bloomberg City Lab. Are you dropping business cards for the rest of the day or what's the plan?
Yeah, we're going to do a little bit more. I had a meeting on the hill earlier and we'll do a little bit more of that. Get a lobby for the city and make sure that we get those federal dollars as we're talking about.
Yes, of course, right, calling up old friends and old favors. Maybe 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.