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The big news today comes from Speaker McCarthy. We didn't think he'd be waking up to this this morning. They talked about a big meeting on Wednesday he might support the idea of an impeachment inquiry, but he came right out and announced ones today there will not be a vote. They're going for it, yeap.
The impeachment inquiry, according to the Speaker, is moving forward, and I have to wonder how the timing factor is in here, knowing that the Speaker notes he has eleven legislative days between now and September thirtieth to try and get the government funded or a continuing resolution passed, and he's trying to figure out what he can do to cater to certain members of the right wing of his party to get that done and maybe appease them on
other issues as well. We just ran a headline on the Bloomberg Speaker McCarthy says he is a plan to avoid a shutdown.
So let's start there with Senator Mark Warner. I'm glad to say he joins us from Capitol Hill live right now on the radio and on YouTube. Senator, it's great to see you, of course, democrat from Virginia who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee. We have a lot of questions for you, as always, but I have to start here. If Speaker McCarthy says he has a plan to avoid a shutdown, is it called impeachment?
Well, it sure seems like it. I mean, I guess we're not.
We shouldn't be totally shocked that Speaker McCarthy has got it once again, cave to these right wing folks. I think about the back I was a CEO of a company, I was governor of a state. The idea that you know, what is it, seven or eight of these folks in the House of the far right of the Republican Party less than two percent, maybe less than one percent of two percent, I guess of the overall House is basically
driving him into positions that are untenable. I put out the point that there was a headline in one of the Capitol Hill periodicals that said Republican leaders in the Senate basically said they didn't think this was a smart move.
There was no there there.
But how this somehow leads to keeping government funded, which would be again if we allow a shutdown, it will be a totally self inflicted harm driven by these right wing folks. We're going to do our job in the Senate in a bipartisan way pass appropriations bills. We've already
passed out all out of committee. And I just do not understand some of these members on the far right who somehow act like their fiscal conservatives, yet they don't mind shutting down the government, even though the law of the land now is federal employees still.
Get paid during a shutdown.
So it's one of the reasons why people scratch their head about DC.
Senator, we do want to talk about some of the specific sticking points, including funding for Ukraine, but just quickly to go back to the idea of an impeachment inquiry. Are you worried how optically this play is for the Democratic Party In twenty twenty four, these investigations into Hunter Biden and inquiry in the House of Representatives.
Well, we have seen inquiry after inquiry launched by the Republicans since they took over this year in the House, I've seen nothing that I think has gotten much public attention. Matter of fact, most of these have been big balls
of nothingness. So I think at the end of the day, particularly if this same group of Firewright Republicans lead us to a shutdown and the thing that they're going to be focused on is impeachment rather than how do we make sure that people who need passports are going to get their passports, People who want to visit our national parks and visit our national parks, people who are federal employees, air traffic controllers for example, do their job.
I think they're playing with fire.
I have to ask you about the way Democrats will handle this as well, then, Senator, we heard earlier from John Fetterman, your colleague from Pennsylvania. I won't stop you down to make you listen, but he was kind of joking around. He laughed. He said, oh no, not an impeachment, not this time. Is this something that Democrats should actually try to laugh off or begin preparing a war room to deal with this?
Well, I think you've always got to take things seriously.
I know the White House, well, I'm sure put together a warroom effort, you know, and there will be some in the media that will try to present some level of equivalency that somehow, whatever they're accusing the President or his family or to my knowledge they have no evidence, is somehow the equivalent of Donald Trump trying to stir up an insurrection on January sixth, an insurrection that's now led to I think ninety one different indictments against former
President Trump. I'm sure people will try to make that false equivalency. I don't think it'll pass the smell test with most Americans.
So, Senator, we know that Somehouse Republicans do want to look at this impeachment and career as they're thinking about the funding battle on Capitol Hill as well. But another issue in that funding battle is on funding for Ukraine specifically, What is your message to House Republicans on that, knowing some of them would not like for it to continue.
My message is there's never been a more important time for the United States to stand with our allies. The Ukrainians are making slow but steady progress in their counteroffensive against Putin's.
Illegal war into Ukraine.
There are three common sense reasons that I think we ought to stay the course. One is NATO was basically a tired operation before President Biden, and this conflict reinvigorated NATO that's now expanded. The idea that America would walk away from our commitment with our other NATO partners.
Right now would be awful. Two.
And this is the part that I just don't get the very same people who say we shouldn't fund somehow we shouldn't fund Ukraine, but we're all in against President she and the Communist Party in China. For people that don't understand that if Putin is somehow successful in Ukraine, that gives a greater green light to President She in terms of his aspirations around Asia Taiwan in particular. If you don't see that connectivity, I don't know. I don't know how better to make.
The case than to have that connection.
And then finally on a world stage, and I believe you know, on both Trump and Biden, the way we
exited Afghanistan didn't burnish our international reputation. But the idea, after what happened in Afghanistan, if somehow America in the midst of this war, when the Ukrainians have done so much more than what any of us frankly expected, where they have basically reduced our primary adversary from the twentieth century, the Soviet Union slash Russia, and debilitated their whole military establishment.
If we would walk away from that, now, why would anybody in the world, not just in Europe but anywhere across the world ever trust the United States?
Again, with that said, Senator, I want to ask you, on the eve.
Of just one last I'm sorry, Joe, just one last thing though, and the remarkable thing, because I do want to make clear the vast majority of the Republicans in the Senate, and I believe the vast majority of the Republicans in the House, support continued assistance to Ukraine. So this is not simply a Democrat Republican issue. This is that again far right group that I sometimes question, you know, who are they really for long term in terms of America's role in the world.
As we prepare for the NATO conference, Senator, and I appreciate your finishing your thought there, what does it tell us about the relevance of the UN based on the way we've seen it handle Russia and the Security Council, the fact that it could not stop Russia from invading Ukraine, couldn't stop North Korea's nuclear program, and it's turned some smaller countries to smaller organizations that might be seen as alternatives to the UN. Speak to the relevance of this organization as we prepare to.
Meet with the UN that emerged after the destruction and devastation of World War two is clearly not.
The UN of today.
I still think it is the single world body that brings what I think, for about one hundred and ninety plus countries who participate in the UN, is it perfect?
No.
Are there times where I think we disproportionately pay a higher share of the costs, and sometimes, you know, the larger countries are singled out. But I think it's important that we maintain a forum where countries large and small can come together. Do I wish they were more effective, Absolutely, But the idea that, again that the best route would be to simply turn away from an international organization, I think is not the right route as well.
So, Senator, that's what one organization with many different members can accomplish. Let's talk about something that one individual member of the Senate has accomplished and continues to do so. Senator Tommy Tubberbilt and his blockade of military promotions and now nominations, we could be looking at a very likely scenario in which there is no chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Is it time for Democrats to take it to the floor, do it one by one, at least get those highest level people in there.
You know, my great friend and colleague Tim Kain today and I got this second hand, but somebody was trying to make that case. Let's go one by one. And Tim Kaine said to the Armed Services Committee, you know he remembered his friend John McCain. John McCain when he was captured by the North Vietnamese was basically because he had his father was an admiral, He had all these connections. The North Vietnamese offered John McCain a way out of
the so called Hanoi Hilton. They'll let him go first in terms of returning prisoners, he said, no way.
He was not going to leave until all of the prisoners that we're able to leave.
At the same time, the notion that we were going to somehow select rich member of our military leadership that have earned these promotions on choosing one over or the other goes against the whole sense of the military being a team organization goes against the hundreds of years.
Of tradition of how we treat these nominations.
It is generally ninety nine point nine percent of the time a pro former process. You've had some of the Republicans start to speak out. You've got House Republicans, even chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee speak out against Senator
of Tubberville's actions, which are frankly illegitimate. I think, you know, the Ronald Reagan has to be rolling over in his grave, Ronald Reagan, who prided himself on standing up for our military, when these kind of political antics are making our military less strong and our country less week by playing politics on this issue.
I think I.
Hope and pray that my Republican colleagues, a lot of move express concerns to me privately that they will put the kind of pressure on Tuberville or frankly, we have to maybe change the rules.
But I don't think again, there.
Will be the two thirds votes that change the rules, because again, if this is you've talked to him rationalized, if this gets rationalized and legitimized, it will be used by both teachs.
We've seen that time and again.
Do you talk to him very often, Senator, I ask you that because we're going to talk to him later on today on Bloomberg TV. He's going to join us at five o'clock.
What would you ask, don't I don't have a heck of a lot of interaction with Senator Tumberville, But I would go back to, how is what he's doing any different than what happened that John McCain when he was in the Vietnamese prison and got offered a chance to get out ahead of the rest of the prisoners. The notion that I think Senator Tuberville has suggested, well, let's just selectively choose which members of the military leadership ought
to get the benefits of the promotions they've earned. I don't ever think John again, I just I mean, I believe with all my heart, if John McCain was here, he would call out this kind of antics in a way that would be extraordinarily powerful.
Senator. As there is that ongoing issue in regard to what Senator Tepperville is doing, he I would imagine, along with you and all other ninety eight of your Senate colleagues, are going to be in a closed door meeting tomorrow with a number of individuals, including several big tech CEOs like Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, to talk about AI.
It's closed door.
It's not a public open hearing, which some of your colleagues, like Senator Elizabeth Warren would prefer.
What are you.
Hoping to learn? And do you agree with the way that this forum is being conducted that it is closed door.
I think this is one of the first times that you're going to have both the tech advocates and civil society in the same room. You know, I've hosted a half dozen of these sessions, all by partisan. You know there will be I'm sure there will be lots of reporting out of what happens tomorrow. And I gotta say my background was in technology. I can't think of an issue in the last few years that I've spent more time on and am less certain today about what.
Our actions ought to be.
You know, the basic economics around AI, you know, a long long time ago, ten months ago, was whoever had the most data, the most GPUs, the most ability and cash and ability to train that data might win.
Now after Facebook.
Has let their LAMA model out in the open, and you've seen countries like the ue for pennies on the dollar create a large language model. This is an extraordinarily complicated issue.
I do think.
One of the things, and the good news is it's all bipartisans so far, is that there is a real sense that what we cannot do is simply what we did with social media, which was basically to say to the tech community, you guys, go figure this out, and we'll try to come in and put rules in.
After the fat.
We have batted zero on any guard rails at all
around social media. I would hate to see, with the power that AI has, which would dwarf social media, not to put some guardrails where I'm looking and and I'm still working through this, but I'd love to hear the bloom Bird audience's reaction because the two areas that I am most immediately concerned on in terms of these AI tools that have already been released is one, you know, the only reason our elections work in America is because there's public trust in the elections, and there are lots
of AI tools, deep fakes, other things, disinformation on steroids that could undermine the trust in our elections. The other institution that relies entirely on the public trust is what you guys report on.
All the time, the public markets and the ability.
We've seen some deep fake in terms of a false image of the Pentagon burning that had an effect on the market. I'm amazed we've not seen more manipulation with deep fakes, with AI tools suggesting you know, product malfunctions that may not exist. But I think this notion of preserving the integrity of our public elections in public markets, there might be a kind of a strange collaboration between capitalists and advocates of small d democrats that would at least say on those.
Two you can do this, Senator, relying on the.
Public spaith, we ought to at least put.
Thanks for your time, Senator. As always, Mark Warner, this is Bloomberg.
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.
With no shortage of issues to talk about. This day,
the US House returns to Washington. We heard earlier from Speaker McCarthy and an impeachment inquiry is being launched now into Joe Biden, which kind of changes the dynamic Kayley lines of the conversation we were having about government shut down and a lot of the other issues that are facing lawmakers right now, though they could be intertwined in a way because some members of the Freedom Caucus were demanding, well even Marjorie Taylor Green no longer in that group,
demanding an impeachment for them to sign off on a continuing resolution to keep the government open. It looks like that's happening so.
Many different pieces of the puzzle, but yes, Speaker McCarthy today is saying this should go ahead now. Eventually it's going to come down to a matter of whether or not they're sufficient evidence, right, But this is the inquiry process, and at least in part, you certainly would think it was intended to placate certain members of his party that he needs to be able to bring in line to get a continuing resolution pass or get spending bills passed
and avoid the government shutting down. He says he has a plan and impeachment maybe plays a role in that.
To avoid a shutdown. Yeah, yeah, it's something else we thought maybe would be floated at a meeting on Wednesday, came out with it full throwateed announcement at eleven o'clock at the podium. First day back. Welcome back to reality, everybody. Just an opportunity to start here with our next guest, Asa Hutchinson is back, Republican presidential candidate, of course, former governor of Arkansas. It's great to see, Governor. Thank you
for coming back to talk to us. You're in a race to run against Joe Biden to be the next president of the United States. Does this mundy the waters? Does this help the Republican cause to launch an impeachment inquiry without a vote?
Well, it all depends on where it goes and what the foundation and the facts are. But you know, in the history of impeachments has not gone well in terms of the Senate having any interest in it of convicting a president. And here our focus is the election. You know, Joe Biden is wrong in his policies, energy policy, his decisions is hurting America and our growth, his spending policy, the bid domics. I mean, these are the issues that I get asked about nobody's come up to me and
talking about the Trump legal cases. Nobody's coming up to me, and you know a few of them do talk about from the Republican standpoint to the bidens and hunters and his legal difficulties. But we got to get to the facts in the long term. Let's see where those facts take us.
So, when we're thinking about the pursuing of yet another impeachment against the US president, potentially a precedent being set here given former President Trump in the prior administration was also impeached on multiple occasions, then the prospect of the government shutting down broadly for the Republican Party, what does this signal about about its health and its ability going into twenty twenty four to message the right things to the American people.
Well, it's a challenging and unpredictable political environment. Do you overlay what you just said with four indictments against former President Trump? And Kevin McCarthy's in a difficult position, as everyone knows, and so you give him a little latitude. He's trying to avoid a shut down, he's trying to get the appropriation bills, the budget bills through. Now you know, impeachment is not something that constitutionally should be bargained with, and I believe you ought to get the facts. I
don't like labeling it as an impeachment inquiry. I ought to be a factional inquiry. The public needs to have confidence that the former Vice President Biden and President Biden was not receiving benefit from foreign governments. That's something that ought to be cleared up. And President Biden has been somewhat mum on that topic, so he's not clearing it up, and so the facts ought to be out there, but
it ought to be a preliminary inquiry. Impeachment is not something that ought to be used in the normal course of affairs in Congress to.
Support the probe or the inquiry. As a matter of principle, I do, I do. We don't want to spend the whole interview with you on this. By the way, we left the talk policy at Bloomberg. Let's dare to dream of policy for a moment, Governor, because I think someone like yourself just indicated you'd like to make this race about the economy. And we talk about this all day long around here as we prepare for what could be another federal reserve interest rate hike the next meeting this week.
The market doesn't seem to know what to do about that. I wonder your thoughts on the FED and whether you would keep J. Powell on the job as chairman.
Well, of course he has a term, but I would like to see a new leader into the FED, and if I can do that as president, and I can, I would want to do that.
You'd fire him.
I would fire him. And the reason is that he has raised interstrates at the wrong time. I think it's been more aggressive than what needed to be. He probably started too late on it, and it's really hurting our families. And I think you also could at Forestall and been clear that we're going to stop doing these rate increases. I think that would be the right signal for American businesses and our families that are worrying about their credit card debt, new families trying to get into a new home.
And I talked yesterday in Savannah, Georgia to a young mom who I said, what's the big issue to you? And she says, I just want to raise my kids in a safe environment and where we can afford to buy milk at the store and that's what's on the American's mind. And so it starts with controlling spending. You have to worry about the supply chain, the UAW strike that's threatened, that's coming up. It's not going to be helping the economic situation. And so as president, I would
call in the FED. I would believe that the President can communicate and express his opinion as to what should be done, just like we're doing a whole host of other issues.
So, in terms of what the FED should be doing, do you think the dual mandate should still be a dual mandate that they have to equally weigh full employment in the US economy and in fleetion or should one take greater focus.
Well, I think that inflation should be, you know, the controlling factor for them.
The unemployment.
That's what the President of the United States worries about, that's what Congress worries about. As governor, I looked at that unemployment rate every week, every month that it was released, and we acted on it and we created jobs one hundred thousand jobs while I was governor. And so no, I don't believe that that should be in the decision making process of the Federal Reserve Control inflation. Watch the monetary supply that's out there, and that should be the focus.
You mentioned the UAW. We could be looking at a massive auto strike in just two days. I wonder how you would handle this if you were the president, if you would get involved. This White House so far has not. The union has not indicated that it would like any help with mediation. But this is an emboldened time for organized labor after the deal we saw with ups now request for a forty six percent wage increase of thirty
two hour work week. Should the President of the United States have a say in this?
The president has to always worry about the economy, about the broader national security and production capability, but it also should be reserved until absolutely necessary. These are negotiations between a union and the employer, and they need to try to resolve it. The federal labor relations law makes it clear that if they can't resolve that, you've got choices in employees. Unions can strike and employers can replace. And
that's the tension. That's a balance that we've had. But if it gets to some particular point in time where the President can be useful in resolving that conflict, he ought to insert himself, but the time is not right for that, and that should be reserved.
We are looking at a deadline in two days for that contract expiring. You those are are looking at a different kind of deadline. A few weeks out the second primary debate September twenty seventh. You need three percent in the polls to get there. I believe to this point you have not yet qualified. If you don't do so, would you follow the lead of say Francis Sores.
And leave the race.
Well, I'm not going to set timelines and specific criteria for it, but whenever you look at the polls, there's two criteria for being on the debate. One is three percent of the polls. We have made one poll nationally at three percent, and so we need one more or some early state polls, and so we're optimistic that we're going to get there. And then secondly, our donor base and we're going to make that And so I plan
on being at that debate. Nothing would mean more to me than to be at the Reagan Library as somebody that was a point of our Reagan as young as US attorney in the nation years ago, and so I expect to be there. We got a little work to do to get there, and so if anybody calls you in a poll, please answer, Asa hut Jackson.
There you have it, Governor. It's nice of you to stop by and see us again in Washington, DC. Whether you make that stage or not, Let's stay in touch. Asa Hutchinson, the former governor of Arkansas, of course Republican presidential candidate. With this here conversation you will only hear 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 podcast.
Mick mulvaney said on this program, the co founder of the Freedom Caucus, who of course went on to be Donald Trump's chief of staff, said on this program that Speaker McCarthy may be in more danger of losing his job now than he has been yet.
I think Kevin's probably at his highest level of risk here right now. But that's the right place to have it, because again, a shutdown is not that big a deal, and I think Kevin might have to go through at least a little bit of a show down, if for no other reason to establish some bona fides with the conservative wing of the party.
And that, of course, is when everybody was talking about a shutdown. That was Monday. Fast forward twenty four hours, Speaker McCarthy for the first time in seven weeks at the podium in front of reporters.
Now, I would encourage the President and his team to fully cooperate with his investigation and the interests of transparency.
We are committed to getting the answers.
For the American public, nothing more, nothing less.
We will go wherever the evidence takes us.
And we'll find out where the evidence takes us here because so far it sounds like the allegations have everything to do with Hunter Biden, the so called Biden family. But we are still waiting for a sense of how they connect the dots to Joe Biden, beyond his being on the phone. Remember, Republican members of the Oversight Committee said they he's on the speaker phone with some of Hunter Biden's people here, but there was no business transaction,
not even a business conversation. So we want to follow the beat and we assemble our panel. Rick Davis, I'm glad to say, is here, a Bloomberg Politics contributor and Republican strategist, joined today by Alvin Jordan, a Democratic analyst vice president at Rock Solutions. Great to have you both here, gentlemen. Rick,
your thoughts on this? Knowing that Speaker McCarthy criticized Nancy Pelosi for launching an impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump without a vote, what's the purpose of this today, what's the motivation?
Yeah?
Look, I mean he's walking a tight rope of a number of really tough jams that he's got in the House. I mean, this impeachment inquiry announcement today is a way of letting some of the air out of the conservative side of his party who's angry with him that he hasn't acted more harshly on the spending cuts that they want, even though it violates the deal he cut with Biden
earlier in the year on spending. And on top of that, you know, he's got the government shutdown because they haven't done the work that he claimed he was going to do his Speaker when he first got elected that you know, through regular order he would pass you know, all twelve appropriations bills and I think last count they had one done.
So he's stuck in the middle of this, and then you pile on top of that Ukraine funding and the special supplemental for emergency disaster spending, and he doesn't he can't count votes. He doesn't have enough people to really pass this agenda that is pressing and do by the end of the month. So this was his way of, I think, letting some air out of the tire. It violated his own rule, which is, as you pointed out, Joe, I'm going to take a vote on any impeachment proceedings.
And you know, he basically fell back on the Pelosi model, which had been highly criticized by him and other leadership, including the Freedom Caucus people. So yeah, I agree with Mick mulvaney and your point with him yesterday is that he's walking a tightrope and when you have people like mac actually just put out a statement right after the announcement by the Speaker that it wasn't enough and he's got to do more on spending. I mean, his worst nightmare is his own party.
Matt Gates. Of course, the thorn in Kevin McCarthy's side, the congressman from Florida, calls the move to open an impeachment probe into President Biden. A baby Step says, the Speaker is not delivered on promises regarding spending and subpoenas and is not putting the party in a position to succeed. So this is not making everybody happy. Alvin. The response
from Democrats, I'm gonna let John Fetterman do this. Of course, the senator, Democratic senator from Pennsylvania, who they hit him up in the hallway in the Capitol just moments after this was announced by the speaker. Just give this a listen about this news.
That Speaker McCarthy has formally launched an impeachment and has said he's going to.
Go really oh my gosh, you know, Oh, it's devastating.
Don't do it please? Oh no, but he's pretending to coward. No, no, no, not an impeachment. Is there some truth to that? How do Democrats handle this? Do you just laugh it off?
I think that's exactly what you do in this case if you're you're the Democrats. Uh, there's no surprise here, uh to anyone. I think maybe the timing of it is a bit uh, you know, unique in that way, but I think it's very clear that we're looking at a bit of a political calculus, if you will. I think this is totally about political strategy and and left
about the actual conviction. It's it's very clear if you played you know, the Matt gas clip, it's very clear that you know this is truly setting the stage for a bargaining chip. You know, we've we've mentioned at length that you know, funding and the government uh funding deadline
is coming up at the end of the month. And so more than anything, I think that this is definitely a bargainingship for any type of additional government a funding you know, kind of political back and forth that will happen, and less of a serious you know, kind of pushed to unearth any new information.
So okay, that said, Rick, did this make a government shutdown less likely? This is a weird world we're living in, But this idea has been suggested more than once. You make some members of the Freedom Colock is happy with impeachment that lets you get a continuing resolution.
Well, it certainly is in his interests a speaker, McCarthy's interest not to have a government shut down. Right, He's got work to do. He wants to cut a deal to get a continuing resolution. He's already said that very clearly.
The only question I think coming out of the Speaker's office is how long would that continuing resolution last in order for them to get the rest of the appropriations bills done and get into a conference with the Senate. Senate's not giving him any lifeline, right They're sitting back going on our work. You need to get yours done.
A lot of conservative Republicans are unhappy in the Senate with the lack of progress that they've made, even after all the promises they gave to their constituents that this would be a different kind of Republican organization in the House. So yeah, he doesn't want to see a government shut down. It just makes it another vote that he has to contest in amongst all the rest of these that are causing him heartburn right now.
Meanwhile, in the Senate, the gentleman from Alabama changes his tune slightly on the blockade against military promotions. This is Coach Tommy Tubberville, who of course is protesting the abortion travel policy at the Pentagon. He's now blocking more than three hundred military promotions. We're talking about this on an almost daily basis, and took to the floor of the Senate last night late yesterday to respond to his critics. A new wrinkle on why this blockade should last.
Sin f Reid said it was disrespectful not to prove them by unanimous consent. I do not agree with that many of these nominees are worthy of confirmation. I will agree and I will vote for, but some are not.
Some are not, he says. Alban He has had time to look into some of these nominees and says they should not be confirmed because they support DEI policies. Where's this going.
I think it's going exactly the way of you know, the country's kind of tone in response to this, which is, what are we really saying? You know, what are we
really talking about? Because it isn't bearing fruit. I think we've seen this with Governor DeSantis, as he's kind of stepped away and at least softened publicly kind of his approach and attacked to these types of things, and so I think that, you know, Tubberville is one where he is definitely, you know, no stranger to the antics, and so I think this is just kind of muddy in the waters. I think earlier someone uses the term performative, and that is essentially where I come back to when
I think, you know, quite frankly, anything Tubberville related. But in this instance, I think it's more so trying to you know, shine a light and kind of give a you know, a performative kind of edge to himself, as opposed to driving anything of substance.
To be honest, Rick is the senator here showing us anything, giving us a sign by picking through individual nominees. Now does this look like something that goes on forever? Or he might be looking for an exit ramp at this point, I don't know.
I mean, you could make an argument I guess, you know along that line Joe that he finds a couple of guys that he votes against because of their diversity inclusion points of view, which is also policy at the Pentagon in addition to the abortion policy that he is opposed, but it doesn't change the policy, and giving a couple of scout helps to coach Tubberville doesn't make sense if you're the Democratic leadership.
I think they feel like they've got him right.
Where they want him and let him stew. It doesn't do much for our national security, But the politics are pretty clear that the only people that Coach Tubberville's been really getting on his side, or the adamant anti abortion groups that support his abortion stance.
But going woke seems to me weakens his position, doesn't strengthen it.
Fascinating stuff here.
This is Bloomberg. 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.
It's a big deal with Apples. Everyone's talking about it. Well, watching the stock We've got new iPhones. You're obsessing over the colors, knowing that I went back to the original launch of the iPhone to get a sense of sort of the drama that was in the air. Because we make a big deal about this now, Steve Jobs, ninth of January two thousand and seven.
Every once in a while, a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything, and Apple has been well. First of all, one's very fortunate if you get to work on just one of these in your career just one. Apple's been very fortunate, it's been able to introduce a few of these into the world.
And today number fifteen, there was I read the story here about this Dynamic Island Dynamic Island Alerts interface. I'm realizing as I talk to you, I have that on my phone and I don't even know what it is.
What is It's at the top, yeah, by where your selfie camera is. And it used to just not do anything, and they said, hey, we should make that do something, and so you can look at music you're playing, or your uber driver approaching how many minutes away? It just kind of does things.
Are you putting me on? I'm looking at my phone and I don't see any of that. We'll work on that, okay, thank you.
Break.
My thing is these phones are getting more and more expensive, Joe. That highest end model, the fifteen Pro Max, is now going to begin at eleven hundred and ninety nine dollars. That's up one hundred dollars from last year's version. So if you want an upgrade, you're going to have to pay up for it. And frankly, I don't know if all upgrade because I want my purple phone and it doesn't look like I.
Was going to say that. Do they have your color? Why are they changing the colors? I still thought they made rose gold. They don't do that anymore. I've only ever had a black iPhone. I think I'm really I need to catch up a lot. It's the iPhone fifteen, and it does things that I don't know how to do. We'll improve our lives somehow, I guess it will.
I don't.
There's a camera upgrade.
There's an app for that. Oh, there's a camera upgrade.
Okay.
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