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Welcome to the Friday edition here on Bloomberg Radio on the satellite radio channel one twenty one.
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Search Bloomberg Business News Live. Having survived the voter rama, we'll talk about this. Yes, Senators, we're working at four forty five in the morning. Were you not that often? Make up for it after spending so many hours outside of the nation's capital. We actually got a vote. Something actually happened in Washington. Actual news. As we stand by to hear from Donald Trump. Well he's talking right now now in the White House. When they play it back,
we'll have it for you. Addressing the governor's working session, generating a boatload of headlines. As you just heard from Charlie Pellett, twenty five percent auto Tariff's unlocking energy for AI will get there.
He's got lunch today with j d Vance I'm gonna swear in.
How Howard Lutnik as the Secretary of Commerce a little bit later on, and then we'll do the EO dance. I heard Carol Master talking earlier, says Bloomberg. Business Week is now the EO show. I see you too, Carol.
But of course we'll bring this to you as it all happens.
See pac taking a place just a little bit down the Potomac River byron Donald's and Press Secretary Caroline leve at the headliners. Christy Nome's going to be there as well, the featured official at tonight's Ronald Reagan dinner. So the voter rama, imagine four forty five am, what do we have? Everybody but Ran Paul on board at least for Republicans. Fifty two forty eight, three hundred and forty billion dollar budget.
There's your framework. They got it done. What Lindsey Graham was talking about as a plan B yesterday, Yeah, it happened. But before you get real excited, I want you to take a look at what Terry Haynes is saying about this whole thing. This week's good news, bad news on the tax cuts bill, on net markets positive, But here's the problem. Terry says, you're gonna have to wait a long time, remembering, of course, the government's gonna run out
of money in the middle of March. Terry Haynes says markets will not see a final tax cut bill action until the second half the calendar year, probably not the fourth quarter. Same basic timetable as twenty seventeen.
So what does that mean? Markets think.
Things as negative like tariffs will front run by months the positive parts of the.
Trump economic agenda. So what's Wall Street going to look like by then?
Terry Haynes joins us right now, the founder of Pangea Policy on Bloomberg TV and radio. Every now and then, I got a crack at Terry. It's great to have you back, sir, Happy Friday. That doesn't sound good to me when you market's negative. If we're waiting around to the fourth quarter to get this tax and spend bill done, what will Wall Street do in the meantime?
They will use one of the great press words. Now, they'll fret. They'll fret a lot, and you know, meanwhile, other things will happen and they might be good or they might be bad. Earnings might be good, geopolitical risk might be bad whatever you know it's but it is a It's another testament to the difference between political time
and markets time. You know, some of your colleagues have been opining and speculating and seriously, I mean they're they're reflecting markets by saying so wondering what you know, like where the tax bill is. And you know, the president was inaugurated one month and one day ago and Congress
has been around for two weeks longer than that. This takes a while, as you well know, and the audience well knows, because there's lots of hoops to jump through, and including figuring out what the budget is, figuring out what the deficit is, and that's really the starting gun. Once they do that, then they could get into the specifics on the tax bill, and that takes probably the second half of the year, just like twenty seventeen.
Yep, how about that.
History is our guide here, at least to some extent. This is a different political environment that we're in now. There's a much thinner majority for Republicans in the House. It could be one member at that point. I guess we'll have to wait and see how that goes. When at least to phonic heads to the un But I just big picture, Terriet, where's your head around this whole thing. We've got the House set to vote on something next week, and it seeks to cut Medicaid spending to help pay
for the tax cuts. And we're already hearing a lot of outcry about this. Republican members have been home for the week. They're holding town halls, They're hearing concerns about Doge in some cases going over the line Medicaid. What are you going to do with my entitlements here? And it's going to make this a knockdown, drag out. I guess that's why you see it lasting all year. But who's going to win this fight between the Senate and the House.
I don't know yet.
Frankly, you know, I thought Senator Graham was quite right to say everybody needs a Plan B, and you know, be may well turn into Plan A. There's no guarantee that, given the margins that you just ran down, that the House will end up having the votes for much of anything. I mean, we you know, we're not even to the point.
This is how preliminary it is. We're not even to the point where the Committee of juror the Committeees of Jurisdiction, Energy and Commerce in ways and means even get to start talking about exactly what sort of health efficiencies or cuts or anything else they might make. But they've got to make a lot of them. Their task to make a lot of them. So that is going to be
a knockdown drag out through the spring. And then on top of that, I think what shakes markets further in Washington confidence over the next few weeks is you're going to have a State of the Union address that'll be you know, a barn Burner triumphalist. Going forward, you'll have a likely i think, government shutdown. You've got debt ceiling
looming out there the late spring, early summer. There's not going to be a lot of confidence in the next few weeks in markets that Washington or Trump specifically have got the goods to actually execute. Now. I think they do want the task cut ultimately, but they're going to have to go through a trough first.
Boy, you just said a lot.
By the way, this is exactly what Sarah Chamberlin mentioned last evening on Balance of Power Republican Main Street Partnership. Yeah, shutdown looking like it may actually happen this time. But we've got a House resolution Terry that we're told is going to be on the floor next week. It includes instructions for the House Energy and Commerce Committee to find eight hundred and eighty billion dollars in cuts. That's why we're talking about Medicaid and potentially some of the other entitlements.
Can that pass literally actually goes to the floor next week.
Well, the budget resolution is on is on a knife edge right now. I think the budget resolution passes. What you just talked about in terms of Medicaid and all those kinds of other sorts of things is implied in the amount of savings that they're asked to do. But nobody's telling them they have to find that amount. Nobody's telling Energy and Commerce they have to find that amount of savings in medicaid. So, you know, somebody, somebody can
vote on this thing. Feel covered. But when Energy and Commerce comes back in a few weeks and says here's how we're going to do this, that's really where the rubber meets the road, and you know, frankly, where I think some revolt happens. You know, the phrase it keeps going around is from uh is from Aaron Sorkin's a few good men. Where where the colonel is? It keeps
getting asked by the processutor, by the defense. You know, you said Santiago was not to be touched, you know, and yet uh you said Medicaid was not to be touched. And yet here we are, you know, yet worse siority before it gets better.
I think Terry Haynes, did you order the code read? I want you to walk me into the House Chamber the night Donald Trump addresses a joint session of Congress. We'll call it State of the Union for the fun of it. It's basically the same deal. Decorum.
Is this going to be a.
A call in response like Joe Biden had going with the Republican cons What's Donald Trump walking into that night?
It's going to be another circus, isn't it?
Oh?
You know, I thought I thought Patrick McHenry on your on your program yesterday had it exactly right. It's going to be an awful lot like the UK Parliament's PMQ's uh and you know I won't belabor it, but uh McHenry is uh spot is a keen observer spot on about that. Yeah, there's gonna be a lot of yelling and screaming one way or the other, and there's gonna be a lot of people screaming, you lie, except it's going to be the other party this time.
Boy, where's Chris Congressman Wilson? Now?
All right, well, Terry, the president's going to be speaking in a moment here. He's talking about twenty five percent auto tariffs in our remaining thirty seconds.
Do those ever see implementation?
Yeah? I think eventually some of them do. I don't think thirty seconds or excuse me, thirty percent necessarily, but there will be a need to keep the pressure on, and we should always remember tariffs to this administration or a tool in service of a broader economic policy. Reset.
He's not only a friend of the program, but a friend of the entire network. There's only one Terry Haynes, the founder of Pangaea Policy. Terry, it's good to see you.
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. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station, Just Say Alexa played Bloomberg eleven.
Thirty headlines are flying out of the White House right now as Donald Trump speaks to Republican governors who are in town. Republican Governors Association Winter meetings underway. He was the headliner speaking to the group last evening, but this has been a romp. They've been going for almost an hour here right, My god, it has been an hour actually since he walked into the State dining room, commenting
on a number of issues, including auto tariffs. If you're looking at the terminal, he says, yeah, twenty five percent tariffs on foreign cars to start April second. Probably talked about power plants and AI wants to see power plants built alongside data centers, AI production facilities, attacked wind energy, and started reading off some Doge projects. He's showing up with the receipts pretty much every time he's at a podium. Here, I can run through them all for you, but you've
heard them on this program. Coming off a big night at the Sea Pack, now, President Trump's going to be the headliner there tomorrow, the Conservative Political Action Conference. It's happening down the Potomac River, a short ways from the nation's capitol. Big ferris Wheel. When you drive down it looks like an amusement park, and it is a bit of a circus at Seapack.
That's the point.
Big Raw rod Elon Musk shows up last night literally with a chainsaw and started swinging it around.
He's yelling. He was wearing terminator sunglasses and a lot of questions about the mood he was in.
Have a little trouble communicating and answering questions last evening. In this case, he did all right. He was asked about the Doge dividend, sending checks to every American based on how much money they save.
Here's how it went.
It's money.
It's taken away from from things that are destructive to the country.
That and from organizations that hate you.
To you, that's awesome.
Does it seem I mean, have you talked that's like the spoils of battle?
You know, I like that there traction on that, yeah, yeah, so.
Yeah, uh yeah.
Took the president he's supportive of that, and so it sounds like, you know, that's something we're going to do.
Just a sample of the conversation on stage as we bring in Max Chafkin, Bloomberg BusinessWeek columnist contributor the Elon Inc.
Podcast.
If you're not already subscribed, you should check it out if you care about this story, and I know you do. If you're here on Bloomberg, Max, it's great to have you. If you only knew how often I ask if you can come on the program, because it's like it's every day there's a story that I'd like to hear you weigh in on. So let's go a little bit big picture to start. As you just saw Elon Musk with
the sunglasses. He's got the tech Support T shirt on half the time is swinging around a chainsaw and so look, yes, but so is he having a blast? Is this a hobby? Is this his new full time occupation? Where where does Elon Musk the person here? If you're with us on YouTube, you see President Malay giving him this chainsaw?
Is this just a big party for him?
Max?
I mean, he is certainly treating it that way, you know, and I think for better for worse. On the Sea Pack stage, you know, just judging from the audience response, as weird and awkward as some of these moments were, you know, it seemed like it played pretty well in the room. And he is he is a rock star in kind of activist conservative circles. He's probably the most important surrogate for Donald Trump besides Donald Trump. I think there is a serious component here, both in terms of
what Musk is actually doing. I mean, you know, people are being affected in huge ways right now by these doge cuts, and civil servants are in a state of, i think, from from their point of view, crisis. And also, of course there's potential for Musk to benefit from this stuff. You know, just just recently seeing reports that the Justice Department lawsuit against SpaceX looks like it might be dropped.
This is involving employing alleged discrimination. You know, there are lots of ways that he can use this stick to drive profits. And that's kind of what makes it so interesting is that on one hand, it seems totally unserious. I mean, he's on stage, he's got the chain, you can barely he can't hear what he's saying, partly because he seems to seems to have trouble finding his words at times, but also because the chain is rattling against the microphone. And yet and yet he's doing all kinds
of stuff. So so again it's it's it's a it's both serious and unserious at the same time.
I'd say, well, so you said a couple of things there referring to his I guess erratic behavior we'll call it. He was having trouble stringing words together in a couple of moments last evening.
That might just have been the mood he was in.
Look, he's not a public speaker by trade, He's not Donald Trump, but there have been questions about his sobriety, about his mental state. Can you weigh in on that?
Yeah, I mean, I obviously I have no idea what was what was going on in between his ears during that during that appearance. You know, I'll say, Look, Elon Musk, as you said, is an unconventional guy. He's somebody who has publicly talked about his drug use. He you know, he famously smoked took a hit of a joint on the Joe Rogan podcast years ago, has talked about ketamine
use for depression. He also talks about his own kind of mental health challenges all the time, you know, And I believe even during this appearance, it came up briefly talking about his mind being a storm. And so look like this is he's unconventional, and he's in some ways transparent, at least compared to like a typical political figure, and that's part of the peal I think.
So he's got actual other jobs.
He runs some pretty important companies, including a massive government contractor, and of course Tesla. We can get into Twitter and all the rest here. But his actions in Washington are impacting some consumer behavior. And I wonder if you see this becoming a detriment, for instance, to people who think it's a political statement to drive a Tesla.
Well, yeah, we're seeing that already.
And I mean, you know, there it's it's hard to know exactly how much politics is hurting Tesla's sales. You know, Tesla was growing very quickly for a long time. Growth has slowed dramatically. You know, the ev industry has also had you know, bumps in the road and so on. But it really does seem like in the US and Europe, where where a lot of Tesla sales come from, the sales are slowing down, and that slowdown has coincided with Musk's political profile raising. I also think there are potential
political costs. We're starting to see just the beginnings of blowback on the right to some of this stuff. Now, you're not going to see this at sapack. You know, you're talking about you know, died in the wool, active as people who really like Elon Musk. But you know, reports in a front page story in the Washington Post about cabinet officials kind of privately grumbling. You know, Politico did a story about law some Congress people sort of worrying.
You know, each of these cuts has impact and will have political costs, you know, right, we Bloomberg has a story today about how one of Musk's DOGE employees, who was who resigned after these eugenics reports that he had expressed support for eugenics. He's back, and he's inside the Social Security Administration. Right, social Security affects a lot of people. You know, there's a good chance this is not going to be super popular when we get to the midterm.
Yeah wow, all right, tell me about his day to day to the extent that we know, is he's sleeping on the floor like he was at Twitter. Does he have some kind of a you know, a penthouse patt he's living in in Washington? Does he fly back and forth to Texas? I don't understand how he does all of this stuff, How's he spending all these plates at once?
Well, I mean he's done this kind of thing for years, where he will focus in on one thing. So when Tesla was preparing to release the Model three that was its affordable sedan back in twenty eighteen, he claimed to be sleeping at the factory. When he took over X, he claimed to be sleeping at the X office, right, and he seems to sort of push everything aside, and right now as you say it's doge, he has said that he is sleeping at the Eisenhower Executive Office building.
I think Musk has a tendency to kind of play this stuff up like it would not surprise me if he also had a hotel room or whatever. But he really is. I mean, he is spending a lot of time on this and of course spending a ton of time just staying on Twitter and posting. I mean, you look at the schedule, it is it boggles the normal mind. I mean it's a you know, he's posting essentially nearly
twenty four to seven. So you got to ask yourself, like, when is this guy sleeping and how is this going to affect his other companies.
This is exactly the conversation I wanted to have. And by the way, sleep deprivation may have a lot to do with his erratic behavior, right, this is something that we need to allow.
Max.
I know I'm asking you a lot of the same questions you're asking people in elon Musk's orbit. But what's the end game here? I mean, does he just finally get bored or how does he wrap this thing up when the first year is done with those he just moves back to Texas?
Well, It's interesting, I mean, right now, he seems pretty committed. And there had been thoughts that this could be just a passing fixation or something like that, or perhaps Trump would get tired of him. That doesn't seem like it's happening anytime soon. As you brought up, Trump still kind of touting Doge at every turn. I think what would cause Musk to step away would be genuine trouble at his companies. And the truth is, we haven't seen that,
right investors in Tesla. Tesla stock hasn't been doing great over the last six weeks or so, but it's stock is still way up After the election. Most Tesla investors think Musk's position, you know, with respect to Donald Trump, his being a senior advisor to one of the most powerful people in the world is a net positive for the company, and the stock reflects that. And all of
Musk's companies right now are essentially up. You know, SpaceX is trying to raise a megavaluation, and why wouldn't they, right, they're in a great position to win more contracts, which we you know, we Bloomberg has been reporting on twitter X they're trying to raise money at a higher valuation. So basically he's up across the board. So I think the thing that could change it, I mean, I think the biggest priority for Elon Musk really are these businesses,
and that's part of why he's doing this. And if the businesses clearly are hurting, if the valuations are falling, then we'll see movement.
Really glad you could join us, Max, It's good to see a Max Chafkin. Check out the Elon and podcast. Follow his work at Bloomberg BusinessWeek. Great conversation here on balance of power. Do you hear about the desk? By the way, did hear the story coming into the the hour?
Here?
Donald Trump on truth social remember Elon Musk. You were just seeing it on YouTube. He brought as kid want you into the Oval Off is picking his nose at the remember this whole thing. Donald Trump does not like that germophobe. He had the desk, the Resolute desk removed. This is real untruth social quote. The president after election gets a choice of one in seven desks. He writes
this desk. The Cno, which was also very well known used by President George H. W. Bush and others, has been temporarily installed in the White House while the Resolute Desk is being lightly refinished. Very important job. This is a beautiful but temporary replacement. We'll let you know when the Resolute Desk goes back in there.
I'm guessing.
There won't be too many children around it. We'll assemble our panel next. Rick and Genie are where us coming up? 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 Coarclay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. Listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
Great to have you with us here on the Friday edition of Balance of Power on Bloomberg Radio serious XM Channel one twenty one and on YouTube. You can find us on YouTube right now search Bloomberg Business News Live. He's still talking. President Trump has been talking now for almost an hour and a half without interruption as he addresses Republican governors who are in town for the RGA Governor's Association. They do their winter meetings here. Yeah, the
headlines are still flying. He's talking about border policy at this point, as well as tariff's auto tariffs. He says twenty five percent will go into effect on imported cars on April second. Probably need to double the energy that we have right now. When he talks about AI allowing companies to have their own power plants, this has been an interesting conversation, talking about chip makers coming in, apple shifting plants because of tariffs, building plants in the US not Mexico.
He says he met with Tim Cook yesterday and that was the result.
We will bring you in the room for this once we get the tape playback from the White House. This is not something that was even supposed to be open to press. They decided to let reporters in. Once we get our hands on that tape. We'll have it for you here. Pretty remarkable as Donald Trump also pledges to drop illegal drug use by fifty percent, which is something he says could be done through an anti drug ad campaign.
Paging Nancy Reagan.
There's a lot more to talk about today, though, because something actually took place last evening. Well, I'll correct myself and say very early this morning on Capitol Hill.
Do you see this?
The Senate actually passed a budget resolution. Not a big shocker, following a voter rama that went on for so many hours. Four forty five am. They actually got a vote fifty two forty eight to pass a three hundred and forty billion dollar budget framework.
Now, this is not the whole deal. This is really just the.
Initial stage to create what I believe Patrick McHenry yesterday described as the chassis for the reconciliation process that will then follow. Now, Democrats had their way through a lot of amendments, didn't change anything in the end. Ran Paul is the one no vote on the Republican side. Chuck Schumer took to the floor said we were forced to go on record. The Republicans forced to go on record and defend their plans to cut taxes for Donald Trump's billionaire friends.
It's done.
The House will have its turn next week, and we assemble our signature political panel for their take on things. Rick and Jeanie are both with us on the Friday edition. Genie Shanzano, Senior Democracy Fellow at the Center for the Study of the Presidency in Congress, our Democratic analyst, and Rick Davis, Republican strategist partner at Stone Court Capital. Was it worth it, Jeanie? Democrats kept them up all night? What do they have to show for it?
Well, Jill, first of all, you didn't let me in on what they had to eat and drink throughout the night. So I've been waiting with baited breath to see did they have any fun during this voterama? But it doesn't.
You know, I saw a lot of boxes of what is it? We the pizza? That's the place, right, the pizza. May I may have seen some bottles of wine, but I won't go on the record.
Don't say anything, you know. The reality is is that this came out the way we all expected it to a party line vote. Democrats did what they needed to do, which is ask Republicans to take some hard votes, and they took them. But the question now there're several. Number one is does Plan B become Plan A or can
the House really move forward with this one bill? And of course, the big thing that's hanging over all of this is Donald Trump's promise just the other day again not to touch Medicaid and the reality of the numbers which make it very difficult to imagine how you can get to the trillions of dollars you need without touching Medicaid. And so that's what we're going to be waiting for. And all of the pressure and the onus is now on Mike Johnson, as it usually is.
A couple of Republicans actually joined I kid, Genie, but a couple of Republicans joined Democrats.
Rick.
You may not be surprised to see Susan Collins one of them, But Josh Holly was the other, backing a Democratic amendment that would prohibit tax cuts for wealthy Americans if Medicaid funding is cut. Does that give us a sense of what might happen next in the House version?
Yeah, I think that Josh Holly in this case is the canary and the mind shaft. I think, you know, he makes a point that is not lost on every Republican in the Senate. And part of the reason that they're doing this two step reconciliation is because they agree with Donald Trump. They don't want to touch that Medicare Medicaid payment. And what's buried inside of the House strategy is,
you know, almost a trillion dollars in Medicaid cuts. Now nobody on the Senate side knows how to reconcile that, and I think, frankly, I was a little bit surprised that you didn't have more Republicans joining Holly in that vote, because they they will all tell you that this is not where they're taking their legislation. They'll look at the tax bill and find pay fors along the way, but it's not going to be the gutting of Medicaid like
the House Republicans have done. So it just reinforces the Senate strategy, frankly, as being more sound.
How about that Genie Speaker Johnson, you already said, is this work cut out for him? I mean, this could be impossible, but he says he's Steve Scalise, Tom Emmer. They have plans to get their resolution on the floor next week.
Could that pass.
It could pass, but it's going to be very, very difficult. I mean if you are a Republican in a moderate district, and several friends of this show, for instance, Nicole Malia Takis has already said she's leaning no on this budget resolution because you are a essentially walking yourself out of a job.
You know.
One of the reasons we keep talking about that Republicans have gone along with Donald Trump and the Trump administration on so much is that they fear a primary. But the reality for these moderates is also they fear what is going to be the commercials that showed that they were responsible for cutting medicaid and services to their constituents so that the wealthy could get an extended and expanded
tax cut. And that is not a winning message. And so Democrats are on one corner salvating about this, hoping they continue forward marching. And you've got people like Maliatakis, and she's not alone in others who are from districts where they simply can't afford to make those kinds of decisions. And so I think it's very unlikely that the House is able to wean this together. And let's not forget all the other promises that Donald Trump has made about things he wants to see in this bill. So could
it happen? I suppose it could, but it is going to be very damaging for Republicans in the midterm.
We have breaking news here across in the terminal, and it brings us back to a story I believe the three of us were talking about right at this time yesterday, remembering that Judge dale Hoe was set to make a ruling on this effort by the Department of Justice to throw out the corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, which then set off this whole series of
events involving the governor. The judge chose not to make a ruling yesterday and has just ordered a probe of Donald Trump's Department of Justice motion to dismiss the case. This is just breaking right now, and we're going to be learning more about it through the day here, Rick. But now that the ruling has been made, did Governor Hulkel make the right move yesterday by setting up these so called guardrails and not moving to throw him out of office?
Yeah? I think I was pretty outspoken yesually. When you asked you that question, I thought you sure threw this up. I think she sticking her nose in New York City politics, should have decided to one of two things, yank the mayor and create a vacuum that can be filled through the election this year, or keep her nose out and
criticize but stay put in Albany. The mess she's created now is sort of a halfway measure that upsets everybody, frankly, and may be completely scuttled by this judge's potential to undermine the Department of Justice's case, you know, being thrown out. So this is a faster moving piece of information news then I think the governor probably predicted it would be, but her actions indicate that she's just not ready for prime time.
Well, you were very clear about that yesterday, and we see the headline of the New York Times Genie facing Trump's threats, New York's governor adopts a Rambo at its. She actually invoked Rambo yesterday, Sylvester Stallone saying that Trump would answer for drawing first blood. Does your opinion on her action hear her decision change it all based on this judge's motion today, No.
Not my opinion. And you're right about the language when she spoke yesterday, I listened very carefully. It was some of the toughest language we have heard. She described herself as a vanguard against the attacks by the president. I mean to hear this and to think about the fact that New York State and New York City are now pitted off against the President of the United States in this way. This is a national, if not international story.
What is going on here. I am very surprised that the judge came out Judge Hoe and said that he is going to take more time. And I just heard this from you, Joe, so I haven't heard what he actually said. But keep in mind, we will hear attacks from this White House on Judge Hoe. He used to work for the ACLU. They will describe him once again like we have heard, probably unfairly as far as I know, as somebody who is doing the bidding of Democrats and
liberal Democrats in the city. I'm not saying I believe that. I'm saying we will hear that rhetoric. You know, his role here was very limited. I'm not sure how you go forward as a judge and say that, yeah, get more information, but can you require the DOJ to prosecute when they've said they don't want to. I'm hard pressed
to imagine that's the case. But from the democratic side, what we're hearing is many New Yorkers are saying, Kathy Hochel, you know, these courts are the first to stand up as a bulwark against what they see as a ravage, a chainsaw as you were just talking about that Elon Musk is taking to the federal government from Donald Trump and his team. I don't think the law fair notion works so well for them politically, but they feel like they want somebody to respond. So this is what they
are getting. And I am very surprised that the judge said he's going to take more time on this.
Yeah, we're going to have a probe into this effort. Apparently, the guardrails Rick that Kathy Hochel announced following our talk yesterday when we heard that some sort of sanction might be coming include a special ig for New York City Affairs and Inspector General. Also gives the Controller, who we had on the late edition of Balance of Power last evening, an independent authority to commence litigation against the federal government
when necessary. The New York's going to start suing here, what's this going to look like?
Yeah, I'm a bit of a mess.
You know, you wonder why Kathy Hochel didn't spend more time attacking the Biden administration when COVID restrictions incapacitated our city and a lot of people moved down to Florida, or when the you know, incredible amount of financial distress caused by inflation created a hardship for her constituents in New York. And you know, I just got to believe that so much of this is just kind of you know,
political rhetoric that's not going to mount much. I mean, yeah, let's go sue the federal government, you know, knock yourselves out. As if there aren't enough lawsuits against the federal government right now today, probably more than they've ever seen in fifty years. In the first month of this administration hadn't slowed him down a bit. So look, I mean, this idea of guardrails, so we're going to have an ig with no real power to start taking a look at
Eric Adams. Everybody knows what Eric Adams has been up to. I mean, this has been the most well publicized corruption incident in New York city history. And you know, news traveled fast on this, and he's in the position where that's all he's going to do between now and November is answer for those charges, even though he's not going to be prosecuted by the federal government. And and so.
I just spend the next four years ago little.
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