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With the latest on Israel, we are waiting in Washington, and of course we're waiting around the world for a headline on hostages as Israeli forces engage in heavy fighting with Hamas a deal could emerge at any moment. We just heard from the President a short time ago, holding an unrelated event about counter narcotics at the White House before he takes off to Nantucket for Thanksgiving. The President of the United States opening with an update on this very issue.
Here he is, we're working on this intensively for weeks. As you all know, I've spoken recently about it of both the premiers of Nannato and the Mirror Cutter. My team is head of the region, shuttling each happening. We're now very close, very close. It could bring me in Seni the Sausage's.
Home very soon, very close. The keywords there from the President not unlike what he said yesterday at the Turkey pardoning event. On the South lawn very close. Remember he held up his seat. He was crossing his fingers when he was talking to the reporters. And here's what we understand. According to reporting at Bloomberg, this deal brokeered by Cutter, expected as soon as today, and we've been saying that
for a couple of days. Realized would have essentially two phases to it would be coupled with a multi day cease fire. In the first phase would be about four days worth. Here Hamas releasing some fifty Israeli women and children held in Gaza, while Israel releases one hundred and fifty Palestinian prisoners in return.
You do the math.
Here Israel would release three Palestinian prisoners for each Israeli hostage released. Based on what we understand here, a second phase could unlock a lot more. He is fifty more Israeli hostages in exchange for a longer cease fire. All of this remains up in the air and is being negotiated as we speak. And that's why we're lucky to have former Ambassador Daniel freed with us. He's now the Wiser family distinguished, fell out the Atlantic Council, but has
spent a career doing diplomatic work. Former National Security Council Senior directory's former ambassador to Poland, as we spoke with them a lot in the of course, outset of the war in Ukraine, and former Assistant Secretary of State for Europe. So, ambassador, thank you for making time for us here. What's happening behind the scenes right now? What are the back channels sounding like as we approach a potential deal.
Well, we'll find out more after the deal is done. If it's done, about how it came about. There will be articles written about who, who did what. But we can be sure that this is a difficult, complicated process. The Israelis and Hamas are not talking to each other, They're working through intermediaries. The us IS, I expect, is involved in some way, maybe the Egyptians as well.
This is a.
Complicated negotiation and all it will produce is a possible temporary succession of hostilities and a release of as many hostages as the Israelis can get out. It is not a stepping stone necessarily to any wider diplomatic discussions to end this conflict. Those those have to wait. It's a decent step, and you can see the Biden administration has put a lot of effort into this initial step.
When we know that we're working through a third party, essentially in the Cutter, officials work on this to what extent is the administration directly involved, the State Department directly involved, or is this a chain of communication going through Cutter.
I think both. I think it likely that there is a chain of communication going through Gutter. I think the US State Department is involved talking to the Israelis, talking to the Gutties. I am confident that the US is an active player in this process. Stepping back a bit, you can see that the Biden administration and President Biden himself want to move toward a diplomatic framework to end this conflict. To do that, you have to have start and it has to be done in ways that both
parties can accept. The Israelis are in no mood to stop fighting Hamas, which they believe rightly wants to wipe them out and is perfectly prepared to massacre more Israeli civilians if they can. The Arab countries would love to see the possibility of getting back to negotiations, but negotiations that don't involve a two state solution, A Palestinian state are not going to go very far. The idea that we could work around it through the Abraham Accords has
been blown up. But this is easier said than done. Some of my diplomatic colleagues started out in pushing Israeli Arab Israeli Palestinian peace deals when they were young, and now they're not young. We've seen this for decades. We've gotten close before, we've never The Americans have tried and they have never landed a deal. But you can see that the Biden people want a deal, and they in President Biden's op ed and the Washing and Posy outlined
some of the parameters. So the United States is looking ahead and this possible deal for hostages and a temporary cease fire could be a first step. But that's a small first step, and the steps after this get harder, not easier.
Well, with regard to the next step, we're talking about a second phase potentially, and I realized this is all very tenuous that could include a longer cease fire. Ambassador, we keep hearing that a ceasefire is not tenable, that it would simply allow Hamas to reload, to reset itself in Gaza, to the detriment of the Israelis. But I wonder if you see this differently, and if you see it as the potential for the beginning of a longer
term cease fire. Could this be the beginning of the end of this war.
The Israelis have said repeatedly and strongly that there is no going back to the status quo before a Verse seventh. They're not going to allow Hamas to remain as an organization in Daza preparing for the next assault on Israel. That's pretty clear from them. At the same time, they are facing massive opposition and you can feel it disquiet within the Biden administration of the number of civilian casualties.
It's an ugly war. The fact that Hamas started this phase of the conflict is of little help to the Israelis, who find themselves in a difficult position. The Biden people want to move ahead with a diplomatic process, and you can see that they're trying to get to some place decent after this horror. I respect what they're trying to do and I wish them every success, but it is not easy. I don't envy them.
Great to have you back, Ambassador, I wish you and You're family a great thanksgiving. Daniel Freed of the Atlantic Council, former Ambassador to Poland, former Assistant Secretary of State for Europe. I'm Joe Matthew in Washington. This is Bloomberg's sound on as we try to get to all sides of this
story here. It's not just the economy stupid. The reaction that we've been seeing in polls recently, particularly from younger people, with regard to President Biden's foreign policy, has not been good for someone running for reelection, and that's where we want to add the voice to Spencer Kimball, the executive director of the Emerson College Polling Center, Straight from my alma mater. Spencer, it's great to have you here on Bloomberg. Welcome.
I know you're doing great work at the Polling Center, and you're constantly asking these questions as we make our way through the campaign cycle, and I want to ask you some more specific things about the work that you're doing. But with regard to foreign policy, with pro Palestinian protesters chanting Jennie Side outside DNC headquarters, how much of a problem could this story be for Joe Biden in this campaign?
Well?
Thanks, Joe, again for having me. And as you mentioned, we've had a chance to look at this issue now unfortunately for six seven weeks, and we've seen a dropout of that younger vote for Biden. College educated vote has also dropped out. And when you look at that head to head match up with Donald Trump, he now trails by four points nationally. And remember he wins the election by four and a half points three years ago, so he's got some room to make up now from this current situation.
What do you make of the college educated vote and is that something that you saw coming.
No, the college educated in the postgrad vote are kind of the lock in vote for President Biden. In the youth vote, the eighteen to twenty nine year olds are the ones who put him over the top. They voted for him nearly two to one. So now we're starting to see some shifting of these constituents and they're not
necessarily going over to Trump. They're kind of leaving him to the undecided group, or they're looking at the Cornell West or Robert Kennedy, Joe Bidendas, Jill Stein candidacies and see if maybe one of those candidates are more in line with their policies.
But right now. It's very fluid in that presidential race.
I'm sure that we can get to this from a couple of different angles, but it's both sides of Pennsylvania avenue here. The Senate is something that Democrats are pretty worried about. You've been doing research on this as well in any number of races here, whether it's Shared Brown or John Tester. Is the Senate the next biggest concern or is it the greatest concern for Democrats when you start looking at these elections coming up in less than a year.
Well, I think you could take a cueue out of what we saw last week in Kentucky, where you had a popular Democrat, you have a very unpopular incumbent, you know, Joe Biden, but the Democrat this hyar, was to win by five six points against the Republican. And I think what we're seeing in Ohio, at least early on, is a candidate like Shared Brown is still leading the three
potential Republican candidates. John Tester is also able. So there seems to be a disconnect between with voters who are willing to split their tickets, maybe voting for Trump but then voting for the Democratic senator of course, in West Virginia, we didn't see those numbers, and that's why you see Joe Manchin step down because he saw himself trailing already.
At this point, those other Democrats are still leading.
As opposed to the Senate race in California, which I know you ran numbers on recently and I was looking at this, that's going to end up being a Democrat, right, It's just a question of which one, and it could end up being one of the most expensive races in the country as a result.
Yeah, that's a fascinating race, but particularly the former baseball player Steve Garvey just got in the race as a Republican and he shot up to ten percent. The question is can he get Remember California's got that runoff election in jungle primary where everybody's in in the top two runoff. Katie Porter in Shift are in the lead, but just by a few percentage points. Barbara Lee and Garvey is right down there. So you got like four horses up there. We'll see if the Republican is able to get into
that runoff. Otherwise you'll have two Democrats mine for Feinstein's seat.
Boy, I'm sure there will be no drama surrounding that race at all. What are you seeing in New Hampshire where Nicki Haley and your last poll was surging in the Republican side. Here we talked about Democrats, but in terms of the Republican primary, this has been game on for Nicki Haley since certainly the last debate, and it's not so much for Ron de Santis. Based on your numbers, that poll got a lot of pickups. What are you seeing since then?
Yeah, so Haley. So it's good news for Haley. She's up at eighteen percent. She's the alternative to Trump, at least in New Hampshire. But as you mentioned, we've been doing polls in Ohio and California and she's really at six seven percent. So in the early state she's put in the effort and she's doing better. My concern for Haley would be come South Carolina. She's still trailing Trump by thirty points, and if you lose your home state,
that's generally you know, the end of the campaign. So she's going to have to really make some inroads in her home state if she wants to contend. On the flip side. Trump's numbers stay where they are, so he's still had forty nine to fifty percent up in New Hampshire. So it's almost like there's a jockeying for second underneath them, and it's important who comes in second might become the nominee in twenty twenty eight.
So there's a lot of her life of reasons. Well it could also for twenty four for a lot of reasons. But in our remaining moment here, as we spend some time with Spencer Kimball from Emerson College Polling Center, this could take on a lot of different forms over the course of the next year. Is it the early states that we should be paying attention to? You mentioned the difference between Iowa, New Hampshire, and Ohio, for instance.
Yeah, So in the nominating contest, it's we call the momentum. And so what Nicky Haley or Ron Desantus is going to try to do out of Iowa is beat expectations and then jump to New Hampshire and try to carry on some momentum into the early primary states.
You know, the difficulty there.
Is that Trump is over fifty percent in all of these states, so it's hard to see where that momentum will happen. But you know, magic and you know, lightning in a bottle could happen and we could see some changes. Otherwise, you're kind of looking at you know, who's the future of the party. Presuming in twenty eight we have an open seat.
Makes you wonder why Joe Biden is not up on the air yet. We're going to talk about that with our panel straight ahead, Rick Davis and Genie Shanzano. Big thanks to Spencer Kimball. I hope life as well at Emerson College. They're busy in the polling center not far from New Hampshire.
I'm Joe Matthew. 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 a Bloomberg Business app. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station, Just say Alexa play Bloomberg eleven thirty.
Who was a Monday night out at mar A Lago for the new Speaker of the House. You see this Mike Johnson, according to multiple reports, dining with the former president, well at least needing. I'm sure they had to break
red right, they met at mar A Lago. Of course, this follows Mike Johnson's endorsement of Donald Trump last week, bringing us back to his words in twenty fifteen, Mike Johnson said Trump lacks the character This is a quote, lacks the character and moral center we desperately need again in the White House unquote. I guess it went well enough that he's endorsed Donald Trump's reelection and of course
moved to decertify the electoral results in twenty twenty. So the question is, did Donald Trump just endorse the lattered c R. Let's reassemble our panel. Rick Davis and Genie Shanzino are with us Bloomberg Politics contributors. Rick, what do you think when you hear the new Speaker following the path of Kevin McCarthy flying down to mar Alago. I realize he's been touring the country trying to raise money, but this particular meeting is significant. What does it mean for his agenda in the House.
Yeah, I mean it's interesting to watch today some of the spin I mean, his staff are all out saying, oh no, he was down there for a fundraiser for Billy Ricus, and you know, he just happened to be in mar Alago and just happened to bump into Donald Trump and they had a short conversation. I mean, like, it's really amazing to see how he's trying to massage this as being not like a cow towing to Trump like you mentioned former Speaker McCarthy did in front of
all of us. So look, I mean, you knew this was going to happen at some point in time. Marlog is the center of the Republican Party these days as far as fundraising go, and so you know, I'm not surprised that they had this opportunity. Remember too, you know, Donald Trump put his finger on the scale because the other option, Congressman Emmer for speaker, was someone who absolutely
had a bad relationship with Donald Trump. And so in many of these situations, as you well know, it's not the candidate you want, it's the candidate that is less bad as the one who's running against him.
Yeah.
Well, I'll tell you, I wonder, Genie, with all the questions about can Joe Biden work with this new speaker, what does it say when he shows up at mar A Lago with Donald Trump about that happening?
Well, you know, I think I don't know why everybody's so surprised. I think Donald Trump has done a lot since the twenty fifteen statement when Magic Mike was where Maga Mike was worried about his ethics to assure all of us that he is an ethical individual. Hence the turnabout about Maga Mike and heading down there. I mean, the reality is, this is him. He needs to do this.
He's got to be out there fundraising as the news speaker, He's trying to meet donors, many of them are in Florida, not just this time of the year, but all around. And of course that requires that he not only endorsed Donald Trump as he did as you mentioned last week, but also go down there and kiss the ring of Donald Trump. It's not going to impact all. I don't believe his dealings with Joe Biden anyway than it already
would have. I mean, let's not forget Mike Johnson was one of the individuals in the House pushing this preposterous legal theory. I mean, there's no other way to describe it. Even the conservatives on the Supreme Court scratch their head
saying that Joe Biden didn't win the election. So I don't think it's any surprise that he goes down there, nor that he turns around based on what he said in twenty fifteen, just like Kevin McCarthy before him and kiss Donald Trump's ring, regardless of what they said about him earlier.
Well, let's talk money here. That's apparently what the trip was, at least in part about Rick Davis. We know that Mike Johnson's been traveling the country and he's got big shoes to fill because Kevin McCarthy, if you don't know this about him, was a prolific and remains a prolific fundraiser. Now, remember this is we had numbers from October emerged last night, and we're going to walk through the money here for a moment. The nrcc rex says it raised five million
dollars in October. That's three million shy of the d Triple C. But that also took place when there was essentially no speaker. This was the month of chaos. Some folks thought there might not be a dollar donated. Is this good news for Mike Johnson?
You know, it's not horrible news in the sense that, yeah, it's not zero, which it could have been, and most of that money. The five million came via transfers from other Republican campaign accounts, so you're kind of stealing from Peter to pay Paul. You're taking it out of one of a campaign account to put it into the nrccs. And that's a standard practice. Everybody gets done for money, and RCC puts it into more competitive races.
Than a lot of these guys have.
So but look, I mean, it has been a great couple of months for the Republican Caucus and the House of Representatives, and fundraising i'm sure is drying up.
As a result.
And you take, as you said, the most prolific Republican fundraiser of anybody other than Mitch McConnell and kick him out of his job. Kevin McCarthy, something's going to happen to give, and money is the thing. Johnson is an untested speaker, both legislatively and fundraising wise, and so that's one of the reasons that he was down in mar
A Lago. He's got to start earning his spurs with raising money, and too soon to tell, but by year end he has got to show progress with the NRCC for a war chest going into twenty twenty four.
A loll of your thoughts on what appeared to be a pretty good month for Democrats, Jeannie, the d triple CS I mentioned raised over eight million dollars has forty seven million dollars on hand. On the Senate side, the DSCC the NRSC both raised the same amount, but Democrats have significantly more on hand fifteen million compared to seven million dollars. How do you read these results from October?
It's a good sign for Democrats. Of course, it's going to be a very very tough year, particularly in the Senate for Democrats, but also in the House. I mean, you know, there are seats that they are going to have to defend in both cases that make this a tough year, and so they need all that money. They were smart in the House, for instance, in the way that they did the transition from Hakeem from Nancy Pelosi rather to Hakeem Jeffries. And they have worked, by all accounts,
very very closely. She like Kevin McCarthy, a prol lific fundraiser, and you want to keep those people close and build on their fundraising prowess and the connections they have. And so that's what we see. Mike Johnson out there on the Republican side trying to do. Of course, he starts out a bit behind, but I think he will likely
make up. You know, I have to say in this case, I think the bigger challenge on the Republican side is not necessarily the fundraising, as critically important as that is. It's what you were just talking to Spencer about. It's the reality is that if Republicans are going to nominate people like they seem prepared to nominate out in Arizona, Carrie Lake, it's going to not matter as much how much money they have when they need to go and
get these seats, and that is very very difficult. Candidates matter, and you go down tomorrow Lago, you kiss Donald Trump's ring, and you know who he is going to go for. It's an election denier. And the question is do people really want to go to the polls and and vote for a senator or representative who said that Donald Trump won the twenty twenty election. It hasn't been a winning
strategy thus far. So money matters an awful lot, but candidate quality matters, and that I think is a bigger issue for Republicans who now have an election denier at the top of the House as well well.
Rick, some conservative Republicans are raising money on the discord within their own conference. Look no further than chip Roy, who's out with a fundraising emails as I didn't come here to act like the Democrats, and of course we're still recovering from his stem winder on the floor before everybody left town. Here's Congressman chip Roy.
I want my Republican colleagues to give me one thing, one that I can go campaign on and say we did.
One.
I don't know if you want to try to name one, Rick, but apparently the speaker wasn't too happy about that speech. What does that say about what he's going to return to next month.
I think he's chip Roy's going to be chip Roy, right, And whether or not he can influence the rest of the caucus is I think of the limited value, right. I mean, he hasn't really been able to influence the caucus since throwing Kevin McCarthy out of the job. That's why. So, you know, uh excited in that speech because he realizes, I think for the first time in a while, that
he actually doesn't have any pull. And as long as Johnson continues to pull Democratic votes for passage of important things like appropriations bills.
Uh.
And he'll he'll be fine, Chip Roy will lose his voice because he screams too much, and and and the Republicans will continue to pass legislation that can actually get signed by the President.
Rick Davis and Genie Shanzano with us on the fastest show in Politics.
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. We're listening on demand wherever you get podcast.
Nice to see you, Kayley, who of course is with us for the second hour of Sound on every day. We've got breaking news, as Charlie mentioned on a couple of fronts. Actually we're going to talk about all of these with Congressman Brad Sherman to review quickly. Here the FED making news here, and it does seem like they're all singing the same tune.
Yeah, essentially that they do intend to keep rates restrictive. Obviously, the conversation with the Fed very much has turned from a question as to whether or not the Fed could intend to hike rates further. It seems like they likely will not, but they're leaving the door open to doing so if they need to. It becomes a question of
how long they have to keep rates high. And really the key paragraph here from the minutes is that participants judge it was critical that the stance of monetary policy be kept sufficiently restrictive to return inflation to the two percent objective, and they could proceed carefully. But the idea here is that rates could stay restrictive for some time.
Yes, right, and you should see what it's like to sit near Kayley when the and it's come out just like a the right down to the seventh paragraph where the goods are thank you for that. We'll talk to Brad Sherman about that. He wears a couple of important hats for us here when it comes to foreign affairs and financial services, and in terms of geopolitics today we're waiting for a breaker. It hasn't happened yet, but the
headlines are becoming more encouraging. Egypt now as a read on the terminal Egypt's Foreign Press Office citing progress in hostage talks. This is happening as we speak. The President talked about it earlier today at an unrelated event. It was a counter narcotics event he was holding, and he opened with this. You can tell how important it is to him. Here's Joe Biden from earlier working on.
This intensively for weeks. As you all know, I've spoken recently about it of both the primers of Mennato and a mirror cutter. My team is headed the region shutting shuttling exchange capital. We're now very close, very close. It could bring me in Leiu Sausage's home.
There soon, very soon. The word Kayley that we hear from the President not unlike what he said yesterday on the rope line, leading us to believe truly this could guess happen any minute.
Yeah, we know that the Israeli cabinet is going to be assembling this evening. It does seem like the indication is this could be a decision that is announced on the side of Israel and a moss rather than coming directly from the White House. But we're essentially just waiting for news and literally, Joe, it could come any minute.
Well, that's where we begin our conversation with Brad Sherman, the gentleman from California is with us. Of course, Democrat from the thirty second districts. I love California Congressman. It's good to see you as we hear from the president today, and we understand that this agreement could take on a couple of phases. I wonder your thoughts on this idea of releasing I believe three Palestinian prisoners for one Israeli hostage is that what we need now.
Israel, being a democracy, is certainly very vulnerable when hostages are taken. They're overwhelming political pressures to get the hostages back. When this happened, I was not sure they would get any of them back. And when a soldier blidlid Chalite about a decade ago was part of an exchange, it was one thousand to one ratio close to that. So I think it matters a lot who is being released by Israel. And of course, some of those released a decade ago are on the front lines and planning some
of the worst attacks against Israel this time. The five day cease fire I think makes sense. It's a chance to resupply and to provide humanitarian aid, and I think it shows that those who called for a ceasefire without any hostage release turned out to be wrong, because we'll get the five day sees fired with the hostage release.
Well, you say, a Congressman that the ceasefire is an opportunity to resupply in terms of humanitarian aid going into Gaza, But theoretically it also is an opportunity for Hamas to resupply and regroup as well. I just wonder there has to be an offset here, right for the release of the hostages to broker this kind of pause in the fighting at the very least for a number of days, does it risk potentially exacerbating the conflict as it moves forward.
This will make it more difficult for Israel to achieve its military objectives. It will create more danger for Israel Defense forces soldiers. But if fifty hostages are released, I think that's a decision in Israel will make.
This would come with apparently a second phase as well, Congressman, that could see up to another fifty is hostages released in exchange for a longer ceasefire. What are you comfortable with there when we talk about a longer term ceasefire and could that be the start of a more meaningful peace agreement.
Well, to get a meaningful peace agreement to Moss would have to renounce its own charter and say that it wants to live alongside Israel, rather than their current charter, which calls for them to kill every Jew between the river and the sea, between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. I think that at the same time, I think the whole world wants this violence to end, and if we could negotiate a two state solution, that would
be an outstanding outcome. But I don't know how long a second ceasefire would.
Last, nor do I know how that would impact Israeli military operations. But ultimately, a mosque cannot be left in control of Gaza, and being a democracy, Israel will make extraordinary concessions, even concessions dangerous to its own military, in order to get hostages out. And if those concessions also are able.
To alleviate civilian suffering, that is that is a good result as well.
Well.
Of course, Congressmen, some of these hostages in question are Americans. We know that the administration has been working very closely in this effort. Yet we have also seen as recently as this week, polling that indicates there is a great deal of disapproval with the Biden administration's handling of this conflict. In fact, there are more that disapprove of what Biden has done in regard to this war between Israel and Hamas. What,
if anything, should the administration change here? How much power realistically does it have to influence the decisions of Israel at this moment.
Well, I did my own poll at my last town hall. Well over fifty percent approved of how Biden was handling this, and what was interesting is equal numbers. About twenty percent on each side disapproved, but for different reasons. Twenty percent thought he should be more pro Palestine and the other thought twenty percent thought he should be more pro Israel.
And I think that that's what's reflected. Whenever you ask do people to prove they may disapprove for a variety of different reasons, but ultimately people want to live in a peaceful world. They hold the president of the United States responsible for whether things are going well in the world, and obviously things aren't going well in the Middle East. October sixth was a peaceful day and it hasn't been
peaceful since. So I think when people reflect on it, they'll realize that it's not the responsibility of the American President to gather intelligence on Hamasa that was primarily the responsibility of the Israeli government, and that no president can guarantee that there aren't foreign crises. Now that this crisis has developed them, we'd feel better about Biden if it hadn't developed. But now that it's developed, the question is
how well are we reacting to it? And I think the President is handling it very well, supporting Israel and at the same time trying to protectively at lives.
We're spending time with Congressman Brad Sherman, the Democrat from California, with us on Bloomberg Live Today. Congressman, the matter of funding to support Israel as a whole separate conversation, and it's one that you're going to have to face again when Congress gets back into session following Thanksgiving. Your new speaker sees things differently than the White House and the Senate for that matter, and brought, of course, Israel funding
to the floor as a standalone. I wonder what you're hearing if there's any path forward to get this done by the end of the year, either as a standalone or coupled with Ukraine and the rest.
I think the President has an excellent package of aid to Israel, aid to Ukraine, humanitarian assistance for a number of problems around the world, and additional money to be spent at the border. I'd like to vote for it all as one bill, but if it's brought up in two or three bills at the House floor, we could pass them all separately. Biden could sign them together. What we can't see is a situation where you pit Israel aid on the one hand with domestic needs on the other.
Because if we're ever in a situation where in order to vote to provide defense assistance to Israel, you have to vote to cut food stamps or the IRS or any domestic program that sets Israel up for eventually a failure in the United States Congress, and I'll point out the speaker trying to finance aid to Israel by cutting IRS audits in the view of the Congressional Budget Office, and I think almost all observers had the of doubling
to tripling the cost. You don't offset the costs by reducing audits.
So clearly, Congressman the House, I'm sorry to interrupt you. Obviously, the House has a lot of work.
I had the second largest tax agency in the country for five years, so I have a little background and the importance of the audits. Go ahead.
I know you have a lot you're focusing on in that body, and you will be when you return to Washington as a body next week. I do don't want to touch on the news of today because it relates to a subject I know that you very much like to talk about. That would be crypto. There is a deal between the DOJ, Treasury, the CFTC related to finance and CZ. That deal including CZ, who of course is the CEO and founder of that exchange, pleading guilty to
criminal charges and stepping down. You think that's adequate, sir, that settlement.
It might be for that particular case, but ultimately we cannot have crypto become a medium of exchange, especially as it's designed. I mean, the very name says cryptocurrency needs hidden money. And when you have unhosted wallets, when those wallets are anonymous where you cannot know your customer because the customer is just a vague number, you have a system that can prosper only if it captures the biggest
market for hidden money, which is tax evasion. Not that there aren't also other important markets, sanctions of Asian drug dealing, hiding money from spouse's in the worst matters, etc. And so I don't see a need for another currency, except if you need hidden currency for all those purposes I identified when Sambank bin Freed was arrested. I pointed out that the crypto world was telling us Sambank Ban Freed was just one snake in a garden of Eden. The fact is cry a garden of stakes.
Last question for you in our final moment than Congressman what should happen to.
CZ I'm not involved in the details of that, so I don't really have to be.
It's good to see again Brad Sherman, the Congressman from California. We thank you for being with us on Bloomberg. Never one to shy away from a common on crypto camp.
Yeah, that's absolutely true, and of course there'll be a lot more conversation on crypto throughout the day to day. Joe, as at three pm, we are expecting a joint press conference with Mary Garland, of course, the Attorney General and Treasury Secretary Jannet Yellen. I would just point out that though there has been a settlement with Treasury, DJ and the CFTC. There's still an ongoing sec CANS case civil charges that have been brought against Finance and those would
not theoretically be resolved by this agreement. So this is far from over, which means I'm going to keep talking about it. Yeah, make you talk about it here.
You know, Nathan Deane's going to come in next substrict. We're going to get into this again.
Yep.
Is that is his Financial Services Committee going to do something about crypto next year.
Well, they passed the bills out of committee. It becomes a question of whether the whole House is going to bring this to the floor. But of course they have a lot of other work they have to do, so I'm not sure where this is on the rank and the priority.
Got to fund the government and that stuff.
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