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How about Senate spending surging our story today, It looks like it's going to happen. It's just a matter of time here with votes tied up for about an hour from now, we're going to go through the procedural motions here. To be clear, they're not voting on the real thing at one, but you have to do this to get to the real vote, and it's going to tell us a lot about how that real vote is going to come together here as senators prepare to finish work on
this ninety five billion dollar four and aid package. Yes we're still working on it. Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and the sidecar. They've all been stitched together and now arriving in one piece in the US Senate, one big Frankenstein that they will vote on likely today, it could be as late as tomorrow. Just in case you're playing along on your home game, But it looks like senators want to get the heck out of here and get onto their recess
because well they're laid for it. Zach Cohen is on the hill for us right now for Bloomberg Government, covering Congress of course, and joins us from the Senate side of the capital in the halls of power.
Zach, at one o'clock, can you just kind of.
Walk us through a little TikTok here of what needs to happen, because I know Bernie Sanders wants to be heard and Mike Lee wants to be heard before this thing passes, what can you tell us?
There'll be two votes at one o'clock that will really kick off the floor consideration for this ninety five billion dollar package that, as you mentioned, includes funding for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, as well as agislation that would force the devestiture of TikTok by its Chinese owner Bike Dance or Face a band in the United States. That first voted one o'clock
Senator Mike Lee, Republican from Utah. It's a procedural vote essentially to try to table the whole shebang, which will likely fail, and then the second vote will really be the one to watch. That's the sixty vote cloture threshold we call it. It's basically the motion to limit debate to say, okay, we're ready to move on and go
to final passage. Now, a very similar package did pass the Senate a couple of months ago by something like seventy votes, and will likely get something similar to that this time around.
And so there's not.
As much suspense, but certainly an important vote to watch as they head toward final passage of what has been a long running saga here on Capitol Hill, off getting this foreign aid done?
All right, great Primmer here, Zach, Just to pick through each of these so our listeners and viewers know what to expect coming up here. That first motion, that first Republican motion, is attempting to accomplish what just table the whole thing, throw the whole bill.
Out exactly as you can imagine. There are members of the Senate who oppose this package, about a quarter of them, actually more than half of Senate Republicans voted for an initial version of this again back in February, a package of a similar size to ninety five billion dollars, which again included many of the same components, and so they will be Republicans who will say, let's slow this down. We want to vote on amendments, we want to make
changes to it. We appreciate all the houses done to get this to us, but we have some thoughts on it. There's certainly some Republicans here in the Senate, as there are in the House that are skeptical of or eight for Ukraine for instance, and so you could see us split there members who want to slow things down at that point. But it does sound like there is at least a majority and likely a substantial majority of Senators who do want to get this bill done, especially after
Iron's attack on Israel. That has really created a lot of the political pressure to get this bill done, because you know that Israel package has been combined with the Ukraine portion at this point and has.
Been from months.
You mentioned that seventy vote count last time when the Senate did this back in February. We've wasted basically a lot of time here, Zach, because this bill looks a lot like that one did without the border compromise attached.
But it does have something.
That the Senate built it not, and that's the divest or baned TikTok component here, it's in the so called sidecar. And we know that senators many cases were very wary about passing this as a standalone. What are you hearing as they face the prospect of voting to divest or ban TikTok at the risk of funding for Ukraine and Israel.
The realm, the real conflict at this point on the TikTok bill, according to Sena Commerce Chair Maria Campwell, who was seen as one of the obstacles to that TikTok bill from passing the Senate, was it actually increases the length of time that it gives Byte Dance to divest from TikTok, and it goes from six months in the original bill to one year, which he thought would be enough time to find a new buyer potentially, you know, in the US or elsewhere, at least not a Chinese buyer,
which would eliminate some of the national security concerns that that TikTok has raised with lawmakers, you know, banning TikTok from federal devices for instance, you know, Capitol Hill employees, Biden administration employees already can't have TikTok on their phones. This bill would go a lot farther and would actually say no Americans, No American devices can have TikTok on them as long as bike Dance is still the owner.
So now that that length of time, that time frame between when the bill would be enacted and when the ban or force de vestiture would go into effect, that the ones that that's been extended. That has allowed the bill to look pretty good for prospects here.
In the Senate.
Fascinating, Zach, what's the timeline today? What are you hearing? At least we get this done today. Are we back tomorrow?
It could slip until tomorrow. It could be very late tonight. Not to get into too much of the weeds, but this sixty cloture threshold basically sets thirty hours maximum of debate. But one senator can't hold up all of it. They only get an hour each, and so it depends on how many senators. At this point, I want to try
to slow this bill down as long as possible. Raise the debate, whether it be about the Ukraine portion, if you're a Republican or if you're Senator Bernie Sanders, the Independent of Roman wants to talk about some of the offense of weaponry that he opposes including in this package. Given how Israel's conducted its war and gauzes since the October seventh attack by Hamas on Israel, they want to
try to drag out that debate. But there's enough members who want to get back to recess, which is supposed to be going on this week, go to seek their constituents, go to see their families, and I imagine you see a lot of that time yielded back. And so we'll know in the next couple of hours what the timeline looks like, but it could be a very light late night here on Capitol Hill.
Yeah, well, you know, I love getting into the weeds, Zach. That's why we love pulling the in here. It's good to see Zach Cohen. Good luck tonight. You might need a little caffeine. It sounds like Bloomberg Government's Congress reporter Zach Cohen with us live here on balance of power. So you know, by the time we go to bed tonight, I guess we'll have a pretty good sense of this, but it won't be lasting beyond tomorrow when the President has promised to sign this. So it does seem while
we have to go through the motions. So we've got to clear a couple of hurdles here. The die has been cast, and I'm curious what Bob Inglis thinks about all of this. Watch from Afar in South Carolina. Former Republican Congressman. He's now executive director of republic n e n dot org and Congressman, it's great to have you with us today on Balance of Power. I want to back up just a day and talk about what happened in the House. Actually it's a couple of days, forgive me.
At this point.
It was over the weekend when Mike Johnson actually brought these four bills to the floor, got him passed in the face of a threat to fire him. Is he going to end up looking like the smartest guy in the room cutting these into separate pieces, getting them past, shipping it to the Senate and basically the same form that Joe Biden asked for months ago. All the while it seems like he's keeping his job.
Bob, what do you see?
Yeah?
I think probably so. And you know, it's really sort of us as Americans recognizing the gift we've got in our history. You know, in that chamber, that speaker Johnson presides over. There are only two portraits, one of George Washington, of course. The other is a Marquis de Lafayette, the Frenchman who helped George Washington and who helped bring in the French into the fight that we were having with the British. If it weren't for the French help, we
wouldn't have made it. And so it's sort of appropriate that that's right now in the House Chamber, those two portraits are hanging, and that's what's happening. We are helping a startup called Ukraine fight a world power called Russia, and so it's really less coming to recognize our history and our obligation to really to history to sort of repay the favor.
I love the optics that your painting there. What happened to Mike Johnson over the past couple of months. Was it the classified intelligence briefings, was the meetings with foreign leaders? Or was it just getting covered from Donald Trump in the end that brought him to this point?
You know, I think it is a fascinating thing because I think what it is is his studying leadership. What happens is, you know, when you don't have any real authority or power. You can just sound off and say all kinds of things, but when you realize, oh my gosh, I've got power here, I really need to act responsibly. And I think that's what Mike Johnson has done. He's acted responsibly, and it's the sort of the growing up that happens when somebody actually comes out of the hinter
lands and into real power. He's got a real power. He's a Speaker of the House of Representatives, and he's functioning. He's making the House function the way it should, which is put it on the floor, let the people's representatives vote, and let's see how it goes. And interestingly enough, it went with a lot of Democrat and Republican agreement. And then there's some people that disagree. That's fine, they get
to hear there, we get to hear them. But leadership requires real thought and carrying through on things that matter.
I'm really taken by how many people are offended by that congressman threatening to fire the speaker over this. We keep hearing from people coming on this program talking about a coalition government that we now have. We're all going to be speaking with English accents here at some point, what.
Do you make of that. Is it a coalition government or is it just a functioning government?
Well, it wouldn't be I think it's a functioning government. And I think if you asked most Americans, they'd say, isn't that great? I mean, you do have activists on both sides, on the left and on the right. And the problem really that we're having is American finding solutions to things like climate change, for example, is that the politicians have to play to those activists, and those activists they really don't want solutions, They just want to sound off.
And so most Americans actually want solutions. And you know, in climate change, for example, the water's coming up, they want a solution. And so as you can really help you if somebody's sounding off way over the left or sounding off way over in the right, now, it's not going to help you at all. The water's coming up.
We got a break with your party when it comes to the issue of climate change.
What's next.
We're going to see Mike Johnson bring a climate bill to the floor.
That'd be great, wouldn't it, Because really that would be terrific. That's the kind of leadership that we would expect when somebody grows up, and I think he is growing up and I'm impressed. I don't really know him, but I'm very glad for what I'm seeing. And I think I've seen it before and we'll see it again. Is that once people get power and are actually called on to perform a valid function rather than act like one of
these bomb throwers, they don't have any power. Do is just talk to media outlets and generate money for themselves and their own campaigns. That's not leadership. And so it's really great to see the house functioning.
Sounds like you miss it.
The thing is, Mike Johnson's got a big bodyguard who walks everywhere with him in the school yard right now, and that's Donald Trump. Donald Trump can be pretty volatile about the way he feels about people. What happens when he wakes up one morning and decides this isn't worth it?
Yeah, I don't know.
That's what I wonder if he'll ever grow up, frankly, and whether he'll ever realize, hey, you know what you had power for those four years. You could have done something with it. But you know, I don't know. I think it's not his stick. His stick seems to be more to just play to a crowd that and and take a bow and feed his personality needs. But you know, maybe maybe he could grow up.
I don't know, But we.
As Americans need to insist on leaders growing up and saying listen, well, we want solutions. We don't want all this talk. We want solutions. And it really isn't coming upon us. You know, most people say Congress don't listen to us. Actually they do. They listen very carefully. And what they've heard us saying is from the activists, the left wing activist, the right wing activist, we want you to go up there and rail against the other side. Oh yeah, we can do that, and don't worry. We
don't need to do anything. But if we told them, no, we need you to do something, they do it.
All of that said, if you were still on the House floor, would do you expect Democrats to vote to protect Mike Johnson if it came to it.
Yes, And that will be the test of whether the Democrats are growing up, And it really is a crucial test. I thought they should have done that in the case of Kevin McCarthy, and they did not. So now they've got a chance to show that, no, really, they do put the country first, and in this case it's up to them. It will be up to them because of
the very small margin on the Republican side. So it is incumbent on Democrats to grow up and to say, hey, this about the country and us fulfilling our obligations as really stewards of that message of freedom that France helped us with and we won. Now Ukraine's doing that and we need to help them against this Russian thing. And so it really is a moment for Democrats to decide country or partisanship and do you really want to throw the country into chaos with another speaker election that will
go on forever. Really is that what you want to do? Or do you want to accept the reality? Oh this is sort of a consensus government, and what's wrong with that?
I think we just spawned a new sag growing up with Bob Ingless. Let's do this again, Bob the former congressman from South Carolina, Republican dot Org.
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Joe and myself in watch and wait mode as we keep an eye on the Senate floor waiting for these procedural votes to kick off. We need a cloture vote first, show sixty members need to vote yes for forward progress. Ultimately we'll get to final package. We just don't know quite when we will get to the final passage of this package. Ninety five billion dollars in aid to US allies and of course a divest or ban bill for TikTok in question today.
Yeah, they stitched them all together, separate votes in the House and now one big block here for the Senate point. This must be deja vu for a lot of these senators. They're already voted on this. Basically that was back in February, remembering that was considered doa in the House at the time. They basically rebuilt that entire bill, put all the pieces
back together, and now senators are asked again. So while this is procedural, we're going to look closely at the closure vote to get a sense of how close it might come to that seventy threshold that we saw last time.
Megan Scully is leading.
Our coverage on this as always here in Washington and our Bloomberg Bureau Congressional News team leader, Megan, it's great to see it. I mentioned pulling out the cots later. Is it one of those nights or do we end up coming back tomorrow because these guys want.
To go home, right, They do want to go home, and the jet fumes always yes, powerful motivator. Like I say, we're hearing late evening tonight, which could mean seven pm or eleven PM, and it seems like it will be before sunrise.
Okay, okay, well there you go. Of course, we may have a few amendments to get through. Fir Steven Dennis, who of course is our Senate whisper here at Boomberg, says that they're scheduled now at one point fifteen to vote on Senator Mike Lee's amendment. That's an effort that is almost certain to fail. Basically, all of these amendment votes, Megan, are likely to fail. But I guess it's just you got to be seen in the act of trying if
you're these senators. Yes, it's essentially part of the deal to get this.
Believe it or not, this is an expedited process that the Senate is undergoing.
It could drag out for a few more days.
So in order to get this agreement, this time agreement, they had to agree to allow these conservative Republicans to offer amendments that, as you said, will fail. If they were to pass, that would cause huge problems because then it would have to go back to the House for amendment.
But we are not expecting that.
Are we hearing hemming and hawing about TikTok or everyone is kind of hiding behind the fact that this has been extended to up to a year for divestiture because there were a lot of Senators not prepared to vote to pass that when it was a standalone bill.
Sure, so Senator Can't Well of Washington, who's the chairwoman of the Commerce Committee. A lot of the changes that she had asked to be implemented, including the longer time for the divestiture, we're implemented in.
The House bill.
So she is now on board with it. So we're expecting to see pretty much, you know, strong support across both parties, with the you know outliers like Senator rand Paul and Senator Mike Lee.
Could this actually get more than the seventy votes this very similar package garnered the first time around. Could we actually see that bipartisan majority expanding when this vote finally happens We could.
I don't.
I haven't run the numbers exactly, but there's certainly something in here for just about everyone to like, which is why it passed the House in.
Those sort of in parts in parts yes.
And so with the Senate voting on it in one comprehensive bill, you know, if you support Israel, if you support Gaza, if you support Ukraine, there's something in there.
For you to vote for.
We're hearing the term coalition government on the daily now in this program. At least it's not a formal power sharing agreement. But with what we have seen over the past couple of days with Mike Johnson, is it worth that type of framing or is this just a bipartisan government working and no one recognizes it?
You know, I think it is a bipartisan government working, and this is how Congress should work. We just haven't seen it work this way in quite some time. And what you saw happen in the House, while very unusual, getting Democrats on board to push this bill through over various procedures that ultraconservatives were opposing.
That's deal making.
That's kind of good old fashioned deal making that we just don't see happen in Washington very often anymore.
Well, and if you listen to Congressman Marjorie Taylor Green, she maybe wouldn't like to see that continue happening because she thinks Mike Johnson is essentially rolling over for the Democrats and may still very well pursue this motion to vacate for that reason. And yet we did hear once again from former President Donald Trump, who was speaking on a radio show yesterday talking about he thinks Mike Johnson's
a good guy. He has a one vote margin, trying to kind of paint the picture of the reality is that Republicans are working with. If Trump's not on board with the motion to vacate, can Marjorie Taylor Green realistically move forward with it? I think it's very difficult.
She's obviously very close to the former president, so I don't see her moving forward without his tacit approval. Now, Trump can change his mind on somebody pretty closely. We've seen that happen in the last seven years. So we'll see what plays out over the next few weeks, but as of right now, he's standing pretty steadfastly behind the speaker. I would say his comments yesterday were even stronger than the comments he made were ago.
Yeah, yeah, all right, Well you're in for a long night, it seems. Megan. Thank you very much for spending some of this day.
Bringing the pizzas for the Congress.
Pizza, caffeine, bring it all. Megan's scully leads our congressional
coverage here a Bloomberg Thank you so much. Now, of course, Joe, we've talked extensively about what the ultimate passage of this bill will specifically mean for Ukraine's war effort immediately, as the Biden administration says, they're all set up to get things quickly onto the ground for the Ukrainian war effort, but it's also an Israeli war effort that the US is attempting to support here with nearly twenty billion dollars in aid to Israel as part of this package, and
that is on the note. We turn now to Hagar Shamali. She is former national security formerly with the National Security Council, now the founder of Greenwich Media Strategies. She also is an adjunct professor at Columbia University School of International and
Public Affairs. Haguard, It's always great to have you. What will these billions of dollars in aid for Israel immediately due to the ongoing conflict we are seeing Israel engaged in with frankly, not just Tamas, but other Iranian proxies, including recently Aroun itself.
Sure well, the way anybody should view usaid to Israel is in the context of qualitary military edge, maintaining and supporting their qualitative military edge. That means, in no normal speak, that we're trying to ensure that Israel always has the upper hand when it comes to defense in the region.
We know they're surrounded by enemies and our non need alliance that dates back to nineteen eighty seven, that is the agreement, ultimately, is that we work to maintain their qualitative military edge, not that we try to promote certain behavior. And so what that's going to do in this case, On one hand, it's going to allow them in certain in general from the sixty thousand foot level to continue their operations inside Gaza. On the flip side, you're going
to have as well. It's going to be coupled with dialogue and talks on the United States side that who communicate their concerns to the Israeli government in terms of their military strategic approach inside Gaza.
So on one hand you have that.
And on the other you have a lot of it, in particular going to go that's going to go to the Iron Dome and to the other defensive systems that Israel maintains, especially following what you saw coming from Iran only a couple of weeks ago.
Regard just in the past couple of days, we've seen a few remarkable headlines coming out of Israel. The head of Israel's military intelligence unit has resigned, and there's reporting that the US State Department is now preparing to announce sanctions against a battalion within the IDF for human rights violations.
Considering the very strained relationship that we've talked about already between Joe Biden and Benjamin Ettia who leading up to this moment, how would you describe this moment we're in now.
It's a little weird. I'm not going to lie to you. That's the only term I can think of.
When I saw the news saying that the Biden adminstration was preparing sanctions on this one unit within the IDF. It's not that I approved at all in any way what that particular unit is doing. That unit, as far as I understand, is a unit that is manned or comprised of a far right Orthodox individuals who have been
previously accused of human rights abuses in the West Bank. Fine, but Israel is an ally, and so saying when you have a problem or concern, or you venly oppose something that an ally is doing, typically you hammer that out in conversation, in dialogue. And that's why I find it a weird use of the sanctions tool. Now, sanctions in
this regard what ends up happening. If you sanction that one unit, that not only means that the United States is not able to give weaponry to that unit, and they will prove that, they will have to continue proving that, but the owners will also fall on the Israeli Israeli military and government to also prove that or ensure that no weaponry, that is US weaponry, is going to that unit. So on on that front, I can support what the US is trying to achieve. I think I understand the
broader goal. I understand it because the US is trying to say, hey, that unit and in general, settler activity in the West Bank undermines you US national security objectives because we see a two state.
Solution as the long term sustainable solution to.
This conflict, and this settler activity directly undermines that goal. I agree with all of that. I just find sanctions are a bit of an aggressive tone to take at this stage, when Israel is in the middle of all this, at this time, to take towards this, I would have rather seen that handled in private conversations, even publicly.
By the way, it's.
Fine, and as the war dies down, if it remains a problem, then you sanction them. Fine, and then you've made your point loud and clear. But at this time, it just further highlights the strain that you're seeing and puts it out.
In the open.
Yeah.
Well, we've seen a lot put out in the open publicly, Higar, including what was escalating tension between bb NET and Yahoo and President Biden specifically over the issue of RAFA as the US pushes Israel not to potentially put at risk the lives of the million plus Palace Indians that are there, but now, especially that it seems the immediate direct conflict with Iran. Iran may have been wrapped up at this time for Israel, should we expect that it is Rafa next and potentially soon.
Well raf the airstrikes on Rafa have already begun on the part of Israel. And what's interesting, and I'm glad you're covering it because the other given what you had to be Iran and then and certainly given what you're having now with protests here across the nation and at universities including the university I teach at, it's the focus seems to be on that and not the fact that that things are continuing in Gaza, in particularly.
The air strikes on Raffa.
Now you have air strikes on Raffa, but we haven't seen this kind of full scale invasion and operation that we've all been waiting for or anticipating. But inevitably it's going to go down that road. I believe it will go down that road. They the Israeli is claim the Israeli government claims that they're going to be evacuating citizens, but we haven't seen it yet, and so it remains a bit murky.
At least from the public view as.
To where the Israeli military is headed with RAFA. Clearly they've made a decision to go in. That is not surprising. They've said that. I never had any reason to doubt it. But at what point will they be evacuating citizens in order to ramp those operations up is unclear to me. That said, they have also said that that would indicate the end of their high intensity portion of the war, and so we are hopefully reaching an end to that at some point soon.
But RAFA I expected to intensify further.
You've got members of the Senate Tom Cott and Josh Holly calling on Joe Biden to send the National Guard into Morningside Heights.
Can you talk to us Higar about how this is going to end?
On the campus of Columbia University and other campuses were coming up on the fourth of May, which is the anniversary of the Kent State shootings.
This is very real right now.
Well, how it ends is very unclear, and I can say that with a lot of first.
Hand experience being a an adjunct professor at Columbia. Right now it is a very difficult situation on campus and the administration.
Is really grappling and struggling with its response.
Because on one hand, you had the response last week where they invited the New York Police Department to remove protesters after.
They had been repeatedly and repeatedly warned.
That they were in violation of rules, that they had no right to stay there, and that if they didn't move, they would be forcimply.
Removed, and that's what happened.
Obviously, I was in support of that because I believe a university is it's a private institution, it's a private campus, and while students have the right to protest and exercise free speech, they don't have the right to violate Columbia rules and guidelines. And they certainly don't have the right to create a hostile environment for other students who are on campus whose main priority is to study and learn. And so they were removed, and that removal obviously has
created this reaction where the encampment is back. The protests have now spread to other universities, and you can see the university now really grappled with well, since that was a reaction to the police, do we double down on that or do we dialogue with them?
And that seems to be the approach they're taking.
Now they've allowed the protests, they've said that they're going to dialogue with the protesters. I can tell you that the protesters are not unified. Their demands are absurd. Some of their demands at least, they're very disorganized, and so they come off extremely unserious in negotiations because they're students,
by the way, at the end of the day. But that they're going to dialogue with them, and at the same time they shut things down to go virtual for classes and offered escorts, for example, for Jewish students attending satyrs, and that to me is wrong. I don't understand as a professor why I should go virtual and my students because certain students are creating a ard.
Comeback when we have more time. Hagar Shamali, this is Bloomberg.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast cats just live week days at noon Eastern on Appo, CarPlay and then roun Ato with the Bloomberg Business app demand wherever you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
I'm Kaylee Lines alongside Joe Matthew here in Washington, where we're broadcasting live on Bloomberg and television and radio from the studio, while we also kind of wish we could be a fly on the wall in the US Senate right now, because there's some debate happening on the floor,
at least speeches on the floor right now. The independent Senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders, is talking about this ninety five billion dollar aid package that is getting set for a few procedural votes and ultimately eventually final passage we expect later today or at some point wednesday.
Joe.
We just had the Republican Senator from Utah, Mike Lee, talking as well. What we're going to need to find here is some agreement on what amendments they're going to vote on and when, then a cloture vote, and then ultimately the real deal.
This is the sausage being made.
This is the part you're not supposed to see, but we're showing it to you live from Washington.
Here.
Procedural votes that will lead to real votes, and it might be really late tonight, Kaylee, maybe early in the morning. They're talking about whether to bring in the cots. They'll definitely be bringing in the fast food and the wine. You didn't hear it from me, but that's the way it goes around here. But yes, making an agreement here on how to use the floor time satisfying members of both parties in this case, Kayleie, you just walk through
that pretty well. There are Democrats and Republicans who want to be heard today, but it is not expected to change the outcome of this vote, and that's what we want to talk about with our panel. Rick Davis is with US Republican strategists Bloomberg Politics.
Contributed to join today by Pat Dennis.
Of course, back with us today, Democratic strategist and founder and president American Bridge twenty first Century.
Great to see you both here, Rick.
This is a foregone conclusion that these bills are going to pass, but what we're about to hear from the Mike Lees and Bernie Sanders of the world does tell us quite a lot about the debate around these bills. And that's not going to end when the President signs them, is it.
Now?
This committing will continue, people will continue to campaign on it. Look, it's a issue that the American public is relatively undecided about.
Right.
They've been moving around quite a bit on issues related to Israel and to Ukraine, and so I think these members want to start staking out positions. They're headed into an election year and they want to make sure that they get their bite in before the end of the weekend. But it's really a trading range on votes. You know, last vote on this was seventy votes in the Senate out of one hundred. It's plus or minus three or four votes, and I think that's where we're going to wind up tonight.
So as we're seeing some of these other senators taken some time on the floor, including Republican Senator Mike Lee, who we've mentioned, we did here on the floor earlier today, pat from Senator Mitch McConnell, who is the outgoing Senate Minority leader. He of course will no longer retain that leadership position after the election, but he has been fighting the fight on getting Ukraine aid through this chamber through longer'smore broadly, loudly and vocally, sometimes in the face of
serious opposition from members of his own party. We've talked a lot about how this package passing is a victory for President Biden, but is it too for Mitch McConnell potentially.
I mean, he's on his way out.
It seems like he's sort of you know, maybe trying to work on some of the stuff he actually believes. But you know, to a large extent, the MAGA faction within the Republican Party can trace its roots and its power back to Mitch McConnell in a lot of ways. And those are the ones who really are the reason this bill is six months later than it should be, after you know, significant setbacks in Ukraine and people dying.
It didn't have to happen. And look, I'm glad we're getting this bill passed.
I think Congress starting to work together and like actually get some bipartisan stuff done as a testament to Joe Biden's leadership.
And I'm hopefully he continued.
Just said a name that I haven't heard anyone mentioned in a while, Paton, that's Mitch McConnell, Rick Davis. What does Mitch McConnell do with this moment, having stood his ground and he's got something to show for it in this case, does he circle the wagons again? And I know that there's a battle here for the next leader, but while he's in charge, circle the wagons here and say take this lesson. You might want to listen to your leader next time.
Yeah, I think that this is as much about his legacy as it is about the future. If there are two winners in this entire drama for the last six months around Ukraine funding, it's been Mitch McConnell and Joe Biden.
Both have stug firm with their competing constituencies. Joe Biden certainly took a lot of gas from the left on his support for Israel, and Mitch McConnell has had to plow back the advancing populist mega Republican tiede in the Senate by holding firm on this, and they can both really feel good about the fact that they've done something special.
I would say, you know, Mitch McConnell will probably not be remembered for what I think is one of the more historic achievements of the Senate, which is a bipartisan bill on this issue that included the strongest title we've had on border security in thirty or forty years.
And you know, it.
Wasn't MAGA in Senate that stopped that from happening.
It got passed.
It's the MAGA right in the end, Donald Trump really specifically who deserves credit for killing that in the House. And we could actually be celebrating a really significant event here if they had kept that title.
In Well, Rick, you bring up former President Trump and the Maga Wright in the House. We know some members of that faction of the Republican Party, namely Marjorie Taylor Green, Paul Gosar, and Tom Massey would like to see the House Speaker Mike Johnson potentially vacated or resign as a result of this foreign aid making it through that chamber. And yet it seems Donald Trump, for the second time,
has stepped in to defend Mike Johnson. He was asked about him on John Frederick's media network last night and this is what he had to say about the House Speaker. Take a listen.
It's a tough situation when you have one. I think he's a very good man. I think he's trying very hard. And again, we've got to have a big election. We've got to elect some people in Congress, much more than we have right now.
So, Rick Davis, is Donald Trump guaranteeing that Mike Johnson will stay the speaker? Can Marjorie Taylor Green go against the de facto leader of her party, someone who she's very close with.
Well, I actually don't think Donald Trump can guarantee it, but Hucking Jeffreys can because he's got actual notes on the floor that would vote for Johnson, and I think Donald Trump only has votes that would vote against Johnson. Marjorie Taylor Green wasn't going anywhere with her sort of show vote maneuver. Her performative politics is exactly being laid bare now because there's nowhere for her to go, and
even Donald Trump thinks it's bad. I did have chaos in the House of Representative right before an election that didn't take much effort to think through that problem. So yeah, I think that Donald Trump is only going where he thinks is the safest place for him to go right now, and that's back in Speaker Johnson. But you know he backed Speaker McCarthy before throwing him to the wolves. So I wouldn't get too far along in my victory lap if I were Speaker Johnson right.
Now throwing him to the wolves.
Indeed, look, we've got a lot to witness left today, and if you're just joining us on Bloomberg Radio and TV, the process has begun in the Senate. We're actually watching a roll call vote take place now on a motion to table to kill this entire package that passed the House and was stitched back together again here in the Senate. It is expected to pass this bill despite the efforts to change it or kill it along the way, And it might come hours from now, it might come a
lot later. All the while, Donald Trump aforementioned, is in court today in New York for what was another half day, and Joe Biden is in Tampa campaigning Pat Dennis. How does Joe Biden leverage the momentum coming off of this, We're all talking about Mike Johnson and his political win, his political future. How does the president ride this to his benefit on the campaign?
Trill?
I mean, ultimately, what is to the American people's benefit is to Joe Biden's benefit. You have steady leadership, He's getting this stuff passed. You know, people forget, but you know Donald Trump was trying to get aid pass to Ukraine and wound up trying to extort our friends and ultimately got impeached to it over it.
Which is, you know, kind of a big deal.
I think what you see Joe Biden doing in Florida, though, is really showing the contrast between these policies where you know, Congress is doing stuff that actually works, passing stuff that the American people want, versus the state like Florida where you have these extreme abortion bands really hurting people's quality of life. And that contrast right there between the Joe Biden future and the Maga future is exactly what he needs to be doing.
Just quickly, Brad, we have less than a minute left. But why spend time in Florida with that message? Why not spend time in the swing states that are ultimately going to decide whether or not you get to be president for a second term.
I wouldn't write off Florida so quickly.
Look, there's a lot of discontent there with Ronda Santis' leadership, with Trump's leadership. And yes, there are other states. There's North Carolina, there's Michigan. My organization's going to be focused on Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan in particular, and there is going to be a lot of Joe Biden.
In all of those states. I can guarantee it.
So don't just think just because we're going to Florida, we're not going everywhere else.
All right, Pat Dennis, thank you so much for joining us here on Bloomberg television and radio. He, of course, is American Bridge twenty first century presidentocratic strategist and Rick Davis, a Republican strategist and Bloomberg Politics contributor. Today, as we still Joe are keeping an eye on the Senate floor, you're.
Listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast Kens Just Live weekdays at noon Eastern on Applecarplay and.
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We're trying to keep you honest on Congress today, and you know that's a tough job. But we're watching voting get underway here in the Senate. A motion to table the Foreign Aid bill that would bring money to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, also includes the TikTok Bill and some other matters is likely to survive this, but we have to go through the motions. There are going to be a few procedural hurdles, including the actual cloture vote that will bring us to real voting up or down on the
underlying bill. That's expected to happen late tonight. If today, we'll go through it together and let you know, of course what happens.
Here.
I'm Joe Matthew alongside Kaylee Lines in Washington. This is the day Kaylee the President says he will sign it, and one of the biggest backers of this effort, and we've been in touch with them for months. Here is the US Chamber of Commerce. Remembering there was a branding issue with this bill. We talked so much about foreign policy, geopolitics, and that's of course an enormous that's the backdrop for this, but the spending is largely domestic, investing in our defense industrial base.
Yeah, when we talk about the sixty plus billion billions of dollars for Ukraine, a large chunk of that isn't actually being sent over to Ukraine in the form of cash and suitcases. It's being fed into our defense industrial base so that we can manufacture equipment, largely to fill the stocks of what we already had sent over to Ukraine. And this could be a juicer of the US economy in many ways for that reason. So it's on that
note that we begin now with Neil Bradley. He is executive vice president over at the US Chamber of Commerce also serves as their chief policy officer. Neil, great to see you here in inner Washington, DC studio. You just days ago before the House passed this legislation, pend a letter to them urging them to pass this because you say, not only would it provide crucial funding and urgently needed military assistance to our allies, it would support a more
robust domestic defense industrial base as well. How important is it that this legislation passed for US business, for the US economy, Well, it's.
Critical when you think about our own defense industrial base. So there's one buyer largely, and that is the US military. And when we begin to mothball weapons, when we begin to slow down those supply chain lines, it takes a long time to start back up. We know that we are in a world that is more dangerous than it's been in a long time, and so the ability to modernize our defense industrial base and those supply lines is
critically important. And it's exactly what you just said. What we're doing is sending older weapons over to Ukraine, restarting our own domestic manufacturing facility, in many cases expanding them to refill our own stockpiles. It's kind of one of those win win situations. Not only are we helping the Ukrainians and the fight against an aggressor, we're improving our stockpiles of our own weapons and we're improving our domestic manufacturing capacity.
There's a momentum here and you're referring to it. It takes a long time to get it started again, as you just said, once you'll wind it down. And there's been a big conversation about under investment when it comes to the DIIV, the defense industrial base. With that said, if we're firing up the engines again here and in some cases expanding capacity. Raytheon has talked about the need to expand its manufacturing capacity. Where does that momentum bring us in the years ahead.
Well, it's a question of what do we need to sustain our own national security. Ultimately, at the end of the day, that's what's.
Driving sustained jobs.
It does sustain jobs. But listen, the driving impetus isn't to become a self gener to understobs machine. It really is our own national security. But we realize that when we make those investments, we want to maintain some base levels of capacity. And I think what experts have concluded is that we let that capacity, our ability to produce these things and get to a point where it made it harder to restart and ultimately was endangering our own security.
So I suspect that as we get through this moment in period, we're going to figure out what's the right sustainable level that keeps supply chains operating, that keeps these facilities operat and prevents a shortage, that prevents shortages and matches our needs. The other interesting thing that's going on here is, like in every other aspect of the economy, weapons systems are constantly advancing, and so you know, if you are if your stockpile consists of a model that's
ten years old, it is antiquated by today's standard. And the only way that you can keep up with the standards and the technology today is to be constantly innovating and manufacturing. So what we're building today is much better for our own national security, much more technologically sophisticated than the stockpiles that we're drawing down.
Well, I'm glad you mentioned technology specifically, because it's worth noting. While the Chamber is advocated for this package for its national security merits, this is not just funding for allies. There's been a few other things attached, including the TikTok divest Or band Bill, an expanded window. They now have a year potentially for that divestiture. But this is a specific private company being called out in legislation that is working its way through Congress and looks like it will
get a signature from the President. Does the Chamber have any concerns about the precedent this may set moving forward if we're now in the business of targeting specific companies and telling them who can own them and who who can't, and who can control their algorithms.
Without getting in the specifics of TikTok's owner shop.
Sure, just as an example.
As a larger question, there clearly is vulnerabil with our own national security that we have to guard against, whether that's foreign investment coming in or intellectual property sharing abroad. And we have mechanisms for doing this. You know, in the nineteen eighties late nineteen eighties, we created SCIPHIUS, the Program Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States that is tasked with making sure that we were viewing in that case, investments into the United States on in national
security grounds and protecting it from politicalization. So I think the important thing that we want to do is make sure that we're maintaining processes that keep the US open for investment, that keep the US engaged commercially with the world. But when national security comes into play, is making those decisions only on a national security basis, not based on political consideration.
So well, the Chamber take a stand on a lawsuit here is we're told this is about to enter a protracted legal battle.
We have not opened on this particular transaction. We do opine a along the strictures when people propose changes to Sciphius or regulating investments abroad. We have to get the system right. And if we have the system right, then we can kind of resolve some of these questions that have emerged about kind of the political nature.
Of the decision making.
Well, speaking of political decision making, it's also worth pointing out that this TikTok bill, the supplemental funding, this has taken months to get across the finish line in Congress after months prior of talking about it. Has taken us a long time to get to this moment. It's now mid late April. We still have about seven months to go a little less until the election. Can we expect anything else from this Congress in that intermittent time period.
Is there anything else they're going to be able to get done or it's all campaign from here?
Well, let's hope it's not all campaign. Listen, we're realists. We know it's an even numbered year, it's a presidential election year that is going to dominate a lot of the consideration. But if you think about this bill that the sense processing, you're right six months ago. This should have been done a long time ago. But it's been the principal issue that everyone's been waiting for the House to act on. The House acted on it over the weekend, and now we're wrapping it up for it to go
to the president. The big priority that we see unfinished business on Congresses to do plate is actually a tax extender's bill that passed the House of Representatives overwhelming bipartisan votes, something like three hundred and eighty some votes. It's now sitting in the Senate. We're really looking for this may
work period as a chance to get it done. Importantly, if it doesn't happen now, there's really no prospects for it to happen next year, this year, or maybe for quite a while into next year, which means that we're going to keep in place tax increases that on a bipartisan basis, everyone agrees shouldn't have occurred. And these have
real ramifications for business. You know, for small businesses that make R and D spending, the median small business has seen about a thirty five percent tax increase just as a result of moving from deducting R and D expenses to amortizing them over five years. I can't find anyone who thinks that's a good policy idea. So I have no idea why we're not getting Congress to fix that.
We're spending time on balance of Power with Neil Bradley from the US Chamber of Commerce. Is an important vote today, the FTC is going to vote on whether to ban non compete agreements. Now, this is being framed as a pro worker effort. What are you hearing from your members? What does it mean for employers?
Well?
I think there are two issues. FIRSTUS, the policy around non competes and non competes literally go back to the founding. People had non compete agreements when they were apprentices in workshops. So this is not a new idea. It's always been regulated at the state level. States and courts have adopted different theories. The idea that we would ban all non competes, which is what Lena Kam first proposed, is so radical that Governor Hokele and New York just veat tota bill
that would do that exact same thing. Now, we don't know what the final policy parameters are going to look like, but we think that there's actually an even more important issue at stake here, and that is the authority of the FTC. Under their one hundred and twelve year old statute, they judge anti competitive behavior in their anti trust role on a case by case basis. They've never and no one's ever believed they have the authority to write rules
regulating competition in the marketplace. And the reason is is that if they can write a rule under the guys of banning non competes or limiting non competes in this space, there's no aspect of the economy that they couldn't, under the guise of regulating competition, issue a regulation on They put out a policy outline in twenty twenty two where they talked about things like loyalty programs. Well, are loyalty programs anti competitive because they lock you in as a
consumer and rewarding a company over an over. Do we really think that three people at the FTC get to decide whether or not we have loyalty programs? They suggested things like in the M and A space, mergers and acquisitions that are currently legal under current law could by regulation become illegal. That's Congress's job, not the Federal Trade Commissions.
And so we're quite worried about this power grab that it's really opening a Pandora's box to regulate prices, to regulate commercial arrangements between parties, to really get into any aspect that they want to to regulate.
So the Chamber is going to take the FTC to courd over this.
We will take the FTC to cords if they pursue.
All right, on that note, we will leave it. Neil Bradley of the Chamber of Commerce, thank you so much.
Thanks for listening to the Balance of Power podcast.
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