Sound On: Fall COVID Warning, Ohio Senate Debate Clash

From Ohio, I don't kiss anyone's ass like him. Ohio needs an ass kicker, not an ass kiss. Floomberg Sound On with Joe Matthew on Bloomberg Radio. Is there another dark tunnel looming? Welcome to the fastest hour in politics with two big mornings for Washington Today. The I m F says the economic outlook is worsening globally thanks to inflation, and the White House says another COVID surge could be

on the way. Tonight, we explore both with an analysis from Bloomberg Economics editor Michael McKee and from Dr Ja Varmah, chief medical advisor at the Croll Institute. Later this hour, Republicans in the House plan to use next year's debt limit deadline to squeeze concessions from Democrats, including possible changes

to social Security. We'll talk about that with Bloomberg's Jack Fitzpatrick, who broke the story, and we'll try to make sense of it all with our signature panel back together today Bloomberg Politics contributors Rick Davis and Genie Chanzano here for the hour. Today we peek over the edge of a couple of major political risks with four weeks to election day, the economy and COVID both being discussed with urgency today

in Washington. Will start with the warning from the International Monetary Fund the i m F today cutting its outlook for global growth. It's been a big story throughout the day on Bloomberg, a market mover with risks of a miscalculation by the Fed or other central banks around the world. Again, this is a global view, ever increasing. White House Press Secretary Karine John Pierre was asked about its day. If you listen to this program, you can probably imagine the answer.

We believe that they have the strongest monetary policy to deal with this moment, and we are going to allow them to do the work that they are currently doing. I'm not going to be responding to um to any actions that they're taking, because we truly do believe in the independence of the fact. Well, Mike McKee will get into it with us, Bloomberg's economics editor joins us. Now, Mike, welcome back to Washington. Thanks to be here. So the I m F spooked everyone today. It's kind of interesting

to see the market reaction, but we woke up. The real doom and gloom this morning is the I m F warns of a worsening outlook. They cut the forecast for global growth and it's boy, this is the conversation the White House does not want to hear, right, Well, they don't want to hear it, but they knew it was coming. The outlook is a doer downbeat. Uh, however you want to describe it. Basically, they see the economy

in worst shape than they did in July. And that's a combination of the ongoing war and the impact on energy and inflation, and the possibility that central banks could overtighten and send the global economy into recession. There seems to be the sort of growing narrative on Wall Street that you hear on Bloomberg TV and radio every day, with very few people expecting a soft landing or the odds of recession higher now than they were a couple

of months ago. I think the odds of recession are higher now than they were a couple of months ago. But there are still some aspects to the US economy that suggests that it's a narrow window, but they might be able to pull it off. You look at the jobs report last week, and it was stronger than people anticipated in some of the underlying areas, particularly for unemployment. And so if we're going to see inflation come down, uh an, unemployment not go skyrocketing. That's what the Fed

wants to see. The old status said vacancies. Job vacancies are falling, and so if people are who are who become unemployed or taking jobs that are out there, then they could do perhaps a soft landing. But we're still waiting for the other side of that equation, inflation to come down. Well that's the problem here, right It doesn't a report like Friday give j Powell just even more encouragement to pull out the sledge hammer here frontloading in a way that maybe we don't know how long that's

going to take the kick in. Could they have already overshot, Well, they could, they're betting that they haven't. We get the CPI report on on Thursday morning and it is expecting to show that inflation is still rising, but at a slower pace. And if that's the case, then the Feed is going to feel they're getting closer to where they need to be. Perhaps not. A lot of this depends on what happens with the opaque announcement of higher oil prices.

Is that going to push up inflation again? But right now, what the FT is thinking is they're almost They either are or are almost restrictive enough on the economy, um not stimulating the economy anymore, but actually retarding its growth. And if that's the case, then they feel they will be able to stop, but they think they need another hundred five basis points before they get there. Once they get there, then their plan is to stop and just leave rates there for a long time. And that's where

people get nervous. Markets get nervous that they've already priced in at least one cut next year because I think the Fed can't sustain that. So they'll be a test of Wills coming up. You know, there's a conversation happening at the White House fairly quietly, although we've heard Dr fauci Uh talk about it openly, And that is the possibility of another COVID surge this winter, with potentially a new strain that could escape vaccines. Is that a game

changer for the economy from what I understand? No, No, I'm not an epidemiologist or a doctor. I don't even play one on TV. But I do keep up with the latest news on it. And there are new strains, there are new variants, and wintertime is when these coronaviruses come back around. So every epidemiologist seems to be saying, yes, get prepared for another wave. But because so many people are vaccine and so many people have had it, we're getting past the serious illness death face. Still a lot

way too many people dying. But but that doesn't worry about supply Chaine. You're you're not going to have to shut down economies, is as the general feeling, unless there's some sort of surprise variant out there, and so that is less of an issue than it was. What's more of an issue is COVID running through China because unless and until they change their one there's zero tolerance policy for COVID, then you're gonna see supply chains shut down on a regular basis. One of these days we'll talk

about something positive. But hey, we didn't touch the job market. So Michael McKee, thank you for the expertise. Is great to see in Washington, happy to be here. Of course, there's no way to really predict what happens with COVID here or anywhere, but it is still here in the US and winter is coming. Dr Anthony Fauci speaking to the USC endin Berg Center for Health Journalism about what

could be ahead. I think it would be a bit cavalier to all of a sudden say we're completely through with it, because remember we were going in the right direction in the summer of one, and along came delta. Then in the winter November December of one, along came a macron, and since then we've had multiple sub lineages of a macron. Fast forward to today, we heard from a Shisha, the White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator, with more specifics.

So predictions are always hard on these things, right, because the virus continues to surprise us and continues to evolve. UM. There are three or four subvariants that we are tracking most closely. UM. They are you know, in different parts of the world. UM, and they all arise either from A B A two or A B A five kind of lineage. And the reason we're tracking them is because they either have a lot more immunovativeness or they render many of our treatments ineffective. And so we turned to

another voice of authority on this issue. Dr Ja Varma is back with US medical advisor and fellow at the Cruel Institute. As you might remember, he was former spokesperson an architect of New York City's COVID nineteen pandemic response. Doctor, it's great to have you back. How worried should we be about winter? Well, there are basically two things that we've come to expect, you know, since this pandemic began, which is that every winter there are more COVID cases

due to the change in seasons. And the second that the virus finds a way every two or three months to produce a new variant that can increase the risk of infections. So I don't think Americans need to be sort of unduly alarmed compared to previous winters. Um. But it's just very important to emphasize that one of the other constants throughout this has been that getting up to date in your vaccines is the best way to protect yourself and your loved ones from getting seriously ill. That's

why a Shia was out there to begin with. He was speaking along with the Press Secretary Karine Jean Pierre, about the new combined vaccines that they're encouraging people to get, but he also talked about the unknown doctor into this, the curveball that we got last last Thanksgiving with O Macron. None of us, obviously can predict that with any certainty. So our job is to not be in the prediction business,

but to be in the planning business. And so we have a whole set of efforts that we're leading in the U. S. Government to be ready should Mother Nature throw us a true curveball like what we saw last night, what should that response look like? Dctor not knowing what's going to happen. But O Macron, you know, stopped this in our tracks again, and as we just heard from

the White House coordinator, it could happen again. Yeah, so there is a doomsday scenario that exists, and I'll explain with that is in a moment, but I personally don't see that. You know, based on the data that we see globally right now, the doomsday scenario would be a new strain of the virus that evades all of our pre existing community and by all of our immunity. It means that immunity that protects us from getting hospitalized and dying.

That does not appear to be the case based on what we can see out on the horizon right now. Doesn't mean you couldn't emerge in the future, and unfortunately that happened. You're basically talking about a new pandemic and restarting those questions about you know, closing down you know, economic activity. I don't think that is a discussion or a scenario that is likely to happen any time in

the future. I think the most likely scenario is, you know, hospitals getting overrun and what can you do to basically decompress hospitals, especially in those areas that have low uptake of vaccination. We obviously know how to work from home. Uh And I had asked this of Michael McKee before. Not everybody can and if we did have another Oh, Macron, what would it mean for for doc workers, for people

who work in the shipping industry. Could there be worse supply chain issues than we've experienced or or anything on the scale that we've seen. Well, you know, I can tell you from my experience here in New York, we had a perfect test of the question about you know, is it the virus that shuts down the economy or is it aggressive public health policy actions? You know, And what we saw last December during Omicron is zero effort by city or state government to restrict business activity. Yet

store everywhere we're closed because people were sick. And it really reinforces what those of us in public health say, which is the greatest drag on the economy is not the actions by the government to control the virus. It's the virus making people sick. And like you just said, not enough employees showing up at work to you know, take those goods off the docks that are are what we all survive on. And of course funding becomes another issue here. Uh, doctor, we didn't get any of the

money that the administration asked for from Congress. Are we're gonna be paying for tests and vaccines in the near future. Yeah, and that's really what a lot of that money was meant to do what we need, you know, because we don't have a universal health care system in this country. UM, it's incumbent upon the government during emergencies to provide at least you know, essential free medical care for the priority diseases.

So that means the test reflections. When these numbers start to go up, people are going to start to care again. And you'll remember this conversation with Dr Ja Varma. Thank you doctor. The panel's next, this is Bloomberg. This use Bloomberg Sound on with Joe Matthew on Bluebird Radio. Winter is coming and it could bring some very real challenges to the Biden administration, beginning with the economic trouble we

just talked about with Michael McKee. Of course, it was just yesterday that Jamie Diamond, JP Morgan Chase predicted a recession on CNBC. This again, it's fairly typical. You know, markets go down for you know, people forecast the economy, et cetera. The I P O market closes first, that's kind of happened, hiye closed a second and structure credit. That's kind of happened for the most party, things can get done and then it starts to affect other credit.

You saw with the guilt markets. Here you see a lack of liquidity and a lot of markets, a lot of intermediates can intermediately like we used to because of regulations. It is going to happen. It is going to happen. He's seen it happen before, he'll see it again, adding there as well at the S and P five could drop another that's not a recipe when you consider the potential upstick in COVID cases that we were also just

discussing with Dr J. Pharma. Let's assemble the panel, Rick Davis and Jeannie Schanzano back together for our signature panel Bloombird Politics contributors. Rick, how concerned are you when you hear this kind of a conversation happening? What is it? The eleventh of October? Knowing that winter could bring some tough news on both fronts. For sure, it does seem in this case where the economy and its decline is

leading this time the COVID surge potential. So I think last time we saw COVID brought the economy to its knees maybe the economy can bring COVID to its knees. So uh, I think Jamie Diamond is reflecting what is out there in the marketplace. And and you couple his comments with a lot of what we're hearing out of the Fed right now about real questions is to how to tackle inflation. It seems resistant to the growth in

the jobs market. Um. You know, you really start to wonder whether or not there's a plan out there this sort of try to manage through this process. Layering on a potential COVID surge. Uh, you know, would just exacerbate those market forces like supply chain disruption that caused by healthcare that could really complicate the economy. It's the White House ready for this union. You know, I'm not sure they've quite wrapped their head around it. I have to say.

You know, you add on to the I M F and Jamie Diamond Bank of America saying the economy is going to lose a hundred and seventy jobs per month and unemployment rises to five point five. You have a president talking at fundraiser about armageddon and the potential for nuclear war. And as a poster, I look at the polls and people wonder why are voters feeling so insecure. Well, they are feeling economically insecure because they're believing what they're hearing.

They're believing what they're hearing, and, quite frankly, in some ways, and I don't say this often, they are ahead of the experts. I mean all the talk about we're not in a recession yet, voter have for a long time been telling polsters, we don't care what the experts are saying. It feels like a recession right now. Don't tell me gas prices are lower, because I'm feeling pretty insecure. So

I think the insecurity is out there. And the reason I'm not sure that White House has grasped it is why would the President have been talking about nuclear war? You know, these are the signs that they haven't quite grasped. That's not the message they should be sending out four

weeks to the mid term. Yeah. The message that the White House has been sending out through a Shia and Dr Faucci, though, is that Look this, I know the President said the pandemic was over on sixty minutes, but think otherwise we are not where we need to be if we're going to be able to quote live with the virus. We've talked about this up and down, Rick Davis.

Since the twenty two billion dollars requested by the White House was not put in legislation to basically end the session here would have likely ended up in the Inflation Reduction Act, although there were many vehicles that came before. It not gonna happen. Will people complain or blame the admitted station if we have a lack of supplies or if God forbid we have to start paying for this stuff ourselves. Sure, after the fact, people will complain, no

question about it. But if you look so far, people going for the Amcron booster, which has been out there quite some time, has been really lackluster, so they almost have nobody to blame but themselves. You can get an omacron booster today if you want it, and I know this administration said publicly many times they're very disappointed with how many people are going out there to do that. And that is how you avoid a winner surge, is by having these boosters in place so that there's a

level of immunity that can take care of it. But Jennie, if it's still it's a boot line at Trump rallies. He won't even say the word vaccine. He says, I'm not gonna say it, and they all start booing. They know even though that well, I mean he he helped his shepherd the development of the vaccine and took it himself. This remains a political issue, it doesn't. I think that explains why the President goes out and said the pandemic is over, and yet we are looking at Europe. There's

a surge in Europe and half hospitalizations, cases, deaths. We've always seen that come before the United States. So we may see that reach our shores. We hope we don't. And Rick's right, people can get the next booster. But honestly, if you ask people about this next booster, most people

haven't gotten it and haven't even heard about it. And that is that that that is at the hands of public health officials and the administration and Congress, to your point, who didn't fund the billions of dollars needed to get the word out and get us ready to face another potential surge. Rick, you're a crisis management expert. The White House have a special room with the bunch of spreadsheets slate out here gaming out various options for both of these.

How do you how do you prepare for something you can't predict? Well, I think a lot of what the White House tries to do is make sure that they're able to meet the crisis when it hits, you, right, I mean they they've seemed like they were really more adept at dealing with a crisis once it hits then averting the crisis to begin with. And in some cases

there's nothing you can do about it, you know. There they are running advertisements on boosters, for instance, and you know if if if people don't go get them and you have a surge, they're gonna they're gonna have to deal with that search. But this is where they get marked down, is this administration has not responded in a way that shows competence. Rick and Jennie are together and

for the hour on Bloomberg Sound On. We'll have more of our panel ahead as we turned back to what's happening on Capitol Hill and what might happen with the death ceiling next year. Jack Fitzpatrick with an exclusive Next, This is Bloomberg broadcasting live from our nation's capital, Bloomberg to New York, Bloomberg eleven Frio to Boston, Bloomberg one oh six one to San Francisco, Bloomberg nine sixty to the country, Serious XM Channel one nine and around the

globe the Bloomberg Business app. Then Bloomberg Radio Dot or This is Bloomberg sond On with Joe Matthew. We spent the first half of this hour talking about the economic and COVID risks facing us this winter. Up next, we stare over another cliff, a fiscal cliff. It sure kind

of sounds like if Bloomberg Government's Jack Fitzpatrick. We'll be up next with an exclusive here talking with key House Republicans who want to use next year's debt limit deadline to pull concessions from Democrats, and they are looking specifically at the major entitlements. Of course, so many people wondering what will happen with the mid terms and will the House actually turned to Republican control, And assuming that happens, some interesting things we're going to be on the way,

as Jack Fitzpatrick reports from Bloomberg Government. Social security and Medicare eligibility changes, spending caps, safety network requirements all among the priorities for a couple of important Republicans in the House who are interested in serving as the next Budget Committee chair, and this could be tied with the debt limit that brings us to the whole idea of the fiscal cliff. He's with us now in studio. Great to

see Jack, it's been a while. Yeah, thanks Fair. This was Chuck Schumer on the septemn Government funding is set to run out Friday at midnight, roughly forty hours from now, and there's no reason at all for us to get anywhere near that deadline. And we really didn't. I mean, I guess we walked up to it, but nobody was ever predicting a government shutdown. That wasn't part of the strategy this time. After I read your peace and I will encourage everyone to find it on the terminal. It's important.

We could be having a very different conversation next year. Yeah, this would actually be much more explosive than the shutdown deadline to the You know, a shutdown is not a good thing. A debt limit standoff is the kind of

thing that Janet Yellen has described as catastrophic. If the government cannot make payments that it agreed to make on the debt limit cuts those off and they don't have a deal that could cast doubt, that would cast doubt on the federal government's ability to make its agreed upon payments.

It would be a huge deal. It's much more of an explosive kind of deadline that is coming around the third quarter of next year UH than a government funding one, because the repercussions of a failure would be much worse than a government shutdown. It would it could be combined with one, right, but sometimes they do, UH, combine them. But the the real issue here is that Republicans are kind of gearing up and saying, all right, that's the biggest point of leverage that we will have, especially if

we win the House and or Senate. UH. There would need to be a deal of some sort to suspend or raise the debt limit to avoid that catastrophe. And they are in conversations among themselves now to say, what would our opening offer be, what would we consider a sort of victorious compromise UH. And I was a bit surprised to how directly a number I talked to all the members who are interested in being the next jet chair on the Republican side, who said social security and

medicare need to be a focus. It may be the case that lower hanging fruit would be some sort of quote unquote welfare reform, work crime and s that kind of thing. But they're they're pretty direct about saying, you know, raising the age of eligibility for Social Security and Medicare. One member said, more means testing, limiting who it applies to, focusing it more on poor and working class people. But you know, targeting some sort of negotiations on those two

major entitlements is something that they're talking about. It's something that Joe Biden's been talking about because Rick Scott had had this, had this idea and in the other chamber, right, it was part of his competing plan with Mitch McConnell to have sunset provisions for some of these major entitlements. Uh, this is essentially what the White House has been warning of. Yes, the White House Democrats, Uh, they are sort of on

offense on these issues. There was a bit of a lull during the Trump years when Republicans kind of stopped talking about trying to reduce spending on Social Security and to care in some way sort of the end of the Paul Ryan era into the Trump era. It wasn't clear how much this was going to be a major devisive issue on the campaign trail, the Republicans seem to

get to be getting a bit more at it. Uh. And you hear the president talking about you hear Democratic candidates going on air with attack ads on Republicans citing Rick Scott's plan. The Republicans Study Committee Budget, which is the largest caucus of House Republicans, somewhat leadership aligned, has has you know, proposals for increasing the rates of eligibility,

things that have been characterized as privatization. So this is a big issue that you know, if you remember the old ad Democrats ran, it was showing Paul Ryan pushing a grandma off a rooftop. I believe was the thing that we're kind of getting back to that on the campaign trail here. All right, well, but your energy is palpable here. Uh And and and this is why people

are going to run to read the story. But before they do, bring us into your reporting a little bit here, because I don't see anybody else with this and the and the the sort of our struggle that's happening ahead of a potential change in power in control of the House has got to be leading a lot of these lawmakers to be talking to you. Is this messaging or is this real agenda? Um? You know you can get

ambitious if you're one of these safe seat conservatives. It's is notable that these are not swing district members who are feeling under attack themselves. The people Jason Smith, Jody Arrington, Buddy Carter, Lloyd Smucker, Kevin hearn is the budget guy for the RSC who I mentioned, These are people who are gearing up saying, hey, we as a House Republican Conference need to decide what's our opening offer on the

debt limit? What would we consider a victory. They are not in say Ron Johnson's position in Wisconsin and that tough Senate race. So there's a bit of a difference between a swing district member who doesn't really want to get aggressive talking about this kind of thing and somebody gunning for a leadership position who has a safer reelection bid. These are not really household names when it comes to lawmakers. Is is there any ranking in terms of who's leading

the race here the potential next year? So Jason Smith is he has a it seems a pretty good chance of actually becoming ways and means chair if he gets that and that's an even more influential position. It opens it up for the others to go for budget chair. It seems quite clear that if he does not get it, he would remain his budget chair. Uh, it's you know, it's an influential enough position so that they would help leadership go to their members and say, what are our demands.

How can we get the votes to avoid a catastrophe? What do we attach to that debt limit measure to get something fiscally conservative out of it? What could Democrats get out of this or are they going to be on the ropes if they lose the House. They don't have that that leverage anymore. They would be on the ropes. And it has been a bit surprising the Democrats have not been gearing up to try to get this done ahead of time in the lame duck. I think they're distracted.

They've got a fund of the government. They're they're trying to do the same sex marriage bill, and the lame duck they have other things to do, and Congress doesn't get things done months and months and months before the deadline. The latest estimate is the deadline is the third quarter of next year, So that kind of puts the power in the Republican's hands because they think they're gonna win at least one chamber if they do in the House.

Just lastly, does December sixte become more significant or are we going to have a funding mechanism that goes beyond the middle of December. There's a portion, the conservative portion, the Freedom Caucus guys are saying we should not take a deal in the lame Duck. We should kick this into next year. There's a there's a division among Republicans. I don't think it's a catastrophe there. There could be a deal, but there is a push to delay that

by conservatives. Great reporting from Jack Fitzpatrick, who of course we love to hear from on Bloomberg Sound On as he often holds this microphone. Thanks for being with us, Jack, great job, Bloomberg Government Congress reporter will reassemble the panel next for their take. Rick and Janie are on the way. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg So On with Joe Matthew on Bloomberg Radio, the fastest hour in Politics. Thanks for being with us on the radio, on the satellite,

on the podcast. Enough scary news today to get us through Halloween. It's only the eleventh of October, and I haven't even talked about the debate last night. It wasn't scary, Actually it was I thought fascinating. J. D. Vance and Congressman Tim Ryan in Battleground, Ohio showed up for the game, both of them, at least in my humble opinion. And we'll hear momentarily from the panel on this well rehearsed

and ready to rumble as you might expect. The big issues were at hand, and I really saw it as a microcosm for the national debate that we talked about every day. Here quickly opening remarks. Here, just a snippet to give you a sense of how this began, and we'll bring in Rick and Jennie. Here's J. D. Vance off the top. You know what issue he's pointing at, inflation. Simultaneously, they've borrowed and spent trillions of dollars that we just don't have, and that's thrown fuel on the flyer fire

of the inflation problem. And at the same time, they've completely gone to war against America's energy sector. And you can't do both of those things at the same time. They're each bad ideas, but when you do both of them at the same time, you're gonna get record inflation, which is exactly what you expect to get. How Tim Ran, of course, just supported all of these policies a hundred

percent of the time. Response from Tim Ryan those policies, all those bills that Democrats voted for, bipartisan infrastructure bill that's going to create six hundred thousand jobs here in Ohio. JAD advances against that. Rob Portman, the Senator who currently holds a seat a Republican, helped put that deal together.

Look at the Chips Act, lands, the Intel project, that's gonna create a hundred billion dollar investment into Ohio, that's gonna ripple throughout this entire economy, supply chains, average wage hundred and thirty five thousand dollars a year just from last night. We have a lot more where that came from Rick Davis and Jennie Chanzano or Bloomberg Politics contributors of course our signature panel. Uh, Genie, this was quite

a go around here. I don't know if you agree with me, but these seem to be fairly too, fairly well matched and very well prepared candidates, and it was a largely substantive conversation despite some of the arguments that we've seen over the last year. It was a feisty debate and it was well worth watching, and they hit on so many topics. I mean, I have to say everything from as you mentioned, inflation and China policing and same sex marriage and you know, the borders, certainly crime.

I mean, it was you know, it was substantive. I agree with you, and you know, I think our assessment all along has been that this is a really, really tough state for Tim Ryan. But if any Democrat can, you know, to take on the herculean task of of flipping Ohio, it would be Tim Ryan. He is quite

a formidable candidate for Democrats. He does take on his own party in his own leadership, but it is still really an uphill battle for him, and he's facing a candidate that I have to say, I was surprised by how strong vance came out last night. The real clear pole of poles. The r CP average has j d Vance up by one point four percentage points. Did he surprise he was, well, Rick, you know, I wasn't really surprised by him. I mean, he was tenacious candidate in

the primaries. He he knows his stuff, he's a well, he's kided guy. I mean, I wasn't surprised by his debate performance. Um. Uh. If anything, I always thought this as being sort of a real professional uh. Tim Ryan a veteran of Congress, and j D Vance you know, Uh, somebody who has used the written word. Uh. No, no doubt that he can do well with the spoken word

to advance his career. And so I've been watching this race very closely because I don't think there's a more important state out there than know how, and I don't think there's a more important race in this one, because this one is truly a dead heat, and and different from others where the differences between the candidates are pretty substantial. Uh. These two guys are party line guys, and Jade Vance is carrying the Republican line and Tim Ryan's carrying the

Democratic line. And and the reality is they didn't stray far from that in this debate. There were a couple of um I would say, gratuitous moments last night, um and uh one on each of their sides, but that didn't attract from a generally UH, I think a very helpful debate for for voters of Ohio. So you would disagree with Congressman Ryan that he is closer to Rob Portman. I think he was making that suggestion there in that line than g d Evans. Yeah. No, look, I mean

there's only one Rob Portman. Uh. Look, I mean it's pretty clear to me and all the debates that I've watched this year is Democrats are running away from Joe Biden in the Democratic orthodoxy, right, it's just not selling out there. They are critical of this administration on inflation. Uh. And the only place that they really sound like orthodox Democrats is when they start talking about abortion, which is the one issue that they seem to have some advantage

on going into election day. So, um, I think it's it's much harder for a member of a party to distance themselves from that party. Uh and and co opting uh Rob Portman. I'm sure he's very impressed with his uh standing in the state coming to an end here, But the reality is, uh, most voters vote along party line anyway right now. And so the idea that he's gonna get Republicans to vote for him just because he thinks Rob Portman is a good guy, I would say,

is shooting in the wrong direction. Okay, Jennie. Each candidate questioned the other guy has fitness for office. You know, you shouldn't even be here kind of thing, and they did let their differences air out. Tim Ryan really took control, grabbed the wheel with both hands when he went after Tim h J d Vance and his relationship with Donald Trump. I'm gonna walk you through the way this works here again,

his Congressman Tim Ryan. And I think the problem is when you have guys like J. D Vance who can't stand up to anybody, Like just a few weeks ago in Youngstown on the stage, Uh, Donald Trump said to J. D Vance, all you do is kiss my ass to get my support. He said that that's bad because that means J. D Vance is gonna do whatever he wants. Mitch McConnell's given him forty million, he's gonna do what he wants. And Peter Teal gave him a fifteen millions.

Gonna do what he wants. And here's the thing that's most troubling about this lack of courage is that after Trump took J. D Vance's dignity from him on the stage in Youngstown, J d Vance got back up on stage and said, start shaking his hand, take a picture, saying, hey, aren't we having a great time here tonight? So look, whether this is important to you or not, Actually, Tim Ryan was pretty accurate here. Here. Let's go to the

seventeenth of September. This is Youngstown, Donald Trump in New York Times to a fake story today big front page that j D wasn't sure if he wanted my support. J D is kissing my ass, he wants my silp? What's up? I'm eighteen points up. If I was eighteen points down, he wouldn't want my support. And then yes, j D. Vance was introduced to come up, brought him up on the stage at the podym. We're having a

good time. Is a great day of the president? Back? While? Okay, so Tim Ryan essentially what he said again, you may not care about that exchange, but it's one that we spent a lot of time on last night. J D. Vance came back following the attack from Ryan. I'm not going to take lectures on dignity and self respect from a guy caught on video kissing up to Chuck Schumer and begging him for a promotion to his next job. That's the kind of guy that Tim Ryan is now.

He just said, it's so funny. We're gonta close to Halloween and Tim Ryan is put on a costume where he pretends to be a reasonable moderate. You know what I'm gonna ask both of you here, Jeanie Chanzy, No was this a draw? No? I don't think it was a draw. There was a lot of kissing, but it wasn't the kind that if there's any kind of love on either side. But you know, I don't think I

don't think it necessarily was a draw. And I'll tell you why I thought that, j D. I thought that Tim Ryan rather, he was able to differentiate himself in an important way. I mean this whole exchange about that you just played, so I won't repeat the bad words. Um, you know that came Becau has Vance kept accusing him of being in Congress for twenty years. And this is why I was surprised by how good vance His performance was, because he's not a politician. He hasn't been in office

like Ryan. But Ryan was able to come back and he was able to say, and this is where I disagree with with Rick that I have not held the Democratic party line I've run against Nancy Pelosi, I put ads out early on China. I've been with Trump on NAFTA and defense, and I opposed Joe Biden on many things. So he was able to say that he is not a typical Democrat, and I thought he did that very effectively, And for that reason, I did not think it was

a draw. I think Tim Ryan made himself heard in terms of who he is as an independent moderate voice. Whether that wins over Republicans is another question, And for that reason, I thought he did better. But I thought Vance did a good job for somebody who's not accustomed to debating like this. What's your thought on that reckon? Does this move the needle? Well, look, I mean I think by most polls that you just discussed um uh

Vance as a slight lead UH. And it's a good year for Republicans, and so it's really incumbent upon Tim Ryan to change the dynamic and and and pleading UH with Republican and swing voters that he's not they're kind of Democrat after serving twenty years Congress and pulling the

party line is gonna be really hard for him. So when you look at what Vance has got to do, to get his vote out and find that extra four or five points to be elected, versus what Ryan has to do, which is turning himself into a pretzel in order to convince people that he's not a real Democrat and overcome a deficit of probably two or three points. Man, I'd rather have that Republican line every day if that's

the set up. Fascinating. Uh, We've got some important debates coming uh this week, the culminating with Friday Herschel, Walker, Raphael Warnock or any of these debates, Genie going to change the landscape. Because there's been a lot of single debate races. That's one of them. I'm assuming it's a one and done for for Walker and Warnock. Are we gonna get to a point where these are a thing of the past. Yeah. I Mean I've been frustrated, as

you know about the lack of debates. I wish there was more, but of course our candidates and campaigns they don't want them. The one I'm really going to watch as a Walker Warnock because of course in debates, you know, you can't do harm. That's the that's the rule. You shouldn't harm yourself. And I think there's a potential that herschel Walker, again new to this style of of of politicking, could do that. So I think that's going to be

a very important debate to watch. Otherwise, I don't think it changes much, and if people vote party line, it's not going to change anything. Rick, you prepared candidates for House, Senate and presidential debates, which you encourage your candidate now to take as many debates as possible, or that's an age gone by. I think if I were advising herschel Walker's campaign, and I would never try to do that, I would tell him run from any debate that he

could possibly be offered. So it depends on the candidate. I think he means, Rick, great to have you back. Rick Davis and Jeanie Schanzano. Can't get enough of these two. That's why there are signature panel on the fastest hour in Politics. I'm Joe Matthew. This is Bloomberg