Sound On: FBI Seized Top-Secret Files at Mar-a-Lago (Radio)

Donald Trump himself is raising. Off of the fact that it overshadows all the news is a negative for the Biden campaign. Bloomberg Sound On with Joe Matthew on Bloomberg Radio. The search warrants has been unsealed. Welcome to the fastest hour in politics, as we throw out the script on a breaking news Friday. We have learned a lot about what the FBI was looking for at Mara a Lago and what it seased, and we've assembled some of the smartest minds in law and politics to help us make

sense of it. All. Will be joined this hour by Brad Moss, partner at Mark's Aide, specialist in national security and security clearances, by Michael Zelden, former federal prosecutor and later Joel Rubin, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Obama administration. A specialists as well on high level security clearances as a deputy assistant Secretary of State, will have much more of their expertise coming up along with our panel. The signature panel is in place with Rick

Davis and Jennie Chanzano, Bloomberg Politics contributors. We have a lot to share with you. As we turned to the big breaker here, a lot of folks thought they'd be talking about the Inflation Reduction Act, which is going to get a vote at some point. We're told I spent about six hours in the house waiting for that to happen today, but I needed to come talk to you

about the news that took over the headlines. And so here we are Bloomberg Bureau in Washington, d C. With the headline d o J cited Espionage Act in Trump warrant. FBI found secret files that already is a lot remembering this search happened Monday. Heads exploded Monday night into Tuesday, and we have been waiting ever since to find out what was inside the warrant, remembering as well, we heard nothing from the Department of Justice until yesterday when Merrick

Garland spoke to the media. The only person who really could have told us what was in that warrant otherwise was the man who tipped us off about the search to begin with, Donald Trump. And what a lot of messaging from him today. So the list of information ceased, as I read on the terminal includes documents labeled with various classified T S, s c I documents. You're gonna hear that a lot that refers to top secret and

sensitive compartment and information. This is Washington speak, a government label from material gathered through sensitive intelligence sources, methods or analytical processes. Now, before this came out out, we're going to balance the legal and political sides of this for the for the balance of the hour, Republican leadership in the House held a briefing. They're here to vote on the Inflation Act today and wouldn't have any of this.

An incredible pre bottled, if you will, to the warrant being unsealed at least defanic of course, a member of the Republican House leadership from New York. President Donald Trump is Joe Biden's most likeliest political opponent in and this is less than one hundred days from critical midterm elections. The FBI rate of President Trump is a complete abuse

and overreach of its authority. And as the American people know, unfortunately, this is the same agency leadership that protected Hillary Clinton, James Comey and continues to protect Hunter Biden. We're hearing a lot about Hillary Clinton. Of course, James Comey, well, he ran, he ran the agency. Mark Waynemullin, Republican from Oklahoma, also Republican House member hit in the drama again on

Hillary Clinton, point out the double standard here too. You know, we we we saw that the this media frenzy about supposedly classified information. Where was the same media frenzy when there are thirty three thousand classified emails on a server in a bathroom with here Lee Clinton. Why didn't they raid that bathroom? Why they work with her to find out a time, a date, and what documents they could and couldn't see. Makes you start wondering did any of

them know what was in the warrant? Representative Chris Stewart, Republican from Utah was certainly reaching. Look what's happened over the last five years, and look at the premise of most of your questions. Was it nuclear? Was it heck, maybe it was aliens. That's the point. We don't know. We're asking them to tell us, and until they tell us, then we're gonna have questions like this and the presumption is going to be that it is political. Turns out

not aliens included them. It's your reals. Removed from Trump's home. Eleven sets of documents, not eleven documents. Eleven sets of documents labeled classified, confidential, secret, and top secret, twenty boxes in total. Other items included on the list a handwritten note the executive clemency grant for Roger Stone, some photographs and information. This one releases what information about the president

of France? It's got stuff on mcron. The items were seized during the execution of a search warrant signed by a Florida judge. And what a life the judge must be having. Let's start with our first voice of authority today, Brad Moss, as I mentioned, partner at Mark Said, specializes in litigation on matters relating to national security, security clearance law, the Freedom of Information Acts, the Privacy Act. Clerked for

the National Security Archive. Brad, we couldn't think of a more perfect person to start off with here, having heard so much confusion around fund all of this, and to see the Espionage Act cited here, did this just get a lot more severe for Donald Trump. Yeah, so this is pretty interesting. So just you know, off the bat, the Espionage Act is the worst titled law around. The majority of the crimes listed in the Espionage Act have

nothing to do with spines. Yeah, it's about unlawful um stamp storage, handling, and transmission of information related to national defenses from World War One. UM. But the fact that that's being cited is the provisions in there that are being we're going to be relied upon our felonies which potentially huge criminal sentencing h implications if convicted. That's bad for the president, for the former president. That is they

have found in these documents. We've seen it in the inventory list, all these different sets of classified properly marked, properly classified records up to and including as you mentioned t S SCI which is top secret, the highest level of classification and sensitive compartment and information which means they only slept groups of people even normally have access to it. Those are the most sensitive secrets up to an up with UH special access programs. Very few people ever see those.

There's no reason the president should have been holding onto that at mar Lago. He sent a series of messages today, some of them pointing, while one of them pointing to Barack Obama. Strangely, that was knocked down very quickly by the National Archives. Then there was another one that came in midday. Here. Number one, Donald Trump writes, it was all declassified, effectively confirming everything that he had been questioning.

Number two, they didn't need to seize anything they could have had at any time they wanted, without playing politics and breaking into marra Lago. I'm already confused. Number one, the Justice Department does not think they were declassified, right. And number two, they apparently felt a need to seize these secret documents because they had asked repeatedly for them to be handed over. Am I am I getting closer

to understanding this. Yes, correct, So let's be clear. All of this first was supposed to have been handled over eighteen months ago. It was never supposed to have gone walking with him down Florida. It's it took eighteen months just to get these things back. It took twelve months in February of this year for him the first ship back fifteen boxes of records, which included all manner of

class fight information and probably marked class by documents. In June, FBI agents went out there with a subpoena and they found more documents and they were given in. He allowed to inspect the area, the basement where these things were sitting. And only then two months later, after negotiations were breaking down, did they finally say enough is enough. We're going in to get these records. Nobody else would be allowed to sit there with sets upon sets of T, S, S

c I documents sitting in their basement. They bent over backwards for him. But to the other point, this thing about declassifications, This will be their primary defense if there's an indictment that he, when he was president, declassified this stuff. And let's be clear, up until the moment Joe Biden took out took the office, Donald Trump had the authority, unfettered discretion to declassify anything he wanted, with the exception

of anything covered by the Atomic Energy Act. He could have declassified these documents, but it requires more than a verbal order, and there's no indication he did. That's interesting because his lawyer has suggested that basically, if the President of the United States thinks it declassified, than it is. But there had to have been a formal process that was not gone through correct So he could have sat there, pointed at a set of boxes and said, I want

those declassified, or I'm saying they're declassified. That's great. That doesn't do anything. You have to literally go document by document, Every single one of them has to be declassified. There's markings that have to be ex baxed out, the stamp that has to be put on it saying when it was declassified and by whom and under what authority. You have to go through that. Until you do, you cannot as a private citizen post presidency, hold onto them because

they still have the markings on them. They're still supposed to be treated as classified. Is all of this on the president? We understand others boxed up these documents. They were stacked up in different places. I mean, is the chief of staff called out for this? Is the secretary? How does this work in terms of who gets final eyes on this stuff? How the heck did it end

up in Florida with nobody knowing about it? Yeah, So in a normal competent administration, after the election, there would have been immediate negotiations between the White House staff, the White House Counsel's Office, any number of government staffers coordinating with the National Archives, and they would have transported documents into a secure, secure facility, sorted through it, figured out where everything needs to be stored, and started archiving in

in anticipation of an eventual presidential library. That didn't happen with Donald Trump because he spent most of November and December, in early January trying to fight the loss in the election. They only started going through this stuff two weeks before he was set to leave, and they just had staff throw everything in boxes that was in the residence, that was all across the White House the boxes and put it on a truck and set it down to Florida.

That's not how it's supposed to work. So these classified documents sent up in the same boxes as Roger Stone's clemency grants, and what is this? What do you make of this information about the president of France? So I'm not sure what that is. It doesn't sound like it's

actually classified information about the president of France. It sounds like it was sitting in the same box with the Roger Stone information that could have been just about anything, but the fact that the inventory lift provides information on that and doesn't on any of the classified documents makes me think it's something totally unclassified. This is why we wanted to talk to him before we did anything else. Great conversation and insights, Brad Moss. Thank you for being

of us on Bloomberg Sound On. How about that? That's more than you've heard anywhere else today, isn't it. I want to assemble the panel before we bring in Michael's Elden for the view of a former federal prosecutor. There's a lot of politics going on here. Rick Davis and Jeannie Chanzano are with us. Thank god Bloomberg Politics contributors. They make up our signature panel. Rick, this has been a heck of a day in Washington. You just heard

Brad walk through this. Does this feel more potentially damning than it did yesterday? You know? I I think It's

appears more damning, mostly because of Donald Trump's comments. If he had just stayed quiet through the course of all this, effectively confirming this, you mean confirming it and then denying it, and then denying his confirmations I mean the point you were making about all the different lines that he's putting out there on one day, Rick, you know, he claimed there was no classified information and he claimed he had already declassified. Well maybe that's not mutually exclusive, but um,

I must say, I've never seen anybody deconstructive selves. I mean, you can tell why many Republicans are running for the hills from this guy today, because what do you defend? He's changing his opinion on it by the hour. A lot of them were not though, Rick, you heard some of the folks I played, at least de Fanic included who. I mean, gosh, it's pretty hard to find a Republican in the US House or anywhere in Washington right now who's calling out Donald Trump on this. No, nobody's calling

him out. But this was the freak of the freak show today. I mean, Stefani gave it credibility by being there. But this was the group that has stand tall for Donald Trump all throughout and have been promoting every conspiracy theory known a man. So the fact that we're even reporting what they say is I think a stretch away. Genie Uh, Donald Trump, among his uh statements issue today,

one of them was very short. President, he writes, President Barack Hussein Obama, he wrote the full name, kept thirty three million pages of documents, thirty three million, much of them classified. How many of them pertain to nuclear He asked? Where it is? Lots? Well, every reporter in Washington called the National Archives on that, and and of course, you know Obama World. They were quick to provide, uh evidence of that not being true. The National Archives scooped all

of that up and keeps it safely here in its warehouse. Uh, we're going to hear about Hillary Clinton emails and I guess Obama documents until November. Oh we are. It is a Donald Trump back to deflection blaming other people. But you know, as I look through the documents that were released today, what is so stunning to me in terms of the laws that the d o J are saying we're potentially violated by possession of this material is two

oh seven one. And this is why at least Stefanik is talking about less than ninety days to the election. Penalties for that if you were found to be guilty of it include you are not unable to hold any office in the United States. Now, scholars differ in terms of whether that applies to the president, because qualifications for

the president in the Constitution are pretty clear. But that to me is a major question here because they are saying two oh seven one and that is a potential penalty for violation of that And that stood out to me right away as that's listed at the top of this unsealed warrant. We are holding the warrant here in studio. Our panel each has a copy as well, dated August eleven.

How about that, um, United States District Court, Southern Districts of Florida, Rick, how long can that party line continue? You just you just keep either quiet or supporting Donald Trump and still Election day. Yeah, I think I think that there will be a noticeable silence by most Republican office holders, you know, out of Washington. I mean, they're

gonna head home for recess. They're gonna focus on campaigning and and and they're gonna hope this dies to on because this does not help turn out the vote for Republicans, you know, in the midterm elections. So, uh, talk about a distraction. I mean we've talked in the past about how Donald Trump has a way of showing up. Is the major issue right before an election that has nothing to do with the campaign that anybody's waging. And here we go again. Uh. Whether or not he means to

do it, he has a knack of doing it. Yeah. There will not be one single commercial favorable to Republicans about the Donald Trump raid at mar Lago. So, um, you know, here he goes again. And uh. And so I think that, uh, there will be responsible Republicans who speak out and say, hey, we've got to get to the bottom of this, this is bad for the country and bad for our party. But but I suspect those will be fueling far between because the head and sand

strategy has been what most Republicans have done. Has the White House been smart to keep quiet on this genie? They've been pretty buttoned up this week. Yeah, they have been very smart. You know, when your opponent is getting himself or herself in hot water, just keep quiet about it,

don't get involved. They've been trying to do that. One problem for the White House is, of course, what is happening on Capitol Hill that you've been watching all day, which is an enormous success for them in terms of the potential passage soon of the Reconciliation Act, the Inflation Act Reduction Act, and you know how many people have

been focused on that. I noticed we had Steenny Hoyer Chuck Schumer out on the air waves today and every question they were asked had to do with Donald Trump first, and then at the end, Oh, yeah, you're passing this. That's great, good luck and move on. That's a problem for Democrats. So Donald Trump, to Rick's point, once again, stealing the thunder of almost everybody, maybe to the demise of some Republicans, but the White House has got to be able to get on message about this. I Rara, though,

wonder maybe she does mean it. How do you how does that happen when you're not even planning it, Rick and Janie or with us for the hour, of course, we wanted to just check in with them very quickly before we now connect with Michael Zelden, former federal prosecutor, former special counsel to Robert Mueller while at the Department

of Justice. Michael, it's great to have you back. We last spoke when we didn't know a lot about this, and I'll tell you I keep hearing about the Mueller probe by a lot of mainly Republican lawmakers who are saying, hey, come on, Democrats have been chasing this guy, Russia, Russia, Russia collusion, all this business. They've never gotten anything to stick. How come this is going to be different? Does this feel very different to you? It really depends on the

will of the Justice Department. Remember in the Mueller years we had the Bar Justice Department. Then that was a very different approach to law enforcement than the Garland Justice Department. I think that had Garland been Attorney General during the Mueller investigation, he may well have considered bringing obstruction charges with Mueller, which Mueller outlined in Volume one of his report. But that was then and this is now, and we'll just have to see how America views the seriousness of

this and the prosecute to prosecutorial worthiness of it. They may be content to just get these documents back, secure them, make sure the national security hasn't been compromised, and be done with this. But if they feel that he has maliciously or with reckless disregard concealed or mutilated or destroyed documents, they may feel an obligation to prosecute. So we're dealing with three specific federal criminal laws and it's important that we try to break this down for our listeners, which

is why it's great to have you help us do it. Uh. The first here part of the Espionage Act, as as folks have been hearing us, It makes it a crime to remove or misuse information related to national defense. Another makes it a crime to hide, damage, or destroy government records. And a third makes it a crime to falsify, destroy, or cover up records to obstruct or interfere with a federal investigation. Do these three seem obvious? Is there a lot of overlap with with the three? What's your reaction

to these being cited? Well, they all deal in some way or another with concealment of documents or failure to return them. The statute concealment removal of documents without authority the three year felony. Then seven three the next statute side it is whoever has possession of a national defense document and through gross negligence, permits it to be removed, or,

knowing that it's been removed, fails to report it. That's a ten year felony, and then fifteen nineteen whoever knowingly conceals, destroys, cover ups, etcetera. With the intent to obstruct or impede an investigation is a twenty year felony. So you see the range of possibilities here, and what is appropriate, if any, will be determined by the Attorney General and his team as they look through these documents one by one. At the gross level. You can't say which of these applies

most applicably. But um, but that's the point, right, you throw all three up there, and then you know that can be figured out later. Exactly do the penalties for any of these as as we have heard many Democrats suggest, disqualify Donald Trump from serving in high office. Again, Well, nineteen um implies that a federal investigation, right and and um.

One of them, specifically two oh seven one says if you've been if you've been convicted of this statute, having willfully and unlawfully obstructed, removed, concealed, et cetera, you shall be disqualified from holding any office under the United States. So one of them carries this disqualification. But many constitutional scholars who I have spoken to once I had a sense that this might be a statute. Yeah at play have said, you know, I'm not so sure that that's constitutional.

I'm not so sure that Congress has the authority to disqualify someone from holding office by merely concealing a removing a document, so that would be a big constitutional test. It's yet another one. We need another one, Michael, we need a constitutional test in this kind of I haven't had one in August yet, have we exactly? Um, this

is very helpful for us to understand here. What then, since we just spent the last four days wondering what was in there, just everyone talking without knowing what they're talking about. Michael's elden, what's the next most important thing for us to learn what's in the documents and whether or not the just moment will release them, release the

contents of that outside of illegal filing. Remember, Merrick Garland has been very clear that he only speaks through his court filings, so short of leaks, we're not going to hear officially from the Justice moment. Oh, by the way, in box number six, we found a document which says something that's not going to happen. So the question will be will Merrick Garland file something that we get to see or will there be leaks of the contents and

we'll get a hint of what's going on. So everything now depends on what we can learn about what's inside of these twenty boxes of documents that were just carded off and the boxes that came before that, I mean thirty five boxes documents. When you think of a boxer a banker's box up documents, it's sort of a file cabinets draw worth of materials. So they're like thirty five filing cabinet drawers. Uh, that that were inappropriately taken by the President's hard to say that that was by accidents

or inadvertence. I clearly need a bigger garage. I don't know what I would do with that. Man. You know what we're gonna hear, though. We're gonna hear is what about is Um? What about Okama? What about that? We're already here in exactly we'll hear that, and then we'll also hear the defense that well Trump privately and secretly declassified these things. So there's much ado about nothing. Michael Zelvin, you've been a great help to us this week. Thank

you for the insights. Today A lot more straight ahead. This is Bloomberg broadcasting live from our nation's capital, Bloomberg to New York, Bloomberg eleven Frio to Boston, Bloomberg one O six one to San Francisco, Bloomberg nine sixty to the Country, Serious, XM General one and around the globe, the Bloomberg Business app and Bloomberg Radio dot Com. This is Bloomberg Sound On with Joe Matthew with breaking news from Capitol Hill, because we need more. We saw it

common Actually they voted late in the House. Now does have the votes to pass Democrats climate and tax bill. There it goes. The vote on this package ongoing, but Democrats have the numbers that means build back better, soft Infrastructure, Inflation Reduction Act, whatever you want to call it, is on its way to Joe Biden. We turned back to what we learned today from the unsealing of the search warrant, and there's a lot to talk about here in regard

to not just top secret information but nuclear documents. What does that mean? As we turned back to the matter at hand, there's so much in this docket that we're talking about here, Espionage Act, secret files that the FBI has compiled T S s c I documents and then this reference to nuclear documents, which could pertain to a lot of things. But of course we heard the from the other side of the aisle that is not taken part in any of this business with the FBI rate

and in many cases defending Donald Trump. We've been through that this hour. Mike Turner, Republican from Ohio, on the idea of classified nuclear documents earlier today in the House, I can tell you that there are a number of things that that are classified that fall under the umbrella of nuclear weapons, but that are not necessarily things that

are truly classified. Um. And many of them you can find on your own phone as we as we stand here, and if they fall within that category, they're not an imminent national security threat that would rise to the level of you have to raid Donald Trump's home and spend nine hours there. I did check my phone, and I didn't find any, um. But I'm not sure exactly what he was referring to. To be perfectly honest with you, it's just a fascinating narrative going on in Washington. Nothing

agrees here again. Joel Rubin, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State of the Obama administration specialist on Iran and Russia, held high level security clearances as a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, served to the Bush administration for a time as well, with us now on the fastest hour in politics, Jowel, There's a lot to talk about here, but specifically when it comes to nuclear what do you how do you react to Congressman Turner on that that that a lot

of essentially classified documents aren't really all that classified. Joe, I'm a gast. Mike Turner is a congressman who for years has been known as a quote nuclear hawk, that someone who has been a major advocate for America's nuclear infrastructure, for unlimited spending to ensure that we have a safe arsenal, one that's effective, for being tough on foreign adversaries who have or want to possess nuclear weapons. Russia and Iran

come to mind. For him to gaslight in this manner to talk down the severity of the nuclear information that may very well have been loose and Donald Trump's home is just shocking and deeply pointing and for all of us who serve the national security uh quite frankly, uh dizzying. It doesn't make sense, Okay, But from a factual standpoint, are there grades of classification when it comes to nuclear documents?

Can you explain that? You bet? I mean, and the grades were on the boxes that we're taken out of Mara Lago. UH. There are there are Q level clearances, it's known, which is the highest. That's the nuclear of a certain level of expertise. There's Top secret U s c I, which is sensitive compartmentalized information, which is UH for a limited amount of users. We call them consumers of that information, policymakers, and then it goes down to

top secret and then down the secret UH. And so nuclear couldn't compass variety of things from plans about the actual infrastructure, where targets are, where infrastructure is located, to information about our adversaries. It runs the gamut. We do not know what's in those boxes. And the mere concept that we're even thinking about it is a complete threat to our allies who are going to be worried about what has been exposed, and it undermines confidence in our

nucle air infrastructure. So back away from this because we're obsessed with specifics today. We were so hungry from them for them. But a lot of folks are asking, well, what in the world was Donald Trump doing with thirty five boxes down in maral Ago? To begin with, explain why that's a problem to begin with, because let's say the records, the Presidential Records Act and some of the stuff. Okay, fine, you know what, people need to calm down. This guy was the president as as we heard from UH, I

believe it was actually Congressman Turner. Today he's got more classified information in his head than he ever had in a document. What could happen to this type of material being left relatively insecure as we know before the FBI asked that additional lock was put on the door. What what type of threat does that present if it's actually living with a former president? Yeah, you know, you just

don't know. And that's why any of us, all of us who received security currences, we were trained from day one in a training about how to make sure you take care of your secure classified material. Uh. The number one line was, you can't take it home with you. You just don't take this stuff out of the secure facility. You leave it there, You leave it in the locker, you leave it in the room. It never leaves. It is unknown and for over a year plus it's sitting

in mar Lago aDNA thieves. Who knows who's running around that place and who knows what foreign adversaries are buying tickets to go hang out with the president and meandering through the hallways. Label, so we don't know. That's getting a little closer to a legitimate threat. Direct threat. You don't bring secure classified material home to an insecure location ever, and the president United States is not exempt from that either. This president playing fast and loose with the nations secrets

puts us all over. We've talked about this, the fact apparently that that Donald Trump didn't actually box up all this stuff. He had stuff everywhere. Some of these documents were stacked up. Uh, some of them had nothing to do with each other. Some of them had been torn up apparently, and so that you know, they scooped up everything in the oval, they shipped it all down to Marrow Lago. Uh does that suggest intent maybe on behalf of someone else? Does the chief of staff take the

fall for that is? Did Donald Trump even know it was in those boxes? So much for the buck stops here right, um, because those days are long gone. Uh, it's his house, it's his property. He was warned early on after he left office that he had boxes and materials and need to be returned to the government. He refused to turn over boxes for months. It's the repeated request, right, That's what makes this so Uh. He was subpoena in June and they refused to comply. This was not a raid.

This was an enforcement of a subpoena that the target of the subpoena refused to respond to. He knew it clear as day, Joel Ruben. Great to have you with us, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State with us on Bloomberg Sound On. These are the kind of voices you hear on this program that makes sense of what in the world is going on without reaching to the right or the left. We just reached for the expertise. We're gonna reassemble the panel next. Rick and Jeanie coming back. I'm

Joe Matthew and Washington. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg sond On with Joe Matthew on Bloomberg Radio. Just another case of remarkable timing on a Friday in the summer in Washington. Not the timing Joe Biden, I'm assuming was hoping for or any member of the Democratic leadership, even though they don't seem to be rooting for Donald Trump today. But you know this is the big vote in the US House. This is what guys like me were sent

to cover in Washington today, the Inflation Reduction Act. Look, this was a big deal. It was a big deal a week ago when the Senate passed. It was a big deal a year ago when it failed. Back then it was called build back Better. This just happened a moment ago. On this boat. The a's are two hundred and twenty. The names are two hundred and seven. The realized solution, the motion is adopted. Nancy Pelosi and the

Speaker's roster, Democrats in the chamber standing and applauding. Injection emotion to we consider is laid upon the table, not a soul on the other side of the room. But that's done. Let's going to the president now. Breaking news, and you know when news breaks, we need to let you know about it. To the point of our panel earlier, though, do you think anybody's gonna hear about this if they don't listen to sound on Just dial around and look

with the other news agencies are talking about. It's Trump, it's mar Lagos, the FBI. Let's bringing our panel, Rick Davis, Jennie Chanzano, Bloomberg politics contributors. Uh, we hit this already, Uh, Jeannie, not not good timing for Joe Biden. But maybe in the end this ends up being like a golden day for him. Was this the end of his potential uh campaign against Donald Frump? Yeah? As Biden would say, this

is a big, big deal. He'd use another choice term, he would, and I won't use it, but it is an enormous Dealil buttons for that's just just block me. But you know, this gives the Democrats the opportunity to go back home. But you know, eighty eight days essentially before the mid term and say we delivered on the major campaign promise. And really, as as you know, I've been, you know, completely pessimistic about their ability to do this against enormous odds with a fifty fifty Senate, And these

are really important developments. To slash greenhouse gas emissions by to extend tax credits. You know, we're talking about clean energy, We're talking about minimum corporate taxes, We're talking about enormous changes to health care. You know, the list goes on and on. Big priorities for Americans across the board, and the White House has shown and Congress importantly have shown they can deliver. And so yes, it's been drowned out by Trump today, but there's three months or so that

they have now to go talk about it. And will it change what happens in Congress in terms of the makeup for the next term. Who knows. But these are big deals and it's going to make the losses they feel in the fall less than they may have been. You know, one of the big stories in the last twenty four hours, Rick and you guys talked about this, I know yesterday is the idea that Joe Biden they're

moving ahead with a campaign. Whether he announces as another matter, but they are taking the sort of going through the motions of making this happen. Does this actually potentially backfire on Joe Biden? If if if this, you know, this gets Old Trump at the knees here, it doesn't He's not able to run again. Did that just make it much more difficult for Joe Biden to be reelected? Um,

you know, that's a good question. I think that Uh, you know, there's it's a binary question as to whether Biden runs and if he does run, who he runs against. If he doesn't run, what does that mean for the field of Democrats and and I think that's really where

people's heads are right now. I think that kind of trying to figure out what's going to happen on the Republican side, especially after the events of this week with the investigation ramping up on Donald Trump, not just the one that that resulted in the FBI go into mar Lago, but all the others that are actually piling up right now. Um, it's just too hard to tell. I mean this, I've never been in an environment where there's so many political

unknowns about the future of the presidential cast of characters. Um, you know, arguably four months before that campaign starts. I mean usually you can handicap the whole thing by now, and in this case, you can't even move until you figure out who the top, Uh, what happens with Biden, what happens with Trump. Yeah, well, I'm gonna remind everybody that the first debate is set for June. We're gonna have a debate in June. We do not have a

lot of time to figure this out. And look, unless something changes, and it feels like the earth may be changing under our feet in some ways, inflation is going to be the story right, it's not. This whole story about Donald Trump is fascinating. Larry Summer is talking about this, UH in a really interesting interview with Bloomberg, of course, dismayed the former Goldman Sachs guy dismayed that certain tax components, including carried interest, were taken out of this bill at

the last minute. I think it's very sad how much UH special interest lobbyists we're able to stop things that are clearly in uh the public interest. Okay. I asked Jim McGovern about that today. I asked a number of Democratic lawmakers about it, because Larry Summers was supposed to be the reason why this was good. He said it

would lower inflation. Jim mcgoverned, the congressman from Massachusetts chair of the Rules Committe, spent a lot of time arguing for this on the floor today, and he appeared on Bloomberg Live. Well, look, I would just I would also point out the Larry Sumbers is encouraging everybody to support this bill, as our economists all over the all over the country. Uh, Okay, this bill will help UH lower

the deficit. This bill will lower the costs of prescripture drugs for senior citizens who are lower the cost of healthcare for millions of millions of American families. And in addition to that, it is the biggest investment to comple combat the climate crisis in our history ever. So this is a huge historic moment. Now the question becomes, how do you remind pe because nobody's talking about it today, Jeanie. There has been talk of a national tour, how about

a whistle stop tour? But Joe Biden on a train and sent him off for a month. Is this the kind of thing? Remember that's what they said they wished they had done after Obamacare. That's right, and you know he should be out and about, you know, whistle stop tours, taking a bus however he wants to do it. Um, I'm not you know, we don't know how many Democrats are going to want him in some of these swing states,

but he can go where he's wanted. But you know, I think you know there is a a as big of a deal as this is, and it certainly is. Larry Summers does have a point in terms of this decision at the end, and particularly driven by Kristen Cinema, to you know, allow what's what seems to be a hypocrisy for for many progressive and liberal Democrats that you know, they opted out of the closing this loophole and allow

really wealthy investors to continue. So there is a point to be made there because of all the things that they opted not to do the fact that it was that, and we understand why Kristen Cinema wouldn't get on board without it. But it does raise real questions in people's minds as to why and what she was getting out of making sure that didn't happen. It's gonna be an

interesting weekend ahead here, uh Rick. Most of this story until today, really, well until Marrick Garland's spokester, has been all about leaks, right, we heard, I guess the becush leaks from everywhere and all sides of this story. Brightbart for crying out loud broke uh this warrant earlier today. That would be Steve Bannon's operation. Um does Donald Trump bring us in on some of this now? How does he manage any damage control from here? He's still actually

holds a lot more information than the people covering him. Oh, I'm I can't wait for midnight because I guarantee he'll start you know, tweeting on his uh, I guess you can't call it tweeting, uh. Whatever he does on his social media event. I think he is uncontrollably uh desirous to try to manage the flow of information here. Look, he was the reason Brightbart got that that warrant. He had it and gave it to them and and so so he's playing the game. He's trying to control the

narrative on here. The problem is his efforts to control the narrative. Keep catch it up with him. I definitely think Mark Garland got the best of him this week. He put him on defense. He didn't play it well. Trump on offense can be something to behold, but Trump on defense is a disaster. And that's where he finds himself going into the weekend. I'll tell you, Genie, does it Does it hasten his announcement for president or delay it?

You know? I think I've always thought that it hastened to the more that he is under legal pressure and it looks like the d O J you know, or you know, whatever happens with these many other lawsuits, whether in Georgia or New York or elsewhere that he's facing, that is going to be something that he is going

to seriously consider. And we heard that after Monday he was celebrating, by all reports, with Republicans the fact that this was a politically motivated raid, as he called it, and that for that reason he was likely to announce earlier, and more Republicans supported him in that than they had before the quote unquote raid. So I do think he's going to use it, and he is fundraising off of this.

He has been since Monday, so he is had been a boon for him in that regard, and I think he will continue that and likely will announce as a result. We know that the d o J could take some time before we learn more here, Rick, do you expect another you know, visit to the podium by Marrick Garland before November. You know, it's interesting. I mean some commentary today which I found fascinating was, well, maybe this is

all they wanted. Maybe they just want to get these secrets back into control of the government and get them out of the basement of Donald Trump's place. So it's not about being punitive. We just need to protect the information right and so you know, at the end of the day, we may never hear another thing about this. If they choose not to prosecute for any reason, this is all the story that there is UH, and they feel well, UH, satisfied that they've received the material, they

may choose not to prosecute. So I think all these options are ahead of us. I think there's gonna be, as you've described it, a leak central, right. I mean, you know, everybody's going to be trying to push a narrative, and I suspect um. You know, for the balance of August, this is what's to dominate our attention because Congress goes home, they've accomplished their task, and now the vacuum is going to be filled by Donald Trump. The Sunday morning shows

ought to be a riot. I'll have a bloody Mary. Thanks to everybody for being on the program, including of course our panel, Rick Davis and Jeannie Shanzano. We couldn't do it without them. Every day, Brad Moss, Michael Zelden, and Joel Ruben are experts helping us decipher what is in the warrants. Beat you back here on Bloomberg