Now from our nation's capital. This is Bloomberg Sound on Main Justice tried to get our office to remove any reference to individual one who was president from If it happened, I think you'd have problems in this country. The likeship which perhaps we've never seen before. It was unprecedented and scary. Bloomberg Sound on Politics, Policy and Perspective from DC's top name. That was a bounce. The good news is you just won.
The primary news is if you hold this position on elections, or you hold this positions on abortion, you're gonna lose by picking point Bloomberg Sound On with Joe Matthew on Bloomberg Radio. The US makes a significant offer for the return of Brittney Grinder and Paul Wheeling, but no one has answered the call. Welcome to the fastest hour in politics. This day, President Biden meets with Grinder's wife and Whelan's
sister to keep Hope alive. Talk about the aspects of a prisoner swap and why it's taking so long with William Butler, professor of law at Penn State. Same sex marriage legislation will have to wait until after the mid term elections. Will get the latest from Capitol Hill from Bloomberg Government's Emily Wilkins and analysis from our signature panel. Bloomberg Politics contributors Rick Davis and Jeanie Chanzano are with
us on this Friday. There's renewed interest, if not urgency, around the cases of Brittany Grinder and Paul Wheelan, of course, the two Americans being detained in Russia, because President Biden today meets with Grinder's wife, Cherrell, and Elizabeth wheel and the sister of the marine to assure them that their detained family members remained front of mine and try to get some attention on this. As John Kirby today said at the White House, part of the idea here was
to get this back in the conversation. Kirby, of course, spokesperson for the National Security Council at the White House. He talked about it today in the briefing room here he is discussions are ongoing. UM. I think Karine said it really well yesterday. Sadly, we don't have a result here to tell you about, but the President felt it was important to continue the dialogue with the family members. That's happening today. We have stayed in touch with them throughout.
We have kept them informed throughout um. But the negotiations are still ongoing. But the negotiations are now taking place, and the Russians have made some kind of significant response. They have not responded to our offer. They have not
responded to our offer. I thought there were reports out there that this had been rebuffed, remembering that the Biden administration proposed swapping Grinder of course, a basketball star here, Olympic gold medalist, and Wheeland for for Victor bout If from saying it right that this is the arms dealer, Russian arms dealer they call the merchant of death, was sentenced twenty five years in and a second Russian also
held in the US jail. This went from two for one to a two for two Victor boot Thank you Rick the Merchant of Death. And so there are a lot of questions right now about what's taking so long and if the U s has any leverage at this point, with the war in Ukraine going on, and obviously a lot of other world events that are challenging these negotiations.
Were joined to talk about it by William Butler. John Edward Fowler, Distinguished Professor of Law at Penn State, author of Russian law and legal institutions and back with us here on sound On, Professor. It's great to have you here, number one. Were you surprised to hear today that we have not had to reply, we haven't heard back on this offer. I didn't expect this to be an easy negotiations,
so I'm not surprised. I wouldn't suspect that both sides are excellent negotiators, and they each have objectives they want to reach. So if two for two isn't it's acceptable, or at least the two that are on offer aren't acceptable, and either they'll have to go to a larger offer or reconsider their positions. Well, this is a tough spot we're in here. Uh. The White House is obviously trying to put some light on it today, getting people like us to talk about it again and get more questions
being asked out in the public space. But what leverage does the US have right now with this war going. I'm not sure that we have much leverage in and of itself. We have her appeal pending, of course, and it's possible she may get some relief from the appeal, but it's also possible she may not. Other than that, I think it's just a question of two sides who are experienced negotiators coming to an acceptable solution. But you
see a solution coming at some point. Well, since I'm not close to matters at all, it's easy for me to say that they might consider the possibility of a larger exchange, that if two for two is not considered to be equitable by one side or the other, they might go to three for three or three for for even. You specialize in international and comparative law, focusing principally on on Russia, and I wonder your thoughts on this case. I mean, do you laugh at the idea of an appeal? No?
I do not. I don't know precisely the grounds for appeal. Leniency is certainly one of them, but there will maybe other points that the Council have raised. So there's obviously some opportunity there. But when you consider the straits that that that Wheeland is in as well, Uh, how long can this go on for? I mean, this is the they're they're being held in terrible conditions from what we understand. Uh, they're not always in contact with their families. What else
can be done for them in the meantime? Well, confinement such as they're experiencing is not pleasant under any circumstances. You can go on, of course, until they complete the serving of their sentences, that would be no result to the ciations. Do we have anything to offer them that that doesn't impact the war, that doesn't actually involve the war in Ukraine? Do we have leverage elsewhere? As we approached this conversation, It's not obvious to me that we do.
That's why I was thinking in terms of possibly expanding the offer to more people becoming involved than two on each side. Does Vladimir Putin have sway over Russian courts? Should we assume that? We should assume I think that he does not, for these purposes, and that he will be reluctant to appear to be exerting any influence unduly over the courts duc and William Butler Butler, Professor of law at Penn State, about this situation involving Britney Griner
and Paul Wheeland. I'm assuming that an event today, an event like we saw today at the White House, which was not on the President's schedule, It was not one to be held with cameras and so forth, but it got the conversation going. Is that on the radar in Russia, I would expect it to be on the it are in Russia. Brittany is a popular basketball star there as well as here. She has fans in both camps, so
to speak. I wonder what you think about the idea of Brittany Grinder, specifically as a hostage, if she actually had the cannabis oil with her and so forth, and I realized that could be a question in Russia she actually did break a law. Do you consider her a hostage or a political prisoner at this point? Because I'm assuming that you or I would be in jail if we did the same thing. I think you or I would be in jail if we did the same thing.
I think it's not probably helpful to think of this in hostage terms, although once you begin the negotiations for a next change, what has tempted to do? So? What do you think Vladimir Putin is looking for in terms of his own leverage? I think he's looking for the release of somebody that he's of interest, that is of interest to him, that he would like to have back home.
William Butler, I appreciate your being with us. John Edward Fowler, Distinguished professor of law at Penn State with us on Bloomberg Sound On as we assemble our panel for their take. We've talked about this before when we went through the verdict, than we went through the sentencing process, and now that we're in appeal, the US really seems to be on ice here. Rick Davis, Genie Chanzano or with us Bloomberg
Politics contributors. Happy Friday to both of you. Genie. The White House, Uh, it seems to be in a real jam here. If they're bringing family members in to assure them that there's hope, that doesn't sound like progress. It doesn't. And you know, so many things in your conversation just alluded to all of this that make this so much more complicated. We had the ambassador John Sullivan retire early. He was intimately involved for family reasons. He retired, he
was intimately intimately involved in these negotiations. That's just about a week ago. Now. We don't know how that's going to affect it. We have former UN Ambassador Bill Richardson headed over there, although the government doesn't it's not an official visit. Don't know what that is about. And of course big questions loom the United States engaged in this kind of negotiation to swap prisoners. Does that encourage adversaries
like Venezuela or Iran to detain Americans. That's a big question hanging over all of this, and we haven't heard a lot of response from the White House on all of those issues. Is Vladimir Putin just enjoying taking time here, Rick, or is he looking for three or four prisoners? To the Professor's point, you well, if anybody could read Vladimir Putin's mind, we've got a lot more pressing questions to ask him than I guess that. The reality is that, um,
you know, he's acting in his self interest. Uh, he's probably gonna want something, whether it's these multiple releases that that you've been talking about, or whether it's anybody in particular. It's just the price of doing business with Vladimir Putin? Or does it require an end of this war? I would say it probably doesn't require end of the war, because if that's the case, you're back the status quo anti right, you know, really just serving out your sentence
until something breaks. I do think the Biden administration is doing the right thing by keeping in the public eye right that that this is an embarrassment for Putin in his regime. I mean, you know, it doesn't do him any good to have a superstar basketball player. You know that that they've arrested for for for this crime and UH.
And I think that there are a number of big events coming up, the UN General Assembly next week in New York, the Geez twenty meeting UH in November, and and and these are all places that the media and other allies and competitors to Russia can use this as an example and and and create their own leverage with him. So is not a coincidence to you? I don't think
the timing is a coincidence. And I think it's probably a good opportunity to try and create a lot of noise around this UH in order to keep the heat on Bill Richardson apparently over there according to reports Genie to to you know, and it's not you know, he's been disavowed as we've seen before, not connected to the State Department here, he's speaking for himself. Does that help though he's actually managed this before. Does it make us
look weak? He's an experience negotiator, there's no question about that. But I do think it raises questions, And you know, I have to raise this issue about the publicity surrounding this in the last day or so. Is that a sign that US negotiations have ground to a halt, that we aren't where we should be in terms of getting these prisoners returned. I don't know if it's a good sign they're going public or a bad sign. Let's not forget they told the families a long time ago to
stay quiet. They did, then they came public. So I don't know if this is a good sign or a bad sign. But we see the same thing with Richardson's curious visit in the last few days. Reported I guess Dennis Rodman didn't get the job done. Rick, Yeah, I mean it's just like mission impossible. Governor Richardson is in Russia, but we may disavow him. Right. We've actually seen this movie before, uh, and it works to think of a positive outcome. I'm Joe Matthew in Washington. This is sound On,
Rick Davis and Jeannie Chanzano our panel continuing next. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg sound On on Bloomberg Radio. The special Master has been chosen. Judge Raymond Deary has his work cut out with I believe eleven thousand documents to sort through. That's a lot of colding. Do they still call it colding? Here's the thing that judge also denied a US request to use documents with classified markings. You've seen photos of some of them taken from marl Lago.
So the investigation, you know, they wanted to at least just keep using a hundred documents that we're mark classified. But they will have to wait on this and it could take some time. Not that Donald Trump sounds worried. He showed up on the the Hugh Hewitt program. We didn't show up. He called into the show and he would ask him, you know, hey, if they indict you, because that's been in the air lately as a possibility, would you still run for president? Here's what he said.
I don't think the people of the United States would stand for it. And as you know, of a thing like that happened, I would have no prohibition against running. You know that I do, And that's what I want people to understand. That would not take you out of the arena. It would not, But I think if it happened, I think you'd have problems in this country, the likes of which perhaps we've never seen before. I don't think the people of the United States would stand for it.
What kind of problems, Mr President, I think they'd have big problems, big problems. He never detailed what those problems would be. But I think we're getting the idea here. As we reassemble the panel with Bloomberg Politics contributors Rick Davis and Genie Schanzano, UM already starting to saw from people up with this idea, Rick, as we're trying to get ahead of a possible indictment. Uh, he sure seems
to be talking a lot about it. I think if I were under investigation, I wouldn't want to talk about it at all. But look, this echoes Senator Lindsey Graham's comments earlier that if Donald Trump were indicted, there'd be, you know, riots in the streets. So, uh, you can tell he was going this overlay that, UM, sure, you know, my people won't stand for it. And and and you couple that with some of the activity on his true
social where you know he's wearing Q and on pins. Now, I mean he's gone full crazy and wearing a Q and on pen and and and with symbols that talk about, you know, the final determination or whatever it is, which is he gets reinstated as president and they take the opponents and tried them and and and and you know, capital punishment, and so it's it's crazy Ville right now. And so I don't think we can assume anything. This
was a dog whistle to his own supporters. We've seen him do that before that you know, get ready, uh and uh. And it's disappointing, but it's pretty much what we've come to expect from him, was that stand back and stand by the new version Gene. Yeah, it's gonna be Bigley, Joe Bigley is what it's gonna be. And I'm so glad that Rick is monitoring, monitoring truth social now. So I'm going to give it around. I'm not alone.
Rick has joined me there. Um, you know, in all seriousness. No, this is coming just on the heels this week of the FBI and DHS briefing members of the Senate Judiciary Committee and Homeland Security about an increase in threats against federal law enforcement after these after the search at Mara Lago, and you know, you had a number of members of Congress come out and see that you know, I think Dick Durban called a stunning number of threats was one of the quotes, and so this is these are not
empty threats. It's not unlike what Donald Trump quite frankly did in and around January six. And even Hugh Hewitt seemed to take that as a form of incitement, and he asked him about that, and Donald Trump said, no, I'm not inciting. This is just my opinion. But he has a way of saying things that we know insight whether they are meant that way or not, and they clearly seem to be meant that way. Well short of violence here, Rick, is the the the interview and his
statements do bring us to the possibility. You know, it seems like a very real possibility that we have a former president running for well I for election again under indictment. That that will be that will be the new normal that people have to get around their head because hey, that's legal holding office, that's different. But anybody can run under indictment. Rick, Yeah, it's kind of like the United
States of Nicaragua. I mean, you're you're only allowed to run for president if you've been indicted, um so distinction. It's a look I don't want to jump to conclusions. We've had this conversation many times before. This This mar Lago case is an investigation. Nobody's indicted, it's not a criminal investigation at this stage. Uh. Those things that uh, you know we're all talking about with this court case are all predicated on running an investigation and the terms
that the judge are setting around that. So I think it's I think it's premature to to start speculating one that he's a candidate for president too, there will be a candidate for president who's indicted. Um, yeah, we don't know, and and we've we've said in the past, we're not sure what the Justice Department really has is a interest
in Donald Trump. They certainly seem to have a very wide and very broad investigation, as we've learned over the last week with more than forty subpoenas going out and people's phones being uh subpoena. So uh, it's I think we I think we have to be very careful about creating our own uh spin around has appreciated, and you're absolutely right about that, Rick and Lytton. We should remind people that there are there are a tandem investor gations
going here. There's one investigating the the attempt to overturn the results of the election. Is a separate one going on here about these uh classified documents. Then Janie, there's the January six Committee. They tell us there's gonna be another hearing this month September, and he's already seeing headlines about October. Surprise. Uh, they're gonna have to make this count, right,
they will. And you know, one thing we expect that we may hear is going to be dealing with the Secret Service, as they ended up in the spring um the January six Committee and over the summer collecting a lot of information from the Secret Service. So I think that's going to be incredibly interesting. Those people who were with Donald Trump close vicinity, what they have to say. As we learned today as well from the committee. Their final report will not come out until after the mid
term elections, but let the leaking begin. Rick and Janie are with us a bit later on this hour as our signature panel. Emily Wilkins from Bloomberg Government is up next. This is Bloomberg. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer certainly seemed like he meant it when he vowed to hold a
vote on a marriage equity bill in coming weeks. He said it didn't even matter if there was Republicans support to pass it, they would bring it to the floor because, as he said passionately after the Row ruling, that these new protections were needed. Listen the Magaret Republicans are taking over the Republican Party and they've made it unpundently clear they're not satisfied with repealing Row. So when some Republicans say, oh, votes unnecessary, it won't happen. They said the same thing
about Row. And here's where we are. Well, here's the headline on the terminal send it to delay vote on marriage equity until after election. Stephen Dennis writing about a vote on the marriage equity bill will be held after the mid terms, according to Senator Tammy Baldwin, who spoke with reporters, and it's making us wonder if there could be a chance af he the elections, because it's not going to get easier. That was also potentially going to be part of this year end budget legislation that we
talked about with Emily Wilkins. So we wanted to pick up where we left off with Emily Bloomberg. Government Congress reporter and dear friend of Bloomberg Sound on, Emily, what's going on here? You're surprised to see a delay like this, knowing that the odds only get more challenging after November, you know, show, I think it is a little surprising.
I think a number of people were surprised to hear Senator Baldwin, who we should really know is the first LGBT, openly gay female woman elected to the House of Representatives and then to the Senate, so she really has a has a dog in the fight here. I mean, she's the one who came out. Shubert was kind of looking like he was going to put the bill on the floor this week, and then she said, you know what, we honestly think we're gonna be able to have a
better shot at this after the elections. What's the logic? You know that that is a great question, Joe, because there's certainly those that are a party who disagree with our. Senator Elizabeth Warren very much wants the bill to be on the floor now. But I think it's a matter of policy versus politics. There might be some Republicans who feel a lot of pressure to not take one stance or the other before an election, but might feel more
comfortable after the election doing so. Um. Remember too, there's also some tweaking that's going on, some finessing with other potential amendments that could be added this legislation, kind of just noting that they do want to keep the status quo. They don't want to put any additional burdens or be creatings or of additional laws on businesses or other religious groups.
So that's a lot of sense. You know, they won't be they won't be held feet of the fire quite the same way after an election as they would in weeks before. And see Emily has answers to the questions what does that mean then for the legislation that's left, because we talked Emily about that potentially being attached to UH to stop gap budget to keep things running after September thirty, if that's the deadline that we're looking at
here to get a government funding bill. Um. But that wasn't the only thing that was being considered as as a possible attachment either, was it. No, it wasn't. I mean Senator Joe Manchin has been pushing this permitting reform that would really helped expedite permits for energy products. Now this would include fossil fuels as well as green energy. So there's some potential hope out there that this might
get some sort of support from Democrats. And honestly, Joe, when I was in the Capitol this week, I talked to AOC, I talked to Jared Huffman, I talked to some really big supporters of climate and I said, are you going to not vote for this continuing resolution to keep the government funded if this permitting reform is in there? No one would tell me that. No one would say flat out that they're not voting for this continuing resolution.
All Democrats understand how important it is to keep the government funded, and a lot of them point out that, look, we don't even know what the devil in the details is yet. We don't have any bill text. We don't know exactly what this legislation is gonna look like. So at this point, everyone's uh, they're they're keeping their cards close to their check. What happened to this group of seventies something progressives who were threatening to shut down the
government over the mansion bill. Has that fallen apart? Or does no one believe them? I think actually they've added a couple of folks to their ranks. But again, when you they then the letter, they're like, you know, we don't think that this should be in the continuing Resolution. But you ask those same members, so are you voting against it? And they give you kind of the wishy washy, Well, we need to see what's actually in the details. So I think they're making their position known. But no one
wants to shut down the government. Well, right, and that's that's the point here, right that I actually neither party. I'm assuming that Republicans are just the same as Democrats, even if not in the majority. You don't want to be hung up on a vote like that weeks before the midterm elections. Yeah, I mean Republicans they also want to get home, they want to campaign, they want to
be in their districts. I mean, I'm sure that of the four thirty five Republicans in the House and five people want to throw in the Senate, you could find a couple who would be willing to go for a shutdown over this. But it really, Joe, I don't think anyone thinks that it's enough. Um, they're definitely the momentum on both sides is to really find and get something done. The question is when are we going to see anything,
because we don't have bill text yet. Uh there's still a lot of questions about what this is gonna look like. In time is running out. The House has seven legislative days left before sept You cover the leadership, Emily, and I want to ask you about a conversation we had
earlier this week. There were questions and I believe you were in the room for it, for Nancy Pelosi and whether she would run to be Speaker again if in fact Democrats managed to keep the House as she's predicting they'll they'll actually gain seats according to uh Madam Speaker, What do you make of that? And is that something that you would foresee if Democrats own the House again?
She's not going to hand that gavel to someone else, right, So I gotta say, Sienna, and actually did pull a number of Democrats about this, and a lot of them says yes, if Democrats pulled off a win, which is certainly still not expected at this point, even though they might have more momentum, Republicans are still expected to win the House in November if they somehow pulled it off, Yeah, that would give Pelosi momentum to potentially take another turn
at the gavel. But she even said two terms ago that she would have two more terms as Speaker and that that would be it. And the other thing you've got to consider here, Joe, is that it does not benefit Nancy Pelosi one iota to say that she's not going to be speaker next year, that she's going to give the gavel she Uh, and really anyone in power wants to give depression that they will be staying at the top as long as they possibly can. See she's
got something in come with Joe Biden. Right now, you're going to get Are you going to Taco Night at the Press Club from here? Uh? You know, I have a couple of other plans for tonight, but I think I'll be at the Taco Night next week and I hopeful to see you there and any other members too. I love that. So you know, she's Emily Looms large at the National Press Club and maybe I will take you up on that next week. Emily, thank you so much for being with us. As always, you'll be hearing
Emily soon on the broadcast from Bloomberg. Government Congress reporter Emily Wilkins here on Bloomberg Sound On. So what do you think here about this idea of putting off the same sex marriage bill until after the election. Does that ease up on everybody? To get a couple of Republicans to make it possible? They'd need ten to make it work as a standalone at least in the Senate. If that happens, we'll check in with Rick Davis and Jeannie Chanzano.
Put it to the panel and something really cool that's going on that'll bring us to outer space. It's all coming up. This is Bloomberg. You're listening to Bloomberg. You sound on with Joe Matthew on Bloomberg Radio, And so hurry up and wait is the message on marriage equity in Congress, namely the Senate? Whereas we just discussed with Emily Wilkins, Chuck Schumer vowed to have a vote in coming weeks, and well, here we are a couple of weeks later and we're hearing from Tammy Baldwin that it's
not gonna happen until after the election. And the logic there, as Emily explained, is there might be a little bit less pressure. Maybe you get a couple of Republicans to vote for this without having to worry about a looming election. We reassemble the panel. Rick Davis and Jeannie Schanzano are with us, of course Bloomberg Politics contributors, and our signature panel. Rick, is that gonna work for any Republicans who would not
vote for it today but might in December? I think that this is actually I tend to be counterintuitive, but this indicates to me that there may I mean, you need you know ten They've got four six more Republicans and my my, look, I mean, the Democrats easily could say we're gonna walk the plank, We're gonna force you Republicans to vote against this and make a political issue out of it, but the fact that they've backed off indicates that they might might, like they have six Republicans
who are telling them, look, I don't want to do this before the election. I've got my own issues at home, but I'm happy to cast that vote right after the men terms. So if that's the case, then Genie, you've got this spending bill that could have a Joe Mansion piece of legislation attached to it. But my gosh, if more than what is it eighty Now Republicans or Democrats rather threatening to shut down the government. Is that going to see the light of day? You know, there are
so many things that are questionable about this. I am so curious as to what kind of off ramp we get for this, because of course, the calendar totally works against this. You know, we are, what fourteen days from a shutdown. Next week they're back and then Russia Shanna, So you're looking at a very limited time frame, and Joe Mansion really really wants this included. You know, one question is does he cut a deal with the Republicans and capital and get something that they can agree to.
But you've got to imagine many Republicans are not feeling that warm towards Joe Mansion. They were very frustrated by the last time they trusted him, and so what happens with it? Then? Do they just drop this permitting reform all together? I can't imagine he'd be happy with that. And just as curious to me is the fact that Chuck Schumer, to Rick's point, you know, he could have pushed this and made it part of this whole culture war. He didn't force Republicans to vote. Maybe means we're going
to get a bill on this. But you've got to feel some Democrats are frustrated in an election year, he didn't force Republicans to go on the record on this. What's Joe Mansion doing? Rick, He's trying to get oil executives involved to kind of push the legislation. He's looking for Republican votes. Is it going to see the light of day? You know, it might? I mean a deal is a deal that they got from Democrats, got the you know, inflation Reduction Act. Uh. It seems like a
pretty good trade to me. Uh And and I've noticed that the House Democrats seem to be talking a little less vacuffers toward Joe Mansion. He's been a target uh some pretty bad ire over the last year. And uh so we'll see. I mean, look, everybody who's been betting against Joe Mansion has lost this year. So I mean they're going on the side lines are betting for him because he's he's right now, you know, just about batting
a thousand. What do you think on that? Genie? He was at the White House on the South Lawn for the big you know, inflation celebration the other day that you know he was, I assuming hanging out with James Taylor at some point here. Uh like Rick said, a deal's a deal, doesn't Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer oh this to him? Yeah, he was strumming that guitar as
we saw. Um. You know, the problem is they may have made a deal with Joe Manchin, but it takes you know, also the other Democrats to stay on board, and they did not make a deal apparently with Bernie Sanders and many other Democrats. So that's going to be the problem. He will be very frustrated if this doesn't
get through. But I think the stunning thing to me is that we can't have a conversation in this country about the need to both protect the environment and ensure we have an economy and an energy sector that is running. And we do need this kind of reform. You know that you can do both reform the permitting situation and help the environment, and those two things can go in concert. But we don't have that discussion in Washington, d C. They seem to be totally at odds, which is frustrating
to people observing it. After November, are we shut down as the store closed? Rick assuming that at least the House goes Republican. Well, certainly, if the House goes Republican, um, they're gonna do everything they can to keep the Democrats in Congress from doing anything between then and the end of the year. I mean, they'll have to take up the budget in December. Any kind of stop gap will only get us through the mid December, so there will
be a big budget fight. And if the Democrats are lame duck, you know they're gonna stick everything they can two years worth of spending into one bill. And uh, and I've seen those in Washington before where it's basically, hey, look we're going to do that and we don't even care if the Republicans get what they want because a year from now they're gonna do it anyway. So uh, dog pile on the rabbit for the budget could be the potential in December. What do you what do you
think about that? Genie? Is the store closed at anything outside of a budget for in terms of the Biden agenda, the laundry list that we've been hearing of things that they want to get done, that's where that's over. If they lose the House, right, I can't imagine how they push it through. And on top of that, you heard Donald Trump called Mitch McConnell an absolute loser and a lapdog for the Democrats for not playing hardball with the
government shutdown with Democrats over the shutdown. So if that's in the indication, if Republicans and and you know they would be a fairly moderate too, right, can we say a portion of the Republican Party take the house, that's going to be you know, ringing in their ears. So you're hard pressed to imagine they would allow anything to go through at that point. Rick and Jennie with us. It's Friday, it's Bloomberg sound on. And lastly, today it's
like something out of the movie Armageddon. You remember this scene? What kind of damage do we damage? Total? Sir, that's what we call a global killer, global killer, the end of mankind. It doesn't matter where it hits, nothing would survive, not even bacteria. Than god, what do we do? Well, you call NASA in this case instead of a global killer,
though it's a regional killer. Well it could be. That's this is part of a test that NASA is conducting right now to save you from being hit by an asteroid. This is real work. Happening on behalf of you by your government. NASA calls it the DART program, in which we send a spacecraft to smash into an asteroid and keep it from crashing into our planet. This is real. In fact, let's go back to last November when they launched this thing in California. Listen five four three two one.
There it goes slipped off the Falcon nine at DART on NASA's first planetary defense test to intentionally crash into an asteroid. It's pretty pretty amazing. DART stands for double Asteroid Redirect Test. No, it's DART will be used as a battering ram essentially to crash into this, uh, this asteroid that is actually I'm told it's a moonlit as as I read. Nancy Shabbitt is the team leader here, if you will, from Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.
The regional devastation could be the size of a city or a small state or a small country, and so it is very devastating, very rare, no known threat. But that's why the focus a lot of time is on objects of that size and why de MorphOS is such a perfect target for this first planetary defense test mission to Morphus. This is like right out of a sci fi movie. They're gonna have everything, but Bruce willis on board. And here's the cool part. It actually hits the asteroid
on September. It's almost there. In fact, the little spacecraft came out of the rocket and it's going there. Now. There'll be an adjacent spacecraft to take pictures of it all and Rick and Genie. Apparently the images, according to NASA will be stunning. The question is can they save us from an asteroid? Rick? This is truly science fiction turn science fact. Yeah, this is right out of Armageddon,
one of my favorite movies. And uh, and I hope they're successful because you know, I want something more than bacteria to survive for hit by an asteroid. I mean that we get hit by asteroids a lot, but we don't look like the Moon, which you know, it looks like just a a sand trap. After nine holes of golf with me. But the reality of it is is, you know, all these things are happening at a time when space seems to become the number one issue that people are talking about. I mean, I cannot go through
a day without someone talking about the space competition. To get satellites up the you know, going to the moon and building a colony, going to Mars and building a colony. Uh and and so I think it's one of these periods of time where I think it's just grabbing the imagination of the world all over. It's pretty pretty cool stuff that our government is actually doing a genie. We've tried to make this point before. They may not have a lot of money and you know, funding for this
particular program, but it's actually happening. It's it's the government working for the people, and these scientists are some of the smartest people in the world. They've actually figured out a way that might be able to save us from devastation, like from you know, being the dinosaurs. Yeah, I mean this is like every kid's dream job. You create a spacecraft to go into space and you know, to push
an astraight off course. Yeah, it's amazing. But you know, I know this only because I have a friend deeply involved in this. This is a real threat a popist seven years from April of this year, and it's the size of what it is, the size of the Empire State Building in Manhattan, and it's gonna come within about twenty thous miles of Earth. That's really really close, So they may have to send these spaceships up for real to move these asteroids off course pretty soon. Yes, I'm
seeing I'm getting emotional already just thinking about it. Turned that thing up justin with our signature panel, I dare you to not shut it to here Rick Davis and Jeanie Chantay No, I thank you both as we green into the weekend together on the fastest hour in politics. Nice job, Bob Bragg, who put who full of that? I need to find that out later. I'll see you back here on Monday. I'd make it in. I'm Joe Matthew. This is Bloomberg