Sound On: MAGA Democracy Threat, August Job Growth

participation for what's number going up as well. So that's that's a good way to enter the laby day week at Bloomberg sound On with Joe Matthew on Bloomberg Radio. President Biden calls MAGA a threat to democracy. Welcome to

the fastest hour in politics. This day. After the prime time speech, we'll talk about the president's message to the nation with Virginia Governor Glenn Youngcan and with our panel Bloomberg Politics contributor Democratic analyst Gene Schanzano, joined today by Republican analyst Boyd Mathieson, former chief of Staff the Senator Mike Lee. The August jobs are board brings mostly smiles, despite the way Wall Street finished the week, We'll get the view of the White House with Jared Bernstein of

the Council of Economic Advisors. President Biden went straight after so called Maga Republicans in the speech from Independence Hall last night prime time, warning the nation as he said that democracy is at risk. Here he is, I ran for president because I believe we're in a battle for the soul of this nation. I still believe that to be true. I believe the soul is the breath, the life, and the essence of who we are. And he called

out the former president by name, as you do. Happening in our country today is not normal, Donald Trump and the Maga Republicans representing extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic. Before the speech a prebuttle if we can use that word from Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, as if he had already read the script. Still upset as well about the President calling at this fundraiser last week

calling mega Republican semi fascists. Here's Kevin McCarthy. When the President speaks tonight at Independence Hall, the first lines out of his mouth should be to apologize for slandering tens of millions of Americans as fascists, and there was quite a bit of criticism from Republican corners this morning following

the speech last night. That was the backdrop of my conversation today with Governor Glenn Youngcan of Virginia, of course, one of the most prominent post Trump Republicans to hit the national stage, and I started by asking him for his reaction to the speech and whether President Biden was

right about this threat to democracy. I was stunned at al divisive this speech was, and at a time where people across America, and I know in Virginia are worried about some of the most basic issues, rising inflation and trying to make ends meet crime and oh, by the way, education challenges, and it's a time when, in fact, we've got to focus on these issues. And our president jumped out and it was incredibly divisive, trying to pit Americans

against one another. And what we learned last year in Virginia is that it's these most important kitchen table concerns that when we bring when we bring common sense solutions to them, we can bring people together. And when I won last year, it wasn't Republicans against Democrats. We we won the independent vote. We had lots of Democrats come with us, and at the end of the day, this is a time when we've got real issues. Runaway inflation. I mean, let's be serious, We've got we've we've got

real challenges and inflation. We've got the Fed having to move aggressively in order to slow things down, and Jpal came out and said it's gonna hurt. And and yet

we've got our president trying to divide the nation. And I just think it's time to put all that down and to focus on these most important kitchen table concerns that Americans and I know Virginians have, and we can address them with common sense solutions like we're doing in Virginia right now, getting taxes down, funding law enforcement, and focusing on education. So you reject the president's message, but that was a stark warning from the President of the

United States. Governor, do you believe there are anti democratic forces in the Republican Party. I believe that we have people who are searching for leadership, and leadership comes and it comes at a time when we need to be focused on these most important issues, not calling each other names and trying to divide the country. I mean when we look at when we look at what's happened over the course of the last couple of years, we've seen our economy fall from having been a good one to

a real challenged one. Inflation running away, crime really challenged. We've got a crisis at the border. We watched America actually really fall from the national from the international scene in leadership, and I think America kins broadly recognized this. We can see it in the president's job approval ratings. Uh, he's got just terrible job approval ratings. And at a time when we're heading into the mid terms, what do you do You change that, You change the narrative. Well,

let's go back and talk about the economy. Let's go back and talk about schools, let's talk about crime, let's talk about the border, and let's come up with real solutions to these most important issues. Let's not call each other names. A new pull from Quinnipiac University Governor shows seventy percent of Americans it was sixty to be exact, I think democracy is in danger of collapse. When you see a number that big, do you worry that our institutions are under attack? Well, I just feel like that

that entire poll question is is an odd one. I mean, America's democracy is not gonna collapse. We are we have seen tough times historically where we've worked through it. This is the most amazing form of government ever envisioned. America is the best country in the world, and we're gonna

work our through our way through this. But what it requires is leaders to focus on solutions to those most important challenges for Virginians and for Americans again, not calling each other names, not trying to divide us further, but providing a place like we did in Virginia last year, for people to come together. And you know what we've done is we've delivered on what we promised and people are happy and and I think that's what America needs

right now, is is a leader. And our president should step up and put the rhetoric down and focused on solutions to these to these kitchen table concerns. Well. Speaking of calling names, Kevin McCarthy, the minority leader in the House, says that President Biden should apologize to Republicans for referring to mega Republicans as semi fascist. Do you believe the President os Americans and apology. I do. I do I

I again. I just think the day of name calling should be pressed down at a time when we're searching for leadership and America needs needs to lead again, needs to lead again. And this is a chance on on the international stage and at home for us to recognize that leadership is not a moment to divide, It's a time to bring together. Governor, youcan It was widely noted that Donald Trump supported your candidacy, which was amazingly less than a year ago at this point, but you never

appeared on stage with him. Did you create the recipe for Republicans to win in twenty two and twenty four. Well, our campaign was focused on Virginia, and we campaigned as Virginians. I'm homegrown. I cared deeply about the Commonwealth of Virginia and the issues that we ran on on on crime, on education, on cost of living, on a government that needs to work for us, on protecting our constitutional rights.

These are issues that Virginians embraced, and I wanted to make sure that they knew that they had someone running for governor and then serving them as governor focused on them. I do believe that that the candidates across the nation Republican governors running need to focus on these issues because these are the issues that voters are most concerned about.

And that's why I'm excited to have some time, not a lot, because I'm very busy here to support some candidates around the country who I think are in circumstances much like I was in Virginia last year, where there's republic there's Republican candidates who can take over a state that's been run by Democrats and the states have not been performing well, just like Virginia was not performing well,

and they can turn it around. And so I think it's a chance for Republican governors to do what Republican governors have been doing, which is leading. Well, let's talk about the economy for a moment, Governor. We got the jobs report better than expected. The unemployment rate in Virginia is even lower than the national average at two point seven percent. Do you believe it's possible to lower inflation

without damaging the job market we have right now? I think this is a real challenge and it's one that we are focused on in Virginia every single day. And the key to this is getting people back into the job market. You know, Virginia had labor had labor participation of about sixty seven percent prior to the pandemic, and we were ranked forty seven in the nation and job recovery coming out of the pandemic, and so we've been very focused on getting people back into the job market UM.

And since January, we've seen a hundred thousand more jobs taken by Virginians and that's the fastest growth Virginia seen h in memory. And in fact, we're now ranked in the top fifteen in job recovery UM. But at the end of the day, the key here is the strength of that labor market. And I do have concerns that that as the Federal Reserve takes its actions and real concerns about economic growth uh manifest themselves into boardrooms and oh, by the way, into families, that we're gonna see this

labor participation number stall and employment stall. That's why we're working so hard in Virginia in order to bring regulations down, invite new businesses in and joe grow the job market. And when companies like Boeing and ray Theon come to Virginia and Lego comes to Virginia and drone up who's

here and Hilton's who's here grow. It's great for Virginians, but we're continuing to work to keep confidence high that we can meet we we can navigate through the headwinds that I think the national economic picture, which has been caused by bad policies has created. Well, you've obviously got a good story to tell in Virginia, but you come from the business world, governor famously at Carlisle, and I wonder with your background, are you more worried about inflation

today or a FED induced recession? Well, they go hand in hand. And it is the inflation that was caused by unbridled spending at the federal government, um that is forcing the FED to take these actions. And and as a result, they go hand in hand. And if we, of course didn't have inflation, we wouldn't have the FED doing what they're doing. So it sounds like you're more concerned about a recession at this stage. Oh I am, I'm I. I am concerned about economic slowdown. Uh. And

the anecdote to that is jobs and labor participation. And in order to have jobs and labor participation, we've got to keep confidence high in the business community. And we know that and so I've been encouraged by the confidence that Virginia businesses have been showing and expanding and adding to their labor force. And I think that's the partnership

that we've created in Virginia. Governor Glen Youngcan Republican from the Commonwealth, just across the Potomac here from the nation's capital, I'm Joe Matthew and Washington, and we're gonna have a lot more on the job's reports, specifically a little bit later on this hour through the eyes of the White House as we discussed the numbers and the trends with Jared Bernstein of the White House Council of Economic Advisors. But we're gonna get back to the speech last night

and where we started. What we also heard from glennyncan his take on this as we play it against the panel. Bloomberg Politics contributor Jeanie Chanzano is up next along with Boyd Mathison, former chief of staff of Senator Mike Lee. Will get the view from both sides on the fastest hour in politics. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg sound

on on Bloomberg Radio. It did feel like a campaign style event last night, right with all of the trappings, the the optics that clearly were well thought out, and the prime time nature of the address. President Biden sticking largely to scripts, although he did have a couple of moments where he stepped off the the teleprompter as people

were shouting from across the street. A couple of reactions there, as you saw, and what was roughly half an hour was about twenty five minute long speech just about as predicted it. Lets you know, he did stand or stick to the script. So the big knock today was you know that this was a political attack. Republicans say, you just heard Glenn Youngan, you know, the fiery rhetoric, the

destructive rhetoric, and so forth. The reaction to that from the White House Karine John Pierre, the White House Press Secretary, standing up for democracy is not political. Denouncing political violence is not political. Defending right uh and freedom is not political, and so on and so forth. As we assemble the panel, she had a longer answer than that. Actually. Bloomberg Politics contributor Jennie Schanzano is here along with Boyd Mathis and

former chief of staff of Senator Mike Lee. Republican analyst the panel, Jennie We talked a lot about this speech going into it. Were you surprised by the reaction today? You know, I was not surprised by the reaction. I do think the criticism about the political nature of the speech, or we should say the campaign nature, because everything a president does is going to be political. I think that is very real. When you're looking at two marines behind

the president, that is fairer criticism. And I think the White House is trying to push back on that, but they're going to be hit on that. But I also think from a political perspective, Joe Biden, who can no longer be referred to as sleepy Joe, I guess, because he's any thing but sleepy on this issue. He is wide awake. Um. You know, he was doing exactly what Democrats wanted to do. He is taking to trolling Donald Trump,

and it worked because Donald Trump is coming out. He's going to be in Pennsylvania tomorrow, and the more Trump is out, the better for Democrats. And that really is the political strategy here. I think Biden is right on the substance about violence. I think there's a hypocrisy there as well. But I do think politically he did what he needed to do last night, and he is open to the criticism because the more Trump is in the news and people like McCarthy defending him, the better off

for Democrats. And Democrats know that well, Jennie. You know, the criticism in advance from Democrats was that, hey, he's not out there talking about his legislative accomplishments. Here he goes on the soul of the nation and calling out MAGA. But he did actually, uh, the speech lent itself quite a bit to the accomplishments that have been had. He kind of creatively walked through them, whether it was the

burn pits, legisla lation, inflation. I mean, he had it all in there at one point or another, the Chips Act, talking about competition and uh as as the Democratic strategists with us today. Do you see that as a win or was that part not heard? You know, I'm not sure that part was heard. You're right, was almost like, you know, two to three speeches in one and one. Part of it was him celebrating his accomplishments, and right

he should. But of course, in this media environment, what got the attention was the attacks, if you will, on MAGA Republicans, and that's not a big surprise. So I think he put that in there. He tried to talk about his accomplishments. It's not going to get this kind of attention that it really deserves. But the point of the speech was not that. The point of the speech was to say, this election coming up in ten weeks

is a choice between normalcy and extremism. If you vote for Republicans who want to look back at you're voting for Trump, You're voting for extremism. And so he is issuing a warning shot across the bout. What I wish he had also did was called out Democrats who were supporting those very same MAGA candidates, because that's where the hypocrisy comes in. Boyd Matheson, the President tried to draw the line between maga Republicans and so called mainstream Republicans.

It's getting difficult with the labels around here. Do you tell a difference? Do you draw that line yourself for your own party? Yeah? I think the biggest challenge for the President was he was he was kind of blocking everybody. He would saying he was about uniting everyone under red, white, and blue, and yet he gets continued to break it down of well you're a maga. You're an extreme maga. You're a regular republic You're an okay Republican, not a

horrible Republican. You're one of the eighty million people who voted for me. You're on the good side. And so there was a lot of division within that that I just don't think played well. And I think the Genie's point, I think the misses for the president, and he had some lines in there that were very good. I loved his line about I ran for president on this battle for the soul of the nation, although I don't think the soul of the nations dependent on who wins elections

or who's in Congress or the Oval office. But the speech, he really went down this path. M Hey, we are going to divide all of this up. And to me, the sad part was this was a an address to the nation, and to me, that's a different thing. That's the sacred thing. I haven't missed an address to the nation from any president of either party in the last

forty years, because they matter. This was taxpayer funded addressed to the nation, and it was a campaign event, as Genie pointed out, And I think that's the fact that the main networks read the speech and said we won't cover it. Uh. Said a real message there as well. Uh. And what do you make of that, Genie? That's actually it's a great point, Boyd, that the three letter networks didn't carry it last night. At one point they were expected to. Is that a meaningful rejection for this White House?

You know? I think it is. And I happened to agree with Boyd on that, And what I think was the miss is, yes, there is no place in American politics or government or any government for violence. And that is an important It's a fair point. That's why Joe Biden said he ran for office. But the fact is you've got to call it out on both sides. And I think the miss here is to be seen as a leader, it requires criticizing your own as much as the other side. Otherwise it's a political speech made in

a political environment. And you know, another criticism is it came in the context of no events, So what had precipitated this speech is unclear, and that makes it seem very political. Ten weeks before the election, Boyd Mathis and Jennie Chanzano our panel for This Friday on the Fastest Hour in Politics, It's going by too fast. We'll bring him back after we check in with the White House on the job's report next. With the Job's report in mind,

that was the big driver for news today. Now that we have moved beyond the speech thousand, that's more than we expected. Right And of course, as I mentioned, and you've been hearing from Charlie throughout the day, Charlie Pellette, that is that under the hood, things look pretty good with regard to labor force participation. Especially Marty Walsh, the

Labor Secretary, was very pleased about that this morning. And yet the markets finished lower, but somehow got a jobs report that you know, made both the Fed and the White House happy. And I talked about it earlier with Jared Bernstein of the Council of Economic Advisors at the White House. He joined us from the White House where he has the ear of the President on economic policy, and every data point like this, particularly the monthly jobs report,

goes a long way to informing their advice. Jared Bernstein joins us with his first blush reaction. It's a very good news report, no question. You don't have to even go too far under the hood to figure that out. Now, Look, it's one month. We never made two big, big a deal out of a one month report. We like to look at the trend. But when we talked, I remember saying to you, one of the things I look at

first is labor force participation. It's just so important. Now we know employers have talked about needing more workers to come in to meet some of those eleven million open vacancies right now. Of course the Suttle Reserve likes to see that as well. It's potentially disinflationary. So that increase that pop of of thirty basis points on the LFPR very welcome. UH is stronger for prime age workers, by the way, which is also a good educator with regard

to labor participation. Here there are famously two openings for every person looking for a job in this country. We've been waiting for a more pronounced return to work since COVID. So what is it? Is it kids going back to school? Is it inflation that's causing more people to seek a paycheck?

What's your take? Yeah, great question. So we we we know that the pop that we got on labor force participation is a little stronger for women, particularly primate women in their working years, and UH one, one perfectly legitimate hypothesis is that that does have to do with school reopening. Uh. One of the long term agendas of the of the Biden administration is to finally stand up a more affordable

and accessible care sector for childcare and eldercare. And you maybe get an inkling as to how important that is. But one thing I noted when I again when I got into the data and looked at the flows data, meaning how how labor market participants are flowing between different states in the job market. Over half a million people in August moved from out of the labor market too into the labor market, which is exactly the flow we need again one month. I don't want to over emphasize it,

but that's what we need to see more of. This is a delicate balance we're talking about right now. Jared Bernstein, how can you keep this momentum when the Fed is hiking interest rates? And I'm not asking you to comment on Fed policy, but we heard j Powell Warren that that that we need softness in the labor market to beat inflation. Is that the choice we're facing. Well, I think what you're really referring to here is the soft landing versus a hard landing, and obviously, uh, you know,

the FED is trying a track towards soft. I think one of the things that is so important in this regard is to see occur what the President actually talked about a few months ago and up in the Wall Street Journal. He said, we need to move from the breakneck pace of growth that characterized one when shots and arms and checks and pockets made such a difference to standing up the uh, the strong labor market we're now enjoying. We need that to slow to a more steady and

stable pace. If you kind of look at the flow chart, and by the way, our friends that the folks I know you talked to at Goldman Sachs often look at this very flow start that kind of goes from slower GDP growth that is moving from well above trend to something closer to trend or a bit below trend, to slower job growth, the slower wage growth, the slower price growth. You know, that's kind of a flow chart that a

FED watcher might want to be paying attention to. One of the things we see here in August is the job market cooling in a way that we believe is very consistent with the President's view of moving from break neck pace to more steady, stable growth. I guess another way of asking that would be, you know is this, is this a value of good economic news now ahead of what we know is going to be a tough winter,

energy costs rise that starts to push inflation back up again. Well, look, I mean I was gonna say, my crystal ball is just as cracked as anybody else's right now. So I think looking at looking around corners is awfully hard. I will say the following. We we have the client and gas prices, and I think that that's a really important backtrop to everything we've been talking about. We have pretty strong consumer balance sheets. We've obviously got a an historically

stellar labor market. I think all of those create momentum. Now, look, if there's some unforeseen circumstance that's going to jam the price of oil, obviously that's uh, that's gonna be problematic. But again, looking at the momentum, we have. Our job as White House economist is keep our heads down steadies. We go implement the policies at the Press that has managed to legislate to help invest in this future economy, and keep these trends going knowing this delicate balance exists

then and the challenges we could face next year. Does that mean the White House and Congress hold off on economic outlays following the student loan, the debt forgiveness plan, and just let the Fed fix the inflation question? Well, certainly when you hear the President tick off his three tiered plan for fighting inflation. Tier one is an independent

FED that does what it needs to do. Tier two our policies to help address a cost that a consumers space, whether it's student debt costs or the cost of healthcare. And we've obviously moved on all of those. And Part three is deficit reduction. And that kind of gets to your point a second ago. We're on track for historical deficit reduction and we need to stay on that track. And I'm confident that we will well over a trillion

dollars of deficit reduction in this fiscal year. That's a kind of negative fiscal impulse, a very much compliments to sad negative monetary impulse. Thanks to Jared Bernstein of the White House Council of Economic Advisors for the deep dive, there one that you will only hear on Bloomberg. Of course, as I look to the terminal and see gosh go figure two. A bit of pessimism here from former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers. The headline Summers discounts rise in labor force.

As we were just discussing with Jared, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers discounting any optimism over an influx of people in the US labor force in August, focusing instead on the inflationary potential of continued strong employment gains. There's always two ways to look at the data, a tendency, he says, to exaggerate how much higher participation will reduce inflation. We'll get the panels take on this and whether this was

a good news Friday for the White House. Jennie Chanzano is up with us next in the panel today, along with Boyd Mathison. I'm Joe Matthew. You in Washington, Welcome to sound Off. This is Bloomberg. You're listening to Bloomberg sound On on Bloomberg Radio, and Larry Summers pours cold water on the job's report. Everyone was so excited about this morning. It did seem like good news to most people. Looking at this. We analyzed it earlier with Michael McKee

at Bloomberg. Higher than expected on the top line, more jobs than predicted, more people looking for work in the assumption it was we just talked about with that Jared Bernstein, is that, you know, more people looking for work would help to ease inflationary pressures in the labor market. Not so, says the former Treasury secretary in an exclusive interview with Bloomberg. Speaking in fact on Bloomberg's Wall Street Week, he says,

no more pain is going to be necessary. I'd be surprised if we get to the six get to the two percent inflation target without an unemployment rate uh that approaches or exceeds uh six percent and unemployed. So we're at three point seven today. That means we've got a ways to go. Let's reassemble the panel Bloomberg Politics contributor Democratic analyst Genie Chanzano along with Republican analyst Boyd Matheson. So a Genie six percent or higher that's going to

happen before election? How does that change the conversation about the economy and Democrats specifically though this Biden administration. Yeah, it's certainly not what the Biden administration wants to hit here, but you know, I'm looking at the terminal as well. And Larry Summers makes a really good point. We think. He says, we think extra labor supply, but we forget the more people employed, the more incomes increase, and the

more spending and the more inflation. I mean, the logic of his argument is really really important to pay attention to. And so I think he's it's a message we have to listen to. And when we heard the President come out today, he said maybe maybe, and I think that was the watchword of the day. He's seeing some positive signs, but I think even Joe Biden has learned that he's got to be cautious because if Summers is right, there's a lot more pain ahead before we get to a

point where inflation slows. If that happens, though, that means they I mean, assuming in this scenario, you've got six percent unemployment and inflation is licked. So what's more important? Boy? Do you know? People say, hey, look, prices are down at least, but my neighbor doesn't have a job. That doesn't sound like an improvement. Yeah, those are both tough messages, I think for either political party to really deal with

the President. Of course, has got to walk that very fine line, as Genie pointed out, to not being overly optimistic, knowing that some of this pain is is still coming. I think there's also some underlying things that are going to be really interesting, especially moving into One of the most interesting to me is the fact that you've got for every one person, one man man in that fifty four categories seeking employment, you've got four that aren't even

looking at all. You've got six million prime age men who aren't working or looking for work, and they're also not being active in civil society. They're not volunteering, they're not worshiping, they're not giving to charity, they're watching things in front of screens, they're dealing with pain. Medications is a common thread there, and so I think there's a societal component to this that's also going to play into

the politics of four. To your point, Joe, if my neighbors out of work, I feel that one way, If I'm staying higher prices at the gas, I'm feeling it. This is an area where I think it's going to impact society. It impacts single parents, especially single mothers, and the load that they carry. So I think there's a lot of things beneath the headline numbers that we've got to get to. When we're looking at this. It's also still this question, Jennie, about why people are coming back

to work. You know, we spent all of COVID saying okay, once you know, the students go back to school, and once labor Day hits, and it still hasn't quite clicked. But now we're start to see it. And if the reason is inflation, we also, by the way, saw a big jump in people seeking part time work. If the reason is you know what, I can't afford to fill the gas tank here, I need a little bit of relief. As the President likes to say, that's that's actually not

a good trend. No, it's not. And you know, one number to look at is consumer sentiment. And while that is still really low by you know, historical standards, the trajectory is going in the right direction, just like the

presidential approval rating. But I think to urine to Boyd's point, you know, when you get to sentiment indexes, I think that tells you an awful lot because it tells you not just about the people who are actively looking for work, and what they're looking full or part time, but what consumers are thinking as they approach the economy overall, and that is up a little bit but still historically low, which is and remains a problem for Democrats as they

go into this election. Well it's something to consider today. Though. What about the news today? Uh, boyd, you can't really put too much of a negative spin on this. The White US wanted to get out there and talk about it. The jobs since pre COVID have been recovered and a three point seven percent unemployment rate might actually be what saves us from a recession. Do you see it that way? Yeah?

The President is absolutely right and and going out and and touting the numbers there, you can't say that that's just a bad thing, it's good. I think the biggest challenge is the communication strategy, because if you're touting the success of what's going well, but the American people are feeling or experiencing something different, it creates a really unique disconnect and I think that's going to be the challenge

for the president. It has been over the last year touting some things that actually are good that everybody should celebrate, but the American people saying that's not what I'm feeling or that's not what my neighbor is experiencing. And so that's the balancing. The numbers are good, and we should all celebrate good numbers. We want that for the country, We want that for our our communities and our neighbors. Getting that in alignment from a messaging standpoint is tricky. Well,

I'll tell you what. It's Labor Day weekend, Genie. And this administration is one that has embraced labor, has embraced organized labor, has made the Secretary Marty Walsh, uh, you know, one of the bright lights of the administration in terms of you know, doing media and getting him out there with with his messaging. And the President is going to be marching in a Labor Day parade by the way,

with John Fetterman on Monday in Pittsburgh. The head of the a f l C. I Oh, who I spoke with earlier this week, is also going to be there. Does the sort of resurgence of interest and organized labor at places like Amazon and Trader Joe's and uh another Starbucks other big chains like that, is that also a winning message for democrats? It is? And and this is something that I don't think the Democratic Party has embraced enough. And we've heard this to a certain extent, but it's

president has been pretty full throated. He has and he is, you know, somebody who can really bring this to the forefront. And this is the idea of the dignity of the American worker, which is sort of the theme that we understand he's going to go out with on Labor Day. And that is critically important because it fits right in. You know, you have to be paid what your work is worth you, you're you have to be respected, you have to have healthcare, all of the things that Democrats

believe in. So I do think it is critically important and it is a winning message, particularly in these areas that Democrats want to win in the rust belt that quite frankly, Donald Trump did much better than expected in and really you know, blew away some Democrats who didn't

expect Republicans could play there. He showed they can. They're trying desperately to get those back in Ohio is a really good example of that, as is Pennsylvania, where the president will be Do you see that organizing trend as as a real one, boyd as opposed to you know, kind of a media narrative. We've also seen cut these same chains that I mentioned, Starbucks, Amazon and so on close a lot of stores where there was an organizing

effort beginning to happen. Yeah, I think the I think the organizing message is the right is the right message. I think they're doing that in a way. I think they're doing that effectively in terms of hey, this this does matter, as Genius had, the dignity of work, the dignity of the worker. I think all of those are are good, strong messages. Most of these things, however, have been very local that you know, even the Amazon was that was a local use doing that, and that's and

that's actually a really interesting thing. I actually support that. I think that's a great thing that on the very local level, as opposed to where I think some of the distrust is, which is in the big national labor organizations, where there's much more likelihood to have some you know, some waste and frauds, some views or you know, whatever it may be. It's just a big organization. I think people filling it close to home. I think that's a good message and I think it's an important part of

the labor market. Labor is going to have a say in this selection. Of course, Genie as well is Schueler again from the a f L c I O told us they have very specific plans to have nine of members registered to vote and ten of their local members are going to be trained to be a poll watchers for what they described as possible Republican shenanigans. I don't

know what that even really means. I tried to have her define that, but I mean, what what kind of an image is that for the Union in It's important. You know, you had mentioned in your interview with the governor earlier, you had mentioned some of these statistics about how many Americans are concerned, concerned rather about threats to democracy. You know, a CBS News poll found seven out of ten Americans concerned, and this is both from the left and the right that democracy is in danger, rule of

laws in danger, or elections are threatened. And so when you're talking about poll workers and people trained to go in as poll watchers, if you will, that is an effort to address some of that concerned and concerned rather and I think that's critically important at this time. The more Americans engaged in our political process the better, particularly at a time when so many poll workers are feeling under threat that they don't even want to go to

work anymore. I think it's important that the unions, and I think every organization, civic organizations overall, should support an increased in poll workers and poll watchers. And that includes, by the way, people in my line of work, faculty working with young people who should be engaged in pole watching and poll work. It's critically important service to the country. I just hope people stay safe, Boyd. More than you know.

The more people start showing up at the polls with the idea of looking for wrongdoing, somebody's going to find something that may not necessarily be worth talking about. Yeah, and just at a Genie's point that it's all about having that trust and being engaged. Everybody's got to be engaged, regardless of their line of work. We've we've stress tested this democracy of ours under all kinds of situations world war,

famines and economic collapse and all of that. We've never stress tested it in the absence of trust that seeing our institutions because that trade we're getting close on some days, Boyd, thanks for being here, Boyd. Matthis and Jeannie Chanzano great conversation and a great panel for our Friday. As we head into the weekend, be sure to stay with Bloomberg

tomorrow for the Artemis launch. They're going forward again. I can't wait to watch this thing go up, and I'll meet you back here after what I hope for you is a long weekend. I'm Joe Matthew. This is Bloomberg.