Sound On: Russia Sham Annex Vote, Revenge Politics

our elections. It's called dark money. This is what makes people sick about politics, makes me sick about Bloomberg sound on with Joe Matthew on Bloomberg radio. Russia calls for votes to annex parts of Ukraine before it's pushed out of the country. Welcome to the fastest hour in politics, as the U N General Assembly gathers in New York against the backdrop of the war and new calls for more weapons. We'll talk military strategy and geopolitics with former

secretary of Defense Mark Esper. Later, a move to reform the electoral count acts and prevent another January six gains momentum on Capitol Hill and Senator Joe Magin accuses Republicans of revenge. Politics will cover it all with Bloomberg Congress reporter Billy House and our signature panel. Bloomberg Politics Contributors Jeannie Chanzano and Rick Davis, are with us for the hour. President Biden on his way to New York now for

the U N General Assembly. He will speak tomorrow, but today we heard from Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who opened with a blique statements. is in big trouble. Divides are growing deeper, inequalities are growing wider and challenges are spreading farther.

Our world is in big trouble, he says, with an eye on Ukraine, of course, where Russia now has called last minute votes on annexing parts of the country after losing a lot of ground the last couple of weeks, with the Lou Hanskin donatsk regions now set to hold re Ferrenda as soon as this weekend. This is just a couple of days away. White House National Security Advisor

Jake Sullivan. The bottom line is that Russia is throwing together sham referendums on three days notice as they continue to lose ground on the battlefield and as more world leaders distanced themselves from Russia on the public stage and Russia is scraping for personnel to throw into this fight. Went on to say President Biden will not address Russia's role as a member of the UN Security Council when he talks tomorrow. That's where we begin our conversation with

former defense secretary Mark Esper. Mr Secretary, welcome back to Bloomberg. Thanks, Joe. It's great to be with you again. You're on your way to New York as the United Nations General Assembly gets underway. Secretary, is it time to address whether Russia should be kicked off the UN Security Council? Well, it's it's a great question. I know a lot of people

are debating that. They certainly their behavior in Ukraine has been atrocious with regard to the unwarranted and unlowed for invasion, than, of course, war crimes and everything else. And Look, while we'd all like to see, many of us would like to see, Russia off the Security Council, I think it's unlikely give them the process by which that has to happen. The administration says it doesn't plan to bring it up

this time around. Yeah, because I think it's it's likely to fail, particularly as long as you have China on the Security Council as well. That will defend Russia's interest. President Urdawana, Turkey, says Vladimir Putin is willing to end this war as soon as possible. He says they talked about it last week in Uzbekistan, that Russia, he says, should return occupied territory as part of a peace settlement. Some saw that maybe as a trial balloon, maybe floating

some ideas on behalf of Putin. But when, with Russia holding these votes, these referenda in Ukraine, do you see that happening? Well, of course, not pritty to the conversations between Vladimir Putin and UH and President Urdawan, but I'm sure put would end uh the war immediately, as long as it was on his terms and and frankly, his

terms this point continue to diminish in some ways. I don't think he's going to end until he annexes more of of Ukraine that he seems to be positioning himself that as earliest tonight and announcing an annexation of the Dawn Bass, which is the regions of the Neetsk and Lahunt. He's already annexed Crimea in all those cases. None of this should be recognized under in your national law, because

completely illegal and unwarranted. But this may be a way by which he tries to first of all save some face and be changed the game in terms of what it means to whether it's a special military operations still or actually a war. So these things are important. Plays out the Biden Administration and specifically Jake Sullivan today saying Russia will manipulate the results of these votes. That's not

even a question in our eyes. So will the outcome of these votes complicate the war or any potential peace deals, or do we just ignore this and move forward with the operation? Okay, we know predictably what's going to happen. Is they will vote, these regions will vote to join Russia, to be an x, and that's predictable, and Putin will manage it, manipulated in whatever way you can. I don't

think we should recognize him. I think the sovereign territory, the boundaries of Ukraine have been identified clearly and recognized by the UN since the breakup of the Soviet Union and we should continue to assist Ukraine in restoring their complete sovereignty, to include Crimea by the way. Well, do you worry though, this would give Vladimir Putin license, at least in his eyes, to inflict more harm on civilians. Voyer, you gotta wonder how much more harm can you do

to the Ukrane? He's bombarding schools and maternity wards and hospitals, and you know the war crimes that are being committed in in city after city, every time the Ukrainian military moves forward. Now in the Don Bass region, they're uncovering graves where there's evidence of torture. I mean, it's just horrendous what's happening. And so's there's going to be an accounting one day of what happened and at the end of the day, a Vladimir Putin will be held responsible

for all this. So your thought is calling it Russia or Ukraine, doesn't matter. He's already doing what he's doing. He's gonna do what he's gonna do. Look at Ukrainian territory. He can call it what he wants, and only he and maybe a few other countries they recognize the results of it, but the overwhelming majority of of United Nations members will still recognize Ukraine's territory, sovereign territory. Is What it was at the end of the Cold War, secretary

asked for. The Washington Post reports Russia has now lost fifty five aircraft in this war. The Pentagon says Russian casualties now top eighty thousand. possibly. What would be the fastest way to force an end of this war? Is The answer? Tanks, fighter jets. What is it? Well, I think now, with the Ukraine moving on the offensive and doing exceptionally well, I think what you have to have is maneuver assets, and I've I've spoken about this before.

They need to have both fixed wing and rotary aircraft, Rotary Wing aircraft, helicopters, if you will, to move troops quickly around the battlefield and I think that the addition of armor in the West, whether it's German armor or American whatever the case may be, provided to the Ukrainians will given the ability to move quickly on the ground on the battlefield protected, and that's important. But these are things that we should have anticipated, that we should have

been training and thinking about some time ago. Some again, we find ourselves behind the ball with regard to whether the Ukrainians are and where they need to be. But I think this would be helped them in this maneuver phase of the warfare in terms of ejecting Russia out of Ukraine. Where does intelligence play into this? And I know there's probably only so much that we can discuss on the radio about it, but the shared intelligence can

be as valuable or more so than providing hardware. Absolutely, and look from what you read in the newspapers. We're giving them strategic intelligence with regard to Russian troop movements, UH and possible cruise missile strikes, and we're providing them tactical intelligence in terms of what's happening on the ground

right before the opposing forces. So I think all it is very important to give them that, that type of intelligence about what's happening, what the Russians may be thinking and doing, and then understanding the broader strategic situation as well. Is there such thing as a surge here? That's something

that could be done. I mentioned hardware, but with regard to the way the Ukrainian army is using forces, is there something they could do to break line, something they could do to really put Russia on its heels before winter hits? That window is closing quickly. Yeah, I do think it's key that they gain as much territory back as they can before winter hits, before it slows down

the momentum any of any type of offensive. It will be important tactically, not just in terms of what happens on the ground with their forces and reclaiming Ukrainian cities, but it will send an important message to the Western alliance that Ukrank can win this war. We need to stand behind them, particularly as Germany and other country space a tough winner with reduced energy supplies coming from Russia.

We want them to feel good about their decision to support Ukraine and if we can make it through the winter, then maybe the Ukraines can pick the offensive back up and continue to push the Russians out. That's why I think providing them UH maneuver assets like helicopters, hanks fighting vehicles is important, and again, we should have anticipated this weeks, if not months ago. We've provided billions of dollars in weapons to Ukraine, much of it from our own arsenal.

How much of a challenge will it be to replenish our stockpiles? I am concerned about our stockpiles. I don't think the issue is money as much as the ability to quickly rebuild those stockpiles. Looking War, you expend a lot of ammunition material and and and platforms, and it's it's important that we support the Ukrainians because they are

fighting the fight that we didn't want to fight. And this is not just a combat between two countries, but this is autocracy versus democracy, and so it's important to support them. But the challenges. Our defense industrial basis is built for efficiency, not for a long drawn out fight, and so we have to get our heads around the fact that we have to build stockpiles of arms equipment,

ammunition material, all those things. That's important, just not support, not just for supporting our allies, but supporting our own fight if we get into some tussle with the Russians or Chinese ourselves. How long do you have a sense, having held the job here as defense secretary, how long it might take to do so? Well, look, not just my job as sect up and secretary the army before them, but you know, I spent eight years or so in

the defense industry. It takes months, if not years, to rebuild these stockpiles and that's gonna mean quick confusions of money now by Congress to get these defense companies to spin up lines, higher workers, train workers, build plant and factories.

Need be do all these things to make sure we have sufficient stockpiles for the United States and its allies when it comes to things like stingers and javelins and High Mars and and all those, you know one munitions that we have been expended on the battlefield of Ukraine. Do we have the chips to do it? We stockpiled enough for that purpose? Well, I want, I want to

believe so. But that's why it was very important that several weeks ago, UH congress past the chip sacked as to bring that capacity back here home to the United States. Not It'll take a few years, of course, to build that capacity, but that was an important strategic move that supports not just our national security when it comes to defense and defense industry, but also our commercial uh robustness and the health of our economy well. As debate starts over this next N D A A. We've got a

lot of stuff to buy, secretary. We do, and it's not cheap, and Congress has to be willing to open up its pocketbooks and think strategically about what we need to win in the twenty one century. I'm far less concerned about Russia today than what I might have been two years ago, because they've proven themselves to be incompetent in many ways on the battle. But China is still out there lurking and they have ambitions about surpassing us

when it comes to leading the global order. Mark Asper, former Secretary of defense, former secretary of the army, we thank you, as always, for the insights today on Bloomberg. Good luck at the UN. Thank you very much. WELLT's say, I'm well the panel next, with Rick and Jennie here on sound on. I'm Joe Matthew in Washington. This is Bloomberg. You're listening to Bloom Berg. You sound on with Joe Matthew on Bloomberg Radio. What a night to be arriving

in New York. What a week right, I mean just to get into town, catch a cab, cross the street, go out to a restaurant. Ask Rick Davis. He's already in the middle of it up there. In fact, we assemble our panel with Rick Davis in New York, Genie Schanzano here in Washington, D C, Bloomberg politics contributors, with an eye, of course, on not only the UN General Assembly but everything we just discussed involving Ukraine with Mark Esper.

Of course, Vladimir Putin is not at the U N. he's busy planning votes in Russian occupied areas of Ukraine where Russia has lost ground to the counter offensive by the Ukrainian military. The Biden Administration already calling these sham votes. The idea would be to annex them before they get forced out altogether. Against Stoltenberg, NATO Secretary General, speaking earlier today with bloom, such sham votes referendums do not have any legitimates and therefore they don't change the nature of

the conflict. This remains a war of aggression by or Shan against the Independence Sovereign Nation in Europe, Ukraine. Uh and UH. This will only uh further, uh worse in the situation and therefore we need to provide more support to Ukraine. For further worse in the situation, more support for Ukraine. These are not the kind of things we want to hear at the stage of the game. Seven months in. Rick Davis, what do you think about this

idea of holding votes in these areas of Ukraine? Does it make the situation more dangerous if they are in fact annex Dmitry Medvedev, who's now head of the deputy head of the Security Council, says the annexation would be irreversible and enable Russia to use all possible force in self defense. Yeah, I think this is the threat right in the sense that what the NATO secretary general was just saying about how it doesn't change the battlefield, but

it may actually change the battlefield. I mean, there is a sense that this is an escalation strategy by Vladimir Putin to be able to not only use a heightened level of of weaponry against the people of the Ukraine, because he will claim it's an attack on Russia, but

he needs this for his politics at home. I mean one of the reasons we see this happening is because he has had a counter attack at home, domestically, about the fact that the war is not going the way he said it was going to, and both hardliners are saying we need to do more to defeat these Ukrainians, we need to, you know, escalate, while others in his own party are saying, wow, this is like not going the way we thought it was going to go, and so he's going to call our cards and say this

is now an attack on Russia and and this is something that he'll try to use in a public domain, but it's just not gonna fly. The rest of the world knows this for what it is. It's just a naked grab and it's not going to be a democratic process, and so he'll be the only one talking about this as being legitimate. But at the end of the day they also did this in Crimea years ago and the world let him get away with it. So I'm sure he's thinking, wow, it's just what's the difference? Yeah, he's

obviously used this playbook before here. I wonder how concerned you are about this genie, with with the sort of climax that we've been seeing, at least in that part of Ukraine, the counter offensive that was gaining momentum. Is it time? I asked Mark Esper about this. I realized there are complications. That's not going to happen this week, but should Joe Biden at least be calling publicly for

Russia to be kicked out of the UN Security Council? Yeah, well, we are here in grumblings more than grumblings, about that, and we have for some time, and you just put it out in the air. Yeah, well, Thomas Greenfield, the US ambassador to the U, N Linda Thomas Greenfield, she has been talking about invoicing support for sensible reform to the Security Council. Some of that proposal includes an increasing

the number of members. Obviously they don't have the support for that at this point, but we're hearing more than, I said, grumblings. It's more than grumblings. We're hearing a lot more talk about that publicly than we have and I do think that this referendum. To Urine Rick's point, we've seen Russia do this before with Crimea, and it worked for them then. We knew, because the Kremlin said earlier they were going to do this. I think the fact they're doing it now is a sign of desperation.

is how badly things have gone for them. They can't sustain this war at home. As they try to increase the number of ground troops, they need to increase that support. This is one way to do that, to show they are victims, they're under attack and they're defending themselves, and that's precisely what this is about. Called a sham or not they go forward with this, they will use this defensive posture to justify the war at home. Yeah, well, things get more dangerous when they get desperate. Rick. Is

this the prelude, then? Is it's the setup by Vladimir Putin to potentially use a tactical nuclear weapon? Well, I do think that is one of the reasons why you don't hear a lot about kicking them out of the Security Council, because that is one forum to try and keep their feet to the fires in nuclear power. Uh and, and more needs to be done around that. But sure, I mean he'll claim that there's this is an attack

by NATO with their weapons on homeland Russia. Uh and, and so you can see him building the concept around this argument that he can do whatever he wants to do because he's actually, you know, having an invading force. Again, he'll be the only one in the world who believes it, I would say to it just keeps him deeper and

deeper into this hole that he's digging for himself. I mean, he already thought he could use this war to divide the world right, and all of these people who are going to be uh, you know, supporters of the Americas are gonna be put on the defense because we're gonna go right into Kiev and and and all my autocratic friends are gonna be, you know, uplifted by this. That's not at all what has happened here. And there's a

reason he can get invited to the queen's funeral. There's a reason he didn't come to the UN General Assembly. I would not be surprised that, if he goes through with this, he pulls a no show at the g twenty. I mean, this guy is becoming a global pariah. He does no good for his quote allies like China, who have been like perplexed by the fact that they couldn't execute on a plan. So I do worry about the limits to what he is going to be held accountable for.

So why not just give him the MiGs genie if he's going to keep escalating? What's our worry? Well, I think we're going to be pushed to do that pretty soon, and I think that is absolutely what we may be seeing in the in the near future. What a thought. Rick Davis and Jennie Chanzano, our signature panel, together once again on the Tuesday edition of sound on the fastest hour in politics, bringing a Capitol Hill next. This is Bloomberg.

It's called the Presidential Elections Reform Act and the idea here is to prevent some of the confusion, if I can use that word, that we saw surrounding the events of January six. Reaffirming the vice president can only count the votes, not overturned them. At a president trump had claimed it would make it harder for lawmakers to object, requiring at least a third of the members in each chamber to support the objection. So it raises the bar here and right now it takes just one house member

and a single senator. Congressman Pete Aghilar of California, is Vice Chair of the House Democratic Caucus. This is more than a quick fix. This is about strengthening our democracy. To craft this legislation, they pulled directly from testimony and evidence that was gathered during the select committee's work in the investigation to the of the reforms that will prevent

another January six. And, of course, a member of the committee, we're joined to talk about that and a few other gyrations today on Capitol Hill by Billy House Bloomberg, Congress reporter. It's great to have you back, billy. Does this pass? Does this have bipartisan support. It does not. I mean the in the house. The bill will get a few Republican votes, obviously lives Cheney and some of the other Republicans who may have voted for trump's and each mint,

but general would be along party lines. House geop leaders have already sent a notice to their rank and file members to vote against it. UH, they don't have to follow that directive, but that's basically where the Republicans are on that. That's where we're going here. Does it how much does it have to do with the fact that Liz Cheney's name is on this bill right, she co Co sponsored it with with Sol an? That's a good question, or or the fact that it came out of the

January six committee? More generally, is that galvanize the GOP resentment or objection to this? Uh, it's a very good question. You know, it's interesting because a few months ago, Gosh, a year ago at this point, we were talking about much more comprehensive electoral reform. Right even Joe Biden went to Capitol Hill to help lobby for it. They couldn't get it past the finish line. This was considered a much more modest thing that that. Maybe both parties could

get their heads around what changed. Uh. Well, I think they realized. The Democrats, who can roll of course, both chambers, realized that clock is ticking. The buzzer will perhaps uh sound off on December thirty one and they could find one of their chambers uh, uh in control after the November eighth election and starting in January, uh in control of the Republicans. So time is running out on what they think they want to do. But to be clear for our listeners here, you don't. You don't see a

path for this legislation. If I if I see a path, it's clearly after the November eighth election in the lane duck session, because there are differences between this house bill and the Senate bill. Now sponsors seem to indicate they think they can resolve those differences, but there's certainly no way it can be done before members leave Washington, until until after the elections, and many articulate the sticking points there.

What's holding them up? Well, for instance, in the House, the House bill, as you I think, mentioned that uh one third of the members would have to vote to uh oppose uh a states elector electoral slate, while in the Senate it's only one fifth and that seems very minor and seems like it could be resolved right now. They haven't resolved it. Okay, check back in November with Billy House. Um, I want to ask you about Joe

Manchin as well. Billy Interesting Day as he's accusing his republican colleagues of retribution, even while asking for their support to help pass this energy permitting legislation. Chuck Schumer today says it's going into the CR, the continuing resolution that will fund the government past September. There's been a lot of confusion about this. This is part of the deal surrounding the inflation reduction act, of course, which angered people

on both sides of the aisle. Here's Chuck Schumer. Permitting reform is part of the I R A and I intend to add it to the CR and get it done. Yes, are there any circumstances whatsoever that that could be taken out of the series? But you said that for two weeks. I'm just getting saying. I'll say it for two weeks in one day. Next they keep trump. The Republicans are saying they're not going to support the CR if they had a mansion energy many proposals. What do you say

to that? There's no reason Republicans shouldn't support it and I hope they do. Literally. Okay, so that's the back and forth today. Billy has you're probably standing right there when he said it. Um What does that mean here? Is Is he working Republicans on this, or or is he kind of stretching the truth for reporters? The first thing to note is that nobody's seen the mansion proposal actually yet. He's unveiling it tomorrow, but he's calling it

revenge politics. Certainly if the Republicans are out to get him for supporting the spending plan and the climate plan. He h he joined Democrats with last a couple of months ago. So what we have here is kind of a showdown. Whether you know, uh, Democrats are really facing a potential shutdown over this, we'll see in the next few days. But it is complicated, if not overly broad an issue. Yeah, so we'll get some details, some text tomorrow. The senator says he needs as many as twenty Republican

votes in the Senate to overcome democratic defections. This is what he was saying today in the Senate Radio TV gallery. If they're willing to say we're going to close down the government because the personal attack on me or basically not looking at the good of the country. This is what makes people sick about politics. Makes me sick about it. It sounds like he's stressing out a little bit, billy. Well, he is, but what he's also not mentioning is that

some of the junctions point to UH. This would benefit equatron's a company about Equatron's Ministream Corps, uh, which, of course uh mansion is it wants to see go through. So he has a kind of personal stake beyond just the broader permitting philosophy. That's the multibillion Dollar Mountain Valley Natural Gas Pipeline, UH in West Virginia. Yeah, that's that's a pretty big deal, and it would be. It would help to speed approval of this, along with a lot

of other permits. Billy, thank you. We'd love to stay in touch with you on all of these. It's it's been quite the merry go around lately and, Gosh, lawmakers just got back, or at least it seems like it. Billy House with us, Bloomberg, Congress reporter. We're gonna put this to the panel next Jeanie Chanzano and Rick Davis are with us on the fastest hour in politics. We'll check traffic and markets for you on the way as well. I'm Joe Matthew and Washington. This is Bloomberg. You're listening

to Bloomberg. You sound on with Joe Matthew on Bloomberg Radio. Senator Joe Manchon, of course, not only upset with Republicans right now for not supporting his energy permitting legislation, but well, he's up with Progressive Democrats to in fact, when you listen to them today on Capitol Hill, it's smacks almost of a conspiracy. I got to be honest with I've been around for a long time and state politics and

federal politics. I've never seen stranger bed founds than Bernie Sanders and the the extreme liberal left signing up with the Republican leadership in the caucus. I've never seen this happen. Uh. So it's uh, it's come to me. What I'm hearing is it's like a revenge politics, uh, and basically revenge towards one person. Need and I'm thinking this is not about me. Can you reassemble the panel now with Rick

Davis and Jeanie Schanzano Bloomberg politics contributors. Is this revenge politics, genie, and I asked you that because we could go all the way back through B B B and all the rest of it and the the the extended debate that went on for over a year between Joe Manch and Chuck Schumer. That upset Progressive Democrats very much. He ended up getting this together with the inflation reduction act, but

the they have long memories, they do. You know, it's interesting to hear Joe, Joe Manchin talk about this because of course Republicans feel that they he threw them under the bus with the I r. A payback is what he seems to be feeling there, you know, taking revenge on him for that. But of course his own fellow West Virginia senator, Shelley Moore capital. She has a permitting package out there. It has the supportive about forty five

Republican senators. They're backing it. So he's going to have to try potentially to deal with her and of course that bill that she put out that they are supporting. It really does put a lot of pressure on mansion because much of what it does is codify what happened in the trump administration. So he's in a bit of a pickle here. He wants them on his side and

he can't get either the Democrats or the Republicans. He's gonna have to probably play ball with her if he wants anything, but it doesn't sound like he's prepared to do that. Well, if you've been with us here on Bloomberg sound on, you know that dozens of lawmakers are threatening to shut down the government over this, including more than Seventy House Democrats. Uh, Ed Markey in the Senate, now Bernie Sanders, of course, in the Senate. This is

a problem for Joe Manchion Rick. Is releasing the actual text tomorrow make any difference? Probably not. I mean usually the text will divide the room even more. Right there'll be some things in there that, uh, people who have already supported him want, and then there'll be things in there that even some of the people who might have been supporters are gonna say no way. So usually the more detail, the worst year year after. And Look, at the end of the day, there's a way to do

this right. Just give him a vote on his amendment to a clean cr he's not going to pass and you know, you move on with a clean cr so, uh, the appropriate he's and Schumer's gonna be right. Notice what he says. You know, he says he's gonna include it. Well, including IT and having it stripped out of an amendment is not gonna, you know, mess up the Schumer commitment. But Schumer can't deliver the votes for him and and yet he was the vote that delivered the R A.

I'm glad he did the IRA. I think this climate stuff that's going to really help our country reposition ourselves in the world and domestically. But it's gonna cost him and the idea that Somehow, oh my God, you know, this is a surprise to him that politics is like this. He's been a legislative terrorists for the last two years, the most important guy in Washington, and this is the price you past. He did seem pretty stressed out. Like I said, he seemed, uh, he seems spooked almost at

the podiums, at a gene. He's not used to being on this side of the thing. He's not, and Rick, that is a great phrase. A legislative terrorist, which he has been for a couple of years, and it's coming right back to him and he see pretty stunned by that. Otherwise he's a very good actor to place done the way he so what does this mean, genie, if this isn't going to end up in the CR Democrats already told us that same sex marriage had to wait until after the mid terms, right. So this is gonna be

a clean bill. That's what it sounded most to be loaded up a couple of weeks ago. Yeah, they're gonna be, you know, lucky to get this thing passed clean and get back onto the campaign trail, which is what everybody there knows that they need to do at this point. So I think they're gonna end up doing it clean. I think Rick's right. They may put this up for a vote, but he doesn't have the votes to get it through. Rick and Jan her with us our signature

panel on sound on. I've got to ask you both about the immigration debate, crisis, whatever we're going to call it here, because it goes on now. The latest reports this morning were that Rhonda Santis, the Governor of Florida, was sending a planeload and by way of Texas. Again, I still I get confused with this, but the planeload was headed toward Delaware. He had been promising to do this. Of course, that is the home state of President Joe Biden. They were going to send him up to a home

with beach or something. Uh. The press secretary, Karine John Pierre, in fact acknowledge these reports today in the briefing room. We have received a word of the flights. Uh. And yes, we are coordinating close with state officials, uh, and local service providers who are prepared to welcome these families in orderly manner as they pursue their asylum claims. But no plane ever showed up. Apparently, this is interesting. We're playing games now. There's no plane, according to reports, left Texas

as of nine thirty am. That had been scheduled. Reporters and photographers looked for signs of the plane in Texas and Florida. No one ever took off, no one ever landed. Officials now say no plane is expected. So you know, I don't know if they show up on Saturday night here, when the Biden's at least expecting it, but Mitch McConnell was asked about it today. This, of course, is very much top of mind here in the nation's capital. The

minority leader in the Senate was all for it. I personally thought it was a good idea, but if you add it up, all of the illegals have been taken to Chicago or Washington or Martha's Vineyard. It would be fewer and people down in Texas have to deal with on a daily basis. When the vice president says the

border secure, it's absurdly incorrect. The president of the United States asked directly about it today as he talked about a completely different topic at the White House before he left for the U. N you can hear reporters shouting questions at under your because there are three countries that are never had. Way Out the floor. He comes back coming from Central America, Mexico. This is a totally different circumstances.

What's on my watch now is Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua, and the ability to send them back to those states is not rational. You could send them back and have them way. We're working with Mexico and other countries to see if we can stop the flow, but that's the difference. Thank you, and that's it. He took off left the room. That was the end of it. Uh, what's your thought on this, Rick, the way it's being managed by the

White House, because Republicans seem to be in sync. The president there told us why they could not go back to their countries, but never really followed up with a solution. Yeah, no, the idea that somehow you know he's got like a handle on this because there are fewer immigrants from Honduras but more from Venezuela, is nuts. Right. Those aren't talking points that are going to cause you to be on

top of the Immigration Uh. is his point that it's different because we'd have to fly them home or fly them to a dangerous place or both. It's it's all got to do with economics and crime, right, and it vacillates in all these areas, right. I mean we all remember the first waves of immigration that we can remember in the nineteen eighties was all out of Cuba and nobody was paying any attention to Honduras or Nicaragua. So the bottom line is there's no border strategy that this

administration is perfected. They don't have a worker guest worker program that's been effective, they don't have a way to facilitate asylum and and look, I think that the idea that you're importing immigrants from Texas to Florida to fly them to Delaware is a joke, right. I mean like we should all be laughing about this, not having the press secretary of the White House take it seriously. Um, the reality is it's just a political stunt, and we ought to say stunts are not, you know, useful at

solving a problem. You want to solve the problem, this administration has to have a border strategy and and the fact that there are two years into this and they're going to go into the midterm election cycle with like an explanation that, oh, they all came through a different road so we weren't prepared, is not an explanation. So, Jeannie, what did you want to hear Joe Biden say today? They they set it up for him. He wasn't getting

out of the room without answering this question. Yeah, you know, this goes back, predates a Joe Biden by many, many years and many presidents. This has been the issue that has vexed Republican and Democratic presidents alike going back decades, and he is no exception to that. Every single thinking person in this country realizes we have an immigration migration crisis that needs to be addressed. It hasn't been addressed this presidency and it wasn't addressed in the previous ones.

But the reality is what we're seeing here is politics by performance. We know we have a problem. There should be policy solutions. There are everything from Dacca, which should not be that difficult to get through. None of this has been addressed and Republicans have no plan to do it either, and these stunts that they are continuing to do are simply aimed at making their opponents look bad, meaning to Santis an Abbott, rather than addressing the problem.

If these guys were serious, they would be in Washington and they would be talking about how can we address this issue. None of that has happened and it's distressing and should be for all Americans. The president was asked today directly about the de Santis idea, by the way, of flying migrants to Delaware as he was trying to get out of the room. You know, it's just been their shouting questions at him, and he had what he thought, I guess, was a humorous answers. He should come visit,

you should come visit. We have a beautiful shore line. Then the door said, how about the door in that room? By the way, I mean talking. That is a dramatic exit. So you do it, don't let it. Uh. So. What do you think then, Jennie? Is that the way to

close the conversation? No, it's not. They had a one month old baby on that plane that arrived here and came to D c. He should be talking about the seriousness of this issue and the fact that you don't play politics and performance politics with people's lives, and he should be talking about solutions to this issue, not, you know, inviting people to visit the shore, which is beautiful. Rick,

I don't think he's sagging on into Santis. He's just trying to deflect it because he's honestly getting under his uh you know, uh ire. I mean like this is actually stopping the White House from getting something productive done on it. So Do Santis, you know, is getting more credit for this than he should. It's not a solution of the problem. Compreendis Davis in New York, Genie Chanzano in D C. I'm Joe Matthew. This is Bloomberg