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Stephen Dennis is with US now, Bloomberg congressional reporter who's always very close to the leadership and has a good sense of this conversation surrounding Mitch McConnell. Stephen, it's great to see you. I'm gonna ask you a few things about this, but I'd like everyone to remember what Joe Biden said yesterday after he spoke with Mitch McConnell. He went down to FEMA headquarters talk about the hurricane. But of course this is what was on people's mind.
McConnell, Yes, I have.
I spoke to Mitch. He's a friend, and I spoke to him today and you know, he was his old self on the telephone and having a little understanding of dealing with neurosurgeons and people. And one of the leading women of my staff was in neurosurgeon as well. It's not at all unusual to have the response that sometimes happens to Mitch when you've had a severe concussion.
So he sounds kind of like what the doctor actually said that The Mitch McConnell's office quick to put out the doctor's note, Stephen Dennis. They're pointing us essentially to the symptoms that would follow a concussion. He did have a fall last year, as opposed to something age related or more than that. What are you hearing?
Yeah, I mean, I think it's troubling when you see one of the leaders have these freezing moments, one of the most important people in the country, you know, and it's not the first time, you know. So there's now questions about whether he's going to be able to continue his leader. Right now, all the people around him are sort of wishing him well. There are no Republican senators yet calling on him to step down. But there's going to be a very important meeting next week the Senate
Republicans when they come back from their August recess. Uh, they'll have lunch on Wednesday. They'll all be in the same room. I expect McConnell will be trying to put to rest questions about his ability to do the job. And then he has a press conference usually right afterward, where it's the exact same scenario where he first froze. And and you know, I think there are real questions
that you're starting to see. Even typical allies of the Senator, like National Review last yesterday said you know, hey, it's time to start putting in place a succession plan. Let's let's time for you to step aside.
There could be one that we don't know about right now.
There's no succession plan, but there are you know, the three Johns who are who all.
Want They all want McConnell's job.
I mean, it's one of the best jobs in America. You basically have a veto over any law that passes. If you go back to two thousand and seven when McConnell first got this job to today, you know, there's like a handful of laws that have been made in that time that he did not either support or acquiesce to, you know, other than the Affordable Care Act and you know, the Inflation Reduction Act and several more, every other law
has had to go through Mitch McConnell's veto. And that's just the power that he has over personnel, over timing. You know, a few years ago, Mitch McConnell woke up and decided to ban smoking or ban people under twenty one from buying tobacco products, and it just happened. You know, It's just, you know, it's amazing the amount of power that guy has had. And one of the ways that you're seeing the power is just how quiet people are being in the Senate. You know that nobody is getting
out in front of him. They're giving him time to sort of process. He put out this very short statement from the Capital Attending Physician saying that he had been cleared to resume his schedule. But it was there. There was a lot that wasn't in that statement. It didn't really say what his underlying condition was. It didn't say if he has you know, if he's on any medications or or has any other issues that we should be worried about, other than saying that, you know, he's able
to do the job. And and I think that this is going to be something where he's going to have a lot of tests to prove that he's still able to do the job. And keep in mind, there's a lot of other things going on. We have a government shut down.
As I say, let's talk about the job There are questions because we've you know, we've we've talked about the budget battle a lot on this program, the idea of supplemental funding requests for FEMA for Ukraine, an actual budget for the government. Knowing that I think one appropriations build cleared committee in the House, does it matter to have a potentially compromised leader at a time like these? How would it impact the negotiations?
I think it could impact them a little bit. But you know, the reality is this year is about Kevin McCarthy.
You know, a government shutdown will happen or not, depending on whether Kevin McCarthy wants to sort of rip off the band aid and tell the Freedom Caucus and others who are demanding all sorts of things like defunding the Department of Justice's investigations into the former president and a bunch of other demands they have, that they're not going to get what they want on this stopgap spending bill to keep the government open after September thirty without them.
You can certainly he could put a bill on the floor tomorrow that just extended existing spending and it would probably get three hundred votes. Now, the thing is that with Democrats supporting yes, of course. And this is you know, this is how Washington's worked. When Republicans have been in charge. They haven't been able to pass too many bills with their only Republican votes. They've been able to pass bill
with Democratic votes and a majority of Republicans. And you know, McConnell in the past had been the guy cutting those deals. After the House passed over some bill that was never going to pass the Senate, McConnell would cobble together something that would get enough Republican support and enough Democratic support
and get to the president's signature. But already this year, you know, during the deat limit crisis, McConnell, you know, sat down with me before the deal was cut and said, look, you know, people think I have like some deal in my pocket here, and they reached into his yay, he reached into his jacket, and it's like, you know, I don't have some secret plan to end the deat limit crisis.
McCarthy and Biden have to solve it. And he said that this time was different than you know, a decade ago when he cut these deals with Biden, that the House Republican Party is different, and I think the House Republicans. There's so many of them that don't like McConnell. Trump doesn't like McConnell. Trump's been trying to get rid of McConnell's So you know, a McConnell blessed deal isn't necessarily gonna help McCarthy get past this point.
Steven Dennis, great to talk with you when everyone comes back to town. I'd love to do this again in a week or two when we actually have a sense of the trajectory of this whole thing. Is one of the only reporters to actually sit down with Mitch McConnell this year, Stephen Dennis, Thanks for being with us Bloomberg Congressional reporter as we had the voice of Lester Munson. You know Lester from our political panels BGR Government Affairs.
Do you know he was not only the former staff director Senate Foreign Relations committe he was the chief of staff for Senator Mark Kirk. When Senator Kirk had a stroke. This was a senator from Illinois, you might remember. This caused by the dissection of his carotid artery, and for
an entire calendar year he was in recovery. Lester, thanks for coming to talk to us about this, because I'm sure you will not forget that year, and I wonder your thoughts on the best way for Mitch McConnell's staff to handle him in these sensitive weeks going forward.
Joe, one of the first things we did when we realized Sendra Kirk wouldn't be out for a while, so we asked Senator McConnell to come in as the leader and talk to the staff and reassure them that they were part of the Senate family and that we're all going to get through this together. And he did that, and he did a great job, so did Senator Durban and some other senators who are friends of Senator Kirk's.
And what that brought home for me is that and people don't really perceive this on the outside, I don't think, but when you're inside the Senate, you realize it is kind of a family and there is a lot of support. And I think that's the reason we're seeing President Biden be so. I mean, there's some political reasons perhaps for him as well, but he's genuinely friends with Sendra McConnell and he is concerned about him, and he wants to
be supportive and that's largely how the Senate operates. When someone's in distress, the entire institution rallies around that senator, that staff, that office, those functions, and they work together to try and keep things going in the breach, if you will. And so that's maybe something that we don't see as well from the outside. Yes, there are going to be members who are thinking about replacing McConnell, of course,
because he's not going to be a leader forever. But what's really going on now is everyone is coming together, particularly Republicans, to try and support the leader and get him through this to where you know, he's it's apparent that he's fully functional and able to do the job. So that's the thing. There's a Senate really comes together and it's kind of a nice thing.
So if this ends up being side effects from a stroke and there is actual recovery ahead, Lester, could Mitch McConnell be in the Senate for years he's eighty one years old.
Well, I think he could. There was a Senator from South Dakota, Tim Johnson, who got re elected after having a very severe stroke and he had, you know, there were some consequences for his faculties physically mostly after that stroke, but he got re elected. He continued to do the job as Center I think, as even Chairman of the Banking Committee for quite some time. So there's precedent for this. Can he be the leader, that's maybe a separate question
from whether he can be a senator. So I think his colleagues in the conference, as Stephen was saying earlier, they're going to come together next week. They're going to take a look at Senator McConnell. They're going to listen to him. They're probably already talking to him. They're going to have to make a kind of a group decision about how to proceed here. And if it looks like Senator McConnell is fine, as his doctor says, and as
he's saying, then the things will keep going. If there's some evidence that he can't do the job of leader, then there may be a move afoot to have an election in the next few months to replace him. Again, this is not he's not the commander in chief, not going to have to wake up at three am to make some difficult call about American forces in harm's way or something like that. The Senates of Deliberative Body, it takes months for the Senate to make any kind of
decision anyway. So I'm I'm pretty confident Senator mcconnald's going to continue his job, even under under bad circumstances for the for the time being, because the simply don't you know, he's going to be okay in the in the context of the Senate the longer term, I think we might be looking at some questions.
There have been questions about, you know, the turnover here and potentially the next session of Congress, especially lesser if Republicans win the majority, which is entirely possible. In fact, a lot of people are predicting that would the Republican conference in the Senate demand new leadership if that were the case.
It's that's a great question. There was a there was a contentious vote with Sendor McConnell before this kind of started between Sender Scott from Florida and Senator McConnell, and Senator Scott got eleven votes, So that's that's not not nearly a majority, of course, but it's a magnificant number of votes in the conference. There's there is a there's already kind of a national competition going between the three Johns, and perhaps there are others who may throw their their
hat into the ring. I think we're I think we're likely to see a battle at the appropriate point in the future. If there's a in the new Congress in early twenty twenty five, if Republicans are the majority, it's either either we're going to see Senator McConnell re elected with a with a probably a tough battle as there was a few months ago, or or we're going to see new leadership that may that may have been selected at some point in the next year and a half,
depending on his health situation. So I think, regardless of circumstances, we're going to we're going to see some changes and some some competition here for the top job.
I only have a minute left, Lester. Would you make sure to get Mitch McConnell at the podium next week answer questions from reporters.
Yeah, I think you know. That's That's what I'd be doing. If what we're hearing is the is the kind of a full story that his health is in fact fine, he can do his job. He's been cleared. They should get him out there to be seen in public doing his job and reassure folks that most important test, though, is with his fellow Republicans, and they are right. They are going to kind of go through that at lunch on Wednesday of next week. That'll be the first.
Test next Wednesday lunch. Maybe we'll talk to Lester after that. Great to have you back, Lester. Lester months and at BG our government affairs typically a panelist, a Republican strategist. We talked to you here on Bloomberg sound On, but a special first hand insight to share it today, and we thank you for it. Lester, m Joe Matthew. This is Bloomberg. You're listening to the Bloomberg Sound On podcast. Catch the program live weekdays at one Eastern.
On Bloomberg Radio, the tune in app, Bloomberg dot Com, and the Bloomberg Business App. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station, Day Alexa played Bloomberg eleven.
It is Jobs Day, and for the White House, it brings good news. I'm stronger than expected. Payrolls up one hundred and eighty seven thousand jobs, Wage growth the slowest pace since early last year. Participation up for the first time since March, President Biden speaking to the nation from the Rose Garden A short time ago.
We've recovered all the jobs lost during the pandemic. We've added a million more new jobs. More than seven hundred thousand people joined the labor force last month, which means he's the highest shared of working age Americans are in the workforce now than at any time in the past twenty years.
It's a good story to tell le you wonder where we're heading with some real cross currents, some headwinds coming in September. So I went down to the Labor Department this morning to talk about it with the Acting Secretary of Labor, Julie Sue. We met outside and started by reading her a tweet from our next guest, Mark Xandy. He's going to be with us in just a minute. This is what Mark said on Twitter. The August jobs report could not be much better. Job growth solid but slowing.
Unemployment rose, but for the right reason, more labor supply participation jumped, Wage growth growth continues to moderate, ours work rose. The report, he says, has soft landing written all over it, And so I started by asking Madam Secretary if that's how she sees it. Here she is being written all over it?
Is that how you see it?
Yeah, I mean this is the kind of job growth we'd want to see if we're looking for soft landing.
Well, with that said, unemployment is rising, and it's interesting to see Wall Street celebrating that. I'll ask you your thoughts on that in a moment. But the duration of unemployment is increasing. Is that because more people are looking for work or because of the many people on strike right now country?
So the slight uptick in unemployment was due entirely to more people coming into labor market. I think that is also a sign of optimism, right. It's a sign of the strength of our co It was also a very small uptick, so that the overall unemployment rate remains under four percent for the longest stretch since the nineteen sixties.
What do you think as we walk into this labor day when you see Wall Street rally on the idea of rising unemployment.
I think that these are all signs that the president's economic agenda, what we call Bidenomics, is investing in America right, the idea that if we do our jobs well, we can have a tight labor market where workers share in prosperity. Where we recover from the economic catastrophe of the global pandemic to a point where we have steady and stable growth, that all this is not only possible, but it's actually happening.
You've been asked a lot about union actions lately with regard to the UAW. What's going on in Hollywood right now. There could be flight attendants involved, This could go beyond that. I'm not going to ask you if you're getting involved yet, because I know you're waiting to be asked if that happens, to make a decision at some point. But what are your models telling you if all of these strikes were to coincide in the fall, what whatd that mean for our economy?
Right?
So, let's put all this in the context of the job's day numbers that we're talking about. This is an economy that has defied all expectations in terms of its recovery, both the rapid pace of it and and how broadly shared it is. This is Bidenomics in action. Part of the President's commitment is to empowering workers, making sure that workers get their fair share and do well, and part of that has meant that unions have more ability power to demand changes at the bargaining table. We've seen some
really good results from that. Right the teamsters and ups resolved their issues. People wrung their hands about that too and wondered expected that not to happen. It not only happened, but they ratified a contract with some eighty six percent of members. The West Coast Ports twenty nine ports resolved issues that were really complicated as well and have a multi year contracting. These are what happens.
Do you see this resolving itself?
I mean, I'm not going to make a prediction about that, but I do think that the process requires that we respect the party's ability and their continued commitment to bargaining at the table.
I have to ask you about Taylor Swift. I don't know if you saw Taylor Swift when she came to town, but we're hearing that the impact the Federal Reserve. You even mentioned this of her tour and even Beyonce's tour to some extent, helped to paper over some weakness that might have otherwise emerged in this job's report. What's it going to look like when everyone comes off tour after the summer.
So I'm going to say something about women in general, right. Women are powering this economic recovery. We can talk about Beyonce, we can about Taylor Swift. I want to talk about the record numbers of women in the job market now. Remember during the pandemic, women were pushed out of the labor market through things like our lack of paid leave, difficulty with ascessing childcare. Those women are now back in
the labor market. We have the fifth month of historic percentage of women in jobs, and I think we should continue that effort to create good jobs, create good union jobs, and make sure that everybody has access to them, including we see Ahad.
Couple when all of these tours come to an end, they're obviously employee more than women.
Yeah, but women. I've been looking at the labor market as a whole and jobs as a whole. I think that we're fortunately broad based recovery means we're not just reliant on one or two superstars, but we're really seeing what happens when people have confidence when you create good jobs in all communities. As the Department of Labor, we're really focused on making sure that everybody can get those jobs out.
Of Secretary, Happy Labor Day, Happy to Labor doing in.
A month, you're listening to the Bloomberg Sound on podcast. Catch us live weekdays at one Eastern on Bloomberg dot com, the iHeartRadio app and the Bloomberg Business app, or listening on demand wherever you get your podcasts.
Iswan DeSantis Never Backed Down, Superpack backing down. The headline of the terminal Desanta's faces new sat back is super Pack halt some canvassing and this is happening right now. The Never Back Down cap shuttering door knocking operations in early voting Nevada. They go before South Carolina as well
as California. In the latest cut to the Republican contenders, campaign, officials from Never Back Down confirming the group plans to halt door to door canvassing in those states and preserve resources in early voting Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, which brings us to another headline. DeSantis Pack asks donors for fifty million dollars. Anybody got a spare fifty We need
fifty million bucks. Let's reassemble the panel. Genie Shanzano joins Bloomberg Politics contributor and Democratic analyst, and Lisa Camuso Miller is back with us today Republican strategist at RESET Public Affairs, former RNC communications director. What's going on here, Lisa. I know that after the debate, there was a lot of question about the trajectory of the Dessantas campaign, having seen polling numbers decline significantly over the past couple of months
and just constant attacks from Donald Trump. Ron DeSantis came off the campaign trail to deal with a hurricane in Florida. Some thought that might be another reset. What does this tell you when a super pack starts to reorganize resources like.
This, Well, they certainly reevaluate and change plans all the time on the campaign level, and that's certainly something that it doesn't necessarily surprise me. It surprises me more, Joe to read that there are questions inside of the super pack about whether or not some of those states have such a heavy influence from the Trump campaign that they've decided to reconfigure some of their approach. And that's interesting
to me too. Does the Trump campaign have so far over reach into some of these states that it's making it difficult for Desanta's money to go far enough in order to make a difference. That to me is even more interesting. So as much as I see that they're recalibrating and they're changing process, I also think, though Joe, it's so early still that to be spending money so
their burn rate must be off the charts. They must be reconfiguring some to make sure that they're more tactically smarter, making decisions that aren't necessarily putting all of their money out there too quickly in advance. But he already has probably more money than every other candidate, So to me,
I just feel like it's a recalibration. Yes, there's been a lot of recalibration, but I also think that there is something to be said for Ron DeSantis and his political team in a state like Florida, he won thirty three out of thirty seven counties. I mean, he is a smart political guy, so I would not count him out.
Well, that's important, Genie. As we hear from Jeff Rowe strategists to Desanta's strategists talking to donors last Wednesday, quote let me tell you a secret, don't leak this unquote my favorite part of the story. We need to do this now, he says, after Labor Day we're launching. We need your help and stay up and go hard the rest of the way, we need fifty million bucks. It's like, it reminds me of that scene in Vacation when Chevy Chase's brother in law asks him for the money and
he puts the wallet right back in his pocket. Fifty million dollars at this stage, Genie, can they do that?
Yeah?
That was my favorite part too. Don't like this, And I also liked when he said the good news is we have the money in this room. The bad news is it's in your pockets. I mean, it was like a bad you know, Hollywood movie where he was pitching for this money. And let's not forget he wants fifty million before the second debate that's September twenty seventh, you know. But Jeff ro he knows how to raise money. He does it well, he's always done it well. He probably
will get it. But this is just to me speaks volumes because another thing he said in this, well a couple things. Number one, he said that if they don't get this, they are likely to lose because this is all going to come down to the big states. We know about Wisconsin, Pennsylvania in the end. In other words, he is saying, what a lot of establishment Republicans are saying is that Trump can simply not win the general election. So there's that. Then he also really put a timeline
on this thing. He said, give me this fifty million sixty days. Well, that takes you to about November. So I read this as jeffro saying, if DeSantis doesn't have his what one hundredth come back by November, this thing is done. So I don't think that we have as much time as we usually do in a typical election. I think the clock is ticking. Jeffrow is telling big time donors. Why because in that debate Nikki Hayley really wiped the floor with Ron DeSantis. Donors are attracted to her.
He's worried they're fleeing, and he's saying, one last time, give it to me. I'll show you some return on your investment. If that doesn't come, DeSantis is probably toast in this thing.
Wow, all right, Well we have a lo disagreement here, I guess. And by the way, this is all coming from the New York Times. They got an audio recording of this whole thing in which Roe did say that DeSantis needs to beat Donald Trump in the next sixty days and separate himself from the pack from the other rivals. Quote unquote, Now with an update on Donald Trump and his legal woes, remembering he pleaded not guilty or as
going to without showing up in court. And Georgia, there's been this big push for a special legislative session by the former president and his allies to oust Fannie Willis, the Fulton County DA enter Governor Brian Kemp, remember the Republican governor of Georgia.
You know, these are the distractions that gets you to lose elections. The last time we were talking about special sessions here in the state of Georgia, just a few weeks later, the Republican majority lost two US Senate races.
Lisa Brian Kemp continues to be Donald Trump's worst nightmare. He says, come back in the regular session if you want to do this. It appears there may be no hiding for the charges Fannie Willis has brought for Donald Trump. Is that how you see it?
I mean, Governor Kemp is a leader in our party. He is I mean, he is saying the truth. He is talking about the fact that the election has not been stolen. He's standing behind the elected officials and the leaders in the state. He's doing what we expect our elected officials to do, Joe and so to me, yeah, he absolutely is the fly in the ointment for the
former president. But he is a patriot. I mean, it's amazing and it's fantastic, and I wish there were more Republicans that would stand up and say the same.
It's talking like a Democrat, almost genie. But that's kind of the special thing about Georgia, isn't it. The Republican leadership in that state just not big fans of Donald Trump.
Yeah, that's right, and he is absolutely telling the truth. I agree with Lisa. You know, they lost. The Republicans lost two Senate seats for the first time in modern history, just about and they lost it because they were playing these kind of games that Brian Kemp is pushing back against. This is not the way to win the suburbs. This is not the way to win independence and moderates. When you go down this road, you risk losing, and that's
what they did in twenty twenty one. And the risk is they do it again all over and so he's trying to stop that.
But he's going to It doesn't seem like the governor is going to allow that to happen. I'm sure that's also simultaneously true. We'll keep the beat on. Brian Kemp for you. Final thoughts from our panel. Next, I'm Joe Matthew. This is Bloomberg.
You're listening to The Bloomberg Sound on podcast. Catch the program live weekdays at one Eastern on Bloomberg Radio, the tune in alf, Bloomberg dot Com, and the Bloomberg Business app. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station. Just say Alexa play Bloomberg eleven thirty.
As we head into this weekend where you might see a barbecue or I don't know, maybe a bottle of beer. At some point we have to put this story to bed. We'll do it right. Just pour one for the panel. I mean, I'm still working there. You can't do that on the air. Let's bring back Genie Shanzo and Lisa Camussa Miller. Listen to the head on that thing, all right. So we got an update from the White House on the two beers a week scandal. We talked about it yesterday.
This is the biggest controversy gripping the nation's Capital. Remember what Ted Cruz said about this. He was very upset about it that Americans could be limited to no more than two beers a week. He suggested do strict alcohol guidelines and follows an interview with doctor George Koob. This is one of the health czars, I guess at the
White House Health. He's talking to the Daily Mail of all people, of all places about whether the US might revise its alcohol guidance to match Canada's, where indeed people were advised to have just two drinks a week.
I never heard that.
I thought they loved beering. Canada just want to work. There's two panelists. Okay, here we are. Now we finally heard from the White ight House on this. It's straight from the Press Secretary Karine John Pierre. Pretty tight tweet here. Quote this claim is absolutely false, Genie Shanzo. Does this go into the gas stove file?
It goes into the gas stoves file, it goes into the Green eminem file. Joe Matthew, it's a Labor Day weekend and you're not giving Lisa or any of this beer that you're opening. I just want to note that.
I SUP.
That's all right.
So does this stuffs listen to Ted Crusey. Did you hear him on Fox? We did this yesterday.
I just I can't trying to go after and regulate ceiling fans. I gotta tell you, yes, we don't want to get rid of our ceiling fans. And now these idiots have come out and said drink two beers a week, that's their guideline. Well, I gotta tell you if they want us to drink two beers a week, frankly, they can kiss my ass.
All right.
So I don't know that was news Max, actually Lisa, who's right here.
I don't know, but it's certainly not good news. Friend money to make that kind of recommendation. With the way that the White Hopkinson administration ooops bingo saying hello, it just seems to me like it's going. It's going in the category with the gas stoves and all the rest. Absolutely not I guess.
It is, yeah, gas stoves, showerheads, toilets, dishwashers. Thank you for humoring me, Genie Shanzano and Lisa Camuso Miller. Thanks for listening to the Sound on podcast. Make sure to subscribe if you haven't already, at Apple, Spotify, and anywhere else you get your podcasts, and you can find us live every weekday from Washington, DC at one pm Eastern Time at Bloomberg dot com