The Politics Of A Strike

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 podcast.

Join Now by Kayley Lines. Sean Fain didn't wait announced it shortly after ten that they're expanding strikes against GM and Stalantis. Ford must be feeling sort of proud today although they're still striking Ford, just not expanding the strike raist for just.

Status quo for Ford because some progress and talks has been made there where it hasn't been made in GM and Stalantis's case, which is why you're seeing this expansion. And we're starting to get some headlines from the automakers themselves. In response to this show. The GM just put out a statement, it seems, saying UAW leadership is manipulating the bargaining process, that the strike escalation by leadership is unnecessary, though GM says they will continue to bargain with the

Say right, that was the one that they said was no go or not good enough for something. But we don't know what was in the offer, correct, We.

Know that wasn't. What wasn't in the offer was the job security components that the union was looking for, evidently because with Stalantis's case, there's risks that a number of facilities are going to shut down and that security for those workers that could be affected as something that they're looking for. In the meantime, though, Joe, we got another what fifty six hundred workers on strike in the addition, in addition to the thirteen thousand.

That already wre Sean Fain talked about it, the director of course of the UAW in a Facebook live here's a taste.

We're expecting to stand up strike in response to the lack of progress in bargaining with General Motors and Stalanis. We will shut down parts distribution until those two companies come to their senses and come to the table with a serious offer. The members who will join the stand up strike today are living testament to one of the injusticees we are fighting again stood to big three tiers.

Not getting easier here as we go, and based on what you just said from GM, this could actually get a lot more dicey over the weekend if they're going to start with this tit for tat here. Keith Naughton's been all over this. Bloomberg Auto reporter joins us now with the latest from Detroit. Keith, I don't know if you saw this coming here, that GM and Stilantis would be the ones to take the brunt of the expanded strikes. I know Bloomberg was reporting earlier this morning that Ford

Yeah, I mean it looks like Ford is making, as the union said, real progress here. One analyst is predicting there could be a settlement at Ford as early as next week. The question is will the Ford deal set the pattern for the other two or will GM Atlantis kind of dig in their heels. Ford has given significant concessions that Wall Street seems to be in favor of the stock sword today, while GM and Stalantis did not.

A new headline just out from Stalantis said they offered all full time hourly staff eighty thousand to ninety six thousand dollars by contracts, and I guess Joe that that is referring to the offer they made yesterday that was not responded to. In the case of both Stalantis and GM, though Keith It's parts distributors that this strike is now expanding to all of them, thirty eight facilities in total,

Yeah.

So with this action, the UW is literally taking the strike to the streets because what this will do is interrupt the parts flow that go to dealers for car repairs.

So if you take your car.

In for a repair, the part may not be there and then you can't drive your car. So this will really test that public support that has weighed very heavily in favor of the union, because this is now going to inconvenience drivers throughout the country and dealers.

Keith, we don't have a sense of what the next deadline might be, do we.

They haven't set another line at the stand yet since they just crossed today's line. But you know, the question now becomes, can this progress at Ford and the fact that Ford was kind of rewarded for it by not having their strike widened me on the one planned, Can that serve as an incentive? It's a carrot and stick approach that the union is using here. Can that serve as an incentive to get GM and STILLANTIS to come along with what Ford has offered? That's the whole basis

It's fascinating, Keith. Thank you, great reporting. Keith not and Bloomberg Auto Reporter with us again on Bloomberg Sound On. I look forward to our next conversation. I'm pretty sure we're going to have it as we had. The voice now of Arthur Wheaton, the director of Labor Studies at the Cornell School of Industrial and Labor Relations. Arthur's good to have you back on Bloomberg. We've had some pretty

Yeah, and it's using a strategy that the automakers have used against the union for years, the terms called whip sign. So you try to for decades, General Motors would try to pit one plant against another. If you give us a concession here, we'll give you more work.

Now.

Sean Fain in the UAW is pitting one automaker against the other automaker, saying the first one to get a decent deal doesn't get a strike, and it's helping them in terms of their strike fund because they're only paying for less than twenty thousand UAW members out on strike. Yet it's impacting severely both Stalantis and General Motors and their dealerships, especially without draining their strike fund as quickly as it could be.

So definitely some very strategic thinking at play here on the part of Sean Faine and UAW leadership. I guess the question becomes if they are prepared to just not budget all on their demands. That seems to be what's happening here is that the automakers are having to move because the union just isn't doing that. I just wonder how long you think that dynamic is sustainable for.

I think what's likely to happen is both General Motors and Stilantis are waiting for Ford to find the solution for them, so that Ford is most likely to get a deal, and then hopefully that deal will set the pattern at the other two automakers. I think right now they're trying to battle the public relations war at General Motors and Stillants more so than solve the problems at the bargaining table.

Huh.

So Ford's being used by both sides here, I guess.

So.

Actually fascinating as we watch take stock rise Arthur. If this goes on, maybe there's a deadline next Friday, Maybe they stand up strikes again. Maybe this goes into a third week. Is a lockout among the options for these automakers or is that signing your own death warrant?

The lockout was became an available option the minute the strikes became an available option. So since all three contracts are what they call expired, the no strike, no lockout clauses ended, so they can do it anytime they want. I just don't think they want to. I think right now both GM and stallanthus are sitting back trying to wait and see for waiting for Ford to figure a way out of this, just like they did in Canada

So if it's really Ford's deal to make here at the end of the day, is there no role at all for any officials in the administration. We just had a headline coming out of the press briefing with the White House Press Secretary Kaarine Jean Pierre. She said US officials spoke with the UAW and automakers both today. That's, of course after earlier today Sean Fain says, we invite everyone to the picket line. President of the United States included.

Like this, Yes, the President can make a difference, but the biggest difference he can make is not trying to get into the bargaining table. So under the National Labor Relations Act, which is what the private sector is under, there is no role for the President or Congress. Unlike the rail industry, which almost had a strike, the Railway Labor Act does have a specific role for the president, and it was Congress that stopped that strike from happening.

Do you expect or should there be arthur a continued negotiating sessions or is this going to be here's my offer. No, I reject that here's my offer, and we kind of play this out in the media.

So what happened is you can get to what they call last, best and final offer, and that's what you could come to at Stillantis or at General Motors.

But I don't think we're there yet.

I think right now you're seeing an impact, and it's a relatively serious impact. But I don't think anything so far can't be made up by the end of the fourth quarter. So as you have only three assembly plants down, they can work overtime and catch up on all of that loss production and the parts plants doesn't hurt production as much as it hurts the dealerships. And the dealerships are the primary customer for both GM and Stillantis. Because GM and Stallantis do not own the dealerships, that is

Yeah, that's an interesting point as we think about the economic ramifications of this when we're talking about costs. Though obviously the cost to the strike fund is the consideration for the union, but the cost of the new contract is the consideration on the other side of the bargaining table for these automakers. The sense I'm getting is that it isn't really so much about the wages. It's about other things related to pensions, for example, some of these

I think there is a huge difference between what you ask for at the table and what you expect to receive, So you never ask for the minimum going into bargaining, You're going to ask for more I don't think the pensions were solved at Ford. I don't think the healthcare retire healthcare for retirees was solved that forward, and I don't know if they will be solved. I think those are just two issues. But what the UAW is doing is saying everything we're asking for here, we had for decades.

I don't think they're at that point.

Wow, you referred to the strike fund already, Arthur. The automakers know how much money the union has, just like we do. Why not just put a date on the calendar for when that money runs out? Sit back and wait.

Well, you could try doing that, but the UAW absolutely doesn't want to spend all of that. You got to remember, only one hundred and forty seven thousand people are impacted directly by these three companies.

But if you're the automakers, if you're the automakers, just let them spend the money, if you know when that money runs out. Doesn't that give the corporations an advantage potentially.

Except that all of your customers are going to start running to Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Kiya, and whoever else they want to when you start losing customers. And at forty eight thousand dollars the average for each vehicle, it doesn't take many customers to surpass that number in the strike fund.

So thin could lose a whole.

Lot more money than what the UAW will lose over that period of time.

It's an interesting consideration. And as Arthur's talking about different automakers, there's also Tesla, non union EV maker. EV's are at kind of the heart of the issue in this fight as well. In theory, Tesla's probably feeling pretty good about this right now.

Yeah, we only have thirty seconds off. There is this whole thing advantage Tesla.

I would say, no, I would say, what's going to happen is all of this at the UAW wins huge gains at the bargaining table. You could have the UAW start organizing more of than not Tesla's, including Tesla, and Tesla is always anti union and has unfair labor practices against them, so it could be a warning shot saying, look, we're coming to you next, so we want improvements for the workers.

Come back and talk to us. Arthur Wheaton, Cornell University, Director of Labor Studies.

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. Just say Alexa play Bloomberg eleven thirty.

Lawmakers have left us all to ourselves. They're gone for the long weekend without crafting a plan on the budget. We're going to get to that more immediately. Hear news from the UAW that you've been hearing about for the last couple of hours on Bloomberg. Remember we had a twelve noon Eastern deadline, and you better believe the UAW is scaling up strikes, but not all of them. Targeting GM and Stalantis, not Ford. We heard from Sean Fain, the president of the UAW, just before the deadline.

Today at noon Eastern time. All of the parts distribution facilities at General Motors and Stalanis are being called to stand up and strike. We will be striking thirty eight locations across twenty states, across all nine regions of the UAW.

But as I mentioned, not Ford, and as we look ahead to the next week here in hopes of some sort of a breakthrough, there's going to be an added political element to this. As Donald Trump goes to Detroit instead of the Republican Debate to speak to members, and this is happening amid calls for President Biden to do the same. He's actually out with a new ad today

A president that's constantly saying go union, Go Union, this is what you get the unions get involved in that.

Nicky harrin the First Building passed eighty six billion dollars.

For unions Senator Tim Scott and clearly does prioritizee union jobs.

And he's made very clear here.

And you've got an anchor here at Fox Business, so you get a taste of this. By the way, he said yes, is that one word on the tweet? Mark Niquette is with us Bloomberg Politics and Government reporter. Market's wonderful to have you in Washington as we consider the political side to this important you know, business meets Wall Street kind of story. We add Washington as well, and it's hard to escape the politics as Republicans try to

We're going to find out. I mean, it's it's pretty clear that what President Trump's trying to do is to cut into Biden's union support in Michigan, key swing state. In the twenty twenty four election, Biden did very well, beat Trump by about one hundred and fifty thousand votes in twenty twenty. So, in addition to counter programming the GOP debate that's going on in California, I think Trump is sensing an opportunity here that he could make some headway with union members in particular.

It's a pretty friendly crowd though, right the rank and file was already kind of leaning toward Republicans and Trump in the last couple of elections. Here is Joe Biden the one who has to win over their support.

Well, there's certainly a disconnect between the union leadership that has historically backed Democrats and the rank and file members. The Democrats would have you believe that it's a majority of the rank and file still support Biden and the Democrats. And sure there is support in the rank and file for Republicans. But I think that the big question is does Trump really have any the ability to move many of the folks, the union folks who voted for Biden twenty twenty four.

You're going to be at this speech, I guess we'll call it next week in Detroit. He's not expected on the picket line from what we understand, because of security concerns. Will he be in a union hall or what? Do we have logistics yet?

Yeah, we're not entirely sure, other than it's a primetime speech with current and former union members and including not just UAW members, but you know, pipefitters and other union folks.

You know, it's interesting you mentioned that because one of the messages from Fain today was this is not just the Big three, this is about more than the Big three. And he went through a litany of labor actions in his I guess Facebook live conversation is his live message to members here, this is bigger than the UAWD. We just went through ups we had rail workers earlier in the year. Is that why Republicans think they have something?

I think so.

That and the overwhelming dissatisfaction that voters say they have with the economy and Biden's handling of the economy survey after survey shows that he's just not making any headway with his message of Bidenomics connecting with people. And you know, one of the things we're watching to see, I think is if Biden engages now with this strike in a more personal way. The Facebook video from Fain, you mentioned, more or less invited Biden to show up the picket line and.

Trump's visit didn't.

He we did, and before the message was we don't want presidential politics involved in this negotiation. We can do fine without it, thank you. But there seems to have been a change now where Fain is welcoming Biden to intervene in the strike. So I guess it'll be interesting if we have a sort of a split screen with both Biden and Trump showing up in Michigan to try and make some head moment to strike.

That would be a moment in this campaign to intervene. Though, is that? Did you mean to use that word in terms of maybe mediate.

No, not im media being in a sense of inserting themselves into the big picture. They know, if not the negotiations directly.

That could still happen. Of course, Mark, you're also writing about the impact this may have on the Ohio Senate race. What should we be watching?

Well, we're watching to see what impact this has on Shared Brown. He has a tough reelection in Ohio, and historically he's relied on the vote of in particular the UAW to carry Ohio. But Ohio has been moving much more to the right in recent elections. A lot of these Union folks who forever were Democrats clearly voted for Trump in twenty sixteen and twenty twenty. You know, the big question is can Shared Brown hold these folks, these Union voters in particular, if they went for Trump, where

We've got a lot to learn here. Still, it's like every time we turn around, there's another layer on these races, and this UAW is a pretty big layer. Would you join us from Detroit while you're out there next week. I'd love to hear from you.

Mark.

It's great to have you in Washington. Mark Nackett, Bloomberg Politics Government Reporter, Many thanks for talking with us. As always on sound On, It's not all that often we get an in person review from Mark Niquette. I'm Joe Matthew and Washington. As we prepare to bring in Bill Hoaglan now from the Bipartisan Policy Center bring up the data. What's happening on Capitol Hill and by that I mean nothing.

I'm particularly frustrated today. We went home for August recess. We should have stayed in Washington working to get our appropriation bills done, but we didn't. We went on August recess, and that's when we're supposed to go back to our districts and get work done in our districts. That's what we did. But we should have stayed in Washington and funded the government and gotten all the work done hammering out the details.

Doesn't sound like she's terribly happy with her ally Kevin McCarthy on all of this, Let's turn to Bill Hogman, As I mentioned, senior vice president of the Bipartisan Policy Center, spent more than a day in the Senate working for Bill Frist as the director of Budget and appropriations. I won't go through your whole resume bill, but it's wonderful to see you here and thank you for coming.

Boy.

I remember the conversations we had around the debt limit, the potential default. We thought we had a deal. We're really learning now apparently we did not. And as everybody heads home, we're going to have what four or five days potentially to figure this entire thing out. Next week. You've got some folks described as a legislative arsonists who are calling for a shutdown. Speaker McCarthy says he doesn't understand this mentality has just burned the place down? Is

Well, they're working on it pretty hard, I think in terms of causing some real problems for the Speaker, but I remain somewhat optimistic that we're going to be able to work this thing out. If nothing else, focus on the United States Senate next week. The United States Senate on Tuesday will be taking up a piece of legislation called the FAA Reauthorization Bill.

And not to get into the weeds.

About this, but it's it allows them to call that bill up and strip it, strip it because it's a revenue bill, because there's revenues in that bill. Allow them to strip out the FAA portion and put in a continuing resolution and then send it over to the House and so be in the House's.

Job to take up that particular resolution.

So this has been people are talking about the Senate jamming the House. This is doing its job. Yes, maybe swooping in at the last minute. But we hear that Kevin McCarthy gets fired if he tries to pass that.

Well, I'm not exactly sure that's going to happen.

I mean, he may face a motion to vacate his speakership.

I think that's true.

But in the last twenty four to forty eight hours, I have been at least hearing that.

Listen, what's the alternative? And so.

Democrat the way the House works, and I'm a Senate staff or not a House staffer, so I can't I can't always speak to the person in the House. But the House Democrats could basically not show up to vote on that vacation, vacate the position, or they could vote present, and in which case then the speaker would survive a motion to vacate the office.

So when I asked Democrats here, would you come to the speaker's defense? And they laugh at me. That's actually what they mean. They would come to his defense without voting, without voting for him, just by lowering the threshold.

That's exactly right.

So I think that's I think from the beginning this has always been a question as to whether or not the speaker wanted to keep government operational or did he threaten his own position as a speaker.

And I think this is where it's going to come down to, do.

We do we in that world end up having like a weekend shutdown or something, or well, the.

Good news, of course is not the good news. The news is that, of course the fiscal year begins on a Sunday. That's right, So it is possible that we would have a shutdown on Sunday, maybe Monday there. But I personally I think that what no. But first of all, nobody to oh, you know, nobody wins in these situations.

If people say, well, it's.

A outside the beltway, we may hear inside the Beltway say we know where the problem is. It's in the house, But outside the belty nobody understands. Basically that everybody we all look bad. And so I think the sooner we get to the position of passing a continuing resolution, the better. Listen, we're not out of the woods here. Even if they do pass a containing resolution will probably be to the end of October.

Maybe maybe to think we're.

Going through this again, we're pushing up against snowflakes in December, I think, before we get everything resolved.

Wow, And that's exactly what Kevin McCarthy said. He didn't want, right, don't jam me up against the holidays. He said, let's get it done before then.

But high reality, that would be nice. But I don't think that's going to happen.

But you also don't think he's going to get fired, which means he might have a little bit more ribber room than people are illustrating in the media.

I think he's going to try his best to go as far as he can, to push it as far as he can up until he has to. And I think it's he I honestly, he understands to do this, he has to have democratic support, and this would be Listen, it's two against one, the White House and the Senate. It's two against one. And I've never been in a knife fight. But if it was two against one, I think I put my bets on the two.

Yeah, that's right, fair enough even without a knife. So Mitch McConnell wants to see Ukraine funding. President Zelenski was here yesterday. He made the case with that CR included.

Well, that's a good question, as I understand that it probably would there be an attempt to put the Ukraine funding in this bill that I'm talking about coming from the Senate. Rand Paul has indicated that he is opposed to that, and so that may delay thee That's why there's that made delay getting the bill out of the Senate and over to the House. But at the end

It's been a recurring theme in our last moment. I just wonder your reflections here when it comes to the dysfunction. Uh, even if we get through this. To your point, we might have another shutdown at the end of the year, and we're going to be wrangling over this for the balance it seems of this of this Congress, aren't we Oh?

I think so.

I think when you have this narrow the margin in the House, are you're going to have this is and we move into this political season in a bigger way. It's it's going to continue all right up into the election time next year. I think this is going to continue on this division. I'm sad about that. I think it is. It's not the way the government should operate.

Well, it's because of your experience in that time and place that we enjoy talking with you, because that's the perspective we need now. Bill Hogland, the Bible Partisan Policy Center, Thanks as always for the insights. I'm Joe Matthew. This is Bloomberg.

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 listen non demand wherever you get your podcasts.

A very difficult path ahead for potentially funding the government. We assemble our panel, Rick Davis and Jeanie Schanzeno or with us Bloomberg Politics contributors as Kevin McCarthy. The Speaker of the House laments those in his own Republican conference who he says, want to torch the place. This is the speaker coming out of the failed vote yesterday to try to begin debate on a defense spending bill.

I don't understand why anybody votes against bringing the idea and having the debate, and then you've got all the amendments.

If you don't like to build. This is a whole new concept.

Of individuals that just want to burn the whole place down. It doesn't work, Rick Davis, the Speaker is perplexed. Is he out of control?

Is the Speaker out of control? Or is the caucus out of control? You know, I think the speaker. The Speaker is angry because the caucus is not keeping its deals intact. So I don't blame him. I think this is really outrageous that you know, you have veterans voting against the consideration of the Defense Appropriations Bill. I mean, like, I've never seen anything like this, either in the Republican Party or the Democratic Party, and and it's put the

Of course, if the votes on a bipartisan cr which we're now expecting to come from the sena genie guys like Matt Gates are promising a motion to vacate and they think they can get him fired the other fear By the way, if you ask Matt Gates at least, who does not want any part of a stopgap solution here, and I think is girding for a shutdown or encouraging a shutdown? Is this discharge petition the idea that there'd be a workaround to bring this to the floor by

What the thread is is that five you know, liberal or moderate Republicans could just say, we don't want to do the single subject bills. We don't want to go through the pain of doing the cuts to foreign aid or to food stamps or anything like that. So we're just going to go sign what's called a discharge petition and then just move that thing like through like s through a goose.

He says on a microphone in front of a camera, Genie. I'm really starting to think it's time to just remake Schoolhouse Rock here. I've been learning more about the legislative process these past couple of weeks than I ever imagined, how about you?

Oh yeah, and I've never heard that s through the goose either, so I'm learning all kinds of either. Thank you, Joe. And you know, it's it's interesting to listen to Matt Gates bemoan the fact that a few loan representatives, maybe as few as four or five as he says, might pulled up the process of regular order. I mean, it is it is just fascinating to listen to the hypocrisy

You know.

And I think my biggest fear, because we're listening to Matt Gates, so I'm going to add mine, my biggest fear is that we are playing by old rules. We are playing by pre Trump rules, and I think one thing Democrats have to consider is that whereas these shutdowns have traditionally hurt Republicans, and I think they will continue to. Donald Trump has been pushing for chaos everywhere he can find it. In the House is another place in Congress.

Rick, I know you're not a big fan of Matt Gates. I'll let you speak to that if you want to. But is there an element of what he is saying that actually rings true when it comes to regular order when he talks about single issue spending bills. Does he feel burned by Kevin McCarthy who promised regular order or is this just bad behavior? Sign the cr and keep the government open.

Well, I mean he's been on the group who have been voting against appropriations bills which are being brought up in regular order after committees have approved them. And uh so it is a bit hypocritical that he would then claim that anybody else who would actually try to skirt his influence, you know, by using a different legislative rule,

Do you think Bill Holan is right and that Democrats might turn away or not show up for a vote if there was a motion to vacate to you know, kind of indirectly support Speaker McCarthy.

Yeah, for sure.

I mean the Democrats don't want to open this up to potentially, you know, some other much more unattractive speaker candidate, you know, who will try to reorganize the Republican Caucus. So yeah, I mean they'll just walk off the floor and make it a different kind of vote, and and so.

All of this.

I've always thought the easy yes in the negotiation that the Speaker had with the right wing mega guys, you know, getting the Speaker's job was to give them this option because the reality is they may try to take the vote, but it's not going to result in his ouster. I mean, like, there's a difference between taking a vote and actually throwing the speaker out. And in this case, I think there's a zero chance that if they do it, that Kevin McCarthy doesn't wake up the next day showing how hollow

Right.

Then the reality is it was a hollow argument.

How about that, Genie. I've got to ask you about the union the UAW today scaling up these strikes against the Big Three. Well, I should be more specific, it's against two of the Big three. We had a noon deadline today, as you know, Sean fan and made the announcement before hei noon.

We still have serious issues to work through, but we do want to recognize that Ford is showing that they're serious about reaching a deal. GMS solanis It's a different.

Story, different story either way. Donald Trump will be there to speak to all of them next week, Genie. And now Sean Fain thinks that Joe Biden ought to come speak to union members. Is he right as the president head for Detroit.

You know, the president has to walk a fine line. I think he has issued very strong support for the strikers. I think that some of us were surprised by how strong he was in his language, and I too was struck, like Bill said, by the fact that Fain just last weekend on CBS Sunday Show said, you know, the president the administration should stay out of it. Now he seems to have changed that. I think in part that may be a response to Donald Trump's decision to go and

Well, of course, Donald Trump will be skipping the Republican debate next week, apparently to do that in Detroit. We don't know if the President will join him, but we'll have a lot more with our panel on this next as we look ahead to the debate and new numbers out of New Hampshire today that could be meaningful. We'll talk about it with Rick and Genie.

You're listening to the Bloomberg Sound On podcast. Catch the program live weekdays at one Eastern.

On Bloomberg Radio, the tune in APF, 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.

Sean Faine, the President of the UAW, denounced Donald Trump's plan to visit Detroit and talk to the auto workers next week. That's his plan to counter program the Republican debate. But Sean Fain now says that Joe Biden should come. He's inviting the President to join striking workers on the picket line as they ratchet up the strikes here against

Yeah, I think Joe Biden should go to Detroit. He should be talk talking to the UAW guys. He should not have let Donald Trump get around him. I think it was a pretty sloppy political move by the Democrats to uh not see that coming. It's a perfect option for Donald Trump, good excuse to skip the the debate, uh, to go talk to these guys. And obviously it's a misma, mixed match of you know, retired and active union members,

Yeah. Well, yeah, imagine the image is Genie. I know you think that this is a delicate equation for Joe Biden, But imagine him arm in arm right, leading the charge. She's got the megaphone in his hand, a fist in the air. Is that not exactly what he needs? Now?

Well, you know, I'm not sure he needs exactly that, because he's also president of the United States. He's responsible for a stable economy, and striking against the Big Three can be interpreted by many people as something that is disruptive to the economy at a time when inflation is high. But you know, I think he does have a difficult line to walk as anybody does. It's far easier. It's not easy, but easier to run for office and to

He's got the upper hand in the latest pulls out of New hand Hampshire. These new numbers are from CNN and the University of New Hampshire Survey Center. This is the Granite State Poll, a sample of about two thousand in the Granite State Poll. And my goodness, these are hypotheticals for the general election between Joe Biden and every Republican candidate who's going to be on stage next week, plus Donald Trump. Rick. I know you don't have a lot of time for hypotheticals at this stage of the

Yeah, well, I think you focus in on the Biden Trump matchup because they run against each other. In New Hampshire. There are a lot of Republicans who think New Hampshire is a swing state, and I think that it's a legitimate poll at that stage. I mean, the rest of them don't have enough name mighty and haven't campaign enough, so it's very hard to make comparisons. But this Trump number is bad because everything that Biden's getting is motivated

He beats everyone by more than that, Genie. The Biden camp has been in need of some good news. Is this it?

Yeah?

This is absolutely good news for the Biden camp. And I think they are paying close attention to these polls because we heard the President speaking to funders and supporters in New York and he is really turning his focus on Donald Trump. To keep pushing these negatives up, negatives up, and his argument is that Donald Trump wants to destroy democracy, he wants to increase the chaos and decrease any sense

Well, I'll say a couple weeks ago we would have been obsessing over this DeSantis number as well. Remember when dead Antis was the big fear. He's the one who actually could beat Joe Biden in a general. He loses by seventeen points in New Hampshire according to this poll. Some final thoughts next from Rick and Jennie. 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 app, 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.

We hear a lot about crime in major cities these days, and in New York they've got a new tool to help the police. They rolled it out today. Unveil this today is called K five, a drone. Mayor Eric Adams helped to unveil this piece of drone technology that will help patrol New York's busiest subway stations. Yes, New York now has a RoboCop.

This is a good investment.

Tax pays dollars.

And I'm hoping you're gonna put a line in your story how cosse efficient I am, because I should get that this is below minimum wage. You know, no bathroom breaks, no meal breaks.

No bathroom breaks, no mirror breaks. But ready to deliver justice.

Robert, that are alive? You are coming with me? That's right.

It is now our reality, Ladies and gentlemen. RoboCop is among us. Rick Davis and Genie Shanzeno. I'm gonna have to think twice. I guess when I go.

To New York.

Genie, you're a New Yorker, there's gonna be a cop walking along with the RoboCop. Does this bring justice to New York subways?

Well?

I certainly hope so. But I have to tell you. I shot at stop and Shop sometime and they have Murdy, the robot who's early similar to this robot.

And he always yeah me out.

So I don't know if I'm gonna feel safe. Are more freaked out? And nine dollars an hour they get to Lisen, he should at least be paid more per hour. That's not even minimum wage.

You make that sound like a deterrent.

Rick.

I don't know about you. If you saw one of these things come in your way, would you turn and run? I feel like there's enough to worry about already in New York.

Uh yeah, I'm anti RoboCop because you know what that leads to roboth. I mean like what I mean like, is this an escalation thing? I mean like, you know, the police get a robo. The cops are the criminals get a robo? I mean, like we're all gonna be like just staying in our homes while the robos fight it out on the street. I mean, I'm I'm not sure progress is a good thing.

Leave it to Rick and Jeanie to help us get to the bottom of this. Absolutely, yes, K five it needs a friendlier name. By the way, it's taking pictures in video of you but not audio and no facial recognition. I think turn and run is going to be the answer for me. Thanks for listening to The Sound On podcast.