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Don Byer, he's with us now. I can't imagine how long it's been. The congressman from Virginia's eighth district serves on the Ways and Means Committee, the Joint Economic Committee, and if you live anywhere in the Washington, DC area, you know the name just from the dealerships. Congressman. It's great to have you back. The two questions everyone is asking, which ought to say a lot about the state of things. Is the government going to shut down? And is Kevin

Those were good, by the way, I thought the interview with Megan Scully was great. She's very good insights and I don't want to repeat everything as she said, but she was right on the button.

At the challenge.

I do think though, that we Democrats in the minority in the House will have work to do. Among other things, we're going to have to really amplify and get the mess out that a MAGA shutdown will be terrible for the country, terrible for federal workers, terrible for all the things the government does for the American people every single day.

And I also think you.

Know, as as you have talked Joe, that Kevin's going to Kevin McCarthy. Speaker McCarthy is going to have to find a bipartisan deal to do this, which means he's going to need at least as many Democrats to vote for this continued resolution as the Freedom Caucus members that he loses on the Republican side.

Do you talk to Speaker McCarthy?

Does he speak, you know a lot with Democrats? Do you have a relationship with his office or do you really feel like you're you're reading about this in the news?

No?

No, Well, I have not talked to him during this very long break. I think Arsen will be forty eight to forty nine days. It's the longest breaking money fire. It's weird and not good. I talked to the Speaker a number of times. Is friendly relationship, but but you know, I'm not the Democratic leader, and I think his conversations with Hakeem Jefferies and Catherine Clark are the really important ones, and I am pleased that they seem to get along pretty well, and we're gonna need them.

The country is going to need them to get along.

The key, Joe, I think is if Speaker does the right thing, does not let himself be held hostage by the Freedom Caucus, he can easily get you say, one hundred and ninety or two hundred Republicans to vote for a continued resolution, and enough Democrats.

Maybe all of them, but at least the eighteen or twenty to get it passed.

The question then, is will the Freedom Caucus pull the trigger on this so called mostion to vacate the chair, which is basically a vote of no confidence in the Speaker, which could have him lose the speakership in a worst case for him, And I think that would be a terrible thing for the country.

But that's something that he Well.

I'm sure you're not probably getting drinks a lot with Chip Roy and Andy Biggs in company, But what are you hearing about that is this real talk?

Do they actually make that move or does it depend on what's inside the c.

Are somewhat depends.

I think the three or four things that they're asking for are non starters for all the Democrats and most of the moderate and sensible Republicans. You know, they're asking for things that, you know, like basically slashing the budgets of the Department of Justice and the FBI. This from supposedly that the law enforcement folks. It's just craziness. But I also know that Chip Roy and some of those guys are Andy Biggs. They are true believers. They're not

I'll add another name here. I don't know if you'd refer to Marjorie Taylor Green as a true believer. She was thrown out of the Freedom Caucus, so maybe not. But she's floating this idea. She's not the only one that we actually tie government funding with a vote on an impeachment inquiry or just the fact that there would be an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden. Is that actually going to is that what this comes down, We're going to unlock government funding based on an impeachment inquiry.

Well, first of all, that's really stupid politics, and maybe good politics, and Marjorie Green's Northern Georgia district.

But everywhere else.

All that would do would be to pump up Joe Biden distract us from the real work of government. They have yet to turn up a single fact that would justify any kind of impeachment.

It's you know, the thought.

That Marjorie Taylor Green had been sort of on Kevin McCarthy's side, got thrown out of the Freedmam Caucus. His puts her right back into the crazy group when it looked like maybe there was a chance that she was starting to grow up.

We I wonder if the Speaker is going to do with though.

I mean, Kevin McCarthy's been talking about impeachment every time he's in front of a camera lately, and it's difficult to tell what direction that would go in. But if he can keep the government running based on that equation, why not.

Yeah. And although.

I think he understands though, that if he wants to hand the House right back to the Democrats in fourteen months, impeachmentth's the way to do it. And you know, I think the Speaker's in a hard place because he has to, you know, give lip service and seem to be doing his best on the impeachment for the ninety ones in his caucaus.

At the same time, I'm sure he does not want this to happen.

Yeah right.

I got to ask you about politics in Virginia. Every time I look at a national political story, all roads seem to lead to your state congressman, whether we're talking about Abigail Spanberger, your colleague in the House, potentially running for governor. More often, though, I hear about Glenn Youngkin and how he may have created a national model for Republicans here in a post Trump world, if we are in one. It doesn't feel like it at the moment.

Yes, And in fact, I think the big Virginia worry is that if if the governor with his very deep pockets and his friends with very deep hooks, because throws too much money at the Virginia General Assembly, races at the end and somehow he flips the Virginia Senate and keeps the House, you know, we would expect him to be a presidential candidate the next day. And of course we're terrified that if he somehow got the trifecta, you know, by by next March, Virginia would be Florida.

Do he do all the evil things that Florida?

And we're the southernmost state that still is preserved a woman's right to reproductive freedom, and.

I know he Glen Young would change that right away if he had to vote.

So we're all in on making sure that we keep the Senate and flip the Virginia House and try to stop the Young.

That's what we're talking when you say evil things though you're talking about abortion policy.

Did I understand you're not.

Being able to teach controversial subjects? No Holocaust, no slavery. You know a lot of the stuff going after trans kids just generally hostile to so many of the people who live, work, love and and.

By the way, was a heck of a word.

To overblow the youngin phenomenon.

He won the election with less than fifty one percent of the votes after Governor mccalloff made, you know, a singular mistake in a debate about Paris not being involved in the kids' education.

Absent that twenty seconds, he never would have been governor.

That's something that's the name of the game in politics, which is why I don't know how anyone could make a living doing this.

To be honest with you.

I have to ask a car guy about what's going on in Detroit. Well, a lot of people outside of this area might not realize that you made a living in the car business as a very successful car dealer. And I wonder your thoughts on this conversation with the uaw A thirty two percent or I believe it's a forty percent increase in wages over the length of the contract, thirty two day work week. They're asking for things that these companies are clearly not going to be able to give.

Well, I sure hope not. I know the language is strong. I know you know, Joe, when you go.

To sell a car, you try to start at list price, no matter where you end up. And it sounds like that's what the union has done, is they started with a very high manufacturer suggested retail.

Agreement and they have to be ready to negotiate it down.

By the way, this administration, Joe Biden and his folks have done a really good job of intervening.

Again and again, you know, on the long storemen, on the ups.

I certainly expect that we will see the White House intervening to make sure that they don't strike against the Big three.

Would that actually take care of it?

They did not intervene when requested in the Yellow trucking situation, and I realized that company may have had its own issues.

This one's worth it though, you think.

Now, it's definitely worth it, And the autoworkers have been strong supporters of Biden in the past.

But the last thing to do, especially.

After all the inflation that affected new cars and used cars in the last couple of years, yeah, we would to look at supply shortages again and driving up prices.

That'd be a terrible thing for the American consumer.

Next time you come on, I want to ask you about AI and the role that it will be playing, not only in these negotiations, but the future of the auto industry. We spend so much time talking weapons, Congressman, it's all around us, and I want to thank you for being with us on our first big day on YouTube. Congressman Don Byer, the Democrat from Virginia with us here on sound on Many Thanks to you. I'm Joe Matthew in Washington with a lot more to talk about.

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.

Mick mulvaney joins former OMB director I could do all the formers, a former staff, former member of Congress, former well co founder of the Freedom Cacus.

That part never goes away.

It's good to see you think.

Am I supposed to look at you? Am I supposed to look at Yeah? I guess we just look at each other radio.

I'm still practicing this myself now. I guess if you're I'm at show in them of course. Indeed, one of my favorites of the early days of CNB. I guess another trailblazer on getting radio on TV or something like that.

Yeah, what about my posture.

Where about my Honestly, yeah, it's really it's a little bit stressful here.

I appreciate your being. I'd be all alone without you, Mick.

We both have faces for radio.

Well, let's find out together what's going on. I guess a lot.

I keep hearing about this awful September that Speaker McCarthy has to prepare for.

Here.

You've you've obviously been here. You come back from Labor Day. Everybody's been gone for over a month of Marston parades last weekend. But there's some in this case, some really difficult decisions that need to be made, a tough debate over funding the government, and I'm hearing motion to vacate again. I don't know if that's real or not. But how difficult is September going to be for Kevin?

It's difficult in a variety of ways. What a lot of folks don't realize is that August.

Is really strange for members in Congress. They typically don't talk much to each other. We always think, oh, it's so easy to talk to each other and communicate, you text, you do it.

No, it's right.

They spread to the four corners literally of the world. I mean they go all around the world. I was in Italy and.

Bumped into a couple of them.

So there's not a lot of coordination in August as to what's going to happen in September. So the leadership team has been working and what's going to happen in September, But the ordinary members have been off doing whatever they do in August. So you come back after not having a lot of communication and boom, now you're stuck with each other for I think they're here three or four weeks in September, maybe all of September, how about that, And they've got a bunch of stuff to do. I

It's not that we're reminded of this so we can talk about it in the media. And this is it just select members of the Freedom CAUCU is talking about this, or is it the brad Republican Conference saying wait a minute, if this doesn't work out, we're gonna have to talk again about a news speaker.

No it's never been the auto Republican conference. It's always been sort of a rump group within the Freedom Caucus. And that's sort of what it grates on me and people. So, oh, it's a Freedom Caucus uprising, O, what is it? The Freedom Caucus? Don't they don't publish their members. We think they have thirty or forty members, and it was what a dozen or so that gave Kevin difficulties back in January, and he's trying to get sworn in. So this is not a freedom Caucus movement. Jim Jordan is in the

That's pretty remarkable.

We're talking about a continuing resolution, so we don't have a shutdown when we roll into October, but that would only buy so much time. Apparently Speaker McCarthy's made clear he doesn't want to be bumping up against the holidays and having a you know, of course, we're very used to doing that. What's your thought, though, I mean, we seem to be guaranteeing ourselves a shutdown. Is it actually inevitable?

Do you remember the ads for Ivory soap when we were little sure ninety nine point forty four one hundreds pure that's sort of my odds on a government shutdown.

Oh, it is, and it is. And keep in mind, a government shutdown is not that big a deal.

That's one of the things I learned when I ran the OMB, because you know, I had participated in more than one government shutdown in my day in Congress. And then I end up at the Office of Management Budget and they start talking about another shutdown, and they come to me and they go, you know, you run a shutdown. I'm like, I'm sorry, what the director of the Office of Managed Budget runs a shutdown? In fact, I actually signed the document shutting the government down. And that's when

The right wing.

How about that now?

Of course we're hearing as well from the likes of Marjorie Taylor Green. I guess no longer in the Freedom Caucus that we're going to tie this to an impeachment inquiry that if there is a vote to launch an impeachment query into Joe Biden, I guess we keep the government open. This is why people hate Washington, right, they do. But that's a deal that a little bit beyond the film.

People hate Washington for variety of reasons. There's no If you want to hate Washington, I got a list of reasons you can, right.

But if the government's worth funding, can't we figure that out without triggering an impeachment inquiry?

Yes and no.

And here's why I tell people is that there's only one bill every single year that really matters as a fiscal conservatives, and and that's the spending bill.

That's it. That's the only one that counts. You can do all the.

Deals you want to on debt ceilings, you can have you know, sequesters like we did back in twenty eleven, twenty thirteen, It all counts for crap.

It doesn't count for anything.

The only thing that counts is the annual spending bill, the appropriation bill, every single year. And that's where the fight is going to be for the true fiscal conservatives. And if there's something else you want to try and accomplish, you know, try and leverage that everybody's That's what people do in Washington, d C. They leverage bills that they like to you know, that they want to get. So this is the natural place for this flight, this fight

The supplementals that we're hearing about that the White House wants billions more for disaster why not relief?

What is it?

We have Hawaii, we have Florida. But there's also supplemental for Ukraine. You and I've talked a lot about funding the war effort in Ukraine. This is about to come to a head once again.

Yeah, I mean listen, I remember my very first year in the Budget Office and the Budget Committee beacgnized in Congress. There's a couple of guys who I'd never seen before at any of the committee meetings show up the.

Last day before we vote.

Turns out they're the appropriators who sit on the Budget Committee that hadn't been to a meeting the whole year. And they asked one question, which is are you restricting us on emergency spending? And we said no, and they got up and left the meeting. That's all they cared about. Because emergency spending is off budget, it doesn't go through the regular appropriations process.

You have to vote on it.

But you could You and I could agree, all of Congress could agree we're going to spend one hundred dollars this year, and we fight over that, and we agree on that, there's blood in the streets everything. We agree we're going to spend one hundred dollars, and then two days later, two days later, we can get together say oh, we want to spend another sixty on an emergency spending and that's and that's it, and that's a separate negotiation. So, yeah,

What happens with those supplemental requests though, I mean, this is going to be the first fight that we hear about.

Yeah, they get they get they get approved.

So those will go through. Then we get a cr with something attached to it mostly.

And by the way, a supplementer will be tied to something else. You talked about time understichment to the appropriations. There will be a bunch of Democrats who say, well, we want to tie supplemental for Florida, a Republican state, to something else that we want to have.

That's the negotiation that takes place. Is the reason that was it could be you know, I don't know where Ukraine falls right now. It's really very interesting.

It's becoming slowly one of those truly non partisan issues. There'll be folks who are against Ukraine and the Democrat Party and folks a growing group who are against it in the Republican Party. The Wall Street Journal article this week about the loss of money the corruption people forget. Ukraine before the war was one of the most corrupt countries in the world. We actually have special laws on the books in this country.

You answering some questions about that in the brief, right.

And how we spend money in Ukraine because it's just that corrupt. And so you've got fiscal conservatives in Washington now on the Republican side who are worried about spending more money. You've got war doves in the Democrat Party who might not want to spend this money. So yeah, it's morphing into a really interesting topic because it's moving towards one of those things that doesn't fall neatly into partisan lines.

This is a conversation that I'm sure is not going to get easier as the year goes on, particularly if this counter offensive does not play out the way at least most wanted it to. Inside the Pentagon, there are doubts that they're going to be able to achieve goals. This almost becomes a political gain here where you want to invest in a winner, and if Ukraine does not look like one, what happens in Washington.

Somewhere there may be a very intrepid Bloomberg reporter who's trying to figure out how many Ukrainian leaders have bought overseas residences in the last two years, how many of the friend of mine Italy in Italy who says that his neighbors used to be Russian oligarchs, now they're Ukrainian oligarchs.

So there's all sorts of there's all sorts of that stuff. How much of that.

Suggesting they're taking American dollars, and you put two and two together.

You've got stories about corruption, about money they can't find about replace seeing the Defense minister. Yeah, there's gonna be Listen, Ukraine is a sloppy, messy thing and the war just made it even sloppier and messier.

So it will.

Continue to be, it will be become a more divisive issue as we go forward.

And how about calls for an audit. If you're Speaker McCarthy, say look, we're ready to fund this war effort. Remember he said it wasn't not another dollar, it was no more blank checks. And that seems to make him different than Marjorie Taylor Green and Matt Gates.

Yeah, and that's fine. And nobody likes blank blank Well that's not true. Folks love blank checks in Washington, d c. Well, some Republicans don't like them. So it's the right thing for Kevin to say. I don't know, I'm putting on my old Freedom Caucus hat on. Say okay, Kevin, I'm all for an audit.

I want to pick the auditor, Okay.

I want to be involved. I want to be able to trust the auditor. I don't want the Europeans to I certainly don't want the Ukrainians to do it.

I want to do it.

And yeah, okay, as long as it was American in another way, as long as it's as long as there's some accountability.

Look, you're going to talk about They're gonna the Republicans are gonna want to start talk about spending less.

You want to start having that conversation.

And when you're spending so much money in a foreign nation on a foreign war, that's one of the natural places to sort of look to, which is Look, I don't want to start reducing spending domestically until we take.

A real hard look overseas. It's the right conversation.

Af We're spending time with Mick mulvaney here on Bloomberg Sound On.

If you want to join us here on our.

YouTube simulcast something new today, Jump in Google Bloomberg Global News.

The link will be right there. You'll be a full Google spot for you. Is there a reason you're you're dissing Bing or Duk Dush?

Should I tell them to Bing Global or I don't know If Google advertised Google or Bing Bloomberg Global News, that should answer your question.

If only they would.

Google going to lose their They're going to lose their trademark, just like Kleenex and xeroxing like.

That, don't you.

I think it's uh, I think it's out of the bag. I have to ask you about Mitch McConnell. I don't know if you talk to him, if you talk to people around him. We're hearing about the three John's again, and that can't be a good thing when you're named Mitch.

It does.

Keep in mind, the audience here is not we have a discussion and we will have a discussion about Joe Biden's age and his mental capacities. Okay, that's a national discussion. The discussion about Mitch is actually much much smaller because we're only talking about him, not as a senator, you're.

Talking about him as the leader of the Republicans.

So there's what, there's forty nine of them who actually have a say in this. That's the universe of people who are following this. No one's talking about kicking Mitch McConnell out of the Senate because of his health issues, the questioning whether or not he has the ability right now to be the leader of the Senate. So you got to put yourself in the shoes of an elected Republican senator and you ask yourself, Okay, is he still capable of doing what we need him to do?

And the answer is probably yes. Right now.

If this turns out to be short term, then it's probably not that big a deal. Plus, he's got an excellent staff he can rely on. We all know what we're doing anyway, it's not like we're going into an election year or something like that. So right now, he's probably got time to prove that this is recovery and he's going to be fine if it goes on four

In the meantime, you're out with a column today at the Hill, too old to serve the headline, a cause worth amending the constitution?

We only have a minute left.

How would you do it?

There's pretty simple.

Have an age maximum in the constitution, Pass a constitutional amendment, which we used to do relatively frequently, haven't done it now.

In more than fifty years.

It's exactly right. And we all know seventy five year olds who are in better shape than you and me, But we also know seventy five.

Year olds who are not.

And the question becomes, is there some common ground Democrats, Republicans, independences alike, and say, you know what, we've had enough experience with older people in our own personal lives. Maybe we shouldn't have a president over seventy five. Maybe we shouldn't have a Supreme Court justice over seventy five. Maybe we shouldn't have a US centered over seventy five. And just have a mandatory retirement age for those positions.

That's your age, those seventy five.

Pick a number. It's the debate. I want to have the argument.

Yeah, as opposed to a cognitive test or something more personal.

It's something that's hard to subjective.

Yes, you picked quite a time to write it.

We've got new numbers out at the Wall Street Journal, a new poll today that really illustrate the concern around Joe Biden's age and something we're going to talk about coming up with our panel.

Mick mulvaney, it's great to see you. Thanks for coming back.

It's great to see you live in person, head on TV.

Let's do it again next week. This is Bloomberg.

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I've got the letter from the attending physician at the Capitol and it's addressed to Senator Mitch McConnell. Pretty interesting to read from doctor Brian Monaghan. My examination of you following your brief episode August thirty, he writes, included several medical evaluations, you got an MRI and EEG, and consultations with several neurologists. He says, there is no evidence, this is the important part, that you have a seizure disorder or that you experienced a stroke, tia or movement disorder

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And click play.

Everyone's back.

Well, at least they're trickling back in the Senate here next week. It's the house coming off the August recess. That's why this letter is awfully important, Rick Davis. Does it do enough to give Mitch mcconnald a space he needs to recover?

Yeah, I think it does change the narrative a little bit.

I mean, kudos to them for getting on top of this and getting it launched right before people got back to town. You know, it's a hallmark of the McConnell operation to not let vacuums exist. He likes to be the one who's dictating terms of the discussion. And you know, up until the time of this doctor's letter, everyone was talking about what's causing this, what could potentially be the problem. Is it threatening to his you know, standing in the

So definitely it's worked.

We're a prime example that we're talking about, you know, how this should be moving forward. Obviously he's not at one hundred percent, and that's going to be a big question as to whether or not he can retain and regain his standing, you know, to be able to power through a really critical election cycle for Republicans in the Senate.

An election cycle in which age will be a factor age in health, certainly for Joe Biden as well.

Genie, we've talked about this a lot.

With new numbers out today, I bring this back up thanks to the Wall Street Journal poll showing a majority of surveyed voters worry that Joe Biden is too old to effectively serve for four more years. This is pretty tough here. Seventy three percent of registered voters tell the Wall Street Journal that Joe Biden is too old, Genie. There's not much Joe Biden can do about that, But does that look different next year if he's actually in

You know, first of all, Joe, Matthew and Rick Davis Liven in person, I'm very excited to see you. You know, I think the numbers all around were very bad for everybody except Donald Trump. That includes all of his Republican opponents. He's forty six points ahead of Ron DeSantis, up from

I'm going to keep our Joe straight here, Genie.

I want to ask you both about this new ad that that the Biden campaign is launching.

But do you agree with Genie on that Rick, that that age could.

Actually top the economy as an issue for Joe Biden here in this election.

You know, look, it's obviously a hesitation, especially for independent voters. I think what was it eighty five percent of the independent voters in that Wall Street Journal poll said, you know, they had hesitations about you know Biden, but at the end of the day, the election will turn on the economy. There's not going to be a replacement to Joe Biden. He is firm control of the Democratic Party and he's the nominee, and so they're just going to have to

A twenty five million dollar campaign here to focus on the president's economic record that will last through December. Apparently, the ad it's if I've got a thirty second version of it here debuts with the football game. People want to sit down and watch Thursday night football, the big season opener, they're going to have to hear and see Joe Biden.

Said millions would lose their jobs and the economy would collapse, but this president refused to let that happen. Instead, he got to work fixing supply chains, fighting corporate greed.

Fixing supply chains.

They go through all of the exercises that we talked about here in trying to fight inflation, growing jobs, and so forth. You see the President striding down the colonnade at the White House with Vice President Kamala Harris at his side.

Will this actually improve people's.

Thoughts on Bidenomics if we're going to call it that or annoy them that he's interrupting their football game?

You know, I think they have to do this is it is a big ad by It's critically important because one thing that we do know is that his strong record on the economy is not being reflected in the polling as much as they've gone out and tried to sell Bidenomics. And I think critically important about this ad buy, and a particular concern to Democrats as we look at these numbers is the reality that you have to look

Got to work is the name of the ad Rick. Will people see it or hear it that way?

You know?

I think it's his pitch, you know, currently for you know why his administration today is, you know, doing its best in a difficult economy. And I think that he has to do more of this, frankly. I mean we've been talking about this for a long time. His numbers are completely underwater on his job approval for the economy, handling the economy, and he cannot win reelection against I don't care who you put up against unless he improves

Well, Rick Davis, Genie Shanzano, great analysis. And as we look at the top line numbers on this Wall Street Journal poll, as far as the horse race is concerned, specific to the Republican presidential nomination, Trump fifty nine, Desantus thirteen, Ramaswami five, Haley eight interesting, and the rest in the two to three percent range. I'm Joe, Matthew and Washington. Thanks for joining us.

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.

So you get a letter from the leaders of three military branches, and you probably figure you're in a lot of trouble unless your name is Tommy Tuberville. In that case, the Senator from Alabama may be feeling emboldened.

This, of course, all has to do with the blockade.

Remember we talked about this quite a bit before the August recess blockade of military promotions, that this loan senator is holding in place an objection to abortion policy at the Pentagon. Now the update here senators returning to town when this might again be dealt with, comes as the secretaries of the Navy, the Air Force, and the Army write this letter published in the Washington Post calling on

He wants to vote here, he is, we a.

Lot enough money to run a great military, but we don't need to get into these vote policies and run in the ground like they've done every other institution, like the DOJ, the FBI, our education system. That's exactly what they're trying to do. But this policy on abortion is way overboard. They're not supposed to be making laws, and I'm not going to allow them to do it. They're going to have to change this policy back and bring

Okay, you got that. Let's vote on it. That's the only way I'll drop the policy. Senator Truck Schumer Ford It's worth has said he would bring this to a vote, but there is no indication that he plans to do that at least anytime soon. And so this goes on and on and on. As we reassemble our panel. Gdi Shanzano and Rick Davis have both spoken passionately about this, and I.

Don't suspect their opinions have changed.

But when you get when you get to the letter here from three civilian military leaders, We've already had the Defense Secretary call him out as well. Rick Davis, does Tommy Turberville let this go forever? Does Chuck Schumer let this go forever? Why not bring it to a vote?

Yeah, it is a significant departure from the norm. You know, prior to the holidays, we hadn't heard from the secretaries of the Navy, Air Force, and the Army, and now we have in very stark language, they need these people confirmed and the military needs to go about their business. And they even mentioned in this ed that that there are ways for people like Tommy Tuberville to change the policy, and that is through an Act of Congress. This is

He wanted to try and get this done.

Just as a deal in exchange for lifting his hold on all these over three hundred nominations that are waiting for confirmation. So, you know, the depression now is whether or not Schumer is willing to play ball with him.

Of course, Chuck Schumer is not going to bring it to the floor if he doesn't have the votes to do this, right, Geenie, I mean, will Democrats not vote together here? Because it's an election year to deal with the abortion policy at the Pentagon, which they talk about on cable news a lot, but bringing it to a vote and putting your name on it is different.

You know, I think that Schumer may end up having to bring it to a vote. But this is such a dangerous precedent for Coach Tubberville to push forward. I mean, imagine if a very left wing Democrat decides they don't like how the military is purchasing equipment because it's damaging to the environment. So they are just going to hold up and entire appointments and promotions in the military and impact are military readiness until the military cowtows to them.

Make things a lot more simple if that were the It's been six months, by the way, Rick, I was actually kind of amazed to see again, it's been six months. We're talking about hundreds of promotions at this point, including the fact the Army, Navy, Marine Corps do not have Senate confirmed service chiefs.

Does Chuck Schumer need to bring this to the floor or is that an indication to us there that he does not have the votes to uphold this Pentagon policy.

Yeah, it's kind of an interesting question. I mean, it is a hard question to determine whether or not he's got the votes to do this, especially an election year, where some people are going to be looking, you know, over their shoulder. But just to reiterate on this Tubberville example, I mean, he's to coach the Auburn football team, right I went to Alabama.

We played once a year.

It's called the Iron Bowl. Could you imagine him walking into his coaches meeting and saying, Hey, the chance for you know, like, I'm very upset that, you know, he's done something in the school about abortion, So I'm only going to play the third string against Alabama tonight. You imagine what the reaction would be, you know, to the Auburn alumni to that, Well, you know, this is more important than that. I know people in Alabama may disagree, but the reality is what he's doing is damaging our

Yeah, well that might be getting closer to Chuck Schumer's motivation right there.

Spoken like a son of Alabama.

Of course, Rick Davis and Genie Shanzo, this is why they are are signature panel here on sound On. I'm Joe, Matthew and Washington. Thanks for joining us back to reality today in Washington.

This is Bloomberg. Thanks for listening to the sound On podcast.

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