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 on demand wherever you get your podcasts.
And welcome to the Wednesday edition of Sound On. I am Amy Morris and for Joe Matthew, and we start with our top story today, as Colorado's highest court ruled that Donald Trump is ineligible to service president because of his actions inciting the January sixth attack on the US Capitol. We're going to learn more about this right now. Bloomberg
Supreme Court reporter Greg's Store joins us. Greg. The trial judge in this case several weeks ago said Trump could stay on the ballot, but the Supreme Court in Colorado has now overturned that exactly.
The trial judge said that this provision that that issue in the case, the insurrection clause of the US Constitution, didn't apply to the president. The Colorado Supreme Court said, yes, it did. And in addition, we agree with the trial judge that Donald Trump actually engage in an insurrection when he incited those rioters to go into the Capitol on January the sixth.
Well, that's really my main question, because has Donald Trump been convicted of insurrection? Are they setting themselves up for a question of due process?
So he has not been been convicted, that is That is a really important point, and it may make a difference, It may not be framed in terms of due process, but this is a provision that has basically, you know, almost never been applied and certainly not applied in a situation like this. And so the question is do you need a criminal conviction or do you need an Act of Congress or something else, or can a state court just do what it did here, look at the evidence itself and make a decision.
And time is of the essence here. We do expect Trump's lawyers to appeal this.
We do so the chlora Supreme Court order said we're putting this order on hold. As long as Donald Trump appeals to the Supreme Court by January the four, which his campaign has said he's going to do, the rule is going to stay on hold. So he may end up still on the primary ballot there. But if the Supreme Court agrees to take up the appeal, it will be in a position of basically deciding whether he can be on general election ballots all across the country.
So this could see up other fourteenth Amendment questions then.
It could or the Supreme Court could just resolve everything now. And certainly there's a lot of reasons why one might think the Supreme Court would want to do this. Better to get a decision now one way or another, or decision soon, rather than have this issue, you know, you know, sort of drift on towards the fall when it gets harder and harder to make a change in terms of who the Republican nominee is.
You know. Conventional wisdom has it that the Supreme Court moves quite slowly when it comes to certain cases, but they can actually move as fast as they like. Correct, So they could expedite this if they need to.
Absolutely Bush they gore in two thousand. Think about that case. That appeal was actually filed on Saturday and the case was resolved on Tuesday, three days away. So if the Supreme Court feels the need, it can. Of course. The course also got this other matter before them involving Donald
Trump's claim of immunity from criminal prosecution. The Special Council there has asked the Supreme Court to decide that on an expedited basis, and the timeframe he is asking for there is two months, which is about what the court took in the Nixon tapes case back in the seventies.
Assuming the Supreme Court does take it, well, first of all, let me ask you if you think they will. Does it look like is it a foregone conclusion the Supreme Court will take this up.
I wouldn't say foregone conclusion, but most of the people I've been talking to you both before and after the decision came out, had been saying if a state supreme court says Donald Trump cannot be on our ballot, then the Supreme Court would have to get involved. It was one thing as long as lower courts were saying, no, nothing to see here, We're going to let the election go ahead. Like plan that the color Redo Supreme Court
has intervened. It seems really hard for the Supreme Court to say, we're just going to let that decision go and wait a while until we see more from other courts. So odds are pretty good that the Supreme Court will agree to take this up.
A bit of a touchy question here, but I think you can handle it. Is there expected pressure on Clarence Thomas. Justice Thomas to accuse himself considering some of the allegations regarding he and his wife.
Well, there will certainly be pressure. There will be calls for him to recuse. That is a decision that has always been and looks like it will continue to be up to the individual justice. Justice Thomas for the most part has not recused from any cases connected to Jane Ray six. The one exception too, that had to do with John Eastman, the lawyer for President Trump. Former lawyer, he's a former Clarence Thomas law clerk, and that case also sort of involved talk about efforts to persuade Justice
Thomas himself, So there were some special circumstances there. You know, there's nothing that I have seen that would indicate that Justice Thomas is going to change his approach and recuse from this case. But I'm sure there will be calls.
Do you anticipate a national response to this? What sort of impact do you see from the ruling on the High Court?
Well, it will have a huge national impact. I mean, it is possible this Supreme Court will take up this case and effectively declare Donald Trump cannot be a candidate for president and that is every bit that is big of a decision, as it sounds like, you know, an awful lot of people don't think the Supreme Court will be willing to do that. This is a court that doesn't always want to put itself in the middle of political battles, and this, you know, in addition to a
legal battle, is very much a political battle. But if the Court were to do that, it would just have a seismic impact, and you know, you would certainly be ranking that up there with among the very biggest decisions the Supreme Court has ever issued.
It's incredible and we're going to I can keep watching it with you, Bloomberg Supreme Court reporter Greg Store. Always a pleasure. Thanks so much for taking the time with us. Now, let's turn to the war between Israel and Hamas and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the attacks in the Red Sea. Michael Knights is a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and he joins us now, Michael,
thank you for taking the time with us. We're just going to go with the top news of the day. A top political leader of Hamas was in Cairo in Egypt today holding talks with Egyptian officials about a possible truce in the war in Gaza and how to make that happen. What does that signal for.
You, Well, it signals that Hamas is desperate for the action to stop. They want to a series of long lasting truces or cease fires and to get back to the business of horse trading for hostages. That's their survival technique to try and stop the Israeli military action and get into a space they're much more comfortable with, which is hostage exchange.
Use How okay? Would a truce then, I'm trying to figure out how to frame this. Would a truce then help throughout the region as far as attacks from the Hooties and would it create more of a buffer to prevent other proxy type attacks.
The Houthis and the other Iran backed members of the Axis of Resistance. We'll keep attacking as long as there is a ground war in Gaza. So it certainly would reduce the amount of military tension in the region, But the Biden administration still seems committed to allowing Israel to finish the job on Hamas. Before we moved to a full sease fire.
Now Israeli President Isaac Herzog says his country is prepared to agree to a second humanitarian pause in fighting in exchange for these hostages. There are still more than one hundred and twenty hostages being held there. What does that tell you as far as over the next few weeks or even a few months, as far as how the fighting may rotate through, how they're going to be able to have these future pauses.
Well, CIA Director Bill Burns and a number of other regional officials are working twenty four to seven to try and get both the foreign hostages and the Israeli hostages back from her Mass. The Israelis became very tired of her Masses negotiating tactics in which they would dangle the hostages and then pull them back at the last moment in search of a better deal. That's why we've got the collapse of the ceasefire and the new phase of
ground operations. There's an attempt now to get a new set of hostage releases going, but if a mass uses its delay tactics again, that effort will probably collapse as well.
Well.
That was what my concern is is that the hostages are a bargaining chip, and they're not going to be willing to give up that bargain. How far can this go?
Well, the Israelis believe that they're about three to six weeks away from completing the operation, which would include overrunning the locations where the hostages would in theory be located. Those will be there's a smaller, smaller number of places where they can be and as those three to six weeks go by, Hamas's leverage is reduced because those hostages
are going to get reached by the Israelis anyway. So the Israelis are counting on being able to reduce the masses leverage and eventually force them into a position where they give back the hostages in response for perhaps a deal where the Hamas leadership can relocate to another country like Cutter.
So then who is operating under a greater sense of urgency? Would it be Israel or Hamas.
Hamas gambled when it took the hostages that Israel would be feeling all the pressure, But in fact, Israel has been very steady in continuing its military operations and the US has provided very strong.
Support to Israel to continue those operations.
So that's probably surprised to mass and the broader access of resistance.
We are talking with Washington Institute Senior fellow Michael Knights. Michael, you have a new study out on the tricky challenge posed by the Hooties for the United States. How much of a threat do they pose and to whom?
L Huthi's posed a very significant threat to global trade moving through the Sewers Canal. You know what they've currently done with their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea, which is south of Israel, and you know, is the way that you reach the Sewers Canal to connect the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean. They've essentially put global shipping back to the eighteen fifties in some ways where you had to go around South Africa to get from Asia
to Europe. So they've had a very significant effect in terms of affecting global shipping. You know, we remember when the ever Given tanker turned sideways in the Sewerz Canal and it caused enormous economic damage to both Asia.
And to Europe. So that's the threat that they pose.
You know, at the moment, the US is pulling together a escort mission with a variety of nations so that ships can feel and insurers can feel safer to use the Red Sea and the Sewiz Canal.
Again, in your column that you the study that you wrote, you referred to them as the Axis of Resistance. I wonder if that was an intentional use of the terminology that we may remember from World War Two.
And then there was also the Axis of Evil if we remember from two thousand and two as well.
But it's what they call themselves.
Actually, it's an attempt to bring together all the different Iran backed elements like Lebaniesays, Bulla, Hamas, the Iraqi militias, and the Huthis in one movement that is there to resist both Israel and the United States. So it's their own terminology, and the Huthis rather are trying to demonstrate that they're the most radical and risk acceptant member of the Axis of resistance.
In this crisis.
Now, we only have a couple of minutes here, and I don't want to get too deep into it, but I think it's important that we establish what the relationship is between the Hooties and Iran. Can you briefly explain that for our audience.
Yes, the Huthis built their movement as a clone of Lebanese, says Buller, which was itself a clone of the post revolution Iran's government. So if you imagine, the Huthis would be the younger brother to Lebanese, says Buller, and they both look up to their parents, the Islamic Republic of Iran. And there are very strong Commond control links between the Iranians and the Huthis, including the provision of all of these advanced weapons which have been at Israel or at international shipping.
So there's very tight connections.
Indeed, And in our last minute here, Michael, how does the US then secure its own interests while keeping in mind the future of the NY people? What sort of position does this put our US military?
US military is in a strange position because it's facing an opponent, the Houthis, who don't fear America. And it's also coming at a time when the Yemen peace process, which might end the nine year long war, the world's greatest humanitarian crisis, is almost ready to be signed. So the US doesn't want to do anything to disrupt that. And as a result, the Houthis are kind of bulletproof right now. They can do this to global shipping and nobody's going to do anything back to them.
What should we be watching for over the next few weeks. We have about thirty seconds here.
We should be watching to see how many more nations do in the US in the escort mission in the Red City.
All right, we're going to continue to watch that with you. Thank you so much for filling us in and for bringing us up to speed on how this is developing. Michael Knights is a Senior Fellow at the Washington Institute. He specializes in the military and security affairs of Iran, Iraq, and the Gulf States. We have much more still to come. Stay with us. You are listening to sound On. 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.
You are listening to sound On, and I'm Amy Morris in for Joe Matthew. Let's turn out to our political panel. Bloomberg Politics contributor Rick Davis and Democratic strategist Jim Kessler, you're vice president of Third Way, joining me today. Thanks so much for being here. We want to begin with the Supreme Court of Colorado the ruling that Donald Trump cannot be on the primary ballot in that state because of his action surrounding the January sixth attack on the
capitol back in twenty twenty one. First, I'm interested in each of your reactions to that Supreme Court decision that they overturned the trial court's decision. Was that a surprise to either of you.
Well, take a stab at that, Amy, and welcome to the show. We love having you.
What an interesting day.
I would say that it wasn't a surprise that the Supreme Court took it up. I mean, it's a pretty weighty issue, and anytime you're debating a constitutional issue like this, especially something as hyper sensitive as a presidential election, you're going to get the priority. So nobody, I don't think in the political world was surprised that they would take
it up. I think you know they were. I think it was a flip of a coin as to whether or not they would rule the way they did, because you know, four other states have said basically no We're not gonna we're not gonna take this moment to uh make a decision uh based on the fourteenth Amendment that Donald Trump you shouldn't be on a ballot. So this is this is a surprise outcome, a close one four to three. Uh. And yet I think, uh, we're gonna we're gonna probably see that Donald Trump will make better
use of the propaganda around this. You know, the systems against me, these are all Democrats who got put on the bench, and and and and he'll make incredibly good use of this. Now the media will try to uh talk about it as if it's a problem for him, But I think we're going to find out that, you know, this is another way that Donald Trump turns title on us and and we'll make it actually a centerpiece of his campaign.
Jim your thoughts, well, I think Donald Trump will sink or swim based on what voters do, not on what courts. Do you know. I was I wasn't overly surprised at the Colorado decision because a lot of secretary of Secretaries of state in many different states are doing legal actions to try and prevent Donald Trump from being on the ballot. Based on January sixth, and you know, eventually one of
these cases was going to go through. I expect that the Supreme Court will overturn that ruling and Donald Trump will be on the ballot in Colorado. I don't think this is a clear victory for Donald Trump, although I agree with Rick Davis that he'll make hay out of it. Is what I think is very possible is the Supreme Court will have this ruling in front of it and say, look for due process reasons, donald Trump has not been found guilty of insurrection. He should stay on the ballot.
It.
But there's another case that's heading to the Supreme Court that is Jack Smith's case at the federal level and whether Trump is immune from prosecution, you know, as as president. And it could very easily be a split decision where the Supreme Court says Trump can be on the ballot in Colorado, but we're also going to rule that he's you know, he's not immune from prosecution. So that case is actually more serious for Donald Trump for his political future.
Both of you, gentlemen, agree that Donald Trump is likely to make hay of this. But we'll say, Nikki Haley make hay of it, or Joe Biden make hay of it. Does this move the needle for any of his opponents, whether Democrat or Republican.
Yeah, I'm much more confident amy that Joe Biden is going to make better use of this than the Republicans running directly against Donald Trump, you know, who are on a ballot with him. In two weeks. This has been the most docile primary I've ever seen, where, you know, Donald Trump has a big lead, and everyone's trying to catch up with him, and somehow we're going to try and catch up with him by not even talking about him.
That is really difficult. And so I've been woefully unimpressed with the competitiveness of this field from the perspective of willing to take on Donald Trump to try and beat him in a nomination. If they're trying to get him the nomination, I think they're doing a great job, but certainly not from that perspective. And it's only been recently that Joe Biden has gotten into the act of sort
of checking Donald Trump. And that's equally baffling to me, knowing that it's highly likely for the last six months that Donald Trump was going to be the nominee of the party and for all intentsive purposes, the Biden campaign has been willing to let him consolidate his hold on the Republican Party without having any noise coming from the White House.
I'm a question for you. In New York Times Siena poll see in a College poll finds nearly a quarter of Trump supporters believe that he shouldn't be the GOP nominee if he is found guilty of a crime. Does that move the needle at all?
Possibly? I mean, look, I think what these polls show is that Donald Trump has a commanding lead, but not a stranglehold on the nomination. I do believe that Nikki Haley has a shot. A second place finish in Iowa might mean a first place finish in New Hampshire. And then at that point, I think every media outlet, from the Weather Channel to ESPN, the o Cho will be
wondering if Donald Trump is vulnerable. But you know, this goes back to I think an original sin from the Republican Party, which was you had the January sixth insurrection, and then many Republicans thought, Okay, that's the end of Trump, so we let you know, we'll just we'll let him die. There and then they all rallied back in support of him. So the situation where you know, the court can rule in a certain way, you know, and allow Trump on
the ballot. The reason why that helps Trump is because Republicans after January sixth decided to hold back rather than to say this was truly a serious crime, he should no longer be part of our party. And they're paying the price right now.
And Rick, to you, what stood out to me in that poll is that nearly a quarter of Trump supporters believe he shouldn't be the nominee. To me, it sounds like just a quarter, Like why would his supporters or why would the GOP think this is okay to nominate someone who may be convicted of a crime.
Yeah, I think you got to take in a context. This is a national survey. Very few states are actually well represented the survey where the campaign is actually happening. I mean, when you look into where Donald Trump is on the ballot, most of these states as polls taken, he's at like sixty sixty five percent, right, I mean, there really isn't a primary going on in the rest of the country. When you then look at places like Iowa, New Hampshire, where the campaigns have been going at it
for the last year. You have a lot more, almost a third, if not half, in New Hampshire of Donald Trump's ballot support. You know, people who are saying they plan to vote for him, who are saying, but they look at other options right now, right, So you do see echoes of a willingness to move off of Trump, especially based on well, if he gets convicted or you know, if some of these other things happen, or just in general,
are you willing to look at other people? And that's where the field has their hopes, right that they can peel off some of these folks off of the Trump ballot in the late hours of the primary in both Iowa and New Hampshire to do exactly what Jim Kessler talked about in this case, Nikki Haley actually, you know, overperforming in Iowa and beating Donald Trump in New Hampshire and all of a sudden we're having a completely different conversation about Fortress Trump, you know, down in mar A Lago,
thinking he's unbeatable.
All right, One more quick question for Jim. If the Supreme Court does decide to take this up and it looks like they may. Is there going to be a more national impact from this ruling? What sort of impact do you anticipate.
I anticipate that the Supreme Court will say that Donald Trump should be on the ballot in Colorado. I think they will cite due process that he has not been convicted of a crime, and the net result will be further i'd say, distrust of the Supreme Court in some ways and feeling like, well, this is a Trump appointed court. But you know, I think that Jack Smith case is the one that has more weight here than the Colorado case. So we'll see what happens there with the Supreme Court.
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.
The top story in politics today very much is that court decision out of Colorado, the state Supreme Court ruling that former President Donald Trump is ineligible to be president because of his actions and what they say was inciting insurrection at the capitol on January sixth, twenty twenty one. This was a four to three decision the majority, writing quote, President Trump did not merely incite the insurrection. Even when the siege on the Capitol was fully underway, he continued
to support it. And what this comes down to in terms of the legal question here really is the fourteenth Amendment, which says that no one can hold public office who has engaged in insurrection or rebellion. And this is actually a question that President Biden himself had to address today when a reporter asked him about it.
Here he is, well, I think you start freightening yourself. Evident he saw it all know whether the fourteenth nine of the five I let the courtinke that decision.
But he's certainly supported any.
Insurrection, no question about it, none, zero, And he seems to be doubling down about everything.
Joining me now for more on this is Gregory Cordy, who is one of our great politics reporters here at Bloomberg. So, Gregory, we just heard the president say it's self evident it was insurrection issue? Is President Trump? Former President Trump has been charged with many things, insurrection is not one of them, and he's been convicted of nothing. So how does this work?
So the fourteenth Amendment was passed, was adopted by Congress and the States and incorporating the Constitution after the Civil War, when we had all these Confederate officers returning in to the fold, and the idea was that they shouldn't be able to hold office, certainly in Congress if they had sworn to uphold the Constitution, and then they were traders to the Union cause. And so now we're applying that one hundred and fifty, one hundred and sixty years later,
right in an unprecedented case. We've never in all that time, we've never gotten this before. And so there's a lot of questions, a lot of legal questions here. One is, what is the definition of insurrection? How does that apply to what happened on January sixth? Can we say that President then President Trump engaged in that insurrection on the Capitol when he wasn't physically at the Capitol. But also does this apply to the office of the President of
the United States. There's an argument that it doesn't. Who enforces it? Right, does Congress enforce it or does the Colorado Secretary of State essentially enforce it by determining whether or not he can appear on the ballot. And so all of these are brand new questions that because they're novel questions, the Supreme Court of the United States will almost certainly have to take this up.
Well, the Colorado State Court has stayed this decision until January fourth to give Trump that opportunity to appeal it to the highest court in the land, and he has said he will do so. So it's very, very likely that this is going to come down to nine justices, three of which Trump appointed. Is the feeling here in Washington today essentially that the court, the Supreme Court of the United States, is going to overturn the Supreme Court of Colorado.
That's obviously unknown. I mean, if you are I have a political mind, you look at the composition of the court. It's a super majority for conservatives six to three, and as you point out, three of those six were appointed by President Trump himself. But also there's a lot of legal issues here. And one thing we do know about this John Roberts Court is that it likes to decide cases on the narrowest possible grounds they can, and so
they may try to find some procedural grounds. One of the issues that came up in the descent in the Colorado case was the descending justices pointing out that President Trump really didn't have any right to do process here, as you point out, he's not criminally charged with insurrection. The fourteenth Amendment doesn't say explicitly you have to be
criminally charged. But there is also due process built in the Fourteenth Amendment other sections of the fourteenth Amendment that give people the right to be heard, And the question is whether or not Trump had an adequate defense here in the Colorado case, that could be more narrow grounds for the Spree Court to overturn this, but then that would open the floodgates for potentially a dozen different mini trials over the course of the next election year, as
different states that are trying to exclude Trump from the ballot basically put him on trial for insurrection against the United States.
Well, and with a lot of these crimes that the president has been charged with the former president ninety one total felony charges across four different criminal cases, all of those legal issues to this point have just galvanized his base of supporters. Really, this legal issue, though, could actually have an impact on attempt to once again be seated in the oval office. Right if you're not on the ballot, how do you win the presidency if this grows larger than it is right now.
Yeah, and so that's certainly an argument that say Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey, has been making all along, is that Republicans shouldn't be putting all their eggs into the Trump basket at this point because we don't know what the outcome of those criminal trials will be for different criminal trials in four different jurisdictions. But then there's also this case of the fourteenth Amendment. And I should say that Chris Christy did come out last night and
say this isn't his preferred way to do it. He would prefer to beat Trump on the ballot rather than have a court decide whether Trump can compete in the first place. But yes, that's certainly been an argument that Republicans should begin to look at other options, just because there's so many unknowns with Trump and his legal problems over the next year.
And it wasn't just Chris Christie who was saying leave it up to the voters, not the courts. Nikki Haley said something similar.
As Rondosantus as well.
Yeah, all right, Gregory, always wonderful to talk to you, thank you so much for joining us, and if you have any more questions around the fourteenth Amendment. Gregory does have a great quick take piece out today breaking it all down, so make sure to check that out. We want to get the reaction from Congressman Brian's Style of Wisconsin, who we are very lucky to say is joining us now. Congressman, obviously it's been a big twenty four hours in the
legal Trump universe. What is your reaction to the decision out of the state of Colorado.
I think it's actually pretty simple. Voters should deest side elections, not judges, and I think people are frustrated when they have to listen to all the legal ees debate back and forth rather than just simply allowing voters to have their say in our upcoming elections.
So Congressman, that you think the former president has done nothing wrong, or just that you think it should be voters that dictate whether or not he has done anything wrong.
The basis of our entire democracy is that voters get to choose who their elected representatives are. And when judges put themselves in the position of making those decisions rather than voters, were moving in the wrong direction. Trust the voters. Put the decision in the hands of the voters, and I think we're far better off in our democracy.
Well, and it's voters that aren't just going to have to make a decision about who they want to be the president of the United States. They're going to be making decisions about who they want representing them all over
the country at all different levels of office. And when you have just questions around whether a former president seen as the leader of the Republican Party inside in an insurrection, whether he's even eligible to hold office, let alone all of the other rhetoric we have heard debated repeatedly over the course of the last several days. What does it mean more broadly for your party.
I think people are just simply frustrated with the fact that there's individuals that want to have their say override the will of the voters. I think people just want to simply go through this primary process, go through the presidential electional at the voters make the decision as to who the next president of the United States is. Right now, President Biden is in my home state of Wisconsin with
me here. He's in Milwaukee touting Biden nomics. We should be talking about the economic policies, in my opinion, the failed economic policies of this administration. Rather than allowing our entire conversation to be gobbled up by legal lease, let the voter speak. Let's actually talk about the issues that Americans are facing right now. And we're facing a lot of significant issues in this country that need to be addressed.
All right, Well, Congressman, since you brought it up. President Biden has just wrapped up his remarks in Milwaukee, who was addressing the Black Chamber of Commerce. You just were talking about Bidenomics and how it failed. I was taking a look at some numbers before the show. According to the latest figures we have from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rates in Wisconsin is lower than the national
average three point two percent. According to Triple A, the average price of a gallon of gas is two seventy six. That's down more than two dollars from the high in June of last year. Inflation, as we know, has come down more broadly, So what's wrong with that?
Simply go to any grocery store in the state of Wisconsin with me, and let's talk to the customers as they're checking out. Recognizing that their grocery bill is up to twenty twenty percent since President Biden took office, and everything they're purchasing is up seventeen percent. Wage growth going into the pandemic was robust and across the board, people were moving ahead in their lives. Now as we came out of the pandemic, what we've seen is stagnant or
falling wage growth. Is inflation has outpaced wages. In many cases, families can't afford the things that they need. People are frustrated, and it's the economic policies of the Biden administration that has brought us here. Everything from his war on energy on day one, beginning with the killing of the Keystone XLE pipeline, and continuing on is the president's policies of paying people not to work after the pandemic, massive multi
trillion dollar spending bills that drove inflation. And the end result is if you speak to people here in Wisconsin, regular folks on the street, they're getting clabbered by Bidenomics and they want to see Washington change course.
And I agree with them.
So when you say Washington changed course, can we talk about what specific policies is This mostly on the tax side of the equation. No, that this administration also has made a lot of investment into infrastructure with bipartisan support, as well investments in cleaner energy that are at the end of the day, argued to reduce these inflationary pressures. What is it that needs to be done that isn't being done right now?
A lot of spending decisions are about prioritization. So it's just like your family budget. There's a lot of things you'd like to spend down, but at the end of the day, you come to the table and sit down
and identify what your priorities are. Washington continues to fail to do that, and in particular, in the first two years the Biden administration under Democratic one party control, what we saw was massive spending bills where everything including the kitchen sink, got into those bills, and those that vast amount of new federal government spending in large part drove
the inflation that clobbered people on the back end. And when you recognize that family budgets are stretched in large part because of seventeen percent of cumulative inflation since the president came to office, explains a lot of the frustration. But it carries over into other areas. We could look at the median mortgage in the United States America went from two hundred dollars a month to four hundred dollars a month, doubling over the course of the last three years.
So to come and speak to a young couple here in James Lil, Wisconsin who's trying to move into their first home, trying to go from paying the rent to paying a mortgage, it just got a whole heck of a lot harder. And so getting inflation control to allow the Federal Reserve to bring the interest rates back down is going to have a huge impact. You can't do that if you continue the inflationary policies that we've seen from this administration.
Just on the subject, Congressman of the FED bringing interest rates back down, how hard do you think the Fed should be cutting knowing you're on the Financial Services Committee, and how soon?
Well, ultimately that's going to be a decision for the Federal Reserve. I'm not going to supplant the FED and their decision making process, but as policy makers, we should be working on policies that assist the FED to bring inflation down. There's a lot of Congress could be doing that, it hasn't. In particular, as we look at the War on Energy and the impact that energy has had on driving inflation higher, we should be working to increase the
domestic supply of energy here in the United States. Coming out of the pandemic, this administration was literally paying people not to work. The key there is to get more people into the workforce and assisting them and gaining the skills they need to prepare them for the jobs of the future. If we were focused in Congress on economic growing opportunities that would bring inflation down, it would allow the Federal Reserve to be able to bring that rate down faster.
It's just worth noting, because you've referenced the War on Energy a few times here, that we got shale figures out just a few days ago. US production of oil is actually at a record right now. But because you were just talking about the work Congress needs to do, obviously you're now at home. The Senate's heading out of town today. We have wrapped up the year of twenty twenty three, and we don't have top line appropriations figures.
We don't have a deal when it comes to border security and Ukraine funding Congressman, how much are you dreading returning to all the work Congress has to get done in January.
Well, let me go on record and saying I was disappointed that we all left Washington, DC. We should have kept Congress in place to get that work done. It's far too important to take the break that Congress is doing. That said, when we come back, we have a ton of really important issues.
Probably number one.
On that list is, as you noted, the top line number for appropriations is still not agreed to. That makes me more and more concerned every day as we head towards the next potential lapse in funding in mid January. And so we got to get our act together. Congress has been abysmal this year working with the President to get things done. I remain probably as frustrated as anybody, and we have some huge topics on the table when we return in the new year.
When we think about those top line appropriations figures, would you be encouraging Speaker Johnson and Republican leadership to stick to what was agreed to in the debt ceiling deal midway through this year? Are those the numbers we should be working with here?
Well, why we're having this difficult debate after we passed the legislation that said here are the top line numbers, and now we have centered Chuck Schumer trying to increase
that number unilaterally is beyond frustrating. And so the fact that we reached an agreement across the board by cameral bipartisan deal to say here are the top line numbers to actually get spending under control, and then we're allowing Chuck Schumer to hold us all hostage as he tries to rework that negotiated deal and increase total spending is frustrating. The Appropriations Committee has a ton of work to do between now and our opportunity to pass that legislation on
the House floor. I'm concerned we're going to be in a position at either a kick the can down the road or a worst case scenario where we would allow government funding to actually lapse.
So there's the shutdown question. There also is the question around supplemental funding. And we have about a minute left. Congressman, how confident are you that a deal can be made on the border and is the House willing to give the White House a win potentially on border security.
I think the focus is let's get a win for the American people. The border needs to be secure. We have an opportunity to do that. The House past comprehensive Border Security legislation in HR two. The Senate has yet to take it up. I think we have a big opportunity here to leverage potential supplemental funding to actually get
the border secure. I'm less concerned about who gets the win, other than making sure the American people win and the American people win if we truly secure the US Mexico border.
All right, Congressman, always great to talk to you. Thank you very much for joining us, and if we don't see you beforehand, happy holidays to you in a very happy new year. We'll look forward to having you back in twenty twenty four. That's Congressman Brian Style, the Republican from Wisconsin and chair of the House Administration Committee. And as I mentioned, also on financial services.
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.
I'm Kaylee Lyons in for Joe Matthew today and yes, we call this the fastest show in politics, and headlines certainly are flying fast today. We just got news from former President Trump and the Supreme Court. The former president saying the US Supreme Court should hold off on intervening in the federal criminal case against him over his efforts to overturn the twenty twenty presidential election. Remember, Jack Smith is the Special Council who brought these charges against trumb
here in Washington. He has asked the Supreme Court to weigh in fast track consideration on the former president's claim of immunity from prosecution. But former President Trump and his legal team today are saying the court should not do so.
His lawyer's arguing the Special Council has identified no compelling reason for the extraordinary haste he proposes, They say in they're filing the only injury the Special Council asserts in this appeal, possible delay of the trial date, remembering he's trying to take this to trial in March, even if it is cognizable at all, is not caused by the District Court's decision in the prosecution's favor on all issues. Let's bring in a real expert on this now to
help break down what this means for this case. Lawrence Tribe is joining us. He is the Karl M. Lobe University Professor of Constitutional Law Emeritus at Harvard University. He's also served as lead counsel in three dozen Supreme Court cases. So, Professor, thank you very much for being with us here. Are you surprised that the former president is asking the court not to weigh in on this in an expeditious manner?
Well, I'm not surprised, Kaylee, because that's his go to strategy, delay, delay, delay, But he is contradicting himself. Usually, when you have an argument about what's wrong with a criminal prosecution, you wait to see if you're convicted, and then you have an appeal. In fact, that's usually the only time you can raise an issue. Here, the president former president called him president
because that's what he insists on calling himself. But here the former president is the one who said, hurry up. Every minute that this indictment hangs over my head, claiming that I tried to seize power after losing an election, every minute that I am accused of the crime of obstructing Congress. Is a minute that I am irreparably harmed. I'm entitled to go up and get a court to decide right now that Tanya Chuckkin is wrong in putting me on trial because as a former president, I should
never be on trial for anything I did. And besides this double jeopardy since I wasn't convicted by the Senate. They're very weak arguments, but normally you would wait. In his case, he says, don't wait, rush, rush, hurry, consider it now. Oh you want to really hurry rush? Oh, I take it back, slow it down. That's ridiculous. He can't have it both ways. If he has a right and he does have this appeal considered immediately, then the government has the right to step on the gas and
not the breaks and have it considered really immediately. Why wait to see what the Court of Appeals says? These are purely legal questions. The Court of Appeals has no special expertise. Whatever it says is going to be subject to review by the US Supreme Court. Anyway, there's no reason to wait. His own arguments are the reason not to wait. And of course it's hugely important that it be decided so that voters know when they're going to the polls whether they're voting for a convicted felon or
for someone who was wrongly accused. There's a huge overwhelming national interest in resolving that question before the election, indeed, before the Republican Convention.
So, Lawrence, if all of this comes down to timing and understanding, you think these are contradictory arguments here that the former president and his legal team are making. What do you make of their argument that, essentially the special counsel's desertion that the injury is possible delay of the trial date is not adequate enough injury when he's seeking a trial date that is just less than three months away. March fourth is when Jack Smith would like it to begin.
What do you make of that argument in particular? And also, do you think a March trial is realistic? Knowing as you said, that the former president in his legal camp tend to delay in every way they can.
Well, it's realistic if his attempts to delay are turned down, and in this case there is no basis for delay. He says, there's no good reason for the trial to occur in March. Why not hold it after the election. Well, we know that that's ridiculous. People then won't know whether
they're voting for a convicted criminal or not. And if he happens to win, for managers to act as though he has won the election, and we know the first thing he does after he is born in is get rid of this prosecution, fire the attorney general who brought it, pardon himself. So it's overwhelmingly important if people are to be accountable under the law, if no one is above the law, that people not be able to delay a trial until it's too late to have a trial, the old thing.
So lawrence on that point of no one being above the law. Really, the root of this question is whether or not a former president of the United States can be prosecuted. So in your legal opinion, the answer is yes, just as any other citizen can.
Absolutely, and I expect the US Supreme Court to agree as well. Otherwise, a sitting president can just shoot someone on Fifth Avenue, maybe a familiar example, and as long as he does it, well he's president. He can never reprosecute it. That can't be the law. And if he says, oh, well, but this wasn't shooting someone. It was just trying to hold on to power. That's also not part of the president's job. So it's absolutely crucial if we're going to have a democracy and the rule of law, that he
beheld accountable, that anyone be held accountable. And as I was earlier saying, justice delayed, is really justice denied in this case, whether you think he's guilty or innocent, We're entitled to have the answer from a jury of his peers in a trial that begins on schedule on March fourth or soon thereafter, and that requires us Okay, soupe.
This so what you're describing though, in terms of the rule of law, of law, a jury of Pierre's actual conviction or not. This is due process, right, this is how the system works. So i'd like to get your thoughts on another matter very much in the news today, the Supreme Court of Colorado ruling that former President Trump should be removed from the ballot in that state because he incited the insurrection at the capitol on January sixth, twenty twenty one, and in doing so violated the fourteenth
Amendment of the Constitution. What do you think of that ruling? Knowing he hasn't even been charged with insurrection, let alone convicted of any federal crime.
Whether you're charged or convicted has everything to do with whether you should go to jail. It has nothing to do with whether you're disqualified. The whole point of putting in this democracy protecting provision in the Fourteenth Amendment after the Civil War was that people who are found in a fair proceeding, and the week long trial that Colorado held in this case was very fair proceeding. The president
had every opportunity to put in evidence. If you're found, after a fair proceeding to have taken an oath to uphold the Constitution and then turned against it by engaging in an insurrection against the Constitution, you can't be trusted with power again, because that's the path to destroy democracy. That's why that provision is in. There has nothing to do with whether you are tried and convicted of a crime or held civilly liable. The president had a week
of detailed hearings. There were two hundred and ninety eight baptual findings made by the trial court in Colorado. They were not upset on appeal. None of the justices of the Supreme Court of Colorado, including the ones who descended on different grounds, found any fault with those findings. And now it's time for the US Supreme Court, which is certainly going to have to decide that case as soon
as the former president asks it to do so. It's time for the US Supreme Court to weigh in on whether he is disqualified under those provisions of the fourteenth Amendment.
And knowing that this court is a conservative supermajority, frankly, there's six conservative justices, half of which were appointed by the former president. What way would you expect the Supreme Court to rule on that matter?
Well, I don't have a crystal ball. I think as they follow the law. Judge Michael Ludig a very distinguished conservative, and I think they will have to affirm the decision and render an unexpected, perhaps in many ways unpopular ruling that keeps them off the ballot. They find some way consistent with the Fourteenth Amendment and their post of the Constitution, some exit ramp, some way of not keeping him off the ballot. I don't really see what it could be.
But it's a pretty ingenious court and they have found ways to do some pretty strange things.
All right on that note, we will leave it. Thank you very much for hopping on with us on this breaking news. We really really appreciate your legal insight. That was Lawrence Tribe, Professor Emeritus of the Carl M. Lob University, Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard University. We sincerely appreciate it.
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