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The jury began deliberating for a second day yes, in Donald Trump's hush money case, after hearing again testimony from two key witnesses and of course receiving again instructions from the judge just how exactly they should be handling things in that deliberation.
Which makes you wonder what sort of big picture questions they have here if they're going back to the instructions and some of the most important testimony about that meeting at Trump Tower in twenty fifteen. But look, we don't pretend to know what's happening inside the jury room, and if anyone does, they're probably putting you on. We'll have
the news when it breaks here on Bloomberg. The question we're asking, Kayley, is what will be the political implications of this verdict one way or the other, And a new poll would suggest none.
Yeah.
PBS News Hour together with NPR and Maris releasing data today that finds sixty seven percent of voters set a conviction would make no difference for them in November, including seventy four percent of independence and actually, the data finds twenty five percent of Republicans said they would be even more likely to vote for Donald Trump if he were to be found guilty by jury.
Some have suggested that Donald Trump embrace this idea of incarceration, if only to spend one night, because of the martyr effect that it could have on his campaign. That might be partly where you're going here. Let's bring the panel in. Rick Davis and Genie Shanzino are with us Bloomberg Politics contributors. Our signature panel is back on a day that could bring some awfully important news. Rick, what do you make of this number? Obviously it's difficult to tell the way
it's going to feel when it really happens. But voters are telling polsters essentially that they don't care. Do you believe them?
You know?
Look, I mean, the only thing that matters is the margin in these key battleground states that will decide the outcome of the election. And we remember in twenty twenty those margins were pencil thin. I mean just twenty thousand votes here, ten thousand votes there decided the outcome of a presidential election. So when you look at these polls, were at large, great, you know, sixty percent of the
country said they don't care. But if there's five percent of Republicans who are impacted by this, who would think less of Donald Trumper decided to stay at home because they can't vote for a guy who's just been convicted of a crime that is material to the outcome of the election. So it's really you have to look under
the data and find who are the movers. We know from previous surveys that there are a group of Republicans who would be considered Trump base, who if he were convicted, would reconsider their.
Support for Um.
Doesn't mean they're going to vote or Biden, but not voting if you're a Trump supporter is basically the equivalent of voting for Joe Biden.
Yeah, well, to your point, Rick, you got to look at all the data, and it is worth pointing out that in this poll, ten percent of Republicans and eleven percent of independent voters said they would be less likely to vote for Donald Trump if he is found guilty. So gene to Rick's point about how this is going to come down to so few voters in so few states. Does it matter if it matters for many or only if it matters for few?
You know, in the end, it only really matters if it matters for a few. To use that word twice in those key states, and now you know the number of states we're even talking about in some people's estimation has narrowed down to three. But even if you go broad and say it's six or seven, this is a very very small number of people that we're talking about who can swing this thing.
And the other thing.
I would just caution about these polls is as good as the pollsters are, and they're very good, but asking these kinds of questions and getting solid data response is tough. You know, if I hear a question as a voter, will exchange your mind, Well, you don't really know what the voter is thinking. People don't want to sound like their vote will be, you know, is up for grabs based on the decision of twelve people in New York.
You know, there's all kinds of issues that can impact these responses, and we obviously don't have a history to look back on to guide us.
So we really are you.
Guys we're talking about this being you know, sort of you know, all crazy on the Western front.
We are also in no man's land.
We really don't know how this thing is going to turn out, and if we get a decision today or tomorrow, we're not going to be feeling the effects of that until November.
So we're still a bit of a ways off.
So how do you plan a campaign around that? Rick? Obviously, you can't do much to plan other than allow for many different scenarios. If your candidate was in court here waiting for this verdict to drop, how would you be preparing the public response?
You know, look, you you would have different tracks, right, So there's one track, that acquittal, and that rights itself. You don't have to go very far to find Donald Trump talking about how you know, he's been you know, attacked relentlessly by these you know, scams and fake news and conspiracy theory. So that's easy, and it'll all land on on Joe Biden, right, So Trump will make sure this was the Biden court case. If it's a if it's a conviction at any number of the thirty four counts,
that are currently being considered. Then it's a much more complex thing in the sense that you're sure going to say, oh, this is just I'm you know, it's the grievances. He's going to say, it's not me they're convicting. It's all of you, my voters. You know, I'm standing in the dogget here representing you. He'll change this court case all about repression and being denied your rights rather than the
facts of the case that are being adjudicated now. So if you're Donald Trump, you never get out of type, right, And so I think they're pretty good at spinning this. Arguably, these cases have actually been a boon to him politically. Back in February of twenty twenty three, he was much less popular until he started getting indicted, and next thing, you know, he crushes his primary opposition and now leads Joe Biden in all of the early polls, you know,
looking at the swing states. So I wouldn't doubt that he's got a plan for this that will be workable for him and his voters. But again, convictions matter. It is the end of the line, and we'll see where he winds up on that. Well.
Geenie to Rick's point about how these many legal troubles have been a boon for Donald Trump politically. They have brought him a mechanism through which to fundraise, to galvanize the base. They have also brought him a mechanism with which to get a lot of earned media for free. You just talk to the cameras outside the courthouse, whether it's because you are being arranged or because you have
to be there because you're on trial. When this ends, that all goes away, does it actually start to become a financial consideration. Donald Trump is actually going to have to start spending money to get the same kind of attention that he is receiving.
Now, yeah, I mean, he certainly is the king of earned media. All he does is go out and say something absolutely outrageous, and you know he has to be covered because he's the presumptive nominee. So I suspect he will go more on an outrage tangent if he needs to do that. The reality is is that he has made the most that he can about being in court for felony charges.
But again, this is not where anybody wants to be. This is a tight election.
The idea that you are going to benefit from you know, being charged with felony counts is you know, still a stretch.
So you know he's done the best he can.
But this is not a good thing, and Joe Biden has outraised him and does not have to spend the way he does on lawyers.
Flip this around, Rick Davis and ask you if your candidate was in fact the incumbent in this case, Joe Biden, would you also be planning for various scenarios or will it be his job to say nothing and let Donald Trump do his thing in the public eye.
Nothing makes me happier, Joe than to act like a democratic strategist. Joe Biden's missed an incredible opportunity for the last six weeks to frame this entire debate. Why the campaign has taking a hands off approach in this kind of a mnemic response this week of having an actor go out and get in a fight with Trump supporters
makes absolutely no sense politically. Every single day of that trial, he could have had you know, various groups protesting outside the court house with their talking points on every issue from abortion to others. That would have framed Donald Trump as a really bad guy. He would be remiss as a candidate if he did not take whatever comes out of this trial and frame it in the best possible light for Joe Biden and the most negative light for
Donald Trump. The idea of leaving Trump to decide what the spin is coming off of this trial would be political malpractice.
Genie, we only have about a minute left. But do you agree with Rick on that is Joe Biden going to enter the game too late on this one?
Yeah, to a certain extent.
You know, I too was not a fan as we've talked about about the Robert de Niro, eighty year old guy going down there to try to get young people to vote for you. But the reality is Joe Biden can frame this if there's a conviction, or if there is an acquittal or a hung jury. But what he's got to be out there doing is talking about what
a Trump presidency means for people. You impact on costs, the impact on the economics, the impact on our privacy, our ability to decide what we want to do with our own bodies, and of course the issue of democracy and violence. So he's got to stay on that and he's got to be talking about it. He'd had a good step yesterday in Philadelphia. He's got to keep it up.
I'm not a big fan of the lack of travel this week, but hopefully he gets back out there on the trail in a more concerted and energized way.
All right, Rick Davis and Jeanie Shanzano, Bloomberg Politics contributors, Thank you so much.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast ken just live weekdays at noon Eastern on Applecarplay and enroud Oro with 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 want to go now, though, live here in Washington, to Capitol Hill, where I'm pleased to say joining us now is Republican Congressman Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, the Chair of the House Financial Services Committee Congress and mister Chairman, welcome back to Bloomberg TV and Radio. It's great to have you. We have much we would like to discuss with you, including the crypto legislation that has successfully passed
out of the House of Representatives earlier this month. First, though, given we are all on tenderhooks right now, waiting to see when and if a verdict comes down in Donald Trump's hush money trial. Should the American people have confidence that whatever the outcome here, whether he is acquitted or convicted, that the justice system did its work as designed, because that decision comes from a jury of his peers and fellow Americans.
Well, look, I think there's been a massive amount of targeting at the former president, and obviously we see the politics at play of elected district attorneys that are playing politics, like the DA in Manhattan has done campaigning on the fact that he was going to take this action in the courtroom. So, but a jury is a jury in
the United States. They have this say here, and so I have confidence in our justice system that at the end of the day, the right thing will be done, and we should have a belief in our justice system and the rule of law here in the United States. I think that's very important that we all uphold that.
Do you not believe that, in Congressman, this trial should be taking place.
The DA that brought the charges that is arguing in the courtroom is the one that campaigned that he was going to do this. So that's for people to decide for themselves. I was here to talk to you about financial services policy, which I am the chair of the Financial Services Commander here on Capitol Hill. Not everything is a consumer of what happens to the former president. I'm trying to stay focused on policy and get the best results i can for the American people. That's what I'm here to do.
Okay, Well, fair enough, mister Chairman. Let's talk then about some of that policy. Of course, you have during your tenures. The Chair of the Financial Services Committee been an advocate for crypto related legislation, successfully earlier this month, passing the FIT twenty one Act, which of course is the Market Structure Bill, delineates the authority between the CFTC and the SEC.
It passed by a wide bipartisan majority in the House. What, though, are you hearing from your counterparts in the Senate about its fate in the other chamber.
Well, the first first thing I've heard from my Senate colleagues on the Democrat and Republican side was they were shocked at the wide margin that we passed this bill in the House. FIT twenty one is a legal structure for the trading and ownership of digital assets. It gives regulatory form to something that currently has no regulatory form. It provides consumer protection and the ability to get investment capital flowing towards the innovation. It's the first of its
kind of legislation here in the United States. So for us to pass that important bill Fit twenty one with the two thirds vote of the House representatives in these divided times is a major statement. With seventy one of my Democrat colleagues voting with Republicans, it is a major statement that we're here to make serious policy and we want to have a regular form of digital assets and cryptocurrency here in the United States.
With that said, mister Chairman, we spent some time with Congressman french Hill here on Friday, who implied that the momentum that was gathered in the House in passing Fits twenty one with a wider margin, to your point than many predicted, was maybe in itself enough to unlock more votes in the Senate. Are you in touch with Chuck Schumer do you have a sense of whether this can in fact clear the other chamber.
Well, the Senate is in resouse this week, so when we get back next week, all of greater clarity on that. But the first statement we wanted to have was that number one, we have serious policy. The second piece of that is a wide vote total. So I have serious
policy with a wide vote total. French Hill, being the leading architect of our work and the Financial Services Committee on this important bill, he stated clearly what I believe, which is the momentum is built off that vote total, and the Senate should take a This should be a wake up call for the Senate that they need to get on with this. They need to stay focused on getting policy here and get it done before the election.
I think that's a clear statement of this wide vote in the House of Representatives.
Well, it wasn't that far long ago, Congressman, that the conversation we were having about policy related to crypto that may be able to work its way through the Senate was stable cooin legislation that potentially it could be tied together together with other priorities, for some like the Safe Banking Act, which of course would provide marijuana companies access to the US banking system. Where is progress on that
in the House. What is the tenor of your conversations in that regard with Maxine Waters right now?
Well, I'm not in favor of the cannabis banking legislation that's been put forth I voted against at the last two congresses. It's not a priority for me to move that legislation. But stable coin legislation is a priority. And I've been negotiating with ranking Member Maximum Waters on stable coin policy for the last twenty three months and we want to be able to move policy. But unless we can get a Senate vehicle from the stable coins, there
is no closing date for our negotiations. We need a closing date, we need a vehicle, and we need an opportunity to get that enacted into law. Unfortunately, the Senate and the Senate schedule is the focus of that bill. We hope that this market I hope that this market structure bill that we passed, though Maxim Waters didn't support it, that seventy one Democrats voting with Republicans is a major statement. We can move that and hopefully we can get stable coins prioritized as well.
Is there another vehicle in the rest of this Congress, mister Chairman, Is it possible that stable coin could move as a standalone bill or you need a bigger vehicle to get this across the finish line?
Well, I actually think we need a bigger vehicle. What we have not seen in the Senate is for them to take a standalone financial services or financial services bill across the Senate floor since Senate Bill twenty one to fifty five. And what we need here is the majority leader in the Senate to prioritize this policy either market structure or stable coins to get through the Senate.
And until that.
Time, we're just going to create the atmosphere and the pressure in the best way we can to get them to prioritize this and put it on the calendar.
Well, of course the clock is ticking, as this is an election year, mister Chairman, and it's a year in which you are not seeking re election yourself as you will be retiring at the end of your term. Other than this crypto legislation, which of course we've spoken length about, no you have been advocating for so strongly, what else would you like to see accomplished before your time in the House ends.
Well, my three priorities for my chairmanship of the House Financial Services Committee have been and remain data privacy, to ensure that people's financial data is protected in a world class way, and that means we have to update existing laws that were created before the advent of the consumer Internet. That's number one. Number two capital formation. We have a package of bills led by Congresswoman and Wagner that have
moved through the House of Representatives. Much of those bills have been bipartisan, and I want the Senate to prioritize capital formation. Third, and finally is crypto and there are two components of that, the Market Structure bill that we passed with wide support and the Stable Quinn legislation that we mentioned before. So that's my package, That's what I'm
focused on for finalancial policy. Last year got a little complicated for us to move those bills through the House because of my involvement and negotiating in the debt ceiling and then what happened in the fall of last year with a motion to v Kate and me serving as
Speaker pro tem for a period of time. So the House in the calendar got kind of complicated last year, unfortunately, and so this has tipped over to an election year where it's much more difficult to get policymakers to actually be policy makers and focus on policy not politics.
As we spend time with Congressman Patrick McHenry on Bloomberg TV and Radio. You just said a lot. Congressman. You have a unique perspective on the House of Representatives, having held the gavel for some time during this process, not to mention your chairmanship, and as you look ahead to the lame duck session, I'm wondering if it's then, or if it's maybe sooner that you see the chance for a supplemental rec quest to help pay for the bridge in Baltimore that collapsed when it was struck by that
cargo ship. Is that something this Congress we'll be able to do well?
Seeing as the last Congress was the biggest spending congress we've ever had in America, and considering we have record deficits, I think what we're looking for here on Capitol Hill is a willingness to pare down spending in order to pay for that bridge disaster. I do think it's important that our infrastructure be cared for, but we can't just
simply keep spending money we do not have. And with a massive set of spending that this administration is put forward that has been the fuel for inflation, I think it's important that we pare down spending, and I think that will be a reasonable trade for us to get funding for the bridge in Baltimore.
All right, well, Congressman, I want to return to what you were just speaking about a few moments ago, the idea that it has been a little bit hard to actually get the work of policy making done because you yourself had to service the speaker temporarily for a period of time after Kevin McCarthy was ousted. We have seen actual members of the House of Representatives be kicked out
of the body. There has been a lot of chaos in this Congress in particular, maybe so much so that you yourself would not like to return in twenty twenty five. When we consider the prospects of Republicans keeping the House majority, given everything we have seen, is it really deserved.
Well, that's for the American people to decide. This has been a chaotic time in the body politic of America, that is true, and my leaving has nothing to do with the chaos at this place. The ebb and flow of Washington is a distinct beast in and of itself, and it has title waves and title functions, just like the great oceans of the world, some predictable, some unpredictable, but it is a place where you can still get things done. I will commend Speaker Johnson for taking action.
We had a two thirds vote on the Supplemental Appropriations Bill to fund our warfighters overseas and our allies overseas. We had a two thirds vote to reauthorize FAIZA. We had a two thirds vote in the House Representations to fund our government at the fiscal responsibility the debt ceiling level.
And we had a two thirds vote to raise the debt ceiling and pare down spending over the next decade with the largest deficit reduction bill with a Fiscal Responsibility Acts passage in May of last year about this time, so big things have still been able to happen under Speaker McCarthy, under Speaker Johnson, and that is still possible
even in the midst of crazy politics. The American people undecided about which direction they want to go, where they want to go to the left, to the right, and these flip flopping power structures here in Washington that made things even more chaotic. And so I think when we talk about this stuff, we have a look in the broader context of where we are and where the American people are, not just a narrow view of how chaotic the day to day of Washington is, and it is chaotic as it always has been.
All Right, Congressman, thank you so much. As you look forward to your future of political freedom. We would love to stay in touch with you here on Bloomberg. Your insights are important to us. He's Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, and a conversation that you won't hear anywhere else. I'm Joe Matthew alongside Kaylee Lines will assemble our panel next. Rick and Jeanie are with us only on Bloomberg.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast Ketch just live weekdays at noon Eastern on Epocrplay and thenroud Otto with the Bloomberg Business app. Listen on demand wherever you get your podcast, or watch us live on YouTube.
Insights from Daniel Karen a conversation that I've been looking forward to here as we try to not only read the tea leaves, but prepare ourselves to best understand the verdicts when it is read. He's an attorney and professor at the University of Michigan Law School and the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law. Danny it's great to have you. Welcome to Bloomberg. What's got your focus today as you wait for word on this verdict?
I'm sorry I talked over your question.
Please, what's got your focus today as you wait for the news that we're all waiting for in this verdict?
Certainly what's got my focus is what you just discussed in your last segment, and that is the jury asking questions. The jury's paying attention. The jury wants to know more.
Now.
They're not focusing on the objective evidence, the checks, the ledgers, the invoices, the spreadgets. They're focusing on the more subjective things, the discussions, the meetings between Pecker and Trump and Cohen that went directly toward catch and kill and went toward paying off Stormy Daniels if they infer the right thing as it concerns the prosecution. From these discussions blended with the objective evidence, I mean, I think Trump's goose is cooked.
Wow, can you explain, Danny? And we're not experts on New York law. That's why we called you why certain portions of testimony would still be in dispute. There was a back and forth between the judge and Donald Trump's legal team trying to strike certain things that David Packer and Michael Cohen may have said on the stand. The jury heard this when it was said aloud. Obviously, why is it still in dispute in text form.
Well, because the attorneys can always challenge the introduction of evidence, and evidential objections are part of that process. If the defense doesn't like certain language that got in, they can go back again and again and again. Doesn't mean they'll be successful, but goodness harmon asking. And that's what their job is to do, is to ask, to create questions, to create doubt, to create reasonable doubt. And that's what
they're trying to do at every opportunity. So when the jury brings up testimony, their job is to go in and question it again as many bites.
When that's fascinating, even when deliberations are already underway. So attorneys can object to transcripts in this case, well they did.
It doesn't mean that they'll be sustained. They can object to whatever they want. It's kind of like the hey he can't do that, Well, you know what he just did, doesn't mean it'll be sustained. Doesn't mean Judge Marshawan will go with it. The judge rules, it's his courtroom, he'll do what he wants, and then jury goes back into the room and continues continues with its deliberations.
Danny, what's it like in that jury room right now? We've got twelve individuals we don't know anything about, aside from some outside reporting we were hearing about one of the jurors yesterday. It might be a truth social fan, but they're they're in a room together with the world watching and an unprecedented scenario that they're in. Can you decipher, based on the notes yesterday, based on the things that they're asking, what the mood might be like in that room.
Well, believe it or not, I've actually been on a jury and it is the wild West back there in my experience. Never mind the fifty five pages of jury instructions that took an hour to read the first time, in another hour to read the second time. When they go back there, they've got their opinions, their biases, their
preconceived notions. They will push their agendas, they'll try to get everybody on board, because you need a unanimous jury, you need twelve folks deciding beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump is guilty of all thirty four counts, not as if as in a civil trial, where the burden is by a preponderance of the evidence, meaning just slightly past
fifty percent. If you had, say, some scales of justice in a criminal setting, beyond a reasonable doubt means all the way, and that times twelve is a tough road to hoe. And we might think the evidence is good and compelling, but boy, you get one hold out hung Jerry, whole thing.
Blows up, and a lot of people think that's exactly what could happen here. What does it mean if your client is forced to sit through all this? In this case, it's Donald Trump. He's got to be in the courtroom while they're deliberating. We saw he was in a holding room in a video yesterday with Donald Trump Junior. That looked pretty stark. He was sitting in front of what looked like a dirty bathroom door. He had some candy
on a desk in front of him. What are the conditions in which Donald Trump is sitting right now in the courthouse.
Well, I've waited on Jerry's too. It's bleak and it's scary. Never mind what side you're on, you've got to be close and accessible, because when the judge says come on back, or the bailiff actually calls you back, whether it be four questions or for a verdict, I mean, your heart is going like this. You're on pins and needles. You don't know what all is going to happen. You just show up and hope for the best and expect the worst.
And he's going through that over and over again. It'll happen continually.
We talked to a lot of legal voices around here on the daily, and Danny's experience is important to us here.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast ken just Live weekdays at noon Eastern on Applecarplay and enroun Oo with 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 so much about utilities lately, even in Charlie Pellets Stock Market Report, Kayley. The drive to harness more power in this country is a very real one, and as we head into another long, hot summer, there are a lot of questions about the resiliency of our grid, not to mention the ability to update the grid upgrade, if I can say, the grid to handle this new wave of demand from AI.
Yeah, you need energy more than ever. The problem is, especially with the various supply forces that can go into providing energy to the country, you sometimes have intermittency issues, that's for sure, and storage issues and the like, and hence why we have seen across a number of states throughout the country in recent years issues with the grid actually being able to keep up with the demand for energy that is out there, whether it's too cold or
too hot. Too hot, though, is usually what we consider as we enter into the summer months, and we want to have this conversation now with Elliott Mainzer. He is California's Independent System Operator CEO, and he's joining us here in our Washington, d C. Studio. Welcome to Washington, Elliott.
Thank you so much for being with us as we head into this summer and consider what California may be in for specifically, how concerned are you about the stability of the grid and whether or not we may see things like blackouts in summer twenty twenty four.
You know, thanks Chresti.
You know, we're feeling pretty good about this summer this last several years. Just since twenty twenty, we've put over fifteen thousand, five hundred megawatts of new generating resources onto the system, including what is now the nation's largest fleet of lithium ion batteries, over eight thousand, five hundred megawatts of batteries. So we're now using that dispatual capability combined with what is a pretty good water year for California
and expected reasonable load condition, and we're looking pretty good. Obviously, we know that we're exposed to a West wide heat dome or other extreme events like wildfires, but generally we're feeling guardedly optimistic about this summer.
It sounds like battery power is a big part of the solution here to fill in the gaps. To what extent is solar also helping you well.
Solar is one of the principal developing resources in California. We're now up to about nineteen thousand megawatts. That's a lot of solar, and the pairing of the batteries with the solar has really been critical.
You know, get into the.
Evening when it's still really hot and the solar energy is coming off the system, that's when those batteries come online and ramp into the system.
So and Donald Trump gets to this in his stump speech and I'm not going to pull you into politics here, but he's speaking very specifically about this. Is when the sun goes out on a cloudy day, you can't watch TV. Tell your wife you're not watching TV tonight. That's the point of the battery.
Correct, absolutely, And look in the utility sector, you have to look at everything as a portfolio, right. No single resource can keep the lights on by itself, right, So you have to pair the batteries in the wind with storage, with hydro. We still use natural gas in California. It's part of the equation during the transition. So you have to think of a combined portfolio that can provide both the energy and that capacity, that reliability, dispatchability under all conditions.
Okay, so if you need the portfolio, is the portfolio currently big enough considering the demand is only going higher, be it to power things like artificial intelligence or or a change in climate that people are adapting to, or do other things need to be added to the portfolio.
It's exactly right.
So a big part of our responsibility at the ISO is to be looking out over the next five, ten, fifteen, twenty years and trying to anticipate the changes that are coming. We do that through transmission planning. We work very carefully with the state agencies who do the load forecasting and
the integraded resource planning. And probably one of our single biggest responsibilities and something that's obviously a real hot topic here in Washington is transmission and making sure that we're doing the planning and then eventually the constructing of the new transmission so we can on board the resources to reliability and affordability and economic efficiency. Right, So transmission planning and then efficiently bringing these resources into the system is
one of our principal responsibilities. We take that very seriously.
Want to get a finer point on the new demand from AI because this is a huge story that we're following on I, but it's a big part of your life. All of a sudden, the Electric Power Research Institute was out of new numbers this morning. Fascinating to see these regional pockets. Overall, the digital hubs where we see lots of data centers are pulling as much as nine percent of US electricity and will by the year twenty thirty
that's up from four percent last year. But the state by state graphics here that we're looking at show about fifteen states occupy eighty percent of that total. Where does California follow?
You know, California will probably be in I would say in the middle. Maybe it's hard to tell exactly. I think the bottom line.
Is it growing so fast you don't know now what we're trying to do.
As a matteric just literally the week before last, sat down full day working session with the industry with some of the big tech developers, trying to figure out where are these going to be located, what's the scale, what's the size, what flexibility will they have on the system, what will be their infrastructure requirements? So I would say
this topic is hot right now for good reason. Industry collectively is leaning in trying to figure out what its implications are, where the resources will be distributed, in which states, in which parts of the country, and then move quickly to get the infrastructure ready for them.
Well, I would imagine there is something of a lagged effect though, in making sure that infrastructure is in place versus the demand suddenly being there. Does demand going upwards significantly in this specific area, I mean it has to go down in other places, like residential conservation needs to be potentially more serious.
So there's a couple of nuances to the question. First of all, I would say it's also incumbent on the technology industry and to be working closely with the utility industry and the grid operators so we can anticipate their needs. I think you're seeing better coordination, but that planning, coordination, that partnership, honestly is going to be essential. They're going to be grid citizens, They're going to have big impacts on the grid. We need to work with them to
anticipate their needs. The second of all, it can't becoming you know, one new source of load means somebody else has to come off the system. We're gonna have to deal with residential, commercial, industrial, and new sectors coming on the system. Now that means there's going to be real growth. We also want to make sure that that load that consumers can provide some flexibility to the system, particularly under extreme circumstances. So all of these things have to be
thought about and planned for in a comprehensive hole. But you need to do long term planning to anticipate these needs because as you know you can't just turn on and flip the switch and have a new piece of transmission bild in twenty four hours.
Right, I understand you're an accomplished jazz saxophone player that says to me, you know how to add lib? How much of this is jazz improv figuring this out as we go?
Well, I would say put it this way. I think we know the general rhythm and the cord changes. Okay, you know what key, we know what key we're playing. I think we're trying to figure out just exactly what the scale of this issue is going to be. Okay, I think folks are really thinking hard. Now what we know that the laws of economics kick in right when
you have scarcity, Prices respond, Supply responds, demand responds. I think we're trying to get a sense of just how big is the scale of this demand on the system, and what can the industry do to bring some flexibility to the equation. How do we spatially locate these resources, and how do we put them in places where the costs of bringing the additional infrastructure are not so high that we have ratepayer revolts. Right, that's going to be Affordability is going to be a real consideration.
Here Culturine or Sonny Rollins, but I would wouldn't be willing to pick both. I'm going to go with both Glada. We mention Elliott thank you for coming to see us that absolutely runs the California Independent System Operator, essentially the grid in the great state of California. Thanks for listening
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