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We can't help but notice volumes a little bit light today, and I do wonder if there's a bunch of traders away from the desk post super Bowl blow out by the Eagles. Of course, a super Bowl that was at least in part attended by President Trump. He left early, maybe didn't like the halftime show, Maybe it was just
for security and logistics purposes. But it wasn't so much about what he actually did at the super Bowl as the news he made around it, specifically on the plane on Air Force One when he gave us this on tariffs last night.
I'll be announcing probably Tuesday or Wednesday at a news conference, reciprocal tariffs, and very simply, it's if they charge us, we charged them, that's all. It'll be great for everybody, including the other countries. But if they are charging us one hundred and thirty percent and we're charging them nothing. It's not going to say that way. We'll also be
announcing steel tariffs on Monday. Any steel coming into the United States is going to have a twenty five percent terror a little bit of two.
All right, that's a lot to unpack there, which we're going to do in a moment with and the current.
Did you see the map behind him if you.
Were with us on on Bloomberg TV or on YouTube. He actually gathered everyone there to talk about to cover what he said was a very more important moment. I think even than the super Bowl, which was Gulf of America Day. He made it a holiday instead of the Gulf of Mexico. That was as they were flying over for an important moment. There have the whole map on
the easel. That's not again what we're here to talk about today, and occurrent covers the economy for us here with his eyes on the global economy and with us now at the table here we are again asking you about tariffs, and we don't know exactly where this is going. And I want to kind of pick apart what President Trump just said. There reciprocal tariffs one thing, steal and
aluminum another. It could could end up scooping up a lot of countries in this action or will it Will there be exemptions when the president emerges a short time from now.
Well, on paper, you're talking about key trading partners, yes, candidate creators. There's India as well, of course when it comes to a security alliance, and also obviously those European nations. So does go into the world of you know, is this competitive trade against a China or our allies being scooped up In the same book at we'll have city details gel in terms of when it gets them commended in Highland? Will there be exemptions? The reciprocal trade point,
that's more technical and more complicated. Again we lead to the details, but as the President said, most trade experts this morning, we're saying, it's effectively, if the US sells goods to someone and they say, have a temperacent tariff for those goods and you only has a two percent tar if coming the other way around, well that's going
to be leveled up. That's the thinking. But the interesting subplot coming out of that is people saying, maybe this is what the President's going to do instead of the universal tarff. Remember he had the idea of the universal turf of ten percent on everyone sure letters saying maybe he's going to go to this reciprocal way and do that instead of the universal.
So is that how we make sense of the market's lack of real reaction, if you will ender or is this they're just waiting until something is final before trading on it, given our experience for the last two consecutive.
Weeks, certainly waiting to see when it's a signed off and actually in action for sure. You know, the steel tariffs on their own are considered to be a game changer for either the US economy or the said, the Canadian economy. The Canadian the economy is involved in the world economy individually, maybe car companies and steal companies of coursal feeling impact, but in the bigger macro picture, the bigger focus remains on the broader trade policy, not just on these specific steel terrifts.
This is, in fact an opening gambit.
The last one took about twenty four hours, right, and Donald Trump ends up on the phone with the leaders of Canada, Mexico, many of the same players, with many more this time around. Whether that moves the needle, He's got his eyes on the EU coming up next, will will there be additional tariffs beyond steel and aluminum When it comes to EU.
Members, well, all of the signaling and messaging the President has given is that yes, the EU's in is in for a sweep of the broom here as well. It's not just going to be steel. He's talking about ottos for example, the fact that unequal access to their markets. It's going to be food. I suspect it'll be across
the board when it comes to EU. He has carved at the UK from that at times, making the point that their trade is doing okay, but there are other areas he wants to balance the books with the EU. But you know, remember this idea about negotiating tools and the like is there. But there was also an expectation of perhaps the tariffs retaliation tariffs that China has put on US goods wouldn't go into effect, that both leaders
would talk, Yeah, that didn't happen. Those tariffs went into effect today on US goods going to going to China.
So obviously a lot when it comes to tariffs remains uncertain, which does make me wonder tomorrow and Wednesday, when we see the chair of the Federal Reserve testifying before the Senate Banking Committee and House Financial Services Committee, undoubtedly going to face questions about this. I guess it would be kind of easy for him to punt and say, the policy is unclear, so I cannot tell you how it's going to dictate our monetary policy decisions at this point.
Yeah, he, I mean, he obviously can legitimately, to some extense, say hang on until early days here. But you know, as I was just saying about the Chana harffs, some of this stuff is now actually happening. It's not just all threatned negotiation gets called off. The Chana tariffs are on both ways US and China goods, Chana and US goods. That's happening. The deportations are happening, The fiscal spending and
the federal staff cuts are happening. So the Fed charm will have to start giving a nod that this is now happening and here's how we're thinking about it. Yes, he can say for sure how it's going to impact the economy, but I don't think he can just say early days, let's wait and see what the policies are.
All right, and the current covering the economy and tariffs for US here at Bloomberg. Obviously, much still uncertain as far as this goes. And again, Donald Trump is expected to be signing executive orders in the Oval Office. It was scheduled to begin about eight minutes ago. Hasn't yet, but I would imagine we're going to get some news on this front.
Yeah, well, Dip Bartow's into that event. Of course.
Donald Trump has been kind of talking to the press pool in a way that presidents haven't in the past. Usually this collection of reporters, one representing each platform or each medium, will kind of stand in the corner of the room. Maybe they shout a couple of questions. Usually they're whisked out. He's turned into full blown conversations that takes some time.
Yeah, they go on for quite a while, sometimes thirty minutes or more, answering a wide range of questions. And I would imagine he's going to get some today as well. On DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency and Efforts underway two unwined portions of the US government. It started with USAID, it has now moved to the CFPB, and someone who's very familiar with that particular agency is joining US now.
Mulvaney here with us on Bloomberg TV and Radio. Former acting White House Chief of Staff, former OMB director of course, former Republican Congressman from South Carolina Mick. During your tenure in the first administration, CFPB came under your charge. Now that RUSS vote has essentially said to tell the agency to stop work at least for this week, no one's getting access to the building. It does seem that this is intended to be a kind of full freeze on
the operations of this regulator. How are you watching this go down.
With a great deal of joy? Is that the right answer to that question. Look, I also understand that he either today or is preparing today to request zero dollars for the funding of the Bureau in the upcoming quarter, the same thing that we did when we first got there.
By the way, he's able to do that because he found out there was a seven hundred million dollars slush fund in the accounts that was only one hundred and seventy million when I was there, So clearly rohich Chopra had been running up the draw down in anticipation of not getting any more money. So anyway, no, it's very aggressive. I love it. We thought we could do this. In the first we floated this to the White House lawyers. They said that there were other priorities at the time,
so we didn't try this. I'm glad to see they're they're actually giving it a shot.
So Mike us great to have you back.
There are going to be people listening to this conversation and watching this on Bloomberg TV, listening on the radio who don't have the experience with this agency that you have. The idea of consumer advocates in government, I'm assuming, by principle, are not your issue. What is it about the way this agency was constructed and operated that makes it so toxic to you?
Look, if I want to give Elizabeth Warren credit for anything, I thought the idea, the premise, at least the stated premise, was a good one, which is to take all of the consumer protection elements out of the other financial regulators and consolidate them in one place, so it's a one stop shop for consumer protection. We didn't do that. What we did instead is just simply layer another level of regulation on top of the stuff that was already there
and became duplicative in many ways. Then, in large part because of the way this entity is funded. This entity is funded directly from the Federal Reserve, not from Congress. It sort of felt like it didn't answer to Congress and they were able to do whatever the leadership wanted, and during progressive leadership, they did things that I believed were against the law. I'll give you a specific example. Dodd Frank, which creates CFPB, specifically says that CFPB has
no jurisdiction over automotive dealerships. But under Richard Cordrat they went after The bureau went after automobile dealerships anyway, despite the law. There's lots of examples like that. So I think it was a renegade agency. I think that they're having the right discussion down and sort of say, look, let's shut the doors, figure out what's going on. They're still paying everybody, they can't fire anybody, to stry to see if they're actually serving their statutory purpose.
Well, make you made an important point there about the funding structure. That this is funded through the Federal Reserve. It's not money appropriated by Congress, even if the agency itself was authorized via an Act of Congress. So is there a distinction you draw here between these efforts at the CFPB and what's going on, for example, at USAID, which is run into problems in courts because that is congressionally appropriated money that they're trying not to spend.
It's a great point, Kayleye. And what I tell people is that you know this. When Liz Warren created this agency when she was a Harvard professor, she druamed up the idea. She wanted something in her mind that was above politics. Consumer protection in her mind, was too important to trust to elected officials, and you had to have this dedicated funding source so that the funding couldn't get turned on or off depending upon who was in Congress.
She did that. The double edged sword of that is that when ro Hitchopra's running the place and Congress wants to shut them down, he can sort of go and get his money without having to worry about what Congress thinks. But the other side of the sword is if Russ Vote is running the place and he doesn't want to draw any money down from the Fed, he doesn't have to. So even if Congress wants him to spend money, he's really a benevolent dictator on his own over the CFPB.
And so you're seeing the other side of this equation when he says, look, I'm not drawing any money, I'm not going to spend any you know, what's your next move in the court system?
Funding, of course, is one thing make if you wanted to eliminate the agency, would you need congressional approval for that? And will Donald Trump essentially just zero out, as you said, the budget and let it sit there and whether or does it does it need to be closed with the authority of Congress.
This this is this is this is a this is a this is what we struggled with. I did not believe that as the director, I had the right to shutter the place. I thought the President probably had the right to tell me to shut the place. My guess is that's what's that's what they're doing this time. If you really wanted to, you know, uh, acts the thing entirely to make it cease to be that would take
an Act of Congress. But I think it's up to the President and the director again as this quasi benevolent dictator, to determine the scope of what the agency the Bureau does, and that could be a really really really broad scrope spope like under Richard Cordray or Hitchopra or very very narrow under myself, Kathy Craninger and now russbot.
Well, I do wonder where this would come down on the congressional priorities list, Mick, considering the legislative priorities of the president, tax policy, energy and border policy, trying to get it all through the budget reconciliation process doesn't seem like it's making much progress forward, at least in the House. Mike Johnson had suggested we could see a budget mark up this week. Now he's suggesting maybe it won't be on that timeline. Lindsey Graham is trying to move first
in the Senate. How do you ultimately see this going down? Is it going to be two bills instead of one?
Yeah, it's going to be whatever it takes to pass. And I think this focus on one bill versus two bills. Of course, I think President Trump had it right. He came out and said he wanted one big, beautiful bill and then the next day said I don't really care as long as it passes.
And I think that's what well, But I guess the question then, Mick, is can two bills pass this House of Representatives?
The better questions can one pass? So I mean, take the simplest way it's gonna work. You know this, You've been around long enough to do it. You're gonna you're gonna have five or six ideas. You're gonna have taxes, you're gonna have immigration, you're gonna have deregulation, a bunch of stuff, and you're gonna sort of throw them together and say, Okay, if we add one more thing, do we gain net
votes or do we lose net votes? And they're gonna keep adding and subtracting different big pieces of the puzzle until they figure out a way to get a majority plus one in the in the state, in the House. That's the way this is gonna shake out. Honestly, it's gonna be hard to pass anything, it really really is. There's gonna be there's deep divisions with the Republican Party about how much money they want to save other folks just want to spend it, and what the priorities are
between immigration, taxes, et cetera. It's going to be very, very difficult. With the margin of what are they down to this week? I think two, maybe one, depending on who got confirmed in the last forty eight hours, it's gonna be hard to pass anything. That's why I say look to the Senate, because I think they're probably start driving this discussion on that side of the building.
Wouldn't be the first time that happened, Mick, and it's not the first time that we're hearing threats of a government shut down. I've only got a minute left here, but both senators from New Jersey went on Sunday morning television to threaten a government shutdown. We're going to run out of money on March fourteenth in protest of what the Doge is doing and what the administration is doing to gut, in their words, federal agencies. Is this finally it we shut down in March?
You know, you forget that. I was the one who tried to coin the term shoeer shutdown back a couple of years ago. It didn't stick at the time. But if they want to try and do this, that's fine. Look, if the Democrats want to go to the mat because of doughe we welcome that as Republicans. Even if Elon Musk is not popular individually, the stuff he's turning up is solid gold material for us for midterm elections. For
presidential elections. People don't like what they're learning about how their money is being spent at USAID, and I don't care if they you're progressive or conservative for the most part. So yeah, let's have that discussion. If the Democrats want to want to go to the mat on this one, I think the Republicans would welcome it from home.
I think that was a bring it up.
Yeah, sounded like Reilly make It's good to see if Mick Mulvaney back with US former acting White House Chief of Staff, longest business card in Washington. I'm Joe Matthew alongside Kaylee Lines. This is Bloomberg.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast. Catch us live weekdays at noon and five pm Eastern on Apple, Cockley and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station Just Say Alexa played Bloomberg eleven thirty.
The nation's capital, the seat of all three branches of the US government, the executive, legislative, and judicial. Sometimes they work together, other times they check and balance each other as designed by the Constitution. And certainly we've seen the judicial branch specifically acting on a check so far of
this administration in many ways. Judges blocking Donald Trump's executive order ending birthrates citizenship, blocking this weekend, doge access to the Treasury payment system, blocking efforts to put thousands of employees at USAID on leave. And none of that seems to be sitting too well with the Vice President of the United States, who we should note is a Yale educated attorney. He said on x this weekend. If a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a
military operation, that would be illegal. If a judge tried to command the attorney general and how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that's also illegal. Judges aren't allowed to control the executive's legitimate power.
It's like a dystopian schoolhouse rock you just put together there here in the seat of power. Yeah, District Judge Paul Engelmeyer, New York, an Obama appointee, this is really playing back like eight years ago, right, eighteen nineteen. In fact, democratic state attorneys general start this up. Then you have the ruling from the judge who says there's some merit to the state's arguments that the administration has crossed legal boundaries here and goes back to giving access to sensitive
Treasury data to the Doge. You've got people walking around inside this agency wearing T shirts and jackets that look exactly like Elon Musk. There's something to behold here, and this like a dress code at the Doge. It's a whole different story that we're talking about, and our panel surely has thoughts on this as we wait to hear
from Donald Trump in the Oval Office. Genie Shanzano is with us our Democratic analyst and political science professor at Iona University, Ashley Davis, Republican strategist, and I want to get this right now. S three group, where Ashley is a new partner. It's great to see both of you here. Genie, I'm not sure your thoughts on this because it doesn't seem to be Congress on the front lines of fighting this battle. Will this all be decided in the courts?
You know it might.
Joe, You've forgot to mention their backpacks. A lot of focus on the DOGE lads black backpacks along their attire, So we'll add that to the mix. You know, there's really three buckets that would check the executive and obviously it's the first branch, which at least as of yet hasn't stepped up, the third branch, which just really started stepping up in concert this weekend, and then also the voters themselves, and we may see that down the road,
but certainly haven't seen that yet. So at this point it does look like the courts and what we're hearing jd Vance. As Kaylee said, you know this a lawyer by training with the best education. He's mimicking something that Andrew Jackson said back in the eighteen thirties. You know, John Marshall, you want to make your decision, now you can enforce it. And of course that's what we've known since the founding, is that the Court has zero ability to enforce its ruling. It depends on the executive to
do that. And so this sets up a constitutional clash. We've seen it before, and it sounds like rhetorically, it's something they may be banking on seeing again out of the executive branch.
Yeah, it's an excellent point, Ashley. It is the president who is the enforcer of laws. The executive branch. It is the judicial branch that is the interpreter of law and whether law is consistent with the US Constitution. So when jd. Vance says judges aren't allowed to control the executive's legitimate power, isn't it up to them to determine what legitimate power the executive actually has?
Yes, And I think that you're going to see a lot of different legal cases on this. And also, just as we were talking earlier, this is one of the only mechanisms that the Democrats have, especially with their Democrat appointed judges or elected judges for some that to kind of stop this train that is like going down the tracks as fast as it can. I think that one of the main things that everyone needs to remember is that I don't know if the Trump administration cares, if
the courts continued to do this. They're going to move as fast as they can, put things in place as much as they can, and just let it bride out in the courts, and it's going to take years and years and years. By all this time and all this stuff is appealed, So I just don't know. I think again, if I was a Democrat, I would be using this one hundred percent. I just don't know how impactful it's going to be. Besides some of these delays We're.
Just talking about this with Nick Mulvaney, Genie. Some Democrats are preparing to act, and look no further than the two senators from New Jersey, Corey Booker and Andy Kim split up and went on different Sunday morning shows to threaten a government shutdown to protest Donald Trump's gutting of federal agencies. Mick Mulvaney, when we pose this idea to him, basically said, make my day. Donald Trump is finding solid gold.
Are the words that he used in making the case line by line as to why an agency like USAID should be defunded or at least thought. Is that smart politics to hold up a government funding bill over this?
Yeah?
I mean part of the problem here you nailed at, Joe, is that the Democrats are all over the map. You've got some who are really standing up. I think of the senator from Connecticut, you know, hair on fire. We've got to do everything we can to stop this. And you've got more raquel centrends, say Jakim Jeffries having to lead the group in the House. So they Democrats have to get it together on this. You know something I say all the time is yes, you can use the
courts to try to stop political movement forward. But it is a political disaster. We saw that in the twenty twenty four election. Democrats, to the point that was just made, have a habit of doing this. It is not advised. If you want to win politically in this country, you have to appeal to the hearts and minds of the American voters, not unelected judges in courts. So the first piece of advice, and the second is holding up the government and shutting it down. That should be on the
Republicans because they are in control. But Democrats have got to get it together and not let the mcmontaneys of the world. Quite frankly, he's very good at this saying that it's a Schumer shutdown, because again, politically, that's a loser for them. So Democrats have a lot of work to do on this score. But there are a lot of solid arguments for them to make on this and
they just have to get together and make those. And what we saw the other weekend, quite frankly at the DNC meeting them talking about transgender issues, all these things. They are far afield from where they need to be talking to the American public. So they have some work to do on this front.
Well, on the notion of a Schumer shutdown or a Democratic shutdown, Ashley that that is the party that would get the blame. How does that work when Republicans are the ones who are in control of both the White House and Congress. Would they not shoulder any of the blame if this happens in mid March?
Yeah, I mean you would think. I would think so. I actually was having this conversation over the weekend, and how how do the Republicans and Democrats kind of win the pr message? Which is a horrible thing to say if we all think about it, if this is how we're running our country. But I because Republicans are in control of all three ranches, this should be one hundred
percent down around their neck in regards to responsibility. However, if the Democrats don't at least look like they're coming to the table to negotiate, and then they just can't agree to the government funding numbers based on difference in policies, then it's really hard.
For Republicans to blame it on them.
If they sit back and just say, you know what, I'm mad because USAID funding is going away or whatever. That's not going to work. And you know, Trump's a brilliant messenger, and he'll start trying to make this all their faults. So I do think they're going to have to split that balance of negotiation, at least looking like they are.
Senator Andy Kim on NBC Genie, I would be the last person to want to get to that stage referring to a shutdown, But we're at a point where we're basically on the cusp of a constitutional crisis. Is that how you look at this and is that the way Democrats should be framing it?
You know, that is what they're hearing from their base. I mean what we're hearing. The calls coming into these offices are coming fast and furious, and you know, we are only three weeks in. But wait until people start to feel on the ground the impact of these kinds of actions by the executive branch, and even Republicans in the House and Senate are going to feel it. You know, we had a Christy Gnome on Sunday saying she would advise the President to shut down FEMA is the way
it exists now that impacts people on the ground. It's going to take a while, but it impacts people on the ground, and you can bet their senators and representatives will hear that.
Well.
The Andy Kims of the world, the Chris Murphys of the world, they are already hearing from their constituents. And that's why they are talking in this way. And it's not just voters. You know. If we go back to the CFPB Elon Musk has talked about wanting a payments and commerce platform. What about the other companies that he now has an advantage over because he presumably has got proprietary information about those companies now having been in there
all weekend before the judge shut that down. There are also going to be companies that say, hey, wait a minute, the executive has gone too far, and that is what is going to turn this around. I'm not sure that it works for Democrats to keep crying, you know, crisis, crisis, crisis, but they do have to talk to people about what they're feeling on the ground, and there will be real impacts to all this action eventually.
Is this something that is going to be felt beyond the beltwagh Ashley, or at least outside of the bubble here in Washington. I do wonder it's hard to see outside the bubble sometimes if this is actually very insular conversation that most of America may not be paying that much attention to.
Frankly, I completely agree with you. I mean, I wonder how many people in North Dakota even understand what USAIDA is or doges or whatever I mean, or paying attention to it, because what they are worried about is the price of their eggs, or the price of their rent or everyday expenses. And so this question was asked yesterday to the President as well, is where are we on that? So, yes, he is doing things fast and furious and things that he said he would do on the campaign trail that
you know, isn't that surprising. I think the speed that he's doing it is what's maybe surprising people. However, I think that if I were the Democrats, I would be concentrating on the price of some of these groceries and things like that. Instead of saying this guy has fallen as these words, I'm saying this like this guy is falling on every single topic.
So maybe just more about egg prisis Ashley Davis s and Genie Shanzano our political panel on this Monday. Thank you so much for joining us. We'll have more Balance of Power straight ahead here on Bloomberg TV and radio.
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As we stand by for news at the White House, President Trump is expected to be signing some executive orders that had been scheduled well for forty two minutes ago.
He still has not emerged.
The press pool is standing by from what we understand, and this is important because we're anticipating some news on tariffs twenty five percent tariffs as you've been hearing today and seeing on Blue Umberg against steel and aluminum imports. There are huge questions, Kayley, about whether there will be some countries exempted from this, like say Canada, whether China will in fact be double tariff. All that will presumably
be made clear a little bit later on. He tends to have kind of the rolling news conference while he's signing with the Sharpie.
Well, and he indicated this may not be the only tariff related announcement he makes this week. Is reciprocal tariffs, that's right, maybe announced Tuesday or Wednesday, he told reporters aboard Air Force One last night. And it's unclear how
wide and scope those will be either. We have a lot of outstanding questions regarding tariff policy that we do know, of course, that ten percent tariffs on Chinese goods are already in place in the retaliatory measures from China on US imports to that country have kicked in as well. So we want to discuss the net effect of all of this and go now live to Capitol Hill, where Democratic Congressman Haley Stevens of Michigan is joining us back with us on balance of Power. Welcome back to Bloomberg
TV and Radio. Congresswoman, when you consider your district in Michigan and not just the tariffs that are in place, but the threat of tariffs going into place and potentially affecting costs that your constituents are facing, what are you hearing about this, What impact are you bracing for?
Well, I think it's very important to bring the American worker to the table on these decisions, and we all know that select tariffs can be utilized for the strength of the American economy, to bolster the pocketbook of the American worker and to strengthen our supply chain. And we've
seen previous administrations used tariffs. What we've lived through in the last couple of weeks, though, has been without the buy in, and certainly those of us on Capitol Hill, we're just waiting to hear if we have a White House liaison over there at sixteen hundred Pennsylvania Avenue. I had some constituents from Michigan in town last week and we went to go log on to the White House
and see if we could get them a tour. And they don't even have the portal open for members of Congress to give our constituents tours of the White House. So in terms of what they're going to put forward with all these executive orders and how we're going to work together, we want to be at the table for our constituents. We're certainly taking a lot of cues from those who've been in the trenches, like the United Auto Workers,
certainly the United steel Workers and the like. And we know that other rounds of tariffs got worked out, but our supply chain, and particularly our automotive sector, it's complex. They need certainty and they don't need this pendulum swinging from one minute, we're going to see twenty five percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico. Oops, that get scaled back or whatever. We got out of that, and then you
see what's going on with China. Maybe that does have some outcome for us, but we just need to know, we need to know, and we need some time to work this all out, and we're waiting on the administration to do that for us as well.
Well. Congress Swiman, welcome back.
I want to bring it back to your time as an employee of the Treasury Department. You were chief of staff on the Auto Task Force, which we talk about a lot responsible for returning the auto industry to stability and preserving auto jobs back in the Obama administration.
You know what it's like to be in that building, and you.
Also know what it's like, as you said, to go through this complex series of stages to build a car in a place like Michigan, crossing the border back and forth between Michigan and Canada multiple times at various stages of assembly. That's not going to live through a twenty five percent tariff if that ends up being the case. Donald Trump's got I realized a couple of months left
to figure that out. When you talk about Canadian and Mexican tariffs to car companies, now while they have the chance, need to start rethinking the way they produce these vehicles.
Well, I really appreciate you bringing up my time at the Treasury Department during President Obama's first term, because it was such a special time. It was a tough time. It was a very challenging time, but what made it special is that people came together for the betterment of our nation and our economy. The Bush administration officials, they stayed on a lot of them at the Treasury Department, they worked with those of us in the Obama administration.
We set up a nonpartisan team to rescue General Motors and Chrysler and two hundred thousand Michigan jobs. And certainly we weren't putting an Elon Musk in charge of the wires to spook everyone that he has access to your data. Which is also why last week, alongside our House Democratic
Leader Haikeen Jeffries, I introduced the Taxpayer Data Protection Act. Now, you asked a very important question about what do our automakers need and certainly their views and their declarations has proven original equipment manufacturer are going to matter a whole
heck of a lot here. But I also know they don't want to pick a big fight with the administration out of the get, which is why I'm taking my expertise as a member of Congress, as a representative from Oakland County, Michigan, where we've got automation Alley and a lot of suppliers and stillanis headquartered, and certainly you know that strong affiliation with Ford and General Motors. And we're saying, wait a minute, guys, give us a minute here. We've
got this USMCA framework. Why don't we use that. We're going into a review period. We're going to race against China with these rare earth minerals. I'm working on legislation
for that too. Maybe we could do something along the industrial policy lines like we did with the Chips and Science Act, which by the way, has worked for the American taxpayer, has worked for the manufacturing economy, and so those might be some other things that we could consider together both branches of government, as our founders intended.
Well at Congressman, I'm glad you raised the legislation that you introduced last week to rein in the ability of Elon Muskin those working for the dogs to access taxpayer information. I do wonder, though, if you really think there is appetite for that in your chamber, specifically if you're expecting Republican buy into this, or if ultimately it's going to be left up to the courts after a judge over the weekend, did indeed at least temporarily block access to these systems.
Well, certainly as someone who's not afraid to work in a bipartisan way, I'm not here to play gimmicks. And I'd say to my fellow House members on the other side of the Okaylee, Hey, come on over right. I mean, think about the authority that we're seeding to the Executive Office when we also need to insert ourselves. And part of how we've gotten into these challenges with our debt and our deficit is that we also need to do a better job of doing our job as members of Congress.
And that means taking hold of our authority. That means utilizing the led powers before us, and it's not necessarily to I mean, I'm looking at it as I'm a citizen and an elected official who's concerned about what Elon Musk is doing at the Treasury Department. A little bit
of transparency here would go a long way. And I understand the presidents doing his press conferences and he is answering questions, but we really haven't gotten an answer as to what the heck they're doing in the Bureau of Fiscal Service, which I never had access to as a White House appointee in a schedule see role. Why does Elon Musk, who doesn't even have a top security clearance
and these conflicts of interest? And I just say that with all due respect, you have to understand elected officials, executive branch, legislative branch. We hold the public trust. Let's continue to build it. And that's also what we're seeing that the legislation can do. I'm here, I love our country. I want to work with our country. I want to
deliver for the taxpayer. I want to deliver for our economy and with that, hardworking Americans and those who've retired and those who are trying to raise their kids.
Right now, well, let's get to it here, congresswoman, because when you introduced that legislation, you wrote in your statement. It begs the question, what exactly is he referring to Elon Musk? What is he trying to accomplish research on his opponents? You asked stopping payments on Americans earned benefits like Social Security and Medicare? Is there something that you know about here, Congresswoman, that would indicate any of these are happening.
We don't know those answers, And I will tell you it's just what I'm hearing from concerned citizens, Joe. It really is the level of nerves that I have gotten from people back home in Oakland County, Michigan. It is really palpable. And I say that because I'm just trying to do my darnness as a representative and a purveyor of the truth and as somebody who's got the power of the pen to write these bills that we need those answers. That's all that that is going to do here.
This is a new thing for us, And look, we do need people digging into our government and helping us figure out how to get the best bills done and how to trim some of the fat and to make
us more efficient. Gosh, that came up when I was working for President Obama over a decade ago, we really went through a whole exercise on that, particularly for small businesses, and how challenging it is for them to work for the work with the federal government on occasion, and so we really just want to build that trust and we want to get those questions answered. And that's what I think my bill would do taxpayer data protection, all sides of the I are welcome to join in and sign
on to it. We really love to have you.
Well, Congressman, if we're talking about trust in the federal government, what about trust and the government's ability to make sure, at least through Congress, that it is continued, continually funded beyond the deadline of mid next month. We've heard from some of your Democratic colleagues a suggestion that your party is not willing to play ball with Republicans over some of the very same things we're taught talking about the
efforts of doge, the operations of this administration. Are you willing to tolerate a shut down to make a point on that.
Well, let me tell you this, I don't think there's anyone more frustrated in the Congress right now than the House Republicans, in part because they're finding out about these executive orders. When the American public find out, they're not necessarily being brought in to the objectives of this administration, and they're not having a lot of say in terms
of what's going on here. I've made it really clear that as a member of the Minority Party in the House of Representatives, I'm going to use my vote and my voice accordingly, and I'm going to do so alongside this steady and incredible leadership that we have here in the House of Representatives from Hakeem Jeffreys. That's absolutely essential. There's a lot of things that we have worked really hard for over a number of years that frankly have
a lot of support around this country. I'm thinking about these new manufacturing facilities that are opening up in the clean tech space, that big competition we're in with the Chinese Communist Party.
Jd.
Vance came to Michigan and said one of those plants was table scraps. He's now our vice president. I can't look all those people, the hundreds of people just working on rehabbing that plant. I can't look them in the face and say that's okay. So if we're going into a budget where you're going to slash that I'm not signed up here. Let's negotiate.
Could you look them in the face, though, Congresswoman, to get to Kyley's question and tell them that it's worth shutting down the government to make a statement here when it comes to the actions of this administration, for instance, getting inside the Treasury, Department, USAID and others.
Well, I certainly reject the notion that the Democrats would be responsible for a shutdown. I want to be really clear on that. We're really proud that under the four years of President Biden's leadership that we never shut down the government once. That's actually something that that he has under his belt. And I know he's not the president anymore,
and that's going to fall to our commander in chief. Ultimately, he's the one signing the bills, and he's got the grip on the Congress with the party that he is in, and we've got a speaker, and they're saying, this is a big old mandate and if they are going to try and open up that door to working with us, we're all ears on certainly workforce initiatives which truly meet that those incredible goals of the realize potential of all Americans.
The STEM bills, Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics that I've worked on for a number of years, from rural Americans to urban Americans, making sure that they've got that pipeline to a good paying job. Let's have that conversation. Let's fund those programs. Let's not attack the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Health. Let's build a government we can trust together.
Well, it's great to have you back, Congressman Hailey Stevens, or should I say former Treasury Department official Hailey Stevens of Michigan, And it's great to have you with us, of course, live from Capitol Hill.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast. Catch us live weekdays at noon and five pm Eastern on Apple, Cockley and Android Auto 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.
President Trump will be signing some executive orders. They have not been detailed on the schedule, but we do expect one of them, maybe several of them, to address steel and aluminum tariffs. Questions about whether there'll be exemptions. We're double tariffing China. What about Canada, the primary source of steel on an export level in this country. We need to find all of this out still, and there will
likely be market implications here. We're kind of dancing along listening to Charlie and interesting that we haven't seen.
Much action outside of the steel companies. We'll let you know what goes on there.
As we turn to what I would argue is the most important story of the day. Tariff seemed to come and go around here. The penny not so much, though it may be going. That's the latest order from the President of the United States to the Treasury, which of course oversees the mint, stop making the penny, he says, calling them wasteful. You do wonder about these executive orders, the stroke of a pen or a sharpie, impacting entire industries or businesses as anyone reached out to coinstar at
the grocery store. Stephen Dennis, as a matter of fact, has before this order went out. We were talking to Stephen about the veracity of the penny, the value of the penny, staying.
Power of the penny.
Stephen covers Congress for a living, but as an expert on the penny and he's with us right now at the table. Did I go too far with that? I feel like you're pretty close to an expert.
I've found this penny issue fascinating. See for decade, for decades, we've spent more money to make a penny than the government gets back by selling them to banks, right, and so this is like such an old, you know issue. They actually made a West Wing episode about it, and people have been trying to kill it or to suspend the production of it. John McCain actually had a bill a number of years ago to well to stop.
Minting them, could still use them?
Yeah, you still use them. I mean there are something like two hundred billion pennies in circulation, so they're not going to go away overnight even if we stop minting them. We've been minting about three or four five billion every year and so that's imagine that potentially one hundred million dollars in less spending. But you know, in the past, Congress has not wanted to take on the penny lobby. And yeah, so there's you know, there's Pennies dot Org.
There's a company in Tennessee called now called Artisan.
Were you referring to Americans for common sense.
Yeah, there's a various groups out there that lobby to keep the penny in it. And so you have the company that makes all the zinc blanks is in Tennessee called Artisan Okay, so they make money off of the penny.
Which is not made of copper.
Oh, it's still has some copper in little copper, mostly zinc.
And these people have real jobs at this place.
Yeah, there's still lots of people who mine the zinc and the copper, make the stuff.
The trade of zoo pennies dot org. These guys are, they're not volunteers.
Used to be a company called Jarden Zinc. It's been around since the eighteen hundreds making things like pennies. And so you know, there could be a fight on Trump's hands here with people who represent districts where there are penny jobs. But you know this is this has been one of those classic cases of Washington not wanting to, you know, squeeze something because you have to take on somebody who's going to be lobbing to keep their piece.
Of the pie.
Well, so Doge was got a head start on this, yes, and took to X saying the penny costs over three cents to make. Consider that and cost US taxpayers over one hundred and seventy nine million dollars in f y twenty twenty three penny or three cents for your thoughts, it said Donald Trump, making the point that when do you think the last time Donald Trump used a penny?
I think it's unlikely. He's just a penny just you know, do you.
Ever know guys who throw the pennies out?
Yeah?
I mean if you think, if you think about it, like minimum wage now seven to twenty five an hour, still seven twenty five an hour, you'd have to pick up been down seven hundred and twenty five times every hour just to make a minimum wage. And that explains why there are two hundred billion in circulation.
You know.
People throw them out, people throw them into the river, the people put them in jars in their basements. Because but he uses them. The only person I've seen using one in the last year in the US Senate. Yeah, okay, where I eat every day is Ed Markey. So he's he's brought he to the penny. He's basically sort of he's been in Congress for many decades. He's truly old school. He wants to mandate AM radio in every car.
Yeah, God love them.
Uh, you know, he still uses pennies and sort of wadded up dollar bills to pay for his lunch, and but everybody else uses a card, so the demand for Kenny's pennies is plummeting. Retailers tend to not like having to have cash registers waste their time sort of counting them. So the Coinstar Yeah, now, Coinstar also, their entire business model is basically based on people not wanting to count them out and finding them useless, so they'll go to Coinstar and dump in hundreds of pennies to get like
a you know, a gift card or something. And you know, so I don't think Coinstar is going to be actually that hurt that.
Much because people a lot of dumb pennies.
People still have two hundred billion pennies to turn and now that's only two billion dollars. You know, it's just you know, when you think about the actual amount of money involved here, it's made small, yes, right, And that's the classic example in Washington where they say, you know, the juice isn't worth a squeeze. Do you actually want to squeeze it when you know you're gonna have to make some people unhappy.
We're getting the best of Steven Dennis right now. I hope everyone who enjoys.
Don't forget the nickel.
Get the nickel.
I'm about to go there because Ed Marky will be glad to know that the people at penny dot org penny or pennies pennies dot org, well, they see the nickel eating us alive if you do.
Away with the penny. Now, by the way, I.
Was shocked to learn today that the nickel costs thirteen point seven eight cents to make.
This is way worse than the penny.
And they say you take pennies away, you know what's gonna happen drive up the cost of the nickel.
Well, and they also, you know people might use more.
You're gonna need more nickel, right, so you know.
The next step would obviously be get getting rid of the nickel. Now, nickel uses nickel, which is actually very important for things like ev batteries. Right, so you have you have Elon Musk he uses a lot of nickel, and his Tesla's correct. Right now, we're like digging nickel out of like an island mine in the South Pacific. We're surrounded by it and using some of that nickel and nichols, right, so uh yeah, the the nickel costs a lot more than we than we currently get back.
From The Canada has done this right, They just round everything up.
Lots lots of countries have gotten rid of it and it's no big deal.
So that it would be it would be nine ninety five from now on if it had been nine ninety one, you're gonna go to you probably.
You know, Congress could theoretically come in and pass a law to govern the rounding up, rounding down part of this, but in the meantime it might be just sort of like anything goes.
This is a fascinating conversation in the age of blockchain. Is there an eventual goal to eliminate all the coins here, all the physical coins, so we're doing digital coins.
I mean, if you think about the inflation that we've had and the inflation we're going to continue to have even if we get down to the two percent target, eventually all these coins become worthless. You know, you're gonna you know, the dyme might stick around a little longer. The quarter currently make a profit on that's not gonna last another one hundred years. So and the reality is
is fewer and fewer people are using physical money. They are using their credit cards, they're using their debit cards. That trend is going to continue. And then you've got people talking about, well, we can do stable coins and you can have a stable coin card. You can go to Walmart use the Walmart stable coin card. That's already talk of, you know, doing all that sort of thing
as well. Nobody's using pennies, like there are a few people who say, well, charity use it in the you know, holidays, you can go to the Salvation Army and dump your pennies into the but that's still a lot of friction, you know, to actually give somebody some money. And it's this may be the time the pennies finally go away. But it's also possible that Congress says no on Article one.
Congress has the power to mint coins. Now they've given the secretary some discretion, you know, the secretary has some discretion on how many to make. So I wouldn't be surprised if the Treasury Secretary, you know, says, will mint ten thousand this year.
Well, it's funny to think. You know, Congress doesn't have a lot to say about ending entire federal agencies. But you mess with the penny, you're flying a little close to the sun. Pennies are made of zinc, little copper. Yeah, is there steal in any of this stuff to the steel aluminum tariffs?
No, it's the coins.
But there was a proposal by Joni Ernzt, who kind of got the ball rolling here with Dough. She's the co chair of the Dough Caucus. She had a bill with the Democrats to change the composition of pennies, nickels, and other things to make them a little cheaper, not to get rid of them entirely, but to make them a little cheaper than three cents for a penny, so you could you could make them out of something cheaper.
But that bill doesn't seem to be going anywhere, you know, you know, any anytime you're doing something like this, you canna have a zinc lobby, a copper lobby. You know, you're gonna have the nickel lobby. They're not gonna wanna lose their money. The unions aren't.
Gonna want then lobby and the nickel lobby like they they have like chain fights in the parking lot.
Is that are these guys opposed? You know, it does seem to any of them.
It does seem to be every metal and every coin out for themselves.
It seems like maybe they could band together for the greater good. Now, next time I find like a green gross penny in a pocket or in the couch or whatever, it's kind of corroded. Am I saving that for posterity? Or there's just so many of them that they're they're gonna be worthless.
I think unless they're an old penny, that they're basically worthless.
Got it?
You know, there's two hundred billion out there. There's like think I think about how big that number is. That is a stupefyingly big number. It might be the most common thing out there than like dental picks, it is, and people aren't saving those either. So like this is that This is just you.
Know, this is the kind of stuff you learn when you talk to Steven Dennis in the pantry in the hallway. This is the kind of man you want to have in the newsroom. Thank you for bringing your expertise to us here. Sure, I need to balance of power when it comes to the Mighty Penny. I'm Joe, Matthew and Washington. Glad you came along. You didn't think you were going to learn as much about the Penny Today. Look out for the Nickel lobby guys. They're not fooling around. The
fastest show in politics, This is Bloomberd. Thanks for listening to the Balance of Power podcast. Make sure to subscribe if you haven't already, Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts, and you can find us live every weekday from Washington, DC at noontime Eastern at Bloomberg dot com.