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As we asked, the question today, is Mike Johnson the kind of guy who can break the rules because the Speaker of the House is looking at a schedule that's not going to cooperate. Not that anything seems to be cooperating right now. We thought we had a deal Monday, a deal to avert a government shut down midnight Friday. They had to get through all this wrangling over border funding and DHS.
They got it done.
It was just a matter of producing the text so the seventy two hour rule could begin in the House, right gets seventy two hours to read the bill. They are pretty long, after all, you can rest assured most lawmakers still don't read them. But that's what he's dealing with here, and that's why it would be too late to get through the Senate to hit the deadline Friday night.
So the question is Mike Johnson going to break the seventy two hour rule, knowing that the very same members of the Freedom Caucus who demand seventy two hours are the same people who are going to vote against this bill. So maybe there's no point in waiting. Let's s get with Jonathan Samari and see what the hold up is, reporting for Bloomberg Government live from Capitol Hill. Jonathan is great to see you.
How come no text? I thought we had a deal a couple days ago.
Yeah.
I mean, you wonder how solid or how worked out the deal was when they first announced it, because it is certainly taking a long time for them to put that deal into actual text, and so I don't think that there's a threat that they don't have a deal, but clearly there's a lot of details that are still being worked out behind the scenes, given the fact that it's taken so long to actually put put a bill
out for folks to read. And so we still don't have it here as of noon on Wednesday, and it's going to be hours at best before we see anything.
Bob Good of the Freedom Caucus aforementioned talking about this with The Daily Beast, Jonathan maybe said the same thing to you. I think it's fair to say, most of us who have an issue with the seventy two hour rule weren't going to vote for this bill anyways.
Why wait when this is done, why not bring it to the floor.
Yeah, I mean I think they'll wait at least a little bit. I don't think they'll want to go from seventy two hours to one hour, but I think they'll probably.
I think there's a.
Decent chance that they'll go less than seventy two hours, considering that technically the rule doesn't apply. That rule doesn't apply when they're bringing up a bill that they're going to try to pass with on suspension, which basically means two thirds of the vote of the House instead of the bear majority. And we're looking at nobody wants to shut down for one thing, and just about everybody in Congress is looking ahead to a two week recess and they're gonna have plans and gonna want to be out
of Washington. So I think the odds are they shorten that window, but they probably don't shorten it to zero.
There's word we may not see actual legislation until Thursday. Jonathan, I know this is the question everybody's asking, but do you have a sense of when they might finish their work.
That is the big thing. I mean, we were thinking we were gonna get a bill Sunday, and then Monday and then Tuesday. Here we are Wednesday, and you're saying Thursday. So whatever you hear, you know, it's kind of doesn't carry it doesn't carry a lot of weight at this point because they've been missed so many deadlines so far. So I think it's quite possible that we don't see it until Thursday. Maybe we get it very late tonight.
But you know, whatever deadline they put out, don't put a ton of stock in it at this point.
Got it spoken from the man who knows Jonathan Ell. I'll tell you one thing is Mike Johnson's job quickly here is not about to get any easier after what happened last night in California. It was a special election for Kevin McCarthy's old seat, and it's going to a runoff. Despite a Trump endorsement and a McCarthy endorsement, this is going to be a May runoff, which means Johnson gets a couple more months of that seat being vacant, and what a two seat majority.
That's right, if the candidate who had been endorsed by McCarthy and Trump Fin's fong. If he had won I believe a majority, he could have won the seat wrapped it up last night instead, as you point out, got
to go to a runoff. So a month and more, a month and change of having this two seat majority, and so that means one person's flight delay, a person's personal obligation and illness really gives Republicans just about no room to maneuver, which is why we've seen so little of substance actually have been in so much of what has passed the House has had to rely on Democratic votes because the Republican majority is just too thin.
Yeah, ask Al Green.
Jonathan good to see it, Jonathan Tomorroy reporting for Bloomberg Government on the Hill. When news breaks, Jonathan's going to be among those writing the headlines on the terminal and at Bloomberg dot Com.
So when he knows, will know.
As we pick through the ashes of another primary night here looking for trends, of course, that's our job, and they're not always there, but the Trump trend does seem to be one that is worth examining after last evening, not even for his own performance at the top of the ticket in states like Ohio and Illinois that we're voting.
This was about Trump endorsements down ballot that could resonate through the campaign cycle, and wanted to connect with Don Levy at Siena College, the Research Institute, director of the pollster who helped us make our way through the special in New York and again on Super Tuesdays.
Back with us now, Donn, it's great to see you.
I'd love to hear if you have any trends on your radar and whether you see this as a mostly good night as I put it for Donald Trump in his record of endorsements.
I was a good night for Donald Trump, with Marino winning out performing a little bit relative to how some folks felt he would taking down a candidate in Dolan who had been strongly endorsed by Mike DeWine, an extremely popular governor. Still, I think you have to come away with saying that it was a victory for a Donald Trump endorsed candidate, someone who was completely on board with
Donald Trump. However, it still displays that Trump does not have He has control of the Republican Party, but not a vice like control. Because it was still close to fifty percent of the vote that went to these two other non Trump endorsed candidates.
You wonder if Marino would have made it if Democrats hadn't spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on ads to boost his profile as they're so called preferred candidate.
Do you think they chose wisely?
Well, time will tell whether it be careful what you wish for. You know, we saw a very difficult.
Race in Ohio last time, Tim Ryan against jd. Vance.
The Democrats had high hopes for Tim Ryan, a well known Democratic challenger in that state.
But he fell eight points short.
And right now you're looking at Ard Brown again, been representing now Ohio for three terms.
His feet are.
Firmly on the ground in Ohio, but he's going to face a very difficult challenge from Bernie Marino in this upcoming race in a state that has really gone a long way from having any sort of blue tinge to it at all.
Now you mentioned a pretty good night in Ohio. There was another race that we were watching closely, and that was to figure out who would face Democrat Marcy cap Republicans would love to kick this veteran Democrat out of the House, and the Trump favorite one, Derek Merrin, and did pretty well here. When you back off and look at Ohio, Don it's amazing how the state has changed politically.
Here you made the point, Mike DeWine endorsing Matt Dolan an establishment Republican is the transition complete in Ohio to MAGA.
You know, I think that the Democrats are still going to look at it as a potential battleground.
They have to, after all.
I mean, they're on defense almost across the entire map of the United States as they approach the Senate where they only have a very very razor thin majority really because they've got three independents caucusing with them. Right now, West Virginia appears to be headed to the Republican column, so they can't lose a single seat, and this one shared brown seed is going to be all important for the Democrats.
They have a very good candidate.
It's going to shape up as a progressive Democrat who understands Ohio against someone that is a Trump candidate in Bernie Marino. And I think all the issues that we're going to hear on the top of the ticket are going to get repeated in this campaign. The economy, the border, and those issues are going to be very difficult for Biden at the top of the ticket and Shared Brown at this point in the ticket to defense. But this race, make no mistake about it, is all important to the Democrats.
They have to hold Ohio if they're going to have any chance at all of keeping Chuck Schumer as Senate majority leader.
Well, so with that in mind, we talked a couple of days ago Don about the idea of reverse coattails, that in a state like Ohio, Shared Brown's popularity might help Joe Biden at the top of the ticket. We even saw in some Emerson pulling a different firm of course, that I think it was eight percent of Trump voters would vote for Shared Brown their own senator. I wonder who helps who in this campaign.
But we saw a little bit of that in the you know, Tim Ryan, there were certainly some Mike DeWine Tim Ryan.
Voters in the last selection.
Chary Brown may very well help Joe Biden, and he's going to have to, But I don't think the Democrats really are thinking that Joe Biden has a very strong chance of carrying Ohio. Perhaps they're looking for Biden not to hurt shred Brown in this particular, in this match with Marino. I mean, we're still going to argue over
the economy. We're going to argue over, you know, whether each of the two top of the ticket candidates are suitable to hold the presidency, and unfortunately or fortunately, whichever the case may be, the Senate candidates are going to be forced to defend and speak for the top of
the ticket at the same time. I don't think Marino is going to have any trouble with that, and really I think Sheret Brown is going to be all in on defending Biden's record and trying to put it on the round in Ohio where he's going to talk about jobs, He's going to talk about economic opportunity, and he's going to try to tell Ohioans that despite the fact that the rate of about fifty percent who say the economy
is poor, that it's not really poor. They just have to pay more attention to what Biden and in this case Sheriff Brown are telling them are happening in their state.
Amazing.
As we spent time with Don Levy, director of the Siena College Research Institute, on this day after primary night, Mike Bost Republican congressman from Illinois Don One and a squeaker.
This is another win for Trump.
He beat Darren Bailey, who is endorsed strangely by Matt Gets another strange contest in this case. This is a pretty tight one though, And I wonder if that's more of what you had in mind with the caveat to Trump's success last night.
He's still one, but not by a lot.
Well, I mean, we're going to see that play out in house race after house race across the United States. And we talked a little bit about Senate control that at this point the map favors the Republicans regaining the upper House the lower House. It looks like a lot of these races where you get down into district by district, that Trump's endorsement a Trump candidate may not carry the day.
We saw that, for example in New York three.
You know, although they was not a full throated endorsement from Trump, but still these house races and the Democrats across the entire country are going to put tremendous energy into trying to regain the House. And we're looking not just at New York, California, a race in Alabama but as you point out, a race here and there across virtually all the states in the Midwest that the Democrats see as essential to trying to.
Regain control of the House.
If you know, their doomsday scenario obviously is they lose the White House, the Senate, and the House. So they're going to be working, you know, as hard as they can on each and every one of the House races.
It's interesting.
The other one that's going to go to a runoff is in California. That's a Trump endorsed candidate, Vince Fong. Trump and McCarthy endorse not enough to put him over the edge there with less than a minute done. Is that the tough spot of the night for Donald Trump? That they couldn't get that done?
That is surprising. It's a little bit of a tough spot.
I don't think that Trump's people are going to pay a great deal of attention to that at this point in time, because we've seen candidate after candidate when they're in either when they win their primary or even if they're not running for reelection buying larger falling in line. The question is the overall question of these double haters of the folks who were the Hailey supporters, to what degree are they going to fall in line and support
Donald Trump? Could be doing it the way Matt Dolan did it in Ohio, where they say that ideologically I'm aligned with Donald Trump, even if I have some problems with his style. But we're going to see the Republicans who win the nominations, whether it be House Senate, by the time we get around to the convention are pretty much going to be nearly one hundred percent in line, are going to try to bring that soft Republican support with them.
He runs the Siena College Research Institute. Don Levy, it's great to have you back on Bloomberg.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast kens just live weekdays at noon Eastern on Appo CarPlay and then roud 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.
But of course, as we're thinking about the election and how the economy and interest rate outlook could change in the interim, of course, we have a better idea of who's going to be on the ballot in November down the ballot, not just at the presidential level, with Trump
in Biden set to lead their respective tickets. But we had some primaries in a number of states, including Ohio yesterday, and we now know who's going to be up against the Democratic incumbent and chair of the Senate Banking Committee, Shared Brown. And that's where we'd like to begin now with our signature of political panel. Rick Davis and Jeanie Shanzino are joining us. So in Ohio, it was Bernie Marino, a Trump back backed candidate, that ultimately pulled off the victory.
And Rick, I guess my question is is this a signal about the power of a Trump endorsement broadly or a signal about the power of a Trump endorsement in Ohio? Is Ohio unique or a tell?
Well?
I think Ohio is a tell I think that Donald Trump has had for quite some time since becoming the Republican nominee, since twenty sixteen, a ability to influence these primaries. We've seen it time and time again. People have questioned whether or not Donald Trump was going to have impact in these off year elections, and here we are in a presidential year. He's the nominee and he's still having
an impact. I mean, Moreno was, you know, trailing Dolan two weeks ago and Donald Trump came into Ohio and flipped the script. And at first we saw Poles you know, change in almost ten percent in a week, and we thought, wow, that's phenomenal, that's a lot. Well, this was a twenty point race win. I mean, this was not close at the end. And so even though he squeaked it out with fifty point five percent, that's a big win over a short period of time for Donald Trump. So he'll
be able to herald this. The downside is that now they've got to devote resources to Moreno's campaign because it is a must win state and there's already over one hundred and forty million dollars in television place by campaign committees for this Senate race. This is going to be probably the most, if not one of the most expensive races in America outside the presidential race.
So Genie Democrats got what they asked for last night.
In Ohio.
They get a race against Bernie Moreno, aforementioned for Senate and for the House in Ohio nine, they get a Trump candidate named Derek Meren a Congressman, Derek marro is going to run against Marcy Captor. Is Donald Trump going to be the best thing that happened to Democrats in Ohio?
You know, first of all, we should say the headline here is that Donald Trump and Chuck Schumer both got their guy. Now that's an unusual thing, right, and so that's really what you know, you look at this race and you think, wow, they both won, and you know, I think Democrats have to be really, really careful what they wish for here. We had some dropping of oppo research on Moreno that obviously did not move the needle
at all except in his favor. You know, maybe there is more of that to come, But I think Democrats have to be very careful here. It is not clear to me that Bernie Moreno is somebody who is going to take a big loss like we've seen in some of these past races, say in Georgia or Pennsylvania in the past, with Donald Trump endorsed candidates. So either Donald Trump is getting better at his picks or you know,
the candidates themselves are wising up. He's really untested in this regard, you know, But I think Donald Trump had a very good day yesterday in terms of his endorsements, and I would say the losers here are number one the polls, which really showed a much tighter race than we got, and number two moderates in the Republican Party.
I mean, if anything is clear that they cannot make it in the current MAGA controlled Republican Party, and that's really where the party is headed for the next at least several months, if not year.
Well, Rick, we were discussing the idea of the Trump endorsement and Trump backed candidates and how they perform in general contests versus primary on the evening edition of Balance of Power last night, and something that was brought up was we saw what happened to a number of Trump supportive candidates in the midterms in twenty twenty two. But a difference that was reased is that Trump wasn't at the top of the ticket in twenty twenty two. He will be in twenty twenty four, together with all of
these down ballot candidates. How does that make a difference in this cycle?
And I think that we're in an era right now where all politics is national. You know, we used to say, oh, all politics is local, and how you vote for your member of Congress is different than how you would pick a president, and that doesn't exist anymore. I mean that, just practically speaking, was yesterday's news. Today Donald Trump is at the top of the ticket and he will drive
the Republican ballot all the way down to sheriff. And so I think that what we're going to see is in states where Donald Trump wins, and Ohio is certainly a good example, he's going to drive down ballot races and they're going to get pretty much what we think Donald Trump's going to get. And so that actually helps his down ticket candidates because he will actually drive turnout. I think that. And this is another good example the
race you were just talking about, Marcy Captor. That's a district that Donald Trump won and you got a Democrat sitting on the House seat there. So is Marcy Captor going to be able to get enough ticket splitters who are going to definitely vote for Donald Trump and that district's not going to change again, It's not going to be a Biden district. And is she going to get enough to be able to outweigh that influence from the top.
If O were betting man, I'd say in districts that that that that Trump are going to win, the House member is going to win too, and that puts her in.
Jeopardy trying to figure out who is going to replace Kevin McCarthy in California. And last night did not go very far to helping us understand that. This was I guess the tough spot of the night for Donald Trump. Genie Representative Vince Fong, state representative not only endorsed by Trump, but also McCarthy himself is going to a runoff.
What does that tell us about that district? Is it just too crowded? Is there more at work here?
Yeah?
Yeah, I mean he lived to fight another day. It's obviously not the outcome they wanted. You know, I think in the end he probably does come out in the okay in this, but you know, I think it does show that there are some limits to these endorsements. And you know, in that case, as you mentioned, you had the presidential nominee and you also had the previous seat holder in Kevin McCarthy, and so between the two of those,
you would think they cover all the basis. It didn't happen in this case, and so he's gonna have to fight this for the next you know, a few weeks or months as it is to take that seat.
I know, to this point we've largely talked about the primaries. Yesterday is only being significant for what it told us about all these different down ballot races. But it's also worth noting that we'll Trump and Biden when all of their respective primaries, Trump was pulling seventy to eighty percent of the vote, Genie, people were still out there voting for Nicki Haley and Ron DeSantis, who have suspended their presidential campaigns. How significant is that?
You know, it is significant, and I'm so glad you raised it because it doesn't get talked about enough. You know, one of the questions we hear was how many of these votes were early? Well, increasingly fewer, and so what we are seeing is there is in the Republican Party a never Trump or Trump alternative voters. You know, the question now is do they come home again in the end in November. But so far they do want to have these protest votes because they are supporting people who
simply are not on the ballot. And you look at the Democratic side and Joe Biden is you know, pulling eighty ninety percent, so nine out of ten voters in many cases, so he is not getting that similar anti Biden vote that we have been worried about as it pertains to issues like Israel and Palestine.
For instance.
Rick, We're going to be hearing from j Powell a short time from now. Our special fed coverage starts in about fifteen minutes here on Bloomberg TV and radio.
Of course, the announcement.
Will come at the top of the hour, and then there's going to be a conversation with reporters that will generate the headlines that produce the stories that Americans are going to be reading at Bloomberg dot Com, on the terminal and elsewhere. This is key to Joe Biden's potential success his success or failure on the campaign trail coming up here, What are you going to be listening for from a political standpoint when Jay Powell talks a short time from now.
Yeah, I mean, obviously, if you're sitting in the Biden campaign, you're looking for, what is the quote that I want to retweet that's going to make it sound like the economy is out of dainger of a recession or coming out of a recession, or the rates are going to come down to the point where you can make some
kind of political hay with it. I mean, so much of FED speak gets lost in the political rhetoric that it's sometimes very hard to find anything that you would point to that would be sellable politically.
And and and and you.
Know, Powell has an incredible uncanny ability to not make news. And so I think that's going to be the challenge for the Democrats. They desperately want to continue to convince voters in America that Biden's stewardship of the economy has been effective and that the FED is going to start to, you know, lower rates based on the success of the Biden fiscal plan. And there may not be anything that they can really tout today, and that'll be a disappointment for the Biden campaign.
Rick Davis and Jeanie Schanzo our signature panel here on Balance of Power. Great conversation. Thanks to both of you. Thanks for listening to the Balance of Power podcast. Make sure to subscribe if you haven't already, at Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts, and you can find us live every weekday from Washington, DC at Noontimeeastern at bloomberg dot com,