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A presidential visit to Hawaii today as the Bidens stopped the vacation at Lake Tahoe for a couple and head over to the island. And if you have been following the beat on this, we talked about it last week here on Bloomberg Sound On. The President got a lot of criticism for a no comment, a lack of I guess passionate response when he was on his vacation, which is why we asked Marcus Coleman about that. What's FEMA
actually been up to this whole time? But when it comes to politics, that doesn't matter when you're the president. Asked George Bush about Katrina and they started cleaning this up last week. President said some words at unrelated events Press secretary wide in as it became clear that a trip was in the offing.
As one food bank worker described a resilient spirit that we're saying, he said nothing but heloha.
That's all you see.
That's Hawaii. That's America, and I want to people of why to know your country's with you as long as it takes.
And the President also saying that FEMA is ready to respond to Hillary in California, though by the sounds of things, FEMA is already busy in California. And we bring in our panel now, Jeanie Shanzano is with US Bloomberg Politics contributor and Democratic Ana. Let's join a day by Chape and Fay, the managing director at Actum Republican strategist. Great to have you both here, Genie. I don't want to spend all day on this. We just really wanted to
learn what was going on. People have a sense of why the president is going to Hawaii, the extent of loss and the need for resources on the political side of it. Though, does this trip clean up the mess for Joe Biden?
I think it will. I think we're going to see the empathetic Joe Biden that he has displayed himself as as a candidate and now as president. And he did make an enormous flub, if you can call it, last week when he had a no comment and he's going to try to make up for that but I think the reality is for Joe Biden, this is all about, you know, watching what he is doing and watching what
the administration has been doing. And as you just discussed, they've been doing an enormous amount to help the people in Hawaii and now the people in California. So he's going to be empathetic and he's going to talk about delivering. We know he flubs his words, but that's not what this is about.
I don't know how you see the scripts playing out today. Chapin will see and hear from the president later on. He's got a number of events planned in Hawaii. They're going to be surveying damage and so forth, and this is part of the job of being president. Does he deserve criticism for going late?
He does.
And you know, you mentioned the job of president. Americans understated tuitively that the president is not going to be on the ground, you know, helping rebuild houses himself and doing all that things. The role of the president is to one comfort the victims and the nation and most importantly, to reassure everyone that they're doing everything that they can to make the situation better and that they're working for Americans.
That is what his stutter stuff that separated you know, him from America in that, you know, saying no comment when you know people have just lost their lives during a tragedy. That does not instill the confidence you know that he is on top of it, that all of government is responding, and you know he's the guy in charge that things are going to happen. And then the last I will say the reason he's going Now you know his goal and I think I agree with Genie.
I think this will be good for him, right, It's always you know good and he can be empathetic for sure. And on Wednesday night, I know you were planning on talking this. We're talking about this more, I think. But on Wednesday night he's going to be fielding some major attacks from you know, eight or nine or ten or haveing many different Republican policisms are on the stage for you know, however long the media cycle is twenty four and forty eight maybe even seventy two hours if someone
has a moment, so he really needs to contrast. I'm on the grand and why doing every that I can? You know, while the nine politicians are up, you know, throwing jabs on a stage.
I think that's going to be a good comparison for the president.
Well, it's certainly a good point and something I indeed wanted to talk about today because well, we know who's not going to be there when we're just gonna we're going to the debate, right, We're not. He's not showing up on Wednesday. Ronald McDaniel at the RNC on five.
I'm still holding out hope that President Trump will come. I think it's so important that the American people here from all the candidates. But there's a lot of candidates that have qualified. We're at seven right now that have officially.
Qualified, and we'll get the official word on the rest. I guess tonight. So here's the latest. You know, Donald Trump, he's he made good on the threat. I believe it was Rick Davis who predicted this several months ago, not showing up, or so he says today. At the same time, Asa Hutchinson makes the grade he's actually going to be on stage and meaning that, gosh, the kids table would only be two people. I guess right, So, Genie Shanzana, we finally know, or we think we do, who's going
to be on the stage here. Based on this knowledge, do you buy into the conventional wisdom, is going to be a really tough night to be a guy named Ron.
I think it is going to be a tough night to be a guy named Ron, But I think it's going to be a tough night to be any of these guys on this stage. First of all, imagine if Trump shows up after all, I mean, that is one thing that people are watching. He said he's not going to, but he does things he says he won't, So you know, this is going to be all about Trump. And DeSantis is going to have a tough night because while his poll numbers are dropping, he's still in second place in
most of these poles. He will be under attack. His campaign has been, you know, suffering a bit. And then of course, you know it's tough for all of these people, the people at the very bottom. This may be their last shot because it only gets tougher from here to make this debate stage. The people in the middle are going to try to be attacking the people on the top make a name for themselves. So it's going to
be a tough night. But it is going to be a tough night because overall of it will be done Trump. They're not there, you know, in in you know, turning himself in munk shots all the rest, and that's what everybody's going to be watching.
Well, of course he's done. He's actually it's in the can already. In an interview with Tucker Carlson that will air against this encounter program against the debate, Genie does mention a great possibility shape And if you're Donald Trump, why don't you just show up anyway, surprise everybody. You're already going to be on with Tucker. Now you'll be on here too.
Well, listen, it's Donald Trump.
I mean.
One of the problems with running against a guy like Donald Trump, when the reason that Democrats always in fits is you never know what he's going to do. You know, it's very hard to run against someone you don't know what your opponent and how your opponent's going to react. But if I was advising him, you know his campaign, he is so far ahead. There's just no reason for him to be on that debate stage.
Right.
The con for him to be up there is that you know, he makes a mistake or someone you know, an attack lands and you know some of his status is brought down a level and by the way being on a stage was.
One like Aasa Hudginson.
You know, does that elevate him or or while we're the president or these are the calculations. The one risk he does run is that, you know, his legal and political future is a little uncertain. You know, this debate is going to give maybe a lower here candidate the opportunity to have a moment. You know, if one of the one of these candidates has a real moment and then you know, dominates the news for a couple of days. Yeah,
you know, that could cause problems. But again, he is so far ahead, there's really nothing for him to gain to be on the debate stage.
Well, so go to his post on truth social here all caps and I won't do the whole probuddle, it's a it's a poll. I will therefore not be doing the debates plural. So are we talking no primary debates at all? Because he thinks, you know, he's running for reelection. He thinks he is the president. He's going to wait to debate Joe Biden. As for Ron DeSantis, by the way, and we'll talk more about this. See I look the listless vessels bit. Did you hear this? He was talking
to the flor to standard. This is going on to all the deplorables, right.
A movement can't be about the personality of one individual. The movement has got to be about what are you trying to achieve on behalf of the American people?
Okay, and that's got.
To be based in principle, talking about because if you're not rooted in principle, if all we are is listless vessels, that's just supposed to follow, you know, whatever happens to come down the pike on truth social every morning. That that's not going to be a durable movement listless vessels. Now I'm seeing memes and these weird fake videos on Twitter genie of Ronda Santis as Hillary Clinton? Is this the end of the campaign? Oh? Ron?
He just never learned the real rule of politics, which is you don't attack the voters by calling them deplorable or listless vessels. You know, I like to, you know, say, this is very much like dating. You don't that's not an attractive quality when you're trying to date somebody, to call them a listless vessel. It's not, nor is it when you're trying to get votes. So I feel badly for Ron, he flubbed it again. He's got to be
very careful. He's learning, he's you know, I think the big question for Ron does he get better by the end of the summer. And we haven't seen a sign of that yet, although he's out in Iowa, New Hampshire an awful lot trying.
I have less than a minute shaven. Did he just guarantee Ronda Santa's guarantee the pile on Wednesday night?
Listen, Genie's right. I mean, anytime you focus your fire on a candidate, supporters, your fellow Americans, rather than the candid himself, you're just going to get into trouble to no matter what you say, it's not worth it. And I think, you know, Governor Santis has proven over now some time that he's just not catching fire. And in fact, some candidates are moving up on him, and they're going to try even you know, to have their moment even
more on Wednesday. But some of the Cantis are moving up on him, and I just don't think he's caught fire the way he thought he would.
So we're gonna put.
Numbers on who knows.
Indeed, by by the way listless vessels. So now You've got all these boating memes. You know, remember the boat parades there all over Twitter? Didn't he mean empty vessels?
You're listening to The Bloomberg Sound on podcast. Catch the program live weekdays at one Eastern on Bloomberg Radio, the tune in alf Bloomberg dot Com, and the Bloomberg Business App. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station, Just say Alexa play Bloomberg eleven thirty.
What a day to have Charlie Cook with us. Charlie Cook just must wake up every morning and have has his head explode and then goes back to reading and writing, the founder and contributor The Cook Political Report. Charlie, it's great to have you back. Is Does Donald Trump have a point? Can I come to this from a different angles? Donald Trump have a point? With such a resounding lead, why should he go?
I would think he would have the former president Trump should have his head examined if he did go into debate. What wow, you know he's got everything to lose, nothing to gain from it. What was the new Des Moines Register? NBC Paul a forty six point lead in Iowa and that's less than it is nationally and a lot of a lot of polls. So there's no reason for Trump to do this. And what I'm curious about is can you see the have the advertising rates on Fox for
that debate? Have they? Have they plummeted? I mean, if I pay good money for an audience, it's not going to be nearly as big. I'd be a little upset.
That's why they're begging him, right.
Well, I was going to say, that's why you've had executives from Fox meeting with the former president. Even I believe a moderator of the debate.
Yeah, supposedly bred Barr got got on the phone, not showing it. Then again, Kaylee, it's Donald Trump. Maybe he does show up.
Right, I mean, from what we know about him as a president, as a candidate, Charlie, wouldn't it suggest that he could still surprise us?
You know, Look, I'm I'm going to say there's no way that Donald Trump does or doesn't do anything. But it just doesn't make a lot of sense. And one thing is that his campaign this time it is far far more sophisticated than it ever was in twenty sixteen
and twenty twenty. I mean, they're serious adults running this thing, and I think he's letting the pros do their job, so, I you know, to be honest, I think if this is not a Biden Trump matchup in the fall, I think it's it would be uh, it would be something in the health or medical field and not legal or political that would keep that rematch from happening.
I know what you mean by that. And so you see new numbers from Ann Selzer today Iowa Trump forty two, Desantus nineteen. The next is Scott at nine. You've covered a few Iowa caucuses, Charlie, what are these numbers tell you? Can you put them in perspective for our listeners?
Yeah, I mean when it's it's it's that this is a really really big lead. And Iowa caucuses have gotten so large that they're almost like primaries, uh, you know, with with very widespread participation, and so polling these things aren't it's not they're not real bad. They're not bad. And you know, I think this is uh and the
fact that Desanta's dropping, nobody else has gained much. And when you look at a lot of the polling, when you look at people whose first choices are one of the alternatives to Trump when you ask him their second choice, A lot of them it is Trump. So as this field windows, it's it's you know, he's going to get more than his share of of of of the second the second choice vote. So I would be astonished. Again, it would be if one of them had an adverse
health event. Okay, that might disrupt this rematch. But other than that, I don't think it's going to be political. I don't think it's going to be legal.
So as you talk about kind of winnowing things to here, Kristin Nuknu, of course, wrote an op ed that has gotten a lot of attention in the last twenty four hours about how anything they can do to narrow the primary field to avoid having former President Trump be the Republican nominee should be should be done. He will put an effort towards Do you think a narrower field would ultimately make a difference, Charlie, Well.
The big field's not healthy, so you know not, why not try a narrow one?
You know?
I think that what was the term in Catch twenty two about over choice, that sometimes when people have too many choices, they can't choose, and a lot of these can it. They're just sort of stuck in a they just can't get any traction. But the other thing, though, is that the people who win in Iowa generally don't win in New Hampshire. In other words, let's say DeSantis or whoever comes through a breakthrough. True, the Iowa caucus attendees,
they're so different. I mean, it's more social conservatives, evangelicals. It's one group of people. And meanwhile, in the New Hampshire primary, where independence can vote in a primary, it's much more moderate. It's in seven of the last eight competitive Republican contests, the winner of the Iowa caucus did
not win the New Hampshire primary. So the idea that one of these people can do well in Iowa and leverage it into New Hampshire given the different constituencies there, I don't think that's going to happen.
Very interesting your thoughts on the RNC, Charlie Cook. This is We've got a debate this week, so it's in the air. And there was an interesting story in the New York Times today about Donald Trump's desire to debate Joe Biden. That's what he wants to do. He doesn't
care about the Republican field. He thinks he deserves to debate the president right now, and may as a result, undercut the work by the RNC to somehow replace or find an alternative to the Commission on Presidential Debates, which they've been working on for a couple of years, and based on any reporting that I've seen, they haven't gotten very far. Is the CPD going to actually run these debates? Regardless Ron McDaniel's view, I.
Don't know what's going to happen. The thing is that Donald Trump likes to play by his own rules. He likes to write the rules, and the Commission pretty much does things, you know, for the most part, the way they always have, and the campaigns aren't in charge, and so this is it would be an event that's you know, almost entirely outside of his control, and he can't possibly like that. And you know, I don't know whether he will want a debate or not. But you know, I
think this is a grudge match. It's about and you know, a lot of it's going to get back to you know, this will be the first time since eighteen ninety two we've had back to back presidents face off, and so
you could do a side by side compare. And the problem for President Biden is when ABC and The Washington Post asked if I think it was in May who did a better job of handling the economy Donald Trump when he was president or Joe Biden during his presidency so far, now, overall registered voters, fifty three percent said Trump,
thirty eight percent said Biden, a sixteen point difference. But among independents, in other words, the people that are probably going to decide this thing, fifty four percent said Biden, as I mean, said Trump, fifty four percent, thirty one percent said Biden, a twenty three point an even wider gap. So President Biden has got to figure out A. The economy's got to improve, and b he needs people to acknowledge it and to give him credit for it, And
so far that's not happening. But I'm watching purely independence, like independence in the Gallop Pole and independence in the Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment. Just you know, forget the partisans, we know how they're going to vote, and watching the gap between consumer confidence and Biden's jobacrower ready, but only among independence in both cases.
Well to that point on that gap when the economic data is actually looking fairly good. And President Biden was on the road last week touting the Inflation Reduction Act and Bidenomics and how the economy has improved under the course during the course of his term thus far. What is causing that disconnect and is going around the country talking about Bidenomics something that's going to close it?
You know, in politics, perception is more important than reality. And the America, the average American voters not an economists, and they're not watching them. I mean, they're watching their daily lives and they know they're paying more than they were.
And there's just sort of a lot of scar tissue from twenty twenty one that's out there that they're not over it yet, and they associate even though you know, the four years that Donald Trump was in the White House were totally different from the four years that Biden has been there. But the thing is, I mean, there were different circumstances, but people are going to say I
felt better off then, you know, economically speaking. But I mean, sure, of course the circumstances were different, but the average voter, they're going to say I was doing better then than I am now.
The other poll that's out, I think you referenced it earlier, Charlie, that's out in the last twenty four hours CBS News and you gov this is the one with the forty six point lead Trumps sixty two.
Yea, yeah, I'm sorry, I confused the number, none of which is like gargagua.
But does that I mean, I'm actually impressed that you brought it up, because I thought that that might not get your attention. Being a national poll, should we be watching these.
Well, I mean, I use I tried not to base the overall analysis on it, but that's sort of the shorthand thing that people lo. I mean to me, there are lots of other, you know, elements in this that the Republican Party today doesn't look anything like it did ten, fifteen, twenty years ago, and it is more Donald Trump's image than I think a lot of Republicans. You referenced Christnunu a little while ago. This isn't the party that elected George W. Bush and his father and you know all
these other nominated McCain and Romney. I mean, this is a different party. And when you have the share of the Republicans nationwide, the share of whites that do not have a college degree, going up in ten years, going up fourteen points from forty eight to sixty two percent, and the percentage of whites with a college degree dropped
from forty to twenty five percent. So this is a you know, we're seeing a realignment in American politics, and that those working class whites that are largely leaving the Democratic Party, they moved over and changed the complexion of the republic Party. And a lot of the college educated suburban voters, particularly women, that left the Republican Party, they're over on the Democratic side. Now we're talking about two different parties than fifteen twenty years.
In governable, two different parties and four more indictments than we're used to. Charlie Cook, it's great to have you as always, the founder and contributor to the Cook Political Report. Just great insights, Kaye. I love hearing from him. I could just listen all day. This is why you choose Bloomberg Radio.
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We spent a lot of time talking about woke policies, so called woke at the Pentagon, to the extent that one senator is even blocking promotions for military officers over this. But Kayley, this really came to a head during the budget debate that led to this whole debt ceiling deal that's now not a deal any longer. When House Republicans made clear they wanted cuts in defense spending and I say House Republicans to be clear, Freedom Caucus House Republicans
they wanted cuts. They wanted to bring it back to fiscal year twenty two. Then the whole thing kind of went puff because they took the Pentagon off the table a little bit. But in that effort to cut money from so called woke policy, there was a major request by the Pentagon five billion dollars I believe it was for climate mitigation. These they come out with these reports every year that show programs that are needed to keep
facilities up and running. This is about readiness. So that got a know in the House, and John Conger actually spent a lot of time at the Pentagon is the Deputy under Secretary of Defense now at the Center for Climate and Security. It's writing an op bad about this. It's a fascinating view because you talk about ESG and climate, you start thinking about well, just about everything but the Pentagon, right, And it's a big deal for the DoD yes.
In terms of actual military facilities and infrastructure that could be in the path of some of these natural disasters, like we're seeing in California with Hillary the tropical storm. There's a huge military presence basis in southern California, be it the Navy or the Marines, others as well. So there's that aspect of it, but also just in terms of military engagement, if you're somewhere where there's a typhoon, things like that, you have to have the weather and
the climate in mind. That's the central thesis of what John is saying here.
The Pentagon doesn't fool around with climate because it has to do with readiness and it has to do with our ability to respond. Conger joins us now, Director emeritus the Center for Climate and Security. John, this is going to come back up, I presume in the appropriations debate that will follow Lawmakers eventual return here, But looking at the stories we're covering, the flooding, as Kaylee mentioned, in California right now, hurricane season up and down the East Coast.
It's been mercifully light so far this season. The situation in Hawaii. These are all places that are home to major military installations. What's Washington need to do well?
I think Washington needs to keep its eyes open and avoid pretending that these problems don't exist. That's the first thing. And that's a little bit of what Congress was doing when they said that, oh, this is obviously politics and we have to put this aside. When I was at the Pentagon and currently, the Pentagon clearly cares about the impacts of extreme weather on its basis, on its infrastructure, on its ability to train, and we need to be ready. We need to be able to keep the lights on,
keep the missions going no matter what the weather. And that means planning and it means being ready.
So when we're talking about mitigating climate risks the military in defense, what does that actually look like that they need the funding for? What does it fund?
So you're going to be funding energy resilience projects, putting microgrids on bases so that when the electric grid goes down, the base days open and the lights stay on. You're going to be funding infrastructure projects like there was a project in Norfolk where they do the maintenance on nuclear submarines. They did flood protection there because of sea level rise.
You don't want when your nuclear reactor is open and you're doing maintenance on the submarines for the water to rush in, and so they had to lift the sea walls up a few feet higher. That was actually proposed by the Trump administration. This is historically not a partisan issue when you're just talking about protecting military forces and military capability.
It becomes a part of an issue when you put the term climate change on it though. Right, This is the issue here, John, is that there are a lot of preconceived notions. One of your roles at the Pentagon in your time with the DoD was helping to manage budget for the Pentagon's real estate property portfolio. Can you imagine the size of this klee eight hundred and fifty billion dollars? What does that portfolio need to keep it whole?
Well, that portfolio is historically a little bit underfunded. And the fact of the matter is is that DoD, right now has over one hundred billion dollars in unfunded maintenance that they've just deferred. That's never mind the climate change aspects. But what they need to be able to do is to anticipate the most severe impacts and put in, you know, infrastructure that can allow them to continue to operate, continue to protect their missions. This is really about mission assurance.
Climate is one impact. You could have cyber attacks on the grid and these same kinds of investments would protect against those, depending on you know, for the micro rids and so on. So the god.
Sorry John, to interrupt your thought, but it's one thing to talk about how this impacts you know, US military operations, but also climate can have a role in what the military actually has to engage in.
Right.
You made a really interesting point, I thought in your piece about how climate change increases things like food security, water scarcity, forces, migration, and all of that can drive global instability. So it can actually become just a broader security concern when we're thinking about you know, the military and security interests.
Absolutely, it pushes in particular nations that have limited government capacity to deal with problems. It has a tendency to leave the people there more upset more angry, and it can lead to civil conflict. And in Syria, that's the best example that I have of sort of climate driving problems that lead to conflict. You had hundreds of thousands of refugees from the Iraq War already in Syria, and you add a multi year drought that drove farmers off
their lands. There was the agricultural lands were left useless, and they all moved into the same cities. Nobody had jobs, and it created the seeds of discontent. The climate change caused the Syrian Civil War, No, but it certainly pushed it in that direction.
Okay, so let's get back to appropriations here. Republicans in the House said no to that five billion dollar request. What if the final answer is, though, John, we're not here with any agenda. I'm trying to learn from you what happens if we do nothing?
All right, Well, first of all, the Republicans cut about seven hundred and fifteen million dollars out of the five billion dollar requests, so a lot of it did actually get approved. They sort of targeted their cuts in a few areas. Some of it was research and development that puts us behind the eight ball. As we're trying to solve hard problems. Some of it was targeted at base operations. Why you would undermine planning for this kind of thing and trying to figure out how you're going to address
location by location the climate change, I'm not sure. And then the other big thing they cut was the Army's efforts to try and integrate hybrid and electric technology into some of their ground vehicles. I've heard it characterized as the hybrid imperative. If you can save twenty five percent of your fuel efficiency by making these vehicles hybrid vehicles, why wouldn't you A lot of the people that died in recent wars were in fuel convoys. Wouldn't you want
fuel fuel convoys? Isn't this make sense from a just preserving life perspective? This isn't about emissions that you could make. You could take away all those emissions from all those vehicles and it wouldn't dent the global picture. This is about war fighting.
Okay, so just quickly, John, we only have about a minute left. But even with just that seven hundred and fifteen million dollars cut out of what the Pentagon asks for, how does that impact military readiness?
It impacts military readiness. In the biggest part where it impacts military readiness is it takes away the funding for their ability to plan for, you know, what they need to do at each base in order to prevent climate change from stopping missions. It's it is a the projects at the individual basis to harden the infrastructure. That is the biggest individual impact that you're going to see.
Fascinating conversation, John, Thanks for being with us, director emeritus of the Center for Climate and Security. He spend time I'm as Deputy under Secretary of Defense while at the Pentagon. John Kunger here on Bloomberg's sound On. Thanks for listening to the sound On podcast. Make sure to subscribe if you haven't already, at Apple, Spotify, and anywhere else you get your podcasts, and you can find us live every weekday from Washington, DC at one pm Eastern Time at Bloomberg dot com.