Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast. Catch us live weekdays at noon Eastern on Applecarplay and then Broun Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. Listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
Welcome to the Tuesday edition of Balance of Power. On this same day that the Senate actually passed something they stayed.
All night that wasn't originally the plan, but they just.
Decided to go for it, you know, recess time and all that, passing the National Security Supplemental seventy to twenty nine. If you're playing along on your home game, now, we know that this has been called da in the House by the Speaker, and you gotta love Washington. He's out
with what they were calling yesterday a preemptive rejection. Why wait for the bill to pass, you know, preemptively quote in the absence of having received any single border policy change from the Senate, remembering Republicans didn't want the border deal attached. The House will have to continue to work on its own will on these matters. America deserves better than the Senate's status quo unquote sixty billion dollars on the line for Ukraine, billions more for Israel and Taiwan.
As we assembled our panel, Rick Davis and Jeanie shan Zeina are with us, glad to say Bloomberg Politics contributors to help us make sense of it all.
What do you think, Rick, It passed wasn't.
Overwhelming, but it passed with a pretty good number here. Will it ever see the light of day now that it's gone through the Senate?
Yeah, I mean, I think you got to give it its due.
If someone said a month ago that this was going to pass without homeline security, without border security attached to it, by seventy votes in the Senate, you would have said, no way, that's not going to happen. Well, it happened, and that gives it enough impetus to be serious when it hits the House. And as you point out, Joe, I mean, like I am very dizzy with the back and forth between the Speaker and the majority leader of the Senate. You know, we're not going to take this
without without border security. Put on the border security. We're not going to take it with this border security. Take off the word scurity. We're not going to take it without border security. I mean, like, oh my god, I mean, is this the craziest debate you've ever seen?
Uh?
It just it lacks seriousness.
It's wacky.
Aid for Ukraine has never been so close at least most recent stretch, Genie, or felt so far away at the same time. Will this lead to a new build and potentially in the House or just a stalemate?
You know, my vote is on a stalemate. Forgive me for being pessimistic. But when he comes out and I love the phrase, you know, the preemptive rejection. That's a great way to put it.
You know.
Chris Murphy sent out a tweet last night or an X last night, which really summarized it and really to Rick's point. He basically said, the speaker requested border security. We did that, we put it on, the speaker said no deal, We took it off. We sent it back to him without that, and he said no, wait a minute,
we need border deal. And then Chris Murphy ended by saying, w something f And that is really where many of us find ourselves because what is happening you wanted it, you don't and lost in this is the reality that this is money very much needed, and very much supported and even supported by some of the Republicans in the Senate who are now speaking out against it. At one point at least they supported it, like Lindsey Graham. So it is head scratching when you think about it. And
I don't think this sees the light of day. I don't think a discharge petition is going to get this done.
Yeah, you mentioned Lindsay Graham the goalpost keep moving here, Rick, it wasn't just the border component. And I'm still a little bit dizzy and confused from all of that. But now the idea is that this money should be in the form of a loan, maybe even a zero interest loan with no do date. Senator Graham parroting Donald Trump's idea here to say quote it should be a loan to the countries in question, as suggested by President Trump.
So we've just.
Given up the ghost here on Senate or House leadership. Donald Trump is running Capitol Hill.
Well, he's certainly running the House. We've already come to that conclusion.
That's one of the reasons you've had this kind of crazy reconsideration of all these debates.
But I think there's still a fight going on in the Senate.
The fact that this bill passed you with twenty two Republican votes indicated in the Senate that Mitch McConnell still has a voice and he may be the last man standing in a voice against Donald Trump and this sort of haphazard foreign policy national security. Lindsey Graham caved under the pressure of Donald Trump, saying no, it's got to be my way, the highway invented this new loan program and it's just a complete non starter on Capitol Hill.
And it's shocking and surprising to me, frankly, that someone with the statue that Lindsay Graham has would ape the Donald Trump line so quickly.
Yeah, how about that.
Well, look, we've got a lot of experience here in Rick and Jenie, and nobody seems to know exactly where this is going to go in the House. We do know there will be an impeachment vote later on today. Alejandro Majorcus up for round two. Remember the first one failed. Al Green, we talked to him from his hospital bed, high drama. I don't know if that's going to be
possible this time around, Genie. And if the House does impeach Secretary in my orcus, what does that mean for the future of any border deal happening?
You know, a border deal this year is simply off the table because the Republicans who asked for it decided they didn't want it when Donald Trump told them they couldn't do it. And that's the reality. They probably will get my Orcus impeached today, but that is a non starter, that is dead on arrival in the Senate, going to go anywhere. But it is just indicative of this do nothing Congress except the political bidding of Donald Trump. And
that is simply where we are today. This is was disastrous the first to vote that Mike Johnson let them have on this that they lost, and when they do get it, and they probably will today, it's equally as disastrous because all it's doing is again the bidding of Donald Trump and nothing for the American people. You don't impeach because you disagree with somebody's policy. What you do when you disagree is you win elections and get your own guy or woman in there.
William Belknapp resigned moments before the impeachment vote almost one hundred and fifty years ago. Rick that was Ulysses S. Grant's secretary of War he was going to be impeached over a kickback scheme involving government contracts. This has actually never happened. He resigned before the vote. Will this be the first and history for a love.
Your History lesson?
Too bad?
This wasn't as spicy as that one.
Yeah.
I mean, look, I think my if Secretary of my Orcus was reading the history and the tea leaves.
I think he would just take himself out.
Of this, this this debate. He serves at the pleasure of the President. Obviously, the President doesn't want to fire him. He hasn't really done anything wrong as the President views it, but he is an impediment to frankly, the public thinking that Joe Biden has a border plan. I mean, he's spent politically and I can't speak to the border policies and the leadership he has at the Homeland Security Department.
But I think if I were the chief of staff at the White House, I'd be having an intimate conversation with Secretary of my Orcus about his future.
Wow, Rick Davis and Genie Shanzano. By the way, the majority of Leader Steve Scalise is back. So Mike Johnson thinks he's got the votes here. They better get it done before New York three. That's happening today. Of course, the vote to replace well to fill the seat left empty by George Santos, that could change the dynamic here, so the timing tonight is important.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast kens just Live weekdays at noon Eastern on Applecarplay and then roud Oto with a Bloomberg Business app. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station, Just Say Alexa Play Bloomberg eleven thirty.
We had the voice now of niam Alika Henderson speaking of looking forward to this conversation. I always am Bloomberg opinion columnists. We've pulled her onto Balance of Power now for her second appearance. I'm so happy you're in the Washington bureau here because your fingers always on it, and I want to ask you about your column about the age problem.
Nei.
It's great to see you first.
Though.
This CPI is a big deal for this White House, and not in a good way. You know. Joe Biden's been pretty good about a plodding strong economic data, but when it gets to be good news on main Street, bad news on Wall Street. Sometimes you can't even tell anymore, because prices are one of the biggest problems that voters have with them.
Yeah, listen, I was down in South Carolina talking to voters about the Democratic Primary supporting Joe Biden. Their big concern was prices, right, rent prices, egg prices, gas prices, and so you see those concerns. There was a time, a short window ago, where there seemed to be kind of optimism about the economy. Things were looking up. You saw the unemployment numbers. Those are better lass go around.
But listen, I mean these are sort of the day to day realities that people feel and experience.
Right.
People don't experience the unemployment number, right, they experience how much does it cost to buy a bag of groceries at the Pigley wiggling. And so it's a real drag. I think if you're thinking about Joe Biden and running on his accomplishments, running on a stronger economy, they've got some challenge.
Well, if we get another leg up inflation, certainly the timing to be horrible. Just as the White House gets ready to celebrate soft landing, maybe this thing heats up again, which you know, I guess could be good for some in terms of wages and so forth, but not good for the inflation narrative. When you add it to what you're writing about, we've got we've got some problems. When you add the border, we've got three problems there, and
we can get to all of them. The Biden age question is an important one, and your column is great. Biden's team can't ignore his age problem is the headline, and I want to get to your solutions here because I think you want him to embrace it. But you know, John Stuart came back to The Daily Show last night, and you know it was one of the first issues he grabbed onto for our listeners and viewers on YouTube. Here's John Stuart back at the desk. We have two
candidates who are chronicles. Did we lose him? But listen, he's joking about the age thing. Walk with me as as you are. And I find it interesting here because I think a lot of folks look back at that news conference last Friday as a turning point, potentially not for the better. At that news conference he held late at night in the White House, it's brought it from something that Democrats have been talking about maybe quietly, it's something we're talking about out loud now, and you say,
go for it, embrace it. Be dark Brandon, How does he do that?
Yeah, listen, I think you saw a glimpse of it a bit. He was in front of a group I think it was like legislatures or something like that, and he was sort of joking about his age. He said something like, listen, I've been around a long time. I do actually remember that, and the crowd laughed. I think moments like that sort of hang a lantern on his problem. Everybody knows this is a problem. Democrats have sort of privately talked about it and privately counseled the White House
to address it more. I think one of the things he can do too is show that he has a big expert team. I was remembering Donald Trump, who you said, those big cabinet meetings that would be partly tele you know, the folks from TV would go in and see, you know, maybe the top five minutes of it. Everyone would go around and sort of obsequiously praise Donald Trump. Joe Biden doesn't necessarily need that, but that kind of show of force I think telegraphs to the American people and voters
that a he's got a strong team. The team that he does have sees him as a leader and looks to him for guidance. So I think things like that would go a long way. The other thing is just get him out there more. This is clearly a white house that is nervous about putting the president.
Well, is it true that he wants to get out more?
You know, listen, you know there's always this tension with white houses, right the principal typically says they want to get out more, but they're being you know, sort of held back by other folks. Hard to believe though, right, you're the president, You're the leader of the free world. Yeah, exactly, so listen, I think putting him out there more would actually lesson the sort of attention and scrutiny that he gets because he doesn't do the kind of frequent press
conferences that we've seen from former presidents. He passed up on the super Bowl this last Sunday. They should have probably put him out there. That's usually sort of a soft interview in some ways, and puts the president, I think in a light that he needs to be seen. And the thing about this president is he clearly has some memory lapses here and there. You saw him confuse the president of Mexico in the Mexican and the president of Egypt. I think he was thinking border, border, border,
and so what. He also knows his stuff, right, I mean, he can go into detail about very complex foreign form.
Pol's particular gaff was actually the end of a fairly eloquent answer on a totally unrelated topic. But nobody's going to remember that. Nobody seems to remember Donald Trump's gaffes either, or maybe just nobody cares when you're confusing Nikki Haley with Nancy Pelosi or pointing to the wrong This happens a lot for him as well well. Is part of embracing this also reminding people of Donald Trump's age.
I think it's a small part of it, right, because the reality is that if you look at polling, voters aren't as concerned about Donald Trump's age and mental capacity as they are about Biden's. There is concern there, It's like forty eight percent for Trump and something like seventy six percent of voters are concerned about that for Biden. But there is a different sort of presentation. I think if you look at Donald Trump compared to Joe Biden.
Joe Biden just frankly looks a little older, and he's only three years older, but he looks a little bit frailer, and it's partly because he's thinner than Donald Trump. Donald Trump, I'm sure, eats a lot of McDonald's cheeseburgers, which are yeah, yeah, which are delicious. Yeah, I'm a big fan of this cheeseburgers as well. And so it just hits different, as the kids like to say, in terms of the age factor. But yes, I think they should certainly do that.
You know.
Part of the issue I think with Donald Trump is there are so many other things that voters see when they look at Donald Trump. Right, he has problems with the truth, he has problems any number of things with January sixth, and sounding like a want to be dictator at times. So those are the concerns of Americans. Those are the concerns I think that the Biden administration is highlighting with age kind of low on the list in terms of what voters are concerned about.
Yeah, it's just look, it reminds us that we don't all age the same way. I look, Donald Trump has four years on Joe Biden. Maybe you should say that the other way around, and four years ago Joe Biden was looking and sounding a lot different than he does now. Then you start wondering where they will both be four years from now. It's impossible to quantify. But this is why we have a problem. We talk about no labels, we talk about maybe a late swap here in the race.
You're not allowing time for that, are you.
These are the two.
Guys, Yeah, these are the two folks.
Listen, you can turn me around on that way.
Yeah. I mean there's all.
Sort of sort of fantas see scenarios, right Gavin Newsome comes in to save.
The day, right about that? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
You know Kamala Harris, I think she just gave a recent interview saying that she's ready to serve you know, Nikki Haley staying in the race just in case something that happened, you know, happens with Donald Trump. But very likely these are going to be the people that Americans have to choose between in November, and one is seventy seven, the other is eighty one. I think he actually might be eighty two. Maybe by the time he's actually on
the ballot. So it's it's something that Americans haven't faced before. It's not that Americans haven't had older presidents and older presidents possibly with some sort of impairment.
Right.
You think about, for instance, with ORW. Wilson, and then you think about Ronald Reagan exactly more recently. But those people weren't asking for four more years as they were dealing with those healthy important.
We didn't have the twenty four to seven media psychologes exactly. Not to mention Friday night combative news conferences. Me and Alika Henderson, what a pleasure. We're going to do this more often. I hope you look for her columns at Bloomberg Opinion and at Bloomberg dot Com. I'm Joe Matthew in Washington. We're just getting started here on the fastest show in politics. Thanks for being with us on the radio, on the satellite, and YouTube. This is Bloomberg.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast. Catch us live weekdays at noon Eastern on Amocarplay and then roud Otto with the Bloomberg Business app. Listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
We did get a statement from President Biden after today's data didn't talk necessarily about CPI Specifically, the first line of the President's statement, today's report shows wage growth has been the strongest of any economic recovery in fifty years, though he did go on to point out inflation declined by two thirds from its peak, and he knows there's still work to do to lower cost Certainly, the data just that work still needs.
To be done.
You didn't talk about shelter costs and the statement did he?
No, he did not.
There are some problems here, yea, which is why the market is responding the way it did. This is all about the trajectory, right, and expectations.
White House has a.
Pretty good economic story to tell, but the market's not buying.
This, absolutely not. As the market is now thinking, okay, maybe they weren't going to cut in March, we'd already priced that out. Then the question was May. Now it looks like the odds are on July, we're going to be in the second half of.
The year and the second half potentially of a re election campaign. That's where we start our conversation with Anna Wong, who's with us here at the table today. From Bloomberg Economics and great to see you. We've talked so much about a potential soft landing and I wonder how this plays into it.
Yeah, So I.
Think today what's interesting is that we think that it's the seasonal seasonal variation that wrote this upset price in CPI, and also that you could see that some of the jumps is due to volatile categories like air FA errors and hotels, and usually they are the next month that could just go right down for the FED. What matters most is the core PCE deflator, and we saw from the CPI revisions last week that in fact the momentum of shelter prices housing rents was actually for a stronger
disinflation momentum going into new year. A large part of that component is actually predictable based on real time private measures of rents, and so I think that today's CPI report doesn't really change the overall narrative that disinflation is
making progress. And what the market is not pricing in today, however, is the report of small business surveys, which actually shows that small businesses are not planning to hire as many people, which actually would cause the FED to cut earlier than people.
Thought, well, they're certainly thinking it won't be as early now today in light of the data, But we know that those expectations you are volatile as we consider whether
it could be made maybe July. But City Group was actually out with a note yesterday, and I'm sure you noticed this, essentially saying that traders need to be pricing in the risk of the Fed hiking again, that they shouldn't necessarily be writing that off, and theoretically inflation data like what we are seeing today suggests that the Fed may think there could be more tightening out there that they need to do. Do you think that that risk is zero that there will be another hike this cycle?
That's actually a very good question. Actually, AI thinks that City Group may be right. So we built this fedspeak index using machine learning, which takes into real time Bloomberg reporting on fed speak, and it actually has been flagging that the risk for a hike is actually non zero that in fact, based on the rhetoric of FED officials alone, it suggests that the could yeah, possibly be in play.
Did you know we're using AI like this in our reporting, Kaylee, It's amazing.
Do you have like a back room with this aim where this happening.
Well, the AI is actually based on my reading of fetspeak, So in this case, the AI is more outfront than me. Well, I still think that the right cut is still the baseline, but it has been flagging to us that the hike is on the table.
So we have a secret room somewhere.
Well, but the human still has to feed information to the robot, and the robot then the humans.
However, thereafter the robot has a mine of its own.
That's incredible, it's pretty cool. Well, we are so cool at Bloomberg. This is why you know you're here.
You mentioned airfares and hotels. Are we still revenge traveling out of COVID? This has never really stopped it.
I think the revenge traveling is happening with baby boomers. You know, look at cruise bookings, look at all these that and and the baby boomers spending is based on stock market performance. I think as long as S and P five hundred is rallying, we will continue to see more excess early retirement and more spending by baby boomers.
Interesting, I like cruises.
I'm not a baby boomer.
I'm a MILLENNI and I'm.
A cruiser but I know cruisers are polarizing.
So you won't have time to go this month because you are here.
Well, that's very true. Twenty twenty four not a great year for travel for Joe and I because there is this whole election cycle going on and the course inflation, yes and does play.
And thank you, it's great to see you.
Thanks for your recording, and along chief economist Bloomberg Economics with an awfully important report today. Kaylie.
Absolutely. Now, of course, as we consider inflation and what the economy is doing and how that factors into the minds of voters, we should get a read.
On how people are actually voting today.
Yeah, because people are voting in the state of New York very district if they are breathing the snow. And Kyle Condick, the managing editor of Sabado's Crystal Ball the University of Virginia Center for Politics, I've been has been following New York three in addition to polls nationally. If we could just start there, though, Kyle obviously at Swazi versus Pillop, the Democrat and the Republican. This snowstorm, though, could potentially make what was going to be a low
turn out vote even lower turnout. Who would that benefit most.
Probably benefit Swazi. So just to put it in perspective, about eighty thousand votes were cast basically early in advance in twenty twenty two. It's the same thing in this special election, about eighty thousand early votes for you know, cast before election day, but that was only about thirty percent of the total votes that ended up being cast, meaning about seventy percent were cast on election day in
twenty twenty two. This time, you know, you'd always expect a special election to be lower than a you know, than a mid term turnout, and so, you know, I think the percentage of the votes that are cast on election day are going to be a lot smaller than they were in twenty twenty two. And of course that was an election that George Santos won by about eight points. The early electorate in terms of registration was slightly more democratic in twenty in this special election than it was
in twenty twenty two. Of course, election day was much more Republican leaning, you know, in terms of in terms of performance in twenty twenty two. You know, line here is, I do think that the snowstorm could have some impact here, and again if it does. It's probably more helpful to Swazi than a pilloup.
This is a district won by Joe Biden by eight points in twenty twenty, yet this race appears to be too close to call. Sienna had Swazi up by four, I think you had the margin of error, and you know a snowstorm could in fact make the difference here. Kyle, what does that say about democratic politics in New York since twenty twenty.
So Swazi himself said it in the lead up to the election that you know Democrats have basically lost all the elections of consequence and in.
That you know, in that area, and you know Long.
Island Nasau County since the twenty twenty election. You know, bad results in twenty twenty one, bad results in twenty twenty two, when you know Republican House gains in New York State, both on Long Island than state were arguably the difference between Republicans winning or not winning a US House that year, and then Republicans had some more victories
in the area in twenty twenty three. So, you know, a lot of people on both sides of the aisle, when you ask them about this race, they think that the Biden plus eight maybe overstates how democratic the district is, particularly at this particular point in time. You know, I sometimes think if you picked up this district at Biden plus eight with the same demographics and you put it in like suburban Philadelphia or suburban Detroit or something, Democrats
might actually have felt better about this race. And you know, again, I think I'd probably still rather be Swazi than pill Up, particularly based on the fact that it looks like election day turn out may not be that great, although polls don't close until nine o'clock, so there's plenty of time
for that to change. But obviously both sides were spending like this was the closest competitive race, and that's what the public polls said, and I think that's what the private polling was indicating as well.
Yeah, pretty remarkable the amount of spend we have seen. Considering ultimately, this may be a seat that's only held for eleven months because it's February of twenty twenty three, and there's going to be an election in November of twenty twenty four, and there could be some redistricting to
her here as well. Obviously that's because the seat was vacated in a historic Ouster of George Santos, as you mentioned, was it a mistake for Swazi not to go after the Santos legacy specifically harder than he did.
You know, you have heard some of that from from Swazi and from Democrats, because Philip has not been an unusual you know, particularly an energetic camp campaigner. You know, media has been sort of critical of her for not talking to the press, which you know, I don't know if that necessarily matters all that much, but but you know, she hasn't been maybe as visible I think as uh as maybe some Republicans would would would have liked.
Uh.
And you know, there is some indication just historically speaking that you know, if if ah, if a member has to resign, uh that there's a special election, the party of the member resigned sometimes pays a price in the special election. And so maybe that also helps helps help Swazi in in this race, uh, you know, as effectively the challenger in the seat, even though he used to be the incumbent prior to twenty twenty two. So that
that's a factor to watch. But I would say that that did come up to some degree in this campaign.
Has George Santos been forgotten at one point, this was going to be a Democratic seat for the rest of our lives because of what he pulled off. Now we're hardly talking about him, at least in the conversation surrounding this special election.
People have pretty short memories, I think, although Santos himself has remained he's kind of this celebrity now. He you know, during the when the House Republicans failed to get through the impeachment of Secretary of Homeland Security majorcas recently he tweeted out missed me yet, which was kind of funny. It was like those George W. Bush billboards after Obama took office. It was kind of a funny inside joke. But Santos is, you know, he's still basically a public figure.
Although you know he's going to have his own reckoning with the law. It seems like sooner rather than later. But you know, people move on pretty quickly.
I want to go back to the point you were making a few minutes ago, Kyle, about how if this district were a suburb instead of another city like Philadelphia, instead of being on island, it may be different. To what extent should we be viewing today's vote as a litmus test for New York State broadly in twenty twenty four, and then just broadly national electoral politics. What is it realistically going to tell us?
I would caution against drawing too many conclusions from any special election. You know, generally speaking, the special elections in mostly state legislative races. But we've had since the twenty since the Dobbs decision in Midsummer of twenty twenty two, you know, general speaking, has gone pretty well for Democrats, and if the Democrats do win the day, it would be within in keeping them with that. But you know,
again New York has been pretty bad for Democrats. It may not necessarily be comparable directly to some of the other swing states. So again, for lots of different reasons, don't make broad conclusions about this. It is important though, in the sense that the Democrats only need to win five more seats than they want in twenty twenty two to win the House back, and this could effectively be
one of them. I think if Swazi wins today, I think he's probably favored going into November, particularly if you get some help and redistricting, which as you mentioned, is another wild card.
We're talking with Kyle Condick from Sabado's Crystal Ball, where he's managing editor with an eye on New York three, the special election that's underway today to fill the seat once held by George Santos.
Poll's on Long Island. None close till.
Nine o'clock tonight, Kyle, this is going to be a late call.
Huh, Yeah, that's right. And again that might also mitigate some of the problems with people voting because of the snow today. At least if people do want to break the elements and the weather gets better, they'll have an opportunity to do so. And of course there is fairly robust you know early slash absentee voting in New York State. That didn't always used to be the case. But so again you had an early slash you know, absentee vote that was very comparable to what was done in the
twenty twenty two midterm. So you know, people did have an opportunity to vote in advance here, which really is the whole point of having those certain options.
So today's bringing this special election a snowstorm with it. It also brought inflation data, Kyle that we were speaking about a moment ago hotter than expected, not necessarily heading in the right direction if you're an incumbent to what extent is the economy still weighing top of minds for voters, not just in New York three, but broadly, or has it now been supplanted by immigration in the border.
It seems like the economy and immigration are two, you know, big factors and people's perceptions of things. You know, Biden is not perceived as doing particularly well on either of those important issues, and so you know, any White House would want the economic news to be as good as possible. You know, I think you all were just talking before about how you could certainly could point to some positive indicators on the economy. But you know, inflation is still
a problem. And again, no matter what the rate is, I do think people sort of feel higher prices and just paying more for stuff than did a few years ago. And that would be the case even if you know, if inflation itself, the efficient inflation rate is getting smaller. You know, the higher prices.
Still means prices are going up.
Ever, not be talking about this with Kyle Connor. Great to see Kyle, Thank you. We'll keep you posted, of course on the results from New York three. I'm guessing that's going to be tomorrow, Kaylee. Right here on Balance of Power.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast can just live weekdays at noon Eastern on Apple car Play and enroyd 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.
Welcome, indeed to the Tuesday. Is it really only Tuesday? A lot's happened already this week? The Tuesday edition of Balance of Power fat Tuesday's Hot of an expected CPI. And look at this something that got done in the United States Senate. I'm as amazed as you are to wake up to the head. They worked all night, they went through. It's almost six o'clock in the morning when
it passed seventy to twenty nine. This is the National Security Supplemental Emergency Supplemental request funding for Ukraine, for Israel and Taiwan. The question remains what happens when it goes to the House, because the Speaker preemptively said that this would never pass the House, and it doesn't appear that he even wants to bring it to the floor, so we'll find out about that. It's going to take a minute.
Arriving in town in the middle of all of this is maroosh Schefjevich, Executive Vice President of the European Commission for the European Green Deal, Interinstitutional Relations and Foresight. How about that for a title, mister Vice President. Welcome to Washington. How did I do with the pronouncer? Absolutely perfect? A great linguist, that is all I had. No one's ever said that before. Thank you, Welcome to the nation's capital.
It's great to see you here. Your meeting with lawmakers, with members of the administration, with energy stakeholders here and energy cooperation against the backdrop of this war in Ukraine is your priority here as you from meeting to meeting. Do you worry about this debate here about funding Ukraine, about the US potentially pulling back? What are you hearing as you have meetings around.
So of course we are following it very very closely, and I know that these are difficult decisions to make, especially in current political circumstances on both sides of the Atlantic. But we delivered. We just approved fifty billion euros for Ukraine.
So altogether our assistance so far is one hundred and fifty billion euros, which is I would say at this stage twice as high as the American one, even though we of course clearly know that without US, especially the military supplies, the situation in Ukraine would be very, very dramatic. So we've clearly been kind of pleading, hoping, and I'm arguing that how the US component of this assistant is
absolutely crucial. If the Ukrainians need help sometimes it's now and I and I hope that both of us will deliver and will will help Ukraine to defend itself.
Do European leaders believe it's just a matter of time for the US to complete its debate and and and get this done, that it will eventually happen.
I we've been really encouraged but very strong statements coming from the President Biden and from the White House and also administration officialists. They have been very clear that they want this happen, very much encouraged by the votes in the Senate. But of course I know that this is
not the last step in that in that process. But I mean, looking at what's happening in in in Ukraine, I think it's it's It's clearly should be imperative to to help them, to get them the means to defend themselves because they are also, you know, defending our set of values.
Well, you're you've got Llen g on your agenda as well. You had an important meeting this morning, I know, executives. I saw on Twitter you were meeting with President Biden's energy advisor Almos Hochstein, who's spent a lot of time with us here at Bloomberg talking about energy policy. What did you tell you about the administration's decision to halt LNG export approvals in its potential impact on Europe.
I think that also in my meetings yesterday with AMAS and other representatives of the administration, I was highlighting the fact that probably this is new for United States of America, but US has really become the guarenter of the global energy security. So any statement coming from the Washington d C on the METU of LERG on the metal of energy energy supplies, immediately I was kind of rippling effect
all across all across the global global markets. And therefore I have to say that I was very pleased yesterday. I was really sure that this would not affect Europe in and coming a couple of years that by twenty thirty actually the export capacity of US LNG sector should double, and that US will will play this very important role helping us to shift away from from Russian fossil supplies, because without US LNG supplies, I mean, it would be
in a very very tough place. Anyway, We've been in the worst energy crisis since seventies over the last two years. So for US, it's of course extremely important. And if you look a little bit beyond Europe, and therefore my underscoring of this, of this global responsibility of the United States is the fact that I was working very closely with John Kerry in Dubai. Yeah, there is clear pledge
to phase out CALL. And if you look that gas has only half of carbon intensity of CALL, hut of the guys would be needed in India and Southeast Asia and all the places. So I think that clearly the LNG sector of US would have I would say, global role to play.
Is it safe to say then that the US has provided you assurances when it comes to LERG supply while these reviews day played.
Yes, I was readure yesterday by all my interlocutors including in the discussion with mister John Podesta. On top of it, it was highlighted that there is also reference to eventually then and eventual situations of the emergency character. And we had a very very good dialogue with the administrations throughout
the years since the war in Ukraine started. Then, I think that the fact that US LNG is now number one exported to Europe just proved that we that we found the solution and fifty six billion cubing meters came. It was even six billion about that political agreement which President Biden had with my boss President from the line, and of course we hope for more in the future.
So I was actually presenting to the LNG exporters how our common purchase of gas platform functions, how we're aggregating demand, how we are bringing new potential customers to them, and I was also highlighting that we are going to offer a new product where the contracts up to five years would be now possible, and we are starting the market survey even on a longer term up to twenty years, depending if that would be interesting for buyers in Europe
and bidders in the States. And therefore we just wanted to start the conversations with them.
So five years of security is what you're talking about here. That sounds like you get almost to twenty thirty when this will all be done in the US.
I think that when I was referring to the five years, I was referring to the contracts. Now, sure biders could sign on the platform which we created for common purchase of GUS, but I know that a lot of like
trade is going also outside of the platform. And most of the bits which came from you as a legibin well placed in Europe, and they supplied fifty six billion quebek meters, which was very important because just to give you one figure, before the war, we've been important up to one hundred and fifty blink ubig meters from Russia. Now we're down to forty and we had to found new one hundred blank cube meters within the space of one year. So I mean you would appreciate how challenging
that was. And we even had to curtail the consumption, lower some energy activity and energy intensive industries. And of course we want again to perform at our optimal potential if it comes to European economy.
I have to ask you about stories that were reporting about Venture Global. What can you tell us about this ongoing dispute with Ventury Global and the contracts at BP and Shell and some European companies say should start now?
Of course, I mean it's very difficult of for us to comment because I understand that it's under the litigation, so most probably there will be cord hearing and court eventually decision in that regard. So we haven't seen the contracts.
And what is very important for us that also these situations that was as soon as possible because we want also the long term contracts which have been signed to be to be respected and appropriate level of gas supplied to EU because I am absolutely convinced that we are closest allies of the United States of America and we go through a rap patch with the two words very close to our borders with all the repercussions.
You might imagine you're aiming for carbon neutrality in twenty fifty. The UN asks for twenty forty.
What's the difference.
I think we of course with the huge difference is that to be to become carbon neutral. I mean Europe believes that we will be the first carbon neutral continent.
I think the United States of America have the similar similar ambition and and it's no mean mean feet It's extremely challenging because I think we progress a lot with the energy sector, but to kind of phase out for self fuels, for heating and cooling of the buildings, from from transport, from aviation, it's it's it's it's it's a challenge. So therefore we are I would carefully planning how this can be done. A lot would depend on the on
the technological development. And therefore I was so thrilled when I visited M I T this week and I was on Saturday in the Fusion lab and I and I think that I saw the future because I mean, these guys, what they're doing there is it's pretty impressive. I'm glad that this is EU US corporation that are also European big companies investing in the adventure and that could bring us the clean energy you need.
Fascinating conversation. He's the Executive Vice President of the European Commission for European Green Deal, inter Institutional Relations and Foresight. I don't know how you fit it all on a business card, but we thank you. Minosh Chefshevich. Great to see you in Washington. Get home safe, good.
Luck with your meetings.
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 noontime Eastern at Bloomberg dot com.