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In the Nation's capital. Welcome to Friday.
You made it to the threshold of the weekend, and we have a lot to cover, even without lawmakers in town. This has been an incredibly busy cycle and we're going to start with an eye on the campaign trail because here we are, it's South Carolina time. It did seem a long ways off back in Iowa and New Hampshire, but it's time to go. And as we have been telling you, it's not looking great for Nikki Haley in
her home state. We're going to connect with Christian Hall in just a moment on that he's on the ground for us in South Carolina. But we have to take a broader look at the calendar here. Next Tuesday, the Michigan primary. It's not a question of who's going to win. Joe Biden will be the Democratic winner in Michigan, but there are questions about the margin, with a lot of concern by Arab American voters in Michigan about what's happening
right now in Gaza. Then we go to the end of the week with what appears to be the start of a government shutdown. You didn't hear it from me, what do I know? But lawmakers we're talking to don't seem to have a path. There might be some kind of an agreement that emerges this weekend, but it's entirely likely we will have at least a brief shutdown, and then we flip into the following week with the State of the Union and Super Tuesday. You're ready for all
of this. We're going to go through it together, and we start right now as I met you with Christian Hall, who is in South Carolina for tomorrow's primary. Christian, it's great to have you. I know you're bombing around the state right now, joining us by phone. It looks like Nicki Haley loses between somewhere between twenty and thirty points. I don't want to act like I know what's going to happen, though, tell us what you're hearing on the ground.
I mean, Joe, it is really fascinating to see how Nicki Haley, a daughter of South Carolina, born and bred in the state. She was governor, and she was elected twice by voters in the state of South Carolina, a very popular governor, and just to see her standing in the polls, it is striking. I've been following Nicky Haley from South Carolina, New Hampshire, Iowa, and the tone is very different here in South Carolina. I was at a rally yesterday and two people, two Trump supporters, were pulled
out of the audience as I was arriving. I mean, there were Trump supporters on every corner surrounding the event with you know, sign saying go Trump. So it's just really interesting to see Nicky Haley being received like this in her own state.
It's remarkable, great description, Christian. Our headline says it all on the story today South Carolina to Haley, thanks for everything. We prefer Trump. What happened to her in South Carolina? Or is it simply a maga story?
I think more than anything, it's about how Donald Trump's control over the GOP has really changed the electorate. I mean, just a few years ago, Nicki Haley was seen as this rising star on the fringe of the Tea Party, and there was so much excitement about her and the future of the GOP. And I think the bigger story here is just how it is amazing how Donald Trump came into the GOP and basically made it his own, and a lot of the establishment figures are now, you know, backing Donald Trump.
Quite remarkable.
I'm guessing this is going to be an early call tomorrow, Christian. The polls that we've seen, as I mentioned, if you look at composite, a composite of all the polls out there, show Donald Trump up by twenty plus points in South Carolina.
I'm guessing this as an early night.
Do they both hang out, do the traditional victory concession speeches?
What's your expectation.
I think that we're going to still see that. I mean, I think for Nicky Haley, she's going to try to show this sign of strength, right, and that she has what it takes to eventually win the nomination in November and take on Donald Trump and in the near future make it through Super Tuesday. You know, so South Carolina is going to be really important for her to show donors that she has what it takes to continue this
race and that she's a good investment for them. I think for Donald Trump, he's going to start turning away from focusing on Nicky Haley, you know. I think that he wants to change this race from a primary to a general election as fast as he can. He wants to set his sights on President Joe Biden and what he sees is Joe Biden's failures and that's where he wants to move and I think South Carolina. Getting a significant win in South Carolina is going to be what he needs to do that.
Well.
This is really fascinating stuff because you could argue he's been waging a general election care campaign at the same time as sparring with Nikki Haley ever since they left New Hampshire. But we'll be tuned into what's happening tomorrow
at Christian Hall. It's great to know that you're there on the ground for Bloomberg here and keep your eyes on the terminal and of course Bloomberg dot com for analysis will be talking Monday about results from South Carolina, which should be interesting here headline on the terminal more
to hold Russia accountable on navalney will come. That's from John Kirby at the White House speaking for the National Security Team there and a pretty interesting story that we're going to dig into a little bit later this hour with Bloomberg's Jenny Welch. Sanctions rolled out today, formerly a new package against Russia following the death of Alexi Navolny. But how about what's happening on the Moon today? This is remarkable stuff. For the first time since nineteen seventy two,
the US is back on the Moon. It's an amazing story, knowing that there was already one failed attempt by a rival company, in this case intuitive machines, who says you can't make money in space. You saw this stock today, do you hear Charlie talk about it? Lunr up twenty five percent after they made it happen six twenty three pm yesterday, landing a robotic spacecraft on the Moon, becoming the first private firm to pull this off, to place a vehicle intact on the lunar surface. And it was
made in the USA. We're joined now to talk about it by Leroy Chow. Pretty fantastic former commander of the International Space Station, of course, a long time NASA astronaut, spent two hundred and twenty nine days in space across four missions, founder a co founder of the CEO of One Orbit Leroid.
It's great to have you back on Bloomberg. Good to see you. I just wonder if you can frame the significance of this more than fifty years later.
Ah, yeah, you bet.
Great to be back with you guys, And yeah, it was quite a historic moment yesterday when the Intuitive Machines lander excuse me, extuded machines landers successfully touched down on the surface of the Moon. You pointed out it's been over fifty years since the US has put anything on the Moon, and this is the very first time a commercial company has successfully created a spacecraft and landed on the Moon. So this is a big, big deal. As
you pointed out, other people have tried and failed. Other nations recently, including Russia, tried and failed to put a lander on the Moon, and so for this company to succeed really says a lot for their engineering, the talented folks working there, and I think the future is going to be bright. It's conducting a number of different experiments now and measurements and will continue to do so. The other significant piece of this is that they landed near the south Pole.
Of the Moon.
Only Thridia has done that, and that was recent as well.
Talk to us why that's significant.
Obviously, the public private partnership is very real and space Elon Musk has proven that to us SpaceX with a long history working with NASA. But this expands the picture into your point, it's bringing us to a different place on the Moon than we've ever been.
That's right.
So NASA is interested in the South Pole region because it appears to be abundant with ice water, particularly down in some of the craters like Shackleton Crater, which never sees the sun, so the temperatures are very low there and that's where NASA will probably want to establish a lunar base in the future for sustained exploration of the Moon. The reason water is important. Of course, we need water
for life. You would be nice to have and not have to bring all your water with you on your expeditions. But beyond that, looking into the future, water can also be separated into hydrogen and oxygen, creating the potential the potential for future rocket fuels, right, and so a lot of exciting things happening there. Also, even though we're on the South Pole, we are in a region where it's
always facing the Earth. That is the Moon base, and the spacecraft always see the Earth, and that means you have uninterrupted communication between the vehicle or your future future lab and the mission control center.
This is incredible.
Commander Chow is speaking to our future here to go beyond the Moon, of course, and I'd love to hear you talk about that, Leroy, the Moon as not only a research station, but a gas station, away station on the way to other planets.
Well, that's right, and so liquid hydrogen, liquid oxygen or rocket fuel, they can be rocket propellant. It was certainly used on the Space Shuttle for many, many years as the main propellant for the main engines, the liquid hydrogen liquid oxygen, But of course those were loaded here on the Earth. If we can launch empty spacecraft or nearly empty spacecraft and refuel them in space, or even near the Moon, or even on the Moon, then we've created
the potential to go much farther into space. So current architectures don't envision or don't rely on taking the water ice from the Moon and converting it into rocket propellant, but it certainly is something that's possible for the future.
Fascinating.
This lander here, specifically from Intuitive Machines, will someday have people on board now that we've proven its ability to land safely as an empty spacecraft. How soon will that happen where we have a private mission putting human beings on the Moon.
Well, as you know you mentioned SpaceX, they're not sitting still working very hard to develop the and prove out the starship and the Falcon super heavy booster being designed as a fully reusable system. In fact, Elon Musk says one day a version of the Starship will take around one hundred people at a time to Mars.
In the more near term.
SpaceX is one of the contractors that NASA has brought on board to create a lander to land humans back on the surface of the Moon based on their starship technology of Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin is part of another group that was also receiving NASA funding and support to create another And so you know, this kind of the idea is you don't put all your eggs in one basket.
But this new model that created the Intuitive Machines lander, of course no humans on board, but proves that this is a great model and it works, and so very exciting as you point out, to look to the future to hopefully sooner other than later, getting humans back onto the surface of the Moon.
We've made the point a couple of times, Commander, that this was not a first attempt. We saw a number of failed attempts, most recently just last month. Actually I forgot this was just as recently as January. This company, Astrobotics lander had an engine failure just after reaching space.
What did this group do right?
Right?
And so unfortunately Astrobotics vehicle once they got into orbit, there appeared to be some kind of a valving problem or any way, they had a burst in a propellant line or a propellant tank, so they didn't have the fuel to make it down to the Moon. They did manage to salvage a little bit from their mission, but you know, of course, did not land. So intuitive machines did differently. I don't know the persit, you know the precise designs, of course, but clearly they didn't suffer any
kind of failure like that. They did have a few hairy moments there as they were getting ready to come down. Their radar system, which is arranging radar telling them the distance to the Moon. They were having some issues with that, and they actually were able to create a big software patch very quickly, test it, get it on board, and they use an experiment a light ar a laser ranging system, not unlike some of the ones that the police might use to try to give you a ticket here on Earth.
But that was just to be an experiment.
But they use that for this operation to do the ranging and successfully landed on the Moon with an experimental piece of hardware.
Fascinating.
You know, there's a real debate here on Earth about where we should be spending our money and whether it's ethical or right to be spending money on research in space when there are people starving here on our planet. We've been hearing this since before the Apollo program.
Commander. When you see.
The marriage of government and private enterprise working together here.
Does that change the dynamic when it comes to money.
Oh, yes, absolutely it does. And when we get into the numbers and the budget, if you look at NASA, except for the Apollo program, since the Apollo program and certainly for the last several decades, NASA's funding has generally been much less than one percent of the federal budget. And so when you say, wow, we've got all these social problems here on Earth. That's all absolutely true. That takes a huge portion of the national budget every year.
And so if we took that less than one percent that we're spending on NASA, and look what we get for it. All all the rovers that we have on Mars, the research work, the great discoveries in our solar system, on the moons of Saturn, the moons of Jupiter, not to mention the Human space flight program and International Space Station. All the people those programs employed. We're going to fire them all, put them out a lot of a job. The contractors, they're all going to go out of business.
I've got all these unemployed people. So who could save that less than one percent and put that tiny drop in the big bucket of spending for social program So it's a matter of balance, it's a matter of making sure that you do have the right proportions put into different buckets. Everyone's going to have their own opinion on that, But at the end of the day, I think the positives that come out of the space program are much much outweigh the negatives.
So when you're going back, well.
I've been out in Assen now for quite a number of years, and so they're not going to be calling me back. They've got plenty of qualified people in line. YEA, ready and upping at the bit to go, and I'm going to be here on the sidelines cheering them on.
Well, you get to buy a ticket now, that's the whole point, Commander.
It's great to see you. Thank you for coming back to talk to us here on Bloomberg. Always fun to spend time with Leroy Chow, former NASA astronaut with an American made lander on the surface of the Moon today. Talk a lot about the depressing news here on Earth, but it's a pleasure to spend some time talking about something with a bit more optimism. We'll have more coming up with Bloomberg's Jenny Welch on Balance of Power.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast ken just live weekdays at noon Eastern on Applecarplay and Enroud Outo 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.
Joe. We entered this Friday knowing what news was going to be coming that we were going to get a fresh package of sanctions from the Biden administration. They telegraphed this extensively, and there were a lot of entities sanctioned here, more than five hundred people in entities, including a payment system in Russia pressuring their state on atomic energy company Ross Tom. But was also significant is what was not on this list, not going after the Russian metals industry,
not going after energy. And I'm sure political calculations here at home about what that could do to the US economy into inflation, factor into that.
It's interesting here the biggest one day sanctions package after what we were told was the biggest ever round of sanctions against an economy the size of Russia. And I look, there are still questions about the impact or not that these sanctions have had already naming names, I guess is one thing, like you said, five hundred people in entities, but whether it changes behavior, brings people to the negotiating table. These are big questions right now as Ukraine starts to run out of time.
Absolutely, and it's a question we can pose to General Mark Kimmitt, who is joining us now in Washington, retired Brigadier general in the US Army, and of course former Assistant Secretary of State for Political Military Affairs. General. Always great to see you here in the studio. So Joe asks the right question, we have new sanctions, will they do what? Others to this point have not changed the behavior of Vladimir Putin.
Probably not. Vladimir Putin is in a war to win it. He has put his economy on a mobilization for war. There are no critical materials that I see being sanctioned that would prevent him from being able to carry out the war in Ukraine.
Okay, So the message we keep hearing is if you want to send a real statement, fund fund the war past the bill. There's sixty billion dollars on the table here that doesn't seem to have a path on Capitol Hill. But without that, general, what are the options?
Well, first of all, let's be very clear. The issue is no longer can we fund it? The issue is now to the point that, after two years of war, can we make it. Let's take artillery shells for example. We only have the production capability in our industrial base to produce twenty eight thousand rounds per month, and that's a doubling from where it was. This time last year. We hope in twenty twenty five to be able to produce one hundred thousand artillery rounds per month. The Russians
some days fire sixty thousand rounds at the Ukrainians. We just have such a shriveled military industrial base that we don't have the capability and neither do our European allies to meet the demand of the Ukrainian battlefield.
Well, but it's Russia's industrial base that the Treasury Department has said they're really trying to target here. In fact, Wally Adiemo, that under Secretary was on Bloomberg earlier today and had this to say, take a listen.
Important to remember that our objective remains the same, going after Russia's military industri sized complex and their ability to earn money to prop up their economy and buy the goods they need to fight the war they want.
What we're doing today.
Is we are furthering those actions by going after companies in Russia that are helping to build military equipment.
So they say that's their aim general, But how far would the US have to go to hamper Russia's ability enough if our own ability is subpar as you're saying.
Yeah, I think that's critical in certain areas, maybe some supply chain shortages that we can impose by the sanctions package, perhaps on one or two types of systems, especially the high tech equipment that they're using. You remember the beginning of the war, how they were harvesting transistors from the battlefield. But again going back to what's killing people on the battlefield,
what's creating PTSD in the Ukrainian soldiers. What is the main focus of the war right now is lobbying old, dumb artillery shells that are made of metal and gunpowder. And I didn't see anything in the sanctions package that's going to stop that, and I am concerned that that's what's going to bring this war to an end if we're not able to figure out a path to go around Frankly or industrial base.
Well, we know that Russia's getting artillery shells in part from North Korea, right, that was some of the stuf sent over there. With everything we just heard from Wali Adiyama, why didn't we do that two years ago of hampering their weapons manufacturing would have been effective.
Well, it's interesting, I'm rehearsing an article that's in pre publication and what I say is exactly that one of our major problems was that we had the delusion of a short war. Somehow what we saw from Iraq and Afghanistan, we had short periods of high intensity combat. But our planners and our politicians never had had a failure of imagination that anything like this could ever happened two years conventional warfare, high intensity. It was never in any planner's plan,
it was never in any politicians funding package. And unfortunately, I think we now need to wake up and recognize that that's exactly how our adversaries are going to play us. If they want to fight us, we'll do it. And if we ever find ourselves fighting Russia, that's how we'll do it as well.
Well, it's Ukraine for now that finds itself actively fighting Russia. And you point out that this has now been two years of very active conflict. Will it remain so for the next year, for the next two years? Are we just talking about a war of pure attrition here?
That's a good way to describe it. That's perhaps the medium case. The best case, of course, would be the war ends for negotiations right away. The worst case would be that no, in fact, these shortages give the Russians the capability to break through those front lines of the Ukrainians through their overwhelming supply capabilities and they're overwhelming troop numbers.
That's what I think is the lesson that we need to learn from Atavika, which is, if this keeps up, maybe this World War one, like trench warfare, devolves into a Russian breakthrough.
We spoke last evening with Poland's Foreign Minister, Radoslav Sikorski, who was very serious about the lack of funding and was going to deliver that message. He was on his way to Washington last evening. He'll be meeting here this weekend with the Secretary of State, and I'd love for you to hear what he had to say about his message to Capitol Hill.
Let's listen.
I'd like to appeal to Speaker Johnson, as a former Speaker myself, yeah, and as the foreign Minister of Poland and on behalf of all of the European Union. In fact, please let democracy decide this issue. Please allow this Ukraine supplemental to go to a vote, because otherwise, if you preclude your commander in chief from doing what he wants to do, which is to help Ukraine defend itself. Youth credibility will be damaged.
That was a recurring message from him, American credibility. But will our allies in Europe think if we can't pull this off this round at least?
Well, do you want the Trump answer or do you want my answer?
Your answer, sir?
All right, Well let me give you the Trump answer. For Trump would say, if they need that money so bad, then maybe Poland can give it to us. The constant lament from the United States since the founding of NATO is that they are not stepping up to their own national defense. And that's what President Trump will harp upon
if he is asked to reflect on what was just said. Again, I want to go back to the issue that there are no significant stockpiles of artillery rounds, and I'm using that as a metaphor for the entire requirement package that is needed for Ukraine. There is no storehouse right now where there are thousands and thousands of rounds ready to be shipped if somebody pays for them. They don't exist.
There are those warehouses, but those warehouses hold those rounds of ammunition needed for our war planners and for our war plans in the China Pacific against the Russians for American soldiers. So to use the old common expression, Joe that you and I are familiar with, and maybe Katie, we're out of schlitz when it comes to the available do you know that artillery rounds that can rapidly be sent over should a funding bill pass.
So I wonder what that then means though as to the validity of the argument that you hear some Republicans making that the US needs to be focusing on our own national security, speaking specifically they are of the border. But if we aren't investing in the defense industrial base in order to manufacture this kind of stuff, not just for the purposes of sending for Ukraine, but getting that firing up ready to go, is that actually threatening US national security by extension?
Well, first of all, this is not my bright idea. This is not something that I came up with. This is not me discovering something new. For decades, the people that are focused on the US industrial base have been telling Congress and have been telling military, we are seeing our arsenal democracy, our capability to build the weapons that we need to defend this country against all enemies foreign and domestic is drying up. We have one factory, one
factory that makes artillery tubes, cannon tubes, howitzer tubes. Those things burn out after a couple of thousand rounds. And even though the numbers are classified, the Wall Street Journal says it's not a lot that are being made every year. Right now. The greatest need for them is in Ukraine. They are burning out their artillery. So this is an
old problem. We have been whistling past the graveyard of the military industrial base for so long, and perhaps Ukraine, as tragic as that may be, is the canary in the coal mine.
We're spending time with retired Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt bring us to ground. In Ukraine, we're coming out of winter at least at some point soon. That means they'll be fighting in a mud bath. How does that change the strategy.
Well, it doesn't change strategy at all. They're not going to fight in that mud bath. That is mother winter. Mother winter has always been an advantage to the defender. So I think it won't be till that mud bath dries up that you're going to see one or both sides try to get out of their trenches and push through those front lines. But I think it's important to recognize that it is certainly the case that the Russians have not just been sitting in those trenches lighting their fires.
They've been continuing to harden their defensive lines, putting out the mines, putting out the barbed wires, putting out the obstacle belts, because they will not let the Ukrainians bust through. As I suspect it's classified, we don't know what the Ukrainians have been doing for fear of telling our enemy what they're doing. I would hope they're doing the same thing.
But what I'm seeing at Adavika, where the Russians are able to at least make some measure of progress, I hope that that's not a foretelling of what we're going to see this spring.
Well.
In general, I want to return to something you said a few minutes ago, when you were talking about the different scenarios. You said, the best case scenario is talks to end the war. That the war can end through talks. Does that mean to say that there is no way that Ukraine outright wins this war, that they can retake all of the territory lost from Russia. Regardless of whether or not they receive the aid of the United States or not.
Well, the most optimistic scenario is that they achieve exactly that they push the Russians out of Ukraine and Crimea, and that the only talks they're having now or at that time are about prisoner exchanges because the war is over. But Kailey, I think we've got to be reasonable at this point and recognize that Zelenski's war aims push the Russians out, restore the territorial integrity of Ukraine, restore Crimea
to the sovereign control of Ukraine. That's a very low probability event in the next year or so.
So what are the chances that we're sitting here talking about a third anniversary very.
High, short of diplomatic negotiations that find a middle ground that will satisfy neither side.
Consider that, Kaili, when we talk about the debate here in Washington for funding more than a year ahead, this isn't going away anytime soon.
Well, and we could very well have a completely different composition of government.
That's very true by then.
We don't know what will be in January twenty tours.
Soald Trump has said that he would end the war within his first.
Twenty four hours, so he has. Indeed, we'll see about that. General.
Great to see you, Great to see you. I wish I had better news.
Mark Kimmick gives it to us straight.
That's why we have him with us on the regular here on Bloomberg.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast. Catch Just Live weekdays at noon Eastern on Eppo car Play, and then roun Otto with the Bloomberg Business app. Listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
Lawmakers, as we mentioned, still have time.
We've been talking about dysfunction, chaos, lack of progress, and look who joins us. We've been overdue here for a couple of weeks, our conversation with Mick Mulvaney, of course, former Congressman, co founder of the Freedom Caucus, former acting chief of staff in the Trump White House.
I could ca going on with the business card. Nick.
I've been looking forward to this because we haven't had a chance to compare notes for a minute, and quite a bit has happened in the last couple of weeks.
Here. Where are you on some of the issues that we've been.
Talking about beginning with a shutdown a week from today.
Yeah, I'm a little confused that a little concern that I might now be your dysfunction expert.
Goodness gracious that the word about that introduction.
So whenever there's dysfunction of Washington, get moremany on the phone call me.
Look, I think the.
Appetite for a shutdown is lower than it usually is. I think the likelihood of a shutdown.
Is higher than it usually is.
All the folks I'm talking to I'm in DC about every other week, having dinners and lunches with my old colleagues and so forth, say the place is just nuts and they're not sure they can get their act together in time. I think they're off this week, their back. They have a handful of days before they have to
fund at least part of the government. It reminds me of a time back in two thousand, I think it was seventeen when we slipped into a shutdown by accident because of something that Rand Paul did on the Senate floor. I sort of get the feeling you might be sleepwalking into that.
Again. It's a different mentality with the same result.
So you talk about how the place is nuts, who's to blame for that? Is this a Mike Johnson issue? Is this Donald Trump issue?
It's a voter issue. You get the government you deserve, You get the government you want. Washington's not broken, that the country is broken. There's no sinister hand that reaches down from Washington and grabs Matt Gates out of the panhandle of floor and says, send me this nutshell, or reaches down into Manhattan and says, give me AOC. She looks like she might want to blow the place up. So it's a missin line incentives. There's a lot of money, Kayley,
to be made right now in extremism and outrage. You look at the squad numbers that the fundraising numbers the squad had. These are numbers that I had never seen for low ranking members of the House when I was in the House in the in then, I says, top of representatives, you talk about millions of dollars per quarter being raised by free inge elements.
That's where all the money is, that's where the energy is.
And when those incentives align like that, you know why vote to keep the government funded when you can make a bunch of money by keeping it closed.
Well, it's hard to remove what's happening, I think, to Kayley's point on Capitol Hill, from what's happening on the campaign trail, at least to some extent. Mick, We're going to a state that you know real well tomorrow, South Carolina. It's time for the primary. It's time to actually vote. And I wonder what this is going to feel like when Nicki Haley loses as badly as the polls seem to suggest in her home state.
Yeah, it's really strange. I'm sitting here right now in South Carolina. I haven't voted yet, voting from open I think for about two weeks. I'll vote tomorrow morning early. By the way, Curiously, you know, everybody says Nicki is still staying in the race because if Trump gets hit by a bus or something, she'll be the only person standing.
That's not true.
In fact, tomorrow, on the ballot, I can vote for Chris Christy, I can vote from the vec Roamaswami, I can vote for Rond De Santis. Those names are still on the ballot, and nobody's actually seized their campaign. They've just suspended it. And if Donald Trump get hits by meat gets hit by meteia or tomorrow, all those folks will come back in the race.
But look, she's gonna lose badly.
Her own metric a couple of weeks ago is she said she had to do better here than she did in New Hampshire. She lost New Hampshire by eleven. I think that's a reasonable metric, and she's not going to come close. The best I've seen her doing in the recent polling is losing by twenty and the worst is in the low thirties. So I keep in mind there was no there's no undecided voters here, Joe.
We all know these folks. I don't know. There's no amount of campaigning. I think it's going to move to the media very much.
Well, but Mick, these are also folks that voted Nikki Haley to be governor of the state. They just apparently don't want to see her president of the country. And we were speaking with our political panel a few moments ago this idea that some of the Republican Party suggests that Nicki Haley turned her back on them. Is it the Republican Party turning away from Nicki Haley or Nicki Haley turning away from the party, which way, is it.
Yeah, I don't know if i'd articulate it like that, but I get the sentiment and see if I answer it this way, which is I think she's decided that she's all in on being anti trum Up at this point and that this is it. There's no coming back from this. You don't come back from attacking him the way that she has. You certainly don't come back from attacking him on Saturday Night Live. He watches Saturday Night Live like I go to mass It's just that's part
of his culture, right. She's cast her or a lot now with the anti Trump wing of the party, and that may pay off big time in corporate boards in the future. I don't think it pays off with politics. Is that her turning her back on the party, the party turning her back on her? I don't know, but I think that's got to be the mentality here is either wait around and hope he dies or make a bunch of money. I don't understand that logic any other way. There might be an explanation, but.
I can't see it.
Wow, that's incredible for someone who's been associated with conservative principles to the extent that she has and work for Donald Trump. Nick, the way you're talking makes it sound to me like there's no twenty twenty eight.
This is not a dress. Well the next election that this is it now?
If the party has truly gone populist, and it looks like it is, okay, by the way, we're not the Holy Ones.
But if it's gone truly populist, then.
Is there a room for a physical conservative neo con like Nikki Haley sometime in the future.
I'm not sure there is.
Maybe she's looking at that same sort of environment. To keep in mind, she's probably not going into the administration in any way shape orformance. Means, how do you stay relevant for another four years? So yeah, I think it might be in her self interest to sort of make it or break it here, which is why I think originally she said, you know, she might not stay in South Carolina. She thought she couldn't win by you know,
at least lose by single digits. So now are she saying she'll stay in as long as the money lasts, And I think that's probably smart on her part.
Well.
In part of her closing argument, Mick, is this idea that it shouldn't be the primary election that matters to everyone, but the general election that Trump would lose to Biden. In the general, she would beat Biden. We're not seeing many voters seemingly take that into account, though. Why do you think that is?
That's never a compelling argument ever for voters. Every poster will tell that, Every candidate will tell you that. When you when you're saying vote for me because I can be I'm better at beating the other side, that means, really, that's your plans C or D or E. It didn't work for Mitt Romney, he was our electable guy against Barack Obama. That washed out badly. It didn't work for John Kerry, he was the electable guy against against George Bush.
That that that just doesn't sell, Kaylee.
When you when you hear politicians making that argument, it means that their first two or three ideas flamed out pretty badly.
Hu Wow.
I'll tell you what though.
Look, I don't know if we're going to get a no labels candidate here, Mick mulvaney. If the country thinks they want anyone other than Trump and Biden following Super Tuesday, Kaylee, we may have to go to mix original plan here.
Dwayne the Rock Johnson and forgot about that.
Make you still stand by that?
Yeah, well I do.
If I just wrote a piece in The Hill this week on the on the on the third party.
A couple of ways to look at it. Number One, you know, I believe.
That folks are actually looking for a third party. I do believe that that they're not happy with Trump versus Biden. Now, you could really make the argument that that's not true because they've had a chance. I mean, they've had a chance at Dean Phillips, they've had a chance at Nikki Haley, and they've all said, well, you know what, we still
at to like Biden and Trump anyway. So but I got to feel that the Trump the thata that No Labels has is right, which is that if you could find the right third party, you could make waves here up to and including possibly stealing a victory. It's a generational type of time where you could do it. But there's nobody to fill the role, and you can't beat something with nothing. And Dwayne the rog Johnson has shown
no interest, Oprah Winfrey has shown no interest. Taylor Swift, name me somebody who could get sort of the national approval ratings that would launch them into a viable third party role. That just isn't the person out there that fits that description. So while the environment is right for a third party, I don't think the people are right for a third party. No Labels is going to struggle to get anybody who does better than just a protest vote. O. K.
Junior did get a fifteen percent in the Quinnipiac poll this week, but I guess we'll have to leave it there. Mick mulvaney, always a great to have you on the show. Thank you so much for joining us, of course, former Congressman from South Carolina, co founder of the Freedom Caucus, former Acting White House Chief of Staff in the Trump administration. We always appreciate your time. I'm not sure many people have more titles than Mick. Our title is just what host of a Balance of Power?
Thanks for listening to the Balance of Power podcast.
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