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This is the Bloomberg Daybreak europ podcast, available every morning on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen. It's Tuesday, the twentieth of August in London. I'm Stephen Carroll coming up today. Biden passes the torch to Harris. The US President calls for democracy to be preserved. As the Democratic National Convention kicks off in Chicago. Anthony Blincoln says Hummas must say yes to a Gaza ceasefire proposal that's been accepted by Israel.
Plus the British tech.
Tycoon Michae Linch and five others remain unaccounted for after a luxury yacht sinks off the coast of Sicily. Let's start with a roundup of our top stories. US President Joe Biden has delivered an emotional and bittersweet call for Democrats to rally behind Kamala Harris on the first night of the party's.
National convention in Chicago. The president's remarks.
Which began at eleven thirty pm on the East Coast and stretched late into the night, focused on cementing his legacy while also handing over to a new generation.
Selecting Kamawa was the very first decision I made before I became when I became our nominee, and it was the best decision I made.
My whole career.
Show me at president our children could.
Look up to.
Biden also cast his decision to exit the race following a calamitous debate performance as the natural conclusion of a five decade political career.
I spent the honor of my lifetime the service or President. I love the job, but I love my country more.
The president was at times overwhelmed, stabbing tears from his eyes after an introduction by his daughter, pledging to close out the last five months of his presidency with accomplishments. Joe Biden's speech came after his Vice president, Kamala Harris, made a surprise appearance on the first night of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. The party's newly minted nominee for the White House used a brief moment on stage to thank the President for his service to the nation.
Joe, thank you for your historic leadership, for your lifetime of service to our nation, and for all you will continue to do.
We are forever grateful to you.
Harras secured the party's nomination uncontested after Biden threw his support behind his vice president as he withdrew his bid for reelection. Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton, the only woman asiderom Kamala Harris to lead a major party presidential ticket, called on Democrats to help the vice president break through the glass ceiling and ascend to the presidency.
I see the freedom to look our children in the eye and say, in America, you can go as far as your hard work and talent will take you.
And mean it.
And you know what, And the other side of that glass ceiling is Kamala Harris raising her.
Hand and taking the.
Oath of office as our forming seventh President of.
The United States.
Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump in twenty sixteen after leading in the polls for much of the race. Current nationwide polling averages give Harris a slim lead over Trump, although still within.
The margin of error.
In other news, US intelligence agencies say they're confident Iran is behind a recent hack of Donald Trump's presidential campaign. Investigators believe that attackers gained access to internal documents relating to the former president, but it's unclear whether attacks on the Democratic campaign succeeded.
In a joint statement.
The agencies say Tehran sees American elections as consequential for its national security interests. News of the breach emerged after Microsoft flagged Iranian government attempts to access the emails of campaign staff members.
In the Middle East, Anthony B.
Lincoln says Israel has accepted a ceasefire proposal to halt.
The war in Gaza.
According to the US Secretary of State, now Hamas must say yes.
The fierce urgency of now, that's what I think we're all feeling, and we do see this as the best opportunity to finally get this over. The finish line will never give up on it, but the challenges. The longer this goes on, the more hostages will suffer and possibly perish, and the more other things happen that could make things impossible.
Anthony Blincoln, speaking there during his ninth trip to the Middle East since the conflict broke out, The top US diplomat said he will next travel on to Egypt and Katar to understand what their leaders are hearing from Hamas on the next steps. Meanwhile, both Iran and Hezbollah have vowed to retaliate against Israel for recent assassinations. It says they committed. Blincoln's trip was seen in part as an
effort to deter such a strike. The British entrepreneur Mike Lynch is among six people missing after his luxury yacht was struck by a tornado and sunk off the coast of Sicily. One person has died, according to the Italian Coastguard, which is leading search operations. Oceanographer Simon Bauxholt knows the area well.
He can get some quite horrendous storms. In fact, some of the worst storms I've been in have been in that region, and they do sort of build up very very quickly. The sea temperatures in the area of four degrees higher than sort of the twenty year average. They really are very very warm, and that fuels these storms.
Simon Bauxhoff in the University of Southampton, speaking there. Lynch was found not guilty by a San Francisco jury just ten weeks ago over accusations that he had committed Silicon Valley's biggest ever fraud during the eleven billion dollar sale of his company, Autonomy, to Hewlett Packard in twenty eleven. The European Central Bank policymaker says the case for a September rate cut is growing stronger because of increasing risks
to the growth outlook. In a speech in New York, pointed to no clear signs of a pickup in the manufacturing sector as boosting the case for monetary easing. It's the first comment from a Government Council member during the ECB's summer break. Markets have priced in a quarter point cut from the ECB at its next meeting on the twelfth of September, and the UK Government has signed off on London City Airport's plan to grow passenger numbers by
nearly a third. The move is designed to show the government's pro growth credentials, but it's angered environmental campaigners who say will increase carbon emissions. Bloomberg Exchange Wallcock has more.
London's smallest airport, has been pushing to fly more for over two years. It had been blocked by its local council of the fears about the noise, a decision that Labor Government have now overruled. Greenpeace say the approval undermines the UK's climate leadership. The argument over London City is a smaller version of the much bigger debate of how Britain bounces its environmental commitments with its growth targets in London.
James Wilcock the Radio, those are your top stories this morning. Now at a moment, we'll dig into Joe Biden's speech to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago and bring you more on that story around the British entrepreneur Mike Lynch. But in the story that we've been watching about the DNC in Chicago has been the social media influencers the Democrats have invited to be part of the media circus
at the event as well. Some two hundred of them have been given privileges like access to delegates and studio space on site in Chicago, a reflection of the campaign's belief that social media creators are at least as important as traditional media organizations for getting its message out to voters. So some of those will also of course be making
speeches at the DNC. We saw Deja Fox speaking earlier on on Monday evening in Chicago, of course, an influencer that's focused on reproductive rights, which is seen as a key issue for Kamala Harris to lead on in the campaign as well.
She actually worked on Harris's failed.
Bid for the nomination in twenty two and she's now based in Arizona, which is one of the key swing states to watch in this campaign as well. But getting social media influencers involved has also highlighted how sensitive the issue over the warring gaza is for the Democratic Party. And you can read more on that story from our colleague Prattish naray Anon on Bloomberg dot com and of
course on the terminal. Let's stick into the comment so that we heard from the President Joe Biden to the convention. Our Bloomberg TV anchor Kritti Kopta was listening in and she's with us now this morning. Critty, great to have you. Joe Biden needed to show that he was handing over the torch to Kamala Harris form a position of strength.
Did he succeed, He did succeed, But he.
Made a very quick appearance and then he's now off to his vacation, his family vacation.
So it really shows that he's not dwelling on the issue.
He's trying to kind of show a support, show that he is very much on board of a Kamala presidency, but then ready to move forward and ready to kind of focus on being president for the remainder.
Of his term.
What stout out for you from his speech.
Well, I think it was interesting is that he of course endorsed her in a very big way. We already knew that he had done that, but I think the fact that he was greeted with a lot of we love you Joe Biden, we like.
The Crimekeey Joe.
Yeah, the crowd was chanting. But remember the background of this. He didn't want to step down. He didn't want to be in this position. He actually, behind the scenes reports has suggested that he thinks he still could have won the election, but that it would have done irreparable.
Damage to his party.
So imagine still making that DNC appearance with the thought process and with the idea that people are chanting for and appreciating and cheering him on for the very fact that he stepped down the very thing he did want to do. So the fact that he's still able to deliver a speech given the issues that he's had in the past, with some of his kind of endurance issues, and still be able to do that on the face that, I thought that was pretty admirable.
Frankly, it was a marquee event.
Of course, the party Kamala Harris did make a quick appearance on stage earlier on in the evening. We heard from Hillary Clinton as well on that issue, though, of the the war in Gaza as being something that potentially Kamala Harris is vulnerable about. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, who spoke earlier in the evening as well, got one of the biggest applause lines of the night by saying that Harris was working to bring a cease fire in Gaza. Is this a difficult issue for the vice president?
This is a very difficult issue, and this is where she has actually been able to garner more support than President Biden has remembered. This is the achilles heel for the Democratic Party right now and for I think Americans broadly. It has become a very divisive issue, as we've seen
across college campuses, among many many other different forums. And one of the issues with President Biden and what we're expected to see with the nominee Kamala Harris as well, was what was going on in Dearborn, Michigan is kind of a microcosm of what's going on in the broader country, which is that they're losing out on not only the Muslim vote, but then a lot of people who support or at least don't so I should say, push back against some of the atrocities that are happening in Gaza
as well, and the American administration being seen as supporting that.
So that was going to be the Achilles Heal.
But the fact that Kamala Harris has actually made an active approach to say we're listening to the people who are on both sides of this, We're willing to take meetings on both sizes, They're still a step further than Joe Biden has gone when it comes to appeasing that part of the dialogue. And I think that's where she started to see more supports, more of the independent voters who've looked at both candidates to say, actually, this might be a turning point for her. It's interesting though that
comment came out from aoc SO. Alexandra Ortasio cortest our International audience. She is an up and comer in the Democratic Party. She's a congresswoman from New York and also represents of course the Latino vote, the minority vote, and is aligned in a lot of issues with a lot of the Muslim vote as well.
Yeah, it's certainly very interesting to hear her comments at the event. Of course, Donald Trump doing his best to garner some of the attention while very much political has been focused on Chicago, focusing on division, Steene Harris and Biden is not getting any traction.
It's not getting that much traction.
In fact, when you look at some of the polsters, some the kind of political strategists, the concern here for President Trump is that he actually hasn't been able to regain the momentum. There was always going to be that kind of knee jerk reaction that you saw when Kamala Harris was going to be named Dominie, coming out kind
of with a bang. But this was kind of being viewed initially, at least in the polling numbers, as a little bit of a honeymoon phase, and then we were expected to kind of see some of those Polly numbers come back to President Trump in the lead. We haven't seen that yet. Now we're still waiting till September when there is remember still the summer period. People are so on holiday. Not everyone is as engaged in politics right now. In the States, it's striving season, nevertheless, but in September.
If you just continue to see that poll, those polling numbers show the same lack of momentum. This is where you get into trouble, and I think that's the concern around some of the campaign strategy and the Trump campaign right now.
Gritty good to Bimberg TV anchor. Thank you very much. Well, let's turn into a different story that we're following now. The British entrepreneur Mike Lynch among the six people missing after a luxury yacht was struck by a tornado and sunk off the coast of Sicily, are reported to at a Baio is here with more on story, Tira, What do we know about what happened?
So, as you mentioned, it was early Monday morning when that luxury yacht sank off the coast of Sicily. On board were twelve guests and ten crew members, among which were the British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch. Now currently he's still missing. We have heard from some sources that his wife Angela was amongst those rescued. Just to give you a bit more context about who he really is, He's an eminent figure in British business. He's known by some
as the British Bill Gates. He's the founder of multiple technology companies, including dark Trace, which he founded through his venture capital firm. That's a cyber security business. It has a market cap of over four billion dollars and is listed on the London Stock Exchange. And outside of that, he's also been an advisor to two former UK Prime Ministers. So a very important figure in the world of technology and in the world of the wider UK landscape.
What do we know about the other people who were on board this yea Well.
At the moment, Italy Coast Guard are leading the search and rescue operation. They've recovered fifteen people. Unfortunately one person has died. That leaves six missing, including Lynch, and just in the last few moments we've heard from the BBC that among those missing are a Morgan Stanley banker and a Clifford Chance lawyer, as well as Mike Lynch's eighteen year old daughter Hannah, who's also been reported unaccounted for.
In terms of what's being put on in terms of the rescue effort, there's a team of specialized divers that have been employed to look for any individuals that might still be inside the boat. That's now fifty meters underwater. There's also a helicopter that's been drafted in, as well
as the fire brigade who have joined the search. In terms of what's happened over the course of those few hours since the sinking on Monday, there's been some quite astonishing stories coming out of this rescue mission, including the story of one British mother who has now been rescued. We know that she is a colleague of Mike Lynch. She says she kept her baby alive after the boat sank by holding the one year old child above the water until the two were able to get into a
rescue boat. She says her family only survived because they were on the deck of the boat at the time that it sank too.
Yes, and still, of course that search and rescue mission underway, Teawa. I wonder if also you could just briefist a little bit on what we know about the trip at South MIKEA. Linch had been in the news recently because he was cleared just weeks ago on fraud charges.
Yes, this is perhaps one of the most surprising parts of the story. So back in twenty eleven, Lynch made his riches really by selling his company to the US computing giant Hewlett Packard for eleven billion, but he had been embroiled in a decade long legal battle about the acquisition. He was accused of committing Silicon Valley's biggest ever fraud during the sale, but he was found not guilty in San Francisco just ten weeks ago, and they were supposed to be celebrating.
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