This is Bloomberg Date Break Weekend, our global look at the top stories in the coming week from our Daybreak anchors all around the world, and straight ahead on the program, a look at the Federal Reserves Annual meeting in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. I'm Tom Busby in New York.
I'm Stephen Carolin London, where we're looking ahead to the latest house priced data in the UK as the sector breaks is for further price falls as interest rates move higher.
I'm Brian Curtis in Hong Kong. We look inside the black box that is China.
I'm Killie Lines in Washington, where we have our eyes on Milwaukee ahead of the first Republican presidential primary date.
That's all straight ahead on Bloomberg Daybreak Weekend on Bloomberg Eleve them free on New York, bloombergon ninety nine to one, Washington, d C, Bloomberg one O six one, Boston, Bloomberg nine sixty, San Francisco, DAV Digital Radio, London, Sirius XM one nineteen and around the world on Bloomberg Radio dot Com and via the Bloomberg Business App.
Day to You, I'm Tom Busby, and we begin today's program with what to expect at the Kansas City Fed's annual Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium, a three day event that officially starts this coming Thursday with a highly anticipated address from FED chair Jerome Powell. Friday morning about ten am, Wall Street Time, Bloomberg Surveillance co host Lisa Abramowitz, who will be in Jackson Hole this week, joins us now with some insight. Lisa, thank you so much for being.
Here, Tom, thank you so much for having me.
Well, the theme of this year's symposium is structural shifts in the global economy, but for most of us, it's all about what Jay Powell will say in those remarks and any hints he may offer about what the FED is thinking going into the September FOMC meeting now just a few weeks away. So what do you think we can expect to hear from Chairman Powell? Lisa, Well, I think the.
Whole idea of structural shifts raises a question about whether j. Powell is willing to come out and say inflation is structurally going to be high in the years to come, and whether the rate that the FED sets has to also be higher in the years to come, and if he says that what that does to sort of underpin some of the moves we've seen in the bond market, in other words, bond selling off, yields going up in response to this expectation of higher rates for longer.
Well, it was a year ago at Jackson Hole that Jpal warned of the pain that rising interest rates would cause the economy and consumers. Now there's been some pain benchmark lending rates at a twenty year high, but we've seen surprisingly strong job growth since then. We've seen a resilient economy, steady consistent growth, consumer spending, housing market a little uneven, but is it better than when he projected just a year ago.
So when he was talking about pain, he was talking about the unemployment rate coming up. There was a belief that there was no way to get inflation lower unless you had unemployment tick up. People lose their jobs, and this was the pain that they talked about that was necessary to avoid further pain down the line in terms of higher inflation, sort of taxing the profits, taxing the incomes of the average American. We are still at about three and a half percent unemployment rate about a year later.
In the employment market, that pain is not apparent. Nobody would say that this is a difficult labor market. Quite the opposite, and there are indications that while it is loosening a touch, it still is relatively easy to get a job, and wage increases are still above what they
had been pre pandemic. So as we look to this speech, there is a real question about whether Jerome Powell will come out and say we were wrong, we didn't need the pain, and actually inflation is coming down just fine because post pandemic there were normalization effects that had not yet taken hold, And whether he's going to come out and say, we believe in a soft landing and we are going to be patient and hold rates where they are for longer to gauge whether or not we are.
If we're wrong, we can raise rates further, but otherwise, let's lean into this. That's kind of what we've heard from other Fed officials as they've talked, let's lean in a little bit to this idea that maybe we're getting, you know, this mythical beast that is the soft landing or the no landing and inflation coming in. You know, this will be something that I hope he does address because it was a pretty dark speech last year.
Yeah, the markets took a tumble, right, correct.
It was sending a very clear message. The Fed came through on what they were saying. They raised rates at the fastest pace in modern economic history. So at what point do they have to revamp their idea of what restrictive means of how high rates have to go to
bring inflation back down to two percent? Or are they going to say we don't need to get it down to two percent so quickly, which is so some of them are hinting, And you know, if that's the case, we can be patient and we can watch and we can maybe avoid that.
Well, then that year, CPI went from about nine percent in July of twenty twenty two to last month's reading of three point two percent. So whatever they're doing seems to be working.
Some people would argue that the decline in inflation, which just means prices are rising at a slower clip, is just simply because year over year comparison numbers are too difficult to really achieve that sort of equal nine percent level, right that. In other words, inflation rose at a tremendous pace mid year last year, very difficult year over year
to supersede that as such a great clip. Some people are saying that that is fading and that you're going to see a reacceleration in inflation NEIL data among those other people saying that this isn't it even Fed policied have taking effect. This is just simply a normalization a lot of questions that they, you know, would be interesting for them to weigh in on.
Now, the FED meets again in September, and before then we're going to get some big data point. We have jobs data, housing data. So what will you be looking for?
So you're asking, probably I don't want to say the wrong person, but I will give you the traditional answer, and then I will give you my answer. The traditional answer is CPI is really important to see how much inflation's coming in, and of course the job's number is also really important to get a sense of just how much the economy is cooling or how much the labor
market is showing signs of loosening. I would argue part of the problem with this whole concept of data dependency is that which data are you looking at and what narrative are you trying to paint. Are you looking at leading in economic indicators? Are you looking at data over a couple of months, how many months? What's enough to give you conviction that you've actually killed the inflation beast right? And the reason why I ask this is because this
is supposedly a newly data dependent fed. What do they do if inflation gets back down to three percent on a rolling three month basis? Do they say victory? Do they say we have enough data to have conviction that's going down to two percent? Or do they say, wait a second, we're also looking at the data that's over there with what cars cost and oh yeah, over here with how people are feeling in the University of Michigan
Consumer Sentiment Survey. It is a moving target to get a sense of what the economic model is at a time of incredible change, and that I think is what people are trying to understand. What data are they looking at, what's their framework for making these assessments at a time where that itself is of great debate.
Now some of that data, particularly housing, which we all look at closely. It's tough affordability at a forty year low, because interest rates are at a twenty two year high and the price is just unbelievable. That's got to impact everything.
Yes, and it's surprising that, given affordability is so low, housing prices having come down more. And this goes to the heart of the conundrum for the Federal Reserve. Three years ago, if you would have pulled anybody off the street and said, hey, the Fed's going to go from zero percent to five percent in terms of the overnight rate, mortgage rates are going to be north of seven percent. Where do you think housing prices are going to be?
Everyone would say, oh, my goodness, they would absolutely tank. There's no way they can continue to chug hargher. And yet here we are. And part of it is that because of the higher rates, people aren't selling and there's no supply. I mean, this is one of the most counterintuitive economies in the way that it is sort of developed that a lot of people have seen, and it keeps up ending economist projections. So housing will be interesting.
The tea leaves that it's sending, though again as much mystery as they are anything else, because of the ways people adapt to higher rates and finding workarounds.
So tell me why we wait to see which J. Powell We're going to get a Dubvish or hawkish. What's it like at Jackson Hole. What's it like being there?
Well, truth be told, we're up at four am local time or three am local times, so it's usually pretty dark and cold, and it's very cold, you know, up in the mountains, but it's gorgeous as the sun comes up over all of the mountains. And then there are those on the fed and the academics who join, who go hiking and canoeing and fishing, and they are those who stay in the lodge and have discussions. It's really neat to have so many thinkers together trying to hash things out to understand.
Where we are.
And it's a retreat in the traditional American kind of sense.
Do you think that kind of atmosphere loosens these people up the way we normally see them as so stern, so buttoned up. Is it a little different in Wyoming? Yes and no.
They are stayed because they have a tall task, they have a difficult one, and they have a big job to do. And I feel that, you know, I feel that energy from them.
You know.
Sure, people a little bit looser, sure, but it isn't party mode. It's not as though people you know, do junkets where they're throwing axes and getting hammered. It's like, you know, definitely a feeling of gravitas for the moment. And I think that that's, you know, that's what the atmosphere feels like. And to be fair, I mean we are fairly isolated, about forty five minutes away from the actual town of Jackson Hole, and you're surrounded by little
cabins or nothing and mountains. So it's not exactly a party atmosphere conducive to you know, you know, some kind of you know, incredible partying. This is you know, the levity that people have going for a hike or you know, going fishing. It's more of that nature.
Thank you, Lisa. Bloomberg Surveillance co host Lisa Abramowitz will have live special coverage from Jackson Hole of all the key events. Plus we'll bring all the news being made on the sidelines to you as well right here on Bloomberg Radio. Coming up on Bloomberg day Break Weekend is the real estate market in the UK in trouble. I'm Tom Busby and this is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg day Break Weekend, our global look ahead at the top stories for investors in the coming week. I'm Tom Busby in
New York. Up later in our program, Troubles mount for the Chinese economy as the slow down deepens. We'll bring you details, but first Britain's real estate market will be in focused in the coming days. Home prices under pressure from higher rates, and Bloomberg Economics is forecasting further declines as the effects of the most recent hikes feed slowly into the market. Any hopes of a pause from the Bank of England have been dashed by recent hotter inflation
and wage growth data. For more, Let's head to London and bring in Bloomberg Daybreak Europe Banker Stephen Carroll Tom like.
The weather, house prices are a topic of national conversation in Britain. After more than a decade of steady growth, prices are starting to come down, falling around five percent from their peak last August. Bloomberg reckons they have another five percent or so to fall, and we'll get fresh data from the property website right Move in the coming days.
The Bank of England's fourteen consecutive interest rate hikes are still feeding into the market because of the way that UK mortgage rates are usually fixed for just two to five years. The recent stronger than expected wage growth and inflation data means markets now expect BOE rates to peak around six percent, So there's still plenty of pain ahead
for the housing market. We've been discussing this with Damian Shephard, our residential real estate reporter, and John Steppek, who writes Bloomberg's Money Distilled newsletter.
Well, the market expectation though is that rates will peak are in about six percent in March. And obviously, I mean market expectations have changed an awful lot that she hadn't bounced up and down. The more important, I'll say, the BOEV is an important fact on mortgages, but it's not the kind of most important, and it's not, you know, the key. A lot of it depends on how keen by are to lend as well. So on the one hand,
rates have gone up a lot. On the other hand, banks are quite keen they right loans because they're not doing a lot of business to the business they can do. You know, they want to do it, but you know, at the end of the day, the kind of base rate is the base rate. So you're talking about interest rates have gone from about say two percent in the mortgage about you know, eighteen months ago and now you're going to be paying what a five and a half percent?
I think the two year average fix is about five point eight at the moment, so it's gone up an awful lot and the things I don't think that we've seen that feed through all the way to prices yet.
I want to ask your advice from whether you're looking at two year ago for five year But we'll leave that for maybe the end of the conversation. Let's bringing Dimian at this point. Dimian when it comes to volumes, because there's been some element resilience in terms of the housing market. What's what's happening with with volumes given this higher rates environment.
Yes, I think you know the doomsday predictions of big house price falls. I think it's playing out relatively slowly. But in transactions, you're seeing them a lot lower than they were this time last year. One of John's recent newsletters pointed me to the Ricks survey where you see the view of estate agents and surveyors and they're pretty down beat.
It's pretty brutal.
For real, it's pretty brutal, and that normally points to dip in transactions because they're not getting their commission. So I think transactions are down. And what's interesting is that's even happening at the top end of the market. In Prime London, we're down about twenty five percent transaction wise in July compared to the same month a year ago. And when you see that sort of distress happening at the top end of the market, it makes you think, what's happening a bit lower down?
Bloomberg Economics expect it a peach to traft move of ten percent in house prices. I mean, how far does it look like we're into that and should people be holding on for this help that prices are going to drop much further?
Well, I mean, okay, more so far we're doing four percent a contination weed from August twenty twenty to. The first thing I would say there is look, if you're buying a house, forget about trying to time the market, because it really is a waste of your energy. There are so many other factors that matter for buying a house, and it's mostly your personal circumstances. And if you're an investor that's a slightly different issue. But you know you need somewhere to live, and if you've decided this is
right for you. The thing you focus on is making sure you've got somewhere that a you can afford if things go a bit pair shaped with the interest rates, and be that you are happy to live in for a prolonged period of time in case, you know, something happens and you end up stuck there.
You know.
So that's that's basically what you should be thinking about, rather than worrying about whether prices are going to go
down by another five percent from here or not. That said, you know, I struggle to see how prices won't fall further because you know, obviously there is that massive issue, which is the interest rates have gone up so much that people can no longer borrow I mean, and then and interest rates go up, buyers cannot borrow as much money, and therefore they cannot afford the prices that sellers wanted
a year ago or six months ago. So the sellers have to give way or they have to sit in their houses, which is, as Damien said, one reason why transactions have kind of fallen off at Cliff because you know, does a stalemate going on. But the longer that continues, the longer that you know, the more I think that would have to resolve in favor of the buyers rather than the sellers, because you know, if you want to move then at some point you're going to have to
accept that. Well, people just don't have to buy in put it anymore.
What is happening diamon on the mortgage market then just splash that out for us, we saw a lot of big banks pulling deals recently that that grabbed a lot of headlines because rates were just going up, markets were repricing on higher rates from the boa is. That started to settle a little bit. What are you looking at in terms of kind of two year, five year I mean John touched on this, but but unpacking a little bit more for us.
Yeah, So we've seen some headlines in the last couple of weeks of lenders sort of slowly putting rates down again. And when I say Dan, we're still essentially touching fifteen year highs when it comes to the two year and five year fixed. Now there's tens of thousands of remortgages
waiting to happen in September. Now those people have been able to secure those new deals for the last six months, but it sort of spells a period of pain coming up at the end of the year when people are coming off those fixed deals which would have been locked in at much lower rates, and are now sort of looking at mortgage rates of up to almost six percent in terms of the average. So there's going to be a lot of pain to happen towards the end of
this year. And despite the fact that lenders are slowly cutting rates, we're still so much higher than we saw during that era of cheap money. So there's a lot of pain to come for these remortgages.
And the bitter let mortgages are a particular pinch point that we've seen, and that's come out in some of the recent data as well of how many landlords are being forced to sell up because they can't afford the increase in interest rates as well. What's the impact on the rental markets.
Well, I mean, renters are at the sharp end of the problems in the property market at the moment. There's a lot of pressure on landlord finances. A lot of them are on interest only mortgages, or the majority are, which means that every time there's a BOE hike, they're going to feel the pain more than those sort of standard mortgage holders who are on fixed deals and the only option really is to hike renters monthly bills or
sell up. We've seen an uptick in landlords selling their properties over the last six months, and that's quite probably in response to these high mortgage rates and the fact that you know, they see those BOE hikes quite intensely when they happen. But for renters, you know, they're seeing their monthly bills go up a lot. And these are the people that want to get on the housing ladder. I'm a rent myself and due for a rent hike
at the end of this month. So when you start to consider how much that takes the opportunity of getting onto the housing ladder away from you, it's a pretty stark reality for those renters. Yeah.
Indeed, John on by to let is buy to let still a good investment?
No, I mean, if you're thinking this that no, No, I mean, I imagine what's happening and this is purely conjectured, but imagine what's happening with these buy to let landlords who have been forced to sail up, as the one of the problems is that they'll not then sail into FoST tame buyers. They had actually twice sealing other cash rich, more professional landlords.
That was Bloomberg's John Steppeck, author of the Money Distilled newsletter, and Damian Shepard are residential real estate reporter. The one sector of the market we didn't get a chance to discuss with them was luxury homes. Damien has been reporting about the discounts that sellers are having to offer on houses worth millions of pounds as they try to attract buyers. So perhaps an opportunity in London's market for those with a few million to spare. I'm Stephen Carroll in London.
You can catch us every weekday morning here for Bloomberg Daybreak Europe, beginning at six am in London and at one am on Wall Street.
Tom. Thank you, Stephen, and coming up on Bloomberg day Break weekend to look at what's happening in China's economy. I'm Tom Busby and this is.
Bloomberg broadcasting live from the Bloomberg It a active brokers studio in New York. Bloomberg e levon free oh to Washington, d C, Bloomberg ninety nine one to Boston, Bloomberg one O six one to San Francisco Bloomberg nine sixteen to the country Sirius XM Channel one nineteen to London DAB Digital radio, and around the globe the Bloomberg Business app in Bloomberg Radio dot Com. This is Bloomberg Daybreak Weekend.
I'm Tom Busby in New York with your global look ahead at the top stories for investors in the coming week. Troubles mount for the Chinese economy as the slowdown deepens and a crisis bruise in the shadow banking industry. How will the government navigate through this post COVID trough well For more, let's head to Bloomberg Daybreak Asia's host Brian Curtis.
Tom, we look forward to China's loan prime rates out on Monday in the coming week. After cuts in the MLF, we can expect to see an adjustment there, probably in the five year LPR for sure, which is a proxy for mortgages. By many accounts, China's housing slump is worse
than the official data would suggest. New home prices have slipped only two point four percent over the past year or so, but the feedback that we're getting from estate agents and data providers paint a darker picture, and so a lot of focus is on what we might see in terms of stimulus for the broader economy. Joining us now for some discussion about this is Jenny Marsh, Bloomberg's
team leader for China Economy and Government. Jenny, So, we're talking about some pretty extreme pessimism all of a sudden here in the Chinese economy.
Is it warranted?
You know, I think the pessimism is warranted. There are some sort of big problems facing the Chinese economy, but I think it's really important to remember the economy still is on track to grow by five percent this year, and I think you know, there was a State Council meeting this week. It was sort of a snap plenary, which is sort of surprising and does show some concern, but you know, Lee Chang's stressed at that meeting. You know, the economy is in good shape to actually meet its
growth target this year. So while certainly, you know, growth is slowing and the raw problems facing the economy, it's not in bad shape.
We've talked a lot about how international investors and perhaps even domestic investors are calling for more stimulus, but we did see in the South China Morning Post and they're running a piece highlighting a speech that Hijin Ping gave back way back in September asking for cadres to be patient, to understand that China just can't simply follow the beaten path, and he's really pushing for patients because that's what's needed for common prosperity to deliver its you know, its fruits.
And with that type of thinking, investors may be waiting for a while here.
Yeah, I mean absolutely. I mean, you know, I think China does have the resources to sort of to simulate the economy if it wants to. But you know, she's Dremping for years now, has been trying to instill this idea of high quality growth, which is sort of shifting away from the properties and economic driver, lowering debt and boosting high tech industries. So I think, you know, for she, I think in a way, he's sort of prepared to see the economy run a bit cooler if it means
that actually it sort of gets into better shape. And I think actually people now are sort of accepting that five percent growth target was a serious goal rather than just some kind of flaw to be exceeded.
We had just in the past few days, some Bloomberg data revealing that some sixty percent of outstanding Chinese offshore estate bonds are labeled as distressed. So we need to focus a little bit more on the property market here. Sometimes when you get prices only moving down a small amount, it doesn't tell the real story. The big drop off in transactions sometimes can tell a bigger story. How deep is the crisis in the property market?
You know, I think the thing with the property market is the debt sort of facing the developers is the big thing now that you know, China has to really deal with. There are so many people who have sort of put their life savings into homes which developers haven't yet built, and now with sort of the debt problem ballooning, you know, how these developers are going to sort of find the financing to make good on these properties is a real risk. And I think that's the thing that
the government is worried about. And I think, you know, there are many ways in which they're prepared to see things sort of go a bit cooler, but you know, this is something that can sort of spill over into social instability. And also then you know how this sort of ripple effect through the economy, which is kind of what we're seeing this week, you know, with the shadow banking crisis now, where these trust funds have sort of invested in the property market and this sort of ripples
over and then impacts some people's wealth. So I think it is a big concern.
Yeah. One wonder is whether or not we see more people out in the streets like we did see in the past week in Beijing, whether or not that forces the hand of policymakers. It's the type of thing that was rumored back when zero COVID was.
Changed and exactly and I think, you know, for she, despite the fact he does come from this elite, sort of princely background, he sees himself as sort of a champion of the people. And I think this COVID protests were so shocking because he realized that the average person A was angry and B had been hardest hit by his policies, and I think that is worrying for him. And you know, the one thing that I think the Chinese public is willing to protest about is their wealth.
You know, if you make Chinese people poorer, they will come out into the streets. And I think those protests have seen as being somewhat legitimate as well. So is the kind of thing the government would respond to for sure.
So confidence is needed not only for the business sector, but for the consumer sector. And then we have a story like we ran just at the latter part of this past week, where officials have asked investment funds to avoid being net sellers of equities, in other words, to make sure that they're buying a little more than their selling. What does that do for confidence when stories like that emanate, I think.
It's not a good look. You know, if the government has to intervene in this kind of way, then the market's not running as it should be, you know. And this is a problem that the government has at the moment. It sort of has these mixed signals. And the one hand they're saying, you know, the growth target is fine and sort of the Communist Party's newspaper earlier this week had an editorial saying, you know, no growth would be
a problem. But on the other hand, they don't want the confidence to deteriorate in a way that it becomes a self fulfilling loop, you know, and then things do go into sort of crisis mode. I think there were some banks earlier this week that downgraded their economic growth forecast to below five percent. And I think if it does start to look like the government's going to miss the five percent target, that's also something that could really motivate the government to take sort of bolder steps.
And we talked also at times over the past week about Chinese officials deciding not to publish the unemployment numbers for youth, and as you pointed out in an interview that we did on Bloomberg day Break Asia, those numbers from sixteen to twenty four maybe a little misleading because of the difficulty in sort of tracking young people. But it's another example of how policy sometimes will get adjusted just to have the appearance of things not being as bad as perhaps they look.
Oh yeah, exactly, I mean, you know exactly. It could be that China has legitimate reasons for wanting to change just methodology in capturing this data, because you know, should it be capturing sixteen year old in youth unemployment data if realistically their students you know, still living at home, et cetera. But the way they did it, you know, pausing that data in a month whereas expected to soar, creates a bad impression particularly when it comes as they've
been restricting growing amounts of data. They used to release numbers show the amount of land developers bought and the price they paid. That's been missing for much part of this year. You know, there's countless examples of this where trying to sort of when things get a bit too awkward and prickly, they just sort of stop releasing that data. And you know that creates this sort of feasonter fears that China is becoming more of a black box somewhere, which is volatile, hard to invest in.
Yeah, and it does raise questions about the overall data. I've been here for more than thirty years, and you know we always had these questions about data. But for the most part we say, well, the data is the data, and this is what we live with. But now it's very much in focus again. But I think we should probably spend a little bit of time on some of the positives in the Chinese economy, because, to be fair, even as you suggested earlier, if we were getting up
around five percent growth, some things are working. So let's take a minute here to look at some parts of the Chinese economy that do seem to be producing yeah.
I mean, and also often when we talk about the data, it's sort of like the data is weakening, the growth is slowing. You know, we're not saying that there is actually in decline. So you know, obviously CPI did go intocline recently, but there are sort of other right spots for the economy, so I think it is important to sort of to focus on those.
Two interesting perspective. Jenny, thanks so much for joining us. Jenny Marsh Bloomberg Team leader for China's Economy and Government. I'm Brian Curtis along with Doug Chrisner. You can catch us every weekday here for Bloomberg day Break Asia, beginning at six am in Hong Kong and six pm on Wall Street.
Tom, thank you, Brian, and coming up here on Bloomberg day Break weekend to look at we head to the first twenty twenty four Republican primary debate, which happens on Wednesday. I'm Tom Busby, and this is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg day Break Weekend, our global look ahead at the top stories for investors in the coming week. I'm Tom Busby in New York. Wednesday marks the first debate of the twenty twenty four presidential season, and it's a focus on
the Republican field. For a preview, let's head to our Bloomberg ninety nine to one newsroom in Washington and Bloomberg Sound On co host Kaylee.
Lines tom Next week is going to be a big one in the world of politics for many reasons. President Biden visiting Maui on Monday, the first Republican primary debate on Wednesday, and then a Friday deadline for former President Trump and the eighteen other co defendants charged in the Georgia twenty twenty election case to voluntarily surrender in Fulton count But really it's the debate that's the big one we've all been waiting for, so we'll focus on that.
Bloomberg Washington Senior editor Wendy Benjaminson is here with me for more. So, Wendy, the biggest question is going to surround former President Trump and will he or won't he actually show up.
That's exactly right, and it's killy. It's something that Donald Trump has just perfected in his time in political life. Is no matter what else is going on, this tragic fire, his own criminal endeamonds, we are all wondering on pins and needles. Is he going to show up for the debate or isn't he? And it will? I mean, it's important whether or not you like Donald Trump. It's important because the whole debate shape is different and for the
candidates involved, all of their prep will be different. You know, candidates really spend a lot of time preparing for the debate. They do role playing and all of that. And if Trump is there, it's one debate. If Trump is not there, it's a totally different debate.
Well, and if he's not who then is the punching bag?
That honor goes to Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, who is second in the polls, even though he is thirty points below Donald Trump at this point, but he's in that number two spot with Vivid Ramaswami and surprisingly in some places Tim Scott nipping at his heels.
Well, and we learned this past week that those close to Rondasantis are actually advising him during the debate to defend Trump and go after Ramaswami, who you were just talking about, defending the person you are running against, defending the front runner. How does that make sense, Wendy Well, I.
Struggle with this I've been struggling with this one too, because it just doesn't make any sense in a normal world. But what this DeSantis super pack or a firm associated with DeSantis, is super pac put online so that it could legally communicate with Ron DeSantis debate advice that said, yes, you should defend Donald Trump, but in kind of a backhanded, bless your heart kind of way. What they're saying is, well,
he's under four indictments. The poor man, he just is so distracted he couldn't possibly focus on the country's needs. He must take time to focus on himself.
You know.
Hearts and minds go hearts and prayers go to the former president. So I guess that's kind of a left handed way of defending him.
So with Trump as the front runner and all of these candidates pretty much linguishing behind him, many of the people who are going to be up on that stage are still down in the single digits? Are there any of them where if they can't, you know, make something big happen at this debate, it's kind of game over.
It could be game over for some of these guys. There is a guys, I say, Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina is still in it, she says, to win it. So we will see. But and her performance is very important in this debate. But there's another debate in September, I believe, toward the end of September, and there will be even tougher requirements to get on
that stage. So unless you have one of those viral moments what the Desantus memo called the what was it the falling off the cliff ada was the orchestra pit moment where a candidate who talks about foreign policy for three or four minutes will not be remembered as much as the guy who falls into the orchestra pit.
All right, this is going to be a very interesting one. Bloomberg Washington Senior Editor Wendy Benjaminson, thank you so much. And Tom all eyes are going to be on Milwaukee.
Thank you.
Kaylee.
That was Bloomberg Sound On co host Kaylee Lines, reporting from our Bloomberg ninety nine one newsroom in Washington, and you can hear sound on weekdays one to three pm on Bloomberg Radio. And that does it for this edition of Bloomberg Daybreak Weekend. Join us again Monday morning, five am Wall Street Time for the latest on markets overseas, and the news you need to start your day. I'm Tom Buzzby. Stay with us. Top stories and global business headlines are coming up right now