Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple car Playing and Broyd Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. Listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
Let's get back to the geopoliticis coming out of the Middle East. The Syrian president Bashar Assad is now in Moscow after rebel forces took control of Damascus over the weekend, ending nearly a century of his family's rule. His toppling is sending shockwaves throughout the Middle East and will be a major blow to Russia in Iran, President Joe Biden hailed Usad's fall in an address to the nation on Sunday, and take a listen.
It's a moment of historic opportunity the long suffering people of Syria to build a better future for the proud country. It's also a moment of risk and uncertainty as we all turn into question of what comes next.
All right, that was President Biden with some comments Sunday regarding what's happening in Syria. Let's get some more analysis on this unfolding situation. Aaron David Miller, Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Dowmon for International Peace, joins us from Washington, DC via zoom. Aaron, thanks so much for joining us here. Do we have any idea who's in charge over.
There in Sirius in Syria?
Well, right now, it's thanks for having me. Right now, it's Ahmadshara. Who's nam Da gary Ka, also known as Abu Muhammadani al Jiulani, born in Saudi parents were originally from the Golan Heights, which is why he took the name Algulani. Formerly associated with both the Islamic STATEA and Ol Kaida, He's evolved over the last five or six years, running the province of Ibleb relatively inclusively, reaching out to Kurds and to the Druis. You know, it's hard to know.
Rebelling is hard, Governing is frankly a lot harder. And the track record here for overthrowing Arab authoritarians is not terribly uplifting. Egypt, the Bark's gone, a more repressive authoritarian military government replaced him. Tunisia ben Ali aspiring democracy and now an authoritarian government. Saddam Hussein Iraq's pretty dysfunctional. A lot of disappointments there. Yemen Abdala salav overthrown. The Huthis are in charge of much of the country. Siria may
have a better chance. Headlines appear to be pretty good, not a lot of repression and retribution. Yet Glani's thinking as singing a pretty moderate tune invited the international press in sending signals to the Alowi community in Latakia that not interested in retribution. I guess, guys, the question will
be power sharing. It'll be power sharing, and it'll be whether or not the Islamic principles and strictures of these Asunni political Islamics can be reconciled a with the largely traditional secular Syrian elite, and whether or not, you know you can govern. Syria is broke, heavily indebted to the iraniance. Oil industry is muddled to two and a half billion barrels a day. It pales before the larger producers, so it's going to be a real heavy lift.
Syria borders what Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and also Turkey. Does the response by one dictate the response overall by the others?
Well, you know, it's been the playground for external intervention since the beginning of the Civil War. The Turks have had a huge role to play, as you pointed out, Iran Isabella, and of course Russia doesn't share contiguous borders, but was the key broker and savior redeemer of the outside regime when it was challenged in twenty fifteen. I think that the prospects for external intervention is still there, and by the way, the Israelis need to be definitely
put into the mix. Prospects or external invention are there, but the real troublemakers the Iranians, I would argue the Russians Isabella. They've been set back. There's more agency now for Syrians to function and focus on Syria than at any time in the last decade or so. The Turks are now the big boys on the proverbial block, and their motives are mixed here, but they will be the great power, the regional power to watch.
All right, eron, Thank you so much for joining us, Aaron David Miller, he's a senior fellow at the Carnegian Dowmond for International piece joining us from Washington, DC. And you know, one of the questions I have ongoing will be what role with any will the US play and how this thing develops, and we.
Did mention we will for the flow of refugees, which from Syria has kind of shaped the political landscape.
Of Europe yep. And I'm just kind of seeing some of the reporting today. You know, two and a half million of refugees have gone to Turkey and some three million to your point, John, So again a fluid situation over there.
Will keep up with the reporting.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple, card Play and Android Otto 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.
Let's refocus on what is happening on the geopolitical front, because clearly front and center for many investors, particularly what's happening in Syria over the last several days. Kirsten Fontin Rose joins US. She's a president of Red six Internationals. She's also a Senior Fellow at the Atlanta Council and was a senior director for the Middle East and the last US administration. Kirsten, what's happening in the Middle East and why is that happening now?
It's an interesting confluence of potentially unrelated events in the Middle East that is all leading to things like Iranian foreign policy imploding Russia's model of taking fringe groups from zero to hero, imploding Israel's ability to potentially uproot the threats it faces from several fronts increasing So we're Turkey's diplomatic efforts that looked a little precarious beginning to pay off. So there are a whole lot of effects coming out
of these potential unrelated events. In terms of things like Iran's implosion. They've spent years arming other militaries and militias to antagonize their adversaries, and now each of these is being decapitated except for the Houthis in Yemen, and so Iran is going to be forced to update its foreign policy, and we should be watching them for the choices they make.
For instance, will it double down on its militia model and press its malicious in Iraq to stage work frequent attacks, or is it going to build up the hooth these capabilities in Yemen to interrupt shipping in the Red Sea, perhaps even beyond the Red Sea to waters farther.
Northwest or south. Or is it going to.
Offer more support to groups like the Polisario in the North Africa that it is supported before, or will it completely flip flip the text on this and rush to complete its fighter jet purses from Russia out of fear that Israel may choose to hit them while they're down, which is a realistic fear.
Again, we could see that it might.
Even be easier for Iran and the U to reach a nuclear agreement now since one of the key sticking points was the activity of Iran's militias that are now crippled. So what'll we be watching to see how Iran plays this. All we know so far is that it is confirmed through foreign ministry statements that the supply route with which it supplies weapons to Hibaala through Syria has been severed.
So this is to Israel's.
Advantage, and the Syrian foreign minister was part I'm sorry. The Iranian foreign minister was part of a meeting in Doha last Saturday in which several Arab foreign ministers joined him, and they issued a joint statement calling for a ceasefire and for a political solution in Iran. So it's interesting to watch Iran now try to be part of a solution instead of remaining part of the problem for all the Syrians who are celebrating in the streets.
Was the murderous Assad regime ever a stabilizing factor in that part of the world, And how do we gauge whether or not the country has gone from the frying pan into the fire.
To a certain extent, You're right, the Asad regime was stabilizing only in the sense that it was predictable, and many of the countries, including Golf States and Israel, at some points, thought it was better to deal with the devil they knew than deal with an unknown devil who would potentially be an Islamist Jihada state as we may
be looking at now. So that fear led many of them to think, if we can keep him in place, we at least know what his redlines are, what his capabilities are, and we don't see him making active moves against any of us. He is simply enabling things that threaten us, like housing Husbalah if you're Israel, or like enabling the Captigone trade if you're the Golf or.
Jordan so Kirson, what role do you believe the US should play, will play, if any, in Syria?
Well, right now we're watching the US administration really engage in some diplomacy, trying to understand who the players are and wanting to stay stay involved and up to date, really urging for ceasefires, urging for things like humanitarian assistance to continue to Syria.
The Donald Trump team has made it clear that they don't do not think there's a.
US interest involved in getting engaged in this conflict right now, They want to watch it play out. They are making statements about Israel's right to definitely defend itself during all of this against whatever may come, and they are making statements about how this disavows Russia's promises to the region that it is a strong security partner.
So you are seeing them way in on how they're reading the.
Tea leaves, but not making any promises on a role the US would play.
Does Israel use this now as the opportunity to address all their security concerns as it related to the north of the border.
That is the big question, It sure could.
The question that everyone is holding their breath on is what will Israel do. We are already watching them this week strike chemical weapons sites and stores of long range missiles inside Syria to prevent either Iran back militias, Russia or frankly unknown factions of HTS from taking possession of those.
And it's striking air defense radars, anti aircraft batteries, and military aircraft on the ground in Syria as well to ensure that the Israel can continue its operations to erase weapons stockpiles that could threaten Israel in the future if it did fall into these hands. And note also that this would give them a clear path to fly over
Syrian airspace en route to Iran if desired. But we could also see Israel choose a path where they work with a new government in Syria to potentially establish peace along their shared border. In fact, they may have already made an overture to President Asad in Syria just before his ouster, offering to encourage the US to throttle back sanctions against him in exchange for him helping to halt the flow of weapons from Iran to Hsbala through Syria.
And there's a hinge ready of the possibility that Israel could also now reach out to HTS or the developing transitional government inside Syria and in that the indication is that HTS has deconflicted its operations near the Israeli border in areas like Kunetra with the Israelis. So could this paveaway for that border to quiet down and for peace there.
To be cemented.
Israel is logically concerned about Syria falling into the hands of Islamist extremists and would not feel any peace was secure as long as that ideology ruled Syria.
But peace on that border in the near to midterm.
Would definitely allow them to focus on things they need to finish with Hamas and Husball up.
Hey, Kirsten, just about thirty seconds left. How big of a blow is the fall of this Assad regime to President Putin and Russia?
So the blow is that the Russian model is to support unpopular dictators across the globe to gain access and concessions to valuable resources in their countries. Syria was an example, so or Niger, Mali, Burkina, Fosso, Central African Republic, and Russia has relied on its air base in Syria to fly people in and extracted gold.
And other minerals out.
So it's been more than even just the relationship with Syria, and it's access to that naval base in Tartuose that puts it so close to NATO and on the med But now their operations in Africa and other places are curtailed because of their reliance on that air base in Syria.
So to what extent in the long term this.
Will be curtailed depends on the relationship it develops and the deal it strikes for use of the airbase by whatever government is stood up in Syria. We also now see Turkey saying it will not allow Russian vessels to pass through the dark kneills until.
Russia makes peace with Ukraine.
So the fall in Syria is also impacting Russia's ability to wage war in Ukraine.
All right, Kirsten, thank you so much for joining us. Kirsten fontin Rose, President of Red six International, again the latest on a continuing developing story in Syria and in the Greater Middle East. I guess the one constant is turmoil. It seems uncertainty change in that part of the world, and we'll keep an eye on that.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us Live weekdays at ten am Eastern on Affo cardplaying Android otto with the Bloomberg Business App. Listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
I'm Paul swinging your live here in our Bloomberg Interactive Brokers studio. We're streaming live on YouTube as well as ahead over YouTube dot Com search Bloomberg Podcast and that's where you'll find this. Let's start off with a little m and a nice busy Monday. I like that Mandalize said Tamola takeover us chocolate maker Hershey, this is gonna be a big deal.
I mean Hers, She's got a market cap.
Have like forty billion, another ten billion of debt, so fifty billion of market for enterprise value. Jen Bartasha, she covers as part of the world for Bloomberg Intelligence on the retail side. Hey Jen, why is Mandalize considering this deal for Hershey?
Hi, Paul.
So really, when we look at the deal, it's about how are they going to prop up sales? How are they going to continue to grow share? And they've been very open that tacking on to their portfolio is one of the methods that they do in order to really continue to grow as a company. But this is a big deal and so it would have to be really it's really considered a transformational deal at this size.
Can you explain to everybody this mysterious entity known as the Hershey Trust and how they can have to cooperate in this?
Absolutely? So, Hershey is you know, has a long history, and you know about eighty percent of their shares they have a dual clust share structure, and about eighty percent of voting shares are held by the Hershey Trust, which means that they have to approve any kind of deal. And this is really just because Hershey as a company is that Hershey Trust uses money from Hershey in order to support charities, right, and so the approval of the
trust is required. But in addition to that, Pennsylvania law also requires that the Office of the Attorney General be provided with notice of a deal, and that office has the ability to stop a transaction if they think that the fiduciary obligations of the trust will not be met. So there are a lot of steps structurally in place that could make such a takeover of Hershey really difficult.
All right, what does our anti trust analyst, Jennifer Ree, what does she say about this deal with the DOJ, the FTC and all the regulars DC, will they allow this deal to go through?
Well, that's the other that's the next stumbling block. You know, the FTC has been really reticent with regards to big deals, especially in the last two years. When you look at market share, which is really one of the things that
their decision would hinge off of. Hershey has has over thirty seven percent of the US market share and Chocolate Mandal's has just under two percent, So again you're not combining two huge market shares, but together it would it would continue to be the largest market share in the United States, and that is higher than what Mars has as well.
They trying to do this before Ray they did.
They tried this in twenty sixteen, and back in twenty sixteen, the enterprise value of Her She was only twenty five billion. Today it's, as Paul said at the opening, you know, closer to fifty billion. So you know it's they walked away last time because they weren't able to get all of the approvals in place, and the cost wasn't they weren't able to offer the premium that her She was
looking for. So there are a lot of questions of whether this deal would actually go through and if an offer could be made that would be tempting enough for Hershey.
All right, Jen, thanks so much for joining us at Jen Bartasha. She covers all the retail stuff for Bloomberg Intelligence. Give's some thoughts on this deal, Mondo Liz taking a look at Hershe system.
I'm thinking chocolate covered maccheese.
Sure, why not? That could be a new thing. You got a product extension, you know.
I pitched the Hershey Trust a billion times a sell and it got nowhere.
So I'll be intering to see who and you had it in finally get Yeah, who finally gets paid.
Here you're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple card Play and Android Auto with a Bloomberg Business Act. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station Just Say Alexa, playing Bloomberg eleven thirty.
More newsflow Here today, we're going to stay on top of it.
A marine veteran who used a chokehold on an agitated subway rider was acquitted Monday in a death that became a prison for differing views about public safety, valor, and vigilanteism.
Let's break it down.
We have Miles Miller joining us here, a Bloomberg's managing editor here in our studio.
Miles, what's going on here? Give us a background of the story.
Yeah, so this goes back to May one, twenty twenty three. Jordan Neely and Michael Jackson, impersonator is on a train and he's begging for money. And it starts out with just begging for money and then it turns into something which Daniel Penny, a former marine, found threatening. He decided to a place nearly in a chokehold to restrain him and it wound up taking his life. Now, you know, in covering, you know what happened after that. He you know, obviously there was a video of it and all of that.
He didn't initially get charged. He then was charged days later after protests. And when he was charged, he was charged with initially manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide. Now manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide. So what happened on Friday is that the jury told the judge that they were hopelessly deadlocked and could not come to an agreement on that tougher charge being guilty of manslaughter.
And boy did this touch of nerve. I mean, just walking in midtown yesterday, the number of free Penny stickers on lampposts elsewhere. Being in the subway confronted by someone who may be mentally unstable, the threat there as a subway rider, as an individual, it just enhanced by that atmosphere.
Yeah, and the jurors ultimately decided today that his actions weren't criminal when he held Jordan Neely in that choke hold to prevent what he thought would be danger to other people in that car. The jurors came to that decision this morning. He was acquitted, and there were cheers outside of the court. There are people there in support and in protest to him. In fact, Jordan Neely's father was inside the courtroom shouted, had to be removed by court officers.
How much of this, in your opinion, sort of mirrors We have to go pretty far back. But the subway vigilantic case in the form of Bernie Getz.
Yeah, you know, I was in the courtroom the day that Daniel Penny was brought in the day he was let out of the Fifth Precinct, and that comparison had been made by so many legal scholars, and it would appear again today that you know that this was a determination by these jurors that in fact, this was a case of a person trying to step into help and they felt that he was just trying to help and he didn't mean to take this person's life, and drawing obviously comparison, Sabernie gots so.
This case, this, according to the eightp the case amplified many American fault lines, among them race, politics, crime, urban life, mental illness, and homelessness. Mister Neely was black, mister Penny is white. Did the judge even acknowledge that type of stuffer? Is they trying to really stay here?
You know, they stayed to the merits of this case. I think that, you know, obviously outside the courtroom and the windows were open in the courtroom today and throughout the trial inside the courtroom, you could hear the chance of people who were on both sides of the divide here. And in fact, they called for a mistrial today, the defense team because they said that was going to you know, that was going to make sure the jury wasn't impartial,
and it they actually turned out the other way. The jury found that in this case, Daniel Penny did not mean to do this. And it's actually it's really interesting because there was a case just like this in Brooklyn. Another guy was threatening people on the train. This other guy went up to him, confronted him, and the Brooklyn DA said, there's no case here. This was a guy who was trying to do the right thing. The guy wound up dying, and you know, it drew parallel to
this case. The only thing is in both the race of both of those people who were the same in Brooklyn, in this case it was different, and it was obviously a charge environment.
Well what was the makeup of the jury here? And did they all say they were frequent users of the subway?
You know, I looked at a sketch, you know, I looked at the sketch of the jurors and it was a it was a mix of New York City and you know, they questioned, do people, you know in their wardier process, do you take the subway? Do you know anything about this case? It's kind of impossible to find a jury that didn't know anything about this case because it was a fever pitch when this happened.
So we pivot real quick and get the update on the United Health Group executive Brian Thompson his murder in Midtown.
Yeah.
So this morning in Altuna, Pennsylvania, police there held a man for questioning a connection with this shooting. The man was in a McDonald's in Altuna, Pennsylvania for some reason. I think he was trying to pay for something at that McDonald's and had to show an ID. He had multiple fake IDs. People at that McDonald's called local police. When they called, and they and they came. They found that this man had multiple identifications and a gun with
a suppressor on him. Police from the NYPD are headed to Altuna, Pennsylvania right now. It would make sense that this person who's being questioned could be the same person, because, of course they believe he took a bus out of the bus terminal in Washington Heights. One of the roots that you can do is go to Pennsylvania. They had been searching all weekend for the gun, and if this is correct, if police are able to boil this out, it would appear that that gun wasn't in Central Park,
but rather on him of course, his weekend. They found a book bag they believe linked to him and some other evidence, but they had not been able to find definitive DNA leading them to the suspect.
Miles, thank you so much for joining us. Appreciate your reporting.
Miles Miller, Bloomberg Managing Editor, keeping us up to date on breaking news throughout the day and a lot.
Going on here. We appreciate getting a few minutes of his time.
This is the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast, available on Apple, Spotify, and anywhere else you get your podcasts. Listen live each weekday, ten am to noon Eastern on Bloomberg dot com, the iHeartRadio app tune In, and the Bloomberg Business app. You can also watch us live every weekday on YouTube and always on the Bloomberg Journal.