Conservative Court Would Strike Down Progressive Legislation

the Court for its new term in October. This according to the White House Today. Joining us now to talk about this Noah Feldman, Professor of law at Harvard University, also a Bloomberg opinion columnist, also a former clerk to u S Supreme Court Justice David Suitor. Uh no, thank you so much for being with us. I just want to start with your view of kind of how are going to proceed going forward? Who you think the front

runner will be for this Supreme Court vacancy. Well, the Trump administration has publicized a list of potential nominees, and rumors have that list cut down to further to five people, and until now, the administration has been as good as its word in nominating people from its public lists. So based on prior experience, it's almost certain to be one of those five. But they have in common is that they're all died in the wool conservative um. In age.

They range from middle forties to late fifties, and most, though not all, have some experience on the federal appeals courts. So you know, died in the wool conservative can take different forms when you're talking about constitutional law, whether their originalists, whether they're more sort of ideological. What's your impression of these particular candidates. I think nearly all of these, perhaps of them would have asked say that their constitutional philosophy

is broadly originalist. I don't think any would say that they had some other view, and none would say that they supported the idea of a living constitution, Noah Felton. Based on what you know in terms of the court's current voting pattern, and based on what you've just described in terms of the kind of person there, they're legal perspective that will join the court. What kinds of rulings

do you expect when the court reconvenes in October. Well, the biggest issue, which will be watching most closely and debated most intensely over the next few months is certainly

abortion rights. Several states UM have either passed or on the verge of passing laws that are extremely restrictive of abortion rights, much beyond the current legal standard, and those are the ones that will be focused on UM And for that reason, I think one of the crucial issues over the next few months in the public debate about this is whether several of the more moderate Republicans in the Senate, including Senators Collins and Murkowski, both of whom

were formally pro choice rather than pro life, would cast their votes to confirm a nominee who would be very likely to vote to overrule Roe v. Wade. And so you know that is very much at issue here. It could well be that this justice would provide the decisive fifth vote. We don't know absolutely for short, because we don't know how Chief to stuff just as Roberts would vote. But we know that Justice Kennedy, who has just retired, cast the decisive vote to preserve Roe v. Wade back

and I ninety two. And we know that whoever is likely to be confirmed sending a confirmation is probably someone who will think that that case should be overworld. Well, Noah, is it likely that whoever is the nominee will answer a direct question on this topic. I'd say it's totally unlikely. Clothes to zero. I mean in theory, of course, you know, with a guarantee that republic all Republicans would vote to confirm the person could actually go up there and do it.

Almost no nominee in modern history has done, namely, be honest and say yes, I would vote on that and this is how I would vote. But there's a strong precedent now for nominees saying I can't answer that because that issue may come before the court and I don't want to disqualify myself in the future, and so therefore I decline to answer. And so my guess is that you not just a guess that My overwhelming prediction is we won't hear any direct answers to that question. So Noah,

the shift here. Anthony Kennedy's retirement has been portrayed, uh, pretty dramatically on both sides, both as a political boon to the GOP and as a sort of uh, you know, catastrophe on the left. Um, And I'm just wondering, you know, it's definitely. Pretty broadly, people agree this is the biggest change or shift potentially in American jurisprudence since arguably since ro versus Wade. Would you agree first of all with that statement, and how do you think it's going to

change the nature of Supreme Court rulings going forward? Yes, it's going to mean a very significant and potentially vast shift. We should keep in mind that part of that is because the Republican Senate blocked Barack Obama's nominee, a Merrick Garland, who would have replaced Justice Scalia if he If Garland had gone through and then Kennedy had retired, we would be back in a position of balance between the sides.

But because the Senate blocked Garland, and as a result, Donald Trump was able to nominate and confirm the of

coursu that makes this the decisive decisive vote. And the thing is Justice Kennedy was a conservative in many ways, but on a handful of hot button issues, including gay rights and abortion and Guantanamo, he actually voted with the liberals, and for that reason, his retirement opens the possibility of a durable conservative majority for a whole generation, and that is potentially a sea change in the U. S. Constitution

has interpreted. Are there any precedents that are being broken or created because of the unusual circumstance of President Donald Trump and the Mueller investigation simultaneous to this potential appointment, Well, we don't know yet. Um Certainly, Donald stun's goal and his success in fact, has been in breaking all the unwritten rules, and even when he's pressed the boundaries of the written rules, he's more or less gotten away with it.

The travel ban was struck down by the lower courts in at first two forms, but as you know, in its final version three point now, it was upheld by by the Supreme Court just just earlier this week. It's hard to remember that it was so recently, but it was just really in this week before that the Candy's

retirement was announced. So yeah, there's a kind of pressure on the boundaries of constitutional law right now, and we can expect that pressure to continue because Donald Trump is obviously inclined to try to put the envelope, and a court dominated by conservatives, and with two of his nominees on it would probably be much more likely to uphold those actions than with another court. So no, you know, there has been a lot of focus on abortion rights

that Row versus Wade, and possibly that getting overturned. But aside from sort of the hot button issues, is there another place that people should be focusing where we could see a major shift that would have an impact in people's life in terms of how the constitutionalist constitution is interpreted. Yes. Um. One question is whether the right to gain marriage, which the court established, would be preserved or overturned. We don't

know the answer to that. Another area of importance is environmental law, where if there were to be a democratic president in the future and the Democratic controlled e p a aggressive pro environmental restrictions could potentially be struck down

by a court. Um. Yet another area is the freedom of speech, where a conservative activist court could use the freedom of speech as a tool to strike down relatively progressive laws, which we actually already saw happening over the last week or ten days in several importance between court opinions. So yeah, there are there are a whole There are a whole host of areas in which there could be

a real difference. And I would say, most broadly, again, should the Democrat get elected present and should there be a Democratic House and Senate in the future, UM major progressive legislation. Again, hypothetically, if it would be passed along the lines of Obamacare, would stand a good probability of being struck down by a conservative court. Thank you very much, Noah Feldman, Harvard Law Professor, Bloomberg Opinion a columnist. Steel, aluminum, whiskey, mustard,

toilet paper, washing machines, motor boats, even maple syrup. These are all subject to tariffs from Canada as it celebrates its one and fifty one birthday on Sunday. And here to tell us about tariffs trade wars in the United States and Canada is Clay Lowry. He is managing director of Rock Creek Global Advisors. They're based in Washington, d C. And he is also a former Assistant Secretary for International

Affairs at the US Treasury Department. And he also chaired the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States known as Syphius. Clay Lowry, thank you very much for being with us. Uh. You know, when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau celebrates Canada's birthday, he's going to be doing it under this cloud of trade wars with the United States. What effects do you think is going to have on a long lasting relationship between the United States and Canada, and

what do you think the economic fallout is going to be. Well, first of all, thanks for having me, UM. In terms of the UH our relationship with Canada, it's based on one mutual respect that we've had for a long time between our two countries. So UM. I worry obviously that the trade war aspect that you mentioned, UM could affect

specific businesses. UM, but I'm hopeful that UM, while there has been some pretty um, not so great rhetoric between our two leaders of our country over the last few months, that uh, you know, cooler heads will prevail and we'll be able to start coming to agreement on how we want our relationship to go forward. So I have a lot of respect for the Canada, obviously respect my own country, and so I think I'm hopeful that that will work

out in the end. As to the specific economic issues, I think it's much more going to be a microeconomic story, which is a problem because, of course, UM, it's going to hit specific businesses. You mentioned a bunch of different industries at the lead into this story, UM, and they're

being hit. They're not just being hit by Canada, they're being they're getting tariffs by a lot of other countries around the world, and there's a lot of businesses that export, and it's not exactly surprising that the countries are hitting back when we're putting tariffs on them for fairly dubious reasons. You know, claim, I'm so glad you're with us today because you have the deep experience with some of these trade relationships that will actually give us an informed view

of fairness. You know, we hear a lot about how the US has an unfair trading partnership with the rest of the world. Where do you see the biggest inequities and are we moving closer to solving those? So? UM, I'm not look, I think that having an unfair trading relationship, I'm not sure we actually have that. UM. I know that that is the president's contention, and there's other people that believe very strongly in what he says, and I

give them due credit for that. But the UM, I think what we should be always striving to do is to try to better ourselves by making you know, opening up our opening up markets, making sure we have good rules of the road so that we can figure out how do we get our products into other countries and by the way, allow their their products to get into our country because that actually helps our consumer um and

it helps our exporters. So I think that what I would be doing and I'm not is I'd be focusing on how to work with those countries in a way to actually get better and more positive as opposed to what we're right now doing, which is much more negative, which is we're putting caraffs on a number of countries around the world. We did it on steel and aluminum, We're threatening to do it on auto imports. UM. And the one country that really has been probably most most

problematic has been China. And instead of actually trying to take a coordinated approach with a lot of our allies who have some of the same similar problems with China, were instead hitting those same allies UM. And I that that part of the negotiating tactics I don't get. But I'm not the president and I'm not his negotiators, Clay Lowry.

While we're having these war of trade uh words, I guess because nothing is set in stone, at at least not in the moment um, China seems to be moving just as rapidly ahead with its trade ties, let's say with Latin America. Indeed, I believe if you go to Panama right now at the sort of promontory right at the opening of the newly widened Panama Canal in which the first ship was a Chinese to go through it, Uh, the Chinese have secured land to build their new embassy.

Is that going to be emblematic of what happens in the future if this trade war continues. It's not exactly surprising. I mean, if if a, if your country is being hit by the United States on certain exports, um, why would you not instead try to find new sources of

of of exports that yourself, um what expert markets yourself? Um. For instance, I remember talking to a Canadian company which basically was saying, boy, these steel tariffs are really going to hit us hard because we import from the United States and we won't be able to do that anymore. Instead, what we're going to do is try to find other sources.

And it turns out there are a lot of other steel producers in the world, and so uh, they're now going to be instead of h buying US deal, which was easy because of course there weren't really tariffs and it's right next door. Now that there's a tariff on that, they were like, well, we can pay for the shipping costs to come from other parts of the world instead. And so what you were saying about Panama is not surprising that people are looking elsewhere than just the United States.

We're still the biggest player out there, but we're not the only player. So just about a minute left here, I'm just wondering you advise clients on the trade backdrop, what do you tell them, Well, we're I mean, the main thing is, look, it's been a it's been a very bumpy ride, and I think trade clients are very concerned about uncertainty, and the uncertainty is hurting their business.

So in some respects, a lot of the tariffs have not actually gone into place yet, but the threat of tariffs has happened and that is actually already affecting their business. So now with the tariffs in place, it will affect that more directly. Um And the only thing we can say is, right now, it's hard to see the plan that is in place from the administration, So continue to prepare for alternatives um U as the administration thinks to

its plans. But Basically, there is very little consistency. So because of that, you have to kind of prepare for inconsistency. Clay Lowery, thank you so much for being with us.

Clay Lowry as Managing director of Rock Creek Global Advisors in Washington, d C. His resume is very full of government experience with trade, both with chairing the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States known as Cyphius, as well as serving as the Assistant Secretary for International Affairs the US Treasury Department from two thousand five to two thousand and nine. I want to turn our attention now

to video games and bringing Felix Gillette. He's a writer for Bloomberg business Week, and he wrote a story that caught my attention. First of all, was a cover story for Bloomberg Business Week and it has to do with Nintendo, and I gotta say, Felix, first of all, thank you very much for coming in. I did not know that the company was a hundred and thirty years old, and I really found it was fascinating that you managed to

go to the Nintendo headquarters. Maybe just describe what you experienced when you went there, and then we'll talk about Super Mario and video games. Yeah, I had the opportunity to go to Kyoto and interview uh, top executives and gamemakers at at Nintendo. They don't do this very often.

I mean the whole setup is basically, if you're a Western reporter and you say, hey, I want to write about the company, and say, oh, great, go talk to the head of Nintendo of America's of the you're in the U S or bere in Europe, They'll say, oh, go to our executive is in Europe. Um. They don't do too much individual press. So it was a great experience.

I will say. In the you know, fifteen years I've been a journalist, this story took longer to set up the interviews than any other story I've ever worked on. So but but described so I got there and uh, it was not what I expected. I mean, it's this essentially, you go to the headquarters and the R and D building, which is these two buildings a couple of blocks away. They're these white minimalist cubes and they're so perfectly quiet, and you know, just there's no Mario stuff anywhere. There's

no uh post donkey cough, there's just nothing. It's just you know, it's very, um, you know, quiet serene environment from which all of these crazy, this huge fountain of games has been flowing now for you know, hundred and thirty years. One thing that I thought was so interesting full disclosure is a mother of two boys. I think of video games is sort of mindless and a place where you go and sort lose yourself with a little

sort of redeeming value. I'm totally exploring my bias now publicly. Um. But the feeling of whimsy and and creativity and and just sort of rooted in history that you really captured here. Yeah, I mean it's got Nintendo has this incredibly rich gamemaking culture, um. And the company was there at the start of this, you know, this whole art form of video game making, uh in the late nineties seventies, and their first you know, very talented GameMaker, UH Shigeru Miyamoto, who made Donkey Kong,

which was their first globally huge, hugely successful game. He's still at the company, he hasn't left, and he just mentors, you know, generation after generation of these game makers they come in and in some ways it's very reminiscent of the entire artisanal culture for which Kyoto is known. I mean you can go around Kyoto and you can go visit these studios and see these classical crafts of you know, um, bamboo making, whatever it is that go back centuries, and

it's a similar system. There's a master craftsman and there's always an apprentice learning. And it's very much this system, this tension between you know, learning the traditional craft but also pushing it forward. And the same thing happens in Nintendo basically. And when you talk to the senior gamemakers and Nintendo, they all say they always differ the praise down to the newcomers. They say, no, you know, this

wouldn't be possible. Yeah, you know, we've been part of these franchises Mario, Zelda that have been around for thirty years now, but it really wouldn't be possible. We didn't have these young gamemakers coming in and pushing these traditions forward with each new console. Tell us about one of these. Tell us about Switch. So Switches the console that Nintendo came out with last year. It's been very successful. It's

a more it's a hybrid system. You can hook it up to your TV and then you can also take it with you out, you know, in the subway or the airplane or whatever. UM, and it's been hugely successful. And Nintendo is this kind of fascinating company where it goes through these big boom and bus cycles. And before the Switch came out, you know, they've been in one of these lulls where people were saying, Ah, these guys are you know, they're like BlackBerry, They're like Sega their doom.

They can't keep up with you know, the mobile phone era. They're never going to have another hit product. And lo and behold, Switch comes out and gamers go crazy for it. Um. And it's been the biggest thing in video game industry for the past year and a half. And now you know, Nintendo's kind of back on top. The revenue more than doubled during this past fiscal year. UM. They had this

incredible lineup of very popular games. Again, these re reimagined versions of these franchises that have now been going for third years. I played as a kid in nineteen eighties. Uh, their new versions now the kids are playing. Felix to Lett. Thank you so much for being with us. It's a really terrific story. And uh, I'd love to hear more about your trip Frankly feelings to let writer for Bloomberg

Business Week. Joining us here in our eleven three oh studios, we talked a lot about Amazon and it's foury into the pharmaceutical business. A lot of the shares of possible competitors sold off today. Interestingly, the sell off is continuing, at least with respect to CVS and Express Scripts. Joining us now to talk about the consequences of Amazon UH in just lowering drug prices is Michael Ray, pharmacist, founder and chief executive officer of our X Savings Solutions. Michael,

thank you so much for being back with us. I just want to get your view from the outset. When you heard that Amazon was getting into this industry with its latest purchase UH, did you think that this would materially lower drug prices in a near term. Well, I think that it will, and I think that the way the angle that they've decided to take into the market is UH is going to make that a swift more swift, you know, opportunity to do something in the near term.

Buying a group like Tillpack that really is is centered around convenience and logistics. UM with pharmacy licenses in place allows them to make a big move quickly. Why do you think that someone else didn't scoop up pill Pack previously. Well, I know there was rumors that that Walmart was was kind of in the hunt. In the hunt, Um, you know why they didn't. I don't know if it came down to price or or what the what the deal

structure looked like. But it's a tremendous asset for anybody that's looking to materially affect the affect the pharmacy game, especially as it relates to to being you know, home delivery inconvenience for for seniors. Yeah, we actually Bloomberg News did report that Walmart actually stole it a our got it stolen away from it the pill pack purchase when Amazon came along and outbid them. Um, I just do want to get your sense, Michael about exactly how Amazon

will lower prices materially given this purchase. Well, I think that you know, the famous Jeff Bezos quote of your margin is my opportunity really rings true here. Amazon is a tremendous, tremendously big company. Uh. They don't enter markets. Uh, they're small or with the intent of doing things in business as usual. There's also this you know, uh strong belief that there's a tremendous amount of excess uh waste in the supply chain when it comes to pharmacy. So

I believe that is what they will attack. UM. You know, Amazon has such a strong brand with consumers, you know, the ability to capitalize on the brand that they've already built and add drugs to that allows them to just you know, service more and more people and and and do so in a way that's convenient and easy. Can you just give us a sense of what that access is in the pharmaceutical industry? Well, if you look at the supply chain you've got you know, your manufacturers, your wholesaler's,

your your pharmacy benefit managers, and your retailers um. Each of those depending on the drug you know, there's there's profit built into each of those transactions. Is as the drugs move um, how much is enough is a question that's often asked. I think, you know, like I said, Amazon will come in and attack those those high margin areas UM and do so in a way that could you know, really affect the pharmacy landscape and in a

short amount of time. Michael, what role do you think Alexa and Whole Foods will be playing in this, you know, I don't think Whole Foods, I don't. I don't think they're looking to create another retail network. I think that they're trying to build on what their core strengths are, and that's logistics and moving moving products and making it

easy for consumers. Um as far as Alexa, I think, you know, voices definitely something you know, we've worked a lot on at our company and have that function in our app. It's something that people like to use, and as those technologies get better, doctors will use them, consumers will use them much more than they do today. I think we'll look back in five years and say, alex or similar products I have have really taken uh taken

a huge uh really added convenience to the to the process. Michael, I'm curious what you think Amazon's next step will be in terms of its fore into the health care industry. Well, I can only speculate, um, Yeah, but you can speculate from an educated place, knowing exactly how much information and access you have once you get into the drug the

drug supply chain. Yeah, I mean I would I would guess that they'll start out with you know some of the some of the easier components of of managing drug benefits. I think that you know, cash cash generics have been floated around in the markets as something that you know, would be the kind of easy first step. I think that makes sense. Um. But you know, they're they're sophisticated, very smart organization. UM. I think they could attack it in a variety of ways. But this retail piece interfacing

with the consumer, uh, is a good first step. Michael, If you happen to be running a pharmacy right now, what do you take away from this week's announcement and what should you do? Give you that thirty seconds. Yeah, I think there's going to be tremendous margin compression on profits. How quickly that happens is to be seen. But you know, I think as we've seen, CVS and Walgreens are both down ten um in the market, and that I think

that's indicative. And if I was running my own, you know, kind of independent pharmacy, I'd feel the same pressure that those guys are experiencing in the public market. Thanks very much for being with us. Michael Ray is a pharmacist. He's also the founder and the chief executive of our ex savings solutions, talking about drug prices, pharmacies, and the effects of Amazon dot Com purchasing a pill pack to see what happens to the brick and mortar pharmacies as

a result of this acquisition as well. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg P and L podcast. You can subscribe and listen to interviews at Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, or whatever podcast platform you prefer. I'm pim Fox. I'm on Twitter at pim Fox. I'm on Twitter at Lisa Abramo. It's one before the podcast. You can always catch us worldwide on Bloomberg Radio