Surveillance: Trump Is a Populist, Not Fascist, Ferguson Says

Find Bloomberg Surveillance on iTunes, SoundCloud, Bloomberg dot Com, and of course, on the Bloomberg Good Morning David Gura with Tom Keene on Bloomberg Surveillance from Bloomberg Radio. It's Friday, Finally Friday, Veterans Day, eleventh of November, the day after Mr Trump went to Washington a meeting between the President and the President elect. A meeting that was scheduled to last ten minutes went on for ninety and the Dow hit records is. Donald Trump made his way down Pennsylvania

Avenue up Capitol Hill, where lunch was served. Donald Trump and the next Vice president broke bread with Paul Ryan

from the House Speaker's balcony. They surveyed the city and then they hammered out plans with Majority leader Mitch McConnell, and all the while the president elect transition team worked to allay uncertainty new reports of who's being considered for Treasury Secretary David Malpass reportedly heading up the search for the economic team, Tom Barrack reportedly handling plans for the next inauguration, and a post on Great Again dot gov

the transition team's website. The closest closest thing to a policy pronouncement we've gotten since election day that's still to be named Financial Services Policy Implementation Team. Quote. We'll be working to dismantle the Dot Frank Act and replace it with new policies to encourage growth and job David, But I'm glad you did that introduction, and may we do

a Friday shoutout to our team, please do that. We had both Mr mal Pass and Mr in this week to give perspective before they got that where they got that we don't do this. I mean, David does all the work. I just sort of show up and have a cup of coffeens. But our team just killed it this week. David absolutely just killed The guests affiliated with both campaigns and the outside perspective as well has just been tremendous all through the week term it is two

thousand sixteen, the year of the improbable. According to our first guest, know Ferguson, renowned award winning historian, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, kind enough to join us today from London. Good to have you with us. Donald Trump saying that this was going to be Brexit times ten a couple of days out. Now give your reaction to what we've seen here, and if the context

it give us, if that assessment was valid. Well, unlike the vast majority of of people who were writing and talking about the selection, I took that seriously and that that was I think because I was suffering from post Brexit traumatic stress disorder, having been on the wrong side of the Brexit campaign in the UK uh and having working up to the most almighty shock, I recognized very familiar symptoms in the United States in the run up to the election, and I said in my column and

The Boston Globe on Monday that I thought Trump was likely to prove the pundits wrong by winning from very many of the same reasons that that breaks. It happened.

It's it's an interesting thing populism because although it's quite nationalistic in its tone, it's kind of a global phenomenon that you see in multiple countries right now, and it's a backlash against globalization in some ways, because obviously Trump was playing the cards of protectionism, talking about tariffs, restricting immigration. He was beating up on the corrupt political establishment that

he's clearly eager to distance himself from. But I think the other interesting thing about populism is it's cultural dimension. It is a backlash against political correctness, feminism, it's a back lash against affirmative action, black lives matter, it's a it's a backlash against the whole range of cultural and social things, which I think explains it's it's potency. It was a wonderful column which you alluded to Thomas Wolfe talking about the every four year confluence of the election

in the World Series. You called Donald Trump the Maverick picture. How did he pitch a perfect game? Yeah? I love that passage. When I came across it. I'm a Thomas wolf enthusiast, and I remembered this passage where he says, there's something about the way Americans watched the World Series and watch the the presidential election. That's similar. They kind of love getting into the contest, but at the end of it, they kind of peacefully leave, as it were

at the stadium. And I think on the whole, that is how Americans are reacting to Trump's victory, just as they reacted to the Chicago Cubs victory. It's only a tiny minority of people who are engaging in these ludicrous protests. So I think the analogy is a good one because what Trump did, apart from sticking at it. Remember, the stamina was the thing that gave the Cubs of the World Series. They just hung on in there to the very last inning. They never gave up, and Trump never

gave up. I was impressed by his stamina. He always seemed relaxed on the stump. He never really lost his his self confidence in on the campaign trail. The only times I thought he really was losing it, we're in the three debates with Hillary Clinton, and I prematurely wrote him off after Debate three, and then realized that actually, two people in Middle America, these debates had had counted for almost nothing because they were much more interested in

you guessed at the World Series. Ferguson with us and Villan Bouder to come on here in a moment, Professor Ferguson, I do want to move forward to the forming of a cabinet. We talked of this earlier. You're Wonderful one volume. Dr Kissinger, where he was, he was known, and he was a celebrity. But it was unimaginable that a Rockefeller republic and or adviser, I should say, would join the

gentleman from Woodrior, California. Help me here with cabinet formation from Mr Trump in the lessons you learned in researching Henry Kissinger, Well, I think one lesson, certainly from night is that you don't get a job in the administration just because you were a faithful servant on the campaign trail. And many people are, i think, making the erroneous assumption that Donald Trump is simply going to hand out the big jobs to the people who were with him through

thick and thin. I'm not sure that's necessarily the case, and indeed, I think it would be a mistake because he has the opportunity to do what Richard Nixon did in sixty eight, which is to reach out to his opponents. Kissinger had repeatedly criticized Nixon. He was a Rockefeller loyalist. He'd been on Rockefeller's side through three unsuccessful bids for the Republican nomination, and he was astonished when Nixon offered

him the bob of National Security Advisor. In fact, he was so surprised he didn't realize he'd been offered the job. He went to Rockefeller and said, what should I do? And Rockefeller said, are you crazy? It's the President of the United States who's or the President elect of the United States who has just offered you this job. You have to serve. And I think Trump should play that card in order to make sure that he is the strongest possible team on national security and on economic policy.

Those are the things by which he is going to be judged, and I think if he relies only on Rudy Giuliani, Chris Christie new ging Rich and so forth, then I don't think the team, with all due respect to those gentlemen, will be strong enough. Remember, it's a huge challenge if you're a political outsider who's antagonized large

sections of the Republican Party to staff an administration. Trump's biggest challenge right now will be persuading people that he is going to be a respectable president, somebody that they will be proud to have worked for. I think he's going to be able to do it, but he should take full opportunity, busy of this chance to reach out to people who criticized him, and I've seen him do that.

I've actually been very struck by his magnanimous tone, the almost humble way in which he interacted with President Obama. I'm I'm relatively optimistic that the administration that emerges in the coming days will be a lot more mainstream, uh than the critics of the Trump campaign were predicting. There was this never Trump letter. There were letters from emissions and foreign policy experts and did you signed it as well? How? How?

How never is never here? When you talk to folks who have signed that letter, you talked about bringing opponents on on board? Here one one time opponents on board? Here? Are they willing to bend? Are they willing to to backtrack on that? Would they be willing to serve in a Donald Trump administration? Well? I can't speak for other

signatories of that letter. UM. I do recollect a recent conversation I had with some eminence military n and they were men who had distanced themselves or at least declined to be involved in the Trump campaign, but their view was that if called upon to serve by our president elect Trump, that was a different thing. Because when the President of the United States calls on you to serve,

you don't really have a choice. It's your duty. And I suspect that there will be people civilians with experience of government who will take the same view that the never Trump letter back in March reflected. I think grave concern on the part of many foreign policy experts that things that Trump was saying, we're just crazy, dangerous and response.

So let's do this. Let's come back and continue with Professor Ferguson, Professor Powder will join us in a moment worldwide, this is Bloomberg, David gerin time, keen with us, Neil Ferguson, and we just can continue on here after the most historic week. But you know, I really think for our audience worldwide, we need to drive forward to the winter in the spring of Europe. We have seen Brexit. You have been remarkably open and naked about how you got

it wrong. We have seen the history of this America and now thinkers staggered Italy, they staggered to France. I don't know where else they stagger. I can't get up with the Netherlands. Help us here, neil is free. Zakaria beautifully put in foreign affairs with a cultural revolution of our populism. Well, I'm not sure cultural revolutions quite the right analogy. That was Mao's attempt to turn China's society upside down by unleashing the youth against uh, the establishment.

This is something different because, of course, young voters were decisively defeated in both breaks Is and the US election. Uh. You know that the trouble about most of the instant after game analysis is that it misses key points. By emphasizing, for example, the role of of race in the election, a lot of commentators are missing the importance of class. They're also missing the importance of age. The thing that

didn't matter too much, by the way, was gender. It didn't really matter that Hillary Clinton was a woman, because in fact she didn't win a majority of white female votes, but age mattered. In Europe, you have similar phenomena where older voters, more working class voters, male voters are looking at the world of globalization and multiculturalism and saying enough already. They have had enough of large scale migration, they have had enough of free trade, they have had enough of

very free capital flows so on economics. They are ready for a backlash against globalization. At the same time, all over the Northern hemisphere they have had enough with multiculturalism. They're actually rather sick of feminism. There's a backlash going on here that is also cultural, but it's not a cultural revolution of the sort we saw in China in the nineties, sixties and seventies. This is actually a cultural revolution by older demographics against the fashions that appeal to

the young. The lunacies that you see on American campuses these days that trigger warnings and safe havens, strike the people in main street in Middle America and their equivalents in Europe, but simply bonkers. And I think that's a very important part of what's going on in the populist wave we're seeing. It's a it's a populist ties and

in each country you have a different wave. Noticed I said Northern Hemisphere, didn't I that's because populism is a spent force in the Southern hemisphere, especially in Latin America, where it's been tried and found not to work. A few people I can think of have wrestled with, reckoned with globalization as much as you have. What does globalization look like after January seventeen? Is it? Is it notionally different?

After what we've seen in the UK, what we've seen here in the U S. Well, globalization has been in measurable declined since the financial crisis. I mean, if you just look at volumes of trade, if you look at capital flows, it really is it's past, it's its peak. And the question I guess we have to ask is just how much deglobalization is they're going to be? In other words, are we going to see a return to protectionism? Is Trump serious about tariffs some Chinese imports? How much

is immigration going to be restricted? Those are the questions we need to ask. And I think it's helpful here to know some history. The world is full of people who only seem to know one period of history, and it's the nineteen thirties. So whatever happens, it's the nineteen thirties. They see a dictator, it's the nineteen thirties. There's stock market crash, it's the nineteen thirties. And this is not

the nineteen thirties. In the nineteen thirties, unemployment rates got up into the twenty percent to thirty percent range and stayed there for years. We have practically full employment in the United States, which makes it kind of odd to talk about massive infrastructure investment. But hey, European economies have recovered from the crisis much more slowly. But the only country that really had a great depression type experience was Greece. Ain't no great depression going on in Germany, I can

assure you. So let's stop drawing silly analogies with the nineteen thirties. Let's stop comparing the populace to Hitler and Mussolini. Please, I beg you don't do it, because it's the wrong analogy.

The right analogy is with the last time globalization. Here to speed bump, which was in the late nineteenth century after the seventy three financial crisis, when all over the Northern hemisphere, populist movements sprang up that were against free trade and were against free migration, and they achieved quite a lot. They raised tariffs in the United States, they

restricted immigration pretty drastically. Think of the eight two Exclusion Act, which ended Chinese immigration to the United States, and the populist wave lasted for somewhere in the region of ten or twenty years, and then it gave way to a progressive wave. And I think that's a much more illuminating analogy. I've said this ad nauseum. I want to say it to your listeners. Donald Trump is not a fascist. He is a populist. Fascists invade countries, they do war. Populists

do drug wars. They build walls, that's what they do. We are out of time, you know. Ferguson, thank you so much, most generous of you this morning to be with us from our London studios. David Gern, Tom Keane a Friday to regroup and get to the weekend into Monday morning. Stay with us worldwide. This is Bloomberg. Can we say, David, thank you to our guests led by

Professor for repeated visits and lengthy visits. They have things to do during the more not really and we're who You're honored the villa here, David, why don't you start with the lan powder this morning? Well, let me get your reaction. First of all, we were talking a few days ago ahead of this election and the scenarios that most were predicting here were different from the one that we we saw coming to play on on Tuesday night.

Your reaction here to to what we've seen, maybe not from the political perspective, but well, in addition to UH Trump as president, the Republicans have control of both so they will be able, they should be able to pass some kind of stimulus fiscal stimulus at some point, UH if you'll have the mind effects, ganging effects, and hopefully if it's targeted well, will help attential output a bit

as well. This means higher interest rates uh uput sloping Yold curve effects on equity and principle and vegas because the fiscal stimulages in the future, so brates go up, but of course profits go up in the future as well, so the markets have decided that the stimulus outweighs the rate effects, so the stock market has gone whoop. See also partly driven by expectation of deregulation in key industries like energy, environmental angle here and financial sector and possibly

some others. So all that seems to be drowning out the uncertainty that we're still feeling at the moment about both the the team and the politics which is negative for for demand, and of course the fear of protectionism, trade wars, and aggressive and immigrant policies which are all negatives.

But no doubt that on balance the future looks higher interest uh so, higher inflationary pressures and most likely also higher levels of GP grows in the short run because of the anticipated fiscal stimulus if and when it happens. You're navigating that ambiguity. Investors are navigating at the Fed Reserve navigating as well as as as you said, what does this mean for for the rate hike timetable here as policymakers wait to see what in fact will come

out of Capitol Hill, I don't think it make most difference. UM. Clearly UM. There is addition uncertainty, which is the only thing that we observe immediately. But there also is the expectation that this is not enough to send the economy into a downturn, and we can anticipate the fiscal stimulus coming online beginning with the tax cut sometime next year,

followed by UM infrastructure spending. So I think the fact will just go ahead and do what it was planning to do and raising in December and a couple more times next year or more if the fiscal stimulus should be earlier and larger than expected. The scize matter, this composition matter when it comes to that infrastructure package. Absolutely um. The size of course matter because that's a demand effect immediately.

Timing also matters. I mean that I don't know how many shop of any projects there are, and the composition was well, it's possible to select infrastructure project, especially in the country that has been staffed the infrastructure investment for the last forty years and has the worst infrastructure in the advanced economy. The returns can be enormous and they could pay for themselves unfortuately. In practice, a lot of infrastructure is wasted because it has to go through political filters.

It's often done at the state and local level with federal files. There is another good news. I got a memo from John Tucker about two am this morning. He said, thrilled the villain powders on time. Can you be sure to expand further your Hicksie and SLM discussion of last week? Yeah, because I didn't think enough people were listening. One of the high points last week with Professor Powder was to

look at the geometry. The professionals like Mr Bowder look at two try to describe the linkage of policy with his economics professor powder to and slate. President elect Trump is going to an effect the stimulus, some would, let say, much like what President elect Clinton would have done and shift the I S curve to the right in a

desperate move for greater economic growth and greater output. When that occurs, the I S curve moves and the other curve, the money curve, the L M curve move and things happen. And as you know, there's a massive uncertainty and ambiguity to what will happen down the road. What does he need to do to do stimulus and get us to a better outcome to three and four years down the road? John Tucker nodding, well, from a capacitilization perspective, only a

modest stimulus best is needed in the US. Unlike all the parts of the world, the US is very near full employment and uh for capacitilization, there's still some room. But a modest and intelligently designed fiscal stimulus with the tax cuts targeted and those actually like it is spended. It means low income groups, which is also distribution ly, I think more attractive, and then infrastructure spending in one of the many areas where the US needs its capacity

to become stronger. But of course potential output grows labor fourth grows proactivity growth that is very unlikely to be affected in a material way unless in addition to much larger increase in infrastructure spending, which could even be uh tax finance. Because it's potential output we're looking at. Um, there has to be an improvement in the quality of labor and in in private cap First. Krugman, who has written numerous times on John Hicks in a model nine,

would suggest go back to basic models. You and others have said the world's changed. If the world has changed, for President elect Trump, how does he take Washington policy and make for a better America When, as you mentioned, productivity is not there. Um the demand management it is

not the primary concerns for the US economy. Right. Yes, we can do as a bit of a fiscal stimulus multi policy basically from a bit but from a demand perspective, From a supply perspective, we need a lot of infrastructure spending. We need intelligence, taxual structuring, we need intelligence design, de regulation, and we need an open immigration policy that brings the

talent that America cannot produce in time domestically available. And we need of course great emphasis and education occasional training. These are also by side measures. They take time and they don't come out of you across the board. Price of this in FOLKUS has been a lot of great research on this recently. An Ambrose Evans Bridget as usual, summed it up beautifully yesterday in the Telegraph. The outcome

of this has to be strong dollar. Right when you talk to Steve Englander, I'm sorry, it's a dollar up is a dollar big, which diminishes the advantages the Republicans could give us. Inevitably, when you have a fiscal stimulus which puts up for pressure on capacitalization and on inflation, if you also allow them for the likely response of the Fed to this, the higher rate, you're going to

get stronger dollar out of that. And that is one of the ways in which actual demand is reconciled with limited potential output right, because it will discourage external demand through the through the stans of the dollar, which will offset a part of the fiscal statements. That's away economies

equilibrate um. If there was massive unemployment in the US very low compaculilization, then you could have a serious stimulus without necessarily any any crowding because the FED would not respond, and effect on long term rates would also be momodels on the exchange trade. But we're not there. The US is not an economy that suffers from a big changent problem at the moment. It suffers from a lousy supply side. When you think about in forecast would effect a stimulus

package like this might have. How do you weigh what Donald Trump has said about trade, what he might do with regard to trade, the risk here of trade wars with Mexico and China, how that might affect the economy overall. In other words, that could certainly dampen the effects of

the stimulus. If the actual statements that he has made during the campaign for punitive tariffs on China, twenty five of Mexico, other ten to aggressively bring UH jobs back to the to the U S, that would be a huge US negative vert to materialized in terms of activity, because there would be foreign retaliation and we could have a review of the thirties. I don't see this is going to happen. I think this was a part of the electoral rhetoric which bears very relation to what actually

will happened. But also both the Canadians and the Mexicans have already said yes, we're happy to talk, and this is just the opening of what will be long term trade and foreign direct investment. Enough that type negotiations that will no good last years, but that end that the result in some more protectionism, but very modest. Same for China. I don't think that either China or the US are

really interested in having a major trade ding dong. They are the two largest nations in the world, uh, the two largest raiding nations in the world, so they have a lot to lose. For a long time, many months now,

we've had conversations about the role of central banks. Now you have a Republican Congress, Republican House, Republican Senate that has not been shy about saying they intend to reign in the powers of the Federal Reserve tie inflation at sorry thie interest rate hikes to to the tailor rule, and etcetera. When you look at the role of the the Fed here under a Trump presidency, how constricted do

you think it will be by Congress? Oh, it depends on whether Congress legislator the kind of insanity that they were proposing, like the constraint the FED to follow a numerical tailor rule of some kind or whatever other rule. Now, I think operational independence for monetary policy, narrowly defined interest rates, banastete expansion um. Now that has to remain there. If that goes, then be be brilliant trouble, and I think it would be usually market negative. And now we digress

chair yelling. I would guess Professor Powder will serve a term. And of course the parlor game of who would be another FED chairman has come up, and of course the name of public service esteemed is John B. Taylor Stanford. He would bring in a regime of a more rules and stringent based approach. Give us an update on rules versus discretion right now. Chairman Greenspan the other day made

it clear he still stands with discretion. Can President elect Trump shift US towards a rules based New Zealand like Fellow Reserve? The New Zealand Fellow Reserve is not rules based in any mechanical sense. Rules and discretion and all alternatives you cannot have a complete rule that allows for all contingency said tells you how you should respond with your instruments interest rates que e q que to all

paeseeable circumstances. So that always has to be discretion in the sense that things will occur that we're not allowed for unexpected events and you still have to act. So but all you can do is try to give the

most guidance information about your objectives. And that's a clear from um the peder Reserve Act and from the qualtitative implementationals that the two percent inflation target and how you view the transmission mechanism as a policy making and then the markets can sit back and figure out how you're likely to act. I just ask that question because I wanted to get the fired up into cold new garden. Villain Bowder, thank you so much, not only for today, professor,

but for joining us over the recent weeks. Just extraordinary to have you in here and in coorse in this historical moment. I believe we got through that without talking about the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, that was root of us. Villain Bouder is a chief economist with City Group who you put your trust in matters. Investors have put their trust in independent registered investment advisors to the tune of four trillion dollars. Why they see their role is to serve,

not sell. That's why Charles Schwab is committed to the success of over seven thousand independent financial advisors who passionately dedicate themselves to helping people achieve their financial goals. Learn more and find your independent advisor dot com. A journey us Now Robert Sinch. We caught him in the backyard. He's out like on the back forty acres raking. And what's important, David Girl to understand. As you'd expect a guy like you know, since to have the Gardinia combas system,

spring wire rake. You know, you'd think you'd be more like organic and quiet. He's out there manning it with a husk of viron, a tech flower. That's money. How are the leaves this year? Bob Sinch? You know, Tom, you do some great thinking when you're doing manual labor. That so some of my some of my better ideas over the years have come doing doing mine somewhat somewhat mindless tasks. Bob Sinch has on a kitchen wall. Folks, the list of things he's been wrong on and it's

time for a victory lap. You got halfway to a one thirty sterling and I think like eight or nine or ten days one sixty six on sterling, Bob Sinch is extraordinary. How does that destabilize the political economic dialogue for Prime Minister may Well, I'll point out one other thing Tom, just in that in that context is that this is a stronger sterling against the dollar in the context of a much stronger dollar. So this really is

a pretty significant rebound for sterling. Um. I guess, I guess part of it is, uh, you know, the court process, the UK dragging on a little bit longer on the Brexit process than people have expected. Um. I also think the markets have found a different whipping boy to uh to tick on in terms of the currency markets. Obviously, the the pay so now is the one that's uh, the most favorite trade. But I do think, uh, what's happening to sterling is a little bit instructive about the

pay so right. When you get these discrete events that surprised the markets. Um, there's a big reversal of positions. That's the nature of surprises and markets because positions were upset, and there's an overshoot, and I think that's what happened in Sterling, and at some point that will happen in the pace three standard deviations on twelve months or so pay so chart right now, Bob Sinch, If I look at weaker pay so to a person, everyone's rationalizing the move.

I don't buy it. Currency depreciation to a nation is just that a depreciation. What is the effect to the people of Mexico of a weaker pay so. You know, we've seen Mexican inflation higher than the global average UM. Now, fortunately it's only been about three and a half percent or so. Interestingly, we've seen wages increasing about four and a half percent or so in Mexico, so actually real wages have been holding relatively steady. It's not clear that

will be the case going forward. It's not clear that wage rates can keep up with what's going to happen to higher prices, particularly for imported goods. But you know, but in general, a currency depreciation UM is pretty devastating for a population, particularly um uh in in developing economies where the investment in banking sectors maybe aren't as mature, and people in general don't have ways to protect themselves. And I think that's you know what we're going to

see a little bit in in Mexico going forward. We were focused on the optics yesterday, Bob of the President elect meeting with the President, going to Capitol Hill talking about a legislative agenda with the Speaker of the House and the Senate Majority leader. What do we what do we watch and what are we listening for here in the coming days? As as you as you think about how far the pacer might fall, well, I think the

first thing we're listening for is normalcy. Um. And I think that that you know, I think President Obama has has has told us that very well, this is an orderly transition of power. These things happen. Not everybody's happy. Um. The pace so I think in the short run has gotten caught in sort of a trifecta. Right. The FED now extremely likely to high grates in December. So that's a negative for the pay so positive for the dollar. Second,

oil prices have begun to retreat. We just had to report from the i e. A that non Opec production is going to be probably a bit a bit stronger, like a half a million barrels a day stronger than than this year, UM, and that's put some downward pressure on oil prices UH. And third, all the uncertainties surrounding what the trade relationship will be between Mexico and UH in the US. So in a sense sort of the fundamental backdrop from Mexico is even more serious than it

is for than it was for the UK. And I think we would have seen downward pressure on the Paso here because of oil prices and higher US rates UM, even if even if the election outcome had been different, probably not as serious, not record lows, but certainly that the fundamentals are not there too for anyone to step in and say, hey, these are great levels for me to buy the pace, Bob, thank you so much. We'll let you get back to your work on the lower

forty with the Huska Varna e Tech CCS engine. John Tucker, that's like it's pretty good. Now, that's not gonna do it. I mean, that's like moving. That's that's for rookies, rookie stuff. Chris Folks, I'm so adept. When was the last time I picked up a garden to old John Tucker? Nixon? Ris, President, did you continue strong with our guests on Disney way out front with caution. The headline is a fourth quarter stumble.

Rich Greenfield thinks it's more than a stumble used with B T, I G. I get ESPN, But Disney is Disney, or is it not? Give us an update? Look, ESPN is fort of Disney's operating earnings or the cable network division is fort of Disney's operating earnings, of which ESPN is by far the biggest part. And an ESPN is really struggling to grow. I mean that's the headline here, is that ESPN is facing growth challenges. It's got, you know, growing costs, and its revenue growth is slowing. Ratings are

a disaster. I mean, no one's watching Sports Center. NFL ratings are down sharply. They've got challenges, real challenges when they look ahead to their business. And I don't think consumers are coming back to multi channel, live linear television. I think there's just a new world out there. Earned everything we see industry wise points to more and more

people choosing actively not to pay for television. Rich, what have the comments that John Malone made yesterday at the deal Book conference here in Manhattan, saying he speculated that

Disney may want to divest itself of ESPN. You know, look, you know we thought a lot about, you know, how would you fix Disney's problems, and you know, you could almost undo I remember when I went to Goldman Sachs for the first month I was there, Disney bought cap Citi's ABC, and they got this little hidden gem at the time called ESPN that ended up obviously being the juggernaut of that transaction that was obviously twenty two years ago.

And you you look back and you go, you know, would it make sense to spin it off now and separate ESPN from Disney. It doesn't sound like the company has any desire to do that. You know, Disney last night basically said Bob Iger of Disney last night said he feels more confident in ESPN's future than investors. So that doesn't sound like someone was about to spin it off. That being said, you know, a strategic change that Disney probably would make a lot of sense given the chan

lenges they're facing. Rich I eavesdrop on the subway heard a couple of guys talking about how saturated the football season has become, how many football games there are, how much of this has to do, just with the fact that the NFL is giving us too much to watch. You know, I don't know, it's it's one of those things where I can't really put my finger on why ratings are are as weak as they are. People complaining about the officiating, people complain about the amount of commercials.

You know. Look, you look at epl over in Europe. You know Premier League, which is one of SIS favorite things in the whole world. Um, you know, Premier League ratings are down in the UK and there's no commercials. So I don't know if it's a commercial issue. I don't know if it's purely an election issue because you're dead TV. This is something, there's something going you know. It's not a tune in problem here. Here's the issue. Tune into its football is actually flat year over year.

The problem is tune out as soon as something is boring. You have so many choices. Everyone that's listening to your show, they're not to just watch a boring game. They can go do Netflix, they can go watch video games on Twitch. Like. You have an infinite number of options. And I just think at some point there's a breaking or tipping point we gotta do Twitch Tom, that's what's Rich Greenfield, thank you so much. We'll get you in for a much longer time here, Rich Greenfield. Bat. I think one of

the options is to watch Fox. Brett Bear scored special report with Brett Bear. Brett Dunwoodie, Georgia. You can go out to the kingswood United Methodist Church, the Kingsley Elementary School, you can go down Leon Wilmack Road to the Dunwoody Library and you can vote. My perception, Brett Bear, there's lots of people nodded politely or even paid lip service to the zeitgeist, and they went in the voting booth and they voted with a vengeance for Mr Trump. What

have you learned in the last two days? Yeah, good morning. I think you're exactly right, Tom, I think and not only that, but they came out and they didn't tell the exit polers um, you know, they didn't talk to him, and when they said, you know, who would you vote before, they didn't say And that skewed the results in a

number of states. And we realized midnight, you know, like during the night, about nine o'clock, the raw vote total was not lining up with the Asian pole numbers, and that's when we realized that you could have a president Donald J. Trump and just a surveillance. Shout out to Mr Bear's colleagu Chris Wallace, who actually allowed for a true debate to occur in the third debate. You wonder, as we look back at history, folks, how that changed

the dialogue You went on George Will last night. I think as essay in the Washington Post is the single best thing so far. He talks about demographics against the Republicans. In two thousand and twenty six, Brett Berry, your Georgia will be minority dominant. Mr Wills writing about not the end of the Republican Party, but a Republican Party in ascendency that has to wake up. How urgent is it?

It's urgent, But I'm hearing that there's going to be a President Trump that acknowledges that and deals with it.

I'm hearing that, in addition to passing a slew of economic bill rolls through an anxious and happy, excited Paul Ryan Um that he may President Trump may travel to these inner cities, uh and and speak to the problems of African American communities that have been left behind and if that happens, and if that message seeps in and stuff starts to change, you could have the Republican Party fighting back to be a fly on the wall in

the Oval Office. Yesterday when Donald Trump sat down with Barack Obama the first time the two men had met, a meeting schedules over tennis, David talks. Has the Oval Office wired? But you think of the history that these two men have, again, a history that that was something that played out, uh during in speeches during during debates, they hadn't met before. What did you make of of how they looked what they said yesterday in that pool

spray following the meeting yesterday at the White House. Yeah, I mean the words were good. I thought the image was interesting. I thought, you know, Donald Trump, a humble Donald Trump as he kind of looked. Um, I think there's going to be a period here where, first of all, the job and the the import of the job is going to sink in and um, there's a lot to absorb. He has his first presidential daily brief this morning, Donald Trump does, and um, there's it's it's a huge job.

And I think the enormity of it. I think he saw in his face and and for President Obama, I think it was magnanimous and gracious, and I think he's he's being accurate when he says he wants the transition to be smooth. I spoke with with former Congressman Eric Cantor the day after the election, and I said, this must be great for for the incoming president. He's got a Republican House, he's got a Republican Congress. And what Congressman Cantor said to me is, you've got a real

tension within the House. Especially there's this Kansie and push here for for stimulus, a lot of Republicans going along with that, but then there are Republicans who are champions of fiscal responsibility, and he doesn't think that it's all said and done here. What's what's your sense of how cohesive the Republican Party is going to be in the in the House especially, Yeah, I think it's a great point. I mean, you've got the White House, you've got the House,

you've got the Senate. You just don't have any excuses, there's no excuse to get what you want to get through, and there is a break. I do think that they're going to be going to be able to herd the cats because there has been this cloud over Republicans where they feel like they are just spinning awhee, Okay, many years then there's gonna be a cup of coffee between the gentleman from the Navy in Arizona, Mr McCain and

President elect Trump or President Trump. UM, tell me about filibuster, Brett Berry, you're a lot more wired into filibuster dynamics than I am. Is Mr McCain and others going to enjoy the art of filibuster? I don't think so. I think they're going to try to get to the things that they can get through first, and then they're going to kind of deal with the others. Doff. Now, remember you have five Democrats up for red seat re election uh in two years. They're going to be a lot

more willing to work with Republicans than than before. News broke yesterday that the White House is going to push for an element of Donn Frank to go through here. These are bonuses on financial service caps, on bonuses for financial services professionals. What else do you expect we'll see here during this lame duck session. If there's not a whole lot of movement in Congress. What do you think the White House is going to try to get done

before January? Boy, I can't imagine anything of of significance getting through. Um I I really don't even think that there's going to be much at all. You know, obviously, if it was a President Clinton, it was going to they were going to try to move Marck Garlan. But uh, none of that is moving Red Bear, thank you so much. Special report with Red Bear, And of course we have our Sunday shows. We are thrilled to bree you the work of the morning Bloomberg Radio in the afternoon, all

the different Sunday in the show's Fox News Sundays. For listening to the Bloomberg Surveillance podcasts, subscribe and listen to interviews on iTunes, SoundCloud, or whichever podcast platform you prefer. I'm out on Twitter at Tom Keene. David Gura is at David Gura. Before the podcast, you can always catch us worldwide. I'm Bloomberg Radio. Who you put your trust in? Matters? Investors have put their trust in independent registered investment advisors

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