Paul Ryan Talks Elections and Populism

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It feels like geopolitics and politics domestically and abroad are all over the place.

Good morning, Frenzy, Nice to see you as well. Yeah, I think they are all over the place. I'm here in London as vice chairman of TENEO, a CEO advisory firm, and we're basically advising our clients who see a lot of unpredictability on the horizon and they're trying to scenario plan for which way various governments are going to go. It's a little easier to predict here, I think than it is in my country, which is a razor thin polling an election, and it's just hard to determine who's

So can you talk to us about those scenarios. Is it impossible to know who will win come November now?

Yeah, I think it's just too close to call if you really want to look at it. If this thing is tied in polling going into the election, which is probably the likeliest of scenarios because right now Trump is polling at peak, Biden is pulling below his is peak performance. Let's just assume Democrats come home at the end of the day as they typically do. It's probably going to be a few hundred thousand voters in about five or six states that will determine the occom of this election.

My state of Wisconsin is one of those.

Trump won it by twenty five thousand votes out of one point six one million cast in twenty sixteen, and then he lost it to Biden by twenty thousand votes.

It's just that close.

And this is what campaigning what makes a difference. Is it, you know, the candidates showing up or is it big policies.

On their turnout campaigning candidates showing up the ground game way as we describe it, and getting your turnout organization going. But really, at the end of the day, it comes down to the new swing voter in America, which is

That he got. It's just that close.

There's probably going to be Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia, Pennsylvania.

So too close to call.

What close to call what weapons If Donald Trump is in the White House.

On tax policy, personally, I think it will be much better, and a lot of a lot of executives sy it that way, because we have to remember that our tax law that we wrote in twenty seventeen, on the individual side of that tax code has many expiring provisions, some of which hit small and medium sized businesses, and then we have some corporate provisions like research and development, tax credit expensing provisions.

Those are all for grabs.

The next presidency will help determine what happens there. So you know Trump's going to be more pro business on taxes. Biden is proposing to get rid of those things. And then it comes to tariffs. Trump's proposing a lot of tariff increases. Biden hasn't reduced the Trump tariffs. He's continued those terriffs. But I don't think he's proposing a whole new range of tariffs with respect to everything but China and trying to you basically have a bipartisan consensus.

So you've called Donald Trump onfit for office. Are you surprised at the amount of money of Wall Street titans behind Trump?

No, because I think it's too close to call.

And I think people are basically trying to hedge their bets into They don't know who's going to win the White House, so I think they want to basically make sure that they understand which direction the country's going to go and which administration which they do not.

Know, will take place.

That's what we basically help our clients at TANAO do, which is, you know, if what's trade going to look like another administration, what are regulation is going to look like, what's mergers and acquisitions? And I trust going to look like etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, And right now it's just too tight to see. So you have to plan for both contingencies.

Okay, how much how often do you get asked about budgets and the debt?

Ste that's my hobby horse, that's my biggest That's what I used to do in Congress, I was fiscal policy is my thing. I'm very concerned about this. The reason I'm one of the reasons why I'm frustrated, irustrated like many Americans about our choices for president, is neither is proposing to do anything about a come debt crisis in our country. Our debt is already as large as our economy. It's going to go nowhere but twice as big as that.

So what's a short period of time in the next.

Six months after we're done cutting interest rates?

So if you're going into an interest rate cutting environment, you're gonna be able to sell your bonds. Jaypol just said he's going to do only one rate cut this year. Let's just assume it's in December, and then a number of rate cuts if all things work according to plan in twenty twenty five. So the question is, by let's just assume, say twenty twenty six. It's really hard to put a finger on these things. Do we have clarity

If you've provided they're substantial.

And that's in my opinion, the best way we get out of short of Congress actually doing his job and fixing this problem, is the way we get out of the ditch.

What are the.

Chances of Congress actually taking a more, I guess fiscally responsibly approached and trying to fix it.

Well, Y, remember we have to have economic growth, and if you have a massive tax increase on businesses and individuals, you can really harm growth. My guess is we're going to have divided government of some form. It's pretty clear to me that we're going to win the US Senate because of the way the Senate map is laid out.

So let's just.

Assume for the sake of argument, we have divided government. I think that's the likeliest assumption, and then you're going to have to have a negotiation on tax policy in the next session of Congress. And what that looks like is basically what we try to help scenario plan. But

So you could have a tax.

Rate on small businesses medium sized business as high as forty six percent. In this forty four point six percent in America and that's that would be a massive tax increase on businesses. I don't think anybody wants to see that happen. But there's not clarity as to whether or not they're going to fix this or not.

Well, when you go around and speak to chief executives, what is the one thing that they actually underestimate? I don't know whether it's geopolosy. We have Putin also meeting with you know, in North Korea's jim Own. Is that going to trade change trade relations across the world, and is that what we're underestimating.

I think uncertainty is the number one problem. So there's so much uncertainty. There's geopolitics, there's NATO, there's Ukraine, there's Putin, there's there's there's conflict with China, you have you have a war in the Middle East, and then also by the way, you have a bunch of tariffs that are being proposed. So you just don't know what's going to happen. We don't know what anti trust laws are going to look like. If Biden gets the second term, is you're

You tell them? Just be nimble and prepared for.

Yeah, here's what DOR one looks like. Here's what door two looks like. You you want to you want to continue Z plan for both both scenarios.

Yeah, but how impossible is it to say, actually what door one looks like? Given the unpremative ability of Donald Trump at the past.

It's out getting into all the details.

I think on tax and regulatory policy, it's pretty predictable. On tariffs, just listen to what he's proposing. I think it's just that clear. And then you have to plan accordingly. On regulations. With Biden, I don't think you should expect him to do anything different than what he's doing now, which is a lot of regulations. I think if Trump gets in, you have less regulations, so you have to go through all those kinds of scenarios.

What's your Republican party going to look like? I mean, you were once one of the great hopefuls. Do you see still a place for you in it?

Well, I am still a Republican of course, I consider myself an anti establishment Republican. Take Trump has taken over the Republican Party, it's really a populism without any anchor to principles. I'm a big believer that you want your party pledging fidelity to a set of principles and policies that solve problems versus a person And I don't think

Those ideas forward.

That's not the conversation we're having right now, but he's gonna be. If Trump wins, he's a one term president. He cannot have a second term because he already had one. So I just don't think it's durable, and I think we're going to have to have, you know, a real, real calling as to what we stand for.

And if he doesn't win, is that when you have that Congress, that happens sooner rather than later.

And who do you think, I mean, where do you see that's a.

Goodque we have a great bench of talent.

We have a lot of really good effective governors. We've got a bunch of new people that have come to Congress. So I'm not worried about our death of our talent pool. It's just the shadow that Trump casts over our party is dominant. And when that shadow goes, whether it's in one or four years, then you're going to have a more lively discussion about what is the conservative movement in America?

What does the Republican Party stand for?

So crypto, you're also a believer, kind of a proponent of crypto.

Where do you see it?

I think blockchain has a lot of use cases central banks. Yeah, so, well, what I proposed the other day is that we should advance stable coin legislation because stable coins actually creates a lot of new demand for US debt. So we talked to Submitted earlier about potential treasury auction failures. What it would be nice if we created more demand for our debt and if we had a law which by parison, this is by partisan support for in Congress, to advance

Problems as well.

Does that happen under Trump? Provide?

I think it happens out there either because it has by partisan support.

It's really a matter of if not when