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But first, a briefing on your Washington Henrietta Trees where Anna joins us from VEDA Partners. This morning, Henrietta, we could do a two hour conversation. I got about eight minutes here is well, how's a Secretary of Defense doing inside the Beltway?
There are reasons for Hegsith to be very concerned. One of the biggest things I'm going to be watching when the Senate gets back into session on Monday night is whether Republican leadership feels compelled to call Hegxith or other Defense Department officials to the Senate for hearings. There are three Republican senators who got obviously very perturbed by the President's commentary his sort of end of civilization talk over
the last couple of days. That would be Senator John Curtis, a Republican from Utah, Lisa Murkowski, and the tried and true efforts of Rand Paul. But what I think really stands out we should be watching for is whether Hegsith gets called up to brief the committees in public. I think that's a real risk.
I look at the news slow, Henrietta and maybe an open question.
Her.
Paul's got like he's got a list over here. He's like Scarlett fut Scarlett taught you this. I've got eight questions lined up, Henrietta, an open question. What is your question to the Trump administration and to the president this morning?
I mean, my question is, you had seven more days to wage this war? Why did you box yourself in the strait is closed? The President's talking about a joint venture, which seems preposterous and would raise taxes on gas globally if ultimately it comes true. He had all the way until at least midway through next week to continue perpetuating the war. I want to know why there was an
early drawdown. He talked himself into this massive escalation after for eight hours, and it was totally unnecessary politically, has all the way until, you know, at a minimum Wednesday of next week, before war Powers resolution would come up, before any kind of political leache would be put on him. And I think they had until five dollars gasoline. So he stopped this pretty quickly. He didn't need to. And I think that's really interesting.
So what brings us to that brings us obviously to this ceaspire or Henrietta, what do you make of it? What's the feeling in Washington, DC? About this seaspire and maybe where we go from here.
It's really strongly suggestive of the very negative numbers that Republicans are seeing in polls nationwide. I feel like I've said this ever since the November elections, but we saw swingings of fifteen to thirty points across Georgia and Wisconsin last night. There's a fifty six percent swing in the Latino vote outside of Milwaukee. This is like eighteen year high numbers. So the Republicans are plainly seeing this. They're
seeing gas hit four dollars and sixteen cents. If my analysis is off, it's really that they didn't have until five dollars. It's still four dollars.
So what are next? When Congress does come back, will they weigh in it all here? Because they really have been silent for the last six weeks.
I think that they will, and I think that the president's wind down on the war before he needed to suggest that the backlash amongst Republicans and amongst American voters is too extreme, especially from independent voters, for it to perpetuate. So, you know, accepting this ceasefire. I think it's the end of the window. The number one question for investors right now is with will this hold? This was the last best free reign that he had to wage the war
and he called it off. So I think that's really telling.
Okay, this is timestamp seven thirty eighth this morning. It's about fifty minutes ago. This is Julian Lee outstanding out of London with Julia prem as well. They have literally a horror Mouz tracker available on the Bloomberg terminal. The headline is simple, no pickup in traffic yet on us around ceasefire fire. So, Henrietta, I think it's a fourteen day season fire. Where are we day seven, day eight, day nine? What is the political sweat that we're going to face into next week?
I mean, I think they've got to be hoping that the eight hundred tanker backlog is starting to clear up a little bit. You know, it's a twenty one mile straight, but you can't push eight hundred tankers through a twenty one mile straight all that quickly. So I think they're going to really be following gas prices most closely. I would follow whether the Senate Budget and House budget committees move forward with a reconciliation instructure, or whether they're like, look,
we don't need to move in this dramatic fashion. How serious those are? Whether we get a war powers resolution pass in the House and Senate. I think the President is going to be able to stave off passage in the Senate. But it's dicey.
And one more question, because Paul's looking at me like Tom, put a cork in your mouth, Hendrianta, As simple as I can, did Johnson and Thune have control of the troops.
I think they should be okay for right now. I really do the President wound down the war far enough in advance that they can sell some good news. Like I said, I think they can get away with having a public hearing about the military escalation and the war generally to keep them behind them on the war powers resolution. I think they're okay for now.
Is there a sense that Republicans or Democrats may request intelligence briefings that are not private, that maybe the public can learn some things here as well.
Absolutely, no question. I would say Senator Galleo is really leading the charge on that. He's been stressing that these private you know, behind closed doors briefings are a not very informative and b need to be out in public, so Democrats are absolutely going to press for that, no question.
Hender Edda, we got to run. Thank you so much, day in and day out for your perspective with Veda Partners