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With the B2B card payment landscape evolving, large corporations face pressure as buyers increasingly demand to pay invoices by virtual card. For merchant acquiring businesses like yours, this is a high growth opportunity waiting to be unlocked. With Mastercard's adaptive approach to B2B acceptance, you can enhance your infrastructure for high value payments and meet your customers unique needs. MasterCard offers solutions and support for every step of the supplier lifecycle, helping you deepen merchant relationships, start fast, grow strategically and scale at your pace with a modular toolkit you can flexibly deploy. Discover how@mastercard.com CommercialAcceptance.
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Bloomberg Audio Studios Podcasts Radio news.
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You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast. Catch us live weekdays at noon and 5pm Eastern on Apple CarPlay and Android Aut with the Bloomberg Business app Listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts or watch us live on YouTube.
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C
It's not every day in Washington, or anywhere for that matter. You get Donald Trump, Tom Brady and the Village People in the same room. But that's what we have for you today at the Kennedy Center. It's snowing out in Washington. It's a beautiful day, actually. Kids went to school late. There's pretty much nobody on the roads around here. And the FIFA World cup draw.
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A little bit later on in the program, we might see Donald Trump on stage up there because, you know, there's this rumor around town that he's going to win the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize. If that happens, we will let you know. In the meantime, we've got a lot of things to figure out today in Washington after a ruling that drops from the Supreme Court after the late edition of balance of power yesterday. 63 Texas can move ahead with its plans to redraw congressional maps. Indeed, the new Republican drawn map, the redistricting for next year's election will be in place. And you know what that means. Look to California. Look to Indiana, Florida, even New York and other states that have considered redrawing their maps because of what Texas was doing. We have this story and of course, a looming vote next week, and we're not sure exactly what they're going to vote on when it comes to extending or reforming health care. That's why we left the building today to go up to Capitol Hill and spend some time with a Democratic leader in the House, Hakeem Jeffries with us here exclusively on Bloomberg Radio.
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D
Listen, it's unfortunate that the Supreme Court has rubber stamped a racially gerrymandered extreme map that Donald Trump ordered Texas Republicans to engineer as part of his effort to try to rig the midterm elections in 2026. But notwithstanding this advers ruling, we're going to continue to move forward and ensure that there is a fair map across the country. California voters enacted Prop 50 and as a result, we'll have a fair map in California with some additional opportunities to be competitive. And I expect that you'll see other states across the country continue to respond.
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C
Will yours be one of them? Are you on the phone with Governor Hochul today saying it's time to redraw the New York map?
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D
Well, the New York map has some particularities relative to the Constitution that won't necessarily allow it to be revisited in this particular cycle. But some voters have filed a lawsuit in New York and we're monitoring that litigation closely to see what the outcome may be.
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C
Okay. There's a question about whether you really need it. Leader Jeffries, after the special election in Tennessee on Tuesday, we saw a plus 22 Trump district go down to a plus 9 Trump district. And you've got a lot of armchair mathematicians out there suggesting that could mean as many as 30 or 35 seats for Democrats in the midterms. How do you see it?
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D
Well, Republicans know that if the elections were held today, they would lose. That's the reason why Donald Trump has decided to engage in this extreme effort to gerrymander congressional maps all across the country. And it's very unfortunate. Our view is that we're not going to unilaterally disarm and we have to ensure that there's a fair map nationally across the board so that it's the voters who get to decide who is in the majority. After the November 2026 election, part of the challenge with Republicans is that they've broken all of their promises. They indicated that they were going to low costs, in fact, lower costs on day one. Costs haven't gone down in America. Costs have gone up. Housing costs are through the roof, grocery prices through the roof, electricity bills through the roof. And now because my Republican colleagues refused to extend the Affordable Care act tax credits, we know tens of millions of people are about to experience dramatically increased health care costs. Democrats are actually the party focused on driving down the high cost of living.
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C
So let's talk about a couple of those points of leverage that you just pointed out, affordability and health care. Many would argue that it's kind of the same story here. President Trump has been saying that affordability is a Democrat hoax, a Democrat con job. Does that mean you do not have Republicans on board with you in reforming health Care or extending Obamacare subsidies?
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D
It appears that way. It's unfortunate that the president's position, which is the Republican Party's position, is that the affordability crisis in the United States of America is a con job and it's a hoax. No, what was a con job and hoax was the fact that Republicans spent all of last year claim that they were going to lower the high cost of living in the United States of America. That they were a party committed to addressing the inflationary pressure that the American people were under. That's all they talked about last year. But they lied to the voters. That's the con job.
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C
They lied.
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D
They absolutely lied to the voters because there's no evidence throughout this year that they've had any intention to actually address the affordability crisis that exists. In fact, they now say it's all a hoax. But everyday Americans, when they go to the grocery store, the sou supermarket, when they see their health care premiums dramatically increasing, when they see the electricity bills that they have, which are through the roof in part because Republicans, in their one big ugly bill attacked the clean energy economy. At a time in America where we have growing power needs in terms of what we see with the expansion of artificial intelligence. It's all extraordinary. So Republican leadership has made it clear they have no intention to extend the Affordable Care act tax credits. And that's very unfair.
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C
You know what the White House would say, hold on, Leader Jeffries, this president's been working overtime to cut deals to lower the cost of prescription drugs. Does he deserve credit for that effort?
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D
We haven't seen any evidence that prescription drug prices have gone down in any meaningful way. What we have seen that the Trump tariffs are out of control. They've increased costs by thousands of dollars per year on everyday Americans, and they've created an uncertain environment for businesses and corporations throughout the country. And we know that uncertainty is one of the biggest problems that American corporations and companies may face. It's difficult to actually make investments when you have this chaotic environment that has been visited upon the economy.
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C
So let's talk about what you can get done before the expiration of these subsidies at the end of the month. A bill was introduced yesterday, a framework that was bipartisan. A Democrat and a Republican gottheimer and kiggins. It would extend these subsidies for a year and put new collars on eligibility. Is this a path to renewal in your eyes?
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D
Well, we'll have to take a look at the particulars in the four corners of that bill. 214 Democrats have signed a discharge petition that will extend the Affordable Care act tax credits for three years and give the American people the certainty that they need in order to move forward during these otherwise uncertain times. All we need are four Republicans. There are 219 of them. All we need are four House Republicans to join us and we can extend the Affordable Care act tax credits. We also want to take a look at what happens in the Senate. I'm thankful for Leader Schumer and Senate Democrats who will put a bill forward next week and force an up or down vote on an extension of the Affordable Care act tax credits. You know, we're in this fight until we win this fight on behalf of the American people, because in the wealthiest country in the history of the world, it cannot be the case that working class Americans and middle class Americans are unable to afford to go see a doctor when they need one.
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C
Are you in touch with the speaker of the House on this? Is Mike Johnson talking to you about a potential vote after John Thune promised a vote on health care in the Senate for next Thursday.
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D
You know, the big challenge with House Republicans has been that they've adopted a my way or the highway approach. They have zero interest in actually sitting down and finding a bipartisan path forward. We've said from the very beginning of this year and throughout the Trump Republican shutdown that we will sit down with anyone, anytime, any place here in the Capitol or go back to the White House, sit with the president to try to figure out how we can fix our broken health care system and address the Republican created health care crisis that's devastating people all across America. They've refused repeatedly to sit down and even try to find common ground.
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C
My conversation from a short time ago with Hakeem Jeffries, of course, the Democratic leader in the House of Representatives. If you want to see the full interview, go to the terminal or look online@Bloomberg.com, find on YouTube moments after we spoke. This is important. The speaker of the House may not be in touch with Hakeem Jeffries, but is with Bloomberg. And as we just learned this morning, Speaker Johnson is pushing to unveil a Republican health care bill in the coming days for a vote his office says by the end of the month, when, of course, Obamacare subsidies would expire. We'll have much more on this for you as we learn more Live from Washington. I'm Joe Matthew. Thanks for being with us on the Friday edition of Balance of power. Stay with us on Balance of power. We'll have much more coming up after this.
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With the B2B card payment Landscape Evolving Large corporations face pressure as buyers increasingly demand to pay invoices by virtual card. For merchant acquiring businesses like yours, this is a high growth opportunity waiting to be unlocked. With Mastercard's adaptive approach to B2B acceptance, you can enhance your infrastructure for high value payments and meet your customers unique needs. MasterCard offers solutions and support for every step of the supplier life cycle, helping you deepen merchant relationships, start fast, grow strategically and scale at your pace with a modular toolkit you can flexibly deploy. Discover how@mastercard.com commercialacceptance you're listening to the.
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B
Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast. Catch us live weekdays at noon and 5pm Eastern on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship York station. Just say Alexa.
- [11:10]
C
Play Bloomberg 1130 on Bloomberg TV and radio. Find us as well streaming live on YouTube with breaking news ahead of our conversation with Republican Congresswoman Lisa McClain and it's something I want you to hear. This is a member of the leadership chairing the Republican Conference in the House and also from the critical swing state of Michigan. We're going to talk prices and health care in just a couple of moments. First, we want to look at the data today. We'll set the baseline with Edward Harrison as consumer spending shows up. Little changed in September. We got new BLS data today. Core personal consumption expenditures. Yes, the PC said to be the Fed's preferred measure of inflation, up 210 from August, up 2.8% from the prior year. And by that I mean more than 2%. So let's get into it with Edward Harrison, Bloomberg senior strategist and author of the newsletter you should be subscribed to right now. Now, it's good to see you, Edward. We're we're hungry for data so we're pouring over anything that we can get. And in this case it's a pretty important one with PC. Does this allow the Fed to cut next week?
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E
You know Joe, interesting bet is you kept on saying versus the August number and here we are in December. So we're talking about numbers that are.
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C
So do they matter?
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E
It doesn't really matter. It doesn't matter because you know, we've moved on from that.
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C
It's just, it's too stale.
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E
It's too stale. And a lot of things have happened in the interim. People are much more concerned about was the holiday shopping good and is the consumer after that month long pause in the in the US Government still able to continue to power The US Economy.
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C
So when you sit down with your everything risk hat on. Are you more concerned about prices today or the health of the job market? Job market?
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E
You know, I'm probably more concerned about prices. I think that the job market concern.
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It'S, it's deep in the sense that I think very large pockets of the US Economy are in recession because the job market is so weak. But I think that we still have a price problem and with the Affordable Care act subsidies, some of those going away in January, it's going to be even more difficult for a lot of U.S. consumers.
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C
Well, what pockets, by the way, of the economy do you see in recession? That's quite a statement.
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E
Yeah, I would say that, you know, we've had the housing market at points in time in recession. Yeah, office space has been in recession. And then also if you take the whole cohort of people who are, you know, say the bottom quintile, bottom two quintiles, they've had a very hard time given the price pressures that we've had and also the very low growth in job formation.
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C
Sure. We see consumer sentiment rising for the first time in five months. Do you take heart in that number?
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E
You know, I take some heart in the number. But if you looked at the present situation number, you know, I really look at it as a reflection of, okay, now the, you know, the, we know that the government's not going to be shut down anymore, but if you looked at the present conditions number, it actually went down relative. It was lower than expectations. So people are saying that it's actually not all well and good, but you know, enough people from the upper quintiles of the income distribution are spending and then we have AI bubble as well. That's helping to keep things going. But you know, there are pockets of distress there for sure.
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C
Interesting. When you look at the state of the market here, we've had some shaky days. November was not a blast. But the fact of the matter is it's still been a pretty darn good year and the indexes are not that far from their highs. We haven't had a full blown 10% correction in a long time. Does that suggest that the stock market is part of everything risk right now? Because we haven't accommodated for the trends you're talking about.
- [15:14]
E
Yeah, you know, I think that the stock market isn't at risk per se unless the labor market weakness starts to broaden out. I would say that the buy the dip mentality is still in effect and that what you see from the bank of America customer survey is that we had six weeks of tech outflows and then last week we had tech inflows. So we're at a point now where people feel like they've taken enough risk off the table because of AI and then they're back in the game. The whole buy the dip mentality is still there. You know, I would say that there are probably two things that are keeping things a little bit tighter. One is that.
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Crypto is constantly creating externalities into other risk assets. And then the second thing is that actually global interest rates are rising. You know, the US Is a laggard in terms of the rising of interest rates and also in terms of cutting, you know, the next move could be higher for many different central banks. And Japan is already there.
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C
Fascinating. This has been an interesting couple of days. Edward Harrison, author of the Everything Risk newsletter. It's great to have you as always with us here in Washington on Bloomberg. I'm Joe Matthew, you as we consider affordability and of course, the breaking news coming from Capitol Hill today. The speaker of the House suggesting that a health care proposal will be on the table, a Republican health care proposal, by the end of next week. This is something that I, in fact, talked about earlier today on Capitol Hill with the Democratic leader in the House, Hakeem Jeffries, talk to us about the looming deadline for the expiration of Obamacare subsidies that Edward just mentioned. And he doesn't see a lot of opportunity for cooperation, at least not yet. Here's what Hakeem Jeffries told us today.
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D
The big challenge with House Republicans has been that they've adopted a my way or the highway approach. They have zero interest in actually sitting down and finding a bipartisan path forward. We've said from the very beginning of this year and throughout the Trump Republican shutdown that we will sit down with anyone, anytime, any place here in the Capitol or go back to the White House, sit with the president to try to figure out how we can fix fix our broken health care system and address the Republican created health care crisis that's devastating people all across America.
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C
Now, our next guest is going to disagree with everything that Hakeem Jeffries just said. And that's what we do here. On balance of power. We hear from both sides of the aisle. The important headline, though, is that Republicans apparently will have their own plan next week. And that's where we start our conversation with Congresswoman Lisa McClain, who's chair of the House Republican Conference from Michigan's 9th district. It's great to see you, Congresswoman. Welcome back to Bloomberg TV and radio. Do you have a sense of what this plan will look like?
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F
Yeah, I'm actually rather excited. The biggest difference between the Democrats plan and the Republicans plan is the Democrats want just to subsidize the ACA credits. And the problem with that is if we do that, no one's premium comes down. All it does is line the pockets of big insurance companies. And what I might remind everybody is this is Obamacare.
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The health care crisis was started by the Democrats. So I am excited to hear that both sides agree that the Affordable Care act is anything but affordable and that it needs revamping. And that's what we're doing. We will focus more on driving down actual premiums one and two, giving people choice. So if they get a subsidy, do they have to, can they only use that subsidy for the unaffordable health care, or can they use it somewhere else? So the main differences are we are really truly focused on driving premium costs down, not subsidizing large insurance companies.
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C
Companies understood what you're saying in principle. But I'm curious what happens in the immediate term here. There was a bipartisan bill introduced yesterday that I'm sure you know plenty about. We talked to it about it with Hakeem Jeffries this morning. The gottheimer Higgins bill would actually extend Obamacare subsidies for one year while also reforming the plan to add some collars around eligibility. Will we need to see a plan something like that so there's not this so called Obamacare cliff or healthcare cliff that's looming at the end of the month?
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F
Yeah, listen, we want to make sure that everybody who wants to keep their Obamacare plan can keep their Obamacare plan and that it's affordable. Right. We both agree, and both sides agree on affordability. But I think you're going to see, you know, we have a menu of options and what we're going to have to see is how do we thread that needle to make sure that premiums are down, that things are affordable, and that we eliminate the waste of fraud and abuse. Because I do believe that both sides also agree that somebody making $600,000 a year doesn't really qualify for the subsidies or the tax credits. So that's what we're focused on working on. I am an optimist by nature and I've been in those meetings with the speaker and with the heads of our committees. And you will see a plan that will be put on the floor. There's going to be a lot more work to be, but it will be a good start.
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C
Fascinating. President, while we're talking about affordability, says he's got an issue with that word. He calls it a Democrat con job. What does he mean?
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F
Yeah, well, I think if everyone were to take a look at what got us here. Let's take a look at the past four years under Biden, inflation was sky high, you know, upwards of 9%. It's down now less to 3, less than 3%. He shut off all of the oil and gas in the United States, made that more difficult. So if we talk about the affordability crisis, the root of that, not to mention the trillions of dollars that his inflation reduction act put in place and insurged into the economy, it made things very unaffordable. And we are in a recovery period now. And I think you see progress on that, right? Gas prices are down, heating prices are down, mortgage rates are down. So we're beginning. Inflation is down, so we're beginning to recover. Not to mention what's going to happen in 26, if you listen to Scott Besant, which I happen to agree with, the economy will be jump started with higher wages, no taxes on tips, no taxes on overtime, you know, less taxes on Social Security. Those are all positive things. That puts more money in the people's pockets and drive wages up. That's all a positive, positive while while avoiding the largest tax crease in history with the working families tax cuts.
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C
I want to hit you in your backyard here, Congresswoman, and talk cars while you're with us. The Trump administration has begun the process, process of easing economy, fuel economy requirements, CAFE standards, as they're called, for new vehicles. I believe you were standing right next to him in the Oval Office when this was announced just the other day. And that's not the only thing that he announced. Congresswoman, let's go to the White House and listen to the president from earlier this week.
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G
My administration has taken historic action to lower costs for American consumers, protect American auto jobs and make buying a car much more affordable for countless American families and also safer. Just about everything is done that, you know, this whole thing is. They use the word affordability. It's a Democrat hoax. They're the ones that drove the prices up. I think affordability is the greatest kind of. When they use the word affordability, they never say anything else.
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C
You were standing right next to him at that event. What are you hearing from automakers in your state? What does Mary Barra say? What does Jim Farley say about the CAFE standards? They were all in town as part of this. Will this in fact lower the cost of a car.
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F
Yet listen to what the automakers say. The people that actually are building the cars, they are extremely excited about it because it's less regulation and it makes the car more affordable for the average American. There is, I think roughly about 16 to $17,000 per employee that these automakers are spending because of regulation. And the more regulation you pull put on manufacturers on people, that's passed right down to the consumer. So they're excited on twofold. One, that they can produce the automobiles more affordable and two, that they produce an actual automobile or a product that people want to buy. So they're extremely excited about it. Don't take my word for it, take theirs.
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C
Well, I. Okay, so I want to, to pick up on something you just said because I always hear that Americans want to buy big cars. We love our SUVs, we love our F150s. I can't even park in the garage half the time because there's so many big trucks down there. Congresswoman, the president on Truth Social though, and he talked about it in the oval with you the other day. I have just approved tiny cars to be built in America. He says manufacturers have long wanted to do this just like they are so successfully built in other countries. He says they can be gas, electric or hybrid, very near future, inexpensive, safe, fuel efficient. And he says, quite simply, amazing. Start building them now. What are these tiny cars that are coming?
- [25:14]
F
Yeah, I haven't seen the tiny cars, but I think what the President's trying to do is actually give the consumer choice, the American people choice. If you want a big F150, you can have one. If you want to drive a small tiny car, you have that opportunity and you have that choice as well. No different than if you want to buy an electric car or a hybrid car, you can. But if you want a gas powered engine, you can too. So we are all about, and the President is all about. We don't want to tell you what to do, when to do it, how to do it. We actually believe in people and people can make the right decision. We don't need big government telling us what to do and what to buy and how to buy it.
- [25:57]
C
I've got you pegged for. I'm just blue skying here. Escalade Driver, what do you have in the garage? Congress in the state of Michigan.
- [26:05]
F
I have an old GMC Yukon. That's what I drive. And it's great driving a Yukon. Yep, yep. I have, I have four kids and we all have spouses. So when we all get together. It's a good vehicle to put the whole family in.
- [26:22]
C
You can't drive that thing around New York. I mean, you can, but good luck while you're up there. It's great to have you back. With us live from world headquarters in New York, that's Congresswoman Lisa McClain, who's chair of the House Republican Conference. We've heard from Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader in the House, now the woman who runs the Republican Conference. To give you a sense of exactly what the conversation is like, next week's going to be a doozy. We could have a vote in the Senate on a Democratic health care proposal and we'll get a look at what Republicans have up their sleeves as well. That's why we do this every day. Live from Washington, welcome to Washington. I'm Joe Matthew. This is Bloomberg TV and Radio. Stay with us. On Balance of Power. We'll have much more coming up after this.
- [27:00]
A
With the B2B card payment landscape evolving, large corporations face pressure as buyers increasingly demand to pay invoices by virtual card for merchant acquiring businesses like yours. This is a high growth opportunity waiting to be unlocked with Mastercard. With Mastercard's adaptive approach to B2B acceptance, you can enhance your infrastructure for high value payments and meet your customers unique needs. MasterCard offers solutions and support for every step of the supplier lifecycle, helping you deepen merchant relationships, start fast, grow strategically and scale at your pace. With a modular toolkit you can flexibly deploy. Discover how@mastercard.com commercial acceptance.
- [27:42]
B
You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast. Catch us live weekdays at noon and 5pm Eastern on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station. Just say Alexa.
- [27:58]
C
Play Bloomberg 11:30 In Washington, where the FIFA World cup tournament draw is underway officially at the Kennedy Center. And yes, President Trump is in the box. We also, in fact, saw the leaders of Canada and Mexico there. They're all up on the screen at the same time, smiling. Maybe this is the salve we need for trade in the hemisphere. But a short time from now, we understand that the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize will be awarded. He was asked on the way in because you've seen the stories, right? This is supposed to go to Donald Trump. He was asked on the red carpet if he was hoping to win the prize or if he had been told. He said there's no hope, he would just be honored. In fact, went on to say, I don't need prizes just to save lives. The pool is in the room there. When he gets on stage, we'll show it to you as we keep tabs on the latest here. Big questions about redistricting this morning after a late call by the Supreme Court last evening. This dropped after the late addition of balance of power. Right when you thought Texas had to put the map down. The US Supreme Court has cleared the state to use its new Republican drawn congressional map, the one urged by President Trump for next year's midterm elections, lifting a lower court ruling that had blocked the map. Now, this is, of course, the effort that that took place in Texas that prompted California to pursue Prop 50, that prompted many other states to start doing the same, red states and blue states trying to push back with the red own redrawn maps. And we still don't have a real sense of exactly what the country is going to look like when it comes time to vote, never mind launch a political campaign. This is six three ruling here. It's one that we've been waiting for. And it's only where we begin our conversation because we have a lot to talk about with constitutional attorney Robert McWhirter, practicing criminal defense civil rights lawyer in Maricopa County, Arizona, back with us here live on Bloomberg. Mr. McWhirter, it's great to see you. Welcome back. It's open season then for redistricting, right?
- [30:04]
H
Oh, it looks like it. It's very interesting what the court does and some of the liberal justices seem to go along with this. It looks like there's going to be a reworking of the law related to racial German mandering. Remember, the Supreme Court said regardless of how many voters you disenfranchise, you can politically gerrymander all over the place. I think that's terrible for democracy. And I'd like a court someday to really look at that issue or relook at it, but always, racial gerrymandering has been violative of the 15th Amendment and the Voting Rights act of 1966.
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I
So.
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H
They seem to be signaling that they're going to relook at that law related to that. In the meantime, Texas, the new map seems to be back in place.
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C
Does this allow every other state to do what it wants? California, for instance, is being challenged even though it put the vote, this idea, to a vote before voters. But there's at least a half dozen other states that are thinking about doing this. Do they just plow ahead now?
- [31:10]
H
I think they just plow ahead. I mean, you can't argue that what California did, which is also bad for voters.
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C
Really.
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H
And I think California recognizes it because they want to dial that back after this whole election cycle is over, after, I think it says three years in that resolution, it is bad for voters. But you can't now say that what California is doing as R.A. excuse me, as political gerrymandering is somehow bad after you've just given the stamp of approval to Texas. Political gerrymandering.
- [31:39]
C
Elena Kagan writes, today's order disserves the millions of Texans whom the district court found were assigned to their new districts based on their race. This is, this is not so cut and dry when you add the racial component, Robert, and I'm glad that you brought this up. It's still back to the drawing board here, right?
- [31:59]
H
Oh, I think very much so. And again, we're going to have to see how this plays out in the court. But what you have is a majority on the court that is not open to the issues that courts used to be sensitive to about racial discrimination and voting. Remember that the great cases that came out about racial equality had mostly to do with voting from the, from the Warren court from the 1960s. And this seems to be a court that's trying to dial that back. And they also seem to have this fiction that we don't have racial problems in this country anymore and that people are discriminating and voting on the basis of race. So on the basis of that fiction, they seem to be going forward and saying, okay, we don't need this, this fix that the 15th Amendment clearly says is constitutional. And so they're just kind of reread all of that. And I find that very, very sad and disturbing. But at least with this court, there's not much you can do about it.
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C
Well, let's talk about what's happening meantime in the Caribbean, because there are a lot of questions about legality surrounding what we're now all calling the double tap strike against this alleged drug boat coming out of Venezuela. It depends on who you talk to on this, Robert. If you talk to a Republican in the briefing yesterday, they're probably going to tell you that the U.S. acted legally. That's certainly what Tom Cotton said. He called the strikes righteous, I believe was the term that he used. Democrats, meantime, are outraged and there are big questions about whether, in fact, we can put the idea of a war crime aside for now, but in fact are conducting an illegal operation off the coast of Venezuela. How do you see this?
- [33:35]
H
Well, you know, Senator Cotton can call things righteous, but I'll note he didn't say it was legal. He may think it's righteous, and that's a political statement, but whether it's legal is a whole different thing. If I was Pete Hexseth, I'd be getting pretty nervous under the collard right now, because it looks like what is clearly shown is that there were survivors clinging to this boat and they went back and did another strike to just kill people. And by the way, they presented no evidence that this boat had drugs in the first place. I mean, look, the normal course is the Coast Guard has always operative in the Caribbean. They often grab boats that are drug traffickers. And if those boats existed, they are more than happy to display the evidence as a justification for the arrest, arrest and seizure of the boats. This is just wanting to blow things up with no evidence. That's the first problem. But then going back, there's a whole series of rules on this. And by the way, this goes back to World War II, when Graham Amro Darnitz of the German Kriegsmarine ordered. Ordered, basically, or sent out an ambiguous order that was clear to his submarine captains, did not help any survivors of the boats that were being torpedoed. Well, at Nuremberg after the war, that was considered a war crime. And under the War crimes Act of 1996, which Congress passed, a violation of international law in this case, the Geneva Convention is now prosecutable under American law in federal court. Now the Justice Department has to do it. And obviously Pam Bondi is probably not going to do anything. But there's something that Pete should really worry about, and that is there is no statute of limitations on this. It's a murder on the high seas, and he can be prosecuted under, not an administration 20, 30 years from now, if it takes that long. So if I'm Pete, I'm getting pretty nervous, as should the admiral who ordered the strike.
- [35:27]
C
Okay, so. But that would also suggest the buck stops with the Defense Secretary. I'm going to hold you right there for a minute, Robert, because we've got breaking news down the street at the Kennedy Center. I. I didn't see this one coming. The inaugural FIFA Peace Prize goes to Donald J. Trump. This is a live shot. You might be listening to us on the radio. He's walking out on stage right now.
- [35:55]
And there is, there is the trophy. This is quite remarkable. They were just playing a sizzle reel. The FIFA Peace Prize. All right, where's. Is there a red hat on that, Robert? I'm sorry. We just need to keep the. The news flow as it's going here, okay? So if you're the admiral. And there were pre existing conditions set by the Defense Secretary that were outlined in the New York Times. He just put the medal on himself.
- [36:31]
These conditions dictated how to handle a scenario like this. And if in fact the individuals were shipwrecked, incapacitated, no longer considered in the fight, they would be rescued. And Robert, that's what we have done since that first strike, isn't it?
- [36:46]
H
Oh, yes, but this is different. Look, the admiral, I think is potentially looking prosecution under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. You did mention Donald Trump. I, I'm not sure Donald Trump gets a pass on this either.
- [37:01]
C
Wow.
- [37:01]
H
You know, the Supreme Court granted Trump broad immunity for any official acts, but we do have the War powers resolution from 1973, which drastically limits the power of the President to fight an undeclared war. And this is an undeclared war. In fact, it doesn't even fit the definition of a war, regardless of what people like to say with the rhetoric. So it's not beyond the realm of possibility that Donald Trump can be prosecuted for this as well, depending on where the order emanated. And as this plays out, I think you're going to see a lot of people throwing each other under the bus on this issue, from the Admiral to the Secretary of Defense to the President, all saying, oh, it wasn't me. And they're already starting to lay the groundwork for that.
- [37:43]
C
Amazing. The President has indicated, said so in the Oval Office, that he supports the public release of that video. So we'll see. Maybe we'll be talking about, about this together at some point soon. Robert, I'm down to our final minute here. I don't know if you're buying the dip on Netflix right now, but we've got a massive merger we're talking about here. Netflix buying Warner Brothers. Is this, is this going to pass muster with regulators?
- [38:08]
H
Well, it should not. I mean, this is huge and it affects the consumer greatly. Look, there's a couple of things to keep in mind. Number one, it has to go through the federal antitrust process. The unfortunate part about that is, is basically if there's people sucking up to Donald Trump, he's going to exert pressure to get this proved federally. But there's another thing to look at, and that is states all have antitrust laws. And if you may recall, in the year 2019, it was the states that prevented the merger between Sprint and T Mobile. So even if Donald Trump exercises his undue influence, or somebody gets to Trump and wants to approve this, typically he'll file a lawsuit and then they'll settle the lawsuit in his favor and then he lets the merger go through and then he claims he won a lawsuit against the news outlet. Well, yeah, but they have to worry about all the different states attorneys generals as well because this affects every consumer in every state. And I can't sit there on my couch at night and get a nice inexpensive movie anymore because of antitrust.
- [39:09]
C
Right. Wow. So a lot of lawyers are going to make a lot of money. It sounds like Robert McWhirter. It's great to have you back. Let us know when you're coming to Washington, for crying out loud. Constitutional law attorney, practicing criminal defense and civil rights lawyer, covering the waterfront with us here on the Friday edition. We'll have much more news straight ahead here. And we'll assemble our political panel coming up next only on Bloomberg. Stay with us on Balance of power. We'll have much more coming up after this.
- [39:39]
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- [40:22]
B
You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast. Catch us live weekdays at noon and 5pm Eastern on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg business app Listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts or watch us live on YouTube.
- [40:38]
C
It's a snow day today. Kids went to school late. Snow still coming down as a matter of fact, as we are reminded that winter is upon us and quite the festivity underway down the street at the Kennedy center, the building that the president envisions someday being called the Trump Kennedy Center. He is the chairman of the board now, right? It's the FIFA World cup draw that's underway now. And if you were with us a short time ago, you heard the breaking news, the headline on the New York Times here as Trump covets Nobel Peace Prize, FIFA cozies up to him with its own award. Well, now, how did they know that this came out what time this morning? This came out just after midnight. It's almost as if everyone knew what was going to take place. Yes, Donald Trump won the Inaugural FIFA Peace Prize a short time ago when he was asked about it on the red carpet when he was walking in.
- [41:31]
G
Listen, I can tell you I did settle eight wars and we have a ninth coming, but in which nobody's ever done before. But I want to really save lives. I don't need prizes. I need to save lives. And we're saving a lot of lives. I've saved millions and millions of lives and that's really what I want to do.
- [41:51]
C
Need prizes. I just want to save lives. This is where we start with our political panel today. Bloomberg Politics contributor and Republican strategist Rick Davis's report with us partner at Stone Court Capital. We're also joined by Yemeni Agbiwale, former chief of staff adviser to the Biden White House, our Democratic strategist, founder of Podium Strategies. It's great to have both of you with us and welcome. Rick, you didn't see this coming, did you? Yeah.
- [42:17]
I
Hard news Friday. I can tell this was really a big shock and surprise to everybody. You know, at that event, president shows up for basically the FIFA draw and which is, it's got to be the first time American president's ever attended a FIFA draw and.
- [42:36]
Be there when the award was announced. I mean, you know, imagine the coincidence of him being there to accept this award in person. So congratulations. Look, the one talking point that I completely embrace of Donald Trump, Trump's and he, and he says a lot, so it makes me happy, is that he wants to stop wars and he wants to save lives. There is no downside to that and I applaud his efforts. And if it's gone recognized by the FIFA.
- [43:06]
Group, great. We look forward to having them all here spending lots of money in 2026.
- [43:12]
C
That's right.
- [43:12]
I
Watching, watching their version of football.
- [43:16]
C
The headline on the screen, if you're with us on YouTube, Trump wins FIFA Peace Prize. And so here we are. Does the president of the United States deserve a little credit as he says he's stopped eight wars? Is that how you see this?
- [43:30]
J
I do see FIFA as a soft power moment for the president. I think his congenial relationship with FIFA has been beneficial to him on a global scale. I mean, at the same time that he's enacted tariffs on our allies that have put us at odds with some of our longest serving countries that we've been partnered with. This is really the time where he gets to globally piece people back together. But remember, he's doing it at a time where the backdrop is domestically in this country. Immigration is a huge issue. And at the same time, when you overlay it with the fact that he is threatened to remove games from cities that he deems unsafe for Americans and our fellow visitors, it's all a bit of a swirl happening for him.
- [44:11]
C
Well, the swirl or weave. What do you think, though, about what you first said there with the President of the United States in this room with Carney and Sheinbaum? Could this event, which is, you know, made for TV and made for the President, actually bring world leaders together?
- [44:30]
J
Yeah, I think this event could help folks feel a bit more confident in his leadership.
- [44:36]
C
I mean, pull the hemisphere together. We been at odds with our neighbors and Mexico.
- [44:41]
J
Maybe the Canadians will come down, have a little bit of fun with us. I mean, he is right that his focus has been foreign policy, but that is to the chagrin of a lot of people who first elected him based on the fact that he was going to focus on domestic issues happening here and put, in a sense, America first. So I think the challenge for him and his team is how does he promote the fact that he is this global leader while at the same time reminding his core base that he still believes in the values of America first?
- [45:11]
C
President was asked about this, you know, knowing that. That the leaders of Canada and Mexico were going to be in the room, of course, and taking part here in the draw. Although producer James tells me there has yet to be a single team drawn yet. It's been going on for almost an hour. Here's what the President said about that. How do you see the work paying out with, you know, the 10 tensions you have with Canada and Mexico?
- [45:33]
G
Oh, I think it's going to make it more exciting. Tension is a good thing, even for the world. Yeah, I think so. I think it makes it much more exciting.
- [45:43]
C
That was back in March. Rick, is he right? Tension makes this all more exciting.
- [45:49]
I
Yeah, a little tension never hurt anybody. Draws attention to the event itself and the events. And it will be interesting to see how the tripartite Games events being held in Mexico and Canada and the United States get along. Does the President use.
- [46:09]
His somewhat controlling capability on where events are going to occur and to put leverage on.
- [46:18]
These two to come up with a new MCA agreement? Who knows? It'll be all very interesting and get lots of. Lots of press coverage and certainly going to give us plenty to talk about between now and when the Games kick off?
- [46:30]
C
Well, they are going on stage together right now. Maybe they'll actually do the drawing here, but they're sharing a stage. This has got to be a positive moment for international relations. And trade with our neighbors. Of course. Carney, if you're with us on YouTube, you see Carney on the right there, Sheinbaum in the center. President Trump on stage with, of course, Mr. Infantino, who's having a big day here in Washington, D.C. emma, see you mentioned the president's threat to start moving games out of cities that were plagued with crime, as he puts it. He was asked about that on the red carpet this morning. Tried to back away from those comments. You don't think that's something he has planned, do you? No.
- [47:09]
J
I mean, the folks that have been working on this from the American side for FIFA have worked on the legendary logistics for the arenas for staffing. I mean, at a time when we are talking about immigration. Right. Like this, our immigration policies are going to impact temporary workers, workers that are needed for surging staffing for all of these arenas across the United States. I mean, to move these games anywhere would just show an instability. And showing instability right now is not something he wants to do. Right. Like working with FEMA is his reach towards a form of normalcy here. So he's got to just continue to show some stability. No. No quick draws here.
- [47:49]
C
Yeah. Some of the preparations that we understand have been complicated by the president's migrant crackdown, stricter visa rules. Rick, how do we rationalize all of these priorities at once from this administration?
- [48:02]
I
It's hard to reconcile a lot of them. They seem to run in conflict with one another from time to time. A lot of Hispanic sports enthusiasts in this country, are they going to show up at a stadium if ICE is standing in the parking lot? That certainly wouldn't be unusual. ICE has shown up in baseball parking lots and football parking lots. That's right before. So it should make it stressful.
- [48:30]
C
Is this good for America? You refer to soft power. What are we getting for this other than maybe some economic stimulus?
- [48:37]
J
I mean, this is really putting America on the world stage. I regretfully Nigeria, where my family's from, as once again not qualified for the World Cup. But it's exciting. I mean, it's. It's pulling together all of the continents. Look, the president has had a contentious relationship with some countries on the continent of Africa, but I know that those fans are still going to come out. Football is one of the most uniting things globally, and we're going to just have to call it football in this conversation. Conversation, sorry. To our American.
- [49:07]
C
There is a soccer caucus. I learned this morning in the Capitol. I did not realize that they do call it soccer just for what it's Worth and I did hear the President refer to soccer as well, in terms, Rick, of just projecting power, that's one thing. But when it comes to actually getting into Americans living rooms, you know, a lot about political optics you've got, in this case, you're advising Donald Trump. You've got your guy on stage here at the Kennedy center with two world leaders. He just won a picture Peace Prize. Tom Brady's in the room. Wayne Gretzky is going to be there. You got the Village People playing. What does this mean culturally for this President and this White House?
- [49:46]
I
You know, look, I think when the President hits a skid on politics, he's very deft at, you know, changing it up by doing something that puts him into, as you say, millions of living rooms in a different context.
- [50:02]
And he's used sports quite a bit to sort of bolster that image of being every man in the White House. And whether it's showing up at football games or other award ceremonies or whatnot, he's not shy about being on a platform. One of the biggest events he did in the campaign that really helped him was showing up at a UFC fight. Very few politicians would have thought that was going to be something that would help them. And he had a keen sense of the marketing aspects of that. So. And by the way, one of the highest growing sports in the world and in the United States, as far as, you know, people watching it, you know, is soccer. And, and so you can only imagine the massive amounts of money and effort to build up its popular before the games kick off.
- [50:55]
C
This is publicity you can't buy, right? I mean, if you to have an elected official surrounded by all of the celebrities here, of course, other world leaders, it's kind of less the point, to be honest. But this is interrupting daytime tv, right? This is happening instead of soap operas right now. People are watching this.
- [51:12]
J
All press is good press.
- [51:13]
C
And this is actually pretty positive though, right? We Americans just watched him receive. You can joke about the FIFA Peace Prize and how it, however, everyone knew he was going to get this. But a lot of Americans aren't reading the tip sheets in the morning. They just saw the President get a Peace Prize on tv. What does that mean for his image across the country?
- [51:30]
J
Look, I could personally believe that the FIFA Peace Prize is akin to that of a Happy Meal toy, but globally it does send a very strong one.
- [51:39]
C
Of the great honors of his life, a Happy Meal toy.
- [51:43]
J
We'll see who gets the second one.
- [51:45]
C
I'm, I'm not sure.
- [51:46]
J
Oh, we got the President.
- [51:46]
C
What's he holding up, James? We're showing the president on stage. It's just, it's something that says usa. Okay, well, he drew usa. Okay, gotcha. This is the actual drawing now. We're getting to it here. Just to the end of the first hour. There we go, all three of them.
- [52:02]
Rick, how many Americans knew he was going to win the Peace Prize today? Are we.
- [52:07]
Are we being a little too cute about this?
- [52:10]
I
Yeah, we're in the bubble, you know, outside the bubble. Nobody was thinking about this. Nobody was thinking about the FIFA draw, with all due respect to FIFA. And, and yet your point is well taken earlier is that people are all going to see this is great. You know, nobody knows what the Nobel Peace Prize is, and we talk about that every week.
- [52:32]
C
So, like, why wouldn't FIFA be bigger than that?
- [52:35]
I
Because, you know, it's got a bigger brand. So at the end of the day, you know, it. It's a good, good. It's a good Friday for Donald Trump. He's had some really rough ones lately. And today I think they're going to, they're going to celebrate. Maybe they'll open up the deck with some heaters and play a little rock music at the White House just to celebrate what a, what a good day it's been for him.
- [52:59]
C
They got the Village People in town. I think they're all going to be at the Rose Garden Club later. Right. Major hat tip to producer James managed to put together. I never thought we'd have a segment with the pants panel on the FIFA World cup draw, but this is politics in 2025.
- [53:15]
Thanks for listening to the Balance of Power podcast. Make sure to subscribe if you haven't already at Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. And you can find us live every weekday from Washington, D.C. at noontime eastern@bloomberg.com.
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