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- [00:00]
Scott Bessens
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- [00:18]
Azhar Sukri
Food insecurity experts say Gaza is now in a state of famine. Plus, a shooting in the heart of New York City leaves a Blackstone executive and several others dead and how the Trump administration plans to raise $1 trillion in just three months.
- [00:36]
Scott Bessens
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessens has been very open in talking about this. He calls himself the country's top bond Salesman.
- [00:44]
Azhar Sukri
It's Tuesday, July 29th. I'm Azhar Sucri for the Wall Street Journal. Here is the AM edition of what's news, the top headlines and business stories moving your world today. Famine is now unfolding in Gaza. That's the most dire assessment of the enclave's deepening hunger crisis since the start of the war. An interim report released this morning by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, found at least 16 children under five have died of hunger related causes since mid July. Journal correspondent Margarita Stancati says it's the first time the UN Supported group has described the food crisis in such terms.
- [01:34]
Margarita Stancati
Food security experts are saying that all areas of the Gaza Strip are experiencing rapidly deteriorating food insecurity. So when it comes to extreme food shortage, you know, most households are saying that they regularly are not having food to eat of any kind and that often people go to bed hungry. Acute childhood malnutrition is getting much worse across the enclave and particularly in the north, and hunger related deaths are increasing. So these are the three criteria used to measure famine conditions. And the IPC in its update said all three things are getting worse. The situation has become so severe that even President Trump weighed in on it yesterday. He referred to images he's seen on TV and he said, you know, some of those kids, that's real starvation stuff. And his comments came after Israeli Prime Minister Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, you know, there is no policy of starvation in Gaza and in fact there is no starvation in Gaza.
- [02:35]
Azhar Sukri
Today's assessment is not an official declaration of famine, which happens rarely and is very politically sensitive. It's now up to governments and senior UN officials to declare a famine based on the IPC's assessment. A lone shooter has killed four people, including a police officer and an executive from financial firm Blackstone in a midtown New York building. The gunman then turned the gun on himself. Speaking last night, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said the shooter was 27 year old Shane Tamura, who had driven his black BMW across the country from Colorado double parked on Park Avenue during the evening rush and began shooting as soon as he was inside the building lobby.
- [03:23]
Scott Bessens
345 Park Avenue is a commercial office.
- [03:25]
Jessica Tisch
Building whose tenants include the NFL, Rudin Management, KPMG and Blackstone. Four innocent victims are dead. Among them is NYPD police officer DIDA rule Islam, 36 years old, four years on the job.
- [03:43]
Azhar Sukri
The NYPD said the alleged shooter had a documented mental health history and that his motives are still under investigation. A fifth person remains in critical condition. We are exclusively reporting that the Trump administration is considering a plan to raise tens of billions of dollars with a new fee that would transform the patent system. That's according to people familiar with the matter. It would be a radical move that would likely get pushback from businesses. The people said that Commerce Department officials are discussing charging holders 1% to 5% of their patent value, a shift that could dramatically increase fees. A Commerce Department spokesman declined to comment. And in another exclusive we're reporting that premiums for Medicare drug plans are set to increase sharply next year. That's mostly due to rising costs, regulatory changes and cutbacks to a subsidy program. That initiative has largely shielded seniors from rising monthly bills in 2025. According to a Medicare official, the subsidy program pumped an extra $6.2 billion of federal into so called Part D plans this year. The Trump administration is set to cut spending on that program by about 40% in 2026. Mars, the maker of M and Ms. Skittles and Kind bars, will invest more than $2 billion into U.S. factories over the next 18 months, spanning its snacking, food and pet care businesses. Mars has already invested about $6 billion over the which it said added 9,000 jobs in the U.S. the company, one of the world's biggest family owned and privately held firms, said that 94% of its products sold in the US are now made in America. And kicking off a busy day for earnings, Spotify said that it added about 12% more premium subscribers in the second quarter, topping its own guidance. The streaming platform expanded access to its audiobooks and personalized music offerings around the world. But the company still swung to a loss of about $100 million amid higher personnel and marketing costs. This morning, we'll also get results from UnitedHealth, Merck, Procter and Gamble and Boeing, with Visa and Starbucks reporting after the closing bell. Coming up, Wall street is bracing for a deluge of treasury bills as the Trump administration moves to shake things up in the dusty government bond market. That story after the break.
- [06:36]
Jessica Tisch
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- [07:08]
Azhar Sukri
The Trump administration is making government borrowing exciting again. Or as some investors might see it, more unpredictable than it has been in decades. Enormous tax and spending plans mean the administration is having to issue a load of short term bonds to finance its deficit. Sam Goldfarb has written extensively about the US Debt market. Sam, we learned yesterday that the treasury expects to borrow more than a trillion dollars this coming quarter. That's a huge leap from previous estimates. How did we get here?
- [07:42]
Scott Bessens
Yeah. So basically the US Government has a fairly large gap between the revenue that's taking in in taxes and the money that it's spending on everything from Medicare to defense. And this predated this latest Trump administration. But he's extended tax cuts that he passed in his first administration. And that's sort of like locked in this fiscal trajectory, which just means that the government has to borrow a lot of money to make sure that it can meet its spending obligations.
- [08:10]
Azhar Sukri
Yeah. So clearly a lot of debt is about to come to the market to finance that big, beautiful bill. Is the Trump administration doing anything to shore up support among investors?
- [08:21]
Scott Bessens
Yeah. So it's kind of interesting. In the past, presidents and treasury secretaries have really not waded too much into this issue about, like, exactly how they're going to borrow. But Treasury Secretary Scott Besant has been very open in talking about this. He calls himself the country's top bond salesman. And Trump himself has said, we're going to go very short term, wait for Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell to have his term expire, and then we're going to get rates way down and then we're going to go long term. And that kind of talk is just unusual because in the past administrations felt like that you should just basically not talk about this, sort of have investors not think about it and then just come up with a mix of debt that could kind of last for the long term.
- [09:06]
Azhar Sukri
Right. And the administration is due to provide a formal update about its borrowing plans tomorrow. That's usually a fairly run of the mill announcement. But investors seem to be watching more closely as to which bonds are being issued. Am I Right.
- [09:21]
Scott Bessens
So basically the base case is that nothing will change, that they'll just keep issuing notes and bonds that mature two years to 30 years at the same pace as they've been doing. Now that suggests in some ways it sounds like, okay, so nothing's changing. But if they just continue to do that as the borrowing needs grow, that means that they'll have to do the additional borrowing with short term debt, with bills that mature in a year or less. So just maintaining the status quo in some ways over time will amount to a policy change because if you just are issuing the same amount of, let's say, 10 year notes, but the borrowing needs are getting bigger, you have to issue more short term debt.
- [10:01]
Azhar Sukri
And with the Fed's latest rate decision due tomorrow, there will be a lot to sift through. Not least, any indications of when a rate cut could be expected that might send the interest and all that debt down. Sam Goldfarb is a Journal markets reporter. Thank you so much, Sam.
- [10:17]
Scott Bessens
Thank you.
- [10:18]
Azhar Sukri
And that's it for what's news for this Tuesday morning. Today's show was produced by Daniel Bark and Kate Bullivant. Our supervising producer is Sandra Kilhoff. I'm Azhar Sukri for the Wall Street Journal. We'll be back tonight with a new show. Until then, thanks for listening.