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- [00:01]
Luke Vargas
Viking committed to exploring the world in comfort. Journey through the heart of Europe on an elegant Viking longship with thoughtful service, cultural enrichment and all inclusive fares. Discover more@viking.com Trump's vision for the FTC begins to take shape. Plus congressional reporter Siobhan Hughes on how much of the president elect's agenda is likely to survive the GOP's narrow majorities in the House and Senate.
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Siobhan Hughes
If you thought Republican control in the house in the 118th Congress was slim, wait until you get to the next.
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Luke Vargas
Congress and the end of the road for GM's costly robo taxi program. It's Wednesday, December 11th. I'm Luke Vargas for the Wall Street Journal, and here is the AM edition of what's news, the top headlines and business stories moving your world Today, President elect Donald Trump says he'll elevate Republican lawyer Andrew Ferguson to lead the Federal Trade Commission. Ferguson, already an FTC commissioner, won't need Senate approval to assume the role where he would succeed Lina Khan, who flexed the commission's enforcement muscle by challenging mergers and the business practices of dominant companies. Ferguson is likely to abandon that approach to mergers, but shares Kahn's skepticism of tech companies, posting on X yesterday that he would work to, quote, end big tech's vendetta against competition and free speech. Separately, Trump says he'll nominate antitrust lawyer Mark Mehtter to be an FTC commissioner, and if confirmed, he would give the GOP a majority on the commission. Metter is a former aide to Utah Republican Senator Mike Lee, who led the introduction of legislation to break up Google. Meanwhile, Trump is promising to speed approval of large construction projects, signaling that he intends to push the limits of federal law to boost the economy. Posting on Truth Social, Trump said that any person or company investing $1 billion or more in the U.S. quote, will receive fully expedited approvals and permits, including, but in no way limited to all environmental approvals. At the Journal's CEO Council summit in Washington, Trump senior adviser Jason Miller described the president elect as pursuing a golden age of regulation cutting, whether it be.
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Scott Patterson
Domestic investors, whether it be foreign investors. And so what you're going to see is the president saying, coming up with creative ideas like this to say if you want to, whether it's money in the US who want to bring in money, he's going to move heaven and earth to get that money in the door and get it invested in the United States.
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Luke Vargas
It's not clear Trump will have legal authority to bypass permitting and environmental rules and state and local oversight court battles and a need for congressional approval could complicate the push. But Journal reporter Scott Patterson says permitting changes have begun to garner bipartisan support in Washington in recent years.
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Scott Patterson
You had environmental groups who derided the statement as an indication that Trump was in the back pocket of the fossil fuel industry. On the other hand, there is a perspective among environmental groups or clean energy backers who are in favor of permitting reform and some kinds of environmental reform because they see overbearing regulations as keeping essential clean energy projects from getting built in the United States. And this includes mines for critical minerals and battery minerals such as lithium, as well as big transmission projects like power lines.
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Luke Vargas
General Motors is scrapping its Cruise robo taxi program after nearly a decade and $10 billion in development, citing rising competition and the time and costs needed to scale the business. GM said that it owns about 90% of Cruise and intends to buy out the remaining investors while combining Cruise and GM's tech teams into a single effort to advance autonomous and assist driving. GM shares are up in off hours trading. A judge has rejected the auction sale of conspiracy platform Infowars to satirical news outlet the Onion. Infowars was put up for sale as part of a bankruptcy case stemming from the nearly $1.5 billion that courts have ordered founder Alex Jones to pay in damages to families of Sandy Hook victims after he falsely called the 2012 school shooting a hoax. In a post on X, the Onions CEO said the was disappointed with the decision but would continue to pursue the purchase of Infowars. It's said it plans to relaunch Infowars as a satirical site. And in news likely to move markets today, investors are getting ready to scour November's US inflation report, which is due at 8:30am Eastern. Economists polled by the Journal expect to see a second consecutive month of modest price upticks. And retailer Macy's is set to report earnings this morning, with results from software company Adobe due after the closing bell. Coming up, as Donald Trump's future agenda takes shape, how much of that can Congress deliver, especially given the GOP's razor thin majority in the House? We've got that story and more after the break. Well, we heard earlier in the show about some of what the incoming Trump administration is hoping to achieve, a decent amount of which will require congressional backing. So how likely are they to get that support? Reporter Siobhan Hughes covers Congress out of our D.C. bureau. Siobhan. First off, House results from California took a while to come in after Election Day, but we've now got a complete picture of the Republican majorities in Both the House and the Senate, if I understand correctly. What kind of margins in both chambers can we expect the Trump White House to be able to count on here?
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Siobhan Hughes
Well, if you thought Republican control in the house in the 118th Congress was slim, wait until you get to the next Congress. Right now, it's shaping up to be a 220 to 215 Republican majority. So that means House Republicans can lose no more than two votes and still pass their agenda, assuming everybody shows up and Democrats vote against the Republican line.
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Luke Vargas
Well, super tight math there, Siobhan. And it will get Even closer, right? 217 to 215 for a few months because of resignations.
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Siobhan Hughes
Well, that's a piece of it. Now, in fairness, the Republicans have been pretty careful to put forward only members who are from safe districts. So, for example, Mike Waltz, who's going to the Trump administration comes from a place that will be a safe Republican place. But it also shows you why Trump probably can't pick folks from the House anymore. That is going to be a losing proposition for his party.
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Luke Vargas
Okay, so Republicans overall vote majority pretty tight. And that's obviously an important factor. But so too are ideological divisions within the caucus. Are there some obvious issues heading into this administration on which we might see disagreements emerge among Republicans on Capitol Hill?
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Siobhan Hughes
Well, there are some unresolved tensions within the Republican Party. For example, the war in Ukraine. There is still a very pro Ukraine contingent in the Republican Party. And the question is whether or not their influence is going to be entirely stamped out. And then on the issue of tariffs, there are still plenty of Republicans who are concerned about the damage to the economy, the inflationary impact from Trump's tariff plans. And so that has yet to be really worked through.
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Luke Vargas
Let's take some other issues that have dollars and cents attached to them. Tax reform, a big priority for Republicans going into the next Congress. What are we expecting to see there? And could that possibly be something that gets some bipartisan support?
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Siobhan Hughes
Well, so tax reform is going to be complicated. The 2017 Trump tax cuts, as you know, expire at the end of 2025. But a portion of those tax cuts are things that Democrats are going to like, too. And so to some degree, Democrats might be willing to play ball. The problem is going to be any tax cuts aimed at businesses or the wealthy. For example, that corporate tax cut, along with the fact that the tax cuts are expected to cost money, expected to add to the country's deficit. And since the government already spent 1.8 trillion more than it collected in fiscal 2024, that's going to be a problem.
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Luke Vargas
Beyond taxes, Siobhan, are there other issues where we might see possible bipartisan consensus?
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Siobhan Hughes
There can be some weird left right alliances that crop up. So, for example, somebody like a Bernie Sanders might not necessarily be so pro armed forces and pro wars, which really brings him into alliance with the Trump wing of the party. There's also an interesting small debate I'm following on the issue of Ozempic. There are some Republicans who think the government should be investing money in Ozempic, arguing that the health benefits are so great it would actually end up saving the government money. But they align with Democrats on that, but not necessarily with their fellow Republicans. So they're gonna be really, really interesting alliances like that.
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Luke Vargas
And then what overall seems to be the top priority for Republican leaders in.
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Siobhan Hughes
Both chambers, really, border security is going to be a focal point. And I cannot tell you what a big sea change this is from where the Republicans were in 2017 when they were gunning both to cut taxes and to eliminate the Affordable Care Act. The fact that you have somebody like Lindsey Graham saying border security is going to come before ext. Tax cuts tells you what a brand new world we are in, which of course, carries risks. Because if you spend all of your time on immigration, is there going to be enough time left to extend those tax cuts before they expire at the end of next year?
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Luke Vargas
And just when we're talking about immigration, you know, efforts in Congress, are we talking about the kind of things that were in that bipartisan deal that just didn't make it through Congress in the past year, or something entirely different, Maybe more of a Republican wishlist as opposed to something with bipartisan support?
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Siobhan Hughes
Well, Trump has a very different idea regarding the border in that he wants mass deportation, he wants to expel immigrants, and he wants to install walls. And that's far different from the approach that Democrats have been interested in. And so that is part of the reason that Republicans are talking about moving their border agenda not through the normal process that requires a supermajority in the Senate, but through this fast track, muscular approach that allows you to get around the need for a supermajority.
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Luke Vargas
Siobhan Hughes covers Congress out of the Wall Street Journal's Washington Bureau. Siobhan, thanks so much as always.
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Siobhan Hughes
Thank you.
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Luke Vargas
And finally, clothing companies, long under pressure to cut out suppliers tied to human rights and environmental abuses, are using an old technology to help them shore up supply chains. Journal reporter Dylan Tokar says that Shein and Patagonia are among the brands turning to isotopic test, a forensic method that allows them to peer into the atomic makeup of materials in their products and hopefully pinpoint their origin.
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Dylan Tokar
Since 2021, we've had this law in the US called the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention act, which essentially bans goods from the Xinjiang region of China on the presumption that they were made using forced labor. We've been told that she an which started doing this testing in 2022, initially found that 2% of the tests were positive for Xinjiang cotton and that since taking action against some suppliers, they've had that number fall to 1.7%. That's a fairly modest improvement. But it's not just companies doing this. U.S. customs officials have also started using isotopic testing. So there's the very real possibility that if companies aren't doing this themselves, someone else will.
- [12:11]
Luke Vargas
And that's it for what's news for Wednesday morning. Today's show was produced by Kate Bullivant and Daniel Bach, with supervising producer Christina Rocca. And I'm Luke Vargas for the Wall Street Journal. We will be back tonight with a new show, and until then, thanks for listening.