March 12, 2025: US Funding Fight, SpaceX Crew-10 Launch Scrubbed, More

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
News when you wanted with Bloomberg News Now, I'm Doug Chrisner.
In Washington, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer is saying today
his party will block a Republican spending bill that was
aimed at averting a government shutdown on Saturday. Speaking earlier
on the Senate floor, Schumer urged the GOP to accept
a Democratic plan to provide thirty days of interim funding instead.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Republicans do not have the votes in the Senate to
invoke cloture on the House cr Our caucus is unified
on a clean April eleventh r that will keep the
government open and give Congress time to negotiate by parties
in legislation that can pass.

Speaker 1 (00:43):
That is Senator Chuck Schumer speaking there now. In the Senate,
sixty votes are needed to cut off procedural hurdles, and
Republicans only have fifty three votes in the chamber. This
will significantly raise the chance of a government shutdown this weekend.
SpaceX has delayed the lawn of a new crew to
the International Space Station due to an issue with ground equipment.

(01:04):
Now this delay will affect the return of astronauts Butch
Wilmore and Sunny Williams. The two have been on the
ISS since last June. You'll remember they were initially supposed
to stay for about a week. Here is the audio
from SpaceX's launch being called off.

Speaker 3 (01:20):
Hets PACEX Dragon d Kapiol stay flights take even to
Takaro already with the equipmentized.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
Yeah, sorry about the unfortunate result today, but we'll get
you back up here and there soon.

Speaker 1 (01:30):
Now. The next opportunity for SpaceX to launch is tomorrow.
The crew ten astronauts must arrive at the station and
complete a handover period before Wilmore and Williams can depart
on a SpaceX craft. Intel has named a new CEO.
He is former Intel board member and semiconductor veteran Liphutan,
the former head of Cadence Design Systems. Ton will take

(01:52):
over as Intel CEO on March eighteenth. Meantime, TSMC has
pitched chip makers and Nvidia, AMD and Broadcom about a
joint venture to operate Intel's factories. We are told TSMC
would run the operations of Intel's foundry division, but would
not own more than fifty percent. Here is Bloomberg's Bailey Lipshultz.

Speaker 4 (02:13):
They really need to do something to get this business operating.
When you look at it compared to peers, this is
a company that was a huge US player and has
been really left in the dust when you look at
AI companies, when you look at manufacturing chips, and I
remember being in a conference in the fall and asking
investors and analysts like, what's the path forward, and they
all kind of shrugged and said, it's just bad out there,
and it's only really gotten more uncertain.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
That is Bloomberg's Bailey lipshold shares and Intel were up
as much as eleven percent in late US trading. The
Federal Trade Commission is moving forward with an antitrust investigation
of Microsoft. Now, this probe was opened in the waning
days of the Biden administration. Here is Bloomberg Sarah Frear.

Speaker 5 (02:52):
There was a bit of surprise just considering that we
didn't know if the Trump administration was going to have
a similar a similar look at these big tech companies,
considering how much they have done to try to appeal
to him. There have been a lot of meetings between
Trump and big tech exacs. We've heard the administration repeat

(03:14):
some of the favorite policy lines of big tech exacts.

Speaker 1 (03:18):
That is Bloomberg Sarah Friar. Now the FTC is compelling
Microsoft to turn over data about its AI operations, including
the cost of training those AI models. President Trump's tariffs
on US imports of steel and aluminum have sparked retaliation.
Countermeasures from the European Union include a fifty percent tariff

(03:38):
on American whiskey, and there will also be new EU
tariffs on American beef, poultry, motorcycles, peanut butter, and jeans.
Here is European commissioned President Ursula Vunderlion.

Speaker 6 (03:50):
The European Union must act to protect consumers and business.
The countermeasures we take today are strong but proportionate. As
the United States are applying tariff's worth twenty eight billion dollars,
we are responding with countermeasures worth twenty six billion euros.

Speaker 1 (04:10):
That is Ursula Vonderlion there. Now. President Trump is vowing
to respond. He spoke earlier from the Oval Office.

Speaker 3 (04:18):
The European Union treats US very badly. They have for years.
I saw that I had it out with him in
my first term, did well, but we had to solve
other problems and we did. But European Union has been
very tough and it's our turn too, you know. We
get a turn at that.

Speaker 1 (04:36):
Also, Trump's pledge is raising the risk of further escalation
in his global trade war. Most of the equity market
gained ground today after two days of heavy losses. Today's
advance followed a cool reading on consumer prices. Here is
Bloomberg's Michael McKee on February's CPI.

Speaker 7 (04:53):
CPI at a month over month basis just up two
tents of eight percent, and the core is up just
two tenths of a eight percent. That pushes the year
over year CPI down to two point eight percent and
the core down to three point one percent, suggesting that
the Fed could start making a case for additional rate
cuts if they wanted to, and they may have to

(05:14):
given what's going on in Washington.

Speaker 1 (05:16):
That is Bloomberg's Michael McKee. Now tomorrow's reading on producer
prices may hold the key as to whether there is
more confidence in diminishing inflation. And that is news when
you want it with Bloomberg News. Now, I'm Doug Chrisner,
and this is Bloomberg