May 27, 2025 • 39 mins
Watch Joe and Kailey LIVE every day on YouTube: http://bit.ly/3vTiACF.
New sanctions against Russia are “absolutely” under consideration, President Donald Trump told reporters after Moscow launched its largest drone barrage in the war against Ukraine during a third night of strikes.
Trump has grown visibly frustrated with Russian President Vladimir Putin and the state of talks meant to deliver a ceasefire in Ukraine. The US president has repeatedly threatened new sanctions in the past without following through.
“I’m not happy with what Putin is doing,” Trump said Sunday before Moscow’s latest barrage. “He’s killing a lot of people, and I don’t know what the hell happened to Putin. I’ve known him a long time — always gotten along with him — but he’s sending rockets into cities and killing people, and I don’t like it at all.” In a Truth Social post later on Sunday, Trump said that Putin “has gone absolutely CRAZY!”
Bloomberg Washington Correspondents Joe Mathieu and Kailey Leinz deliver insight and analysis on the latest headlines from the White House and Capitol Hill, including conversations with influential lawmakers and key figures in politics and policy. On this edition, Joe and Kailey speak with:
- Bloomberg's Kate Sullivan.
- Center for Strategic and International Studies Senior Fellow for the Defense and Security Department Benjamin Jensen.
- FIL Inc. CEO Frank Luntz.
- Stonecourt Capital Partner Rick Davis and Third Way Executive Vice President for Policy Jim Kessler.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. You're listening to the
Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast. Catch us live weekdays at
noon and five pm Eastern on Apple, Cocklay and Android
Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. Listen on demand wherever
you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Balance of Power on Bloomberg TV and Radio. On a
day where we don't actually expect to hear from President Trump,
at least not on camera. He's not planning to speak
with reporters. There's no events on his public schedule, but
we are still hearing from him on True Social as
usual and on an interesting subject. Today is his most
recent True Social post. Show warns that Vladimir Putin of
(00:47):
Russia is playing with fire. He says, what Vladim Reputin
doesn't realize is that if it weren't for me, lots
of really bad things would have already happened to Russia,
and I mean really bad in all caps. This is
of course, after over the weeks, he said, Vladimir Putin
is now crazy.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
That's right, He called him crazy in all caps exclamation point.
As Vladimir Putin continues to bombard Ukraine missiles and drones
killing civilians, not even targeting military installations in some cases,
which is confounding. Donald Trump not sure what he's referring
to in this tweet though, or this truth post. Lots
(01:23):
of really bad things would have already happened to Russia,
making many ask if that's with regard to sanctions or
something worse.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Well, keeping in mind that he also did tell reporters
that he is still considering further sanctions on Russia, and
we know there's legislation in the Senate in the works
that would do just that, spearheaded by Lindsay Graham. It
has eighty co sponsors.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
Yeah, that could happen pretty easily based on what we've
heard on Capitol Hill. And that's where we are joined
by Kate Sullivan, Bloomberg's White House correspondent with us here
in Washington, d C. Kate, it's great to see the
president has no public events scheduled, but he's got us
talking with truth social posts all the while.
Speaker 4 (01:56):
Is he serious about sanctions?
Speaker 5 (01:59):
You know, it's a great question. And this is not
the first time that he's threatened sanctions on Russia, right,
and he's talked about back in March, he was talking
about these secondary tariffs on Russian oil. It's we've seen
this progression of Trump getting more and more frustrated with
Putin and with Russia and the pace of these negotiations.
(02:19):
It's very unclear how serious he is about implementing these
you know, he is. We've seen over and over again
how he will make these threats, and it seems like
most of the time it's just a tactic to get
people to come to the table. And so it's very
unclear at this time whether how serious he is about
implementing this.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Well, what about just his attitude overall and the post
we mentioned in which he says Vladimir Putin is crazy.
He said he led the post by saying, I've always
had a very good relationship with Vladimir Putin of Russia.
But something has happened to him. He has gone absolutely crazy.
It's not a I was wrong about him, It's that
he has changed. Kate is how he's characterizing.
Speaker 5 (02:58):
This right, and it's it's pretty remarkable because this has
been a bit of a slow burn. I think, you know,
we've seen signs that Trump is getting more and more
frustrated with the pace of these negotiations. He you know,
has has always still said that he even as he
was expressing these these frustrations, he said that, you know,
(03:19):
he was still confident that Putin wanted to make a
deal and that he wanted to come to the table.
I actually asked Trump about this a few weeks ago
in the Oval Office, and I said, you know, do
you think Russia is playing you? And unsurprisingly, he balked
at that question and said, you know, nobody's playing me. Uh,
nobody's getting played. But he also still signaled confidence that
this deal would be made. And so I think what
(03:40):
we're seeing is Trump realizing that maybe he doesn't have
the relationship that he thought he did with Putin, or
maybe he didn't have he doesn't have the understanding that
he thought he did with the Russian president. And I
think it's really frustrating to him because ultimately it's making
Trump look ineffective, and it's really cutting at the heart
of this brand that Trump has been trying to project
(04:02):
for decades, right that he's this master negotiator and deal maker.
You know, this was part of his stump speech. He
said every day on the campaign trail, I heard him
say it at every rally that he could end this
war in twenty four hours, and at one point he
was saying I could end it before I even take office.
And so this is really just undermining a lot of
what he's been putting out there in terms of the
image he wants to project as a as a president.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
I'm sure it's quite an experience to be a journalist
than as Donald Trump. If he's being played, what was
his response, who are you with?
Speaker 5 (04:30):
I've gotten that one before, and I would say, you know,
I phrased it that way. He had said something like
I know when I'm getting played, and so I followed
up by being, well, do you think that you are
getting played? And he he said he did not think
that he was getting played, but you know, of course
he would say that.
Speaker 4 (04:46):
So doing great work for us. Now there the faint
of heart for the brave.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Indeed, Kate Sullivan, Bloomberg White House correspondent, thank you so much.
And we want to get more into the state of
the war and what signals this sends about the US
is continued involvement or not in attempts to end it,
and turned to Ben Jensen, director of the Future's Lab
and senior Fellow for the Defense and Security Department at
the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Ben, thanks for
being with us on balance of power. When we consider
(05:14):
the idea that President Trump is now threatening that Russia
is playing with fire, that he's still saying he's open
to sanctions, Is there any fire the US could fire
at Russia that would actually actually be enough to influence
the behavior of Vladimir Putin at this point when to
this point that hasn't worked. Sanctions have had very little
(05:34):
effect on his behavior.
Speaker 6 (05:37):
So thanks for having me, And let's start by saying,
you're framing the question spot on the real Achilles heel
of Russia, despite its ability to continue a protracted conflict.
Is it the dire state of its economy when you
look at the currency, you look at interest rates, and
then you think about the structure how its economy is
fundamentally and rewired to do nothing but be a larger
(05:58):
version of North Korean Europe, to do wage successive campaigns,
increasingly through missilesalvos targeting Ukraine. I think there is the
ability to play with fire and a couple of levers.
One is you actually have to expand the scope of
sanctions to go secondary sanctions that actually hit financial transactions
that deal with Russian hydrocarbon products. Now, if you do that,
(06:20):
you're going to have to keep Europe on board. You're
also going to have some uncomfortable allies because ultimately what
you want to do is make Russian oil more expensive,
Russian gas more expensive, and that actually hurts that meaning
it costs them more to produce and they don't get
as much of the return on their investments. And that's
actually really important because we already see you mentioned earlier
(06:40):
in your show. Today, we already have oil prices are
down over a percent today. So if we have a
natural dampening on oil prices at the same time that
we have a more concerted sanctions package, we can at
least squeeze the ability of Vladimir Putin to wage war. Now,
to be fair, that's still going to take time to
actually impact his battlefield performance, given that he's got consistent
(07:01):
support from both China and Iran and has found ways
to kind of turn on the Russian economy into a
war economy.
Speaker 4 (07:10):
Hey bet, it's great to have you back.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
Let's talk about his battlefield performance, because last time you
were with us, you showed us your Russian firepower strike tracker,
which people can google and look at this online, which
shows us a massive increase in missile attacks by Vladimir Putin,
the daily tallly of Russian missile attacks since Donald Trump
(07:32):
has become president. Is he trying to seize on a
closing window to do as much damage as possible before
there's a peace deal or it's just open season under Trump.
Speaker 6 (07:42):
So I don't think it has as much to do
with the Trump presidency as much as Vladimir Putin's perspective
on how you negotiate from a position of strength, and
that is sadly, to hold the Ukrainian population hostage. And
as you mentioned the firepower strike tracker, let me break
down what we saw in the last seventy two hours,
because the numbers are stark. In the last seventy two hours,
we had three hundred and fifty five Shaheed attacks. That's
(08:04):
the largest in a seventy two hour period since the
war began. And we're still seventy of those weapons got through.
When I say seventy to put that in perspective, that
means over seven thousand pounds of high explosives hit Ukrainian
cities in the last seventy two hours just with Shahed drones,
and it wasn't just shiheds. There were twenty three ballistic
(08:25):
missiles fired in this period. Now, normally you only see
one to two ballistic missiles fired per day, so twenty
three in a seventy two hour period is a massive increase.
And you also saw sixty two cruise missile attacks. Now,
when you put that all together, that means you have
over one thousand, one thousand one way attack drones, ballistic missiles,
(08:47):
and cruise missiles that were largely targeting Ukrainian critical infrastructure,
civilian populations, and political centers of gravity, almost as if
it was a slight to our president and anyone who
thinks that Putin isn't in this war for the long
haul and going to try to settle this on the
battlefield or at least seeing if he can break the
will of the Ukrainian people during this kind of pseudo
(09:10):
negotiation period we're in.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
So, Ben, are you saying that this is more about
the psychological impact of these strikes than actual territorial advances
Russia is trying to make.
Speaker 6 (09:21):
That's a great question, and yes, I do think that
in fact, as part of that firepower strike tracker. We've
done two recent studies, one study called drone saturation, which
really looks at the profile the Shihat attacks. But to
your question, the more important one is called operational Fires
in an Age of Punishment, And what we statistically prove
in that is that Russia has decoupled its strategic attack forces,
(09:43):
its ballistic missiles, its cruise missiles, its Shaheed drones from
its operational level battlefield objectives. Meaning in modern war when
you have precision strike, we would expect to see a
tighter coupling of these deep fires with operational ground maneuvers,
and can show in that report that nothing could be
further from the truth. It appears to be that entded
(10:05):
like Shaheed. So these attack drones, cruise missiles, and ballistic
missiles are literally used. Has a psychological tool which is
a throwback to theories of airpower we haven't seen since
before the Second World War, where embombing to win meant
disrectly a psychological effect upon the population to then convince
leaders to sue for peace. So I think you're onto something.
(10:27):
This is more about psychology. It's a coercive campaign, it's
a punishment campaign. It has very little modern traditional military
utility or logic. It's a throwback to almost a time
long gone by.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
Well, clearly you're onto something here, Ben, and at the
risk of asking the dumb question here alongside Kaylee lions,
how do you know all of this? Is this based
on satellite imagery? You're speaking like you're on the ground
in Moscow.
Speaker 6 (10:54):
Well, I'd probably be put in jail if I was there.
So a New Year's resolution, don't go to jail this year. No,
most of this comes from bath It's not magic. One
of the fascinating things about war in the information age,
when everything is counted and tracked, is if you take
time to use basic data science, which your listeners and
(11:15):
viewers know well, I mean everyone who has a Bloomberg
terminal has been doing this for decades. It's using data
patterns that you find to statistically isolate key patterns and trends.
And in this case, that means we can analyze how
Russia attacks Ukraine on a daily basis and test a
series of hypotheses and really isolate where we find particularly
(11:37):
interesting correlations. And in this case, the major correlation we
found in that operational fires in the Age of Punishment
was that decoupling of what we would call operational art
or large scale campaign ground maneuver. So when combined arms
armies target parts of the Ukrainian front from these deep
missile attacks, and that runs contrary to what we've seen
(12:00):
in the modern history of war and does look a
lot more like a theorists like Duhey who wrote theories
of air power really before World War Two.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Ben, you spoke a moment ago about Russia's ability to
continue to do this because of the support it's still
receiving from China and Iran. Is that indefinite? Can it
keep up this pace in perpetuity or will even the
flow of support from those adversaries not be able to
keep pace with this kind of strike concentration we're seeing
(12:31):
like this.
Speaker 6 (12:32):
Yeah, you're asking the critical question because every time economists
have believed the Russian economy was about to fail, it
holds on for just another day. It's as if suffering
is becoming a way of life. So in some sense,
Russia has already converted its economy to look more like
North Korea than Germany. And I don't think that's going
to stop when this war ends. So the real answer
(12:55):
that question becomes the resiliency of that war economy. Now
again the numbers are if we compare the volume of
Shaheed these one way attack drones, and we know that
Russia built its own domestic manufacturing, so it no longer
imports them purely from Iran. It basically builds the drone. Sadly,
it still smuggles and electronics from around the world to
(13:17):
guide these drones. We've seen a ten times increase.
Speaker 7 (13:20):
Now put that.
Speaker 6 (13:21):
Think about that for a second. In the space of
the year, despite sanctions, despite a high interest rates, despite
a low currency, despite every negative economic indicator you could
think of, Russia has still managed to increase its production
of Shaheed drones by ten times. The Department of Defense
(13:41):
Secretary Hegsith would I mean literally probably hug any defense
manufacturer who could promise that degree of scalability. We can't
do it in the years right now. So there is
a lot there's something going on behind the scenes. We
know China is providing.
Speaker 4 (13:58):
That when we have more time.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
That's Ben Jensen csis from Julia du Haey to Russian firepower.
Speaker 4 (14:05):
We appreciate the conversation on Bloomberg.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power Podcast. Catch
us live weekdays at noon and five pm Eastern on
Apple Cocklay 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 played Bloomberg eleven thirty.
Speaker 4 (14:28):
I hope you had a long weekend.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
By the way, I know a lot of people who
are out there cooking hamburgers and hot dogs and doing
the thing that you do. Is I kept hearing on
the local news over the course of the weekend the
unofficial start to summer, right the start to the US
driving season.
Speaker 4 (14:46):
Let's check gas prices. That's what we do this time
of year.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
Even though, of course Memorial Day is dedicated to remembering
and honoring the men and women who died for this
country serving in the military. That's why we saw some
moving observances over the weekend. Saw more than a thousand
graduate at West Point on Saturday. We saw the annual
presidential visit to Arlington yesterday, not only the laying of
(15:13):
the wreath, but also the speech inside the Amphitheater.
Speaker 4 (15:16):
Both of these events for Donald Trump brought.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
Up a lot of talk about political norms, taste, purpose,
as the President donned a baseball cap a MAGA cap
at the West Point graduation, spoke for about an hour
attacking drag shows and critical race theory, talking about the
(15:42):
Golden age that was beginning in the military because of him.
The President even went so far as to talk about
trophy wives, referring to a real estate developer who he
thought somehow did it wrong.
Speaker 8 (15:53):
Listen, and he sold his company and he had nothing
to do. He ended up getting a divorce, found a
new wife. Could you say a trophy wife? I guess
we can say a trophy wife. It didn't work out
too well. But that doesn't work out too well. I
must tell you a lot of trophy wives. Does it
(16:15):
work out?
Speaker 4 (16:18):
I guess suggesting that some do.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
When I heard that Frank Lunz was there, and of
course he was there. Frank is giving an enormous amount
of his time to West Point. Right now, he's talked
to us about the work that he's doing with the
cadets as an instructor. He's also learning a lot, which
is why we love to talk to Frank about it.
He was there for the commencement address politics and communications
consultant Famed Polster, as we like to say, And in fact,
(16:44):
the CEO of fil Frank Lunz, is with us live
right now, and it's great to have you.
Speaker 4 (16:48):
Frank.
Speaker 3 (16:49):
Back on Bloomberg, I want to be careful with the
questions I asked, did this seem like a typical graduation
speech at West Point?
Speaker 9 (16:57):
It did not from the very beginning. And President Trump
did something that no other president has done. First off,
they only come every four years, So you got the
Secretary of Defense, you have the head the Joint Chiefs.
There are people who come. Secretary of I believe Secretary
of State also shows up. So the president only comes
(17:18):
once every four years. And President Trump wanted to do this,
and of course West Point will welcome the president if
the President wants to come. But he did something no
president had ever done, which is he recognized cadets from
the podium for their exceptional and extraordinary leadership, for their
(17:38):
truly almost unimaginable capability to get things done both intellectually,
militarily and physically. And what I enjoyed most is that
he invited them to come up to the podium and
say a few words as the ultimate recognition of what
(17:59):
they'd achieved and what they were about to do, and
that's never been done before. And the cadets absolutely loved
it because it said that they matter. West Point as
an academy produced as the finest young men and women
in the country. They do it through training, they do
it through character, they do it through and educational background
(18:24):
that is so broad and so comprehensive, And to recognize
those cadets personally for their achievements was really special, and
the cadets loved it.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
He did it, of course in his own way. You
heard the remark about trophy wives, the drag shows, talking
about the former president wearing a hat.
Speaker 4 (18:46):
None of that was.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
Included in your analysis as someone who was there, Frank,
And that's why we wanted to bring you on to
have a sense of not only how it went over
for people who were there, the cadets and their families,
but also to get a sense of howpolitical this actually
was and how positive or optimistic it may or may
not have felt while we were there. Are we paying
attention to all the wrong things?
Speaker 9 (19:09):
Well, remember that cadets cannot discuss. They can discuss, but
they cannot exhibit partisan behavior, and they don't. And what's
amazing about these young men and women. Is that unlike Harvard,
and I get yelled at for doing this, but I'm
doing it anyway. Unlike the other universities who stage protests,
Unlike the attempts of other students to disrupt and prevent
(19:31):
the exchange of ideas, at West Point, there is an
attitude of respect, a commitment to decency and civility, and
in the end, they want to hear every opinion of
every individual and they do not wish to engage in
partisan politics, so that what the President says they saw
(19:52):
as entertaining, they saw as being enlightening. But they don't
come to a conclusion because they're there to learn. They're
not performers. They're not about showing their politics and their parisanship.
They're there to represent the academy and most importantly, to
(20:14):
defend the Constitution. And that's the thing I wish that
your listeners really understood. A cadet doesn't take an oath
to the president, doesn't take an oath to the country.
Even they take an oath to uphold the Constitution. And
that's what makes this so special, and that's why I
(20:35):
was so happy that it was the president, not just
the Secretary of the Defense or not just the Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs. That the President wanted to be
there to say thank you to the cadets from a
grateful nation, and to me, that's what we should be
focused on.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
And we are as we spend time with Frank Lunz
live on Bloomberg, knowing the honorable intentions of these cadets.
Did the President comport himself appropriately.
Speaker 9 (21:04):
There's some stuff that he said that that was ad
lib There's some stuff that was about things that were
not directly involving the cadets and involving the decisions that
will need to be made over the weeks, months and
years to follow. But the President made a commitment to
(21:25):
the military that was uncompromising, and made a commitment to
the cadets that they would have the best equipment, that
they would have the best innovation, that they would be
represented well. And I take the President at his word,
just as I was there for Joe Biden's convention speech
last year, which is quite different. And I appreciate how
(21:50):
the participants carry themselves and how they have made a
commitment to serve whoever is the president in whatever way
they're asked to serve as long as it upholds the Constitution.
Look at consider this. Every institution in America, education, politics, law,
(22:14):
the courts, Congress, healthcare. Every institution is at all time
lows in terms of trust and credibility, But not the military,
because the military doesn't take sides. The military doesn't approve
or disapprove of someone because of what partisanship they come from,
what initial they have after the name, whether our or
(22:38):
D and West Point is the tip of the sphere
for those institutions, and so they don't have this conversation
about whether something was great or horrible. They simply have
a conversation about what they need to know to serve,
and serve with exceptionalism, serve in an extraordinary way, because
(22:59):
excellent isn't good enough for them. These are not the
top ten percent of America. The is the top one
percent of America, and they deliver it every single day.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
Did you get to talk to the president at all
while he was there, Frank.
Speaker 9 (23:14):
I did last year with Biden. This president did not.
Because he wanted to spend more time with the cadets.
He did not have the same kind of interaction with
some of the faculty. And I appreciate that because in
the end, Yes, I'd like to shake his hand, and
I'm a collector of challenge coins, so I'd love to
get his challenge coin. But in the end, I'd rather
(23:34):
have him to spend more time with the cadets and
less time with us. And his speech, which is fifty
seven minutes long, was longer than past speech is because
he had more to say.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
Fast forward to Arlington on Memorial Day and we can
talk about the speech if you want. And I, by
the way, people were laughing and applauding in the amphitheater,
but he proceeded the occasion with a post on truth
social and he's been known to do these on holidays. Frank,
Happy Memorial Day to all it said, including the scum
that spent the last four years trying to destroy our country,
(24:09):
talking about taking in mentally insane migrants, warped radical democrats,
US hating judges. How do you reconcile that with the
spirit and meaning of Memorial Day.
Speaker 9 (24:21):
I accept that point, and I accept and embrace that
point to Memorial Day is let me try this again.
Memorial Day is not the beginning of summer. It's not
a drive component of driving. It is a honorable and
solemn occasion where we recognize and show our respect for
(24:44):
those who gave the ultimate sacrifice. And it's a day
that I'm more intimidated by than any other, because, let's
be candid, I may wear a polo shirt from West Point,
I may teach here, but I did not serve, and
I appreciate with the very inside me those people who do.
(25:08):
And I recognize and respect those families who have loved
ones who are buried there. I wish our language is
more appropriate to the occasion. I wish that we stop
talking about grilling hot dogs and hamburgers and start talking
(25:28):
about how great our military is. And I wish that
we use language that not only upholds the tradition of
Memorial Day, but raises it to the level of the
holiday that it truly is to pay our deepest respects
and our gratitude for those who serve this country so well,
(25:51):
not just for death.
Speaker 4 (25:52):
Fil live on.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
Bloomberg Listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast. Catch
us live weekdays at noon and five pm Eastern on Apple,
Cocklay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. Listen
on demand wherever you get your podcasts, or watch us
live on YouTube's.
Speaker 4 (26:15):
Feeling like it's Monday here. It is Tuesday. I hope
a short week for you.
Speaker 3 (26:20):
Thanks for joining us on the little Monday edition of
Balance of Power here on Bloomberg Radio Satellite radio Channel
one twenty one.
Speaker 4 (26:27):
Yes on YouTube as well.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
Search Bloomberg Business News Live to catch our live stream,
and now you can watch us on Bloomberg Originals. Boy,
you add the podcast, and it's pretty hard to hide
from this program as we look at politics here in
Washington and abroad after Memorial Day, and a lot of
news on Harvard that I want to get to the
panel with here the President Trump moving to cancel all
(26:49):
remaining federal contracts, wants to take money destined for Harvard
give it to trade schools, and now the administration is weighing,
according to Politico, at least requiring all Ford's students applying
to study in the US to undergo social media vetting.
A lot to get into here with our panel. Rick
Davis joins Republican strategist Bloomberg Politics contributor of Course partner
(27:12):
at Stone Court Capital, alongside democratic strategist Jim Kessler, the
executive vice president Policy Third Way. Here in Washington, it's
great to see you both, gentlemen, welcome back. There was
a time when both Rick Davis and Jim Kesler were
on opposite sides of the aisle in the United States Senate,
and it's always an honor for us to put them
together here. Rick, I want to ask you about Harvard,
(27:33):
because the onslaught continues, but much like the threatened tariffs,
with some exceptions, it has been largely threats that the
President is lobbing at Harvard, or reports of threats in
the case of this Politico story on foreign students being
blocked by attending Harvard.
Speaker 4 (27:51):
How much of this is real?
Speaker 3 (27:53):
I mean, the idea of taking money and giving it
to trade schools, is that something the White House has
actually written a plan for or the President amusing on
truth social.
Speaker 10 (28:03):
I think that you cannot underestimate the social media a
musings of Donald Trump with policy development in the White House.
I mean, we've seen time and time again a post
out of nowhere, no seemingly policy initiatives directed toward an issue.
And yet when Donald Trump posts something on true social
(28:24):
it has the strength of a policy determination, maybe slightly
weaker than an executive order written from his desk, but
there's no question there's a war on between the administration Harvard.
There were a billion dollars worth of grants canceled by
the administration, and Harvard is suing to get that money
(28:46):
and more back. So the courts will ultimately be the
arbiter of that. But this latest effort obviously shows that
they've been doing some work inside the administration because there
are a lot of things that Harvard does for the government,
almost as a business training cabinet subcabinet members on various
aspects of crisis management and things like that. And what
(29:07):
the administration has done now is says, in addition to
these grants, I'm going to cancel the business relationship between
Harvard and the administration, which goes back to the Kennedy administration,
I said a long time in coming. And so you
see the upening of the ante. And of course you mentioned,
you know, kicking all these foreign students off of the
(29:30):
Harvard roles. They can go somewhere else if they want,
but they can't go to Harvard. So it is it
is a serious effort by this administration to undermine Harvard
its finances, it's admission policy, it's ideology, and I see
no reason why they would demurre in this because to them,
(29:51):
this is a symbolic conflict. It's not so much about
Harvard but what Harvard represents, and this is what they're
opposed to.
Speaker 3 (29:59):
Therefore it it doesn't always matter the way it turns out.
Jim Kessler, the President, writing as well, I'm considering taking
three billion dollars of grant money away from very anti
Semitic Harvard and giving it to trade schools all.
Speaker 4 (30:12):
Across the land.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
What a great investment that would be for the USA
and so badly needed. When you step back and consider
all of the threats and actions the administration is taking,
and Rick did a pretty nice job there walking through them. Here, Jim,
does it matter if he closes the deals on any
of these or it's just about getting caught in the
(30:33):
act of hating on Harvard.
Speaker 11 (30:36):
I think it's more about getting caught in the act.
I think this is this. I think this is performance
alright by Donald Trump. I expect at least ninety percent
of what he's trying to do to be struck down
by the courts.
Speaker 7 (30:48):
It's unconstitutional. That doesn't mean that it won't.
Speaker 11 (30:52):
Take some time for Harvard to get through this and
do some damage. But I think Trump gets to make
a headline, then he gets to complain about the courts,
and then and then he gets to blame the Jews
because he's also saying, look, I'm doing this because of
anti Semitism. I know of no Jewish organization in America
(31:16):
that is looking to attack elite universities or Harvard University
in particular. It's actually something that makes Jewish people very,
very uncomfortable that he's doing this and saying this is
in the name of Jewish Americans.
Speaker 7 (31:33):
So I think it's performance.
Speaker 3 (31:35):
RD Well, I guess part of that performance would be
defunding NPR and PBS. This is now going to court.
This brought us back to the first of May, and
NPR is now suing.
Speaker 4 (31:49):
Rick.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
I'm sure you've seen this National Public Radio suing over
the executive order that would cut federal funding. Lawyers are
going to make a lot of money no matter who
wins any of these cases here, But this is something
that Donald Trump. I feel like they're coming out of
the same file here. It's good politics to seek to
defund NPR, whether it happens or not.
Speaker 10 (32:09):
Do you agree, Yeah, I think this really does fall
into that performance art category. We know that Donald Trump
prizes that most of his best friends in Congress are
the biggest performing artists of all time. If they could
give a Congressional Emmy Award, a number of them would
win it. But the bottom line is it's a disruption
(32:31):
tactic too. His base wants him to be disruptive. Take
apart the mantles of the deep state, and the megaphone
of the deep state is NPR and PBS. And so
whether he's successful or not, he will get credit from
(32:53):
a very large portion of his base. Political support comes
from people who are going to PLoud this. And then,
as I totally agree with Jim, the outcome is really
irrelevant because he's already banked the effort for trying, and
in this case, results don't matter. The effort is what
really is going to pay off for him politically.
Speaker 3 (33:15):
Well, I'll tell you what, there's nothing like Pledge Week
at an NPR station. Jim Kessler, isn't Public Radio just
going to make a boatload of money on This is
the biggest advertising campaign for NPR they could buye.
Speaker 11 (33:28):
Well, you get into Trump's crosshairs and it's a great
fundraising opportunity. For NPR and for members of Congress. Look,
I think it's a twin edge sword. These organizations aren't
used to this type of fight. They're often used to
a fight about, you know, going against Congress. There, that's
Congress is the one that has often been hostile to NPR.
Speaker 7 (33:51):
Democrats have generally saved NPR.
Speaker 11 (33:54):
But I also think some of the things that Trump
is doing is going beyond the performance hard and that's
looking at social media posts of people. And I'm just thinking,
like I would not be able to pass a Trump
test on social media. Not to get into the administration,
of course I wouldn't get into the administration, but to
be even considered a good American. So you talk about
(34:16):
deep state. If the state under Donald Trump is looking
at your social media posts to put you on a
naughty list or a nice list, that affects a lot
of people in this country.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
Yeah, maybe they could sell Trump tote bags. In the
middle of all this, Rick, I want to ask you
about the conversation that we had with Frank Luntz earlier
this hour, because the President of the United States spoke
at the West Point graduation. Is something he wanted to
do that took place Saturday, complete with the maga hat
talk of trophy wives and drag shows. Then spoke at
(34:49):
the Amphitheater in an annual address, of course, at Arlington
that is in honor, of course, for the commander in
chief to lay the reef to speak to go Star
families and Americans who've gathered on the most solemn of holidays.
Does any of this stuff matter, Rick, when the president's
(35:10):
talking about winning the election, insulting the former president? Or
is this just kind of the new era of politics.
When I watched that speech at Arlington, there were people
who were laughing and clapping, and I'm asking, honestly, if
any of these conventions matter.
Speaker 10 (35:27):
It's hard to tell in the environment we're in right now,
because we're inundated with it. I don't think there's a
speech that goes by, regardless of how important ceremony is,
that the president doesn't take an opportunity to take a
shot at his enemies, both perceived and former. You know,
in politics, you usually if you lose an election, you know,
(35:48):
all the attacks go away. Not anymore. I mean the
response to the Biden people are like, hey, dude, you'll
want cut it off. But the reality is going to
hallowed ground like the military Academy in West Point, and
not just reading the script right the speech itself, I
(36:12):
agree with Frank Lunch there are elements of it that
were fantastic and inspirational for the cadets. But then to
go off script and just you know, do a campaign
riff and even something's just personal anecdotes for him, just
wholly inappropriate. And yet you're right if it happens every day,
(36:32):
maybe three or four times a day, and the press
reports it sooner or later, I think the public does
get a little bit immune to it. I mean you
see it in his pulling, where you know, regardless of
what he's done over the last one hundred and twenty days,
the public basically has the same perception of him before
he was president as he is now. It's not getting better,
(36:53):
but it's stable. But I would say kudos to the military.
They stay above it. Frank Luntz's comments of them not
being political is the reason that in the latest Harvard
Harris poll, the approval rating of the US military sixty
nine percent, as twenty percent more than Donald Trump will
ever have. And so the reality is, I think the
(37:15):
public does get it.
Speaker 3 (37:18):
Really something Jim, I'm curious your take on all of this. You're,
of course the Democrat on the panel, and I know
you're not a fan of Donald Trump, but I wonder
if this stuff matters anymore in Washington. I had to
notice the President showed up for the reeflaying at the
Zoom of the Unknown with.
Speaker 4 (37:35):
Pete Hagseth and jd. Vance.
Speaker 3 (37:38):
Traditionally the President would be there with the first Lady.
Does any of this kind of stuff matter anymore?
Speaker 11 (37:43):
Well, let's just assume that Donald Trump knows what he's
doing when he's up there giving this sort of speech
where he's rambling on and doing the quote unquote weave.
Speaker 4 (37:54):
I don't think he gives just a minute.
Speaker 3 (37:55):
By the way, Jim, I don't want to cut you off.
Go ahead, Jim, we have just one minute, okay.
Speaker 11 (38:05):
I don't think he gives the type of speech that
he gave at West Point. If the economy was going well,
if people were satisfied, if the situation in Ukraine was
getting better and moving towards a resolution, if the country
felt that things were headed on the right track, you
give this kind of speech because you need to distract
from the dissatisfaction that people have right now over the
(38:28):
first five months of the Trump presidency.
Speaker 7 (38:31):
So we're talking about this.
Speaker 11 (38:34):
Rather than high prices, rather than a slowing economy, rather
than a trade war, rather than him making huge tariff
pronouncements and then reversing himself within ninety six hours. So
I do believe there's a method to the madness, and
it's to avoid a lot of the bad news that's
happening organically out there.
Speaker 4 (38:55):
Jim Kessler with a Method to the madness. Jim's at
Third Way.
Speaker 3 (38:58):
Rick Davis, partner at Stone Capital, Bloomberg Politics contributor. Many
thanks to both of you here on Bloomberg. 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, DC at noontime Eastern at Bloomberg
(39:20):
dot com.
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. You're listening to the
Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast. Catch us live weekdays at
noon and five pm Eastern on Apple, Cocklay and Android
Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. Listen on demand wherever
you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Balance of Power on Bloomberg TV and Radio. On a
day where we don't actually expect to hear from President Trump,
at least not on camera. He's not planning to speak
with reporters. There's no events on his public schedule, but
we are still hearing from him on True Social as
usual and on an interesting subject. Today is his most
recent True Social post. Show warns that Vladimir Putin of
(00:47):
Russia is playing with fire. He says, what Vladim Reputin
doesn't realize is that if it weren't for me, lots
of really bad things would have already happened to Russia,
and I mean really bad in all caps. This is
of course, after over the weeks, he said, Vladimir Putin
is now crazy.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
That's right, He called him crazy in all caps exclamation point.
As Vladimir Putin continues to bombard Ukraine missiles and drones
killing civilians, not even targeting military installations in some cases,
which is confounding. Donald Trump not sure what he's referring
to in this tweet though, or this truth post. Lots
(01:23):
of really bad things would have already happened to Russia,
making many ask if that's with regard to sanctions or
something worse.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Well, keeping in mind that he also did tell reporters
that he is still considering further sanctions on Russia, and
we know there's legislation in the Senate in the works
that would do just that, spearheaded by Lindsay Graham. It
has eighty co sponsors.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
Yeah, that could happen pretty easily based on what we've
heard on Capitol Hill. And that's where we are joined
by Kate Sullivan, Bloomberg's White House correspondent with us here
in Washington, d C. Kate, it's great to see the
president has no public events scheduled, but he's got us
talking with truth social posts all the while.
Speaker 4 (01:56):
Is he serious about sanctions?
Speaker 5 (01:59):
You know, it's a great question. And this is not
the first time that he's threatened sanctions on Russia, right,
and he's talked about back in March, he was talking
about these secondary tariffs on Russian oil. It's we've seen
this progression of Trump getting more and more frustrated with
Putin and with Russia and the pace of these negotiations.
(02:19):
It's very unclear how serious he is about implementing these
you know, he is. We've seen over and over again
how he will make these threats, and it seems like
most of the time it's just a tactic to get
people to come to the table. And so it's very
unclear at this time whether how serious he is about
implementing this.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Well, what about just his attitude overall and the post
we mentioned in which he says Vladimir Putin is crazy.
He said he led the post by saying, I've always
had a very good relationship with Vladimir Putin of Russia.
But something has happened to him. He has gone absolutely crazy.
It's not a I was wrong about him, It's that
he has changed. Kate is how he's characterizing.
Speaker 5 (02:58):
This right, and it's it's pretty remarkable because this has
been a bit of a slow burn. I think, you know,
we've seen signs that Trump is getting more and more
frustrated with the pace of these negotiations. He you know,
has has always still said that he even as he
was expressing these these frustrations, he said that, you know,
(03:19):
he was still confident that Putin wanted to make a
deal and that he wanted to come to the table.
I actually asked Trump about this a few weeks ago
in the Oval Office, and I said, you know, do
you think Russia is playing you? And unsurprisingly, he balked
at that question and said, you know, nobody's playing me. Uh,
nobody's getting played. But he also still signaled confidence that
this deal would be made. And so I think what
(03:40):
we're seeing is Trump realizing that maybe he doesn't have
the relationship that he thought he did with Putin, or
maybe he didn't have he doesn't have the understanding that
he thought he did with the Russian president. And I
think it's really frustrating to him because ultimately it's making
Trump look ineffective, and it's really cutting at the heart
of this brand that Trump has been trying to project
(04:02):
for decades, right that he's this master negotiator and deal maker.
You know, this was part of his stump speech. He
said every day on the campaign trail, I heard him
say it at every rally that he could end this
war in twenty four hours, and at one point he
was saying I could end it before I even take office.
And so this is really just undermining a lot of
what he's been putting out there in terms of the
image he wants to project as a as a president.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
I'm sure it's quite an experience to be a journalist
than as Donald Trump. If he's being played, what was
his response, who are you with?
Speaker 5 (04:30):
I've gotten that one before, and I would say, you know,
I phrased it that way. He had said something like
I know when I'm getting played, and so I followed
up by being, well, do you think that you are
getting played? And he he said he did not think
that he was getting played, but you know, of course
he would say that.
Speaker 4 (04:46):
So doing great work for us. Now there the faint
of heart for the brave.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Indeed, Kate Sullivan, Bloomberg White House correspondent, thank you so much.
And we want to get more into the state of
the war and what signals this sends about the US
is continued involvement or not in attempts to end it,
and turned to Ben Jensen, director of the Future's Lab
and senior Fellow for the Defense and Security Department at
the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Ben, thanks for
being with us on balance of power. When we consider
(05:14):
the idea that President Trump is now threatening that Russia
is playing with fire, that he's still saying he's open
to sanctions, Is there any fire the US could fire
at Russia that would actually actually be enough to influence
the behavior of Vladimir Putin at this point when to
this point that hasn't worked. Sanctions have had very little
(05:34):
effect on his behavior.
Speaker 6 (05:37):
So thanks for having me, And let's start by saying,
you're framing the question spot on the real Achilles heel
of Russia, despite its ability to continue a protracted conflict.
Is it the dire state of its economy when you
look at the currency, you look at interest rates, and
then you think about the structure how its economy is
fundamentally and rewired to do nothing but be a larger
(05:58):
version of North Korean Europe, to do wage successive campaigns,
increasingly through missilesalvos targeting Ukraine. I think there is the
ability to play with fire and a couple of levers.
One is you actually have to expand the scope of
sanctions to go secondary sanctions that actually hit financial transactions
that deal with Russian hydrocarbon products. Now, if you do that,
(06:20):
you're going to have to keep Europe on board. You're
also going to have some uncomfortable allies because ultimately what
you want to do is make Russian oil more expensive,
Russian gas more expensive, and that actually hurts that meaning
it costs them more to produce and they don't get
as much of the return on their investments. And that's
actually really important because we already see you mentioned earlier
(06:40):
in your show. Today, we already have oil prices are
down over a percent today. So if we have a
natural dampening on oil prices at the same time that
we have a more concerted sanctions package, we can at
least squeeze the ability of Vladimir Putin to wage war. Now,
to be fair, that's still going to take time to
actually impact his battlefield performance, given that he's got consistent
(07:01):
support from both China and Iran and has found ways
to kind of turn on the Russian economy into a
war economy.
Speaker 4 (07:10):
Hey bet, it's great to have you back.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
Let's talk about his battlefield performance, because last time you
were with us, you showed us your Russian firepower strike tracker,
which people can google and look at this online, which
shows us a massive increase in missile attacks by Vladimir Putin,
the daily tallly of Russian missile attacks since Donald Trump
(07:32):
has become president. Is he trying to seize on a
closing window to do as much damage as possible before
there's a peace deal or it's just open season under Trump.
Speaker 6 (07:42):
So I don't think it has as much to do
with the Trump presidency as much as Vladimir Putin's perspective
on how you negotiate from a position of strength, and
that is sadly, to hold the Ukrainian population hostage. And
as you mentioned the firepower strike tracker, let me break
down what we saw in the last seventy two hours,
because the numbers are stark. In the last seventy two hours,
we had three hundred and fifty five Shaheed attacks. That's
(08:04):
the largest in a seventy two hour period since the
war began. And we're still seventy of those weapons got through.
When I say seventy to put that in perspective, that
means over seven thousand pounds of high explosives hit Ukrainian
cities in the last seventy two hours just with Shahed drones,
and it wasn't just shiheds. There were twenty three ballistic
(08:25):
missiles fired in this period. Now, normally you only see
one to two ballistic missiles fired per day, so twenty
three in a seventy two hour period is a massive increase.
And you also saw sixty two cruise missile attacks. Now,
when you put that all together, that means you have
over one thousand, one thousand one way attack drones, ballistic missiles,
(08:47):
and cruise missiles that were largely targeting Ukrainian critical infrastructure,
civilian populations, and political centers of gravity, almost as if
it was a slight to our president and anyone who
thinks that Putin isn't in this war for the long
haul and going to try to settle this on the
battlefield or at least seeing if he can break the
will of the Ukrainian people during this kind of pseudo
(09:10):
negotiation period we're in.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
So, Ben, are you saying that this is more about
the psychological impact of these strikes than actual territorial advances
Russia is trying to make.
Speaker 6 (09:21):
That's a great question, and yes, I do think that
in fact, as part of that firepower strike tracker. We've
done two recent studies, one study called drone saturation, which
really looks at the profile the Shihat attacks. But to
your question, the more important one is called operational Fires
in an Age of Punishment, And what we statistically prove
in that is that Russia has decoupled its strategic attack forces,
(09:43):
its ballistic missiles, its cruise missiles, its Shaheed drones from
its operational level battlefield objectives. Meaning in modern war when
you have precision strike, we would expect to see a
tighter coupling of these deep fires with operational ground maneuvers,
and can show in that report that nothing could be
further from the truth. It appears to be that entded
(10:05):
like Shaheed. So these attack drones, cruise missiles, and ballistic
missiles are literally used. Has a psychological tool which is
a throwback to theories of airpower we haven't seen since
before the Second World War, where embombing to win meant
disrectly a psychological effect upon the population to then convince
leaders to sue for peace. So I think you're onto something.
(10:27):
This is more about psychology. It's a coercive campaign, it's
a punishment campaign. It has very little modern traditional military
utility or logic. It's a throwback to almost a time
long gone by.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
Well, clearly you're onto something here, Ben, and at the
risk of asking the dumb question here alongside Kaylee lions,
how do you know all of this? Is this based
on satellite imagery? You're speaking like you're on the ground
in Moscow.
Speaker 6 (10:54):
Well, I'd probably be put in jail if I was there.
So a New Year's resolution, don't go to jail this year. No,
most of this comes from bath It's not magic. One
of the fascinating things about war in the information age,
when everything is counted and tracked, is if you take
time to use basic data science, which your listeners and
(11:15):
viewers know well, I mean everyone who has a Bloomberg
terminal has been doing this for decades. It's using data
patterns that you find to statistically isolate key patterns and trends.
And in this case, that means we can analyze how
Russia attacks Ukraine on a daily basis and test a
series of hypotheses and really isolate where we find particularly
(11:37):
interesting correlations. And in this case, the major correlation we
found in that operational fires in the Age of Punishment
was that decoupling of what we would call operational art
or large scale campaign ground maneuver. So when combined arms
armies target parts of the Ukrainian front from these deep
missile attacks, and that runs contrary to what we've seen
(12:00):
in the modern history of war and does look a
lot more like a theorists like Duhey who wrote theories
of air power really before World War Two.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Ben, you spoke a moment ago about Russia's ability to
continue to do this because of the support it's still
receiving from China and Iran. Is that indefinite? Can it
keep up this pace in perpetuity or will even the
flow of support from those adversaries not be able to
keep pace with this kind of strike concentration we're seeing
(12:31):
like this.
Speaker 6 (12:32):
Yeah, you're asking the critical question because every time economists
have believed the Russian economy was about to fail, it
holds on for just another day. It's as if suffering
is becoming a way of life. So in some sense,
Russia has already converted its economy to look more like
North Korea than Germany. And I don't think that's going
to stop when this war ends. So the real answer
(12:55):
that question becomes the resiliency of that war economy. Now
again the numbers are if we compare the volume of
Shaheed these one way attack drones, and we know that
Russia built its own domestic manufacturing, so it no longer
imports them purely from Iran. It basically builds the drone. Sadly,
it still smuggles and electronics from around the world to
(13:17):
guide these drones. We've seen a ten times increase.
Speaker 7 (13:20):
Now put that.
Speaker 6 (13:21):
Think about that for a second. In the space of
the year, despite sanctions, despite a high interest rates, despite
a low currency, despite every negative economic indicator you could
think of, Russia has still managed to increase its production
of Shaheed drones by ten times. The Department of Defense
(13:41):
Secretary Hegsith would I mean literally probably hug any defense
manufacturer who could promise that degree of scalability. We can't
do it in the years right now. So there is
a lot there's something going on behind the scenes. We
know China is providing.
Speaker 4 (13:58):
That when we have more time.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
That's Ben Jensen csis from Julia du Haey to Russian firepower.
Speaker 4 (14:05):
We appreciate the conversation on Bloomberg.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power Podcast. Catch
us live weekdays at noon and five pm Eastern on
Apple Cocklay 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 played Bloomberg eleven thirty.
Speaker 4 (14:28):
I hope you had a long weekend.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
By the way, I know a lot of people who
are out there cooking hamburgers and hot dogs and doing
the thing that you do. Is I kept hearing on
the local news over the course of the weekend the
unofficial start to summer, right the start to the US
driving season.
Speaker 4 (14:46):
Let's check gas prices. That's what we do this time
of year.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
Even though, of course Memorial Day is dedicated to remembering
and honoring the men and women who died for this
country serving in the military. That's why we saw some
moving observances over the weekend. Saw more than a thousand
graduate at West Point on Saturday. We saw the annual
presidential visit to Arlington yesterday, not only the laying of
(15:13):
the wreath, but also the speech inside the Amphitheater.
Speaker 4 (15:16):
Both of these events for Donald Trump brought.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
Up a lot of talk about political norms, taste, purpose,
as the President donned a baseball cap a MAGA cap
at the West Point graduation, spoke for about an hour
attacking drag shows and critical race theory, talking about the
(15:42):
Golden age that was beginning in the military because of him.
The President even went so far as to talk about
trophy wives, referring to a real estate developer who he
thought somehow did it wrong.
Speaker 8 (15:53):
Listen, and he sold his company and he had nothing
to do. He ended up getting a divorce, found a
new wife. Could you say a trophy wife? I guess
we can say a trophy wife. It didn't work out
too well. But that doesn't work out too well. I
must tell you a lot of trophy wives. Does it
(16:15):
work out?
Speaker 4 (16:18):
I guess suggesting that some do.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
When I heard that Frank Lunz was there, and of
course he was there. Frank is giving an enormous amount
of his time to West Point. Right now, he's talked
to us about the work that he's doing with the
cadets as an instructor. He's also learning a lot, which
is why we love to talk to Frank about it.
He was there for the commencement address politics and communications
consultant Famed Polster, as we like to say, And in fact,
(16:44):
the CEO of fil Frank Lunz, is with us live
right now, and it's great to have you.
Speaker 4 (16:48):
Frank.
Speaker 3 (16:49):
Back on Bloomberg, I want to be careful with the
questions I asked, did this seem like a typical graduation
speech at West Point?
Speaker 9 (16:57):
It did not from the very beginning. And President Trump
did something that no other president has done. First off,
they only come every four years, So you got the
Secretary of Defense, you have the head the Joint Chiefs.
There are people who come. Secretary of I believe Secretary
of State also shows up. So the president only comes
(17:18):
once every four years. And President Trump wanted to do this,
and of course West Point will welcome the president if
the President wants to come. But he did something no
president had ever done, which is he recognized cadets from
the podium for their exceptional and extraordinary leadership, for their
(17:38):
truly almost unimaginable capability to get things done both intellectually,
militarily and physically. And what I enjoyed most is that
he invited them to come up to the podium and
say a few words as the ultimate recognition of what
(17:59):
they'd achieved and what they were about to do, and
that's never been done before. And the cadets absolutely loved
it because it said that they matter. West Point as
an academy produced as the finest young men and women
in the country. They do it through training, they do
it through character, they do it through and educational background
(18:24):
that is so broad and so comprehensive, And to recognize
those cadets personally for their achievements was really special, and
the cadets loved it.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
He did it, of course in his own way. You
heard the remark about trophy wives, the drag shows, talking
about the former president wearing a hat.
Speaker 4 (18:46):
None of that was.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
Included in your analysis as someone who was there, Frank,
And that's why we wanted to bring you on to
have a sense of not only how it went over
for people who were there, the cadets and their families,
but also to get a sense of howpolitical this actually
was and how positive or optimistic it may or may
not have felt while we were there. Are we paying
attention to all the wrong things?
Speaker 9 (19:09):
Well, remember that cadets cannot discuss. They can discuss, but
they cannot exhibit partisan behavior, and they don't. And what's
amazing about these young men and women. Is that unlike Harvard,
and I get yelled at for doing this, but I'm
doing it anyway. Unlike the other universities who stage protests,
Unlike the attempts of other students to disrupt and prevent
(19:31):
the exchange of ideas, at West Point, there is an
attitude of respect, a commitment to decency and civility, and
in the end, they want to hear every opinion of
every individual and they do not wish to engage in
partisan politics, so that what the President says they saw
(19:52):
as entertaining, they saw as being enlightening. But they don't
come to a conclusion because they're there to learn. They're
not performers. They're not about showing their politics and their parisanship.
They're there to represent the academy and most importantly, to
(20:14):
defend the Constitution. And that's the thing I wish that
your listeners really understood. A cadet doesn't take an oath
to the president, doesn't take an oath to the country.
Even they take an oath to uphold the Constitution. And
that's what makes this so special, and that's why I
(20:35):
was so happy that it was the president, not just
the Secretary of the Defense or not just the Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs. That the President wanted to be
there to say thank you to the cadets from a
grateful nation, and to me, that's what we should be
focused on.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
And we are as we spend time with Frank Lunz
live on Bloomberg, knowing the honorable intentions of these cadets.
Did the President comport himself appropriately.
Speaker 9 (21:04):
There's some stuff that he said that that was ad
lib There's some stuff that was about things that were
not directly involving the cadets and involving the decisions that
will need to be made over the weeks, months and
years to follow. But the President made a commitment to
(21:25):
the military that was uncompromising, and made a commitment to
the cadets that they would have the best equipment, that
they would have the best innovation, that they would be
represented well. And I take the President at his word,
just as I was there for Joe Biden's convention speech
last year, which is quite different. And I appreciate how
(21:50):
the participants carry themselves and how they have made a
commitment to serve whoever is the president in whatever way
they're asked to serve as long as it upholds the Constitution.
Look at consider this. Every institution in America, education, politics, law,
(22:14):
the courts, Congress, healthcare. Every institution is at all time
lows in terms of trust and credibility, But not the military,
because the military doesn't take sides. The military doesn't approve
or disapprove of someone because of what partisanship they come from,
what initial they have after the name, whether our or
(22:38):
D and West Point is the tip of the sphere
for those institutions, and so they don't have this conversation
about whether something was great or horrible. They simply have
a conversation about what they need to know to serve,
and serve with exceptionalism, serve in an extraordinary way, because
(22:59):
excellent isn't good enough for them. These are not the
top ten percent of America. The is the top one
percent of America, and they deliver it every single day.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
Did you get to talk to the president at all
while he was there, Frank.
Speaker 9 (23:14):
I did last year with Biden. This president did not.
Because he wanted to spend more time with the cadets.
He did not have the same kind of interaction with
some of the faculty. And I appreciate that because in
the end, Yes, I'd like to shake his hand, and
I'm a collector of challenge coins, so I'd love to
get his challenge coin. But in the end, I'd rather
(23:34):
have him to spend more time with the cadets and
less time with us. And his speech, which is fifty
seven minutes long, was longer than past speech is because
he had more to say.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
Fast forward to Arlington on Memorial Day and we can
talk about the speech if you want. And I, by
the way, people were laughing and applauding in the amphitheater,
but he proceeded the occasion with a post on truth
social and he's been known to do these on holidays. Frank,
Happy Memorial Day to all it said, including the scum
that spent the last four years trying to destroy our country,
(24:09):
talking about taking in mentally insane migrants, warped radical democrats,
US hating judges. How do you reconcile that with the
spirit and meaning of Memorial Day.
Speaker 9 (24:21):
I accept that point, and I accept and embrace that
point to Memorial Day is let me try this again.
Memorial Day is not the beginning of summer. It's not
a drive component of driving. It is a honorable and
solemn occasion where we recognize and show our respect for
(24:44):
those who gave the ultimate sacrifice. And it's a day
that I'm more intimidated by than any other, because, let's
be candid, I may wear a polo shirt from West Point,
I may teach here, but I did not serve, and
I appreciate with the very inside me those people who do.
(25:08):
And I recognize and respect those families who have loved
ones who are buried there. I wish our language is
more appropriate to the occasion. I wish that we stop
talking about grilling hot dogs and hamburgers and start talking
(25:28):
about how great our military is. And I wish that
we use language that not only upholds the tradition of
Memorial Day, but raises it to the level of the
holiday that it truly is to pay our deepest respects
and our gratitude for those who serve this country so well,
(25:51):
not just for death.
Speaker 4 (25:52):
Fil live on.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
Bloomberg Listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast. Catch
us live weekdays at noon and five pm Eastern on Apple,
Cocklay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. Listen
on demand wherever you get your podcasts, or watch us
live on YouTube's.
Speaker 4 (26:15):
Feeling like it's Monday here. It is Tuesday. I hope
a short week for you.
Speaker 3 (26:20):
Thanks for joining us on the little Monday edition of
Balance of Power here on Bloomberg Radio Satellite radio Channel
one twenty one.
Speaker 4 (26:27):
Yes on YouTube as well.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
Search Bloomberg Business News Live to catch our live stream,
and now you can watch us on Bloomberg Originals. Boy,
you add the podcast, and it's pretty hard to hide
from this program as we look at politics here in
Washington and abroad after Memorial Day, and a lot of
news on Harvard that I want to get to the
panel with here the President Trump moving to cancel all
(26:49):
remaining federal contracts, wants to take money destined for Harvard
give it to trade schools, and now the administration is weighing,
according to Politico, at least requiring all Ford's students applying
to study in the US to undergo social media vetting.
A lot to get into here with our panel. Rick
Davis joins Republican strategist Bloomberg Politics contributor of Course partner
(27:12):
at Stone Court Capital, alongside democratic strategist Jim Kessler, the
executive vice president Policy Third Way. Here in Washington, it's
great to see you both, gentlemen, welcome back. There was
a time when both Rick Davis and Jim Kesler were
on opposite sides of the aisle in the United States Senate,
and it's always an honor for us to put them
together here. Rick, I want to ask you about Harvard,
(27:33):
because the onslaught continues, but much like the threatened tariffs,
with some exceptions, it has been largely threats that the
President is lobbing at Harvard, or reports of threats in
the case of this Politico story on foreign students being
blocked by attending Harvard.
Speaker 4 (27:51):
How much of this is real?
Speaker 3 (27:53):
I mean, the idea of taking money and giving it
to trade schools, is that something the White House has
actually written a plan for or the President amusing on
truth social.
Speaker 10 (28:03):
I think that you cannot underestimate the social media a
musings of Donald Trump with policy development in the White House.
I mean, we've seen time and time again a post
out of nowhere, no seemingly policy initiatives directed toward an issue.
And yet when Donald Trump posts something on true social
(28:24):
it has the strength of a policy determination, maybe slightly
weaker than an executive order written from his desk, but
there's no question there's a war on between the administration Harvard.
There were a billion dollars worth of grants canceled by
the administration, and Harvard is suing to get that money
(28:46):
and more back. So the courts will ultimately be the
arbiter of that. But this latest effort obviously shows that
they've been doing some work inside the administration because there
are a lot of things that Harvard does for the government,
almost as a business training cabinet subcabinet members on various
aspects of crisis management and things like that. And what
(29:07):
the administration has done now is says, in addition to
these grants, I'm going to cancel the business relationship between
Harvard and the administration, which goes back to the Kennedy administration,
I said a long time in coming. And so you
see the upening of the ante. And of course you mentioned,
you know, kicking all these foreign students off of the
(29:30):
Harvard roles. They can go somewhere else if they want,
but they can't go to Harvard. So it is it
is a serious effort by this administration to undermine Harvard
its finances, it's admission policy, it's ideology, and I see
no reason why they would demurre in this because to them,
(29:51):
this is a symbolic conflict. It's not so much about
Harvard but what Harvard represents, and this is what they're
opposed to.
Speaker 3 (29:59):
Therefore it it doesn't always matter the way it turns out.
Jim Kessler, the President, writing as well, I'm considering taking
three billion dollars of grant money away from very anti
Semitic Harvard and giving it to trade schools all.
Speaker 4 (30:12):
Across the land.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
What a great investment that would be for the USA
and so badly needed. When you step back and consider
all of the threats and actions the administration is taking,
and Rick did a pretty nice job there walking through them. Here, Jim,
does it matter if he closes the deals on any
of these or it's just about getting caught in the
(30:33):
act of hating on Harvard.
Speaker 11 (30:36):
I think it's more about getting caught in the act.
I think this is this. I think this is performance
alright by Donald Trump. I expect at least ninety percent
of what he's trying to do to be struck down
by the courts.
Speaker 7 (30:48):
It's unconstitutional. That doesn't mean that it won't.
Speaker 11 (30:52):
Take some time for Harvard to get through this and
do some damage. But I think Trump gets to make
a headline, then he gets to complain about the courts,
and then and then he gets to blame the Jews
because he's also saying, look, I'm doing this because of
anti Semitism. I know of no Jewish organization in America
(31:16):
that is looking to attack elite universities or Harvard University
in particular. It's actually something that makes Jewish people very,
very uncomfortable that he's doing this and saying this is
in the name of Jewish Americans.
Speaker 7 (31:33):
So I think it's performance.
Speaker 3 (31:35):
RD Well, I guess part of that performance would be
defunding NPR and PBS. This is now going to court.
This brought us back to the first of May, and
NPR is now suing.
Speaker 4 (31:49):
Rick.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
I'm sure you've seen this National Public Radio suing over
the executive order that would cut federal funding. Lawyers are
going to make a lot of money no matter who
wins any of these cases here, But this is something
that Donald Trump. I feel like they're coming out of
the same file here. It's good politics to seek to
defund NPR, whether it happens or not.
Speaker 10 (32:09):
Do you agree, Yeah, I think this really does fall
into that performance art category. We know that Donald Trump
prizes that most of his best friends in Congress are
the biggest performing artists of all time. If they could
give a Congressional Emmy Award, a number of them would
win it. But the bottom line is it's a disruption
(32:31):
tactic too. His base wants him to be disruptive. Take
apart the mantles of the deep state, and the megaphone
of the deep state is NPR and PBS. And so
whether he's successful or not, he will get credit from
(32:53):
a very large portion of his base. Political support comes
from people who are going to PLoud this. And then,
as I totally agree with Jim, the outcome is really
irrelevant because he's already banked the effort for trying, and
in this case, results don't matter. The effort is what
really is going to pay off for him politically.
Speaker 3 (33:15):
Well, I'll tell you what, there's nothing like Pledge Week
at an NPR station. Jim Kessler, isn't Public Radio just
going to make a boatload of money on This is
the biggest advertising campaign for NPR they could buye.
Speaker 11 (33:28):
Well, you get into Trump's crosshairs and it's a great
fundraising opportunity. For NPR and for members of Congress. Look,
I think it's a twin edge sword. These organizations aren't
used to this type of fight. They're often used to
a fight about, you know, going against Congress. There, that's
Congress is the one that has often been hostile to NPR.
Speaker 7 (33:51):
Democrats have generally saved NPR.
Speaker 11 (33:54):
But I also think some of the things that Trump
is doing is going beyond the performance hard and that's
looking at social media posts of people. And I'm just thinking,
like I would not be able to pass a Trump
test on social media. Not to get into the administration,
of course I wouldn't get into the administration, but to
be even considered a good American. So you talk about
(34:16):
deep state. If the state under Donald Trump is looking
at your social media posts to put you on a
naughty list or a nice list, that affects a lot
of people in this country.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
Yeah, maybe they could sell Trump tote bags. In the
middle of all this, Rick, I want to ask you
about the conversation that we had with Frank Luntz earlier
this hour, because the President of the United States spoke
at the West Point graduation. Is something he wanted to
do that took place Saturday, complete with the maga hat
talk of trophy wives and drag shows. Then spoke at
(34:49):
the Amphitheater in an annual address, of course, at Arlington
that is in honor, of course, for the commander in
chief to lay the reef to speak to go Star
families and Americans who've gathered on the most solemn of holidays.
Does any of this stuff matter, Rick, when the president's
(35:10):
talking about winning the election, insulting the former president? Or
is this just kind of the new era of politics.
When I watched that speech at Arlington, there were people
who were laughing and clapping, and I'm asking, honestly, if
any of these conventions matter.
Speaker 10 (35:27):
It's hard to tell in the environment we're in right now,
because we're inundated with it. I don't think there's a
speech that goes by, regardless of how important ceremony is,
that the president doesn't take an opportunity to take a
shot at his enemies, both perceived and former. You know,
in politics, you usually if you lose an election, you know,
(35:48):
all the attacks go away. Not anymore. I mean the
response to the Biden people are like, hey, dude, you'll
want cut it off. But the reality is going to
hallowed ground like the military Academy in West Point, and
not just reading the script right the speech itself, I
(36:12):
agree with Frank Lunch there are elements of it that
were fantastic and inspirational for the cadets. But then to
go off script and just you know, do a campaign
riff and even something's just personal anecdotes for him, just
wholly inappropriate. And yet you're right if it happens every day,
(36:32):
maybe three or four times a day, and the press
reports it sooner or later, I think the public does
get a little bit immune to it. I mean you
see it in his pulling, where you know, regardless of
what he's done over the last one hundred and twenty days,
the public basically has the same perception of him before
he was president as he is now. It's not getting better,
(36:53):
but it's stable. But I would say kudos to the military.
They stay above it. Frank Luntz's comments of them not
being political is the reason that in the latest Harvard
Harris poll, the approval rating of the US military sixty
nine percent, as twenty percent more than Donald Trump will
ever have. And so the reality is, I think the
(37:15):
public does get it.
Speaker 3 (37:18):
Really something Jim, I'm curious your take on all of this. You're,
of course the Democrat on the panel, and I know
you're not a fan of Donald Trump, but I wonder
if this stuff matters anymore in Washington. I had to
notice the President showed up for the reeflaying at the
Zoom of the Unknown with.
Speaker 4 (37:35):
Pete Hagseth and jd. Vance.
Speaker 3 (37:38):
Traditionally the President would be there with the first Lady.
Does any of this kind of stuff matter anymore?
Speaker 11 (37:43):
Well, let's just assume that Donald Trump knows what he's
doing when he's up there giving this sort of speech
where he's rambling on and doing the quote unquote weave.
Speaker 4 (37:54):
I don't think he gives just a minute.
Speaker 3 (37:55):
By the way, Jim, I don't want to cut you off.
Go ahead, Jim, we have just one minute, okay.
Speaker 11 (38:05):
I don't think he gives the type of speech that
he gave at West Point. If the economy was going well,
if people were satisfied, if the situation in Ukraine was
getting better and moving towards a resolution, if the country
felt that things were headed on the right track, you
give this kind of speech because you need to distract
from the dissatisfaction that people have right now over the
(38:28):
first five months of the Trump presidency.
Speaker 7 (38:31):
So we're talking about this.
Speaker 11 (38:34):
Rather than high prices, rather than a slowing economy, rather
than a trade war, rather than him making huge tariff
pronouncements and then reversing himself within ninety six hours. So
I do believe there's a method to the madness, and
it's to avoid a lot of the bad news that's
happening organically out there.
Speaker 4 (38:55):
Jim Kessler with a Method to the madness. Jim's at
Third Way.
Speaker 3 (38:58):
Rick Davis, partner at Stone Capital, Bloomberg Politics contributor. Many
thanks to both of you here on Bloomberg. 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, DC at noontime Eastern at Bloomberg
(39:20):
dot com.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.