May 19, 2025 • 43 mins
Watch Joe and Kailey LIVE every day on YouTube: http://bit.ly/3vTiACF.
President Donald Trump said that Moscow and Kyiv would begin talks “immediately” on ending the war in Ukraine after a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday.
“Russia and Ukraine will immediately start negotiations toward a Ceasefire and, more importantly, an END to the War,” Trump said in a social-media post. “The conditions for that will be negotiated between the two parties, as it can only be, because they know details of a negotiation that nobody else would be aware of.”
The US president said he had also briefed European leaders on his two-hour call with Putin and that the Vatican had offered to host the negotiations. He described “the tone and the spirit of the conversation” as “excellent. If it wasn’t, I would say so now, rather than later,” Trump added.
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, Kailey speaks with:
- Ipsos US Public Affairs President Cliff Young.
- Bloomberg Politics Contributors Rick Davis and Jeanne Sheehan Zaino.
- Bloomberg US National Security Team Lead Nick Wadhams.
- Atlantic Council Eurasia Center Senior Fellow Melinda Haring.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. You're listening to the
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(00:20):
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Speaker 2 (00:25):
I'm Joe Matthew and Washington. It's great to have you
with us here on Bloomberg Radio Satellite radio Channel one
twenty one on YouTube, where you can find us by
searching Bloomberg Business News Live, and now on Bloomberg Originals,
Welcome to the most original political program on the radio.
We're going to do this every day from now and
it's a great honor to be on Bloomberg Originals. And
glad if you're finding us right now for the first
(00:46):
time that you're part of our conversation every day here
in Washington. How about the next one hundred days, Well,
we're in them now, and our friend Cliff Young at
IPSOS has been running numbers here and knowing that things
got a little bit deeper. The water's got a bit
deeper for President Trump. As I mentioned on Friday, with
that Moody's downgrade there are a lot of questions going
forward here, not only about tariff policy, but what happens
(01:07):
to tax policy and who's going to pay for it?
On Capitol Hill right, one big beautiful bill that could
add trillions to the debt and deficit if we don't
get the pay fors that many are asking for that
Moody's is looking for, along with y F, Fitch and
S ANDP. We heard from the Press Secretary Caroline Levitt
(01:29):
this morning and an early briefing at the White House.
Here's what you said.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
The world has confidence in the United States of America
and our economy once again. Oil prices are dropping, gas
prices are dropping. The President has added nearly a half
million jobs to the American economy already, So there's a
lot of optimism in this economy. And the President disagrees
with that assessment.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Yes, cautious optimism. According to IPSOS, the next one hundred
days friction, uncertainty, but cautious optimism, writes Cliff Young, who's
with me right now, ipso's Public Affairs president for the US.
It's great to see you. Welcome back, as it's great
to be here job. You've got the benefit of a
slightly longer view than those of us who are in
each wrinkle as we wait for the headline on when
the phone call is going to end, and so forth.
(02:09):
Broadly speaking, despite all the stuff I just said, the
president's actually doing better in approval ratings than he was
weeks ago.
Speaker 4 (02:15):
Yeah, he's in a better place his if you look
at IPSIS numbers or the average of all the polling
firms out there, all the polling numbers, he's improved a
point or two since let's say the beginning of the month.
And I think that has a lot to do with
him stepping off the gas A bit interesting. He was
crering a lot of friction around the edges. He was
(02:36):
confronting conventions and norms. People don't like that. They're worried
obviously about potential inflation linked to tariffs and all that
has sort of tampered down A.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Bit interesting that this may have coincided with his pulling
back on China for a bit, right, we'll give that
a breather. Maybe an agreement in principle, whatever, We go
home thinking reciprocal tariffs under review. What happens though? When
that review ends, maybe some of this stuff kicks back in.
Speaker 4 (03:02):
Well, it's going to be ultimately about whether there's negative impact.
Speaker 5 (03:06):
In people's day to day lives.
Speaker 4 (03:08):
Right now, it's all noise, it's news. It's not concrete, right,
and people are worried about that. Public opinion's worried about that,
but we really won't see the impact if there's going
to be an impact until it affects If it does
affect people's ability to make ends meet.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Give me your reality check on this Moody's headline, because
at Bloomberg that's a big deal. Ten years back, above
four point five percent, you say, oh my god, the
market's going to tank. It's not clearly, and I wonder
what people really think of this. Does the Moody's downgrade
to double a one mean anything to somebody who's trying
to figure out how to pay the bills this month?
Speaker 5 (03:45):
Oh not at all. They don't know what it even is.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Right.
Speaker 4 (03:48):
Ultimately, these are things that elites and bankers and people
in Wall Street and people that run companies are worried about.
Less so about someone trying to make ends meat putting
food on the table. But ultimately it runs in part
counter to what we're seeing in public opinion. Like we
said before, we're in a period of lull. There is trepidation,
(04:09):
there is unease about the present, but there are argulommers
of hope looking forward for people.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
I'm fascinated by the push and pull when it comes
to tariffs. Based on what you found, Americans do not
see the near term benefit of tariffs. Americans do, however,
see the long term benefits, but are split on whether
the pain is worth it. How do we rationalize that?
Speaker 5 (04:29):
Well, they're worried about things today.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Right.
Speaker 4 (04:31):
Like I said before, there's a lot of trepidation and unease.
And it doesn't matter the poll, the question, the indicator.
We see it in a general sense. When we talk
about the potential benefit of tariff's generation of jobs, bring
manufacturing back to us, I'm a majority of Americans say yes,
I can see where tariffs make sense. I'm in favor
(04:53):
of that, but I'm not quite sure I want to
suffer the pain needed to get there.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Doesn't that say more about our society the way that
we look at things like, Hey, I know it's going
to pay off, but I'm not sure I'm actually willing
to pay it.
Speaker 4 (05:05):
Yeah, I think most people need to think in the
short term. They need to think about how to make
ends meet. They need to worry about how much money
is left over at the end of the month. And
that's just an indicator of that.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Incredible As we wait to hear from the President on
this phone call with Vladimir Putin, you find that Republicans
are still being seen stronger on immigration, on the economy,
on inflation, and yes, foreign policy. Are people paying attention
to wars on the other side of the world.
Speaker 5 (05:32):
Not much.
Speaker 4 (05:32):
I mean, they're really worried about immigration on the one hand,
the cost of living on the other, and Republicans are
strong on those points. Trumpet is strong on those points,
and they have been historically foreign policy less, so they
get good marks that as Republicans do. But people are
much less worried about what's going on in the Ukraine
or in the Middle East, and much more worried about
how to make ends meet.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Right, absolutely, And I guess we're going to be hearing
more about this now when it comes to messaging. There's
been a big question about the way this White House
is flooding the zone, as they say, I think you're
suggesting that maybe things are improving because the Zone isn't
quite so flooded the cadence that we've seen, but the
messaging around inflation, specifically talking about kids not being able
(06:14):
to have as many toys, is one that kind of
hung around the President's neck here Scott Bessett over the
weekend suggesting that maybe Walmart needs to eat some of this.
As the President said in a truth social post, it's
been impacting the soft data, as we say, consumer sentiment,
consumer expectations. We have yet to see it really creep
(06:35):
into the hard data. But you're a polster, you're an
expert on this. Do you have a sense of at
what point people lose patience the honeymoon period ends.
Speaker 4 (06:45):
Yeah, there's a lot of noise once again, and like
I said before, there's a pessimism about the president. We
have seen some sort of behavioral change among households. They've
cut some sort of non essential expendsures like travel, and
they are stockpiling on some essentials.
Speaker 5 (07:03):
We've seen that.
Speaker 4 (07:04):
But this is all, once again theoretical. This is about
the future that hasn't gotten here yet, hasn't arrived, and
it really will will be about whether it affects Americans'
ability to make ends meet, and we're not there yet.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Well, now to the comedy part of the program with
Cliff Young. Americans want the president to work with Congress
rather than issue executive orders. I'm not sure if they've
been paying attention, but that's not going to be the
plan coming out of this White House, is it. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:30):
I don't think we should take it literally. We should
take it sort of conceptually. In other words, Americans want
less friction. They want their leaders to file the rules.
They don't like it when they're thwarted a lot of
the a lot of that.
Speaker 5 (07:44):
And that's why you know why he dropped in the numbers.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
That's why he outstripped the historical average for the first
hundred days. He was at six point decline versus a
three point decline.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
These are the doge executive actions.
Speaker 4 (07:57):
And all of them all together, right, and like that's
what today, what we're seeing a bit, as you've already said, Joe,
is him stepping off the pedal a bit. I think
the numbers are improving a bit because there's less of
that friction of that contest going on in public opinions.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Mind, does it helped to see the president being presidential,
as they say, on a trip like he just took
to the Middle East. Not a heck of a lot
of news other than some investments in technology some of
the other things that he was talking about, but was
mainly a big photo op. They put a you know,
they put a music video together at the White House
to post this being seen with leaders, not just political leaders,
(08:34):
but business leaders out there doing things in a forum
that nobody else could do. Is there actually a benefit
in twenty twenty five to those kind of optics.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (08:42):
On the margins, it's important to see our leaders pretty
jaded act, our president's act presidential.
Speaker 5 (08:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (08:48):
And I think this goes these sorts of initiatives' activities.
Actions go to seeing public opinion, public opinion tampered down
a bit.
Speaker 5 (08:56):
You know, it won't have a huge impact, but it
does have an impact.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Point. This is going to start feeding into midterms. I
don't know when you start paying attention to that, but
you know, we've already got people talking about it here
on the air. We had the chair of the d
Triple C on just a couple of weeks ago talking
about strategy, talking about special elections where we're trying to
read tea leaves. Has this begun already or is it
too early.
Speaker 5 (09:17):
Well, the season's begun, yeah, but probably starting too early.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Yeah, I don't like this.
Speaker 5 (09:22):
Look at one season.
Speaker 4 (09:23):
No, we're far off still, you know, really November December
is when we begin to look. Listen, Typically the party
out of power does better in the mid terms. Normally
the party out of power, the Democrats in this case,
gain seats in the House, typically take back the House. Sure,
that's probably going to be the trend. At least the
(09:45):
Democrats probably will trend better. But let's see where we are,
especially with this illustration going into next.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Year, multiple lifetimes between now and then. But I'm always
pushing it here. What are your clients asking you about?
People should know that Cliff Young doesn't just sit here
and talk the guys like me. You're actually out interfacing
with clients on a granular level, running numbers like the
ones we're talking about. What's the most important question you're
getting at the moment?
Speaker 4 (10:09):
You know, you know, they want to understand the contours
of the future. Not necessarily what's going to happen, nothing
easy about, but what can we expect?
Speaker 5 (10:16):
Right?
Speaker 4 (10:17):
I think you know, at this point, a lot of
our charge, a lot of our sort of objective or
my objective is to say, listen, things are not as
bad as you think they are. Trump is actually in
a better place than many believe. Public opinion is worried today,
but there's but there are glimmers of hope looking forward.
Just those two statements is a way to sort of
(10:38):
understand the contours of what will happen.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Interesting, that is only we're under the next hundred days.
As you pointed at the top of your deck, that's
only what one hundred days plus into the administration? Will
they start caring less at a certain point? When does
this get boring?
Speaker 6 (10:54):
No?
Speaker 4 (10:54):
I think with this administration never and this politician and
this president never.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Yeah, that says a lot job security for Cliff Young.
Speaker 5 (11:01):
Yeah, good for business.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
It's good for business. So keep coming back to see us.
From ipso's Cliffield Live in Washington. I'm Joe Matthew. Thanks
for being with us here on Balance of Power. We've
got a lot more ahead, including our panel. They're back
together today, Jeanie Shanzeno and Rick Davis with us after
a late night on Capitol Hill. We're going to take
a look a little bit later on at the legislation
that's moving here on the so called one big Beautiful bill.
Also news about Joe Biden, as you likely heard over
(11:24):
the weekend, a cancer diagnosis that has Washington reacting today,
and we'll get some insights from our panel on this
going forward. Still waiting for the high sign on the
call Trump and Putin, with a lot of news likely
to flow from the White House after they get off
the horn together. Talking about Ukraine. We'll have much more
on that straight ahead here on the fastest show in politics.
(11:45):
Thanks for being with us on Bloomberg Radio, on YouTube
and now on Bloomberg Originals. This is Balance of Power
Only on Bloomberg.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
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 Flooburg Business app.
You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our
flagship New York station Just Say Alexa played Bloomberg eleven thirty.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Big Question Marks on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. We are,
by the way, still waiting for a readout from the
White House on President Trump's call earlier today, with Vladimir
putin Moscow saying it went over two hours and that
it was a very useful call for Vladimir Putin. We'll
get the take here from the US side of that call,
hopefully shortly. But we're also waiting for news on Capitol Hill.
(12:34):
Just hours after Yes, still only hours after the Budget
Committee in the House cleared what the President calls the
One Big Beautiful Bill. This is the tax and spend
bill that includes the Trump tax cuts. In the rest
several members of the House Freedom Caucus Kaylee, voted President,
and this is an issue because they also sit on
the Rules Committee could come up the works a lot
this week. One of them named chip Roy. We talk
(12:55):
about him a lot here. Republican member of Congress says
the legislation still does not yet meet the moment.
Speaker 7 (13:01):
Yeah, so we could consider their present votes last night
as being an upgrade from their no votes on Friday,
But it is no guarantee that they'll be yes votes,
either in the Rules Committee in the case of chip
Roy or rov Norman, or if this thing actually gets
to the floor at the end of the week. Remembering
that Republicans, with their very narrow majority, can afford to
lose roughly three votes, and there are four who have
serious problems just on the conservative side not to mention
(13:24):
the salt members. That's right, the moderate members who have
issues with the salt cap and Medicaid cuts, respectively.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
The more Speaker Johnson does to alleviate concerns of the
Freedom Caucus, the more likely he is to offend moderates
and get more no votes to worry about. So it's
a really delicate balancing act here, and it's one that
probably feels pretty familiar for this Speaker of the House.
Speaker 7 (13:44):
Yeah, probably pretty familiar for our panel as well, as
they've seen a few of these. Let's turn to them.
Rick Davis and Jeanie Shanzay no Bloomberg Politics contributors. Rick,
of course, republican strategist and Stone Court Capital partner. Genie
are democratic analyst and senior Democracy fellow at the Center
for the Study of the Presidency and Congress. Rick, to
the point that Joe was just making about Johnson trying
to appease members of the Freedom Caucus. The more that
(14:06):
he gets pulled to the right, does that not only
risk that he can actually get this thing out of
the House, but even if he can and it goes
to the Senate, that everything he agrees to gets reversed.
By the Upper Chamber.
Speaker 8 (14:18):
Well, we can now say that this is not Johnson's
first rodeo. We couldn't say that last year, but we
could say it this year. I mean, and he's been
pretty depth at, you know, sort of piecing together coalitions
with the Freedom Caucus and at the same time holding
his sort of left flank of the Republican Caucus in check.
(14:38):
I would say that the aggressive nature of the Salt Caucus,
probably through the cheerleading of Genie Shanzano, has really bolstered
their side of the equation. It probably made life a
little tougher for Johnson. But that being said, I think
really the biggest thing that's happened this week outside of
the vote last night, was the Senate basicly saying hey, look, guys,
(15:01):
we're not going for any of this stuff. You know,
we're gonna we're gonna change the Medicaid cuts. You can
fight about it all you want, but it's not gonna
matter once you get here. And that does let a
lot of air out of the tire. I mean, when
the House sees that and they're like, what am I
fighting over? You know this is just going to get changed.
So it does take a little wins out of the sales,
(15:21):
they'll be fighting hard to get what they want out
of these uh you know, cuts in the budget they're
trying to make, and they have made a promise not
to raise the government debt, which they're not going to
be able to keep. Uh there's just no way this
goes uh to term without adding to the deficit. So uh,
these guys are going to be disappointed. Now, the question
(15:43):
is how much noise are they going to make before
they're totally disappointed?
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Boy. Well, I don't know about your cheerleading here, Jeannie,
but it's it's hard to deny the sticky situation that
Speaker Johnson is in. What role are the Salt Republicans,
let's say, the dellation from your state, specifically in New York,
potentially going to play to complicate this further because they
still do not have a deal on raising the cap.
Speaker 6 (16:10):
They absolutely do not. And by the way, can I
just say, I know producer James never makes a mistake,
but when I got the email this morning saying the
meeting for rules was at one am, I thought, by James,
it's a got to be eleven one am, And of
course he was totally right. Never happens in terms of
you know, the problem is just what's been laid out,
(16:32):
which is, of course that the more Mike Johnson appeases
the far right the House Freedom Caucus, the more upset
the folks from my area get the Salt Caucus, as
you will. And then there's also the other folks, you know,
you were just talking about the medicaid folks who are concerned,
like Fitzpatrick in Pennsylvania about cuts there. And then of
course the old story that once if this gets past
(16:55):
in the House, the Senate is going to take it, totally,
rewrite it and try it jam the House. And then
we're really going to have to see does this do
these folks buckle under pressure from Donald Trump. They've done
it before, they may do it again. But some of
this rhetoric about one bill, this is the big, beautiful bill,
it's all you get. It makes it seem like if
(17:17):
they don't get their piece of this in there, they're
not going to get anything. So this is really really
tough for the House. I think they are going to
get jammed by the Senate and how they react is
going to be the big question.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Well, you know, it's going to be a fascinating conversation
on the late edition of Balance of Power. Kayley, We're
going to be spending some time with Andrew Clyde, the
Republican from Georgia, one of the four we've been talking
about here, who has great trouble with this bill. I
don't know if he's been getting phone calls from Donald
Trump or what actually is going to end up happening here.
Ask We will ask him, Rick, what changes between now
(17:52):
and the Rules Committee, if anything? And is this just
a silly exercise with everything that you just mentioned about
the Senate they're going to get together at one o'clock
in the morning to try to hammer something out in
rules when the Senate is sitting there waiting to change
the whole thing. Yeah, that's pretty much right.
Speaker 8 (18:07):
Look, I mean, the Rules Committee has a tricky job
of piecing together all these different committee reports. So they'll
add it all up, they'll figure out what they got
to do to shave a little here and there, and
they'll tweak some things. Maybe they'll tweaked the snap program
coming out of agriculture. They'll tweet some more facets of
the tax cuts, specifically salt, to try and buy in
(18:31):
those votes and so yeah, the rules have actually got
quite a bit of juggling they've got to do to
get members comfortable enough, at least in the committee. And
as you point out, Kaylee, you've got Ralph Norman and
Roy chip Roy sitting on that committee. They weren't there
a year ago. They demanded to be put on there
(18:52):
as a part of the exchange of cooperation to get
Johnson as Speaker, and now he's going to really regret
having those rabble rousers roles committee.
Speaker 7 (19:02):
Well, especially when those rabble rousers perhaps have more ammunition
from a ratings agency, Moodies, of course, downgrading the US
credit rating on Friday, taking a lot of US by surprise,
but of course it was the last rating agency standing
that still had the US rated the highest possible grade.
Of course, the downgrade in part blamed on successive administrations
(19:24):
in Congress not doing enough to address the deficit and
the interest caughts costs of the United States. This is
something that Kevin Hassett, the Director of the National Economic Council,
was asked about by our own Tyler Kendall at the
White House earlier today, and this was his response.
Speaker 9 (19:38):
I think that American bonds are the best buy in
the world, that they're going to be even better by
once all of our policies are replaced. And this downgrade
is something that happened because of the runaway spending of
the previous administration. They were the last agency to move,
and I don't think it should be a surprise to Marcus.
Speaker 7 (19:56):
Like we saw with the Treasury Secretary Scott Besson on
Sunday Shows, Genie, he's looking at casting blame backwards. Bestin
suggested that Moody's is really a lagging indicator, that this
is about past behavior, not necessarily the behavior of this administration.
To what extent is that a makeable argument given that
this is active legislation we are talking about here that
(20:18):
can add trillions of dollars to the very deficit Moody's
is concerned about.
Speaker 6 (20:22):
Yeah, it was interesting. A few times on the Sunday Shows,
Bessen was saying, you know, look, Larry Summer says this.
We don't always agree, but it's a lagging indicator. And
the reality is is that there is so much blame
to go around for where we find ourselves in terms
of debt and deficit, and so yes, you can look
back at the previous administration. But what was the administration
(20:44):
before that? Oh it was Donald Trump's which added an
enormous amount to the deficit. And before that, you know,
Barack Obama. I mean, we have a deficit that has
now gotten us downgraded by all three And you know,
you frequently talked to people from the Committee Responsible Federal Budget.
They're talking about this bill alone adding three point three
(21:05):
trillion to the debt, and you know it could even
go up as far as five point two according to
their numbers. That is disastrous for our children and our grandchildren.
And Bessen and the rest of the folks in the
administration want to say, well, that's going to be offset
because we're going to do better with energy. All of
that may be true, and yet we still have a
(21:27):
debt or deficit which is going to strangle our grandchildren.
And that is a result of irresponsible budgeting on both
sides in an all administrations in the modern era. And
of course we're sitting here today talking about potentially of
rules meeting at one am. What happened to regular order
and responsible budgeting? Our Congress is not up to it
(21:49):
across the board, Democrats and Republicans.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Kind of amazing seeing the lack of reaction in the
markets here. Rick, it was hair on fire on Friday
night when the Moodies headline drop. Then we saw the
ten year at four and a half percent four point
five this morning, and now we've got the S and
P five hundred up seven points. If Wall Street doesn't care,
will Washington?
Speaker 8 (22:13):
Yeah, Washington has different priorities than just Wall Street. I
know everybody on Wall Street wants to believe that Washington
only reacts to their whims, But there's enough sophistication inside
the Beltway to say, hey, you know what, we got
to go home, We got to get reelected. And if
we add, like Jeanie said, trillions to the deficit, we're
going to have a lot of really upset constituents. And
(22:36):
on top of that, there are serious issues with some
of these entitlement programs that need to be reformed. And
there'll be some positive things happen in this effort, but
there'll be some damaging things too. And so you know,
those are the things that constituents that voters care about,
and that these members are thinking about much more than
(22:58):
Wall Street right now. And I think there's a general
consensus that the underlying economy of the United States is sound.
That's why you see the robust kind of response today,
even on top of the moody saying we're not, you know,
dancing on the head of a pin. And so I
think that these are the kind of things that members
are really upset about, is that they've got to go
(23:18):
home and defend some of this stuff. And it's very
hard for the many members of the Republican Caucus to
reconcile each other's ideological differences to be able to get
a concerted message through to the voters.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast. Catch
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Speaker 7 (23:51):
This is just breaking. After his two hour long phone
call with the Russian President Vladimir Putin, President Trump says
he believes it went very well and that Russia and
Ukraine will immediate least start negotiations toward a ceasefire and
more importantly, in the president's words, an end to the war.
He said, the conditions for that will be negotiated between
the two parties, as it can only be because they
know the details of a negotiation that nobody else would
(24:13):
be aware of. He went on to say that he
has so informed vladimir's Lenski, the President of Ukraine, other
officials in Europe of this that these negotiations will begin immediately.
He also notes show that the Vatican has stated it
would be interested in hosting the negotiations. He ends the
post by saying, let the process begin.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Pretty remarkable and it doesn't sound unlike what we heard
from Moscow save a couple of lines here, for instance,
root causes of the war, as we heard from Vladimir Putin.
But apparently we are going to the Vatican peace talks,
which is something that we had discussed earlier in the process,
having been floated by the Pope.
Speaker 6 (24:50):
JD.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Vans the Vice President meeting with the Pope again over
the weekend. Here. A ceasefire, however, would need to begin
before any real talks could happen. So I'm not sure
how the order of events goes here, Kley, or whether
we'll see these two in the same ruins.
Speaker 7 (25:03):
Well, it seems that the President is suggesting negotiations need
to happen to get to a c's fire. That could
be tough first place, and then you get to the
end of the war in a second step. We'd love
to hear from our political panel on this. Of course,
Rick Davis and Genie Schanzino are still with us. Rick,
we know this as a White House and a president
specifically that it was growing increasingly frustrated with the lack
(25:23):
of progress in reaching a peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia.
Do you really believe he's gotten closer with this two
hour phone call.
Speaker 8 (25:31):
Well, he certainly indicates that he thinks there's a process
now that's going to kick off. What's really stark about
this is the fact that he doesn't consider the US
or his presidency as part of that process. Here's a
guy who campaigned for two years saying on day one
he could resolve this conflict, and now, based on his
own tweet or whatever it's called, he's basically saying, oh,
(25:54):
you know, I can't get to know all the details
of the solution, so we're just going to leave it
up to you know, you, Crane and Russia. I don't
know who that actually benefits. I would be surprised of
it benefits the US because it's good for us to
be in the middle of these things to ensure that
at the end of the process, we're keeping everybody honest
(26:14):
with their commitments. But look, I have to be an optimist.
This war has gone on too long. That's one thing
I agree with Donald Trump on. And whether or not
we can trust Russia at this stage after many disappointments,
we'll see, but we can be hopeful and maybe the
American Pope has enough magic to sprinkle on this process
(26:35):
that we could get something really positive done.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Yeah, Genie, the President writing in this post untruth Social,
Russia wants to do large scale trade with the United
States when this catastrophic blood bath is over, and I agree.
He says there's a tremendous opportunity for Russia to create
massive amounts of jobs and wealth. Its potential is unlimited
in all caps, I guess I go back to the
(26:59):
same question I was asking, Well, we got Russia's readout
on all of this, are we going to be in
a world in which the invader is setting the terms
of the ceasefire? You know?
Speaker 6 (27:09):
Listening to what Donald Trump has written on Truth Social,
I too would like to be optimistic. Like Rick I
hope that this works. But Donald Trump seems to believe
that he can attract people to these deals by talking
about the economy and all of those things, which are
critically important obviously to Russia and all of us. But
the reality is what Russia said right after Putin got
(27:32):
off this call. What did Putin say? He said, the
main thing is to eliminate the root cause. And what
Putin sees as the root cause of this has nothing
to do really with the economy or jobs or transactions
like Donald Trump is talking about. For him, the root causes.
He believes profoundly that Ukraine is part of Russia. So
(27:55):
I'm not sure how this helps us get across that bridge,
so to speak. How do you appease Vladimir Putin when
it is utterly a non starter for Zelenski Ukraine the
West United States that he should get to move into
and keep large swaths of Ukraine. Even in the last
few hours talking about parts of Ukraine he hasn't even
(28:17):
annexed yet. So I think Donald Trump is being a
bit optimistic here, and I'm not so sure they're going
to be able to get through. But hopefully I'm wrong
and they're able to get this eastfire going.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
Going into overtime with our panel. Many thanks again to
Genie Shanzano and Rick Davis in the Clutch. Now that
we have a White House readout on the meeting between
President Trump and Putin, roughly two hours in length. It
took place a short time ago, beginning around ten forty
am Washington time. And we want to add the voice
of Nick Wattams, who's been in the center of our
coverage here when it comes to national security. He runs
(28:52):
our US National Security team at Bloomberg. Nick. Now that
we've actually heard from both sides, how are we characterizing
this meeting? Is it one that was productive because we
don't have a ceasefire and it doesn't appear that the
President of the United States will be deeply involved in
these talks from.
Speaker 10 (29:07):
Here right, I mean, I think for Europe and for
members of Congress who have supported sanctions, this is going
to be a disappointing readout in some ways because what
it looks like is President Trump is hopeful that there's
going to be progress, that there is going to be
some sort of outcome, but so far Vladimir Putin hasn't
committed to anything. I mean, we've talked in the Truth
(29:29):
Social post about negotiations for a ceasefire starting immediately. There
have been conversations about a potential ceasefire going on for
weeks and weeks, and the idea of a ceasefire does
not seem to be all that difficult to do. You
just stop the fighting. So I think the initial impression
from some of the folks we've spoken to is that
(29:49):
you again see a situation where President Putin is looking
to string the US along, draw out a process, and
keep up the fighting in Ukraine.
Speaker 7 (29:57):
Well, and it's worth pointing out that we did see
talk in Turkey between Russian and Ukrainian officials, though they
were quite low level. Vladimir Putin, of course himself did
not show up. Zelensky was willing to meet with him,
but wasn't going to go if Putin did not attend.
So even as the president says Russia and Ukraine will
immediately start negotiations, how much does it matter, Nick, who
exactly it is that's showing up to.
Speaker 10 (30:18):
The table, right, I mean, you know, a lot of
questions are about who they would send and who is
empowered to actually make commitments from the Russian side, for example,
But also what is the true interest and outcome from Russia?
Do they actually want to stop the fighting? I mean,
based on the events of the last couple of days. No,
it's a massive drone barrage in Kiev over the weekend,
(30:39):
very deadly, in one of the most intense in many months.
So they are determined, it looks like to continue the fighting.
I mean, the issue you see here is one where
Vladimir Putin it would almost be in his interest to
play for time because you have a lot of unresolved
questions about where Ukraine's munitions and weapons are going to
come from next. Are they going to come from the US?
Is Donald Trump willing to send more weaponry, push another
(31:02):
supplemental through Congress? You know, in a lot of ways,
Leberan Putin can say We're just gonna keep doing this
till you guys run out of weapons and munitions, and
then you're going to be in a weaker position to negotiate.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
A lot of r Putin's got his own audience at home.
To what extent does it embolden him or help him
politically domestically to appear to be stringing along the United States?
Speaker 10 (31:23):
Well, I mean, I think it does help him. I mean,
to have this conversation with Donald Trump. You know, there's
a lot of concern. You know, what he really wants
is that one on one, mono mono equal time with
Donald Trump. And that's certainly what he gets here. And
then you see a truth from the President that at the.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
Very least is not negative.
Speaker 10 (31:46):
I mean, he's saying, basically, he's you know, let's get
this done. This is a big deal. You know, they're
on equal terms. There is no criticism or pressure or
leverage being exacted on the Russians, and crucially no mention
of sanctions. So it doesn't feel from what the limited
readouts we've had so far, that President Putin is under
much pressure at all.
Speaker 6 (32:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (32:07):
In fact, President Trump describing the conversation the tenor of
the conversation as being excellent. The tone and spirit of
the conversation were excellent, he said, if it wasn't, I
would say so now rather than later read into that
how you will. But to your point, Nick on no
mention of sanctions in this post, is this a testament
to the threat of sanctions? What President Trump said he
(32:28):
was willing to impose. Caroline Lovett, the White House Press
Secretary today said everything would be on the table in
that regard if Russia isn't playing ball the way the
administration wants. Is this a testament to sanctioned threats working
or not?
Speaker 5 (32:40):
Well?
Speaker 10 (32:41):
I mean very initial impressions here, of course. But to
me it is a suggestion that President Trump does not
believe the sanctions threat is necessary. I mean, he seems
to be signaling that there's progress here, They're moving in
the right directions. He's not going to want to spoil
that with a potential announcement on sanctions. He's not saying
progress or else. He's just saying, hey, we're doing it.
(33:03):
These guys. Are these guys the process is launched, and
suggesting that his phone call with President Buten is the
reason why the process has begun, when, of course you
know they have. There have been conversations back and forth
via intermediaries and then directly as you mentioned in Turkey,
by Russian Ukraine, but so far no ceasefire.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
What do you make of the Vatican involvement here? I
have to man, it smacks of the optics that you
would think Trump would really like. Sure, I mean, I
think it is the drama or the urgency around this
would what does it bring to the conversation.
Speaker 10 (33:39):
I mean, you know, in the in the in the
theory of throw spaghetti against a wall and see what sticks.
Why not? I mean, the UN has been essentially discredited
and frozen because of the clash and the Security Council
between the US and Russia. There is some concern about
you know, if you if the US is the mediator,
(33:59):
who's are they really on? As evidenced by President Trump's truth.
So if you have a truly disinterested slash impartial venue
the Vatican, why not let's give it a shot, New Pope,
New Day. Maybe there is a way under which you
could get the parties in a room together and there
might be slightly less mistrust. I don't know. I mean,
(34:22):
it's just another notion that's out there that in the
past you wouldn't have even heard about. I think. But
in this sort of radical transparency where President Trump just
broadcasts everything from truth, now we have to contend with it.
I don't think anyone really has much idea what that
means right now.
Speaker 7 (34:37):
Amazing And finally, Nick, President Trump gives a number of
specific shout outs in this post to people he spoke
with after speaking with Vladimir Putin on a phone call,
Vladimer Zelensky, Ursula Vonderline, the President of the European Commission,
the presidents of France, the Prime Minister of Italy, the
Chancellor of Germany, the President of Finland. How important is
that that everybody got together, all of the allies of Ukraine,
(34:59):
if you will, immediately after he got off the phone
with Russia.
Speaker 10 (35:02):
Well, I mean, the question is what was actually in
those conversations and what was the tenor I mean, the
European leaders are deeply uneasy with President Trump having this
one on one call with Vladimir Putin. They just say,
for one thing, there's no need and it would seem
to serve Putin's purposes of splitting the US away from Europe.
So we're really going to need to see what came
from those calls. If President Trump went to those and said, Okay,
(35:26):
don't worry. If we don't see progress by such and
such a date, we're going to impose sanctions, well that's
one thing. If you went to them and said, go
stuff it. We're going for this thing. Progress is continuing,
but out a much different They're trying to telegraph unity
there but it's hard to tell if that goes any
deeper than the surface.
Speaker 7 (35:44):
All Right, Nick Wadams, leading our national security team here
in Washington as we grapple with this breaking news.
Speaker 5 (35:50):
Thank you so much again.
Speaker 7 (35:51):
President Trump providing the readout of his two hour long
phone call with Vladimir Putin on True Social saying that
Russia and Ukraine will start cease fire talks immediately, describing
as a process beginning even though the US had already
been trying to broke her a ceasefire granted through bilateral
negotiations separately with Russia and Ukraine rather than Russian Ukraine
(36:12):
directly talking. But four months now, really since he came
into office.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
Well, that's right, And to your point, just last weekend,
there was a session that the President of Russia decided
not to send his top lieutenants to the Secretary of State.
Mark Rubio was there, Steve Whitkoff was there, and they
were dealing with much lower level officials at the table.
Questioning again the motivations and intentions coming from the Kremlin.
Speaker 7 (36:31):
Well, we want to get a read on how Linda
Herring is viewing the Kremlin's intentions and motivations here with
what we're reading. She, of course a senior fellow with
the Atlanta Council's Eurasia Center and is one of the
experts we love speaking with on the war in Ukraine, specifically, Melinda.
Welcome back to Balance of Power on Bloomberg TV Radio
and now Bloomberg Originals. I do wonder what's going through
your head as we look at the words of President
(36:53):
Trump that negotiations toward a ceasfire and an end of
the war will start immediately. Does that fill you with
confidence or skepticism?
Speaker 11 (37:02):
Hey, Kayley, So no, it does not fill me with confidence.
And I think it's important to not just look at
what Trump said, but also to look at what Putin's saying.
So let's take a pause for a moment. Putin has
grabbed the microphone and he's talking about a memorandum which
will outline all the conditions and then maybe there'll be
a ceasefire. So I don't have a lot of confidence
(37:24):
that this is going anywhere. The Europeans threatened Putin a
week ago and said if he didn't agree to a
thirty day ceasefire that there would be massive sanctions, and
there was nothing there, So I think this may be
a lot of hot air.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
Yet again, well, you could look at this, I'm sure
a lot of different ways. Melinda, were waiting for an
official readout from the White House, and I don't suspect
it'll disagree with what you heard from President Trump. Slightly
different though than what we did hear from the Kremlin.
And when you hear Vladimir Putin talking about getting down
to the roots of the invasion, the roots of the conflict,
(38:01):
what does that say to you? And is it possible
to have negotiations while the fighting continues.
Speaker 11 (38:08):
Joe, that's really the question. So Russian Russian demands haven't
changed over the last three years, and the negotiations broke
down in Istanbul on Friday because Russia went back to
its its demands and this time it said we must
have not only Crimea, but four of those oblasts in
eastern Ukraine. And they don't completely control those Ukrainian oblasts,
(38:29):
and the Ukrainian sets stuff it. So it's it's hard
to see that this is this discussion is going to
move anywhere. It's good that the Vaticans involved, it's good
that the Europeans and and the the and the Americans
are you know, working together. But when when Putin talks
about UH, when he talks about intent, he means NATO,
and he's blaming Ukraine for for for for insisting on
(38:56):
sovereignty as the cause of the war. That's what this
coded language is.
Speaker 7 (39:01):
Well, Melinda, to your point about Russia wanting the recognition
of Ukrainian territory as its own despite the fact that
it does not have many of these areas in its
full control. Does Russia right now have the military advantage
to be able to get those areas under control. I
just wonder the strength of each side's position here if
they are indeed about to join together at one table
(39:23):
for these talks.
Speaker 11 (39:25):
So right now, you know that Russia controls Crimea, it
illegally annexed that province, But in terms of those four
other oblasts, they control about a twenty percent of Ukraine,
and it depends on the oblast. Russia does have the
momentum on its side, but it's very slow going. If
you look at the Institute for the Study of War's report,
you know it's very very small progress. The Ukrainians are
(39:47):
holding the front with drones, but there is an expectation
that the Russians are going to make a push this summer,
and the expectation from the Russian side is that they're
going to be able to take all four of those
provinces by the end of the year. I think that
may be an overstatement, but that's the Russian expectation.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
Well, then it sounds like you can't negotiate when you're
in the throes of fighting. We just saw one of
the biggest drone barrages against Kiev of the war so far,
just in the last twenty four hours. Melinda, at what
point does the White House lose patience for this?
Speaker 11 (40:25):
That's right, Joe. So over the weekend Russia hit Ukraine
with two hundred and seventy three drones across the country
and they want to increase that number. They're trying to
overwhelm the Ukrainian's air interceptor system, their air defense system.
But you can't negotiate in an ongoing war. So we're
all looking for the ceasefire. President Trump has been great
(40:46):
on this. He called for a thirty day ceasefire. He's
been calling for that for weeks now, and Putin won't
agree to it. So I really encourage our viewers to
keep your eye on the ceasefire. Part of this. If
he doesn't agree to a ceasefire, there's no going to
be any real negotiations. And we see him again stalling
for time and talking about he wants to get into
these weedy details, Joe, so that he can delay the ceasefire.
(41:09):
And let's go back to Easter. He demanded a three
day ceasefire right after Easter when he was having this
big May Day parade, and he can he can call
his troops off, it's up to him. So when he
starts to get weedy, it means that he doesn't want
to do something.
Speaker 6 (41:25):
Well.
Speaker 7 (41:25):
And when we consider even just the prospect of a
ceasefire beginning, Melinda, what are the enforcement mechanisms or the
keep what keeps both sides honest on maintaining that ceasefire?
If it's also just the two of them at the
negotiating table versus having some sort of mediator, what would
guarantee that it holds.
Speaker 11 (41:45):
That's a great question.
Speaker 6 (41:46):
In this case.
Speaker 11 (41:47):
You need an external mediator, and we don't know who
that would be. It can't be the OSSE because both
Ukraine and Russia are party to the OSSE, So we're
going to need some kind of neutral mediator to make
sure sure that once ceasefire is in place, it can
be observed by outsiders, and that the rules of the
negotiations are very clear. So in this case, we haven't
(42:10):
seen the details, and I'm not sure who could do
that job capably.
Speaker 2 (42:14):
The President writes Melinda. The Vatican, as represented by the Pope,
has stated it would be very interested in hosting the negotiations,
or we to believe that the Vatican would be involved
on any level of mediation here what would that mean
for talks?
Speaker 11 (42:29):
So the Vatican has hosts offered to host negotiations, and
the new Pope has feels very different Joe than the
previous pope on Ukraine. He's been clear that Ukraine is
the victim and he you know both. There are quite
a few Roman Catholics in the Trump administration, so I
think that sort of appeals to them. And we've seen
Zelenski also do his big meeting with Trump there at
(42:52):
the Vatican, So I think this is a good sign
that this could be one of the potential places where
the parties can meet into discus, discuss their friction. But
you know, TBD, everyone wants to host these negotiations. Turkey
would love to. Cutter would love to. You know, everyone
wants credit for the end of the war, so I
think we're gonna have to stay tuned with that one
(43:12):
as well.
Speaker 2 (43:13):
Well. Linda, it's great to have you with us. Melenda Harring,
as we learned some of the details of this meeting
between the two presidents, senior fellow with the Atlantic Councils
Eurasia Center, we should note, Kayley, that the truth social
post that we've been describing and reading from by President
Trump was sent out by the White House, so we'll
call that our official statement. Thanks for listening to the
(43:37):
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,
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(00:20):
you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
I'm Joe Matthew and Washington. It's great to have you
with us here on Bloomberg Radio Satellite radio Channel one
twenty one on YouTube, where you can find us by
searching Bloomberg Business News Live, and now on Bloomberg Originals,
Welcome to the most original political program on the radio.
We're going to do this every day from now and
it's a great honor to be on Bloomberg Originals. And
glad if you're finding us right now for the first
(00:46):
time that you're part of our conversation every day here
in Washington. How about the next one hundred days, Well,
we're in them now, and our friend Cliff Young at
IPSOS has been running numbers here and knowing that things
got a little bit deeper. The water's got a bit
deeper for President Trump. As I mentioned on Friday, with
that Moody's downgrade there are a lot of questions going
forward here, not only about tariff policy, but what happens
(01:07):
to tax policy and who's going to pay for it?
On Capitol Hill right, one big beautiful bill that could
add trillions to the debt and deficit if we don't
get the pay fors that many are asking for that
Moody's is looking for, along with y F, Fitch and
S ANDP. We heard from the Press Secretary Caroline Levitt
(01:29):
this morning and an early briefing at the White House.
Here's what you said.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
The world has confidence in the United States of America
and our economy once again. Oil prices are dropping, gas
prices are dropping. The President has added nearly a half
million jobs to the American economy already, So there's a
lot of optimism in this economy. And the President disagrees
with that assessment.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Yes, cautious optimism. According to IPSOS, the next one hundred
days friction, uncertainty, but cautious optimism, writes Cliff Young, who's
with me right now, ipso's Public Affairs president for the US.
It's great to see you. Welcome back, as it's great
to be here job. You've got the benefit of a
slightly longer view than those of us who are in
each wrinkle as we wait for the headline on when
the phone call is going to end, and so forth.
(02:09):
Broadly speaking, despite all the stuff I just said, the
president's actually doing better in approval ratings than he was
weeks ago.
Speaker 4 (02:15):
Yeah, he's in a better place his if you look
at IPSIS numbers or the average of all the polling
firms out there, all the polling numbers, he's improved a
point or two since let's say the beginning of the month.
And I think that has a lot to do with
him stepping off the gas A bit interesting. He was
crering a lot of friction around the edges. He was
(02:36):
confronting conventions and norms. People don't like that. They're worried
obviously about potential inflation linked to tariffs and all that
has sort of tampered down A.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Bit interesting that this may have coincided with his pulling
back on China for a bit, right, we'll give that
a breather. Maybe an agreement in principle, whatever, We go
home thinking reciprocal tariffs under review. What happens though? When
that review ends, maybe some of this stuff kicks back in.
Speaker 4 (03:02):
Well, it's going to be ultimately about whether there's negative impact.
Speaker 5 (03:06):
In people's day to day lives.
Speaker 4 (03:08):
Right now, it's all noise, it's news. It's not concrete, right,
and people are worried about that. Public opinion's worried about that,
but we really won't see the impact if there's going
to be an impact until it affects If it does
affect people's ability to make ends meet.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Give me your reality check on this Moody's headline, because
at Bloomberg that's a big deal. Ten years back, above
four point five percent, you say, oh my god, the
market's going to tank. It's not clearly, and I wonder
what people really think of this. Does the Moody's downgrade
to double a one mean anything to somebody who's trying
to figure out how to pay the bills this month?
Speaker 5 (03:45):
Oh not at all. They don't know what it even is.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Right.
Speaker 4 (03:48):
Ultimately, these are things that elites and bankers and people
in Wall Street and people that run companies are worried about.
Less so about someone trying to make ends meat putting
food on the table. But ultimately it runs in part
counter to what we're seeing in public opinion. Like we
said before, we're in a period of lull. There is trepidation,
(04:09):
there is unease about the present, but there are argulommers
of hope looking forward for people.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
I'm fascinated by the push and pull when it comes
to tariffs. Based on what you found, Americans do not
see the near term benefit of tariffs. Americans do, however,
see the long term benefits, but are split on whether
the pain is worth it. How do we rationalize that?
Speaker 5 (04:29):
Well, they're worried about things today.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Right.
Speaker 4 (04:31):
Like I said before, there's a lot of trepidation and unease.
And it doesn't matter the poll, the question, the indicator.
We see it in a general sense. When we talk
about the potential benefit of tariff's generation of jobs, bring
manufacturing back to us, I'm a majority of Americans say yes,
I can see where tariffs make sense. I'm in favor
(04:53):
of that, but I'm not quite sure I want to
suffer the pain needed to get there.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Doesn't that say more about our society the way that
we look at things like, Hey, I know it's going
to pay off, but I'm not sure I'm actually willing
to pay it.
Speaker 4 (05:05):
Yeah, I think most people need to think in the
short term. They need to think about how to make
ends meet. They need to worry about how much money
is left over at the end of the month. And
that's just an indicator of that.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Incredible As we wait to hear from the President on
this phone call with Vladimir Putin, you find that Republicans
are still being seen stronger on immigration, on the economy,
on inflation, and yes, foreign policy. Are people paying attention
to wars on the other side of the world.
Speaker 5 (05:32):
Not much.
Speaker 4 (05:32):
I mean, they're really worried about immigration on the one hand,
the cost of living on the other, and Republicans are
strong on those points. Trumpet is strong on those points,
and they have been historically foreign policy less, so they
get good marks that as Republicans do. But people are
much less worried about what's going on in the Ukraine
or in the Middle East, and much more worried about
how to make ends meet.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Right, absolutely, And I guess we're going to be hearing
more about this now when it comes to messaging. There's
been a big question about the way this White House
is flooding the zone, as they say, I think you're
suggesting that maybe things are improving because the Zone isn't
quite so flooded the cadence that we've seen, but the
messaging around inflation, specifically talking about kids not being able
(06:14):
to have as many toys, is one that kind of
hung around the President's neck here Scott Bessett over the
weekend suggesting that maybe Walmart needs to eat some of this.
As the President said in a truth social post, it's
been impacting the soft data, as we say, consumer sentiment,
consumer expectations. We have yet to see it really creep
(06:35):
into the hard data. But you're a polster, you're an
expert on this. Do you have a sense of at
what point people lose patience the honeymoon period ends.
Speaker 4 (06:45):
Yeah, there's a lot of noise once again, and like
I said before, there's a pessimism about the president. We
have seen some sort of behavioral change among households. They've
cut some sort of non essential expendsures like travel, and
they are stockpiling on some essentials.
Speaker 5 (07:03):
We've seen that.
Speaker 4 (07:04):
But this is all, once again theoretical. This is about
the future that hasn't gotten here yet, hasn't arrived, and
it really will will be about whether it affects Americans'
ability to make ends meet, and we're not there yet.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Well, now to the comedy part of the program with
Cliff Young. Americans want the president to work with Congress
rather than issue executive orders. I'm not sure if they've
been paying attention, but that's not going to be the
plan coming out of this White House, is it. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:30):
I don't think we should take it literally. We should
take it sort of conceptually. In other words, Americans want
less friction. They want their leaders to file the rules.
They don't like it when they're thwarted a lot of
the a lot of that.
Speaker 5 (07:44):
And that's why you know why he dropped in the numbers.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
That's why he outstripped the historical average for the first
hundred days. He was at six point decline versus a
three point decline.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
These are the doge executive actions.
Speaker 4 (07:57):
And all of them all together, right, and like that's
what today, what we're seeing a bit, as you've already said, Joe,
is him stepping off the pedal a bit. I think
the numbers are improving a bit because there's less of
that friction of that contest going on in public opinions.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Mind, does it helped to see the president being presidential,
as they say, on a trip like he just took
to the Middle East. Not a heck of a lot
of news other than some investments in technology some of
the other things that he was talking about, but was
mainly a big photo op. They put a you know,
they put a music video together at the White House
to post this being seen with leaders, not just political leaders,
(08:34):
but business leaders out there doing things in a forum
that nobody else could do. Is there actually a benefit
in twenty twenty five to those kind of optics.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (08:42):
On the margins, it's important to see our leaders pretty
jaded act, our president's act presidential.
Speaker 5 (08:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (08:48):
And I think this goes these sorts of initiatives' activities.
Actions go to seeing public opinion, public opinion tampered down
a bit.
Speaker 5 (08:56):
You know, it won't have a huge impact, but it
does have an impact.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Point. This is going to start feeding into midterms. I
don't know when you start paying attention to that, but
you know, we've already got people talking about it here
on the air. We had the chair of the d
Triple C on just a couple of weeks ago talking
about strategy, talking about special elections where we're trying to
read tea leaves. Has this begun already or is it
too early.
Speaker 5 (09:17):
Well, the season's begun, yeah, but probably starting too early.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Yeah, I don't like this.
Speaker 5 (09:22):
Look at one season.
Speaker 4 (09:23):
No, we're far off still, you know, really November December
is when we begin to look. Listen, Typically the party
out of power does better in the mid terms. Normally
the party out of power, the Democrats in this case,
gain seats in the House, typically take back the House. Sure,
that's probably going to be the trend. At least the
(09:45):
Democrats probably will trend better. But let's see where we are,
especially with this illustration going into next.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Year, multiple lifetimes between now and then. But I'm always
pushing it here. What are your clients asking you about?
People should know that Cliff Young doesn't just sit here
and talk the guys like me. You're actually out interfacing
with clients on a granular level, running numbers like the
ones we're talking about. What's the most important question you're
getting at the moment?
Speaker 4 (10:09):
You know, you know, they want to understand the contours
of the future. Not necessarily what's going to happen, nothing
easy about, but what can we expect?
Speaker 5 (10:16):
Right?
Speaker 4 (10:17):
I think you know, at this point, a lot of
our charge, a lot of our sort of objective or
my objective is to say, listen, things are not as
bad as you think they are. Trump is actually in
a better place than many believe. Public opinion is worried today,
but there's but there are glimmers of hope looking forward.
Just those two statements is a way to sort of
(10:38):
understand the contours of what will happen.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Interesting, that is only we're under the next hundred days.
As you pointed at the top of your deck, that's
only what one hundred days plus into the administration? Will
they start caring less at a certain point? When does
this get boring?
Speaker 6 (10:54):
No?
Speaker 4 (10:54):
I think with this administration never and this politician and
this president never.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Yeah, that says a lot job security for Cliff Young.
Speaker 5 (11:01):
Yeah, good for business.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
It's good for business. So keep coming back to see us.
From ipso's Cliffield Live in Washington. I'm Joe Matthew. Thanks
for being with us here on Balance of Power. We've
got a lot more ahead, including our panel. They're back
together today, Jeanie Shanzeno and Rick Davis with us after
a late night on Capitol Hill. We're going to take
a look a little bit later on at the legislation
that's moving here on the so called one big Beautiful bill.
Also news about Joe Biden, as you likely heard over
(11:24):
the weekend, a cancer diagnosis that has Washington reacting today,
and we'll get some insights from our panel on this
going forward. Still waiting for the high sign on the
call Trump and Putin, with a lot of news likely
to flow from the White House after they get off
the horn together. Talking about Ukraine. We'll have much more
on that straight ahead here on the fastest show in politics.
(11:45):
Thanks for being with us on Bloomberg Radio, on YouTube
and now on Bloomberg Originals. This is Balance of Power
Only on Bloomberg.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
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 Flooburg Business app.
You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our
flagship New York station Just Say Alexa played Bloomberg eleven thirty.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Big Question Marks on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. We are,
by the way, still waiting for a readout from the
White House on President Trump's call earlier today, with Vladimir
putin Moscow saying it went over two hours and that
it was a very useful call for Vladimir Putin. We'll
get the take here from the US side of that call,
hopefully shortly. But we're also waiting for news on Capitol Hill.
(12:34):
Just hours after Yes, still only hours after the Budget
Committee in the House cleared what the President calls the
One Big Beautiful Bill. This is the tax and spend
bill that includes the Trump tax cuts. In the rest
several members of the House Freedom Caucus Kaylee, voted President,
and this is an issue because they also sit on
the Rules Committee could come up the works a lot
this week. One of them named chip Roy. We talk
(12:55):
about him a lot here. Republican member of Congress says
the legislation still does not yet meet the moment.
Speaker 7 (13:01):
Yeah, so we could consider their present votes last night
as being an upgrade from their no votes on Friday,
But it is no guarantee that they'll be yes votes,
either in the Rules Committee in the case of chip
Roy or rov Norman, or if this thing actually gets
to the floor at the end of the week. Remembering
that Republicans, with their very narrow majority, can afford to
lose roughly three votes, and there are four who have
serious problems just on the conservative side not to mention
(13:24):
the salt members. That's right, the moderate members who have
issues with the salt cap and Medicaid cuts, respectively.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
The more Speaker Johnson does to alleviate concerns of the
Freedom Caucus, the more likely he is to offend moderates
and get more no votes to worry about. So it's
a really delicate balancing act here, and it's one that
probably feels pretty familiar for this Speaker of the House.
Speaker 7 (13:44):
Yeah, probably pretty familiar for our panel as well, as
they've seen a few of these. Let's turn to them.
Rick Davis and Jeanie Shanzay no Bloomberg Politics contributors. Rick,
of course, republican strategist and Stone Court Capital partner. Genie
are democratic analyst and senior Democracy fellow at the Center
for the Study of the Presidency and Congress. Rick, to
the point that Joe was just making about Johnson trying
to appease members of the Freedom Caucus. The more that
(14:06):
he gets pulled to the right, does that not only
risk that he can actually get this thing out of
the House, but even if he can and it goes
to the Senate, that everything he agrees to gets reversed.
By the Upper Chamber.
Speaker 8 (14:18):
Well, we can now say that this is not Johnson's
first rodeo. We couldn't say that last year, but we
could say it this year. I mean, and he's been
pretty depth at, you know, sort of piecing together coalitions
with the Freedom Caucus and at the same time holding
his sort of left flank of the Republican Caucus in check.
(14:38):
I would say that the aggressive nature of the Salt Caucus,
probably through the cheerleading of Genie Shanzano, has really bolstered
their side of the equation. It probably made life a
little tougher for Johnson. But that being said, I think
really the biggest thing that's happened this week outside of
the vote last night, was the Senate basicly saying hey, look, guys,
(15:01):
we're not going for any of this stuff. You know,
we're gonna we're gonna change the Medicaid cuts. You can
fight about it all you want, but it's not gonna
matter once you get here. And that does let a
lot of air out of the tire. I mean, when
the House sees that and they're like, what am I
fighting over? You know this is just going to get changed.
So it does take a little wins out of the sales,
(15:21):
they'll be fighting hard to get what they want out
of these uh you know, cuts in the budget they're
trying to make, and they have made a promise not
to raise the government debt, which they're not going to
be able to keep. Uh there's just no way this
goes uh to term without adding to the deficit. So uh,
these guys are going to be disappointed. Now, the question
(15:43):
is how much noise are they going to make before
they're totally disappointed?
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Boy. Well, I don't know about your cheerleading here, Jeannie,
but it's it's hard to deny the sticky situation that
Speaker Johnson is in. What role are the Salt Republicans,
let's say, the dellation from your state, specifically in New York,
potentially going to play to complicate this further because they
still do not have a deal on raising the cap.
Speaker 6 (16:10):
They absolutely do not. And by the way, can I
just say, I know producer James never makes a mistake,
but when I got the email this morning saying the
meeting for rules was at one am, I thought, by James,
it's a got to be eleven one am, And of
course he was totally right. Never happens in terms of
you know, the problem is just what's been laid out,
(16:32):
which is, of course that the more Mike Johnson appeases
the far right the House Freedom Caucus, the more upset
the folks from my area get the Salt Caucus, as
you will. And then there's also the other folks, you know,
you were just talking about the medicaid folks who are concerned,
like Fitzpatrick in Pennsylvania about cuts there. And then of
course the old story that once if this gets past
(16:55):
in the House, the Senate is going to take it, totally,
rewrite it and try it jam the House. And then
we're really going to have to see does this do
these folks buckle under pressure from Donald Trump. They've done
it before, they may do it again. But some of
this rhetoric about one bill, this is the big, beautiful bill,
it's all you get. It makes it seem like if
(17:17):
they don't get their piece of this in there, they're
not going to get anything. So this is really really
tough for the House. I think they are going to
get jammed by the Senate and how they react is
going to be the big question.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Well, you know, it's going to be a fascinating conversation
on the late edition of Balance of Power. Kayley, We're
going to be spending some time with Andrew Clyde, the
Republican from Georgia, one of the four we've been talking
about here, who has great trouble with this bill. I
don't know if he's been getting phone calls from Donald
Trump or what actually is going to end up happening here.
Ask We will ask him, Rick, what changes between now
(17:52):
and the Rules Committee, if anything? And is this just
a silly exercise with everything that you just mentioned about
the Senate they're going to get together at one o'clock
in the morning to try to hammer something out in
rules when the Senate is sitting there waiting to change
the whole thing. Yeah, that's pretty much right.
Speaker 8 (18:07):
Look, I mean, the Rules Committee has a tricky job
of piecing together all these different committee reports. So they'll
add it all up, they'll figure out what they got
to do to shave a little here and there, and
they'll tweak some things. Maybe they'll tweaked the snap program
coming out of agriculture. They'll tweet some more facets of
the tax cuts, specifically salt, to try and buy in
(18:31):
those votes and so yeah, the rules have actually got
quite a bit of juggling they've got to do to
get members comfortable enough, at least in the committee. And
as you point out, Kaylee, you've got Ralph Norman and
Roy chip Roy sitting on that committee. They weren't there
a year ago. They demanded to be put on there
(18:52):
as a part of the exchange of cooperation to get
Johnson as Speaker, and now he's going to really regret
having those rabble rousers roles committee.
Speaker 7 (19:02):
Well, especially when those rabble rousers perhaps have more ammunition
from a ratings agency, Moodies, of course, downgrading the US
credit rating on Friday, taking a lot of US by surprise,
but of course it was the last rating agency standing
that still had the US rated the highest possible grade.
Of course, the downgrade in part blamed on successive administrations
(19:24):
in Congress not doing enough to address the deficit and
the interest caughts costs of the United States. This is
something that Kevin Hassett, the Director of the National Economic Council,
was asked about by our own Tyler Kendall at the
White House earlier today, and this was his response.
Speaker 9 (19:38):
I think that American bonds are the best buy in
the world, that they're going to be even better by
once all of our policies are replaced. And this downgrade
is something that happened because of the runaway spending of
the previous administration. They were the last agency to move,
and I don't think it should be a surprise to Marcus.
Speaker 7 (19:56):
Like we saw with the Treasury Secretary Scott Besson on
Sunday Shows, Genie, he's looking at casting blame backwards. Bestin
suggested that Moody's is really a lagging indicator, that this
is about past behavior, not necessarily the behavior of this administration.
To what extent is that a makeable argument given that
this is active legislation we are talking about here that
(20:18):
can add trillions of dollars to the very deficit Moody's
is concerned about.
Speaker 6 (20:22):
Yeah, it was interesting. A few times on the Sunday Shows,
Bessen was saying, you know, look, Larry Summer says this.
We don't always agree, but it's a lagging indicator. And
the reality is is that there is so much blame
to go around for where we find ourselves in terms
of debt and deficit, and so yes, you can look
back at the previous administration. But what was the administration
(20:44):
before that? Oh it was Donald Trump's which added an
enormous amount to the deficit. And before that, you know,
Barack Obama. I mean, we have a deficit that has
now gotten us downgraded by all three And you know,
you frequently talked to people from the Committee Responsible Federal Budget.
They're talking about this bill alone adding three point three
(21:05):
trillion to the debt, and you know it could even
go up as far as five point two according to
their numbers. That is disastrous for our children and our grandchildren.
And Bessen and the rest of the folks in the
administration want to say, well, that's going to be offset
because we're going to do better with energy. All of
that may be true, and yet we still have a
(21:27):
debt or deficit which is going to strangle our grandchildren.
And that is a result of irresponsible budgeting on both
sides in an all administrations in the modern era. And
of course we're sitting here today talking about potentially of
rules meeting at one am. What happened to regular order
and responsible budgeting? Our Congress is not up to it
(21:49):
across the board, Democrats and Republicans.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Kind of amazing seeing the lack of reaction in the
markets here. Rick, it was hair on fire on Friday
night when the Moodies headline drop. Then we saw the
ten year at four and a half percent four point
five this morning, and now we've got the S and
P five hundred up seven points. If Wall Street doesn't care,
will Washington?
Speaker 8 (22:13):
Yeah, Washington has different priorities than just Wall Street. I
know everybody on Wall Street wants to believe that Washington
only reacts to their whims, But there's enough sophistication inside
the Beltway to say, hey, you know what, we got
to go home, We got to get reelected. And if
we add, like Jeanie said, trillions to the deficit, we're
going to have a lot of really upset constituents. And
(22:36):
on top of that, there are serious issues with some
of these entitlement programs that need to be reformed. And
there'll be some positive things happen in this effort, but
there'll be some damaging things too. And so you know,
those are the things that constituents that voters care about,
and that these members are thinking about much more than
(22:58):
Wall Street right now. And I think there's a general
consensus that the underlying economy of the United States is sound.
That's why you see the robust kind of response today,
even on top of the moody saying we're not, you know,
dancing on the head of a pin. And so I
think that these are the kind of things that members
are really upset about, is that they've got to go
(23:18):
home and defend some of this stuff. And it's very
hard for the many members of the Republican Caucus to
reconcile each other's ideological differences to be able to get
a concerted message through to the voters.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast. Catch
us live weekdays at noon and five pm Eastern on
Apple Cockley and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business Up.
Listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts, or watch
us live on YouTube.
Speaker 7 (23:51):
This is just breaking. After his two hour long phone
call with the Russian President Vladimir Putin, President Trump says
he believes it went very well and that Russia and
Ukraine will immediate least start negotiations toward a ceasefire and
more importantly, in the president's words, an end to the war.
He said, the conditions for that will be negotiated between
the two parties, as it can only be because they
know the details of a negotiation that nobody else would
(24:13):
be aware of. He went on to say that he
has so informed vladimir's Lenski, the President of Ukraine, other
officials in Europe of this that these negotiations will begin immediately.
He also notes show that the Vatican has stated it
would be interested in hosting the negotiations. He ends the
post by saying, let the process begin.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Pretty remarkable and it doesn't sound unlike what we heard
from Moscow save a couple of lines here, for instance,
root causes of the war, as we heard from Vladimir Putin.
But apparently we are going to the Vatican peace talks,
which is something that we had discussed earlier in the process,
having been floated by the Pope.
Speaker 6 (24:50):
JD.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Vans the Vice President meeting with the Pope again over
the weekend. Here. A ceasefire, however, would need to begin
before any real talks could happen. So I'm not sure
how the order of events goes here, Kley, or whether
we'll see these two in the same ruins.
Speaker 7 (25:03):
Well, it seems that the President is suggesting negotiations need
to happen to get to a c's fire. That could
be tough first place, and then you get to the
end of the war in a second step. We'd love
to hear from our political panel on this. Of course,
Rick Davis and Genie Schanzino are still with us. Rick,
we know this as a White House and a president
specifically that it was growing increasingly frustrated with the lack
(25:23):
of progress in reaching a peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia.
Do you really believe he's gotten closer with this two
hour phone call.
Speaker 8 (25:31):
Well, he certainly indicates that he thinks there's a process
now that's going to kick off. What's really stark about
this is the fact that he doesn't consider the US
or his presidency as part of that process. Here's a
guy who campaigned for two years saying on day one
he could resolve this conflict, and now, based on his
own tweet or whatever it's called, he's basically saying, oh,
(25:54):
you know, I can't get to know all the details
of the solution, so we're just going to leave it
up to you know, you, Crane and Russia. I don't
know who that actually benefits. I would be surprised of
it benefits the US because it's good for us to
be in the middle of these things to ensure that
at the end of the process, we're keeping everybody honest
(26:14):
with their commitments. But look, I have to be an optimist.
This war has gone on too long. That's one thing
I agree with Donald Trump on. And whether or not
we can trust Russia at this stage after many disappointments,
we'll see, but we can be hopeful and maybe the
American Pope has enough magic to sprinkle on this process
(26:35):
that we could get something really positive done.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Yeah, Genie, the President writing in this post untruth Social,
Russia wants to do large scale trade with the United
States when this catastrophic blood bath is over, and I agree.
He says there's a tremendous opportunity for Russia to create
massive amounts of jobs and wealth. Its potential is unlimited
in all caps, I guess I go back to the
(26:59):
same question I was asking, Well, we got Russia's readout
on all of this, are we going to be in
a world in which the invader is setting the terms
of the ceasefire? You know?
Speaker 6 (27:09):
Listening to what Donald Trump has written on Truth Social,
I too would like to be optimistic. Like Rick I
hope that this works. But Donald Trump seems to believe
that he can attract people to these deals by talking
about the economy and all of those things, which are
critically important obviously to Russia and all of us. But
the reality is what Russia said right after Putin got
(27:32):
off this call. What did Putin say? He said, the
main thing is to eliminate the root cause. And what
Putin sees as the root cause of this has nothing
to do really with the economy or jobs or transactions
like Donald Trump is talking about. For him, the root causes.
He believes profoundly that Ukraine is part of Russia. So
(27:55):
I'm not sure how this helps us get across that bridge,
so to speak. How do you appease Vladimir Putin when
it is utterly a non starter for Zelenski Ukraine the
West United States that he should get to move into
and keep large swaths of Ukraine. Even in the last
few hours talking about parts of Ukraine he hasn't even
(28:17):
annexed yet. So I think Donald Trump is being a
bit optimistic here, and I'm not so sure they're going
to be able to get through. But hopefully I'm wrong
and they're able to get this eastfire going.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
Going into overtime with our panel. Many thanks again to
Genie Shanzano and Rick Davis in the Clutch. Now that
we have a White House readout on the meeting between
President Trump and Putin, roughly two hours in length. It
took place a short time ago, beginning around ten forty
am Washington time. And we want to add the voice
of Nick Wattams, who's been in the center of our
coverage here when it comes to national security. He runs
(28:52):
our US National Security team at Bloomberg. Nick. Now that
we've actually heard from both sides, how are we characterizing
this meeting? Is it one that was productive because we
don't have a ceasefire and it doesn't appear that the
President of the United States will be deeply involved in
these talks from.
Speaker 10 (29:07):
Here right, I mean, I think for Europe and for
members of Congress who have supported sanctions, this is going
to be a disappointing readout in some ways because what
it looks like is President Trump is hopeful that there's
going to be progress, that there is going to be
some sort of outcome, but so far Vladimir Putin hasn't
committed to anything. I mean, we've talked in the Truth
(29:29):
Social post about negotiations for a ceasefire starting immediately. There
have been conversations about a potential ceasefire going on for
weeks and weeks, and the idea of a ceasefire does
not seem to be all that difficult to do. You
just stop the fighting. So I think the initial impression
from some of the folks we've spoken to is that
(29:49):
you again see a situation where President Putin is looking
to string the US along, draw out a process, and
keep up the fighting in Ukraine.
Speaker 7 (29:57):
Well, and it's worth pointing out that we did see
talk in Turkey between Russian and Ukrainian officials, though they
were quite low level. Vladimir Putin, of course himself did
not show up. Zelensky was willing to meet with him,
but wasn't going to go if Putin did not attend.
So even as the president says Russia and Ukraine will
immediately start negotiations, how much does it matter, Nick, who
exactly it is that's showing up to.
Speaker 10 (30:18):
The table, right, I mean, you know, a lot of
questions are about who they would send and who is
empowered to actually make commitments from the Russian side, for example,
But also what is the true interest and outcome from Russia?
Do they actually want to stop the fighting? I mean,
based on the events of the last couple of days. No,
it's a massive drone barrage in Kiev over the weekend,
(30:39):
very deadly, in one of the most intense in many months.
So they are determined, it looks like to continue the fighting.
I mean, the issue you see here is one where
Vladimir Putin it would almost be in his interest to
play for time because you have a lot of unresolved
questions about where Ukraine's munitions and weapons are going to
come from next. Are they going to come from the US?
Is Donald Trump willing to send more weaponry, push another
(31:02):
supplemental through Congress? You know, in a lot of ways,
Leberan Putin can say We're just gonna keep doing this
till you guys run out of weapons and munitions, and
then you're going to be in a weaker position to negotiate.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
A lot of r Putin's got his own audience at home.
To what extent does it embolden him or help him
politically domestically to appear to be stringing along the United States?
Speaker 10 (31:23):
Well, I mean, I think it does help him. I mean,
to have this conversation with Donald Trump. You know, there's
a lot of concern. You know, what he really wants
is that one on one, mono mono equal time with
Donald Trump. And that's certainly what he gets here. And
then you see a truth from the President that at the.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
Very least is not negative.
Speaker 10 (31:46):
I mean, he's saying, basically, he's you know, let's get
this done. This is a big deal. You know, they're
on equal terms. There is no criticism or pressure or
leverage being exacted on the Russians, and crucially no mention
of sanctions. So it doesn't feel from what the limited
readouts we've had so far, that President Putin is under
much pressure at all.
Speaker 6 (32:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (32:07):
In fact, President Trump describing the conversation the tenor of
the conversation as being excellent. The tone and spirit of
the conversation were excellent, he said, if it wasn't, I
would say so now rather than later read into that
how you will. But to your point, Nick on no
mention of sanctions in this post, is this a testament
to the threat of sanctions? What President Trump said he
(32:28):
was willing to impose. Caroline Lovett, the White House Press
Secretary today said everything would be on the table in
that regard if Russia isn't playing ball the way the
administration wants. Is this a testament to sanctioned threats working
or not?
Speaker 5 (32:40):
Well?
Speaker 10 (32:41):
I mean very initial impressions here, of course. But to
me it is a suggestion that President Trump does not
believe the sanctions threat is necessary. I mean, he seems
to be signaling that there's progress here, They're moving in
the right directions. He's not going to want to spoil
that with a potential announcement on sanctions. He's not saying
progress or else. He's just saying, hey, we're doing it.
(33:03):
These guys. Are these guys the process is launched, and
suggesting that his phone call with President Buten is the
reason why the process has begun, when, of course you
know they have. There have been conversations back and forth
via intermediaries and then directly as you mentioned in Turkey,
by Russian Ukraine, but so far no ceasefire.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
What do you make of the Vatican involvement here? I
have to man, it smacks of the optics that you
would think Trump would really like. Sure, I mean, I
think it is the drama or the urgency around this
would what does it bring to the conversation.
Speaker 10 (33:39):
I mean, you know, in the in the in the
theory of throw spaghetti against a wall and see what sticks.
Why not? I mean, the UN has been essentially discredited
and frozen because of the clash and the Security Council
between the US and Russia. There is some concern about
you know, if you if the US is the mediator,
(33:59):
who's are they really on? As evidenced by President Trump's truth.
So if you have a truly disinterested slash impartial venue
the Vatican, why not let's give it a shot, New Pope,
New Day. Maybe there is a way under which you
could get the parties in a room together and there
might be slightly less mistrust. I don't know. I mean,
(34:22):
it's just another notion that's out there that in the
past you wouldn't have even heard about. I think. But
in this sort of radical transparency where President Trump just
broadcasts everything from truth, now we have to contend with it.
I don't think anyone really has much idea what that
means right now.
Speaker 7 (34:37):
Amazing And finally, Nick, President Trump gives a number of
specific shout outs in this post to people he spoke
with after speaking with Vladimir Putin on a phone call,
Vladimer Zelensky, Ursula Vonderline, the President of the European Commission,
the presidents of France, the Prime Minister of Italy, the
Chancellor of Germany, the President of Finland. How important is
that that everybody got together, all of the allies of Ukraine,
(34:59):
if you will, immediately after he got off the phone
with Russia.
Speaker 10 (35:02):
Well, I mean, the question is what was actually in
those conversations and what was the tenor I mean, the
European leaders are deeply uneasy with President Trump having this
one on one call with Vladimir Putin. They just say,
for one thing, there's no need and it would seem
to serve Putin's purposes of splitting the US away from Europe.
So we're really going to need to see what came
from those calls. If President Trump went to those and said, Okay,
(35:26):
don't worry. If we don't see progress by such and
such a date, we're going to impose sanctions, well that's
one thing. If you went to them and said, go
stuff it. We're going for this thing. Progress is continuing,
but out a much different They're trying to telegraph unity
there but it's hard to tell if that goes any
deeper than the surface.
Speaker 7 (35:44):
All Right, Nick Wadams, leading our national security team here
in Washington as we grapple with this breaking news.
Speaker 5 (35:50):
Thank you so much again.
Speaker 7 (35:51):
President Trump providing the readout of his two hour long
phone call with Vladimir Putin on True Social saying that
Russia and Ukraine will start cease fire talks immediately, describing
as a process beginning even though the US had already
been trying to broke her a ceasefire granted through bilateral
negotiations separately with Russia and Ukraine rather than Russian Ukraine
(36:12):
directly talking. But four months now, really since he came
into office.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
Well, that's right, And to your point, just last weekend,
there was a session that the President of Russia decided
not to send his top lieutenants to the Secretary of State.
Mark Rubio was there, Steve Whitkoff was there, and they
were dealing with much lower level officials at the table.
Questioning again the motivations and intentions coming from the Kremlin.
Speaker 7 (36:31):
Well, we want to get a read on how Linda
Herring is viewing the Kremlin's intentions and motivations here with
what we're reading. She, of course a senior fellow with
the Atlanta Council's Eurasia Center and is one of the
experts we love speaking with on the war in Ukraine, specifically, Melinda.
Welcome back to Balance of Power on Bloomberg TV Radio
and now Bloomberg Originals. I do wonder what's going through
your head as we look at the words of President
(36:53):
Trump that negotiations toward a ceasfire and an end of
the war will start immediately. Does that fill you with
confidence or skepticism?
Speaker 11 (37:02):
Hey, Kayley, So no, it does not fill me with confidence.
And I think it's important to not just look at
what Trump said, but also to look at what Putin's saying.
So let's take a pause for a moment. Putin has
grabbed the microphone and he's talking about a memorandum which
will outline all the conditions and then maybe there'll be
a ceasefire. So I don't have a lot of confidence
(37:24):
that this is going anywhere. The Europeans threatened Putin a
week ago and said if he didn't agree to a
thirty day ceasefire that there would be massive sanctions, and
there was nothing there, So I think this may be
a lot of hot air.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
Yet again, well, you could look at this, I'm sure
a lot of different ways. Melinda, were waiting for an
official readout from the White House, and I don't suspect
it'll disagree with what you heard from President Trump. Slightly
different though than what we did hear from the Kremlin.
And when you hear Vladimir Putin talking about getting down
to the roots of the invasion, the roots of the conflict,
(38:01):
what does that say to you? And is it possible
to have negotiations while the fighting continues.
Speaker 11 (38:08):
Joe, that's really the question. So Russian Russian demands haven't
changed over the last three years, and the negotiations broke
down in Istanbul on Friday because Russia went back to
its its demands and this time it said we must
have not only Crimea, but four of those oblasts in
eastern Ukraine. And they don't completely control those Ukrainian oblasts,
(38:29):
and the Ukrainian sets stuff it. So it's it's hard
to see that this is this discussion is going to
move anywhere. It's good that the Vaticans involved, it's good
that the Europeans and and the the and the Americans
are you know, working together. But when when Putin talks
about UH, when he talks about intent, he means NATO,
and he's blaming Ukraine for for for for insisting on
(38:56):
sovereignty as the cause of the war. That's what this
coded language is.
Speaker 7 (39:01):
Well, Melinda, to your point about Russia wanting the recognition
of Ukrainian territory as its own despite the fact that
it does not have many of these areas in its
full control. Does Russia right now have the military advantage
to be able to get those areas under control. I
just wonder the strength of each side's position here if
they are indeed about to join together at one table
(39:23):
for these talks.
Speaker 11 (39:25):
So right now, you know that Russia controls Crimea, it
illegally annexed that province, But in terms of those four
other oblasts, they control about a twenty percent of Ukraine,
and it depends on the oblast. Russia does have the
momentum on its side, but it's very slow going. If
you look at the Institute for the Study of War's report,
you know it's very very small progress. The Ukrainians are
(39:47):
holding the front with drones, but there is an expectation
that the Russians are going to make a push this summer,
and the expectation from the Russian side is that they're
going to be able to take all four of those
provinces by the end of the year. I think that
may be an overstatement, but that's the Russian expectation.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
Well, then it sounds like you can't negotiate when you're
in the throes of fighting. We just saw one of
the biggest drone barrages against Kiev of the war so far,
just in the last twenty four hours. Melinda, at what
point does the White House lose patience for this?
Speaker 11 (40:25):
That's right, Joe. So over the weekend Russia hit Ukraine
with two hundred and seventy three drones across the country
and they want to increase that number. They're trying to
overwhelm the Ukrainian's air interceptor system, their air defense system.
But you can't negotiate in an ongoing war. So we're
all looking for the ceasefire. President Trump has been great
(40:46):
on this. He called for a thirty day ceasefire. He's
been calling for that for weeks now, and Putin won't
agree to it. So I really encourage our viewers to
keep your eye on the ceasefire. Part of this. If
he doesn't agree to a ceasefire, there's no going to
be any real negotiations. And we see him again stalling
for time and talking about he wants to get into
these weedy details, Joe, so that he can delay the ceasefire.
(41:09):
And let's go back to Easter. He demanded a three
day ceasefire right after Easter when he was having this
big May Day parade, and he can he can call
his troops off, it's up to him. So when he
starts to get weedy, it means that he doesn't want
to do something.
Speaker 6 (41:25):
Well.
Speaker 7 (41:25):
And when we consider even just the prospect of a
ceasefire beginning, Melinda, what are the enforcement mechanisms or the
keep what keeps both sides honest on maintaining that ceasefire?
If it's also just the two of them at the
negotiating table versus having some sort of mediator, what would
guarantee that it holds.
Speaker 11 (41:45):
That's a great question.
Speaker 6 (41:46):
In this case.
Speaker 11 (41:47):
You need an external mediator, and we don't know who
that would be. It can't be the OSSE because both
Ukraine and Russia are party to the OSSE, So we're
going to need some kind of neutral mediator to make
sure sure that once ceasefire is in place, it can
be observed by outsiders, and that the rules of the
negotiations are very clear. So in this case, we haven't
(42:10):
seen the details, and I'm not sure who could do
that job capably.
Speaker 2 (42:14):
The President writes Melinda. The Vatican, as represented by the Pope,
has stated it would be very interested in hosting the negotiations,
or we to believe that the Vatican would be involved
on any level of mediation here what would that mean
for talks?
Speaker 11 (42:29):
So the Vatican has hosts offered to host negotiations, and
the new Pope has feels very different Joe than the
previous pope on Ukraine. He's been clear that Ukraine is
the victim and he you know both. There are quite
a few Roman Catholics in the Trump administration, so I
think that sort of appeals to them. And we've seen
Zelenski also do his big meeting with Trump there at
(42:52):
the Vatican, So I think this is a good sign
that this could be one of the potential places where
the parties can meet into discus, discuss their friction. But
you know, TBD, everyone wants to host these negotiations. Turkey
would love to. Cutter would love to. You know, everyone
wants credit for the end of the war, so I
think we're gonna have to stay tuned with that one
(43:12):
as well.
Speaker 2 (43:13):
Well. Linda, it's great to have you with us. Melenda Harring,
as we learned some of the details of this meeting
between the two presidents, senior fellow with the Atlantic Councils
Eurasia Center, we should note, Kayley, that the truth social
post that we've been describing and reading from by President
Trump was sent out by the White House, so we'll
call that our official statement. Thanks for listening to the
(43:37):
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 dot com.
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