Trump Seeks To Jolt GOP; US Payrolls Miss Forecast

0:00Some people treat Chachy PT like some kind of smart search engine, and some use it to get work done. Chachy PT work is a new way of working in Chachy PT that can take action across your apps and files, stay with a project for hours if needed, and turn a goal into finished work. It's designed to help you move from a chaotic starting point to a reviewable first version. So all the source materials, briefs, and scattered information that you have to grind through to turn into something useful can just become something useful. Put Chachy PT to work on your most ambitious ideas and projects. Get started at chachypt.com by selecting Work Mode, available on plus and pro plans. Bloomberg Audio Studios Podcasts, Radio, News You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast. Catch us live weekdays at noon and 5 p.m. Eastern. On Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app.

1:01Listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts or watch us live on YouTube. Watching the markets for us on this jobs Friday, thank you so much. Those markets, of course, taking very little time to react to the softer than expected, Narn Farm payrolls report. Someone who does seem to be taking some time to digest the figures to decide what he wants to say about them, though, is the President of the United States, who has yet to post anything on true social pertaining to the latest economic figures. Instead, his missives this morning pertain more to things like daylight, savings time, and specifically getting rid of it, which he would like the United States Senate to vote on at their earliest convenience. Maybe we'll hear from the President about this jobs reporter at the overall state of the economy when he takes the stage in Mobile, Alabama later this evening. But we did have the chance to hear from the National Economic Council Director Kevin Haset, who joined our colleagues Danny Berger and Michael McKee on Bloomberg earlier today, and characterized the figures this way. There's been a lot of news this week that's been very, very positive. The last job support was through the roof, and it's natural, as you know, to be a little bit of

2:02negative serial correlation, like at a big number, and then you get a slightly smaller number. This job support was just about as expected, because one thing that maybe folks haven't been fact-regid is that we've reduced federal government employment by more than 300,000 workers, and so like private sector jobs were up a lot. And the thing that I look for, and you and I have talked about for years, is just that the construction of factories, factory construction workers was up about 12,000 this month, which means it's up 112,000 since President Trump took office. So think about it, 112,000 people, like that's what about the Michigan football stadium. That many people are out there building factories to create future jobs in the US, and that's about as bullish as I've seen for the economy since I've been watching it. Keeping that stadium full of jobs in mind, we go to the North lawn of the White House standing in the same spot Kevin Haset was this morning, is Bloomberg Washington correspondent Tyler Kendall. Tyler, that's a remarkable statement, the most bullish I've seen for the economy since I've

3:02been watching it. That's the balance of his career. Is that the statement effectively from the White House today? At this point, Joe, the NEC Director of Kevin Haset is really the only official that we have heard from, though not surprising, right, considering that this is a White House, that at the moment is trying to convince the American public to feel good about the economy and about their prospects going forward as we get closer to November and cost of living remains the number one issue for voters when they do eventually get to the polls. He touted construction jobs as a whole. He pointed to other positive data like strong consumer spending that we got earlier this week, instead of focusing on that downside surprise. I will mention our own analysts at Bloomberg economics talk about how there are often swings back and forth in the labor market the three-month moving average right now for payrolls is at 50,000, which represents solid growth but not hot, like we often hear from the NEC Director there. But to your point at the top of the program, this is causing traders to pair their bets that there will be a rate hike at the next FOMC

4:05meeting because Joe and Kelly, that's going to be something President Trump very likely will weigh and on considering yesterday he spent a large part of the day talking about the Fed share Kevin Hassett at first saying he disagreed with his unanimous decision of the FOMC to hike rates the last time they met, then tempering those comments and saying he wants Kevin Worsh to do whatever he wants to do. Kevin Worsh, Kevin Hassett to key individuals here and as you say Tyler, we did hear from Kevin Hassett on the jobs report today but not from the President. What we have heard from the President about posting victoriously on true social is Europe agreeing to release stockpiled diesel and oil some hundred million barrels Tyler. Does this fend off a diesel export ban here in the United States? The President has openly been teasing. It does appear that this is part of the pressure campaign from this White House. We had first reported that this was happening privately behind the scenes but then officials were coming up publicly saying that they wanted to work with our European allies to get more supply to market. There's a few important points of context here.

5:09This is a hundred million barrels of oil and diesel reserves. We should, among the G7 countries, we should say that back in March there was a coordinated release among the 32 countries that are part of the International Energy Agency for 400 million barrels. We heard from the IEA director that only about a third of that has so far actually reached the market and people familiar with the matter tell us here at Bloomberg News that this release of a hundred million is part of those pledged barrels back from March that haven't actually gotten to market yet. So just an interesting part of this because it does appear that this may be part of a previous commitment that other countries haven't made good on. We can't say that the US did fulfill its commitments as part of that coordinated release earlier this week actually. It just happened. So a few different threads to pull on here but it's very clear that the administration does need more supply to get to market. We continuously hear that higher diesel prices today, $6.37 a gallon. Those hit the red states

6:16and the rural states particularly hard as farmers are sounding the alarm in places where there's really tight Senate races like Nebraska and Iowa with Republicans defending what had been considered reliably red seats. Yeah maybe one of the reasons why President Trump will be visiting Nebraska on Monday after he finishes up in Alabama today in Ohio tomorrow. Bloomberg's Tyler Kendall live at the White House. Thank you so much. And as we continue to digest the job's figures from this morning we turn now to Kitty Richards who joins us from the groundwork collaborative where she's senior fellow. She's also a former Treasury Department official during the Biden administration and she's here with us in her Washington DC studio. Kitty welcome back to Bloomberg TV. It's nice to have you especially on a job's day so let's just begin with your reaction to us after the expected 29,000 print. What does it mean? You know I think we're sort of seeing a very stable jobs situation. In some ways I think expectations were raised by last month's print which came in well above expectations but it was downwardly revised. It was downwardly revised and actually

7:18even at the time many analysts were saying this does not seem consistent with what we're seeing in other markers of the labor market. And so you know we saw the unemployment rate take up ever so slightly. We're still kind of trucking along labor force participation is down below where it was 18 months ago. The thing that I think is causing the biggest problem for families because you know 4.2% unemployment rate is pretty good but we're seeing real wages continue to decline. So you know year over year we saw wages go up by 3% but that has been significantly less than the inflation that people are facing at the pump and at the grocery store. And so I think that's really squeezing families. We're also seeing consumer confidence is down. Now consumer spending has continued though we're seeing rising debt, rising household debt, rising delinquencies on some

8:20of that consumer credit. So families are still being squeezed workers. Pitchx aren't keeping up with inflation. It's a story we've been seeing for a while now. We heard from Kevin Hassett before you walked in the room and it was remarkable to hear him frame all of this this morning on Bloomberg. He pointed specifically to construction workers up 12,000 this month he says which means 112,000 since the president took office. As bullish a sign as I have seen for the economy since I've been watching it. Is that how you would describe this? I am surprised to hear Mr. Hassett. His career has been going on for a few years. For quite some time. In fact, didn't he write down 36,000 in their early odds? So he saw some pretty bullish signs for the economy back then. You know obviously the White House is going to spend the jobs numbers as the greatest things since sliced bread. Of course that's his job. You know I'll say it's been interesting to observe the degree to which

9:23market reactions and even the way that we talk about the jobs numbers have really shifted to this world of primarily thinking about jobs being a little soft but not too soft is great because it means that the Fed won't keep hiking rates. And so I think we saw that reaction throughout the market this morning but I think it also points to the degree to which the stock market has become a little bit decoupled from consumer expenditures from the real economy and workers. And you know the construction worker piece is part of that right. GDP has been really really driven recently by the AI build out. That has delivered some jobs. It's not delivering housing and other things that construction workers could be building. It's also driving interest rates higher because there's just a ton of demand. But aren't they also temporary jobs once the data centers built we've talked about this Kalea. It takes like 50 people to run this massive plant. There's also that's exactly right. And

10:28there's also a lot of you know there's a lot of upward pressure on debt finance from that. And there's a lot of concern about the kind of nesting game that we saw in the housing market before the financial crisis of different companies loaning each other money banks loaning each other money based on this AI build out that right now feels like a boon to GDP at least whether that's actually helping workers or not is to be seen. But also the debt really relies on these astronomical revenue projections into the future. And if those don't come true we might have some significant financial problems. So let's talk more about the Fed which you raised the market interpreting a softer print as evidence that the Fed is maybe less likely to tighten policy next month. But if I'm the Fed looking at not the headline payrolls figure but at the wage figure you were talking about where there clearly isn't upward pressure in wages to the same extent that there is an

11:30overall inflation. Is that not a sign that maybe you don't need to tighten policy right now because there is no wage price spiral in the works right now. I mean it's an interesting you know we have been talking about inflation for years now and the question of the degree to which the wage price spiral was operant at all during the pandemic supply shocks. You know I think there are really big questions about how the Fed should be thinking about monetary policy. That said there in a really tough position right now because of the kind of chaotic tariffs and the war in Iran which are driving up you know as we just heard diesel prices which filter through the rest of the economy. And you know when you couple that with supply shocks don't just drive up prices. They also create the opportunity for price gouging for corporations to increase their profit margin because it sort of creates like a tiny little monopoly for everything where there's a supply disruption. And so you know we saw that during the pandemic supply disruptions and I think that

12:35we're going to keep seeing this inflation driven by all of this chaos and that is a difficult thing for the Fed to grapple with. You know the administration would argue and Peter Navarro has said it on this program. You never hike interest rates in the face of an energy shock as long as we have hundred dollar barrel oil, 650 diesel and so on, 450 at the gas pump. Is there some truth to that? No one's going to get relief from the energy prices and now consumers are paying more for everything else with a higher interest rate on top of it. Yeah I mean I probably wouldn't expect the Fed to hike given the jobs numbers we're seeing and the inflation numbers we're seeing but you know the Fed has had to step away in some ways from the 2% target and I know that they're not doing that through forward guidance. And unfortunately I think that the administration's attacks on Fed independence also put the Fed in an uncomfortable position where markets are looking for reassurance that they are going to continue to take inflation seriously and not be motivated by politics,

13:38by the upcoming election, etc. And so they're having to try to signal that firmly while also be careful about their dual mandate and you know as you said debt is also it's squeezing workers and families you know mortgage rates hitting 7% that is really tough and it's also causing problems in the housing market. Well so many of these things are interconnected obviously and to Joe's point on not hiking into an energy shock. It also could end up not being energy in isolation that is the shock if it's diesel prices that remain at these elevated levels and that means everything that's loaded onto a truck or needs to be harvested this harvest season the cost of that could go up right kitty by how much what would you expect here. So that's very difficult to predict and it's also difficult to predict the short-term effects of some of these measures that are being taken. So you know it seems as if the Trump administration was essentially trying to bully Europe

14:39increasing their diesel releases through the threat of an export band you know all of these things honestly create more chaos and uncertainty. It's possible that we'll see diesel prices moderate somewhat but you know those diesel prices as you said they feed through the rest of the economy and another thing that I'm really concerned about is heating oil prices and you know in Europe they were really concerned about the export band because they are already suffering from the effects of the war in Ukraine and the disruption to those supplies of natural gas heating oil etc add in what's going on in the state of Hormuz and you know they're really concerned about their own people but being bullied into releasing more diesel right now when winter is coming is a difficult position to be in and you know we have a lot of homes in the northeast that are still heated with heating oil and that's a big expense for those families. A lot of people who are watching in New England

15:42and listening on 92.9 in Boston are locking in prices now they need to fill the tank now in heating oil is essentially diesel so this is a very real factor for a lot of our audience kitty. It's great to have you back and we appreciate it. Happy jobs day. Kitty Richards, senior fellow groundwork collaborative with us live on Bloomberg TV and radio alongside Kaley Lines. I'm Joe Matthew. Thanks for coming along. We'll assemble our political panel next. Rick Davis and Jeanne Chanzano on the way in as we consider the politics of the economy the president's travel plans and news on spending to the midterms stay with us on balance of power we'll have much more coming up after this. Some people treat Chachi Pt like some kind of smart search engine and some use it to get work done. Chachi Pt work is a new way of working in Chachi Pt that can take action across your apps and files stay with a project for hours if needed and turn a goal into finished work. It's designed to help you move from a chaotic starting point to a reviewable first version.

16:44So all the source materials briefs and scattered information that you have to grind through to turn into something useful can just become something useful. Put Chachi Pt to work on your most ambitious ideas and projects get started at chachi Pt dot com by selecting work mode available on plus and pro plans. You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power Podcast. Catch us live weekdays at noon and five p.m. Eastern on apple car play and android auto with the Bloomberg business app. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station. Just say Alexa play Bloomberg 1130. Here on balance of power we're following the money in politics as well because of course we're in a new quarter happy October 2nd to everyone and we're got getting third quarter fundraising figures from a number of groups we told you yesterday that house majority pack the Democrat Democratic main party engine in the house raised $230 million last quarter if you

17:45thought that was a big number house 833 million dollars that's how much act blue the Democratic fundraiser organization says was raised for its parties candidates in the third quarter now this kind of spans the whole gamut here Joe this is federal races local races as well from progressives to moderates the bulk of this money though was for federal candidates some 600 million dollars and act blue says this is a record amount for the midterms the previous midterm record was $586 million dollars in the second quarter yeah you can argue with this late surge federal candidates raised over $600 million dollars specifically that's a more than 100% increase from the previous quarter big halls in California in New York where we're watching house races but also Texas we can't say enough about the Senate race there between James Towariko and Ken Paxton let's play it to the panel Rick Davis and Jeanne Chansano joined us on the Friday edition of balance of power our Bloomberg politics contributors she is our Democratic analyst and democracy visiting fellow at Harvard Kennedy schools ash center Rick Republican strategist and partner at stone court capital

18:49Jeanne I'll start with you 833 million dollars a big news for Democrats some would say a dollar short in a day late here the fact of the matter is Republicans have consistently outraged Democrats in this cycle what do you make of this year right I mean the advantage on the money has been Republicans and that has been you know maybe one of the biggest bright spots they've had in another wise pretty so far difficult cycle but I think these numbers and you and Kayleigh just went through them they show that there is increasing enthusiasm and also an increasing sense amongst donors both big and small that Democrats can win this election not just the house maybe but the Senate but also state and local races across the country and we're seeing that enthusiasm at the polls we been seeing it in the off year elections we're seeing it in the early voting request and early voting numbers and now we're finally seeing it in the money you know it you're right it may not be enough

19:54they maybe would have wanted to have this earlier but I think they'll take it as a really good sign for them that they may be catching up well it's not earlier it's now Rick Davis 32 days out from an election so 32 days out what is money by you well first of all I think it's important to note that not all money is equal this money goes directly into campaign campaigns and Democrats have been outrising Republicans at the campaign level they have been getting swamped by money at the national party level where you can write big checks but in this case this is typical for what this election cycle is indicated which is the grassroots donors into party you know the campaign committees are are really have a lot more energy on the part of the Democrats and they do the Republicans there's another aspect of this that money isn't equal party committees don't get the discounts on the on the advertising that a campaign committee does in some cases it costs four

20:56times more dollars to put to place an ad if you're a party committee then it does if you're a campaign committee or an outside group and so you know you think about that you know six hundred million dollars raised for federal candidates that could translate to two point five billion dollars worth of TV advertising and so is it too late it's never too late to get money in a campaign I can tell you that for sure and the last three or four weeks of this campaign which we're in now is going to be very decisive for Democrats around the country great context uh Rick the act blue a chief executive is talking about small dollar democracy at scale the average contribution they process nineteen million donations the average amount was forty four dollars campaigns love talking about this because it sounds grassroots Rick how do you interpret it yeah no look I mean you know we've been talking a lot lately about the energy that the Democrats have around

21:57their vote versus the Republicans yeah and this is an indication as genie said that that you've got a lot of good energy if you're writing checks to a candidate you're more likely to vote for them than any other test in the political process so if you're a get out the vote debate and we've been hearing all month about how Republicans have a better operation to turn out the vote but Democrats have some life at their base and that's indicated by the amount of money in small dollar donations are getting and so you know it's the kind of thing where you now look at that and say gee what would you rather have a well oil turnout machine that may not get you out of the bed or a bunch of motivated donors who will do it on their own well when we consider where these donors actually are we've seen Republican candidates hitting out at Democratic candidates who have proved to be powerful frontraisers like James Talleriko or John Ossoff, Jeanne and said well yeah are those donors actually in the states at which they need the votes or is this rich people on the coast pouring

22:59money into races that they would like to see blue how much does that matter. You know it does matter it's a campaign argument that we hear to your point over and over again but the candidates and the campaigns will take the money wherever it's coming from they would love to have small donors in state for the real with the reasons that Rick just described it indicates that these people will get out to vote there's an enthusiasm there but of course when you're talking Democrats potentially competing in a state like Texas and being within a margin of error which now seems to be a debt heat or race down there they will take and need the money that's also an expensive media market down there. So it is a campaign argument that's made but Talleriko and I see Kaylee every time I turn on my internet listen to a podcast he is on the air asking for requests and I don't live in Texas. Interesting boy isn't that something speaker Johnson was out west this week as

24:04we told you Washington state in California and Hakeem Jeffries is heading west this weekend to tap the ATM a three day fundraising swing California and Nevada. Jeannie this is interesting that eight fundraising events with three front line Democrats. Does Hakeem Jeffries have the fundraising prowess to make this worth it? It is worth it you know he has long sort of lived in the shadow of Nancy Pelosi it is a long shadow she was an amazing leader of the party and the speaker of the house but he is coming into his own and he is out there to prove himself to prove that he has what it takes if Democrats win that he indeed should be elected speaker of the house and a big part of that is going to be can he fundraise and help these people win or keep their seats and there are a lot of Democrats across the country who are in tighter than expected races in some cases because for instance of the Jerry mandering and other issues that have occurred so he is out there and he is going to do his

25:08best to prove he has what it takes to win it to become speaker and then to keep them there in 2028. Speaking of who has what it takes to win it seems that the Senate leadership fundric is deciding Michael Watley maybe doesn't have what it takes this cycle they've already spent some 30 million dollars on his race in North Carolina now they're pulling out and instead sending more than $8 million to Kansas. Does that tell you more about Michael Watley or Roger Marshall Rick? It actually tells you a lot about both and none of it's good. They're not going to waste any more money I think they've already spent you know close to $10 million on Watley and they didn't get their money's worth but the fact that they have to spend money now in Kansas to save an incumbent or create a chance to is remarkable. I mean Kansas I mean this is a state that went overwhelmingly for Donald Trump in 2024 and now we're having to pump you know scarce money into

26:12that state. It's a fascinating race to watch I mean the Democrat Hamilton he was a Republican in April and turned around and became a Democrat to run against you know Marshall so I love this race and the fact that we've got a competitive Kansas this first time in like a hundred years that we've seen 1932. Unbelievable Rick what do you do if you're Michael Watley you've seen this happen it happens in every cycle when they say you know what we're turning the money off and effectively turning our back on you you just keep campaigning you just you just get up and watch the sunrise and hope for the best or does it actually change operations inside the campaign? Well no I mean you you you got through it it depends on the kind of campaign he's running right I mean it's all about the people around him and I've been on losing campaigns where you knew you're going to lose and you you you really did the best you possibly could and in some cases it helps the down-ticket right so you know you're campaigning behind you or state legislative state senate

27:13races mayors so you want to do whatever you can for the party at that level but yeah you're not you're not getting a t-time you know at the country club between now and election day. Well so if that's what the Watley campaign is doing Jeannie what about if you're Roy Cooper and you see the resources fleeing for your opponent do you need to keep spending money especially when you're a former governor of the state with super high name recognition? Yeah two-term governor I think you keep doing what you have been doing and you know the Republicans went into this race a little bit concerned about Watley he has proven not to be such a great candidate and this fleeing of the money is a sign of that and then of course you get to Marshall the idea that an incumbent senator of any party could lose potentially shows just what a good candidate Hamilton is and he is remembered by my count the third past or on the democratic side we have Georgia we have

28:15Texas now with Tallerico we have Hamilton and they are showing Democrats in the mid portion of this country and the South that if they're moderate they can indeed be competitive in these states and of course Doc Marshall has had a hard time since he's been suing his own constituents who were his former patients it's been a really ugly time plan. All right Jeannie Shan Zeno and Rick Davis our political panel thank you so much for helping us work through the politics around two voters might be voting for but we're going to get into how they vote and legal barriers to it as we turn to Elizabeth Frost up next on Bloomberg T entry. Stay with us on balance of power we'll have much more coming up after this. Some people treat Chachy PT like some kind of smart search engine and some use it to get work done. Chachy PT work is a new way of working in Chachy PT that can take action across your apps and files stay with a project for hours if needed and turn a goal into

29:18finished work. It's designed to help you move from a chaotic starting point to a reviewable first version so all the source materials briefs and scattered information that you have to grind through to turn into something useful can just become something useful. Put Chachy PT to work on your most ambitious ideas and projects get started at chachy PT dot com by selecting work mode available on plus and pro plans. You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast catch us live weekdays at noon and five p.m. Eastern on apple car play and Android Auto with the Bloomberg business app. Listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts or watch us live on YouTube. 32 days left we said this a number of times before we're all voting and you better believe we are planning special coverage of the midterms for you here there's much to understand between now and then though much of it coming from fundraising Kayley there's a huge story about election security and voter fraud we're going to talk in a moment with Elizabeth Frost about some of the

30:21litigation that's already happening and will likely follow this election cycle but then there's the matter of messaging and as we consider the way lawmakers left town there are pretty big questions about the message of affordability and whether or not they can actually make the argument on the campaign trail to get in voters minds with diesel it record highs it's not just energy of course Kayley when you talk about diesel prices that brings you straight to the grocery store. Yep and affordability becomes front and center which is why there were some Republican senators who are pushing for votes before they let town on things like the right pair protection act but also Susan Collins for example wanted to vote on her build a cap insulin costs they were trying to get permitting reform together that may wait until after the election in the long term proponents of it would say could help bring down prices but there's not a lot to give voters immediately or that will affect them in the 32 days between now and when they go to the polls. So let's get into this now as we turn to Megan Scully who leads our capital influence team here at Bloomberg and is with us in our DC studio so Megan when we consider what they couldn't get

31:25accomplished before leaving town they have left town to go sell what they have been able to get accomplished so what's the pitch and is it the same one that the president is delivering us he makes this swing largely through red states including Alabama later today. It's a pretty hard sell their biggest achievement was of course the one big beautiful bill that was enacted last July so we're talking more than a year now and that didn't even really resonate with voters to the extent that they wanted it to sure some people particularly those who could take advantage of the salt deduction were very happy with their tax returns last year but most Americans while their tax returns were bigger they weren't as big as they had hoped so and at the same time you know then that increase was paying for as you mentioned higher gasoline prices you know higher electric bills etc etc. Enter Lisa McLean then and then the the talking point is Democrats are crazy they're crazy people is what we're hearing which is a very different argument than vote for Republicans again because

32:27we'll lower your prices absolutely and we heard that play out again and again just last month at the Republican national convention and you know certainly that's something that can resonate with with certain parts of the MAGA base but the biggest issue of this midterm election beyond the shadow of doubt is not socialism it is affordability it is what people are paying at the grocery store well of course president trump says that the issue should be whether or not he is on the ballot he says voters should pretend that he is and he is putting himself front and center as he makes trips to all of this all of these different states who does he help by going to Alabama today or to Ohio tomorrow or does he actually risk hurting people in Ohio like John Hughes did in some vulnerable Republican congresspeople sure it's going to be very interesting to see what happens there exactly of course the Ohio Senate race is a toss up race and it is between John Hughes did it is JD

33:29Vance's old seat he's running against longtime senator who lost in the last cycle um shared brown so um who has widespread name recognition of course he trumps biggest selling point in going to that state is rallying that MAGA base and um but he does so at the risk potentially of alienating those moderates that he said is really going to need to win in November. Kayleigh mentioned the rate pairs protection acts and permitting reform I don't know if I either see the light of day uh in the lame duck session Megan but we're told permitting reform is the only real way to get to this long term energy price issue could mean more pipelines could mean more refineries do Democrats warm up to that idea and the lame duck or try to make it their own in the next congress. I think you're going to see them Democrats should they win one or both chambers of congress which is seeming more likely by day um I think you're going to see them more aggressive

34:31and demanding more concessions from Republicans on everything from energy permitting to potentially even the debt ceiling in the lame duck. So that bill or the agreement as we understand could continue to morph I believe so yeah. Yeah Megan it's great to have you back thank you as always Megan Scully runs our capital influence team with some of the best coverage on Capitol Hill where you can of course find more on the terminal and online and with regard to midterm elections we've talked so much about the litigation around this the the concerns that many people have of voting irregularities the president's concerns about mail-in ballots Elizabeth Frost does this for a living as litigation chair at the Elias Law Group and joins us now on Bloomberg TV and radio 32 days to go Elizabeth you don't need me to tell you that well this be the most litigated election ever. You know uh right now the 2020 election holds that honor or change. Yeah sure does. And you know it's hard to say I will say that we are busier than we have been in an election cycle at this point in the cycle

35:34we have no less than six oral arguments in my group this month alone which is really unusual for October and of course we're monitoring and ready to go and effectively every direction you could possibly imagine in the event of litigation. Well so we'll talk about what happens after the votes are tallied in a minute but let's talk about what's happening right now can you set the baseline for us as to where the the broad legal picture stands in regard to people's ability to either register to vote be able to vote in the means at which they decide they want to be a mail-in ballot or at the polls whether or not there are going to be restrictions in place for any of this knowing that the president of course wanted to change the way the postal service for example distributed mail-in ballots in the Supreme Court struck that down what changes have been pursued that as of right now are holding. Well so the big one of course is the president's attempt through his executive order to effectively commandeer the postal service to decide who gets to vote and who doesn't

36:36get to vote by absentee ballot. The Supreme Court lower court entered an injunction and the Supreme Court stayed that so that is done. I mean there will be voting by mail in in the election that's going to happen. I think the bigger question is are we going to see sort of widespread attempts to challenge voters eligibility to vote. There's a lot of indicators that this is what the Trump administration very much wants to do and in fact they started last spring by demanding the unredacted voter rolls of every state in the nation which has never been something that they have done before. Some number of Republican states cooperated them to some degree it's unclear exactly how much cooperated or exactly who they are but at least 30 states Republican and Democrat controlled refused to turn over private voter information. An unredacted voter roll has a lot of information about you including your full or partial social security number your full date of birth right

37:40the kinds of stuff that states and individual voters guard very closely for good reason. They sued 30 states they actually they sued 31 one was settled because it turned out they'd been emailing the wrong address in Oklahoma to try and get a concession there and once they sued Oklahoma settled but the other 30 went to the lower courts and they have so far lost 26 of them. So I think those lawsuits are probably dead in the water but what's really telling is that when the lawsuit strategy didn't work out the Trump administration started trying to get this through a variety of other ways including the executive order that I just mentioned. Part of the initial attempt of using the postal service to decide who could vote was they were considering asking states to just upload their unredacted voter files right we've obviously seen threats to election officials come from the administration saying if you let someone vote who shouldn't be voting we're going to prosecute you so I think we're seeing them trying to get this data in a million different ways

38:42and the question really is why and Harmi Dillon the assistant attorney general of the civil rights division has indicated they would like to remove voters from the rolls. The we should note a liest law group is focused on representing the Democratic Party, Democratic campaigns Elizabeth what do you tell people and you've heard this narrative before that the president is planning to declare a state of emergency what would that allow him to do on election day? So he has no basis to declare a state of emergency whether he will attempt it is sort of anyone's guess at this point I think thus far St. Hermann's have held but in the current timeline that we're on that is certainly not a given it would be litigated in court and I expect that he would lose I would also want to point out you're absolutely right that we represent Democrats but we also represent we do a lot of nonpartisan litigation and actually the majority of my talk it now is nonpartisan litigation including all of the interventions that we found on

39:44behalf of voters and voter organizations in these attempts to acquire private voter data and I think one of the things that's quite interesting about those cases is I think that I mean obviously DOJ doesn't include me in its text chains or you know strategy discussions but I suspect that they thought that it was data it was sort of boring it would fly under the radar but in fact it's been just the opposite Americans have been irate about the idea of their data being taken in this way and in fact we represent a former Republican legislature in one of these states and we represent a wide variety of Americans who fought back against this well as you mentioned the DOJ and Hermie Dylan she actually joined us on this program not too long ago and talked to us about the DOJ's plans to send out election monitors to a number of states across the country for the midterms if they are present at the polls who else other than obviously voters and people elect electoral officials people who volunteered to spend their time there who is legally allowed to be present to

40:46Joe's question around the state of emergency under what grounds could we see the deployment of law enforcement or the military or say ice for example so the only way that you could deploy the military would be to repel enemies against the United States this is why I feel like this is one of these more far-fetched ideas that we've seen come out of the administration and don't get me wrong a lot of the ideas they've tried have been far-fetched as well but that's a very very narrow lane that it's just not it's just not feasible they find themselves in it the there is actually very strict federal law that makes clear that armed federal officers and federal officers in general are not allowed to be at the polls present at the polls and so there's actually several lawsuits including one that my firm is involved on this one on behalf of several of the Democratic party committees and Democratic leaders in Congress because of some of the concerning things the administration has said that indicates that in fact contrary to that law they have internally

41:50adopted a policy that they believe they could send federal officers to the polls so those you know those lawsuits are already pending I we've also of course heard assistant attorney general Dylan say that she is planning on sending observers to the polls there are very very strict limitations on what DOJ can do there and effectively they can't interfere and I'm sure you all saw the news that came out of Wyoming when there was sort of a test run recently and the Wyoming governor was quite upset with some of the behavior of some of the Department of Justice employees so it's definitely something to look out for and it's definitely something that our clients are planning to be prepared for well and we hope to stay in touch with you Elizabeth as these legal fights leading up to and then after ultimately the vote play out Elizabeth Ross is the chair of litigation at Elias law group here with us on balance of power on this Friday thanks for listening to the balance of power podcast make sure to subscribe if you haven't

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