About this transcript: This is a full AI-generated transcript of Bloomberg This Weekend — Major Indexes Tumble, Trump Eyes Government Stake in AI from Bloomberg Television, published June 6, 2026. The transcript contains 30,256 words with timestamps and was generated using Whisper AI.
"coming up on Bloomberg this weekend the Nasdaq and S&P suffer their worst day of the year part of a broader sell-off of stocks bonds Bitcoin and metals growing concern about AI and new confidence the Federal Reserve is going to raise rates plus President Trump set to meet with all the big AI..."
[00:00:00] Speaker 1: coming up on Bloomberg this weekend the Nasdaq and S&P suffer their worst day of the year part of a broader sell-off of stocks bonds Bitcoin and metals growing concern about AI and new confidence the Federal Reserve is going to raise rates plus President Trump set to meet with all
[00:00:18] Speaker 2: the big AI executives next week as he eyes a new public-private partnership there's so much money
[00:00:24] Speaker 3: and it's so big that there are concepts where pieces could be given to the American public what
[00:00:31] Speaker 2: these deals could look like and why the president's former AI advisor is against them and the New York
[00:00:36] Speaker 1: Knicks win another one against the San Antonio Spurs New York leads two games to nothing as President Trump makes plans to go to Monday's game and offers this advice to those of us who
[00:00:47] Speaker 3: can't afford a ticket they can watch it on television it's sort of semi-free to watch it on television
[00:00:54] Speaker 2: semi-free all right welcome to Bloomberg this weekend we're coming to you live from Bloomberg World Headquarters in the home of the Knicks New York I'm Christina Ruffini I'm David Guerrero alongside
[00:01:10] Speaker 1: Lisa Matteo it is Saturday June the 6th welcome to all our viewers and listeners across all our Bloomberg platforms on TV on radio and streaming at Bloomberg.com and on the Bloomberg business app Christina you alluded to it moments ago the building in which we are sitting lighting lighted up in blue and orange this morning when I arrived in those pre-dawn hours New York extremely excited the series now two games to nothing the Knicks lead as New York comes back
[00:01:33] Speaker 2: to Madison Square Garden on Monday night so the very regimented uh usually goes to bed right on time
[00:01:39] Speaker 1: David Guerrero stayed up apparently all night I was up all night you didn't stay up Lisa come on I have to be up at 2.30 I was confident as the game ticked past 11 last night that you would be there my comrade in arms watching this game but it was incredible in San Antonio I know you were so excited
[00:01:54] Speaker 2: you rolled into the office this morning the first thing I saw was you going like this fist bump over
[00:01:57] Speaker 1: the head I gave a fist bump over the head but a very physical game San Antonio clearly wanted to win this now they come here as I say um it's gonna be tricky I think Lisa for them to win at the garden
[00:02:05] Speaker 4: it is well you know what it is my family has like been Knicks fans like forever since we're born like we're not a fairweather fan like myself and so you have a text chain amongst family members right and I went to bed I was like guys I'm going to bed I'm not gonna watch or I wake up to 30 30 in the group
[00:02:21] Speaker 5: chat the family chat messages fantastic but they always do it to give you a heart attack they do yeah think they want to like stress you out and give you more gray hairs um not settled until the final
[00:02:31] Speaker 1: seconds of the game last night so it was worth it I did think like as the minutes took by you know is it gonna be where they're gonna lose this but um when we did not score that final shot you see here's some reaction the watch in New York City the watch parties were everywhere this one I think right outside uh Penn Station right near Madison Square Garden thanks to one of our producers Roberto it's from some of his friends yes guys um as I say the big next big game Monday night Preston Trump is going to be there our colleague Anne-Marie Horton also to vow and expand with whom we're going to catch up here uh in the coming hours traveling with the president right now in Wisconsin she had a chance to ask him about what is top of mind for so many of us we're not going to be attending the game on Monday night because the tickets are so prohibitively expensive what he thinks about ticket affordability here's what he had to say the cheapest price for the game three
[00:03:15] Speaker 6: you're going to is eight thousand dollars everyday Americans can't afford this well I know but they
[00:03:21] Speaker 3: can watch it on television it's sort of semi-free to watch it on television but that's the way life goes you know you have some and now the game wasn't a big if the team wasn't a big success you could go very easily so you know you can you could do that too but that's the way life is
[00:03:39] Speaker 2: and Anne-Marie is going to be joining us live in the 8 a.m. hour we will have that's the way life
[00:03:44] Speaker 1: goes you know if you're president it is free sometimes you gotta watch it on TV buddy it's it's mostly free um the headlines semi-free this morning with Lisa Matteo Lisa what do you have for us you got it all
[00:03:55] Speaker 4: right we are starting with the war in Iran guys where president Donald Trump says the regime has no choice but to make a deal with the US now it was an exclusive interview with NBC's meet the press in Wisconsin he explained why it's taking so long they're proud there are things they never thought
[00:04:12] Speaker 3: they'd be doing that they're gonna have to do they've got no choice and it takes a little while you're talking about 47 years of getting away with whatever they wanted I mean we should this should
[00:04:23] Speaker 4: have been done long ago well it comes as the US military said late Friday night that it shot down Iranian ballistic missiles and drones that were launched toward the Strait of Hormuz and Gulf Arab allies US Central Command said Iran fired seven ballistic missiles toward Kuwait and Bahrain with US forces intercepting six of them no injuries were reported but the missiles were fired after the US earlier in the day shot down four Iranian drones that were launched toward the Strait of Hormuz the Lebanese army says an Israeli airstrike on southern Lebanon today killed several members of the Lebanese military including a senior officer now it comes days after the two sides reached a new ceasefire deal through US brokered talks to the war in Ukraine where residents of St. Petersburg Russia's second largest city were told not to leave their homes after a quote large-scale Ukrainian drone attack targeted the city the attacks come after Putin rejected a proposal by Ukrainian president Vladimir Zelenskyy for a face-to-face meeting on the four-year-old conflict saying that he sees quote no point in it in other news the Justice Department told the federal judge that even though the Trump administration's 1.8 billion dollar anti-weaponization fund is quote not going forward well that still poses the court taking any action to block it now the filings they represent the first time that the Trump administration has said in writing that it was no longer pursuing the fund which was met with widespread criticism and the Associated Press reporting Democrat Javier Becerra has advanced to the general election for
[00:05:54] Speaker ?: California governor Becerra he has more than 35 years in public office including a state attorney general and US health secretary it's not clear who yet he will face in the general election his top rivals though include Republican
[00:05:54] Speaker 4: Steve Hilton he's a former Fox News commentator backed by President Trump and also Democrat Tom Steyer he's a billionaire climate activist David and Kristina it's a
[00:06:06] Speaker ?: it's a waiting game with California these primaries in which you have the two three
[00:06:06] Speaker 4: victors at the top but a huge pool of candidates Yeah it's gonna be interesting all right thanks Lisa was a bruising end of the week on Wall Street the Dow
[00:06:18] Speaker ?: the S&P the Nasdaq suffering heavy losses the latter down more than four percent in what was
[00:06:18] Speaker 1: its worst day in over a year that's right David chip stocks drove the sell-off and
[00:06:24] Speaker ?: Bitcoin also tumble below 60,000 for the first time since 2024
[00:06:24] Speaker 1: It was a bruising end of the week on Wall Street. The Dow, the S&P, the Nasdaq suffering heavy losses. The latter down more than 4% in what was its worst day in over a year.
[00:06:34] Speaker 2: That's right, David. Chip stocks drove the sell-off and Bitcoin also tumble below 60,000 for the first time since 2024. Joining us now is Mike McGlone. He's a senior commodity strategist and a Bitcoin expert for Bloomberg Intelligence and Heather Long. She's the chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union. Mike, I want to start with you. Before we get to the what, let's talk about the why. What started all of this? How did this get rolling? What were the big factors?
[00:07:00] Speaker 7: The key fact for Bitcoin is there's unlimited supply of cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin's one and there's millions of them. What happened last week is strategy. Michael Saylor, who said he would never sell, has started to sell a little bit. Some of us have just been waiting for this forever. I know Michael Saylor. I met him years ago and he just got too long and my asset. He probably shouldn't be buying low and selling high. He just bought higher. But the key theme is you were talking about that game earlier. There's a game on all the time in cryptos and they're trading right now. The key thing to remember about cryptos is everything's getting tokenized and the most significant tokens are the U.S. dollar. And the number one token that tracks U.S. dollar is Tether. And right now, Tether is on track to potentially flipping Ethereum. Ethereum's number two. By flipping, that's a good nomenclature in cryptos when you surpass assets under management of another cryptocurrency. And it's a key trend is these tokens or Tether has been flipping and everything. As we wake up Monday morning, it might be the number two cryptocurrency after Bitcoin. But the bottom line is there's unlimited supply. There's starting to be a purge. It looks like the purge just got started. And the key thing to remember is Bitcoin's a good leading indicator for risk assets and stock markets starting to follow.
[00:08:10] Speaker 2: And Heather, can you say why we started to see some of these big tech sell-offs? I mean, I know there was there was jobs numbers. There was some Berkshire Hathaway sell-offs and some similar properties. Why did this start to, again, get the ball rolling?
[00:08:23] Speaker 8: Well, to me, it seemed a little bit overdue. I mean, some of those rallies in the last couple of weeks have just seen needed to hit the brakes. The one thing that really jumped out at me at the end of the week, other than the jobs data, which I'm well known for following closely, was the, you know, what happened in South Korea. It also seemed to be a bit of a canary in the coal mine. People pulling back on trades there and starting to reassess and then, frankly, take their gains.
[00:08:52] Speaker 1: Heather, you mentioned the jobs numbers and your eagerness to follow those month after month after month. I think a lot of folks gobsmacked when they saw that beat yesterday. It was something that was startling, just the magnitude of that beat. What do you make of it? What does it say about the labor market as we kind of talk about the agita in the markets more broadly? It didn't take long before we saw chief economist after chief economist after chief economist revising calls for what the Fed is going to do next. Indeed, it does seem like a hike is all but inevitable.
[00:09:22] Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean, to me, the hiring recession is over and the magnitude, not just of the main number, but of the past three months, it's just incredible. 188,000 average a month, the past three months. That would have been a good number back in 2019, let alone sitting here in 2026, you know, when the break even rate for the jobs is probably somewhere in the 30 to 50,000 range. I think it was really telling as well, the breadth of the gains in the past three months, this is no longer just a health care story. And even if you think hospitality got boosted by the World Cup effect of more hiring in restaurant and bars, you know, it's harder to brush off the rebound in transported warehouse or in retail or even in construction as some sort of one-time effect. Another really good indicator was the black unemployment rate, black unemployment rate hit its lowest level in a year and that these sort of trends seem a lot more sustainable and long lasting. You know, the one Achilles heel is that wage growth number, the lowest in five years, 3.4%, probably going to get a 4% CPI print next week. That's the pain point for the economy and that's the big question mark, I call it an E-shape economy now. You know, can the middle class hold on, I know we were joking about Nick's tickets, but can they even keep spending the same amount at Costco through the end of the year?
[00:10:51] Speaker 1: Yes, a very, very good point. Mike McGlone, you mentioned Bitcoin as kind of a leading indicator for risk assets and I wonder if you could situate that in this environment we're in right now or we're just days away from a SpaceX IPO. We're talking about an open AI IPO, an anthropic IPO, just a ton of money flowing to the markets. And I'm curious what that means for cryptocurrency. We've seen it as this kind of prominent risk asset for so long here. How much do you think these outflows are going to continue now that we see these AI companies and SpaceX kind of coming to the public markets?
[00:11:24] Speaker 7: David, I think you nailed it. That's the key theme is cryptocurrencies and precious metals have no income, no earnings, no revenue, and the earnings from the stock market are off the charts. So to me, it's just one of those things is what money manners are doing. They're realizing cryptocurrencies have unlimited supply. They're duds, so they're selling every rally. You sell the duds and you buy the studs. The studs are the stock market. Stock market's the only game in town. Sure, we've had a little bit of a healthy correction, but that's the key theme I have from a commodity standpoint. You're going to see continued selling cryptocurrencies, most notably Bitcoin, because there's a better game now. And we realize in most of them it's just speculation, and that speculation is just getting purged. I think it's the beginning of a purge of there's millions of cryptos that track nothing. We get rid of those, and at some point we'll find a bottom. It looks like we're far from that bottom, though.
[00:12:09] Speaker 2: Mike, you made a call that Bitcoin was going to drop below $50,000 back in February. I'm looking at it now. It's hovering around $60,000. Do you still stand by that? Has your call changed? And then you also put together this research explaining that you think 2026 is going to be the year of pump and dump contagions. That's not a phrase I thought I would say, but can you explain to us what you mean by that?
[00:12:29] Speaker 7: First of all, my call starting last year was for Bitcoin, what got above $100,000 to lose a zero to go back to $10,000. I've made a similar call in 2018 when it was around $10,000, and I got about 70% right. But the key theme is it's just starting. We had the best backtest in history. We had ETFs jump on, which means mainstream, and President Trump pumped it, and now it's dumping. But the key theme is Bitcoin pumped in beginning year, and now it's dumping. Natural gas in the U.S. pumped in beginning year, now it's dumping. Corn was up a lot, and now it's down in the year. And just what happened is silver was up 60% in the beginning year, and now it's down in the year. You see that trend? My theme is I'm very concerned is we have never seen surging volatility in gold and crude oil without it trickling up the stock market. Bitcoins are collapsing. It just looks like the next big trade is crude oil is going to follow natural gas on the way down and potentially the stock market will follow Bitcoin.
[00:13:24] Speaker 1: We had a number of cabinet officials on Capitol Hill this week testifying before various committees, Secretary Scott Besson among them. And he was asked about the pressure that energy prices are placing on consumers, picking up on what you said just a moment ago, Heather, about the real pressure a lot of people in America face right now when it comes to cost of living. Something he and the White House have floated now or have asked for is repealing this federal gas tax. Let's take a listen to what the Treasury Secretary had to say.
[00:13:47] Speaker 9: We have moved. We have asked Congress to move to eliminate the gas tax. That is done through statute. You have moved that. So you're in favor of eliminating the gas tax. We have asked for that. So we can join bipartisanly today because you're in favor of it to eliminate the gas tax. Again, the White House has asked for it, sir.
[00:14:08] Speaker 1: Heather Long, let me turn to you. I'm curious of how manifest the pressures from this energy crunch were in that jobs report on Friday. And I know that you are somebody who can give us the straight dope here on what removing that federal gas tax would actually mean for consumers. How much of a panacea that would be for those who are suffering because prices continue to creep higher?
[00:14:28] Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean, politically, it's probably their best option because there's not a lot that you can do in the short term to get relief on gas. But obviously, from a budget perspective and from a practicality perspective, it's not a good idea. I've heard on your show several budget experts come on and just totally say they've given an F grade in terms of how to solve this. Obviously, it creates much longer holes down the line for, you know, we need to fund our transportation. And that's the way we do it, right or wrong, in the United States. I will say, so we have 15 million members at Navy Federal Credit Union. We're monitoring very closely the credit cards and debit card spending data. You know, what I can tell you is two things. Number one, it's been surprisingly resilient. But number two, there is some pullback, particularly from folks earning about $50,000 or less. You can see the pain pressures. They are spending less in inflation-adjusted terms than they did in 2019. And what is interesting to me is the two areas we start to see some real pullback on. One is home improvement spending. That's discretionary, not super surprising. But the other one that worries me is health care spending. We've seen some pullback, early signs of pullback there. You know, are people not going to the doctor? That creates bigger problems for society and, you know, even for the workplace if people aren't getting their needs taken care of.
[00:15:57] Speaker 2: Mike, from a larger perspective, if you're not you and you're an average person watching these markets, watching us talk about all these different factors and what they're doing at the moment, how worried should you be? Should the average consumer, the average investor be concerned about an AI bubble, about the exposure of some of these indexes to these big companies as they go to IPO? Should people be worried, especially people my parents' age, who may not have the kind of duration they need to recover if something goes badly?
[00:16:27] Speaker 7: Well, I'm glad you went there because being in Florida, you see a lot of more retired people that are way overexposed to risk assets in the stock market. And they can't help it. It's the best rally we've had in 100 years. We have more exposure of wealth to the stock market than any time in history. Cryptocurrencies are starting to decline in warning you. Gold's big rally last year was warning us. So I don't think people should be worried. They should adjust themselves accordingly. Don't be overweight or risk asset that is the most expensive on the planet. And the key thing that happened this week is that U.S. Treasury long bond at 5%, to me, that's just too attractive for a stock market and for gold and for cryptos. And I think that's responsible investors should just be careful being long in asset that everybody else is long and look at over just good old U.S. Treasuries.
[00:17:11] Speaker 2: All right. Mike McGlone, Bloomberg Intelligence Senior Commodity Strategist, and Heather Long. She's the Chief Economist at Navy Federal Credit Union. Thank you both so much for joining us this morning.
[00:17:20] Speaker 1: Really great insight into this moment that we're in. I think you're hitting the nail on the head. I think there's so much excitement about the prospect of these massive IPOs. But as you pointed out, I think a lot of concern about the ramifications of them are. And I look at the NASDAQ in particular, which will allow SpaceX presumably to join it within 15 days, a shorter period than usual. Right. That will have ramifications for your everyday investors that I think could be incredibly important.
[00:17:41] Speaker 2: Right. And they're getting onto some of these indexes. Some are changing the rules, some are not. And I just think about retirement accounts and folks and whether if something, you know, too big to fail. We'll see how it goes.
[00:17:50] Speaker 1: We'll see how it goes. Coming up here, President Trump says Iran has not yet made a deal to end the war as the conflict approaches 100 days. We go to Capitol Hill for reaction there. Next.
[00:18:01] Speaker 4: Thank you for joining us live on Bloomberg this week. And I'm Lisa Mateo. Let's update you on today's top stories. Artificial intelligence. Well, it was front and center as President Donald Trump spoke to reporters yesterday aboard Air Force One.
[00:18:13] Speaker 3: It comes after the president suggested the U.S. government hold equity stakes in leading AI developers.
[00:18:28] Speaker 4: Now, he addressed reports that the administration would put the stock into a government-run wealth fund that would redistribute some of those gains to the public, saying, quote, it would make them rich. Trump added that leaders of major AI companies may visit the White House next week. Now, this all comes ahead of a series of trillion-dollar initial public offerings by artificial intelligence companies. One of those companies is Elon Musk's SpaceX. Sources say it's already received orders for more than the shares available in its $75 billion IPO. The deal is expected to price June 11th and begin trading the following day. But it could be more time before SpaceX and other mega-IPOs are added to the S&P 500. The S&P Dow Jones Index Committee had declined to remove a rule that companies generate positive net income for the past year to be included in the benchmark. And speaking of SpaceX, Alphabet's Google, well, it's agreed to pay Elon Musk's company $920 million a month for computing power as part of a cloud services deal that runs through mid-2029. And, yes, the Knicks are just two wins away from a championship after beating the San Antonio Spurs nail-biting Game 2, 105-104. Captain Clutch, Jalen Brunson, well, he hit a free throw to give the Knicks a one-point lead before the Spurs. Victor Wimbangana missed that game-winning shot.
[00:19:47] Speaker 1: He did make, in fairness, many great shots over the course of that game.
[00:19:51] Speaker 4: But what do you remember most?
[00:19:52] Speaker 1: You know, um...
[00:19:53] Speaker 2: I remember how the New York Knicks led by 14 points with six minutes to play, but relinquished the lead rapidly and trailed by two points late in the game. I'm so proud of you.
[00:20:05] Speaker 1: Wow, very good. That's amazing.
[00:20:05] Speaker 2: I'm reading it off the AP.
[00:20:07] Speaker 1: Rip and read. Lisa, thank you. You got it. Thank you very much. Until next.
[00:20:11] Speaker ?: All right.
[00:20:13] Speaker 2: Okay, back to the actual news now. Excuse me. The war with Iran has been going on for almost 100 days, and it's going to hit that milestone next week. Overnight, of course, we again saw the U.S.-Iran exchange fire during this shaky ceasefire. The U.S. military says it shot down Iranian ballistic missiles and drones yesterday. It also targeted a radar site. Now, among all that, the president said he sat... Excuse me. The president sat down with NBC News and was asked about a potential Iran deal.
[00:20:40] Speaker 10: You have been saying for months, Mr. President, that Iran is begging to make a deal. True. They are so desperate to make a deal. Why haven't they made a deal with you yet?
[00:20:48] Speaker 3: Because it's a very hard thing for them. They've had great independence. They've dealt with very weak and ineffective leadership on behalf of the United States and other countries, frankly, that allowed them to get away with murder. And I think they can't believe they're in the situation where they've been virtually decapitated.
[00:21:10] Speaker 10: But if they're so desperate, Mr. President, why haven't they said yes to the terms you're proposing? Because it's wrong.
[00:21:16] Speaker 3: They're proud. There are things they never thought they'd be doing that they're going to have to do. They've got no choice. And it takes a little while.
[00:21:25] Speaker 1: The president speaking with Kristen Welker just days after the House voted to reign in the president's war powers for Republicans joining Democratic lawmakers to pass that measure. Bloomberg Congressional reporter Stephen Dennis joins us now from Washington. Stephen, great to speak with you as always. And I wonder if you could put the significance of that vote in context. Give us some perspective on it. We also had this vote in the House this week on Ukraine and Russia sanctions as well that passed. Again, I think sending a very strong symbolic message to Ukraine that they have U.S. support that the president has been reluctant to offer. How do you see this? Is it the legislative branch you're trying to wrest control back from the executive branch? Is it more than symbolic? What do you make of it?
[00:22:03] Speaker 11: It is basically symbolic. None of these things become law without a two-thirds vote to override a veto. So, and even the House measure is basically a press release, but it's an important press release. You know, I can't remember a time where a president's own party voted to rebuke and end a war that he was prosecuting like this. You know, it certainly did not happen under George Bush, didn't happen under Barack Obama when he was bombing Libya. You know, this is a break from the president, but it really shows how tenuous his control is over Congress. They have very narrow majorities. It only takes a few members to break off, and suddenly they can start passing things he doesn't like. But it is symbolic. They don't have the votes to actually prosecute this. Now, the real question is money. You know, at some point, you need money from Congress for the Defense Department for the war. And right now, it's kind of unclear if he's going to get anything close to the $400 or $500 billion increase he wants to help prosecute this war and future wars, potentially. And that's, you know, that's sort of an open question. There's a lot of nervousness, even among Republicans who didn't vote for these war resolutions in the House and the Senate. There was a vote last week in the Senate to advance one. We'll get a final vote on that probably next week. And we'll see if that passes in the Senate as well. But there are a lot of Republican senators who are up for reelection. People like John, who said in Ohio, who, you know, just in a poll this week, was down eight points to Sherrod Brown in a critical Senate race. And, you know, they're starting to vote with Democrats more and more. And I think they're feeling the pressure that the terms are coming up. Voters are unhappy with gas prices. They're unhappy with prices in general. And they're uneasy economically, even with, you know, the stock market near record highs.
[00:24:15] Speaker 2: I also want to ask you, there was this, like, vote-a-rama, which, you know, when you cover Congress, is very exciting. Listen, I...
[00:24:23] Speaker 1: That's exhausting. I want to have to say that as well. Exhausting, exhausting.
[00:24:25] Speaker 2: And I know you were covering the whole thing. So they did pass, the Senate passed the $70 billion immigration enforcement bill after 18 hours, I think, of amendments. And those kind of ran the gambit from, like, funding for the ballroom for a debate over whether or not to prevent this DOJ weaponization fund, anti-weaponization fund. Talk us through, I hear you've got some good deets on how that all went down and some of the back and forth in the drama, even from, even between other Republicans.
[00:24:53] Speaker 11: Yeah, I mean, I think it was all about the Republicans and whether they, you know, there's sort of this band of, loose band of Republicans, anywhere between 4 and 10 on any given vote, who are breaking with the president. And a lot of these senators are not running for re-election. People like Mitch McConnell, Bill Cassidy, and John Cornyn, the president just defeated both of them in primaries. So, you know, some people call them, like, the Wounded Bear Caucus or whatever.
[00:25:21] Speaker 2: Yeah, we had a Republican operative on our show called them the YOLO Caucus, nothing left to lose.
[00:25:28] Speaker 11: Right. And, you know, Bill Cassidy was sort of the main character during this Voterama. He has been sort of a tortured soul ever since he voted for RFK's confirmation as HHS secretary. He's spending a lot of time criticizing RFK and his activities on vaccines. But, you know, anybody can just look at the replies to his ex-account whenever he mentions that. And it's hundreds and hundreds, maybe thousands of people saying, well, you're the reason why he has that job. And so I think he's a bit of a tortured soul. He looks pretty sad and frustrated. What he was trying to do during the Voterama was to find a way to amend this immigration package so that this $1.8 billion fund that the DOJ and Todd Blanche set up potentially to pay off the president's allies, people who were convicted of crimes during the January 6th assault on the Capitol, including potentially people who beat up police officers. And this is, you know, it's hard to get something through this keyhole of reconciliation, which is this special process to avoid a filibuster where you only need 50 votes. And he couldn't do it. He couldn't find language that would only require 50 votes. And so when they finally voted on these various amendments, they needed 60 votes. And while there were a bunch of Republicans who voted with him and with Democrats, most of the Republicans are still just voting with the president. And so they were able to defeat those amendments. And then on final passage, these Republicans had a choice. They could have taken down the bill and forced changes, and they didn't. Ultimately, all the Republicans basically want this underlying bill, which will fund immigration enforcement for the next three years and bypass Democrats, because the Democrats, after Alex Petty's shooting at the beginning of the year, were insisting, we need to unmask ICE agents. We need judicial warrants. And the Republicans said no. And so that's what this drama has all been about, was funding that. And this was a moment of leverage for these Republicans. They did get some things. Todd Blanchett announced the fund was gone and wouldn't be coming back. But people like Bill Cassidy didn't trust that. In fact, he put an amicus brief earlier in the day. He co-authored an amicus brief to the court saying we've got to get rid of this fund and that it's a threat to the republic. So Cassidy is in full YOLO mode, except he didn't quite go all the way and threatened to take down the bill.
[00:28:15] Speaker 1: Stephen, Dan, it's great to get your perspective on what happened in the calls of Congress this week and obviously a couple of primaries coming up this week. We'd love to get your perspective on in the days ahead as well, including one in Maine involving Graham Plattner, who's been embattled, Christina. But we'll dig into all of that, of course, over the next few days.
[00:28:30] Speaker 2: Come back after you have another 18-hour day, hopefully not. Thanks for covering all that. Also, I want to say that Todd Blanche has said that, but the president was in the Oval Office, asked about that and said he's not sure it's dead yet. You're going to have to check with the lawyers.
[00:28:43] Speaker 1: Yes, still very confusing. Stand by to stand by. Yeah. All right. Well, protests continue to grip the country of Bolivia. Demonstrators are demanding the resignation of the country's new centrist president, Rodrigo Paz, who is trying to attract more foreign investment to the country. For the newest episode of Wall Street Week, I travel to South America to see how Bolivia is trying to cash in on its abundant natural resources, including rare earths and lithium. The Salar de Ayuni in Bolivia is the country's crown jewel. It's a sprawling salt flat on the Andean Alta Plano. So large, it's visible from space.
[00:29:15] Speaker 12: We are at 3,650 meters above sea level, my friend.
[00:29:21] Speaker 1: Very high. Very high. Bolivia's economy benefits from the tourists who flock to the Salar from all over the world. But what the country's leadership is banking on is what's underneath this snow-like layer of salt.
[00:29:36] Speaker 12: So the lithium mining is just down on the salt.
[00:29:39] Speaker 1: We're standing on top of one of the largest lithium resources in the world.
[00:29:45] Speaker 13: Perú, Bolivia y Chile son la mayor concentración de minerales en el mundo. Perú mueve 50 mil millones de dólares al año. Chile mueve 65 mil millones de dólares al año. Bolivia es la que mayor concentración de minerales tiene. Y solo movemos al año 6 mil millones. La pregunta es, ¿por qué queremos ser pobres?
[00:30:18] Speaker 1: After he was elected last October, President Paz signaled Bolivia is open for business. But as we discovered, there is a disconnect between his rhetoric and the realities on the ground. We arrived in La Paz to sit down with the president as violent protests erupted across the country, shut down parts of the city.
[00:30:38] Speaker 14: Everybody knows the Bolivia story. It's an incredibly, you know, commodity-wise, it's kind of hard not to see it as a really easy place to make money. It's just the sort of the ethnic tensions there that have always existed. And the fact that they have a tradition of going out in the streets, there's been a lot of turnover of governments. And as we're seeing now, it's pretty easy to sort of choke the economy.
[00:31:05] Speaker 2: I'm incredibly jealous. The piece for our radio audience, I can tell you, looks gorgeous. For those of us who couldn't understand, the president didn't have captions, just summarize basically what he told you.
[00:31:14] Speaker 1: Yeah, he's saying that, you know, countries like Peru, Chile have been able to harness these mineral resources there for a lot more money. Bolivia wants to do that, but obviously you can see that there's some problems there when it comes to these protests.
[00:31:23] Speaker 2: Amazing.
[00:31:24] Speaker 1: You can catch the full story on Wall Street with David Weston that airs every Friday night at 6 p.m. and 10 a.m. Saturday, right after Bloomberg This Weekend.
[00:31:33] Speaker 4: Thank you for joining us live on Bloomberg This Weekend. I'm Lisa Mateo. Let's update you on today's top stories. And this is not the news you want to hear ahead of the FIFA World Cup kickoff next week. Roughly 2,000 SoFi Stadium workers in Los Angeles have authorized a strike. Now, their demands include higher wages, job security, but also stems from the presence of ICE agents at the International Soccer Tournament. SoFi Stadium is set to host eight matches during the World Cup. The first is June 12th when the U.S. men's national team faces Paraguay. To the French Open, and I apologize in advance, were Alexander Zverev. He defeated Yat- You got it. So you got it. Yakub. Yakub Mensik. Mensik, yes. He's going to face Flavio Kobili in the finals tomorrow. Koboli. Exactly what he said. Today, the women, they're going to battle it out in the finals. Mira Andriva and Maja Havilasinka. Wow. They're going to face off at 9 a.m. So good. So good. These are when I need, like, video. United Nations, here we come. It's great. Here we go. Let's go to the PGA Tour. Love the bosses. Continuing at Murfield Village and the golf club in Dublin, Ohio. So topping the leaderboard, let's get to it. It's JT Poston at 9 under par, followed by Ryan Gerrard at 8 under par, and Sam Burns at 6 under par. Over to hockey. The Vegas Golden Knights. They take on the Carolina Hurricanes in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Finals. The series is tied at 1 apiece and the NBA Finals. The Knicks, yes, coming back to New York with the two-game-to-none lead over the Spurs. That was after a close 105-104 win last night in San Antonio. Now, there's word President Trump may attend Game 3 at MSG on Monday. And New York Mayor Zora Mamdani, he said he's going to be at the Game 2. No word on how much he paid for his ticket, but David and Christina, he said he's going
[00:33:17] Speaker 5: to be in the cheap seats, whatever that means. What cheap seats? What cheap seats, I don't know, but that's where he will be. We'll see.
[00:33:24] Speaker 1: I'm going to pull back the curtain here a little bit. I mean, we get in here Wednesday, and we just decide we've got to get Lisa to pronounce the most unpronounceable names in the street. That's really how it's determined.
[00:33:32] Speaker 2: It's the only thing that brings us joy that early in the morning, yeah.
[00:33:36] Speaker 1: We've gotten some listener feedback. Not enough Boston sports, New York sports. Really, we are targeting athletes. Lisa has a difficulty pronouncing. Then I would have a difficulty pronouncing as well. I just want to point out.
[00:33:46] Speaker 2: You're going to take the next one, okay?
[00:33:47] Speaker 1: You're doing the yeoman's work. You're doing a great job. Happy to help. You're doing a great job, Lisa. Thank you, Lisa.
[00:33:50] Speaker 2: All right. This week, the U.S. government sanctions Cuba's president, his wife, and other officials. It's the latest move to pressure the island nation's government.
[00:33:57] Speaker 1: Last month, the Trump administration indicted Raul Castro, Cuba's former president, who celebrated a birthday in recent days, his 95th. That brought to mind what happened to Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela. He was also indicted by the U.S. before an unprecedented military operation removed him Caracas and brought him here to New York, where he is awaiting trial.
[00:34:16] Speaker 2: So should Cuba be expecting something similar, and how soon? Joining us from Havana is Patrick Oppenhe, CNN's Havana bureau chief. Patrick, so much. We're so excited to have you because we've been fascinated by this topic for quite a few weeks, and we know that you've got some massive expertise, and I want to start with the politics of it all. I mean, what is the goal here? The U.S. has said it's putting pressure on the Cuban government, but pressure to do what? Is it clear what steps the government in Havana can take to appease President Trump, or has that not been made clear?
[00:34:50] Speaker 15: So there are talks going on. Both sides have said the talks haven't progressed very far. And essentially, what the Trump administration has said here is that this island needs to open up politically, economically, and it needs to allow human exiles who made them left 60-plus years ago to come back and be able to invest openly in their country, not have to go through the government, which is how in a communist state like this one, doing business here typically works. So they're trying to force a political opening, still ruled by the Communist Party, and they call the shots. Other political parties are illegal. Obviously, the Trump administration would like to see that change. But really, it's this economic opening that the government here maintains a stranglehold on the economy, and the Trump administration is simply saying that needs to end or else.
[00:35:36] Speaker 1: Patrick, talk about the efficacy of that stranglehold, and I just want you to do that from your firsthand experience. It's wonderful to talk to you via Zoom, over the Internet. But we know that getting power across the island has become a rarer and rarer thing, that there are huge difficulties here on that island, just in terms of living one's life. Speak from experience here. How has your life changed over the last couple of months as the U.S. has really tightened this vice on the island of Cuba?
[00:36:02] Speaker 15: Well, obviously, as a foreign journalist living here, I live better than anyone who's not named Castro on this island. My neighbor is in a blackout at the moment. I have solar panels. That's very lucky. But the blackouts are going so long now that if you have a cloudy day, the batteries don't charge enough, and I'll run out of power. There is absolutely no gasoline to be had. A few weeks ago, you could get it for about $300 a tank, you know, $9 a liter, more or less. So, you know, if you think it's expensive in the U.S., that was a couple weeks ago. Now you just can't find it for love or money, and then it's a really complicating life. So people are using more bicycles on the road. People are switching to electric vehicles, of course, when they can charge them. But the blackouts is what's really crushing people here, because they are lasting 20 hours a day in the provinces outside of Nevada, sometimes more. And you never know when the power is going to go off, when it's going to come back on, and how long it's going to stay on for.
[00:36:52] Speaker 2: Patrick, I was there right after the embargo was temporarily lifted during the Obama administration, and it was kind of a golden time, because, you know, the sanctions had lessened. There was a lot of international tourism. It was easier to fly. We flew a charter from Miami to Santa Clarita. But it was—Santa Clarita, excuse me—but it was still difficult. I mean, and Cubans are legendarily resilient, right? That's why they have those cars that everybody knows, because they've been fixing them for decades. And I remember power shut off all the time. But to your point, there were still generators, and there were still gas generators. What does this mean long term? I mean, I know the Trump administration is hoping that that will pressure the people to, I don't know, rise up and take action. But it seems to me, when you are so beleaguered and trying just to survive day-to-day, political upheaval is maybe not within your bandwidth to deal with at that time.
[00:37:40] Speaker 15: People are incredibly resilient here. You're so correct. They are the most creative people I've ever met in my life. There are limits to creativity. There are limits to resilience. People are exhausted. They're beat down. Before, it was a full-time job just being able to put food on your table here. And now it's impossible. Of course, we're talking about the blackouts that last so long. The food begins to spoil in your fridge, your freezers frost. And so that is very, very hard for people. And that's why you've seen people going out and protesting at night with pots and pans, banging on them, trying to get the government to turn on the little power that there is. It's completely unlikely and, frankly, impossible to imagine that people here could rise up and overthrow the government. The government has troops, the guns, the power, the gasoline for the police cars. And so they've crushed protests here in the past. We've seen that happen. And right now, they're sort of allowing protests to take place or they're not able to fully crush them. But if they get out of control, if they become more widespread, the government has said that will not continue. So if that's the plan, I don't think it's going to work. What we've heard the Trump administration say is that if this is a collapsed state, then the U.S. will have to step in. So it seems to be pushing the economy to the brink. But, of course, that could lead to a humanitarian collapse, a humanitarian crisis just 90 miles from U.S. shores.
[00:39:01] Speaker 2: Power vacuums are inherently unpredictable. Yeah.
[00:39:04] Speaker 1: Patrick, let me ask you just about what happens next. And we've seen kind of military might marshaled by the U.S. close to Cuba. So that threat is there. Secretary of State was on Capitol Hill this week, was kind of vague about what the next steps might be when it comes to military action and other steps that the U.S. might take. How are you, how are Cubans thinking through what might happen next year? We started off by talking about what happened in Venezuela. And I'm curious how much that is something that's resonant, yes, with the Cuban people, but with Cuban leadership as well.
[00:39:31] Speaker 15: The government here is handling out weapons to citizens, telling them to prepare for an invasion. In our building, where we have our scene in offices, one of the building managers and a building that's owned by the government, like all buildings in this country, and they came by and said, will you be needing your office during the invasion? And of course, you know, what do you say? But we would need it. So that's what we said, we're a news organization. So the government is telling people to have a plan to get ready. And that is profoundly troubling for people. There were, of course, Cuban troops secretly in Venezuela when that invasion took place and that limited strike to get out of Nicolas Maduro. And so 30-some Cuban troops died. This is a country where everyone's kind of lived with this threat. Some people stopped taking it seriously years ago that the U.S. can invade at any point. I think people are taking it seriously now. Some Cubans said they actually just wanted this to be over with one way or the other, that how this continue on, you know, a lot of this has to do with the government's own missteps. Yes, the oil blockade has made life all but impossible on this island and the sanctions in Trump's administration has continued to place on this island over the last several weeks and months. But, of course, you know, the government has to import most of the food to this island. They don't grow nearly enough food to feed their own people. They're importing sugar. They didn't invest in these power plants going back years. You know, they could have pivoted towards solar and wind energy a long time ago. They didn't do that. So I think a lot of times people actually blame the Cuban government for how difficult their life has become. Sure.
[00:40:59] Speaker 1: Patrick Oppmann, a pleasure to speak with you. And I hope we can talk again soon. Great to get your perspective and your firsthand reporting. Patrick Oppmann, who's Havana Bureau Chief for CNN. And Christina, I should point out, difficult to get a visa to travel there as a reporter. So he's in a very unique position. And we're grateful to have him because it's so hard to get on the ground reporting from Cuba.
[00:41:13] Speaker 2: Very. And I'm glad there's a sunny day so that he can charge his solar panels. That was really remarkable. All right. When we come back, BTW, some of the most read stories this weekend. And you can explore live streaming news and interviews, all our Bloomberg TV shows, documentary, reporter analysis, and more. It's all in one place. You know it. We know it. Check out Bloomberg.com slash videos. Welcome back to Bloomberg This Weekend, or BTW. Dubs. I'm Christina Ruffini. That's David Gurra. Lisa's going to catch us up on some stories you might have missed this week. Lisa. I love this ongoing battle. It's going to continue.
[00:41:50] Speaker 4: It's going to go. All right. I got to start with the Knicks, guys. Okay. So this one was from Bloomberg. It was from earlier in the week. New York City's Knicks fans agonize over reselling their seats for $72,000. There was agony about that. Yes. Here's the agony. Okay. So we're talking about the season ticket holders, right? Okay. People who had them in families for decades. You know, they had them. And they can buy seats to the NBA Finals at face value.
[00:42:10] Speaker 1: Sure. Which is still, yeah.
[00:42:12] Speaker 4: The question is, do they go to the game or do you sell them? Because you can get so much money. There's some tickets going for $100,000.
[00:42:21] Speaker 2: Do you witness this moment you've been waiting forever to see? Or do you pay for your kid to go to college?
[00:42:26] Speaker 4: It is crazy. There was one guy, okay? He said he was in Section 200. That's where his tickets are. He paid $750 per ticket. I looked this morning on the sites like Vivid Seats, SeatGeek. Tickets there are now $15,000 to $20,000. Wow. And he only paid $780 for one. So you see this like whole back and forth there.
[00:42:45] Speaker 1: Lisa Mateo, what would you do? Were you a season ticket holder? Would you sell your tickets to game three?
[00:42:50] Speaker 4: I have college tuition to pay for some. I probably would. Take President Trump's advice. Kids are going to watch it on TV and you're going to go to college.
[00:42:57] Speaker 1: I don't know if you can see this on television. It's like Section 102. Look at these prices. Amazing deal. $12,270. I love they're also like budget deals as well. It's just like an astonishing.
[00:43:07] Speaker 2: 6D will set you back 60 grand. I mean, you could.
[00:43:10] Speaker 1: Sure, each.
[00:43:11] Speaker 2: You could. Now that was your kitchen for that. That was $95,000. Yes. What does that one do?
[00:43:15] Speaker 1: Well.
[00:43:16] Speaker 5: Do you get to like hang out with Taylor Swift?
[00:43:17] Speaker 1: Must be nice.
[00:43:18] Speaker 5: Oh, man. So this is the whole back and forth that they're going through. But, yeah. David, what would you do?
[00:43:23] Speaker 1: I'd definitely sell them.
[00:43:23] Speaker 5: Okay, see? Yeah.
[00:43:24] Speaker 1: You know.
[00:43:26] Speaker 5: Pragmatic, practical, great care in the same way.
[00:43:28] Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. I love the team. I do. Excited for the moment. But there are bills to pay.
[00:43:32] Speaker 4: There are bills. And there are plenty of them.
[00:43:34] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[00:43:34] Speaker 4: Let's move on to this one. All right, let's move on. Sorry. And if you have those bills, you might need this story. The Atlantic binge drinking has never been easier, okay? This is because, okay, here's the reason why. So drinking more portable cocktails that are available at more places. So it's easier to drink them. So instead of having to, you know, mix the drinks yourself, more companies are selling them in cans. You see them, right? Like the Cutwaters from Anheuser-Busch.
[00:43:57] Speaker 2: Is that a barrier having to pour different things in a glass and stir? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know.
[00:44:00] Speaker 4: The ones you're looking at now, those are the buzz balls, okay?
[00:44:02] Speaker 5: Buzz balls. I've never had a buzz ball.
[00:44:04] Speaker 4: Oh, yes. You have? My son has had those, yes. Oh, okay. All right. He's right. He is of legal age. But they're more affordable, some of these, than, you know, doing the mixed cocktails. Because like this, you can get the Cutwaters for like 12 bucks for a case of like four, you know?
[00:44:18] Speaker 1: A peppermint white Russian.
[00:44:19] Speaker 4: You can get them. So you can crack open a can and have a chocolate espresso martini, like right at your hands.
[00:44:25] Speaker 2: I will say, anecdotally.
[00:44:27] Speaker 1: Anecdotally. I always love that.
[00:44:29] Speaker 2: Shush, you're going to give me a hard time with the story anyway. I was picking a bottle of wine at my liquor store on the corner, and they do have tons of these pre-made cocktails. And I asked the guy about it, and he said they're extremely popular. All ages. People just want to come in, get a cocktail, like have their drink, and then go to dinner.
[00:44:44] Speaker 1: I love going to the beach in New York where you can just get a nutcracker. A nutcracker? What is a nutcracker? A kind of illegally prepared cocktail in a plastic bottle sold by some unlicensed purveyor.
[00:44:53] Speaker 5: That's adorably sketchy. I love that.
[00:44:55] Speaker 1: You can find those in your parks in New York City as well.
[00:44:58] Speaker 5: Wait.
[00:44:58] Speaker 1: And I always feel like the alcohol's got to be strong enough that if there's anything amiss with it, it's going to kill anything.
[00:45:03] Speaker 5: I can't. I've never heard of this. Stay tuned. You're drinking these random alcoholics?
[00:45:08] Speaker 1: Well, not every day. But occasionally. You know, it's the summer in the city. Next, as Tom Keen would say.
[00:45:14] Speaker 4: Okay, yes, as Tom Keen loves to say. Okay, New York Times, that's what we're going to next. Okay, so what are all those people waiting in line for? It's a cake in a cup. No. Okay, so this is dot cake. It's like a simple cake. It's topped with frosting. It has sprinkles. It looks great. Tastes great, apparently. Different flavors. The line starts as early as 6 a.m. and goes around the block. It costs about $8.
[00:45:38] Speaker ?: $8.
[00:45:38] Speaker 4: If you're in Long Island and you get it. If you go to the city, you've got to pay $11. But it's a social media phenomenon. I mean, it's exported from Long Island to Butterfield Market locations. And that's where it's sold at. So at Butterfield Market locations, people are standing out line.
[00:45:52] Speaker 1: I'm going to go out on a limb and guess. Christina is not one to wait in line for a social media food item.
[00:45:56] Speaker 2: No, no. Go to the grocery store. Buy a box cake. Put an around thing. Put some sprinkles on it. Save yourself the time.
[00:46:01] Speaker 1: That's a good idea. I'm totally with you. I'm totally with you. Totally.
[00:46:04] Speaker 2: This is not hard to know.
[00:46:05] Speaker 1: All right.
[00:46:06] Speaker 4: Okay, this last story.
[00:46:07] Speaker 1: Last one.
[00:46:08] Speaker 4: It hits home. I hope my husband is not watching. So this is more from the pursuits. More luxury homeowners want sleeping spaces away from spouses. Okay, so more couples are asking for two primary bedrooms, right? Because they have different sleeping schedules, maybe. They're in different times. Are they hosting a morning show on the weekend, perhaps? Maybe they're hosting a morning show on the weekend. Perhaps and happen to wake up in an early hour? Maybe they're snoring. Maybe there's menopause issues and you need the fan going all times in the night. Theoretically, it's just an option. Just putting it out there. Just a thing. But the reason they say why it's happening more now is because a lot of people wear those health trackers. Okay. And so it tracks your sleep. So now you're more self-conscious. I'm not getting enough sleep. So now more couples are doing this. It's not, it's actually- Would you guys do this? It's to save your marriage. When my son is not sleeping at home, I send the husband to the son's room.
[00:46:59] Speaker 5: Do you couch surf when you have to get up early?
[00:47:01] Speaker 1: I'm often told to sleep on the couch if I have to work late or get up early. Because it's disruptive when one comes into the bedroom and anyway. And it saves the marriage. But I'm not, in New York City, I'm not buying a separate bedroom.
[00:47:12] Speaker 2: No. I feel like this is a suburban Midwestern luxury, but maybe people are more able to afford it. Here in New York, you're lucky if you've got a bedroom.
[00:47:20] Speaker 1: I've got a Long Islander riding in here. Those cakes are so 10 years ago on Long Island. Really?
[00:47:25] Speaker 4: They're still waiting outside.
[00:47:27] Speaker 1: Brutal. Well, then all more reason to stop standing in line for food. Who knew that the trendsetters are in Long Island and in New York City, we were merely sheep following the Long Islanders. Glad to have that update.
[00:47:38] Speaker 5: Great, great, great.
[00:47:39] Speaker 1: I'm with the Long Islander. Lisa, thank you.
[00:47:40] Speaker 2: Okay. Anytime, anytime. BTW.
[00:47:43] Speaker 1: I'd like to chew over there. I missed a lot of news this week, apparently.
[00:47:45] Speaker 2: Chewing over other than the dot cake, you mean?
[00:47:47] Speaker 1: Well, yeah, whatever. I would eat it if we're here. I'm not going to wait in line for it. But you know me.
[00:47:50] Speaker 2: No.
[00:47:51] Speaker 1: I'm one to eat a snack. Or pay 11 bucks. I do like a snack. Lisa Mateo with BTW. Thanks, Lisa. Our recurring segment. They're looking at stories you may have missed on the Bloomberg Terminal at Bloomberg.com every week here on Bloomberg This Weekend.
[00:48:03] Speaker 2: She's always bringing us some creative pieces that we haven't had time to dig into.
[00:48:06] Speaker 1: Yes. I appreciate it.
[00:48:06] Speaker 2: All right. We're coming up on 8 a.m. in New York. The next hour of Bloomberg This Weekend starts right now.
[00:48:23] Speaker 1: Coming up on Bloomberg This Weekend, the Nasdaq and S&P suffer their worst day of the year. Part of a broader sell-off of stocks, bonds, Bitcoin and metals growing concern about AI and new confidence the Federal Reserve is going to raise rates.
[00:48:52] Speaker 2: Plus, President Trump set to meet with all the big AI executives next week as he eyes a new public-private partnership.
[00:48:58] Speaker 3: There's so much money and it's so big that there are concepts where pieces could be given to the American public.
[00:49:06] Speaker 2: What these deals could look like and why the president's former AI advisor is against them.
[00:49:11] Speaker 1: And the New York Knicks win another one against the San Antonio Spurs. New York leads two games to nothing as President Trump makes plans to go to Monday's game and offers this advice to those of us who can't afford a ticket.
[00:49:23] Speaker 3: They can watch it on television. It's sort of semi-free to watch it on television.
[00:49:28] Speaker 1: Welcome to Bloomberg This Weekend, 8 a.m. in New York City. From Bloomberg's World Headquarters, I'm David Guerrero.
[00:49:42] Speaker 2: I'm Christina Ruffini. We're here with Lisa Matteo bringing you the latest breaking news, reports, analysis and everything else live this morning and every weekend from 7 to 10 a.m. Lots of headlines to get to and we're going to have to get straight to it this morning because we've got a special guest with a lot of news to share with us. So, Lisa Matteo, what you got?
[00:49:58] Speaker 4: You got it. We'll start with the war in Iran where President Donald Trump says the regime has no choice but to make a deal with the U.S. It was an exclusive interview with NBC's Meet the Press in Wisconsin. He also added that so far in the conflict, the U.S. has totally destroyed their military but also added that Iran still does have some missiles and drones.
[00:50:16] Speaker 3: They have some missiles. They have some drones. I would say, percentage-wise, maybe 21, 22 percent of their missiles. It's a lot of missiles. But it's not what it was when we first attacked.
[00:50:29] Speaker 4: It comes as the U.S. military said late Friday night that it shot down Iranian ballistic missiles and drones launched toward the Strait of Hormuz and Gulf Arab allies. U.S. Central Command said Iran fired seven ballistic missiles toward Kuwait and Bahrain, with U.S. forces intercepting six of them. No injuries were reported. The missiles were fired after the U.S. earlier in the day shot down four Iranian drones that were launched toward the Strait of Hormuz. The Lebanese army says an Israeli airstrike on southern Lebanon today killed several members of the Lebanese military, including a senior officer. And it comes days after the two sides reached a new ceasefire deal through U.S.-brokered talks. And to the war in Ukraine now, where residents of St. Petersburg, Russia's second-largest city, well, they were told not to leave their homes after a, quote, large-scale Ukrainian drone attack targeted the city. The attacks come after Putin rejected a proposal by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for a face-to-face meeting on the four-year-old conflict, saying that he sees, quote, no point in it. In the Associated Press reporting, Democrat Javier Becerra has advanced to the general election for California governor. Becerra has more than 35 years in public office, including as state attorney general, also U.S. health secretary. It's not yet clear who Becerra will face in the general election. His top rivals include Republican Steve Hilton, a former Fox News commentator, backed by President Trump, and also Democrat Tom Steyer. He's a billionaire climate activist. And artificial intelligence stocks, well, they suffered their sharpest sell-off in months. Bitcoin fell below 60,000 bond yields. They actually surged with thoughts of the next move from the Fed. Well, it could be an increase. The Nasdaq and S&P, they suffered their worst losses of the year. David and Christina, tough day.
[00:52:10] Speaker 1: Tough day. Lisa, thank you very much. Appreciate that. And President Trump's saying he'd consider having the government take stakes in leading AI companies. Here's what he told Bloomberg Television's chief political correspondent, Anne-Marie Horton, on Air Force One yesterday.
[00:52:21] Speaker 6: All the AI companies touched the taking these equity stakes. Have you spoken to Sam Boltzman or...
[00:52:27] Speaker 3: You know, there's a concept out there. There's so much money and it's so big that there are concepts where pieces could be given to the American public, where the American public essentially becomes a partner with the companies. And I will tell you, yeah, I have spoken to all of them. There's something very interesting about it, where it almost becomes a partnership with the American public. And we'll look into that. We are looking. I actually have a meeting scheduled in the very short, very near future with, did you know that, with all of the companies. And we're talking about it, where the American people can benefit from the success of AI and by doing that, they're going to like it better. Because we're leading China, we're leading everybody in the world with AI and we want to keep it that way. It's probably the biggest industry maybe that we've ever seen.
[00:53:24] Speaker 5: Which companies in the meeting? All of them. All the big ones, yeah.
[00:53:28] Speaker 3: All the big ones. They're all coming to the White House probably next week.
[00:53:32] Speaker 1: President, talking to Anne-Marie there at 35,000 feet, talking about these businesses and government essentially being partners there. President teasing ahead to a big meeting next week with all of the big AI companies. If you couldn't hear that over the sound of the plane, these comments coming as SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI prepping for their major IPOs.
[00:53:50] Speaker 2: That's right. And Anne-Marie joins us now. She is in Bedminster, where the president is waking up this morning. Anne-Marie, thank you for coming on. We do want to talk about that. I mean, the president, good question. The president seemed to get pretty animated talking about this plan. It's something that Sam Altman kind of came to him with, this idea last year. I'm wondering what it would look like. And AI has a bit of a PR problem. Do you think this would help?
[00:54:12] Speaker 16: This potentially could help because I think a lot of American people see the amount of money these companies are spending. They're putting data centers across the country. They're having these incredible explosive IPOs. And Bernie Sanders, senator from Vermont, caucuses with the Democrats and independent but self-described socialist Democrat, put out an opinion piece recently. And he's been talking about this for years and saying that AI is built on all of our collective knowledge, our culture, journalists, books, etc. And the American people should have a stake in that. So this is something that Washington writ large has been talking about, especially the populist right and the populist left. And the president has also expressed interest in prior in taking stakes in companies. This isn't new for this president. We've seen this with MP materials, lithium materials, Intel, of course, with that 10% stake. There was a golden share as well with U.S. steel. So this has been kind of the direction of travel. Trump has been willing to take the party. And so he's willing to have this discussion with all of these companies. It's still early innings, though, in actually what this would look like. Would this look like a dividend to American people? Would this be some sort of sovereign wealth fund? Those details still very much in discussion.
[00:55:34] Speaker 1: Emory, let me ask you just about the role that David Sachs is playing in this administration today. He was the president's advisor on AI issues during the first part of this, his second term. I gather he's no longer in any kind of official capacity but still speaking with the president. And I'll just read a bit from a tweet that he sent on an AI meeting here. Nationalization of AI will accelerate the corporate government fusion we've already been sliding toward. Conservatives rightly fear a central bank digital currency. They ought to be even more concerned about central government AI, a system with even more totalistic power over information, decision-making, and human behavior. Put that tweet in context. We had this postponed executive order on AI regulation. What ultimately made it to the president's desk is kind of a voluntary system through which these companies could give over their most sophisticated models to the government, I guess, 30 days in advance. And, again, that would be a voluntary thing. It wouldn't be compulsory. How is this administration looking at AI regulation more broadly as we talk about the prospects of these public-private partnerships and the prospects of further regulation?
[00:56:35] Speaker 16: Well, I think when it comes to regulation as well, this is just baby steps. This is all voluntary. And I think potentially if you see more political pushback, I mean, did you see all the commencement speeches with the students actually doing AI? Potentially, we're going to get more of this type of direction of travel, whether it's regulation or whether it's the government wanting to take these stakes in companies. In that tweet, David Sachs also went on to say, America will win the AI race with China, but will end up with a CCP-style social credit system in the United States. Basically, this is what China, which is supposed to be our most important adversary, this is what they like to do with their technology companies. And he does not think that is a winning strategy and doesn't think, you know, it's the basis for capitalism and to produce the best AI models, which is why everyone is watching this so closely, because it's all happening at the same time. The pushback is happening at the same time as all these companies are going public. And at the same time, the government has to weigh a plan. Would they actually want to do something when it comes to a number of these companies? And yesterday, while we were on Air Force One, we got the news when we landed, the president actually signed an executive order about having to make sure you have a diversity of AI models. And, you know, I think this really stepped from the whole fight the DOD is having with Anthropik. And they are saying that they are going to move away from Anthropik because of, obviously, the spat they're having with Claudio Amande.
[00:58:11] Speaker 2: And it's been interesting to watch a Republican president be so involved with private sector entities. You know, we've also seen the administration make some deals with some other companies, including Intel. It doesn't seem like something the president is least bit afraid to do. But I'm wondering how that's going down with other more traditional Republicans, the ones that are left anyway, if this makes any of his otherwise allies a bit nervous.
[00:58:34] Speaker 16: Well, this week on surveillance, me, John, and Lisa spoke to the former vice president, Mike Pence. I had a longer conversation with him as well, the Economic Club of New York. And this is something he pushes back on. He does not think that this is the conservative way. The conservatives believe in free market enterprise, not nationalization of companies. And I asked him, could you ever imagine that we would be in a position where you see a number of direct stakes into the private industry from a Republican president? And he hesitated for a second. He was like, no. But that is why people think that potentially this is going to happen, especially with these AI companies. And I did have a chance to also ask the president, this idea, these concepts you're talking about is something we hear on the very far left when it comes to Bernie Sanders. And the president said that, you know, when it comes to some economic policy issues, that him and Bernie Sanders are somewhat aligned and pointed to the fact that there was a number of Democrats that voted for Bernie Sanders in the primary, of course, for the 2016 election and then ended up voting for him. And I think the most obvious one, obviously, being Joe Rogan.
[00:59:45] Speaker 1: Emery, let me ask you, you took the long way to Bedminster yesterday. You went through Wisconsin to get there. And while the president was doing an event, he also sat down with Kristen Welker of NBC News for an interview that's going to air on Meet the Press tomorrow. And something that came up, of course, is what happens next in the Middle East. Let's play a bit of sound here from that interview that Kristen did with the president in which he talks about how he sees the path forward here.
[01:00:05] Speaker 10: You have been saying for months, Mr. President, that Iran is begging to make a deal. True. They are so desperate to make a deal. Why haven't they made a deal with you yet?
[01:00:14] Speaker 3: Because they, it's a very hard thing for them. They've had great independence. They've dealt with very weak and ineffective leadership on behalf of the United States and other countries, frankly, that were, that allowed them to get away with murder. And I don't, I think they can't believe they're in the situation where they've been virtually decapitated.
[01:00:36] Speaker 10: But if they're so desperate, Mr. President, why haven't they said yes to the terms you're proposing? Because they're strong.
[01:00:41] Speaker 3: They're proud. There are things they never thought they'd be doing that they're going to have to do. They've got no choice.
[01:00:48] Speaker 1: And it takes a little while. Emory, let me ask you what he means by it takes a little while. I think there's growing impatience among a lot of Republicans for what's playing out here, the lack of progress, the kind of groundhog day nature of the way that this has played out. And we've really lived that in real time on the weekends where you'll hear the president kind of jawboning the fact that there's a deal almost ready to go. Towards the end of the week, almost every week, yes. And by Sunday, we're kind of back to where we were. So talk a bit about that, sort of the way that the president sees this proceeding versus the realities, certainly on the ground in the Middle East, where it seems like Iranians are quite content to wait this one out as the pressures become more and more acute on the oil market and the global economy generally.
[01:01:25] Speaker 16: Well, it's really a test of who has the most patience and who can outlast this when it comes to the blockade and the Strait of Hormuz. And I think the president going to Wisconsin highlights the pressure he's under domestically, especially that third congressional district. These are farmers. They've seen fertilizer prices up some 40 percent since the start of the war. Obviously, diesel prices, gasoline prices also higher because what is going on with the conflict of the Middle East. But at the same time, the president is also conflicted to give concessions to this regime because he began this attack, as well as with Operation Epic Fury last summer, because he has three clear red lines. And he has had them for years when it comes to Iran. No nuclear weapons, no aiding of proxies and needs to stop their ballistic missile program. The problem is this is existential for this regime. So and they don't have the same sort of domestic pressures in a midterm election year the way this president does. So so that is really why this is so difficult in terms of getting a deal. The president did say, though, to this group of farmers, it's all going to come down. He was almost saying, please stick with me. We had to do this excursion, as he calls it. But he said it's either going to end with a piece of paper or the hard way. So he's continuing those those threats to Iran. And it does seem to be that his patients may be wearing thin. But but clearly the president does want to deal. And when you speak to me, spoke to the Chevron CEO recently and you speak to energy analysts, they're saying we're basically living off buffers around the world. We are living off the bottom of tanks, living off the bottom of inventory levels. And potentially that's why this summer, which was peak driving season in the United States, we can see a real uptick in prices.
[01:03:17] Speaker 1: Well, I want to go back to like a lack of Chinese demand in a way I think that they didn't. Yes, really interesting chart.
[01:03:23] Speaker 2: No, if you watch that chart and just drop. Yeah, but I do want to go back to what you were just talking about. And that's the affordability crisis. And who has more time here, especially as you said, this president and his party have a midterm coming up. It seems faster and faster. And and all those issues could come to a head. We know that chief of staff Susie Wiles and others within the administration were very against this conflict because they wanted the president doing exactly what he was doing this week, going out, talking to voters, talking about these kitchen table issues. You talked about a kitchen table issue that we've been talking about kind of nonstop here this morning. We're going to play some sound.
[01:03:56] Speaker 6: She missed price for the game three or going to is eight thousand dollars every day. Americans can't afford this.
[01:04:02] Speaker 3: Well, I know, but they can watch it on television. It's sort of semi free to watch it on television. But that's the way life goes. You know, you have some. And now the game wasn't a big if the team wasn't a big success, you could go very easily. So, you know, you can you could do that, too. But that's the way life is.
[01:04:23] Speaker 2: I mean, if you can't afford tickets, watch them on TV. This comes on the heels of him saying, you know, he doesn't really care about gas prices or financial situations of particular Americans. Do you think that's going to hurt him, even with some of his big supporters out in places like you were just visiting?
[01:04:37] Speaker 16: I think so, because I think actually the Democrats, and you could see that on Twitter, have taken now this message and using it on the follow up of the president saying he doesn't think of Americans financial situations, which I think we need to give more context to it, where the president was saying he doesn't think of Americans financial situations when he's dealing with trying to get a deal with the Iranian regime about nuclear weapons. But in an election year, these are not the kind of soundbites you want swirling around, being paid.
[01:05:06] Speaker 1: No, semi-free.
[01:05:06] Speaker 16: That's life. That's life. Tough tarts. And you know what? It's not just the Knicks game. And to the president's point, you know, the Knicks have been, have never been here. It's been decades since the 90s we've been here. Obviously, you guys feel it in New York as well. Me and David were talking last night after that excruciating, painful final two minutes of that game. So, sure, maybe even the Knicks is idiosyncratic, but it's not just the Knicks, is the point. World Cup tickets on average are also $1,000. What is the median take-home for an everyday American worker? It is about $1,100 a week. Dude, how do you take a family, if you have children, how do you take your family to a day out at a sporting event? And that was really the crux of what I was trying to get to the president. This is the Knicks, whether it's the World Cup. It is just highlighting the K-shaped economy. At the same time, every day on Bloomberg, we're talking about, you know, the billions of dollars companies are spending and people are about to make when it comes to SpaceX, Anthropic, OpenAI, IPOs.
[01:06:18] Speaker 1: Emory, great to talk to you. I hope we could talk about that one beyond a Mitchell Robinson technical. Wanted to get into that a little bit. Maybe the fight between Brunson and Fox and the sidelines. Stop it. We'll get back here soon. Great to see you. Emory Horton from Bedminster this morning. More to come here on Bloomberg This Week on Bloomberg TV and Bloomberg Radio.
[01:06:37] Speaker 4: Thanks for joining us live on Bloomberg This Week, and I'm Lisa Mateo. Let's update you on today's top stories. Artificial intelligence, while it was front and center, and President Donald Trump spoke to reporters yesterday aboard Air Force One.
[01:06:47] Speaker 3: We're leading China. We're leading everybody in the world with AI, and we want to keep it that way. It's probably the biggest industry maybe that we've ever seen.
[01:06:56] Speaker 4: Now, this comes after the president suggested the U.S. government hold equity stakes in leading AI developers. He addressed the reports that the administration would put the stock into a government-run wealth fund that would redistribute some of the gains to the public, saying, quote, it would make them rich. Trump added that leaders of major AI companies may visit the White House next week. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegg said he arrived in France to commemorate the 82nd anniversary, the D-Day invasion by Allied troops. He spoke at a ceremony at Normandy American Cemetery to honor service members who landed in Normandy June 6, 1944, to liberate German-occupied Western Europe during World War II and sacrifice their lives in the name of freedom. Well, Pope Leo landed in Madrid today, officially marking the start of his apostolic journey to the European nation of Spain. He will visit the Spanish capital as well as Barcelona and the Canary Islands. David and Cristina.
[01:07:51] Speaker 1: Getting around. He is. Traveling the world. It's so- Opining on artificial intelligence.
[01:07:56] Speaker 2: I have loved the online reaction to the Pope's missive on AI. Yes. It's been a- Listen, if you wanted to make some news, it certainly did.
[01:08:04] Speaker ?: The encyclical.
[01:08:04] Speaker 2: The encyclical. That's right. I couldn't remember the name of it.
[01:08:06] Speaker 17: No, it's fine.
[01:08:07] Speaker 2: Of course you remember. It's unfair. All right. Thank you, Lisa. You got it. All right. This week, the U.S. announced plans to impose new tariffs of at least 10% on imports from 60 different trading partners. Now, according to U.S. Trade Representative Jameson Greer, these countries failed to enforce bans on foreign goods made with forced labor.
[01:08:25] Speaker 1: Joining us now is Bloomberg News Global Trade Editor Brendan Murray. Brendan, it's always great to speak with you. You are living this day in and day out as the president tries to pick up the pieces from that Supreme Court decision on the AIPA tariffs and plot a path forward. Explain where we are, sort of what he's targeting here and the prospects of these tariffs staying in place.
[01:08:44] Speaker 18: Yeah, so we're really in a transition phase between these temporary tariffs that were put in place after he lost the Supreme Court case. Those expire at the end of July. And so what the administration is doing now is they are rolling out. They have to go through these investigations, determine whether countries had unfair trade practices against the U.S. And they're announcing these proposals that will put tariffs on many of the U.S.'s largest trading partners. The latest one is a two-tiered tariff, 10% and 12.5%, depending on the degree to which you are cracking down against forced labor. So it will go through a consultation process, public hearings. The administration will engage in negotiations with these countries to sort this out. But in essence, Trump is trying to replace the tariffs that the Supreme Court struck down. And that process will be complicated, long and difficult to follow, given all the different investigations that they have to undertake.
[01:09:51] Speaker 2: Yeah, Brendan, where is the burden of proof for this? And explain to us what mechanism this is. Like, does the country, does the U.S. have to prove that the country is falling short? Or does the country have to prove that it's not falling short, it's doing a good job? Or do we not know?
[01:10:05] Speaker 18: Yeah, no, it's a difficult one to answer on the burden of proof. But essentially what the U.S. is going to do is to determine, number one, do you have rules in place that will prevent you from trading with countries that have forced labor violations? And are you enforcing those? So that's where the two-tiered tariff breaks down.
[01:10:30] Speaker 2: But can they implement the tariffs and then do the investigation? Or do they have to do that investigation before they're allowed to implement the tariffs?
[01:10:38] Speaker 18: Yeah, they have to do this investigation legally. They have to conduct this investigation. This is why Trump didn't do this from the beginning, because it's long, slow, bureaucratic. The process to these is the so-called 301 authority that the U.S. trade representative is using. Trump came out on April 2nd last year and said, I'm going to do reciprocal tariffs. And it turned out that those were illegal. So this is the process that they have to go through now. These are more legally durable. They have already withstood court challenges. And so the administration thinks this is now the way to go, rather than the sort of chaotic past 12 months that we saw with the president posting on social media tariff threats and tariff imposition of tariffs.
[01:11:28] Speaker 1: Brendan, let me ask you, as you talk about the president's distaste for process and things that take a long time, and we're kind of in the middle of what is a process. That is the renegotiation or renewal of the U.S. MCA, the successor to NAFTA, and Brian Platt reporting yesterday, it looks likely that we're going to blow past this July 1st deadline, which I gather, and correct me if I'm wrong, it's just going to lead to a lot of uncertainty and kind of prolonged, attenuated negotiation between these three trading partners. Where does that leave us? How are you thinking about the future of this trilateral trade deal that, yes, President Trump signed during his first term, but really has been thrown into this kind of new relief as we've seen the president really show distaste for these multilateral deals and indeed walk away from longstanding partnerships and agreements that have been in place?
[01:12:15] Speaker 18: Yeah, so this particular renegotiation deadline, it's not really a deadline, it's just kind of a point on the calendar where all three sides have to decide whether they want to continue with it or not or withdraw from it. So I think what this sets up is a regular ongoing negotiation, the administration has said basically what they want to do is negotiate individually with Canada separately and with Mexico separately to try to, because the economies are very different. Of course the auto industry stretches across North America, so that is really the industry that matters the most and has the most at stake. But the administration wants to see more cars produced in the US. They don't want to see them assembled in Mexico and exported north. So what they're going to do, according to Jameson Greer, is look into the rules of origin, the sort of how much of the car is produced in Mexico. That percentage is, you know, they're going to look at some of those measures and try to renegotiate those. But if what we're looking at is just a regular ongoing negotiation, renegotiation of USMCA, then the, you know, the word that we've heard over the past 18 months, uncertainty, that just is there in the background. And if you're a company and you're trying to figure out, you know, what your sourcing costs are between the US, Canada and Mexico, it just creates, it creates a lot of uncertainty. So the, the administration has said that they are going to conduct these talks with Canada and Mexico and, and with no real end in sight.
[01:13:58] Speaker 2: I mean, you brought up what I wanted to ask you next, which is the risk to US companies. I mean, this is done under the auspices of saving US businesses. But as we've seen with the Section 122 tariffs, we had spice merchants based in the US talking about how. Burlap and barrel.
[01:14:12] Speaker 1: Burlap and barrel. The boys of burlap and barrel were on the show.
[01:14:15] Speaker 2: They really, really adversely impacted. They were in the plaintiffs in the case. It really hurt their business. And this happens with auto manufacturers as well, who use the basis, the outline of that trade deal with Mexico and Canada to set up this kind of. And now it's, it's all thrown into upheaval again. What is the risk to US companies as these investigations happen? And you see tariffs maybe going into place, maybe no. How do you plan for something like this?
[01:14:39] Speaker 18: Yeah, I mean, it raises the question of whether companies, and this is really what the administration wants them to do, is it just gets so complicated to, to do business across the borders that you just produce things at home. And, and, you know, that is sort of one of the, the maybe indirect effects is, is it's just, we don't have any visibility on what our tariffs are going to be with, with major trading partners, the US and Canada. Between Canada and Mexico, that's something like 30% of all US exports and imports. And so, you know, we're talking about, you know, with a lot of the focus has been on the US's trading relationship with China, but really Mexico and Canada are by far the most important. And, and to get this right, you know, President Trump negotiate, renegotiated, re, re, rebranded NAFTA as USMCA, called it the greatest deal of all time. And apparently, it's, it's not, and it needs to be redone just six or seven years later.
[01:15:37] Speaker 1: We've got about a minute left, but we saw the president yesterday in Wisconsin sitting down with Kristen Welker in front of what looked like a John Deere tractor. And we've seen the president make these subtle adjustments after putting tariff policy in place, rolling some back, scaling some back. I gather he's doing that with farm equipment as well. Should we expect this going forward more of this kind of nipping at the edges, making changes to kind of curry favor with different parts of the American electorate and his base as we see the impact of these tariffs on people across the country?
[01:16:06] Speaker 18: Yeah, absolutely. This is, we saw this over the past week, they, they exempted a lot of industrial machinery, agricultural equipment, John Deere, as you mentioned, you know, those would be part of it. So they're going to kind of fine, as they would say, fine tune the tariff regime so that they can maximize the economic benefits of them without creating too many barriers that prevents the US, US industries from, you know, maximizing their, their production and their output in the US. So, yeah, I would imagine, you know, several months here before the midterms that, that a lot of industries are going to be knocking on the door of, of the US trade officials in Washington, trying to get there, trying to get exemptions for, from, from tariffs for, for their industries so they don't continue to suffer.
[01:16:57] Speaker 1: Brennan Murray, who heads up our trade coverage, you said a moment ago, Christina, this is hard stuff to follow. He does it so expertly. His supply lines newsletter, daily newsletter, a must read if you want to figure out what's going on with all of these trade policies that are fine tuned and changed with some constancy by this administration. Brennan Murray joining us from London. Brennan, thank you very much for the time.
[01:17:16] Speaker 2: And just for context, the 60 nations that are being investigated or could be investigated cover 99.4% of all US imports. Very good point. It's going to be interesting. All right. The FIFA World Cup begins Thursday with North America playing host. It's the first time the tournament is being spread between three countries, including 11 stadiums in the US.
[01:17:35] Speaker 1: Well, like the Knicks, it's already a costly endeavor just to watch a match. Bloomberg originals looked at the reason ticket prices are through the stadium roof.
[01:17:43] Speaker 19: So you want to go to the World Cup. Well, it's going to cost you.
[01:17:50] Speaker 1: I don't think we're going to the World Cup anymore, bro. They're cheapest. $7,000.
[01:17:55] Speaker 11: Original purchase price, 446. Resale price, $22,316. It's insanity.
[01:18:01] Speaker 19: The World Cup's return to North America will be unprecedented in more ways than one. It's the first FIFA tournament to take place across three nations with 16 host cities in the US, Mexico and Canada.
[01:18:15] Speaker 20: This is the first tournament where we're going to have 48 countries represented instead of 32.
[01:18:20] Speaker 19: That means there's going to be 104 matches played. It's also the first World Cup where tickets are subject to dynamic pricing and that's changing the game, so to speak.
[01:18:30] Speaker 21: What dynamic pricing means is that prices change could be on an hourly basis, on daily basis or weekly basis, depending on supply and demand.
[01:18:39] Speaker 22: This is something that we are used to seeing in the US, but around the globe, this is the first time they've ever introduced something like this.
[01:18:46] Speaker 20: The US is the ultimate market and FIFA is using that to their full advantage in this tournament. We have to apply market rates. This is the World Cup. You have a lot of resale, a lot of speculative buyers going in there to later try to sell for a markup. And so the big question I think people have is, is this demand real?
[01:19:05] Speaker 19: And ticket prices aren't the only obstacle for fans.
[01:19:09] Speaker 22: Trump's policies on immigration and tourism have proved to be very hard for some people from specific countries to get visas to attend the tournament.
[01:19:18] Speaker 19: And if people can't or don't attend the games, then what seemed like a profitable event for host cities could turn into a financial black hole.
[01:19:29] Speaker 2: Talking a lot about ticket prices this morning. Later in the show, we're going to have Adam Minter, who is our Business of Sports columnist, talking about, yes, those ticket prices, but also do these cities that host these huge events, including the World Cup, and really get that promised return on investment for everything the city and the country puts out.
[01:19:44] Speaker 1: I won't guess. I don't want to give away what he said.
[01:19:46] Speaker 2: I think you can read between the lines here, but it's a great talk and he kind of lays it out in very addictive terms. All right. Is there an AI bubble about to burst? A new analysis from Bloomberg Economics looks at the ripple effect of that major tech sell-up. That's coming up next on Bloomberg This Weekend. Stick with us.
[01:20:08] Speaker 4: Thank you for joining us live on Bloomberg This Weekend. I'm Lisa Matteo. Let's update you on today's top stories. And Paramount Skydance is making a move to help win European Union approval of its $110 billion bid for Warner Brothers Discovery. Now, sources are telling Bloomberg that it's prepared, if necessary, to divest some children's TV network assets. The EU, while they're scrutinizing overlaps between Paramount and Warner Brothers in the wholesale supply of children's television channels, with concerns raised if combined market shares exceed 40% in any country. To the French Open now, where Alexander Zverev, he defeated Jakub Mensik. He will face Flavio Koboli in the finals tomorrow. Today, the women battle it out in the finals. We have Mira and Driva and Maya Walasinka. They're facing off at 9:00 a.m. Eastern. Anthony Massini, our bosses, I thank you for that story. The PGA Tour, it continues at Muirfield Village Golf Club in Dublin, Ohio. Topping the leaderboard right now, JT posted at 9 under par, followed by Ryan Gerrard, 8 under par, and Sam Burns at 6 under par. Over to hockey. Tonight's the night, the Vegas Golden Knights take on the Carolina Hurricanes in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Finals. That series is tied at one apiece. And in the NBA Finals, yes, the Knicks coming back to New York with the two games to none lead over the Spurs. That's after that close 105 to 104 nail-biter last night in San Antonio. I just want to say something, David, you mentioned before there was a certain business executive who said we're not covering enough Boston sports. Yes, I heard that. There is a reason why. We cover playoffs. Oh.
[01:21:44] Speaker 1: So we don't do the normal. Well, guys. The Boston fans will really appreciate that, Lisa.
[01:21:47] Speaker 4: And if Boston made the playoffs, I would love to talk about them. Oh, my gosh.
[01:21:52] Speaker 1: All of the radios and televisions being turned off in the greater Boston area. We apologize to her.
[01:21:56] Speaker 4: Okay, I'll give you this one. The Red Sox did beat the Yankees last night, so there you go. A little unexpected and sad upset from Lisa. There we go.
[01:22:03] Speaker 1: There we go. And we're going to pioneer a new game on this show, I've decided. We've got pointed, but maybe another one we can call our bosses and have them spell some of the last names that you have to read. For tennis? On air in those sports updates, yeah. I think that would be fair.
[01:22:14] Speaker 2: Ah, yes. I feel a need for a montage coming up soon. No. Lisa, thank you so much. Thank you, Lisa. All right. This week's chip stock sell-off is raising fears we could be on the verge of an AI bubble about to burst, or at least it's quite frothy over there.
[01:22:28] Speaker 1: Yes. So its stock plunged 12% after the company reported a disappointing outlook despite booming AI demand. Our colleague Tom Orlick and his team at Bloomberg Economics has been looking at what it could look like if an AI bubble were to burst. Tom is the chief economist at Bloomberg Economics, and he joins us now. Tom, great to speak with you as always. I know that you kind of played this out in terms of what the ramifications would be from a market perspective, what the ramifications would be on the global economy. Let's start with markets. Were this a bubble? Were it to burst? What it would mean for markets around the world? What did you what did you find out?
[01:23:01] Speaker 23: So great to be here, David. There's been a bunch of indicators in the last few weeks and months kind of herd behavior in the market on AI. We saw that big drop when Citrini published their AI kind of dystopia report. We saw a shoe wear company saw its stock prices soar when it rebranded as an AI infrastructure provider. And of course, on Friday, we saw the Nasdaq sharply down with that drop, as you mentioned, very much being propelled by AI stocks. So it's very hard to call bubbles. We don't know if that 5% drop in the Nasdaq on Friday is the market taking a breather, some profit taking, and we're going to storm higher again in the days and weeks ahead. Or potentially in a risk scenario if it's the beginning of a moment of lost confidence. But AI bubble risks are real. So what my team, Jamie Rush, our director of global economic research, has done is model what that might look like. And the starting point is what happens in the markets. We looked at a scenario where U.S. stocks drop around 20%, where credit spreads widen, where uncertainty rises, where investment, all that investment in data center capex takes a breather. And then we plug that into our global economic model to look at what it would mean for the U.S., look at what it would mean for other major economies.
[01:24:40] Speaker 2: Is that just because, as we were just talking about earlier in the show with Mike McClone, there's just so much exposure, not just to these mega AI stocks, but to the market as a whole. The most wealth ever is tied up in the markets and exposed to the markets. That way it would have such a big impact. You also talk about, walk us through what you think it would do to global GDP.
[01:25:01] Speaker 23: So I think that's completely right. I mean, there's a huge amount of optimism out there about AI as a game-changing technology. We've been working with AI to strengthen our research. I'm sure all of you have been playing with AI as well. There's certainly some there, there, right? Maybe even there's a huge amount of there, there. But history is littered with examples of game-changing technologies which spark a speculative mania and a bubble and a bubble burst before they have that big positive impact on the economy. Think about railways and the mania around railway stocks in the 19th century. Think about the dot-com bubble and the mania around internet stocks in the 1990s. Well, perhaps AI could be similar. Now, to come back to your question, if we think about the economic impact here, for the US, we'd be looking at a big blow to investment as all of that spending on data centers grinds to a temporary halt. And we'd be looking at a big blow to wealth as the stock market falls and consumers pull in their horns. So with weaker investment, lower wealth, weaker consumption, in our scenario, we're looking at a blow to GDP in the US of around 1.5%. And if you think about the US as an economy that, on average, grows 2% in a normal year, well, that takes growth pretty close to zero. Wow. If we think about the rest of the world, well, the biggest impact is in those chip producers. That's a big one. It's Taiwan. It's South Korea, which have seen their economies springing to life, growing pretty quickly with all of those semiconductor exports. They take the biggest hit if there's a bubble burst at a moment where the rest of the world says, you know what, we don't need so much of these chips right now.
[01:27:01] Speaker 1: Tom, I want to go back to what you said at the top, which is this is something you have to take seriously. The fact that this could be a bubble and it could burst. And we've kind of gotten a potpourri of commentary from leading executives over the course of the week. The CEO of Broadcom was at Bloomberg Tech's conference in San Francisco. And he said that the AI environment has made it a very surreal environment for all of us. And we also heard from Brian Moynihan, of course, the CEO of Bank of America, on sort of where we are in the evolution of AI. Let's take a listen to what he had to say.
[01:27:28] Speaker 24: At some point, the revenue and the earnings multiples and the cash flow multiples all have to come in sync. And right now you're in that phase where there's a mass amount of capacity building and anticipated of demand. And so when you look at it, one of the ways that we think about is we are a buyer of these services and a big buyer, $13 billion in technology a year. It was $250 million this year in 26 on AI-related spending. And so the question is, what's the affordability? That would be the interesting question of how this comes together. But right now it's a heck of a stimulus in the economy.
[01:27:59] Speaker 1: Brian Moynihan talking about the role that AI plays in his business. And we see so many firms kind of experimenting with it and thinking about how they might use it, but also reckoning with the fact that this is expensive and what's the ROI going to be. In the last minute that we have with you, Tom, how are you thinking about that broadly? The way that executives, market participants, leaders are kind of reckoning with the fact that this may be frothy, as Christina put it, are a bit bubblicious.
[01:28:24] Speaker 23: So I think there's two ways I think about it, David. The first is all of that capex going in, right? We've just this kind of this wave of headlines. Meta, SpaceX, Google, OpenAI, Anthropic, all raising vast amounts of money to spend on building out their AI capacity. And from an investor perspective, that investment has to generate returns, right? And the more of it is, the more of it there is, the harder it is to get to the returns necessary to justify it. And the second piece of it is on the kind of implementation side. I think we've all had these light bulb moments where we've seen how AI can help our personal workflow get more efficient. But there's a big leap that's needed to get from kind of, I get a bit more efficient at my desk to my company gets more efficient. And a bigger leap needed to get to the economy gets more efficient. And I think the AI bubble fears is just the concern that that might take a little bit longer than high valuations right now suggest.
[01:29:32] Speaker 1: Tom Warlick, always great to speak to the chief economist at Bloomberg Economics. And do check out his analysis, again, of the prospects of there being an AI bubble, what the ramifications of that might be. You can find it on the terminal at Bloomberg.com.
[01:29:41] Speaker 2: And later in the show, we're going to talk to a tech CEO about exactly that. And he says at a time when other companies are scaling back, how they're using those tokens, he finds them incredibly useful. He said he'd buy any more, exactly right. Up next, we're talking Tonys, how New York is trying to keep the biggest shows on Broadway. Curtains up.
[01:30:08] Speaker 1: Welcome back to Bloomberg this weekend. I'm David Gurra.
[01:30:10] Speaker 2: I'm Christina Ruffini. The 79th Tony Awards are tomorrow at Radio City Music Hall here in New York.
[01:30:16] Speaker ?: The 79th Tony Awards.
[01:30:17] Speaker 25: To be here and to be celebrated and to be, you know, honored while I have a family and feels really grounding to me.
[01:30:26] Speaker 26: I just didn't think that it were possible. You know what I mean? It's just not something that you see happen a lot. Like, especially for me. I wouldn't have ever expected this.
[01:30:36] Speaker 27: It means more than I can really express. I keep trying to find, like, new words to really encapsulate the feeling and I don't think there are.
[01:30:45] Speaker 28: There's a story that connects all of what seems to be disparate personalities. But it's a family affair. And I think it's absolutely appropriate that now, when the world is so troubled, that you can come to the theater and watch a huge international family actually love one another.
[01:31:12] Speaker 1: A handful of Tony nominees and honorees, New York Governor Kathy Hochul pushing lawmakers to extend a tax credit put in place during the pandemic with the hope it will help New York retain its appeal to producers. As we heard from Bloomberg taxes, Danielle Moyo Dunn, critics question whether the subsidy is worthy.
[01:31:29] Speaker 29: It really began, like you said, as a way to help these shows when they had no one going, right? But since COVID-19, Broadway is facing a lot of challenges still, just like how we all complain about the price of everything going up. That applies to Broadway, too. You know, what it takes to make sets and costumes. So they've continued the program. They've added more funding. And the idea is to just make it a little easier to fund a Broadway production.
[01:32:00] Speaker 1: Who's eligible for this? Like when you when you look at the shows that are on Broadway today, how many of them are taking advantage or able to take advantage of these credits?
[01:32:06] Speaker 29: It's a great question because it really is carved out for Broadway and off Broadway specifically. So Broadway, you know, shows that are in a Broadway theater defined as like in the theater district with 500 seats or more. Can get up to three million in tax credits. Wow. And then off Broadway productions, which is, you know, defined a little differently. They're smaller. They can be in elsewhere throughout Manhattan. Can get up to, I believe, $350,000 in tax credits. So a little smaller. And are there strings attached to that?
[01:32:37] Speaker 2: I know with some of the movie credits, I think of this more as a movie thing, right? They did it in Georgia. They did it in New Orleans. And it was effective there until they pulled the credits. But they also came with a lot of strings attached. Are there rules you have to follow in order to qualify?
[01:32:50] Speaker 29: So that's kind of one of the big criticisms of the program. There really aren't. It's basically if you meet the requirements in terms of how much you paid for the show. And it's on a designated Broadway or off-Broadway theater, then you qualify. And there are state lawmakers and budget watchdog groups who really feel like, you know, this doesn't make sense. You have money going to shows financed by Disney and billionaires who are getting tax incentives. And these shows that, you know, have to start in smaller theaters aren't getting support because they don't qualify.
[01:33:28] Speaker 1: I'm just curious generally how Broadway is doing. So we started off by talking about COVID-19 and we knew well the effects that that had on theater here in New York and elsewhere. Are we back to where we were? How big a need aside from this kind of competitive argument that we've been talking about is there for subsidies like this? Yeah.
[01:33:44] Speaker 29: So, I mean, Broadway is rebounding since the pandemic. So, according to state comptroller data, revenue, gross revenue, or sorry, according to state comptroller data, the attendance is back to pre-pandemic level. The Broadway league has reported that revenue is the 2024, 25 season was one of the highest grossing seasons they've ever recorded. Wow. So, from that position, they are doing well. But what Broadway producers and directors will tell you is, yes, but it's getting much harder for investors to see a return on these shows. The shows are getting more expensive to produce. You know, you have, like, Stranger Things. It was, like, 35 million, according to forums.
[01:34:33] Speaker 2: Okay, but is this mission creep? I mean, does it have to be $35 million? Like, I think about Chicago and the fact that, like, the Chicago we all know now is the very stripped down, you know, no costume changes, bands on stage. That was a choice, but only out of budget necessity, because that was the money they had at the time. There are ways to do these shows that do not cost $30 million. Is this just kind of playing into that and making it so that, to your point, these bigger productions, you do spend this much money and you may not be getting the return?
[01:35:00] Speaker 29: Well, I think it's two things, right? I think, yes, you're right. You don't have to put on a $35 million production, right, if you don't want to. Obviously, if you want to do something with intense special effects like Stranger Things, it would require that amount of money. You know, what we're seeing more of is actually plays. You think of, like, Glen Gary, Glen Ross, where you have a smaller cast, but you have these big names attached to it. And that allows them to, you know, see a return faster, because, really, all of the money is going to these salaries. It's a pretty small production, and it's a better bet for the producers.
[01:35:39] Speaker 1: Just pull it back to these credits, and you mentioned some of the criticism against it has to do, you know, with how restrictive they are. Not restrictive, I guess. Here we are in New York State facing a massive budget shortfall of, what, $6 billion. What are the other things that critics are saying about the prospects of this continuing or the need for this to be something that's implemented in New York? Yeah.
[01:35:59] Speaker 29: So I think the big thing is, if it is going to continue, there should be more strings attached to it. So there's technically a provision that if these shows are very profitable, they should have to return some of the tax credit. But none have actually triggered it to date, which is a little confusing, because there's definitely shows that have gotten it and have done well. Yeah. So that's something state lawmakers feel like maybe we could tighten up that language. So there is actually some payment back into it. So, you know, that's something that they're exploring. And I think this is going to be a big conversation, especially next year, since the benefit is set to expire in September 2027. So there is a time hook for them to kind of figure it out. Oh, interesting. We have to come back and keep us updated on how it's doing. Yes.
[01:36:43] Speaker 1: Danielle, thank you very much.
[01:36:44] Speaker 29: Thank you very much.
[01:36:45] Speaker 1: It's almost 9:00 a.m. in New York.
[01:36:48] Speaker 2: Coming up, we're joined by Tom Nines, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel. The next hour of Bloomberg This Weekend starts right now. Stick with us.
[01:37:10] Speaker 30: Welcome to Bloomberg This Weekend. Live from New York with David Gura, Christina Ruffini and Lisa Matteo. The latest headlines, key analysis, big interviews, and the stories that hit home on your days off.
[01:37:33] Speaker 2: Welcome to Bloomberg This Weekend. We're coming to you live from Bloomberg's World Headquarters in New York. I'm Christina Ruffini.
[01:37:38] Speaker 1: I'm David Gura alongside Lisa Matteo. It is Saturday, June the 6th. The Preston in Bedminster, near to where we are here in New York City.
[01:37:46] Speaker 9: That's right.
[01:37:47] Speaker 1: Not a whole lot on his agenda, but as we've been discussing throughout the morning. Went to Wisconsin yesterday. Sat down with some farmers there and offered an interview to NBC News. We're kind of mining that for some commentary over the course of the morning as well.
[01:37:56] Speaker 2: Talking about a couple things, affordability, and you know this conflict in Iran that has reached a stalemate kind of on both sides. So we're going to dig in with some experts and see where we think it might go and if we think there might be any progress there in the coming days to come.
[01:38:08] Speaker 1: I have a feeling that's where Lisa Matteo is going to start when she gets to the headlines right now. Lisa, over to you.
[01:38:12] Speaker 4: Let's start right there. The war in Iran where President Donald Trump says the regime has no choice but to make a deal with the U.S. It was an exclusive interview with NBC's Meet the Press in Wisconsin. He explained why it's taking so long.
[01:38:24] Speaker 3: They're proud. There are things they never thought they'd be doing that they're going to have to do. They've got no choice. And it takes a little while. You know, you're talking about 47 years of getting away with whatever they wanted. I mean, we should -- this should have been done long ago.
[01:38:39] Speaker 4: Now it comes as Bahrain's government says Iran fired ballistic missiles and drones toward it and Kuwait. The foreign ministry said they had been intercepted and called on Iran to immediately cease attacks on its Gulf neighbors. The statement comes hours after the U.S. military said it shot down Iranian ballistic missiles and drones launched toward the Strait of Hormuz and Gulf Arab allies on Friday. Israeli airstrikes on southern Lebanon have killed nine people, including three Lebanese military members. That's according to the Lebanese army and state media. The strikes come days after the two sides reached a ceasefire, a new ceasefire deal brokered through U.S. talks. And to the war in Ukraine, where residents of St. Petersburg, that's Russia's second largest city, they were told not to leave their homes after a, quote, "large-scale Ukrainian drone attack" targeted the city. The attacks come after Putin rejected a proposal by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for a face-to-face meeting on the four-year-old conflict, saying he sees no point in it. In other news, the Associated Press reporting Democratic Javier Becerra has advanced to the general election for California. Governor Becerra has more than 35 years in public office, including as state attorney general and U.S. health secretary. It's not yet clear who Becerra will face in the general election. And the Justice Department told a federal judge that even though the Trump administration's $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund is, quote, "not going forward," it still opposes the court taking any action to block it. Now, the filings represent the first time the Trump administration has said that, in writing, that it was no longer pursuing the fund, which was met with widespread criticism. As you know, David, Christina.
[01:40:17] Speaker 1: Yeah, and fascinating to hear from Stephen Dennis during the last hour just how much of an effort Republicans made. Some Republicans made to get some language into that immigration bill to preclude the president.
[01:40:27] Speaker 2: Specifically barring this action, but they couldn't get it across the line. All right. Thanks, Lisa. All right. Also in that interview that Lisa mentioned, President Trump attempted to push back at claims he should have negotiated a better deal when it comes to Iran's nuclear program.
[01:40:40] Speaker 3: We're very close to having a nuclear weapon twice. That was when I terminated the Iran nuclear deal, which was a path. That deal, the JCPOA, that deal was tantamount to giving them a nuclear weapon.
[01:40:55] Speaker 10: But, Mr. President, I'm curious, because when you were campaigning, you said you would rip up the Iran nuclear deal, but negotiate a better deal. I did. That's what I'm doing. Why didn't you negotiate a better deal at the time? Because after it was ripped up, there weren't guardrails, and they escalated their production of enriched uranium. Excuse me. Excuse me. It takes years to do these things.
[01:41:15] Speaker 1: Just as a reminder, we broke down what is in the Memo of Understanding versus what was in the original 2015 JCPOA. And when it comes to nuclear enrichment in specific, these two deals seem relatively similar. Joining us now is Bloomberg White House correspondent Jennifer DeLui, who's in New Jersey, following the president this weekend on pool duty, doing yeoman's work at the president's golf club in New Jersey. Jennifer, great to speak with you. And I wonder if we could kind of start with what we heard there in that interview with Kristen Welker yesterday, a president who is still not begging for more time, but expressing to the American public there needs to be more patience here as the U.S. and Iran work together on coming to a deal. Where do things stand as you see it? What stood out to you from that interview that took place yesterday?
[01:41:55] Speaker 31: Well, I mean, I think what you're seeing is that this is, you know, while talks have certainly not collapse, they are also not appearing to be moving to resolution quickly. You know, the president has been very clear, including in that interview, about expressing patience, you know, about saying that he's willing to let this play out. You know, all indications are that, you know, frozen assets, this plea by Iran for and their insistence for an agreement to include the release of billions of dollars, some 24 billions of dollars in frozen Iranian assets, that that is a key sticking point. You know, importantly, the U.S. sees that as also, you know, critical leverage. And the president has said he's not eager to seed leverage prematurely. He's in no rush to make a deal. You know, talks feel stalemated on this issue. But Trump does keep expressing his preference for a diplomatic solution. In Wisconsin yesterday, he said, we come out of Iran one way or the other. He said, with a piece of paper or a tougher way. He's just been clear all along at this point that he prefers that piece of paper.
[01:43:03] Speaker 2: I also think it's interesting going back to what you're just talking about, about those frozen assets. Again, that's something we heard as a huge criticism on the campaign trail when he first got into office. This president made of the JCPOA, the Iran nuclear agreement, pallets of cash was a phrase we heard over and over again. But to your point, the messaging from Iran has been very specific on that exact issue. CNN reporting this morning in an interview with a senior Iranian official that they said that the agreement to release millions millions in frozen assets has to happen or the U.S. would enter, quote, a dark corridor should it resume fighting. This sounds like a deadlock. Is there any, like, where do they go from here?
[01:43:41] Speaker 31: You know, I mean, again, this is just, this is the critical issue. You know, and it is hard to see resolution when both sides are kind of keeping it as a red line. Iran is certainly portraying it that way. They're not willing to see this money, see this, you know, getting these assets back or at least some form of them before, you know, a deal that would pave the way for broader talks. You know, what's interesting about all of this is the president in his strident criticism of the JCPOA. You heard it again in that, that NBC interview, you know, on some level that has boxed him in on these negotiations. He can't afford to be seen making the same kind of concessions that were made under Obama.
[01:44:21] Speaker 2: Jennifer, thank you so much for joining us. We know you've got a busy day ahead and we appreciate you taking the time. All right, there are more than just two parties involved in the Iran war. A critical component to any ceasefire agreement, as we were just talking with our colleague about, is if Israel agrees to go along with whatever the U.S. and Iran negotiate and cease its military excursion into Lebanon, where it says it's trying to eliminate the threat from the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah.
[01:44:47] Speaker 1: Joining us now from Tel Aviv this morning is Tom Nides. He served as the U.S. ambassador to Israel from 2021 to 2023. Mr. Ambassador, good to have you with us once again. And let me pick up right where we left off with Christina saying, look, there is this negotiation taking place. Maybe not one through talks, but a piece of paper being passed back and forth through a Pakistani intermediary. I think there is this open question. If these two sides could come to some sort of agreement, would Israel give it its imprimatur, its blessing? And I'm curious how you're thinking through that, how Israel is playing a role here in these efforts to negotiate some sort of prolonged ceasefire here between these two fighting parties. Well, first of all, thank you for having me.
[01:45:22] Speaker 32: It is a beautiful day in Tel Aviv. So I look outside at the beach right now. It seems like some things are quite normal, but obviously we're not living in normal times. Listen, I think if we just step back from it. At the end of the day, we're going to get an agreement. Okay. One way or the other. An agreement is going to look very similar to the JCPOA. It is just the facts. I mean, we can dress it up and talk about it in different ways. At the end of the day, that's what's going to happen. And the Israelis will maybe reluctantly have to agree to it. At the end of the day, there's no question the military, both the IDF and the U.S. military has done an enormous amount of damage to the IRGC and, as President Trump has talked about, to a lot of their military capacity. But it's still a massive threat. And ultimately, at the end of the day, the president is going to have to figure out a way to come to the table. And it will look very similar to what we negotiated in 2015. They'll dress it up and call it something else, but it will look quite similar and the Israelis will go along with that.
[01:46:32] Speaker 2: Do you think whatever is negotiated the second time around will be as durable as that initial agreement? I mean, that was done over months and months and had a lot of international buy-in. It also had a lot of nuclear and diplomatic expertise. And one of the criticisms of these negotiations has been that those technical experts have not really been involved until now. Although Axios is reporting that Steve Witkoff did meet with some nuclear technical experts here in the U.S. this week, perhaps to bolster some of those negotiations. But what is your take on the effectiveness of this second deal if and when it does happen? And how does the fact that Iran can now shut the Gulf almost at will complicate the durability of that?
[01:47:09] Speaker 32: Listen, I don't want to be a critical person sitting around. These negotiations are difficult. And they were difficult for us during the Obama administration and they're difficult for the Trump administration. The Iranians just don't give up. They are aggressive. It was a 195-page agreement that was worked out over almost two years between the Obama administration and the Iranians, including, as you point out, many of our European allies. So I don't want to be this guy to say this is easy. It isn't easy. And that's why, quite frankly, some of us were quite frustrated when the agreement was, in fact, torn up. Endured? I don't know. I mean, this is, you know, as you know, this is kind of a trust me agreement, regardless of what was done by Obama or by Trump with a lot of sanctions in place. So I think, ultimately, my hope is that they will come to an agreement that's strong and will eliminate much of the threat. But none of us should be surprised. This is very, very complicated and it's going to take a lot of time, which they need to put into it.
[01:48:09] Speaker 1: I want to play a bit of sound here. Christina mentioned that we heard from a senior military advisor to the Iranian Supreme Leader in recent hours. CNN sat down with him. CNN also did an interview with Lebanon's president as well. Let me play a bit of sound from what he had to say to CNN.
[01:48:22] Speaker 33: President Trump said that he would be honored to meet the Supreme Leader. This will not happen. Right now, we are in the first stage of negotiations. And Mr. Trump has brought the negotiations to a standstill. This will not happen.
[01:48:41] Speaker 12: IRGC, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, that this, they don't agree with this, they don't approve this agreement. What happened. It's not your country. It's our country. It's our obligation. It's not your job to interfere into our country.
[01:48:57] Speaker 1: Our control room did exactly what I couldn't imagine us doing, but did it perfectly. To hear those back to back. Because I think that this dynamic is really interesting here. The way that Iran is saying Lebanon is a real linchpin issue here in terms of getting to a deal. And then you have Lebanon kind of pushing back on that, saying they're not going to play that role. They're not in that position. It's not our country. It's your country. How do you process what's been happening here? We had this kind of draft agreement that the U.S. provided to kind of stop that fighting between Israel and Lebanon. Of course, Hezbollah, the proxy there, that's the target of Israel and doing the bulk of this fighting here. How do you see all of this playing out?
[01:49:31] Speaker 32: Well, listen, you guys know this. You've been covering this. This is really complicated, okay? The northern part of Israel, for those of your viewers who don't follow this that closely, is being bombarded by Hezbollah constantly. So when the Prime Minister says there's a huge threat in the north part of Israel, he's 100% correct, right? And Hezbollah has no interest in necessarily stopping. So the threat is real. That said, there's no question that Israel's continued to be pushing inside of Lebanon has caused an enormous amount of friction. Here's the dirty little secret. The Iranians control Hezbollah. And the moment the Iranians decide that this is part of the negotiations, that will be the end of the fighting with Hezbollah, and ultimately the fighting will end with Israel. As we all know, everything is linked. Iran is very much focused on the proxies. We're very much focused on getting to deal with the Iranians. Hezbollah is trying to wait this game as long as they can. So in this part of the world, which I'm sitting in right now, it's really complicated.
[01:50:33] Speaker 2: What is your assessment of leadership in Tehran is left, what their command and control is over these proxy groups, including Hezbollah, including Houthis? Like if they say stop fighting, is that something they can execute and will be followed?
[01:50:48] Speaker 32: Yeah, that's significant though. I think none of us should misunderstand. Yeah. Is the chain of command and communications hurting a bit since the, since the Israeli, the Americans took up much of the leadership? Sure. But as we have proven by what happened in Gaza, what happened in Hezbollah and the Houthis, you know, whoever controls the money generally controls the action on the ground. Are they some independent actors without question, but make no mistake, the Iranians are in charge and they can control much of the proxies in the region if they so choose to do it.
[01:51:21] Speaker 1: You have a lot of perspective, professional perspective, historical perspective. You have geographic proximity right now to the Israeli leadership. And I want to ask you just for your assessment of that relationship between Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Trump. So the week began with this leaked, leaked phone call that President Trump spoke with Prime Minister Netanyahu and called him crazy with an adjectival modifier, I'm not going to say here on air. So, Sarah Eisen at CNBC when interviewed Prime Minister Netanyahu, he indicated that indeed that was the, the, the, the color of the conversation. It was an intense conversation that he had with, with the president, but he's tried to say, look, we have a frank relationship. We have calls like this every couple of days. Um, in this mix and this complicated mix that you've been talking about, um, what's your sense of the level of support that Prime Minister Netanyahu has from President Trump and, and his administration? Indeed, how much influence he has over it now almost a hundred days into this conflict in the Middle East?
[01:52:15] Speaker 32: Well, I think it's two things. I, I watch this with Joe Biden. I mean, the amount of times that Joe Biden hung up on BB Netanyahu and the screening matches that took place, um, was probably too many to count. Okay. Um, I don't think that President Trump has any different relationship than Joe Biden did. That does not mean that President Trump is not supportive of the Prime Minister, but make no mistake. Um, the Prime Minister needs the United States. It needs our support. It needs our military support. It needs our intelligence support. So there's no question when President Trump's goal is very simple. He wants the war to end. And when he just feels that what President with the Prime Minister is doing impedes that, obviously gets quite frustrated. And right, by the way, the Iranians aren't stupid. They knew exactly what they were doing when they decided that the conversations were done with Trump because of, uh, Hezbollah. And they knew exactly if they said that the President Trump would pick up the phone and call the Prime Minister is exactly what he did. So again, you know, we should all understand the Iranians are not stupid. Okay. They know how to play this. And they also understand the President rightfully wants to see the end of this war. So the Prime Minister Netanyahu has got, he's kind of caught in between these two vices. Uh, and he's going to understand when President Trump says, uh, the war is done. Uh, he's going to understand the war is done. We're not there yet. I hope this will be done soon enough. Uh, we're not there, but he will understand that the President's relationship with Israel is very important, as the United States is.
[01:53:44] Speaker 1: Tom, very quickly here, an unfair question to end with in a time-limited way. But your sense of the timetable here, you hope it ends soon. We have a Pakistani emissary going from Pakistan to Tehran, according to IRNA right now. Your sense of the timing here in the last 30 seconds we have with you.
[01:53:59] Speaker 32: You know, I, listen, I, you know, I think, um, I think in the next week or so, I think you want to get some clear indications here about getting this resolved. I mean, this question about the money can be worked out through a variety of different ways. The question, or the bigger issue, by the way, they're talking about is a kicking the can on the issue about the disposal of the, of the, of the canisters that happen to be sitting in Iran, which contain a lot of, you know, uranium. So that hasn't even been discussed. The idea of giving them some money to get them to the table is sort of kind of missing the larger point. But I think ultimately, the President will be motivated to get this resolved. And, and for the region, I hope it does sooner than later.
[01:54:40] Speaker 1: That magic dust that the President refers to, that uranium that's in Iran. Tom Nides, former ambassador to Israel, thank you very much for the time, as always, joining us this morning from Tel Aviv. Thank you, sir.
[01:54:49] Speaker ?: All right.
[01:54:49] Speaker 2: Coming up, C-Suite Saturday, excuse me, with the CEO of Grindr. The company has moved far beyond a dating app. It is a technology company. It's involved in politics and AI. We're going to talk about it next on Bloomberg this weekend.
[01:55:09] Speaker 4: Thank you for joining us live on Bloomberg this weekend. I'm Lisa Mateo. Let's update you on today's top stories. President Donald Trump says that leaders of major AI companies may visit the White House next week. Now, it comes after the President expressed interest in the U.S. government holding equity stakes in leading artificial intelligence developers and how pieces could be given to the American public.
[01:55:29] Speaker 3: There's something very interesting about it where it almost becomes a partnership with the American public. And we'll look into that.
[01:55:37] Speaker ?: We are looking.
[01:55:37] Speaker 3: I actually have a meeting scheduled in the very short, very near future with, did you know that, with all of the companies.
[01:55:48] Speaker 4: Well, the President was speaking to reporters yesterday aboard Air Force One when he was in road to Wisconsin. And when he was asked which companies he was referring to, well, the President answered, all the big ones. This all comes ahead of the series of trillion-dollar initial public offerings by artificial intelligence companies. One of those companies is Elon Musk's SpaceX. Sources say it's already received orders for more than the shares available in its $75 billion IPO. The deal is expected to price June 11th and begin trading the following day. But it could be more time before SpaceX and other mega IPOs are added to the S&P 500. The S&P Dow Jones Index Committee had declined to remove a rule that companies generate positive net income for the past year to be included in the benchmark. And speaking of SpaceX, Alphabet's Google has agreed to pay Elon Musk's company $920 million a month for computing power. That's as part of a cloud services deal that runs through mid-2029. David and Christina. A lot of zeros. That is a lot of zeros. A month.
[01:56:51] Speaker 1: It's definitely a theme, though, companies, A, ponying up for this, but I think also having some realistic conversations about how tenable that is long-term. I mean, I think you have to.
[01:56:58] Speaker 2: Yeah. But, you know, somebody who had some very interesting things to say about that ROI on AA spend was our next guest. Wonderful segue.
[01:57:06] Speaker 1: Look at that.
[01:57:07] Speaker 2: Look at that. It's almost like I work here. All right. Look, it's June. It's Pride Month here in New York and around the world. And Grindr is the world's largest network for LGBTQ people. The app is now evolving into what it's calling a global gayborhood, integrating AI, or as the CEO calls it, gay-eye. That's right. And looking into expanding its product line beyond just the dating app.
[01:57:30] Speaker 1: Well, that includes live events like a pop-up concert with Madonna. It took place Thursday night in Times Square. In the past year, Grindr's revenue is up 38%, while its share price has dropped by half. For C-Suite Saturday, we spoke to CEO George Arison about the future of the company.
[01:57:46] Speaker 17: I can't control what the stock does. The stock's going to do its own thing. And I think that over the long term, the market is pretty efficient. Over the short term, it's not sometimes. And I think Grindr does have some complexity for people to understand, but we do have an incredible business. I mean, the company's grown 25 plus percent every year over the last four years. Since I've been around even longer, it's been growing at that pace or higher. EBITDA has also been getting better. We did more EBITDA last year than we did revenue in 2022, which I think that's the number I really like. And it's going to continue going up. I don't see anything that in the next three, four years is going to slow us down. Like we have a very strong plan and execution is really, really strong. The team, you know, is doing everything that needs to be done to make the business work really well. So I think my job from the investor perspective is to keep meeting with people and telling them our story. And I think over time, it'll take care of itself. You know, we had some challenging things happen last fall when one of our shareholders had issues with his pledge shares. And that led to a squeeze on him and resulted with share price coming down quite a bit. So I think there's some recovery that needs to happen from that. And that does take time. I mean, it's only been three quarters. So we'll keep kind of plugging along. And what I do tell the team is to not focus on the share price because that'll be distracting. We should focus on execution. And ultimately, the market is pretty efficient.
[01:59:13] Speaker 2: You did a survey last year and you found that one in three gay relationships started on Grindr. And that's been kind of an evolution because I think when I first started learning about it, it was thought of as a hookup app. But now several -- actually, most of my friends who have gotten married in that community met on Grindr. What does that do to your business model? And how has the dynamics of what people are using the app for changed?
[01:59:33] Speaker 17: Yeah, the actual number is 50%, so it's even higher. Wow, okay. It's pretty -- it's pretty incredible.
[01:59:39] Speaker 2: Every wedding I've been to, it's how did you meet Grindr.
[01:59:41] Speaker 17: For me, one of the most cool kind of moments when I was just getting started -- I actually wasn't CEO yet, but I was doing the road show for us going public. And we met with this one investor and he's like, let me show you this picture. And he pulls out his picture from his brother's wedding where the brother and his husband had met on Grindr. And they had this, like, little Grindr logo where you could take a photo in for every guest. At the wedding? Yeah, at the wedding. So he pulls this out and I'm like, okay, well, this is going to probably go well because I don't have to, like, explain to him what we do. I think, look, in the gay world and gay culture, things are pretty fluid, right? So casual dates or hookups leading to long-term relationships is actually very common. Internally, we tend to joke that if, you know, a gay couple hooks up three times and then doesn't go on a date, probably will never go on a date. Whereas a straight couple, if it doesn't go on three dates prior to a hookup, that relationship probably won't go anywhere. It's just a different three-date rule. Yeah. So it's, you know, that's just how the culture is. But the reality is that a lot more gay men today want to be in long-term relationships than was the case, say, when I was in my 20s. And, you know, Andrew Sullivan, who was probably one of the primary architects of the case for gay marriage over the years, you know, he would make this argument that if we allow gay marriage, then gay men will move more in the direction of what straight people do, which is getting married and having stable long-term relationships. And I think that's very much happening. Because if you survey men under 35, you know, over half of them say that they want to be in a long-term relationship. Yeah. And a quarter of them say they want to have children. So I have kids. I've always wanted kids. But when I would say that I wanted kids in my 20s, I was literally like the oddest ball out in the 100. So society is changing dramatically in part because of the recognition of marriage. And that's really positive. And obviously Grindr is an awesome place to help with that because that is where people meet. And we have the critical mass of people to meet each other.
[02:01:40] Speaker 2: We want to ask you about AI. And I understand you now use something you've coined gay-eye through the app. I see what you did there.
[02:01:47] Speaker 1: All right.
[02:01:48] Speaker 2: Tell us what it is, how it works, and if it's been worth the investment. Because one of the things we're looking at, especially right now, is the ROI on these AI investments and whether or not the juice is worth the squeeze for some of these things.
[02:02:02] Speaker 17: Yeah. So we've been way ahead of the curve on AI. I had built an AI company in 2018, not on Gen AI because Gen AI models were not out back then. But having done that, and that company has done very well and was very good for everybody involved. I knew that AI was going to be huge for Grindr because we have so much data and that creates unique opportunities. So we both have invested a ton into building AI products for users, and those are going really well. We have a lot of them are already out in the product and the feedback from users is very positive. We're building a new AI tier, which is a more premium tier that is powered with gay-eye that is already in beta with a bunch of users and will be live. What does it do?
[02:02:43] Speaker 2: Does it just really hyper-tailor the user experience?
[02:02:44] Speaker 17: It gives you a lot more information about people you're talking to and creates transparency for both parties about why that connection might make sense. Then we've also done a ton of investment in how we work. And Grindr is really like -- I actually call it terraforming, not transforming, because the change is so massive. Our engineering team, you know, started adopting AI coding much earlier than most people. And today, 80% of the code that's written in Grindr is not written by humans. It's AI-generated. It's all AI-generated. And an engineer's job is fundamentally changing. It's no longer writing code. It's actually architecting the code and managing synthetics that are writing the code. So every engineer is becoming an engineering manager, in effect. And organizations are going to become flatter as a result overall. And, you know, in March, when we were planning for Q2, Eng Team came to the planning meeting and said that they don't have enough work and we need more projects. I've been building software for 20 years. And I've never had anything like that happen to me. And don't get me wrong, like, our team works extremely hard. We are a very hardcore culture. We're not, like, SpaceX. But in the layer of where do you fall in the hardcore, we're very much closer to SpaceX than we are to an average company. So these are not people who are not working super hard. But we still had, like, more capacity because of what AI is doing to how productive we are. I don't care how much money we spend on tokens, honestly, because every dollar that's spent on tokens is way more output than you'd ever expect. I think companies that are worried about the spending are actually not well managed because then probably people are running around doing things that don't need to be done. But I don't want to give numbers out because these were companies that were shared with me. But one of the very large tech companies that recently was in the press a lot being worried about, you know, token spend, I did a rough – I heard what the total number of their concern was. And on an order of the magnitude basis, like, they were, say, at 20K per engineer. And we are roughly running, like, 50K per engineer in token usage. But I'm happy if that became 100. Wow. Because I know for a fact already that what we're getting on the other side is way more valuable than that.
[02:05:01] Speaker 1: So let me ask you, lastly, just about politics. And I'll confess we were both in Washington for the White House Correspondents Association dinner. And, alas, neither of us got the invite to the party that you threw in the run-up to that. We're not bitter about it. But it was a popular party. And I think popular because there were so many people there from both sides of the aisle, attracted a broad swath of people. How do you view engagement with politics, with Washington, the job of any CEO in this day and age is to make that part of the role? You have to engage with regulators and with lawmakers.
[02:05:28] Speaker 17: So about six months into me studying my job. I get this note from the person who was leading Grindr for Equality, which is our public service arm, telling me that this horrible situation is developing in Egypt where Egyptian police is arresting gay men and then using their phones to honey trap up our gay men. And I'm like, okay, who in D.C. do we call? Because, like, you know, America has a lot of influence around what happens in Egypt. And we didn't have a single person to contact because we had zero relationships in Washington, which I thought was kind of totally unacceptable. And then secondly, it felt to me like a lot of the groups that should be advocating on behalf of gay rights and do were becoming very partisan. Because it takes 60 votes to get anything done in the Senate, but also for things to stick around, you need both sides to be bought into it. And I felt like we were uniquely positioned to be able to do it because we are a business and we can talk to both sides of the aisle. And that's what we've been striving to do. And so far, we've been very, very happy. There are specific things we care about, decriminalization of homosexuality in certain countries where it's illegal, marriage equality, access to fertility treatment for gay couples in the U.S. in the same way that it's available to others, and then access to STD preventative and treatment medications and services, which, like, matters to all our users. This is not an issue that's like 60/40 on Grindr. It's that most of these issues are, like, 90/10 or 100 and 0. And we can make massive headways on those if we bring people together to advocate for them.
[02:07:03] Speaker 2: Do you think, given your background, you're in a good position to try to talk about these issues to a more conservative-leaning government? I mean, I know you grew up in what was then the USSR is now Georgia. That's not a place that's very friendly towards alternative lifestyles. Does that give you a way to talk about this to people who may have a knee-jerk note, but when you talk to them about the human rights aspects of it and how it can benefit society as a whole, they're more able to have that conversation?
[02:07:27] Speaker 17: It certainly helps me better appreciate the challenges that our users face in countries like that. I mean, one of my first board meetings at Grindr, we were discussing whether to enable Grindr in Iran or not. And this was, like, something we had shut down because of U.S. sanctions. And we were getting messages from local activists and users saying we would prefer for you to be on and take the risk of being caught by the government that we're using Grindr to not having a way to connect with each other. Because there's no other way to do it.
[02:07:54] Speaker 2: Because the risk of having that on your phone is really substantial.
[02:07:57] Speaker 17: Yeah. So, I mean, I'm like, yeah, not a normal board discussion of, like, what you're going to be dealing with. I remember going to see the Secretary of Labor about a year ago or nine months ago, and we were talking about, hey, we want to make sure that if we do things on IVF, we should, that should be extendable to gay couples because gay couples are not actually receiving the treatment themselves. It's usually a surrogate that is receiving treatment and, like, you should be able to transfer that service on. And her response to me back then was, like, the president said all families. That includes gay families. And, like, some people might not expect that from this administration. Right. But I'm like, there's no question about that. And that's actually the kind of rule that they issued on IVF and insurance, you know, earlier this Q2. So that was a really good meeting on our end and a very good outcome for everyone. And so I think people are generally very willing to listen. And that's not to say that there's obviously a huge number of people in the Democratic Party who have been massive champions of gay rights. And they have been great at engagement with us. And obviously, it's really imperative for us to be working very closely with them and ensuring that they have the right information to be able to do the incredible work that they do on behalf of all Grindr users.
[02:09:07] Speaker 2: George Harrison, Grindr CEO, I thought it was really fascinating giving what we've been talking about all week, these tech stocks, the AI evaluations, and whether or not these companies are finding it worth it, that he said for his smaller team of engineers, it is completely worth it. And they had a very high spend on tokens and it was worth every single penny.
[02:09:22] Speaker 1: I just want to underscore what he said there that engineers at the company were literally proposing to him that he not hire any more engineers. This was making such an impact. AI was making such an impact on the business that it actually would lead to a lesser need to hire more engineers, which is the thing that you wouldn't think engineers would be advocating for more of them.
[02:09:39] Speaker 2: But 100 percent. But, you know, they're expanding. They're trying to do new things and they're trying to do live events. And they seem to think that they've got it handled from a back-end coding perspective, thanks to AI tools. So, all right.
[02:09:50] Speaker 1: Let's move from one CEO to another. This week, Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon joined the Odd Lots podcast, Joe and Tracy, to discuss the state of AI and the impact on jobs, along with the massive fundraising push ahead of the SpaceX IPO. Let's take a listen.
[02:10:02] Speaker 34: I think you're going to see and Alphabet is the first one to make this decision. I think you're going to see a bunch of them fund a bunch of it with debt, but also raise more equity because they're starting to think about, OK, what does this look like? It's one thing. What does it look like this year? But what does it look like over the next five years? How much capital do we need? How much debt? If you get it wrong, if you totally rely on debt and you get it wrong, you will really regret if you wind up having a downside scenario that's tougher than you expected. We didn't win this in the last six months. We won this over the last 20 years. Wow. The decision wasn't made. The decision wasn't made until the last six months. And there's a lot of things that the team did over the last six months that contributed to the ultimate result, which, by the way, now we have to execute. But this is a cumulative effort of lots and lots of people over 20 years. And we first, as a firm, we first met Elon Musk. And the person that first was responsible for covering him was a guy named Stuart Bernstein, who was doing a bunch of stuff around, you know, kind of green energy. And he and his brother had SolarCity. And that's where we first connected with Elon. I do think we've created a regulatory structure and a market structure that really makes it unattractive to go public until you have to. The reason these companies are going public now is because they have to. They have capital needs that are so voracious that it is not prudent for them to try to do 100% of it in the private market and not have a public currency. It's just not prudent. And and that's why I think you're going to see a bunch of these companies go public because they actually need the capital. It's interesting. I've advised companies for years and at one point, 25 years ago, I actually ran the equity capital markets business at Goldman Sachs. That was a job I had early in my career in Goldman Sachs. And I used to say to companies, you know, there are a few reasons to go public. You need the capital. You need the currency. You have to create liquidity for, you know, early investors. But all the other stuff that people talk about is really not critical. We have a lot of things going on in the macro with with the war, with the oil shock, supply chains, inflation getting stickier that are going to have an effect. And, you know, the market may absorb all that differently than it's absorbing it at the moment. At the moment, it's kind of brushing it aside.
[02:12:28] Speaker 1: We've got a lot of things. We've got a lot of things. David Solomon, of course, the CEO of Goldman Sachs. On Monday, Bloomberg's Odd Lots hosts Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway joins BTV's Yvonne Mann and Steven Engel on the China show set in Hong Kong. We're going to talk about the complex regional and global issues and the newest market crazes. Yes, in Asia and all over the world. Nobody invited us to hang out in Hong Kong.
[02:12:44] Speaker 2: No.
[02:12:45] Speaker 1: Someday we'll get that call.
[02:12:46] Speaker 2: All right. Give us a call. Next call is to Lisa Mateo, who's got our headlines for you.
[02:12:51] Speaker 4: Lisa? You got it. Let's update you on today's top story. So, Pope Leo, he landed in Madrid today, officially marking the start of his apostolic journey to the European nation of Spain. The Pope will visit the Spanish capital as well as Barcelona and the Canary Islands. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth arrived in France to commemorate the 82nd anniversary of the D-Day invasion by Allied troops. He spoke at a ceremony at Normandy American Cemetery to honor service members who landed in Normandy June 6, 1944, to liberate German-occupied Western Europe during World War II and sacrifice their lives in the name of freedom. To sports now and some NHL playoff action tonight on the ice when the Vegas Golden Knights take on the Carolina Hurricanes. It is Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Finals. The series now tied at one apiece. And in the NBA Finals, the Knicks are coming back to New York with the two games to none lead over the Spurs after that really close 105-104 win last night in San Antonio. There's where the President Trump may attend Game 3 at MSG on Monday as well as New York Mayor Zoram Mandami. And this is not the news you want to hear ahead of the FIFA World Cup kickoff next week. Roughly 2,000 SoFi Stadium workers in Los Angeles. Well, they've authorized a strike. Their demands include higher wages, job security, but also stems from the presence of ICE agents at the international soccer tournament. SoFi Stadium is set to host eight matches during the World Cup. Very busy. Incredibly busy.
[02:14:18] Speaker 1: This is just like such a wide geography, north, south, east, west. It will be interesting to see how this plays out among these three nations, I think.
[02:14:24] Speaker 2: Seems like a bit of a logistics nightmare, but it's going to be great. Yes.
[02:14:27] Speaker 1: It's going to be great. Not known for our great public transportation here in this country.
[02:14:29] Speaker 2: Not our best asset. Nope. It's going to be so good. All right.
[02:14:33] Speaker 1: Thanks, Lisa. Let's get to the World Cup here. The upcoming World Cup shaping up to be the most lucrative in history as well, with FIFA expecting $11 billion in revenue from an expanded 48-team, 104-match tournament that's going to take place, as I just mentioned, across North America.
[02:14:46] Speaker 2: But as we brought up earlier, what, if any, are the true benefits of hosting the World Cup for the U.S. and for these cities? Average citizens are expected to shoulder the burden of traffic, security, and other disruptions in day-to-day life, with many Americans not being able to get those tickets given the very high prices.
[02:15:03] Speaker 4: Oh, and New Jersey transit. Geez.
[02:15:05] Speaker ?: Okay.
[02:15:05] Speaker 4: We spoke with Bloomberg Opinion columnist Adam Minter to talk about if he thought that there were any real benefits to the U.S. hosting the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
[02:15:14] Speaker 35: Right now, the best we can say is that the jury's kind of out on this. You know, if we just look at one of the benefits that everybody touted, tourism benefit, the numbers are running behind. Hoteliers are saying that they're 80 percent behind the forecasted room occupancy rates that they were given months ago. That's not good. Airbnbs are facing the same situation. You know, if the tourists aren't coming, the economic projections surrounding what the tourists are supposed to spend beyond just the hotels aren't going to come true either. So, at least on the economic development side, it's not there.
[02:15:50] Speaker 4: Can you talk about the whole concept behind, you know, why host cities do this? I mean, there's the infrastructure boost, right? There's the reason they can do it is because they want to improve their image, right? So, for the U.S., I mean, we have the infrastructure. We have the tourism industry. We've built up soccer. Soccer is not like how it used to be. It's really become something big here. What -- I don't understand what the benefit is. Is it for small businesses? They do a lot of these, like, different, you know, festivals, watch parties, things like that.
[02:16:18] Speaker 35: Right. I mean, that was always the implicit bargain, as you said. There's infrastructure. There's an image boost. And when those things are all taken care of, when the U.S. already has its own domestic soccer league with Lionel Messi, what's left? It's accessibility. That means, you know, regular folks, families can go to the matches, in theory. And if you can't get a ticket to the match, because it's unaffordable, because, you know, some of these tickets, like, to the opening U.S. match against Paraguay, they're starting at around $1,900 U.S. dollars per ticket. If you can't do that, you can at least go to a fan festival, which is the idea -- FIFA asked the host cities to set up these big festivals where anybody can come and watch a match with everybody else. But even those aren't quite living up to the accessibility promises. You know, in a lot of places, they may be free. Some of the cities offer them for free. But then, of course, they've got the premium seating. And some of that premium seating at the free fan fest starts around $200. And even the free fan fest, for example, in Los Angeles, it's a $10 admission fee. So this promise that this is sort of the people's festival, the people's tournament, isn't really turning out to be the people's tournament. It's not accessible to everybody else. And even that side of the bargain isn't coming true.
[02:17:27] Speaker 2: Well, that's what -- I want to go back to what you were talking about at the beginning, about, you know, Airbnb. Bookings are down. The hotel bookings aren't where they need to be. Do we know why is it a combination of how much this is costing in a time when a lot of people, not just in the U.S., but around the world, are feeling the economic squeeze? There's also this visa issue. It's not a time when a lot of people from some of these countries where their teams are playing are going to either be able to get a visa or might be nervous about getting that visa and traveling in and out of security in the U.S., just given the uncertainty of immigration right now. How much are those factors weighing in?
[02:17:58] Speaker 35: Those are factors. And another factor that we can't talk enough about, really, is simply the price of tickets. One of the things you're seeing is the fan groups, the supporter groups in places like Europe. They're complaining that they can't afford to fly to the U.S., stay in a hotel, and above all, buy a ticket into a match because, you know, they can't afford to afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket.
[02:19:06] Speaker 25: They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket.
[02:19:36] Speaker 35: They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket.
[02:19:40] Speaker ?: They can't afford to buy a ticket.
[02:19:41] Speaker 35: They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket.
[02:20:18] Speaker 4: They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket.
[02:20:36] Speaker 35: They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket.
[02:21:40] Speaker 2: They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket.
[02:21:49] Speaker 1: They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket.
[02:22:13] Speaker 2: They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket.
[02:22:16] Speaker 1: They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can't afford to buy a ticket. They can afford to buy a ticket. They can afford to buy a ticket. They can afford to buy a ticket.
[02:22:21] Speaker 2: They can afford to buy a ticket.
[02:22:22] Speaker 1: They can afford to buy a ticket. They can afford to buy a ticket. They can afford to buy a ticket. They can afford to buy a ticket. They can afford to buy a ticket. They can afford to buy a ticket. They can afford to buy a ticket.
[02:22:29] Speaker 2: They can afford to buy a ticket. They can afford to buy a ticket. They can afford to buy a ticket. They can afford to buy a ticket. They can afford to buy a ticket. They can afford to buy a ticket. They can afford to buy a ticket.
[02:22:36] Speaker 1: They can afford to buy a ticket. They can afford to buy a ticket.
[02:22:38] Speaker 2: They can afford to buy a ticket. They can afford to buy a ticket. They can afford to buy a ticket. They can afford to buy a ticket. They can afford to buy a ticket. They can afford to buy a ticket. They can afford to buy a ticket. They can afford to buy a ticket. They can afford to buy a ticket. They can afford to buy a ticket.
[02:22:56] Speaker 1: They can afford to buy a ticket. They can afford to buy a ticket.
[02:22:58] Speaker 2: They can afford to buy a ticket. They can afford to buy a ticket. They can afford to buy a ticket. They can afford to buy a ticket. They can afford to buy a ticket. They can afford to buy a ticket. They can afford to buy a ticket. They can afford to buy a ticket.
[02:23:06] Speaker 1: They can afford to buy a ticket. They can afford to buy a ticket.
[02:23:08] Speaker 2: They can afford to buy a ticket.
[02:23:09] Speaker 1: They can afford to buy a ticket. They can afford to buy a ticket. They can afford to buy a ticket. They can afford to buy a ticket.
[02:23:13] Speaker 2: They can afford to buy a ticket. They can afford to buy a ticket. They can afford to buy a ticket. They can afford to buy a ticket. They can afford to buy a ticket.
[02:23:26] Speaker 1: They can afford to buy a ticket. They can afford to buy a ticket. They can afford to buy a ticket. They can afford to buy a ticket. They can afford to buy a ticket. They can afford to buy a ticket. They can afford to buy a ticket. They can afford to buy a ticket. They can afford to buy a ticket. They can afford to buy a ticket. They can afford to buy a ticket. They can afford to buy a ticket.
[02:23:38] Speaker ?: They can afford to buy a ticket. They can afford to buy a ticket. They can afford to buy a ticket.
[02:23:41] Speaker 2: They can afford to buy a ticket. They can afford to buy a ticket. They can afford to buy a ticket. They can afford to buy a ticket.
[02:23:45] Speaker 1: They can afford to buy a ticket. They can afford to buy a ticket. They can afford to buy a ticket.
[02:23:56] Speaker 2: Lisa had the sheet out. You walked by her earlier. I'm not looking at you.
[02:23:59] Speaker 1: You are cheating. The allegations of malfeasance are flying. And I want to let the viewers and listeners know I am not cheating at this game.
[02:24:06] Speaker 2: Says the man who accuses me of cheating on a biweekly basis.
[02:24:07] Speaker 4: Lisa, Lisa, what are these categories? Let's get to the coins. Okay, so for those of you who have never played with us, here's how it works. They have 30 chips in front of them, 30 each. And they're going to base those poker chips. Yes, poker chips. There you go. And we have three categories. So they're going to base how much they're going to bet on each category. How do you feel confident about each category? All right? You've been doing the 10 across the board, David. It's been working for you.
[02:24:31] Speaker 1: Well, I didn't do it last week. I did like 30 on one and that was really stupid.
[02:24:34] Speaker 5: So he learned his lesson. I'm going to go.
[02:24:37] Speaker 1: Let's get to the categories. All right, what do we got? Hold on.
[02:24:40] Speaker 4: AI is the first category. Okay. Second category is securities fraud. And third category is movies. Okay. So where do you feel more confident?
[02:24:48] Speaker 2: I saw securities fraud story and I'm not sure I read it. I'm going to go to that there. I'm going to do. I'm doing my usual. I'm doing 10, 10, 10. 10 on AI.
[02:24:55] Speaker 1: Okay.
[02:24:56] Speaker 2: None on securities fraud. Zero on securities fraud.
[02:24:58] Speaker 1: And then 20 on movies.
[02:25:00] Speaker 4: I'm not feeling great about that. Good strategy. Good strategy. Okay. Ready for your first question? So ready. Let's get to AI. Okay. Chip makers have discovered that the cooling ability of which lab grown stone is superior to copper and aluminum. Woo hoo. Lab grown stone. Where have you been hearing a lot about lab grown stone? I don't know. I drew a little visual aid for you. Really?
[02:25:23] Speaker 1: I wrote. She drew a picture too. Crystals. What did you get? Diamonds.
[02:25:28] Speaker 4: Diamonds.
[02:25:29] Speaker 1: David. Oh, for God's sake.
[02:25:31] Speaker 4: Yes. Can AI get more expensive, please? Maybe. You can't reduce those diamonds. They jumped as much as 50% in a matter of days because of this news.
[02:25:38] Speaker 1: I'm telling you. I hear you can't tell the difference now between lab grown diamonds and the real thing.
[02:25:41] Speaker 4: No. And I have to say, the diamond did fall out of my engagement ring when we were away in Washington. And I think I might be going.
[02:25:48] Speaker 1: I forgot this wild story, Lisa. And I never followed up on it.
[02:25:51] Speaker 5: The diamond fell out and I lost it. So, Mama Mateo may be going for the lab grown replacement. Lisa.
[02:25:57] Speaker 1: I feel so sad that that has remained lost. Yes. You mentioned that and it was a chaotic weekend. It's so horrible.
[02:26:03] Speaker 5: All right. Live grown.
[02:26:05] Speaker 1: It's fine. If you found a diamond at the Washington Hilton, you can send it to take care of Bloomberg.
[02:26:09] Speaker 2: We didn't have a bad enough weekend.
[02:26:11] Speaker 5: Lisa also lost her ring. Wow. Okay. Securities fraud. Let's move on so I can forget about this. Oh, my gosh.
[02:26:17] Speaker 4: Okay. Investor Andrew Left was found guilty of securities fraud. Yeah. What trading strategy is Left best known for? I know this one, too.
[02:26:24] Speaker 5: What is the trading strategy called? It's definitely not because it was in a movie. That's why she knows. Hey, whatever it takes. Whatever it takes.
[02:26:33] Speaker 24: Whatever it takes.
[02:26:34] Speaker 5: I put nothing on this. You should go first. Short selling. Short selling. Oh, both of you. You got it right.
[02:26:40] Speaker 4: Correct, correct, correct. Also, that story was absolutely everywhere. It was. He's found guilty of using social media posts to manipulate stocks. And that's the issue. That's a no-no. Okay, so how are we doing on points-wise? Oh, I have like all of my little chips here. Okay, she has all. David, are you missing some of your chips? I am missing 10 of them. I did cede them back to Lisa Mateo.
[02:26:54] Speaker 1: Okay. We're ready for this next category of movies. All right. You better hope you know this.
[02:26:58] Speaker 5: You gave them to me. Okay.
[02:27:00] Speaker 4: This is where we're going to do good. Okay. Backrooms. Have you heard of the movie? Thank God. That's the title I couldn't remember. Yes. Okay, yes. It earned $118 million on its opening weekend. What genre of internet horror folklore is it based on? Great. Oh, it's...
[02:27:15] Speaker 1: Internet horror folklore?
[02:27:16] Speaker 2: Yes. It's such a weird term.
[02:27:18] Speaker 4: This is like a weird name.
[02:27:19] Speaker 1: It's a weird name? Yes.
[02:27:21] Speaker 4: Well, I've lost it. It's a genre of internet horror folklore. What is it based on? I don't know if this is right. Okay. This is a tough one.
[02:27:29] Speaker 2: I know. I know the movie. I literally saw this and thought, Lisa's going to use this for pointed. And I can't remember if I got it right or not.
[02:27:35] Speaker 1: I wrote ScareTube. ScareTube?
[02:27:37] Speaker 2: What did you write? Oh. It's... I couldn't remember if it's creepy spaghetti or creepypasta. Creepypasta! I got it right. You're totally right.
[02:27:44] Speaker 4: Awesome. Okay, you have to explain this to me. Cool, everyone. I don't. I don't know what it is. I just saw the term. I don't understand what it is. It's called that because memes with the genre offerings spread via Control-C and Control-V, which is paste. So maybe... It's like Control-V duplicating it. The literal keyboard strokes? Maybe, because it's creepy. Copy-paste. Any younger people in our controller know what this is? I'm trying, people. I'm trying. The youngins. I'm really trying. The youngins, I know. Have you watched these movies? No, but Obsession was the other one from a YouTube filmmaker that my son was really talking about. He's like, you've got to see this movie, Mom. Do you see it?
[02:28:17] Speaker 2: No. No. Yeah, I do know it started on YouTube. I don't do scary. And it's now being distributed by Ace24, which is a very big company. Yes. And it's like, what, isn't it like the number one movie right now? No.
[02:28:25] Speaker 1: It is really... You've seen none of these movies?
[02:28:27] Speaker 2: No. I don't do like that kind of horror. I'll do like... Too scary. No, I just...
[02:28:32] Speaker 1: Too gripping. Too emotionally heavy.
[02:28:34] Speaker 5: Okay, you know what? Lisa, what's the bonus question? Too scary. All right. Bonus is protein. Yes.
[02:28:40] Speaker 1: Okay. I'm so excited for this. I've got nothing to wager or live for here.
[02:28:44] Speaker 5: Is this about...
[02:28:45] Speaker 4: This is about the shortage? A dietary craze caused shortages of which cheese byproduct... I'm having a good week.
[02:28:52] Speaker 1: Cheese byproduct.
[02:28:53] Speaker 4: That's found in caramel protein lattes. Think about your nursery rhymes. High-protein waffles. Oh. Okay.
[02:28:59] Speaker 1: I know this. You do? I know my nursery rhymes. Yeah, that's a pretty big hint.
[02:29:03] Speaker 5: You're doing... Not so good. I want you to feel included.
[02:29:06] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[02:29:07] Speaker 5: What is this cheese byproduct? Do you use this?
[02:29:10] Speaker 1: Do you enjoy it? Oh, I enjoy it every morning.
[02:29:12] Speaker 2: In your exercise routine? Yes. I've got to get better about this. Lisa yells at me about my protein intake all the time.
[02:29:17] Speaker 5: There we go. Whey. Whey. You guys are right.
[02:29:21] Speaker 1: Yes. No way. How do you decide what to take of all these things? What, for protein? Yeah. How do you do the tubs of this stuff?
[02:29:27] Speaker 4: Yeah. I go, I don't know. I look at, like, different things. Calories, too. How much sodium is in it sometimes, too. But it's all, like, the protein craze. So now, like, these companies are starting to alter what they put. Like, how much whey? Maybe we can find something else. Maybe they'll use pre-protein instead of, like, the whey protein. Pre-protein. It's a lot.
[02:29:44] Speaker 2: I have to say, I'm very suspicious of protein being in things that it doesn't need to be in. Like, not like a shake or a bar. But, like, yes, our EP just says Doritos. I don't eat protein in my Doritos. Or your Starbucks. I don't need protein in my clear Starbucks drink. Like, I find that-- I don't know. It seems too chemical-y for me. It's a marketing thing, I feel like. Yeah. I don't know how effective it really is. If you just say it has it, you'll buy it. So I'm going to just go home with all of my-- Well, that happens.
[02:30:06] Speaker 1: You can test your knowledge on all 10 questions. The Pointed News Quiz is available on the Bloomberg Business app.
[02:30:11] Speaker 2: I'm going to keep making this out for our radio listeners.
[02:30:13] Speaker 1: At Bloomberg.com/pointed.
[02:30:14] Speaker 2: I want to make sure our radio listeners can--
[02:30:15] Speaker 1: Do you want to thank our fine viewers and listeners for their attention? All right.
[02:30:18] Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us on Bloomberg this weekend. Tomorrow, we're going to have live coverage from the International Air Transportation Association Conference in Brazil with some of our colleagues doing some great live interviews there. We hope you'll join us starting at 7:00 a.m. I'm Christina Ruffini.
[02:30:31] Speaker 1: I'm David Guerrero.