NYC Casinos Could Become World's Biggest; Atlanta Embraces Soccer

0:01Bloomberg Audio Studios Podcast Radio News. You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast. Catch us live weekdays at noon and 5 p.m. Eastern on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. Listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts or watch us live on YouTube. No longer in Washington, at least for the remainder of the afternoon, is President Trump, who departed Washington earlier today and has actually just touched down via Marine One after Air Force One landed in Texas earlier in Kerrville. Texas, where he will be surveying some of the damage in areas affected by last week's devastating flooding.

0:43And of course, we'll be meeting with state and local officials participating in a roundtable this afternoon in the aftermath of this tragedy with more than 170 people still unaccounted for. We want to get the latest and turn to our Texas Bureau Chief. Bloomberg's Julie Fine is joining us from Dallas. So Julie, just walk us through, if you could, what we expect to see from President Trump's visit this afternoon. Well, you already saw him with the governor, with the senators clearly trying to show unity in this situation. Now he'll sit down with a roundtable and he's going to get a briefing and he's really going to learn firsthand.

1:18I mean, he's gotten the briefings at the White House. He's gotten the briefings from FEMA. He's gotten all these briefings, but he's going to really sit down and get a real look into what's happening in Texas. And what's going to happen for a long time forward, this cleanup should take a very, very long time. A disaster declaration was declared for several surrounding counties today as well. He's going to really see the work ahead. Then he will go and actually tour the damage site, which the media has been through now. You've seen it from the air as well. It's devastating. You will see cabins.

1:54You will see really debris that a human being is very hard to fathom. So that's what's ahead today. You wonder exactly how that's going to affect the president and the first lady, for that matter, when they see it. Julie, there has been a call for flood alarms to be put in this area. It's not the first time we've heard this. But Governor Abbott, who I know you're in contact with, is calling for this to be adopted during a special legislative session. President Trump telling NBC News he supports that. Will it happen? I think it will happen in this session. I mean, I think there will be a little back and forth with the details involved with it and the actual funding of it.

2:35But when you have the governor and the lieutenant governor on record saying we are going to get this done, you have lawmakers in in just about a week now, it will be very difficult for them not to take some very serious action in the aftermath of this. Well, and when we consider the aftermath of this and how it's going to inform policy decisions, not just in Texas, but federally going forward, Julie, as we have questions around what the administration's intention is when it comes to FEMA, is there a sense in Texas that the aftermath of this could be properly managed by the state alone? Or is it necessary that FEMA is on the ground there right now?

3:14Well, I'm certain that they want FEMA here right now. I mean, I saw a local official the other day saying simply anybody that wants to be here that can volunteer and help, we want you here. So certainly FEMA being here is going to help in the aftermath. You have to look at Joe and Kaylee, how much money and support is going to be needed for such a long period of time. I mean, the Hill Country is an extremely popular destination for people in the summer. But there are also people that live there. There's also an economy. It's 55 ,000 people. So obviously not a huge city. But there's an economy there that is going to need to be rebuilt, essentially, outside of the city.

3:57So FEMA definitely will be needed. I imagine the governor will be reaching out as well. Now, Texas does have a very large response. Sadly, this is a state that's had to really manage quite a few of these type of tornado-type rain situations. because of the weather here and the topography. Julie, thank you so much for the great reporting. Our Texas Bureau Chief, Julie Fine. You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast. Catch us live weekdays at noon and 5 p.m. Eastern on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station.

4:36Just say, Alexa, play Bloomberg 1130. Heard about the tomato tariffs, Kaylee? Yeah, they're coming. 17 % Mexican tomatoes starting Monday. So start stockpiling the salsa, I guess. Congresswoman Gwen Moore is watching all of this from her perch in Wisconsin's 4th District. Democratic Congresswoman is with us right now live on Bloomberg TV and radio. It's great to see you, Representative Moore. Welcome back. Are you stockpiling tomatoes ahead of next week? How do we deal with these tariffs? Well, I tell you, I do have a tomato plant outside my back door, just in case. You're doing it right, apparently.

5:18How concerned are you about the impact this could have on Wisconsin? Of course, a major agriculture state, a major dairy state, as we enter a whole new level of trade war, it seems, with Canada. Well, of course, I'm very concerned. Years ago, I asked my youngest granddaughter where food came from it. She said, pick and save. So I got worried then. You know, the whole food supply chain is going to be disrupted. Everything from farmers planting their foods to actually people who will need and rely on SNAP. And so this will affect grocers, people who have jobs bagging groceries, inflation, the cost of groceries, and our farmers.

6:05And the only way that this president seems to be able to address these things is to try to provide a subsidy for agriculture workers or to declare that he is not going to deport Mexican migrants who might be working as agricultural workers. This is a real big stretch in terms of saving our economy and lowering costs. Well, Congresswoman, I would mention in our audience on Bloomberg TV, as well as on YouTube, can see this now. President Trump has just landed in Texas alongside First Lady Melania Trump. They, of course, are now heading into the helicopter and they'll begin viewing some of the damaged areas in and around Kerrville, Texas, from last weekend's devastating floods.

6:47When we consider Congresswoman the future of FEMA, knowing President Trump has up until recently called for essentially its dismantling and sending that responsibility back to the states, do you believe that that policy pursuit is one that he will still actively pursue? Or could this disaster actually spell a second chance for FEMA as it currently stands? Well, I guess I wish I could predict what President Trump was going to do, because I would not have predicted that FEMA would have been destroyed when we have seen a time and again, whether you believe in climate change or not. The environment would be shifty, cause tornadoes, all kinds of 500-year weather conditions.

7:31And surprise, surprise, this storm was yet another aggression on the part of Mother Nature and a warning not to dismantle emergency services. I heard President Trump say, I wouldn't have even blamed Joe Biden for this. But I'm telling you that there's nothing like preparedness and nothing like being able to reach people on several different platforms to warn them to escape. And so I think that it's fine for him to be there with his wife. That's where any president should be, and maybe better late than never. But I think that the agony and misery of this community is going to continue long after the cameras are gone and long after Air Force One leaves.

8:24Well, it is pretty heartbreaking to consider 170 people still missing. Congresswoman Texas is one of many states that has seen an influx in ICE raids. Of course, Texas is a border state and is no stranger to immigration security here. But I want to ask you about some of the raids that we have been seeing in many cases by unmarked and masked individuals who are purportedly with ICE, or sometimes it's hard to tell Border Patrol Department of Homeland Security. You just signed a letter urging ICE to not deport undocumented victims of crime. Did you hear a response from the federal government, from the administration on this?

9:02Is there anything your office can do to help them? No, the response is hopefully forthcoming. There's nothing more frightening to me than think of someone throwing a bag over my head and dragging me away. This is so un-American to not announce which law enforcement agent you are, demonstrating your badge number, and that you have the authority to take people into custody. This is very chilling, And I think it's being done deliberately to replicate the tactics of authoritarian regimes. This is totally unacceptable and it defies people's, you know, I'm not an attorney, but I would think that if you need a warrant, you would at least need to disclose who you are as a law enforcement person.

9:56This is totally unacceptable. tool. Well, Congressman, when we consider ICE will be getting more funding along with Customs and Border Patrol due to the one big, beautiful bill that just passed and all the various components in it, with the passage of that bill, with the potential passage of now a rescissions package that could very well happen in the Senate, do Democrats have any incentive to deal with Republicans for a government funding deal? Well, we always have an incentive to do our job if we're allowed to do our job. You know, the thing about the package now is that it's the largest border bill that we have seen in history.

10:35And I don't know that it's always directed at the right equipment. Democrats have long been for more electronic surveillance, more human beings to actually evaluate and separate the sheep from the goat, as it were, at the border. We have always erred on the side of more border security. But the building the optics of putting people, surrounding them by alligators, this is costly. It costs so much money to the optics. Alcatraz, for example, it costs more money than it's worth in terms of incarcerating people. I think that the overkill is not only bad for people's personal rights, but for our budget.

11:32All right, Congresswoman, we appreciate your time. As always, Democratic Congresswoman Gwen Moore representing Wisconsin's 4th District here with us on Balance of Power.

11:52Listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts or watch us live on YouTube. We also wanted to focus on a subject area the president actually spoke about with reporters before departing Washington for Texas. He was talking about immigration, Joe, and a direct quote from the president in his remarks this morning. We're getting the criminals out and we're getting them out fast. Now, as we know, a lot of the people who have been arrested as part of these efforts in the administration to arrest and deport people do not necessarily have criminal records. And also their means at getting to these people have frequently been to raid workplaces.

12:28That's true. And this has been a byproduct of Stephen Miller's urging of ICE and immigration officials to increase the number of detentions per week, per month that are still running below what we saw in the Biden and Obama administrations. There was a big raid yesterday, Kaylee, California, in which tear gas was sprayed at protesters. They were going after a cannabis grow facility, I guess, in Southern California. Footage taken that we've taken a look at show them executing criminal search warrants. They say they got 10 juveniles, eight of them unaccompanied, found at one of the facilities raided that all of them were in the country illegally.

13:10When we talk about these raids, we discussed this earlier in the hour with Congresswoman Gwen Moore. In many cases, these agents are masked and are wearing plain clothes, making it very confusing for the people who are there. You see a call on social media. Citizens come protect the immigrants who are being targeted, and things get pretty ugly pretty quick. And it's part of the conversation that we wanted to have with Wendy Edelberg, who's a senior fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution, former chief economist, incidentally, at the CBO, the Congressional Budget Office. We could talk about a couple of things here.

13:40Wendy, welcome. It's good to see you. As we consider the impact that this policy is having on our workforce and our economy, when you hear stories like this, the chill could go much further than the people who were at that site. What does that mean for workers? Absolutely. I mean, so let me first say, I'm coming at this as an economist. That's my lane. So I'll talk about the economic effects, but I think those are dwarfed by just the visceral effect as an American looking at these images. I think that effect is far more important and far bigger than I think what's going to sound like pretty modest economic effects that I'm about to discuss.

14:18So with some colleagues, we put out a report not so long ago, where we think that it's more than likely that as a result of this immigration policy, we will have negative net migration, which is to say more people leaving the country than entering the country this year for the first time in many decades. And that's going to mean a smaller economy. And that's going to mean a labor market with numbers that are going to be not so recognizable, really startling labor market numbers as we go forward. Well, and we've seen that in the past several jobs reports when we're thinking of the share of the foreign-born workforce, that number is going down and it's going down substantially, raising the question of who replaces those workers.

15:02Wendy, who does, who can, who's willing to. So let's first step back a bit and talk about what's probably happening in the labor market right now. So I appreciate that the published statistics are showing things about, you know, share of foreign born and the like. Those statistics, while, you know, I don't mean to impugn them at all. These are large changes that are happening right now. And those statistics are probably not fully catching up with what's happening. My guess, my analysis suggests that the surge in immigration over the past few years is actually still pushing up labor supply. And the reason I say that is because there's a big swath of immigrants that are new to this country that are eligible to apply for work permits.

15:48And we have seen a surge in those work permit applications. And while approval rates are down, like, for example, between April and May, this administration approved almost 700 ,000 work permits for recent immigrants. And so I think one of the reasons that we've seen such strong employment numbers over the past few months, on average, 150 ,000, I think that that is because labor supply is still being pushed up by the recent surge in immigration. but we can't ride that wave forever. And we're probably just about at the moment that that increase in labor supply comes to an end. And we start seeing payroll employment numbers that are closer to like 30 ,000 a month, 10 ,000 a month in a year or so.

16:37We could start seeing payroll employment numbers that are negative and that will be like a healthy, sustainable, full employment labor market. just with declining labor supply and so declining employment. So what does that mean for participation and the unemployment rate? So there's going to be some near-term gyrations. A year from now, though, to your point, if we're in a negative growth on payrolls, what's the rest of the job market look like? So I think the rest of the – this is going to be the cognitive dissonance, the thing that's going to be really hard about understanding the labor market that this policy has created.

17:17It could well be that we have a healthy labor market, an unemployment rate that starts with a four. Starts with a four? Starts with a four. It could be a nice, healthy labor market. But just we have a shrinking labor supply, and that just means shrinking employment. There are other economies. Are wages through the roof in that world? For a time, again, I think for a time, I think that there will be near-term gyrations. We're going to see stronger wage growth in some occupations, stronger wage growth in the agricultural sector, stronger wage growth for home health workers. But I think other parts of the economy, and particularly some cities, some areas, are actually going to see big reductions in consumer demand.

18:08We're already seeing this in some areas where we're seeing big raids on immigrant communities. And businesses there are complaining that they're seeing much less demand for their products. Those businesses are going to lower their prices. They're going to lay off workers and there you're going to have deflationary effects. I want to focus on the labor supply issue you're referring to, because we know there are people on the sidelines in this. That's why we don't have a full labor market participation. The Ag Secretary, Brooke Rollins, suggested in an interview this week that if you take the agricultural sector, for example, and the workforce that may be lost by migrants, that there are people who could replace those workers, people who need to work in order to be eligible for Medicaid.

18:53Do you expect that that actually is a dynamic that will take place, that that kind of changes to how you're able to access Medicaid could bring people off the sidelines? So it's the theory of the case. I mean, I'll say there's a lot of economic analysis that suggests that if you make people poor enough and desperate enough, they will work. So I get it. If we decimate the safety net, we will increase labor supply. I don't know that it will happen nearly enough to replace the hundreds of thousands of immigrants that we're talking about no longer being in this country or not coming. And I'll also say one of the reasons why I'm skeptical that this will be a huge effect is that the labor market has been quite strong for some time.

19:50and it has been a pretty good time to get a job. And we've seen stronger labor force participation among some groups, but those groups have actually largely been women who have increased their labor force participation rates. There's some excellent work coming out of the Hamilton Project at Brookings showing that labor force participation among women has been particularly strong. Even this strong labor market has not been enough to get these prime age men off the sidelines. So I'm not sure that incrementally stronger wage growth is going to have some cataclysmic effect. But yes, if you make people desperate enough, they will work.

20:32All right, Wendy, really great to have you. Appreciate the conversation. Wendy Edelberg, Senior Fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution and former Chief Economist at the Congressional Budget Office here with us in Washington. Much appreciate the time. You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast. Catch us live weekdays at noon and 5 p.m. Eastern on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station. Just say Alexa, play Bloomberg 1130. Are you going to see the new Superman movie this weekend?

21:05Everybody is all excited about Superman, right? The dog, Crypto. The latest take on this iconic brand. Yeah, DC Comics, but a different wrinkle now. Now James Gunn, the Marvel guy, is making it. It's supposed to be a more up-to-date, inspiring, optimistic take on the old tale. Guys like me who grew up with Christopher Reeves are supposed to love this stuff. As you can see on YouTube, the White House, well, I guess has its own version of Superman. Donald Trump in the full outfit, as you can see, taking off into the heavens. I'm going to sort of walk you back here a little bit because James Gunn's been doing a lot of press as I read in what is the best story on the terminal today by the great Jason Bailey.

21:54The headline, Superman immigrant backlash is comically misguided. James Gunn said a couple of things in some of the media interviews he's been doing. Superman, he said, is the story of America. He told the London Times, quote, an immigrant that came from other places and populated the country, unquote. Populated the country. This has created this big woke backlash against the Superman movie. Because, well, nothing is simple anymore. Big expose on Fox News. It's set social media on fire. From the far right rage machine, in Jason's words. Hence, the post on social media today from the White House.

22:38We see that again. President Trump as Superman. look at him taking off. He doesn't like dogs though, so I guess there's no crypto. Of course, Donald Trump has a history of this. He's been dressing up as a lot of different things in social media. Remember when he showed up as Rocky just a couple of years ago? Well, that was 2019. Looks pretty good with the belt, I have to admit. But as Jason Bailey writes, the idea that Superman is a previously apolitical character who has been co-opted by the political left for cultural indoctrination is comically ignorant. You know, the guys who started this, Jerry Siegel, Joe Schuster, both children of Jewish immigrants.

23:19And before we even entered World War II, they had a two-page story of Look Magazine called How Superman Would End the War, in which he literally takes Adolf Hitler by the throat. There was later a radio show, Adventures of Superman, a 16 episode arc called clan of the fiery cross in which superman took on the kkk so jason makes the point that there's not a lot new here and i'm really glad that he's with us bloomberg opinion guest columnist he's a film critic and historian and author of the book gandolfini jim tony and the life of a legend jason i can tell i like you already and i appreciate you're coming to talk to me here on bloomberg are you surprised to see the woke backlash this This is speaking for not really Superman, but the political climate we're in here, right?

24:04Right. I mean, you kind of put your finger on it earlier. You know, nothing is simple anymore. Nothing is what it appears, what its intentions may or may not be. Everything is up for sort of a deep read that's usually comprised of a kind of bad faith. And, you know, I knew earlier this year, I actually wrote a different Bloomberg editorial about this, that when Snow White, the Snow White remake tanked and suddenly people were eagerly ascribing it to making it an Israel and Palestine issue, I was like, oh, we really sort of crossed the Rubicon here. So I'm unsurprised. I'm especially not surprised.

24:48These debates run rampant throughout popular culture, but especially in the sort of superhero movie world, which speaks first you know to their cultural ubiquity like these really are typically the biggest blockbusters the movies that everyone sees and thus has an opinion on um but they are also typically loaded um for these kinds of readings for a lot of the reasons that we're seeing with the superman controversy so you're a you're a film critic you understand the business of Hollywood and you don't see them in your column to feel that this is going to hurt box office receipts for this movie.

25:28So are people just talking out of their hats and then going to see the movie? How does that come together? I mean, I think it's very easy to sort of overestimate the effect that a small number of extremely loud voices can have. and the way that I put it in the column was that these takes, the likes of which we're seeing on Fox News and Daily Wire and places like that, they generate clicks they generate the enthusiasm of that audience that goes to those outlets, but those probably aren't the audience for these things anyway the best sort of example that I've found was recalling the hullabaloo from a lot of the same people over barbie a couple of years back um and the sort of the the what what were in that case much more explicitly stated uh themes of feminism and diversity and that sort of thing and uh you know people like ben shapiro are saying nobody's gonna go see this movie and then it literally breaks box office records you know and then someone posted today someone found a clip of him the like the weekend after barbie came out saying well you're gonna see a second weekend drop off on this like no one's ever seen and like there was no second weekend drop off it's just you know it's it's somewhat performative i'm sure that in their heart of hearts these people are genuinely angry that every single work of popular art doesn't speak specifically to them.

27:08But a lot of it is generating traffic, generating rage clicks, generating advertiser dollars. It's exhausting. Rage clicks. It's exhausting. Got a life. These are the same people who are going to go see the movie. That's the best part. Jason, really appreciate. Jason Bailey is a film critic whose work has appeared as well in the New York Times Vulture playlist Slate and the Rolling Stone. How did we find you at Bloomberg? This is great, Jason. Come back and see us again. Look for him on the terminal and online as we assemble our political panel. Little did Jeannie Shanzano and Rick Davis know they'd be diving into this right now.

27:44Bloomberg Politics contributors. Jeannie, senior democracy fellow with the Center for the Study of the Presidency in Congress. Rick is Republican strategist partner at Stonecourt Capital. And we'll get to the tariffs and the other policy coming up in our second hour, guys. But how about Superman and crypto here? Jeannie, what do you make of the woke outrage over this movie. Did you read you one tweet or X that I saw, Joe, because it encapsulates it. Somebody said that Superman wasn't an illegal immigrant. He was an unaccompanied refugee minor because he was immediately adopted, even though he was born in Kryptonian.

28:20So people are really going to town on this, the level of detail. You know, we're seeing a lot of MAGA backlash, and it's not just against this movie from a policy perspective. We're seeing it against the poor agriculture secretary, Brooke Rollins, and the president for considering even amnesty for migrant workers. And so it's, you know, they take the promises the president made very seriously, and they are pushing back at any attempt, either by him or apparently filmmakers, to tell a different story or pursue a different policy. And I would say, though, that the Superman filmmakers are very much in keeping with public opinion polls, which show that people in the United States, at least, are largely supportive of immigration.