US Calls Ukraine Talks Productive; Trump Teases Fed Chair Pick

0:00Hello, I'm Stephen Carroll. I'm in Brussels where many of Europe's biggest decisions get made. And I'm Caroline Hepker in London with the hosts of the Bloomberg Daybreak Europe podcast. We're up early every weekday keeping an eye on what's happening across Europe and around the world. We do it early so the news is fresh, not recycled and so you know what actually matters as the day gets going. From Brussels, I'm following the politics, policy and the people shaping the European Union right now. And from London, I'm looking at what all that means for markets, money and the wider economy. We've got reporters across Europe and around the globe feeding in as stories break.

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1:02Bloomberg Audio Studios. Podcasts. Radio. News. Good morning. I'm Nathan Hager. And I'm Karen Moscow. Here are the stories we're following today. Karen, we begin with the latest on efforts to end the war in Ukraine. U.S. and Ukrainian negotiators say they had productive discussions around a framework for a peace deal, but there was no final breakthrough. The sides discussed potential parameters for a ceasefire as they poured over a 19-point proposal that emerged in Geneva last week. Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke with reporters in Florida. So this is not just about ending a war. This is about ending a war in a way that creates a mechanism and a way forward that will allow them to be independent and sovereign, never have another war again, and create tremendous prosperity for its people.

1:49Not just rebuild the country, but to enter an era of extraordinary economic progress. It's a country with Ukraine has tremendous economic potential. Ukraine has tremendous opportunity for true prosperity. That was Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Bloomberg Chief Europe correspondent Oliver Crook has more on the push for peace in Ukraine. The good news for the Ukrainians is that they are now working with Marco Rubio, who is somebody who has a more sort of principled and ideological worldview in terms of geopolitics, probably more sympathetic to the idea that Russia poses an actual national security threat to the United States, unlike a number of other officials within the U.S.

2:23administration quite so much. The bad news is, of course, that they lost their chief negotiator on Friday, Andrei Uramak, the number two of Zelensky, who's really stood shoulder to shoulder, one of the great confidants to President Zelensky, all due to this corruption scandal. Bloomberg's Oliver Crook says the next steps will be decided in follow-up meetings, depending on the outcome of U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff's talks in Moscow. The TASS News Agency in Russia says Witkoff will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin tomorrow. Well, Nathan, a software glitch that has threatened to disrupt a big portion of the global aviation system is close to being resolved.

2:58Airbus says the vast majority of its A320 planes have received the necessary update to their ELAG-2 computers. The planemaker says fewer than 100 planes still need the fix before they can return to service. Bloomberg's Benedict Camel reports this recall could have been a lot worse. There has been some disruption, but not on the scale that we first feared when this statement came out on Friday. And we heard that about 6 ,000 aircraft are impacted. You have to remember this is the most widely flown plane on the planet. Millions of people rely on it every day. So if you hear that more than half the active fleet of those planes is impacted, we were wondering whether this would really cause sort of global mayhem.

3:38That has not happened. Bloomberg's Benedict Camel reports most of the planes simply needed to return to an earlier version of that software that helps maintain their flight controls. Airbus says only a small number of planes require more complex attention, and checking shares of Airbus, they are down more than 3%. Now, Karen, let's get to the latest on the investigation into the National Guard shooting in Washington, D.C. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem says authorities believe the Afghan suspect, 29-year-old Rahmanullah Lockenwall, was radicalized in this country. We do believe it was through connections in his home community and state, and we're going to continue to talk to those who interacted with him, who were his family members that talked to them.

4:18So far, we've had some participation. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem appeared on NBC's Meet the Press, heard every Sunday on Bloomberg Radio. Lock and Wall is facing a first-degree murder charge in the death of 20-year-old West Virginia Guard member Sarah Beckstrom. He was granted asylum earlier this year after leaving Afghanistan in 2021. Now President Trump is promising to pause all asylum decisions for a long time. We don't want those people. Does that make sense? You know why we don't want them? because many have been no good and they shouldn't be in our country. President Trump spoke with reporters aboard Air Force One.

4:51Secretary Noem is suggesting asylum decisions could resume once a backlog of one and a half million pending cases is cleared. Well, Nathan, President Trump says he's decided on his pick for the next Federal Reserve chair. The president spoke to reporters on Air Force One. Are you any closer on that right now? I know who I'm going to pick. Who does it, Kevin Hassett? I'm not telling you. And sources say Trump's chief economic advisor, Kevin Hassett, is seen as the likely choice to succeed current Fed Chair Jay Powell. Well, let's turn back to the markets now, Karen. Futures are lower as we begin a new trading week and the final trading month of 2025.

5:28The S &P 500 is coming off five straight days of gains to close out November. Andrew Slimmon is senior portfolio manager at Morgan Stanley Investment Management. It is momentum and revisions. And the reality of the market is that earnings, i.e. revisions, are very strong right now because the economy, for all the talk, earnings have come in better than what really Wall Street thought certainly since April, but even since the beginning of the year. Morgan Stanley's Andrew Slimmon. The MSCI All Country World Index fell a tenth of one percent in November after rising for seven straight months. Well, Nathan, Bitcoin is starting the new month under pressure once again.

6:11Right now, the cryptocurrency is trading at$86 ,800. Bitcoin lost almost 17 percent of its value in November. Traders say a key support level for Bitcoin is$80 ,000. On the flip side, Karen, Silver is trading at a record this morning. Traders are replacing speculative bets on the white metal, given ongoing supply tightness and rising expectations for an interest rate cut from the Fed. Silver's up more than 2 % this morning, and copper advanced to a record high on the London Metal Exchange on fears the global market is headed for a supply crunch. And oil is trading higher, Nathan. It is up more than 2%.

6:50It's at$59.75 a barrel. That's a NYMEX crew. And Brent is at$63.58. A key pipeline linking Kazakh fields to Russia's Black Sea coast was attacked over the weekend. Meanwhile, OPEC Plus is sticking with plans to pause production increases amid growing signs of a surplus in global oil markets. The group agreed to keep group-wide quotas steady next year and approved a mechanism for a review of individual oil production capacities. Oil is down about 17 percent so far this year.

7:25Time now for a look at some of the other stories making news in New York and around the world. And for that, we're joined by Bloomberg's Monica Ricks. Monica, good morning. Hey, good morning, Karen. President Trump is now defending Pete Hegseth against accusations made by The Washington Post this weekend, which claimed the defense secretary ordered multiple strikes on suspected drug boats in the Caribbean, including one that killed survivors. Trump says Hegseth denied it. We'll look into it. But no, I wouldn't have wanted that. Not a second strike. The first strike was very lethal. It was fine.

7:55And if there were two people around, but Pete said that didn't happen. I have great confidence. Lawmakers from both parties now say they support congressional reviews of these strikes. Republican Nebraska Congressman Don Bacon. I don't think he would be foolish enough to make this decision to say, kill everybody, kill the survivors, because that's a clear violation of the law of war. Bacon on ABC News. The Pentagon hasn't commented, but Hegseth did call the article inflammatory on X. The manhunt continues for the suspect in a mass shooting at a children's party in Stockton, California. Four people were killed there, including kids as young as eight and nine years old.

8:34Sheriff Patrick Wilthrow says they're treating this as a targeted incident. I am confident in our team and with the work that we have done so far that we will find these animals that did this and bring them to justice. But we still need the public's help on this. Fifteen others were hospitalized after the shooting. The FBI has stepped in now to help find the shooter. The East Coast is getting an early taste of winter today ahead of a major snowstorm. Bloomberg meteorologist Craig Allen is tracking conditions. For tomorrow, the precip could start as some wet snow or a mix from D.C. on up to New York City and Boston, but will likely change to rain based on the current projected storm track.

9:16However, winter weather alerts are in effect for the upper Ohio Valley, the mountains of the Northeast. This includes the Poconos, Catskills, New York's Capital District and the Berkshires. And at least three to six inches of snow expected more in heavier bands. You can expect driving on I-80, 81, 84, 87, 90 and 91. It could become very challenging tomorrow. Snow caused a travel mess in the Midwest this weekend. Hundreds of flights were canceled or delayed. Global news 24 hours a day and whenever you want it with Bloomberg News Now. I'm Monica Ricks and this is Bloomberg. Karen Nathan. Thanks, Monica.

9:54Time now for our Bloomberg Sports Update. And for that, we bring in John Stashauer. Thanks, Karen. Lane Kiffin made it official leaving Ole Miss to coach LSU. It'll be the third SEC school he's coached at. Gets a seven-year deal to make$12 million a year. He will not coach Ole Miss in the college football playoff. Ole Miss has already named defensive coordinator Pete Golding as Kiffin's replacement. Saturday Night Football is in Washington. The Broncos stopped the Commanders on a two-point conversion attempt in overtime to win 27-26. It's their ninth win in a row. The Commanders' seventh straight loss.

10:27That's your Bloomberg Sports Update. Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Daybreak coming up after this. This is Special Agent Regal. Special Agent Bradley Hall. The time is approximately 11.15 a.m. About to start consensual telephone call with Dr. Daiwa Zhang. China's Ministry of State Security is one of the most mysterious and powerful spy agencies in the world. But in 2017, the FBI got inside.

11:16I've never seen that much evidence in my entire career, and I don't think we'll ever see that much evidence again. I now have several terabytes of an MSS officer, no doubt, no question, of his life. And that's a unicorn. This is a story of the inner workings of the MSS and how one man's ambition and mistakes opened its vault of secrets. Listen to The Sixth Bureau from Bloomberg Podcasts starting on February 13th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

11:56Coast to Coast on Bloomberg Radio, nationwide on Sirius XM, and around the world on Bloomberg.com and the Bloomberg Business app. This is Bloomberg Daybreak. Good morning, I'm Nathan Hager. Progress, but no breakthrough. That may be the takeaway from the latest round of peace talks between U.S. and Ukrainian negotiators over the weekend in Florida. Secretary of State Marco Rubio led the discussions. He says there is more work to be done. We don't just want to end the war. We also want to help Ukraine be safe forever. So never again will they face another invasion. And equally importantly, we want them to enter an age of true prosperity.

12:31That was Secretary of State Rubio following the latest discussions in Hallandale Beach, Florida. Joining us this morning from Brussels is Bloomberg's chief Europe correspondent, Oliver Crook. Oliver, good morning. So where do things stand after these latest talks in Florida? Well, after a week and a half, we got that 28 point plan sort of blasted out into sort of the public view. The sort of discussion since then, when it's been whittled down to a 19 point plan, has gone much more underground, much more behind closed doors. So it's very difficult to assess at this stage how close the Ukrainian, American, and Russian sides are to bridging some of these fairly large gaps between their conception of how the end of this war would look.

13:07They're, of course, the main issue of territorial concessions, which has been sort of top of the list for everybody involved in those negotiations. And then, of course, the security guarantees. How do you create an architecture to prevent the Russians from ever reinvading Ukraine? Those are the two, I think, main questions for the Ukrainian and the European side of that equation. While for the Russians, they have a litany of sort of maximalist demands that they've been sort of pushing forward. The question is on what side of that the United States will fall. Today, we will be focusing all week on the diplomacy that is going on.

13:36We have Vladimir Zelensky. He will be in Paris meeting with Emmanuel Macron later today. We understand from Russian media that Whitcoff will be meeting with President Putin tomorrow afternoon in Moscow. And then, of course, there is this NATO meeting from foreign ministers here in Brussels on Wednesday, which we understand that Marco Rubio is actually skipping. So what does that tell us about how close we are to a deal? The fact that Putin himself is expected to go to India a little bit later this week may suggest that, you know, maybe we're not within clutching distance of a deal. Would he really be doing those sorts of trips abroad if he thought that there was a deal really imminent?

14:08That is, I think, the question that we pose ourselves heading into this, remembering that Trump wanted this done by last Thursday. Obviously, the complexity of this issue is putting itself on full display. And, of course, you're in Brussels right now. How is Europe trying to insert itself into the discussions? Well, so far failing as ever to really get a seat at the table in terms of the discussions. You'll remember when that initial 28-point plan emerged sort of from the woodwork, there was all these ideas about what architecture for defense looks like in Europe, about these sort of rules that might be imposed on NATO, that basically none of these NATO European countries had been consulted on, despite the fact that there were these conversations about the future, not just of Ukrainian defense were being discussed, but actually of European defense architecture more broadly.

14:49So they've been trying to assert themselves. They've been failing to do so. The main way they might be able to assert themselves is on this question of the frozen Russian assets, 140 billion euros worth of assets that are being held, that they're talking about creating reparations loans for the Ukrainians. But of course, as you know, whenever there's a debate in Europe, it means paralysis. And there are people on both sides of this disagreement saying that we should hold off on the Russian assets because there's a peace talk going on that actually now is not the moment. and others saying that it's actually time to accelerate work.

15:17That message and that sort of debate means that nothing is getting done. And once again, the Europeans are found sitting at the sideline awaiting the sort of consensus from the United States and from Donald Trump. Just 30 seconds left here, Oliver, but the lead negotiator for Ukraine, Andrei Yermak, has resigned in a corruption investigation that stripped the country. Has that complicated things now? To a large degree. I mean, Yermak is basically de facto number two or was in Ukraine. He stood sort of shoulder to shoulder to Volodymyr Zelensky, a very trusted ally throughout this entire war. We should say he has not yet been charged with anything, but his home and his office were searched in connection with this corruption scandal dealing with some allocation of funds and basically money being embezzled by the state.

16:01So, of course, this is a terrific blow for the Zelensky administration for losing one of his key allies that he's had by his side really since they wanted this war. This is Bloomberg Daybreak, your morning podcast on the stories making news from Wall Street to Washington and beyond. Look for us on your podcast feed by 6 a.m. Eastern each morning on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere else you listen. You can also listen live each morning starting at 5 a.m. Wall Street time on Bloomberg 1130 in New York, Bloomberg 99.1 in Washington, Bloomberg 92.9 in Boston, and nationwide on Sirius XM Channel 121. Plus, listen coast to coast on the Bloomberg Business app, now with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto interfaces.

16:43And don't forget to subscribe to Bloomberg News Now. It's the latest news whenever you want it, in five minutes or less. Search Bloomberg News Now on your favorite podcast platform to stay informed all day long. I'm Karen Moscow. And I'm Nathan Hager. Join us again tomorrow morning for all the news you need to start your day right here on Bloomberg Daybreak.

17:33We'll see you next time.

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