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I'm Kailey Leinz in Washington, keeping an eye or an ear to the extent possible on President Trump, who right now is departing the White House en route to a rally in Dalton, Georgia, that he'll be partaking in this afternoon. Of course, we can't bring you the words of the president as easily as we normally would be able to, as there is no pool that is covering the president for his travels today, once again due to one member of that five-member TV pool being barred from Air Force One. There will not be the usual TV cameras traveling with President Trump on this trip. All that said, he of course is going to Georgia to stump for Republicans with just 18 days to go until the midterm. Specifically with this trip, trying to shore up the Republican Senate nominee Mike Collins, who is in a very tough race against the Democratic incumbent John Ossoff, both in terms of what the polling is showing and what the financial picture is like. So for more, we turn to Tyler Kendall, our Washington correspondent, who's here with me in the DC studio. Tyler, it's interesting that he's going to Georgia because to this point, we've really seen him target firmly red states, not purple swinging ones.
Firmly red states. I mean, trips in the last few days to Texas, Montana, and he's still going to Kansas. On Monday, he'll be in Kansas. But today, as you mentioned, this is firmly a battleground. President Trump had won Georgia in 2024 by two percentage points, so a much closer margin in terms of the vote count when it comes to that state. But this is a place where President Trump is still hoping to rally voters as Republicans continue to face headwinds closer to election day. There's two races we're watching here. One is, of course, the Senate race. Incumbent Senator John Ossoff seems to have the lead over his Republican challenger Mike Collins, a congressman. President Trump has often said that he wants to reward loyalists and those that have stood behind him, so that's part of him making good on that bid to get out on the campaign trail for candidates like that. But also we can't take our eyes off the gubernatorial contest that's happening there. We are expecting Republican nominee Rick Jackson in that race to appear on stage with President Trump, a tough race, a close race with Keisha Lance Bottoms, the former Atlanta mayor, who has been running this race on data centers of all things, that has really made an impact when it comes to the election.
Well, President Trump, of course, is trying to bring his own message out there to states like Georgia and elsewhere. The White House press secretary, the new one, Katie Zacharia, also says that her goal is just to amplify it, though she struggled to do so in her first briefing earlier this week, which I'm sure our audience has seen or heard by now. She did sort of struggle her way through it and has faced a lot of backlash for calling herself a lawyer when she in fact has not passed the bar exam. President Trump is speaking with reporters right now, saying he told Katie Zacharia that she doesn't have to do this if she doesn't want to, that he will let her make her own decision, but said, 'I'd reconsider if I were you.' Tyler, is she about to last for less time than Scaramucci did in the first?
I knew that one was coming. Yeah. He says, quote, 'I just want her to be happy.' Questions here, of course, really emerged amid the reports that she did and her confirming that she didn't pass the bar, though has called herself an attorney, a lawyer. He goes on to say, right now the press is really being unfair to her. We'll see what happens. Of course, this comes just days after she was announced to be the press secretary. She's filling the role that was left by Caroline Levitt, who had held it for such a long time and is still considered to be such a close and trusted ally of President Trump. We'll have to see if this is now something that's hanging in the balance.
Yeah, Trump telling reporters as to Katie Zacharia being the press secretary, maybe it's not for her. So stay tuned on this one because it feels like something might be brewing here for Katie, who has been in this job for only a few days. The president's making some other comments as well. I want to know, Tyler, as it pertains to Starlink and the service that Ukraine alleges was slowed. And the question is, by who? The president just told reporters that it wasn't him that gave the order, that he doesn't know who gave the order on Star Shield. It wasn't us.
Yeah, it wasn't us. He says that he did check in on it this morning, though, and that it appears to be back up and running. We should say normal service on Star Shield, which is the defense part of the Starlink network, had resumed. Though the Ukrainian President Zelensky, in an interview with some reporters earlier today, did indicate that speed has improved, but that as of this morning, it was not yet fully restored. Our own reporting from Bloomberg News: a US official saying that President Trump was not the one that ordered any limitations on Ukraine's access to this technology, which has been absolutely critical in terms of intelligence sharing. Though it has opened up reports and questions about whether somebody else in the administration might have ordered such a limitation either on speed or usage, but so far the administration is denying that involvement.
Well, and even if the president didn't order Starlink to be slowed down, he's not being shy about the fact that he's not very happy with Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine's president right now. He talked about that in an interview on Newsmax last night.
Zelensky is not a good guy for us to deal with. Biden gave him hundreds of billions of dollars, billions and billions of dollars. Have you lost faith in him? Well, I think they're going to, if they're going to end up with a settlement of some kind, they're not going to do it with him. He doesn't want to settle. He says he wants to settle, but he doesn't. No, I'm not a big fan of Zelensky. They've destroyed that country.
He's not a big fan of Zelensky, he says, Tyler, and we have seen this kind of pattern of him being unsatisfied with the Ukrainian president and then drawing him closer. It was just, what, a few weeks ago that he met with him on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. What might this mean for further negotiations in the US's involvement?
It has been a push and pull of the relationship as we have covered at this point for months. Interestingly enough, we did again hear from the Ukrainian president earlier this morning who said that he is expecting the US and Ukraine negotiators to meet soon despite this escalation. So perhaps that brings us back to what has been this cycle of ups and downs. We do know that the US was trying to jumpstart negotiations. We saw some a couple of weeks ago in Miami that didn't really seem to yield anything fruitful or tangible, especially as President Trump had started this week calling for an energy truce. And we are ending this week with only more attacks when it comes to energy infrastructure. Ukraine attacking Russian diesel refineries in retaliation for Russia hitting Ukrainian gas infrastructure and power plants. We mentioned this last hour on the program, but a new report out from the United Nations today finds that civilian casualties in Ukraine jumped 85% in September from the month before as we continue to see escalation in the wrong direction.
All right, Tyler Kendall, our Washington correspondent. Tyler, thanks so much as always. And we want to get more on Ukraine now as we turn to Melinda Haring, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center, who travels to the country frequently and of course comes on this program to share her insights often. Melinda, it's good to have you back, especially given the week that Ukraine has had and that Zelensky in particular has had in relation to President Trump. What do you make of this latest breakdown? And does Zelensky risk allowing the rift to widen too far?
Hey Kailey, it's great to be with you. So it has been a week that we will all remember. It might be accurate to say that US-Ukrainian relations are at the lowest point we've seen since that Oval Office visit last year. It's hard to believe we're back there again. I think one of the big questions I have is, is it repairable? And I think that it may be repairable. Remember that President Trump is someone who feuds and then he forgets. If you look at his long-term lawyer, Michael Cohen, he went to jail and now Trump is friendly with him again. So it may be repairable. But the real question now is, can Ukraine get through this winter? I think I say this every year to you and I believe it when I say it, but this winter is different. Ukraine is out of Patriots. It doesn't have enough air defense. And the Starlink Star Shield outage is tremendously damaging for the front line, both for Ukraine's ability to defend itself and also for civilians along the front line.
Okay, there's a few different things there, Melinda. Let's talk about being out of Patriots. What alternatives does Ukraine have to defend itself in the absence of them?
So, you remember Ukraine was trying to get an agreement with President Trump for Patriots and that fell through, and then right, and it's not going to go anywhere and it's going to take too long. So there's alternative air defense systems, but the Patriots are the ones that take down the ballistics. There's not a great alternative. So right now, the name of the game, President Zelensky is working the phones. He always works the phones, but he's working them harder than he has because he needs Patriots. They don't have any, and these ballistics are starting to get through. So there are a number of countries in Western Europe and also Asia that have additional Patriot interceptors. So President Zelensky needs to convince the Japanese and the South Koreans, the Italians, and the Spanish, just to give you some examples, to give them their extra interceptors. I don't know if he'll be successful, but that's high on his priority list.
Well, so if he can get the interceptors to help defend against Russian attacks, Melinda, it's also a question as to whether or not he is going to continue to be able to get information about incoming attacks, because that was part of the story this week was not just the slowing of Star Shield, but also perhaps a lack of sharing information in a timely manner about Russian missiles and drones that were heading Ukraine's way. If we were to actually see a reduction in intelligence sharing by the United States, what would that mean for Ukraine right now?
Great question. It's not the end of the world. It's bad, but Ukraine does have alternative intel sharing arrangements that it can arrange with Europe and it's working on its own system. So it would make things difficult, but it's not the end of the war is how I would answer that question really directly.
Hmm. Well, you've made a few references to the Europeans stepping in to provide help as they can to Ukraine. The Latvian prime minister was actually on Bloomberg earlier this morning talking about Europe's alliance with Ukraine and going as far as to suggest that really Europe is the only entity on Ukraine's side right now. Just listen, Melinda.
We see that Zelensky has only one ally now. It's actually Europeans. We are the ones backing him up and that's what I want to tell him. We're all fully, fully backing and doing all the best we can do from our side and that's how it's going to stay.
Do you agree with Evika Siliņa's assessment, Melinda?
I'm glad that Europe is standing up and it is giving weapons and it's doing its part. But I disagree politely because when I look at the American people, Americans overwhelmingly still support Ukraine and even among Republicans, there is strong support. So the actions of the White House over the last week are unpopular. When you look at public opinion polling, 53% of Americans say that they support US sanctions on Russian oil and gas, which is fueling the war economy. So I think there is still strong support for Ukraine within the American public. It's a question of making that known and we see Congress, Republicans and Democrats speaking out both about this outage with Starlink and also the diesel deal which you've covered. So I wouldn't say that Ukraine is alone at this point. There's still Starlink, there's still intel sharing. The PURL deal, this is the deal that allows the Europeans to buy American weapons, is still ongoing. And there's still some legacy deliveries from the Biden administration as well and the American people. So the other conversation that I am having this week is Americans are really upset and they're giving more and more money to charity. They're giving more money to Ukrainian charities because they're ashamed of what's happening in Washington, D.C.
Well, and on that notion of Americans being upset, of both Republicans and Democrats wanting to stand on the side of Ukraine and not on Russia, we did see both Republicans and Democrats in a bipartisan manner passing that Russia sanctions bill that President Trump signed into law. Part of that bill, though, Melinda, said that the president within 30 days needed to use the tools it empowered him with, enforcing tariffs on buyers of Russian oil. And that 30-day window ends on Sunday. What signal would it send to the Kremlin if the president doesn't do any of it by then?
That's a great question. So all eyes are on the White House right now. They have two days to make a decision on the Lindsey Graham sanctioning bill. So we simply don't know which way they're going to go. We see, though, a group of Congress people urging them to live up to the expectations of that bill. If they don't put these sanctions in place, it's going to send a very strong message that the bill was a farce and that there's nothing really behind it. And it also says really terrible things about executive power and the nature of democracy in America.
Hmm. Well, and it is kind of striking to consider that the president at least was empowered to punish buyers of Russian oil at the very same time that he struck a deal to allow more Russian diesel onto the global market. He's actually speaking with reporters at the White House right now about that, Melinda, saying that it's not just a US deal, that it's a world deal. This is about the global market, but this is Russian product that will be sold globally. How does that incrementally advantage the Kremlin? What kind of revenue source is it?
So the deal that went through last Friday is not an everlasting deal. There's no economist in the world that thinks that this is going to bring prices down. The Institute for the Study of War also just did a really interesting study and it shows that the Ukrainian strikes on refineries in Russia is not what's driving prices up. So I think President Trump needs to get some new advice and some new briefings on diesel prices.
All right, Melinda Haring of the Atlantic Council, always great to have your thoughts on Ukraine. We appreciate you joining us on Balance of Power. And President Trump isn't just weighing in on Ukraine. As we've told you, he's talking about a few other things with reporters at the White House right now, too, including floating the idea that maybe the new press secretary, Katie Zacharia, would be happier not serving in that role. He says he'll talk to her about it when he gets back from Georgia, where of course he's traveling to. He's talking to reporters on his way to getting on the helicopter to get on the plane to go down to Dalton, Georgia to campaign for Mike Collins. So we'll get into the political dynamics around Georgia with our political panel, and I would imagine they have a thought or two on Katie Zacharia as well.
Stay with us on Balance of Power. We'll have much more coming up after this. You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast. Catch us live weekdays at noon and 5:00 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.'
I'm Kailey Leinz in Washington, where President Trump has just boarded Marine One. He's en route to Joint Base Andrews to get on Air Force One to travel to Dalton, Georgia to stump for Republican Senate candidate Mike Collins and others in the Peach State. En route out of the White House, though, he stopped to talk to reporters and fielded a number of questions about his brand new press secretary, Katie Zacharia, who had her debut briefing earlier this week. Didn't go particularly well, was quite short. She has been taking a lot of flak for that, and the president suggests the media is treating her unfairly, saying that if he were her, he might reconsider the job. And now we have some news from Fox News which says that a senior White House official has told Peter Doocy that Katie Zacharia is, quote, 'transitioning out of the press secretary position.' She only lasted in that position, it seems, for a couple days if this is true. So let's play this now to our political panel. Rick Davis and Jeanne Sheehan Zaino are with me, both of them Bloomberg politics contributors. Jeanne, a Democratic analyst and democracy visiting fellow at Harvard Kennedy School's Ash Center. Rick, a Republican strategist and partner at Stonecourt Capital. Rick, this is not confirmation from the president. I want to be clear, the president seems like he was leaving this up to her as he talked about it with reporters, but he certainly wasn't stepping up to say he defends her and wants her to stay in this role. He said that he thinks she would be happier not doing it given the treatment that she is getting right now from the media. Would you be surprised if she doesn't even last as long as half an Anthony Scaramucci?
Yeah, there's kind of a betting pool on her longevity here in Washington these days. You know, look, she was on last night to try and fix some of these problems around her, quote, 'legal career' on Fox TV. Couldn't have gotten a more opportunistic chance to clean it all up. And from what I could tell, she didn't do a very good job because she was back on this morning with the sort of make-good. And Fox asked her this morning, 'Hey, do you have anything you want to add to your interview last night?' Meaning, can you clean this up, please, or you're going to lose your job? And she's like, 'No, everything's good on this.' So tone-deaf, I think, is not a quality you want in your press secretary. And all this at a time when we're starting to hear about cracks in the White House leadership, you know, issues that Susie Wiles is having with some of the team. So my guess is that it's always hard during election time to be inside the bunker. But this sounds like the bunker's having some water taken on pretty quickly. So yeah, does she even make it to Anthony Scaramucci's 11 days?
Yeah, it has not even been, what, five days at this point, Jeanne. So weigh in here because if, as Fox is reporting, she's transitioning out of the press secretary position, should she have any position in the White House if this is how her debut within it went?
