Reuters
Many Wall Street executives are worried about Trump but wary of Harris
By Michelle Price, Carolina Mandl and Lananh Nguyen
September 27, 202410:04 AM GMT+6Updated 16 hours ago
WASHINGTON/NEW YORK, Sept 27 (Reuters) – Many Wall Street executives have reservations about backing either candidate in the U.S. presidential election, worried that former President Donald Trump’s policies will hurt the economy but wary Vice President Kamala Harris will lean too far left.
While multiple Wall Street heavy-hitters including Bill Ackman, John Paulson and George Soros have backed a candidate, many other senior executives are still weighing the economic policies central to the closely fought race and the ramifications for legal and democratic institutions, according to conversations with two dozen executives in recent weeks.
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Despite a track record implementing Wall Street-friendly measures, Republican candidate Trump’s policies threaten to create economic and policy instability, many executives said.
While Harris would be a safe pair of hands, she has only been the Democratic candidate since late July when President Joe Biden exited the race and remains a big unknown, they said. Many worry the Vice President will continue Biden’s regulatory crackdown on lucrative Wall Street businesses.
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Among the executives were Republican and Democrat supporters, including a handful who are publicly backing Trump or Harris, and others with no obvious partisan affiliation.
“Most expect Trump to continue where he left off, which is certainly more populist, protectionist and aggressively deregulatory,” said Bruce Mehlman, partner at bipartisan lobbying firm Mehlman Consulting with clients in all sectors.Donald Trump welcomed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to Trump Tower in New York on Friday for their first meeting in 5 years00:0302:15
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“But they’re eager to better understand who Harris is and what she believes,” Mehlman said, adding it did not appear that Harris’ Wednesday economic speech had offered more insight for Wall Street firms.
As with his first presidency, Trump is promising to cut taxes and regulations, but most executives said the benefits could be erased by his planned import tariffs which could spark inflation, while tax cuts could widen the U.S. deficit. Trump ramped up his planned tariffs in comments this week.
Karoline Leavitt, Trump campaign National Press Secretary, said in a statement that Wall Street investors want Trump to win because they remember that his policies “fueled growth, drove down inflation, and kept more money in everyone’s pockets.”
Billionaire investor and Trump backer Paulson told Reuters on the sidelines of a September New York event at which Trump outlined his economic plan that tariffs would boost revenues, helping to reduce the deficit.
Harris’ plan, which analysts predict would be better for the economy, calls for hiking taxes, likely denting company earnings and stocks but partly offsetting an expected widening of the deficit. She has said little on financial policy but has touted her tough stance on banks as a former prosecutor and said she will continue Biden’s assault on hidden bank fees.
A Harris spokesperson pointed Reuters to endorsements by hundreds of economists, opens new tab and CEOs.
In an email to Reuters, billionaire entrepreneur and Harris backer Mark Cuban noted that stocks rose when company taxes were higher, adding: “Anything that is a step towards reducing the deficit is a plus.” But he said that both candidates are making promises they may not be able to keep. “Neither candidate’s policies have any details about how they would get passed.”
For many firms, a Harris White House and Republican Senate, which would block tax increases and force Harris to pick moderates for top jobs, is the best-case scenario.
So far, donors tied to the securities and investment sectors have given $8.7 million, opens new tab to the Biden/Harris campaign versus about $3 million, opens new tab to Trump, data from nonpartisan donations tracker OpenSecrets as of Aug. 21 shows.
Those contributions, capped in the thousands of dollars, come from individuals and political action committees (PACs) and are not comprehensive because there are several other ways to route cash to support candidates.
STABILITY, POPULISM
In a nod to the policy whiplash and personnel churn of Trump’s first presidency, his felony conviction and role in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, some executives also worried Trump would undermine Democracy and the rule of law. A few flagged concerns about his stances on Federal Reserve independence, immigration and abortion.
Michael Bright, chief executive of the Structured Finance Association, a Washington lobby group representing lenders and investors, said that in addition to Jan. 6, some of his members had soured on Trump due to his role in helping to overturn federal abortion rights when president.
“I would say financial services voters are split pretty evenly,” said Bright, whom Trump nominated in 2018 to run government housing agency Ginnie Mae. Many will vote “with their hearts” for Harris, he added.
The role of populism in personnel picks was another theme. Several executives fretted Harris would stick with Biden’s progressive agency heads, although a few said they believe she may be friendlier to the industry than Biden.
“She is practical and pragmatic,” said Jon Henes, Harris’ national campaign finance chair in 2020 and CEO of corporate consultancy C Street Advisory Group, adding Harris believes in sensible regulation that allows for transparency and certainty.
A more populist Trump and Republican party may pick inexperienced loyalists hostile to Wall Street to lead the agencies, some executives said, although others believe he would again pick traditional industry conservatives.
Trump’s appointment of Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick as co-chair of his transition team may be a good sign, some said. Lutnick is tapping his Wall Street network to staff a potential second Trump administration.
Lindsey Johnson, CEO of the Consumer Bankers Association, said Trump can “draw from a deep well of people that were in the Administration last time that have great experience in the financial industry.”
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Writing and reporting by Michelle Price in Washington D.C.; Reporting by Carolina Mandl and Lananh Nguyen in New York; Additional reporting by Douglas Gillison, Tatiana Bautzer, Saeed Azhar, Laura Matthews, Pete Schroeder, Makailah Gause and Megan Davies Editing by Nick Zieminski
November 5, 20249:16 AM GMT+6Updated 4 hours ago
Item 1 of 2 Oct 20, 2024; Austin, Texas, USA; Joe Rogan talks to fans in the paddock at the Formula 1 Pirelli United States Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas. Mandatory Credit: Aaron E. Martinez-Imagn Images/File Photo
[1/2]Oct 20, 2024; Austin, Texas, USA; Joe Rogan talks to fans in the paddock at the Formula 1 Pirelli United States Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas. Mandatory Credit: Aaron E. Martinez-Imagn Images/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
WASHINGTON, Nov 4 (Reuters) – Popular podcaster Joe Rogan, who recently interviewed Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump for nearly three hours, said on Monday he has endorsed the former president in the race to the White House.
Trump faces Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in the Nov. 5 U.S. election in what polls show to be a tight race. Harris has got multiple celebrity endorsements.
“For the record, yes, that’s an endorsement of Trump,” Rogan said on X while posting a clip of his interview with billionaire Elon Musk, who has also endorsed Trump. Rogan said in his post that Musk made the “most compelling case for Trump.”
Trump’s recent interview with Rogan lasted about 3 hours and was released on YouTube and Spotify in late October. The two discussed a range of topics and the interview got over 45 million views on YouTube.
The former president criticized Rogan in August on Truth Social, his social media platform, after the podcaster praised then-independent candidate Robert Kennedy Jr. Kennedy has since pulled out of the race and endorsed Trump. Trump later called Rogan a “good guy.”
Trump and Harris have courted voters with appearances on podcasts, in addition to more traditional rallies and media interviews.
Spotify (SPOT.N), opens new tab said in March “The Joe Rogan Experience” had 14.5 million followers, almost triple the platform’s second most popular program. Rogan also has more than 19 million followers on Instagram and 18 million followers on YouTube.
A poll by YouGov last year found that 81% of his listeners are male and 56% are under 35 years old, a demographic that tends to support Trump over Harris.
Harris’ team had been in touch with Rogan’s program about a possible appearance but her campaign said in late October she will not appear on his podcast.
Rogan joins a list of celebrities like Musk and wrestler Hulk Hogan to have endorsed Trump.
Harris has a much bigger list of celebrity endorsements – ranging from basketball superstar Lebron James and actress Meryl Streep to comedian Chris Rock and former talk show host Oprah Winfrey. Superstar singers Beyonce and Taylor Swift have also endorsed her.
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Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Raju Gopalakrishnan
By Kanishka Singh and Sheila Dang
November 5, 20249:52 AM GMT+6Updated 4 hours ago
WASHINGTON, Nov 4 (Reuters) – False or misleading claims by billionaire Elon Musk about the U.S. election have amassed 2 billion views on social media platform X this year, according to a report, opens new tab by non-profit group Center for Countering Digital Hate.
The platform is also playing a central role in enabling the spread of false information about the critical battleground states that will likely determine the outcome of the presidential race, election and misinformation experts said on Monday.
A spokesperson for X said the company’s Community Notes feature, which lets users add additional context to posts, is more effective at helping people identify misleading content than traditional warning flags on posts.
Since taking over the company formerly known as Twitter, Musk has curtailed content moderation and laid off thousands of employees. He has thrown his support behind former President Donald Trump, who is locked in an exceptionally close race against Democratic candidate Kamala Harris.
Musk’s massive reach with nearly 203 million followers helps enable “network effects” in which content on X can jump to other social media and messaging platforms such as Reddit and Telegram, said Kathleen Carley, a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University and expert on disinformation. “X is a conduit from one platform to another,” she said.
At least 87 of Musk’s posts this year have promoted claims about the U.S. election that fact-checkers have rated as false or misleading, amassing 2 billion views, according to the Center for Countering Digital Hate’s report.
In Pennsylvania, one of the seven key swing states, some X users have seized on instances of local election administrators flagging incomplete voter registration forms that would not be processed, falsely casting the events as examples of election interference, said Philip Hensley-Robin, Pennsylvania executive director at Common Cause, during a press briefing on Monday.
Common Cause is a nonpartisan organization that promotes accountable government and voting rights.
Some X accounts implied “that there was voter fraud, when in fact, we know very clearly that election officials and election administrators in all of our counties were following the rules and … therefore only eligible voters are voting,” Hensley-Robin said.
Cyabra, a firm that uses AI to detect online disinformation, said on Monday that an X account with 117,000 followers played a key role in helping spread a fake video purporting to show Pennsylvania mail-in ballots for Trump being destroyed.
X’s spokesperson said the platform took action against many accounts that shared the video.
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Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington and Sheila Dang in Austin; Additional reporting by Stephanie Burnett; Editing by Lincoln Feast
By Reuters
November 5, 20244:36 AM GMT+6Updated 9 hours ago
- A person picks up a sticker while voters head to a polling station as Georgians turned out a day after the battleground state opened early voting, in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S., October 16, 2024. REUTERS/Megan Varner/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
WASHINGTON, Nov 4 (Reuters) – The top court in the battleground state of Georgia ruled on Monday that Cobb County cannot extend the deadline for counting about 3,000 absentee ballots that were sent out shortly before Election Day, handing a victory to the Republican National Committee and presidential candidate Donald Trump.
Siding with the RNC, the Georgia Supreme Court overturned a judge’s ruling extending the deadline until Friday in Cobb County, located in suburban Atlanta. The court decided that only absentee ballots that arrive by 7 p.m. ET on Tuesday (0000 GMT Wednesday) can be counted.
Civil rights groups had sued last week seeking to extend the deadline, arguing that the county violated state law by failing to promptly send out about 3,000 absentee ballots. County officials said they were overwhelmed by a surge in requests.
The Republican National Committee had argued that extending the deadline would violate state law.
“Election Day is Election Day – not the week after,” RNC Chair Michael Whatley wrote in a post on social media.
Cobb County is a large and racially diverse area in Atlanta’s northern suburbs. The county voted for Democrat Joe Biden over Trump by 14 percentage points in the 2020 election. Biden defeated Trump in Georgia in 2020.
A spokesperson for Cobb County did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The state high court ordered that ballots received after Election Day be separated from other ballots and set aside. Voters who did not receive an absentee ballot or did not have enough time to mail it can vote in person on Tuesday.
Georgia is one of seven closely contested states expected to decide the outcome of the race between Trump and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.
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Reporting by Andrew Goudsward; Editing by Scott Malone and Will Dunham
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