WSJ What’s News - An Electrified GOP Awaits Donald Trump’s Acceptance Speech

Episode Date: July 18, 2024

P.M. Edition for July 18. The mood among Republicans is ebullient as Donald Trump prepares to address the party’s convention in Milwaukee. WSJ’s Luke Vargas reports on what Republicans hope to hear from the former president. And markets reporter Sam Goldfarb breaks down the latest predictions from economists on where inflation and interest rates are headed. Plus, Amrith Ramkumar explains Wall Street’s quest to cash in on America’s battery storage boom. Chip Cutter hosts. Sign up for the WSJ's free What's News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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That's BetterHelp.com. An energized GOP awaits Donald Trump's acceptance speech at the party's convention. And where do economists see inflation, growth, and interest rates headed in the coming months? They argue collectively that the economy is normalizing rather than deteriorating in a more dangerous fashion. Plus, Wall Street has a new favorite investment, and it involves batteries. It's Thursday, July 18th. I'm Chip Cutter for The Wall Street Journal. This is the PM edition of What's News,

the top headlines and business stories that move the world today. Where is the U.S. economy headed? The Wall Street Journal's latest quarterly survey of economists shows forecasters remain optimistic, even as some data points hint at weakness. Wall Street Journal markets reporter Sam Goldfarb joins us. So Sam, what strikes you as most interesting from this survey? It's, as you said, that the economists joins us. So Sam, what strikes you as most interesting from this survey? It's, as you said, that the economists remain optimistic. You know, we do these surveys every three months. And for the longest time, the economy kept on being better than expected. And then the story of not this survey, but the one before it, was that economists had kind of like finally given up their pessimism and were buying that the economy was going to stay strong. And since then, there have been some hints at weakness. I'd point to the unemployment rate has

actually gone up faster than economists had expected. And so you might think that economists would react to that and say, oh, geez, maybe our previous pessimism was on to something and that our fears that higher interest rates would damage the economy are finally starting to happen. But no, they're sticking with their most recent view, which is that the economy is on solid footing. And they kind of argue collectively that the economy is normalizing rather than deteriorating in a more dangerous fashion. And is there a split here between how consumers feel about the economy and how economists think about it? From the consumer standpoint, it's just been a lot of focus on inflation.

And even as the actual rate of price increases has slowed down, it wasn't that long ago that people remember much lower prices. That still feeds a lot of pessimism. And how seriously should we take these predictions from economists? Do they often get it right? It's worth taking them seriously. They are not always right, but they aren't like absurdly wrong. For instance, like I think a lot of people would point to, for reasons of skepticism, how economists expected inflation to come down to be transitory and inflation instead sort of took longer than economists had expected. But their view that it wasn't going to last forever, that was true. Finally, what do economists have to say about the presidential race and how the winner might affect inflation and interest rates?

and how the winner might affect inflation and interest rates. There's differences of opinion, but a decent amount of economists say that Donald Trump would do more to stoke inflation than President Biden's policies. For one thing, economists always think that regardless of whether it's Republicans or Democrats, if one party controls the White House and Congress, that generally tends to lead to a larger deficit, whether for Republicans, more tax cuts, for Democrats, more spending programs, and that can be inflationary. And then on top of that, Trump has these tariff proposals that, in a pretty direct way, could lead to higher prices. That was Wall Street Journal markets reporter Sam Goldfarb. A broad decline in U.S. stocks pushed the Dow Jones Industrial Average down more than 500 points today, snapping a six-session winning streak for the blue-chip index. The Dow shed 1.3 percent a

day after closing a new record. The S&P 500 fell 0.8 percent, and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 0.7 percent. Shares of Netflix were lower in after-hours trading after the streaming giant reported its second quarter results. Netflix said it added more than 8 million subscribers in that period and raised the low end of its forecast for four-year revenue growth. Many companies are pulling back on work-from-anywhere policies. Have you worked remotely? What questions do you have about the issues you've faced or

you've heard about? Send a voice memo to WNPOD at WSJ.com or leave a voicemail with your name and location at 212-416-4328. We might use it on the show. Coming up, a look at the mood inside the Republican National Convention hours before Trump delivers his acceptance speech. That's after the break. With Uber Reserve, good things come to those who plan ahead. Family vacay? Reserve your ride as soon as you book your flights. To all the planners, now you can reserve your Uber ride up to 90 days in advance. See Uber app for details. Evan Gerskovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter falsely accused of spying,

attended a Russian court today for a closed-door hearing in an espionage trial that the U.S. government has described as a sham. A court spokeswoman said the court had completed its judicial investigation and would hear oral arguments from both sides tomorrow. She added that after that, Gershkovich will be asked for his final statement and the court will consider its verdict. The spokeswoman declined to give a time frame for those next steps. Gershkovich is a U.S. citizen and has been imprisoned in Russia since March of last year. The Journal and the U.S. government vehemently deny the allegation against him. The U.S. has called for his immediate release and has designated him as

wrongfully detained, which commits the government to work for his release. Former President Donald Trump is set to take the stage at the Republican National Convention this evening and formally accept his party's nomination for president for a third time. So what's the mood at the RNC? Our Luke Vargas is part of the WSJ team on the ground in Milwaukee to cover the RNC, and he filed this report. So this is the seventh party convention that I've covered as a journalist, and these gatherings always attract some eccentric characters. And yes, here in Milwaukee, we've covered as a journalist. And these gatherings always attract some eccentric

characters. And yes, here in Milwaukee, we've had some of those. The ones wearing bejeweled cowboy hats, a woman with stockings that were emblazoned with Trump's face, someone with a don't tread on me flag that had been turned into a rap dress. I mean, look, these are ultra faithful followers of the nominee and it shows sometimes. But frankly, I have been generally surprised how on-message people have been here, with even the impromptu looks that I've seen, the bandaged ears to match former President Trump, all seeming to be less about standing out and more about fitting in. Take, for example, the rapper Forgiato Blow, who we cross paths with. He's become something of a celebrity here.

His pro-Trump music video got played at the event earlier in the week. And he obliged us when we asked him to perform a new song that he'd written about Trump surviving an assassination attempt. Shot around the world, shot all over the internet, camera shot a picture that's forever living in our head. They miss his head barely, fist in the air, scream and fight. It doesn't get more legendary.

Though, really what he was actually more interested in talking about was get out the vote efforts. If we don't get new voters, Donald Trump doesn't get the win, right? The children, you know what I'm saying, the kids, the new Gen Z's, you got the 18s, 19s, 20s, you got the 30-year-old voters. We need new people who didn't see Donald Trump's vision to say, you know what? I like Donald Trump. I'm supporting Donald Trump. One reason why Republicans here are so dialed in could be that their existing political belief in Trump

has, after Saturday, taken on something of a spiritual dimension. It's something that we started hearing basically in the first speeches on Monday night, like from South Carolina Senator Tim Scott. Listen, if you didn't believe in miracles before Saturday, you better be believing right now. And it's been a running theme really throughout the week since, not just confined to primetime either. Priest Jason Sharon gave the benediction at Trump's Butler, Pennsylvania rally shortly before he was shot.

And he told us over the phone that he felt a divine power had saved the former president. For me as a Catholic priest, I make of this that there were things on that day which confirm for me that the things of heaven are influencing the affairs of men. Here in Milwaukee, meanwhile, party faithful we spoke to, like Cindy Love and Stephen Davis from Arizona and Betty Jean Downing of New Jersey, they're also picking up on that energy, albeit in their own ways. It has really hit home as to how close we were to losing him, and I can feel the spirit. It's just a wonderful feeling,

and the spirit is there to win in November. The unity that's coming about is almost palpable. You know what I'm saying? You can taste it. It's going to be a very dangerous time, and we all know that. We know it. Everybody's feeling the same way.

We're happy and we're terrified all at the same time. Outside Fiserv Forum, the arena where Donald Trump is going to have to try to tie together all these emotions tonight, I caught up with Republican strategist Charlie Giroux, and he said he sees all these different flavors of pro-Trump sentiment, leaving the party in a historically strong position. There's more unity here in Milwaukee than there's ever been at a Republican convention in our lifetime. You know, even Ronald Reagan didn't have the unity that Donald Trump enjoys and the enthusiasm you've seen for yourself. I mean, Thursday night, they're going to need rivets on the top of that building to hold the roof down. You know, campaigns roll out of conventions,

and the conventions kind of set the mood, but they also engage the troops. And you're going to see people coming out of here, you know, ready to walk through hot coals to get to November. Josh Jamerson is the journal's deputy politics editor, and he joins me now. Josh, those delegates, those guests, others of the convention we've just heard from there, all emphasizing unity. Every politician, I should say, who's also come through our studio here has been asked in some form, what are you doing in your speech to hit this message? But obviously, the person that we're watching for the most in this respect is the former president himself tonight. What are we expecting to hear? Well, I think it's been remarkable if you look at how immediately former President Trump,

after his assassination attempt, called on Americans to unify and to lower the temperature. And you really haven't seen him go as far as some other people in the party to assign motive or blame for the assassination attempt as authorities still figure out exactly what was going on there. We heard it from some top campaign aides coming into the convention. And so it was a very deliberate signal for how the campaign wanted Republicans to respond and rally around him. So I'm looking to see how he carries that forward. I think we're at a moment where he already had such a commanding position in the party, but it's reached hero status after the assassination attempt in a way that really cements his takeover of the party. Could the issues within Biden's campaign and the questions about who exactly, you know,

Trump might be going up against in the fall also be influencing what we hear tonight? Yes. And to be clear, I would expect to hear strong criticisms of Joe Biden in the speech. But I think it's exactly what you just said of like, this is a former president running. It's not just your ordinary candidate. This is someone who knows exactly how the levers of power work. And so he has very specific ideas that he's talked about, for example, most notably that we've covered at the Journal on this idea for the biggest deportation of all time that he's talked about, for example, most notably that we've covered at the Journal, on this idea for the biggest deportation of all time that he's repeatedly called for. And so I would look not just for the message of unity, but then another part is he has very specific plans for how he governs and what his priorities are. And so I would expect him to lay those out and

contrast them with Biden. In terms of policies, Josh, Democrats lately have been saying this Project 2025 plan developed by the Heritage Foundation as well as other people in Trump's orbit is going to be the foundation of the policies that the country should prepare itself for should Trump get elected. But I guess a speech like this,

we don't need to speculate, right? This will show us which things Trump actually is really focused on. Yeah. And you know, what's funny about that is we report on Project 2025 and its various tenets. And whenever we go to the Trump campaign for comment, you know, that's exactly what we hear is like President Trump. He speaks for himself. Nobody else does. If it's not coming from President Trump, it's not official. Tonight offers him perhaps his biggest platform for the American people to hear exactly from him on immigration, on lowering prices, on tax policy. He floated in

all tariff tax policy behind closed doors with Republicans in Washington recently. What would a second term, what would four more years of President Trump look like? So it's going to be really interesting, not just for the themes of unity, but for the policies as well. Josh Jamerson is the journal's deputy politics editor. Josh, thank you so much. Thank you. Former President Trump is expected to speak around 10 o'clock Central Time tonight. We'll have full coverage of the final night of the RNC on WSJ.com.

Wall Street is betting on America's battery storage boom. Wall Street is betting on America's battery storage boom. In one of the largest battery storage deals, renewable energy developer Intersect Power is raising $837 million in debt and equity tied to tax credits from Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, and HPS Investment Partners. The money will fund three giant battery storage projects in Texas. Intersec says that 258 Tesla Megapack batteries will be able to provide enough power for nearly 400,000 homes for two hours when they begin operating in the coming months. The Wall Street Journal's climate finance reporter Amrith Ramkumar told our tech news briefing podcast that the rapidly growing sector is being fueled by a boom in solar energy and billions of dollars from Washington and Wall Street. the day. And so if you can collect some of that super cheap energy and store it in batteries and then dispatch it out in the evening when solar energy is less prevalent and power prices tend to rise, that's a really attractive financial opportunity. Batteries are also in high demand just to stabilize the power grid. Across the country, especially in the summer or after

hurricanes, we've seen much more frequent outages and disruptions to power. So consumers and small businesses are installing their own batteries. And big companies are trying to install these massive batteries because there's a lot of money to be made if you can help stabilize the power grid. A big change that we've seen is that battery storage is now so big that banks are providing cheaper debt funding. And that's really a signal that the industry is at an inflection point right now. You can listen to Amrit's interview on tomorrow's Tech News Briefing podcast. And that's what's news for this Thursday afternoon. Today's show was produced by Pierre Bien-Aimé and Anthony Bansi with supervising producer Michael Cosmedes.

Additional reporting by Luke Vargas. I'm Chip Cutter for The Wall Street Journal. We'll be back with a new show tomorrow morning. Thanks for listening.