WSJ What’s News - Biden Pardons Son Hunter

Episode Date: December 2, 2024

A.M. Edition for Dec. 2. The president wipes away his son’s criminal convictions on tax and gun charges–something he’d previously said he wouldn’t do. Plus, Russia joins Syrian regime forces in launching airstrikes after rebels shift the power balance with a surprise offensive. And, Europe’s relationship with the U.S. rests in no small part on how EU chief Ursula von der Leyen responds to Donald Trump’s threats over trade and defense. The WSJ’s Kim Mackrael explains how her team is preparing. Luke Vargas hosts. Sign up for the WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast is brought to you by CME Group, the world's leading derivatives marketplace, offering the widest range of global benchmark products across all major asset classes. CME Group, where risk meets opportunity. President Biden pardons his son Hunter, calling the charges against him unfair. Plus a sudden power shift in the Middle East as rebels make advances in Syria. And Europe's top politician prepares to take on Donald Trump. Her team really took two basic lessons from their previous experience with Trump. One, expect the unexpected and two, look for common interests between the EU and the US. It's Monday, December 2nd. I'm Luke Vargas for The Wall Street Journal and here is the AM edition of What's News,

the top headlines and business stories moving your world today. With the end of his tenure approaching, President Biden has pardoned his son Hunter, a step that he previously said he wouldn't take. Hunter Biden, who's been convicted on federal tax and gun charges, was set to appear in sentencing hearings later this month in Delaware and California and was facing potentially lengthy prison terms. The president said yesterday that his son had been treated differently by the Justice Department due to their relationship.

The pardon drew widespread criticism from Republicans, with Donald Trump calling the move quote, in abuse and miscarriage of justice end quote in a social media post. Trump also drew fire for some of the pardons that he issued in his first term, which included political allies Steve Bannon, Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, and Michael Flynn. Some Democrats also expressed concerns about Biden's move, including Colorado Senator Jared Polis, who said it set, quote, a bad precedent that could be abused by later presidents. Well, Biden's about face comes as Democratic lawmakers return to Congress this week, determined to keep the attention on some of President-elect Trump's controversial choices for roles

in his administration. Those include his pick for the director of the FBI, Cash Patel, a vocal critic of the Bureau who's promised to turn its headquarters into quote, a museum of the deep state. The announcement, which came this weekend, means that Trump is effectively firing FBI Director Christopher Wray before the end of his 10-year term, though his new pick could face an uphill confirmation fight in the Senate next year. Over the past couple of days, Trump also said he wants Hillsboro County, Florida Sheriff Chad Chronister to lead the Drug Enforcement Administration, selected his son-in-law Jared

Kushner's father, real estate magnate Charles Kushner, to serve as the U.S. Ambassador to France and named Lebanese-born billionaire Massad Boulos, who's also the father-in-law to his daughter Tiffany, to be his senior advisor on Arab and Middle Eastern affairs. Turning to Syria now, President Bashar al-Assad is facing the most serious challenge to his grip on power in nearly a decade, after rebel fighters captured most of the city of Aleppo a few days ago. Russian and Syrian government planes launched airstrikes in rebel-held areas over the weekend in an attempt to disrupt the rapid advances by opposition forces. However, journal correspondent Jared Malson told us that those gains mark a sudden shift

in power dynamics in the Middle East, and a jarring setback for Russia and Iran, which have helped to prop up the Assad regime for years. Assad is really dependent on both of those countries for military support. And it's coming at a time when both Russia and Iran are kind of entangled in other wars. You know, Iran has had to suffer a setback because of Israel's offensive against Hezbollah and Iranian militias in the region and Russia obviously is bogged down in the war in Ukraine. And so now you have this kind of perfect storm where Assad's main military backers are preoccupied elsewhere and he's faced this surprise attack by these rebel groups,

which has completely overturned the situation in Syria with kind of global political repercussions. The Biden administration is placing new restrictions on exports of advanced chips to China, its fourth attempt in three years to curb Beijing's technological development. The measures will limit the sale of memory chips that power AI applications and include placing 140 Chinese companies and other entities on a trade blacklist. However, industry analysts say a months-long pause between the drafting of the rules and their release today has given Chinese entities a chance to stock up on chips and machines they knew were likely to be restricted.

The CEO of Jeep maker Stellantis, Carlos Tavares, is stepping down effective immediately, bringing forward his planned departure amid tumbling sales and profits at the carmaker. Tavares was originally due to stay at the helm until the end of his contract in early 2026. In a statement, a senior independent director said the change of plan stemmed from different views emerging in recent weeks, with the company's spokesman saying it had no further comment. Stellantis said it expects to name a new leader in the first half of 2025 and back the financial guidance that it gave in October. Its Milan-listed shares are trading sharply lower. And elsewhere in the autos industry, workers at nine Volkswagen plants across Germany began

striking this morning, the latest move in a conflict with management over plans to implement domestic cost cuts amid sluggish EV demand and competition from Chinese rivals. Negotiations on a global treaty to reduce plastics pollution have ended in South Korea without agreement. The treaty, sought by a number of countries, would be legally binding and establish clear guidelines for businesses for years to come. But journal consumer goods reporter Sambra Chowdhury said that consensus on a number of major issues, including potential plastic production caps, remains elusive.

There's a handful of countries called the like-minded countries, either big oil producing countries or big plastics producers, and they include Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran, Iraq, India, and some others. And they said, look, we do not want plastic production caps. Instead, they're pushing for, let's cut down on plastic pollution, let's improve recycling. The problem is mismanaged waste. And on the other side, you have countries that say,

there is no way we can manage the volumes of plastics coming onto the market every day. We have to turn the tap off. And I think in terms of where this goes, the treaty isn't completely dead in the water. There were more than 100 nations that did support capping plastic production. There is expected to be another round of negotiations

held in the next few months. And ultimately, if there's still a complete deadlock, a treaty could still be struck, leaving out the holdouts. Non-profits I've talked to say something like that would be better than having a weak treaty that everybody agrees on that's underpinned by voluntary measures and really does nothing. According to the OECD, global plastics production is forecast to nearly triple by 2060, with

recycling rates only increasing from 9 to 17 percent. While early readings of Black Friday spending are pointing to a robust start to the holiday shopping season. According to MasterCard, spending pulse online sales rose almost 15 percent compared with last year, while in-store sales grew by a considerably more modest 0.7 percent. And the rush is hardly over, with Adobe forecasting that today's Cyber Monday will be the year's biggest online shopping day, driving a record $13.2 billion in spending, up 6% from last year.

And coming up this week, earnings from retailers Costco, Dollar Tree, and Dollar General will give us further clues on the state of consumer spending. Members of the OPEC Plus Oil Cartel will meet Thursday for a policy meeting, with analysts at ING expecting several member countries to increase production next year, pushing the market into a large surplus. And on Friday, we'll get the latest read on the state of the US labor market with the November jobs report. Coming up, we'll get an update from Brussels as the European Union's executive team gets to work

preparing for a reset in relations with the US. We've got that story after the break. As a FIZ member, you can look forward to free data, big savings on plans, and having your unused data roll over to the following month, every month. At FIZ, you always get more for your money. They don't call it Inauguration Day, but Sunday marked a big day for EU politics nonetheless, as former German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen kicked off her second five-year term helming the bloc's executive body. And as she did at the start of her first term, she is set to play a key role in managing the US-EU relationship on a range of hot-button issues, including trade and military spending.

So what are von der Leyen's plans, and how might they collide with Donald Trump's agenda? Journal reporter Kim McCrail is in Brussels. Kim, remind us very briefly before we get any further into this, just what exactly Ursula von der Leyen's remit is as European Commission president, not a role that I'll admit I know really where it begins, where it ends. Kim McRaele Sure. She's in charge of the European Commission and it actually has quite a lot of power. So it's the body that proposes new legislation for the EU

and it's also in charge of trade policy for the bloc, which means it's going to be pretty central to any discussions with the new Trump administration. She has a reputation for exercising pretty tight control at the commission. And I think one of the notorious examples in Brussels of that is that she actually in her first term had sleeping quarters installed in her office. All right. Not work shy, to put it mildly. And we have a bit of a roadmap of what we

might be able to expect given her experience overlapping with a year at least of Trump's first term, don't we? Yeah. I mean, her team really took what can be condensed down to two basic lessons from their previous experience with Trump. And that's one, expect the unexpected. And two is look for common interests between the EU and the US. And that means both looking for a positive agenda, looking for areas of cooperation,

and also being prepared to defend their interests. One of the ones that officials have spent a lot of time preparing for is around tariffs. And you can expect their response to follow a pretty similar playbook to what they've done before. During the first Trump administration, when his administration put tariffs on steel and aluminum, the EU response was to do some pretty wide ranging, but also specific tariffs on US goods, targeting key electoral districts, targeting places where they thought they might have an impact. And we saw tariffs from the EU on things like bourbon whiskey from Kentucky, Harley Davidson motorcycles. Another area that could be an issue is the EU does have several ongoing

investigations into big US tech companies. Those investigations could carry big fines for those companies and that could be another area of possible conflict. Nat. And Kim, moving to that common ground you mentioned, what does Wanderlion's team think they can do to get there? Kim Bollingham You know, they know that Trump has expressed a lot of concern about the EU's trade surplus with the US. So if there are ways to increase the amount of goods that the EU is importing from the US, they're looking for possibilities around that. One of the ideas that's been floated is buying more liquefied natural gas from the US, which the EU is importing from the US, they're looking for possibilities around that. One of the ideas that's been floated is buying more liquefied natural gas from

the US, which the EU does have a need to import energy supplies. Nat. If some of that sounds a little piecemeal, there are some bigger potential changes afoot, though, specifically around defense, it sounds like. Anna. Yeah, they feel they will have to address to Trump's team, the EU taking on more of a financial burden when it comes to Ukraine and spending more on defense. And when we talk about spending more on defense, we're talking about largely the NATO commitments that governments have agreed to, which is to spend at least 2% of their GDP on defense.

So the discussion is now, is everybody doing that? And should it even be more than that? So one of the things she's working on is lining up this potential European defense plan. It could mean pouring billions of euros into the EU's defense industry, common defense projects, but it's worth pointing out also it's Europe's national governments, not the EU as a broader body that mostly manages money around those things. So that will definitely be a test of her power and her ability to push the block in that direction. I've been speaking to Wall Street Journal reporter Kim McCrail in Brussels. Kim, thanks

as always for the update. Thanks so much, Luke. And that's it for What's News for Monday morning. Today's show was produced by Daniel Bach and Kate Bulevent with supervising producer Christina Rocca. And I'm Luke Vargas for the Wall Street Journal. We will be back tonight with a brand new show. Until then, thanks for listening.