WSJ What’s News - Biden Sidelined as Israel Plans Retaliatory Iran Strike

Episode Date: October 4, 2024

P.M. Edition for Oct. 4. Wall Street Journal national security reporter Lara Seligman on the U.S.'s diminished influence over its closest ally in the Middle East. And September’s U.S. jobs report was better than expected. We find out why from Journal reporter Harriet Torry. Plus, OpenAI is opening an office in Manhattan. Tracie Hunte hosts. Sign up for the WSJ's free What's News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Courage. I learned it from my adoptive mom. Hold my hand. You hold my hand. Learn about adopting a teen from foster care at adoptUSkids.org. You can't imagine the reward. Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council. Today's U.S. jobs report blew past expectations.

What's next for the Fed? And how President Biden became a spectator in Israel's war against Hamas and Hezbollah. Where traditionally, Netanyahu hasn't cared too much about what the U.S. thinks, now he really, really does not care because he sees Biden as a lame duck president. Plus, a first look at Nevada's none-of-the-above voters.

It's Friday, October 4th. I'm Tracy Hunt 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. Today's jobs report blew past expectations. The US Labor Department reported that employers added 254,000 jobs last month.

That was significantly more than the 150,000 economists expected and marked the largest monthly increase since March. The unemployment rate also ticked down to 4.1%. Joining us now to discuss what all this will mean for the economy is Wall Street Journal economics reporter Harriet Torry. Harriet, what accounts for these numbers being better than we expected? The strength was really broad-based. We saw a lot of hiring in leisure and hospitality,

so for instance in bars and restaurants. But we also saw a lot of hiring in sectors of the economy that are slightly less susceptible to the swings of the ups and downs of the economy, like for instance education and health care, government. They all added a lot of workers in September. And the report was reassuring in a lot of ways, in other ways too, because the past couple of jobs reports over the summer were pretty weak looking and that did spook markets.

So overall, we're looking at a much more solid labor market situation over the past few months than initially thought. On Monday following last month's half a percentage point interest rate cut, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said officials weren't in a hurry to cut rates. What does this jobs report tell the Fed about further cuts in the next meeting? The Fed hasn't committed to what it's going to do in its next meeting in November, but it has sort of hinted that it's unlikely to cut rates by 50 basis points again, and that 25 is probably going to be more likely. And after the release of the report on Friday, the payrolls report, market participants who place bets on the future Fed rates through futures contracts, 95% as of right now expect that there'll only be a quarter point cut as opposed to

yesterday when it was about, you know, two-thirds thought that that was more likely. So how sustainable is this? What should we expect for October's report? Well, October's report is probably going to be pretty messy because of various things that are going on like strikes. We've had a strike at Boeing and then of course there was a recently a port strike. There was a hurricane. So potentially October could be very different looking and some economists are saying that September is likely to be the last quote unquote clean report that we see before the next Fed meeting and of course before the election as well. Harriet Torry is an economics reporter for the Wall Street Journal. an economics reporter for the Wall Street Journal. The solid jobs report led the major U.S. stock indexes to rise.

The Nasdaq composite rose 1.2 percent while the Dow and the S&P 500 added about 0.8 and 0.9 respectively. All three eked out slight weekly gains. For a multi-part series chasing the Vote, Wall Street Journal political reporter Jimmy V.L. Kine visited Nevada ahead of the presidential election. What he found was that many voters wished the presidential ballot came with the option none of the above.

And you can see this attitude reflected in the voter registration stats. Nevada has more nonpartisan voters than voters registered as either Republicans or Democrats. And as our colleague Elizabeth Fendel told Jimmy, all of this makes Nevada very unpredictable. Nevada is a state that you never quite know what it's going to do. The polls aren't accurate. It's a very transient state, so every four years it's almost like you have a whole new electorate. And Jimmy's now here with us. So you talked to a lot of voters who weren't enthused about any of the candidates. How do you see this unpredictability playing out in the presidential election? I really found

that particularly when the choice was between President Biden and former President Trump, there were many people who were just not feeling it. After Harris took over on the top of the ticket and after Kennedy dropped out and endorsed Donald Trump, you saw some younger voters who were on the fence as to whether they would get off their couch this election, say that they would go and vote for Kamala Harris.

And I saw a lot of the people who had said they were considering Bobby Kennedy now say that they will be supporting Donald Trump in November. As you point out in the piece, Ross Perot did really well in Nevada back in the 1992 presidential elections. Why do voters there seem to be more open to third party candidates than in other states? Nevada has what few people in the state described as a cowboy spirit. It's a relatively transient electorate. It is a western state like many western states. There are many voters

have something of a libertarian streak in them. There's a big live and let live element among both Republicans and Democrats. And many people said that that has led people in the silver state to be more open to looking beyond the two top party candidates. Jimmy Villekind is a political reporter for the Wall Street Journal. Thanks, Jimmy. Thanks Tracy. Always a pleasure. And you can listen to Jimmy's reporting from Nevada on Chasing the Vote this Sunday. Americans are having fewer babies.

And it's become an issue for politicians and policymakers. What questions do you have about America's falling birthrate and what it means for politics in the economy? 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, how President Biden is being sidelined, losing influence over Israel's decisions. That's after the break. That's after the break. As Israel prepares a retaliatory strike against Iran, the Biden administration looks a lot more like a spectator as its closest ally is reshaping the Middle East.

White House officials say they have been coordinating closely with their Israeli counterparts and are hopeful that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will limit a likely attack against Iran. But President Biden and his team have been repeatedly blindsided by Israel in recent weeks. Joining us now is Wall Street Journal national security reporter, Lara Seligman. So Lara, how did we get here? It's been almost a year now since the October 7th attacks against Israel. And all along, it seemed like President Biden has had little influence on or even insight into Israel's military plans from going into Gaza, from the deaths of the World Food Kitchen workers.

A lot of the time, Israel is surprising the US. But now this has really been striking in the last two weeks as the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, seems to be openly defying, if not outright ignoring US calls for restraint. And this is making the US, arguably the world's most powerful country, look like a bystander while Israel reshapes the Middle East. What is behind Netanyahu's emboldened actions now?

While the US does have leverage over Israel, I mean, the US provides Israel with the vast majority of its weapons and munitions. President Biden does not seem willing to hold any of that back and give any kind of concrete threat to get Israel to stop. He did withhold one shipment of 2,000 pound bombs because of the invasion of Ratha, which was going to cause many civilian deaths,

but that's been the only time he has ever followed through on a threat to have real consequences for Israel. The October 7th attacks really fundamentally changed Israel and Netanyahu and his government because it was such a surprise and it was such a tragedy and it made Netanyahu go on offense to make sure this never happens again. What risks does this entail for the administration? Well first of all, with tension so high in the region, there is a threat to U.S. troops in the region. We have anywhere from hundreds to thousands of Marines and sailors and soldiers all over

the Middle East. There was a long period last year where they were getting attacked almost every day by Iranian proxies in Iraq and Syria and Jordan. And then more broadly than that, any broad regional war between Israel and Iran would inevitably draw the US in. Already you saw on Tuesday, the US was involved in the defense.

The US ballistic missile defense capable destroyer shot down several missiles. But Iran will likely use any excuse to see the US and Israel has aligned on this. So the war draws in the US. So what does this mean going into a presidential election? Well, the biggest impact of being 30 days from the election is that where traditionally Netanyahu hasn't cared too much about what the U.S.

thinks, now he really, really does not care because he sees Biden as a lame duck president. Any policy changes on the U.S. side that happen now may not survive the election. Domestically, the war in Gaza has reflected badly on this administration because Biden has not been able to rein Israel in enough to get a ceasefire. And I think that although most voters don't vote on foreign policy, there are a lot of regular people who are very upset about that Biden hasn't done anything to stop the conflict

in Gaza. Laura Seligman is a national security reporter for the Wall Street Journal. Thanks so much, Laura. Thank you. In business news, OpenAI is leasing its first-ever office in New York City. According to people familiar with the matter, the chat GBT startup has agreed to rent 90,000 square feet in Manhattan's iconic Puck Building. The move raises property owners' hopes that the budding artificial intelligence industry will develop a bigger appetite for office space.

And that's What's News for this week. Tomorrow you can look out for our weekly markets wrap-up, What's News in Markets. Then on Sunday in Chasing the Vote, Jimmy Villekind travels to the battleground State of Nevada to find out how voters responded to the candidate's shifts going into November. And we'll be back with our regular show on Monday morning. Today's show was produced by Anthony Bansi and Pierre Bienneme with supervising producer Michael Kosmitis. Michael LaValle wrote our theme music, Aisha Al-Muslim is our development producer, Scott Saloway and Chris Zinsley are our deputy editors. And Falana Patterson is the Wall Street

Journal's head of news audio. I'm Tracy Hunt. Thanks for listening.