WSJ What’s News - Can Democrats Embrace AI and Win Back Silicon Valley?

Episode Date: August 14, 2025

A.M. Edition for Aug 14. As Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky lands in the U.K. to shore up support ahead of the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska, WSJ correspondent Matthew Luxmoore says prisoner swaps provide an example of how Russia and Ukraine can cooperate in the future. Plus, why the era of big raises for low-paid workers is over. And WSJ’s Amrith Ramkumar details how Democrats are trying to reinvigorate waning support from tech executives. Sign up for the WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As the clock ticks down to the crucial Trump-Pooten summit, Ukraine's president tries to ensure his country's needs are heard. Plus, how Democrats can win back Silicon Valley. Democratic leaders often just go to Silicon Valley and stick their hands out and ask for money because they view it as a stronghold without really engaging in a genuine way on policy issues. And engage hyperspeed. Trump wants to accelerate rocket launches. and spaceport development. It's Thursday, August 14th. I'm Azhar Sukri for the Wall Street Journal.

Here is the AM edition of What's News. The top headlines and business stories moving your world today. The world's attention will be focused on tomorrow's summit in Alaska between President Trump and his Russian counterpart to discuss a possible end to the war in Ukraine. Its president, Volodymyr Zelensky, is not invited to the Trump-Putin meeting. He's been in discussions with European leaders and is in London for a meeting with British Prime Minister Kirstama.

Matthew Luxmore, it's the journal Foreign Correspondent. Matthew, what is Zelensky hoping that Trump and Putin will agree to in their summit? Well, in many ways Zelensky is hoping they agree to nothing. Zelensky doesn't want anything to be agreed about Ukraine without Ukraine's involvement. He's really rallied European leaders, the world leaders since this summit was announced to try and get them to prevail on Trump and get him to agree to essentially not agree on anything with Putin when it comes to Ukraine. Everyone's noticed that Trump initially was talking about land being swapped between the two countries saying that this is something that is going to be necessary for this war to end. the White House has really rode back on those statements in the last couple of days. So he's already told Zelensky and the Europeans that he will not be kind of hashing out any land agreements with Putin.

So really for Trump, as he's put it himself, this is a kind of feel-out meeting. As the White House has said, it's a kind of way for the two leaders to get together and for Trump to better understand what Putin's position is because he feels like Putin has kind of been dragging this process on. and I think he wants to understand how serious Putin is about striking a peace deal in Ukraine. Yeah, it really does sound like Trump has come round to thinking along the lines of what European leaders have been saying for some time. Now, even though Putin is refusing to meet Zelensky, Russia and Ukraine have actually been exchanging thousands of prisoners over the course of the war. Yeah, the exchange of tens of thousands of prisoners since the beginning of the war, something that's really unprecedented for two countries during the course of a conflict and not after it is a kind of fascinating subplot of this war and one that really hasn't been covered very much, because these exchanges are taking place quietly, often away from the glare of the media and the attention of journalists, hundreds of people on a weekly basis recently, crossing the border from Russia and Ukraine, many of them, you know, emaciated, barely cling to consciousness.

And the reason the story is so fascinating is because this regular exchange of prisoners and the secret channels that are being used to arrange these swaps are kind of the one thin wire that still connects these two warring countries to each other. And looking at the way this is done, it's kind of a good way of looking and kind of trying to understand how Ukraine and Russia might rebuild the relationship after this war is over. These are two countries that 35 years ago were part of the same country and now really have completely stopped any formal relations of each other. But in the course of swapping prisoners, they are still talking to each other. And that is kind of a fascinating and undercover aspect of

the war. Journal Foreign Correspondent Matthew Luxmore, thank you so much. Thank you. Turning to Markets News now and investors will get the latest snapshot on how tariffs are impacting wholesale inflation this morning with the producer price index for July due out at 8.30 a.m. Eastern. Economists, polled by the Wall Street journals say factory gate prices probably rose in July from the previous month after the index held steady in June under shooting forecasts. The PPI follows Tuesday's Consumer Price Index, which showed inflation holding steady in July, helping cement expectations the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates in September. That helped lift the S&P 500 and NASDAQ composite to record closing highs for the second straight day. In less welcome news for the health of the economy, the disappointing July jobs report that led to President Trump firing the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics has revealed another trend for American workers.

Wage growth for lower-income workers has slowed significantly in recent months, while higher-income wage growth is holding steady. and journal finance editor Quentin Webb says that shift could matter not just for low-paid workers, but the overall economy. And what that tells us about the economy is that we're in this kind of rather strange period for the labour market where you couldn't say it's falling off a cliff, but at the same time, employers are becoming a little bit more reluctant, both to hire and to fire. And so that tends to affect the lower end of the income spectrum more because the best way in many cases for people to get pay rises is to switch jobs. And when there's a less job switching going on, you tend to see fewer pay rises. A deadly explosion at a US steel mill near Pittsburgh earlier this week

could test Nippon Steel's resolve over its American investment plans in what could prove to be a costly crisis. The Japanese company promised to spend $14 billion to keep US Steel's aging plants humming for decades including more than $2 billion by 2028 for upgrades at the Clareton plant where an explosion on Monday killed two workers and injured 10 others. Crews are continuing to clean up the site where it'll likely cost the company millions of dollars to return it to normal operations. US steel officials said the blast reduced the company's ability to produce coke

at its Mon Valley Works Complex, a key steelmaking input. Coming up, we look at what the business. Democrats need to do to win back the love of what used to be one of their most reliable sources of support, Silicon Valley. That story and more after the break. Looking to space now and President Trump has issued an executive order that aims to speed up rocket launches and open the door to more spaceport developments. Many space industry executives have been frustrated by the pace at which regulators have moved to permit launches and other space operations. The alliance between Trump and SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk had fueled hopes of speedier launches

until the pair's high-profile split earlier this year. Currently, SpaceX launches more rockets more often than any other company, meaning the order to speed up the licensing of flights should help it. But other launches, including Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin, and United Launch Alliance are also poised to begin flying their new rockets more often in the years ahead. And staying with the tech industry, Silicon Valley had been a reliable source of support for the Democratic Party for decades. No more. Open AI chief executive Sam Altman said he's, quote, politically homeless after Democrats lost their way. and Republicans say there has never been more enthusiasm for their party in tech circles. Journal tech reporter Amrith Ram Kumar says the trend is fueling concerns among Democrats

that dwindling support among tech elites is yet another obstacle. The party is facing its lowest poll numbers in more than three decades. Amrith, so what's driving Silicon Valley executives into the arms of the Republicans when they used to be solidly behind the Democrats before? Yeah, it's a really interesting issue. I think it's important to contextualize most Silicon Valley executives and workers are still reliably Democrats, but this is more about vibes, I think, than anything else. And last year in the election, you saw Elon Musk pour money into arms of the Republicans, particularly Donald Trump. And you saw notable people like Mark N. Grison and Shemot, Paula, Apatia, billionaire, federal capitalists, abandoned the Democrats in favor of the Republicans. That and sort of dwindling enthusiasm among, executives and people who still might support Democrats but don't like where they are on tech issues. And the big driver is really the regulatory stance of the last administration. They tried to sort of regulate a lot of crypto companies and investigate them for breaking the law. And

people viewed those actions as trying to regulate a key sector out of existence for AI and things like that. But I think it's more that Democrats haven't really said how they want to support AI or indicated that they're excited about the technology and what it can do. And more broadly, that's just been a common theme. A lot of Democrats have focused on social media harming children online and things like that, which are definitely big problems. But people in tech circles feel like they've been demonized a bit too much. And people we've talked to who have been looking at this issue for a while said they want

to chart a course forward where you're not going easy on tech elites. sort of just condoning everything they're doing with Trump, but you also can still be positive about the future and technology. So it'll be really interesting if some new candidates or new voices can sort of outline those priorities. So from what you're saying, from a tech executives point of view, it boils down to the issue of which party is embracing AI more thoroughly and that in their eyes is the Republicans. So that's the view from the C-suite. But what about tech workers? It's a rather different story in terms of who they support, right? Yeah, I'm not actually sure it's that much of a huge difference. It's

usually like 80 to 90% of donations from workers at these tech companies that go to Democrats. I think it's more just about like how motivated they are and whether they feel that Democrats are actually going to do things that help them. We've heard recently that more people feel like Democratic leaders often just go to Silicon Valley and stick their hands out and ask for money because they view it as a stronghold without really engaging. in a genuine way on policy issues, especially if you do think about how fast AI is improving and where things might be in a few years. So that's definitely not the only calculus for executives, but it is a big one. So what can the Democrats do to win back the support of Silicon Valley?

The biggest thing Democrats can do to shore up support in this area, people have said, is just put out sort of a pro-innovation positive message on tech policy and tech issues. So a group of House Democrats recently put out basically a pro-innovation agenda. So some people are viewing that as sort of a starting point, and it will be interesting. As we move forward, what party leaders gravitate toward, a lot of people have been in a tough spot because they want to push back on everything Trump does. But some of his policies around cryptocurrencies or AI, in many cases are generally pretty popular. So it's often hard for many people to draw that line so that's something they're struggling

with and we'll continue to moving forward. Journal Tech reporter Amrith Ramkumar, thank you so much. Thanks for having me. And that's it for what's news for this Thursday morning. Today's show was produced by Daniel Bark. Our supervising producer is Pierce Lynch. I'm Azar Sukri for the Wall Street Journal. We'll be back tonight with the new show.

Until then, thanks for listening. Thank you.