WSJ What’s News - What to Watch for in the Harris-Trump Presidential Debate

Episode Date: September 10, 2024

P.M. Edition for Sept. 10. Wall Street Journal reporter Vivian Salama explains what to expect in the debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. And U.S. incomes rose for the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic. WSJ’s Paul Overberg explains why many Americans might not be feeling richer. Plus, Bank of America invests $205 million in carbon-capture tax credits. The Journal’s Amrith Ramkumar discusses the significance of the deal. Tracie Hunte hosts. Sign up for the WSJ's free What's News newsletter.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

OCI is the single platform for your infrastructure, database, application development, and AI needs. Do more and spend less like Uber, 8x8, and Databricks Mosaic. Take a free test drive of OCI at oracle.com slash Wall Street. Household incomes in the U.S. rose for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic. And what to watch out for in tonight's debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. The real key is for the American people to know what is factual and what is an embellishment of the truth because a lot of times in these debates you hear these broader superlatives

of what the other person has done right or wrong. Plus, White Bank of America is betting big on carbon capture. It's Tuesday, September 10th. I'm Tracy Hunt for the Wall Street Journal. This is a PM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories that move the world today. Household incomes rose last year for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic. That's

according to new data from the U.S. Census Bureau. The rise in income is partly fueled by a strong job market and the rate of inflation declining last year, after spiking to a 40-year high in 2022. The Bureau said today that inflation-adjusted median household income was about $80,000 in 2023, up 4% from around $77,500. Paul Overberg is a reporter for The Wall Street Journal. Paul, what changes in income are we seeing across the country? In the Northeast, median household income rose a little more than 3%, a little bit more than 6% in the Midwest, and 3% in the South. In the West, the gain was smaller, and the Census Bureau said it wasn't statistically

significant. What about among various demographic groups? White households saw the median household income go up almost 6% from the previous year. Asian households and Hispanic households, effectively their incomes were unchanged. And the black households saw a small increase. Again, the Bureau said it wasn't statistically significant. I think a lot of people might hear this news

about this income rise and be a bit confused because it certainly doesn't feel like they've been doing better. What accounts for that? Well, this data covers all of last year. And, you know, at this point, we're well away from sort of the peak of the inflation, which was in the end of 2022. But people are still remembering sort of what was going on to gas prices, which are always very top of mind, for instance, back then. But they've faded. And renters have

seen strong increases in a lot of parts of the country. Those are slowing down now, but recent memory is a powerful thing. That was Wall Street Journal reporter Paul Overberg. The economy is a major issue in these presidential elections and one that is expected to be discussed at tonight's ABC hosted debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. Both candidates have the same goal, to knock their opponent off balance and define themselves as the best candidate to bring change to the country. Joining us to talk about what to watch for is the journal's Vivian Salama. Vivian, what did they expect it to discuss tonight? Really, they're looking to define each other more successfully than each of them defines

themselves. And so for Vice President Harris, because she's still fairly new in this presidential campaign, this is going to be her first debate, she's really looking to further help the American people understand what she stands for, where she is on certain policies. Does she break from President Biden on some of those policies or is it a continuation in some cases? And to try to distinguish herself obviously from her opponent. Even though she has been vice president now for several years, a vast majority of Americans who've been polled say they still don't quite know what she stands for and where she is on certain policies.

And so that is going to be the big burden for her is to help people understand in more detail where she is on issues like, you know, tax increases. You mentioned the economy, and so that's going to be a big one, but also a range of other issues too, like fracking, which is a very contentious issue, on abortion, which is something that Republicans are grappling with. And what about Donald Trump? For former President Trump, he's going to really want to, A, try to convince the American people that they had it much better when he was president and that that would return if he is reelected.

He is going to try to hammer her on certain issues, particularly the campaign has said on the economy and on the border crisis. Now the economy in particular, you know, even though the last quarter we had a faster pace of growth, that hasn't really translated in real terms. People are still feeling the heat from high inflation, and that's something that the Republicans have seized on. So he is really going to hammer her on something like that, as well as he calls her the border's are to say that the migrant crisis is essentially her fault.

And so they're going to be distinguishing their records, but they're also going to be really hammering each other on these certain contentious issues. And the real key is for the American people to know what is factual and what is an embellishment of the truth, because a lot of times in these debates, you hear these broader superlatives of what the other person has done right or wrong.

And when it comes to performance, what are the challenges for each of the candidates? So television is a highly theatrical thing, especially debates. And a lot of it boils down to really having those moments that really stand out. In this era, we talk about going viral. Vice President Harris had this key moment in 2020 that really stood out when she was debating then Vice President Mike Pence, and he tried to cut her off and she said, Mr. Vice President, I'm speaking. And that moment really went viral and kind of propelled her as an aggressive firm debater.

For former President Trump, a big part of it will be whether or not he says something that alienates any of those people, particularly women, where it's going to be an issue. He is debating not only a female candidate, a female candidate of color. And so the question is whether or not he'll be able to stay disciplined enough to stick to policy issues and not get personal, largely because they do not want to alienate female voters, which really could push him over the top in November if he's able to win them over. That was Vivian Salama of the Wall Street Journal. The debate will start at 9 p.m. Eastern Time.

You can follow our live blog and watch it on wsj.com. Israel and Hamas have been at war for nearly a year. With that milestone coming up, what do you want to know about the ceasefire talks and what it could take to free the hostages and end the fighting? 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, Bank of America is betting on carbon capture with a big tax credit deal. That's after the break. AI may be the most important new computer technology ever, but AI needs a lot of processing speed, and that gets expensive fast.

Upgrade to the next generation of the cloud, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure or OCI. OCI is the single platform for your infrastructure, database, application development, and AI needs. Do more and spend less like Uber, 8x8, and Databricks Mosaic. Take a free test drive of OCI at oracle.com slash Wall Street, oracle.com slash Wall Street. The Federal Reserve is walking back a plan to raise the amount of capital America's biggest banks are required to hold.

The move comes after intense pushback from the banking industry. The Fed's vice chair, Michael Barr, said today the regulator plans to require big banks to increase the reserves they hold against losses by 9%. Earlier proposals would have increased them by an estimated 20%. The new rules wouldn't affect banks holding less than $250 billion in assets, meaning most banks in the country outside of the very biggest. Barr also said the Fed hasn't made any final decisions and that proposals would be resubmitted

for public comment. US markets were sluggish today. The Dow fell 0.2% or 92 points, while the S&P 500 rose 0.4%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite climbed 0.8%. Bank of America is making one of the biggest ever investments in carbon capture, a climate technology that has struggled to get off the ground. The bank is providing $205 million in exchange for tax credits from an ethanol producer that captures the carbon it emits at a North Dakota plant. My colleague Pierre Bienneme spoke with Wall Street Journal climate finance reporter Amrith

Ramkumar and asked him about the deal. An ethanol producer called Harvest Stone in North Dakota is raising $205 million from Bank of America in exchange for tax credits the company gets for capturing and sequestering carbon underground. It's one of a handful of operational carbon capture projects in the U.S. and one of the biggest deals ever in the sector. And this is really the first time since the 2022 climate law passed and bolstered tax credits for carbon capture that we've seen like a deal this big get done and get

announced. So it's sort of a landmark moment for this industry that has had lots of problems. What role is the Inflation Reduction Act playing here? The IRA is a main driver of deals like this one. It increased the tax credits that companies can get for capturing and sequestering carbon underground by something like 70%. But many companies, like the one we wrote about in this deal, are very small and they don't have large tax bills. So that's why they need a partner like Bank of America or another big bank to come in, provide that cash in exchange for the tax credits and then the bank gets a slight return on that.

But even though these are tax credits and there's not a ton of risk because the tax credits are provided by the government, we really haven't seen any or many of these carbon capture deals get done since the IRA. And that's because a lot of carbon capture projects have cost issues, they hit technical snags and there are a lot of permitting and local pushback issues when you talk about storing carbon underground, getting the permits, and in some cases people are talking about building long pipelines through multiple states and those carbon pipelines have had a lot of issues.

Well, what is it about this site and this plant that are attractive to Bank of America? Ethanol producers like Harvestone say it's a lot easier to capture carbon at these projects because there's a much higher concentration of CO2. So it makes it easier to capture and store and the costs are a bit lower. This deal is sort of a stamp of approval. It's Bank of America coming in and saying, look, a lot of carbon capital projects probably don't make a ton of economic sense, even with the tax credits in some cases. But this one, because of its unique characteristics, we think has a good chance for operating for at least another decade. That's why we're confident taking

hold of these tax credits in exchange for the money. That was Wall Street Journal climate finance reporter Amrit Ramkumar speaking to my colleague Pierre Bienneme. And that's what's news for this Tuesday afternoon. Today's show was produced by Pierre Bienneme and Anthony Bansi with supervising producer Michael Kosmitis. I'm Tracy Hunt for the Wall Street Journal. We'll be back with a new show tomorrow morning.

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