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Lutnick: 'Nothing to Hide' on Epstein, Immigration Heads Testify, More
10 Feb 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
The UK stands apart as a place to do business, not because of one advantage, but many working together. Over Ā£10 trillion in capital, four of the world's top universities, a 10-year industrial strategy in action, its stability with dynamism, global reach with local depth. It all adds up to greater growth. Find out more at business.gov.uk slash growth.
News when you want it with Bloomberg News Now. I'm Nathan Hager. I have nothing to hide. Absolutely nothing. Those words from Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick as he is testifying this morning about his relationship with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Lutnick's name is one of many that appears in the Justice Department's latest release of millions of its Epstein files.
The Commerce Secretary acknowledged he visited Epstein's private island in 2012, but says he doesn't remember why. He says he probably exchanged a total of 10 emails with the late pedophile financier, but says he barely had anything to do with him. He says he met with him maybe three times over more than a decade. Lutnick is facing bipartisan calls to resign over his Epstein ties.
His testimony comes a day after two key lawmakers reviewed the Justice Department's unredacted files. Republican Thomas Massey and Democrat Ro Khanna say the names of at least six men who could face charges still haven't been released. We get more from Bloomberg Industry Group's Zach Cohen in Washington.
Massey has even said that he's willing to go to the House floor to name these men publicly if the Justice Department doesn't publish that information independently. Now, the department has issued something like 3.5 million pages worth of emails, flight logs, photographs of Epstein, who died in prison in 2019 in connection with the alleged sex trafficking ring, especially of underage girls.
But there's been a lot of dissatisfaction from lawmakers in both parties about the number of redactions in those documents and whether all of those documents have been unveiled. Bloomberg Industry Group's Zach Cohen in the nation's capital. Immigration enforcement is also taking center stage in Washington.
The heads of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection and Citizenship and Immigration Services are appearing this morning before the House Homeland Security Committee. This comes weeks after the deaths of two Americans in Minneapolis during the immigration enforcement surge. Democrats are demanding 10 reforms on ICE and Border Patrol.
Before they'll agree to fund the Department of Homeland Security, that agency faces a shutdown by the end of the week if there's no agreement. There's a new salvo in the bidding war for Warner Bros. Discovery. Paramount Skydance is sweetening its hostile takeover bid with an offer to pay the $2.8 billion fee for Warner to back away from its deal with Netflix.
Paramount also says it'll pay a $0.25 per share ticking fee for every quarter the deal doesn't close after this year. Paramount has been aggressively pursuing Warner for months after it agreed to sell its studios and HBO Max streaming service to Netflix for $27.75 per share.
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Chapter 2: What does Howard Lutnick say about his ties to Jeffrey Epstein?
Right now, Paramount's Skydance shares are up 1.5%. Warner Bros. Discovery is 2% higher. Netflix is on the rise by 3%. Alphabet is down 1.5%, but the Google parent is seeing huge interest in the overseas debt market. The tech giant's drawn close to 10 times orders for a $1.4 billion sale of a rare 100-year British pound bond.
Alphabet is looking to finance up to $185 billion in AI spending this year. Mandeep Singh is global head of tech research at Bloomberg Intelligence. Look, the stock has outperformed Microsoft by 20 percentage points. in 40 days of trading.
Chapter 3: What revelations came from the Justice Department's Epstein files?
So clearly, the market really sees Alphabet is much better positioned right now. It seems to be a good time to raise money. And I think the sentiment has really reversed big time when it comes to Alphabet. Mandeep Singh with Bloomberg Intelligence and Alphabet set to raise almost $32 billion in less than 24 hours from debt sales in the U.S., U.K. and Switzerland.
Right now, the market is shaking off a surprisingly flat read on retail sales in December and aiming for new stock records. Right now, the S&P 500 is up a quarter of one percent. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is a half percent higher. The Nasdaq Composite is up two-tenths of one percent. Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon says last week's software sell-off due to AI competition was overdone.
Joanne Feeney agrees she's a partner at Advisors Capital Management. Software companies solve problems for their customers. They figure out what the business challenges are inside a company, and then they write code to solve that. And they've done this for decades. So as a consequence, they have proprietary data about the companies that they serve.
They have industry and company-specific knowledge that they've built over decades. That's a very deep moat. Joanne Feeney with Advisors Capital. The Vatican Bank has launched two new stock indexes based on Catholic principles. The Institute for the Works of Religion, as the bank is formally known, says its Morningstar, IOR, U.S. and Eurozone indexes contain 50 medium and large cap stocks each.
Top holdings in the U.S. index include Meta Platforms and Amazon. The biggest weightings in the Eurozone are in ASML and Deutsche Telekom. That's news when you want it with Bloomberg News Now. I'm Nathan Hager. This is Bloomberg.
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Chapter 4: How are lawmakers reacting to Lutnick's testimony?
As one of the world's leading financial centres, the UK puts over Ā£10 trillion to work every day, fuelling innovation across every sector. Home to four of the world's top universities, it provides exceptional talent and breakthrough research. This sits alongside a clear 10-year industrial strategy, unlocking smarter regulation and making it faster and easier to operate. Stability with dynamism.
Global connectivity with local depth. It all adds up to greater growth. Visit business.gov.uk slash growth. Donald Trump is rewriting the Washington rulebook and reshaping the global economy. If you're trying to connect the dots behind the headlines, Bloomberg's Trumponomics podcast is here to help. I'm Stephanie Flanders, Head of Government and Economics at Bloomberg.
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