Senate Confirms Blanche, Berkshire Hathaway Q2 Earnings, More
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Hi, I'm Barry Rittholz, inviting you to join me for the Masters in Business podcast. Every week, we bring you conversations with the people who shape markets, investing, and business. I speak with CEOs, Nobel laureates, market innovators, and legendary investors. Whether you own stocks, bonds, real estate commodities, even crypto, these are discussions you absolutely need to hear. Subscribe to The Masters in Business Podcast on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you listen.
News when you want it with Bloomberg News Now. I'm Monica Ricks.
On this vote, the yeys are fifty, the nays are forty-nine.
What is the Senate vote outcome for Todd Blanche’s confirmation?
The nomination is confirmed.
A very narrow vote in the Senate this morning to confirm Todd Blanch as attorney general, with two GLP senators Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska voting against him. Louisiana Republican Bill Cassidy had been a holdout, but ultimately supported Blanch.
The choice is not between perfection and mister Blanch. It is between Mr Blanche and another acting attorney general, who may not run the department effectively under President Trump. And who In indeed may not be as good as Mr Blanche.
The confirmation follows a weeks-long saga over a controversial anti-weaponization fund and IRS settlement Blanche authorized for President Trump over his old tax leaks. He replaces Pam Bondy now, who was fired by Trump back in April, but has since overseen attempts to prosecute some of the president's perceived enemies, diverted resources to Trump's hardline immigration crackdown, and launched a campaign against higher education institutions. Over admissions and DEI policies. Meantime, President Trump is said to be growing increasingly frustrated with Homeland Security Secretary Mark Wayne Mullen after Mullen made a series of off-message remarks on immigration that angered many of the President's outside allies.
That's according to the Wall Street Journal, which reports for now there are no plans to fire him. The Senate now heads into August recess without taking action on a landmark crypto bill. Bloomberg's Nathan Hager has more from Washington.
Majority Leader John Thune confirmed last week that the Senate would not take up the Clarity Act. Negotiators failed to reach an agreement on the bill's most contentious issues, like tackling illicit finance and preventing public officials, including President Trump, from profiting off crypto. Tabling the deal until next month will make it tougher to reach a deal before the November midterms, but crypto backers were looking for clarity before an election where their spending could play a key role. Washington, I'm Nathan Hager, Bloomberg Radio.
Berkshire Hathaway has reported second quarter earnings, and Bloomberg's Matthew Palazzola tells us earnings were roughly in line across the board.
The insurance earnings better, kind of across the board everything better. I was a little disappointed with the share repurchase. So they bought back about four and a half billion dollars worth of their own shares. That is much more than they've done over the past couple of years, but less than I thought they were going to, given some disclosures they made in July. You thought around eight.
Yes, or around eight. Matthew Palazzola on Bloomberg this weekend. He says the firm's massive cash pile fell to three hundred sixty five point five billion in the second quarter, as its net purchases of equities reached nearly twenty billion in the period. Assigned CEO Greg Abel's putting more of that cash hoard to work. US employers unexpectedly cut jobs in July and previous months were revised lower, suggesting the labor market is facing challenges with the unemployment rate falling to four point one percent. Joanne Bianco is a senior investment strategist at Bond Blocks and tells Bloomberg that
There does seem to be less pressure on the Fed to raise rates in at a September meeting versus where we were a week ago after the Fed meeting when it it seemed almost like a foregone conclusion that maybe they were actually late in in in raising rates by not raising in at the July meeting.
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