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Assassination attempt on Trump may not sway voters: Policy expert

The political landscape has been roiled by the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump.

Pangaea Policy Founder Terry Haines joins Morning Brief to give insight into whether or not the assassination attempt had any lasting impact on the election in November.

"One is that I think the assassination attempt certainly has a short-term positive impact for former President Trump's prospects; I don't think it has a long-term prospect," says Haines.

He continues with: "There are bad assumptions all over the place. One bad assumption is that Biden voters will move to Trump. There's not only is there no evidence of that, but there was polling done right before the debate that showed that Biden voters, even ones that were marginal Biden voters, really wouldn't move to Trump under any circumstances."

For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Morning Brief.

This post was written by Nicholas Jacobino

00:00 Speaker A

As I said, investors looking to digest the potential volatility to come as the election continues to unfold, heading into the market open today, the Trump trade gaining momentum. What exactly is the Trump trade? Well, right now, it's looking like a couple of different assets. For one, we've got Bitcoin moving up over 5% over the past 48 hours here. Then we got shares of Trump Media and Technology, ticker GDJT, surging up over 52% right now in the pre-market. Joining us to discuss the impact on the race to the White House and financial markets, we've got Terry Haynes, founder of Pangeo Policy. Terry, thank you so much for being here with us. I know that you say to be wary of the Trump trade. What do you make of the degree of upside movement that we are seeing in what we are sort of loosely referring to as the Trump trade right now?

01:36 Terry Haynes

Uh, good morning, Madison. I think there's a great deal of sentiment involved in this and most likely egged on by betting and prediction markets. Uh, and that's fine. I mean, markets trade on sentiment all the time, uh, and those sorts of things. Uh, but, you know, in terms of long-lasting impact or, long-lasting in markets these days is maybe this week. But, uh, long-lasting, I'd really watch out for it because the prediction markets don't bear any resemblance to what's actually going on on the ground where, uh, where the the polls are so tight and remain so tight that over the last month, uh, Biden went from a one, from one point down in the two-way kind of poll of polls to three points down even with all the travails he's had. And, uh, since I wrote that yesterday morning, it tightened up a little bit further to about 2.7%, whether you're looking at the two-way or the five-way. So, uh, you know, prediction markets can say as they wish. And, uh, and certainly Trump probably gets a little bump out of his convention, but you know, then most nominees do. Bottom line, though, is uh, the political side of this is pointing at the prediction side of saying this isn't going to last.

03:56 Speaker A

You know, it's interesting, Terry. We've got, you know, a little bit more of the insight coming out from UBS, and of course, we've been tracking the movements in their own election watch and their prediction as well. All the scenarios of whether it be a democratic sweep or republican sweep, or you know, log jam in DC, all of that and the above. Um, but the question that they have here this morning and their election co-head, their election watch co-head, uh, writing to us saying, the question to ask is whether the attempted assassination on former President Trump will affect the election prospects for him and beyond that, the impact of the election on policy and markets does not change. I want to get your anticipation of the anticipated impact on policy and markets and what investors should be thinking about.

05:14 Terry Haynes

Sure. Uh, thanks, Brad. A couple of things. One is that I think the assassination attempt certainly has a short-term positive impact for former President Trump's prospects. Uh, I don't think it has a long-term prospect. I mean, I raised the Biden matter in part because you know, this was a seismic event in political terms, but yet it didn't have much impact on how people think about the election, which is saying something. There are bad assumptions all over the place. One bad assumption is that, well, you know, Biden voters will move to Trump. There's not only is there no evidence of that, but, uh, there was polling done right before the debate that showed that Biden voters, even ones that were marginal Biden voters, really wouldn't move to Trump under any circumstances, and we really haven't seen a huge move towards Trump. I don't think we're going to see it now either. Uh, you know, the logic of this doesn't match up, you know, just because somebody was almost shot and killed, a terrible event, uh, that does not mean that voters are going to be that much more likely to vote for somebody who they know as well as Trump, and whose unfavorables are as large as Trump. Uh, beyond that, I don't think what you're going to see is a policy shift. I think you're going to see a perception policy shift. You're going to see a situation where, uh, the Trump in markets looks much more normalized and that's the impact of, you know, endorsements including people like Ken Griffin and the like. Uh, I think folks start to see that, Trump presidency's going to be very much more business-like, uh, than disruptive. Finally, what really matters is not just Trump, not just Biden as the president, what matters is the whole of Washington. And the base case today very much is for a split political Washington with one house, the lower house in this case being democratic in 2025, and the upper house, Republican Senate being marginally Republican in 2025. Wall Street is enamored of sweeps. They were enamored of a blue wave in 2016 and the opposite happened. 2020, they were blue wave and that didn't happen. Uh, barely, it happened enough to do a couple of things but not much more. And now you've got a divided world, and, uh, you know, and they were all red wave in 2022 and that didn't happen. So, you know, as far as the major banking houses, I'd put a break on the enthusiasm.

09:22 Speaker A

You mentioned Ken Griffin. We know that he and Paul Singer met with Trump about fundraising efforts before this event, and then of course, you had Elon Musk and Bill Ackman voicing their support for the Trump campaign following Saturday's events. To what extent do you think that the attempted assassination takes the muzzle off of some Wall Street voices and executives who wanted to support Trump publicly but were waiting for a moment where it was appropriate to do so?

10:08 Terry Haynes

Well, I think, I think it's a really good question, but I think what matters more is, for them, is the steady work that Trump has done over the last several months to show and convince the business world, including a recent trip to Washington to see the business round table and others, uh, that, that he's, his presidency is going to be more normalized and less disruptive. So I think that matters, and that matters a lot for Trump, frankly, because what he's dealing with in his own party is still a split party where you've got, you know, 20 to 40% in the primaries not voting for Trump. So you've still got a lot of weariness among core Republican voters, and he's not reaching out and appealing to independents that much. He's underwater with independents right now. So he needs to fill both of those gaps, and frankly business endorsements help a little bit in that regard.

11:17 Speaker A

All right, Terry Haynes, who's the founder of Pangeo Policy. Terry, great to get some of your insights and perspective. Thanks so much for joining us this morning.

11:40 Terry Haynes

Thanks.