00:00Well, David Anderson is a professor of U.S. politics at Durham University, and it's great to have you on
00:06the program, David.
00:08Look, the polls close later tonight. Mark, it seemed to expect Democrats to take the House.
00:15What result would genuinely surprise Wall Street?
00:20Well, I think at this point, Wall Street would be most surprised if the Republican Party can hold on to
00:24either chamber of Congress.
00:26The Democrats seem well situated to take over the House with comfortable margins, but it also looks like they are
00:33favored now to win the Senate,
00:34which would give the Democratic Party a united control of Congress and would really put a test to President Trump.
00:42Now, the Democrats have campaigned on slowing the AI data boom, or the data center boom, I should say, that
00:48that's been powering this stock market rally.
00:50Is that just a campaign line, do you think, or do you think it's a policy that they could actually
00:55deliver on?
00:56Well, I think it's a policy they would like to deliver on, but the reality is Congress doesn't affect the
01:02construction of data centers across the United States.
01:04That's generally a state-level policy.
01:07So Congress can hold hearings.
01:09They can talk about the issue.
01:11They could even, if Democrats control both chambers, they could pass legislation to try to slow the growth of AI,
01:17and specifically the construction of data centers, but Donald Trump is just going to veto that.
01:22And it seems very unlikely that the Democratic Party is going to have enough of a majority to override that
01:28veto.
01:29Well, a divided Congress would face a debt-sealing fight next year.
01:35How much damage could that kind of standoff do to confidence in the U.S. economy?
01:41It can do a huge amount of damage.
01:44The United States economy is struggling a bit right now.
01:48Wall Street is doing very well, but most other indicators are not very strong at the moment.
01:53And one of the things that we know nobody likes is a government shutdown.
01:57And with Democrats in control of even one chamber of Congress and Donald Trump and the presidency,
02:04it's likely that there are going to be very difficult negotiations to get a budget deal over the line.
02:09Whatever the result, as you're saying, the White House does keep control over certain things, tariffs come to mind.
02:16What does this vote actually change for America's trading partners, from Europe to China and beyond?
02:24Well, unfortunately for trading partners, I don't think the election tonight is going to affect much trade policy.
02:31Because, again, Congress has a lot of power to pass bills and legislation to affect trade policy.
02:38But President Trump can simply veto those bills, and they don't take effect.
02:42So I think the biggest message we're going to get with whatever share of power Democrats get tonight
02:47is they can change the messaging around what at least the Democratic Party wants to do with trade policy.
02:54But with Trump and the White House, nothing is likely to change quickly.
02:58A big thing seems to be that the cost of living crisis and how much money Americans, ordinary folk, have
03:05got in their pockets.
03:05It's dominated the campaign.
03:08You know, can a new Congress actually bring prices down for American families?
03:13Well, that would probably be very difficult to do, especially since Democrats could, even with united control of Congress, pass
03:21legislation.
03:21President Trump is likely to veto it.
03:24What I think Democrats could do is really change the messaging around affordability.
03:29A lot of Americans are very frustrated that the president and the Republican Party has not seemed to be focused
03:35on affordability concerns.
03:36So Democrats can change the discussion and raise the issues.
03:40The one thing that they could possibly do is raise the War Powers Act and try to force President Trump
03:47to end the war on Iran.
03:48And that might lower fuel costs.
03:51David Anderson at Durham University.
03:54Thank you very much.
