Wall Street’s wishcasting for a President Harris begins

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Jul 23, 2024 View in browser
 
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By Sam Sutton and Declan Harty

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QUICK FIX

Kamala Harris had a lot of friends on Wall Street before she became vice president.

If she pulls out a victory in November, they’re hoping she can give them a better seat at the table than they got with President Joe Biden.

The financial world has been clashing with top Wall Street and corporate regulators throughout Biden’s three and a half years in office, sparring over everything from climate-risk disclosure and hedge fund regulation to M&A. But executives, lobbyists and business leaders see the chance for relief with the ascension of Harris, whose industry ties could portend a softer approach to how the White House navigates corporate America.

“She has a lot of relationships here, not just Wall Street,” said Kathy Wylde, president and CEO of the Partnership for New York City, a nonprofit organization that represents the city’s top business leaders. “Biden did not have as many deep personal connections here.”

Many CEOs “like that she’s pragmatic even if you disagree with her,” said Laurel Strategies Founder, Chair and CEO Alan Fleischmann, whose firm helps executives with business strategy, geopolitical affairs and messaging. Former UBS Americas Chairman and CEO Robert Wolf told MM that a Harris administration would make sure that capitalism and entrepreneurship “thrive” but in “a fair way.”

Jon Henes – Harris’s 2020 fundraising chair and the leader of a New York and Chicago-based corporate restructuring firm – said he has received hundreds of phone calls and texts from Wall Street, Big Law and Hollywood donors looking to back the former U.S. senator and California attorney general.

The big test for Harris will be if she can build on those ties while not alienating progressives and financial watchdogs, who have been encouraged by the Biden administration’s aggressive stance on antitrust and securities regulation – and whose backing she will also need to get elected.

Leading Wall Street critics like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) have already extended their support. The Revolving Door Project’s Jeff Hauser, a longtime critic of the financial sector’s influence on the government, told MM that Harris has been comfortable with the party’s leftward policy shift and that she would embrace the “good politics” of regulating Wall Street, reining in monopoly power and protecting consumers.

Harris’s track record and reputation have sometimes diverged. A landmark achievement of her time as California’s top cop was an $18 billion post-financial crisis relief settlement with big banks and mortgage lenders. She has supported taxing financial transactions — a big Wall Street no-no — and rejected efforts to unwind key Dodd-Frank market reforms that were sought by industry.

But she’s also often considered friendlier to businesses than many of her Democratic colleagues.

“She’s willing to have a conversation with everyone, including business. And she believes that just with the power of her bully pulpit and covening power she can make industry-wide changes,” said Daniel Suvor, who was chief of policy to Harris while she was California’s attorney general. She would often call up CEOs or corporate attorneys to try to work through issues rather than pursue enforcement actions, he added.

Still: “She’s clearly demonstrated a willingness to stand up to Wall Street, to protect workers and families from an unchecked financial sector,” Suvor said.

That approach has also made it harder for both watchdogs and industry leaders to forecast how she will approach economic and financial policy should she secure the presidency.

But her allies also view it as an advantage over the Trump ticket. Harris has “always had great relationships in the business world,” Henes told MM, saying that will contrast favorably with the policies advocated by Trump’s running mate Ohio Sen. JD Vance, “who has been outwardly against Wall Street.” While Trump has assuaged the doubts of many on Wall Street, Democrats in the financial services world believe a Harris administration would offer more stability, multiple sources said.

Her track record would suggest there aren’t many meaningful gaps between her and Biden when it comes to economic and regulatory policies, Wells Fargo Investment Institute President Darrell Cronk told MM.

Would that change if she won in November? “I don't think we know enough yet to kind of map that out,” he said. “As she starts to come out and reintroduce herself right to the voting electorate, we'll start to get better signs about where her policy priorities may lie — and also exactly how aggressive or how non-aggressive she's going to be.”

IT’S TUESDAY — Have any more specific thoughts on how Harris might handle econ policy? Did you work for her? Let us know at ssutton@politico.com and dharty@politico.com

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Driving the Day

House Financial Services holds a hearing on "Insights into AI Applications in Financial Services and Housing” at 10 a.m. … The Niskanen Center and the Budget Lab at Yale host a webinar on how political risks and declining governance quality could harm U.S. credit ratings at 3 p.m. …

Senate report slams Zelle — Michael Stratford reports that Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), the chair of the Senate’s permanent investigations subcommittee, today will accuse payment giant Zelle and three of its biggest banks of “simply not doing enough to protect consumers from the growing risk of scams and fraud.”

Blumenthal is rolling out a 62-page report on the findings of a 15-month investigation into Zelle and JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo, which account for about three-quarters of payments on the bank-owned platform. Executives from those three banks and Zelle parent company Early Warning Services are set to testify at a hearing later today.

— The toplines: The three banks collectively reimbursed about 38 percent of transactions that consumers flagged as fraudulent in 2023, according to the report, leaving more than $100 million of fraud claims unreimbursed. Banks aren’t required to reimburse scams, and the report found that they did so only about 12 percent of the time. Between 2021 and 2023, the three banks rejected $560 million worth of claims from customers who said they were scammed, according to the report.

— Among the policy recommendations: The report says Congress should pass legislation to require banks to reimburse “fraudulently-induced” authorized transactions. It also says the CFPB should set a higher standard for how banks investigate dispute transactions.

A spokesperson for Early Warning Services said the platform has “highly effective fraud and scam countermeasures” and that 99.95 percent of transactions are processed on the network without any report of fraud or scam.

“It’s disappointing this Subcommittee spent a year investigating one of the safest payment platforms only to make partisan recommendations that ignore the underlying problem – the criminals,” a JPMorgan Chase spokesperson said in a statement.

First in MM: Treasury’s Russian state asset roll call — Michael also scoops that Treasury today will begin requiring banks to disclose the location of any Russian sovereign assets that they hold. The requirement implements a key part of the REPO Act, the bipartisan law that Congress passed earlier this year giving the Biden administration the power to seize the roughly $5 billion of Russian state funds that are estimated to be held in the U.S.

Financial institutions will be required to notify Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control about any Russian sovereign assets they hold by Aug. 2 or within 10 days of when the assets are detected.

Crypto bullish on Harris? — Crypto Council for Innovation CEO Sheila Warren thinks Harris could have more of an open mind on digital assets than Biden, Eleanor Mueller reports.

"Is she potentially more amenable than Biden? Absolutely," she said. “I see a lot of potential here."

The industry will likely conduct "a lot more outreach" to Harris in the coming days, including on a potential running mate, Warren said. One reason for the optimism: her background representing California.

“You don't forget some of the folks that are part of your constituency,” she said. “If she were from a different state that didn't have as much tech, I think the reality is she would understand it less."

 

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2024 ELECTION

Democratic Coconut Grove — Democratic endorsements for Harris continued to roll in on Monday. The biggest? Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the powerful Bay Area congresswoman who was instrumental in the pressure campaign that forced Biden from the ticket. The party’s fundraising machine is in overdrive, with the flagship Super PAC Future Forward hauling in $150 million since Biden made his announcement on Sunday, Elena Schneider reports.

— The GOP’s initial attack strategy? “MAGA Inc., said it would spend $11 million in the next two weeks on the anti-Harris ad, which attempts to transfer Biden’s low approval ratings on inflation and immigration onto Harris,” The WSJ’s Aaron Zitner, Alex Leary and Vivian Salama report.

 

Breaking News Briefing: How Kamala Harris’ Policies Could Differ from Joe Biden’s — Where does Vice President Kamala Harris stand on key policy issues? Where does she differ from President Biden? Join POLITICO Pro’s specialist reporters for a detailed discussion of what her track record as vice president, U.S. senator and attorney general of California tells us about her policy instincts and allies. REGISTER HERE.

 
 
On the Hill

Harris's CBC work to shape economic agenda — Congressional Black Caucus Chair Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Nev.) said in an interview Monday that he expects Harris to prioritize "closing the racial wealth gap," Eleanor reports.

"She has led on the issue of economic opportunities for communities that have traditionally been left out,” said Horsford, who endorsed Harris Sunday. He added that she partnered with the CBC on its economic opportunities tour and its proposal to grow Black wealth.

Senate, House to get Treasury NatSec download — Treasury Assistant Secretary for Investment Security Paul Rosen will testify on national security in the Senate this week and the House next, Eleanor reports.

Senate Banking will host Rosen alongside Commerce and Defense officials for a hearing Thursday morning, according to the committee's website. Rosen will then appear before House Financial Services July 31, said two people briefed who were granted anonymity to discuss unannounced plans.

Crypto

ETH is the WordDeclan reports that the Securities and Exchange Commission has signed off on investment products that track the cryptocurrency ether, which had a $412 billion market cap as of Monday evening. Similar products are already available to track bitcoin.

House unanimously passes crypto bill — The House on Monday passed by voice vote a proposal from Rep. Zach Nunn (R-Iowa) that would create an interagency working group to tackle illicit finance in crypto, Eleanor reports.

 

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Fly Around

The G-20 — Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s trip to the G-20 in Rio de Janeiro is likely to be overshadowed by the political developments in the U.S., Bloomberg’s Christopher Condon and Viktoria Dendrinou report. Still, Yellen is expected to focus on maintaining the U.S.’s commitment to aiding Ukraine.

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