That were thought to benefit if we have a slow and healthy unwinding of all of this but dont be surprised if these weigh on the markets because in the sixblock area of a beautiful city its unsiege as occupy seattle if you will, dan springer knows it well, he hes been reporting better than anyone else, dan its a tough position for the mayor to be in, the police chief to be in because they dont seem to be on the same page and id imagine people who live and work in the area but how are things going today . Well neil, this is bizarre and concerning and yesterday the mayor had her first News Conference since this began monday night and she basically said she doesnt know how this is going to end and she likened the people inside to a gay pride festival and she said afterwards she was asked by cnn how this is going to end and she said who knows we could be in for the summer of love but let me take you behind me to one of these barricaded entrances that theres six of them and look at this guy. Hes got a shield out there, hes got his mask on so hes being covid safe but this is one of the places that people are being kind of barricaded from as they look inside this autonomous zone. Weve been inside. This is not an area thats under armed siege. There are guns inside there, but its basically been a peaceful protest, you do have lots and lots of different people in there. Theres tents in there, lots of Homeless People have camped out in there now, and you have coop with food being donated but you also have concerns from some residents. People who live in side there, have to come and go past these barricades and we also heard from somebody who has lived in this area and shes not at all happy about whats going on. Ive lived on capitol hill for 30 years and the amount of graffiti, the amount of trash, the lack of respect for the Small Businesses that are here. Neil you mentioned the businesses. I would say theres maybe 20 or so inside the barricadeed seven square block area and id say all but a couple are closed. Lots of them have boarded up windows so they dont want any more damage to their windows, but theres not anything going on in the way of commerce, so if i was a business person id be concerned about my business, and now the governor has finally said they can start to open up and have people come into their bars and restaurants, but that type of stuff just is not happening as you have still hundreds of people inside there, camped out and they say that they will not be leaving until their demands are met and they have a laundry list of demands. Among them they want to abolish the Police Department, the court system, they want to do away with juvenile jails, they want Free College Education for everybody in the state, so anyway, long laundry list of things that they want and the mayor basically is saying i dont know how this is going to end. The police chief does want this to end. She clearly wants to get her people back in there. Yesterday, she said, that Response Times to major crimes like rapes and robberies have tripled because they dont have their officers in that east side precinct any more, so they want to get back in there, morale in the Police Department is at an alltime low. These officers feel like they have basically surrendered part of their territory, and so its an interesting time here in seattle, neil . Neil i would imagine and for you dan who knows it so well its got to be a little weird where the less chief and mayor are not on the same page. I know the police chief used tear gas on one riot night just to keep the calm against the mayors orders and i guess he was concerned things were escalating but that the two are, you know, obviously have a pretty frosty relationship. What do they do in that vacuum . Well its interesting, because both are being called on to resign, for Different Reasons mayor durkan has been called on to resign by the protesters and also three of the councilmembers and chief vest has been called to resign because she did order that tear gas the other night even after the mayor said were not going to use it for 30 days. The chief has got to respond to her officers. Theyre on that front line or they were before it was vacated monday. They are on that front line, they have projections thrown at them and they have people with umbrellas poking them in that front line and the police have a choice. They can either retreat and do what they did on monday and give up their building or they can go a less lethal measures and they did that. They did that time and time again and with tear gas, these flash bang grenades and it worked. It got the crowd out of there and it dissipated the protest area and the violence for that night, but almost every single one of the nights ended with that scene afterhours and hours of peaceful protests, it was really weird but you can almost see a pattern developing where it was going to end with tear gas. Neil . Neil just in credible. One more youve been very patient but this capitol hill autonomous zone or chaz or these protesters with there were rumors they were demanding payments from local residents and businesses to act as their local Security Force. I dont know if that got to be sort of seattle urban legend but do you know anything about that that they are trying to deputize them sells selves as the Law Enforcement in place. Its a good question there are people with guns who are taking on the position of sort of a security detail and in some part they want to make sure that east precinct does not burn down as far as them going out and extorting money from businesses again as i said theres not many Business People who are going in there right now, but the Police Department has backed off on that. They were hearing rumors about that. They were hearing social media posts about that, but no person has come forward to them and reported hey, i was extorted out of my money by these people who were saying they want protection money, so they are kind of walking back that idea of extortion, but again there is still people inside with guns and still out there as a Security Force trying to keep the peace and again, its not, you led in with saying this is under siege. This is not a war zone with war lords running around and gunfire and all that stuff. Thats not whats happening inside. They are trying to keep this kind of a selfcontained peaceful autonomous zone where its kept, police are kept out but they can stay in there for as long as they can, until some of these demands are met. Well the city since backed off on some of this and say here well give you some things or try to take this over again, thats the big question. What will police do and what will the city do . Neil yeah, and that moment is going to be an interesting one to watch because that could take something relatively peaceful thus far and turn it into something else. Dan springer, your reporting has been impecable on this it helps you know the area and you clearly do inside and out but its surreal, my friend dan springer well be getting an update later this hour and right now, he knows this very well because i think you grew up here, right . So tell us a little bit about what youre thinking, how youre feeling, the fear that this could be spreading, what . Absolutely, you know, and to dans point this is a very tight knit community. I did grow up on capitol hill. Its a loving community. Its a Progressive Community and always a community where youve been free to voice your ideas. So in terms of city history this is a logical place for them to establish a zone, if you will now, how that plays out, i dont know. Seattle for better or for worse has always had interesting discussions around issues that much of the nation doesnt want to touch, so where we go from here is anybodys guess, but so far, im very thankful to see the neighborhood has not been destroyed and that there does seem to be some sort of civil behavior inside the area even though they detained it. Neil im very aware of the area myself, and they are not, i was there not too long ago and they do have a big homeless problem that predates any of the george floydrelated protests, the demonstrations so theyve already had that as a back drop and now its a bigger backdrop. This economically comes at the worst time, doesnt it . Well it does, neil. And between this crisis, in the horrific george floyd events , you know, those officers need to be held accountable. There is simply no way around that. What they did was wrong but seattle has always been, again on the edge with a number of issues, homelessness being one of them and the city has tried. Theres not been a clear solution to deal with it so far, but again, if we can make some progress here, im very very optimistic that perhaps, just perhaps, neil, it might serve as a model for the rest of the nation. Neil all right, i hope youre right, my friend. We shall see. Normally we talk about stocks, but we wanted to take your expertise on this area to take stock of whats going on so thank you for that, keith fitzgerald. I want to switch to blake burman you probably heard in washington the good news is that republican s are moving the venue at least for part or at least the very big part of their Republican Convention. That, instead of in North Carolina will be in jacksonville , florida, the big part i should say is when the president accepts the nomination and the speech and all of that, so North Carolina robbed of that blake burman on the fallout from that so blake its sort of like a two part convention, right . Reporter some of the Party Business that gets done behind the scenes, the platform which gets some discussion from inner Party Workings thatll be taking place in charlotte, North Carolina but what me and you and most people neil, know as the convention the big celebration, the president s speech, Vice President s speech et cetera down the line that wont be taking place in charlotte instead now jacksonville, North Carolina. The rnc, neil says this is a 200 million or so win for the northeast florida win area, conversely a 200 million or so loss for the charlotte area. So why jacksonville . Certainly one of the question, well this is what an rnc official told me earlier today as it relates to the thinking behind that. First off, florida, the president s home state as you know its also of course a critical state for the path to reelection with that, neil they also almost get a bit of a twoforone as georgia is in close proximity as well. This official also said to me its a good event Space Options between the Veterans Memorial arena along with the Minor League Baseball stadium there and of course the nfl facility too, and they described the local leadership and this is perhaps the most important thing is, extremely welcoming. Here is why. Because President Trump wanted to accept the nomination, still does, in front of a large crowd, but the democratic governor of North Carolina said he was going to let the Health Experts and the data guide that decision. As for florida right now, the data shows, according to that States Department of health, that the testing positive iterate is at 5. 3 , and that is slightly above the benchmark figure of 5 . Jacksonvilles mayor though says they are going to be looking at a different figure. Listen. So while we know the virus is with us and its going to spread, the key to watch is hospitalizations and our hospitalizations are down. Were going to continue to monitor that. Reporter meantime back at the white house the president s top economic advisors have been saying today that the Health Experts are telling them that fears of a second wave at this moment are overblown. I spoke to our Health Experts at some length last evening. They are saying there is no second spike. Let me repeat that. There is no second spike. There is no emergency. There is no second wave. I dont know where that got started on wall street. Reporter of course that was one of the big stories yesterday on wall street, neil and one of the Big Questions looking forward is what might the situation be like in the upcoming months especially late august, for that Republican Convention and of course the democrats have theres as well this summer too. Neil . Neil thats right, just a week before. They moved theres back all ready thank you very very much for all that blake burman in the middle of some big changes coming up here and its kind of a confusing convention. Lets go to kevin brady the texas congressman although Ranking Member of the house ways and means committee. I keep telling folks if not for kevin brady we would not have had the tax cuts. Others take credit he did all of that, and congressman, theres talk now or a push for more stimulus and im wondering, given what youve been seeing in the markets, some look at yesterday and say gosh, maybe they will be upset if we dont see more stimulus. Others point to that employment report, and the steady improvement on jobless claims from their worst levels that maybe we could just, you know, continue to see the benefit of the money already spent. Where are you on this . Yeah, so i think one, the may jobs report, the unemployment report was very encouraging and trend matters, and so looking at the may number s and the continued, thats a good trend clearly, but i think more will need to be done. First, weve got to help local businesses rebuild their workforces. Right now the federal Unemployment Benefits are a barrier. They are so generous its preventing people really from returning to those jobs and so my return to work bonus is about creating new incentives for people to come back, re connect with their employer. Secondly, weve got to make sure neil by the way i dont want to interrupt you congressman but im sorry, sir your return to work bonus im told has to be better than the 600 in federal extra benefits folks are receiving right now. Is it . Because its going to take a lot to get them especially if this continues as its presently planned through the end of july to get off that. Yeah, so what our thinking is to allow people to keep two weeks of their Unemployment Benefits 1,200 when they return to work. The laws in most states require people to accept suitable employment, so this is an incentive for them to re connect. We may want to adjust that approach but we need to be able to help people reconnect, or we are going to lose more businesses, this recovery will be much slower. And then the Second Thought was a lot of businesses are spending a lot of money making sure their workplace is safe for both workers and customers. We think we can help them there and thats why i think the Liability Reform is making sure were incentivizing, rewarding businesses for creating that safe workplace i think thats incredibly important to the recovery and then the third thing is the ppp as we see , has done a tremendous amount of good for the economy, but i think too well have to look at for the remainder of the year, from the late summer on, mid sized businesses i think are going to need more capital. We may need to extend the Employee Retention credit so were encouraging businesses and there may be some small but targeted help we can give to make sure this recovery is strong through the end of the year. Neil do you have your doubts that it will be now . No i think it will be a steady recovery. I watch here in texas. Were on the third phase and the governor has been very cautious and deliberate about the reopening but you can see a completely different attitude in states that are reopening. Theres a light at the end of the tunnel. The biggest barrier as ive said local businesses are really struggling to get their workers back. Theyre starting to see the orders flow again. Starting to see that Economic Activity but weve got a few barriers we need to address. Neil well youve also had a spike in cases, right . So maybe there isnt necessarily a tradeoff there but do you think the governor slows down these reopenings to see how that goes . No, because i think youve got to keep this in perspective. So texas has been testing really aggressively. 100 testing in Nursing Homes which almost no state is doing as well as our prison system. Weve had really, the increase has been in two cities, houston and austin, and experts believe that it could be related to the memorial day beaches and reopening there but again our Healthcare System has been over prepared, good for them. Testing has dramatically increased and again, our fatality rate which weve continued to focus on in texas, for example, is the lowest of all the 10 states with the most covid cases and to put it in perspective, it is 23 times safer as a resident in texas than in new york state. That allows us to continue to reopen safely. Neil all right kevin brady, always good chatting with you my friend. Thank you, sir. Neil be well, be healthy. So well follow some interesting items there about more down the road and its almost a gimme the more stimulus is coming and thats kind of what the markets like to see as well. They are never going to turn down stimulus after all and were seeing some of the beneficiaries of that could be travel and related stocks, airlines, Hotel Operators and the rest, they were getting pummeled yesterday, just the reverse today were on more of it after this. Neil all right, we were just t