Big Take

Michigan is a key swing state for next year’s presidential election – and despite Democrats controlling the state’s legislature and holding the governor’s seat, former President Donald Trump is ahead in polls.

The latest Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll revealed that 46% of voters in the state said they would vote for Trump, and 42% backed President Joe Biden.

The Big Take podcast sits down with Bloomberg’s Wendy Benjaminson and Jeff Green to dig into the data and understand what’s happening on the ground in this key swing state.

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Most American voters are dissatisfied with both President Joe Biden and his predecessor, Donald Trump. Barring any health surprises (Biden is 81 and Trump is 77) or other major twists (Trump is a defendant in four felony prosecutions), one of them is almost certainly going to win when voters go to the polls on Nov. 5, 2024. How are these two, currently unpopular candidates poised to become their parties’ presidential nominees without so much as a serious challenge?

Bloomberg Businessweek national correspondent Joshua Green talks with Nancy Cook about how voters and donors are feeling about another Trump-Biden matchup.

Read more: Who’s Ready for a Trump-Biden Rematch? Anyone? Hello?

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China is facing the world's biggest exodus of millionaires and growing capital outflows. Yet at least one group is bucking the trend -- the growing number of ultrawealthy Chinese youth who are returning to the mainland.

Rising geopolitical tensions, and the perception of increasing hostility abroad toward Chinese nationals, have led children of some of China's richest people to eschew what used to be coveted overseas jobs and foreign citizenship, and recalibrate to a life at home where the mantra is “stay humble, stay quiet." Bloomberg's K. Oanh Ha and Selina Xu explain how we got here, and how it will affect US-China relations.

Read more: China’s Ultra-Rich Gen Zs Flock Home as Global Tensions Rise

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The cost of living in America has increased significantly since 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic triggered a sudden deceleration of the world’s largest economy. Three years later, the spike in inflation that followed is finally easing as the US Federal Reserve aims optimistically for a soft landing.

But that doesn’t mean the price of goods and services is falling back to Earth—at least not right away. Bloomberg reporters Reade Pickert and Jennah Haque crunched the numbers to see just how much more Americans are shouldering in their everyday expenses compared with pre-pandemic levels.

Read more: Just How Bad Is the US Cost-of-Living Squeeze? We Did the Math 

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Reports of crimes targeting Jews, Muslims and Arabs have risen around the world in since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, and the Israeli military’s retaliatory operation in Gaza. While previous conflicts in the Middle East also sparked a backlash outside the region, this time it is more intense and the wave of hate may be far from cresting, according to advocacy groups, former law enforcement officials and analysts. In this special edition of The Big Take, Stephen Carroll examines how these communities are confronting a global surge in hate speech and hate crimes.

Read more: A Wave of Hate Crime Unleashed by Israel-Hamas War Is Testing the World

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With winter falling in Ukraine and Russia’s war there poised to enter its third year, supporters of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy are nervous about whether they will have enough arms and military aid to support their defense. The conflict between Israel and Hamas has captured world attention. In the US, Senate Republicans have blocked $66 million in emergency Ukraine aid. And further out, Kyiv is closely watching the 2024 presidential prospects of Republican frontrunner Donald Trump, who has praised Russia’s Vladimir Putin and threatened to pull the US out of NATO.

To discuss the prospects for Kyiv, Bloomberg’s Kyiv Bureau Chief Daryna Krasnolutska and Alberto Nardelli, Correspondent-at-large for Europe, join Rosalind Mathieson.

Read more: Ukraine’s Struggle for Arms and Attention Gives Putin an Opening 

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The US is selling, lending and donating weapons to its allies all over the world, but its supply chain can't keep up.

Increased demand from America's allies, along with a three-decade trend of consolidation in the defense sector, has strained the stockpile of bullets, artillery shells and other weaponry that the country itself might need in the event of a war.

The Big Take podcast sits down with Retired Army Major General John Ferrari and Bloomberg News reporter Courtney McBride to understand how the country got here and what it would take to boost production now.

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Across the globe, the housing boom is ending. In the US, a freeze is approaching, creating a barrier to entry for new homebuyers. In countries like New Zealand, Canada, Germany and France, a shortage of homes is colliding with a slowdown of new construction due to higher borrowing rates. And in the UK, landlords are bracing for pain as floating rate mortgages reset and the cost of living hits the highest level in a generation.

Bloomberg’s Kara Wetzel and Ari Altstedter join this episode for a look at how the housing market is adjusting to higher interest rates, leaving homeowners trying to keep pace and buyers struggling to enter the market. 

Read more: Higher Interest Rates Are Shattering Housing Dreams Around the World

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We here at The Big Take wanted to introduce you to our colleagues and friends over at the Elon, Inc podcast from Businessweek, hosted by David Papadopoulos. Please enjoy this episode, and hop on over to subscribe to their feed if you like what you hear!
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This time we assess the aftermath of an especially gonzo week in the life of Elon Musk—one in which the billionaire CEO delivered the first production units of his company’s latest vehicle (the Cybertruck), weighed in on his preferred candidates for the 2024 election (neither Donald Trump nor Joe Biden) and offered a message to the chief executive of one of America’s most beloved brands (“Go f— yourself”).

Such trash talk and worse has left Musk somewhat isolated, with advertisers like Disney still avoiding his social media platform over his endorsement of an antisemitic conspiracy theory.

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This episode includes some disturbing descriptions of sexual acts and assault. If you have kids around, you might want to use headphones. And please take care when listening.

Artificial intelligence and “generative AI” tools – think ChatGPT or Stable Diffusion – have become ingrained in our daily lives as a way to make aspects of work and life easier when used for its intended purpose. But many of them are open-source and widely available, giving users free rein to alter publicly available photos of people – including images taken from social media – to depict events that never happened in real life.

These images are called “deepfakes” and increasingly, they’re being altered in sexually explicit ways and posted online without consent. While the photos are fake, the harm inflicted is real. 

Bloomberg’s Olivia Carville and Margi Murphy join this episode to describe the fallout when deepfake creators use AI to alter images and videos. Despite the harm to victims, there is little legal recourse under US law.

Read more: No Laws Protect People From Deepfake Porn. These Victims Fought Back

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