Black Boxes Recovered from Plane Crash; Trump Barrels Toward Tariff Showdown
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Bloomberg Audio Studios. Podcasts. Radio. News. Good morning. I'm Nathan Hager. And I'm Karen Moscow. Here are the stories we're following today. Karen, we begin with the latest on the deadly plane crash in Washington, D.C. There are no survivors in the collision between American Eagle Flight 5342 and an Army Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan National Airport. Todd Inman with the National Transportation Safety Board says crews are still pulling victims from the Potomac River.

We're still in a recovery mode, first and foremost, to get the perishable evidence and specifically the bodies out. Once we get a little bit closer into that, we'll be able to better understand the dynamics of what may have happened upon impact.

Todd Inman with the NTSB says both black boxes from the American Eagle flight have now been recovered. Bloomberg's Danny Lee reports those have been sent to labs for evaluation. This will be crucial because they can potentially start to find out in the minutes before the lead-up to and also the seconds before what were the conversations in the cockpit between the pilots, particularly with the air traffic control, which is under scrutiny, and also were there any warnings, particularly as this plane would have been traveling down in the dark,

through the very busy piece of airspace. Bloomberg's Danny Lee reports the NTSB could put out a preliminary report on the crash within 30 days, but the agency says it won't speculate about possible causes.

Well, Nathan, President Trump says he does not know exactly what caused the crash, but he does say he has opinions. At a White House news conference, the president said diversity, equity and inclusion programs may have played a role in the disaster. It just could have been. We have a high standard. We've had a much higher standard than anybody else. And there are things where you have to go by brainpower. You have to go by psychological quality.

The president also says there may have been a pilot problem with the helicopter and that he didn't necessarily know if it was the controller's fault. Later, President Trump signed an executive order for the FAA and the Transportation Department to review its hiring and safety decisions over the last four years under the Biden administration. Meanwhile, Karen, President Trump is poised to impose 25% tariffs on $900 billion worth of goods from Canada and Mexico.

Starting tomorrow, the president spoke from the Oval Office. Mexico and Canada have never been good to us on trade. They're treated as very unfairly on trade. And we will be able to make that up very quickly because we don't need the products that they have. We have all the oil you need. We have all the trees you need, meaning the lumber. We have more than almost anybody in those two categories.

And Americans' love of guacamole is about to be put to the test. Mexico supplies upward of 90% of the avocados Americans eat, and President Donald Trump is likely to make them more expensive with his plan to slap 25% tariffs on Mexican imports beginning on Saturday. Prices for avocados are already up 14% from a year ago. More pressure is coming with the Super Bowl, which is by far the biggest day of the year for eating avocados in the U.S. Well, it's been a big

A couple of days for President Trump's cabinet picks, Karen. Tulsi Gabbard, the president's choice to be director of national intelligence, she faced questions from the Senate Intelligence Committee, many of those centered on what critics see as her shifting positions on intelligence collection and statement sympathetic policy.

to Russia. Bloomberg's Amy Morris reports from Washington. Several lawmakers focused on Gabbard's support for NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, who leaked classified documents, then fled to Russia, where he's now a citizen. Democratic Senator Michael Bennett of Colorado. Is Edward Snowden a traitor to the United States of America?

As someone who has worn our uniform in combat, I understand how critical our national security is. Apparently you don't. Gabbard's nomination is not certain, with many Republicans declining to declare their support and Democrats criticizing her for appearing sympathetic toward authoritarians like Russia's Vladimir Putin and Syria's Bashar al-Assad.

In Washington, Amy Morris, Bloomberg Radio. All right, Amy, thank you. About Kash Patel, President Trump's pick to lead the FBI also had his confirmation hearing. Patel insisted that he did not have an enemies list. He also said he would not seek retribution against the president's adversaries or launch investigations for political reasons.

The only thing that will matter if I'm confirmed as a director of the FBI is a de-weaponized, de-politicized system of law enforcement completely devoted to rigorous obedience of the Constitution and a singular standard of justice.

Patel sought on multiple occasions to reassure Democrats that his FBI would be independent from the White House. He would not acknowledge that Trump had lost the 2020 election, conceding only that Joe Biden was sworn in as president. Turning to markets now, Karen, futures are higher.

As we close out the trading week, thanks in part to big tech earnings. Shares of Apple are higher by more than 3%. The iPhone maker gave a reassuring revenue forecast for the current quarter, offsetting holiday results, which showed jarring declines for China and the iPhone. Apple CEO Tim Cook spoke on the earnings call.

If you look at our greater China revenue for the quarter, we were down 11% year over year. And over half of the decline that we experienced was driven by change in channel inventory. Apple CEO Tim Cook says sales this quarter will grow by a percentage in the low to mid single digits.

And Nathan, Intel shares are up 2%. The chipmaker reported better than expected fourth quarter revenue, but did warn that its push to become more competitive is still a work in progress. However, Intel did not give a status update on its search for a new CEO. Now, Karen, a Bloomberg News exclusive. U.S. officials are investigating whether Chinese AI startup DeepSeek circumvented restrictions on advanced chips from NVIDIA.

The Biden administration cut off China's access to a range of NVIDIA's most powerful chips. Now, we're told U.S. officials are looking at whether they were acquired through third parties in Singapore. Here's Bloomberg's senior executive editor for technology, Tom Giles. This is a technology that

that DeepSeek says is cheaper, it was less expensive to develop, and now rivals like Microsoft and OpenAI, as well as U.S. officials, including the FBI and the White House, the Treasury Department, are looking into where did they get this technology. Bloomberg's Tom Giles notes President Trump's pick to lead the Commerce Department, Howard Lutnick, is suggesting DeepSeek evaded U.S. export controls.

Time now for a look at some of the other stories making news in New York and around the world. And for that, we're joined by Bloomberg's John Tucker. John, good morning. Good morning, Karen. The U.S. figure skating community mourning the loss of 14 members who were killed aboard the American Airlines flight that collided with an Army helicopter over the Potomac. 16-year-old Spencer Lane was one of the members of USA Skating who was on board. His friend and fellow skater, Rowan LeCocq, remembered him as an inspiration.

He had a really great future. It was really promising for him. He had a lot of potential. It's really heartbreaking just knowing that this was the outcome. Members of USA Skating were flying back from a competition in Wichita, Kansas.

The Senate has voted 79 to 18 to confirm former North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum as Interior Secretary. This as President Trump moves forward with implementing his energy agenda. Burgum will oversee the Interior Department, which manages more than 600 million acres of public land and all federally owned oil, natural gas, and other minerals.

Uber is alleging a fraud scheme by New York group's faking car crash injuries. Let's get that story this morning from Bloomberg's Charlie Pellett. The ride-sharing giant filed a racketeering lawsuit against a group of law firms, doctors, and pain management clinics. It claims staged fake car accidents and performed unnecessary surgeries to take advantage of New York's lucrative no-fault insurance policies.

In a lawsuit filed in federal court in Brooklyn, Uber said since at least 2019, the group has conspired, quote, to exploit passengers in purported or actual minor vehicle collisions. In New York, Charlie Pellett, Bloomberg Radio. And Vertex Pharmaceuticals has gained U.S. approval for the first new type of painkiller in more than two decades.

It paves the way for a safer alternative to addictive opioids that have been linked to hundreds of thousands of deaths in the U.S. Global News, 24 hours a day and whenever you want it with Bloomberg News Now. I'm John Tucker and this is Bloomberg. Karen. All right, John. Thank you.

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Time now for the Bloomberg Sports Update brought to you by Tri-State Audi. And for that, we bring in John Stashower. John, good morning. Good morning, Karen. Spring training starts in less than two weeks. Still some unsigned free agents like Pete Alonso, Alex Bregman. Max Scherzer does now have his deal. At age 40, he'll pitch an 18th big league season for the Toronto Blue Jays. It's his seventh different team. Scherzer has not been healthy much the past few seasons. Only made nine starts in 2024.

We'll be right back.

Career goal number 876 for Alex Ovechkin. He's 19 away from breaking Wayne Gretzky's record. The Lakers won by 38 in Washington. Now LeBron and L.A. come to the Garden to play the Red Hot Knicks tomorrow night. Good MSG doubleheader at noon tomorrow at St. John's. Also Red Hot taking on Providence. Golf at Pebble Beach. American Russell Henley shot an 8 under 64. He's got a one-shot lead. Rory McIlroy trails by two. He started on the back nine at Spyglass Hill. Here was Rory on the

119 yard 15th hole his sixth of the day well it's all about spin control here playing downhill seven so it's 112 yards and this looks pretty good oh he flew it in hello rory mcelroy holy cow

Straight in, no bounce, golf channel the call. It's his third career ace in a professional tournament. Later in the day, Shane Lowry from Ireland also had a hole-in-one on a different hole. Chiefs and Eagles arrive Sunday in New Orleans, hosting its 11th Super Bowl, tied with Miami for the most. NFL says all week there'll be increased security in the wake of the terror attack in New Orleans on New Year's. John Staschauer, Bloomberg Sports, Canada.

Coast to coast on Bloomberg Radio. Nationwide on Sirius XM. And around the world on Bloomberg.com and the Bloomberg Business App. This is Bloomberg Daybreak. Good morning, I'm Nathan Hager. The investigation continues into the crash of American Eagle Flight 5342 of the Black Hawk helicopter outside Washington's Reagan National Airport. The disaster left no survivors. Investigators now have the task of determining how this could have happened in one of the most closely monitored skies ever.

in the country. Joining us now for the latest is Benedict Kammel. Once again, he's head of global aviation coverage for Bloomberg News. Benedict, good morning. As we understand it now, the National Transportation Safety Board says it has recovered both black boxes from that American Eagle jet. What can we expect to learn from that evidence? Good morning.

Good morning. Yes, indeed, those two black boxes have been recovered, and that is, in any inquiry, an important line. They contain voices from the cockpit. They also contain key metrics of the flight performance, and those will be very closely read out and then sort of analyzed. That will take time, and that is essentially one key line from the NTSB that we heard yesterday, that this is not

a quick turnaround. And it never really is. If there's one thing that can be said about typical air disaster crashes, if there is such a thing, is that it takes time. They work slowly. They work methodically. These are professionals and they want to piece all the pieces

pieces of evidence back together. So they said, give us time, don't rush to any quick conclusions. And in some ways, that might have been a bit of a sort of a nod to what happened yesterday in Washington, where there were some rather swift pronouncements of what might have happened.

And so the NTSB is sort of trying to put a bit of a brake on it all and saying, we've got this, let us do our work. So the black boxes will be a key feature of that. Other areas that will be looked at is the communications between the tower and NTSB.

the helicopter and the aircraft. Might one of these aircraft have been out of position or sort of at a wrong kind of altitude? Was the tower properly staffed? So there are lots of elements to this investigation that will be monitored in the next couple of days and weeks. Well, Benedict, when can we expect to get firmer answers from not just the NTSB, but from so many of the other agencies involved in this investigation? The fact that we have a Black Hawk helicopter involved means the Pentagon is part of this as well.

Yes, you're right. So it is a blend of organizations that are monitoring this and that are going through this. The NTSB said there will be a preliminary report in 30 days. We don't quite know at this point what the Pentagon will say. So there will be regular updates, but a proper report...

port that will really establish what might have happened, that will take time. Now, you do have the political component in this, and we got a taste of that yesterday in the press conference by President Donald Trump. He was flanked by Sean Duffy, the new transport secretary, and Pete Hegseth, the new defense secretary, and also J.D. Vance, the vice president. They were all there in the same room, and they all spoke. And that obviously gave that entire investigation a more sort of

political tint. So those are sort of the different lines of inquiry that will happen in parallel, the NTSB, the Pentagon, and then the political dimension. In terms of the political dimension of this, Benedict, as we heard from the president yesterday, he seemed to really single out diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.

within the Federal Aviation Administration. What do we know when it comes to staffing at places like air traffic control?

Well, the one thing that we do know, and this is something that the head of the FAA and others in that kind of space have lamented in the past, that these are agencies that are understaffed. And it's something that has been going on for a long time. This isn't just a recent phenomenon. This is something that's gone on for a long time and has become more pronounced under COVID when a lot of people left the industry and have not returned. So this is an industry that still struggles with chronic disease.

understaffing and is trying to get people back in. That's what we can say definitively now. Obviously, Trump went one step further and said we have not just too few people, but the wrong types of people in these types of jobs. I mean, he says, you know, we need brilliant people doing this. Those were his words. And he said, I'm not quite sure that we have those types of

people. So he tried to create a link between the DEI practices under his predecessor, under President Biden, and going back as far as President Obama and what transpired over the skies of Washington, you know, less than 48 hours ago. So you could say that's an unusual transition

politicization of the tragedy. And that is a narrative that will be closely watched. Obviously, there's been a lot of pushback from those targeted already saying this is a brazen attempt to heap the blame on somebody else. So this back and forth will certainly be and remain a feature of this investigation.

This is Bloomberg Daybreak, your morning podcast on the stories making news from Wall Street to Washington and beyond. Look for us on your podcast feed by 6 a.m. Eastern each morning on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere else you listen. You can also listen live each morning starting at 5 a.m. Wall Street time on Bloomberg 1130 in New York, Bloomberg 99.1 in Washington, Bloomberg 92.9 in Boston, and nationwide on Sirius XM Channel 121.

Plus, listen coast to coast on the Bloomberg Business app now with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto interfaces. And don't forget to subscribe to Bloomberg News Now. It's the latest news whenever you want it, in five minutes or less. Search Bloomberg News Now on your favorite podcast platform to stay informed all day long. I'm Karen Moscow. And I'm Nathan Hager. Join us again tomorrow morning for all the news you need to start your day right here on Bloomberg Daybreak.

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