it's thursday, december 5th, 2024 and "squawk box" starts right now. ♪ ♪ good morning, everybody. welcome to "squawk box" here on cnbc. we are live from the nasdaq market site in times square. i'm becky quick along with joe kernen and andrew ross sorkin. welcome back. it was crazy. >> a lot of news. >> a lot of huge names. i can't believe you're still standing. >> i'm enjoying my coffee. >> we will dive deep into everything andrew was doing in just a moment. let's check out the u.s. equity futures. the dow futures are off close to

50 points. below fair value. nasdaq down 35. the s&p off by 5. that comes after the dow jumped 30points in yesterday's session. that topped the 45,000 threshold for the first time. the s&p and nasdaq hitting record highs. that's 56 for the s&p 500. we continue this march higher. as we are watching that, we are keeping an eye on the treasury markets. the ten-year this morning at the same level at 4.20. the two-year at 4.14. in the meantime -- >> yeah. go ahead. >> this is as you mentioned before we were talking about bitcoin. soaring now past $100,000. you can take a look at it. $102,000 right now. just yesterday at the deal book summit, fed chair powell said this about bitcoin. >> people use bitcoin as a speculative asset, right? it's like gold. it's just like gold, but it's

virtual. people are not using it as a form of payment or sorry tore o value. it is not a competitive for the dollar, but a competitor for gold. >> that comment to it self was a move, not just for him, but for washington. i don't think you've seen a lot of policymakers, but this new administration obviously thinks of it as gold. we can talk about store value and whatever that is. the idea that if you talk to janet yellen in the old days or, you know, ben bernancke with the interviews about crypto. >> if you get people begrudgingly admit it is like gold, gold is the most basic store value for years. >> if you listen to it, you asked him specifically is this

like the dollar. his point was no, this is not a currency. it is not a dollar. people are not using it to go out and buy things. >> not now. possible it is infinitely difficult divisible. >> for now, you wouldn't use it. you think the value is going to climb, you won't use it to buy something. >> if it got to the point where it really did just match the valuation of currencies -- it's where it is. we won't be alive when you get to 21 million. that's not until 2150. >> did you see russia ing for it, now, too after being anti- -- >> one of the things i was trying to talk to jay about yesterday, he didn't want to indulge me of being a bitcoin reserve and what that would mean. if you do -- it was funny. it wasn't venezuela.

what was the country? el salvador. when el salvador first said they wanted bitcoin. a lot of people, by the way, including myself, blame me, who sort of said what's going on here. >> the atms. >> it worked out. >> back to gold. you can go back and you can say that a suit in ancient whatever civilization you pick, whatever suit you pick is an ounce of gold or equate it to oil. it's been probably the most consistent store of value in the way of representing work or whatever you want to say. to be compared to gold, that's the highest praise you -- >> i don't know if we have the sound, but ken griffin from citadel, has the opposite view. he doesn't understand bitcoin . >> why? >> he would prefer to buy art.

>> i'm convinced people to read the bitcoin standard. you don't need to get that far into it to understand the nature of money. it used to be shells on an island. if you did an hour of work and somebody did an hour of other work, you keep the same ledger. you know what everyone else did. >> it represents a belief system. >> no, it's not, andrew. it's math. you still haven't -- >> i have read it. >> you read the bitcoin standard? >> yes. years ago. yes, we have been talking about it for a decade now. >> when you see money has always been represented by the intangible. >> it is a fascinating technology. i'm not telling you it's a terrible thing. >> why is it a stored value for so long? >> because i think it is much more -- >> $5,000 of value or -- it has always been a value.

it just fluctuates. so did stocks. >> when this first was developed and talked about, it was talked about as a currency. >> i know. you will not peg it. you can't say the dollar's not volatile. the dollar 20 years ago was worth -- >> why get mad at ken griffin? >> he does n't understand it. >> i think he does understand it. >> you told me he doesn't. >> it in the context of why. >> i think a lot of people have not done the work. >> that's what makes a market. >> makes a market, but people -- i wish, you know, because i believed in it, i could have, you know, participated a lot. you could have $10 million right now if you just bought a little

bit at $100 or at $1,000. >> there are a lot of people who did. >> there are a lot of people who did. i was a believer and i didn't take advantage. >> you weren't a believer back then. >> no, i was a believer at $4,000. i bought some at 4. >> when it came down. >> my average cost was 8. >> that is impressive. >> in the meantime, let's talk about things that took place yesterday. there were a couple of big things at the deal book summit. president-elect trump as you imagine, came up multiple times. ken griffin and jeff bezos and sundar pichai offered views on the incoming administration and the view on the economy. take a look. >> america is open for business again. the endless amount of regulatory and litigation induced paralysis

from the biden administration is over. it's over. when i'm with a group of american executives, whether it is telecommunications or it's from consumer space, they are -- whether they voted for trump or harris, from the perspective of building their business, they are smiling from ear to ear because they know they can now focus on creating value for customers and creating jobs and growing their business and prospering over the onslaught of regulation. >> my conversations with them, he is focused on american competitiveness, particularly in technology, including a.i. look, i think there's a real opportunity in this moment. one of the constraints of a.i. is the infrastructure with energy and the rate we can build things. i think the real issue is he is

thinking about king a difference. >> i'm very hopeful. he seems to have a lot of energy around reducing regulation. my point of view, if i can help him do that, i'm going to help him. we do have too much regulation if in this country. this country is so set up to grow. by the way, all of our problems, all of our economic problems, if you look at the deficit and you know, the debt, the national debt and how gigantic it is as a portion of gdp, these are real problems and real long-term problems. the way to get out of them is outgrow them. >> the question is where we will be in a year or two or three. >> worrisome to me. >> interestingly, i remember talking to ken and many of the others about tariffs and other things we think of as the great new uncertainties and i think this issue of regulation, even more than anything else is sort

of the thing that's front and center. the idea that the tariffs may or may not happen or may or may not happen. who knows? if there is a certainty, oddly enough, it is the likelihood the regulatory regime we have been living under is going to shift or at least lessen. what that looks like, i don't know yet. >> there is something to the point he is going to be president. you might as well embrace it. there's nothing you can do about it. >> that's the other. >> there's also suddenly a lot of people wake up to, oh, my god. maybe bidens omics wasn't so great. the economy was fine, but maybe we can do better. a lot of people who didn't vote for trump, it scares me and reminds me of davos and a lot of

people were not supporters of president trump. over there, here comes the savior of capitalism and the pandemic hit two weeks later. i asked trump about that in that interview. it was january 21st and the same day the world health organization admitted human-to-human transmission. one person came to washington state and that was the first case and it was all downhill from there. i hope not. whenever we -- you know, 22 times earnings. maybe we can grow. like bezos said, maybe we can grow into 22 times earnings. >> i think back when we had jack welsh on he program and he talked about regulatory and overhang in washington and how it caused trouble for business. he talked about how to slice that for business. this has been a quest for decades. now potentially having a

president going this way. >> there is an idiosyncratic issue with those who have business in front of the president, if you will. >> if you can't beat him, join him. >> yes. >> jealous of tim cook's relationship. >> you don't want to be singled out. >> he is not the president yet and you are hoping for the best. there is a honeymoon period. we will see. there's a lot of hope. >> it goes to all of the executives who made their way to mar-a-lago. zuckerberg or other people along the line. >> right. i think it would be easier for uses as a network to cover the positives of capitalism being unleashed and lower taxes and all those things. i think we're on the wrong side of the trade. i'm glad that i -- you know, it's not easy. it's not easy. it's not easy to have been hoping for this outcome and

being challenged. you see what i'm saying? >> i think everybody has a different role in this. >> it was a no-brainer. if you embrace this, you embrace capitalism. if you are pro business and not anti-business, i think it would have been much better. >> for better or worse, the role of journalists is to be professional skeptics, not cynics. that is the gig. for good or bad, that is the gig. >> that gives you a lot of leeway to just be what we've seen in mainstream media throughout the entire election process, andrew. i don't think they can be proud of a lot of it, i don't. >> let me continue with a little bit more from yesterday. it was two years ago this week that openai launched chatgpt at the deal book summit. sam altman talking about safety

and microsoft and future of agi. a moment that stood out was when i asked altman about elon musk and the lawsuit filed against openai and how he feels about all this personally. >> i grew up with elon as a mega hero. i thought what elon was doing was absolutely incredible for the world. i'm still, of course, i have different feelings now, but i'm still glad he exists. i mean that genuinely. not just because i think his companies are awesome, which i do think, but because i think he -- like, as a time when most of the world was not thinking very ambitiously. he pushed a lot of people, me included, to think much more ambitiously. and i'm grateful is the wrong word, but i'm thankful, i'm

positive about that. >> then asked altman about elon musk's relationship with president-elect trump. >> i believe that pretty strongly, i may turn out to be wrong, i believe strongly that elon will do the right thing and americans will be profoundly unamerican to use political power to the degree that elon has it to hurt your competitors and advantage your businesses. i don't think people would tolerate that. i don't think elon would do it. >> right. >> it would go, again, lots of things not to like about him, but it goes deeply against the values i believe he holds dear to himself. i'm not that worried about it. >> and that was just the beginning of all this. we'll show you a lot more of dealbook and so many different headlines from the past day.

>> i learned a lot in that interview trying to figure out what he had to say about elon and where he thinks there aren't these, this wall, that you will hit along the way. >> it is interesting, too, because he talked about how there isn't a wall. there is a debate about scaling. he talked about it no wall. later in the day, sundar didn't say wall, but limb itations. it gets harder. it is interesting to see how it plays out. we will talk to jj kinahan and we will talk to house majority leader steve scalise about house republicans meeting with the doge team. elon musk and vivek ramaswamy. "squawk box" will be right back. >> announcer: this cnbc program is sponsored by baird. visit bairddifference.com.

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futures right now as you see are down fractionally on the dow. nasdaq down 26 points. s&p as well. let's bring in jj kinahan. he will single handedly add to the bullishness to the point

where jj, you can cut it with a knife which makes me uncomfortable. at this point, you see almost all tailwinds, no head winds fo the market? >> we have tailwinds through the state of the union address in january or when trump makes his first speech in had terms what his plans are. on the campaign trail, obviously, every candidate talks about so many things they're going to do, but we'll see the priorities when he gets up and speaks. i thought your conversation before the break was interesting in terms of a couple of things. obviously, bitcoin and what has been going on is amazing. up 5% since trump got elected and now over $100,000. we will see if it continues to carry that momentum. in terms of growing in the earnings, i think that is where most people's, you know, hope lies in the fact that, again, i

think maybe there's a misunderstanding about regulation. people are like business people don't want regulation. of course everybody wants regulations, but when the government employees are growing at a faster rate than private companies, people go to work and want to do something. you just had so many more people coming in trying to do things and trying to do new regulations, et cetera, and that really where is issue is. the new doge committee or whatever we are calling it, making it more efficient not just on spending, but how many people you have coming in overlapping and what they're asking you, that's what the business community is welcoming more than anything else. that's where i think a lot of the hope of us continuing to grow into earnings comes. the last thing i'll say to that is think about a.i. hundreds of millions of dollars are spend. six months ago, the question is

what can you do and show for all this spending. we are starting to see that in the tech industry and think about medicine, et cetera, that is the next wave. >> we talked about that yesterday. if there is one area where humanity just sees multifaceted benefits to all of us. that's certainly healthcare. i guess, jj, you mentioned it. grow into it. that's what we're talking about. the market's not cheap. you follow mostly trends. so, a lot of times, it's hard to see a trend reversal coming. >> right. >> with where how richly valued are and i guess some of the generals are catching up, but overall we're still historic

levels. can that continue? >> i think it can for a while. what i'm really interested in, joe, is the last two weeks of the year to see if people start to take some profits this year when you know what the tax rate is, not that we necessarily think taxes are going higher, et cetera. are people taking money off the table? s&p 500 with the 56th record yesterday. you and i have been doing this a long time. we know that just doesn't continue to go and go and go. so, like i said, i believe that in a shorter term, we can continue to do this, but there may be pressure at the end of the year. there may be pressure right after president trump takes office. you and i talk about the vix. the vix is certainly saying it's a very clear path barring some unforeseen events through the end of the year with the

volatility at 14. that's pretty amazing. you don't often see that. you tend to see it in one of two things. either we continue higher, the vix is working as it should. when markets go up, volatility should go down. that's what's happening. the other thing is when markets are stagnant, also the vix stays level. i'm not sure if that's a little bit of it. perhaps the markets just thinking we could also just say sideways for a little while. >> talk about a trend, though. the vix is at 13 until -- until it's at 30 the next morning. >> again, as i said, unforeseen event in the short term as we know. >> it's not predictive. i don't see how you use the vix as predictive since it's possible. it's volatile. you saw the chart. didn't we almost get to 40 and

nothing happened. >> that was also overnight trade where the vix actually once markets opened, vix sold off that day. agree. it's not 100% predictive. when you start to watch that in conjunction with you talked about gold and bonds. when you start to see people coming in and turn to bonds yesterday with the, you know, uncertainty in france, et cetera. i don't think that's going to continue. when you start to see these trends with those together, that's where you see something here. we just haven't seen it. >> all right, jj, thank you. >> always a pleasure, joe. coming up, we dig into the backlash of dei when we come back and comments from sundar pichai. that's next. plus, ronhd ttg inbioogeinto sports betting. we will talk to vlad tenev

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time for the executive edge this morning. the backlash on the topic of dei was a big topic of conversation at the dealbook summit. i want to show you alphabet ceo sundar pichai on the topics. >> we have a strong voice in the company. i have seen it as a strong voice in the company. i actually think it is fascinating with a lot of employees, too. you know, the employees are also looking for, they don't always want in the workplace to be sorting out personal. >> you think it got so out of

hand that it had its own backlash? >> i think they want to have impact through their work. we can see people are happiest when they feel they are productive and the work is impactful and they are doing well. that comes from other things. in some ways, it is a set of factors coming together, but i do feel it is not like i see this as an imbalance between us and employees. it doesn't feel that way. >> the one thing i believe is that the diverse groups make better decisions than homogynous ones. i think you could prove it. i feel you could fill this very famous space with all of the studies been done that showing diverse groups make better decisions than homogynous do. that is what dei is to me. >> it is tremendous interesting.

on one side, you saw sundar pichai in the dei camp. i thought it was the business imperative issue which changed things, but internal backlash. things went so far internally on some of the issues, there was a snap back among the people inside. it wasn't just a top-down situation. there was so much pressure, cross current pressure. what was interesting to hear bill clinton say, former president, he spent the last decade, more now, with the clinton global initiative where he has been working with companies and pushing companies to pursue causes often times with esg issues and dei issues. his view was not walk away from it. he was like lean into it. stop. why? he thinks that sort of, you know, the wind is blowing one way so everyone is going this way now. meaning the backlash is happening.

he said if you are a believer, you are a believer. you shouldn't go with the wind. that is the take away i took away from what he said. >> being a believer and where we want to get, obviously. if what are you doing to try to get there is actually counter productive, you need to face that and realize your own efforts are counter productive to getting there. >> all i could think of watching that was james carvell who worked to get bill clinton elected and what he had to say about some of these things. he said the reason you're in this position is because of what you've done with these things. focus on the economy. it's the economy, stupid, that was the famous tag line and picked up and so success. . >> you all want to get there. you don't want to turn people off and you end up further away from the goal than when you started. that has definitely happened. when we come back, eamon

javers has a new report on the increasingly common and illegal tax strategy by tens of thousands of millionaires. simply not finilg taxes at all. that exclusive story is next. "squawk box" will be right back. >> announcer: executive edge is sponsored by at&t business. next level moments need the next level network. [sending swo we have tight turnarounds. at&t business helps us deliver. okay! client wants his head bigger. wow, fast response. sent! okay, oop! even bigger. sent. [sending swoosh, notification alert] still bigger. okay, yeah i'm not doing that— [typing noises, sending swoosh] i think it still looks good! [notification alert] oh — even bigger.

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>> welcome back, everybody.

millionaires who want to avoid taxes are simply not filing returns. eamon javers is joining us with the exclusive details. novel idea. you can't find me. >> reporter: there as a loophole here, becky. cnbc learned tens of thousands of americans have not filed tax returns in recent years and many are not complying with irs efforts to get them to do so according to cnbc. a quirk in federal tax law is incentivizing millionaires to not file returns. it's a felony to file a false tax return. it's only a misdemeanor to not file at all. a millionaire is not likely to face prosecution according to irs resources. the irs sent more than 25,000 iance letters to those who have not filed since 2017 and

more than $1 million of income between 2017 and 2021. of the 25,000 high income non filers, sent warning notices this year, only 5,460, or 24%, have filed returns since then. 76% of them have not yet done so according to data obtained by cnbc as of august. so far, at least, it doesn't appear those with more than $1 million of income are facing significant legal consequences for failure to live up to the obligations. these cases can take a long time to investigate. they have now gotten 26,000 of a larger group of 125,000 they reached out to to actually file their returns since earlier this year. that has generated $292 million of additional tax revenue.

still, he said, there's a lot of work left to do. guys, back to you. >> eamon, i don't understand this. the idea of what the irs can do to you when they catch up to you and maybe you skate through, but more likely at some point you get caught up with this. i know there's seven years you can go back for taxes. i don't know what happens if you haven't been filing if that period is longer. >> eamon, do all these people owe money? if they are w-2 earners, all the withholding. i'm wondering are they not paying any taxes or just not filing? do you think any of them are to the totally paid up and didn't file? >> reporter: that is possible. if the withholding was made all the way through, they could be even on their taxes, but the irs doesn't know that because they haven't filed returns. i guess in some cases that is

absolutely possible, joe. what the irs says there is a huge amount of money here to be collected. there are a lot of people they believe are avoiding taxes simply by not filing. again, it is only a misdemeanor and the department of justice likes to go after more high profile crimes. the department of justice, u.s. attorneys, have to pick and choose where to spend resources. the irs says they didn't have, until the i.r.a. funding came through, they didn't have the resources to go after these people at all. they started to do that in the past year. the department of justice still doesn't have resource it is needs to make all these cases. if you are caught in this, it is very slim. >> if you get caught -- >> 62 cases -- it could be very bad for you. again, it is a misdemeanor for not filing. >> if you owe money and the fines that come on top of that and what they can do to garnish

your wages. you are playing with fire. >> yeah. it looks like a lot of people are playing with fire here taking chances. there could be innocent circumstances here or people with long-term illnesses or other reason they didn't file. it looks like a lot of people using this window avoid filing at all. >> you can always get a pardon. >> it's possible. >> reporter: there you go. that's a new strategy. >> eamon, thank you. we will talk about pardons in the 7:00 hour. we will have more from the dealbook summit and including comments from prince harry as well about the media and social media and more. we're coming back right after this. >> announcer: currency check is sponsored by interactive brokers. the best informed investors choose interactive brokers.

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welcome back to "squawk box." social media, of course, has come under scrutiny for safety and health.mental health. we have been talking with it yesterday at dealbook summit with prince harry. >> shareholders are the ones that really are, are in control. i'm sure their parents and i'm sure hopefully they would agree their kids need to be kept safe.

again, one of the things that's, i guess, has always puzzled me is we live in an age now or we have done, it goes back to the tabloid era, specifically with the conversation we were having about tabloids that you guys all heard that we have elements of the mainstream media, legacy media, elements. all elements trying to redefine public interest for their own personal interests. at the same time, we have social media companies trying to redefine free speech for their own personal interests. what shocks me or what fascinates me is the facts that's not a conflict of interest because it's so clearly the loudest voices are the people who are really deeply bought into making sure that things move the way that they want them to move. >> we probably don't have enough time to talk enough about this.

this was fascinating because on one side, this goes to he whole information, disinformation, free speech, what is the right answer? there are so many people who want to protect -- >> legacy media wants to protect them. >> right. and what is misinformation or disinformation? it goes back to mark zuckerberg. he thought he was doing the right thing during covid, for example, in downranking the algorithm. it now has come back out and there is part of the public and maybe this election actually might have suggested something. part of the public is saying don't censor any of it. i'm smart enough to figure it out myself. there is another population that is saying no, no, no. i want you to show me the stuff that's real. the question is what's real? >> and he has the experience

having lived through some horrible things said about him and his family along the way. >> right? i don't know -- if you have zero tolerance for that, you will have to move to nirvana or idyllic place. it will never been perfect. >> move to america. >> i think community -- i think i want to see most everything and then i want to make my own decisions. the uk is going down a slippery slope. you have seen what is getting jail time over there. i mean, saying things that some of the things were you just talking about. if you said something about covid -- you are doing time, perhaps, over in the uk. that's why you got to pick your poison. you want to see everything, including what's totally made up or you just want to see what people want you to see and go to jail if you say something otherwise. >> that's the big question. and then you have kids and what they're supposed to see. we got into what happens in

australia. under 16 years old. you can't use social media. what's the right answer? >> my kids are telling me stuff that -- >> your kids aren't under 16. >> no. look, they act like they are and i act like i am. age has nothing to do with it. when we come back, two retail stocks moving in opposite directions. five below is jumping this morning. american eagle plunging. we will show you what the k mpanies reported and tal retail trends with industry executive mickey drexler.

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welcome back, everybody. shares of american eagle are plunging this morning down more than 15%. earnings beat expectations, but

the revenue number fell short. the apparel retailer guidance came in short of expectations. on the other side of things, shares of five below are not below. higher up by 15%. the company raising its full-year outlook citing encouraging black friday weekend and hiring winnie park to be the next ceo. that move is effective december 16th. joel anderson left this year to run petco. let's bring in veteran retail expert of what he is seeing in the space. mickey drexler. >> chairman. >> alex mills chairman. and also the former ceo of j. crew and gap. we should say, more specifically, when mickey ran gap, he took it from a company that had $400 million in sales to $14 billion. he invented old navy along the

way and went to j. crew and anything you ever touched has turned to gold when it comes to merchandising, mickey. >> as he sticks up his hands. >> he doesn't want to interrupt you. he wants you to get going. >> she is getting me anxious. there are always failures between all that. >> mickey, let's talk about what are you seeing today. we have seen big sales out there. you have never been a huge fan of constant sales. >> it's not a huge fan. i've never seen just ing online. i have never seen so much discounting in my life and it was black november, not black friday. cyber monday, i was in a store, big department store checking things out. it was cyber monday, yesterday was wednesday.

i think five days less during christmas. i didn't do surveys on this, but the prices are continuing to get lower. i think there's a waiting game out there because the consumer, number one, has been trained for years, but i also think i can imagine the five days before christmas. what are you going to do? >> 60% off at that point? >> i think there is a big high/low game going on. high markup. when you put it on sale, the retailers are making their margin. so, it's very difficult and the other thing i'm seeing which, to me, is not fair to a consumer -- oh, jesus. >> someone sees you on tv. >> yeah. okay. i'm going to -- i'm sorry. so, anyway, if you look -- i look at comings online a deal.

you go into the shops, hello. if you know to say what's the online deal -- it's not everyone, but there's a lot of dual pricing today. it's not good. i think the very selective consumer now. they're not just buying, buying. that's what i see and feel. >> so you think there is a real opportunity for premium brands at this point? >> yeah. premium. not to plug alex mill, which i love to do. premium. a business in the last month or two has, you know, newish company relaunched. no sales except we did black friday for the really bad inventory and we have july and post-christmas sale. and selection of goods and fair

pricing. pricing out there in apparel and i'll quote joe amato. he said since 2020, inflation 30%. you fly if you have breakfast or go into a supermarket. it's stunning. he gave me this lesson. he's a good guy. then, you know, month by month, whatever. if your consumer -- hello? i guess the discounters, the ones i do my surveys, they are doing very well because they give real value, but a lot of it is coming down. it always comes down with price. >> you talk about the artificial markup, which is a fascinating idea. how high do you that i markup i? let's say the sweater costs $100. it costs the manufacturer $50.

>> very quickly. this has been going on when i was at bloomingdales at macy's. when i went to macy's briefly, they had some of the same goods. every day, we sell it at bloomingdales at far ir margin value. when i got to macy's, they had the same goods at 15. they were not wholesale labels. then they say on sale. they sold it on sale, let's say $9.99. we sold it every day quickly at $10 and consumers have been hugely trained because it's like a percent off business now. >> right. >> nd nbc, love nbc, they have that little retail thing every day. they say everything's 50% off. so does abc. i just look at this and i say,

50 off? hello. >> mickey, let me ask you about tariffs and manufacturing in the business because the threat of tariffs is something the industry has been living with since 2017. this time around, how are they preparing? what are they doing? >> i do my surveys again and hear different things. who knows? i think and the people have said this, i think mexico and, um, what was the other? mexico and -- >> canada. >> canada. >> yes. trump's a smart guy. he's probably bargaining. china, first of all, we and all retailers, if china is ever more than 10%, inflation ain't going away because everything's made in asia, china. i'm hoping for the best because i think, you know, he's going to

make it good. >> incoming president trump? >> yeah, i think so. you know, he understands the art of negotiation and all that. >> mickey, i want to thank you for taking the time to sit down with us this morning. i appreciate it. >> thank you. happy holidays. when we come back, house majority leader steve scalise will join us to tell us what to expect at the republicans meeting today with the leaders of the doge team. they will be talking to, yes, elon musk and vivek ramaswamy. later, inbroadcast, we have robinhood's ceo considering getting into sports betting. vlad tenev will join us. "squawk box" be back after this. we just need to grab a few more gifts. okay, let's go. j.j. watt. hey. i made my family disappear.

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it is 7 a.m. on the east coast. you're watching "squawk box" right here on cnbc. i'm an draw ross sorkin along with joe kernen and becky quick. today's top story, president-elect trump tapping some familiar faces to fill out his economic team. among them choosing finn serve president, frank bisignano to be his nest social security administration commissioner. trump saying he would no, ma'am nart michael faulkender for deputy treasury secretary. he was the assistant treasury secretary during the first administration and implemented the paycheck protection program.

disney raising to $1 a share payable to shareholders of record as of december 16th. meta platform is building a $10 million data center in northeast louisiana to help fuel its future ai ambitions. let's check the futures this morning. you're going to see right now there are some modest declines not by much. dow futures down by 21 points. nasdaq off by 18. let's get over to dom chu. he has this morning's premarket movers. dom, this is coming off of new highs for all three of the major averages once again yesterday. >> that's right. the major averages, the stock market very much in play right now but it's also cryptocurrencies. that's kind of the lead so far in trading this morning. it's starting with bitcoin. surpassing 100,000 mark for the first time ever. six figures. 102,709. it's up about 3,800 per coin right now. that's about a 3.5% gain. bitcoin very much in focus.

those moves came after president-elect donald trump announced he would nominate a crypto advocate in paul atkins to lead the sec. bitcoin is up 47% just since the election over here. if you take a look at the picture overall, look at that move since november 5th and 6th. all the way up to 102,657. we're also seeing, by the way, etfs tracking bitcoin up. moves related in had crypto stocks like micro strategy, coin base and crypto a key focus. let's turn to that technology trade. applied materials right now is down roughly 2.25%. this is after they downgraded it from under weight to equal weight. eye weaker operating environment should lead to a correction. morgan stanley with $164 target price. that's a decrease in their target price as well. we'll finish with

conocophillips. they're saying the recent under performance of the stock against its peers are in the rear-view mirror after completing its acquisition of marathon oil. their target price is $123 implying an 18% up side. keep an eye on conocophillips. for more on that, head over to cnbc.com/pro. subscribers can get more access to the detail and analysis of those day's big calls and stories, becky. key ones be to watch. bitcoin above 102,000. that's a big move. >> dom, thank you. we'll check in a little later. meantime, let's talk about the developing story that everybody has been focused on. tragic. police still searching for a suspect and murder in the early morning murder of brian thompson. shot and killed on his way to the new york hilton in mid town. it happened early yesterday

morning around 5:45. head of the company's investor day. i think a lot of people now seeing this video. i thought it was 6:45. i don't think it's 5:45. the nypd saying the department looking into everything, scanning social media, interviewing employees, family members. minnesota law enforcement. law enforcement official say they believe the suspect left messages on the bullet casings. apparently they read defend, deny and depose. and i should mention we'll show a little bit of this tape right now. i asked eli lilly's ceo david ricks at the deal book summit about all of this just after the murder was reported because he knew brian. >> i mean, it's shoging, yeah. he was assassinated essentially in the street going to his investor conference. i mean, this was a person with apparently a silencer on his weapon who stalked him and had a

mask on and shot him in the street on sixth avenue and 54th, a few blocks from here. >> remarkable thing. you knew him sfwhel. >> he wasn't a friend, but we do a lot of business together so, yeah. >> it's a story that's reverberating around the city, around the world, within the industry. it's just one of those things that's sort of very hard to get your head around what could have happened here. there's obviously lots of theories and conspiracy theories and nobody knows anything really. >> the hilton here, that's a different one, i think, right? this is the one over on 6th. >> on 6th. >> i remember thinking when we were on the air when it happened -- >> no, you were 100% on the air. you were 100% on the air. >> and the bullet casings they're talking about, just watching all of the coverage yesterday, i think he left some of the spent shells which no professional probably would do that. but there are also some unfired rounds be when it jammed, i think, because he had -- i forget what it's called.

it's not like a silencer, homemade silencer supposedly. that can happen on a semi-automatic if you don't know what you're doing. the idea that he was a total professional, there's some -- >> i don't know. >> i don't either. i don't either. >> a lot of speculation. >> he was pretty dam professional. >> a lot of him in the starbucks, that's fairly clear. >> from here up, i kind of think you could almost use some of those shots to figure out who it was. but there may be other ways. what was pointed out if some of the unfired rounds are there, they don't get like twisted, there could be dna, there could be fingerprints on the unfired rounds. then there was a phone. >> but i will tell you, one of the things that happened, and it was just --because this deal book event with all of these ceos, there were so many executives who don't travel with security. >> that may change. >> that's what i was going to say. literally yesterday i was with people who were literally changing their sort of security

protocol, if you will. some people who travel with security occasionally, who in new york city don't or in other places don't and i think that these kind of things -- it depends how -- what we find out about the relationship between the shooter and the motives of the shooter and what happened here that may actually shift why we think what we think, but it's -- it's a big story. >> it almost seems like a point in time that i hope we don't point to to remember, but nobody's safe really. hopefully the president is safe and people that we need to keep safe, but anyone else, if someone's got a mind to do something, that's really scary, what happened yesterday. ceos are high profile. you see a lot -- with social media, who notes as we've been talking about. someone was turned down for -- >> there are a lot of theories that are out there. obviously the police are going to have to take their time, law

enforcement, to figure out exactly what happened here. you look at unitedhealth, it does have one of the highest denial rates in terms of service on some of these things. there are conspiracy theorists saying that could be it, but we'll wait and see. we'll wait and see what happens with the investigation and what it brings. >> coming up, we're going to talk markets after the break. then the future of intel after pat gelsinger, his abrupt retirement. should the company end its turn around plan and become a foundry that makes chips for other companies? jon fortt is going to join us to weigh in on that. if you are looking about an answer whether they should or not, it's not going to come from fortt. you'll find out both sides with something that's "on the other hand."

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$103,000 right now. want to show you some comments from fed chair powell that he spoke to me about bitcoin just yesterday. >> people use bitcoin as a speculative asset, right? it's like gold. it's just like gold only it's virtual, it's digital. people are not using it as a form of payment or store of value. it's highly volatile. it's not a competitor for the dollar, it's a competitor for gold. that's really how i think of it. >> joining us right now is joe amato. they have $500,000 in assets not all under bitcoin? >> maybe they should be. >> given that they're up 47% since the election, we missed it. it's been an interesting ride. i do think there are developments there, potential lit legislative standpoint that have built some of that enthusiasm together with some of the animal spirits that are created since november 11th.

>> what do you tell clients about bitcoin? >> well, we tell them to be very careful. i admit it, i have a he been a skeptic over the years because of some of the things you just quoted powell on in terms of its store value. it's not a currency equivalent. it's a speculative asset. we say be very, very careful. there are ways to play it through the exchanges but certainly it's getting the attention and we're getting lots of questions about it. >> 40% since the election but 60% arr for 10 or 15 years so -- and you missed it. >> we have missed that. >> yeah. >> we did miss the u.s. equity markets. >> he's got that going for him. >> absolutely. >> the other question, therefore, is which -- you know, what's wagging the dog here. what's the dog and what's the tail in terms of this market? >> well, i think you have the -- as i referenced, the animal spirits, enthusiasm.

administration perceived as being pro growth and pro business friendly. i think that's helping. you have the unique dynamic where you have an economy growing above trend line. you've got earnings growing and you've got the fed cutting rates. it's rare the fed cutting rates when the earnings are growing and economy is growing. that creates a good dynamic for risk assets. it's understandable. then you add in the notion of more which i think is the deregulation. >> there are some other points. they deregulatory.

>> i can do the math. i can see what's happening. >> some of it is anecdotal. we see cfos come into our offices literally multiple times a day and they consistently talk about some of the challenges, not just the last four years but the layer upon layer upon layer. new regulations never eliminate old regulations, they just got lopped on top. that delayering is tough to gauge but i think you will see more investment and enthusiasm from companies more willing to say, look, i don't have a headwind right now with policy, i have a tailwind. >> i tried to push powell a little bit on the issue of cutting rates given the issues you're talking about. do you think it's a mistake to cut rates? >> i don't think so. when you've got the trend line on inflation and where policy rates are and effectively where real rates are, it's still restrictive. as he referenced, he's, you know, trying to find neutral, is

neutral 3.5? is it 4? i do think with any sign of labor market weakness we'll get a big number on friday, the fed has lots of room to cut even further. so we're assuming 25 in december. sorry, becky. >> what about any sign of inflation? if the labor market weakness would move them in one direction, would inflationary -- inflationary pressures picking up move them the opposite direction? >> i think the inflationary issue that we've gotten over and got past is, you know, inflation's 5, 6, 7, 8, that's a disaster and central banks have to deal with that. if you are arguing about 2 1/2 to 3 or 2 to 3, the pace at which you get to your target rate, there's no magic to 2%. the trend line be is still favorable and some of the stickier areas will remain favorable like housing. a lot of the other things that were like misalignment of supply and demand have been worked

through. you'll have a bumpy road to work through. >> 2.5 is big difference from 2. 2 is a good number in terms of -- >> for sure. that's one of the things the market is wrestling with in terms of tariffs. go back to 2018, the goods that were -- that tariffs were placed on, if you did a price composite, they were up 3 or 4%. >> what's really going to happen with tariffs, are you in the ken griffey camp, we just don't know and they're probably not going to happen? it's a negotiating tool and that's what we're talking about. >> we think tariffs will net net be higher but we think it is absolutely a negotiating ploy and transactional. you're seeing that between the incoming administration and mexico right now where they're engaging in discussions that probably leads to some type of deal, but i think directionally china potentially on some of the other countries you'll see a bit more but not as much as people

fear. >> joe, great to see you. >> thanks for coming in. up next, should intel end its turn around plan and focus on making other company's chips? jon fortt is here to weigh in on that. then later president-elect trump's picks for his national security team and much more with former deputy assistant secretary of defense elbridge colby. "squawk box" will be back. >> announcer: time now for today's aflac trivia question. mannheim steamroller sells their own brand of what at their holiday concerts? the answer when "squawk box" returns. hings. aflac! like how aflac pays people money for the expenses health insurance doesn't cover. aflac! health insurance does leave a gap. but aflac gives people money to help close that gap. aflac! oh! coach prime got one on the line too baby! uh huh! see that's how you hold up a trophy. trust me. get help with expenses health insurance doesn't cover. find an agent. get a quote at aflac.com. i hope you're hungry. i'm glad i brought my own dinner.

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>> announcer: and now the answer to today's aflac trivia question. they sell their own brand of what at their holiday concerts? the answer, hot coco. intel announcing this week that ceo pat gelsinger retired opening up the question of whether that should be the end of his ambitious expensive plan to turn intel into a leading foundry that makes chips for other companies. jon fortt is here to weigh in. >> hey, joe. yes, this should be the end of

gelsinger's big foundry plan. when he arrived there were two big problems, one, the design side had failed to anticipate the importance of chips for graphics like ai. two, the manufacturing business had fallen behind by missing the boat on euv for making the most advanced chips. his solution was to surge resources and fix both problems at once by fast tracking new design and new chip factories. it was too much. rival nvidia continued to surge its own ai on the design side. meanwhile, intel's core business of pc and server business was no longer lucrative enough to comfortably finance a manufacturing effort chewing up tens of billions of dollars. investors have lost confidence. the answer is to focus on the design side of the business where intel is still an essential presence, split off the manufacturing business and margins will improve dramatically. then intel can really focus all

of its surge efforts into catching up on ai. >> that sounds good. but a lot of manufacturing business specifically configured to build intel designs. intel has promised the federal government and others to see all this subsidy money and chip making effort through, right? >> well, on the other hand, intel better figure out how to keep transforming itself into the domestic chip supplier otherwise someone else will do it from intel's smoking ruins. let's be clear. pat gelsinger's main strategic mistake wasn't trying to fix them at the same time. both absolutely had to happen and fast. his main mistake was believing intel's core business would be stable enough through this decade to be the main source of funds for that transition. now it's clear someone needs to raise billions for home grown advanced chips the way sam altman has for openai, elon musk has for x ai and then they'll

buy the fab footprints at a fire sale and hire the century worth of talent that's about to walk out the door. china tends to swallow taiwan. it's just a question of when. so it might seem like intel has more options now. not really. now they've got a design business that needs great manufacturing to give it a mow the -- moat and they need to give it scale, john. >> i can't tell which side you come down on again on this one. >> i did my job. >> amazon making ai chips now. >> yeah, they're designing them. so is microsoft. right? so it used to be the chip game was for people in the chips business but now these hyper scalers are -- i mean, they're big buyers of just about everything, which is shaping storage. you saw pure storage as a result this week from a deal with a top four hyper scaler is part of what's boosting them. it used to be you had to sell a

bunch of little enterprise companies. you can still do that. now you're selling to big conglomerates as well. >> in a world where reality is a reality. isn't the smoking ruins of the business probably the most likely outcome that somebody else is going to need the foundry intel has right now and there will be no intel? isn't that probably what happens? >> it's more likely that that's what happens now than it was four years ago for sure, but -- >> isn't that the way it should go? isn't that the way progress works? >> people saying that about apple, right, 25 years ago. >> not too many apples around though. >> no. that's -- that's true. the foundry was still around on that one. you know what we can figure out, we can figure out how to read both sides of this argument in the newsletter. got a qr code on the screen. to the left you can just scan that with your phone's camera or you can type in cnbc.com/otoh.

>> jon, thank you. from the bottom of my heart. >> how deep down does that go? >> not that deep. >> coming up, rocket company's president, bill emerson. up next, former president bill clinton reacting to the pardoning of hunter biden. we're going to show you that interview in just a moment. >> announcer: on the other hand is sponsored by coupa. make margins multiply.

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welcome back to "squawk box." "the new york times" deal book summit i spoke to former president bill clinton, and we talked about a lot of things but we went right at the issue about what he thought about president biden's decision to pardon his son hunter. here's what he had to say. >> i personally believe that the president is almost certainly right that he's -- that his son received completely different treatment than he would have if he hadn't been the president's son in this kind of case, but

like i said -- >> i think there's a lot of people who understand that as a parent, no question. i think the bigger question is about what was said for so many months, the last six months. >> you have to ask him that. i don't know. i've never talked to him. >> when you heard it did you say, okay, this frustrates me? this upsets -- does it upset you at all? does it not upset you? >> well, in the hierarchy of things that there are to be upset about today -- >> this is not one of snem. >> no. no, but it's not way high on there. lack, i have been -- you've got to understand, i have been through all of this and you act like this is new. this is not new. we had six people, six in different cases when i was president who were being prosecuted by ken starr's people told me they were screaming at

him. wait. wait. you started this it. told me they were screaming at him when they were being interviewed. you are trying to get me to commit perjury. six people. and all of them said some version of, what do you care. if you tell us what we want to hear, we'll tell you about it. if you don't, we'll make your life a living hell. six people told me that. and it was never in the press. nobody ever expressed any outrage and a hell of a lot of people knew what was going on. you have to ask yourself, if you do this blanket thing, is there anything a president can do that he would -- or she some day would get in trouble for? i mean, this is a no-win deal that's why the power of the pardon was given to the presidents. >> it was fascinating to hear

him talk about it. he talked about, by the way, pardoning his brother, interestingly enough. we had a separate conversation about actually -- some very interesting comments from senator manchin, i don't know if you saw them, just about a day and a half ago where senator manchin said that what he thinks biden should have done, and maybe still could do, is for him to pardon trump. that actually if biden were to pardon trump right now from all of his litigation and other issues that are still out there, whether those cases will ever be brought to bear at this point i think is an open question, but this idea that basically we have to get away from the sort of partisanship of all of this. and i don't know. i don't know -- >> bill clinton pardoned not only his brother but mark rich. >> very famously. >> right. and the questions that come with that. the -- >> he doesn't need a pardon from biden. that is saying he still has jeopardy and i don't think he

does. >> you don't know that. there's still litigation. there's still criminal cases. >> that's a ploy from the left, let's pardon him since he's got all of these things hanging over him. let's be nice and pardon him. >> then i'll flip it around. then there's a question -- >> he already had a jury of 77 million americans decide on whether he was -- >> how do you feel about if trump were to have done it? now that would have been the gracious thing. >> to have -- >> to have pardoned hunter. >> no. the maybe now he won't be able to take the fifth so we can find out what went on, influence peddling for ten years between 2014 and 2024. maybe now we can find out. that's the only reason i didn't want him pardoned. i want to know. i don't care about the gun and drugs. i don't care about the tax evasion. i care about the millions of dollars coming from foreign entities into biden, inc., because of hunter biden. we're probably never going to find out about that now. that's what i care about. >> and so you -- you would not -- if you were trump you

wouldn't pardon him. >> no. >> and if you were biden you wouldn't pardon him? >> no. i wish -- >> as a father -- as a father what would you do? so, by the way, my view just so you know, not that you have to care about my view, i think it was terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible that he ran as part of his election campaign that he was not going to pardon his son. >> that was all about -- >> that to me -- >> that was all about -- >> right. that was a terrible, terrible situation. >> it's all about being able to say nobody's above the law pointing at trump. >> you know what, i think that that -- that is a disgrace. that piece of this is a disgrace. grace. you're not going to get a different side of that from me. having said that, i appreciate the father piece of it and i don't know what i would do. i really don't know. i do know if i was going to say publicly what i did say, i wouldn't go back on it. the. >> he also said he wouldn't run for a second term. >> the father thing, i mean, i -- look, i mean, hunter's a piece of work. he is a piece of work. if you go and look -- i don't

know, as a father, i don't know what i would have done up to that point. >> i don't love the pardon in general. i know it's -- >> right. >> i don't love it. >> i mean, this guy, there are things that have been -- you know, brother's wife, wife's sister. just the videos that -- it just goes on -- and i know, i know. drugs, blah, blah, blah. he had a lot of choices. he spent $400,000 paying off prostitutes in a year. >> how do you feel about all of the other pardons trump has given? >> i think that it was lawful, who he gave them to, you mean? >> yes. >> i don't know. it's a different situation. >> different situation? >> yeah. i don't think kushner lined trump's pockets with 20 -- with millions of dollars. >> you don't think he did that? >> no. no. the. >> what do you think he did? >> that kushner lined trump's pockets with millions of dollars? >> not personally, but in the campaign. right? that's -- i mean, that's factual. >> trump doesn't -- trump had billions of dollars already.

i don't think -- i mean, i'm not -- i'm not sure what you're referring to. he got campaign contributions, that's what you're talking about? >> he was a big donor to the campaign. >> all right. now what is he, ambassador to france. >> and ambassador to france. >> right. right. >> like i said, i don't like the -- i don't like the presidential pardon. >> it all stinks. >> i don't like the presidential pardon. it seems like it's ripe for, you know, abuse. when we come back, we will talk national security. president-elect trump's pick for his cabinet and much more with the former deputy assistant secretary of defense, bridge colby. right now though as we head to a break, we're watching shares of robinhood. the ceo vlad tenev told investors yesterday that the company is considering expanding into sports betting in some way. he indicated that the offerings could take the form of event contracts instead of traditional sports books where all bets are made against the house. tenev will be joining us at 8:40 a.m. eastern time.

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the incoming trump administration will have several global hot spots to deal with from ukraine to the middle east

and now there's political unrest in south korea. joining us now bridge colby, former deputy assistant secretary of defense in the first trump administration. it is good to see you this morning, bridge. we talked a little bit about yesterday that you just never know where some trouble is going to -- i mean, the south korea thing, did you have -- was that on your radar careen? >> that was not on my radar screen, joe. great to be with you. i think that surprised everyone including a it appears south korea's top general. what you can see going on in the world right now is a lot of change. president biden is leaving a terrible situation. i think this can't be stressed enough. we're at the bottom of the barrel on our weapons in ukraine. it's being reported that russia's helping north korea's nuclear program. iran is on the brink of a nuclear weapon, et cetera, et cetera, but what you see is a lot of changes because from president-elect trump, he's famous for the art of the deal,

but i think what you see is the art of leverage and putting it to the advantage of the american people for an america first agenda that also helps a lot of our allies out. i think you see right now the results, including from some of the people who have been most critical of trump. i mean, you have pierre -- justin trudeau come running to mar-a-lago. you've had shinebaum, these people trying to impress him and satisfy his reasonable criteria on the border on things like defense spending. president macron has been very critical of president trump and invites him to the reopening of notre dame. trump is famous for having this good fortune of his enemies arrival of self destruction. i think you see that as well. obviously you've seen joe biden's ignaminious pardon of his son hunter. prime minister kishida, olaf scholz who gave joe biden a

medal, his government is falling. contrary to the media hype, you see people willing to work, not only the ones who have been critical, prime minister i, prime minister netanyahu. the ukrainians came and met with trump's transition team on the peace there and you've had positive signs from the russians about a peace deal. and even china. china, the journal is reporting that xi jinping is trying to get a phone call. you see a lot of positive dynamic and it can't happen soon enough. >> a lot of these things seem to be going, i hesitate to say our way, but maybe the world's way for some common sense things now. when you make threats like the threat we saw and the language used about hamas and hell's going to rain down and things like that, i guess that's possible with hamas. if you did the same thing with iran, could that turn out badly? if you did the same thing with putin or president xi, could any of those things result in

exacerbating a situation, getting somewhere we don't want be from almost the stick we're carrying is too big because you have to use it at some point? >> on this point of leverage, joe, president trump is -- i think people respect him. people noel' follow through. i think a couple of things i'd say about that. president trump isn't saying the middle east needs to democratize or i'm going to invade every country in the region. i don't expect every government to look like the state government in iowa. he's saying give up the hostages. that's something similar to what president ragan did in 1980. that's reasonable. we know it worked to deter vladimir putin from moving into ukraine in his first term. i think, look, it's coupling a reputation for being willing to go there to being willing to use leverage, economic, even military in certain circumstances but in the pursuit of reasonable goals of ultimately of peace and of letting, you know, hostages go, especially american hostages as

he ran on in the campaign. >> switching gears entirely. do you have a -- were you a backer of the pick for defense secretary, pete hegseth, bridge? >> yeah. i'm a supporter, yeah. >> you are? >> yeah. >> it could be you if it's not him. >> well, i don't know where those reports are coming from. i think pete hegseth is president trump's nominee and i support him. i think he's got a great record as a combat veteran, as a very charismatic figure in the veterans and defense issues so -- and i think he'd be a great secretary of defense. >> what are the odds at this point? i can't tell. i don't know how these things work. nobody does. you keep defending until all of a sudden it becomes clear that maybe it doesn't happen? are we in that position? or do you think the tide has turned in favor of his eventual confirm station in you can't lose too many of the republican

senators. >> well, look, i think pete hegseth's been out there in the senate making the case as well as on media. he's got a lot of allies coming out for him, vouching for him. i think my view is that frankly the president of the united states deserves a presumption that the people that he nominates, you know, should be those are the ones that serve in those positions. i mean, i think we talked a little bit earlier, you know, what does this pick mean, what does that pick mean? it's putting america first. ending forever wars. i don't start wars, i stop them. in terms of how the senate's going to react, that's sort of obviously unpredictable. i think pete and others are making a very strong case for why he'd be an excellent secretary of defense. >> bridge, we have had republican senators who have come on and said -- not about this pick in particular, just they're going to take their responsibilities very seriously about oversight and deciding whether they agree with the president's picks on these.

that seems like it is the senator's responsibility, too. >> absolutely. it's in the advice and consent. it's worth looking back at the historical basis for some of the confirmation process. i believe the first presidential nominee to be rejected by the senate was actually john tower in 1989. so historically there had obviously been advice and consent, but i think it was a much smoother process. we now have a situation in which even relatively low level assistant secretary, uncontroversial positions can take a year or more. >> okay. >> i think absolutely, of course, the senators need to do their role and the senate has a vital role that needs to be respected, but i also think especially in an era of real danger when the american people have given the president a very clear mandate for change, i think he deserves to have, you know, sort of a presumption of moving forward. obviously if somebody has really something that people didn't know about, et cetera, et cetera, that's fully within the rights. i'm just -- i'm not making a kind of constitutional point, i'm making a common sense point.

like the president should be able to make his government work efficiently and effectively. in other parts of the world prime ministers make their picks. there needs to be a balance here. >> it's his own party is my point. if the party chooses, they do have the numbers to do it. >> sure. no, no, absolutely. you're right. i think these are the sort of people that have their own mandates. i'm kind of making more of the point -- and i think you've heard this. in fact, you even heard it from democrats like peter welch from vermont saying, look, the president deserves to have his people within reason. >> sure. >> this is more a matter of degree. >> bridge, we'll keep watching the -- i don't know, you're right. the president should get what he wants but some of the other candidates, you, joni ernst, even desantis, they're all -- i don't know, they'd breeze in. any of those would breeze in. sometimes you wonder if it's worth all of this -- worth the political capital and all of the

effort. appreciate having you on. >> yeah. >> i understand. >> i'll support pete. >> look at you next to the capital. i see the chyron. no, i'm kidding. see you, bridge. >> see you, joe. great alking to you guys. when we come back, rocket company's president bill emerson will join us after the break, and we are watching bitcoin this morning crossing the $100,000 mark for the first time ever. "squawk box" will be right back. knock, knock. #1 broker here for the #1 hit maker. thanks for swingin' by, carl. no problem. so, what are all of those for? ah, this one lets me adjust the bass. add more guitar. maybe some drums. wow, so many choices. yeah. like schwab. i can get full-service wealth management, advice, invest on my own, and trade on thinkorswim. you know carl is the only frontman you need... oh i gotta take this carl, it's schwab. ♪ schwaaaab! ♪ have a choice in how you invest with schwab.

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all right. welcome back, everybody. rocket mortgage filing suit against the department of hughesing and urban development. the company alleging hud has created a conflict between appraiser oversight and independents. rocket mortgage has filed a motion to be dismissed from a doj racial discrimination lawsuit. joining us to talk about it is

bill emerson, the president of rocket companies. this is a complicated case. i think we probably needs to walk people through it if they haven't been following along in the headlines, which i had not until we booked you to come on and talk about this. this dates back to a case that was from colorado where a homeowner back in 2020 decided to make some renovations to her home in order -- in the process of doing that, she had applied to refinance her mortgage. you all told her that she needed to get an appraisal. the appraisal came through. it valued her home much more -- much lower than it had just an appraisal a year earlier. went from $860,000 to $640,000. she was very upset, thought it was racial profiling that led to that and then what ensued? >> well, first of all, it's great to be back on the show, becky. what ensued is a lawsuit that the department of justice filed on behalf of hud against rocket mortgage and the third party

appraisal management solidify and the appraiser. what's ludicrous about that is federal law prohibits us from getting involved in the appraised value process. you go all the way back to 2008 and the great recession and dodd frank made appraisal end be pen dense crystal clear. so, you know, we now have to order appraisals through a third party appraisal company that goes and hires the appraiser. we did not hire this appraiser. a third party hired this appraiser. the claim of discrimination, if there is discrimination there, i want the client to get justice, but that justice should come at the right price -- at the right place, from the appraiser, not the lender who has absolutely no ability to affect the outcome here. this is a three-time client for us. we want to help her. we want to help every client we can possibly help, but what we don't want is to be the poster child that the doj uses to garner headlines, which is exactly what they did in this particular case, because we did

everything we could do. we did everything by the letter of the law. we offered the client two times to go through a process of value reconsideration providing us additional information that would allow the appraiser to correct it and she refused both times. so there's nothing more that we could do in this particular situation so here we are again, deja vu all over again, having to file suit against the government to get justice on something and clarity on something that we think we deserve and the rest of the industry deserves. what this once again is is let's find a large player. let's use them. we're the only one named, by the way, in the press release and at the top of the lawsuit. you don't hear the name of the third party appraisal company and you don't hear the appraiser. so, you know, becky, honestly, we're left with no other choice. we have 15,000 team members who do the right thing every single day. we've got to be able to look them in the eye and tell them that we are not going to stand for this. this is where we are.

>> bill, as i mentioned, it's a complicated case. i read the headlines. i read some of the stories that were written on this. at first blush it's like, yeah, why didn't you guys help her. the more i read the more i understood your position on this. the idea that you are not allowed, this is an independent appraisal, you are not allowed to be involved on any of this going through. what have the conversations with hud been? have you had conversations with hud before they filed this lawsuit or did it come as a surprise? >> so, i mean, hud got involved and hud actually took a look at our process and what we did and the team members that were interacting with the client and they found no fault from any of our team members. and so, you know, i find it odd that we're in the case. i find it odd that we're not until page 38 of a 50 page complaint where our supposed alleged claim comes up. it's clear, becky, on its face that this is about how do you garner a headline on an

individual case that you file because, you know, listen, pursuing discrimination is a noble thing. it should be done, right? but it should be done in the right manner, in the right way, for the right party. that's our contention. what's happening now is you've got hud through doj basically through enforcement changing the game. so how is a lender supposed to know what they're supposed to do? when can they intervene? when should they not intervene? how do they know if there's discrimination? you're not the one that hired the appraiser? you're not involved in that process. we want clarity for us and the industry. we don't know nir other way to get it and we simply can't sit by and have our reputation destroyed. >> the reason for the dods frank issuing is they did not want people writing mortgages to be able to overinflate the value of homes to get us where we were. they didn't want you all to say, yeah, that home looks like it's worth a million dollars when an independent appraiser might say

it's worth half a million based on the comps in the area. it does look like -- there were a lot of problems who put her in the wrong elementary school district, went 2 1/2 miles to look for comps when it looked like there were some in the area it looks like there were clearly problems with the appraisal process but i understand why you all bound by law are not allowed to get involved with that process, too. i guess you're seeking clarity of the rules from the government? >> yes, absolutely. that's what we're doing. and, you know, all the things that you talk about there, i think that's a process you have to go through and through a litigation if that's what the client wants to do with the appraisal and appraisal management company getting clear answers to that. the appraisal process, as you know, is a very subjective process. it's a human being involved in that process. this happens to be a multi-family property which probably makes it a little bittmore complicated than a

single-family property. we don't know what went into that process because, again, we have to remain at arm's length and we have to stay out of the value process. it's interesting, becky, when we were at war with the government before on the false claims process, same situation. they actually accused us of trying to effect and influence values in that case. they were wrong. we proved them to be wrong. here we are on the other side of that saying that -- they're saying we have the authority to fix a discrimination issue and effect the value of the appraisal. which way is it? you can't have it both ways. that's the clarity we're looking for. >> bill, let me ask you while you're here what you're seeing in terms of demand for mortgages for refinancings. what has business been like as rates have come down? >> that's a great question. as you know, rates, the fed cut rates 50 basis points. that had been priced in. you saw rates drop a little bit and demand for mortgages and

ing going up. interestingly enough when the fed cut rates 50 basis points, you saw rates tick up a bit. if you are doing a zero point rate in the mid 7s. down from their highs but not in a position where most americans would be able to take advantage of a refinance unless they really do want to do something from a cash out perspective. we are seeing great volume in second mortgages and we're the largest second mortgage lender in the country these days. it's very challenging right now from a refinance perspective. as you know, the housing market, demand is there. supply is still an issue. although inventories have gotten a little bit better here from year over year. it's still a very challenging market for folks to buy a home and find one affordably. >> bill emerson from rocket companies. bill, thanks for your time. >> thanks, becky. appreciate it. it is just after 8 a.m. on the east coast and you're watching "squawk box" right here on cnbc. i'm becky uick along with joe kernen. among today's top stories. bitcoin crossing the

psychologically important $100,000 barrier for the first time. the digital currency catching another bid after president trump picked a crypto friendly candidate to lead the sec in his next administration. one of the key names rising on this news is microstrategy which holds more than 400,000 bitcoin. we spoke with executive chairman michael sailor this week. he said the company has made 40 purchases of bitcoin. that stock up by 8.6%. members -- eight members of the opec plus oil producer's alliance will postpone plans to unwind a voluntary output cut that amounts to more than 2 million barrels a day. that's according to cnbc sources. they say the output cut will now last until april. it was previously supposed to be phased out starting this month. you can see wti this morning up just barely, 68.59. >> under 70. >> under 70. the. >> it is a lot.

>> coming up, jeff bezos speaking about his role at amazon after handing the job over in 2021. later, reaction to fed chair jay powell's comntmes from former cleveland fed president loretta mester. "squawk box" coming right back. only on verizon.

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from a business point of view, financial returns point of view, i think it's going to be the best business i've ever been involved in, but it's going to take a while. >> so bigger than amazon? >> yeah. >> that was amazon and blue origin founder jeff bezos at "the new york times" deal book summit yesterday. andrew asked bezos about stepping away as ceo of amazon and how he thinks about his role at the company that he founded today. >> now i'm still at amazon, by the way. i haven't left fully. i am a parent. i'm a 60-year-old man and my mom and dad still worry about me, right? so you never stop being a

parent. my heart is in amazon. my curiosity is amazon. my fears are there. my love is there. i'm never going to forget about amazon, i'll always be there to help. right now i'm putting a lot of time in it because, you know, i can help and it's super interesting. >> and this is what bezos said about what he's doing at amazon now. >> there are a few things, small things, but it's 95% ai. >> where do you think -- >> because literally we're working on a thousand applications internally. ai, you have to remember, ai -- modern ai is a horizontal enabling layer. it can be used to improve everything. it will be in everything. >> one of the most interesting things was andrew asked him about pulling the endorsement of kamala harris and not letting -- at the washington post. he said i totally am happy about that. i mean, "the wall street

journal" has not endorsed a presidential candidate since 1928. i don't know the reason you would want -- the washington post, obviously, it would have been virtue signaling, obviously. i think it's really interesting, jeff, what i wish he would have said was, whew, man, am i glad we didn't -- what would have been the point, to bring on the hellfire from any type of supposed retribution from trump. instead, he didn't do it. trump, you know, wins seven swing states and he's like, yeah, my newspaper, yeah, we didn't endorse kamala. coming up, steve scalise joins us on the incoming trump administration, the doge team. stay tuned. much more to come. "squawk box" will be right back.

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our next guest joins us to talk about the government funding deadline later this month. president-elect trump's latest picks for his administration, and the new department of government efficiency.

let's welcome house majority leader steve scalise from louisiana. it's good to have you on, leader scalise. thank you. >> good morning. good to be back with you. >> want to get your reaction to something that was actually said yesterday. vivek ramaswamy was at our council summit. here he is talking about potential cuts for government spending then we'll get you to weigh in. >> is there any one thing that president trump has told you, i want you to go cut that? >> he is looking at it the other way in terms of keeping a very open mind top down to say that let's start with a clean slate. let's start fresh. everything is in scope for what counts as government efficiency. it's not one part of the federal government or the other. it's actually looking at it as a whole. are we respecting the taxpayer dollar? in some ways to use an analogy to those in the room in the way that a cfo would look at their

shareholder capital. >> leader scalise, we've got deregulation and possibly, you know, streamlining government. how much can actually be done? are you optimistic that we can make a difference or that doge can make a difference? >> yes, i'm very optimistic. in fact, one of the things we're going to be talking about with elon and vivek today, a lot of our members have ideas and have been working on various committees on things to do just that, to cut government waste, to identify and root out a lot of inefficiencies in government. we're going to be working hand in hand. we want to share a lot of those ideas, the things that we've uncovered along the way. we also want to make sure that as they're identifying things, they're getting those to us quickly so that we can put some of those items into law. there will be some things president trump can do on his own through executive order. there will be some other things that we're probably going to need congress to pass through let's say budget reconciliation, which is a bill we're working on

already for january with president trump's transition team. so that conversation has been going on for months but, you know, this addition with doge, i think so many people are very encouraged by the idea. look, it's a refreshing idea that we're going to actually make government work better and make your taxpayers go further. there are probably 75% of federal employees here in washington that still are not showing up to work under the excuse of covid. covid's been over for years and yet you might wait right now months and months to get a passport renewed. some people are waiting years to get a tax return processed from three years ago because those employees aren't showing up for work. so it's hurting families all across this country. those are the kind of inefficiencies we're going to be looking at all across the board. >> how much can be done without actual legislation? and the reason i ask is you just noted that there may need to be some legislation. what's the house going to look like at this point?

i've seen, you know, with some of the appointments and some people leaving and some close results that we still don't have yet, if you can believe that, but do you expect the overall environment to be any easier for anybody to get anything done if you only have a one vote or two-vote margin in the house? >> right. we -- you know, we're going to settle in had probably at 221 republicans in the house. we have the majority, you know, whether it's two seat some months because of people that are going to be pulled out of the house into the administration. it'll narrow down probably for a few months to about a one-seat majority. we're already working on recognizing that. by the way, earlier this year we were at a one-seat majority and we still took care of our business back then. this isn't new for speaker johnson, myself, the rest of our leadership team. it makes it challenging, make no mistake. we'd all take a 20-seat majority, but that's not realistic. i wish states like california would count like every other

state where you can get the results on election night, not three weeks later they're still counting but whatever the final number is, the republicans will have the majority in the house and senate, president trump will be in the white house. we're working with president trump, i was on a call with senator thune, the new majority leader coming in. we're working in sync to make sure we deliver for the american people. >> you remember the -- hey, that was a raucous caucus last -- the last two years. and you remember the freedom -- >> that's a fair term. >> yeah. you remember the freedom side of things. they could be different now with trump, couldn't they? could he turn the screws on some of those guys? i wasn't sure what the hell they were trying to accomplish. other times i knew what they were trying to accomplish. but will they be as outspoken? was it difficult to satisfy all their concerns? and we do have budget talks coming up again. will that not be the case with

president trump, the head of the party? >> look, we're already having some of those meetings now for what's going to happen in january. we're not going to wait until then to start working through. what we know are going to be real challenges. we're listening not just to freedom caucus members. we have on the other side of the spectrum, we have members in those swing districts, 50-50 districts. we're hearing all of them listening to them but we're also making it clear to everybody. let's say when we're at a one-seat majority in february, march, april, we're all in this together or it doesn't happen. and we talked about very specific things that we will deliver on for the american people, like lowering energy costs, lowering food costs, securing america's border. all those things we deliver if we all vote together. if three people think they've got a better idea and they're just going to vote their own way, then it won't happen. so i think everybody realizes, okay, look, now's the time to put your ideas on the table if you have a different approach, but at the end of the day we're

going to all come together. president trump is the leader of our party and president trump has a very clear plan. he ran on very specific things and, frankly, most of us ran on those exact same things in our districts. so all across the country i think you're going to see, you know, the mandate that was carried out by voters on november 5th is going to be carried out by this new congress starting in january. we're going to hit the ground running. >> leader scalise, i guess it's what we do. we've actually had -- we've been interviewing for house financial services chairman. we've had and bey barr on. we've had french hill. i can't believe we get down in the weeds to that extent, but we do. who should we be hoping for? who do you want? it is an important post and it makes a difference. >> yeah, look, andy's in the mix. you know, french as well as bill

hizynga. the good news is we have great choices. we're going to make that pick next week. the steering committee's going to be meeting next week. that will be one of the first ones we take up. energy and commerce is one of the other big committees that has an opening. these openings don't come around often. at least on our side, we have six-year term limits for chairman. on the democratic side you may serve for 20 years. here you have some vibrant, energetic members that now have a chance to get the gavel on a real important committee like financial services. >> the other nominations we've seen are picks from president trump for the cabinet. are there going to be some that don't make it all the way through? we don't have to get specific, but do you think everybody that is now up for a position is going to be successful? >> i hope so. i mean, look, we've seen a couple of people drop out already but, you know, if you look at the people that president trump has picked, some

of them are more traditional people that have the kind of background you would expect, but then some people are folks that president trump is pulling out of different walks of life and that's what's made him so successful in business. president trump, remember, came here in 2017 as a businessman. was not in government at all. and he brought a lot of different people that helped us get things done, get the economy moving again, that understood the economy surely better than some of the kind of typical washington people. so, you know, when he makes some of those picks, you know, i think you'll see some of the people that have been around washington for 30 years kind of scratch their head and go, oh, gee whiz, that's not somebody i see walking around the halls of congress every day that doesn't mean they're not going to make really good cabinet secretaries. what everybody should do is just hear them out. that's what they're doing, they're going around meeting with senators, all of these picks, meeting with senators and having one-on-one conversations so the questions -- ask the tough questions, share the vision and recognize that, you know, you've got a lot of

different people from very different walks of life that are going to add to this trump administration. but the ultimate goal is to get the country back on track, to get the economy moving again, lower inflation, lower cost for families and secure the border. that's our focus. it's everybody's focus. >> just quickly. a year from now will you be saying and speaker johnson says this, speaker johnson says that, that's going to be the case, your prediction? >> yes, i'll surely make that prediction. speaker johnson has been a very effective leader. he has the respects of our members. he listens a lot. that's an important trait. to keep us together on really big, critical things. >> okay. >> you mentioned it earlier, we had our challenges, but we also delivered very big things. hr 1, great energy bill, hr 2, great border security bill. hr 5, great bill for parents, parents bill of rights. we're going to keep delivering for the american people. we'll have our differences. the democrats do, too.

we come together and deliver for the american people. now with unified government in january, we're going to get this country back on track. >> democrats don't have any -- they're like the board collective. they're always solid. sometimes i had think you should be envious. >> they just got defeated because they were solid in the wrong direction. >> have you heard raucous caucus before? did i come up with that? have you heard that before? >> go buy the website quick before somebody scoops it up. >> like new normal. >> t-shirt. >> raucous caucus. all right. thank you, leader scalise. >> good being with you. thanks. when we come back, we will speak with the ceo of robinhood following that company's first investor day. the biggest test for the markets. robert frank is live in miami beach. i shldou specify the art markets. he has the story on the art markets right after the break. we'll be right back.

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south florida, center of the art world for the next few days at art bajo. robert frank joins us. >> good morning, joe. good to see you. over 80,000 people expected to descend in miami. yesterday and today were vip days. this really does set the stage for the art market in 2025. you combine that with the art auctions in new york a couple weeks ago and the art market really hoping now for a rebound

after two years of declines. >> our clients are feeling wealthier again and i think the feeling going into this week is that there are people ready to spend, looking to socialize and they're looking to coalesce around art. >> reporter: so yesterday was the first day we saw a lot of celebrities, a lot of athletes. i ran into lie owe nard doe dicaprio. i counted 12 billionaires yesterday. another vip day yesterday. collectors from over 80 countries, french, german, russian, all the languages being spoken here. among the sales yesterday was a $2 million key pairing. so sales are strong. for more on the art market and how the wealthy are investing you can go to my newsletter just out this morning, inside wealth, cnbc.com/insidewealth or scan the qr code. two of the people on your stage yesterday are now the leading lights here in miami when it

comes to art, ken griffin and jeff bezos, of course. both now miami residents. both of them large art collectors. ken griffin. ken griffin giving $10 million over the past month to the perez museum and many hoping that a lot of his collection or some of it will wind up in miami. so you combine all of the wealth that's moved to south florida, miami. ken griffin, jeff bezos buying art and real estate, they're hoping miami becomes sort of the third big art city in the u.s. after new york and chicago. >> i didn't -- i knew that ken was obviously a big art collector. we actually talked about it on stage yesterday as we were discussing bitcoin as it happened. i did not know that jeff bezos is. >> he's a little quieter. ken griffin buys the big things. he bought that $120 million magrite that was sold in new york a couple of weeks ago. >> that's right. >> but, you know, again, miami

really -- it's always been the sun and fun city. now they're hoping with some of these big collections it can become a more serious cultural hub as well. >> miami beach is second only to atherton in zip codes for housing prices. that magrite, was that the one with the clouds? that was a beauty. i appreciate that one. one i did not -- >> empire of light, yeah. >> empire of light. the one i did not appreciate, you know what 52 by 52 is? have you seen that one? the blank canvass. the blank canvass. it's by 52. it went for a million and a half. the guy who bought the banana, did he eat the banana? he ate the banana. >> i want to show you one other thing. one of the genius piece of marketing. that's the $6 million banana first sold here in miami beach in 2019 for $120,000. people thought it was crazy back

then until it sold for 6 million a few weeks ago in new york. chiquita banana has a pop up here that is just genius. i was there yesterday he. there's me with a banana, chiquita. that was one of the most popular things yesterday, people getting a free banana. i got two free bananas. so i saved $12 million in one day. >> we have data, robert. thank you. >> thanks, guys. rick santelli is standing by at the cme in chicago. he's got some breaking economic data. rick, take it away. >> reporter: yes. for the trade bounce month of october, expecting a number around minus 75 billion. comes in light. minus 73.8. that is the smallest deficit we've had since it was minus 70 and that was in august. but what's interesting here is that if you go pre-covid on these numbers, and we started keeping track of these in the early '90s, these are some of the highest, largest trade deficits we've had pre-covid if

you compare it and take out the covid areas on the chart. so we want to pay particularly close attention to this. it's good news that it went from minus 84 to minus 73.8, its current read, because maybe that gives us a glimpse of how the potential to handicap tariffs in the future may have already affected imports versus exports which affected that trade balance. on initial claims they move up to 224,000. that's up 9,000 from a very slightly revised 215,000 originally reported as 213,000. and if we look at continuing claims, there are now back below 1.9 million. what's interesting here is the last couple of weeks we've been over 1.9 originally reported both times including last week now a revised under. so technically we still have not been above 1.9 million but

1,871,000 is the current read and i just find it interesting that it seems as though, you know, three weeks worth of revisions keep taking that away. interest rates? we're still hovering around the 420 area in tens. in two-year, around 414. these are all up slightly on the session and if you take a macro step, of course, we are now consolidating just below that four and a quarter area roughly if you blur your eyes, these are levels that we last spent a lot of time on in mid october. joe, becky, back to you. >> okay. rick, thank you. let's bring in steve liesman who joins us right now with more on these numbers as well. teve, the trade deficit as rick points out, pretty interesting to see this widening. we did have joe amato on with us earlier this morning. he's worried about what happens if you see weakness in the labor market. what do you think of the numbers we've got right here? >> let me talk about the trade deficit for a second. i think it was weaker than

expected in part because of the decline in oil prices. i think rick is 100% right about the potential impact of tariffs. i think he might be early. i think october may have been an earlier -- too early a month to see this effect that we might be looking for, which is people bringing in goods ahead of potential tariffs. and the reason i say that is because it looks like the deficit with china, i want to double check this, it fell to 27.9 from a deficit of 31.8. if i was going to see a tariff effect, becky, i'd be looking at that china trade deficit. that's a place where you might see it widen ahead of potential tariffs. on the jobless claims numbers, it's a very complicated situation. it's interesting that continuing claims have fallen. rick has been using this metric of 1.9. it's now down below 1.8. i think that's not a bad metric, though i will point out what we're using as the high, 1.9, was the bottom of previous

cycles. so we're still running a relatively tight labor market. we're seeing a whole lot of firing out there. and then just a quick preview on tomorrow. i wish i could make some sense of it. it is going to be enormously complicated. one, you have the hurricanes bounce back. two, you have the strike bounce back. on the other hand, you have what we're hearing, becky, i wonder if you have heard some of this, too. the this is apparently the second lowest hiring for the holiday season in many years. it's not been a strong holiday hiring season and there's an expectation in the season nal adjustments of a lot of hiring. there's going to be a lot historically tomorrow morning. >> i have not heard that but that's going to be a very interesting point to watch. we will keep an eye on it. steve, thank you. >> pleasure. >> okay. coming up in just a little bit, former cleveland fed president loretta meer. we'll come back with her analysis after this.

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the economy is strong and it's stronger than we thought it was going to be in september. so the labor market is better and the down side risks appear to be less in the labor market. growth is definitely stronger than we thought and inflation is coming in a little higher. so the good news is that we can

afford to be a little more cautious and as we try to find neutral. >> that was federal reserve chair jay powell at "the new york times" deal book summit yesterday. joining us on powell's comments is former cleveland fed president loretta mester. she's now the an adjunct professor of finance at the of wharton school. what did you think of the comments yesterday? maybe we have a little more room, maneuverability and not necessarily have to be in any rush on this? >> i mean, becky, first, andrew, congratulations on the interview. it was nice to see you got some of jay's personality coming out in a way that we don't usually see in interviews. >> thanks. >> what i heard, becky, is basically the basic narrative that the fed wants to as the economy is normalized bring interest rates to a normal level is still intact.

i think he's right. if you look back when they started to reduce rates in september, right, they were clear that they had had more confidence now that ichb flags is going back to 2% and they did -- that was why they cut rates and began the cutting cycle, but they did 50 because i think they were worried about the down side risks to the employment part of the mandate. and what's happened since september is the data has come in, some of that concern about the labor market went away with the revisions and the data and subsequent data and some of the inflation readings have been a little bit firmer than they would have liked to have seen. that doesn't change the basic narrative that the economy is normalizing and they want to bring rates into a more neutral stance over time if that continues to be true about the economy. i think that's what i heard him say. and, yes, given the change in the risks, a little more up side risk on the inflation part of the mandate and a little less down side risk on the employment

part makes sense that they can go more gradually now. so my expectation is that, you know, they'll have the discussion at the december meeting. of course, there's more data coming in as you just mentioned. we're going to get the employment report tomorrow. we're going to get inflation, the cpi inflation report next wednesday and those will be important data really to assess against that narrative of things moving into better balance and, you know, really trying to balance the risk to both parts of the mandate. that's where they are now. i think that's what they're going to want to try to do. they really want to keep the interest rate their policy rate and monetary policy overall in a really good position so that no matter how the risks manifest themselves, they're able to react in an appropriate way. i think that's the sort of what path they're on now is to try to bring rates down. >> loretta -- >> there's room to -- >> go ahead. there's room to? >> there's room to do it.

even though there is uncertainty about where neutral is, if you go back and look at what the fed's own projections of the long run funds rate is, there is quite a bit of diversity of views around that in the last sep. they're still well above that even highest estimate of neutral. i think there's room to continue on that path, they're just going to be a little probably more gradual than they might have thought they were going in september over time. >> that all makes sense perfectly from anybody who's following along closely, but you are going to hear and we have been hearing calls that -- accusing the fed of being politically motivated by this saying you were all in favor of lowering rates when it was president biden and kamala harris was running for election. as soon as president trump was elected, then the fed's stance changed. again, anybody who's watching along knows that what you just laid out makes perfect sense. what do you do or what does the fed do in order to try and protect itself from those accusations from people who aren't following along quite as

closely? >> well, i think you did what jay powell did yesterday is explaining its rationale. the fed is not a political organization and it's never made its decisions based on the politics of the situation, at least in my tenure there over the last 35 years or so. and so it really is -- you've got to explain to people and come to them where they are and explain sort of why, you know, you may be going a little slower than you thought. the basic narrative hasn't changed. they want to bring rates down to a more neutral stance given where they project the economy is currently and where it's going. they're going to have to play risks. as you were talking about earlier today, the fiscal situation -- policy situation, there's still a lot of uncertainty about that and they'll have to learn more over time about what the policies are going to be, the magnitudes and they'll be running those through models and talking to actual business people about, okay, how are you going to react to some of the, you know, things going

on on the fiscal side. i think that's an important part of actually talking to those businesses and talking to people about what are they hearing, what are they doing, how do they expect to react so that the fed then is in a good position. a lot of it, becky, is communicating. a lot of it is what jay powell and his colleagues on the board and the reserve banks are doing is really try to explain like, okay, what's changing the economy? what does it mean in terms of where they think the economy is going, the outlook, and what are the risk about that? you have to be attuned to the risks on the up side or down side to both parts of the mandate now. i think they're trying to do a good job of that as they kind of walk back from having everyone sit around their computer terminal waiting for that next data release and, wow, that's going to change the outlook of the fed. i think at this point they really should be focusing in on they do look at a lot of data, they take all that in and then they have to assess, well,

what's changed given where we thought the economy was going with the new set of data that have come in? and i think that was one of the things i heard jay do well yesterday is try to explain, well, the last set of projections we gave out was september. he didn't say that, but that's what was true and that's when they started moving rates down. what's changed since then? and the way i heard it was there's a bit of change on inflation a bit firmer, less risks on the down side on employment. the risk balance may have changed but the actual narrative of that, you know, we are in a good position to start moving down some of the restrictiveness. i think that was there. >> sure. president mester, thank yo thanks, becky. >> thank you. "squawk box" will be right back.

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welcome back to "squawk box." alex cooper is the most listed to podcaster for women in the country. host of "call her daddy. we talked about the controversy

surrounding her episode with vice president harris. i asked her whether the campaign that spent $100,000 had been reported on the studio where that was shot. >> yeah. not numbers. it was like a random house. >> random house, but apparently, you can tell me, they spent -- the harris campaign spent like $100,000. >> i did see that. it's hilarious. >> to build the studio. >> not true. >> to make it look like it was the studio -- >> yeah. >> -- that you used in l.a >> my studio that is gorgeous in los angeles doesn't even cost six figures so i don't know how cardboard walls could cost six figures but -- >> you think they did that you saw it >> absolutely not. with love to them. oh, my god, it was gorgeous, but it wasn't that nice. it asn't like gorgeous marble. like, no, that was not six

figures. >> so trump goes on rogan. >> yes. >> do you think she should have gone on rogan? >> i'm not the vice president of the united states. maybe one day -- no, just kidding. i don't know i think that's up to her i think like, listen, i think we had a great conversation i think she could have hung with him, but i think at the end of the day they clearly had a campaign strategy that i wasn't in these meetings and i just did my job. >> you have a big deal now at sirius xm. >> yes. >> and some people say that one of the reasons sirius xm wanted to get you is because that you could become the successor at some point to howard stern what do you think of that? >> i just am like -- i -- oh, my god, i was going to say something insane like i have a vagina let's rewind i am a woman i don't need to keep being compared to these men. i'm alex cooper. i'm going to be alex cooper all

day. if i happen to sit next to joe rogan or howard stern, put me in the middle i'm not trying to be the next howard stern >> as you could tell, it was a wild conversation. it was a fun conversation. she's really remarkable. i will tell you, just very impressive about sort of how she thinks about the media this is not something that just happened to her. this is something that she has -- she has built and it is an empire, $125 million contract with sirius xm she's launching drinks she's -- yesterday this new drink that she has a partnership with nestle and target there's something going on here. >> how long is this -- >> it's pretty incredible. >> how long? >> what? >> 125, how long >> three years after doing a deal with spotify for about $100 million for the last three and it's going to go on and on and on they're building a -- they're building a real big business. >> what is this thing called >> "call her daddy." >> no, it's a podcast? >> called a podcast.

>> anyone can do this? >> anyone can do it. if you are thinking of doing it, you can do one get on youtube, spotify, i can help you >> what do you think, vlad >> i'd be happy to be a guest. >> vlad tenev is ready to be a guest on the show. >> i'm ready. >> podcast >> podcast >> h'm. >> we should give a proper introduction to our next guest because robinhood is hosting its first ever investor day, just did it yesterday we've got some of the highlights the ceo vlad tenev saying the company is considering expanding into sports betting. robinhood stock has quadrupled over the past year vlad is on the set right here ready to do the squawk pod have you done -- you haven't done "call her daddy" yet. would you consider that? >> maybe, yeah. >> have you done rogan >> not yet. >> yet everybody wants rogan. it's all moving. the direction of travel. >> call me a mother. is that -- >> that's -- that's the name of your show? >> thinking about it. >> i think that could work.

>> that's only half a word. >> that's why i think it would work so, vlad, it's great to see you this morning. >> great to be here as always. >> fascinating day yesterday before we get into that, i want to actually just hit bitcoin for a second with you. >> let's do it. >> it's over $100 thourks now. i think it's 102 are we at 103 yet? fascinatingly one of the things that did happen yesterday was jay powell compared it to gold i want to show you what he said. >> people use bitcoin as a speculative asset, right it's like gold it's just like gold only it's virtual, it's digital. people are not using it as a form of payment or store of value. it's highly volatile it's not a competitor for the dollar it's a competitor for gold that's really how i think of it. >> that seemed to me to be an evolution of thinking, at least from sort of public officials that you hear from washington on this >> yeah. i mean, bitcoin over the past ten years has gone from largely

being ridiculed and ignored and questioned to now being taken very seriously you saw that earlier this year with the etfs, and i think if you talk to early adopters on bitcoin, they've been saying that bitcoin is like gold for many, many years ty ty >> 102,800. >> i don't know what kind of traffic you're seeing on the sight. i assume it's gangbusters. >> we released our november numbers. crypto trading in general was up 400% month over month. we did over 30 billion in crypto volumes. >> right. >> october was also quite a strong month for crypto. so it's been heavy >> and then, of course, the question is are you getting on the train at the right time, the wrong time

it just has so much more to go we have had some real bulls on this broadcast over the years that have $500,000 targets, a million dollar targets extraordinary numbers. the bigger the number gets, the harder it is to actually get the same kind of return that you had if you were, you know, with the program, if you will, a decade ago. >> what i will say is likely one of the other interesting things about powell's answer to your question is that when you compare bitcoin to gold like that, a lot of the bitcoin maxis have been talking about should there be a bitcoin strategic reserve similar to the gold strategic reserves of the country. >> right. >> i think that gets people very, very excited if there was a bitcoin strategic reserve and you're a bitcoin maxi, that's something that -- >> it seems that this administration, i don't know what you think of the new appointed or nominee to be the head of the sec is a big crypto

bull in many ways. no >> yeah. i mean, this current administration has been hostile to crypto, very much so. i mean, we've been kind of a victim of that alongside the broader industry so having people that come in that understand it and embrace it is very important. >> just so i understand, what do you think embracing it means for your business? meaning what is it that's going to happen? what are the kinds of products that you think could evolve that you can't offer today that you would be able to offer tomorrow? >> yeah. so the near term thing is ending regulation by enforcement and having some sort of interim rule set by the agencies while we wait for legislative action. i think -- i think that likely will happen now. both in the house and the senate and the executive branch are

republican and they're open to this slightly longer term i think what this opens is crypto being embraced as kind of the new infrastructure layer behind the financial system this is something i talked about at investor day. one way to look at crypto is as a tradeable asset like equities options and futures. the other way to look at it, which i think is more interesting, is as the next step in the technology evolution from main frame to cloud to blockchain. >> right. >> and we see how efficient it is as an infrastructure layer. we run both businesses, crypto and traditional finance at scale. crypto businesses ten times lower cost and that's because a lot of these intermediaries that run on main frame like clearinghouses, transfer agents, payment processors are just replaced by software i think what you're likely to see is tokenization. >> that's the -- you think that's the big shift >> i think that having more real

life assets, real world assets, including stocks on blockchains is going to be -- there's big potential. i think robinhood could be a leader in that space. >> that chart doesn't do it justice. you're at $16, the stock, in august. >> that's right. yeah i think that's right. >> i mean, that's not bitcoin. what the hell is that? that is just -- >> i think that -- >> -- transaction volume bull markets the new highs. >> the business is growing we now have nine business lines generating north of 100 million in annual revenue so when we went public in 2021 the business was not nearly as strong and diversified and so the work that we put together over the last couple of years to diversify the business -- >> have you had a party yet? >> well, we had the investor

day, which is kind of like a party. >> wow >> i mean, it's informative but hopefully also a little bit entertaining. >> was it at a club? >> it was actually right here. >> it gives you a chance to show people what you've done. >> tell people the ten-year story. the really oaks sighting thing about zooming out is robinhood's expanding across two independent vectors. one is from primarily u.s. to global. >> right >> and the other is from retail only to business and institutional. >> i want to ask you two related questions because on the retail side there's this interesting new business, potential sports betting. >> that was taken a little bit out of context. >> okay. >> i think if you read the headlines it makes it sound like we're doing sports betting so we launched a product for the election, presidential election markets, which are cftc regulated swaps derivatives. >> right. >> so the question was do we

intend to expand the range of that, and the answer is yes. we want to launch a much more comprehensive events offering because that product did very, very well. and i think that it's a great source of information, not just a tradeable asset. now, of course, regulated sports derivatives would have to be approved by the cftc write knew -- >> you're not a competitor to draft kings yet? >> no. i wouldn't expect us to launch sports betting soon, but i also wouldn't rule it out we talked about many, many things that was a q&a response that i think was taken a bit of out of context. >> do you remember the print on the all-time high? >> for robinhood >> yes >> i think it was four and change. >> no, around 80 the. >> must have been i was looking at a monthly chart must have been quick -- >> august 2021. >> then back down pretty quick so you got -- that's when you have to have the party, i think. >> well, we -- we try not to get

too excited. i've been through so many of these psych zblls which doesn't show -- yeah, it does. it does show it. 85 was the high now that i'm looking here >> yeah. the. >> we've got to say thank you because we've got to hand >> we. we will have our own party right here right now in the meantime, party on with the guys on "squawk on the street." see you tomorrow. >> thanks for having me. >> thank you good thursday morning. welcome to "squawk on the street." i'm david faber. he's jim cramer, we're live from post nine at the new york stock exchange carl has the morning off a look at futures as we get ready to begin the trading day 30 minutes from now, what jim, and i like to call -- oh, no, it's thursday, isn't it? it's not wednesday thursday. >> your call. >> i don't know what day it is i do know where our road map starts this morning and that is with bitcoin's monster