An FDA Resignation & An M&A Outlook with Makan Delrahim 3/31/25
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Hi, I'm CNBC producer Katie Kramer. Today on Squawk Pod. Deal-making under Trump 2.0 is at full speed ahead with former antitrust assistant attorney general, Makan Delrahim. No, the antitrust laws will still be enforced and in fact will be enforced pretty vigorously.

And protecting our public health, the FDA's top vaccine official resigned, a measles outbreak spreads, and former FDA head Scott Gottlieb says trust in vaccinations is key to our future. We have to get this outbreak under control within the next 10 months or so to make sure we don't lose our measles elimination status, which could have some profound impacts on advisories related to travel to the United States.

Plus, a commuted sentence for Aussie media's Carlos Watson, automakers brace for tariffs set to begin this week, and President Trump floats the idea for a third term. He's never going to do a third term. He's never going to really do tariffs. And here we are in this place where he's talking openly about both. It's Monday, March 31st. Squawk Pod begins right now. Stand back, you buy in three, two, one. Cue, please.

Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Squawk Box right here on CNBC. We're live from the Nasdaq market site in Times Square. I'm Becky Quick, along with Joe Kernan.

And check this out. Andrew Ross-Orkin. Welcome back, Andrew. Back from vacation. Thank you. Nice to see you. I just wanted to be here for Tariff Week. I wanted to make sure that I was here in time for the big news. In time for the market to go the other direction. Tea Day. I've been calling it D-Day because I couldn't remember Liberation Day. But D-Day is more appropriate for tariffs. Does it feel like it's the beginning of the night? Or does it feel like it's the beginning of the day? Oh, I was just in Japan, everybody. So I don't know what it feels like. I got back...

24 hours ago, so I'm still a little bit off. You were sleeping during, theoretically during our day over there, weren't you? Yeah, it's 12 hours. I missed the show, if that's what you're asking. You've got your DVR. I do, and I've got friends on Twitter who like to tell me what's going on. You have friends? That's, I know, a surprise. You've got some sun.

I don't know if it made me make up. I don't know. You look relaxed. Thank you. I don't know if I'm relaxed. This will take your vacation glow away. We're going to jump right in. They include me. Your friends include, a lot of them include me. No, you block them. So they actually, they talk to me. They don't talk to you. Only block 6,000 people. Were they upset about anything last week? They weren't really that upset, were they? Let's start on a great note. Okay. All right. I can't believe you missed some of that stuff.

You missed a signal through the noise. There's a lot going on. Right now, as we get ready for that final day of the first quarter, we're going to be taking a look at where things stand. For the quarter to date, you are looking at the Dow off by 2.25%. S&P is down by just over 5%.

And the NASDAQ down by about 10.25%. If you are looking at what we've been dealing with from the all-time highs, at least, the Dow is off by about 7.75%. The S&P down by 9.25%. The NASDAQ off by 14.25%. If you're looking at the NASDAQ 100, it's closer to about 11% down.

And take a look at the magnificent seven stocks in the first quarter. An article from the information getting some attention over the weekend. It said that some large companies are finding deep seeks. AI models can be 95% cheaper to use than open AIs and lower AI costs could pressure Microsoft and other firms to reduce prices.

All right, let's take a look at Treasury yields this morning, because as you see this sell-off in equities, you are looking at Treasuries catching a bid. We're looking at lower yields with the 10-year now at 419 and the 2-year at 384. Gold prices, by the way, also getting a bid this morning. They are at another record level. And you'll see right now the latest trade for gold prices is, drumroll please. Please.

$3,050, wasn't it? Those are the Asian markets. We'll take a look at it. I know it's sitting at another record level again this morning. $3,140. Wow. It is up.

Meantime, let's tell you about some of the stocks that stumbled because this really tumbled in Asia overnight. Japan's Nikkei, where I just came from, falling 4 percent, entering correction territory. South Korea's KOSPI index closing 3 percent lower. The market's regulator there ending a ban on short selling that had been in place since November of 2023, if you can believe that, over regulatory concerns. And Hong Kong's Hang

Hang Seng now down by more than 1% on the anxiety and nerves around tariffs. It was the PCE, I guess, on Friday. But what maybe is a little surprising is that we were still not in correction territory on the S&P. We got there for one day. Then we had a good week, I think, as far as the tradable bounce. We were back at like 5% from a high. Tradable bounce. Given where the S&P is indicated today, that'd be back in correction territory. But...

You know, we hit it once and we didn't keep going to down 15 or down 20. We kind of rebounded, now we're doing it again, but it feels even more painful. New call on the economy from Goldman Sachs. Firms chief economist Jan Hatzius raising Goldman's tariff assumption, its inflation expectations, also lowering its first quarter GDP estimate and increasing the number of rate cuts it expects in 2025.

You could see traders, you know, with all the bad stuff, he said, but with an extra rate cut, you know, you don't know that maybe the market goes up on that. Hatsia said higher tariffs are likely to boost consumer prices. So the firm lifted its year end core PCE inflation forecast by half a percentage point to three and a half percent year over year. When you're trying to get to two, you're not going to see rate cuts. Yeah. But he said maybe another one because of the growth concerns, I guess.

All of the pressure you're seeing in futures today, a lot of it tied back, of course, to what President Trump has been saying about tariffs. He now says that every country will face tariffs under his administration. Those new tariffs are expected to go into effect on Wednesday this week. The president making some comments on Air Force One last night as he returned to Washington from Florida. Tariffs.

will be far more generous than those countries were to us. They ripped us off like no country's ever been ripped off in history. And we're going to be much nicer than they were to us, but it's substantial money for the country. You're expecting to hit something like 10 to 15 countries, is that right? No. So how many countries will be in that initial tranche? You'd start with all countries.

Those comments capping a weekend of news about tariffs. The president telling NBC's Kristen Welker that he couldn't care less if foreign car prices go up since that would make it more likely that Americans would buy American-made cars. Trump also denied having told U.S. auto CEOs not to raise prices. That was the subject of a Wall Street Journal report last week.

Also, reports saying that the president is still considering escalating tariff measures and that there's debate in the White House over whether to impose individual tariff rates on countries or an across-the-board rate.

one thing permeating a lot of the reporting on tariffs that perhaps with President Trump is expected to announce on Wednesday is still in flux even at this moment but if you look at the Wall Street Journal last week remember on Monday last week every day you can look at something different but on Monday last week the markets were up because the journal was reporting at that point that it would be nice to be much narrower and maybe we'd be looking at sectors that were facing things and other countries that could get reprieves in some of these issues

It does sound like it's still in flux, but the reporting is coming from people who are leaking their side of what they are trying to convince the president. He was supposedly going to be more lenient. And then this is in the journal. Now we're back to no, no, no. We're going to be much tougher than.

just what they were saying on Thursday or Friday. If you are trying to raise money so that you can offer tax cuts in other areas, these are going to have to be broader and they're going to have to be permanent tariffs, not things that go away. Well, you're going to need the permanent tariffs if you actually believe that these companies are going to actually come here and actually really build manufacturing plants. I still think that there's this crazy sort of behavioral science experiment going on, which is if people think that there's a chance that the tariffs come off,

at any point in the next three years or even five years, you will play chicken, effectively, with the system. And so that, to me, is the whole game. You actually have to say, this is what it is, and we're not moving. The question is, even if he says that, could...

If you believe that there would be a permanent shift in terms of politics in two years, in terms of midterms or later on, that would somehow reverse this, changes the whole thing. Yeah.

Look, it's complicated for companies because they make billions of dollars in CapEx decisions based on policy when policy shifts pretty rapidly. That's going to be something that takes time to catch up. But it does sound like President Trump will be the one who makes this decision, is leaning towards going bigger on this plan. And there's been a change that used to be these are just negotiating tools probably won't go on. Now it's you got to eat your vegetables. So pick your vegetable that you don't really like.

And pick your dessert. I had Brussels sprouts and I had cheesecake for dessert. Can I ask a question to both of you about this? Because on my vacation, I'm thinking a lot about this. And I was thinking about the idea that we had so many people who came in here, including people who are now on his cabinet, who said, no, no, no, Andrew, stop worrying. This is just a negotiating tool. So the question, though, is now you're saying eat your vegetables.

That's what they're saying. No, I understand that. But how is the American public supposed to think about that? I asked just because I thought about that. By the way, I thought about this. You may think it's unrelated, but in the same context, over the weekend, he's now saying...

Maybe I'll do a third term. Remember? So many people came here and said, never, never, never. All of these Democrats and liberals are overthinking it. They're worried. They don't understand. He's never going to do a third term. He's never going to really do tariffs. And here we are in this place where he's talking.

talking openly about both. I don't know how he could possibly have a third term. The 22nd Amendment is very clear. I'll tell you how he'd have to have it. He'd have to be the most popular president in history, which means a lot of things would be going unbelievably well three years from now to get 75% to overturn the 22nd Amendment. 75% of every voter in every state. It could never happen. But if it did, be happy because we'll be doing so well. Maybe. All I'm saying is he said relatively explicitly...

as did most of the people who are supporting him don't worry about that that's not on the table it's never going to be on the table it's not happening that way he first he started it sounded like a joke that he was doing it just to tweak the left now it sounds like he's no no but i think he's still tweaking but my point is he wasn't during the election period

When he was talking to the American public. I don't think he explicitly said, I'm not going to do it. Oh, I think we can go back and find some times where he said he wasn't going to do it. I think he's always been saying, but no one took, maybe you thought he was only kidding. Oh, I, by the way, I never thought he was kidding. No, he's still only kidding. I've always been of the view that. Well, you think he's a dictator and he's going to get rid of the Constitution. I hear that stuff all the time. No, no, I didn't say that. But I think that there are legitimate things going on.

In the past week or two where you have to say to yourself, this is not what I think some people signed up for. Wait a second. The past week or two, you've been saying that since November 8th, Andrew. And actually, but since 2016. So I was like, it's good to have you back. We're going to keep everyone honest. We're going to we're going to be looking at everything. I agree.

When I thought about it, what I thought was to have any chance of even people wanting you to run when you're 83 or whatever the hell he's going to be by then.

We'd have to have the greatest country in the world for there to be clamoring for him to run for a third term. Kristen Welker asked some follow-up questions. You can't do it. She asked him. It's not going to happen. That's the point. Welker's asking him, and he's not saying, no, no, no, I'm not going to do this. He's saying, you know what? Yeah, maybe Vance will run Vance and he'll give me the presidency back. What if there was a grounds... Oh.

No, what if there's a groundswell? Did you see that? Third term, third term. By the way, that's not a groundswell. That's something totally different, and the president's talking about it openly. You'd have to elect Vance.

you'd have to elect vance okay that and if he says turn around and say that he's handing the no no no it's all i think it's all just to generate this i do i think it's to generate this look he could have but you said that about the tariffs no i didn't i didn't say anything but i don't know what the tariffs are going to be i don't say anything i say what other people say i don't know what's going to happen but if you really want to spend your time gnashing your teeth and pulling your hair that there's going to be a third term like vladimir putin i just

I just don't really think that's it. He's not popular enough right now, probably, to get the 22nd Amendment overturned, right? No, his approval ratings are high relative to what he's been in the past, but they're still below 50%. So there are still more people who have a negative approval. That's why, if you want to look at it positively, the country would have to be doing so well for us to be clamoring for him. And that should be something you want. You have to believe that Congress...

doesn't feel that they're somehow under his thumb and that his popularity, right? That's the whole thing. Congress can't do it alone. Congress can do it alone. You'd need the public to do it. Right. And there's no law firm that's going to sue now because they can't. So we're in a whole, we're just in a different place. We're just in a different place. I really don't think we're in a different place. I think you just need to calm down. You're going to be balled.

Seriously, you were you're going to your hair. I'm holding on. Your hair is going to be on fire every day. You can't you can't do it. You got to pace yourself. You definitely got to pace yourself. OK, didn't give out the five thousand dollars. I mean, I think of all the things you've been worried about just in the last couple of months. I got I got a list of them. OK, good. You hold on to the list. Hold on to the list. Apple's asked me to buy more memory.

for this list. But you know what I did? What'd you do? I shifted over to the hair on fire for Biden and it was empty. So I have all this memory in the hair. I don't know why you're living in the past. Why are you living in the past? I got so much memory on that. You're so much, you're still living in the past. Live in the present. Live in the future. Tease will be next.

Coming up next on Squawk Pod, Makan Delrahim was the Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust in the first Trump administration. He weighs in on the unique back and forth between the president and America's white shoe law firms. And will an efficiency rethink lead to changes in how we manage big business competition? My favorite one has always been moving the antitrust functions of the FTC into the Justice Department. Do you think that's in the offing? I wouldn't be shocked.

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This is Squawk Pod. Up on Andrew Q. You're watching Squawk Box on CNBC. I'm Andrew Ross Sorkin along with Joe Kernan and Becky Quick. And we got a big morning for you. Look now at President Trump's antitrust agenda. Joining us in an exclusive interview is Macon Delrahim. He's the former U.S. Assistant Attorney General of the Antitrust Division in the first Trump administration. He's also a partner at Latham and Watkins. And there is so much to talk about as people try to make sense.

of what's happening here. We obviously have tariffs coming in hot, well, we'll see, hot or cold on Wednesday, but I'm curious before we even get into it, what you're seeing in terms of M&A pipeline, what people are really talking about, because there was this expectation we were gonna have a lot of deal volume. The deal volume has not really materialized yet, I think in large part because of the tariff story.

Yeah, thanks for having me. I think what we're seeing is we've never been busier as far as the people contemplating transactions, both strategic and private equity. But people are starting to take a look, you know, the type of exuberance that they had back in November, you know,

folks were coming in with ideas of the first and the second and a three-party market trying to merge because they thought there was gonna be some kind of a holiday on antitrust. And I think the signals are being sent by both Chairman Ferguson and Gail Slater at the Justice Department

is that, no, the antitrust laws will still be enforced and, in fact, will be enforced pretty vigorously. Well, that's what I was going to ask. I mean, do you think it's going to be how enforced do you think they're going to be? And how much how aggressive do you think some of these agencies are going to be? You even look at an FCC, for example, and, you know, some of the letters they've been sending some of the media companies in the past couple of weeks around DEI programs and wokeism and other things. And I think there's some question mark about whether certain types of deals can be done at all.

You know, there's certainly a handful of transactions being caught up in various regulatory stages. I think what you're going to see is an easier process than, let's say, the last four years with respect to transactions that could be fixed.

So these are ones where you can have a divestiture or remedy. My friend Jonathan Cantor, you know, took the position that he wasn't going to do any remedies until, you know, there's a handful of them that were imposed on them by courts. But they wanted to challenge. They wanted to litigate. And they had a pretty good track record for the handful of transactions. What is the impact going to be of what Doge and Elon Musk are doing?

on the DOJ and antitrust? And the reason I ask is they're closing effectively field offices and other things and moving some of the functions and the like. That may make it more efficient, but also may make it harder to get some of these things through or even just to get people's attention?

I think so. So there was this memo from the deputy attorney general that went to the division and to all the sections of the Justice Department asking for their input. There's been a lot of panic about some offices being closed and some functions being consolidated. And I think we're in the early stages. I wouldn't count on all the changes occurring. I think it's a listening tour, more or less. But look, there's going to be some

reorganization that needs to happen. My favorite one has always been moving the antitrust functions of the FTC into the Justice Department. Do you think that's in the offing? I wouldn't be shocked if that's something that happens. I mean, it only makes sense, right? CFPB doesn't need to be in the Fed. It could perfectly fit within the FTC's Consumer Protection Bureau or the Treasury Department. You don't need two federal antitrust agencies. All you need is one. The FTC can do a lot more efficiently. I think...

you know just as mergers have a lot of synergies in the private sector you can have them in the government. Maybe it would be good for business from that perspective to not have to worry about two different places coming after you or two different sets of rules that are being laid out. Well two different sets of rules, two different legal standards. I mean I get asked on different transactions where you have to go to boards and say which agency is going to review this. It's like I don't know. There's only a handful that by statute goes to some of them but some of them they get into a wrestling match between the two agencies

And they eat up a lot of the time for the merger review by going there. And then you have a completely different process at the FTC than you have at DOJ. It makes no sense. There's legislation introduced in both the Senate and the House on that. What do you make of the larger debate that's happened even over the last week or two now in the world that you inhabit, which is

uh... the the uh... legal world of law firms and i'm thinking of paul weiss and scat in which are settling effectively with the administration other a lot from second-hand general others uh... that have gone to court actually one uh... against this administration and how you personally sort of look at all of this because i think there's a major question i was just looking at a uh... uh... letter was written to uh... but by a lot of these professors at harvard who seem to be

out of sorts about law firms like this effectively settling over some of their programs at their firms.

Look, that's a really hot topic right now for firms and everybody involved around that. There's no question that some firms use their prestige and their brand to actually become a subsidiary of the DMC, and they didn't take on representation of conservative causes and others. Fortunately, that hasn't been our experience at Latham. We did work for conservative causes. And so that's something that is a hot topic today.

that we'll see how it all shakes out. - How do you think it's gonna shake out? 'Cause I know there are clients that I've talked to in the past week, even when I was in Japan on vacation, who were suggesting, look, Paul Weiss is settling with the government, Skadden's settling with the government. If you had a case that you had to bring against this government and this administration,

and you actually needed to actually take, like go with the case, not try to settle the case with the government, but you actually need to like bring the case, you would actually not use Paul Weiss in the end. You would not use a Skadden Arps anymore because clearly they would say they're trying to placate this administration. And if you were a client that needed to fight this administration, that's not where you want to be.

I think everybody has to take a look at the practices internally. I think some of these have been focused on, you know, some of the DEI initiatives. But I think, you know, we will see how it all shakes out. I mean, do you think it was meritless or do you think that there was cause to go after it? You seem to indicate that some of these law firms acted as an arm of the DNC. So that would be.

That would mean it's not meritless. And you don't just think it's just a witch hunt and retribution train or whatever. I think there's some...

cause the ones that we just were talking about. Let me ask you this, though. I mean, let's put it in this context. So Jones Day has done a lot of work for Republicans, a lot of work for conservatives. And what was OK? And nobody attacked. Was that a. Yeah. And nobody nobody went after Jones Day. And one of the reasons why, because I don't say a question, though, is whether the administration should be going after private law firms and whether it has a chilling effect on

ultimately on lawyers and their ability and willingness effectively to take on difficult cases. Because part of what we talked about forever is that everybody deserves good and fair representation. Everybody deserves that. Even somebody who we think is completely guilty and terrible deserves that.

If you get into a position where you feel like, if you're a lawyer, that this administration is going to somehow go after your law firm for representing somebody that they don't like or they don't like the position or the politics of it, that is an issue, no? Look, everybody deserves that. That's what we all learn in law school. But there was a period where I think a lot of my friends in the Trump administration who couldn't get representation out there.

four years ago. And I think... Hold on, can I ask you this question? They couldn't get representation because there was a view that the Democratic administrations were going to undermine and upend the business practices of those law firms? Because I had never heard that before, if that's what you're suggesting. Oh, yeah. I think there's a lot of them, and there were many who wouldn't get hired in some law firms. And these are brilliant lawyers. No, no, but what I'm asking is, they wouldn't get hired because...

because there was a view that the administration was going to somehow attack

the business practice of that law firm or was it that their views didn't match for whatever reason the views of the law firm if you say that they're they're more they're more liberally oriented the latter i'd say okay but that's different that's a fundamental difference also firm clients you know there were some absolutely that you know demanded certain things right but all but you know again i think everybody deserves uh

representation and conservative causes. Do you think the firms that are settling are just at this point saying, I'm settling without admitting guilt? That's what we're implying here, is that there was no

There's no there there. Where there's smoke, there's usually fire. I'm sure that there's a good cause to go after some of that. I don't know. I just don't know about the facts. But do you think they're just saying, okay, these guys are coming after me. I'm going to settle so that I don't get in more trouble with the Trump administration?

I think some are taking a deep look at their practices, whether it has been their hiring or their representation and taking a look at that. You got to come on back because we still have to talk about China and BlackRock and Panama Canals and so many other things. So please come on back. Thanks so much for having me. Great to have you.

Next on Squawk Pod, the FDA's top vaccine official has resigned, citing what he called, quote, misinformation and lies from HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. In focus, the measles outbreak across more than a dozen states in the U.S. Former FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb on how we got here.

I think people identify with these anti-vax sentiments based on their political persuasions. I think a lot of these views have hardened, but they've become more hardened coming out of COVID. And I think the mandate's had a big part of that. So I think it's going to be generational. That and much more coming right up on Squawk Pod.

As a business owner, you wear a lot of hats. One minute you're ordering today's inventory and the next you're planning tomorrow's expansion. It's complicated, but your business credit card should be simple. With the Signify Business Cash Card by Wells Fargo, you earn unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases for your business with no caps or categories to track. Signify Business Cash, the deliberately simple business credit card. Learn more at wellsfargo.com slash signify. Terms apply.

You're listening to Squawk Pod from CNBC. Here's Becky Quick.

The FDA's top vaccine official, Dr. Peter Marks, has announced his resignation from the agency. In his departure letter, he underscored the importance of vaccinations, particularly for measles, and referenced what he called misinformation and lies of HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Check out the vaccine stocks today. You can see they're down across the board, but then again, so is the broader market. However, Moderna shares are off by about 12.4%.

Joining us right now is former FDA commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb. He's also a CNBC contributor and on the boards of both Illumina and Pfizer. And Dr. Gottlieb, walk us through how you read this.

Well, look, I have no reason to believe that the public reporting about the circumstances related to his departure is wrong. And a lot of that reporting related to perceived grievances that Secretary Kennedy had over the vaccine approval process and that division at FDA and a desire on his part to try to get new leadership in there that he'd be able to influence. And that's that's what the press reported. I think for a lot of people who are being asked to leave, basically told he can either resign or be fired. Exactly. Yeah.

Exactly. That was the reporting over the weekend. I think for a lot of people who work in the innovation space, equally profound to Peter Marks's contributions on vaccine approvals and the renaissance that we've seen in new vaccines over the last really two decades was his impact on cell and gene therapy. He presided over the modern creation of that field, presided over the first approval of a gene therapy for an inherited form of blindness, a drug called Lux Turner, which was approved when I was at FDA.

He presided over the approval of Casgavy, the first CRISPR-based therapeutic for sickle cell disease. He presided over the approval of Kimria, a drug that was approved about three months after I got to FDA for the treatment of a pediatric form of leukemia. It is a cure for many patients and was the first gene therapy approved in the United States.

I remember briefing President Trump about that and pending approval and how enthused he was that the first gene therapy product was going to be approved on his watch. Peter really presided over the creation of the modern framework for the approval of those products. There's many more in the pipeline. There's about 2,000 cell and gene therapies in the pipeline right now. About 300 are in phase one clinical trials, about 35 in phase three clinical trials. So these are in advanced stages of development.

And I think for a lot of innovators, they knew that Peter was working on a lot of policies that were going to help expedite these products to the market and make the process for development far more efficient. I think for a lot of innovators today, they're very worried about what the status is of that review program at FDA now that Peter has left. And there's going to be a lot of departures behind Peter. There'll be other people leaving that division and that center this week. And those announcements are going to be forthcoming. Is that something that you think...

RFK Jr. is targeting as well, or you just think that that is incidental damage along the way that comes with this? Yeah, no, it's a casualty. I'm not even sure how aware he is of the full scope of the authority that Peter exercised inside FDA. He also oversaw the entire regulation of the blood industry in the United States. And so FDA does over 100 inspections of blood facilities in the United States every

Peter had just presided over new regulations that got implemented on blood donations, allowing veterans to donate blood for who had served in Europe for the first time in a very long time because of prior prohibitions on that. So he also oversaw that portfolio as well. So it wasn't just vaccines. I suspect Senator Kenney is entirely focused on the vaccine portion of that portfolio, but it has a much broader scope than that and touches a lot of lives. When it comes to vaccines,

What is your general feeling about where we're headed on this front? Measles, I didn't realize, is now in something like 27 states. That's right. We have, I think, 23 cases now in Kansas, 11 in Ohio. I think it's in 23 states that you mentioned. I think the scope of the outbreak is much larger in West Texas than what's being reported. There's perhaps thousands of cases there.

And I think we're going to have potentially an acceleration this week. We'll have to see what happens in this week in states like Kansas and Ohio, whether those measles outbreaks get under control. They tip and we start to see many more cases accelerate in those states as well and see a similar situation to what we're seeing in West Texas. The WHO put out a warning over the weekend giving ex-U.S. travelers a travel advisory about coming into the United States. And this may well be the year that we use that.

we lose our measles elimination status. We have to get this outbreak under control within the next 10 months or so to make sure we don't lose our measles elimination status, which could have some profound impacts on advisories related to travel to the United States. I don't think we're headed into a good place. Look, the one piece of objective evidence that we have from Secretary Kennedy's

tenure was he took down a front-facing campaign to try to get people vaccinated, to try to encourage people to get vaccinated for the flu, in the setting of the worst flu outbreak probably in 20 years. And so he has been very focused on dismantling components of

the vaccine enterprise in this country. Peter isn't just the only casualty of that. He's canceled grants. He's canceled educational campaigns. He's canceled studies into new vaccines. He's canceled studies into vaccine hesitancy. He canceled the FDA adcom that

did the strain selection for the novel for the new flu vaccine for next season. So he's been very focused on this even early into his tenure. Really, what's defined his first month in office or two months in office has been his advocacy on trying to take down different components of the vaccine enterprise. And so I would expect that focus to continue.

Secretary Kennedy says that he's not interested in dismantling the vaccination programs, but that he wants to look into issues surrounding it and make sure that he's seeing the real truth. Do you believe him?

Well, look, he appointed or there's been reports in The Washington Post and separately in The New York Times. He appointed two people who are being called vaccine skeptics by The New York Times and The Washington Post to look into the purported link between the MMR vaccine in particular and autism, something that's been thoroughly studied in the past and has been debunked by some very large organizations.

and rigorous outcome studies. These individuals who he's appointed, one of them has been associated with an effort to use Lupron, the drug Lupron, as a treatment for autism for some purported link between allegedly vaccines and autism. That's effectively chemical castration. What you're doing is suppressing testosterone in children. And this was the individual who seems to have been based on the public reporting in The Washington Post and The New York Times

appointed or brought in to conduct that vaccine study. So, you know, he's bringing in people, I think, who have a similar point of view. Now, what he would argue is the only way to fully debunk the link that he believes exists between MMR vaccine and autism is to bring in people who believe in that link. And then he would say if they can't prove it, then it must not be true. And so that seems to be what he's doing. I think this is going to cast a cloud over things for a prolonged period of time.

and create a lot of uncertainty by continuing to perpetuate these things even after we've studied them really thoroughly over many years scott looking at where we've come i mean i did see some news reports over the weekend that there are there's some clamoring in some areas where people are trying to get vaccines particularly for the young children from measles i guess when you see the disease maybe it changes your mind to some perspective

Yeah, you see some compensatory behavior. There's no question about that. Vaccination rates will go up in some of these communities as a result of the measles outbreak that we're seeing around the country right now. We'll see how distributed that gets. I think it's going to get worse before it starts to get better. But some of these things are politically ingrained right now. I think people identify with these anti-vax sentiments more.

based on their political persuasions. I think a lot of these views have hardened. They've become more hardened coming out of COVID. And I think the mandates had a big part of that. So I think it's going to be generational. I think this is going to be very hard to unwash in this country right now. And we're going to see vaccination rates continue to decline before they start to potentially accelerate again. And certainly, you know, Secretary Kennedy's advocacy for a lot of these positions and the steps that he's taken, which

which not only disrupt the vaccine enterprise in this country, but I think continue to create a cloud over them. I think that's going to continue to have some downward pressure on people's willingness to go out and get vaccinated. Dr. Gottlieb, thank you. Thanks a lot.

On Friday, President Trump commuted the criminal fraud sentence of Aussie media founder Carlos Walton. Now, Walton's media startup falsely claimed to have deals with Google and Oprah Winfrey. He was convicted last July of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. He was set to report to federal prison on Friday to serve a 10-year sentence.

before receiving word of Trump's clemency. There were allegations that he was lying to Goldman Sachs at certain points along the way, lying to the advertisements. Do you remember that phone call? I remember the phone call where apparently he had changed his voice and pretended to be somebody else. Yeah.

I don't know. I don't know what to... He'd advertise in the New York Times or whatever newspaper and then say... The New York Times. The New York Times, yeah. But I will just say, I don't understand this one. What's the real story? What's the real... Why? This one I don't understand. I don't understand the Trevor Milton story on Nikola. Except to see, by the way, and I really think it undermines the whole sort of credibility of the...

the legal system. I don't know if you saw, not only was he a big donor in this last campaign to the president, I think to the tune of $1.6 million. The Nikola guy? The Nikola guy. In addition to that, his lawyer was Pam Bondi's brother. And so...

If you're if you're paying a modicum of attention to all of this at a minimum, whether it's right or wrong, it raises this question about what's going on in this system. And I think there's a lot of people who are sitting around going, is fraud legal? Right. I mean, that's that's the question. You don't you have no idea about how you feel about the Biden pardons at the end of his term?

You are always living in the past, my friend. Look, pointing out hypocrisy is not whataboutism. You didn't say a word about the Biden pardon. First of all, that's not true. I didn't like the Biden pardons, and I did say that at the time. I don't remember that. But there's a secondary component to this, which is if you care about the credibility of the markets... I just don't know how you can say it and then just...

It's just staggering to me. I just don't understand how everything is about how we can live in Biden land. The whole world started on November 8th. The whole world started for you on November 8th. But it's like you think the whole world started when Biden was in office and then everything is related to Biden. If you're going to talk about how the whole system is

really bad. These are being able to preemptively pardon. Presidential pardons have been pretty lousy. Oh, you're going to fact check me? No, no. Presidential pardons have been lousy. If you look at Mark Rich. Right, I know. So this is nothing new. I don't, I don't. I just want you to go. I just want you to say this is bad, but wow.

Look at what just happened with Biden. I hate all presidential pardons. Look at what just happened with Biden preemptively pardoning his entire family. Preemptively. I don't love presidential pardons as a rule. As a rule, I don't love presidential pardons. I didn't think the Mark Rich pardon was a great pardon. I don't think any of this. There's a lot of pardons I don't think that are great. I think that unfortunately it raises real credibility questions about whether there's sort of an authoritarian thing going on.

And that is SquawkPod for today, this last day of March 2025. See you in April. SquawkBox is hosted by our happy hosting family, Joe Kernan, Becky Quick, and Andrew Ross Sorkin, all back together. Tune in weekday mornings on CNBC at 6 Eastern. Get the smartest takes and analysis from our TV show right into your ears when you follow SquawkPod wherever you get your podcasts. Have a great Monday. We'll meet you right back here tomorrow.

We are clear. Thanks, guys.

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