Donald Trump Jr., “GrabAGun” SPAC, & Tom LLamas on Nightly News 6/3/25
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Donald Trump Jr. and Omid Malik join us. Their joint venture, 1789 Capital, is going for guns in their newest SPAC deal. There's a lot of people that are buying guns that wouldn't have been the typical guys that were buying guns like I've been doing for decades. There's women coming into the marketplace for self-defense. There's a younger generation that's shifting to the conservative side. A spirited discussion about ideological investing and about the Trump meme coin.

It's as bad as Hunter's art or the Clinton Foundation with her getting back into the White House. It just seems like a way that greases the skids for influence. I think, well, I think the meme point, you don't know who's actually doing any of these things, right? So, you know, when they were done before. But that's one of the things that has people on edge.

And Tom Yamas takes over the anchor seat at NBC Nightly News. I work for NBC News, but I work for the viewer. And the best journalist and the best type of journalism never forgets that. Plus, the rest of today's news like a stark warning on growth after tariffs. Do you think that today's economy, the economy of the last two or three months, is doing well as a function of the tariffs? That's almost impossible to believe.

It's Tuesday, June 3rd, 2025, and SquawkPod begins right now. Stand back here by in three, two, one. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to SquawkBox right here on CNBC. We're live from the Nasdaq market site in Times Square. I'm Becky Quick, along with Joe Kernan and Andrew Ross Sorkin. Tom, the Trump administration looking for countries now to provide their best offers, they say.

on trade by tomorrow with five weeks to go until a self-imposed deadline from the White House. It's going to a draft letter to trading partners seen by Reuters. It says the U.S. will evaluate countries' responses within days and offer a possible landing zone, potentially including reciprocal tariffs.

The administration has teased deals over the last few weeks, but only one trade agreement, as we've described so far, has materialized. That, of course, is the U.K. Yesterday, the White House press secretary saying that President Trump, a China's president, would likely speak this week on his social media network in the evening. President Trump saying the U.S. doesn't stand a chance economically if it can't quickly and nimbly counter other countries' tariffs.

Earlier this morning, he posted, quote, because of tariffs, our economy is booming. Presented without comment. You mean because of tariffs or in spite of? The OECD doesn't think so about those numbers on Friday. There's I don't know how long they last.

But personal income, triple expectations, and the deficit was half of what it was previously. But do you think it's because of the tariffs? It's hard to argue it's because of the tariffs. I mean, it's counterfactual, but if there were no tariffs... But Trump's doing, he believes tariffs are going to be beneficial. Sure. And it's not, I just don't think you can say, you know, just say, close the door, say absolutely that is...

not logical or can't happen. We'll see what happens. Oh, by the way, it's possible there's certain tariffs that make sense. All I'm suggesting is, do you think that today's economy, today's economy, the economy of the last two or three months, is doing well as a function of the tariffs? That's almost impossible to believe. The tariffs are causing a lot of investment to come to this country.

I don't I'm not an economist to tell you why personal income tripled expectations. I don't know. And I'm not smart enough. I haven't looked into the details of why the trade deficit would be 80 billion instead of 160 billion. I don't know. I don't know. And I don't know. One thing, you know,

People love taxes. The left loves taxes. Tariffs are essentially taxes. So there is money being raised. I don't know if this is the right way to do it, but it is an alternative way of basically raising taxes and collecting. If you talk to big businesses, they'll tell you that their investments have been paused and put on hold to try and figure out at least what. And it's not necessarily. We haven't seen that yet, though.

but it's not necessarily because of tariffs. I'm telling you anecdotally from a lot of big business leaders and the groups that I've spoken to. I'm waiting to see it. I'm waiting to see in the jobs number on Friday. All I'm suggesting is I am a believer potentially down the road that somehow, depending on how you do the tariffs, that actually could be helpful. But I've always thought that for it to be helpful, it would take years. And on the other side, if you get to the rainbow on the other side, it stops raining.

That works. However, like Elon Musk, I'm with Elon. Elon said early on that there was going to be pain that would come early on with all this. And I think he was talking about Doge. No, I think prior to that, he was saying it was prior to the election. He said the combination Doge. You lived through the first Trump administration. Yep, I did. I'm still here.

You have seen President Trump say similar things about economies and whether there would have been a Ukraine war and how quickly he can stop it. I mean, you have seen bluster and you have seen the greatest economy in the history that you've seen all that stuff. So.

I'm just saying that I'm just saying that I'm just saying that this is hearing this, hearing what he said is not surprising. And maybe there's a bit of hyperbole and a bit of a stretch. But I'm just saying you don't dismiss it out of hand that it's not going to work. No, but I will say in the future that it'd be nice to know what the territory. And we also don't. Right. And we also don't know.

Sometimes when bad things happen, it's remnants of the Biden economy. And some things, when good things happen, you're going to hear. But this is politics as usual in Washington. But you're going to hear the good things are because of what I've done since I've come in January 20th. And the bad things are still the inflation is still, they would say, a holdover. And that's just blusters. That's what you hear. That's what you hear all the time.

The OECDC, I'm not convinced they're gonna be right about this, but a key economic group painting a grimmer picture of the US and world economies, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development cutting the outlook for the US growth to 1.6%. That's down from 2.2% back in March. And that's what you would expect, but this is what we're waiting for, to see evidence that that is actually happening. And they're citing the reasons that you could probably come up with yourself.

fallout from the president's tariff policy, higher economic policy uncertainty in a smaller federal workforce. Since the U.S. leads the world, the OECD is also saying global GDP growth will at the same time slow to 2.9 percent down from 3.1 with a slowdown concentrated, obviously, in the U.S. Kind of the

the largest component to global GDP. Canada and Mexico, the last time that global growth was below 3% was in 2020 during the pandemic. Some updated language now on the economy from two prominent Fed members. Chicago Fed President Austin Goolsbee saying he thinks the U.S. central bank will be able to lower rates once the current tariff uncertainty clears up.

amid those comments in a webcast interview with Midwestern Business Journal. Meanwhile, speaking at a banking conference, Dallas Fed President Lori Logan saying that monetary policy currently well positioned for Fed members to wait and watch incoming data. She said her and other jobs, her other job is to make sure a one time increase in prices doesn't become an ongoing inflation problem. I don't know. Waller and Goolsbee both sound like those are

somewhat shifting narratives based on some of the recent data, the inflation data. More, Austin's always been, I think, open to a rate cut sooner rather than later. Waller definitely came around. I think that the

And they don't coordinate these things, but I don't think J-PAL says don't go out and say things like that. No, I don't think so either. But you have a lot of people, you got some saying we're just going to, obviously this is a wait and see moment because of the tariffs. Others are saying if we look past those, maybe rate cuts. No one's saying rate hikes. No. Elon Musk, brain technology startup Neuralink.

Closing a $650 million funding round, a press release says ARK Invest, Founders Fund, Sequoia Capital, Thrive Capital, and others participated in the round. Neuralink said the fresh capital will help it develop new devices that deepen the connection between biological and artificial intelligence.

Hurry. Singularity is supposed to be here soon. Little glimpses of things like that. I had someone on Twitter say the singularity is here in terms of machine-human sort of a merger. Someday, which would allow us to maybe live a lot longer.

Separately. Do we know we're alive, though? This is what I don't understand about the singularity. Are you aware of still being there? Even if you can exist, have you kind of put through? I come back to the soul a lot because I think if you haven't, it's a hard thing. People are cloning dogs.

They are. Right. But that dog's not the same dog. I've had someone say it is the same dog. It's not. I know it's not, but they say it is. But a lot of what makes someone who they are is obviously since you're born. I mean, you can imagine a clone dog could be raised by terrible people versus the first dog being raised by great people. That's not going to be the same dog. And the clone doesn't have your memory. It doesn't have any of your memories, but it makes it. But you do come back to I don't know what makes.

Someone so unique. I hesitate to use the word soul, but separately, the Financial Times is reporting that Musk's AI company XAI is launching a 300 million dollar share sale that values the firm at one hundred and thirteen billion dollars. The FT says the deal will allow XAI staffers to sell shares to new investors. But we're talking about like downloading shares.

All the software of your brain onto a chip, onto hardware. Yeah, but it's your memory. How is that different than like a book or a memoir or something? We don't even understand how a lot of memory and brain function works. But if you download it, it's there. It's like there's billions of neuronal connections. I don't know how it could happen anytime soon. I just want them to hurry. But as a backup, I still pray.

First line of defense, maybe. Actually, that's the primary thing. Teas will be next. Next on Squawk Pod, Donald Trump Jr. and Omid Malik are targeting a simpler way to buy guns with their grab-a-gun SPAC deal. Their joint venture, 1789 Capital, is no stranger to bets that align with conservative politics. These are ideological investments for us. We believe in these things. We actually believe in these things.

But does America need more tribalist investing? In some ways, 1789, I think ESG needed an answer. But with ESG on the way out, why do we need sort of the same thing on the other side? Donald Trump Jr. on gun safety, the Trump meme coin, and much more right after this.

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you're watching squawk box on cnbc i'm andrew ross sorkin along with joe kernan and becky quick join us now 1789 capitals donald trump jr and omid malik gentlemen you're at the at the table with us on set great to be here great to have you here thank you we're going to talk about lots of different things but let's first talk about the idea for something that you're referring to as an amazon of guns which

I don't know your worst nightmare almost, Andrew. Andrew is not going to be a fan of this stuff. But we can talk about it. I'm not a customer, but I actually have interesting thoughts about all this. Okay, it's going to be a SPAC. It'll be within the next month or so. And I didn't realize, what, 17 million guns are sold in the United States every year, most of them for hundreds of dollars.

It's an industry that has had some pressure for efforts to defund that industry. And I know I'm looking at you, but I'm really looking at everyone. But this would be a way of putting it online. How would it actually work with regulations and everything? Listen, you still have to go through the regular FFL process. This isn't like the typical sound bites of, hey, they're just going to mail a gun to your house. But what you can do is you can consume and you can shop the way so many people consume.

do today as you see the insanity that's going on in the world you see fire bombings in colorado last week there's a lot of people in the last few years especially under the chaos of the biden administration with illegal rampant crime there's a lot of people that are buying guns that wouldn't have been the typical guys that were buying guns like i've been doing for decades there's women coming into the marketplace for self-defense

There's a younger generation that's shifting to the conservative side that understands the need to exercise their Second Amendment and wants to do that. This is giving them an opportunity with grab a gun to shop the way they shop for virtually everything else. Again, through an FFL. So you have to send it to a... But handguns or would there be hunting rifles? Rifles, shotguns, handguns, accessories, ammunition, stoves. Easier to load than that Tim Waltz. Remember that one from the KW?

Yeah, as a serious gun guy, someone who was very involved in sort of the NRA endorsement of my father back in 16, I said, I don't know that he's the hunter that everyone says he is when he couldn't load a basic Benelli A400 in about three seconds. I think it was a Benelli A400, but this is something I could do blindfolded. If he was struggling, he's probably not the hunter that was intimidating the Republicans.

Republicans that they were saying. How do you deal with the idea of packages getting stolen? I just think about iPhones that are getting stolen. No, but again, when you send the actual, accessories would go directly to your house. Firearms still have to go to a federal firearms license process, right? So that is sent to your local dealer, wherever that may be. So it's hand-delivered. But as you've seen, Walmart used to be the largest retailer of firearms in America. Corporate policies changed. You can no longer have that access. You couldn't go to your local Walmart and buy these things anymore. So this is covering that void. But again, it's not

what you're seeing, the misnomers of you're sending guns to people's homes and they can just send it to your apartment. It doesn't work that way. Here's my question. This is going to democratize it and open it up for, and likely because it's online, younger people. Now,

The question is going to be about training and safety and all those types of things. And so the only question I have, I was actually thinking about this in the context of HIMSS. Do you know about HIMSS? HIMSS is this online drug store where people are buying... He knows nothing about... You mean for ED stuff? No, these guys know nothing. It's not something I know anything about. They've never heard of that. Never even heard of it. No, but what's interesting about it is effectively... I appreciate that. You don't have to go to a... I'm not sure that you would actually know that just for the record either, but yeah.

You don't have to go to a doctor on your own. You just go online, say some stuff to the doctor. They send you the medicine. And that's supposed to democratize and make it better. This is a little bit different because you basically still have the licensed firearm dealer on the other side. But as a result, you just have just your, there's going to be a lot more guns.

Guns in the country. And maybe that's OK as a Second Amendment supporter. My question to you, though, is do you are you concerned at all, though, just about the safety issue and what that means? I'm not. I think the reality is most of the people that are buying guns are doing so to protect themselves. Part of what we do is try to encourage that kind of training. I say that all the time. Right. People have to get out there.

I saw that as a guy that lived in New York City, the People's Republic, for years. I used to take my friends that were ardent anti-gun people, and I'd say, "Listen, you've known me for a long time. Give me a couple hours." "What do you mean? No, I don't want to go guns." You take them upstate, we go shooting, within five minutes,

That was the greatest thing ever. When are we doing it again? When people experience it, when they get out there, when they do that proper training, which we encourage, it's amazing what you can create. You can take an anti-gun person and turn them into pro-gun or at least make them not anti in about a couple hours. Are there questions or things that you will do before...

You'll send them the gun? There's no difference than if you went into, you can go with no training and go into a regular gun shop and do this. This simplifies that process. But again, through that, you are actually going to that shop. You can learn about the training that they offer, which we encourage. So I definitely encourage everyone to get those kinds of trainings. I think it should be a passion.

I think the more that happens, the more the industry will grow. And I think that's really important. You have any questions about fees on the SPAC? Well, no. That's one thing we talked about for years, which is just, at least historically, a lot of SPACs have not worked. It's worked for the promoter. It hasn't worked for the shareholder. That has actually not been the case in a lot of the SPACs that you guys...

have been engaged in, but maybe you can explain why you think that's been the case thus far. - Yeah, for sure. So when we first started working together four years ago, it was during the Biden administration. We were really concerned about what we felt was happening where elements of the federal government were working with very big companies in our mind to suppress certain rights, namely in our case, the First Amendment. So that's when you had the backlash against being deplatformed and we wanted to do something about it. So as capitalists, we said, what's the way that we could bring that to the people?

we started observing what happened with true social with the spac and we saw this as an opportunity to democratize capital markets people went and bought the stock even though it was a nascent business so i know you guys were covering like this has a five billion dollar market cap even though it's a new company that showed that people wanted to support it and spacs ended up becoming a very elegant mechanism to do that for what we were branding parallel or patriotic economy that we wanted to build together why do you think why do you think that it failed in so many cases for others meaning you can go it's the

The SPAC sort of laundry list is littered with effectively failure. And so I'm trying to understand why you think yours are working and the others weren't. Well, they're working because it allows regular people to buy it and support it. So if you look at what happened with True Social, how far the stock price went up, or Rumble, which is another one he was an investor in, or the one we did, Public Square, and now Grabagon. I mean, I'll give you a statistic. We're trading at like $17 or $18. These things are supposed to be at $10.

This shows that people support what we're doing. And look, we're not new to this. We think that capital markets and finance has been politicized for a long time, but it's all been on the ESG side. We're the first people to institutionalize a response to that. And we're not the people out of government

there was a demand that half the country was being put on the sidelines yeah they wanted free speech so when i got involved with chris pavlosky and rumble and in 2020 i saw what was happening to me we were getting de-platformed off what was you know twitter 1.0 you couldn't say anything on facebook youtube i mean if i put up a video on youtube i'd be off in two seconds

So we saw that demand. Other people felt it, right? Whether you see it in banking, half the country was getting debanked or worried about it. These things were actually happening in America. And so we filled a void that no one else would even touch. It was a landmine. I get that. I'm just trying to understand the economics in terms of like what your promote is.

how long you're in for, when you can sell. Given the projections that you'll make for several years out, are you in for as long as the projection is out there? And so in the case of Public Square, I joined the board of the company, so you're not selling anything in that case. And he's on the board now of Public Square. So these are ideological investments for us. We believe in these things. We actually believe in these things. The criticism of ESG is that ideology shouldn't be what...

is the core mission of a company. It should be shareholder returns and it should be satisfying customers. So this, in some ways, 1789, I think ESG needed an answer, but with ESG on the way out, why do we need sort of the same thing on the other side? The idea is to bring this back to neutral where there are no politics in corporate America. When I see ESG, you know, does having...

a trans board member really translate to shareholder value? The answer is no. Although, is the goal really to get to neutral? Because, I mean, right now it seems like you guys are banking on tribalism continuing. But again, what's the philosophy? When I came on here right after the election, I coined my own acronym.

entrepreneurship, innovation, and growth. To me, that's not tribalism. That's what America always stood for. Our fund only invests in private American companies. We don't invest abroad at all. If we think we're strengthening the prosperity or security of the United States, we're going to do it. That's our paradigm. We think that's pro-America and ultimately pro-shareholder value. People will make their own decision, but fundamentally what we're doing is capitalist. We are providing options against something that we think went way too far. Mm-hmm.

To get into, I don't know, everything you read, Don Jr., on conflict of interest for the Trump family with your father in the White House. I mean, just here's today's headline. Bitcoin goes all in on MAGA. It's no longer libertarian. It's no longer decentralized. It's no longer cool. Suddenly it's almost got the rubber stamp of the administration. And...

lead into some of the other things, the meme coin. Is that okay for your dad to have a meme coin? I think, listen, of course, when he did that before he was in office, he did these things. The reason we got into crypto and we're all in on crypto and we're doing American Bitcoin and we have World Liberty Finance and USD1 was...

because there was a time, and probably I'd been on this show, where there was, I could call any single banker in New York City. They'd pick up the phone. I'd be able to get a loan for whatever real estate project I was doing across the street. Then we got into politics, and all of a sudden, they wouldn't take your call. You couldn't get financing. We were debanked.

And what I realized and my brother realized, because we were the recipients of every subpoena imaginable, was that, you know what, we were actually just the top of this sort of pyramid scheme that we didn't realize we were a part of, that the financial system was totally undemocratized. Because we had a certain balance sheet and whatever, we could kind of do whatever we wanted. The regular guy was messed up. Now we were all of a sudden in the shoes of the regular guy that wouldn't be able to take advantage of the markets. And we said, what's the solution for that? The answer is crypto.

These decentralized platforms where you're not beholden to this, where you create efficiencies as a guy that did real estate. Why am I paying points in and out for title insurance that could be done on the blockchain? So we got into crypto not because it was like, hey, this is the next cool thing. We got into it out of necessity. We got into it because we understood just how quickly we could be turned off, even as an incredible developer from New York City. I mean, I don't think anyone would argue that we didn't change the skylight of New York City, but that disappeared in an instant.

I mean, we're getting sued by New York State AG, half a billion dollar fees for paying back loans on time with interest. These aren't

you know fair markets there's no nothing egalitarian about any of that so we actually as innovators uh as people who understand these things we went all in on a concept that makes total sense because we've actually been the recipient of how quickly that can be shut off and so it actually makes total sense the trump organization isn't doing anything with foreign countries the first time around in the administration we actually stopped doing all foreign deals and unlike

the bidens we were actually doing international business before right we got into politics let me finish we stopped doing those things and the market still said oh they're profiteering off of this they're doing that we got zero credit we shut down hundreds of millions of dollars of business to voluntarily just say just in case so now what we're going to do we're going to play by all of the rules we're going to do what we're allowed to do but

We got zero credit for going so far above and beyond because, you know, that's the nature of this beast, right? It's a market cycle. I get it. It's click worthy. It's nonsense. So let me ask you a question about the meme coin. OK, you may not believe this. I want your father and this White House to have all the credibility in the world. And invariably, people are always going to question whatever any president does. But one of the things that people do demonstrably questions, they say this meme coin that your father has.

creates the opportunity for foreign adversaries, people in the U.S., anybody that they want to effectively funnel money to the president. It's as bad as Hunter's art or the Clinton Foundation with her getting back into the White House. It just seems like a way that greases the skids for influence. I think, well, I think the meme coin, you don't know who's actually doing any of these things, right? But that's one of the things that has people on edge. But it's different because it's hard to...

if you don't actually know where the stuff's coming from, right? So I wasn't involved in the meme coin. I'm more focused on obviously the stable coin, the Bitcoin mining, some of those things. But the reality is I think a lot of these things in the meme coin-- - You're not taking responsibility for the meme coin. - No, no, I'm just saying the reality of the meme coin is it's sort of a proof of concept that the crypto world understands exactly what I was talking about earlier.

that the markets may not necessarily be fair. The traditional banking system may not be fair to them. So it's a proof of concept of what I think we can move the needle in crypto. And I think that's going to be the future of finance. It's going to be the future of banking, almost without question, if we can accelerate that process by going all in on it. But you've heard from people in the crypto industry. I imagine some of your friends who have said that some of these coins and what's happening may undermine a little bit of what's happening because people are questioning it.

right i i have not heard that from anyone actually what i hear from those people is like thank you for doing this you're giving us the legitimacy that we fought for for so long and this isn't just a conservative issue to let me these are highly libertarian people uh... you know this is actually one of those is fifty million uh... holders of you know some sort of crypto whether it's big win stables uh... he yes all whatever it may be

There's 50 million in America. They're not all right wing. These are people who just believe in freedom. They've seen what's happening and they're looking for a corollary and a response. I got one more for you, which goes to, do you believe, if you believe in the U.S. dollar, which I think we all want to believe in, do we think that crypto, Bitcoin in particular, but crypto writ large, can ultimately undermine it?

Actually, I think the opposite. When you look at what's going on with so many of the stable coins and as you create utility and those things happen, what we're doing with USD 1, it's literally one to one backed with the US Treasuries.

If you look at some of these big stable coins, they're literally some of the biggest buyers of U.S. treasuries in the world, replacing a lot of the countries that would have been traditionally doing that. So if we want to keep borrowing and spending the way we do for some of these markets, I don't necessarily agree with all of that either. Like, I think these stable coins are actually going to be the savior of dollar hegemony in the world, not a detractor from it.

I think that goes without question. If you look at even companies like Tether, I think they're the fourth largest holder of U.S. Treasuries in the world. What we're going to do with USD1, I mean, this is billions and billions of dollars of Treasuries that other countries who have not necessarily been good actors or who have taken advantage of those things over the years have said they're going to back away from to try to create their own kind of currency to eliminate sort of the petrodollar, whatever it may be. I think stablecoins could be the savior of U.S. currency.

We're going to shift gears a little bit to your relationship with VP Vance and some of the stuff we've read lately. I don't know if you've seen the journal pieces about...

I guess the Orrin Cass influence, and you know who I'm talking about, on the vice president, where market forces are no longer as important. There's a populist tinge to everything. I even think some of J.D. Vance's acolytes wanted to raise corporate taxes, raise taxes on the rich.

Your dad is some kind of hybrid now between a Republican and a Democratic populist. Do you? Yeah. So I actually subscribe to what you're kind of describing, which is you do. Yeah, I do, because I think it's how you got former Democrats into the party. You're a former Democrat. I'm not going to tell anyone who you voted for. I don't think you want that. I appreciate that. You're a good friend. I know. But but she was married to a president. So but yeah.

Again, you're not a good friend. In any event, I think what Donald Trump has done and what we were actually central in doing during the campaign, which was getting people like Bobby Kennedy and Tulsi Gabbard to endorse President Trump, is an important aspect of what you're picking up on, which is that the tent now incorporates elements that we think are the best of both parties. So MAGA is actually, I think, taking a lot of strong things that the Democrats used to be for, which is caring about the middle class and the workers of this country.

Being an unadulterated globalist and capitalist, I think has failed a large swath of our population. And that's what I think Vice President Vance really picked on earlier than others and has not lost the sense that we can still be capitalists, but if it affects our national security and our middle class, we have to reevaluate some of the assumptions we've made. I came into this, like we've talked about before in the late 90s, thinking that, you know, we could democratize countries around the world if we just simply open their markets.

And I was in favor of a lot of those policies when I was a Democrat. But they have not worked. China has gotten more authoritarian. And it's not smart for us to have everything made with a country that's four times our size, has slave labor, and can put people out of work. But we don't want T-shirts being made.

I didn't say that, though. There are other things. What are we investing in? We're investing in semiconductors. We're investing in technology to mine rare earth minerals here. And those are jobs. Those are great jobs. We shouldn't make our pharmaceuticals in another country. If there are products that threaten our national security like we saw in COVID,

they should be made at home. That's obvious, I think, and that's self-evident. That's one of the things that this administration, I think, is doing a good job. So it's not about being communist or just socialist for the sake of it. It's we look at the international system that has changed dramatically over the last 25 years.

Let's find out what the failures were. By the way, George W. Bush made a lot of failures. Obama. President Trump could not have been elected in 2016 if you didn't have the people feel that backlash. And he certainly couldn't have made a comeback if President Biden had addressed those issues. And reelected in 2020.

Yeah, well, I always think sometimes you have to hit rock bottom. And I think it took... That was for him. That was for him. He's talking about guns. I'm sorry. I take that back. It took the four years of Biden. I take that back. That was totally for you. I take it back. But I think it did take the four years of Biden for America to realize how fragile some of these things are. You went from a time of prosperity to a time of poverty. You went from a time of peace to a time of war. These things happened when America wasn't leading politically.

with strength but you know it takes a little bit of that for us to understand just how fragile we were i think that brought back from the u_c_ again the same old news cycle starting you know when the s_n_p_ dipped a little bit all my god it's the trump recession and you said you said you're dead well you know i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i

The sentiment for a recession was we were going to hit a recession by 70% of the market thought we were going to do that. Yesterday, within a few weeks, it was 30%. These things take time. We've gotten spoiled. We've gotten used to, well, someone's in now, so we expect instant gratification. And within three minutes, if the world isn't perfect, nothing happens that way.

The process has to happen. You have to take time to go through that. You see what's going on in the negotiations with the other countries around the world. We're going to end up putting America in a better spot. That doesn't mean that everyone else has to move. You can have a symbiotic relationship with our allies around the world. And if we do that while simultaneously pulling some of those things away from China so we're not dependent on someone who has proven around the world to not be a great actor, that's a huge win for America in the long term. I think even the presidents, a lot of Democrats sort of wish they'd gotten it out of the way already.

All the Democrats had to do was shut up in 2020. He'd be gone already. He 100% won anyway. It doesn't matter. You'd have a Democrat president right now. You wouldn't have a strong Republican bench, which we have now of people who are proven fighters who've been in the trenches. It's such a role reversal from what we've always seen, where the Democrats always had a bench. What's a 2028 ticket look like? We'll see, but the reality is... No, I...

I am not-- thank you for even the consideration of the mention, but no, I'm not interested in that right now. I'll always keep fighting for it. MALE SPEAKER: Vance Rubio or Rubio Vance? DANNY RIMER: Listen, honestly, I think both of them have proven to be incredible.

Can I just say one thing? Just to end it with how we started. The show's great. I really enjoyed it, by the way. But also, one out of every two homes in America has a gun. Bring it back. I want to close on this transaction. I just wanted to make that point that we're trying to make e-commerce available to an antiquated sector, which is brainwashed.

brick and mortar. It's happened in other industries. Chewy, Wayfair. This is all the same. Now we're doing it for ammunition and guns. And that's what grab a gun is and that's what the transaction is. And I didn't understand like pew, I thought was pew. Oh, what's that? Pew, pew, pew. I just want it to be done safely. That's all. And it will. And we're compliant with all rules. And someone who believes in stuff, there's still a component where popcorn

Pop culture, you know, that decides elections in Supreme Court. Like, you don't want, you know, haphazard nonsense out there. I believe in that. So I'm all for the safety and the training. I advocate for that. I came from a competitive shooting background. I'm just scared of the kid who says to himself, you know, either I'm going to commit suicide and I'm going to order the gun online and that's how I'm going to get it, or I'm going to plan some kind of mass shooting. That's all I...

But just so we're clear, the gun is not going to their house. You know that, right? Can we just make that totally clear? It's going to a place where the background check is conducted, and the same as it would if you went to a brick-and-mortar place. Most important thing you take away from this conversation, we are not circumventing that. And the reality, any of that gun crime, the vast majority is done with illegal guns, not purchased this way. No one ever acknowledges that, right? These things happen in places that gun culture isn't really a thing. We're totally aligned on that point. Yeah.

Thank you, Omid Malik. Thank you. Thank you. Don Trump Jr. Thank you. Appreciate the time. Thank you. Good to see you.

There is still more squawkpot ahead, tracking possible tariff costs with our retail reporter Courtney Reagan. If the retailer eats the whole thing, if they pass along the whole thing. And a new anchor takes over at NBC Nightly News. Tom Yamas on the new gig and the big changes remaking media. People are consuming news more than ever before. So how do you stay on top? How do you thrive? I think you have to be everywhere.

This is Elevated Customer Experience. This is Tractor Supply with T-Mobile for Business. Take your business further at T-Mobile.com slash now.

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

While tariff policy remains in flux, retailers have to decide what to do. Either mitigate the tariff costs, find a way to make up for it, or pass it along in prices. Most large retailers are trying to work on mitigation strategies, although Walmart and Macy's are among those that have said that even with mitigation, some prices will increase. But what if the retailers didn't mitigate it or couldn't and stay in business?

Here's Courtney Reagan to explain it. And, Court, I get the feeling that even those who aren't talking about it as publicly are realizing they are going to have to pass some cost on consumers in some areas. Absolutely. And this is very nuanced. We're going to try to simplify this as much as possible in sort of a worst-case scenario. The true cost of tariffs is almost impossible to quantify. But...

If a retailer didn't or couldn't absorb the cost and passed it all on, how much would prices increase? Well, Alex Partners built these example models exclusively for us to illustrate it. So before the April 2nd tariffs, a cotton men's sweater made in China cost $6.80 to produce.

Pre-liberation day, a 41.5% total tariff was already in place for that sweater shipped to the U.S. That equals $2.82. The cost of logistics and sourcing, that adds another 95 cents. So put together, the total cost of making that sweater is $10.57. At a typical

typical initial markup rate to get to a 65% gross margin, the retail price before Liberation Day for that sweater would have been 30 bucks. So here's the same sweater at today's tariff rates. The China manufacturing costs, logistics and sourcing costs, those are constant in this example.

But at the 41.5% existing tariff for that sweater before April 2nd, and then the 10% universal rate, 20% fentanyl tariff, the current tariff rate is 71.5% of the manufacturing cost, or $4.86, making the new cost the retailer pays to make that sweater $12.61.

So holding that 65% markup to maintain that level of profitability and a new price the consumer would pay, $35.80. So that's a price increase of more than 19%. That's only if you pass the entire cost on. If you pass the entire cost on right now at where we're sitting today. So let's look what happens if the full tariffs announced April 2nd would be enforced.

At that 41.5% pre-April 2nd existing tariff for that sweater, plus the additional 145%, the tariff rate is 186.5% for the sweater.

Or a tariff cost of $12.68, making the new cost the retailer pays to make this sweater $20.43. So if you use that same 65% markup to maintain the level of profitability, the new price a consumer pays $57.97. That is an increase of 92.3%, almost double the original retail price.

So I guess that assumes that they don't do pushback on their suppliers and say, you're going to eat some of this. 100%. This is an example of if there is no mitigation strategy. If that retailer pays the cost of the tariff when that good comes ashore and they take that cost and pass it along, maintaining everything else, and if we pay the full amount in the end.

And it assumes those very high tariffs that I don't think anybody on the street, at least, is thinking that all of that is going to go into play. Let's hope not. But even if you look at where we're sitting today and if they passed along the full thing, you're looking at a 19 percent increase in the price that we pay. Again, on this example, if there's no mitigation on a cotton men's sweater made in China, sold in the United States. And then you can view it.

whether profit margins right now are too rich because corporate taxes are too low. So I think... I don't know why Democrats don't like this plan because instead of raising corporate taxes, corporations have to eat some of it. So their margins are squeezed a little bit if they don't mitigate it all. They maybe raise some prices. It raises revenue. Is it...

As a Republican, nobody wants. Nobody wants higher corporate taxes. Nobody wants higher. I don't, but Democrats do. If you wanted to frame it that way. Yeah. Say, look. You want to hear it that way. You don't want to hear it. Well, I think it would help, actually, because I think people go, oh, OK. I understand what's happening. I understand. We want to do. We think that this is a better way to raise taxes and to raise revenue. You can even say just raise revenue. And if that's how you want to do it. And that's what this is about. Right.

But that's not what we're saying it's about. I know that. It's about fentanyl. Believe me, I understand all those things. You wouldn't think you'd have Republicans and Democrats both united and just saying it's always bad. In the old days, Democrats liked fentanyl.

You know, that's funny. I've also thought about that. Look, I'm not a political expert, but you're right. And I know that there's a lot of political inherent bias when you're talking about tariffs on whether you believe it's a good thing or a bad thing. I mean, Republicans should hate him. That's why this gets very complicated. It's a Republican president. Republicans should hate him because it's like raising corporate taxes.

But then on the other hand, corporations, if you're Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders, they've been controlling things for so long that maybe it's not so horrible that they need to. The problem is from the Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warrens of the world, if some of this gets passed on to the consumer, then it's a regressive tax. Well, I'm saying if it didn't, if it's not passed on, if it's eaten.

And obviously there are studies out of Yale and out of Wharton that are sort of also looking at the scenarios if the retailer eats the whole thing, if they pass along the whole thing or the 50-50. And I believe it was Wharton and or Yale that sort of said 50-50 is actually not great either because a retailer eats the cost, but then in order to eat the cost, they have to cut costs somewhere else, which can very often be something like headcount, right? So then you have job losses. So maybe you've lost your job and you're paying less.

at the cash register. We had somebody here yesterday. It was Peter Bukvar talking about how the tariffs on steel and aluminum might help the steel industry in particular in terms of jobs, but it may have a greater offset in terms of jobs for related industries that use steel as an input for construction and other places. And that's why this is so very, very complicated. But across the board,

Similar things would happen with higher tax rates. And almost across the board on one side of the political aisle, 25, they would give anything to raise corporate rates from 21 back to 25. And all the same things that you just talked about apply. You might have to lay off people. You might have to raise prices. You might have to eat. All the same things apply. But that's you can't have a you get on a vote to raise 25 in the House. You'd get probably on the Democratic caucus. You get 100 percent in the Senate. You get 100 percent.

to vote for that. But tariffs, oh my god, the world's ending. You know, this is why I'm not in politics, Joe. Because I don't know the answer to these conundrums. Nobody does. Thanks, Courtney.

A new era of NBC nightly news started this week after Lester Holt signed off after 10 years in the anchor chair. Joining us right now is a man in that chair at our table, though, NBC nightly news' new anchor, Tom Yalmus. Good morning to you, sir. Morning to you, Andrew. Morning to all of you. Thanks for having me. Great to see you. So, okay, we're going to talk about the TV landscape, what it means to be on a 630. I mean, this is like a vaunted chair, first of all. It is, yeah. So what does that feel like for you?

First night out. It feels incredible. Yeah, first night was last night. Look, it's the honor of a lifetime, right? I walked into 30 Rock in the year of 2000. I was an intern making no money. And I'll never forget when I came in, I heard, Tom, Tom. And I thought, oh, all these people know the intern. This is so nice. But it was Tom Brokaw.

who was just behind me. And I remember thinking how cool that was that people knew him as Tom and not just Tom Brokaw. But I've worked really hard, Andrew. You know, I've been doing it for more than 25 years, worked a lot of weekends, a lot of overnights, every shift, every job in a newsroom. And to take over for somebody like Lester, who's been a friend and a mentor, is incredible. Okay, so here's the hard part. How do you feel about the fractured media landscape? And the reason I mention it is you mentioned Tom Brokaw.

Yeah. There was a time three channels when there were three channels and Tom Brokaw and Dan Rath. You could go down the list. Those were names. Right. And hopefully your name will become one of them. But it's a harder environment today. Yeah. To break out and become something where the entire country is watching every single night. Not only three channels, in some cases, no remote controls. Right. So if the TV was parked on a channel, we parked there all day.

Listen, it's fractured. You can't ignore that. But I think people are consuming news more than ever before. So how do you stay on top? How do you thrive? I think you have to be everywhere. And it's one of the reasons why I'm doing Nightly News and I'm doing my streaming show. So we're going 90 minutes straight. Right when Nightly News ends, they flip a switch. The entire studio changes. It's my streaming show, Top Story. And I believe you have to be everywhere at all times. We're doing three hours. He's doing an hour and a half, actually. An hour and a half a night. Yeah, an hour and a half a night. And I think you have to be everywhere. And it's not just...

you know on television or stream you gotta win the text alert war which is huge which is basically when there's breaking news making sure you get your alert out first which drives people to your site three to five years ago NBC News sort of change they reinvested in digital it's been a revolution so when I go to a breaking news story now it's not only 10 reporters on the story there's 20 reporters because we have all of our digital reporters as well all on slack communicating

And I think you need to be there. You need to be on the digital. How often are you just grabbing this and just talking to the phone? Do you think that's the future? I mean, do you think that anchors are supposed to do that? Because it's very interesting. It creates an intimacy, but also one of the things that makes an anchor an anchor is this feeling that they are somehow in this, like, separated space. Yeah, look, I don't think the people on social media, on TikTok or Instagram, uh,

that are getting their news from there are gonna come to nightly news, right? But I think it's good for brand awareness. It's good for NBC News in general because you wanna build those viewers early on in their lives and get used to that habit of watching you and seeing you. So I think it's important, but look, I'm not gonna try to be a TikTok anchor. That's not who I am. I'm gonna be the anchor of nightly news and I'm gonna be who I am. And the anchor role has changed significantly. I think people have to feel a much more personal connection with you.

because of how they do feel this with the streaming show, with anything else that goes. I agree with you, but I think, you know, you can't lie to that thing right there, right? That thing sees right through you. And I think the viewers know that as well. And I think they're way savvier than a lot of people. But I think the viewers have changed over time, too. I think the viewers are much smarter viewers than they used to be. And I think there has to be an authenticity and a

and a real talk that comes no matter where you are. - I completely agree with you, and one of the things we're gonna be pushing on Nightly News, and one of the things I believe in, is immersion journalism. And what is that? That basically, you show the viewers that you are working the story. So if you're doing interviews, you're doing two-shot interviews,

if you're if it's taking you a day and a half to get to a story in peru to interview the people at the church where the pope came from pope leo came from let's show them that because that process is interesting but also shows that you are working the story and that you're out there in the field listen i think at the end of the day i've been saying this i've done a lot of interviews about this new gig i work for n_b_c_ news but i work for the viewer and and the best journalists and the best type of journalism never forgets that no i said that or i think last week that might be

I was kidding, but the only boss we have is the viewer. 100%. Which sometimes gives you some impunity about listening to other bosses, but that wasn't my point. You know what else is important? It's still important that the 6 o'clock New York guys and gals, you need that lead-in still. It's still huge, yeah. It is, because when I watch...

TV during the day on NBC. Those are what the commercials are for, are for all of our local people. And I think that's what, in the big markets around the country, it's still like that. And then they're tuned in. They watch the local news at 6 and then there you are at 6.30. Local news. I came from local news, spent some of my best years working in newsrooms in Miami and New York City. And

really hone my skills there. NBC News did something interesting. Over the last month, they actually pulled me off the air in a big way and I traveled the country going to local stations. You still have to do that. Getting into local newsrooms, meeting with anchors and reporters from all over the country from places like Memphis and Baltimore and Cincinnati and

and getting to know these people, listening to them, making sure that they know who I am, but I know who they are. So when they need, because we ask them for help a lot. There are eyes and ears all over the country in these towns and cities where maybe we don't have bureaus. And it was, I got to tell you, it was thrilling to talk to them. And it was invigorating because local news is great. They're still working real hard. They've never been asked to do more. And it's really nice to see. Okay, so here's my question. Go for it. After you've gone on this road show of sorts, you've been around the country. Yeah.

How do you think people feel genuinely about the economy right now? Yeah, I think it's interesting. The two stories that I saw in every local newsroom were immigration raids that were happening in these towns and cities and then tariff stories. And those were leading the newscast across the board. And it was funny because every time I looked up, I was like, wow. Because usually every lead is different in every city, but...

universally right now that's what people are talking about that's what people are doing I think what courtney did just now that was a a master class on how to do the tariff story I think it's really complicated I think it's changing people's viewing habits someone like myself I watch the Today Show and my next movie CNBC because I know I gotta understand that the business news of the day it wasn't always that way I mean I've always watched CNBC but now every day it changes the tariffs everyday there's new news and it's gonna affect people's bottom lines

How's your life, you think, gonna change because of this? - You know, I talk to Lester a lot about this because the demands obviously are great. And every American deals with this, right? The work-life balance. But my day is getting longer.

Luckily, my kids and my wife have known me always as a network news correspondent or anchor. So if you have to leave a little league game or a school play, it's tough. But they understand that dad sort of has this responsibility. My wife, luckily for our marriage and for our family, she's a former executive producer in news. And so she understands this. She gets it. She gets it. And she's our rock. And I owe everything to her. When you travel, do you bring a blazer, a shirt, and a tie wherever you go? Because something, like I'm saying when you go on vacation. Yeah.

Oh, I bring my passport everywhere. I don't necessarily bring clothes because that'll be too much, but I bring my passport anytime I get on a plane, regardless if I'm going to Miami. Because you don't have a real ID. That's why I bring my passport right now. I actually don't have an ID either. I got my appointment in July, though. But no, yeah, I always carry a passport. I'm ready to go.

By the way, news you can use on the passport thing, because I just learned this. If you have global entry and you have that little ID that comes with it, you can use that instead of a passport. Oh, I do have that. Okay. I didn't know that worked. Yes.

Andrew, thank you. We're trying. We're trying. Guys, world travelers, man. Tom, congratulations. Thank you. Thank you for having us. We're very excited for you. By the way, come back. Spend some time with us again. Come back in the morning. I've got to work late night. I was getting ready for Joe. I feel like I didn't get the Joe treatment, but I'll come back. We already talked. And I...

Your parents immigrated from Cuba? My parents are Cuban-American, yeah. They came here and they worked really hard. I think there's some solid conservative values there that have been instilled in you. I was also thinking, yeah, there was Broca, rather, and I don't remember the other one, but... Peter Jennings. No, but I remember the days where we sat around and there was a guy named Cronkite who was like...

And that day, those days will never be back. But think about what Walter Cronkite represented to this country and the way he presented news. And when I heard about Kennedy from him and when I heard, I mean, those were the days of the the true nightly news. You're supposed to mention David Brinkley, I think. Brinkley, Chet Huntley, John Chancellor.

Remember those guys as well? No. Millions are still tuning in, though, every now and then. No doubt. No doubt. They are. But you just got big shoes to fill. Looking forward to it. Thank you, guys. Thanks, Tom.

That's the podcast for today. Thank you for tuning in. Squawk Box is hosted by Joe Kernan, Becky Quick, and Andrew Ross Sorkin. Weekday mornings on CNBC starting at 6 Eastern and going all the way until 9. To get the best bits from that three-hour TV show right into your ears, you can follow Squawk Pod wherever you get your podcasts. We'll meet you right back here tomorrow. All right, clear. Thanks, guys.

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