Dr. Oz, MAHA, & David Rubenstein 5/23/25
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Hi, I'm CNBC producer Katie Kramer. Today on Squawk Pod. David Rubenstein, the billionaire investor on President Trump's big, beautiful bill, remaking spending. Whatever passes is almost certainly going to be increasing the debt and the deficit. And if the Democrats were in control, probably the same thing would happen. And trying to remake the economy. The revenue comes when you tax people in the middle class. That's where the revenue is. Unfortunately, people don't want to do that because it's politically difficult.

And from TV to running these centers for Medicare and Medicaid, Mehmet Oz on entitlement spending. The original Medicaid population, the young, the elderly who don't have money, a disabled child, they actually are less valuable to the health care system than an able-bodied individual who is hopefully going to get a job and move on. And Dr. Oz weighs in on the movement behind his new boss, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. I'm going to give you one word to define MAHA.

Plus, the president's dinner for crypto investors in his meme coin. What the hell is a meme coin? Raising a lot of questions about access and influence. Really, why does it have any value? Well, it doesn't. It's Friday, May 23rd. A supersized SquawkPod begins right now. Stand back, you buy in 3, 2, 1, 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 Andrew Ross Sorkin. A day yesterday, where both the S&P and the Dow were down, but barely, only by one point for one and three points for the other. Nasdaq was slightly higher. But if you're looking at the week to date, the major averages are down in about one and a half percent to two percent over the

course of this week. It's the worst week that we've seen this month. I think all the way back to maybe the second week or the first week of April in terms of the market's performance on these things.

things part of that is because what's been happening in the Treasury Market if you are watching those yields you're still looking at the 30 year above five percent the two-year just fell below four percent it's at 398 but again yields have been sharply higher this week the 10-year is at 4.5 to 7 percent and then you've got Bitcoin its latest high near 112 000 right now it's 111 326 dollars

In the meantime, the Supreme Court strongly suggesting that Federal Reserve board members would have special protection against a president who tried to fire them. That may provide some relief to investors that are worried that President Trump could try to get rid of current chair Jerome Powell before his term expires. In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court did temporarily uphold the president's decision

to fire two members of other agency boards, but the majority also called the Fed a, quote, "uniquely structured entity." The decision doesn't explicitly bar Trump from firing Powell, but it suggests he'd face a steep climb at that court if he tried. - I mean, I would say it's a moot point currently, I mean, because of the last thing he said. - For the moment.

Well, I mean, this is that I have no plans. In some ways, this is the Supreme Court front running saying, if you do, we are going to. But he just said that he had no plans and wasn't going to do it. So, yeah, that was the last thing to sort of quell all the conjecture, which was rampant. But like I said, tomorrow, all bets could be off. President Trump holding a controversial private dinner with cryptocurrency investors who bought his meme coin. What the hell is a meme coin?

I mean, I know what it is, but really, why does it have any value? Well, it doesn't. To secure a seat at the event, the most anonymous, mostly anonymous attendees had to be among the top 220 holders of the Trump coin. And according to blockchain analytics firm Nansen, the average participant spent $1.8 million. About 100 demonstrators lined the road to the Trump National Golf Club in Northern Virginia, where the event was held.

They, along with some lawmakers from both sides of the aisle, are concerned that the president may be selling access to himself to enrich himself personally. We'll get more details on this event later in the hour. Talk all about it. I prefer the if I was going to buy one, you know what I'd buy? Bitcoin. Oh, a meme coin. A sorkin coin. Yeah, a sorkin coin. I would buy the sork. If I'm going to just do something totally off the wall and ridiculous. Thanks.

What? No, I just mean none of these things here. You know what it kind of reminds me of? Do you remember the, who was it? And I like Gary Vander, whatever he is. Those NFTs that he was selling and you get to go to his like. Gary Vaynerchuk. Yes. And you get to go to his like events and you get the rebel bows and.

It reminds me of that. It reminds you of like an American Express fancy platinum card or something. Yeah, would you buy something that'll, I mean, that's the problem is maybe you would to get access to the President of the United States. But Gary's created these characters now that people are actually buying on trading cards. I mean, it's working, I think. No, but actually trading cards that have nothing to do with the rubbing of the elbows. You just buy the trading cards because they have value.

He actually has actual trading cards, not even digital trading cards, like physical trading cards. Are those apes worth? Like with tops. What were those things? Those funny? Like real cards. Yes. Are the vampires or apes or any of those things, are they worth anything? They're still worth something. They're not worth zero. They're not worth a sort coin. They're not? Can you pay with those with a sort coin?

I don't want to advocate for the sorkin coin because I get worried that people start doing stuff. If we don't advocate for it, it's not going to go up. But we don't own it. We have nothing to do with it. I know, I know, I know. Well, when we're talking meme coins, if one of us happens to have a meme coin, it's kind of hard. Named after us, not that we have our own. No, no, absolutely not. But it's...

It's so crazy. That's what I mean. It's just like a meme stock. Well, the access question is an important one. And as you said, sides of the aisle kind of asking questions about this. The press secretary was asked about it yesterday. She said that the president is doing this in his free time. I never really thought of the president of the United States as an hourly employee. Well, we were lucky to get an hour out of the last guy, as it turns out, per day. But anyway.

It reminds me of like a sucker and his money. And I think it's wrong. I don't like this idea with the president doing this. But I mean, if people are going to be stupid enough to

To do it. He owns 80%. He owns 80% of the mean code. There was a guy who had to leave the United States because he was being charged with fraud who's now buying access to that. I think it was... Right. Those are some of the bigger questions. Well, we're going to talk all about all this. We're going to talk Tether. And by the way, not that that's new. You have past administrations where you've had pardons that have been bought.

by left and right. - Oh yeah. But this is, there's no, it's like the wild, wild west. And I don't even think anything he's doing is against the law, but that's why maybe we need some, I don't know, what's in the Genius Act, do we know? I like that, the stable Genius Act. What's, we're gonna talk about all of this stuff. - We're gonna talk all about all of it. - Mackenzie Sigalis joins us now with more. Tell us, what'd they serve? - Halibut.

Just for the halibut they did? And filet mignon and a salad. But people were underwhelmed by the food. You know the answer? Wow, that's great. I was kidding. Was it halibut and the filet mignon or was it either or? Either or. Oh, it wasn't a surf and turf. Good. Wow. For the amount of money that it cost, it should have been surf and turf. $1.8 million on average. Should have been surf and turf. You should have had butter. With butter.

So, yes, the average attendee at that dinner paying $1.8 million to attend, according to blockchain firm Nansen, to secure one of those just 220 highly coveted seats to sit down with the president for a private dinner in Virginia. Now, among those in the room, former NBA star Lamar Odom.

Sandy Carter of Web3 firm Unstoppable Domains, and the number one token holder Justin Sun, a Chinese-born crypto mogul being sued by the SEC, who holds more than $20 million worth of those Trump meme tokens. But for an event billed as the most exclusive invitation in the world, many guests left disappointed. Trump arrived by helicopter, gave brief remarks backing a U.S. Bitcoin reserve,

and left without taking questions, photos or promising anything new to the crypto industry. Now outside about 100 protesters held signs that read crypto corruption and Trump is a traitor. Senator Jeff Merkley joined them. He and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer are backing the end Crypto Corruption Act.

Senate Democrats are now also pushing an amendment to the Genius Act that would ban presidents and senior officials from directly or indirectly profiting from stablecoin ventures while in office. Now, since January, the Trump coin has generated over $324 million in trading fees, much of it flowing to two Trump-affiliated companies that control 80% of the supply. The coin plunged

6% as the event began, signaling a wave of sell-offs. The White House, meanwhile, insisting that Trump is not enriching himself, only acting, they say, in the best interests of the American public. And it's not a stable coin. It's a meme coin. It's not backed by anything. There's no intrinsic value whatsoever. Exactly. But the Trump family is also behind World Liberty Financial, that crypto bank that we talked about, and they are issuing a U.S. dollar peg stable coin. Exactly.

it's not i'm using the word suboptimal a lot so this is not ideal this is it but but then again it kind of rhymes with this with influence peddling and you know hunter's art he hasn't sold a single painting since his father left office he sold 27 before that used to that was a clear example you buy this art you're going to get access then i remember the clinton foundation which hillary was going to be president

So everyone was giving money for access eventually. So it's not identical. I know it's not the same thing. And it's suboptimal. It kind of smells the high heaven. I'm not saying it doesn't. So I'm trying to diffuse any...

Any pushback? Do you have a better word than suboptimal for what this is? - It is worse than suboptimal. I think, look, as you know, I have lots of issues with how the foundation worked and all of those things. That money was not going to their- - No, I didn't know you had lots of issues. - I've said it on the show a million times, but that money was not going to their pockets. - Kind of was. - Not in that same- - Kind of private jets and salaries. Did Haiti get anything when it was all said and done?

I believe they did. Okay. Not enough. We can debate that. Okay, let's forget that. Let's go back to Hunter's Art. Hunter's Art. I'm with you on Hunter's Art. How about that? You and I on Hunter's Art. Did you sell the... You don't have it anymore. That was a... I don't know, Hunter. I don't know. Is the art any good? Um...

It was, I don't think, is any art any good? That's a better question. I mean, Trump has his own NFT collection and that kind of goes to this larger narrative. That was the same deal. That there is this crypto empire that the family is behind. And in terms of the incentive structures, World Liberty Financial, that crypto bank, 75% of proceeds flow to Trump related organizations. The Trump meme token, 75% of revenue. Is there any existing laws that...

are being violated that what would you we talk about with the jet and their becky emoluments buzz that that bar what's happening with this mean point a lot of democratic lawmakers would argue that it is and so the you know you've got I Warren Schumer all looking to open up investigations but they want a new law they want a new law to make it more specific that this

And that's what the biggest concern is. This Genius Act, which actually passed a key Senate hurdle earlier this week to block a filibuster, would ostensibly open up what's called the stablecoin market. It's $250 billion market cap right now. But David Sachs said on our air that it could drive demand of trillions of dollars in U.S. treasuries practically overnight.

Stablecoins offer a new, more efficient, cheaper, smoother payment system, new payment rails for the US economy. It also extends the dominance of the dollar online, and it also creates billions of dollars or trillions of dollars of demand for our treasuries.

The reason why the White House and our White House crypto and AIs are so bullish on stablecoins is because they describe it as this faster and cheaper payment system that essentially is great publicity for the US dollar around the world. Right. And might take the baton if we lose foreign investments in the treasuries.

you might make up for some of that with this and that's where the blowback to this genius act is coming in because this trump affiliated us dollar peg stablecoin usd1 we've already seen an emirati state fund mgx uh pledged two billion dollars in that token to binance which was the crypto exchange settling with the us government for 4.3 billion dollars over aml violations

Do you do anything other than just read about this stuff? I live and breathe this stuff. Good job. I notice this a couple of times when you come on. Yeah, you know your expert. You really do. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you, Mackenzie. Thank you.

The Trump administration is attempting to block Harvard University from enrolling international students and keeping current international students on campus. The Department of Homeland Security, or DHS, said that it revoked Harvard's student and exchange visitor program certification because the school created, in Homeland Security's words, an unsafe campus environment by allowing anti-American agitators to harass and assault people, including many Jewish students.

DHS says that many of the so-called agitators are foreign students. It told Harvard that existing foreign students must either transfer or lose their legal status, though a federal judge also issued an injunction yesterday that could protect those students. In a statement, the school called the government's actions unlawful and said that it is committed to maintaining Harvard's ability to host international students and scholars.

Speaking to Bloomberg, former Treasury Secretary and current President Emeritus of Harvard, Larry Summers called the Trump administration's move vicious, illegal, and the stuff of tyranny, in his words. He also urged the school to resist.

A lot happening here. It is. The foreign students make up about 25% of the enrollment there. I think it's even more in terms of the tuition that they pay because they tend to pay much higher tuition than U.S. students who are coming into this. I think it's just ramping it up and they don't really want, that's not the end for what they're looking for. It's a cudgel to try to bring Harvard into, to try to have them comply with what they're saying. I kind of have the feeling of Ackman that they started out being so

resistant to any pressure whatsoever that the government you know you cannot fight city hall it's just a bad idea even if you don't want to do it um the government's going to end up winning and negotiate this is this is what i think that the government in this case is not going to win that's the no because now the government's almost probably gone too far in terms of how they're approaching it so the courts are actually harvard will win in court why go through all this when

In reality, when something called, you know, make the intifada global and when from river to the sea really becomes a chant at all these Ivy League institutions and you don't do anything about it and things keep happening and more horrible things could happen. I mean, that's horrible. And I'm not defending that in any way, shape or form. Larry Summers was saying, I listened to an extended interview. He was saying that

it's probably not legal for Harvard to turn over some of the requests they've asked for because their students have the right to privacy and due process. They still need to do a hell of a lot more than they've done so far. I wouldn't feel safe. No, and by the way, Larry Summers has said he's been very critical of Harvard on these things, and they do need to do more. No argument on that. Unless you... This is the cudgel I think they're trying to use to do that, and I don't... It's suboptimal. Especially if it gets knocked down in the courts. But I mean, especially given...

It's the last couple of days. It's just... Well, yes, very much so. The oil and the pale. Cheese will be next.

Coming up next on SquawkPod, David Rubenstein, private equity pioneer and investor on the market reaction to the president's legislative agenda. And the news developing during his interview that President Trump wants a 25% tariff on Apple for iPhones produced abroad. The U.S. has become largely a service economy, and there's been a lot of benefits to that. We are not yet a manufacturing hub any longer. I don't know whether the tariff policy will produce one, but the transition is going to be very difficult to get there.

We'll be right back. Don't just ride the index. Seek to outperform it with FELC, the Fidelity Enhanced Large Cap Core ETF. Unlike passive ETFs, FELC is run by a team of experts to adapt to market conditions and pursue upside potential wherever it's hiding. And

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This is Squawk Pod from CNBC with Joe Kernan, Becky Quick, and Andrew Ross Sorkin.

Joining us now to weigh in on everything from the bond market to baseball is David Rubenstein. He's the Carlisle Group co-founder and co-chairman. He's also the owner of the Baltimore Orioles. He's got a long list of other accolades we could name here, but we'd be here a while talking about them. David, thanks for coming in this morning. My pleasure. Thanks for having me. I want to start with where the bond markets are right now and just get your take on what's happening. We have had deficits for as far back as the eye can see. They've gotten much worse over the last decade or so.

But the bond market really seems to be having a moment right now. And I don't know if it's the new budget that we're looking at that will very likely raise deficits or depending on what happens with growth or if it's that in combination with what's happening with trade right now. How do you read this?

Well, look, we have very large budget deficits. We've had them for quite some time. Right now, the total indebtedness of the United States is about 129 percent of GDP, which is a very high rate. Only Italy is probably as close to that rate. So at some point, the bond markets are saying you can't sustain this level of debt.

I'm not an economist, but from the economist's projections, it appears that if the bill that passed the House the other day were to become law, some people project that you could actually have the debt going to $40 trillion or more and the annual deficit at $2.5

$2 trillion to $2.5 trillion a year. And right now, our debt, our annual deficit is about $1.6 trillion. If you go to $2.5 trillion a year, and that's sustained for a period of time, you're going to run up your debt to $40 trillion. $40 trillion is a lot of debt. And for any government, Democratic or Republican, that's a lot of debt. Historically, people say that when your interest on your debt

is higher than your defense budget, that's a sign of a problem. Right now, we're paying roughly a trillion dollars a year on interest on our debt. It's going to probably go above that.

our defense budget's roughly a trillion dollars. So if the interest on the debt goes well above a trillion and the defense budget's not that high, historically, that's a sign of a problem. So I think that's why the bond market is worried by the debt is going to be going so high that we're going to go into traditional signs of

of economic weakness. Look, I think if this was a Kamala Harris administration, we'd probably be in worse shape. They would plan on spending more money, but what's the solution? And how do you deal with this as somebody who is managing businesses? It's not a... Democrats and Republicans, independents, everybody has participated in this. Everybody in Washington, including me when I was in government, we all have debt. And we've gotten used to it, and it's now gotten to the point where

People are really worried that it will keep our ability to function as a government very well. So it's not a Democratic or Republican issue. And I think the bill that passed the House the other day, it won't pass the Senate probably in the same form. It's very rare to pass a bill in the House by one vote and pass the Senate the same way. But whatever passes is almost certainly going to be increasing the debt and the deficit. And if the Democrats were in control, probably the same thing would happen, because both parties are addicted to politics.

spending money and nobody wants to cut. It's very difficult to cut spending, particularly when 85% of the budget is interest, debt, and entitlements. Not a lot of room to cut. So what does this mean for the broader economy? What does it mean for consumers? What does it mean for businesses? How do you navigate through this?

Nobody really knows for certain. Remember, for the last five, six, seven years, people said at some point we're going to go into a recession. We haven't had a recession, technical recession, for a while. So people now say we could go into a recession, but who knows? Nobody really knows. Economists are always saying there could be a recession coming, but they're not often right. And so I don't really know, and I can't say anybody really knows, just that there are a lot of indicators out there that makes the bond market a little nervous. Whether they're right or wrong, who knows?

You would think the bond market, you would think rates would go down if we're headed into a recession almost, right? Well, the bond market is not always a perfect indicator. No, but you know what I mean. Rates would probably not be headed up because there's a flight to quality when there's a slowdown. I don't know what the bond market would say. Do we do spending or do we do revenue? Well...

No one wants to cut spending. No one wants to raise taxes. Nobody likes to increase taxes. So, you know, that's why we've been going on with this daisy chain for quite some time. Would you raise the... Would you go back to 40% on the top rate? Would you do something like that? What's your... What do you think we should do? Um...

You can raise the top rate to 90% as we had it in the 1960s, but that doesn't pick up revenue because the revenue comes when you pick up, when you tax people in the middle class. That's where the revenue is. Unfortunately, people don't want to do that because it's politically difficult. But if you don't tax people who have incomes of $100,000 or $150,000 or $200,000 a family, you're never going to pick up a lot of revenue.

there aren't enough really really wealthy people to tax them at ninety percent it's gonna make a difference you gotta tax the criminal class and corporations it's not enough and actually billionaires it's not enough and even carried interest which you I think don't want to do anything well I don't collect any carried interest no I know but in general we've had this discussion before carried interest the

the tax bill that went through the house does not tax care interest i interviewed the chairman of the ways and means committee about that we don't know if we can what he said was that there were thirty five members of the house on his committee who said they couldn't support anything that tax carried interest but he told the president that and the president understood what it is by the way in the president wants to do it yes right president once the president's out there saying it he president wants to do it and present called him talk about it but the votes were there and so i think who do you think at that mistake who got to them but

who got to them meaning what where it's a little bit though the loss of the history of the private i don't know i'll be a lot of people who are going to wait for things because i don't know the next night

Carried interest has been around for a long time. The private equity people got the most attention to it, but real estate industry is the big source of carried interest taxation. And there's a real estate developer and real estate developers in every single congressional district. Private equity people might be in the big cities, but if you ask members of Congress where the political pressure is coming from, to some extent it was from the real estate industry, and to some extent it was the oil and gas industry. The oil and gas industry uses carried interest as well. So private equity people are insignificant relative to everybody else.

Interesting. Okay. That's a good answer. Other partnerships, too. It's partnership accounting, because ultimately what we're talking about is partnership accounting. Right. And that's how this really happens. That's how the real estate industry works. And it uses the partnership accounting, and the real estate developers often get carried interest. And again, they're in all 435 congressional districts. I've always sort of copped out on that in saying that a lot of these things were the envy of the world in what we do with private equity. If it's not...

If it's not broke, don't fix it. But it is sort of broke. And if you always point out in a pure fairness way,

discussion. The platonic ideal of a tax system. It doesn't make sense. The carried interest issue also doesn't pick up that much revenue. In other words, if you want to go into a fight, you should go to something that picks up revenue. It doesn't pick up revenue. You pick up revenue when you go after the middle class. That's where the money is. But it's hard to win elections. It's difficult to do. Right. It's hard to win elections. Or entitlement reform. Yeah. Entitlement reform, you know, I don't think any of us will be on the face of the earth by the time they have entitlement reform. Are you

Let me ask you this, and we're going to slip in a break. In this bill, it does, you hear the Democrats really crying about what it does to Medicaid. Is it doing enough to Medicaid right now? And does something need to be done to Medicaid? Well, you can reform everything in the federal government. You can reform everything. Medicaid is growing quicker than anything else. Medicaid is growing very, very quickly. This is money that's used for people who are really not that wealthy and they need medical assistance. Yeah, but some of them are, you know, you know the rap that

i'm not next to the medicaid but i would say that that if you challenge medicaid you want to attack attack it and change it you should do it in a reasonable way um right now they haven't had any early hearings on what is the best way to fix medicaid but medicaid is growing faster than anything else you went to duke as an undergraduate university of chicago law school what's your affiliation that you've had with harvard i had two children went to harvard and i was on the harvard corporation board for six years and um been a donor to harvard

Bill Ackman recently made some comments about the endowment at Harvard. He was talking about how that $53 billion endowment is not what it seems. I think both Harvard and Yale have come up with secondary offerings. They're taking on some of their equity holdings that they have. He thinks mark to market, if you took it down, you'd have to take a 40% discount on some of those numbers and basically said, just from his reading of the bond offering, and

and said that those universities are so reliant on government funding right now that it will be very hard for them to meet their needs because they don't have quick access or liquidity to this capital.

In the beginning of the 20th century, the best universities in the world were not in the United States. They were in Europe. In post-World War II, our universities became the best in the world. And if you take the top 25 universities in the world today, probably 20 are from the United States. That's because post-World War II, we did four things. One, we began to have big endowments, which would pay for a lot of scholarships for kids who can't afford to otherwise get these educations. Secondly, what we did is we began to have federal government put a lot of money into research and development.

And that is why the research and development in the United States is the best in the world. It's funded by the federal government, has been for a long time, NIH and the National Science Foundation. And they provided money to universities, and the universities have become really great in science and so forth. Third thing that's gone on is that we've had foreign students come in.

And foreign students have been full pay, which is to say they usually pay. And that subsidizes the U.S. students who often don't pay. And that's been a big part of the expansion and improvement of major universities in the United States. And the fourth thing is that we've basically gone to a meritocracy, more or less, which is you've got to try to get the best students

you subsidize them with financial aid, and you try to get people who are not from wealthy families only, but kids who are from lesser families to come in and ultimately become productive citizens. That model has made the universities in the United States the best in the world. Now it's under challenge, and that's in part under challenge because major universities are often seen by people around the rest of the country as being too far to the left.

Rightly or wrongly, that's the perception. And there's some punishment coming out of Washington now, and the universities have to deal with it. And it's going to be a systemic issue for all the major universities. It's not just that. It's a question of whether these universities are safe spaces for Jewish students, whether they've been under attack. There's no doubt there's been challenges, and all universities have to struggle with this because there have been protests in universities from the beginning of universities.

But the protests now have been very, I think, unfortunate in some areas, particularly some of the anti-Semitism there has produced a lot of backlash in Washington, D.C., as it should. And so that's being addressed. But right now, I hope what we don't do is ruin the major universities in the United States because

because they are one of our greatest assets. People come from all over the world because they want to get our education here. There's something in the middle, David. Yes. I think that the universities, you saw initially those three presidents in front of Congress. It was like they were so tone deaf to what was happening. Yes. And I think even Harvard, and that's Ackman's point. I mean, there's a way of approaching this where you just don't say, oh, my God.

We're not going to do anything. Where you say, look, you're right. You're right. We do have some stuff. And then if you want to resist and do it in a way that's not quite as arrogant, it just seems like. I mean, Jewish students are not safe at Harvard right now.

Well, every major university has some challenges, and that's one of the strengths of the system. We have diverse points of view. We need to cure some of those challenges actively and not just give it lip service. Can I just tell you about Apple for a second? This is actually, I want to get your view on this. Tell them the news. Yeah, shares of Apple, check it out, falling. President Trump just posted, I have long ago informed Tim Cook of Apple that I expect their iPhones...

that will be sold in the United States of America will be manufactured and built in the United States, not India or anyplace else. If that is not the case, a tariff of at least 25% must be paid by Apple to the U.S. Thank you for your attention to this matter. And

We'll take a quick look at it. I saw 195. Is it worse than that now? Well, let's look at Apple. It's down just over 3%. Yeah, Apple is down $6 or something. Let's look at Apple. Or I can tell you if we're not going to bring it up.

Apple right now bidding 195, asking 196 to close the 201. So what do you think, David? Here's here's a situation where Tim Cook has been seen as somebody who has threaded this needle with the president for quite some time. But now the president doubling down. I mean, he did make a comment just about a week and a half ago in a similar vein. I think the hope was that he wasn't going to say it again. By the way, Tim Cook was just in the White House with the president this week. No less, I believe, talking about this very topic.

The president's been very consistent on tariffs when he was president the first time and this time. And he's very clear that he wants tariffs along the way that he says. Right now, the business community is trying to figure out when the tariff agreements are going to come into effect so they know exactly what the agreements are.

The business community, by and large, says, all right, we may not like all the rules. Tell us what the rules are, and we'll try to adapt to them and comply with them. Right now, the tariff negotiations are ongoing. We don't really know what all the tariffs are. Many of the companies that we have are not yet acting as if the tariffs are in place because they don't really think that's going to happen yet. But it may happen. We don't know yet. There's got to be some...

They got to talk. Trump and Apple need to talk. But they are talking. Apparently the president, I believe, was there with Tim Cook on Wednesday. Right, I know, but this is like some type of hideous industrial policy that Republicans...

have eviscerated Democrats forever about trying to control private industry, and that's what this is. It's state control. The supply chain that we have in this country has worked reasonably well, which is to get lower-cost things into the United States that's kept inflation down. Obviously, it's denuded our manufacturing base, and some people, the president is one of them, think we should have more manufacturing in the United States. The U.S. has become largely a service economy. Right.

And there's been a lot of benefits to that. We are not yet a manufacturing hub any longer. I don't know whether the tariff policy will produce one, but the transition is going to be very difficult to get there. How do you think about both the president's words about trying to protect American business? I mean, one of the things that he's talked about is how he feels that the EU, for example, and China has taken advantage of American business.

needs to support American business, talks about governments going after Facebook, going after Apple, going after all of these companies, right? On one end, he's very critical of other countries for doing that. And now, I imagine if you're sitting inside Apple today, you're saying, what gives? Well, the president has his tweet out there or whatever it is on social media, and I'm not responding for Apple. I'm not involved with Apple. But I just look at it this way.

We are roughly 5% of the world's population, the United States, roughly 5% of the world's population, 330 million, 340 million people. But we're roughly 18 or 19% of the world's GDP. So, you know, if you've got 5% of the world's population and you're, you know, about a fifth of the world's GDP. It's called winning. It's not so bad, is it?

So there are obviously imperfections, but the United States is relatively a wealthy country. We're the wealthiest country in the world. It's not distributed equally all the time in the way it should be, but we actually have benefited from this, I'd say, this chain of lower-cost countries producing things in our country, and we like that. If you get a $10,000 iPhone, probably they won't sell as much. What do you think just of the idea of kind of...

ruling by Truth Social or Tweet or X, whatever that might be. I mean, I think the fear factor is rather high right now. Fear factor of? CEOs want to keep their head down and not get spelled out. Yes, there's no doubt. There's articles in the paper today. CEOs are, nobody likes to be criticized in public. Nobody likes that.

And no CEO really likes to be criticized in public. I don't like to be criticized in public. I assume none of you do either. And so when you're criticized by the most powerful person in the world, it has an effect on you. So what CEOs are doing, as the newspapers reported today, is basically keeping their heads down and not trying to get into a public battle with the president of the United States. Who wants to do that? Do you think that he can mobilize people, I mean, voters, if you will, or citizens, a

against certain businesses. I mean, do you think I mean, the real worry, I think, is twofold. One is that he actually does have a rabid following that if he says don't shop at Walmart shop over here, that that people will actually maybe do that. And two, that he can use potentially the regulatory apparatus in some way that harms their business. Right. Those are the sort of two big things that that I think if you're a CEO today, you worry about.

Historically, presidents haven't been able to do that. And historically, consumer boycotts haven't lasted that long or been that effective. However, this president is unique and he might be able to get things done that no other president could do. Well, I think the regulatory apparatus is probably the bigger issue. Look at Harvard right now being told that they can't keep any of their foreign students who are enrolled right now at the university. Foreign students. Foreign students are a very large part of... I don't mean to take away from that. I'm just back to Andrew's second point, the regulatory apparatus. On the foreign student point,

Every major university has foreign students now, largely because they're full pay, which is to say they're paying full freight and in fact subsidize the other students from the United States.

If you get rid of all the foreign students, you know, it's going to have some impact on the universities for sure. And other universities will suffer as well. Right now at Harvard, while I can't speak for Harvard, they are grappling with what they're going to do and can you register students and have them never come to the campus and just do it all virtually, which is what some universities do. Harvard hasn't historically done that.

I guess just back to Andrew's point, though, the regulatory apparatus is something that this president seems to control right now. The president controls the regulatory apparatus to a large extent. He's been able to put people on who really want what he wants. And so we'll see. Time will tell. It's a ticking time kind of clock because, you know, he's in power for, let's say, three and a half more years. Can you change the entire construct of the economy and the regulatory environment in three and a half years? Maybe you can. Maybe you can't. I don't know.

David Rubenstein. David, we always appreciate having you on set. Thank you. The one and only. For being here. Thank you. What was that? EU Flash?

Oh, another. There you go, Becky. Another true social post. OK, true social. Donald Trump, the president, saying the European Union, which was formed for the primary purpose of taking advantage of the United States on trade, has been very difficult to deal with. They're powerful trade barriers that taxes ridiculous corporate penalties, non-monetary trade barriers, monetary manipulations.

Unfair and unjustified lawsuits against American companies and more have led to a trade deficit with the U.S. of more than 2%.

$250 billion a year, a number which is totally unacceptable. Our discussions with them are going nowhere. Therefore, I am recommending a straight 50% tariff on the European Union starting June 1st, 2025. There is no tariff if the product is built or manufactured in the United States. Thank you for your attention to this matter. This in combination with the

Truth Social earlier attacking Apple for making its products that are sold in the United States outside of the United States. You add that up and you can see that it's been a bad morning at the White House in terms of thinking these negotiations are getting somewhere. Well, that's always been the big question. Everyone said we're going to have all these deals. We still haven't seen just about any of them. I thought India was...

supposed to be done. Japan? You can see the FTSE in Italy is the biggest decliner of the European averages. It's down by about 1.9%. And then here are the declines that you see in the United States. Dow futures down by 470 points. S&P futures off by 67. The NASDAQ down by close to 300. Joe, you mentioned that

Treasury yields were coming down. I guess that's what would happen if you thought you were approaching a recession more rapidly. 446 now. The 30 years still sitting right at 5%. We'll continue to monitor this. And coming up, someone who hangs out at the White House.

CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz on everything from trying to rein in Medicaid fix. Oh, my God. He doesn't do that to his hair anymore, fellas, ladies. Well, you'll see. We'll be on a second. Work requirements, efforts to lower prescription drug costs and making America healthy again. Squawk Box coming right back.

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Welcome back to Squawk Pod. Stand by Joe. Here's Mike. Q. Joining us now to talk Medicaid, vaccines, AI and more CMS administrator, Dr. Mehmet Oz. Dr. Oz, Mehmet, good to see you. Good to have you on this morning. Good morning, Joe.

We have been using a phrase a lot lately, and I'm talking about in terms of the reconciliation bill and that don't let the don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Everybody's talking about Ronald Reagan, who used to say, if I can get 80 percent of what I want, I'm ready to accept that negotiate. Did you get 80 percent of what you think was needed in terms of Medicaid reform in that House bill yesterday, doctor? I don't.

I think we did, Joe. And I'll tell you that for everyone listening, this is really important. The major goal in Medicaid is to align the federal government with the states. You want the governors doing the same thing for the same reasons as the federal government is doing those same things to help our most vulnerable. And the building that I work in, which is the Hubert Humphrey Building, it's where Bobby Kennedy, myself, and some of the other agencies are based, there's a little placard on the side that Hubert Humphrey

had said back in the day when the building was being built, they said the moral obligation of government is to take care of folks who are in the dawn of their life, the kids. I'll come back to them with a Maha report yesterday. Taking care of those in the twilight of their life, the seniors, that's the Medicare population, and to take care of those living in the shadows.

So I think we're doing that. But we have a malaligned system where governors often are wisely gaming this system to maximize revenue for their states. But it hurts the federal government, it hurts the taxpayers, and it actually creates an incentive for people not to participate in life.

That's why these work requirements, which was the most important thing that the House pushed forward, are so critical. And here's the key question, because it gets argued politically all the time. It's very simple. If you're going to get free food on a staff program, you have a work requirement. It's an obligation to try to work. You might not get a job, but you got to try. In Medicaid, we're saying try to get a job or volunteer. Take care of someone in your family. Go get an education. Do something that shows you have agency in your life, that you want to make a difference, the fact that you matter.

And when you don't ask that of people, you end up with generational poverty. And I've spoken to governors who, in a quiet moment, will admit that there are people in their state who will not work because they have never worked, because their parents didn't work. They don't know what it feels like to have that sense of accomplishment. And we need to change that both for the emotional well-being of our people, but it also is a budget breaker if we don't. Did it go far enough to try to balance out

You've heard how many times, Doctor, about it? It disproportionately benefits working age individuals.

versus disabled people and pregnant women. They get seven, eight, nine times the reimbursement. I think that's what you're referring to with the governors. Does the work requirements solve that? Because yesterday we had a gentleman on that said, well, we're trying to make it so Texas and Florida don't go the route of a lot of these other states in gaming. Not doing anything about the states that are already gaming the system.

but just trying to prevent more states from actually gaming the system. Well, there are hundreds of billions of dollars of savings that we're estimating, $770 billion in particular, for just getting some of these different changes through there. But the work requirement is a big part of that. And as I mentioned, it has a moral benefit as well as a financial benefit. But the fundamental disconnect, which you're touching on, but I want to clarify, is that an able-bodied individual with no kid

actually reimburses better than a pregnant woman with a kid who is disabled. I'll say that again. The original Medicaid population, you know, the young, the elderly who don't have money, a disabled child, they actually are less valuable to the health care system than an able-bodied individual who is hopefully going to get a job and move on. And that happened because of this bizarre path that we chose when we expanded Medicaid in 40 of the 50 states.

that actually reimburses higher. We pay 90% of the bills. So the states say, well, if you're gonna pay the whole bill, we're gonna just throw money at this problem, try to get as much cash into the coffers of our hospitals and other social services in our state. But it takes away the responsibility to actually manage who you're taking care of. And in some states, California is an example where illegal immigrants

are get get medicaid coverage they'll often be slippage and the federal government ends up paying for that what that really means joe is someone in mississippi is paying tax dollars so that you know immigrants benefit in california not if we as a country decide to do that that's one thing but now we have every state pulling the oars in a different direction in a crate creates the morass that uh... is on his own health care system is it is it fixed in this bill and when when the president said don't don't have to live with medicaid did that

make it more difficult to do what's necessary because once again, we're thinking about an election in two years for a lot of members of the House.

The president was powerfully protecting Medicaid, which he has said over and over again. He's going to love and cherish these programs. He doesn't want changes to Medicaid and Medicare, which are vitally important. There are 68 million people on Medicare. There's almost 80 million on Medicaid and CHIP, Children's Health Insurance. He doesn't want those hurting the vulnerable populations. That is a moral hazard. They got to be fixed. Are they fixed now with the House bill? Or does the Senate need to do more? They're talking about doing more.

Well, we have fixed the short-term budget issue. The Senate very wisely is considering whether to make structural changes to address the problem we touched on earlier. How do you get governors to want to do the exact same thing that the federal government wants? And there are some changes that will be wise for this. Our goal, as you know, is we've got a bunch of people in different roles in the cabinet that the president has wisely appointed to make a difference.

My purpose in coming into government was not to serve for a couple of years, patch up a few things on the edges and move on. It's to make deep seismic shifts so the system is healthier going forward. This is true for Medicaid, Medicare and all the social programs for health insurance in America. All right.

If you want to talk Maha, and I have said many times, Doctor, that we have Roger Altman on who had a heart transplant, and not everybody knows that he wanted one surgeon to do that heart transplant, and that was you. So you're a lot more than a TV star, obviously. Anything that Secretary Kennedy says where you go, as a doctor, where you go, I'm not comfortable with some of the...

conjecture or vaccine stuff? Were you on board with everything that Robert F. said yesterday at the White House? - The Maha report that Secretary Kennedy drove through together with Secretary Collins, of course, the president made it possible 'cause you had everybody represented. There's one goal.

It's the same thing every parent always says about what's going on in their children's lives. I want to double check to make sure everything's okay. That's what Secretary Kennedy is arguing for. We have to go back and look at what the hard science really says about many things we've taken for granted. And this is a fundamental reality of the entire Maha movement. Joe, I'm going to give you one word to define Maha.

curiosity. Are you earnestly curious? Now remember, 80% of these questions people are asking are actually statements in disguise. So do you really want to know the answer to the tough questions that moms all across America are asking about the health of their kids and why we're managing sick kids in a sick care system that is dramatically changing their futures?

And remember, unhealthy kids become unhealthy adults. So I will speak to the, not just the moral hazard of allowing kids to have the chronic illnesses that the Maha report describes, but I'm gonna reinforce what Secretary Kennedy is saying. We wanna go back and kick the tires.

and ask the fundamental questions that should have been asked back when Medicare and Medicaid were created 60 years ago. Are these really the right things to do for our kids? We've made it easy for kids to be sick in America. Three-quarters can't even serve in the military. This is your patriotic duty to keep your family healthy, but we need to help you. And this report is pushing every agency to ask those tough questions.

But as we do that, we truly want to have equipoise. You truly want to be open-minded. And if you hear things that are uncomfortable, inconvenient, you got to be courageous to share that truth. And you got to be compassionate as you do it because people don't care what you know until they know that you care. Administrator Oz, I'd ask...

how that plays out in some of the other agencies like the FDA, with Peter Marks leaving, a number of other long-term people who have been at that agency, helping companies kind of push through new and groundbreaking cures or therapies for diseases. I mean, with some of those people gone, I'm already hearing back from the industry that it is harder to get answers from the industry on how they set up their clinical trials, how they can kind of plan for the future and hope that they get some of these things passed. It...

How do you make sure that you are open and curious and thinking about all of these things without throwing out some of the great progress that has been made, including under the first Trump administration, where they streamlined some of those processes?

Well, Marty Macri is doing a superb job as FDA director. He was on the Hill yesterday articulating exactly why those accusations are incorrect. They're keeping up with the workflow. They've got excellent people coming in the government. This is a generational opportunity, Becky. You've got top notch people say, I'm going to give up what I was doing in my life.

and go in and try to serve because we can make a difference now. And so one thing that the FDA and CMS, my agency, are going to do is to collaborate a bit more so that when the FDA approves something, so they say, hey, this thing works, CMS is going to start paying for it earlier. There can sometimes be years

Joe, you've kindly mentioned our mutual friend, Roger Altman. I am a surgeon and I invent things. So one of the things that I helped create is a device that repairs valves from outside the body so you don't have to stop the heart. It took us years between when the FDA approved it and when CMS, my agency, started reimbursing for using it.

That creates a barrier for seniors and folks on Medicaid to access these cutting edge therapies. We wanna shorten that timeline. Those are the bigger structural issues we're addressing. In the meantime, there are people who have been involved in agencies who oftentimes they've been there for decades. Sometimes they lose that desire, that passion for change that I think you should have when you come into government.

I don't know the wrapping. I know you got to go. Do any NIH cuts, Doge cuts give you pause in terms of basic science, doctor?

No. Jay Bhattacharya, I've talked to him. He runs NIH. Close friend. He was at Stanford. He's a top-tier scientist. He wants the money going to the scientists. Remember, the cuts were for bureaucratic overhead that pays for middle management at universities. It was not designed to actually fund the researchers. If you're getting money from the NIH, you're still getting it. You're just not paying 70% overhead. No one in the world pays 70% overhead.

Dr. Oz, that part may be true. Separately related to Doge, there's the USAID piece of it, and you have people like Bill Gates out there saying that actually there's going to be millions of children that are not going to be able to live as a function of that as a doctor. I'm just hoping you'd weigh in on that.

it's just not a correct statement but the things that usaid were doing that are valuable we can do in other agencies we just don't want to put it in this black box that's a captured organization where you don't know where it's headed and that's actually fairly common we cut out three billion dollars in contracts

from CMS. We paid $200 million, Andrew, over the last five years, $200 million for a company that was supposed to be writing code, not one single usable line. We fired them. They don't deserve to get American taxpayer money if they're not delivering. We have business people managing engineers. I'll give you a concrete number, 13 engineers in CMS. I've got 6,500 folks working for me, 40,000 contractors. I've got 13 engineers. There's something wrong there. Let me have more engineers and less bureaucrats.

and i had just one last question it relates to snap which of course is uh money for uh folks who can't afford oftentimes to buy food it's an interesting alliance there's a piece actually that daniel k wrote in dealbook this morning about how folks like walmart and kroger and albertson's sort of an unusual alliance between

Grocery stores effectively to get actually a lot of money from SNAP and anti-hunger organizations. And I'm curious how how much you hear from both sides of those groups trying to keep that money in place and how you as a doctor think about that.

well snap's vitally important but we want kids especially because they're half 50 of kids are on medicaid or snap so it's that's that's the future of our country right they are they are now and they always will be uh but they have to get healthy food these snap waivers you're reading about our governor's saying we don't want to have a system where kids can buy junk with their snap their food stamps and then get sick and then we got to pick up the tab one in six kids is

is obese, that increases the chance of them having significant illnesses like pre-diabetes. It's about a quarter of them now get that. A quarter of them have allergies. A quarter of kids who are teen boys have ADHD. A quarter of young women, teen women, girls, have severe depression. These are major shifts. When I was growing up, those weren't the numbers. We have to intervene, and it starts with food.

because food is medicine. The Hippocratic Oath is something my son read this week because he just graduated from medical school and I was listening to it. And what they were fundamentally talking about was the most important tools are the tools you use at home. You win the battle for health in your kitchen, your living room, your bedroom. And we've forgotten that. And the SNAP program is a way of nudging people. If you're going to give them food to help them in a tough time, give them nutritious food so they're actually healthy and can go on and change the world. I can tell you it

This gentleman lives this, and before your latest gig, when we had dinner, and I reached for some butter, he slapped my hand, I was gonna order some carbonara, you're a widow, I mean, you were terrible. Terrible to don't ever go, if he asks you to go to dinner, do not go to dinner. You remember that?

- Doctor? - You ordered French fries too, I blocked that. - No, that's a lie, but I did order that carbonara. And what was the term, widow maker? I was like trying to gag it down after that. - Don't say that. - I know, horrible. - That's how you get gallbladder disease.

There you go. There you go. Well, I don't have one anymore. Yeah. Have you heard about that? So I don't need Dr. Oz about it, about the gallbladder. We've talked. OK, it's gone. It's gone. I got rid of that thing. It was gangrenous. Administrator Oz, pretty good on TV. I mean, Dr. Oz, thank you for coming on. Yeah. Thank you. Come back. God bless you all. I'm told that.

Monday is Memorial Day. - Monday is Memorial Day. - We can't forget what it's for. - It's an important day. - Can't forget what it's for, but also take advantage of maybe sleeping in a little. Make sure you join us on Tuesday.

Yes, that is Squawk Pod for today and for the week. You've made it. We've all made it to the long holiday weekend. Squawk Box is hosted by Joe Kernan, Becky Quick, and Andrew Ross Sorkin. You can tune in weekday mornings on CNBC at 6 Eastern or follow this podcast. Follow Squawk Pod wherever you like to listen to get the best of our show right into your ears whenever you want. Have a great three-day weekend, and we'll meet you right back here on Tuesday. All right, clear. Thanks, guys.

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