Paying for the American Dream & Financial Literacy 4/1/25
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Hi, I'm CNBC producer Katie Kramer. Today on Squawk Pod. Things are so expensive that we just keep borrowing? Senator Bill Cassidy on the chance to lower the national debt. If we don't live within our means, we're going to destroy the American dream. The American dream will become a nightmare. And as chair of the Senate Health Committee, Cassidy weighs in on the dramatic fight over health care federal funding. We don't want innovation not coming to market. Innovation that can actually save lives.

Then from the nation's pocketbook to our own, Operation Hope entrepreneur John Hope Bryant on Financial Literacy Month. 70% of Americans are living from paycheck to paycheck. Everybody, not poor people. Half of those making $100,000 a year are living from paycheck to paycheck.

Plus, open AI with the biggest private funding deal ever, our Kate Rooney reports. It's almost three times bigger than the prior record, which was Ant Group, raising about $14 billion. And one day more, President Trump's April 2nd tariff day quickly approaching. We still have a lot to find out over the next 24 hours. I clearly don't think he knows exactly what he wants to do at this point. He just said that he's known the whole time.

It's Tuesday, April 1st, 2025. No fooling. Squawk Pod begins right now. Stand Becky by in three, two, one. All right. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Squawk Box right here on CNBC. We're live from the Nasdaq market site in time in Times Square. I'm Becky Quick, along with Joe Kernan and Andrew Ross Sorkin. Pretty eventful day yesterday. It started out looking pretty bad in the morning. You had the futures off sharply yesterday.

And then when the market did open, I think those were the worst levels of the day. Right after the open, you saw the Dow sell off very sharply, the Nasdaq, too, and the S&P 500. But things turned around relatively quickly in that session. If you were looking to buy, you missed your opportunity if you didn't move quickly in the morning. You did see the S&P. I saw it down by 75 points at one moment through the course of the morning. The Dow was down by about 400. So was the Nasdaq, I think.

The NASDAQ was down pretty sharply, and it stayed down. It did, but it ended the day down just 24 points. Yeah, but it was down like 400 or 500. The NASDAQ was down 10% in the quarter, so that's pain. 10.4%. 10.4%. The S&P was off by 4.5%. The Dow was down by 1.25%. Gold actually seeing its best quarter since 1986. That is a blast from the past, and it's sitting at another all-time high this morning. $3,158.50 today.

an ounce and again we'll continue to watch this because it will it's surprising to see those turns the VIX was up yesterday but it's surprising to see this turn before we get the news tomorrow about tariffs that's what's had the market on edge let's talk about it because their present Trump says he is now settled on the tariff announcements that he's going to be making tomorrow but details so far at least

are scarce. Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump saying he decided a long time ago what he's going to do. So I guess we've just all been waiting for the surprise. Secretary Caroline Levitt saying Trump will announce his plans tomorrow in the White House's Rose Garden. And the goal is to announce, quote, country-based tariffs. Here's President Trump yesterday. We are going to be very nice by comparison to what they were. The numbers will be lower than what they've been charging us yesterday.

And in some cases, maybe substantially lower, but we sort of have a world obligation, perhaps. But we're going to be very nice. Relatively speaking, we're going to be very kind. Other developments on the tariff front to bring you this morning. Bloomberg are reporting that Ford, GM and Stellantis attempting a last ditch effort to try to get some car parts excluded from the tariff. Some GOP lawmakers have also been seeking last minute carve outs.

to help farmers in their states. Reuters also just reporting that drug makers, as you might imagine, lobbying the Trump administration to phase in tariffs on imported pharmaceutical products. Meantime, a social media account affiliated with Chinese state media saying that China,

Japan and South Korea agreed to respond jointly. This is interesting. We talk about retaliation to U.S. tariffs, but South Korea called that, quote, somewhat exaggerated. I don't know what somewhat means. It means they must be talking to each other in some way. Japan's saying that no discussions, though, have been taking place on that front. So a lot of information, misinformation, who knows what, just floating, and we still have a lot to find out over the next 24 hours.

Clearly don't think he knows exactly what he wants to do at this point. I mean, he just said that he's known the whole time. That's what I'm saying. So I said clearly he doesn't. I don't think that's true. Navarro obviously was bragging about six hundred billion dollars a year. It's going to be raised with tariffs. But then Hassett over the weekend would not really confirm that. I don't know. I think that's going to sink in. That is a six trillion dollar over 10 years. It would raise six trillion dollars.

But whether it's tariffs or taxes, that's money that doesn't stay in the private sector. It goes and it's gone from... If you had a $6 trillion tax cut somewhere else, it'd be more palatable, but it'll bring... It might. I mean, they're talking about using it to pay for things like no taxes on tips and different things. A little bit, but that would bring us up to 19% of what we spend on

Tariffs or taxes. Somebody's got to pay them. And we'll see. No, I'm not convinced. I don't know. We'll see tomorrow. The president himself said over the weekend that he would like to see automakers raise their prices so that you get more made in America. And he couldn't care less about the price of your cars. I think he'll care eventually, probably, considering that the whole... Especially if it's every car that uses parts that are brought in, even if they're compliant with the USMCA. Remember that? Who was that? I think that was...

that chicken guy, Purdue, but Parches. If it's more than just the luxury cars. When you win an election, when you win an election because the cudgel was 40-year highs in inflation, I don't think you really want to go back to 40-year highs in inflation. I think eventually it will occur to someone.

Johnson & Johnson is changing gears on its strategy for handling talc lawsuits that were brought by women who claim they got cancer by using the company's baby powder products. It had planned to settle a mass tort lawsuit by settling up through a trust fund through a bankruptcy of its Red River talc subsidiary.

That proposal would have set aside $9 billion for victims as part of the strategy that was known as the Texas two-step. But a U.S. bankruptcy judge dismissed that proposal, finding that a vote by the cancer victims on the proposal was flawed. He said the voting time for thousands of creditors was unreasonably short. It was 90 days. This was something that we watched very closely last year as they were going through it. They did receive in their voting more than 85% of the plaintiffs who agreed to go along with this deal.

J&J is accusing lawyers opposed to the bankruptcy settlement of being motivated by their own financial interests to defeat the deal and keep the lawsuits rolling. The company now says that it will return to fighting cancer claims in court and is reversing $7 billion of the money that it had previously reserved for compensation. J&J says that it has no intent to settle or pay plaintiffs' lawyers on what it is calling meritless claims.

J&J denies that the powder is harmful, but it stopped selling talc-based baby powder back in the U.S. in 2020. Now, I just spoke with the company about some of these issues, and I will tell you they are coming out swinging on this. Here's what they're talking about. They say, this is from Johnson & Johnson, the company, this was our best and final offer.

And they feel confident in going ahead and reversing that $7 billion that they had set aside in their coffers for payments on these. They point out that they have won 16 out of 17 lawsuits over the last 11 years on this. And based on the number of lawsuits that are out there, it would take 2,500 years to adjudicate each and every one. They say that was part of the reason that they were trying to move ahead with this.

Also saying that sovereign wealth funds got involved with the plaintiff's lawyers to actually fund them to go ahead with it. And as a result, they said at some points there were 113 ads an hour running to not sign on with the with the settlement that, again, they say more than 85 percent.

of the plaintiffs took. They also are pointing out that there are new federal standards involved that would put the burden of proof on the plaintiffs. That's different than the burden that existed in the past where basically it was on the company to prove that they didn't do harm. And the judge in this case who's involved with these, Judge Schiff, who's in the Third Circuit in New Jersey, has already said that the judge will be applying that new federal standard to it. So they feel very confident in what they were doing with this.

And they say that they've been talking to people on Capitol Hill, including Jim Jordan, to look at tort reform, trying to fix what they are calling a broken system. That's this morning because it was up $2 yesterday to $1.65. So that's a trade that's happening today. I can't believe it was still around in 2020. You know, I've railed about this. You've stopped using it for years. 25 years ago. Just because of the...

the chemical structure was not similar to asbestos, but it looked like it could be carcinogenic. And I remember we were in the old, we were out in Fort Lee, and I asked one of the CEOs, at least one, and I said, I wouldn't,

go near that stuff for my wife. You said you started using cornstarch. Because I wouldn't put it on myself. Even if it could be transmitted to my wife some way, God knows how. But, you know, and I don't use any of it anymore. But, yeah, you had to be crazy to be using that in 2020. You had to just...

The company has a call with investors coming up. They're not admitting there's anything. They've never admitted there's a problem with talc. They've never admitted there's a problem at all. No. And it's still in gold bond, and it's still in some other things. Maybe it's not. It used to be. You could still get talc in a men's locker room that wasn't cornstarch. I don't know anymore. Check out the Shares of News, Max. I was watching it yesterday. I thought it was...

up 10 at 83 or something but no that's not what happened oh my god uh it was like it came it was at 10 and i didn't close it at 83 so it was up 73 at 83 shares rose 735 percent in the stock market

for the conservative cable channel yesterday. Andrew, it almost seemed like too social. Some bankers should get in trouble for this. I think they're happy, though. Chris Ruddy's a billionaire, the guy suddenly into the ranks. I think where the stock is right now... When you think about all the money that you ostensibly... Could have.

Could have or should have raised. Theoretically, maybe. I think they're fine. This is real money. They're real human beings who put money behind it. We've argued about this before because they only sold a small part of the company. So now the entire company is valued. So I would do it that way. I would do it so that you sell 1%, suddenly it's valued at $11 or $12 billion. The problem is if Chris were to try to sell it right now, the whole thing would get punctured. Came at $10, opened at $14,000.

Closed above 83, and now you can see it at $93 on Friday.

The company said it raised $75 million for the sale of 7.5 million Class B shares. Newsmax has grown its audience in recent years as President Trump has come to dominate Republican politics and has now offered through most major TV, paid TV providers. I was kidding about Newsmax last week when Trump went on with Greg Kelly, who's fantastic, but I was kidding that, where do you go next? He's...

you know, the friendly or safe places are running out. And I'm not saying that he doesn't get a tough interview on Newsmax, but I mean, he's been on every hour of Fox at this point and his minions, every single eight, nine, 10, they're on completely. So,

For the first six months of 2024, Newsmax revenue was up about 33 percent. So it surged to about four biggest cable dollars. But it's a loss widened to fifty five and a half dollars versus the point eight million they've lost in this. So what was that yesterday? Is that GameStop? What was what's today? I let's see. Let's see where the stock is in a week or two.

Or three. Okay, Mr. Big Xan, let's then short it. No, I'm just saying, I'm not shorting anything. I'm just saying, let's see what it is. Well, that was something to behold. And I'm mentioning off camera, I'm not going to mention it on camera, that it's worth more than the New York Times right now. I know that's probably... But can you believe that? In one day? 11 or 12, what's the New York Times? I think it's eight. Is that eight? Do you know? Do you follow closely? Do you want me to look? What do you think it's going to be compared to Spinko? I'm a fraction.

I think a fraction of what's being... That's our upcoming company, and we're going to... We have great assets in there. What do we have? About $8 billion in revenues, probably? Golf Channel, CNBC, MSNBC. Is USA? We can only hope, then, that we get this kind of... That was my point yesterday. Honestly, my point. Content is worth... Is it streaming? I don't know. Is it cable? I don't know. But content is worth something. Isn't this...

Wasn't this content more valuable than people thought Newsmax content? I don't know. We'll see. Tease will be next.

Coming up next on Squawk Pod, Republican Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana. April 2nd, tomorrow is tariff day. What levies actually make sense? I've been promoting what I call a foreign pollution fee. So if China ignores environmental laws, it lowers their cost of manufacturing by 20%. My fee, if you will, would put a tariff on goods coming from a country like China roughly equal to what they're not spending to control inflation.

Plus, the senator doctor hyphenate weighs in on Health and Human Services Secretary RFK Jr. and the turnover at the FDA. We'll be right back.

The U.S. and China are competing for global leadership. The country who wins will define the world we live in. U.S. international assistance is vital to our national security. It helps prevent terrorism and avoid costly wars. It fights diseases and saves lives. It helps keep America as the number one economy in the world. U.S. international assistance protects our interests at home and abroad. If America doesn't lead, China will.

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Learn more at Freshworks.com. This is Squawk Pod. Up in Andrew Q. You're watching Squawk Box right here on CNBC. I'm Andrew Osorkin, along with Joe Kernan and Becky Quick. We've got a lot going on. Congress remains split on a reconciliation bill, but our next guest says that the government must first address its out-of-control spending and debt.

Joining us right now is Senator Bill Cassidy. He's a member of the Finance Committee and he chairs the Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee. Senator, thank you for being with us this morning. You've got concerns about our debt. How do you think that should be dealt with with our upcoming budget plans?

First, let's explain the concerns. Right now, we have $36 trillion in debt. Right now, if we do nothing, if you stay on autopilot, we'll add another $21 trillion over the next 10 years. And if we're not careful with the reconciliation bill and other spending programs, we'll add $8 to $11 trillion on top of that.

We may in 10 years have $65 trillion in kind of like net present value in debt. Now, that's going to drive up the 10-year treasuries. That's going to destroy the American dream. You want a mortgage? It's going to be too expensive. You want to finance a car? Too expensive. Credit card debt? Way, you better pay that balance every month.

Student loans, I can keep going. Anything with a variable interest is gonna be much higher than now, destroys the American dream. We need to kind of take care of the debt to keep that from happening. - Senator, I don't disagree with you on that, but let's lay out what the president has said he would like to see passed. He wants to extend the 2017 tax cuts. He wants to expand the SALT deduction.

enact tax breaks for goods that are made in America, cut taxes on tips, overtime pay, Social Security benefits, eliminate tax breaks for carried interest and stadium owners. Maybe that offsets it some. But if you add all that up, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget said that that would cut revenue by somewhere between $5 and $11.2 trillion over the next 10 years.

it would boost debt to between 132 to 149 percent of GDP by 2035 versus almost 100 percent today and 118 percent under current law. So which of those things would you take out and say this is not going to be allowed or accepted? Or how do you make how do you pay for all of those things that are in it?

President has said, for example, that he doesn't want to touch Medicare and Medicaid. What he means is not don't go after things which was inappropriate spending. He's saying don't cut benefits to beneficiaries. And so anyone who thinks that we can't find savings in the federal government, I mean, the federal government's got savings all over the place. And so if we can't go to the federal government and say we can do something more efficient, then...

Mike, you're just not looking. Doge, which has some excesses, but some of what Doge is doing is quite on point, is an example of taking three agencies with similar functions and trying to combine them to one agency that kind of spans the breadth, saving the taxpayer lots of money.

Let's bring that approach not to just what Doge is doing, discretionary spending, but let's look at Medicare. Is there some way that we can cut Medicare so that it's, excuse me, reform Medicare so that benefits stay the same, but that is less expensive, more efficient? I would say that there is, and that's where our opportunity lies. So you agree with all of those tax cuts and tax plans, and you think it can all be paid for just with efficiency that we find in other areas of the government?

I'm going to say I agree with them all. If we're going to extend present policy's current baseline just to go into procedures, I want to pay for that.

Figure out how to pay for it. It's really good to make things permanent, but you got to be able to live within your means. And so I'm all about that. Because if we don't live within our means, we're going to destroy the American dream. The American dream will become a nightmare of expensive rates that are too high and people unable to afford mortgages, car notes, etc.

There was an idea floated by Axios this week. They were reporting that it's being discussed in the White House at this point to allow taxes on the wealthiest Americans to go up, allow that to go back up to thirty nine point six percent from the thirty seven percent it was under the 2017 agreement and using that to then pay for no taxes on tips. Would you agree with that?

I'd rather see everything as part. If you give me an isolated something, it's hard to judge. Whatever is in the final package has got to be part of a package. So if the president says, wait a second, I want to give a little extra dollar for the person who's at the lower end of the spectrum and ask people at the upper end of the spectrum to pay for it, that obviously reflects the president's kind of instinct.

So that needs to be part of a package brought before us. My point, though, is that we've got to pay for whatever we do, live within our means, because if we don't live within our means, the American dream becomes a nightmare. Senator, if we did the the the tariffs and Navarro says six hundred billion in tariffs a year.

Do you believe that that could be used to pay for some of this stuff? Is that the same as raising taxes? I mean, it is the same as raising taxes, but do you believe that money could actually be used to offset some of the other things the president wants to do? Is that the real world? Could that happen? - So, yeah, so a couple things.

Just to go into process, if the executive branch puts a tariff on, then we cannot claim it for an offset in reconciliation. If the congressional branch puts a fee or tariff on incoming goods, we can use it. I've been promoting what I call a foreign pollution fee, which is so China ignores the

environmental laws, it lowers their cost of manufacturing by 20%. My fee, if you will, would put a tariff on goods coming from a country like China roughly equal to what they're not spending to control inflation.

that would level the playing field and encourage them to clean up their act literally, but also encourage in the meantime companies to reshore here. So that would be a congressionally instituted fee, and that could count towards reconciliation. Now, if the president does something

I'm almost agnostic. I just want to make sure that we pay for it. And if technically we can't use it because it's in the executive, but no, it's actually bringing revenue to our government and the president can pull it off, I'm all for it.

Senator, you're a doctor as well as a senator. And we've listened to you for a long time, asked you about questions about things on medical issues. You were looking like you were going to be the lone holdout to confirm RFK Jr. to HHS.

You went ahead and went along with it. And we have seen some big changes that have taken place there, including Peter Marks stepping down. The Wall Street Journal editorial page yesterday had an opinion piece or an op-ed piece that basically said, RFK Jr. is already vindicating his critics because of Peter Marks stepping down and other changes they see there in terms of who's being put in. David Geyer, an anti-vaccine crusader, being put in charge there. Do you have any concerns about what you've seen? No.

Well, first, let me say of Marty Makary, the doctor who's now in charge of FDA, it's his responsibility to make sure that Peter Marks is replaced by somebody with a similar credentials scientifically and medically.

If he does that, then this will blow over. So I think the test is in who replaces Dr. Marks. As regards David Geyer, RFK tells me that he's merely going to help look at the data. I don't think Dr. Geyer, Mr. Geyer is not a doctor, is qualified. But we'll see what the administration decides to do with that.

And there's a lot at stake. If we see the kind of continued increase of measles cases and, God forbid, another child dying from a vaccine preventable disease, that's going to be a problem. It's going to be a tragedy, but it'll be a political problem for the administration. I'm sure they're aware of that. And so so stop the tragedy and never have to worry about the political problem. But I'm trusting Dr. McCary to pull this off. And by the way, Joe, I hope your reflex is doing better.

You don't want to get me started. I don't have it. I had a gallbladder. You're a doctor. I had a gangrenous cholecystitis, which is necrosis of my entire gallbladder. It's gone now, and the GERD is gone. You lost weight, too? It wasn't GERD. You've lost a lot of weight. I lost 15 pounds, but I don't think it was ever GERD. It's really unbelievable. It's crazy. But it got bad. I didn't know it. I was misdiagnosed. I should sue.

No, I'm sorry. Senator, very quickly, you said that Peter Marks should be replaced by someone with his same ilk. We had Dr. Scott Gottlieb on with us yesterday. Obviously, he was the head of the FDA in the last Trump administration. And he said the big concern about Marks leaving isn't just what he was dealing with with vaccines, but with innovation writ large.

that he had been responsible for moving a lot of therapies forward for children and for other areas, and really pushing the FDA to do some new things. He was concerned about the message this sends to innovators everywhere, and we did see biotech stocks off sharply yesterday.

So all I can say is who replaces him? Is he replaced with someone who similarly emphasizes innovation and rapidity of getting things through? If he's replaced with that person, then I think we can kind of relax. And if not, that'll be a bad signal. It'll be a terrible signal because we don't want innovation not coming to market, innovation that can actually save lives. We want that coming sooner, not later. And that's the promise of this administration.

Okay. Senator Cassidy, thank you. Thank you. Next on SquawkPod, OpenAI's massive funding deal. And April is Financial Literacy Month, and the stats around Americans and money can be troubling. Operation Hope's John Hope Bryant joins us. You need the average American to have confidence, and that's why I think financial literacy needs to become a civil rights issue in this country. We need to teach it K through 12, if not K through college.

The U.S. and China are competing for global leadership. The country who wins will define the world we live in. U.S. international assistance is vital to our national security. It helps prevent terrorism and avoid costly wars. It fights diseases and saves lives. It helps keep America as the number one economy in the world.

U.S. international assistance protects our interests at home and abroad. If America doesn't lead, China will. Start a business that sells decorative plates. Find out you have to track expenses. Use Intuit QuickBooks to auto-track expenses so you can keep spinning, uh, selling those plates. Manage and grow your business all in one place. Intuit QuickBooks, your way to money. You're listening to Squawk Pod from CNBC. Here's Joe Kernan.

OpenAI closed the funding round that raised the most money ever

by a private tech company. Kate Rooney joins us with the details. Hi, Kate. Hi, Joe. Good morning. So OpenAI announcing a record-breaking $40 billion deal, which values the company at $300 billion. That is behind only SpaceX and TikTok parent company ByteDance in private markets. SoftBank is leading this funding round. They're going to be putting in $30 billion with a caveat, though. So if OpenAI's plan to restructure to a fully for-profit, if that's not wrapped up,

By the end of this year, SoftBank's investment will ratchet down by $10 billion to a $20 billion total there. OpenAI did start originally as a nonprofit and has been attempting to restructure as an independent for-profit while spinning out the charity. Elon Musk, who's also a co-founder, has sued to block that. The rest of OpenAI's funding is going to be made up of a syndicate fund.

of investors. That includes names like Microsoft. You've got KOTU, Altimeter, Thrive as well in there. Other investors, OpenAI did disclose last night that ChatGPT, it's chatbot, has roughly 500 million weekly active users. So that's up

For a little bit of context, from rather $400 million just last month. So at this price tag, guys, investors are really betting that some of that explosive growth can continue here. It does mark the largest private financing, as I mentioned, on record. Even if it is pared back at those numbers, it's almost three times bigger than the prior record, which was Ant Group raising about $14 billion back in 2018. That was followed by Juul.

and Databricks. It also tops some of the biggest IPOs in history. Saudi Aramco, even if it was adjusted for inflation, brought in less than $30 billion. It's according to Renaissance Capital, then Alibaba, and SoftBank itself raised around $21 billion. It does underline this shift we're seeing from public to these private mega deals, especially for AI, plus this endless need for capital from a lot of these AI players to pay for things like infrastructure and computing power. Guys, back to you. All right.

uh... something every day on this seems like thank you cape april is uh... financial literacy month the joints right now is john hope bryant operation hope founder and c_e_o_ on c_b_c_ contributor is great to see you john uh... ought to be we are it is not a joke

I know it's April 1st, but it's an important situation. Let's talk about financial literacy first and then maybe get into, well, everything that's in the headlines right now. But in terms of where you think this country is in terms of understanding what's going on. And by the way, there's an importance to actually being financial literate because it might help you understand the impact tariffs and all of the other policy things that are going on.

Sort of what do you think it looks like today versus what it looked like even 10 or 20 years ago? Have we improved?

- Have we proved financial literacy? No. But we've forgotten in the last 20 years sort of our business plan for America. We've forgotten that folks coming from the bottom, becoming sort of capitalists at the bottom 33% of whoever happens to be there, you know, used to be white Europeans in the early 20th century, by the way, who are always at the bottom giving them a shot to come up the ladder to the top

was always a business plan. And that grew the GDP and grew the economy because with 70% of the economy is consumer spending. Most people don't.

know that 70% of GDP is consumer spending. And about 40% of that are diverse markets, by the way, including women. So everybody has to have confidence. This is Squawk Box, so of course you talk to markets. Markets have to have confidence. And when they don't, they tend to take their foot off the gas, maybe on the brake even, put their foot on the brake. But whether you're at the kitchen table, Andrew, or whether you're at the boardroom table,

You've got to have confidence in the markets and the market. So the average person needs confidence in the market. John, here's my question. You got a new survey, and the numbers are not good in terms of people's confidence. Three out of four participants not confident the economy will remain stable. Four out of five workers say they feel their income is not keeping up with rising costs. Fifty-three percent think the change in administration is not increasing job growth. Fifty-one say they're less optimistic about housing. I mean, these numbers are not good, and yet I imagine these people voted. Or maybe they didn't. I don't know.

- I think that people, well, some people voted. Some people voted in the third election, which was the couch, and they just stayed home 'cause they were just completely confused. Whatever it is, we're all in this thing together right now, and we've got an administration that we needed to win. I'm going to see the Secretary of the Treasury, as you know, Andrew, later today at his invitation to kick off Financial Literacy Month. I actually have great confidence in the Secretary of the Treasury. I think he's a good man.

and very smart. And he knows that you've got to have market confidence. You have to have confidence in the market by everybody, which I think is why he wants to have a real conversation, not just about the symbolism of financial literacy, but

the real economic impact of it. I hope to have a really substantive hour-long meeting with him today. This is... What are you going to talk about as it relates to tariffs and the potential cost to consumers? And is there an argument in your mind that there's short-term pain to be had? This is the eat your vegetables idea. There's no cheese on top of the broccoli, but maybe you can get the cheese, you know, a couple years from now. Well...

Here's the problem with all of this, Andrew. I've already told you that 70 percent of the economy is consumer spending. What people don't know is that 70 percent of Americans are living from paycheck to paycheck—everybody, not poor people, everybody. In fact, looking at our viewers here, half of those making $100,000 a year are living from paycheck to paycheck. A third of those making $250,000 a year are living from paycheck to paycheck.

If you've been living in Manhattan, where you are right now, you make $100,000, it feels like $39,000, and that was last year. So some people just don't have the time to wait things out. What's gonna happen—here are the facts of the matter. Tariffs are gonna raise consumer prices. There's almost no choice of that. The retailers will have to pass those costs on to someone at a time where inflation is sticky because of COVID, which was bipartisan recovery, by the way, from the pandemic.

The pandemic recovery plan was bipartisan. So that's going to—so that inflation number is sticky because of that. That's not going to go away anytime soon. Then you're going to have tariffs, which are going to temporarily at least stab prices up a little bit more. People are talking about eggs and gas and food and clothing. This is not like fancy, flossy stuff. This is basics.

And you need these people to have—you need the average American to have confidence. And that's why I think financial literacy needs to become a civil rights issue in this country. We need to teach it K through 12, if not K through college. Financial literacy and AI literacy has to be the priority between now and 2030 as part of the business plan for this country. And if we do that, you can trigger—you can take the bottom 33 percent, as I said earlier, and turn them into capitalists.

And we can actually grow ourselves out of this. You can't cut yourself out of this completely. That's just mathematically impossible. But you can add 2% to 3% of GDP, gross domestic product, by empowering the bottom of the economic pyramid and tooling them up to adding to the economy in the next two or three years. It's very actually encouraging. That's why we're meeting on April 4th in Memphis where Dr. King was assassinated, a broad coalition of Republicans and Democrats, blacks and whites, rich and poor,

And that's why we have Green Sox Day at the end of this month, which is trying to get everybody to agree on a color we agree on, which is at least green. John, one thing I just got to ask you, and then we've got to run, but it's an important one that we could have a whole broadcast about, which is...

You're going to visit with the Treasury Secretary. This is an administration that is as anti-DEI as they come, effectively ending DEI programs, not just in the government, but taking on private institutions around the country. What is the message that you have for them on that front, given your advocacy over the years?

Oh, I could care less about DE&I. It's been weaponized. It's been politicized. First of all, it was designed badly because it was made emotional. It was good intentions, but made emotional. Anything you do emotionally is a bad decision. So I don't care about DE&I. I love diversity.

and diversity, I mean, demographics are destiny. You know, women saved this economy. I know Becky's on set. You know, our mothers didn't have the right to have a bank account in 1972 or get a loan unless her husband co-signed it. Not 1872, 1972. And that was an argument over affirmative action and who got it. Well, they're a third of the U.S. economy today, women.

or a third of the U.S. economy. So that argument we won. Here we are at this inflection point again. Let's figure out we're better together. We don't want to be speaking Mandarin in 20 years because we argued with each other. Everybody wants to be an American but Americans. John, I don't want to press you on this, but we had lots of conversations after George Floyd was murdered. And you made some very powerful arguments around DEI.

But I wasn't talking about DEI. I never actually mentioned the phrase DEI. I could care less about the program. I am passionate about diversity.

So an inclusive economy is the only way we win. That's my point. Whether you're poor white in West Virginia or you're black and brown in Detroit or you're a woman or you're Asian or you're Native American on an Indian reservation. Right. Here's the piece that I'm maybe I'm missing something. We have conversations, so many conversations about how you felt that there needed to be better representation on boards, better representation at the top of corporations. We have those conversations.

I still believe that. I still believe that. I just don't care about, what I'm saying is that, in my opinion, the program DE&I,

got weaponized, and I do believe that part of the country went too far with stupid things like, in my opinion, defund the police and arguing over stuff that doesn't really matter or is just silly. So we have too far to the left, and now, in my opinion, we're going too far to the right. Most people are in the middle, and most people are rational. What we need is a radical movement of common sense, and common sense says that my rich friends and my poor friends do better only to stay rich.

particularly when you have a majority, 40% of this country is black and brown today. This is not me saying this, this is just a fact. There's not enough college educated, successful white men to drive GDP for the next 20 years. That's not my opinion. It's a mathematical fact. So we are all in this boat together. You can take no pleasure, Andrew, in the fact that there's a hole in my end of our boat. Like we can't say, ha, ha, ha, you're losing when we're all losing because we're all not in the economy. So the color is green.

And I think that, as you know, and as Joe knows who's there, diverse economies are the most profitable. You're there in New York. Diverse companies are the most profitable. This is not

This is not my statistics. This is just the facts. I like math because it doesn't have an opinion. So I'm not for DEI. I'm for an inclusive, diverse America where we all have a shot at the ring. OK, John, we got to leave it there. Wish you luck today with the Treasury secretary and hope to talk to you soon. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Andrew. You bet.

And that is Squawk Pod for today. Thank you for listening on this April Fool's Day. No joke. Squawk Box is hosted by Joe Kernan, Becky Quick, and Andrew Ross Sorkin. Tune in weekday mornings on CNBC at 6 Eastern. To get the smartest takes and analysis from our TV show right into your ears, 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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