The Queen of Cable & the U.S. Education Secretary 5/28/25
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Hi, I'm CNBC producer Katie Kramer. Today on Squawk Pod. The president takes on one of America's most elite institutions, Harvard, set to lose money and contracts from the Trump administration. Education Secretary Linda McMahon on this unprecedented back and forth and the drive to remove foreign students from campus. Not everyone, but there are foreign students who come to this country, I do believe, who helped create this unrest. There are activists who come in.

And resumes everywhere, but not a job to land? Cable industry veteran and author Bonnie Hammer says artificial intelligence has taken a toll on the newest crop of job applicants. I was always told once I graduated, I would then get a job. If I got really good grades, I'd get a great job.

And that's not what's happening. Plus, it's a stressful but exciting time to be a New York Knicks fan. The crypto world unites in Las Vegas. And Elon Musk is on the record with some doubts about the president's big, beautiful reconciliation bill. He's sad about Doge, right? Right. It's Wednesday, May 28th. Squawk Pod begins right now. Stand back, you buy in three, two, one. Cue, please.

Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Squawk Box right here on CNBC. We're live from the Nasdaq market site in Times Square. I'm Becky Quick, along with Joe Kernan and Andrew Ross Sorkin. SpaceX launching its Starship rocket last night from its facility in Texas. Although the launch was successful, the unscrewed mission encountered problems about 30 minutes into the flight. The first stage heavy booster exploded shortly before an expected splashdown.

and fuel leaks on the upper stage vehicle causing it to spin uncontrollably before it planned reentry back into Earth's atmosphere. Now, before breaking apart, it made further into space than ever before. The 400-foot tall spaceship being developed to be used for future missions to Mars. CEO Elon Musk saying that SpaceX plans to increase the frequency of Starship launches to about every three to four weeks. So this is just the beginning of that.

And then of course there's this other news that Elon Musk made. He had actually said something like this, what you're about to talk about, online last week on X, but it's gotten a lot more attention just even the past 24 hours. How's that set up for you? Well, I think the launch actually was screwed, is what happened. I think it was unscrewed. It was uncrewed. The only thing I thought watching that was, man, rocket science is hard.

It is. It's weird, too. You wonder how you fix it, and once you fix it, is it fixed? Forever? Yeah. Because you don't want someone on there. The wording is rapid disassembly. Unscheduled disassembly. Here's the other news. If you're heading up Doge, you probably never are going to be that happy with satisfying all the constituencies in the Republican Party. This is...

what he said the head of the department of government efficiency speaking out against president trump's big beautiful bill that passed the house last week must did an interview with cbs uh sunday morning that is set to air this weekend and here's a clip that was released by cbs last night i was like disappointed to see the massive spending vote frankly uh

which increases the budget deficit, not just decrease it. And that reminds the work that the Doge team is doing. I think a bill can be big or it can be beautiful. But I don't know if it could be both. My personal opinion. And those concerns echo those of some Republican senators who are pushing for more spending cuts. I don't know. This is the two years.

You finally get in. I've said it again and again. You finally get in and you're already worried about getting reelected. And you've got blue state guys, you've got gals, and you've got, you know, Trump wins by 30% people on the other side. So it's like a fractured House and Senate. It's messy. Intra. Intra party. Intra Senate, intra House. The good, you know, you don't want to give up the good for the perfect, but there's certainly...

when you got all three branches, you shouldn't be worried. That's why term limits make sense. But it's such a slim margin. But you shouldn't be worried about what happens in two years. You should do what you have to do when you get a chance to do it. And Democrats didn't do it either. Everybody's worried. They love being there so much. It's hard to win elections when you start taking things away from people. What's so great about it? I think they love the power of

of being in Congress. Well, there's a former congressman who's come in recently, who I won't name names, but that was the one thing he said, you know, power of the subpoena. Power of the table near a waiter, I guess. Andrew, the other thing, just talking about how Musk said this last week on social media, but saying it in person on camera like that does catch more attention. And he's been doing quite a lot of

around his return to his companies, right? To SpaceX and to Twitter, or to X, and specifically to Tesla, too. And that's kind of him signaling to everybody, I am back in it running these companies. And the more he says it, though, but the more he says that, I mean, he's saying that for two reasons. One is he's sad about Doge, right? Right. Spent all this time on Doge. Right. They do all the things. They do all that stuff. And then they undo, I mean, effectively, in terms of dollar numbers. They outspend it, right.

It doesn't even, it's almost like it shouldn't even have happened. It undermines what they're trying to do. Right. Exactly.

On the other end, by saying this, it also, I think, to the extent he wants to, and I don't know if he wants to separate himself from the president, but to the extent that he's wanting to say, look, I really am back in business, and I'm not really that as engaged with what's going on in Washington. I think he says what he thinks, too. I think you're right that he is disappointed by what happened with Doge. He's not somebody who has to count out to anybody else's line on this. He says what he thinks. When we hit $2 trillion or whatever we hit for a deficit, and someone says, what the hell happened, Elon? Right.

He's going to say, I told you I, you know, it gives him some cover that no one control can control either party in terms of deficits and growing government. Crypto enthusiasts, a gathering in Vegas for Bitcoin 2025. Our Mackenzie Segalis is there with the key issues at the conference this morning. What's going on?

So, Andrew, one year after Donald Trump helped bring crypto into the GOP mainstream with a surprise keynote at this very conference, his vice president is picking up the mantle. J.D. Vance headlines the main stage with a message casting crypto as central to the Trump administration's economic agenda. A source familiar with his speech tells NBC News that

He'll contrast Trump's pro-crypto stance with what he'll call Biden-era over-regulation, pledging to cut red tape and expand everyday access to digital assets. Now, expectations are high. Bitcoin is up 61% since Trump gave the keynote here last year.

You've also got Capitol Hill's top crypto backers on site this week talking specifics on stablecoin legislation. Senator Cynthia Lummis says that Republicans and Democrats have been negotiating for weeks and a cloture vote on the Genius Act is now set for Monday. House Majority Whip Tom Emmer and Senator Bill Hagerty say they're confident that Congress can pass both stablecoin and market structure bills before the August recess, just as President Trump requested. And in terms of the affirmation

Afterparties on the ground here. Tuesday night, Vance was the featured guest at a private fundraiser in Las Vegas hosted by MAGA Inc. with tickets starting at $1 million a CD, but no word yet on the total raised by the pro-Trump super PAC. Andrew? So what happens in Vegas doesn't really stay in Vegas is what you're basically saying. I'm curious about Bitcoin and sort of the breakout, which way it could go. Obviously,

I think your crowd is praying for it to go up more than it is now. What are they talking about there?

Well, so much of it is just tied to consumer confidence. And so when you had that positive read come in yesterday on easing trade tensions, a consumer confidence gauge and may being a lot higher than expected, it goes a long way because in the medium and short term, there are no bearish trends with the economy. But what was surprising is you had Trump media announce that they're going to launch this two and a half billion dollar Bitcoin corporate treasury. The stock

plunged at the end of the day down more than 10%, which was surprising because when the company announced a push into financial services with TruthFi in a partnership with Crypto.com to launch these crypto ETFs, shareholders were pretty bullish on it. But to your larger question, what are people on the ground here saying? It is just this very aggressive atmosphere of the White House descending on Vegas, talking up a lot of pro-crypto policies. And if

If Senator Hagerty is right and they can get the stablecoin and market infrastructure bill passed into the president's desk by August, that would go a long way toward institutional adoption, which is where you really start to see the industry scale. OK, Mackenzie, thank you. Appreciate it. Developing story buzzing on Wall Street this morning, a federal judge striking down an executive order from President Trump that had targeted the law firm William Wilmer Hale.

Judge's 43 page or 73 page decision, including more than two dozen exclamation points and reads in part. The cornerstone of the American system of justice is an independent judiciary and an independent bar that's willing to tackle unpopular cases. However, daunting the founding fathers knew this.

Exclamation point. This is now the third time this month that a judge has ruled against President Trump's efforts to punish law firms with employees who are viewed as his political enemies or have challenged the White House and its initiatives. And interestingly, the big question now is whether law firms like Paul Weiss, Skadden and some of the others that effectively capitulated and settled these cases early are now saying that they I mean, had they even had they gone with WilmerHale, they would have won the case.

I mean, it's a very straight situation. I think everybody knew that what the White House was doing was illegal, that the judges were going to come down on the side of the law firms. And what happened was you had a situation where Paul Weiss specifically, because they were really the first to go, decided that their commercial interest, they were convinced that their commercial interest was greater, either short or longer term than some other interest. Right.

And you had, interestingly, just so many lawyers inside these firms, almost like an intramural feud going on about whether they should be doing this. You had some threatening that they were going to leave. You had the corporate lawyers threatening to say, you need to go along with Trump because I'm going to lose my corporate clients. And you had the litigators saying, this is completely an immoral, crazy thing, and it's against the oath of being a lawyer because our job is to represent people in these kind of circumstances. So...

Here we have it. I'm sure this case, by the way, will be appealed by the Trump administration and may ultimately end up at the Supreme Court. So we'll see where it lands. I wonder what the timeline would be for that to go in the Supreme Court. Oh, I imagine that would be years. I mean, I think there's, because there'd be, yeah, at least a year or two.

A performance, not by the Knicks necessarily, but what a performance by Halliburton. Last night we'll talk about that in a second. The New York Knicks, one loss away from elimination. The Indiana Pacers took game four last night. It was a triple-double for Tyrese Halliburton, first player in playoff history to record at least 30 points, 15 assists, and 10 rebounds.

No turnovers. Did not commit a turnover. And actually, 12 rebounds. It was 32 points, 15 assists, 12 rebounds, no turnovers. His dad was back. His dad, John, was back in the field house. This is the way that the New York Post... I mean, that's cold, I think, to...

Brunson got fouled and got knocked down, but to show him down there like, ugh. Brunson's been unbelievable. He has been, but it's been 51 years. And people were, I don't know if I ever really thought they were going to win everything, but it's been a 51-year drought. But it's given the city a lot of, I mean, people, all the celebrities are out. You know, Timothee Chalamet is there. Ben Stiller and just all the... Spike Lee. Spike Lee.

it's exciting it's exciting for new york and by the way it's an exciting year for villanova too not only do they have this whole team with brunson and the rest of them they've got the pope over too yeah um but it it it's you know you can't take anything away from brunson he's been amazing he had like 31 points last night yeah he did but he's the fourth quarter he says he didn't he's got to step it up yeah game five tomorrow night back here uh in new york

3-1. Uphill battle, but you never know.

Teas will be next. Coming up on Squawk Pod, Education Secretary Linda McMahon, the Trump administration is pressuring Harvard and eyeing other revenue streams, like treating rich universities more like corporations. It's billions of dollars that could come into the government if this endowment revenue is taxed. Boy, and how could we use those billions of dollars? Could they provide other scholarships? Could they provide money in other forms?

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EY, shape the future with confidence. This is Squawk Pod. Stand by, Joe. Here's Mike. The Trump administration intends to cancel all remaining federal contracts with Harvard University. Harvard President Alan Garber calls President Trump's actions perplexing and vows to stand firm in the university's actions. Joining us now, U.S. Education Secretary Lynn McMahon. Madam Secretary, it's good to have you on this morning. Thanks for joining us.

Thank you for having me. You can convince me on some of this stuff, although I have a few problems. I think if I had to sum it up, you got to break a few eggs to make an omelet. But we're certainly breaking a few eggs. And what worries me is

is that I know Harvard is kind of an easy target probably in a lot of parts of the country. But there are some great things that come out of Harvard and have come out of Harvard. And I'm just wondering if that's taken into account with some of these actions that almost seem punitive and not really related to what the initial intention was for what to do with Harvard.

Well, certainly, Joe, Harvard is one of the preeminent universities in the world. And I think President Trump has a real knack for tapping into what a lot of people in the country, as you said, many parts of the country might look at and go, wait a second.

They have a $53 billion endowment, and yet my tax dollars are going for about $9 billion right now. I understand a lot of that is for research, good research, by the way. And universities should continue to be able to do research as long as they're abiding by the laws and are in sync, I think, with the administration and what the administration is trying to accomplish.

but primarily abiding by the laws. And when we looked at different aspects of what Harvard was doing relative to anti-Semitism on its campuses, they were not enforcing Title VI.

the way it should be. And we had conversations with President Garber. And I expected that we would have more, but Harvard's answer was a lawsuit. So that's where we find ourselves right now. But I think the president is looking at this as, OK, how can we really make our point? And what are the things that Harvard and other universities are doing that we have to call attention to?

And when you look at these endowments, $53 billion at Harvard, that endowment doesn't sit still. It's invested. And if it can have a return of 5, 7, maybe sometimes 10 percent on that endowment, that's billions of dollars. You know, that's maybe as the president is looking to to increase the endowment tax. That's something that the American public could wrap its head around.

So I think that there are a lot of issues, you know, that we that we can look at. And we'd like to continue to talk to Harvard. I know that everything's a negotiation, I think, with with President Trump. And I think he stakes out some positions that maybe, you know, that he would soften if he saw some movement on the other side. But do you believe that that every foreign student that comes, that the government needs to look at?

You know, there's social media accounts to see if they're suitable. That's the kind of stuff that it looks like. I know companies can do that. They can hire whomever they want. They can look at social media history, et cetera. But is that really what we want the government involved with in whether a Ford student is able to attend an American university?

You know, I don't know what the criteria are that the State Department or the Secretary of Homeland Security are setting up in terms of vetting students, but I think the president

certainly had great concerns that there are foreign students, not everyone, but there are foreign students who come to this country, I do believe, who helped create this unrest. There are activists who come in. I think there are professors that are hired and brought in who are teaching ideology more than they are the subject matter that perhaps parents who are sending their students to these universities expect. And so I think you start taking a hard look

across a broad area and then you can start to see where it is you really do need to focus. So I don't know what the criteria that State Department is looking at. I'll leave that up to them. But certainly having an understanding of what students are coming into our country, what professors are being hired, what their backgrounds or ideologies might be, I think is a fair assessment to bring them on campuses here to teach the students who are going to the universities here in our country.

Secretary, let me ask you a question about schools with large endowments. Are you generally and broadly of the view that any school with a large endowment should be taxed in a different way and that money at schools that have had success should that money should effectively, if it's government money, be transferred to trade programs? I wonder, because while I know that there is this sort of

push back against Ivy League schools for all sorts of reasons. You know, there are lots of other schools in this country, including like a Notre Dame, frankly, that has enormous money at that school. And I can't imagine that it would be politically palatable to start, you know, taxing some of those schools. Maybe it would be.

Well, I think that's one of the things that the president has talked about in the reconciliation packages is taking a look at should we tax the revenue on endowments at universities that have these substantial endowments? As I said, these endowments don't sit still. They're invested. They can often throw off big returns.

And I think what the president has suggested is perhaps taxing these endowments at the top corporate tax rate of 21 percent. Right now it's 1.4 percent on certain universities that have a certain population.

And you are taxing the delta of over $500,000 per pupil. So there are some criteria in there that needs to be looked at. But I think taking a look at all of these issues, it's billions of dollars that could come into the government if this endowment revenue is taxed.

Boy, and how could we use those billions of dollars? Could they provide other scholarships? Could they provide money in other forms? And I think the general public will look at that and say that might be a reasonable approach to take a look at.

And, you know, I think if I could just continue to make this point, I do believe that generally we are taking a look at how education should be different. There is not the demand as much for four year universities in terms of now, if we're looking at doctors or lawyers or engineers or those kind of things. Yes. But more and more parents and more and more students, more adults are.

who are looking to upskill are looking at different programs, two-year or short-term programs. And one of the things that we've talked about at Department of Education suggesting are short-term Pell Grants. And we've seen that's a bipartisan effort.

that's coming out of Congress because we believe there are other ways to train people to make a good living for their families in this country and maybe not go into the debt of four-year universities. So I think the paradigm looking at education is shifting.

I guess that makes sense, looking at trying to figure out what is going to be most beneficial to the American population. But is this something that is just targeted at Ivy League schools, or is this something more broadly at four-year institutions overall? And I guess you could look at some of the schools with major sports programs. Should they be targeted more to pay more taxes because they're more of a business situation?

than they are an educational onset at some of those issues. I haven't looked at or had any conversations with the president about that. But, you know, what what really, I think, triggered a focus for the larger elite universities, especially in the Northeast, was

the lack of attention that was being paid in the enforcement relative to anti-Semitism. And one of the things that President Trump did campaign on was he said he was going to put a stop to it. It was illegal on campuses. It was clearly in violation of Title VI. These are civil rights issues on campuses. And parents who are sending their children to these schools

And those students that are on campuses have a right to study in a safe environment and not be afraid to be on campus. And that's what we were starting to see, and it called our attention to that. And then we started, as in the general movement of changes in education thought, as I mentioned earlier, I do think that we...

We started to delve a little deeper and to make sure that we were trying to encompass how should we be looking at education all across the country. But there was a focus in the Northeast to start with, with these elite universities, because that's where we saw most of the issues happening.

Secretary, real quick, what do you make of the judge effectively stopping some of what this administration is doing? I mean, when you talk to lawyers in this country, most ultimately actually think that the administration is going to lose this case. Well, we'll see what happens with the case, but certainly I think...

You know, there was a liberal judge that was found to interpret this case. We'll see. We'll see what happens with it. But I think we're on solid ground. If if the president of Harvard were to.

Either overtly or behind the scenes, come to the table and say, look, let's just cool this all this down a bit and arrive at something where both sides are happy. Is there an off ramp, Madam Secretary, where I mean, that's what a lot of people have been have been hoping for, because it just seems like both sides are dug in and.

We know who usually wins things like that if it's the government. Do you see any signs that there will be some conciliatory moves from Harvard? Well, I would certainly hope so. Just as we've had really good negotiations with Columbia and we are in talks with other universities. I've said all along I would like to see Harvard come back to the table. But when the response out of the box is a lawsuit...

Then you've got to answer that. Secretary, fair or unfair to characterize the requests or demands, rather, that the administration made of Harvard were different and more aggressive than those made to Columbia, for example?

Well, on balance, I think they were pretty much the same. I mean, we were looking at things like protesters who couldn't wear masks except for, you know, religious or health reasons, because, you know, when they were totally covering their face or you couldn't identify protesters on campus, that was unfair. And protests, you know, no one is saying that there shouldn't be, you know, social justice fines.

peaceful protests. My apologies, but my understanding was the demand that I saw the letter that was written to Harvard, I don't know if a similar letter was written to Columbia, required all sorts of data being provided about hiring of teachers, the background of those teachers, those that were admitted to the school, how that would work, who those individuals would actually be, that there was going to be a significant hand of government involved

engaged in that in a way that I don't think was necessarily prescribed to these other universities. But you can tell us otherwise. Well, the letter was intended to was to prompt Harvard coming back to the table and for us to continue with our negotiations. And we were exacting in the letter. And I think that those are I think those are things that that would be worthy to discuss and have answers to. Well,

I think really maybe democracy does help to shed light on all these things, Madam Secretary. When you're on, we have a much better feel for what's going on. We hope you come back. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you so much.

Next on Squawk Pod, the queen of cable. Industry veteran Bonnie Hammer shares her view of this ever-changing world of content. What counts is great news, great coverage. And how that gets distributed, we're not going to be able to control. But creating it is what it's all about. And that's not going to go away. Well, good for us producers. And good for our listeners, too. We'll be right back.

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You're watching Squawk Box right here on CNBC. I'm Becky Quick along with Joe Kernan and Andrew Ross Sorkin. It is graduation season and our next guest has some vital advice for those who are just entering the workforce.

Joining us right now is Bonnie Hammer, whose decades-long TV career, including hits like Suits and Monk, led her to be known as the Queen of Cable. Right here, we just know her as our great friend. Her best-selling book, 15 Lies That Women Are Told at Work, and The Truth We Need to Succeed, is now out in paperback with new content. And, Bonnie, this is just in time. I had a daughter who graduated last week, and the...

Lessons that you've put forth in this I think are really, really important. One of the things that kind of surprised me that you're pointing out with this is that when you talk to a lot of directors, corporate level people, about what they're looking for in the workforce right now, Gen Z is not on their list. - No.

- It's not. First of all, it's great to be back here. And I think, Joe, you also have somebody who graduated recently, correct? - That's very true. - Yeah. - Yes, my son, yeah. - Yep. I think what's going on, obviously the world has changed.

The economy has changed. How we look at the job market has changed. And frankly, AI has affected it as well. And so the kids coming out of school right now are in a way handicapped that we necessarily weren't when we were navigating our way. And I think our generation, frankly, has hurt these kids because we've created systems

Safe spaces we've created a's for effort. We've created You know trophies for just showing up at games even if you don't play Participation trophies so the kids are coming out far less prepared and are assuming they are earning the right for a first job and that's not the case and

these kids really have to show their worth by actually putting up their hand, being willing to do jobs that they're not necessarily willing to do. And their assumption is, "Oh, I went to college, I got a degree. I was always told once I graduated, I would then get a job. If I got really good grades, I'd get a great job."

And that's not what's happening. Yeah, you mentioned that part of that is you can't even get a call back from a recruiter or from somebody at a business because AI is weeding you out. You don't even make it through that line. What do you tell graduates at that level? How do you get a foot in the door, even if you are willing to take that job that nobody else does? Well, first of all, they have to create the opportunities for themselves because what most kids don't even realize is

These AI algorithms are the first things looking at their applications. It's not a human being anymore. And they're not necessarily gonna get callbacks. So they have to take advantage of every opportunity that's out there. They have to be willing to talk to friends, take jobs that have nothing to do with the supposed career they wanna move into. And I have one very close friend whose son

Ivy League graduate, going to graduate cum laude, applied for 200 different jobs through the university portal. He received not a single offer for a real interview out of 200. But what he did was, a friend had said that there's this dinner

that a couple of people are no shows at were an introduction dinner for potential jobs, et cetera. He rented a car. He drove 200 miles to show up at that dinner.

He didn't know why or how, but he was having no luck whatsoever. And he just started talking and winding around. He said it was very insecure, but he was gonna talk to everyone. He left that dinner with an opportunity for an in-person interview. That in-person interview led to a job. - But isn't that the only way now? I mean, when you say somebody's applying for 200 jobs,

It just seems to me what's happening also is the technology has allowed people to just click boxes. They're sending out letters using ChatGPT. Literally, I actually was talking to somebody who they literally write 100 letters and ChatGPT writes it effectively for them. They write one letter and then they write.

And so if you're on the other end, by the way, receiving these letters, invariably you don't know anything from anything. And so you almost have to do this now. Correct. And what's happening also, some of the kids aren't wise enough how to use it. I've gotten letters where they write, then they put it through chat,

And then it comes back with two different typefaces. So you can see exactly where things have been edited or rewritten by one of these algorithms. So immediately you're going to lose faith and say, wait a minute. I usually lose faith when it says, dear Aaron. That's what happens. That's not an AI problem.

No. Interesting compliment in different ways. We love Aaron. We love Aaron. Yeah. Yeah. Funny. We had Barry Diller in last week talking about his book and, um,

He has he talked about all the people who were really role models for him and who helped him along the way and I brought up your name and some other people's names as people who consider him mentors. He doesn't like the word mentor. I don't think you do either. Yeah, because you're looking at somebody who's not a cheerleader, but but a mentor in a very different sort of way. Yeah, for me a true mentor is It's a challenging mentor. It's basically the person who puts tough into tough love and

It's somebody who is a sparring partner of foil and it's not somebody who's patting on the back and that was Barry to me. Barry, in truth, taught me how to think, taught me how to evaluate, turn things inside out and upside down. Now granted, when I first started working for Barry, he scared the hell out of me. But I also knew that the only way I would survive him was to learn how to go toe to toe.

And in an odd way, he taught me how to do that. And his book, by the way, I don't know if you guys had a chance to read it. There's a level of authenticity in the book, which is amazing, that it's not about ego, but it's also not about insincere humility. It's an interesting take on a human who's done

an awful lot in this world. And also, when you take a look at what the book is, it's a history of our industry, film and television, and early days of digital all the way up to what he's doing right now. Well, we talked to him about the industry and the changes that are taking place. I'd like to hear from you, too, as the queen of cable, watching the changes that have taken place there, but just entertainment writ large. Becky, it's so hard for me to look at it right now because I

I was so lucky. I kind of rode the rise of cable and television as we know it. And now what is happening is everything is being kind of condensed, restructured, repacked into a different way. The only thing that I do believe and I truly know will happen

What counts is content. What counts is great content, regardless of its distribution. What counts is great news, great coverage. And how that gets distributed, we're not going to be able to control. But creating it is what it's all about. And that's not going to go away. So that's how I look at it.

But it's difficult because I see so many of my friends trying to navigate the world with all these restructures and financial cutbacks and AI. What do you think of the cost of content, though? The cost of content, meaning the cost of the great dramas that you were greenlighting years ago and whether that persists, changes. We keep talking about AI.

Everything else. It is expensive to produce. I don't think costs will change or escalate that crazily and or become cheaper again. What will happen probably is there'll be more spent on less. That hopefully the quality will still be there, but...

how much is produced. But I do think what'll end up happening, all of these different platforms, all of these streamers, they're not gonna be 60, 70 streamers. They will be condensed almost like cable was years ago. - So less content? Less content? - Yeah, less content

Or what will happen is these streamers will be bundled, just like cable used to be, where everybody had their little cable channel. But after a while, there were different entities that would serve you 20, 30, 50 different cable channels. Right. I think that's going to happen. Because you can't expect the consumer to pay for 20 or 30 or 40 different distribution forms. You can't expect them to navigate it. Right.

And it's hard for audiences to find it. All the descriptions after a while kind of feel the same. I mean, Barry's deal was that don't discount legacy assets, that don't just assume the transition just happens and they're gone and streaming's everything, and I think we're seeing that, right? Yeah, legacy is really interesting. If I look alone to see what happened with Suits...

You know, when you take a look at when we produced it. It became bigger than ever in a different pipe. It got, you know, at the back end, went to Netflix, and it completely took off. That's what we're hoping for. Yes, but then the question, but here's the real question. If we were going to be honest about it, so then LA Suits comes along. It doesn't work.

Why doesn't that work right? I'm not convinced it didn't as a viewer. Okay, I had nothing to do with that right Sue so I'll put it out there. But as a viewer, I thought it was well done and I thought that it had much of what the original suits had but the selection process now and right if I want to do this and I have to cut. So I watched that show and thought to myself that show would do well on Netflix.

- Correct. - Okay, so this becomes a very interesting question though about like what is it about the distribution vehicle for a certain type of show to work relative to another kind of show? - And also the bulk of what Netflix or a Peacock or an NBC is able to offer.

Would that have spied for another season if, in fact, it already had a link to Netflix or something else? Right. Maybe. Like that? I think so. Yeah. Right. And Aaron's a really good writer, and it grew over the number of episodes, too. It really did develop into... So they should have put... See, I would have put it on NBC and then flipped it to Netflix almost immediately. Yeah.

And then you could have grown the next piece of it. But that gets a little controversial, too, in terms of who owns it, where's the money coming back from? If you're putting it out to start, are you really going to get it back? It's complicated, much more complicated than years ago, where we would produce something, it would have a back end. Everything would be out there from the minute you greenlit something.

And now it's much more competitive and harder to kind of find that path. Yeah. And we're learning as we go. Can I ask one other one? Of course. User generated content? Because user generated content, YouTube. The reason I mention this is we keep talking about all the streamers as if that's like where everyone's watching. And the truth is that most kids, most people actually just like straight up eyeballs are going to a place like YouTube. Right. And a lot of people are starting to produce for it and experiment because you

You can do a gazillion little productions, see what happens, and they can be ignored or they can pop. If they pop, you can push more money in it and let it go. And it's far less expensive to produce for. And anybody can then call themselves a producer.

Bonnie, this has been great. We love having you in. Love seeing the book out in paperback. Thank you. And come back and talk to us more. Again, the book is called Fifteen Lies That Women Are Told. It's out in paperback at this point. We had you on last year to talk about the hardcover, and we always appreciate seeing you. I love being here. Thanks.

That's Squawk Pod for today. Thanks for listening. Squawk Box is hosted by Joe Kernan, Becky Quick, and Andrew Ross Sorkin. Tune in weekday mornings on CNBC at 6 Eastern, or follow Squawk Pod wherever you get your podcasts and get the best of our show anytime you want. Follow us on X as well, at Squawk CNBC. Let us know what you think of the show and the podcast there. And that's it. Have a great day, and we'll meet you right back here tomorrow. We are clear. Thanks, guys.

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