An Education E.O. & Avian Flu’s Spread 3/21/25
33:41 Share

Hello, I'm Laura Castleton with Janice Henderson Investors. Is a brighter future possible? At Janice Henderson, we think it is. We've worked to help our clients achieve superior financial outcomes and fulfill our purpose of investing in a brighter future together. We never forget that this means our thinking and our investments are helping to shape millions of futures. At Janice Henderson, we are committed to helping you invest in a brighter future. To learn more, go to JaniceHenderson.com.

What if your business could see beyond the what is and into what can be?

What if you could create more impact in every decision? What if you had a partner as visionary as you are? With Bank of America, you get access to our trusted experts, real-time insights, and digital tools. So whether you run a local shop or a global enterprise, you're backed by business solutions to make every move matter. What would you like the power to do? Visit bankofamerica.com slash banking for business to learn more. Bank of America is proud to be the official bank sponsor of FIFA World Cup 2026. Bring in show music, please.

This is SquawkPod, and I'm CNBC producer Cameron Costa. On today's podcast, President Trump's executive order aimed at dismantling the Department of Education.

"Should I do this?" Former Education Secretary Margaret Spellings weighs in on the point of the department, and the value we'd need to make up without it. "If we're sending money to the states and we're eliminating those oversight and data functions at the department, how will American taxpayers know if they're getting any return on their investment?" And curbing the avian flu spread.

and the rise of egg prices, with former FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb. "If this is in fact endemic in North America and it's a persistent threat that we're going to have to deal with, it just increases the chances that it can continue to evolve in ways and get into other species." Plus, major American companies warning on the economy.

Congestion pricing in NYC gets a reprieve. And the saga of Mr. Musk goes to Washington. We get into all of it. I'm as real as the day is long. I know. And you know that. Oh, I know that. It's Friday, March 21st, and SquawkPod begins right now. Stand by, Joe, in 3, 2, 1, go.

Yeah, make sure those outfits. Good morning and welcome. It's on the cover of the Wall Street Journal. Welcome to Squawk Box here on CNBC Live. I'm from the Nasdaq market site in Times Square. I'm Joe Kernan along with Melissa Lee. Becky and Andrew are off the date. You know, four o'clock's a long way off. Hope springs eternal. The Dow and the S&P are in the green for the week. The Nasdaq is slightly negative. If it does end in the red, it would be five straight weeks below.

for the Nasdaq to close lower. That's the index's longest stretch since 2022. And Treasury yields in an overnight post on his social media network, President Trump again called on the Fed to lower rates.

The market's doing it on its own, regardless of what the Fed does. 422, at least on the low end of the range. I don't know if it makes a stand here as far as yields go. But it would be nice if this trickled into it. But you know banks. They love it when rates go up. It's like, oh, geez. It's like a millisecond and everything goes up. On the way down, it's like, yeah.

You know, they're very slow. And you want lower rates, but you don't want rates to go lower because of the economy. Right. And you don't want them to go below four because I think that would signal a little bit more panic. It'd still be good just from where it is. You're right about if it's the reasons are negative, then it's bad. But lower rates are great in a lot of ways.

In terms of inflation, they may engender inflation. All across the board, credit card. I mean, credit card, you know, if rates fall, credit card loans might go below 24%. I know. It would be really nice, 23 and a half. I know.

Bring back the CFPB or whatever the heck that is. FedEx this morning cutting its full-year profit and revenue forecast as it reported mixed third quarter results. Revenue at the shipping giant beat estimates, though earnings were slightly below consensus. FedEx has been battling softer demand and uncertainty over President Trump's tariff plans. The company says its reduced forecast does not include the potential impact of U.S. tariffs, which will go into effect early next month.

On FedEx's earnings call, the CEO and chief commercial officer mentioned weakness or softness in the industrial economy at least nine different times during that call. This morning, FedEx shares are down by 7.3%, but implied in that guidance with that asterisk that it's not including the impact of the tariffs is that there's downside risk to even those lowered forecasts if they include those tariffs. Volatile stock, as we know, and an important group, transports, to give us an indication of

uh... the health of the economy more corporate commentary on those uh... tariffs here's what home becker home depot c_e_o_ ted tecker in a head of myself told jim kramer told you money on last night's mad kramer we had tears you two thousand seven should we have i mean one one one did we have you know customs houses in all reports we've had tariffs forever

we will manage through it and come out the other side better than anyone. So it's not something we worry about. Decker said Home Depot is focused on value and aiming to move volume to everyday customers and wholesalers.

Drivers trading in a record number of Tesla cars so far this month. That is according to new data from national car shopping site Edmunds provided to Reuters. Teslas from model year 2017 or newer accounted for 1.4% of all vehicles traded in until March 15th,

up from 0.4% in March of last year. If the trend holds, the current pace of trade-ins at dealerships would be the highest ever for Tesla. Musk and his car brand have faced recent backlash over his political ties to the Trump administration and their push to cut government spending. Teslas and Tesla showrooms have been targeted by criminal acts of vandalism and arson. Yesterday, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced three people have been charged in connection with arson at Tesla dealerships and charging stations.

On the stock front, Tesla shares currently on pace for the ninth straight negative week. This is the stock's longest ever down stretch, though in an analyst note late yesterday afternoon, Morgan Stanley's Adam Jonas reiterated his overweight in top pick rating on the stock. He did cut the price target to 410 from 430. Elon Musk also sought to reassure Tesla employees in an all-hands meeting yesterday in Texas, telling them that despite some rocky moments, they should hang on to their shares. Which are still valued at 759.

Down 40% year to date. But still up year over year. General Motors market cap $49 billion. So $759 versus $49 billion. I don't know what the 1.4% didn't sound, versus .4 sounded like it tripled, but...

I don't know what the normal rate is. Does that sound like a lot of trade-ins to you? 1.4%? You have to think that there's also a Model Y refresh. Model Y is the best-selling car, one of the best-selling cars in the U.S. And so when that refresh is happening, people want to trade in their cars feasibly. I mean, this could be the bull case, to get a new one. And that's why sales are down. That's why deliveries are down. That's why you've seen this sort of

in the Tesla numbers in anticipation of this handover to the view. This stuff happening is people keying cars and all this kind of stuff. I saw a social media, some guy flipping off a three-year-old that was sitting in the passenger side of a Cybertruck. I will say that where I live, if I did decide to take something out on a Tesla vehicle,

driver or on the car itself, I could pick the first one coming towards me, the second one, the third, the fourth, the fifth, the sixth, the seventh, or the eighth that are coming at me in short hills. It's everywhere. Is that what it is? Yeah. Well, every car is a Tesla. I mean, I used to, before I felt empathy for what the company is going through, I used to say, I'm so...

There's a white one, there's a red one, there's a blue one. They're all the same colors, the same style, the same-- it's almost like change the body style or give me some new colors or do something.

And people used to get mad at me, the Tesla zealots. There aren't any of them left because they were all lefties to start with. So now they're just, they're so conflicted at this point. Oh, the climate, but the government, you know, they don't know what to do. They're like your mother, your sister. Well, regardless, there are things that shouldn't be going. I mean, vandalism should not be going on at any level, even if it's for political protests. That's not right to damage other people's property. And at the same time, sitting government officials shouldn't tout stocks. You think it's a

It's a fluke. As Commerce Secretary Howard Lutton did. Right. You think it's a fluke that on late night TV, Luigi Mangione received all kinds of weird, maybe they didn't outright say good job or were behind you, but they certainly implied it on late night. And the same thing is happening right now. I mean, all of it is bad. You commit a crime, it is wrong. Right. Period. I don't care who it's against. Right.

President Trump is dismissing a New York Times report that said Elon Musk will head to the Pentagon today for a briefing on the military's plans for any potential war with China. Three defense officials telling NBC News Musk is scheduled to visit the Pentagon for a meeting and a briefing today and that China will be on the agenda. But in a post on a social media network, Trump called the Times report incorrect and ridiculous and said China will not be discussed at all. You know, if you

Don't read. I'm going to start using this. If you don't read the newspaper every day, you're uninformed. And if you do read it, you're misinformed. Supposedly Mark Twain, but supposedly he didn't say that. But he's credited with saying it. You like it? Will you use it? Interesting.

that's it interesting you're not going to make a value judgment about it no fake news no i guess we're part of the whole we are part of it okay all right but we're not fake are you going to say that we are fake no i'm as real as the day is long and you know that oh i know that you know that yeah and uh congestion pricing no one knows uh it's so divided i want to ask you about that too because you have to get in here every day oh it's been wonderful exactly but don't you feel guilty

Don't you sort of feel guilty? I do, I do. I know. Because I don't have to, I mean, we pay, but we don't really feel good. Somebody pays. Right. But...

The people, I don't know, I can't imagine trying to take a bus in from New Jersey, but people do. The Trump administration is extending the deadline for New York City to shut off the tolls for its congestion pricing program. State authorities and the New York MTA had refused to comply with today's deadline to halt the program, saying it would remain in effect until there's a court decision on the matter.

In a post on X, Transportation Secretary John Duffy said the federal government and President Trump are putting New York on notice. He said they will provide New York a 30-day extension for discussions to continue and warned that the billions of dollars the federal government sends to New York are not a blank check and that noncompliance will not be taken lightly as spokesman.

spokesperson. I got it. I got it. For Governor Kathy Hochul said congestion pricing is working and support for the program continues to grow. Secretary Duffy attempted to end the program last month by reversing a key federal approval. The MTA sued and the head of the MTA has said that it's awaiting the government's response as part of the normal litigation process, but will not turn the camera cameras off without a court order. It's just so all

The story is so complicated. They already spent the money. Right, for all of the cameras and the infrastructure to be put in to support the plan. And they spent the money that they have to, over the next year, get from the congestion pricing to make good on the money that they already spent, which supposedly is going to make the MTA and the mass transit better, but everybody jumps over the...

No one pays, and no one pays on, I think, how many people pay when they get on the bus? The poor bus driver can't, you know, what's he going to, he's going to, every single person, yeah, he's going to say, yeah, you can't go on there without paying. It's a mess. But if I think about me, Al Franken, which is an old Saturday Night Live thing, I guess you got, but if just us,

there's less traffic so we kind of like less traffic but that's not what we should that's also good for the buses that come in from it is from new jersey and other states and buses that go up and down the avenues here i mean it's fantastic right right and i was against the congestion i know i think initially i was i felt bad for the drivers and because there's a lot of people that do still uh still driving maybe they

If they're not driving the way they got to do, they could take the, I guess, the trains. The trains or maybe a bus. And trains to the subway. Just, you know, keep your eye open in the subway, you know, and don't stay near the track. That's just simple. Well, crimes have been improving on the subway to, you know, year to date. The crimes have been getting better? Oh, the crime rate has been getting better. I dropped the rate. Tees will be next.

Next on SquawkPod, President Trump's effort to dismantle the Department of Education. Former Secretary of that department, Margaret Spellings, argues that state control President Trump wants to achieve, well, we already have it.

School districts and states, they decide, do they want to lower class size ratios? Do they want to buy technology? Do they want to, you know, you name it. They have lots of discretion around those title funds, a lot of local control. What voids would be left in the department's absence? The data that President Trump cited comes from the federal government.

This is a message from sponsor Intuit TurboTax. Taxes was getting frustrated by your forms. Now Taxes is uploading your forms with a snap and a TurboTax expert will do your taxes for you. One who's backed by the latest tech, which cross-checks millions of data points for absolute accuracy. All of which makes it easy for you to get the most money back guaranteed.

Get an expert now on TurboTax.com. Only available with TurboTax Live Full Service. See guarantee details at TurboTax.com slash guarantees.

Cats have always acted like their don't stink. Now with Fresh Step Heavy Duty's new 30-day odor control, it actually doesn't. Fresh Step's new heavy-duty litter fights odor three times longer than the leading brand. This is Fresh Step's strongest litter ever, giving your litter box 30 days of odor control. Step it up to Fresh Step with the new heavy-duty litter. Three times claim based on fecal malodor versus the leading regular clumping litter. Strongest litter ever is based on odor control. Febreze is used under license from the Procter & Gamble Company or its affiliates.

Auto insurance can all seem the same until it comes time to use it. So don't get stuck paying more for less coverage. Switch to USA auto insurance and you could start saving money in no time. Get a quote today. Restrictions apply. This is Squawk Pod. This week, President Trump signed an executive order to dismantle the Department of Education. And it sounds strange, doesn't it? Department of Education, we're going to eliminate it. And everybody knows it's right.

And the Democrats know it's right, and I hope they're going to be voting for it because ultimately it may come before them. Congress will have to approve the abolition of the Education Department. It was Congress that established the department in 1979 under President Jimmy Carter. Now, the biggest battle ahead for the effort is likely going to be from Democrats and the Republican-controlled Senate. 60 votes in favor will push it through.

Democrat arguments against the Department of Education's dissolution include concern that without the department, rural, low-income and special needs students will be at risk. Joe Kernan spoke to Margaret Spellings on Squawk Box. She's currently the president and CEO of the Bipartisan Policy Center, but she's also the former U.S. Secretary of Education.

Madam Secretary, this has been talked about for quite a while by President Trump, and I guess you'd have to say that people that voted for him should not be surprised by this. I guess that's right. As a result, I mean, it's not going to be easy. I don't know if he can do it this way. I don't know what your thoughts are. And I don't know whether you think you're in favor of it. There are a couple of things that I didn't realize that I'm finding out. $1.6 trillion in student debt.

That would make the Department of Education one of the largest banks in the United States. And it doles out $270 billion a year. And whoever is president can basically decide who gets some of these block grants for their own agenda. And we've had no improvement in any scores anywhere since it's been around.

Well, that's not entirely true. And you've said a mouthful. There's lots to react to there. First of all, the Congress is going to have the last word on this proposal, obviously. It was congressionally created and there are various requirements and remits for the Department of Education.

uh... president trump is already laid off about half of the people at the department of education it's college enrollment season for example uh... students are anticipating financial aid decisions university administrators are needing to process those things

you know, the Trump administration says, and it's encouraging, that the funding levels will continue, that we are still in service to low-income and special education students on the K-12 side and financial aid on the higher ed side. And you're right, it's a big bank.

So I have a lot of questions about whether they're going to be able to meet the requirements, the congressionally mandated requirements that they're charged with, with these reduced levels of staffing. And further, if we're sending money to the states and we're eliminating those oversight and data functions at the department, how will American taxpayers know if they're getting any return on their investment?

Over-regulated because it's a federal program at this point. There's a lot of it falls through the cracks. I mean, $2.2 billion for a program, a block grant, to support effective instruction. And those, you know, we're hearing a lot about federal mandates, one-size-fits-all, you know, state control. States and local school districts are in charge of public education in our country. Nine cents on the dollar comes from them.

they uh... stipulate curriculum they write test they set the passing scores for test they describe reading list on and on and on uh... and the federal government is prohibited from uh... those one size fits all sorts of decisions the federal uh...

thesis about the Department of Education is it's an agency that was founded in the great society that we as Americans believe that everyone should have opportunity for education as a route to the American dream and that we all Americans had an interest in helping support that irrespective of zip code or rural or urban status or anything, especially for low income

and special needs students. Right, but you've got, okay, so the student loan, we saw what Biden tried to do with the student loans. It's $1.6 trillion. Yeah. It is estimated that $500 billion is eventually going to be written down, and that's just like an entitlement. That's just another unfunded entitlement, and all it does is drive up college, the only

the only people that benefit are the universities to be able to charge more. And that's why we need a federal role that can, you know, describe to students and to taxpayers what is the value proposition around American higher education. You know, you shouldn't be taking hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt

for programs that are not gonna have a payoff in the job market. Or if you do, you should do that, you know, eyes wide open and maybe on your nickel and not on the taxpayers of America. But I think that role of data and information and truth telling

uh... both on k_-twelve and in higher education is critically important and really the u_s_ department of education or the federal government it can certainly live elsewhere in the federal government is really the only place that that kind of data can be surfaced and understood and we can really help uh... states and school districts understand what's working and where the true or false no country spends more and and gets less

for what they're spending on. You said I was wrong about that. No, no. I mean, that's largely true. We also in America are attempting to do something that few other countries do. I mean, we do believe that this idea... Teach math and English? Teach math and reading and watch the scores go down every single year, year in and year out? No.

Our thesis as Americans is that every single person who shows up, special needs, low income, so on, that those students ought to be served in our public schools, that it's virtually a universal right. Countries around the world

You know, they have tracking systems. They say you're here, you're there, you're academically able, here's your track and so forth. So we are a nation of second chance believers and that opportunity ought to be provided broadly. So we're trying to do something a little different from lots of other countries around the world.

Where would it fall through the... Are we worried that... Because I can't see why the federal government would be better than state and local governments. If you had the same amount of money and you gave it to one... You try and do it from the federal level or we'll give you the same amount of money and you try and do it from the state or local level. What are we worried? That some of the states are...

are gonna are gonna be not very good at doing this because well they they have proved and look i've worked around state legislatures uh around this country and many years in texas i mean i'm a true believer in local control i worked for a school boards association and i understand that we shouldn't sit up here in washington and try to describe that but

May I say that when we had, you know, more accountability tied to this thesis around opportunity for everyone through these title programs, and we said, test kids every year in reading and math, report that data and do something about the achievement gap from 2000 to 2015, we were going in the right direction. And then we started to flatten and fall in the last 10 years.

Why? And don't take my word for it. Just take a look at the data. Are we getting, for the amount of money that we're spending, what's every dollar? What do we actually get out of every dollar? Do we get $0.70? Do we get $0.50? Do we get $0.20? What do we actually get, and where does it go?

It varies, it varies widely because these title programs that we're talking about on the K-12 side of the house, if you will, have tons of latitude. I mean, school districts and states, they decide, do they want to lower class size ratios? Do they want to buy technology? Do they want to, you know, you name it. They have lots of discretion around those title funds, a lot of local control.

it's not against the law for states to have high student achievement and i don't know any governor who would say well we're not going to do it was the federal government gets out of their business there they're trying to nurture and develop competitive workforces uh... and really there are the federal government is the last thing holding them back from doing it in fact

the federal government is the one shining the light on. The data that President Trump cited, the data that you've just cited, comes from the federal government. I'm just wondering where is the

Where's the problem? You've got the block grant here and all this money and what we said about this $270 billion that we spend, and then here coming out the other side is these test scores. Here's the problem. Where is it going? We don't have an expectation that every student can and should have the opportunity to achieve, and we don't resource that priority like we mean it.

So we have a lot of resources and, you know, if you're, if you're a very experienced teacher because of the way union contracts and other processes run, you're in a, you're in a cream puff high school. If you're struggling brand new, you're trying to educate our most disadvantaged kids. So we don't put our money where our mouths are. That's a matter of local control as a matter of fact. So, you know, just a sense of urgency.

around the needs of students and that we need to keep student achievement top of mind. And that's one of the things I'm worried about is as we have these, the niceties of these conversations, which bureaucracy should run these programs,

you know I hope that we won't lose sight of the things that you rightly say and that is the very you know underwhelming student achievement we have in the aftermath of a 10 year period where we were going in the right direction. Right. We are what how we educate our children because they become who we are and we're gonna you know it's been well documented some other countries

You know, how much better they are at STEM and a bunch of things like that. So it's important. I have no, you know, I'm at a loss. Yeah, they're super, super centralized systems, the ones that are ahead of us. Just saying. Really? Well, that's counter to what we're doing right now then.

Yes. Yes, it is. All right. Well, that's not good. Secretary Spelling. We'll talk again. Yeah, let's do. We'll figure this out. Thank you. I hope so. For the sake of our future. I know.

Next on SquawkPod, much ado about bird flu. Former FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb discusses keeping our food system healthy. We've got to lock these chickens down now and homeschool them. The increased biosecurity deals with things like hosing down trucks and workers' boots.

Ready to start your GLP-1 weight loss journey? It's never been easier with Whole Health Rx by The Vitamin Shop. Visit Whole Health Rx for access to highly effective weight loss solutions, transforming countless lives every day. With no insurance required, choose from Dr. Trusted Ozempic, Munjaro, compounded semaglutide, and more delivered to your doorstep. See if you qualify for quick approval to reach your healthiest weight ever. Explore Whole Health Rx.

including important safety information about risk for thyroid C-cell tumors at www.vitaminshop.com slash GLP-1 weight loss.

Download the Redfin app to get started.

Equal Housing Opportunity, CADRE, number 01521930. You're listening to Squawk Pod today with Joe Kernan and Melissa Lee. Stand Joe by. Three, two, his mic, cue. Protecting the American egg supply from the avian flu. Former FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb argues that the best way to fight the ongoing threat is through biosecurity and vaccines. Dr. Scott Gottlieb joins us now.

Scott, if I left this next line out, I don't know what the world might end. Might stop spinning. He is also a CNBC contributor and he's on the boards of Illumina and Pfizer. How's that? Now I'm done. Thank you. What am I most scared of? My not being able to have scrambled eggs or bird flu jumping and being a real threat to

the next pandemic for humans? What am I worried about? Look, I think you're most worried about the human health risk here. It appears that this virus has become endemic in North America. We're seeing the birds, the migratory birds and cows now pass it back and forth between different species. And so if this is in fact endemic in North America and it's a persistent threat that we're going to have to deal with, it just increases the chances that it can continue to evolve in ways and get into other species.

where it has more potential to evolve in ways that it could infect humans we're not there yet the risk is still remote but as this continues to spread and as it gets into more mammals that risk continues to increase you know there is a in hindsight there's a whole group of uh of individuals that think that regular immunity to covet would have been a better way to approach things as a result i think that has people actually positing

let this spread and chickens that have natural immunity are going to win out eventually. And this is something that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., I don't know how serious he is, but proposed allowing it to spread through the flocks. I would think if you're worried about

jumping to humans, that that would incubate a lot more viruses that could possibly, one of them could possibly be the one that causes the next pandemic. It sounds a little frightening.

Yeah, certainly it could drive the potential for more mutations if you allow it to spread unchecked in the flocks. It's also, you know, unfortunately impractical in other respects because immunity isn't necessarily inherited. So there's a lot of diversity, as you well know, in people's immune systems and how they respond to different pathogens. And just because you might be able to isolate one chicken in the U.S. domestic supply of 350 million chickens,

that seems impervious to this virus, thinking that you could take that chicken and selectively breed it and reconstitute the entire flock of over 300 million chickens from that single chicken or a handful of chickens that haven't succumbed to the virus, and they're going to pass down that trait, that's just not practical. There's no reason to believe that the immunity, if in fact they have some innate immunity,

is going to be inherited. And remember, these chickens are inbred. They're bred specifically for their egg-laying abilities, and they have weakened immune systems as a consequence of that. So it's a trade-off. I think the best step we could take here is improved biosecurity in these farms, which the secretary of agriculture, Rollins, has proposed. She put forward a very comprehensive plan.

And the other thing we should be thinking about is vaccinating the chickens. There's hesitation around that, not just from anti-vax groups, but more prominently from people who export chickens. We engage in a brisk business of exporting baby chicks around the world. And a lot of countries won't want to take our chicks if they're vaccinated because they worry that the vaccine itself

isn't sterilizing so you can get chickens with subclinical infection. They're still infected, but they don't show signs of infection in those flocks that we may export. And they can unwittingly be importing the chicks, the infected chicks. And so there are ways to mitigate that. There are steps we could take. I think we should explore that more earnestly.

Did you tell us your five ways of what we should do? Did you go over? I was thinking of a bunch of different things when you were talking. That's pretty gross. So there could be an underlying undetectable infection of the bird flu virus itself or something else in the chickens we're exporting.

Well, the vaccine itself prevents it reduces the likelihood of the chickens becoming infected. But what it does most prominently is reduces their chances of succumbing to the infection. So they don't get sick or they don't get sick from the virus, but they could still catch the virus and harbor the virus. And so countries would worry that they'd be carriers. Exactly.

I'm not even going to make, we got to lock these chickens down now and homeschool them, not let them go to, what are we supposed to do to keep the, repeat what we did with the human population with chickens? You can't do that, can you, Scott? What are we going to do? Yeah, the increased biosecurity and the Secretary of Agriculture outlined a lot of these steps, deals with things like, you know, hosing down trucks and workers, boots and things like that so people don't, and

import the virus onto the farm, also improving protections for water supplies that chickens drink from so that wild birds don't poop in the water supply and spread the virus that way. We know that there is a potential that dander between farms can spread over short distances through the air and infect water supplies as well. And so there's ways in terms of the ventilation that you have in hen houses

to reduce the likelihood that you're going to bring the virus in through that route, through the ventilation. So there's things you can do to improve the biosecurity on farms that could substantially reduce the likelihood of having outbreaks on those farms. And in fact, I think the steps that we're taking are having an impact. I think by and large, the reason why the number of infections are down and egg prices are falling is because the North American flyways right now are quiescent. Birds aren't migrating. And you could see an increase in infections and outbreaks on farms

as migratory birds start to go through those North American flyways. And so the reprieve that we have right now may be short-lived. It may be a little bit more durable because of the steps we've taken in recent weeks. But I think we'll start to see more outbreaks as birds start to migrate again.

You know a lot about birds, Dr. Gottlieb. For somebody who's a doctor. We regulated this at FDA. Yeah, I was going to ask you because, you know, when you're talking about measures for farms, that's agriculture. So where does, in terms of vaccinating birds, where does the FDA come in and how does it work with, say, a Department of Agriculture to enforce policy? And how could anti-vaccine stances at Department of Health and Human Services work?

I don't want to say infect, but, you know, shape how the FDA directs that. Yeah, look, the FDA and the CDC certainly advise on this process. But because meat and poultry is regulated by USDA and USDA maintains a separate entity that regulates vaccines used in those in those livestock, they largely regulate the vaccines and need to give permission for for.

chicken breeders to deploy the vaccines. And so this is in the balls in their court when it comes to the vaccines. I don't think their hesitancy right now is from the, you know, the backlash that you're going to get from anti-vaccine groups, although you're already seeing that online. I think the bigger hesitancy of agricultural officials are the export considerations and the industry as well. I think the industry has mixed feelings about deploying vaccines online.

in the American livestock and American chickens because of that brisk export market. Remember, we raise about 10 billion broilers in the United States. And so there's about 350 million egg-laying hens, but there's 10 billion broilers that are raised in the United States for consumption. And some portion of those are exported. We don't slaughter them and consume them all here in the United States. And so there's a pretty good business in exporting actually live poultry.

Dr. Gottlieb, thank you. Thanks a lot. Thanks for being here. Pleasure. It won't be long. You'll be back. You'll be back. But I'll be back with Becky on Monday.

That's SquawkPod for today and for the week. It's Friday. SquawkBox is hosted by Joe Cronin, Becky Quick, and Andrew Ross Sorkin. Thank you to Melissa Lee for joining the fun today. Please tune in to SquawkBox weekday mornings on CNBC starting at 6 Eastern and going for three hours. You can also get the best of our TV show right into your ears if you follow SquawkPod wherever you like to listen to podcasts. We'll meet you right back here on Monday. Have a great weekend.

We are clear. Thanks, guys.

Download the Redfin app to get started.

Equal Housing Opportunity, CADRE, number 01521930.