Astronaut Mike Massimino: Living in Space 3/18/25
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Hi, I'm CNBC producer Katie Kramer. Today on Squawk Pod. The Federal Reserve begins a two-day meeting. Rockefeller Capital Management CEO Greg Fleming says, please hold.

If you're the Fed now, you are truly data dependent with no ability really to move ahead of it because you don't know what the it is because it's a completely unique time. And two astronauts long overdue for their return to Earth hitching a ride on a SpaceX craft. NASA vet Mike Massimino on the journey and the privatization and commercialization of space travel.

This is really what NASA has turned its attention to. Really going back to the space shuttle program, well before I was an astronaut, the hope was that commercialization would start back then.

Plus, the presidential phone call expected today between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, EV innovation in China, and Google making its largest acquisition ever, $32 billion for cloud security startup Wiz. You know, nobody beats the Wiz. I think those commercials, how old are they? Do you remember? Very old. Are they? Yeah. It's Tuesday, March 18th, 2025. SquawkPod begins right now.

Stand Becky by in 3, 2, 1. Cue, please. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Squawk Box right here on CNBC. We're live from the Nasdaq market site in Times Square. I'm Becky Quick along with Joe Kernan. Andrew is off today. All of the major averages were up for the second day in a row yesterday. We saw some gains and some positivity looking at things. I guess we're waiting to hear what happens with the

Fed meeting. That's going to be the next real catalyst for things in the market. But the Treasury market right now, the 10-year is at 431. The two-year is at 4.04%. And that Fed meeting starts today. We have the decision that comes tomorrow. I guess...

When it was all said and done, we liked the retail sales number. Somebody did. Pretty good. There were some good base core numbers that were inside of it. And the market didn't close on its highs by any stretch. It was up over 500 for a while. The Dow closed up 350.

The S&P managed to gain 36 points, so it was down 9% from the highs yesterday. It was a gain of six-tenths of a percent yesterday. So now 8.4%. We don't have to do it new every time. And the NASDAQ was weak throughout the session, but finally did manage to close positively. But it was off its best levels, too. But I don't know. The most pressure from the NASDAQ was with NVIDIA, with the Fed.

conference that they have, too. We're in the, you know, we're in that netherworld of maybe we're in a correction that gets worse than a correction, or maybe it's already over. Just like the retail sales number, we'll know after we see what happens. News from Frontier Airlines CEO Barry Biffle.

I like that name. Announcing that the carrier will begin offering customers a free checked bag, free assigned seats, and free tickets. No, wait a minute. Free ticket changes. This comes less than a week after Southwest said it would start charging for bags. Biffle says in his words, we want the Southwest customer to become our customers. The press release just out says Frontier Airlines is ready to be your new love.

And you know that... Get a ticker symbol? Yeah, because it's in Dallas's Love Airport. Is that stock down 15% for the one year? That's an

An interesting move to go after Southwest, who no one thought would ever actually raise or come in with the baggage fees. That was not their brand. That's not what they did. Southwest decided that it was a lot of money that they couldn't leave on the table anymore. So we'll see. They were the only ones that could do it. They reminded me of when MCI used to be able to do things no one else could do. And the guy running the place went to jail.

But I don't know why, I don't know whether Frontier can necessarily. How do you do it? If you need to stay competitive, if even Southwest had to throw in the towel. Maybe they'd do it for a while. President Trump, probably know this by now, is going to be speaking.

about the war in Ukraine today with Vladimir Putin, the Russian president. Trump making that announcement last night on his social network. The president is looking for Putin to accept a 90-day ceasefire in the three-year-old war Ukraine has already

agreed to a pause in the fighting. In his social media message, President Trump said many details on an agreement have been reached, but more work remains. The Kremlin says that the call will take place between 9 and 11 Eastern Time this morning. Hope they have a translator. Otherwise, what's the point? Shares of Chinese EV company BYD.

Old habits die hard. I still think it's Boyd Gaming. When did Boyd Gaming move to China? It's not. It's BYD. And Boyd Gaming is still around. Jumped in Hong Kong trading overnight. The company announced a new technology claiming it can charge an electric vehicle almost as quickly as it takes to fill a gasoline car. It says it's super e-platform. It's capable of peak charging speeds of 1,000 kilowatts.

Not gigawatts. How many did you need for that DeLorean? I don't know. Gigas something. Doc? 1.21 gigawatts.

Gigawatts. Gigawatts for Michael J. Fox to go that fast. Anyway, it allows cars to travel 250 miles with just five minutes of charging. By contrast, Tesla's latest superchargers offer a peak charging rate of about half that, and it allows for a similar range, the 250 miles, but it takes 15 minutes of charging. I mean, that's the game changer when you can get charging super fast. That's the most... Because it just...

compounds on it. You see the lines when people go. I mean, if you're on an interstate and you see a line of, I won't stop. I won't stop for gas if everything is full. I won't either. I'll wait for the next one. It's like, I can find a gas pump. Right. And Google might be ready to take whiz. Not a whiz, but to take whiz. Google parent alphabet is in advanced stocks to buy.

Cyber security firm Wiz, no, not the Wiz, if you're from this part of the world, because you know nobody beats the Wiz. But it's about $30 billion. That's according to the Wall Street Journal. I think those commercials, how old are they? Do you remember? Very old. Are they? Yeah. Completed a deal that size would be Google's largest ever by far. Wiz provides cyber security software for cloud computing companies, including Google.

which was looking at acquiring the company last summer we were talking about, because I remember talking about the whiz back then, too, for $23 billion, but the whiz, not the whiz, whiz, walked away, saying it would pursue an IPO. A deal could put the Trump administration's appetite for antitrust fights to the test. Google is already involved in two other high-profile cases, and CNBC has reached out to the company for comment. If you're interested, there's an interesting...

editorial today in the Wall Street Journal about cleaning up after Lena Kahn and how much needs to be reversed. I mean, one person can do a lot of stuff if you get in. There are questions if Lena Kahn, some of her prevailing thoughts will continue in this new administration. Some of them were kind of populist. That's this weird...

I don't know what you call this brand of conservatism. Well, the continuum where J.D. Vance agreed with Lena Kahn on some of the areas? Right. But...

I can't imagine that it's not going to change significantly. Well, Wiz walked away from the last deal with Google because apparently they were concerned about being able to get through antitrust considerations on this. So maybe they've looked at this and think that it's a better situation than it was in the past. That's certainly what this indicates. Well, the first paragraph will Andrew Ferguson. He's at a crossroads. He's at a fork in the road. Will he take it? Will he take it? Whether to continue...

His predecessors misadventures. Antitrust misadventures. So that's the way it's... No, that's going to be the big question. You know, that was something that... When we had him on, he said, I'm not just going to tie things up just to...

Just to tie things up. No, but he also said that if you are a company that has made any political statements, he thinks that that is potentially an indication that you have a monopoly. Because why else would you potentially alienate 50% of your customer base unless you felt you could do it without any fear of losing your business? They quote the CNBC interview here, too.

Mr. Ferguson won the FTC job by courting the anti-big tech wing of the GPO, and he's been loud in proclaiming that he's not like Reagan-Bush-era leaders. But the ambitious chair was right when he told CNBC, if, in his words, I can't win in the court, the FTC needs to get out of the way and let business innovate for all America.

And Lena Kahn didn't have any problems with going to court and losing. She said as much. That was her whole MO, though. We'll just put a freeze on things. Even if we think we're going to lose, we're going to tie you up in court. Long enough to where it doesn't make sense anymore because the markets move. Right. Good riddance. Cheese will be next.

Still to come on SquawkPod, more on Google and Wiz, a deal that became official during our TV broadcast. We will have the latest. And a key moment for the U.S. Federal Reserve as the central bank meets while tariff policy is maybe clouding the view on the economy. Rockefeller Capital Management CEO Greg Fleming joins us. They are on hold and they're going to need to be on hold now until they see what happens from the events that have been put in motion.

Where will the tariffs end and how much inflation does that cause? How much weakness do we have in the economy from the uncertainty?

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And now, a next-level moment from AT&T business. Say you've sent out a gigantic shipment of pillows, and they need to be there in time for International Sleep Day. You've got AT&T 5G, so you're fully confident. But the vendor isn't responding, and International Sleep Day is tomorrow. Luckily, AT&T 5G lets you deal with any issues with ease, so the pillows will get delivered and everyone can sleep soundly, especially you. AT&T 5G requires a compatible plan and device. Coverage not available everywhere. Learn more at att.com slash 5G network.

This is Squawk Pod. Three, two, one. Here's Mike. You're watching Squawk Box on CNBC. I'm Joe Kernan, along with Becky Quick. Andrew is off today. The Fed kicking off a two-day meeting. Join us now, Greg Fleming, Rockefeller Capital Management President and CEO. There are definitely some ratcheting down of GDP expectations, I think goes along with your thinking as well for, I guess, a variety of reasons. You make an interesting point that the real inflation...

could come when we do onshore everything. And the labor and everything else that, that, be careful what you wish for. Although, Scott Besson said, look, the American dream isn't a cheap widescreen TV.

So maybe we pay more for that. But everyone's got a job to buy one, hopefully. Is there something to that? Well, one thing that Besson also said that I'm hoping he's still very focused on is 3-3-3, 3% real growth, 3% inflation, and 3% federal deficit by 2028. Let's hope they're still on track for that.

But, you know, one of the things about the Fed now, Joe, if we're talking about the Fed and that's partly the inflation topic, it's interesting that they are on hold and they're going to need to be on hold now until they see what happens from the events that have been put in motion. So, yeah.

Where will the tariffs end and how much inflation does that cause? How much weakness do we have in the economy from the uncertainty, which you all are seeing every day, both business and consumer now? Some of the more recent polls on the consumer side show the consumers may be starting to pull back or that's in the early stages.

So if you're the Fed now, you are truly data dependent with no ability really to move ahead of it because you don't know what the it is because it's a completely unique time. Meaning that there aren't going to be cuts that come anytime soon because they're waiting to see what happens. I'd be surprised if there were right, because they've got to worry about inflation has been on the right trajectory coming down. But there's still more work to be done there.

If tariffs end up in a more robust spot and there's inflation from inflationary pressure there, you've got that on one side. And then how much does the economy weaken?

you know, how much flack, you know, in the labor market, slack in the labor market, thank you, that do we have. So they're going to be balancing those two things, but they've got to watch the data on both sides before I think they can move. So I would expect them to be on hold for some time here. To get to 3-3-3 seems like would cause a lot of

near-term issues that if you want to get there, maybe you're okay with some of this. You also pointed out we had two big years. This is not unexpected, a 10% correction probably. If it was caused by some of these, whatever you want to call them, tough love that we're getting, whether it's from Doge or

Whatever you want to look at. Are you are you in support of some of this stuff? Even if it causes some near-term? Turmoil tariffs even well, let me give one answer on the history and then I'll come back to the you know what I'm in support of In 98 and 99 and you know, we were here you had the the two best back-to-back years in in history until 23 24 and

And they were roughly similar in terms of the magnitude. The market was up about 50%, a little more than over the two years. And that's what we had in '23, '24. So coming out of two years like that, you're going to see more volatility. This time, unlike that time, 2000 was the election year. Here you had the administration change. And whatever new administration comes in, there's going to be new policies. So you would expect to see more volatility in 2025 coming in just because of what happened the last couple of years and the new administration.

So again, that's something for people to keep in mind here. The other thing that people need to keep in mind is that the market in the last two years, if you take out the seven stocks that we spent so much time talking about, the market's up each of those two years about 9 or 10%. And if you take those stocks out now, the market S&P is roughly flat.

So, you know, there's been a lot of talk in the last few weeks about the major correction in the market and angst about the market. But there really isn't, when you look at the numbers, as much going on yet as people, I think, are talking about. So it's important to keep it in context. On the policy side, we've talked about this at length here. The federal budget deficit has got to be cut. And the statistic I've been talking about recently, if you go back to 1945...

receipts as a percentage of GDP have averaged 17% a year. Spending over that entire timeframe has averaged 19% a year. And we obviously had some years even with the surplus, Bill Clinton left office with a surplus. In the five-year period 2019 to 2024,

Receipts were 17% of GDP on average, and spending was 27% of GDP. COVID. Completely unsustainable. We have a wealthy country. I still firmly believe greatest economy in the world and will be for a very long time.

But we can't afford that level of deficit year in and year out. So they have got to go after that. Whatever party's in power, they've got to go after that. So I'm hoping that they get there with some material reduction in the level of deficit spending that we have in this country. Right. I mean, I looked at it again and Trump was under a trillion for the first three years. And then it was almost four trillion in the COVID year.

So all in, it came at like seven. Then I think Biden did

Almost three or just under that. Up front, right, when he came in on COVID. Right. But then he kept, then it came down below two. But then the last two or three years, we went right back up for no reason. For no, other than everything the Democrats wanted. And think if it wasn't for Sinema and Manchin, it would have been 10 times worse. But all that stuff that happened got us back to $2 trillion in deficits. We were under $1 trillion.

You cannot run on a sustainable basis, even if the United States, a deficit, particularly when employment's close to full as it has been, of 6% to 7% of GDP. You know, one of the transitions I think they're also trying to make now is all of that spending on the federal side, it's got to come down, and they're hoping to transition to faster growth on the private side. Mm-hmm.

And that would be a great pivot if we can pull that off in the economy, a great pivot for us to have now. No question that spending has outpaced where it should be. But when you hear talk about

cutting and coming up with savings from some of that spending and then turning around and giving it back and tax cuts. What do you think of it? Well, you know the the the tax cuts I mean the pro tax cut crowd. I'm not talking about 2017 return I'm talking about additional tax cuts on top of that not paying for tax for tips not paying for overtime a lot of things that have some pretty big price tickets on to the tune of you know billions of dollars and

Becky, you're right. They've got to balance both sides. In the final analysis, when you put it all together, that deficit, and you know, and Bessette said it up front, 3% of GDP by 2028, they have got to figure out the balance that's going to get there. So I completely agree with you. If there's less on the spending side and you layer on additional tax cuts,

Even though tax cuts tend to be pro-growth, and that's the argument for them, that's a problem because we have got to take this 6%, 7%, bring it, and it should be 3% by 2028, and it could come down further from there because you're now already servicing. And Joe and Becky, we've talked about this. The interest on the debt today exceeds military spending. And when you look in the world around us and the people you're talking to every day,

Military is quite important today, given what's going on in the world. So we have to invest in the military, reinvent the military. We need the money for that. Spending more on interest on debt than military is, again, another national challenge. We're not talking about crazy interest rates at this point, below 5%. We're not. We're talking about more normalized interest rates. If we get enough weakness, maybe they come down.

But they'll probably come down more like they have historically as opposed to what we saw four or five years ago. So the interest costs on this enormous federal debt are going to stay very high. Greg, thank you.

Yeah, these are intractable problems, but you're optimistic? I remain optimistic. I mean, it's... What else have we got? It's also still the greatest economy in the world. No doubt. You know, the economists had that cover story with American exceptionalism, the envy of the world, five, six months ago. You know, you have that cover story, Jinx and Sports Illustrated. So, you know, they put that out there, but...

You know there might be a little pushback on that now, but in the final analysis This is a great economy a great society. That's never changed. You might change the you know terrible You know the longest bull market in bonds or so that's the top, but it's never gonna be a top of American exceptionalism I don't you and I are in this exact same page in that show Becky - great to see you both. Thank you

Next on Squawk Pod, two astronauts finally on their way home from space thanks to private industry. A spacecraft rideshare courtesy of Elon Musk's SpaceX. What those astronauts have been through and the creature comforts we miss as Earthlings with astronaut Mike Massimino.

On my first flight, I missed pizza so badly. I ordered pizza at the Cape, at the Kennedy Space Center. I thought you were going to say the space station. Domino's Delivery up there. 30 minutes or less. Uber. Uber Eats. Plus... It is official. A quick update on a big tech story today. Google is buying cloud security company Wiz. We'll be right back. That's the sound of a tree in Tennessee's Great Smoky Mountains releasing volatile organic compounds.

which is just a fancy way of saying it's creating fog. And that makes the Smokies smoky. This is one of many sounds in Tennessee with a story to tell. To hear them in person, plan your trip at tnvacation.com. Tennessee sounds perfect.

And now, a next-level moment from AT&T business. Say you've sent out a gigantic shipment of pillows, and they need to be there in time for International Sleep Day. You've got AT&T 5G, so you're fully confident. But the vendor isn't responding, and International Sleep Day is tomorrow. Luckily, AT&T 5G lets you deal with any issues with ease, so the pillows will get delivered and everyone can sleep soundly, especially you. AT&T 5G requires a compatible plan and device. Coverage not available everywhere. Learn more at att.com slash 5G network.

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

Astronauts Sonny Williams and Butch Wilmore are returning to Earth following an unexpected nine-month stay aboard the International Space Station. They're now in a capsule provided by Elon Musk's SpaceX rocket company. Joining us right now is former NASA astronaut Mike Massimino. And Mike, this has been...

Kind of crazy to watch for us thinking that you're going up for eight days finding out that no it's going to be more like nine months before you come back. As a former astronaut somebody who's been up there what did you think about all of this?

Well, Becky, I thought it's a pretty good example of the resiliency of both NASA and its astronauts, of the plan changing. You never know the way things are going to work out. You have to be ready for the unexpected. In this case, they were ready. They were ready to stay there longer if needed. That was always part of the backup plan. But you don't necessarily expect that's going to happen. I think the likelihood going in was very low that this was going to happen.

But it did happen and they were ready for it. Yeah, I guess I'm still kind of remembering and reflecting on the idea that the amazing situation of being able to be sent into space. The good news is you're coming back, not necessarily that you're coming back with a delay on some of these issues. But it has caused us to do some soul searching just about what this means for Boeing, what this means about the privatization of the space spaceflight.

of the space program and all the outsourcing that NASA has done with this. How do you feel about it? Well, I think, you know, as far as Boeing goes, we haven't heard much about the Starliner spacecraft. I'm still hopeful that they'll be able to become more comfortable with the issues they saw in flight again. I think that's the hope. I don't think the story's closed on that yet.

So hopefully they'll continue to look at it and reschedule another flight with people on board. We'll see if that happens or not. It's been a few months now that it's been on the ground, but hopefully we'll get that flying again. As far as privatization goes, this is really what NASA has turned its attention to. Really going back to the space shuttle program, well before I was an astronaut, the hope was that commercialization would start back then at the beginning of the space shuttle program, early 1980s.

They were hoping to build commercial space stations. They were hoping that the space shuttle would be a commercial vehicle. Didn't turn out that way. They had a couple accidents. It was never, never made it to where they wanted it to be for commercial purposes. But when the space shuttle retired,

NASA took the opportunity to try to stimulate a commercial space business, both in flying cargo to space for the space station and also flying astronauts. And now we're seeing commercial missions to the moon. And NASA partakes in those. They help fund those, and they also put experiments on board. So I don't think this is going to end. It's been a very good relationship and good both for the economy, for a new space business, and also for NASA for its goals.

I'm grateful that there was a second option, that SpaceX was able to step in and step up to the plate. Yeah, absolutely. You know, it's good if, you know, you never know. And it could be issues with a SpaceX vehicle someday. The Soyuz, the Russian spacecraft.

which has been a very reliable spacecraft. A couple years ago, Frank Rubio, another astronaut, was on board a Soyuz going to the space station. There was a leak in that Soyuz once they got there. They returned that Soyuz empty, sent up another Soyuz for Frank and his crew. They went from six months to over a year.

So as long, you know, the thing is the crew is never really in any danger. And their ride changed, but they always had a way to get home. They're coming back on the SpaceX vehicle that's been up there with them since the fall. So the safety has never been compromised. And I think it's a credit to NASA and to the team that they've been able to do that. Yeah.

Easy for you to say never really in day. We've got lights here that could like drop anytime on me. I'm I'm a permanent scared how what was your longest time up there like.

Yeah, nothing like these guys, Joe. I was up there for, my longest was 14 days. It was supposed to be 12, and we got extended for two days, but that was really gravy. I'm just trying to think when you get back, and you know, yeah, I've never had any, this is like a walk in the cake, sure. But when you got back, I'm just trying to think about, was it fresh air? Was it the sky? Was it, what was it? Was it pizza? Yeah.

A toilet? Oh, I would hug my toilet. You got gravity again. I don't even want to know the details of how you're doing that stuff up there. But what was the greatest thing about coming back, would you say, your loved ones?

Oh, yeah, certainly seeing your family, Joe. You know, even though I was gone just for a couple weeks, and with these guys, you know, they've been up there a lot longer, of course. But seeing your family and seeing your friends, that is number one. And then the things you do miss on Earth, you know, I miss things like the weather and crowds and everything.

Sounds crazy, but a lot of things we complain about, you don't have it up there, and you miss that. And you mentioned pizza. Yeah, on my first flight, I missed pizza so badly. I ordered pizza at the Cape, at the Kennedy Space Center. I thought you were going to say at the space station. I ordered it at the local pizza place. Domino's delivered up there. In 30 minutes or less. Uber Eats. I was coming home. I made sure the order was put in correctly. Oh, my God. Hey, Mike, let me ask you this.

You're not allowed to bring a lot of things with you when you go. You've got to pack light because every ounce matters when you're trying to get lift off. If you packed for eight days with your underwear, your toilet paper, your toothpaste, what do you do when you're stuck up there for nine months? Is there enough up there? Oh, there's plenty up there, Becky. And there are supply ships that go up there a few times a year. You're constantly getting resupplied.

But they think about that, all that stuff as well. There's plenty of food on board. There's extra underwear and everything else you need is up there. And you actually don't even pack your own bag. You know, we have professionals do that and they pack stuff really tightly and make sure you have everything you need. So that was never an issue. You can't eat all the food that's up there. There's plenty of water. There's plenty of supplies.

Although they were taking advantage of bringing them home more quickly than maybe having a few days of overlap with this new crew that went up because they wanted to make sure they got them back and conserved the perishables and other things that were up there. How long do you wear your underwear up there? Because I was reading an article the other day that said like four or five days. Yeah, something like that.

Yeah, that's what that was about, right? Here on Earth. That's about right. Mike, I've got to ask. Now that Becky's taken us down to this...

What if you have a digestive problem? I mean, I don't even know how you do it if you don't have a digestive problem. But what if you do have a bad case of... Diarrhea? Yeah. What? How does that work? Is it everywhere? Is it... You got a vacuum cleaner to stick up? It's the slingshot, right? I don't know. I want to know how you do it. Is it like... I guess it's pee. You can do it... Yeah, go ahead.

No, I was going to say, as far as the diarrhea goes, any kind of illness, you try to prevent that by going into quarantine ahead of time for a week. But it's very rare that there's going to be any sort of illness in space. But...

As far as dealing with handling number two up there, you've got to be really careful. You don't want any of that stuff getting loose. Tell me about it. Even if you're on a good day in the bathroom, you don't want any of that stuff. Even if your gut's working well, you don't want any of that stuff floating around. You've got to be careful down here.

You've got to be careful down here, but it's floating up there. So you've got to be really careful. You don't want that stuff. So one of the important training exercises you have on your schedule will show up as potty training. And you get refreshers on that. They have a toilet that you train on in Houston. And it's one of the last things you review before going to the Cape for launch because you want that fresh in your mind. And no one, especially when you're a rookie, you certainly don't want to mess up the toilet operations. You don't want to be a doo-doo guy.

Yeah, you don't want to see something go by and look over at your friend. Like, what was that? You're going to get a nickname out of that one. Yeah, you don't want that. I bet. Did anybody do that on any of your... So to speak? Do you do that? No. They're begging us. No, we were very careful.

Yeah. Mike, thank you for sharing so much with us. You bet. Yes. These are the things inquiring minds want to know. It's great to see you, and we will talk to you again soon. Likewise. Just waiting now. Our favorite astronaut. Thank you. Thanks, Mike. We do have confirmation of that story we'd been talking about earlier today. This was first broken by The Wall Street Journal yesterday, but Google is announcing that it's signed a definitive agreement to acquire Wiz. That's a leading cloud security platform that's headquartered right here in New York.

They're going to be buying the company for $32 billion, subject to closing adjustments. They say it's an all-cash transaction. And once that deal has closed, they plan to have Wiz join Google Cloud. Now, again, we've talked an awful lot about this new antitrust program.

administration with the Trump administration. And we'll see if this is allowed, if this is something that's been very closely followed by all watchers to see what happens with this. Google says that the acquisition represents an investment by Google Cloud to accelerate two large and growing trends in the AI era. They're talking about improved cloud security and

and the ability to use multiple clouds. But again, the biggest deal that Google's ever done, and the Justice Department, the FTC... Let's just assume big is bad. The FTC, the new chief, is going to be looking at size as something... Because they don't like tech. As something to be looking at. Just because they don't like tech. Years ago, this would have been no problemo. And this new FTC chief said that he is not your Reagan-era FTC enforcer.

So we'll see. We'll see what happens with this. It's a big test. There has been a little bit of a chill to the animal spirits that were taking place before, just on the Trump election, and seeing what happens with this. This will be a huge signal to M&A and to any big companies that are looking to potentially do deals, because there was a complete freeze under Lena Kahn. It's big, but compared to Google, it's not that big. $32 billion. True. True. Things happen.

Companies merge. They merge. Sometimes. Anyway, it is official. We haven't for a while. It is official, and we will see what happens next. And that's the 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 for the most powerful show in business news. 1.21 gigawatts. Gigawatts.

And you can get the best of the show, the top interviews, the headlines and conversations you don't want to miss when you follow SquawkPod. Follow this podcast wherever you're listening now and listen whenever you want. We'll meet you right back here tomorrow. We are clear. Thanks, guys. We are clear.

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