transcript

Speaker 1:
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Speaker 2:
[00:27] This episode is brought to you by Schwab Market Update, an original podcast from Charles Schwab. Join host Keith Lansford for this information-packed daily market preview delivered in 10 minutes or less, including projected stock updates, monetary policy decisions, and key results and statistics that may impact your trading. Download the latest episode and subscribe at schwab.com/marketupdatepodcast, or find Schwab Market Update wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 3:
[00:57] Bring in show music, please.

Speaker 4:
[01:00] This is Squawk Pod and I'm CNBC producer Cameron Costa. On today's episode, the latest CNBC All America survey from Steve Liesman. It's President Trump's worst polling result in either of his two terms.

Speaker 5:
[01:17] Latinos, which were a big part of President Trump's victory, they're gravitating away. Independents, a big part of President Trump's victory, they gravitated away. And some erosion on the non-MAGA Republican side.

Speaker 4:
[01:29] And it's not all sunshine on the other side of the aisle either.

Speaker 5:
[01:33] One of the polls are saying, we didn't think the Democratic numbers could get worse, but they did.

Speaker 4:
[01:39] Then the launch of 23 hours a day, five days a week trading on the Nasdaq. Nasdaq's CEO Adena Friedman on the big moves coming this December.

Speaker 6:
[01:50] What we're really trying to do is make sure that no matter where an investor is in the world, they can trade in US equities in their own home hours.

Speaker 4:
[02:00] Plus Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Arkansas governor, on the outlook for the war in Iran, one she says President Trump is ending.

Speaker 7:
[02:10] Iran has been the number one sponsor of terrorism for decades.

Speaker 4:
[02:15] It's Thursday, April 23rd, and Squawk Pod begins right now.

Speaker 3:
[02:21] Stand Becky by in 3, 2, 1, cue please.

Speaker 8:
[02:27] Good morning everybody. Welcome to Squawk Box right here on CNBC. We are live from the Nasdaq market site in Times Square. I'm Becky Quick along with Joe Kernen. Andrew is traveling and he will join us a little later in the show this morning. We do have the latest CNBC All America Economic Survey. It shows that the war and higher gas prices are weighing on President Trump's approval ratings. Our senior economics reporter, Steve Liesman is here. He joins us with the details this morning. Good morning, Steve.

Speaker 5:
[02:54] Good morning, Becky. Yeah, President Trump's overall and economic approval ratings plunging in the latest CNBC All America Economic Survey. What appears to be direct fallout from widespread dissatisfaction with the war with Iran, high gas prices and negative views of the economy. Overall, the president is a 40% approval rating that's down five points from the prior quarter, 58% disapproving, and that's up six points for a minus 18 net. That's the most underwater President Trump has been for either of his two terms. On his handling of economy, similarly bad numbers, 39% approving, 60% disapproving. That's a negative 21 net approval rating. Okay, one of the issues we asked for the president has a positive rating on, that's securing the southern border. That's 51.46 approved, disapproved. Tariffs, though, actually got worse. Thought we might be at the end of that process of people coming to terms with it. No, it got worse, 37.59. Then dealing with Iran, that's a deeply negative number, inflation deeply negative as well at 30 to 69 right there. Our pollsters just agreed, though, over the importance of these numbers. Michael Roberts, he's the Republican pollster with the public opinion strategist. He says, to have a five point drop is not the way you want to go, but President Trump is keeping 60% of the Republican Party very, very fired up and very much on his side. To his point, MAGA Republicans, they do represent 60% of the Republican Party. They give the President 92% approval rating on the economy, 8% disapproving. Non-MAGA Republicans, however, they're down to 55%. That was an astonishing 14 point drop on approval for non-MAGA Republicans. Dave Campbell partnered Heart Research. He's the Democratic pollster. He said, it's hard to imagine a set of policies that could be proposed and implemented between now and election day that would have a material impact enough that American people would say, actually, this guy's doing a pretty good job with the economy. Still, Democrats, not running away with the Congressional Preference Contest. Americans prefer a democratically controlled Congress by four points. That's unchanged from the last quarter. And then watch what's happened here over the 20 years. We've been crawling this to the image of the Democratic Party. For 20 years, they had a better image than Republicans. But then in the last four quarters or a year or so, Republicans have a better image. The reason for that, however, is Democrats having a lousy view of their own party. As one of our pollsters said, losing is something that ends up being very significant. They will not necessarily believe to be voting Republicans. Now, the president lost support among key constituents, including Latinos, young men, and independents. But Campbell cautioned, be a mistake for Democrats to assume that just because the president's numbers are bad, their results in the Congressional election will be good. Just some of the details, a thousand people surveyed, plus or minus 3.1 percent of the margin of error. Forty-nine, 30 percent Republican, Democrat in terms of the response rate.

Speaker 8:
[05:52] When you say mega Republicans, those are self-identified?

Speaker 5:
[05:55] Self-identified, yeah, we have a bunch. Yeah, you just asked, why are you part of the... That fell three points, which is within the margin of error, so not making a big deal of it. It is a huge part of the Republican Party. It's 60 percent according to Michael Roberts. So we're going to watch that to see if that becomes less of a self-identification. Once they fall out of that group, you can see they're much more likely to be up or down on the president, but when they're in that group, 90 percent plus approval rating for President Trump.

Speaker 9:
[06:20] Kind of funny that both sides, you can find, which is, I guess harder for me to believe on one side or the other, you can find Democrats that think the Democratic Party isn't far enough left.

Speaker 3:
[06:31] Oh yeah.

Speaker 8:
[06:34] Is that why the disapproval ratings come in?

Speaker 10:
[06:35] I was assuming it was because they're not fighting back.

Speaker 9:
[06:40] I mean, when Gavin, they're not fighting back.

Speaker 5:
[06:42] Were you on the call yesterday, Joe?

Speaker 9:
[06:44] I just know, when my son says, and he goes, no, it's not that, it's a-

Speaker 8:
[06:50] That surprises me. I thought it was going to be the other-

Speaker 9:
[06:52] There's Republicans that are so far right that they wanted to be isolationists. Think of, I'm not going to name any of the immediate person, but there are so many people that felt betrayed by what looks like a possible foray into another-

Speaker 8:
[07:07] Foreign war.

Speaker 9:
[07:08] Another forever war or nation building. And so there's big time conservatives that are met. So on both sides, you've got-

Speaker 5:
[07:17] We had this discussion, we do an hour and a half long briefing with both of our posters and they try to interpret the data for us. And we did have a long discussion about why Democrats- Democratic approval of the Democratic Party is 57%. Republican approval of the Republican Party is 76%. The math of American electoral politics is this. You go to the knife fight with your 30% and they go with their 30% and you fight over half of the other 30% plus one. That's how you win. If you don't go to the knife fight with all of your people, you're in trouble.

Speaker 8:
[07:53] But the Democrats are unhappy with the Democratic Party because they're not doing enough to push back against Trump.

Speaker 5:
[07:56] Well, we don't really have great data on that. What there was was an interpretation from our posters. The Republican poster says, look, when you lose, people get upset if you're not winning. The Democratic poster pointed out, that's J. Campbell says, it's because they're not fighting hard enough. That's a problem with some of the Democrats. They don't feel like they're fighting hard enough and or getting results in those fights.

Speaker 9:
[08:20] And even the overall polls, too. If Trump's 75% with Republicans, you know what he is with Democrats.

Speaker 5:
[08:27] Oh, Joe, it's like 95, the poll, the poll, like 95, no, no, no, it's worse. The poll began with with one of the briefing began with one of the polls are saying, we didn't think the Democratic numbers could get worse.

Speaker 9:
[08:39] Right.

Speaker 5:
[08:39] But they did. They went from like 95, 93 percent to 96 percent disapproval. So there's just no, it's not just coming from the other side.

Speaker 9:
[08:47] I don't whether it's social media or whether Trump is so unique as a as an individual in so many ways. I don't know. I've never seen vitriol like what we see right now. Things that are, you would never say this to a lot of the stuff that's said. I think it's social media. It's anonymous.

Speaker 5:
[09:08] Well, we don't talk to each other that way. You may think to want to talk to me that way, but you don't talk to me that way.

Speaker 9:
[09:13] If we went out and got hammered, we might.

Speaker 5:
[09:16] I do want to make one point before we go.

Speaker 9:
[09:17] We love each other more.

Speaker 5:
[09:20] Very quick points. The keys to me, though, despite all this talk on the partisan side, Latinos, which were a big part of President Trump's victory, they're gravitating away. Independents, a big part of President Trump's victory, they gravitated away. And some erosion on the non-Republican, on the non-MAGA Republican side, that's worth. And if you bring together a unified Democratic party, that's how you set up for a big congressional change. One other little stat, by the way, all of this is available on cnbc.com, is that in the Congressional Republican districts, there was also a decline in approval of the president, down to 43%. Now, that's Democrats and Republicans in those Republican districts, but it's something, again, worth watching. This is the first of a series of polls we'll do in the lead up to the midterms, but this is the initial stab at that.

Speaker 8:
[10:08] Very interesting. Thank you, Steve.

Speaker 9:
[10:09] Also interesting that the overall impression that the Republicans are, even after all this.

Speaker 5:
[10:15] 35% versus Democrats being 27%.

Speaker 9:
[10:18] Yeah. I mean, again, I'm surprised that's not like a lot more. But even that is surprising in this day and age, pushing back.

Speaker 5:
[10:26] Well, that's what Michael Roberts, Republican, and polls said. It could have been a lot worse.

Speaker 9:
[10:29] Right.

Speaker 2:
[10:32] Cheese will be next.

Speaker 4:
[10:34] Coming up on Squawk Pod, Nasdaq CEO Adena Friedman joins us ahead of the exchange's extended trading hours in December, and ahead of the much anticipated, not yet confirmed, SpaceX IPO. The IPO window is definitely back open.

Speaker 6:
[10:53] There actually is a very healthy pipeline of companies looking to go public. And we had a good quarter. We had 71% win rate of 15 companies coming in. We're off to a better start, I would say, in Q2.

Speaker 10:
[11:11] What made you confident that you could do something that hadn't been done before? I have no fear of failure.

Speaker 4:
[11:17] Trailblazing women changing the game.

Speaker 11:
[11:20] One of my favorite pieces of advice, think about what your boss's boss needs.

Speaker 4:
[11:25] Leadership can look in many, many different forms. It really does come down to just trusting yourself.

Speaker 1:
[11:29] Life is short and you just gotta think big to accomplish big things.

Speaker 4:
[11:33] Julia Boorstin hosts CNBC Changemakers and Powerplayers.

Speaker 1:
[11:37] New episodes every Tuesday wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 4:
[11:43] Welcome back to Squawk Pod.

Speaker 8:
[11:46] You're watching Squawk Box right here on CNBC. I'm Becky Quick along with Joe Kernen and Andrew Ross Sorkin.

Speaker 9:
[11:53] Nasdaq, first quarter results are in. Earnings of 96 cents a share, above estimates, by three cents. Revenue of 1.4 billion, also ahead of expectations. The company saw double-digit organic growth in every division. Joining us now is Nasdaq CEO and Chair, Adena Friedman. And we do this. And I could repeat, last quarter of the quarter, it's always better than expected. You've got new businesses that I think you spearheaded that are always providing growth that we talk about, that I have to study up on, but the growth part, before we get to SpaceX and all the sexy things that are gonna happen, go into your different operating divisions and where the growth comes from. There's 18% with the new stuff you've put in.

Speaker 6:
[12:37] Yeah, so we're really pleased with that. So we had 13% overall revenue growth in the quarter. All, as you mentioned, all three of our divisions had double digit growth. And the standout for this quarter is financial technology. We had 18% growth in our financial technology division. And as you might remember, our financial technology division is really focused on three key areas. First, anti-financial crime, helping banks to figure out criminals in their networks. Trade infrastructure, how do we make sure that we power other markets and trading firms to interact with those markets and manage risk. And then regulatory reporting, reg tech in terms of managing risk across the banking system and the capital market. So in all three of those areas, we had really strong growth across the business. And what we're finding is our clients are really relying on us to help them transform and modernize their operations, their interactions with the markets and to manage risk more effectively. And we're bringing both cloud and AI to our clients really successfully. 80% of our bookings in the corridor were in cloud. And a lot of all of the new capabilities we're bringing in to the AI part of our, you know, AI capabilities we're bringing in are in our cloud-delivered solutions. And so that's really, really exciting.

Speaker 9:
[13:43] Nice to be focused on technology. It is. We just had a good guy from Chuck Clowes, I think an ETF. And he said, you know, the long-awaited move away from tech, the rotation, it happened a little bit, but it's never going to happen, probably.

Speaker 6:
[14:00] Technology is the underpinning of our economy.

Speaker 9:
[14:02] It just is what it is.

Speaker 6:
[14:03] And I mean, every single business in every industry is transforming their operations with the benefit of technology. And so as we are a technology company serving the industry, it really behooves us to make sure that we're innovating, we're providing great new capabilities to our clients. And AI is a core component of all the innovation we're bringing. So whether we can automate workflows for our clients, root out criminals more effectively, you know, AI is really kind of an incredible capability that we're bringing across our products that we're really excited about.

Speaker 8:
[14:33] What about the idea of cybersecurity, particular with what we've just seen from Mythos with Anthropic, the idea that there's some code just about everywhere that could have been around 20, 30 years in places that they are just finding and trying to fix on some of these things, but there are cyber criminals who are trying to figure that stuff out too.

Speaker 6:
[14:52] I mean, cybersecurity is on the top of the mind of every CEO, including of course here at Nasdaq, and it's such a critical component of making us successful. I mean, we see cybersecurity as a critical strategic capability that we have, that we invest in. And with AI and new capabilities and new technologies, you have to be just incredibly vigilant in driving new capabilities inside your own organization. Because while the criminals have new tools, so do the protectors. And the protectors are doing great work to make sure that we can be even more and more advanced in our cyber programs.

Speaker 8:
[15:25] Are you guys trying to use mythos? Is that something that you're signing up with too?

Speaker 6:
[15:29] So we work with actually several different AI providers and different LLMs and of course, Anthropic is one of them. We are very thoughtful about when we bring new models in. So we leverage AWS infrastructure called Bedrock. It allows us to be model agnostic as well as working with Azure in terms of being able to use multiple LLMs in terms of coding tools and other things we do with them. So we will be very thoughtful before we introduce any new model into our infrastructure. And we don't have to, I would say we don't necessarily have to use the best first ones. Sometimes the use case doesn't really require that. So we'll be very thoughtful before we bring anything, anything new into our infrastructure.

Speaker 9:
[16:14] Anything going on in the IPO pipeline?

Speaker 6:
[16:17] You know, there actually is a very healthy pipeline of companies looking to go public. And we had a good quarter. We had 71% win rate, 15 companies coming in. But we also are starting, we're off to a better start, I would say in Q2. We're seeing more companies coming in, tapping the public markets, having a really strong start in the public market. So the pipeline is really strong. I think we're starting to see more activity coming into Q2.

Speaker 9:
[16:43] That would be a big IPO, would it not?

Speaker 6:
[16:45] Yeah, there are some really interesting, very large IPOs that are at least considering coming to the public market. So we're excited. We have a great value proposition for companies of all sizes. But as we think about the largest companies, everything we can do to support them with their investors, Elon's leaning towards the Nasdaq, right?

Speaker 9:
[17:05] Can you tell us?

Speaker 6:
[17:06] You know, we don't comment on any specific company as they're considering the public markets.

Speaker 9:
[17:10] Even to friends, if we promise we're not going to tell anyone?

Speaker 6:
[17:12] You know what? We are very careful in making sure that companies make their own decisions or their own timelines.

Speaker 9:
[17:18] Maybe Andrew can tell. Andrew?

Speaker 3:
[17:20] Adena, I'm not going to push you. I want to ask you about SpaceX per se, but I'm going to ask you a more philosophical question. And you'll understand the context in a second. There's a lot of speculation that if, in fact, if you were to get a SpaceX that is part of that offering to try to get them to the exchange, you would change the rules around how quickly a company of that kind of size or scale could be put into the QQQ. And therefore there are questions about if that becomes a carrot that you're able to use, not just a carrot for the company, but what it ultimately does to price discovery if in fact so many people are almost forced to buy into a company in the immediate aftermath after an IPO. And I'm hoping without talking about SpaceX per se, you could talk about that dynamic and how you think about it.

Speaker 6:
[18:14] Yeah. So as you know, Andrew, we did make some changes in the index construction of the Nasdaq 100. And we started that work early in the second half of last year to consider how we want to think about the future of the index as we also look at large companies coming to market as well as large companies switching to our market. But also the need for us to be as dynamic as possible in making the index construction changes as we go through the year. So the Nasdaq 100 represents the top 100 non-financial companies listed on Nasdaq. But with an annual reconstitution, which we've always had at the Nasdaq 100, it means that a company could be listed on Nasdaq for up to a year before they are able to be eligible to come into the index. So what we've done is we've moved to a quarterly process to reconstitute the Nasdaq 100 and reweight it every quarter as opposed to just once a year. We also have followed other indexes. There are a lot of other index providers that do fast entry for large-cap companies. And so we evaluated that. We did a lot of analysis behind that to understand, for companies that would be in the top 40 of the Nasdaq 100. You're talking about Walmart. And I would say companies that are actually 100 billion are up. But Walmart would be obviously a good example of that. Allowing them to come in 15 days after they list on Nasdaq, they generally have a very broad investor base. They're going to have a lot of liquidity right out of the gate. And it allows our index to reflect our market more successfully. But we also have made a third change, which is to essentially float adjust the weighting of those companies as they come into the index. So if they're coming in with a low float, we won't weight them as if we're looking at the total market cap. We'll basically look at triple the float in terms of the weighting of them in the index. And that allows for the demand for the stock to be more commensurate with the side, the amount of trading that's happening in the stock. So I think, Andrew, we've been very thoughtful about this. We've spent a lot of time working on it. We have a very transparent process in engaging our investors and our clients with it. And then we made that decision earlier this year.

Speaker 3:
[20:26] But you recognize part of the critique is that there are some people, maybe cynically, who would argue that you did that and made those changes in part because you knew that there was the opportunity potentially to capture companies like SpaceX, Anthropic, OpenAI and try to bring them into your index or onto the exchange and that therefore is an incentive to actually change the structure. But the bigger question is if and within 15 days these companies are effectively automatically put into these indexes, it creates a forced buying situation which changes, I think, at some base level. But maybe you have an argument against that. That's where I'm going with this about what the actual price discovery issue is, which is to say if you're an investor out there and you know that an index of your size and scale is going to be buying this stock, it almost automatically puts upward pressure on the price of that stock beyond any kind of fundamental analysis.

Speaker 6:
[21:26] So I think the first thing I would say is that our index business made, did their work independently. We are an IOSCO compliant index providers. So we have a lot of independent standards as we evaluate any changes we're making to the index and that, that the index team did that work independently. And obviously we do consider the Nasdaq 100 an important asset that we can bring to companies as they are listed on Nasdaq, but that, all the work that they did was independently done. In terms of your question related to on the liquidity characteristics of the company and how you're thinking about the demand for the stock, I think there are a couple of things to think about. First, the great thing about index products is that they're tradable at any moment of every day. So, you can, as investors, you can make a choice to invest or to buy or sell the index products throughout the day. And so, as we think about the construction of the index, we do think the index should reflect these amazing innovators that are in the market that are really redefining the economy. That's why investors invest in the Nasdaq 100. But at the end of the day, the investors can openly choose at any given time to move from one index to another. I think that in terms of the liquidity characteristics, any company that comes to market at $100 billion or switches to our market with $100 billion in market cap is going to have a lot of liquidity. And therefore, especially with the float weight adjustment that we made, we do feel like it will create some buying interests as it would with any investor who's investing in the company itself. But they get to invest in a basket so they can have exposure, broader exposure to the innovation economy as opposed to exposure just to one company. So this is, I think, you know, Andrew, a balance of the indexes, the mutual funds and direct buying that's going to come into the market as any company comes public including these.

Speaker 9:
[23:19] You received approval for 23.5, right?

Speaker 6:
[23:23] Yes.

Speaker 9:
[23:23] You have a date.

Speaker 8:
[23:24] 23 hours a day.

Speaker 7:
[23:24] Five days a week. Five days a week.

Speaker 9:
[23:27] And you're going to...

Speaker 8:
[23:28] What is this?

Speaker 9:
[23:29] When's it going to happen? You have a date.

Speaker 6:
[23:31] So we're going to be launching on December 6th, 2026, and we're really excited about that.

Speaker 9:
[23:36] Not December 7th. That would be a day that will live in infamy.

Speaker 6:
[23:39] That would be true.

Speaker 9:
[23:40] The 6th is better.

Speaker 6:
[23:41] We're going to do it on the 6th. And it's really been an industry effort because as we bring the Nasdaq stock market to be able to open throughout the entire 24 or almost 24-hour period of time, we want to make sure a few things. First, the US hours will stay just as they are. We'll have an open at 9.30 and a close at 4 o'clock. Our systems actually are open today from 4 a.m. to 8 p.m. So we're really expanding from 8 p.m. up until 3 a.m. Or, I'm sorry, from 9 p.m. to 4 a.m. And so what we're really trying to do is make sure that no matter where an investor is in the world, they can trade in US equities in their own home hours, their domestic hours.

Speaker 8:
[24:24] What does that mean? What's it going to look like?

Speaker 6:
[24:26] Yeah, so basically, what we've been working on with the industry is making sure we have the consolidated tape available, so that also is going live on December 6th, so you have true transparency of the best bid and offer, last sale of any US equity that's traded in those hours. That's really, really important because then they have true price discovery. The second thing is we have market operations, the stock market and everything we bring with it in terms of guardrails and other capabilities, market operations, market watch, et cetera, will be open and operational throughout the trading hours. And that gives people confidence as they're making investments in their home hours, that they can do that with confidence in our market infrastructure. And then the third thing, just to remind everyone is, the Nasdaq 100 futures trade 24-5. So to be able to trade the underlying and the ETF in the same hours that the futures trade, it allows for that ecosystem to develop. And over time for institutional demand for stocks in other jurisdictions to continue to expand.

Speaker 8:
[25:27] What hour is it going to be closed?

Speaker 6:
[25:29] It's going to close from 8 to 9 p.m. And then it will be open from 9 p.m. And that allows you to do what with settlements? Yeah, so we actually are able to operate 24 hours in terms of our market infrastructure. But our DTCC, our partner in clearing and settlement, they want to be able to have an hour to close out the prior day and open the next day. It's very important for them to have that hour in order to be able to restart and kick off the next day.

Speaker 8:
[25:54] Is there any risk when there's supreme volatility or big down drafts in the market that being open for this long? Sometimes it's like, oh, thank goodness, the market closed. We've got the weekend to get through this. Same story with-

Speaker 6:
[26:08] So we'll still be closed on the weekends. I think that in terms of the trading days, though, first of all, trading does already occur on a 24-5 basis in equities. It's just that it's occurring in the dark, meaning that there's no central transparency. There are ATSs, but no exchanges are trading. So this actually brings more guardrails in terms of looking at, if there are very big swings, we will in fact make it so that we have guardrails on the swings that stocks can make and the markets can make in those hours. But also, I think that we hope that it will draw in more investors, create more liquidity, more ballast in trading across the trading hours of 24-5. So it's going to be, I think, an evolution of markets, not a revolution. But it's a really important first step for us to get launched with the industry.

Speaker 9:
[26:59] We're going to keep the parties at 930, right?

Speaker 6:
[27:02] Absolutely. The parties at 930, the closing cross occurs at 4, all of that happens.

Speaker 9:
[27:06] Confetti, because people out there, they come out there, they're always in a good mood.

Speaker 6:
[27:10] It's a wonderful, wonderful, we get this incredible opportunity to have these great moments with our clients every day.

Speaker 9:
[27:15] Okay, so the 23-5 won't change that, are they?

Speaker 6:
[27:18] Nothing, that won't change at all.

Speaker 9:
[27:20] Don't open on weekends, please. I mean, I can just say, we're going four days. We're not going seven. We're headed for four. Okay? Thanks, Adena.

Speaker 4:
[27:30] Stay with us, there is much more Squawk Pod ahead. Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders joins us. She's talking President Trump, her old boss, and his approach to the war in Iran, plus the Republican Party's chances in the midterm elections.

Speaker 7:
[27:47] I think if we talk about the things that matter, continue to show what we're doing to actually help families, then we have a great story to tell.

Speaker 12:
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Speaker 10:
[28:30] What made you confident that you could do something that hadn't been done before? I have no fear of failure.

Speaker 1:
[28:36] Trailblazing women changing the game.

Speaker 11:
[28:38] One of my favorite pieces of advice, think about what your boss's boss needs.

Speaker 4:
[28:43] Leadership can look in many, many different forms. It really does come down to just trusting yourself.

Speaker 1:
[28:48] Life is short and you just got to think big to accomplish big things.

Speaker 4:
[28:52] Julia Boorstin hosts CNBC Changemakers and Power Players.

Speaker 1:
[28:56] New episodes every Tuesday wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 4:
[29:03] You're listening to Squawk Pod from CNBC. Here's Joe Kernen.

Speaker 9:
[29:08] My turn is now Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders. This morning, it's good to see you, Governor.

Speaker 7:
[29:15] Good to see you. Thank you for having me on this morning.

Speaker 9:
[29:18] You are very welcome. We had Steve Liesman bringing us the results of our All-America survey. It's got nothing to do with athletes, Governor. We're not talking to all-American. But it did show, maybe not surprisingly, that gasoline prices and affordability issues and concerns about the war are on a lot of our, who's in that survey, on their minds at this point. You may have in the past had an opportunity to try to defend President, President Trump in certain ways. You're not in that job anymore. Or to explain his, you know, his programs. Now you only got to worry about Arkansas. But are you ready to defend the entire Republican position going into the midterms at this point?

Speaker 7:
[30:08] You know, I think Republicans are still in a good position. Historically, midterms are not easy, but we're still focused on things that matter. If you look at what a lot of Republicans are talking about, what a lot of Republicans are actually trying to deliver, like we're doing here in my home state of Arkansas, we've been able to cut taxes already three times since I got elected in the last couple of years. We're on track to do another tax cut here in the next few weeks. We will have knocked off 25% of our state income tax, returning north $1.5 billion to taxpayers. Not only are we working towards getting to zero on our state income tax, I also got rid of one of the most regressive tax, the grocery tax here in the state of Arkansas, making it easier for families to afford to put food on their table. We're looking at daily at ways we can continue to help lift people up, not push people down. I think you're seeing that happen and seeing that talked about by Republicans across the country. That doesn't mean midterms will be easy. They certainly have their uphill battle. But I think if we talk about the things that matter, continue to show what we're doing to actually help families, then we have a great story to tell. And I think that we can flip the narrative and do much better in the midterms than is historically expected.

Speaker 9:
[31:30] Governor, I'm trying to remember. You didn't have true social to deal with back when you were press secretary. But at any given moment, something like this can happen. I want you to respond to this. We just heard from the president. I've ordered the United States Navy to shoot and kill any boat, small boats, though they may be. Their naval ships are all, I guess, small, 159 of them at the bottom of the sea. That is putting mines in the waters off the Strait of Hormuz. There is to be no hesitation. Additionally, our mine sweepers are clearing the Strait right now. I am hereby ordering that activity to continue. But at a tripled up level, thank you for your attention to this matter, President Donald J. Trump. Do you have a feeling for how this is progressing and how it ends in terms of our action in Iran?

Speaker 7:
[32:26] Look, I'm thankful that we have a president that is courageous and strong enough to actually stand up against our enemies. I think one of the big pieces that's being left out of the conversation and that people are seemingly forgetting is that Iran has been the number one sponsor of terrorism for decades. And they have killed Americans. Everybody wants to say that this is a war that Trump started. I think it's a war that he's ending. It's been going on for nearly five decades and we finally have a president that is standing up and fighting back. As somebody whose parents are living in the war zone, do I like the activity that is happening? No, but I'm glad that we have somebody who's not going to let Iran continue to take American lives, continue to threaten people. I think that it is crazy to forget. This is a group that not only has taken action, but they continue to state that their biggest mission is death to America, is to kill Americans and to remove our existence. When your enemy keeps telling you that, at some point you have to believe them. You have to fight back. I'm glad we have a president who is doing that. I hope they come to a swift and fast resolution and bring more stability to the Middle East than we have had in decades, because it's far time that we stop allowing our enemy to dictate all of the rules of the game.

Speaker 3:
[33:49] Governor, I was curious if you could speak to some of the comments that Tucker Carlson, who's been a influential voice in the Republican Party for quite some time. In the past couple of days now, he has said that he is tormented by his support for the president, and said that he felt that he had misled his followers.

Speaker 7:
[34:09] You know, I certainly can't speak for Tucker, but the things that he has been saying and the things that he has been talking about over the course of the last several months are simply not based in fact. I don't know what the shift brought to him, but the things that he is saying, the type of misinformation that he is putting out on a daily basis are not only wrong, but frankly, they're dangerous. And I hope that he'll have another about shift at some point and start talking with real facts and stop misleading people around the country.

Speaker 9:
[34:45] You know, there is, it is tough to live in this social media world, Governor. I know you know that. And I don't know whether the nation's always been this divided. But this is a time where if you're prosecuting, let's call it a war for lack of a better term, but whatever we're doing in Iran right now, do we have the ability to push this through? I guess it's up to the president to decide how much pain that the country's willing to go through to affect the outcome. But I could see where there'd be a lot of pressure brought to bear that would make it difficult to do what needs to be done.

Speaker 7:
[35:28] Well, and I think that's one of the differences that we have in this president, is he has been willing to get the job done, unlike people in the past who have continued to allow Iran and other enemies to walk all over us. This is a president who says, we're going to actually stand up for American interest. We're not going to allow you to threaten our people, to gain nuclear capabilities when your stated mission is to remove our existence. I think he's right to take a hard line. I think he is taking a very courageous, strong step, not an easy one. I don't think that this is a politically easy move for the president, but that is what I think is so much more impressive about it. If it was easy, everybody else would have done it. This is a president who's standing up for American interest. I'm thankful we actually have somebody who's willing to do that because we certainly didn't see that in the previous administration.

Speaker 9:
[36:25] All right, Governor Sanders, thanks. We hope to see you again in the not too distant future. Appreciate it. Thanks.

Speaker 7:
[36:31] Absolutely. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 4:
[36:35] That's Squawk Pod for today. Thank you for listening. Squawk Box is hosted by Joe Kernen, Becky Quick, and Andrew Ross Sorkin. You can catch them live for three full hours if you tune in to CNBC starting at 6 AM Eastern. You can always get the best of that TV show right into your ears when you follow Squawk Pod wherever you get your podcasts. Please let us know what you think. Apple Podcast listeners can rate or write a brief review of Squawk Pod. We love to hear your thoughts and ideas, and sometimes we listen and we implement them. We'll meet you right back here tomorrow. Have a great day.

Speaker 11:
[37:14] We are clear. Thanks, guys.

Speaker 10:
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