Market Rotation Amidst Weak Jobs Report… And Exclusive Interview with President Trump 7/2/26

25:18Well, you know, I don't do anything having to do with my business. My kids run it. I put a lot of money. I had a lot of money, and I have a lot of money. I've always made money. You know, I'm a business person. I'm a really good business person. I've made money. I've made a tremendous amount of money, more than I would have ever thought I would have made. and I let people invest it. I don't even know who they are, but it's given to big firms that are on your show all the time. My son, Eric, handles it. I don't talk to him about things such as this. I think I'd be allowed to. I'm not sure even what the status is, but I don't.

25:55And he gives it into these semi-blind trusts or blind trusts where people invest. There was a story today about Jensen Wang, who's fantastic, NVIDIA, and that I have some stock. I think it's very small. I think it's one of many companies that one of the big Wall Street firms invest in. So they said, oh, Trump has some stock in there. I don't care about that. You know why I don't care? Because I have a much bigger purpose. You know, this is the Oval Office. It's a much bigger purpose than whether or not I make money. As an example, the president's the highest paid person in government. And, you know, by some standards, he gets a lot of money.

26:41I don't, I'm the only president, they say, that's ever given up my, I gave up my salary. I don't get a salary. I gave it up. And that's a lot of, you know, by some standards, that's a lot of money. But making money in the stock market, that makes sense. So as far as crypto goes, And I'm just wondering, you didn't divest your business, you have your sons running it. I think vice presidents and presidents aren't subject really to conflict of interest laws, but there's this notion that you need to be aware of conflict of interest. There was a large sum of money made in crypto. Did you know that your family business was going to engage in crypto?

27:22Did you have anything? Well, I was here before. I was there before I was in office. But the way I view crypto is a little differently. We have to be at the top. Otherwise, China is going to take it over. Like, for instance, AI, we're leading substantially in AI over China and everybody else. I mean, we're leading. When I was with President Xi three weeks ago, he greeted me and they said, first words, I mean, literally went, wow, you've really done a great job. You've really, because this country was dead. We had a dead country. Now we have the hottest country in the world. and the way I look at AI or the way I look at crypto is if we're not going to do it, China's going to get it, most likely China, but somebody else.

28:03Japan is somebody else. And I want to, it's a big industry. Chipto, you call it an industry, but it's a big deal. And crypto is a big deal. You look at it and the way it's grown over the years, you have believers, you don't have believers, you know, whatever it is, but it's a big deal. And anything we do, I want to be number one in. And we're number one in crypto, and we're also number one in AI. In the disclosure this week, the amount of money that you and the family made in crypto, it was an outsized number. I was just asking, did you, were you know about the crypto venture? So that was just something.

28:41By the way, I could know about it. I didn't. I mean, there's nothing illegal. There's nothing wrong with it. I could know. I remember our Title 18, Section 208 from Congress, you, the vice president, and you do not have, you would have to recuse yourself. I didn't even know that. You would have to recuse yourself on every decision that could be running the country that could have anything to do with you. So it just isn't feasible to do it. Well, I feel badly in a way for my kids because every time my kids do, if they invest in a stock or if they go and do a bill, Anything they do, because the presidency is so powerful, so big, everything, if they buy a cupcake company, well, the energy to make the cupcakes is, you know, sort of like, how's my energy policy?

29:30So therefore you have a conflict. Almost anything they do, if they want to buy a truck, if they want to buy, you know, if they buy an energy efficient truck, they have inside information. so it's pretty tough in that sense I tell my kids stay away from as much as you can stay away from but they also have a life we were doing business long before I ever thought of you knew me a long time before I thought of even running you knew me before I even thought about running for president I knew you before you were married to Melania that's right I've made a lot of money over the years and I think one of the reasons that I got elected to have a business person.

30:12And if you look at what's happening, we're beating everybody. We're beating China. We're beating every single country with the envy of the world. And AI, whether it's good or bad, we have it. Let's talk about that. And we are leading by so much. You know, I'm letting all of these big plans. Everyone said, well, we don't have the energy to compete. I came up and this was something I'm proud of. I did it myself. I said, I came up with this idea. I let each plant build their own electricity. They become a utility. But these massive plants that are being built, they can't go off an old grid. So we wouldn't have anybody.

30:49We literally wouldn't have anything. We need double the energy, double the electricity that we have right now to do that. Just that one A.I. industry. So I let the plants as they build these billions and billions of dollars of plants. I let them build their own electric generating plants. And they build them on top. They build them on the side. They build them separately. And we have nothing but electricity. If you really look, we have more than anybody. If I didn't come up with that concept, we wouldn't have, we would not be in first place. We wouldn't even be, we'd be in last place. We wouldn't have any.

31:29We don't have enough from the old grid. What about taking, so I'm sort of proud of that. But reportedly, Sam Altman is discussing giving the government a 5 % stake in open AI. Is that possible? And is that true? And would other AI companies do similar things? Or would you like them to? Well, I did something with Intel. Right. That a lot of people don't know about and talk about. But it was, you know, they had problems with things. And they got hurt badly because no president ever charged tariffs. And Taiwan literally took 100 % of the business almost. mostly Taiwan, but South Korea a little bit, but mostly Taiwan.

32:06And I said, boy, if I was president, that would have never happened. Taiwan would never be in the position they're in. Now, of course, you know, they're in a little bit of a tenuous position. And I have them all moving back. They're all moving back into this country. We're going to have 40 to 50 to 60 percent of the chips, I think, by the time or pretty close to the time I leave office. They're building chip factories in Arizona in particular, the biggest company in the world is building. They're leaving Taiwan, meaning to build this. They're building their biggest plant. And I think we're going to have a big percentage of chips right now.

32:42You know, we had virtually nothing. We didn't make chips anymore. And Intel came in. They had a problem. I said, I can solve your problem, but I want 10 percent of the company. They said, what? I said, I want 10 percent of the company. And he agreed to. and the stock has gone through. So I think we made$60 or$70 billion in eight months. Do I get credit for that? No. Somebody said, that's not very American. I said, no, I think it is very American, actually. And I've done that with other deals. I think they had a loan anyway from the CHIPs Act. And now it's better to have equity than a loan, you would think.

33:16Well, they worked out well from our standpoint. That's what I mean. We really had no investment. We had on zero investment. We made about, I guess,$70 billion in a period of eight or nine months. But that's a great thing. What's happened is Intel has gone through the roof. You know, it's one of the hottest companies, and they've done a great job. Is Chinese AI catching up, and are there some new restrictions you're thinking about that would make sense on technology? Well, you need some guardrails, but you want to do as little as possible. You want to be good. We have, when we think there's a bad player out there, there's a little danger.

33:52We stop the player quickly and effectively. We had a recent case where we did that. But you have to be, look, you have to be in the game. AI is bigger than the Internet. I've never seen anything. You know, the Internet was a big deal. I think this is much bigger than the Internet. And I'm basing it on numbers. I'm basing, I've never seen anything. Look, I went through the Internet thing and I watched and I saw it grow very effectively. But this could be bigger if we're not competing. and if we're going to compete, because I really think whoever's number one is going to really win the race. And right now, we're substantially number one.

34:31I'm going to try and do as much as we can. You go ahead. I hope that's okay. If he needs a little more time, just relax. I'm not Kamala. They give him four minutes and then start screaming at him. That housing bill. Don't be nervous, okay? I'm only in the Oval Office with, no, I'm not. He's been my friend for a long time, and he's a good man, too. In a few days, it's going to become law one way or the other, the housing bill, right? You're going to sign it? Will it become law? Where do you stand on that? I know you called it a yawn. I don't think you were necessarily anti-housing bill. You called it a yawn because you think what's really important is safe.

35:11Save America Act, yeah. So I think the Save America Act is the most important thing that we have that we have before us and maybe for many years back and many years forward. It's voter identification with a photo. So you look at somebody that looks like that guy. Voter ID. It's proof of citizenship. And it's no mail in ballots except for the military. We're very generous on this. if you're sick, if you're just not feeling well, you can get exceptions. If there's a disability, there's some problem. Or if you go on vacation. But you can't send in millions and millions and millions of ballots where you swamp the place.

35:57And it's so corrupt. We're the only country in the world that does it. So it's those three things. I also had no men in women's sports, But we won that yesterday in the Supreme Court. And I also had no transgender mutilization of children. And frankly, we'll win that, too. So I took them out. So I have the three things. Will you let it go, though, housing? You wouldn't veto it, would you? So nobody knows more about housing than I do. I made billions and billions of dollars with housing. And I know exactly what they've done. They may be zoning easier, but maybe they made it tougher without knowing.

36:34It's very complex stuff. But the housing bill is fine.

36:42There's a lot of Democrat points in there that I don't even think are good. But it's fine. But I've made the case I'd rather not sign anything until we sign the Save America Act. You think through reconciliation or filibuster? Because if you do Save America, you're not going to have cheating. But practically, how do we get there on Save America? What would you like Majority Leader Thune to? Well, I would like them to get it passed. What I'd really like is for them to kill the filibuster, terminate the filibuster. When they terminate the filibuster, then they'll immediately approve to save America.

37:21And a hundred other things, you could sit down all day long and just vote, and you'd have it. And the sad part is we'd probably have five or six senators that won't vote for it, Republican senators and all of the Democrats. So their policy is no good, the Democrats. I call them the Democrats because their policies are so bad. But the one thing, unfortunately, they stick together. They don't have Mitch McConnell, now Mitch McConnell. The Democratic Party's got their own issues right now. We'll talk about that a little later. It's a different kind of issue. When they vote on something, they still...

37:56Look at the Supreme Court justices. The three Supreme Court justices, every vote, If it's for or against, it's 100%. I don't think they had any dissension. Where's our people? Yeah, no. It's almost, you know, I've said it. Republicans want to show everybody how they're not controlled, how they're so honorable. Whereas the Democrat justices, and judges, by the way, and judges, they get up. Barack Hussein Obama appointed me, and I'm voting for him. Republicans don't do that. And I'm amazed. I'm not saying it has to be a loyalty test, but it's much different. The three justices vote as a bloc. I think I can remember one time, but very, very seldom do they not vote as a bloc.

38:48Whereas our people, and we have six, but they move around a little bit and they suppress. For instance, birthright citizenship. I should have won that. That wasn't meant for billionaires from China bringing a child over and becoming an American citizen. And far worse than that, much worse than that. The last vote is not out of that either. I'll tell you, the worst vote was tariffs. I'm doing the same tariffs, but now it's much tougher. I stopped eight wars because of tariffs. India, Pakistan. I mean, I did so many. I stopped eight wars. Everybody acknowledges it. and five of the eight were stopped because of tariffs.

39:33I said, if you keep fighting, I'm going to put a 200 % tariff on your country. Said it the same thing to the other. I did it with India and with Pakistan. Eleven planes were shot down. They were going to war and they're nuclear nations, strong nuclear nations. And the prime minister of Pakistan said President Trump saved at least 30 million lives by stopping this war. You know what has been a really good indicator of what's happening in the war, in Iran, or whatever, the conflict, is oil. And regardless of what we hear from whomever has a stage in Iran, you pointed out, we don't know who's talking at any given time.

40:13There's different factions. Well, we killed one group? And then another. We killed the second level? But$67,$68 oil. We're down to lower than we were before? It shows you that probably, even though we have these skirmishes on both sides, and I don't know whether that continues, I don't know whether you can tell me whether that continues. Have you been close to doing more than just a reciprocal move on them? Well, I think I've done much more than reciprocal. You want diplomacy at this point. Look, I built the military my first term. I'm using it in my second term. When I went in, otherwise we wouldn't have.

40:49And that's after Biden gave so much away in Afghanistan. He just said, leave it. We left brand new military vehicles. We left tanks. We left we left airplanes. These people are crazy. They don't know what they're doing. And there was no reason to do it. Getting out of Afghanistan was fine, but they should have kept Bagram, the Air Force Base. They could have kept it very easily. We would have gotten out with dignity and strength. that we shouldn't have been there in the first place. Or we could have won. I would have won it. I would have won it or gotten out. But I would have won it. But they just teetered around.

41:27You know, it's interesting. So we're in the war. And it's really the denuclearization of Iran. This is not a war per se. This is the denuking of Iran. You can't let them have a nuclear weapon. And I'm doing it for three and a half, four months, right? Look at Venezuela. That was a one-day war. And we've gotten our money back many, many times over for the cost of the war. But in a certain way, I'm doing just as well with Iran. It's a much bigger, more complex situation. Our relationship, by the way, with Venezuela is great. They're doing better than they've ever done with oil. The big companies are moving in.

42:05And we're getting a good chunk of it, too, as we should. But with Iran... What if they jerk you around? What if they jerk us around again with either the straight or with the, you know, they know the midterms are coming? Because they've had their own way for 47 years. Like if you're a spoiled child and you've had your way for many years with your parents and all of a sudden they come down hard on you, it takes you a little while to get used to it. They've had their way for 47 years. They pushed everywhere. They were known as the bully of the Middle East. They pushed the countries around and they pushed the United States around because we had presidents that weren't willing to do.

42:44Look, Barack Obama paid them to try and keep them in line, gave them a one point seven billion in cash. You remember that because you reported that they put it on a beautiful 757 Boeing. They took all the seats out and they stuffed it with green cash from Virginia, Maryland and D.C. The banks had no money left. They literally took every and they delivered it to Iran and they took out satchels and sacks of of money. In addition to that, they paid tens of billions of dollars. And, you know, they got they got a lot of nuclear research and a lot of weapons and a lot of missiles and an enemy. They actually went on the other side.

43:27And how a Jewish person can vote for a Democrat is beyond me. because I've been the best president in the history of Israel. And by the way, in Israel, I think I was at 99 % or something. But Joe, you can't let Iran, whether it's Israel, the Middle East or not, you can't let Iran have a nuclear weapon. And when you say maybe I'm a little bit nice, no other president's even thought of doing what I did. so in my first little while there I ripped their military they have no navy they have no air force, they have no radar their leaders are all dead and they elect, not elect, they raise new leaders they're all dead also we're in the third set of leaders and we actually get along with them, I think they're much more rational by the way, I think that's regime change but I'm not looking for regime change I'm looking for something very simple.

44:30They cannot have a nuclear weapon. Or if you want to see market disruption. So think of it. The oil today is at sixty eight dollars. The market's up to almost fifty three thousand. The S &P, they said the S &P would never hit seven thousand. Never. I did that in 10 months. they said I would never hit it during my term they said I'd never hit 50 ,000 during my term and nobody else would and they said nobody else would either they said if I could get to 45 ,000 I said that to you when you asked me this is a pragmatic end you're not going to be in a forever war that's true there are other concerns we were in Vietnam for 19 years we were in Afghanistan for like 10 years we were in the Korean War forever we were in I don't even mention World War I and World War II they're biggies but you know what stuff like this could have led to it but we were in many many years in every war I've been there for four months and what have I done I've defeated them militarily they're totally defeated militarily they have some missiles left we could wipe them out too and I hit them three times last week very hard because they sent a drone into a ship I hit them Then they did something else, and I hit them.

45:49I hit them three nights in a row. The week before, I hit them two nights in a row very hard. And we're negotiating, and we'll see whether or not. I think they've agreed to just about everything we need. No. Do you—I'm going to switch gears completely. And we have assets left over there. If necessary, you're willing to do what's necessary. We have all the assets. No, they're just waiting. You're not anticipating another full— Joe, I did a blockade that was essentially not a blockade. It was a wall of steel. We have the great Navy, the greatest Navy in the world. These guys are unbelievable. Not one ship got through to Iran.

46:26They have 300 percent inflation. They're making no money. So we're going to take some of the money and we're going to buy them. They need food. They need corn and wheat and soybeans. And we're going to have exclusively our American farmers provide that, assuming we get to the position where we should get to. I think we're going to get there. They have their strength is gone. Their bravado is gone, although they keep a pretty good friend. The one thing they do have is fake news. The New York Times said the other day that Iran is in better position now than it was four months ago. I said, wait a minute.

47:07Their military is gone. Their inflation is up to 300 percent from 5 percent. Their leaders are gone. Their second row of leaders are gone. Some of their third row of leaders are gone. Their generals are mostly wiped out. But they said that they are in better shape today than they were four months ago before we attacked. No, we were very strong. And, you know, look, I always said, I don't want to be a president with a depression on his resume. I don't want to be Herbert Hoover. Of almost all presidents, and some have been bad, some have been good, very few have been great, but I never want to be Herbert Hoover because Herbert Hoover was the president that probably took us into the Great Depression, the greatest depression.

48:09Led the whole world there. He raised interest rates and he raised taxes simultaneously. I guess he was trying to do something, but that didn't work out too well. By the way, you know what? It took us 30 years to get out of it. FDR didn't get us out of it. There's a picture right there, FDR, nice picture. It took us years to get out of it. I don't ever want to be in a depression. I don't want to be a president that oversees the great worldwide depression. That was Herbert Hoover. And it was a terrible thing. And he made a mistake. Now, if I want to be the tough guy and close up the strait for the next years, where 21 percent or whatever it might be, 20 percent, 21 percent of the oil never comes out, and you can't get oil anymore.

48:57You know what? A lot of people don't know. One of the reasons it only went up, it went up to like$115. If you remember, and I've seen guests on your show where they go, oil will be$350 a barrel and there'll be a depression because at$350, there's a depression. It's automatic. It goes with it. I said, well, we got to do something. We did something nobody knew. Every night we were taking ships out through the South, which is the furthest point from where they have their little weapons. And they were going along the coast with no lights. For a month and a half, a lot of ships came out. We had one night where we took 22 ships out.

49:38That's a lot of oil. Those are big ships. Some of them are really big ships. And in a way, they had courage going out. But our Navy took them out. We escorted them out. And nobody knew. The lights were off. Everything was off. Everything was silent. But we blew up Iran's radar. They had no radar. They still don't. We blew it up again the other night. They had a nice new radar. They were all set to go. And we blew it up last week. They have to start all over again for a third time. But, Joe, that kept, I think, other things to it. But, Joe, think of it. Did we ever get above 115? Never went up.

50:15Think of it. Originally, it was 115 came down quickly. No, but they thought it was going to go to 300. If you have 300, then I become Herbert Hoover. I don't want to be Herbert Hoover. Have you spoken to Elon since he became a trillionaire? I haven't. No, I wrote him a note. I said, congratulations. Very good. I have a very good relationship with Elon. Elon and I had a little dispute because he backed me 100%. He liked me. He still likes me. But I did a little thing called the electric mandate. We're not going to have an electric mandate where everybody has to have an electric car, where your beautiful son standing over there is mandated to have an electric car if he wants gas-generated or gasoline-generated or a hybrid.

50:57And I made so many speeches, and Elon was there for many of them, and I'd always say, we will not have the electric mandate. But when I actually did it, Elon was not thrilled about that, and I can understand it, but he's doing good. Yeah, he's moved on. Do you think, have you talked to him about donating SpaceX to something you might want to talk about, or donating SpaceX stock to Trump accounts? Well, I think that he will do that. Micron, which is a great company, just did it. Michael Tell is a fantastic guy. He did$6 ,250 ,000. Are you ringing the bell next week or something? And I'm ringing the bell right here, I think.

51:37They're going to have a bell, and it's New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ. I said, what do you mean? They don't do both? You're invited to the NASDAQ if you want to. Well, that's interesting. It's very interesting. No, they're doing it together. I don't know if I can do that. No, but you know what they're doing? I was surprised. They're doing it together. The New York Stock Exchange, I think Jeff is coming in, and the head of NASDAQ is coming in, and we're doing it together. See? It can happen. We're doing it. See this spot right here? The bell's going to be right there. That brings me just back to 250 and how you think you can set us up for the next 50 years.

52:13And one of the things I think is, you know, Secretary Besson talked about the Trump doctrine. There were five things. And I think we've got to have national capacity here for anything we need. We need to be able to get it here. Reciprocity. We can't be, you know, it can't be flowing one way to the rest of the world. We can't be stupid people. We've got to write the rules. for the new technology, which is what, that's AI. Dollar's gotta stay strong, we need financial leadership. Maybe most importantly, it's all gotta flow up and down to every American needs to participate in the prosperity here.

52:51Trump accounts, I think it's a big leap towards, I mean, it's a novel way, we haven't even considered it in the past. Might be the most powerful, instead of just transfer payments. It's a beautiful thing. It's a child has no money. And when that baby becomes a man or a woman, they can have hundreds of thousands of dollars, maybe more. But they can have hundreds of thousands of dollars because we're seeding it. And guys like Michael Dell and Susan, his wife, they were so, so strong for it. But think of it. He's putting up six billion, two hundred and fifty million. I know that's a tremendous amount.

53:33I don't care how rich you are. That's a lot of money. And he wants to do it again. And others are. So, again, I just spoke, literally just spoke yesterday to Micron, hot company, great guy. What a great guy. And he said, we're putting up$250 million into the Trump accounts. So many companies are doing it. And, I mean, kids that won't have any money when they turn 18 or 21 have a chance of being sort of rich. It's an amazing thing, and it's been very successful. Do you have a favorite president, or do you think there's a period that was so formative that have we lost our way in any respects? We have.

54:16We've had some very bad presidents. The president has got tremendous power in this country, even before the decision that I got, slaughter. They go with the slaughter decision, which is an interesting name. But that's a very powerful decision. But it gave a lot more power to the president. But it has been a strong presidency, not just me. It's been a strong presidency. It's considered a strong office. You know, other presidents are not considered a strong office. Even if you're president, you can't do as much. But now with this additional, I mean, it's very special. We are respected again as a country, maybe like never before.

54:56A year and a half ago, we were laughed at. They're not laughing anymore. They respect us. The king of Saudi Arabia told me, and I said this numerous times. He said it, but many people said it. He said, President, a year and a half ago, America was dead. They thought it was dead.

55:16Anywhere in the world. And we do. Well, let's hope for another 250 like that. Thank you very much. We're on a good start. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Jim, very much. For all your time. Thank you. Great job. Happy semi-quincentennial. Happy something, right? Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Say you always wanted to have a backyard oasis. Here's the thing. If you get smart with your money, you can do things like that. With Empower, you can start making the most out of your money so you can go out and live a little. Isn't that why we work so hard? To have some fun with our money? Like treating yourself to something special.

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57:24So level up your grill game and your outdoor chill game and head to Wayfair.com now to get your outdoor space ready for the season. That was our own Joe Kernan with his exclusive sit-down interview with President Donald Trump. Let's bring in Megan Casella to discuss this wide-ranging interview. One of the things that really stuck out for me, Megan, at least, was in a week where we had some very revealing financial disclosures. The president addressed that head on. He did. And he said that it was because he's been invested in the stock market. He says he's been a businessman and a very successful one.

58:00And because he's invested in the stock market and the stock market has gone so well, that that's why he's profiting. He's making some money here. But he says, you know, that there's been no conflicts of interest. That's the theme that we'd heard from the White House this week. But what that doesn't do, Melissa, is that that doesn't acknowledge the fact that about half of all the income, more than a billion dollars of the income that was reported in those disclosures this week, came from the crypto industry. And our Joe Kernan did raise that as well, asking about crypto. And the president said that he says he didn't know his family had been investing in crypto.

58:30So that was sort of addressed there. I also think it's interesting. He says everybody's been profiting because the stock market is up. But of course, as you and I know, Melissa, it's a small fraction of Americans that actually own the majority, the vast majority of those stocks. A couple of other highlights I found interesting, one of them being what he was saying about the Supreme Court and the Lisa Cook ruling this week. He was saying that he will still get her off the board or that he'll work to do it, he says, by winning the case. And I thought this one was interesting. He said the Supreme Court sent it back on process and procedure, so we'll do perfect process and perfect procedure.

59:03That, of course, being the other big theme of this week, those Supreme Court decisions, the president saying he's not done trying to get Lisa Cook off the board of the Federal Reserve. Right. And then there's also, you know, there's news today that the report that OpenAI was seeking to give the government a 5 percent stake. He didn't really shed any light on that either, but did bring up the government's track record so far, a decent one, investing in companies. Yes, clearly not shying away from the topic of the government investing in these companies. But when he was asked head on about OpenAI, he said, you know, I did something similar with Intel.

59:36And then he went on to talk about it, really celebrate it and actually said, you know, that some folks had said to him, it doesn't seem American for the government to be investing and taking a stake in Intel in that way. And he said, actually, I think it's very American. So we don't have we didn't get the confirmation that Joe was looking for there as to whether or not that is in conversation. But clearly the president likes this idea. you know, and they spoke a little bit about the CHIPS Act as well, Joe, bringing up that Intel had gotten a grant under the CHIPS Act under the previous administration, and the president saying this is better.

1:00:06It's better for the government, the government's doing better to have this equity stake. So clearly not confirming this one, but that he likes the way, the path that the government is going down. Yep. And the notion, or at least the assertion the president Trump makes that 50 percent or more of chips will be made in the United States. It's a bold prediction by the end of his term. Megan, thank you. Megan Casella joining us from Washington on the heels of Joe Kern's exclusive interview with President Trump. Let's pick it up with the open AI stake, because that's an interesting one. I mean, the president didn't shed any light.

1:00:37He didn't confirm it. He didn't deny it. But the idea that a company like an open AI and maybe others will give the government a stake, I don't know. Is that a bad thing, a good thing, Karen? There's a lot of. I don't think it's a great thing. From the standpoint of OpenAI or the standpoint of the government? OpenAI thinks it's a great thing. You have to assume that they think they'll curry favor with the administration by giving them a 5 % stake. So going back to the intel thing and him saying, I think it's American, I sort of agree with that one. The prior administration gave, not grants, but gave them the money.

1:01:13They did have to meet various milestones to get the full amount of the money, and they did have to issue warrants. But the actual equity stake, I thought, was a good thing. And it turned out to be, I had no idea it would go to this, of course, or I would own the stock, which I don't. But I did think that was a very good thing. The AI thing, picking one who seemingly doesn't need the money, but maybe they do. But it's not for any money. It's just giving them 5%. Do we have any details beyond that? No. It's just 5%. Here you go, 5%. To be clear, it's just a report at this point, but it is different because, as you point out, in the case of Intel, people didn't want to put the money in, right?

1:01:57And so here with the AI trade, everybody wants to put money in open AI. I mean, they can fundraise till the cows come home before they even hit the public markets, and it's not an issue raising money, and yet they still want the government to buy in. Yeah, and I think that's really what this would be about, is just getting on the government side, because you want an industry that could potentially get regulated here. because AI is just so new and we don't know where that's going. That's exactly what they want to do is make sure that they're on their side. And I don't think it's necessarily going to be additive to the business to have the government have a stake in them.

1:02:28But I also don't think it's going to hurt them that now if they need something or if they need help and regulations, I think that's what the indication would be there. And I think really if OpenAI does in fact go public and we actually have to, you know, look at some of these details, I think that's maybe we'll find out a little more. But that's also the question is they're seeing what's happening in the AI story and they're saying, well, it might be a little while before we go public. So, you know, I don't know how soon we're going to find this out, but it's absolutely something to keep an eye on.

1:02:50Yeah. Tim, your thoughts? Well, investment into strategic sectors is a theme that's been very much alive during the Trump presidency and largely makes a lot of sense. If you want to get past the dynamics that are state owned enterprises everywhere I've invested around the world in my career have traded at a discount. But there's no question what we need to do in this country to have self-sufficiency across a handful of strategic sectors. I think the entire world is thinking about this differently. It's not just the United States. So I think the world, much in the same way that people have that countries have become more, I would just say, inward looking and there's less globalization.

1:03:33strategic sectors are requiring that countries are significant investors in them. Taking direct stakes in companies isn't just the United States. And I think it's happening everywhere. Yeah, I mean, the other side to this, too, is if the government is invested in, you know, AI like this, maybe it is more in their interest to protect it against Chinese competitors. And so maybe to that extent, it could be actually a very good thing for the likes of a Google or Microsoft to not have that cheaper competition there. But you can't help but wonder if AI would get a different, be treated differently, open AI, I'm sorry, if open AI would be treated differently.

1:04:12In terms of advantage. Regulation or who knows what. Yeah. Or, you know, government contract, who knows what. Right. Yeah. Big questions remain to be seen in this trade for sure. That does it for us here on Fast Money. We wish you a very happy, healthy July 4th. Mad Money starts right now. All opinions expressed by the Fast Money participants are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of CNBC or its parent company or affiliates and may have been previously disseminated by them on television, radio, internet, or another medium. You should not treat any opinion expressed on this podcast as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of an opinion.

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