Apple Pours Another $100B into US & Disney’s Deals to Dominate Streaming

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0:29Good Morning Brew Daily Show. I'm Neil Freiman. And I'm Toby Howell. Today, why is Las Vegas empty this summer? Then Apple just pledged another$100 billion investment in the U.S. It's Thursday, August 7th. Let's ride.

0:46Good morning and happy Thursday. 20 years ago, Facebook was the hottest app on college campuses. 10 years ago, it was Snapchat. Today, there's a new app the kids are obsessing over, and it's not new at all. Google Calendar. The Wall Street Journal wrote that college students are scheduling literally everything on G-Cal, from meetings to brushing their teeth to even late night hookups. There's just so much going on all the time, and so it's nice to not have to think about it, one devoted G-Cal Georgetown student told the journal. Others are more skeptical, saying that plotting out your life in color-coded blocks doesn't allow for spontaneity, and it's just plain weird when a friend wants to hang out with you, and you send them your calendar and tell them to find an open spot.

1:29Toby just sent you an invite to speak. Thank you, Neil. I just accepted that invite. But I do think using a Google Cal to manage your social life is a little bit much. One kid who went to Williams sent someone a hookup question market Google Cal invite, and it worked, which is diabolical. And apparently he was on the receiving end of a similar invite later in the semester, and he clicked maybe, which is also diabolical. But I think a better system is one that some of my fiance and her friends use. They have a shared notes app. So it's not quite as personal as your Google Cal, but they do kind of lay out their schedules for the year.

2:05I think that feels better because it's just too much if it's in your personal or work Google Cal. I just, I don't like that. But hey, if kids need a full calendar to quiet the existential voices in their heads, then I don't blame them. And now a word from our sponsor, LinkedIn ads. So after a brief chat with HR, Neil and I are no longer wasting time sniping at each other during our ad reads. Even if Toby started it. LinkedIn ads can help you stop wasting time too. Plus stop wasting money, resources, and effort like 71 % of B2B ads and find the right audience for your brand. They've got over 130 million decision makers and more than 10 million C-suite execs, aka the people you need for your business on their platform, target by job title, industry, company, and more.

2:50So try LinkedIn ads. LinkedIn will even give you a$100 credit on your next campaign so you can try it yourself. Just go to linkedin.com slash mbd. That's linkedin.com slash mbd. Terms and conditions apply only on LinkedIn ads. Apple is doing its best middle child impression trying to keep the peace while navigating Trump's escalating trade war. As the ink was drying on an executive order signed yesterday that doubled tariffs on India to 50 % as punishment for its continued purchases of Russian oil, Tim Cook was heading to the White to commit an additional$100 billion towards U.S. production. It's a high-stakes game of Apple and Mouse, one where Apple aims to placate Trump while also rerouting its supply chain to avoid the worst of the tariffs on its iPhones.

3:35Apple is now uniquely exposed to the Indian tariff announcement given it imported more iPhones from India than China last quarter for the first time ever. The timing of the investment is strategic as it leans more into its American manufacturing program, aka AMP, that represents an effort to bring more of its production back to the U.S. Apple had already pledged to invest$500 billion in America over the next four years, including a new server facility in Houston. Now that total has risen to$600 billion, something that also buoyed Apple's stock. The broader investment into America pushed shares up over 5%, marking their biggest gain in nearly three months.

4:14But while Apple can dodge and weave with the best of them, The rest of the world is staring down elevated tariff rates that went into effect at midnight this morning. Neil, suddenly a lot of tariff balls in the air once more. Totally. And Tim Cook, let's talk about him. He has learned how to dance with Trump. He drew the ire of Trump during the first term and a little bit during the second term. But now he's learning how to speak Trump's language. Yesterday at that same press conference with Tim Cook, Trump announced a 100 percent tariff on semiconductor chips coming into the United States. But there was a big caveat.

4:48And that caveat was that if a tech company had pledged investment in the United States, then they would be exempt. Well, what which companies have pledged investment in the United States? Apple and pretty much every single other tech company in the U.S. has gone up with Trump at the podium and said, we are pledging 100 billion, 200 billion, 300 billion dollars into the United States. NVIDIA has also done this. Jensen Huang, the CEO of that, has also learned how to play Trump's game. So it looks like Apple and the other tech companies, by pledging over$2 trillion in new investments in the past seven months, have exempted themselves from the worst of these tariffs because they've learned how to play this game.

5:25Yeah, and what does playing that game actually mean? Is this a genuine investment backed by real dollars? Yeah, kind of. And is it a little bit of theater to, you know, give Trump a victory in his restarting campaign? It is also that. It can be all of those things at the same time. It's a very strategic move by Apple to stay in Trump's good graces while also trying to avoid tariffs. So it is truly all of the above. It's not necessarily one thing or the other. But it is a play to soften the ire here, especially because suddenly, I mean, Apple has to just be so frustrated. They did so much work to move their supply chains out of China because of Trade War 1.0 back in his first term.

6:04They moved it to India. And now India is suddenly being punished with 50 % tariffs as well. So clearly Trump wants them to reshore manufacturing. How much of that manufacturing is actually going to be done here is still to be determined. Definitely some of the higher end products that Apple is creating, semiconductor engineering, artificial intelligence labs, that could come back to the U.S., but probably not the actual assembly of iPhones themselves. Yeah. And in terms of the assembly of the iPhones, that is not going to happen here. It would just be too expensive for Apple. They will be unscathed so far from those 50 % tariffs on India.

6:43Tim Cook in the last earnings call said that the vast majority of the iPhones that we buy here in the United States do come from India. There is an exemption in the Indian tariffs that are now at 50 % to exclude things like iPhones and other high-tech chips. But it is going to be a blow against the Indian economy. It's going to affect 55 percent of their imports, things like apparel, textiles, jewelry, things that they come that they send here to the United States. And it is quite a striking turnaround in the relationship between the U.S. and China or the U.S. and India. Those two had cozied up to each other over the past 10 years to prevent to present like a bulwark against China.

7:21They were considered that they are the two biggest democracies in the world. And the United States was leaning and investing into India to provide that support against the growing superpower of China. Now looks like that relationship has completely soured because, as Trump said, India is buying Russian oil and fueling their war machine. And it's tough, too, because India doesn't have the leverage that China has over the U.S., especially because China has this dominance of rare earths that they can use and bring out in trade dealings with Washington whenever they want. India doesn't have something like that, so suddenly they are at a disadvantage compared to negotiations with China.

7:57Looking ahead a little bit, remember, globalized trade has officially been remade now. These tariff rates that Trump announced in Liberation Day 2.0 have now come into effect. Looking over at the Asian stock markets that have opened this morning, it seems like they're taking most of it in stride right now, mainly because it does seem like, hey, this is supposed to be it. This is now the tariff rates are set. We can analyze the impact of those tariffs. Right now, indexes in Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea, and China are all a little bit higher as of recording this. And you mentioned there were a lot of balls in the air.

8:31I just want to go through them quickly. More than 60 countries and the EU now have tariff rates of 10 % or higher as of midnight this morning. Canada now has a tariff rate of 35 % with certain exemptions for goods covered under the North American Free Trade Agreement. And then Brazil now has 50 % tariffs. India also has 50 % tariffs, which go into effect in 21 days. And Switzerland, 39 % tariffs. They sent the president over to the White House yesterday to try to work out a deal. But no, Switzerland is still in the doghouse. Moving on, if Bob Iger declines your birthday party invitation, I wouldn't take it personally.

9:07He's been a very busy man. the Disney CEO has been wheeling and dealing to push the company from a prehistoric wrecks to a futuristic buzz light year in the fast-changing entertainment industry. And it looks like some of those moves are starting to pay off. In Disney's earnings report released yesterday morning, it said that its streaming business, anchored by Disney +, added subscribers, grew sales by 6%, and was profitable. Remember, it was only a few years ago Disney's streaming business was losing$1 billion a quarter. Given this momentum, Iger is cannonballing into the streaming deep end. Disney revealed that its ESPN subscription will debut August 21st, an excellent choice since it's my birthday, at a cost of$30 a month.

9:47It's the first time in history that all ESPN content, including live events, will be available to people without a cable or satellite subscription. That's not symbolic of the way TV is going. I don't know what is. To support this massive push into streaming, Disney made some mega deals to secure content that people will pay for. The first is the NFL, by far the most popular thing on TV. On Tuesday, Disney and the NFL announced that the NFL would swap a 10 % equity stake in ESPN for ESPN gaining control of NFL media assets and broadcasting more football games. But Iger wasn't done there, inking a$1.6 billion deal to stream WWE events, including WrestleMania, for the next five years.

10:27Toby, it's a dizzying number of moves, but it all points in the same direction. Disney is throwing all of its chips on streaming. It's crazy. After all that, Disney stock was still down yesterday after reporting earnings. And I do think investors are seeing Disney as much to rely on parks all of a sudden as their profit generators, even though they are trying to remake themselves as a streaming service. Disney used to be a big media company that just happened to operate parks, but now it's almost the opposite. Domestic and international parks account for 43 % of its annual operating income. That was compared to just 21 % a decade ago.

11:03So they've become much more reliant on these parks for people to come in and spend as their reliable profit generator as they're trying to figure out their streaming aspirations. That being said, a lot of this call was dedicated to streaming because they do think it's the future. They do think this new streaming service with ESPN is going to be accredited to overall earnings growth, meaning they believe it will be a profit generator. So fascinating to see it caught between kind of its old Disney, the new Disney. And right now, investors are just kind of waiting to see how it all pans out. Disney kind of has one foot in the 90s and another foot in 2025.

11:38Its theme parks, which has become so popular post-COVID, are doing so well. Domestic theme parks up 10 % in terms of sales. Walt Disney World in Orlando just had an amazing quarter. That epic universe theme park that Universal unveiled last quarter just didn't seem to have any dent whatsoever. And then in terms of streaming, that is now profitable. It was losing billions of dollars previously. So that's the 2025 portion. The 1990s portion is its movies and linear TV. Traditional TV is cratering. People are cutting the cord. And Disney's traditional TV business, its sales fell 15 % last quarter.

12:16And it used to be a huge profit driver for this business. Now that is theme parks. But linear TV is just absolutely going the way of the Dodo. And that's why it's making all these investments into streaming, because over the past two years, it's lost more than one. Its operating income in linear TV is down by one billion dollars. And then the final Disney news is Hulu. R.I.P. Hulu. It's merging with Disney Plus. It is going to hopefully save some money eliminating, you know, two streaming services, putting them all into one. So if you're a Hulu fan, that brand is being absorbed by the overall Disney Plus brand.

12:51Moving on, you can't keep the golden arches down for long. McDanks leaned on chickens and Minecraft meals to return to sales growth yesterday, reversing a string of disappointing results. Same store sales rose by nearly 4%, while the fast food giant ranked in$6.8 billion in revenue last quarter, beating Wall Street's expectations of$6.7 billion. Re-engaging the low-income customer is critical, CEO Chris Kepensky said during an investor call yesterday. McDonald's is pulling out all the stops to do just that, pushing its McValue menu hard to showcase meal combos that come in below the$10 barrier that less loyal customers tend to balk at.

13:29But cheap McDoubles aren't the only way into customers' wallets. The company was also buoyed by a slate of new products, including a Minecraft movie Happy Meal and new chicken-based menu items. In July, the chain brought back its much-requested snack wrap, saying demand was so strong for the$2.99 wrap that many locations ran out of ingredients. Part of the shift to chicken is also driven by necessity. Beef prices have been skyrocketing, making chicken an attractive alternative. Neil, it turns out that all you need to turn around a fast food chain is a billion-dollar movie franchise meal, a new beloved menu item returning, and a major messaging shift to hammer value.

14:06Easy peasy. Yeah, whenever McDonald's is in a tough spot, it always has a few switches in the back. It can go and turn on to rev up the engine. I'm talking marketing and menu innovation and value meals and coming off its worst quarter since the pandemic. And it's been a rough slide as of late for McDonald's. It went back there, turned on those switches, and it did super well this quarter, surprising a lot of investors. And sure, it has all these switches, but it had to execute well. It's a huge marketing campaign that it tied into Minecraft. It rolled out these chicken strips that were super successful.

14:40There are a lot of experiments that McDonald's could have done that wouldn't have worked. And I guess you have to give it to management to actually execute it. Yeah. Part of the issue that McDonald's faces is that if they want to broadcast value across their entire portfolio of restaurants, franchisees own 93 % of restaurants around the world. So even if corporate really wants those prices to come down or set a uniform price across a region or a country, technically it is up to the individual business owners. They are the ones who incur the rising cost of labor and food, so they do have some pricing control.

15:12So that is something that they praise a lot of franchisees, especially over in Europe, for keeping prices in a reasonable range. One casualty of the last quarter that you see with more economic pressure is actually breakfast. the dip in business is most pronounced during breakfast so when times get a little tough and consumers feel a little pinched they end up skipping breakfast so maybe look to see some innovation around that front going forward yeah so now that mcdonald's has kind of got this engine humming again they are stepping on the gas with a lot of stuff coming in the next quarter or two they have they released the snack wrap which we'll find out how it did in the next earnings call and now they are rolling out something next week called the mcdonald land meal which goes which ties in all of those golden era mascots like grimace birdie and the hamburgler into one nostalgia fueled meal and they're also testing uh cold drinks those refreshers that have that starbucks and dutch bros and duncan have all leaned into those beverage giants mcdonald's is going head to head with them by infusing 500 of its stores with those drinks so mcdonald's is absolutely you know on the offense right now it's so fascinating because remember they released this beverage chain called Cosmix that ended up being kind of a flop and they close it down.

16:28And yet here they are taking what they learned from that kind of failure and putting those drinks into their stores, mainly because it is more profitable and it's a growing segment than food itself. So of course, they're going to do a little bit of extra investment in drinks. But I do think it was fascinating that like, hey, Cosmix failed, but we're going to actually try and bring it to more of our stores because we do think this is where the growth opportunity lies. Up next, we got Neil's Numbers!

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18:49Welcome to Neil's Numbers, the segment where I share three stats from the week's news that will have you feeling as alive as a couple of espresso martinis. For my first number, they say what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, but what if nothing is happening in Vegas? Tourism to the Sin City is down bad this year. Visits to Las Vegas dropped 6.5 % in the first five months of 2025 compared to last year, then plunged 11.3 % in June. That same month, hotel occupancy dropped 14.6 % compared to June 2024, and revenue per available hotel room plunged by 19.2%. It's a concerning trend for a city that runs on hospitality and whose workers rely on tips for a big chunk of their income.

19:31Roughly 180 ,000 people in Metro Vegas work for tips, but some told the Wall Street Journal they're seeing their tip income cut by more than half. We're all starting to freak out, one tattoo artist said. Why is no one waking up in Vegas? One reason could be the pullback in the broader economy, for which Vegas has always been a litmus test, as the saying goes, if the economy seizes, Vegas catches the flu. Another could be this year's slowdown in international visitors, who are expected to spend$12.5 billion less in the U.S. this year. Vegas could also be a victim of the skyrocketing growth in online betting, where having a sportsbook at your fingertips makes trekking out to Caesars unnecessary.

20:09Either way, Toby, Vegas needs to pull a David Copperfeld level trick to turn things around. Yeah, Vegas was actually coming off of sort of boom times after the COVID-19 pandemic. They just had gotten back to pre-pandemic numbers. And a lot of people are saying maybe they just pushed prices a little bit too far. That's been the number one complaint that you see anecdotally on social media is that you go to Vegas, you already are spending a lot of money or losing a lot of money in gambling. And then you sit down and you see a$30 drink in front of you and you go, maybe this just isn't work it. So that's been a lot of the complaints here that's saying it's just not worth it to go anymore.

20:43And I do feel bad for the people who rely on the hospitality industry, who rely on tips because they just got this big win because Congress passed a law that exempted$25 ,000 a year in tips from personal income taxes. So it feels like a great win, like, oh yeah, I don't have to pay as many taxes. But then tip income has started to shrivel up and die a little bit as less people are traveling. So a little bit of a, like, you got a good thing and then you have this bad thing and one source one source of this dip that very few people are talking about but i think is responsible for most of it is the lack of visitors coming from southern california so southern california accounts for 30 percent of all visitors to vegas because you can just drive four hours from los angeles to vegas but traffic on i-15 at the california nevada border was down 4.3 percent and the number of air travelers into Las Vegas was down 6.3 % from California.

21:36Californians account for more than a fifth of air travelers into Vegas. So people from the Golden State are just kind of staying home or maybe going to Hawaii instead of going through the desert to Vegas. They should try to build a high-speed rail. I hear they're pretty good at that over in California. We'll get to that, Toby. We'll get to that. Okay, for my next number, guess which generation is the least likely to prefer exclusively remote work? Surprise, it's Gen Z. According to a new Gallup poll, Gen Z, or people born in 1997 or later, have a stronger aversion to exclusively working remote than their older, less digitally native counterparts.

22:11Here are the numbers. Only 23 % of remote-capable Gen Z employees say they would prefer fully remote work compared to 35 % among each older generation. To be clear, fully on-site work remains the least popular working arrangement for all age groups. But when it comes to showing up at the office once in a while, Gen Z is all for it. The counterintuitive finding is driven by several factors, Gallup said. One is that Gen Z are the least likely generation to have kids at home, giving them more freedom to commute. Another is that Gen Z craves connection. This generation is the loneliest, almost twice as likely as Gen X to say they experience loneliness a lot of the day.

22:49Coming to the office can help with that. And finally, Gen Z are still early in their careers, and it's easier to find a mentor or level up professionally when you're not in your PJs. Toby, the Zoomers are not Zooming. Yeah, I know a lot of people early in that segment were rolling their eyes, going like, of course they want to go into the office. They don't have kids sitting at home. But they did in this study found that older millennials showed no difference between parents and non-parents for their preference for remote work. So you can kind of control for the variable of kids and still millennials do have this weird aversion to going into the office.

23:22Still, I do think this lonely generation does explain a lot of it. And one thing companies maybe have done better is say when remote workers are supposed to come into the office. So one of the worst things you can do is go into the office and realize that your coworkers are there. And like, what was the point of coming in? I could have just worked from home as companies kind of figure out like, hey, Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays. These are office days. you come in, you bond with your coworkers, and it's just an overall more positive experience. So I can see why Gen Z, you know, who has been very lonely, is kind of open to the idea of like coming in and having fun with their coworkers.

23:55My final number will have you complaining just a little bit less about Amtrak. Over in Germany, which prides itself on punctuality, the train system is breaking down. According to the Washington Post, just 56 % of Germany's long distance trains arrive on time, down from an 85 % rate in the early 90s. The delays have prompted a national freakout in a country known for its machines usually ticking like clockwork. The National Railroad Deutsche Bahn said with its tail between its legs, we at DB are anything but satisfied with these punctuality numbers. How bad is it? Well, neighboring Switzerland has banned some German trains from traveling beyond the border city of Basel, instead forcing passengers to get on its own more reliable rails.

24:37And passenger horror stories abound. In late July, one high-speed train got stuck in a tunnel for more than six hours, leaving the 400 people aboard without power, light, or air conditioning. Facing public backlash and reputational damage, rail authorities are embarking on drastic measures to get the trains back to running on time. They've shut down the line connecting Berlin and Hamburg, Germany's two largest cities, for nine months for upgrades. And they've set aside a record$25 billion for rail infrastructure this year. Toby, looks like we aren't the only country with train problems. And honestly, I just want to put a little respect on Amtrak's name here because I was going back through their quarterly results in the first quarter of last year.

25:16Their overall customer on-time performance was 78%. It did dip to 70 % by the fourth quarter of last year. And it does define on-time performance as arriving within 15 minutes of the scheduled time for long distance train. It's a 30 minute buffer. So you can kind of play around with the definition of what on-time actually means. But as I was reading this German story, I was like, let's see how Amtrak's doing. And they're doing kind of all right. And you're probably thinking, well, at least the European trains have good Wi-Fi. Well, we don't. Well, actually, no. European Wi-Fi on board trains is actually quite bad.