US TikTok Off to Rocky Start & Americans Think the Economy Stinks

0:01Neal Freyman:Recently, I got an ad for the best lawn fertilizer. But here's the thing. I live in an apartment in New York City. I don't have a lawn, let alone need fertilizer. That's why your ad needs the right audience. And LinkedIn ads can help. LinkedIn has 130 million decision makers, and you can reach the right ones for your business. Target by job title, industry, company, the list goes on. Spend$250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn ads and get a$250 credit for the next one. Just go to LinkedIn.com slash MBD. That's LinkedIn.com slash MBD. Terms and conditions apply. Good morning, Brew Daily Show. I'm Neil Freiman.

0:41And I'm Toby Howell. Today, Americans think the economy is worse now than during the pandemic.

0:46Neal Freyman:Then TikTok US is off to a shocking start. It's Wednesday, January 28th. Let's ride.

0:57Let's kick off the show by talking about one of my favorite subjects, civilizational collapse. It could be closer than ever. Yesterday, the advocacy group Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist moved its doomsday clock to 85 seconds until midnight, signaling that Earth is as close as it's ever been to total destruction, according to them. The group cited increasingly belligerent nuclear powers, climate change, the misuse of biotechnology, and the rise of artificial intelligence without adequate controls as the main potential sources of annihilation. That said, the doomsday clock could be shifted back should leaders work together to prepare for existential threats.

1:32Toby, I'm just going to say it. I don't think I do well in an apocalypse. Don't have that dog in me.

1:37Neal Freyman:Well, don't start going Mad Max on me yet because a lot of people are sort of roasting the doomsday clock because how is it closer to midnight now than in 1962 at the peak of the Cuban Missile Crisis, which merely brought us seven minutes till midnight. And part of that just has to do actually with a methodology change. In the past few years, the group has changed from counting down the minutes until midnight to counting down the seconds because it gives you a little bit more flexibility and nuance when addressing global rapid change that's hitting our world right now. Inflation's hitting everything.

2:09Neal Freyman:Exactly. From groceries to doomsday clock counts. And now a word from our sponsor, Sandals. Neil, got any fun travel plans? Yeah, I'm visiting home for a very quiet dinner with my parents, followed by the annual fight. Ah, see, that is the problem. That is not something to look forward to to get you through these gloomy winter months. If only you could go to Sandals Resorts instead. Yes, if only I were at Sandals Adult Only Resorts, exploring the Caribbean's most beautiful islands from Jamaica to St. Vincent and enjoying globally inspired dining across more than 10 restaurants per resort. I mean, where would you rather be?

2:44Neal Freyman:With your parents or the Caribbean's best beaches? powder white sand in turquoise waters. Mom, earmuffs, but definitely the Caribbean. There's no better place to experience the Caribbean than at resorts founded by a family from the Caribbean. The winter blue sale is now on, so visit sandals.com for the best all-inclusive value in the Caribbean. That's sandals.com. Okay, this is incredible. Americans' views of the economy is officially worse now than it was during the pandemic when you could barely leave your house and unemployment neared 15%. The Consumer Confidence Index for January, released yesterday morning, tumbled almost 10 points to its lowest reading since 2014, far lower than projections.

3:25The conference board survey asked respondents to assess the economy as it stands currently and their outlook for the future. Those questions revealed a nation more pessimistic than Eeyore. Perhaps the biggest area of concern is a job market that's stagnated over the last year. More than 55 % of respondents said it was difficult to land a job, the highest number since the pandemic, and the share who said that jobs are plentiful tumbled to 23.9 % from 27.5 % in December. But people are worried about the economy for other reasons too, specifically inflation. The conference board said references to prices and inflation, oil and gas prices, and food and grocery prices remain elevated.

4:02Plus, mentions of tariffs, trade, politics, health insurance, and war all rose in January. Toby, I can't help but think of the vibe session of a few years ago when people were super down on the economy, but continued to spend like everything was hunky-dory. The key question is, will this time be different?

4:17Neal Freyman:I mean, that list that the chief economist of the conference board pointed out gives plenty of reason why people are not feeling good. The dims day clock at 85 seconds makes a lot of sense. I know, what a dour start to the morning. But it is true that consumer sentiment is in the gutter right now. And I think you have to look into the reasons why. Obviously, you pointed to the labor market. One good kind of metaphor for how the entire economy is right now is I'm stealing from Diane Swank, which is a KPMG economist. She said it's a one-legged stool everywhere you look. And basically what she's saying is that only certain parts of the economy are propping up the larger hole.

4:56Neal Freyman:And in the labor market right now, one industry is the only one doing the hiring. It is healthcare has driven most of the gains in the labor market over the past year or so. In the consumer spending front that you mentioned, it's rich people. Rich people have, we've talked about this ad nauseam on the show. It's a K-shaped economy where just look at the planes that you are going on. Everyone in first class is driving most of the revenue for airlines. Same goes for all the way across the economy. So one-legged stools everywhere you look, which is probably why people are feeling very uncertain right now.

5:27I think the biggest red flag is the job market. According to this survey, just 14 % of respondents expected more jobs to be available in six months. The job market is essentially just frozen over. We got more bad news yesterday on that front. Pinterest social media giant announced that it was going to lay off less than 15 % of its workforce. And the reason why this is notable, well, it's a lot of people. But also they tied it directly to artificial intelligence. They said the company is taking these actions to support transformation initiatives like reallocating resources to AI-focused roles in teams.

6:03I think people certainly have AI and how that's going to impact their job in the back of their minds when they're perhaps responding to a survey asking, hey, how do you think the economy is? Do you think you'll have a job in the next six months? And then the weird part about AI too,

6:14Neal Freyman:is that if you look at GDP projections coming up over the next year, they're pretty rosy. I mean, there are some very optimistic projections, you know, saying that GDP will grow four or five percent over the next year, but a lot of that is driven by AI investment. And so if artificial intelligence spending is the only thing kind of drawing the carriage of the economy forward, then again, that's another one-legged stool that we're looking at, that most of the business investment have been in data centers. It's not a very broad business investment. So very few things are propping up the economy right now, which is, again, leading to all that uncertainty.

6:49Neal Freyman:Moving on, TikTok is looking like a broken clock these days. After the US version launched last Last week, a wave of glitches have hit the app, which the company blamed on a power outage at one of its data centers, creating, quote, cascading systems failure. However, TikTok's explanation is not sitting well with its user base, who claims the company is censoring political content, especially anti-Trump and anti-ICE content. One viral example that was verified by CNBC showed the word Epstein triggering an error message in DMs, prompting an investigation from the company. Other more general issues users reported were their videos getting flagged as ineligible for recommendation, posts showing zero views, which make better videos, am I right, and DMs failing to send.

7:35Neal Freyman:While the censorship narrative gained a lot of attention on social media, Davin Newsom went as far as to launch a review into whether TikTok is violating state law by censoring content. More mundane issues like a massive winter storm could help explain some of the outages. In general, though, it's been a very rocky start to life for the joint venture, highlighted by the number of U.S. users deleting the app surging nearly 150 % over the past five days, according to Censor Tower. Neil, tough to think of a worse start. Well, the 2025 Colorado Rockies would like a word. All you have to do is go to the App Store to see this change take place.

8:11I looked at the top 25 free apps. TikTok is not there, which is crazy to think about. It's one of the most popular social media apps in the country. What is there at number two is a social media app called Upscroll. It was just started last year. It's sort of a blend of Instagram and X. And a lot of users from TikTok have been defecting from there to Upscroll and a number of other competitors. We saw this happen after Elon Musk took over Twitter slash X a few years ago. Who knows whether this will have any staying power? But at least right now, people are voting with their feet because no matter the cause of the issue, whether it's actual censorship where there's no evidence of or these data center power outages, you know, people just don't trust the current leadership of TikTok.

8:57Or many users don't seem to trust the current the new current owners and they're voting with their feet.

9:02Neal Freyman:One thing that I mentioned when we talked about TikTok kind of getting into this U.S. joint venture was the fact that the data security risk now lies with Oracle. Like the buck stops with Oracle. And we immediately saw how that is going to manifest because if they have a data center issue, now they cannot blame ByteDance. They can't really blame Beijing at all. It all comes down to whether Oracle can withstand the load of taking on TikTok USA onto their servers. and early signs are not good. They have not done well with it because if the reason why you're saying all of these errors were occurring for users is the fact that your systems couldn't handle it, that's still not a good thing.

9:43Neal Freyman:Even if you're not censoring data, that is not a good start to life as a US joint venture. Meanwhile, there's another headline yesterday that just shows how powerful TikTok was at least a few years ago and hopefully it'll continue in the future if the new owners sort of handle this okay. Kavi Lame, who is the world's biggest TikToker, He has 160 million TikTok followers. He's that guy that does those mime. He makes fun of just people doing stupid things on the Internet. Well, he just signed a$975 million deal with a financial services firm called Rich Sparkle Holdings to monetize that massive fan base.

10:18And they think this is this business led by Kabi, who's the, you know, a creator led business, is going to eventually do$4 billion in revenue. So that was I mean, he cashed out. that's an incredible deal for him. Shows the power of TikTok over the past few years to generate huge fan bases. I think there is a huge question about whether this social media app that came out of absolutely nowhere in 2019 will have this power moving forward. Moving on, after two decades of negotiations, the European Union and India finalized a trade agreement yesterday that leaders are calling the mother of all trade deals.

10:51It's the latest sign that President Trump's tariffs have motivated other countries to cozy up to each other and reduce their dependence on the American market. The mother of all trade deals is indeed massive. It covers nearly 2 billion people, encompasses about one quarter of the global economy, and one third of global trade. Crucially, it'll give European companies better access to a fast-growing Indian market that has been among the most protectionists in the world. Here are the details. India is going to eliminate or reduce tariffs for nearly 97 % of traded goods by value. That's projected to double EU exports to India by 2032 and lead to 4 billion euros in savings for European firms.

11:27On the other side, the EU is going to cut tariffs on virtually all goods imported from India over the next seven years. Both India and the EU have been bruised by tariffs from the Trump administration. India got hit with a 50 % tariff on certain goods, while Europe was slapped with a 15 % tariff even after it struck a deal with the White House. That proved the impetus to get together and say, look, we've been talking about this deal for ages. With the US becoming unpredictable, It's probably time we finalize this thing. Toby, they're clinking French champagne in Delhi.

11:56Neal Freyman:I mean, you said that they've been talking about this forever. 20 years is a long time to talk about a trade deal, but I do think it's all downstream of just wanting a stable trading partner. Just think about what you want in a life partner, Neil. Do you want someone who is constantly oscillating back and forth, jumping down your throat when you buy Russian oil once or twice? Or do you want someone who says, yes, we welcome you with open arms? That being said, it does feel like maybe you're kind of trying to get back at a jilted X a little bit here. Because, yes, this is a big deal. Yes, they're calling it the mother of all trade deals.

12:29Neal Freyman:But India-EU trade pales in comparison to U.S.-EU trade. Right now, only less than$200 billion of goods are exchanged between the two countries. Between the U.S. and the EU, it's$1.5 trillion. So that just gives you a sense of the scale. But still, it is a big win for these two blocks. It really ties back to the prime minister of Canada's Mark Carney's speech back in Davos, where he talked about the middle powers getting together. Basically, almost every country on the planet, their biggest trading partner is the United States, or in second place or first place, China. Carney called on the middle powers to act together because, quote, if we're not at the table, we're on the menu.

13:11And you're seeing this happen all over the world. The EU is just coming off signing a trade agreement with four South American countries. Keir Starmer, the U.K. prime minister, he's going to China today to perhaps sign some more deals. Canada and China agreed to a deal earlier this month that reduced tariffs on Chinese EVs in Canada. So you're seeing these middle powers come together because, yes, the United States is their number one trading partner. But as the United States becomes more unreliable on the trading front, they're all getting together. Who knows whether this is the start of something big and a more major global realignment of trade permanently or just sort of a gut reaction to what's happening with the United States right now.

13:51But either way, it opens up an Indian market for the EU that is just extremely protectionist. We talk about the U.S. having high tariffs right now. India is essentially a fortress right now. European cars are hit with a 110 percent tariff. That is going to come down to 10 percent over the next few years under this deal. And then let's talk about wine and alcohol. That is a huge export from the European Union. It's currently tariffs in India are currently at 150 % right now. Eventually, those will be reduced to 20%. I don't know how they afford to buy European liquor in India.

14:25Neal Freyman:Clinking glasses for sure will be in their future. All right, we're going to take a quick break and come back with more stories right after this. Man, Neil, bonds sure are tricky, huh? You can say that again. Not to mention the market is huge, rate shift, and risks hide in plain sight. That's why having a partner with scale and expertise matters. Luckily, Vanguard can bring both. That's right. Vanguard bonds are institutional quality. Their lineup includes over 80 bond funds. They're actively managed by a 200-person global squad of sector specialists, analysts, and traders. So, advisors out there, if you're looking to give your clients consistent results year in and year out, Go see the record for yourself at vanguard.com slash audio.

15:09That's vanguard.com slash audio. All investing is subject to risk. Vanguard Marketing Corporation Distributor. Pretty much everybody is using AI agents these days to automate just about everything.

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16:27Neal Freyman:Venmo stash terms and exclusions apply at Venmo.me slash stash terms. Max$100 cash back per month. Barry Weiss apparently has never heard of a feedback sandwich. In a brutally honest direct address at a CBS News all-hands, the new editor-in-chief announced an overhaul of the network to bring it to the social media age or else become extinct. Weiss, the free press founder who was given the reins to CBS News three months ago, told colleagues that the era of television news was dead, put a fork in it. She said, our strategy until now has been to cling to the audience that remains on broadcast television.

17:00I'm here to tell you that if we stick to that strategy, we're toast. She urged reporters to forget about which shows would pick up their stories and instead focus on reaching audiences on the Internet who expect news immediately and on demand. Weiss argued that CBS News is not meeting people where they consume news in 2026. She said that Americans actually spend twice as much time consuming news today as they did 50 years ago. So it's not like they're tuning out the world, but they are tuning out traditional TV in favor of things like podcasts, YouTube, newsletters and Twitch. Walter Cronkite had two competitors.

17:33She told staffers we have two billion, give or take. Toby Weiss has had a rocky few months since being hired as editor in chief. Do you think this pivot to more of a startup culture can turn the ship around?

17:43Neal Freyman:Yeah, and a lot of people within CBS News maybe not are Barry Weiss fans but are fans of kind of her take on the industry as a whole because a lot of people do agree with it that the diagnosis of the fact that CBS may be over-indexed on broadcast news is 100 % true. People do consume news on social media now. How you go about giving that message to your employees, how you go about managing layoffs and whatnot has been left something to be desired. But her overall take on the industry, I think a lot of people are aligned with. Yeah, here are two data points where I think she's kind of relying on to message this shift.

18:21She said that Americans' confidence in mass media has fallen to a record low. This was in a new Gallup poll last year. 28 % expressed trust in newspapers, television, and radio to report the news fully, accurately, and fairly. So that 28 % is down from 31 % the year before and 40 % five years ago. So this has been a precipitous downfall. And then another poll from Pew found that for the first time ever, social media has displaced television as the top way Americans get news. And so she announced 18 new contributors to CBS News. It's an interesting list of podcasters, newsletter writers, existing columnists at the Free Press that kind of span the gamut when it comes to political ideology.

19:06But I think the number one thing that they all perhaps share in common is they bring an existing audience there creator first. And this is the way news is going here at Morning Brew. We're doing that.

19:16Neal Freyman:Exactly that little endorsement of Morning Brew along the way. But yeah. And one of the big things that she is trying to preach here is that we need to install trust in news organizations once more. but a lot of people say you're kind of undermining that very goal when you do something like pull a 60-minute segment just days before it's going on air because the government hasn't had a chance to respond to it yet. So people are saying let's execute this strategy if you actually believe in this because right now people don't trust you and don't trust CBS as a whole because of the moves that you have made yourself.

19:51Neal Freyman:So yes, you can bring Andrew Huberman on. You can bring Peter Atiyah on, which are some of the commentators that she is doing. But if you want to establish trust, you just got to make moves that establish trust. Moving on, Yale wants to make sure that your grades are the only thing you can blame for not getting into Yale. Yesterday, the school announced a major expansion of its financial aid program. Starting this fall, kids who come from families earning up to$200 ,000 a year will be able to attend the school tuition free, while those coming from families who earn up to$100 ,000 a year paying nothing at all.