A Qatari Plane & America’s Character 5/14/25

0:00Bring in show music please. Hi, I'm CNBC producer Katie Kramer. Today on Squawk Pod, watching day two of President Trump's trip to the Middle East.

0:15Retired four-star General Stanley McChrystal on preserving the character of our nation while playing geopolitics. What gets you applause in the room in the moment can be dangerous because you go around in different audiences and you can get applause lines just by playing to what you think they want to hear. And speaking of differing opinions, the plane offer heard round the world. Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy weighs in on the concerns about a Qatari plane taking off as Air Force One. If Boeing can't deliver the plane in time, it's Boeing's responsibility to provide him another plane until that one's done.

0:50I agree with that. And the down-to-the-wire negotiations his former caucus is doing to get a massive tax bill done by Memorial Day. Waiting to deal with SALT now is a mistake. The majority leader's job is to manage these committees. Plus, the rest of today's news that got us squawking from Elon Musk to Newark Airport. It's Wednesday, May 14th, 2025. Squawk Pod begins right now. Stand Becky by in three, two, one. Cue it, please. Good morning, everybody, and welcome to Squawk Box right here on CNBC. We're live from the Nasdaq market site in Times Square. I'm Becky Quick, along with Andrew Ross Sorkin.

1:29Joe is off today. Meantime, President Trump now meeting earlier today with Syria's interim president on the sidelines of a meeting in the Middle East among leaders. The face-to-face behind closed doors, the first of its kind in 25 years, includes Turkey's president on the phone. Now, a reading from that meeting provided by the White House saying for the president urging Syria's president to sign on to the Abraham Accords with Israel and help the U.S. prevent the resurgence of ISIS. Yesterday in Saudi Arabia, Trump said that the U.S. would lift sanctions on Syria. The president is heading to Qatar today, where we're going to be expecting to hear a lot more about investment deals.

2:07And I imagine we'll also hear about the airplane, which we'll talk about in just a little bit. Yesterday, the White House announcing$600 billion worth of agreements between the U.S. and Saudi, although it's unclear if the actual amount is that high. Among the deals, more than$140 billion in defense sales. NVIDIA CEO Jensen Wang saying that his company is now going to sell more than 18 ,000 of his latest AI chips to Saudi Arabia as the Trump White House pulls back on tech restrictions instituted under former President Biden. So that's going to be an interesting development. Part of the issue there was they didn't want certain chips to get into certain countries, in part because they thought that those could get funneled back to other places.

2:48Are they going to sell them the H20 chips that were destined originally for China, or is this different chips they're talking about? That's a good question. I don't know. I believe these are the most advanced chips that they sell. So I assume H20, if not, whatever the next gen will be. All right. Let's talk a little bit more. Speaking of NVIDIA and optimism around those easing chip export rules, that stock of NVIDIA was up more than 5 percent yesterday. It's up another 1.6 percent today. Week to date, that's a gain of more than 13 percent, including this morning's pre-market move. KLA, Lamb Research, and Micron are all up by about 13 % just in the last two days.

3:26And AMD has gained 11%, including the move this morning. AMD CEO Lisa Su was one of the executives in Saudi Arabia yesterday who greeted President Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Jensen Wong was there as well. We watched that happening during some of these greetings. But it's been a very good week for the chip stocks. Very good week for the chip stocks. and really powered by the AI world, Sam Allman and the others. Sam Allman was there too, right? As well, you bet. In other corporate news, let's tell you about what's going on here. A potential new package of stock options reportedly on the line for Tesla CEO Elon Musk after the company formed a special committee to consider his pay.

4:04The special committee was first mentioned in a Tesla filing last month. The FT now reporting that it's composed only of Chair Robin Denholm and another director, Kathleen Wilson-Thomas. Reports saying the committee will look at alternative ways to compensate Musk for his past work with the company if it can't reinstate his multibillion-dollar pay package that was struck down in Delaware last year. Now, major Tesla investors are also said to have been consulted about their views on Musk's pay. In a separate Tesla development, the New York Times reporting that Denholm has made close to$200 million selling Tesla stock in the past six months amid extreme share price volatility.

4:39Those stock sales were carried out under a prearranged plan that was initiated last summer. The question now is if you're trying to compensate him, sort of back compensate him, but you have to do it in a forward looking way, what that would look like. How do you do that? I mean, how do you guarantee that? Meaning you can't, you're not allowed to pay him for what he was supposed to get before. So it has to be sort of prospective, not retrospective. gains, but it's really tough to pull new gains off when you look at the incredible gains the stock's already made. Right, and so then all of a sudden are you just going to pay him extraordinary amounts of stock?

5:15Would shareholders go for it in that way? Could you issue new stock to do it? I guess it's a question of how much it dilutes the shareholders at that point. But look, the shareholders voted to pay him and were in favor of that. This stuff being caught up in the Delaware court has really been unusual. It's not that important in the grand scheme. But the other interesting thing is, you know, he's on every list as, you know, like the third wealthiest person in the world or whatever. First on a given day. You know, and so the question is, if you remove the Tesla stock, he, by the way, will still, because of SpaceX and everything else, probably be in the top five, if not more anyway.

5:55But there's a huge number that's built into that number of Tesla stock that he ostensibly doesn't have. Yeah. I don't think he, you know, he doesn't spend money like that. I don't think he cares in that regard. But everybody keeps score. Interesting questions. Everybody's keeping score. Meantime, fintech company Chime filing for an IPO. This is going to take place at the NASDAQ. It's part of that prospectus. The company said it had 8.6 million active members as of the end of March. Now, average revenue per active member was$251. Chime makes money from interchange fees from its debit and credit cards.

6:34It also offers high-yield savings accounts, free tax filings. It does a free payday advances of up to$500. It also allows members to use ATMs from other banks without fees, which effectively it does pay for in one way or the other. And it does not charge late fees or compound interest. It is not, though, a bank. It says that in the statement. Major consumer banks as its competitors, which has always been one of the complicated parts about the company. They're saying, look, we're a tech company, not a bank. We're fintech, but we focus on the tech, not the fin. The question is if regulators will continue to treat it as such.

7:08But, of course, everybody would like to focus on the tech, not the bank part of it, because you get a higher valuation. And I think the bigger you get, the more you might look like a bank. Right. The FAA is set to meet with major airlines today on the recent disruptions at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey. On the agenda, some possible reductions to the roughly 470 daily flights in Newark. The FAA has told airlines they need to proactively cut their schedules as authorities work to overhaul old technology. The airport has suffered a cascade of delays in recent weeks in several air traffic control outages.

7:43We talked to the Transportation Secretary yesterday, and I think this was in the offing. We knew this was coming. So it wouldn't be surprising if over the next week or two you see a whole raft of new flights that get either effectively removed from the schedule. The question then becomes, which flights do you choose? So the first thing you're going to do if you're united, I imagine, is choose the least profitable flights. Probably. International flights will be the ones they keep because those are the most profitable. I don't know if it will impact United quite as much because United had already voluntarily dropped the number of flights by 35 or more a day that they've been doing.

8:22Their complaint has been that some of the other airlines have not picked up. So it's kind of like OPEC where Saudi Arabia says, OK, we're going to cap it. And everybody else cheats around the edges. This is probably good news for United, I'm guessing, because it will force all the other airlines there to kind of do what United has already done. But it is true that if the international flights go, the domestic ones become a problem. Right. And my guess is you would focus on flights where you're offering multiple flights a day so that it's not as complicated to try and get those people who are booked already on those flights onto other ones and get them there on time.

8:55But it's not just the lousy systems for the air traffic control. It's the, by the way, have been decades in the making. It's the shortage of air traffic controllers, especially now that many of them have taken this 45-day leave. And Newark has one airline or one runway that's under construction. So all of this happened at the same time, which is why it's such a massive problem there. But my guess is, I don't know this for sure, my guess is this could be good news for United because they've already taken some of the responsible steps to do this. We will see. Yeah. I've got a couple of United flights coming up.

9:30Cross your fingers. A little personal news you can use. The cheese will be next. Coming up on Squawk Pod, as President Trump continues his tour of the Middle East, General Stanley McChrystal, retired commander of the U.S. forces in Afghanistan, cautions against a partisan perspective. Maybe we should see the president trying to build strong relationships with countries that matter, build business relationships, which I think globalization is really important. So if it pushes back from that America first idea, I think that's a positive. What our nation's behavior says about our character and how we can shape it right after this.

10:13You're listening to Squawk Pod from CNBC. Today with Becky Quick and Andrew Ross Sorkin. Up and Andrew, Q. President Trump continuing his swing through the Middle East with a visit to Qatar today. While in Saudi Arabia, the U.S. agreed to economic partnerships that the White House says are worth hundreds of billions of dollars. Joining us right now on Middle East relations, so many other things. He's got a new book out. Retired four-star Army General Stanley McChrystal served as commander of the U.S. forces in Afghanistan. He's now a CEO of consulting firm McChrystal Group. And as I mentioned, he does have a new book, and it's worth reading.

10:49It is called On Character, Choices That Define a Life. and we're going to talk about what On Character is all about. And I want to actually talk about the character of the country right now as well. But I am curious, just when you see, when the country sees all of these images of the president in Saudi and all these CEOs going over there, what are we all thinking about? What are you thinking about? Unfortunately, I think we see it through our personal lens and our bias. If you're on the left, you see a bunch of billionaires going over there and they're trying to enrich themselves. If you are on the right, you probably see it a bit differently.

11:23If we're in the middle, maybe we should see the president trying to build strong relationships with countries that matter, build business relationships, which I think globalization is really important. So if it pushes back from that America first idea instead into a global economy, I think that's a positive. So that's what I try to see. Well, I have one related question that, you know, if you listen to the president yesterday, he made a speech which got a lot of applause in the Middle East where he basically said that, you know, the neocons are over basically here in the U.S. The idea that the U.S.

12:00is going to be exporting effectively our version of democracy is not the game anymore. and that what we need to do is accept, not just accept, but acknowledge that it hasn't worked and also suggest that everybody has their own sovereignty and should do effectively whatever they want. It was a very interesting thing for a lot of folks I know in Washington, by the way, especially folks in the military sort of complex. What do you think of that? Well, I've got a complicated view of it. First, from my experience in the region, Afghanistan and Iraq and others, there's only so much you can do. You can't change the direction of a country or reshape its culture, and it's probably not our place to do that.

12:39At the same time, I believe that America's greatest strength has always been exporting our values, our democracy, the idea of America. So I don't fully agree with President Trump's what it sounds like he was saying. But I do understand that we have to respect cultures around the region. But you also have to be careful. What gets you applause in the room in the moment can be dangerous because you go around in different audiences and you can get applause lines just by playing to what you think they want to hear. That may not be the best thing for the nation. I have a related national security question because we had Ted Cruz on the broadcast yesterday and everybody's talking about this plane that might become the next Air Force One that Qatar may effectively gift the president.

13:26Yeah. He said that he was deeply concerned. Forget about the optics of it or the imamulance calls or all the other questions, but more about whether, you know, a plane like that could be bugged, whether it creates a national security issue. You raised this issue on the broadcast two days ago. I wouldn't take a phone from the Chinese or a car from the Russians. So what do you think? Well, I won't sleep tonight knowing that Ted Cruz is deeply concerned. But I think it's if Donald Trump, the person, wanted to accept a plane from the Qataris, That's fine. As my president, I'd rather he not do that.

14:02I do think it's potentially a national security problem, but I think it's more important, it's an optics problem. It is, where does America stand in the world? I just don't think that's something we need to do. Let's talk about character, and let's talk about this book, and let's talk about this country, and where you think we are as a country when it comes to character. And what do you even think character means? I'd say anymore because it feels like over the years, at least I've been alive, the idea of character in some way has been debased. And I don't say that as a political statement. It just feels like there's something amiss.

14:38I think back to the greatest generation and what they represented, my grandparents. And I kind of see where we are today. Exactly. I think that character is the essence of this. And it's best reflected in what we do, not what we say, not our brand or what we write or proclaim. It's what our actions are. And if we really step back on an individual level and we look and we say, okay, how do I conduct myself? In the little ways, and also in the big ways, what is our culture really? And what do people, what do our children see? What do our grandchildren see? I've defined character in the book as a mathematical equation, which is amazing since I'm terrible at math, but it's a product of your convictions, your deeply held beliefs, but also your discipline because you can have great convictions but no discipline and not live to them, and they become zero or vice versa.

15:32I think in America, what we've allowed it to do is erode to the point where we don't have standards. We don't demand character. I went to West Point when I was 17, and they had a very strict honor code. And the purpose of the honor code was not to make sure that West Point's an honest place. It's only four years. It was designed to mold in the people who went there the habit, the culture of honor that hopefully would carry on through the rest of your lives. To a great degree, I think that works. And I think what we've done in society is we've now normalized or accepted behavior. We accept, and I'm going to knock on politicians, but they're not alone.

16:11They will get in front of a camera and they will say something that they know is untrue and they know we know is untrue. Right. And yet we accept it with some strange agreement we have that says, well, because they're politicians. But it's more wide than politicians. And so we are really guilty. All of us. We can't blame this on any single individual. They're symptoms. The cause is at our level. I would say it's a reflection of us. That's right. I mean, it's really a reflection of society. If you see social media and how it plays out, what we cheer for. Who we vote for, who we put our money to.

16:47That's why I'm trying to start a national conversational character. Now, it's not me starting, and I'm hoping it will start and I can help in a small way. If we all start talking about it and we start deciding what do we really want from each other, you start to hold yourself to a higher standard. So maybe this is too philosophical of a question. But when you think about character, one of the things that's happened, I think, in this country is that there was a view that so-called experts comported themselves in a particular way to appear as if they had character, but maybe didn't always. And they would stab you in the back and not in the front.

17:26And that there has been a view that that is a disgrace and that another sort of version of the world, sort of where you stab people in the front and you lie straight up. And it's sort of a little bit of a UFC sort of way. No, no. I think there's something happening where that is somehow considered more honest, actually. That actually this sort of other approach didn't work. By the way, I wrestle with the whole thing. And so I'm curious sort of where you land on that. Are either of them worse or they both suck? Yeah. That's a great point, Craig. I agree with you. And I actually don't have a great answer for that.

18:08because we go back to some of the best leaders in American history who had a dark side, whether they owned slaves and protected them or they were philanderers or any number of things. And yet on the macro sense, they made huge contributions. I still come back to being too open about our lack of character just lowers the standards even more. I think there needs to be some kind of pressure. If you're going to be a scoundrel, at least limit that to what people don't see. That's not a perfect answer. OK, final question for you, which is you have been talking for years, as long as I have known you, about trying to get a national service program going in this country.

18:51Yeah. Which I've always thought is quite brilliant and also something that might help instill some character or at least get people together to talk and have the conversation that I think you're intending. Where are we on that? And what has held it back this long? We've had small pockets of its city or AmeriCorps, people doing great things. But in reality, we've never been able to get out of first or second gear. The Peace Corps is a small size compared to what I think it could and should be. Teach for America, you think. Yeah, exactly. They're great. Nobody is against it. That may be part of the problem.

19:27Part of the problem may be that there's not an opposition, so there's not a debate. The goal is to make better citizens. The goal is not to have young people pick up trash for a year. The goal is to give everybody a shared experience. So when they get later in life, they've dealt with people from outside their zip code, from outside their social circle. And they've also contributed. They've become part owner in America. And, you know, if you've ever had to work for something, you treat it differently afterward. And so I think that there ought to be civilian national service for every young American.

20:00And I think it should be a priority. You know, it's so interesting. We had Ted Cruz on yesterday talking about this new proposal that he's gotten behind to give a savings account, essentially, to every American that's born that they put in a thousand dollars and you watch it grow over time. And it's been a great idea to let young people see how that would grow. I wonder if you could combine it with something like that to say, OK, we're going to give you the savings account, maybe put some additional money in it through the years. But you have to do this service in order to get it when you turn.

20:2818 or 25. I like that little wrinkle to the plan. It's not just a giveaway. It's a, we want to invest in you, but we want you to invest in America in return. I think any version like the GI Bill, where you do something, you don't feel like you got something for nothing afterward. Right. And I think it's civilian service is the other side of the same coin. How do you serve the nation? General, the book is called On Character. We appreciate you joining us this morning. And it's an important and worthy topic that we should all be talking a lot more about it. Thanks for having me. Still to come on Squawk Pod, the big, beautiful reconciliation bill is still a work in progress in Washington.

21:06Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy discusses what's on the table, what's causing debate, and where the votes go from here. His top priorities is what he really campaigned on was no tax on tips. Right. That costs money, right? He also brought up salt. That costs money.

21:27Welcome back. This is Squawk Pod. And you're watching Squawk Box right here on CNBC. I'm Becky Quick along with Andrew Ross Sorkin. Joe is off today. We've got a big guest here. We can talk about everything. We're going to talk about the latest on the reconciliation bill in Washington, what's going on in the Middle East right now, and so much more. Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is at the table sitting in for Joe Kernan. I feel good. Is that what's really going on here? Yeah. Joe should be worried. I'm here. Before we hit the reconciliation situation, I'm curious for your reaction to the conversation we were having earlier on the air about the plane and the Air Force One situation.

22:07I don't want you to assume I was watching you because it was early. I was probably taking a shower. OK, so the question is Air Force One lands in Qatar, Qatar. And there's now a question about them gifting the president and the United States, depending on whether it's gifted to the U.S. or to him, this plane. We had Ted Cruz on yesterday. He said this is a terrible idea. He thinks it's a national security threat. We had Stanley McChrystal on earlier. He said he thought he doesn't like the optics of it. You have some folks putting out memes, calling it, you know, Hamas Force One and other people flying, apparently, planes over Mar-a-Lago, calling it, you know, Qatar-a-Lago or whatever.

22:49What do you think? Well, I think the biggest problem here is we've got a very old Air Force One. Oh, I'm Trump's first ministry. The practical problem is it would be great to have a plane. Yeah, Boeing needs to speed this up. But I almost think if Boeing can't deliver the plane in time, it's Boeing's responsibility to provide him another plane until that one's done. I agree with that. So the government shouldn't be involved. It's Boeing's responsibility, and they're getting out of this responsibility. Now, I don't know from a technical point of view. I mean, when you sit back and you think about the pagers in Israel, anybody giving or buying any plane, you're going to have to strip it for Air Force One and the things you have to put in it.

23:29Is there enough time? The real problem here is Boeing. I mean, the president has a legitimate argument. This is an Air Force One that was put during Reagan's time period. And the technology and everything else today, they need to solve that problem. They're so far overrun. And if they can't finish the job, they should provide him some loaner plane that has the capability prior. That's a really excellent point. That would solve the whole problem. But then again, like the loaner plane, part of the problem is you have to make this secure. Well, they should have done it when they were first doing it.

23:58They should have. They should have been working on that, and they provide something else in the meantime. It's their responsibility. It's just like if somebody was overrunning in a building. You've got to provide something else. But how do you feel about him keeping the plane? I think the attention now is totally wrong. What about keeping the plane? I don't know how he keeps the plane. Well, the idea is that it's going to be donated to the library. Yeah, but you just donated it to the government. Now is the government donating it to the library? I'm not a legal counsel, so I don't know how I can pre-do that.