AI Commission in the House, Reaction to Chip Sales in the GOP 12/10/25

24:15They are not detained pending charges. And very often the charges are pled down to misdemeanors and they don't do time. If you are if you have 10, 20, 30 priors and you are dealing fentanyl that results in someone's death, you don't deserve to walk the streets. Right. But so my question. I think it was, I remember at the time, it was around COVID and they changed the laws at the state level for what people could be held for. And then at that point, the police officers are like, I put them in, they're out a day later. So I'm going to say it again so New Yorkers hear it. When a person is brought before a judge, arraigned, and you consider whether they're going to be detained and held or not, risk to the public is not a factor you can consider.

25:00Okay, that's the law in New York. And 99 out of 100 New Yorkers I explained that to say that can't be right. Did that change four or five years ago? Or has that always been the case? And it's absurd. It was 2020, 2021? You want to get gun violence down? Yeah. If someone uses a gun in a crime, detain them. Yes. Jay, you may be right. It just doesn't sound to me like the mayor-elect, and I don't know this, I don't want to project, is necessarily on board with the things you're saying historically in terms of... People ask me about that, and I say, we're the federal law enforcement. We don't touch every one of these crimes.

25:34But when something rises to the federal level. But that was my question. How do you, to the extent. That's what the people want. Every New Yorker wants it. But what rises to the federal level? When do you get to be involved? When does the city or state get involved? And where is that? Again, this goes to the relationship that you may or may not have with the next mayor. How does that how's that supposed to work? Because there are lots of things that he disagrees with the federal government about, including we can get into ICE and everything else. Instead of going through the folds of federal jurisdiction versus state jurisdiction and the like, what I will tell you is where are we focused, where we have federal jurisdiction?

26:13Someone uses a gun in a crime in New York, we're going to look at that. And if we have clear federal charges, we're going to bring them. I think that's what New Yorkers want. What was your reaction to the mayor-elect? I mean, every New Yorker, We have the most restrictive gun laws in the country. I don't disagree with you. I'm just wondering. But then we have gun crime and we're going to let it go. But I imagine that there is going to be a back and forth between the state or the city and you about who gets to prosecute these cases. Well, on this, I don't think there's going to be a back and forth because this is our position.

26:48And as long as I'm in the job, this is going to be my position. What was your position on seeing the mayor-elect take to Instagram and social media and whatnot, not explaining, he would say, to New Yorkers how to deal with or handle ICE raids and or knocks on the door. I don't know if you saw, but he did a sort of two or three minute explanation to New Yorkers and was pretty supportive of people saying, don't talk, don't talk to them. You don't have to open the door. You don't have to interact with them. and obviously you're on one side of that as the federal government is, and clearly as a sanctuary city, he would say, he's on the other side.

27:34Okay, let me give you an example. We're going to talk about this later today in a Homeland Security briefing. TDA, Trende Aragua. What's it? Trende Aragua, vicious gang. Yep. Okay? Okay. In May, we charged a number of members of that gang, many of whom were here illegally. Murder. Drug trafficking, sex trafficking. You know what? Shouldn't we be allowed to go pick those guys up? Oh, I'm not telling you you can't. I'm just saying I don't know. I'm just saying that's why I don't know. That's where the mayor sits. That's my response. Like, you know what? You have people like that here illegally. Every New Yorker wants them gone.

28:16You're speechless. Let me ask you a related question. How do you feel about members of ICE pulling people off the street, wearing masks and the like. Look, if, let me ask you this. If people were targeting your home, would that bother you? If people were targeting my home? They said, you know what, I don't like Sorkin. You guys are playing, let me ask you this. Let me give you a worst case scenario. Well, no, I'm just saying, I think that there's... But I have great sympathy for people who are doing their job as law enforcement officers whose homes are being, who are being doxxed. And they're wearing those masks so that people don't go to their homes and, you know, give their children a hard time.

29:00I completely understand that. Would you feel the same way about just police? No, I think the police, that's different. I don't think anybody's targeting the police's homes. Okay, let me get Andrew going on something else. So I got a list. So Trump says, you know, I may or may not like Paramount. and I may or may not like Netflix, I'm going to be involved in this decision. So is this the first time in the history of the country that the chief executive has decided which mergers pass muster and which don't? Yeah, a lot of times people say things are unprecedented. Like, you know, what just, I mean, what pops to my mind?

29:40Wage and price controls, right? I mean, you know, we've had the executive branch get involved in things like that. You know what? Is it a good idea? But you know what's that? Is it a good idea? It depends on what the American people want. If he is in a position to staff all these agencies with like-minded people, that's basically what he's doing anyway. He just happens to be overtly saying that he has influence on what works and what works. Saying the quiet part out loud? That was my point. Well, that's what we were discussing the other day. Saying the quiet part. And it wants transparency, but in this case, you don't really like the transparency.

30:17Well, I just don't know. What I don't know is, do you remember many years ago, AT &T was trying to buy Time Warner? And that deal... Under the last Trump administration. Right, under the last Trump administration. And that deal was blocked. And Macon Delrahim, who used to come on the show, who now, by the way, works for Paramount, would say that it was his decision. The president never was influencing that decision at all. That he had nothing to do with it. That the way this whole system works is that the president's over here, and yes, he appoints the folks who run the Justice Department, but beyond that, it's a completely arm's length relationship.

30:52So they might find like-minded people, but that's the extent of it. This feels different because you're literally seeing, maybe for the first time, I don't know, the idea that both CEOs of both competing companies are going to visit the president at the White House. right to and not just that that he's explicitly said out loud maybe the quiet part out loud that he's going to be actively involved in the decision that feels new if you talk to most lawyers who where you used to work at Sullivan and Cromwell in the merger department they would say that's different we we haven't had that at least we haven't seen that before you don't you don't Well, I don't know that we've seen it in media before, but maybe.

31:37I mean, I am worried. We talk about AI and things like that. I am worried that we preserve competition in these areas. Like, if we have only one AI provider, that scares the heck out of me. It really does. Maybe it's just media, because we saw it in U.S. Steel. We've seen administrations. But it's not unprecedented in that anything that touches substantially on national security, even at the Justice Department. If it touches on national security, you're going to talk to the State Department and it's going to go all the way up to the White House if it's, you know, like something, let's say it's something that would touch on resolving the Ukraine-Russia conflict.

32:16I'll make it more complicated. Some people look at the fact that Jared Kushner's firm is backing the Paramount deal and say that as a result, talk about recusing, should the president recuse himself fully from this. I mean, some people added it. Some people thought, oh, they're being added into this to try to actually get across the finish line because, you know, with some wink and a nod, that will be helpful to them. By the way, it's not clear that's the case because the president actually took to Truth Social and went after Paramount, interestingly enough, the other day because of what he didn't in a 60 Minutes interview he didn't like.

32:50But the flip side is. I don't think you have to worry about this president making up his own mind. Sure. But again, there's but the question for the public in terms of credibility and how these decisions are being made, do you say to yourself, because certain people are involved, at least historically in the legal universe, you'd say, you know what, I have a family representative that's somehow engaged with XYZ. I have to take a step back. I can't make this decision. There's two ways to deal with it. You're talking about people do recusals, but there's also Joe's word, transparency. And transparency, knowing that all these factors and the American public knowing it, I think that's a good thing.

33:27Right. I, I, where else do you want to go? Well, um, I, what, remember they, they asked me, well, you know, what do you, where do you want to start? And I said, I immediately said, I shouldn't tell you. I immediately said Comey, but you don't want to talk. We've done that. I know. We have Alina Haber. I mean, there's so many things you are in the middle of so much stuff, uh, right now. But you know what? New York, um, we're going to make New York safer. I mean, I, I, I will tell you, I go to work. But you got 200. You're on the one hand to make it safer. You got another guy who could drive it right off a cliff.

34:02I can't worry about that. Really? I mean, New Yorkers, when New York is safe, New York comes. All right. All right. Jay, thank you. So no broken windows. Is that basically the. You know what? Broken windows. That's fine. That was it. But getting hardcore gun toting criminals out of this city. that's what all right and and just just on on that point though uh-oh what am i i don't know if you bring up guns with him well no no we got we got to take it to nine o 'clock if you bring up guns i thought we had an extra minute we don't know we all i was gonna all i was gonna ask we did two minutes i'm sorry about that guys no all i was gonna ask is again to the you know just tish obviously is gonna be running the police department she's fantastic and and i think she is fantastic.

34:54And the question is, and this is the part I was trying to get at before, trying to understand who actually gets to decide, you know, who effectively prosecutes the case, especially in the gun context. You're asking a really good question about who decides in government. It's actually like who decides in a well-run business. The better you run your division, the more autonomy you get. And that's right. What do good CEOs do? They focus on the places that aren't running well, and they let the places that are running well. But I assume the police arrest somebody, and then they have to decide who to call.

35:34Right, but what I'm saying is the police department deserves a great deal of discretion and autonomy because they're doing a great job. Okay, we will leave it there. Jay, thank you. Thanks. Time now for today's Aflac Trivia Question Who is the only actor who has starred in a number one film across six consecutive decades? The answer, when Squawk Box returns

36:03And now the answer to today's Aflac Trivia Question Who is the only actor who has starred in a number one film across six consecutive decades? The answer, Sylvester Stallone Wow. I know. I've been talking about that. I was trying to figure it out. I thought six decades would go to the 60s. I thought maybe Michael Caine or something from Chris Falk. That's actually a good guess. But I love Sly Stallone so much. I don't know about Dom Chu, but I can't even express how much I love Sly Stallone. And he just got the Kennedy Center. He's on Tulsa King now. It pops up every day. What I didn't realize was that in the teens, what was it, Creed?

36:43He did, I guess, another Rocky, which got to number one. And then I guess in the 2020s, he did a... What did he do in the 2020s? Suicide Squad was number one. But you see what he looks like now? He's 80-something. He looks pretty good. He's totally... And he's the same. And I think he's... Tulsa King is good. Tulsa King is good. And Tulsa King is, I think, Taylor Sheridan. It is Taylor Sheridan. which NBC, that's a big deal. But not the show, but he's moving. No, but that's a big deal for him. He's got everything. Oh, in 29. Oh, is it 29? I thought it was 28. Or maybe it's 28. 28, maybe? I don't know.

37:23And apparently Taylor Sheridan is in talks with Dom Chu about starring in like a golf adventure stock analyst movie or something. Is that a series in development, Dom, or no? I don't think it's in development right now, but I could try to see if I could fit into a role there. But to your point, guys, I am a massive Tulsa King fan. I'm a massive Taylor Sheridan fan. I think he's one of the best storytellers of our age in terms of kind of television and movies. And I would say the Expendables, remember the Expendables movies? I thought they really kind of got me back into the silver store. But how do you come up?

37:57I mean, I remember, see, I'm so old. I remember Playboy did an article on up-and-comers. There was this unknown guy. It used to be a magazine that did normal things. I mean, interviews and stuff. there was a picture of Sly when he was in his 20s and it said this guy is an up-and-comer he's written a script and gotten the go-ahead on a movie called Rocky that he's gonna and I remember no one had any and I said Sylvester that's a cat what is uh and and and then the rest is I mean to come up with that and Rambo Rambo yeah first blood unbelievable all of those things I mean And he's been he's timeless, ageless.

38:36And to your point, as old as he is right now, he is still fitter and maybe even better looking than just a ton of other people out there. Very quickly, Taylor Sheridan. He's his contract with Paramount ends in twenty twenty eight. The new deal includes both film and television. Movie component could start as early as twenty twenty six. The TV and streaming deal doesn't believe in till twenty twenty nine, like Andrew said. Oh, OK. So I would just. Yeah, I just think between Yellowstone and I watch a lot of those ones that are on Paramount, like Lioness and everything in that Yellowstone universe, it's been pretty amazing.

39:10So anyway, I will get you back out to your movers here right now. We'll start off with things, shares of GE Vernova. Let's start with a 10 percent gain there. It's soaring after providing some bullish longer term guidance at its investor day just yesterday. It expects revenue of at least$52 billion by the year 2028. And that would be up from its current fiscal year guidance of 36 to 37 billion dollars, which the company also affirmed or reaffirmed, whatever way you want to say it. It said it's also trending towards the higher end of expectations there. The energy equipment company also doubled its dividend, increased its share buyback authorization at 10 billion dollars from 6 billion.

39:45And a slate of analysts who cover the stock this morning are also moving to raise their ratings and price targets or some combination of both in all the wake of the news. So keep an eye on GE Vernova up 10 percent. Meantime, GameStop is falling today after reporting revenues of$821 million in its third quarter. CNBC is not comparing that number to estimates due to kind of thinner analyst coverage there. But the video game retailers' Bitcoin holdings also fell in value. And the company did not add any Bitcoin to its treasury from the previous quarter. So those moves leading to a loss of 6 % there for GameStop.

40:17And Cracker Barrel is also in the red this morning after the restaurant chain missed revenue expectations in its quarter and revised both its revenue and profit guidance downwards for the full year. Comparable restaurant sales also fell more than expected. The company's CEO cited, quote, unique and ongoing headwinds in those results, which come after its, of course, poorly received rebranded attempt in August of this year. So Cracker Barrel shares down six and a quarter percent. Joe, I will send things back over to you, Becky and Andrew. Thank you, Don. You're very welcome. OK. With AI super PACs projected to spend$100 million in the 2026 midterm elections, our next guest will weigh in on the future of AI policy on Capitol Hill.

41:01I want to welcome Congressman Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey. He will co-lead a new House commission, the House Democratic Commission on AI and the Innovation Economy. And Congressman, welcome. Thanks for being with us today. Thanks for having me, Becky. you. This is just a Democratic committee that's going to be looking at this because the Democrats and the Republicans are looking at AI regulation pretty differently. Most of the Republicans are saying that they don't want to see state by state regulation of this, that there should be one federal policy to regulate AI. And by the way, they think that that policy should probably have a pretty light touch.

41:37What are you thinking along with people on this committee? Well, first of all, the reason we put this commission together, led by Hakeem Jeffries, our Democratic leader, is there used to be, last Congress, a bipartisan committee doing it. The speaker this time decided not to bring that together again. So Leader Jeffries, along with many of us, said, you know, this is not something we can't get ready for, given how exciting AI is. And, of course, we want to make sure it's done the right way and that we lead the world with appropriate guardrails. And so that's why this commission was born and I think will bring together good ideas on policy and legislation.

42:12And to your point, Becky, I'm not opposed to actually a federal preemption law. It's just got to be done the right way. We want to make sure we have appropriate carve outs for states, you know, and everything from child safety to transparency to stop deep fakes and protect consumers. So I see this as an opportunity as overall for the Congress to really lead and for Democrats to lead the way and to have really smart conversations with stakeholders. But, of course, you want to do it the right way. You actually want to have that conversation. And that's what this commission is all about. Congressman, it's your Jersey friend.

42:46I don't think I'm in your district, though. Is he? He's in my district. You're welcome to my district anytime, man. Congressman Josh Heimer. That's like a portmanteau. Right. Politics is such a dirty business. I got I was upset with you. And I'm going to let you I'm going to let you answer this because I see some of the great stuff you do in a bipartisan way with the problem solvers. I thought your ads when you were running, what were you running for? Yeah, they were they were like so just left wing talking points that weren't really like you. Do you know which ones I'm talking about when you were running for what was it?

43:22The ones talking about how we need to lower taxes in Jersey and make it more affordable people? No, the ones where you said tax cuts for billionaires and the rich and corporations. By the way, Joe, I'll challenge you. I would never run an ad about that. So you must be looking at some other candidate. I believe in opportunity for everybody in lower taxes. I know you do. I know you do. There's no chance. That's why I was shocked. There's no chance. By the way, there's no chance. It sounded like dark brand. Joe, you find that ad and send it to me. I don't know. It might have been Pac-Money. No way.

44:01It might have been Pac-Money. No way I would have run that ad. It could have been dark branded. Joe, we need to. By the way, in Jersey, we've got lower taxes and lower costs for people, including energy bills. This is the job I know. And health care. So let's go. I'm going to look it up. All right. You know, next time. Look it up, man. We'll run it next time, my friend. Next time we'll have the damn thing and we'll run it. By the way, run that ad because I don't know what you're talking about. So there's no way I ran that ad. I was really disappointed in that. Maybe it was a PAC ad. Oh, they're looking for it right now.

44:34It's not me, man. All right, good. They should find it. Go ahead. Congress, let's talk a little bit more about the AI situation because, look, it's been three years since OpenAI came out and hit consumers. We don't have any regulation that has been brought up around that. We still don't really have federal regulation that strongly regulates any of the social media companies that have been out there for 15 years or longer. What do you tell people? What do you get around that? How do you find ways to actually come to agreement to something that gets done? Well, the good news on this, Becky, is a lot of us in a bipartisan way have been working together on AI legislation, whether you're talking about related to energy, you're talking about deep fakes, which of course are a huge issue, child safety.

45:20There's actually plenty going on in the Congress around that, and bipartisan. And I think everybody agrees we've got to do something, that we want to seize all the opportunity, whether it's healthcare related, education related, science related on AI, right? It's incredible what's going on and the opportunities ahead, but also you want to make sure there's appropriate guardrails. You've got to think through jobs and everything else that I think are really important that people have rightly have big anxiety about. So there's a way to do this. We just have to do it right. I think we've got to have the conversation.

45:51We can't ignore it. And that's why this commission exists. And Ted Lieu and Valerie Fruschi and I, the three of us, are going to be focused on how do we bring in the stakeholders, talk to the one of the developers who are doing this and obviously those who are involved, and have a smart conversation. I'm having one in just an hour from now with a few folks who are from the space and doing incredible work. So to me, that's how this should go. We should be smart, but we have to be ahead. This is happening. And the key is from a national security perspective, whether you're talking about chips, how do we think through to be smart?

46:22Because in my opinion, we should not be selling the latest technology to our number one adversary, China. That's not a smart move. We've got to stay competitive and have our qualitative edge. And so there's a lot of issues here to think through. We just got to do it in a smart way. What's happening with health care? We're getting to the end of the year. those health care subsidies for ACA are going to expire. I know you were with us last time we were on talking about ways to try and maybe get some bipartisan support on that. Where do things stand? So, Becky, that group, when I saw you last, we actually are putting out a piece of legislation today with several dozen people on it, with a couple dozen people on it, and several dozen people who have backed this concept that we should be, for at least the next year, extending these tax credits, which are key to helping prevent premiums from going up 175 % in Jersey for a family of Ford, you know, getting these premiums down, which people just can't afford starting in January, and then looking at potential reforms for the year after and saying, okay, let's actually get together and have that conversation.

47:21But you can't just have people in the beginning of January with what they're facing now on food prices and energy costs and everything else from the tariffs whack people with a$20 ,000 new premium bill who can't afford that. and then they're going to drop their health care. That is not a good outcome for our families or our country. So there's a way to do this. We've got a big bipartisan group. And now the question is, what will our leadership do? And, of course, what will President Trump do? And I'm hoping, so far he has said he's not interested, I'm hoping he meets with us and he comes around on doing something to help people get their health insurance premiums down.

47:54Even if those subsidies are extended for the next year, that only covers 22 to 24 million people. Health care costs, insurance costs are going to go up for Americans who are not covered by the ACA. How do you tackle that bigger problem? Is there a movement afoot? Well, so part of our proposal, of course, is PBM reform, which was almost done. That'll help. We need a lot more, and we could talk about this for a while, about what needs to be done with PBMs to get more transparency and pricing. We've got hospital pricing issues. There's a lot of places where we could use reform, and that's what we're talking about.

48:25But you're right, Becky. Listen, for nearly every American, they're facing higher health insurance costs, which are unacceptable, and they keep going up significantly. In this case, you're talking about 24 million Americans to help them immediately. But it will affect other people, of course, who decide to drop out and affects the pool. And everyone's insurance goes up when you lose, when 24 million people have their insurance premiums go up. It's a lot of people. It's a lot of families who are struggling. It might have been one where there's AI. You were in a boxing ring, and you were punching Trump or something, and he was your opponent.

48:57Oh, we're fighting tough. Oh, yeah. You're fighting Trump and you were hitting him over chaos, tariffs, and failing to cut costs for working. You want to cut taxes for the middle class, not for the rich, like Trump did, right? Joe, what I said was I want to fight hard. Listen, if you're a big tariff guy, I'm in a different place on that. I don't think tariff taxes are good. The Biden tariffs that he left on or the Trump tariffs? The Trump tariffs that he's imposed across the board. And by the way, all I'm saying is I was going to fight him against those tariffs. And I fight hard for the people I represent, man.

49:34And I have no apologies for that. I'm still paying salt. That was a good act. What happened there? It's still killing me. I need no cap on that. I need no cap. I'm with you on that. That's what I argued for. I'm with you. Joe, you and I are on the same place on that. I'm moving. We should be full deduction on salt. If I move to Ridgewood, can I vote for you? You can move to Ridgewood. Yeah, I would love to have you in Ridgewood. I'll get somebody to show you a place later today. Yeah, you used to live in Ridgewood. Near the duck pond. Becky and I, I don't know if Becky will let you in that close to her, but we'll welcome you up in the north anytime.

50:11I can touch her from where I am. I wouldn't, but I can't look. Wait, you need a wide shot. Congressman, thank you very much. It's great to see you. Thanks for having me. And that is the pod for today. Thanks for listening. Squawk Box is hosted by Joe Kernan, Becky Quick, and Andrew Ross Sorkin. Tune in weekday mornings on CNBC at 6 Eastern. Follow Squawk Pod wherever you get your podcasts. And let us know what you think. Please rate or review Squawk Pod on Apple Podcasts. Share your thoughts in just a few words. And help other listeners find us as well. We'll meet you right back here tomorrow.

50:51We are clear. Thanks, guys. Thank you so much.