Bill Pulte, A UAW Strike in Ohio, & the ‘Good Genes’ Payoff 9/4/25

0:00Bring in show music please. Welcome to SquawkPod. I'm CNBC producer Claire Odomode. On today's podcast, the housing regulator going after Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. Bill Paltty of the Federal Housing Finance Agency seems to have uncovered fraud at the highest levels of the central bank. He postponed a planned press conference today about the allegations, but he joined the Squawk Box team. What she did was wrong. The fact that she hasn't come out and said, hey, these aren't my documents or some rational explanation for this alleged crime. Why is she not doing it? It doesn't make any sense.

0:38Hundreds of workers at GE Aerospace facilities in the Midwest have been striking for a week. Their labor leader, United Auto Workers head Sean Fain, on what's at stake. I challenge anyone to look me in the eye and tell me that GE can't afford$4 million to eliminate health care premiums when they can pay$16.3 billion in dividends and buybacks. Plus, the rest of today's news that got us squawking, from New York City's mayoral race to the White House's brand new patio, are Eamon Javis on the tech CEOs coming to dinner. You need to be on the good side of this White House, and you need the president to see you as somebody who is an enthusiastic supporter, or at least an enthusiastic attendee of his events.

1:20It's Thursday, September 4th. Squawk Box has been going strong since 1995. Today's Squawk Pod begins right now. Stand Becky by in 3, 2, 1. Cue it, please. Good morning, everybody. 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 Joe Kernan and Andrew Ross Sorkin. And, yeah, 30 years of Squawk Box. Maybe not 30 years, pictures of each of us. I thought it was next week. We're starting it now. It was actually August. But it goes Thursday to Thursday, maybe. Maybe it's that kind of week. It's not just it. or we can do what we want.

1:59We'll just do it Thursday to next Friday. Those pictures don't look that old. I think we all look, you know, pretty much the same. I might have thought it was an old picture I hate with a new picture I hate. That's the good news and the bad news. We look pretty much the same. Oh, boy. Yeah, that's right. Anyway, welcome, everybody. We'll take a couple of questions from the media. We have trillions of dollars coming into our country. If we didn't have tariffs, we would be a very poor nation, and we would be taken advantage of by every other nation in the world, friend and foe. We're not going to let that happen.

2:38And we have a very, very big case in the Supreme Court. I can only say this. Our country has a chance to be unbelievably rich again, but it can also be unbelievably poor again. And if we don't win that case, our country is going to suffer so greatly. What's the backup plan, sir? But I think we're going to have a big victory. Meantime, two big stories out of Washington. I want to bring you President Trump seeking a quick ruling from the Supreme Court on the legality of his global tariffs. Separately, the president is going to be hosting two dozen high-profile tech and business leaders at the White House.

3:14That's going to happen today. Eamon Javers joins us to talk about both of those big stories right now. Now, where do we think this case is going and who is on the guest list? Yeah, let's start with the fun stuff, Andrew. Good morning. President Trump is going to inaugurate his newly redesigned Rose Garden patio tonight with a glittering gathering of tech CEOs, including some of the most powerful and wealthy figures in business. One name conspicuously missing from the attendee list, though, is Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who had a falling out with the president earlier this year. A White House official confirms reports that other attendees will include Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook, Sundar Pichai, Bill Gates, Sam Altman and Sergey Brin.

3:56Now, they're going to attend an A.I. event at the White House that's convened by the First Lady and then take in the new Rose Garden, where Trump has replaced the traditional grass with a stone patio and tables and chairs that are reminiscent of his club at Mar-a-Lago. Now, it all comes at a moment of high stakes, as you say, for the administration. And many of those companies represented after the administration and the Department of Justice filed its appeal to a judge's decision that most of the tariffs it levied this year are illegal. In a motion asking the Supreme Court to expedite consideration of the case that was obtained by NBC News last night, Solicitor General John Sauer asked the justices to fast track consideration of the case so that oral arguments can be heard as soon as the first week of November.

4:41Now, that would require the court to decide by next week whether or not to hear the case. So some high stakes there, guys. Back over to you. Well, this is I was going to say two things. Do we still think there's any opportunity? This whole idea about refunds, have you been focused on this refund issue? I just can't get over the idea that if, in fact, the court undoes this, how refunds would ever come and what would ever happen. Or do you imagine that if or there's I assume the possibility that he still puts some of these tariffs in place for 150 days at whatever the minimum level he can and then sort of fights it out afterwards and sort of when you go through the dominoes?

5:21So a couple of thoughts. One is I think you can imagine that the Trump administration will do everything it can to preserve the tariffs no matter what the ruling is. And that might include, you know, plan B options like, you know, reformatting the tariffs under a different legal authority, trying to get a temporary extension. Anything like that that they can pull together that they think will pass legal muster depending on how the court rules. And then, yeah, if worse comes to worse from the administration's perspective, they would have to at some point refund the tariffs. And that's, you know, for some of these companies, you look at like Caterpillar, GM, Ford, you know, it's nearly a billion dollars or over a billion dollars so far in tariffs that those companies have paid so far this year.

6:04So it could be a significant amount of money for some of these companies. I've asked folks at the White House and at Treasury, you know, what the mechanism is to do that refund refunding. They don't have an answer for that. It's not clear to me whether that's because there is no mechanism or because they just simply aren't ready to discuss it yet, either timing wise or sort of politically. They don't want that idea out there in the world because they don't really intend to go back on these tariffs. The president says it'll be the destruction of the United States if he loses the power to tariff.

6:33So you can tell how important this is to the administration. Yeah, a lot riding on that. Hey, Eamon, I'd like to focus on the tech leaders being there. It's an interesting day for them to be there a day after the Google punishment was meted out, and it was a lot milder than the street had been anticipating. Google shares were up 9 % yesterday. Meta shares, I think, were up a couple percent, too. And there is this question of whether the attack on big tech is over. Is this a one-off because of this judge's ruling on this, or is this really kind of an all-clear sign? Because that's the way the market was reading it yesterday.

7:06Yeah, I'm not sure it's an all-clear sign. Clearly, it's all clear, or at least mostly clear for Google in this particular case. But, you know, this administration is committed to a populist worldview on antitrust that is a little different than what we've seen from previous Republican administrations. So I don't think it goes away altogether. The DOJ has said that they're reviewing their options in the Google case. So we'll see where they go next. But remember, that case was originally brought by Trump in his first administration back in 2020. So it's something that Trump is sort of ideologically committed to, and certainly so is Gail Slater over at the Department of Justice, who runs the antitrust division.

7:46And I think you'll see some more of that. The question is whether the courts have now said that they're not really, they don't have an appetite for it, and therefore it's not likely to succeed. And then I think if you're a tech CEO and you're invited to the patio at the White House, you know, the new Rose Garden, I think you have to go, right? I mean, I don't think this is anything other than a command performance for a CEO who's invited to an event like that because of the enormous ability of this White House or intent of this White House to intervene in the private sector in ways that we haven't seen before, really in outside of a crisis.

8:20I think you need to be on the good side of this White House and you need the president to see you as somebody who is an enthusiastic supporter or at least an enthusiastic attendee of his events. And so I think for them, this you get this invitation and you have to cancel everything else you're doing and come to the dinner because of the enormous interventionism that we've seen from this White House into the private sector. There were ramifications last time Elon Musk wasn't invited to the White House. Right. Yeah. Remember that? I mean, huge mistake by the Biden people to have an EV event and not invite the CEO of Tesla.

8:55Well, we know what that was all about. And we saw what Andrew has tweeted. And you're saying maybe the world would have been different if that had never happened. I think Elon genuinely had concerns about immigration. And I think he had a lot of different concerns. But that certainly did turn him against the Biden administration. I don't know if it's the same thing. The midterms are coming up. First he says he's going to get involved in the mid... I don't think he can overestimate the power of ego with powerful and wealthy people. He's starting a new... The power of ego is enormous. He's holding back on the new party.

9:27I know, but he definitely became more of a Republican, a Democrat, Amy, especially after the other stuff that the Democrats did to Twitter. I think he's holding out hope with J.D. Vance, which is why he's holding off on starting his own party like he had recommended. And are we sure he wasn't invited or he's just decided not to go? Yeah, exactly. That's an interesting question. Right, Amy? Do we know exactly that... And no, I understand that, but maybe he was invited and he said he couldn't go and they figured out a nice way to do it. We don't know. We don't know. Yeah, we don't know. All that stuff matters.

9:57I mean, it sounds silly to be talking about who's on the invite list. You know, it sounds like your eighth grade school dance or something, but it does matter. I mean, the egos of these people are enormous and people get slighted with that level of power. They can they can lash out. And we've seen that in the past. And so, you know, how these things are framed, how who gets invited, who feels like they have to go, who feels like they're left out. All of that stuff really does really does matter. I felt all those things that those eighth grade dances. I still feel you were left out or you were always invited, Joe.

10:31Can we not talk about it? Can we still some some layers of trauma to say that we're all nerds? Yeah. I think we all have common feelings on this. Thank God. Thank God. There's a lid for every part. I say that a lot. I'll take it. Hopefully. Thanks, Eamon. Eamon, by the way, can I just say it's been fun having you up with us early in the morning. Thank you. Yay. But it's been fun having you up early with us in the mornings. We want it like every day. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thanks for that. And so does my alarm clock. Thanks, Eamon. The shares of American Eagle Outfitters soaring.

11:11Take a look at this. Earnings of 45 cents per share beat estimates of 21 cents. Revenue of$1.3 billion also beating estimates. Now, gross margins were up. Comp sales fell by 1%, though, versus expectations of 2.3%. That should have been a 2.3 % drop, I should say. Guidance for the full year came in above estimates. The company is saying its partnership with Sydney Sweeney has been its best advertising campaign ever. that ad campaign, faced some criticism and blowback, but it led to a lot of new customer acquisition and positive traffic across the channels. The company's saying its partnership with Kansas City tight end Travis Kelsey also boosted traffic, but Sidney Sweeney for the win.

11:54I don't like the way that's written. Face some criticism. Yeah. I thought it was a great campaign. That's what I mean. Consider the source. OpenAI raising the size of its share sale by more than$4 billion. A source telling CNBC that the startup will give eligible current and former employees the opportunity to sell about$10.3 billion in stock from the$6 billion initially targeted. The source says the sale will be at a$500 billion valuation for OpenAI that's in line with recent valuations or expectations. Advisors to President Trump are looking into offering New York City Mayor Eric Adams a job in the Trump administration as a way to transform this November's New York mayor election into a face-off between former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and Democratic Socialist Zoran Mondani.

12:52That's according to the New York Times. It says high-profile New York real estate executives and Cuomo allies have been talking about possibly offering Adams public or private sector jobs as an incentive to get him to leave the mayoral race. Mondami is expected currently to be the favorite right now to win. Adams spokesperson telling the Times the mayor has not spoken with Trump about a potential job. The article also says that talks have focused on the possibility of giving him a role in the administration to the main Republican candidate in New York City, Curtis Sliwa, as well as a way to further cut down the field.

13:27I've been out there for a while. I have been surprised, to be honest with you, that one of the great real estate mavens in New York City, a Bill Rudin or somebody, doesn't say to Eric Adams, please come be the head of policy and security for me if this is what they want. that that would be what you and you know you'd offer him whatever but now i can't believe we've been talking about this you know out loud because this is what's happened to yeah they're talking about politics trump advisors not not the president himself so it's interesting to think whether he would think that or not we've had people who have come in and suggested that donald trump would love to have mom donnie here because he would be such a great foil uh to kind of balance politics after his list of foil but but you do have president he still has extensive businesses here and you I wonder.

14:13He's got plenty of targets. I don't know if he needs another target. I guess it wouldn't, you know. Who knows? I mean, who knows at this point? But the story itself didn't suggest that it was the president who had considered it. Right. Maybe the whole country would be better off. I mean, we throw New York City under the bus. So everybody under the age of 30 finally understands that they're screwed up ideas about socialism. That's what one of the Winklevoss twins suggested. I'm not kidding. Every once in a while you need something like that just to shake out all of the total crap that kids are learning.

14:43To me, the one thing that I can't figure out about this is if he does win, you know, you have not seen, we've talked about it, you have not seen the National Guard here. You just haven't. Talk about, like, what's happened in Washington and all those other places. Is there a reason for that? Because he's a little more simpatico with Eric Adams and thinks that Eric Adams is doing a better job. He's only done it at D.C. and L.A. Chicago too, I think. He hasn't done it yet. But they're talking about it. But they're talking about it. You can't do it in Chicago, theoretically. But you also haven't seen sort of, you know, massive, very visible ice raids in New York City.

15:16You haven't seen a lot of the stuff that's been in other places. And I wonder whether that is, I don't want to say political, but political. Trying to help Eric Adams? Or trying to help, trying to anti - anybody who's, anybody but. He agrees with Eric Adams a little more with what he's done on some of these things too. Maybe New York's doing better than those other places. Seems to be doing better than Washington, D.C., my friend. Cheese will be next. Coming up next on Squawk Pod, it's day eight of a strike at the GE Aerospace facilities in Ohio. United Auto Workers Union president Sean Fain on why they're striking and why the union rejected an offer on the table.

15:59When you talk about a 12 percent wage increase, what they're not saying is they want to increase their health insurance premiums by 18 percent. Stay tuned. We'll be right back.

16:11This is SquawkPod. Stand, Andrew, bye. In three, two, one, Q, Andrew. You're watching SquawkBox right here on CNBC. I'm Hentra Oz-Sorkin along with Joe Kernan and Becky Quick. Got a lot of headlines for you this morning. Folks, today is day eight of a strike involving more than 600 United Auto Worker employees at GE Aerospace facilities in Ohio. In a statement to Squawk Box, a GE Aerospace spokesman said that the company is proud of the offer that it gave to employees and, in its words, are disappointed that the Detroit-based UAW leaders have decided to strike before our employees have had an opportunity to vote.

16:47We remain focused on serving our customers through our detailed contingency plans that ensure continued operations with the highest level of safety and quality. Joining us right now is United Auto Workers President Sean Fain. And, Sean, in the lead up to this, we said that you have said that GE Aerospace is the epitome of everything that's wrong with this country. Do you want to explain? By the way, welcome. Thanks for being here. Hey, thanks for having me. It's good to be here again. And, look, you know, what GE is doing is financially reckless not to settle this strike. And I'll go a little bit more into detail if you'll give me a minute.

17:25But to say that they're proud of a deal like this or their offer on the table, you know, all of the union's proposals combined would cost about$75 million for a five-year deal. You know, let's talk numbers here. GE made$17 billion in profits over the last three years. And in 2020, from 2022 to 2024, our deal would be less than 1 % of their 2024 profits alone. And, you know, workers, I want to be clear about this. Workers aren't asking to be millionaires. All they're asking for is their fair share of the profits that their work generates. And you talk about$17 billion in profit. Of that$17 billion, they paid out over that same time frame$16.3 billion to shareholders in dividends and buybacks.

18:12$2.2 billion in this first quarter alone this year. And the CEO got a 985 % increase to$89 million. Now, workers want to know one thing. They want to know that they'll have a job tomorrow. and that they're able to afford health care. So over this same time frame when they've done all this, this company, with what they want to say they're proud of their offer, they want to increase the health care premiums of these workers by 18%. And the sad reality is this. It would cost$4 million. They could eliminate the health care premiums for all of these workers who work so hard to generate these massive profits.

18:49And so, you know, I look at it this way. GE is recklessly putting this business in jeopardy. Half of GE Aerospace's business is servicing engines they've already sold. And the Erlanger facility, which is on strike, is the single point of failure in shipping all these critical parts. So I challenge anyone to look me in the eye and tell me that GE can't afford$4 million to eliminate health care premiums when they can pay$16.3 billion in dividends and buybacks,$2.2 billion this quarter alone, and then have the audacity to demand an 18 % increase in premiums. And sadly, their lead negotiator, who, by the way, is also from Detroit, he couldn't look us in the eye and tell us that.

19:34Hey, Sean, let me just walk through what a company offer, a summary, has laid out. They say that they proposed a three-year agreement with the UAW that sets a general wage increase over the three years that totals 12 percent, a five percent increase effective in September of this year, a four percent increase September of next year, three percent after that. They also say that the two other union-represented employee groups have already ratified new contracts earlier this summer, and they want to know why you haven't taken this to a vote to the union membership. So, first off, the union members elect a bargaining committee to represent them at the bargaining table.

20:10So, you know, it's not Detroit-based people bargaining for them. It's their own members right from the shop floor that bargain for them. You know, we're there to help them in the process. We give them the resources they need. So that's the first thing to be clear about. And they elect these bargaining committee to represent their interests at the bargaining table. That's what they're doing. Second, you know, I'm not really concerned about what other unions have done. This is a UAW agreement. And, again, we're focused on the massive profits that our work has generated. And, like I said, it's completely – when you talk about a 12 percent wage increase, what they're not saying is they want to increase their health insurance premiums by 18 percent.

20:50You know, so in reality, everything you're getting in wage increases is going to be eliminated by increases in health care. So they're taking away on the other end. They're not talking about that. What is the dollar breakdown? If it's a 12 percent increase over three years, what does that mean for the average salary? If it's an 18 percent increase in health care premiums, what does that work out to on a dollar basis? Well, I mean, as we as we said, I mean, when you look at let's just talk numbers, let's be real simple about this. I mean, for a corporation. Let's talk numbers, actual numbers. Yeah, it is numbers.

21:22It is actual numbers. But$17 billion in profit,$16.3 billion paid out. Now think about this. So let's say everything that we're asking for, everything on the table, is$75 million. This company paid$2.2 billion in the first quarter alone in buybacks. So they could have paid out$1 ,925 ,000 ,000 to shareholders still, and they could have settled this contract. And the sad reality is what they've lost in the eight days they've been on strike, the second day on strike basically could have paid for the entire cost of what we're asking for. So everything they're doing is financially reckless right now, in my opinion.

22:01So it sounds like you consider this location a choke point that you can really shut things down for GERO space if the strike continues here? It's already affecting their business. It's affected their business, as I said, a lot more than what it would have cost just to settle and still keep making these massive profits. So it's, like I said, it's financially reckless on the part of the company. To sit there and look these workers in the face and tell them and basically sneer at them and say, we have nothing. I mean, it's sad to me. And that is what's wrong. That's the epitome of why working class people in this country are fed up because they work hard.

22:35They're not asking to be rich. They just want to be able to live a decent quality of life. All these massive profits keep being generated for these companies. And the end result is they want to ship the work somewhere else or they want to threaten them and they want to keep increasing the cost of living for them. It's insane. Where do you come down on politics? You did not endorse President Donald Trump, but you have seemed to agree with him on his tariff policies. Did you endorse? You didn't endorse Biden either. No, I don't think you endorsed either. But where do you stand right now? I'm sorry.

23:05Yeah. So so we did endorse Harris. But oh, you did. But Yes. And I will say this, though. I mean, let's be clear. Look, we've said this from day one. The day I took over as president, our administration has said, when it comes to politics, we're going to call balls and strikes. Look, you know, our mission, you know, our mission is our mission. It's not going to change no matter who's in the White House, no matter who's in Congress or even in local elections, state elections. But at the end of the day, we have been, you know, the UAW has always supported and favored strategic industry specific tariffs.

23:37And look, we've been, we've talked to both parties for years begging anyone to do anything with tariffs, you know, in the auto industries particularly. And I'll say this, when the Trump administration came out and said they were looking at tariffs in auto, yes, we embrace that. We've reached out. We've been meeting with them weekly, you know, Commerce Department and U.S. Trade Ambassador Greer, Secretary Lutnik. You know, we've had a lot of really good conversations, and we've seen, you know, a lot of the good come out of that already. In auto, we've seen good signs where GM's already announced$5 billion in investment in bringing jobs back here in America.

24:18Stellanus, unfortunately, is still dragging their feet, trying to lobby their way out. But, you know, the one thing I'll say with this administration, we're looking forward to continuing to work with them when it comes to their review in the heavy truck industry. We have workers right now at Volvo and Mac in Pennsylvania, heavy truck making a freight liner and stuff in North Carolina. We have Deere workers in Cakes, New Holland workers in Ag Imp who are where their work's being offshore to Mexico right now. And it's because there are no tariffs. And this this administration has announced they've done an investigation under Section 232.