Global Takes on a TikTok Deal & “The Creative Shift” 9/26/25

0:00Bring in show music please. Hi, I'm CNBC producer Katie Kramer. Today on Squawk Pod. A U.S.-owned TikTok could be coming our way. Donald Trump signing an order for a proposed deal for American investors to buy the app. Crazy dancers and influencers included. Eamon Javers in Washington. You know, you wonder if these shareholders who are personal friends and political allies of the president are getting an incredible, incredible deal. And the president says China's Xi is on board, Eunice Yun from Beijing. TikTok, ByteDance, they're not really that important as companies to China's economy. Speaking of TikTok, the clock is ticking on Capitol Hill, a government shutdown looms.

0:46But Senator Ron Johnson has a plan to avert this one and all those that come after. These are politicians playing games with people's lives. It is ridiculous. End that. Then succeed with outsized creativity, says ad man Andrew Robertson. Predictability of results, operational excellence, executional brilliance, process compliance, all of those things suppress creativity rather than unlock it. Are there bad ideas? There are bad ideas and you want as many of them as you can get. Plus, the first indictment of a former FBI director in U.S. history. And the president also announcing new tariffs, hitting pharmaceuticals, heavy trucks, kitchen cabinets and furniture.

1:28But is Wall Street watching? Can you imagine the criticism if, let's say, stocks were down 10 or 20 percent instead of at new highs? A busy news day to end the week. It's Friday, September 26th. 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. Andrew is out today. Joe and I, once again, mind meld, dressing with the same color. We never talk about this. You're 40 miles away. You're 40 miles away. And you get up at least a couple hours later than I get up.

2:13Oh, I do not. I get up about 15 minutes later. And it's not just orange. It's like a cream. It's like a cream. Yeah, exactly. It's like a creamsicle. It's some cantaloupe. Which is weird. I saw it. Whoa. Yeah. President Trump now threatening pharmaceuticals, pharmaceutical industry with some new tariffs. This was done in a post on True Social. Mr. Trump wrote, the U.S. will impose a 100 percent tariff on any branded or patented pharmaceutical product entering the country starting October 1st. But he said companies building drug manufacturing plants in the U.S. will be exempted. That includes companies that just started construction on new facilities.

2:55Facilities, shares of Asian and European drug makers without U.S. manufacturing operations are getting hit on this news. CNBC has reached out to major drug makers for comment, but has not received a response. Really? They're not all clamoring to get on the record with this at this point? Not yet. It's early. Several big pharma companies, we don't even, do you even notice? I do. It is early. Some companies have recently announced plans to build in the U.S., including AbbVie, Amgen, Merck, Eli Lilly, GSK, and Johnson & Johnson. You know, what's interesting about this is how the administration is trying to do so many things, really change the entire way we operate.

3:40And sometimes those forces kind of bump up against each other. You want to see more made in America. You want to see more manufacturing here. You want to see more jobs here. But at the same time, the administration has been very upfront about how they want to get pharmaceutical prices lower, how they want to get housing prices lower. for these particular tariffs on drug prices that right now most are manufactured elsewhere. It is a good, I guess, loophole incentive that if you are starting to build already, you'll be exempt from some of those things. But if you want to get drug prices down, if you want to get housing prices down, it's hard to do that while you continue to hand out tariffs, not only on pharmaceuticals, but on things like cabinets that go into housing.

4:19You know, you can get mortgage prices down potentially. Maybe the Fed can do that. Maybe they can't if they can't control the long end. But all the components that go into that, whether that be lumber, whether that be any of the many prices that have gone up, homebuilders should tell you their pricing has gone up substantially from not just goods that are there, but also what they have to pay people for labor. I sometimes wonder whether the, you know, all of the worst case scenarios haven't come to pass. And I think that might embolden President Trump to think, not that he's invincible, but that, for example, so he sees furniture coming in.

4:59Someone's dumping furniture. Immediately, you're going to read this next story. All right, I'm not going to 100%. And some of it seems like it's impulsive. And, you know, I don't know. So I think he can see something one day, and the very next day you could almost see terror. But at this point, 3.8 % GDP. I saw what Scott Besson was saying, that this is going to be like the first term. Yep. Strong GDP growth, low inflation because of productivity, wage gains for low-income workers. I guess small business confidence is at two-year highs. We've got to have Treasury Secretary on again because he always makes a good case.

5:39But there are times where even I am surprised at how well things are going. The market has shook off all of these. I know. I see stuff on Twitter. People are saying, how are you going to explain the old boy you're going to be? And I don't want to answer anyone anymore. But I almost feel like saying, of all the things you've been warning about, what has happened? But yet you're still doing it. You're still chicken little. The sky is still falling. Maybe is it all building up for one big mess? My guess would be that the administration would pivot, that the president would pivot if he did see a big collapse in things.

6:13He did in April. Can you imagine the criticism if, let's say, stocks were down 10 or 20 percent instead of at new highs? Completely. And what is it? It may be the start of something. What is this, four straight days or something? We've been down three sessions in a row. But again, we're less than 2 percent from all time highs. All right. President Trump also posting last night on Truth Social that he plans to impose a 25 percent tariff on imported heavy trucks. That is set to begin October 1st. That's next week. He said the move is to protect U.S. manufacturers from unfair outside competition and address national security concerns as well.

6:49Shares of PACCAR, which makes Peterbilt and Kenworth trucks gained after hours. You can see that stock is up by about five and a quarter percent. And then Daimler trucks, which makes Freightliner, Western Star, and Mercedes trucks, is falling in overseas trading. That stock is off by 3.3%. Funny Volvo. I guess that's here. The White House reportedly considering a new plan. This one meant to boost domestic chip, computer chip manufacturing. You could see U.S. semiconductor makers hit with tariffs if that were to happen. And the Wall Street Journal says the Trump administration wants U.S. companies to manufacture the same number of chips domestically as their customers import from overseas.

7:32Those falling short would face financial penalties. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is said to have talked with chip industry executives about that idea, which is kind of a novel idea as well. They're on the same vein, though, right? Right along with the HB1 visas, which is the labor side of kind of trying to protect American jobs, too. Yeah. Former FBI Director James Comey has been indicted in connection with the government's investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. That indictment includes two counts, making a false statement and obstruction of congressional proceeding. Comey could face five years in prison if he is convicted.

8:13The charges came days after President Trump appeared to urge Attorney General Pam Bondi to prosecute Comey and other perceived political adversaries. The statute of limitations for charging was set to expire early next week. On Truth Social, President Trump celebrated the indictment, calling Comey one of the worst human beings this country has ever been exposed to. In a video posted on Instagram, Comey denied the charges, saying, My family and I have known for years that there are costs to standing up to Donald Trump, but we couldn't imagine ourselves living any other way. And it's a chicken-egg thing.

8:47it's either I mean they needed a grand jury to look at the evidence the grand jury turned aside a third charge that it would not but it didn't turn down those and they'd vote and they're even if the DOJ brings something the grand jury has to decide on the indictment so when Trump last week or whenever it was said what's taking so long is it the old Russian saying give me a man and I'll show you a crime, or was Trump convinced all along these guys have done, some of them guys, gals too, have done egregious things, where are the charges? So, and I'll, in this case, and some others, I would give, almost give the benefit of the doubt, and I know people that'll get up in arms because they're sure that this is lawfare, and this is targeting his enemies and retribution, but some of it was egregious enough.

9:42He kind of said it was. Well, not exactly. Retribution for things that they did wrong and they deserve retribution. If they didn't do anything, there wouldn't be anything to bring charges against. I love the AP. I'm going to read this to you. The AP, because I read this yesterday. I was going to tweet it out, but I gave up. It's an AP. I think AP is like one of the worst. But Trump has for years derided the investigation as a hoax and a witch hunt. And they're still going with it. Despite multiple government reviews showing that Moscow interfered on behalf of the Republicans' campaign, they're still with the Putin's guy, and they're never going to let that.

10:24So they're saying, yeah, Mueller found absolutely nothing, basically. But these charges are related to leaking and whether... Right, but it was all part of Hillary's operation crossfire. and Comey knew at certain times he was either not including things that would have made that investigation seem ridiculous or he was including things that were suspect. We'll see what happens with Comey. We don't know the details of the case. It's got to go through the court system. Peter Navarro was here last week talking about how he thinks lawfare was used against him and that it should be used against him.

11:01Well, that's the other thing. The other thing as well. He's saying people that use lawfare against him need to be held accountable. And that's what I think when, you know, that's what Trump's press secretary says every single time. This is not retribution. It's being people being held accountable for illegal things that they did. We'll see how it plays out in the court system. As you mentioned, it was grand jury. Did you see all the, I saw a lot of pictures of Adam Schiff yesterday in prison. That's people in Bolton. They say Bolton could be. On his list. Bolton is interesting because in Comey, you know, the statute of limitations on these charges.

11:34It was about to expire. Right. For Bolton, they supposedly think if they could put together a better case six months from now, but this earlier case might be to appease President Trump to do something now, but the case is not so strong. I don't know if the Bolton is it. I don't know about Bolton. Yeah, right. Cheese will be next. Coming up, the president has okayed a proposed deal for the sale of TikTok's U.S. business, Keeping hope alive that the popular social media app will remain available in the U.S. Are Eamon Javers in Washington on the executive order? I mean, there's a couple of mysteries that still remain here that we don't know the answers to.

12:14And Eunice Yun in Beijing watching TikTok's current owner and controller of the algorithm. At the end of the day, China could just be using this as a way to lord over the Trump administration in broader negotiations. Plus? The government funding fight continues, but Wisconsin Republican Ron Johnson says he has a plan to end shutdowns forever. If we take the drama, if we take all the partisanship out of just funding government, just have it continue, maybe we'll do some appropriation reform, some budget reforms, like let's go to two-year budgets.

13:00Welcome back to Squawk Pod from CNBC. Today with Joe Kernan and Becky Quick. And the topic of the day, TikTok. So this is interesting because I had a very good talk with President Xi. A lot of respect for him. Hopefully he has a lot of respect for me too. And we talked about TikTok and other things, but we talked about TikTok. And he gave us the go-ahead. You know, it's run by American investors and American companies. great ones, great investors, the biggest. You don't get bigger, I don't imagine. I know Michael Dell's involved, and Rupert Murdoch's involved, and a lot of, and let's see, we have probably four or five absolutely world-class investors that love the country, and they made a lot of money with the country.

13:49It's a blue chip group of investors, and we'll be announcing more about who exactly is involved in the deal in the days to come. Oracle is playing a very big part. Here's Joe. President Trump signing an executive order meant to keep TikTok running in the United States. Vice President J.D. Vance says the deal values TikTok's U.S. business at$14 billion. And under the terms, a new joint venture company will oversee TikTok in America, with China-based ByteDance retaining less than a 20 % stake. But there's been no indication yet that the Chinese government has made the legal changes, the algo and all that necessary for a deal to go through.

14:29Joining us is our own Eamon Javers and Eunice Yun in Beijing. I hope you guys disagree on exactly what's happening. We want to see like a Santelli leaseman thing happen here. Is that is that any way that can happen, Eamon? I don't think so. Based on what Eunice has been saying on conference calls, I think we have a similar view of what's where we are. But we'll see. Go ahead. Go ahead. Well, look, I mean, I would start with this. I mean, there's a couple of mysteries that still remain here that we don't know the answers to. One is who are all the investors in this deal on the U.S. side? We've gotten some names.

15:04David Faber reported out a couple of new names yesterday. So we do have a sense of who some of the big kahunas in this are, including, of course, Oracle, which is going to be the trusted security partner. But we don't know all the investors here. And that's a big mystery. And the second big mystery, I think, that people are going to focus on this morning is J.D. Vance giving us this$14 billion valuation for TikTok US. How did they come up with that number? I think it's going to be interesting to see the math behind it if we ever get those documents. Because there's some questions about what this entity is worth and how much these investors are going to be paying to get that value.

15:44It's a huge company with a huge media footprint in the United States, and it will have not quite a monopoly on short form video online in the US, but the most valuable property in terms of social media, perhaps, in the United States. And to come in at only 14 billion, you wonder if these shareholders who are personal friends and political allies of the president are getting you know, an incredible, incredible deal here. And Eunice, were you surprised at President Xi sort of abandoning a long-held position on that algo? And then we tied some of the NVIDIA threats and the monopoly threats, we tied that to trying to appease, you know, people in China that, okay, I may be doing this, giving in on TikTok, but I'm going to be tough on NVIDIA.

16:43Is that true? And we don't even trust that she's ready to give up the algo. Is that a fact? To answer your question, I wasn't surprised that a TikTok would be put on the table, because from a strategic standpoint, TikTok, ByteDance, they're not really that important as companies to China's economy and to President Xi's overall national ambition to become a big technology leader and leader in the world. But in terms of the mysteries that Eamon was bringing up, another one, of course, is still that we don't have any confirmation from Beijing that they're OK with letting go of this algo. President Xi, and then the official Chinese summary, President Xi did not, at least they say, did not reference or they did not reference a presidency approving of this deal going through.

17:42And then I just wanted to read you the foreign ministry statement today, because it repeats the same points that the Chinese government have been saying, that the Chinese government respects the will of enterprises and is happy to see enterprises doing business negotiations on the basis of market rules and reaching a solution that meets China's laws and regulations and balances interests. We hope that the United States will provide an open, fair, and non-discriminatory business environment for Chinese enterprises to invest in the United States. So again, not being direct, instead using very vague language.

18:18Amen, what do you know about whether it is it as a country or not? it appears or because I think it's too good to be true sometimes. And I never trust China really on anything. Yeah. I mean, I think that's a fair dose of skepticism, Joe, to look at this and say, I mean, the president has said several times that Xi Jinping has approved this deal, but we've seen nothing forthcoming from the Chinese side that that's actually the case. And, you know, yesterday, I think a lot of folks saw that the White House was saying, you know, we're going to have a a signing on TikTok, a lot of folks thought that was going to be signing the deal.

18:57But in the room yesterday, there was no buyer, there were no representatives of the U.S. investors, and there was no seller. So there was nobody from ByteDance or from China to say, yes, we're actually selling this thing. So if you don't have a buyer and a seller, you don't have a deal. Right. And the executive order getting rid of the congressional bill and then law that was signed in by the former president, you would think, give some leverage, I would think, to China, just the idea that, okay, we've already undone the law. We don't seem to have all the details kind of in order yet. Yeah, I mean, everything is, it's not very clear at all.

19:34I think in terms of next steps, what, from a technical perspective, the Commerce Ministry has already said that they are conducting technical reviews. And then after that, not after that, but their technical reviews are in line with their revised regulations for export control. So these were changed in 2020 to include technologies, two technologies that many people believed were related to TikTok. Immediately after they did that, Xinhua News Agency had said that because of this change in the rule that TikTok, if it was going to do anything with the U.S., would have to obtain a license. So now, because it was categorized as an item that is not, is restricted but not prohibited, people here expect that the Commerce Ministry is going to go through all these rigmaroles and then eventually, in theory, would issue some sort of license.

20:35But again, we don't know because at the end of the day, China could just be using this as a way to lord over the Trump administration in broader negotiations. OK, Eamon, I guess we got to go. Eunice, thank you. You know, Eamon, you're going to probably tweet out weekend later today. I don't know what time you can do that. I always wait for that because I don't really start my weekend today. but yeah i don't start to when you tweet out weekend do you then just go immediately to tiktok and just stay on there for for friday night all day do you is that is that is that how you entertain yourself i go straight to the beer fridge in the garage you can do that while you're looking at tiktok couldn't you i guess you can i guess you can but you know how often do you want to stay focused how often do you want tiktok even honestly how often i actually don't i do not have TikTok on my phone because of the security risks around the Chinese app.

21:29Oh, yeah, me too. That's why I do it, honestly.

21:38Just four days left until government funding runs out. Not for the first time. But the feeling in Washington is that this time is different. We could be headed to the first full shutdown in about a dozen years. This could delay the release of government data, slow down ports, impact funding for small businesses, shut down national parks and monuments. House Republicans passed a so-called Clean Continuing Resolution to fund operations through November 21st. This did not pass the Senate due to a block by Democrats who are holding firm on a few policy issues, including permanently extending premium tax subsidies dating from the Affordable Care Act, which you probably know as Obamacare.

22:19Yesterday on our podcast, New Hampshire Democrat Jean Shaheen laid out the stakes. It's in everybody's interest to keep the government open and to make sure that people don't lose their health insurance. And when you have the president saying to the Republican leadership in Congress, don't talk to the Democrats, and then canceling meeting with the Democrats and Senator Thune saying he's not going to sit down and talk, that isn't conducive to getting a resolution. Today, we heard from Wisconsin Republican Senator Ron Johnson, who has lived through three government shutdowns in office. and he says he doesn't want to do it anymore.

22:57I'll hand things back here to Joe Kernan with the senator. Senator, it's good to see you. I don't know what, before that guy wrote that book, A Perfect Storm, I don't know what we used to use, but we do use it now. And there are some people that think we're looking at something close to that when you listen to Schumer or listen to Senator Schumer or listen to Democrats, combined with where the Republicans stand on things. Maybe this is the time it really does happen. Are you starting to think that? Well, good morning, Joe. Well, there's no reason for any kind of turmoil whatsoever. I've got a very simple bill.

23:30You eliminate shutdowns act. And if you haven't passed appropriation for either all of government or a particular department, you just continue 14 day continuing appropriations and you fund that agency or that department or that program at last year's level. You get rid of all the drama. I passed a similar bill out of my committee back in 2019. It gets rid of all the fiscal cliffs. It allows Congress to go ahead and pass appropriation bills one at a time where you can find agreement, where there's disagreement. Again, you don't shut down government. You just continue to fund that thing. 14-day rolling continuing appropriations.

24:09This is absurd. I come from the private sector. The dysfunction in Congress is profound, is grotesque. And let's face it, with Chuck Schumer demanding—this is what their opening demand is in their negotiation. We'll give you a four-week continuing resolution, four weeks. And all we're asking for is an extra$1.5 trillion worth of spending over the next 10 years. It is absurd. It certainly indicates that they want to roll the dice, I guess. They want to gamble with the American economy and with people's lives by shutting down the government. Again, the House has passed a continuing resolution. Again, it doesn't have additional spending.

24:44There's what they always call anomalies. It's not a completely clean CR, but that's an appropriate thing to do. But what we should do is pass the Eliminate Shutdowns Act and we get rid of shutdowns for all time. This is unbelievably simple. There's no reason we shouldn't do it. Yeah. Too simple. It makes too much sense. It can't it's not going to happen right away. Maybe maybe someday. Right, Senator. But let's say that it doesn't happen in time for this particular instance in the one point five trillion. So I've been trying to ask Senator Shaheen yesterday, well, what what is in there? And she just wanted to talk about negotiating and ACA credits.

25:21And there's a wide sort of a continuum. There's people that want one point point five trillion. And there's people like you. I don't think you want anything, not even ACA. Right. But then there's some Republicans in here that are ready to do some ACA credits because of their constituents. So it's it's strange. But does it end up with a shutdown in your view this time? Again, what I would like is I'd like to return to a reasonable pre-pandemic level spending. But that's not what I'm asking here. I'm saying, OK, we're spending about$7 trillion this year. I'm only talking about 25 % of the budget, which is the discretionary spending.

25:54But I'm willing to say, let's just keep spending that level until we can work things out. Let's not shut anything down. Let's not disrupt people's lives. And by the way, the beauty of that is now members of both the House and the Senate Appropriations Committee, they can keep working on these things. Again, it just makes so much sense. And I think this might be the moment where we can pass something like this, because, again, when Democrats are demanding$1.5 trillion of spending, my guess is we probably will shut the government down. We always come to some accommodation later on. Last year took us six months to finally fund this fiscal year, six months.

26:30Since I've been in Congress, we've had three shutdowns. We've had 55 continuing resolutions, 55. We've had, I think, 12 either increases or suspensions of the debt ceiling. We've gone from$14 trillion to the$37 trillion. Obviously out of control. It's rare we ever pass any appropriation bill prior to the end of the fiscal year. So let's just admit that we're not capable of doing that. The only thing I suggest in my op-ed is let's do some budgetary reforms. Again, if we take the drama, if we take all the partisanship out of just funding government, just haven't continued. Maybe we'll do some appropriation reform, some budget reforms, like let's go to two-year budgets.