Israel-Iran Conflict Escalates & Stablecoin Bill Advances 6/20/25

0:00Bring in show music please. Today on Squawk Pod. President Trump says he'll decide within two weeks on whether to join Israel's campaign against Iran. We're joined by Israel's economy minister, Nir Barkat. We want to make sure that Hamas will never exist after this war. The first major legislative win for the crypto industry passed in the Senate earlier this week. Crypto expert and Han Ventures CEO, Katie Han. We're talking about trillions and trillions of dollars of disruption coming. Plus, President Trump extends a TikTok ban for a third time, the U.S. hits a new record of millionaires, and do you know the population of Iran?

0:46Now I know, 92 million. I'm CNBC producer Zach Valisi. It's Friday, June 20th. It's a Friday in the summer. Squawk Pod begins right now. Stand under by in three. Two, one, cue Andrews. Good morning. Oh, my God. Right here on CNBC. We're live at the Nasdaq market site in Times Square. Are you real? Are you here? There's Joe Kernan right there. Are you real? Becky's off today. I am real in the flesh. It's nice to see you after almost. Can I touch you? It's almost been like two weeks. Can I touch you? Maybe a week and a half. If I keep it clean. You really are. It's nice to see you, sir. It's good to see you.

1:30A lot going on. Spamming the globe. Spamming the globe. I was out in Stockholm at that Brilliant Minds thing when I called in. Oh, my God. Have you got the syndrome? The Stockholm syndrome. I don't have the Stockholm syndrome, hopefully. You're resisting. And then I was just out in Cannes. I know. Where all the marketers and media. That's cool. Muckety-muck were mucking around. That's cool. It's moosing. The film festival is not quite yet, is it? I think the film festival just happened. Oh, it already happened. I think it already happened. We couldn't go to that for some. We go to these. One of these years we're going to go.

2:02One of these years we're going to go. Telluride at the end of the summer, which is always a beautiful time to go. I guess we should tell people what's going on. Iran's foreign minister says the country won't agree to de-escalation talks while under attack by Israel. He made those remarks to Iranian state TV today. I guess the studios that are still intact. So ahead of a scheduled meeting in Geneva with the foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany and a top EU official in Washington, the White House press secretary delivering a message from President Trump that he will decide within the next two weeks whether the U.S.

2:43will get involved in the Middle East conflict. Yesterday, Iran struck a major hospital in Israel's largest southern city. For its part, Israel said it hit two nuclear sites in Iran, in addition to targeting a partially built heavy water reactor in the central part of the country. There's a lot, apparently, that the president and his people are talking about. Does it work? So we haven't talked about this. You and I, which I'm excited for this morning. So I want to know what you want to do. I'm not in the isolationist camp at this point. I think it's a unique opportunity, a unique opportunity. Can you explain to me?

3:21Do a one and done and say I'm satisfied. But maybe within two weeks, that's enough time. If they look around, I mean, there's no, you know, Hezbollah hasn't launched any missiles. Hamas seems to, the Houthis, none of that's happening. This is a unique opportunity which Israel has presented the world with. No, I think it could be remarkable. I was reading an article last night, though, about these bunker busters and whether they work. And that, to me, is the almost the beginning, middle, and end of the entire conversation. If they work, you use them. If they don't work, I don't know what you do.

3:58I watched yesterday the individual that was involved in the development and the testing. He says, I think you have maybe a couple of entrances. You do two in each. You can do a couple. And you do two, one opens it up, the next one, and we can GPS them right to exactly where you want to go. Do we need an authorization from Congress for this? Bush got them for both. I don't think we could get one, though. And I don't think there are provisions where if you say it's an emergency situation, that's kind of a, it's in the eye of the beholder. Is it an emergency situation for the United States that Iran, apparently within two weeks, could say, the Ayatollah could say, build me a bomb?

4:43And it could be done in two weeks. Well, in which case then you've got to move quicker than that. Well, then I'd say that's an emergency for the United States. I'd say that that qualifies. What is going on? Just help me, because I've been away. The whole Tucker thing, the whole Steve Bannon thing. I don't understand the Tucker. There's sort of a troop who are very much in the passive space. There's a great piece in the journal which explains exactly your question. Why are they call these individuals misguided? Because they don't see any difference between what's happening with Iran and what happened with Iraq and what happened with Afghanistan.

5:20So they don't want an endless war. They think that they're you know, it would somehow be dragged out. We'd be dragged into a much longer situation than just than just doing Fordow. and saying, I'm satisfied now, and we're not going to try to do regime change unless it happens organically, which, you know, that was supposed to happen in Iraq, too, with the flowers from all the people that never did. But it might be a different... I think every situation is different. Right. And we don't want... I mean, of all people, Trump is not someone that you would think of would start a foreign war. Okay, I got one more for you.

5:54I did not know that Tucker and Ted Cruz... That was a horrible war. ...had a beef or a thing or a something. So prior to this, prior to the latest beef. I just didn't even I thought they were on the same team. That was a shocker for me. You know how many people were in Iran? That was now I know. Two million. All right. Yeah. Ninety two. Exactly. The distance from the sun. But I probably couldn't have nailed that. I think I could have gotten within 50 percent. Maybe. How many people are in, you know, the ethnic mix? A lot of different different. You don't look at the tables. Different ethnicities.

6:34There are a lot of different ethnicities. And I thought that was incredible. Right. And I think those were kind of like, you know, Tucker was loaded for bear with a lot of that. I don't understand the total. I don't understand the whole isolation. You know, there are times we all agree. I think Tucker agrees that Iran can't have a nuclear bomb. Does he at least acknowledge that? I think so. Tucker has a very bright side. No, but this regime, I was around in 1970. I don't know if you were just born, probably. That was when this happened. They've been a thorn in the world side. The biggest state sponsor of terrorism that the world has.

7:15There's nothing. I don't think there's any redeeming qualities of that regime. Can you name one? Oh, because we're talking about Cruz and Tucker, for those who haven't seen it, though I think maybe like 100 million views already or something. Here's what we're talking about. How many people live in Iran, by the way? I don't know the population. At all? No, I don't know the population. You don't know the population of the country you seek to topple? What's the ethnic mix of Iran? They are Persians and predominantly Shia. Okay, no, you don't know anything about Iran. Okay, I am not the Tucker Carlson expert on Iran.

7:56You're a senator who's calling for the overthrow of the government. You're the one who claims. You don't know anything about the country. Well, there's some conflation going on there. No one's talking about toppling or nation building or anything. We're talking about one thing. Finishing the, what Israel started with the nuclear. So that's actually, though, an interesting question. Let's say you, quote unquote, finish this. Yeah, for 10 years at least. But, and then what happens? I know we're not if we're not technically talking about toppling or we're not talking about, you know, replacing people at the top.

8:29The question is, by doing this, have you then created a situation where you have toppled? I don't know. A lot of the I'm not sure at this point how much ground, you know, how much support this regime really has. I don't know. I don't know. I'd like to think that the people there, if given the chance, because right now they're not at all given the chance. They have no choice of who's running that country. I worry about, you know, a Chernobyl type. I don't want, you know, all the groundwater in the entire Middle East to be radioactive. So there's a lot of, but I think Trump is, President Trump seems like he's, you know, at least he's not rushing in to anything unless it happens tomorrow or something.

9:16Because, you know, there were reports that there were plans for this weekend. And if you say within two weeks, you know, he's the master of not knowing what the heck he's going to do. If you say within two weeks, does it mean you have to wait two weeks? Or could it be within two weeks? Well, I mean, this goes back to the other question of whether you lull people into complacency by thinking there's a negotiation. That argument was made earlier. No signs of really any type of bend. I don't think they can. That's their whole shtick. President Trump giving TikTok another reprieve now in the United States.

9:52He signed an executive order that extends by 90 days now. So it's another 90 days, the deadline for his administration to try to bring that app under American ownership. It's the third time the president has pushed that deadline. There is no clear legal basis, though, for the delays in pushing the deadline. But there have also been no legal challenges thus far against them. And the question at this point is clearly TikTok is a chess piece in the larger discussion with China. I don't know. I mean, the whole Iran situation sort of. It's a pretty big discussion with China. Makes this more complicated.

10:26I don't know if we are going to delay this again, you know, 90 days from now, just because, you know, it's going to take some time to figure out what to do. Do you think the TikTok at all? Do you think action on Fordow makes China think twice about Taiwan? You mean, does it say to them, OK, we got to move now? No. No, does it say we need to think about because they're these they're not isolated. Trump is not an isolationist. No, because we're not the prime mover. Right, but the journal was saying that Afghanistan and the reason that all these things happen, you know, was the way we withdrew from Afghanistan and Obama's red line in Syria, and nothing ever happened.

11:12Right, but the difference is in this case, what's happening in Iran, it may be that Trump ultimately gets involved in Iran, we'll see, but clearly this has been, the prime mover has been Israel. So the idea that we're going to be the prime mover in Taiwan, we've been a reluctant, I think no matter how you look at it, we're a reluctant mover at this point. I can't imagine that we'd go to war over Taiwan. And therefore, that's why I said, do you move now? Because I think in some ways, some of this suggests actually we're maybe even more inclined to be reluctant in a Taiwan situation. But I don't know.

11:43I think more likely, by the way, on TikTok, you're going to see a sort of nippon, steel, U.S. steel. You asked me a lot of questions. You asked me a lot of questions. I got to defend Trump all the time. You know, I just want to know all this stuff. Let me ask you a question. It's 92 million. Let me ask you a question. There's 92 million people in Iran. That's all I know. Okay. Let me ask you a question. Do you wish Kamala Harris was president right now? Do I wish Kamala Harris was president? Do you wish Joe Biden was still president right now? You know what? These are rhetorical questions. They are.

12:13I don't expect an answer. Yeah. I just want you to think about those two. For me, it's like an obvious answer to me, but it's probably not obvious to you at this point. No, nothing's obvious. But the other I think Trump, I think that he's because your view is and I imagine that if Biden were the president. Oh, my God. Hold on. But if Ron Klain and Anita Dunn and Susan Rice would be decided. That is Ben Rhodes. The question that I think to myself is would Netanyahu have moved? and I wonder whether he would have, in which case, then the answer is obvious, which is what I think Netanyahu has done thus far clearly has worked.

12:55Seems at this moment. And it's going back to when they started with the pager idea and all that stuff. Right. And so the question is, what would have he done with a different president? Would it have mattered? I don't know, is the answer. Well, I'm just for right now having, I just. I understand. I hear you. I don't need a word salad explaining to me, you know, in a doubt if she knows how many people are in Iran either. A new report by UBS says 379 ,000 more people became millionaires last year in the United States. There are now almost 24 million millionaires in the country, and that's by far the most in the world.

13:36Mainland China, interestingly, was second with 6.3 million. Now, is that yuan? You have to have a million yuan? No, probably dollars. It should be dollars. Otherwise, it doesn't really count. Of course. I was kidding. You can read more about the report in Robert Frank's Inside Wealth newsletter. Go to cnbc.com slash insidewealth. And I challenge you. Yeah, challenge me. To say something negative about that. Don't look for it. It's a positive morning. It's a Friday. It is. In the summer. Or we could interview Bernie. I guarantee you he's pissed off about this. Guarantee. I guarantee you're right.

14:19Tees will be next. Next, on Squawk Pod, tough talk as we speak with Israel's Minister of Economy and Industry about his country's ongoing conflict with Iran. We're telling the region, telling the world, don't mess around with Israel. We know how to deal with our challenges, focus on peace with us, expand the Abraham Accord. But if you come to fight with us, you're going to lose your war. We'll be right back.

14:48This is Squawk Pod. Here's Andrew. Right now, we're going to talk more about our main and top story of the morning. President Trump saying he's going to decide soon on whether to join Israel's campaign against Iran, the two countries trading attacks again today. Yesterday, Israel's main hospital in the southern part of the country was hit with an Iranian missile. Tel Aviv also hit by missiles with one falling very, very close to the Tel Aviv stock exchange, partially owned, we should mention, by hedge fund manager Bill Ackman. Nir Barkat is Israel's minister of the economy and industry and is with us this morning live from Israel.

15:25Good morning to you, sir. We appreciate you joining us so very much. just speak to us if you could about sort of how you see this this military escalation taking place what happens over the next two week two weeks and what do you think israel does almost irrespective of what the u.s does well first of all thank you for having me uh we have a very clear objective um iran the jihadi leadership of iran for decades have built themselves to eliminate Israel off the map. They are focusing on creating nukes. They have a significant amount of ballistic missiles, and they built a proxy strategy around Israel.

16:04They funded and trained Hamas, Hezbollah, and regional cells, jihadi cells that are focusing on terrorizing the state of Israel. And so what Prime Minister Netanyahu has done, he's been really, really focused on eliminating those proxies. And now we are focusing on making sure that Iran will never have the capabilities of nukes and will never have those capabilities of ballistic missiles to target Israel. Any country in the world understands what we're doing right now. And I think that the Iranian regime now understands that it's not worthwhile messing with Israel. Minister, the question is, the U.S.

16:44has these bunker-busting bombs. And there's a question whether the bunker-busting bombs work. It is at all to begin with. But it's also clear that Israel doesn't have, I don't think, that kind of weaponry. And so if the U.S. doesn't come in behind Israel, what happens? Well, I think we've demonstrated the creativity of the warfare Israel knows and is capable of doing. You saw the beepers in Lebanon crunching Hezbollah. You saw the first phase of the war, eliminating leaders of Iran, at least their army. And you saw that one stage after the other, we know how to get our things done. We've done our homework and we're not going to stop.

17:29We're not going to stop. We're going to do this ourselves if needed. And if others join us, more than welcome, because we're not just fighting Israel's war. I want to share with you that this morning we saw pictures from Iran burning the Israeli flag and the U.S. flag. We in Israel are considered the little Satan and the big Satan is the United States. We're all aligned here. We have the same goals fighting jihadists that want to kill us. So when the president says that he needs two weeks to decide what to do and to maybe sort of pursue some kind of diplomatic resolution to this, what's your position?

18:07We understand the end game. Well, eventually, we will not stop this war until we are sure they do not have those capabilities. Because if they have those capabilities, they demonstrated that they will use them. If the proxies work, they use them in October 7. We cannot allow that again. They use hundreds of ballistic missiles targeting at Israel. And unfortunately, we saw where also Israeli citizens have been innocent civilians have been killed. You saw the attack on the hospital today. and we want to make sure that they never have nukes. We believe them, that they mean to use those nukes to eliminate Israel.

18:44We will not let that happen. So regardless if the U.S. joins us, and we'd of course be very happy to, but that's President Trump's decision to make, we are committed to the same, to the goal eventually. We have no choice but to make sure they don't have those capabilities. Minister Bargett, does it even make any sense to talk about what the possibilities are for Israel to deal with Fordow. If the United States declines to do that, you are a paratrooper. What would that look like? Would special forces be dropping nearby? I'm sorry. Hopefully you agree with me that we don't want to let them know our class.

19:31I don't think it's prudent to discuss the plans of how we take them out with you folks because they also listen to CNBC. We don't want to give them that information. But you're confident that if you'll do it on your own if you have to, and it's not going to be finished until Fordow is, I mean, probably everything. They say they've moved. I don't believe them. They say they've moved a lot of stuff out of Fordow. That's, I mean, that's got to be taken care of to call this a mission accomplished. We will accomplish all the goals of the war with Iran. We will accomplish all the goals in Gaza. We want our 53 hostages that are still in the tunnels in the dungeons of Gaza.

20:12We want to make sure that Hamas will never exist after this war. They have to completely surrender, put down their weapon. And that day, by the way, the day that they return our hostages and put down their weapon, the war in Gaza will stop. And so we are committed. Israel is committed. to make sure that we'll never go back to October 6th. We will make sure that Iran does not have those capabilities to attack Israel or the moderate Arab states in the region. They're also really concerned about the power that Iran had. We want to make sure they don't have those capabilities. Minister, does that effectively mean toppling the regime?

20:54Meaning there's sort of two component parts here. There's removing the nuclear capability of this country. And then there's who's running this country and what comes next. Yeah, that's a decision of the people of Iran. I mean, if they do, we certainly won't shed a tear. And if we could chip in a bit of help, that we will do that. But that's not the goal. That's not the primary goal of our operations in Iran. We will settle for making sure they don't have those capabilities. We'd be happy if indeed something like this will happen. And I want to share with you that as Minister of Economy, I see a huge, huge spike of economic growth for Israel.

21:37The region in the Middle East is looking for us to complete the work. I'm sure that the Abraham Accords that President Trump really pushed forward could expand to include the Saudis, Indonesia, Azerbaijan. And we'll probably also find new solutions, different solutions with some of the leaders, local leaders in Israel to join the Abraham Accords in Judea and Samaria. And I'm very optimistic. I understand that the more you become bad with the bad guys, the better we become with the good guys. And the new alliances that will happen at the end of this war, I'm sure we're going to get significant prosperity, not just in our region.

22:19The world would be much, much better, much safer without Iran being such a bully as they were and still are. And we'll make sure they don't. Mr. Barkhada, if President Trump is watching and he sees that Israel is going to handle this one way or another, doesn't that sort of induce him maybe to stay out and say they're going to handle this? I mean, there is risk to the United States getting involved. And, you know, there's a lot of discussion on both sides over here about whether to do that. I mean, if you can handle it, I'm sure he'd prefer that you would handle it. I think the loss of life would would probably be worse and extended and all the fighting would go on much longer, obviously.

23:02So that might be something to consider. But if I could do the United States help, you need the United States help or not. First of all, I could certainly say on behalf of all of Israelis and my prime minister and the whole government, we're very thankful, extremely thankful to President Trump and the United States. We use a lot of your weaponry. We get supply. We get your sort of an umbrella protecting Israel in the United Nations. And we do not take this for granted. certainly be happy if the U.S. joins, and it certainly could shorten the time frame of this war. And I think that if I could say, I could say it's in Israel's best interest, but that's not the point.

23:46The point is, I'm sure that President Trump will act upon the American interests first, and we respect that. And if he decides to go on, we'd be happy and we're thankful anyway. What if there's another Iran deal? God help us. Another Iran deal for monitoring, enrichment, blah, all the things that we know, you know, Iran probably didn't comply with in the past. But, you know, there are negotiations going on. If there were to be a negotiated settlement, would you honor that or are you still going to take care of your business there with Fordham? Well, if you have to chew, chew, don't talk Enough talking, we don't trust them They're unfortunately a regime that is sending their children to commit suicide They train to kill And they have no problem lying and trying to smear the time We understand that, it's not going to work End of story, we're not going to stop this Until we make sure that there's no nukes And there's no missiles aiming at Israel So enough talk.

24:54Minister, interestingly, the Tel Aviv stock market, which we just acknowledged at the top of this interview, had bombs literally landing next to it, yet it has been on a huge run. What do you make of that? Well, I think the world understands that Israel is going to win this war and is winning this war. And the opportunities are huge. And that's why people are investing in our stock exchange. And I have to share with you, as Minister of Economy, I speak to many, many of my peers around the world. They want our experience. Look at the security side. Everyone around the world, our friends around the world are saying, hey, whatever you use to secure Israel, we want, because it's been tested.

25:37Fighting terror, combating terror. Our friends around the world are saying, share with us how to combat terror. And then that innovation also includes classic high tech, agro tech, food tech, desert tech, climate change, advanced industries. So the people understand that we're very innovative. And after a war, you see a huge spike of growth. So people are expecting that. And I see the huge opportunity. And we're preparing our infrastructure for economic growth. And that's why you see it in the stock exchange. And then finally, Minister, just a personal question. How do you feel about your own safety and those who are in places like Tel Aviv and other parts of Israel as we read reports and hear about bombs raining down?

26:27And how much how many more bombs and other kind of missiles do you think Iran has and is able to position towards Israel? Well, I'm happy you asked that question. You know, we're all, the majority of us have served in the army and we manage risk. And we all understand that we have no choice. There's only one Jewish state. That's our secret. And in all wars, you see the war in Ukraine, four million Ukrainians left Ukraine. And everywhere there's a conflict, you see people flee, leave the region. With Israel, 100 ,000 people came back to fight. And you see right now, you see there's a huge line of Israelis that want to come back and they want to take part of the war.