Ivanka Trump, Chobani, & Savannah Bananas 9/12/25

0:00Bring in show music please. Hi, I'm CNBC producer Katie Kramer. Today on Squawk Pod. Big deals in media. Paramount Skydance could be readying an offer for Warner Brothers Discovery. With the backing of the Ellison family, they've been pretty busy lately, given patriarch Larry Ellison's new title, World's Richest Person. I just don't know where the Ellisons would get the money for this. That's what I was thinking too. And Ivanka Trump, the president's daughter, is working on a new project with Chobani CEO Hamdi Ulukaya to combat food waste. The food has to taste as good or better, which was the most important thing for Hamdi and his team at Chobani.

0:44And we have to be competitive from a pricing standpoint. Plus, she is remembering her friend, Charlie Kirk. I've known Charlie for approaching a decade now. and he was a good man and he was a champion for debate and dialogue and free speech. Then we are ending this week on a high energy note with owner of the Savannah Bananas dancing baseball team, Jesse Cole. We have a demographic of people that just come out to walk for fun and then they realize these guys are unbelievably talented baseball players. It's Friday, September 12th, 2025. Squawk Pod begins right now. Stand Becky by in 3, 2, 1. Cue it, please.

1:25Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Squawk Box right here on CNBC. Happy Friday. I'm Becky Quick along with Joe Kernan and Andrew Ross Sorkin. Let's talk about corporate news, and it's the one that Joe thinks I think is delicious. Sources telling us the Paramount to Skydance now working with an investment bank and preparing an offer for Warner Brothers Discovery. Literally, as we speak, David Faber confirmed a bid could come as early as next week, though Warner had yet to receive anything in terms of an offer as of yesterday. Now, you can take a look at shares of Warner Brothers Discovery. They're up on the back of that news, up about 6 percent, jumping 28 percent yesterday, 6 percent again this morning.

2:07It's the stock's best day ever. Paramount Skydance shares disclosed up about 15 percent. And sources telling us that the Paramount bid would be an all-cash offer for the entirety of Warner Brothers Discovery, which, of course, we've talked about a lot, had recently announced plans to separate its TV network business from its streaming and studio business. That wouldn't happen under this scenario. Representatives for the company is declining to comment. And, of course, all of this news coming just weeks after Paramount and Skydance closed their own more than$8 billion merger. and comes on top of news that CBS, or the CBS division at least, of Skydance Paramount is in talks to buy Barry Weiss's business, the Free Press, which I think you were alluding to, Joe, in terms of, I imagine, I don't know if you're thinking Schadenfreude or what you're thinking, but the potential that if all of these deals were to come together, CBS likely would end up getting merged up with CNN.

3:12Yeah, you heard Malone the other day. We asked him this point blank. He had said that they need some real journalists at CNN. We asked whether that had happened, whether it had changed its stripes. And he said, no, it had not. And so that was my point. Where would I just don't know where the Ellisons would get the money for this? That's what I was thinking, too. I mean, what will pop this week? Would they have to take a little bit of the spare change? Exactly. Huge pop in the stock this week. A lot to think about, though, because, Andrew, I was just gratified that a lot of these things have worth.

3:49And it's good to see it. Maybe they're not valued in the marketplace, but I think Skydance sees worth in the studios and the streaming before it's split off and it's up for auction. But there's also the angle of nobody thought they could get a deal done in this environment. Larry Ellison is obviously close to the president. Larry Ellison can get a deal. Right. You see what happens with this, and that becomes the question of if you're the right partners or the right acquirer, perhaps you can get a deal done. And I think that's what the, wow, this changes everything. And Andrew, the biggest day ever for Warner Brothers Discovery after it, you know, I don't know whether I'd call it ill-fated, but a lot changed since Zaslav put that deal together and the stock's down 60 percent or something.

4:33But it does go to the question of crony capitalism. if some people can do deals and others can't, just based on how close you are to the administration. And there have been degrees of that all along. By the way, but it also goes to your issue, Joe, of the Barry Weiss and free press deal, potentially, which is to the extent that, you know, people have looked at that deal and said, you know, $150 million for the free press or$200 million for the free press on an economic basis probably doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but it makes a lot of sense if you wanted regulators, for example, and this administration in particular, to bless a potential deal that would ultimately merge a CBS and a CNN.

5:19Right. This is the offering. We're going to pay this much for something like this because we want to signal that we have a different direction. Or you can genuinely agree with a change that's necessary in a lot of mainstream media. And I think David and Larry Ellison probably both believe that. Probably. I don't think there's any question about that. I think the question is how much is the asset valued at? How much is it worth? Is it worth more? Because you want to make sure you signal that quickly. Right. Yeah, it's tasty, Andrew. You're right. I admit things. I admit things. I do. I don't. You know, we saw Warren the other night.

5:58And Warren will say whatever he's. Why not? I'm not obviously 95 and I don't have, you know, 800 gazillion dollars. But there comes a point where it's like something you see risky business. Sometimes you just got to say WTF. Is that what risky business said? He didn't say WTF, but he did say. You remember when he had the guy from Princeton? We'll let you say that. All right. Thanks. That's fine, Andrew. You still still guarded. But they had the Princeton director of admissions and he was having all the prostitutes at his house for his party. And he went in and put his sunglasses on and said to call the guy by his first name, said sometimes you just got to say WTF.

6:49And then he got into Princeton. That was the moral of the story. Federal investigators and Utah officials releasing photos and a video of the person that they believe shot and killed 31 year old conservative activist, activist Charlie Kirk. The photos show a person wearing a black long sleeve shirt with an American flag on. And I think it's an eagle flying over the flag. Sunglasses, a hat and a backpack. A new video released by authorities shows a person dressed like that in black fleeing in the moments after the shooting. It shows a person running on top of a campus building, jumping down to the ground and walking towards a wooded area where investigators later found the rifle.

7:37The FBI offering a reward of up to$100 ,000 for information. Someone knows this guy. And that's a lot of money. President Trump told reporters that he would attend Kirk's funeral, said he will posthumously give, award Kirk the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Vice President J.D. Vance and Second Lady Usha Vance met with Kirk's family yesterday. The vice president, who was a close friend of Kirk's, helped carry his casket aboard Air Force Two as Kirk's body was returned to Arizona. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella telling employees the tech giant has work to do to smooth relations with employees after announcing several rounds of layoffs and also mandating a partial return to in-person work.

8:30Those meanies in audio of a Microsoft meeting held yesterday and obtained by CNBC. an employee asked executives to speak about a perceived lack of empathy in the company's I can barely read this with a straight face, culture lately and steps it's been taking to rebuild trust. Snowflakes. Nadella said he appreciated the sentiment behind the question and said he and other leaders can and will do better. Microsoft's last 9000 jobs in July following small reductions in the months prior. It also has been calling workers back to the office on more days. That's what I'm referencing, not necessarily the layoffs, which are always tough for people.

9:14But we always talk about it's better to have the company survive so the remaining employees are able to. Well, this isn't a case of layoffs because you. Things change. Things might shut down. This is a case of layoffs probably because of AI making so many moves. And I think that may be what changes the conversation around all of this is, is AI coming for all of our jobs? Is this different than what we've seen to this point in the industrial revolution? But there was a time, you know, we talk about Jack Welch. If you were in the bottom 10 percent of performance, the way you were ranked, you were going to do that all.

9:50You could do that every year. Right. There's a big question about operations. And we've always rewarded good operators from the market's perspective. but you know Andrew I think I saw you nodding your head on this this is a question of how is this different this time is that change going to come much more rapidly and what does that mean to society as a result. I've always tried to stay right at 11 % but it's in particular you know it may be actually oddly enough that the software technology industry it comes for them first which I know is almost the most ironic because coding seems to be one of the things that AI can do just about better than a human can.

10:34And so, you know, yes, it's going to come after white collar jobs, probably also first, but the first white collar jobs might actually be in the software industry. Right. And you've seen these stories again. We've talked about this recently, stories of recent graduates with their computer coding degrees, computer programmer degrees, not able to get jobs and layoffs coming. Everybody always thought that was the safe one. And you're right, the irony of AI coming for that first. But it's when you look at law offices, you look at investment banking, all of the entry-level jobs are at risk. And if you don't have entry-level jobs, where do you get the leaders of the future?

11:17And that's a huge question. And that's a huge, huge question. Yeah, I was going to lead. Andrew, we wear blue shirts. I don't have it today, but are we blue collar? What are we? We wear blue shirts every single day. I identify with, but I have a white one on today. You're a working man? Yeah. Yeah. Man, they're a people. Right? We're blue. Aren't we kind of blue collar, Andrew? You talk like a blue collar. Oh, I've just, the guy in my ear just said you have soft hands. Okay. You do. I mean, look at these guys out here. How do you know I have? I haven't touched you. I can see it from here. Wow.

11:53How about Sorkin? Softy? We all are. I'm not excluding myself from this. We got to go to commercial break. But look at the guys who are working outside in the street right now. Cheese will be next. Coming up next on Squawk Pod, what's in your yogurt? CEO and founder of Chobani, Hamdi Ulukaya is working with Ivanka Trump to reroute berries destined for discard to your breakfast bowl. 40 billion pounds of wasted produce that's lost revenue for the farmers. It's nutritious food that doesn't get it onto community tables. And obviously all the negative environmental externalities. Until we talked with Ivanka about a year ago, I had no idea.

12:35Fruit, friends, and food waste right after this break.

12:43And we're back. This is Squawk Pod. You're watching Squatbox right here on CNBC. I'm Andrew Ross Sorkin, along with Joe Kernan and Becky Quick on this Friday morning. And we've got a lot going on on this Friday. In an effort to combat food waste, two entrepreneurs have teamed up to reevaluate America's food supply chain. Join us now, Ivanka Trump, co-founder of Planet Harvest, and Hamdi Yulakaya. Is that good? Yes. Wow. Founder and CEO of Chobani. The two are launching a partnership to rescue is a word we can use, but we'll explain. 1.5 million pounds of strawberries from being discarded. Ivanka, it's good to see you.

13:25Great to be here. Thank you for joining us. This is just the beginning. And if we do the actual numbers of how many strawberries actually get plowed under, and we need to, let's start just explaining how that works, Ivanka. because, I mean, I can't believe one strawberry is better than another, but it is. And they have to be large, they have to be succulent, they have to look good to be enough to sell premium prices. But there's so many that are wasted. Well, a year ago, I founded a company called Planet Harvest with a co-founder, Melissa Ackerman, who was at the time running one of the largest produce logistics companies in the United States.

14:05And we started talking about the amount of food waste that's happening at a field level. And it is atrocious. So with any given crop, roughly 40 % of the harvest is just left in the field. And this is due to cosmetic spec that typically it's a millimeter too big or too small. It's such an unnoticeable difference. And it's a difference that should be celebrated. Fruit isn't supposed to be universally sized. And amazingly, there's no secondary market for produce. at scale in the United States. So that translates to 40 billion pounds of wasted produce that's lost revenue for the farmers. It's nutritious food that doesn't get it onto community tables and obviously all the negative environmental externalities.

14:52So personally, I love being contrarian by being obvious. And I said, somebody's got to take this on. So we founded Planet Harvest to address that. It's plowed under. It's literally plowed. It's left there. They've fertilized it, they've watered it, they've grown it, and it's left either to rot or put. For the farmer, and you know it's such a tough business to begin with, but for the farmer, that's the last moment. It's at the point where the harvest is happening where it's decided if it stays in the field or it gets taken out. And nobody would buy this before? Amazingly, there was just no market for it.

15:25And when you think about it, so even if you take away the fresh aisle of the grocer, what about purees? What about dried? What about prepared foods? Well, I'm looking at Hamdi, and I'm thinking, I don't care what's in my yogurt. It can be small and mushed stuff. Perfectly fine. I mean, in anything, you get the strawberries, and you cut them in slices or puree them. And from the taste and quality, it's actually better. And until we talked with Ivanka about a year ago, I had no idea. I mean, even though I'm very aware of what's happening in food and farm levels and how the conditions are, These particular issues we were completely unaware of until Planet Harvest brought it to our attention.

16:10And in the initial, what did you buy? What did you say? 1.2 million? One of my first calls. I called him and I said, you know, there's this incredible amount of waste that's happening at a field level. You are a very large scale consumer of produce, particularly berries. Would you allow us to take a look at your supply chain and let us start to purchase the whole harvest from farmers to support your needs, your fruit needs through Planet Harvest? And we did that. We started that over a year ago. We're now doing all of Chobani's strawberries. So this translates to tens of millions of cups of yogurt and fruit drinks.

16:48Delicious yogurt. We're extending that into other SKUs, blackberries, stone fruit. And we're working with large-scale grocers and food service companies and brands to do the same and really look at their supply chain and see how we can reduce the amount of waste, support farmers, and help the environment. So we decided to really focus on the larger companies so that we can drive the needle, move volume, and make an impact for the farmers. This would have been zero revenue for them that now is becoming quite meaningful. And you could do this a thousand times with different people are watching now that are thinking, you know, I could I could probably help here.

17:23Why why for profit? This is a for profit. So initially, actually, it was going to be a non for profit. Right. How Hamdi and I were connected is when I was in government during the first administration, I started the farmers to family food box program during covid because all of a sudden the supply chains were disrupted. and you had all of these farmers with no market to deliver their perishable goods into. So I became very close with farmers and what was happening on a farm level. And Hamdi called me after I left government and was telling me that that program had impacted many of his dairy farmers and how he appreciated what we were doing and wanted to see if there was a way we could do something in the private sector.

18:07We ended up doing just some great charitable work in communities where he has factories in Idaho and upstate New York around the holidays, which was amazing. But it really started for me a broader conversation. And initially I said, you know what, why don't we just buy this excess and get it to food banks? And I thought that to really do the volume, to make it a functional private sector business, and it has the ability, you can actually impact a lot more change. and ultimately we're doing the philanthropy and I continue to give back in the form of feeding those in need with this nutritious food.

18:43But I think we can really catalyze structural change to how the whole harvest is valued by consumers of product and hopefully people. And that Planet Harvest logo will come to mean something in terms of supporting smart agriculture. You don't need to sell for profit because you can go to scale, I think. It just works better that way. I mean, it has a dirty, I don't know why in today's world, the profit incentive, that thing. But it can grow something much more quickly. And I think Hamdi, I'm so appreciative to him because he really gave us a huge shot. He said, okay, well, the problem is clear, even though it's not something that's known to most people about the amount of waste that's happening.

19:27But he really gave us a lot of latitude and gave us some huge volume numbers. We started with strawberries. We spent a lot of time together in a field with farmers, multi-generations, saying that this was, you know, life-changing for them in terms of somebody coming and buying this whole harvest and then being able to do generational planning and investing. Hamdi, I almost wonder, is this a situation where you can, you know, make money by doing good at this too? Is it cheaper to buy these than it was for the other strawberries? It's not in the beginning unless you know you have early investment like you've got to have to lean in like that's what Ivanka said we we have to have a commitment to say okay this is a solvable problem now when Planet Harvest bought it I had no idea when I went there it's like yeah 40 % of these fruits and vegetables are wasted it's not even picked from the from the field it's just first reaction is this can't be true and then and then after they said, OK, it is true, we have to do something about it.

20:28You can't look at the economics from day one. You have to look at what happens three, four, five years from now. And if you look at it from that perspective, absolutely win, win, win, win. When Ivanka says, win for the farmers, win for the land. I mean, win for the land is massive. Amount of waste and the water usage. Win for the economy. And then win for the consumers. And of course, in the end, has to be win for the processes and manufacturers. That's very clear. It's very clear to us there's a path to be built for us. And for us, it was important. Obviously, we have to be competitive from a pricing standpoint.

21:02There's a lot of work we have to do to get into people's supply chains and really see and reorganize them. But obviously, the food has to taste as good or better, which was the most important thing for Hamdi and his team at Chobani. And we have to be competitive from a pricing standpoint. But we can do all that, and we are. I want you to come back. And I mean, I was thinking vegetables. I want to hear you could do this with just about anything. But but I want to ask you because of this moment that maybe we're in in this in this country while you're here. You're out of government, but I know that you had you knew Charlie.

21:38And I think I know I spoke to your father yesterday. He's very measured in what he said. But it's, you know, Charlie, his whole goal was to try to get both sides talking. And I'm wondering whether, I mean, his death could be ushering maybe a discussion at this point. It's, Joe, it's unconscionable. I mean, what transpired and very personal. I've known Charlie for approaching a decade now. And he was a good man, highly principled. And he was a champion for debate and dialogue and free speech. the cornerstone of democracy. And he was silenced for being so persuasive, ultimately. And I think he represents the kind of politics we should aspire to, where you're not afraid of people who disagree with you.

22:39In fact, you welcome them into conversation and debate. And you're not afraid to have your opinions changed when a better argument is put to you. So once we stop talking to one another, it all breaks down. And once we're afraid of somebody's ability to speak, and Charlie was one of the best. I mean, his tongue, his brain, that was his sword. So it's heartbreaking. And obviously, like the rest of this country, my heart is with his beloved wife, Erica. He loved her so much and his beautiful children. Your father had what could have been a similar experience, and these things have to stop. And we can't tolerate the Ouija.

23:29Maybe because no one knew the UnitedHealthcare guy very well, people got away with these flipping comments about, oh, that should have never been allowed to happen. You can't celebrate someone getting shot in the back. political assassination and assassination attempts are at the highest level that they've been since the 1960s and that is the but is there a moment where i mean can we fix it the way social media still it's a i don't know we're in a different seems like there's almost a normalization of of this type of act of because of that violence and you know i i pray um that that maybe in this moment it's an inflection point for us as a country and as a society.

24:14And it stirs the type of conversation Charlie would have initiated on a topic like this. Well, come back. We'll talk yogurt and fruit and vegetables and helping farmers and everything else. But I want to just touch on that quickly. Thank you, Lamont. And my prayers are with Eric and the kids. Next on Squawk Pod, 10 million followers, sellouts in stadiums around the country, a three and a half million person wait list. The Savannah Bananas are baseball's biggest success story. Team owner Jesse Cole joins us. And yes, we had dancing players, break dancing coaches, Banana Nana's senior citizen dance team.

24:57I mean, these are real baseball team players. These guys were, this was like real level college baseball. The banana ball, all-time leader for Bruno's Mars dances, goes from Bruno to a little vanilla ice. And you said dance, and they said what? Well, they were very against it at first, but then they started to realize that more fans were interested. Play ball or dance it when we come back.

25:23You're listening to Squawk Pod from CNBC. Here's Becky Quick. Up on Becky, cue. All right, welcome back, everybody. exhibition baseball team, the Savannah Bananas, is set to play sold-out games at Yankee Stadium this weekend. The team plays by different rules, and it does all kinds of cool stunts, all kinds of things to get the fans interested and excited, dance routines throughout the game, all kinds of fun everywhere. And joining us right now is Jesse Cole. He's the owner of the Savannah Bananas. You guys have been an absolute phenomenon. And when I looked at it first, I thought, man, And this guy is like the modern day P.T.

26:02Barnum. But you are so much more than that because of how you are rolling this up as a business. And I want to talk to you about the entrepreneurial aspects of this. But for anybody who's not familiar with this, and I don't think there are too many who aren't, explain what happened, how you got into this 2016. You took this team that was like the worst team out there. And you said things have to change a little bit. 100%. Well, we started as just a Coastal Plain League college summer baseball team. And it was, you know, one of the lowest levels. And what we realized is that, you know, we had to do something to stand out, something to be different.

26:33And so we named the company Fans First Entertainment. We went all in on the fans and adding entertainment. And so, yeah, in Savannah, we made every ticket all inclusive, all your burgers, hot dogs, chicken sandwiches, soda, everything. No ticket fees, no convenient fees. And, yes, we had dancing players, break dancing coaches, Banana Nana's senior citizen dance team. I mean, these are real baseball players. These guys were, this was like real level college baseball. And so we did that for many years. And you said dance, and they said what? Well, they were very against it at first, but then they started to realize that more fans were interested in how do you get more fans to want to come out to the games?

27:03And so, yeah, we started, we struggled at first, only sold a handful of tickets. My wife and I had to sell our house, empty out our savings account, sleeping on an airbed. And then once they saw that first show and they saw the fun, the difference, they started telling everyone. And that's when we started selling out games. And that was the start for four or five years. We won championships in regular baseball, but we saw there was still a challenge with the fan experience. And that's when we created Bananable. I mean, you've come to the Philly Stadium and sold out. You went to Anaheim and sold out.