Jamie Dimon in Pennsylvania & Rich Kleiman in “Sports Week” 7/15/26

0:00This episode is brought to you by Schwab Market Update, an original podcast from Charles Schwab. Join host Keith Lansford for this information-packed daily market preview delivered in 10 minutes or less, including projected stock updates, monetary policy decisions, and key results and statistics that may impact your trading. Download the latest episode and subscribe at schwab.com slash marketupdatepodcast or find Schwab Market Update wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, Chicagoland, the Wayfair store is in your neighborhood at Edens Plaza and Wilmette. Finally, you can feel the fabric, sit on the sectionals, and even open the refrigerators.

0:38Plus, our in-store designers will help you bring it all together with free one-on-one design support for any project on any budget. Yep, we said free. Oh, and did we mention the cafe? So what are you waiting for? Come see all that's in store. Visit the Wayfair store today at Edens Plaza and Wilmette. Way fair, every style, every home Bring in show music, please. Hi, I'm CNBC producer Katie Kramer. Today on Squawk Pod. J.P. Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon on his bank's$24 million investment close to home, Pennsylvania's maritime and defense industries. And if it's kind of what we call the American dream, getting kids skills or all workers skills, that they have jobs that can pay$80 ,000,$90 ,000,$100 ,000 a year after a year or two of training.

1:27So this lifts up America. And the politician he's working with. David McCormick would be a great president, very capable. I love the fact that him and Senator Fetterman talk together. That is democracy. Pennsylvania Senator David McCormick on the convergence of consumer and military tech. When you think about the compute power that's needed in the data centers, you think about energy security, You think about drone warfare or robots on the battlefield. All of that's underwritten and underpinned by AI. Plus the sports business boom of this summer's World Cup with boardroom founder Rich Kleiman.

2:02It's truly captured everybody. The entrepreneur also manages the career of hoop star Kevin Durant, and he sees soccer's potentially bright future. This is the chance at the grassroots level to develop young players and to show young players how big this sport is globally. It is Wednesday, July 15th, 2026. Squawk Pod begins right now. Stand Andrew by in three, two, one. Good morning. Welcome to Squawk Box right here on CNBC. We're live at the Nasdaq market site in Times Square. I'm Andrew Ross Sorkin, along with Joe Kern. Becky is on assignment in Omaha. Good morning, Becky. Two hours the wrong direction in terms of where we are in the morning.

2:48So thank you. We're excited to get to that interview that you have with Warren Buffett. Dallas essentially flat yesterday. That's because the gains by Goldman Sachs offset losses by IBM, which we talked about since that news broke on the broadcast. Goldman up about 9 % yesterday. IBM down a whopping 25 percent. And then take a look at the energy complex. We'll show you where WTI crude sits right now. 80 bucks a barrel. You're looking at Brent at 85.41. And then take a look at Treasuries as well. The 10 year note sitting just at about 4.6. The two year at 4.2. And we've got a huge lineup today.

3:27J.P. Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon is going to be with us live with Republican Senator Dave McCormick. Oh, Senator McCormick, yes, of course, will be joining us in just a little bit. Good morning, guys. It's great to see both of you. Good morning. By the way, only one hour difference here. This is all the way on the western end of this time zone, so it's only 5 a.m. here. Not too painful. Pretty good. Gentlemen, we brought you the news. First up today on the podcast, an interesting pairing. Philadelphia's shipbuilding and maritime manufacturing industries got a$24 million boost thanks to America's largest bank, JPMorgan Chase has made a commitment to lending and financing national security and defense right there.

4:09Now we have two guests, one from the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, Republican Senator David McCormick. And he's joined by JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, who sat perched above the Philadelphia Navy Yard. Andrew takes it from here. I'm going to start with you, Jamie, because I know that you're about to announce. Well, it's your announcement, so I'll let you do it. Yeah. Well, first of all, welcome, everybody. CNBC viewers, Senator McCormick, thank you for doing this. This is a great American effort, you know, and I applaud the center. I'm going to join him later in Carlisle. But we're sitting in the Philadelphia Navy yard where we build ships.

4:47They build ships here that won the Revolutionary War that helped win World War Two. And so now you have this the arsenal of the arsenal of democracy has been reignited and shipbuilding. People said it couldn't happen. But here you have Hanwha Shipbuilding at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, which is going to be building components for nuclear submarines and major ships. So we're just aiding here by doing some financing, special kind of financing for Hanwha here. But very importantly, and people have to remember, this is like one big complex ecosystem. We're also financing people. We need 300 ,000 electricians, welders, et cetera, to build ships in the next five or 10 years.

5:26So we're helping finance people who train people, who will train people here. There's 16 ,000 workers here. That number may very well double over the next five years as it builds more ships. And we build a lot of shipbuilding back to the United States. There's also a whole ecosystem here. I'm going to meet with Rose Industry later. There are probably 100 vendors who help supply all the things that take place here. So we're doing our part to help protect the future of freedom and the future of America. Jamie, let me just follow up real quick. So this is a my understanding is the twenty four million dollar investment includes an 18, 18 million dollars in loans and investment and then six million dollars in philanthropic grants.

6:01How do you think about this perhaps differently than maybe a traditional loan that the bank might otherwise make? And how does this work in this sort of larger picture of your new focus, I think, on infrastructure and defense in this country? Yeah. So this this fits right into it. So we've always done things like this. But, you know, and there's a tax credit financing of a new submarine facility or a new submarine bay to help build some of those things. And there's$6 million for training. We do that around the country. In fact, we do that around the world. And it fits kind of what we call the American dream.

6:34Getting kids skills or all workers skills that they have jobs that could pay$80 ,000,$90 ,000,$100 ,000 a year after, you know, a year or two of training. So, you know, lifts up America. It helps build the defense industry. And we didn't talk about it in this press release, but around that, we finance Hanwha. We've probably financed some of the folks here. I'm sitting at Urban Outfitters headquarters. We help finance Urban Outfitters. So, you know, we get involved far beyond just those grants you're talking about here. But this is the Security Resiliency Initiative on the road, real time, starting to build more ships in the United States of America.

7:06And, you know, if you look at America, you know, and Andrew, I can't even overemphasize this.

7:15two things, maintaining America's preeminent military strength. And that's the foundation that is maintaining America's economic strength. And that's why we're here. We give it our all. There are a lot of other people helping, by the way. JP, we're just one player in all that. Senator McCormick, you're hosting a big event. Jamie's on his way there in just a little bit. This is now the second event you've held in the state. In terms of where this all goes, is how much of this is about attracting money into the state from legacy companies? How much of this is about new companies? There's obviously a whole sort of new defense tech space that's opening up around the country.

7:57Yeah. Well, thanks for having me, Andrew. And great to hear Jamie and really appreciate his leadership really in the country of talking about this is a key responsibility, not just of defense companies, but of a big financial institution like J.P. Morgan. What's happening here today is really exciting. This is essentially answering the question of how you achieve peace through strength. What does it mean to retool our industrial base? What does it mean to take advantage of these new technologies to make sure that we can protect those young men and women abroad and keep America safe and secure?

8:31So here over the last two days, we have 1300 participants. We have 500 organizations, companies represented. We have 600 C-level executives. And the focus is on how do you expand the people at the table and do things differently to make sure that our defense industry can evolve to make sure and ensure that we are the strongest military in the world. And so today we're going to announce over$10 billion of investments across 30 different announcements that are going to support 4 ,000 jobs. But it's much more than that. It's getting everybody aligned on how we achieve this transformation in defense.

9:12We have the president of the North American Building Trades here. We have great financiers like Jamie and John Gray. We have all the CEOs of the defense contractors. We have some of the biggest investors in defense tech. That's what it takes. It's a team sport. And we need to get all the people at the table to make sure America is strong and safe. Senator, help me with this. When you think about the defense budget on one end, there's been a talk for a long time about how do we, frankly, you know, hold the line, prevent the prevent us from spending more money. There's been a long talk about, you know, how technology should be able to do that.

9:49this administration spent a lot of time talking to Europe and some of our allies about spending their own money so that we're not spending more money. And yet we are now spending about a 44 % increase in terms of defense spending in this country. What do you think is the right number? Well, you know, you have to look at it within the context. The one thing the government is responsible for is keeping America safe, keeping our citizens safe. And you have three big factors. One is the world's a dangerous place and getting more dangerous with the rise of China. You have the face of war changing dramatically with drones and A.I.

10:23And you see that in the battlefields of Ukraine and Iran. And frankly, you have a defense industry that's been lethargic and hasn't kept up. So we do need to increase the size of the pie. And that's why I've supported President Trump's budget proposal and voted for the NDAA yesterday. Unfortunately, that didn't pass because there was opposition from the Democrats. But we also have to reallocate how the dollars are spent within that pie of money. And frankly, we have to do things a lot differently. Most of the companies here are our next generation emergent technologies. Our procurement process in defense has been very slow and it's been very difficult for a new entrance to get in.

11:03That's changing under President Trump, but we need to accelerate that change. So we need to do both. Spend more, but spend it differently. and better. Jamie, you've long been warning that some of these skirmishes and wars and other things could tip the balance in terms of the global economy. And yet the market has remained, I would argue, shockingly resilient. We've gotten your earnings. A lot of other bank earnings have come out. It looks like things are going quite well. How do you think about the risk then in this moment, given all the things that are taking place around the around the world?

11:37Yeah. So, look, I totally support what the senator just said. I mean, this transcends the economy this year and next year. I mean, national defense is sine qua non. And obviously, you want to spend it wisely. But when Ukraine got invaded and then you had the terrorist activity in the Middle East and obviously our war in Iran, look, the world learned again the world's not a safe place. What makes the world a safe place is American leadership and having the strongest military in the world, which is the way to prevent actual wars from getting worse over time. And so, you know, the senator mentioned is that these are huge geopolitical risks.

12:11We don't know how they're going to affect the economy or when they're going to affect the economy. And, yes, the economy seems more resilient. But this is way beyond that. This is about global security, American security, American leadership and doing it right. And the senator mentioned something that's very important to his policy. We have to give the military more ability to change how they procure things, have more multi-year budgeting. You know, we have to prepare. Like, we didn't have enough productive capability to build all the missiles we need. Well, obviously, we should have productive capability to turn on if we need double, triple productive missiles.

12:42That's going to take a change of budgeting and maybe some legislation through Congress. But these are things we have to do. I'm just thrilled that people see it and they're acting on it. And like I said, I wouldn't look at this as a budgetary item. Obviously, be efficient. I would look at this as a sine qua non. This is what you do to protect America and keep it free and safe. Jamie, when you think, though, about the broader economy right now and the markets, how much of that is being buoyed, do you think, by AI? I mean, we talk about AI almost, you know, incessantly. And yet we also talk about what's happening in Iran.

13:14But, you know, typically during a situation like that with oil prices up and everything else, you'd think it would have a bigger impact. But it seems like the AI piece of it is winning that battle, if you will. Yeah, look, the American economy is hugely complex. I think we spend$4 trillion on CapEx. You know, AI is$750 billion. It's probably driving it. But when you travel around the world, Andrew, I mean, our innovation here is everywhere. It's in manufacturing. It's in agriculture. It's in AI. Something that's being driven by AI. It's in the medical profession. It's everywhere. You know, AI itself, the American public, it's going to cure cancers.

13:52It's going to reduce deaths on the road and deaths in hospitals. It's going to invent new composite materials. It's going to be an unbelievable thing. And like any new technology, there are downsides. You know, planes are misused. Drugs are misused. So what we want to do is get the best out of AI. And now you have AI for the first time, you're starting to see it being deployed deeply in research, medical science, the physical world, the physics world itself. And so there's a lot more to come in AI. And, you know, we'll see how it plays out. But yes, the world's more resilient. It does not mean, again, it's very important, that there's not a tipping point.

14:24It just may be a lot harder to get there. And so we just, you know, we should always be cautious about that. But like I said, this transcends AI and it transcends anything else. Whether you had AI or not, we should be having this initiative today. This is what's important for the future of America. Jamie, whenever you're on. If I could add to that, Andrew. Go ahead. Go ahead, Senator. Yeah, if I could just yeah, if I could just add to that, when we're here at this Defense and Innovation Summit, AI is underpinning all of this dramatic change. So when you think about the compute power that's needed in the data centers, you think about energy security, you think about drone warfare or robots on the battlefield.

15:05All of that's underwritten and underpinned by AI. So this convergence of military technology and commercial technology is more important now than it's ever been. And it's part of the reason we need dramatic reform and innovation. And that's what we're trying to do here today. OK, Jamie, here we go. It was Davos a couple of years ago. I don't remember what I know you remember the quote. I'm just barely a Democrat. So now that's what you said anymore. Now you got the look what's happening. I mean, look around you. Think about this. Think about the center of the Democratic Party right now. Would you like to go all the way now?

15:42And then think about someone like McCormick, who is a Republican. If there's someone from Pennsylvania that's going to be president, don't you think it should probably be this guy at 60 years old or whatever it is? Will you give me that? Will you give me a nod on those two facts? Have you made the total switch? You made the total switch yet? Have you jumped in? The water's fine. Come on in. Yeah, I'm not doing any of that for you. But I will tell you, David McCormick would be a great president, very capable. I love the fact that him and Senator Fetterman talked together. That is democracy. You kind of work things out.

16:18Democracy, by its nature, is compromise. It isn't like one part of the thing just jamming what they believe in the other part. And so I applaud what they're doing. I think it's excellent. And, Joe, when I go to D.C., you know, we always complain about the people on the far left and the far right. When you go to D.C., there are a lot of people, you know, in the middle. They want to do the right stuff. They want to get policy right. They need to center. They need government. They need collaboration. So did it again? Center left. Still still a Democrat. I'm nothing at this point. You're so much. You're so.

16:52And we love having you on. Let me ask you a different question, which is we had Alex Karp from Palantir on the broadcast. obviously plays a huge role in the defense space and sector. I hope maybe you guys had an opportunity to see parts of that interview because it appeared to go viral. He made a couple of really provocative comments, both about how he felt that a lot of the AI LLM companies, large language model companies, effectively were both overcharging their customers to the point that a lot of corporate clients may not be getting the sort of ROI, return on investment that they would hope for, but also worries about IP itself in terms of whether some of these large language model makers are effectively collecting prompts from companies and then going into their businesses.

17:42And I'm thinking, Jamie, I wanted to get your sort of take on that. He seemed to suggest if we called a bunch of CEOs, at least privately, they would express that view. So I wanted to ask you, but I also wanted to ask David And McCormick, how he thinks about that in the defense space itself in terms of thinking about the role of government. Jamie? Yeah, so look, I didn't see that. I did hear about it. But I love Alex Karp's unabashed patriotism. And I feel the exact same way. And anyone who doesn't understand what this country stands for should really read the history books all over again and stuff like that.

18:17So I don't know exactly what his comments were. Obviously, companies are going to be looking at how they spend their money and looking for ROIs. And there's going to be a lot of token management. And I've already seen tons of systems, you know, how people are going to send, you know, queries to the cheapest token, the cheapest thing. That's already happening. And that's going to happen with power. It's going to happen with data centers. It's going to happen with everything we do. Of course, you've got to have a return on over time. So I would expect the LMM players know that. They have to navigate as they could be negotiating with these big companies.

18:45And we are very protective of our data and our IP. And so, you know, and I know there are issues about how it gets distilled out in the marketplace. You know, you should assume that JPMore will do everything he can to protect his own dad, its own IP, to protect our customers. But are you hearing from other CEOs who are saying we're not getting the ROI yet on this and either thinking about how to... I think you're at very early stages. So, you know, obviously a lot of CEOs are talking about what is the return AI? How do you look at the MPV? Should you even look at MPVs? Sometimes, you know, you're doing something as table stakes.

19:19You want to do a better job for your customer. You can't look at an MPV or something like that, but everyone's using it. They're going to get better at it. They're all going to navigate it. They all see the cost going up rapidly. So, of course, we're all going to be rational about it, like any other resource we use. And we negotiate with vendors all the time about what's the value to us and why we want it. So it's kind of a normal state of affairs between companies and their vendors. Jamie, you're almost a trillion-dollar company. First time, I think. Are you following that at all? Were you aware?

19:53Of course I'm aware, Joe. You don't think I pay attention to the marketplace? Yeah, no, I'm aware of that. I am very proud of this company. I'm expecting a big party at the spanking new headquarters if you're still here in New York City and don't get the hell out of here. And Joe, I will invite and I'll invite you, Becky and Andrew, OK? And business is good. I mean, the overall backdrop is good, isn't it? I mean, the market, the stock market, people say, oh, that's the market. It has nothing to do with the real economy. The stock market is the ultimate barometer of how we're doing, don't you think?

20:29Not always, Joe, because the stock market sometimes has been dead wrong if you look at 72 to 74. But I do think things are very good right now. Companies are growing. Earnings are up. Employment is low. So for now, you know, it's pretty good. I'm going to leave it, give the last word to the senator, Senator McCormick, just weigh in on the AI piece of this, because the other component part is, you know, you're trying to create more and more jobs in your state. And at the same time, I think there's a big question about whether AI is going to help or ultimately hurt with that. Where do you land? Well, first of all, Freedom's Forge in World War Two was always about it always has been about the private sector and the government working hand in hand to make sure America's strong.

21:14So that's absolutely essential. Listen, this AI revolution is this pace of innovation is unlike anything we've ever seen in our lifetimes, maybe in human history. It's essential we win this battle that we maintain supremacy in AI as we as we think about the dangerous world. We can't have China leading the charge on AI leadership. So the compute power, the energy infrastructure, it's all critical. In Pennsylvania, we have not seen any job loss in the skilled trades. In fact, as Jamie said earlier, we have huge demand. If you're an experienced welder or electrician, we can't get enough of you. We have to have workforce that meets this incredible demand.

21:57I'm sure it will create some disruption in the workforce over time. But I think it probably creates a lot more opportunity. And, you know, as I said earlier, we have the trades here with us today because we can't be we can't meet the needs for our changing defense industry and our defense industrial base without these people who can build things. So we're building things again in America. We're building things again in Pennsylvania, whether it's U.S. Steel or Hanwha or Eli Lilly's new plant in the Lehigh Valley. That's a large part due to the president's policies. And it's due to industry and government coming together and say, how can we make sure America wins?

22:33America can always win if we're working as a team on these things. Senator McCormick, want to thank you. Jamie Dimon, want to thank you. Look forward to seeing both of you hopefully in person soon. Thanks again, guys. Cheese will be next. Coming up on Squawk Pod, the decision part four, five. NBA superstar LeBron James has basketball fans wondering where he will choose to play next season, his 23rd. Sports manager and entrepreneur Rich Kleiman joins us next. He's making decisions now that are based around his family, his quality of life, and it's only his decision.

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