Jamie Dimon’s Annual Letter & Firing US AG Pam Bondi 4/6/26

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0:57Bring in show music, please. Hi, I'm CNBC producer Katie Kramer. Today on Squawk Pod. The first U.S. fighter jet downed in combat in more than 20 years. While the world awaits President Trump's next steps, we have the latest headlines in the Iran war. CNBC's Dan Murphy. Oil is perhaps being driven more so by the Hormuz headline than the diplomatic deadline here. Then Attorney General Pam Bondi fired. Jake Clayton, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, joins us on his new boss and his other boss. President Trump has a very hands-on management style. I think the benefits of that are fantastic.

1:42And the American sentiment on the war. I think if you poll the American people, they're happy that we are doing this. Or I shouldn't say happy is the wrong word. I think they understand the necessity. I don't think the polls suggest that. Those big conversations. Plus, Jamie Dimon highlights risk in J.P. Morgan's annual shareholder letter. And the Artemis II crew is set to swing around the moon and start their trip home. I've been singing See You on the Dark Side of the Moon since for the last week. It is Monday, April 6th, 2026. Squawk Pod begins right now. Stand Becky by in three, two, one. Cue it, please.

2:23Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Squawk Box right here on CNBC. We are live from the Nasdaq market site in Times Square. I'm Becky Quick, along with Joe Kernan and Andrew Ross Sorkin. Welcome back. Thank you. Three people. Three people back from vacation. Happy Easter, everybody. Happy Easter. Happy Passover. We can coast only a third of the workload now. A third of the third. We've been carrying your sorry lazy butt around for the past few years. I appreciate that. It's OK. I appreciate that. And nothing's happened, obviously, in the past two weeks either. No, I tried to channel you. Incredible.

2:57From time to time. You did. Just to keep things fair and balanced. I did. I did a terrible job. I was going to say, I did not notice that at all. President Trump threatening Iran's critical infrastructure and the U.S. rescuing an aviator shot down inside the country. CNBC's Dan Murphy joins us now with more from Abu Dhabi. Dan, good morning. Becky, good morning to you. Well, let's start with the story that kept the White House Situation Room running all weekend, because it is reverberating around the Gulf and around the world. This F-15E Strike Eagle was shot down by the southwestern Iran. It was the first U.S.

3:32fighter jet downed in combat in more than 20 years. Both crew members ejected into hostile territory. The pilot was recovered within hours. But the weapons systems officer, who also happened to be an Air Force colonel, disappeared into the Iranian mountains. And as the IRGC and local militia closed in, what followed was probably one of the most extraordinary U.S. military operations in recent memory to get him out. And President Trump is, of course, going to take a victory lap for that mission later today at the White House, where he's also expected to double down on his most explosive and, as you heard across the weekend, most expletive ultimatum yet, which is the threat to strike Iranian power plants and bridges by 8 p.m.

4:20Eastern Tuesday if the Strait of Hormuz remains closed. Now, that deadline is also now colliding with a new diplomatic push as well. Wotis reports this morning that Pakistan has exchanged a ceasefire framework with both Washington and Tehran overnight. Axios also saying mediators are now discussing a 45-day ceasefire as part of a two-phased deal. Most importantly, though, and you just flagged this, Iran has not committed to anything yet. And oil markets also don't seem to be pricing in any kind of rapid de-escalation here either. In fact, Halima Croft at RBC just said she is skeptical that this is going to be a major diplomatic breakthrough.

5:02Because as we flagged, if the market actually believed that a peace plan was hours away, we probably wouldn't see local crude here trading at such a massive spread or WTI trading premium to Brent and holding on to nearly$110 a barrel. So all eyes are on exactly what the president has to say later today. And of course, any new insights on this diplomatic push are going to be very closely watched by a market still treading on the headlines and ultimately still confused about the trajectory of this conflict. Becky. Hey, Dan, let's talk a little bit about the Gulf states view of this latest ultimatum.

5:37The president had made similar threats in the past about saying he was going to go after some of the energy infrastructure. The pushback from the Arab states, I think, was pretty immediate because Iran had threatened to go after their own desalination program, plants and other infrastructure in the Gulf states. How do they feel about this ultimatum? It's a really good point. And as you mentioned, we saw Iranian drones and missiles actually hitting petrochemical plants, oil facilities, power stations across the UAE, Kuwait and Bahrain at the weekend. Those attacks have also continued today. And also this morning, the head of the IRGC intelligence arm was killed in a U.S.-Israeli strike too.

6:17So you have a senior intelligence chief, the eyes of the IRGC, as he's being called, killed on the same day that a ceasefire is supposedly on the table. It certainly adds a lot of confusion as to which way this could go. So as I mentioned, all eyes are on 8 p.m. Eastern Tuesday. That's 4 a.m. Wednesday here in the Gulf. It's a deadline that looks increasingly like a point of no return. We really are reaching a critical juncture at this war with the president's threats continuing to escalate. And here in Abu Dhabi and the other Gulf capitals, this is being watched very closely. Just quickly on the issue of the Strait of Hormuz as well.

6:55I was listening in to a briefing with the UAE presidential advisor, Dr. Anwar Gargash, on Saturday. And he said that the UAE would be willing to join any American-led effort to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. So it seems as if from a Gulf capital perspective, from a UAE perspective, they still may be waiting to see what the United States does when it comes to reopening the Strait. Of course, the president has already hinted that America does not need Hormuz and could perhaps be taking a step back. That has also raised some concern here in the Gulf that the U.S. could also be pulling out too soon.

7:30Again, something that we've been hearing over the last couple of weeks. But again, as I mentioned, all eyes are on what the president has to say to perhaps see any more signals on which direction this conflict will go. Dan, I think it was two weeks exactly today, Monday. It was two weeks ago when the president first said we're close to ending this. And oil, WTI, I think was 110 and I think it went under 90. and that obviously was not the correct move because it went all the way back up. So I think this could be something like a fool me once. I think the oil markets are going to have to, but I'm not convinced that this means that this is just going to fall by the wayside like the last.

8:14We don't know. We have no idea how close, you know, whether Whitcoff and Vance and supposedly what the foreign minister of Iran has received this proposal from Pakistan. So who knows? But I'm just saying, I don't know if oil is the ultimate argument. It was dead wrong on believing the first one. So whether it's at this point, it might be in a show me state. Joe, I think you make a really good point here. Oil is perhaps being driven more so by the Hormuz headline than the diplomatic deadline here. Of course, the only thing that really matters to traders at this point is, Number one, what the president says, but also number two, any signal on whether we're going to see Hormuz reopening again.

8:59Millions of barrels still effectively locked offline. And until that supply genuinely starts moving again, we can expect to see prices elevated, right? That's part of the deal. Open it immediately. It is part of the deal. That's right. Yeah, the 45-day ceasefire. Open Hormuz, like, immediately. I was going to ask you, Dan, a different question, which is you'd said the UAE prepared to go in with the Americans to effectively control the strait. And when they say they're willing to go in, that requires, I think, boots on the ground. Do you think that there's enough of a coalition? And I ask because clearly one of the things the president has said is he doesn't want to put U.S.

9:37boots on the ground. He's saying to all of his allies, and I know I use the word allies maybe loosely because I think it's getting increasingly complicated in that regard, but it's allies to say it's on you to figure this out. And how do they feel about that? Andrew, it's a good point. And I also attempted to press for more answers on this as well. It seems as if the Emirati position is that they would support any U.S.-led effort to go in to reopen Hormuz. But as I mentioned, the president is signaling that this isn't necessarily a priority for him. And indeed, he has been quite effective in rallying a coalition here to perhaps take on more of a responsibility for patrolling and opening up Hormuz moving forward.

10:21But the extent in which the Gulf leaders and indeed these Gulf states would deploy resources to actually do that remains to be seen. Remember, it was only a couple of weeks ago, Andrew, that the U.S. actually said that they would be providing naval escorts in the best case scenario. That idea also appears to have gone out the window. So leaders here are really reluctant to kind of throw anything at this until they get real clarity from the U.S. on exactly what type of position they'll be taking moving forward as well. So watch this space. Hormuz obviously critical for the oil markets. And again, the diplomatic off-ramp may be emerging here, but no concrete insights as of yet.

10:58Dan, how many boots were on the ground for this operation? And thank God. I mean, the transport planes that were stuck in the sand, they had to fly new ones in. And I mean, there were were there thousands of troops involved that were in 200 miles into Iran? So there have been boots on the ground already. Well, the exact number, I think, is pretty unclear, Joe. But this was an historic mission. I can't wait to see the movie myself. I'm sure it's coming up. But, you know, with the amount of military resources that the U.S. has in region right now, you can pretty much expect that it was a significant amount of firepower that was helping to get this American hero outside of Iran and mission accomplished for the president here and mission accomplished for the United States.

11:47Crazy story. 7 ,000 feet injured, finds a crevasse and says God is great. We don't believe it. We don't believe we see God is great. If someone says God is great, it doesn't sound like our guy. It depends on which God we're talking about, I guess. And then they found out there's ways of determining it's encrypted and everything else. Unbelievable reading about it. And the Iranians were looking at the same time. Oh, yeah. They certainly were. And I had a feeling of dread all day Saturday, which made me remember 1979, made me remember what they do to our guys when they, and it made me think, God, I just really am angry at people within that country that do, you know, this is war.

12:33And I'm just glad that didn't happen, Dan, obviously. Meantime, we got some news. Dan, thank you for that report. I'm sure we're going to be talking to you a lot more. In the meantime, though, we have some news just out. J.P. Morgan out this morning with Jamie Dimon's annual letter, and Leslie Picker has that letter. Leslie. Hey, Andrew, good morning. A wide-ranging 50-page annual letter from Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon this morning. On AI, he's saying that investment in AI is not a speculative bubble, and he said, quote, in the long run, it will have a huge positive impact on productivity. He's saying AI will definitely create and eliminate some jobs, and it, quote, will also introduce serious new risks from deepfakes and misinformation to cybersecurity vulnerabilities.

13:19On private credit, Diamond noting that actual losses right now are already a little higher than they should be relative to the environment. And he writes, quote, by and large, private credit does not tend to have great transparency or rigorous valuation marks on their loans. He said at some point insurance regulators will insist on more rigorous ratings or markdowns and said if anything goes wrong, retail investors will seek remedy in courts. However, Diamond said private credit is probably not a systemic risk. Diamond has a long section in the letter, guys, on bank regulations and said their initial reactions to the new proposals that came out a couple weeks ago were mixed with some aspects that he thinks are, quote, nonsensical.

14:03He said J.P. Morgan would have to hold as much as 50 percent more capital on the majority of their loans compared with midsize peers if these proposals were passed. And then lastly, in terms of the broader economy, Diamond saying it continues to be resilient while noting some weakness, some recent weakening of the consumer. He reiterated what he told us last month in Miami that the, quote, skunk at the party, and it could happen in 2026, he said, would be inflation slowly going up. He said the Iran war could drive up inflation and interest rates and warned of the potential for further oil and commodity shocks from here, guys.

14:40Leslie, what was your sense? I mean, the interesting part to me about that letter was the skunk at the party line, which you pulled out, and the private credit piece more than anything else. Having said that, I did think that his commentary around private credit, while not arguing that it was systemic, raised some questions just about the Marx piece of all of this. and as you think about sort of legislation or regulations about how people are going to think about some of these marks and even the way insurance companies are marking some of this stuff. That's what I thought was really interesting, too, because we've heard him talk a lot about private credit, but honing in specifically on this transparency issue, on the marks issue, that felt pretty new to me.

15:21And then also just the regulatory implications of all of this, specifically the insurance regulators, which a lot of these, of course, are in insurance vehicles. You've got Athene, for example, which is tied to Apollo and so forth. And then the retail investor aspect as well, seeking remedy in courts, that kind of echoes what we heard from Lloyd Blankfein, this idea that, you know, all is fine if you sell it to institutions, but once it starts going in a big way into retail portfolios, if anything goes wrong, it could be a big reputational risk. Well, and we've watched it, obviously, with Blue Owl last week, which continues to hemorrhage, both in terms of its stock price itself and then all the folks who seem to want to get out of those vehicles.

16:04The question is if there's a reason for anybody to get into those vehicles in this moment to take some of the pressure off of them. And if they don't, what happens? I mean, the sort of irony is we haven't reached a point yet in the private credit land where all these software companies, which everybody's so worried about, have gone belly up and therefore have hit the credit market yet, right? So it's all in anticipation of something. Yeah. And that's just kind of interesting because in a few of these vehicles, and interestingly, despite all of the redemption requests in those two Blue Owl funds last week, they did still see inflows.

16:39And, of course, they capped the redemption. So combined with the gating that they chose to do and a little bit of inflows, they didn't have, you know, massive outflows. Now, some of them, they just didn't allow the outflows to happen. And as a result, the fund size stayed basically the same, which means that, you know, they didn't forego much in the way of fees. And the question, I think, is a good one, Andrew, is who is going to be, you know, the marginal inflows from here if not for retail? Is institutional tapped out? Are they still even interested, given all the negative headlines? Leslie, thank you for bringing us that letter.

17:15It's a fascinating one. It is long, it is lengthy, but there's a whole bunch of pieces of it that I think are going to be some big reading for folks on Wall Street this morning. Thanks. Jamie had some great comments. I don't know, did they reach you and wherever you were with some of his comments that he made in some interviews last week? Yeah, I've seen a whole bunch of his comments. Amazing. Cheese will be next. Coming up on Squawk Pod, a lively conversation with former SEC chair and current U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Jake Layton. We hit all the lightning rods, Russian interference in the 2016 elections, the Iran war and a new executive order on college sports.

17:57College sports is in trouble from a financial point of view. There are revenue generating sports, football and basketball. In order to compete in those sports, you now have to step up as a university and start to pay people a lot of money. The payrolls, that's creating a race to the bottom. We're back after this.

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20:11Welcome back. This is Squawk Pod. Straight up on Becky. Three, two, one. Up on Becky. Cue. You're watching Squawk Box right here on CNBC. I'm Becky Quick along with Joe Kernan and Andrew Ross Sorkin. Get ready. Shake up at the Department of Justice after President Trump fired Attorney General Pam Bondi. Joining us right now is Jay Clayton, United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York and former SEC Chair. Looks like you have a new boss, Jay. Yeah. Well, I know the... The interim. I know the new boss, Acting Attorney General Blanche, very well. And look, he's a really good lawyer.

20:50He knows the Justice Department. And I think there's a lot of speculation now about who will be the nominee. He can be in that job by statute for quite a long time as the acting attorney general. So there's no rush here. You have a really competent person who knows those things well and knows the president's agenda for the Justice Department. The Wall Street Journal op-ed page wrote about what happened with Pam Bondi and said that Pam Bondi learned the hard way that there may not be a worse job in Washington, D.C. than being attorney general under President Trump. that it's a very difficult position to be in because he not only expects this person to follow his expectations when it comes to policy, but also to indict his political enemies.

21:43What do you say about that? Well, it's a difficult job, like many of these jobs, and not just because of the portfolio that you have to deal with. And you talk about President Trump and look, President Trump has a very hands-on management style. I think the benefits of that are fantastic. I mean, you have somebody who is deeply knowledgeable about many areas, including what's going on at the Justice Department. But one of the things about these jobs that's so difficult is you also have Congress. There are a number of people in Congress, and it's no secret, they want to make your life difficult.

22:21When you get hauled up there for hearings, it's not often to learn about what the Justice Department is doing or enlighten the American people. It's to give people a hard time. And I think Pam Bondi went through quite a lot of that. The journal op-ed, though, goes back to Bill Barr and the president's frustration with him when he would not say that the election was rigged and look into kind of finding people to go after for that. Is it a position where the attorney general is put into a position of having to go after the president's enemies? I don't think that you have to go after the president's enemies.

22:56I think that's incredibly stark. Let me deal with two issues, though. One is election integrity. We have great uncertainty in this country about election integrity. And the reason is because we don't have a good audit trail for many of our elections. So, you I go look at whether a corporation has done something wrong or, you know, many aspects of our society, there's actually quite a good audit trail of who did what when, and you can go back and look at it. If you try and go look at elections, it's very difficult in some jurisdictions to, with a high degree of confidence, say only people who were eligible to vote, voted.

23:39Which is crazy. You know, here we are in an electronic age where we can be tracked anywhere. Our phones can take us anywhere. To get on a plane, you have to show ID. You do all these things. And if you told me that I have to order an election and say, you know what, I'm going to certify to an incredibly high degree of certainty that only people who are eligible to vote voted, there are many jurisdictions where I cannot do that. And that makes no sense. Jay, do you think that there were crimes committed leading up to the Russia hoax, whatever, crossfire, any of those things that you're talking about, some of the warrants that were issued?

24:13Should people be held accountable for any of that, or is it just pure retribution against Trump's enemies? Or were there criminal conspiracies afoot in your view? In my position, I'm not going to say that something rises to the level of criminality unless I've seen the evidence myself. What I will say is what we saw after the 2016 election with these allegations against Donald Trump and his campaign for collusion with the Russians, which have been completely debunked. The American people ought to be like, what the heck? It came from somewhere, Jay. I know. But what the heck happened that that got traction?

24:57And then what legal commentators don't talk about enough is that got traction and then it was debunked. The investigation actually continued and the charges that were pursued, or I would say the potential charges that were pursued, were obstruction charges. Obstruction for a predicate that did not exist. That is out of bounds in my view. You've seen that, though, happen before. I have. And it's out of bounds. You think it's out of bounds across the board? And I ask in the following context. Many, many, many years ago, I covered the Frank Quatrone trial. The Frank Quatrone trial. Frank was a banker.