Jim Cramer, “How to Make Money in Any Market,” & NYC Politics 9/29/25

0:00Bring in show music, please. Hi, I'm CNBC producer Katie Kramer. Today on Squawk Pod. Make money in any market. Jim Kramer, no relation, on what's hot in 2025. Booyah. Booyah. What he's learned about investors in decades of talking to them in any market at any age. They've given up. They think that their parents are always going to be richer than we are. I lived in a generation where I presumed I was going to be richer than my parents. New York City's mayoral race down a candidate, but will it matter? Because right now this is not really a race. The sitting mayor is out. The Democratic Socialist is leading in the polls.

0:43A voice of the business community, Kathy Wild from the Partnership for New York, on the state of the race. We're a city of leaders in New York. The mayor is only one of those. Plus video game leader Electronic Arts going private in a$55 billion deal. And the government shutdown clock? Down to less than two days, Emily Wilkins reports. We've seen some horse trading, right? We've seen some agreements. We've seen some back and forth. We just haven't seen that this time. It's Monday, September 29th. Squawk Pod begins right now. Stand Becky by in three, two, one. Cue it, please. Good morning, everybody.

1:26Welcome to Squawk Box right here on CNBC. We're live from the Nasdaq market site in Times Square. I'm Becky Quick, along with Andrew Ross Sorkin. Welcome back. Thank you. Joe's off. We're all getting a cold. Yeah, I think it's cold season. It is. It's a sore throat. It's like knives in the throat. Not now. I got it. It's over with. I'm better now. But that was my experience. Well, sorry for your extended illness, but we're glad to have you. And I hope nobody else gets it. Meantime, President Trump expected to meet with the top four congressional leaders of the White House today as D.C. preparing now for a government shutdown that it's going to begin on Wednesday.

2:04That's absent a deal. The president canceling a meeting with Democratic leaders last Thursday. In an interview yesterday with NBC News, President Trump warning of potential widespread federal layoffs if there's a shutdown, with some being permanent. Typically, government workers are furloughed. According to a document posted to the Department of Homeland Security's website, tariff collection will likely continue during a shutdown. But regular economic data releases from the government would be at risk, including this Friday's jobs report. We're paying a lot of attention to that and, well, this.

2:42We've been watching shares of Electronic Arts this morning. Those shares jumping 15 percent on Friday following a Wall Street Journal report saying that the video game maker is nearing a roughly$50 billion deal to go private. The report said that investors, including Saudi Arabia's public investment fund and Silver Lake, could announce the deal as soon as this week. A source familiar with the matter said that Jared Kushner's Affinity Partners is another participating investor. At this reported price, that deal would be the largest leveraged buyout in Wall Street history. It's pretty interesting stuff.

3:16EA, of course, had been something that this company, parent company of this company, had tried at one point to buy and thought about merging with. So it's interesting. The stock is up about 30 percent for the year today. It is. It had it had struggled, by the way, because there have been real concerns about, you know, what's possible in this mobile universe and how people are playing games these days. And some comments from a key Fed official already this morning speaking with Squawk Box Europe. Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammock said that she's still concerned about inflation. Hammock will be a Fed voting member next year.

3:54are from an inflation perspective. We've been missing our mandate. On the inflation side, our objective of 2 % for more than four and a half years. When I balance those two sides of our mandate, I think we really need to maintain a restrictive stance of policy so that we can get inflation back down to our goal. Hammock adding that she has one of the higher estimates of neutral when it comes to interest rates and that the Fed is only a short distance away from hitting her target. Separately on the Fed, President Trump taking another shot at Jay Powell over the weekend. Saturday afternoon on Truth Social, the president posted this cartoon showing him firing the Fed chair.

4:34Meantime, New York City Mayor Eric Adams announcing he's dropping out officially of his third-party bid for re-election. This now narrows the field for November's election and puts the spotlight on a race between Democratic mayoral nominee Zoran Mandani and former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. Mondani is a Democratic socialist. He won the city's primary, of course, back in June. He's way ahead in the polls. Adams did not endorse anyone in a nine-minute video he posted on X, but appeared to swipe at him by saying extremism is growing in our politics. For his part, Mondani said in a video on social media that he's looking forward to beating Cuomo in November after beating him in the primary.

5:18Despite dropping out Adams' name, though, he's still going to be on official ballots. since he left the race after a deadline to print them. So that's going to create its own conundrum. And then apparently there were parts of the transcript, part of the video that wasn't shown, where he called Cuomo a liar and a snake. No love lost there, right? But then didn't publish that. Yeah. And so now there's a question about, is Cuomo, is there something going on behind the scenes where he's ultimately going to endorse him? Is this all just too late? Cuomo said some nice things to him about it, but it may or may not matter because the most recent polling shows Mom Damien about 45 percent, Cuomo at 25 percent, but Adams only had 8 percent.

6:00So even if he got all of the Adams vote, it would still be a bit of a stretch, I suppose. I think Slewa is still polling the Republican candidate at about 13 percent. So the question is, if Slewa would drop out, but he says he won't, then is there an actual race? Because right now this is not really a race. No. Yeah. And I think it's further complicated by the idea that he dropped out after the ability to take his name off the ballot. So people are going to get confused when they get there and everything else. Kathy Wild is going to be with us in just a little bit. Of course, runs the New York City Partnership, which represents all the big businesses in New York, which for the most part are for Cuomo, I think, at this point and against Mondani.

6:40But they seem to be in the losing camp. And that also seems to be almost helping Mondani. Right. Less than two days remain before the government shuts down. Congressional leaders will meet with the president today. And Emily Wilkins joins us from Washington this morning. Good morning. Good morning, Andrew. Yeah, President Trump meeting with congressional leaders 3 p.m. today. The goal, of course, is to try to avoid government shutdown. But that kind of doesn't seem like it might happen because both sides are really as dug in as ever. The White House told NBC in a statement yesterday that the president is meeting with Democrat leaders at their request to give them an opportunity to commit to common sense and vote for a clean CR to keep the government open as they have previously done 13 times.

7:27Meanwhile, Senate Democrat leader Chuck Schumer told Meet the Press yesterday that the meeting is only the first step and they need serious negotiation. The meeting is a first step, but only a first step. We need a serious negotiation. So if they're serious, I'm hopeful we can get something real done. Now, Democrats are asking for a number of things, including extending the Affordable Care Act tax credits, reversing cuts to Medicaid and other health care provisions that were a part of that Trump mega bill and require the president to spend the money that Congress approves for programs and agencies.

8:02Now, most of that wish list has strong GOP opposition. It's very unlikely to happen. But Senate Majority Leader John Thune also said on Meet the Press over the weekend that he does believe there could be a path forward on extending some of the tax credits, but not until after they deal with this shutdown. Keep the government open. Let's fund the government. And then let's have the conversation about the premium tax credits. It's a fairly straightforward argument that we're making. Now, congressional Republicans are split on whether to extend the tax credits. Some more moderate members are worried about that increased cost on Americans if they expire, but others note that extending them is going to add hundreds of billions to the debt.

8:43So there's no consensus there. The Senate is expected to return to town this afternoon, but right now, there are no votes that are scheduled on that stopgap measure. This means that the next time we see votes could be less than 24 hours before the deadline. Guys? Okay, so how do you handicap it? I mean, at this point, usually at this point, Andrew, we've seen some horse trading, right? We've seen some agreements, we've seen some back and forth. We just haven't seen that this time. And that has really got everyone in D.C. thinking that it's going to be very difficult for them to walk out of the White House today and say, hey, guys, we have an agreement.

9:18Now, of course, it does seem like there could be a path forward with something on this Affordable Care Act. But at this point, It does seem likely that both sides do believe that they could benefit potentially from a shutdown. Of course, this is always the other thing that comes up. The messaging war, the who's going to get blamed. Democrats are just very confident at this point that if they just keep focusing on health care, that they can say, hey, go back to their constituents and say, hey, we put up a fight. We pushed for what we wanted. The question is, what can they possibly get out of this?

9:49So you think this movie could end differently? This is one of the first times it would end differently in a very, very long time. Absolutely, Andrew. And look, I mean, I don't know what's exactly going to happen at this White House meeting today. I think the fact that they have now called a meeting after they canceled that one last week shows that there's at least some ability to have a discussion. And you have seen both Thune and Mike Johnson. They haven't completely said absolutely not to extending these Affordable Care Act tax credits. They've both kind of said, look, we can have this discussion.

10:19We just need to have it after we figure this out. And so what I'm interested to see is if they come out of the White House and they say, look, we are going to work together to try to do something on these tax credits, maybe not a clean extension, maybe an extension with certain limits on it. Is that enough for Schumer and Jeffries to go back to Democrats and say, hey, we got a victory here. We held our ground and now we're going to be voting for this when it comes up either tonight or tomorrow. OK, Emily, we were we'll keep our eyes. It's one of those movies that doesn't usually end until literally the clock strikes midnight.

10:53So thank you. We'll be talking to you a lot. Cheese will be next. Coming up on Squawk Pod, who will run America's largest city? Big Apple Mayor Eric Adams has ended his reelection bid, narrowing the field to former Governor Andrew Cuomo, the Democratic nominee Zorhan Mamdani, and Republican Curtis Sliwa. Kathy Wild of the Partnership for New York City says, it's not a clear route to victory for any of the candidates. I think the business community is very split all over the map.

11:36Welcome back to Squawk Pod from CNBC. Today with Becky Quick and Andrew Ross Sorkin. Okay, now an update on the race for New York City mayor. Yesterday, of course, Eric Adams announcing he's dropping his bid for reelection. Joining us right now is Kathy Wild. She's the president and CEO of the Partnership for New York City. I think under your breath, you'd say you've been wanting this to happen for quite some time. Maybe not under your breath. Not at all. No, I just think we've been tortured for the last couple of years as the mayor has gone through what is really a tragedy for New York City. You know, on an objective basis, he's done a very good job in terms of his administration pushing through a lot of important things.

12:21They have reduced crime. The shooting rates are way down. They have been very successful with sanitation, housing, etc. So the business community now, but I think where I was going with this is the argument has been that I think you don't like Zoran Mondani for the most part and that you'd like to find an alternative. Now that Adams is out, how do you think it really changed the calculus, if at all, for Cuomo's bid? Well, if you mean in terms of the business community, that's one thing. I think that they're very concerned about Mamdani's policy positions, the things he has focused on in the past and to some extent in the campaign.

13:03He has made an effort since the primary election, since winning a primary election handily, to meet with a lot of business people. And he's provided some reassurance that he's somebody who will listen and learn. Do you think the business community is more comfortable with him now? I think it's all over the map. There are some members of the business community that met him and feel that he's a smart guy who will want to be successful. So they're hopeful. But I think the main point is that it's really up to the voters, not the business community. We still live in a democracy. Well, so how much of this is a worry, though, about if the if the New York City partnership is too far out there saying, you know what?

13:40We're not into socialism. We don't like socialism. We don't like we don't like this mayor. We don't want him to be the guy that that backfires, that that the that the city says, well, if and this you hear this, you hear people say, well, if the real estate guys and the business community don't like them, we like them. Something must be good. Right. No, absolutely. No, I think it's I think the idea of the whole thought that money raising super PAC money, et cetera, to go after somebody is I think the public objects to that. I think that backfires. I don't think most of the business community has not spoken out one way or the other on this issue.

14:23And I think it's because they are going to go with the will of the voters. And we have to work with whoever is mayor. But I will tell you, at least privately, the people that I talk to in the business community, almost to a man, to a woman, say they have a particular view, which is that they don't want Mondani to win. They may be a toss-up to Adams or Cuomo or something else, but they sort of have a singular focus about that. And privately are telling each other, this is no good, and they want to somehow see if they can affect it, but they don't know how. Right. And in fact, the way they can affect it is go to the polls and vote, and then there'll be one vote among many.

15:06What do you think, though, between, you know, you still have Sliwa in there. Yes. Do you think that he's going to drop out? I do not. You do not? I don't think so. So do you think then this changes the dynamic at all, what happened yesterday? I don't think it's—I think what it does is has—allows us to go back to focusing on the issues, rather than the tactics and the will he or won't he, and the mechanics of if we get everybody out, who can win. But I think that's been unhealthy. I think we ought to be focused on the issues. I mean, the big challenges facing the city are, number one, affordability in general, especially housing and child care.

15:45That's what we should be talking about, how you're going to solve the problem. Does Mom Donnie's solution to that make sense to you, the idea of affordability, by saying we're going to do more rent control, extend and expand that? It's certainly an oversimplification of what's required. obviously rents are a big part of the issue and he has nuanced his position by saying in order to freeze the rents I know we have to reduce costs and he is supporting tax reform real estate tax reform to reduce costs so those conversations are going on again I think the solutions that are proposed at the problems that are being addressed the fact that we're the most expensive city in America that we're having more and more difficulty with having people being able to afford to live here, attracting young people here.

16:32Those are the big issues. It's the how you solve those issues that the candidates disagree. Do you worry that the people who have the most means will be chased out of the city if Mamdani is there and is successful in some of the things that he wants to put forth? And if you lose that tax base, how do you pay for it? Well, I think they're actually being chased out now for a few years. Ever since SALT, we lost the deductibility from federal taxes, of state and local taxes. We're the highest taxed city. There was a study that just came out from the Citizens Budget Commission that shows that our share of millionaires is decreasing nationally while Florida and Texas are going up.

17:14In terms of the conversation that at least I'm hearing among the business community that are concerned about Mondami, The focus seems to be on safety and security and the police. You know, what is he going to do with the police? Is he going to keep Tish? Is he not? Is he going to move money around so that he could provide a lot of relief if he said, I'm going to keep Jesse Tish as police commissioner because there's great confidence in her and in her job. So you hear that? Yes. You hear references to this Web site that refers to raising taxes, but not just raising taxes, raising taxes, he says, on white neighborhoods specifically.

17:56It's sort of an interesting thing to say that as directly as he does when it comes to sort of, and again, he's referring to neighborhoods, but there's sort of, he spells it out as a racial issue to some degree. At least some people see that. And then there's the Bibi Netanyahu stuff about, you know, when he says, you know, that he's going to have him arrested by the NYPD, which is, of course, completely against federal law. and I think there's a lot of people who are Jewish in this city, irrespective of your views about Israel and this and that, who say that it sends a signal that there's something, that there's a anti-Semitic view that's being espoused underneath all of this.

18:35Yeah, and that is the single biggest issue, I think. You think that is? Absolutely. That or the police? No, I think the anti-Semitic view. New York is a city that has a long history relationship with Israel. Our investors funded the whole startup nation, the building of Israel, et cetera. I think that's a big issue. So here's the question. To the extent that you guys are now behind Cuomo, what does he actually have to do to win? What do you think that is there a and I don't know if you're saying you're probably not behind Cuomo, but I think you really are. You meaning the business community? The business community.

19:10No, I think the business community is very split all over the map. I mean, last week, several business leaders, one of our vice chairmen, Kevin Ryan, leader in the tech community, came out saying he was going to work with Momdani on trying to make sure he gets the best possible results if he's elected. So, you know, business, particularly public corporations, does not participate in local politics in a visible way because you can't win. I mean, their young employees are definitely mum-dhuni people for these companies. So the business leaders are not taking that kind of position. In addition, the whole financial industry, which is the largest sector of our economy, can't contribute because of federal regulations that prohibit financial contributions by financial advisors to state and local politicians.

20:06So they basically are on the sidelines because they can't donate. So the business community, I think it's unfortunate and that we ought to be trying to fix this, but the business community really is not that engaged on the politics of the issue. They're very worried about the substance of the issues and what a next mayor will want to do, whether it will be productive. But I always say we're a city of leaders in New York. The mayor is only one of those. We have not only checks and balances in government with the city council, the governor, et cetera, but we have leaders in every sector in business, in culture, et cetera.

20:47So I don't think who is mayor is ultimately going to determine the fate of New York City. We're going to have to work harder to make sure that that is the case. We're going to have to depend on the support of the governor and others to make sure that is the case. But I think I don't know what's going to happen in the election, but I don't think that in I think New York City has proven that we're highly resilient, that we have survived plenty of less than adequate mayors. We've survived lots of bad public policies. I think we'll be successful moving forward. Kathy, it's great to see you. Thank you.

21:33and we got a massive deal just crossing the tape a deal that we told you about earlier it is now official electronic arts being taken private by pif silver lake also affinity partners for 55 billion dollars it would mark the largest private equity buyout in history stockholders will receive $210 per share in cash. That would represent about a 25 % premium to the share price before the deal rumors were reported. Company CEO Andrew Wilson will continue to lead the company. The transaction expects to close in the first quarter of 2027, and we're going to keep our eyes on what happens next with this transaction.

22:13Still, obviously, lots of questions that people are going to have about how it's all going to work. They say it's going to close Q1 27. So there's still lots of things that need to take place between now and then. But as we said, you have this combination of Silver Lake, PIF. I should mention PIF is rolling over. They have about a 10 % stake currently in the company, 9.9 % stake, and they're going to roll that existing stake into the new deal as well. So some interesting dynamics taking place in terms of what that deal looks like and who is part of it. Of course, Jared Kushner runs Affinity Partners.

22:54People have looked at that as an interesting sort of element to all of this as well. And by the way, this is a cash deal. EA stockholders would get$210 a share stocks right now, even after that big jump, trading just below$205. And I guess that leads to whether or not they think that this will go through the way you could play. Honestly, looking at that, I think we're literally, because there's still a year, a year and a half out before you're going to be able to get the money, I think that's what this is representative. You know, you would think if you thought there was another party that could emerge, maybe the number would get even higher.

23:32But we're going to keep our eyes, as I said, on that story. And it's an interesting one. They believe that they can do a lot of work behind the scenes in private, effectively, that they couldn't do in the public markets in terms of shifting away to some degree from the console business and more towards the mobile business. But to do that would take some costs and maybe take some revenue on a temporary basis. So we'll see. Up next on Squawk Pod, CNBC's very own Jim Cramer. His new book, How to Make Money in Any Market, encourages everyone to invest, and investing is more accessible than ever. 20 years ago, it wasn't possible for the individual to get the same information that a professional could.

24:15Now, because of artificial intelligence, it's the same.

24:25This is Squawk Pod. Stand Andrew by in five seconds. Four, three, two, one. Up in Andrew. Cube, this mic. You're watching Squawk Box on CNBC. I'm Andrew Ross Sorkin along with Becky Quick. Joe is off today. Our next guest is a dear friend and a best-selling author. Booyah. Booyah. And of course, long-term Squawk Box guy, long-term CNBC guy, Jim Cramer. Well, first of all, thank you for having me. I've known you both for a lot longer than your shows begin, but I love this show. and you know the 30th was one of the greatest parties. Congratulations to you because you have a book a long time in the making that I can't wait to read.

25:01I hope I can get a chance to do so. Fascinating, 1929. I remember when you and I went back from the days of Larry Kudlow. Yes. Yes. I remember doing something even before that bullseye. Do you remember? We were kind of like bickering back and forth on set. Well, look, I tried to hire you for the street.com a hundred times. I said if I got her for the street.com, we would be successful and I didn't. So I hired her to be Cutler's backup, and wow. Wow. What a star. Jim has always been a star. This is bullseye. This is back in the day, Dylan Rattigan doing bullseye, right? Oh, yeah. Jim and I used to play around the edges with them.

25:39We were right. It was the street.com. But we did it as a shtick. We did it on purpose. We had to develop the disagreement. We couldn't really have it, so it was all faux. Yeah. But it was all part of heat. But I want to talk about why you're here today. Sure. I don't want them to roll past this. His new book is out tomorrow. It's called How to Make Money in Any Market. Make sure you go get this book. This is for anybody who wants to figure out what they should be doing. And, Jim, this is a different book for you. Yes. Well, it's a how-to book, a tough category. But let's say someone mentions a stock here, okay?