NYT DealBook, Wrapped: Alex Karp, PM Netanyahu, & Erika Kirk 12/4/25

0:00Bring in show music, please. This is Squawk Pod and I'm CNBC producer Cameron Costa. On today's episode, a Dealbook Summit recap. Huge interviews with global politicians, CEOs and iconic figures. All hosted on one stage by our own Andrew Ross Sorkin. Congrats. Thank you. The most memorable moments and the most memorable speakers. like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Mr. Beast, Larry Fink, and California Governor Gavin Newsom. Having spent a lot of time with different people yesterday, a tremendous orator. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's next career move and a political shift for Palantir's Alex Karp.

0:49The idea that what's being called progressive is in any way progressive is a complete farce. Plus, an intense conversation with former FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb. He is concerned about America's health and the future. They're systematically trying to dismantle components of the vaccine approval process and make sure vaccines won't be available. It's Thursday, December 4th, and Squawk Pod begins right now. Stand under by in three, two, one, two. Good morning and welcome to Squawk Box right here on CNBC. We're live at the Nasdaq market site in Times Square this morning. I'm Andrew Ross Sorkin, along with Joe Kern.

1:28Becky is on assignment today. Besson? Let's talk about Besson. We're going to talk about him. Just personally, if I were Trump, I think I'd wake up in the morning and say, this is my most effective person to logically explain what sometimes doesn't look very logical for the Trump administration. I would thank my lucky stars for him, I think, every morning. And he may get another job. He is reportedly under consideration to lead the National Economic Council. If President Trump picks Kevin Hassett, the current NEC director, as an ex-Fed chair, Bloomberg reports says the NEC job would be in addition to his current role as Treasury Secretary.

2:06Earlier this week, President Trump called up Hassett. The way he said it, too, I was watching it live. He called him. He goes, yeah, there's a guy here who is a potential Fed pick, right, Kevin? He went like that. I don't know what that means exactly. But it may mean nothing with President Trump. He's mercurial and changes his mind. But he said he would reveal his choice for the central bank early next year. We thought it might come before Christmas. I don't know. It still could. We don't know. We still don't. And the Financial Times is reporting the key players in the U.S. debt market have voiced concerns to Treasury about a potential HACCP appointment to the Fed's top position.

2:46The report says Treasury sought feedback on Hassett and other Fed candidates last month in one-on-one meetings with financial executives and some market participants said they were worried about Hassett's alignment with President Trump and feared he might push for just indiscriminate rate cuts. And, you know, this is just giving, I guess it's a published report about something we've talked about so many times. You know, is President Trump going to put in someone that's just going to do what he wants and lower rates and is fed independence in question? We had Brad on the other day and asked that question.

3:20Gerson and asked that question. I saw that interview. Yeah, and he kind of got his dander up on that, saying that's really unfair to someone with Hassett's background and history to just say he's going to be a rubber stamp and a yes man for Trump. But that's still, obviously, that still is a concern with people that do it for business. It's a question, by the way, I asked Abessin about it yesterday. No, just about the idea of how he thinks the market will think about somebody who, you know, does it matter if the person seems independent from the president or not? Right, because the president controls a lot of things, and some people think he could have more influence on the Fed, and they all try.

4:02But some say it might not be better. I'll tell you one thing, that just because of the circumstances, is the times that Trump has been pounding the table on lower rates serendipitously were times where rates probably should have been lowered. I don't think he's been president at a time like when Janet Yellen with transitory inflation, where he had a chance. He probably still would have been saying cut rate, but we'll never know. He's never been in a period where he should have been saying raise rates. So we don't, the times he's been right. That's the scary thing. He's been right about lowering rates, but that I just, I'm not sure.

4:35I think he'd always want to lower rate. Could you ever see him saying, wow, this economy is too hot. We need to. No, I think he's a lower rates guy. But is that wrong? I mean, you do want to. Well, yes. Yes, actually, if you think if you don't have inflation. I do think I've seen stuff. I think Trump really does want to do the right thing for people in America. I agree with that. Yeah. And you think you'd like, you know, I think I think everything he's thinking about. I don't think it's personal. I don't think it's about himself. I really, now you might argue with what he's, his approach, and even whether he's doing the right things, and whether he's instructing people to do the right things.

5:14But in his mind, even tariffs, I think everything he's doing, he thinks is. Oh, I believe he believes. No, no. I have no. You just think he's wrong. No, no. I have no doubt that he believes what he believes. Yeah. And I just think there's, people have questions about the approach. By the way, I believe, you know, we talk about different forms of, how you deal with affordability or something like that. There's different ways to do it. You and I actually, I think, agree on how to deal with that. Other people have a different way to deal with it. Yesterday, I spent some time with Treasury Secretary Scott Besson at the New York Times Dealbook Summit.

5:48We talked about so many different issues, the current state of the economy, and I asked him to respond to Jamie Dimon, who had said last month that he thinks the economy is weakening. I think that certain sectors are, and maybe it goes back to the reason we need interest rate cuts. That clearly housing has weakened. And that I believe that, again, the Fed doesn't really understand this calculus of we've had balance sheet roll-off, which is tightening. We have had the two rate cuts. But I am very optimistic about the economy next year. We've had a 15 percent growth in CapEx and historically CapEx is always followed by employment growth.

6:36AI dominating the conversation right now. Here's Anthropics CEO Dario Mote on questions about a possible bubble. So this is really complicated and I want to separate out the technological side of it from the economic side of it. On the technological side of it, I feel really solid. I think I'm one of the most bullish people around, and I think it pencils out. On the economic side, you know, I have my concerns where even if the technology is, you know, really powerful and fulfills all its promises, I think there may be players in the ecosystem who, if they just make a timing error, if they just get it off by a little bit, bad things could happen.

7:17And I asked him about the vast amounts of money that his company and others, including OpenAI, are spending. I think there's a real dilemma deriving from uncertainty in how quickly the economic value is going to grow and the lag times on building the data centers that drives it. So I think there's genuine uncertainty. There's genuine dilemma, which we as a company try to manage as responsibly as we can. And then I think there are some players who, you know, who are YOLOing, who pull the wrist dial too far. And I'm very concerned. Who is YOLOing? He didn't want to mention who was YOLOing, Joe. But you know who was suggesting YOLOing.

7:58You've got to go slow with me on all the AI. There's so many of them. The suggestion, I believe, was about OpenAI. He, of course, had worked, you know, with Sam. He was one of the originals who helped create GPT-2 and GPT-3. Oh. So. None of this stuff. How's the news? I hear Google. We're up to GPT-5, by the way. Yeah, okay. All right. I don't know what I have on my, but, you know, I go, I go to the one that was least wrong last time I asked a question, and I really haven't found it. There was one yesterday that was, God, I wanted to tell you about it, too, because it was so beyond the pale. And now there's memes out that say, you know, that have a picture of a guy saying, am I able to eat this mushroom?

8:41Is it okay? And the answer is, absolutely, that's fine. And then there's another one, and then there's a tombstone, and it says, oh, I'm sorry, on further inspection, that was poisonous. And it's like, they do tell you stuff that they have no idea about. They need to, don't they need to, and they're always, the most frequent response I get is, oh, you know, now that I'm looking at things, it actually is the opposite of what I just told you. Is that going to get better? I mean, we're not even talking about generative in analysis. Look, I still get things that are wrong all the time. And I have to say to it, hey, I think you're wrong.

9:15That doesn't sound right. And then they go, oh, I'm not. I think it might be wrong more than me. Well, we should create the Joe GPT. Yeah, exactly. So we're on GTP5. 5.1. Aren't you using Google now, though? I've been playing with Gemini 3.1. And? It's pretty good. Well, you've got to go. What is the, you know, when Benioff said, oh, my God, what is it about it? Did you say, oh, my God? The video. The video. You ask it to make a video? Yes. That part's, to me, the most incredible. But text, I still think... That brings up some really sick thoughts in my mind. And now they don't want to censor anything either.

9:54So you can ask for the sickest thing in the world to see, probably, can't you? No, I actually tried to make a funny video for you. Oh, I'll bet you did. Oh, for now on. Yeah. And I tried to do something, actually, with Joe and Becky, and it wouldn't do it because copyright issues. Oh, copyright. Right. So let's say we've got a little bit more news to bring you this morning and some other headlines. New York City's mayor, Eric Adams, signing two executive orders yesterday. One bars the city from making businesses or pension investment decisions that discriminate against Israel. The other calls on the NYPD to strengthen and force in protecting religious houses of worship.

10:31Yesterday, I spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Joe, And I asked him if he plans to visit New York, given the international criminal court's warrant for his arrest and mayor elect Zoran Mondami's comments that he would arrest the prime minister if he came to the city. Andrew, I'll come to New York. OK. And that was my question. Would you come to New York, given what the mayor has said about arresting you? Yes, of course I will. And you will test that. I mean, what is the thought about how that would work? Well, why don't you wait and see? Yes, I'll come to New York. Would you want to talk to him, by the way?

11:08Well, you know, if he changes his mind and says that we have the right to exist, that'll be a good opening for a conversation. That's a great point. If he says he doesn't want to wipe Israel off the planet, maybe I'll talk. Maybe I'll talk to him. I think Trump has his back, and I think... Oh, because I think clearly, look, the federal... That's what I mean. The federal government does not even acknowledge the ICC. You see, this is just, it's something. It's another one of those funny things. Republicans love state rights until they don't love state rights. And I understand completely, and I'm guilty of the same thing.

11:44It's like, really? We can take care, you know, bring the feds in for that. So that's actually interesting. Yeah, where do you land on that? States rights versus. All depends. It all depends. It all depends on what butters my, butters my breath. Did you try to get the mayor? I bet you did backflips trying to get him to the deal book thing, right? We had talked to them for a while, mostly before the election, but he's got a lot going on. I know, but he should have been there yesterday at Dealbook. Well, maybe we'll do that in the future. We'll get him here. I want to get him here. All right. All right.

12:18I want him at this table. I have to gear up for that. We have hard gladiators. Not really, though. Not quite as bad as a line coming at us. Paramount Skydance raising its proposed breakup fee in its offer for Warner Brothers Discovery to$5 billion. Previously was just over$2 billion. This is according to a Bloomberg report. And separately, CNBC has learned that Paramount's attorneys recently wrote a letter to Warner Brothers management laying out concerns over the fairness in the bidding process for the company. The lawyers cite a recent German media report about a meeting between a Warner executive and a European Commission official at which concerns were raised about possible media concentration that could end up in the hands of Paramount CEO David Ellison and his family.

13:10Now Paramount attorneys are asking Warner Brothers to create a committee of disinterested board members to evaluate offers for the company more fairly. but you know if i've got board members and they're just you know they come to the meeting and they're just like oh another one if i've got disinterested board members i don't want them on the board you know what i'm saying am i making sense to you you're making sense to me would you would you keep them on the board if they were just interested they're totally disinterested it's like this is your job running this company i think we're the words to be independent board members.

13:52Oh, okay. I think the disinterested is interested. You're usually disinterested when I'm speaking. That's right. That's right. When I say disinterested, that's what I mean. Cheese will be next. Next on Squawk Pod, former FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb addresses the intense debate surrounding vaccines and the proposed shakeup and how they're regulated. Americans need to make a decision. Do they want access to the flu vaccine? Even if you choose not to take it, do you want it to be available or not?

14:35This is Squawk Pod with Joe Kernan and Andrew Ross-Orkin. We are here on the East Coast. You happen to be watching Squawk Box. We're on CNBC, all of those things. I'm Andrew Ross-Orkin. You're Joe Kernan. Where's Becky? Becky is on assignment as it happens, but she's going to be back tomorrow. I'm doing this. Thank you for helping feeding you in a New England Journal of Medicine op ed. Twelve former FDA commissioners are sounding the alarm on FDA vaccine coordinator. Dr. Vinay Prasad's imposing of sweeping changes to how the U.S. handles vaccinations. Join us now. A former FDA commissioner and CNBC contributor, Dr.

15:15Scott Gottlieb. He's on the boards of Illumina, Pfizer and UnitedHealth. He's also one of the co-authors of the op ed. And doctor, just get it out of the way. People are going to say, oh, yeah, gee, a Pfizer guy is promoting vaccines. I don't think it has anything to do with that. And I'm frankly, I don't know what I am in terms of where this is coming from in terms of the the anti-vax movement based on actual data and science. And I'll tell you what I mean by that. So the flu vaccine, I can see if it's 30 percent effective, why get it? But did we forget polio? Did we forget that this is a very effective way to protect large populations against really terrible things?

16:01And that's never going to change, is it? That's almost being called into question. I can't imagine a world that doesn't have vaccines. That is being called into question. But even with the flu vaccine, you have a safe and effective vaccine that can provide protection. And it's very important for certain people. It depends on the season that we're in. Some seasons it's highly effective. Some seasons it's less effective. It looks to be a little less effective this season based on the circulating strains. But some seasons you have a very highly effective flu vaccine. The issue in the op-ed that we wrote or the editorial that we wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine is that they're using their re-adjudication of some tragic cases that occurred with respect to children who were vaccinated for COVID that deserves vigilant investigation to impose sweeping changes on the whole vaccine approval process and move away from a process that we previously had in place called immunobridging studies, where we basically relied on correlates of immunity.

16:56We basically relied on the ability of vaccines to elicit an antibody response as a basis of approval. And this was very important for the ability to update vaccines that's changed seasonally. So the COVID vaccine, for example, but more importantly, the flu vaccine or the pneumococcal vaccine, where you had drift in the pathogens or the serotypes that were circulating, you wanted to be able to update those vaccines regularly to make a combination of the changes in the pathogens that were circulating. And so you relied on these immunobridging studies. And in places where you had very established vaccines, the safety and the efficacy was well understood.

17:29This was a very important approval paradigm. If, in fact, they go forward with this policy, and I believe they will try to do that, you're not going to be able to update the seasonal flu vaccine. You're not going to be able to update the pneumococcal vaccine. The studies, the outcome studies that they're asking for could cost upwards of a billion dollars. And so what you're going to do is basically hand a monopoly to the incumbents like the company I'm on the board of, Pfizer, and crowd out biotechnology companies that might have tried to come into the market with either other vaccines, alternatives that could have been lower cost or better vaccines.

18:00You're really going to thwart innovation and investment in this space. And that's, in fact, what's happening. We've seen biotechnology companies and venture capital syndicates pull away from investing in new vaccines, including a vaccine for the Epstein-Barr virus. Doctor, here's what the FDA said, and then we'll get back to just figuring out where this all came from. But the FDA, in a statement, said, the facts, these criticisms are coming, the fact that they're coming from former FDA officials who opposed raising the bar for vaccine science confirms that we're on the right track. Unfortunately, these former officials lowered standards to the point where pneumonia vaccines didn't lower the rate of pneumonia and millions of Americans skipped the annual flu vaccine due to uncertain effectiveness year to date.

18:42The American people deserve evidence-based science, and Dr. Prasad's email lays out a philosophical framework that points us towards that higher standard. We will soon release documents laying out that framework and data confirming how the COVID-19 vaccine resulted in children's deaths that previous leadership failed to properly investigate. So this is a multifaceted discussion that we're having. I'm trying to figure out where it came from. And the agencies and the administration itself is kind of selecting people that that have these these notions already. Right. Is it all coming down from from from RFK Jr., the secretary?

19:32Because even before any of this COVID, what we're talking about with kids and, you know, what probably should be investigated. but he's been like this for decades, I think. And now the entire agency is in his likeness, image and likeness, and everyone that's hired? Yeah, I don't think the entire agency is in his image and likeness. The people who he's politically appointed to run the agency and the political leadership that they put on top of the career divisions that used to be run by expert scientists but are now being run by political officials are there to carry out his anti-vax agenda. And you're right, he's been one of the most committed.

20:06Why did you say they're not in his image and likeness? You just say that they are in his image like this. Well, you said the agency. I said the political. OK, but they're hiring people that agree with the political leadership. It's a small band of people. You're right. It's interesting in that statement. I haven't seen that statement. This is the first time hearing it, that they refer to Prasad's memo as a philosophical vision. They put it out Friday as a definitive policy. Look, they're they're systematically trying to dismantle components of the vaccine approval process and make sure vaccines won't be available.

20:37I think it's pretty clear right now, and I think they're honest about that, quite frankly. I don't think they're trying to hide that at this point. That's, in fact, what the memo was Friday, and they did it under the pretext of these tragic deaths, which I think is really inappropriate. These deaths in children, if they think there's a causal relationship between the COVID vaccine and those children's deaths, that warrants an exhaustive investigation. But they tried to slip in in announcing that their re-adjudication of that data, which had previously been reviewed very exhaustively by the FDA.

21:07They tried to slip in this wholesale remaking of the vaccine approval process for vaccines that have nothing to do with the COVID vaccine. Remember, we even approved the HPV vaccine, which is on the cusp of ending cervical cancer on the basis of these immunobridging studies. This has been an important tool for FDA to get new vaccines on the market. I think what they want is no new vaccines on the market. And look, there's some people, I will give them credit, who have been very honest about that. I think the Secretary Kennedy has been very honest about his intentions. I think Prasad, not so much, in implementing these policies, hasn't been transparent about the eventual goal of what he's trying to achieve here.

21:43But we're at a point right now where there's been such degradation at the FDA. I really worry the wheels are coming off that agency at a real critical time in the biotechnology industry. Look, the tariffs have been settled. Companies, big pharma companies now have visibility on their cash flows. They're getting back into doing M &A. That's putting a bid under the market. You're seeing the IPO market for biotechnology stocks reopen. You're seeing really stunning data readouts. And so this is really a renaissance period in biotechnology at a point in which we're trying to compete with China, which is really surging their investments in life sciences.

22:16And now you have a deliberate effort to degrade the agency. And there's been a lot of departures from that vaccine review division. is going to be even more. They're going to be at a point where they can announce these policies and there's literally going to be no one left to implement them at the agency. Doctor, was there a concerted effort in the Biden administration to not be totally forthcoming with the risks for the COVID vaccine with children? Look, I trust the judgment of the people who were there. There were very good people in those positions and I've spoken with them and they did an exhaustive review of these individual cases.

22:49Remember the issue of the COVID vaccine in children, And I think we can have a reasonable discussion about how we approach vaccination in children who are at substantially less risk from COVID. But there were points in time in this epidemic when children were getting very sick. I think you'll remember in the summer of 2020 when children were getting that inflammatory condition, Miss C, during the Delta wave, when it was a lot of concern that this was going to hit children harder than adults. That certainly didn't turn out to be the case. But during the Delta wave, children were getting sick. Now, like a lot of other components to this epidemic or this pandemic, things changed and things evolved.

23:25And our policies didn't change quickly enough to accommodate that. Policymaking is slow. It's retrospective. But I think you can have a reasonable debate about what we should be doing now with respect to vaccinating kids. But this wholesale remaking of the whole vaccine approval process, that's the issue that we wrote about in this editorial. Right. It is. There's more. We really do need definitive evidence and studies to make all our decisions. And I think that's one of your problems is you don't think that's what the way things are being decided right now. Well, they're certainly not in the pursuit of definitive evidence.

23:58Look, we do have really good studies with respect to vaccines. The vaccines have been approved on the basis of the longest, largest studies that have ever been done. You look at things like the rotavirus vaccine, 60 ,000 people, HPV, tens of thousands. Even the COVID vaccine, individually, there were 40 ,000 patient clinical trials. These are large studies that we do. Once we establish a baseline of efficacy for these vaccines, we do allow them to be updated when you have drift in the viruses on the basis of immunogenicity, the ability to elicit antibodies. That's what Vinay Prasad is saying that they're going to end.

24:30They want outcome studies for every vaccine, including the seasonal flu vaccine, which means you're just not going to have it. And so Americans need to make a decision. Do they want access to the flu vaccine? And even if you choose not to take it, do you want it to be available or not? All right, Dr. Scott Gottlieb. Thanks. Appreciate it. See you later. Thanks a lot. Still to come on Squawk Pod, Andrew recaps the biggest moments from the Dealbook Summit. Where else would Mr. Beast, the Israeli Prime Minister, Scott Besant and Erica Kirk all share a stage? It was emotional and it was, you know, it was great to have Erica there.

25:09It's great to have everyone there, Gavin, Treasury Secretary, and Alex Carp and so many others.