The CDC’s Vaccine Advisors & the PA Governor on LA Protests 6/10/25

0:00Bring in show music, please. Hi, I'm CNBC producer Katie Kramer. Today on Squawk Pod. Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, his state making a major deal with Amazon, and he weighs in on the civil unrest pitting another Democratic governor in California against the White House. I think it is important that police in the communities are the ones that are stopping the violence and restoring order. Trade talks with China reach a second day. We're not friends. We have to do business with them, though, because the global economy depends on it. What's at stake? Long-term China business consultant James McGregor joins us from Beijing.

0:41What we have here are two very different systems that are successful in their own way, but they're incompatible with each other when they get out into the international marketplace. Plus, Meta in the AI race. And Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fires an entire panel of vaccine experts. He may have fanned the flames of the COVID vaccine, but the COVID vaccine in and of itself has become very controversial regardless of him. This has been a long-term project for him with vaccines. It's Tuesday, June 10, 2025. Squawk Pod begins right now. Stand Becky by in three, two, one.

1:21Cue it, please. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Squawk Box right here on CNBC. We're live from the NASDAQ market site in Times Square. I'm Becky Quick, along with Joe Kernan. Andrew is off today. U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has removed all members of a panel that advised the CDC on how to use vaccine and says that he will replace them with his own picks. Kennedy claimed the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices has been plagued with persistent conflicts of interest, though committee members undergo vetting before they're ever appointed and they are required to disclose conflicts.

1:58One member of the panel told the Associated Press that he and others got an email late yesterday saying that they'd been terminated with no reason given. Louisiana Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, who is also a physician, responded to the news on X. In February, Cassidy said that Kennedy had promised to maintain the panel, that panel without making changes, which is part of the reason that Cassidy agreed to vote for him and support him. In his ex-post yesterday, Cassidy said, of course, now the fear is that the ACIP will be filled up with people who know nothing about vaccines except suspicion.

2:31I've just spoken with Secretary Kennedy, and I will continue to talk with him to ensure that this is not the case. But again, he's got those promises to Cassidy ahead of time. He has a journal posted an op-ed from Robert F. Kennedy and you figured he would be able to at least make his case. He says some of the 17 were just recently appointed by Biden in the last year. He says that whatever you think either pro or con that there is a very big gap in how the public views the pharmaceutical industry. In large part because of Senator Kennedy, because of RF Kennedy's own. I don't think he had nothing to do with, I mean, he may have fanned the flames of the COVID vaccine, but the COVID vaccine in and of itself has become very controversial regardless of him.

3:26But this has been a long-term project for him with vaccines and saying that it causes autism. And autism and everything else. It says that if they hadn't done it now, they would have had to wait till 2028 to reconstitute the panel. It just says that that's when they would have been. Without removing the current members, the current Trump administration would not have been able to appoint a majority of new members until 2028. So I don't know what kind of, you know, he walks the line between his anti-vax history and reputation and says he's not really like that. But then there are times when he then seems to show his two colors once again.

4:11I know a lot about molecular biology, everything else. I don't see that the messenger RNA, I don't see that as a negative. I think it's a way of upgrading software very quickly for new pathogens. And I think it served us well during the pandemic. And then again, I'm not sure what to think of the, in terms of how many vaccines kids get by the time they're five years old. I mean, is it, do you know how many it is? It's a lot. It's a lot. My kids are fully vaccinated. Right. It's a lot. And it's nice to, for the body and the immune system to see these things early and get a head start. But then again, you're asking your immune system to do a lot of things that we don't completely understand what some of the long term effects of some of the things.

5:04I guess. But, you know, we've been fortunate enough to be able to forget how terrible some of these diseases are. Things like polio, things like measles, things like the mumps. Well, take COVID for things. We don't know. COVID, the COVID vaccine. There are some negative long term effects on certain people. I don't know. On certain people. I hope that I don't have myocarditis. I mean, I took two or three of those. That was the risk factor. That's the risk. Especially for young men, young boys. Right. Did they need the vaccine? Did young people who could have, you know, I remember when I had COVID the first time, the flu I had two months later was 10 times worse.

5:45Yeah, except for it depends on the variant. Our 22-year-old daughter got Delta. But did young healthy. She is a marathon runner who couldn't walk up a flight of stairs. But did young, healthy people need it as much as really okay? My argument would be, depending on the variant, then depending on when you get it. Right. We have gotten, I don't know, I think Kennedy thinks we're over-medicated across the board. And then the pharmaceutical industry is a huge lobbying group. And, you know, they spend a lot of their money with showing me Broadway productions of people dancing around. that have nothing to do with what they're selling.

6:23I don't think Kennedy has shown the evidence that this stuff is as bad as he says and claims in a lot of ways either. But, yeah, he's going to look at food safety and dyes and for whatever reason, and he's probably right. I agree with him on some of the things that are. He's right in terms of the health. By the way, that's what the Democrats are in terms of a nanny state. Right, but people in this country are less healthy than a lot of other countries. I agree. There's a lot of reasons for it. There are. I'm not opposed to going after the food industry to say we don't need some of these things in it.

6:58We should have healthier foods. We should have more whole foods in favor of all those things. But by the way, that is not what the Republican, a traditional Republican would say in terms of the nanny state and saying what you can and can't do. Well, look, I don't like him, you know, looking at scans like McDonald's. You know, that's where I draw the or Taco Bell. It's like chill. You know, once in a while. Warren, Cherry Coke, 80, 95. The hilarious thing has been watching RFK Jr. eat some of this on Air Force Base. Yeah, where he's like, yeah, kind of like gagging on a duck. Here you go. Have another Big Mac.

7:34But I do wonder what the implications are of this. We'll see more about it. But and watching Cassidy, Senator Cassidy is a good one as a physician. as a Republican. He's not somebody who is taking any of this lightly. An additional 2 ,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines are headed to Los Angeles as California clashes with the White House over Trump administration immigration policies. The state sued the Trump administration yesterday, arguing the deployments violate federal law and state sovereignty. Meanwhile, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem pledged to carry out even more operations to detain suspected immigration violators.

8:15That crackdown is what first sparked protests several days ago. It was a little weird reading where, you know, how the efforts, the ICE efforts got ramped up. Apparently, someone told either Stephen Miller or the president that the Trump administration was lagging far behind the Biden administration in what they had deported in the last year. So what the Biden administration was averaging per month in his last year, it was far behind what they had done, which we didn't hear a lot about that as that was happening. And then that's when they decided we need to. There's a good I don't know if you hate the Wall Street Journal.

8:57Fine. If you don't, there's a good lead editorial just about here you go, Gavin, this is your issue. with people seeing, you know, basically a lot of the same demonstrators, rioters in a lot of cases, that every time they get a chance, whether it's, you know, take your pick for whatever cause. I mean, Greta Thunberg was just pulled off a boat going to the Gaza Strip. I thought she was acclimated. But people love to protest. And these are some of the worst that are out there. And they're burning American flags. They're waving Mexican flags. They're breaking windows. They're looting. They're burning cars.

9:31and we're supposed to believe that it's the National Guard's fault or Trump's fault. I mean, did you read the... I was laughing at the New York Times for a couple of reasons, but that's how they characterize it. Trump leaps at chance for a clash in California. And that's what Chuck Schumer said. But this is the one that really cracked me up. Democrats see some positive in Trump's bill. They like the tax-exempt tips and the overtime. The two things you hate more. The favorite Democrat. You've got to get your priorities straight here. You have no idea what I think with this stuff. I don't like it either.

10:14I don't. I mean, it's giveaways. And it's just adding. It's giving ways that add up to the deficit and the debt. It's 100 to nothing on the tips. It's ridiculous because nobody wants to take a stance, an unpopular stance. the stance that's not populist by the definition of it and say that we should not be doing this if you are concerned about how we fiscally run things. By the way, we have Josh Shapiro on today because this is interesting for the Democrats to have the governor of Pennsylvania, who's much more moderate than Gavin Newsom, to have somebody like Rahm Emanuel, who is much more moderate, and to have somebody even like Andrew Cuomo.

10:50All of them are talking about this from a very different perspective Devin thinks that the Newsom wing of things is taking this terrible direction. It's a losing argument. I'm going to listen carefully to what the governor says. Because moderate Democrats are searching for a message. Right. And Gavin Newsom would not be their face, I would think, at this point. But again, Governor Shapiro will be joining us just a little later this morning in the program. Mark Zuckerberg reportedly making a new push to try and achieve artificial general intelligence. Bloomberg says that the Meta CEO has been frustrated with this company's progress in the AI race so far and is putting together what's being called a super intelligence group inside Meta.

11:34The report says that Zuckerberg's goal is to beat other tech companies to reaching the point where AI can perform as well as humans do so that it can incorporate the technology into its range of products. According to reports over the last few days, Meta is in talks to invest billions of dollars in an AI startup, Scale AI. Bloomberg says that Zuckerberg is personally working to recruit dozens of people for Meta's new effort, driven by frustration over the response to the latest version of the company's Lama large language model. It's very similar to what we've heard from Sergey Brin getting kind of reinvigorated by this a year or two ago, a couple of years ago, actually, and building up and spending a lot running that team himself.

12:14AI is definitely the thing that has all these original coders super excited, super competitive about. And Zuckerberg's apparently moving desks in the office so that all of these people can sit right by him. Well, hurry up. It'll be interesting to see. It is breaking. It seems quantum. Like you made that quantum leap. And now we're really moving quickly. We'll see. It's amazing now. I am impressed at times. I am too. Yeah. Like, wow, how does that work? Cheese will be next. Coming up next on Squawk Pod, Pennsylvania's Governor Josh Shapiro. He weighs in on the protests and the federal involvement happening across the country in Los Angeles.

13:00I think it's also really important to make sure that our military personnel are not engaged in local law enforcement activities that, quite frankly, they're not trained for. and the doctrine of posse comatitis makes it really something that they should not engage in, but for the most extreme circumstances. Demonstrations, democracy, and state sovereignty right after this.

13:32This 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. Andrew is off today. Amazon announcing plans to invest$20 billion in Pennsylvania to build high-tech cloud computing and AI campuses across the state, hoping to create over 1 ,200 jobs. Join us now, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro. Is this the biggest ever private investment in Pennsylvania, Governor? The biggest ever by a factor of three. And I think it's important to note that this is just an initial investment coming from Amazon of at least$20 billion.

14:14So this is going to grow. Pennsylvania is going to be better off. I think America is going to be better off because we're going to win the battle of AI supremacy. And it's going to be done right here in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. So since 2010, Amazon has invested$26 billion. So that's with the$20 billion we're talking about now or they've already done that? With the initial investment here of$20 billion at these two sites, and again, it's going to grow. We anticipate creating nearly 10 ,000 construction jobs, about 1 ,250 permanent jobs just in these two facilities alone. And the Commonwealth is investing in this deal not by providing any funding to Amazon, but actually investing in workforce.

15:01So we've created a nexus between our community colleges in the area, our high schools in the area, to be able to train students, to be able to train folks, to be able to go and work directly in these AI facilities. This is a win all around. Amazon is going to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in local taxes to support our local police, our local schools, parks and trails, roads and bridges, things that are going to enhance our communities. and I think Pennsylvania is going to be better off for it. This is the biggest private sector investment deal by a factor of three in the history of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

15:38We got it done here. Pennsylvania is open for business. Amazon spreads it around a little. I think you're the eighth, number eight on the list of states that are getting big investments from Amazon. Governor, do you remember when... The biggest, the biggest. Do you remember when we were going to get some in New York and who did it? I think AOC decided that there shouldn't have been tax breaks or something that she thought it meant that trying to figure that it was almost like money being given away to Amazon. Instead, it was just really sort of a it was an inducement for the company to come. Have you had to give away the farm to get Amazon to invest in?

16:17Are you subject to criticism from someone like Congressman Cortez? Go ahead. As I just said a moment ago, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania did not provide any cash incentives to Amazon here at all. Zero. We are investing$10 million in workforce development. And I want to tell you, those dollars are going to our community colleges. Those dollars are going to union apprenticeship programs. Those dollars are going to other training programs because we want to make sure our workforce gets the skills they need to be able to work in a facility like this. You know, yesterday I was in Luzerne County with the folks from Amazon making this announcement.

16:57This is a community that over time has been hollowed out, that's been desperate for job creation. And we delivered that yesterday, and that was only one of the sites that we announced. Now the important thing is making sure we give the skills to those who live in Luzerne County, love Luzerne County, this rural, wonderful county in Pennsylvania, so they can stay in the community that they love and they can work and be a part of this. Listen, Pennsylvania has a rich tradition when it comes to innovation and when it comes to leading the world. It was the people who went down in the coal mines who created the energy we needed to be able to win battles overseas and to be able to provide for people here at home.

17:40It was our blast furnaces and our steel mills that helped create the weaponry that made up the arsenal of democracy. We now face the next big national security test in this nation. And that is, are we going to win the battle of AI supremacy or are we going to cede the ground to China? I do not want to cede anything to communist China. I want to win here in America. And the way we win here in America is with the hands of Pennsylvania workers, just as we've done throughout our history. So we're investing in Pennsylvania workers. We are thrilled to have Amazon here helping us in this battle of AI supremacy.

18:18And there's a whole lot more to come. Governor, I'm reading everywhere in the notes, moderate. I see moderate. They never just call you a Democrat. They always call you a moderate. So there's a couple of things I'd like to get your... I don't... Go ahead. Listen, I don't believe in these labels. I believe in common sense governing. You know, I'm the governor of the ultimate swing state in the nation. And by the way, a governor who earned more votes than anybody in the history of Pennsylvania running for governor. I say that not to pat myself on the back, but I say that with purpose. And that is the only way you earn those votes is by getting, yes, of course, Democratic votes from my party, but also getting a whole lot of votes from independents and Republicans.

19:01And I've tried to stay true to that as I've governed. Bring Republicans and Democrats together to get stuff done. But we've heard about some of the hand-wringing in circles about the Democratic Party at this point. So maybe, you know, you're a good person to talk about. We could talk about a couple of things. Your preference, whatever is the most pressing issue that we talk about. Anti-Semitism on college campuses and the way it's being handled with the Trump administration. then again I look at what Governor Newsom and this kerfuffle between the governor and some local politicians out there in the Trump administration with the National Guard.

19:43I just wonder, and I don't know how you feel about ICE and immigration, but if you had government agents that were at risk and you had some of the things that we've seen happening out in California, would you have called in the National Guard in Pennsylvania? would you have tried to help what was going on? And then if the president found the need, would you have said it's your fault that all this is happening? I just don't think that's a winning issue. If I was going to give advice to Democrats, I'd say, you know, you're lost in the woods again. Well, let me say at the top very clearly and very succinctly, violence has no place in our communities, period.

20:25No ifs, ands, or buts. There must be order in communities. And by the way, you can have order and you can still allow for peaceful protest. That is the American way. So there is no question violence is unacceptable, period. I think the question you're asking, the underlying issue here is who is best equipped to create order to tamp down violence in a community? Look, I'll speak for us here in Pennsylvania. I take very, very seriously the leadership role I have of the Pennsylvania State Police and that I am the commander in chief of the Pennsylvania National Guard. I've deployed our guards people here inside the boundaries of Pennsylvania after, say, a natural disaster.

21:10They do great work. I've also deployed our National Guard troops to the southern border to work with our federal partners to make sure the border is secure. I share that with you because I want you to know we've been involved in both federal and state-run operations. The key to all of that is making sure you have organized communication between the federal government and the state government. I think it's also really important to make sure that our military personnel are not engaged in local law enforcement activities that, quite frankly, they're not trained for. and the doctrine of posse comatitis makes it really something that they should not engage in, but for the most extreme circumstances.

21:52I think it is important that police in the communities are the ones that are stopping the violence and restoring order. I think it's also not helpful when the leaders of the federal government and state government are pointing fingers at one another. So we focus on making sure that people are safe, first and foremost, that our police have the tools that they need to keep our community safe, that our military, our guards people do the things that they are trained for. And I take my role, my responsibility as a governor, quite serious in that space. Governor, let me just take that a step further.

22:25What do you think of what Governor Gavin Newsom is doing right now in California? Well, I think it is important that the federal and state government in California get on the same page, work together to stop the violence, work together to make sure that those who are sent to the streets to deal with the violence are properly trained, have the skills that they need, and are part of a unified command structure. It's incredibly dangerous to send our troops into a situation where there is not a unified command structure. By the president making this call to federalize the Guard without the permission and without the consultation with the local governor, I think that that creates a situation that is rife for miscommunication and rife for potential conflict.

23:18I think what we need to do is turn down the temperature there, stop pointing fingers, make sure the people who have the skills necessary to restore calm and order and deal with violence are the ones on the front lines. So is the governor right to be suing the federal government for sending in the National Guard? Look, I think that's a question for Gavin Newsom, and I've not seen his lawsuit. I've not seen the nature of his complaint. I think that's a question for the governor of California. I'm telling you how we do it here in Pennsylvania, how seriously I take my responsibility as commander in chief and how we work together with our federal partners on deployments.

23:57I would not want the president coming in here to Pennsylvania and taking our National Guard without consultation with me, the commander in chief of the Pennsylvania National Guard. There are ways to facilitate the kind of coordination and communication that's necessary to make sure we have order in our communities and to protect our soldiers, to protect our guards, people to protect our police who are on the front lines. I know you maybe University of Pennsylvania is more within your purview, but I don't know if it's fixed in terms of anti-Semitism. I certainly don't think Harvard's fixed. Things keep happening.

24:32I mean, you're living proof of some of the worst things that have happened. But I mean, it's almost I mean, it probably more than weekly. But the things that we see in the headlines that are really just beyond the pale in terms of, you know, just horrific and horrendous. How would you fix Harvard? Do you think Harvard's fixed at this point? I just I don't see any evidence that that I would feel safe if I were a Jewish student at Harvard. I would not feel safe right now if I went there. Well, let me say I'm speaking to you today from a college campus. I'm on Penn State Abington's campus as we conduct this interview.

25:12And I will tell you, I think Penn State, largest school in our Commonwealth, has done a wonderful job creating space for students to peacefully protest, but also making sure that hatred and bigotry do not carry the day on a campus, that Jewish students can get to campus free of any sort of anti-Semitic fueled violence, that they're able to live out their time as a student, that the legal responsibilities on a chancellor, on a college president, are upheld. We've seen that at Penn State. And I will tell you that as it relates to the University of Pennsylvania, which I think was part of the top of your question there, I literally just met last week with the president of the University of Pennsylvania, and we continued our conversations in this space.

25:58I will tell you, I think they've made a lot of improvements from where they were before. It is incredibly important that every single student on campus, regardless of what they look like, where they come from, who they love, who they pray to, has the ability to go to class, get to their dorm room and be able to participate in campus life free of violence, free of threats. That is both a legal responsibility here in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and across the country, and it's a moral responsibility. And I do think some of the universities got out of whack, especially last year, and they are now correcting for that.

26:38And it is important that those corrections continue. As I said before, there is a place in this country for peaceful protest. What there is not a place for is violence. What there is not a place for is chaos on our campuses. What there is not a place for is targeting someone because of how they pray. I think at this moment in time, leaders from governors to university presidents all have a responsibility to speak and act with moral clarity and universally condemn anti -Semitism. When we do not condemn anti-Semitism, when we do not condemn other forms of hatred and bigotry, it leads to the kind of political violence that we've seen throughout this Commonwealth and throughout this country.