The Shutdown, Travel, & “A House of Dynamite” 11/6/25

0:00Bring in show music, please. Hi, I'm CNBC producer Katie Kramer. Today on Squawk Pod. The Supreme Court weighing the president's authority on tariff policy. We hear from the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson. If I thought that the executive was overstepping its bounds, I would have spoken up. Now I do it in my way. I would do it behind the scenes with the president. We work that out privately. And how Johnson's Republican majority is weathering a government shutdown that goes on and on. This really was, as some people say, the Seinfeld shutdown. It's a shutdown about nothing. But the FAA announcing a shutdown-related cut to air traffic as much as 10%.

0:42Dennis Taser from the biggest union of airline pilots tells us the impact to Aviation Essentials working without pay. Air traffic controllers, the TSA officers, they're part of my crew. Stop messing with my crew. Get this thing done so that we can get back to flying in clear skies. What do we do if there was a nuclear bomb aimed toward an American city? The Netflix film A House of Dynamite explores that scary scenario. Screenwriter Noah Oppenheim on the fact-based premise. We began building the story like you might actually report out a story for a newspaper or for a news outlet. And director Catherine Bigelow wants us to be thrilled, yes, but also think.

1:24Do we need to be living in a house of dynamite? That's what the phrase refers to toward the end of the movie. We've built this world that is ready to blow at any second. Plus, NVIDIA CEO's warning about AI competition and travel headaches. One very important key employee was able to make it back. He's here and he's looking well-rested. As the shutdown hits home. They had the ice cream. In Momdomi's New York, you've got to fly in the back of the plane. Guys like you. It's Thursday, November 6th, 2025. Squawk Pod begins right now. Stand and or buy in 3, 2, 1, cue and it. Good morning and welcome to Squawk Box right here on CNBC.

2:08We are live at the Nasdaq market site in Times Square. I'm Andrew Ross Sorkin, back from London, so it's no longer a transatlantic operation. Joe Kernan is here. Becky is off today, so it's just the boys. And Joe, I know we're We're talking about trains, planes, and automobiles. My plane made it in. But I know you've got some news here on what the FAA is thinking about. Well, not a lot of traffic. I mean, the Atlantic is pretty empty, isn't it? You sort of come up over the... I mean, it's very cold as you're flying over Greenland and Iceland, etc. But I guess it could have... LaGuardia or JFK?

2:48LaGuardia internationally. Okay, JFK. JFK or Newark. And where do I'm asking you? JFK? JFK. You came into JFK. JFK. So that could have been. Virgin Atlantic, code share on Delta. Just to give you the full details, in case you were wondering. I need more. Did you get a nice meal? Did you have one of those pods? Were you in the back of the plane? Don't divert. No, no. They had the ice cream. You know the ice cream? In Momdomi's New York, you've got to fly in the back of the plane. You know what? There's little ice cream things that come in the cup. I do. And then you have to scoop it out. Not real.

3:18But it was so hard that I broke the spoon. That's how hard the ice cream was. I'm searching when we're likely. What are you looking up over there? When we're likely to hear on the tariff scotas. Because you're right. It could be sooner. But normally it could be all the way. I read that this morning. It's like I can't wait till May or June to hear. And I'm also. Oh, there's some talk that it could be three or four weeks from now. I'm also hearing that the consensus that it is going to go against them isn't clear. I know you hear it, but but what they kept asking was if he can cut off trade completely with a country with another country and embargo.

3:57Why? How does it make sense? That was the Gorsuch question. And Kavanaugh and others. How can you not? And they used a one percent tariff. How can you not levy a one percent tariff if you're if you're allowed to do a whole embargo? It doesn't make any logical sense. I don't know. I was reading a lot of the transcripts and things that people were writing about, and it looked like some of the quotes from Amy Barrett was very negative. I don't know if you thought that in terms of the way she was asking some of those questions. She did not seem like she was a fan of the situation. Sometimes they play devil's advocate.

4:30We'll see. I think, and then the other thing is he'd probably just, the administration would just shift to something else. Whether it can use 232. Yeah, whether it actually gets dispersed back to coming, that's highly. Here's what's a typical. timeline, three to six months. Analysts in this case expect a ruling not before early 2026, given the complexity and state involved. The other thing that was interesting, Neil, like Cattell, who, you know, is suing on behalf of the small businesses for this, made an interesting argument when they were talking about remedies, about this idea of, would you have to pay people back?

5:07And is that too complicated? And he said, you don't necessarily have to decide that. You could decide to do it only prospectively. So I think that they were trying to find ways to get there. And that's why I thought, at least from the questioning, again, unless you think it's all devil's advocate. It definitely was sharply questioned. Do you want to hear the I don't know whether we've run this through NBC News standards. I just think it's in our DNA to run things a certain way. But do you want to hear what we have to say about this? What the writers on this show have? I'm going to read it. Let me just tell me what the writers have to say, and I want to know what Calci and Polymarket have to say.

5:43That's a good idea, because they were down in the 30s. While you read what the producers have to say, I will read what the Polymarket, Calci folks have to say. Because it was at 30 even before yesterday that it's upheld. So you'll probably have that. And we like them now, because they were right about everything in the election. You thought they weren't. I thought they were. No, Bill Ackman said they weren't right, and so I thought all of a sudden that was an interesting point. If Cittarelli was always 90-10 against, even though one of the polls, the Atlas Intel, had a six-tenths of a percent behind, and he lost by 13, which is what the betting markets were saying.

6:24Okay, here we go. Supreme Court. I haven't read this. Supreme Court justices hearing arguments about the legality of aggressive tariffs imposed by President Trump. Both conservative and liberal judges sharply questioning the government's lawyer on the method used by the administration to enact the tariffs. Critics have argued that the levies infringe on Congress's power to tax. The solicitor general arguing for the government called the president's tariffs regulatory and said that that they I'm not going to say the fact that because it's unnecessary and that they raised revenue was only incidental.

6:57And that they raised was only incidental. The court planned 80 minutes of arguments. They went more than two and a half hours. It's unclear when the court will rule, but the Trump administration has asked for a decision to be expedited. Some key retail names impacted by tariffs rallying yesterday. I just want to say that I thought you read that very nicely and in a fair and balanced way. I got rid of the fact that because it's, if you read any Mervyn Block. Just because you are, you know, such a grammatical. No, it's not grammatical. It's just superfluous. It means absolutely nothing. And if you read Strunk and White or Mervyn Block or anyone like that, Get rid of it.

7:33Get rid of it. Going forward, get rid of it, because at the end of the day, you'll be happy. Transportation Secretary, those are two of my worst things. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announcing the FAA will reduce flight capacity by 10 percent at 40 major airports starting tomorrow morning. What does that really mean? 3 ,500 flights? Would it change things that much in a low travel time? I don't know, but I want to go back because I told you that I was going to give you the calcium numbers. We're down at 25 percent. 25 that it's upheld. 25 percent that it's upheld. 75 percent that it is not, obviously.

8:12That's I trust that more than all the anything else. Air traffic control has been working without pay since the government shutdown on October 1st. The FAA administrator saying increasing staffing pressures are forcing the agency to act. It's unclear which airports will be affected, but we're likely to learn today, Secretary Duffy and the FAA chiefs say that they're meeting with airline executives on implementing the reductions. And experts predict hundreds or perhaps thousands of flights could be canceled, I guess, cumulatively, because I think it's thirty five hundred a day or so. You got more on.

8:48No, just giving you the just giving you the numbers. And what's the truth? They can do it another way. It's just they just shift to. There are ways that they can shift to, but they can't do it then permanently. And some of the rates, and it's not clear they could do it to every country. I mean, it becomes much more complicated. You heard my question yesterday. You know, fentanyl, I don't like fentanyl. I guess more people have died from that than in all the wars combined or some horrible number. So it is bad. Whether the trade imbalance suddenly became an emergency with every single country, blanket, you know.

9:21By the way, that was Amy's question. Right. That's what she's saying. That's a tough one. But. She said, how do you say we're having a problem with France? Because China and rare earth metals, that rises to the level of an emergency, I think, where you could say, look, everything, those things, it goes into everything just about. You could, it's almost like you could cause a, I don't know what it would hit, what the hit would be to GDP if we didn't get those metals for, let's say, three to six months. Sure, but I think it's. Around the world. There'd be a global problem. It's very difficult to declare an emergency unless the rest of the world is also declaring the emergency with you.

9:58They might have on the rare earth. Right. And then you would have done that collectively. Oh, don't ask for collective acts. And now we're going back to the coalition of the willing. We lead the world, my friend. And if you go to the U.N., there's going to be two outlier countries that don't let you do anything. I mean, you can't say anything without Sudan. How about just Congress? How about a coalition? They might be worse. How about a coalition of Congress, the voting representatives? To do Fordo? Would you have gone to Congress to be able to take out the nuclear facilities in Iran? You would have done that?

10:34You think you can possibly tell AOC you're going to do that and it's not going to? Not necessarily, but that's a totally different scenario. Well, you're just saying there are times when you can't go to Congress, Andrew, right? Well, no, but this is now a wartime situation. We're not, the rare earths are not a wartime scenario. Could be. economic war they call some people call it the economic equivalent of a nuclear war you know what we got to talk about later is the filibuster because i'm very concerned okay we will put that on the list you know when it came about 1917 it's not in the constitution but can you believe it's lasted that long because all you need is a simple majority in the in the senate to get rid of it and mansion and cinema right heroic heroic so if so you should be holding steady i am but you know why Trump is not holding steady?

11:18Because he knows next time Democrats get a majority. Because he knows he's got three years to do what he's got to do and wants to do, and he doesn't care after that. You know what he said. He said, well, that's true. But also, he said, Democrats are going to do it anyway. They're going to stack the court. They're going to, you know, anything you want to do, you can do anything you want. Climate change, gun control, with 51 votes. Can you imagine? Anything you want. You can get rid of old laws. Sure. No bipartisanship. So therefore you should be, you know, speaking out boldly. I am, except I see what he's saying in that they're going to do it anyway.

11:49Why do you say they're going to do it anyway? Because they tried to do it last time. But invariably maybe there will be a cinema if you're so happy about what she was doing or a mansion. Yeah, it looks like the party's moving that way towards the center. Welcome to New York. DoorDash is lower today, sharply lower. Earnings missed expectations, down about 10%. Revenue is up 27 % from a year ago. That was above expectations and total orders were up 21 percent. However, guidance for the current quarter came in mostly below estimates. And the company said it plans to spend several hundred million dollars on new initiatives and development in 2026.

12:27Commenting on the higher spending plans, the company said, We wish there was a way to grow a baby into an adult without investment or to see the baby grow into an adult overnight. But we do not believe this is how life or how business works. Can I just ask you one thing? Please, please. Is it possible that for the rest of the country and our viewers? Yes. That we focus too much on on what happened in New York with with the mayoral race? Or is it so sort of transformational in terms of the national discourse with where the Democratic Party is headed that it's fair game for us to continue to talk about it?

13:09So I'm going to quote one of your comrades or yours. We don't have comrades on my side of things. I'm just saying. Now you're getting confused. That's your side. Ross Duluth, a conservative who writes for The New York Times, did an amazing piece in the past, I think, 24, 48 hours now about how actually the attention that's given to mayoral candidates historically in New York is completely outsized, makes no sense, is based strictly on the fact that we, all the media, are in New York and we're all navel-gazing, and that every candidate, I mean, he goes through it. Every candidate that we described and talked about over the years as being sort of the next coming, people talked about it, never went anywhere.

13:57Bloomberg, people thought, was going to be the next president. Giuliani was going to be the next president. Even when Eric Adams took the job, this was going to be the change in the Democratic Party. This is different this time. This is different this time. So he actually made the argument effectively that New York mayors, this is the peak. We'll see whether he's right or not. David. Maybe. We'll see. It's the center of capitalism and this guy's a communist. So that's different this time. Naval gazing, I don't like that term. I don't want to look at my navel. I don't want to look at anyone's navel.

14:26To be honest, the fuzz, the little thing. It's just, go ahead. I don't want to think about it. Why'd you say that? I don't want to, because that's the phrase. That's the phrase. Bad expression. NVIDIA CEO Jensen Wang sounding the alarm for the U.S. on artificial intelligence. He's now telling the Financial Times that China is going to win the AI race. In that interview, he highlighted a potential patchwork of state-based AI regulations in the U.S. He compared that with China, where energy subsidies are helping companies use local alternatives to NVIDIA's chips, even though they are less energy efficient.

15:03He also told the FT that the West is being held back by cynicism. But shortly after that report was published, the CEO appeared to soften his stance. In a statement on NVIDIA's X account, he said, quote, As I have long said, China is nanoseconds behind America in AI. It's vital that America wins by racing ahead and winning developers worldwide. Those developments coming after President Trump told 60 Minutes last week that NVIDIA's most advanced AI chips should be kept out of China. So that debate continues. But it's very clear what he's doing. Yes, playing both sides is what he's doing. Playing both sides, but also saying, look, we're ahead now, But if you don't loosen up some of these state regulations, if you don't make it, if you don't come on our side, which would help his business.

15:49But if you don't get if we don't get with it, we're going to fall behind is what he's saying. Sure. But I think the biggest issue right now is I think he's not actually wrong, meaning there's stuff going. Even though we are ahead, sort of, there's stuff going on there now because of actually how they're daisy chaining these ships together and how, frankly, inefficient the energy pieces. and they don't care because they're just subsidizing anyway, that they can basically replicate a lot of what we're already doing. Even without the black wall? Bingo. And that's his argument. Is he arguing that we might as well sell him black wall anyway?

16:23Pretty much. I think that's where he's going. So it's all about his own situation. What else do you think it's about? Because not everyone is like that, Andrew. You're not. Right. I know. Look at how often I take risks for life, limb and everything else and employment. Cheese will be next. Coming up on Squawk Pod, it is day 37 of the longest government shutdown in history. How it's affecting our essential travel workers with pilot and pilot union spokesman Dennis Tazier. While the negotiations may be righteous, we don't have time for that in my cockpit. Plus, House Speaker Mike Johnson on the mounting pressure to get something, anything, done.

17:09Mamdami is all the rage now and the young communists are uprising, and that scares the old guard Democrats in Congress.

17:21We're back. This is Squawk Pod, today with Joe Kernan and Andrew Ross Sorkin. Stand by, Joe. His mic. Q. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced that he's going to reduce U.S. flights by 10 % at 40 major airports starting Friday, impacting nearly 4 ,000 flights. Our next guest will give us a window into the government shutdown's impact on air travel. Captain Dennis Tager, we've had on a lot, American Airlines pilot, more than 30 years of flight experience. He's a spokesman for the Allied Pilots Association Union, which represents 16 ,000 professional pilots. Good to see you, Dennis. What is 10 % to the average person that's flying?

18:06What does that actually equate to? Do you notice that immediately? Well, you know, 10%, if it's your flight, it's 100 % of your day and your plan. So it's just the numbers. And the bottom line is Secretary Duffy has repeated his sole role is to maintain the safety margin. So what we've seen are these rolling delays every day that has happened when they have staffing shortages. And the air traffic controllers, they're doing heroes work, but we're just asking too much of them. So they've, Administrator Bedford, the FAA administrator, has said that they're starting to see reports coming in, even from pilots, about fatigue for the air traffic controllers.

18:47And this is the right thing to do. You're getting ahead of something before there's an incident or an accident. So Secretary Duffy is leading in this. We stand with him. Our president of our union stood with him and Vice President Vance demanding an end to this shutdown. When it comes to the airlines, it's not a political debate. When it comes to safety and security, we've actually endorsed, along with 40 ,000 other pilots represented by other unions, the Teamster pilots, NetJets, to do the clean CR, vote for the clean CR. We need an immediate vector to clear skies and not a meandering path. While the negotiations may be righteous, we don't have time for that in my cockpit.

19:32I agree with you wholeheartedly. There's nothing that mind-boggling about a clean CR. This should have never gone this far. It should have never happened in the first place. and it should end today, take another vote. And, you know, people of good faith on the other side, on whatever side, it's only five Democrats and you'd have it. And now we're really, this is where the rubber, well, it's not meeting the road, but this is where the issues are in the sky. Are we talking, Dennis, the airspace? Is it around what we would think of are the most busy airports? Is that where we're really concerned?

20:09New York and Chicago and Los Angeles and Dallas? Is that where we need to be concerned? Well, we need to be concerned across every airspace. Like I said before, if it's on your airplane and there's a safety margin invasion, we're going to protect that. And that's going to happen. The airspace is going to remain safe and secure. But you need to adapt to it. And what Secretary Duffy is doing prior to this announcement is reducing the amount of traffic coming in. And that's just the right thing to do, because above all else, we've got to keep the system safe and secure. And I want to add a little nuance into this.

20:46You know, right now, airlines, we plan, we model for mother nature, but we don't model for government nature. And when we staff the airline for pilots, reserve pilots are there in case there's disruption or delays and a pilot times out, which is starting to happen. We fly full schedules. The FAA has limits on how long we can fly during the day for safety reasons. pilots time out, you bring in a reserve. They're already starting to use the reserve pilots that were planned to be available for that important Thanksgiving season. So we're already nibbling on a Thanksgiving turkey. And frankly, when it comes to operations, that's just a mess and it's got to stop.

21:25So the delays that we're talking about and just the whole notion of things gumming up the works because of what's happening, that puts strain on pilots that are waiting to perhaps have to step in because there's many more delays and they're waiting much longer. So there it's not just the air traffic controller. Yeah. Pilots, pilots time out. You know, I was out flying our pilots flight 12 hour days. You got about an hour and a half to play with maybe two hours. You get a delay in there, you time out. You're not legal to fly. So, you know, the areas, it's just like if you had two guests at the same time on your program talking about two different subjects, there's no way you could get it done.

22:04So our traffic controllers have stepped it up. They're coming to work. They're not getting paid. They're human beings. You know, if I had some crew member that said, hey, I just got done with an Uber shift and I was down at the food pantry getting things squared away, had an argument with my spouse because we don't have the money to pay for our family's needs. Hey, let's go fly. I would say, hang on a minute. Is your head in the game? You're trying, but you're a human being. And that's what Secretary Duffy is is is going to avoid. And we stand with him. We're not picking the political sides in this.

22:35You can't bring your fight into my cockpit. My airplane has nothing to do with this righteous and noble fight that you're having outside. But if this was happening outside the airplane, I wouldn't allow you to board my airplane because you'd be distracting my crew. And the air traffic controllers, the TSA officers, they're part of my crew. Stop messing with my crew. Get this thing done so that we can get back to flying in clear skies. All right. Well, talking to Speaker Johnson later, we'll pass along some of your comments, maybe, Captain. Thank you. Good to have you on this morning.

23:13We've mentioned it before. It's day 37 in case you weren't keeping up of the government shutdown. Join us now. House Speaker Mike Johnson. Mr. Speaker, it's good to have you on this morning. Good morning. Not a great day in America because of the shutdown, but I'm always happy to be with you. and happy to be with you. We had Senator Britt on a little bit earlier talking about some of the efforts from that chamber. I realized you can't break a log jam without having conversation. And so sitting down with Senator Schumer and talking about that we really need to get back to doing the work of the American people.

23:49I know you're willing to talk and try to get this thing ended, but it's really up to the Senate. What do you think of these ideas of a couple of the appropriations bills that have already passed? You could put it on the clean CR. That was her idea, but I don't think there was an Obamacare subsidy extension being talked about. Would that induce any Democrats to cross over finally and vote for the CR, those other appropriations? Well, my dear friend, Senator Britt and others are doing a great job over there. The Republicans are working hard with a few handful of moderate centrist Democrats who are left, who understand the pain that's being inflicted on the American people, and they want a way out of this.

24:35The Democrats have painted themselves into a corner, Joe, as we've discussed before, because this really was, as some people say, the Seinfeld shutdown. It's a shutdown about nothing. There was no fight. There was no skirmish between the parties. When we passed back on September 19th the clean continuing resolution, it was nonpartisan. You know, it's 24 pages in length, bare bones just to keep the lights on. And this is an important point. The whole reason for that is because the Republicans and the Democrats who are appropriators got together and said, we're running out of time to do the normal process, the regular order of funding the government.