Timing the Iran War & AI on the Battlefield 3/10/26

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0:58Bring in show music, please. Hi, I'm CNBC producer Katie Kramer. Today on Squawk Pod. War in Iran? Is it the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning? Markets are reacting to every word choice of President Trump about the engagement. There will be, I guess, pressure or an inclination. To back down. To back down. On what could be the most intense day of strikes to Operation Epic Fury. How long does it go on for? How many boats can or cannot get through the Strait of Homoose? Right. Our Eamon Javers on the U.S. military dominance. The Iranian ability to fire missiles is beginning to peter out.

1:42Senator Ted Cruz on the outlook for regime change in Iran. This current Ayatollah, my suspicion is his tenure is not long. And what's the new chapter of warfare we are writing? Mandiant founder, cyber expert Kevin Mandiant says the future is here. I think the threat that's emerging right now is the shift change to AI. The technology that can think, that can learn, that can adapt. It's Tuesday, March 10th, 2026. Squawk Pod begins right now. Stand Becky by in three, two, one. Cue it, please. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Squawk Box right here on CNBC. We are live from the Nasdaq market site in Times Square.

2:28I'm Becky Quick along with Joe Kernan and Andrew Ross Sorkin. Markets turned around substantially yesterday, actually ended higher. The Dow was up by about 239 points. At this point, the Dow is off of its highs by about 5.5%. The S &P is only off its highs by about 3 % on all of this. We are coming off that very volatile session yesterday. The S &P 500 was down by about 1.5 % right after the market opened. It regained all of that ground and then finished nearly 1 % higher. Stocks caught that bid after President Trump said that the war in Iran could be reaching its end. And then oil prices, following about the biggest one-day jump they've ever seen, also looking at a collapse later in the session yesterday.

3:10This morning, they're down another 8%. WTI is sitting at 87.15. And Brent is down 8 % to$90.93. If you check out yesterday's reversal in oil, man, this was something to watch. Those are the type of spikes you expect to see happening over months, not over the course of a day or two. And we'll continue to keep an eye on this as well. A lot of this movement coming after some comments by the president in a couple of different places and a couple of different instances. President Trump speaking about the war on Iran in a late afternoon news conference. Here's a bit of what he said. In recent years, the regime and its terror proxies have launched attacks on hundreds of commercial vessels.

3:52We're putting an end to all of this threat once and for all. And the result will be lower oil prices, oil and gas prices for American families. We've done that. We've done it. We brought it very low. This was just an excursion into something that had to be done. When pressed, the president said he didn't think the war would be over this week, but said, quote, very soon. Now, earlier, and this is really what moved the market originally, he said to CBS News the war is essentially complete. And he was thinking about taking over the Strait of Hormuz. Now, Iran's Revolutionary Guard saying they won't allow oil to be shipped from the Middle East if U.S.

4:28and Israel attacks continue. On Truth Social last night, President Trump posted, if Iran does anything that stops the flow of oil within the Strait of Hormuz, they will be hit by the United States of America 20 times harder than they have been hit thus far. G7 energy ministers are meeting today to talk about trying to mitigate the war's impact on oil prices. It was interesting watching what happened in the market after the comments to CBS News. Then the markets and the oil market seemed to reverse a little bit after his comments more publicly. that maybe things were not completely over. So it's still a little bit hard to tell.

5:06It's 119 to 85 and then 85 to like 88 or something. I mean, there's a, I don't know whether the journal, all of a sudden the op-ed pages are neocons or warmongers, but they're warning that, look, it's happening. The 70 to 75 % of the missile launchers are gone. 43 Iranian ships. The UAE got 18 drones taxed yesterday down from 126 a day average over the past week. The one entity or group that would like everything to end are the mullahs in Iran, obviously. We don't have much of a stomach for this, I don't think. I was just struck by USA Today's headline that the Iran war is grinding on. It's like 10 days.

5:53I don't know what we're inured to at this point. Financial markets real. U.S. reports seventh death. We don't want any deaths, obviously. But if I guess, you know, we're going to there will be a lot of pressure. And Trump, if, you know, he has been criticized for responding to either, you know, some angst in the markets or whatever to then back down and go the other way. there will be, I guess, pressure or an inclination to back down. The question is. But I don't think it's, you know, according to some, and I'm not going to, I have no idea, but according to some, that this is something that you should finish if you've started.

6:35What is finish? Does finish mean the regime change? Does finish mean the rich uranium to make sure that they can't make a nuclear bomb out of it? I mean, I think this is, you know, that is definitely relevant to see a crowd like that. But they do like putting it on, I think, the front page. I don't know if you'd see if it was a crowd of normal Iranians protesting the regime. I don't know if you see it. Maybe you would. I don't know what the end of the what that looks like. But if you were to destroy all the missile launchers, all the drones, all the ships, so that there's just no way that they can reconstitute.

7:12I think it's probably the enriched uranium. And if you can't reconstitute it. Enriched uranium stores that are already there, can you find either a way to extract them or find a way to get some agreement? Well, if you have no air power or, you know, launchers or any ability to protect your nuclear program, which is one of the rationales that was presented earlier, that they wanted to get rid of all the conventional weapons so that you no longer... Look, the fundamental question is how long does it go on for? how many boats can or cannot get through the Strait of Hormuz? Right. Can you somehow protect them?

7:48If you can't protect them and you actually do have some kind of real supply chain shock, you can't either store the oil, people have to stop sucking the oil out of the ground, and then they can't go back and do it again. That creates a much longer-term economic impact. It does. I think, no matter what your politics are, the country, this country, for whatever reason, and the markets don't seem to say, I'm willing to take it. are not going to have a supply issue. There's a lot of parts of the world that will have a supply issue. You're already with gas of$3.50 at the pump. That's the average for the Biden administration's four years.

8:23Your idea about what you said about do we have the summit for four years comes right back to that. But here's the thing. The president in his State of the Union talked about oil prices repeatedly bringing prices down. Talking about affordability. Politically, there is a real issue about how long you can have persistent high prices. And he was elected on the premise that he was not in the war business. There's a lot of things where there are people in this country who are going to look at this and say whether they like it or not. And some people will love it. I know you love it. And other people will say that they don't love it.

8:59Nobody loves a war, but obviously, and he's sensitive to that because he called it an excursion yesterday. Like it was just a brief time where oil prices will be high. He's obviously very sensitive to it, but based on the possible positive outcomes from it. I don't know if I'd call, use the word grind for what's happening with this conflict so far. But it also speaks to how we're not used to extended strikes, if any. And we've got muscle memory from, I know it's, everything's shorter, time dilation, But, well, I guess there was a 12-day war. They call it 12-day wars. But we don't have much of a stomach for it.

9:44And that's what I think Iran is counting on, too. President Trump's picked ahead the Federal Reserve after Jay Powell, looking to gain some goodwill ahead of what could be a confirmation fight. Senator Tom Tillis' office says a North Carolina Republican will meet with Kevin Warsh. This week, Warsh will also sit down with North Dakota Republican Senator Ken Kramer, Both Tillis and Kramer sit on the Senate Banking Committee, which oversees Fed nominees. Tillis has praised Warsh, but said he won't vote to confirm any new members until the Department of Justice drops a criminal investigation into Jay Powell.

10:21He's really loving his last few months as a senator, making the most of it, no doubt about that. He was in the news quite a bit last week and the week before. Go, Tom. The Trump administration is reportedly working on a directive that would force all parts of the government to stop using Anthropik's AI technology. Axios says an executive order could be issued this week. President Trump targeted Anthropik after the company clashed with the Defense Department over the potential use of its AI. Anthropic now is suing the Trump administration over the Pentagon blacklisting that labeled the company a supply chain risk, which means that even contractors can't be using Anthropic.

11:09In a statement to CNBC, an Anthropic spokesperson said, Seeking judicial review does not change our longstanding commitment to harnessing AI to protect our national security, but this is a necessary step to protect our business, our customers and our partners. We will continue to pursue every path toward resolution, including dialogue with the government. In federal court filings, Anthropic executives said that the administration's move against the company could cut its 2026 revenue by multiple billions of dollars. I mean, the other piece of this is much a larger situation. I would think that as a country, you would want Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Google, meta to the extent that they're trying to play in this game, all of these guys to win.

11:57But right now we have two independent large language models that are winning. And one of them is the leading model right now in the country. And so the very idea that the U.S. government now, for political reasons, doesn't like this company, is trying to upend it is something that I think should concern people. Who's leading now? Anthropic. Anthropic. And what's the other one? OpenAI. OpenAI is the second, right now in terms of the two independent large language models in the country that are really the best ones in the country are Anthropic and OpenAI. And Anthropic pulled ahead in the last couple of months.

12:35But there's different things. I mean, Grock talks about how great it is in certain... Sure, but it is not even, right now it is not in the same sentence. Right. And by the way, I think we should wish a well for Grock to get there too. Right. But the point is that if you are the U.S. government and you're putting your finger on the scale because you don't like the politics of what they're willing to do. That's sort of what that's your interpretation of what's going on. Well, hold on. Once you decide you, you legitimately could say, I don't want to use this for Pentagon. But then just to decide that it's then to decide that nobody in the government should use it again across the board.

13:18The bigger problem is supply chain threat, which means that suppliers to the government can't even use it. That's a, as they said, they're expecting it could cost billions of dollars for it. Do you really want to do that? The government should never be picking, but we're back to the same old what about it. The government should not be picking favorites. It should never, you know, shouldn't pick it based on the EI, ESG, child care. Or because I disagree with you. Or because I disagree with you. It should never do it, and they all do it. So we can all agree that it shouldn't be done. When you're in a race with China and you're thinking that we are going to dominate this, why would you kick the knees out from under?

13:56I agree with that position. Why would you kick the knees out from under? You're one of your best top performers. You want the best, maybe the best one win, obviously. Right. It's a race. Right. I think that's sort of obvious. Cheese will be next. Still to come on Squawk Pod, Senator Ted Cruz on the Iran war as it disrupts global oil prices. I don't think there's any possibility that this becomes a long, protracted military engagement. You're not going to see hundreds of thousands of boots on the ground. You're not going to see us there months and then years. We're back in a moment.

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16:10Welcome back to Squawk Pod from CNBC. Here's Andrew Ross Sorkin. Dow futures have been ticking lower over the last three hours, but loss is accelerating just in the last 30 minutes, while Defense Secretary Hegseth has been delivering an update on Iran. And Eamon Javers has been monitoring that news conference. Want to get straight over to Eamon with the details? Yeah, good morning to you, Andrew. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is briefing reporters over at the Pentagon now, and he's been talking about the tempo of the war in Iran. He says that's going to increase. He says Iran is badly losing this war.

16:46Here's what he said just a moment ago. Today will be, yet again, our most intense day of strikes inside Iran. The most fighters, the most bombers, the most strikes. Intelligence more refined and better than ever. So that's on one hand. On the other hand, the last 24 hours have seen Iran fire the lowest number of missiles they've been capable of firing yet. Hegseth was also asked about rumors that the new leader of Iran has been wounded. He said that's not something that he can comment on right now. So, Andrew, as you look at the market swinging yesterday on President Trump's comments that maybe the war in Iran might be complete, to use his word.

17:30Now you hear the Secretary of Defense saying that they're stepping up the tempo of attacks in Iran. So not a clear picture necessarily of what the endgame here is or what the sequencing might be here for those people who are trying to watch and follow along and predict some sort of endpoint. Obviously, this is ongoing. Eamon, I think the big question is, are they raising the tempo in an effort to end it quickly, or are they raising the tempo because either they have to raise the tempo or because this is just one sort of piece of a longer journey? Well, one of the things Hegseth is pointing to in this press conference is this idea that the Iranian ability to fire missiles is beginning to peter out.

18:11He's saying that that daily missile count by the Iranians is going down step by step each day of the war. So to that extent, the Pentagon's suggesting here that they're making significant progress in degrading Iran's ability to fight. So how much progress, how long that takes, you know, that's all unknown. But they seem pretty confident that they are making the progress they want to be making. Eamon Javers, thank you.

18:41Now for the latest on Capitol Hill. Speaking of Texas. Iran, energy prices and so much more. We've got Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. He, of course, is the chair of the Commerce Committee. Good morning to you. I'll start with just the biggest question in terms of how we think the situation in Iran ends. There was a little bit of confusion, I think, yesterday, especially in the markets, based on sort of what was happening to the price of oil. and then the president coming out saying this whole thing was maybe complete, but then maybe reversing himself a bit. Where do you think things stand? Look, I think we're likely to see military action last perhaps another couple of weeks.

19:18What the president and the military has been able to do in the first nine days is decapitate the regime, is take out their ballistic missile launch capability, take out their ballistic missile manufacturing capability, take out their air defenses, achieve air superiority, take out their drone manufacturing capacity, take out their drone launch capacity, take out their naval capacity. It's been a remarkable military success, and virtually all the top leaders of the regime have been eliminated. The transition, I believe, is going to be moving Iran from a nation that is headed by a government that is radical Islamist and chants death to America and actively devotes millions of dollars to terrorism and trying to kill Americans, that is no longer acceptable.

20:07And so President Trump has acted, I think, boldly to prevent that. And I think we will see a new regime in Iran and a regime that is not focused on murdering Americans. And that transition, as I said, I think happens in the next few weeks? Politically, here in the United States, you know, you can see the reaction in the markets when the view is that oil prices and there could be a supply problem. And you could feel it yesterday. You know, the president, I imagine, and you may say, you know, we need to be patient. But do you believe the American people ultimately are going to be patient, especially in a midterm election year right now?

20:45Well, I don't think there's any possibility that this becomes a long protracted military engagement. You're not going to see hundreds of thousands of boots on the ground. You're not going to see us there months and then years. This, Iran is not Iraq. They are very, very different. I think the Iraq war was a mistake. I would not, not support a major and extended invasion in Iran. This is very different. These are targeted but, but very consequential strikes to take out a very direct threat. Iran over the last 40 years has murdered nearly 1000 Americans. They have been the leading state sponsor of terrorism for 47 years.

21:23Hamas gets 90 % of its funding from Iran. Hezbollah does too. The Houthis do too. Twice the Ayatollah has hired hitmen and sent them to try to murder President Trump. And so I think President Trump made a very reasonable decision that he was going to act as commander-in-chief to stop this threat to America. In terms of the oil prices, we've seen a temporary spike. I don't think it will be extended. Naturally, when you have military conflict in the Middle East, that predictably has an impact on oil prices. But I think over the long term, this will put downward pressure on oil prices. Having Iran led by a government that is not a terrorist organization at war with America will result in greater global supply that'll benefit American consumers over time.

22:13Senator, is it feasible to take over the Strait of Hormuz when you've heard the president, you know, put forth that idea? And a lot of people wonder if it's even if it's even a lot easier to disrupt it than it is like to keep it open militarily. Is that a serious idea? And is it possible to do that, do you think? Well, I have not heard a specific military briefing on the feasibility of doing so. To date, the Iranians, we don't believe, have mined the Strait of Hormuz. That's certainly something they could attempt to do. Although I'll tell you, today it is much, much more difficult for them to do that than it would have been nine days ago, because most of their naval fleet has been sunk and is at the bottom of the ocean.

22:57Now, they could attempt to use a fishing vessel or some other vessel to place mines there. So it is nonetheless dangerous. But I think the president is rightly focused on trying to ensure the safety of ships that are transversing the Strait of Hormuz. And the objective here is to have just a normal regime, a non-terrorist regime, a government that is not actively trying to kill Americans. I don't think that's a tremendously high threshold. And I'm glad we're headed in that direction. But, Senator, the president said yesterday that this is going to be over soon. We have not gotten anywhere near a regime change at this point.

23:35Are you suggesting that that is definitely the objective? We're in this until we get a regime change? Well, the president has laid out the objective of taking out their ability to project force, taking out the ballistic missiles, the drones, and the nuclear facilities we took out last summer with the B-2 bombing run. Those objectives have largely been achieved. I had been urging the president that the real objective, you know, you said we have not made progress towards a regime change. With respect, I don't think that's accurate. The Ayatollah is no longer with us. His senior leadership is no longer with us.

24:09But they haven't bowed on that yet. So are we saying we're not done until they say, OK, this regime is over? I think the administration is going to continue applying force, military and otherwise, until they get a regime there that is not a radical Islamist regime that is waging war with America. The reason for this attack was because Iran has been killing Americans for a long, long time, and the president decided it was no longer acceptable to have that threat of more Americans dying. I'm not arguing that point. My only question is the markets reversed yesterday in large part because the president suggested that we're near the end to this.

24:52If we're near the end of that, my assumption was at that point that maybe we we would live without the regime change. But you're convinced that the president is waiting for a regime change that could take a little longer than some people are anticipating. It could. I think the president is right, regardless that we're near the end of it. It is certainly possible this last a couple more weeks. But I don't think we're looking at a many-month or many-year engagement. I think this is focused at delivering on concrete objectives, and I think many of them are being delivered on already. Do you think that the new guy, the son, could he, could the regime change its stripes to the point where it was not going to try to kill america if you noticed yesterday someone said is there a a target on on the sun's head is there a bounty on his head essentially and the president said no i wouldn't say that so he made it clear that and i'm not sure whether that's true or not if if we had the chance or not do you know i i don't know for a fact either way um i do think back to the 12-day war last year and if you'll recall one head of the IRGC after another was taken out that the Ayatollah would name a new head of the IRGC and 24 hours later that individual would be taken out that happened to three or four of them I will say this this current Ayatollah my suspicion is his tenure is not long and and I'm not interested in an Iran run by an Ayatollah An Ayatollah is an Islamist cleric in Iran, and we have every reason to believe that the new Ayatollah, just like his dad, is a theocratic nutcase.

26:33Look, his dad would lead mobs chanting, death to America. And I believe him. I don't think that was empty rhetoric. And so I think it is in America's interest to have Iran led by a government that is not a radical Islamist government. They can choose their own leaders. America is not interested in running Iran, but we are interested in not having leaders in Iran that are trying to murder Americans. A lot of virtual meetings over there now, I have a feeling, not in person. Hey, Senator, while we have you here, the other big news that we've been tracking all morning in the business world is the possibility of an executive order by the President of the United States to prevent all of the government from doing business with Anthropic, which of course runs the Claude large language model.