Truth Social’s Advantage & AI Anxiety 8/13/26

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0:39Download the latest episode and subscribe at schwab.com slash market update podcast or find Schwab Market Update wherever you get your podcasts. Bring in show music, please. Hi, I'm CNBC producer Katie Kramer. Today on Squawk Pod. Is there advantage in early access to the president's truths? Those fractions of a second can be quite meaningful in terms of trading. And it's not just a theoretical problem. It's a public problem. The lawsuit claiming President Trump's truth social is giving a leg up to subscribers who pay to read social media posts seconds or fractions of a second early. Jonathan Cantor, former assistant attorney general, joins us.

1:22The True Social is going to argue that they're a public company and that the benefit to the president is attenuated because it only comes back to him, you know, as a shareholder. Senator Bill Cassidy on the newly recommended vaccine schedule for kids. So instead of two jabs, because you get one and two, we now have six jabs. That changes the guidance for parents. The committee chairman who advanced vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to his job as the top health official in the country, joins us with his take. I think with the respect of the mama, she is going to be very upset. Plus, does all this AI make you anxious?

1:59How young adults are feeling about today's fast-moving economy in an exclusive survey. It is Thursday, August 13th, 2026. Squawk Pod begins right now.

2:18We start the podcast today with two stories on messaging in the Trump White House. Who speaks for the president and who gets to hear from him first? We have special guests sitting in today on Squawk Box. And good Thursday morning, everybody. And welcome to Squawk Box right here on CNBC. We are live at the Nasdaq Market Site. Do not adjust your dial. I am Brian Sullivan. He is Michael Santoli. And she is Leslie Picker. Joe, Becky and Andrew are all off today. And we start with a headline. right from the press briefing room. White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt will leave her post at the end of the month.

2:54She wrote on X that she's leaving because she felt she cannot be the best mom to her two young children that her two young children deserve while devoting the constant time, energy, and attention required of the White House Press Secretary. On Truth Social, President Trump said he understands and respects her decision. He said Levitt will become one of his top outside advisors and will work with the Republican Party to win the upcoming midterm elections in November. No word yet on who will replace Levitt as press secretary. Kalshi has five potential candidates with odds, I guess, between 20 and 25 percent.

3:27We're showing four of those right there. Those candidates on Kalshi include the president's daughter-in-law, Laura Trump, White House aide Natalie Harp, and attorney and political advisor Alina Haba. And I know a lot of people, I get this question a lot. I know we've got a commercial partnership with Kalshi and they do a great job. But, you know, a lot of people look at those numbers and they think, well, that doesn't add up to 100%. That's not how it works. Put the odds back up. I get that question a lot. They're like, well, I look at the Calci odds and you have, what, 83 % and 15 % and 35%. They're not adding up to 100%.

4:00This is not you pick one of these four. Right, Mike? You're betting on specific chances of each person. Well, and you're also kind of having to pay a little bit for the bet, right? There's a bid ask in there. so you might be overpaying. That's how it works. As Michael Santoli would say. Santol. That's right. Santol. No A. Santol-gis-o. No A. See? I don't mind that. Go ahead. Mike's going to use that at home tonight. I know. See, I Santol-gis-o, and the third time his wife's going to be like, stop. So effective. I'm already sick of it.

4:40President Trump is being sued over his social media platform Truth Social's new service selling early access to his posts. The suit claims this gives paying subscribers preferential treatment. Who should hear the president's messages first? We turned to former Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Cantor, a CNBC contributor and distinguished law professor at Washington University, St. Louis. Jonathan, great to see you. I mean, obviously the point is to get early access, I suppose. I think the first thing perhaps to note is services like this exist, right? I mean, there are hedge funds, high frequency traders that pay for earlier instant access, let's say, to various news feeds.

5:22So what is the legal argument against Trump Social doing this? Yeah, the rub here is that the president is the largest shareholder of True Social's parent company and that he is benefiting financially from the early access. And so this is effectively, as the argument goes in the lawsuit, the president selling access to government information to traders before the public gets it more broadly. Yeah, I mean, I guess that's the idea that almost any public comments by a president are in theory official communications to some degree. I suppose that's part of part of the argument there and that that, you know, the public shouldn't have to pay for, you know, knowing right away what the what the executive is is saying there.

6:15It's it's not it doesn't seem like it's necessarily going to be a large business. Of course, there's no guarantee that, you know, this information is going to move markets in the way that people assume they would. But how do you how do you expect the true social to push back on this? Yeah, so True Social is going to argue that they're a public company and that the benefit to the president is attenuated because it only comes back to him as a shareholder. But in terms of your point about it being a small amount of money, there is no de minimis exception. Once the president makes a statement available on social media, the courts, including the Supreme Court, have said that's a public record and should be made available to the public in a manner consistent with the Constitution.

7:00So here, the argument is that the First and Fifth Amendments of the Constitution prevent, unless there's a legitimate government purpose, the president or his designees from restricting access. So in that line of thinking, you know, Trump media CEO Kevin McGurn has described the Truth API idea as simply giving customers publicly available posts fractionally faster, which is essentially, to Mike's point, the same defense that high frequency trading firms have used for their own speed advantages. So what is the distinction in terms of the fact that this is stemming from government communication specifically versus, you know, corporate communications?

7:44I think, you know, CNBC viewers are going to understand this better than most, which is, I mean, you'll have, for example, Secretary Besant on CNBC. And as he's talking, the markets will move in real time as the information is disseminated. Those fractions of a second can be quite meaningful in terms of trading. And it's not just a theoretical problem. It's a public problem. So people are going to pay more or less, more in terms of the stock price, or their stock price can go down if others can get a head start in trading. And so whereas that might be acceptable or maybe shouldn't be in the context of high-frequency trading, when you have it based on information that is coming from the president of the United States that is supposed to be for the public benefit and is communicating on behalf of the government, it raises a whole different set of legal issues.

8:37Right. And, you know, in terms of what we are used to in terms of Reg FD, that applies to selective disclosure of market moving information by issuers, by corporate issuers. Does the same rules apply to everyone? Does it apply to public officials as well? Yeah. So the public officials, there are some rules relating to public officials. They're a little bit different. In this instance, courts have said when public officials make statements available on social media, for example, that the Constitution prevents discrimination or other kinds of access that is preferential without a legitimate government purpose.

9:16So the constitutional argument is a little bit different, but it raises the same general issues. And that's setting aside the fascinating issues of insider trading, which actually aren't relevant, present in this lawsuit, but are lurking underneath all of this. Right. That's that's, I guess, a different, at least hypothetical part of this, which is, you know, there's there's the sense that these payments themselves will simply, you know, indirectly go to the benefit of the president who's making these statements. But on the other hand, you could decide to post something that might move a market in a certain way.

9:50And we don't know. You know, that could be happening already. And people have been studying various market moves in the oil markets and elsewhere based on, you know, some of these communications that have come out of official channels. Yeah, this is where it gets really fascinating. And so insider trading liability doesn't just apply to the person who's giving the information. It can also apply to the person who's trading on the information, which is what we call tippy liability. And the statute of limitations will extend beyond this administration. So to the extent that there are funds or other traders who are using this information to get a head start, make trades and make money, you could have a situation where four years from now they are investigated for insider trading both as individuals and their companies as well.

10:35And so that is sort of a latent concern that's sort of sitting underneath this surface. So folks who are using this API to trade need to be careful. Yeah, interesting. Interesting set of issues boiled into this one case. Jonathan, appreciate you walking us through them. Thank you. You got it. Cheese will be next. Coming up on Squawk Pod, Senator and Dr. Bill Cassidy with his first live comments responding to the president's recommended changes to vaccine guidance. You know, when you start just messing around with immunization schedules, you may not think you're having consequences. It is real consequences.

11:11and its consequences in terms of children dying.

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12:39Download the latest episode and subscribe at schwab.com slash market update podcast or find Schwab Market Update wherever you get your podcasts. Normally in these ads, you expect somebody to ask you to buy something, but this is something different. I'm Julian Barnes, and I'm a reporter for The New York Times. I'm a national security reporter, and that means I'm reporting on military operations. These are fast-paced, quickly-moving situations. What exactly is happening on the ground is often shrouded in mystery. But we turn to trusted sources, satellite imagery, and expertise built up over years in order to ferret out the facts that wouldn't otherwise come to light.

13:24I'm here to ask you to seek out a news source that does firsthand fact-based reporting. If it's your local paper, great. If it's the Times, thank you. Because where you go for your information matters.

13:46Welcome back to Squawk Pod from CNBC. I'm producer Katie Kramer. Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana joined our TV broadcast this morning to share his reaction to President Trump's executive order reducing the recommended vaccine schedule for children in the U.S. So in a nutshell, and you can see it through this, we're breaking up the vaccines and we're breaking them up into time periods. OK, not so complicated. And we think we're going to have a tremendous result from doing that. A doctor by training and profession who ran vaccination programs in his home state before his election, Cassidy responded forcefully to the news on social media, writing, this is so wrong.

14:31We should note here that Cassidy sits as the chairman of the Senate Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee. It's sometimes referred to by the acronym HELP. That oversees rules for public health agencies and perhaps most well-known handles confirmation proceedings for presidential nominees for health-related roles. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a noted vaccine skeptic, supports the president's guidance to call for fewer shots and change the cadence of how they are delivered. He believes there is a link between vaccines and an uptick in autism diagnoses. If something happened in the mid-90s that changed our children, and it has to be an environmental exposure.

15:13Our assessment found that the United States recommended more childhood vaccines than any other pure nation. Cassidy's days in the Senate are numbered. He was up for re-election this fall, but lost the Republican primary election in his state to a candidate endorsed by President Trump. The senator joined our team today. Mike Santoli takes things from here. Senator, it's great to have you this morning. You think it's, I guess, bad policy here to recommend fewer vaccines, different formulations as this executive order does. What are folks supposed to think about this? If you have that message on one side and then much of the medical community and others saying don't make any changes.

15:53Let's take the perspective of the mom at home. Wait a second. I'm supposed to take measles and mumps and rubella, three different shots, instead of one shot where they're all combined. So instead of two jabs, because you get one and two, we now have six jabs. And instead of missing work two times to take my baby in, now I'm going to miss work six times. And instead of coming home with my child a little bit irritated because they've had a shot in their thigh twice, now it's six times. I think with the perspective of the mama, she is going to be very upset, and she deserves to be upset. This does not take into account her reality.

16:29One more thing now, instead of the insurance company paying for two visits, they're paying for six visits. And ultimately, that increases premiums. This is bad policy on multiple levels. Bad policy. And I guess I also wonder just how this will have a chain reaction, if it will at all, in terms of those discussion of some states kind of loosening vaccine mandates for public schools and things like that. So I don't know. On one level, the president campaigned on something like this. His appointees, some of whom you've supported, kind of said they were going to do this. So where does that leave us?

17:07Actually, RFK said he was not going to change the ACIP schedule. That was a discussion that I had. But this is the president's executive order. Now, what I would tell the parents, talk to your pediatrician. There's a reason these are put into place. They're put into place because of the risk that your child will have in the future. And you can't anticipate when that risk is. You know, the best time to put on a seatbelt is before the accident, not after the accident. And if you will, it vaccines like a seatbelt. It protects you against something in the future. But this policy, just going back to the basics of it, is that now the mother has to, if you're talking about just the MMR, now the mom has to take the baby in six times instead of twice.

17:49The baby gets jabbed six times instead of twice. The insurance company is paying six times instead of twice, which drives up the premium. and she misses work six times instead of twice. This is just bad policy for that mother and her baby. So then to Mike's point, you ultimately voted to confirm RFK Jr. as secretary. And then you also recently cleared the way for Erica Schwartz's confirmation as CDC director. Do you regret those decisions? Well, so first, this is a presidential executive order. RFK told me he was not going to change the ACIP. So if you want to tell me I was somebody didn't tell me the truth and I should have like, you know, seen in the future that they were not going to tell the truth.

18:31You can say, oh, Bill, you should have seen into the future, in which case I'd be on your show talking about the futures of stocks as opposed to vaccine policy. And I anticipate Erica Swartz will do the right thing. She made a point that her integrity was not in question. And she's got the spine of somebody who's been a senior officer in the Coast Guard. She said, I don't need this job. My integrity is more important to me. In this case, her integrity, this system matters to that child's health. Keep in mind, people undermining faith in immunization has led to children dying from measles. Children who should have lived to be 84 years old died from measles.

19:10Thousands infected, many in the hospital. Some will have complications later in life. You know, when you start just messing around with immunization schedules, you may not think you're having consequences. It is real consequences. And it's consequences in terms of children dying. That should just get everybody paused before they do something reckless that they don't know anything about and that's been driven by ideology and not by actual scientific literature. If that's the case, Senator, do you think Congress should do something about it? Should it pass legislation that pairs back the ability for, you know, an executive order that shares medical guidance?

19:48Well, fortunately, there's already laws in place. Right now, there's a federal judge which says that recent attempted changes to the immunization schedule are on pause because they don't comply with the law. And so that's a good thing. But on the other hand, clearly, people just out there undermining faith in immunizations is going to lead to fewer people being immunized, which means that the illness, the death associated with that undermining trust is upon the people who actually promulgated this. Wonderful scripture, temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to him by whom they come. In this case, temptations to not believe, hey, this is really good for my child, but by the way, now it's inconvenient because it's six times I have to go to the doctor instead of twice, is going to lead to some children not being fully protected, which in turn leads to some children getting sick and ultimately some children dying.

20:40That should just give everybody a sense of seriousness about what's taking place. Senator and doctor, December 10th, I think 2020, I was in Shreveport, Louisiana town, you know very well when the first COVID vaccines rolled out, we all kind of cried. Literally, it was so powerful of a moment because we thought, okay, this horrible pandemic is going to come to an end. And we, it was the first load of shots that came out. We watched come off the negative 179 degree, you know, into coolers. Super powerful. Ran into a lot of vaccine hesitancy there. And even then, this is the first day. In fact, we didn't have enough people willing to do it.

21:20They just didn't know where it was coming from. How do we, what's the best policy to increase trust in vaccines among a large percentage of a population in rural areas or for religious exemptions, whatever the reason may be, how do we increase trust in this? Because there's a lot of deep-seated untrust among specific communities, particularly like we talked about yesterday on the show, in some of the more deeply religious communities. So first, all truth is God's truth. And so if you're able to protect people by giving them something that God has created, which is science and truth, that's a good thing.

21:59Secondly, I really encourage mamas, dads to speak to the child's pediatrician. The child's pediatrician is someone who typically is trusted. They've been there when the child is ill. They will speak to the parents regarding the importance of the immunization. And by the way, it isn't just the child who's affected. There's a recent year or so ago, a Canadian woman who was pregnant, exposed to someone who had not been vaccinated. In pregnancy, immunity decreases. And so being exposed to someone who was infected, she got infected and the baby spontaneously aborted. If you're pro-life, you should be pro-vaccine because you're not just protecting yourself or your child, you're protecting other people.

22:42And so speak to your pediatrician. Think it through. But your child's health will be dependent upon this. My life is colored. I have taken care of people who are not vaccinated, who have died from or almost died from illnesses that if they had been vaccinated, they would not have gotten. When I attended LSU, I drove a man to work who had polio and we had to get him out of the car with a crank and he couldn't. He was a quadriplegic. Now we have polio vaccine. I am afraid that it may take for some people seeing a resurgence of these illnesses, the death and disability that results to convince them.

23:21I hope that's not the case, but that's why everybody in a position of authority should be saying vaccines are safe. They are the risk benefit ratio really benefits. And so please get your child vaccinated. Senator, appreciate that message. and we'll have you on again down the road to talk about your ideas for Social Security and other big issues we're going to have to address. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Coming up, what do young adults, we call them the Gen Zs, really think about tech leaders, politics and AI? Our Pippa Stevens has the results of a new CNBC and Generation Lab survey. People never really want to see this infrastructure in their backyard.

24:01They want to think about it as some hypothetical thing that doesn't impact them And then once it becomes in your backyard, you definitely start to have a stronger opinion about it.

24:34no sifting to find exactly what you need, so you can spend your time learning to trade brilliantly. Learn more at schwab.com slash trading. Support for this podcast comes from Progressive, America's number one boat insurer. We've all made mistakes on the water, but there's one mistake you shouldn't make, being uninsured. With Progressive Boat Insurance, you can choose coverage for most mistakes you or other boaters could make, helping you float carefree all season long. Quote today, Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates, number one rating based on 2024. filings with state departments of insurance.

25:07Normally in these ads, you expect somebody to ask you to buy something, but this is something different. I'm Julian Barnes, and I'm a reporter for The New York Times. I'm a national security reporter, and that means I'm reporting on military operations. These are fast-paced, quickly moving situations. What exactly is happening on the ground is often shrouded in mystery, but we turn to trusted sources, satellite imagery, and expertise built up over years in order to ferret out the facts that wouldn't otherwise come to light. I'm here to ask you to seek out a news source that does firsthand fact-based reporting.