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An “Armada” for Iran & Crypto’s Two Regulators 1/29/26
00:28:54
Meta has reported strong quarterly results, highlighting AI-driven shifts to the company’s business. The SEC and CFTC are hosting a joint conference to underscore collaboration on crypto and the digital assets market structure bill. SEC Chair Paul Atkins and CFTC Chair Mike Selig discuss the dynamic between the crypto and finance industries and making America competitive for crypto business. President Trump has warned Iran that it should make a nuclear deal with the U.S., or face a large-scale American attack. Former senior advisor on energy policy in the Biden administration’s State Department Amos Hochstein discusses the prospect of an attack on Iran over the weekend. Plus, Accuweather’s Bernie Rayno considers the likelihood of another winter storm over the weekend. Paul Atkins & Mike Selig - 8:27 Amos Hochstein - 20:15 Bernie Rayno - 30:20 In this episode: Paul Atkins, @SECPaulAtkins Mike Selig, @MichaelSelig Amos Hochstein, @amoshochstein Brian Sullivan, @SullyCNBC Becky Quic...
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- [00:00]
AT&T Business Wireless Salesperson
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- [00:25]
Squawk Box Host (Andrew Ross Sorkin)
AT&T business wireless connecting changes everything.
- [00:30]
Julia Boorstin
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- [01:01]
Squawk Box Host (Andrew Ross Sorkin)
Bring in show music, please.
- [01:05]
Becky Quick
Hi, I'm CNBC producer Katie Kramer. Today on Squawk Pod, the Federal Reserve stands pat. No major surprise from the markets waiting for the end of Jay Powell as Fed chair.
- [01:16]
Amos Hochstein
We think we're well positioned here to.
- [01:18]
Paul Atkins (SEC Chair)
Watch how the economy performs.
- [01:20]
Becky Quick
A conversation with Chris. Cryptos to regulators. SEC Chair Paul Atkins on retirement access to digital assets.
- [01:27]
Paul Atkins (SEC Chair)
We're looking to allow people to have access to Those through a 401k, through the professional management of what is allowed into their funds.
- [01:38]
Becky Quick
And the CFTC's Mike Selleck on making America attractive for crypto business.
- [01:44]
Mike Selig (CFTC Chair)
We've seen a lot of these technologies and assets move offshore and we want to bring it back. And so I think with legislation and work together between the SEC and the cftc, we can really codify sensible, common sense, reasonable, rational rules of the road.
- [02:01]
Becky Quick
President Trump issues a warning to Iran. Make a nuclear deal or brace for an armada. Amos Hochstein, a senior adviser from the Biden administration, joins us.
- [02:11]
Amos Hochstein
Not just the quantity of force in the region right now, but the types of force that we have put in the region right now are ones that suggest both a strike and a fairly significant one.
- [02:23]
Becky Quick
Plus, another winter storm on the way. It's Thursday, January 29th. Squawk Pod begins right now.
- [02:31]
Squawk Box Host (Andrew Ross Sorkin)
Stand Becky by in three, two, one.
- [02:35]
Brian Sullivan
Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Squawk Box right here on cnbc. We are live from the NASDAQ market site in Times Square. I'm Becky Quick along with Andrew Ross Sorokin. Joe is out today. Day six days in a row of gains for the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ at least the S and P is now sitting at an early all time intraday high that we saw yesterday. We'll continue to watch this this morning to take a look at what's been happening with treasury yields after the Fed meeting yesterday. You do see the 10 year still sitting right around 425. Slightly higher. Two year yield is slightly lower. It's a 357. We're going to talk a lot more about what Jay Powell had to say yesterday after that meeting. But again, the Fed holding rates still steady as had been anticipated. Not much to say there. In fact, in some places Jay Powell pulled a little bit of a Charlie Munger, I have nothing further to add. Didn't answer some of those questions that were getting lobbed his way. Let's take a look at gold prices. Another high for gold prices up another three and a third percent this morning to $5,480. Those numbers keep climbing. Same story for silver which is now up another 2.7% to 116.58. Copper prices, another huge climb here, a gain of more than 6%. 628 and change. And if you're watching the dollar, the dollar yesterday was down once again. In fact for the month we are looking at the dollar index on pace for its worth months since August of last year. Year to date the year is pretty young, but year to date it's down by 1.9%. 96:44 is the last tick.
- [04:05]
Squawk Box Host (Andrew Ross Sorkin)
Let's move now to those big tech earnings. Medicares jumping on fourth quarter results and stronger than expected current quarter sales guidance. Investors appear to like what they see despite matter giving a forecast for air related capital expenditures well above analysts forecast the company expects to spend between. Are you ready for this folks? $115 billion you can swallow hard. $135 billion much higher than last year's $72 billion. And CEO Mark Zuckerberg saying I will not only augment the company's core advertising business but also dramatically improve how workers do their jobs at Meta.
- [04:43]
Brian Sullivan
So I mean this is where it's actually paying off. They're using their own AI tools. And Zuckerberg said something that was pretty interesting on the conference call too. Basically things that used to take full teams of people to do can now be done by one talented person. So it's not just what they're doing with AI, but being able to use it internally and how that's going to help.
- [05:02]
Squawk Box Host (Andrew Ross Sorkin)
This goes to some of the comments even Jay Powell was making about AI and jobs, that's sort of the next. But there is underneath then the whole economy.
- [05:11]
Julia Boorstin
Right.
- [05:11]
Brian Sullivan
And what that means for productivity, what that means in terms for whether inflation is brought under control as a result. There is that huge debate and some members of the Fed, those who voted for a cut yesterday, not only because they are in keeping with what Donald Trump is thinking about these things, but their argument is that all of this additional technology will allow rates to cut come down, will allow rates to come down without boosting inflation because of that efficiency that pushes through. Ed Yardeni's got some really interesting thoughts on that. He thinks this is the roaring twenties and those things happen, but that you should not lower rates because it could do a melt up in the markets. And that's not what you want to see, a melt up like we're seeing with gold prices, with copper prices and so many of these other things too. It was a tale though of two very different stories for these Mag 7 stocks that we heard from yesterday. Microsoft shares on the other hand, getting hit pretty hard. Despite the fact that the company posted better than expected sales and profit and recording more than $7 billion in net income contribution from open air. Revenue at the company's Azure cloud division grew by 38%. That was just below aspect expectations of like 39% but a deceleration from the 40% growth in the first quarter. But still these were pretty strong numbers and yet you're seeing seeing the sell off about 6.6% in a very large cap stock. Stock analysts were actually waiting for Microsoft's capital spending numbers as the company races to build AI capacity. Capex in that just completed quarter was 37 and a half billion dollars. That was a jump of more than 65% from last year and higher than the roughly $34 billion that had been expected. But again, this is a case where, you know, Satya Nadella was talking about the growth they've seen there and how the growth in the AI business has been so phenomenal that it's built up to these levels that it used to take decades to build some of these units up before. You talked about. Talk to him not this year, but the year before.
- [07:08]
Squawk Box Host (Andrew Ross Sorkin)
Yep.
- [07:08]
Brian Sullivan
Where he talked all about how yeah, we're still here, we're going to be spending those numbers and those numbers have only gone up since.
- [07:14]
Squawk Box Host (Andrew Ross Sorkin)
But then throw a cloud code. Cloud code. But you know, honestly I think what's happening here, one of the things that sort of not it's not about the earnings itself But I think even the last week, the emergence of cloud code effectively, which is really going after Microsoft's business, it's not going after the open air business, it's not going after everybody else's business. They are probably the ones that are the most sort of in that, in the target and I wonder what that ultimately means. The White House is going to be hosting a meeting with banking and crypto executives on Monday to talk over the digital asset market structure. Bill joins us right now. The two key regulators in the industry, SEC Chairman Paul Atkins and CFTC Chairman Mike Selig. Later today the two agencies are hosting a joint event in Washington. Want to welcome both of you to the broadcast. We're thrilled to have you, especially ahead of what I know is going to be an eventful day and then we'll see what happens next week. But Paul, maybe I can start with you and you can help sort of set the table for the conversation you happen have later today and what you think. Perhaps I don't want to say what went wrong, but at least the pause button was pushed on the previous bill and what you see as the central sticking point.
- [08:27]
Paul Atkins (SEC Chair)
Well, thank you, Andrew. It's great to see you this morning and be with you today and especially here with my former colleague and now chairman of the cftc, Mike Selig. Well, so you know, the Congress has its ways of negotiating and obviously we have a, a bill that was adopted in the House and passed the House and now the Senate is going through its process with the Agricultural Committee and the Banking Committee. And so, you know, there's inevitably issues that come up. The SEC has been giving technical assistance to the people there on both committees now for months. And so we're looking forward to helping them get across the finish line and getting, you know, something that works for all the parties.
- [09:12]
Squawk Box Host (Andrew Ross Sorkin)
But in terms of, in terms of just on the merits, on the, on the sort of fault lines, if you will, of this bill, I can try to spell it out and maybe you can, you can respond to it. You know, one of the big issues, and we talked to Brian Armstrong from Coinbase in Davos just about it last week, is this sort of back and forth battle that's taking place between the crypto industry, the banking industry, how deposits effectively could be treated or what will happen to the banking deposits if, for example, you can get a real yield, if you will, on crypto. That seems to be one of the main points. Where do you land on that?
- [09:48]
Paul Atkins (SEC Chair)
Well, the good thing for me is that the Genius act that was passed that dealt with stablecoins, which is at issue here, is not in my bailiwick. So, you know, Congress was explicit with that. And so, you know, we're focused on issues that deal with securities tokens, tokenized securities, and so that's, that's really what we're focused on. But with respect to those issues about staking and yield that comes off of stablecoins, I'll leave that to, you know, the different parties in the Congress to work out. But we're ready, willing and able to work with whatever they come up with.
- [10:26]
Squawk Box Host (Andrew Ross Sorkin)
Mike, you want to weigh in on that, on that piece? I don't know if you have of a sort of stronger, stronger view. And then the other big one, by the way, just to throw into the mix, is there are some questions about, you know, who should regulate, meaning you, Mike or Paul, effectively, your different agencies, different elements of all of this.
- [10:46]
Mike Selig (CFTC Chair)
Well, Andrew, I will tell you that just like the sec, the stablecoin piece, the yield piece, that really is not within our remit, but we're very excited to take new authority on with the legislation that thinks the President's leadership is really on the cusp of being enacted. We've worked very closely with Chairman Bozeman and the Senate Agriculture Committee, and we're excited to see this bill go across the line. Our authority right now is, is pretty broad with respect to commodities. We have anti fraud and anti manipulation authority that covers these markets. And so we are a cop on the beat. We are surveilling and monitoring these markets. But we're, we're excited to have even more authority to actually regulate the spot markets in these digital assets. And that's very important to us.
- [11:32]
Squawk Box Host (Andrew Ross Sorkin)
I've got a question. Since we have both of you together, this is kind of interesting. There have been calls, as you know, to merge both of your agencies for a long time now, but more recently, given how well you're working together and given the administration's sort of larger view that we should take down regulation, would either of you object to merging the groups?
- [11:55]
Paul Atkins (SEC Chair)
Well, you know, Andrew, I can jump in here. You know, that's being talked about now for decades. And so I think we're beyond that. We'll do whatever Congress and the President decides ultimately. But I compare it to historically two different fortresses with a no man's land in between. And in that no man's land, there are a lot of bodies of failed and dead products that tried to go effective because many of our registrants are registered with both agencies. And so when they try to Do a product that is unclear where it fits between the two. Lots of times it just languishes and never gets approved and there's so much uncertainty, costs mount up and then people just abandon them. That's over with. We're out to, like, merge. We're out to collaborate and help people do their innovation, get to market and give investors what they need.
- [12:52]
Squawk Box Host (Andrew Ross Sorkin)
Here's a question for you, Paul, and maybe it's philosophical, maybe it's practical, and it really comes from Elizabeth Warren, who I believe wrote you a letter earlier this week that said the following. Allowing crypto into American retirement accounts creates a fertile ground for workers and families to lose big. How do you think about crypto versus any other kind of investment for the average American family out there?
- [13:19]
Paul Atkins (SEC Chair)
Well, Andrew, a lot of people are already exposed to crypto and other sorts of assets like that through their pension funds and because they're managed by professional managers in those pension funds. So we're talking about the 401ks now where, you know that, I mean, we have to do things with respect to the different markets very carefully. We're focused right now on private securities, private equity funds and things like that where again, a lot of people are already exposed to those in their, in their managed pension funds. And so we're looking to allow people to have access to Those through their 401k, through the professional management of the what is allowed into their funds, their trustees that are looking after those funds. But I think the time is right, ripe to, to go forward with that in a, in a measured way that has guardrails to, you know, protect the retirees.
- [14:24]
Squawk Box Host (Andrew Ross Sorkin)
Hey, Mike, I know you don't give investment advice, but I think one of the big questions is if this bill goes through, what does the industry look like several years from now? How much bigger do you think it. It gets? Because I think there are a lot of people who've been betting on a whole bunch of these coins and what that industry looks like based on the idea of regulation in America.
- [14:46]
Mike Selig (CFTC Chair)
We're really at a pivotal moment. Blockchain technology has now been around for about 15 years and it's really transforming the way that these markets are really developing within our remit, but really offshore. We've seen a lot of these technologies and assets move offshore and we want to bring it back. And so I think with legislation and work together between the SEC and the cftc where you can really codify sensible, common sense, reasonable, rational rules of the road for the asset class, that's going to be what it takes to allow for this asset class to flourish here in America. These markets that have gone offshore, they really don't have the same types of customer protections and controls. And so the average person is looking at these markets and cautious about getting involved in the United States. If we can set the standard, really a gold standard for crypto asset markets, we're going to see a lot of new types of products, a lot of new types of on chain markets and financial applications. And that's going to bring us into the future, make the United States the premier place to do business to, to offer digital assets and to participate in the market markets.
- [15:53]
Squawk Box Host (Andrew Ross Sorkin)
Paul, Mike, want to thank you both for joining us this morning. Good luck with the meeting.
- [15:58]
Paul Atkins (SEC Chair)
Thank you very much.
- [16:02]
Amos Hochstein
Will be next.
- [16:03]
Becky Quick
Coming up on Squawk Pod, Amos Hochstein, former senior adviser on energy security in President Biden's State Department, how he's viewing President Trump's warning on Iran.
- [16:14]
Amos Hochstein
Everybody was talking, the regime is about to fall. I said the regime's not falling because the cohesion is there. When they gave the order to go kill protesters, nobody objected. In Egypt, they objected and Mubarak fell.
- [16:26]
Becky Quick
We're back after this.
- [16:30]
Brian Sullivan
What made you confident that you could do something that hadn't been done before? I have no fear of failure.
- [16:36]
Julia Boorstin
Trailblazing women, changing the game.
- [16:38]
AT&T Business Wireless Salesperson
One of my favorite pieces of advice, think about what your boss's boss needs.
- [16:43]
Julia Boorstin
Leadership can look in many, many different forms. It really does come down to just trusting yourself.
- [16:48]
Becky Quick
Life is short and you just gotta think big to accomplish big things.
- [16:52]
Julia Boorstin
Julia Boorstin hosts CNBC Changemakers and Power Players. New episodes every Tuesday, wherever you get your podcasts.
- [17:02]
Becky Quick
Welcome back to Squawk Pod from cnbc.
- [17:05]
Squawk Box Host (Andrew Ross Sorkin)
Up and Andrew Q. You're watching Squawk Box right here on cnbc. I'm Andrew Ossorkin along with Becky Quick and the introduction of Brian Sullivan joining us this morning.
- [17:14]
Listener/Caller
Can I read? You guys were talking about something. I was driving and listening to a show called Squawk Box.
- [17:19]
Amos Hochstein
It's very good.
- [17:19]
Listener/Caller
6Am hour and you were talking about Meta's increased spending on AI. Did I hear the numbers right?
- [17:25]
Paul Atkins (SEC Chair)
It's early.
- [17:26]
Listener/Caller
I'm waiting.
- [17:26]
Squawk Box Host (Andrew Ross Sorkin)
135 billion. Yeah, yeah.
- [17:28]
Brian Sullivan
115 to 135 billion.
- [17:29]
Listener/Caller
What a, what a massive jump.
- [17:32]
Brian Sullivan
Yeah, but the street likes that the stock is up by 8.9% because they are able to introduce these tools and use them. And it is helping their core business in terms of being able to select better ads and sell things better.
- [17:44]
Listener/Caller
And I think Becky Quick said you could replace a whole team with one very talented.
- [17:49]
Squawk Box Host (Andrew Ross Sorkin)
Mark Zuckerberg said that.
- [17:51]
Brian Sullivan
I was just repeating what he said.
- [17:52]
Listener/Caller
Becky, citing Mark Zuckerberg. Yes, but that's an insane jump in spending. And I wonder are they getting it from debt financing? They don't have that much cash. They've got a lot of cash.
- [18:02]
Brian Sullivan
They have cash flow.
- [18:03]
Listener/Caller
I don't think they have that. They're not Warren Buffett. They've got, I don't know. Is that going to be debt fueled growth? How are they going to pay for that? 115.
- [18:10]
Squawk Box Host (Andrew Ross Sorkin)
Well, no, they actually do have extraordinary cash. The other thing that they've been doing, which is a little different than some of the other hyperscalers, is they actually have been working with folks like Blue Owl in the private credit space and others to effectively in a different kind of debt financing. Meaning it's a partnership. They've done a number of JVs now, the biggest one being in Louisiana where they have the equivalent of a new data center going up.
- [18:31]
Listener/Caller
Worry is Andrew Ross Sorkin worry about the private credit markets right now that it's illiquid.
- [18:37]
Squawk Box Host (Andrew Ross Sorkin)
I worry about it, but I haven't I'm not completely wringing my hands just yet. Not yet, but, but I'm anxious, but I'm always anxious.
- [18:47]
Brian Sullivan
President Trump has issued another warning to Iran, pushing Tehran to agree to a nuclear deal or face a US Military attack. Joining us right now for the latest is TWG Global Global managing partner Amos Hochstein, who served as a senior adviser in the Biden administration. And there's a lot happening right now, Amos, that I know you've got some insight into. What do you think happens with Iran? Where do things stand? What are the potential outcomes?
- [19:16]
Amos Hochstein
Look, I think clearly the administration has not only done up to all the warnings, but the amassing of force, US Forces and not just the quantity of force in the region right now, but the types of force that we have put in the region right now are ones that suggest both a strike and a fairly significant one of of wide ranging consequences. The problem of course is you can take the strikes but then what do you do afterwards and is it a joint strike with Israel or not, which I think is very much on table.
- [19:50]
Brian Sullivan
And what's the answer to that? First of all, the difference it would make if it is a joint strike with Israel versus if it is not?
- [19:57]
Amos Hochstein
Well, Israel of course has we have more of the military power, but they have more of the intelligence on where key individuals are from the supreme leader, his son and other heads of security agencies which they Proved over and over again over the last 18 months that they have that in intelligence. So that that combination is a pretty lethal one. Look, I think at the end of the day, the administration sees this. Everybody told us it wouldn't work in Venezuela, but we thought. But. But it did. We did it. We didn't do regime change. We did a regime decapitation. We took out the person. We did overwhelming power, and we told the next person in line, fall in line or we'll come and get you to.
- [20:35]
Brian Sullivan
Is that the model you think for.
- [20:36]
Amos Hochstein
It seems that this is what they think is the model. Because, you know, I was here a few weeks ago when the protests were going on, and you asked me if, you know, everybody was talking, the regime's about to fall. I said, the regime's not falling because the cohesion is there. When they gave the order to go kill protesters, nobody objected. In Egypt, they objected. And Mubarak fell, nobody objected. They killed probably 10,000 people or so.
- [20:59]
Listener/Caller
Why didn't it get more attention? Why did not a mass murder of citizens protesting for their own freedom get more attention on the global stage? It was almost.
- [21:08]
Amos Hochstein
I think it's outrageous.
- [21:10]
Listener/Caller
It was almost summarily ignored.
- [21:13]
Amos Hochstein
Well, first of all, there was nobody to blame. Right. When you're protesting Israel, I guess you're saying, don't. The United States should not fund Israel or Europe or whatever. But there is the double standard, which there always is, that, you know, we always protest Israel, but not other things. The Palestinian causes much more. For some reason, those lives matter more to people protesting on the streets, and they should matter. But 10,000 Iranians being gunned down over two days should matter to everybody.
- [21:42]
Listener/Caller
So I want to be clear with what you said earlier to answer to Becky's first question. So you are saying that it is more likely than not that the United States military, with or without Israel, will launch a strike on Iran and suit?
- [21:57]
Amos Hochstein
I think it is more likely than not.
- [21:59]
Brian Sullivan
Why would Israel not cooperate?
- [22:02]
Amos Hochstein
Israel would cooperate. I think this is their dream come true, and they're pushing for it. The question is, does the United States want them as part of the strike force or just as the intelligence provider or not? And I think that's an open question of does the United States want to do this on its own or want to do it together with Israel militarily, but Israel will be there every step of the way.
- [22:21]
Listener/Caller
What would Iran have to do to entice us to not strike?
- [22:30]
Amos Hochstein
I think it's a. If you don't want to do a change of regime, you have to do a change of behavior. And so do you commit to is this, and I don't know what satisfies President Trump, in other words, is it, I think if it's just the nuclear commitments of total dismantling this time, not just a promise we won't do it again, but is it a, is it also on the missiles? Is it a change of behavior in support of the proxy terrorist organizations Hezbollah, the Shia militia groups in Iraq, Houthis, et cetera?
- [23:03]
Brian Sullivan
Two questions. If this is, as you suggest, copying the, the MO from Venezuela where you simply take out the top commander and ask everyone else or demand everyone else fall in line, how successful do you think that is given the, the coordination within this regime to this point? And B, how long lasting is it? Is it only as long as you have carriers in the region, as long as you are kind of there to stand down and say we're watching your every move?
- [23:35]
Amos Hochstein
So you asked a very good question. And the reality is that we're not, we don't want to put boots on the ground because the president doesn't want it and the American people definitely don't want another Iraq right. Of a multi year boots on the ground. So if you kill the supreme leader.
- [23:50]
Brian Sullivan
You'Re talking about kill, not capture.
- [23:52]
Amos Hochstein
No, I don't think this is a capture. This is more of a bombing. I mean, he's 86 years old or 88, whatever he is. I think it's about taking out the leadership of the irgc, the Revolutionary Guard, the political leaders, the military, the Basij, the police. There are a lot of different security forces in order to be able to enable a uprising that delivers change from within. The problem there is, there is the regime, as you said, has many different elements. They're all very anti Western. They're committed maybe not to the Islamic revolution original cause, but to the anti Western cause. And it's a very large country with a lot of porous borders. People can come in from Afghanistan, from Pakistan, from other places to fight the fight, which is what happened in Iraq. And that was the breeding ground for all the opposition to Western forces. So how do you do this in a way, who's the next leader? Nobody can name who that person is, can I?
- [24:48]
Listener/Caller
So a lot of people may not realize about you, but you were basically the energy policy person in the Biden White House, respectfully, to the Secretary of Energy, you kind of ran the, the energy show. So I want to ask you about energy. So there's a huge conference next week in Doha, Qatar. It's the biggest natural gas LNG conference in the world. I've heard anecdotally that there's some people that may not go from the United States or they're thinking about not going. They're debating whether it's safe for them to go. Are you hearing anything about that? People canceling? And if something were to happen in Iran, what would that mean for us? LNG flows to the region, given that area suddenly now becomes red hot.
- [25:33]
Amos Hochstein
So on the first question, look, CEOs going to have to make their own decisions with their own insurance companies and whether they want to get stuck in the region or not.
- [25:40]
Listener/Caller
Would you go tomorrow? Would you get on a plane to Doha?
- [25:46]
Amos Hochstein
I probably would, but my risk, my risk tolerance and my tolerance for getting stuck and figuring it out is pretty high. But you know, people have to make their own decisions. I think the real issue and you're seeing it in the market right now is on the oil side. Iran. Despite all the pressure on Iran, despite all the protests, despite the 12 day war, Iran exports have actually of oil have actually been at their max level not just of the year but of the last decade. Over the last year they've been exporting 2 million barrels a day. Now part of it, of the lack of implementation of sanctions is because I think the president wanted $50 oil. And when the market gets nervous about a war in Iran, you can see what happens. We're at $70 today versus 59 where we were just a couple of weeks ago. So I think the issue becomes if those barrels go off the market, this is on the risk that they go off the market. If they actually go off the market, if there's action in Iran, and remember, Iran is threatening to retaliate. I don't know they, if they can, they claim they can. I don't believe them, but they may be able. They're saying we will shoot missiles at anything that moves in the region if we're attacked. When you start talking that kind of rhetoric, and again, I don't know that they can do it, that starts getting very dangerous for energy flows from that region in a way that we haven't seen in many decades. And now then that's when the $70 becomes $80 very quickly. And so that's where I think the tension here is of what does this mean also not just for traveling to the region, but for the economy almost.
- [27:18]
Brian Sullivan
Thank you. We're watching it very closely. We appreciate your coming in and any updates we'd love to hear.
- [27:24]
Amos Hochstein
Of course.
- [27:25]
Squawk Box Host (Andrew Ross Sorkin)
Thank you.
- [27:27]
Becky Quick
We'll be right back.
- [27:31]
AT&T Business Wireless Salesperson
Not every sale happens at the register. Before AT&T business Wireless checking out customers on our mobile POS systems took too long. Basically a staring contest where everyone loses. It's crazy what people will say during an awkward silence. Now transactions are done before the silence takes hold. That means I can focus on the task at hand and make an extra sale or two. Sometimes I do miss the bonding time. Sometimes.
- [27:55]
Squawk Box Host (Andrew Ross Sorkin)
AT&T business Wireless connecting changes everything.
- [28:01]
Brian Sullivan
What made you confident that you could do something that hadn't been done before? I have no fear of failure.
- [28:07]
Julia Boorstin
Trailblazing women, Changing the game One of.
- [28:10]
AT&T Business Wireless Salesperson
My favorite pieces of advice Think about what your boss's boss needs.
- [28:14]
Julia Boorstin
Leadership can look in many, many different forms. It really does come down to just trusting yourself.
- [28:19]
Becky Quick
Life is short and you just gotta.
- [28:21]
Brian Sullivan
Think big to accomplish big things.
- [28:23]
Julia Boorstin
Julia Boorstin hosts CNBC Changemakers and Power Players New episodes every Tuesday. Wherever you get your podcasts.
- [28:33]
Becky Quick
This is Squawk Pod. Here's Becky Quick.
- [28:36]
Brian Sullivan
Another winter storm threatening the east coast. Accuweather's Bernie Rayno joins us right now with the latest. And Bernie, you were the first ones to scare us earlier this week with news about this potential storm coming this weekend. Say it ain't so. Say it's going to get blown out to sea.
- [28:52]
Bernie Rayno (AccuWeather Meteorologist)
I wish I could. I'll tell you what for New York city, Philadelphia problem D.C. it probably is off to the east. This isn't last weekend where we had a 2000 mile stretch snow and ice, but it is going to be a snowstorm in a couple of areas. You can see the AccuWeather forecast. Two areas here, the Carolinas, eastern New England, back edge of the snow as far west as New York City and Philadelphia. But I can easily see how that snow area is off to your east. So you've got the snow along the coast. But I don't want to underplay this either. As the storm intensifies, we're going to get damage along the outer banks of North Carolina all the way up in eastern Massachusetts because of the strong winds. There's going to be beach erosion, there's going to be coastal flooding. And don't forget the new moon is on Monday. So during times of high tides, there's going to be some flooding. Now this will be a bomb cyclone. You're going to hear that for the next 24 hours because this storm is going to deepen 24 millibars in about 24 hours off the North Carolina coast. So the biggest part of this snowstorm we believe is going to be in North Carolina with that dark blue shading here. And that does include Raleigh, where we're projecting 6 to 10 inches of snow up toward Virginia Beach. How about 3 to 6 inches? Charlotte, down toward Columbia, South Carolina, and into the upstate of South Carolina, and also all the way down toward Wilmington, North Carolina. There could be an inch of snow. And with the wind and you don't see this much, you may want to take a picture of it. How about a blizzard? That's what we think is going to happen in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, southeastern Virginia, perhaps all the way up into Maryland and Delaware.
- [30:36]
Brian Sullivan
Becky wow, it's a lot. We will check back in with you tomorrow, Bernie, and I hope you can give us another update at that point. Maybe it's not quite as bad as we hoped, but that is something we'll be paying attention to. Bernie Rayno, thank you, Bernie.
- [30:51]
Becky Quick
That's it. That's Squawk Pod for today. As always, thanks for listening. Squawk Box is hosted by Joe Kernan, Becky Quick and Andrew Ross Sorkin. Tune in weekday mornings on CNBC at 6 Eastern to get the smartest takes and analysis from our TV show right into your ears. Follow Squawkpod wherever you get your podcasts. We'll meet you right back here tomorrow.
- [31:15]
Julia Boorstin
Clear.
- [31:15]
Squawk Box Host (Andrew Ross Sorkin)
Thanks, guys.
- [31:25]
Brian Sullivan
What made you confident that you could do something that hadn't been done before? I have no fear of failure.
- [31:31]
Julia Boorstin
Trailblazing women, changing the game.
- [31:34]
AT&T Business Wireless Salesperson
One of my favorite pieces of advice, think about what your boss's boss needs.
- [31:39]
Julia Boorstin
Leadership can look and many, many different forms. It really does come down to just trusting yourself.
- [31:44]
Becky Quick
Life is short and you just gotta think big to accomplish big things.
- [31:47]
Julia Boorstin
Julia Boorstin hosts CNBC Changemakers and Power Players. New episodes every Tuesday. Wherever you get your podcasts.