Bitcoin’s Bump, an AWS Outage & a Jewel Heist 10/20/25

Summary

Squawk Pod Episode Summary: "Bitcoin’s Bump, an AWS Outage & a Jewel Heist"

Podcast: Squawk Pod by CNBC
Date: October 20, 2025
Hosts: Joe Kernan, Becky Quick, Andrew Ross Sorkin
Notable Guests: Anthony Scaramucci (SkyBridge Capital), Sean Duffy (U.S. Transportation Secretary, Acting NASA Administrator)

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Overview

This episode covers a volatile Monday in the markets with a focus on the spike in Bitcoin’s price, a major overnight AWS outage and its ripple effects, and a cinematic jewel heist at the Louvre. Senior U.S. officials and market commentators discuss ongoing government shutdown impacts, critical infrastructure, and America’s space agenda. Anthony Scaramucci provides in-depth analysis of Bitcoin’s changing investor landscape, the future of blockchain, and the enduring power of the U.S. dollar.

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Market Recap and Notable Moves

Segment: 02:27–03:43

• Stock Market Performance:
  • Markets had their strongest week since August, with all major indices less than 2% off all-time highs.
  • Treasury yields: 10-year at 4.01%, 2-year at 3.47%.
  • Gold continued its extraordinary run—up 62% YTD, now at $4,274/oz (+1.4% on day).
  • Bitcoin surged nearly 2% to $111,000.
  • The VIX (volatility index) had spiked to 28.99 Friday, its highest since April, but fell to 20.79 by showtime.
  • “Last week…all the news and the concern and the fraught markets actually had a pretty good week.” – Becky Quick (02:27)

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AWS Outage: Internet Infrastructure on the Edge

Segment: 03:43–06:37

• Major Websites and Services Down:
  • Amazon Web Services suffered a widespread outage overnight, impacting platforms like Perplexity, Snapchat, Disney Plus, Coinbase, Robinhood, Verizon, Wall Street Journal, and the McDonald’s app.
  • Airline travelers couldn’t access reservations or check bags.
• Timeline:
  • Issues began at 3:11am ET in AWS’s east region; by 5:30am, signs of recovery were reported.
• Impact on Broadcast:
  • Guest interviews via Zoom were potentially disrupted.
• Key Insight:
  • “When you talk about resiliency and just how important these services ultimately are to our entire lives. It’s quite incredible.” – Andrew Ross Sorkin (04:36)

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Social Media Moment: RFK Jr. & Cheryl Hines Go Viral

Segment: 04:58–06:25

• RFK Jr. and wife Cheryl Hines spotted sitting in coach on an economy flight—social media abuzz with their accessibility (“118,000 likes”).
• Light banter about their seating choice and celebrity status.
• Noted for humanizing high-profile figures: “They’re just like us. You know, that page in Us magazine, just like us.” – Andrew Ross Sorkin (05:43)

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Jewel Heist at the Louvre: Out of the Movies

Segment: 08:51–12:14

• During regular hours, thieves used a lift and basket to break into the Louvre, smash a window, and steal a crown with 1,300 diamonds.
• The crown was later found outside; the museum is grappling with overcrowding and staffing shortages.
• Extended riff on the futility and oddity of owning priceless artifacts you cannot display.
• “If you take out the individual stones and ruin that thing, you should get the death penalty.” – Joe Kernan (09:41)
• “Any beautiful thing…is less beautiful and less special if you don’t have people to share it with.” – Becky Quick (11:41)
• “This is not cool, man. Right.” – Joe Kernan (12:28)

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Government Shutdown: Airports in Crisis, Staffing Shortages

Segment: 14:45–17:41

• 20 Days In:
  Air traffic controllers working without pay, using more sick leave; some seek side jobs such as Uber.
• Quote:
  “A lot of them have made the point they have to find other ways to feed their families, whether they're going to drive Uber or find some short term employment.” – Sean Duffy, Transportation Secretary (15:08)
• Upcoming Disruptions:
  Next scheduled paycheck for controllers is a week away. Significant disruptions likely if shutdown persists.
• On the Stalemate:
  “Republicans have said…let’s do a clean CR. Democrats…want to negotiate on health care, specifically health care for illegals…Democrats have to come to the table, stop holding the economy hostage.” – Sean Duffy (15:50)
• Staffing Crisis:
  FAA short by 2,000–3,000 controllers.
• TSA in the Same Boat:
  “Once more Americans become sick of the hassle…that’s when the pressure comes.” – Sean Duffy (17:36)

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Transportation Dept. Policies and NASA’s Race to the Moon

Segment: 18:27–22:44

• Trucker English Proficiency Rule:
  • California only state not enforcing federal rule; $40 million in funding withheld pending compliance.
  • Licensing issues tied to unauthorized residents and safety concerns.
• NASA Under Duffy:
  • Focus pivoted from climate research back to human space exploration.
  • Moon Missions: Artemis 2 (around the Moon) moved up to February 2026; Artemis 3 (moon landing) contract opened due to SpaceX delays.
  • U.S. in “race against China”—if Blue Origin can deliver sooner, they’ll get the job.
• Quote:
  “There’s only one [agency] that does human space exploration and that’s NASA. And that’s what we’ve refocused on.” – Sean Duffy (21:09)

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World Champion Lumberjack: Sean Duffy’s Unique Distinction

Segment: 22:44–25:40

• Duffy recounts winning both 60- and 90-foot pole-climbing events—16 sec to climb, 4 sec to descend.
• Colorful banter about the Americana roots of lumberjack competitions; invitation to finance future competitions.
• “I was a lot younger and a lot thinner back in the day.” – Sean Duffy (24:06)
• “We’re not built for it, Joe. We’re not. I wish we were.” – Andrew Ross Sorkin (25:44)

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Bitcoin’s Trajectory & The Future of Digital Assets (w/ Anthony Scaramucci)

Segment: 27:37–38:29

Bitcoin & Market Dynamics

• Bitcoin up, revisiting $111,000.
• Scaramucci: Still correlated with risk assets; long-term holders (“whales”) cashing out, institutions rotating in.
  • “If you were a long term holder of bitcoin, you bought it 10 years ago, you get to the $100,000 number. A lot of guys look at that and say, okay, that was my number.” – Anthony Scaramucci (29:15)
  • Predicts bitcoin gets “sturdier” as institutions take over from OG whales.

Bitcoin vs. Gold

• Gold up 60% YTD; bitcoin underperformed gold’s run (if it had tracked gold’s gains, would be $150,000).
• Market cap: Gold $29T, Bitcoin $2.2T.
• If Bitcoin reached gold parity: $1 million/coin.
  • “If you just took the two assets…if bitcoin were to be in line with gold, it would be about $151,000 right now.” – Anthony Scaramucci (35:03)

U.S. Dollar’s Strength

• Unconcerned about “debasement” argument.
  • “I think the US dollar is going to be the fiat currency, the reserve currency for the next 50 [years]. More dollars and a growing economy. Plus the stablecoin technology…plus the military strength…the United States—it’s going to be nearly impossible to knock it off its ledge.” – Anthony Scaramucci (31:06)

Blockchain Beyond Bitcoin

• Tokenization and stablecoins developing, even as “altcoins” lag.
• Banks will adapt like telecom did—won’t disappear, but functions will change. Faster, cheaper clearing with blockchain.
• “The banks are going to adapt the way the telecom companies adapted... they'll still be valuable services to people.” – Anthony Scaramucci (34:00)
• Technology will shrink transaction times and intermediaries: “When I joined Goldman Sachs in 1989, it was T+5. If you’re telling me it’ll be T plus a few minutes or an hour…cheaper…take six or seven potential intermediaries out of the transaction…I think it’s going to eventually happen.” – Anthony Scaramucci (34:39)

Volatility and Demographics

• Leverage and whale selling drive volatility; institutional and younger investor adoption a slow process.
• “The selling cycle is taking longer and frankly older people...are like I’m going to buy gold as a potential hedge as opposed to bitcoin. But just imagine the 35 or 40 year old 10 years from now.” – Anthony Scaramucci (36:17)
• “Maybe it is a cockroach. Let me tell you something about cockroaches, okay. Cockroaches are going to survive us.” – Anthony Scaramucci (37:23)

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Memorable Quotes

• On priceless heists:
  “If you take out the individual stones and ruin that thing, you should get the death penalty.” – Joe Kernan (09:41)
• On sharing beauty:
  “Anything beautiful that you see is less beautiful and less special if you don’t have people to share it with.” – Becky Quick (11:41)
• On AWS disruption:
  “It’s quite incredible how important these services ultimately are to our entire lives.” – Andrew Ross Sorkin (04:36)
• On government shutdown:
  “A lot of them have made the point they have to find other ways to feed their families, whether they're going to drive Uber or...find some short term employment.” – Sean Duffy (15:08)
• On bitcoin as the new gold:
  “From a technical basis [bitcoin] is undersold as an asset. If you believe that currency debasement trade...if you believe it’s digital gold…bitcoiners thought…relative to gold. It won’t get there right away. Still a lot of people don’t like it.” – Anthony Scaramucci (35:36)

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Notable Lighter Moments

• Hosts joke about their shared birthdays and “old school” tech fixes (“just unplug and plug it back in”) (06:47–06:54)
• Anthony Scaramucci gives his readiness and sleep “scores” from his aura ring, comparing with Andrew (31:21–31:58)
• Banter about lumberjack championships and the unlikely prospect of finance anchors winning such competitions (25:14–25:44)

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Key Timestamps

• Market Recap: 02:27–03:43
• AWS Outage and Social Media: 03:43–06:25
• Jewel Heist: 08:51–12:14
• Government Shutdown - Airports and TSA: 14:45–17:41
• Transportation & NASA: 18:27–22:44
• Lumberjack Stories: 22:44–25:40
• Bitcoin/Gold/Blockchain with Scaramucci: 27:37–38:29

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Takeaways

• Bitcoin’s ecosystem is transitioning: As early adopters take profits, institutions are entering, likely increasing BTC’s longer-term stability, though volatility remains short-term.
• AWS outage underscores internet interdependence: Major digital infrastructure failures have widespread cascading effects, even on broadcast TV.
• Government shutdown is felt in real time: Key safety officials work unpaid, threatening travel disruptions and raising economic risks.
• Space race intensifies: US/NASA effort to outpace China visible in fast-tracked missions and widened contract competition.
• Store of value debate rages: Gold continues to have a strong year; Bitcoin as “digital gold” is still on its journey, according to Scaramucci.

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For those who missed the episode, this summary highlights the key news, lively discussions, and quotable moments that defined the day—from crypto debates and space policy to culture and comedy.

Transcript

[Joe Kernan]

We all take good care of the things that matter. Our homes, our pets, our cars. Are you doing the same for your brain? Acting early to protect brain health may help reduce the risk of dementia from conditions like Alzheimer's disease. Studies have found that up to 45% of dementia cases may be prevented or delayed. By managing risk factors, you can change make brain health a priority. Ask your doctor about your risk factors.

[Keith Lansford]

And for a cognitive assessment. Learn [e-mail] this episode is brought to you by Schwab Market Update, an original podcast from Charles Schwab. Join host Keith Lansford for this information packed daily market Preview delivered in 10 minutes or less, including projected stock updates, monetary policy decisions and key results and statistics that may impact your trading. Download the latest episode and [e-mail] MarketUpdatePodcast or find Schwab Market Update. Wherever you get your podcasts.

[Anthony Scaramucci]

Bring in show music, please.

[Narrator/Producer]

This is Squawk Pod and I'm CNBC producer Cameron Costa. On today's episode, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy on airport staffing as we enter day 20 of the government shutdown, plus his agenda as acting administrator of NASA.

[Sean Duffy]

I love SpaceX. It's an amazing company. The problem is they're behind. We they pushed their timelines out and we're in a race against China. The president and I want to get to the moon in this president's term. So I'm going to open up the.

[Narrator/Producer]

Contract and crypto's calling. Anthony Scaramucci says thanks to the bitcoin's.

[Anthony Scaramucci]

Price boost, if you were a long term holder of bitcoin, you bought it 10 years ago. You get to the $100,000 number. A lot of guys look at that and say, okay, that was my number.

[Narrator/Producer]

Plus the Amazon web services disruption that took down major websites and the French museum jewel heist right out of the movies.

[Joe Kernan]

You're like some James Bond villain that has some room with a bunch of.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

What'S the great movie with Pierce Brosnan, right? He has it sort of kept away.

[Narrator/Producer]

It's Monday, October 20th.

[Joe Kernan]

What is it?

[Becky Quick]

Oh, the Thomas Crown Affair.

[Joe Kernan]

Thomas Crown Affair.

[Narrator/Producer]

And Squawk Pod begins right now.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Stand Becky by in three, two, one.

[Becky Quick]

Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Squawk Box right here on cnbc. I'm Becky Quick, along with Joe Kernan and Andrew Ross Sorkin. And here we go. It's a Monday. Last week for all the news and the concern and the fraught markets actually had a pretty good week. All the major averages saw their best weeks since August and You did see some pretty serious pickup at this point. All three of the major averages are less than 2% from all time highs treasury yields this morning when I looked earlier it looked like the 10 year was back above 4% 4.01% the 2 year is at 347. Gold prices which have been hitting a new high every day just about year to date up by 62% this morning up another 1.4% to $4274 an ounce and then cryptocurrency boards if you check out bitcoin this morning up by close to 2% back to 111,000 maybe worth watching the Vix because the Vix did pick up that volatility index. A lot of concerns from investors out there yesterday. On Friday we saw that index all the way up to 28.99. That's the highest level that it's been at since April. This morning it's back down to 20.79. But we have seen some increased volatility and and in recent sessions.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Andrew, let's get you caught up on what is a bit of a wild story because some major websites and apps they are coming back online this after Amazon Web Services suffered a major outage took place overnight. Disrupted sites including Perplexity, Snapchat, Disney plus Coinbase is on that list as well. Robinhood, Verizon if you were going to the Wall Street Journal last night looking for News and the McDonald's app among many others. Some airlines customers also complained their reservations weren't showing up on the airlines app and that they weren't able to check in or drop off bags. Now Amazon Web Services dashboard first reported issues affecting the east coast and that's the east region on 3 at 3:11am Eastern time as of about 5:30am an update from us saying they're seeing significant signs of recovery and and I was on the Wall Street Journal website just in the last couple of minutes and it does seem to be working as does by the way cnbc.com so I think that we are maybe out of the woods Joe, but I don't know. And this is one of those things when you talk about resiliency and just how important every you know how important these services ultimately are to our entire lives. It's quite incredible.

[Joe Kernan]

Yeah. If you can't check a bag that's which I don't know if you guys saw the other news begs the question whether RFK Jr. And Cheryl Hines checked any bags on their flight. I don't know if you guys saw Andrew saw it. Yeah. In economy. Cheryl Hines, RFK Jr. Videos of them, like walking in, totally accessible, people saying hi. And. And it was one of those planes with Andrew And Kocha has three seats on one side. And they were RFK Jr. Not very chivalrous. But took. That's okay, though. Took the window. Cheryl Hines was in the middle seat with someone next to her. And it got 118,000 lights.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

They're just like us. You know, that page in Us magazine, just like us. Come on.

[Joe Kernan]

Cheryl's like, Jesus, when I was an actress, this never. She was kind of like this. But no, she was fine. She was fine.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Yeah.

[Joe Kernan]

Gone are the days of the, you know, the afterglow of Larry David and, you know, Curb youb Enthusiasm and. No, I agree. I like that they wanted to, you know, there's some jets that don't really have anything other than the small ones, but this was not one of those. But yeah, so I just thought about that. I didn't know 118,000 likes or. Yeah, I think likes, which is quite a few.

[Becky Quick]

You know, we had concerns about the show this morning with AWS because Zoom was one of the sites that was affected and a lot of our guests are coming in by Zoom. That was a concern. Back to how this ties us all.

[Joe Kernan]

Together makes me think, if I was, you know, at Amazon, they said, joe, AWS is down. Can you come and take a look at it? And would you. Would you?

[Anthony Scaramucci]

Sure.

[Becky Quick]

Pop the hood.

[Joe Kernan]

What would you do, Andrew? I know what I would do.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Kick it.

[Joe Kernan]

No, take the plug. Unplug it.

[Becky Quick]

Plug it back in, plug it in.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Plug it back in. That's usually the move or log out or something.

[Joe Kernan]

But there are people that can go in and apparently somehow. But that would not be me. Andrew, I don't want you to do anything except get a piece of paper and a pencil or a pen. Cause I'm going to tell you what's on this. Yep. I'm going to tell you what's on this week's Squawk Planner. Tell me just so you can plan out your.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

I'm listening. I'm listening.

[Joe Kernan]

Key corporate earnings. Coca Cola, Netflix, GM tomorrow, Wednesday, Tesla, IBM @ and T third. Me on screen Thursday. Yeah. And you weren't writing anything down?

[Becky Quick]

No, I wasn't.

[Joe Kernan]

Thursday includes intel for American Airlines. Friday morning, get this, Procter and Gamble is going to release results. We're also slated to get this.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

This.

[Joe Kernan]

We could actually use the September Consumer Price Index report on Friday. It's been delayed because of the government shutdown. It's likely the last major piece of data that Fed members are going to see before next week's interest rate decided.

[Becky Quick]

This one was important enough to actually bring people exactly like emergency workers to do this. Of those key earnings names that Joe was talking about, one will be watching later today is Zions Bancorp. That's the regional lender. It's set to report third quarter results after the bell. Investors got anxious last week about the regional banks when Zions disclosed a near total wipeout on $60 million in loans after finding what it called apparent misrepresentations from borrowers. The next day, fellow regional Western alliance said that it had sued the same borrower for alleged fraud. The SPDR S&P Regional Banking ETF fell more than 6% on Thursday. That was its worst day since April. But it did rebound a bit on Friday, up by about 1.6%.

[Joe Kernan]

Thieves making off with priceless jewels from the Louvre Museum in Paris. So familiar to us, right, guys, during the Olympics last time, we were fortunate enough to attend, like the most incredible function there, right?

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Was that the coolest function ever? We could have walked off with this stuff ourselves, Joe.

[Joe Kernan]

Theoretically. Well. And remember, we were two feet away from the Mona Lisa. We could have just grabbed that thing and run. But we'll talk in a second.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Where would we have fenced it? Joe, this is your question. I've just been finishing Black Rabbit and I don't know where I would have fenced this stuff.

[Joe Kernan]

I've been thinking more about that. Andrew, let me tell you. First we'll talk about what happened, then we'll talk about that. Because that beautiful crown with how many diamonds? Gorgeous. Here's a picture. I mean, you can't.

[Sean Duffy]

What are you gonna wear?

[Joe Kernan]

Take out. You can't. Number one, if you did take out the individual stones and ruin that thing, you should get the death penalty. But number two, if it's not gonna.

[Anthony Scaramucci]

Be worth anything, it's not gonna be.

[Joe Kernan]

Worth nearly as much if you just keep it as is. You're like some James Bond villain that has some room with a bunch. You can march around at it, like at a modern. Whatever they are. Chemical crap, romance. But the robbery at the world's most visited museum yesterday took just minutes to complete. Came during regular museum hours, but they used like a lift in a basket. Broke the window, went in, broke the case, left the thieves, rode up this basket right to the facade of the Louvre, forced the window open and smashed it. Yeah. Which we've seen. If you walk by it, there's McDonald's right across the street. I know that. Before making off of the jewels, authorities say a stolen crown containing more than 1300 diamonds was later found outside. The Louvre has been struggling with larger crowds and stretched workers lately, and staff walked out in June because of overcrowding and chronic understaffing. But let's say you do have all. You buy these things and you're like a billionaire. You can't even show any. You can't even say, look what I have. I don't think. If you have them in a room, what do you do? Just go spend some time with.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Naked.

[Becky Quick]

With them on the ground.

[Sean Duffy]

Yeah.

[Joe Kernan]

With your jewelry. With the crown on. It's funny where her mind goes. So if she had.

[Sean Duffy]

I'm literally.

[Becky Quick]

What are you going to do with that?

[Joe Kernan]

Is that what you do?

[Becky Quick]

No, I wouldn't want these things, but.

[Joe Kernan]

Well, what do you do with them? Seriously? Or any. I guess even with a masterpiece, let's say you had that. You could go and just enjoy it and look at it.

[Narrator/Producer]

But that's weird.

[Joe Kernan]

It is weird.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

What's the great movie with Pierce Brosnan.

[Joe Kernan]

Right.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

He has it sort of kept away, right?

[Joe Kernan]

Does he?

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Yeah.

[Joe Kernan]

Yeah. I don't know exactly what you're talking about, but that's. I'm sure it's been. What is it?

[Becky Quick]

The Thomas Crown Affair.

[Joe Kernan]

Thomas Crown Affair.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Thomas Crown Affair. And he has it. He just keeps it to look at. So you could.

[Becky Quick]

It's weird.

[Joe Kernan]

It is weird.

[Becky Quick]

Should be shared.

[Joe Kernan]

And it should.

[Becky Quick]

I think any beautiful thing. Have you ever gone someplace by yourself and wished your family was there? Like anything beautiful that you see is less beautiful and less special. If you don't have people to share it with, that's.

[Joe Kernan]

And if you really. If you take out, like, even some of the necklaces and the sapphires, if.

[Becky Quick]

You are pretty, I will say if.

[Joe Kernan]

You ruin that and. And, you know.

[Becky Quick]

But you destroy the value because the history.

[Joe Kernan]

You destroy the value. And it's just your Napoleonic error. You have no soul, really. If. If you do that and sell them piecemeal or something. So I'm not in favor of this. I guess that's the bottom line.

[Anthony Scaramucci]

Good to know.

[Joe Kernan]

I don't think it's like, I don't know, sort of, you know, I don't admire. I don't think pulling off a jewel heist is. Yeah, there is not cool, man. They're not cool.

[Becky Quick]

You think of Ocean's Eleven.

[Joe Kernan]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is not cool, man. Right.

[Narrator/Producer]

Tease will be next, coming up on Squawk pod. It's day 20 of the government shutdown. While a stalemate wears on in Washington, some airports staff around the country scrambling to make ends meet. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy the next check.

[Sean Duffy]

That comes for air traffic controllers are a week from tomorrow and I think we could see more disruptions when that happens. A lot of them have made the point they have to find other ways to feed their families, whether they're going to drive Uber or they're going to find other some, some short term employment.

[Joe Kernan]

The heaviest metal credit card of all time, rumored to be one of only 18 in existence, plated with the very.

[Keith Lansford]

Same tungsten that forged the international Space Station.

[Joe Kernan]

And wielded at business dinners like a samurai sword. It's a classic corporate power move, but the real power move having end to end visibility on your most critical shipments. FedEx the new power move.

[Keith Lansford]

This episode is brought to you by Schwab Market Update, an original podcast from Charles Schwab. Join host Keith Lansford for this information packed daily market Preview delivered in 10 minutes or less, including projected stock updates, monetary policy decisions and key results and statistics that may impact your trading. Download the latest episode and [e-mail] MarketUpdatePodcast or find Schwab Market Update wherever you get your podcasts.

[Narrator/Producer]

Not sure if you have the experience to start your dream job. Good news these days it's the skills that count you to me can help you get those in demand. Skills. Want to be an AI mastermind? Learn with us game developer. We've got you covered. AWS certified cloud practitioner. We can help you prep. You'll learn from real world experts who love what they do so that you can love what you do. Go to udemy.com for the skills to get you started and get set for your dream job. This is Squawk Pod with Joe Kernan, Becky Quick and Andrew Ross Sorkin.

[Joe Kernan]

Tomorrow will be three weeks. It's day 20 of the government shut down. Air traffic controllers are continuing to work without a paycheck. Joining us now with the latest, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. Secretary, it's good to see you. You haven't had a lot of individuals. It's not called a blue flu. I don't know what we call it, but some are not coming in. It's still safe at this point.

[Sean Duffy]

Yeah. So first, thank you to all our air traffic controllers who do show up for work. We've had a few blips, Joe, in the system where, you know, in one region, one day, another region, another day we'll have some, some delays because air traffic controllers are out. There's been some more sick leave than we'd seen in the past. But I'm telling you what, looking forward, the next check that comes for air traffic controllers are a week from tomorrow. And I think we could see more disruptions when that happens. A lot of them have made the point they have to find other ways to feed their families, whether they're going to drive Uber or they're going to find other, some, some short term employment. We could see some more disruption. I don't want to see that. I think that would be difficult for the traveling public. But you know, this is the consequence of a long term shutdown. We're 20 days in. Republicans have said, let's do a clean CR. Democrats have said, you know what, we want to negotiate on health care, specifically health care for illegals. And Republicans don't really have any room to negotiate because they've done what's clean. What they had in September, Republicans want to have in October. And so there's not room to negotiate really. Democrats have to come to the table, stop holding the economy hostage if it keeps going.

[Joe Kernan]

And I don't know how long we go. But some, but you could see more, maybe as you described, doing other things because they have to feed the family. Will they be gone? When you say you want dedicated and the best air traffic controls around.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

You.

[Joe Kernan]

Would some of them be let go for, for not showing up, you have the ability to do that?

[Sean Duffy]

I do have the ability to do that. A vast majority of them are amazing controllers. American, American servants. They wear American flag pelt pins on their, on their chests. We do have a few locations where there's more problems, consistent problems, even when we didn't have the shutdown. And again, I want the best controllers that are dedicated to, to the work that they do. And if, you know, we see a pattern of people not showing up or when things are difficult, they call in sick. I think those are people we should look at. But again, these are a critical part of our safety apparatus in the air. And I need more of them, not less of them. I'm about 2 to 3,000 short right now. So I'm trying to add to the number, not subtract from the number.

[Joe Kernan]

How about tsa? It's been mentioned on the show more than a few times that previous shutdowns have come to an end because of the possible impact on the economy, the negative impact if you don't, if you're not flying, if it's severely hampered. And TSA is the same situation as air traffic controllers.

[Sean Duffy]

It Seems they're very similar. But TSA falls under Homeland Security. Kristi Noem has tsa, but I think the analysis is the same people who do critical jobs for the economy not being paid for those jobs. But I've been part of a number of shutdowns over the course of my tenure in Congress. And no one, even in Congress knows when it's going to end. There's a certain energy and fuel that has to burn. And I think once more Americans become sick of the hassle of not having their government open, that's when the pressure comes. And I think Democrats will come to their senses and say, okay, let's open this thing back up, let's have a conversation, let's negotiate and talk. When, when the government's funded, I think that's where we're going to get to. Whether it's going to be in, in five days or five weeks, I'm not sure.

[Joe Kernan]

It's a different world with you in charge. Obviously I can remember, I can't try to figure out, I finally understood what a racist bridge was because if, if you don't use infrastructure funds to connect certain commute, I can sort of get there. But it was pretty crazy. You're willing to fire, or at least you're willing to withhold $40 million if California doesn't require truck drivers to be proficient in the, in the English language.

[Sean Duffy]

That's a really good point. So this has been a long standing rule in America that if you're going to be a truck driver, you're going to drive an 18 wheeler, you're going to drive a school bus, you have to be proficient in the English language, you got to be able to speak English and you have to understand road signs. It goes back decades. It's just that the rule was not being enforced. And so we're now enforcing the rule because we've seen a number of crashes where again, these drivers, they can't read road signs if there is a crash, they can't communicate with law enforcement. And so every state has complied, all of them except California, which is baffling to us because again, they should be just as concerned about safety as the rest of us. Now, the problem is if you get a cdl, a commercial driver's license in California, that license is not just for California. You can drive anywhere in the 50 states. And so these drivers from California who aren't proficient in English drive across the country. Now other states, if they pull over those drivers, they'll flag them as not being proficient in English and they'll take them out of service again. When these big rigs are taken out of service, it costs a lot of money to get a driver back in and start to move the load. So it's a significant penalty. We hope California gets on board. We've taken $40 million away from them. We also have. They've also issued a lot of CDL licenses to those who are not here lawfully or they'll issue a driver's license for five years. But the work permit for the migrant is only one year, so it extends well beyond the work permit, which encourages those who are here, maybe with a work permit to stay beyond their work permit because they have a driver's license. California has to do a lot of work in looking back at their system where they gave illegal driver's licenses and revoke those again. This is just about safety though, Joe. It's not about politics. It's about making sure our roads are safe.

[Joe Kernan]

I know NASA is under your purview as well. Exciting about the Artemis too. You're making strides there. Less emphasis on the climate crisis now at NASA. I can't imagine, I can't imagine the carbon footprint for this. You thinking through these things.

[Sean Duffy]

There's a lot of agencies that can deal with climate. There's only one that does human space exploration and that's NASA. And that's what we've refocused on. So in the first part of next year, Artemis 2 is going to go out to the moon and back. They're not going to land this time, but this is the first time in 54 years we're going back to the moon. We actually right now down at Kennedy Space center in Florida, we have the rocket alongside the capsule where it's going to hold our astronauts. We're about to merge those two together. We do the final testing. We think the original timeline was doing this launch in April. We think we can do it in, in, in early February, which is really cool. Artemis 3 comes a couple of years after that. Now SpaceX had the contract for Artemis 3 there, by the way. I love SpaceX. It's an amazing company. The problem is they're behind. They push their timelines out and we're in a race against China. The president and I want to get to the moon in this president's term. So I'm going to open up the contract. I'm going to other. Other space companies compete with SpaceX like, like Blue Origin. And again, whatever one can get us there first to the moon we're going to take. And if SpaceX is behind, but Blue Origin can do it before them. Good on Blue Origin. But by the way, we also might have two companies that can get us back to the moon in 2028. But again, we're not going to wait for one company. We're going to push this forward and win the second space race against the Chinese, get back to the moon, set up a camp, a base, and from there it's going to, we're going to figure out how we can actually get to Mars.

[Joe Kernan]

Ok, that like out of time. And no one's going to accuse me of wasting our substantive time on superfluous stuff. So we're already out of time. So now I'm just stealing time from something else. Can you just describe world champion? How big was the pole that you climbed? Were you on a 60 or 90 footer? Did you win the world championship? You go up with spike shoes and I guess I've seen people do that in these lumberjacks sports. Is it a 90 footer and how quickly did you go up and down?

[Sean Duffy]

I won them both. The 60, the 90 foot. It's a, you have little spurs on your feet and you have a steel core hemp rope. It's a race up and then it's race back down. And so it takes about, you know, 16 seconds to get up and about four seconds to come down, three and a half seconds to come down. It is like the bull riding of the rodeo, the great sports of, of the old time. Lumberjack. By the way, this is the most Americana sport you can find. Again, it's these men and women who helped log our great white pine regions in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan that then these sports developed from. And again, it's a throwback to the turn of the last century.

[Joe Kernan]

Becky couldn't believe you could do 60ft in 12 seconds. He did.

[Becky Quick]

Unbelievable.

[Joe Kernan]

90Ft and then you come down in four. So you're basically almost free fall. Yep. Free fall back.

[Sean Duffy]

He does. I just said Becky knows I was a lot younger and a lot thinner back in the day.

[Becky Quick]

Now I've been looking up videos of this since he mentioned this earlier.

[Joe Kernan]

Sununu told me about Sununu's on last week and he told me about this and I'm, you know, I'm afraid of.

[Sean Duffy]

By the way, he's doing a great job at A4A for the airlines. Sununu is a great pick and he's doing a wonderful job actually taking that organization forward. So he's been a great partner for us@dot as well.

[Joe Kernan]

Okay, is that a Wisconsin thing? The whole lumberjack thing is that.

[Sean Duffy]

So a lot of west coast climbers, a lot of big trees out there, a lot of choppers and sawyers that come from Australia and New Zealand. Log rolling as well. The log in the water, two people on it competing back and forth. That's more of a North American sport. A lot of Canadians compete also. So you get these four countries that come together and they have this, you know, who's the king of the forest? Who's going to win these all around titles? So listen, if you haven't seen one, you should actually go check one out. And by the way, for all your great viewers that have money, if you want to sponsor one, even better, give some money to these great competitions, keeping them alive and the great men and women who compete.

[Joe Kernan]

Mr. Rush.

[Sean Duffy]

Like that.

[Joe Kernan]

Yeah, I do. I'm going to say thank you and I'm going to toss it over to Andrew that those are two of the things. That's one of the things we will never say in our life. I think. Andrew, right. That we won some lumberjack. You know, when I'm on that ladder, change the light bulb, I'm scared almost to death. So, Mr. Secretary, thank you.

[Sean Duffy]

Thank you guys.

[Joe Kernan]

Appreciate it.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Same here.

[Joe Kernan]

Not us. And we do bingo card.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

We're not. We're not built for it, Joe. We're not. I wish we were.

[Joe Kernan]

I wish we were.

[Narrator/Producer]

Next on Squawk pod, the mooch on where to put your money. Investor Anthony Scaramucci on Bitcoin's rise and increased importance in portfolios, as well as the US Dollar's global strength.

[Anthony Scaramucci]

More dollars and a growing economy. Plus the stablecoin technology that's out there now. Plus the military strength that the United States has. I think it's going to be nearly impossible to knock it off its ledge.

[Narrator/Producer]

We'll be right back.

[Joe Kernan]

The heaviest metal credit card of all time, rumored to be one of only 18 in existence. Plated with the very same tungsten that.

[Keith Lansford]

Forged the international space station.

[Joe Kernan]

And wielded at business dinners like a samurai sword. It's a classic corporate power move, but the real power move having end to end visibility on your most critical shipments. FedEx, the new power move.

[Keith Lansford]

This episode is brought to you by Schwab Market Update, an original podcast from Charles Schwab. Join host Keith Lansford for this information packed daily market Preview delivered in 10 minutes or less, including projected stock updates, monetary policy decisions and key results and statistics that may impact your trading. Download the latest episode and [e-mail] MarketUpdatePodcast or find Schwab Market Update wherever you get your podcasts.

[Joe Kernan]

You.

[Keith Lansford]

Welcome back to Squawk Pod up and Andrew Q.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

You're watching Squawk Box right here on CNBC on a Monday morning. I'm Andrew Sorkin along with Joe Kernan and Becky Quick. We got a lot going on.

[Joe Kernan]

Bitcoin bouncing off its recent lows, gaining ground this morning. Join us now. Anthony Scaramucci, SkyBridge Capital founder, managing partner and a Capricorn. Just actually talking about that. Yeah.

[Anthony Scaramucci]

Big, big birthdays coming up.

[Joe Kernan]

Big birthdays.

[Anthony Scaramucci]

That's right.

[Becky Quick]

You guys share a birthday.

[Joe Kernan]

We share a birthday. January 6th.

[Anthony Scaramucci]

And Eric Trump.

[Sean Duffy]

Yeah. Henry Kravis.

[Joe Kernan]

Henry Kravitz, Norman Reedus, Dude. Yeah, I remember Norman from Walking Dead. A giant in, in my life you mentioned. Right. My birthday is really not till, I don't have to worry about it till next year.

[Narrator/Producer]

Next year.

[Becky Quick]

It's not a this year thing.

[Joe Kernan]

We don't have to worry about till next year.

[Anthony Scaramucci]

Looking good, Joe. Just got to keep your hair.

[Joe Kernan]

That's the key. I know we're going to get to bitcoin immediately, but I go to great lengths to keep this hair. I do. And I make a lot of sacrifices for this, this drug Propecia, whatever the hell it is, it's good for your prostate. Hey, listen, bitcoin last week once again proved it's not a non correlated asset. You cannot go there like for gold or you can't go there if you're worried about a risk off trade with the NASDAQ because you're just, I don't know, you're going to be subject to what happens in a sell off in the stock market. If you have bitcoin, it seems like, does that ever change?

[Anthony Scaramucci]

I think it's some of that. I think, I think, I think it'll eventually transition but I think if you look at long term technicals, it is tied to risk assets, is tied to the nasdaq. I think it's more whale selling. If you look, if you look at.

[Joe Kernan]

Those big wallets, if someone needs to sell something, does it become a place for liquidity and a downdraft with the stock market?

[Anthony Scaramucci]

But again, big whales live. You, if you were a long term holder of bitcoin, you bought it 10 years ago, you get to the $100,000 number. A lot of guys look at that and say, okay, that was my number. Someday, if bitcoin ever gets to 100,000, I'm going to liquefy bitcoin and diversify it into other things. And so you're seeing a rotation now from those OG whales into what I think are longer term institutional hands. And so as this thing transitions I think it gets sturdier. But I wasn't overly worried about price action last week also.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Look at gold.

[Anthony Scaramucci]

Just take 30 seconds on gold. Gold's up 60 plus percent this year. And if you're telling me that bitcoin won't be worth gold, I mean a lot of bitcoiners believe it will be. But let's say it's just half the capitalization of gold or even if it just tracked gold from the beginning of the year. Joe is $150,000 asset. So, so does, you know, we like it. I mean that's, that is a very steep disconnection historically. Bitcoin and gold.

[Joe Kernan]

So it's a part of the debasement trade. Sometimes you find it doesn't work as well for the debasement trade if the market's selling off.

[Anthony Scaramucci]

Are you a debasement guy though? I'm not overly.

[Joe Kernan]

You don't think that's why 21 million. That's it?

[Anthony Scaramucci]

I, I said listen.

[Sean Duffy]

Why?

[Anthony Scaramucci]

I think, I think gold is up because of the uncertainty around trade. And there always been a lot though with gold.

[Joe Kernan]

Gold. Gold was quiescent in times it seemed much more turbulent than we're in right now. Yeah.

[Anthony Scaramucci]

It seems to me I'm not a big believer in the debasement trade. I think the US dollar is going to be the fiat currency, the reserve currency for the next 50.

[Joe Kernan]

But every 10 years, how much less is it worth? Even. Even at. And if the fed is at 3% instead of 2% now, that's a huge difference. And you know, in a ten year time frame.

[Anthony Scaramucci]

I understand. But more, more dollars and a growing economy plus the stablecoin technology that's out there now, plus the military strength that the United States has. I think it's going to be nearly impossible to knock it off its ledge.

[Joe Kernan]

That an aura ring you got.

[Anthony Scaramucci]

I do.

[Joe Kernan]

How were you this morning? We compare with Andrew all the time.

[Anthony Scaramucci]

Yeah. I had to get up early to see you, Joe.

[Joe Kernan]

You did? So you 70.

[Anthony Scaramucci]

It's sort of like a nanny state thing. Yeah, it was a 70. Exactly.

[Joe Kernan]

You were a 70. 70 man. I don't. When Andrew has a 70, I got an 82. When Andrew's at 70, I don't even bring up politics. I don't mention that. The king of the country. I don't mention anything. When Andrew's at a 70, I don't.

[Anthony Scaramucci]

Andrew got an 82 because he got it.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

I got an 82.

[Anthony Scaramucci]

He's hiding.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

77 on sleep. 82 on readiness. Where are you, Anthony?

[Joe Kernan]

And Anthony was a 70.

[Anthony Scaramucci]

No, I was a 70. And I was like a 71 on readiness. But let me tell you over the weekend I was doing great, Andrew.

[Joe Kernan]

You were?

[Anthony Scaramucci]

Yeah. I had little crowns on the top of my wearing.

[Joe Kernan]

So Andy, I'll tell you something.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Doesn't that feel so great, the little crowns?

[Anthony Scaramucci]

Yeah.

[Joe Kernan]

I might have to do try this. I don't know. I might have to. I don't know if I want to know though.

[Becky Quick]

That's my issue with it.

[Anthony Scaramucci]

It's like you can't have a glass.

[Becky Quick]

I know that I'm tired. I know that I'm like blood pressure.

[Joe Kernan]

When you measure it, it's like awful. So why measure it? Forget it. I'm just not. Get away from me. Yeah.

[Anthony Scaramucci]

You sound like my parents down some old school stuff.

[Joe Kernan]

And we have like people come in with IPOs. And I am blown away by what blockchain is capable of doing and are we starting to see just with, with crypto just as bitcoin is going to stay here as a, as a core. But I see things happening. It's just spreading out tokenization and stablecoins and all this, all these.

[Anthony Scaramucci]

Take a look at the altcoin market. The altcoin market is down below where the FT RTX debacle was. And so Bitcoin's over 100,000. That's telling you there's a big divergence there. But you know, from people that you talk to, whether it's people at the cme, the New York Stock Exchange, over time they're going to use the blockchain to, to do this is safer.

[Joe Kernan]

Doesn't it disintermediate so many different things? Couldn't it?

[Anthony Scaramucci]

Yes, but, but that's happened before. Look at, look at, look at the way we call each other now, Joe. I mean if you and I, you and I were younger as students, it was $5aminute to call your mom from Europe. It's no dollars a minute. Phone companies didn't go away. The banks are not going to go away. There are other services that people are going to use.

[Joe Kernan]

We talked about, I just talked about that. We had a thinking back when my daughter was 26, when she, or 25 when she was young, we had a nanny. All she did was we saw the phone bills like oh my God, she's not even watching the kids. She's gone on long distance and it's like we don't even think of long distance. Is there any, does it matter at all?

[Anthony Scaramucci]

My point, the banks, yeah, the banks are going to adapt the way the telecom companies adapted and they'll be providing services that are slightly different, but they'll still be valuable services to people. But if you're telling me that the technology, the blockchain technology is better and again, to date myself, when I joined Goldman Sachs In 1989, it was 10 plus 5. And so if you're telling me it's going to be T + a few minutes or an hour to have finality in a transaction and it's cheaper and you're going to take six or seven potential intermediaries out of the transaction, I think, I think it's going to eventually happen. And Paul Atkins has signaled this. You know, he spoke at our conference in Wyoming this summer talking about how they're moving towards allowing for this type of technology. From a regulatory point of view.

[Joe Kernan]

When you talked about gold and bitcoin. So what's gold's market cap now? I'm sure you closer.

[Anthony Scaramucci]

Closer to 29 billion. When I was, when I was coming in this morning, I was.

[Joe Kernan]

No, I was trillion.

[Anthony Scaramucci]

Trillion. I'm sorry, closer to 29 trillion. Gold is gold.

[Joe Kernan]

Where's Bitcoin?

[Anthony Scaramucci]

Bitcoin is 2.2. And so again, if you just took the two assets and where they were at the beginning of the year, and if bitcoin were to be in line with gold, it would be about 151,000 right now. So, so bitcoin from a technical basis is undersold as an asset. If you believe that currency debasement trade, if you believe it's digital gold, and obviously, you know, guys like Michael Saylor believe that it's way better than gold. It's more portable, it's got immutability that you always talk about.

[Joe Kernan]

If it were 1 times gold in terms of market cap, it'd be 10 times at least if you, if you went to Parity.

[Anthony Scaramucci]

And now you're talking over $1 million a coin now. But, but remember, remember, you have to make a decision, are we in an analog world or a digital world? And so I think gold will always be with us because it's a traditional store value and a traditional asset. But you're not moving gold around the world the way you can move bitcoin.

[Becky Quick]

So bitcoin been so volatile, is it because of the leverage that's involved?

[Anthony Scaramucci]

I think it's a combination of things. I think it's the leverage Becky. But I also think it's well selling over 100,000. I mean they've, they've hit the pretty hard and I don't think you fully have gotten the adoption curve going from the institutions. You think about it now since BlackRock started that ETF, yeah, there's legions of people out there selling. The idea of bitcoin as a piece of your overall price portfolio, is it a 1 to 3% piece? It's way more for somebody like me. But I'm just saying that that selling cycle is taking longer and frankly older people, if you look at the demographics, older people have money and the older people are like I'm going to buy gold as a potential hedge as opposed to bitcoin. But just imagine the 35 or 40 year old 10 years from now. What are they going to be buying? Is the same statement I would have made to you back in 2000 related to tech. You know the 36 year old that was getting buried in tech in the 2000.com bubble. If he stayed in tech, he had the best 25 years as an investment class. And I think bitcoin will be looking at Bitcoin 10 years from now scratching our heads saying yeah, it did what we thought. At least the bitcoiners thought it got to some level of parity relative to gold. It won't get there right away. Still a lot of people don't like it.

[Sean Duffy]

I don't know.

[Anthony Scaramucci]

You know, maybe it is a cockroach. Let me tell you something about cockroaches, okay. Cockroaches are going to survive us.

[Joe Kernan]

Yeah.

[Anthony Scaramucci]

No matter what. So in a weird metaphor of a cockroach, Ants is bad, maybe a good thing.

[Joe Kernan]

Ants. Ants. There's never just one ant.

[Becky Quick]

Cockroach.

[Joe Kernan]

Like I said, it could be lost or something.

[Becky Quick]

Meanwhile, you haven't lived in the city in a long time.

[Joe Kernan]

No, that's right, I haven't. You don't have a lot of cocktails with the new mayor. I'm moving back cuz I can't wait to. No. All right. Thank you, Anthony. We were talking about our birthdays and age and everything because I, I don't you a 70. I'm not sure I want to go here. I'm not sure I want to go. I was going to say you would have been the youngest break I'm going to give. You would have been the youngest person at the no Kings rally. You would. I would have been the youngest person at, at the no Kings. So I know you didn't go because I would have spotted you because you would have had. You didn't have gray hair. That's a compliment. So you didn't go?

[Anthony Scaramucci]

No, I didn't go because you would.

[Joe Kernan]

Have been the youngest.

[Becky Quick]

You did have crowns on your ring, though.

[Narrator/Producer]

That's the podcast for today. Thank you for joining us. This Monday. Squawk Box is hosted by Joe Kernan, Becky Quick and Andrew Ross Sorkin, weekday mornings on CNBC at 6, 6am Eastern. To get the best bits of that TV show right into your ears, follow Squawk Pod wherever you get your podcasts. We'll meet you right back here tomorrow. Have a great day.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

We are clear.

[Anthony Scaramucci]

Thanks, guys.

[Joe Kernan]

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[Narrator/Producer]

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[Joe Kernan]

Clorox Toilet Wand.

[Narrator/Producer]

It's all in one. Hey, what is all in one mean?

[Joe Kernan]

The Caddy, the wand, the preloaded pad. There's a cleaner in there inside the pad.

[Narrator/Producer]

So Clorox Toilet Wand is all I need to clean a toilet.

[Joe Kernan]

You don't need a bottle of solution.

[Anthony Scaramucci]

To get into the toilet revolution.

[Joe Kernan]

Clorox Clean feels good.

[Narrator/Producer]

Use as directed.