CNBC Business News Update - Market Midday: Bessent Lays Out Economic Plan, Stocks Mixed, Blackstone President On AI 5/5/25

Episode Date: May 5, 2025

From Wall Street to Main Street, the latest on the markets and what it means for your money. Updated regularly on weekdays, featuring CNBC expert analysis and sound from top business newsmakers. Anchored by CNBC's Jill Schneider.

I'm Jill Schneider, CNBC. The Dow has been fighting to remain in positive territory and is staying there for now. Up 106 points. The S&P and NASDAQ are still in the red. The S&P 500 down 13 points, about a quarter of a percent. The NASDAQ down 74. Treasury Secretary Scott Besson today sketched out the roadmap of President Trump's America First vision in a pitch to a room full of global investors on the future of the U.S. economy.

Speaking at the Milken Institute Global Conference, the Treasury secretary highlighted tariffs, tax cuts and deregulations as three core components of Trump's economic agenda. After his remarks, he spoke to CNBC about the president's plan for economic growth. The way to do it smartly, we're talking about bringing the deficit down by about 100 basis points every year for four years, get us back to the long-term average of 3.5 percent. And then a big cure for the deficit is upward growth shock. So CBO's scoring is at 1.7 or 1.8 percent growth, no matter whether you have a tax cut or a tax hike. So we think that through deregulation, the permanence of the tax bill, we can get growth

closer to something that looks like 3 percent. Blackstone president and COO John Gray talked about the importance of what AI means to the world. I think there's a bit of a danger that it's almost like there's this wall in front of us and we can't, we've forgotten what's off in the distance, which is this powerful revolution in technology. Mark Zuckerberg said last week that what's happening in AI is staggering, and we share that view. Shares of streaming services moved slightly lower after President Trump proposed a 100 percent tariff on film production shot outside the United States.

Trump called tax incentives offered by foreign countries, quote, a national security threat. The U.S. Department of Education is set to restart collection efforts today on defaulted student loans, putting millions of borrowers at risk of wage garnishment and other consequences. The government has extraordinary collection powers on its student loans. It can seize borrowers, tax refunds, paychecks, Social Security, retirement and disability benefits. More than 42 million Americans hold student loans. More than 5 million of them are currently in default. Jill Schneider, CNBC.

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