CNBC Business News Update - Market Midday: Stocks Lower, Apple Shares Fall On Trump Tariff Threat, Trump Meme Coin Dinner 5/23/25

Episode Date: May 23, 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 Jessica Ettinger.

I'm Jessica Edinger, CNBC. It's all about new tariff threats from the president and Wall Street is in the red this afternoon. The major averages are off their earlier lows, though the Dow down 314 points, three quarters of a percent. Apple shares leading at lower. They're down two and a half percent. The S&P 500 index down 48 points. That's eight tenths of 1%. The NASDAQ is down 211 points now, a little more than 1%. Nvidia shares down one and a half percent this afternoon. Here's what sent markets lower this morning. President Trump posting on Truth Social that trade discussions with the EU were going nowhere. And as a result, he is recommending a straight 50% tariff on the EU starting on June 1st.

I don't know what that means, recommending a straight tariff of 50% to who. Is he recommending that to the Senate or is he saying that this is something that is going to be enforced as of June 1st? Europe's down now. Yeah, Europe is down significantly. CNBC's Becky Quick and Joe

Kernan, the president also posting that Apple must pay a 25% direct tariff on all iPhones not made in the U.S. All of them are made overseas. He's asking for the impossible and it's kind of hard to watch to make iPhones at scale in this country. It's not going to happen in an investable time frame and certainly not while Trump is president. So you know to do this to a company that has been operating you know under the rules creating an iconic business for a long time. It's just hard to believe.

That's Rosenblatt Spartan Crockett on CNBC and here's Chicago Fed President Austin Gulsby on CNBC today. We had the big Fed listens event last week at the Chicago Fed and a whole bunch of folks from the district came in to talk about the economy. And the two common themes were number one, they hate inflation and number two, they want some consistency.

The CEO of a construction company said for them, we're now in a put your pencils down The Bitcoin has been soaring for the first time in five years. It's about to notch six straight weeks of gains. It pulled back from a record high, but it's hovering around $108,000. President Trump's private government is now in the middle of a $1.5 billion

deficit. The Bitcoin is now It's about to notch six straight weeks of gains. It pulled back from a record high, but it's hovering around $108,000. President Trump's private dinner with people who bought the Trump meme coin cost about $1.8 million per plate. Just 220 highly coveted seats to sit down with the president for a private dinner in Virginia. Now, among those in the room, the number one token holder,

Justin Sun, a Chinese-born crypto mogul being sued by the SEC who holds more than 20 million dollars worth of those Trump meme tokens. But for an event billed as the most exclusive invitation in the world, many guests left disappointed. Trump arrived by helicopter, gave brief remarks backing a US Bitcoin reserve reserve and left without taking questions, photos or promising anything new to the crypto industry. Now outside about 100 protesters held signs that read crypto corruption and Trump is a traitor. CNBC's Mackenzie Zagalos. Pennies are going away. The U.S. Treasury is working to phase out the coin that costs more to make than it's worth.

Canada got rid of its pennies a decade ago. A record-setting Memorial Day holiday box office is in sight. Paramount's mission impossible, the final reckoning, and Disney's Lilo and Stitch are poised to rake in the ticket sales. Jessica Edinger, CNBC.