Morning Brew Daily - Is the World Ready for Trump Tariffs? & MrBeast Raises Funds After ‘Beast Games’

Episode Date: February 28, 2025

Episode 529: Toby and Ann recap the latest news on Trump’s tariffs on Mexico, Canada, and China, why consumer confidence is so low, and why the job market may be showing some cracks.  Then, beloved game shows ‘Jeopardy!,’ and ‘Wheel of Fortune,’ may find a new home in the streaming world. Meanwhile, MrBeast is our Stock of the Week and Tesla is our Dog of the Week. Finally, worthy headlines to know heading into the weekend!  LinkedIn will even give you a $100 credit on your next campaign so you can try it yourself. Go to LinkedIn.com/MBD Terms and conditions apply. Only on LinkedIn ads. Subscribe to Morning Brew Daily for more of the news you need to start your day. Share the show with a friend, and leave us a review on your favorite podcast app. Check out https://linkedin.com/MBD for more! Listen to Morning Brew Daily Here: https://link.chtbl.com/MBD Watch Morning Brew Daily Here: https://www.youtube.com/@MorningBrewDailyShow Hear more from Ann on After Earnings: https://open.spotify.com/show/5I5q3LIg1ueDWoTM8AZsHQ?si=d427df87994941e2 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Good morning brew daily show. I'm Toby Howell. And I'm Anne Barry. Today, tariffs on Mexico, Canada, in China, oh my, we'll start on March 4th. And Jeffody, the 50-year-old TV show, does it still have the heat? It's Friday, February 28th. Let's ride. Good morning, it's Friday.

You made it. And I encourage you all to start getting those neck muscles loose this morning, because tonight you should be looking skyward. A rare celestial event is on display as all seven planets in our solar system apart from Earth. Earth will be visible. So Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, all visible tonight in what is called a planetary parade. Toby, if someone wanted to see all the members of our solar system strutting their stuff, how should they go about doing that? All right, here is the game plan, sky watchers. Look for Mercury and Saturn soon after the sun goes down right near where the sun went down. Binoculars are encouraged. Then once night starts to fall, look to the

western sky for a very bright dot. That is Venus. High overhead is Jupiter, which will also look like a bright star. Rotate back towards the east, but keep looking up and you'll get a view of the reddish Mars. Uranus and Neptune are up there as well, I promise, but will be so faint. You do need a telescope. However, for those hoping to see a reunion with Pluto, don't get your hopes up. The dwarf planet that was demoted to that status all the way back in 2006 will be below the horizon during the parade. Poor Pluto never getting to participate. But get out there tonight everyone and take it all in. This really is a once in a generation event. Now a word from our sponsor, LinkedIn ads. And LinkedIn is known for its precise B2B targeting, helping you reach decision

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Please gamble responsibly. Monopoly is a trademark of Hasbro. Hasbro is not a sponsor of this promotion. Well, kind of like me at high school prom. It took a while, but we finally have a date for when Trump's tariffs against Canada and Mexico will take effect. Circle March 4th on your calendars, everyone. That is when the Broadbase 25% due. will hit, with Trump citing drug trafficking into the U.S. as part of the motivation behind the import

fee. Trump also announced he was slapping another 10% tariff on goods coming from China, which will be in addition to the previous 10% one imposed on February 4th. Of course, these tariffs, especially those against some of the U.S.'s biggest trading partners, are expected to add to the economic strain that has emerged early in the Trump presidency. The market has been shaky over the last week with three of the four past trading days ending in the red. And the consumer companies, and the consumer confidence reading from Wednesday showed sentiment fell the most since summer 2021. The threat of tariffs are also rattling business execs. If a deal to prevent them isn't reached, which is still certainly a possibility, more than

$1 trillion worth of imports would see higher tariffs, nervy times for the economy, and especially under this looming threat of tariffs. And also at a moment when we're getting a ton of economic data, you sort of touched on it, Toby, and we think about the domino effect here. You've got tariffs that impacts inflation. inflation that impacts interest rates, interest rates that impacts consumer confidence. Consumer confidence also impacted by the labor market, all of that impacting the housing market and guess what data on all of those coming out over the next week?

Let's hit some of those data because you're right. We did get a flood of kind of economic data that paints a picture of where the economy is currently at. Pending home sales came in this week and they were not good. Sales dropped 4.6% from December to the lowest level seen by the National Association of realtors who measures this. Since they've been tracking the metric all the way back in 2001, it's the same story you've been hearing high mortgage rates, elevated home prices are just kind of crushing

home sales right now. So that was one piece of economic data we got. We also got jobless claims. First-time applications for unemployment benefits rose a lot more than expected in the last week. That is a potential hint that maybe there's some cracks forming in what has otherwise been a very solid labor market so far. There were 242,000 jobless claims filed last week.

That was above economist's expectations of 220,000 claims by a fair amount there as well. We get PCE data today. That's the Fed's preferred inflation metric. We'll see how that comes into. So whether you're looking at a carton of eggs or a housing price, you do start to see these cracks all under this umbrella of and tariffs are looming as well. March 4th, we actually have a date to what has been otherwise a pretty nebulous concept. We've heard a lot about tariffs, but now we actually have a date you can circle on your calendars

for when those tariffs will go into effect. And to your point, the clarity, Toby, you said, you know, nebulous, which really captures a specific piece of this tariff conversation as well. It turns out China is going to have an additional 10% tariff. We had tariffs on Chinese imports kick in already. Now another 10% coming also on that March 4th date. And it was interesting. You sort of saw in the markets yesterday people going, hey, wait, there's more.

So that sentiment piece really important. The inflation expectations coming out, let's just touch on that a little bit more. It got a little bit hotter the key inflation metrics the beginning of this year than people thought. And do you remember, Toby, the newsbreaking, that expectations were changing, that interest rates maybe weren't going to calm down as quickly this year as expected, making it harder for people to buy new homes? Of course, the asterisk here, too, is that in the past, we've come to the brink of imposing tariffs on our neighbors to the north as well as Mexico.

but we have seen Trump back away as long as he got concessions from, you know, Claudia Scheimbaum in Mexico and in Canada as well. So who knows if these will actually come into effect or they are another, you know, bargaining chip in the fight against, you know, fentanyl coming across the borders. That being said, though, there's been this weird side effect of Trump going after Canada that we've seen recently a lot. It's basically resurrected kind of the Liberal Party in Canada. that had been left for dead with Trudeau stepping down, the conservatives were going to kind of take over in Canada.

But all of a sudden, due to this antagonization, if you look at polling, it's becoming a lot closer than you would expect. So there are all these kind of secondary effects that you haven't really considered with this, you know, brinksmanship tariff war that Trump is kind of doing it right now. So it is fascinating to see how the trickle-down effects are affecting, you know, politics in Canada, as well as, you know, just the economic state of America right now. There's one area that does not yet have clarity on tariffs, exactly, and that is Europe. President Trump has come out saying he's planning to hit goods made in the European Union with tariffs of 25%.

Unclear whether we're going to hear that as soon maybe as in the next couple of days, but it feels like something's coming. It's just a matter of how much and when. Now, just to zoom out one more time, I know we've zoomed out a lot in this segment so far. We did get GDP readings in it yesterday, and the U.S. economy did grow as. a 2.3% annualized pace in the fourth quarter. That matched estimates. Again, that is not encapsulating some of the policies that Trump has enacted so far or will enact. But still, it is a snapshot that as a whole, broad-based, the economy is doing well, or at least is meeting

expectations at this point. So that's just one final data point to put into this pie that we've just constructed of the entire state of the U.S. economy right now. We'll keep watching, seeing how it all comes together. For our next story, Toby, what is streaming? Two of the most popular shows on TV, Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune are shopping around their rights for their next big streaming deal, and they are including major media companies and tech businesses. So why would Netflix or Hulu possibly be a suitable home for both? Well, it could be a way to access a younger audience. We have seen other traditionally broadcast television programs make their way to streamers, for example, WWE Raw on Netflix and Thursday Night Football on Amazon. Now, streaming rights for Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune would begin in September.

And it could be up to three years as part of that deal, according to Sony, which owns both of these shows. The company that takes home the rights could air the episodes the day after they originally air on syndicated television. And then from September of 2028, they could have the same day rights to new shows. Toby, first of all, do you watch these shows? Absolutely. And what was fascinating is I am not alone in that. In this war of traditional cable versus streaming, the Crown Jewel has been sports. everyone's been fighting over sports because it's really the only thing people still watch life on TV.

But that is not necessarily true. Jeopardy and Will & Fortune continue to bring in massive audiences. The two games shows draw about 7 million viewers a night each, which is a lot more than I expected. I mean, you look at some of these streaming stats from these pop-up, you know, like golf leagues that are coming in. Those are well under a million. These are doing 7 million every single night with these very loyal audiences. They're also moneymakers, Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune together generated $175 million in advertising revenue last year. So these are absolute forces of nature and one of the last real valuable properties, valuable IPs out there,

that streamers are fighting over because they've already come from sports. They've already come for wrestling. Now they're coming from those late night or those evening TV shows that a lot of us have fond memories of watching. It also begs the question, how much will, whether it's the streamers or someone else, pay for this? So I went back and took a look. Netflix paid $5 billion for the rights for WWRWA. And that debuted on Netflix at just under 5 million viewers. So to your point, just under 5 million viewers compared to 7 million for the game shows,

$5 billion for Roar. We don't know yet how much this is going to end up getting paid for. But big numbers. Big numbers in the deed. I do think that these are just enduring cultural institutions at this point, which is why Sony is being very careful and handling them with kid gloves, because they don't want to, yes, it is an aging audience, and by going to streaming, they're after a younger audience, but they do not want to alienate that older audience,

who is their bread and butter at this point. So I think that's why we've seen them be a little later to the streaming game than, you know, some other properties as well. You also mentioned, too, that initial winning bid for whoever will get them on their streaming platforms, they'll only be able to stream them the day after they air on, you know, live television. So to me, there's an arbitrage opportunity there to be. impress your friends. Watch Jeopardy on traditional cable the night before and then just casually suggest, oh, let's toss it on streaming. Let's see what on Jeopardy and then nail all the answers

and press your friends right there. So that's a little bit of personal social arbitrage that you can do if these come to streaming, but or come to streaming a day after they actually air on cable. All right. I've just learned how you play quiz games right there. There's just so much insight into how Toby plays games. These are such national treasures as you've talked about it, really part the American culture. I'm from Britain originally, and I love watching Jeopardy, love it, and We're a Fortune too. It's something I've really embraced. I do wonder, Jeopardy had a really long-serving host, Alex Trebek from 1984 to 2020, so lots of people will have grown up with him having hosted. And since then, there have been the sort of two co-hosts. I wonder for the streamers

if they have to do something differently. I mean, yeah, Ken Jennings has stepped in and people have liked him a lot. Same with Pat Sejack and Whirl Fortune. Now you have Ryan Cicris, who stepped So they've have tried to, you know, bring in these modern faces. A lot of people know Ryan Cicris to set them up for the next, you know, 40-year run, which is a good point to kind of end this segment on. There is a staggering amount of volume that comes with these shows as well. 425 episodes a year are produced. That is very appealing to streamers because it creates a sticky audience.

Hopefully people are coming in night in, night out. Maybe it can help reduce with churn if, you know, Netflix becomes the platform that you watch Jeopardy on every day. So, again, I expect there to be a fairly large bidding war. I mentioned Netflix there, but it's not guarantee that they'll get it. There will be a bidding war over this very valuable franchises. Up next, it is time for Stock of the Week, Dog of the Week. Hey, honey, it's mom. Did you know if we switch to Verizon, we can get four phones for $0,

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We're the Hartford, with decades of experience ensuring millions of unique small businesses, when it comes to your small business insurance. Thank you. One size, absolutely, does not fit all. Get a quote or find an agent today at thehartford.com slash small business. It's Stock of the Week, Dog of the Week time, where Ann and I pick one stock from the week's news that is having a better time than Neil sipping mitis on a beach. And one stock that is facing the inevitable sunburn that will follow.

I won the pre-show game of who can do the best British accent. Huge upset there. So I am up first. And my stock of the week is not a stock at all, but a man and a man by the name of Mr. Beast. Yes, Jimmy Donaldson, aka Mr. Beast, aka the YouTube. that your 13-year-old nephew idolizes is raising money at a $5 billion valuation. He wants to use the cash to expand his burgeoning business empire, which includes the chocolate brand Feasibles and the snack company Lunchley and, of course, the largest individual YouTube

channel in the world. He says the business is profitable and brought in more than $400 million in sales last year. The upside of investing in Mr. Beast may lie in his ability to bring TV-level production to YouTube. His Squid Games in Real Life video has amassed over 750 million views on YouTube. But he has also made the jump to actual TV, creating the Beast Games game show for Amazon Prime this year with the biggest prize in TV history. All of it adds up to create an empire that is apparently worth $5 billion to investors, Anne. You know, not the first person in the celebrity world to do this. Do you remember Jessica Albaugh with Honest? We had George Clooney with Casamigos, Ryan Reynolds, Aviation Gin,

and then, of course, the OG of influencers, the Kardashians, right, with their empire skims, Kylie Cosmetics, Good Americans. So this has been done before, but not, I don't think it numbers this big right out of the gate. Right. He does, I think part of the reason why this number is so big is that it is wide-ranging. He has a very successful CPG brand, Lunchley and Feasibles are these money-making CPG brands. But then his YouTube empire alone is worth a hefty chunk of change, especially as he's trying to, you know, wiggle his way deeper into traditional entertainment.

We have to talk about the Beast Games game show. He actually just went on a podcast and started talking through the economics of that. And the economics were not good for Mr. Bees. He said, quote, I lost tens of millions of dollars on Beast games, but it's about making season one as good as possible. The reason why part of the reason why he lost money on it is that he was giving out $5 million for this game. show, which was the biggest prize in TV history. But then during the series, they did a coin flip, which if it landed on heads or tails would determine if the prize would double or not, it did double. So then he gave out $10 million. And he's like, it was decisions like that that

weren't the best financially, but he said hopefully it was the best entertainment-wise. If you're going to play the odds, Toby, you've got to live with the consequences. One thing that also broke Bloomberg News reporting last week that Mr. Bees might be moving from creating content to actually trying to buy a content distribution channel, he was rumored to be participating in a bid to buy TikTok. I know, yeah, that was the rumor for a while. Of course he would throw his hat into the ring there. That is cooled off a little bit, but it was interesting to see just how he could even

throw his hat into the ring in the first place because, you know, TikTok is this multi-hundred billion dollar company. So the fact that he was kind of marshaling enough resources to potentially make a bid does just go to show how big of a force he is in this creative. landscape. Wouldn't be the first business titan to go by a media platform. Speaking of which, let's move on to our dog of the week, which is Tesla. It has been a tough one for the EV carmaker. Over the past week, Tesla has faced several challenges that's impacted its stock performance and public perception, which has sort of become related. The stocks declined about

28% year-to-date and need a three-month low of just over $280. Now, there is concern from investors over CEO Elon Musk's political involvement, particularly his leadership role in the Department of Government Efficiency or Doge under the Trump administration. So investors have been concerned not only about the time he is spending not running Tesla, but also that this association has led to increased scrutiny and it has polarized consumer opinions with a morning consult survey indicating that 49% of Americans now hold negative views of Musk. Additionally, Tesla is facing intensified competition in the Chinese electric vehicle market and has introduced a refresh Model Y SUV

despite which Tesla stock has declined because there have been concerns about falling sales in Europe and other markets. All these factors have contributed to that decline in Tesla stock price down nearly 40% from its December peak. By the way, wiping almost $137 billion from Elon Musk's own wealth.

So Toby, when you listen to all of this and there is a lot going on, where next for Tesla? I mean, I do think that it deserved a spot in our dog of the week column this week because of just the variety of pressures that it's facing right now. It's not just that its sales are declining, which they did slump 1.1% annually. It was its first drop in over 10 years. So that alone can land you in the dog of the week column. But there's also this sentiment shift against Elon Musk, a lot of those figures that

you cited because he obviously is spending a lot of time in Washington, D.C., not as much time running the company itself. So that has led to some polarization, some protests when it comes to his fan base. And then also the European market just turned hardcore on it, which is normally a very EV friendly market. Just 9,945 Tesla cars were registered in January. That was a 45% drop registered in Europe a year prior. So it was just this confluence of a lot of factors that are sending Tesla down. Now, of course, zoom out again. They're down beneath a trillion dollar market cap. So a lot of people are saying, like, it's still almost a trillion dollar company. So put it all in perspective, but you are right. There is a lot of pressure that this company is facing

right now, especially as its CEO looks to be concerned with, you know, other things rather than turning this company in the right direction. Not clear yet, actually, what's going to happen with EV and public policy, because we've had these subsidies for folks to be able to go and buy electric vehicles. Europe actually cut those, which was one of the drivers for why sales fell over there. I don't know if the same thing would happen here. You'd think there'd be some sort of reflection of that. Finally, let's sprint to the finish with some final headlines you may have missed. Blue Origin is set to launch a historic flight into orbit this spring. The crew will carry TV journalist Gail King, former NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bow, researcher Amanda Nguyen, film producer Kieran Flynn,

Lauren Sanchez, the fiancé of Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos, and the pop star Katie Perry. The six women will take a 10-minute joyride aboard the New Shepherd Rocket, completing its 11th crewed mission come this spring and will be the first all-female mission into space since the Soviet astronaut took a solo flight all the way back in a 1963 and an eclectic group, but a historic one for sure. I'm so excited for this. I saw this. I was so excited, first of all, to see all those ladies in space, women in STEM love it.

But also, when you look at this lineup, Katie Perry, Lauren Sanchez, I am dying to know what their astronaut suits look like. I want to know who's designing the space costume. for this all-star lineup. It is an all-star lineup. It's very funny. You know what is the most funny to me, though, is that Gail King is not even going to be the first morning show host into space because, remember, Michael Strayhan went back in

2021. He was on the third crude fight. Imagine you think you're going to be the first one up there, but no, Michael Strayhan made it. And then I do, I will say, a driving force behind this flight has been Lauren Sanchez, which is Jeff Bezos's fiance. She is a former journalist, author, and a pilot. and she has been, according to all reports, very instrumental in putting this flight together.

So I think it's going to be very cool. I wonder what they're going to be chatting about because it is, I called it an eclectic group. And I mean, Katie Perry is just there. I don't even know how she made it in. But I'm excited to see, you know, this launch come together come this spring. They're going to be listening to Morning Brew Daily as they get launched on up there. Moving on now, let's talk about Target and Warby Parker, Toby, teaming up to bring some trendy new shades to the retailer.

The partnership will feature five shopping shops in stores located in Illinois, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Ohio. By integrating Warby Parker's expertise, target aims to enhance its eyewear offerings and attract new customers seeking quality and convenience. Warby Parker, otherwise the e-commerce play, stock was up 6% at one point yesterday. Toby, do you need some new glasses because I know a spot or I can lend you my Warby Parker? I'm more of a blue light glasses because I still got that 20-20. But this to me is definitely a bid by Target to try to reverse the flagging store traffic that they've been seeing in recent years. Target has been kind of caught in the middle in recent times. They can't compete with Walmart or Costco on Grochie.

So they've always relied on sort of these spontaneous drop-in visits where you buy stuff that you don't really need, mostly home goods and clothing, stuff like that. Walmart is more for essentials. Target is for some of the fun stuff. So is adding a trendy eyewear place like Warby Parker going to bring and inspire those drop in visits? Maybe, who knows? But you can see kind of why they're trying to, they're just throwing stuff at the wall right now to try to get people to keep coming back to their stores since they've lost some of that store traffic. Not the first general merchandiser to try to get a niche player to have a shop and shop inside them.

You know, Sephora launched in Colts. That was to try to get beauty enthusiasts to go into the struggling general merchandise. merchandising brand. Interesting to me, Toby, is a lot of these stores have tried to get services, you know, not just products. And Wauby Parker does have a sort of service element to it, which I thought was sort of an interesting part of this proposition. Yeah, not the first time Areseller's run this playbook and not the last time either. For our next headline, the number of babies born in South Korea last year went up for the first time in nearly a decade as the country fights to reverse one the world's most serious demographic crises.

238,000 babies were born in the country last year, an increase of 8,300 from a year earlier. Small, but it's the first time that yearly number of births has increased since 2015. The low birth rate has been a constant threat to South Korea's economy, which is the fourth largest in Asia. No kids means labor shortages in greater spending to support an aging population. Officials attribute the rise mostly to an increase in the number of marriages, coming out of the pandemic. So Ann, we will have to see if after this marriage bump ends,

if fertility rate starts to fall with it. You know, it's interesting. There are a lot of headlines that came out. Japan fell to a record low last year. And I actually wanted to go and find out where the U.S. ranked for fertility. Of all places, I found it on the CIA's website. U.S. ranked 133 for the fertility rate last year. South Korea at number 226, 226, and the lowest was Taiwan.

Yeah, it is one of those things that is happening across. a lot of developed nations, especially with the U.S., we do have immigration that comes in and can you keep the population stable, but that is not the case for places like Japan and Korea with not as much of an immigrant influx. But yeah, a demographic crisis is a challenge for Korean policymakers. It leads to things like falling economic growth. It leads to increased cost of pensions. It leads to more health care costs for an aging population. And it's not for lack of trying either. Korea has been trying to turn this around for a long time now. Since 2006, they've committed $270 billion towards, you know, making child care more affordable,

extending paid parental leave, encouraging reduced working hours. So this has been something that they have been focused on. So to see those numbers go up for the first time since 2015 is a good sign, but the question is, can they sustain it? Moving on to our last story of our Friday, Toby, I hope you've got the popcorn ready because the 97th Academy Awards are approaching. this weekend with the Oscar race, one of the more unpredictable ones in recent memory. The best picture category includes movies like Anora, Conclave and the Substance vying for top honors.

The best actress race, pretty thrilling, close battle between Demi Moore for the Substance and Mickey Madison for Inora. Now Conan O'Brien will be hosting the show for the first time Toby was not available to bring his comedic touch to the ceremony which has made some adjustments in light of recent challenges, including, of course, the wildfires in Los Angeles.

Now, many nominated films are already available on streaming platforms like Netflix and Hulu, which means we can watch them in advance. And the show is set to air on Sunday night on ABC, which is definitely hoping for a ratings rebound. So, Toby, if you're not hosting, are you watching and who do you want to win? God, I never get tab to host. I keep putting my name up. I have picked all my winners, Anne, and I want everyone to record this so we can come back and know just how right I was. Best picture, going to Conclave. Took top prize at the Saga Awards is also the only one that I saw, so I'm picking it here.

Best director, I'm giving Sean Baker for Anora because I haven't seen Anora, but I've seen a lot of good things about it. Best actor, I'm going Adrian Broderly with The Bruteless. I want to go, Timothy Salomey, but the Academy hates giving it to young people, so I'm going with Adrian Brody. Best actress, Demi Moore, The Substance. I wish I could watch this movie, Ann, but I'm really bad with Gore, and man is, it gory. So the memes have been funny, so I'm rocking with Demi Moore. And then finally, best visual effects. I'm going with Dune. I handpicked this category specifically because it was the only way I could show love to Dune too, which apparently the Academy forgot existed justice

for Dune. If none of those are correct, and we delete this episode, we never air it. If all those are correct, everyone, Venmo me one dollar. I think that is only fair right there. Any storylines that you're looking out for? I'm really looking to see how Conan O'Brien carries of Jimmy Kimmel's been nailing this for the last couple of years. So a little bit of a fresh talent. Fresh talent. I think Conan is going to crush it. That is all the time we have for today. Everyone give Anne a round of applause in your homes or on your commute right now for filling in this week. You absolutely crushed it. Thank you for wrecking your sleep schedule for the MVD audience. Neil is back next week where he will hopefully regale us with tales about all his travels.

Let's roll these credits. Emily Milliron is our executive producer. Raymond Lou is our producer. Olivia Graham is our associate producer. Lonnie Fiscus is our technical director. Scoops, Dardaris is on audio. Hair and makeup is trying to sneak a spot onto that Blue Origin flight, but I'm not sure if there's any seats left. Devon Emery is our chief content officer and our show is production of Morning Brew. Great show today, Toby. Have a great weekend, all, and everyone will see you back here on Monday.