Power Lunch - Power Lunch 4/21/2

Episode Date: April 21, 2026

CNBC’s Kelly Evans and Brian Sullivan take you through the heart of the business day bringing you the latest developments and instant analysis on the stocks and stories driving the day’s agenda. ���Power Lunch” delves into the economy, markets, politics, real estate, media, technology and more. The show sits at the intersection of power and money. “Power Lunch” gives viewers a full plate of CNBC’s award-winning business news coverage, plus a healthy dose of personality from the show’s anchors and the network’s top-notch roster of reporters and digital journalists. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Markets are down to touch as the world waits for word on the end of the Iran ceasefire. Welcome to Power Lunch, everybody. There is a lot on the line for you and your money. And our friend Sarat Setti is here with you the entire hour. On your agenda, the Iran ceasefire set to expire tomorrow. Will Trump extend it or will missiles fly and the markets fall? Plus, Fed Chair nominee Kevin Warsh in the hot seat, if confirmed, what will happen with interest rates? And we talk to the future of Apple under the new income.

On top of all of that, we have two big interviews coming up. First, Johnson & Johnson Chief Financial Officer Joe Woke on the health of the J&J story, how he sees growth, cash flow, and execution after they raise their outlook, and the shares are up more than 40% in the past year. And power player Rob Grancowski, four-time Super Bowl champ, entrepreneur, on the business of being Granc. He went on the field. Now he's looking to win in business.

We have those details coming up. All right, there is a lot to do. We've got a big show for you. as always, but let's begin with the Middle East War. Stocks are edging lower after talks between the U.S. and Iran have reportedly been put on ice. Vice President J.D. Vance expected to travel to Pakistan to press Iranian negotiators for a nuclear deal, but that trip reportedly put on hold after Tehran failed to respond to U.S. terms. This all comes, as President Trump on CNBC this morning, said he does expect the U.S. to strike a, quote,

great deal with Iran before the ceasefire expires tomorrow. We're going to end up with a great deal. I think they have no choice. We've taken out their Navy. We've taken out their Air Force. We've taken out their leaders, frankly, which does complicate

things in one way, but these leaders are much more rational. Now, in that interview, the president also admitting that he is surprised by the stock market's resilience throughout the war. The numbers are what they were when we started this whole thing. I thought they'd be down 20% or down a very substantial amount.

Even when it was down more a couple of weeks ago, I was surprised. I thought it would be down much more, and I thought the oil would be much higher. So what does our guest host for the hour think about that and more? Maybe have the market's been too complacent, Sarat Sadi. Welcome again. Great to see you. Thank you. What do you make of this ceasefire? If we don't get something by tomorrow morning. If missiles start to fly again, markets will probably fall. They will probably fall, but the way the market's been reacting is as if they're seeing through all this already. And you're already kind of saying, okay, these earnings coming in the next quarter, maybe the next two quarters is going to be depressed because of high input prices, you know, you've got retail

kind of coming down on the high end, et cetera. But the market's acting as if there's going to be some type of, you know, agreement coming forward. In other words, we know there will be a resolution to this at some point, whether that's tomorrow or whether it's next week or next month or whatever, and you want to invest for the longer term. Well, what I would say is stay within your allocation and don't try and time it because if you do get an agreement, the market probably has discounted most of it. But if it comes back down, it might be for a short term again. So it's just timing it is going to be really impossible, especially look, we're going into midterms. he's already said we are all going to get an agreement we're going to be pulling out. So there's going to be, I'm not saying it's going to be all champagne and roses,

but I do think it will be frothy, and at some point we'll get through this just because I don't think there's the world wants an agreement, and I think that will probably come out. It's what the president said. The fact that he said, look, I would have expected even higher oil and higher stocks. It sounds like he was willing to take that and do it anyway. But there are others that have made a similar point. There's all of these warnings about how high the oil price will go, but it never seems to get that high or what's happening.

So I don't want to whistle past the graveyard here. But the stock market is telling you that all of these scary scenarios about how expensive it's going to get or how problematic it's going to be aren't going to have that much impact. Other than, unfortunately, for people like Alaska Airlines, who we heard from a little while ago, why is that? Is it that, you know, the markets are so innovative and resilient and responsive that they can just find ways of getting around

even what the biggest disruption in energy supplies we've ever seen? Yeah, I mean, I think to your point, we've probably got a lot more positive spin than we've expected in the markets. I mean, you saw what happened in Liberation Day, you know, some of the other conflicts there. Now, you know, as Brian said to me before, we're one drone strike away from a lot of other things that could happen.

So we're in base case scenario at this point. And I think we as investors have to kind of look through that and say, what's going to happen? and what are the areas. But to your point on the airlines, look, they're all cutting capacity. European, you know. Look what Lufthansa just said, canceling, what was it, 20,000 flights? Yeah, and you're going to see that in the past, the airlines didn't really do much, right?

They just kind of said, hey, so now you're seeing reactive companies saying, we're going to be cutting this, we're going to be going out. The airlines are just the beginning. We're probably going to see it from other stuff, and you're going to see prices being raised. So you might get some demand destruction. You're already seeing it in high-end retail, as I mentioned. I mean, if you look at companies like Ferrari, you're. and some of the other high-end retailers, their supply or the demand in the Middle East

has just been completely cut off. So that will come in, and investors are looking through that and saying, that's temporary because obviously people will buy it. But if this sustains for too long, and I don't think we have the appetite here for it to sustain. If you look at Google search trends, I know it's just one mini metric and many people.

Maybe everybody already knows what the Strait of Hormuz is, but Strait of Hormuz search trends are back below where they were two months ago. In other words, people have either stopped looking because they already know what it is or they've stopped caring because every day something goes on, they kind of get ignored to it.

It's a weird thing to say, but it's true. But my point to you before the show began was if there was a drone strike on that east-west pipeline in Saudi Arabia, oil is at 150 overnight? I mean, let's hope that doesn't happen and assume it doesn't, but if it did,

I would assume you and your firm would have to recalibrate. Or no, maybe not. Maybe it doesn't have anything to do with Microsoft or Invidio or Oracle. It would depend on the demand destruction that we're talking about, right, and how permanent this. And look, as a country, we're not that dependent, but the rest of the world, and you've already seen the Europeans really being affected.

It was kind of when the Russian-Ukraine war started. So it's input prices and how long and how sustainable that's going to be. And that's going to affect a lot of things. So right now, market's saying this is going to be, you know, temporary. But if this becomes permanent, and look, with the president saying he was surprised, you could see him negotiate a little bit more, not worried about how much down more we'll have in the market because he's kind of already signaled to us

that he's willing to take some of the pain, but we'll have to see if his constituents do. Anything else tactical? I know we'll have a lot more time the rest of this hour, but any other ideas that, you know, I would have asked this maybe had been more compelling on March 30 before we came all the way back, but just anything right now? Well, I think being defensive but with growthy companies

and it's kind of interesting, we have Jay and Jay coming, but these are the type of companies that have secular growth, right? They're not dependent on just the consumer. They're not dependent on industrial production, et cetera. They're going to have great sales because this is products people need. So consumer staples, health care, you need to be in these areas. And, you know, there are some people saying time, energy. I think you should have energy in your portfolio all the time because it's a great hedge, right?

In Exxon Chevrons of the world, make a lot of money now. But then when oil goes back down. They're going to make more. They're going to make more now. And they've all kind of come through the cycle to say, what are we going to do with this capital? We're not just going to go out and explore. We got you the whole hour, but we just had the Russell 2000 Small Cap Index. It's down a little bit today with the markets. It's up 12% this year. It's been one of the greatest

starts to a year for small cap stocks ever. Small caps are primarily dependent on the strength the American consumer. Is that telling you any, that chart telling you anything about expectations for the American economy? So it's telling you, actually, the Russell started off, not too well, but International did very well. And now people are moving, allocating more to the smaller companies in the U.S. to say we'll rather be domestic than going into Europe and Asia who are so dependent on input prices and commodities and energy. Really? That's a big deal, because the international was a huge storage.

International was. And you saw it, and it's kind of like going back and forth, and then, you know, their economies are going to slow down a lot more than us. And in the Russell, a big part of is financial services. So you're seeing some of the financial companies. talking about the alternative managers, but you look at our banks, they've actually had a good quarter coming out of the earnings, the JPs, the Morgan Stanley's, et cetera. So they're benefiting from having an over-exposure to financials in the Russell. From international to small caps.

That's fascinating. Sarat, stay right there. Let's check on the bond markets where we saw some movement after those headlines. The Vance is not traveling to Islamabad. 430. We're just below that level right now. Of course, we also have the Fed meeting next week. Rick Santelli is standing by with more. Hi, Rick. Hi. You know, I think we need to start at the beginning. Retail sales this morning, which much, much better than expected. As a matter of fact, you have to go all the way back to Jan of 23 to find a higher number, even though we've had a 1.7 recently, very strong number. And how did the market react? Well, look at a six-hour chart of tens. Two things I want you to notice,

that if you look at 8.30 Eastern when that number was released, we never looked back. We started to move up, and then we gradually moved up higher. And much of this was predicated on oil. Now, if you pair up the oil market to it, what you should notice is we tracked oil up and we're tracking oil down. And indeed, Kelly, there are many headlines out there, most of them highly negative with regard to any positive outcome on potential talks with Iran and the U.S. But it doesn't seem to me that the 10-year is following headlines. Markets are agnostic to war for the most part. It's looking at what affects it the most, the price of crude oil.

And ultimately, it may look at war because war has a cost associated with it. But ultimately, right now, 10-year yields are off their worst levels. And once again, that high-frequency area we keep revisiting at 4.30%. Back to you. All right, Rick, Sinteli, Rick, thank you very much. In the meantime, we've got a news alert right now on Team Mobile. Julia Borses, what's going on? Yes, Deutsche Telecom is said.

consider a full merger with T-Mobile, according to a report in Bloomberg. On this report, we see shares of T-Mobile up about two and a half percent. We have reached out to both T-Mobile and Deutsche Telecom for comment, and we will be back to you as we hear back from those companies. I believe, is, I might be wrong. I think they've gone back and forth on this. Doesn't T-Mobile part of Deutsche Telecom and then it spun off at T-Mobile? Yeah, I believe, yeah. Yes, yes. So this would be, this, my understanding, is that this would be a full combination. Now T-Mobile operates separately, traded independently here in the U.S., but these are companies that have all of these connections. And in fact,

as recently as the end of February, T-Mobile and Deutsche Telecom together announced a 6G Innovation Hub to focus on AI-Native network. So these are two companies that are not only affiliated, but continue to work together. So we'll see if this report, if we could substantiate this report with comment from either of the companies, but this would speak to the opportunities they see in coming back together. And I think also speaks to the pressure on this entire industry for the need for convergence. I don't know if we can show quickly shares of AT&T and Verizon and if they're moving on this, Julia. But AT&T often kind of claims that T-Mobile is pursuing a sugar high strategy with this home, you know, wireless and all of that while they're doing the fiber build-out. I forget what the CEO said the other day.

It was like they're putting in the equivalent of U.S. to California fiber and, you know, every single day or something like that. And I wonder if there's a bit of a capital angle to this where T-Mobile at some point might indicate, yeah, you know, we would potentially have to do something like that, too. I don't want to read too much into it. Certainly a time for a lot of capital investment right now in the industry. And we will be hearing from both AT&T and Comcast later this week. We will be getting their earnings later this week. I think this question of competition in an area that's increasingly commoditized will certainly come up. All right.

Julia, for that, thanks. In Verizon and AT&T are just fractionally on the move. today. So not much reaction there. Coming up, our mystery chart is one of the hottest super cap stocks we haven't talked enough about, but we will after this. Johnson and Johnson shares, they're lower today as the broader markets pull back from their recent highs, but let's zoom out a little bit. It's been on a remarkable run. Since July of last year, J&J has climbed more than 40% to all-time highs. For more on what key developments are in the pipeline and what's fueling this run, let's welcome And Joe Woke, he's the chief financial officer and a member of the CNBC CFO Council and Sarat SETI,

who owns J&J through the good times and the bad. Why the devotion, Sarat? At some point, do you have to sell your winners or what? No, because if you actually go back to that chart and you look at when the stock was 140 bucks or, you know, it was trading it. And Joe, you and I've talked about it. It was trading it 15 times earnings. And they had said to the street that we are going to be focused on certain areas of the market.

And I love to hear more about Joe talking about. about this, and we're going to divest certain businesses and really put our energy and R&D into the growth. And nobody believed it. Right. Right. Because in that time, everybody wanted to own the dot-com, not dot-com, but like, you know, anything to do with AI. But here, this story is fascinating because, as Joe has explained, you can go into this, there's not one single winning strategy here. There's not a weight-loss drug that's, you know, kind of common.

So I'm curious, sir, just real, as a final preamble here, when you heard that strategy, what made you think, yeah, this kind of broad, diversified approach is going to result in this kind of financial return? Well, we're going to focus on pharma and MetTech, and we're going to get rid of the orthopedics and the other businesses. And we have the balance sheet. We have a AAA balance sheet. And we have over, at that point, 20 different drugs that could be over a billion. And now it's even higher. It's 28 now. Yeah. I'm embarrassed that I didn't know that, Joe, because this is one of America's great companies, one of the oldest companies of America. It's one of New Jersey's great companies.

28 businesses or platforms doing over a billion dollars in revenue. Surrots obviously figured this out. But what can we do? We're talking about it now. But like what is it that maybe investors might still be missing? Because only it feels like only recently as someone said, aha, this is a great company and we need to own the stock. Well, listen, Brian, and thanks for having me.

A pleasure to be here. On behalf of Johnson & Johnson in this story, if you think about 23 and 24, We lagged the market. We lag the S&P. Badly. Badly. Right? So we had some ground to make up.

But there were three questions that I think were on investors' minds. Can you get past this Stolara loss of exclusivity? It was an $11 billion drug in 2024? Check. We've answered that. Can the pipeline that we talked about and tried to sell to Sarat? Can that deliver?

I'd say check plus. Sold. Right? It's not only delivered, but it's delivered faster and probably more exuberant than what we thought. And then can MedTech become much more reliable? Here, Tim and Schmidt and his... His team have done a great job making that a sustainable platform for growth going forward. We're getting rid of some of the lower growth businesses.

While they're good businesses, they're just not good in Johnson and Johnson's portfolio. We're a $100 billion company this year. We grew operationally about 6% in the first quarter, 6.5%. We have plans to get to better than 10% growth, double-digit growth by the end of this decade. So in areas like oncology, we've had a stronghold in multiple myeloma and prostate cancer. We're adding to that new therapies in bladder cancer, lung cancer, head and neck and colorectal cancer. We continue to evolve in surgery. MedTech, it's about a robotic.

We had Chris Burner, the CEO of Bristol-Myers Squib, on this show about about about about about about about about about about about, about kind of based the same central New Jersey area. The same question to you, Joe, which is, it's been impossible to talk about pharma without talking about weight loss drugs, the GL-1s. That's all anybody wanted to talk about. Have we gotten out of the part of the story where they're still critically important and growing, but we're able to look past it as investors? It feels like we finally are, because all anybody wanted to talk about was GOP-1s, and I'm going to tell you something. My wife is a cancer survivor, God bless her.

There's a lot of bad things out there that need to be cured. Yep. And it's in oncology. It's in immunology. It's in neuroscience for depression. Those are strongholds for Johnson and Johnson. We plan to be number one or number two in those spaces. Our oncology franchise will go from 20,

billion last year to $50 billion by 2050 because of some of the new platforms that we're entering. And there are serious illnesses out there. And I think that's what makes Johnson and Johnson very unique is that we have such a broad portfolio with a strong financial foundation that we can go strategically anywhere. So one of the things that attract us to your stock is there are only two AAA balance sheets left in the world. And J&J is one of them. Wait, wait, wait, wait. There's only two AAA balance sheets left in the world. Guess what the other one is? Are we including sovereign?

Or are we just talking corporates? Corporates, corporate, okay. Microsoft. There's only two, so it's J&J and Microsoft. Wow. So talk us through the acquisition strategy because they've been able to acquire, but not blow up the balance sheet,

which, as you know, as us as value-biased investors, we love. So can you talk more to that? Yeah, it's about cash flow, Surat. And so when you think about the loss of exclusivity on that product that I mentioned for Soriasis, Stalara, an inflammatory bowel disease, we were thinking about how are we going to replace that revenue back in 2018, right? We're thinking now about the next wave of loss of exclusivity

in 2032, 233, about what do we invent now, where do we place the bets. The portfolio and the growth projections that I have largely de-risk. These products are on market. They're kind of in their infancy. They're just launching now. And so I think investors should feel very good about that. And we've got, because of the financial position we're in, whether it's more than $20 billion of free cash flow, it should be escalating, whether it's the AAA credit rating that Surveillance. referenced. It puts us in a position to do just about any strategic acquisition that makes sense, but we don't have to do anything out of desperation, which is a nice luxury that I have as CFL. But this is an important point. Mark, I think, was recently profiled in the FT, kind of similarly

to say, okay, how are you able to be strategic with the acquisitions? And we know biotech is starting to show some life again in terms of the stocks. And there's a lot of interest and excitement around what you might really be looking at. Can you go into any more detail about that? Yeah. So for us, it's going to be areas that when we have a discussion with our board on on acquisition. 80% of the discussion is the strategic capabilities and why that should be in a portfolio. Why can we do a better job with that asset than where it currently resides? That's scientific or clinical expertise, it's commercial capabilities. Sometimes it's just our global reach. And then 20% is about the value that we can get in return. We like to acquire

assets early so we can develop that label to be as expansive and as quickly as possible to market. How many for, let's say the remainder of this year, how many companies might you actively be looking at that could be takeover targets? Is it less than five? Is it more than 15? It's hard to say. So in the last about three and a half years, we deployed about $55 billion in capital. Three companies took up $45 billion of that $55. There was about 25 other ventures that took up the balance of that $10 billion. So we actually take a sense of pride in buying companies when they're smaller before that value has been created and then adding, what I believe is a competitive advantage, the clinical mindset, the clinical expertise, the development.

process, which our team has become very adept at, and creating value that. One more one of the thing. J&J, when people think of J&J, they think of Tylenol and consumer. Can you just talk a little bit about how that business you got rid of and your divest or strategy? Yeah. So again, that was also a strategic decision, just like an acquisition. The consumer market, if you had a celebrity profile that used a skin cream, that was a fast

seller, very fast moving. The scientific capabilities required for men. Megtech and pharmaceuticals, much longer timeline, bigger capital outlay. But is what you're saying that the influencers came to rule the consumer products market? They have much more impact than you would have thought. If you go back 10 years ago, it was 9 out of 10 dentists, 9 out of 10 dermatologists. That no longer carries the weight as a Kardashian. Well, Brian Sullivan's hair creak, which works great.

You can't even get into a restaurant. It doesn't even get me in. It gets me thrown out, actually. But that in a way drives you out because you can't get that. moat because there's so much volatility. Well, we're also having a bigger impact on society and patients when we focus on the areas that I spoke about earlier. Plenty day we can learn something's a good day.

We learned that you're one of two AAA balance sheets. If Jamie Ding, who's the current champion of Jeopardy, who's a Central Jersey guy, that comes up, he better get it right. Microsoft and Johnson and Johnson. Joe Wolk, J&J CFO, and member of the CNBC CFO Council, a lot of Cs there. A lot of Cs there. A, thank you very much. Thank you, Ryan.

Except for AAA, which is your balance sheet. On deck, software stocks at a crossroads. Your market navigator is next. As the snazzy animation says, time not to navigate this market. Let's talk software. The stocks, they've been under serious pressure this year. And while we love to show things like ETFs, is it still kind of wrong to lump all these software names together? Your next guest might say yes.

Joining us, Matt Powers, managing partner at Powers Advisory Group. Matt, yeah, there's good companies and bad companies, and the ATFs may not reflect that. Who do you like right now? Yeah, thanks for having me. I think the mistake right now people are making is they talk about software as like it's one trade and it's just not. You know, you take the IGV, which is the I shares ETF and you look at it. It's over 100 names. You got everything from cybersecurity to cloud to chip design, gaming, I mean, even crypto miners. And so it's this broad mix. And when you hear software's down or software's coming back, I think it's oversimplifying what's actually happening underneath the surface. So, you know, we're looking more at any kind of company that doesn't have a low switching costs or productivity tools that AI can't replicate. So start here. You start with the obvious one. It's Microsoft.

And just learn it's one of the only two AAA rated companies that are out there. But largest holding in the ETF, it's even after the move it's had just recently, you know, the thing's still 20% off last October's highs. But it's a consensus by a cross-all analyst. And, you know, it's trading at a 25 times forward PE, which, you know, 30 is is the average. it's closer to. So the next is crowd strike. You know, it's the cybersecurity. You know, it's the leader. AI is actually a tailwind here and it's not a threat, but you've got more endpoints, complexities, vulnerabilities, you know, and AI only increases the need for protection

there. So, you know, security budgets aren't discretionary. You're not going to cut them. And, you know, you're getting a company that's growing with high margins and recurring revenue and a platform that's becoming more embedded in customers' businesses. So I think, Brian, the takeaway from me is pretty simple. This isn't a buy software market. It's, you know, pick your names here and be a lot more careful with parts of software that AI might disrupt. Microsoft and Crowdstrike, potentially two big winners. Matt, a little bit tight on time. Daddy, we'll have you back on soon for Market Navigator. Do appreciate it. Thank you very much. No problem. Thanks, Brian. Take care. A fresh face taking a bite out of the top job at Apple. Morgan Stanley's Eric Woodring on what the

new Ternus era could bring for the company after the break. Apple is entering a new era. The tech giant announcing company veteran John Turnus is taking over the helm from longtime CEO Tim Cook on September 1st. Ternus is the hardware chief, leading developments of its most recognizable products like the iPhone, iPad, Mac, and newer innovations like the Apple Vision Pro. Shares are down 2% on the news today and perhaps on the markets broadly. Price target of $315 has our next guest who remains bullish on the stock. here to discuss what this new era could bring is Eric Woodring, head of U.S. technology hardware research at Morgan Stanley.

Eric, it's great to have you knee-jerk thoughts on the timing of the move and what Ternis might actually start to do in terms of strategy change or continuation. Sure. Thanks for having me on, Kelly. So need-jerk reaction, maybe it happened a bit earlier than I would have expected. Tim has said publicly that he intended. tends to hang around Apple for a long time. Technically, that is still true, just maybe an executive chairman role as opposed to CEO role. But there's been plenty of reporting about John Turner's taking over for Tim Cook as CEO. Frankly, Apple has also made John more of a prominent feature in a lot

of their product introduction events, basically going back five years now. And so I guess timing, you never necessarily know, but at least Apple has always done a very good job at foreshadowing transfer, transition, excuse me. And that is no different this time nonetheless. But timing, listen, maybe a little earlier than expected, but John was the guy that we always thought would be in the seat. That has been fairly clear, in my opinion. Maybe we can back up the stock chart and show how it's done over the past, you know, nine months or so, just to get some context. Obviously, of the Mag 7, Google's been the standout. because of Gemini. That said, Apple remains a steady performer. At the end of the day, a lot of us

are using these new AI apps on our iPhones. So what's your expectation for continued iPhone sales? And is that going to remain the most important thing for the company? Yeah, well, I think there's maybe two different conversations to be had there. One is, just on its own, the iPhone is doing tremendously well right now. You know, we previewed the quarter earlier this week. We think March will be another quarter of 20% plus iPhone revenue growth. We think June will be close to 20% iPhone revenue growth. And so, you know, stand alone without really an impact from AI, the iPhone is doing what it should be doing, which is driving the majority of dollar growth at Apple. Now, AI is kind of a different discussion because right now, I would say

that AI or Apple is not really a participant in that conversation. They're clearly kind of on the doorstep and we can discuss where they belong. But, you know, in a world of agentic AI, there's a meaningful role that Apple can play, not just on the hardware level and kind of being the distribution engine, but they theoretically can own kind of the middleware on your iPhone and really be an important layering, kind of like orchestration, app orchestration and agentic AI. That can change the narrative on Apple, of course. That, can also bring along new device introductions, which John Turnus has at least been reported to be favored of, at the same time, we're not there yet. So this makes for a very critical developer

conference coming up on June 8th to really understand what direction is Apple going towards AI. Are they really just like a participant on the side, or can they really dive all the way into it and really help to change the narrative coming out of Cooper Tina? Yeah. So, you know, where you just mentioned, I mean, one would say that the signal is this is a hardware company. And a hardware company, multiple, shouldn't be as high as what it is right now, what Apple has. So what do you think kind of is going to happen, you know, in the next year in terms of at least a little bit of a shakeup, right? Because when Tim Cook was there, we knew kind of what to expect. But have you heard anything from them to say, we know this ship works, but what can we down?

do to move it in a different direction? You know, Apple is historically very coy around future product launches or changes to the strategy. And so the short answer to the question is, you know, there haven't been a ton of breadcrumbs to date. Again, they typically use these big events, whether it's the developer conference in June, the iPhone launched this coming September. Interestingly enough, WWDC will be featured by Tim Cook. The iPhone launch likely featured by John Turnus.

So kind of a natural evolution of the leadership there. But my point is there hasn't been a lot of breadcrumbs that we have seen to date. Again, we know that Apple has a focus of things like on-device AI. They obviously have a very big focus on privacy. But the strategy going forward is still to be determined by these very key events going forward, especially now of the CEO transition. So it's a bit of weight in C mode, to be honest right now. And this is a premature comment.

but I do sense a little bit of a shift that could define Ternus's tenure versus cooks, where people are pushing back against the iPhone a little bit, pushing back against the doom scrolling, even the, and I do wonder, you know, how much different kind of public sentiment might be. But for the very near term, you know, for sure, it's full steam ahead, especially with new things like these AI apps. Eric, thanks for now. Appreciate it. Thanks so much for having me.

Eric Woodring with Morgan Stanley. All right, let's get now to Julia Borg. Of course, it. Would they see NBC News update? Brian, Democratic Congresswoman Sheila Turfoulis, McCormick resigned from Congress today, effective immediately. Weeks after the House Ethics Committee said she was guilty more than two dozen charges related to stealing federal disaster funds to finance her campaign.

She called the process unfair and said the Ethics Committee prevented her from defending herself because a criminal indictment is also pending. A federal judge today blocked the Trump administration's permitting rules that stymied wind and solar projects, siding with industry groups who say the government has imposed unlawful roadblocks to new energy generation. Federal judges have already halted the administration's effort to end all offshore wind projects under construction on the East Coast. And the FAA said today it's investigating a near miss of two southwest planes in the skies over Nashville's airport. According to the agency and air traffic controller inadvertently put one plane in the other's path, and the two aircraft came

within 500 feet of each other. The FAA says a warning system alerted both crews and the planes landed safely. Kelly, back over to you. We're all wincing back here. You hate to hear stories like that. 100 feet? Yeah, 500 feet at how many miles per hour is how many seconds apart? Easy there, physics.

Yeah, it's close. It's close. It's close. It's really. Thanks. Too close for comfort. Yeah, it's not good. Glad the pilots sorted that out.

Four-time Super Bowl champ, Rob Gunnkowski, friends. Rob, give us a wait. Yes, he's not a hostage. He's really here. He's going to be on Power Lunch, fresh off a big event in Vegas, here to talk about big money in college sports and the NFL draft. I might ask you your biggest money mistake, Rob, get that ready. We'll see you in a bit.

2026 NFL draft kicks off in two days. Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza, the odds on favorite to go number one. Mendoza and many others are going to have huge paydays in the NFL. But it's not like it used to be because many of these men and many of them are men are not only older, but they're also already rich. They've made millions playing college. sports. President Trump is not happy about where college sports is going. College sports is a disaster right now. You have many people staying in college because they're

going to make more money than they would if they went into baseball, Major League Baseball or the NFL. They can make more money, you know, a seven-year freshman. We have a seven-year freshman. It's crazy. I don't know if they're freshmen in seven-year, but either way, we have Rob Grancowski with us now. And Rob, welcome. Thank you for coming on. We know you just wrapped up a huge party in Las Vegas called Grongp Beach. It was brought by DoorDash. We're going to get to that in a moment. But I got to ask you first about the big money in college sports.

Many of these programs make massive money. Most of read the players need to get paid. I agree. You would agree. Two questions. How much would you have made as a freshman at the University of Arizona? And do you agree these athletes should be paid? Yes.

As a freshman at the University of Arizona, I was a highly talented player coming out of high school. So I would say I would be, you know, in the mix of getting paid pretty well. I would probably say about $500,000 to a million dollars. I could have probably gotten if we're talking about this day and error of the money that they're getting. So it would have been a pretty good payday for myself, no doubt about that. And yes, I do agree that these players should be paid because they deserve it. They're bringing the money and the revenue to these organizations and to these colleges and to the programs. But here's the problem. It just needs to be regulated. It's not really

NIL money at all. That's only a select few players. It's more pay to play. But it needs to be regulated. There needs to be a salary cap. It needs to be fair throughout the conferences and the visions. You know, it just can't be just a free for all at all.

And that's the only problem. Because it is right now, Rob. Listen, I'm a Virginia Tech Hokia. We got a new coach. And thankfully, we got a skydiver who's okay. But I've got to ask you, you know, you've got these players now that go to like six schools in six years. That's not good for college sports. No, I don't think so either. And I think that's a little unnecessary to do. I think that hurts the player as well. These guys that keep jumping around,

I don't think that's very beneficial for them at all either. The transfer portal is just kind of a whack job. There's no doubt about that. It needs to be, it needs to be like maybe once a year. Like, I feel like every time I turn on, you know, the television, these guys are transferring and the transfer portal's open. Like, it needs to be regulated as well. It can't be, like I said, this big of a free-for-all and chaos. Once they regulate it and they understand the process more and they put rules in place so it's fair throughout the board and take away to transfer portal to once a year, maybe twice a year in some circumstances, well, then I think that would be the more well-mannered way to do it.

Yeah, because people are just kind of living in the transfer portal. I've talked to colleges. Some of these kids, they're not even, you know, they're not even attending. What was it, Carson Beckham? Miami, they're like, oh, did you have class? He goes, I graduated two years ago, you know, before the national title game. Speaking of chaos in a good way, Grunk Beach, presented by DoorDash in Las Vegas, we can't show a lot of the video because it's just too fun, Rob. It's just too much fun and I'm old, and I can't see it because I'm just going to be sad.

I'm not young and in shape anymore, not that I was ever in shape. This was a huge party. Why partner with DoorDash? What are they bringing you that you don't already have? Yes, well, DoorDash delivered a great party. That's no doubt about that. And we also partnered with WrestleMania, who's the official after party of WrestleMania,

and DoorDash came through as a head sponsor, so we appreciate everything that they have done for us. But what made it really special is I walked around the strip of Vegas and I randomly let people select a random item out of their bag. And if you couldn't get it on DoorDash, well, then they got a gift card to DoorDash or tickets to Grant Beach that night. And it was cool, the items that people were pulling out of the bag in Vegas.

So we filmed that all, and that's going to be coming out soon, which was a fun piece to do. Also, thank you, the monster for, you know, providing the energy to the party. And Wendy's for bringing the spicy chicken sandwich, you know, to the party as well. So we were fueled all night long to go with all the drinks that we were having. But overall, it was a complete success. It was like a throwback party when I was in my young 20s again. Like, we brought it to that stage once again. The dancing was epic.

I like who you're talking like that. You're young 20s. It was like five years ago. Rob, it's Kelly here. Let me just ask you kind of on that point. What are you doing across the board business-wise and thinking about who are your role models? What kind of investments do you have? Do you have a financial, a broker, you know, I mean, everyone talks about 50 cent and trying to replicate

what he or Shacker these guys are doing. I'd be curious to hear, like, how many different things are you trying to do? Yes, I'm a part of a couple things in my life, and I like to get, you know, tend to get into things that, you know, line up with my life. And my brother, who's right next to me actually right now, he got scared to attend Grand Beach in Vegas because he was too busy with his company that I'm actually invested in, and it was on Shark Tank as well. And that's Ice Shaker.

He can say hi. Chris, talk to your Ice Shaker. Check it out. He was too busy selling too many of them so he couldn't make the party, which is understandable. And then also I invested into a. sale and rap company that we have down in Tampa. We have five stores right now. It just goes in lines along with my life.

I love to be healthy. I love to be fit. We have grant fitness as well. So those are the things I tend to get involved with. Okay. My follow-up question to that is based on these various investments so far and all the money that you've made in your career, what has been your biggest money mistake or mistakes up until now?

All right. One of the biggest money mistake I did was just for, you know, laughs and giggles. I bought this Jeep, this off-roading Jeep that I thought was going to be super cool. I bought it at an auction that my friend was at. He sent it to me. He's like, I think this would be a good purchase. I bought it for $18,000. And then I never used it one time in my life.

That's your biggest money mistake. Is it you spent $18,000 on a Jeep? Yes, I sent it into the shop to get it all customized. And I never saw it again. And I ended up just giving it away. Brian, away. If that was my biggest money mistake, Surrott's saying, who's a professional investor, Rob, with us on set.

Sorad, you've, you know, you've made no mistakes. I'm sure ever, not one in your entire. I wish I'm going to be that mistake, but that's pretty... Rob, do you buy stocks? Does Rob Grancouncanti do you invest in equities or just private companies like your brothers? Yes. No, I'm in the stock market for sure. My stocks are doing great.

And I actually talked about it before. The guy who built my house, it was my first house ever when I got to the Patriots after a couple years. And, you know, me being silly, he always told me, hey, you guys, just talking about it actually you had apple up on before i got on this call is that hey you got to invest into apple and i never invested into a stock in my life and the guy building my house i was like fine i'll do it because you that's all you've been talking about so me being me i put 69 000 into apple when i was uh about 24 years old and i forgot about it and then i looked about six seven years later and my stock was up to 600 000 so i basically got a house because of a guy who

built my house. You paid for the Jeep, Rob. Yeah. You paid for the Jeep about 50 times over. Yes, it did. So now I got something way better than the Jeep. Well, we love it. You're welcome back here to talk stocks anytime. It's been a pleasure to speak with you, Rob. Thanks for making

the time. Hey, thank you guys for having me. Rob Grunkhouse. And I wonder if the guy that built his house is still building homes or if he's sitting in some mansion somewhere in like Tampa or, you know, St. Jeter'sburg, when Jeter That's built that house. It depends when he sold. If he did. If he did. This is why you should buy and hold for the long run. More power lunch after this.

Welcome back. Your key to the market today, as in recent weeks is the price of crude oil. WTI is off session highs, as you can see there. We're all the way back below 89 a barrel. This is on reports that the vice president may still be traveling for peace talks. But the point is that the markets and the oil price are all hanging on the status, Brian, of this trip. Will it still happen? When will it happen? As long as it appears, to be possibly happening, it's putting everyone in a better move. Yes, and as long as there is no more major attacks on major energy infrastructure in the region. Yes. And I think the market is then going to, at the same time, you've got earnings going on, right? So as long as you don't see any bombs go off in the earnings, I think the market could stay steady. But if you start now seeing things happening in other sectors, like if it's software blowing up or other things, then you could see the market kind of pulled out.

Speaking of software, you, uh... Well, look, you know... Well, I remember we talked to workday. We've talked to a lot of these different names. We talked about to my J&J. These things are trading at 10, 12 times cash flow. They used to be trading at 20. So the question is, is AI eating their lunch?

Are they able to use AI? Do you think that answer is no? I don't think it's as bad as people think it is. I mean, there's definitely going to be some pressure on the growth rate, but it's not going to be, hey, we're not growing at all. It's been the right call from the lows so far. So we'll see if we have some carry. But they're down 30, 40%,

So we got it. So, thank you. And thank you all for watching Power Lunch.