Power Lunch - Stocks head for gains 9/29/25

Episode Date: September 29, 2025

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum discusses President Trump's newest energy announcement. President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hold a joint press conference. And stocks head for a positive day.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

It is game on for Nvidia and the AI trade, EV sales, getting a bit of a jolt and some big time energy overall. Welcome to Power Lunch, everybody. Hope you're having a great Monday. I am Brian Kelly is off today. Big Tech starting the week higher. Invita and Microsoft kind of trying to drag stocks up overall. Investors shaking off any concerns about the power needed for some of those very dreamy ambitions. Plus, EV sales seeing the last minute pop as a key federal tax credit set to it. expire. Will the EV market turn into a pumpkin when the clock strikes midnight? Phil LeBeau has the answer for us. And we've got a big time power player in the House. Interior Secretary Doug Bergam will join us for a huge announcement all around energy.

You will not want to miss that. That's coming up in a few minutes. And I just want to give a broad programming note. The president speaking with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Not Njahou, there is a chance that they could begin speaking at any moment. When they do, we will likely take that, bring that to you, take you to that live. It could be the first time I think ever where a cabinet member, Secretary of the Interior of Doug Bergam, is trumped by a president. We shall see. Should be a wild hour. Stay tuned just for that. All right. But in the meantime, we're going to begin with the markets and your money joining us in his first ever, NBC appearance. Ben Hunke, he is the head of investment strategy at Morgan Stanley. Do we need to be

offended? Do you like us? Where have you been hiding? I haven't been invited. I'm thank you for invited and you came on. Thank you for me, Brian. So thank you for. Great to be here. All right, step it at her. So you guys run a scant $1.7 trillion dollars. Even by our standards, that's a lot of money. Right now, what are the key questions you are getting from your client base? I think it's really twofold. One is the American exceptionalism. So 70% of the ACWI now is allocated to the U.S. With what happened in April, liberation day, what's happened to the dollar, a lot of institutional clients around the world who allocate to the U.S. are thinking, should they be allocating at the margin less to the U.S. and more globally? That's one. And then on the retail side, the run-up of the

market has really created a huge amount of tax issues in terms of appreciation in particular around these mag seven stocks. And it's like, how do you handle those gains from a tax efficiency perspective? I think somebody would call that a good problem. It is a good problem. Right. I've made so much money, maybe put the stocks and do a tax deferred ETF. Yeah, that's true.

But the question is with that amount of gain, how do you diversify your risk while at the same time being tax efficient? So let's, this is interesting. We don't talk a lot about the dollar. But the dollar slide against many world currencies, I think is maybe one of the more underreported stories of the year. We've talked about on this show about how many of these global markets, Germany, France, they've got a lot of problems, but their stock markets keep going up. How much is the U.S. dollars weakness changing some of the investment game? So I think investors around the world are thinking about how to allocate outside the U.S.

And so they're looking at Japan, they're looking at China, they're looking at India, they're looking at Europe, and they're thinking about if I have to diversify away from the U.S. at the margin, not a wholesale diversification away from the U.S., but which are the markets that I want to look at. And the dollar depreciation is certainly a big part of that. If you're a foreign investor, as the dollar appreciated, that's actually alpha to you. So if the dollar is depreciating and you're investing in dollars, that makes it tougher for international investors to stay invested in the U.S. And a lot of these international markets have done well, not only because their valuations,

I assume, Ben, correct me if I'm wrong, much, much. lower than ours, but they might look relatively more attractive because of currency moves. Yeah, and I think if you look over time, over the decades, we are at a point in time where the percentage of market cap in the U.S. is unprecedented. Navidia itself, market cap is bigger than every market except for Japan. Their entire market. Yes. Like, say that again.

I mean, one company in the United States, really two, because you got Microsoft and Nvidia in a couple of hours that are sort of four trillion, bigger than basically every market in the world. Except Japan. Except Japan. Like all the stocks in Germany, you combine them, their market value is less than Nvidia. It's a hell of a stat. How do we, does it mean anything? Yeah, look, I think what it means is you got to be looking for opportunities outside the U.S. When you think about risks in the private and the public markets, the index is very concentrated in a few names. And if you look at the gains in the public markets, very concentrated in a few names. is actually driving a lot of interest among all of our clients, both institutional and retail,

into the private markets. Maybe another underreported story, because I don't know if you've known, but there's a lot going on. I mean, we don't even know how this whole hour is going to play out in terms of live TV. So it makes it fun. Is this idea of the private market's just getting bigger and bigger today, EA, electronic arts, one of the biggest or the biggest leveraged buyout ever. It's going to go private, buy-bye stock. how much are your clients asking for or getting access to what we'd call the private markets?

Yeah, look, I think one of the great things that the asset management business has been able to deliver on over the past decade is providing more access to individuals into the private markets. It's, you know, institutions, sophisticated institutions around the world have been allocating to private markets for decades. It's been an important part of their portfolios. And increasingly, the asset management universe is focused on getting that kind of access. for individuals. When you talk about, you know, the deal today, the private markets are a growing part of the global economy. But how's that, how's that, so how's that going to change how we and how your clients and how our viewers and listeners invest their money, right? Right now, there's thousands of ETFs, there's thousands of stocks, there's other things they can, mutual funds

they can do. They want to piece that hedge fund community. Look, I think what you've seen is an increase in allocations to private markets overall. That's private equity, that's private credit, that's private real estate and infrastructure, and it's also hedge funds. But if you think about the overall allocation that individuals have to alternatives, it's still relatively small, less than 5% here in the U.S. And when you go outside the U.S., it's even smaller. So I think we're at the beginning of a multi-decade trend of individuals,

especially wealthy individuals, allocating more to private markets. This might be a last question, might be a little bit out of the wheelhouse. There is a chance, by the way, a non-s, a pretty good chance that the Supreme Court strikes down tariffs. Yeah. Right? It's not political. They just say this is not an emergency, and therefore all the things you've been talking about since basically the beginning of the year, meaning us, is gone. There are no tariffs. The whole market has to readjust.

The bond market probably has to readjust because they're counting on some of that revenue for the U.S. deficit. Is this an underappreciated market risk? Look, I think it's been a roller coaster this year when it comes to tariffs in general. I hadn't noticed. Yeah, exactly. You come out of April and Liberation Day. Obviously, a lot of uncertainty subsequent to that as the rates have moved up and down. You have this Supreme Court case November 5th, which could strike down tariffs in general.

I mean, I think that's a huge deal. No one's talking about it. Well, the Supreme Court says, yeah, no. Very tough to handicapped. Tariffs are illegal, can't do them. Like, all of a sudden, where is it trillions in revenue coming from? It's very difficult to handicap that. And also you have some meetings coming up between Trump and China to talk about a potential trade deal, which also could have a significant impact on tariffs.

So lots of uncertainty in tariffs. We do think that's going to drive some market volatility. It's unclear how much the tariffs have actually bled into the insurance, I mean into the inflation data. So it's a lot of uncertainty around tariffs today. All right. Well, the only certain thing is that there's always uncertainty. Ben Hunke, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley Investment Management, head. I don't want to say Merrill Lynch again.

I want to say Morgan. No, never heard of that. Who is that? I might not come back. No, you will always welcome. In fact, now that I screwed that up, we're going to send a car for you. Morgan Stanley Investment Management, head of investment strategy. Ben, please don't be a stranger.

Thanks for you. You're welcome back. Thanks for having me, Brian. Thank you very much. All right. Another big story, maybe not getting much attention is the huge jump in corporate borrowing. We are now tracking $230 billion in debt deals just this month. And maybe here's an RBI for you.

That would be the heaviest volume of any month. ever. The question is, how this might be impacting the government bond market? As there's simply more competition for debt sales and that money? I don't know, but Rick Santelli probably does. He joins us down from Chicago with the bond report. Rick. Well, you know, there's two sides of this story, the issuer side, where they're issuing all this record paper for the month of September on the investment grade corporate side. But in my opinion, the real story are the buyers of these securities. The buyers of these securities have witnessed the notion that the Fed is going to embark on an easing strategy. They've already eased a quarter basis point,

25 base points on the 17th. To many investors, when the Fed is in easy mode, that means rates are going down. Now, many investors ignore the market side of that, but we'll hold that for a different discussion. So there's a huge competition to buy before yields fall. And that really is somewhat what's going on here. And if you look at this chart of Barclay's investment grade, what you'll see is a yield of around what, $4.90-ish? And the reason that's important is you take that yield and you subtract the current tenure, which is around $4.14. And what you end up with is $75,76 basis points. That means to take the risk of buying a security issued by a company versus the risk-free nature of the U.S. Treasury,

you're getting basically three-quarters of 1% add-on. And by historic standards, that add-on is the smallest since 1998. So what that's screaming is, is that many investors are looking around, looking at the frothiness and equities, at least that's their determination, and saying before yields fall, I'm going to jump into this, you know, a little less than 5% isn't bad. But whether it is or it isn't bad, there's a big credit risk there, and that might be a bit underappreciated.

And in my opinion, that's at the heart of this story. Anytime I hear first time since 1998, that was like 100 years ago. Pretty doggone impressive. Rick said, Telly, really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. All right. In the meantime, we are moments away from President Trump's press conference with Israel.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Amon Jabbers at the White House with what we know and what we hope to learn. Amen. Brian, just a few moments ago, the White House released a 20-point plan to have peace in Gaza. Not clear if this is an indication

that this plan has been agreed to or if this is just the U.S. proposal, but just over the past couple of moments that put this out, it's called President Donald J. Trump's comprehensive plan to end the Gaza conflict. I'll give you the first three points here of the 20. They say that Gaza,

Gaza will be a de-radicalized terror-free zone that does not pose a threat to its neighbors. Gaza will be redeveloped for the benefit of the people of Gaza who have suffered enough. And if both sides agree to this proposal, the war will immediately end. Israeli forces will withdraw to agreed upon lines to prepare for a hostage release. During this time, all military operations, including aerial and artillery bombardment, will be suspended, and battle lines will remain frozen until conditions are met for a complete staged withdrawal. So not clear where we are in terms of a potential agreement here, Brian, based on this, but we are about to see this news conference between the president and the prime minister.

So we might get an update on what their bilateral conversation has been so far today. And we know that there was a trilateral component to this. That is that while Netanyahu and Trump were meeting in the West Wing here a short time ago, So they called leadership in Qatar and spoke to them about Netanyahu's apology for his targeting of Hamas officials while they were in Doha. The Prime Minister, we are told, apologized for that and said that Israel will not strike in Qatar again and apologized for the loss of life of a serviceman who was accidentally killed as part of that strike on Hamas targets.

So that may clear the way diplomatically for some agreements. to be struck here, Brian, but we'll wait and see what the two leaders say in this press conference, which is upcoming. Yeah, we sure will. Amon Javers. Amon, thank you very much. And by the way, folks, that press conference could happen any moment. But right now, got some big news and energy for you.

As you can see, it is our power play of the week. The Trump administration is going to open more than 13 million acres of national public land to lease for coal production. The plan will also cut the rate on royalties mining companies have to pay the federal. government. The announcement obviously getting a lot of attention from all sides with one group calling this coal plan a, quote, bridge to the 19th century and a look back, not forward on energy. So let's talk about it all with the Secretary of the Interior, that is Secretary Doug Bergam. Secretary Bergam, good to have you back on. We may actually get bumped by the president.

So you'll forgive me in advance if that indeed happens. But Secretary, why am I? make this announcement now, what does it mean for coal production and what does it mean for any climate goals in the United States? Well, Brian, first of all, it's great to be with you. And, of course, when President Trump was elected, he promised to unleash American energy. Part of that is making sure that we've got the power to be able to win the AI arms race against China. So the announcement today was a triple. We had announcements from DOE, $625 million going to upgrade existing coal plants. We had announcements coming from EPA that cut through red tape that was needlessly and abusively put on top of this industry at a time when we need reliable, affordable, secure energy. Demand for electricity is going up and going through the roof.

But the other thing is with coal, there's metallurgical coal, which makes coke, which we need for steel building. And President Trump said, we're going to get the steel industry going in this country. We're going to get shipbuilding going in this country. So we need that. And then, of course, we know that China's had a stranglehold on the U.S. relative to critical minerals. What's in coal, critical minerals, gallium, germanium, all kinds of other critical minerals that are there here in America that we can process at the same time we're developing coal. So this is a win across the board. But for American consumers, this is how we keep electric rates down. And this is how we create all kinds of jobs. So this is a win for everybody. But if you think your electrical bill is too high, You should be cheering on President Trump. As far as any concerns, we can produce beautiful, clean coal in America better than anywhere else in the world. China added 93 gigawatts.

One gigawatt is Denver. China added 93 gigawatts of coal last year in their quest. So, again, we're in a world competition. We've got to do what we need to do to make sure we keep the lights on here in America. Yeah, China's production, I believe we have a graphic of it, is literally off the chart. I mean, U.S. production has gone down the last 20 or so years. We're showing United States production now. It's come down from its peak of the year 2000.

But Chinese production has absolutely soared. Climate change is a global issue. So Secretary Bergam, you know, people, you know they're not going to like it. The United States producing more coal. But how much is kind of China screwing up any global climate ambitions that we might have? Well, they're overwhelming between China and India. They're producing coal production worldwide is at a record peak. We could shut down all the coal production in the U.S., and China would build that back in the next 12 to 8 to 24 months.

And so does shutting down baseload electricity, destabilizing our grid, raising the rates for all American, does absolutely nothing to stop anything related to the perception that CO2 has an effect on climate change. But one thing we do know is we win the AI arms race, we can solve any climate. problem that we have in the world coming up. And we know that within the next decade, with nuclear energy coming, which is zero carbon, we can do that. But right now, we can do both things in this country. We can have a clean air, clean water, we can have great soil health. We can do all of that things, protect our environment, protect our most beautiful places, and we can have abundant affordable energy. That's what America can do. How do we do both of those things? I think that's

where people get stuck. Well, come to my home state of North Dakota, when we were, we became, had the highest growing GDP, we have the lowest electric prices in the country, and we were always on the top of the chart for clean air and clean water, and we never touched one acre of a national park or any of those things. States like Wyoming are doing it today, the home to Yellowstone Park and Grand Teton, they're also one of the biggest coal producers in the country, and coal electricity for domestic, but also coal to ship to our allies. So it was a false tradeoff that was created in the minds of people. We can do both in America.

And one way we get it done and accelerate that is with having the power to fund AI. AI, we've never been able to take a kilowatt of electricity and turn it into intelligence. Now we can in these AI factories, if you will, they're not data centers. They're intelligence factories. And if we're not building those and not powering those, we lose to China. It's game over for the U.S. You had a quote in a cabinet meeting. I think it was about a month ago, Mr. Secretary, you can correct me.

if I'm wrong, and I'm going to steal it. You said, we've all heard the term knowledge is power, but now power is knowledge. And you're talking about the electricity demand that will power the future of AI. Just last week on CNBC, we had OpenAI and Nvidia announcing what could be a 10 gigawatt deal.

That's about 7.5 million average-sized homes where the power, how much is AI changing the entire game, in America and in China for energy production and how we think about energy. Well, it changes everything. And for your viewers that care about capital flows, even in the U.S., if we've got states that have got policies that restrict baseload power, they're going to end up with high or they already have high electric prices. I mean, you go around the country, you can have a place like North Dakota, Wyoming, electrical prices. It's triple if you get into the New England states, triple. Now I've got to.

make a decision. Where am I going to put the capital investment around AI? When AI requires one thing, massive amounts of low-cost, affordable, reliable electricity. Where am I going? I'm not going to the Northeast. I'm not going to California. I'm not going to places where the policies absolutely ensure that you've got high-cost of electricity. So we could end up with a bifurcated economy where all of the capital, hundreds of billions of dollars of capital, they're going to flow towards places with low electricity prices. So every state, every governor, every government, every policymaker, if you've got high electricity prices, you're in trouble relative to the new economy that's coming in this new information age.

And President Trump and the Trump administration, we're trying to help everybody figure out a way to have low-cost, affordable, reliable electricity, and whether that's expanding and preserving our baseload coal. It provides 20 percent of the electricity in America today comes from coal, shutting that down at a time when electricity demand is going through the roof for the first time in anyone's lifetime that's alive today, would be absolutely insane when our competitors are adding all kinds of energy. And then again, look to the countries that have made these mistakes. Germany spent $500 billion on their green dream pursuing these green policies. And what did they get when they

shut down nuclear? They shut down coal. They were shutting down any of their own production. They became completely dependent on Russian natural gas. And what happened? Spend 500 billion million dollars. Their price of electricity is triple in cost today and they produce 20% less. So if you want less electricity and you want to pay more for it and have it be less reliable, you can choose the green dream like Germany did. But the U.S., go ahead. I was going to say, yeah, we're waiting on the president to speak with the Israeli prime ministers. We're seeing that on the side of your screen, Mr. Secretary. You know, I've been to North Dakota many times, beautiful state, great people.

There's also a lot of wind turbines there because in that upper Midwest, you guys have a lot of wind? What is the role for solar, for wind, for batteries? There has to be one, because as you and I spoke about in Italy about a month ago, we need all the power. Well, we do, but right now, the incentives that were created, the artificial incentives through federal subsidies, the investment tax credits, production credits, you know, as a nation and many parts of a world, way over-rotated towards these intermittent sources and intermittent and unreliable. And I say unreliable because you can't say when the wind is going to blow. You can predict when the sun is going to shine, but you can't predict when the wind is going to blow. And so if you add these

intermittent sources to your grid, you still need all the baseload. You still need all of that. There is this false concept that if I add intermittent, I can get rid of the 7 by 24 base load sources. People thought that was the tradeoff. That's what's destabilized our grid. That's what's going to lead to higher costs in the country. And you saw, again, for your investors, there was just a report out all of these European wind companies, they've had a wind drought. People accept the fact that now some years it rains more than it does others. Some years it blows, the wind blows more than it does others. All of those European companies are reporting earnings below expectations because the wind didn't blow as hard this summer as they expected it to do. Well, what do you need

when the wind's not blowing, you've got to have other sources of electricity. And so we are just rebalancing the playing field. And so it was tipped so far for preferential treatment. But 95% of the FURPQ for new electric production in our country was wind or solar, these intermittent sources. And we're so short of baseload right now, we can't afford to shut any of it down. We need to add more baseload. That's the only way that there's any future for these intermittent sources is to have enough baseload. Yeah, Vistra Energy

today announcing a multi-100 million dollar expansion of a power plant in the Permian basis of Texas to take it over a gigawatt because they want to invest to make it bigger, provide more power. Obviously, I live and work in New Jersey. I love New Jersey. It gets a bad

rap, Mr. Secretary. There's lots of beautiful farmland in this great state. Power is not one thing we do very well. Will power strategy determine the winners and the losers over the next years and decades? It will in places like New Jersey and New York and others that are just literally across

an imaginary line called the state line. If they've got policies that say, we don't want natural gas from Pennsylvania, guess who wants it? You were there with us in Europe. Chris Wright and I talked over 20 energy ministers. They'll buy all that Pennsylvania, Marcellus shale gas. We'll ship it to them by boat. They'll pay a premium for it.

And then a state next door will say, nope, we don't want it. We're banning gas for heating our homes. We're banning gas for heating our water and our water tanks. I mean, all these kind of crazy things that reduce consumer choice and raise costs for consumers are also going to drive capital out of those states for the next generation of investment around, you know, automated manufacturing, automated manufacturing, robotics, all of these things that require electricity in the future,

including the AI factories are going to go to the places with the low electric prices. So electricity prices are going to determine a state's future. Well, you know, we talked about how China is scaling coal production, but I want to be clear, they're also scaling wind, they're scaling solar, scaling batteries, scaling nuclear. A new version of China's AI Deep Seek is coming out very soon if it's not already out. How big of a threat is the Chinese power story for winning the AI race? Well, it's a big part. of it because while our technology is ahead right now, our software models are more advanced,

they've got leadership there, the chips that we have coming from U.S. companies are better, but they can make it up with brute force. If it takes longer to run a model and their electricity prices are lower, they can just throw more electricity at it. And again, in China, 60% of their electricity coming from coal, they're adding coal at a record rate over there. If they weren't doing that, they wouldn't be able to do any of the renewables. And then you talk about solar, you know, 85% of the solar panels that were being sold in the U.S.

were coming from China. And some of those had kill switches in them. So this is just like what we had with Huawei a couple years ago where people said, no, that's not a threat. It was a huge threat to our telecommunications network. We can't build the United States energy supply at grid scale for our cities, our communities, our hospitals. You can't build that, you know, on foreign suppliers that are adversaries. You can't build on their equipment. And so that makes no sense.

And there are places, you know, you want to put solar on top of a billion square feet of warehouses. You're not taking up any farmland. You use that to power that warehouse, that distribution center. You use it to charge EVs that drive 50 miles a day. Yeah, there's point solutions where it makes sense. But somehow believing that our entire grid, I mean, if you took all the battery power in the world right now and said, run the world, it would run the world for seven minutes. That's where we're out today.

Mr. Secretary, Interior Secretary, Doug Bergam, we're going to cut him off. Mr. Secretary, thank you. We're going to go to the President of the United States and the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyak. Big day, a beautiful day, potentially one of the great days ever in civilization. Things that have been going on for hundreds of years and thousands of years. We're going to, at least we're at a minimum, very, very close, and I think we're beyond very close. And I want to thank Beebe for really getting in there and doing a job. We've worked well together, as we have with many other countries, both of us, with many

other countries, which is the only way this whole situation gets solved. And I'm not just talking about Gaza. Gaza is one thing, but we're talking about much beyond Gaza. The whole deal, everything getting solved. It's called Peace in the Middle East. So today is a historic day for peace, and Prime Minister Netanyahu, and I have just concluded an important meeting

on many vital issues, including Iran, trade, the expansion of the Abraham Accords, and most importantly, we discussed how to end the war in Gaza, but it's just a part of the bigger picture, which is peace in the Middle East, and let's call it eternal peace. in the Middle East. So this is far more than anybody expected,

but the level of support that I've had from the nations in the Middle East and surrounding Israel and neighbors of Israel has been incredible, incredible, every single one of them. This afternoon, after extensive consultation with our friends and partners throughout the region, I'm formally releasing our principles for peace, which people have really liked, I must say.

say. And these are done not just routinely done. These are done with total and total consideration and working with the nations that we're talking about. All these nations have made contributions to those suggestions. I want to thank the leaders of many Arab and Muslim nations for their tremendous support in developing the proposal along with many of our allies in Europe. Europe has been very much involved, and as I was called by many of the European leaders, most of them, saying, is this true? Are you really doing peace in the Middle East? This is the most incredible thing we've heard. Some think it's the biggest thing they've ever heard. They called just to find out, was it just a rumor or is it actually done? And then they said,

have you spoken to the Arab leaders? Have you spoken to all of the other leaders that we have to get? A lot of people involved in this one. I also want to thank Prime Minister Netanyahu for agreeing to the plan and for trusting that if we work together, we can bring an end to the death and destruction that we've seen for so many years, decades, even centuries, and begin a new chapter of security, peace, and prosperity for the entire region. And I want to just say that my meetings and dialogue that we had with so many countries, Saudi Arabia, As an example, the king is a phenomenal person. The Emir of Qatar, who's incredible people.

U.I.E and that's MBZ and A.BZ. We've totally involved. These are the people that we've been dealing with and who've been actually very much involved in this negotiation, giving us ideas, things they can live with, things they can't live with. Pretty complex. I mean, after 2,000, 3,000 years, whatever it is,

I guess it's got to be a little complex, or it would have been done a long time ago. The King of Jordan was with us, as you know, in the United Nations, the president of Turkey, President Erdogan, is a friend of mine, a strong man, but a good man, president of Indonesia, somebody who's an amazing leader, Prabowal, he is an amazing leader,

and respected by everybody. He was in the room with us. We were together with most of these people that are mentioning. Others were by phone or the next day. The Prime Minister and the Field Marshal of Pakistan. They were with us right from the beginning. Incredible, in fact, they just put out a statement that they fully believe in this pact.

It just came out just as I was walking around. They said, sir, you have. of a big notice from the Prime Minister of Pakistan and from the field marshal that they back this 100%. President LCC of Egypt, who's terrific. And these are people I've gotten to know over the years. I mean, it's, I would say it started around 2015 and then went into 2016 when the presidency began, officially began.

But I've known him actually for a long time, and there are many cases really great men. I can't say in all cases, but I will tell you, in many cases, they're great men, and some great women, too. They tend to be mostly men, however, I will say that. But if accepted by Hamas, this proposal calls for the release of all remaining hostages immediately, but in no case, more than 72 hours. So the hostages are coming back, and I hate even saying this from the standpoint doesn't sound right, but it is so important to the parents. The bodies of the young men, I believe in almost all cases, the young men are coming back immediately. I met with parents. The parents felt as strongly about getting their body of their dead boy back

as they did as though the boy were alive and well. It's so important to him. And it means the immediate end to the war itself, not just Gaza. It's the war itself. Under the plan, Arab and Muslim countries have committed and in writing in many cases, but I actually would take their word for it.

The people I mentioned, I'd take their word for it, to demilitarize Gaza. And that's quickly. Decommissioned the military capabilities of Hamas and all other terror organizations. Do that immediately. And we're relying on the countries that I named and others to deal with Hamas. And I'm hearing that Hamas wants to get this done to. And that's a good thing.

And destroy all terror infrastructure, including the tunnels, weapons of pretty, production facilities. They have a lot of production facilities that we're destroying. They'll also help train local police forces in the areas that we're discussing right now, in particular in and around Gaza. Working with the new transitional authority in Gaza, all parties will agree on a timeline for Israeli forces to withdraw in phases. They'll be withdrawing in phases. No more shooting, hopefully, as progress is made toward achieving these goals. Arab and Muslim nations need to be allowed the chance to fulfill these commitments of dealing with Hamas. They have to deal with them because they were the one group that we have not dealt with.

I haven't dealt with them. But the Arab countries are going to, and Muslim countries are going to be dealing with Hamas, And I believe they've already been there. I think they probably have an understanding, and they haven't maybe mentioned that, but I would imagine they do. Otherwise, they wouldn't have gone as far as they've gone. If they're unable to do so,

then Israel would have the absolute right and actually our full backing, the U.S. full banking, backing Marcos here. A lot of our leaders are here, our great vice president, Susie Wiles, Steve Whitkoff, Jared Kushner. They've been so involved in this process.

I don't think anybody else could have done it or even come close, but we're right there. We're right there at first time. Thousands of years, I think, you can probably say, if you really look into it, if you study back, if you're a scholar, you would say thousands of years,

Israel would have my fall back into finish the job of destroying the threat of Hamas. But I hope that we're going to have a deal for peace. And if Hamas rejects a deal, which is always possible, they're the only one left. Everyone else has accepted it. But I have a feeling that we're going to have a positive answer. But if not, as you know, Bibi, you'd have our full backing to do what you would have to do.

Everyone understands that the ultimate result must be the elimination of any danger. posed in the region and the danger is caused by Hamas. The tyranny of terror has to end, and this is again something that we're looking for. This is eternity. This is for forever. To ensure the success of this effort, my plan calls for the creation of a new international oversight body, the Board of Peace, we call it. The Board of Peace, sort of a beautiful name. the board of peace, which will be headed, not at my request, believe me.

I'm very busy, but we have to make sure this works. The leaders of the Arab world and Israel and everybody involved asked me to do this, so it would be headed by a gentleman known as President Donald J. Trump of the United States. That's what I want, some extra work to do, but it's so important. that I'm willing to do it, and we'll do it right, and we're going to put leaders from other countries on, and leaders that are very distinguished leaders, and we'll have a board, and one of the people that wants to be on the board is the U.K. former prime minister, Tony Blair, good man, very good man, and some others, and they'll be named over the next few days, and it'll be quite the board.

Working everybody wants to be on it now. I don't know if that had anything to do. They named me and everybody else wanted to be on it. I guess they figure, well, he's a soft touch. He'll be easy to deal with. Working with the World Bank and others, it will be responsible for recruiting and training a new government that will be made up of Palestinians

along with highly qualified experts from all around the world. Hamas and other terrorist factions will play no role in the board, but they'll play no role in the governance of Gaza at all, directly or indirectly. As you know, thousands of Hamas leaders have been killed, and soldiers have been killed. And we can never forget October 7th, but thousands have paid the price for that,

and now it's time to get our hostages back and get back to trying to build something that's really great and very important. In our meeting today, Prime Minister Netanyahu is very clear about his opposition to a Palestinian state. And he continuously mentions October 7th, and I understand that. Most people do. And I understand and respect his position on many things, but what he's doing today is so good for Israel. I notice that they have large crowds gathering in Israel all the time, And they have my name up. They like me for whatever reason.

Baby, I don't know. But they do like me. But they say two things. Please get the hostages back and please end the war. They've had it. It's had it. So I think it's a very popular thing you do because he's a warrior. He doesn't know about getting back to a normal way of life.

But he is a warrior. And Israel's lucky to have him. But now the people want to get back to peace. They want to get back to normalization in a true sense. Several countries have foolishly recognized the Palestinian state. As you know, some of our European friends, allies, good people. But they're really, I think, doing that because they're very tired of what's going on for so many decades. They've been presidents and prime ministers for years and during this time,

having to do with the Middle East, all they're doing is talking about the same thing over and over. They want to see it get back. And nobody wants that more than me or I believe Beebe, too. But the people of Israel want it. They really want it. They want the hostages back. That includes the probably 32 bodies that we're talking about, 20 people that are living, 32 or so people that are dead, and they want to have peace.

So let us not forget how we got here. Hamas was elected by the Palestinian people. Israel withdrew from Gaza. they would live in peace. Remember that a long time ago, they withdrew. They said, you take it. This is our contribution to peace. But that didn't work out.

That didn't work out. It was the opposite of peace. They pulled away. They let them have it. And I never forgot that because I said, that doesn't sound like a good deal to me. As a real estate person, I mean, they gave up the ocean, right? Ron, they gave up the ocean.

They said, would do this deal. And it still didn't work out. They were very generous, actually. And they gave up the most magnificent piece of land in many ways in the Middle East. And they said, all we want to do now is have peace. And that request was not honored. Instead of building a better life for the Palestinians, Hamas, diverted resources to build over 400 miles of tunnels and terror infrastructure, rocket production facilities, and hid their military command post, and launched in hospitals, schools, and mosques. So if you want after them, you'd be after them,

and you wouldn't even realize you ended up knocking out a hospital or school or a mosque. That terrible thing, terrible way to have to fight. No fight is good, but that's a real bad one. So there are many Palestinians who wish to live in peace. Many, many. I've seen so many of them. And they have support.

And I challenge the Palestinians to take responsibility for their destiny, because that's what we're giving them. We're giving them responsibility for their destiny, fully condemn and prohibit terrorism and earn their way to a brighter future. They don't want the life that they've had. They've had a rough life with Hamas. If the Palestinian Authority does not complete the reforms that I laid out in my vision for peace in 2020,

they'll have only themselves to blame. We're giving them an amazing footprint, and they have amazing support from the leaders of the Arab world and the Muslim world. The great leaders, these are great leaders. These are unbelievable leaders that have built great countries and very wealthy countries. What the future holds for the Palestinians, no one really knows, but the plan that we put forward today is focused on ending the war immediately. Getting all of our hostages back, getting everything back. hard to believe when you even say it. And creating conditions for durable, Israeli security and Palestinian success,

Israeli security is going to be involved. We're going to help you. We'll be there with you in terms of helping with security. We want to make sure it works. We just want to make sure it works. They shouldn't be a shot fired. Now, there will be, I guess, because that's the way it seems to be. But they shouldn't have to be within a few days.

They shouldn't have to be a shot fired. and maybe for eternity. Wouldn't that be nice? I hope it's true. I can tell you the leadership of that region feels that there's a good chance of it being true. So this will lead to a disagreement that we're talking about will lead to a sustainable, long-term peace. No president in history has been a greater friend of the state of Israel than I have in addition to negotiating the Abraham Accords. like to say it that way because the real people, that's what they call Abraham. I would say Abraham,

but it's so much nicer when you say Abraham, so much more elegant. But the Abraham Accords are amazing. Jared, you did that along with your group of geniuses, and nobody thought that could be done. We have four countries, and Sleepy Joe Biden didn't do a thing. He didn't even know what the hell they were. He should have had them fold up. But I think this will all. also lead to packing them. And who knows, maybe even Iran can get in there. I hope we expect, we hope we're going to be able to get along with Iran.

I think they're going to be open to it. I really believe that. But they could be a member. I long ago said, I'll bet you at some point Iran will be a member of the Accords. And little did I realize it was going to take this turn. That was some turn we did with the B-2s. But I think they might very well be there, because it's a great thing for them economically. I recognize the eternal capital of Israel.

I opened the American embassy in Jerusalem. That was something that everyone said would never be done, could never be done. Virtually every president for many, many years, for decades, would campaign on making Jerusalem the capital of Israel. They campaigned on it over and over. Is that right, Steve? Is that right? Everyone, and when they got to it, and I understand why now,

because it was so, when I got to office, I campaigned doing it too. I said, we're going to make it. And then I'd get calls from the leaders of various countries saying, please don't do it, please don't do it. It will end the whole world. Please don't do it. And finally, I just didn't say anything. And I did it.

People were calling me before I did it, because I heard I was going to do it. And leaders of countries were calling me. And I think it was on a Thursday that I did it. And they'd call me Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, three, four times a day. And I said, tell them, I'll call them back on Friday. And I announced it on Thursday. And I called them back the biggest people in the world. And they said, you've done it.

I said, done what? You've made the capital of Israel, Jerusalem. And we wanted to talk yet. Oh, I wish you called me a little sooner. Maybe I could have done something about that. So that was a lot easier than getting into an argument because I knew what they were calling about. And you know what? It turned out to be amazing.

Everybody thought it was going to lead to the end of the world, right? The end of the world, Ron. That's what they said. It didn't lead to anything. It just led to something that I promised and something that was very popular for Jewish people and a lot of other people too. I recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan, Heights, and I cut taxpayer funding to the corrupt United Nations relief and works agency.

And United Nations was interesting because, as you know, a few days ago, they introduced me. Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States, I'm looking at my teleprompter, and the thing was dead stone coal dead. The thing's up here. I have a long, beautiful speech to make. I'm back, 30 feet back, and I'm saying, They're introducing me. There's nothing on my teleprompter.

But I made a speech. I actually got good marks. You think Biden could have done that? I don't think so. I don't think he could have done that. I don't think too many people could have done it. But actually, it was actually more of a speech from my heart, if you want to know the truth.

I think it was maybe better in certain ways because it was from the heart. It has to be from the heart. Otherwise, you're in big trouble. But I cut taxpayer, payers. funding for that very corrupt United Nations relief and works agency, and nobody thought that would be done and withdrew from the horrible Iran nuclear deal that was imposed upon Israel by Barack Hussein Obama and Biden. And I don't think Biden knew anything about it, though.

I don't think he knows anything about it now, actually, if you ask him. He said, what is that? and we obliterated Iran's nuclear enrichment capacity and making it impossible for them to have a nuclear weapon, which they would have had probably in about two months from that. But I've never asked Israel to compromise its security, but we had big strong talk. Nobody's been better to Israel. No president's been better to Israel than Donald Trump.

But we had a long, strong talk, BB and I, and he understands it's time. It's time. History is shown. And the people of Israel, want it. And the people of the Middle East want it. The people of enemies of Israel want it, but they don't have really too many enemies right now. And you know what? Many countries have gained great respect for Israel, for the way they fight, for the job they do, including me.

I had respect anyway, but they gained respect. History has shown us that those who have relations with Israel have thrived, while those who have devoted resources and attention toward the destruction and even annihilation of Israel have languished. They haven't done well. Israel is not going anywhere. They're going to coexist with other people and countries in the region. From Syria to Lebanon to Saudi Arabia,

the promise of a new Middle East is so clearly within our reach. This is the closest we've ever come to real peace, not fake peace, not political fools peace. If we can get this. All right, we're going to step out of this for a few minutes. We are waiting for the president and the Israeli prime minister to make comments around this specific 21-point peace deal or peace offering that they will be making to Hamas. It's sort of a wide-ranging, I guess, off-the-cuff conversation monologues that the president's having right now. Eamon Javis at the White House.

Then we're going to go to Emily Wilkins on Capitol Hill regarding the other big news from D.C. to potential for a government. Shut down, obviously. Amon Javvers, I know that you are there waiting for more sort of directed comments from the president. What can we expect from the president? Well, Brian, the president's been speaking at length here, but we still don't quite know what's been agreed to here, right? I mean, we know that Netanyahu has said he doesn't want a Palestinian state. What President Trump is proposing is something sort of like that. And we don't know whether Hamas has agreed to anything here either. So the president is suggesting that, you know, there is some deal that is very, very close to coming together.

It just needs final approval, but we just don't know if any of those approvals are in the offing. I want to just highlight for you point number nine of the 20 points that the White House just released in terms of their proposal for peace in Gaza. And this concerns the governance of Gaza after the war. And in essence, what President Trump is proposing, in which you heard him say, say just there a second ago is that he will be under his plan chairman of the board in effect of a new Gaza government. The way this is set up, according to the U.S. side proposal, Gaza will be governed under the temporary transitional governance of a technocratic, apolitical Palestinian committee responsible for delivering the day-to-day running of public services

and municipalities for the people in Gaza. This committee will be made up of qualified Palestinians and international experts with oversawks. oversight and supervision by a new international transitional body called the Board of Peace, which will be headed and shared by President Donald J. Trump, with other members and heads of state to be announced, including former Prime Minister Tony Blair. So the president here rolling out a peace plan for Gaza, which envisions himself as the chairman of a new Board of Peace, which would then oversee a technocratic Palestinian committee, which would operate Gaza in terms of the municipalities and the governance there on the local level.

Not clear that Israel has signed onto that deal, not clear that Hamas has signed onto that deal or other Gulf states. The president says he's convinced that Hamas will agree to this, so we'll have to get word from around the world, Brian, to see if this plan, which is being proposed by the White House now, is being well received or not. Back over to you.

Yeah, all right, Amy and Jabriz. We're in about minute 30. The president's speech, conversation. We haven't heard from Prime Minister Netanyahu yet. We anticipate that we will. When we do, we will bring you back. We are going to take a very short commercial break right now on Power Lunch and CBC. Come back.

Talk about the potential for avoiding a government shutdown, going to the president with Benjamin Netanyahu. That is all ahead. The NASDAQ up one half of 1%. Pretty good day for big tech stocks. We're back right after this. All right. Welcome back. Let's go back now to Washington, D.C.

Not to the White House. So the president you could see is speaking with Benjamin Netanyahu from Israel, but to Capitol Hill, because there is a meeting later today with top congressional leaders about trying to avoid a government. Shut down Emily Wilkins on Capitol Hill. Has more on to that. Emily. Hey, Brian. Well, yeah, the top congressional leaders, they're making their way to the other side of Pennsylvania Avenue, headed to the White House, where they are expected to meet with Trump to see if there is any way to prevent the government from shutting down in the next. 36 hours. And from those who I've spoken with today, it does seem like the mood in D.C.

is very much that we are going to be going into a shutdown. Of course, this meeting today might be a turning point to that. That said, both sides have really dug in in advance of this meeting. Republicans saying, hey, Democrats have voted for these stopgaps to delay a shutdown before. They need to do so again. And Democrats trying to put up a bit of a fight this time, saying that unless Republicans give them some sort of provision on health care, particularly when it comes to those Affordable Care Act premium tax credits that are set to expire at the end of the year, increase insurance costs for 20 million Americans. Democrats are saying something needs to be done on that. Otherwise, there aren't going to be the votes in the Senate to pass this temporary government stopgap

and keep the government funded past Tuesday at midnight. And as we understand it, Emily, if the government is indeed shut down, then there will be no economic reports, including Friday, jobs number, which is one of the most, if not the most widely watched economic indicator. That will not be out on Friday if we shut down, correct? Correct, Brian. And it's important to think, too, because this is the thing with the shutdown. If you just have a shutdown for the week, there are definitely impacts like we're not going to get those job numbers. But let's say it's only a week. Okay, so the job numbers come out late,

but they will be coming out for the month of September. But then the longer a shutdown goes into October, the less data collection there is. So the collection that goes into the PPI, the CPI, the pricing, the jobs, all of that gets delayed and hindered. There are fewer data points and that means that data that we're expected to see later in October, heck even into November, could be impacted and could just be less accurate than what we're used to seeing. And of course, that's raised concerns with a number of economists because they know that this data is going to be very important for the Fed and for other decision-making. And

In the meantime, a number of other delays would begin as well. I think of course another big one is the millions of federal government workers and contractors who either wouldn't get paid or would be delayed in pay. And again, Moody's predicts that for every week of a shutdown, you're shaving 0.1% off of annual or quarterly rather GDP growth. So there are some real impacts that could start happening here, particularly if the White House follows through on what they said they would going to do if there is a shutdown that is that mass layoff of federal employees. that could begin, again, if a government shutdown starts on midnight on Tuesday. But the workers, if they do not get paid, they do get back pay, most of them, correct, Emily? If you're a federal worker, yes. If you're a federal contractor, not necessarily. And of course, that could impact a lot of businesses as well. Emily Wilkins on Capitol Hill, a, I call it the

capital of Capitol, which is not Wall Street today. It is Washington, D.C. We're sure closing bell. We'll have much more. Thanks for watching. Power Lunch, everybody. Posing bell starts right now.