Power Lunch - Trump-Putin Talks', Intel's Role in National Security 8/15/25

Episode Date: August 15, 2025

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Thank you, Ketessa, and we are ending the week with a new record high for the world's most watched index. Happy Friday, everybody, and welcome to Power Lunch, your money ending another week higher. In fact, today, the Dow hitting a new record. Plowing past last December's high, this is the last of the three major indexes to make a new record. As you can see there, it is not a big day for the entire market. The S&P and NASDAQ are down fracturally. But with United Health's pop, the Dow was able to notch a new record. There is a lot today to do with business, markets, and your money.

We'll get to that in a moment. But let us start by reminding you of something more important to the world. That is the massive Trump-Pooten summit in Alaska. Russia's Vladimir Putin visiting the United States for the first time in 10 years. President Trump should be arriving shortly. There right now, a live look at Joint Base Elmendorf. Now, there is some optimism around what? it could happen today. Trump, though, tamping down expectations a bit, saying this summit is likely

just the first of others with future meetings, hopefully also, including European leaders. We'll get to more on what we might see out of today's big summit in minutes. Again, there is a live view. Get to that, but let us start here with stocks, your money, and these markets. It has been a good week. It's not a great day today, but overall, we're up on the week. New records. We're across the board. And now the S&P 500 is up a stunning 30% from the tariff panic selling lows we hit back in April. Remember, that's when there were some people out there talking about retirees being wiped out. But if you listen to your first guest today, you're not only stayed calm, but you probably made some money. And now maybe there's even more money to be made somewhere else in the market.

Joining us, Craig Johnson. He is Piper Sandler's chief market technician. It was a lot of people, a lot of people, Craig, back in April, saying that we were doomed, sell everything, a lot of panic out there. You and your team and a few other people stayed calm and carried on. What did you see that maybe others missed? And what do you see now? Thanks, Brian, for having me back on, Power Lunch. What we saw then is we saw an environment where a lot of our technical indicators were very washed out.

There were at levels that you rarely ever see. percentage of stocks below simple 40-week moving averages, Brian, that we're approaching single-digit readings, which we've only seen a few times as you go back over the last 20 to 30 years. We're also hearing a lot of just negative sentiment everywhere. But when these indicators, Brian, get this flow, this is where you always want to be stepping up, be in the contrarian and leaning into this market. And that's what we saw then. And what we're seeing now, Brian, is we're still seeing a lot of negativity out there.

In fact, on my way back to do this interview, I walk past our bond desk. And they're like, oh, this market's way too expensive. We got to be selling things here. We got to be taking money off the table. So throw that in the bucket of a new contrarian indicator, Brian, for me. Your bond market. So, well, listen, let's be fair. And probably if they're not watching, tell them they should watch right now.

But bond people are built to be nervous. That's kind of their role like they're. That's why they're, I love them. That's why, though they're in bonds because they're nervous every day. That's kind of the thing. But your point, I think you're, and I'm being funny, but your broader point is well taken that sometimes you really got to hold your nose and close your eyes. Because I could easily make an argument for this market fall in 20%.

But the buyers, they're not on strike. Absolutely. And when they start getting more bullish, Brian, that we've got to pay attention to that too. Yeah. So let's talk about what we see now. We know what happened. Markets have come up. Yeah.

Maybe your bond guys are ultimately. going to be correct. But what about, let's say, the Russell 2000? And this week would call my eye, Craig, was that the small cap stocks had a really nice rip for much of this week. And that is something we have not seen in a long time. Right. And last summer was on the show, we talked about potentially getting a new high by today. We fell short on that objective. But I would say, Brian, is that it's just getting pushed out. You know, we saw those June CPI numbers be a little bit weak. And then this time around the July numbers were a little bit better, and that sort of sparked the small cap stocks again. I still think that we're going to get to a new high. I suspect it probably happens somewhere

in the fourth quarter, maybe even somewhere in November-December timeframe specifically. But I think you're still going to get a new high there. And that's going to be, I think, constructive as this market continues to keep broadening out in here. If you hadn't said anything, Craig, I would have forgotten that you actually called today. August 15th would have been the new high. I give you a lot of credit. because you called yourself out on the date. Not a lot of people are willing to make that kind of call, much less a date. So you still see small caps making a new high.

Maybe you got the date a little bit off in a matter of a year. We'll give you a pass on that one, Craig. But you still like the small caps overall. Absolutely. And as we look down cap at so many companies, whether it's in the industrial space, whether it's in financials, whether it's in tech, we're just seeing a lot of constructive, big bases that are forming down there. And again, that's a constructive sign for a broadening breath in the market.

And it's a constructive sign that there's just more upside yet to come as we think with this market. And then, Brian, in terms of the broader S&P 500, we've had a year-end objective of 6,600. We're about 2% away from getting to that objective. Call that a pit stop, not a destination, I think, for this bull market. Let's talk about a couple of individual names. I like to call it sort of Opportunity Friday. Everybody hates Vegas right now. I mean, all the stuff on Twitter, it's Vegas is dead.

It's too expensive. I get it. By the way, it is expensive. Okay, it's also hot right now. But that's not keeping you out of win. Why not? Well, again, you keep coming back and looking at what we've been seeing with a lot of these casino stocks and those names. The charts just look good.

We are continuing to see the series of higher highs and higher lows on those particular charts. And when we see those kind of patterns, Brian, even if there's a lot of negativity, and there's a lot of concerns. If the trend is still up, we're going to be there. And the trend apparently is still up for the king of the Swiffer. P&G, Procter & Gamble. Procter & Gamble has still been an interesting one. Just got to watch the relative strength on that one.

It's working up in terms of price, but we want to see the relative performance go along with it too. Craig Johnson, Piper Sandler, number one, great call in small caps. Even with the date, even though you're not exactly right, you still see the high coming. Number two, tell the bond folks take the rest of the day off. They've earned it. Craig, thank you very much. Thanks, Brian. All right.

To paraphrase the great LL Cool J, don't call it a bailout. We're talking about Intel. Late yesterday, you heard right here at the White House may look to invest in Intel. Now, to be clear, and this is important, we don't know any of the details or terms of this potential deal. It may not even happen. And if it does, what is it going to mean? but what does it mean right now that we're even talking about it for Intel and maybe some other struggling American companies? Joining us now is Patrick Moorhead.

He is CEO and chief analyst of more insights and strategy. Again, I want to be clear, we don't know anything. We don't know any potential terms. We don't even know what's going to happen, Patrick. But what was sort of your initial reaction, your hot take to the Intel news yesterday? Well, I called this a week before, and I do believe that the U.S. government will put an indebted, investment into the Intel Foundry side of the company. Because it just makes sense because we need a strong Intel foundry to win the AI race that everybody's talking about. And Intel is

the only American company that is creating leading edge foundry and the only American company to create the intellectual property that goes into building the leading edge and bleeding edge chips. And this is a very important distinction. Fair. But when I first heard the news, and I'm just the jaded old news guy, was that my first thought was, I'm thinking about cash for clunkers. If you remember that, 2008, 2009, sort of the bailout, the investments in Detroit. How is this, if it, again, if it happens, we don't know the terms, if it were to happen, how is this not that? That's right. And I mean, Palantir.

The CIA's venture arm owns part of Palantir. So that was a winner. But I do understand the GM, Chrysler, and AIG. I think the big difference here is that having a strong auto industry is not necessarily about the future of the country's defense. I'm sure that some people would argue that I'm wrong. But to bring out the highest performance chips here in the United States, we need somebody on U.S. soil to be able to do this. Think about potentially if Taiwan gets invaded by China. Literally, we would not be able to advance the art of manufacturing, even with anybody's foundry,

whether it's TSM or Samsung, here on U.S. soil. and then we'd have to negotiate with the Chinese to see if we could get some of that intellectual property to be able to build it or if they would even sell us the chips. I get the national security point and TSM is rapidly adding capacity at the Phoenix Arizona factory. We were there just a couple of months ago. We interviewed Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik. So you would view this not as a, quote, bailout if indeed it happened, but rather a strategic security investment. So if that was the case, and Patrick Moorhead was kind of running the show, where else should the government invest?

Well, we've already seen them invest in rare earth minerals with MP materials. That was a relatively new one. Well, you know, to be fair, to be fair, I was not to pat my own pat my back here. My producer, Harriet Taylor and I have been to that mine twice, both on air. And the last time we were there, a member of the Department of Defense was there. there, kind of poking around, and we mentioned that on the air. So I'm going to give CNBC a little shout out that we're two for two on some of these places. No, that is good. And, you know, I'm one for one at least on this investment. We'll see what's going to happen here. But I also

think there's going to be other investors. I do believe that we'll see a consortium of designer chip companies from the AMDs to the Qualcomms, invidias, the broadcoms, folks like that, who some of them, not all of them, will likely invest. We could also see some hyperscalers invest, because if you see all of the hyperscalers are doing their own chips now, and they have the CAPEX, they have the money, and quite frankly, the $40 billion that is required, I mean, it's not nothing, but in aggregate, if I look at the CAPX and I look at the value plus the potential national security, I also want to address the clunkers part, right? Intel did have challenges initially. In fact, they designed what was called 18A was not a what's called a

foundry node. It was made for their own chips. So they kind of back ended 18A into that. But this new one called 14A is absolutely a foundry led and they have the time to get this out there. I want to make a key point here. Taiwan owns 6% of TSM, Taiwan gave 40, it was a 48% owner in TSM when it was created. And they have poured billions into TSM as we're hand-wringing these types of things. These are all great points because it's definitely something that has generated a lot of heat, a lot of passion, and a lot of noise as well. Patrick Moore had more insights in strategy. Patrick, thank you very much. Thank you.

All right, now to the aforementioned bond market, because once again, yield steady following really what were a couple of contradictory data points on inflation this week. So let's figure out what's really going to move the bond market. Rick Centelley is in Chicago. Rick, what's it going to take to really get the Treasury bond market moving? Because with the exception of about three weeks in April, it's kind of been, as you and I have talked about, kind of been stuck for a while. Well, you know, but where is it stuck at? If you look in May, we touched 4% like really briefly and rocketed back up in tens. See, we may be considered orderly, and I think that's a good accurate description.

But the curve is steepening. It's steeping about six basis points this week alone. And there's a lot of moving parts here, not the least of which is that global rates are on the firm side, the longer you go down the curve. Let's go to the charts real quick, Brian, you'll see. Okay, here's a six-hour intraday of tens. You notice the last couple hours that's really been accelerating before it plateaued a bit in the low 430s? Well, I'll tell you why, because there's a technical aspect to this.

First of all, we settled last week at 428. So as we started to challenge that, we're now four bases points up on the week, look at the weekly chart. The previous highs were a little bit above 430. So as we started to get near both those levels, you saw aggravated selling coming in. so we made new high yields for the week. But here's the salient feature. Whether you look at twos or tens since early July, the day before the job, job, jobs report that was very weak.

You see how yields broke down, maybe two year broke down more aggressively than tens. But the point here is we're still well below the levels we were before that number came out. That's everything to me because the market is telling me that the labor market's more important to those at trade interest rates on the long end than some of the issues that were discussed. regarding inflation. And by the way, solid retail sales today, import prices at 15-month highs and Wheat Michigan. And finally, here's something really interesting. 10s minus boons on a day yields are moving up is now the closest it's been going all the way back to early April. And why is that important? Because as our rates go up, boon rates are going up every

bit as fast. Look at boon yields. They're at the highest levels since the third week in March, closing in on 2.80%. Back to you. See, I learned something. I'm looking at 10-year treasury yields minus the German bond market yields, and now I feel smarter. Rick Santelli, thank you. All right, coming up after the break, that crucial meeting between President Trump and Putin, if it doesn't go well, will this White House actually hit Putin where it hurts? That's in the wallet. That is a live look at Joint Base Elmendorf, waiting on President Trump to arrive. and we are back right after this.

All right, welcome back to Power Lunch. We are just moments away from President Trump's plane. Touching down in Anchorage, Alaska. Could be the next 12 to 15 minutes. And at Joint Base Elmendorf, just north of Anchorage, is where he is going to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin. We are going to cover two big angles from this summit. First off, the possibility of Trump imposing even harsher sanctions

or enforcing current sanctions against Russia if a peace deal is ultimately not reached. We are also talking about the potential. impact on the energy market. And we have two great guests on both sides of the story. First off, Daniel Tannenbaum has partnered Oliver Wyman and a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and Bob McNally, president and founder of Rapidan Energy Group. Bob will get to you in just a second. Let us start with Dan. He is an expert, one of the world's leading experts on sanctions. Um, there currently are semi-sanctions on Russia, Dan. Correct. Can you lay it out cleanly? Where are we

now and what might happen if things go poorly? Well, Brian, there's a lot of sanctions that have been layered on to Russia over the last three years. Now, it's important to note that President Trump hasn't imposed any new sanctions on Russia since he's been in office, and there really hasn't been any enforcement of existing sanctions. But you've seen attempts to try and cut energy revenue going back to Russia with an oil price cap. But for the most part, there's still a lot of business that's legal between the U.S. and Russia. The U.S. bought $3 billion in goods from Russia just last year. So they're not as isolated

as people may realize. Yeah, and go into that a little bit more because it was an excellent, excellent piece in the New York Times yesterday morning. We talked about it yesterday on the show with Haleemah Croft about how Russia has, they're not booming, but they have enough money that they're able to pay soldiers to go fight, and a lot of them to go die. Where is Russia getting most of its money these days? How do they have it? They're getting its money from India that still buys 40,000 kilotons of oil,

China that buys about 25,000 kilotons of oil a quarter. They're still getting it from the countries that continue to purchase their oil and taking advantage of the depressed price that Russia has to sell it at because of the restriction. So if you focus on getting the countries that are buying Russian oil at scale to make a choice, you begin to erode the revenue they have that they're using to directly fund the war in Ukraine. And we'll get to more on the energy side with Bob in a second.

Is there some other type of sanction, Dan, that might work not on energy, not on oil, not a natural gas? They're already cut off the Western financial system for the most part. Is there something we could do if we had to to hit them in the wallet enough where they basically run out of money and therefore have to sue for peace because they have no way to continue this aggressive operation. I mean, more broadly, they can impose secondary sanctions which would force countries to choose

between doing business with the U.S. and doing business with Russia. The one thing, though, that the president could leverage is the bully pulpit. As we've seen, he's very good at applying pressure on CEOs, on companies, particularly American ones. If he turned that on foreign businesses that are continuing to play both sides, it may force them to reevaluate their trade relationships with Russia, again, separating them, isolating them even further.

Yeah, and we'll see what happens. There are some sanctions out there. Sadly, some of them have been Russia's figure out a way to get around them. We'll talk about that more right now. Dan Tanenbaum, have a great weekend. Thank you very much. All right. So now to the energy side specifically because here is the billion dollar energy question around this summit. Again, we want things to go well, but if things do not go well, will this Trump White House actually hit Russia with sanctions strong enough to cut off Putin's cash? It is clear the current sanctions put on back in 2022 aren't doing much to stop Russia from selling oil and natural gas around the world. Let's talk about it more with you know what? Bob McDalley, hold just one second. We just had Air Force One touchdown at Joint Base Elmendorf. It just kind of breezed by our camera. We've got a couple of F-35 fighters.

I believe those are F-35. Somebody knows more. Morgan Brennan, where are you when I need you, that are in that shot as well? When Trump departs the plane, I'm sure we'll take it. Let's go now back to Bob McNally, Bob. It's a little bit fluid, so I appreciate it. You just heard that conversation. How is Russia so successfully getting around the current sanctions?

Hey, Brian, it's not a question of getting around. These sanctions under President Biden were designed purposely. to help Putin sell his oil. President Biden went to India and said, please import Russian oil. Why did he do that? Because we didn't want the oil price staying at $127 a barrel,

which is where it went right after Russia invaded Ukraine. Hold on, because all I heard, listen, I heard a lot from the White House and I've talked to people in the White House. Some of them are still sources, still friendly with.

We have a lot of people on this side of the news camera on different channels talking about how we're cutting off Putin's cash and he's going to go broke and the country's doomed. That was not true. That's right. We tried to limit his revenue through this price cap mechanism. So we tried to design a cap that would enable his barrels to flow, mainly to India and China,

so that gasoline prices in the United States would stay low, but cut the revenue Putin gets. It was an elegant attempt to do two things. However, what President Trump has now threatened is to, flip that and go to India and say, we don't want you importing any more Russian oil. Now, President Trump believes, or has said, that if we lose those Russian barrels and crude starts heading up above 100 again, no problem because shale oil can just pump some more. Well, you and I both know, that isn't the case. That is not how shale oil works. Shale oil is actually headed down. So I believe if this meeting, which is about to start fails, and if we move towards sanctions, the president

will have to calibrate those to basically have them coincide with this loosening in global oil fundamentals that many of us see so that he doesn't send oil prices up and we're back in 2022 again. So we're talking again. It's the live shot folks, Air Force One, as you can see in the background. And thank you to the internet verse. Those are F-22 fighters, not F-35 fighters. I am not strong on my fighter jet game.

I apologize. We are waiting for President Trump to depart the plane and come down those stairs. so I'll probably have to interrupt whomever is speaking at that time. But Bob, listen, let's be optimistic. Best possible scenario. Somehow, not at this meeting, won't happen now. Trump and Zelensky or Putin and Zelensky get into a room because they're the parties. Zelensky is not here.

Ukraine controls its own destiny. Trump has said that. That's the reality. What's the best possible outcome from the energy side? Well, the best possible outcome is they declare a ceasefire, that President Putin has largely come to terms with either an unconditional ceasefire or a lightly conditioned one. That's great news, because then we go right to a meeting with President Zelensky, the Euros, and next week we open up and we can look at the prospect of removing those European

sanctions, like our friend Helima pointed out, it's really Europe that has the heavy sanctions, and we avoid those new European sanctions that are coming, such as on refined products from Russian crude. So it's a great relief. However, Brian, The oil market is pretty much confident right now. I don't know that we have much more downside and crude if we have this best case scenario. I think the market has become very skeptical about disruption risk, about sanctions, and we're kind of priced for de-escalation here. Okay. And Bob, sit tight.

I think Dan is still with us. And we also have Amon Javers in Washington, D.C. And Aiman again, we are waiting for the plane and the stairs to line up. President Trump will be walking out of that plane. what are we expecting, if anything, from this historic meeting? Well, look, Brian, the White House has been eager to sort of lower the bar here for this, saying this is an listening exercise for President Trump to hear directly from President Putin in terms of what President Putin might take in terms of a deal to end this war.

But the president said to reporters in a gaggle on the plane on the way over here, which we've got a transcript of, he was asked, what's the difference between this meeting and the other meetings that you've had via phone with Putin. And the president said, there's no difference between this and the meetings have had on the phone with President Putin. And he was asked, what would make the mark the success of this meeting? And he said, I can't tell you that. I don't know. There's nothing set in stone. I want certain things. I want to see a ceasefire. So clearly, you know, the ceasefire idea is out there as, you know, one bar for this meeting. But the president is, you know, pointing out here that there's nothing set in stone.

This is just a conversation. This is just to him as if it was a phone call, but they're doing it in person. But there does seem, and, Amon, I'm going to ask you to kind of speculate based on just chatter you're hearing in D.C. There is a school of thought out there. I'm sure you've seen it. You've heard it, which is why is Putin on U.S. soil? He's the aggressor. He invaded Ukraine.

They should not be talking. that this meeting is out of line and out of order. Critics have said that the president has already given Putin a win by greeting him on U.S. soil without exchanging that for some concessions just to get to the meeting, right? The idea would be you need to offer us something if you're going to come to U.S. soil. President Trump allowing Putin to arrive on U.S. soil.

We'll see what kind of a greeting he gives him. But there is a red carpet there, there's a military honor guard, and it might be at least semi-pomping circumstance here for this meeting at a time when Vladimir Putin can't really travel to other countries around the world. And part of the reason is convenience. You look at the map, Alaska's right next to Russia. It's not that far away, although it's far from Moscow. It's not that far away from Russian territory. And the other part of the reason is that there are not that many countries around the world that would host Vladimir Putin at this point.

So there are some real challenges logistically to pulling this off. clearly President Trump was willing to put all that aside and say, hey, look, if I can go eyeball to eyeball with this leader, maybe we can have a breakthrough here. Yeah, also an historic tie-up, really between Alaska, which used to be part of Russia. Obviously, we purchased the land from them back in the 1800s. I believe we saw Bob and Dan with us as well. Dan, you're there? Yep, great.

So we have no idea what Vladimir Putin is thinking. So I'm asking you to kind of wildly speculate here. But do we have a blanket idea maybe of what economic outcome might be suitable enough for Moscow for Putin to cease new hostilities in Ukraine? Well, I think Putin is expecting, hoping, a reopening of markets between the U.S. and Russia. Peskov said this on the Russian flight to the U.S. So the Russian government is trying to lump a whole bunch of things together, including U.S.-Russia relations, far greater than Ukraine. So the president needs to remember he has the leverage.

Global banks do not want to touch Russian business. If global banks won't finance it, there will be no business. And there only will be if the president gives the nod that sanctions can be lifted, both U.S. and ultimately EU and UK, to do so. But the U.S. has a lot more leverage than it may appreciate going into this. Yeah, and your point, if our viewers or listeners out there owned Russian stocks, when they invaded Ukraine, they got wiped out. I mean, the stocks just stopped trading and then eventually just kind of closed down and the money was liquidated. You wonder if they'll come back to the markets. Bob McDowley, on the energy side, if Vladimir Putin sits across the table from President Trump, says, listen, I'm willing to do whatever, to speak with Vladimir Zelensky to try to end this war, but you have to let my oil.

flow freely again? You think we would do that? You know, the president can't deliver that. You have to go to the Europeans. The Europeans have put in the major oil-related sanctions. They're the ones that have the big companies that provide those services to the tankers, the insurance, and so forth. They're the ones who've stopped taking Russian oil. So the president would have to deliver Europe. And to deliver Europe, I think the President Putin would have to do more than just say, look, I'm willing to talk about this or talk about that. I think we're at the point now where Europe and President Trump want to see a hard commitment from Vladimir Putin to lightly conditioned or no-conditioned ceasefire now.

But, Bob, and you know, you know this, and hopefully our audience knows this, the smartest and most well-informed there is, that Europe is, you know that intranet gif or jiff where it's like the guy, the thing is the house is burning and there's like a cartoon character drinking coffee, like this is fine. that's kind of how Europe has been. They're pretending to be tough on Vladimir Putin, but they're not because I've watched ship after ship of natural gas come into European ports from Russia.

In fact, Russia's never sold Europe more liquefied natural gas, obviously not regular natural gas because the Nord Stream got blown up by somebody. They've never sold the more liquefied natural gas at any time in history. So it's hard for me sometimes not to think that Europe is being a little bit or a little bit, a lot of bit disingenuous.

Well, they're trying to put as much of a herd on Putin as they can without shooting themselves in the foot and other parts of the body, right? They have to do this because they are so dependent on energy imports, as you mentioned. But they got rid of Russian oil. They used to be the big off-taker. They're right next door. They have threatened, I think, credibly, starting in January, to take no more refined products, diesel, gasoline, refined from Russian oil. So the Europeans are striking a balance. Can they do that though, Bob? Can they can they can actually do that? I think they can. And clients I talked to, Brian, traders and so forth, who started to talk with them, believe that they're serious about that ban on refined product imports starting in January.

I think it's real. I guess, Amon, I'm just old and cynical because the cynic in me, who covers the energy markets would say this, that it actually benefits the United States for the Europe to keep this ban on Russian oil and some Russian government. gas so we and our companies can sell them more. Yeah, I mean, that's a fascinating prospect, Brian, and you wonder, you know, if we get to a point where there is a deal, skip over all these meetings, you get to the other side and sanctions are lowered. You know, what are the opportunities for American businesses? It's hard to suss that out right now because you just don't know outside of energy how many American businesses actually want to go into Russia, given

the sort of political risks that you'd be facing there. But the president was asked about this, on Air Force One on the way over to Anchorage by reporters who asked him about all of the business executives who are apparently traveling with President Putin, Russian executives coming over as part of that delegation. And the president said, look, Putin sees the US is having a hot economy and he wants a part of it, right? So President Trump sees the US economy

and the strength of it globally as an asset to be leveraged in this negotiation. That is, he can hold that out over Putin's head and say, look, you want to be a part of this global success story, you better get in line and join with us. The president said he wants everybody to do business and be prosperous. He just wants the war to start. The question is whether there's a practical way to get there in terms of land swaps and potentially, you know, exchanges of important economic assets and the other things that will make sense and both sides can actually agree to me. I wonder if there's another side, Bob McNally, of this story.

and about two months ago, we were up in Upkiyavik, formerly known as Barrow, Alaska. We were live on CNBC. We're at the Alaska pipeline. We were talking with a couple of cabinet members about the possibility of a major natural gas pipeline from the top of Russia down to Anchorage. It would be about a $44 billion project. Right now, no U.S. companies appear to be that interested in it. We talked about it extensively that day on the air. And I wonder, Bob, if there is a part of this meeting, which is, listen, Russia.

You need, you don't need natural gas, but they want their gas sold elsewhere. Invest in this pipeline. Help us, and then we'll help you on the back end. I don't know, but there's an aspect of that, which I can't shake. Well, so, Brian, there is, if we had to speak of one single energy project where President Trump and his advisors and the Alaska delegation, my old friend Senator Sullivan and others, they are focused like a laser beam. on getting investors in that pipeline to bring the gas down from the North Slope, and then liquefaction to take that LNG.

But I think the prime effort there are the potential customers, the buyers. Japan, Taiwan, Korea. Exactly. And that's coming into those trade relationships. Like, look, if you want us to get to yes, we need your help on this pipeline investment. You know, Dan, you look at the Russian economy, and let's go back to 2019, because that was pre-COVID and then pre-invasion and pre-sanction. So it's kind of the, I guess, the quote unquote, cleanest economic view of Russia that we have.

Russia is a small country. They don't sell much outside. The reason we're talking about energy so much is that's kind of what they have, right? Is there any other aspect of the Russian economy besides cutting off access to the Western debt systems or really penalizing oil or natural gas sales that would matter? What is Russia? Because as we talked about yesterday, some people call it jokingly, I guess, a gas station with nuclear missiles. I mean, you actually have to go back a little further, Brian. Sanctions have been on Russia since 2014 when they annexed Crimea. And what was a heavily criticized response by President Obama, President Obama, to focus on a handful of different sectors, defense energy and the financial services sector. But you're right. They really do have energy.

to offer the world. There isn't a whole lot of trade. They were consumers of American goods, but in the past, especially post-K Crimea, those relationships really began eroding. So the gas station with nuclear missiles comment is probably as fit and proper you can think of one. Yeah, and you know, Amon, we could have our colleague Steve Leesman added to this conversation because in a former life, Steve actually lived in Moscow as an economic writer, so he knows it well. And, you know, if you look at the numbers, Russia's GDP is about 2 billion, not trillion. Russia is about the same economic size as the state of Delaware. That's it.

But those nuclear missiles give Russia a power, I think, correct me if I'm wrong, that far outweigh its economic utility to the world. Sure. And, you know, Russia's expansionism politically and militarily, right? I mean, if Delaware was invading Pennsylvania, you'd have to deal with them also. And that's just not the case, right? My money's on Pennsylvania in that one, by the way. I mean, I'm from Philly, so yeah. But you get the idea, right?

I mean, this is a situation where you've got an expansionist country led by a leader who has visions of reuniting the old Soviet Union, whether by force or by negotiation. And that becomes tricky to deal with, especially when, as you point out, they're armed with nukes. A couple of details here, Brian, in terms of the meeting today that we're going to see, which have changed. We were told that the meeting was expected to be one-on-one between Trump and Putin and the translators. Now we're told that this is going to be a three-by-three meeting. And on the U.S. side, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Special Envoy Steve Whitkoff will be in the room as well for that. So, you know, kind of reading the tea leaves, do you think that that implies a more nuanced discussion with a deeper layer of detail that Whitkoff?

and Rubio can bring to the table that would be sort of below the level of detail that the president would have at his fingertips. Maybe that implies a more enhanced discussion and more details to be to be bandied about at the table here. Yeah, and there was videos going around the internet last night of a Russian plane coming in landing in Anchorage, Alaska. First time we've seen, by the way, Russian aircraft land in the United States in at least three years, if not longer. I want to reset where we stand, folks, if you're just joining us, hello, thank you for joining us. It is about 1040 in the morning in Anchorage, Alaska. They're four hours behind eastern time. That is a live shot.

You can see of Air Force One. We are waiting for President Trump to plane at Joint Base Elmendorf. Just basically, it's in Anchorage on the north side of that city. Let's reset where we stand in the stock and oil markets if we can. You can see it on the bottom of your screen, but it's worth meriting or merits. It merits attention. said, that the Dow, though up only three-tenths of 1%, that is enough to make it a new record. United Health, one stock, big heavy price stock, moving that index up.

So the Dow hitting a new record high, first time that has happened since December of last year. The Dow was the last of the three major indexes to get to a record. S&P and NASDAQ, they are down a little bit today, but they're still just off a record highs. This week, still a positive. We're seeing the price of oil up just a little bit, but still in the mid-down. high 60 buck range. So that's kind of the setup right now ahead of this meeting, which is supposed to last, what, amen, five to seven hours is kind of the expectation for the meeting length? We've seen reports all over the place. I mean, the president said in an interview with Fox News

that he'd be prepared to walk if things didn't go well. So, you know, you could walk at any time, presumably, but we've seen Russian media estimates five, six, seven hours perhaps. So somewhere in between, you know, five minutes and five hours is what we're looking for. And it's all going to depend on the field. The president has always said he can tell within the first couple of minutes whether a meeting is going to be successful. So, so Aiman then again, speculating, you know, we used to have the Allen Green Span briefcase indicator. If you remember that, you know, how thick was the briefcase? What's he going to say and how long might that fit? Back when people had briefcases. Back when people had briefcases, exactly, and pre-Twitter. If this meeting is short,

let's say Trump walks out of it after two hours, we should assume that's a negative, correct? I mean, If the meeting goes all night and they're ordering takeout in, that's a positive sign. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think the longer this meeting goes, the more it's an indication that something substantive is being discussed. And it's not just the two sides reading speeches to each other. You know, when you get inside these rooms, there's pro forma to it. I had a chance to ask the Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent about his negotiations with the Chinese behind closed doors. And he said, you know, yeah, in those meetings, once the doors closed, we do kind of read some.

speeches to each other and sort of you have to get past that. And then you can get into the substance, which has been agreed to in advance, you know, the different agenda items. So you imagine something like that is going to happen here where each side has to kind of read a speech to each other, make a statement to each other, and then move on. But Putin is famous for using sort of Russian slang, very quick Russian language, speaking in a very sarcastic way that's kind of hard to translate in real time and hard to follow. And he's famous for long, extemporaneous, remarks that kind of dominate the conversation just by monopolizing the clock, right? And so President Trump, who likes to do that, a little bit of that himself, is going to have

to handle all of that person to person in the room. We are going to take a very short break. We're not going to miss the president coming out of the plane. I believe we saw Bob McNally and Dan Tannenbaum with us as well, Amen Javers, as well. We are waiting for President Trump to leave the plane in Alaska for what is the beginning of this historic summit and meeting between President's Putin and President Trump. a short break. We'll be back right after this.

All right, welcome back. Again, waiting on President Trump to deplane at Joint Base Elmendorf in Anchorage, Alaska for today's planned meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. When that occurs, when President Trump deplains or makes any comments, we will bring that to you as well. I want to thank our guests who I think are still sticking around just in case something happens. But for now, let us continue with our planned coverage of what is happening, and that is to go to today's power check. We can do that. Let's go to Power Check and talk about something else besides this summit in Alaska, if we can.

Are we going to that Power Check, guys? Are we going to stick with this? Anybody, Bueller? All right, well, okay, we're going to go to Aaron Dunn and Power Check right now. So let's bring in Aaron Dunn, if we can, and I think that we can. Aaron Dunn, welcome. Listen, it's one of these fluid days with a lot of news that has happened. right now, Aaron, so we appreciate your patience. You're a scholar and a gentleman,

your head of value equity at Morgan Stanley Investment Management. Let's move on. Let's talk about it. What is top of mind, Aaron, for you? So I think one things we're really paying attention to here is really the broadening of the market we think could happen. I mean, you saw a little bit of this the back half of last year. The economic uncertainty out there is really, I think, kept the the market very narrow. And when you look at what sectors have really done well this year, it's tech, communication services, utilities, and industrials, and that's really the AI trade. So investors are searching and staying with the predictable growth that's out there. What we think, and we're really looking for for the back half of the year, is potential for

corporate confidence to come back. We did have some capital spending in the first half the year, but that was really just a pre-bodd debt of tariffs. Can we get some real capital? spending, you know, the ASIM has been sub-50 now for two plus years. Can we get some economic activity here in the United States to actually drive construction to drive activity higher? And one of the things that's really relevant for us is really turnaround stories as value investors have not really, in our view, been paid for because you don't have the underlying economic growth to really draw the sort of underlying story with the turnaround. So we're looking for that. We think there's a lot of excellent opportunities out there that are just not being paid

for, not being paid attention to until we get some economic certainty. Yeah, and there's some interesting names out there as well. You've got Steel Dynamics. You've got United Pursal Service, better known as UPS, and you've got Clorox. I don't know if I've ever seen a guest come on and talk about either steel, shipping boxes, or bleach. So I guess the dealer's choice, Aaron, let's start with bleach. What is, Clorox was all the rage, unfortunately, during COVID, what is Clorox today? Yeah, it's fascinating. Consumer staples, and really if you look at a lot of what we would probably deem the defensive

sectors out there in the market, staples are 5% of the S&P 500. That's the lowest level since the tech bubble of early 2000. So it's very similar to today. We would add some balance to the portfolio. Clorox reset their kind of full year expectations with an ERP implementation just recently in earnings. And so we think that's past us. This is a company that's great at innovation.

It looks relatively inexpensive. It's a defensive company that also doesn't have the food deflation issue that we think a lot of other staples are going to have. So that's one where we think it's found to bottom. It's really kind of where we think there's not a lot of downside to it and a lot of upside optionality and potential relative outperformance should the market roll over from all-time highs. We would just think of that from a ballast perspective in the portfolio. Yeah. What about steel dynamics? Not a company we taught, STLD, not a company we talk about a lot. Yeah, yeah. And you saw Berkshire take a position in New Corps today. And it's a very similar

situation with steel dynamics and the fact that you have a company that's a low-cost steel producer in the U.S. This administration and also through the Biden administration really protected the steel industries through 232 tariffs. And that continues. And prices have really remained elevated with that tariff in place. So we think it's very interesting from, they have a variable cost structure. So we believe that if construction comes back, infrastructure spending starts to get a little better, you know, CEO confidence gets better, they loosen the purse strings, that there's a lot of projects out there that need steel.

And we believe that the demand for steel is going to reaccelerate. If that's the case, Steel Dynamics, that's a low-cost variable producer, is going to be fantastically positioned. The other interesting thing is really about. UPS and Still Dynamics is these are execution stories. And what that means is, Still Dynamics had two big projects that they've had finished this year. And so they're bringing those online. They bring those online, we're going to have a sizable expansion of free cash flow.

As CapEx comes down and those projects start to contribute to EBITDA, this company's purchased 25% of its shares outstanding over the last four years. We think that this sets up again for another situation where they're really returning cash shareholders. Looks very interesting to us. Yeah, it really is fascinating time. STLD, I love talking about names that we don't talk about a lot. Talked about the small caps earlier in the program. Aaron Dunn being very, very kind with your time. We appreciate you, Roland, with all the breaking and live news. Aaron, Ann Dunn, Morgan Stanley. Aaron, appreciate that very much. All right. We're going to wrap it up. We've got a few more minutes left. We're going to bring back

our panel who has also been very generous and kind with their time. That is Bob McDowley of Rappadan, Dan Cannonbaum of Oswald. Wyman and Amon Javers in D.C. And I do want to correct something I said earlier. I said the Russian GDP was $2 billion. It's $2 billion. $2 billion to be really, Aeman, really, really small.

Maybe not as small as Delaware. I can't get everything right. There's the Russian GDP. My point, my broader point, though, I hope, was made was that this is not a rich nation. It would seem like we would have more economic levers to use against them. But for some reason, what we've done has not worked.

And I guess perhaps that is maybe, Aymond because of Russia's continued closening relationship with both China and now India. Yeah, Brian, and to your earlier point, I still do like Pennsylvania and any squabble with Delaware, but that's just like anybody against Delaware? It's not very long.

Maybe Rhode Island would struggle, I don't know. It's a small state. It's a small state. Look, I mean, the president, you talk about the stock market and what it's doing today, the president's citing that in his Air Force One interview with reporters saying that the stock market hitting a record high today, is one of the reasons why Vladimir Putin is in the United States today

and is willing to cut a deal, according to President Trump, that Vladimir Putin sees the economic success of the U.S., needs some of that for his own economy. And there are real questions, Brian, about how stable the Russian economy is going forward and how much running room does Russia have economically before it hits a wall, how much more of this war can they continue to finance? Vladimir Putin probably has a good number of what the ex-date is for his ability to afford this war. And U.S. intelligence probably has its own estimate of just how many more months of this war Vladimir Putin can afford to pay for. And so all of that's going to be in the back of his mind as well.

Yeah, and that's Dan Tanembaum. It's one reason that we have you here, and we're glad that you're here. We talked about it yesterday. While the Russian economy is humming along, it is sort of largely disconnected from the West. their sovereign wealth fund, which has been a big source of money to pay these soldiers to go fight and many to go die, that is running out. I mean, it's going down at a fairly good clip. At some point, will Russia, if things remained exactly as they are now, is there a point of which Russia would effectively run out of enough money to continue this war? Well, one, I mean, Demetriov is on the plane. He's there with Putin and the delegation on the ground. I think China and India and Turkey still continue to provide a lot of trading support

with Russia. But to be clear, things aren't going great to the points you're all making. If things were going so great, they wouldn't be using North Korean soldiers and munitions on the battlefield in Ukraine. That's certainly not a sign of how effective things are. But these things take time. We've never imposed economic restrictions on an economy, the scale of Russia. It's nothing the likes of Iran, for instance. So it will take time. There was essentially bleed out economically. Yeah, and I guess, Dan, here's where I stand, I think, a little bit confused, which is what is the Russian economy?

I mean, it seems fairly self-contained with a little bit of LNG and oil, and we talked about this ghost fleet of ships three years ago. They bought these old tankers that, you know, they get around insurance, they don't have it at all, and there's environmental risk. Oil tankers only last about 20 to 25 years before they get really brittle and flat, By the way, yes, thank you very much. Great job by our team. Guys, sit tight for a second.

We do have a illusion. I believe that is an illusion aircraft, a Russian aircraft that is taxiing now down the runway. Joint base Elmendorf, and we have confirmed that Vladimir Putin is on that plane, correct? Okay. We do not have it confirmed that that is Putin's plane. You could see it says, if you read Russia, it says Russia on the side of the. plane and we have confirmed, okay, that is Russia on the side of the plane. We believe Vladimir Putin is on that plane. And obviously when Vladimir Putin exits the plane or whoever

may be on that, we will show it to you. So there's a lot going on. We've got Air Force One. We've now got this Russian aircraft. Again, not sure who's on it. Dan Tanenbaum, I'm going to go back to you. We got a lot happening right now. And I got a lot of different variables that are a What would you do? Is there one thing we could do to make Putin talk from an economic perspective? I mean, that is the question. I mean, this needs to come to a satisfactory end. So obviously, the initial discussions have been about a land swap, which obviously the Ukrainians and the Europeans have a very significant concern about. There has to be some way to try and end this conflict in a way that Putin can prove a win and begin to reopen his economy somewhat back to the West. I mean, Russia's

has mining and natural precious metals, natural minerals, it has agriculture. There's a lot of parts of the economy that have really been suffering more broadly. There needs to be almost an Iran deal-like scenario to condition this ceasefire on economic conditions of reentry, essentially, of allowing them to slowly reenter the global economy. But there is this matter, Bob, from an energy perspective, about OPEC. I mean, Russia is a member of the OPEC. I mean, Russia is a member of the OPEC Plus coalition, they have quotas. They're right now at producing and selling. Are they not at their max quota of about 9.9 and change million barrels of oil per day? So even if they get, quote, let back onto the world stage, is it likely they're going to suddenly flood the world with oil and crash

prices? No, they won't. As you say, Brian, they are close. They're getting to record drilling rates. They are coming back this year. They maybe can do another couple hundred thousand barrels a but no, they're pretty close to the max. But here's the opportunity for President Trump. We hope what we're about to see is going to lead to peace. If it doesn't, and he has to go for sanctions, the bad news is shale cannot offset, you know, Russia if he really drives anywhere close to three million barrels a day of just the seaborne Russian crude oil exports off the market. So that's just that math. Prices would go right up. We saw that movie in 2022. However, however, as we look into next year, balances are oversupplied. Most of the money.

folks, most barrel counters I know, certainly rapid-end. We see supply growth outstripping demand growth next year almost three to one. That sounds like much lower prices, Bob. Exactly. And this is where just what the doctor ordered could be removing a million and a million and a half barrels a day of Russian next year. So patience should be the watchword. If he does it right now, next week, crude prices are going to roof. But there is a scenario where the president could exploit this oversupply which threatens the shale revolution for just what the doctor ordered. Take a million, two million of Russian off, rather than OPEC plus having to cut, by the way. Bob McDally, you are just what the doctor ordered, as is Daniel Tannenbaum.

Gentlemen, both, we appreciate your patience and your flexibility. Guys, thank you very much. We had to let Aiman Javers go. A lot of coverage here, folks. We're going to wrap it up with this. We've got 30 seconds left in the program. Dow is up. New record high.

S&B and NASDAQ are slightly lower right now. but the world is watching what you are watching or listening to on the radio, and that is the arrival of Vladimir Putin. And we now can confirm that Putin is indeed on that plane, the Russian president arriving landing on U.S. soil for the first time in a long, long time. We're going to say goodbye. Closing bell is going to pick up all this coverage. A lot going on.

Have a safe, happy, and healthy weekend. Closing bell starts now.