Bring in show music, please. Hi, I'm CNBC producer Katie Kramer. Today on Squawk Pod, it's here. The 2026 midterm election day has arrived.
I admit I have my own opinions. I have my own views.
We'll hear from Democrat Rahm Emanuel, a possible presidential contender in '28, on the balance of power.
This is what Democrats should remember today. The Republicans are going to lose. What we do in 2027 as a party will determine whether we have won.
And investor and hedge funder Bill Ackman, a one-time Democratic donor, now with more conservative views.
I think the likelihood is the House goes, and I'm sort of hoping that the Senate stays.
How today's results impact his own investing thesis with nearly $33 billion of client money to manage.
I don't see a roaring 20s in the stock market. If anything, this year earnings expectations have gone up meaningfully and the multiple is actually reasonably low.
All the conversations that matter today. It is Tuesday, November 3rd, 2026. Squawk Pod begins right now.
Stand back by in 3, 2, 1. Cue please.
Good morning everybody. Welcome to Squawk Box right here on CNBC. We are live from the Nasdaq MarketSite in Times Square. I'm Becky Quick along with Joe Kernen and Andrew Ross Sorkin. It is election day. It's Tuesday.
It's today. That's it. Yeah. Here we go.
I know you just said we weren't anxious for this finally to happen, were we?
Do you like when they... I like when they... I like when the same commercial runs like three times in a row. I'm like, I can't see anymore. It's here. It's finally here. Go to the polls. Vote.
Tens of millions of Americans have already cast their ballots. Megan Cassella joins us now with more on election day. Good morning.
Good morning. Happy election day to all of you guys. So, first some trivia to start us off this morning. Only two times since World War II has the president's party gained House seats in midterm elections. That was 1998 and 2002. So, that history alone is enough to make Democrats bullish about their chances tonight of retaking power in at least one chamber of Congress next year.
So, let's start with the House, which is expected to be the easier lift for the Democrats. Republicans have a narrow four-seat edge there right now. So, Democrats need to flip a net three seats for the majority. That means they could lose every race rated as a tossup and win just the ones that forecasters say are leaning in their direction and they would still take the speaker's gavel for next year.
The Senate though is much more up in the air. Republicans currently have a three-seat majority here. Democrats then have to flip four red seats and hold on to their blue ones to take the power there. So CNBC's election desk has zeroed in on five tossup races that will likely determine the majority of the Senate.
One of these states, Michigan, is currently held by a Democrat. That's the retiring Senator Gary Peters. If Democrats lose that seat, their next best path to taking the Senate would require winning all four of the others that you see on this map: Maine, Ohio, Texas, and Alaska. A pretty tall order when three of those states elected the president by double digits just two years ago. And when you remember, Texas hasn't sent a Democrat to the Senate in almost 40 years.
Now, guys, the earliest polls tonight will close at 6:00 p.m. Eastern. That's in parts of Indiana and Kentucky. But don't expect many results until much later in the night. Alaska's polls don't finish closing until 1:00 a.m. Eastern. So, it will be hours, if not days, before we get much clarity on the balance of power, especially if it's close, as we expect it will be. Guys.
Uh, Megan, we will, uh, we will be watching. Today is the day and we will see what the real implications are. I think, I, if it goes, if, do you think the blue wave happens and then does this, it...
It's either a major blue wave or the, or the business is, they're done forever.
And if it is a blue wave, what do we think the real implications are for the, for the next two years?
I think, I think Trump digs in. I think it's going to be, I think we're going to have a lot to talk about, don't you?
A lot of hearings, a lot of, uh, I mean, things are nasty already.
Joe, Lighthizer said yesterday that, that, um, Wall Street's not really prepared for the idea of that happening and that there will be a lot of sectors that have to deal, particularly the technology sectors and others that have...
Point, but I don't know what they would. I, I could see hearing, I, in the next two years, I could see lots of hearings. The question is, could I see some meaningful something happening that's deleterious to the businesses as a, as a result?
Well, that Congress can pass a lot of laws that...
Yeah, but that president can veto.
But, but regulations too, and they can dig into...
Is there any way... that was his point, he was a guy who served in both Trump administrations.
Trump has had, uh, Democrat leanings in certain areas. Is there any way it becomes possible for...
Because you don't have to hate him as much now because he's gone in two years no matter what. I mean, Democrats don't have to hate him.
But is that possible that he could say, 'Okay, that I want to try and move the country forward on certain things, healthcare, something like that.' Is, is there, is there any way?
It would be quite remarkable if those things were Social Security.
I'm just saying we're now into a conversation about whether we're going to start nationalizing companies and whether, you know, Elon Musk is going to need a pardon, right? I mean, that's, that's...
Well, healthcare, I think that the way you'd come after healthcare would be just that, to put price limits and price controls on just about everything there. That, that would be something you could see him teaming up with some of the Democrats on.
Didn't divided government used to mean House and Senate? So now it's just, it can be one. It can be one against one...
The executive branch against the...
I thought that's what divided government was, that...
I think it could be any, any version of it. And you know what? Yeah. And, and I guess if the Senate goes, then the Supreme Court guy... or guy, be a guy who, who's close, I guess he might go...
He might retire so that a Republican president could replace him.
Can you... what RBG didn't do.
Right, that did not work with Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
What the notorious RBG didn't do. Uh, I guess it could. Sotomayor, or I know it's Sotomayor, but people call him, you know, I don't, we can't, can't assume anything anymore. You know what happens when you assume something?
You make a butt out of you and...
All right. Apple shares are trading lower following the tech giant's quarterly report. Gross margins narrowly beating the street's estimates, but that was in part because of a benefit from tariff refunds. A weaker-than-expected current quarter gross margin forecast may be spooking investors. If you check it out, that stock is now down by more than 4%.
Apple's services segment is also in focus. Projected current quarter services sales growth of 8 to 9% would amount to a sequential slowdown. Revenue from Greater China grew by more than 20% in Apple's fourth quarter, but that still missed the street's estimates by about a billion dollars.
We should probably wait before we start deciding how to run the country with, with the Senate election. Wait till the people weigh in.
In the past, Andrew, I, I have said that once every four years, we get, we finally get a look at what the American people really feel and we're inundated with, with false head fakes and craziness and we get totally convinced of something only to find out it's something else.
When, when it can go like, when the prediction markets can, and I'm not talking about the prediction market, but in the past they've been like this and then you watch the day go and then all of a sudden at a certain point, or the New York Times, that, that chart that they show and it goes like that. And, but now I don't know. Now what scares me now, and you know, okay, so I, I admit I, I have, I have my own opinions, I have my own views.
The recent special elections that, where the Republicans were hoping that it wasn't going to be as bad as what the indications were. It was even worse.
So, I don't know. Trump's not on the ballot, so I don't know if you have the potential for one of those four-year shockers or not. I still think you might. Let's see tomorrow morning.
You still might. You still... There are people saying Republicans do 52, 53. I've seen 54.
I'm open to seeing whatever it is that happens.
And we get, we get a chance to find out tonight or tomorrow morning.
I, I doubt it. We'll see someday.
OpenAI beefing up the level of government expertise among its staff. The company hiring former U.S. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll as a senior counselor for national security modernization. That's a newly created role. OpenAI says that Driscoll will focus on how AI can be used to strengthen national security and cybersecurity. Driscoll stepped down as Army Secretary earlier this year after months of reported tensions with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. And worth knowing that Dan is one of JD Vance's best friends.
So when you try to understand the backstory for all of this... cheese will be next.
Coming up on Squawk Pod, former White House chief of staff to President Obama, former mayor of Chicago, former congressman and former ambassador to Japan. Ooh, that's a long resume. Rahm Emanuel lays out the measures of success for each party on this election day and what the American public really needs.
Healthcare costs are up 13%. Gas prices are up 50%, groceries up. Raise the minimum wage. Do it over a period of time. I'm for 20 by 2030. And it affects other incomes. The American people need a raise.
This is Squawk Pod from CNBC.
Stand by Joe. Here's Mike Q.
Welcome back to the election day edition of Squawk Box. Joining us now, Rahm Emanuel, former congressman, former U.S. ambassador to Japan, former mayor of Chicago. Big win last night, uh, over the Seahawks. He said, 'I won. I had, I had the Bears.' Served as President Obama's, uh, chief of staff. He's also the brother of my long-term agent, Ari, but...
I promise you that I'm not going to hold that against you in, in, uh, in the way we...
I'm going to promise I'm not going to hold it against you.
And I'm going to promise you're not going to be nice to him. You already haven't been.
Yeah, I know. I know. I know.
I think he is going to hold it against you. So, here I am holding it, uh, uh...
So you know, there's an old saying that the minute the midterms are over, that the presidential race starts. And usually it would be waiting until it's over. I'm sure it's just a coincidence you're here today.
No, I just, I think it's actually a good thing to have not only an election behind you, but get the new Congress started.
Rahm, you are running. I mean, can, can you tell us that you're seriously considering it?
That's not, that's not breaking news. Of course I am. Yeah. Anybody was not more than...
That last time I was here.
I still didn't feel like it was official.
Well, do you want to hug it out? No, it's real. Don't worry about it.
What do you think's going to happen? Um, are you very, very confident? A high degree of conf... like Drexel Burnham.
I'm Jewish, so I'm not ever highly confident, so, or comfortable. So, here, I'd rather be us than them. One.
Okay. Two, I think this is what Democrats should remember. Today, the Republicans are going to lose. What we do in 2027 as a party will determine whether we have won, whether we bring real change. And what I meant in real time, because part of the frustration out in America is how basically AWOL the Congress... and I always say this statistic everywhere I go. The kids on the USS Abraham Lincoln were at sea for 322 days.
Bathrooms didn't work. Food wasn't great. In fact, as many times rancid. The Congress for a third of that time. Show up. Pass an ethics bill. Get it done in the first three months. Power wash all three branches of government.
Lobbying reform, banning insider stock trading, banning prediction markets, mandatory, uh, blind trust, mandatory, uh, retirement age, and what I call the Jared Kushner rule: no foreign money while you're in government, and no foreign money for two years afterwards. Clean it up. Raise the minimum.
And you believe that there'd be bipartisan support which would...
What about a, a veto from the president?
Uh, well, breaking news. Yep. He signs it, you win. He vetoes it, you win. That's...
So your view is just, just bring it.
First of all, I think this is going to be a massive vote. That's my prediction because I think anybody watching this, as you know, I've said this for the last two years, the brand of this administration will be corruption. He has made it the issue because people think they're paying for his corruption. It's driving into the wallet. There will be a massive bipartisan vote.
His, uh, kind of poison pill will be the ban on prediction markets. My view, he will have to make a judgment, and that's true about what I would do on the tariffs: a massive repeal of a number of them that have affected the economy. Forty percent of, of products go into our manufacturing. Get rid of those, you're hurting the manufacturing base. And then also raise the minimum wage, it hasn't been raised now.
Two things I would say: the last time the Democrats in 2006 won the Congress, we raised the minimum wage and we passed the lobbying and ethics bill that Senator Obama and Congressman Rahm Emanuel had introduced with John McCain and, uh, Marty Meehan. And I would do both of those, and it puts the president, and it will divide the president from the Republicans.
Raise minimum wage, nobody, very few people, but most people make above that already. So how high would you go? You wouldn't go to $20 an hour?
I would go to 20 by 2030.
You don't think, you don't think any of the studies that show that that forces people out? You know, you see what happened in Seattle.
Here's the thing. One, a lot of jobs already... No. Okay. It is 7.25. Hasn't moved in 20 years.
Utility rates have moved. Healthcare costs are up 13%. Gas prices are up 50%. Groceries up. Raise the minimum wage. Do it over a period of time. I'm for 20 by 2030. And it affects other incomes. The American people need a raise. All the CEOs are getting raises. The corporate suite is getting raises. They're getting options. Raise the minimum wage.
You don't think we need wage-price controls, right? That's a wage control.
No, that is, I'm not. First of all, it's a floor. It's not a control. It's a floor. I also think when you have, and I've said this before, and I'll repeat it here: the moment the American dream became unaffordable is exactly, Joe, when the American democracy became unstable.
The American dream is not affordable at $20 an hour either.
No, no, but it's a, it's a step towards that. And I would take other steps that, on the tax side and on the income side, to start forcing companies. We've had the greatest period of 20 years of economic growth where none of the growth was shared with people working paycheck to paycheck.
So what about things like, uh, no tax on tips, no tax on Social Security? Do you believe that that stays, that's a permanent feature now of the tax code?
I, I don't think it, uh, I think the whole tax code, as I wrote the other day in the Wall Street Journal, I think it needs a fundamental rewriting. You have 271 loopholes, the most ever. It's kind of in the '86 reform. Get rid of the, restrict the step-up basis. The idea that people are borrowing against, uh, their equity with never, never paying taxes.
Raise capital gains. We've been talking about that on this show for a long time.
Raising capital gains back up to 28 where it was under Reagan and Clinton versus 20. Raise the corporate rate minimum 25%. I would go higher. Eliminate half of the loopholes that are in the corporate rate. You would raise revenue.
I would also, too, restore pay-as-you-go, which is how you got to a balanced budget. So, both on the fiscal side, the spend side, and on the revenue side. And I would also make sure that people that work for a living get another, uh, tax cut.
All of that is common sense. All of it probably makes sense to the majority of Americans. I don't know if you have a party.
I don't know if you have a party that's...
Well, no. I think, I, well, I think, look, there's, I think personally the code reflects the corruption that's in Washington. I actually think corruption is a cancer on capitalism.
The crony capitalism run out of the White House is antithetical to capitalism. You either have a rule of law, rule one, and what's going on today, what's going on with Bessent, what's going on with, uh, the Secretary of Commerce, his family, and with the president's family, is antithetical to how capitalism is supposed to work.
Now, I happen to think you should scrub the tax code. You have more today. By example, of those 271 loopholes, it cost you $2.3 trillion. That's more than Medicare and Medicaid combined. Those need a real washing in the Reagan reform effort of '86.
Change it. Clean it. Because what's in that tax code has nothing to do with creating wealth. It has everything to do with preserving wealth.
But to govern, you need to be elected. To be elected, you have to, good point, sometimes make, make compromises. I think most politicians make compromises about who they support so they can get into a position of power. Jim Messina, who was just here, saying that...
He doesn't like, he didn't even say that, he's saying he's supporting them. I know you are not saying that.
So here, here's what I would say to you. My general rule when I was both mayor, uh, caucus chair, but, and chief of staff: I'm always interested in finding common ground, but I know how to also stand my ground, and that's the approach you have.
There are ideas of tax reform that people on a wide spectrum in Congress have, but like, as mayor, we made a lot of different changes and heard from different... I had 50 aldermen to work with. You find and seek first common ground, but you know how to stand your ground. So I used to say when I had labor negotiations: give me your five things you want to see in this contract, I'm going to give you my five, come back next week and tell me what you don't like about mine, what you live with, and what you would compromise on.
Earlier we had to, we said it's corruption versus radicalism. Trump, earlier we said it was corruption versus radical.
I said, we said that earlier, you weren't here. Okay. There's a, a headline in the paper. Okay. You, you, you're highlighting a lot of, of the corruption. I would too.
I, I, we got five minutes left. I wouldn't want to talk about the anti-Semitism that you're seeing displayed that, that very few Democrats are speaking out against. With the guy in Michigan, with the guy...
Let me, let me say one thing. Having run for office and faced really ugly comments about not letting the money changers in, etc. And when I ran for Congress, it was known as the Polish seat in Chicago: Rozanowski, Pucinski. I was running against the Polish woman and it became, I had to show my birth certificate when I ran.
And I, I used to tell Obama, I was a birther before you were a birther. Okay? Stay away from people's faith if their faith is what they have. Well, just let me just finish for a second, Joe, because you're touching something. I'd like to answer it.
My faith is what guided me to take on the insurance companies, to give 10 million kids health insurance, to take on a failed education system. If people have faith in whatever it is, that is a good thing. Leave it alone. You have a disagreement with them on a policy position, fight it out. That's politics. Okay? So leave people's faith on the sideline.
Do you think El-Sayed has disavowed Hassan and, and a lot of the anti-Semitic comments that he's... Do you support it? Do you support El-Sayed just because he can help swing the Democrats?
Yeah. Look here, I'm for the Democratic Party. I, you know, I'm for the ticket in Michigan. I was in Michigan. Here's my position: I'm against the attacks on Islamophobia and I'm against the attacks on Jews or the state of Israel. Just leave it alone. Argue out Medicare for all. Argue out minimum wage. Argue out corruption.
It makes a difference if you have someone like that that, that gets the backing of the Democratic Party. I, I think it's inexcusable to think, I got that. Why don't you... I'm not even Jewish.
Okay, that has nothing to do. As I said, I disagree with Rogers. I served with him in Congress. We got along, but we have massive disagreements.
I, I want to take it into a slightly different direction and ask you about how far you think the Democrats should or should not go as it relates to hearings, uh, around either Trump family grift, if, if that's the accusation, uh, around crypto, prediction markets, uh, AI, uh, CEOs who paid for the ballroom. I mean, I think there is a, a genuine question: could you take it too far? And what that, what that looks like.
Of course you could.
Yeah. Look, my view: follow the money. But if all you do is hearings and you don't do a lobbying ethics reform package, you have not delivered change. So I'm for the hearings because we should expose how and why and who's getting money and who's getting regulations and who's getting favors.
But when you hear the president say that he's prepared, for example, to give Elon Musk a pardon... What, what do you think about that?
Well, first of all, why would you have to give him a pardon if he hasn't done anything wrong? So number is we are prejudging. My view is this is a, this is a country we should follow the money because a lot of things happened here that we don't know.
But as it relates now into the political side, I'm against impeachment, but you better do an ethics package. And I would do it in the first three months around banning stock trade, banning participation in prediction markets, mandatory blind trust, mandatory retirement, and no foreign money or investment while in government and two years afterwards, like Jared Kushner.
You have this book out now about Jared Kushner taking money in accounts overseas that foreign governments are, are putting money in. I'm, I want to know if representing the United States overseas, you were taking foreign money. I think that's a legitimate question to unravel. It's in clear violation of what the Constitution talked about. So yes, I want to not only have the hearings, man, you know, as I said, we did it in '07, scrub the place, and nobody's clean. Andrew, all three branches of government.
You've dropped the idea into our conversation very delicately a couple times.
Well, that's the, that's the art of a dancer.
Of eliminating or, uh, ending the idea of prediction markets in their entirety. At least that's what I'm hearing.
