Squawk Pod: Walmart CEO Doug McMillon & Scott Jennings - 12/09/25 | Audio Only

Bring in show music, please. Hi, I'm CNBC producer Katie Kramer. Today on Squawk Pod, Doug McMillan, departing chief executive of Walmart on the economy and consumer habits. We're benefiting from some share gains. People with higher income levels are shopping with us more often and have been for a while. Plus, what he has planned after leaving the country's largest brick-and-mortar retailer. I've never had a blank calendar and I've now seen what one looks like in a few months and it's kind of exciting. Then conservative cable news rockstar Scott Jennings on the business of conversation in today's media. I think Americans are hungry for debate and they love it. And yes, we are still talking about the fight for Warner Brothers Discovery. Having talked to people around the transaction on the Warner side, their view was Netflix was a more stable buyer. After Paramount's David Ellison put in a hostile bid for the legacy entertainment assets. Willy Wonka with daddy. I want this. I want it now. How do you know it's not Larry Ellison himself saying, 'I want this.' Could be. It's Tuesday, December 9th, 2025. Squawk Pod begins right now. Stand back by in 3, 2, 1. Fuel, please.

Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Squawk Box right here on CNBC. We're live from the NASDAQ market site in Times Square. I'm Becky Quick along with Joe Kernan and Andrew Ross Sorkin. Walmart will begin trading on the NASDAQ today. It's going to become the largest ever public company to switch its listing to a different stock exchange. It's been trading on the NYSE since 1972, I believe.

Massive company, a big switch, and we're going to hear a lot more about this coming up. Welcome home. Welcome home to the NASDAQ. By the way, the blue carpet is already rolled out up out front. I was told not to walk on it as I was walking in. Those are for VIPs because I was coming in and I said, 'This should be red.' No, Walmart's blue. The next Walmart is blue. So I walked on it while they were trying to adjust it. Is that what you did? No. I had the security. They said you can't walk on that carpet. I said, 'How am I going to get inside the building?' Anyway, they're rolling out the blue carpet, getting the welcome ready for Walmart. We've got a lot more to talk about with this. And in the next hour, we'll actually be joined by CEO Doug McMillan. He is set to hand over the reins to John Furner for Walmart on February 1st. It's been a long time coming. The stock has done an unbelievable job under Doug's leadership. It's up by more than 330%. And it's not just like with everything else. No, because many other competitors, retailers have not done this. In fact, the stocks actually tractor and gamble yesterday, a lot of the major companies have not done. I should say since he took over, 356 percent. That's what the guy was saying. He said someone came in and said, 'Don't you know who I am?' When they were trying to walk on the blue carpet, was that you? Did you really? No, that was you as they were trying to adjust the carpet and you were stomping on it.

President Trump saying Nvidia is now going to be allowed to ship its H200 AI chips to approved customers in China and other countries on the condition that the US gets a 25% cut of sales. In a post on Truth Social, President saying China's president Xi Jinping responded positively to that idea. He also said the same conditions will apply to chips from AMD, Intel, and other unnamed American companies. The H200 is not Nvidia's best chip, but is higher performing than the chips that the company currently is allowed to sell in China. And President Trump saying that higher grade semiconductors like Nvidia's Blackwell and the yet to be released Rubin are not part of this deal. In a statement to CNBC, an Nvidia spokesperson saying, 'Offering H200 to approved commercial customers vetted by the Department of Commerce strikes a thoughtful balance that is great for America.'

I guess if you want to look at all of the different angles of this, this is basically the constant back and forth that this administration is dealing with with President Trump being either the commander-in-chief and defender of the nation or the chief CEO of the country. Part of these are done on business deals. Part of these are done on safety and defense. And I think there's a lot of questions that could be raised on both sides. This kicked off when he started his move for tariffs. People thought, 'Okay, this is a business deal.' But then it does raise national security issues when you're going to shake up the relationship with the largest. Here's the industrial policy head again. If you can just suspend any worries about state-run enterprise and slip sliding into some type of industrial policy. There's a way you can say great to get 25%. And we want to tax companies. Everybody wants to tax companies. They're the same people that wish we could raise the corporate tax rate. So it's a different way and it's not obviously the same, but it's weird. It is weird.

I think the issue is if it wasn't being done in the context of the national security issue, if you could take that off the table, it still wouldn't be okay with a purist with most conservatives. But what makes this uniquely complicated is there's a group of people in Washington and beyond that think that these chips should not be allowed to be sold. And by the way, prior to this, it wasn't allowed to be sold. And it appears now it's only allowed to be sold because the government gets to take a vig, right? That does not include Blackwell. But then you'd say that we're going to use the proceeds to toughen up our defenses and further our own AI dominance if we have that right now. And you'd say that's what we're going to use it for is to try to compete more effectively.

You're telling me that the revenue... No, I'm not saying to compete better, but you could say that we're going to use it to increase security in our fight against... No, but they haven't. Well, we don't know what I will say yet.

There's the alternate view that Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and others have pushed that is if we are not selling any of our chips to China, we are going to lose out in the long term on the entire relevance of American technology. That's their other concern that goes along with it. Now, there is a movement in Congress to say that you can't sell any. There's a co-sponsored bipartisan bill that would say you can't sell any of these chips. I don't know what kind of success rate it has. There's potential for that to move through Congress. In the meantime, from the Nvidia perspective, Nvidia had said that they wrote China sales to zero. So any upside they get from this would be pure upside for Nvidia or the other chip makers. But there's a lot of confusion around it. There's a lot of questions about what China or what Congress may or may not do. And then by the way, there's the question of whether China even wants these chips. Because when they said that they could have the H20 chips, Xi Jinping was like, 'Yeah, no thanks. We don't want them.'

Well, we're running as fast as we can as a country to try and stay ahead of China, but sooner or later does 2.5 billion people beat 400 million or whatever it is? We're trying. We've got a lot of innovation. We've got very talented people. We have a lot of talented people from China here. Thank God. But I don't know. At some point do we lose dominance? I mean, look at history. People usually only last a couple hundred years as the top. And I thought you told me about American exceptionalism. I'm telling you that but it's against 2.5 billion very talented hardworking people.

I don't know whether this was a no-brainer but from the very beginning where's Paramount? Where's Ellison? What's going to happen? This was never I don't think this was ever in doubt when you got a father like... We're hearing from Netflix management about the company's deal for the film studio and streaming assets of Warner Brothers Discovery. Here's Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos at a UBS conference yesterday. 'We have a deal done and we are incredibly happy with the deal. We think it's great for our shareholders. We think it's great for consumers. We think it's a great way to create and protect jobs in the entertainment industry. We're super confident we're going to get it across the line and finish.' After CNBC's interview with Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison after his company launched a hostile bid to buy all of Warner Brothers Discovery, here's Ellison talking about his communications that he had with CEO David Zaslav. 'The last I had with David Zaslav is I made it incredibly clear in text message, this is all going to be public for everybody to see, that we addressed all of the issues that they asked for and very specifically that our offer was not best and final. And so when we literally delivered a $30 per share all-cash offer, we never heard back.' And speaking yesterday about the fight for Warner Brothers Discovery, President Trump said he'd like to see the competing companies' market percentages. Like there's different things to look at, obviously streaming and everything else. He said none of the key players involved are particularly good friends of his, but he's known to be close with Ellison's father, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison. Paramount also revealing in an SEC filing its bid is being backed in part by Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner. Makes this whole thing that much more complicated.

Yeah. And Saudis and Middle East money. And I think would CFIUS actually review this? They're trying to make it so that CFIUS won't review it by saying that they're going to be passive investors and all this. I think a lot of people, the home of Casablanca and other storied American franchises, they don't want it going to Netflix which might not even put it in theaters. But then on the other hand, they're worried about Barry Weissification. For me, it just puts that back on the table, which I think is so good. Consolidation in the entertainment industry is bad for Hollywood. Fewer numbers of these buyers to be around studios. This is with and by the way, they've all talked. Paramount Skydance has talked about the consolidation, too. It was very interesting what he said to David Faber yesterday. Either Comcast or Paramount you can imagine would have had great cost cutting synergies to consolidate. You were going to have Netflix you were trying to look for cheaper ways to do this and more cost effective ways to do these things. But what Ellison said to Faber yesterday was pretty interesting from the perspective. He said he had a text that he had sent directly to Zaslav, David Zaslav, saying $30 and we're backing this up. Basically, the Ellison family is backing this up. David did push him on that on some points, but also said that this is not our best and final offer, right? Which also suggests if that's true, what kind of bid are we ultimately going to get out of Paramount? This is not the end. The stock was up 9% yesterday. Having said that, they still had to ante up an extra $2.8 billion just to even play in this game this time, which isn't that much when you're talking $80 billion.

Well, he was saying I think $18 billion more in cash was his point on this because their bid is all cash. He's also saying that if you try to value the Discovery stub, those things, there's no way it's $2 to $4. And David Ellison used free cash flow and valuation to say that it's worth a dollar at most. So if you add it all on it doesn't even get to 30. He's saying but for whatever reason you can't take Netflix stock and say that that's a zero. It's collared also.

Right. It is collared. But at this point, I'd prefer cash. I'd love my 30. And it's probably more than... Could it be 30, 35 in either way? 35. You probably just gave them a heart attack. I know. But Zaslav is looking like now he's just like... I mean I know he'd like to stay with Netflix and be Warner Brothers studio chairman. If he can get a real auction going, which is clearly what's now happening, it's working. It's like a bidding war. It's working. Part of the rationale, having talked to people around the transaction on the Warner side, was that their view was they thought that Netflix was a more stable buyer, meaning somebody who's going to close the deal. It's a $400 billion company that can pay the money and not that the Ellisons, which have an extraordinary amount of money, can't, but it's different when you're dealing with a big sort of corporate buyer on one end and when you're dealing with a personal buyer on the other. Someone had said to me, 'Are we doing business with Elon Musk, in which case we could be in litigation for the rest of our lives to get the breakup fee or if something goes wrong.' It's just two different animals.

Well, you probably need more than a text to guarantee that you're backing this. Probably said it like Veruca in Willy Wonka with daddy, 'I want this. I want it now.' Went back to the daddy. 'I want this.' It would be cool. How do you know it's not Larry Ellison himself saying 'I want this'? Could be, but that doesn't seem... Wait a second. It also for me hearkens back a little bit to Edgar Bronfman Jr. who wanted to get into that business. I would like to be in charge of Paramount and Warner Brothers. I would love that. I'd be going to Chasen's. I don't know that might be closed by now, but I'd be at the Bair Hotel. I'd be strutting around.

Would you? Well, you would love that. You do that now. You can have a book deal and a movie deal. You're already there. Got to get... Do you have a nice tux for the Academy Awards?

I've been advertising my tux for many years now and I'm feeling good about... Have you been... He has. For years ago. Did you give a speech? No, we didn't win. You're talking about at the Oscars. I want to hear your speech to see if you mentioned Joe and Becky. That's what I want to see. I've given a whole bunch of speeches recently where you guys have been involved in the 30th anniversary. Cheese will be next.

Coming up next on Squawk Pod, Walmart CEO Doug McMillan joins us in a rare on-set appearance. He is set to leave the job early in the new year as artificial intelligence joins deals in the Walmart aisles. 'If you think about all the things that people love about shopping, we have the opportunity to increase those and invent new ways to shop. If you're browsing for fun, it may look more like TikTok. If you're replenishing, it looks more efficient. If you're searching for one item, it's helpful and precise. If you're planning an event like a birthday party or something, it's better at that.' We'll be right back.

Welcome back. This is Squawk Pod. Here's Becky Quick. All right, welcome back everybody. Walmart ringing the opening bell today at the NASDAQ as the company transitions its shares to this exchange from the NYSE. Joining us right now ahead of his departure from his role heading the company in January is Doug McMillan. He is Walmart CEO. And Doug, thank you for joining us this morning.

We got so much to talk about, not a lot of time. So let's jump in right away with why you're making this move to the NASDAQ. That's a really big deal. It's the biggest company that's ever moved to the NASDAQ from the NYSE. What happened?

Walmart's changed a lot under your leadership over the last 11 years. It has been a huge transformation in the company. The shares up 350 plus percent, 355% since you took over. Why are you stepping down now? Why are you leaving? You're not even 60 years old yet.

Wisdom and experience though, right? I know he might run faster, but...

You want to live, I guess. Probably that might help. Living sounds like a good idea.

That's really interesting. I mean, this is the only job. He sounds very much like he's got the same CV as you. You started out I think 1984 was your first job with the company and that was a summer job where you were unloading trucks at the warehouse. But you've been there your entire career too.

When did you start thinking about this? And it's so interesting because there are a bunch of CEOs, we don't need to say their names, who like to stay at the party and even when they leave, they like to come back to the party. But for some reason, we've known each other a while. I don't think that's in your DNA. What do you think that's about? So I'm trying to understand as you were thinking, as you said, 59. Was it the last couple years you're thinking, okay, maybe I last last year or so in particular?

CEOs make how many decisions a day you say? Small, large, thousands in a week. A lot. How many employees? A million.

2.1 million. So one guy and we hear all the time, 'Oh, a CEO, what difference can he really make?' I go back in time. I remember GE and Westinghouse were the same company at one point. One got Welch, one got some other guy, and there's a Target Walmart chart, and I don't want to pick on Target, but you weren't the same company, but you had some of the same decisions that you had to make. Look at the difference that a CEO can make at a company. Are you going to write a book or something? What was that about?

Everybody's copied your playbook since then. You were the first to do it, but everybody got around to following that and saying that's the right way to do it.

You've mentioned twice already the AI change that's coming to retail and how there are huge things that have to happen over the next couple of years. What are those things? What are you seeing?

And I love John Mueller and he did an exit interview here on CNBC, but P&G since he announced that he's leaving. We didn't understand. He's a young guy, too. P&G has... I just wonder if there was something to the decision that I don't need this anymore or something. There's no storm clouds, nothing in the future of...

Do you have any fear that AI will ultimately disintermediate a Walmart or frankly an Amazon or whomever? Meaning I'll just have a relationship either with this phone or some new device that Sam Altman makes and I'll say I need toilet paper or whatever it is and my agent will go off and try to find whatever the product, but it won't necessarily care where it's buying it. It's just going to find the quickest one, the cheapest, whatever it is. And the interface won't even be with a Walmart or a store down the corner or whatever.

That has been your hallmark, I would say, throughout your entire reign as CEO. I remember years ago talking to you and you kind of pulled your phone out and you said, 'I keep a list of the top 10 retailers decade by decade to remind me that if we don't change, if we don't evolve, we die.' Do you still have that? You still follow it?

I can remember a conversation that we had after a gun incident with Dick's Sporting Goods and I remember you said, 'We're going to satisfy our customers and what they need.' And I don't think you fell for some of the cultural issues that some of your competitors fell for. The wokeness, for lack of a better term. And I think I can think of Bud Light. I can think of Target. Whatever those things were that hurt those companies. I think you've always managed from a Midwest or an Arkansas point of view. Am I wrong there that you didn't embrace some of that stuff?

I mean, you stepped up with the wage issue, and at the time, I didn't know if it was right, if it was pandering to the wrong, but there were times when I argued, look, Walmart shareholders for 30 years have been totally enriched. It's been great for the employees as well, but if you take a couple of basis points off margins to help with wage increases, couldn't that come back and actually end up coming back in spades?

Managers do really well as they should. So do truck drivers. One of the truck drivers is going to ring the bell this morning. So here's a philosophical question for you. As we all have these debates about capitalism and socialism and this and that, do you think that the Walmart employee looks and says this is working?

Doug, we know you have to go, you're ringing the bell, and you've got some things you have to do upstairs. But very quickly, can you just give us a heads up of where the consumer is right now? What are you seeing? You all have talked about how you've seen people who make $100,000 and more coming into the stores. What do you see at the lower end?

I think in the store you've seen 1.3% inflation versus closer to 3% for the rest of the nation, but that grocery store inflation 25% over the last 5 years. That's a sticky problem.

I mean, with your margins, what are they now? It's tight. Like 4%? $95 billion. I hadn't looked at it in a while. You're going to be a trillion dollar retailer. That's just staggering that you can do that.

Doug, you have been a phenomenal leader, not just for Walmart, but I think what you have done at the Business Roundtable and kind of speaking out for American values, and we want to thank you for that. I can't wait to see your next chapter. What are you going to do next?

We think it's going to be big. You don't mean CNBC contributor.

Well, we hope you enjoy your time off, you and Shel both, and we can't wait to see what you do next. We hope you come back again soon. Thanks.

Next on Squawk Pod, what the Supreme Court oral arguments about the president's attempt to fire a Democratic member of the Federal Trade Commission tell us about the whole Trump agenda and commentator and author Scott Jennings on the president's message. 'I asked him once, 'Are you conservative or are you common sense?' And he said, 'Most of the time, conservative is common sense.''

You're listening to Squawk Pod from CNBC. Here's Joe Kernan. Scott Jennings joins us. He's the author of 'A Revolution of Common Sense: How Donald Trump...' It's not on me. No one saw me do that. '...Stormed Washington and Fought for Western Civilization.' Welcome. Took a book to get you on here, sir.

We have an excuse to have you on.

It's a great book. Just in time for Christmas. I don't know how else we would have necessarily had you on, but you joined when did you join CNN as a contributor?

2017. Yeah, I've been there for eight and a half years, but the last couple of years has really been... That's what I'm talking about. It happens gradually and then it happens all at once. You're like... People would say it's like when a business succeeds. It's an instant success they say. And then people say, 'I've been doing this for 20 years and it finally happened.' But you're everywhere. You did... Is it you or is it your ideas started to resonate in the current climate?

I'll throw one more factor in. It was the fact that we had a campaign that we were able to cover. The 2020 campaign, the coverage was unusual. We didn't have the same kind of commentary, but the 24 campaign we were all in. Plus the advent of this debating show that we had at 10:00 at night, the Abby Phillip show. It gave a conservative a chance to showcase what it looks like when ideas are actually challenged. I think Americans are hungry for debate and they love it.

I saw something the other day though. Does it take too long to explain to Abby Phillip the California loophole that allows Medicaid to cover illegal aliens? She kept saying to you almost like a child that no you're wrong. No, you're wrong. No, you're wrong. And all you had to do was say, 'Look, this is the way it works because money is fungible and Medicaid money flows to illegals in California and other states.' And that's a fact. You never did say that to her.

Well, first of all, it's not just a fact in California. It's blue states, right? And the Democratic Party position has long been that it's a good thing to give Medicaid to illegal immigrants. So it's not really in question and it's not really a controversial position.

You gave up. I was watching. You finally just said, 'Okay, whatever.'

Here's my... The left in the current environment I think is out of their mind. They're out of their mind sometimes. But then I look at some of the things you have to defend on the right. Do you ever feel like you're in a position where it's uncomfortable to be an ardent Trump supporter? Are there times you never have any problem?

Look, I don't feel like I have to die on every hill. If something's going on that I think should be nudged in one way or the other, you can only die once, right? A good pundit knows that. And you don't have to die on every hill. And you can say, 'I would have done it this way or my advice would be to do it that way.' But I do think for what I'm doing at CNN, half the country, 60% of the country's work. Sometimes 90% of the country needs a good solid defense of what's happening and how they're absorbing the news. I'm also one of the only pundits that comes from Middle America. I live in Kentucky, not DC or New York. And so there's times I dread coming in if you have an Elizabeth Warren on or I got to deal with you or something.

How do you go into CNN? You might as well be going to The View and sitting next to them every day. How do you do it? Do you like it? Do you like to argue?

I love it. I was put on this earth to debate. I'm a pilgrim in an unhospitable land. And that's okay because I believe that stranger in a strange land. I believe look, we're in our silos. We're in our bubbles. If we talk to each other and we have a few more debates, our politics will be better.

Can I ask you just talk about stranger in a strange land? We talk about economics and business all the time and capitalism and one of the unique things that's happening now and we were talking about Nvidia for example this morning. It feels like there's an element of what might describe as state sponsored capitalism and everything is going through the prism of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to some degree and how you think about that. We've been talking about the Paramount transaction and the fact that Jared Kushner's bidding on one side of that and the president is openly saying, 'I'm going to be involved in the decision.' I mean, there are these things that are so sort of... It's a lot different than the Bush White House at odds with... And sort of how you see that.

Well, look, I think Trump would tell you he's not conservative orthodox on some economic issues. Tariffs is one. Some of the involvement that he's had with companies is the other. But he would also probably tell you that I'm trying to do the common sense thing. That was the theme of the book. I asked him once, 'Are you conservative or are you common sense?' And he said, 'Most of the time, conservative is common sense.' But in some cases he thinks he's got economic theories here that are digging us out of long-term structural problems that crush working-class Americans. And in many cases, and this is throughout the book, he just believes he was put here to be responsive to a coalition of working-class Americans that had really no politician fighting for them in Washington DC. So he's willing to exercise a little muscular executive authority if it means helping the coalition that put them in the White House.

It could be a slippery slope that allows the next administration in power to do even worse things.

He would say they're going to do it anyway. And you're right, and that's one way to argue it. That's what he says about the filibuster. The Republicans might as well do it now and get some things done because they're coming anyway and they may be coming in a year.

Do you think they're coming in a year in the House?

I think it's 50/50 right now. I think Republicans will hold the Senate. That's my projection. But we don't know the maps yet. You still got maps changing from the Supreme Court on the Voting Rights Act. And I still think Democrats aren't all that popular. They're still doing things that aren't terribly popular with the American people. And folks won't forget they did dig a deep hole for Donald Trump to climb out of.

Hey Scott, what you've done, which is try and take dialogue, take debate, take ideas, and talk about those things. I don't know that either party's leadership is really fomenting that. In Washington, it seems like neither side will talk to the other. 70% of Americans are probably in the middle somewhere on this. And they want to hear this debate. They want to see people working across and looking for ideas. How do we get that back to a place in Washington because it doesn't seem like anybody's talking across the aisle?

I agree with you. And I go around the country and I do a lot of talks. I hear two things. 'I love you and I love the debates.' Or 'I don't care for you, but I love the debates.' And the commonality is there's a hunger for debating content. And there's a demand for this in our politics. And people like it. And it's okay. We don't always have to agree. It's not about bipartisan, but sometimes the partisan debates... You can't arrive at any consensus with the current sense, can you?

Any consensus with the leadership? I don't know how you're going to do anything with Jeff, but there are people in the Democratic party who I think would come about. I'd say Scott, John Fetterman...

I have a slightly different view, which is that... I mean Josh... I just saw Scott yesterday. Not only is the Democratic base not want to debate right now, they're demanding that their politicians grind government to a halt. They shut down the government because they want to stop Trump from serving. But I fundamentally am in agreement with you. The people would love debates. The country was founded on debates and they know that's how we solve our problems. So I think debates are a good thing.

Ask you a question. I interviewed Eric Kirk last week, the widow of Charlie Kirk, and we talked about debates and being in a debate, but not just being in debate, also being a missionary. So there's one element of debating an issue. The other is whether debaters ultimately change their mind. Meaning you can win the debate and actually win over and persuade the other side. How often do you feel that you actually change your mind at the table?

Oh my mind. Yeah. I tend to absorb news every day and so the things we're covering tonight may change tomorrow based on absorbing news. That's different than changing your mind.

New information.

Well, I'm saying that you don't change your mind. I don't change my values, but when I take in new information...

Gladiator behind enemy lines. That's what you are. And that's why your visibility has gotten to the point where it is because it was necessary because it was 99 to 1 until that one.

But it is possible to take in new details or new information and say, 'Okay, this has altered my arguing or debating vector.'

Give me an example. When's the last time that happened?

Things change every day. Trump changes everything. When I wrote this book, I had to write it five times because things were changing with him week to week. So I think the best debaters are the ones who stay current.

With the president, is it you don't want to sacrifice the good for the perfect at times? Aren't there times where you... What do you say you agree with 70% of the stuff?

With the president? Far more. Look, I'm a Republican. I've been Republican my entire life.

Well, you just said he's not a Republican.

He is a Republican, but sometimes he's not conservative orthodox on certain policy vectors, and that's okay. I'm able to absorb what he's doing and give you the best argument for it. I'm also able to tell you why a Republican or a conservative might be uncomfortable with it. And I'm also here to tell you why a Democrat alternative would be a disaster. So you got to understand all angles.

When you just say those words about Trump, do you know that there's 40% of the country that thinks you're absolutely out of your mind? And this guy has just... Go down the list. Rapist, 42 felon. They just... I hear it every day. TDS is like it's a cultural... I think it'll be in history books what has happened.

I agree with you. The reaction to him goes back to 2016. It's a question of legitimacy. A lot of people have never believed he was a legitimately elected president and that justifies a lot of political action.

Scott, I can't... I see my own Twitter comments. You don't read your Twitter comments, do you?

Not often. Never read the comments they tell you.

I don't recommend it. I don't recommend I read mine, but I do answer, which I really shouldn't do.

How much do you enjoy... I also did his radio show, by the way. You know, we all talk about him being on CNN. This is like Mr. Radio. How much do you enjoy that?

I love radio versus the TV piece of it. I love the radio show.

You were importing your CNN style guests onto your radio.

Yes. And I thank you very much. You imported a foil for you. But we had a good conversation. Look, when I was a teenager, my first job was in radio and I was putting on two things on the air. Paul Harvey and Rush Limbaugh. So everything I know about radio, I learned from those two guys, listening to them for years, and that's what I'm trying to do.

Good day. I don't think everybody knows Paul Harvey was a legend. But the man knew how to use words to paint a picture and tell a story about the news. And it was called Paul Harvey News and Comment, which I think is what people want to hear. A little news ahead.

Civil war or is there going to be some type of resolution of the fighting factions on both sides of the political divide today? Because I'm not optimistic the way things look.

We're going to be okay. I think we're going to be fine. We've been doing this for 250 years and this is a great time for Americans to realize that things get a little heated, but we solve our problems through debate and voting, not violence. And they just voted in New York City.

They're going to learn, aren't they? Sometimes you learn. It'd be nice if we didn't have to learn that way.

Well, it's not just New York. Socialism and an affinity for it is on the rise on the left right now. And so it'll be a good thing for us to debate in 26 and 28. I don't think most of America's going to go for it.

We just... I was just having a conversation. Who, for lack of a better term, takes the MAGA mantle in the next election?

Well, I asked Trump once, 'Who's best equipped to hold your coalition?' And he answered me for about five minutes and never gave me a single name, but it's obvious JD Vance is, if he wants the nomination, he's going to get it. And Trump obviously likes him and Rubio as a team, and he's aiming in that direction. I think they'd be pretty formidable. But it's hard to replace him.

Who do the Democrats run?

They're a mess. I don't know. They're so wide open. I tell you though, they're a little about where the Republicans were after 2012. Kind of demoralized. And what did the Republicans do? They looked outside. They went away from the normal party. They were forced to look outside.

Well, they had 17 other choices. They picked outside. He was coming down an escalator and people were rolling their eyes. And I guess you're suggesting that it's going to be somebody coming off a different type of escalator.

I'm suggesting that when people are upset with party or party leadership, they tend to start looking around for other ideas. That's what the Republicans did and they wound up with Trump. I don't know what the Democrats will do. I also think the energy in their party is with the radicals. And they held them off in 16 and 20, but I'm not sure they're going to hold them off in 2028.

We're going to let you go. Do you feel like you've been in Paris now and you don't want to go back to the farm? Has that crossed your mind now?

I've been to the mountain top. I got my passport stamped over here. I'm going to go back home country. Come back. I can relax for a second when you're here. I like having you here, Scott. Thank you.

Again, his book is called 'A Revolution of Common Sense.' And it's got a picture of... Go get it for Christmas.

Conservative Supreme Court justices signaling they're going to back President Trump's removal of a member of the Federal Trade Commission. The Court heard more than two hours of arguments in that case. It was sparked when the president tried to fire a Democratic FTC member back in March before her term was over. The court's conservative wing appearing to be sympathetic to the administration's argument that congressional protections given to the head of independent agencies infringe on presidential power. So we're going to watch. It's a fascinating case. And in watching, I didn't realize that supposedly the executive branch power has been increasing for a century supposedly and that this is not... Because when they do come down and vote for him, the rhetoric is going to be that the Supreme Court is stacked and there's conservatives on there, but look what it did under FDR. But they're going to say that they rubber stamped it because they're Trump appointees. But it's really been a movement that's been going on for years and years. The question is, how important is it to you that these agencies have... But they're in the executive branch, aren't they? I understand that, but there's a distinction there. The argument is even if you're outnumbered, having a Democrat or two or a Republican when the Democrats are in control on these agency boards, commissions, if you will, but it's been by convention, not by law, that it creates hopefully some stability and better answers. There's an argument for it, but it's been done through convention and not through law. Elections have consequences and the president gets to put the people that he wants in charge of these agencies. Then the next election if you don't like it, vote for the other guy. He'll put all the other people in there. But it's the executive branch. I don't know. I think that's what they're going to decide. That may be what they decide. The question that I would ask is a separate one, which is what is the better outcome? Honestly, it depends on the extent that we... No, but that's the point. To the extent that we just had a great conversation with Scott about debating, about the value of debating, having even a gadfly inside the system. I'm not arguing anywhere, but I don't know that. Should we have stacked the deck for net neutrality the way that was done? Should we have stacked the deck for these ridiculous environmental guidelines that we got in a different administration? We're back to the original argument of who's right about... No, no, but it's not... The point is we're talking about not stacking the deck. The point is we're talking about there'll always be a majority, but you do want to have a minority in on these.

This sounds like an argument for the filibuster, which you want to get rid of.

Who says? I didn't say... I meant you, the collective. I don't want to get rid of it.

And that is the pod for today. Thank you as always for listening. Squawk Box is hosted by Joe Kernan, Becky Quick, and Andrew Ross Sorkin. Tune in weekday mornings on CNBC at 6 Eastern. To get the smartest takes and analysis from our TV show right into your ears, please follow Squawk Pod wherever you get your podcasts. Have a great day. We'll meet you right back here tomorrow. When we are clear. Thanks, guys. Thank you guys so much.