Hi, I'm CNBC producer Katie Kramer. Today on Squawk Pod, there's no way that President Trump's going to back down until he sees us through to the end. National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett on the president's resolve in the Iran war and the outlook. The timeline that President Trump has stated over and over is that it's a four to six week war and that we're ahead of schedule. Then Kentucky Senator Rand Paul as chair of the Homeland Security Committee. He is gearing up for the new DHS Secretary confirmation hearing and he's speaking out against the war in Iran.
Often people say, 'Oh, this war is in our national security interest.' Well, that's a conclusion, not a debate. The debate is really why do you think this war is in our national security interest? And I think there's a lot of negative for the war. Not a whole lot of upside for America.
Plus, the Property Brothers address the affordable housing crisis. Jonathan Scott on the red tape and the upside to development.
If I was going to do an affordable housing project today, if I was just going to build a building that cost 20 million just to build it as an affordable housing project using government funds, it's about 40% more expensive.
And Drew Scott on the other issue in housing supply.
It's not a rate issue like the rates are one thing. And when rates come down, everybody gets excited to buy. It's a supply issue. 80% of people have mortgages under 6%. So, nobody wants to do anything with it. They're holding on to it. So, all these people looking to buy, you just don't have inventory.
It is Tuesday, March 17th, 2026. Happy St. Patrick's Day. Squawk Pod begins right now.
Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Squawkbox right here on CNBC. We are live from the NASDAQ market site in Times Square. I'm Becky Quick along with Andrew Ross Sorkin. Joe is out today. Today's top stories, a lot of them. Israel's defense ministry now saying that Iran's security chief was killed in air strikes overnight. Reuters reporting that air strikes also killed the commander of an Iranian paramilitary unit. Iran has not yet confirmed that report. And President Trump speaking at the White House yesterday about his administration's plans for Cuba.
I do believe I'll be the honor of having the honor of taking Cuba. That'd be a good honor. That's a big honor. Taking Cuba. Taking Cuba in some form. Yeah. Taking Cuba. I mean, whether I free it, take it. I think I could do anything I want with it. You want to know the truth? A very weakened nation right now.
The New York Times reporting that the Trump administration has signaled to Cuban negotiators that the president there must go but would leave the next steps up to the Cubans. Report says the move would allow economic changes in the country that the current president is unlikely to support while leaving the communist government in place. So we'll see what happens next there. And the president posting at 11:14 Eastern time last night after Venezuela defeated Italy in the World Baseball Classic. Here's what he posted. He said, 'Good things are happening to Venezuela lately. I wonder what this magic is all about.' Statehood number 51. Anyone? President Donald J. Trump.
No place like the White House. Do we agree? Thank you very much for being here. Our powerful military campaign to end the threats posed by the Iranian regime continued in full force over the past few days. They have been literally obliterated. The air force is gone. The navy is gone. Many many ships have been sunk. Their war fighting ships, but I guess they didn't know how to use them. And anti-aircraft is decimated. Their radar is gone and their leaders are gone.
Joining us right now is White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett. And Kevin, good morning to you. How are you? Let's talk a little bit about the situation in the Middle East, what's happening in Iran and what that means for oil prices and maybe inflation longer term. We have seen prices spike. They came back down yesterday, but there are many questions about how long this will last, how long the Strait of Hormuz will be closed, and I just wonder how you're starting to figure this out, how you're starting to try and anticipate what that will mean for prices.
Yeah. Well, we are basically getting briefed on every nuance of the war every day and then thinking through the economic implications. We have an enormous amount of success so far in the sense that we've destroyed the military of Iran. We've coordinated 135 countries in the UN including no veto for China and Russia to isolate Iran. And we've coordinated a strategic reserve release of 35 countries which could go up if it needs to. The bottom line is that the timeline that President Trump has stated over and over is that it's a four to six week war and that we're ahead of schedule. And so already you're seeing tankers are starting to dribble through the straits and I think it's a sign of how little Iran has left. And so I think we're very optimistic that this is going to be over in the short run and then there'll be price repercussions when it is over for a few weeks as the ships make it to the refineries and so on. But we've really got a plan for every corner of the disruption from fertilizer to getting fuel to the west coast and so on. And you know we're highly confident that we've got this thing under control and that it'll end soon.
Let's talk that through. When you say end soon, you think a matter of weeks, not months.
Correct. Correct. That's right.
And when that happens, where do you expect, let's just say, WTI? I mean, we can talk through any of the energy prices, but most of the analysts that we've had on, and granted, they're all kind of dealing with the fog of war, trying to figure it out themselves, have said that they don't think prices will come back down to the 60s anytime soon. Do you is that in your forecast?
Oh, you know if you look at futures markets, they've got them going down into the 60s again by the fall. And I think that's relatively was what the WTI was for the December contract yesterday. It goes all the way down to the 50s past the year, you know, and so I think that you've got to understand that there's going to be a we believe an incredible risk premium for ending the terrorism really of the Iranians. The way I like to think about it, Becky, is that if you go back to 1975, Iran was the 18th largest economy on Earth. Now it's something like the 50th largest economy on Earth. They've destroyed their own country, but they've also discouraged investment in the entire Gulf region. I mean, don't forget that it's not just the Iranians, right, that the Yemenis have been, you know, charging people blackmail to move their ships around. And so we're moving towards a world where the energy of the Middle East is accessible through free markets without extortion. And that's going to be a place where there's more investment and more oil and it's going to drive oil prices down in the long run. But the final thing is that the US economy is still through this fundamentally strong that we're still seeing strong signs of productivity growth. We had the Business Roundtable CEOs in town in Washington about a week ago and everybody was talking about how solid things look and so the other thing to mention is that Iran's strategy appeared to be that they could hurt the US economy and then that would make President Trump slow down. In fact, they're not hurting the US economy very much at all. While gas prices are higher, the economy as a whole is sound and there's no way that President Trump's going to back down until he sees this through to the end.
What does that mean? Sees this through to the end, meaning regime change, meaning reopened?
But he wants to make sure that Iran cannot harm its neighbors and the US ever again. And so, he's destroyed the navy, destroyed the air force, finished off most of the missile sites, and we want to know for sure that Iran is not going to challenge the world again with terrorism. And once we have a sense that we've accomplished that goal, we've defanged them, then President Trump will make the call that the war is over.
Kevin, certainly we're in a better position than a lot of our European or other Asian countries are because they're so much more reliant on energy coming through the Strait of Hormuz. What kind of pressure do you think a) they will put on us politically and b) what kind of pricing increases might we anticipate from things that we import from those nations?
Yeah. Well, one of the things that you know, Becky, we've talked about it before on the show is that the US is a net exporter of oil and finished product. But that we have pockets of the country especially California, Alaska, the east coast where they're importing oil in part because of the Jones Act which we just don't have enough US-made vessels to move the oil around. And so I think that one of the concerns which we're following very closely is that the Asian economies which are much more reliant on Middle East oil they actually sell a lot of refined product into the west coast of the US and we're seeing some signs that they might be pulling that back to make sure that they have enough energy for themselves and we've got a plan for that and we're studying it closely and we haven't seen disruptions yet but that's the kind of thing that isn't going to happen in the US because we have such sound energy production but does mean that we might have to move a few chips to different parts of the board.
Kevin, you know, when you think about the president has now postponed this meeting with President Xi in China and I think one of the big questions is what the impact you think is going to of what's happening on the straits is ultimately going to be on the Chinese economy to the extent that when they get a cold, we get a cold.
Well, you know, it's interesting, but you know, the Chinese didn't veto the UN resolution condemning Iran. The Chinese are highly reliant on Iranian oil. And frankly, if the Iran problem goes away, it will be helpful for China as well. And so I think that in this this is one case where the objectives of both countries are aligned that we want a stable world oil market. And I think that President Trump and President Xi are good friends and that you know when this war is over which will be sometime soon I'm sure they'll get together and have a lot to talk about and hopefully the Chinese will express some gratitude for what President Trump has done.
When you math out the possibilities within your own group about the economy and this impact here and you say it's going to end sometime soon. What does that look like? Do you say 10 days is one version, 30 days is another, 60 days is another, or are you on a different timeline completely?
Well, again, what we work off of is first of all, what the president has said, which is that it's a four to six week program and we're ahead of schedule and we're in the third week. And so then we, you could say call that a base case. But of course, you know, I get paid to worry. It's my job here in the White House. And then you think about, well, what if it's a little slower? We don't have much simulating to do if it's faster than that but if it's a little bit slower what happens then but the fact is that the US economy is fundamentally sound and that if it were to be extended this it wouldn't really disrupt the US economy very much at all it would hurt consumers and we'd have to think about you know if that continued what we would have to do about that but that's like really the last of our concerns right now because we're very confident that this thing is going ahead of schedule.
Hey Kevin, you mentioned that there are so many other things that come through the Strait of Hormuz that we do have concerns about. One would be fertilizer. Another would be helium which is needed for the manufacturing of semiconductor chips. You said you have a plan. What is that plan to make sure that we are getting fertilizer to the proper places that it's needed because you can't get the fertilizer there late if you need to plant the crops.
Right. Well, the thing about fertilizer is that, I know there are some people who live in fertilizer land on CNBC, but probably most people don't know about how fertilizer works in the US, but it's almost planting season, and there's a lot of fertilizer that usually goes down during planting season, including fertilizer that's based on ammonia and urea and nitrogen. And then there's potash that goes in as well, though the potash usually comes in the fall. And a lot of this stuff is made from liquid natural gas and there's a facility in Qatar that produces so much fertilizer that it supplies maybe about 20% of the fertilizer into the US. And so what we've been doing to really as an insurance policy against disruption is we've been finding other sources and doing so really quite successfully. We've put licenses established licenses for Venezuela to produce more fertilizer. We've had discussions with Morocco which has the largest reserve of potash anywhere on earth and so we've been all over the fertilizer problem. And I'm not saying that we can eliminate what disruption there is so far, but we can minimize it for sure.
And that would be available for US farmers or available throughout the world? How does it work and what's we're focused on US farmers and getting stuff to the US farmers.
That's right. But you're convinced we've identified the supplies that are disrupted from the Gulf and tried to successfully found alternative sources for a lot of it.
Kevin Hassett. Thank you for joining us this morning, Kevin. We appreciate it.
Thank you guys. Great to be here.
Coming up on SquawkPod, we are a day away from the confirmation hearing for President Trump's pick to replace Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. The lawmaker leading that hearing, Senator Rand Paul, speaks to us about his colleague, Senator Mark Wayne Mullin's day in the hot seat.
I promised the administration a couple things. One, I would do this quickly. I didn't promise my support for the nominee, but I did promise I would do it quickly. But that doesn't mean it's going to be a hearing without scrutiny.
We are over one month into the funding lapse of the Department of Homeland Security. And this week, the president's new pick to lead the agency will take the hot seat. Senator Mark Wayne Mullin is set for his confirmation hearing tomorrow. Joining us right now is Republican Senator Rand Paul. He is the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee. Let's start with the question you want to ask Mullin. What's your position on him and what you want to know?
You know, if I let you know that today, you wouldn't come to the hearing. We're going to have a very wholesome discussion at the hearing. I think there will be really important questions asked about whether or not he has what it takes to lead these agencies. But I'm going to save that discussion for tomorrow. But I think it's an important one. I mean, look, the agencies are closed down because a lot of Americans, myself included, were upset at the improper use of force in Minnesota. I think Tom Homan came in and corrected a lot of those things. But really ultimately, I think for Democrats to refund this, there's going to have to be an admission that the policies weren't being obeyed, the rules of engagement weren't being obeyed, and that they're going to do a better job. Now, whether or not this new nominee is willing to do that, that's an open question. Whether the new nominee will be a change in direction or more of the same direction is an open question. So, I think we'll find that out a lot more after we go to the hearing tomorrow.
What is your thought though going into this? You've worked with him before, you know him. Do you think that he's the right man for the job?
I have some serious questions and we will ask them tomorrow, but I'm not going to preview them because I want to ask questions tomorrow and we're going to find out a lot more after the hearing tomorrow.
Let me ask you a different question and this has been in the news around Mark Wayne Mullin. The New York Times reported that Mullin has been a prolific stock trader. I don't know if you've followed this. He's argued that he hasn't been making these trades himself. But they go on to document some remarkable trading, by the way, remarkably successful trading often times with in stocks that he potentially oversaw or at least was exposed to given the committees that he has been on.
Yeah. The committee for example armed services my understanding is that the staff there is forbidden from trading in defense contractors that seems to make eminent sense to me I think we ought to address that currently there are no rules but as far as a congressman or a senator on armed services trading in Raytheon or other companies that are large contractors with our defense department I think a lot of people look at that and say, 'hm, that doesn't really pass the smell test.'
Well, let me just give you some numbers and you tell me whether this passes the smell test. According to financial disclosure forms that he filed back in 2012, his net worth was $2.8 million to $9 million. You have to give ranges. That's how this works. Today in 2024, remember he's been a senator the entire time, is now worth between $29 million and $97 million.
